Imperium 23 - Conclusion

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Solace Island is our name for the island paradise on which we've landed - thick with healthy foliage and fruit trees, perfectly adapted to all our constitutions: The component constitutions of the Meklar collective. The seas are if anything more pristine, more filled with healthy marine life, than when I first set eyes on this world - 180 years ago today. The factories built here by the Silicoids have all been refitted with Psilon waste scrubbers, and adapted to Meklar use, with clean-up crews working constantly to keep such industrial waste as they may produce from affecting the environment adversely. The poisoned wasteland that Sasha, Grraur, Miristys, and I remember is no more. Our old, still-young crystalline companion has at last returned home, and can grow here in peace and well-being ... now that the world-choking pollutants of its progenitors are no more. The Meklar do not disturb us, even now that we are the only remaining non-Meklar in the galaxy. We are not objects of strategic importance. We have no biological or technological distinctiveness that interests them. We represent no threat. All our peoples are gone - or rather, their lives as they had been are over - but who is to know that somewhere inside Meklar cybersuits, my parents, or Sasha's, or Prrlan's, those of Dy rlas or Grraur, or even the crystals that nurtured Miristys in the early years of its nucleation, are not traveling this world or one of the distant others, content and even happy in doing useful work, in being part of a greater whole, in the certainty and interpersonal connections that are always with them through the matrix of the Meklar? We must take consolation in this, for this is now a Meklar galaxy.

Even before assimilating Orion, they controlled an incredible 46 worlds, and now, of course...

...it's 47, as the ancient world of Orion and its incredible technological distinctiveness ... is added to theirs.

Only the bombed-out, radiated husk of Antares remains free of Meklar control, its crippling Silicoid waste still flooding its surface since RBO-23's cleanup crews can't reach the surface to control or contain it. Yet ... we also remain free. Perhaps there are even others, somewhere in the galaxy, in groups too small for the Meklar to bother assimilating. We can dream, at least.

The Meklar have won, absolutely and in convincing fashion, but there's more to life than winning. I think that's the most valuable lesson I've learned from all of this: Sometimes, it isn't possible to save the galaxy. Perhaps the affairs of a place so vast are better matters for wonder and study than for any attempt at direct interference - too large to plan around or even to cause alarm or worry. On a galactic scale, whatever I do, what will be will be. My thoughts are better bent on my own island home and especially my dear friends, the people here whom I love, and who love me.

It doesn't matter as much as I feared who rules the galaxy. Miristys is here, and beautiful, and growing. Sasha is here, my oldest and most trusted friend, and she still holds me close on cool island nights like a teddy. Graur is here, deep in a love for Sasha that knows no jealousy ... and Prrlan, who is proving as adept at subtle wit as at stealthy maneuvering ... and Dy rlas, still a brilliant mind, swiftly growing in wisdom. I am not alone as I was when I came here so long ago. I'm with friends - close, dear, beloved friends - and safe in spite of RBO-23. I'm watching yet another golden sunset, a vision that never grows old, and I find, here among my friends, I am at peace, and - finally - happy.

OOC Note: Okay, scoring: I'm almost embarassed to post this. Bear in mind that I posted the files for this one when I'd only played up to 2337, so....

Completing the game: +500
2486 Extermination victory: ( 2600 - 2486 = ... ) +114
47 planets owned: ( 47 x 5 = ... ) +235
3(! Just Primodius, Selia, and Kulthos) self-founded colonies: ( 3 x -25 = ... ) -75
TOTAL SCORE: ( 500 + 114 + 235 - 75 = ... ) 774?!?! Eeeeeek! That early opportunity for a cheap diplo win really drove me to score well on this one and prove I could beat the cheesily high score I would have achieved. Way more than my final score, though, I'm proud of (and thoroughly enjoyed) some of the great moments in this game, especially the first attack on the Humans and Silicoids, the incidental conquest of Orion while in the process of rolling up the Bulrathi, and of course the Psilon blitz! I hope, win or lose, everyone else who played had as much fun as I did with this Extreme Imperium!

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Back to the Front Page

Imperium 23 - The Reason

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Central Centauri Spaceport, 2481: We've returned this time in desperation more than in daring. Though the Meklar are at war with both remaining races, and there is no more hope of masquerading, I remembered how I had hidden among them for so long, first on Meklon itself, and then even aboard a tiny Scout above Maretta. I hoped that if we were careful to avoid notice, they might simply overlook us since our trade ship isn't armed and carries no technological secrets or significant-to-them biological distinctiveness that they haven't already acquired with the innumerable samples they've taken from each of our races. We represent neither a threat to the Meklar nor anything they wish to gain. I imagined we would have to slip in stealthily, but as we attempted to navigate through an asteroid field, a fighting wing of Black Ice fighters numerous enough to defeat any other race's entire remaining star fleet swept out around the field toward us, all around us ... and past us, scanning our ship to the marrow of our bones, with advanced computer technology that must have laughed at our smuggling electromagnetic echo techniques if the Meklar had any capacity for laughter, without diverting their course by a fraction of a radian. To RBO-23 we are, as I have always been, an irrelevancy. Destroying our little trade shuttle isn't worth the energy needed to power the megabolt beam. The Meklar had more pressing matters to attend to: The assimilation of Ursa and its 290 factories yielded no new technology for them, for they had already acquired everything the Bulrathi had to give. Yet they still managed to win a battle and add to their own the tremendous technological distinctiveness of yet another race.

Earlier this year, literally thousands of Black Ice megabolt fighters swarmed to the last star in the galaxy that the Meklar had not explored. They encountered the Guardian of Orion ... and it fell. They reverse-engineered its death ray, and from the ruins of the planet itself, acquired class XI deflector shields, a mark X ECM jammer, and all the data stores necessary to complete their star gate project at once. Work began on a sub space teleporter as well, but no other race will survive to see that research complete.

Iranha Orbit, 2482: Still no harassment from the endless Meklar fleets. We might go on like this indefinitely. Not so, I fear, for the Silicoids and Bulrathi. They huddle on irradiated Antares and remote Berel, hoping to be left alone, but are still too numerous, in their millions, for their hope to succeed.

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Hyades Colony, 2483: Berel has been assimilated. So pass the Bulrathi. Grraur is holding up well, at least. Perhaps he had so long to anticipate it that he was able to harden himself against the inevitable, but there may be more that I'll never learn. When we heard the news, Sasha went to touch his arm and offer what comfort her words could give, but he answered in the gentle voice only she invokes in him, "For your sake, and for mine, I grieve - but not for my people's. It is no accident that I chose to live, even though I had to skulk there as a smuggler and outlaw with neither name nor face, outside of Bulrathi space."

I cannot know what life was like among the Bulrathi - I never saw any alive but Grraur himself, leaving all our interactions with them to our captain - but I begin to wonder if the universal war against the ursine people that began a century and a half ago had better cause after all than one of Emperor Strader's fevered whims. What could the main part of the Bulrathi been that fearless, immovable Grraur should so melt for the least sign of true kindness from Sasha, and leave his people behind forever without regret?

I can't tell if it's related, but certainly it's strange - Hyades, the spored-out shell of a world the Bulrathi controlled for decades by dint of powerful ground troopers and superior fleet strength, is a full-fledged gaian environment, with no sign remaining of the centrury-old bio-wars. The Bulrathi had decades to do what the Meklar managed in a few short years. I wonder ... this planet is a comfortable place to live, but it's still an arid world, and ... perhaps ... perhaps we should move just once more. There is time: A Silicoid colony ship appears to have come into existence, as if by magic, already en route from Antares to Orion, having never appeared in orbit above Carnax's last star. It is due to arrive in two years ... and so are we, at another world entirely.

