Chapter 25

"Ground-Zero"

"You've crossed them before," Ikitri noted. Her clenched servos had probably given it away. Or maybe the fact that she was so fixated on looking outside the transport via a handy porthole beyond all else. Keeping an optic on the most dangerous guy in the room - now that was a hard habit to shake.

Damn those Hive to hell.

Hawkmoon glanced at Ikitri, at their Myod warriors between them, then back to the viewport. "I have."

"And what wisdom have you to bestow us with?"

"I've never seen a warmoon," she admitted. "Or... well, a completed one."

"What are they capable of?" Ikitri impatiently questioned

"I mean, ramming into your fleet, right? That looks like where they're headed."

"They'd kill themselves. We would destroy them."

"Yeah, the Hive don't mind that so much."

"You know their minds, then."

"Only so far as when those minds are splattered across the floor," she weakly joked. Ikitri didn't laugh. "I mean... yes. I know their aims, their natural behaviours, their morality or lack thereof - and that's as good as you're really going to get with the Hive. They don't... they don't consider existence like we do."

"They are bloodthirsty."

"They're prey-animals who'd found themselves a working machine gun. Bloodthirsty's just the tip of the iceberg."

"Tip of the... oh." Ikitri paused, puzzled. "Because they... yes. I like that."

"Everyone digs my metaphors," Hawkmoon murmured. "They're the best."

"Even these... Hive?"

"I don't much associate with their kind." Hawkmoon turned around. "What are you-"

"Hold still." Ikitri stepped forth, framed her face with their hands, and stared into her optics.

Hawkmoon frowned. "Could you not?"

"Shush."

"Excuse me-"

"This is delicate. Be still, I said." Ikitri's eyes narrowed - then they let go, abruptly, and slowly beat a retreat to the safety of shadows cast by the watching Myods. "Their foul fire has not overtaken you yet, it seems. Your mind is its own."

"... Oh." Hawkmoon slowly nodded; she'd heard of Hive illusionary works, but never... possession. "And you could tell because...?"

"Because there was no green in your soul and no violence brought against me. I have heard that is how they corrupt others - hollow them out into unwitting puppets."

"Pit of a test." Hawkmoon gave the Tai a wary look. "You got real close for it. If I were a Hive confederate, you would've died for that."

Ikitri chuckled elegantly. "That you believe it so," he laughed, sending her way a look she could only describe as derisive, "is preciously amusing."

"Aft," Hawkmoon muttered, but in Cybertronian. She turned back to the sight of the warmoon - creeping up on the Imojel homeworld at a steady pace, still far out but impossibly still hurtling towards them all. "You need to pull out of the system."

"We won't abandon the Imojel."

"They're not exactly good people, so I don't-"

"Ruthless they may be," Ikitri sighed, "they are still ours."

"Then evacuate them."

"I am merely Marooner-Captain. My task is to serve Admiral Jehennes - who carries out the will of the Sun Emperor. Petition us to flee if you so choose, cold thing, but our mission has been carved into bedrock. The Emperor has decreed Her will; we shall see it through."

"Fanatic, aren't you?" Hawkmoon muttered.

"Only dutiful, machine," Ikitri retorted, their otherwise calm tone fraying. Yeah, the quip probably hadn't been the greatest idea, in retrospect. "But then - what would you know of that? You are built of coldness and un-life - nothing like us."

"And very opinionated, seems."

"Am I wrong?" Ikitri curiously challenged.

Hawkmoon's optics slid over to the Taishibeth. "I mean, if that's what you want to think, then you're welcome to it."

"But am I wrong?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Your empire isn't welcome in our stars," Ikitri warned her. "We know how you consider life like us, how you treat native species in the way of colonization - and I warn you, you will find no easy victories here."

"We're not looking for conquest - just food."

"Fuel," Ikitri corrected.

"Yeah," Hawkmoon sighed, too tired with the conversation to go on. "Fuel."

Ikitri'velus, satisfied, turned away and said something to one of the Myods in their groaning tongue. The mollusc replied, shifting with interest. Ikitri said something else, then faced Hawkmoon once more. "Decurion Aashtaa will escort you to a secured chamber when we dock. You will follow his lead and remain there. Another will come to speak with you."

"Not staying?" Hawkmoon asked.

Ikitri raised his beak. "I have strategies to overlook, a ship to helm, a refugee crisis to amend - and foes to vanquish. My time is better spent elsewhere."

