Off in the distance, on the underside of the cloud line, he could see a dark jade shadow, a blurry vertical curtain-fall, in the space between the sky and horizon and he recognized it as a storm -- a violent, celestial-based squall that had crossed many, many Cosmonautical Units of Space from the rift anomaly known as The Wound to reach Pex'Insava and Teshiwahur. He didn't like seeing that angry tempest assail the surface of his world, the knowledge of what it was and what it could do haunted him, made him feel small and ineffectual, and so he directed his gaze to a different part of the sky.

Across the upper quadrant of the sunside face of Pex'Insava, at a distance that, if measured in Terran-Earth terms would be equal to six hundred and seventy kilometers away from Hookara'ie Wadi and Tuwerbleek Atun, Lord Eragoze Hehlgrummyte watched an approaching aeroskiff skyship cut through the cloud-dense atmosphere above the moon's floor with a mix of apprehension and irritation. Lord Hehlgrummyte, a renowned Astromancer and Celestial Cartographer, was a bit of a hermit and not at all fond of taking meetings with strangers at his home base, a pear-shaped structure that resembled a mechanized spiral snail that was suspended inside a ring held aloft by massive tentacular cables between a trio of multistory-high, tapering stone columns.  The structure was referred to as "Hehlgrummyte's Whyrligaegem".

He was awaiting the arrival of Orakun Maadregul, a Qrypfathenne Psyonikant who was the favored ambassadorial Second-in-Waiting to Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher.

Eragoze Hehlgrummyte was a big man, middle-aged by Teshiwahurian human standards, exceptionally broad and muscular, with weathered flesh the color of sand burnished with traces of copper. Though he was predominantly a scholar, Hehlgrummyte was an aristocrat, the Fifth Lord of Reishenschall, High-Magister of the Court of The Confluence. He was also a battlefield officer, a soldier, who had fought with valor during the Seige of Ahmdugriss-Shendi, a failed city-state in the western Pil'ayyat-Reishenschall Valley interior on Teshiwahur's continent of Qundin. Like many men who had extensive experiences during wartime, Hehlgrummyte spoke very little about his martial past. He concentrated instead on his scientific interests and the expansion of his knowledge about the natural world, only occasionally delving into spiritual philosophies born from his discoveries.

Dressed in a leather tunic atop a form-fitting, breathable, neo-plas exo-suit, the suit overlaid with a torso-protecting cuirass and plackart of gray armor, and partially enveloped in a flowing scarlet cloak that fell to just below his knees, Lord Hehlgrummyte was an ominous figure. His large, scarred hands were wrapped in a crisscrossing fingerless mitt made from flexible, rubberized gray bands. The features on his long face above his rectangular jawline were mostly hidden behind a filigreed black gold half-mask that was topped at each temple by a pair of small curving horns. His eyes were hidden behind almond-shaped, red crystal lenses.

He was a fearsome looking figure. That was intentional. He wanted, actually moreso needed, Orakun Maadregul to feel unsettled and apprehensive during her meeting with him. He needed to intimidate her and throw off-balance her haughty and immodest Qrypfathenne demeanor. She needed to know that he, Eragoze Hehlgrummyte of the Cid'Ammar bloodline, the oldest, wealthiest, and most politically powerful of Teshiwahur's familial sub-cultures, was someone whom she could not humiliate or humble as a consequence of her assumed Offworld alien superiority.

Psyonikant oracular telepath or not, no Qrypfathenne colonial mutant mercenary was going to browbeat or terrorize Hehlgrummyte within the walls of his own domain, and Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher be damned.

The crescent-shaped conference room was on the southwestern third of the Whyrligaegem's five levels. It was a tastefully decorated astronomical-museum populated by various-sized display cases surrounding an oval table with magnetically-resonant suspended hover-chairs. In the room with Lord Hehlgrummyte, two of his most trusted personal sentries were in attendance, one a slender, somewhat serpentine woman named Esteffyah and the other a solemn, vulturine man who called himself Xylander. Both were dressed in form-fitting, pewter-colored, metallic mesh clothing embellished with segmented and striated, blue-black protective plating. Other than an articulated neck collar-guard, their uniforms were similar with the armored plating covered their torsos, knee and elbow joints, and their shins. Mostly similar and sexless, their attire differed greatly when it came to their head coverings. Esteffyah's face was covered by an enclosed, eyeless, cybernetic helmet of vaguely medieval Maximilian-design while Xylander's face was adorned by a leather half-mask that was partially hidden under a hooded cowl made from a woven fabric with Kevlar-like properties. Each of the pair was outfitted with a rakishly-designed, pistol-style particle blaster that was sheathed inside a holster on their multi-compartmented utility belt.

