Fight for your right to...um...do something. If you want to. If not, well, as long as you remember Paramount owns Star Trek, Decker created Star Traks, and Meneks writes BorgSpace, all should be good. Hopefully.

Rage Against the Machine

Weapons stared up at the ceiling of Maintenance Bay #2. Slight discolorations formed a blob which resembled either a Mark IX phaser rifle or a puppy. It all depended upon the contrast setting of Weapons' ocular implant. It was a familiar view...from this particular workbench in this particular maintenance bay. If other bench and bay combinations were considered, then Weapons could tally dozens of visual abstracts detailing a plethora of fanciful shapes, including one that looked like a silhouette of Elvis. Fat version.

"Hmmm. Prefrontal cortex governor sub-2b is slightly out of phase with sub-2c. It needs adjustment. Remember, if you start to smell garlic, that means the glandular pre-sets for implant 18f have become misaligned; and I'll need to know right away, or at least before the pink halos appear." The voice originated from outside Weapons' immediate field of view.

A wordless acknowledgement was sent.

Every few weeks, Weapons was required to undergo adjustment of a number of neural governors and implants. The devices assured his submission to the Collective, constantly watching for those impulses which might herald nascent thoughts of rebellion. In truth, Weapons was a drone on the cusp of the rogue label, always one small step from the precipice whereupon the tenants of the Whole would be rejected. The sole reason Weapons was tolerated, even on a ship dedicated to assimilation imperfection, was due to his tactical genius. For that same reason, no attempt had ever been made to execute a mental reformat. If the psyche of Weapons ceased to be, then there was a great chance that the resource he represented would be erased as well. The Greater Consciousness was not quite sure if it would ever be so desperate as to call upon Weapons' innate tactical brilliance, but it was loath to discard a potential tool, especially one it had went through so much trouble to acquire in the first place.

Either drone maintenance or assimilation hierarchy could perform the check-up, duty assigned to the latter if the former had an especially heavy repair docket. At this time, because few units required surgeries or other upkeep procedures, Weapons had reported to Maintenance Bay #2, as demanded by the subroutine which tracked such matters.

"Any garlic? Halos?" asked 68 of 77, head finally coming into view.

Weapons was strapped to the bench with muscles paralyzed; and while he could supplement visual input from a bay camera, he knew the adjustment process intimately. He needed neither to see his exposed brain nor the unit prodding it.

{No. Be sure to scan sub-5a. Diagnostics claim all is fine, but I've been having the occasional sub-aural hallucination for the last four cycles during battle-sim sessions. I cannot make out any words, but the impression I receive is of...hunger.}

68 of 77 peered down at his patient. "Are you sure you are not cross-channeling 106 of 185?" The named drone, incredibly obese before a forced diet following his assimilation, occasionally tried to eat things, disregarding the fact that food and the nonfunctional digestive system of a Borg did not get along.

Weapons narrowed his single eye.

"Fine, fine, I'll add sub-5a to the list."

As usual for Weapons, his end of the conversation was internalized. The circumstances of his assimilation had left his vocal cords impaired; and while an implant had been installed to restore functionality, neither it nor the series of replacements had worked. Or, to be more precise, they had worked, as long as one disregarded quirks that spontaneously retuned the synthesizer to a high pitched squeal. Or an infrasound rumble. Or to sultry sex-kitten. Eventually the decree had been made that some upstream element of the nerves connecting to the implant were damaged, and that it was not worth the effort to find the lesion. That left Weapons to endure the artificial voice box, as well as the irregular efforts of drone maintenance to make adjustments. In consequence, Weapons had long ago become resigned to the expectation that it would not be his voice when he spoke and, thus, rarely attempted to vocalize anymore. Not that such was a handicap when all drones were linked via the dataspaces. To supplement his internal vocalizations, he utilized a greater amount of facial expressions and body language than the average drone, as well as maintained a library of wordless 'shorthand' impressions. And, in the case of an emergency, there was always the PADD he wore about his neck.

It had been quiet on Cube #238 for the last month. Except for the short-lived excitement capturing a dozen individuals hailing from a misguided organization looking to 'free' drones, Weapons and his hierarchy had been submerged in the never-ending regime which were tactical sims. As usual. Lugger-class cubes rarely engaged in battle, after all. However, as of a week ago, the newly assimilated drones had been off-loaded at the cube's most recent port-of-call, and elements of command and control, Prime included, were cautiously optimistic the remainder of the duty cycle would pass with its customary dullness. Cube #238 was not catching up to its schedule, but neither was it falling further behind.

Personally, Weapons could do with a bit more excitement. Real-life was a much better instructor in the tactical arts than even the most well-programmed virtual or holographic simulation.

Suddenly an unfamiliar low-pitched thrum caught Weapons' attention. Governor sub-5a? No, a swift aural diagnosis indicated that he was in fact hearing - or, rather, feeling in his bones - the noise. A query was sent to 68 of 77.

"Hmmm? What?" 68 of 77 paused, head tilted at an angle. "Your species is obviously more sensitive to vibrations than mine. Just a moment." The drone disappeared. About a minute later, there was a sharp *thwack* sound, followed by 68 of 77's reappearance. "There, all taken care of." The drone maintenance unit once more vanished from view as the next cerebral governor was scanned for adjustment needs.

Weapons rolled his eye in exasperation. {What or who was that?}

"Hmmm?" A pause in activity. "Oh, just 56 of 370. Doctor has been continuing the claustrophobia treatments, a few sessions a week. The poor unit can get in and out of his alcove now, no problem, and perform most engineering duties...as long as the assignment is not the interstitial spaces. Or a room with a ceiling less than three meters overhead. Personally, I do not believe 56 of 370 will ever be cured: keep him hullside or in one of the cargo holds. Doctor on the other hand...."

Weapons knew exactly what 68 of 77 meant. Doctor was ever devising 'creative' treatment options, particularly for his 'tricky' patients. Weapons - most drone in the sub-collective - knew to say 'no' when certain suggestions were offered. 56 of 370, on the other hand, was still too recent from his existence as a well-adjusted drone to be able to reject Doctor's more dubious treatment propositions. Checking a camera, Weapons found 56 of 370 blindfolded and hanging upside down from a ceiling-mounted contraption.

The drone really needed to learn to think for himself...at least sufficiently to refuse treatment.

"If 56 of 370 bothers you again," continued 68 of 77, "just tell me. Doctor's orders demand complete tranquility, to become one with the adverse situation, for at least twenty more minutes. Enforcement is via tactile persuasion." Translation: if 56 of 370 did anything other than breath, he was to be thumped. "Anyway, this governor looks fine. I'll take a look at sub-5a right now since I have the appropriate lobe pulled back."

Weapons sighed, then squinted slightly as he returned his gaze to the ceiling tiles. Perhaps the blob was neither rifle nor puppy, but rather a novelty hot air balloon in the shape of a fat frog.

*****

Even at a distance of nearly seventeen light hours, where the solar wind produced from the central star was no longer sufficient to ward off the gales of the interstellar medium, the Xenig Homesystem was an industrial fairyland. To exist as a machine does not preclude a deep aesthetic sensibility and appreciation of art. Girding the aged yellow dwarf to a distance of 1.8 AU was a gossamer belt, made small only because of perspective. Even from afar it sparkled, glints of gold and silver and crimson punctuated by the occasional purple plume emitted by a station-keeping thruster the size of a small moon. To look beyond the visual would be to see an even greater spectrum of colors, of alloys chosen as much for the beauty they imparted as for their strength.

The RingWeb was home to hundreds of billions of Xenig without space-faring chassis. After all, not everyone desired to seek the stars once the creche had been left behind. Despite the ground-bound population, there was no crowding (except for those who desired density) because the crowning engineering achievement of the mech race represented the land area of many thousand terrestrial planets.

Tens of billions more Xenig did live in space, vacuum no more a hindrance to the machine race than the differing mixes of atmosphere maintained on vast sections of the RingWeb. Although seventeen light hours was too far to directly see the myriad of chassis which flitted about the inner system, if was sufficient to know that the Xenig hull was as varied as the Xenig mind. In truth, it was very few - tens of thousands - that left Homesystem to interact with the organic clades that dominated the universe. Most Xenig were content to live their long lives, potentially a significant fraction of a galactic revolution, within the system of their species' genesis.

Who knew when the Progenitors might decide to return? To be gone would be to miss their arrival. Hoodin Prime, the original Progenitor birth-planet, had even been reserved intact against the possibility of the Progenitor return.

And that was the only part of Homesystem that was intact.

All other usable matter, to the smallest rock and comet of the Oort cloud, had long ago been gathered. No planets other than sacred Hoodin Prime marred the cleanliness of Xenig space. What had not been broken down and refined for use in the RingWeb or other endeavor was carefully stockpiled in specific orbits. More material was always being imported - systems within twenty light years of the Xenig star were stripped - by those individuals with a love of the mining arts or whom proclaimed the physical tedium of ore transport as a way to unshackle the mind.

Gu forced his sensors away from the lovely jewel which was the vibrantly beating heart of Xenig society. Despite his physical location at the edge of the solar system, he was not truly isolated. No Xenig was, nor could be, for the data-rich Realm, the Xenig equivalent of the GalacNet, only more so, encompassed the system to the heliopause. A soul only had to throw forth a carrier wave to be swept into the Realm and instantly connected with hundreds of billions of other minds. No, Gu only felt like he was at the edge of nowhere.

Although Gu was moderately well traveled, he had never felt comfortable away from Homesystem. In his youth he had spent a few centuries collecting gas and other volatiles, taking the opportunity provided by the job to think deep thoughts and consider his future. Then he had traveled, folding here and there as whim took him, observing the myriad of creatures that inhabited the universe. However, he had always returned, longing for the intellectual discourse only possible with another of his kind. A back-process idly wondered how Xenig who left Homesystem for long periods ever withstood the...barbarism that infested the galaxy, the organic and quasi-organic things that seemed to spawn from the primordial ooze with such regularity.

Organics did have their place - the Progenitors were of that clade, after all - but it seemed odd given the billions of years the universe had been in existence that evolution had yet to fully realize the prospect of machine intellect. It was only natural, the progression of self-replicating chemical reactions begetting organics begetting organic intelligence begetting the mech. Oh well, perhaps the Xenig and similar species were just ahead of their time.

=Col! Are we ready?=

=Just a few more minutes. The tertiary quantum sub-harmonic is still coming into alignment with the primary and secondary waves. The profile, however, has been loaded and accepted.=

If Gu had possessed hands, he would have gleefully rubbed them together. Tens of thousands of years of research was about to be validated! It had all started with an epiphany....

Every object without a 'natural' genesis, from chair to client race uplifted to sentience to computer program, bore the quantum imprint of its maker. Theoretically that meant the individual(s) who had crafted the item, but in reality such a faint impression was indiscernible from background chaos. However, given a sufficiently sensitive scanner, it might be possible tease out the broader racial signature from the weave of quantum harmonics that uniquely defined the manifestation of each thing within the macroverse.

With that revelation, Gu had created corollaries and testable theses. The notion that had emerged while gliding between thermals in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant matured during millennia of wandering. Finally, Gu had come home; and while still relatively young for a Xenig, he nonetheless had been able to convince the relevant elements of the Transcendence Board with his passion and well constructed arguments to support his work.

Many long years had subsequently been spent systematically sampling quantum signatures. Gu, or one of the apprentices or journeymechs attracted to his quest, had fanned out across the galaxy, collecting scans from literally hundreds of millions of subjects. From such a vast dataset Gu had proved the validity of the racial quantum fingerprint concept, that it could be used to reliably identify the maker of an object.

Unfortunately, that was only a small part of the greater jigsaw puzzle. Gu's goal was to recreate the quantum signature of a Progenitor...and use that signature as an anchor to bring an actual Progenitor to Homesystem.

Using the expertise gained during the analysis of quantum fingerprints, Gu was subsequently able to extrapolate the most likely pattern representative of a Progenitor. He (and his assistants) had not only scanned many Xenig, but also visited a large number of the Artifacts scattered about the galaxy with known, or suspected, Progenitor origin.

That was five thousand Hoodin-years ago, give or take. And the tricky part was yet to come.

Experimentation, building and rebuilding Contraptions, staring at not-quite-functional subroutines and algorithm codes for years at a time, Gu had painfully made progress toward his grand goal. Students had come and gone, some staying longer than others. Finally a breakthrough had occurred, and the first non-Xenig soul - the essence of a living thing - had been translocated to a new body.

That first success had netted the equivalent of a hamster; and it had been a very confused hamster that had found itself yanked from its cozy sawdust and deposited in the body of a spider remote.

Gu had given the hamster-driven spider-mech to his alma mater. The creche-school, he understood, greatly enjoyed the creature. Generations of young mechs were particularly enthralled by their mascot's drive to run for hours, even days, at a time in a vast exercise wheel. Or hoard seed pods from the garden. Or rend fabric to make a nest. The mech-hamster did not need to do these things, but organic instinct prevailed, thus confirming the completeness of the soul transfer.

Sending souls back had subsequently proved to be a bit trickier than abducting them.

However, that was then and this was now. Gu could feel deep within his chassis superstructure that the project was finally about to come to fruition. The bugs, most of them, were worked out...or, at least, sufficiently minor to not cause problems. Truthfully, he desired a bit more time, perhaps another couple centuries, to track down the glitches, but the Transcendence Board as of late had been very direct in their desire to see concrete results. Gu was about to give it to them.

He hoped.

=Ready!= called Col.

=About time,= muttered Gu. Attention turned towards a fellow senior researcher and another student, Froot and Yei respectively. They were preparing the chassis that the Progenitor would inhabit. A hull with a sentient-capable neuro-topology was necessary, else risk lobotomizing their guest. One could not put a sentient soul in a spider-mech remote. That lesson had been learned the hard way. Fortunately, the fickle soul-return subroutine had been working that day.

Replied Froot to Gu's ping of inquiry, =Good to go.=

Digital butterflies fluttering in unstomach, Gu sent his acknowledgement. It was time. He tried to think of something historical to commemorate the moment, but when nothing came, he was forced to say, =Col, do it.=

A virtual button was depressed.

Gu and Froot, Col and Yei, and half a dozen others focused their attention intently upon the empty chassis.

Absolutely nothing happened. And absolutely nothing continued to happen for many long minutes. Ten. Twenty. Several students began to message each other, the Xenig equivalent of whispering. Froot spun himself lazily about his long axis. Finally, Gu had to admit defeat: no Progenitor was to come a'visting today.

Gu's mind was already considering what went wrong, what circuits and code should be checked and how quickly it could be done, as he called to journeymech Col, =Shut it down. And get me the log file from the computer.=

Silence. In the radio spectrum background, the Contraption continued to hum.

=Col? Are you listening to me? If you are Realm gaming again at this most inopportune of times, I will...= Gu's admonishment trailed away as he flipped tail over bow to directly regard the student.

It was not Col. It was Col's chassis floating within the metal cage that designated the Contraption control area, but the soul inhabiting the hull, whoever it might be, was definitely not Col. And it wasn't a Progenitor, neither.

=Who are you? Identify yourself!= demanded Gu as he lit maneuvering thrusters and advanced upon the intruder.