Yeah, definitely the flesh-and-bone version of Seekers. The Tai, or Ikitri at least, had that haughty pride.

"But if there are any final portents you're willing to divulge where the Foe is concerned..."

The Hive, he meant. "Uh, keep out of range of their swords."

Ikitri snorted.

"I'm serious," Hawkmoon firmly told him. "Keep out of range where you can. Hive are dangerous at a distance, but they're worse up close. Those blades will carve right through power armour and bone both. Oh, and those with the swords, the Knights? They'll summon impenetrable barriers when they take injury and try to heal themselves - to a degree. Hit them hard and quick or draw those shields out and fire again when they're gone; they can't drag barriers into realspace very often. The spells are taxing on them or something, I'm not sure."

"Is that all?"

"Keep moving when the flying ones, the Wizards, come out to play. They'll drop clouds of poison on you otherwise, eat right through your rebreathers or whatnot and melt into your lungs. Some of them drop spike-traps too, if they're big enough."

"I see," Ikitri murmured.

"The small ones, the Thrall? If you see any with glowing heads, kill them at a distance. They blow up."

"Fantastic. Anything else?"

"Don't die?" Hawkmoon replied uncertainly.

"Concerned?"

"Nah, I don't like you all that much, just that the Hive'll eat your death up and use it against the rest of your people."

"That's..." Ikitri chirped with puzzlement. "I... see. Very well."

"You're welcome," Hawkmoon grunted.

Ikitri did not deign to respond after that.

They docked with a dull clang, and the transport's loading ramps swung open. The Myod Aashtaa, along two of its compatriots, marched Hawkmoon outside and through the bustle of the hangar. The inside of the plateship was... well, it was clean. The architecture was grand, but practical at the same time. Not so hideously factory-make as most Cabal vessels were wont to be, nor so chaotically austere as many Eliksni scrap-worked frigates were arrayed, and it was a far cry from even the gaudily gilded environment of Calus's blinding Leviathan.

Instead of heaped gold, of plain scratch-painted steel or bare salvage, what she saw was something a couple of notches above quaint - at least approaching grandiose, and comfortable with where it was. There was silver, dark unbroken patterns of weather-resistant paint over polished steel, some elements of antiquated wood the colour of mahogany, and a whole lot of air- and foot-traffic: Taishibethi soldiers and flight-technicians gathering here and there as instructed by other birds wearing wing-ribbons like Ikitri did, Myod supertroopers gathering in near-perfect formations, and another set of aliens Hawkmoon's datalogue simply couldn't identify.

For once, they weren't humanoid. More like centaurs with the lower physique of a hippo, the upper body shape of a praying mantis, the slightly-translucent skin of a slimy amorphous sea-thing - and bearing a head like a cuttlefish lacking those weird fin things of theirs. There weren't many of them in comparison to the Tai and the Myods, but they were there - slowly plodding along and helping the technicians with their work, idly tinkering with this and that using their strange, tentacle-fingered claw-hands arrayed at the end of their folded mantis-arms. They had long wispy insect-feelers too, four of them, and all trailing up into the air behind where their wet inhuman eyes blinked out at the world.

At her.

A number of them were. It was strange. They evidently weren't expecting a Cybertronian to step out - and honestly, Hawkmoon couldn't blame them. Everything was strange about it - her, them, all of it. Almost too much; she kind of missed Cabal and Fallen. Bastards they were, they were still familiar, still what she was used to where aliens were concerned.

Now all these - the Imojel they'd left behind, the Taishibethi, Myods and centaur-mantis-hippo-cuttlefish critters? Now this was just plain weird.

Ashtaa groaned, shaking his railgun.

"Got it," Hawkmoon grunted in Tai, and she followed along with the Decurion - doing her best to ignore the myriad alien stares. Just wasn't nice, that.

They put her in a metal box, essentially. There was an armless chair only just large enough to take her, a table, a two-way viewing window ahead peering into an almost identical chamber and two Myods guarding the only door. They hadn't waited around for the other Seekers to catch up - just shoveled her into the room and left her there. Ashtaa hadn't bothered to tell her anything, but then, she wasn't exactly able to understand the Myods in the first place - so she wasn't too bothered by that. Well, maybe a little, but not overly much. Nah, the box-part was definitely the worst; she was a Hunter, she was a Seeker, being confined wasn't doing much for her nerves. They could have at least allowed her the illusion of freedom, by taking the guards away, but nooooo - no, they had to try for some low-level intimidation factors.

