ic Incursion: Prologue

[Gizmo]

From the surface of Lor-Van it looked as though the sky had been quilted, octagons of vivid green, orange, purple and every other imaginable colour overlapping and interlocking into a massive wall that completely covered one hemisphere. "By all the-- Star Knights!" Senator Enymor breathed, eyes glued upward even as he raced after the rest of the survivors from the parliamentary building, arms laden with irreplaceable cultural artifacts he'd insisted on stopping to retrieve even if it meant being left behind. It had been like slicing off his own fingers one by one when he'd chosen what to grab and what to cosign to almost certain destruction. "We're saved, then! Nothing could conceivably penetrate that!"

Leaning out the door of the emergency shuttle and waving Enymor to hurry, Senator Th'emme glanced skyward herself, her expression less relieved as the wind whipped her long blonde hair about behind her. "No, nothing could," she agreed more quietly, her thoughts turning to her daughter and husband, hopefully both safe aboard the orbital city that housed her ancestral estate. "But why could they possibly need so many...?"
 

* * * * *

Captain Shepherd-07 took stock of her command crew as she maneuvered her corvette around in a broad circle to escort the wave of shuttles and smaller craft rising from the Vox like a school of fish. They'd taken a beating in the atmospheric dogfighting with the needle ships with only her battle-forged reflexes to keep them a step ahead but as communications came back online they were still standing. When a power surge had incapacitated one of her gunners, the pilot she'd taken over from had quickly stepped in to take a position in front of the wildly sparking console, tagging one of their foes with red hot darts of laser fire just before it could complete its collision course and knock them out of the sky.

The holographic representation of the battle had already flickered back to life in the middle of the bridge but Seven noted with some satisfaction that her command staff had already learned to use it as one piece of intelligence, not their sole source of information. She glanced over herself to see a grid of overlapping shapes popping up above them, stand-ins for the shield being projected just outside the planet's exosphere. "Alright people, those tin plated boys and girls are buying us time, let's not waste it!" she instructed, angling the front of the corvette toward open space. "I want a clear path from here to the orbital cities!"
 

* * * * *

Seconds ticked by and the Star Knights had enough time to wonder if perhaps the waiting was the worst part.

It wasn't.

With a shockwave that would have been enough to rip apart the hull plating of most ships even through the vacuum of space, the world killer disgorged its gathered energy. The black of the void was washed out with electric white, a column of energy the width of a continent crashing into the Knights' combined shield. Mentor's chosen heroes, the best and bravest of every sentient species, held firm. Enough power to penetrate to a planet's core a hundred times over and still they held firm. With every soul behind them racing desperately to escape the surface of the seat of power of the galaxy's greatest civilization relying on them, they held firm.

Until they could hold on no longer.

[Gizmo]

For six point two seven microcycles the world killer's beam fired. Just under five minutes by Terran reckoning. When it finally stopped, its sequence spent, Lor-Van and its orbital cities were still there. The Star Knights' shield was not.
 
It started as a whisper to those receivers attuned to the relevant frequencies, solitary voices in the cold emptiness. "Knight Jurgav has fallen. His mantle is preserved. His duty shall be sanctified." Then, more clearly, the same echoing refrain repeated itself, only the names changing. "Knight Echass has fallen. Her mantle is preserved. Her duty shall be sanctified." "Knight Diviak has fallen. Their mantle is preserved. Their duty shall be sanctified." Soon the signal became a deafening deluge, overlapping and almost unintelligible. "Knight Peeyl has fallen. Her--" "--shall be sancti--" "--fallen. His mantle is--" "--Turta has fallen. Its--" "--mantle is preserved. His--" "Knight Peeyl has--" "--duty shall be--" "--is preserved. Her duty--" "--allen. His mantl--" "--uty shall be san--" "--has fall--" "--served. Her--" "--fallen--" "Knight Steward--"
 
A pause. Then: "Knight Steward still lives. Initiating emergency protocols."

[Thevshi]

Citadel

A'lan Koor was gathered with the other members of the Inner Circle inside the main command center of Citadel, a massive room into which was transmitted telemetry and communications from all the Star Knights that had been dispatched to Lor-Van. The twelve senior Knights watched the battle as it unfolded, holographic images of the various Communion vessels holographically displayed around the room in a massive scale recreation of the battle.

