LotS/The Story/Number of The Beast

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Intro=
"Do you believe in ghosts?"

Long, thin strips of soft azure light frame the corridor at its corners. They skirt the edges of floor and ceiling, pulsing down the long passage, till perspective promises a union that will never come. Blue beams fired at the gathering darkness. Brave. Defiant. Hopeless. Their illumination only makes the gloom deeper and heavier, a billowing cloud that flits between their impotent blasts.

"What?"

Shadows smother your footsteps. The jumpsuit's cushioned soles rustle instead of clicking or thudding, like the wind whispering through memories of half-forgotten trees.

"You heard me." Lucy Prakash leans forward, over the little fire. Tongues of dark and light flicker on her dusky features. The effect is almost demonic, transforming a young, girlish face into something from the abyss. Her eyes bore into Talia's. They're threaded red from sleeplessness and alcohol, ablaze with shocking intensity. "Ghosts."

Talia takes a long drink, tilting the broad bottle up between them to break the stare. Firelight tries to penetrate dark glass and darker beer. Her gaze flicks to the right behind its shield, meets yours, and asks the unspoken question. Has Lucy taken something stronger than Novocastrian Brown Ale? If she has, you're all in trouble. The base's commanding officers may turn a blind eye to a group of pilots sneaking off into the woods for a quiet (or sometimes not so quiet) drink, but if one of you comes back with recreational chems in their system...

The door on your left shifts and slides open. It's a monstrous noise in the quiet corridor, the hiss of a hydra or a vampire awakened in his crypt. No brightness spills out to warm and comfort you. There's only more low-power lighting, this time silver circles embedded in the ceiling. They illuminate objects without challenging the darkness that drowns them. The bunk hasn't been slept in. There are no personal effects scattered on the table or desk, no clothing or equipment anywhere in the windowless room. The air carries a faint whiff of cleaning agents -- a lifeless, unwelcoming, medicinal smell. That makes five chambers so far, all untenanted.

"What about you, [Player's name]?" Her bright, glaring, insistent stare latches onto you now. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"No."

Yes.

The realization slips into your brain like an assassin's blade.

"I saw one! On the Western Star, when we boarded it."

You and Talia share a look. The Western Star was a charnel house, a ship of horrors. Those raiders didn't just kill everyone onboard -- they left a message for whoever found them, and for anyone else who'd ever think about trying to escape instead of handing over creds and cargo. You weren't there, but even the clean, unembellished descriptions in the official report painted a gory picture. Grasping arms stuck to the ceiling. Torsos impaled on spikes, above tangles of decorated entrails. Bloody genitals pinned to the wall like trophies.

All Sian personnel who explored that vessel were sent for psych evaluations and counselling sessions.

"There was a girl," Lucy says. Fire shines in both her eyes, windows to a burning soul. "A child. She ran away, down a corridor. I called out -- told her I wasn't going to hurt her. But she didn't stop. So I went after her, running through the blood and... and... everything. She ducked into one of the cabins. But when I went in, there was just... what they'd left of her. She'd been dead for weeks."

The passage swallows you down its black gullet, towards whatever terrors or revelations fester in its guts. A door opens on your right. It's a recreation room. Triangular arrangements of pool balls rest on green felt, numbers shimmering above their spheres. Cues fill a rack like the weapons of an ancient army. Smaller tables hold ziggurats of magnetized mahjong tiles, each one perfect, waiting to be desecrated and divided beneath the eyes and voices of raucous players. The holo-units are blank and blind. Even the vending machine's stopped blaring its promises of refreshing beverages. Only faint green lights beneath its black bulk show that the refrigeration systems are still functioning. There's the same chemical odor from the cabins, the scent of recent cleaning. Another sterile tomb, empty and unused.

"Maybe she was psionic," you say. "Powerful ones can leave a kind of residue behind..."

"No! I read her file afterwards. She wasn't psychic, it wasn't a hologram, and I'm not crazy. She was a ghost."

Eddie Dang murmurs something about it getting late. Lucy takes the hint and lets him lead her back to base. The rest of you wish her good night, then drink in silence till you're sure her aural implant won't catch your words.

"Should we... tell someone?" Susan Liu asks. "Her psych councilor?"

"Who flew with her on her last mission?" Talia looks around. The fire describes dancing circles on the base of her bottle.

