FFFF

[x] Send some eyes closer to the nexus to get a look at what the River are up to, then possibly send in a team if it looks viable.

"We can't just ignore this," you say. "What the River are up to could significantly affect the mission. We need to head closer, and if it's possible I want to send a team to investigate."

Reizay has brought up a 3D projection of the tunnels, as best as you understand them though the echoes of the battle. With Luyu and Diraen you determine a route toward and past the nexus that will let you dispatch drones, or people, without exposing the submarine too directly, or making it too obvious where their mothership is if spotted. It won't be perfect, especially against an enemy that knows the tunnels well, but it's the best available option.

You return to silent running, toward but not close to the nexus. Tremors ripple through the rock and saline around you. Every so often, you pass a remote sensor, a little crystalline blue ball which the sub's countermeasures ghost past.

"Their passive stuff is dirt." Luyu says "If they go active, then we'll have to worry."

The sub's computer notes the first drone drop free, s letting through no vibration.

You wish you could lead the team yourself but after the confrontation with the wasps, you're still too injured. All you can do is ride Luyu's shoulder. Three of her are still in active fighting shape, and the last, the one who shielded you, is regenerating quicker than you are. Specialist combat bodies always bounce back so quickly from injuries, but she won't be ready for this mission.

You watch through the cameras as the drones spread out, and the team gears up and start running a series of warmup sims against basic River targets. Really, team is a misnomer, It's just Luyu and Alawen, the Communion security specialist you first met at the Reefside temple. Only Luyu matches her in experience, and Alawen has vast amounts of local knowledge, her transcript shows her to have a vast amount of deep water operations time.

"How much have you fought the River before?" she asks Luyu.

"Oh, tons." Luyu says. "First time I ever killed anyone was during the Second Addictive Crisis." That was more than three centuries ago. She really is old. "These are probably frogs. They're the main empire over there now, and arming some third party to fight you is just their style. Their regulars are very good, even the light infantry. Their mobilisation forces are mostly chaff outside of a pure firepower duel but we won't see those here. I'll send you a countermeasure layout. The frogs are a diurnal species and their eyes have a lot of UV cut out. Set your primary jammer to deceptive. Their actives will just burn through any kind of obscurant jamming."

"What about Balwar or Mrez?" Over the centuries, many River forces have made use of certain species of mercenary and slave soldiers, The Balwar and Mrez are the best known, the only river species capable of physically measuring up to an Gardenian combat body. It's a frightening combination when you add in their firepower.

"The frogs almost exclusively use Balwar, and not that many of them." Luyu sneers a little. "They're so proud of themselves. They hate using Balwar for anything important, though there's a good chance they'll have some on an op like this. Those countermeasures will be good on most Balwar subspecies. If they're great crested or mountain, switch to the beta mode for additional counter thermal."

"Right." Alawen has laid out a pair of swimmers; autonomous swarm containers. "I've got these loaded fifty fifty with laser funnels and swarm torpedoes. Do you want me to swap in some nanoburn?"

"Hmm." Luyu is lost in thought for a moment, but you intervene..

"It's a diplomatic mission," you say. "Let's not poison the reef."

"Fine, fine," says Luyu. "Bring some stingers though. Their anti-microbot defences aren't that great."

Alawan nods and slots in a new set of munitions into one of the swimmers. "We've got super cavitating rifles for the approach then personal weapons when we get in there."

"I'll need a spare for this." Luyu pats her plasma gun. "Can't keep it active. Active river cores are about the only thing they can reliably detect on their passives." She zips it into a bag and sticks it onto the side of the small utility sled that will carry most of the gear.

As the two get ready, the drones are almost in position.

"You ready?" You ask. "I'm going to ride along via transmission as operator."

"Glad to have you, boss." Luyu gives a thumbs up. The three clone valkyries raise their arms and the submarine's arming station begins to fit their armour around them. Alawen does the same. The four grab the heavy snub barrelled supercavitation carbines and clip them into their shoot on the move systems.

As you pass a certain junction, the submarine smoothly and silently releases its passengers.
You drop fully into Luyu's sensor system, watching through her eyes as she drops free of the sub without bubbles.

"We've got imagery coming in."

Reizay sends you the video. The River base is placed at a network of a dozen passages, a gleaming silver intrusion on the rainbow stone of a Nereidi structure. The whole base is ovoid, like a flatbread of gleaming river alloy. A trio of missiles streaks in from the direction of ECHO CHAMBER sub and slam harmlessly into a forcefield.

