The Practice War [Complete]

[Snowfire]

[] Why

One question had haunted humanity for more than half a century. Some might have said that it was a foolish one to seek answers to, to try and understand a race that had made itself so utterly your enemy. And yet, as you stood there, staring at the still and silent fleets scattered across humanity's home, that question still found you. Not just for the question itself, but for how you still didn't even begin to have an answer to it. Insight had tried, and almost been destroyed for it. You had tried too, and found nothing but words that still didn't make sense. And despite all that…you still wanted to know.

Why?

Such a simple question, yet one that you knew could topple empires if only the right voice demanded it. And if not you, then who? Humanity had not suffered the slow death by cuts that the Shiplords had instituted upon the rest of the Group of Six, but you had suffered all the same. The only difference was that your suffering had given you something real in return. The power to stand against a Shiplord fleet not once, but twice. The strength and, there was no other word for it, faith to dive into the fires of another soul's death and deny not just the flame, but what should have been lost, besides. Maybe this time it could give you a true answer.

You pulsed that thought out across the Two Twenty Three, and a wave of approval swept over you in reply. A few questioned, if you were certain, if you thought it might help. You answered them as you always had, with confidence and honesty. This was right, you believed that entirely. Humanity's deepest question to the Shiplord had always been this. If it would help? That, you didn't know. But you did know that the galaxy as you knew it was terribly sick. If you were going to help fix it, you had to know how. If you didn't try to discover that, you wouldn't be you.

Lea had lifted Kalilah gently away from you, and to her feet, being careful to hold her steady. Mir was still retrieving Asi, and without him, Kalilah was just another Potential. The Aegis she'd somehow maintained without her Unison Platform had disintegrated under the torrent of destruction she'd unleashed into the world. You hoped that she'd be able to recover it with Asi in her hands, but for now her Heartcircle was keeping her safe. That did mean that she hadn't felt your question to the rest of the unit, however. And that…wasn't right.

"I'm going to ask them why," you explained softly, stepping up through the rings of protectively clustered Unisonbound. For this, they had to see you. And humanity needed to, too. You weren't entirely sure why, but you'd learnt to trust your instincts in this a long time ago. Kalilah nodded slowly, a very different reaction to the last time you'd done this with Shiplords.

"Make it count," she told you, and even though the words were barely more than a whisper, they still had strength. More than you'd have thought possible, after all she'd been through. "We need real answers today, Mandy."

"I know."

You took another step, then rose straight up, and the Two Twenty Three swirled out around you like a deadly, prismatic flower. As theatre went, it was certainly effective. You felt the attention of billions focus again upon you, but more than that, too. Something in the way the Shiplord craft held themselves shifted, and you knew that they too were listening. You wondered what they thought you were about to say? Angry words, full of hate? Demands? Pleas? Maybe this would surprise them.

The staff of light in your hand pulsed silver-cyan, and the star system rang like an impossibly huge bell as you brought it down on the empty space beside your feet. You fed Practice into your words as the tone held, longer than it had any right to. Not enough to Speak, not as you had tried before, but enough to be heard. And for the meaning of your words to be unmistakably clear.

Why her?

"Why." Silence greeted the word, but you'd expected that. You hadn't phrased the word as a question. The meanings layered through it though definitely were. "Why this. Why try to force us to accept sacrifice in exchange for survival. That isn't living." Something shifted again, less than movement, but present.

Why them?

"Why should we greet you, when this is how you treat us? Why should we accept the fear you claim to represent?" That sparked a visible reaction, and a surge of utterly alien emotion which made you bare your teeth. "That got to you, didn't it," you muttered, the statement devoid of Practice. Purely to yourself.

Why us?

"I know you can understand me. And I'm done waiting on you. Tell us why," damn you, you did not add. The courier that had been built for you drifted closer, and a silent query told you that it would soon be ready to jump again. You chose your words. "We cannot call it from the stars. But the fire we wield can still be your doom."

The reaction from the Shiplords was again unmistakable, but mixed in with the alien feelings was something more, more human, at least. Not fear, but confusion, certainly. Other things rippled through it, though nothing you could catch, and you concentrated on relaying all you felt to the Insight focused of the unit. And yet even with them, the whispering crackle of an open lagless broadcast came as a surprise.

The voice which emerged wasn't human, but it did have emotions. Insight Focused would be ripping it apart for months. But what it told you, and the way it did so, said many things. "We have tried every other way that exists to protect these stars. All failed, in death and war." There was a weariness in that statement that would put paid to the stars themselves.

"If you believe you can find a better way, then please, find it swiftly." The fleet that had paused in its dive into the SEZ abruptly turned, racing back out of it. They ignored the fortifications, and there was nothing the defence fleets could do. They were still too far out.

Humanity received only one message more from the Regular Fleet that had come for them. Unwilling to risk her strength against them, Lina called the mobile fleets of humanity together. Clustered, they would be able to withstand an assault if what was left of the Shiplords chose to attack. But they never did. The Regular Fleet withdrew without firing another shot, clustering together themselves as best they could whilst their drives recharged. And, just before they did, they spoke one final time.

