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[X] "The Path of Stars. We call it that because the entry is set with sapphires picking out Nereid's local starfield. There's images of Nereidi looking up at other Nereidi who seem to be reaching down. What's unusual is that the Nereidi on the ceiling are rendered in metal, which is almost unheard of in Nereidi monuments."

<<Metal Nereidi reaching down sounds like something related to a posthuman. Or post-nereidi,>> you suggest.

<<That's plausible,>> says Juketta, <<but you can't necessarily apply human psychology of art to alien products. We don't know what up symbolised. It could have been bad.>>

<<Metal devils reaching down sounds more interesting to me.>> Luyu, of course, would think that.

"I'd like to see the Path of Stars," you tell Jessica.

"Alright." The Academician says officiously. "We should all put on waders. The bottom levels are partly flooded and there seems to be some of the self repair system in the coral down there is rogue. It's formed an interesting honeycomb of caves out into the seabed, but it's also pretty bad for the skin. It's actually quite fascinating, because despite the uncontrolled growth, it failed in a way that hasn't disrupted the structure."

"Do you believe that's deliberate?" Juketta asks her.

"I do. There's a monograph on it by Daliena and Nolel, comparing it to the sites collapsed on Sunlit and New Venus, which both date back to the Calabrian Extinction Layer, and both of them are visible only as random, cancerated passages. The Nereidi built to last in a way that few other species of the period did."

You query the network on the Calabrian Extinction Layer and receive information on a layer of ruins that seem to mark the downfall of a number of FTL and near FTL civilizations in this part of the galaxy around two million years ago. The event seems to have been the product of technological warfare rather than a natural disaster, with craters, remnant radiation and denatured technological layers suggesting large scale warfare.

"So you support the Ester hypothesis? That the Nereidi knew of the extinction event before it occurred?"

"Possibly, or they simply built to last. Of course, the existence of Nereidi populations in cryotombs now does give considerable support to Ester I'd say. She's actually due to arrive soon, she's one of the major experts on the Calabrian Extinction Layer. I think the Chrysanthemum have engaged her services"

"Maybe I'll get the chance to meet her."

As you've been talking you descend. Crossing down through several more galleries, painted with scenes of Nereidi mastering basic tools, creating agricultures, taming deep sea vents to forge metals, and building great fluid valve computers. Occasionally there's other things. Hunts for giant sea creatures. Groups of Nereidi meeting in what could be worship or politics. Wars, waged first with spears, then with explosives, and finally by warriors supported by creatures that seem even more fearsome than the creatures being hunted. Great armoured creatures with spiralling masses of tendrils. Enormous dark masses with uncountable eyes. Great behemoths covered in shaggy hair and what might be flukes or wings.

The temple is dark and quiet. Even chatting with the others you find yourself listening with your hand near your gun. Mirareki and Luyu are in constant communication, aiming sensors out into the dark.

Every so often you hear a distant sound, or think you see something at the edge of the light, or a flicker of heat vanishing around the corner.

At its base, the passages of the temple open out into a cavernous basin. Black basalt pillars wound with carnival coral uphold a roof vaulted with spiral shell forms and walls involuted with fissures and openings. "Some of these lead off into the honeycomb caves." Jessica says. "And we should put our waders on. The water's unsafe from here." She pulls off her shoes and pulls a clothing spray and begins to apply it to her legs. "Can you help me with the back Bethany?" Apparently you're not quite at the spray on one another's clothes level with Jessica.

You pull out your own clothing spray and move to help Juketta, who has been left without a partner. "So how much of a problem is it if we get this water on us?" You kneel to make sure of even application.

"Not very." She smiles down at you, shifting her legs. "You'd need to put a salve on, but it's only a building self repair system. It's not very aggressive, unless you're a rock and stick around for something under a million years."

You're silent for a while, just looking around as the others prepare. "I've missed you. I was a little worried, only seeing Alietta."

"It's been difficult." She looks around. "After the tower. It's a little embarrassing given my convictions and my vows. Though that's in a way the point. Alietta is the one who carries the true weight and joy of infinity. Minetta and I…" A small smile. "It's good to find my skills are so useful though. A genuine ancient mystery rather than just combat. Scythia wasn't really my scene."

Reizay didn't take it well either. She's not even here, and neither is Minetta. On the other hand, you've come to feel fine, and quickly.

"After this is all over I'd like to learn more about history." You look off into the shadows. "I'm so– empty. I need to replace the knowledge I've lost."

