Chapter 61

"An Unkindness"

She turned, transformed, and took to the air in the shape of a dragon. Invicta had said south. Hawkmoon propelled herself forth with a beat of her wings and dove down the mountainside, exulting in the feeling of wind cutting across her frame.

She rose up as the ground rushed to meet her and glided into the open sky. Being there raised her spark pulse but she hadn't a choice. Hawkmoon scanned the Garden below until she found fading traces of body heat and followed it along. Adria had made it some distance; she was already most of the way down to the fields and stood poised above one of the mazes's passageways. A cluster of local Vex must have seemingly noticed her and, bold fool that she was, she'd greeted them with gunfire. The Vex had instinctively reacted in kind and forced her into cover behind a fallen pillar gripped by cutting roots.

Hawkmoon descended on the scene. She aimed for the Vex first - crashing down on a trio of Goblins, shredding a teleporting Hobgoblin between her fangs, and with a whip of her tail she brought a portion of the maze wall down to cut off another converging patrol. Their indignant screams filled the air. Hawkmoon ignored them in favour of turning Adria's way - and when her human self looked as if she were about to run, Hawkmoon pounced. The lunge was calculated, knocking Adria down onto the grass and softly pressing a claw across her middle to pin her there. She swore and took aim with her auto rifle, but the barrage of Void bolts had nothing on her sidearm and splashed uselessly against Hawkmoon's shield.

"Enough!" Hawkmoon growled. "I told you to wait."

Adria froze. She stared up at Hawkmoon's head. "That's not-"

Hawkmoon released her and transformed on the spot. "Yeah. It's me."

The human's expression hardened. "Fuck. You."

"She told you."

"Go fuck yourself." Adria stood up and dusted herself off. "I don't need your help."

"Really? Because you seem a little lost to me."

"I know the way back."

"Right, 'course you do. Back where?"

Adria glared up at her. "Home."

Hawkmoon shook her helm. "There's no home here. The New Pacific Arcology doesn't even exist yet."

"This is a Vex installation. I'll find a way."

"It doesn't work like that. We're operating on my history - which, right now, is probably human pre-history."

"I have to get back. You don't understand-"

"This is about Vaudren, isn't it? Vaudren and Benni."

Adria's expression turned stony. "Don't you dare say their names."

"Why not? She was my wife, he was my kid." Hawkmoon transformed a carbine and fired on the Vex as they rounded the pile of rubble. Adria flinched at the noise. "You won't find them, captain."

"I have to."

"Are you fucking deaf? You won't find them. It's impossible-"

"Don't you talk to me about impossible." Adria pointed at her with an accusing finger. "You... you."

"Yeah, me." Hawkmoon's servo shot out and closed around Adria. She kicked and roared, she tried to bring her rifle around but Hawkmoon held just tightly enough to completely restrict her movements. "Seriously, enough. The moment you step outside you're dead-"

"I have to find them!" Adria yelled. Her eyes glimmered with angry tears. "I have to. I'm not... I'm not. I'm not."

"Not a simulation?"

Adria stopped struggling. Her expression became lax. The fight in her just... died. "I'm... I am a simulation."

"A Vex simulation," Hawkmoon clarified, her tone softening, "which means they built you outta real flesh and blood."

"I don't want..." Adria looked up at her. She looked so sad. "How did they die?"

"... I don't know," Hawkmoon admitted. "I don't remember."

"You don't?"

"Becoming an Exo took a lot of things from me. From us. I don't even remember dad's face."

"But you remember mom's?"

Hawkmoon grimaced. "Yeah. Yeah, I've had a couple of nightmares recently. She figured in a couple of the early ones."

Adria snorted. She sobered quickly. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did we become an Exomind?"

Hawkmoon shrugged with the arm not holding her. "We lost Benni - and we don't take grief well."

"Why don't I remember that..."

"You don't?"

"No."

"Then they wanted you happy. Or at least content with your lot." Hawkmoon started walking forward. "I hear ignorance is bliss."

Adria's expression grew dire. "Is that why you didn't say anything?"

"That's exactly it."

"It wasn't your call."

"Yeah, well, screw me for wanting to see a version of myself still a functioning human."

"Put me down."

"Are you going to run away again?"

"Hawkmoon. Put me down."

Hawkmoon sighed. She knelt down and lowered her servo - but waited. "Look, please don't shoot yourself. I'd... really, really hate that."

Adria remained silent.

"Adria-"

"Fine."

"Are you going to be suicidal?"

"I'm not going to talk to you."

"Adria, I will carry you the rest of the way. Like - why the hell are we even discussing this? It'd be quicker if I ignored you-"

"FINE!" Adria's face turned stormy. "Fine."

"... Okay." Hawkmoon set her down. Adria shook out her arms and legs. "Sorry."

"You say it like you're the one who brought me here," Adria grunted. She braced the rifle against her shoulder with a familiar air. Oh, she was definitely a soldier.

"Nothing like that. I just... feel sorry for you."

Adria shot her a sharp look. "Well don't."

"Yeah." Hawkmoon studied her. "You're nothing like I thought I'd be."

"How do you mean?"

"I thought you'd be a little more... I dunno, enlightened. You're Golden Age."

"Is that what you call it?"

"Yeah. I'm a City Age girl myself; wholly different times. But you're a soldier. A Golden Age soldier - and wow that's a weird sentence. Ever shoot anyone?"

Adria gave her a strange look. "I'm not at liberty to say."

"SOLSECCENT doesn't exist."

"No? Then who do you work for?"

Hawkmoon hesitated. "Myself, mostly. Can we keep walking?"

Adria motioned for her to lead. It was awkward at first. The only compromise Hawkmoon could find was if she shuffled and Adria speedwalked. "You work for yourself? What are you, a mercenary?"

"Little more charitable than that. I work for the betterment of others and not necessarily for pay," Hawkmoon elaborated. "Which, these days, means a whole lot of aliens."

"She said you have an alien body."

"Yeah. Cybertronian. Race of humanoid machines. Well, mostly humanoid."

"And you change shapes?"

"Transform, yeah. Took a while to get used to."

Adria grunted sullenly. "I imagine being an Exo helped."

"It did. Was a little hit-or-miss at the beginning, though." Hawkmoon vented softly. It was still loud enough to draw a look from Adria. Everything was. Her body was, now that she considered it, very, very loud.

"So... are we going to ignore the whole Shadow of the Colossus back there?" Adria jutted a thumb behind them.

Hawkmoon glanced over her shoulder on instinct. The Vex hadn't sent any further patrols so she was hoping that left them in the clear. "I'm going to be honest, I'm still not sure what that was."

"You don't?"

"I mean, it's alien."

"It looks like a woman. It's got hair and, um..." Adria made a motion with her hands.

"Yeah," Hawkmoon said, fighting a smile, "a giant fucking woman."

"Ever see anything like it?"

"No. Humanoid aliens are pretty common - something about two arms and two legs seems to be the running evolutionary trait for successful species. Everything's bigger than humans too. Everything. But nothing ever looks so close to us like that thing. Did she say anything to you?"

"Called herself Invicta," Adria admitted. "That was it. Wasn't... asking those sorts of questions."

"Right. Well, there's a good chance she's setting us up for an ambush."

"Sorry?"

"She's Dark."

"As opposed to what, Light?"

"Sure. Light of the Traveler. And life. And everything. The Dark can get murderous. Especially the things that wield it. It's why I'm here."

"Yeah, where's your friend?"

"Dead."

"Dead?" Adria rounded on her. "What?"

"He had bad software," Hawkmoon supplied. "Someone slipped him a kill agent. He tried telling me what was going on - and blam. Killed him. Replaced his personality with an overlay of something else Dark."

Adria stared. "Fuck."

"Yeah. Which wasn't what I wanted, because I needed a testimony, but..." Hawkmoon grimaced. "'Spose I'll have to work with what I've got."

"You don't seem that broken up about it."

"About Nightbeat? The guy was an asshole. He tortured me, murdered people in my name, surrendered everything he knew about me to the very bastard who had him killed." Hawkmoon walked on. "I won't mourn him."

"So who murked him?"

"Some prick named Greshar of the Graces. Looks like a headless angel. Has a race of hyperaggressive AI constructs under his command. They've tried to kill me on two separate occasions."

"Not the friendly sort."

"No." Hawkmoon paused. "Little worried about that."

"Why?"

"Because Greshar just there made it seem like he knew where I was. I don't know if that was just a personality slate or a real extension of his will. Latter shouldn't be possible, but I... I just don't know. Could be Drezhari on their way outside - which I'm even more worried about."

"Something I should know?"

"I came in by way of a moon called Mederi. I left someone there. Someone I need to get back to. Problem is, it's not hospitable to humans."

Adria stopped. "Then what are we doing this for?"

"Hm?" Hawkmoon slowed and turned. "Doing what?"

"Why are you bothering to take me with you?"

"Because I don't want you to die."

Adria gave her an incredulous look. "If we're stepping out into an inhospitable environment then I'm going to die anyways."

"Not true. I can supply you an... environment."

"Why'd you hesitate?"

"Because it's icky." Hawkmoon tapped the canopy on her chest. "Here."

Adria stared. "Is that a…?"

"Cockpit. One of my forms is an alien snubfighter."

"You're a ship?"

"A ship who moonlights as an Adria Lennox. And a dragon on her bad days."

"Yeah, saw that," Adria muttered. "You're ridiculous."

"Tell me about it. Preferably later." Hawkmoon looked around. "We're dawdling too much. This place gets weird when you dawdle. How are you looking for food?"

"I could eat," Adria admitted.

"Have anything on you?"

"No."

"Thought so. Shit." Hawkmoon looked around. "Can't chance anything here, but... maybe we could get you something outside."

"If it's a lifeless moon-"

"Locals might be able to synthesize something. Failing that, I could take a detour to the Stratocracy. They're organic. They'll have the means."

"You can carry me."

Hawkmoon looked down. "I'm sorry?"

"I said you can carry me," Adria reluctantly told her. "We're making piss-poor progress. I'm not so proud to shoot us in the foot."

"... Right." Hawkmoon held out a servo. Adria stiffly climbed onboard. "We're not far-"

A quaking rumble took the Garden by force. Hawkmoon reflexively closed her servo around Adria and braced against a wall for balance; a chorus of cries tore through the air and she winced for the sheer volume of it. Ahead of them, far down the maze corridor, an old sunken barrow trembled as its denizens roused from slumber. A set of colossal temple doors trundled open and lines of green Vex marched out. Curiously, they didn't so much as glance Hawkmoon's way. Their target was east - an ancient gate withered by the elements, now roaring to life. Whatever target location was, Hawkmoon pitied the poor wretches on the other side.

"What's going on?" Adria hissed.

"Vex are going to war," Hawkmoon whispered back. She ducked as a colossal construct tipped its hull out of the doors. "The Undying Mind."

Adria peeked between her claws. "You know that thing?"

"Killed it once."

The Hydra floated free of its confines, vines tearing from its frame, and it shrieked a war cry that the lesser Vex took up. The column of machines marched through the gate and the very moment the last Goblin stepped into the dizzying pale light it fell inactive - and the Garden was left quiet.

"It'll be back," Hawkmoon said. She rose up and began quickly walking down the corridor. "The Garden will remake it again and again until it kills whoever slighted it."

"Wait, wait!" Adria shoved at Hawkmoon's finger. "Look!"

Hawkmoon frowned. The temple doors were closing but there were shadows inside, rushing towards the light. "The fuck..."

"Are those-"

"Those are people." Hawkmoon rushed forth. She skidded to a stop before the doors and caught one with her off-servo, forcing it to grate to a stop. Those within stalled at the very sight of her. "Hurry up!" she shouted. "Go!"

There were... a lot of them. Two dozen or so men and women with similar faces. They barreled out of the Vex cairn and scattered across the grass. Hawkmoon released the door as soon as she was sure they were all out and she turned to face them.

She felt Adria jolt with shock. "Doctor Esi?"

Four separate women, entirely identical, looked at Adria with surprise. Three of them frowned, utterly at a loss, but the fourth gasped, "Captain Lennox?

Hawkmoon looked between each of them. There were four teams, and each team consisted of the same identical four individuals: a sharp-faced Indian woman, whoever Doctor Esi was, a short pale man with an abundance of freckles, and a tall Korean man. Other than them, they were accompanied by a lone Awoken man clad only in a torn biosuit, his long unkempt silver-white hair trailing down to his waist.

Now he was someone she recognized.

"Praedyth?!" Hawkmoon exclaimed.

Praedyth looked at her with wide eyes bogged down with exhaustion. "Do I know you?" he croaked. His hand fished behind his shoulder for a weapon - a reformatted Vex firearm.

"Lennox-2," Hawkmoon said. "Do you remember?"

"... Yeah. Ike's friend." Praedyth's eyes narrowed and searched her own. "Is that… is that you?"

Hawkmoon fell to a knee and let Adria down. "I thought you were dead."

"Almost. What... happened to you?"

"We have to move," one of the Doctor Esis cut in. She glanced between Hawkmoon and Adria. "Do you know a way out?"