Solace Island, Maretta, 2476: We've been living here a year now, untroubled by the Meklar all around us. They pass us by with no more notice than they give the rocks and trees, even receiving news from around the galaxy - though the news will soon cease to have meaning. Word has come that Antares is no more, destroyed with both of its missile bases in a single volley of anti-matter bombs from over 500 of the new doom bombers. An image from the battle shows that the Meklar have enjoyed constructing superfluous ships in the meantime, including the giant Finality 5 with over 75 megabolt cannons fitted for high-energy focus, lacking only the mark X battle computer RBO-23 devised just last year, when the Finality was already en route through the stargate from Toranor to Centauri, while drawing-board sketches began for another improvement to Meklar robotic controls. "Overkill" doesn't even begin to gesture at the situation. Meanwhile, with Carnax and the entire colony at Antares blasted into its component subatomic particles by 1,659 anti-matter bombs falling simultaneously, it was no doubt a trivial matter for RBO-23's agents to persuade the Silicoids of Orion to overthrow their governor and every vestige of Carnax's rule there.

It doesn't matter. It won't save them. RBO-23 wanted so badly to assimilate the throne world of the ancients, it actually built a colony ship to claim the place itself. Only when it saw the Silicoid colony en route did it scrap its own in favor of the aforementioned Finality and grant the Silicoids an extra two years' grace. It wasn't going to forego its claim to the planet that held the greatest secrets of the galaxy just because the people there agreed to rebel at the last minute. It no doubt would have preferred to assimilate the Silicoids of Antares too, but never found a way for its nanites and slave circuitry to survive on a world with such intense radiation levels as that one. So, in the year 2486, my earliest fears have come to pass: We live in a Meklar galaxy.

(OOC Note: Okay, that last spy hit was not so much insult to injury ... as insult to decapitation, but the spies were just sitting around with nothing to do, so...)

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Next: Conclusion

Imperium 23 - The Choice of the Meklar

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Iranha Star Dock, 2475: Everything we have worked for has come to nothing. The Meklar are unstoppable. Already, last year, they scrapped their remaining medium Hack bomber designs and their most outdated ion fighters in favor of a new line of state-of-the-art war ships: A bomber identical to the Meltdowns, except for carrying a triple payload of anti-matter bombs; a warp 5 megabolt fighter with computer and maneuverability classes of 7, dubbed the Black Ice 5; and a heavy fusion destroyer meant specifically to obviate the Psilons' Dark Star design.

Dozens were produced this year alone, along with some 27 bombers and literally hundreds of Black Ice fighters. The Flare 5 destroyers have already proven to be every bit the Dark Star killers they were intended to be; all their targets in the Psilon fleet were killed instantly by reactive fire. Celtsi fell to almost 900 Meltdowns and almost 160 transports, all converging from other once-Psilon stars. Four of Gorra's missile bases were blown apart by obviously Meklar spies who the planetary governor is convinced were actually Bulrathi. The only thing left for RBO-23 to do was to accept its place as ruler of the galaxy.

It refused. Its abstention from the vote was as good as a declaration of war on the Bulrathi, who had canceled their non-aggression pact with it so recently - a move we encouraged and applauded. Our only consolation is that RBO-23 would probably have done the same thing anyway had we done nothing at all.

Ruins of Gorrigton, Willow, 2476: The main Bulrathi fleet was stationed here, with over eleven hundred Hunter twin-fusion-beam destroyers, over a hundred Claw bomber/missile Cruisers, and some fifteen support cruisers mounting dissipators and heavy fusion beams. We imagined it was the safest place we still could reach for that reason, and in some sense it proved true, as the Meklar fighters and bombers were all destroyed, and even the Capacitor was eventually forced to retreat ... but the cost was unspeakable. Every Bulrathi cruiser in the system was rendered into scrap, as were all 17 missile bases. Almost 350 of the Hunters went down in flames, and we're told it could actually have been worse if not for a Meklar piloting error. The planet was bombed into total submission; this town, where we landed, is a smoking ruin, as is every other town and city of the two hundred that once held factories. Only four million people survive on the surface, less than ten percent of the population before the battle began. The survivors tell us that the spored-out husk of Hyades was conquered by the Meklar this year, the first Bulrathi world to be assimilated, and it's not the only world to come under the sway of the collective. The story is coming in now from GNN.

Night has fallen for the Psilon people. We all expected it, but it seems to have hit Dy rlas harder than he anticipated. It's one thing to know your race is doomed, but it's quite another to learn, once and for all, that there is no faint hope, no future: That you are the last of your species. He holds me close to his heart, and Sasha's and Prrlan's arms surround us, but I fear we still can't truly warm him now. The Hunter fleet is moving on, and so we must as well, but it won't be long before there's nowhere to which we can go. There are still on the order of a hundred more Bulrathi cruisers of various designs crossing ursine space, and those nearly eight hundred surviving twin-fusion Hunter destroyers, but they mean nothing in the face of RBO-23's bombers, Capacitors, Flares, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Black Ice fighters, swarming everywhere.

Antares Orbital Station, 2480: The Meklar behavior completely mystifies me. They've already won, decisively. They'll never even use the ion stream projector they developed in 2477, or the neutronium bomb now in early developmental planning. They assimilated Willow in 2478 along with those of its ancient artifacts that survived their bombing spree. The mark 6 robotic controls they developed last year, along with means of building factories twice as quickly as they did eighteen decades ago, only render their industrial base more overwhelmingly powerful, and they'll never need the mark X battle computer or andrium armor they've begun to pursue. They finally ran down that fleet of over seven hundred Hunters, destroying them all at Thrax this year just before assimilating that colony and Gion, picking up a bio-toxin antidote and urridium fuel technology, and their pursuit of a universal antidote is meaningless at this stage. So what do they need with fifty-four hundred Black Ice fighters?! They built almost two thousand in the past two years alone, and they're gathering most of them near here, in the southeast! Do they imagine they actually need that kind of firepower to destroy our poor, hapless Silicoid hosts at this stage of the war? It can't be!

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Next: The Reason

Imperium 23 - The War is Decided

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Full-throated celebrations are rocking Celtsi almost as loudly as the anti-matter bombs did moments ago. We've won the battle for Celtsi! The Meklar can be defeated! Their transports will be shredded by our 22 surviving Hercular bases and our still-undamaged defensive fleet! Amidst the cheering, Dy rlas races up to us, and shouts over the din, "I need your help! We've done what we can here; it's time to prepare the Bulrathi!" So amid a festival atmosphere, Graur sets course for the galactic north. We blast off from the world we helped to save, and roar away, setting coordinates for the jump to hyperspace, planning one daring stop at Iranha to give Prrlan a chance to conduct another espionage mission, and just before our warp engines cut in, we receive word from all across the Psilon empire on the results of the Meklar blitz.

I can hardly believe what I'm seeing. Ryoun ... Laan ... Drakka ... Mentar itself! Kakata ... Omicron....

Their defenses are all destroyed, to the last missile base, in spite of their shielding, in spite of their Herculars, in spite of defensive fleets now retreating or destroyed! Many of the bomber fleets had fighter support, unlike those here at Celtsi, and ... and ... we've lost control every world's orbit but Gorra's and Celtsi's. Even the revenge attacks by Psilon fleets already over Meklar worlds were turned aside: The fleet at Morrig was forced to retreat, with significant casualties. The missile boats at Collassa inflicted no damage at all, and were destroyed utterly. Even in the full-scale assault on Hyboria, with 21 Star Blade megabolt cruisers and hundreds of support ships, though it destroys all 160+ of the enemy fighters and one of the planet's missile bases, all the cruisers are lost, and the missile boats forced to retreat! And the ground invasions ... the merciless trooper drones bent on assimilating Psilon civillians, with zortium battle suits and personal deflectors to absorb Psilon rifle fire, with deadly fusion rifles to blast through even Psilon personal absorbtion shields and shred their duralloy combat armor ... the invaders have already arrived. They came in swarms, to overwhelm any possible defenses, to take no chances at their centerpiece worlds, with 300 million storming Mentar alone. The battles ... the war...

...all is lost. Most crippling of all, a total of 402 factories between Draconis and Omicron, the last two Psilon worlds the Meklar captured this year, yielded no technological secrets to the Meklar people. Unless we lucked out on worse than three-in-ten-thousand odds, that can only mean one thing: There was nothing left to capture. The Meklar had already taken it all.