"Well, I'd be glad to help. Maybe we can go on a grand tour and see–"

Mirareki snaps up, looking out into the darkness. "We just lost a drone." She says.

"Lost how?" Alawen looks up, hands on her guns.

"No idea. Drone 338 just lost signal. I'm sending the reserves."

"Could it just be battery drain?" Luyu asks. "That's not a picket is it?"

Mirareki looks out into the dark. "Yeah, but it's just– gone." She reaches into her bag. "Would it freak anyone out if I wore my carbine?"

"No, I think that's a sensible precaution," says Alawen. "We know one large predator got in here."

"Alright." Jessica says. "I guess it won't freak my viewers out too much. Let's get down to the Gallery of Stars."

She steps down into the dark water and begins to wade gracefully through. Luyu shrugs, opens her duffle and hands out guns. Mirareki takes a short, pistol calibre submachine gun while one of the Luyus has a high tech looking rifle with a sight on a raiser, and the other a big hunting gun with a solid stock and no pistol grip. The three of them spread out into a V formation, with Alawen on the left flank and the rest of you in the middle as you move through the flooded corridors. They're undecorated, and you get to see the natural colour of the coral growing on its own for the first time, an intricacy of red and tan and deep blue, whirled together.

As you go, Jessica turns to Bethany's drone and explains, a little breathlessly, how her security team thinks there might be some kind of a large predator down here but that you're continuing anyway. It is, you suppose, good drama. A few times the honeycomb of passages proves useful, as the lower galleries are difficult going, with a few ceiling falls or areas of sudden deep water. You're sometimes forced to backtrack or to move through caves of the honeycomb clearly created by the ongoing self repair failure rather than original main passages.

"We believe that there was a large ground shock, perhaps the detonation of one of the deep core taps. That then caused the disruption of the lower levels that created the honeycomb of galleries below. We're fortunate it doesn't seem to have damaged any of the artefacts down here." Jessica says, mostly for the benefit of her audience. Her narration is a constant companion in the damp gloom, until it suddenly stops. You've arrived.

A sapphire constellation blinks in the dronelight. Stone and coral Nereidi reach up toward it. And down reach forms in shining silver still imperishable this side of its long aeons. The rest of this place is maintained by the complex web of living forces that repair and rebuilt it moment to millennium, but this incorruptible platinum is immortal unto itself. The forms of the statues are visibly Nereidi and yet they unfold within and beyond themselves in fractal tessellation. Abstraction wed with specificity in mesmerising synthesis.

It takes a moment, but Jessica remembers herself and restarts her narration. Beyond the statues, a long corridor, curving in a precise but inhuman geometry, with more murals on either side.

At the door, you pass an illustration of a pair of Nereidi walking towards what you guess from its shape is a chemical rocket. The universal structure of natural affordances bridging the gulf of time and cognition. The rainbow sea is behind them, with hundreds of their fellows near it.

Beyond that, a space high above the sea, in which a Nereidi sits dismembered but alive, its body opened, organs splayed, as others splice shining metal into it.

The third shows a Nereidi that is almost all metal, standing above a complex, one wall open to show the land beyond, in which banks on banks of dark obelisks, their bottoms flared out to openings, their tops erupting out to horn like pipework. A web of cabling links each unit.

Opposite each of the murals of land and technology is one that seems to depict the depths, deep underwater. Bioluminescence lights gloomy spires on the seabed. Nereidi forms hatch from eggs, each looking subtly different. First, there are many forms, and then fewer. On the floor and ceiling, some forms cross back and forth, swapping between the lightless depths and the bright skies.

About a third of the way along the corridor is the first picture depicting a view from above the planet. Stars, a huge, primitive rocket ship. From there, things accelerate, cities in the sky, cities in the deep. A constant crossover of forms and technologies from the ceilings and the floor.

Until, at last, at the end of the corridor, five Nereidi forms stand before a great, metallic Nereidi like the one at the entrance. Behind them, dozens of worlds, rainbowed with Nereidi life, the great dark cities of the deep, all the creatures they have built. There seems to be several body plans of Nereidi, some always present, others ending or crossing over to the sky Nereidi side.

Behind the metallic Nereidi are impossibly complex structures in space. Giant machines. You recognize some of them, your memories and Alex's melding for a moment of swimming clarity. The form of a gas giant cloud brain in the process of conversion. Arches and structures of something close to, but not quite posthuman computronium. Vast cores of spin ice flicker under supercool conditions.

