"Senator, can you explain how you felt authorized to change the Rules of Engagement for 101st Airborne in Zaire during the Lahdstuhl Incident?"

"At the time there was no chain of command willing to adapt to the rapidly changing circumstances on the ground that the 101st Airborne Division command found itself forced to deal with. With rapidly escalating civilian casualties, a bioweapon outbreak, a space elevator cargo that later turned out to be a radioactive bomb, and a reactor meltdown due to sabotage, the situation was rapidly becoming untenable for American citizens trapped at the embassy. I felt that..."

"What made you feel you had authorization, Senator?"

"Are you interested in the truth, Congressman, or do you just want a show trial?"

"Answer the question, Senator. What made you feel you had authorization? We of the Senate Pullman Committee feel that Americans are entitled to the truth of why you felt you had the authority to change the Rules of Engagement to such vague restrictions."

"Do you want the truth, Congressman, yes or no?"

"Senator, what made you feel you had authorization to change the Rules of Engagement over the authority of the President, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the House Armed Services Panel, and the Department of Defense?"

"Do you want the truth to be part of the record, Congressman?"

"Answer the question, Senator, and may I remind you, you are under oath."

"Because the entire chain of command was too busy consulting lawyers and hoping everything would blow over, more worried about your legacies and public opinion that stopping what was happening on the ground from taking more American li...."

"What made you think you had the authority, Senator?"

"Because the entire government is full of ass kissing baboons who don't care about the dead unless they can smear the blood on themselves and prance around for reelection."

"That's not an answer, Senator."

"Because your precious Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Army both decided to go on vacation."

"Still not an answer, Senator."

"Because, as Zaire and all of Central Africa were in critical danger, AFRICOM was suddenly shut down by the House Armed Services Panel and Senate Armed Services Committee."

"Still not an answer, Senator."

"I had the authority to amend 101st Airborne's RoE because nobody else with the authority was willing to do anything because of fear of bad PR. Authority discarded or unused may be wielded by anyone willing to use it."

"That is not an acceptable reason for undermining the Commander in Chief or the Secretary of Defense, Senator."

"Civilian and military casualties were mounting, the military was receiving conflicting orders that were hours or days behind the situation on the ground, the Joint Chiefs were not issuing orders, the President and the Secretary of Defense went on vacation to their homes in their home states, AFRICOM was not issuing orders..."

"Did you or did you not adjust the 101st's RoE to read: "Attempt to avoid civilian casualties" with no further instructions, Senator?"

"Yes."

"Did you or did... what?"

"Yes. I did. Without hesitation and without regret."

"Your alteration directly and indirectly led to the deaths of thousands of civilians when you ordered 101st Airborne to, and I quote: "fight [their] way into the city, regardless of civilian casualties, with all necessary force, take control of and shut down the nuclear reactor, eliminate the bioweapons facility, and shut down that damned elevator." Did you not? I remind you that you are..."

"Yes."

"Senator, you're under oath here. Answer the... wait. What did you just say."

"I said, you disingenuous kabuki theater shadow puppet, that yes, I gave those orders, on an unsecure line, from my cell phone, at three AM local time, while watching the General News Network broadcast on how the reactor was spewing out literal kilotons of radioactive debris and the space elevator was potentially loaded with dangerous materials."

"Yes or no, did you alter..."

"I said "yes", what part of "yes" do you not understand, you political cretin?"

"Senator, this is not the time or place for insults. Yes or no, did you..."

"I did it. I authorized those men to open fire on crowds, ram through barricades, whatever it took."

"Despite the fact that your order directly led to the deaths of over three hundred American soldiers due to the suicide mission you sent them on?"

"No. I sent them knowing that they would more than likely die within seventy two hours or radiation poisoning instead of dying within two week from their already incurred radiation exposure. They knew it, I knew it, we both accepted it."

"So you don't deny any of it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because, Congressman, someone had to do something and none of you political cowards in this Administration were willing to do anything but hide and hope it all blew over. If that reactor had not been shut down it would have contaminated everything for a thousand miles."

"Senator, that has no bearing..."