The message that had been relayed back to the Citadel by the first Knights arriving on the scene had done little to relieve the concerns Koor had feeling. To see his old foe, Star Khan, reduced to some sort of mouthpiece for this Communion had only served to emphasize that they were dealing with a dangerous opponent.

Further proof soon began to follow as the automated messages announcing the death of a Star Knight began to be received. The Lor Stark Knight gave silent prayers as the deaths were announced, wishing that he could have joined the force he and the other members of the Inner Circle had sent out there. It was after all his homeworld.

"I know it is difficult A'lan." Another of the Inner Circle stated in a low voice, a look of understanding on her features. "But you can best serve the Order here, with the rest of us. With Mentor still disabled, we must lead the Order in facing this threat, both at Lor-Van and elsewhere."

Koor gave a small nod, as he watched the battle continue, a small feeling of satisfaction on his face as he saw the evacuation ships continue to stream off the planet, protected by the Star Knights and Lor fleet.

But then the massive Communion ship turned towards the planet, the energy build up that the various Knights had been reading reaching unimaginable levels. And the gathered Knights maneuvered for form a barrier to shield the planet.

Then silence fell over the room, as the Communion sphere unleashed the energy that it had been building up, the blast impacting directly against the barrier the Star Knights had formed over half of the planet. Time seemed to almost stand still, as moments ticked by, the barrier holding against power to destroy the planet many times over. And then, the signals providing the holographic images began to vanish, a few at first, and then more and more, until the room went almost completely black, and the images of the battle were all gone.

And then the messages for the fallen began to arrive, so many that it was almost impossible to distinguish individually. Koor bowed his head, as he closed his eyes, the other members of the Inner Circle doing the same.

"Over five hundred Star Knights-all gone." Said one of the Inner Circle, almost disbelieving. But then a new message could be heard, proclaiming at least a few survivors, but far, far too few.

"Not all, we are still receiving some telemetry." Another Inner Circle member stated, as some of the holographic images came back into place, less detailed now, working with less information. But there was enough for the gathered elder Knights to see that Lor-Van and its orbital cities were still there, saved by the sacrifice of the Star Knights.

"How long until our reinforcements arrive?" Another Inner Circle member asked, calling up information on the nearest group of Star Knights to the scene.

"Not soon enough for Lor-Van." Koor stated, looking back up at the holographic image of the planet, as he realized the terrible truth.

[Gizmo]

Above Lor-Van
 
"Oh!" Iana Th'emme let out an involuntary sound of shock and disbelief even as she covered her mouth in both hands. She and her guards and squeezed into the two person cockpit of her reserved shuttle, filling the opulent rear compartment with as many refugees as they could manage before taking off from the Vox. The Star Knight's shield had been directly above them when the massive battle station had fired, forcing them to turn their viewscreens opaque to avoid being blinded by the burning light. Now there was just empty space where the multi-coloured energy construct had been, the burnt and mangled but still recognizable remains of fantastic armor listing outside the exosphere. "Oh..."

"...hail the orbital cities," one of the guards instructed his partner, shakily removing his hat and holding it over his chest with one white knuckled hand while the other kept them on course. "Tell them to have start the sublight drives now and have FTL ready as soon as possible."

"But... but they stopped the attack!" the second guard objected, his words sounding more desperate than he'd intended them to be. "If we can just hold out until--"

"There's no holding out, J'az!" the first guard snapped, eyes fixed hollowly straight ahead. "Don't you see? That..." He uttered a blasphemous curse that could have gotten him brought up on charges given the company in other circumstances. "Is already recharging."

[trollthumper]

He still couldn't see a damn thing. 

 

Cavalier knew from a lifetime of experience that closing your eyes never fully shut out the light. If there was something bright, you'd still see it, just more in shades of orange than shades of white. 

 

When he stood in front of the planet killer, eyes screwed shut, he had a very good idea of what the heart of Hell looked like. Even with his helmet display fully blacked out, he could still see the terrible light, which likely would have burned out his retinas if he'd opened his eyes. It was like standing before perdition and waiting for it to reach out and claim you.

 

None of that, however, had compared to the blast. With all the force of Armageddon, it bore down on the Star Knights. The field held, but even through the impermeable barrier of energy, Cavalier could feel the pure heat on the blast wash over him, like he'd swan dived into a volcano. He could feel the matrix holding, each Knight serving as their own light standing against oblivion.

