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A cacophony of light. A roar of sensation. A crushing of emotions.
Seth Eless found themself bare to the screaming void.
[The portal is unstable,] Brutus warned.
Seth Eless reeled. Their bodies remained curled up in Seth’s captain’s chair, but their minds were convinced they were wildly spinning out of control. The portal reached too high into highspace, an affront to this other existence. Humanity knew portal travel tore a hole in another sub-dimension.
They didn’t know it screamed.
[Unidentified interference detected,] Brutus warned.
It was Seth who righted them. He pushed out his mind-block, covering Eless in the dark and silent confines of his mind. She could feel the pressure outside his bubble. It crawled at the edges of his mind, angrily squeezing at this foreign thing.
“Seth,” Oria called out, her voice shaking and tense, “these readings look bad! The subspace is unstable.”
Their mind protected, Seth Eless looked at the readings Brutus was feeding them. It was a mess of reports and a jumble of errors. Forget Seth, not even Brutus could accurately describe what was going on. Perhaps Takana...
Seth growled his frustration. “I don’t…” He drifted off, lacking the concentration needed to take the thought to completion. It was taking everything he and Eless had to keep the ship in subspace and on track.
[It’s everyone else in here with us. It’s screaming and pulling at them, it shouldn’t be possible to travel like this!]
“Oh,” Seth muttered, his voice flat and empty.
Declan snapped, “Oh what?! What is ‘Oh’?”
“Eless just told me,” Seth spoke calmly, not entirely in the moment. “Since we brought the Sheosayl and the KoTry, they are messing up the signal.”
“So what do we do about it?” Declan shouted, his voice shrill.
Seth tightened his arms around Eless and settled into his chair.
[Is it safe?] Eless asked as she felt his intentions. She knew it wasn’t. His mind, and hers, was already straining from the effort of holding the portal open while the Enterprise and the PanarTite traversed high-space. A place where no flesh and blood psionic was welcome. An effort unfamiliar to Seth, something not necessary before carrying psionically active passengers into sub-space.
[Tough to say,] Seth replied. [Normally I’d be fine after some rest, but psionics is all new to us.]
Eless looked up at him with her enormous red eyes. He could see the lines of her irises, challenging to see from far away, but so intricate up close. Seth kissed Eless’s forehead. Both of them felt an electric shock of sensation at the action. Her antennae shivered and a cold zap rolled down her spine and rippled through her abdomen. She wouldn’t warn him not to do this. She knew the risks every bit as well as he did, and she understood what he had to do and why.
Seth changed his ‘voice’ to speak to Brutus. [Brutus, I need some high-order stimulants in order to clean up the noise. Red-tier regimen. This is going to be ugly.]
[I am reluctant to grant that request, but this situation is unprecedented. Request granted, be warned that this will likely render you unconscious for an extended period of time.]
[Gotcha Brutus. Let’s do this.]
Eless felt the shock of something entering Seth’s neck below the plug. Moments later another shock shot through the jack socketed into his neck. The world expanded, slowed down, shrunk. As Seth’s mind gained in focus and power, so too did Eless become stronger. Perhaps they could do it. Hold the line and stay on their path to the system of Wellbeck, and simultaneously protect everyone from the void.
Together, they pushed.
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> Chapter 9
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> OptiTern?
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Again, again she reeled. This time for a different reason.
Highspace screamed at her and everyone else aboard, reality itself roaring its displeasure. All of it furious at this invasion of flesh and blood where no living being should exist.
ShricKus held them together. Held them together and did the most intelligent thing she could. With surprising willpower, the Minder pulled in the dregs of the crew, those who hadn’t fallen unconscious under that withering, endless scream. She held them together, and held on for dear life. They couldn’t afford to lose the ship of the escaped prisoner.
It moved not forward or backwards, but inwards, a direction that boggled the senses of the physical world. It aligned the very space around them, filling up with the concept of from where it had come and to where it would go, linking the locations together.
It tore at the PanarTite, ripped at their desperate hold.
If they lost that white and blue wedge of an alien ship, there was no telling where and when they would arrive. If they even arrived at all. OptiTern understood the risks they were facing. ShricKus had refused to release the prey of the PanarTite, commendable, but as it turned out, also suicidal.
