Evelithria watched, paralyzed, as the primitive spoke through the mouth of her own ship. She saw the cracked skull mask featuring a bullet hole. She digested the words—the audacity, the sheer, unadulterated arrogance!

  "...You looked at eight billion humans down below and saw inventory. Saw future servants. Saw meat..."

  She saw the moon growing larger in the viewport.

  "...Admiral Evelithria ordered her execution. Her own niece. No evidence. No trial. No mercy..."

  Evelithria listened, her Fractal Engine heart flaring with absolute hatred.

  “I'm going to bend you over my knee and… teach ALL OF YOU to love humanity!” The recording reached its crescendo. The reactor cores flared. The hull disintegrated. And then, the Slayer's Sword, her capital ship, the pride of the Third Fleet smashed into the lunar surface in a blinding flash of utter annihilation.

  Evelithria stared at the view of the impact crater.

  It was a statement. A gravestone. A permanently-sheared spot of reality, teeming with over a hundred Astral fountains that now buried her hoard beyond recovery.

  "He destroyed it," she breathed, the reality finally sinking in. "He destroyed my beautiful ship. My hoard. My Sword..."

  "It's worse than mere destruction," Kipriss noted with a beak click. "The memetic payload... originated from the ship. Someone unlocked the safety protocols on the bridge. Someone sabotaged the network. Someone opened all the doors and disabled the defense wards. Unknown Omnids and prads helped the Emperor of Humanity, turning your ship into a broadcast tower for this... viral message. Undoubtedly it was the runaway Princess, plus some others. When the speech occurred, all of our Seers observed a manifestation of a vast, liminal V-cast spire stretching between the Earth and Slayer’s Sword. An unknown fox-themed Omnid Archmage assisted the Emperor from somewhere in the vicinity of Cascade, North America."

  “Cascade is under my occupation,” Sillicia said. “I will find this fox-mage and bring them to justice.”

  "Who helped the human Emperor?" Evelithria demanded. "Who was on the bridge? Who betrayed me? Who ordered the evacuation?!"

  "We don't know," Ixthia said, sounding almost delighted by the mystery. "The Astral Fountains and the crash wiped everything clean. It's a forensic dead zone. Was it a traitor in our midst? A broken Gun Unit? A rogue Datamancer? Did the Emperor possess one of the crew remotely with some kind of concealed artifact? Or perhaps..." She trailed off momentarily. "Perhaps he simply offered our ‘bolds something better. Just as I warned you."

  "The primitive spoke of love," Obliss sneered. "Of friendship."

  "A crude, unrefined form of pleasure-binding," Ixthia corrected. "He offered them emotional ecstasy, and our own ‘bolds allowed him to crash our capital ship. He is playing my type of game, Evely, not yours. And he just made a winning move."

  "He is… just… Just a human," Evelithria hissed. "I didn't sense any magic in his soul when I had him executed. None!"

  "He is a clever rival," Ixthia said. "And a dangerous one. The gunshot to the head clearly didn’t kill him. He turned your own Sword against you by offering the crew a different kind of high. We have no idea who pressed the buttons, who gave him the wheel, or who unleashed the entropy... but we know why they did it. It happened because you didn’t offer your kobolds… enough pleasure, enough rewards. It’s as simple as that, darling."

  "I..." Evelithria grit her teeth, fists clenching until her claws drew blood from her own palms. "I will strangle him myself! I will find him! I will peel him apart layer by layer!”

  Ixthia shrugged. "You’re welcome to do whatever you desire as a Frontenachii Elder. For now, we’ve voted to strip you of all kobold-lease rights and Third Fleet Commanders since you obviously don’t know how to manage them properly. Now, if you'll excuse us, Legate Evely... we have a fleet to manage. And you have a briefing to prepare for Admiral Colette. I suggest you work on your explanation for why and how you allowed a supposedly magic-less species to dismantle your ship."

  “Stripped of my kobolds and Commanders?! WHAT?!” Evelithria barked.

  "Rebellious kobolds don't harvest resources. Dead ships don't conquer worlds. And dead Admirals..." She smiled cruelly. "...don't give anyone orders."

  Evelithria went still. "What are you saying?"