Class 5 and class 7 deflectors. Impulse Drives. High energy focus. Graviton beam. Megabolt cannon. Particle beam. Trilithium crystals. Mark 7 battle computers. Terraforming technology four times as effective as what the Meklar themselves first devised. Hercular missiles. Complete ecological restoration techniques. Tachyon beams. Advanced soil enrichment. Everything. Fifteen different advanced technologies, assimilated in a single year along with eight different star systems across the galaxy, and apart from outdated waste reduction techniques, every one of them could be of use to the Meklar war machine. The war, just begun, is over. The galaxy is doomed.

Last year ... and this:

As they did to Meklon, so they have done to the galaxy. Only two stars remain in Psilon control, and the Meklar will now be using the Psilons' own technology against them, designing ships specifically to overcome the known Psilon fleets. As we depart into hyperspace, Dy rlas hangs his head and says, "There was no hope really. A century and a half of mismanagement can't be corrected with a single tactical maneuver. We lost our focus, forgot our purpose, prosecuted pointless wars with helpless enemies-of-the-moment, ignoring the threat of the Meklar even when they exterminated two other races from the galaxy, and nearly did the same to the Silicoids. Our cause was hopeless from the beginning."

Sasha, Prrlan, and I, knowing well how he must be feeling, try to offer what comfort we can, but I am reminded of my own words not very many years ago. What Graur must be going through must be at least as agonizing, knowing his people, unknowing, must be next - or Miristys, who for ages now has felt the agony that will carry Dy rlas through hyperspace: Knowing his race is doomed to die, and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

(OOC Note: I've done it, finally: No matter what happens in the interturn, next year's election will give me an opportunity to accept a conquest victory, with a better score than I could have had by taking a cheesy 2343 diplomatic win! Uhhh ... yeah, sorry, Nicalseref of Acer. Sorry Sasha and Prrlan. Sorry, everybody. I'll stop cheering about the imminent and/or realized doom of your races now, okay?)

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Next: The Choice of the Meklar

Imperium 23 - Under Siege

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Mentar Palace Grounds, 2473: For years, we have tried to convince Dynalon of the true Meklar nature. Now that it is too late, he has asked for our advice. I don't know what to tell Dynalon when the time for our audience comes. For our part, we can only flee, with nowhere left to go. Perhaps an all-out attack on as many Meklar worlds as he can reach ... but it likely would not be enough. RBO-23 called him earlier today - called the whole Psilon people - and voided the alliance. It would only have done so if it believed it was positioned to achieve total victory.

The Meklar are now, without question, the most powerful empire in the galaxy. The Silicoids have crumbled into irrelevance - though they returned to the bombed-out Morrig system in hopes of expanding their empire once more, they had to fall back to their lone radiated world at Antares when RBO-23 assimilated their rebuilt Morrig colony last year. The Psilons and Bulrathi, if they bent all their power on defeating the Meklar, allying with each other in close coordination to defeat the bane of the galaxy ... at least might have a chance. They at least would be fighting for something, and Dynalon's technological edge at least makes him a power to be reckoned with. Since the Meklar have not taken the time to build up most of their worlds, he has not been left entirely behind, but remains a superpower in the galaxy. Yet his potential allies are dwindling in number. The Humans and Mrrshans ... are now but the Human and Mrrshan: Sasha and Prrlan. At first, when we heard the news that Romulas and Proxima had been assimilated by the collective, they were much in each other's company, often crying in each other's arms and speaking of their lost people and the agonizing relationships they'd had with their own cultures, but beautiful Miristys reminded them in time that we were three: I am the last of the Acerites, indeed the last of the people of Meklon not assimilated by the machines. Sasha wept still more then, but her tears were for me, and she bundled me into her arms until the hollow place inside me that I hadn't even recognized as it grew was filled with warmth and comfort again, with her kindness, and with love. It was then that I saw Miristys and Graur, sitting apart, with new eyes, and spoke fearful prophetic words: "Not just we three. If Dynalon and Durpp cannot be persuaded to act now, and act decisively, together, it won't be long before there are none of us left, of any species - until there are only the Meklar."

The reason the Meklar have not fully developed their worlds is in no small part because all their energies have been devoted to building their collossal death fleets, in preparation for this war. A pair of Capacitor cruisers, each with a warp dissipator and twin sets of tri-linked ion banks and heavy fusion cannons to go with all the computational and defensive power that can be assembled on-board, will only provide support for over a thousand Spark ion fighters, with hundreds more - and three more Capacitors - due to be completed next year ... and all this pales before the devastating force of the Meklar bombers: 190 Hack medium bombers left over from the Mrrshan wars are now supported by almost four thousand Meltdown 4 anti-matter bombers with class 8 defenses thanks to miniaturized stabilizers, and mark 6 battle computers. The entire fleet has been under construction for years, and gathering at muster points in preparation to dislodge Psilon fleets above Meklar worlds, and for a blitz attack on Dynalon the likes of which has never before been seen or imagined in the galaxy. Their only weakness is the alliance itself: If they had been able to develop a sufficiently advanced space scanner to scout Psilon stars without becoming allies, they could have used a scanner ship in recent years to determine the exact composition of the modern Psilon fleet, and adapt their own fleet designs and tactics in response. Now, they're going in blind, and we'll just have to hope they misjudged or underestimated the Psilon plans and fleets. I believe that is the only hope for the galaxy ... because there is another reason the Meklar never built up their worlds to full factory capacity, with the exceptions of ultra-rich Toranor, rich Iranha and Centauri, and the artifact world of Imra:

Most of their worlds have been kept at fifty to eighty percent of their population capacity ... while they shipped transports in a series of overwhelming waves toward every Psilon star, in an effort of logistical coordination impossible for anyone but RBO-23. All will arrive, along with the star fleets, simultaneously ... and almost before we can act! Still, act we must, as best we can. Dy rlas, the Mentar University Professor Emeritus of Field Mechanics, one of the many Psilons with inexplicable spaces at apparently random places in their names, has devised a plan of defense that might stop the Meklar fleets, and after failing to get anyone here to take him seriously, managed to covertly convince the governor of Celtsi. He needs to be present to personally coordinate the system's defenses, and local Psilon fleets are dedicated to the war effort exclusively, but if we can get him there in time...

We have to take the risk. Graur brings him aboard. We're bound for Celtsi.

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Melzyr Emergency Bunker, Celtsi, 2474: We made incredible time, thanks to the new upgrades Dy rlas helped Graur make to his engines, and the defenses have been arranged as best they can be in such a short time. I have my doubts that they can hold against the enormous Meklar assault fleet, but they'll have to - the Meklon-Psilon war has begun!

Almost sixty of the old anti-cat bombers are approaching, along with over 500 of the new Meltdown 4s - but our nearly 50 bases are supported by a defensive fleet of over 180 missile destroyers and over 200 Comet rocket fighters ... plus 11 Star Blades, carrying ten megabolt cannons apiece! With seventeen layers of shields at our bases, and each supporting three missile tubes of Herculars - the most advanced missile in the galaxy - we might hold out yet - if our plan is applied effectively.

Already, a Psilon force almost twice as powerful as our defending fleet here was stopped at the poor site of the Humans' last stand. Even though Zhardan lacked even a single missile base, it was defended by over 700 Meklar fighters and one of the deadly Capacitor cruisers. The destroyers expended their missile payloads and retreated, and the Star Blades were frozen in space by dissipator fire until time enough elapsed for their emergency home-bound hyperspace jump to kick in. Still, there's been hopeful news as well: Even Meklar coordination and production was insufficient for an attack on the scale they had planned: The small fleet that reached Gorra, with no hope of taking the Psilon fleet and fifteen missile bases there, was likewise forced to retreat! So the war is a stalemate thus far ... as the enemy closes in on us here at Celtsi! We're doing our best to help Dy rlas coordinate the planet's defense, and have full specs on the defending Psilon fleet, with notes on their absent ship classes as well.