Them being here and clinging to that hated vessel disturbed Highspace and slowed their progress. Every moment was a crushing eternity of mental pressure that drove OptiTern deeper into her head. A place in which she had no desire to delve. She knew what was waiting there for her.
The sleeper network itself started to buckle under the pressure. OptiTern could feel fragments of the PanarTite crumble and fall outward and away from the closely locked ships. Individuals with the misfortune to be in those places, and conscious, screamed one last time in panic and pain and then disappeared to the angry void. The strongest points in the ship, the only points that seemed to hold together, was where the prisoners were kept.
That was the clue, OptiTern could see it, but to cover the entire ship in a mind block was impossible!
Or so she thought.
A wall of smothering fog expanded from the small ship, washing over OptiTern and the rest of the crew like a soothing wave. For a moment she thought back to the waters of her home, foaming waves and cool winds and comforting sun.
The mind block was different, and not just in scope. OptiTern could feel that tell-tale touch of a Sheosayl matron.
Her hood flared with anger and her tail vibrated. She knew that touch. It had killed-!
Something else was there, strange enough that it quelled her anger, before the mind block made it too much work to do anything but help ShricKus.
The mind block pushed back the all-consuming eldritch pressure of highspace, but as a side effect, ShricKus had to put her all into holding on. For a moment she almost lost everything as the fog blanked out the connections she’d been holding with the crew. Only the crystal vein network connected to the sleepers and the dynamos saved them, allowing ShricKus to tap directly into the ship despite the loss of the gestalt. The fog of darkness made that little ship so much harder to hold on to. OptiTern and everyone who was still awake joined the effort, pushing their touch into the vein network to aid their second in command, Minder ShricKus. For all their sakes, they couldn’t afford to lose it.
The moment of desperation stretched on so long, OptiTern lost all track of time.
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> Sheosayl contested Star System Wellbeck
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> Guiding mind of the Sheosayl Unity. Grand Matron Shezenna
>
> > 1st of November, 203 PT
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The KoTry likened all those unlike themselves to brutes. Uncivilized barbarians and primitive fools.
A rather hypocritical view for a race that wanted to turn those brutes into key components of their infrastructure.
The leading Unity that was Shezenna supposed that might never change.
Her prime body sat aboard the Sheosayl Keystone. A huge steel sphere named for the leader of the fleet and the Unity is supported. Few Sheosayl vessels bore much ornamentation of any kind and even this guiding light did little to break with that tradition. Aside from sparse horizontal bands of gold, silver and copper, only the size of the ship made it truly stand out. The only further ornamentation was strictly functional. Red focus stones protruded from the hull, symmetrically placed at forty-five-degree points away from the next.
Shezenna and her/their companion Unities faced the KoTry here. All the Sheosayl vessels were at least vaguely spheroid.
The flat disks of the fast strikers.
The stacked disks of the defender classes.
The largest vessels were more spheres designed to hold enough Sheosayl and sleepers to make them heavy hitters to be respected. Much like keystone Shezenna.
Something about the ships of the Sheosayl bothered the KoTry. As far as Shezenna had ever determined, it was the mere shape of them that so upset the hooded lizards. Not that they’d ever had time to explain the issue. They had other things on their mind.
The only conversations with the KoTry were demands for Sheosayl submission.
Shezenna and Her companion Unities faced the KoTry here. All She had now faced off against the much larger KoTry Fleet. Sadly, there were so few of Her ships left. The problem now wasn’t one of fighting off the KoTry, it was about how to get to the surface of the planet intact.
The battle for the void was lost, long lost. Worse, the ground battle had already begun, and she was unable to rejoin her people to lead the defence.
The Sheosayl contrasted sharply when faced against the KoTry. Efficiently rounded shapes against ships that bore closer and closer appearance to stellar snowflakes as they increased in importance.
And the KoTry outnumbered them, the Sheosayl, a little over five to one. A number that remained odd in Shezenna's mind, there should be so much more of the KoTry. Still, there was more than enough to serve the purpose needed. And as the number of Sheosayl shrunk, The KoTry advantages increased.
