Robotech: The Ashes of Empire

by GVincent

The Robotech Masters have abandoned their control of empire, their war with The Invid, and the slave Zentraedi forces still fighting it in an attempt to capture Zor's Battle Fortress directly. In this sudden power vacuum, a rogue leader from a caste of Zentraedi whose function is to enforce the will of The Masters on the warrior caste will attempt to seize power and rule herself.

2. Chapter 2: The Morning Star

Chapter Two

The Morning Star

I am a predator.

Like the Norghil- the expendables- I was given life by The Robotech Masters, and I was given a function.

I am the apex predator.

For generations, The Robotech Masters have fatted on the conquests of the norghil. They have ridden the shoulders of the Zentraedi's strength and have come to mistake it for their own.

It was the Zentraedi of course who put down The Disciples of Zor during the time of The Great Schism. The Zentraedi decided in fact who would possess and control the secrets of Zor's science and who by that fact allowed The Robotech Masters to come to be.

It was the Zentraedi who subjugated the worlds seeded with The Flower of Life by Zor's elusive Battle Fortress, bringing into servitude under The Masters races that with time might have equaled their knowledge of Robotechnology and become a threat to their power.

It is the Zentraedi who to this day grapple to the death with the Invid in the name of The Robotech Masters for the determination of supremacy throughout the universe.

The Zentraedi are the brute force imposing the will of The Robotech Masters on all they come in contact with- but even the dullest of brutes is not completely devoid of intelligence.

The Robotech Masters have ascended to demigod status on the theft of Zor's knowledge and the blood of the Zentraedi- but demigods fear also.

They fear the possibility that those who serve them may see through their aura of technology to recognize that at the core of the idols they serve are frail, decadent mortals incapable of yoking the beast they created. The power that The Robotech Masters fear above all others is the very one they rely most upon.

The Te'Dak Tohl- the vengeful omnipotence- has existed since the time of the first Zentraedi.

We served as unseen overseers when the Zentraedi were slave labor upon whose sweat the foundation of The Robotech Masters' civilization was raised, and as the Zentraedi matured into slave warriors so we became warrior overseers and guardians to The Robotech Masters from the base of their strength.

We disposed of the norghil that put down The Disciples of Zor, expunging the knowledge that there had ever been a challenge to the power of The Robotech Masters from the collective memory of the norghil caste.

We have acted as the swift retribution from the demigods upon their servants who fail to achieve victory over the enemies of The Robotech Masters, and when from time to time the servants realize their own power, we are the instrument that quells insurrection and maintains control.

We function as enforcers in the shadows.

We are dreaded phantoms of the periphery.

I am the apex predator, but I too am a slave.

Like the norghil, The Robotech Masters gave me life and they gave me function, but in their arrogance they have likened me to the norghil in assuming my complacence in my role in their scheme. They believe that because I am trusted as an enforcer that I do not see that I am just a higher caste of slave.

The Robotech Masters gave me life and function, but they erred in giving me intelligence, perception, and cunning. I am a predator, and as a predator I see all things through predatory eyes- even The Robotech Masters. I see in them a society poised for toppling, and I sense the weakness they have worked so diligently to conceal.

I am a predator and I am a slave.

I will not be a slave for much longer.

- General Krymina

Commanding Officer,

7th Grand Army of The

Te'Dak Tohl

Tiresia

It had been said by a historical and social philosopher that all civilizations mimicked the life cycle of a tree. A seed germinates and grows to sapling, and if the conditions are favorable that sapling will mature to tree. The tree marks its life in seasons, showing great grown in some and merely enduring in others. Civilizations like trees, this philosopher had further stipulated, inevitably grow more robust with each passing season- even the bad- and consequently are better prepared to meet the next.

Civilizations like the tree, so the philosopher had warned as well, may endure longer than any mortal being could hope for, but it was in their nature that they would not endure forever but eventually decline and finally die.

The philosopher, whose name had been as great and whose words had been so broadly consulted by the people of Tirol as those of any great philosopher by the peoples of his or her homeworld was now a distant and fading memory on the world he had influenced so greatly with thought.

If one extended the philosopher's analogy that likened a civilization to a tree to civilization's most visible monuments- cities- then Tiresia was as reliable a chronicle of the rise and development of Tiriolian civilization as growth rings were to a tree.

Like ancient cities of all inhabited worlds, Tiresia (founded originally by one of the world's people under another name) had taken root on defensible highlands overlooking the joining of two navigable rivers and fertile plains. Early dwellings of wood and sod had given way with time and the diversification and specialization of labor to more permanent structures of brick and stone as a city-state grew on the bounty of the land and the development of trade with other peoples. From this first civilization had come the monuments of religion- the temples of worship built to be as inspiring and immortal as the gods they were tribute to.

The first lasting artifacts of a culture had been raised and an anchorage for permanence had been set.

The history of Tirol had unfolded as histories do universally with the rise and fall of dominant cultures, the merging of peoples, times of war and times of peace, and all the while the "rings" of the tree layered in the city that would become capital of the world and be known as Tiresia. Time continued even when history, a peculiar pursuit of the sentient, ceased its cataloguing of events and found its subject as Tiresia was at this moment in time.

Tiresia was dead.

It now served Tirol only as the stump served the tree- a physical record to the life of a thing that lived no more and would live never again.

The "rings" of the city spoke silently of prosperous time through plazas and marketplaces that now standing empty had once bustled with commerce, public events, and the festivals that were the blossoms of a society in flourish. Mingling with these centers of public assembly like stems to the flower were the great libraries, schools, and academies of varying disciplines that had once been the embodiment of the civilization's greatness as much as any monument of stone. Long after gods had been slain by science, the devout of those new religions came to worship at these temples with zealots' dedication.

The blossoms of Tirol had long since fallen.

Plazas and parks that had been host to countless events of public and social importance would have been unrecognizable to their participants now. Hand-laid stone roads and squares were well into being reclaimed by nature having been abandoned to neglect. Seeds having found purchase in crevices had completed the cycle of life for many years now, each round of plant growth, death, and decay setting the stage for and making easier the next.

Halls of knowledge no longer sounded of the exchange and refinement of thought, but only moaned hollowly as the wind carried through glassless windows and vacant chambers and corridors.

Civilizations evolve, and evolution is a process that creeps at a glacial pace.

Sudden environmental changes, either from without or within can force a shift that evolution is incapable of overcoming with the suddenness of its onset. It was for that reason that the outermost "rings" of Tiresia- those chronicling the sudden final decline and death of the Tirolian civilization- would have been the most intriguing and perplexing to social scientists who would have studied them, for it was in the time of their formation that the caste of Tirolians who would place themselves above all others and call themselves The Robotech Masters emerged.

These "rings" of the city spoke of times when society's striving for economy and efficiency was no longer intended for the benefit of all peoples in that society, but to further the interests of a few.

If there had been a physical constant in Tiresia throughout the rise and fall of the Tirolian civilization, it was The Forum that stood at the center of the city having been raised on the ground that had once been revered as hallowed and reserved for monuments to the gods. The implication in the transition to a monument serving the people was likely intentional.

The great structure towered with its broad, graceful dome over temples that had long since found other civil employment. Erected in stone quarried from every region of Tirol, and with its 486 pillars signifying the peoples who had unified in hopes of common good and prosperity, The Forum had been home for centuries to The Audience of the People and had hosted and heard every major issue and debate that concerned governance of a world.

Besides the routine processes of bureaucracy, The Forum and The Audience of the People had heard for consideration the great debates of law, philosophy, social morality, and science to include reports from a promising young scientist named Zor regarding a distant world, its inhabitants, and the peculiar relationship they had with an indigenous plant known as The Flower of Life.

The results of Zor's research and his theories on the applications possible for the new power source achievable through the Flower of Life would come to occupy more and more of The Audience of the People's time, all the while it went unnoticed that lines of political faction were slowly transforming into class lines rooted in knowledge and use of Zor's discoveries.

Neither The Audience of the People nor The Forum as its official hall survived Zor by long. Amongst the last debates The Forum hosted- vicious, uncompromising debates- were those over issues of inclusion of other known, allied civilizations in the new discoveries of Robotechnology argued between The Disciples of Zor and their philosophical nemeses, The Robotech Masters. What debate failed to decide was resolved by The Robotech Masters through the use of the race of "manufactured labor", Zentraedi, that had similarly put The Masters and Disciples at odds in the times that began Tirol's ethical and cultural decline.

Armed and answering only to the will of The Robotech Masters, the Zentraedi had put a quick and brutal end to any discussion over the future of Robotechnology by putting an end to The Disciples of Zor. The Audience of the People was muted in these times, and soon The Forum fell silent and stood only as the new symbol for The Robotech Masters.

And this was Tiresia.

The sounds of city life were a faded memory as distant as The Disciples of Zor along the broad avenues and artificial canyons of buildings in the mega-metropolis ceding to the song of the winds. Garden parks, meticulously kept in days long past for the simple enjoyment of the public and for the sake of their own beauty now stood overgrown- the flow of their fountains staunched and their basins, pools of stagnating rainwater standing idle.

One such garden park stood under the muted glow of an illumination orb that hung midair without physical means of suspension near the joining of two stone walking paths. In Tiresia's blooming season, illumination orbs of this kind had provided the city with a strong and constant light in the hours between dusk and dawn, and had allowed a seamless environment for the people's activities as the city blazed in the darkness like a torch. Now, with many of the orbs dysfunctional, the remaining units that worked at only a fraction of their former light output gave the city a subdued, eerie glow like a bed of dying embers.

This particular garden park had been dedicated to a lyrical poet who had allegedly sung her early works on the very ground where a monument, hand-cut and erected in marble, now stood in diminished glory under growth of vines and clinging plants. The public no longer came to the park to hear poetry or tales of tragic love, but the park and the monument did still serve a function to the people of Tiresia.

A child of ten or eleven years of age emerged cautiously from the shadows cast by the monument under the weakened light of the illumination orb. Gaunt, with hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes the child paused at the head of the steps and searched the fringes of the light for signs that he might be in the company of unseen others. In late fall the packs of wild dogs that hunted the plains outside the city could be expected to shelter in the abundant artificial dens of Tiresia, subsisting on the weak. This annual migration did not normally begin until after the first hard frost, an event still some weeks away. The peril that would accompany the arrival of these packs was not upon the street children yet- but these were not the predators that the young boy feared

Scavenging and theft had been bountiful this year even with the city's meager influx of crops and goods that in quantity and mode would have seemed more appropriate for a medieval society and not one on the downhill slide of an advanced technological era. Competition between the bands of street children had not been as harsh as a direct result of the abundance, but again- winter was approaching and resourceful minds capable of remembering more desperate times were also capable of crafting plans for desperate actions.

The boy was strong as street children went, afflicted minimally with the common ailments of the destitute, and had been fortunate enough to be accepted by a band led by stronger and cunning adolescents. Street children who found themselves alone, especially with the approach of the colder months, were regularly stripped of what food caches and possessions they might have by the more aggressive territorial bands.

The boy on the steps of the monument had fallen in with a stable group with a smaller but favorable stake of easily defensible turf, and as a result he had less to fear from other bands. Caution was still warranted though as even the strongest of bands had been known to have a member go missing, never to be seen again.

There was no sign of other street children, nor of feral dogs within the dim light of the garden park and the boy had woken with an urgent thirst.

It had been an act of some difficulty for the boy to free himself of the mass of children who huddled with intertwined and clutching limbs for warmth within the open monument pavilion, the heat from a fire lit in the early evening having died some hours before. Stepping over and between the slumbering forms of other members of the band while trying not to disturb the activities of the group's leader as he enjoyed the benefits of his alpha position with a girl of comparable age, the boy had found his way to the entrance in silence.

He descended stairs in whose faces were carved poetic verses that he was incapable of reading and made his way briskly to the fountain basin a short distance away. Dehydration from intestinal parasites (though the boy lacked knowledge of the cause of his persistent discomfort) could be and was commonly fatal among the younger and weaker street children, especially in lean times. The boy did not fear this so much as his band had access to water and enough food in their various caches to keep him strong. He drank from the fountain's basin with cupped hands and under the majestic rise of Fantoma

The great planet, whose moon Tirol was, would soon fill the night sky with the yellows, reds, and oranges of its cloud patterns. The boy did not know that this neighbor world had been the first surrogate home of the Zentraedi in the times when they had served only as labor and before they had secured for The Robotech Masters dominance over all Tirol- in some ways helping to create the conditions into which the boy was born. To the child, Fantoma that within days would show nightly the progression of Tirol's shadow across its face, was simply a thing to marvel at in the night sky and with a young one's wonder of whether someone might be looking back at him.

When he had finished drinking, the boy sat on the rim of the fountain basin and watched the night sky that glittered radiantly above the dimly lit city. It was not just fascination with the celestial tapestry that fixated the boy and held him in place, but that and the comfort given to him by the nearby sounding pillar.

Like every park, monument, or temple that did not directly serve the interests of The Robotech Masters, this one had at a time long before the boy's birth found itself suddenly in competition for public use with a sounding pillar of The Cosmic Harp. With the rise to power of The Robotech Masters had come the broad but subtle program of genetic engineering applied to all Tirolians that laid the bed for the auditory opiate that came in the form of "the song" of The Mistresses of The Cosmic Harp.

"The song" was not a single melody, but any one of thousands that had been crafted over generations by the caste of overseers charged with control of the masses- The Mistresses. Proficient in and dedicated to nothing other than rendering the uncomplicated compositions to elicit the desired , conditioned response from the "altered" population- The Mistresses had provided The Robotech Masters with last element of a bloodless and uncontested social coup of a small minority over all others.

The boy was no more aware of the cause of the sublime feeling brought on by "the song" than he was of the cause of the intestinal illness that afflicted him. He did know that while bathing in the angelic melody that emanated from the sounding pillar that he felt no pain or hunger, no fear or sadness, nor desire for anything beyond staying under the song's charm. He had never known the songs composed by the Mistresses intended to torment and used by The Robotech Masters to show their displeasure at actions of the general population- or the contrasting songs of extreme euphoria meant as the carrot for obedience. The boy only knew what was in fact an "automatic" mode of the sounding pillars- set so with the intention of merely preoccupying the last of a civilization, keeping it out from underfoot as it waited to wither and die.

The Robotech Masters no longer had need of the Tirolian masses, but felt themselves magnanimous in providing a comfortable end for them.

Lost in the song of The Mistresses and eyes swimming in awe at the rise of Fantoma the boy had not noticed the fingers of blue light at every point on the distant horizon as they reached straight down from the heavens. If he heard the distant boom that could have as easily been the rumble of thunder had there been storm clouds, the boy showed no signs. His world was the song at that moment- the last comfort afforded to a forsaken people and the same intoxicant that had made those of lesser will sit in its presence until dehydration or starvation had taken them, or that left their frozen bodies strewn about the pillars in the dead of "dark winter" when Tirol passed through Fantoma's shadow.

Though at a disadvantage by virtue of the place and time of his birth as this boy was, he was not of lesser will- especially where it applied to the preservation of self. Distant as they were under the influence of The Cosmic Harp, the boy did feel a quiver that was not related to hunger pangs in his stomach or parasites in his gut. The shuddering was all around, shaking the autumn leaves from the trees as it grew to a quaking that woke the rest of the band within the monument to the forgotten lyrical poet.

The boy knew this because he managed to cover inside the moments just before the cause of the disturbance trampled flat the overgrown grass and topiary of the garden park, and pulverized the ornate fountain and stone walkways under dozens of giant mechanical feet and weight of the humanoid-form Bioroid mecha.

"Is it Invid?"

Lieutenant Ninfoya at the head of his platoon of Bioroids considered the question that was on the mind of all but was unnecessary to answer. As part of the skeletal Tirolian Civil Defense Militia which was most like a viable military force only in its name, it would fall upon the lieutenant's unit and two dozen or so others of comparable size garrisoned at barracks throughout Tiresia to defend the city's interior should the concentric defensive rings be breeched. This made the question at least relevant.

What made the answering of it unnecessary was the nature of the attack that the city was apparently now under and that had taken the platoon from its numbing routine of patrolling empty streets and sparsely populated civilian housing sectors, and had thrown at them the possibility of real combat. Guard posts on the approaches to the city had gone silent first, followed by panicked calls for assistance from forts and bases whose garrisons were equally inadequate for any real task of defense as those stationed within the city before they too went silent.

