LotS/The Story/Number of the Beast/Falls the Shadow

Falls the Shadow

"[Player's name]? Come on..."

Talia gazed through the flight cabin's window and sighed. Those were far from the first sub-vocal words she'd cast into the void since leaving Jerusalem Maior. All had gone unanswered. She pressed a button on the communications console, but found no luck there either. Screaming Barracuda was unreachable too. Wu Tenchu had told her not to worry, but hadn't offered any explanation. Now the mandarin wasn't responding to her transmissions.

Glass shattered behind her.

"Damn it, Tel! Do you have to keep playing that crap?"

The gunslinger glanced over her shoulder, at the frozen image that rose from the prince's datapad and hovered in the air between them. [Player's name] was through the glass -- surrounded by its shards -- while his enemy watched the captain with burning eyes.

"Who is that guy?" Telemachus said. "He beat the crap out of him!"

"His movements indicate human or human-like physiology," Lu Bu said.

The robot didn't look round from the co-pilot's chair. His mannerisms were so natural she sometimes forgot that he perceived the world through means beyond those green eyes.

"He seems to possess the same joints and range of motion."

"No human hits that hard and fast," Ragnar said. The Niflung grunted. "Not even me."

The prince swept a hand through the image. Time reversed itself. [Player's name] tumbled back into the room like an acrobat, somersaulting onto his feet. Broken glass coalesced and repaired itself. Cracks shrank, all those little channels receding, drying up into nothingness. The man in black's leg retracted. The kick chambered itself and then dropped away. Their arms moved, and [Player's name]'s fist was in his enemy's hand.

"How'd he do that?" Telemachus asked. "He caught the Kasan Fist! That punch..."

Memories hung between them, bitter and brutal. None of them needed reminding what that blow could do. The damage it could inflict. What it had taken from them all.

The video clip played again.

"[Player's name]..." Talia whispered. "Wu?"

But there were no replies. Only the sound of shattering glass.

Minister Zhilan Fan's eyes half opened in the darkness. Her mind slithered free from dreams of her schooldays, the laughter of cruel girls, and an incongruous explosion which had blasted it all away. No... The explosion's roar was still there.

"Daniel..." She burrowed her head in the pillow. "Turn it off..."

"Wuh?"

That vast, infernal din continued unabated.

"Daniel..." Zhilan drove her heel into her husband's shin. "Turn the TV off!"

"Ow!"

His limbs thrashed, trying to evade the next kick. A hard, sharp knee thudded into her thigh. Zhilan swore and sat up.

"Daniel! I..."

None of the holo-screens were on. The room was dark, save for the faint glow of slumbering appliances. Daniel sat up beside her. Their eyes met in the darkness. He threw the covers aside, jumped out of bed, and went to the window. The minister reached for her communicator.

Daniel pulled open the drapes. The window's opacity and noise-reduction settings changed. Blackness faded away from the glass, and a burst of bright, searing light flashed around her husband's bulk. Sirens, screams, and shouts formed a hundred separate cacophonies, battling against the monstrous roar. A sharp, piercing bleep made them both flinch.

Her deputy's picture blinked above the communicator. Those flabby features and the ridiculous, frozen grin usually made the minister smile. This time she shuddered.

"Brandon!" she said.

The command made the image collapse. A larger, life-sized head appeared in front of her. This version of Brandon Yu wasn't grinning. His face was pale, and the right half twitched like a chem-fiend's.

"Minister! There's... There's been..."

"What happened?"

"Prime Minister Wu's house! It's..."

"It's gone," Daniel said. He turned away from the window, and stared at her from hollow eyes.

"Are we under attack?" Zhilan swung her legs off the bed. The blanket grappled with her limbs, wrapped itself around her ankles like a tentacle. She kicked it away. "Brandon!"

"We don't know! We-"

"Then find out, damn it!" She snatched up a datapad. "Who's on the ground?"

"I don't-"

She slashed her fingers at him. His image vanished.

"Clothes!" she said. "Now!"