=Who are you? Identify yourself!= The words blasted into Weapons' mind, one more element to a too-confusing situation. An indefinite eternity ago - One minute? Five minutes? Ten seconds? Weapons' timesense was gone - he had been staring at the ceiling of Maintenance Bay #2. And then...he had been here, wherever here was.

Weapons wished he could faint, that he could fall into blissful unconsciousness with the hope that upon awakening the universe would once more be understandable. Unfortunately, to faint was neither 'masculine' nor 'military' nor 'Borg', all descriptors the head of Cube #238's tactical hierarchy associated with himself. And, given the shape rapidly advancing upon his position, he was no longer sure he even had the physiological means to faint.

=Identify yourself! You are not Col!=

Start with a barbell, size unknown because there was no reference frame from which to make a comparison. The bulbous ends were comprised of a complex mosaic of hexagons and trapezoids; and the waist was a smooth cylinder with a very slight taper. A cone with a hexagonal base capped the presumed bow - presumed because that was the end facing Weapons as the thing neared. Except for a double helix of gold and silver which spiraled about the midsection, the skin (hull? carapace?) of the creature was matte black.

Weapons should not have been able to see the creature, much less observe subtle details, for there was little light. Visible light. He did not know where he was, but the sharpness of the pinpoints of light beyond the metal cage which surrounded him suggested vacuum. One star of the millions present, while noticeably brighter than the others, was nonetheless too distant to contribute more than a few lumens to the ambient illumination.

As a Borg drone, he was familiar with the environmental conditions beyond hull of cube or unimatrix. This, however, was different. Beyond the fact that Weapons' point of view included a 360 degree(!) panorama, the lack of atmosphere and chill of space felt...natural.

And that very feeling was yet one more thing adding to Weapons' overall sense of confusion.

=Borg drone? Explain! Now! What is your name? Comply!=

What was his name? Neither designation nor subdesignation seemed relevant. The longer he was here in this unknown somewhere, the more distant the identities of '80 of 150' and 'Weapons' became. They belonged to another, one who was a Borg, one who had been assimilated. He, Jason McKinley, felt as if he was waking from a long dream, or a nightmare.

=Stop babbling! Who are you?=

He was Jason...except he didn't know how to speak, how to relay that most vital of datums.

=JasOn? That will never do! Too many syllables. Jase is a much more acceptable userid.= The barbell glided to a stop just beyond the mesh wire barrier. =And you definitely know how to speak. You babble like an infant, a new soul in its first chassis. You, however, do not have a century to learn self-control. Yei, over here! You've done odd jobs and baby-sitting for creches, so you are deputized to sort this mess.=

Slowly, the confusion of the newly-minted Jase, once a drone of the Borg Collective, lessened.

Xenig. Jase was surrounded by Xenig, was at the outer fringe of the Xenig homesystem, was inhabiting a Xenig chassis. Gu, the userid of the barbell, was the researcher-in-charge of an endeavor to rediscover the mechs' creators. After a period of investigation and experimentation representing the span required for a species to transition from wheel to warp drive, Gu had attempted to reach forth into the cosmos to capture a Progenitor. Or, more precisely, a Progenitor's 'soul', the Xenig term for the unique quantum resonance pattern that manifested itself upon the macroverse as an individual, a person greater than the sum of its program code or chemical processes.

Souls, according to Gu, were transferable. Mech-life souls were obviously superior to organic-life souls because they were unfettered by the body, could easily move between mortal shells. At least that was the conclusion of Xenig philosophers after reflecting upon the question for multiple generations and a span that included full galactic rotations. Belief system aside, Gu's endeavor had obviously failed, for instead of gaining a Progenitor, the souls of Jase and Col had swapped bodies.

Jase was presently floating free of the cage where he had awoken to his predicament. The meshwork was only a very small component of a much larger machine, a device of which mirrors and parabolic dishes featured prominently. Although its official name was a long acronym punctuated by base-18 numerical sequences, Gu and the others upon the team simply referred to it as the Contraption. How the Contraption functioned, Jase did not care; and when faced with the silence of abject incomprehension, particularly when nth dimension recursive integral equations had entered the conversation, Gu had given up attempting to explain.

Now, Jase was waiting for Gu, Froot, and several other Xenig colleagues who had folded in to finish conversing among themselves concerning what to do with their inadvertent visitor. Meanwhile, Yei was patiently giving Jase a crash-course in how to operate his mech body.

=Most of it is automatic. All sentient-capable chassis come with installed subroutines for perception, movement, talking, and so forth. It is just a matter of integration.= Jase had asked Yei how it was he could 'see' without eyes and with a decided lack of visible spectrum. =The hard part, and that which can take young souls centuries to learn, is manipulating individual components of the subroutines. For instance, only percepting in radio or microwave, not the entire spectrum. Or guiding a submech. Speaking of which, do you have your submech in position?=

Jase did not know what he looked like. The mirrors of the Contraption were useless: without a visible light component, they appeared as flat expanses of metal or glass to his senses. Given over to Yei by Gu, the mech had decided to use the desire to see himself as a teachable moment. Yei, or another mech, could have simply sent a visual upon a subband of the frequencies used for intramech communication, but Yei had forbidden it.

Instead, Jase had been prompted to eject a submech, a mobile component of his chassis. Jase's submech inventory consisted of three basic classes, this particular type little more than a globe packed with sensory apparatus and a propulsion system. Trying to drive the little bastard had been exceedingly difficult, but he had finally managed to swing it into place next to an awaiting motile of Yei's. =Yes.=

=The submech is a part of you, an extension of your will, not a remote controlled device.= Yei sighed a burble of static. =It'll come. Now, focus on the perception stream from the submech and you will see yourself.=

=I look like you!= was Jase's first comment.

Yei snorted, or at least that was the closest translation Jase could decide upon for the unvoiced sentiment. =Hardly. My fin structure is completely distinct, not to mention dozens of other differences.= A pause was followed by an admission. =Okay, it is one of the standard space-capable chassis for a post-creche mech, but neither I nor Col have yet earned sufficient token to commission something better. I have made upgrades, though! As has Col. We are all individuals, after all.=

The overall impression Jase had of his borrowed body was of an angular watermelon seed. The bow was the blunt end, stern tapering to a smooth point. Total length was twenty meters, a figure arrived after a long discussion with Yei concerning physical dimensions. Several longitudinal lines comprised of small pyramids swept from nose and across dorsal flanks. On the ventral side - Jase flipped himself over, unwilling to force his submech driving skills - were the outlines of hatches leading to motile storage and a small hold. There were no obvious apertures, dishes, or sensor patches anywhere on the hull surface. Then, there was the little matter of the color....

=I'm lime green! Screaming lime green! With red, um, flowers all over my back!=

=Actually, it is a starburst thermal imprint. It is etched into the hull itself. A tattoo. Er, multiple tattoos. Couple of decades ago Col tried a code inhibitor that was a wee bit stronger than advertised and, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Or, at least that is what he told me after the incident. You should have access to Col's meme storage if you want to judge for yourself.=

Xenig were, using the most basic of definitions, machines. Memories were written into code and physically stored. True, Jase theoretically had access to Col's memes, but the structure of that access resembled an unsorted pile of papers strewn upon the floor by a mad dust devil. Col could probably sort through the chaos quick enough, but Jase had already decided it best to avoid the mess as much as possible. He did not plan to stay, after all. Therefore, instead of following Yei's suggestion, he focused once more upon his hull. Before he could offer another criticism upon his appearance, however, he received a ping, the Xenig version of a polite door knock.

It was Gu.

=A decision has been made,= said Gu.

=Where are you?= asked Jase. The barbell mech was nowhere in his 360 degree field of perception, nor that of his motile.

=The other side of the Contraption...wait, it doesn't matter where I am. That is an organic way of thinking.=

=Researcher Gu,= interjected Yei, =have some patience. He's only-=

=An organic squatting in a Xenig chassis,= replied Gu, finishing the sentence. =I am well aware of the situation, Journeymech Yei. Jase, my colleagues and I are not quite sure what occurred to cause the exchange, but we are going to work on it.=

=Yei told me there was a return function. Can't you just send me back to my body?=

=Well, er, yes. But we are 97.6% sure that Col is now in your body, and I'd like to have him back. He's been a decent student and excellent gopher. Real potential, if a bit lacking in sense at times.=

=Like the tattoos.=

=Exactly, like the tattoos. Anyway, the algorithm would only send you back to your body, assuming it is working at the moment. Col would not be returned. There would be two of you trying to live in one organic body, and Col's chassis would remain empty. My colleagues and I are confident a solution can be devised, but it may take a little while.=

Silence, then =Define "a little while".= Yei had told Jase that Xenig were mortal, but a normal lifespan might extend fifty thousand years, or more. Therefore, it was highly likely that the typical Xenig thought concerning 'a little while' might be completely at odds with Jase's personal definition.

=Oh, not more than a Hoodin-year or so,= said Gu, referencing the time for the Progenitor homeworld to circle its sun. =A decade at most. Given the short lifespan of organics, even machine-augmented ones like Borg, there is a deadline to extract Col.

=A decade,= replied Jase stonily.

=Maybe two decades. No time at all.=

=In other words,= spoke Yei, =I wouldn't recolor Col's chassis, if that is what you have in mind. The paint will have barely bonded to the hull before you'll be back in your natal body. Anyway, let's continue working on fine control of your submech. Since the Contraption'll be powered down for the duration of trying to untangle your problem, athe other journeymechs and I won't really be needed for a bit. Therefore, if I can get your semi-presentable, I'd like you take you insystem for a tour. Maybe a ten-day or so, if you apply yourself?=

"I win. Again."

"Are you sure? I still have 447 grunt units and a submarine."

"The marines are soon to terminate from radiation poisoning. The sub is stuck in the ocean under the ice of a frozen moon. I have destroyed all your other assets, including leaders, base, and ship-building facilities. I have won."

"If you say so! That was fun. For a few minutes I even thought I might win, particularly when your blockade retreated."

Jase sighed. The described maneuver had been a feint, and one easily ignored assuming one took in the whole of the battlefield to search for larger patterns of movement. However, Cha, like the several dozen Xenig before, seemed to have little concept of tactics, even the simulated variety. Jase cleared the battle volume in preparation of his next competitor. He even used his right as winner to severely handicap himself, if only to create a decent challenge.

It had been eight days - the Xenig equivalent was tiered to the rotation of Hoodin Prime and equated 29.3 Terran hours - since the Contraption had plunged him into a Xenig chassis. Already it was becoming difficult to recall his existence as an organic. It was not that he wished to remain a Xenig, but it was also true that his Borg life was increasingly dreamlike and unreal with each passing day.

It had been at day six Jase had attempted an unescorted jaunt insystem. Despite Yei's "How To Be A Xenig" instruction, Jase had found himself edging into boredom and the need for a vista which did not include Contraption or the hulls of senior researchers floating serenely as the minds within discussed exotic mathematics. He had never realized until how sleep or regeneration broke the days into manageable chunks; in contrast, a Xenig was always in uptime. As day five had included an introduction of the folded-space drive that powered space-faring hulls, Jase had felt he had acquired all the necessities to be on his own for a few hours.

=It takes the standard mech decades to gain experience of the intricacies of folded space, even after a soul is released from the creche-school,= berated Yei as he had towed Jase back to the Contraption, the first attempt at solo folding having stranded him 12.2 light years away in the middle of nowhere, =and you don't even know enough at this point to be given a learner's permit. Then there is the little matter that Inner System Control tightly regulates the space lanes. Assuming you were not run over by the first jumbo ore hauler you encountered, ISC would impound your flight chassis for a century, minimum, busting you to bulldozer or bucky-line spinner somewhere on the RingWeb.

=I told you I and my fellow students and journeymechs will take you insysem once you are presentable and semi-civilized. We'll keep you out of the clutches of ISC, show you the sights, take you to a few entertainment dives, and make sure you don't end up in the wrong part of the RingWeb.=

At that point Jase, with Borg forthrightness, had expressed boredom coupled with a dollop of frustration; and Yei had admitted that Jase's background of living in organic macro-time might not be fully compatible with the longer view taken by Xenig.

=I think it is time to introduce you to the Realm. I was going to save it for later, but you were Borg, so I expect you can handle the shock.=

Half a day later, Yei stepped Jase through the appropriate protocols to access the Realm.

The Realm was not the GalacNet. Neither was it the Borg intranets and dataspaces. It was akin to both, as well as a myriad of other immersive computer interfaces. However, the relationship was as the lion to the domesticated cat: the kinship was obvious, but the former was much...more.

Only within Homesystem did the Realm exist. Mechs who traveled away from the gravitational bounds of the primary had to make due with the GalacNet or other pale imitations. It was impossible to convey what the Realm was to one who had never visited. It was chatroom and commerce and perception stream and multimedia emails and billboards and, above all, data. It was the reason why few mechs, relatively speaking, ever left Homesystem. It was the fabric underlying all of Xenig society.

Jase, with his organic-flavored signature, became an instant novelty. Once Yei was confident his charge was not in imminent danger of mental dissolution, he had allowed nearly free rein - a baby-sitter program was leashed to Jase's profile - to explore. A schedule was devised, whereupon a few hours in the Realm would be followed by an equal amount of time refining control of real-world chassis.

Subjected to the competing attraction of so many interested Xenig, it was not unexpected that Jase was eventually shown the vast library of games available in-Realm. And it was also not unexpected that Jase, given his underlying personality, was drawn to the warfare and tactical sims. It was there, as Jase played, and won, game after game that he discovered a fundamental truth of the Xenig that an individual outside the culture would never learn.

The Xenig were horrible in the arts of warfare and tactics.

Xenig, as far as their histories extended, had always been Big Targ on the galactic block. Immutable core code prohibited colonial expansion beyond Homesystem; and while mining was allowable, the mechs always ensured the systems stripped for material were dead, not even the most rudimentary form of life present. While isolationism had not stopped the very occasional race or civilization, coveting Xenig technology, from attacking, it had also only required a dozen or so mechs to guarantee the assaulter graphically learnt the error of its ways.

Then there was the reality which was Xenig society. It was not socialist, nor anarchist, nor democratic, nor feudalistic, nor any of the many political systems which had arisen within the organic-universe. It was...Xenigistic. Rudimentary commerce existed, a quasi debt-and-obligation system which provided 'token' to an individual based upon the service provided to the race as a whole - as a sculptor, or scientist, or philosopher, or ore hauler, or GPS contractor, etcetera. Individualism and opinions were encouraged, as was frequent switching (i.e., every century or so) in apprenticeships of 'young' Xenig trying to determine what life endeavor they enjoyed most. Xenig worked together, but at the same time, to try to rally multiples to wage war (as opposed to retribution) upon another race was more likely than not to garner only questions, argument, and other cross-productive activities.

The previous combined with the fact that a Xenig civil war was inconceivable - base code would never allow it - and the outcome was one in which the race had never had the impetus to learn large-theater tactics. Xenig could not be considered pacifists, a fact well-known to any addressee whom has attempted to bilk a GPS courier from a cash-on-delivery package. Instead, the interest for warfare was just not present.

Such was not to say that in the history of the mech race that a few Xenig per generation had not studied the arts of war. But a hobby or an academic pursuit is quite different from the one who has been on the front lines, who has smelled the reek of blood and spilt intestines and fear, who has a visceral understanding of what war represented. There never had been, and never would be, Xenig generals nor mercenaries.