The Dark Stars are beautiful attack ships, with Dissipators to kill Meklar maneuverability, repulsor beams to obviate their fighter stacks, Bio Terminators to turn their colonies into slush, and a pair of stinger missile racks and a heavy fusion beam apiece to hang around in any fight, together with the speed needed to get past Capacitor dissipator ships and reach their target worlds. None are here at Celtsi, but that's part of Dy rlas's plan: To defend, we use our missile boats to force their bombers to either waste time and energy dodging, and so take more hits from our Hercular bases, or to take the hits from our defense ships before they can reach bombing range. The Star Blades' dissipators may be of limited use if the Meklars are smart enough to go all-out against the planet, but those megabolt cannons will cut through bombers easily. We must concentrate all our fire on the meltdowns until less than a hundred are left, and then switch over only with fire from the bases. If we succeed, perhaps the other Psilon worlds can emulate us, and the Meklar gambit, their blitz on every Psilon star at once, will prove their undoing, and the end of their fleet!

The Meklar are coming! Hercular missiles wreak havoc on their Meltdown fleet, but the bombers reach the planet! I can hear the detonation of matter-antimatter explosions even through the walls of the bunker! The place is shaking! Our counter-attack is coming, but it may be too little, too late! Shrapnel fills the viewscreen as hundreds of bombers are shattered by missile fire and megabolt bursts - and the Meltdowns are gone! We're down to less than half our bases, but the Hack destroyer-bombers are burning too - another missile volley hits - and we're saved! The Meklar fleet is gone! We've won!

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Next: Outcome of the War

Imperium 23 - ...and Conquest

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Departing Centauri, 2461: We touched here in the guise of a Bulrathi trader only long enough to confirm the latest reports from across the galaxy, and they were grim indeed. Unknown agents, whose real identity is only too obvious, took out five missile bases at Fierias two years ago, and I believe a hyperspace beacon was planted on a failed attempt on a Denubius base last year as well. Meanwhile, fleets of single Meklar fighters have been dispatched, and will have scouted every Psilon world by next year, surely a precursor to the inevitable war of assimilation - as is RBO-23's new research project: A bio-toxin antidote for the biological components of its cybernetic drones, as a quicker project than cloning development following a 2459 breakthrough in soil enrichment research. Then, last year, the Meklar conducted a small-scale bombing run at Zhardan to soften the planet up for their ground forces - Strader and the Humans have nothing left to offer them but that final world in their space - an attack which apparently prompted a desperate Carnax to speak highly of RBO-23's "words of peace," none of which the poor Silicoid leader has heard for decades. It also prompted Strader to redeclare war on the Meklar - far too little, far too late - and to receive a four-word reply: "Acceptable. Say good night."

Early this year, Zhardan was assimilated into the Meklar collective. Strader and his Human empire are no more. There is no longer any purpose to warning Yalara; only the Psilons and Bulrathi united, if they act now, while RBO-23 is focused on the Mrrshans and the remnants of the Silicoids, could stand a chance. We must therefore warn the Psilon people of the danger they are in, of how their allies will play them false as the Meklar did to so many of their allies back in the days of the Meklon wars. Current events will support us at least; last year, ruthless Yalara in her folly was glad to call mighty RBO-23 a friend. This year, she was forced to declare war ... since her world of Esper was added to the collective, along with her outdated dotomite fuel technology, not long before Zhardan and Silicoid Lyae suffered similar fates. In utter desperation, Carnax called on RBO-23 again from its new palace-in-exile, still under construction at Antares, moments after the Human empire was totally destroyed. With Sasha the only surviving Human in the galaxy not enslaved by cybernetic collective-link circuitry, with his own once-mighty empire reduced to the radiated husk of Antares and the desert world of Collassa, where Meklar forces had just achieved space superiority, Carnax meekly suggested...

...that with the help of the unstoppable war machine, he would be able to "challenge the threat" of the no-longer-existant Humans. Now that we're back in hyperspace, I can only ... what's that sound? Graur's ceiling smuggling panel is sliding aside! Sasha gathers Miristys and me up protectively, and backs up against the door to the pilot's room as it opens and Graur steps in, his jaw set dangerously as he meets the pair of glowing yellow eyes looking down at us and him. From behind those eyes comes a purring voice, deep and strong, but smooth as silk. "Forgive me for intruding. We are headed for Psilon space, I understand?" He drops to the floor, landing nimbly on all fours, and coming to his feet in one smooth motion. "I am Prrlan. I've lifted secrets from the Meklar data cores that I'd like Dynalon to see. I trust another passenger will not strain your resources?" Clad in a skin-tight, jet-black bodysuit over short-cropped fur of a deep, dark grey, he is the first male Mrrshan I have ever seen.

Graur maneuvers his vast bulk past us with natural ease. He's still glaring at Prrlan. "Why Dynalon? Why not Yalara?"

The tall cat brushes himself off neatly. "For just the reasons you were discussing yourselves. And because I've tried the like before, and I know my fellow Mrrshans wouldn't listen to me." He flips a nimble paw. "I am not a she-Mrrshan, as you can see."

Our captain takes another step toward him, growling, "You may say..." but stops as Sasha reaches out to touch his arm.

She urges, "Graur, please..." and he hesitates, looking from Sasha and Prrlan. He doesn't trust our stowaway, but I can already see him melting under Sasha's gentle touch. She whispers, "I know what he means - all too well." She seems on the point of tears, but I don't fully understand why. Shaking her head, and drawing a breath to recover, she says, "It's your ship he stowed away on, but how else could he have gotten off Centauri alive and unassimilated after Yalara declared war?"

Slowly, Graur covers her hand with one of his gigantic paws. He sends another mistrustful look Prrlan's way, but then his eyes return to Sasha's, and everything melts away but a soft acceptance and deep concern for her. "For your sake then, Sasha, he is welcome." He starts to say more, but her thanks silences him, leaving only that deep concern in his warm, caring eyes, lost in hers.

Celtsi Communications Center, 2464: According to the local archives, GNN reported last year that assimilating Collassa carried the Meklar across the threshold of galactic domination. Worse yet, RBO-23 has cleared out the orbital defenses of four different Mrrshan worlds, with countless transports already in space. If the other races delay much longer, the Meklar forces will no longer be committed to attacks on the Mrrshan fronts, and there will be no remaining hope. Already, the old triad of Arc Lamp cruisers is being scrapped to make room for a more up-to-date design. All we can do is try to warn Dynalon.

He's completely unwilling to break his alliance, but wriggling around on technicalities is apparently right up his alley. He already has star fleets in orbit over at least two Meklar worlds, ready to go on attack runs if - and as soon as - the alliance does end, and is willing to look for more opportunities. That's where Prrlan's secrets come in. "I have dispatch plans for several Meklar assault transport fleets that will be launched almost immediately. My people are doomed; there will be no way to stop the flood of Meklar troops at Fierias next year, and they will surely capture our last technologies - outdated industrial tech won't help them much, but I fear my people's ... technological distinctiveness ... also includes plans for both a fusion rifle and a fusion beam, and of course those will be taken. Fortunately, something can be done at our colony of Morrig. The Meklar, as you know, have long had space superiority there, but by next year, they will also have more than 75 transports on the way. It will be possible to kill millions of their people, and to delay or prevent their development of that star, if you simply honor your alliance by attacking my people at Morrig - Mrrshans who are doomed regardless - and bomb the colony into the arid soil. You would save more than thirty million of my fellow Mrrshans from assimilation into the Meklar collective - a fate far worse than death. Their souls would honor you for all time."

Sasha looked on and listened with trembling emotion - and Dynalon agreed. It shall be done.