Invid attacked by the hundreds of thousands if not millions, falling upon you from the sky like the wrath of forgotten gods avenging the slight.

This was different- systematic, methodical, and calculated in its execution. It did not initiate with the promise of certain slaughter that an Invid assault on the world would have, but this attack as it was now unfolding carried with it its own breed of menace- disturbing mostly in its lack of clear purpose or direction.

"Not Invid.", said Ninfoya.

"Then who?", asked the platoon's sub-lieutenant, Tetlos, who had always demonstrated his worth to the lieutenant in matters administrative- regiment and ritual being the principle occupation for militia in Tiresia..

There was no answer to the question, but at least it was not the Invid.

The militia garrisons were at best a hollow display of force intended to deter any thoughts of uprising from the population. In truth, the population of Tirol- Tiresia in particular, was so fragmented and occupied with the daily tasks of subsistence living that the thought of uprising was ludicrous. The militia was a symbol of power to fear where no one looked beyond survival to see symbols, and now it seemed that they would actually be called upon to fight.

At least it was not the Invid.

Anyone else had the capacity to compromise or negotiates. In the worst case scenario, if the lieutenant and his unit survived contact, they could shelter or disappear into the population until the invaders found that the world possessed nothing worth having and left.

But who were they?

Orbital gunfire was further evidence that the attacking force was not Invid, but left the possibility of hundreds of other civilizations who could and might seek retribution against The Robotech Masters if only they learned the bleak truth of The Masters' circumstances. But if they knew that truth, then why come to Tirol?

It did not matter. Whoever was attacking the city was here, and in the execution of their attack making short work of what few defenses Tiresia had left to it.

"Northwest Sector Command, this is Patrol Twenty-Seven.", Ninfoya said, taking it upon himself to obtain more precise direction from the command post charged with all militia activities in that area of the city. Since the platoon had scrambled hastily from their bunks in the barracks that stood closer to Tiresia's center and had deployed with equally frantic speed in the semi-functional and only partially armed mecha that had been issued to them, only the direction to "move northwest" had been given.

Sensor towers that had once been used primarily to monitor the activities of the city's population were in similar operational condition to the Bioroids given to the militia- working partially when they functioned at all. Still, even without full use of the sensors that were supposed to monitor the city from within, the command post still had a better understanding of the developing attack than Ninfoya could hope for. If not a tactical advantage, the command post could at least prevent Ninfoya and the volunteers that comprised his platoon from stumbling headlong into the attackers.

"Twenty-Seven", replied voice of sector control, "What's your position?"

Ninfoya bit back a caustic remark at the command facilities inability to track even the units under its command- a verbal confrontation would benefit no one at this point. The request from the command post did however indicate that the lieutenant's platoon had entered an area of the city where the monitoring system was blind.

"We are on Expedition Avenue, below the junction with Equity- headed north."

"Understood, Twenty-Seven. Proceed with caution, Patrol Nine last made contact just north of you three minutes ago and we have not been able to raise them since."

"Made communications contact, or contact with the enemy?", Ninfoya asked, seeking clarification.

Clarification came in a form the lieutenant did not anticipate.

A swarm of missiles erupted from the intersecting street directly ahead, turning sharply around the corner of a sagging, gutted structure with the churning cloud of their mixing exhaust trails washing over all in their wake. Ninfoya had barely the time to recognize the threat, let alone guard against it or warn his platoon before one of the surprise volley struck his Bioroid at the waist-level of its humanoid form. The lieutenant did not hear an explosion, nor was he aware of a flash within the pilot's dome that bulged out from between the mecha's shoulders like a neckless head- his viewing field had winked out already, and he felt only the disorienting sensation of a blind tumble through the air.

The landing and end of that tumble was considerably more jarring, throwing Ninfoya against the restraining cuffs of his contour-adhering pilot's chair. The blow was brutal enough to send the breath rushing out of the lieutenant's lungs, but he heard the air leave with a shrill scream as an intense, burning pain raced up his right leg.

Ninfoya found the emergency release control in the dark of his cockpit's dead systems and gave the manual mechanism a substantially harder pull than was required. The lieutenant was rewarded by having the dome of his mecha spring open as the cuffs in his chair that allowed the mecha's neural interface control systems to function dropped him from his chair.

A second wave of blazing agony greeted him on the cobblestone surface of a street that was as old as the city itself. Flame seemed to surge through the veins of his right side from the mid-leg until it reached the small of his back where it branched out to every nerve fiber and ending in his body. Lieutenant Ninfoya muted another cry of pain as he choked on the acrid smoke he found swirling about him from his own burning mecha. He gave little notice to the deep and rapid cracking report of energy weapons fire as the bolts passed over and around him. The ground shook with nearby explosions and the heavy advance of mecha on all sides in the direction from which he and his platoon had just come. The militia officer barely noticed the invaders or their advance toward the center of Tiresia as he was preoccupied with his right leg and how it dangled, tattered, from a strand of skin and muscle from the mid-calf.

After dragging himself perhaps two body-lengths from his mecha which had fared worse than its pilot having been cut in half by the blast that had nearly severed his leg, Ninfoya's strength gave out and he collapsed flat onto the cool uneven surface of the cobblestone. His mind was clear enough still to recognize that shock was setting in, dulling the pain thankfully.

Ninfoya also was still of sufficient coherence to be able to identify at last his attackers.

Zentraedi.

As sounds of a battle being waged against weaker and crumbling forces found him, Ninfoya watched helplessly the uncontested advance of Regult Combat Pod units. Their red sensor eyes glowed maliciously, giving them the appearance of furies from the deepest regions of hell as the blue flash of their discharging particle beam cannons cast long and irregular shadows in their brilliant flicker.

A heavy thud and the nerve-grating sound of metal grinding on stone drew Ninfoya's clouding attention closer, to just forward of where he lay sprawled on his belly and rapidly bleeding out through severed arteries. The massive, toeless point of a mecha's forefoot was within a stretching arm's length, had Ninfoya the strength or inclination to reach for it.

Ninfoya, realizing with the omniscience of the condemned that his life was at an end surprised himself and found the strength to raise himself at least to the elbows and meet it with dignity.

A sensor eye glared down at him pitilessly from below and between the exaggerated, barreled shoulders of a Zentraedi power armor. Females? The power armor towering over the expiring Tirolian looked very near to the Queadlunn Rau of the female Quadrano elite- but not closely enough to escape Ninfoya's noticing differences- even in his state.

It hardly mattered, and Ninfoya was only able to offer a feeble, "-We made you-."- the purpose of the statement unclear to even the speaker beyond some vague accusation of betrayal.

The power armor replied by pointing the muzzle of the enormous energy rifle clutched in its right hand directly at prostrate Tirolian.

Lieutenant Moyrt hardly felt a shudder pass through the heavily armored frame of his Nacht Rau combat suit as the destabilized plasma round of his mecha's Nador energy rifle penetrated the stone-paved street deeply and detonated like a grenade having incinerated the wounded Tirolian in its passing.

"Command, Unit Twelve-.", Lt. Moyrt said to the actions director on the command ship in geosynchronous orbit high above, from which the operation was being monitored and controlled, "-Defending unit neutralized. I show no other resistance along my path of incursion."

"Affirmative, Twelve- no resisting units detected. Structural composition of buildings along your assigned path is reducing our active sensor effectiveness. Exercise caution, Twelve, and be advised that you are falling out of position with Unit Six."

Moyrt paused, contemplating for a moment the ramifications if he should arrive at the objective later than Unit Six to which his platoon of shock troops had been assigned a role of mutual support.

The possibilities were disquieting.

"Understood, we'll double our pace.", the lieutenant replied, "Let's pick it up, Twelve!"

Lt. Moyrt had forgotten the elation he'd felt only minutes before as two Tirolian militia units had crossed his path unaware of the dangerous ground they were treading. Elation was likely leaning towards exaggeration for what Moyrt had felt as his Serhot Ran platoon had covered to ambush first one, and then the second unit of militia Bioroids. It had been a welcome release of tension, certainly- the Serhot Ran had been on Tirol for three days and had been laying low in an observational and intelligence gathering role outside of Tiresia for two. The comings and goings of patrols, the minimal patterns of civilian movement around the city's exterior, garrison strength and composition at militia fortifications on the approaches to the city- all had been scrutinized and relayed back to the operational planning staff to fine-tune the final plan details. Tedious all of it, but necessary.

Serhot Ran ("the spear's point") was disciplined, methodical, and left nothing to chance ever that could be planned or prepared for.

Still, as crucial as the disciplines of planning and preparation were for Serhot Ran, and for the enforcer caste of Te'Dak Tohl overall, Moyrt acknowledged that it was the actual fight that appealed to his nature like all Zentraedi. Where Te'Dak Tohl were superior by both design and doctrine was that of the two castes of Zentraedi, only The Robotech Masters' enforcers applied intellect before brute force and technology.

It was required of Te'Dak Tohl to fight more intelligently and efficiently than the lower norghil caste over whom it was the primary function of the enforcers to maintain order. Advantages of technology and equipment granted to the Te'Dak Tohl set aside, in any confrontation with norghil they could count on being outnumbered often as much as thirty to one, and sometimes more. Unlikely as it was, a norghil commander with experience and a force of experienced warriors could conceivably gain the upper hand on a careless Te'Dak Tohl force seeking to put an end to him for whatever infraction called down the wrath of The Masters' "vengeful omnipotence".

It had never happened of course- but so long as the potential existed, the Te'Dak Tohl approached no challenge of battle haphazardly.

A case in point was the two skirmishes Lt. Moyrt's platoon had just prevailed in over the Bioroids of the Tirolian militia. Moyrt's combat suit of power armor, the Nacht Rau, had little to fear from any six norghil mecha or any twelve Bioroids. True to The Robotech Masters, their strength lay completely in the Zentraedi and their own inherent weakness was reflected in the mecha they fielded. Even had the implanted knowledge sets of tactical doctrine and operation, the ceaseless training, and considerable combat experience enjoyed by the Serhot Ran not been a factor advantageous over the Tirolian militia- the relatively light armament of laser weapons and missiles (of which Moyrt was realizing the militia had few or none) standard to Bioroids were wholly inadequate against the Nacht Rau with its heavy ceramic composite armor. Coupled though- the Serhot Ran warriors and the machines they operated, the outcome of the skirmishes had been determined before a shot had been fired.

Still, there was a distinction between aggressive advance on an objective and reckless operation in a combat environment. Though Moyrt could have had his platoon meet the Bioroids head-on with the same outcome, experience against the far more formidable norghil caste had taught him the discipline to stack the odds as heavily in his favor as circumstances would allow. The platoon had set its ambush and monitored the Bioroids' journey to walking into it well before the militia- betrayed by the failed technology that may have warned and saved them had the city's internal sensor net been functional- even knew the threat was there.

The militia had not even suspected the ambush, let alone been prepared to meet it. They had not detected the small sensor drones unique to the Nacht Rau combat suit that had monitored the militia platoons' approach into the kill zone and had allowed the Serhot Ran to engage without putting themselves into the open.

They had died, much like Tiresia was dying, from inadequate preparedness and the neglect of The Robotech Masters.

Lt. Moyrt's mind had already moved on before the crater he'd left in the cobblestone street had finished smoking and his power armor's drone had returned automatically on a cushion of antigravity to its storage mount beside the suit's powerful boosters. His mind was on the initial objective of this phase of the incursion plan- one of the generator sites that provided Tiresia with one of the few functioning elements of military technology that remained- its defensive shield. When the shield was gone, waiting squadrons of Gnerl Fighter Pods would instantly have control of the skies over the city. An entire division of Te'Dak Tohl mechanized infantry stood by in Re-Entry Transports on their landing ships to assume control of Tiresia for as long as they chose to hold it. -And should occupation not be the next course of action chosen the absence of the shield would open the city to orbital gunfire.

But first the shield had to come down.

As the command coordinator had informed Moyrt a moment before, his platoon was falling behind- the cost of exercising prudence against the Tirolian militia. The slide in the operational timeline was not great, and Moyrt knew he could quickly make up the ground he was losing to Unit Six- but what concerned him the most was arriving second at the objective to Hyra.

There were many forms that slow and lingering death could take that Moyrt found preferable to Hyra's penchant for recalling and reminding Moyrt of every instance in which she and her unit had outperformed he and his.

Unlike the norghil, the Te'Dak Tohl caste operated without gender segregation- a practical necessity. Still, Hyra's often sharp but otherwise benign observations demonstrated to Moyrt that the competitive tensions between the genders was universal to all Zentraedi.

Moyrt was not eager to add more fuel to Hyra's competitive fire as he knew he would be the one who came away burned.

Even the best conceived and most carefully planned combat operations were prone to "glitches".

It was a logical outcome of random elements at play that could not be anticipated. Glitches were the variables in the equation of any operation that had to be solved for with ingenuity and resourcefulness to maintain the constant- the planned timeline. Some "glitches" were more formidable than others and strained the ingenuity of even a seasoned Serhot Ran officer to resolve it with the resources at hand, but such was the nature of Duty.

Lt. Hyra found herself presented with such a glitch as her platoon concealed behind a dilapidated structure that stood on the fringe of the shield generator node complex that military and civil engineers had collaborated to disguise within the city generations before with the outward appearance of a domed temple.

In times when energy had been dedicated to masking the true nature of the facility, its actual purpose would likely have escaped only the most cursory examination. Any attempt at visual deception would have been pointless if the complex had been garrisoned as overtly as Lt. Hyra found it now. It was not the detachment of Bioroids belonging to the complex's barracks that was the "glitch" in Hyra's part of the operational plan though- such defensive measures had been expected. It was the presence of the mobile light anti-warship particle beam cannon that was the cause for the Serhot Ran lieutenant's concern.

Self-propelled on an otherwise unremarkable levitation sled, the anti-warship cannon was a self-contained weapon system whose primary purpose was to knock Invid (presumably) transports down before they could release their loads of scouts and troopers into orbit or deliver them to the ground. Having faced Invid on occasion, Hyra was well-aware of the absurdity of the notion that batteries of these guns could provide any kind of credible defense for a planet against them. Still, like the attempt to camouflage the shield generator node, anti-warship guns of this kind were built of a time when The Robotech Masters still gave some considerations to the balance between the people's sense of security under their protection and their sensitivities to matters of appearance.

Anti-warship guns while lacking credibility for practical planetary defense were nonetheless capable of delivering a lethal blow to something the size of an Invid Transport Disc, or for that matter a Re-Entry Transport Pod- which made it more than capable of annihilating even the most robust of mecha or power armor to include a Nacht Rau. While the gun's acquisition and targeting system was not geared toward aiming at a single mecha and certainly not on a flat, ground-parallel path- Hyra was not anxious to test the gun's operators' ability to improvise with the gun's secondary optical targeting system or simply aiming down the length of the particle accelerator rails.

Gone was the possibility of a surprise rush on the gun to take it out of operation before focusing on the objective of the shield generator node as other node complexes had already come under Serhot Ran attack making this one's defenders keenly aware that they should expect the same. Like the other node complexes this one had its own defensive energy barrier which its defenders had raised at the first indications of trouble. Being like all energy barriers it could be penetrated by the slow, deliberate effort of a mecha or combat suit applying its weight and strength to the task, but it necessitated making one's self a relatively stationary and easy target. The Nacht Rau could likely survive this under fire from Bioroids.

Under fire from Bioroids and an anti-warship gun though-.

Hyra found the prospect less appealing.

Still, destruction of the shield generator node was a critical operational objective that had to be achieved- for honor of the Serhot Ran if nothing else.

"You're late, Moyrt.", Hyra said, sensing the arrival of the other shock troop unit from the direction expected, "Or we could just be ahead of schedule again."

Moyrt swallowed the mild dose of abuse he'd braced in anticipation of.

"We ran into two unwelcoming committees- my apologies for not having your benefit of Fate's favor.", Moyrt said in reply tying his sensor systems into Hyra's probe drone that he had noticed was deployed as he and his unit had drawn up to her rear.

"Keep comforting yourself with excuses.", Hyra said, determined to have the last word be hers.

Moyrt was fully aware of the futility of his struggle, and what Hyra's probe was showing him told him that he had no time for vain attempts. He immediately saw the unexpected anti-warship gun that must have been sheltered in a nearby structure or moved into place soon after the operation's first actions against the city's outlying posts to have escaped capture in the last surveillance images the Serhot Ran had downloaded from the command ship. No matter how it had come to be there, it was there now and Moyrt understood its implications as well as Hyra did.

