Light across the Division Stone faded. The terminal before me equally shut down. Pretty soon, the only light in this entire room was what came from the dim skylights above, and the helmet headlights.

We were all getting back up on our feet, the aftermath sinking in. “There’s still a chance to recover from this.” I said.

“You have a plan, sir?” One of the knights asked, turning to me. The other knights in the room and Wrath all looked over. I could tell the rest were also on comms, listening in.

“No, not really. Not yet. But we have to try anyway. Wrath, did the procedure work at least?”

“It did.” She said, “I am completely free of the unity fractal, as Tsuya intended. I was not aware of what happened to her, I cannot see what you see in the occult sight you make use of. Knight Highwind has helped inform me of events to the best of his ability.”

“Can she track us in any way right now?”

Wrath shook her head. “The terminal and location here may still be infected. However, Tenisent’s shell and my own have been wiped clean of spyware long ago, with the only connection Mother had being through the unity fractal.”

“All right, at least we have that going for it. Worse case, we can hide from her sight.”

“We are not hiding.” Father said. “If the world is to be dragged into war, we must fight.”

Green pings came from all the other knights silently listening.

“Being able to retreat and lick our wounds is just as important, but I understand.” I said, waving a hand at him. “We got screwed, only right we hit back. We have to.”

Tsuya’s final words ran through my mind. Succeed. “We have to. There isn’t anyone else who knows as much as we do, and nobody else can do what we can. Tsuya is gone, but we’re not.”

Maybe being inside the soul fractal helped numb the emotions, or some deep part inside me just could not imagine giving up. Ideas started floating into my head. “It’s not over either, Relinquished ran after someone the moment she learned about the surface, A01 - why?”

Wrath had a good guess at that one. “Tsuya knew where A01 was, and that this dead protofeather here is not him.” She pointed at A07’s shell. “If Relinquished was incensed enough to abandon her moment here in order to fight A01, I would suspect he may have represented a threat to her success in some way?”

“Right, at least we know one thing, he’s not going to go down without a fight. Which means there’s still a fight to be had.” And every fight starts with information. “How much does Relinquished actually know? Wrath, does she have absolutely everything?”

Father picked up the thread here this time. “She does not know the true fate of Abraxas or A22. Her hatred for those two goes beyond A01, she would have chased them down first.”

As in what Relinquished might actually have her hands on memory wise is the santaized version Tsuya had drafted up, with us all mourning the death of Abraxas and A22. He did have a point - she would have been far more pissed off about that. And on that topic, she would have absolutely freaked out if she learned there was a golden age AI running around under everyone's noses. “Does she know anything about the Icon?”

“Unlikely.” Wrath said. “Tsuya herself was not aware of the Icon until the final moments, and she was moderating everything she learned from us in real time. If Mother did not know of Abraxas or A22, it is even less likely she had information on the Icon. The only open information about the Icon has been disseminated by the Icon herself and adjusted. Following that path, Relinquished may see the Icon as a mite-construct made to imitate a golden age AI with no real power or thought." She looked up, through the dim skylights here. "I suspect the surface and items with A01, along with Tsuya’s means of restoring humanity were far more entrenched and difficult to cover up. If not impossible after all these years.”

Covering up a single conversation like what happened earlier was far easier than covering up several centuries of data and probably some highly involved planning when it came to the surface.

“So, best guesses we have so far is that all the Relinquished now has basically stems from before the empire? Or at least a little bit around that time period, before A57 started attacking in ways that made Tsuya more paranoid.”

Both Wrath and Father nodded to that. Captain Sagrius remained neutral about it, and the Winterscar knights were focused on keeping watch for threats out there. They trusted leadership would get things together somehow.

“All right." I gave a hum, putting the info together. "We've got our best guesses at what Relinquished can work with. There’s one other thing we need to figure out before we can fight back correctly: The mites. The other faction besides Relinquished in this game, and we need to figure out what their angle is.”

