I, in my benevolence, provide with, not only with life, but a life of ease and comfort. From the lawsec that keeps you safe from deviants and perverts to the food you eat to the luxuries you enjoy, they all flow from me. You exist and thrive due to my benevolence.

You are all my children, and I care for each of you, providing peace, security, and plenty. - Dra.Falten Empress propaganda, Spurwide Mar-gite Conflict

Strechen woke up slowly, her mouth dry. She reached for the reticle as she got up, hooking it over her ear, inserting the earphone plug, then running the tap to the hollow of her throat, and dropped the reticle over her eye. She stood up, went into the frontroom, then to the kitchen, and punched up a Bingo Cola Crystal Suprablast Cherry Sparkle Lime Twister.

She slugged one down, punched up another, then moved over to sit down on the couch, sipping at the second one slowly.

There was a clink in her ear. She tapped the frame strut next to the reticle.

"Strechen," she said quietly.

"This is medical. Your vitals spiked. I'm reading minor dehydration and some trace nutrient lack. Are you feeling all right?" a female Terran voice asked.

"Yes. I have dry mouth," Strechen said.

"You received a repair injection less than 24 hours ago. Let me add a quick drink and snack to your nutriforge. That should take care of any needs you have," the female said. "How is your psychological and emotional state?"

"I'm fine. Just woke up from the dry mouth," she said.

"All right. It appears, from the limited data we have, that your species suffers and adrenaline and cortisol equivalent spike upon having your motor control and neural system control returned to conscious oversight," the Terran woman said. "We'll keep monitoring so we can keep establishing baselines. My apologies for disturbing you."

The nutriforge pinged.

"It is all right. I appreciate the concern," Strechen said.

"Have a good night," the female Terran said.

"And you," Strechen said.

The metallic clink signified the communication had ended.

Strechen got up and moved over to the nutriforge. There was a can of fizzypop and a bowl of noodles with meat and sauce as well as two edible eating sticks. She picked them up and walked back to the couch, sitting down.

The drink was delicious, the food was even better.

She finished them up and tapped the table. A set of controls lit up under the tabletop and she tapped one of them just like the reticle instructed. She watched the dish and the two fizzypop cans dissolve away before tapping another icon and getting a new drink.

There was a tapping at her suite door. She glanced and the hologram popped out of the wall showing Tawtchee, dressed in a rumpled Dra.Falten Army uniform, standing there with a narcobrew in his hand. She used the 'blink context menu' to open the door and the other Dra.Falten slouched his way into the room.

"Thought you'd be awake," he said. He looked around. "Found out that Terrans sleep four to eight hours in a night, stay awake for sixteen to twenty hours," he sat down on the couch. "We sleep either in three blocks of three hours or ten hours while being awake for ten."

"Their origin world had a twenty-four hour day, with a high enough axial tilt that different seasons had different day/night times," Strechen said, pointing at the table. "I watched a little bit on Terran history."

"I did too," Tawtchee said. "I wanted to know a bit more about our hosts. More than just the legends and myths we had learned."

"More than what you discovered when you met Hrekkel," Strechen guessed.

Tawtchee nodded. "I found out the reasons behind some things that have always haunted me."

Strechen frowned. "Like what?"

"Why their teeth chatter. Why the robots look like skeletons. Why they are colored black, with red eyes, and white enameled teeth," Tawtchee said. He shivered. "In some ways, finding out why was worse."

Strechen frowned. "Well, the black is the metal, the red is just the infrared lamps in their eyes, skeletons for bare minimum of resource use. The teeth. I don't know."

Tawtchee gave a short, barking, self-mocking laugh, then bruxed his back teeth for a moment. "No. None of that," he waved at the ship around them. "They built this. Do you think they're really worried about resources?" he shook his head. "No. The reasoning is simple to understand but disturbs me."

"What was it?" Strechen asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Tawtchee closed his eyes, exhaled sharply, then opened it.

"I asked a Terran. Just a random Terran, if they could answer a question. I told him about the robots, what they did, then asked why they were like that," Tawtchee closed his eyes again and sighed deeply.

Strechen reached out and took one paw in both of hers.

Tawtchee looked at her. "He asked me if I had been scared. I told him it was the most terrifying thing I had ever experience, before or after. He smiled and said: that's why."