Daniel tore himself away from the window and dashed for the closet, then yelped when his shin banged against the bed.

Zhilan Fan gazed out at Lanjin Cheng. An apocalypse, a mass of smoke and fury, raged behind glowing barriers where the mandarin's home had once stood.

Apocalypse in a Box

Apocalypse in a Box

"Get back!" Eddie Dang's voice erupted from his helmet's vocal amplifier and rebounded along the street. "All of you, clear the area immediately!"

It was like blowing at a hurricane. Citizens in various states of undress leaned out of their windows, thronged the streets, and even clambered on the clustered military vehicles for a better look. They were all too busy gawking to pay attention to him, and he could hardly blame them.

"Get them back, damn it! Evacuate the district and put up a cordon! Non-essential military personnel too. I don't want anyone here who doesn't need to be here."

"Yes, commander!" The replies came in a staggered chorus, echoing around him from outside his helmet and from the audio feeds within.

Soldiers barged through doorways and emerged with men, women, and children -- herding them from behind or dragging them out by their arms. A few tried to resist and pull away. Some merely gazed in each direction, bewildered, and stumbled after those in authority. A handful of the commander's people scrambled onto the vehicles and forced the spectators off their perches.

"Commander!"

A short man in a Plerna Pirates shirt grabbed Dang's arm. The commander glared at him while his helmet scanned the media ID badge fastened to the man's chest. New information joined the clutter flickering, flashing, and blaring around the edges of his visor's display. A third-rate journalist from some off-world news channel. The camera drone bobbing behind him projected the network's meter-wide logo.

"Move!" Dang said. "We're clearing the area!"

"Commander, do you have a statement?"

"Idiot!" Dang grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. The reporter yelped. "That's a nuclear blast! If the barrier gives out-"

"The viewers have a right to know!"

Eddie Dang spun him around and kicked him in the ass. The man ran down the street, screaming. His camera flew after him.

"Commander Dang..." A woman's voice sounded inside his helmet, and a fresh picture appeared on his display. "Are you in charge down there?"

"Yes, Minister Fan."

"Report! Was it a bombing raid?"

"No! The prime minister's aides say it was a... a security system."

"A nuclear explosion? A nuclear explosion is a security system?"

"That's what they're saying! One of Wu's defenses."

Eddie Dang helped his comrades usher people down the street while he waited for the torrent of profanities to subside. When it finally did, the minister spoke again.

"Is the city in danger?"

"The barriers are filtering out the radiation. Our engineers say we're safe, but I'm clearing the district anyway."

"What about Wu?"

Eddie stared at the largest of the images in the opposite corner of his visor for a long moment before answering. It hovered above a grid of tiny, animated squares.

"I have all the nearby security camera footage patched into my helmet. I saw him go in, but he didn't come out."

"The prime minister's dead?" Another wave of swear words crashed down on him before he could answer. "What triggered the bomb?"

"Maybe an accident, or a fault in the-"

"An accident? Wu Tenchu doesn't... didn't allow 'accidents', commander. Find out if anyone else was in that house! I have to... I have to convene the Council of Ministers."

Zhilan Fan's picture went grey and collapsed into nothingness. That clip of Wu Tenchu's last public moments collapsed back into the grid. The squares sped up, becoming an incomprehensible blur as his helmet's systems delved deeper into the past and scanned each video. Then they froze, jerking to a sudden, jarring stop. One of them popped out and enlarged itself.

Dang frowned and replayed that feed's previous frames. He played them again, and again, and again -- pausing and zooming in on each static image. But what he saw continued to puzzle him. A black splodge... A darting shadow.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

Lucy's words whispered in his ear. He shook his head, saved that portion of the video footage, then thrust the grid aside. The techs could check it out later. Eddie dismissed the rest of the information feeds too, and blinked at the real world. The civilians were all gone. The first of the armored vehicles was screeching away, while soldiers poured into the others.

"Commander?" a sergeant said.

"Go. I'll stay with them." Dang inclined his head towards the engineering team.

"But..."

"Go."