"Yeah." Hawkmoon straightened. She transformed a servo into a carbine. "But you'll have to stick close. Follow me."

The Garden's song followed them all the way back to the exit. By some miracle they escaped further attention from the Vex, but the vile ideas of the place doggedly tracked their every step. Half-formed trilobites and the husks of butterflies danced in their way; at one point Adria wordlessly pointed out an eyeless frog carrying a scorpion on its back. The arthropodhad a rose in place of a stinger and from it uttered an alien voice, flinging indecipherable curses at every passerby.

It was just at the threshold of the hidden passage that Hawkmoon called a stop. The suns were setting and she dutifully set about gathering wood that didn't try to kill her for a fire while the humans settled down. She'd never seen night in the Black Garden before, but she could confidently say it was twice as beautiful - and infinitely more terrifying.

When she returned it was to the sight of Adria quietly weeping and one of the Doctor Esis wrapping a massive arm around her shoulders. "Leave them," a Maya Sundaresh told her. The teams had introduced themselves along the walk. Hawkmoon still wasn't sure what to make of it; she'd heard of the Ishtar Collective, of course, but these were their dispossessed simulations, cast into the Vex Network to explore the cosmos. Their very presence in the Garden shouldn't have been possible.

Hawkmoon set the bundle of sticks down in the middle of the floor. Their camp was set just inside the tunnel, on solid rock, to avoid the Garden's life. Two Duane-McNiadhs and one Shim took over from there. Soon enough they had a steady fire to keep the dark at bay.

"So you're... Lennox-2?" Praedyth asked.

Hawkmoon nodded and sat with her back to the wall beside him. "Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Ahamkara."

Praedyth winced. "I see."

"You would, wouldn't you? You were there for the Hunt." Hawkmoon looked at him curiously. "You were with Kabr then. And Pahanin. Our fireteams worked together to corner Huginn."

"Mhm. We covered your flanks while Lord Ikharos slaughtered the wyrm," Praedyth grimly finished. "Kabr's dead, isn't he?"

"You saw it."

"I did. What about Pahanin?"

Hawkmoon hesitated. "Dredgen Yor got him."

"Dredgen Yor?"

"Rezyl Azzir. Big guy, remember? Hive witch turned him mad."

"I... see." Praedyth turned to the fire. "And yours?"

"Mine?"

"Your fireteam? Is Ikharos...?"

"I... I don't know. I haven't seen him in forever."

"You lost him?"

"No, it's..." Hawkmoon paused. "Things are different now - and by now I mean the present time outside of Vex-space. Worm God made a wish on a dragon and I got caught in the crossfire. Slingshot me into a new timestream."

"What do you mean?" One of the Mayas came to sit in front of her.

"I mean that I... I wielded a Worm God in the form of a gun. You probably don't know what that is, but He wasn't friendly," Hawkmoon explained. "Back then I was a Guardian like him." She pointed at Praedyth.

"We know what a Guardian is."

"Alright. So I had this creature, Xol, as gun. He'd presented Himself as one to me - He eats death, y'see. We thought that was the end of it. But He saw his chance; there was a dragon in the Reef, a Taken one-"

"Taken?" Praedyth echoed with alarm.

"Yeah, but last I checked it was well on its way to being put in the ground for good. Xol made a wish. He was the weakest Worm God, so I think He wanted the chance to change that. The dragon gave it to him. There were Taken on Io. Vex systems too. The wish hijacked both; reduced us to pure concept and... voila. Here I am. In a vacant alien robot body. That… yeah, that's the meat of it."

"Did you have any input? When you found yourself… reshaped I mean." Maya Sundaresh inquired. "Any at all?"

"I... yeah." Hawkmoon vented softly. "There was something inside Vex space. It wasn't Vex, but it wasn't organic either. I believe it's a Cybertronian - the kind of alien I am - demigod called Vector Prime. He's believed to be a custodian of time's proper flow. Seemed a little scatterbrained when I met him, but it fits the bill. He asked me if I wanted retribution."

"A demigod?"

"I dunno. He wasn't causal, that's for sure."

"He asked if you wanted retribution? Was that for Xol having tricked you?" Praedyth asked.

"For taking my life," Hawkmoon clarified, "and the life of my Ghost. He asked if I wanted to break even. I said yes. He threw me into this body after that."

"You said we're in a new timestream." One of the Shims joined them. "Was this something the entity told you? Could he be wrong?"

"The evidence is right outside. The Hive have a set of records called the Books of Sorrow. Well, out there I witnessed some of the events it covers, and lemme tell you, they're pretty fucking early in the books."

"Have you tried to go back?"

Hawkmoon looked at Shim. "This was a wish granted by a dragon. You don't get to unmake those." She sighed. "'Sides, I'm not mad enough to declare war on the Vex Network."

"But you're here."

"Yeah. The Black Garden. This is contested territory. Always has been, always will be. I made sure of that."

"You've been here before?"

"You destroyed the Black Heart," Praedyth said suddenly. "You and Ike and… there was someone else. I saw it."

"Jaxson." Hawkmoon inclined her helm. "We did. You saw us?"

"From my cell in the Vault. Why are you here, Lennox? Why the Garden?"

"Someone who's made my life hell tried to off himself in here. I followed him; I needed evidence to convince people he wasn't working alone."

"Who?"

"Mech called Nightbeat. Another Cybertronian."

"He's dead," Adria cut in. She stepped around the fire, eyes red-rimmed. "Hawkmoon found her proof."

"You've named yourself... Hawkmoon?" Praedyth gave her a strange look.

Hawkmoon bristled. "What about it?"

"You named yourself after a gun?"

"Yeah?"

"... Alright."

"Look, it made sense at the time, and it's what works on Cybertron."

"Cybertron being...?" Shim said.

"Homeworld of the Cybertronians. Sapient AI constructs, usually bipedal, and capable of something analogous to sexual reproduction. That's... pretty much all I've got. They're human-like in almost every capacity." Hawkmoon looked down at herself. "Mechanical bodies notwithstanding."

"And this change didn't result in a DER?" a Maya said.

Hawkmoon shrugged. "It was a close thing but Risen - Guardians - don't get DER. I think I'm still riding out that immunity. Somehow. I thought it was Ghosts that protected us, but... now I'm not sure."

"Your Ghost's gone?"

"Yeah." Her face fell. "Yeah, he's gone."

Praedyth rapped his knuckles against her hand. "I'm sorry."

"You too." Hawkmoon frowned at him. "Wait, is your Ghost-"

"I don't know."

"Teams 43, 67, 113 and 9 are looking for her," a Chioma Esi explained.

"Right. Yeah." Hawkmoon regarded Praedyth strangely. "We found your remains in the Vault."

"Evidently, that future's not set in stone," Praedyth said dryly.

"No. You look like shit by the way."

"I'm beginning to recall why we weren't close."

Hawkmoon couldn't help but grin. "Why the Garden?"

"Hm?"

"Why of all places did you come through the Garden?"

"I didn't have a choice." Praedyth glanced out into the wilderness. "It was this or stay. You saw what happened when I stay."

"Right. But why... why now?" Hawkmoon made a face. "That was a stupid question."

"Yeah. It was."

"Time is linear here, yes?" a Shim Ji-hu inquired.

"Yep." Hawkmoon nodded. "Well, kinda."

"Kinda?"

"To us it is, at least as we comprehend it, but the Garden's not inherently a part of the causal universe so it doesn't obey the rules when no one's looking. We - Adria and I - found a couple of dead Guardians out there. No idea who they were or when they're from."

"They turned into Vex," Adria added.

"Angry Vex. Full of Dark."

"Of Dark?" Praedyth pressed. "You're sure?"

"Felt it clear as day," Hawkmoon replied. "Why?"

"I..." Praedyth grimaced. "My cell... I saw other things."

"Like?"

"Divergent timelines. Thousands of them. In each of them something arrives in Sol, on Earth. It finds the City. The Traveler. Humanity. Something truly Dark."

"A black pyramid?"

"Yes!" He looked at her with surprise.

"Yeah, I saw the same thing," Hawkmoon explained. "Only it wasn't a dream and there were dozens of them. I broke one."

"You... broke one?"

"I have a, uh, an experimental Cybertronian weapon in my chassis." Hawkmoon tapped her chest. "It can close spacebridges - these trans-spatial portals most high-end alien civilizations use. It was already pre-installed when I woke up."

"Could that be intentional?" one of the closer Maya Sundareshs asked.

"Could be," her Chioma Esi responded. "Hawkmoon, do you know when we are?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Before the Golden Age for sure. The Hive are old; now might be hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of years before the Traveler's arrival in Sol."

"So... before 2013 CE?"

"Yeah, I'd put good money on that"

"And... where are we? Where does this tunnel lead?"

"Moon of Mederi in the Caminus system," Hawkmoon answered. "We're on the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way, near a place called the Brachian Divide."

"The Brachian Divide?"

"Huge dead spot. Alien tyrant by the name of Kharad-Tan split it open forever ago, killed everything inside. He dismembered the end of the galactic arm, dunno why. Probably just because he could."

"And where did you destroy one of these pyramids?" a Shim pressed. "How long ago?"

"About... four vorns - which rounds out at about three hundred years ago? It was just across the Divide near Tai Prime."

"This Tai Prime is another star system?"

"Yeah."

"You have an operating starship?"

"Sure do. Me."

"You?" Shim blinked.

"I can transform into a jumpship," Hawkmoon explained. "Cybertronians have the capacity to change into an alternate form, usually for travel."

"Then what's the dragon shape for?" Adria questioned.

"I... don't know. It's part of a beastformer thing - they're a distinct Cybertronian cultural group. I received it as reward for killing an Ahamkara."

"The same as the one that brought you here?" an Esi asked.

"No, a different one." Hawkmoon tilted her helm. "What do you need a ship for?"

"Investigating these pyramids," Shim supplied. "The Vex Network is lacking in that regard. They're not fond of this... 'Darkness'."

"Naturally. The Dark's paracausal; the Vex find that terrifying."

"All the same, we should have a look."

"I escaped to warn everyone," Praedyth muttered. "But if we're stuck in your time, then everyone doesn't exist yet."

"Not in this timeline," a Maya cut in. "But there could be other Praedyths, other Ishtar teams who find Earth in time."

"'In time'," another Maya imitated. "What is now if not that time? Hawkmoon, where's the Traveler?"

"I don't know," Hawkmoon admitted. "Haven't been looking for it."

"You haven't?"

"I've been preoccupied with trying to save lives. There's good people here. There were good people on the other side of the Divide too, but... I lost them. Hive overran everything, killed everyone. I'm not letting it happen again."

"Noble," a Shim murmured, "but impractical."

Hawkmoon ignored him. "They might not be human but Cybertron, the Eimin-Tin, everyone else - they don't deserve what's coming. I'm trying to prevent it best as I can."

"How is that going for you?"

"Not well. Got a creature aligned with these Pyramids playing havoc on Cybertron's political scene. It already has one race of AI subservient to it; I think it's trying to do the same with us. Thing is, I haven't been able to prove anything yet." Hawkmoon paused. "Footage of Nightbeat's death should work, but I... I don't have anything more than that. I'm not even sure Cybertron will take it seriously. They haven't heeded any of my other warnings."

"How long do you have?" another Chioma inquired.

Hawkmoon shrugged. "I don't know. The Hive could arrive tomorrow or in another hundred years. It's impossible keeping tabs on them."

"We could try."

"You could- I'm sorry?"

"If this timeline is divergent to the one we hail from," the same Chioma Esi continued, "then we're effectively stranded here. We are, ourselves, variant ghosts of another timeline - copies of copies. If we try to find our way back to our present, there's no telling what state we'll find it in. Better that we start here while there's time to spare."

"Start what?"

"Preparing for the end," Praedyth grimly finished. "If you've seen the Pyramids then the Dark must already be setting its plans into motion."

"Do you know what plans those might be?"

"Other than universal annihilation? I don't. But I doubt it's to humanity's benefit."

"So... there's no way home?" Adria interrupted.

An Esi laid her hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"There is one way home," Hawkmoon murmured.

Everyone turned to look at her. "Explain," a Maya said sharply.

"Technically you could just... go. Head to Earth. Wait for time to pass."

"But things have changed." This was a Doctor Cathal Duane-McNiadh. "You know about the butterfly effect?"

"Your existence might have already altered events to such a degree the Golden Age may never come to pass," said a Chioma Esi. "And you're not going to give up yet, are you?"

Hawkmoon winced. "I can't leave these people to die. That's not who I am."

"There's no telling how much the current era predates a unified human civilization either," Praedyth mused. "If what you say is true, then we could be left waiting eons."

"We'd last it," a quieter Maya revealed. "We're Vex programmes. Time doesn't affect us."

Adria frowned. "What? It doesn't?"

"It does," a Chioma corrected, "but we've altered the parameters that define us. We could do the same for you."

"You'd do that?"

"If you want."

Adria looked away. "I don't... I don't know."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," a Shim impatiently cut in. "There's no telling if we'd make it another week. This installation is the most dangerous one yet; we can't stay here."

"Agreed." Praedyth looked at Hawkmoon. "You said it's a lifeless moon outside?"