"You will not have long."

And then they were gone.

The Third Battle of Sol is over.

 

[Snowfire]

Nilean Home System, 2130.

It was very quiet on the viewing gallery of the Farpoint's Stand as the small transport slipped through the fortifications around the stellar exclusion zone which cradled your homeworld. You wished it wasn't. Conversation would have been able to distract you from the duty that had brought you here. But it would have made it harder for your fingers to remain still. As it was, only the experience of centuries was keeping them calm. Part of you wanted to, tried to, tell yourself that it was just the duty which had brought you here causing that. In almost all other cases, you'd have been right; but it wasn't that simple.

Your name was Kendl Merizan. You were a Strand of Enigma, an individual who had given up all they were to the cause of safeguarding the Community in secret, from threats most could never understand. A cause that you had known, not believed, was ultimately futile against the oppressive might of the Shiplords. The largest meeting of Strands since the inception of Enigma had been four, and that occasion had been forced by the need to counter a subversion that could have brought the Long Peace crashing down around you. Today, that record was going to be shattered.

Not because of any single situation that had arisen within the Community, though. Not because of a Shiplord assault, but in precursor to what might be your peoples' last attempt for freedom. Little wonder then, that you felt the strain. And all this because of a single star system, half a galaxy away.

It was still difficult to accept everything you'd seen there even now, the miracles its people accepted as part of their reality and refused to surrender. It was equally challenging to ignore humanity's outlook and steadfast defiance in full awareness of what faced them. The Community had seen races with the first before, but never together with the second. They knew what they faced: an empire built upon the bones of trillions, that had maintained dominance of the galaxy for longer than your races had existed. And not only were they willing to stand against it, they had given you and the rest of the Group of Six the means to do so.

All of which had led you here, to the observation deck of the Stand, on a course for home. You were not the only Strand aboard the ship, but you were the only person who knew that. But you were one of only three in existence that knew how far the summons went, and why. Only a handful more knew of exactly what had taken place in Sol, and what the Contact Fleet had returned with. A secret that had only been kept through the…Clarions that humanity had gifted to you. The willingness of that species to trust had shocked you at first, but that had just been a matter of processing. When you could do things like what their Potentials could, was trust truly so great a gift? Maybe not to them, but you wondered if they truly understood the wicked edge that perspective gave their diplomatic corps.

Be fair, Kendl, you told yourself. Their Project Insight has something to do with it too. The Community had a reputation for spycraft and cyberwarfare that was not particularly exaggerated. In most encounters with other races, you knew what they wanted in general terms before stepping into the room. Even when you didn't, you were at least even. Never in the history of the Community had a representative of yours been so outmatched, yet that did hold a brighter side.

Your civilisation had maintained technical dominance between the ex-Tributaries of the galaxy for only a few thousand cycles. The Shiplords had, as far as you knew, maintained true dominance over all for millions. Not complete dominance, as your successful interception of their relay networks displayed, but close enough that no one had expected to win in a challenge against them. Every member of the Group of Six had known the likely consequences of brooking defiance: you'd done so regardless, none of you willing to simply watch as your peoples withered. Perhaps groups like it had formed before, but even your best estimates of support in the event of attempted defiance had only predicted three of the six choosing to fight. After your shared encounter with humanity, that number had doubled.

You couldn't judge. The idea of unity was one that had died with the discovery of how the Shiplords continued to infiltrate and manipulate even after escaping Tributary status. The little working group you'd helped found had only stayed hidden through tireless paranoia and more than a dozen interventions by Enigma. That…and the safe meeting spaces provided by the Neras. A species that had found their way back into your sphere of responsibility over the last few cycles, as you tried to guess how the ancient species would react to mass rebellion.

It was more important than some of your colleagues thought. Against the Shiplords, humanity had said, there lay the chance of victory. But if the Neras chose to intervene? They were a contemporary, the only known contemporary, of the Shiplords. How they'd survived where no others had, no one knew. But against the Shiplords, how could one continue to exist so long without power to match them? Who knew what they might have hidden, wherever the Starhomes went to linger? There were far too many stars for any one race, or seven, to watch with any hope of effectiveness. But no one, not even the Community, had ever found a Starhome when it did not wish to be found. And your people had successfully tracked down the location of Shiplord communications relays. You'd been rather proud of that.

There again, humanity had outdone you. The locations of every single relay within jump range of your polities had been another of the gifts they'd sent back with you. Unfortunately, the Shiplords clearly believed in distributed networks. Just another challenge, but Enigma had found a way around it. Assuming it worked.

Exactly how long you sat there, watching the comforting colours of the homeworld swell to fill the viewscreen, you didn't choose to remember. With the passing of cycles since your experience with humanity, and your exposure to the power that those few among them wielded so freely, it was sometimes easier to forget that their first true test still lay ahead of them. A Tribute Fleet was one thing. Regulars were another, and Enigma had been able to determine that something had stirred up the Shiplords in that section of the galaxy. Whatever was coming for humanity, or had already come, was going to be bigger than any force your races had faced. And you didn't think they'd be so successful in keeping the results of that engagement secret.