Strechen straightened up, reaching up with one hand to smooth her fur between her ears and down the back of her head.

"The teeth chatter so that you know that the one chattering its teeth sees you. It also calls in the others, who begin chattering their teeth, so you, the prey, know that they are coming for you, or for a victim. The eyes glow red so that it causes fear. They are black so they blend in with the night," Tawtchee closed his eyes and shivered. "The last part though, the last reason..."

The shadows seemed to deepen in the room.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Tawtchee opened his eyes.

"Because it's funny."

Strechen blinked several times. "Because making them like that is funny to them?"

Tawtchee nodded. He got up and moved to the nutriforge, bringing up a new narcobrew, then a pack of BobCo tabac-sticks. He puffed on the self-light and sat down.

Strechen dialed up an ashtray and another drink for her.

This one with alcohol in it.

"Did you pay attention to the fact this entire ship is just to support twenty combat units?" Tawtchee asked.

Strechen frowned. "And the combat forces for those units."

"Did you notice what those units were?" Tawtchee asked. He leaned forward and tapped at the table a few times, then growled slightly and tapped a few others.

"How many I help you today, honored Dra.Falten?" the pixel Terran in red and silver asked, manifesting above the table.

"Display a Ringbreaker's combat suit, please," Tawtchee said.

"Certain portions are redacted for security reasons," the Terran said. She dissolved and a large suit of power armor appeared above the table.

"This ship, and everything else, is to support twenty of these suits," Tawtchee said.

Strechen looked it over. It had a gun on the back that swiveled down so the handgrip could be held by the right hand. It had shock padding and recoil compensation built into it. Missile launchers on the lower legs and the left shoulder. Heavily armored forearms, the right arm had a 'vibro-sword' built into it. The main gun had a bore diameter of 120mm, the missiles were 66mm.

It stood four meters tall, two meters wide, a meter thick.

"This can't be right. Just twenty of these?" Strechen said. "It isn't as heavily armed as our own heavy power armor suits."

Tawtchee nodded. "One of these suits can destroy a city in a matter of minutes. It can fire from the surface of a planet and hit targets on a nearby moon with pinpoint accuracy. Its main gun fires its projectiles at horrific speeds," he shrugged. "Hrekkel could probably break it down for us, but a solid shot from the weapon hits with several billion joules of force concentrated on the impact point."

Strechen tapped the table. "What kind of point force does the main gun of the Ringbreaker suit do?" she asked the silver and red Terran.

The Terran smiled, pointing up. The weapon flashed, the ammo belt flashed, and the ammo container flashed. "The Novastar XII suit's main gun, using solid shot, can fire one shot every two seconds sustained fire or five shots a second on rapid fire. Each shot delivers the equivalent of a 250 kiloton atomic blast upon the surface of the impact point in a meter width," her smile got larger. "However, solid shot is rarely used, usually when the nanoforges need to cool down and deslush. Usually Ringbreaker rounds consist of munitions that cause gravity and temporal distortions, subspace ripples, dimensional foam sizzling, as well as utilizing advanced anti-matter and esoteric particle interactions."

She moved around the suit. "The standard ringbreaker round is designed to scour away dirt and bedrock on the surface of a Dwellerspawn habitat to the scrith, as well as destroy any Dwellerspawn encountered. A single shot of the primary usage round will blow a crater to the scrith approximately twenty miles wide and two miles deep, with a kinetic shockwave of up to a hundred miles," she reached out and tapped the suit. "The psychicly active laminate armor of the Novastar XII is capable of protecting the pilot even from its own rounds. With gravity and temporal anchors, a Novastar XII can fire point blank to destroy a Dwellerspawn hive."

She moved around it to touch the legs. "With a properly warmed and slushed nanoforge, the 2.75 inch rocket packs in the legs, each packing four rockets, can fire one rocket volley of four every one point three seconds for up to six hours, with one volley every three seconds for as long as there is mass available," she pointed at the shoulder. "The 66mm rocket pack on the shoulder is capable of sustained, directed fire of multiple types of munitions, including rocket and graviton engine boosted weapons capable of hitting high orbit targets."

She bowed. "Is there any other data I might provide?"

"No, thank you," Tawtchee said.

