The Secrets' Crusade

It took time for you to recover from Kicha's bombshell, and you couldn't help but wonder how she'd acquired the data. Asking brought you a new understanding of your tentative ally, however.

"I am a Warden of the Hearthguard." That was her reply. For the first time there was confidence, even pride, in the sound of the words and shapes of her veil. "That is enough."

"Enough for you to have access to current military intelligence reports?" Vega asked. Suspicion wasn't quite the right word for her tone, but it was a close relative.

"If it falls within certain areas, yes," Kicha replied with that same quiet confidence. "That was part of the promises made to us when we had power. It would take the will of the Authority to break that agreement, and that they would never do."

A look flashed between the links of your Heartcircle, and Vega gave it voice. "Why not?"

"Two million cycles of history." Kicha's veil added an expression of gentle amusement to her confidence. "I know my people well, Amanda. Even the most ardent supporter of what Contact has become finds their way to the Sorrows in time."

"Sooner than later, for those." Her amusement drained away with those words, the old sadness pouring in to replace it. "They come to remember, but they never understand." You couldn't stop yourself. You reached out, trusting the instincts that had always guided you, and placed a hand on her shoulder in an entirely human gesture of compassion.

"I'm sorry." Confusion writhed across her veil, yet she didn't pull away. A moment later the forefront echo of her pain rocked you back in place. The full, terrible weight of her sorrow loomed above you like a primordial titan, and you fought against instincts as old as humanity telling you to run from it. Another set of instincts urged to reach deeper, to try and understand this scarred leviathan and through that understanding, heal it.

You didn't have time for either right now. So you turned them against each other, cancelling curiosity with fear. It wasn't enjoyable, but it was necessary. You'd never dared hope for luck like this, and you wouldn't risk it with any undue displays of Practice. This would be undue, certainly without Kicha's understanding and consent. You bent that rule in combat, but that only worked against an enemy, and you couldn't see Kicha as one of those anymore.

The weight of that ancient's sorrow burned as it fell upon you, drawing a gasp of pain from your lips. But you weathered it, even as your Masque shuddered. You couldn't mend this here, it was older and deeper than any single meeting of words and motion could restore. But you could still help, and as you could, you would.

"You didn't have to do that." The shell of Kicha's veil was still twisted in confusion.

"Yes, she did," Lea was next to you, her hand on your own shoulder, emotion and energy streaming down her arm to soothe your burned soul.

:And I thought I told you no taking risks like that," she scolded, in the seconds of slow, verbal language.

:I couldn't step back, Lea.: It wasn't an apology, but it was close enough to mollify. Both of you knew you couldn't give more than that. Not for something like this.

:That doesn't make me like it any more,: she replied tartly. You felt her senses sweep through you, searching for any hidden scars, then the energy of her Focus withdrew. :Please don't make me do this a third time today, Mandy.:

:I'll try.:

Your fellow Mender gave an exasperated sigh. "It's who she is."

"I see," Kicha said. "Or I don't, but I trust that you know your own oddities better than I ever could."

Vega chuckled. "We try to."

"But if that is everything, then I must leave you." Kicha made an odd gesture, somehow translating to a sweeping encapsulation of the entire current situation. "I do have other responsibilities here, and will need time to prepare a Hearthguard seal for you and your ship as well as a reason to put beside it."

"We wanted to continue the simulation set," Mir said, the young Speaker finding his voice before Kicha could leave. Her expression shifted to one of surprise, his own twisting into an open smile. "There were two points that spoke to my Focus in your records. This was only the first."

You'd never thought the Shiplords would have a veil-expression for 'deafening silence', but today was apparently one for surprises. Fortunately, it seemed to suffice for any amount of time spent in that state, as Kicha was quick to follow up.

"Then..." she paused a moment. It was a tiny thing by non-accelerated standards, but still noticeable, and Kagiso drew your eye to it effortlessly. Checking a schedule, maybe? "I would like to remain. If you would allow it."

The question had already made the rounds. Kalilah wasn't entirely happy with the answer, but she'd accepted it. Just so long as she wasn't responsible for its delivery.

"Of course." Mir's smile faded into something more solemn. "These are your halls, Kicha. We'd be poor guests to throw you out when you've been so unexpectedly welcoming."

The Shiplord gave a nod in wordless reply, then stepped back to one side, manipulating something in the system. It was difficult to catch, but Lea's Unison Platform managed it. An exemption from the simulation, allowing her to observe without interference.

Mir looked over at you, and you resealed your Masque, Vega doing likewise a few steps back.

:It's your show, Mir,: you sent. :I'll try not to run it over this time.:

:I lay good odds on my doubts,: he remarked, impossibly dry. :But I appreciate the gesture.:

He reached forward, manipulating the display, and the world shifted again around you. Pieces of simulation you'd already experienced flashed past in fast-forward, and then you were on the other side, staring again at the strategic display that Kicha had used to underline her own point.

"This is it," Mir said. There was a distortion in the words, the presence of his Focus cutting the air. He was careful with it, none of you wanted to trigger another response. Kicha had saved you from the first, but none of you wanted to place her in any danger with a second.

