Fireblade snapped her eyes shut, flinching away from the painful brightness of the explosion above her. Even now, she could see the image seared into her retinas: a Hierarchy Type-HH Heavy Destroyer, energy streaming outwards from each hole in its bulging hull plating.

When she looked up again, the vessel was gone.

Not shattered, not crashing to ground.

Gone.

Even the weather itself seemed astonished: a column of cloud- and snow-free air hundreds of mannal across now reached all the way up to the top of the Ring's atmosphere, clearing the view straight up to space.

Just as the now-destroyed Shell warship had previously backlit and dwarfed their dropships, the two remaining Hierarchy warships at higher altitudes had now in turn been reduced to small outlines… against the two Dreadstars that now floated serenely above the Ring.

No sooner had Fireblade processed the image than both Shell craft evaporated, blazing-bright energy beams lancing down from the nearer Dreadstar and casually erasing them from the cosmos.

Fireblade's jaw opened slightly, at the sight that had not appeared in realspace for three-hundred-thousand years.

And realized.

She could move!

Her head snapped back down, finding the Soia who seemed no less shocked than she. Now standing, eyes bulging as she stared up and saw her doom approach.

She wasn't looking in the right direction.

With a resounding clang, the ancient being's head slammed back against the metal of the Shell dropship. The Soia slumped bonelessly to the ground.

Fireblade frowned down at her. She had expected more of a wet 'splat,' not a 'clang.'

{Excellent work, pallan.} sent Mallas Deepline, kneeling next to the Soia's body. Running one hand over the ancient's skull. {She is unconscious, but alive. What the Union may learn from such a prisoner…!}

Alive!? Fireblade took a step forwards. She would end this by physical force, then!

A hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned, Tempo's knowing eyes burning into her. {It is better this way. She will be subject to far more than a quick death like that… as she has earned.}

That— Fireblade took a deep breath, and let it out. Nodded to her friend. As was usually the case, Tempo was right.

Behind them, a distracted mumble of sanzai. {...no shock wave?} Beryl still stared skywards, eyes on the empty space where the Shell warships had been. {But they exploded in atmosphere!}

{With us being this close?} Mallas Deepline asked, standing up from her inspection of the fallen Soia. {I don't know what sort of weapons those Tonsillat have... but they've spared our lives, however they did it. I'm not going to look at this gift-miros's hooves too closely.}

{And how did they come to be here at all?} Beryl asked, of nobody in particular. {The bomb did not detonate and destroy the Ring command center, as we would also not be here to worry if that had been the case. But then—?}

Two figures approached, boots crunching through the snow.

No, three figures.

Colonel Jardin and the larger of the human special warriors lurched towards them, carrying between them someone much larger than they, someone—

The figure whose arms draped across their shoulders raised her head. The singed remnants of green hair framed an angular, blue face. A faded white tattoo graced her right cheek, and dried blood cracked on her torn lips as she smiled.

There was only one person she could be.

"Well, isn't this my lucky day?" Tempest grinned, revealing blue-stained teeth.

Tempo stepped closer to this new arrival, her mind-signature admirably calm under the circumstances. "Tempest. That was you in the medical pod."

"Got it in one." Her eyes flashed towards the comatose Soia slumped against the shuttle. "That fool Security never could resist a chance to gloat. The last two hours of that almost made me wish that I'd stood a bit closer to Grand Unity's core when it exploded."

"I… see." Tempo said. Fireblade didn't. The mizol continued, gesturing to herself, "We are warriors of the Loroi Union; I am—"

"I know who you are." Tempest hooked a thumb at Colonel Jardin. Well, more like jabbed him with the digit. "Pulled it out of his mind. Glad to see the transmitter lace still works."

Transmitter?

Tempest continued, "Now... what to do with Sleeping Beauty, here?"

Fireblade glanced down at the other… Soia. That was a sentence she never expected to use. There had been several of those, these last few nanapi.