Actually, that was probably unintentional on their part, but still - she felt a need to grumble to herself and so she did just that. With relish. Anything to take her mind off the fact that she was in the distant, distant past and that the only familiarities lay in that the Hive were still a thing. The bloody Hive. Or even that all that she'd been building up for, all the people she was going to reunite with, the home she was going to return to - it wasn't even there in the first place. The realization was a haunting one, horrifying, and it left her squirming to figure out exactly what she had left to fight on for.

"Your name?"

Hawkmoon flinched and glanced up. There was a Taishibeth on the other side of the glass, as dark as a midnight crow but for a ring of grey around its neck, and wearing a veil of looped silvered thread over its face.

"Hawkmoon," she stiffly answered. "Who are you?"

"Kirtir, First Registrar-Deacon to Admiral Jehennes. He sent me to speak with you. You are Cybertronian, yes?"

Hawkmoon frowned. "Cybertronians haven't been this way for centavorns. How do you know about us?"

The crow-Tai took one of the available seats on its side, which had a vacant space in its spine to allow the tailfeathers to slide through, and neatly folded its hands across its lap. It wore more silks than the others, and it bore no weapons. Not a soldier, then. "The Naarstese remember," the Taishibeth chirped. "They always remember."

"The Myods."

"Indeed. An elder people - older than my own, though not quite as aged as yours. If your people age at all."

"We age," Hawkmoon firmly replied - but with a sliver of consternation. "Everything ages, one way or another."

"Just so." The Tai dipped its head.

"Why are you here?"

"I was planning to ask the same of you."

Hawkmoon shook her helm. "No, I mean... I was hoping to talk to the admiral."

"That may not be possible. He is very busy."

"He'll be even busier soon enough. These are Hive - you don't know what they're like."

"We know enough," the Tai twittered. "The Foe is always the same - compromised to a power they barely comprehend, frenzied with bloodlust and lacking all foresight. They revert into their animal states, both savage and simple. They will not last."

"You don't know them, then."

"And you do?"

Hawkmoon paused. "I do," she said softly, warily. "More than anyone should. You need to evacuate as many people as you can, get home and do the same there."

"We are Tai. We will not abandon our nests. We will not leave our protectorate defenseless."

"The Imojel world-"

"Taluka."

"What?"

"The Imojel'eanifar'iatas refer to their world as Taluka," the Tai patiently informed her.

Hawkmoon blinked - optics briefly flickering off and on. "Okay, look, that's... that's fascinating, but we're not here to talk about that."

"Then what are we here for?"

"Surviving."

The crow-Tai, Kirtir, shifted and perked up. "You're desperate."

"I'm at my wits' end," Hawkmoon admitted. "About to fall apart at the seams."

"But you're…" the Tai tilted its head. "You're in mourning?"

"... Yeah."

"What for?"

Hawkmoon vented a weighted sigh. "You wouldn't understand."

"You underestimate-"

"I'm not taking a dig at the whole organic vs robot thing, just... Look, can we get back to the talking about the thing coming towards us?" Hawkmoon curled her talons into her servos, wincing as the sharp edges traced over sensitive pressure-receptors. "That warmoon is closing in. It won't be alone. They're going to flood this system, dig in, kill everything, move onto the next. You need to evacuate. Please."

Kirtir ignored her and tapped away at something on the other side - a datapad, maybe. "Where does your familiarity with the Foe stem from?"

"Experience."

"Yes. How? Your empire lies in the other direction from whence these... creatures... came."

"Experience," Hawkmoon stubbornly repeated.

Kirtir raised its eyes, irritation flashing across its features. "I have been informed that you know the Arch-Fiend's name."

"Oryx."

"Indeed. And those of-"

"His Sisters, yes," Hawkmoon nodded along. "I've never had the displeasure of meeting them, but I know all about them, yeah."

Kirtir leaned its head back, thoughtful. "Then you've met the Arch-Fiend?"

"If you can call trying to kill Him, yeah."

"And you did not kill Him, evidently."

Not me. "No," Hawkmoon murmured. "I didn't." I'm not the one who put a spear of Arc through His heart.

"When was this?"

"A long time from now."