"Maybe draw that gun to the rear of the complex with a false attack and then spring a three-sixty incursion-?", Hyra suggested looking for input from Moyrt as she formulated a plan. Hyra took more than a healthy portion of enjoyment from the serving plate that was tormenting Moyrt- but when operational matters were at hand she showed nothing but trust and respect for him as he did for her. It was a more amicable relationship than was enjoyed by most officers of opposite gender, and more amicable than some of those of the same. It had not always been that way, but the grudging appreciation of each other had grown through working or fighting their way out from many a dire situation and as was the best thing that could be said for most aspects of a warrior's life- it seemed to work.

"Maybe-.", Moyrt said contemplatively as he called up the images of the complex as seen from above to refresh the details of its footprint in his mind and to check the lay of the surrounding land. This was an older section of Tiresia whose streets meshed irregularly amidst congested plots of medium-rise structures in moderate to advanced stages of decline. Navigating the labyrinth of streets in order to launch a convincing faint attack would be troublesome.

"Not a lot of places to go though if there's another nasty surprise on the far side."

"Worse than charging down the barrel of that thing?", Hyra countered referring to the anti-warship gun that sat between where the Serhot Ran now covered and their objective.

"Probably not, but worse than I'd like to end the day.", Moyrt replied.

"Well it's one or the other.", Hyra said correctly, "This shield node needs to be taken out before the air units and transports can move in."

Moyrt was conscious of Hyra's point. A single generator node couldn't shield the entire city, but it could still erect an irregular and unpredictable force field that would be a hazard to any Gnerl or Re-Entry Transport passing over this sector of Tiresia.

"Maybe we can just wait for Fate to come down on them.", Hyra suggested adding a third option to the limited choices available.

"What?"

"I wasn't serious, Moyrt.", Hyra replied.

"No, but it was a good idea regardless.", Moyrt said with his attention focusing on the sagging structure adjacent to the shield generator complex, "How much plasma napalm are you carrying?"

Hyra detected the beginnings of a plan, and anxious to have the details was quick to reply to the other platoon leader, "Six missiles- just like you."

Moyrt highlighted the structure that had attracted his attention on his Nacht Rau's interactive tactical display so Hyra could know to what he was referring, "Do you think that if you and your platoon put enough plasma napalm into the lower levels of that building facing the shield generator that it would topple?"

"And where do you intend to be?", Hyra asked, equal parts intrigued by the possibility that the plan might have potential and concerned for what part Moyrt intended for himself and his shock troops.

"I'm going to be standing just far enough back to not get flattened by the collapse- and then I'm going to exploit how all of that dead weight is going to weaken the perimeter field."

"It might work.", Hyra granted, "But you're going to have to take out that big gun while they're still on their heels or you're going to find yourself in a really tight spot."

"Let me worry about that.", Moyrt said, accepting the warning of the obvious to be Hyra's version of "be careful", "Just give us a few minutes to get into position and then see about bringing that building down toward the complex. We'll raise as big of a disturbance as we can to let you assault the front."

"Done.", Hyra agreed.

There was something wicked in conscious thought that went by the name of perception.

Lower animals experienced their own anxieties based on instinct- prey felt the presence of their predators and reacted with the instinct to flee, or predators sensed other predators in their territory and were faced with the slightly more complex alternatives of defending or abandoning what they had claimed. In either case and in countless others it was a simple process of stimulus and appropriate conditioned response. Social constructs such as pride and loyalty did sometimes come into play, but they were rudimentary in beasts and did not govern lower animals the way they did the sentient.

Sub-Commander Pelius, company commander under the 8th Tirolian Civil Defense Militia was a sentient being governed by social constructs of pride and loyalty. He was also a creature afflicted by perception.

Pelius, a company commander, found himself in command of scarcely two platoons of semi-functional Bioroids- the sum that could be mustered from the militia barracks three city blocks away. It was not simply the fact that his men and support staff had been fighting the losing battle to maintain functional units for some time, but this combined with the ominously sparse response to the call to alert that had gone out a little less than an hour earlier when the first outposts on the outskirts of and in the outlying areas of Tiresia had started to report they were under attack began the defensive operation with a sense of desperation.

Of the company's roll of over a hundred, twenty-six having been at the barracks on alert response duty including Pelius, only an additional ten had answered the summons of silent alarm. What portion was unable to respond and what portion was unwilling to respond, the sub-commander had no way of knowing. It hardly mattered as had the entire company reported for duty, there would have been only enough functioning mecha for one in three- and those would be armed scantly as Pelius and his forces were now.

Pelius mustered those who had answered the call of pride and loyalty, mounted what equipment still functioned, and had led his "company" to the shield generator complex to rendezvous with the sole confidence-inspiring piece of weaponry that he and his men had laid eyes upon in some time. The anti-warship gun and the defenders had met at their post by direction of the militia's sector command and the perimeter defense field had gone up moments before communications had been lost with the higher chain.

Attempts to re-establish communications had failed. No additional stragglers from the 8th Tirolian Civil Defense Militia had shown up to augment the meager force since. Sub-Commander Pelius and the thirty-five men of his company whom he could account for had positioned themselves defensively as best they could and now just waited.

Perception was beginning to play its part now, and not in the favor of the Civil Defense Militia.

Sector command had gone silent, but weak and garbled communications from militia units in the other areas of city were beginning to weave a dire tapestry that left little room for interpretation. A startled cry of alarm, the frantic verbal exchanges that accompanied panicked action in combat, and then the hollowness that exceeded silence in the moments that followed battle. And with each of these episodes followed the signs of battle at points around the city- the glitter of flame against the otherwise dark faces of buildings or lighting the rise of columns of smoke that might have otherwise gone unseen in the night.

With each episode, this happened and each successively closer to Pelius and his men than the last.

Perception could have worked to the advantage of the militia standing in defense of the shield generator complex. They were after all mounted in armored war machines, moderately armed with battle-tested weapons, and standing in the company of an energy weapon designed to destroy small warships in orbit and all behind a fully functional energy barrier.

Still, the primal instincts that told them all that predators were close by if not just beyond sight were not easily dismissed. Working with the questions higher minds generated in the absence of anything else to do led to perception of the situation being bleak. Pelius was no exception to this condition.

Pelius felt the absurdity of having the massively powerful anti-warship gun positioned with he and his men as neither it nor he could see the enemy he was sure was studying him keenly from every shadow. The perimeter energy barrier that would absorb the attack of anything short of an orbital gun barrage felt less like a substantial line of defense and more like a pen holding he and his men like animals awaiting the slaughter. Silence from the chain of command and for that matter from any other militia unit made it abundantly clear that those of Pelius's company who had mustered had not reported so much to a post to stand in defense of, but to stand in wait for their own execution.

Such was the nature of perception.

Still fragmented communications of chaotic actions had allowed Pelius and his men to glean some details of what was happening to Tiresia, and though it was unfathomable it did at least give form to the fear they all felt.

The Zentraedi were here.

"Why don't they just come?"

The question, one Pelius had been asking himself and was certain the other men encircling the center of defense- the generator node- were wondering had been voiced by the next senior militiamen at the position. Sub-Lieutenant Cardas was always effective at directing the actions of the militia unit whose members as civilian volunteers were often in need of direction. There was nothing more to be directed though- Bioroids had been positioned according to the most likely direction of the enemy's approach and the waiting was the only task at hand.

Pelius did not voice the great concerns the question had been raising in his mind. Why did they not just come? Many a terrified reference had been made by other militia units to Zentraedi before they had gone silent- but the enemy Pelius felt stalking him just beyond sight was not fighting as Zentraedi fought.

"They will.", Pelius assured his ranking sub-officer, "There is probably a scout unit moving around our perimeter looking for an area of weakness to exploit while they mass forces for an assault. We shouldn't give them one. Abandon fixed positions and have our units walk sentry. We will leave the gun and its crew in this position to cover-."

From the direction Pelius and Cardas had been scrutinizing, beyond a crumbling stone structure that could have served any of a dozen purposes before it had been abandoned to neglect a series of small missile volleys roared skyward above the roofline to merge as one high above. Against the stars of the night sky, the glitter of their burning rocket engines seemed to halt for a moment as though looking for a place to join in the firmament, but this moment was fleeting as the weapons reached the top of their arc and began their mad dive back toward earth. Pelius felt a rush of panic as the weapons seemed to bear down directly on the very spot where he stood, but this moment passed as he remembered the energy barrier standing in their path. In that moment, he invited the missiles to try their luck at getting to him and his men. This moment lasted as long as his moment of panic as the descending missiles sloped away above the energy shield and entered the lower levels of another derelict building standing to the rear of the shield generator complex.

The distinct pop of super-heating air and the glow of plasma napalm from within the building told Pelius that while he and his men had escaped direct attack along with the shield generator node they were defending, that their unseen opponents were setting something more sophisticated than an assault of brute force into play.

Pelius found perception working against him harder than ever.

The combustibles within the western face of what had once been an office to the cultural affairs administration of the Tirolian government had sublimated instantly with the impact of the plasma napalm missiles. Vermin, decaying interior construction materials, the rubbish left by squatters, and in several areas the squatters themselves where they had not fled with the signs of impending danger all were reduced to the gaseous forms of their primary elements under a surge of sun-hot gel.

Concrete form cracked as radiant heat ignited all other materials that were heir to burning throughout the gutted structure. While it was the flight of animals as small as insects and as large as Tirolian vagrants who had not been consumed by the plasma napalm that gave the scene a dramatic flair, it was the progressive heating and softening of the building's steel skeleton that was the objective of the missile strike. Trusses and girders, their protective fire coatings having been insubstantial against the heat generated by the military-grade thermal-warhead weapons, lost in seconds the ability to support the load of weight they had borne despite decades of neglect.

Lt. Hyra watched as the face of the building, now aglow on all levels from fires within, crumpled and with the force and direction of its collapse pulled almost half of the structure with it in a fluid, avalanche-slide into the rear of the shield generator node complex.

As the great mass of the disintegrating building met the complex's perimeter barrier field, an electric storm of arcing energy danced through the cloud of rising dust and smoke as the field fought to maintain integrity before being overwhelmed by the sheer volume and weight of debris working against it.

From within the billowing cloud of dust that had now engulfed the entire generator complex, a new and distinctive series of flashes began to dance through the murk. Unmistakable for anything but energy weapons fire, Hyra watched the softer yet more constant flicker from the panic fire of Bioroids that were answered and seemed to be cut short by the heavier and more controlled flash and report of Nador rifles.

Aware of her part in Moyrt's plan, Hyra controlled the urge to rush in- waiting to loose her platoon on the objective only after feeling that moment when she was sure that Moyrt's diversion had ensnared all the complex's defenders.

"Six, on me!", Hyra ordered, "Standard incursion assault formation- move!"

For all of the Nacht Rau's sophisticated integrated optical systems and the suit's combat computer's best attempts to merge the images from all into a clear image for the benefit of its pilot, Moyrt still found himself stumbling about in the dark at the head of his four-warrior fire team.

The immense heat plume from the collapsed building that still burned with plasma napalm from deep within was rendering the infra-red portion of the multi-spectrum optics useless. The dense smoke and dust that trapped the ambient light in its suspension and rendered the light intensification optics ineffective did the same for viewing in the ultra-violet. Only the combat computer's overlay of radar data was partially reliable in the swirling dust- and even this was hampered by the distorting effects of the clutter in the air.

Sensors reduced and subsequently senses dulled, Moyrt led his fire team, split into two mutually supporting pairs, around the edges of the debris mass that had been a building minutes before. The fact that the mass was putting off enough heat to render a Nacht Rau's infra-red optics useless meant that the plasma napalm within had not yet exhausted itself. This made traveling over the debris that could be heard groaning and cracking as it settled ill-advised as it invited the potential of accidentally stepping into a pocket of burning plasma napalm. Robustly constructed as the Nacht Rau was, not even it was designed to come into direct contact with heat of that magnitude, Moyrt knew.

He and his warriors would have to for all intents and purposes feel their way around this obstacle of their own making and eliminate targets one at a time while being certain that they were not firing on their own. Hyra's platoon was converging on the objective as well now as heard in exchanges over the radio, and in moving at each other blindly the two shock trooper units were likely the greatest threat to one another.

Within the literal haze of battle as it was shown to him by his combat suit, Moyrt saw projected onto the inside of his helmet visor two flashing contact indicator boxes. Their appearance as he rounded a crag of building debris showed the lieutenant that his radar was receiving returns from something that the combat computer was identifying as significant, but whose returns were too distorted for identification. Hyra's unit could have advanced this far by now, conceivably, and would likely be moving in pairs at least- so Moyrt held his fire even as the target reticule showed his Nador centered dead on target.

Hyra, if this is you trying to develop a sense of humor-.

The muted glow of exchanged fire somewhere further on in the murk back-lit the targets Moyrt and his team were advancing on. Glimpses, in the fractions of a second allowed by interspersed laser discharges, Moyrt was able to make out the humanoid forms before him. While size could easily be misjudged in poor visibility, the domed crowns of the mecha could not and revealed them as Bioroids.

Perhaps the Bioroids had been as unsure about who had been moving toward them as Moyrt had been about who he had been advancing on-. For whatever reason the defenders had held their fire, but the exchange behind them had brought a sudden end to caution.

A bloom of light from the leading Bioroid coincided with a warning tone that blared in Moyrt's ears as his Nacht Rau warned him of a a missile launch. Too close to do anything else, Moyrt simply allowed his right leg to collapse beneath him while holding a line on his target and returning fire with his Nador rifle. The missile fired at the lieutenant smashed into rubble just to the left of where the Nacht Rau had been standing and detonated with a blow that was jarring to Moyrt even within his power armor. Moyrt was unable to tell whether it had been his return fire, or that of the other Nacht Raus in his fire team that had at the same moment taken down the Bioroid, but it was clearly the efforts of the three that were still standing that brought down the second with an equally impressive series of secondary explosions to their impacting destabilized plasma rounds.

Moyrt was quickly to his feet again, suspecting that if Hyra was in the area that this would be the moment she would choose to find him- on the ground. Not likely if he could help it- but of more immediate concern, the warriors of his fire team had already rushed the downed Bioroids to confirm that they were no longer a threat. As platoon leader, there was an obligation to join them.

"They're down.", Moyrt's first sub-lieutenant announced as Moyrt reached his team, "That was close though-. We're going to end up shooting each other to pieces soon if this dust doesn't settle."

"The only thing that can bring down a Serhot Ran is another Ser-.", Moyrt began to reply in the verse of a popular adage before he felt his attention drawn to his far left.

Whirling and bringing his Nador to bear, Moyrt felt the cold panic he imagined the Bioroids feeling in the moment before they had been cut down- the cold panic of being severely out-gunned.

How the anti-warship gun had moved so swiftly from the last position Moyrt had himself seen it at, and how it had gone unnoticed by four Serhot Ran shock troops and all the sensory equipment carried by their Nacht Rau combat suits was incomprehensible- but the fact that it was taking form out of the smoke with energy arcing between the accelerator rails of its cannon that was completing its final firing sequence made the questions irrelevant.

A flash filled Moyrt's field of view and he felt a heavy blow to the chest that he was certain would be his last living sensation- before he felt the second impact, this time of his combat suit being laid out flat on the ground.

It took a moment for the lieutenant to collect himself, and a moment further to get to his feet and regain his bearings, but the sight of the shattered levitation sled on which the anti-warship gun had been mounted, broken in half and burning, assured Moyrt that he was not experiencing the prolonged moment of his own death.

Other Nacht Rau combat suits were entering the sphere of light cast by the burning Tirolian gun, and of them Moyrt was able to instantly pick out Hyra's though outwardly it was no different from the rest.

The gun tube on her Nacht Rau's heavy destabilized plasma cannon retracted back into its stand-by position on the suit's left forearm having clearly been the cause of the anti-warship gun's fiery end- much to Moyrt's dismay.

"First you arrive late, and then I still save your skin as well, Moyrt.", Hyra said, laying on the patronization with clear gusto, "Fate should give everyone a friend like me."

"You honor and remind me constantly.", Moyrt replied dryly, "Can we finish our sweep before I lavish you with praise though?"

"Finishing now.", Hyra said, her voice telling Moyrt that she'd left gloat mode and was now focused on task again, "I can account for eleven Bioroids- plus your two."