In the centre of the picture, the two groups' tentacles join. The metallic Nereidi extends a gleaming, shaped crystal to the oceanic ones.

"There were Post-Nereidi." Jessica looks around, awed. She never expected to make an actual discovery on film. "That's got to be it, right?" She looks at you, at Juketta, at the Academician.

"The structures here." You point. "Those look a lot like posthuman computronium, and this is a gas core brain under construction."

"Has there ever been any of this found before?" Mirareki asks. "Any evidence of this."

"Nothing." Juketta says. The Academician nods. "There's no evidence whatsoever of any kind of postNereidi ruins like this.

"How was this not investigated before Academician? It's not that hard to get too."

"I honestly have no idea." The Academician looks at the beautiful galleries. "Could it be some kind of a hoax? We have to analyse this."

<<Uh, hey.>> Reizay appears, projecting from one of the main drones. You notice that she's got into the spirit of things a bit by putting on a ruffle fronted bikini. <<Two VTOLs just took off from those ECHO CHAMBER ships offshore. They're heading in for you, less than fifteen minutes out.>>

"This seems less than coincidental." Bethany glares at you.

"I'd say it's more likely to do with why nobody has ever publicised this." You counter, and feel a memory sliding around inside you. You meant it to maybe escape blame, but it feels right.

The Academician looks at Jessica. "... Jessica, you and Bethany should get out with Juketta and her group. I'll stay here with the equipment and send the data out to you. There's no need for everyone to be put in danger but we have to know about this gallery. It could profoundly transform our understanding of the Nereidi, and perhaps this current conflict. We have to know whether it's faked or not. Once the Conflict Specialists arrive, I'll surrender, but there's no need for the rest of you to be in danger."

"Academician, you can't document this whole gallery in fifteen minutes." Jessica says. "Not alone. Not with how strange the entropics of these murals are."

"Well, we can definitely assert if it's genuine, due to that entropic content."

Reizay's transmission hashes slightly. <<"I don't think that's a viable option. They've got a jammer drone set up that's electronically isolating the area. I can get my audio and some light video through, but you're not going to be able to send detailed scientific data.">>

"What if we just delay them," you walk to Luyu's bag and begin pulling out combat gear. "I suspect they're not just going to let us leave in any case."

Jessica takes a deep breath and looks at Bethany. "What should we do?"

"Luyu, can you still talk to the yous with the shuttle?"

"Sure. We're geared up."

"Okay, get into the jungle and prep for a fight. You're our ace in the hole. Pull the shuttle out and get it to orbit under stealth. I don't want to lose our transport. Bethany, Juketta, Jessica and the Academician should stay here and document the corridor as much as possible. We need to authenticate this before we leave. Mirareki, can you stay here and help them out? I don't want to leave them with no long arms back here but I don't want to confront ECHO CHAMBER here either."

Mirareki nods. Alawen steps forward. "With The Academicians permission I'll come with you. Seems like your friend here is pretty technically capable. It makes sense for her to be the one who stays to help out while we go set up at the bottom of the stairs."

"You read my mind."

You, Alawen and Luyu quickly gear up, pulling on armoured vests and catapults. They won't be that relevant here, you think, this is going to be a nice, close in fight. You're not surprised to find Luyu has her pet gun with her. The squad spider's big hypervelocity launcher loaded with high density penetrators. You grab a carbine and load your vest with cassettes of ammo then set off back to the entrance chamber. It doesn't take too long to set up on the stairs, laying your weapons on the choke point. You don't have enough ammo to get into an extended firefight with a force that certainly outnumbers you, so instead, the three of you hash out a plan by which you'll make a series of fall backs and ambushes through the partly flooded tunnels, attriting the enemy to the point where either the two Luyus outside can counter attack them, or you can pin them down long enough for the others to get their readings and withdraw into the honeycomb below. Given water is getting in, there's likely an exit to the sea, or at least a way can be blasted with explosives.

"I guess we're going to end up putting salve on after all." You say.

"You should get Jessica to put it on for you." Alawen laughs. She's got a carbine slung but is carrying a pair of large pistols, each with a sensor system built into the grip so she can shoot both at once. "She'd like that."

"Hey, she's a nice girl." You switch on a 'what is cover' overlay, highlighting the world as cover and not cover. Fortunately the coral and not-basalt is really tough, capable of completely stopping direct fire from even a full-on carbine or catapult close action penetrator.

