Sma'akamo'o was sitting in a chair that a Telkan had brought out, watching the Terrans go over the ground fighting and the dispersal of forces. He had taken a quick four hour nap to offset the nearly twenty hours of being awake during the fighting, but didn't feel refreshed at all.

The Mad Lemurs of Terra seemed as fresh and energetic as ever.

He had to admit, the Terrans were as adept at ground fighting as he had always estimated. Once they hit the ground, unless they could be dislodged within minutes, an hour at the most, they were dug in like hide parasites and as impossible to remove.

Spy'inmo'o leaned over next to him.

"Note how the Terrans are able to keep not only the fluid nature of the battlefield in their minds, but remember each unit's role in the offensive or defensive operations," the covert action specialist said. "They do not rely solely on computer reports, their Admiral Smith receives update via voice from Division and Brigade Combat Team leaders hourly."

Sma'akamo'o nodded. "Even with my implant, the information overload is almost complete. I cannot remember which unit is involved where."

"Something's happening," Spy'inmo'o said as Admiral Smith and the other Admirals of the Mad Lemur Fleet were approaching.

"I'm moving my command center to orbit," the Admiral said. "The situation on the ground is stable, the Atrekna are being pushed back, and we've identified command and control groups within the Atrekna order of battle," she looked up. "Temporal-phasic munitions are proving to be highly effective, so we're dusting off a lot of nanoforge templates from the Third Temporal War."

Spy'inmo'o filed away that little bit of data.

The universe has attempted to wipe out the Mad Lemurs of Terra with every situation possible, only to leave behind the ones who could adapt and overcome the threat, he thought. Their saying of 'that which does not kill me makes me stronger' is more than just idle warrior-culture boasting. They gain knowledge, weaponry, tactics, strategies, making them more effective against any enemy utilizing the same tactics.

"I would like to invite the three of you to join me. General Gargrante will remain here to oversea the theater of operations," the lemur Admiral said.

"There should be joyed to orbit with you," Spy'inmo'o said. He made a face, tapped his datalink, and tried again. "We would be happy to accompany you."

Admiral Smith just nodded, waving toward a heavily armored and armored shuttle that looked unfinished to Sma'akamo'o's eye. "Then let us depart."

-----------

In orbit, Sma'akamo'o got his first up-close view of a lemur warship. While he had faced them, he had kept them at long range for his weaponry, what he had determined was medium range for the lemur vessels. Now he was seeing it close.

He had to admit, it was impressive.

Many Lanaktallan ships used the 'orb' or 'almond' hull style, to maximize the number of weapons and shield projectors, have the most armor, and be the most survivable.

The ships of the Mad Lemurs of Terra looked like they would be as at home on water as they were in space. They bristled with weapons, the shielding was thick enough to distort the view with the naked eye, and their appearance, black with pin-lights, was ominous.

We are the Mad Lemurs of Terra and we have arrived to break your possessions and burn down your domicile, Sma'akamo'o thought to himself as the dropship navigated for the landing bay. He used his datalink to take an image of the ship and put that text over it. He then put an image still stored in his datalink of the battlefield outside the Unified Military Command Center and put text on it, sending both to Su'uprmo'o. Behold my grazing field where my value of your comfort grows and view that it is on fire.

His datalink, tied into the lemur system, gave a weird burble and put up an image in the window to the right of his vision.

It showed a crude drawing of one lemur telling another "Behold the field where mine fucks doth grow. View that ist barren."

Sma'akamo'o took a moment to query the lemur system to understand what a profanity relating to sexual intercourse had to do with it and found out that the single word encompassed quite a few concepts. The one in use of the image was 'concern' or 'cares.'

He snorted in sensible amusement.

"Are you all right, Most High?" Admiral Smith's attache, one Commodore Grouseling, asked, looking concerned as the strange noise.

"Yes. Your computers apparently pay attention to mental state and my messages," Sma'akamo'o said. "It seems unusually attentive."

The attache nodded. "Forces are engaged in combat. There is a lot of systems dedicated to watching morale and psyche levels. I take it that the system tossed you a meme?"

Sma'akamo'o nodded and transferred what he had done and what the system had replied with.

The attache gave that sudden flash of meat tearing teeth that Sma'akamo'o knew was a visual cue of pleasure.

"Yeah, that's an old one but good one," she said. "The ones that endure the test of time are always good. At least you didn't get something like this."

The lemur made a tossing motion and Sma'akamo'o accepted the file.