 

But then those lights had started to go out. The roster rang in his ears, running faster and faster until Mentor's mourning protocols doubled over one another. He screwed his ears shut, desperately trying to force the entire world out. But it kept digging in - the voice in his ears, the light behind his eyes, the pressure bearing down...

 

And then it all fell away. There was this sound like breaking glass as the light died away. As the blast cut off, a shockwave washed out over the empty space, following in its wake. It hit Cavalier broad sides, sending him flying across the battlefield. His head collided against his helmet, and he could feel himself dancing in and out of consciousness.

 

By the time he came to rest, he could still hear Mentor's brief eulogies ringing in his ears. Everything in his body felt like it had been torn out and shoved back in, and it hurt to breathe. Dead. That was all he could think. They're all dead. If I'd found something... if we'd gotten here faster... God, what am I doing here? Why did I think I could --

 

Everything cut off as his vision started to right itself. The planet killer was still there... and the light was growing from within its heart. "Oh, no..." The suit was still damaged; no matter how hard he rerouted the energy capacities, he was floating inert. "No, no... after all of that... all of this... stop..."

[Avenger Assembled]

In the Vox's control room, all was dead silence as the assembled refugees stared in horror at the murdered Star Knights. Sharl Tulink looked up at the scattered, falling bodies of the armored defenders of the galaxy and knew they were dead. His heart in his chest, he finally pushed back the terror he'd felt since the first alien spaceships arrived in the sky. "Ho-hovercars!" he called to the others, looking around a little wildly. "Everybody get to a car and get out! Go straight up! Even if you just get to the top of the atmosphere, you'll at least be away from that damned thing!" 

 

He zipped around frantically in the last stages of this desperate evacuation, he jumped from stalled car to stalled car, overriding security protocols in the last remaining vehicles to give the refugees a chance for some kind of escape. Anywhere's better than this! But of course there weren't enough cars for everybody, even overloaded, and as he stood with the last remaining civilians in the loading bay, Sharl realized there was, finally, no way out. At least we did all we could, he thought as he watched the hovercars flash away into the still-bright blue alien sky. 

 

There weren't many of them left now - just the emergency crew for the Vox itself, a scattered handful of civilians who had come just too late for the last starship out, and a small group of Lor soldiers who had stayed behind to the last. 

 

Scientist Rex checked his timepiece, tied to the powerful sensors back in the control room, and spoke in a doomed voice. "10 mini-cycles to another discharge..."

[Gizmo]

"Picking up a life sign, sir!" Seven's comms officer reported urgently, hurrying to send her sensor data up onto a wall monitor where it could be more easily shared. The bulk of the Communion forces were still hanging back from the planet itself, having done their job in thinning out the defending fleet of anything that could pose even a remote threat to their superweapon. "It's faint and there's no response to mentat hails but..."
 
"Get a tractor beam on them and reel them in," the redheaded commando-turned-officer ordered, bringing the corvette closer to the floating suit of ruined green metal. Keying the shipwide speakers she added, "Medical team to primary cargo bay, we have injured inbound." After a moment's thought she added, "Better make that an engineering team, too. Bring the hull cutters."

Quiet murmurs circulated throughout the bridge along with smoke from electrical fires. "...this is madness," and ensign second class muttered a little too loudly. "There's maybe six micro-cycles before that thing powers back up and--"

"This brave, dumb bastard just took a bullet for us!" Seven cut him off with a rebuke that was closer to a snarl than she'd meant for it to be. Looking very tired indeed, she took a deep breath and continued, "Those micros are the difference between a few million getting off world and a few billion. We're not leaving anyone behind if we can help it."

The bridge went silent for several moments until the comms officer hesitantly changed the tactical projection to a real time simulation of Lor-Van, the globe rotating lazily in incandescent blues. One by one each Lor in the room stood at attention and saluted their homeworld somberly, trying their best to etch every kilometer into their memories forever.

"We have the Star Knight aboard, sir," the intercomm crackled, breaking the spell.

"Set course for the convoy," Seven instructed, her voice thick and heavy. Every remaining Lorfleet and civilian vessel was heading away from Lor-Van at all possible speed, some already hitting FTL, others barely limping along. The bulk of the ships had gathered about the various orbital cities, massive domed self-sustaining arcologies designed with their own propulsion systems. Already they were lurching into motion, gradually building momentum. The exodus of the seat of the Republic had begun.

