"Plan! There was no plan apart from the aet of creation! I haven't heard or been able to contact another Guo'Saphyrn Cluster in millennia. As far as I know, you and I are the last of our kind. I didn't want to wither away alone in a cave! I wanted to pass surrounded by my creations and know that my mark had been left on the galaxy in brush strokes of light and colour," Rass Misiun's voice was quivering like a crystal glass about to shatter. Each of his tree-like limbs trembled with what could be fury.

Rass continued his tirade, "But now that you're here and these ugly natural born people have followed you, all I can expect is strife! So I will take what little pleasure I can from killing you, Silghen Morseg, and make sure my creations survive this!"

At that Rass Misiun surged upwards, the three thick roots of his trunk lifting him, Silghen who was still held by Misiun's limbs, and knocked Eli to the ground. A sickening *crack* was heard as Silghen broke one of his arms as he escaped Rass's grasp and lept away. Rass Misiun began thrashing its arms between it and the other two.

Eli crawled backwards, away from the thrashing alien tree. Silghen jumped away as well, one arm hugged tight to his body, and hissed at Eli.

*"You stupid construct, I could have ended this without your interference. Now we both will die, and that demon will flourish."*

"How am I supposed to trust the alien that stranded me, then destroyed me?" replied Eli as he stood up, "As far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter what happens if the Glint and I make it out of here."

Their conversation was interrupted by one of Rass Misiun's limbs slamming down near them. Eli and Silghen separated and ran. Eli made for the exit, while Silghen made to reclaim his scattered weapons.

———

"So the *Mad Dash* is flatter than a cake. Guess calling for a ride is the only way now" asked Ozmac in the dim light. His face was lit by fires from the ship and his own eyes.

Riyn spoke, "There are still a few other options, the Jeweller had to get here somehow, maybe whatever it used is still around, also if that large quake earlier was the Tharg attacking, we might be able to use its ship to get out."

"So some options for escape. Let's grab our errant android crewmate and call for help, while we wait we can see what happens between the Tharg and the Jeweller. We'll scavenge from whoever loses while we wait on a response to our distress call," said Saule, in the darkness his eyes glowed a soft determined blue, "Yors, Stuhkey, get those radios emitting a repeating distress signal while you keep Flik company. Everyone else is with me."

Riyn grunted and spoke again, "I won't be going with you Commander, my head is still ringing and I'm having trouble focusing my eyes. I'll stay here with those three."

"Ok, Nayt, Wes, Ozmac with me," Saule the other left with that, making their way into the gloomy corridor to hopefully rescue the errant Human and escape.

——— Human Fleet, Prototype Logistics Vessel Aperio ———

The interior bay was practically vibrating with activity as three groups of soldiers geared up. The wormhole scouting of the planet the Tharg had crashed into had revealed a massive industrial complex. A complex that didn't match the construction style of the hostile or the Glint. A fourth party.

The Fleet Admiral had ordered the soldiers to prepare for an immediate wormhole infiltration. One group near the impact site, another near a large power source that had gone dark and the last would investigate a signal similar to a small-scale MtE generator. From the correspondence from the Glint representative the missing science team had a MtE generator on their ship. So any place that it could be would likely be where the team was.

The one wrinkle in this whole thing was that the missing Vesuvian Surveyor, Elijah Kamphaus Duilim's hull had been found among the scattered asteroids that the Tharg had used to cover it's attack on the planet. The Vesuvian Guild Representative had thrown a fit on seeing the scorched white hull.

There was a possibility that the Surveyor, a digitized persona, could still be alive. Which added a secondary objective to the teams, discover the fate of the D.P. Elias Duilim and report it to Representative Finn.

The soldiers accepted their orders with a quiet determination. A glimmer of anticipation could be imagined in their faces though. Like the Fleet Admiral and everyone else in the fleet, they had trained for this eventuality and were glad to finally be of use.

A klaxon sounded in the hangar as the three teams of soldiers lined up in groups. A milky white portal opened for a scant thirty seconds as the first team entered. They would be investigating the crash site. Then the portal flickered and the second team entered, their objective the facilities deactivated power source. Again the wormhole flickered as it changed destinations. This time, smoke drifted out of it, and swirled around the final teams legs as they entered.

With the final team gone, only the Admiral, Vesuvian Representative and the assorted technicians remained in the hangar.

Representative Finn stood with his hands clasped behind his red metal body, "I hope they find the Glint and Eli."

Admiral Radamere responded as he turned to return to his tactical feed, "They are the best teams we have. If they can't do it, we'll invade the place with the entire army and melt our way through that complex."

"I hope it doesn't come to that, the Tharg seemed reluctant to truly engage our fleet."

"I felt that too, but now isn't the time for guesses. We can sort it out afterwards."