It was just a puppet dancing and flailing around making screeching noises that suddenly exploded. Then an anvil fell on the wreckage. Then the puppet jumped up on top of the anvil and kept dancing.

It made him chuckle. He didn't know why. Perhaps the spastic movements of the crude puppet. Perhaps the stupidity.

"What does it mean?" Sma'akamo'o asked.

"Beats me. It's one of those three thousand year old memes that nobody knows what the hell it was about, but it's still funny," the lemur laughed. "Your people must have all kinds of those memes, having been around for a hundred million years."

Sma'akamo'o was quiet a long moment. "Our peoples do not do such things. Here is an example of a memetic amusement."

The lemur was silent as the dropship moved into position, oriented, then slowly and stately entered the drop-bay, moving through the permeable forcefield. It settled down, deployed landing gear, and settled on the hum of antigrav. There was a long moment as everyone stood up.

Sma'akamo'o waited for the lemur to finish watching the short meme.

The group entered the elevator, then moved to the flag bridge. There Admiral Smith introduced people, which Sma'akamo'o made sure he correctly labeled everyone on his datalink. She then went over the fact that not all the ships had arrived.

In particular the lemurs of the Ninth Terran Republic had not arrived.

"How many ships made the dimensional shift?" Admiral Smith asked Admiral Huong.

The Terran male smiled again. "My entire task force. Four hundred thirty-two ships, including eighty-five troop transports and sixteen cargo-ships carrying the ground force's equipment."

"How many ground troops do you have?" Smith asked, making an annotation.

"Two-hundred fifty million and change troops per ship, kept in cryostatis for transport," Huong said.

There was silence for a moment.

"You have over twenty-one billion troops?" Smith asked quietly.

"Ground forces for occupation of the rebel held systems that aren't immolated," Huong said, shrugging. "It was estimated that at least twenty systems would have to be scorched, another hundred occupied for at least fifty years to change the culture."

"Twenty-one billion people?" Smith asked.

He nodded. "A fifth are untrained and unblooded, but a year or two in an occupation zone would train the ones that survive up quick enough," he shrugged. "If I needed more I could have stopped by any planet and ordered a conscription levy to refill the pods."

There was silence. "Combat cyborgs?"

Huong shook his head. "Never got it to work right."

"Digital or artificial sentience?"

"Probably twenty years out from reliable use beyond attack drones," Huong shrugged.

"Genetically engineered troops?"

"Human DNA is pretty balanced. Anything you add subtracts from somewhere else. We were able to beat most of the genetic maladies, but beyond that, genetic engineering is too risky," Huong said. He looked around. "I take it the rules are different here?"

Smith nodded. "A bit."

"What about robot combat armor and power armor?" an attache asked.

Huong shook his head. "Instinct/intent to reaction lag makes power armor useless, robot combat armor attracts too many missiles. Same with tanks and most aircraft. We use drone swarms and infantry."

"Well, occupation forces might work for your troops," Smith said. She looked at the screen. "Your first ship should be arriving about now," she twiddled with the screen controls. "Let's see what your ships look like."

The flag bridge was silent as everyone watched.

There was a single flash.

HELLSPACE BREACH DETECTED appeared.

The hellspace portal measured, according to the holotank, only a few hundred meters in diameter and was open for less than a second. What appeared was a strange ship that looked like a brick with engines in the back. The brick maneuvered, then extended sensors.

"Where's the..." Smith started.

There was a sudden sparkle and hundreds of ships appeared around the block.

The ships were massive. Heavily armored, heavily armed. The first thing Sma'akamo'o noted was that they did not have force shielding, no debris shielding, nothing.

Just armor.

"FTL travel is hostile to life as we know it," Huong said. "We send a beacon first, then translate directly to the beacon."

Smith nodded and Sma'akamo'o noted that everyone was slightly still.

"All right, let's move on. We have two-hundred sixteen worlds that need liberated, protected, or where the systems had been need to be scouted," Smith said, her words starting slow and picking up speed as the uncomfortable feeling that Sma'akamo'o had noticed dissipated.

After about ten minutes, during that time Smith went over estimations of enemy strength, how long the Atrekna had held the system, or when the system had vanished from contact and observation, the attache leaned over and whispered to Sma'akamo'o.

"Um, how long does this go on?" the attache asked.

Sma'akamo'o checked her progress. "Two more hours."

She gave a frown. "When does it get funny?"

"It doesn't. It's been carefully crafted to inform you about the overwhelming superiority of the Lanaktallan people and how culture is irrelevant and a waste of resources and that your culture, society, and people are patheticly outmatched by the Unified Council," Sma'akamo'o said.