"I did," Jhang Li-Chin says. He lifts his bottle up like he's a schoolboy trying to get the teacher's attention. The black liquid inside sloshes just below the neck. He never was much of a drinker.

"How'd she fly?"

"Same as always."

"Nothing crazy? No shooting at ghosts?"

He shakes his head. Talia looks to you, and you both nod.

"Then let's keep it to ourselves," you say. "If we tell psych, they'll ground her."

For some moments the only noises are the crackling of burning twigs, the rustling leaves, and beer splashing its way from bottles to mouths.

"You think she really saw something?" Jhang says.

"Maybe," you say. "But there's no such thing as ghosts."

There are. Or at least there were.

That inescapable thought follows you through the silent gloom. Because you've seen Tor'gyyl, a planet that once held the things man knows, the things he's dreamed, the things he's forgotten, and those in which he no longer believes.

Ghosts...

With a lost world in your brain and shadows pressing in on all sides, with orange eyes shimmering among your memories and crushing blackness flooding empty passages and lifeless rooms, that word flits around you, wearing a white sheet and rattling chains.

You shake your head and smile. The movement is almost alien, and your mouth twitches into an unfamiliar shape. Ghosts don't pilot Sian vessels or leave folded jumpsuits on chairs. And someone brought you aboard this craft from the...

The Silver Shadow. What happened to Barracuda and Ali?

You quicken your pace, running into the darkness, following the blue beams or leading their assault. You have to find out what's going on... |-|

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]..." |-|

Last Will and Testamant=
Last Will and Testamant

"Adnan Zebra! I'll obliterate you and fling your pathetic atoms into space!"

"Good morning, overlord."

Adrian Zanfran smiled, tapped a purple tentacle to his brow in salute, and continued down the hallway. He could almost feel Barp Sek Bul's glare on his back as he went.

"I'll blast your wretched legs off, and have diseased Snuuth fill their bowels with toxic waste and defecate in the wounds!"

Something fizzed behind him. A red beam flashed past on his left, and a vending machine exploded. Cans of fizzy drink sprayed their sweet, sticky innards all over the floor.

"I will destroy you!"

"New doomsday weapon, overlord?" A potted plant disintegrated on his right. "I like this one."

"Fear my superior technology!"

A chunk of ceiling crashed down behind him. Flecks of dust wafted past on either side.

"The report'll be with you tomorrow," he said, without looking back.

"Very well! Then you will remain integrated for another day. Someone clean this mess up, or I'll annihilate you all!"

Adrian whistled a Screaming Barracuda song and continued on his way. When he'd first started at the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might, little things like threats of disintegration, or having doomsday weapons fired in his general direction, might have troubled him. But these days he took them in his stride. Barp Sek Bul hadn't destroyed him yet, and as long as sales in human space remained strong (which appeared to constitute anything above zero), he expected that happy trend to continue.

"Greetings, puny human!"

"Kill the human!"

"That human works for us!"

"Kill him anyway, and steal his fabled zebra!"

Adrian responded to each welcome and incitement to murder with a friendly grin and a nod, till he reached his sanctum. He let out a contented sigh as its door closed behind him. Sure, it wasn't the greatest office in the galaxy. It had started life as a radioactive waste storage unit -- which meant several days spent carting barrels of green goo through the building, while the Supreme Editing Overlord yelled at him about deadlines and promised multitudinous dooms. And the decor... Animated pictures hung on much of the wall space. Each showed a Rylattu blasting, eviscerating, or otherwise disposing of a human being over and over again. But on the other hand, he had a window. And a little collection of holographic book covers which represented his contributions to the company. All in all, Adrian Zanfran hence considered his professional life and circumstances to be quite satisfactory indeed.

With that happy thought in mind, he sat at his desk and opened his report on mankind's religious beliefs. Barp Sek Bul hadn't been overly impressed when Adrian first pitched the idea and explained some of humanity's most populous faiths.

"This 'God' is foolish! Flood? Locusts? You call those doomsday weapons!?! We should destroy him with our superior technology!"

But he'd come around to the idea. Thus Adrian had been enjoying a few weeks of religious scholarship, researching everything from Catholicism to a fringe group led by a female Vlarg who prayed to herself and had a passion for Earth's Caribbean cuisine. The freelance human flexed his tentacles and continued with that enterprise. Holographic screens appeared around him, chronicling his various sources and avenues of research, while his purple appendages went to work compiling the appropriate elements into his report.