"It's something to do with the War Fleets, isn't it?" Mir looked over in surprise at Kalilah as she spoke. She chuckled, a bit grimly, but humour nonetheless. "I'm not just a warrior, Mir. Haven't been that for a while now. And really, what else could it be?"

"The Shiplords didn't have the ability to fight a war in the way the Sphere did." She stepped forward, manipulating the display herself until the image of the galaxy split, on one side showing the changes you'd made in your simulation and on the other what had actually happened. "And you said before that we didn't need to find a way to stop this war. Looking at it all, I'm not sure that would be possible, not even for Mandy."

"But if we change the calculus, the variables that the Sphere used to decide that war was the way forward?" Lea suggested, and agreement surged back across the link.

"Then we can change how the war ends," Mir finished, flushed excitement surging down the Unisonbound link.

"But how do we do that?" You asked. "In our simulation it's easy; the Sphere never invaded. But in the other–" You glanced over at the display that showed the Hjivin assault surging forward to envelop worlds, taking their resources and people - for what were they to the Sphere but more resources - and turning them to warmaking whilst the Shiplords rushed to reconstruct a more traditional navy.

"How do we turn this into victory?" You realised the answer to the question the moment after it left your lips, but Mir beat you to it. Unsurprising, really.

"The Hjivin advanced so quickly because the Shiplords didn't appear capable of stopping them. But looking at it in retrospect, and with what we know that most of them still don't," he glanced over at Kicha, but the Shiplord didn't reach. "It points to something else. The Shiplords didn't have to be able to match them. They just had to make it look like they could."

"Wouldn't that cost tens of thousands of lives?" Kalilah asked skeptically. "And surely they've tried a full court press strategy before."

"I've little doubt, but that's not what I'm suggesting."

"What do you mean?" It was your turn to ask, it seemed.

"That they need to defend like you say," his hands blurred beneath the Masque, modifying deployment orders and combat protocols in something as close to a Trance as you'd ever seen from the Peace Focused. "But with the appearance of effortlessness. The Hjivin have to realise that this is a war they can't win before it's already too far gone for either side to stop."

His Masque made an expression of pained acceptance. "It's impossible to do that without losing lives. But it might just be possible, I think, to do it without losing any of those worlds." Mir gestured at the buffer zone between Sphere and Shiplore space.

"Surely a purely military solution like that would've been tried before?" Kalilah pointed out. "We can't be the first to think of it."

"I know we're not," Mir agreed. His hands were still moving between the two simulation paths, setting modifications and "But what I have here isn't just a purely military side solution. Diplomacy in war is about more than the enemy; you can have allies too. The Shiplords tried to protect the worlds of the buffer zone without asking for their help, or offering them the means to help them."

"They did accept help," Vega pointed out, yet she was nodding along too. "But only when it was offered with those means. And I don't think any modern Shiplord could do that. They'd have to overcome a foundational cultural construct of their species."

"But this place is old enough that there would have been others," you had to make the point. This felt almost too simple, although Mir being half-Tranced argued otherwise. "Who tried things like this."

You felt Mir's struggle to answer that question the moment you loosed it. Billions of Shiplords had passed through this place, trying with all their might to find a solution. Mir knew that, but he also understood something else.

"It's monkeys and typewriters, Mandy," he said at last. Rare frustration bled into the words. "Billions thrown by themselves at a problem in the hopes that something would stick."

"That's not entirely fair, Mir," Vega said. Yet she didn't sound certain herself.

"Maybe not," Mir acknowledged, "but it's not wrong, either. And yes, of course the Shiplords would have given this to their AIs, but that doesn't escape the same problem and you know it. We know that Iris has human type reactions, and that gives her many of our limitations. Do you think Shiplord AI is any different?"

He knew you couldn't deny that. Project Insight had actually said otherwise, though none of you wanted to speak about that here. But what Mir was suggesting here - you glanced at Kicha. The Hearthguard's veil was still twisted with confusion, but a different kind now.

Could it really be that simple?

You could see the changes Mir was making, the alterations to Shiplord logistical output and diplomatic focus. Your first run experience with the Sphere had made it very clear that the Shiplords had seen themselves as teachers, and protectors. If they saw themselves as any different today wasn't something you wanted to even approach. But here…

"The Shiplords only began properly arming the younger races in the latter half of the Burning Line," Mir said, speaking for the record this time. You hoped Kicha knew how to edit records as well as she'd implied. "But there was the material available to do that during the initial invasion by the Sphere."

"That wouldn't fix the numbers disparity," Kalilah reminded, and Mir shook his head.

"No," he agreed. "And their combat capability would be significantly below that of Shiplord units. They'd take losses. But direct combat potential barely matters. The Shiplords made a claim to the mantle of the galaxy when they met the Sphere, but they couldn't prove it until much later in the war. If they can," the Peace Focused finished his modification to the simulation, checking them quickly.

"Then this happens." He hit confirm.