Either way, the Soia was sleeping, yes, but 'beauty'? Fireblade was no male — and thankful for it! — but even her inexpert judgment was still quite certain that the bruised, bloody, and all-around beaten Soia was not anyone's definition of 'beauty' right now.

Of course, neither was Tempest.

"We have sufficient forces to keep her detained while we remove her back to Union space." Tempo said. She nodded to Colonel Jardin. "Perhaps with the expertise of Colonel Jardin's healer, we aim to keep her unconscious until she can be moved to a secure Union facility."

Fireblade nodded, but with more than a bit of hesitation. It was already very difficult to contain a telekinetic warrior, and one with the mental-warfare power that had allowed the Soia to freeze an entire teidar combat team — the Azerein's own Imperial Guard, no less! — would be a challenge that even the Union's cleverest mizol may find daunting.

Yet surely that which could be gained from interrogating the Soia would be worth the trouble? The risks?

"Nice plan. Few problems, though. For one, she's not unconscious."

What?

Fireblade whirled just in time to see the drooping face of the slumped Soia pull into a smirk, eyes still closed. "You were always an observant one, Conq—"

"That name is dead, Security." Tempest hissed. "Buried and gone."

"As you say, then. 'Tempest.'"

"It died the moment your agents slammed that stun-needle into my spine."

"A foolish mistake on my part — they had such reliable guns, after all." The Soia 'Security' bared a thin sliver of her teeth.

"Wouldn't have worked out for you, either way. You know my warriors would never have taken orders from you."

"Enough of them did, in the end."

"Enough for you to still lose? For the Empire to still fall? You really showed me."

Bafflement raced back and forth between the Union loroi, as they stood and watched two ancient, near-mythical beings converse so bluntly about such momentous events that took place before history truly began.

Tempest snorted. A dollop of blood splatted into the snow. "Oh, and now you tried the 'fake unconscious' trick? And expected that to work?"

"As it would have done, but for your presence."

"Doubt it. If you hadn't stuffed me into that doc-box and brought me down to gloat, they'd have just set off the bomb I saw on my way down. They lose, sure, but you do too."

"And so the Empire would die with me. Is that truly what you—"

Tempest spat even more blood onto the snow. "Look around. The Empire died long ago. You think your new toys, those bug things, were ever going to match the glories of the old Empire? You marched them off their homeworld what, two-thousand years ago? And still they live like primitives, scattered on the surface of a hundred worlds, no real infrastructure to speak of. Building tiny ships that even the freshest Soia still healing from her implant surgeries would sneer at?"

A Soia had been leading the Shells ever since they had crawled off of their homeworld?

Security responded "Primitive, perhaps... but they are loyal. Like my own children, who stayed true even as you crawled away to betray your people. They earned the name 'loroi.' Do you think that your traitor daughters here will not turn on you too, in the end? They will take after their foremother, and betray you as you betrayed us."

Tempo spoke forcefully, before Tempest could respond. "We are Loroi of the Sister Worlds of the Union. It is only recently that we have discovered our 'past' under the Soia Empire," she gestured to Jardin "and we have confirmed our specific ancestry thanks to the aid of Colonel Jardin. We are not blood descendants of Tempest or any other rebel loroi. Our ancestors stayed 'loyal' to the Soia Empire… a mistake which we entirely repudiate."

The mizol turned from one Soia to the other. "The Union stands tall on its own two feet, an example that all peoples in the galaxy can look up to. But we are not Soia, we are not the Empire. We owe no fealty to any Soia."

Tempest's eyes flared, and she flicked her gaze from one loroi to another. Eventually, she looked up at Jardin, who blinked slowly at her with a nod.

Security's eyes shot open. "Then… even my own daughters have turned on me. I had such hopes that they would prove wiser, in the end." She seemed to deflate, sagging into her own skin. Her eyes wandered from Tempo to Fireblade, lingering on the teidar. "Defective, just as much as yours. Did you know this, when you plotted and carried out your subterfuge even as I explained to you what was to come? Had you sabotaged the Ring's interdiction system even before your lackeys sprung their ambush?"