Zanfran lost himself in his task. Even when the door to his office opened and a succession of angry faces popped in, he replied to their yells without taking his eyes off his screens.

"Insignificant human! I-"

"Cheese and pickle, on ciabatta."

After a number of threats and insults, the requisite sandwich appeared beside him. He grabbed it with one tentacle, brought it to his mouth, and continued to type with the other. The cheese was still moving, but that was okay. The Rylattu knew more about weapons of mass destruction than dairy products.

"Adnan Zebra, prepare to die!"

"Tomorrow, overlord. It'll be done tomorrow."

Thus his day rolled on, until he looked up, rubbed his sore eyes, and discovered that he was sitting in the little island of artificial brightness created by his screens. Darkness obscured the motivational pictures, turning them into incomprehensible shifting oblongs. No cries, gunfire, explosions, or manic laughter came through the door. Another workday had gone by at the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might, leaving him alone and tired but intact.

Adrian got up, yawned, and stretched. His tentacles curled and uncurled. He crossed to the exit, determined to locate and consume enough caffeine to see him through till his deadline. The portal slid open. And Adrian gasped.

"Who... What the..."

A featureless masked face stared at him from two bright slits.

"Adnan Zebra?" the woman in blue said.

"N... No. My name's Adrian Zanfran, but what-"

Her cyan eyes flashed. Something rushed towards the forefront of his mind, as though a fisherman's hook yanked it through his brain's soft tissues. It popped into his consciousness.

"Adnan Zebra! I'll obliterate you and fling your pathetic atoms into space!"

He staggered backwards, pressing his tentacles to his head, trying to hold his memories inside his skull before they spilled all over the floor.

"Liar!" Her eyes shone in the darkness.

"No! You... You don't understand! My name's really... Oh, hell!"

He stumbled around and lunged for the window. It shot open in the same instant. Another pair of bright eyes gleamed over the sill. Adrian Zanfran fell away, backpedaling as the man pulled himself into the room and both masked weirdoes in blue jumpsuits stepped towards him.

"Wait! Tell the overlord I'll get the report done! I... I'll..."

His buttocks thudded against the edge of his desk. The masks loomed closer, and cyan flames incinerated his thoughts.

"Scour his mind and his files," the woman said, "then melt his brain."

"No! I'll meet the deadline! I'll meet the fuc-"

"Puny humans! How dare you invade the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might!"

The masked duo spun round. Kwix stood in the doorway, staring along the barrel of a weapon that looked large enough to fire people instead of bullets.

"Prepare to be destroyed, worthless stink-beasts!"

"No!" Adrian cried.

"Not you! The other worthless stink-beasts!"

"Oh!"

Adrian threw himself on the floor and sprawled there. A brilliant, blinding wave of yellow light flooded the room. It seemed to go on forever, searing away the entire galaxy, until he blinked and realized that he was looking at the afterimage burned into his vision. Incandescence began to fade. In its wake, two pairs of legs collapsed beneath cauterized stumps of pelvis. There was now a large, circular hole in his office wall. He wondered if the Supreme Editing Overlord would destroy him for that.

Kwix walked over and kicked one of the lifeless legs. The freelance human stood up.

"Your pathetic friends have been exterminated!"

"They weren't my friends! They were going to kill me! I..."

His communicator bleeped. And because manners were important, even amidst chaos and carnage, he answered right away.

"My name is Wu Tenchu," a voice said. "Prime Minister of the Sian Empire."

"But you're-"

"If you're about to inform me that I'm dead, I am already well aware of this fact, and stating the obvious to a recorded message is of minimal value."

"I've heard of that pathetic stink-beast! He-"

"You've been engaged in research on human religious cults," the politician continued, "and uncovered intriguing details about the ancestor of a certain Novocastrian aristocrat. You requested an interview with her to discuss the matter, but she refused. She was most displeased. In fact, I suspect that in the near future her agents may make an attempt on your life."

Adrian Zanfran glanced at the pairs of legs lying on his carpet.

"You will gather all your research material, encrypt it using the attached protocols, then deliver it to the following account..."

The freelance human tottered against his desk, and wondered what he'd got himself into.

Wishes of Wu 1

"Bao..."