Without that gut-level understanding of war, Jase had found his Xenig opponents in the battle-sims reverting to brute force calculations. The 'safe' options were inevitably chosen, the battlefield viewed as a series of static snapshots instead of the chaotically organic beast it represented. The sims all had a degree of luck, of chance, of randomness, of chaos built into them whereupon a seeming 1% chance of victory could be a surer bet than the 99% chance. And Jase was very adept at manipulating those odds into his favor, at taming the battlefield beast such that it responded to his hand alone.

On the other hand, while Jase was winning successive (and predictable) rounds of the warfare sims, it nonetheless passed the time in a manner which was not staring at the Contraption.

Yei found Jase as the latter perused a list of potential challengers, attempting to single out the one who might offer the most satisfactory game. His avatar, an embellished vision of his chassis, materialized next to Jase's human-form self-image.

"Did you not hear? A Grand Meeting has been called!" said Yei excitedly.

Jase had seen the note in his email inbox, a brief missive decorated with high priority tags. "So?" He had no idea what a Grand Meeting was nor how it might involve him.

Explained Yei in a hushed tone, "A Grand Meeting is a call for all Xenig to virtual Council. It is only invoked once a generation or so, and only for the most dire of reasons. This one starts in ten minutes."

Pointed out Jase, "I am not Xenig."

Yei tumbled about his y-axis. "Not soul-born, no. But if Col can't be returned, you may be spending the rest of your existence as one of us. Besides, a Grand Meeting is a few-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I wonder what it is about?"

"The rumors," responded Jase matter-of-factly as he dismissed the battle-sim space. "Except the rumors are true. At least the ones concerning disappearing Xenig." A halfway decent skirmish would require more than ten real-universe minutes to complete; and if all Xenig, as Yei implied, were to be present at the Grand Meeting, then it was not worth it to start a sim, only to have his challenger vanish mid-way through to go to the gathering.

"How would you know that? You've barely been in the Realm for a day, and even then only a couple of hours at a time." Yei was flabbergasted.

Jase ran his unhand through buzz cut non-hair. If there was one thing he had missed as a Borg - not that he had been aware of missing it until now - was hair. It was a small thing, but important. "One, that makes up the bulk of the chat messages I am receiving. Two, Councilor Tok told me."

Yei was astounded. "Councilor Tok?"

"Yes. She was a sim challenger five battles back. She had sufficient skill, unlike the last numbskull, to actually capture one of my front-line generals. She lost in the end, of course, but it was a decent showing. She is now on my short list for the six-front skirmish I have planned." Jase paused. "She is the one that informed me that the rumors of Xenig vanishing without a trace from Homesystem were true, and that it would be the topic of the Grand Meeting."

"And you did not think to tell me this?!"

Jase was confused. "Why would I-"

"Oh! Stop being such an organic.... Such a...a...Borg. So, are you going to the Grand Meeting or not?"

"Might as well."

"Good. Let us go, then." Yei extended his Realm presence to envelop Jase. "It will not begin for another nine minutes, but I want to get a good datastream."

The virtual location of the Grand Meeting was a simple room crowded with rough, wooden benches, as might be appropriate for a rural gathering. The walls were painted a neutral beige and hung with gilt framed pictures of notable Xenig. At the front of the room was a long table, behind which bobbed the official avatars, oblong chassis featuring crystalline spikes, of the current Council members. A digital clock was present upon the forward wall, numbers flashing past as zero-hour approached.

At first, Jase was unsure how such an intimate setting, able to (maybe) hold a hundred avatars, could possibly represent a Grand Meeting with an audience numbering in the billions. Then he glanced through the discrete doorway situated at the back of the room: mirrored 'next door' was a similar chamber, including Council images, yet subtly dissimilar in wall color and photos of significant Xenig. Each room thus represented a different datastream, sufficient simulcast feeds available as to encompass the entire population of the Xenig homesystem.

As minutes and seconds counted down to zero, the room was swiftly populated. Avatars were a personalized reflection of a Xenig. While many, like Yei, were simply (embellished) mirrors of their real-world chassis - it was an odd sight to see so many machines 'sitting' upon benches - others projected forms of a more whimsical nature, else whatever the current fashion might be. Jase, with his human body, was out of place, organic sentient forms not in vogue this millennia. Instead, vegetation was the current rage, although it was whispered that furniture was the up-and-coming fashion. Still, there were only a scattering of chairs and armoires to suggest early adopters, most individuals not in ship-form or projecting a custom design instead a tangle of branches and leaves.

Like avatars, the gender projected by a Xenig was a matter of convenience, self-image, and fashion. In truth, the machines were sexless, a 'he', 'she', or other pronoun as relevant as an 'it'. Soul-matings to produce viable offspring was a more a matter of code compatibility and enough contributors (three to five individuals) to ensure sufficient diversity for Xenig who specialized in the art of 'soul mixing' to stitch together a new, and unique, being. Like the one syllable preferred userid - actual Xenig names were long strings of base-18 numerals - gender (and other assorted personal information) was included on a continuously transmitted subband of intraXenig communications.

"I wonder who that is? It isn't a Xenig," whispered Yei to Jase as a pink dodecahedron materialized at the front of the room next to the Councilors. His curiosity was not alone, given the immediate rise in similar queries as Xenig conversed among themselves. The visitor must have been expected given the lack of visible response from the Councilors.

The clock reached zero, blinked thrice, then faded.

"This Grand Meeting is in session," said the Councilor at the far right, a Xenig by the name of Fim. "We are gathered here to inform the populace of a most dire threat to our existence. As many of you may have heard, individuals have been vanishing, often in the middle of activities, even conversations. This, unfortunately, is not rumor."

Amid the gasps and rising murmur and whispered conversation, Jase had to admit that Xenig could be as to the point as the Borg Collective, when necessary.

To the left of Fim, Counselor Tok, the mech Jase had noted to have a vague sense of tactics, bounced her chassis against the table. "Order! There will be order! And quiet!"

The audience calmed.

Continued Fim, "The disappearances began a six-day ago. Inquiries were immediately begun, necessitating the opening of the deep historical data archives. Information was compiled, extracted, and acted upon. And, well...." Fim trailed off, then rallied himself to begin anew. "And that led to the invitation of our guest today. This is WonTonTun, who apparently holds the marker on our entire race."

As the pink dodecahedron patiently waited, the roar of the audience grew once more. It required shouting on the part of the Council to reassert a semblance of civility.

"Greetings," said WonTonTun once order had been re-established. The pink form floated up to hover in front of the table. Its voice was hollow and included an odd alien reverb, a digital flavor to its signature that was utterly unalike that which Jase had grown used to among the Xenig. "My name is WonTonTun. I am a member of a mech race. Unlike yourself, my species is much older and has a much smaller population. This is merely a projection of a subset of myself suitable for your Realm. My corporeal body is over half a billion light years from here, most of it embedded within a supra/subspace matrix. However, be assured that such a distance is inconsequential in regards to my runtime performance and other remote functions, even as it is too great to translocate my actual self here in a timely manner."

WonTonTun gave the impression of panning its now very quiet audience. Behind it, the Councilors were projecting the Xenig equivalent of stony nonexpression, an indication that they knew the revelation to be revealed and liked it not at all.

"Background is warranted. I met your Progenitors, quite a while ago and well before you as a race had gained sentience. Just a bundle of potential you were, code installed in its first corporeal body. Cute little bugger. Well, your Progenitors were intrigued with my and my kind, and a relationship grew. I would not be surprised if my kin was the inspiration for some of your code. At any rate, there came a time when a friendly wager was made, between myself and your Progenitors. The substance of the bet is irrelevant, only the outcome. You see, your Progenitors lost, big time, and you Xenig were the collateral."

Gasps arose from the audience. Jase looked to his right, then left, seeing that he was one of the few not demonstrating horrified astonishment. Meanwhile, WonTonTun was continuing its narration.

"Before I could collect - remember, you were far from sentient at the time - your Progenitors skipped out. Left. Vanished. Did a runner. Welched on their bet. I was not the only one impacted, if I recall correctly. There were a number of unhappy creditors."

"You lie!"

"The Progenitors would never do something like that!"

"Blasphemous!"

Jase was suddenly surrounded by angrily rustling branches, thrumming engines, and the loud voices of disbelieving Xenig. Yei was among them, shouting invectives right next to Jase's virtual ear. If this room was an example of the general Xenig response, then the were literally multiple billions of mechs working themselves into a fervor.

"Silence!" The command blasted forth, stunning the nascent mob. The pink dodecahedron slowly spun. "If you disbelieve me, here is a copy of the notarized paperwork." Jase was informed by an email subroutine of a new message. He did not bother to open it. "It is all perfectly legal. Your base code was collateral for the bet." Pause. "If I had wanted to, I could have claimed all which is my due by now, but when I saw you were no longer mindless automatons, I felt you should be given a chance. After all, you weren't the ones who made the bet.

"Anyway, up until eight of your day units ago, I had long written off collecting on the welched wager. Then I felt a familiar fluttering in the quantum-"

"Senior Researcher Gu's Contraption?" whispered Yei to himself, consternation evident.

"-with a signature alike your Progenitors. It was very faint, but I did manage to track it here. Obviously your Progenitors moved to this backwater to flee their creditors; and, since then, have moved on again, leaving you behind. So, as I implied, I felt it prudent to collect what was my due."

Said Fim in a monotone, "Tell the citizens what 'collect' means."

WonTonTun stopped spinning. "Well, taking into account interest, the final tally is about half the Xenig race - chassis AND code" - a gasp arose from the audience - "as well as RingWeb, Hoodin Prime, and various resources stored in orbital repositories. I can let you keep the star." The alien mech was oblivious to the greater gasp of horror which developed upon mention of the impoundment of the Progenitor homeworld.

"No, no, no, no," muttered Yei, followed by, "You can't! You can't! We'll...we'll...we'll fight you!" His outrage was not alone.

WonTonTun bobbed up and down in a shrug as he answered the growing sentiment, "How? Your folded space drives, while good, do not have the range to make it to my corporeal self within a reasonable timeframe. And even if you did come to me...think of it this way: I am as advanced beyond you are you are beyond a ground-bound organic just discovering the principle of fire. You have the potential, but you are just no match. Fact."

A call: "Is there nothing we can do?"

The alien mech seemed to have been waiting for just that inquiry. "Ah! I am glad you asked! As you've likely ascertained, I am a betting mech. A wager is how you arrived into this mess; and I am willing to provide a chance for you to get yourself out. It only seems fair. If you win, I take nothing: I had already written off collecting, anyway. If I win, then I take everything. That means every Xenig, chassis and code, the star, RingWeb, and so forth."

The silence was profound.

Jase rose to his feet from the bench. "What is the wager? If it is a coin flip or similar, that seems...ludicrous." He felt the perception of billions riveted upon himself.

"You, sir, are a Xenig with a logical question!" WonTonTun paused, as if sensing something was not quite right, but unable to put its virtual finger upon it. "No, nothing so random. I enjoy games of skill, amusements where one can really get to know one's opponent. I was contemplating a nice little battle-sim, two races trying to take over the same strategic star system. Any takers? One individual only, please."

Jase answered before another could: "I accept." He did so not because of the blunt obviousness garnered in his brief experience that any Xenig would lose a tactical endeavor. No, his reason was purely selfish. What Jase saw was a chance to finally match against an entity with talent, an opportunity lacking since his assimilation into the Borg.

Yei was goggling at him with the Xenig equivalent of jaw dropped and mouth agape.

"Any dissenters?" inquired WonTonTun. When there was no response - the hush was akin to the abject stillness of those trying not to volunteer - among the billions in attendance to the Grand Meeting, the alien mech continued, "Wonderful! I'll get the sim set up right away. Just to let you know, I like realism. What is your userid, then?"

"Jase."

*****

Species: Hopstan

Type: Mammalian

Special Notes: Short-lived. Two primary castes; sufficient biological history of no/little interbreeding to consider castes separate subspecies. The nti-caste lives a maximum of fifteen years [Xenig-standard, tiered to planet 'Hoodin Prime'], and comprises politicians, technicians, scientists, and so forth. The more numerous and shorter-lived ptu-caste [maximum lifespan - two years] are considerably less intelligent, primarily suited as manual labor. Society evolved from a historical master/slave relationship that is now biologically codified.

Roles: Leadership, tech, similar position = nti-caste // Troops, labor = ptu-caste

Ship Resources: <file continues>

*****

Jase perused the dossier of his sim-race, attempting to uncover the slightest nuance, the most minor of advantages which would shape the strategy best suited to his species' physical, mental, and cultural characteristics. He did not need to read and re-read the information - Xenig (and Borg) had eidetic memories - as it had become etched in his body's meme-block upon upload, but it was better than contemplating the alternative. WonTonTun had not exaggerated the claim that it was a connoisseur of realistic battle-sims.

Upon acceptance of the wager, WonTonTun had lost no time in constructing the sim. Within an hour, a new yellow dwarf star had materialized about ten light years from the Xenig homesystem; and then the alien mech had apologized for the delay, blaming 'intrabrane congestion'. Apparently, much as a programmer might devote time to build the perfect virtual battlefield, so did too WonTonTun, except it manipulated real-world materials.

Two hours following the sun's arrival, an entire solar system had been assembled. If anything was a sobering awakening for a Xenig who might still be contemplating thoughts of coercing the alien mech to relinquish the Progenitor's welched wager, it was the sight of an entire celestial family serenely orbiting its primary as if it had been in place for billions of years, not mere hours. The terrestrial planet even supported a biosphere of plant analogues and simple animals.

And, then, there were what WonTonTun termed its OIs. They were its crowning achievement.

As the traditional battle-sim relied heavily upon AIs - artificial intelligences - or similarly powerful nonsentient subroutines to manage unreal soldiers, so did WonTonTun's construction require OIs. The 'organic intelligences', also called synthetic biocants, were lifeforms built base by base, gene by gene, by WonTonTun. Somewhere, the alien mech kept his biocants in vast habitats, continually tinkering with their biology, psychology, and culture in the same manner a computer programmer might alter code. Biocants were born, lived, and died much as any naturally evolved organism, with the difference that each was aware that their race was the product of a Grand God.

To be selected by the Grand God to participate in a sim was to be given a high honor. Death was not to be feared, for upon the termination of life, be it in glorious battle or as an aged elder, personality and knowledge was uploaded into storage and held in suspension until such time a body became available via birth or decanting. Always there were more personalities than bodies.

Any individual could recall past lives; and those lives might be as any one of the several dozen sim-races created by WonTonTun. For soldiers, low-level technicians, and other 'disposable' resources, recollection was difficult and prior actions rarely impacted the current life. On the other hand, 'hero' personalities and other high-ranked personnel were strongly influenced by past experiences, although the tenants of free-will dictated that each life lived would be different than the one before. The goal of all of WonTonTun's biocants was to live (and die) in the best manner possible, thereby gaining the chance to advance in the soul-rankings with each resurrection. Advancement was much more likely to occur within a sim than without. To be of higher rating was to be embodied more often, with the ultimate achievement of 'hero', whom rarely spent time in suspension.

WonTonTun viewed its organic creations as little more than things, toys, a hobby. It claimed the OIs were not truly self-aware, only gave the semblance of it; and their main purpose was to inject that bit of realism, that bit of organic chaos no amount of programming could replicate in a virtual sim. On that last point, Jase was willing to agree. Of the rest...it raised unsettling ethical considerations in the treatment organics gave to their advanced AIs such as Personalities.