"Have you forgotten who I am? 'Subterfuge'?" Tempest shifted in the grip of the two humans. "Those are your tactics, not mine. I don't lie to people; I kill them. And that makes me the better woman."

"Then prove it." The fallen Soia dragged one hand to her chest, broken fingers leaving tracks of blood along the black-and-red robes. "Destroy my heart, that has already broken to see the Empire — the work of countless millennia — cast down all in the name of short-sighted ambition."

Tempest looked to Tempo, and jerked her head towards the other Soia. After a wince, she deadpanned "Shoot her in the head. She could probably live without her heart."

The mizol looked past her, to Jardin. None of the group made to shoulder their weapon. "Colonel, does your healer have a method to render a Soia actually uncons—"

"Cowards and fools." the condemned Soia sneered, raising her chin and glaring defiantly around the group. "Simple-minded warriors to the very end. Do you truly believe that such as you could hold a—"

Her head exploded.

Colonel Jardin's helmeted gaze lingered on the dripping blue spray flash-dried onto the Shell plating, and then dropped to the steaming pistol held in Tempest's hand.

A hand that shook, even as it returned the pistol to the empty holster at Jardin's hip. "[What happened to 'a primitive weapon for primitive people'?]"

"[Recoil is more satisfying than telekinesis.]" Tempest sagged lower, her arms losing their grip on the two humans' shoulders. Both aliens stepped closer, supporting her as they laid the sole remaining Soia in the universe on her back.

She did not appear to be in good shape.

Wires and tubes criss-crossed her body, ducking under the skin on one end and plugging into a bulky machine carried by the human doranzer on the other end. Snow crunched aside as the nearly four-mannal-tall being closed her eyes with a sigh.

Shorn of all but a faint memory of her hair, clad in only a torn bodysuit, this Tempest was a far cry from the proud figure that had stood defiantly on Tempest's bridge anteroom for so many years. Fireblade had known that the mural was anachronistic, depicting its central figure in the formed-leather garment of an iron-age Deinarid warlord, but—

"Heh." Tempest cracked one eye open, looking straight at Fireblade. "I Don't think I've worn that much leather ever, not even when—"

Colonel Jardin rapped his knuckles against Tempest's sternum. "You need to rest. You've lost most of your blood, scans show fourteen kilos of shrapnel embedded all over your back, and your pulse is irregular and getting worse. Soia physiology or no, you—"

"[I am not Soia.]" Tempest mumbled. "[I am Loroi… and I have less than sixty seconds of energy reserves left. Medical coma it is, then; wake me when you need me.]"

"[Love you too.]" the human murmured, kneeling next to her head and assisting the ODST doranzer with… whatever that specialist was doing. It went beyond what limited field-medicine techniques that teidar were trained in.

As if a silent signal had been sent, the whole group let out a breath.

Tempo stood staring down at the slain Soia, her mind-signature conflicted. As the rest of the team numbly set about securing the perimeter — more to set their mind on a reassuringly-routine task than out of any fear that a Shell counterattack might come through the teeth of overhead Dreadstar fire support — Fireblade stepped up and rested one hand on her friend's shoulder.

The teidar sent {It was only ever going to end this way. She said it herself — the Union may not have ever been able to contain her. Would you have risked your caste-sisters in an attempt to pry more knowledge out of her mind?}

{I would not.} Tempo confirmed. {But… any mizol would have risked herself. To truly see inside the mind of an actual Soia.}

{We do have another.} Fireblade sent, indicating where Tempest slumbered. A faint dusting of snow could be seen accumulating on her slowly-respiring chest, intermittently brushed off by Colonel Jardin.

{I am most certain that we will not be allowed to pry into her mind.} Tempo sent with a flicker of amusement.

And indeed, while the Union forces spread out around the canyon, checking for potential Shell remnants or attack routes, the human and Legion warriors remained close to Tempest. Guarding their fallen… what? Leader? Comrade?

Friend?