The Vlarg's three eyes shifted. Low-light vision, a keen night gaze that would have done his namesake proud, gave way to blotches of color as focus and dominance altered -- to greens and blues, yellows and reds. But in all fields and frequencies of sight, his prey remained the same. Five enemies. A Snuuth, three humans, and a Sussurra. No hidden dangers lurked in the shadows around the metal crates.

"There are debts which have gone unsettled."

Sloppy and careless. But why wouldn't they be? Licenses made their arms trading legal, so they had nothing to fear from the authorities. And their promiscuous dealings with all the city's major gangs kept them safe from criminal interference. They knew how to ingratiate themselves and turn a profit, wherever they found themselves.

"Retributions long overdue."

Bao could've picked all five of them off with a rifle. But if that had been Master Wu's desire, the mandarin would've selected another assassin. Instead he'd chosen the Jaguar. Bao's furry lips parted in a fierce, predatory smile.

His claws slid from their forearm sheaths, noiseless. The long blades didn't glint in the moonlight. But his eyes did.

"Fickle allies are more contemptible than enemies."

He padded towards them, swift and silent. They lounged against the big, heavy crates -- boxes of such armaments as they'd first sold to the empire's enemies, then to her freedom fighters as political fortunes shifted, and now to Centi Prider terrorists and raiders who preyed on imperial worlds.

One of the humans turned. The man's eyes widened. His mouth opened. But knowledge came too late and brought horror instead of salvation. A claw-blade thrust. Blood dripped from his mouth.

"Make an example."

A woman shrieked and shot. She was still blasting at shadows when steel severed her spine. The next one fell face first, wearing a huge hole in her chest where the Snuuth's panicked gunfire had caught her. One cut took off her killer's arm and weapon. A second opened his immense gut, decorating the dirt with gory streamers. The Snuuth moaned. Flabby hands grabbed at his innards, but they slipped through red fingers. Intestinal stench and the richness of blood met in the Vlarg's nose.

"Let their associates know their leader suffered."

The Sussurra leapt straight at Bao. Of course. What did a gaseous alien have to fear from a blade, other than the price of a new suit? The first cut would rip it open. Then his amorphous body could rush into his enemy's throat and lungs. Or so he likely thought.

Bao's claw flashed blue. The Sussurra's scream reminded him of violins.

And Wu Tenchu's work was done.

Wishes of Wu 2

"Shayu..."

The old woman looked both ways before unlocking her apartment door. But that wasn't unusual. Everyone who lived on this floor knew she performed the same ritual every time she entered her unit. If her gaze caught anyone else's while she did this, if a neighbor happened to glance in her direction, she always smiled and spoke words of greeting. And whenever she discovered a patient ear, she talked about the weather or her grandson on Novocastria. He was a pastry chef. She loved his eclairs, though they disagreed with her tummy. She wasn't too taken with his wife, however, who'd only married him for his choux pastry. And (she always whispered this part) the girl was getting quite fat!

No, there was nothing strange or furtive in her mannerisms. She was just a lonely old lady hoping for a little conversation to liven up her dreary days.

"There's a drop of blood hidden in the ocean. It will take a shark to sniff it out."

That afternoon there were no loquacious neighbors to greet or bore. She looked both ways again, however, and any observer may have thought the poor woman was desperate for human interaction. Though they may have wondered why her sweeping gaze paused twice merely to stare at the wall. The surgeon who'd installed her cybernetic eyes, those expensive objects hidden behind layers of false flesh, would've understood. But he was long dead.

She opened the door and went inside. A series of locks and bolts thudded into place behind her. The intruder alarm armed itself. She exhaled, safe once more, and crossed the lounge.

"That's far enough," a female voice said.

The old woman gasped. A blue-skinned Piscarian stood in the dining room doorway, pointing a pistol.

"I... I don't have any jewelry or hard creds!"

While the words tumbled off her tongue, her mind reeled. This wasn't possible. Her thermal imaging had shown two of her neighbors fornicating in the most degenerate way imaginable, and another one strangling himself in his closet. But her own apartment had been empty. Her left eye twitched, changing the vision setting back to that heat-sensing glare. The Piscarian vanished. Another twitch and the world returned, resuming its usual colors and clarity. The intruder's steely eyes stared at her once again. So did the leveled weapon. A faint smile flickered on those blue lips, as though they understood her confusion and savored it as a bloody morsel.