Given how the Shiplords had reacted to Practice, their belief that they'd be primary target of Shiplord response had weight. Concerted rebellion coming on the heels of that action would only underline the connection. If their countermeasure to the War Fleets failed it would all be for naught, but there were worse ways to die. Many of them, given the choices left to your civilisations. And none of those were what scared you most of all. They were distractions, lies to keep your thoughts from the true concern.

That terrible, treacherous hope, that humanity might succeed.

Because if they did, what would come next? You could never excuse the Shiplords for what they had done, but there had to be a reason behind it. Humanity didn't disagree with that, though if there was a reason, it eluded them as well. The paranoia of a Strand had kept you alive more times than you could count. In this, it was a curse. Because no one could plan properly for what they didn't know.

Looking down at the world of your ancestors, part of you wondered if you'd ever see it again. Another part wondered what humanity would see in it. Your system had never been a fortress; you'd abandoned the path of physical defence long before winning free of Tributary status. That choice had cost you, but your ancestors hadn't seen any better options. Your greatest strength had been in cyberwarfare, and the creation of stacks had offered a way past the impossible defences of Shiplord Collectors. You'd just had to find a way to reach them.

Your ancestors had sacrificed themselves by the thousands to do that, filling the space around the aptly named Farpoint Station with corpses and debris until enough broadcast ships had been able to get into position. Thousands more had died in the struggle that followed, buying time for the Stacked population in your inner system to fight their way through the Shiplord cyberwarfare defences. The ship you were on was named after that battle, the stand at Farpoint that had won your race's freedom.

You'd never talked about that battle to other races. Few did. It was there if someone wanted to look, but who would want to? Most knew that you'd won free without martial strength, and that was enough. Could you ever hope for such a victory against humanity? Even with the power of their Potentials, you'd thought maybe. But then, that wasn't all they had, was it? They had AIs, too.

You tried to remind yourself that they were your ally, but all that extended to was today, and the war. If your treacherous hope came true, then humanity would stand at the apex of the galaxy. The race which led the rebellion, and cast down the Shiplords. And with the sort of power you'd seen them wield, who knew what that might make them become?

You were a Strand. Your purpose was to protect the Community, against any and all. You'd fought the Shiplords for thousands of cycles, and through it all held them to a draw. Against an unleashed humanity…

You had no such illusions.

"Kendl?" A voice came from the door. You hadn't noticed it opening. Nila stood there, your aide having followed you stubbornly from her position aboard the Winter Moon. You hadn't had the heart to tell her no. And yet, with the Clarions, you could afford that weakness. Her hands flicked confusion-worry-tension.

"Yes, Nila?" You flicked your hands once, a clearing gesture. The signs for resolution and calm came easily. You'd used them so many times.

"It's time." Which you would have known, if your stack had been online. You'd left it on standby.

"Yes," you rose smoothly, signing assent, and spared one final glance to the world laid out before you. A world you loved, and would give all you were to protect. And a world that, if you were truly lucky, was about to change in ways so few would be able to understand at first. You formed resolution again, emphasising the motions, and brought your stack online. Those who might be tomorrow's enemies could wait. At least until today's were defeated. "I suppose it is."

 

[Snowfire]

There had been a tension aboard the relay station ever since the Regular Fleet had departed. No, that was wrong. The tension had been there ever since Captain Peros had submitted your report to Sector Command, which had begun the steady escalation of the data towards the analysts of Central Command. According to your own, quiet, enquiries, it had proven sufficient even there, based upon all available sourcing. In another situation that would have made you happy. You made do with the pride in knowing that you'd produced a document that had risen so highly without rebuke.

When the listing for the Regular Fleet dedicated to the examination of humanity arrived, that, too, was lost to the grim reality. You knew Regular Fleet assignment numbers. You'd spent a full tour of duty aboard one as flag staff, and the numbers in the listing just didn't add up properly. Was it just the ongoing alert status, or something more? Questions you couldn't ask, not as a Relay Officer, and even your other roles would be hard pressed to answer. The orders had been cut by Central Command, and in the end, that was all that truly mattered.

When the truth did arrive, it did so only slowly. First one courier drone, then another, each one adding to the picture of a race that that might be about to become something that yours hadn't seen in thousands of cycles. As your report on them had climbed the chain of command, you'd wondered if a word might have been used to describe them, but it never made it into official correspondence.

It wasn't the Secrets they wielded or the ships they'd built that brought you to that decision, though you could see how the Tribute Fleet might have reacted to it. Regulars were different, however, and you could see that in their reactions. The steadily growing loss figures, though. If Central Command hadn't ordered such a powerful response, they might not have been able to effectively reply to what humanity could do.

The energy burst against the first engagement group's drones had been easy to analyse given a station AI like Lijthe, and for the first time in your service period you found yourself wishing that you could monitor such engagements in real time, no matter the huge distances involved. It would have brought the rest of the fleet in sooner, saving your people losses. The service could weather them, but that wasn't the point. Looking at the data, and how humanity had reacted, it was very clear that they'd known what was coming. The question was how.