Iranha Stardock, 2470: We all knew it was coming, but it still happened too quickly. Fierias fell just as Prrlan predicted, and then with three different models of destroyer-class anti-matter bombers, each carrying battle scanners to make up for swift feline reaction time, the Meklar lost no starships in overcoming the last Mrrshan planetary defenses in 2468, assimilating Jinga and Denubius the same year. Then, last year, Dynalon raged at Durpp of the Bulrathi for stealing his hard-won technological secrets, and nothing we could say could calm him enough to realize it was a trick by RBO-23 to cover and further benefit from its own theft. With factory waste reduced by that very technology to 40% of its 2300 levels, the Meklar will quickly become even more formidable than they are already. But this year ... this year, Romulas fell, and Proxima was overrun. The Mrrshans are now represented only by visual cortexes, retractable claws, and reflex neurology adopted by various combat drones in the Meklar imperium, robotic members of the collective ... and Prrlan, here, alone. When he brought the news, he tried to bring it off with a jaunty mien and a smirk, but the mask fell away before it could form, he trembled all over, and as Sasha approached him, he fell weeping into her arms.

They held each other for a long time, and whispered of what might have been, and what went wrong - the horrible luck of the Mrrshans, yes, with the mineral poverty of their corner of space, but painful social issues that touched on my friends themselves as well: The female dominance that had so permeated Mrrshan culture that there was no meaningful role for a male unless he was able and willing to sneak access to classroom windows, break into educational computer systems, and train himself - like Prrlan to become a spy and thief and renegade. The de-facto male dominance of 24th century Human culture after generations of expectations of feminine beauty that left little time for a woman who expected any normal place in life to do more than primp and paint and clothe herself to best effect, for hours and hours every day, until the helplessness of women in any fields but the development of their own beauty became almost proverbial, and those who tried to ignore the overwhelming social urges - women like Sasha - had the prejudice of centuries to battle, and the loathing of men who wanted to see them made up to the latest standards of beauty. No wonder every important representative of Humankind I had seen was always male. Each race had sacrificed half its potential - half its could-be scientists, pilots, leaders, and strategists - to arbitrary cultural mores, and each has paid the ultimate price: Its culture has adapted to service the Meklar. Its people are its people no longer, but Meklar drones. And soon, I fear...

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Next: Under Siege!

Imperium 23 - Division...

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Zhardan Landing Field, 2439: Graur and I are doing our best to work with the Humans here. Strader himself is hopeless in his madness, but there's some chance that we can accomplish something more with his underlings, who surely know of his instability by now, and there are Bulrathi and Mrrshan ambassadors with whom we are meeting as well - whether through Mad Strader's force of personality or his deputies' sane action while he was in hyperspace, his wars with those two races at least have ended. In fact, of all aboard Graur's ship, only beautiful young Miristys has any cause to fear Human patrols - but Sasha has said so long as Miristys cannot safely leave the ship, she will remain behind with it, to offer company and solidarity if nothing else. With a grim look, she added that no one among her people would listen to her anyway. Graur was going to remain behind as well, for much the same reasons, but Sasha touched his paw, and asked him please to go and help me, for her sake, and he melted for her. Alone with him, away from the ship, not daring to ask outright about his feelings for her, I spoke what I felt for Sasha, and he made the briefest and gruffest of noises in reply. I thought that was all I would get out of him, but a moment later, he spoke, and his voice was unexpectedly soft. "Every time she has spoken to me, even just doing business, her voice and her words and her face have been kind." His look was distant and dreamy, and my heart went out to him. What must life have been like among the Bulrathi for so little to mean so much to him? I wonder still, but there was little time to speculate before we gathered our first intelligence reports from the Humans, and while Graur returned to the ship to make sure Sasha and Miristys were safe, I met the Mrrshan ambassador.

I made very little headway with the five-planet feline empire. Their ambassador was haughty and unimpressed with me, declaring the powerful and growing Meklar empire a more valuable choice of ally than a runaway who represented no one at all, especially with the obviously dangerous Psilons drawing nearer - Empress Yalara was not only at war with them, but aware that Dynalon would soon be claiming an as-yet-uninhabited world not far south of her core. She had moreover just agreed to a 135 BC trade package with the Meklar, and traded basic ecological restoration technology to them - filling a gaping hole in their technological capabilities - for anti-matter bomb technology. "Would someone who planned to turn on us give us such a powerful weapon with which to fight them?" she scoffed openly. Knowing the Meklar all too well, I urged her to consider the possibility that they would strike so swiftly from surprise as to make her ability to attack their worlds irrelevant, and moreover that such bombs would hardly be an upgrade for most purposes over death spores, but she dismissed me. "I would rather have the sure value of such devices to use against our Psilon and Bulrathi enemies - both powerful and near - than a third war against the other great power of the galaxy, led on by your pointless fear."

I would not be so concerned if the Mrrshans were the Meklars' only source of new technology; with RBO-23 at work on class six ECM since its capture of Sol, for lack of the creativity needed to progress in any other computer-based direction, I had even hoped for a while that their industrial base would be reasonably limited by their transport-bound population at least. But there were reportedly signs of electronic tampering last year at the Psilons' Celtsi research station, and ever since, the Meklar have been working factories more efficiently than ever, no doubt by addng Psilon mark 4 robotic controls to their own abilities. Still worse though was this year's events at Iranha, where the second Meklar wave arrived and assimilated that rich Silicoid world with all its factories, a mass driver design, outdated ECM, yet another incremental improvement to their robotic controls, and specs for a repulsor beam. RBO-23 is now developing new class 4 shields for its ships even as its existing ships - primarily destroyers mounting both fusion and anti-matter bombs, with ion fighters and dissipator cruisers for support - continue their deadly cruise through Silicoid space.

Deep Antares Orbit, 2445: After following another tortured route to reach Silicoid space without crossing over the battle lines between species, we have arrived only to find we come too late once more. We've just received word that the battle for Imra is over; the ancient artifact world has been assimilated by the Meklar like so many others. Though they won the battle by luck and only the barest of margins, many more transports are about to arrive, and the planet will be brimming with Meklar by next year, many of them - or many of their body parts - striking a sickening resemblence to Silicoids slain or crippled in the battle. The designs they picked up there for an energy pulsar and nine-parsec fuel cells based on Reajax II, on top of the Mark 6 battle computer they lifted during last year's conquest of Misha, mean the Silicoids' technological distinctiveness has been fully added to the Meklar's, even as RBO-23 goes to work on developing intergalactic star gates on its own. Carnax hoped that this would satisfy the Meklar, but should have known they are insatiable. Their response to its offer of peace was four words long: "No. That is all." When Strader made a similar request last year, he was simply told to go away. Of course, the crafty cyborgs know their virtual allies from their enemies. They gave a much more complete explanation when rejecting Durpp's offer to formalize their alliance two years back - claiming he had too many enemies for them to commit to fighting them all, though they promised to continue rolling back the likes of the Silicoids from his battle fronts - and when persuading Dynalon to break off his alliance with their Human enemies the same year.

Fortunately, we have had some limited success as well, even as we traveled here by our circuitous route: We negotiated peace between the Psilons and the Mrrshans, and on arrival here, managed to persuade Carnax to ally himself to Yalara as well. We need to unite the whole galaxy this way before it's too late, for the Meklar keep growing stronger; even now, they are monitoring Hyades, the shattered battleground world whose arid slopes had been rendered almost uninhabitable by various races' death spores over the years - a world Sasha and I visited long ago, when it was a thriving human colony. Ever since sneaking in to scout it ten years ago, shortly after its latest colony had been destroyed by a Psilon war fleet, the Meklar have been watching and waiting their chance to assimilate it, in case it falls into the hands of one of their declared enemies.