The sergeant nodded and followed the others into a personnel carrier. One by one the vehicles tore down the street, leaving Eddie Dang alone with the huge, throbbing field of orange-white energy, a handful of engineers, and caged Armageddon.

"Status?" he asked.

The nearest engineer turned round. Pictures of all the team leaders, including those hidden from sight on the other sides of the barrier, popped up before him. Heavy armor hid their faces, but secondary images flickered above -- showing three men and two women.

"Stable," one of the women said.

The others echoed her one by one.

"This technology's cutting-edge," a man said. Dang thought it was the one standing in front of him, but couldn't be certain. "It's employing a-"

"I don't care how it works," the commander said, "as long as it does work. Will it hold until the threat's neutralized?"

"Most of the field's energy was drained stopping the initial blast, but it should-"

The barrier flashed red.

Machinations of the Mandarin

Machinations of the Mandarin

There are people in the galaxy who understand Sian military vessels better than you do. The empire's elite aerospace engineers know them as well as devoted lovers know each other's bodies, and if pressed could probably reconstruct them cabin by cabin on a datapad. Even among rank and file crew members, there are some who spend hours examining schematics because they yearn to prove themselves superior to their fellows; others wallow in them out of passion, staring at plans and diagrams, or glorious three-dimensional projections, with the same bright eyes as a comicbook collector gazing upon his favorite issues.

Be that as it may, you understand them better than most. Whether as a pilot, a passenger, or a commander, you've been aboard everything from fighters to cruisers. This vessel is new to you. From the looks of things, it's a non-standard design built to the specifications of a particular engineer or admiral. Such things aren't unusual in the Sian Empire -- where many spacecraft are works of art, lavish celebrations of culture as well as weapons of war. But even if you don't know the ship's secrets, you sense them all the same. As you jog down passage after passage, escorted by blue beams that now seem to pulse faster, empowered by your speed and certainty, you feel the craft's essence amidst the darkness.

This ship isn't an inscrutable labyrinth. Not to someone who can imagine the dreaming designs of passionate men and women, perceive the thoughts that lay behind their gleaming eyes.

Corridors yield to corridors. Rooms pass unheeded on either side. Blackness slithers around you, but your strength of purpose thwarts its grasp.

Double doors part. The ship's bridge is a deep, dark cavern, ill-lit by the same subdued glows as the halls and cabins. Green, blue, gold, and red strips define the edges of the floor with their gentle, flowing streams. They outline empty chairs and blank, powered-down consoles.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

Maybe. But not here.

You sit in the captain's chair. It's soft, plush. Your body sinks into its cushioned seat and armrests. You let out a quiet sigh. Whatever's going wrong in the universe, at least you're comfortable. Tension flows out of your mind and muscles.

The shallow arc of terminals in front of the captain's station starts to wake up at your touch. A deep thrumming noise runs through the casing, the low rumble of bears stirring from hibernation. Your fingertips tingle. You press a button, and the view screen opens at the front of the bridge. Space. Glorious space. The richer, nourishing darkness of creation, the fabric of the universe, of cosmic birth and boundless possibilities. Twinkling stars make a mockery of the bridge's gloom.

For several seconds you gaze at the vast void and scattered suns, drawing it all in with one warm, soothing breath. Then your consoles light up. Holo-screens wink into existence. Radiant colors splash over you, bathing you in electric hues. It's time to take control.

There's a map, covered with symbols and labels that would mean little to a layperson but are crystal clear to a veteran spacefarer. You're in a quiet corner of Sian space. Drifting far from its inhabited worlds and well-traveled routes. You glance at the other screens, absorbing their data in a single sweep. The craft's non-essential systems are all powered down but its anti-sensory measures are active. Another vessel would have to stray very close to detect its signature. Automated defenses are set to trigger in the event of an attack, primed to blast away while the navigation computer takes you into the heart of the empire and communications channels open to alert its fleets. Communications...

You tap a button on the terminal. If Barra and Ali are still aboard the Silver Shadow, you need to contact them and...