The sensor readings around the unit of single point combat sources could be one answer, but you didn't know enough about them to be sure. The standard outlines on the matter had never described this sort of utilisation. It was similar, yes, but not what your weapons had been designed to fight. Action from those entities would have been obvious, too, and the sector grid hadn't even flickered in reaction to the bursts of energy unleashed by those humans. Perhaps knowing sooner would have brought the fleet in sooner, but perhaps not. It was too easy to rationalise when you weren't there.

And all of it came to naught in a single instant of burning light that blinded the sensors of the courier drones rushing towards the edge of the system. After that, nothing more came. The burst of energy had been focused around two of the point sources, one of which Lijthe identified as the source of a focused energy burst that the other point source had disrupted shortly before. The appropriate weapons had had an effect there, but they hadn't been enough to save the ships mounting them. The lack of further courier drones after that event only had driven tensions aboard the station higher. You'd been lucky to have something of a distraction in taking the data recovered from the drones and sending it on in easily accessible format, but the realisation of what you were actually sending hadn't helped. The report on humanity before had been directional. Suspicious, but not entirely damning.

This one was much, much easier to produce, but you didn't enjoy inputting the data behind the findings or the conclusion drawn from the abundantly available data. Whatever had disrupted the sector shortly before the Tribute Fleet had gone missing was almost certainly the work of humanity. It was possible it could have been another entity, but given the sensor readback from the last courier drones, it was blazingly unlikely. Any race with this sort of power was a threat. A race that reacted faster than it had any right to, to a visit they shouldn't have known was coming. Those factors, above all, hardened belief into grim certainty.

By the time the remains of the Regular Fleet exited jump, you'd received a polite demand for a more detailed report from Central Command. The fleet still existing made that a lot easier, and the combat data on the matter made for exactly what you needed to create a more complex and in-depth report. By this point, you had been given priority sourcing to your station's AI, as had been done before. Yet there had been far more concern in Captain Peros' manner this time. You did not disagree with its presence.

Yet, as you dug into the new data transmitted by what was left of the Regular Fleet detachment, you couldn't avoid the suspicion that his concern was far less than what was actually required. The capability of this species to recover and rise so swiftly from their first evaluation was unlike anything in modern history. You'd had to go all the way back to the enemy that had forced the Zlathbu Adjustment to find a race that came close.

If you wanted a species that could match humanity's seeming ability to pull energy out of nowhere, you had to go back even further. And every record that matched that search was sealed with flag codes you'd never seen. Central Command would be able to access them, but the privileges of a Relay Captain weren't enough. You'd have to leave that in the hands of Central Command's analysts. Yet none of that touched upon the most chilling part of the report by far.

That tenuous honour belonged to something else. A single transmission from one of the combat point sources, that had brought the entire system to stillness after helping wipe almost half the Regular detachment from reality with perfect precision:

"I know you can understand me. And I'm done waiting on you. Tell us why. We cannot call it from the stars. But the fire we wield can still be your doom."

Those words spoke of an understanding of your species that went far beyond what any younger race should be able to grasp. As an Analyst of some skill, you knew that the key to victory lay in understanding your enemy. If humanity was willing to say this much openly, what more did they know? Not the full truth, but who was to say they knew to ask the right questions. Or that they could choose what to ask.

You weren't sure which would be worse. A race that delved into your past would discover the truth of it eventually, but that had ended a war once. A race that could only ask certain questions would find only the answers that they needed to make any conflict devastating. Maybe that was why the leader of the Regular Fleet had communicated with them, before the fleet's departure.

Maybe that would be enough. You weren't hopeful.

War was coming.

And humanity was going to be an enemy.

 

[Snowfire]

The departure of the Shiplords brought the Third Battle of Sol to a close, but it didn't end your responsibilities. With the battle proper done, the Two Twenty Three were assigned to the role they were suited to above all else: aiding in the recovery of escape pods launched by FSN craft during the battle. Lina had hoped that the designs she'd created, based off of the work of Project Insight, would help preserve human life even when ships were lost. The hundreds of lifepods scattered across the battlespaces were the most tangible proof possible that she'd succeeded. You remembered the Second Battle of Sol. The reality of the FSN's designs then had left far less recovery work to be done.

The FSN had Search and Rescue ships too, of course, but none of them came close to the blinding agility of Unisonbound. Even the newly trained auxiliaries were often swifter than military drives, one of the not-so-rare occasions on which Practice proved superior to creations of the Secrets.

It was, in fact, something of a welcome shift from what you'd expected to be needed for. The post-battle doctrine outlined before the battle would have placed you and a small core of the Two Twenty Three on security duty around the Shiplord wreckage. Given that the pause in combat had allowed the Shiplords to recover or destroy the vast majority of their hulks, that task could be seconded entirely to the Fleet's escorts. Ministry of Security vessels were already on their way, and once they arrived, they'd take the lead on the matter. That wasn't to say that every member of the Two Twenty Three with an applicable focus wasn't paying attention to those ships. Humanity's experience with Shiplord infiltration systems wouldn't allow you to do that. But with so few ships, especially with them mostly scattered, it didn't have to be a primary focus.