"Oh. I'm getting bored. Can I watch the rest later?" the attache nodded.

Sma'akamo'o nodded.

His implant threw up a picture of a lemur skeleton covered in cobwebs holding a datapad with the Lanaktallan meme still playing on it.

The meeting broke up and Sma'akamo'o realized he hadn't really been paying attention to the meeting itself, more to the wide variety of Terrans on the bridge.

He followed Admiral Smith as quietly as he could, his hooveshoes ringing on the deckplates. When they went into her office he looked around.

"Things are nervous between our peoples," Sma'akamo'o said after Smith sat down.

"Yes. Technically we are war, but the politicians have not caught up with the reality," Smith said.

"There is tension between yourself and the Admiral of the Ninth Terran Republic," Sma'akamo'o said.

Smith nodded slowly. "Is it that obvious?"

"To me," Sma'akamo'o said.

Smith nodded again, looking grave. "We've encountered them before. I thought the name was familiar, but the ship lines and the transports carrying conscripts in cryo-stasis confirmed it."

Sma'akamo'o tilted his head. "Is there a problem?"

Again Smith nodded. "We need to get him away from any planets you want to keep and any star systems you don't want to lose, and we need to do it quickly."

"And remind him constantly that Terra is currently under interdiction," her attache said.

Sma'akamo'o frowned. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is, he's a problem," Smith said.

---------------

Deep under The Mountain, behind the Face of Crying Anne, a woman with gunmetal gray eyes stirred slightly.

She opened her eyes, stretched, and looked around.

“Well, well, well,” she smiled.

She giggled.

She started laughing.

Then rocked back and forth, howling with glee before suddenly going silent.

She opened a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and lit it, snapping the lighter closed and tucking it away. She exhaled smoke from her nose and looked around slowly.

“Earth. What a shit-hole.”

Joshua, one of the earliest AI’s, had never been programmed to feel emotion, but now, after watching the woman laugh, he had discovered one. One that still twisted and moved through his code as he watched the woman stand up and stretch.

Fear.

He watched as she got up and moved to master control panel, quickly working.

She stopped. "That's not right."

"May I be of assistance?" Joshua asked.

"Get that big thug and the multiplying man in here," Dee snapped.

"Affirmative," Joshua answered and vanished.

Nearly an hour later Daxin and Legion entered the room, Daxin using a cloth to wipe sweat off his forehead, Legion looking slim and androgynous. Fido trotted along behind, his tongue hanging out and panting, his tail whipping side to side.

"There you two are," Dee snapped. She turned from the computer terminal she was using.

"You seem vexed," Legion said calmly.

Daxin just grunted and sat down in a chair, the chair creaking under his weight. Fido sat next to him and he reached out and scratched between the hound's ears.

"How much use does the mat-trans system see?" Dee asked.

Legion looked at Daxin. "Kawaii Boyz, Neko-Marines, right?"

"Some ammunition systems with the martial orders, that's about it," Daxin said. He folded up the rag and tucked it in a pocket. "Mat-trans drives people bat-shit."

Dee looked at the screen for a moment, then looked back.

"What would move gigatons of matter from one point in space to another?" Dee asked.

Legion frowned. "None. Mat-trans was largely abandoned a long time ago. Why? Did someone use it to move that much recently?"

Dee nodded, lighting a cigarette. Legion had been around her long enough to tell that she was irritated. "Roughly five hours ago."

"Where?" Daxin asked, his whole body language and tone indicating he really didn't care.

"Toward the base of the spur, in Lanaktallan territory," she said. "Whatever system was part of it, it had an auto-synch component that linked up with the master system here."

Daxin looked up. "Are you talking about ships? As in spaceships?"

Dee nodded.

Legion looked at Daxin, raising one eyebrow, as Daxin stood up.

"Any headers? Any ID?" Daxin asked.

Dee motioned at the computer. "Garbage to me. Maybe it will mean something to you?"

Daxin sat down in the chair and looked at it. After a minute he shook his head. "No. Doesn't mean anything to me," he looked at Legion. "We might have a problem."

Legion frowned, reaching out to himself where he was on the bridge of the Fleet of One. "How?"

"Someone used mat-trans to move an entire armada down in Lanky territory. Confed doesn't use mat-trans for FTL. Too risky," Daxin said.

"Who does?" Dee asked, her voice almost a growl.

Legion could practically see her anger at someone using the system she'd created even as he had himself run database inquiries.

Daxin spoke before Legion found the data.

"Locusts. The Locusts are back."