Xeno Core

The spear tip sails past his face, almost clipping the middle secondary eye. Bruen maintains his balance easily as he swerves around his opponent.

He jabs with his own spear, but converts the momentum into a upward spin right as Yosip brings his weapon up to block. The two hafts collide. His tendrils ache from the jarring impact, but he reverses the motion and brings the spear head down.

Yosip releases the spear and raises one arm to block. At the same time, he pivots upon one leg, kicking the weapon at Bruen.

The young general uses his free tendrils to catch the incoming weapon, but the shift in his center of balance causes his spear attack to glance off the cybernetic arm harmlessly. He glides back, spears spinning on either side of him.

The alien continues spinning, and kicks with the already raised leg. Fire flares from the other leg, and Yosip hurtles forward in a blur.

Bruen ducks low. One spear he levels to intercept the charge, the other points upward. Before Yosip reaches him, however, the gray officer slams his lead foot down and fires the jets again.

He leaps high above Bruen, too high to reach with either spear. Just as he passes overhead, Yosip releases a hidden weapon.

Pebbles rain down on Bruen, bouncing harmlessly from his reinforced carapace. Yosip lands behind him, stirring the dust from the stone.

"I win," grunts the alien. "If those had been micro grenades, your soldiers would be wiping you off their uniforms."

"True," agrees Bruen. "But if those had been grenades, they would have exploded when you used your arms to block, killing both of us."

Yosip has no answer, and looks to his young companion. The dark furred creature sits next to Don Gelly, watching the sparring match.

"Yer gonna have to fight again," opines the Don.

"Yeah!"

"Later," grunts Yosip. "Need to refuel and tighten the shocks a bit." He swings his left arm in a circle. It makes a grinding noise. "And replace that."

"Are these greased?"

Bruen holds one of the pebbles in a single tendril, turning it slowly to observe it.

"Nope," Yosip answers. "That's left over fuel."

"Took us ages to find rocks the right size and shape to fit in his tank," adds Han.

"I still think I could have beaten you, back then," complains Yosip, removing the offending arm.

Bruen starts to answer, but a synthesized voice interrupts. "Nonsense. Mos Bruen is the superior close-range fighter of the two of you. No offense, Yosip, but I knew his trainers personally."

"I shot him in the face," boasts Han happily.

"Another time, then," Bruen answers brusquely. "I've duties to attend, anyway."

"Fine, fine. It's about closin' time, is it no?" Don Gelly stands and stretches, eliciting pops and cracks from his inefficient musculature.

"Indeed."

The group breaks up, with Bruen and Gelly walking together to where the tents are set up. Yosip and his young companion head toward the temporary supply depot with a final farewell. Much to Bruen's relief, they take the device housing the entity that claims to be Mos Denn.

When they arrive at the tents, they're greeted by Drev. The soldier shares the Don's tent, serving as both guard and servant. A position Bruen knows very well. He dismisses the complicated feeling as the checks on the soldiers. Everything seems satisfactory. Guards patrol the area in shifts while the bulk of the company rests.

Bruen watches the two enter their tent before going into his own. Only large enough to hold a rack for his spear and other gear and his cot, it's still better than the average soldier receives. Most sleep three to a tent. He hangs his belt and spear and climbs into his cot.

Thoughts of his training fill his head as the general lays upon his cot. Various war heroes from many cities can claim the role of his teacher. Not just combat, either. As personal aide to a retired general, Bruen has the necessary skill in etiquette, basic and advanced runic literacy, and several languages.

Spear, knife, staff, and shock whip training mixed with unarmed dueling in the standard forms. Mos Denn's personal fighting techniques, forms favoring flexibility and redirecting the opponent's attention with false movements.

He almost misses those days, being sure of what each morning would bring. He lets out a slow breath and drifts off into fitful sleep.

As he tosses upon the thin cot, images play out in his mind. Bruen dreams of things he's never encountered and places he has never been. He dreams that he wears coarse gray robes.