Eragoze Hehlgrummyte had genetically-designed Esteffyah and Xylander from a template he'd long ago stolen from the laboratories of the Fabrikkant-Anvil facility at Forbynqorre. The bodyguards were not robots or androids,nor could they be considered alter-helix-DNA Fae-Spawn, but they were still classified as "meta-synthetic human-based biological variants".  They were, essentially, bio-genegineered relatives to the soldiers of the Nahztreme.  Unwaveringly loyal to Lord Hehlgrummyte, they were highly-intelligent, expertly-lethal parahuman attack dogs the aristocratic Astromancer could unleash against enemies with little more than the simplest of telepathic commands.

They were as close to an army as Hehlgrummyte would ever again command.

Once, many, many solar heliars in the past, before the World-Father had issued the Great Revocation that had pulled the solar naval forces of the Emperium back from space, he'd commanded his own personal army of Mekk-troopers, the "Battalion Tiytaneous". He had been a True Believer back then, a zealot in service to The World-Father, and he'd marched forth across the face of Pex'Insava to convert the primitive, nomadic and scattered tribes of the Shachtferadi'im into being productive, homogenized citizens of the Emperium. That hadn't worked out very well, not at all. The Battalion Tiytaneous had, on the eve of their greatest battlefield victory against a confederation of Pex'Insava's indigenous tribes, suddenly fallen prey to the effects of The Wound... a nuclear electromagnetic multi-pulse had washed over the Pil'ayyat-Reishenschall Valley and a large portion of Tuwerbleek Atun and its attendant geographic sub-territories, frying any and all solid state semi-conductor circuitry and that circuitry's cyberware. Microprocessor chips and electromechanical control circuitry no longer worked. The Shachtferadi'im summarily revolted and quickly liberated their territories from the Emperium.

And, to most of Pex'Insava's native population, Lord Hehlgrummyte became a war criminal. After that, Hehlgrummyte's Whyrligaegem was no longer just his home --- it unofficially became his prison.

But that was then, another and different moment in the stream of Time and, in so many ways both measurable and unquantifiable, a different man. The person he had become over the passing of many of Teshiwahur's seasons was not so much concerned with power and the acquisition thereof as he was now with guiding his world and its people towards survival in the World-That-Was-Coming...

The arrival of The Wound and the transformative advancement of The Long Death had changed everything: the planetary economy, the Emperium's existing social orders, inter-territory geo-politics, and even Teshiwahurian biological evolution. Everything was in flux, most things were broken, the world was both expanding and dying.

And then the threat of the Gorgahnuns had materialized from within the depths of The Wound.

Eragoze Hehlgrummyte, who had thought himself an outcast and an exile, unexpectedly found himself fighting on the front lines in a new kind of a war, a war of contra-revolution. He stood perplexed and ambivalent, holding the line against a murderous swarm-aggregate, collective intelligence made up of two and a half meter tall, metalloid, anthro-reptilian arthropods.

"The Qrypfathenne Psyonikant, the Emissary of the Gorgahnun Coalition has arrived," a hollow, sexless voice said, interrupting Hehlgrummyte's train of thought. The voice belonged to his familial chamberlain, Charryvane V'Rell, a female synthetic gene robot, or "gene'bot" who also served as Hehlgrummyte's astro-temporal research engineer. She had entered the Fifth Lord of Reishenschall's conference chamber unannounced by either Esteffyah or Xylander inasmuch she held a position of preeminent ranking in Hehlgrummyte's household. " Her aeroskiff has completed docking procedures. You should know that Orakun Maadregul did not come alone."

"Who is with her?"

"Commissioner Claeryssa Koylrayzur of Kithpell Manus and her Augmentor-Elemental, Frakchurmass."

Hehlgrummyte cursed softly to himself at the news. Damn. That was very much unforeseen.

At mention of Claeryssa Koylrayzur's name, Esteffyah stiffened, taking a single step forward towards the entrance to the chamber, immediately surrendering to a sudden onset of animosity. Hehlgrummyte raised a hand and motioned for her to settle herself and stay where she was. Meanwhile, under his hood, Xylander simply smiled humorlessly, resembling a dark, predatory beast anticipating an opportunity to pounce on unwitting prey.

"I wasn't aware the Senatorial Legislators at Kithpell Manus were at all mindful of this meeting," Hehlgrummyte said. "Or that they'd care enough to participate, even if they did know."

