With the two Shoork and an Ascension drone standing atop a nearby rocky outcropping, slowly sweeping the area with rifles at the rest, Dancer and Eyeball approached the Klendath, and the plaque. Eyeball frowned. ".. Mute. Does the translator have these people loaded in it?"

Eyeball's response was immediate. ~Affirmative. The Republic actually analyzed their language fairly thoroughly, and was observing their radio transmissions to monitor the spread of illness.~

"Thanks. Why the Starship Trooper's reference, anyway?"

~It was one of the few books I can still remember from my time as an organic; the only one in english. In addition, the qusi-native life-forms are vaguely spider-like in form, and extremely aggressive. They have not had a span they were not actively engaged in a war of similar scale to world-war two in their recorded history; before one war ends, the next has already begun, though they do, at least, avoid butchering children and pregnant females, unlike the Republic. If not for their extremely rapid reproduction rate, they would have died out centuries ago.~

Eyeball blinked, shaking his head as they stopped. The creature was massive, bringing back images of the Jotun warriors; and he nodded to the creature. "Thank Doshet for the living example for me, it makes things easier. Unmute and translate. Hello. I am Eyeball, and I came here to kill Marrick." He pointed at the corpse. "I am neither your people's friend nor enemy, but am willing to help you in whatever way contributes to killing more of them."

The creature lowered its head, looking at the tiny creature with its black armor, shiny chrome head. A pair of enormous, multifaceted eyes focused on him. Studying his appearance, and that of his allies. They'd seen the monsters numerous times; they all shared the same vivid green coloration, with the only exceptions being those rare, unarmed, helpless ones that were often found with the teams; this was the first time an armed alien was seen without that color.

Did it mean anything? The murder of the other one was more significant. The only time one had ever been seen harming another was clearly accidental, friendly-fire situations when the People were overrunning a position. He wondered where the nearest radio was; whatever nation was in command now would likely want to know of this. "I am Riik. I am a ceremonial gravedigger, and have been watching over this place since it was sealed. If you kill the monsters, you are welcome, but make your stay short. Some of you look too similar to the monsters for our taste."

Eyeball glanced at Dancer. "You want to pop out and handle this one?"

The floating pod swiveled to face Eyeball for a moment. A private message suddenly appeared. ~Look at the size of him! His limbs are as thick as my torso! He looks like one of the beasts of legend that would raze villages and eat our children! He might just decide to eat me the moment he sees me!~

Eyeball shrugged. "His people might be more closely related to the Founders than mine, but I'm still vaguely in the right ballpark. Don't worry, I've got your back."

Dancer stared at Eyeball for a moment; and opened the pod, stepping out; the fat, beetle-like body and thin reed-like limbs a dramatic contrast to the enormous Klendath, whose limbs and torso were almost the same thickness. "I am Dancer of Worms and Fire. My people oppose the Monsters as well. I have joined Eyeball to help him hunt down and kill them."

Riik stared at Dancer, then at Eyeball. This thing looked just... strange. He'd never seen anything even close to this; none of the Monsters had more than four limbs, or such an odd body shape. "...Well. I am no military commander. Why have you come here to visit a grave?"

Dancer looked down at the plaque, and stepped closer to it. "May I examine the marker? There is something special about this one, isn't there?"

Riik looked at the fat, harmless blob... and gave its species equivalent of a shrug, momentarily touching all ten of its limbs together by pairs, and backed away. "This represents the greatest, most vile sin of the monsters. It is a monument to the intrinsic hate we all feel towards them, and the sorrow at their crimes. The first place they destroyed was our most populous city, a vast seat of power that had changed hands many times over the years. Tens of millions of us called it home, and within this area there were hundreds of millions of children being raised."

He centered his gaze on Dancer. "Helpless children. Who could easily be raised and taught anything, who lacked awareness, who were still driven by base, animal instinct. Driven to agonized madness by a biological weapon. A sickness. It wasn't enough that they died. That some of them turned on their mothers and fathers in their final moments. When we tried to quarantine them, they turned on each other, tearing themselves and their siblings apart."

He looked down at the plaque, as Dancer gently laid one limb on it, staring at what the translator told him were a list of names, in incredibly fine print. As he looked at the concrete slab surrounding it, there were hundreds of other plaques with additional names that had been added later, which this 'Riik' had clearly been cleaning, dusting, maintaining, as the surrounding area fell into ruin.

Riik laid one tendril on the plaque. "In the last moments before we sealed the tomb, a single, helpless child who had somehow recovered called out for its mother even as its maddened siblings killed it. A mother herself long rendered blind and helpless by the plague. It.... is a moment of horror we could not have comprehended before that day."

Dancer could feel the power oozing through the plaque; through the entire tomb; and looked up at Eyeball. If this power could be condensed, distilled into a focus... even better, by one of these natives, if he could be taught... it could be a weapon to drive the Republic away in terror. "....I want to teach these people what you've taught me. To stay here, and work with them."

Eyeball shifted for a moment. That idea felt... terrible. The last time he'd felt this bad about a possible decision was back on earth, before letting Emerald lead them into that ambush. And... that time had led to Emerald getting hurt, and abducted. Which probably meant...

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He was virtually certain it wouldn't end well; that Dancer would die here, if he left him. ".. You aren't one of mine. I can't tell you what to do. But I can tell you that, if you stay here, you'll probably never leave this planet alive. I don't know it it will be them, or the Republic when they return... but this is it for you. If you think this is worth dying for, I'll ask Ascension to leave a drone behind to help, and setup a warp-capable shuttle to get out of here."

