The godless ones continued to pester it with questions. They knew its language, though their ‘mouths’ if they could be called that were unable to make the correct sounds. They looked like predators, but also had the teeth for plant consumption. How such a disgusting-looking species of omnivores could have risen to space flight was beyond its comprehension.

Not only that, they were unable to commune with the gods. Some could be strung up like puppets by them, but they could not speak to them. From what it had been told before, they’d done it to themselves on purpose. They were without connection to the Great Current. In that way, they were less than even animals. Barely worth the molecules they were composed of.

Admiral Fletcher was abruptly awake, his implant rousing him from his rest. A line of text appeared in his vision, ‘Admiral Fletcher requested on the Command Deck.’ He quickly roused himself, and in minutes, was ready to face whatever may come.

He could feel the ship’s titanic central intelligence brush against his own consciousness briefly as it dropped a fat data file into his implant. Normally The Gringolet wouldn’t bother him with such things, allowing the crew to inform him of anything he needed. It must be important if it felt he needed a raw data dump.

He allowed his implant to take control as time seemed to slow around him as he tapped into the raw processing power of the ship itself. The Gringolet allocated him several percent of processing power for his use. He could sense its amusement as it did so. It was always strange when he brushed consciousnesses with the ship. He shuddered just thinking about the implications behind such actions, but such were the burdens of such a high rank.

The file began unfolding in his mind brushing away his thoughts as raw data dumped into his mind. His neurons were coopted by the machine in his head. They processed and cataloged the information faster than his consciousness could possibly absorb the information, and he felt knowledge sprout forth from the deep recesses of his mind as his consciousness began to collate the information. All of this occurred in the space of a second.

He could feel the headache coming on and reached for the pill bottle by the door, taking the pain reliever dry to attempt to forestall the pain. Regardless of the consequences of the data dump, he now had a full briefing on the situation and knew what he would need to do. He strode from his quarters confidently, cutting his connection to the ship as he did so. Some of the crew looked as he entered and resisted the urge to salute. He had standing orders against such nonsense. He’d rather they do their job.

“Communications, I’ll be sending a recorded message in response to their own. While we are recording please disseminate orders to the fleet to not engage the vessel and to leave it be unless it engages in combat with one of our vessels.”

The communications officer gave out a “Yes sir.” even as his hands danced across his console. “Recording is starting, silence on the deck,” rang out. Admiral Fletcher stood in front of his command couch, hands behind his back, the chrome of his cybernetic eye gleaming.

“Whale Chaser, I am Admiral Fletcher of the Avalon Fleet. I have heard your request for non interference in your hunt. Our only request in return is non-interference in our own affairs in this system. Though if it is possible we would like to exchange further communications to learn more about you. Humanity has been scattered and to find cousins of ours still capable of traversing the void is a rare thing. We would be remiss to not extend a hand in friendship.” he nodded to the communications officer who stopped the recording and began reviewing it for quality.

Admiral Fletcher sat down in his command couch somewhat heavily, accepting a coffee from a junior officer that seemed to materialize into existence at that exact moment. Now that he had a moment, he properly reviewed the data that had been dumped into his mind so violently. The ship they had detected in subspace had entered the system almost silently. Most human ships had much smoother subspace transitions than that of The Slugs, but this was on another level. It was still detectable by military-grade instruments, but he doubted even the most advanced civilian scanners would be able to see them enter the system.

They had sent a communication towards the fleet after some delay, likely as soon as they saw them, warning the fleet off in rather colorful language. They apparently did not want the fleet going after their ‘prey’ when it entered the system. They were chasing some sort of ‘Void Whale’ and had chased into subspace before entering subspace themselves and outpacing it to its destination.

His mind flicked to what he knew of the Slug’s and their own ships, giant spaceborne creatures that they lobotomized and sculpted to their needs. Perhaps these Void Whales were one and the same. There was much they could learn from these new cousins that had so suddenly appeared. If possible, he would try and send an envoy to learn more about them. Subjugation via diplomatic and trade measures would be much preferable to the mess that was going on below.

Thinking of that, he turned his attention to the world below. Things were progressing swiftly, though the local forces in the north had given up on holding fortified positions. Some of them traveled southward to fortify positions in the south, while others had shifted to guerrilla tactics. It was mildly problematic, but in the long term, it would not be an issue. Aside from the initial hiccup due to sabotage, this campaign was nearly textbook. It was just a matter of waiting for it to unfold.

***

Gus woke up, his body feeling stiff and sore. Actually, sore was an understatement. It felt like his body had been compacted and then stretched back out before being used as an anvil. There was a vague emptiness in his lower body. Like it wasn’t quite there or something.