In an attempt to even the number even a little, she reached. Shezenna reached and found it. One of many, of course, a huge stone placed outside the range of the KoTry. She grabbed it and pulled, pulled and pulled.
While accelerating this stone for the attack, Shezenna put other attacks into play. She swept up rocks from fleet racks and hurled the pebbles, scattershot, at whatever they might hit. Shezenna barraged the KoTry fleet with ghost imprints of many more stones, imagining a tidal wave of rocks. A jarring non-attack to mask their senses.
A Unity had its advantages. Reach, focus, power and durability of imprints. Still, the KoTry advantages continued to whittle Shezenna away. Superior perceptives with dedicated mental filters saw through the false imprints. A multitude of organized minds flicked away the true scattershot. The KoTry response was, as always, more granular, more efficient, than what Shezenna could manage.
Shezenna realized too late that it was worse this time. The scattershot remained held, even as Shezenna's shot entered range. Her/Their opponent had seen it coming far too easily. That wasn't unusual. But regret resonated through Shezenna as She witnessed the result of the attack.
With Shezenna driving it, such a stone would be difficult to stop. A stone as big as a house was that much worse to try and defend against. But the KoTry had dealt with enough of Shezenna's strikes. This time they reacted with ease. The unified telekinetic net thrown in the way rippled the imprint upon the stone as the KoTry attempted to force their control on the boulder. Even as that happened, the KoTry put Shezenna's scattershot to use against her primary attack.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The stone wasn't stopped, nor destroyed, but it did veer off Shezenna's desired course. The massive projectile slipped wide of the KoTry vessel below their keyship. The two ring vessel the KoTry liked to use for patrol vessels completely escaped harm. Until now, Shezenna hadn't failed to strike down an enemy with this attack. But She still felt the repercussions.
The enemy, Warmind ParsTinKut, shifted her flank just so. She directed a blitz of telekinetic spears on the Unity Keyship Mozzan. Unity Osha retreated to maintain safety as her/their Unity fended off a barrage of stone spears and telepathic spikes. Too late did Shezenna spot the actual target as another of her/their own linked ships found itself being cooked alive. Shezenna retreated inwards, attempting to vent heat and save a piece of the Unity from destruction. The thousand sensing tendrils of ParsTinKut's fleet prickled at her senses as the KoTry Warmind looked for new openings. And she found them. Unity Osha's Keystone had remained on the forefront as the Unity pulled her/their subordinate parts back to safety. This action let Osha maintain her/their strength, but left the keystone itself vulnerable. Attacks began slipping through the Telekinetic Barrier.
Mozzan moved closer to shore up Shezenna's and Osha's defences and suffered in turn. ParsTinKut set to cooking Mozzan's remaining support blazing with heat as well.
Then, a flash hit Shezenna. A rare blitz of light and foreknowledge, so unique and precious She didn't hesitate. Shezenna leapt to action, despite the inevitable wave of fatigue that closely followed.
[TO ME] Shezenna commanded. Mozzan and Osha joined themselves to her. Shezenna hardened the defences, placed an illusional imprint 'wall' upon the shield and hunkered down.
From opposite Shezenna of the Sheosayl, the KoTry Warmind ParsTinKut hesitated. The battle had been a split second from turning! She could see a hundred signs of these Sheosayl wilting away like so many before them! Her hood constricted, and her tail twitched as she resisted the urge to let it curl with irritation. Where once floated the faltering Sheosayl fleet now appeared a simple, if gigantic, stone asteroid. It was a psionic imprint she was looking upon now, unmistakable to a skilled probe, even without seeing its sudden appearance. But it wasn't even moving. Shezenna was using a costly delaying measure, but a delay was all it was.
The problem was... Why?
From her ship the BisKint, She brushed her mind across the multitude of souls under her sway. She was a Warmind, a being of higher quality than any other in this system, only a unification of minds could hope to compete. With incredible force of will, powerful mental potential and endless training, few would match her in combat. The combat of the past several days had done little to disprove this. As if a god, she looked over her ships, each vessel a piece in a grand board game. Her mind lightly drifted across the dedicated masses, the officers and soldiers of her fleet available to the slightest flicker of ParsTinKut's will.