Hawkmoon nodded. "Do you have a spacesuit?"

"No. I reworked my armour into comms relays, and my Ghost's still lost. You said you found a pair of dead Guardians. Do you think-"

"Conversion took everything on them," she grimly reported. "There won't be anything left."

Praedyth hung his head. "Dammit."

"I mean, I could provide a couple of you with an insulated environment, 'least until we find somewhere a little more breathable."

"You can?"

Hawkmoon tapped her glass canopy. "This. I've already told Adria. I've carried an alien before, and that thing was about twice your size, so it's possible."

Praedyth studied her. "How would that work?"

"I can supply a pressurised chamber and filter your air for a little while."

"So... a temporary fix."

"Pretty much."

"We could work to remedy that," a Duane-McNiadh offered. When everyone looked at him he shrank into himself. "Uh, spacesuits. All we need are some pre-forged resources - resistant alloys and the like."

"From there?" A Shim nodded back out into the Garden.

A shiver ran down Hawkmoon's wings. "That'd be dangerous."

"But those bodies we found," Adria said. "Their suits were made from Vex."

"They had Ghosts to sterilise the materials." Hawkmoon shook her helm. "We don't have that advantage."

"What about this?" Adria held out her auto rifle.

A Chioma Esi delicately took it from her. "This... this could work."

Hawkmoon frowned. "Could it?"

"Maybe. If we can simulate the process used to make this, then re-apply it elsewhere... it's possible."

"But you'll need more Vex metal."

"Yes." Chioma looked at her. "Will that be a problem?"

Hawkmoon realized they were all looking at her. "No," she said, forcing a smile. "No problem."

They talked well into the night. Hawkmoon explained everything she remembered - from her arrival all the way to the point where she'd entered the Garden in pursuit of Nightbeat, answering every question as they came. Afterwards it was decided they could only send two humans back into realspace. The rest would have to traverse Vex-space in parallel until such a point they could reconvene at an established homebase. "You don't have to do this," Hawkmoon told the Ishtar teams. "If you want to keep exploring-"

"We have stakes in this now," Chioma One replied. They'd numbered themselves for Hawkmoon's, and Adria's, benefit. "We saved Praedyth. Now we save the universe."

They put it to a vote. Praedyth was the first choice. No one disagreed with it - other than himself, and even that was half-hearted.

"You'll get to breathe real air," Maya Three said. "Think about that."

The second passenger was a little more contentious. Hawkmoon voted for Maya Four. Praedyth abstained. The Ishtar teams decided on Adria. Adria tried to argue the point with a little more spirit than Praedyth had, but she was outnumbered sixteen-to-one.

"We won't be separated," Chioma Four said. She was the one who'd recognized Adria first, who'd comforted her when the reality of their circumstances had finally hit home. "We'll still be in contact."

"I don't bring anything to the table," Adria retorted. "What can I do that you can't?"

"Fight. You can fight. You're a soldier - a troubleshooter. You have instincts we can only dream of."

"Fight? Look at Hawkmoon! If we're pitted against anything like her they'll destroy us."

"Cybertronians are abnormally large as aliens go," Hawkmoon said.

Adria shot her an annoyed look. "You said everything was bigger."

"Than humans. But people are usually smaller than me."

"You're thirty feet tall. That's not saying much."

Hawkmoon shrugged. She would have preferred a scientist but she found the idea of Adria tagging along equally as attractive. "Maltech tends to cut things down to size."

"Why me?"

"Because an emotional outburst will draw the wrong kinds of attention in the Network," Maya Two snapped. She was a little more curt than the others, not quite so chummy with her team. "This is safer for everyone involved."

"Emotional out-..." Adria's expression darkened. "You know what? Fuck you."

"Hey, hey!" Chioma Two stepped in-between the two of them. "Leave it."

Maya Two scoffed and retreated to the other side of the camp.

"What a bitch," Adria muttered.

"She's not wrong," Hawkmoon said.

Adria looked at her, her face red with anger. "What?"

"She's not wrong. We've never been good at working around Vex. We've got tempers." Hawkmoon paused. "Our expertise lies elsewhere."

"I'm a professional troubleshooter, not an infant."

"But you're also in mourning. You've good reason to be upset; I'd be surprised if you aren't. We, and I'm sorry to say this, just can't afford to humour your grief right now."

For a moment Adria looked as if to argue, but the fight drained out of her and she wavered, her eyes closed, hands balled into fists by her side. "I shouldn't be here."

"Neither should I," Hawkmoon retorted. "But here we are. Gotta make do."

"This isn't my war."

"This is everyone's war. Extinction isn't just someone else's problem."

"You're asking me to fight, but I don't have anything to fight for."

"How about sparing everyone else the pain you're going through?"

Adria exhaled. "That's belittling."

"It's the truth."

"Get fucked." She walked away. Hawkmoon watched her retreat over to Praedyth's side.

"I deserve that," Hawkmoo muttered. She looked down at Chioma Two. "Can I leave you and Three to talk her through it?"

"No promises," Chioma replied. "Will you be long?"

"Dunno. Can I get a list of what we need?"

Chioma Two gestured Maya One and two of the Duane-McNiadhs over. "For starters? A Hydra's central cortex."

"Two Hobgoblin skulls," Duane-McNiadh Three said. "We need their horns."

"And their temporal locks," his twin from team one added.

"Four to five Goblin frills should be enough brass for a pair of insulation suits," Maya One told her.

"Five Goblins, two Hobgoblins, and a Hydra." Hawkmoon stood up. "Alright. I'll see what I can rummage up. Will you folks be alright?"

"Should be," Chioma Two said. "Be careful."

"Anything shows up that isn't me, hide. Got that?"

"Got it."

"Great. See you soon." Hawkmoon returned to the Garden and set off to hunt.

She returned quickly, arms laden with Vex parts. Cathal Duane-McNiadh One and Chioma Three met her by the edge of the hidden passageway. "You, uh, found success?" Cathal questioned nervously. He and his copies weren't the social types; Hawkmoon suspected they found her intimidating.

"Couple of patrols," she replied. "There was a Hydra building Cyclops platforms by the eastern quarries."

"They're preparing their defenses?" Chioma asked curiously

"Yeah."

"So there might be someone-"

"I'm going to stop you there. If the Vex are gathering strength then we need to get the fuck out of their way." Hawkmoon stepped around them. "The Sol Divisive don't mess around." She laid the parts out across the limestone floor. "Is this enough?"

A couple more simulations joined them, along with Praedyth. He cut a haggard sight but there was a revitalised spring in his step, a twinkle in his eyes. "This is more than enough," he told her. Praedyth grabbed a Hobgoblin's skull and stared into its dead optic. "You burned away the moss?"

"Not taking any chances," Hawkmoon replied. "Garden's as infectious as the Vex."

"Of course."

"Are you sure you can sterilise everything?"

"Reasonably." Praedyth looked up at her. "Can I ask you for a favour?"

"What do you need?"

"I've managed to rework Adria's firearm into a set of Void tools, but we don't have the batteries to fuel them."

"Let me guess: I get to be the power supply." Hawkmoon rolled her optics. "So - electricity or energon?"

Praedyth winced. "Something a little stronger. Vex metal is resilient; it's going to be difficult reshaping it."

"Praedyth, you're gonna have to be more specific. What do you want?"

"Your power core."

"My spark?"

"Yes. Is it possible to safely siphon energy out of it?"

Hawkmoon blinked. "I guess."

"You don't know."

"No, I do, it's just..." She hesitated. "Praedyth, sparks are a little personal."

"I understand it's your analogue for a heart-"

"No. I mean, yeah, but sparks channel power externally only for specific acts."

"I don't follow."

"Intimate acts."

Praedyth furrowed his brow. "I... still don't follow."

"My guy, please." Hawkmoon vented. "Sex. Sparks are used for sex."

His eyes widened. "... Ah."

"Yeah."

"So..."

She stared at him. "Fucking Warlocks, man. Have not missed this."

"Your spark... is a reproductive organ?"

"Yes, Praedyth, it is."

Praedyth just stood there.

"The answer is no," Hawkmoon told him. "No, Praedyth. No. I can share some energon - it's what fuels me. You won't find a better alternative."

"How much do you have?"

"Enough to last another decaorn or so. After that I'll have to shut down a couple of internal systems - ones I can survive without."

"Is that healthy?"

"Probably not, but we won't reach that stage."

Praedyth nodded. "Alright, we'll use energon."

"Cool."

His gaze didn't waver.

"Praedyth-"

"I'm curious."

"Yeah and it's scaring me. Go do something productive. Here." Hawkmoon pulled out of storage the weapon she'd found by the dead Guardians. "Have a look at this."

"What is it?"

"Fuck knows, which is why I'm giving it to you."

Praedyth nodded slowly. "I'll investigate it when I have the time."

"Thanks."

"Would you mind if I take a sample of your energon? I need to test if it works"

Hawkmoon held out her hand and, softly, pressed the tip of a claw along her palm until a bead of energon welled up. "There you are."

Praedyth briefly took off then returned with a canister that looked to have once been a Goblin's milk-pack. Hawkmoon tilted her hand and he caught the droplet inside. "Thank you."

"Don't waste it. We've only got a limited supply."

"I understand."

"Do you? Praedyth, this is literally my lifeblood. Just..." Hawkmoon sighed and waved him off. "Forget it. Go ham."

Praedyth nodded and wandered over to the Duane-McNiadhs.

"You'll have to forgive him," Chioma Three said apologetically. "He's-"

"Been locked in a cell for an eternity, I know." Hawkmoon knelt down. "We tried looking for him."

"How did that go?"

"Not well. The Vault of Glass wouldn't open. Not until it did; that was after my team hit the Black Garden, so I sat it out. Was sick to death of Vex. Glad he's out, though. We never managed to find him in our time."

"You weren't friends, were you?"

"Friends of friends more like. We knew some of the same people, hung out at the same saloon." Hawkmoon offlined her optics. "Those were the good ol' days."

"He speaks highly of it," Chioma said. "Your city."

"I'm sure he would. It was a mess but it was home. Where're you from?"

"London. Maya's from Mumbai. Cathal grew up in Ennistymon Central on Triton, and Ji-hu comes from Mercury's New Busan. Our home's Venus, though. At the Ishtar Academy."

"I... I remember a little about Venus," Hawkmoon said. "Before the Collapse ruined it. Beautiful place, horrid weather."

"Always too humid," Chioma added. "And don't even think about going for a swim. Unless you want twelve different kinds of skin rashes."

"Plays hell on metal too."

"That's right, you were an Exomind. How are you feeling?"

"About this?" Hawkmoon tapped her chassis. "I've grown into it. Don't think I could go back."

"No?"

"I mean, look at Adria. I was a robot version of her. Kinda short." She winked.

Chioma groaned goodnaturedly. "Really?"

"Now when I enter a room, there's a solid chance I'm bigger than everyone else. Plus - I get wings. I can't give them up. Flying's too good."

"Is there anything you miss?"

"I miss... I miss eating. I miss food having a taste, a texture. I'm on liquids now and it's almost always the same flavour." Hawkmoon considered it. "I miss breathing, but that was something I lacked as an Exo too. You don't know what you're missing. Not until they take your lungs. It's like drowning all the time."

"That sounds..."

"Rough?"

"I was going to say painful," Chioma said.

Hawkmoon shrugged. "It's getting better. I don't think I'll ever outgrow it, but I don't panic anymore. What about you guys?"

Chioma absentmindedly tapped a finger against the plate of Hawkmoon's calf. "We knew what we were signing up for. We don't feel hungry anymore. Not if we don't want to."

"You've hacked your own existence."

"Something like that. Now music - I miss music. We had to travel light. No room for a player."

Hawkmoon nodded, grim-faced. "Yeah, that's... that's a big one. It's the things we take for granted, isn't it? The things that make us human."

"Do you remember much? Of your first life?"

"Only a couple of things - the highlights, y'know?" Hawkmoon glanced over at Adria. "She's got more claim to it than me."

"You're one and the same," Chioma pointed out.

"... Nah." Hawkmoon shook her helm. "All I've got is someone else's baggage. Means I understand what she's going through. That's the extent of it."

"You care about her."

"Should I not?"

Chioma shrugged. "You might not have noticed," she said, "but my team and the others try to keep to ourselves."

"You work together."

"Sure. But we socialize in our own sets. It's... easier. Imagine you're looking at someone who's an exact copy of you, and all you see in them is your own shortcomings."

"That's a little defeatist," Hawkmoon murmured.

"Experiences define us. Maybe you're right, maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I'm not the only one." Chioma spared a distant look Maya Two's way. "And there's other teams out there. Some of them are down members. I don't like to think about them." She looked up at Hawkmoon. "So if you don't want to be around her... I won't blame you."

Hawkmoon vented softly. "I've been angry at her all my life." Her optics found Adria again, hunkered with the members of Team Three. Shim said something, a quip of some kind, and she smiled fleetingly. "But none of this is her fault. I can't blame her for any of it. I... guess I just want to see that it's possible. To see if she still chooses to live."