The Terran made of silver and red vanished in a sparkle.

Strechen looked at him. "That's..."

Tawtchee nodded. "Horrifying," he paused. "Now, for the one that should truly terrify you, Field Captain."

"What?" Strechen asked.

"They don't care that we know the capabilities of this suit of armor," he said. He tapped the table. "You can bring up the specs on all of their war equipment. Everything but repair manuals and schematics and something called 'creation engine templates' and look them over. From bullets to grenades to soft body armor to tanks to strikers, to these 'ringbreaker suits', you can examine the stats on all of them."

"So?"

Tawtchee stared at her.

"They don't care if we know. Do you know why?" he asked, leaning forward slightly.

Strechen thought. "Because we can't replicate it?"

Tawtchee shook his head. "No."

"Then why?"

"Because they outgun us so badly they might as well be doing magic," he said. He pointed at the ringbreaker suit. "That's a walking planet cracker, Field Captain. One of those is a walking planet cracker and nothing we have could stop it, maybe not even mar it."

He leaned back after dismissing the hologram.

"They let us know because they don't care."

Strechen just swallowed.

0-0-0-0-0

All of her adult life Commander Navelu'uee had served the Empress faithfully. She had entered military school at seven years of age, had entered the military at thirteen as a fully grown adult. Her family lineage extended back nearly a thousand years, all of it faithful service to the Holy Duology and the Dra.Falten people.

...die at fifty... slithered through her brain as she followed a Terran male through the ship to the bridge of the massive space-born fortress she was currently inside of.

...die at fifty... kept moving through her head.

She had dreamed of a long line of females, that she had known were her ancestors, all with numbers above them. When the numbers reached fifteen, the next descendant appeared next to the ancestor. When the number reached fifty, the ancestor vanished.

In her nightmare, the numbers kept blurring by faster and faster, ancestors appearing and disappearing. Their accomplishments vanishing with them.

She had screamed in her dream when her mother had vanished and she looked up to see her numbers flashing by once her two daughters and her son had been born.

The Terran medical technician had called her, instructed her to get a snack and a drink from the nutriforge, then gone back to sleep.

Her dreams had been swirling colors and disconnected pleasant sounds afterwards.

Several blast doors went by, each opening and closing, until finally she stepped out of a door and onto the Control Bridge.

It was full of Terrans, all working at their consoles and work stations. One half of one wall was covered in 2.5D screens. There were multiple holotanks in the middle of the room, which was terraced in a semi-circle.

At the top of the terrace, in a large throne-like seat, was the High Lord Captain, commander of the vessel and the remaining ships.

She could see the scientist Hrekkel standing next to the Expediter who, frankly, terrified Nave. Over, out of the way, Field Captain Strechen stood with the male soldier that the Terror Guardians had scarred with that map.

Strechen terrified her too.

Hrekkel motioned and Nave moved with Strechen and the male over to stand next to Hrekkel.

"I found out where we are going," Hrekkel said.

Nave felt her stomach clench.

It was going to be bad news, she knew it.

"The Terrans have computed, and our own military intelligence services concur, that backtracking the trail of the Mar-gite is our best choice," Hrekkel said. He brushed at his ears. "The Lord Captain as well as someone called the Lord Preceptor, have informed the Dra.Falten Empire of their intent upon reaching each Mar-gite infested system."

"What's that?" Nave blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Planet crack each planet, ignite each gas giant," he said. He shivered. "It's the only way to stop the Mar-gite from using the planets and gas giants to produce more of themselves."

"He also plans on destroying any of the large Mar-gite Clusters found in each system before we move to the next, following the Mar-gite," Leeu stated, her voice cold and empty.

"Where are we following them too?" Commander Nave asked.

"Past them," Hrekkel said. He looked at the other Dra.Falten. "The Lord Preceptor has made his intentions clear."

"Which are?" Nave asked.

"To push past the Mar-gite to whatever is guiding or driving them into our territory," Hrekkel said. "To take the war of the Mar-gite's masters."

Nave felt a cold chill go down her spine.

There was a sharp, warbling tone that stopped any further conversation.

"Prepare for Transit Space entry," Nave heard.

She closed her eyes.

And felt the ship jump to lightspeed in her bones.