"Another seven from our incursion-.", Moyrt added, "Figure that building took out a few. Let's hand off the clean-up and get to bringing that shield generator down."

"I already have a team on it.", Hyra said.

"You are amazing sometimes.", Moyrt admitted.

"And don't forget it either."

To the east, a great ball of flame rose slowly as the force of its originating explosion reached and shook the small antechamber of The Forum's grand assembly room. Even as the cloud of boiling fire turned from bright white to dirty orange as it churned into and seemed to consume itself, twinkling particles sprang from its mass and cascaded back to earth like stars falling in slow motion.

Old eyes of dulled vision watched the majestic display that shed its aura of beauty only with the knowledge that this was the last of Tiresia's shield generators giving its fiery last gasp under the merciless advance of the invading Zentraedi.

Palsied hands with trembling fingers at the ends of thin and aged arms drifted over simple, unimpressive storage crates that held as their contents all the knowledge that would ever be salvaged from a dying world. Fingertips touched the inanimate with the same tenderness of grieving loss as would have been shown in touching a friend not expected to ever be seen again.

The ancient Tirolian, not a Robotech Master and therefore not the beneficiary of their monopoly on cloning and conscience transfer- but yet far more on in years than any common Tirolian would have expected to live in these times, felt through his body and heard through his remaining hearing ear the low passage of numerous pulse-jet powered aircraft. The skies were now open to the invaders and they were not hesitant to make use of them.

As the rumble of the first flights of Gnerl Fighter Pods subsided, ornate and antique vases that predated any of the root causes for this invasion, the invaders, or even The Robotech Masters themselves were left rattling on their bases in niche shelves in the walls of the antechamber. The vases and a number of free standing statues that had been saved from the vulgar and pointless act of looting had nearly settled from their quaking when the sound of a second group of approaching aircraft began to rise.

Amidst the noise and disturbances of the encroaching Zentraedi that now began to include the distant but distinct trudge of mechanized feet moving in mass on paving stones, the ancient Tirolian was still aware of the gentle opening of the antechamber door. Clutching at his senior statesman's robes to still the quaking of his own hands whose cause he could no longer distinguish between his infirmity and his rising despair, the elder turned to recognize the form in the door.

The figure in the doorway was as unassuming as the room's occupant was aged. Balding with the exception of a grey and white fringe of hair that matched his dense and flowing beard, the man in the doorway was shorter and rounder in his robes of a venerable statesman adorned with the sash of his scientific discipline. There was a silent and comfortable recognition between the two men as the newcomer entered with his hands folded into one another beneath the oversized cuffs of his robe sleeves.

The elder man lay his hand thoughtfully on one of the stacks of a dozen or more crates, piled four deep, in this most unlikely and last of Tirol's great libraries.

"-And to think, Darius-.", the elder man said, the tremors having migrated from his hands to his voice, "-It should come to this."

The rounder man, Darius, replied as he crossed the center of the room to touch the top of another stack of accumulated, catalogued, and securely archived knowledge, "The invaders are Zentraedi, without question, Quelin- they are brutes and likely have no interest in the library. If we act now, we could easily steal this all away through the passages of the sub-basements and out beyond the city through the sewers if necessary. I think that it would be a mistake to presume their intentions and destroy the wealth of our knowledge."

Quelin, the elder who had for years as the Primus of The Council of the Elders- smallest but most influential of the legislative organs in The Audience of The People that had returned if only as a symbol with the vacuum left by The Robotech Masters, had spoken often of two days in his tenure.

Optimistically and most often he had spoken of a time when Tiresia's population could stabilize itself and when mere survival would not fully occupy the time of the people. In these times, the carefully filled casks of knowledge could be opened again and their contents poured for all to taste. Eventually and with great labor, the population of Tiresia would be in a position to venture beyond the city limits to all the areas of Tirol with the purpose of returning to its people the knowledge whose flow had been strangled by The Robotech Masters.

Less frequently and in a darker state of mind, Quelin had spoken of events that might transpire that would regrettably necessitate the destruction of the same knowledge despite its implications to the Tirolian people. The blood of a culture, Quelin had often said, would be on the hands of The Robotech Masters, but even the certain extinction of Tirolian civilization was preferable to the possibility of further perversions of its knowledge and sciences.

All this had been grudgingly agreed to with nods and affirming noises in small groups and council sessions, though that agreement had never been overtly reached or ratified by parliamentary procedure.

In that same way, it had been understood among The Council of Elders what Quelin had meant a short time before this moment, when the last promises of successfully defending Tiresia had crumbled, what the Primus has meant when he had said that he was going to "see to the safety of the library". It could have meant nothing else as Quelin had departed the council's private chamber with the same gravity as a man looking for the rope he required to tie his own noose.

"No, Darius old friend- this needs to be done.", Quelin explained with the patience he might have shown in explaining a difficult moral choice to a favored grandchild, "Even if it is not our knowledge that the Zentraedi seek- they will leave little standing and no one alive in their wake. It is their way. If all that we know survives those whom we could trust to guard it or deliver it into worthy hands- then it could as easily be found by the scavengers who have always subsisted on the scraps of the Zentraedi. These are people who would apply our knowledge only for self-service. It is better that it never be applied at all."

Darius removed a vase from a niche whose painted exterior told n four merging panels the mythological tale of the new world's birth and growth from the decline and death of the old. Darius had picked the vase up at random, but in turning it over in his hands, it seemed completely appropriate to him at that moment.

"Then despite all your words of hope, you feel that this one event is cause to destroy all that our world has accomplished?"

Quelin made a feeble, apologetic gesture, "I do, old friend. As abhorrent a thing as we must do, it is still a small wrong to ensure a greater right. Please help me, we can work more quickly together."

Darius nodded, balancing the density and weight of the vase between his hands.

As Quelin turned toward a case of military thermal charges, Darius suddenly raised the vase above his own head and lunged at the elder.

Never having been a particularly physical man, and not having exerted himself in anything more strenuous than climbing stairs in years, Darius's attack was at best clumsy. Only Quelin's advanced age and arthritic joints allowed the Darius to land a heavy blow with the vase on the elder's right shoulder.

Quelin wailed in shock and pain as brittle bone disintigrated under dense ceramic driven by Darius's weight. The elder crumpled to the antechamber floor as his legs became entangled with one another in his own attempt to flee. Darius, having over-extended himself in the failed attempt to land a single, decisive blow, reeled his arms wildly to keep his balance while somehow managing to keep the heavy vase gripped at the handle in his right fist.

"Murder!", exclaimed Quelin, his voice hoarse and winded with pain and the effort to put himself back on his feet, "Darius, you've gone mad!"

Darius regained his sure footing as Quelin was beginning to summon strength of voice and stepped in close to the elder who was still bent on both knees and his uninjured arm. Darius raised the vase between both hands again, this time entering into the calculations the physical shortcomings of self he had discovered with his last attack. Pulse racing, breath coming in surging wheezes, and light-headed, Darius brought the vase down a second time with all his strength and felt it fracture with Quelin's skull.

Primus Quelin went flat on his belly, the air rushing from his lungs as Darius fell into a gasping heap beside him among the shards of the former cultural artifact.

Blood roared like a tempest in Darius's ears as his heart pounded with the sudden strain put on it. Despite his efforts, he was finding it difficult to slow his breathing which did not seem to bring enough air to his burning lungs despite their billowing labor. All the while Darius's chest grew tight and his head more faint. It was at the point where he expected a searing explosion of pain to burst in his chest and radiate through his body as a near-fatal attack some years before had when Darius found himself able to master his lungs once more.

Within several breaths, the panting and gasping he was certain were the heralds of his end had subsided to a mere gulping of air.

In a dozen more breaths, this too had moderated to only an exaggeration of normal breathing punctuated by the occasional wheeze.

Shocked by mortality, Darius had forgotten for a moment what had just transpired, but the sounds of mecha on the march which he took at first for footsteps in the hall outside the antechamber quickly brought him back to it. Darius took in what he had done; the limp form of Quelin in an expanding pool of his own green blood that darkened his white beard and hair as it flowed steadily outward.

Darius felt the twinge of fear at being discovered and listened intently through the syncopated tramp of the conquerors' mechanical feet to detect any signs that he was to be caught in the deed. There were none. Only the ragged and shallow breathing of the elder who despite a crushing blow to the skull refused to expire. In that moment, Darius became aware that he did not fear being caught in commission of the act, but rather being caught before the act could be completed.

Looking about, Darius found no vase fragment of sufficient size to land a killing blow and in a moment of clear, objective reasoning realized that had he found such a piece, wielding it might cause more than one death with the blow.

No, dirty deeds were best accepted as being dirty.

"I am sorry old friend-.", Darius said, not certain how sincere he actually sounded despite much practice at the tone.

He placed his knee in the small of Quelin's back as his right hand found a vase shard with a long fine edge. Taking a fistful of blood-matted hair into his left hand he lifted Quelin's head and upper body with surprising ease, pulling back until head, neck, and spine bowed outward like an archer's weapon tensed for the release.

"-A small wrong to do a greater right-.", Darius said quietly over the incoherent mumbles of the elder as he reached around and drew the vase shard through the flesh of Quelin's neck from just below the left ear. The warm trickle of blood dripped hotly over and between Darius's fingers as the elder's windpipe was split under the improvised blade with a horrific gurgling noise. As Darius reached the artery below the right ear and felt it severed with a thick spurt, he lost his grip on the shard and felt it slip from his fingers to fracture on the floor.

No matter- the tool was no longer needed.

Knee still in Quelin's back and with both fists now entwined in his hair, Darius rocked back and forth feeling the jerks, twitches, and the normal signs of life weaken.

Weaken…..

Weaken…

Stop.

Darius let Quelin's body drop from his grasp, landing with a heavy, wet sound in the accumulation of blood that had flowed through it only minutes before. The elder statesman's robes provided a convenient means of wiping away the worst of the deed's evidence from his hands before Darius again got to his feet.

The Tirolian, numbed slightly by his friend's grotesque expiration was nonetheless able to walk to the window past the objects of contention, and upon reaching it found the sensation prevailing within him to be one of invigoration.

Looking out through the window he found the plaza below to be filling with Zentraedi Regult Combat Pods- mustering in formation in a manner that gave no hint of concern at prospects of counterattack. This was a display of force being made by the undisputed victors of the day.

Glaug Officer's Pods marked and measured the ranks, giving orders by radio that Darius was not privileged to while squadrons of Gnerls filled the morning sky above in a near constant roar.

More than a display of the victors, Darius sensed he was looking upon a proud unit of warriors awaiting review and approval. Darius was certain their commander could not be far away or long in arriving with the speed of their preparations.

Soon it would it would be tested; whether his small wrong would give rise to the greater good Quelin was so often fond of speaking of.

The Grand Chamber of The Forum, the great rotunda that has been the scene of the most important debates and some of the central events of the Tirolian people now stood as it had stood mostly for generations- empty.

Stepped platforms that had seated councilmen for centuries had been stripped in a fraction of that time of the ornate tables and chairs that had adorned them- not for the value of the fixtures though, but for the wood's practical use as fuel in the winter months. The chamber walls, once ornate with inlay of precious metals, semi-precious stone, and hand crafted mosaic was now bare from similar looting but despite the injuries of depravity it had sustained over the recent generations, The Grand Chamber somehow managed to retain an air of stately dignity beneath the dome whose great arched windows were catching the first light of day.

Birds that had taken roost in the niches that had once been home to statues of statesmen and philosophers jostled in their nests with the unfamiliar sounds of low-flying aircraft. Their distraction worsened through perception that only instinctive creatures are privileged to, and in near unison, the birds exploded from their roosts in a fury of fluttering wings.

Frenzied escape was made through the paneless dome windows as the powerful whine of engines drowned out the sound of natural flight, and the thud of something massive coming to rest on the dome apex jarred the entire chamber.

Without warning, the dome's cupola imploded in a shower of fractured marble that rained heavily onto the center of the rotunda with the descent of the implosion's cause.. A Nacht Rau combat suit dropped to the floor at the center of the chamber, landing squarely and cushioning itself on articulated metal feet and flexed, artificially powerful knees. The brutish Nador rifle it carried swept over every doorway, recess, and shadow as did the opened launcher panels of its shoulder missile launchers- a clear challenge to any unlikely threat that might be lying in wait.

When the power armor had made a complete sweeping circle and found no response to its challenge, its launcher panels snapped shut and the muzzle of its rifle pointed down to the marble floor that had cracked into a spider web of fissures under the weight of the suit's landing.

The Nacht Rau stepped aside as again the chamber was filled with the sound of powerful engines and a second combat suit entered less dramatically. It rode to the floor on a cushion of vectored thrust that kicked up a cloud of dust until its feet accepted the suit's weight and the booster pack idled back to silence.

With the first Nacht Rau standing as a menacing sentry, the hatch of the second- that was the majority of the suit's chest from below the sensor eye to up between the bulk of the shoulder missile launchers- opened with the soft hum of its driving motors. Nestled snugly within the humanoid contours of the suit, the pilot's shoulder braces and harnesses released and allowed the warrior to emerge with the use of handholds and the experience of practice.

Booted feet, this time the pilot's own filled the rotunda with the echoes of a heavy thud as they contacted the floor. The collar coupling of pressurized flight suit was unlocked and the pilot removed her helmet with a thick cascade ebony hair. Grey eyes teeming with ambitious energy and set into a face of fine features in the palest blue studied the shadows as though they might see what the optical systems of her Nacht Rau had not.

There was nothing to be seen though- only an empty chamber in a city that embodied desolation.

The female warrior's expression darkened- not entirely as a result of disappointment, but that and a hint of indignation at some insult whose nature might not have been entirely clear to those witnessing it.

Her helmet slipped from her fingers and clattered to the chamber floor as the rotunda shook with the power of her voice:

"I seek The Robotech Masters!"

Silence replied to the warrior's demand, deepening the expression of indignation on her face.

"I feel you watching me.", the warrior said in perfect Tirolian instead of the expected Zentraedi dialect of the language, "Come out into the open, or I swear a warrior's oath that this city will be a pool of molten glass within the hour!"

The threat, though it had seemed to have been made to an abandoned structure, was successful in the intended response. The creak of a heavy door on deteriorating hinges was followed by short, cautious footsteps that in turn gave way to the appearance of an elderly Tirolian male in fraying and faded blue robes.

He entered the rising natural light of the rotunda with hands open and palms outward in demonstration of his peaceful motivations.

"I am Vetriano, Secundus to The Audience of The People, Council of The Elders. There are no Robotech Masters here- nor have there been for some time. With whom am I speaking, and what do you want of The Robotech Masters that you would violate The Directive of Exclusion-? Zentraedi presence- your presence is strictly forbidden here."

"Forbidden?"

At nearly eight times the size of the Tirolian elder, the Zentraedi warrior demonstrated incredible speed in snatching him off his feet with a single fluid motion. Other Tirolians, men and women whose attire spoke of their varying positions within the skeletal Audience of the People, had begun to emerge from points around the rotunda but hesitated now with this blatant sign of hostility.

"Do not speak to me as though I was norghil, Tirolian-.", the female warrior said in a tone as menacing as the growl of an angered wild dog, "I am Krymina, general and commander of the 7th Grand Army of the Te'Dak Tohl. I am the sting that gives The Masters' proclamations of what is forbidden weight-."

Vetriano's lungs labored for air within Krymina's constricting grip, rendering him incapable of reply or at the very least reserved in making it.

General Krymina loosened her grip slightly, "You said that The Robotech Masters have been gone for some time-. Tirol shows no signs of destruction other than what The Masters have caused- certainly not of Invid. Had they been threatened, we would have been summoned to their defense-. Where did they flee to, and why?"

Vetriano shook his head, "I do not know-. No one does. The preparations for their departure were as secret as their intentions to leave Tirol were unknown to the common classes. They simply gathered all that functioned, anything that was of use to them, and left. This was five years ago."

Krymina studied the small, flushed face of the head protruding from her grasp. She read elements of truth there, but not truth in its entirety. Something was being held back and Krymina sensed that the frail Tirolian's expression of fear had as much to do with her discovering the whole of the truth as it did with the means by which she might extract it from him.

"Fled? Fled from their seat of power without the slightest indication of an impending threat or the feeblest attempt to mitigate it?", Krymina replied incredulously, "You stink of deception, Tirolian-."