"Follow the trails and unravel their tangles. Find what no one else has seen."

"Of course not. You people never did like jewelry. And you don't need hard creds when you have a dozen secret accounts, do you, Councilor Jerv?"

"Listen..." The old woman's voice was different now. Harder, keener. "I know there's a bounty on my head, but I can give you a hundred times more. Tell whoever you work for-"

"I work for Wu Tenchu."

The color drained from her wrinkled face.

"Once you've located your target, uncovered her wherever she hides, don't alert your superiors. Tell only the assassins on this list, and have them do what must be done."

Her hand darted under her coat. The Piscarian's pistol whispered, and the last council member of the Centurian Collective collapsed with a punctured brow.

Operative Shayu stared at the corpse for perhaps half a minute, eyes boring into the dark hole that had pierced skull and brain. She wasn't accustomed to violent death at such close quarters. Her customary role was to detect and expose -- before others moved in for the kill. But this was different. Because it was the mandarin's last wish, and she would never have entrusted it to anyone else.

Wishes of Wu 3

"She..."

"Boss! Boss!"

Harv Tereb ran down the corridor, one hand pressed to his flank. Blood leaked between his fingers and seeped down the leg of his beige pants in a long, broadening crimson trail. He looked back over his shoulder. The hallway was empty. For now. There was still time...

He hit the door hard. It shook his bones and made him squeal. But the heavy slab opened, and he staggered into the room.

"They're... They're coming for us, boss!" He leaned against her desk, looked into her widening eyes, and panted. "Oh, God! They're coming!"

Millicent Carmara jumped up and shoved her chair aside. It banged against a side table. A decanter shattered under a blow from its heavy armrest, and a waterfall of red wine gushed over the edge of the wood. Purple bloomed like gunshot wounds on the carpet below.

"You must recover what's ours."

"We gotta get outta here!" Harv said.

Ms. Carmara (the last person who'd called her 'miss' was distributed among a number of pickle jars in the basement) swore, and ran over to the rack of long black firearms.

"Open the vault!" she said, as she struggled to unclamp a plasma shotgun.

"There ain't time!"

"Idiot! We're not leaving that behind! You know how much the damned thing's worth?"

Harv grunted, but he went to the opposite wall, one hand still pressed against his side, and drove his other hand at the palm pad. Lights flashed -- scanning his skin, his retinas, his brain.

"The dawn is bright in the east," a computerized voice said.

"I don't frickin' care!"

"That is not the correct phrase. You have two attempts remaining."

"Screw you!"

"Harv!" Ms. Carmara yanked the weapon down. "I swear to God..."

"I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" He took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing heart. Because the scanners could detect panic or duress. "But shadows darken the west."

"Accepted," the computer said.

There were a series of clicks and bleeps, and Harv sighed. That was close... The safe was set to destroy everything inside if anyone tried to gain unauthorized access, and he didn't want his future to include bits of him floating in jars.

The thick, armored door hissed open -- revealing a magnificent jade statuette in the shape of an oriental dragon. Its long, sinuous body curled around a pillar marked with Chinese characters.

"The Sian Empire's treasures belong to its people, and must remain among them."

Harv groaned.

"I can't carry this frickin' thing with one hand!" He turned around. "I..."

He stared into the big, gaping barrel of Ms. Carmara's plasma weapon.

"You won't have to," she said.

Harv screamed. The weapon blazed. And a bolt of superheated gas burned away his lower legs.

"Aaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!"

He rolled on the carpet, screaming, thrashing. His stumps kicked at the air, drummed on the floor, trying to find purchase with phantom feet. Ms. Carmara sauntered over to him. She smiled and ripped her face off. A second visage smiled beneath the ruined mask.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said. "Worth every credit Carmara asked for. But the Sian Empire doesn't pay for property stolen during the Centurian occupation."

The shotgun fired again, and Harv needn't have worried. There wasn't enough of him left to put in a jar.

Wishes of Wu 4

"Zhao..."

Professor Mycroft ran the computer simulation again. And once again. Then, just to make sure, he did it another time. But on each occasion the result was the same. The holographic ship exploded. Cheerful blurbs of projected text informed him of critical failures, catastrophic overloads, and the deaths of every crew member aboard the hypothetical vessel. He scratched his chin with one of his mechanical limbs and contemplated whether it was time to move to live trials. The threat of imminent doom was a useful motivator when it came to sharpening the intellect.