Even with the entire Two Twenty Three working on it, recovery of escape craft took hours. But they were hours well spent, and not just for all the souls returned swiftly home. Once Mir returned with Asi, Kalilah had proven capable of reconnecting with her Platform. You'd have preferred that she go sit on one of the Unison couriers and rest, but she was even more stubborn than you. And that wasn't the only reason that she was out here with you, the crimson and dark metal of her Aegis shining in the light of the stars.

The entire star system had seen what she'd done, even if they'd not understood it the way the Two Twenty Three had. To see her on her feet again, returned to duty as it were, that meant something. Ever since the Sorrows, and especially since the Second Battle of Sol, humanity had found definition in some its ability to overcome. Seeing Kalilah out here with the rest of the Two Twenty Three meant something just as tangible as your shared survival. Perhaps even more.

And yet, the woman behind the symbol she'd become had changed too. What she'd said to calm you had recognised a reality that could contain more than just her and the pain she'd carried since the loss of her family. It had recognised the world you'd sought for all ever since childhood, and for the very first time, accepted it. If that would endure, you couldn't know. But you could hope, and that you most certainly would.

Conversation passed slowly between you as the unit gathered up the precious cargo of lives, but it was of less weighty things. You shared new hopes, and even some curiosity as to the mass of churning smart matter that had been deployed bare minutes after Sol had been confirmed to be secure once again. You and Vega knew what it meant, but you couldn't speak of it. A new Hermes Station, to connect humanity to the galaxy and, most importantly, your allies spread across it.

Ministry of Security transports jumped from the edge of the Stellar Exclusion Zone to the squadrons of FSN escorts guarding the remains of the few Regular Fleet craft left behind. They would secure them for full analysis, as they'd done with the Tribute Fleet craft before. You wished them luck, and kept a Heartcircle ready to redeploy via courier in support. It wasn't the designated role of the Unisonbound, but there were precious few things that could truly harm one of you, and you could react faster than any other force in the fleet.

Finally though, to your subtly accelerated senses, all escape pods had been recovered. You weren't sure how many people had died, but Lina's voice over the comm was brighter than you'd expected. The majority of any fighter bailouts must have been outside of the burst of devastation that Kalilah had unleashed.

The debriefing that followed confirmed what you'd hoped. Losses had been far lighter than Lina had hoped, less even than those sustained in the First Battle of Sol. Yet your victory, if you could call it that, had not been one of arms. Practice had stopped the fighting, and your words to all present had sent your aggressors home. Lina understood why you'd made that choice, though she was clearly worried about the possible results of the actions you'd taken. After the Second Battle of Sol, something very close to a religion had formed around your actions there. The scale of your actions this time were far larger, even if they were split across the whole of the Two Twenty Three.

Salvage was expected to be less than extensive, given the manner of your victory, but Lina accepted that gladly when set against the losses she'd expected to suffer. And nowhere was the worry of what the Shiplords had seen. What they'd take home. That, you learned there, had never been something Lina had expected to be able to hide. Against a Tribute, it would have been enough. But Regulars were too organised for such tricks to work. Something you'd expected, but still hoped might not be true.

And then, of course, there were the results of the cyberattack that had not just failed to breach your networks, but been a truly impressive display of ability from your daughter. Iris had flatly refused to move more than a few meters from your side after greeting you with a hug that had actually stressed your Aegis. Here, though, she stood proudly to explain.

"The Shiplords didn't expect us to have anyone like Vision or me." She told you all calmly, very aware of all the eyes watching, yet unafraid. She had come so far. "That was our greatest advantage here. We know from the Contact Fleet that no other race but the Shiplords are known to have AIs. No matter their attention to detail, they've enjoyed dominance in that field for longer than humanity has existed. That they were prepared as they were, all things given, was surprising."

"That could speak of simple paranoia," Lina's intelligence officer noted, but the comment was deferring.

"Or of what to us would seem impossible dedication," Iris replied, shaking her head. "I think we can guess which is more likely, Commander. We've seen enough of Shiplord military culture." It was a fair judgement, though it left space for the certainty of a Project Insight confirmation.

"I have a gestalt of my time in their networks compiled," your daughter continued, and you practically felt the burst of excitement from the intelligence section gathered at the table. "I'll upload it to the secure network before I leave the ship." A subtle check told you that the upload was already in progress. "I can't promise that it will help you with anything specific, but I think anything would be helpful here."

"Thank you, Iris," Lina's words brought the meeting back under control, before her intelligence section could try to excuse themselves. Then she turned to you, and the question you'd been dreading filled the air. "Now, Amanda. Could you explain what happened out there?"

Kalilah stirred at your side, but a soothing motion through the web settled her back into her chair. "I'm not sure I can," you said, meeting Lina's eyes steadily. "Some of it is obvious, I admit. Kalilah attempted something that we weren't entirely sure was possible, after the Regular Fleet deployed anti-Practice weaponry against us. I saved her from the consequences of it."