Aboard the keystone BisKint, Warmind ParsTinKut, noble-born of iridescent red scales, directed her fleet to scatter their senses wide, searching for potential arrivals throwing themselves across the stars and into the system. Others she directed to probe the false asteroid for weaknesses. Others she directed in the leisurely but all too effective attack of weaving a telekinetic net, the ideal counter to Shezenna’s unexpected strategy. This 'rock' could be, would be, crushed in her grip — still, the question of why remained.
A guess could be made. It was a rare talent, foresight, ParsTinKut considered. One of the most important reasons to make the Sheosayl their own. The reason to make these insects a piece of the KoTry Empire. But while the KoTry had captured many Sheosayl, how the insectoids glimpsed into the future was still beyond them. Was this one of those small moments the Sheosayl enjoyed? ParsTinKut urged her sensors to scan further. She did find a small and oddly suspect soft spot in Shezenna's defence.
Was she watching?
What came next, ParsTinKut was utterly unable to process.
Shezenna watched it with wonder as the portal ripped open in the middle of the wildly broadcasting KoTry fleet. Reality itself screeched as it touched Highspace in a way that was never intended, drawn to the highest available density of psionic energies available. Those energies provided a 'soft spot' in base physical reality. The ship that slipped out through the tear in space was practically an afterthought.
And the portal it brought with it was far too large.
The small blue and white wedge didn't go without notice for long as it drifted and bumped into the side of the KoTry keystone BisKint. A pebble tossed at a boulder. A boulder sliced mentally in half by the nearby portal. Mostly harmless to the stone, devastating to the minds and sleepers within. ParsTinKut had represented the greatest concentration of psionic energies in the battle, and thus the Enterprise had appeared in the lap of the great ship.
Next to the unfamiliar vessel floated the cylinder torus of a Kotry patrol vessel, heavily damaged and its regeneration halted.
The only reason Shezenna could even see the ship was due to foreknowledge. The dark fog laying upon the ship blanked it out from her senses and only the gap within told of its existence. Shezenna weathered the noise She had witnessed coming moments before.
As for ParsTinKut, The sudden grievous flooding of noise and confusion, combined with an outright arrogant lack of safeguards, undid her in moments.
It wasn't even the direct noise that knocked the Warmind out. With thousands of minds casting into the void, already open as wide as they could, the Warmind might as well have been staring into the sun. All those who had not made themselves so vulnerable fared better, but the result was the same for their master and commander. A Warmind's primary talent was to touch and monitor countless subordinate minds simultaneously. Her duty, to manage the vast and complex minutiae of command with skill and ease. That touch forced her to suffer the feedback of the high space tear multiplied by every, single, individual within her fleet. She absorbed the pain and distress of those countless minds all at once, an overwhelming tsunami of sensation that she simply couldn't handle in her unprepared and receptive state.
But Shezenna's greater durability weathered the opening of the portal with ease. When reality forced the tear shut, she could react with relative impunity, probing the vessel She could see, but barely sense. She dared not push too hard. A Unity like her/theirself could likely break that block, maybe, but that would be hasty, irreversible. Then the mind block receded of its own volition, losing a full scale of magnitude in power, and then another.
So Shezenna probed again. Shezenna could feel the presence of the Sheosayl on board. Alive. Safe. A shock of thrill ran through the Unity as it reached out to an unknown ally. Suppressed the glow of pleasure as She grabbed it and pulled it in.
Still where there was a Highspace portal, so too was there an arrival. The KoTry, pushing through pain and confusion, attacked.
The Unity jumped forward to defend it in those moments, the most critical window of opportunity given by the precognition. A small sliver of time to protect this potential from the scattered, but still lethal vindictive attacks. In moments, the odd grey and blue wedge of the alien ship disappeared into the false image of an asteroid.
Headless, the Kotry fleet thrashed wildly, attacking without coordination. Without a guiding mind, their attacks lost much of their efficacy, but the KoTry still outnumbered Shezenna by so much.
Taking this opportunity, she pulled back to Wellbeck, drawing her ships away without needing to worry about the KoTry fencing them in. Shezenna wondered if the Sheosayl of Wellbeck would enjoy a stroke of luck like this again. She let the false imprint of the great asteroid fade away as her focus changed.
