The Atrekna knew they were the last.

All attempts at communication with other research planets or systems, other militarized systems, even food-spawn systems, had either resulted in screaming Terran shades flooding from the communication equipment or overmind networks, or had just remained silent.

Scoutships, if they returned, told only of empty planets full of furious Terran shades that shrieked and gibbered and tore at one another in their endless rage.

The research system was the last.

The overmind network was shut down, the vast quasi-synthetic neural tissue constructs dead and rotting. The thick bundles of nerve fiber sundered and now nothing more than rotting synthetic tissue. Where the overmind had once calmed and informed the Atrekna, there was now nothing more than ringing silence full of the echoes of unending rage that even death could not quench.

The cities on the planet were empty now. Before the sun had burned white for a long second, the cities had been full of shades that threw themselves against each other, that flocked to every phasic power source, only to replicate and strengthen. The Atrekna that had dwelled there were dead, laying where they had fallen when the shades had ripped the very phasic and bio-electric energy from the Atrekna and torn it apart, feasting on the sparkling gobbets.

The vast breeding pools where phasic enhanced slavespawn had been grown were nothing more than necrotic jungles and stagnant biofluid pools. The slavespawn that possessed phasic power were dead, rotting where they had fallen.

The servitor warrens still had life. There, many of the servitors dwelled in silence and dark. They had survived, barely, until the sky had burned white with a light that penetrated even the thickest walls. Many had robbed armories and when the few explorers looking for survivors found the servitors, the servitors had answered with gunfire. After the losses of a few precious surviving Atrekna, the survivors stopped checking servitor warrens.

Less than three score of individual Atrekna were rescued from the other systems.

One rescue party was destroyed with the screams of "FARM YARD GUARD!" as screaming feral Terrans swarmed over the rescue party and the rescuees, killing with knives, sticks, and rocks. A large group of the ferals managed to get through the phasic gate and to the Last System, killing, destroying, and just plain wrecking shit up before escaping off into the overgrown forest around the citadel. The citedal had to be abandoned, but it was merely a transportation hub, not anything important for the Hyperatomic Plane Project. Even in the last year (local) the ferals were still destroying things, blowing things up, and in general being a huge pain in the ass.

The surviving Atrekna determined that any Atrekna stuck on that cursed planet were just shit out of luck.

The rescue operations were terminated and attention was returned to the Hyperatomic Plane Project.

The sun was lightening, slowly, as the strange and arcane mechanisms used to keep the system sunk into the dimensional foam succumbed to ongoing cascade resonance failures in the crystals and phasic vibrations.

The Atrekna set about their work with even more urgency.

If they completed the project, then they would be safe to attempt to bring other Atrekna from the past to assist in wiping out the Inheritors of Madness. The Inheritors would not be able to use the hyperatomic planes to move around, meaning systems could be sunk and the Atrekna's mastery of time would allow them to overwhelm everyone and take over the New Universe.

[The Universe Disliked That]

The Last System was sure of their defenses. Hidden from sight, sunk into the dimensional foam, only certain complex and esoteric gates would work to the Last System. There were stellar protections that were luckily automated as well as planetary shields and protections that would prevent anyone from entering the Last System from anywhere but a select handful of points that were carefully guarded.

The Atrekna set about their work with more diligence, secure in their ultra-secure security securing their security.

Out in the forest crept ferals. With wild abandon and joy they snuck up on a crystalline structure that prevented any phasic powers from being used to enter the system and the planet from the outside.

The ferals had raided forgotten, abandoned, or lost armories. They had regrouped, reformed, rearmed, and lurked out in the forests of the nearly abandoned world. They were broken into small cells, using puffs of smoke from fires to communicate and pass messages that were visible for miles.

They would not lay down the spear and knife until the last Atrekna was dead.

The slavespawn that guarded the crystalline structure were not that intelligent. Any slavespawn with advanced sapience and sentience had been killed off by the shades.

Two ferals came out and began petting the slavespawn. The slavespawn reacted by making buzzing noises and rolled over to have their bellies rubbed.

Three other ferals ran by.

The slavespawn just wiggled in the dirt and expressed pleasure at having their bellies rubbed.

The ferals didn't know what the structure did, just that the Atrekna guarded it. That meant it was important to the Atrekna.

Which meant the ferals wanted to break it.

They set the charges, then ran back. The two petting the slavespawn got up and hustled into the forest. The two dozen slavespawn, fierce combatants with antenna that could snap an Atrekna in half, followed them, making little chirps and whistles.

The charges went off hours later.

The damage was minor, but the structure was already damaged by the phasic shade attack and the stellar phasic burst. The cracks in it widened, more cracks appeared. With a high pitched screech the sheer forces overcame the structural integrity and the entire thing shattered and fell to the ground.

The gap in the planetary protection field was small. Almost unnoticable.

The Atrekna wriggled their feeding tentacles in concern. The gap was minor, but every thing that could go wrong lately had gone wrong.

Phasic armor had been badly damaged by the stellar phasic burst, and repairs had been put to the side to work on the Grand Project the last year.

Four Atrekna were chosen to go repair the system. Replicate it if they had to, since there was a working version on the recoverable side of the stellar phasic burst. There was no armor, only a handful of phasic weapons, and the Atrekna chosen felt under armed and unprotected as they used a vehicle to go to the site.

It was recoverable. Barely within their abilities, but still within them.

Everything on the other side was completely inaccessible and the Atrekna had not determined a way around that hard white light barrier.

