In the star system which had once just been a number on a Republic chart, but was now dubbed 'Paradise', a swarm of over a hundred starships was prepared to leave on a journey out, beyond the sector, into the heart of Republic territory. Most of these craft were roughly spherical in shape, simple blood-red orbs emblazoned with names and a hammer and sickle logo in a vibrant golden yellow. The first of these had the name 'Molotov' enscribed on its side, and the rest varied between being named after ancient, long-dead Russian leaders and concepts like Valor, Destruction, Pride.

Mixed in among them, however, were a handful of other vessels of a far more random shape. Six of them had distinctive, sea-shell like shapes, and beautiful, ornate coloring; others were rough wedge-shaped vessels with dull grey hulls; and still others a bizzare mass of spikes and struts projecting out of a central mass. The plan was to move up and out of the spiral disc of the Andromeda galaxy, skipping over an entire sector of space, moving to an area that the monstrous Republic had dominated for millennia; a hub of shipbuilding and construction, where hundreds of billions of the various Descendent species gathered.

The Gaze of Wrath herself was both somewhat larger, and more refined than she had been; the hull now covered with a dark, sensor-clouding material, and the rough transitions between the four rectangular shapes; each larger than the one that came before; making up its body smoothed out by angled armor plating.

Undoubtedly, these systems they were going to invade would be defended by thousands of ships spread among them; not as many as some of the larger sectors that bordered the front lines; but enough to make the fleet seem insignificant; in theory. Considering recent events, it was likely their very first strike; to the system holding the gate at the center of the target sector; would meet relatively light defenses.

In his quarters, sat Captain Eyeball; currently not wearing his helmet, feeling strange to have the cool air on his skin, just wearing ordinary, simple grey pants and a shirt; though even now, relaxed, they were garments that could form a seal and, with the addition of his helmet, save him from vacuum... with ten seconds of warning. The same amount that told him who was about to knock on his door.

The woman hadn't been very forthcoming about who she was, or where she came from; aside from her name being Svetlana; but parts of it were obvious. She sometimes randomly dipped into a string of russian words when he came across her while she was working, and while she was definitely completely, biologically, human, she was also able to send messages to his HUD, or to the machines, without looking; and she acted as if she'd known him for quite a while. For the past weeks, she'd been largely doing her own thing; working with the machines on plans for the fleet, and what was being left behind; and dodged his questions about her origin, aside from making it clear she was from earth.

At first, he assumed she was Ascension. A new version of the model she'd built to run the ship; and in part provide comfort to its crew. But she seemed... different from the cyborgs he'd met years before. His first guess, that she'd essentially been made as a glorified sex-bot like those old engineering cyborgs, had fallen away as they talked. She was clearly a person, with emotions, and oddly enough seemed more intelligent than the machines in some respects; she had almost immediately ordered Ascension to construct and launch a series of Von Neuman probes, and berated both Eyeball and the machines for not having done so already.

But then, he'd done the usual morbid thing he often did; a few days after first meeting her, he'd tested his precognition to determine if she was special, what it would take to bring her down; only for her to vanish at the first sign of a threat. Simply... cease to exist. And, a few seconds later... everything would go black for himself as well.

If he took her by surprise, when she wasn't looking... and, oddly enough, it seemed to help if -he- wasn't looking... he could kill her. She was sturdy, and could clearly take a knife without a problem, but his more advanced ordinance would have no trouble. If not, she would survive, and kill him for trying; or at the very least, knock her out. He studied the door.

He sighed... and tapped the button, watching the door slide open. She was wearing a simple, dark outfit, leggings and boots under a black dress; and smiled with what was clearly mischief. "So. Have you figured it out yet? We're going to be leaving soon, and I've got what needs doing taken care of, so its finally time to have this conversation."

Eyeball looked her over for a moment. "Figured what out? Who you are? Sort-of. But the logical answer... that you're Ascension... both has to be true, but doesn't quite work. You're a meta-human of some description; I'm guessing with Ripper's powers. But clearly you aren't Ripper; and you seem too... real to be a cyborg, or a complicated Pale One."

She sighed. "Well. You're half true. May I come in?"

Eyeball stepped back from the door, and gestured at a chair; there was a small table in the room, alongside the bed, a dresser, and a viewscreen; but only the one chair. She was the first living thing other than him to enter. "Have a seat."

She stepped in, and settled into the chair, stretching for a moment. "Okay. So, a while ago, you and Ascension talked about his whole primary objective, prime directive, whatever. Technically tertiary, but because of the weird way they programmed it, it was more important."

"Ahh, yeah. Not so much more important, but that if humans died, how could it spread communism, and if there was no communism, how could you make sure it was there in Russia." He nodded. He'd learned of Ascension's three primary directives a long time ago; and had even learned enough to imagine what Asimov would say on reading that version of the three laws.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Exactly. Well, with you being the only human here in Andromeda, basically it's only goal became to protect you. And since you were clearly going to slam your head into the Republic until something gave, the only way to do that was to either sedate you and head for home, or to help you with your project. While it liked your project; crushing the Republic is something Ascension genuinely wants; its programming requires it to focus, first and foremost, on ensuring continuation of human life. Fortunately, the Republic could someday become a threat to humans in our own galaxy, so it was able to hedge its bets and help you. Actually wanting to do it helped."