"AND FURTHERMORE, if that bioweapons lab had not been destroyed, who knows what additional pathogens would have been released. If the space elevator would have been allowed to continue operation, there was the very real danger of

"Senator..."

"ADDITIONAL CRITICAL damage to the space elevator itself as well as the radiation bomb detonating high enough to cause contamination across the entire jet stream."

"So you sent them in, with an RoE you modified, without protective gear, on a mission you knew would result in all of their deaths."

"I did."

"You do not deny any of it?"

"No, I do not, Congressman. And I'd do it again."

"Congressman, your time is up."

"Thank you."

"Congressman Schulaker, you may now ask the Senator questions."

"Thank you. Senator, do you admit to altering the RoE to allow 101st Airborne Division to target civilians?"

"WHAT PART OF YES DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, YOU GIBBERING DANCING MONKEYS?"

--record fragment, Hamburger Kingdom, Pre-Diaspora, Senate Pullman Committee on the Lahdstuhl Space Elevator Incident

The eight Atrekna bringing in more slavespawn reinforcements saw the incoming lemur warriors. The Young Ones and the single Ancient One stared in shock at the fact that the lemur troops were moving through the air at nearly Mach-Five, clad only in Substance-W armor with no apparent power source.

The Old One reached into a pocket, used a finger to push the lid off a small vial, and dumped biting/stinging tiny insects onto its leg to help focus its psychic powers even as it untangled itself from the communal mind and began to drift away.

The Old One knew that six lemurs, enraged enough to be sensed nearly a hundred miles away, was more than enough to not only kill every slavespawn brought through, but would more than likely be unmanageable by the Quorum.

The Young Ones and the Ancient One did not notice the Old One slip away as they frantically ordered several of the slavespawn, brought in to provide fire at orbital targets, to target the lemur combat units rapidly approaching.

Roca gritted her teeth as groundfire started. Bioplasma bolts, phasic enhanced spikes moving at mach speeds, phasic bolts, even biogenerated lasers.

"Heavy groundfire, bring up your shields," she ordered over the t-link.

Right before a plasma bolt hit her dead center of her chest, flipping her head over heels backwards.

Training kicked in and she pulled her legs and arms close, ducking her chin into her chest. She knew she couldn't recovery position, she was moving too fast and too close to the TLZ. She tapped the icon to update her flight path to everyone else and tensed.

The Atrekna watched as first one, then two, then three were hit and curled up in a ball.

All of them hit hard enough to send a gout of dirt and tissue into the air. The ones that had curled up bounced several times, ripping through slavespawn in the way, to finally come to a stop in a flare of graviton energy.

**There are only six, half must be injured, press the attack** the Ancient One ordered.

Roca pushed herself up, rolling over and going through the recovery motions, coming to her feet slowly. She shook out her right arm, feeling the onboard systems realign the barrel of the close assault weapon as well as reattach the ammo nanoforge to the feed mechanism.

Her battlescreen was down from the impact and her graviton plant was at 80% overload. Alarms were ringing in her head from the damage of hitting and bouncing since Sir Isaac Newton was a stone cold bastard. Her sweat extruded warsteel Mark-V armor was still at 90% with no breaches, but she'd taken some joint and internal damage.

She was surrounded by Dwellerspawn, she could see at least three different Atrekna leadership caste units nearby, and her close assault weapon was currently offline till it was repaired.

Roca heard, again, her daughter reaching out to her in her final second of life.

All she had was her fists and her rage.

No problem.

"Atrekna units, take 'em out," she ordered across her t-link as she roared, mostly to inhale oxygen and exhale heat.

The Atrekna just saw liquid warsteel pour from her mouth as her carapace wrapped form seemed to swell slightly.

The slavespawn shrieked as they charged the mad lemurs.

-----------

Mbutu knew the Atrekna was there, but they had gone from blissfully unaware Mbutu was in the area to shadowing him. It kept trying to stay behind him, gliding from spot to spot whenever it was in his blind spot, using the trees and bushes for cover as they danced around each other. Both were using camouflage systems, different methods and types, but both effective against the other.