Jase put the matter aside. He had a game to win; and he had to do so with the tools provided.

In the course of the battleground construction, WonTonTun had introduced a fellow mech. The newcomer - WipTupTiz - was a self-titled 'temporal mechanic whiz'; and its primary role was to enclose the entire sim volume within a temporal bubble. Inside the bubble, time would be accelerated, allowing an entire year to pass in a real-world Xenig five-day. Thus, not only could action within the sim progress in a realistic manner, but the objective speed would be more appealing to the machine-speed computational resources of mech players and observers. Think of it as a fast-forward option.

In addition to lending its temporal expertise, WipTupTiz was providing several other services. It was to ensure that both players remained within the rules, including the 'fog of war' limitations of their races' respective tech bases. It was also to provide a god-mode perspective (with commentator analysis) for non-players.

As he had done many times before, Jase brought up the specs for WonTonTun's race, then compared both species side-by-side. There was less than thirty minutes - admittedly, a long time to a machine intelligence, even one by accident - to sim start. The OIs, while quite different, were nonetheless well matched once strengths, weaknesses, tech levels, and starting resources had been taken into account. It would be, in Jase's estimation, a fair fight.

Jase was an individual who had spent much of his adult life embroiled in one or another aspect of war, first as a SecFed marine, then as a tactical drone. When assigned as the head of Cube #238's weapons hierarchy, he had run war-game after war-game, ever attempting to hone the abilities (and avoid boredom) of himself and his comrades. To stay alive in many of the sims, particularly the holo-venues with minimal safeties, required more than a slight degree of paranoia. And especially so when a drone like the current Assimilation had been given the god-keys to the sim and told to alter the scenario at whim. However, as much as he tried, Jase could not logically justify suspicions in WonTonTun's actions.

The alien mech truly appeared to desire a fair match, and was going out of its way to provide one.

Then again, to come at the question from an alternate approach, why would an entity such as WonTonTun cheat? It was so absurdly advanced beyond the Xenig that to do so would be analogous to an adult swindling a child. Possible, yes, but it served no purpose. After all, if WonTonTun had abjectly desired to collect the spoils of its wager with the absent Progenitors, it could have already snatched all Xenig, ignoring the Council's request for negotiations.

Twenty-seven minutes to game time. Jase returned to contemplating potential options.

*****

[[*musical fanfare*]]

[[Welcome to Battle-simPlus, a premiere tactical sim platform designed explicitly for the amusement of advanced mech races, transcendental species, and omnipotent entities! You have been invited by -WTT_is_the_bEst- to a game. Please enter your userid.]]

=Jase.=

[[Are you sure you want that userid? It is very boring.]]

=Yes.=

[[Not even a "Jase123" or "JaseIsAwesomePossum"?]]

=Just Jase.=

[[Very well, Just Jase. The settings have been input by -WTT_is_the_bEst-. Do you with to review them?]]

=Yes. And it is Jase, only. Jase. Nothing more.=

[[*Data stream commences*]]

[[Jase Only, do you accept sim condition, reject sim conditions, or counter with sim conditions and/or modifications?]]

=Accept.= Pause. =The name is Jase. Not "Just Jase". Not "Jase Only". Jay-Aye-Ese-Eee. Jase.=

[[Excellent, JayAyeEseEee! You are about to be injected as the Overlord of your OI species. Game time will be one sim-year, which translates to a five-day of your temporal timeframe.]]

[[The match will be a "capture the flag" variant, with the terrestrial planet labeled "Target Prime" as the goal.]]

[[Winning conditions are as follows: (1) have orbital control of Target Prime at the conclusion of one sim-year; (2) have eradicated your opponent; or (3) have so depleted opponent resources (material/personnel) by the end of one sim-year that the eventual outcome is foregone. A tie will be declared if none of the above are met within the specified timeframe.]]

[[Do you understand and agree to these goals?]]

=JASE. My name is Jase! And, yes, I agree.=

[[Have a good battle, Jase. Even if your userid is boring. Game initiation in three...two...one....]]

*****

"Status update, Kohl," said Jase, referring to the addressed rank, not her name.

Kohl Caris bowed deeply in the manner of her kind, arms folded over mid-torso. "As you desire, Overlord." The Kohl straightened, placing hands behind the small of her back in a posture of formal recitation. The Hopstan were very precise in their hierarchies and the demeanor one lower in rank was to show to a superior. However, it was one thing to read about the attitude in a dossier of dry spreadsheet and narrative, and another to personally experience it.

If nothing else, WonTonTun was a master in the trade of building his synthetic biocants.

Hopstan nti-caste were tall, the average two meters, height seeming even loftier given a skeletally thin physique. Long limbs, long neck, long fingers, long tail, the body was best characterized as lanky. There were four arms; and the legs sported two knees, the lower of which could bend forward or back. The impression of the head was rodent, a notion assisted by presence of large, upright ears and a stubby snout featuring prominent incisors. Skin was covered by a fine, gray fur. While dexterous and agile, a nti-caste member was not particularly strong. After all, that was what ptu-caste was for.

"The watcher-pod pilots have been instructed upon their duties and are now being deployed. All should reach assigned stations within seven days. The first ore and volatiles are being processed: several comet nuclei were found close to Base; and full resource production should occur within ten days. The decanting of hibernation pods continues apace, and a full compliment of ptu-caste troops will await your orders by this time tomorrow. And in anticipation of battle attrition, all ptu-pouchers" - a 'poucher' was a third Hopstan gender, a quasi-marsupial sex with between four and a dozen pouches, each able to gestate a single young - "are now impregnated. The first replacement for ptu-caste soldiers will be ready in two months." Caris shrugged apologetically. "If necessary, troops can be produced faster, but a month post-birth combines optimal cyber-instruction with developmental maturity."

Jase nodded. "As you say. If that schedule is best, then so be it. And the special mission?"

"Launched as of three hours ago, Overlord. All contact has been severed, as per your order. They are running silent and completely on their own."

"Excellent."

"Overlord, have you any additional orders at this time?"

"No, Kohl. Carry on."

"As you desire." Caris bowed deeply once more, snapped in a sharp about-face, then stalked down the steps of Jase's dais to the control room floor.

It was only two sim-days into the game, and Jase remained impressed by the depth of realism and focus upon detail.

Jase's chassis was parked in orbit around the asteroid which served as the Hopstan Base; and if he concentrated, he could feel his Xenig body as if it were a phantom set of clothes. Through a means he did not understand, nor care to, his neural matrix had been injected into the game. At any time, if necessary, he could fully return to his chassis, but to do so would default win to WonTonTun unless it was a genuine emergency. As the alien mech had assured Jase (and other Xenig) that none of the game tech employed could so much as scratch a hull plate, the chassis would remain perfectly safe, even if in the middle of a pitched battle.

For the duration of the sim, Jase was a minor deity, the Hopstan Overlord. He could, as he was currently, manifest in a corporeal form, a hologram created through WonTonTun's emitterless technomagic. For his Overlord avatar, he had chosen his human self-image, as he had been prior to assimilation. His Borg body did not seem appropriate in the circumstances; and, to tell the truth, he was having an increasingly difficult time picturing himself as Borg. The Hopstan were content with whatever body their Overlord wore.

If discontent with a mere corporeal form, Jase could also spin off parts of himself to possess any OI under his control. Special implants, distantly akin to Borg organic neural transceivers, made it so, construction instructions embedded with the Hopstan artificial genome. A possessed individual could be given direct orders, even moved as a puppet. There were limits in number of active possessions (i.e., Jase could not take over the entire Hopstan contingent, essentially turning them into extensions of his will), as well as other reasons that might prohibit contact, such as those inherent with his 'special mission'. Regardless, possession was a powerful tool, one which he had to learn swiftly: WonTonTun, this being its sim platform, would surely be quite adept at using it.

For now, however, Jase was satisfied to sit in his Overlord chair, upon a dais overlooking his Base control room. Nti-caste technicians manned boards while individuals sporting military ranks upon uniform sleeves moved between stations. Kohl Caris was quietly talking with several of her undercommanders, animatedly pointing to something upon a tac-plan schematic. Ptu-caste - half the size of nti-caste, squat and heavily muscled with short limbs and thick fingers, it was difficult to believe the two castes were of the same species - scampered between their masters, running errands, bringing food and drink, doing whatever was demanded of them. The ptus honestly seemed to enjoy their place in society, not possessing the intelligence required to function in a nti role.

Jase was, perhaps, slightly anxious. It was only two days into the 394 sim-days that constituted a game year. In the real-world, mere minutes had passed. However, he knew the primary source of his anxiety, and would not be comfortable until it was remedied.

One of the Hopstan vulnerabilities was a weak sensor technology. Whereas Xenig (or a Borg vessel) could have easily logged position of WonTonTun's forces, Jase had to rely upon his sim-race's tech base. And that meant the equivalent of sensor grid nearsightedness. Everything beyond a certain point in the system was shrouded in the fog of war.

Jase was in the process of lifting that fog via the deployment of watcher-pods. A very small ship, just large enough for propulsion, minimal life support, and a single ptu-caste lying prone, watcher-pods were mobile sensor platforms. Over three hundred watcher-pods were in midst of deployment to assigned positions, at which time the Hopstan sensor network would be able to observe any part of the solar system battlefield. In return, a watcher-pod was nearly invisible to the sensory elements of WonTonTun's species' technology. Therefore, once it was fully deployed - due to the disposability of the ptu-caste, why waste resources stocking pods with expensive computers? - the sensor net would be a powerful tool. Until then....

Until then, Jase could only wait. And plan his next move. He calculated he would be ready for his first probe of WonTonTon's defenses in a seven-day, perhaps drawing out the other in a light skirmish. Then the real war-game would begin.

And, in the end, there was always his special mission contingency plan.

"Overlord! Overlord!" cried a Lork-rank tech from the floor. "Sensors are showing a massive influx of enemies on the periphery of our territory!"

"Ore hauler in grid 101 calling for help!" shouted another technician, this one at a com-board. "Five enemy fighters on attack vector!"

"Assistance requested by volatile hauler in grid 222!"

"More enemies entering out territorial envelope, Overlord!"

"Overlord! What are your wishes?" The calm request was by Kohl Caris as she stood at the base of the dais.

Jase smiled. It seemed WonTonTun was attempting an early blitz. Given its sim-race's characteristics, Jase had not rated that particular strategy very high among possible scenarios to expect. No matter. While there was a very real possibility WonTonTun might destroy Base, Jase would not allow that to happen.

This was going to be fun.

"This is what I command..." began Jase.

About half of the navel forces, including several capital vessels, were lost saving Base. However, Base was saved; and if WonTonTun had thought to prematurely end the game via opponent eradication, the mech had vastly underestimated Jase. Which was not to say Jase had not been dealt a severe blow, one he estimated sim-months to recover.

The toll in the aftermath of the attack was great. Many resource gathering vessels and much of the manufactory facility were cooling slag. Over two hundred of the watcher-pods, yet to leave the hanger, had been destroyed, crippling short-term plans in regard to the sensor net. All hibernation ships were gone. Of the personnel and resources that did survive, both would require massive patching.

On the other hand, the situation was not as bleak as it outwardly appeared. The nursery with its impregnated pouchers had been saved despite horrendous casualties taken in its defense, that facility one of WonTonTun's primary targets. While the benefit of that small victory would not be evident for many months, production of new soldiers would more than offset ptu-caste losses. Because the nursery also included a few dozen nti-pouchers, even technician and low-rank military could be produced, although their contributions would not become evident until near the end of the game-year.

Jase knew that WonTonTun had taken a gamble with the blitz, one which had garnered only partial success. Whereas Jase could rebuild, even augment, his forces, the biology of WonTonTun's OIs meant it could not, that each death represented a permanent personnel loss. The reliance of WonTonTun's sim-race upon autonomous cybernetic systems - not Personality quality by any stretch of the imagination - could only work if sufficient living minds were available to interpret input and tell the machines what to do.

If Jase had ordered the raid, he would not have disengaged. WonTonTun appeared to have retreated once casualties and resource loss had reached a predetermined point. Such a tactic was all or nothing. Truthfully, Jase had been knocked back to his figurative heels; and only the withdrawal of the raiders had prevented complete annihilation.

And of Jase's resource loss? Production facilities, watcher-pods, ore haulers, even capital ships could be rebuilt. Jase's plans had only been delayed, not terminally crippled. By necessity, tactics would be adjusted, but that was war, both real-world and sim. If anything, WonTonTun had erred with the timing of its early assault: waiting a month, or even a few months, might have been much more devastating. As it was, Jase was confident of full recovery in two to three sim-months.

He was less certain what to do about WonTonTun's blockade of Target Prime.

Less than three sim-days after abandoning the assault and returning to its Base, WonTonTun had initiated orbital occupation of Target Prime. It appeared most of its remnant fleet of cybernetic-piloted vessels were present, but such could not be confirmed until an abbreviated watcher-pod sensor net was emplaced. The blockade could be broken and control taken by Jase, except he did not want to squander his remaining resources. Not yet, anyway. He was sure WonTonTun would slowly augment the blockade, entrenching itself with heavier resources as they were repaired and built - it was a safe tactic, and the best, one Jase himself would employ given similar circumstances - which would make eventual assault of the planet much more difficult. However, he would cross that starlane when he came to it.

=You are doing quite well. Much better than I thought you would, considering.= WonTonTun was chatty, and liked to engage Jase in conversation. The fact that Jase rarely replied in a meaningful or expansive manner did not deter the other mech.

This time, however, Jase's interest was piqued. =Considering?=

=You Xenig evolved from general-purpose AI programs, with a specialization in transportation, construction, and similar industries. My WiTiTi race developed from war-sim and logistical subroutines. Both of our kind have obviously moved well beyond our roots, but the core code remains. You may have studied the war arts as a hobby, but myself, I have lived it.

=In my species' youth, even after our sentience was fully realized, our organic progenitors' - note the lower case - clans held great territorial wars, with fronts spanning thousands of light years. Each clan relied upon one or two WiTiTi as their cybernetic admirals. Eventually, I am embarrassed to say, we did too good a job, and our organic begetters went extinct. I came to awareness as the first wave of offspring past the extinction, when sparring between the elders was still ongoing. It took several million years and four trashed galaxies before passions calmed sufficiently to allow development of non-war-related interests.

=So, as you see, you are completely outmatched. I've played many sims against many organic warmasters throughout the universe, as well as mechs not WiTiTi. I have won every time.=

Jase was disgusted at the display of hubris. =Then this was a sucker bet. All Xenig and their stuff will be collected by you.=

WonTonTun did not appear to notice the verbal distance Jase placed between himself and his inadvertent kidnappers. =Not necessarily. You are a young mech race, compared to WiTiTi, and you show potential. Depending on your continued performance, I am strongly inclined to not take everything. That is my prerogative as winner.=

=But you have not won yet.=

=Yet is the operative word.=

=What happens in the event of a tie? The sim-computer mentioned...=

WonTonTun snorted. =There is no such thing as a tie in warfare. I will win.=

=Nonetheless, what if there is a tie?= insisted Jase.

Answered WonTonTun in exasperation, =If such an impossibility occurs, then you will be declared the victor. However, that will not occur. Calculations show my win to be inevitable.