A red light flashes, accompanied by a disagreeable beep. A face appears on the console.

"Wu! What's-"

"I assume you're beginning to unleash a barrage of questions," the mandarin says. "No doubt you'd continue this for some moments, before realizing that you're addressing a recorded message. Allow me to save you from the resulting embarrassment."

You sigh.

"You're aboard the Sima Yi, and will by now have realized that there are no crew members on the ship. This was a necessary precaution. The entire galaxy believes you're on the Zhuge Liang, en route to Sian, and I can't risk the truth escaping. Your enemy cannot learn the truth."

"Noir..."

"I know you. If you're left to your own devices, you'll seek him out and engage in battle the moment you're well."

Warmth rises to your cheeks. There are things even the keen, cunning mandarin doesn't know...

"But based on your last encounter, I fear the outcome would be... uncertain. Therefore I've taken matters into my own hands. Noir will be eliminated. After he's disposed of, we may discuss the remainder of the trouble in which you've become embroiled."

You exhale. The sense of relief makes your face burn. You've never backed down from a fair fight before, and now you're letting Wu Tenchu annihilate an enemy you couldn't match in combat. Yet you can't muster up any regret. Perhaps when Noir's dead, the two of you can unravel his mystery.

"Your ship is here."

Two pictures appear on other monitors. There's the Silver Shadow, resting near a sealed launch door, and a cutaway diagram showing the hangar's location.

"Miss Haelia and Miss Crethnerith-"

"Crethnerith? Oh!" The look on Barra's face is going to be priceless...

"...are onboard. They expressed some discontent at this detention, but I had to insist. Rest assured that they've both been compensated for their inconvenience. The hangar's energy field will remain locked to outgoing craft until I authorize otherwise. And no transmissions will penetrate. I shall inform you when this matter is resolved."

The communication screen goes black.

"Talia."

"Wu!" The gunslinger stared at the screen and waved the others into silence. "You weren't answering my-"

"This is an automated message, so your questions or comments are, as usual, superfluous."

She glared.

"I have no doubt that you're currently on your way to the Zhuge Liang, against my express instructions to the contrary. You must stop immediately."

"Like hell I will..."

"[Player's name] is aboard a different vessel. Its location has been transmitted to your navigation systems. No one beyond you and your companions may learn of this, but I cannot permit you to reach the Zhuge Liang and interfere with what I've planned."

"But why-"

The mandarin vanished. Talia rolled her eyes.

"Wu..." she said. "It's like cuddling an octopus. You never know what all those tentacles are doing..."

"You cuddled an octopus?" Ragnar asked.

"Hey, it was him or you. Easy choice..."

She looked at the nav screen and adjusted their course.

Ashes to Ashes

Ashes to Ashes

"It's red!" Dang said. "All teams, fall back! Fall..."

He blinked. The barrier was the same orange-white shade as before.

"Commander?" Blue outlines illuminated a woman's picture on his display. "The field's stable."

Other profile images lit up in the same instant.

"Stable here."

"And here."

"I..." Dang shook his head.

"The commander's right!" A suited woman on Eddie's side of the barrier turned her head as she spoke. Wrathful reflections blazed on her helmet's opaque faceplate, turning it into a second inferno. "We saw it here."

"Damn it!" someone said.

The pictures blinked in rapid succession, but Dang's eyes remained fastened on the barrier -- and a distant, idiotic part of his brain assured him that the moment he looked away, disaster would follow. All he could do was stare while the babble flowed inside his helmet.

"The generators on that side are failing!"

"Oh, fu-"

"...must've taken more of the blast..."

"Tap into the other sides! Try to..."

"...could fail at any moment..."

"Draw the radioactive material towards..."

"Patching you all into my feed..."

"We... Oh, fu-"

The barrier flashed red again, became an immense crimson curtain. The chatter stopped. Eddie held his breath. When the redness vanished, he was sure he heard a dozen exhalations at once.

"Hurry up!" he said. "Whatever the hell you're doing, get a-"

Redness. It appear and disappeared, a bloody wound blasted through a body then sealed shut. The engineers were shouting, swearing, coordinating, yelling incomprehensible things.