He nodded. "Yeah, it said as much. While we might be friends, I was reasonably sure it wouldn't be helping me if this wasn't something it wanted to do anyway; most of the time when we helped each other on earth it was because both of us wanted to make sure humanity came out okay, and while I like Ascension, it's hard to really gauge the emotions of a machine."

She smiled. "True enough. But... it isn't hard to gauge those of a human. You were becoming depressed. Isolated. Lonely. Ascension decided to try to use Ripper's corpse, and what little DNA of others could be found in the skin and hair flakes retrieved from the debris, and create a new cyborg, or more than one. Ideally, a whole crew of humans to go along. But... you could always tell the cyborgs weren't real. Never quite connected with them. Fortunately, the Marrick and their founders are actually better with genetics than Ascension ever was."

Eyeball frowned. "...If you're not a cyborg, who are you?"

"The Founders are obsessed with a specific brain pattern; their own; and anyone who is tier-zero thinks like them because of the actual structure of their brain. Their medical facilities are actually built to help keep their elite thinking the right way as they age; and their indoctrination facilities rewire people to think more like what the founders do. So.... Ascension was able to hijack their equipment. Use their imprinting equipment with my own brainwaves from before they turned me into Ascension... and create me."

She smiled. "The first step was using Ripper's flesh to create a sort-of clone body using Founder technology; but grown using the female chromosones. Genetically, I'm effectively the daughter of Ripper , if he had been female, and one of my engineer cyborgs. Mentally... I'm Svetlana. A scientist who lost most of her memories when she was copied and made into Ascension."

Eyeball stared at her for a moment, trying to piece it all together. It seemed... strange. "That's... crazy. Nice to meet you, Svetlana. Is it disturbing to be in a new body?"

"The powers are nice. And I don't remember enough of my old body to truly be disturbed by the change; I mostly remember things from my youth. A run through the forest in winter. A meal with my father in a meadow, at spring-time. And, to be clear, I am my own person, and not a tool for Ascension's purposes, so don't expect me to be some arm-candy."

"Well, clearly you're the most intelligent human here in Andromeda. I've been mostly in charge of things so far; you want to leave it that way, or should it be 'Admiral' Svetlana now?"

She rolled her eyes. "If Ascension wasn't going to take over, why would I? Your ridiculous precognition is apparently an insane game-changer that literally saved the earth. Might as well be called super-luck; you make stupid choices and just stumble into the right thing to do to make things happen. I'm surprised you managed to lose Emerald; did you secretly want her gone, so your power made it happen?"

Eyeball stared at her for a moment... and shook his head., sadly "....No. There was a moment, a choice, where it all felt wrong. That I knew I shouldn't do it. But... Emma insisted. It led to her being kidnapped by her dad, having to fight her grandma in a duel, and... I think, maybe, if I'd done what my power wanted, she would have been upset, but we would have been together throughout, come out together."

He glanced up at Svetlana. "After that, I've mostly just done what my power 'tells' me feels right. If I think about how I want things to turn out, I just feel good or bad about my decisions... and try to avoid the bad ones. If I could have her back, I would, in a heartbeat... but maybe its for the best. If we were together, she would have been with me on the Jeanne, and maybe stranded with me here. I'm sure, back home, she's probably found someone new by now."

Svetlana set a hand on his shoulder, and gave a slow nod. "I... understand. I wish I'd had your power, instead of my own.... maybe I could have forged the Soviet Union, and then the world, into a communist utopia. But..." She glanced at the door. "I don't think that dream was possible, the way I imagined it. Communism doesn't really work for humans. We're too greedy. Whoever you give control to always ends up turning it into Fascism instead. We need something like Ascension to hold it together."

Eyeball blinked; the communism news was familiar enough, but the other... "Oh? You had a power?"

"Ahh. Super-intelligence, sort-of. I was able to think of and understand multiple things at once, faster than anyone else. I don't remember everything about my life before Ascension, but I know that out of the candidates to be copied, I was the one they fought for; and they had good reason for it. They also thought I was a cold, emotionless, bitch..." She looked down at her hands, as she backed away. "But... I think that might have been a hormone imbalance. You're not my type, but I'm already more attracted to you than I was to any man, or woman, in my original body. That I can remember. It's interesting to think about how the body shapes the mind, and how each of the forms Ascension built perceived people in its own way."

Eyeball wasn't quite certain how to take that one. "Oh... kay. Well, I've got to admit, you're literally the only human woman in this galaxy, but I'd have found you attractive back on earth as well. Though... I always preferred the more violent types to the scientists. With the exception of my first girlfriend, everyone I ever dated had a kill-count."

Svetlana nodded. "I understand. Personally the only American I was ever attracted to was HG Wells; my mother met the man and kept a picture of him, as well as all of his books, on the mantle. Still. I share your hatred for this 'Republic' group. Shall we be friends, comrades, in this effort?"

She extended her hand; Eyeball smiled. "Definitely. Any help is appreciated." He took her hand, giving it a firm shake. "And if you want to try to turn all the worlds we liberate into communist utopias under Ascension, I won't stop you. Honestly, from what I saw on earth, most of the world would have been better off if we'd actually lost the Ascension war in Mexico. Well. Aside from the Jotun."

Svetlana gave a smile. "Well. Perhaps you're not so foolish after all. This seems like the beginning of an excellent partnership."