[Shiaari]

From the observation deck Julia Pritcher could see the all too familiar tell tales of impending battle. The stray tracers and explosive flashes occurred ever nearer, along with the occasional column of black smoke, each one closer than the one before. The squads allocated to her by the Conclave were—as predicted—being forced back by elite New Conglomerate fighters of superior skill and equipment. To the untrained it would appear to be a hopeless situation, but this was Auraxis, and this war’s ebb and flow a force unto itself.

She knew the NC commanders themselves saw what was coming when they arrived at the Amp Station. She knew they could easily see their assault slowing down and being tied up in crossfire. It would grind to a halt at the shield generators, and in that instant the hammer would fall. The script always took the same form, though with subtle deviations.

The key to victory was in those subtle deviations.

Scheduled reinforcements consisted of a Magrider squadron of six vehicles that were already enroute, and their arrival would be timed with that of Galaxy dropships carrying a balanced cross section of troop classes and their requisite support. The hammer would come from orbit. Elite light assault shock troops and support waiting for an active beacon behind the enemy axis of advance. The very sight of the drop pods falling from the sky should force an NC contraction out of mere reflex. If the ferocity of the counter-attack was sufficient to deny them their AMS support they should then rout and regroup at their lattice of origin. Combined Vanu forces—under Conclave command—would then advance seizing initiative from the New Conglomerate.

Subtle deviations.

In planning several options were considered. The Conclave buckled under the addition of new leadership, versus the existing command structure, with junior members vetting their own untested ideas to repel an attack that all three empires had repelled in one fashion or another repeatedly for the past ten thousand years. The variables were well understood. Thus, Julia handily dismissed these options as unsuitable or otherwise inadequate based on her generally underappreciated experience. Plainly put, dropping in mobile light infantry was her proposal.

Presently she stood fuming on the observation deck, spurned by her superiors in the classic struggle of middle management. She wasn’t low enough in rank to be taken in as a privileged protégé, but not high enough to have any substantive authority. Ergo, it fell upon her to run this gristmill while a higher-ranking member of the Conclave commandeered the assault—her assault.

Dealing with that astrophysicist partly made up for it. But only partly. It would depend on how many times she’d need to be killed before finally taking the injection. Inventing new ways to kill an Auraxian could become tiresome in the extreme, but it did present a new challenge wholly unlike the rigors of this perpetual war.

Subtle deviations.

It came to her then, those could be the key to everything: War, death, and life, all driven by subtle deviations. There was something there, she thought, something now missing from the collective Auraxian consciousness, something on the verge of her own. If only she could reach out for it. Just then a brilliant muzzle flash interrupted her train of thought. A Vanguard main battle tank had crested a nearby hill, and that meant her forces had finally—and literally—been pushed against the wall. The battle had arrived.

“MAXes to the towers,” she could hear herself saying, her trained voice steady and just loud enough to fill the space. “Let their fire bisect the center fortification on the East wall. That’ll be the generator nearest their assault. Engineers on the North guns.” After each command there was a brief pause as her orders were confirmed. She was patient and taciturn in her battle language. No frills. “Delta squad is tasked with maintaining generator integrity. Let Bravo squad take up flanking positions along the battlement. Charley squad should stay flexible and prepared to shift classes. We want to keep them from setting up AMS along that wall. Alpha squad has point and should be the first to advance.”

She had then become the eye of a hurricane around which spun the well-practiced protocol of the Vanu command apparatus. Her command retinue of junior officers relayed her commands to the squad commanders out on the battlements and in the courtyard. In turn they relayed battle data back to her staff, who handled all command requests on her behalf based on her singular directive. This is what ten thousand years of war had wrought, a command structure that can very much run itself. Even if she were to be called away abruptly to oversee another campaign, these officers would have everything they needed to carry out her directive with absolute certainty.

She stood in martial repose, firmly planted literally and figuratively in her mission and resolve. No one questioned her. Not here. Not in battle. The other Paragons might prattle and plot. They might even steal her ideas and her glory. But, here in this room she was God.

And what of that scientist? Where was she now? Ah, yes, in stasis. It’s not possible to prevent the transmission of a rebirth signal once the subject is dead, but the Vanu Sovereignty had discovered it quite possible to intercept the signal and route it in circles for a time. But, that wasn’t good enough. She had to die for her heresy, the very same heresy that had brought her to their attention in the first place. The notion that Earth held the secret of Auraxian survival went against everything Vanu doctrine stood for, but at the time denying the Republic a very competent scientist was more important. Perhaps just killing her outright would have been best, but she did have her uses. The central thrust of her thesis—that the ancient Vanu was a temporal civilization—had yielded many avenues of research, including the neural disruptor serum and rebirth signal back tracing, for both of which she was playing guinea pig. Taken altogether this one scientist had advanced the Vanu cause more than ten thousand years of constant war, and that fact was what really chapped Julia’s ass. Once these technologies were weaponized it really would be the end of the war, Earth or no Earth. Jamilyn be damned! Just who did she think she was? What was there on Earth, but primitive human looking apes sharing most in common with these filthy New Conglomerate mongrels?