Kirtir hummed. "You're being evasive. If you want to be taken seriously, you must earn our tru-"

"He's going to kill all your people!" Hawkmoon shot to her pedes. One of the Myods groaned dangerously, but she ignored it. "Look, He's going to destroy you all, he's going to write about it, it's going be called the... Golden Crippling or something, I don't know. I'm not a damn Warlock, I don't study this crap..."

"What?"

"Oryx serves the Worm Gods. He could have an army of Taken alongside His Hive by now! How many times do I have to tell you? You need to evacuate! You need to run!"

"We do not fear the Foe," Kirtir retorted. "They are animals - we will put them down as such."

"They're savage," Hawkmoon agreed, "but they're smarter and more resourceful than you're giving them credit for. And they don't care what victory costs them - 'cause they'll gladly pay any price. Please, please, please just leave, just run. You don't stand a chance."

"Do we not?" Kirtir swiped out with a claw. A screen of luminous light bubbled into form within the glass between them - a live-feed holographic visual display of the open vacuum beyond the plateship Prosperity Burns - far beyond, out where the warmoon was steadily approaching and where a number of other Tai ships were running to intercept. There was no sound - not that any could be picked up on, beyond Tai comms and Hive screams, and Hawkmoon doubted she was privy to either.

"What is this?" Hawkmoon asked, dread settling in.

"An automated-chronographer splinter-drone."

"No, I mean... what are you doing?"

"Admiral Jehennes has been tasked with defending this star system," Kirtir calmly informed her. "He - and every Tai aboard this fleet, including I - will not allow the Foe to lay claim to the Imojel. They are ours to protect. Where the Sun Emperor wills - we comply."

The Tai ships were dwarfed by the warmoon, ridiculously so, save for perhaps the two city-sized plateships taking up the rear of the attack force. The destroyers spearing the offensive burned a path ahead, energy-arteries lighting up towards their prows and unleashing via a massive discharge cannon as concentrated bursts of searing power. They scored wounds into the warmoons pale, green-veined surface, tearing through crust and sparking huge infernos here and there - but the damage was ultimately superficial, and the warmoon kept chugging on.

The destroyers kept at it, silently firing more lances of Solar energy and backing it up with speeding missiles - including some tactical warheads, each detonation bubbling up from beneath the shell of the warmoon and sending up great plumes of orange-green smoke to disperse out into the nothingness of dead space. Debris fell away from the slowly-exposed inner layers of the moon, where chitinous growths had been hammered in to hold it together.

"It will take time," Kirtir noted, "but we will-"

"Wait," Hawkmoon said, perhaps too sharply, but something was happening. There was a lull in the massive terraformed moon's mindless charge, and it pulsed with terrible power - just once, and that was it. Claws of black and emerald tore through the fabric of reality on all sides of the fleet, gaping open to vomit out dark-shelled transports and attack ships - Tombships and Karve Scoutships, a flood of them, dropping out into the battle and cutting towards the Tai fleet with frenzied haste. Most were torn apart with plasma fire before they could get far, but the stream of Hive ships never stopped - and behind them, pushing through the widening portals, were monstrous forms of larger destroyer-class cryptships (like those that had accompanied Oryx's damned Dreadnaught) and even the daunting hulks of monstrous Tombcarriers.

The plateships, in turn, disgorged their own waves of snub-fighters - elegant things of glimmering, folding wings and high-powered flight. When the swarms of Tombships and Karves began to wash over the Tai destroyers, the fold-fighters raced to assist - cutting into the sickly glow of Hive soulfire-rounds and slicing through enemy vessel after enemy vessel. Some fold-fighters took hits too and quickly fell apart in splashes of cold Void; evidently they were built more for speed and dexterity than for resilience.

Cryptships exchanged fire with the destroyers, forcing the Tai to turn their attention away from the warmoon. Where soulfire barrages broke through Solar shielding it seeped into the dark steel of the Tai vessels and planted growing blisters of molten metal, which popped in horrific displays of yet more soulfire, spreading the unholy flames across the destroyers' hulls. One of the Tombcarriers even lunged forth with incredible speed, tearing a path through clouds of Hive and Tai fighters both, and struck out with an ejected spike of ossified bone and cursed chitin to tear through a destroyer's shield-field, spearing through the ship altogether. Green flames bloomed out of the intrusions, and the destroyer helplessly hung from the massive harpoon as the Hive ruthlessly tore it apart in fiery chunks.