Mrrshan Imperial Supplication Chamber, Esper, 2450: Spy wars have been raging across the galaxy, even as the Meklar dismantle Silicoid assault and defense fleets. I fear Carnax is fighting a losing battle, and that we are doing the same. Yalara was so furious with it when I spoke to her that she wouldn't listen to a word I said in its defense - Carnax had apparently called her in a fury, accusing her of destroying four missile bases at Aurora, just as it did when it lost two at Centauri to sabotage three years ago. Miristys and I tried to make it understand then that it was done by Meklar agents, but it would not listen, then or now; all the evidence pointed to Mrrshan spies. Of course Yalara is steaming, as she claims - and I believe her - to have no spies active in Silicoid space at all, but she will not listen when I insist that Carnax doesn't deserve her anger - that it is merely a victim of the Meklar. It doesn't help that, two years ago, Carnax was boasting that he had the Meklar agents' number, citing their saboteurs' total failure at Cryslon. Too well, I knew they had not failed at all: Their real mission at each world - far more important than destroying missile bases ahead of their more-than-capable bombers - will have been to place a hidden landing beacon and allow transports to launch in coordination with the forward battle fleet, and in this, even at Cryslon, they succeeded. Rich Centauri was assimilated just last year, with invasion forces and war ships already moving on Cryslon. Following their 2448 peace treaty with Strader, whose Humans had little more technological or biological distinctiveness to contribute, and a trust-forming trade of their inertial stabilizer for massively outdated Human robotic controls, the Meklar were able to concentrate all their forces on the Silicoids - and on projects like RBO-23's 2449 vintage scatter pack rockets, to be followed up, to my relief, with a theoretical ion stream projector when they might have investigated Omega-V bombs instead. I couldn't dissuade Yalara from voting for RBO-23 in the election, but even had she voted for Dynalon, the Bulrathi abstention meant that the Meklar, just one vote short of a council veto, could not lose anyway ... and meanwhile, the Meklar agents are still at large across the galaxy....

Palace Grounds, Ursa, 2456: The Meklar now control Hyboria's skies, and lost only a single ship, thanks to a tactical adaptation they recently made, and I wonder again if we've acted too slowly. At least we're still acting at all! Our most daring or desperate move to date paid off, as we slipped into the Meklar Centauri system in the guise of a Mrrshan trader, and convinced the port authorities that Graur was in fact a Bulrathi merchant on the run. I wouldn't have dared the attempt myself, but our captain seems able to do anything if Sasha only says she believes in him. Not long after he spoke with a Psilon diplomat at Centauri, Dynalon even went so far as to threaten retaliation if RBO-23 continued its reckless expansion. Graur said he'd done nothing the rest of us could not have done, but I believe there's more to him - a kind of gravity and personal power. Sasha would have none of it either. She thanked him, placed a hand on his arm, and gave him a smile that I could see sinking deep into every muscle of his body, softening his heart as it relaxed his whole massive form. We must live for such beautiful moments, however brief, for I fear there will be few to come. That was also the year that Meklar forces assimilated Cryslon, and though 104 brave Silicoid regiments at Aurora, in spite of the Meklars' superior armor - they'd rolled out Zortium in 2453 with another small improvement to their industrail construction techniques in their plans for future technology - managed to kill 124 Meklar over the course of two years, the planet was assimilated last year, along with the Silicoids' merculite missile and mark-eight battle computer technologies. Even now, we're getting reports as well that Meklar agents lifted improved deflector shields from Mentar itself as RBO-23 devised a class-six jammer, and that it is now planning to double the power of its planetary shields and improve its robotic controls by yet another little increment - the first opportunity it's had to do so without assimilating knowledge from another species. There would be little hope for the galaxy had Graur not worked another miracle last year, speaking to his own emperor Durpp in their guttural language. When he returned, his shrugged his huge shoulders, and said, "I'm just a concerned citizen, and a smuggler at that, but I had all the intelligence you three have gathered for me."

Miristys trilled; I beamed; Sasha embraced him. He looked surprised, then softly, deeply happy, and gently stroked her hair, almost as she might have petted a beloved kitten. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Sasha said, "I knew you could do it," and apart from a single, happy sigh, that silenced him. Durpp had broken his non-aggression pact with RBO-23.

Entering hyperspace, 2458: For all the diplomatic progress we've made, our words are just too slow! Even as Dunatis fell last year, Hyboria found transports descending upon it, and its assimilation this year by the Meklar collective gives RBO-23 control over 18 star systems! Yet that's not the worst of the news: While the southern Meklar fleet dismantles the Silicoids, another is gathering in the galactic center, and we may already be too late to issue a warning to its victims! Unidentified agents destroyed a missile base at Mrrshan Esper just last year, and an investigation revealed evidence which, if placed around the sabotage site, would have implicated the Bulrathi, apparently abandoned at the last moment for unknown reasons. If only it had also revealed the transport beacon that was surely concealed on the surface at the same time! News that Silicoids had taken out a few factories on Primodius did nothing to comfort me, especially as a Meklar tactical fleet took the skies of Zhardan - the last Human colony - earlier this year! When Durpp publicly called out Yalara for the theft of battle suit designs from a lab on Hyades - the spored-out world right on the Meklar front - it only sealed my certainty. Graur warned Durpp to be on his guard, to expect Meklar in battle suits on his doorstep at any moment, and that the Mrrshans would not represent a threat to him, but we had time for nothing else; we have to warn Yalara, or her empire may fall without a fight! The only possible strategic use the poor world of Zhardan could have for the Meklar is as a staging base to launch invasions of the Mrrshans! Just before entering hyperspace, we received still more chilling news: First, a Psilon invasion apparently reached Hyboria just days after the Meklars' ... but failed to overcome the already-entrenched machine forces, meaning Psilon troops were assimilated by the Meklar there too! Worse yet though was an agreement reached in the wake of that battle between Dynalon and RBO-23. In spite of the threat Dynalon offered at the beginning of the decade, the two are now allies in name. I fear this spells the doom of the galaxy.

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Next: Conquest

Imperium 23 - Flight!

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Hyperspace Tunnel, Departing Maretta, 2413: If not for the smuggler captain who brought us here, we might all be dead by now! I'll never forget the screaming klaxons and blazing warning lights as the Meklar bombers poured out of hyperspace into the Maretta system! They are surrounding the planet even now, and transports are sure to follow, though we thankfully got out of there before any appeared in realspace. Thankfully, we were all together - Sasha, Miristys and me - and Sasha had the presence of mind to call the smuggler captain on her holophone. He didn't reveal his image - he never does; just the symbol of a gleaming star with eagle wings - but answered at once in his gruff but straightforward way that his ship was in dock and ready to jump, and he'd take us on board right away. We rushed to the star dock, Miristys and myself cradled in Sasha's powerful arms, since she can eat the ground up in a single stride to my three, and Miristys still can hardly move at all, and once we were on board, the captain confirmed we we all were inside, remotely slammed the airlock, and threw us back against the rear wall with the force of acceleration and gravity. We got out just in time, as the Meklar fleet was gathering, and have spent the whole time since then settling Miristys as best we can in a medium that will be healthy for it. It keeps reassuring us kindly that even the empty deck is a better environment than anything it could hope for in the world it left behind, and I know - on more than one count - it speaks the truth, but nevertheless, we couldn't forgive ourselves if we rescued it only to let it waste away in hyperspace; we put together the best reproduction we can of the portable habitat we were making for it back on Maretta. It's going to pull through - we all are. I don't even know where we're going, but we're leaving Meklar space, and that's what counts.

I finally manage to sort through the messages I intercepted on our way out from Maretta, and the news is bleak. It appears that negotiations are almost complete between RBO-23 and its Psilon near-allies to unite in war against the Silicoids and exchange technologies - Meklar stabilizer designs for the Psilons' duralloy armor - correcting the Meklars' only shortcoming in ground combat against the Silicoids. It seems certain the deals will be finalized in 2414. The only good news is mixed: We may in fact have fled Maretta too soon. It seems the bombers were using the star as a way-point only, with no local invasion yet prepared, as they proceed toward their next real target, wherever it may be.

(OOC Note: I love doing creative tech trades, but am well aware of the potential exploits associated with them, so I've been trying to avoid taking advantage of the AI's obsession with things like Inertial Stabilizers, trading them for lesser-but-useful techs instead of for the high-level techs the AI so often offers for them. Of course, I don't do trades like Soil Enrichment to Silicoids at all. Some would argue IS trades aren't really exploitive at all, and I'm not sure I'd disagree with them; as with the Wait button, I'm just trying things out here, to see how it affects the game....)

