Lepochim folded his hands in his lap. His head fell back against the headrest of his armchair, eyes closed so as to ignore the thick stack of reports on his desk. Many deepthinks from Zder Galaxy's habitable worlds preferred paper over digital projections, specifically because projections were widely thought to reduce productivity.

Lepochim had to grudgingly agree with the popular consensus: There was nothing quite like a physical stack of paper to remind you just how much you still had left to do.

Lepochim knew that Lisa and Bath's return would be imminent. He had set up a primitive gate relay at the junction between Earth and Magnet planet and then instructed a group of humans to go through the gate and set up a new array at each gate until they reached Illudis. He knew that Juserin would have set up gate arrays of his own, and would share the technology to do so to the vanguard. In particular, since Juserin had contracted out planet 39744--Dusk's Halo--to one of the Core Worlds, he (or one of his predecessors) must have established a gate array communication network to monitor the planet remotely.

While Juserin's gate arrays were likely high-quality imports, the ones that Lepochim had commissioned from people of Basalith had sufficed. The humans he'd sent to establish the arrays had succeeded in setting up a communication line to Illudis, securing Lepochim access to daily updates on the vanguard's progress.

The latest report suggested that the vanguard would be returning to Earth within the next few hours. Because Earth's single gate lay cloistered beneath the Anima, Lepochim had already closed off access to the underground--including access to all the training rooms--to facilitate the vanguard's disembarkation. Now all he had to do was wait...a difficult task, considering how his thoughts kept wandering to all the problems he'd planned on dealing with after Lisa and Bath returned.

I thought I could keep everything in line in their absence, he thought, frowning. But I underestimated the trouble that humans get themselves into. Lepochim opened an eye. Rather, I underestimated the human imagination.

For all their technological progress, Lepochim couldn't deny that deepthinks had long since settled into a peaceful, plentiful rut. Such stagnation was only natural: Zder galaxy had been around for billions of years. Everything worth thinking about had already been thought, and everything worth doing, done.

Or so Lepochim had thought. People of Zder Galaxy certainly hadn't thought to develop a highly mutable plant lifeform like dragonleaf, nor had they engaged in anything like the ridiculous (though reportedly entertaining) territory wars embroiling Earth.

Ever since the deepthinks entered the space age, they had broken free from the rise-and-fall cycle of civilization. There had been a few instances of planets failing as their political systems imploded, but these isolated incidents had little impact on the galaxy as a whole. After one planet failed, its denizens simply resettled on other planets.

In general, there was little cause for political turmoil: resources were plentiful and education available to all. All tasks below sapient-grade intelligence designations had been mechanized and automated.

The only wrench in this peaceful scheme, Lepochim thought, are the kursi. Unlike in some other worlds, kursi weren't permitted to hold positions of political power in Zder. Zderians often hailed their long-standing peace and prosperity as the result of this ancient ordinance.

But of course, time was the surest way to accumulate a high volume of kursi, given that they don't age. And with nothing meaningful for them to do to pass the time, many Zderian kursi ended up in military camps like Sigenolf-74. After all, while Zder Galaxy was peaceful internally, it still had to protect itself from other worlds. Moreover, life as a kursi special forces operative usually led to travel and adventure.

While his superiors on Sigenolf-74 had repeatedly stated how Zder's peace relied on the power of its kursi special forces, Lepochim was no longer convinced that this was true. Just thinking about the power the humans now had made Lepochim's head spin: Any human with sufficiently high PP investment in one of the combat-oriented professions could obliterate a kursi in seconds.

Even if a hypothetical kursi operative attempted to hide, administrator boons gave humans the ability to detect hidden foes. While the kursi would have the surprise advantage, and would be able to disable humans remotely, eventually they'd be found and overrun by sheer numbers.

I've run two-hundred battle simulations since Lisa and Bath left...and not once did a team of kursi with "unenhanced" capabilities defeat a contingent of enhanced humans. And that's not even factoring in quasi-sapients...

Lepochim sighed.

"You're like an angsty teenager," a voice said from behind the office's main door.

Lepochim immediately sat up straighter at his desk as Nevis' head poked out of the doorway.

"They're coming back any minute, right?"

Lepochim looked at the ceiling. "It's more likely that they'll come back after the passage of another hour or so."

"Why the dreary expression?" Nevis asked, hips swaying as she walked up to Lepochim's desk. She placed a hand down on the stack of papers as she leaned in. "They're coming back to fix all your problems. Isn't that a good thing?"

"They aren't my problems," Lepochim sniffed. "They're just as much your problems as they are mine."

Nevis smiled sweetly while shaking her head, her antennae bouncing lightly behind her.

As she placed a finger to her lips, she asked, "Was I the one who didn't do anything while that four-armed upstart and his wifey took over the northwestern United States?"

Lepochim cleared his throat. "My job is, and shall continue to be, administering Basalith."

Nevis chuckled softly and walked around to the other side of the desk. As she began to give Lepochim a massage, the deepthink flinched.

"A girl might think her hands are freezing cold," she said, "the way you always jump."

"Nevis," he finally asked, regaining his composure. "Did you need something?"

She leaned over and peered into yellow eyes as inhuman as her own, her antennae drooping into Lepochim's lap.

"When you leave this city, take me with you."

Lepochim was left speechless. "I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon."

Nevis stood back up and gave his shoulders a few more circular rubs before stepping back.