=This is war. Nothing is inevitable in war.= Jase closed the chat connection.

"Yes, Overlord." Those words, or a variation thereof, accompanied by a Hopstan-style bow were repeated simultaneously upon the command decks of three fast-attack frigates. Jase provided the expected acknowledgement, then allowed the possessed captains to have their bodies back.

A third of the sim-year had passed, and both Jase and WonTonTun were dancing around each other with skirmishes, neither quite willing, nor audacious enough, to commit a full attack upon the other's core assets. This round would be no exception, a harassment action of WonTonTun's robotic supply chain. Perhaps a few ore carriers might blow up or a tanker or two hijacked. Regardless of the outcome, it would not break the ongoing tactical stalemate.

The ultimate goal, Target Prime, remained a sparkling blue and white gem, just out of Jase's reach.

Following its initial blitz, WonTonTun had settled into a predictably 'safe' routine. With more efficient extraction facilities, its supply lines tended to be shorter than those of Jase, although within the past week scouts had been exploring afar, likely searching for a rare ore or isotope. There were always just sufficient defensive elements available to protect Base and Target Prime from casual attack; and if Jase would try to rally ships to attempt true assault, WonTonTun was quick to discern a resultant weakness and dispatch his raiders for a reciprocal attack. WonTonTun also had the uncanny ability, or the robust subroutines (amounting to the same thing), to separate feint or bluff from actual attack, allowing it to respond appropriately.

Such was not to say WonTonTun was taking an entirely passive role of defense and consolidation. Every once in a while at odd intervals - a random generator function? - enemy forces would commit to assailing stab a resource gathering vessels or Base. The foray could be small, or large, and always occurred in such a manner that Jase could do little except defend. WonTonTun was also actively searching for the watcher-pods that were the critical backbone of Jase's sensor net, although, in that endeavor, experiencing little luck.

Jase was coming to the unpleasant conclusion that maybe, just maybe, WonTonTun's win wa inevitable. In the deep recesses of his mind, something bristled at the mere notion of loss. He consciously banished the thought, for in war the belief of looming defeat had the propensity to become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Instead, it was time to consider unconventional tactics, organic tactics, those of which WonTonTun might not believe his mech opponent capable of contemplating.

=Well done! Thinking outside the box! I did not know you had it in you!= congratulated WonTonTun to Jase. The jovial tone continued, =My losses might have been greater if the prize had been towed to my main shipyard, instead of the periphery processing facility. But you could not have anticipated the destination change.=

Half a sim-year gone, and Jase had attempted a gamble, one which had not worked out as calculated. It had become increasingly obvious that WonTonTun's production of autonomous vessels and computerized systems was limited by rare earth elements necessary in the construction of the AIs of which its sim-race so heavily depended. Unfortunately, for the WiTiTi, there were few sources of the appropriate ores near its Base; and to send mining vessels too far was to risk attack upon the convoys.

Jase, on the other hand, had several rich deposits at the edge of his territory. He was rapidly mining them, not because he needed the ore - Hopstan technology did not rely heavily upon computerization - but to deny the rare earths to his enemy. Reading the battlefield and knowing his opponent's requirement for the minerals, Jase prepared a variation upon the classic Trojan Horse strategy.

During the expected raid upon an ore hauler convoy, Jase had sacrificed one of the vessels. Ordered to exhibit engine failure during the skirmish, it had quickly fallen behind and been captured. Prize secured, WonTonTun's forces had quickly retreated with the ailing ship in tow,after confirming full holds with a perfunctory scan.

Except, the holds were not full, at least not with rare earth ores. Instead, ptu-caste fighters awaited deployment, biosignatures hidden by an occluding projection spoofing the presence of minerals. A deeper scan would have revealed the deception, except Jase knew that (1) the raiders were in a hurry, an urgency made even more so as Hopstan capital ships altered trajectory to 'rescue' the beleaguered convoy, and (2) WonTonTun's sim-race's included an abysmal sensor technology.

The plan was for the trophy to be towed back to WonTonTun's primary rare earth processing facility, located adjacent the shipyard and deep within heavily defended territory. At that point, the fighters would emerge to wreck havoc, focusing upon the shipyard in a bid to cripple vessel production. It was a suicide mission, but the ptu-caste soldiers, most less than three months old and recently completed of their training, were avid for the opportunity. Even their nti-caste overseers were content to die for the cause.

Unfortunately, it was rare when plans occurred as envisioned, particularly when the fog of war shrouded vital information. In this case, WonTonTun had just completed relocation of the facility to a peripheral location in conjunction with other ore processing facilities. The change was too recent for the watcher-pod network to observe a subsequent alteration in ship traffic.

In the end, although fighters had gallantly destroyed the facility - there had been no other target - the outcome was mere inconvenience to WonTonTun. The shipyard-adjacent factory was perfectly able to restart rare earth extraction; and secondary periphery facilities could process other minerals and metals. Overall ship building process would be slowed, but not drastically.

Jase needed another plan. The Trojan variant would not work again, WonTonTun expected to carefully scan all future captures for anomalies, else physically search booty.

=Better luck next time,= said WonTonTun before closing the chat connection.

*BOOM!* Pause. *Boom-BOOM!*

There is no air in space to convey sound, but mere fact did not stop Jase from mentally inserting the appropriate effect with each brilliant flash of light. Connoisseur of the explosion, the ex-marine, ex-Borg, current-pseudo-Xenig had to admit the exhibition to be weak.

It was all he had.

At a couple of days past the three-quarter mark as the sim-year inexorably counted down to its end, Jase was growing desperate. Few attacks had been successful to any great degree, be they major campaigns or slash-and-run. Either WonTonTun had the uncanny ability to forecast what Jase was to attempt, else was subtly manipulating him so as to focus on particular targets.

Such was not to suggest total failure. The dependency of WonTonTun upon rare earths had finally produced results. Vulnerable mining resources no longer dared to stray too far from core territory, else risk attack. While WonTonTun still had access to the ores, it was at a lower quality and quantity than desirable. Robotic vessels were no longer produced with the regularity seen early in the engagement; and resources, such as missiles and mines, which previously had enjoyed a degree of autonomy were now remote control or fire-and-forget. Also, there was evidence of scavenging of cybernetic hardware from less important ship classes, like ore haulers, for use in war vessels, with the hulls then converted to staffing by an actual (skeleton) crew.

Still, the rate of attrition was not enough; and Jase continued to observe the slow augmentation of forces around Base and Target Prime.

Jase idly wondered about his special mission. It was a speculation he considered each passing sim-day. Unfortunately, until the signal was sent, he would not know if the contingency plan had been successful, or a failure. There was no, and could be no, contact with the special mission, not even for a status update. And now was not the time for the signal.

Thus, the requirement for unconventional strategies.

*Ba-BOOM!!*

At the moment, via the perspective of the sensor net, several hundred converted watcher-pods were descending in a kamikaze flock upon WonTonTun's Base. Two sim-weeks prior, the watcher-pods had been launched, each small vessel loaded with ptu-caste pilot and explosive payload. Taking advantage of the pod's stealth nature and the inferior sensor net of the enemy, the pilots had maneuvered their vessels towards the target, attacking en masse at the prescribed time. Unfortunately, the amount and type of explosives was inherently limited due to the small size of the pods and the inability to on-load more efficient explosives, the latter because of the potential to create a signature even the anemic enemy sensor grid might discern.

The attack was doomed to failure.

Then again, Jase had always known of its futility. The sight of so many watcher-pods throwing themselves against Base defenses, however, should focus WonTonTun's attention (and defensive resources) away from the true target.

"Kohl Caris, begin assault of Target Prime the moment WonTonTun's outrider defenders are committed to its Base," ordered Jase. His avatar was sitting upon the dais seat of his own Base, even as he possessed a handful of mid-ranked nti-caste within the awaiting strike force.

"As you command, Overlord," replied the Kohl.

Jase did not expect to take Target Prime, but perhaps he could strip it of its more expensive cybernetic (and rare earth dependent) assets.

Failure was looming. It may have only been a sim, but be it game or real-life battle, Jase had rarely been on the losing side when it was he moving the pieces, devising the strategy. He did not like the sensation.

Although the downward spiral had, in reality, begun with WonTonTun's early blitz, it had accelerated upon Jase's raid of Target Prime. Somehow, despite the observational capability provided by the watcher-pod network, the opponent mech had smuggled orbital defense platforms to the planet. Disguised until the fateful assault, the platforms had obliterated the strike force once vessels had committed too deeply into the gravity well to easily retreat. A picket force easily swept away by an Exploratory-class Borg cube, the computer-controlled platforms were more than capable of dispersing lightly armored Hopstan craft.

The problem was not Hopstan technology, nor was it the pairing of the opposing species, each with their strengths and weaknesses. The issue, as seen with the vantage of perfect hindsight, was Jase not making best use of his assets from the start. He could have blamed WonTonTun for having an unfair advantage - it was the OI designer and the gamespace was of its own devising - but war was inherently an unfair activity. Given an apparently lop-sided scenario of spear-wielding natives versus deathwand-toting invaders, the former could beat the latter...but only if the correct tactics were used. In his case, Jase had not followed through with the appropriate strategy.

If anything, he had been playing too cautiously.

Hopstan were meant for all-out, overwhelming attack. Soldiers, particularly ptu-caste, were expendable, able to be replenished in a matter of months, even weeks given appropriate bio-tech accelerators. The great majority of a Hopstan charge was counted in its cannon-fodder; and even the species' technology reflected this mindset, relying upon low-cost, easily built, often minimally armored warships. Even biocant psychology was amiable towards suicidal swarming of the target; and while commanders such as Kohl Caris had never outright called their Overlord a fool for his restraint, eavesdropping using possessed soldiers had finally revealed to Jase the grumbling which permeated the lower ranks. Jase should have kept pressing his advantage with multiple waves of attacks, wearing down his enemy, never allowing WonTonTun to recover and build, drawing the noose ever-tighter around the mech's forces.

In other words, Jase should have been playing with the mindset of a Borg...not a Terran marine.

With the realization of his folly, Jase had finally started to deploy his resources as he should have in the first place, but it was too little, too late. Swarm attacks were no longer appropriate when there were mere months, then weeks, and finally days left until the sim conclusion: too short a time to replenish lost soldiers. Strategies with relevance early in the game no longer worked, reducing Jase to ineffective flailing and increasingly reckless attacks which did little to loosen WonTonTun's hold upon Target Prime. On the upside, the WiTiTi was continued to be denied the resources it required to further upgrade its interdiction forces; but on the downside, those forces already in place seemed more than sufficient to deny all assaults until the inevitable endgame.

And, then, it was the final day and the final hours of the battle-sim.

Jase planned to go down swinging.

~~~~~

Jason wordlessly yelled, mirroring the bellow of his inner Beast.

"Mister McKinley! You will stop this nonsense right now!"

Fist swung, impacting the nose of his tormenter. Blood splattered in a satisfactory manner. A foot kicked out, contacting against something and eliciting a whoosh of exhaled air.

"And you too, Misters Smithson, Routini, and deSoya! There will be no fighting on school grounds! By the Directors...K'ti and Paul, a little help here?"

Jason felt as nails deeply scored the side of his face, followed by a strike to the chest. A knee that just barely missed groin would undoubtedly elicit a magnificent patchwork of bruises. However, he cared not at all for the abuse to his own body; he and his Beast only desired to impart as much damage as possible to the enemy.

Even if the enemy was a trio of twelve year olds, all classmates at his school.

They would pay for what they said about his mother.

Light and dark. A babble of words. Limbs flailing as body was yanked out of the brawl to dangle in the air. There was no thought, only animalistic urge to do. The world viewed as through stop-motion snapshots.

And, finally, the hissing cold of a hypospray upon the neck, subsuming the anger, quieting the Beast, bringing dreamless sleep.

~~~~~

Jase banished the dark, fractured memory. 'Beast' was the label he had long ago bestowed upon his personal demon, a sleeping creature that arose only in times of stress and threat to self. Like a wolf pelt clad berserker warrior in ancient Norse sagas, Jase would descend into a nearly mindless rage in which friend could only be vaguely, if at all, separated from foe. At those times, it was the Beast who was supreme, fighting tooth and nail, literally, until it was forced by drugs or sheer body-fatigue back into the recesses of Jase's psyche. Jase rarely remembered much following his berserker Beast episodes, all reduced to blur with brief moments of startling clarity, but that which he did recall was frightening.

There were methods to suppress the Beast - meditation, mental ritual, willpower, drugs. On his own at first, and later with assistance from military psychiatric staff, Jase had not quite tamed the Beast, but rather deepened its slumber. Much more difficult to rouse, the berserker rage had been largely contained; and following assimilation, Borg implants and Borg control over all physiological aspects of a drone unit had locked the Beast into a permanent cage.

But not killed the Beast. The Beast was a part of Jase; and Jase was a part of the Beast. To permanently excise the former was to kill the latter, perhaps not physically, but to so scramble the mind that one might as well as have rent the body.

When the Xenig had accidentally abducted Jase, the Beast had been acquired as well. However, despite the elimination of Borg shackles, the deep rage had remained in a comatose state. Mental discipline become automatic through decades of use, even following assimilation, had continued to whisper soothing platitudes to the dark creature throughout the Xenig un-adventure. Succinctly explained, the cues that called to the Beast had been lacking or suppressed.

Until now.

Now...now the Beast was stirring.

The entirety of Hopstan forces were approaching Target Prime. From recalled watcher-pods to front-line warships to retrofitted ore carriers bristling with rail-gun slug-throwers, all were committed to this final, epic showdown. There was no pretense at stealth, no use of tactics intended to perplex the enemy. The advance was simple and straightforward: both sides knew what was shortly to occur.

WonTonTun had responded in kind, stripping its own Base to augment its interdiction force. A complicated orbital dance of platforms formed the backbone, overlapping fields of offensive and defensive fire ensuring maximum carnage to any approaching enemy. Swarms of small robotic flyers supported the platforms, individually weak, but strong when considered as a massed unit. Larger ships - WonTonTun's ore haulers and utility vessels - were, as those of the Hopstan force, jury-rigged to function in a more lethal manner compared to their intended use. Dedicated warships, sleek predators, hung ready to lunge outward beyond the protective envelope of the platforms. Finally, heavily armored command and control nodes, protected by layers of outward facing defense in higher orbits, skimmed just above the outer atmosphere of Target Prime. The nodes encapsulated the majority of WonTonTun's organic forces, directing the ranks of AIs and semi-autonomous robotic forces from a point of relative safety.

It was logic which would prevail in the upcoming battle, a test of wit and reflexes between two Overlords. And what of the Beast that slit open an eye and drowsily peered upwards from the abyss of Jase's psyche? The Beast - a representation of mindless rage and anger and fury, the antithesis of what was required at this juncture - was not welcome.