Outer Reaches, Hyades System, 2417: The captain's gruff voice comes over the onboard speakers. "We may have some trouble here." The viewscreen goes active, and I can see the massive fleet clustered around the system's primary world, their lights gleaming red as the ancient star itself in the night of space. Hyades, a star I first encountered as a Human colony, has changed hands several times in the past decades, a flashpoint for the war between the ursine people and the rest of the free races of the galaxy - a war surely started by Strader's madness and popularity. Just now however, as the viewscreen's local map updates itself automatically, I see that it belongs to the Bulrathi. They surely mean no harm to me, but my companions...

Our captain's gruff voice comes to us once more: "I'm going to have to help you two get under cover. We'll be out of here as soon as I refuel." The same voice - but something's subtly different about it. I look up and gasp when I see why: It's not being piped through a speaker anymore. The smuggler captain looms above us in the flesh, for the first time. He's never left his control room and personal cabin in our presence before - but now he does, and looms indeed: A massive ursine presence, with muscles like cables defining every limb. I must be gawking, because he snorts at me. "Don't act so shocked, Ref. How did you think I got the Bulrathi contraband I smuggle across the battle lines? Why did you think I was always skulking in by back ways, doing smuggling runs when there's so much money to be made as a legitimate merchant? That money's always been for races who aren't at war with each other - and for the longest time, that's meant every race there was, except mine."

Sasha is holding Miristys tightly, protectively. She won't lose it - or us - without a fight. She's braced, prepared for anything, as she asks, "What do you intend to do with us?"

His eyes move to her, and I expect a growling retort, but instead his face - his entire posture - seems to soften, like candle wax near a gentle flame. "I'm going to get you out of here as soon as I can, Sasha." Even his voice is softer somehow. He suddenly reminds me of something she once spoke of to me - a giant teddy bear. He reaches out a massive paw to her. "They'll scan this ship but good, with the way we came in, but I'll help you and Istys hide where no scans will reach. I don't make my living as a smuggler for nothing." He seems to melt still more, this time with sorrow, as she hesitates. In a softer voice than I knew he had, he tells her, "I've always been Bulrathi. Will you stop trusting me just because now you can see me?"

Sasha looks away, and her eyes fall on the holodisplay ... and slowly grow wide. She shivers. "Stalaz..." She looks at me, and I follow her eyes back to the screen. She whispers, "Strader's starfleet founded it the same year I met you." On the map, it's glowing pale green.

"They've taken it," she whispers, "The way they took Klystron from the Silicoids."

"And my homeworld before that," I agree. They had not only captured the world, but assimilated the knowledge of its people - designs for warp dissipators, gatling lasers, barren colony bases, death spores, and class 3 deflectors were all added to the Meklar technological stores, and they're sure to turn that knowledge into more.

Our captain is looking down at his open paw, half-stretched toward Sasha still, his face gone soft with sorrow. Sasha steps forward at last, and places her hand on his palm, surrounded by his claws. Her voice is trembling. "I'm sorry. Nicalseref was right. If we don't work together, the Meklar will take us all, one by one, separately. If we can't put our leaders' wars aside ourselves when we've helped each other so reliably, how can we expect them to unite against the common enemy? I do trust you, Captain. More than the Human captains under whom I served for years. You've been very kind to us, and I'm very grateful. Forgive me for doubting you. Please."

He shakes his head, and softly covers her hand with his other paw. "No forgiveness is needed." His happiness, renewed and warm, is visible in his face. "Let's get you to safety before the patrol ships arrive." As the ships slowly approach from beside the nearest Bulrathi dreadnought, he lifts Sasha and Miristys to the ceiling as easily as a father might lift a child, then seeing my concern, lifts me into Sasha's arms as well. With one huge paw, he slides a heavy ceiling panel away, then lifts us all beyond it. "That's a heavily shielded compartment with electromagnetic echo-imaging generators to make it read like a huge nutritional fungus colony to bioscans. There's an emergency release lever in case of utmost desperation, but wait for me, and when we're clear, I'll help you down. Are you comfortable up there?" I nod, and Sasha thanks him, and Miristys shimmers its own reply, and he says, "Good. Don't worry. Sit tight."

It feels like an eternity of waiting, but Sasha holds me close, and I feel very safe with her. There's so much I want to ask her, or to ask our ursine captain ... but for now, we must wait in silence together.

Departing Maretta, 2423: Everywhere we turn, strife and chaos reign. Even aboard our smuggling ship, the captain is pretending nothing happened at Hyades except a routine stop; I can't persuade him to tell me anything at all. The huge Psilon death fleet just arriving at Helos is only the latest example, with its 63 heavy ion and fusion cannons, three megabolt/fusion beam turrets, and 164 death spore bays with payloads of five spores apiece. We came here in light of our captain's revelation, hoping to persuade Carnax, through Maretta's governor, to make peace with Durpp, but the governor remained completely intransigent, even as the transports of the Silicoids' real enemy were flooding space, conquering the ultra-rich star of Toranor for the Meklar five years ago, and the small, toxic world at Helos two years later, where their spies and assimilation drones brought them plans for anti-missile rockets, another small improvement to their terraforming technology, anti-matter bombs, and nuclear engines, all in the same year. It was then that we first spotted the massive Psilon fleet en route to Helos - originally meant to destroy the Silicoid colony there, but at last too committed to its course to turn back when it found the Meklar had already conquered the system. Would that the encounter could have led to war! But with warp dissipators installed aboard their Interdict 2 destroyer and Arc Lamp 4 cruiser, the Meklar froze the Psilon fleet in place instead and negotiated a peaceful end to the battle with the Psilon captains helpless and no ships even damaged in the course of the fight. Our Captain Graur has learned besides that while we were refueling and resupplying at Hyades, the Meklar were negotiating a massive trade agreement and non-aggression pact with the ursines and bringing them back into the then-lapsed Bularathi-Silicoid war. The Meklar have assimilated the skills and knowledge of my homeworld's greatest diplomats, and the best among the Humans of Stalaz, and are using them to divide and conquer the galaxy as they did Meklon itself. Even now, transports are reportedly on their way here, and we have no choice but to flee the system once more.

Leaving Iranha system, 2431: The past several years - for us and all the people of the galaxy - can perhaps be best summed up by a look at the ships and transports racing across the primary war zone in the galaxy. Humans, Psilons, and Bulrathi continue to contest Hyades while the Silicoids struggle against the Meklar at Helos and Maretta - the latter horribly assimilated three years ago, complete with plans for stinger missiles. Worst of all, the forward Meklar fleet established itself over Sol, destroying all its nearly 40 stinger bases and its defensive fighter fleet. Transports will be on their way by now, and their bombers are in striking range of this system, so we must flee once more. They've had us on the run so long, we've had no chance to make any headway diplomatically, and the galaxy has been polarized or in chaos: 32 non-Meklar votes were split 16 to 16 between Carnax and Dynalon in 2425, while RBO-23 cast half a dozen against his silicon-based enemy, and yet just this year, through the Iranha communications net, I heard Emperor Carnax compliment RBO-23 for recognizing the supposed threat of the Humanity! In his madness, Emperor Strader has managed to alienate the entire galaxy, and is now in full flight - much like ourselves - to his one remaining holdout world of Zhardan, far to the east, with the Meklar expected to assimilate his homeworld next year, along with his only remaining technological edge: The designs for a mark four battle computer, class five ECM, and neutron blasters.

We'll have to head for Zhardan too, but by a more roundabout route; as Sasha said as we discussed it today, her face buried in her hands, we seem to have no other choice. I wished I could somehow comfort her, but felt helpless to do so ... and saw that softness again, as he looked at her, in Graur's face across the table. It was a gentleness, a helplessness, a love, that echoed mine for the human woman whose courage and curiosity and openness to alien peoples has brought us together - more perhaps than even my knowledge of the Meklar. I looked to Miristys and saw the same soft love in its crystalline glow. It is not the love of male for female - we are none of us even of the same species, and Silicoid Miristys isn't male - it is a love born of friendship forged by trust through crises of deadly danger, and a love above all for Sasha, for who she is within herself. I don't know when or how it took Captain Graur, but it has taken him entirely; the love I feel for Sasha I see magnified a thousand-fold in his massive ursine heart.