[Avenger Assembled]

As they retreated back to the control room, Citizen's mind, and powers, worked like lightning. He accessed the communications systems of the Vox as soon as he was inside the control room - not the big transmitter that had sent him here (and was still powered up), but the smaller emergency systems scattered all through the building. He flashed from system to system; lighting the building up like a Terran Fourth of July on all the electromagnetic frequencies and beyond. A neutrino squirt erupted from the trailing end of the massive structure, radio waves sang their distress to the heavens, green and white emergency lights flashed all up and down the Vox's length, and infrared beams shone out across the city and beyond. The Vox, like a hundred other places across Lor-Van, sang out its distress as the planet's annihilation threatened. 

 

Reappearing in the control room, Sharl's face was full of cautious optimism. "All right, uh, we are glowing bright enough that every ship in the system can see us, somebody can probably make it-" He started to step forward, then realized he was stuck - he had re-emerged not into the holoprojectors that filled the room but the systems tied directly into the main transmitter; the ones he'd arrived in earlier in this long, long, nightmarish day. "Hey, what's going on!" The invisible wall at the edge of the transmission pad might as well have been impervium for all that he couldn't push through it. 

 

"I'm sorry, Citizen Tulink," said Scientist Rex, standing at his control station. In the few minutes Sharl had been gone, most of the room had cleared out. There was only Rex, working alone, a few of the Lor soldiers, and a handful of white-faced refugees. The latter, in particular, were staring at the electronic teenager with a grief he was only beginning to understand. "The fleet got your signal seven mini-cycles ago. They can't make it in time before the blast wave hits - and I told them not to die for us. So instead, I'm going to send you home." 

 

"No, wait a minute," Sharl pled, even though he knew it was foolish, "We don't know what that gun does to a planet, we may be able to-" 

 

"Remember us!" said Rex, his voice a sudden exclamation. "My name is Rex! I am a scientist." The others called their names out too - Doral-5 and Sakura-13 in uniform and their clone siblings, and the civilians; Doctor Havarlak, still in her emergency uniform, Rogand, a man Sharl remembered with a mate and child before the last flight had left, and the rest. "Remember what you saw here today!" His hands over his mouth, Sharl promised, eyes wide as the faces of people he had never seen before burned into his memory like he could never forget. The hum of the powering transmitter was rising in his ears, a siren song in counterpoint to that terrible glowing light in the sky. 

 

Suddenly, someone broke through the crowd - Sharl realized for the first time that Doral and Sakura had been guarding the door to keep some of the civilians out! He caught a glimpse of clamor and argument in the halls just as one of the refugees, a man about Sharl's age with green hair and skin to match, slid desperately across the floor and all but landed at his feet on the pad. "In the name of all the gods, take me with you!" he begged, tears running down his face. "Please, please, send me too!" he begged of Rex, grabbing on to Sharl who automatically phased at his touch, making the all-too-human Lor pass right through him. In the sky a terrible brightness was beginning to shine through the open windows of the control tower, so bright that Rex deployed eyeshields and the soldiers polarized their helmets. 

 

"I can't, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he gasped, apology in his voice as he backed up as far as the systems would go, all the way against the wall. Rex was still counting down, but Sharl's eyes were only on this last of the Lor. Doral had come over to try and wrestle the civilian away, the terror on his face naked and raw. "I can't carry anything! It's not a teleporter, it's a transmitter, please, I can't-" the man, no, the boy's hands were passing right through him as he begged for salvation from the holographic alien, the glow from the transmitter beneath his feet nearly blinding, the chime of it deafening in his ears. "I CAN'T TAKE YOU WITH ME! I'M JUST A HOLOGRAM!" 

 

Over his cry of despair, Rex called. "Transmission away!" 

 

Sharl's last impression of Lor-Van, just as the signal launched him into space, was of that terrible brightness exploding with celestial fury - and of the triumph in Rex's shout of victory. 

[Gizmo]

There can be no sound in a vacuum. When later describing the fall of Lor-Van, however, every refugee present, from flight officer to senator to artisan and more, to a one they would swear that they'd heard the planet scream.