"You're looking for vindication."

"Yeah. I am. I mean, I've already found it." Hawkmoon pulled her EM field in on instinct, though no one present could pick up on it. "I'm still here after all the scrap I've been through. Maybe... maybe I'm just trying to see how different we are."

Chioma nodded slowly. "I can understand that."

"Are we? Different. As people."

"I... I don't really know you. Or her." Chioma Two glanced towards Adria. "Three's got that over me."

"Shame."

"Sorry."

"Nah, s'alright." Hawkmoon stood up. "I'm going to keep watch for Vex."

"Thank you, Hawkmoon."

Hours must have passed but it was impossible to tell in the Garden, but eventually Cathal Four called everyone back inside. He and Praedyth hovered over a pair of sparse armoured suits complete with protective breathing masks. Each suit boasted a temporal stasis generator.

"We're going to carry this pressure with us," Praedyth explained. "Effectively we're freezing the atmosphere around us."

"How the hell does that work?" Adria asked.

Praedyth motioned to a bronze bracer. "We'll be linking ourselves into the Vex Network."

"And we'll be on the other side," Cathal Four clarified. "So long as we remain within the Vex systems, we'll be able to convince their sensors you're specialised constructs - Hobgoblins to be more specific."

"Won't the Network know what you are?"

"No," Cathal Two said. "As far as the Network is concerned we're background daemons overseeing low-priority subtypes. It'll give us limited administrative properties."

"Like channeling power from Vex installations to scout constructs," Hawkmoon said. "You'll be able to cycle in simulated air as raw data."

"Exactly. The Network will be convinced we're analyzing stimuli reports and sending instructions."

"You'll need a proxy Mind to pull off a con like that."

"Yeah..." Cathal exchanged a look with Praedyth and Maya One. The latter stepped forth.

"We were hoping that would be you," Maya One said.

Hawkmoon blinked with surprise. "Me?"

"Yes. As an Exo-"

"Former."

Maya One paused. "Of course, former. All the same, we believe you'll be able to manage it. Do you have a communications node?"

"What about it?"

"If we provide you with a programme to trick the Network, can you download and install it?"

Hawkmoon vented deeply. "Is this safe?"

"Perfectly."

"Because if it's not then it means a conversion."

"You were submerged in radiolaria earlier," Adria pointed out. "Yet you're not infected."

"I've got Light," Hawkmoon protested. "The Vex'll pick up on that. They'll come for me, for us, and that'll be the end of it."

"Not necessarily," Cathal One said. "We discovered how to hide Praedyth. We can-"

"No. I'm not installing Vex code." Hawkmoon shook her helm. "It's too big a risk. You need to find another way."

Cathal One and Maya One shared a look. "Alright," Maya said. "We'll brainstorm an alternative. Adria, can you try your suit on?"

"Will do." Adria detached her SOLSECCENT uniform down to her biosuit and slotted the reconfigured Vex plates in its place. Once finished she held out her arms. "Am I good?"

"Here." Praedyth passed her a helmet crowned with a Hobgoblin's horns. The visor was an opaque blue. The light of Hawkmoon's optics reflected straight off of it. Adria slotted it on and waited as Praedyth closed the clasps around her collar. "How do you feel?"

"Fine." Adria shifted. "It's stuffy."

"Air cyclers aren't online yet. Duane?"

"Right." Cathal One fiddled with a modified datapad. He stepped further down the passageway. "And... there. How about now?"

Adria took in a deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah, this is good."

"You can take it off," Praedyth told her.

Adria unclipped the helm and pulled it away. "So now we're waiting on a... Mind?"

"Axis Mind," Chioma Three told her. "Vex command unit. Until we synthesise a proxy we're stuck here."

"Is it really so dangerous?" Adria glanced at Hawkmoon.

"I'm a human in a Cybertronian body with the alt-form of an Ahamkara and a superweapon installed in my chest," Hawkmoon said drily. "I'm enough of a security hazard without involving the Vex."

"And that's perfectly fair," Chioma Three interjected. "We'll find another way."

Adria looked at her questioningly. "What if we can't?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

"... Alright." But Adria appeared unconvinced.

The second night had crept up on them by the time the Duane-McNiadhs staggered away from their makeshift Mind. They'd reconfigured the Hydra cortex Hawkmoon had brought them, turning it from a simulation engine Praedyth used to shape the suits into a transmitter. The work was rough; it looked more like a motherboard wrapped in sizzling pale wires than a comms unit. It was with great trepidation that Cathal One activated it. Hawkmoon stood nearby with her combat protocols online, but to her relief no vengeful constructs manifested in their vicinity.

"It works," Cathal Four announced. He blinked rapidly at the figures on the datapad's display. "It works! The Network's responding!"

"How long will it hold?" Maya Two questioned.

"Not long," Cathal Three admitted. "It's a temporary fix. If we're lucky we can find a permanent replacement in true Vex-space."

"But if it fails early it means our hides," Adria muttered. She shot Hawkmoon a strained look. "Wouldn't it be safer to just leave us here?"

"In the Garden?" Hawkmoon shook her helm. "We've been pushing our luck far enough as is. This isn't some frontier world you can tame. The Garden always wins in the end."

"I can't stay here," Praedyth added. "I'm leaving. I have to."

Adria looked torn. "But we can't stay cooped up in these suits forever. We don't even have any food."

"You won't need to," Chioma Three said.

"Maybe for me, but what about him?" Adria pointed at Praedyth. "Do blue people eat food?"

Praedyth frowned. "Of course we do."

"When's the last time you've eaten?"

"Before the Vault."

"And how long ago was that?"

"Forever. But I'll last a while longer. My Light will sustain me for the moment."

Adria made a face. "What does that even mean?"

"It means we're not desperate just yet," Hawkmoon told her. "I know what you mean; finding you two some new digs will be my priority."

"And what are our chances of that?"

"Reasonable. I'm an influential figure in Cybertronian society. I could figure something out. And I've said it before, the Eimin-Tin are another option - I've friends there. They take visitors from all walks. Housing you two shouldn't be a problem."

"So we're relying on the goodwill of aliens?"

"You got a problem with that?"

Adria tightened her jaw. "No," she said curtly, "of course not. This just seems too risky. I'm SOLSECCENT; I like a foolproof plan. Not... whatever this is."

"We're in the Black Garden. Dicey plans are the best you're gonna get." Hawkmoon motioned to Cathal Four. "Are we good to go?"

Cathal Four looked between her and Adria. "Uh, not yet. I want to make sure the transmission doesn't randomly cut out."

"We'll leave at dawn," Maya One decided. "Will that be enough time?"

"Should be."

"Morning then. Have your things packed before then. The moment light hits we're gone." Hawkmoon looked at everyone in turn. "If you're not working on something then this might be your last chance to grab some sleep. Don't waste it." Without another word she turned on her heel and retreated to her post by the entrance.

The eerie light of the Garden's suns shone against their backs, prickling the edge of raw Vex-space in front of them. The Ishtar teams were ready, Adria and Praedyth were suited up, and their makeshift Axis Mind was well under control.

"Mederi's the territory of a Cybertronian colony," Hawkmoon said, "and there's a research station near the Vex Gate. Whatever happens, stick close. Got that?"

"I understand," Praedyth said.

Adria wordlessly nodded. She stared into the tunnel.

"Right." Hawkmoon transformed into a foldfighter and extended a boarding ramp if only to give them a helping hand. She rearranged the interior of her cockpit, separating the pilot's seat into two, one in front of the other, and she disassembled the controls to avoid complications. "Get in."

There was a moment's hesitation on each end. Praedyth broke through it first; Hawkmoon winced as his hand closed on the edge of the canopy to climb inside. The sensations were... awkward. Unlike the Ameursh she'd ferried up to a Tai cruiser there wasn't a sense of urgency to distract her. Hawkmoon couldn't help but feel like there was a parasite crawling around inside her ribcage. The moment his boots touched down on the floor and his weight settled into his chair, softened by the material that formed her hood, Hawkmoon had to suppress the urge to eject him then and there. Adria, emboldened by his example, followed soon after. She took the seat in the back. Hawkmoon extended safety belts. She felt a tug inside as the pair of them set about securing themselves.

"Alright," Hawkmoon said, venting hard. "Hold on." She transformed and stood up, reorientating the base of the cockpit as best she could. Tiny hands grasped at the sides of her chassis for support. "You two okay?"

"Fine," Adria grunted. Praedyth breathed quickly.

"Don't throw up," Hawkmoon warned. "Don't."

"Then don't move so fast."

"Look, I'll try." Hawkmoon locked and pressurised the cabin, flushing it with air. They wouldn't need it so long as their suits were operational, but in case something went awry with the Gate she wanted to have a backup. "I'm going to start walking now."

"Okay."

Hawkmoon looked down at the Ishtar teams. Shim Three gave her a thumbs up. They advanced together into the dark tunnel, with her shuffling to match their tiny strides. On and on they walked/walk/will walk until the dazzling light of a Vex portal loomed/looms/will loom ahead.

"This is where we part ways," Maya One said/says/will say. "We'll be close by, but the moment you step out there you'll be beyond our physical reach."

"But we'll be free," Praedyth whispered/whispers/will whisper.

"You'll be free." Chioma Three smiled/smiles/will smile ruefully. "Good luck."

"We'll need it." Hawkmoon nodded/nods/will nod and vented/vents/will vent one last time. "Here we go."

She stepped/steps/will step forth through the portal-

-and emerged from the sizzling dish of the Gate into an active warzone. The pale light of the distant sun crashed over a smouldering battlefield. Two of the station's prefabs were smoking husks while the others were peppered with laser fire. The sky was bombarded with flashes of shrapnel fire; a Cybertronian light cruiser, flanked by a pair of frigates, exchanged cannonade in high orbit with a brace of dark-steeled spindleships. One of the alien vessels was rapidly disgorging drop-pods from its flanks like a reptile shaking off loose scales.

A couple of pods were already scattered across the moon's nearby surface. A ruined Cybertronian shuttle lay closer yet, knocked on its side and with its nose embedded near the base of the hill.

"Oh shit," Hawkmoon cursed.

A kinetic round cracked against her shield and bounced away. A second whizzed straight past her helm. She activated her thrusters, threw herself down the hill and dug her heels in to skid to a stop in front of the downed shuttle. A volley of plasma rounds tinked-tinked-tinked against its hull. Most of the shots came from around one of the burning prefabs. More gunfire emanated from behind it, but it wasn't directed at her. This was an ambush and the Camiens were paying the price.

"What's happening?!" Adria shouted.

Hawkmoon heard an explosion from the other side of the research station, followed by a babble of alien chatter on open comms. The twisted speech was mechanical, electronic, but not Cybertornian. "Fucking Drezhari!" she snarled. Hawkmoon extended a shoulder cannon and transformed a shard carbine. "Bastards have caught us up!"

A blister in the heavens tore open, swallowing a series of plummeting drop-pods in clouds of smelting flames. The Camien cruiser above unleashed another barrage of missiles to finish the job but the spindleships fired on each payload with plasma bolts, igniting them far short of their intended targets. The sheer thunderous din of it all hit Hawkmoon moments later, rattling her plate. One of the drop-pods landed close with a quaking bang; she straightened up, took aim, and the very moment the slab folded open she fired into it. A half-dozen Drezhari corpse-frames tumbled out with smoking holes in their chests.

Additional pods peppered in and around the research station, vomiting skeletal units and swarming squids. The former carried matter-flayer rifles, while the latter propelled themselves at Cybertronian emplacements. A school of them converged on Hawkmoon's location - only to be cut off as a giant steel monstrosity slammed down in their midst, shaking Hawkmoon to her core.

It was Cybertronian, only it was as as massive to her as she was to the humans and wrapped in thick layers of red-and-blue armour, bristling with weaponry. A combiner.

Hawkmoon knew about combiners in theory, but actually seeing one was a different matter entirely. She'd known giants - Oryx, Riven, Xol, the various Vex Minds that had haunted Sol - yet the combiner was something different. Its EM field washed over her; its emotions were base, simple, primal. War was its one and only calling and it took to it with gusto. A grouping of Drezhari, fresh from their pod, fired on it with eerie synchronization but the combiner's armour was too thick for their bullets. It gazed down at them with fierce contempt and with a brace of smelter cannons pinned to its arm it smote them from the surface of Mederi.

"Victorion: online," it rumbled with six voices joined as one. "Commencing purge."

Long streams of incandescent flames spat forth from its wrist-mounted energon dispensers. The sheer volatile heat of burning energon was enough to melt the plate from Drezhari automatons and ignite their precious internal components. With its other transformed servo the combiner manipulated gravity itself, ripping alien trespassers from the surface of the moon and smashing them back down.

The combiner turned its back to her and advanced with slow, plodding steps towards the centre of the ravaged station, heading into the heart of the firefight. It took the Drezhari's attentions with it.

"Augur," Hawkmoon whispered. She tore her optics away from the combiner and scanned the area for a hint of her Verunlix. "Need to find Augur. C'mon you bastard, where are you..."