Tempo continued {Although perhaps we will not need to. She seems… 'open' enough.}

{Very different indeed from the other one.} Fireblade agreed. With one last squeeze of Tempo's shoulder, the teidar went to check on Beryl.

The listel sat on a fallen log, eyes staring unblinking — unseeing — off into the distance.

Wood creaked as Fireblade set herself down beside the smaller loroi. {Thinking?}

Beryl blinked, her head twitching before she glanced up at Fireblade as if only now noticing the teidar's presence. {Organizing. There has—} her thoughts skipped a beat, then re-organized {It has been a very busy day. So much has happened, and I am the only listel to have observed it.}

Pride mingled with anxiety in her sanzai. {I need to organize all the sights, the sounds, the—} her gaze darted aside, past Fireblade. In the direction of where the headless body of the executed Soia sat cooling in the breeze, a dwindling ribbon of steam rising from the stump of her neck. Fireblade had known to close her helmet's air vents early, even standing upwind of that. {—the smells.}

{It is a battlefield.} Fireblade sent.

{I know. But… they are not so messy as this, from a starship's bridge. From Tempest's—} Beryl turned her head once more, lingering on the comatose form of the sole surviving Soia.

The sole surviving Loroi, as she herself had emphasized.

No further words were needed; Fireblade sat quietly and let her sanzai aura support the exhausted listel.

And it was a… strange day indeed when Fireblade found herself the one seeing to the emotional state of her sisters-in-arms. But then again, perhaps she was buoyed up by sheer catharsis – the Spy of Fire-city lay dead at her feet, and at least in part by her hand. The anguished dead of Seren had been avenged, at least in part. All that remained was the Hierarchy itself, a now-headless beast.

One that needed to be put down.

She craned her neck back, basking in the sight of two Dreadstars floating gently overhead. Glowing in the reflected sunlight.

No, the Hierarchy would not last long now.

---

Talon vaulted out of the Seagull's cockpit even before the engines had finished spooling down. Suction pulled her towards the air intakes, but she fought past them and sprinted for the wrecked Plummet.

The prowler sat smoking at the end of a deep furrow blasted into the dirt. It had come down in one piece — well, mostly — but much of the outer hull was scorched and disfigured. Lying almost on its side, the right wing extended into the air halfway to vertical.

And for those inside?

{Spiral! Can you receive me?}

Talon hammered at the cover plate for the ramp controls. The metal lip cracked open slowly, likely under emergency power only. She dug in her fingertips to rip it the rest of the way. Heat singed her fingers even through the thermal insulation of her gloves, but she didn't so much as flinch.

She didn't wait for the ramp to fully open before dashing through the gap. It ground to a halt half-open behind her anyways, the motors unable to force the ramp any further into the dirt below the craft. {Spiral!}

{Everything is...} came the confused sanzai of her diral-sister. A general sense of dizziness accompanied the sanzai. {...swirly.}

A head injury, then. But she was alive.

Orange-red emergency lighting lit up the interior of the craft, all sorts of unknown hatches slammed open by the crash. Talon stepped carefully over the random debris cluttering the floor — well, mostly the wall, given the angle at which the Plummet rested.

{Where are you? In the cockpit?}

The dim illumination from her suit's auxiliary lights was suddenly augmented by a much brighter beam, coming from behind. "Any word?" Alex asked, holding a large flashlight in one hand and using the other to keep his balance as he followed her, one foot on the floor and the other on the wall. "They're not answering the cockpit radio."

"Spiral has sent that she is alive. And—"

{I think I am in the cockpit? Yes?} Spiral asked nobody in particular. Her sanzai still came through blurry, unfocused. {No, wait, the lights are wrong… oh, it is the crew resting compartment.}

"—and she is in the crew quarters." Talon finished.

The two of them made their way forward, clambering half-crouched through the narrow hallway.

"[I'll take it from here.]" Alex climbed past Talon as they made it to the crew quarters. He ducked through the doorway, boots scraping against the floor tiles as he half-slid, half-stepped down the sloping deck to the two figures at the 'bottom' on the other side of the compartment.