Vetriano cried out hoarsely as the air was squeezed from his lungs to the coincidental sound of joints and bones that popped loudly in Krymina's tightening grip. She held the pressure until Vetriano's face went deepgreen-blue before releasing it.

Air rushed back into the statesman's lungs between poorly managed groans of pain.

"What did The Masters fear so greatly that they would fly from the world where they enjoyed the greatest security?", Krymina asked, "And please don't think me a fool as to not know that this must have been a subject of educated and insightful speculation for those of you that The Masters left behind. The Masters have deserted you, abandoned you to waste away into nothing-. Why should you show them any greater loyalty?"

"We don't know…", Vetriano pleaded, his words now being echoed in various forms by the gathering members of the council, "Long before The Robotech Masters left Tirol, they severed all ties- all communications- with the common people. I haven't seen a Master in the flesh since I was a boy."

"-And I have been their slave since before-.", Krymina countered and then warned, "It would be extremely unwise to stand between us. Where have they gone?"

Vetriano shook his head and said as adamantly as before, "We don't know-."

"He's lying."

The two words, spoken in no greater volume than what would be expected in casual conversation still came across The Grand Chamber and over the voices of others as loudly as a cannon shot. Those who had been speaking in support of Vetriano's claims of ignorance gave a collective gasp at the undermining of their efforts and eyes searched in all directions to discover the traitor's identity.

Darius emerged from a service doorway whose back passages did not lend themselves to congregation and were therefore not often used by members of the council. He walked without fear and as briskly as his stubby legs would carry him out into the rotunda, stopping just short of Krymina's boot receiving additional attention as the bloodied fabric of his robes was noticed by peers. He looked up, through the sight of Vetriano's helplessness, at the Zentraedi who towered above him as though oblivious to their difference in size and the implications of this discrepancy.

"He's lying- in part.", Darius repeated.

"No!", Vetriano exclaimed in something between a plea and a command.

Darius's intent to explain was precluded by the muffled snapping of bone and the brief dying cries of Vetriano in Krymina's crushing grip. Coin-sized droplets of blood pattered loudly to the floor, dotting Darius in their fall, before Krymina tossed the broken body of the councilman aside without concern.

"He was lying-.", Darius said, correcting himself for verb tense.

With the same dexterity she had demonstrated in capturing Vetriano, Krymina scooped up Darius in the same gloved hand still wet with the first Tirolian's blood and other bodily fluids.

"And why should I expect you to be more forthcoming with the truth?", Krymina asked, putting emphatic pressure on Darius's plumper form, "How do I know this isn't just some self-sacrificing act to placate me and to get me to leave?"

Darius felt a great pressure through his face and particularly behind his eyes as the encompassing weight of Krymina's grip seemed to threaten to squeeze his innards up into his skull.

"You don't!", Darius grunted thickly, sounding far more desperate than he liked, "But if you kill me you'll never know just how close you were to getting exactly what you wanted!"

Amused at the Tirolian's attempt to haggle, Krymina laughed dryly, "And what makes you suspect that you can even begin to understand what I want?"

Darius was feeling faint now, the pressure on his chest not allowing air to move or blood to flow, but somehow he managed, "I don't- but short of immortality, I'm the one who can put it within your reach-! And without me, you will be dead within a year!"

Krymina's grip loosened and Darius felt life return with the proper settling of his organs into their place.

"I'll ignore that it sounded like you were threatening me long enough for you to explain yourself."

"The Robotech Masters were not running from a threat when they abandoned Tirol.", Darius said, "They were running to prevent a threat to their power. Zor's battle fortress has fallen into the possession of an alien race, and The Robotech Masters have gone to retrieve it because the Zentraedi failed to retrieve it for them."

Krymina snorted her distaste at a poorly rendered lie, "Nonsense. Zor's battle fortress was lost. He sent it into oblivion before he was killed by the Invid- to keep it out of the hands of The Robotech Masters."

"That is what you were told.", Darius countered, "An entire grand army under Supreme General Breetai was sent in pursuit of Zor's ship. He turned on The Masters and with his alien allies destroyed the majority of the warrior caste Zentraedi, including Supreme Commander Dolza. You were told that a massive Invid offensive effectively crippled both the Zentraedi and the Invid, and that there has been a lull in operations while both sides reconstitute. Does this sound familiar?"

An uneasiness- a cold discomfort that coiled about her spine and spread itself like groping fibers into her extremities filled Krymina. It was not the revelation of a lie, but it was her coming to understand how grand of a lie and how completely she had accepted it as truth that disquieted the Te'Dak Tohl general.

"And how would you have come into possession of this knowledge if it was so deftly hidden from the Te'Dak Tohl?"

Darius smiled coldly as one unafraid to show his superiority as he understood his advantage in the situation and the latitude it granted him.

"Because, enforcer, as you know better than anyone, The Robotech Masters can't bear to lower themselves to the position of doing their own work- until now at least. Even as they tried to segregate themselves as much as possible from the lower castes of Tirolians, they still required us on a basic level to continue to function. My function and that of dozens of my colleagues as geneticists and biomechanical engineers was to oversee the refinement and cloning of new bodies for them. In essence we were laying the stepping stones of immortality for them- engineering out the diseases and afflictions inherent in repetitive cloning, and in these duties we were trusted with the process of consciousness transfer from their failing bodies to their new ones. It was discovered in that transference that elements of the mind could be copied and partially interpreted- memory for instance. Much in the same way that you were conditioned and provided memory implants during your developmental gestation, we Tirolians who The Masters looked down upon as dullards were able to harvest their knowledge a piece at a time with each consciousness transference. We were discovered, mind you- but by the time The Masters became aware of what we had done, they were already intent on leaving Tirol and were sloppy in their purge of our ranks. I survived with a handful of others, and that is how I know what I know. That among many other things."

Krymina found her curiosity and her grasp of the possibilities suggested by the Tirolian to outweigh her disgust at his impudence- for the moment.

"And if The Masters were so gifted at deception as to have misled us for so long, why not simply send Te'Dak Tohl to retrieve the battle fortress? Disposing of rebellious or disloyal norghil is our function- a single race of aliens added to the equation would not likely alter the outcome."

Darius made a vague motion to all around him with the only portion of himself still ambulatory, his head, "Would you? Certainly your presence here despite the fact that it is strictly forbidden for Zentraedi- norghil or Te'Dak Tohl- to set foot on Tirol proves that you are as apt to independent thought and autonomous action as the warrior castes- and with superior intellect to give the threat a finer edge. Would you trust yourself to retrieve all that gives The Robotech Masters their power?"

Krymina gave Darius a squeeze to reassert herself, "Don't attempt to best me by bathing me in complements, Tirolian- you don't know my vanities well enough to sway me by them."

"And I don't have to.", Darius said as Krymina's grip eased with the making of her point, "You don't even have to like me, Zentraedi-. Your presence here tells me that you are at odds with The Robotech Masters. I don't care about the particulars- your willingness to trade blows with them is all that I needed to see to know that what I want most is best served by your success in whatever it is that you desire."

Krymina raised the scientist to eye level to study him much as she had with Vetriano, but finding in Darius's face the indications of a near single-minded sincerity, "And what is it that you want?"

Darius felt his gut twist. It was not a result of any injury inflicted by Krymina in her rough handling of him, or the side effects of so much physical activity in a regularly sedentary life. It was the twinge of admission- giving voice to craving all that he knew was wrong and admitting to motivations he'd kept bound tightly within him.

"I want revenge on The Masters, Zentraedi-.", Darius said fighting to prevent a hitch in his voice that could come from the way he felt his throat to be tightening, "I want revenge for a family taken from me. I survived The Masters' purge, you see- but they still found a way to make an example of me. A wife-. Children-. Grandchildren-. Nothing to them, but all that I had- taken from me in ways you could not imagine, Zentraedi. Ways you couldn't imagine-. They took everything of value from me, things you wouldn't understand- so I want to take the only thing they value from them- power. Whatever it is you seek, General Krymina, you won't achieve it so long as The Robotech Masters still have power which means that you must first strip them of it. My interests are therefore allied with yours."

Krymina nodded, "Our interests may be allied- but what do you offer me besides similar sentiment?"

"You've seen my robes- I've already committed myself to our similar goals, Zentraedi.", Darius said proudly, bordering on boastfully, "I can deliver into your hands the sum of a people's knowledge, and furthermore I can translate that knowledge into the tangible applications you will require to put an end to The Robotech Masters- and whatever beyond that you seek for yourself. I've demonstrated my sincerity in this offer with the life of a friend, and I'm stained by his blood as evidence."

Among the council members who had gathered, quiet whispers of disbelief had been growing persistently louder and more accusatory. At this circumventive explanation for his bloodied appearance, growing contempt became volatile with scathing curses slung at bold volume.

"Murdering bastard!"

More in response to the annoyance than in defense of the Tirolian, Krymina made a sweeping motion in the general direction of the assembled council.

"Kevtok-."

The pilot of the first Nacht Rau to have entered The Forum who had stood dutifully and silently in guard of his commander immediately took action in obedience to her intimation. Two thunderous steps that reverberated off the interior marble walls of The Grand Chamber were all that were required to scatter the mass of the morally indignant.

Action Commander Kevtok, commander of the Serhot Ran unit that had spearheaded the operation, had even raised his Nador rifle to fire a parting shot at the fleeing Tirolians- but in having paid close attention to the exchange between Krymina and Darius thought better of it and did not- uncertain of whether the Tirolian might require another of the group to deliver on his promises. Disbanding the Tirolians was sufficient for now.

"You claimed that I would be dead in a year if I did not accept your services-.", Krymina said to Darius, undistracted and able to resume the conversation, "Explain."

"You are aware of the condition known as The Withering?", Darius asked in a way that told Krymina he already knew the answer.

Of course he knew the answer- all familiar with the guarded secrets of the Te'Dak Tohl, as Krymina was certain Darius was, knew of The Withering. On rare occasions when units or individual warriors had been isolated from support and resupply for extended periods, they would begin to display a peculiar and uniform affliction. The disease began with a decline in physical dexterity and coordination, accompanied by tremors in the extremities that grew progressively worse. In cases where these warriors had been found in the affliction's advanced stages, those just prior to death's release- the afflicted were found to be paralyzed and incoherent with dementia. Death came soon thereafter as autonomic process of breathing failed and the diseased succumbed to asphyxiation.

All knew The Withering and feared it though these anxieties were never shared even in the quietest of whispered exchanges.

"What of it?", Krymina asked in response to Darius's question.

"The Robotech Masters have condemned you all to die by it- even if you do not yet know it."

Krymina was confident that years of self-discipline were helping her conceal the stab of panic that the words brought her, albeit brief, "How would The Masters hope to achieve that? We have no direct interaction. It is forbidden, as you have pointed out repeatedly."

"They don't need to interact with you directly.", Darius explained, "You were cursed at the moment of your creation. A genetic flaw in protein synthesis was inserted into the genetic code of all Te'Dak Tohl. It is compensated for by a supplement ingested through your food supply. Without this supplement, you experience The Withering and you die. The Masters need only communicate a simple instruction to the automated supply depots to cease production of this protein supplement. If they have not already, which I am certain they have, they would simply activate this failsafe mechanism at the first signs of a Te'Dak Tohl insurrection. You see, General Krymina- you may control the norghil for The Masters, but this is the way in which The Masters ensure control of you. –Unless, of course, someone like myself should synthesize the protein supplement for your direct consumption."

"And you have the knowledge to do this?", Krymina clarified.

"The knowledge and the inclination.", Darius assured her, "But I lack the facilities to produce it in any great quantity. I lack the facilities- but you can acquire them for me."

"For you?", Krymina asked suspicious at the choice of words.

Visibly embarrassed, Darius corrected himself, "For us. Please forgive me, General, but one of the unfortunate side-effects of having to plan in solitude is that one begins to think in very solitary terms. Shifting mental gears to include confidants takes some effort. Are we to be confidants, General Krymina?"

Krymina loosened her grip on the Tirolian and set him gently on his feet once again, "For now we will say that we are allies of convenience. You have said much, but offered little to support it. I don't trust you yet, but there is too much potential in what you say to pass on the possibility that it may be based in truth. That is our relationship as it stands, Tirolian."

"Darius.", the scientist corrected, "I will need the assistance of one other at least- to fill gaps in required skills and knowledge that I personally lack. Call me Darius, as calling the both of us Tirolian could become quite confusing."

Krymina felt a very slight, cold smile turn up the corners of her moth despite her best efforts. There was something familiar and oddly likable in the Tirolian's brazenness. Even at a fraction of her size and strength, he was unafraid to engage in willful struggle.

"Darius then.", Krymina agreed, "This world is dead and useless to me. I can depart at any time without consequence. You may require more preparation though-. How much time do you require to ready yourself to depart?"

Darius thought briefly before answering, "Two hours. To first gather the Tirolian archives, and then to locate my friend and collect a few personal effects that I will not be without."

"As you seem to have become a potentially valuable asset, you will have a Serhot Ran detachment to guard and assist you as needed. –Action Commander Kevtok, see to that detail personally."

"Yes, General.", Kevtok replied dutifully, "It will be done."

Krymina retrieved her helmet from where it had laid undisturbed. Before putting it on and mounting her combat suit, Krymina said finally to Darius, "Be here in two hours with the other Tirolian you need. You will then be transported to my flagship, and we will resume our dialogue. We have many things to discuss, I believe."

"It will be my pleasure.", Darius said cordially.

"Only if you prove to be as valuable as you boast, Tirolian."

Destroyer 741

There were elements of situational awareness that could neither be captured nor conveyed by technology.

A case in point and one that was the focal point of Commander Pach's attention was the reading of the 417th Army's disposition with the tools at hand.

From the command bubble wherein he stood, Pach monitored the ship's tactical display that provided him a visual representation of the situational facts as perceived by his ship's sensor systems: vessel positions, classification, course, speed, and other such details upon query. This view of the operational area told Pach that the female 417th Army was standing mostly idle beyond the gravitational reach of Tammus 7 while General Alzyha's 604th Army maintained a high equatorial orbit while recovery of ground units to the fleet were being concluded.

Two Zentraedi fleets with a gulf of over 100,000 artohls between them, and both apparently engaged in routine activity. This is what the tactical display conveyed to Commander Pach.

Pach's interpretation of the situation conveyed by sensors and holographic projectors as the 4234th Destroyer Squadron ran a standard screening pattern with four other destroyer squadrons between the 604th and the 417th Armies was more subjective.

True, the females had arrived at a critical moment in battle with the resources needed to secure a Zentraedi victory and with as few friendly fire "incidents" as could be expected in a gender-homogeneous force, but the signs of mutually beneficial effort died quickly after the last of the Invid.

The male and female forces had separated as completely as oil and water and without physical principles to explain the cause. In Pach's limited experience with the females, this had always been the case. For his own part, the females had always had a disquieting aura about them whose origin and exact nature Pach could never define. Perhaps this was felt by other males about the females and conversely by the females towards them. This was a plausible explanation as to why both sides were apt to keep a distance from the other as though one side might contract a space-borne contagion from the other with proximity.

Still, as little practical insight as Pach had on the females he was able to surmise that they must have felt similarly about males, for the females too were running a destroyer screen mirroring the males in both strength ad positioning. In a further thoughtful moment that lacked application, Pach considered that a female destroyer commander might be looking at the tactical display on her own bridge and be having similar thoughts.

Situational awareness after all was in part guessing at another's thoughts for therein lay the seed of intention.

"Lord", Sub-Commander Dychi said, sounding apologetic at having apparently interrupted his superior's contemplative moment, "We are two minutes from the end of this patrol circuit leg. Flight operations has confirmed that the last of our transports has lifted off and will be in position to rendezvous with us at the end of our return leg-. Barring of course some unforeseen event."

"Thank you, Dychi.", Pach said unperturbed at the interruption. Speculation on any topic, the females included, was a healthy exercise for the mind unless it was allowed to spin out of control. The mind had a way of filling in gaps left by fact and observation, and the filler was as prone to be inaccurate as it was to be correct. For this reason Pach was selective in what he would allow himself to speculate freely on and to what extent It was to him and his perception of things that crucial decisions fell, and the best choice required a balance of what he knew and what he suspected.

"If you will pardon me, Lord- you are suspicious of the females' motives in being here?", Dychi asked as he joined his superior at the front of the command bubble in study of the same tactical display.

Pach turned the question back on his executive officer, "What do you think? What would you say if I had asked you that same question?"