Redness, again. And again. Again. Again. Again. Like the beating of a heart. No... Like punches.

At the base of the barrier, at his own height, something small and black thudded against the field. And it went red.

Impossible...

"Did you see that?" Eddie yanked his blaster off his shoulder. "Did-"

But the engineers were still babbling. Fiddling with their devices.

• thud*

"Listen!" he said.

• thud*

Scientific nonsense -- stupid, pointless, irrelevant -- flooded his helmet.

"There's something in there!" Commander Dang shrieked the words through his vocal amplifier.

• thud*

The barrier went red. Then it melted away.

"Breach!"

"It's open! Oh sweet Jesus goddam Christ! It's open!"

"Check seals! Check seals!"

"...other barriers holding..."

"Stay on them! Stay the hell on them!"

Eddie Dang's helmet was screaming along with everyone else. Red lights exploded all around the display, throwing warnings, telling him to leave the area. The strange, unnatural scent of stored air filled his mouth and nose. Part of him understood that his armor had locked out the external atmosphere. The rest of him just gawped.

Grey clouds gushed through the space where the barrier had been, billowing out in a dozen triumphant clouds like genies reveling in newfound freedom. They surged overhead, stealing the sky, smothering them all beneath its ashen pall. But Eddie wasn't even looking. His eyes stared unblinking, fixed ahead of him.

Two little blue fires burned in the fog. And a black shape loomed through the cataclysm.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

He screamed and fired.

"Commander? Commander!" Sergeant Ying swore in Mandarin, English, and, for good measure, Latin. "Commander Dang!"

In the distance, a dark plume seethed its way over the rooftops and reached up into the night sky.

"Hostile!" Dang's voice cried out inside his helmet.

"What? This is Sergeant Ying-"

"There's a hostile in here! There's-"

The commander screamed.

"Dang? Dang!" Ying opened a channel to his squad. "With me! Enemy contact! Enemy contact!"

"In there?" Private Patterson said. "That's not-"

"Move!"

They readied their weapons and ran.

Family Reunion

Family Reunion

"It's about time! I was starting to regret fishing you out of that water."

Screaming Barracuda stands in the middle of the Silver Shadow's mess room with her arms crossed. Her cranial fin twitches, and the studs on her leather jacket seem to grow even spikier.

"Your prime minister's had us locked in here like a couple of crims!"

"Sorry, Crethnerith."

She stares at you for a long moment.

"If you ever, ever tell anyone that's my name, I'll kill you."

"Fair enough. Thanks for saving me."

She shrugs.

"You were in water, and I'm a Piscarian. Besides, can't leave a fan to drown."

You cough, and refrain from stating the obvious.

"Where's Ali?" you ask.

"In her cabin. Look, can we get out of here now?"

"Not yet. Soon. Hopefully. We have to wait till Wu's done... Whatever he's doing."

"That wanker..."

You wince, and wonder if anyone else in the history of the universe has ever dared to refer to the mandarin as a 'wanker'. And if so, whether they found the body.

"What am I supposed to do? I can't even go online, and the telly's not getting any channels!"

You glance at the guitar lying on the counter, and know you're going to regret this. But she did save your life...

"Why don't you play something?"

Her green features light up.

"There's this new song I've been working on," she says.

"I'll just go see-"

"You're back!" Ali says.

The moment you hear her voice, your heart sinks. Her sister's scream rings in your ears. But when you turn, the face of the woman leaning in the doorway has no trace of grief or rage.

"Has Tenchu found her?" she asks.

"Found her? But... I... I couldn't stop Noir. He killed her!"

"Oh... You don't know! After he kicked you out of the window, he dragged her off. We saw them on the bar's security cam. He didn't murder Alexa -- he kidnapped her. And Tenchu said he'd get her location off Noir's ship after he took him out. I told him I wanted to help fry the bastard, but he made me stay here with her..."

For a second her eyes go unfocussed and she stares off into space.