Alawen sketches in an approach vector. "I think we can use the Deep One temple structure as our entry." She says. "The rock there is just rock. Much easier to breach than that River alloy."

"Okay. Let's start simulating this." Luyu says. "Boss, keep a lookout would you?"

"Copy."

You take over the watch as Alawen and Luyu begin to practise movements and internal plans on known River and Nereidi structures. The water ripples with distant explosions, but is undisturbed by the low profile thrust packs your operatives wear. As you pass, a fifty metre eel with gleaming rainbow scales ripples past you on rapid tail strokes. It jerks and twitches at every explosion, heading away from the battle as fast as it can.

"The ECHO CHAMBER sub is being pulled in now." Reizay says. Several more missiles spiral out of one of the passages and impact the base without apparent effect. The submarine is enmeshed in blue light.

Luyu pauses the ongoing sims to check the situation "We'll need to keep a lookout for our ECHO CHAMBER friends when we make entry. They'll have seen the same things we have, and a side assault with whatever marine platoon I have with me is what I'd do in their position. Better than just leaving them dead weight."

"I wonder why they haven't self-destructed," Mirareki says. "If the River catch them, everyone aboard will be taken prisoner. I wouldn't want to take even the chance of becoming a River slave."

The Communion share looks with one another and you once again receive a mild jolt of culture shock. For you, and the Garden's mainstream, the list of fates worse than death is actually quite long. For them, who can't cheat it, it's far shorter. Unbidden, you remember old military saws about the danger of confronting an enemy army without allowing them a route of retreat.

This war, if it's allowed to really kick off, could end up very bloody indeed.

"They're probably covering their marines in," Luyu says. "They'll want to actually take the base out, not just avoid becoming some River Merchant's tacky ornaments."

Inside you, you feel Alex shift slightly. Old memories of hers stirring. "We were so proud. We used to tell so many stories of our own strength." She says, half to herself. "Then we found we were destined to be nothing but cheap knockoffs."

For now, you put it aside. "Reizay, I need a drone inspection of that Nereidi structure. We need to find out if there's air in it and a good entry point."

"Already on it." Reizay says.

"I've mapped the thinnest points." Liya says. "The easiest entries are here." She maps a series of rocks. "It does look like there's air inside, so make sure you keep a pressure seal on the breach."

Luyu clicks the line twice in acknowledgement. There's a pause as Luyu and Alawen drop into cover and run their final simulations with the drone data, then they move up to breach. In the shadow of an ossified spur of coral Alawen pulls out the breacher and sets it against the temple wall. Around her two Luyus hover, weapons up, covering, the third ready for the plug. A thin circle of bubbles appears where the penetrator nano bores through and then, slowly, a cylinder of stone extrudes into the water and drops gently into Luyu's waiting arms. At the far end of the narrow new passage a freshly-grown airlock bulkhead is holding against the pressure. Alawen pulls its counterpart out of her backpack, unfolds it and plugs it into the near side.

<<One at a time.>>

They send a scout drone first. Inside it finds an empty gallery, patrolled by a scuttling riverine thing on a regular schedule. Like a spider in silver half-plate. <<Radat.>> Luyu supplies. <<Not really sapient, but tool users. The frogs use them like security drones. As you can see they're pretty dumb.>> A Gardenian patrol remote would vary its pattern.

Alawen goes in first, which given her mortality you would have vetoed if you'd known that was how Luyu had arranged it. But she comes out of the water smoothly, gun up and drone pack beside her, then moves up to the first gateway. The four Luyus come next, in time with the patrol's cycles. The last Luyu leaves a signal relay at the airlock so you don't need to shout as loud through the stone.

There's a distant sound of an explosion and the Radat's antenna quivers, then it turns and dashes off.

<<Sounds like our friends are already here.>> Luyu observes.

The inside, through Luyu's eyes, is familiar from the other temple, at least in its broad strokes. You can already hear Jessica lecturing you about the significance of the different arch shapes, the altered form of the sluices, the focus of the murals on depictions of natural wildlife and the thorny curlicues of the variant microscript. But they don't have significance for you right now. Nor, do you think, do they have significance for the River tenants who have paved over and burrowed through them with faintly gloss grey metal, pipes and cables in garish colours, and racks of lobed equipment. Bags of construction supplies, energy drills and brute carving systems. It appears this area's used for storage.