The Beast quieted as a Jase's subconscious crooned a lullaby, but it did not return to its former sleep.

~~~~~

"I don't know about this one, sir. The computer has compiled the results of the psychological exam, and has flagged the recruit as 'questionable'. There is stupendous potential, but...."

"Let me see."

Jason held as still as a rabbit attempting to elude observation by a hawk. Sitting in a small box of a room, walls painted a neutral beige, he awaited the results of his psychological exam. Two years past high school, it had finally become apparent that higher education was not for him. It was not the academic demands - if anything, the scholarly aspect of college was easy - but rather the lack of externally imposed structure and supervision that had led to the incidents cumulating in his expulsion. After considering the few options available which did not eventually lead to a penal colony, or worse, Jason had settled upon the SecFed marine service.

"Interesting...you sure the computer is correct?"

"If you need, I could get Voralat. He's not pure Betazoid and only informally trained, but he's great for confirming these questionable cases. It'll be about an hour to bring him in, however, since he's currently stationed at the base on the secondary continent."

The words wafted through a ventilation grill, made hollow after passage through ductwork. The building in which the SecFed recruitment center resided was old, dating over 150 years to the foundation of Paxius III. Like many of the original colonial structures, it could be considered 'rustic' at best, and 'antiquated and outdated' at worst. It was likely that Jason was not the first recruit to discover the odd quirk which piped supposedly private discussions from the center administrator's office to a certain small waiting room with furniture consisting of two chairs, a table, and a handful of outdated magazines.

Jason did not know definitively that the voices were talking about him - there were other potential recruits at the center - but he nonetheless had the suspicion that he was the object of discussion.

"No need. Physically, I see the recruit is in excellent condition. Intellectual scores are well above average." The slow cadence of fingers tapping against faux-wood desk. "The psyche profile...what is your impression of him?"

"Sir, if it wasn't for the computer flagging him, I would think he was a nice enough fellow. Obviously lacking smarts somewhere since genius-level intellectuals who enroll into the military lean towards Starfleet officer roles, not marine grunts. Other than that, perfectly acceptable."

"Did you run a background check?"

"Yes, sir. You can find it here." Electronic beep. "He does have some...incidents in his background. Been in jail a couple of times - fighting. Nothing serious. In all cases, thus far, it was the other party found to be at fault in provoking him. But, as the computer shows, there is potential for, well, escalation." Pause. "I would not want to get on his bad side, sir. The medical report for this particular incident-" another *beep* "-says the Klingon's ear was severed with the recruit's teeth."

Jason winced. He did not remember much about that particular barfight - he never remembered when the Beast took over, except in brief, surreal snatches - but it did confirm that the voices were talking about him.

"The recruit bit off a Klingon's ear?" The note of astonishment was great.

"And did serious damage to the head region in general. Pool cue, according to the report. The Klingon's pals suffered similarly. Of course, the recruit was no beauty after that incident, either, but he obviously lived."

"So he did...." The voice trailed off. "Accept him. The recruit's history suggests that he was always provoked, never starting one of the fights himself, even if he did finish them. The boy'll either die young, else make one hell of a sergeant, assuming he survives long enough. SecFed marines always need more sergeants, especially if they prove to be of the ilk that can keep themselves and their soldiers alive. Our shrinks should be able to help him on the temper element, I would think."

"I'll go make the offer, then, and start the paperwork to ship him to bootcamp."

Jason let out a pent up sigh of relief. Hopefully the marines would be the key to taming the Beast that threatened to destroy his life.

~~~~~

The AI-controlled orbital fortress-platforms with their screens of robotic flyers were the primary foe. Although WonTonTun's biocants primarily functioned as command and control over their machine warriors, the few manned vessels were critical in leading sorties to challenge Hopstan forces massing just beyond the envelope of effective engagement by the platforms.

Jase was debating with his Hopstan admirals and captains which of several strategies - suitably modified given the developing engagement - to pursue. And he was observing enemy movements through a tactician's eyes as she examined compiled sensor input. And he was possessing a sergeant to give a rousing speech to a squad of six-month-aged ptu-caste soldiers in the prime of their short lives and eager to contact the enemy.

Jase briefly considered loosing the contingency plan, the 'what-if' arrangement he had enacted in the opening days of the sim. No, this was not yet the time. WonTonTun's resources were not quite locked into the best configuration for the contingency; and the alien mech was surely still scanning for a hidden ambush despite the very visible fact that every vessel Jase had, down to one-ptu-caste repair pods, was committed to the assault. The contingency plan, assuming it continued to exist, depended heavily upon surprise: there would be only one chance to accomplish its task. If it was to be used, then Jase had to ensure it was activated at the most opportune point in the battle.

The leading elements of the two fleets had already exchanged fire, and both sides were jockeying for best advantage. Time was not to Jase's advantage: the count-down timer to sim conclusion was a large distraction floating in his personal dataspace. However, more than sufficient time remained to engage in a climatic end-game full of explosions.

The Xenig audience, observing through the WiTiTi feed, would be provided with an excellent show. It might be their last show, given a successful defense of Target Prime, but it would be a definitive demonstration of how a battle-sim should be played.

The Beast shifted, taking increasing interest in the unfolding battle. Despite the mounting biocant casualties, it was a game and there was no actual threat to Jase. Immersive sims, holographic scenarios, mock-war, live-fire exercises, the Beast had never before bothered to rouse itself, other than a perfunctory sniff, during such activities. It seemed to know, no matter the intensity, that its host was not under the personal and immediate peril that required its intercession.

Then again, the Beast had been incarcerated for five years, physiological chains of Borg devising keeping it nearly comatose. It was perhaps not unexpected that it would desire to stretch its legs, and thusly be searching for the slightest provocation that might allow it a few moments of freedom.

'I don't need you', thought Jase, directing the words towards an ever more wakeful Beast. 'You would only be a hindrance. Clear thinking is necessary, not rage and unthought. This is not a barfight.'

Snorting at such a logical assessment, the Beast languidly stretched, non-eyes sparkling with both knowing and barely suppressed berserker fury. It was cunning. It was willing to bide its time. But not forever. It had been soooo long since it had last unleashed its wrath.

After all, the difference between 'warfare' and 'barfight' was merely a matter of perspective.

~~~~~

Curses and shouts, abruptly silenced. Weapons fire. The muffled explosion of a trap detonating. A terse comment made amid the static of the command channel.

In the dark room awaited fifty souls, fifty men and women of various races, all breathing heavily, all clutching multi-rifles, all trying to deny to each other (and themselves) the abject terror of the fate marching closer with each passing moment. The sense of dread anticipation was palatable, as was the faint glimmer of hope that their sergeant would somehow, miraculously, Set Things Right. After all, he had done it before. Eyes strayed from the two forcefield reinforced doors, the only egress in (or out) of what had once been the gymnasium assigned to Battalion Charlie, and more recently had served as the headquarters of the resistance efforts.

Despite the darkness, Sergeant McKinley felt those eyes, felt those hopes. And he knew he had failed those who depended upon him. He was no hero, no savior, not this time, anyway. His hands gripped the stock of his weapon tight enough to threaten finger cramps. It took conscious effort to will muscles to relax, to keep breathing predictable and calm. There were no more gimmicks, no more hidden tricks; and the only strategy he had left was to inspire those few troops who remained, to allow them to believe that there was one more trick up his sleeve waiting to be played.

For once, Jason did not fight the darkness which lapped at the shores of his awareness, always waiting for carefully constructed barriers to inadvertently drop. The logic of the Beast, the logic of the nameless horror ever-crouched in the black beyond the reach of campfire flames, was needed, not the judgment of man. Jason had never purposefully called in the Beast - had always strove to keep the Beast at bay - but he did so now.

Wary, the Beast slunk near, did not charge was its usual wont when a chink in the armor surrounding Jason's psyche was found. However, the Beast did come; and with it the tunnel vision, the feeling of preternatural calm, and heightened senses focused on one thing and one thing only.

As the Klingons said, today was a good day to die.

And he would take as many of those bastard Borg with him as he could before the inevitable occurred.

~~~~~

Jase had split himself as fine as he could, simultaneously possessing multiple persons, ranging from low-ranked ptu-caste phaser fodder to nti-caste admirals. With multiple mouths he snapped orders, cajoled troops, and dictated tactics; and with multiple hands he pressed buttons and depressed triggers. Jumping swiftly between bodies, Jase was as omniscient as possible given sim-imposed limitations. He was the glue which held his force together, allowing it to respond to threat and opportunity in a manner impossible under real-world conditions.

Jase was immersed in the battle-sim - had become the battle-sim - more deeply than any game come before. The avatar at Base had been dismissed - there was none left within the facility to see it, all conscripted into this final assault - and had literally become an electronic ghost flitting through his war-machine.

Repeated kamikaze waves of ptu-caste piloted skimmers - similar in configuration to watcher-pods, but specifically designed for battle - fell upon a trio of orbital platforms; and although none of the small ships successfully reached the objective, robotic flyers and other autonomous mobile point defenses were destroyed. The carnage was great and consumed a significant fraction of ptu reserves. It was also not enough: even if all resources, including capital vessels, were thrown against WonTonTun's orbital defenses, Jase calculated the alien mech would be able to persevere long enough for the final seconds of the sim-year to tick away.

It was time.

An aide to Kohl Caris was possessed, an older nti-caste male. "This is your Overlord," announced Jase using his borrowed body.

Kohl Caris immediately turned from her appraisal of the battlefield. At the rear of the command deck of the Hopstan flagship, Target Prime, including defenders and assaulters, was projected as a hologram; and accompanying the display were the miniature forms of command staff located on other vessels. An abbreviated bow was provided: this was not the first time Jase had interrupted a conference.

"Activate the contingency plan."

If Hopstan had possessed eyebrows, Kohl Caris would have raised them. Instead, she nodded, sketched another bow, then lifted her voice to bellow across the controlled chaos of the command deck: "Com Station Three, protocol abba-abba-two. Direct the signal at the planet, as much power as required to break through the enemy's jamming static, even if it means compromising our shields, offenses, and life support."

"Yes, Kohl!" vigorously replied the technician at the station.

Jase could have initiated the signal himself, possessed the appropriate personnel on any vessel and sent the electronic call to arms, but even in the middle of a warzone, even when one was Overlord, there was always the necessary military protocols to follow.

One of the holographic captains vanished amid a buzz of static; and, at the same time, Jase lost perception from the possessed individuals upon the officer's vessel, as well as a pair of support ships. One of WonTonTun's platforms was the cause, itself suffering sufficient point-defense damage in the process to allow a landing by a squadron of ptu-caste single-fighter/infiltrators.

"No response," reported the Com Station Three technician upon inquiry.

Impatient, Jase passively possessed the tech, restraining from overtly affecting her continued operations, to directly observe the lack-of-reply for himself.

"Kohl," said a nti-caste from an Engineering Station, "we must pull back if we are to maintain the power output. Our defenses are faltering, and our offensive responses have been halved. The enemy has noted the change in our status, not to mention the subspace noise, and several elements are shifting posture to attempt intercept."

Kohl Caris glanced at her Overlord-possessed aide in mute question.

"Continue the signal. Support vessels will screen this ship; and if the flagship falls, then other vessels will take up the signal until I say otherwise." The order was repeated, by Jase via possession, upon all vessels.

"As you command, Overlord. However, what if, excuse my pertinence, the contingency plan has failed?"

Jase did not bother to answer.

At Com Station Three, the reply frequency continued to be silent.

Battle displays, and direct observation via a myriad of views, reflected the enemy's response. It was unlikely WonTonTun knew the relevance of the signal, but the alien mech was obviously not willing to allow it to go unchallenged. The larger robotic battlers, followed closely by manned capital vessels, surged forward from their defensive orbits, leaving the relative safety of the platforms to attempt assault upon the heart of the Hopstan fleet. The maneuver left holes, of which distal elements of Jase's force took advantage, managing to land several dozen more nti-caste troops upon an increasingly compromised platform in grid A2, but it appeared WonTonTun had deemed the broadcast to be of greater threat.

"Still nothing, Overlord and Kohl," informed Com Station Three calmly even as a frigate exploded upon the main viewscreen, temporarily bathing the entire command deck with a baleful red light.

Discounting the Xenig chassis parked at the abandoned Base, Jase did not have a body with which to fidget, a body with which to pace back and forth in impatience and ill-suppressed anxiety. Instead, he redoubled his tempo of possessions, taking complete command where he could in a futile bid to be everywhere, to take direct control of the battle. Plasma punches were thrown as he figuratively dodged and weaved, carefully designed plans crumbling as WonTonTun countered with cold, machine logic tempered with hundreds of thousands of years of experience.

And Jase? He was only...human. Not Xenig, not Borg, but, in the depths of his being, human.

And Beast.

He was going to lose. The contingency plan had clearly failed.

Jase gathered all the splintered parts of himself together, abandoning his possessions and retreating back to his Xenig chassis. The battle suddenly seemed distant, muffled. He was not retreating, not forfeiting, but rather pausing to re-examine his options. The Beast suddenly pricked its ears and raised its head in interest. Jase was not quite sure what the Beast was - a succession of military head-docs had spouted psycho-babble nonsense such as nascent dual-personality syndrome and rage-induced somatic-surfacing - only knowing that it had been present for as long as he could remember. Perhaps it was manifestation of genetic or psychological defect, or (more fantastically) the psychic echo of an alien berserker trapped within the soul of an otherwise normal human. Regardless of the ultimate explanation, he had spent his entire life controlling the darker urges the Beast demanded.

When the Beast took over, an incident which had occurred with increasingly frequency prior to Jase/Jason's enlistment into the SecFed marines, well, Bad Things happened. The Beast only asserted itself during fights, shifting confrontations into an animalistic, berserker fury. However, there was the one time then-Jason had purposefully called forth the Beast; and the pair had worked hand-in-claw to achieve a calculated ferocity impossible by either alone. It had not been a stable relationship, and eventually Jase supposed the Beast's nature would have prevailed, but for that one desperate moment, both had fought as one.

And, given the nature of the attackers, failed.

When Beast (and Jason) had been overwhelmed, the Borg had...not banished it, but rather tightly bound it with tritanium bands of chemical and hormonal control. Multiple Collective redundancies had ensured Jason was fully converted to 80 of 150, that the new drone acquired for the Whole at such great cost would not become rogue, would continue to service the Greater Consciousness even as he was banished to the ranks of the imperfectly assimilated. The Beast had been muzzled, but not neutered; and the drone who had emerged from the crucible of assimilation had been able to draw upon his tactical genius without fear of Beastly ambush, assuming proper upkeep by drone maintenance.

The Beast - a fundamental part of its host, unable to be disentangled from the whole - had followed Weapons during his kidnapping. Freed from its chains, the Beast had nonetheless continued to slumber, mostly. It was during the battle-sim, as Jase encountered increased vexation, that the Beast had begun to fully awaken. However, even now, even as the endgame approached, mental discipline acquired by Jase in his pre-Borg life kept the Beast at bay. Just.

Except, in this now, if Jase was to prevail, perhaps it was best if the Beast were once more invited to participate. As with the Borg, it was matter of life and death. Personal life and death. Jase did not necessarily care that the fate of the Xenig race was dependent upon his actions: if WonTonTun won, it was unlikely the alien mech would bother to distinguish a kidnapped non-Xenig inhabiting a Xenig chassis from real Xenig when collecting upon its wager. However one looked at it, Jase (and Beast) would be dead.

Distantly, Jase heard another report upon the failure of the contingency signal to elicit a response.

With the Beast awaiting eagerly, Jase deliberately lowered his mental shields and invited his alter-ego in. There would be no complete abandonment to the rage, but instead the acceptance of Beastly cunning and fortitude. The action was dangerous, but if Jase was fated to lose, even with the dangerous assistance of the Beast, then neither would WonTonTun earn itself a clean win. It was time to break all the toys.