"No, her music sucks!"

"Hey!" Barracuda glowers at her.

"I should burn that thing..."

The Piscarian musician lunges at the counter and grabs her instrument.

"Keep your bloody fire off my guitar!"

"What about it, [Player's name]?"

"No, we might need that guitar."

"I mean about Wu! Did you talk to him?"

You shake your head.

"The coms are still out. I just saw a recorded message. But he-"

The floor shudders under your boots. An immense, metallic clatter fills the ship.

"We hit something!" Ali says.

"No," you say. "The hangar's opening."

You move to the nearest console and bring up the external camera feed. Sure enough, the huge metal shield's unveiling the void beyond. And in the distance there's a ship, heading straight for the shimmering energy field, drawing nearer and nearer.

"It's Sian," you say.

"Wu?" Ali asks.

"Maybe..."

You bring up the coms interface, but it's no use. Your transmissions are still blocked.

"It's coming in too fast!" Barra says.

She's right. The vessel's hurtling towards the Sima Yi, much faster than auto-docking systems would ever permit. No pilot ferrying Prime Minister Wu would ever fly that recklessly...

Once again, a smile finds its way to your lips. This time it settles there like an old friend.

Everyone's hugging. We don't like hugging.

"I know that," Ali murmured.

If they try to hug us, we'll burn them.

"Yeah."

She leaned against the wall. The mess room was far more crowded than it had been a few minutes ago, and it never hurt to have your back against something solid when you found yourself up close with a bunch of armed strangers.

"I leave you alone for five minutes and you become a thugby player," [Player's name] said.

"Hey, look who's talking," said the woman with the pistols. "I turn my back and you get kicked through a window."

That's Talia Ryx. She's captain of the Sian Dragons.

"Wait..." Ali's brow furrowed. "How do you know that but I don't?"

One of her matches was on the screen in a bar. You weren't paying attention. We were. People got burned!

"In a thugby match?"

Some of the fans firebombed each other.

"Oh..."

She smashed people. She's dangerous.

"So are we."

Let's burn her, just in case.

"No."

But-

"No. If you want to burn something, burn Barra's guitar before she starts playing."

We like her music.

"You're just saying that to annoy me."

No! Her music burns!

"Like an STD..."

"Excuse me?" The robot looked around at her.

"Nothing," she said.

We don't like robots. They don't burn well.

"Ragnar," [Player's name] said, "I heard someone wrote a saga about you."

"Yeah. Sigurd Spinebreaker's girl."

"Is it any good?"

"Don't know. I'm waiting for the holo-vid."

We bet that lump of muscle and metal can't even read.

"So? When was the last time you read anything?"

Maybe we would if you ever opened a book.

"Books are for losers."

Lu Bu looked at her again. He said nothing, but she was almost certain he sighed.

He's making fun of us!

"He's a robot," she whispered. "They don't make fun of people."

What about the comedy bot at the club that one time?

"That was a cyborg, and she wasn't funny."

She was funny when we set her hair on fire.

"Natasha Cybersmash asked me to pass on her regards next time we met," Lu Bu said.

"Does she still want to kill me?"

"Perhaps. I don't think she's quite made her mind up yet."

Why's this small human here? Is he a midget?

"He's a kid, idiots."

We don't like children. They're annoying, but you won't let us burn them.

"I tried to call you at Christmas," the boy said.

"Sorry, Tel," [Player's name] said. "I was... tied up with something. Something strange."

"We killed a giant mutant turkey."

"Not that strange, I guess. But-"

Everything's bleeping. Why is everything bleeping? Is something going to blow up? Because that would be cool...

[Player's name]'s human friends all pulled out their communicators. Lu Bu's eyes flickered. [Player's name] went to the mess hall's main terminal.

"Hey," Ali said, "if coms are back up, call Tenchu and..."

What's wrong? Why are they all staring like that?

Ali didn't know. But their widening eyes and pale faces made tongues of perturbed fire dance on her shoulders.