Two of the sister Tai-destroyers swiveled to avenge their fallen sibling, rattling the Tombcarrier responsible with a hail of heavy artillery shells and nuclear warheads, cutting into the Hive battleship with grim relish. They fired and fired and fired, tearing the alien vessel apart right at its midsection, breaking through its core and cleanly pulling away as it erupted with a brief flash of soulfire green. The prow of the dread-ship floated on, the collapsing corpse of its Tai victim still affixed to its frontal bone-lance.

Another Tombcarrier sought to continue the first's work, but a singular mighty blast from a plateship's primary railgun tore it apart. The capital Tai ships were moving forward, to take over where the destroyers had left off and blunt the Hive invasion once and for all.

The warmoon pulsed again - new portals opening up, new wounds for Hive vessels to crawl through like maggots. Unlike the others, though, which had been used to field an attack fleet, the second round of portals disgorged Seeders - thousands of them, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. All raining forth, catching one plateship in full and scoring across the flank of the second. The first lost its shields within seconds, unable to keep up with the constant hammering impacts of countless Hive drop pods, and it was soon riddled with too many needling anchors to count - tearing through its hull into its internal compartments to let loose hordes of maddened, hungry things.

The other plateship dipped away, having survived relatively unscathed, and helplessly watched on as its sibling was boarded en masse - and firing into the storm of Seeders hurtling through the Ascendant rifts did little to stem the tide.

The tide that was aimed towards 62732CA-a - towards Taluka.

"They're coming," Hawkmoon murmured. She tried to peer past at Kirtir, and only just managed to make out the silent Tai's silhouette through the flashing hologram. "I told you, you need to evacuate."

Kirtir said nothing.

"Are you listening?"

"I... yes." The hologram switched off - and the Tai beyond was trembling. It plucked something from beneath a fold in its robes - a radio - and chattered into it. "Admiral, we-"

"Zzzzt -eclaring complete planetary evacuation!" the Tai on the other end shouted - probably not to them. The radio clicked and hissed as whoever was on the other side, probably Jehennes, roughly picked it up. "Speak, Deacon."

"The Foe-!" Kirtir exclaimed.

"I am aware. Planetary evacuation is in effect. I've already contacted the Imojel; they're emptying their spawning pools as we speak. We may not have enough time before the enemy fleet attempts to make landfall. Tai forces planetside have been instructed to fortify their positions and ready the Oasis-Cities for drop-attacks."

"Admiral, surely we can-"

"Registrar-Deacon, return to the bridge and prepare for close-fire action. A secondary element of the enemy battlefleet has disengaged with the arsenal-ship formations and is approaching our position."

"What of the machine?" Kirtir asked, cowed.

Jehennes grunted unhappily. "Take it back to its kin and secure them; whatever they know, we can't lose it."

Hawkmoon winced. Swiftsear was going to be even less happy with that - and she knew exactly who he was going to blame. He wouldn't be wrong to, either. "Slag."

The plateship around them rattled. Hawkmoon glanced up and about, searching for an answer that just wasn't there, but Kirtir gave it to her instead.

"We must be exchanging fire," the Tai told her, from up ahead. There were two Myods between them and two behind Hawkmoon, keeping her away from Kirtir lest she try anything. They were leading her back to where the Aurorus was docked, though, so that was kind of them.

The ship rumbled again. They hurried on, through corridors and an elevator, all the way back. The hangar they eventually entered was a hotbed of activity; Tai vessels were being loaded up with pilots and armaments and sent out to fight. Even the Aurorus was geared up to leave - but a handful of Myods were in front of it, with Swiftsear and Vale shouting something at them. Everyone else barring Sandstorm and the Dartwings were outside and watching.

They soon noticed Hawkmoon's return, however. Swiftsear finished with the Myod, stomped past to reach her and growled, "We're leaving. Now."

Kirtir raised a hand - clueless as to what exactly had been said, but probably having figured out the general meaning. "We cannot in good conscience let you depart. You would be shot down if you flew out now."

"That's for us to decide," Swiftsear retorted.

"I can't leave," Hawkmoon began, but Swiftsear glared at her, cutting her off.

"What do you mean-"

There was an explosion. From just outside. One of the fold-fighters taking off had been blown to pieces just as it had shot out - and the eruption sent burning shrapnel careening inside, the plateship's shields flickering dangerously. Hawkmoon raised her arm in front of her optics and dropped to her knees; chips of glowing-hot steel nicked at her plating and fell over her shoulders. One of the non-Tai, non-Myod creatures she'd noticed earlier had fallen over, ruptured through the centre with a jagged length of sharpened metal. An armoured Tai ran to them, looked the creature over, and chirped with distress.