The four move forward silently, down stairs flanked by dark stone statues of hulking Nereidi. In the distance there's the sound of gunfire. The rippling sound of plasma returns it a moment later. More evidence that ECHO CHAMBER have already forced entry.

<<We could go check that out,>> mutters Luyu, flexing her fingers. Apart from the practicalities of the situation, the sheer tactical interest of an elite Gardenite infantry formation breaching a Riverine base must be weighing on her mind. <<But we have company,>> she says from another body, watching another angle.

Below the stairs, off the side of the steps, is a chamber centred around a number of statues. Abstracted Nereidi in unusual poses, frozen in the middle of flowing motion. But what Luyu has seen is on the far side. A party of Riverines has entered through one of the several arches and is crossing to another, and they look senior.

<<A Colonel. Has to be the base commander.> breathes Luyu.

She's right. In the middle of the group is a Biff. What Luyu has, up until now, been insultingly calling frogs. Pale slick skin and broad mouth and eyes atop its head facing forward but able, unusually, to rotate sideways if need be. You vaguely recall a translated essay about how their evolutionary position as both predator and prey was the root of the flexibility, gumption, and mercantile vigour. This one's UV-bright uniform and array of medals are certainly trying to project predation. It has a smaller aide with it and is surrounded by a squad of hulking Balwar in full armour, but what catches your eye is the figure behind it. For a moment, you might have mistaken them for a human. But only for a moment.

The Shalathri is tall and narrow. Comfortably taller even than Luyu, but willowy, terrifyingly thin. Her legs are too long. Her skin is easily as pale as the Biff, and her elaborately done hair is pale blue. Her hands have six fingers and too many joints. Her huge angled eyes are pits of night; her face's other features all look freakishly diminished.

She's clad in a skimpy, silky robe embroidered with silvery thread, showing off a belly huge with pregnancy. Her face is impassive, not even showing an alien expression.

Alex's attention sharpens. "Witness our old doom." She whispers in your ear. "So old and so valuable. We looked - and you look - a lot like them, and that made us likewise valuable, and you."

But while you are valuable in that you look like them, it's not looks that give them their worth. The River haven't followed the path of the Garden to pervasive general computation and its runaway progeny. You've never heard of a Post-Riverine. In fact their hegemonic ideology pities you, as puppets of masters of your own creation. But societies still need computation, and that is what the Shalathri can do. Inside that skull is a synthesis of nature and nurture competitive with any Gardenite AI. Like the River cores Luyu nurses, it's never been determined how they were made, and the River is happy to keep it that way.

"So was it the River that drove us out, all those millennia ago?" It's a distraction, but you can't resist asking.

"No. It wasn't quite like that anyway. It wasn't an invasion." she says. "But they knew them, enough to borrow their ideals. And then after fleeing, we came full-circle to the real thing. Just running didn't solve our problems. It never does."

"... allow me to take personal command of the defence, Colonel!" The smaller Biff is saying, or so your translator has it. The Biff were a much easier psychological bridge than the Nereidi, and you understand they did most of the work themselves. "We're facing attack both from the primitives and the Gardenian marines. I should be commanding the men."

"Don't be an idiot, Captain," says the colonel. "The Commandos have the locals well in hand. We need to think about the project. We only have three computers on the level we need to interface with the artefact and there's no scope for resupply through the blockade. We need to keep them safe."

Well now.

[ ] Follow the party. They must be going somewhere important.
[ ] Rescue, or 'rescue', the Alfar and try to take the commander prisoner. They'll have all the intelligence you need. Though even for Luyu, and even with surprise, eight Balwar will be a dangerous fight.
[ ] Approach the combat zone and see if you can interfere. ECHO CHAMBER aren't your friends but it'll be to your good if they make more headway here.
[ ] Keep penetrating the temple and avoid areas of activity. The longer the River think there's only two parties to the conflict, the better.

[X] Follow the party. They must be going somewhere important.

<<Follow them up.>> You tell Luyu. <<They're obviously going somewhere important.>>

Luyu double clicks in response and then you see her pause. One of the Balwar in the group has stopped. Its helmet retracts to show a long face, neatly bearded and untouched by either jewellery or cosmetic. The Balwar's fur is deep black, with only a single streak of grey in it.

Luyu and Alawen go stock still, their transmissions limited to only the tightbeam link back to the drone outside. The Balwar scans back and forth. Its comrades have stopped too, weapons up.

"What is it, Sergeant?" The Biff Colonel asks. The translator notes he's using a different term than he would use for a Biff regular of that rank. The equivalent in their other forces.