Outside the battle progressed normally. All the expected trappings of the innumerable battles of Auraxis were present. The steady staccato of bursters and flak, the constant cycling whine of plasma based energy weapons, the occasional deep booms of exploding vehicles and C4, and the stunted chatter of Vanu battle language filling the local q-net. She was reaching for her carbine when that chatter reached a fever pitch.

“Gate diffuser! Gate diffuser!” Screamed a voice she recognized as Bravo squad commander, a squat but sturdy fellow who went by Pickles. From his vantage point no doubt he spotted the characteristic line of Sunderers bearing down on the shield gate. She called for an immediate scramble of vehicles from the internal platforms, but she knew it was futile. There was no one at the terminals, and before she could hop down there herself she saw the first Sunderer barrel through the gate on its way to the internal shields. It was moving fast along with two others right on its heels, their guns ablaze.

Subtle deviations.

A deafening explosion that rattled her very bones briefly interrupted the noise of approaching engines. Mines. She had ordered both entrances to be mined, and as the lead vehicle disintegrated into shrapnel the remaining two barricaded through the flaming hulk. Before they were even through the smoldering debris the doors were opened and out scrambled a posse of grim faced blue and yellow ass kickers. The disorganized members of her own force that chased them through the gate were cut down with depressing ease. The next moment they were at the node and the clock was ticking.

It was only seconds before the observation deck’s hatch was blown open and the NC commander hauled his masculine bulk through the smoke. Her command retinue was gunned down immediately, leaving her standing alone, arms folded defiantly over her chest. It was an extremely unflattering situation to be caught in: an Auraxian separated from their weapon, wearing virtually no hardened body armor. Despite the abject superiority of Vanu nanoweave, how it afforded maximum mobility and maximum coverage, it did—by virtue of its design—cling utterly tight to the skin. It had come to be pejoratively synonymous with an ancient textile called Spandex because it left little to the imagination.

She flung her hair clear of her eyes to get a better look at him after he took off his helmet. Each step of his approach was swung wide with that cocky swagger NC soldiers were known for. He wasn’t much taller than she was, and he was obviously well built. Every male Auraxian was, of course, but she rarely ever got to sincerely look at any human being who hadn’t sworn to the Vanu aegis. Consciously she knew every Auraxian was human, but to see this man standing here, his Mag cutter poised between them, was a reminder of just how human he was. Even more startling was that she found herself attracted to him.

“Hoss!” Another NC infantryman called up through the hatch. “Second platoon’s got a hornet’s nest of Magriders burnin’ everything alive. Their AMS and backups are down, and there’s a wing of hostile Galaxies headed this way.” The fresh-faced lieutenant paused. It wasn’t good. “And there’s a squad of purple ball busters hittin’ the ground behind us!”

“Get the mines cleaned up and replace them with our own. Get the engies on anti-personnel turrets. Tell’em to cover the shaft leading up to the aircraft terminals. MAXes on the stairs” His orders understood he then turned his attention back to her.

“Vanu women are the only women left who care about their appearance, you know? Everybody else just thinks it’s some purple fairy fart bullshit, but I do appreciate the way you look, BuddhaBelly. Or should I call you Julia?”

Such humiliation. Behind her eyes hatred burned white hot. Just as soon as he killed her she could respawn and demonstrate the finer qualities of that “fairy fart bullshit.” But, he was obviously enjoying himself, and the humiliation physically hurt. She became aware then that neither herself nor “Hoss” had looked away from each other.

“So, why do they call you BuddhaBelly, anyway?” He asked, kicking aside a dissolving body to sit at one of the stations. Their holos had already been wiped.

“I was pregnant when we began using rebirthing technology. I’m a mother.”

“You don’t look pregnant to me.”

“I was, in fact, pregnant for five hundred years before we learned how to poll the rebirthing matrix for new data, allowing me to finally give birth. You killed my son.” She nodded to the body he moved, now almost completely dissolved.

“Damn, I am really sorry about that!” He laughed. “You Vanu are too goddamn smart for your own good, you know?”

“I fail to see how it’s possible to be too smart, Hoss.”

“It can be a real problem when you think everyone else around you is stupid. Take that sundy for example. One guy in it. Who the hell doesn’t expect mines at an amp station? And while we’re talking about stupidity, who exactly doesn’t expect a gate crash anymore?”

He was obviously very proud of his maneuver; even if he did ignore the fact the mines themselves did indicate anticipation of a gate crash. Just then a deep shadow loomed over the observation deck. The rumble of dropship engines presaged footsteps on the roof.

“You’ve provided excellent training for my platoon, Commander Hoss.”

He rose from the seat and gave her one last thorough up-and-down with his eyes, shook his head, and in one motion plunged his Mag cutter deep into her gut. It was a familiar sensation that she submitted to, falling into his arms, and then to the floor. When she woke up in the spawn room she could see the Galaxies hovering overhead, and feel the battle raging to take back the control node.

It was going to be a bloodbath.