Unprepared for the reversal, Dychi nonetheless thought a moment before saying, "They have given up a significant tactical advantage by not striking while we were engaged with the Invid. Their posture is now unnecessarily defensive, suggesting they overestimate our strength, are suspicious of our intentions towards them, or a mixture of both."

Pach nodded his approval, "Good analysis, but what do you think?"

Dychi hunted for a good answer and when nothing promising materialized, replied, "I don't know."

The executive officer was clearly surprised as Pach said, "Neither do I. All we can do is guess, and if I have suspicions it is a suspicion that the females are guessing about us too. There's so much mistrust-. So, we put on our best display of defense and agree to cooperate- but at a safe distance from one another. It's maddening if you think about it too long- absolutely maddening."

"It is the way we are.", Dychi offered in the way of explanation, "But perhaps General Alzyha and General Bohen will come to some agreement that will ease the tensions-."

Pach made a doubtful sound and replied, "Agreements between commanders cannot correct flaws in our selves, Dychi. We alone are accountable for those as with the repair of any flaw. Flaws are weaknesses, remember- and weaknesses can be exploited for our harm. We can't afford exploitable weaknesses in these times, Dychi. Too much rides on our shoulders for Zentraedi to be guarding against Zentraedi."

Dychi looked at his superior, then at the tactical display, and then back at his commander, asking only then, "Are we looking at the same screen, because I didn't get all of that."

Pach's deep laugh filled the command bubble for several seconds. Dychi was very strict with himself still at presenting a reserved appearance, but on rare occasions elements of intelligent humor peeked through the cracks.

As tempting as it was to set down the burdens of command, Duty demanded Pach's attention to be on the situation at hand which was to say to act defensively. Defense, in fact had been very near to if not at the front of Pach's mind since before the initiation of the final assault on the Tammus 7 Invid Hive- though not in a direction that many would have suspected.

"What activity has there been between Sylas and the other commanders?", Pach asked.

Dychi answered directly, "Minimal communications, Lord- coded or otherwise- on subspace frequencies. It is possible that they have been communicating by laser lamp, which would make our monitoring effort more difficult-."

Pach shook his head having known Sylas long enough to dismiss Dychi's hypothesis, "No-. No, the moment's gone and Sylas knows it. He will lay low and wait for his next opportunity. Have our communications staff continue to monitor, but I doubt they will intercept anything beyond the routine."

"Yes, Lord.", Dychi complied, then added, "With our supply situation being as dire as it is, Lord- would it not follow that General Alzyha must set as a priority locating a source of resupply?"

"That would follow.", Pach agreed.

"And with that would come a repair and refit of the Fleet's vessels?", Dychi continued.

"Assuming an automated factory can be located, yes."

"Wouldn't these elements combined in essence knock the foundation of Commander Sylas's discontent with Action Commander Gymalt out from under him? Would the issue not be resolved?"

"Now you know how I came to my thoughts on the females, Dychi.", Pach said seeing the parallel.

"Lord?"

"To answer your question though- the issue would be moot, but not are much like Invid, I think- if they're not rooted out completely they will always come back. In the best case scenario, we will have more time."

Without warning the door to the command bubble opened and Pach did not have to even glance back to know it was Gerrok.

How the chief engineer consistently managed to get past the posted guard was a source of great curiosity to the commanding officer who assumed that the guards had rightly recognized the futility of standing in the way of The Chief.

"Gerrok-.", Pach said in salutation.

Sounding lost in his own thought, Gerrok replied, "Pach-. –And speaking of redundant components, Sub-Commander-."

Pach interjected himself before Gerrok could stray from the grey areas of insubordination to clearer ones, "You have something for me, Gerrok?"

"Damage report-.", Gerrok replied waving a memory slate. He noticed the object of the senior officers' attention, the densely populated tactical display, and with mild interest asked, "Who are they and where did they come from?"

"Females.", Pach said, "-And I haven't a clue. You're not quite up to speed on current events, are you Gerrok?"

The engineer shrugged without hint of apology, "Well, if I didn't spend all my time keeping this ship from coming apart at the seams, I might have more time-. But I figure you like my energy applied as it is."

"True.", Pach agreed, Gerrok's abrasive persona barely registering with him, "Should I read the long version or would you-. Never mind, I know you want to give me the short version."

Gerrok blinked, "The spoken word carries more emphasis."

"-With some speakers more than others.", Dychi added- humor peeking through again.

Gerrok ignored the executive officer the way one might ignore a squeak in a deck plate that could not be remedied, but spoke directly to Pach, "Direct battle damage is minimal- but, strain on the power and propulsion systems have increased the defects in the reactor's primary cooling loop and Number Two Engine's compression coils."

Pach's expression tightened with concern, "How serious of an increase?"

Dispassionately, Gerrok replied, "Well, testing of coolant samples from the reactor shows a fifteen percent increase in protoculture contamination-. That's a sizable spike- but still within operational specifications."

Dychi observed, "But increased contamination of the cooling loop will cause a low level reflex reaction in the coolant medium- reducing the effectiveness of the system-."

"Really?", Gerrok asked, walking again the line of insubordination, "I'm glad you were observant enough to catch that and tell us-."

"Gerrok.", Pach said, reining in the engineer, "More about the ship, if you please?"

"As I was saying-.", Gerrok said, firing off a lethal glare at the executive officer, "For now we can compensate for the reduced efficiency of the primary cooling system with the secondary- but the situation will continue to deteriorate and judging by the spike between this last sample and the previous one it will deteriorate rapidly. Then there's the cascade effect as more strain is put on the bio-ethereal energy reclamation system, which will then of course-."

Pach raised his hand, cutting Gerrok short, "I think we understand. How long can we rely on nominal output from the reactor?"

"Nominal use?", Gerrok speculated, "The better part of a season- maybe. Under the strain of combat operations?- Then it's a matter of what level of strain, but you can safely assume halving my estimate."

"That isn't promising.", Dychi said to Pach, not wanting to make himself a target for Gerrok again. Unfortunately for the executive officer, the engineer had kept him locked squarely in his sights awaiting the opportunity to fire another verbal salvo.

"I admire your grasp of the obvious, Sub-Commander.", Gerrok said dryly.

"What of Number Two Engine?", Pach asked.

Gerrok abandoned his second favorite pursuit for his first, "The problem is simple enough- the coils sustained minor damage when the power regulators from the primary transformers were damaged five or six battles ago. Fixing the regulators was easy enough, but the damage to the coils having been done, and with the engines under constant use-."

"-Cascading deterioration-.", Pach said, completing Gerrok's statement.

"Right.", Gerrok affirmed, "As painful as it is to admit, there's only so much I can do to patch and mend. What we really need is to dry-dock for a proper refit."

"Can the reactor handle a fold-jump?", Pach asked.

"To a factory?", Gerrok asked hopefully.

"That decision isn't mine to make, but Dychi and I were just speculating on the short list of other options General Alzyha has available to him. We'll see. Can the ship make the jump though?"

"How far is the jump?", Gerrok asked.

"I couldn't say."

"Then neither can I.", Gerrok said bluntly, "It's a simple mathematical equation- so poor information in means poor information out. Sorry."

"No fault of yours, Gerrok.", Pach assured him, "It will come down to a simple yes or no answer. Do what you can to work the numbers in our favor though."

"I always do.", Gerrok said without shame of hubris, "Though I'm reaching the end of what thrift and ingenuity can do for us."

"Understood."

Gerrok nodded toward the ship's tactical display suspended in hologram over the command deck, "What about the females? Do you think there might be an opportunity for trade?"

Pach was hesitant, recalling the conversation he and Dychi had been having before the engineer's arrival, "That's not immediately promising."

Gerrok snorted indignantly, "Then what good are they to us?"

Pach considered the question before answering, "I'd say that's something that General Alzyha will be finding out."

Two warriors pushing a heavy load cart reached the end of the journey they had already made scores of times this day. At one end of the circuit was one of Destroyer 741's Re-Entry Transport Pods that had been making recovery runs to a predetermined extraction point on the surface of Tammus 7 marginally longer than the two warriors and a dozen other teams like them had been at their task. The transports departed the ship empty, returned full, and unloaded before repeating the process.

The "unloading" activity could have been divided into two well defined categories: the first being the unloading or disembarkation of those who could do so themselves. Into this category fell infantry still armed and carrying the full gear of battle, or mounted warriors in their mecha or power armor that were serviceable or had the potential of being repaired or their components salvaged.

This category was further sub-divided into those warriors unscathed by battle, and those wounded who could walk off the transports to seek treatment in the ship's infirmary.

The other category consisted of those warriors who could not disembark from the transports themselves and who were of the subcategories of dead and dying.

Those of the latter subcategory were given some consideration- assisted or carried off the transports to an area of the deck where they were grouped with others in a similar condition to await transfer by litter-bearers to the infirmary, or to join the ranks of the former subcategory. Most would join the ranks of the dead, the limited facilities of the ship's infirmary giving priority to those strong enough to seek its aide.

It was an understood fact of the life that a warrior led. Death came to all, but in favoring the strong to preserve the strength of all, death would come to fewer. Those whom Fate chose to preserve would live, and those whom Fate chose to take would die. It was understood that this selection process was best to be respected as intervention was an act of futility.

The two warriors pushing the heavy load cart were stewards of the dead whom Fate had not taken outright in battle and upon whom had reserved judgment until they had gained passage on a transport off of the surface of Tammus 7. Laid side-by-side, two deep along the entire length of the cart, the dead were shuttled with as much reverence as any non-functional piece of equipment or unsalvageable mecha to an airlock at the side of the hangar bay compartment where they joined the heap.

"We were at the head of the final assault on the Invid Hive-.", Hedra muttered in disbelief and sounding weary but not to the point where he was unable to skillfully exaggerate his deeds of the day, "-And still we draw this detail!"

Koso, stripped similarly to the waist as Hedra to prevent the profusion of blood and gore that had already stained their trousers with the execution of their task from also ruining their duty tunics watched as the two warriors tumbled more bodies sloppily from their cart onto the deck and replied, "Better on the disposal detail than one of the disposed."

Hedra paused to scratch at his left forearm where drying blood was causing a terrible itch before joining Koso in moving another body by the wrists and ankles onto a neater stack within the airlock, "You see, there you go again, Koso- taking the thrust out of a perfectly good gripe."

Koso held the dead warrior's arm up to allow the supervising officer to scan the identification code stenciled on the armor with an inventory tracking device. The officer, a lieutenant who looked as thrilled to be assigned to his task as Hedra and Koso were to theirs showed no sign that he was even aware of the conversation between the two warriors, let alone care about its subject.

Koso replied as the new warrior, Ulstiik, he had selected for the squad (the only warrior of those he had selected that he was aware had survived the battle) carried the body of a slain warrior equal in size to Koso across the inner airlock threshold over his shoulder and deposited it in its place in the line of the dead.

"You get your satisfaction from the griping, I get mine from providing perspective. We make an effective pair."

"But why us?", Hedra asked, refusing to surrender a perfectly good gripe.

Koso motioned to the dead, "Because they can't dispose of themselves?"

"There you go again."

Koso stepped aside as Ulstik, having in the time of the last exchange between he and Hedra returned to the pile of bodies on the deck to pick up another, now crossed the airlock threshold again to add once more to that pile. Three other pairs of warriors beside Koso and Hedra, weary from the day's battle and hours of the disposal detail watched also as the new warrior worked tirelessly.

Koso had seen this in newly Awakened warriors before- their unchecked willingness to work themselves past exhaustion at even the most trivial task. To them, it was simply obeying an order as they were conditioned to and Koso remembered the mindset.

Koso tapped Ulstik at the elbow, halting him as he emerged from the airlock's inner door track again.

"Hey, save a few for everyone else too- got it?"

Understanding the instruction but puzzled by it clearly, Ulstik merely nodded and said, "Yes."

The supervising lieutenant gave Koso a discouraging look that the warrior ignored. Voiced disapproval was apparently too much effort for the offense of slowing Ulstik's impressive productivity at his task- but then again, so was actually joining in the disposal process to hasten it along.

"You should let him work.", Hedra advised, only in very small part to recognizing the lieutenant's disapproval, "We need to get all the work we can out of the fresh ones-. It could be him on the pile next time."

"Let him keep the pace he's been working and it could be him on the pile this time.", Koso countered, "Me- I want that kind of energy applied to killing Invid, not him killing himself."

Hedra joined Koso at the pile of bodies on the flight deck and tried to be inconspicuous about locating a smaller corpse to bear.

"I see your point- but if he chooses to work himself to death, he chooses to work himself to death. Just as long as he drops on that pile."

"That's one hundred.", the lieutenant said as another pair of warriors deposited another body on the stack within the airlock.

More than an observation, the junior officer's statement had a number of related meanings to the disposal detail. The pair that had delivered the final body to the lot of 100 were quick to cross the inner lock threshold back into the transport hangar bay.

Barely waiting for them to clear the inner door track, the lieutenant glanced into the airlock to verify that only the dead remained within before closing the interior lock. When the inner doors were secured, the lieutenant pressed first one button that opened the outer lock doors, and then a second that deactivated the cold plasma field that was the final barrier to the void.

A muffled boom of decompression thudded slightly against the inner airlock doors and sent a soft shudder through the deck under the feet of the disposal detail. A moment later when the doors opened again, the outer doors were shut and the compartment was empty. The only evidence of the gristly task for which the airlock was being used were the streaks of blue-green blood on the interior walls where it had splattered at the moment of explosive decompression.

None of the detail paid much notice to this though as the first body of a new pile was laid in place on the deck of the airlock's interior.

Pritan Cardun

Protocol provided a framework of events for the greeting of General Bohen of the 417th Army and her staff by General Alzyha and his.

The envoys of the female army, sixteen in all, had arrived promptly at the rendezvous point in two shuttles at the agreed time where four squadrons of Alzyha's finest Gnerl pilots provided escort back to the flagship of the 604th Army. These, of course, augmented the defense provided by Bohen's two Gnerl and two Quadrano squadrons that had accompanied the shuttles from her own vessel.

The flight from the rendezvous point to Pritan Cardun was best characterized as rigidly formal in its textbook execution, as had been General Alzyha's reception of the emissary party on the flagship's main shuttle deck.

Pleasantries between Bohen and Alzyha about topics as mundane as the admirable proficiency of each other's escorting squadrons in the act of formation flying to admiring comments (an innocently back-handed complements really) from General Bohen on the maintenance and appearance of Pritan Cardun had seen the combined party of officers safely to the senior officers' mess before deserting them.

There was nothing in or about the senior officers' mess that provided an easy segue into a conversation to break the silence that had befallen the two generals and their staffs. The chamber aboard Pritan Cardun was identical to that aboard Bohen's flagship, and similar to all other mess rooms aboard either ship with the exception that its seating capacity was far smaller and the bench seating at the long metal tables provided for the warrior grades was in the senior officers' mess replaced with individual, padded seats. The dark grey of the deck plates was the same, as were was the shade of the walls that were three tones lighter. Pipes and wire trunks ran through the open ceiling between the same number of light fixtures that cast a glare on all that was familiar to the visiting party.

Nourishment and refreshment did provide a welcome hiatus from the obligation on both sides to find a topic of common interest to discuss. A male officer could have conceivably asked how the ga'rhat- the nutrient paste rationed to warriors and officers alike- was aboard the female vessels, but there was no reason to suspect that it was any different than that expelled from the nozzles of the nutrient dispensers aboard male ships. This was not to say that ga'rhat was unpalatable- it wasn't. Available in any one of six savory and three sweet flavors, a warrior was rationed up to four ample servings a day that provided the carefully measured balance of calories in proteins and carbohydrates required by the consumer along with appropriate quantities of vitamins and minerals regardless of the flavor selected. This, along with unlimited rations of y'hoyt, a hot beverage in one of four flavors infused with a generous quantity of a low-grade stimulant, the mess facilities of a Zentraedi warship were adequate for supporting the nutritional needs of its crew- they were just nothing worthy of conversation.

The last element that precluded casual discourse was perhaps more the fault of The Robotech Masters than of the Zentraedi whom they created. Diplomacy, as a social function was almost exactly that- equal parts social and function. Provided with minimal conditioning for the former except where it served their function as The Robotech Masters' military instrument, social frameworks and normal interactions could vary widely from army to army and even from ship to ship. Finding conversational common ground that did not involve the military arts was an act of skilled diplomacy, and by design not a strength of either gender of the Zentraedi.