The Balwar takes a deep breath, tasting the air. "A feeling," he says. "Something in the air."

"We have no time–" The younger Biff says, but his colonel shushes him. The Balwar shoulders his plasma gun and begins to step down the stairs. Luyu switches her gun from safe to active. If she activates her catapult, the magnetics will surely show up even to the River's relatively poor sensors.

There's a sudden shaking. Dust ripples up from below. The Balwar's helmet snaps shut. The smaller Biff cringes. "The Gardenians have deployed a high energy charge!" He says. "Sir! I insist we get moving! We must get the computer into a radiation protected environment at once."

"Yes. Sergeant. Come."

The Balwar begin to withdraw up the stairs. Luyu makes a wry face as they disappear around the corner. "That grey streak," she says. "He almost had us." Her smile becomes wide and terrible. "I'll take his ears."

The two conflict specialists begin to move up, carefully. The sound of distant combat is growing more intense below. Reizay identifies at least twenty transmission sources, either individuals or small elements. The transmissions of River combat parties are easier to investigate, and appear spread out below in a way that's illogical if they're simply engaging the ECHO CHAMBER marines. There's obviously something else going on, but the drone's electronic warfare systems can identify no other transmissions in the deep tunnels.

<<They're definitely engaging something, the weapons discharges show up on some of our sensors.>> Reizay is vexed. <<But whatever it is seems not to be making any transmissions at all>>

<<Nereidi?>> You suggest.

<<Maybe.>> She gives a vexed sigh. She's clearly troubled by being outfoxed. <<I'd expect them to be able to produce some kind of transmission though. They have to be communicating somehow, I just can't identify it.>>

You frown. You were assuming that the River were referring to the Nereidi as primitives, but now you're not so sure. It is hard to imagine that the Nereidi could be completely silent. Perhaps they're using some kind of tightbeam or quantum data channel? You don't know the limits of their technology. You watch through Luyus' sensors as she and Alawen climb, moving in careful bounds, their weapons covering the stairway ahead as they follow the climbing group.

After a few floors, the vibrations of the Riverines passage lead deeper into the temple, through passages further marked by more and more River technology. Forcefields flicker and play, keeping out the radiation from whatever charge ECHO CHAMBER set off to solve a tactical problem below.

There's heavier patrols on these levels too. More Biff troops and Balwar, but also Nereidi. Not too much of a surprise perhaps given you saw them using River weapons at the temple, but still unwelcome. These are of a slightly different caste than even those ones at the Temple, larger and clad in thick boney armour and armed with a mix of their own technologies and River weapons, but they have the same bright purple crests as the ones you fought there.

Fortunately, even if they are augmented, they don't seem to be as good as the Balwar in detecting Luyu and Alawen, and the team sneak past them with just a couple of medium shaves, moving through a set of dry side passages parallel to the party until they come to a larger space. Gleaming lights illuminate rock that's been sliced open to create a void that stretches down deep into the temple. It's thickly guarded, with both Biff and Nereidi, and even a few more Balwar guarding various junctions. Luyu and Alawan slip in between them, moving through side passages and small vents. Alawen's obvious knowledge of this type of structure pulls you through.

The Lieutenant Biff is still talking. "Sir, that charge cracked the integrity of the Core Shaft. I've ordered 2 Platoon in to hold the chamber along with the auxiliaries."

"Are they attempting to penetrate the Core Shaft?" The Colonel's throat sack swells. He's concerned.

"Possibly Sir, though none of their elements appear to be near. The Sergeant Major believes he has them contained, but they appear to be trying to facilitate the movement of the primitives through the lower temple."

The Colonel makes a croak which your translation software renders as a laugh. "Such fierce warriors, and the tall hats of Oastal Market value them only as baubles. Alright. Tell Lieutenant–" He makes a noise that you can best render as 'Rarn' "-to hold the Core Shaft at all costs, and bring one of the 17s and a pair of the quadbarrels down there." He turns back to the Balwar. "Sergeant, you're with me, Corporal, take your fire team down and assist the commandos."

The Balwar salutes and four of them bound off downwards.

The rest move out into a large cavern, A rim of melted rock extends out on one side, with a large gantry of grey river material across it. Guards, Nereidi and Biff regulars are hurrying in, some of them pushing heavy weapons on hover pallets. They set them up covering the shaft.

It's not the guards that draw your attention though.