"It's funny how little your plans matter when the Church and Dragon are around."

What is she implying?

"Lepochim...why do you think they founded the vanguard? Why did they go on this trip?"

"I'm not an imbecile," he snapped. "I know that the Dragon's aspirations, in particular, revolve around leaving this planet."

"And they'll be bringing you with them."

Lepochim gave Nevis a hard look. "I know."

Nevis rolled her eyes. "Then who are you kidding, Lepochim?"

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. "I can't imagine them leaving this strand of gates within the next decade. They aren't in a rush, and there's so much here that needs to be done..."

Nevis shrugged her shoulders. "Just make sure you bring me along."

"We'll se--" Lepochim watched wide-eyed as the office door closed behind the quasi-wasp with a thud.

---

Lepochim snorted as he snapped up in his seat.

I fell asleep!? he asked himself, disoriented. His chip reader was blaring an alarm that Lepochim silenced on reflex.

He took in a deep breath. So...trouble has returned to my calm city.

He walked out of the Spire and into the Anima, turning into the closed-off entrance to the labyrinth of tunnels below. His face was expressionless as he put one foot in front of the other.

Soon enough, he stood in front of the door to the gate room. He gazed into the recently-installed retina scanner barring the door and stepped back.

Then, the door swung open.

"How?" he said. "How?" It hasn't even been a full two months!

Lisa was standing in full Church regalia in front of the gate. Bath was at her side in his human form. Lisa turned around at Lepochim's outburst and broke into a grin.

"Lepochim!"

"That's not going to fit into this room," Lepochim lamented, gesturing to the white craft currently squeezing through the gate.

"We know," Lisa replied. "We're working on it."

...Working on it? Lepochim didn't know how big this ship was, but he was familiar with crafts constructed for the sole purposes of traversing gates. They tended to be as long as human passenger trains, a length which far exceeded what the gate room could handle.

Suddenly, the gate disappeared. Or rather, it, along with the ship awkwardly sticking out of it, had been rapidly elevated. Lepochim blinked once, barely believing his eyes. Since when had Bath been able to control--or at the very least, burrow quickly through--solid ground?

He watched helplessly as Lisa pushed off the ground and rocketed upward. He held up an arm in front of his face as the shock-waves from her liftoff sent a gust of wind rippling through his clothes.

Lepochim ran over to the new hole in the ceiling, peering up at the sky in disbelief.

"Trouble has certainly returned," he spat. No feeble push-over himself, Lepochim bounded up through the hole, digging his hands into the exposed earth whenever he needed handholds.

He shook out his dirt-covered hands as soon as he reached the surface. He continued to do so for a solid minute, his brain latching onto the motion as it tried to make sense of what his eyes were seeing.

An absolutely massive gate-grade space-faring ship was making its way out of the gate. It only took it a few seconds to finish its exit. Almost immediately after, another identical ship began to fly out of the gate. One more identical ship came next; that one was followed by a ship that was identical except for that its length was only half that of the others. Last came Juserin's voyager.

In total, three long white ships, one short white ship, and the voyager lay suspended hundreds of feet in the air. Immediately after all ships departed the gate, the earth directly underneath the area began to churn. Since Bath had relocated the gate to the other side of Basalith's wall, Lepochim ran over and scaled it to get a proper look.

Thirty seconds later, the gate lay anchored atop what could only be described as a dragonleaf-covered ziggurat. Lepochim could only watch in awe as he took in the strange scene around him.

I suppose a pyramid makes sense, considering that it has a side for exiting and entering. Sapients will simply climb the stair-case-like walls to enter the gate, while airborne vessels will be able to fly out of the gate without worrying about hitting anything on the ground.

It was a much more practical setup than they'd had in the past. Whenever Basalith opened the gate for passage, the line always took up every inch of the Anima and even backed up into the street. Placing the gate outside, at the very least, made sense.

Just as Lepochim was getting comfortable, he felt the wall collapse around him. He lept to the side, securing his footing on a section of the wall still standing off to the far right.

The absurdity never ends...

He watched from a safe distance as Bath tore down the wall separating Basalith from the outside with a lazy wave of his hand. Then, he pushed both up his hands up and out to form a new wall that encompassed the ziggurat.

Lepochim squinted his eyes shut, then opened them again. He's absolutely destroyed the city's symmetry, the deepthink grumbled.

At the same time as Bath erected the ziggurat, the ships descended and began to let out the members of the vanguard that hadn't been left to station the new city-seeds. First was the ship with humans, then the ship with the verdora, and after the ship with the quasi-sapients. The smaller ship held the kursi (though even that seemed excessive in Lepochim's mind; why did less than ten people need an entire ship?), while the voyager held none other than Dean.

Bath suddenly appeared in front of Lepochim, a predatory grin on his face.

"So," he began. "How have things been?"

Lepochim struggled to speak. "Things here have been quiet," he muttered.

Lisa flitted over to Bath's side, leaning on his shoulder. "Quiet?"

"...Relatively quiet," Lepochim replied.

"Well, we're going to fix that!" Lisa beamed, raising an eyebrow at Bath.

Is she actively trying to dismantle everything that I've been working for? Lepochim wondered. Isn't she the Church? Isn't a church supposed to be a place where humans find peace and calm?

Lepochim fluttered his eyelids and breathed out a deep breath.

"Congratulations," he began, forcing his mouth into a smile, "on your successful campaign."

---END OF PART 6---