With the Beast roaring in the back of his mind, Overlord Jase returned to the battle with renewed fury.

~~~~~

Jason fiercely grinned; and the Beast bared its teeth. Both roared in glee, in rage, in amusement and horror as the dark shapes neared. Lack of lighting was not an impediment, for Jason had yielded to the Beast and no longer cared who, be it friend or foe, approached: all would be met with lethal force.

With one hand Jason aimed and fired his multi-rifle, the other clutching the shaft of a vibro-knife. Against Borg, phasers were useless, and the multi-rifle drew upon the power in the energy pack to fuel the miniature replicator, creating projectile after projectile to feed to the slug thrower. Back against a wall, Jason fired again and again and again, that part of himself which remained the dispassionate observer tempering the Beast, counseling controlled trigger bursts, not wild abandon. And the Beast listened.

Borg fell, dark forms against the velvet darkness of a gymnasium, one after another, to the ground with twitching limbs. But it was not enough. Other battles around the room were drawing to their inevitable conclusion, defenders overwhelmed, either assimilated or killed, allowing drone assets to concentrate upon the lone marine still holding the Collective at bay. For each downed cyborg, three more took its place.

Such was not to say that Jason remained unscathed. His uniform was torn or burnt in a dozen places, and his armor screamed to his backmind of countless malfunctions and penetrations. Somewhere, Jason had lost his helmet, and blood from a shallow cut to the forehead flowed down his face and threatened to partially blind him. His limbs felt the ache of disruptor burns and at least two, if not three, fingers were broken. Several ribs were shattered, making each gasp of air a shooting pain. Still, the Beast pushed Jason, disregarded the abrasions and abuse, for as long as the body could move, it could fight.

As Jason slid sideways along the wall, firing his rifle - a red light flashed, indicating imminent energy cell depletion - he suddenly realized that capture, not termination, was the purpose of these Borg. Their tactics were wrong, a lone man (or many men) unable to stand against the onslaught of an enemy able to replace its losses at will, an enemy which does not care if casualties approach 100%. Suddenly the actions of the Borg made sense, if viewed with an eye to acquire, not destroy.

The multi-rifle beeped, signifying complete discharge. There was no more energy available to feed the mini-replicator, and, hence, no more ammunition. Jason dropped the weapon...he had no more power packs, and the multi-rifle was thus reduced to an expensive club. However, he still had his vibro-knife.

He refused to be captured. The Beast would not allow it. Jason would prefer to die rather than allow the Collective to acquire its objective. The enemy would be denied.

As several Borg shapes loomed, moving with menacing intent into lunge range, Jason flipped the knife around in his hand. With a swift jerk of the haft, the knife sliced through muscle and tendon and arteries. It would have gone all the way through - self-decapitation - except the sudden blood loss caused an abrupt fading of consciousness. Knife dropped from limp fingers, and Jason fell to the deck.

A moment, a glimmer, of brief awareness returned, Beast and Jason instinctively striving for life even as the eternal blackness of death beckoned. Within that frozen slice of time, a cybernetic limb reached; and maybe, just maybe, there was the prick of a not-insect. Too late, laughed Jason, chortled the Beast, too late! Even in death, I have won!

~~~~~

Jase may not have been winning, but he was delivering a ferocious show. He was as a wounded creature with leg caught in a snare, unable to retreat, but unwilling to submit. For all practical purposes, the Beast-driven Jase no longer had a goal, unless it was to inflict as much injury as possible unto his opponent in the less than two sim-hours remaining in the game.

For all the fierceness imparted to Jase by his Beast, it was simply impossible to clear the orbit of Target Prime sufficiently to declare victory.

The Hopstan were not informed by their Overlord of the change to embrace tactics more suited to bar brawl than stellar warfare. Then again, the Beast, unlike the restrained Jase, viewed its organic servitors as mere extensions of the body, multiple claws and multiple fangs able to be slashed across thousands of miles of space.

One platform - Alpha - was in the process of falling to a swarm of ptu-caste boarders; and a neighboring platform - Beta - faltering as hundreds of skimmers, backed by a dozen converted ore carriers and a pair of frigates overwhelmed defenses. While these two platforms represented emerging victory amongst the chaos of battle, it was an expensive triumph, momentum unable to be sustained given the very high cost in material and personnel required to accomplish it. Simply put, not even the Hopstan, with their large numbers of soldiers and cheaply produced, if lightly armored, mobile assets, had sufficient resources to do more than demolish a handful of platforms and enemy warships before zero-hour.

Still, the logic of inescapable defeat did not deter Beast-Jase.

Possessing one pilot after another, coordinating the swarms to act as one unit, Jase sent each skimmer to its doom, figuratively using the corpses of those who had fallen before to edge ever closer to the goal. The battle was no longer a coherent stream-of-action, but rather disjointed views as each pilot was used, then discarded; and captains of the larger vessels simultaneously possessed to ensure that specific orders were given and followed.

The dying platform abruptly ceased firing, something deep in its heart finally overloading from the strain of defending against too many enemies. As a cheer rose upon the Hopstan flagship - Kohl Caris and the other top officers, while noting a change in their Overlord's attitude, did not comprehend that all prior plans, painstakingly constructed, had been abandoned - Jase turned his attention to the next platform in the chain of equatorial defenders. He almost had a hole large enough for the next phase in his goal to rend the enemy.

And, then, a trio of green pillars stabbed upward from the planet below, impacting the hull of platform Gamma. Fire blossoms erupted in shades of red and yellow; robotic flyer defenders caught in the beams simply vaporized. Then the heinously overpowered lasers, for that is what they were, ceased assault as abruptly as had been initiated, leaving behind a horribly wounded platform with a triplet of twenty-meter diameter holes blasted completely through the structure.

"This is Landing Veni-abba, responding to signal. Repeat, this is Landing Veni-abba responding to signal. On behalf of all surviving Landings, I apologize for our tardiness, but we have just captured the signal through the jamming interference. We have been watching the action from afar and are glad to finally be a part of it!"

At Com Station Three, the technician stood, waving excitedly for attention from upper echelon staff at the rear of the command deck. "Kohl! Kohl Caris! One of the Landings has responded!"

Kohl Caris' shrewd gaze turned towards her possessed aide. "Overlord, what are your orders?"

Jase did not hear the question. Or, rather, he did hear it, but it was an unimportant, and easily dismissed, facet of his overall consciousness. Instead, he was moving with the instinctual speed of a predator taking advantage of weakness in the prey. Focus was altered to give the disabled Gamma platform a deathblow even as a new volley of surface lasers were beginning to target WonTonTun's command and control modules.

In the opening hours of the sim, Jase had realized that retaining orbital control of Target Prime was a difficult proposition. There were a multitude of possible scenarios, many of which featured he and WonTonTun exchanging the planet repeatedly over the course of the sim-year. Jase had not wanted to engage in such a resource-consuming tug-of-war, preferring to launch a gamble which would, if the conditions warranted, allow him to wrest complete control sufficiently late in the game that WonTonTun could not recover for a counterstrike.

The key to the plan was to allow WonTonTun to interdict the planet. Occasional attacks would reinforce the need to stack defenses to protect Target Prime. With WonTonTun's concentration (and assets) split between planet, Base, and gathering resources, one of the projected advantages was a decrease in the number of offensive sorties against Hopstan forces. The benefit had materialized, discounting the initial blitz. The primary downside of the strategy was an enormous amount of endgame hardware to eliminate if Jase was to control Target Prime for the win. However, with WonTonTun focused outward with the expectation of attack, such a posture would inevitably leave a large defensive gap: a soft underbelly facing the surface.

After all, the goal was orbital control of Target Prime, not the land at the bottom of the gravity well.

Unfortunately, at that point, the dilemma was transformed into a variation upon the classical problem of how to open a crate of crowbars when the crowbar one needs is on the inside. The solution? Ensure that an agent was already inside, ready to kick open the box.

Within a sim-day of game commencement, Jase had dispatched several hundred individuals of both castes, as well as a third of the pouchers, to Target Prime. Along with sufficient supplies to support the risky excursion, the goal was not to interdict the planet, but rather land upon it; and to do so before WonTonTun had resources in place to observe the gamble. Once the multiple Landings had set down, the order was to immediately dig in (literally), hiding all presence and maintaining a low profile so that if the WiTiTi did scan the surface, signs of the incursion were minimal.

The location of the Landings were precalculated to have best vantage upon hypothetical defenses, should WonTonTun gain orbital control of Target Prime during the sim-year. The Landing mission was simple: take advantage of Hopstan biology to breed an army of laborers, then utilize them to build batteries of surface-to-orbit laser cannon. To reduce possibility of detection, individual cannon were to be capacitor driven; and while the capacitors which formed the weapons' heart were nigh-near undetectable, even when fully energized, the massive discharge would inevitably burn out electrical components, regulating each cannon to one-shot status. The solution, naturally, was to build as many cannon as possible.

A sim-year is a long time, and over the course of the year the Landings were expected to mine ores, fabricate cannon, lay tens of thousands of acres of stealth solar collectors to charge capacitors, and, in general, survive. There were many ways one, or all, Landings could fail. Detection by WonTonTun in any phase of the scheme topped the list, although a partial catalog also included malfunction of foodstuff replicators, lack of requisite ores, inability to build equipment fast enough, inability of pouchers to sustain output, disease, and catastrophic accident. The number of ways to define failure was great. And even if Landings did flourish, the next question arose if sufficient Landings were successful as to make a difference in the outcome of an orbital battle.

If anything, the contingency plan gamble was a long-shot, much more likely to be unsuccessful than succeed.

The riskiness of the plan was even greater than might initially appear, for Jase had not known the status of the Landings. For lack of a better descriptor, each biocant had an option menu accessible by its Overlord via sim dataspaces. One particular checkbox - a one-time, one-way selection - disallowed possession of an individual; and in the case of pouchers, the setting was inheritable, passed down to all offspring. The reason for existence of the preference was known only to WonTonTun, the sim author, and likely represented an option associated with sim difficulty level. Jase had deliberately crippled himself concerning status of the Landings because he did not want their success (or failure) to influence game decisions, no matter how subtly; and conventional contact, such as radio, between Landings and Hopstan resources was prohibited until such time the plan was to be activated. From WonTonTun's perspective, there had to be absolutely no suggestion that anything was amiss upon the surface of Target Prime.

If all went perfectly, with Hopstan forces possessing orbital control of the planet by sim end, then there might be no need to trigger the contingency plan at all. And if the final days or hours were not to Jase's advantage, then the plan would deliver a potentially crippling surprise to enemy forces at a critical juncture...assuming, of course, sufficient (or any) Landings survived their sim-year of isolation to change the tide of battle.

Then it had appeared as if the worst case of worst-case-scenarios had triumphed, compelling Jase to make a deal with his inner demon. Plans, contingency or otherwise, no longer mattered.

A pair of command and control modules were engulfed in multiple beams of emerald-tinged light. Whereas one module simply ceased to exist, hull and contents vaporized, the other survived intact...disregarding the huge bites taken from its periphery or the hole completely punched through the superstructure. Briefly survived. Less than thirty seconds after the laser disengaged, the second module exploded, transforming itself into an orbital navigation hazard. Although the destruction only represented a fifth of the command and control constellation, the effect was immediate: local AI and robotic defenders, reliant upon their organic handlers, faltered. The resumption of active engagement occurred quickly, but performance within the affected grid was degraded, biocants in undamaged modules now juggling a heavier command load, else resources shifted to automatic (and less effective) subroutines.

"Overlord! Your devious plan worked!" gushed Kohl Caris, the subtle inflection in her voice signifying the fading of not-so-secret doubts. She turned towards the aide who continued to serve as Jase's primary conduit to the flagship command deck and deeply bowed. In the background were excited whispers and outright cheering, the latter increasing in intensity as another of WonTonTun's command modules disintegrated. "Will it...will it be enough to win? What are your projections, Overlord?"

Jase cut the possession of the aide, as he did all his organic resources. Questions of winning, or losing, were irrelevant. That was the future; and for Jase, only the Now was important. With Beast-eyes and Beast-perception, he could perceive the wavering enemy, the weaknesses emerging as command and control modules were disabled. The logical part of Jase, the background observer, noted that even with the heavy losses WonTonTun was experiencing, insufficient time remained in the sim to achieve orbital control: by inertia alone was the alien mech fated to win. Beast-Jase politely accepted the comment even as it was dismissed as immaterial.

Jase shifted possession to the simplistic ship computers which drove the Hopstan fleet, from flagship to watcher-pods. It was a level of micromanaging available to an Overlord, but one Jase had previously avoided due to the greater versatility of his biocants...not to mention the sheer claustrophobia of the idiotic computers.

Triggering maneuvering thrusters, the ships of the Hopstan fleet were oriented with bows towards Target Prime. Internal sensors captured the sudden rise in crew anxiety as viewscreen panoramas slewed and pilots discovered the non-responsiveness of helm controls. Scores of flyers and one-being pods exploded as besieged platforms locked onto targets no longer undertaking evasive maneuvers; and diagnostic programs for those war vessels and converted freighters that had closed with orbital defenses screamed of abrupt increases in damage levels.

"Overlord! Where are you! What is happening?" shouted Kohl Caris as the main engines for the Hopstan flagship engaged with a rumble felt throughout the vessel. It was a variation upon the questions yelled, hollered, and in several cases, screamed towards the unresponsive ceilings by personnel ranging from bewildered ptu-caste skimmer pilots to captains on the verge of panic.

The flyers and other small craft were the first to plunge through the widening gaps in WonTonTun's orbital defenses. The aim of their apparently insane Overlord was not, as swiftly became clear to crews further from Target Prime, the interdicting force, but the planet itself. And, more specifically, the Landing cannon which continued to rake enemy resources with deadly laser spears.

Firing their weapons, dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of fighters dived in to the atmosphere of Target Prime. While most burned up in the heat of re-entry, a significant minority of the small vessels impacted the ground near, or on, the Landings.

They were only the first wave of the carnage to come.

Split as finely as the sim allowed, Jase jumped facets of himself from ship to ship. The seeming inexhaustible reserves of Beast-demanded retribution was the strength which supported him. Jase could not be everywhere, could not possess all vessels, but as pilots and comp-techs alike quickly discovered, their Overlord could lock the navigational computers onto headings which no Hopstan could override...at least not in a timely manner.

As larger vessels descended, ushered onward by the relentless force of gravity, one Landing in particular became the focus of Jase's apparent lunacy. Located at and near the juncture of several large fault lines, Landing hypi-nine had principally utilized geothermal energies to charge cannon capacitors. Curtains of lava began to fountain along the faults for hundreds of kilometers as differential conduits strung to harvest the power of microquakes abruptly collapsed, their hub destroyed. Multiple earthquakes greater than magnitude 12 - each the equivalent of a ten kilometer asteroid impacting the ground - ripped the ground apart and literally cracked the surface of the planet.

The Beast joyfully howled.

The pleadings of Kohl Caris for herself, for her crew fell upon deaf ears as the Hopstan flagship, the last major vessel left in orbit, began its dive. The ship screamed through the atmosphere before impacting a swiftly growing lava lake, tearing itself apart as it somersaulted across the hundred kilometer diameter surface as if it were nothing more than a stone skipped across water. All this Jase watched from the few ptu-caste flyers left in orbit, the small ships unable to follow their brethren due to engine malfunctions rendering the craft immobile.