You stare at the screen, gazing at words that are as incomprehensible as an exotic alien script. Because they can't be true. A nuclear explosion, on Sian?

"Wu..." Talia says. "He's..."

Another barrage of bleeps rains down on you, scattering your turbulent thoughts. A new message pops up on the screen -- this one encrypted.

"It's from Wu!" the gunslinger says.

She presses her communicator. You touch the screen. The mandarin's voice rings inside your head, and it's a moment before you realize that it's coming from your aural implant.

"My name is Wu Tenchu, and when this game of weiqi is over I will die..."

Sian Dragonfly

Sian Dragonfly

Stop!" Sergeant Ying said.

He leveled his blaster. The other soldiers fanned out across the street, flanking him, and did the same -- creating a row of bristling barrels. It reminded him of the pikeman formations they'd studied in military history class back at the academy. The memory swirled around his thoughts, one more surreal thing to add to all the others. A nuclear ash cloud rose over Lanjin Cheng. In the distance colored sprays rained down from swooping aircraft, trying to neutralize the radiation. And a naked alien strode towards him.

"Stop or we'll shoot!"

He kept coming. Blue fires burned in a reptilian face, the only spots of color in that black, scaly body. Ying didn't know what kind of being he was. His helmet scanner's database confessed ignorance in the corner of his screen. But his HUD drew a crosshair on the alien's head. Yes... He'd never met a humanoid being who couldn't be put down by a blast to the brain.

"Fire!"

Bolts of emerald energy seared themselves on his vision. A dozen shots burst on the alien's body, drowning him in weapons fire, eradicating his face, his limbs, his torso, his...

Two azure fires shone amidst the carnage. Black scales followed it through the incandescent barrage, whole and undamaged.

"Grenades!" someone shouted. "Gren-"

The alien leapt. His black mass shot through the air, high and fast. Ying didn't even have time to fire before he landed, and the screaming began.

"Air support! We need... Aaaaarrrrgggghhh!"

"This is Dragonfly Three-Zero-Nine!" Lieutenant Giu said. "Sergeant Ying, your team asked for air support!"

"Yes! Hurry!"

"Where's the target? We don't scan any aircraft or ground vehi-"

"He's on foot! He's...

There was a crash, and something shattered. The line went dead.

"Ma'am!" her co-pilot said. "We're getting too close to the smoke!"

"I know what I'm doing! Stay on the scanner -- find the target."

"They called air support on a single hostile? That's... Oh, Jesus." She crossed herself with darting fingers. "I've got visual on Ying's team. They're down! All of them!"

"Find that target, damn it!"

The Dragonfly hovered high above the armored corpses strewn across the street, its elegant body floating atop the anti-grav systems' warm magenta glow. Their faint hum was the only sound in the cockpit. Giu watched the billowing cloud on their left, while Teressa Chung directed the cameras and scanners, staring at half a dozen little screens.

"There!" Chung said. She touched one of the displays and something flashed on their shared terrain map -- between the wireframe buildings. "Heading south on Ronshung, moving fast."

"I see him. Moving to intercept."

The Dragonfly sliced through the sky, swift and smooth. Buildings blurred beneath them.

"Unidentified humanoid alien." Chung said. She sifted through the blaring data streams.

"Armor?"

"He's naked!"

Teressa threw a close-up onto a larger central screen. Giu snorted. The Dragonfly came to a sudden stop, freezing in mid-air. Below them, the blur resolved into the shapes of structures. The Lucky Lion restaurant's tiered pagoda solidified in front of their angled nose. Only one thing was moving down there now -- the black form sprinting through the street.

"I'll blow his scaly balls off!" the lieutenant said.

---

"Where is he?" Giu said. "I've lost visual."

Weapons fire raked the ground below. Energy blasts exploded in the street, hurling little pieces of concrete in all directions. The lieutenant stopped shooting. She was sure she'd hit him, but nothing could've survived that fusillade. He must've escaped somewhere...

"He's on the pagoda!" Chung said. "I've got missile lock!"