Dead, then.

"Scrap!" she vented, loudly, and turned about. Swiftsear was pulling himself to his pedes, and Vale was quickly making her way towards them. Kirtir had doubled over, a shielded Myod standing in front of them to give them cover. Hawkmoon peeked over her arm and, seeing that the worst had passed, shouted, "Get the blast doors closed, now!"

Kirtir half-straightened up, looked at her, then nodded to the nearest Myod. The mollusc raised the comlink on the back of its right wrist and moaned into it. Hawkmoon turned back around; there, yes, the hangar doors were closing, fast. They had time-

A dark shape, massive, blurred into focus a nanosecond before it hit, and Hawkmoon barely had time to brace herself for the impact - let alone shout out a warning. The Seeder clipped through the unshielded, buckling blast doors and crashed through the hangar right towards them, sending up sparks and debris in every direction. Hawkmoon felt massive hands grasping at her wings way too tightly to be anywhere near comfortable, pulling her back, and she willingly went with it - lightly boosting herself with a roar of her thrusters.

The Seeder slided by, clanged against the rear wall of the spacious hangar, and shuddered to a halt. The glowing green runes dotting its blackened form faded out - its glyph-controlled propulsion systems shorting out, but not without belching a last gasp of soulsmoke.

Hawkmoon stumbled back on her pedes. She sent a grateful nod the way of the Myod who'd saved her, looked about and found Swiftsear beside her, staring at the Hive construct, and lastly checked that Kirtir was alive: they were. All of their guards too, but one of the Myods was on the ground, trying to apply a pressure tourniquet where a stray metal fragment had opened up a tear on their sleeve. Another of its compatriots was helping it, spraying some gauze onto the tear and sealing it tight with a roll of some indescribable liquid-like material.

Wait, what about-

No, she felt them. Her rudimentary trine-bond was still online; she could feel the shock and worry and fear coursing through Nacelle and Cyberwarp. They were alive. They were still alive. But on the other side of the Seeder. She needed to get to them - quick.

"Sir," Hawkmoon turned to Swiftsear - and found him still staring at the thing, his faceplates a mask of shock and pain. She grabbed his pauldron - no reaction. Hawkmoon looked him up and down, but she couldn't spot any injury. Then why...

Vale.

"Frag," Hawkmoon cursed, her spark freezing up. A clanking sound came from the way of the Seeder. Hawkmoon twirled around, weapons configurations already engaging, and she fired at the first flash of glowing green eyes to peer out the construct's opening hatches. A scream filled the air - a Wizard's scream, calling its children to battle. Hawkmoon jumped into action, pushing Swiftsear back with one servo and transforming the other into a shard carbine. Her shoulder cannon snapped into form, picked out targets through the dissipating smoke and fired. Each shot barreled through Acolytes and Thralls, tearing them apart in scores - but the Seeder was a big one, and there were greater morphs within. Two hulking white-eyed Knights bellowed and charged out, swords held tightly in clenched fists. One of the Myods fired, tearing a chunk out of one of the Knight's jaws, and still the bone-clad beast charged on.

Hawkmoon snarled wordlessly, boosted forward and shot out one of the injured Knight's legs from under it - shards of condensed diamond flakes shredding the limb to bloody strands - and as it collapsed forward, she caught it with a wrist-mounted superheated blade that plunged right through its neck and emerged out the other side. Hawkmoon pulled her arm away, decapitating the warrior-morph, and she stepped back as its compatriot took a swipe at her. She ducked down, re-angled her thrusters, and forced a light boost that sent the Knight staggering back - giving her enough time to swipe up the fallen cleaver of its dead compatriot and run the second beast through.

Her cannon loaded and fired - taking out the Wizard sneakily bearing down on her with glowing claws. A Thrall leapt onto her outstretched arms; Hawkmoon grabbed it away and crushed it in her servo, tossing it back into the throng of its emaciated siblings. She heard more gunfire - nearby Myods taking action, some Tai too, and the latter exercised some bladework with their strange shimmering, unfolding sabres armed with Solar and Void - but some of it came from beyond the Seeder. The other side.