"What consequences?" Several voices asked, in the same moments.

"Death," you replied steadily. There was no way to sugarcoat this, and no one present would want you to. The gasp from close to your left told you that Iris wasn't exactly happy with that reality, though. Explaining this to Mary was going to be…you weren't going to think about that for now. You leant forward in your chair.

"Everyone here should be aware of how Practice works. There's a well of energy that our entire species is connected to, that Potentials can access more of." A murmur of agreement swept the room, and you went on. "What Kalilah tried to do out there was to draw on more than her soul could survive. It was theory up until now. Now we know that it can be done, at least by a Unisonbound." In truth, you were unsure if any other Potentials would be capable of it.

In another world, you might have feared the reaction that, especially when you'd succeeded in saving Kalilah from it. Here, you did not. "I was able to save her, but that was far more luck than skill."

"And power," Vega added from a few seats down. "Between us all, the Two Twenty Three drew on more power than I think humanity ever has in one moment. Kalilah in unleashed what destroyed the Shiplord fleet. Amanda in protecting her, and herself. And," she paused.

"The webwork that you and Mir created to contain the blast," Kalilah said, her voice surprisingly gentle. Her dark eyes swept the table. "I do not regret what I did. I understood what it could have cost. And though I am thankful to still live, I would do it again if I had to."

Silence fell at that, the words the pronouncement of a pledge that all recognised. Lina let it linger for a moment before breaking it. "We all swore an oath. I only hope that in the future we can find a way to make such sacrifices not be required." Her attention returned to you. "You will be investigating this fully?"

"Of course," you said. "The lack of any functional sensor data on the event itself is going to make that a challenge, but we'll do the best we can." It was all anyone could ask, a sentiment that Lina made clear herself. After that, there was little more but what you'd expected of a debriefing. Detailed figures and initial analysis, trying to find ways in which all of you could have been better prepared. It lasted longer than your recovery operations had, but it did end.

Lina returned to her duties, supervising the FSN's return to stations on one hand, whilst already preparing for the next clash on the other. You wondered what designs the War Office would produce as a result of this engagement. Maybe an improvement to the FSN's fighters, but that was personal bias talking. Compared to a Unisonbound, even the F6 was terribly fragile.

"Mom," Iris' voice pulled you from the moment of contemplation, her eyes flickering gently, like firelight. She'd already told you what she'd needed to, in that crushing hug. She wasn't just talking for herself now, though, you realised. "Are you trying to distract yourself?"

"Yes, Iris," there was no point trying to deny it. "I am." Your daughter nodded thoughtfully, pursing her lips. Then she smiled, a gentle thing which she'd learnt from you and Mary both. It was hard not to see those parts of her, especially like this. And especially when your emotions were still so close to the surface.

"Will you and Mary be alright?" Oh, she was worried, wasn't she. Still so young, in so many ways, to focus on that.

"We'll be fine, Iris," you told her, and you knew that it was true. "That wasn't why I was trying to distract myself." Your daughter made an inquisitive sound, as you stepped from Lina's flagship into the Unison Courier bound for Mars. You looked across at her, only a little down now, and considered what to say. Better the truth, you resolved. She was your daughter, but she was also older than you had been when you'd learnt the cost of choices like this.

"I helped kill what must have been thousands of lives today, Iris," you said softly. "I chose to do that, and I'd do it again in an instant. But I still killed. And you know what my Focus is. I'm not meant to do that, even though I can. So long as I distract myself, I can keep that at bay. And," you turned as the airlock sealed behind you, regarding Iris squarely. "I don't want to let go of that until we're home, alright? I won't stop you being there, I don't think I could."

"Probably not," Iris said into your pause for breath. She wasn't joking, either, and it almost brought you down there and then. Instead, you reached out and pulled your daughter into a hug, even as the courier dropped away from the immense dreadnought. Its FTL drive began to charge rapidly.

"Thank you," she stiffened a little as you said those words, as if surprised. "You're family, Iris. You're our daughter. If you want to be there, you can."

"I might need it too, you know," she murmured, voice muffled by the hug before she drew back. There was the shimmer of tears in her eyes. "It was just flicking a switch." The drones she'd destroyed, you realised. The detonations would have ended lives, even if she'd never seen them. She was smart enough to know that.

"Alright," you pulled her against you gently, like you'd done when she was younger which prompted a small protest. But only a small one. "Then we'll do it all together," you said firmly, leading her down the corridor that led to the viewing spaces of the small craft. "As a family."

 

[Snowfire]

It came as a surprise to no one who knew your closest family that you were met by the final part of it high above the plains of Mars, in the middle of your descent. There was absolutely nothing subtle about it, and you were quite sure that Mary couldn't have cared less. She knew that you were both alright, but that wasn't the same as being there with you. It had been all you could do to convince her not to take the shuttle out to meet the courier, a debate you'd finally won only by pointing out how it wouldn't save any time.