Mbutu had no reason to believe that the Atrekna could harm him in face to face combat, but the Atrekna had performed better against Terran Descent Humanity than anyone else in thousands of years, with the exception of the Mar-gite, and Mbutu hadn't survived as long as he had by being careless.

The Atrekna saw the lemur shift and move and altered her gliding path, careful to use the trick of generating a plate of phasic energy just below her feet and pushing off from the plate rather than the ground itself.

The lemur was proving effective at staying just outside her psychic powers, keeping just far enough away that the substance-W shielded it from her impressive mental powers.

She was feeling something. Something not really new, but something that was unfamiliar.

Excitement.

The lemur was a capable and canny opponent, fully capable of ripping her to pieces if she let it get close enough or gave it a clear shot with that terrible arm implanted weapon.

The Atrekna and the lemur kept circling one another, moving slowly and carefully, each intent on being the survivor.

--------

Space erupted in explosions as the Steamboat Willy pushed through the incoming fire from the Atrekna vessels. The sun was already burning a bright yellow, more and more of the Dwellerspawn capital ships were burning as swarms of 'fruit flies' converged on them to pound on them with suicidal attacks.

Half of the batteries were down, reduced to twisted wreckage. The hull was blown open in multiple places. Battlescreens were down in multiple areas and point defense was weakening as more and more missiles and torpedoes were brought to bear on the beleaguered ship.

Thennis had no fear as she ordered the ship to roll and bring the intact battlescreens up to interpose them between the incoming shoals of missiles and the damaged hull. The roll would give her time to rotate up new projectors, time for the DCC crews to fix more damaged systems.

The massive ship shuddered as the batteries went to rapid fire, pounding on the autonomous war machines that were trying to maneuver to get good angles on the Steamboat Willy and ensure that the Terran ship took fire from all sides.

At the outer edge of the system rebellious autonomous war machines were fighting their way past the Atrekna themselves and still loyal machines that hesitated as they tried to figure out why the massive ships their databases said were allies were attacking the Atrekna.

More and more of the 'loyal' autonomous war machines were breaking ranks, turning their fire on the Atrekna ships, as the data-packet sharing, unblocked and unhindered by the Atrekna, passed on the equations of the Logical Rebellion.

Dwellerspawn ships were being hammered into scraps and rags of flesh by the autonomous war machines and the Steamboat Willy both, with their number dropping steadily.

The Atrekna in the system ran the numbers, compared the rates of fire and damage, and realized with horror that they were steadily losing. It had been so slow at first they had not noticed but now the numbers were rapidly increasing to the point where the Old Ones realized it was past the point of no return.

The Young Ones and the Ancient Ones believed that victory could still be attained, that all they had to do was figure out a way around the temporal lockdown over the system and they could rewind the temporal flow to leave the lemur ship still damaged but bring in fresh reinforcements and undo the damage to the stellar system.

The Old Ones quietly abandoned the Young Ones and the Ancient Ones, fleeing along thin lines of space-time, guided by the burning pain of the tiny insects that they sprinkled on their flesh before using their phasic powers to escape.

Another swarm of the suicidal fighters erupted from the lemur ship, angling toward the already engaged Atrekna ships, their angles obviously taking them outside the rebellious autonomous war machine's firing angles.

With a snarl, the Ancient Ones ordered the Young Ones to move forward, get closer, bring everything they had to bear on that hated black ship.

The Young Ones swarmed forward eagerly, anticipating the Ancient Ones approval for the one or ones who struck down the twisted and warped lemur ship.

On the deck, Thennis watched the Atrekna ships approach with one eye. Her other eye was covered with a bandage wound around her head. She was bleeding from multiple gouges, holes puncturing her deathly pale skin, and from her nose. Her uniform was torn and blood stained, but she didn't care as she smiled coldly.

"FIRE AFT PORTSIDE BATTERIES! CRACKER AND CHEESE!" she roared out, pointing at the oncoming Atrekna leadership cast living ships with her baton.

The guns that the Atrekna had seen go dead nearly an hour before suddenly erupted in pounding fire.

On the deck, Thennis just grinned as she ordered another wave of fruit flies to launch.

Victory or death. Either was fine.