Hawkmoon spared the Myods behind her a glance, the Hive ahead of her a glare, and judged that the molluscs had their half of the hangar well in hand. She boosted up into the air, darted over the dark form of the Seeder and landed on an Acolyte about to take aim at a fallen Tai technician on the other side - crushing the Hive footsoldier underfoot.

A quick look told her all she needed to know: the others were at least holding their own. Nacelle and Skydive were offering a particularly brutal form of suppressing fire while Northwind was cradling a damaged, leaking arm and Quell saw to a stricken Sandstorm. Cyberwarp was some ways to the side, on her own, clumsily wielding a Tai-foldblade and protecting what was most likely the weapon's motionless, prone owner while a particularly large Knight roared and swatted at her.

Hawkmoon flew over, used her shoulder cannon to tear a ragged hole in the Knight's back, then landed behind it as it stumbled forward, curled her talons around the crest of its helm to pull it back, and savagely crunched a knee into its face. It gurgled up at her, losing its grip on its cleaver, but weakly reaching up at her with its own gnarled claws. Hawkmoon grunted and dug her kneeplate into its cranium again, then again, and again, right up until it stopped moving. She dropped the dead thing, turned to Cyberwarp, and grimaced. "Frag, 'Warp. Are you okay?"

Cyberwarp lowered her sword, venting heavily. She stepped forward, clasped the back of Hawkmoon's neck and pressed their helms together. "Frag..." she weakly agreed. Then stiffened, pulled away and turned around. "Oh scrap, oh scrap, I don't know-"

Hawkmoon pushed past her, fell by the downed Taishibeth's side and looked the bird over. There was an ugly rent where the avian's chest was concerned, ribs broken and caved in by what looked like the Hive's cleaver, and purple blood seeped out from the deep wound. Its chest wasn't moving - and Hawkmoon knew, from looking at other living Tai earlier, that they were habitual breathers. Just to be sure, she placed the side of a digit against the bird's neck - no pulse. "Dead," she grimly reported.

"Oh Primus..."

"Get back to the others," Hawkmoon commanded. "I'll clean these things up."

"No, I can..." Cyberwarp held herself up, a determined, if terrified, look in her optics. "I can help."

"Fine. Shoot, then, and cover my back." Hawkmoon engaged her blades. She kicked away from beside the dead Tai, shot forward with a single boom of her thrusters and landed on the Ogre just in the midst of dragging itself out of the Seeder. The tortured creature shuddered and died with her wrist-blades embedded in its glowing head, and knowing it for what it was, Hawkmoon kicked it back in as the Ogre's unseeing eye fired its last. The chamber within, still crawling with Thrall, filled with horrific Void and tore apart all those left behind. A concentrated burst of plasma-fire took out the gang of Thrall looking to snag at her heels, and then - Cyberwarp was there, kicking away a surprised Acolyte and swinging her new sword at a crippled lesser Knight with too much force, almost unbalancing herself.

"I said shoot, not stab," Hawkmoon grumbled. She looked down the other end of the hangar, where the blast doors were caught on the tail of the Seeder, and pinged Nacelle. ::Get your aft over here, we need to shove this thing out.::

::'Moon, we're a little stuck right now!::

She glanced towards them - yep, a few Knights armed with Boomers and a pair of cackling Wizards. Her shoulder-cannon fired - five times in quick succession. Only one of the Wizard's survived, her wards having imploded and set her alight. Northwind shot her down with his undamaged servo-turned-blaster. ::Just kick the small ones, they can't do us much trouble. C'mon - before this thing's summoning systems kick into action and we have a small army to deal with.::

::Primus!::

"'Moon!" Cyberwarp gasped.

Hawkmoon turned around - and right there, hurtling out of the Void-wreathed Seeder's core, was a witch about two-thirds her own size, flying right for her. Cyberwarp swung for it, but the witch darted around and went in with its claws held in front of it. Hawkmoon boosted, caught it by its neck and pulled them both away, but the witch wriggled out of her grasp and instead went for her. She tried firing her cannon, but one of the witch's hands closed around the extended barrel and shoved it upwards - while the other went for her faceplates. Hawkmoon craned her neck back, but the tips of the chitinous talons caught on the edge of her cheek, biting in and drawing energon before curling away.