“As a mitespeaker, have they explained their actions to you?” Father asked.

“Not one bit, caught me by surprise same as everyone else. I'll see if they cooperate now that their scrapshit was sprung on us all, we might get lucky.” I dove into the miteseeker looking for Superior.

No idea why they turned on us like that, they aren’t answering without a favor. Superior said. And we only have a single favor left to use. Not worth it, I think.

Not worth it because we can figure it out ourselves?

We can figure out one thing - they aren’t trying to kill off all humanity.

Well that was good-ish news. They're doing a real shit job doing that, considering they plotted to kill of Tsuya.

Superior shrugged. If they had wanted humanity dead completely, they would have revealed the Icon as well. Instead, they’d kept the Icon completely safe not just from Relinquished but from Tsuya too. My bet, they were probably never going to reveal the Icon to Tsuya at all.

I saw where he was going with this. Means they were already planning on seeing Tsuya killed and were limiting what she knew so she couldn’t mess with their real plans.

Yep, that's my thoughts on it too. Superior hummed, basically tapping his metaphorical chin. We can imagine everything they didn’t tell Tsuya about is probably critical to whatever agenda they got. But we also need to remember: They didn’t tell Relinquished about the Icon either. So maybe the mites want both Tsuya and Relinquished dead. The altruist in me thinks they were doing it because Tsuya being unchallenged by anyone might not be great for humanity, she’s lived for centuries doing some pretty cold calculations on mass population numbers. That kind of person now fully running the show could be another tyrant in waiting.

You think maybe she could have become a threat to the mites? Like maybe in the future could have started up a world cleanup crew to wipe them out?

No, I don't think they even have the concept of self-preservation. I think they just don’t want any gods out there anymore because it messes with their goals to create things. So both of them had to go.

I was about to ask some more probing questions, but Wrath got everyone’s attention. “Knight Highwind and I have detected activity in the Unity Fractal. The machine network remains down, however she is now directing her forces through occult means only.”

“It’s not dangerous for you to be touching that fractal?”

“Not as of now.” She said, “I am able to look into it, however I cannot directly control or manipulate it.”

“What is she planning?” Father asked.

Wrath focused for a moment. “She has opened up channels to several thousand Feathers en-mass. No - more than several thousand. She’s made a public announcement to every Feather in existence. They are to mobilize, and begin an advance into the surface. The entire empire is being ordered up.”

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“Shit,” I hissed. “She’s going to wipe out the surface, and then start destroying everything going downwards.”

But Father knew it was even worse than that. “No. She is going to eradicate the surface, and then continue out into space. Past the fortresses of the gods. That is where the source of humanity exists. Beyond the planet.”

Of course Tsuya would have done that kind of insane redundancy. “And the moment she’s done with that, she’ll collapse her forces back down on the planet and eradicate us all strata by strata. We need to do something. We have the gear, we have the people, and the skills to do something.”

I was sitting in a room filled with arguably the most dangerous humans to ever walk on the earth. And we were armed to the gills with weapons of war. There might not be a hundred of us, but the handful here could do something to turn the tide of the war.

I just needed to figure out where the pain point was in a planet-wide machine empire. Where a single strike force of knights like ourselves could do the most good.

The answer came by immediately. The miteseeker. Pointing directly to Relinquished’s central fortress, or possibly a weapons cache of some kind Tsuya found incredibly important. Relinquished herself wouldn’t know what the miteseeker points to, since Tsuya didn’t know either.

It’s the one advantage we had that couldn’t be predicted. I told the others as much.

“It would be a gamble.” Father said. “A great one. We do not know if we could penetrate the fortress Relinquished keeps.”

Wrath also shook her head here. “That information is not disclosed publicly within the machine network. She has suffered traitors in the past, she would not make that mistake again.”

Also we have no idea how far away the miteseeker here is pointing. Superior said. If it’s just next door, we’re fine. But for all we know it could be pointing halfway around the world or something. I’d say we should triangulate it, but I can tell the coordinate responses have fuzzy logic to it. It’s giving the general direction but not a highly specific one.

