[...]

Sanae sat down on the shrine porch, leaned to a pillar and tried to relax her shoulders. It was way past sundown, the day was long and stupid, a whole day of fruitless effort and negative conversations.

The more Sanae traveled around Gensokyo, the more plausible became the theory of aliens already infiltrating all layers of society. She wasn't challenged to a spell card duel again, but neither did she receive support, any support.

"Nope, no alliances. If I'm gonna plunder the alien ship, I'm gonna do it alone," Marisa said.

"Um... I sure would like to study their technology, but destroying them for that? No, no, of course not," Nitori said, shaking her head.

"Destroy the ship? No way. I still haven't finished my first set, there are plenty of photos to take. Alien ship in clear sunset, alien ship in morning fog, alien ship eaten by Rumia, have to really play with perspective there."

And after Aya's refusal, Sanae lost all energy to continue. She returned back to the mountain shrine, and was now sourly awaiting her punishment.

She heard footsteps, and a moment later she was hit on the head, lightly, but unpleasantly enough.

"Ow!"

"That's what you get for recklessly spending faith! Pain!" Suwako punctuated, menacingly leaning over Sanae so their eyes would meet.

Sanae rubbed her head. "Sorry."

The tiny goddess circled Sanae, not breaking eye contact the entire time, and stopped in front of her, hands on hips. She didn't look as energetic as usual, as if she lost some color from her frog-encrusted dress, and the eyed had looked tired.

"Apology accepted," Suwako said and tapped her foot. "But next time I won't take a hit for you, and the faith drain will cause your body to crumble, instantly turning to pudding. Which reminds me."

She circled Sanae again and went back into the shrine. Sanae rubbed her head one more time and sighed. Suwako was of course joking, but there was unpleasant truth to that joke. The dragon miracle was so grand it drained from the shrine, and Kanako would surely be upset.

There were footsteps again, then they stopped, and Sanae tensed up inside. She slowly turned her head and saw Kanako towering over her, staring her down, the mirror at her chest stained and dull.

"I am very disappointed," Kanako said.

Sanae stumbled at the response. "But I... you shouldn't be, I did everything right! I overreached, yes, but..."

Sanae felt tears coming, and feverishly fought them back, blinking. She did everything right! She was right! No one should judge her, and definitely not Kanako! She approved of this!

Kanako's gaze softened, she sat down next to Sanae and held her hand. "Now, don't cry. You're a big girl, so don't. Sorry I snapped, Suwako kept drilling my head over this, so-"

"I'm not… crying," Sanae said, wiping her face with the sleeve. "Something got in my eye, that's it."

"Shh..."

"Don't shh me, I'm fine! Everything is just great! I want, for once, to be useful to Gensokyo, to be the hero, to save the day from the horrible skeletal aliens, but no one would listen to me! Not Reimu, not Keine, not even you! You are all blind!"

Kanako didn't respond, the pause stretched and turned into silence. Sanae slowly calmed down, and Kanako gave her a slight smirk.

"You know, there is always an easy way to become a hero," Kanako said. "You only need to do something heroic and die immediately afterwards. Instant posthumous gratification."

"Right," Sanae said with sarcasm. "That would surely work. Only with the local judge of the dead, I'd rather stay alive. I'd rather be an army commander, directing my loyal soldiers to death and glory."

"Until the first real death, and then you suddenly discover you are no longer able to stand the silence, with all the screams at the back of your mind."

Sanae sighed. Kanako was right of course, she has seen and participated in real wars, gods and mortals fighting and dying on both sides, but it was still not that easy to discard the whole idea. To give up, to accept that aliens could be looked upon as other creatures, that was not something that could be done on a whim. And yet...

"What should I do then?" Sanae asked. "If not soldiers... oh, I know! You'll just ask Okuu, she will listen to you. With the power of nuclear fusion, the alien ship will be gone in no time! Oh, and Suwako will rally the curse gods..."

Now it was Kanako's turn to sigh. She patted Sanae on the head and stood up. "I will not do it, and neither will Suwako."

"No? But-"

"Ask yourself, what do you want? Is it death and devastation, aliens burning in raw plasma? Or is it a flawless victory, a no-casualty victory, the victory Reimu always achieves?"

Sanae pouted. "I'm better than Reimu."

"Exactly. You are a better, superior priestess, you will achieve more. Meet with their leader, forge an alliance, convert them to our faith. How does that sound to you?"

"And think fast, or there won't be any pudding left!" Suwako shouted from the kitchen.

"I..."

Sanae paused. She has already gone through this, with her attitude towards youkai, from a desire of extermination to grudging acceptance, to real acceptance, but aliens, especially such ugly, inhuman aliens were beyond the line of acceptance. She would have to shift the line again, overcome herself again, and prove once again that she was indeed a superior shrine maiden.

"I will do it," Sanae said.

"Then I will arrange the meeting. Let's get inside and take a look at that laser injury of yours."

Kanako helped Sanae stand up, and they went into the shrine, to discuss the details of alien indoctrination and pudding composition.

[...]

The more Khalid spent on the ship, the more aware he became of the corruption of the launch program and the insanity of the cryptek who went along with it. If he didn't know better, he'd consider it a deliberate sabotage.