Hawkmoon shook herself and boosted back, slamming into the ground and sliding along, crushing a few measly Thrall in the process. Her wings shrieked as they dragged across the floor, and her pain-receptors flared up, sending a lance of white-hot agony spiking into her processor. The witch remained, through, and closed its hands around her neck - tightening, cutting, tearing through steel-

The tip of a Void-edged blade suddenly jutted out through the witch's sternum, and they both dumbly looked down at it. Hawkmoon huffed a pained chuckle, shoved her carbine up under the shocked witch's chin and unloaded everything she had locked in the pressurized firing chamber - dusting the Hive creature's entire skull. With a kick, Hawkmoon roughly shoved the witch off and grasped at her neck - venting a sigh of relief when she found none of her major energon-lines had been severed.

"'Moon!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Hawkmoon waved to Cyberwarp, grunting when the other femme dragged her to her pedes. "We need to get that thing out, now!"

It took some effort, killing all the immediately dangerous Hive and then herding those Seekers still fully operational to the Seeder, but it was like rolling a boulder down the hill - and once they were gathered, they gave it their all, shoving the Hive construct slowly but surely out towards the open, battle-filled sky where Tai fleet met Hive invaders. Some of the Myods, catching on with what they were trying to do, joined in, and it took less than a breem until they'd managed to push enough of the Seeder out that its own weight dragged the remainder out with it.

"Blast doors!" Hawkmoon shouted behind her in Tai, glaring out into the open atmosphere. Cyberwarp, Nacelle and Northwind were with her, the latter two seeing to Northwind's arm and all moving with the rigid, subdued shock of those who'd survived their first battle. Barring one, that was. Someone, a Myod, groaned a reply. It sounded positive - so maybe they were getting onto it.

"Primus," Cyberwarp gasped. "I.. that..."

As if listening in, alarms within the hangar began to blare klaxons.

"Bit too late for that," Nacelle snarked, voice wavering. He shot a look over his shoulder, to where Skydive and Quell were trying to keep Swiftsear and Sandstorm stable - but a broken spark-bond had no remedies, Hawkmoon recalled with a sinking feeling, and their fates were in their own hands. Or servos, rather. "Missed all the fun."

"That's not what they're on for," Hawkmoon softly told him.

"There's that moon," Northwind said suddenly in a voice drained of vigour, pointing out with his good servo.

"... Oh Primus," Cyberwarp gasped again. "Why... why aren't they slowing down?"

The moon was still some ways away from them, entering a different part of the atmosphere, but it was much, much closer - and speeding up. Huge fields of flames spluttered along its crust from where the Tai defensive had bit into it, missing entire chunks of rock and inner fortress, but it was still hurtling along - actually bearing down on the planet.

Below them, the very earth of Taluka began to shudder, sway and shake. There were no ocean tides for the moon to pull at, only limited oasis pools - but simple bodies of water weren't the only thing celestial bodies could act on. The very tides of the mantle below the world's crust were being sloshed about, the gravity of Taluka clashing with that of the warmoon and causing the molten seas below the ground to ripple and froth. Rock cracked, nations shattered, continents split - and still the warmoon came, burning up on its calamitous entry, tearing itself apart and still charging forth.

"They really aren't stopping," Nacelle whispered, horrified.

"They don't want land," Hawkmoon murmured. "They don't want territory. They don't even care if they live or die - just that they prove something. All they want is extinction."

The warmoon cracked apart beneath the frenzied fire of panicked Tai plateships. Other vessels darted away from the earth below, shooting up with terror - packed full of Tai crews and, maybe, what Imojel civilians could be gathered up.

The blast doors began closing - with some difficulty, given the buckled steel where the Seeder had punched through. Northwind shuffled back fearfully. "They... they're killing the world!"

The fracturing warmoon, propelled by spells and hidden technologies, slammed into the crust of Taluka. Magma spurted out of the earth, clouds of dust and rock flew miles and miles into the air around the impact zone, and a tidal wave of destruction sped out from around the crash-site. The warmoon collapsed beneath its own weight, crunching down even further into Taluka's inner core. The surrounding cities were annihilated almost instantly. The others could only watch as the destruction steadily spread towards them. That was the last sight they were left with before the blast doors snapped shut - a brutal apocalyptic wave crashing out over everything. Even the atmosphere began to buckle beneath the sheer force, crushing up any vessels caught too close to the point of collision. The plateship rumbled around them, pulling away from the doomed world.

There wasn't enough time for a fractional evacuation anymore.

Taluka was already dead.

AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!