Voices began to drift into his consciousness. “Look, we can’t move him, he’s too unstable. If we had the equipment to do more than just extend his life then it wouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t. And since the fucking locals are jamming up the airwaves the suit communications aren’t working.”, said one voice. Gus thought it sounded like one of his squadmates...Terry? Yeah, that was definitely Terry.

Another voice shouted back, “Yes and if we don’t move him he’ll die anyways. Besides we’re sitting ducks out here. Who knows what happened with that sniper that took out the rest of the squad? Our best bet is to grab Gus, try and stick to the forest and make our way West. That update that Gus’s deck got from orbit mentioned that we’d managed to establish a forward base not far from here. Heading for that is our best bet.” Gus strained to remember who the other voice would be. It sounded like...Ansgar. But he wasn’t sure.

Gus tried to sit up, but in doing so, he was wracked with pain. A gasp escaped his lips as he suddenly thudded back down onto the ground. He could hear the thunk of his suit against what sounded like a wood floor. He immediately heard rustling, and he opened his eyes to see Terry standing over him.

“Take it easy there buddy. You aren’t going anywhere under your own power.”, Terry said while looking concerned.

Gus tried to speak, but found his mouth to be too dry. He took a couple sips of water off of his suit’s internal supply and tried again. “How bad is it, I can kind of feel the lower half of my body, but something feels off about it.”, he said.

Terry grimaced, “Well I’m surprised you can feel it at all, but that’s good, they might be able to fix it if that’s the case. You’ve got a massive stone shard stuck in you. It penetrated into your suit, but not out the other side so I have no way of knowing how much damage it’s done. Your suit kept you stable and has you on medical lockout, meaning we can’t get you out of it until someone with a medic code unlocks it.”

Gus groaned, “Communications are out you said?”

Ansgar stepped into view, “Yeah they are, but your deck seems to be able to cut through it at least somewhat. Unfortunately neither of us are able to link up to it so we were only able to get some superficial information and general updates from it.”

“Sit me up as best you can and hand it to me. I’ll see if I can phone in some help. Did you guys manage to get my pack?”

“Yeah it’s just over there, I’ll grab it and you tell me what you need from it,” Terry said, while he and Ansgar tried to position Gus without hurting him more than he already was.

Gus nodded as Ansgar grabbed the deck and handed it to Gus, and Terry went to go grab Gus’s pack. The deck unlocked and immediately began feeding Gus’s suit updates on the current situation. The connection was slow, and it had to constantly shift frequencies to keep up with whatever was jamming signals in the area. He likely wouldn’t be able to get a signal out without a way to boost it, luckily there were other ways of sending a message.

“Terry, main pocket two, right side looking in from the back. There’s gonna be a small black case with a wing glyph on it, pull that out and open it.”, Gus said as he began compiling relevant information into a message. He was able to grab their location using the local GPS systems that the fleet had managed to compromise and hijack. He put that into a message along with their current situation along with a note that they would hold the position until they received further orders citing his deck’s ability to receive updates and inability to send them due to jamming. He also left his deck’s hash code so that when the nearby base got the message, they could directly update the group on what to do.

Terry opened up the case and pulled out the small drone in the case handing it to Gus. Gus turned it on and synced it to his deck, loading the message into it. He loaded it with the most up-to-date IFF codes and the message he’d composed. Then he programmed the nearby base into it for a destination and handed it back to Terry.

“Take that outside, and set it down. Press the triangle button and it will go to the nearest base. I gave it a message to deliver including our current location. Hopefully it gets there and they’ll send someone to grab us. If not that then they’ll at least be able to send us new orders to my deck. I’m going to grant your suits permission to fully sync with my deck in case the worst happens and I die. At least then you’ll be able to receive orders.”, Gus said. He felt winded near the end and panted heavily as he took another sip of water.

Terry took the drone outside while Ansgar looked at Gus with a concerned expression. “How are you doing there man? You need me to shift you back to lying down?” he asked.

Gus nodded, not really feeling up to speaking. His suit translated the motion into an affirmative glyph, and Ansgar gently shifted him back down to a flat position. That made it easier for Gus to breathe again. He hadn’t realized how much harder it had been to do so while sitting up. “Thanks,” he said raspily before pulling another sip from his suit’s water.

“No problem, least I can do considering you solved a problem me and Terry had spent the last twenty minutes bickering about less than five minutes after you woke up. We’re going to get you back safe and sound, your far too talented to die on your first drop.”, he said. He tried to say it in a lighthearted way, but the gravity of the situation seemed to be taking its toll on the man.

Gus just nodded, he felt tired again and closed his eyes. He heard Terry come back in and tell him the drone was on its way, and then there was just blackness.