Diplomacy was a function The Robotech Masters had retained for themselves, and a little employed function at that.

These factors were unconsidered by the two parties at the table in the senior officers' mess, though even if they had the capacity to take them into account, it would have made no difference in filling the conversational void. Small talk about anything but the occupation of either party having failed, it was Sub-General Khyea of General Bohen's command, seated across the table from Sub-General Syron of Alzyha's for her equivalent position was first to break the silence with her counterpart.

"Sub-General, your scars speak of participation in many battles.", Khyea observed, being the bearer of a combat history in scar tissue herself, "Which campaigns do they speak of particularly?"

"Too many to recount.", Syron replied. Having been caught off guard by the sudden break in silence, and further set off balance by the break being a question directed at him, it was not until he felt the weight of Alzyha's gaze- expectant that he stimulate dialogue between the two commands- that Syron replied, "The one that is from the fiercest battle- the seventh for the large north continent on D'Hel-Nega Four in the Chriklos Campaign is the least significant-."

Syron raised his right arm to expose his wrist from beneath his tunic sleeve. A ridge of skin, a shade darker than his base complexion extended the width of the back of his wrist along the cuff-line of his tunic.

"I don't even know if the shot came from an Invid or one of my own warriors-.", Syron mused with a hint of humor found in some detail of the story that he had not disclosed, "I would like to think it was Invid-."

A tempered chuckle from officers on both the male and female sides of the table told Syron that others around him had experienced similar moments, but more importantly that he was obeying Alzyha's unspoken direction.

"I too was at that battle- on the third day.", Khyea said, amused but clearly content that the story she had to tell was more captivating than Syron's, "I was an action commander then- leading a reinforced mechanized artillery unit with a Quadrano detachment supplementing our numbers."

"Arsoi's Ridge-.", Sub-General Brenik ventured, some detail of Khyea's telling of the story making the connection in his mind.

"Whelka's Ridge-.", the female sub-general corrected, asserting the female position in an often heated dispute from veterans of the battle as to what weight the commanders of a male and a female regimental unit exerted in taking a tactically advantageous ridge garrisoned heavily with Invid.

Male proponents argued that the regiment of their gender, while sustaining heavier casualties had achieved all but the last details of taking the ridge with the use of only heavy infantry.

Female advocates asserted correctly that it was the efforts of their regiment's Regult Artillery Pods that were instrumental in reducing the ridgeline sufficiently to allow the Quadranos to decisively enter the fray.

The debate for those who knew of the battle could with the right participants become nearly as fearsome as the battle itself and for this reason the subject was not often broached in mixed company.

But Syron had broached the subject, even if unintentionally, and Khyea would have her say, "An improvised attack at best on a position that should have been identified and prioritized from the onset. –But an example that the genders can collaborate effectively when called upon to do so."

Syron, taken aback and his attention arrested at the criticism of a battle plan that he had some part in developing, replied, "Clearly you forget that the operational plan had called for drawing the Invid into contact on the plains- not moving to become bogged down in an attempt to take and hold the highlands."

"Until Invid reinforcements changed the operational plan.", countered Khyea, calmly but firm with the support of history on her side.

"An unexpected occurrence, to be sure, but-.", Syron continued to argue.

"-But I believe the lesson of overarching importance from that battle is that male and female units were able to achieve cohesion in the pursuit of a common objective.", General Bohen said, telling Alzyha in doing so that she was as anxious as he to keep the conversation moving in the direction of productivity.

"-Which is of course is an ability that is increasingly critical in these times."

"I agree completely.", General Alzyha said firmly, in essence ending any doubt within the senior officers of the 604th as to what path the commanding general intended to place them on in relation to the females. It was said, and it was done.

"Though I think I speak for all at this table when I say that there is a certain lack of clarity in our understanding of what the situation is- in a larger sense. General Bohen has demonstrated good faith in supporting the final phase of our campaign, and in soliciting this meeting- so I will reciprocate by putting on the table what I know of the state of the war with the Invid. What I am about to say is known to some at this table, and will be new information to others. For what I am about to say, and for whatever General Bohen will contribute in turn- I remind all that we must consider ourselves to be the keepers of secrets. Function of our respective commands depends in no small part on the unshakable faith of the warriors beneath us in an intact command structure with a vision and a plan for the conduct of the war with the Invid."

"That being said-.", Alzyha continued, pausing for only a moment with the slightest hint of reservation, "Communication at the very highest levels with the High Command has been non-existent for some time now- since the early stages of the 604th's campaign at least. Sub-General Brenik and I had speculated on the possibility that the loss of communication with the higher chain of command was the result of some sort of factional insurrection. I no longer support this theory however, as a factional contest for power would require the solicitation of support for either side. There has been none."

"Message fragments we have intercepted through The Network raise the alternate possibility that I find more disquieting, yet am forced to acknowledge as increasingly likely: the possibility that a well planned and executed Invid offensive was successful in swiftly decapitating the command structure. Diminished Invid strength encountered by our army in this campaign could be indicative of forces being drawn elsewhere for just such an offensive. We have no way of being certain."

"What I do know is that this command has not received a single response to a scheduled report, inquiry, or request for resupply even with a priority designation. In short, we stand at the conclusion of the duty assigned to us with no acknowledgement of its completion or follow-on instructions in preparation for our next assignment. We can occupy our warriors with routine for only so long, but if we do not set ourselves on a course of action soon they will begin to suspect that the inevitable rumors that will spread are true."

"This is what I know."

If General Alzyha had appeared hesitant in the least at the onset of his revelations, General Bohen came across as equally relieved- even if it was at the disclosure of her peer's unenviable position.

"We too have been unsuccessful in contacting any element of the High Command- male or female.", Bohen said and continued on to explain, "Our greatest concern had been that the sudden cease in communication was the outcome of a purging of the female elements from the male dominated upper echelons of The Empire. Our fear was that the female armies were in the process of being eradicated and that a material schism had formed. The fact that we too were not being resupplied or issued operational orders bore this out to some extent- but the total lack of response from any element of the High Command left a small margin for doubt. Now having heard General Alzyha disclose the similar communications and logistical difficulties experienced by the 604th, I am content that our initial concerns were unfounded. This does, however, present us as commanders with a wide range of equally troubling possibilities as to what is happening in The Empire."

A silence, thick with unease, had filled the senior officers' mess as uniformly as the regulated atmosphere. To some degree all at the table both male and female had known elements of what both Alzyha and Bohen had just openly divulged- though this knowledge had been quietly owned and guarded.

Something in the saying of it had made it suddenly concrete, and it its solidity that much more ominous.

As host of the meeting of the commands, and equaled in rank only by General Bohen, it would have been Alzyha's place to solicit a verbal response from any of the others at the table. He did not though as to do so would have been unnecessary. The silence was far more articulate than spoken words could have hoped to be, and had Alzyha opened the table to free discussion he would have found silence to prevail. It was his place by virtue of chain of command, the lack of any above being apparent, to decide on the prudent course of action for the 604th at least.

"We must prioritize our necessities.", Alzyha resolved, "Speaking for my command, our first priority is the necessity for repair of our vessels, resupply of our stores, and replacement of losses from this campaign. We are not in a condition at this time to seek answers to what has happened to The High Command, nor would we be at an adequate state of readiness to combat the enemy if the worst case scenario was realized. We must locate an automated factory and put in. The time required to turn-around the fleet and reconstitute will also provide time to contact other army commanders through The Network and gain what information they might possess."

"I concur.", Bohen said as readily as if she and her counterpart were agreeing on a navigational course and not an operational one, "The 417th also is running low on critical supplies and is in need of logistical attention. I would further assert that until we can conclusively rule out an Invid or other hostile's involvement in what is taking place that we present a more formidable force together than we do individually. We are stronger cooperating."

"Comments?", Alzyha asked of all around him.

Sub-General Syron whose mind had great dexterity in matters both tactical and strategic was already thinking forward and compelled to ask, "Let us say for a moment that whether it be Invid or another hostile force that we discover that The Empire has indeed been decapitated. What are we to do then? We are forbidden from approaching the home world of The Robotech Masters- but only The High Command is even granted the ability to contact them directly. At the very least we would have to commit a serious breech of protocol to even confer with The Robotech Masters on the strategy to reconstruct The Empire- which while good-intentioned still invites serious repercussions for us by strict application of the law."

"You are implying that The Robotech Masters are unaware of what has occurred.", said Sub-General Sonlil, Bohen's executive officer. She continued, "Assuming that The High Command reports and interacts with The Robotech Masters as we do with The High Command, I cannot believe that the void has gone unnoticed. It is entirely possible that some effort to recreate an upper command structure is already in action."

"But we don't know that and should not assume it.", Syron countered, "I agree with both General Alzyha and General Bohen on their selected course of action-. I would suggest however expanding upon it by not merely using The Network to contact other commands, but to use it to rally them to us. If two armies united present a formidable force, ten united will make a stronger impression on any foe we might have to face."

"An argument to be considered, certainly.", Sub-General Brenik said, "-But consider how the merging of many armies may look to The Robotech Masters-. Will they look upon that as an attempt by us to forge our own empire- a usurpation of their authority? And for that matter, as we have already agreed upon setting the precedent of a joint force composed of both genders, who will have overall command when armies besides the 604th and the 417th become attached? If by rank or experience a clear leader does not appear what then? Decide by a game of chance? And even should a leader clearly emerge, we all know that there are commanders of both genders who will not be governed by an officer of the other gender- regardless of their rank or experience, and certainly not in dictating operations unsanctioned by The Robotech Masters."

General Alzyha dammed the flood of the hypothetical with a motion of his hand, saying, "Your points are valid, Brenik, and it only demonstrates more clearly that the path ahead is at best unclear. We will overcome obstacles as we come to them, but it is imperative that we do it together. Our first priority is to locate and arrange a rendezvous with an automated factory- we agree upon that. My command staff will have that task. General Bohen, can you agree that when a factory has been located and we have met that the facilities and its resources should be applied equally to the repair and replenishment of our armies?"

"I can.", Bohen said, "Though I have some concerns about male and female units occupying the facility simultaneously. It could lead to- friction."

"An understandable concern.", Alzyha granted, "But as we may be operating jointly for some time, it also may be best to test whether males and females can coexist and cooperate for extended periods when combat is not in progress."

"I'm forced to agree with that too.", Bohen conceded.

"Then I can say confidently that we have accomplished much here.", Alzyha said, clearly pleased- more so even than Bohen whose request it had been for a meeting of the commands, "We shall maintain open lines of communication at the levels represented at this table as appropriate- but for now, I suggest no lower. Some work will be required to prepare our warriors for interaction, but disciplined coexistence is critical. Enough said-. We all have tasks to attend to. This meeting is concluded."

Destroyer 741

"This is worse than the mess we left behind.", Hedra grunted, his voice thick with disgust, "At least the ones we attended to were quiet."

With that observation, Koso witnessed again Hedra's limitless ability to not only state the obvious, but to find a way of making it somehow broadly offensive. His offense against common sensibilities was not so great as the offense of the sight in the corridors leading to the infirmary against the senses. While callused, Hedra's observation in its entirety had not been inaccurate.

The deck seethed with the motion of the wounded whose exhaustion from the pain of their injuries had long since stripped them of the ability to silently manage it. As the wounded inevitably did, these were constantly shifting their body positions in vain attempt to find one that would ease their suffering. If there was a benefit to their agonies, Koso suspected that it might be that their discomfort might cancel out their ability to notice the sickening odor that always hung about the battle inured. Thick and cloying, the stench of burnt flesh, infection, drying blood and the soiling of the wounded invaded the nostrils maliciously.

"If he's here, we need to find him.", Koso said, reminding Hedra of why they were voluntarily exposing themselves to the shame of these broken warriors.

Hedra, unlike Ulstik who had followed the two senior warriors to the infirmary with the stoic silence of the uninitiated much the way he had followed them into battle on Tammus 7, said as his boot came away tacky with coagulating blood from the deck, "If he's here he'll either return to the barracks soon, or leave the ship the same way we've been seeing all day."

Koso felt an infrequent but not unfamiliar urge to knock out Hedra's front teeth, but instead dedicated himself to studying each pain-wracked face as he passed it to be certain that he did not miss the one for which he was looking.

There was also a degree of urgency to find the particular warrior they sought before he was serviced by the med-techs assigned the task of offering the wounded a release from Duty.

Koso found one such pair of med-techs to be working their way along the line of wounded toward him, but still some forty warriors away. Though he had not said so, Koso could tell that Ulstik had seen the pair as well bearing the kit of their grim task. Koso could feel the novice warrior's curiosity and his urge to ask, and was grateful that the ritual performed by the med-techs was solicited by a severely burned warrior before he had to voice an explanation.

Words that could not be heard at a distance over the sounds of the wounded were exchanged between the solicitor and the providers of the desired service. While one med-tech scanned the burned warrior's identification code, the other went into the kit he carried and produced a simple metal vial that was opened and handed to the wounded. Before any eyes, Ulstik's included, that were watching the vial's contents were swallowed by the burned warrior whose body slumped almost immediately into a lifeless peace.

Koso found a deep-rooted revulsion in the whole concept and practice of The Ritual of Release, whose origin he could not place. When he forced himself to consider the practice in principle, which was infrequently, he found that most of the distaste he felt came from the perversion of forcing a warrior wounded in Service of The Empire and of The Robotech Masters to beg as a piteous thing for an end to his suffering.

On the field of battle, a warrior would think nothing of shooting in the head a comrade stricken with a wound from which there was no chance of recovery. Koso had seen it done countless times, and had performed the service of mercy himself almost as many. In the field it was done expediently and with a measure of dignity- unlike the services of the med-techs. Perhaps the point was a cautionary lesson to all that observed that failure in combat in the name of The Robotech Masters was punishable by a shameful, pleading death- regardless of the circumstances.

A further thought that Koso even at his worst knew could not be spoken was that if The Robotech Masters had been able to devise a way to extend the stigma of The Ritual of Release onto the battlefield they would have. Fortunately, Koso felt, The Masters were more indifferent than malevolent to their servants- which was fortunate for Koso as he had resolved for himself long ago that he'd put the muzzle of his weapon to his own head before he forced a stricken warrior to beg to have it put to his.

A detail akin to the one that he, Hedra, and Ulstik had been part of on the transport hangar deck quickly gathered the body of the burned warrior and trundled it away like scavengers on a field after combat. And so the burden on the infirmary's modest abilities and resources was lightened by one. Supply was conserved by lessening of demand.

In his preoccupation of thought, Koso nearly did not recognize the face he had come to the infirmary searching for. Recognition did take, and it hit the warrior hard as he nearly tripped over his own feet at the arresting appearance of Lieutenant Golan.

The platoon lieutenant to whom Hedra as sub-lieutenant and subordinate sat propped in such a way against the corridor wall as to suggest he'd originally been sitting upright. Strength had ebbed in the time spent awaiting the attention of the infirmary and with the loss of blood from deep lacerations to the face, neck, and chest that were too numerous to easily count. So disfigured was the left side of Golan's face that Koso needed the spark of recognition in his lieutenant's sole, remaining right eye to assure him that he had indeed found his superior.

The rumor passed on to Koso in the barracks by another warrior that his lieutenant was in the infirmary had made no mention of his dire condition which was not a state that Koso had wanted to find him in. Had he only come across him on the field-. A single shot could have provided a fitting end to a warrior who had taken notice of he and Hedra's potential when they had been novice warriors and Golan a sub-lieutenant. Unlike the common indifference shown to untested warriors, Golan had chosen to build upon what he had sensed in them, contributing in no small part to their early survival Koso knew.

Had he only found Golan on the field-. Koso felt that injustice bang about his insides with its barbed edges. Had he only found him on the field, a fitting end would have cost only the energy of a single rifle shot.

Ensuring a dignified death to even the most revered warriors was a secondary concern on the battlefield to exterminating Invid though, and as a result an honored leader would languish and likely meet his end on the deck outside of a ship's infirmary.

"There's nothing to be said, Warrior Koso.", Golan said thickly- the blood loss clearly having taken its toll on the officer's normally impressive strength, but not yet his mind. He spoke in response to something communicative in Koso's expression, explaining further, "Fate chose to favor an Invid over me this time- that is all that happened."