Nothing jumped out at her. It was possible that the local Drezhari were able to see him as Greshar could, and Augur was aware of that, so she reasoned he left to hide somewhere - but the moon was barren, open, with only the station nearby for cover. Hawkmoon didn't think he'd leave altogether either. Not if it meant losing her.

That left somewhere in the research station, despite the war being waged around it. He was in there. Waiting for her.

"Alright," Hawkmoon said to her passengers. "I'm going to need you two to hold on. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes," Adria said faintly.

"Hawkmoon, I can help," Praedyth urged. "Let me out."

Hawkmoon vented. "No. Can't waste time. Can't risk the Drezhari grabbing you either." She stood up and, without further warning, soared on a jet of her thrusters the rest of the way towards the line of prefabs. Enemy fire scored around her prior position; they were tracking her, chasing her. Hawkmoon barreled through the broken door of the closest building, almost crashed into a Drezhari footsoldier and didn't waste a moment in taking to the automaton with her bare claws.

She pulled one of its gangly arms free of its shoulder and twisted the other until it dropped its rifle. It hissed static at her, craning its mouthless skull forward; its orange optics burned with molten malice. Hawkmoon drove her talons in between its ribs and pulled its chassis open. Oil and energon splashed over her faceplates. Her servo found the automaton's power core and she ripped it free. The footsoldier collapsed on the spot.

"Fucking hell," Adria breathed.

Hawkmoon moved on, stepping over the body without a second look. The prefab's interior was a lab of some sort. Shards of glass lay scattered across the tables and floors. Another Drezhari stepped out of a closet at the back and Hawkmoon pulled her Firespitter on it. Her digit pressed twice - once to slag its weapon before it could shoot back, a second time to nail the alien between the optics. It fell to its knees. Hawkmoon shoved it out of the way and found another door at the back. "Augur!" she shouted, scanning the shelves and cabinets.

A series of metallic clangs emanated from behind her. Hawkmoon threw herself out and slammed the door shut just as a series of rounds crashed against it - but this only put her in the midst of another Drezhari squad. Seeing no alternative, Hawkmoon moved for them. Her claws closed on the neck of the nearest robot and she pulled it in front of her as the rest raised their weapons. Beam after beam of steel-rotting energies splashed against her captive until it was little more than slag, but the momentary cover gave her the chance to fire back and advance on the next. At so short a range her handcannon became needless; Hawkmoon tossed the dead Drezhari at the rest and finished the fight with talons and wristblades. A shoal of squids caught up halfway through, but by then she was already in the cleaning-up phase and was well able to ward them off with precise blasts of her shoulder cannon.

One of the squids tried to wrap its hooked tentacles around her wing. Hawkmoon bucked against its grip but it held tight, kept at bay only by her shield. She rammed herself against the wall of the prefab with enough force to jostle the squid loose, and she snatched it out of the air. Hawkmoon pressed her claws into its frame and savagely ripped the drone apart.

"Augur!" she shouted, swatting another squid away from her helm. "Augur, where are you?!"

She received no reply. If anything the Drezhari assailing her became more agitated. One of the skeletal automatons roused from seeming death and grabbed her ankle; Hawkmoon tore her pede free and stomped on its skull. A squid attempted to catch at her throat but a blast of her cannon reduced it to slag.

"AUGUR!"

Another pack of constructs rounded the prefab. Hawkmoon turned her carbine on them and cut the lot down, but a heavier construct powered through the shard-fire and raised a massive arm to smash her into scrap metal. Hawkmoon danced out of the way, grabbed the oversized Drezhari brute's collar and looped onto its back with a burst of her thrusters. She slipped a servo over its skull, pinning her talons in its optic sockets, and shoved a wristblade with the other arm into the base of its neck. Heat and black oil billowed out, followed by a spray of golden light. Hawkmoon let go with a curse and darted out of the way as something erupted from the construct's frame. The whole robot shuddered; its head shook this way and that until the force of the motion wrenched it straight off of its shoulders, and a pair of golden wings sprouted from the back of its ashen ribs. It twisted around. Orange lights in the shape of eyes activated about its bloodied collar.

"There you are," Greshar hissed. His voice was edged with static, distorted by failing speakers, but it was still as peerless and perfect as any she'd ever heard. "My dearest Emirate, transcendent."

"Fucking... fuck." Hawkmoon retreated - but a wave of gunfire forced her back into cover. Back into the thing's reach. Greshar reached out impossibly fast and closed a massive fist around her arm, inexplicably slipping past her Tai shield generator. Plating buckled beneath His grip. She hissed with pain and tried to break free but he held tight. Sensors prickled her HUD with various damage reports. She lashed at his ribs, fired with her cannon point blank, yet the damage she inflicted amounted to little. Hawkmoon even blasted a hole through His sternum only for blinding power to fill in the gaps. Pale smoke rose around him, around the pair of them; it was caustic and it sizzled against her shield.

One of the humans was bashing their fist against her canopy. Adria was shouting. Hawkmoon could hear her but couldn't make out the words. Praedyth was shifting, messing with something, pulling his rifle to the ready-

A flicker of movement caught her optic. A shape, shadowy and bright-eyed, landed on the Greshar-proxy's shoulder. Hawkmoon reached for it, for the golden hilt it held between its teeth, and drew the Nullblade free of Augur's jaws. A flick extended its panel-blades; a press of a digit wreathed the length of it in hungering Void. Hawkmoon stabbed the sword down into the construct's chassis and wrenched it sideway, slicing the Drezhari open from shoulder to hip. It went wild - and Hawkmoon pulled loose the moment its servo spasmed open. Another swing took out its legs, and when it tried to pull her down with it Hawkmoon twisted the blade about, severing the offending arm at the elbow.

Hawkmoon planted a pede on the downed proxy's spine. Its golden wings battered at her with immeasurable heat, kept at bay only by the Nullblade's cold spite. She aimed the tip of the sword between the Drezhari's shoulderblades and tugged it downwards, neatly bisecting the automaton straight down the middle. Greshar yelled up until the construct's speakers gave out.

But another Drezhari took up His call. Golden light spilled from the optics of another dying footsoldier. It sat up, a failing power core dangling from taut cables between its broken ribs, and holographic wings unfolded from projectors on its back. "You are a misshapen thing," it said with a god's voice. "A stranger lost in time, made to change and change over and over. I adore you."

Hawkmoon decapitated it with an irreverent flick of her blade. The Drezhari's body lolled forward, deactivating for good.

"We need not be foes," a fluttering squid whispered. "I-"

She pulled it out of the air and squeezed it into a sparking pulp.

"-am merciful!" sang those Drezhari beyond the prefabs - entire ranks of them, slaved to Greshar's delirious chorus. They were closing on her.

"We can't stay here!" Augur leapt onto her shoulder. "Can you fly?"

"Maybe." Hawkmoon cleared the chamber of her carbine and reloaded her handcannon. She watched the prefab's corners. "But those ships - how are there so many?"

"They opened a portal."

"A spacebridge?"

Augur's claws kneaded her plate. "Yes."

"Perfect."

"You think you can reach it?"

"I can give it a try." Hawkmoon glanced up. One of the spindle carriers was descending fast. A Cybertronian frigate was giving chase but it was too far. Much too far. "But we might not make takeoff. Can't fight gravity and the Drezhari both."

"Then we are pinned."

"Soundwave still has my 'shroud." She grimaced hard. "Where's the locals?"

"The Drezhari have herded them to the other side of the station. Many of their soldiers are already dead. The gestalt union-"

"Combiner."

"Yes. It won't last much longer. Not when the Drezhari receive reinforcements."

"Or if those ships above decided to bombard us from orbit," Hawkmoon grimly finished. "It'll only get worse the longer that spacebridge stays open. Do you know where it is?"

"Well beyond this moon. They know what you are capable of."

"Then we need a distraction." Hawkmoon opened her comms to local channels, pausing only to silence the rushing roar of Drezhari broadcast, and beamed her own transmission. ::This is Emirate Hawkmoon, I am in need of assistance. Drezhari have me pinned and are advancing on my position. Can anyone read me?::

The very air seemed to tremble as the shadow of the spindleship fell overhead. Hawkmoon felt the tingle of alien sensors washing over her frame. A cloud of dust rose up from the south, disturbed by the cruiser's dive, and it grew until it blotted out the sun. The only sources of light to persevere was that of the spreading flames and Hawkmoon's own optics.

::This is Emirate Hawkmoon,:: she repeated. ::Does anyone read me?::

:: -ffirmative, Emirate. Victorion responding. Please mark your location.::

Hawkmoon fired on the first Drezhari helm to peer around the prefab's hull. ::Victorion, do you have a reading on the enemy's spacebridge?::

::Affirmative Emirate.Additional warp-signatures detected in Mederi's orbit. Enemy is erecting a blockade. For your safety I cannot advise that you abandon your cover.::

::Victorion, my cover is about to be swamped with Drezhari units. Is Caminus aware?::

::The Camien Defense Fleet is mustering as we speak. Emirate Hawkmoon, what is your location?::

::Forget my location. I can dismantle the spacebridge, but I need an opening. Can you contact those warships above? Order them to keep the Drezhari fleet busy.::

::Emirate- ::

::By the power invested in me by Sentinel Zeta Prime, chosen of Primus, I order that all available Camien forces draw the enemy away from the spacebridge. Will you comply?::

Victorion's response was short and curt. ::As you wish, Emirate Hawkmoon.::

::Thank you.:: Hawkmoon vented quickly. "Camiens are going to pull enemy fire away. Y'hear that Augur?"

"I hear you."

"You two." Hawkmoon tapped her canopy. "We're going to take off-" She trailed off as something manifested on the edge of her EM field, and yelped as a skeletal shape clambered over the top of the prefab. The thing locked optics on her and pounced. Hawkmoon drove a superheated wristblade into the Drezhari's stomach just as it hit her and grabbed onto its lanky neck as they fell to the ground, tugging its head free. A spurt of sizzling fuel splashed over her optics, almost blinding her. Hawkmoon shoved the alien off with a grunt. Praedyth was pounding against her canopy and it ached something fierce. She tried to sit up but the pain redoubled, tripled, until her EM field screamed with agony.

A pair of constructs hung in the air above; they were of the limbless variety, mere torsos floating on antigrav fields, and they assailed her with gouging hacks. Their eyes glowed gold. "I am merciful," Greshar said again, speaking from both constructs at once. "Torment ill-suits you. Surrender the blade. Surrender your loyalties, your morals, your beliefs. Surrender all and I will repurpose you towards a glorious end."

She opened her canopy. Praedyth emerged with his Vex weapon and fired a salvo of searing deletion rounds at one of the constructs; Adria was close enough behind to discharge her maltech sidearm on the same target. The Drezhari, shredded and scorched, jittered in the air for a moment before crashing down to the moon's surface; the pain abated to a far enough degree that Hawkmoon could shake the humans off, rocket herself up and run the remaining Drezhari through. It shuddered and died on the Nullblade's length. Greshar's voice faded with it.

She dropped down to the ground, reloaded her carbine and desperately pressed her back against the prefab as the gunners on either side began to herd them in with volleys of gunfire. The humans followed her lead, aiming for one side of the building while she covered the other.

"What are those?" Augur hissed. He leapt down by the humans with his teeth bared and jaws flared open. Compared with them he was massive - easily the size of a great brown bear - but they gave no indication of noticing him at all, not even when he stood directly in front of them.

"Don't!" Hawkmoon said sharply. "They're humans - my kind."

"They stink of cold logic."

"They're not Vex, Augur. They're friends."

He reluctantly retreated back to her side. "This position is untenable," he complained. "We must leave!"

"Going to." Hawkmoon waited and watched. Gradually the battle above began to shift as the Camiens pressed a reckless offensive, but the closing spindleship was worrying. "That thing's going to catch us."

"Do we have a choice?" Augur said.

Another rumble tore through the air as the spindleship began to open fire - not on them, but the towering shape of Victrorion. It laced the combiner's frame with searing bolts, drawing rivulets of molten steel like glowing blood. The combiner reacted rapidly, pointing its gravity weapon at the frigate. The very air of the moon began to tremble and change. Hawkmoon felt gravity itself distort; the spindleship lurched to the side, cracking down the middle, and its rear thrusters shorted out. The ship haltingly collapsed, pitching forward with its prow aimed at the hill.

"What the fuck!" Adria swore.

"Victorion: superior," Victorion boomed. It lowered its gravity weapon and moved on to smaller targets. Various cannons along its arms and torso fired on Drezhari positions around the station. The combiner was devastation incarnate, a creature born for war. Somewhere behind them the spindleship hit the moon's surface. Hawkmoon heard a snap as the frigate's spine shattered. Overhead the rest of the Drezhari fleet opened with a salvo of air-to-surface warheads, having finally noticed the state of their sister ship. Victorion casually raised its gravity disruptor again and caught the missiles right out of the sky, pausing only to fling them aside.