The two sims in front of him whirled out around you, hovering a short space apart and large enough that the holos of the galaxy filled the room. On one, fleets of both Shiplord and other races massed to defend themselves from an assault they now knew to expect. On the other, the invasion came on the wings on the warning, granting just enough time for a divided Authority to authorise full distribution of the Fleet Reserve to all allied races capable of utilising them.

System strikes choked to a halt at the hands of the flickering presence of massed War Fleets, striking across the breadth of the initial invasion corridor in a flurry of parries and counterstrikes. Massive stellar construction vessels were deployed with them, crash-building forward logistical bases and fortifications. Yet that was only expected.

What brought whatever attention might have strayed firmly back to the simulation were the experiments. The Secrets were dangerous, you'd known this from a young age thanks to the Shiplords. Human studies since then had only confirmed the dangers. But a single weapon scorching a star system in the process of halting a particularly tenacious Hjivin assault was impossible to ignore. Kicha's attention snapped to it too, her veil a microcosm of horrified shock far too deep to be ignorant.

"What was that?" Lea demanded, her voice faint. You were all struggling to answer, to find your own questions. Kicha spoke instead, banishing both simulations with a gesture.

"A monster that leads to the end of everything." Acrid hate and fear poured from her veil, the emotions so powerful as to be almost physically there. Yet she was watching you all too, trying to see if you knew? "I am glad that you did not recognise it. If you had known those weapons, I might have been forced to betray the word I gave you."

"What could be that terrible?" Vega's masque surged with compassion, yet it was leavened with reflected fear. Kicha wasn't lying; if you could tell, then Vega could as well. The Shiplord was millions of years old, had witnessed every Sorrow but the first with her own eyes. For this to frighten her spoke volumes.

"An echo of an older Sorrow," she replied, in a voice choked with emotion. "You have seen those horrors that can be born of the Sixth and Second. Did you think-"

"That was the Fifth," Kalilah interrupted. The woman's Masque betrayed little of your own shock, but she was far better at hiding it. "Wasn't it?"

"Yes." The word was wrenched from your host as a sob. She looked between you all, and heaved a truly weary sigh. "You are still too young in your understanding of the Secrets to know what they are truly capable of. And I would pray to all my people's forgotten Gods that yours never have to see those sort of weapons deployed in earnest, without understanding the consequences."

"But what," you began, only for Kicha to raise a hand, the motion endlessly weary.

"Do not ask more of me in this. It is more than I would ever give." Her Masque rippled in approximation to a shudder. "If you wish to know more, travel to the First Sorrow, then the Second. They shall give you enough to understand and, I hope, to agree that there are some weapons no one should wield."

"Your people can." The words were defiant, expectedly so from Kalilah. "When truly threatened, the Authority authorised the construction of starkillers."

"This is different." And that was a statement of truth, not a belief. "Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps war could change the Authority's opinion on these weapons. But it would take a threat greater than the Sphere, greater than anything we've ever encountered, to do so. The Lumens only destroy stars. What those weapons lead to is worse."

She shook her head, briefly consulting something. "I will bring your first simulation to those I know among the Authority. The second...the intent is good, but what it leads to is not a solution that would ever be accepted. You have identities within the network here. I will send you codes and my seal within the hour."

:I have nothing more to try,: Mir sent between the Heartcircle. :These were the two points, and we have been given a telling example of how even the best of intentions can be flawed.: He felt resigned to that, with little guilt present. :I would suggest we move on.:

:Where?: Lea asked, your fellow Mender careful in the words, but no less clear about her worries. :We've not exactly had a calm trip. It might be better to return to our shuttle, then to the Adamant once Kicha has put together our code packet.:

:We won't come back down here if we do that,: you pointed out. It was hard to tell if you felt that was a good thing. There were still opportunities in this memorial, but their risks hadn't lessened. If anything, your most recent experience had shown that there were ones you might never be able to predict, even with the aid of a Focus. Conversation was different to predictions, of course it was, but that didn't make the choice any easier.

What do you do next?
[] Seek another part of this place.
-[] Remember
Amanda: Still our best chance to see more of Shiplord society. And maybe one of them could tell us more about the other Sorrows? Asking will be more risk, though. It's become clear that for all our advantages, we still don't know them.
Lea: I'm not sure putting you into this so soon after you almost lost control is in any way a good idea.
-[] Witness
Mir: We know what this is already, and I highly doubt it would have more information than what we've found here.
[] Return to the Adamant
-[] Visit one of the ships in orbit
Kalilah: Maybe these could give us more information on this Sorrow, but do we really need that now? We're still on a deadline, and even an hour wasted could cost many lives.
[] Leave to
-[] The First Sorrow
Vega: Kicha said that what Mir showed us in this last simulation could be explained here, and her framing of the matter was deeply worrying. I think we might need to know what's remembered here, and the sooner the better.
-[] The Second Sorrow
Kalilah: Our host implied that the First and Second Sorrows are somehow linked. She was there for the Second, not the First, yet gave the First far more importance. Why? Something to consider.
-[] The Fourth Sorrow
Amanda: Very strongly without saying as much, Kicha suggested that we visit this Sorrow last. She wouldn't explain further, but if we're accepting her help, I don't see a reason to refuse this.
[] Write-in?