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Next: Division

Imperium 23 - First Strike

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Sasha gently consoles me, but though she's right that it's not my fault, that fact will not save Klystron. If I'm reading the signals correctly, the Meklar have bombers in production at all three of their southernmost stars, and are so sure of success, they're sending half the population of Meklon ahead to meet their still-unbuilt fleet and assimilate Klystron in two years! The Silicoid ambassador is useless, in the thrall of Strader, taking his gibberings for transcendent wisdom. It will not hear me or send a message to Carnax. I have discussed this now at length with Sasha, and we believe our best hope lies in the Silicoid governor of Maretta, where we first met. It will remember me from its first arrival on that world, and is close enough to the Meklar front to feel the threat of their impending attack, especially with its ultra-poor world. If anyone can and will persuade Carnax of the true danger, it is the one. There is no time to travel there; by holophone, there may be little hope, but I must try! I prepare my presentation as best I can: The deadly nature of the Meklar, their history on their world, their secret preparations to invade - Sasha warns that it paints too bleak a picture, so I add more, to make it clear how vulnerable the Meklar remain if the threat is addressed now, before they begin their attack.

Hyperspace, 2411: What could I have said that I didn't? What gesture, what tone of voice, that I missed? I've been agonizing over the same questions all year. The governor of Maretta insisted that I come to explain in person, and though it's true that what little success I've had in communicating with Silicoids has always been face-to-glowing-maw, I explained - or tried - a thousand times to tell it there was no time, that I would arrive too late. I travel there now, on a smuggler ship fitted with advanced sublight engines whose captain Sasha persuaded to carry us there, but I dread what I may learn on my arrival. I only hope Maretta will still be a Silicoid world!

Sasha is affected too. I fear I've given her nightmares, but she has told me it's not me - it's them. She has seen the Meklar trade drones swarming through spaceports in mindless coordination, the implants and the ships themselves; she's seen the transmissions I was able to intercept thanks to my long association with them. She can well imagine what it will be like if they execute their plans, and her nightmares spring from those dark imaginings. When I can - when my fears keep me awake late at night and I see her tossing and turning - I go to her side, to comfort her as best I can, petting the long, silky fur on the top of her head, a mane pooled on her pillow, that flows to the small of her back when she stands. It seems to help, and sometimes, waking or sleeping, she reaches out for me, and I snuggle into her arms, more snug and cozy than the softest sock drawer, her sleeping-clothes nice and soft, her arms safe and sure and strong. I feel safe, content, protected, and find sleep after all, and somehow, holding me close like that seems to ease her nightmares. She whispered to me once, though I didn't fully understand, "You're better than a teddy bear!" It's something to have Sasha, even with the galaxy crumbling all around.

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Aliens' Isle, Maretta, 2412: We come too late. The Meklar war has begun. My only possible role here now is as an advisor; in the meantime, I'll try to reconstruct the events of the past two years as best I can.

Last year, the Meklar sent their entire war fleet to Klystron, together with assault transports in even greater numbers than those already on the way. By the time I arrived here, the battle was over, but I could get no one to tell me what had happened - the Silicoids were all in a frenzy, hurrying to and fro in their surface craft, and everyone here on the domed Aliens' Isle was Human or Psilon, apart from me. The governor was not responding to my holo-calls from here, and there was no opportunity to speak to the Silicoids directly if they wouldn't come to me; in the few decades since I left, Maretta's pristine oceans and island shores had been turned to a chemical wasteland as total as on Cryslon itself.

One young Silicoid was present after all though: A beautiful child grown from crystals like irridescent jewels, soaking in the shallow waters just within the island's protective geodesic dome. Sasha found it as she explored the edges of the island, and learned of its plight. Miristys was nucleated - apparently, Silicoids are not "born" - here on Maretta, in the early years of the colony; though small in comparison to everyone here but me, to say nothing of the elder Silicoid giants, it would seem that Miristys is a child by Silicoid standards only. It thrived on this beautiful world that I long called home myself, and gloried in its pristine seas, but found that as its elders polluted the atmosphere and oceans, it began to feel ill effects that none of them seemed to notice, until finally its very survival was threatened, and it had to retreat inside this dome, and watch the world it loved, where it grew up, turn slowly toxic and deadly outside. And lately, as well, it had watched its people come under full-scale attack from RBO-23.

Earlier this year, the Meklar battle fleet struck at Klystron, razing all its defensive bases before the Silicoids had finished assembly of a planetary shield. The local fleet - just a handful of Manta destroyers - was able to escape before the Meklar could assimilate their crew, and are headed back here now. They managed to kill some fifteen Meklar bombers, but that was all.

OOC Note: They wouldn't have gotten any, but I'd decided to try playing this whole game without using the "Wait" button for any reason.

Right on the heels of the bombers, the transports flooded in, pouring out more than twice as many soldier drones as there were Silicoids to defend.

It was a slaughter - tens of millions died - but the worst was yet to come, as I well knew. The Silicoid dead and injured were collected and analyzed with surgical precision, some dismembered, some kept intact or "repaired" with pieces of the slain ... or of other species from Meklon ... or both. And everyone left alive, or restored to something like living condition, was grafted with machinery, injected with nanites designed specifically to interface with their silicon physiology ... and added to the collective. Pieces of Silicoid bodies were distributed among the injured of the Meklar soldiers - and those deemed in need of upgrades for other reasons. The biological distinctiveness of the Silicoids of Klystron - or whatever kind of distinctiveness it was - was added to the Meklars' by the most violent and violating means conceivable. Of the hundred and twenty seven millions who did battle for the planet, there were but 36 million survivors - some who had fought on the Silicoid side, some who had been among the invaders, all impregnated now with cybernetic implants and controls. All now are RBO-23's drones: All Meklar. Compelled by their new circuitry, the Silicoids revealed their knowledge of the most advanced Silicoid ECM Jammer - thankfully, just a Mark III unit that was all but worthless in comparison with other forms of both Meklar and Silicoid computer technology, but nonetheless another case of technological distinctiveness added to the endless-seeming Meklar supply.

Yet there is hope in all of this! What all my years of pleading and reasoning could not accomplish, the Meklar have done for me in one swift act of violence: Carnax has realized at last that my warnings were true, and officially declared war on the Meklar! ... And though "realized" and even "reason" might be misnomers in the case of Strader, whatever impelled him to do so, he too has already declared war!

I empathize with Miristys as only a fellow victim of the Meklar can - another who has lost friends and family to their nightmarish assimilation, and knows those very people may now be active drones of the Meklar, working mindlessly against us and all the rest of the galaxy. Yet there is between us another bond of empathy: We're isolated from every other member of our species by the courses our races have taken - I because my fellow Acerites became Meklar, Miristys because its fellow Silicoids have turned its home and all their worlds into toxic wastelands where it cannot survive. More than a common enemy, we have almost a common history - a common feeling of total loss that can't be expressed in language. By a twist of fate, neither of us has a role or a place in our native societies - mine because it no longer exists, Miristys because it can't survive in its people's midst. I offer Miristys my company, for what little it may be worth, and a share in my mission - my purpose. With Sasha's blessing, I invite it to travel with me and help to aid and advise the free peoples of the galaxy in their inevitable wars with the Meklar, if it is willing ... and it agrees. Its light glows bright and warm within it, as if reacting to the friendship that Sasha and I have offered with renewed hope and life, deep in its being. We ask and learn of its needs, and plan to meet it here daily until we can assemble a portable habitat better suited to it than this little pool between the colony dome and the shore. Then, I hope, someday, we may find a place for it to live and grow, not in a habitat or dome, but free on an open world, without its people's deadly pollutants, and without dread of the Meklar wars.

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Next: Flight!