"Guess that's our opening," Hawkmoon said. She switched to English. "Alright, we're leaving. C'mon, quickly." She grabbed Adria, ignored her yelp and shoved her towards her open canopy and - ew, ew, ew, still wasn't alright. Praedyth followed quickly. Hawkmoon closed the cockpit, waited for the pair to secure themselves, and then finally leapt up into the air. The burn of her thrusters took her the rest of the way, flinging her skywards. A buzz of Drezhari chatter rose in her wake; the grounded automatons fired at her retreating form with little effect, drawing Victorion's attention unto themselves.

Another series of alien signals attempted to connect with her EM - it was the fleet above, using her own electromagnetic signature to guide their weapons. Hawkmoon pulled it in against her frame and transformed, taking the shape of a foldfighter. She swerved to avoid the path of the drop-pod swarms, narrowly danced around bursts of calculated flak rounds, and flew hard while Cybertronian cannons fired on the distracted Drezhari with unerring accuracy. A couple of shots struck lucky and one of the spindleships lost its rearmost thrusters, ripping it straight out of the sky.

"I'm going to pull a micro-jump," Hawkmoon warned. "Hold on tight."

Space distorted all around them. Hawkmoon glided out of warp far beyond the battle over Mederi and basked in the light of the distant sun. The gas giant hung over them, colossal and sand-brown. The sudden gulf of silence was striking; all Hawkmoon could hear were her own internal systems and the hushed breathes of her human passengers.

"This is the Caminus system?" Praedyth said. He tenderly laid his rifle down by his side.

"It is," Hawkmoon confirmed.

"I've never left Sol before, except... except for the depths of the Vault."

"And the Garden."

"Yes. And the Garden."

"What's our plan of action?" Adria questioned.

"I'm scanning for a spacebridge as we speak," Hawkmoon explained. "They're not subtle things."

"What... what is a spacebridge exactly?"

"A portal joining two points in space. Usually you'd need a receiving gate, but I guess the Drezhari have the tech to go without."

"What does that mean for us?"

"Nothing. So long as I can get near enough to close it, we're good."

"And what if they reopen it?" Praedyth inquired.

"Spacebridges need a warm-up period," Hawkmoon told him. "And they guzzle energon like a motherfucker. Depends on how desperate the Drezhari are. If we can cut them off while the Camien Fleet gears up we'll have managed something."

"We should leave altogether," Augur whispered from nowhere and everywhere at once. "Return to Cybertron-"

"They're here for us, Augur. I'm not leaving these people to die for us."

"The Protectorate died for you. My people died for you. How is this any different?"

"Because this time I have a choice in the matter." A report from her navigation systems crossed her HUD. "Spacial anomaly at the giant's pole, inside its stratosphere. Drezhari are playing it safe."

"But now you've found them."

"Now I've found them." Hawkmoon paused. "Picking up on Drezhari chatter. 'Nother blockade. Fucking hell, they're everywhere. They gotta know I'm out here."

"This is too dangerous, even for you."

"I'm aware." Hawkmoon charted a second jump, boiled her warp drives and plummeted through trans-space. She emerged at the summit of Caminus' gas giant. Dark-shelled Drezhari spindleships floated on the surf of the planet's magnetic field, scattered about a swirling rounded energy mass flickering with every colour on the spectrum. Before her very optics the prow of another ship emerged from the spacebridge clad in a covering of fresh drop-pods. Swarms of squids rushed around the spires of each vessel thousands strong.

"What the fuck," Adria whispered. "You're not flying into that. You're not."

"I'm going to need you both to hold on again," Hawkmoon said.

"No no no, Hawkmoon, stop, wait, please don't-"

"Adria, I don't see you holding on. We're going to hit the edge of the giant's atmosphere. If you two don't move with me you're going to pass out. A lot."

"You can't fly into that. You can't."

"Adria."

Adria's hands tightened on the edge of the cockpit. Praedyth, while similarly tense, uttered not a single word. Both of them stared straight ahead.

"Diving now," Hawkmoon announced. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Her prow dipped towards the spacebridge and she fell, wings ablaze in the sun's distant light. The flare of her thrusters finally revealed her presence to the Drezhari; the entire fleet shuddered and moved to defend their entry point. The arrays of the foremost spindleships flayed the edges of her EM field with false-broadcasts, but Hawkmoon kept herself in motion. Cannons opened fire but she was beyond them, rolling and twisting to so extreme a degree that no organic pilot could ever match.

The spindleships moved to arrange themselves into a screen around the spacebridge while they filled the vacuum with death. Hawkmoon's shields flared here and there from glancing energy shots but her true concern were the physical armaments. Semi-sapient missiles burst from hidden bays in the Drezhari vessels, rising to meet her.

"Augur," Hawkmoon said. "Take us out of realspace."

She felt a small needling pain somewhere along her hull - a sacrifice of blood, melting to dream. Hawkmoon focused her mind's eye, pictured the space beyond the fleet-

They cut through the space of decaying Ley Lines. Hawkmoon veered drastically to avoid a floating island dotted with ruins and burned around it. Things moved in the dark. Things with golden wings and beautiful voices. They gave chase, but the idea of realspace never left her processor. She forced her will to change the reality of the space, to carve a new path. The way opened.

-and there they re-emerged. The dull wash of Drezhari signals stirred with surprise; they saw her again but their confusion was gave her a moment of freedom. Not a moment later a flood of squids fell after her - but too little, too late. The blasted thing in Hawkmoon's chassis itched, it ached, it roused from its sleep and it caught the scent of its favourite prey. Raw data trickled in. Hawkmoon welcomed it, saw the coordinates of the origin point, the route taken through the senselessness of trans-space, and she reached out with an invisible hand to pinch around the spacebridge's connection.

She felt the thrum, the sizzle, the pulse of un-life and Hawkmoon cut it short. The spacebridge, yawning, fluttered like a blinking eye... and finally winked out.

"Holy shit," Adria breathed.

Hawkmoon dove further yet.

"What are you doing?!" Praedyth yelled.

The squids were spreading out behind her, creating a net. Hawkmoon flew until they hit the gas giant's lower atmosphere and she tumbled without a moment's hesitation into the fiercest storm she'd ever known. The squids on her tail were torn away by vicious winds strong enough to strip the flesh from a human's bones. Lightning danced all around them; she felt them, felt their charge, their tantalizing touch. Hawkmoon darted through towering bolts of electricity so pure it was almost Arc itself. In her prior life she'd been a Gunslinger, but the allure of the Arcstrider had driven her astray time and again. She wasn't Ikharos, battling to control the storm within, nor was she Jaxson, offering his body as a conduit to its destructive energies. Her nature had been to move with it - neither part of nor arrayed against it, merely in accord.

But, near as strong, she remembered the storms on Cybertron. Remembered racing into them alongside Cyberwarp and Nacelle. The memory almost stopped her in her tracks but Hawkmoon rose from it with sharpened focus. Her aching spark became her armour; she opened her trine bond, reaching out for a presence long since taken from her, and in her reverie she led her flightmates on one last ride through hell itself.

They re-emerged from the gas giant well ahead of the squid swarm. The Drezhari fleet was in disarray. They floundered around where the spacebridge had floated and fired haphazardly into the giant's gaseous seas. It wasn't long before they spotted her again, but Hawkmoon was a Seeker. She could outrun them with ease. Her nose tipped up-

A tug caught her wing. She spun, caught utterly off-guard, and tried to level out but another pocket of phantom pull buffeted her frame. Hawkmoon folded her wings in and intensified the burn of her thrusters, but space slowed to a halt around her. Something had her; it wasn't magnetic because she couldn't feel anything with her field, but it grabbed her with all the power of a planet's gravity well condensed entirely to her local tract of space.

"What's going on?" Praedyth asked quickly.

Hawkmoon looked back and saw at the head of the advancing fleet a spindleship crowned with a fractal monolith - something crafted of obsidian and golden light. The architecture was the same as the pyramids, as the scout ship in the Black Garden itself. "Frag," Hawkmoon swore. She directed all her power to thrust and fought the Drezhari's hold with everything she had. It wasn't enough.

The feel of it was wrong and only growing stronger. It wasn't entirely unknown to her either. A presence was pulling on her every molecule, threatening to twist and tug and taste. Invisible fingers caressed her wings, fangs traced over the contours of her hull, serpent tongues slithered around her spark. Her lungs, gone and gone and gone, burned for air. She was drowning. Drowning. Drowning.

"No," Hawkmoon gasped. "Let... go!"

She fired back on the modified spindleship but every round disappeared just before they reached their targets, consumed by senseless proximity.

"Augur," she gasped; the grip was strangling her. The humans within her cockpit were writhing with agony. "Augur, get us out. I can't... focus!"

Augur shifted. There was another small, sharp pain but she couldn't care less. Un-space drove into realspace, yawning before them, moving to swallow them whole - but a surge of sickly golden light emerged from the other side wreathed in choking smoke. A hand, formless and alien reached through to grab her.

"No!" Augur closed the rupture. The arm was cut off at the elbow and melted into vacuum. The decaying particulates of the delirious power dissipated on Hawkmoon's hull, accompanied by the fading notes of HIS voice.

"Bravo," the angel whispered, dying into obscurity. "Bravo."

The spindleship wrenched her back. Hawkmoon's hull was starting to crinkle where the pressure held most firm. It was going to tear her apart. With a heated vent she let go, deactivating her thrusters, turned to engage, and transformed. Her foldfighter shape deconstructed into the sinuous shadow of a wish dragon. She soared forth, her wings outstretched, and gathered power within her jaws. The lead spindleship opened fire and this time there was little she could do to stop them. Her shields flared, shattered; plasma bolts shredded her wings, scorched the edges of her frame, but she didn't stop. She couldn't.

Hawkmoon loosed the torrent of Arc between her fangs. Drezhari steel melted and buckled, disintegrating beneath her very breath. She hit the ruined prow of the ship with force - digging her claws in to anchor herself and raising her head to bathe the monument in destruction. For a moment it looked as if its inexplicable defences would hold, but glowing cracks began to appear in the obsidian surface.

Cannon fire and plasma bolts ripped open her flanks, spilling energon into open space. She couldn't move to avoid them. Her shields tried their best to regenerate but it was an impossible task. Everything burned - but the weapon broke before she did. With a blinding explosion the Dark monolith reached its limit and the Arc smashed through its defences, shattering it into a million jagged pieces. The violations disappeared. Adria and Praedyth stopped struggling; the former had passed out, but Praedyth weakly braced against the edge of the cockpit.

The squids caught up with her after that. Hawkmoon pushed away from the slagged spindleship to escape them but her thrusters were bust. She lashed out with claw and fang at every automation in reach, but they were endless. Their barbed tentacles scored against her bloodied flanks, slashed across her muzzle, pulled the end of her tail. Hawkmoon caught one squid between her jaws and squeezed until she felt the liquid touch of its ruptured fuel tanks, but there were dozens of others waiting to take its place. The swarm drove her back against the damaged spindleship. When she tried to unleash her Arc beam they wrapped their tendrils around her snout and held it shut.

She jerked her head around and kicked away from the ship's hull. They punished her for it; the squids laid her armour open to the protoform and dug in deeper, drawing lines of energon. Hawkmoon frantically activated her Arc weapon regardless of the squids and burned through her jaws. The pain melded in with the rest, and though it was cripplingly oppressive her desperation was greater. She melted the squids by the tens, the hundreds, and she swung it around in every direction. The sheer destruction drove the swarm back but a burst of cannon fire sent her careening back through space. Hawkmoon extended her broken wings and steadied herself. Her shield found the time to wrap around her mauled frame - but the swarm was closing and fast. Another beam sent them reeling back. The spindleships, though, weren't dissuaded in the slightest. They'd advanced on either side while the swarm had kept her busy, pinning her in. Hawkmoon tried to fly out of their range, but that was a fantasy.

Her Scrambler jittered. Another spacebridge opened at her back. More Drezhari, she initially thought, but the data was all wrong. The thing that emerged from it was no spindleship either. Hawkmoon sensors took it in - the sheer scope of the ship, the breadth, the very shape of it, the array of weapons bristling from tiered ramparts - and she ached for lungs. Ached to breathe, to sight, to hack away the blood in her throat and cheer with the rawest voice. The colours were different, darker; it didn't catch the sun's light. Icons and sigils utterly foreign to her had been drawn across its hull, but the architecture was unmistakable. It was a battleplate.

A Taishibethi battleplate.

It cast a shadow over her and the Drezhari both, silhouetted against the glare of the spacebridge and the blue dwarf far beyond it. Massive glyphs in sharp red stood prominent against a grey-black hull. The air of chatter around it was muted, but not quiet, and the ship radiated an aura of seething malice. Gone was the promise of gentle hope, lost to the horrors of war. The resplendent regalia of the Protectorate had been stripped away. It retained the same base design of a battleplate - a series of hexagonal tiers, widest at its centre, in a manner reminiscent of its people's holy temples - it was much changed. If anything it reminded her of the works of the Fallen, even if only in spirit alone; a regal beast dragged down into crass pragmatism, reduced from imperial magnificence to tribal belligerence.