You don't have a shoot on the move system on the carbine, so decide to use it when you're incover and the catapult, loaded with CAPs, while you displace.

Reizay begins relaying drone images as the ECHO CHAMBER aircraft move in to circle the temple. A compact automated gunship circles the area, its wings hung with missiles, a pair of turrets tracking back and forth across the roof and the jungle. Behind it are two bulky thrust vector VTOLs. Old Chrysanthemum Pegasus lifters, still the iconic tactical utility aircraft. These two have been refitted with additional signature reduction systems that are apparently no match for whatever Reizay and Alex have put together.

The aircraft pinnacle at the top of the tower and troops drop free. Some are obviously machines, moving on six limbs with mechanical quickness, heading for the stairs. They rear up as the move down, bracing more standard carbines. Reizay marks drone signals on your tactical display as the enemy's screen expands.

Behind the machines come humans. ECHO CHAMBER is elite, but apparently not elite enough to get everyone a Valkyrie. Instead, biotech looks like upgraded Shield Maidens. Luyu tags them as a Chrysanthemum derived combat body called a Knightress-4. They wear skin tight tactical sleeves, base black but shimmering with chamelonic countermeasures and cloth masks under light helmets with large triangular goggles like ancient nightvision on the top. They're armed mostly with short, skeletal carbines with long suppressors and various doubtful but high quality looking sensors, gadgets and grips, but that's normal. It's the goggles that get your attention.

<<What do you make of those?>> You ask Luyu, zooming in on a short look from the drone. The goggles are large, much larger than the thin vision augmentation strips most people wear or just build into their eyes. Instead of lenses, these have four pitch black balls marked out with white quadrant lines, each constantly moving and rotating, swinging back and forth seemingly at random.

<<I've seen some high end Chrysanthemum units use them. They're improvements on the combat eye systems you see on elite Rose Conflict Specialists. Full absorption and angling of every bit of radiation that comes in on them. They bypass the optic nerve and dump the information into a specialist implant in the brain. Pretty cool. I'd love to get some.>>

<<You may be about to get a chance.>> You take aim at the door.

<<Oh. I know.>> Luyu smiles and takes aim. You begin to play the game of hunt and kill with the incoming drones. Your enemy is throwing a lot at you, and they're good, but not as good as say, the Quiet, and you're able to hold your own. It helps that the Temple simply doesn't have that many small internal spaces a drone can come through.

<<Engage the first machine that comes into view. Let's show them we mean business.>>

The robotic scout drops down the stairs, its head scanning back and forth, and Luyu hits it with her big hunting gun. You're not sure what the source for the weapon is but it more than does the job. The penetrator blows straight through the machine's defensive aura and rips it almost in two, sending it clattering down the stairs.

An augmented voice comes from above. "Hey girlies, Chrysanthemum agents here! Surrender now or we pick your queues outta your meat, your choice!"

Alawen calls back. "This isn't a Chrysanthemum jurisdiction, fuck off!"

"Well if there's no law out here, I guess we can just kill you."

There's the firecracker boom of a clearance charge, and then blackout smoke comes down the stairs, popping into a haze in front of the door and they come down shooting. You fire back at the smoke as they pour down the steps, moving to the pillars near their end of the room and sending fire back at you. Rounds spark off coral and the blackout smoke roils with grenade detonations as both sides engage. Luyu has some new gadget, a weak, rapid cycle forcefield designed to prevent smart grenades from telling in a close quarters battle, but it seems the enemy has the same, and it turns into a standard shootout.

Fire superiority quickly weighs, and you begin to fall back, moving and shooting as you drop back towards the gallery you picked to move into. More ECHO CHAMBER troops are coming down the steps, bounding forward as you fall back with a flashy, almost arrogant coordination. They move like they're performing a demonstration. Soldiers trained not just to kill but to look good doing it.

<<I wonder if they'll stream this one.>> Luyu laughs as her guns answer the conflict specialist's fusillade.

And then something black erupts out of the shadows, grabs one of the ECHO CHAMBER soldiers and rips her apart.You get a brief impression of claws and eyes and jaws and blood as the thing explodes across the chamber, carrying part of the body with it. ECHO CHAMBER switch fire to it, and you have a moment's reprieve.

What should you do?

[ ] Concentrate Fire on ECHO CHAMBER while they're distracted
[ ] Concentrate fire on the monster while it's distracted
[ ] Pull back while they're both distracted by one another