The cryptek repaired Khalid's body in a dirty and malfunctioning recovery pod, the ceiling constantly leaking with nanite oil. He didn't keep silent, instead he exploited Khalid's inability to move as an excuse for a lengthy lecture on the organics and their customs, and waved around a scribbled sheet of paper, a request for negotiations the natives sent. He even dared to connect the portable language processor to Khalid's voice modulator without permission, insisting that the possibility of communication should always remain open.

And the response to the order of reactivating the heavy destroyer legions was another hololithic window with reactor power distribution. When Khalid didn't believe the graph, the mechanoid led him to the cargo compartment for a firsthand look.

The stasis pods of destroyers were not properly arranged, they were stacked together and jammed into stacks, rows upon rows of interconnected massive coffins. Literally interconnected too, since all stasis chambers comprised a single unit, plugged directly to the central energy grid. No wonder the ship was nearly destroyed by the asteroids, with such a massive power distribution flaw like that.

"Do you see it now?" Khalid asked. "What is the purpose of "Aeon Apex" if it lacks the reactor power to reactivate its primary war asset?"

"I suppose we were meant to connect to another fleet ship for that," the cryptek said. He was standing a bit to the side of the door, dully surveying the coffins.

"You suppose," Khalid spit. "What about logic? Wouldn't it be logical to split them into dedicated stasis chambers, on a better, more suitable transport? Wouldn't it be logical for a raider ship to be outfitted for raider purposes, with fast vehicles and mobile troops?"

"Mine is not the station to question the launch program. I am still to wait forty two thousand-"

"Shut up. Close the door," Khalid barked. The cryptek obeyed, and Khalid again had to wait to let his anger drain away.

He almost screamed when the cargo bay door stuck three quarters the way down.

"Does anything on this ship work?" Khalid hissed.

"The hydraulics suffered the most during a triple asteroid impact seven thousand three hundred and twenty cycles ago."

Khalid didn't feel the need to respond. The door moved again, clanged shut, and cryptek opened a hololithic chart, checking the grid connection and sending a drone for proper repairs.

"I need my army," Khalid said. "Awaken the warriors, the deathmarks, give me control over your spyders, scarabs, wraiths, everything. I will trample these savages into dirt."

The cryptek's eyes flared up, and he gave Khalid an honest insolent glare.

"Shall I modify the engrams of my lord too, so he would be a slave to your petty ambitions, praetorian? You will have nothing you asked for."

The cryptek was ready for an attack, but Khalid still was faster, knocking the staff of his opponent to the side and pinning the feeble mechanoid to the wall, the two prongs of his weapon closing around the skeletal neck.

"Have you forgotten your station?" Khalid mockingly asked. "Have you forgotten the codes of Necrontyr?"

"Have you succumbed to destroyer curse?" the cryptek asked back. "My lord would not approve of meaningless genocide, and I shall not allow it. It's bad enough I am ordered to destroy the ecosystem of such a unique and beautiful world."

The eyes of the cryptek returned to their usual, dull and flickering state. Khalid still held him to the wall, contemplating whether he should power the weapon up and finally destroy this fool, as he should have done a few times already.

The arrival of a coiling wraith helped him make the decision. He pulled his weapon back, and the cryptek instinctively checked his neck and released a sound akin of a cough.

"Don't you dare compare me to those pitiful things," Khalid said, pointing at the door behind which the destroyers slept. "I am to leave behind me a legacy of order and glory, not an empty scorched void."

"Then negotiate and educate the natives. Show them the wonders of our technology, elevate them to our level of understanding. Start with their leader, invite her to our ship, show her-"

"Technology!" Khalid loudly scoffed, cutting the cryptek off. "Everywhere I go, technology is all I see, malfunctioning, neglected, corrupted, corroded beyond recognition. What will I show her here? The faulty hydraulics? You, a redundant addition to the automated repair systems?"

"I am not-"

The blast from Khalid's staff hit the cryptek square in the chest, melting through the ribcage, mechanical organs, spine and halfway through the wall behind. The mechanoid collapsed, emergency systems trying in vain to repair the catastrophic damage.

Khalid reached down and pulled the cryptek up by the chin, allowing him to see the wraith that was half-phased into the wall, still tinkering with the door mechanism, oblivious to everything but the programmed task.

"I've seen hundreds of your kind, hundreds. You are always scheming, hiding your weakness behind an illusion that you are irreplaceable. Everything you do, everything you are, all of it was automated shortly after the biotransference. You are nothing but a liability."

Khalid stood up and fired once more, melting the rest of cryptek's torso and head, the cascading energy of the weapon specifically designed to disrupt and slow down the reanimation protocols and phase-out procedures. It would not be enough of course, even the weakest of crypteks knew plenty of survival tricks, but it would do for now.

The glow faded, and stray scarabs started to gather around the body, preparing to break now useless scrap into energy to be used elsewhere, just as billions of them would soon surge out of the ship, devouring and processing all organics in their path.

"But you are right," Khalid said to the crumbling remains. "I should kill Sanae next."

[...]