Meeting you here wouldn't either, but you knew Mary well enough to understand that that wasn't the point. She wanted to see you and the daughter you'd raised together, and she knew that neither of you would be inconvenienced by her choice of where to meet you. Launching from a ship this size while it was in motion wasn't something that Iris had ever done before. Fortunately, she'd had a whole twenty seconds to practice, and she had you there to help too. Not that it proved necessary, but it was the thought that counted.

The day was coming to an end as you jumped from the courier's airlock into the Martian sky, the rays of brilliant sunlight reflecting from the silver of your Aegis and the tears that none of you were able to hold back anymore. Mary met you in that sky, in a hug that was entirely silent but for two words at the very beginning.

"You're ok."

Mary wasn't anything more than human except perhaps in the power of her mind. Physically, both you and Iris were leagues stronger than her. But that mattered less than nothing against the emotion pouring off of her. There was no fear to it, not anymore, because she could see and feel you now. Gone was the woman who had curled against you and cried for the fear you'd subjected her to – though those tears had been shared, then. Now there was only the irresistible, wordless power of a family that loved each other.

As high as you were, the sunset had not finished when you finally started moving. As you descended towards your home, though, the night caught up swiftly. You were almost thankful for that. None of you were limited by darkness anymore, and it made the flight home quieter than it would have been in any other circumstance. You understood the wish of the public to see you, to know that you were alright like Mary had needed to. But theirs wasn't a need. Hers had been. And facing a crowd right now felt like a terrible idea. Adriana and her government could hold humanity steady; it was their job. You would take advantage of this moment and use it to let go. Anything more could wait.

Not forever, no. But long enough.

That had been your thought still, many hours later, as you glided up the stairs of what had once been Mary's home that now belonged to all of you. Iris was heavier than she'd been the last time you'd done this, but the real challenge was how much taller your daughter was now. It made manoeuvring her through the staircase and hallway beyond something of a challenge. For all that she'd done, all that she gloried in being, your daughter had never taken a life before today. And AI or not, she was still human. Her words, not yours, and a choice she'd made herself during her time at the Institutes.

You felt the brush of air behind you as Mary followed you up, one hand cradling the line of her daughter's chin. A few strands of almost painfully drab grey were brushed away from her mouth, and Iris made a soft and contented sound, settling against the familiar hold. Still your little girl. Your heart told you that that was never going to change, and that was good. You didn't want it to.

Despite the somewhat unique challenges presented by the young woman your daughter had chosen to grow into, it didn't take long to get her settled. Mary had told the bed to make itself somewhere in the first hour in, if you'd kept track of it right; a quick check with Sidra confirmed you had. With that done, it was just a matter of getting her into it. Given that the clothes she'd worn to the battle had been an extrusion of her physical avatar, you weren't worried about them getting creased. The only real problem, if you could have called it one, was how she fastened on to you and Mary as you tucked her in, though she never stirred from sleep.

"I did warn you," Mary sighed, though the put-upon expression did her few favours when her eyes were wet and smiling. She leant down and gave your daughter a proper hug, humming the bars of one of the songs you'd written as a teenager. It had been a lullaby then, and had grown into a regular occurrence in the evening when Iris had been a child.

"I didn't object," you pointed out, entirely innocent. You leant down too, pulling your daughter into another fierce hug. A few lines of gentle song later and you too were free of the iron grip. You could have escaped it, of course. But not without waking Iris, and that wasn't something you were willing to do. She needed her rest, to begin processing everything that had happened. It wouldn't give her solutions, or at least you didn't think it would, not yet. But it would help. And right now, that was what mattered.

You pulled the coverlet up to Iris' chin, and brushed her hair with your other hand, smoothing it out. She made another soft sound, contented, and then curled into the soft covers to rest. You rose, smiling, and left the room with Mary to find your own. You had talked of a great deal, and your cheeks were still wet with tears from it, but there had been a few things that neither of you had felt you could easily talk about with Iris there. It wasn't a matter of trust. It was simply…personal.

You leaned against Mary as you walked, the long day finally starting to catch up to you as Sidra's influence began to fade. They could have maintained your Aegis still, but it wasn't necessary anymore. The depth of fatigue you could feel coming wasn't so much nipping at your heels as it was considering how best to devour your entire lower body. You'd told Mary, and she understood, but this conversation couldn't wait.

So much so that you started it on the way back. "What changed?" Perhaps not the best start. "I mean, compared to last time. You're so much more," you paused, struggling to find the right word. Weren't you meant to be better at this?

You felt Mary smile beside you. "A lot's changed since then, Mandy. Not just in us, but," she gestured absently, taking in the entire city around you in the motion. "This. You helped me take back what I'd thought I'd lost. Forever. And then, with Iris," she broke off, the act of stepping through into your shared room providing an unobtrusive excuse to do so. "We both love her so much, but I wouldn't be able to be up there with her. And yet," something in her smile shifted, becoming wider and so much more gentle.