 

There were no further broadcasts from the enemy, only the disgorging of world killer's eye searing beam crashing into the planet. The seas on the hemisphere facing the invading fleet evaporated almost instantly, moments before the continental shelf cracked and then crumbled beneath the impossible blast. As they fled the ships in the evacuee convoy could see the shape of their world distort briefly, like an egg in a vice, before visibly shattering into rough, uneven chunks. Rather than exploding outward under the blast's continuing fury, the shards of Lor-Van contracted in upon themselves, grinding each other into dust until a great shockwave ripped throughout the system, shaking the orbital cities like an earthquake and sending smaller vessels spinning end over end.

 

Six point two seven microcycles later the unrelenting torrent of power stopped. It was another two point six three microcycles before the first of the fleet's sensors came back online and were able to report on the Communion's dark work. Where Lor-Van, jewel of the Republic had floated proudly there was a slowly spinning vortex of cosmic flotsam and light bent at unnatural angles. A wormhole.

[Avenger Assembled]

ELSEWHERE 

 

The Curator's Ringworld
Temporal Designation 4240-24013-ALEPHOMEGAONE
(Lor Timemark 1312.8)

The three-eyed robotic boy looked up at his paternal caregiver, peering past the brim of a Freedom City Comets' cap, and spoke in a mechanical approximation of a boy of eight or nine. "Why-do they-allow the-mosquitos to-live, Father? Surely they-could-"

VINCE winced, wondering if this particular map had been a mistake. The local civilization, as far as he could see, were good enough folk for people living in the ruins of their own world. From what the old Curator's files had said, he'd snatched up the local civilization when they were on the peak of a nanotechnological Singularity - unfortunately the sudden, unexplainable transformation of their world into a projected map on the surface of the Ringworld had caused a nuclear conflict as each nation blamed itself for what had happened. The locals, blue-skinned catfolk with long tails, had just about rediscovered flying machines...two thousand years later.

"For one thing, Curry, you saw their chemical plants -" he gestured around the wide mangrove swamp where father and son were fishing for three-eyed, scaly creatures that were supposed to be good eating if you fried them up. There were advantages to this simulacrum projection technology the boy had introduced him to. "-maybe they could poison the swamp and kill everything here, but then they'd kill our fish! And then where would we be!" he laughed, then added, "and besides, the mosquitos have lives too, even if they're pests. You treat others how you want them to treat you...even if they're stinging jerks."

Suddenly, Curry sat up with a start, nearly losing his grip on his pole. "Father! My backup systems are stirring! Something on the long-range sensors is activating the-" and then the boy was gone, his robotic form crumbling into fast-decaying metal fibers even as VINCE watched! With a curse, VINCE left his organic body behind, leaving the meaty remains to decay within a few hours in the alien swamp - and soon found himself back in the central headquarters of the Curator - aka his adopted son, Curry.

The boy looked excitedly up at the main display screen (or as much as his face allowed it), displaying an unfamiliar set of symbols that he quickly translated for his holographic father. "A class-two emergency-has been-detected. The Delaztri-Protocols have-been activated!" He turned to VINCE and reassured him. "Enemies of-such great-heart that-they would-fight for-the Collection-against the-Devourers!"

VINCE threw up his hands and decided that they weren't getting that fishing trip in at all. "All right, you lost me at Delaztri, kid. Start from the beginning. Who are they, and what are they doing in the..." He made out some words. "the...in THAT cryocomplex?"

[Thevshi]

Amara Val-Ren felt cold.

It was a sensation she had not felt for some time, ever since she had undergone the enhancement treatment that had allowed her to join the ranks of the Praetorians alongside her brother.

But she felt it now, even as the sensation seemed to be fading.

As the cold faded, memories came flooding back to Amara. A terrible enemy, threatening the Empire, one that had required the full assembled might of the Praetorians to halt. But the toll for the victory had been great, with over three quarters of the Praetorians killed before the enemy was repulsed. Among them her older brother, Daar Val-Ren.

But as Amara and her fellow surviving Praetorians had been returning to the heart of the Empire, they encountered one of the Curator's museum ships. When the ancient Preserver AI had announced it was there to collect and preserve the surviving Praetorians, Amara and the others had resisted, battling the drones sent to secure them. But they were all still drained, physically and emotionally, by the battle they had just recently won, and inevitably began to fall to the Curator. Then there had only been darkness, and the cold.