The four Atrekna at the site and looked it over.

There were still streams of smoke in the forest. Debris had been thrown nearly three miles away, and the fires were within that distance. The Atrekna determined that surely the white smoke was from burning debris.

They turned to the debris of the facility.

Behind them, the smoke had breaks rise up. Puffy bursts, smaller puffs, with gaps between the bursts.

The smoke went back to a single plume rising into the air again as the Atrekna began setting up crystals and arcane devices to bring the facility forward.

An arrow silently whipped out of the forest, hitting one of the Atrekna in the lower back.

It screamed in agony.

The other three turned and rushed over to the one squirming on the ground.

More arrows flew from the trees. Some had red tips. All of them were made with wood, slavespawn feathers, and carefully knapped crystal held fast with tightly wound strands of red hair.

Two went down. One shot through the head, the other just below the mouth. The last turned and fled, speeding for the vehicle on a phasic disc despite the risk.

It was almost to the vehicle when one of the ferals stood up, a spear cocked back to throw.

It was a female lemur in furs. It had two red stripes below its round eyes. Its face was scarred and grim. It yelled "FARM YARD GUARD REGARDS!" as it threw the spear.

The Atrekna's personal protection field shattered as the crystal, charged with malevolence, rage, and sheer joy of carnage, hit the field. The spear went through its stomach, throwing it back, pinning it to the ground.

It whined and screeched as two others came up and grabbed it. One had a soft floppy hat in daubed greens, browns, and black. Obviously the leader, it chattered at the other two.

The 'survivor' was dragged to the vehicle. They wrote on the windscreen with crude hand-made paints, threw the Atrekna inside, and activated the autodrive.

It arrived back at the main fortress with "Send More Cops..." written on it.

The Atrekna decided that the gap in the protective field would just have to be monitored.

[The Universe Liked That]

Less than a month later, the Atrekna had found other things to worry about.

Some dastardly creatures kept opening the gates to the slavespawn pens and letting them out. The crystal mine was found to be full of booby traps. A vehicle exploded when it was activated, destroying a half dozen others. Spear traps, pits with spears at the bottom traps, log traps, phasic tripped grenade traps, and more began to appear around the perimeter of the Last Research Fortress.

The ferals managed to lay their hands on a fire and forget single use rocket launcher.

The rocket blew a hole in the facility. Nothing important was damaged, so the damage was ignored.

A feral was spotted, riding an Ohm class slavespawn through the forest, standing on top of it with a cape and a breathing mask.

By the time an armed squad reached the location, she was gone.

The Ohm class slavespawn was decorated on one side with a picture of an Atrekna's head, tilted back, feeding tentacles straight out from the face, with over a dozen male lemur genitalia filling the mouth and 'happy squid noises' written over the top of the picture in Atrekna runes.

The Atrekna were each personally offended and returned to their fortress in a huff, refusing to talk to the other Atrekna for nearly a week.

It was a war of attrition, and the Atrekna often felt that they were losing.

They temporally replicated the dead and hoped for the best.

Some of the Atrekna were becoming downright surly at being temporally replicated. Some were becoming depressed and borderline suicidal.

An Atrekna, brought back through temporal manipulation for the nineteenth time since the Great Stellar Phasic Burst, set off a carefully positioned set of phasically enhanced chronotron charges in the fortress, preventing any temporal replication.

It then ran off into the forest, screaming "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE! JUST KILL ME FOR GOOD!" The others looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to work, burying themselves in the Great Task. The fact that the insane Atrekna was responsible for monitoring the small gap in the planetary protections was a concern, but the Atrekna promised one another that they'd assign someone as soon as they were able to.

The sun was still brightening. Slowly, but still brightening.

The Atrekna focused their attention on the Grand Project.

A phasic portal opened up silently. It rippled in the sun, looking like a flat teardrop of mercury.

An arrow lifted out of the forest, part of it on fire, leaving a streak of purple smoke behind it.

From the portal stepped Atrekna.

One was naked, wearing only a bandoleer with skulls of various species attached. He was taller than the others by nearly a meter, his nude form rippling with muscle. He looked around slowly, crouching down, a spear held in one hand. Another was in shining chrome loricated armor, blades fanned out behind it like wings. Another was wearing a Confederate Armed Services standard ballistic resistant chest plate and a giant head formed to look like the fearsome Hamburger King. Another carried a flute and it lifted the instrument to its mouth and gave a worried trill.

The last was dressed in finery and carried a standard issue Confederate heavy mag-ac pistol.

They looked around, spotting the citadel in the distance.

They could all feel the power radiating from the crystalline structure.

Smoke started to raise up from six different points. White smoke in a steady stream.

The nude one pointed.

"Gondor calls for aid," it said in a rough voice.

The one with the pistol nodded. "Indeed, my friend, we must hurry. We are in enemy territory in more ways than one."

They all summoned phasic discs, stepping onto them, with the exception of the nude one. It shimmered and vanished, a prismatic effect teasing the eye where it was. The discs looked different. Rather than a flat oval of purple energy, these ones were dark indigo crystalline constructs.

All of the Atrekna knelt down on the discs and began speeding through the forest.

They stopped at the edge of the fortress, dispelling the discs and looking around. The leader reached out and pointed at the hole in the side of the fortress that exposed the interior. It was unguarded and open to the weather.

"We will enter the facility and convince them to cease this madness. That the war is already lost," the leader said. "To convince them I will use compassion and empathy (which I invented), logic and reason," it hefted the pistol.

"And this gun I found."