"It's highly probable that Commissioner Koylrayzur is acting independently of the Senate," Charryvane V'Rell said. "She is an Eaufidyann, a minority race among the mutant population of The Yur'seyn'Ahktar blood lines. Eaufidyanns, being Viper-Born Kinsfolk to normative Humanity, feel little in the way of fealty towards their fully mammalian relatives. She is most likely to be watching out for her own consanguinates' tribal interests."

"Perhaps, perhaps..., well, let's not keep them waiting. Show them in," Hehlgrummyte ordered.

V'Rell nodded and, after a short bow, wordlessly left the chamber, striding away quickly through the doorway arch to return with Lord Hehlgrummyte's guests in tow. She formally announced their entrance with just the right amounts of deference and diffidence, but making and keeping eye contact with both Esteffyah and Xylander. The meta-synthetic bio-variant bodyguards adopted a professionally cool and distant posture even while they carefully assessed the possible threat posed by the Qrypfathenne emissary and her companions.

"What a marvelous little aerie you have created for yourself, Lord Hehlgrummyte," Orakun Maadregul said in a croaking, but oddly euphonius, whisper as she drew further into the room. "Not quite so high as the clouds, but towering far above the arid dirt and stone where the commonfolk scramble about their daily tasks. Openly visible enough to be OF the people and yet not inclusive enough to be mistaken for being one WITH the people. You provide them the impression of being an involuntary recluse. Living out here, beyond the walls of the cities and villages, not a Ruler above his laborers, but rather an Executive Manager, providing ... what? Guidance? An interesting posture for an expatriate and outlaw to take, don't you think?"

"You read far too much into the circumstances of my domestic orientation, Lady Maadregul," Hehlgrummyte answered. "There's not much more to it than my misanthropic need for separation and solitude. I am an Astromancer and thusly a hermit by nature. The cacophony of the multitudes is like an orchestra of screams to me. I simply cannot abide the sensation of being hemmed in by crowds."

"Says the man who once commanded an entire legion of coarse and boisterous, battle-ready warriors," the Psyonikant remarked dryly.

"Madam, you have me at a disadvantage," Hehlgrummyte demurred. "It is apparent you have generously taken a moment to peer into my own rather unremarkable history while I have no information about your own..."

The Qrypfathenne Psyonikant noticed Xylander and Esteffyah, the body guards holding position at either side of the conference room, and Maadregul's helmeted head tilted in a manner that presented the observer with an impression of amused arrogance.

"Ah, I see... that's how it is. It would appear trust is in short supply here. I can appreciate that. These are perilous times and one cannot be too careful. But Forbynqorre Dog-Soldiers from the Fabrikkant-Anvil... tsk-tsk-tsk, that seems just a bit extreme. The last time I saw their kind this close was back at the docks of Port Breqamwurth during the Emperium's Emigration Ban rioting."

Esteffyah responded quickly, speaking in a voice that was all ice and razor-edged steel. She made no attempt to hide her animosity and resentment. "I saw you there, directing the Mayor's Cull-Squads while the docks were awash with flames. You were there. I saw you. The Cull-Squads mercilessly cut down dozens of those who'd been incubated within The Anvil. All they had wanted was to be granted the right to move about freely among the general population of the city, not just Pex'Insava's cities, but ANY city, without having to bear the tattooed mark of Synthetica inscribed on their faces."

"And, in the end, you won. The Provincial Territorial Ministry of Racial Alignment and the Ministry of Internal Unity did concede your point as a species and repealed the imposition of the Synthetica Mark. Your people are no longer branded and can move about without restriction," Maadregul said.

"On Pex'Insava," Xylander said pointedly, his voice little more than a low growl as he held back his anger.

"On the moon of Pex'Insava," Maadregul agreed. "I mean, after all, really, you must admit the possibility for public disorder and political confusion if Fabrikkant-Anvil manufacturees, biological robots if you will, were to pass among and mingle with the bloodlines of Teshiwahur's human populace. Planetside, the mutants, parallel evolutionists, Wytchborne, and Were-Folke of The Yur'seyn'Ahktar bloodline would be highly resistant to suddenly having their genetic entitlements being on-par with that of mere Mech-men. Admittedly, it is a sad thing that the status of one's citizenry be limited by the labels placed on their birth-status and genetic disposition, but that is the reality in which we currently live."

"Oh yes, we certainly wouldn't want there to be any mix-up of rights and privileges among the disenfranchised of the Emperium's low-borne artificial castes," Xylander snarled.

"Order, the Emperium has always succeeded where other earlier dynastic governments on Teshiwahur failed because of its never-ending belief in and pursuit of Order and perfection," Claeryssa Koylrayzur interjected firmly, speaking for the first time.