After a moment, Ascension chimed in. ~I can configure an assault shuttle to be warp-capable within six hours, using only local scavenged materials. We will still come out with more weapons and raw materials than we entered with; my existing plans indicate we will be best off creating a pair of unmanned vessels to follow us out, which we will modify en route back to Knife-7.~

Dancer nodded. "I'll send you my tests on magic, my own guides. And if you're within comms range, I'll keep transmitting guides until the Republic comes back. But... Yes. I think if we help these people, the damage they could do to the Republic would be catastrophic. Just this one site alone..."

Eyeball sighed. "So be it. I'll have your belongings dropped for you. With the shuttle here, you'll be able to change your mind when you'd like; but if I'm right about this, by the time you choose to, it will be too late."

"...Are you a seer truly then? A Prophet?" Dancer looked momentarily intrigued.

"....Not exactly. I can't tell you what's going to happen. Only that it doesn't end well."

"Well then. As you so succintly put it... So be it."

***

For the next few months, Eyeball continued making random assaults on Republic positions; every week, it seemed, he learned of new atrocities, destroyed a few ships, robbed the Republic, and made his way back across the border into Confederate territory. He finally encountered a Republic force using EMP weaponry; but thanks to extensive training, and his own foresight, they still won the battle; and had plenty of time for Ascension to recover before pulling back out.

Forces had begun to gather at Knife-7 for what was being dubbed 'Operation Paradise'; and on top of over a hundred royal navy vessels in their beautiful, curved, seashell-like forms, increasing numbers of privateers from a variety of races had arrived; ranging from barely-modified scavenged Republic craft that still had remnants of the Republic's teal paint on their badly scarred forms to solid dark orbs of metal bristling with weapons and strange spike-covered spires.

And, of course, Eyeball's own private flotilla; a group of six Ascension-driven carriers and missile boats, using Ascension's latest foray into bio-engineering to create quasi-sentient minds to control drone fighter-craft should an EMP take out the computers. At the beginning, he'd been receiving rare reports from the Ascension drone remaining in the target system, on the continuing efforts to pare away the star's atmosphere, on the increasing level of devastation it was causing to local life; before being warned that the machine needed to cut off outgoing signals for now except on specific, narrow bands; and being provided a list of locations near the system to arrive to get more recent data.

The day approached they would be moving into Republic space; ships were testing out the hyperdrives, learning the ropes as it were, and a backlog of ships waiting for neutronium to complete their warp cores had been finished with them instead; the slower hyperdrive-driven vessels from the Royal Navy and a handful of other local naval yards would be the last arrivals before the assault would begin.

And, of course, it finally arrived.

He didn't expect to be doing much personal combat; he'd had the bridge fully re-worked, and had a nice slot to embed the Titanslayer handgun so that he could fire it... through a railgun, which would impart enough power to destroy Knife-7, at the very least; and hopefully anything they ran up against in Republic space if it was needed.

Just because he wasn't expecting it was no reason not to be prepared, however. Not only had he carefully carved runes into his armor to turn it into a focus, letting him casually move around without expending thrust; but he had his latest assortment of anti-armor penetrators; including a single enchanted slug forged from the materials on Klendath that could damage even a Neutronium-armored target; and of course his various fragmentation, shroud, and chemical grenades.

He could handle a small army on his own; and any individual target he was aware of, barring a Titan. And even most Titans he could likely either kill or at least get out of the way. On a personal level, he was more confident in his abilities than he'd ever been; he could toss Valkyrie into orbit, crush Odin like an empty beer can, anticipate and cripple Lightning... the only opponents he knew of that he couldn't clear up with his current capabilities were the Emperor and Kezia; there at the end her abilities were insane.

Of course, he didn't have such high opinions of the fleet. Over six hundred ships had gathered, yes; mostly of the smaller frigate and destroyer size; but the Republic had hundreds of thousands that they could pour through that gate within hours... in fact, that was even the plan. They wanted them to pour that fleet through, and then just... slip away.

He was reasonably confident he could survive a single hit from a starship's particle cannon, if they lost the battle and he was left adrift in space. He was even more confident that however many it would take to finish him off, is the number they would use.

A comms signal arrived on the bridge. His crew-woman; a capable young Yogg pirate named Porti; glanced up. "Captain. The Duchess has boarded her flagship, and has announced that it's time. Operation: Paradise is a go."

He nodded. "Of course. Inform the Duchess that we'll be waiting for her at the gate." He glanced at the Ascension drone standing beside its own command console. "Have the rest of the flotilla follow us in a dead-even line, and pass the info to my HUD. We'll see how close we can get before warp becomes impractical... then drop into hyperdrive for the last few light-weeks. After we pick up whatever intel you've got for us."

A short nod. Eyeball looked at his display; the six Ascension spacecraft had no living crew, aside from the artificial organics Ascension had manufactured; and were likely; well, hopefully at least; devastatingly powerful for their mass. They'd undergone a few field tests; being used to ambush lighter craft escaping systems as Eyeball continued his campaign of ruining Republic 'Purge' operations; but this would be the first serious battle they would see. In fact... the Paradise operation would be the first truly challenging space combat he suspected the Gaze would encounter.

He gave a slow twist of the dial; the Gaze of Wrath smoothly accelerating into Warp, with the Ascension vessels trailing behind, matching his path as precisely as possible; and their own status LEDs popping up on his display seconds later.

He'd caused them no end of trouble since his first escape in the 8AD. He wasn't sure how the Republic's media was portraying it, but he'd seen some of the campaigns he'd intervened to stop on the daily news when he was imprisoned; so hopefully there was at least some impact. There were thousands of dead Republic troops, dozens of destroyed starships; this entire sector had likely gone from being viewed as a safe place for the steady advance of the Purge to a major conflict zone. And he was about to make it worse. So, so much worse.