  "I am saying," Ixthia said, "Under Frontenachii Naval Code, Article 14, Section 3, an Admiral who loses their capital ship due to extreme negligence can be immediately stripped of rank and possessions pending a full tribunal and a vote of a Legate majority."

  "I am the Theater Commander!" Evelithria roared, standing up. "I fully colonized forty seven resource-rich systems! I expanded the Aegis further than any of you! You cannot strip me of—"

  "We already did," Vethisa stated. "The vote was unanimous. You were... incapacitated at the time."

  "You are no longer Admiral Evelithria," Ixthia said, savoring the words. "You have no flagship. You are therefore, a mere private passenger on Commander Sillicia's vessel until further notice."

  Evelithria looked for support and found none there. "You... you… We are in the middle of conquering a world—”

  She probed the minds of the present Legates and found only glee and hatred there. The bastards were feeding on her fear and panic!

  "The kobolds need to be punished severely!” She desperately tried to redirect the conversation. “Public executions! Permanent wall splicing! They need to be reminded—"

  "The kobolds have been reminded of nothing except that they can hurt us," Ixthia replied. "And every Legate and Commander has been reminded that the creatures who dress us, feed us, and guard our sleep can turn against us at any moment if properly motivated." She paused. "We have larger concerns than your desire for vengeance."

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  "Larger than a fleet-wide rebellion and loss of my ship?!"

  "Yes." Ixthia's claws drummed against the table. "Such as the inconvenient fact that all of Omnithornia heard that blasted speech."

  The words hit like a gunshot to the temple. Evelithria felt her extremities begin to tremble with the first stirrings of a panic attack she hadn't felt in ages.

  "Given the catastrophic loss of our capital ship, the irrecoverable destruction of our primary hoard, the elimination of our main resurrection facility, the destruction of the Entertainment and Pleasure deck, the compromise of our Weapon-Net, the coordinated kobold uprising, and the... embarrassment of the situation, the Legates have determined that completely new leadership is required."

  The Admiral choked.

  "You removed yourself from command when you lost the Slayer's Sword." Ixthia's voice held no sympathy. "An Admiral without a capital ship is not an Admiral. An Admiral without a hoard is not an Admiral. You've been demoted. This decision is final and permanent. Also, we will not be splicing anyone to any walls. An Omnid Stabalist ship just gated to this dimension straight from Omnithornia, tracking the liminal spire’s signal. They wish to... monitor our fleet, so that we do not commit any local atrocities. We voted to show them the interior of the ships of the Sixth Fleet as an example of our... excellent community service of helping doomed species turn their dying worlds into lovely gardens."

  "You can't DO this!" Evelithria shrieked. "I am EVELITHRIA FRONTENACHII! You can't—"

  “I believe that we’re done here,” Ixthia stood up. “Let us enjoy the sabotage-free pleasure deck of Commander Sillicia’s ship. For her impudence, Legate Evelithria is thus banned from participating any further in vital fleet matters. Any further antagonistic action from her will merely cement our decision and censor her further. Admiral Colette Frontenachii of the Sixth Fleet will take over as our temporary figurehead. All in favor?”

  Green arrows ignited as the Legates voted with V-ring taps.

  Evelithria wanted to jump Ixthia, to tear out her throat, but several female wolf and shark kobolds stepped out of alcoves, aiming their railguns at the ex-Admiral.

  As the holograms winked away and Ixthia’s party rapidly departed through the doors, Evelithria spun toward the shadowy corner where the Keeper stood with the cheetah.

  "KEEPER!" The ex-Admiral howled desperately. "You were supposed to guard the resurrection temple! What happened?"

  Keeper Morrígan, released the kobold and glided forward, bandaged, pale face unmoving. The black and gold robes flowed around her skeletal form like liquid shadow.

  "I died as I had foreseen and my temple was lost," the Ankou’s voice carried the weight of steel-like certainty. "I know not what occurred, as I cannot remember the last five minutes of my death, for they were fractalized from my soul by the Song of the Wormwood Star, the Herald of Entropy. I warned you, Evelithria. I saw the liminal tree wreathed in gold flames. I saw the ship shearing in twain. I saw the fountains of unlife. I saw devastation and ruin like no other."

  "And you did NOTHING to stop it?!"