"All debts must be paid in full."

"Another successful experiment?" a voice asked. "It must be an impressive bomb to tear through a cruiser like that."

"It's not a bomb. It's meant to be a new type of engine."

"Ah..."

The professor turned around and regarded the intruder -- a young man with slim, handsome Chinese features, dressed in a voluminous black shirt and trousers. The garments were civilian rather than military, but Mycroft suspected the things they concealed weren't so innocuous. One of the scientist's spindly metal arms reached behind him for a railgun.

"The Prime Minister of the Sian Empire must keep his word. When he promises punishment, blood must be spilled..."

"Fifty-seven security systems should've stopped you getting in here. Fifty-five of them with lethal force. You couldn't have circumvented them all!"

"No. But your assistant let me in, when I explained my purpose."

"Damn him! Thaddeus! Get in here! Thaddeus! I told you never to-"

"And when he makes agreements, no matter how ill-judged others may deem them, they must be fulfilled."

"Coming, professor!"

A large box entered the room, encircled by blue sleeves and dark-skinned hands. A pair of legs clad in the same color as the former shuffled beneath it.

"What is this?" Mycroft asked.

"A gift from Wu; your grateful friend Remembered you at his end."

The professor stared at Zhao. The Sian agent coughed.

"Forgive me... I had to immerse myself in verse for a previous assignment, and sometimes..."

The box thudded on the floor, revealing the broad shoulders and perspiring face of Thaddeus Trest.

"I brought this here on an anti-grav lifter," Zhao Chen said, "but your assistant informed me that you don't allow products of lesser engineering in your laboratory."

"Is that..." Mycroft stared at the container with the big, bright eyes of a child on Christmas morning.

"The substance Prime Minister Wu promised you in return for your assistance during the war. Attempting to secure it through official channels was... problematic."

"Ha! Thaddeus, do you know what I can do with this?"

"Blow up half the planet if something goes wrong, sir?"

"Yes, yes..." He waved a dismissive hand. One of his mechanical appendages echoed the gesture. "But more! So much more!"

Zhao Chen bowed.

"I shall leave you to your experiments," he said. "Please refrain from blowing up this half of your world until I've left its atmosphere."

Sky Commander Bethany darted beneath the flashing blade, pivoted, tripped a metallic leg, and sprang on her enemy's back as he fell. Her training dagger's energy field glistened. Soft blue light pulsed as she made each thrust. Red glows appeared on the training bot's torso, marking fatal wounds.

She stood up and mopped her brow. The angels guarding the windows, a resplendent legion of stained glass and eternal authority, seemed to bestow their approval along with the warm, gentle light that passed through their martial bodies.

Bethany usually preferred training with live opponents, but this evening she wanted to be alone. She had much to consider.

"Someone may come to you one day, and request a favor. The very notion will shock you. All your training, your beliefs, your instincts, will tell you to refuse. But before you do, remember what a dead man once did for you beneath the Grand Temple..."

Lady Victoria Ashdown

The last time you were at a state funeral, potent emotions warred in your breast, devious stratagems revolved in your brain, yearned-for violence twitched in fingers curling to form fists, and fine words flowed from your lips. But that was then. Back when you were Imperial Jian. A wounded hero with sympathy on his side, armies at his command, and a conquered empire to liberate. Before Centurians burned. Before the past swallowed you whole. Before cyan eyes, blue dragons, and the man in black.

In the distance, across the square, the procession streams through the last leg of its journey. Men and women in elaborate robes or gleaming Sian dress uniforms serve as its train and vanguard. You can just make out Lu Bu's bright, polished body among them, shining like a star. And there's Telemachus -- wearing a regal costume which you know full well he hates with a passion. Even Ragnar's managed to find a place in the throng. He's bare-chested, as usual. But at least he decided to wear pants.

Many of the mandarin's friends are in that grand host. And a few of his political enemies, who're probably expecting an assassin to pop out of the casket at any moment and put bullets in their heads. But others have chosen to pay their respects from afar.

"Drink?" Talia asks.

She passes you a bottle. You glance at the label.

"Single cask," you say.

"Yep. When it's gone, it's gone."