"A strange opinion for an Eaufidyann Viper-born to subscribe to," Esteffyah remarked bitterly.

Commissioner Koylrayzur shrugged. From her attitude, it was clear that so far as she was concerned, the discussion was over.

Orakun Maadregul smiled frostily as she said, "Am I wasting my time here? I didn't come here to dance around in avoidance of directly speaking to the important topics that should be of great concern to us here on Pex'Insava. There is a war going on in our skies. There is a ferocious alien race hammering at our door. And neither the Hegemonic Emperium nor the World-Father seem terribly concerned about the lack of depth in the technological military might in Pex'Insava's lunar militia."

"That's more dramatic than accurate.  We both know that's not entirely true,"  Hehlgrummyte said.  "There ARE the severe crippling effects The Wound has had upon our space technology to consider..."

Commissioner Claeryssa Koylrayzur took that opportunity to speak.  "You don't trust us.   I understand that.  I do.  But...  There are three major biological tribal nationalities on this moon: the unenhanced humans of Teshiwahurian origin, regardless their planetside continent of provenance, the Qrypfathenne Sovereignty who, though colonialists at first, were born here, and the indigenous tribes of The Shachtferadi'im. The Gorgahnun Royal Confederacy are from someplace we have never seen, not even through our optical aperture star-scanners. HOW did they know about Teshiwahur and the Emperium? And they refer to themselves as being part of a 'Coalition'. Who is it with whom they are allied? My patron, Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher, a Qrypfathenne like myself, is curious as to what it is that is the Gorgahnun's targeted endgame. Wouldn't YOU like to know? So I believe that NOW is the time for serious and straightforward conversation. Enough prevarication and evasion."

Though they were, for the moment, allies, Orakun Maadregul and Claeryssa Koylrayzur were as different from one another as could be imagined. Maadregul was a petite, slender humanoid woman of indeterminate age, dressed neckline to boot-tops in a white and gray tunic, belted at the waist courtesy of a wide, metal, half-corset inscribed with intricate rhythmic linear patterns. A graphite-hued cloak fell from shoulder epaulettes to just behind her knees. Her head was three-quarters enclosed in an elliptical capsule that hid her face but allowed her wavy mane of wine-colored hair to tumble out the back, falling to just below her slim shoulders. The only "face", if it could be called that, adorning the front of the rigid exoskeletal ellipse head-covering was a parallel series of raised, multifocal colored optical lenses, four to each row, that marked where her eyes would have been. An insignia of five, parallel vertical blue slashes of equal length was inscribed along the right-side of the capsule-like white helmet.

Claeryssa Koylrayzur, however, looked like something from a nightmarish fever-dream. She was a very tall, curvaceous, long-haired brunette of mammalian human-origin who had interconnected and overlapping plates of tortoise shell-like scales covering the exposed flesh of both her forearms, her ribcage and mid-abdomen, and the tops of both her muscular thighs, those plate-like scales a mottled green color like seaweed. A series of six scythe-like protuberances, also made of that tortoise shell-like material, extruded from either side of her spinal column to partly encircle and cage the sides of her upper body, while her pale rose-colored skin lay exposed along her clavicle, upper shoulders, neck and face. She wore a metallic, sectionally-articulated utility belt from which the obsidian black sheathe for a long-handled, curved sword resembling a scimitar. Commissioner Koylrayzur's face was that of a young woman with a wide forehead, elongated, almond-shaped, purple-irised eyes and an upturned nose above generous full lips. Knee-high black leather, wedge-heeled boots completed her bizarre appearance.

But the physical characteristics of the Qrypfathenne emissary and the Eaufidyann paled in comparison to that of Commissioner Koylrayzur's companion, Frakchurmass. He was a being of metal, undoubtedly of robotic origin but not at all inanimate, projecting an image of a vast and complex, self-aware intelligence in a burly body nearly three meters tall. He resembled a humanoid if the observer used only the most generous of descriptions. Though he looked like a highly sophisticated automation, he was undeniably alive, an energetic sentient being. Torso, arms, legs, hands and feet, his graphite-colored exoskeletal casing was an ever-shifting marvel of interconnected, three-dimensional facets of varying sizes and volumes, like a towering metal man made from tens of thousands of animated Rubik's cubes. Only his massive skull and face were cast in in relative solidity and his glowing orange eyes blazed with cold fire.

Frakchurmass presented a definite concern for Xylander and Esteffyah. Everything about him presented a picture of calculated cold efficiency, invulnerability and massive physical strength. He was unequivocally a threat.