  "I warned you that reincarnating the Princess through the Well would steer your fate toward absolute disaster. I told you to use Phoenix Tears! I told you that if you proceeded, the Sword would slip from your grasp." Morrígan's skeletal fingers flexed. "You dismissed my warnings as riddles. You proceeded anyway. And now… a new path unfolds forward."

  "This isn't MY fault!" Evelithria's knees hit the floor.

  It definitely wasn’t a posture of submission, her new body was simply too weak, lacking magic to support her elder soul, trembling too violently to stand.

  Tears filled her eyes. "I did everything RIGHT! I had the Princess under control! I had the Temple secured! Someone ELSE failed! Someone ELSE is responsible!"

  “Who?” The Keeper asked.

  "How the fuck should I know?!" she wept. “I need to… I want—"

  "You want a great many things, Evely," the Keeper said. “Alas, you cannot attain them anymore. You have no power here anymore. The Third Fleet now belongs to another.”

  "You planned this. You and Ixthia's party! You’re all complicit!” the ex-Admiral cried.

  “I, like the others, simply choose the best path forward after my incarnation,” Morrígan stated.

  “What fucking path?!” Evelithria growled.

  "The Green Admiral will plant her gardens." Morrígan's voice took on a hollow, resonant quality. "She will tend them with the hands of her dryad Terraformers. She will believe in gradual victory. Alas, the rune of transformation hangs inverted over this subscribed world."

  Evelithria felt utter despair consuming her. The Keeper was sputtering more vague, useless gibberish.

  "Dagaz! I see the hands of infinity reaching from the nothingness betwixt the stars." Morrígan's skeletal fingers traced patterns in the air that left afterimages of pale, violet light. "Five fingers on each hand, and between them, eight billion souls of this world. The hands cup. They cradle. They entwine. They carry. And what they carry grows stronger with each breath and each glance. The Emperor commands. The Starry Void devours fear and pulls under. The Song fractalizes and decays. The Dragon judges and blooms. The Sea of Fox sees, understands all and laughs! Her twenty eight thousand eyes SEE me and bite at my Astral hooks, tear them apart. I... cannot see... further ahead, cannot attain greater clarity. My threads are torn."

  Evelithria opened and closed her mouth, words dying in her throat like suffocated birds.

  There was no logic here. No reason. Just a skeletal maniac speaking in riddles about cradle-hands, fox eyes, Dagaz runes, surrounded by armed female kobolds of Division 881 who looked at a Frontenachii Admiral without a shred of proper terror. Evelithria refused to accept her demotion, refused to believe that she had fallen so far after having it all in her grasp.

  The meeting room felt too small. The air tasted unnervingly stale.

  With a strangled noise of pure, impotent rage, Evelithria rose and spun on her heel. She wiped her tears and marched toward the door. Her newly printed legs trembled with the effort to maintain a regal stride.

  She half-expected a railgun blast to the back of her head. Part of her almost wished for it, as such would be a cleaner end than this bureaucratic dismantling of her existence.

  No shot came. Silence reigned.

  Evelithria burst into the corridor of The Abyssal Sorrow.

  It too taunted her.

  Compared to the soaring, cathedral-like architecture of The Slayer’s Sword, this hallway was utilitarian and cramped, featuring zero spliced humans. Sillicia was clearly a cheap bastard, choosing to cut every possible corner to save every O-cent.

  She needed to find a place to think. To plan. To breathe.

  But where? She didn't know this ship's layout. It was a Planet-Dominator vessel, a glorified tin can compared to her Leviathan-class masterpiece.

  A figure leaned against the wall nearby, picking at his teeth with a claw.

  It was the wolf. Bradberry Pimm. Ixthia’s pet from… Ferguson, or whatever.

  He looked up as she approached, expression devoid of the groveling fear that should greet a Frontenachii Admiral. He just looked… mild.

  "You," Evelithria snarled, marching up to him. "Wolf. Direct me to the VIP suites. Immediately."

  Bradberry blinked slowly. He scratched his ear, then looked at his nails. "The VIP suites are full, ma'am."

  "Ma'am?" Evelithria’s voice rose to a shriek. "I am Admiral Evelithria! I demand—"

  "You're a cast-out Legate with no ‘bolds to your name," Bradberry corrected. "I was right there, you know."