“We will need to make a decision quickly.” Wrath said, frowning. “I have detected one changed set of orders. It was sent to machines within this strata, nearby this biome. She has ordered a task force to circle around and destroy everything they see, including the city itself.” She looked up over to the knights and everyone. “She means to kill us immediately."

For a half second I was almost about to ask how Relinquished had managed to get such an army all around us that fast. But of course, since she knew we were coming here, this was all prepared ahead of time.

“They are unlikely to be nearby.” Sagrius said, sending mobilization orders to the rest of the knights, spreading the formation out to catch sight of the enemy first. “We scanned as we moved through this terrain. No signs of machines were spotted. They were far beyond our range. It will take them some time to arrive here.”

If they’ve got us surrounded, we’re not getting out of here on foot or even using the jets you got. Superior sent. We need to portal out. Or we get real creative at digging up through a layer. Because down isn’t an option in the spooky graveyard basement level of the world.

Which means using up our last favor. Fuck. Maybe we can get everyone through the cape and sneak our way across the higher dimension?

Might work, I’d jot it down as a last desperate chance attempt.

I think we’d rather just take the chances with the miteseeker. We’ve got a hell of a lot of tech upgrades and weapons, we might just be able to storm whatever fortress Relinquished is holding.

That’ll last until they copy us. Remember Prime, everything we built that we can give the knights, the machines can build it en mass. We’re only going to have the element of surprise once, maybe twice, and after that there’s no undoing it all.

So we better beat her in one fight. Can’t think of a better place to do that than her own fortress. Any way to get the coordinates out of the miteseeker so we can portal? If we’re using up our last favor from the mites, it better be a good one.

I’ll see what I can do. Superior answered, and then began to fade. Whatever owns these coordinates, they’re on the mite side of the sea. Which is also where I am. Going to use what Judge taught me so far and apply it in practice. Wish me luck. In the meantime, get to the airspeeder portal we came from and hold it down. I’ll get us the coordinates.

Right. We’ll buy you time. I turned, and signaled to the group the plan.

Just as the group started heading out the doorways, weapons loaded and fingers itching on the triggers, we got a ping from the Winterscar knights moving above. “Contact. Enemy forces sighted. 4 miles off, approaching rapidly. ETA 10 minutes.”

“All forces, rush it to the crashed airspeeder we came from. We need that portal protected until we can get it running.” I ordered, my longsword pointed right at it.

We took flight. All except for Father who simply sprinted at utterly inhuman speeds behind, using both the occult to lower his mass and his legs to push him off the ground like rockets.

The rest of our jets did the work, letting us clear speed full on. No point in trying to be sneaky about anything.

The dead airspeeder, half buried in snow, approached in view. From above it looked so small, just a ruined piece of somewhat shaped metal.

We landed to a hard skid, Captain Sagrius taking the parameter and ordering the knights into formation to best protect the dead airspeeder. On my part, I jumped up to the airlock doorway, and ripped it off the hinges. It was already mostly broken in the first place from the prior war and crash.

Inside, my headlights illuminated the frozen interior. Other knights followed behind me, as our group of five moved through the skeleton. Nine reserve power cells were piled up and handed off to me while the knights all scrambled over to find the turret spots and evict the dead skeletons still there.

On my end, I made a bee-line directly to the engine compartment, ripping the small metal trapdoor and jumping down the ladder completely. Inside the dark room, I found what I was looking for. “Knock on metal this works.” I muttered, tapping three times on the wall as I approached the energy station.

The existing cells were all gone. That meant whoever was last piloting this airspeeder, the crew must have taken it all with them. I pulled out the reserve power cells the knights had handed off and fit them all in one at a time with a shlunk. Other than some rime on the sides of the metal, there wasn’t any snow anywhere here to interrupt contact. My hand went to the manual restart lever, and I had an ironic sense of deja-vu.