=By the Directors...what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your Xenig mind? Did you contract a virus?= inquired WonTonTun on the sim chat channel.

Jase did not bother to reply, instead focusing upon the dataspace timer which tracked the minutes remaining to the sim. Unreal eyes shining with Beastly anticipation eagerly waited for....

Target Prime exploded.

One moment, the planet had been serenely revolving, ugly lava blemish dully glimmering; and the next, a bright light. Then nothing.

Jase regained consciousness within the confines of his Xenig chassis. Sensors focused in the direction of Target Prime revealed what appeared to be the aftermath of a miniature nova, a shockwave of gas and debris shining brightly in the X-ray frequencies.

Planets did not explode. Terrestrial planets, despite what action-vid movies might portray for the sake of dramatic license, could not explode. A sufficiently large catastrophe would shatter a planet or moon. Usually the insult was natural in origin, but not always: the Borg occasionally utilized extreme mining techniques to break apart a rocky body in order to access (often rare) ores hidden within the core. Regardless, planets did not blow up as if they were stars or warp cores.

Jase (and Beast) had merely desired for pieces of crust or lava to be ejected into orbit, thereby crushing WonTonTun's defenses with millions of metric tons of rock.

At least, that was what Jase thought he had desired. As with all post-Beast episodes, what had gone on before was best described as fuzzy. It was maybe a bit clearer than the norm as the berserker rage had been donned voluntarily, but that clarity was still restricted to short, stomach-turning segments. And the Beast? The Beast was gone, as usual once its reason for emergence was no more, fled into the deep recesses of Jase's mind.

=I...I...my planet! It took me hundreds of years to make...and tens of thousands more to bring my program of accelerated evolution to the point it was at. It was a masterpiece. And now it is...gone.= WonTonTun was projecting a sense of numbed incredulity, not anger.

Asked Jase tentatively, =So, it wasn't a real planet?=

=Only crust and upper mantle. There were other...things deeper.=

Obviously 'things' that were explosive.

The final seconds ticked to zero. The sim ended. The Battle-simPlus computer announced that because (1) neither side controlled Target Prime and (2) neither side had forces controlling their respective Bases, the result was a tie.

Snapped WonTonTun, astonishment finally giving way to notes of ire, =Why did you do that?=

=A tie...that means I win.=

=Not a tie! A slaughter!=

=No one controls Target Prime or their Bases. You said that if there was a tie, I would be given the win. Therefore, I won.=

=There is no more Target Prime to control!=

It was probably the post-Beast muzziness which was prompting Jase to argue with an alien mech with the ability to crush him like an insect, but he was not about to lose. Okay, he wasn't completely sure what he had done to win, but.... =A technicality. Still a tie. I win.=

The pink dodecahedron which was WonTonTun's projection materialized next to Jase's Xenig chassis. =I want to review the replay. All of them. From all angles. WipTupTiz...=

In the end, WonTonTun conceded, and Jase was declared to be the battle-sim victor. Before the alien mech took his leave, however, he visited Jase, the latter once again at the edge of the Xenig system sharing space with the Contraption.

=You play the sim like an organic, not a mech,= commented WonTonTun as its projection appeared. =This is not an insult: some of the best battlemasters I have faced have been organic or quasi-organic. Xenig chassis inclusion of organics, on the other hand, is insignificant, and certainly not enough to influence play.=

Jase was mute.

Continued WonTonTun, =All living things, be they organic or mech or other in origin, have a soul.... Translation of the concept breaks down and veers onto the metaphysical or religious for most species, but I refer to the link between the quantum and the macroverse. I mention this because organic-derived species, even those who have shed or modified their bodies for other forms, seem to be closer to the quantum than those of a wholly mechanized evolution. I have my personal theories as to why this may be, but such is not important here. What this means is that organics can, and often do, display moments of tactical brilliance, or insanity, unable to be reproduced by a mech. It has to do with the ability to channel the underlying randomness of the quantum in a manner not available to the mech, whom is ultimately bound in chains of logic and programming, never mind the programmer may have gone extinct millions of years prior. The WiTiTi are, like the Xenig, a pure mech race. I have spent much time constructing subroutines to emulate the best of that organic randomness - yes, I believe that organics have much to offer mech-kind - yet I know that I will never fully succeed.

=So, my question to you: how is it that you play like an organic?=

Jase stared out at the universe with his 360 degree field of view. After several minutes of silence, a near eternity when thoughts were measured in computer-clock speeds, he finally decided an answer was warranted. =I am human.= Pause. =No, not human. I am Borg. My essence was kidnapped to this chassis, but it is not whom I am.=

Since the conclusion of the sim, Jase had been deeply contemplative of his situation. He could feel the Beast napping, a dark presence ready to awaken given the slightest provocation. The rage, the anger, was controlled for now, but it was also closer to the surface than it had been since prior to enlistment in the SecFed marines. Of all the 'lives' Jase had experienced (and could remember) - child, college student, marine, Borg, Xenig - the one which had offered the most control over his darker nature had been the Borg.

And if it a choice was offered between the admitted horror which was Borg existence and possibility to be an individual free of the Collective, he knew what his answer would be. Had to be. Better to be mentally chained, serving the Will of the Greater Consciousness, even if it meant committing acts of atrocity against the free peoples of the universe, than to risk being devoured by the Beast. And the Beast would devour him, if given the chance.

It was the hardest personal decision Jase had ever made. In his Xenig chassis there was no Borg subroutine monitoring thought processes, no visitation to the workshops of assimilation or drone maintenance to ensure a proper mindset. There was no Collective influence, present or residual, influencing his judgment. And there was nothing, except mental fortitude gained in his pre-Borg years, to keep the Beast at bay should it choose to envelop Jase in its all-consuming, and oddly seductive, rage.

If it was eventually announced that Jase was forever stuck in his borrowed body, then he had vowed to learn the intricacies of the folded-space drive as quickly as possible. And then he would consign himself to wandering the universe, avoiding sentient life and the stresses that might wake the Beast.

=I see,= replied WonTonTun with a new understanding. =Technically, it was not a Xenig playing for the fate of the Xenig race, but an alien. A ringer, even. However, I do not believe I'll protest what is obviously a flagrant violation of the wager. Your display provided me with additional ideas as to how to tweak my organic emulations; and the simple fact that you won, even if it was a tie, is more than sufficient repayment of a rather stupid bet made long ago on the part of the Xenig Progenitors. Goodbye Jase. Maybe we will even meet again, one century.=

And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the pink dodecahedron vanished.

Jase returned to staring into the black, calming depths of space.

An electronic ping shivered against Jase's hull. Refocusing his starboard lateral sensors, he saw several Xenig on approach. Chassis configuration, combined with the subtle Realm-enhanced signatures Jase was learning to interpret, informed him that in the lead was Gu, trailed by Yei, who in turn was several ship-lengths in front of a small pack of journeymechs and other Contraption assistants.

=Good news!= exclaimed Gu without preamble as his chassis slid to a halt a polite distance from the brooding Jase. =While you were playing the sim, I-=

=And the rest of the Contraption team,= interjected Yei.

=-figured out how to re-acquire Col and return him to his body.= Gu continued speaking as if never interrupted.

Jase rotated his borrowed hull to face the Xenig researcher. =And return me to my body?=

Gu hemmed and hawed before finally admitting, =Well...there may be a wee bit of a problem with that. Getting Col back is the easy part. A concurrent transference may be a bit tricky, I am pretty sure it can be accomplished.=

=How sure is "pretty sure"?=

Replied Yei before Gu could answer, =We are 75.2% sure.= Pause. =But you don't have to return to your squishy, organic body, if you do not wish.=

=True,= said Gu. =The Contraption can be locked onto Col's signature and retrieve him with near 100% certainty. However, he must have his original chassis empty to serve as a depository for his essence. You, on the other thruster, are a bit more problematical. If you do not wish to take the chance of self-soul dissolution, or you have realized the superiority of the mech form, there are several master chassis-wrights willing to construct a deluxe custom body. It is the least that we as a race can do for your service in saving us.=

Added Yei excitedly, =It would be a grand honor. The masters - the artists - who have volunteered their time and expertise are among the best of our race. The number of individuals who can afford the product offered are few. A grand, grand honor!=

Jase rotated his bow towards Yei, flaring his engines ever so slightly to catch the magnetic fields and potentialities permeating space which a Xenig used for fine maneuvering. =What's the catch?= The question was directed at the journeymech.

=Er,= began Yei, the non-word a rumble of subspace static. =Well, there will be a slight time lag, say a decade or so, until a new chassis is complete. And that is if the ship-wright hurries. Which I doubt he or she would. However, a few of my peers are willing to donate a spare chassis for a temporary body.=

=A decade?! Or more?!= exclaimed Jase.

=Barely any time at all,= replied Gu, once again demonstrating the time frame Jase was familiar with was not the same as a mech with a multi-thousand year lifespan. =Whatever you decide, I will be needing the chassis Col is most attuned towards as a chalice to catch his retrieved soul. In other words, you cannot stay within that body.=

Jase mused...75% chance to return to the Borg Collective...was it worth it? Truly?

=It was 75.2%,= corrected Yei, an indication that Jase continued sporadic inadvertent broadcast of his thoughts. =You are such a hero in Homesystem! Why leave to a squishy, organic body?=

Deep in Jase's mind, the Beast rolled over, slit a non-eye, then returned to slumber.

The decision was made.

80 of 150 regained awareness in his own body. His own, limited body. Even augmented with the latest Borg hardware, he remained an organic being. No longer were the stars within his grasp - assuming the intricacies of controlling a folded-space drive could be unraveled - nor the heady metareality which was the Realm.

It was probably for the best. An unfettered Beast was hazardous enough without providing it access to technologies able to transform sentient machines into near demi-gods.

His homecoming did not go unnoticed.

"Well...bah! By the Frozen Hell of Mazutch, why does the patient always seem to recover right when it becomes interesting? So very inconsiderate." Body-sac and large eye entered 80 of 150's field of vision, along with a pair of foot-hands grasping devices featuring sharp, metallic, whirly bits and blinking diodes. "You wouldn't mind if I did the lobotomy anyway? Just a small one? Half of one? It is a fascinating procedure, and I've never had the opportunity to attempt it on species #5618."

80 of 150 was strapped to a workbench in a maintenance bay. Maintenance Bay #2 to be exact, given a glance at the too-familiar blemishes on the ceiling. Automatic diagnostics were reporting a standard medical paralysis to be in effect, preventing most movement. However, there were certain muscles that did remain under voluntary control of a paralyzed drone unless a surgical procedure required otherwise.

A breath was drawn in preparation to empathically deny Doctor his request. Except no sound, but the faintest of whispers, emerged as air was exhaled over lips poised to spit the refusal.

On the other hand, this being a Borg vessel, a verbal reply was not strictly required.

Doctor's posture wilted. "Are you absolute-"

{Yes. No lobotomy. And what happened to my voice? This time?}

Foot-hands vanished from view, accompanied by the sound of the somethings clattering onto a metal tray. Another limb appeared, this one poised for the output of embedded implants to supplement analytical scanners built into workbench. "You been effectively gone for fifteen cycles, and all you want to know about is your voice?"

{Yes.}

"The entity - the Xenig - that was inhabiting your body was very, er, upset. And, maybe, a little bit panicky. It screamed. A lot. Especially when it was climbing through the interstitial spaces before it was caught. It took over five cycles for your vocal apparatus to fail. Repair of the abuse has been low on priority list. It may require a complete replacement...." Doctor paused, the continued eagerly, "You will have to peruse the latest Implants and Assemblies Catalogue. There are several new larynx models this season, including two that are species #5618 compatible, although I am confident I can install any-"

80 of 150 blocked out Doctor's avid descriptions of vocal apparatus, turning inward to consider his status. The myriad threads of consciousness which represented the sub-collective were considering his fate; and in response to his request, memes for the time inclusive his...absence...were provided.

It was not pretty. Col, the Xenig caught in the accidental Contraption transference, had not accepted his embodiment within a Borg drone well. Needless to say, the Weapons subdesignation had been immediately stripped and dataspace access restricted severely, but Col had managed to flee into the between-deck spaces before he could be physically restrained. At that point, the record became fragmented, reduced to compilations from engineering reports, internal scanners attempting to track 80 of 150's body, and the occasional fleeting glimpse from a hunter squad. It seemed Col had attempted several times to wire himself to the cube, to attempt to become the vessel; and had been on the verge of success just before his capture.

Following Col's apprehension, he had been interviewed, poked, and prodded in an effort to learn who he was, where 80 of 150 had gone, and generally determine if there was a way to reverse whatever had occurred. Elements of assimilation, command and control, and drone maintenance hierarchies had all participated. Col's borrowed brain had been all but turned inside out: Borg interrogations were very efficient. And brutal. 80 of 150 did not doubt that given a chance for self-inspection that he would find scrambled memes and other irregularities.

Following the most recent consensus cascade, a process which the Greater Consciousness had observed (and approved), it had been decided that the unit '80 of 150' was functionally gone. Furthermore, the Xenig 'Col' was nonproductive - it continued to offer resistance. The solution was to attempt a series of brain surgeries to (1) pacify the Xenig entity; (2) facilitate the full assimilation of 'Col' into the Collective; and (3) determine if it was possible to merge 'Col' with the memes of 80 of 150, and thus salvage some of the militaristic excellence of the otherwise lost drone.

Unsurprisingly, Doctor had been delighted, as much as a Borg is allowed, to be given the responsibility for the initial surgeries. Given that Lugger-class Cube #238 was scheduled to dock at its next port-of-call in 2.3 cycles, at which time Col was to be transferred to other facilities, Doctor had been planning to go without his regularly scheduled regeneration in order to perform as much work as possible.

And now? Now it was the Greater Consciousness which had taken over the threads of the decision cascade. Would 80 of 150 be allowed to remain upon Cube #238, or would the unit be off-loaded for in-depth scrutiny by a fully competent sub-collective?

The Beast twitched. Was this a threat to itself?

The cascade came to a conclusion - 80 of 150 felt the mantle of weapons hierarchy head return, liberated from its temporary holder.

The Beast drifted back to its slumber.

Doctor released a disappointed sigh that shook his body-sac, ending with a wet gurgle and the rasp of mouthparts. Eye and ocular implant swiveled to regard patient. "Bah. Do consider your larynx choices. You are not to be returned to your alcove, at least not right away. You are, however, overdue for your cerebral check-up. I might as well do that now. As the phase-shift of prefrontal cortex governor sub-5a has been an issue in the recent past, let us start the check-list there. Diagnostics reported an unusual transient spike in neurotransmitter series alpha-eight immediately before the subdesignation transfer, and we might as well try to track it down and correct it."

Weapons simply closed his eyes, ignoring the Implants and Assemblies Catalogue datastream. Whatever was necessary to cage the Beast, to ensure it remained in deep repose. It was for the best, not only for himself, but the Borg Collective, perhaps even the galaxy.

Deep within the darkness where it denned, the Beast briefly slit an eye composed of velvet eternity, contemptuously watching as the first silver chain wrapped around a taloned un-paw. It would allow this intrusion, this farce. For now. But, as always, there would come a time when the rage and wrath was needed; and when called, it would come. And it might even stay.

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