A pair of blocky arsenal ships emerged on either side of it, like slavering pups following their mother to a carrion feast. One of them bore on its wide prow the image of a rising golden bird set against a deep night, while the other was painted in a manner reminiscent of a raven's skull, with four empty eye sockets on either side of its hull. Hawkmoon felt their sensors wash over her, scrutinize her, then move on. The Drezhari remained frozen in place. Their ships amounted to little more than light attack craft, while the battleplate alone was a capital warcruiser.

Hawkmoon flinched as a booming broadcast emanated from the Tai vessel. ::Graveborn,:: a deep, deep voice grated in a hundred different languages, Cybertronian included. ::Surrender your ships. Surrender your weapons. Surrender your oaths and you will be left with your lives.::

"Augur?" Hawkmoon whispered.

"Finally," Augur cackled. He yipped with giddiness. "Finally!"

::Refuse and we will bleed you dry,:: the battleplate darkly promised. ::Your remains will hang from our spires. Your sparks will feed our engines. What say you?::

The Drezhari made no immediate response. Their spindleships hung in silent disregard, utterly at a loss. Hawkmoon briefly suspected they wouldn't say a thing, but the orange lights along their hulls turned golden in an instant. ::No!:: Greshar bellowed. ::NO! Death-thieves, fate-swindlers - this is my realm! You are not welcome. Do you hear me, raven-spawn? You are NOT welcome!::

::Very well, graveborn,:: the battleplate coldly declared. ::Abstention is death. You have made your choice::

The spindleships opened fire. Hawkmoon winced and shrunk in on herself but the volley passed over her, only to uselessly deflect off a colossal absorption shield. The battleplate responded in kind - and the Drezhari stood no chance. Spindleships were snapped apart and smashed open by heavy kinetic rounds. Others were slagged into unrecognisable hulks of disfigured steel. If the confrontation had taken place in a self-contained atmosphere, Hawkmoon imagined the noise would have been deafening. The arsenal ships surged past the battleplate to herd the Drezhari stragglers back into the killzone. The squid swarms flexed forwards but the Tai flagship disgorged flocks of glittering foldfighters to intercept them. All but one of the hundred squadrons passed by Hawkmoon, leaving a half-dozen to close around her.

::Seeker,:: one of them transmitted. Their Cybertronian was awkward but intact, fed through an automatic translator. ::This is Sunborn-Decanus Mirtaeph'Viluri of the Taishibethi Unkindness. State your designation.::

::Hawkmoon!:: Hawkmoon quickly replied, so feverish with pain that her euphoria, her relief, her fear blended together into a single indecipherable solution. ::My name is Hawkmoon! I knew the Emperor!::

The Tai hardly skipped a beat. ::Are you operational? Can you fly?::

Hawkmoon tested her thrusters. One of them shuddered dangerously. Another refused to activated. ::I won't make it far,:: she admitted.

::You will not have to. Conform to our pathing. The Anguish issues summons. Your presence is requested by the Arch-Admiral herself.::

"Follow," Augur urged her. "Follow!"

::I understand,:: Hawkmoon responded. ::Lead on.::

The foldfighters led her to a gaping hangar in one of the battleplate's lower tiers. Similar fighters waited on launch-racks along the ceiling, firing in sequence from magnetic rails into the open void. The floor was given over to landing bays and repair stations. Hawkmoon saw Taishibethi technicians in waiting by one of the bays, flanked by a half-dozen Myod supersoldiers clad in ivory plate. Dataweave streamers and purple ribbons hung lax from their breastplates and armoured shells. Royal Excubitors, Hawkmoon recalled. The custodians of Úthaessel's palace in Khidai-Viis. Each of them were half again her size and armed with beam-lances.

Her landing was rough. Hawkmoon tried to catch herself with her legs but they gave out beneath her. Energon rapidly pooled under her frame, caught in artificial gravity. The humans, she thought with alarm, but she could scarcely move. Gloved hands moved around her frame; Hawkmoon growled for space and transformed. It was slow and it was agony but she had to see it through. Eventually she found herself in her humanoid form and fell to her knees, wracked by damage reports and energon loss.

"Easy," a Taishibethi voice said. An arm looped under her own and helped her to her pedes. "Easy. You're safe now."

"Come," Augur shouted. He danced in front of her impatiently. "We cannot tarry! Hawkmoon, hurry!"

She wasn't in any state to do anything. Hawkmoon caught the technician's shoulder with a servo and stared at them. They gazed back with four dark eyes. She could have cried then and there. "How?" she whispered.

"Seeker, restrain yourself," they said, and motioned to another technician. A trolley was dragged over. She heard a soldering tool being activated.

"No," Hawkmoon muttered. She pushed away and forced herself to stand on her own. A wristblade extended from her fist. The technicians nervously backed away and the Myods stirred, but she only pressed the glowing blade against the most grievous rent in her side to solder the protoform back together. Hawkmoon vented. Her vision swam and stasis-lock loomed close by, but she fought to keep conscious. "I'm good," she lied. "I can keep going."

"Yes!" Augur crowed. "Quickly!"

The Tai gave her dubious looks. "If you're sure," a soldier said. He motioned sharply. "Follow."

Hawkmoon blinked at him. There was something... off, but she fell into step and the Myods took up the rear. Each pace was a battle, and each victory came more costly than the last. Her energon dripped, dripped, dripped behind her, leaving a trail in her wake. She tried to apologise yet the words choked in her vocalizer. "I..." Hawkmoon said. "I need..."

"Come along." The soldier ushered her onwards. She couldn't tell which direction they walked, but inevitably they stopped in a massive elevator. Hawkmoon braced against the wall and vented hard. Her optics found the soldier-

He had no wings. That was it. That was what bothered her so much. Most of the technicians in the hangar still had them, but not him. Reduced to four limbs in place of six.

The elevator shuddered to a stop. One of the Myods caught her arm and helped her out, releasing her only when she'd rediscovered her balance. The corridor beyond was wide but poorly-lit, and a line of Taishibethi stood on either side. Whispers caught her audioreceptor though the words escaped her. It all hushed the moment she stepped out and countless depthless eyes turned to stare at her. The soldier led her on, down and down until at last they arrived at a set of monumental doors - which whooshed open before them. Another rank of Excubitors met them there. Beam-lances lifted, entry was given, and Hawkmoon hobbled on. Augur pranced well ahead of her.

Beyond was a spacious chamber dominated by an elaborate holotable portraying the local gas giant and its moons. A series of dots were highlighted at various points, including the giant's northern pole, Mederi, a random grouping within the giant's thin asteroid ring, and a spot over Caminus itself. Attending it were a trio of Taishibethi and a single Eecharik freelancer. They looked up at her approach and one of the Taishibethi said something. The rest bowed their heads and hastily filed out.

"Welcome," the remaining Tai said. Her garb was a cross between elaborate robes and combat armour, and her appearance wasn't unlike an African secretary bird - her coat of feathers was more brown than white, but the colouration of her face was a similar vibrant orange, and her beak a pale grey. Dark quills sprouted from the back of her head. Her limbs were long, her claws filed to deadly points, and her black eyes were full of a strange sort of hope.

Hawkmoon stopped and blinked. "I know you," she said, utterly at a loss.

"I should hope so," the Tai said. Her quills raised and her head tilted; it was that oh so familiar Taishibethi smile. "Because I remember you, Hawkmoon."

"Yesss," Augur purred. His tails waved with anticipation.

"Úthaessel introduced us," Hawkmoon continued. "We fought over Osteor. You're-" A sharp pain lanced through her frame. Hawkmoon almost doubled over. Her servo caught the edge of the holotable. The Tai rushed to her.

"It's alright," she said. Her talons delicately cupped Hawkmoon's side. "Easy soldier. Easy. We have you. You can stop fighting."

Hawkmoon shook her helm. "No," she croaked. Her voice was giving out; her body was relegating her energon to all but the most essential systems. Hawkmoon pointed to her cockpit. "Them. Help... help them."

The Tai's gaze dropped. So did Hawkmoon's - because the fog of stasis-lock had settled around her processor and the floor was rushing up to meet her.

She never felt the impact.

"So."

Ikharos gave her a dry look. "Yeah?"

"What's got you grumping?"

"I don't... 'grump'."

"Ike, you do nothing but grump." Lennox-2 shot him her most winning smile. Ikharos snorted.

"It's that kid," he said. He held a needle over the back of her hand. Her arm was on his lap. Joints had messed up on their last mission; she'd almost fumbled with a Devils sharpshooter.

"What about 'im?" Lennox lightly knocked her head against his shoulder.

"You really want to know?"

"I mean, yeah. He seems like a good guy. I like him. You don't?"

"Oh, I like him. I like him a lot. But he's a fucking moron."

"What did he do?"

"He killed a Gate Lord."

Lennox-2 slowly nodded. "Oh."

"Precisely. Bloody fool."

"He's okay?"

"Yeah. A little rattled but no worse for wear"

"I'll call him 'round. We'll grab some ramen, clear the air."

"You'll have to wait on that. He's Reefside."

"You can't be serious."

"Deadly."

Lennox-2 whistled. "My boy. That's wild."

Ikharos grimaced. "I made him promise to grab backup before he does anything else stupid."

"You think he'll play?"

"He's earnest."

"Honest."

"That's what I said. He knows he fucked up." Ikharos closed the plate on the back of her hand. "You're good."

Lennox moved her fingers experimentally. "Smooth. Thanks." She stood and rolled her shoulder. "You can't be too hard on him. He is just a kid."

"He's a killer, Len. Same as us. Traveler gave him the ability to murder folk with the full expectation that someone'll do him just the same. I want to make sure that day's a ways off."

"Dunno if that's depressing or cute. Pretty sure it's both." Lennox's smile fell. "Why's he messing with the Vex?"

"Some mad Exo woman filled his head with cryptic nonsense."

"You mean another Exo gal, right?Not this one right here."

"I said mad. Not crazy."

"There's a difference?"

"There's a world of difference. Shame you can't see it."

Lennox nodded, pretended she understood. And - maybe she did. "So?"

"So what?"

"Are we going to help him or not?"

Ikharos groaned. "Len."

"What?"

"We're not getting into the Reef."

"Sure. But Jaxson ain't gonna stay there. You know it, I know it, so let's treat it like it is."

"You really don't know when to leave well enough alone, do you?"

"Ike, I live for this."

"You live for everything," he deadpanned.

Lennox-2 laughed. "Sure do. Live and let live and all that bull. So?"

"So what, Len?"

"You game?"

"I don't want to be."

"Look, we play hell with a couple of Vex scout parties, maybe bag another Mind. What's the worst that could happen?" She smiled again, knowing it would wear him down - and she'd take as long as she needed to make it happen.

"I don't know, Len. I don't know. If I say no, are you going to head on without me?"

"Sure." Not a chance.

"Alright," he groaned. "I'm game. You know I am. Always."

Hawkmoon onlined her optics. Her processor swam, still recovering from the stasis-lock. There was a crick in her wings and her whole frame felt raw, but... the biting, cutting, burning pain was gone. The dream hung fresh in her mind. The old ache returned, clutching her spark in a vice of her own mortal making.

"Always," Hawkmoon whispered, but the word warped into another. Never.

She was on a slab - something like a berth softened with layers of satin. A dull light burned overhead. Her HUD warned her about unauthorised intrusions, and she followed them to a series of cables forcefully slotted into hidden ports along her neck. She reached to pull them free-

"I wouldn't," a Tai voice warned.

Hawkmoon turned her helm. "You," she said. It was the Tai from before, perched on a stool beside her bed. The room was small, nondescript, devoid of decoration. "You're... Oroses. The Admiral."

"Arch-Admiral now," Oroses corrected. "How do you feel?"

"I'm alive."

"Despite your best efforts. My people were ready to conduct repairs the moment you landed. They tell me you almost killed yourself in your haste." Oroses clacked her beak irritably. One of her hands was wrapped in bandages. "That was reckless."

"I had to know."

"Know what?"

"That someone lived." If she had tearducts Hawkmoon knew she would have wept - for joy, for grief, for both and far more. "I'm sorry."

"Seeker-"

"I... I am so, so sorry. For everything." She broke. Tremors shook her frame. Oroses caught her. Held her.

"I won't forgive you," she said, "because there's nothing to forgive. Besides your own negligence. That is all I will hold against you."

Hawkmoon vented deeply. "Úthaessel's... Úthaessel's gone."

"I know." Oroses' voice grew sombre. She let go and leaned back. "The Emperor died to give us a chance."

"No."

"No?"

"No." Hawkmoon shook her helm. "She just died."

"Is that what you think?"

"Oryx murdered her because He could. That was her fate. She died because there's no universe in which she survives Him."

"We lived because of her sacrifice, and yours. You may not believe that, but surely you understand that she gave her life to save you."

"Look, I know she was important to you. She was important to me too, before the end. I just... I'm sorry." Hawkmoon offlined her optics. "If she died to save me then you got a lousy deal."

"No," Augur murmured. He settled by her side. Hawkmoon glanced at him. "We saved the best and the rest. That will never not be worth it."

"What are you looking at?" Oroses asked.

Hawkmoon tried to think of a reason to lie. She found none. "Augur," she said. "I'm looking at Augur."

"Augur Seven-One?"

"Yeah. Him.

Oroses hummed. "That's good."