The steel orbs and disks that constituted her ships moved with haste, flying directly for the planet while fending off the disordered attacks of the KoTry.
There was one more barrier to deal with.
The harvesters had come. Just today they had arrived, moving to begin the assault on Wellbeck while Shezenna and her Unities were tied up in void combat.
Far larger than regular combat vessels, but simple in form. Giant hexagons several stories tall, each one of the harvesters dwarfing Shezenna’s keystone. They weren’t made for direct combat, instead full of soldiers waiting to descend and capture every Sheosayl on the planet. The closest harvester rose up from its position at the upper edge of Wellbeck’s atmosphere, moving to try and fend off Shezenna’s approach.
Harvesters weren’t made for void combat, but Shezenna could feel the weight of the minds still aboard the vessel. Unlike the crippled ships behind them, the crew of the harvester was in full control of their faculties. Not enough to defeat them, but perhaps more than enough to slow them.
The KoTry were pulling themselves together, pursuing Shezenna with rage in their minds. She could feel the anger of the lizards radiating ahead of the fleet.
Racks deployed on the harvester and it started launching its own attacks.
If it was just the one massive harvester, Shezenna could have dealt with it. But the pursuing ships were ramping up their attacks. Mozzan and Osha split their attention to the attacks from the harvester as Shezenna worked on swatting away the spears flying in from the Kotry. Osha then shifted to venting heat as she detected the subtle attack cooking one of her supports.
It was too much, hits started landing… and then something else joined the fight. The vessel twisted in Shezenna’s grip, the ship oddly slippering with the active mind blocks and the dead, empty hull. It stopped moving and fireballs lanced out from the side of the strange new ship to strike down the KoTryan spears.
A mind, Sheosayl, incredibly strong and so very tired, reached out. She was a gestalt of three, nearly a Unity, yet so strange with the minds linked to her. She was dizzy with circumstance, unable to articulate the strangeness of her situation.
[Let us help,] she whispered.
A sub-adult, Eless. Or Seth Eless in the midst of her gestalt? Shezenna could feel what the power she was directing was doing to her. Something the young Sheosayl had yet to notice, but then, how could she? Shezenna could feel just how quickly events had befallen the innocent female.
[Your help is welcome. We must go to the surface.]
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> Seth Eless
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[Your help is welcome,] Shezenna replied, her voice echoing in their heads with power and grace. [We must go to the surface.]
[She has responded?] Brutus asked.
[Yes,] Seth replied tiredly. Eless felt the same fatigue from the tips of her antennae down to the pads of her toes. “That hexagon is in our way,” Seth said to Declan and Oria. “Prep the railgun.”
“Affirmative,” the two of them replied in unison.
“Joining low-level combat gestalt,” Declan said next.
Oria repeated his words.
Eless could feel the faint touches of the two Humans joining the gestalt. They seemed faded, little more than faint imprints barely able to touch the complex unity of Seth, Eless and Brutus.
[System checks initiated,] Brutus said, starting the process.
Seth’s mind went to the system, memory informing Eless of the quick heat and alignment checks on the things called the rails.
[Target spotting, increasing resolution, updating solution,] Oria said next.
On the screen before them appeared an image of the harvester hexagon, the ship displayed with incredible clarity to Eless’s eyes.
[Diagnostics report systems nominal,] Brutus reported.
Declan was next. [Rail cannon loading, calculating trajectory, adjusting orientation. Adjusting… locked.] A small screen in front of Declan showed a mimicry of the image on the large screen, but with extra symbols moving in accordance with his manipulations.
[FIRE!] shouted Seth, his mental voice ringing in Eless’s mind despite his exhaustion. He pulsed a quick apology to her as he realized he was shouting again. In his fatigue, his control was slipping.
Eless pulsed her understanding back. The only thing keeping him awake was her. The trip through Highspace had taken everything they both had, and his role at the center of it all had taken so much from his reserves.
[Impact,] Brutus noted coldly. [Rail cooldown cycle initiated. Damage is unexpectedly large, this vessel is much more fragile than the previous enemy.]