He finds himself reclining in an alien construct. Around him, thin metal walls enclose a precious breathable atmosphere, protecting it from the greedy vacuum just beyond. In front of him is a square screen holding a flat stylized projection of local space. Bruen isn't familiar with the format, nor with the region it represents, but senses that this is no mere fancy created by his overstressed mind.

His dream self reaches tendrils, weak and palsy, to the alien control board. The display shows his location, travelling along unfamiliar star ways. At his touch, the display changes. With his waking mind, Bruen recognizes this as technology like that his new allies use.

The thaumatist, for Bruen feels the bandolier across his torso, weighted with vials of dust, is gleeful for reasons that Bruen cannot quite grasp. The sensation quickly fades. In the manner of a dream, he senses that many days pass quickly by, broken into segments by quick meals from a fast-decreasing supply.

His only companion in the tiny room is silence. With eyes that see beyond the thin surface of reality, the thaumatist studies his surroundings in solitude. Energy flows through the walls in thick sheets, something Bruen remembers from his own life, but that astounds the one he watches. The silence finally breaks, shrill screeching from the construct assaults their overlapping senses.

The alien controls respond increasingly slowly to the thaumatist's touch, until they remain lifeless under his tendrils. The whining grows weaker over the next few days until it too ceases. The air becomes thicker as well and harder to breathe. The last dried fruit goes bad, but he eats it anyway, driven by intense hunger. Delirium seizes the being.

Bruen watches as, in an inspired fit of madness, the thaumatist ingests all the remaining dust he possesses. The intent is to recharge the circuitry, but tissues pushed to their limits lose cohesion and melt into the alien vessel. Too much to control, the dust reacts within his body, forcing cells into new alignments.

His body spreads and grows. It becomes an entire ecosystem, sustaining itself by consuming everything inside the small craft. Tendrils become vine-like veins, connecting disparate parts of himself. He continues living, defying entropy. Drifting in an endless black sea.

Feelers escape the thin metal skin of the dying vessel. Dust, ice, and other tiny debris clings to them, to be carried inside and added to the growing mass that was once a person. Chance collisions with larger rocky bodies provides more material to work with. Slowly the vessel is subsumed into the body encased in a thick stone shell.

As the local space clears, the being inside once again begins to starve. Entropy dooms any closed system.

To prevent that finality, Bruen's host self reaches with its mind into higher realms. There seemingly endless potential cascades upon itself, never noticing a small amount being syphoned off. This is nothing unusual, but the purpose to which the energy is put is.

It takes an enormous amount of energy to create matter, even a tiny amount of it. His body warps further under the influence of the dust, allowing it to channel the needed power through itself. As it grows the former thaumatist applies itself to increasing the flow of potential. Runic arrays, quickly forming and quicker warping, draw themselves upon the insides of the shell of gathered stone.

Tentacles elongate and wrap around the shell, dragging wires and circuitry behind them. The shuttle comes apart piece by piece, spreading out into the spherical enclosure. The influence of the runes causes space to warp inside, stretching tight.

Energy pours through the horribly mutated body, burning worse than any venom. Particles spontaneously generate. Subatomic particles compound to form atoms, then molecules. Finally stone, air, and crystals form, composed of dangerous and unstable ions. Time passes like this for a lifetime, a moment.

Then the expanding shell breaks. Pressure from within causes the atmosphere to spew out in crystalline clouds. No matter, the gasses will be reclaimed in time. More pressing are the warm bodies entering the creature's domain.

"You can guess what happens from here, I hope," echoes Somner Zek's voice through his mind.

Bruen finds himself standing next to the thaumatist, unseen by the wraiths that play out their cursed history. "One of ours."

She answers, "He's been out of contact for seasons. He was last seen pursuing a valuable line of research, and my elders have been annoyingly vocal. Very rude to offer such power and then disappear."

Hands close upon his carapace, pulling him from the dream. Many of the small details of the dream already fade from his mind. One thing, above all else remains, however. The name Nuhst.

"Wake up, Squiver," Gelly growls down at him. "There's trouble screamin' for blood in the outer tunnels."