Hawkmoon looked at her sharply. "You're... you're not surprised."

"No."

"... You don't think I'm insane? Glitched?"

"Glitched? Perhaps. But someone needed to stay with you." Oroses took a breath. "We lost the Verunlix. We lost their vessels, their... prisons. In the end we had no choice. They attracted the Foe's attentions from too far afield. But we're not such fools to believe they died with their cages."

"You can't see him."

"No. But I'm mortal. Causal."

Hawkmoon grimaced. "I thought I was causal. I should be."

"Úthaessel recognized otherwise. She saw it in you. She knew."

"Knew what? That I'm sensitive to paracausal forces? I'm still effectively causal. My circumstances are wacky as fuck, but I can't manipulate Light or Dark."

"I've taught you to open your way into realms unwalked by mortal kind," Augur pointed out.

Hawkmoon looked at him. "Great. Let's go kill Oryx by taking shortcuts through dreamland. And the ability to see alien foxes. The Taken King doesn't stand a chance."

"The point stands," he retorted. "You can't refute that."

"Even a non-causal nature is advantage in and of itself," Oroses said. "Your very existence stands in defiance of destiny. For Úthaessel, that was enough."

"Enough for what?" Hawkmoon sat up - only to falter when her HUD filled with returning damage reports. "Fuck..."

"My people patched you as well as they were able."

"Doesn't feel like much."

"Yes, well, we aren't familiar with Cybertronian anatomy. You'll have to forgive us."

Hawkmoon paused. "Always," she said, and in her spark the constricting band of grief began to ease.

Oroses took her servo into her good hand and held tight. "When I say it's good to see you alive, please understand that I well and truly mean it."

"Likewise. But..." Hawkmoon winced. She looked at her. "That doesn't feel like enough."

"I know. By the Sun I know."

Hawkmoon laid back down. "How many Tai survived?"

"Altogether? Near two million across the entire fleet."

"That's a lot."

"We numbered a trillion before the war," Oroses quietly said. "When the Raven Bridge broke, Úthaessel bade me to salvage what I could. I tried. Most of those I took with me were military. Most. Now each and every one of us is a soldier. We are a nation of warriors, and I its regent."

"I saw Eecharik. Myods."

"And you'll find little else. The Eecharik nests are gone. Bands of freelancers are all that remains. We have the means to produce a new queen, but not the resources. Their kind are critically endangered and we're to blame for keeping them that way. As for the Myods..." Oroses exhaled. "They'll be easy to rebuild, provided we have the time and space. Each of their kind is a fertile parent capable of spawning a new generation entirely on their own. Like the Eecharik the only obstacle are our limited resources, but their numbers are presently higher."

"How many-"

"Half a million. Two of their supercarriers joined our fleet."

"What about your own ships?"

"Twelve battleplates in total, and over twice that in arsenal ships."

Hawkmoon absorbed that. "Traveler above. That's enough firepower to guard a star system."

"Or destroy one."

"Or destroy one." A thought struck her. "What about the Excubitors?"

"So you saw them?"

"Oroses, a bunch of them were there to greet me the moment your people brought in. They're hard to miss."

"I suppose they wanted to ensure your safety."

"You didn't post them there?"

"I am the Arch-Admiral only. The sole voice the Excubitors obey is that of the Emperor herself."

"I'm not the Emperor."

Oroses tipped her beak up. "Did they follow your orders?"

"No, but... why were they there? I'm not complaining, I'm just... I'm confused."

"I imagine. Would you do something for me?"

"What?"

"The Emperor's blade. Do you have it with you?"

"I do." Hawkmoon frowned and briefly looked Augur's way. He said nothing. "Why?"

"May I see it?"

"...Alright." But something stopped her. Not everything made sense. "Wait. How did you find us?"

"We have been monitoring these... Drezhari for a short time," Oroses admitted. "Their agents opened hostilities the moment we arrived."

"What do you mean the moment you arrived? Across the Divide?"

"Indeed. For now we have contented ourselves with intercepting their excursions beyond their battlelines. We struck fortunate here. Our Ravenbridge detected the expulsion of energy caused by that spacebridge collapse. When we detected Drezhari ships, we moved to engage. Was the spacebridge your doing?"

"Uh, yeah." Hawkmoon blinked. "How long have you been here?"

"Little under a Tai year."

"Just a year?" She shook her helm. "Oroses, it's been four vorns. How long were you in the Divide?"

"Centuries." Oroses' tone turned sharp, brittle. "And I lost half my original fleet in the process, to Hive, disrepair, and... the Dark. We lingered in the black to ensure the Foe lost our scent. The Arch-Fiend was loathe to let us go." She inhaled deeply. "Hawkmoon. I require the weapon. Please."

"Give it to her," Augur urged. "Do it."

They weren't telling her something. Hawkmoon's EM field rippled with dismay. They were lying to her face, but she didn't know why. "You said," Hawkmoon murmured, "that my nature was enough for Úthaessel. I though she gave me the Nullblade to kill Hive - but that isn't it, is it?"

"Hawkmoon. Please."

"Everyone was adamant I keep it. Her, Oor'un'xu, Augur in particular. Why?"

Oroses looked at her blankly. "To deliver us all from damnation."

Hawkmoon took a moment to gather herself. "I... found something in the Garden."

"The Garden?"

"A Vex installation. The Drezhari tracked me there. But inside - I met something. It called itself Invicta."

A strange expression crossed Oroses' face. Augur stiffened. "Thrice-spurned traitor," he whispered.

"The Varanid," Oroses whispered. "You found her?"

"Yeah. But she said she found you," Hawkmoon pointed out. "She said you inspired her. She said you would find me."

"Curious."

"Was she wrong?"

"No." Oroses sounded reluctant.

"So... this was preordained."

"No. It was hope."

"For your survival? Or mine?"

"Both." Oroses leaned forward. "I do not want to force you. I need that weapon. Please give it to me."

Hawkmoon looked at Augur. "She called it a cradle," she said. "Invicta."

"Hawkmoon-"

"You've been using me. What have I been carrying?"

"A chance for a better future." Oroses stood and held out her hand. "The weapon. Now." The door behind her swooshed open. A pair of Taishibethi in strange robes entered with their heads bowed. They held a device between them - a box-shaped contraption a circular hollow on top.

Hawkmoon pressed her digits into her internal storage and plucked the hilt of the Nullblade free. She held it out. "There."

"Thank you." Oroses delicately took it in her good hand and laid it across her lap. Her dark eyes fixed to the base of the ornamental pommel. Her claws danced over it, pressing at a seemingly random series of spots, but then the sword... transformed. The hilt, once so familiar to Hawkmoon, unfolded into an alien shape to reveal its internal mechanisms. She saw the base of the bladed panels, the Void charges wired into their cores, the spring-loaded ejection system, and, at the very bottom, a small hollow where, wrapped in skeletal framing for stability, was a golden crystalline dodecahedron.

An Engram.

With the utmost care Oroses peeled the framework back and plucked the engram out between her claws. It was the size of a human head and carried in it a definitive glow like warm sunlight. The other Tai moved forward and laid their device on the nightstand beside Hawkmoon's bed. She forced herself to sit up despite the discomfort and watched as Oroses placed the engram into port on top of the machine - a decoder, she realized.

"Go," Oroses said, and the Tai closed the machine and quickly left the room. The Admiral closed the Nullblade up and offered it back to Hawkmoon. "I won't keep this from you. It was a gift. One that belongs with you. For now in any case."

Hawkmoon numbly took it back. "That's..."

"You know what that is?"

She nodded. Her optics were wide. "She told us. When we first met, she told us all about herself. The Myods..."

"The First Emperor sought to cement a lineage capable of outlasting the very stars," Oroses said softly. "The Myods presented her with the means. Úthaessel is gone. Her genome remains."

"You... you had me carrying the Emperor's egg this entire time?!" Hawkmoon's voice turned bitter, hurt. "What the hell?!"

"I would like to clarify that I argued against it," Oroses said. She sat back down. "I wasn't optimistic about our chances to reach you."

"So you knew right from the get-go that she was going to use me?" Hawkmoon's helm swivelled around. Her optics landed on Augur. "You too."

"Úthaessel's first duty was to her people," Oroses told her. "Both to the Protectorate and the continuation of our species. She never wanted to choose one or the other. She refused to. But she knew she could not leave it to chance. The Protectorate was always her first concern. We merely convinced her to leave a failsafe."

"So you tricked me."

"Yes. We did."

"She... oh hell." Hawkmoon tensed. "She always told me I wouldn't have to fight the Hive gods. Now I know why. It wasn't kindness."

"It was."

"No. I was just a vessel."

"She entrusted you with something special. She knew you would find a way."

Hawkmoon looked at her. "Did you?"

Oroses breathed out. "No. But I'm glad you did."

"You planned this from the start."

"From the moment you arrived, yes. But it was only when we all had our measure of you that we agreed on a plan."

"That's why Úthaessel had me assigned to your fleet during the war. So you could keep me out of trouble."

"So I could try," Oroses admitted. "You found trouble all the same. Yes, Hawkmoon, we plotted. Yes, we deceived you. Yes, we used you. All of this is true."

"There was no harm in it," Augur said. "Now we have you to thank for a brighter future."

"Everyone's always lying to me," Hawkmoon whispered. "Everyone's using me. I just want to do right by them but you all make it so difficult."

Oroses touched her arm. "You have done right by us. Take pride in that."

"Why? Why me? Why not you?"

"Because there is power in the blood of the Emperor. She is the dragon's daughter. Many are those who would claim her life for their own illicit growth. Our odds were slim as it was; to carry Úthaessel's burden would have damned us. Can you imagine how bright the life of an Emperor would burn in the shadow of the Divide/ The Hive would have found us. They would have killed us all."

"Why not tell me?"

"Because you might try to seek us out. It was safer to leave you unaware."

"Unaware? I didn't escape. Savathûn had me. I was her captive."

Oroses tilted her head. "She did?"

"Augur got me out. Augur and…" Hawkmoon grimaced. "Aiakos."

"There you have it."

"No. If Úthaessel's failsafe relied on both of us surviving-"

"This is a miracle and make no mistake," Oroses interrupted. "But here we are. We live. The plan worked."

"It almost didn't."

"That was always the risk. If you feel used, I'm sorry. You were used. I won't lie. But it was for a good cause."

"Good causes don't survive the Hive. This one shouldn't have." Hawkmoon sighed. "So what now?"

"Now? I have a system to win. We broke the Drezhari at the pole and my marooner-captains are in the midst of shattering their hold over the Vex moon, but a second fleet is holding above your people's colony."

"Caminus."

"That'll be it."

Hawkmoon nodded slowly. "How long have I been out?"

"Some hours in our time," Oroses informed her. "Your damage is still fresh, but my crew have set aside energon for transfusions. As you've said, our patchwork leaves much to be desired. I won't be satisfied until I have a local mechanic inspect you."

"How're the humans?"

"Humans?"

"The pair I had with me. The little guys."

"Ah." Oroses dipped her beak. "They're alive, though they've been through much. Not so much as you, mind, but my xenologists tell me your encounter with the Drezhari was taxing on their anatomy."

"Are they awake?"

"Oh yes. We haven't been able to establish true contact. They did not take kindly to being disarmed either, but we haven't harmed them."

"Thank fuck." Hawkmoon vented. "Alright. Let's go." She moved to get up but Orose placed a hand against her chest to stop her.

"No," she said sternly. "Remain here and rest."

"You can't afford that."

"Can't I?"

"Caminus is a Cybertronian colony," Hawkmoon said, "and right now they're under attack from aliens. If you're moving to engage the Drezhari they won't care to differentiate. I'm an Emirate; I have authority, influence. Even just hearing my voice could clear things up."

"You're weak. Drained. Wounded. Stop, breathe-"

"I haven't been able to breathe in centuries. I'm not going to fly out to war, Oroses. I just... I can't sit this one out; I need to be able to do something. The Drezhari are here for me."

"Exclusively?"

"Sorry?"

Oroses contemplated her. "Very well," she said at last. "You'll join me in the war room, provided you refrain from exerting yourself. Yes?"

"Yeah, I can manage that."

"Good." She stood and motioned with her hand. The door opened again and a soldier entered. "Assist the Seeker," Oroses instructed. "She is to accompany me."

Hawkmoon vented and righted herself up. The shock hadn't worn off. All she could think about was the engram - how it had been there the whole time. Her mind flashed with every moment where the Nullblade had been at risk. It was maddening. "I can manage," she said, lifting her helm.

Oroses tossed her a disapproving look. "No, Hawkmoon," she said. "You cannot. You will not. So long as you are aboard my fleet, you will obey my orders. This I will not negotiate. Now follow."

AN: Big thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!

Another chonker. The muse is coming back now. I might revisit this one, tweak a few things for the sake of presentation, but overall I'm satisfied and relieved to finally be here. I will say that it won't be much longer until we dig into the Autobot-Decepticon movements in case anyone was getting impatient. Which I imagine quite a few people are - this is a long ass fic and it just hit the 450,000 word mark with the previous chapter.

Anyways, hope folks enjoy.