Half-buried in the rock is something silver. It breaches from the strata as if from waves frozen in tableau. A vertebral column tops out in a crown like a jellyfish afflicted with sprouting tendrils that fall in waves of glittering sheen. Such beautiful hair. Around it specks of rock and silver and equipment orbit in lazy defiance of gravity. You've seen something like it before, just recently.

<<It's like the war machine from the estate,>> says Luyu. <<Except a hundred times the size.>>

The estate machine was a broken-down, human-scale post-Nereid war machine, which took your whole assault team to beat. This thing is larger than a Pegasus gunship. With the fleet in orbit it won't be enough to win the war on its own - you hope - but it'll be for sure enough to start one, especially if released under River control.

<<How operational do you think it is?>>

<<It's not dead. It's floating those things around it like the small one did. On the other hand, I figure it's not supposed to be stuck halfway through bedrock, and they must need those mentat chicks for something.>>

She draws your attention to four Shalathri standing on one side. Each one is suspended in a coppery frame, twitching. Flickering pianist finger movements transfer by ligatures and armatures to lobed crowns perched atop each frame which in turn trail cables to the blindfolds and headphones mounted on each head. More trace the gestures of limbs and toes and head. Their mouths move in a constant staccato mutter. You stare despite yourself for a moment before realising. This is how you maximise I/O without the use of direct links. As many sensory and motor channels as possible. They must have been trained - designed - in tandem with the computers they're wired to.

Luyu and Alawen edge around the chamber, getting into an L-shaped ambush formation. There's only four Balwar left, but more than twenty Biff and the Nereidi soldier types with plasma weapons. Even if they seem more alert to the bottom of the pit than this level it won't be an easy fight.

There's a boom down the shaft. A forcefield snaps on around the Shalathri and the Biff yell orders to one another. How clumsy that orders have to be coordinated in voice. There's no denying their firepower though, as bright green and red bolts stitch the shaft. Four massive serpentine eels erupt out into the shaft, like the one you saw outside but at least two or three times the size. They're encrusted with gleaming armour of reflective coral. The first one is hit multiple times and explodes in a spray of dark ichor, but the other three show no signs of stopping as they pour up the shaft through the hailstorm of fire.

On their backs cling dozens of shapes. For a moment you think they're Nereidi, but they aren't quite. You hang for a wasted moment before you remember the almost-Nereidi creatures you saw on the reef. You shunt the pictures to Selko and Shenla with a content warning.

<<You're the biologist Shenla, any ideas?>> Selko asks. You can feel her wince slightly as bright plasma slices across the frame, and then she goes into a mode of isolation. She probably doesn't want to see death. Shenla has, or admits, fewer problems with the footage. She watches as the eels gain the top and disgorge a wave of the almost-Nereidi who engage the Biff and Neredi on the platform. They have long spears tipped with chipped shell. It's a bizarre sight.

<<They resemble Mockmaids, Antiquus Mendax, but there's major differences. For instance Antiquus Mendax aren't tool users. Not to this degree.>> She watches, seemingly unmoved, as one of the new creatures lands atop a Nereidi soldier and stabs at it with seashell knives. The warrior collapses. More of the creatures and their riding beasts are coming up the shaft even as the quad barrelled plasma guns sweep the shaft clear again and again. <<Mockmaids are just an animal that lives near the shore and causes trouble. They're distantly related to the Nereidi, Antiquus Prudens. But I think this is a new species… I think they've independently re-evolved tool use while the Nereidi were sleeping. There's so much we don't know about the oceans here.>>

<<They're giving the aliens a fight of it,>> mutters Alawen.

<<The whole biosphere here is descended from Nereidi engineering,>> says Shenla. <<You can go a long way with animal parts.>>

<<This is fascinating.>> says Luyu, <<but what's the call here, Boss? Do you want us to help them? They're gutsy as hell but they're going to get pasted soon. We can take out the heavy weapons and they might stand a chance. Or we could just grab the computers and scarper.>>

You consider it. Unleashing a Post-Nereidi war machine won't do any good, especially under River control, but there's doubtless reinforcements coming if you get caught in a fight here. It might be better to use the distractions to strike them in another location and further disable or destroy the base. But it looks like what's going on here is the heart of the matter.

[ ] Take out the enemy crew served weapons to assist the pseudo-Nereidi.
[ ] Move to grab the Shalathri in the confusion.
[ ] Snatch the Biff Colonel and his aide, and more importantly, their command electronics.
[ ] Use the distraction here to find a different part of the base that can be sabotaged.