Golan's words did not ease the invisible, sharp-edged instrument that was sawing its way through Koso's gut as he stood helpless before his dying leader. Had he found him unconscious or delirious with shock it would have been easier to dismiss him as a thing like the bodies left on the field.

His words resounded of the Golan Koso had known though- seeing first to the needs of his warriors before his own. It was a strong and courageous mind that was trapped in and would be lost to a damaged body.

"How many others?", Golan asked.

"The rest of the platoon returned, Lord.", Koso said- lying with care to conceal the fact that he had no idea exactly how many warriors under Golan's command had actually returned from Tammus 7. This was a measure of comfort that Koso could offer Golan who would never be the wiser if it did in fact turn out to be false.

Golan nodded, his head coming to rest by the chin on his chest rather than return fully upright. He was weakening quickly.

"Good.", Golan said, and along a line of thought that had clearly been occupying his mind for some time the lieutenant continued, "Agaria fell before I was wounded- so Hedra, you are likely to lead the platoon-."

"Yes, Lord.", Hedra replied.

Koso had forgotten that Hedra and Ulstik were with him and Golan's recognition of the sub-lieutenant only deepened the wound felt by Koso in seeing the clarity of thought still there.

"Between the two of you, you can reconstitute the platoon with capable warriors. You have the instinct to identify them for the drawing-. So many details-."

"We will see to it, Lord.", Hedra assured the lieutenant sounding more soothing than Koso took him to be capable of.

"I know.", Golan said.

Golan made a beckoning motion with his hand that drew the practitioners of The Ritual- or perhaps it was an affirmative response to an offer made by the med-techs that Koso did not see in his focused state. It took no great combat experience or conditioning as a medical technician for a warrior to identify among the wounded who would live and who was simply taking up deck space awaiting death. In the latter case, med-techs assigned to the distasteful task of The Ritual had been known to approach the dying which removed some of the sting of shame from the recipient of their services as it was then more akin to being relieved of Duty's responsibilities rather than seeking release from them.

The distinction may have been felt most profoundly by the dying- which did nothing for Koso as he stood without words, fists clenched with increasing tightness.

"Fate is being kind, Koso-.", Golan said to the warrior, observing even in his condition Koso's clear reaction as the first of the two med-techs scanned Golan's identification code and the other removed a vial of oblivion from his case.

"It has put me onto this path, but given me a split in ways to choose from. I choose to go by my will- not fading to the act of an Invid. All warriors should be so fortunate."

Koso could find no response that encompassed the thoughts whirling around the inside of his skull, so he simply stood back and allowed the med-techs to move in on Golan.

"What is your request, Warrior?"

The Ritual- not a conditioned element of the warrior's being, nor a procedure to be found committed to the written word anywhere, but yet known and familiar to all who had Fate's favor to survive more than a handful of battles was being repeated- and surely not for the last time this day.

"I seek Release from Duty.", Golan said with the determination still in his voice that Koso and Hedra had become accustomed to in the execution of countless operations.

"I have failed in my Service to The Empire and to The Robotech Masters, and am no longer worthy or functional as a Warrior. I beg forgiveness and mercy."

"You are granted release.", said the med-tech in a fashion that lacked meaning from the untold number of times it had been repeated, giving the words an automatic or mechanical quality.

The vial cap was removed and the vessel handed to the platoon lieutenant who swallowed its contents without pretense or further ceremony.

Still, nothing came to Koso to say in the seconds the poison took to work. The moment and opportunity was lost with a shudder that swept through Golan's body before he went limp and settled into the support of the deck and the corridor wall.

The disposal detail, prudently never far behind the med-techs was upon the shell of the lieutenant before the vial which had rolled from his lifeless fingers had come to a stop against his leg.

Koso was gone, retreating back the way from which he, Hedra, and Ulstik had come before the disposal detail had lifted Golan from the deck. If he heard his friend calling after him, he made no sign but rather chose to punish the approach to the infirmary for the facility's impotence by striking the corridor wall with enough force for it to reverberate dully amidst the sounds of the wounded and dying.

Tiresia

Philisto paced slow circles around the dry fountain in the courtyard of a large dwelling that had once been his home. Every quality that had made it more than a structure of rooms and walls had long since gone- no smells of the kitchen or blooming garden, no more familiar voices calling through halls and chambers, and no sound of the young preoccupied with the activities of growing up. Still, when the weather allowed old joints to move without pain outside, Philisto still liked to come here and with the right frame of mind he could almost call those elements back.

Almost.

It was a cruel irony Philisto grudgingly accepted that the dulling effects of age on memory that had taken away the fine details of his wife's face and the gentle, floral fragrances she preferred to wear allowed to remain the now useless volumes of academics that he could still conjure so easily from the library of his mind.

Decay of memory was robbing him of his last grip on home as surely as the decay of masonry and wood was robbing him of the house where it had once resided. Even if this had not been the case, Darius's visit- an occasion that would have been considered happy when this place had been a home- had robbed him of any solace he may have normally found in this place.

"How can you even come here to ask me that, Darius?", Philisto stammered. Even two years ago, he could have summoned great fire of emotion to spew against the friend who stood in his courtyard entranceway. In the past months though, age had been at him voraciously and he found his blood had cooled. Still, even if his blood now lacked fire, Philisto could still put an edge to his words.

"In the place where your grandchildren played with mine, you come to ask me to participate in so- vulgar- a thing? You have clearly forgotten me, my old friend! You stand there a murderer and ask me to do that-?!"

The full light of morning was warming the autumn air now, and birds that would soon migrate to tropical climates jostled beneath the eves of the house at the contentious voices of the men in the courtyard.

Darius strode out across the mosaic tile into the light, his hands folded before him over his robes that had begun to stiffen with the drying blood of the Primus.

"If I did anything, Philisto, I simply concluded a murder committed by The Robotech Masters years ago."

Darius's voice was sympathetic to his friend whose doorstep he had appeared on in an admittedly horrific state. Philisto had always been more passive than Darius and while capable of great vision had consistently shown no belly for taking the bold steps often required to achieve a vision. If one more instance of coddling and hand-holding in a lifetime of it was what was required for Darius to ease Philisto's mind and sway him to his vision- it was a small price to pay on a day whose bill had already surpassed what was acceptable in polite society.

"They killed him the same way they are slowly killing all of Tirol, and it is painful but not inappropriate to remind you of that here. You've always chosen to avoid the uncomfortable- the distasteful- Philisto, but we no longer have that luxury. The best and only chance we will ever have to stop The Robotech Masters from doing to other worlds what they've done to ours is presenting itself- now. We're obligated to-."

Philisto thrust a gnarled finger blotchy with liver spots at Darius, snapping, "This has nothing to do with obligation, or stopping The Robotech Masters- or anything decent, Darius…. This is about revenge that you feel entitled to for your loss! Nothing more!"

Darius nodded, accepting the accusation as a statement of the obvious, "I do want revenge. I deserve revenge. My family- your family deserves revenge. I can say that without reservation."

Philisto looked in horror at a face he'd seen transform over a lifetime, "I've always known that the years have seen you change, but you are not the man I've known."

"I'm not.", admitted Darius, "But what would you do? Quelin's vision was ludicrous! Gather our knowledge like coins from a fountain, and then one day when Tirol was ready redistributes it to the people like welfare?! And when was this going to happen? Those who could even make sense of the half of it are either old as you and I or already dead! And when was the last time you, or I, or anyone taught a single lesson or passed on a single stitch of knowledge to the young? No, if Quelin had had his way, generations of knowledge would have rotted in crates waiting for a day that won't come."

Philisto regained some of his composure, countering, "So, instead the correct path is to enable The Masters' favorite brutes with it? Their very presence here, Darius, says that their hunger for vengeance equals your own- but they lack any sense of moderation. They won't stop- ever! You will have only replaced one terror with another."

"Oh, I think they will stop- eventually and with your help.", Darius assured Philisto with vague darkness, "Once they have ground The Robotech Masters into dust."

Philisto shook his head, "I don't even want to attempt to imagine what you mean by that, Darius. I will have no part in it- that's my answer."

Darius stood in closer to his friend, his face still serine but with a cold menace just below the surface, "And what's the alternative? Wait for another enemy of The Robotech Masters to appear and do the same? An enemy we won't have even the slightest influence over? No- this is the way. A brief time of unspeakable violence, admittedly- but then an end to it. Or, do you prefer to allow The Masters to rebuild? -To leave countless other old men wandering pointlessly in silent, empty courtyards?"

The statement thrust deeply into Philisto who in the surge of emotion it caused was still not so foolish as to allow it to sway him.

"You should leave now."

"I am leaving.", Darius replied, "I'm leaving this world today, but I'm taking all that remains of us with me. This world may rot, but something will survive of it. If no one else has the will to act, then I'll take on that burden myself. You know my intentions now, but ask yourself this-. If you remain behind to dawdle about until Death takes you, how will you be sure? How will you be sure of anything? How will you be sure that I was good to my word, or that the self-indulgent reign of The Masters was in fact coming to an end? On your death bed, will you be able to shrug those questions off with some watery notion about faith? I will know."

Action Commander Kevtok stood at the foot of the broad steps to The Forum's grand entrance whose doors that would have towered above any Tirolian standing beside them had their archways just higher than the giant Zentraedi's line of sight.

Kevtok was too engrossed with his responsibilities as ranking operations officer in the action zone to give much attention to the aesthetic qualities of the world built by the race that had given life to his own many generations before his time, or to the fragile, reduced scale in which it had been built. This was not to say that Kevtok did not notice the details of architectural design and ornamentation that had served a function for the dead race of this world that was as alien to the action commander as any world's landscape. He had noticed and had as quickly realized that as immense of an investment as The Robotech Masters had made in the creation, grooming, and support of the Zentraedi- they had not bestowed upon their servants anything that was more than merely functional.

This was hardly a point to lament though. In simplicity and functionality there was the foundation for endurance.

In his short time on Tirol and in Tiresia, Kevtok had found himself feeling an odd form of camaraderie with some of the decaying structures he had seen. Likened to the "empire" The Robotech Masters supposed control over, their internal frames- the Zentraedi, he, was the construction's strength. Decorative application, something akin to what little The Robotech Masters contributed, was built upon this strength.

Kevtok was also keen enough to notice that the ornate aspects of any construction fell away long before its underlying strength gave out.

An objective lesson that The Robotech Masters may have overlooked- but one that Kevtok was happy to assist them in learning.

Functional simplicity did have its drawback of requiring first and foremost that all performed their function. Action Commander Kevtok's function, even in the midst of countless fascinating sights and corporal elements of an unknown history was to oversee the trailing end of occupation operations for the 7th Grand Army of the Te'Dak Tohl.

Companies of Regult Combat Pods that had exploited the breeches in the city's defenses opened by Kevtok's own Serhot Ran units and had rushed to The Forum were now collapsing back through the city to extraction points beyond its outer fringes. Even now, a steady cycle could be seen of Re-Entry Transports arriving empty and departing full to ferry the victorious warriors back to the Fleet that held unchallenged control of orbit above.

By nightfall, the only evidence that the Te'Dak Tohl had been to Tiresia would be the crushed shell of the shameful excuse for defense the city had presented to invasion.

Still, Kevtok's mind was not entirely preoccupied with the task of withdrawing from the city, or with the safeguarding of the small stack of storage crates by his left boot that any warrior could have easily carried in the palm of their hand.

Kevtok's Nacht Rau stood idle on the plaza, a dozen paces away. The action commander had shed its protection in favor of the pleasant autumn air that carried across the plaza in small gusts. Hours of occupation had not seen so much as a stone thrown by an indignant Tirolian- certainly no threat requiring the safety offered by the combat suit.

There was also the element of self-indulgence that Kevtok was not above taking for himself. Soon this world would be left behind and he would be confined to the compartments and corridors of a warship. If he did not take this moment to sample the crisp autumn air now, Kevtok knew that at some point when breathing the recycled atmosphere of a Zentraedi vessel that always tasted synthetic to him- he would regret the lost opportunity.

Like many things, enjoyable moments were not provided for Zentraedi- so they had to be recognized and taken independently.

The heavy step of two Nacht Rau could not go unnoticed by Action Commander Kevtok as they approached. He had been expecting his subordinates though, and Kevtok's only displeasure in their prompt reporting was that he now had to abandon his distraction of the weather for Duty.

"Lieutenants Moyrt and Hyra reporting as ordered, Lord.", came the salutation from the female officer of the two.

Kevtok turned to face the two and considered inviting them to also indulge in a brief escape from their mechanical imprisonment, but then decided against it given the importance of the assignment he was about to issue them.

"Yes.", Kevtok said, acknowledging his summons of the two, "No activity along the perimeter, I take it?"

"None, Lord.", Hyra responded, "The Tirolians had little fight in them to begin with, they have less now. We could keep this city with a platoon of warriors carrying side arms if we wanted."

Kevtok had expected as much. He suspected that the Tirolians with any spine to them at all had died in the collapse of Tiresia's defenses, meeting his Serhot Ran in hopelessly outclassed Bioroids. They had at least met an honorable end. The population that remained would cower in dens and dark places like vermin until the Te'Dak Tohl abandoned the city before carrying on the business of rotting into extinction.

"As appealingly symbolic as that would be, General Krymina has other employment in mind for our warriors.", Kevtok said, "The first step of which begins with the assignment I'm about to give you."

"Of course, Lord.", Moyrt said, "We stand ready to obey."

"Shortly-.", Kevtok explained, issuing his orders in a casual manner only because of his familiarity with the two recipients, "-a Tirolian- perhaps two- will return to this position. They will be transported by Regult, along with these Tirolian cargo cases to the primary extraction point north of the city. Your assignment will be to escort that Regult to the extraction point with your combined platoons, see it safely onto a transport, and escort it back to the flagship."

"Yes, Lord.", Hyra replied immediately, though her voice had a tone of questioning to it.

Kevtok's voice grew stern, "Lieutenants, I cannot overstate the importance of seeing that Regult safely back to the command ship. The assignment may seem trivial, but General Krymina has given it her highest priority and trusted me to personally select the units who will execute it. I am coming to you."

"And we are honored, Lord.", Moyrt said, his voice too hinting at confusion.

"No questions then.", Kevtok said, "I expect flawless execution of my orders. The importance of your assignment will become clearer later. Understood?"

"Yes, Lord.", was the response of both junior officers.

A breeze carried over the plaza, causing Kevtok to yearn for a moment that some event would arise that would necessitate remaining for just a short while longer. It would not happen though, so dwelling on the thought was pointless.

"I understand you collapsed a building onto a shield generator node.", Kevtok said feeling that the proper sense of urgency in the assignment of the two lieutenants had been instilled and that another subject could be pursued in conversation.

"That's correct, Lord.", Hyra said.

"It sort of slid into the node actually, Lord.", Moyrt corrected for accuracy.

"Still-.", Kevtok continued, unfazed at the correction, "-An impressive display of resourcefulness that probably saved the lives of at least a few warriors. I look forward to reviewing your action summaries on the matter."

"We will see that they meet your expectations, Lord.", Moyrt said.

"Lord?", Hyra said, inserting herself, "Would these be the Tirolians you spoke of?"

Kevtok half-turned to glance over his shoulder before turning fully.

The Tirolian who had insolently demanded to be addressed as Darius was approaching from the west side of The Forum carrying a crude and half-filled bundle over his shoulder. A second Tirolian, every bit as physically unimpressive as Darius, only in a taller and frailer way, accompanied him with more substantial bundles of personal belongings in tow on a two-wheeled hand cart.

"You return early.", Kevtok said to Darius, "This other one and the things you carry are all that you require?"

Darius stopped just short of Kevtok's boot toe, set down his bundle, and in a winded voice replied, "There are the contents of those cases, and what I carry. This world has nothing more to offer. We are prepared to depart."

Kevtok saw more reservation in the face of Darius's companion, but did not feel compelled to seek its explanation or to provide time for the possibility of a sudden outburst of sentimentality from either for the world they would be leaving behind forever.

"Very well then.", Kevtok said, "These are two of my finest officers-. They are charged with seeing you safely transported to General Krymina's command ship. I will warn you, Tirolian- for your own good- that General Krymina was in earnest when she said that your continued survival goes step in step with your value to her."

Darius was unaffected, and replied unthreatened, "And I was completely serious when I said that your continued survival is step in step with my own. But the fact that we hold each other by the throat does not mean that we cannot be civil, Zentraedi. I think our cooperation will be mutually beneficial."

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