You pull out the stopper and drink. Complex flavors, sweet and bitter, soft and harsh, honey and chocolate and smoke, tantalize your tongue. It seems an appropriate scotch for the occasion. You pass it back to her and she puts it to her lips.

The gunslinger could've joined the procession, of course. But she knew you couldn't. Not without creating a scene. And this day isn't yours to meddle with. So she followed you without a word.

There are snipers stationed all over Lanjin Cheng. Aircraft swoop across the skies, flying in formation or hovering around the buildings and scouring them for threats. With so many important dignitaries down there, on an occasion of such magnitude, Zhilan Fan must fear another terrorist attack. But though the rooftops are meant to be off-limits today, no one tries to interfere with this one. Because this roof belongs to Wu Tenchu's people.

You lean against the ledge, resting your forearms on warm, sunbaked stone. Talia's sitting on it -- her legs dangling over the long drop to the street below. But perching there is still probably safer than playing thugby or flying like she does. At the opposite end of the building, Zhao and the other agents wear innocuous civilian garb and think their secret thoughts. A couple of them speak to one another. Most stand in silence. For all you know, they've never even met before. It wouldn't surprise you. Wu Tenchu's labyrinthine networks are the stuff of legend.

The procession files into the temple. Big screens appear around its walls, showing the ceremony to the crowds teeming outside. There won't be rivers of tears. Not like there were for Illaria. Master Wu wasn't loved by his people as she was. But they respected him, and what he did for the Sian Empire. So they stand and watch while politicians say inane things and only skim the surface of a man few of them knew and fewer understood.

"Politicians..." Zhao Chen says. He appears without a sound, leaning beside you. "Such tiresome people, our late friend excluded. I prefer assassinating them to hearing them talk."

"I saw the press conference. Fan said the 'terrorists' were killed in space."

"Deception, of course. But comforting to the empire's subjects."

Talia offers him the bottle. He declines with a slight gesture of his hand.

"Noir told me he survived a nuclear attack. I didn't believe him. But..."

"Yes. You've found a remarkable enemy. Wu would have enjoyed devising a way to destroy him."

"I'll find one. I promise."

"I know. Master Wu had faith in you. Otherwise he wouldn't have given his life to try preserving yours." You wince, but there's no accusation in the agent's voice. "In my experience, no being is invincible and invulnerable. It's merely a matter of understanding their weaknesses."

"I don't even know what he is."

"Bet you some of those cult guys know," Talia says.

"All my leads are dead," you say. "I could maybe show myself and lure Noir out, but..."

"That would be unwise," Zhao says.

"Right. And I don't know how to get at the others. I..."

There's a sound, so faint you wouldn't have it heard it without the aid of your aural implant. It takes you a moment to realize that it's your communicator -- set to near silence for propriety's sake. You pull it out. The name on the screen is unfamiliar, as is the picture of a man who appears to have purple tentacles for arms...

"Adnan Zebra?" you say.

"Adrian Zanfran. My work terminal just... Never mind. Look, I have something for you..."

"You've done... adequately," Victoria Ashdown said.

She didn't fail to note the tiny hint of a smile on the grandmistress' holographic face. Cyan fires burned deep in Lady Ashdown's multifaceted eyes. It galled her to admit that Emera had been right about the Haelia girl.

"Hail Kalaxia," Emera Tresc said.

"Hail Kalaxia."

The noblewoman closed the connection. Alexa Haelia... She'd wanted the pyrokineticist harvested, her mind stripped away layer by layer for the secrets it contained. Instead... She sat back in her armchair, stared up at the dark vault of her study's lofty ceiling, and considered the possibilities.

Moonlight filtered through the high windows, casting lattices of chiaroscuro across azure and cyan floor tiles. No artificial light drove away the shadows that filled the rest of the chamber. Lady Ashdown's gemstone eyes had no need of such things. She...

A flicker interrupted her contemplations. A slight, subtle twitching at the back of her consciousness. An intruder. Their mind was concealed, masked by technology or their own psionic abilities. But she knew the signs. Her security had been breached without triggering the alarms. Without giving her guards enough time to cry out or even send a psychic warning.

That meant a dangerous enemy. That meant...

"Victoria Ashdown, I presume?" a man's voice said.

She stood up from her chair, and her eyes shone. There he was -- standing in the tall arched doorway. That fool... That arrogant fool!

"[Player's name]!"