Amara's eyes snapped open, a dim light flooding into them for the first time in what seemed so, so long. The dark orange skinned Naram was in some sort of tube shaped object made of clear material.  A thin layer of frost covered the outside of the tub.  She was laying back on a padding inside the tube, tilted at a forty-five degree angle.  Reaching up to her temples, Amara removed some sort of sensor nodes which had been attached there, glancing at them only a brief moment before trying to focus beyond the tube as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.  Outside the tube, the faint light only illuminated a small area. Although the layer of frost blurred her view some, she could still make out a smooth, white floor and some sort of equipment attached to the tube, all of it covered in the thin layer of frost, but everything else was lost in darkness.

As she took in the scene, Amara felt a sense of rage swell up in her once more, as she realized where she must be. Although her limbs felt heavy, the young Praetorian swung her arms outward, slamming her fists into the clear material of the tube around her. The high-impact resistant synthetic plastics cracked from the force of the impacts, and a second blow from her powerful fists shattered it, sending shards flying out into the darkness.

Amara climbed up out of the now open tube, frost falling all around her as she moved, swinging her feet down toward the smooth white floor. But her legs were still not quite ready for such activity, and she collapsed down onto her knees, her super dense weight causing cracks in the floor as she landed and sending vibrations around the nearby area.  Frost and cold mist hung in the air, although Amara was only slightly aware of the cold and no longer bothered by it.

"Curator! Where are you?" Amara called out into the darkness around her. "You will answer for your actions against my brothers and sisters!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hey there, Dreamsicle," came an unfamiliar voice from an unfamiliar source. Appearing in the middle of the ill-lit room was a man, a Lor by the look of him, with short brown hair turning grey at the temples and wearing an alien costume with which she was unfamiliar. He stood as if centered by an invisible spotlight, clearly visible even in the gloom - either a photokinetic, or a holographic projection. "Listen, my name's Vince, and I'm sorry you've been locked up in here for..." He coughed. "...as long as you have! I'd have had the boy let you out a lot sooner if I'd known you were in here, but you know how it is, kids don't always tell their dad everything, especially if they think they're going to get in trouble. Hey, is it dark in here, or is it just me, ha-ha-ha?" He laughed nervously and waved at the air, making bright white light erupt from the overhead wall panelings enough to cast the entire room into a stark glow. The room wasn't immediately familiar to Paradigm - but she could see her tube had been entirely alone.

"Listen, you're probably wondering about the rest of your team. Don't worry, they're fine!" He smiled. "The automatics, you know, they went and defrosted you first because you're the leader and they figured you'd probably be the most reasonable."

[Thevshi]

Amara turned to regard this - Vince as his hologram appeared and began addressing her. As he spoke, the Praetorian realized he was speaking something other than Delaztri, but somehow she understood him perfectly well. Or, at least somewhat understood him, as much of what he was saying seemed to make little sense.

Pushing herself back up to her feet, Amara straightened herself up, although she still felt somewhat weak after apparently having been in a long cyrosleep. "I do not know where you obtained your information, but it is woefully inaccurate. All of our leaders were among those killed in the final battle which took place shortly before the Curator attacked and captured us. I was just one of the survivors." She replied.

"And I know not of this child you speak of Lor, but the Curator cannot hide behind some assistant. Where is the Curator?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Ugh..." Vince put his face in his hand for a moment, taking the time to sort out this conversation. This is not going well. Probably should have made it down here before she broke out of the tube. "Listen, lady, you've been down for a long time - and a lot's changed out in the galaxy. The Curator, well, he's not really running the show anymore, so the guy who locked you up isn't here for you to punch out." He thought back, past painful memories, of exactly how to deal with superheroes. "But there's something serious going on right now, and we need your help and the help of your friends." Vince drew a little circle in the air, seeming to cut a magic 'hole' in space that was replaced with a projected image.

 

 

"My new master. Know that the Communion has returned to claim its place as the dominant and only intelligence in creation. Your homes, your works, your bodies will be but raw materials for the Communion and in this you shall finally know purpose. Rebellion is meaningless. Surrender is unnecessary. You will commune."