Eless felt a cold shock run down her spine and through her abdomen. Not only could she see the shattering of the stone hull of the harvester, she could feel the distant fear and pain of those aboard the grand vessel. It wasn’t made for void combat, its sleeper network only enough to keep the vessel void worthy, not combat worthy.
Not against a weapon like this.
Brutus was tracking numbers. Eless could feel it in the recesses of its cold mind. It was observing the damage done to the harvester, spotting floating bodies and counting them.
The Artificial Intelligence spoke twice, two phrases existing in the same time and space, but only one ‘audible’ to Declan and Oria. [Diagnostics nominal] it said aloud.
[I am sorry,] it said quietly, its voice only barely audible to Seth and by extension, Eless.
Seth didn’t reply, but Eless suddenly understood why Seth didn’t perceive the coldness of the machine mind as she did. He knew this Brutus, understood something about the AI that would never have made sense to her if she wasn’t joined to Seth.
In its own way, it really did care.
[My Grand Matron calls us to the surface,] Eless warned.
[Oh,] Seth replied, only just aware of her statement.
This time, Brutus could hear. [Understood, the Enterprise will require help to descend into the atmosphere of the planet.]
[We can do that,] Eless replied.
[Eless,] Seth whispered across the link. Everything Brutus had done to boost the man was now taking its toll. Along with the time they’d spent in high-space working to maintain the link while also holding a massive mind block through their trip through high space, it was too much for Seth. With his focus and strength fading, darkness was creeping in at the edges of his mind.
Eless whispered back. [I’m here.]
That was all he needed to hear. Seth let himself go.
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Zeonova
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With the mind block withdrawn, Zeonova returned to doing what she could. With only a handful of fellow Sheosayl, they made a poor Unity, but she continued to draw on the power of this Enterprise to aid however she could.
Aside from the obvious, the biggest surprise in all this was Zeek Seer. The young Sheosayl was the same age as Eless Mover, and a skilled enough Sensor to earn him a place in Silver Reach, but Zeonova hadn’t expected very much from the terrified young male. Of those who had escaped from the KoTry, he’d been the most broken.
But now, he had found a spark in himself. Something that let him rebuild his core and contribute to the tiny Unity. Through his eyes, they acted. He could see through the void with relative ease at least, the empty hull of this Human ship providing no impediments to his senses.
Zeonova didn’t do much, merely pushing them along to keep pace with Grand Matron Shezenna. She didn’t try to hold tight to the slippery vessel, the lack of an imprint making it difficult to grasp. So she nudged it along, even as it spun and adjusted position to put its strange weapons to use.
Unlike before, this time Zeonova and her fellow escapees were able to watch as it put the main weapon to use. Each strike of the railgun blasted holes into the harvester, fracturing the slow healing stone and throwing lives into the void.
Zeek’s sight retreated slightly from the fear and pain radiating upwards
Another feeling intruded on the Unity. Even through the pall of their fatigue, so thick it dragged at Zeonova’s eyes, Seth Eless shared a pulse of regret and grief for the lives lost, although the feeling felt strangely metallic.
[Zeonova,] Eless called. Her companion was fading quickly, their consciousness barely intact.
[Yes?] Zeonova asked.
[This ship is not made for flying in the sky, it will need your guidance all the way down.]
[I understand.]
[And we will not be able to help,] Eless added, the other voices fading entirely from the link.
Zeonova felt a small ripple of confusion through her abdomen. There had been two voices in the gestalt with Eless? Although the third hadn’t spoken, its influence was so heavy that it couldn’t be missed. And then it was gone.
The loss of the one called Seth didn’t halt the firing of the railgun, more shots raining down until the harvester was broken, in spirit if not entirely in hull. The remaining KoTry did what they could, pulling their damaged sleeper network together to draw the harvester away from this terrifying new weapon.
But as the smaller Unity faded to leave only Eless awake, a greater one made itself known. Shezenna was attempting to help. Surprisingly to Zeonova, the ship halted, allowing Shezenna to take hold.
With the last obstacle out of the way, Shezenna guided the remainder of her fleet ground side, Zeonova and the enterprise sheltered under her wing.
Zeonova guided the ship down through the atmosphere of Wellbeck, down to the waiting grasp of the prime hive Wellrack.
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> End Chapter
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