"You go up there because you love us. Iris does it for the same reason, at least a little. Yes," she waved one hand, the other popping the fasteners on her choice of clothes for the day. "You both do it for more than that, but that doesn't detract from it." She pulled off her jacket, the rest of her garb following swiftly.

"I worry, of course I do. I'm terrified when you go up there," she told you as she slipped into bed beside you, the last few words a whisper. You'd already fully dispersed your Aegis. "But I couldn't, I can't, ask you to stop doing it. That would be asking you to stop being who you are, and I couldn't change that even if I ever wanted to."

"Which you don't," you nodded muzzily.

"Which I don't," she agreed, before continuing. "And again, what you did, throwing yourself into more than just battle and risking so much to save a friend. You did that for me, once, Mandy. It's who you are. And we'd be in a very sad place, I think, if you weren't."

"Even if," you started to say, but Mary cut you off before you could get past the first word.

"Just come back alive," she told you with quiet inevitability. "Even if you scare me, or everyone else, or keeping making people think that LiFE might be right." You muffled a groan at that. That was one that that you weren't looking forward to dealing with in the least. Mary's arms tightened around you in a hug, and you tilted your head sleepily to see her looking across at you.

Waiting, you realised, for an answer. You nodded slowly. "I'll do everything I can." It was all you could give.

She smiled, slipping down to rest her head on your shoulder. "That's all I could ever ask," she murmured, the needs of stress and emotional exhaustion pulling her too towards sleep. "And all I ever will."

Words easily spoken, on decades of trust, and in the same mind as your own. That this now was all that mattered. It was a comforting thought, you realised, as you drifted off. To know that your duty had been done. And though it would not wait forever, it could wait long enough.

"Good night, love."

That had been what you'd thought.

---

You found yourself standing somewhere that you could have sworn you'd seen before, upon an endless plane of faint blue light. The light of stars and the galaxies which held them shafted down upon you, forming into vaulting walls, like some immense gallery woven of the very sky. The outline of stars and planets scattered across the space between the grander spirals, laying out a vista unlike any you'd even imagined. You wondered, idly, if this was what Insight saw when it Thoughtcast. Such a strange dream to have.

Except there was a figure standing at the far end of the gallery of lights, facing away, gazing out across the stars. They wore a cloak of dark crimson, tinted ever so faintly by the blue-white lights of the place's walls. You couldn't imagine why someone like that– Your thoughts, and all illusions of this being only a dream, died as the figure spoke.

"Amanda Hawk." It was a voice that no human would possess, born of a hundred, a thousand, different possibilities. Not a voice a human could possess, and yet…a voice that was similar to one you'd heard once before. More than fifteen years ago, in the doorway that the Elder First had left to guard their vault. Anger sparked deep within you; could you not be given at least a single night of peace?

"Is this truly necessary," you asked, your tone biting and acidic. "I have fought and almost died today. If you left something for me," the figure turned, not fully, but enough to meet your eyes with one of its own. They burned a pure blue, unlike anything that could be human, and the face hidden in the shade of that light was not, either. Much was obscured, yes, but you could see well enough to tell. You took a step back, power rippling suddenly around you, power that felt far too real to come to you in a dream.

"Please," the being pleaded, and you saw its lips move in time with the words. Almost human, you realised, but made of too many possibilities to be one. Like a jigsaw finished with too many pieces. "We mean no harm. But we are not something left by your predecessors."

"Then what?" You demanded harshly. Sidra's strength filled you, and yet you could not hear or sense the intelligence behind the device. What had this thing done? The figure turned fully, two eyes of brilliant light piercing into yours, and a gestalt of all that this being was crossed the space between you before you could blink or look away.

Lives, billions of lives, gathered and bound and willing. Souls together, minds apart, yet all had agreed to a choice. Something more than life had been born of that, something only of the soul, not of the mind or body. A being of formless power, which had left the physical form behind long ago. How long…you couldn't tell. The stars it remembered were not familiar. Yet they had suffered the same pain. Ships from the sky, ships you recognised, tore down their world.

They rose again, fought, fell, rose, fought. On and on, until finally they were free. A freedom that was not full, but one that did give them hope. Thousands of years of time spent among the stars, learning the hollow emptiness of that hope, the reality of the chains which bound the stars. All of it leading to that choice, to become more, and leave this sad world behind. Such depth of detail could not possibly be anything but true, something told you. Something of yours, you corrected. Not this being. And all it given in an instant.

That left…your thoughts stalled.

"You're," you said, breaking off again to shake your head, shock clear in your face and voice. "You're," you tried again, and failed.

The figure bowed its head, the gesture remarkably human. "We are sorry for this intrusion. But we need to talk. Of you, and how this war might end."

The Practice War is continued...

...in The Secrets' Crusade​

 

[Snowfire]

So, I think I've gotten enough done to get this ball rolling. It might not be entirely enough, but that's what hotfixing is for - not like I wasn't doing copious amounts of that when I got this quest started. So let's see where it takes us. For all those who requested it - or did so silently, I know you're out there, darnit! - the following is a link to the quest's sequel. Please, join me there for...

The Secrets' Crusade​