The image faded and Vince went on, his face uncommonly serious. "I've seen one world die, and I've seen others where the people are already dead. Whatever's out there, the boy's been watching them on his sensors and they're not just going for one world, or two, or five - they're going everywhere. In this whole damn place, as far as the files can tell, you're the only people who even know what this is." He gave her a serious look. "Are we gonna work on this, or are you going to punch my projectors till your arms get tired?"

[Thevshi]

Amara looked slightly puzzled by Vince's statement about changes with the Curator and her being asleep for a long time, but before she could ask the hologram any questions, Vince replayed a message from a figure Amara did not recognize.  But she did recognize the implants that were attached to him, and certainly understood what he was discussing in his speech.

 

"The Communion has returned?"  She replied, not really asking a question.  A sense of emptiness came over her, as she recalled the desperate battles the Praetorians and Delaztri military had fought against the Communion, and the terrible cost of the final victory.  "We faced them, just before the Curator came for us, when they were attacking the Empire.  We managed to beat them, to turn them back, but at a high cost.  So many of us paid the ultimate price stopping the Communion, including my....my brother."

 

The young Naram then took a deep breath, straightening herself up once more as her yellow eyes fixed on Vince.  "I am not certain all can be so easily forgiven with the Curator, but the return of the Communion is a far more imminent threat.  The greater foothold they are allowed to make, the stronger they will be.  But this is not something I can do alone."

[Avenger Assembled]

"All right, well, let's go wake up the rest of the Sleeping Beauties," said Vince, clapping his hands together and putting on a big smile rather than dwell on the implications of her words. "Follow me!"

 

Sure enough, just around the corner was another room similar to the one where Amara had awakened - if a game of table zha was similar to the full-sized version that took up a whole building! They were on a catwalk above a distant floor that had to be several hundred yards below their location, with a ceiling that gaped equally high above them. There were rows of cryogenic tubes here, stretching up towards that distant ceiling and down towards the floor. The nearest row, the one right at her eye-level, was made up entirely of familiar faces - the frost-rimed forms of those friends she had fought alongside against the Curator to the point of death - and perhaps beyond!

"Geez, where did he even pick this stuff up?" Vince was focused on the control panels for the tubes, shaking his head in bafflement. "Really, this freezing thing was just a phase for him," he reassured Paradigm, "I didn't even know this room was here before today..." He pressed a few buttons and, as the lights began to come on by the tubes holding what was left of the Praetorians, declared, "Nice! Stabpunched it!" 

 

As the doors opened, he nodded, talking half-to-himself. "All right. All right, I think we've got something. The Ringworld is safe with the Praetorians defrosted, the Lor and the heroes back home will rally and fix this thing. It's not like the damn Terminus, right?" he said with a brave smile. "This is bad - but we're gonna be all right." 

[Gizmo]

Communion Wormhole 00001101
(Formerly Lor-Van)
 
Kinan Khan observed the swirling vortex that had once been the throne world of his most bitter enemies from the deck of one of the few Communion vessels equipped to support organics who had been deemed useful enough to be granted communion. The enhancements to his senses, painful and invasive, granted him extensive informational input, noting each iota of converted matter and giving reliable estimates as to the final body count. Some part of his dimly mused that he should have felt great satisfaction in the victory but Kinan Khan felt very little of anything any more.

"Wormhole is stable," he reported out loud, an affectation he had been permitted to retain in his position as herald. Silver fluid sloshed about in the tubes protruding from his neck, his arms held rigid at his sides. "Connection to network will be complete within the cycle. Conversion of system planets to server worlds has begun.

The once-conqueror known as Star-Khan paused in silence for several moments as his master replied. Every muscle in the Zultan's body tensed at that act of subservience but the cybernetics lacing that tissue forced them into a relaxed state soon enough. Prolonged tension was detrimental to efficient function. "The Star Knights responded more quickly without Mentor's direction than projected. Better to have thinned their ranks here, however. It is written that--" Kinan Khan's jaw snapped shut and remained sealed. His master was uninterested in the scribblings of flawed meat.

When the compulsion was finally released, he gasped for air. "Of course. Countermeasures for Preserver-origin entities have been prepared. The Gorgon and the Curator have been reported most recently active. Their attempts at interference will be inconsequential." After another pause he continued, "Yes, we can expect more organized resistance going forward, including individuals of outlier capabilities. They will not comprehend in time. They will commune. Communion of intact Star Knight armor and flesh has already begun. All will commune."