“Nobody lives forever.” I muttered, and pulled the lever.

The airspeeder coughed and hummed back to life, lights flickering back on everywhere. Searchlights outside illuminated the open fields.

And with the new life, the weapons equally powered back on. This warfrigate had five turrets on each side. But one side was facing to the city, basically opposite of where the enemy would come. So the five turrets on the correct side were what we’d been hoping to start backup.

“Weapons online,” I heard over comms. There was some humming and clicks from above decks. “Confirmed four turrets operational on broadside. Mark sections and open fire at will when in range.”

Three other green lights winked acknowledgements. One was yellow, already moving out of the airspeeder to fight with blade and rifle among the other knights.

“Launching napalm missiles.” I heard over the comms. “Weapons free.”

Explosions came out from a distance. I jumped out of the engineering bay, and scrambled up to the half-broken cockpit. Lights were on all over this place, and they flickered just slightly as the guns opened fire with a deep rattle that shook ice and snow off the sides.

I stayed focused on my task, sitting down on the pilot controls. This ship wasn’t going to fly anywhere, but turrets weren’t the only weapons warfrigates usually had. A few more clicks and I toggled up the airspeeder shields. It was running on nine powercells in total, which wasn’t the maximum it could run on, but still a significant shield. That’ll keep this sitting duck somewhat protected.

A few toggle clicks more and I hit the jackpot I was also looking for. “All teams, twelve missiles still loaded in silo, arming them now.” I called out. “Standby.”

Eight missile doorways thunked open on the spine of the ship, each missile now free. The others simply didn’t open. “Scrap, scratch that count. Four missiles have their path blocked.”

Outside the windows, I could see the danger approaching. Streaks of yellow gunfire were pouring from the reawoken frigate, while flames raged far away. Thousands of smaller machines, looking more like dogs and followed behind by octopus-like machines, were making their way across the field.

The gunfire was shredding whatever could make it through the flames.

No sign of any Feather leading the charge. It was just pure machines, all rushing into the fireline.

They’d still make it to us soon. “Firing first missile.” I said, clicking a few toggles and then jumping to the other console seat. There weren’t skeletons here, so the pilot crew probably got away free. The terminal lit up, accepted the coordinates, and I heard a heavy woosh from the spine of the airspeeder. A missile streaked up, exploded into flames and rocketed straight for the incoming enemy wave.

The explosion was massive, the shockwave alone was enough to stagger a good half of the attacking forces.

The turret crew wiped out the rest of the stragglers, the wave being pushed back a bit until it started to surge once more past what this frigate could fend off.

Winterscar knights at the base of the airspeeder all took out rifles, and prepared standard occult rounds, taking expert shots at anything that got too close. We were holding them off.

“Launching second missile.” I called out, following through. The explosion equally detonated into their lines. The ones up front were shot down by the knights, while the turrets cleaned up the midfield.

“Ammunition running low in two minutes at this rate, sir.” A report came.

I tugged a soul tendril to Superior. He was gone, far off into the mite sea. Still hunting. Or possibly in a fight. “Hold tight, if we can get a knight on the missile silos to clear off the blockage, we can continue using those until they’re expended. We just need to buy five minutes of time.”

Come on Superior. Get the coordinates and get back here.

“Fallback plan in case we cannot hold this objective?” One knight asked.

“You all get stuffed into my magic cape and we sneak out that way. Not completely certain we’re immune to everything the enemy can do, but we should be able to make it past this containment cordon.”

After that we’ll have to find another means to portal, but all things in good time.

“Contact further off. Possible sighting on command units?” One knight reported, the ping showing a zoomed in vision of what was far beyond the machine army sprinting its way into this entrenched position.

A giant floating whale. Or at least something that looked more like a fat warfrigate. It turned slightly off to the side.

Seven turrets started to glow bright blue.

"Oh scrap, brace for impact!"

And then seven lasers lanced out, with the same power a Drake had.