Hands clasped behind his back, Hehlgrummyte stared at the two women, making an effort to keep his emotions from off his face. "And how can I trust anything you're saying as true?"

Maadregul weighed the question for a half dozen heartbeats before answering. Wordlessly, she turned to include Claeryssa Koylrayzur in her reply and they both turned their backs to Hehlgrummyte as they faced Frakchurmass who towered a short distance behind them.

"Frakchurmass," Maadregul began in terse, clipped tones, "if at any time during this discussion we stray from the facts you recognize as truthful, exercise the option to activate your particle beam weapons array and terminate our lives."

Frakchurmass did not speak. A flat clacking noise and a series of digital bleats supplied his response. A panel slid open just underneath his impressive chest's pectoral ridge and Hehlgrummyte could see a trio of squat nozzles topped by glassy lenses displayed there. A very audible electrical hum emanated from the mech-man.

Hehlgrummyte was startled to see that Maadregul was apparently as good as her word.

"Fine then. Considering all that you've said, then WHY seek out someone like me?" Hehlgrummyte's question was posited quietly, his voice tight though his manner was cool.

"You are one of four knowledgeable, free-thinking individuals with political and military ties to the Hegemonic Emperium with whom we have proposed to speak," Orakun Maadregul admitted, speaking guilelessly. "We have information we wish to share with you, information of which the Emperium is aware, but haven't passed down the line to its moon-based representatives and allies..."

"And why would you do that?"

Maadregul sighed. "Because the violence and chaos of open warfare provides few opportunities for lasting prosperity. War is not a healthy state in which a society can flourish. It burns through and uses up precious resources, it deepens pre-existing political schisms and creates new ones where peace would create opportunities for us to unite and build towards a common goal. And war, because it is by nature single-minded in its objectives, destroys one enemy while running the risk of creating more new enemies while it is fought. And there is always that expensive period of reconstruction afterwards that satisfies no one by inevitably falling short of its goals to create a new Utopian order. There are many more negatives than positives. The Gorgahnuns know this as surely as we know it. Whatever you may think of them, be aware that the Gorgahnuns are a logic driven dominion and abhor the concept of waste."

"All too true, but so what? The things you speak of are givens. War has always been this way. Why would someone as apolitical as Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher, the august personage whom you represent, involve himself in such affairs?" Hehlgrummyte said cautiously. There was something here, in this conversation, that he found unsettling, something that inspired a feeling of dread within him.

It was, surprisingly, Frakchurmass who answered Lord Hehlgrummyte's query. The herculean synthetic mech-man spoke in a soothing, rich oratory betraying no sense of judgment or dishonesty. He spoke calmly as an individual with a clear understanding of the facts, no matter how damning those facts might be. "Because the point is that Pex'Insava is the focal object in a sacrifice play. This relatively isolated extraplanetary societal outpost is not meant to withstand the Gorgahnun invasion. Pex'Insava is not meant to survive this shooting war. The World-Father is laying out this orbital outpost of humanity , your society, your home, as a way to lure the Gorgahnun Royal Confederacy and its mysterious Coalition partners out from the interdimensional, extragalactic depths of The Wound in an attempt to reveal the true face of the Emperium's enemy. The World-Father is not looking to defeat a foe. He is looking to make a deal with a potential ally from beyond the commonly known constraints of Space and Time. Whatever may happen to the population of Pex'Insava is an acceptable, though probably tragic, risk..."

"I hear the not-so-subtle poison of treason shading your words," Hehlgrummyte said.

"Is it treason to want to take an active hand in preventing your own slaughter?" Commissioner Koylrayzur countered.

The Astromancer considered her words for a moment before saying, "I still don't understand what it is in particular that you want from me."

Maadregul drew physically closer to Hehlgrummyte. She moved so smoothly and so quickly it was as if she had disappeared from her former position a couple of meters away, dissolving from human sight, and then re-materialized like an apparition to hover before him, one hand lightly laid intimately upon the metal cuirass covering his broad chest. It was the first moment when he realized that she didn't touch the floor of the chamber, not ever. Since her entrance at the beginning of the conversation, she had consistently floated several centimeters above it.

"You have your own army. We need for you and your forces, under cover of extreme secrecy, to lay waste to the Emperium military force occupying The Sunphroste Fortress," she said. "We have it on good authority there will be a retinue of diplomats and covert intelligence bureaucrats, career paper-pushers as opposed to trained special forces operatives really, hiding, seeking sanctuary, behind the fortress' walls."

Her words hung in the air like the thick and bloody scent of an open-air slaughterhouse.

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