Lady Ashdown wasn't accustomed to smiling. So when her lips parted, it resembled a gash in her severe features. He'd come right to her! Put his brain within her grasp...

"I think one of my ancestors met one of yours," he said. "Judith Ashdown and a detective called Bloodwyn."

"Noir enjoys bantering with his favorite enemies. I don't."

"That's a shame..."

He drew his pistol and fired. Azure light rippled in front of Victoria Ashdown, as the blast died against her psionic shield.

"Your memories are mine..." She threw the words from tongue and mind. They reverberated through the gloom. Mental tentacles reached out to ensnare her prize.

"Come and get them."

---

Your mental defenses crumple, crushed beneath the weight of the onslaught. Cyan jewels blaze at its epicenter. And Lady Ashdown's here, inside your mind. Old, strong hands claw at your brain.

"Now!" you say.

A guitar blares. Its powerful screech awakens the mansion's echoes. An avalanche of sound crashes around you both, filling your head, throwing up fragments of color, sound, and smell. Synesthetic waves break against invisible cliffs and launch their foaming spray in great cascades.

"Men of Kruna, stop your drinking, What the bloody hell're you thinking? Can't you hear the foemen slinking, On the battlements?"

The universe dances. History whirls around two minds battling for control of a single brain. Cherry blossom gardens on Sian. The foggy streets of Victorian London. Ancient Mycenae. A battlefield outside Burden's Rest. A billion places, voices, sensations.

Lady Ashdown lunges at you. She's fast here on this mental plane. As fast as Noir. But this is where you live, and very bad things happen to Kalaxians who try to burgle its secrets.

You dart aside. She falls on her face, splashes through a lake of eclectic images. A girl's laughter flows around you. Text whooshes past, a gigantic message streaming across cognitive infinities -- each letter as tall as a skyscraper.

--- OMG! You suck! Learn2psi-fight, noob. Kick her ass, [Player's name]! #Z03MG #braintweet ---

Colors and music swirl on all sides, caressing and entombing.

"Kalaxia!" She leaps to her feet. The movement is absurd and incongruous from a woman of her years, but she vaults like an acrobat. "The blue wyrm watches!"

"Wrong blooming dragon, love!" A fat man appears next to her, holding a half-eaten pastry. "Sodding prophecies never work out right..."

He grabs the front of her dress, yanks her towards him, and headbutts her square in the face. She flies backwards. He grunts and takes another bite of his steak and kidney pie.

You leap after her, sailing over continents, oceans, galaxies.

She's lying in a screeching heap, hammering at the nonexistent ground. You land in front of her.

"Noir. Tell me what he is."

"Hail Kalaxia!"

She springs up at you, eyes blazing, glowing fingers clawing at your face. You catch her throat and hold her at arm's length.

"Tell..." Your fist crashes into her face. "...me."

"He'll destroy you!"

"Let's. Try. This. Again."

Another punch punctuates each word, thudding against her ancient skull. And every time surreality crashes down, adding its force to the blow, bludgeoning her with the entirety of human history, assaulting her with the immensity of your bloodline and all it's wrought.

"Kalaxia will rule the universe, and your pitiful empire will-"

"Kasan."

The final punch shatters the universe.

"Men of Kruna, with blood splattered, Leaving corpses dead and battered, Have all wretched foemen scattered, Now let's have a drink!"

You're sprawled on blue and cyan tiles. Barra's music feels like it's smashing your skull from the inside. According to her critics, that isn't unusual...

"Kal... Kalax... Kalaxia..."

You struggle to your hands and knees. Someone grasps your shoulder.

"It's okay," Talia says. "They've got her."

Lady Ashdown's sitting up, her head and arms lolling in the grasp of Zhao Chen and two masked figures in dark, slick garb. Half a dozen empty syringes protrude from her neck and chest.

"Kalaxia..."

Cyan light drifts around her jewels, a pair of lost fireflies.

"Ask your questions quickly," Zhao says. "Her brain won't last long."

You dart over, tilt her chin up, and stare into her lidless gemstone eyes.

"What is Noir? How can I-"

"Noir... New name. Used to be called... called..."

"What?"

Her head shudders in your grasp. Her body convulses. Light blue energy explodes within the multifaceted monstrosities sunk into her sockets. Blood leaks beneath them, soaking her cheeks, wetting your fingers.

"Erebus the Black!" [1] </tabber>