"Hold your fire, damn it! We're outside the evac-zone. This neighborhood's in lockdown. There are people in there! Take us down, fast. I'll pick him off."

The descent was so soft and instantaneous that the buildings seemed to soar up to meet them. Their nose swiveled round, as though the Dragonfly were sniffing the pagoda for its prey.

"There!" Teressa Chung didn't point at a holo-display this time. She pointed at the front window.

Giu fired. A thin, precise green beam shot out like a lance. It hit their target square in his chest.

"He's not going down!" the lieutenant said. "He's... Look out!"

Giu wrestled with the controls, taking them up higher.

"He tried to jump!" Chung said. "The crazy-"

Two fiery blue slits glared at her through the window. Armored glass shattered. Teressa screamed, but her cries fell far, far away. Giu groped for her sidearm. She tore the weapon out of its holster. A scaly black hand struck her forearm. The pistol dropped from nerveless fingers.

Blue flames flashed, setting the world ablaze.

"What... What are you?"

"My name is Noir, and what I am is beyond your comprehension."

Powerful fingers grasped her throat. They pulled her across the cockpit, crushing her breath, propelling her towards broken shards and the chill, whooshing air.

Giu's life didn't flash before her eyes as she fell. Nor did she gaze at the ground as it rushed up to break her body. All she saw were those two burning slits.

Zhilan Fan, acting Prime Minister of the Sian Empire, took a deep breath and wished she hadn't told her husband that she wanted to be alone. The table seemed impossibly, inconceivably long, stretching away to infinity. It was even more imposing and intimidating now, after the other ministers had left. The meeting room's emptiness echoed with the magnitude of the role thrust upon her.

The door opened. Brandon Yu's head appeared round the gilded dragons which framed the ancient wood in a series of elaborate concentric borders.

"They're waiting, Min... Prime Minister Fan!"

The title sounded as strange in her ear as it must have done on his tongue.

"I'll be there soon."

"But-"

"Go away!"

She looked for something to throw, but the door clicked shut. Zhilan rested her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands. A press conference... What was she supposed to say? That Wu Tenchu had decided to employ a nuclear weapon in lieu of a burglar alarm, and that an unknown assailant had triggered it -- before spreading radioactive matter over the city and slaughtering Sian soldiers?

Her personal communicator chimed. She pulled it out of her pocket. Daniel's voice would calm her, and... But it wasn't Daniel Fan's picture on the screen. It was a monstrous blue reptilian face, with glowing cyan eyes. No name or number showed on the display. Some kind of prank. What idiot would joke at a time like this? She opened the channel.

"I'm going to trace this call," she said, "and send one of our most brutal-"

"No," a woman's voice said. "This call can't be traced. Or recorded. We're more careful than that."

"Who is this?"

"A friend. Someone who can help make your first press conference as acting prime minister a success."

"Politicians don't have friends."

"But I do. You saw one of them tonight, on your screens. If you'd seen him in person, one of the other ministers would be sat there instead, and your name would go next to Wu Tenchu's on the memorial."

"The alien! Who is he? What-"

"I'm sending you the coordinates of a spacecraft. You'll find it's an exact match for the ship your satellites saw leaving Sian after the attack. Send one of your warships and destroy it, then tell your people that the terrorist cell responsible for tonight's atrocities has been eliminated. They'll praise you for your quick, decisive action. Do what I say, and with good political maneuvering you'll be guaranteed to keep your position and remain prime minister. If you don't... Just think of how cunning and careful Wu Tenchu was. How dangerous. And remember that my friend killed him."

"I..."

The line was dead.

Emera Tresc didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until the press conference was over, and it emerged between her lips in one great gust. She allowed herself the luxury of a smile.

"You did well." Noir's holographic visage nodded.

"Splendidly," Bonderbrand's disembodied head said. "The Sian Empire has a prime minister who knows better than to meddle in our affairs."

"Yes..." Azure light flicked behind his ebon mask. "But Wu Tenchu had many allies who will prove more... intractable. We must bring our plans to fruition before they can interfere. And there remains the matter of [Player's name]..."