One lying on her back atop a pile of seat-cushions and blankets, the other crouched at her side.

Only once Talon entered the room did she see the next three. Two human warriors laid in the beds at the side of the room: the injured original Seagull pilot and copilot. Standing next to them, one of the Furies held on to the side of the frame to stop from sliding down as she spoke quietly to the blinded warriors.

"[Oh, good.]" The human at the lowest point of the room looked up and over his shoulder at Alex's clattering approach. He waved one hand at the box open by his side, a blood-blue cross centered on the white-painted front. "[Haven't cracked open one of these kits since I first trained on them, and that was years ago.]"

Alex glanced over Spiral, not even looking up as Talon skidded to a halt next to him. "[Looks like you've done a good job, though. What were the injuries?]"

While the aliens spoke among one another, Talon rested one arm on Spiral's leg. {Are you injured?} There was nothing obvious, but the junior tenoin had clearly been knocked out-of-sorts by something.

{Head hurts. Dizzy.}

"[We came down bloody hard, pancaked in nose-high. Threw us against the seat restraints. Mine worked fine, but I think they hadn't been recalibrated for her weight in the pilot's seat. They snapped her back right sharpish, looked like God's own case of whiplash.]"

{You did crash an entire starship after getting shot down by a whole fleet of Shells.} Talon sent.

Spiral barked a single laugh, one hand slowly rising to rub gingerly at the back of her neck. {Neck hurts, too.}

Alex pulled one of the handheld tools out of the kit, holding it over Spiral's head and neck. "Nothing's broken. You've got a few strained muscles and a minor concussion, that's all. Just rest for a while, and get up when you feel like you can."

In his own language, he added to his fellow humans "[Looks like she'll be fine. Good job getting her flat and level.]"

"[That was the first thing I checked. Wasn't sure what all those readings were supposed to look like, though.]"

The injured human pilot called over from his reclining position. "[And we figured you were the expert here in elf biology, Fireball. Just had a 'practical exam' a few weeks ago, so I heard!]"

"[Yeah.]" Alex laughed, taking Spiral's hand from where it rested at her side and giving it a squeeze. "[Yeah I did. And thanks for keeping Spiral here in one piece — I'm pretty sure she wants to, uh, give me her own 'private exam' too.]"

Bullseye called again from his bed. "[Hey, corporal. Uh, Fury copilot — what's your name again?]"

The human who had treated Spiral looked back over his shoulder "[Andrews.]"

"[Right. Andrews, is Fireball blushing real hot right now?]" The wounded warrior ran one hand lightly over the bandages covering his eyes. "[I can't, y'know, see.]"

Alex ducked his head lower towards Spiral, but not before the human next to him got a look at his face.

"[Nah, he's got it under — never-mind, there he goes!]" The alien laughed.

{What was the joke?} Spiral asked.

{I don't know; they are speaking their own language.} Talon replied.

The rest of the humans joined in, and after a moment Alex even followed them.

"[Looks like our little elf whisperer is all grown up!]" the human at Alex's side chuckled, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

"[If you're all done playing comedy hour in here,]" came Wise's voice from the open door at the 'top' of the crew quarters, "[Lovik and I could use a hand getting things stowed away again. The Legions have the situation in hand void-side; they're sending down a heavy lifter to haul the Plummet aboard for repairs.]" The male loroi snorted. "[And then I've got my work cut out for me getting her serviceable again.]"

"Spiral," Alex asked, "will you be okay here, with Talon watching over you? I have to go help put the ship back together." He grinned, and squeezed the narrat's shoulder. "And paint a new kill-marker inside the baffle covers."

"I will be most fine, I think." Spiral replied. "But it was you and Plunger who scored the real hit."

"Maybe, but I'm not putting the galaxy's last ever Soia kill-marker on Bullseye's bird." Alex grinned as he pointed one thumb over his shoulder towards the injured humans. "Doubly so when it was Talon who pulled the trigger."

"It was certain a Soia that we were fighting?" Spiral asked. "In the Shell dropship?"

"That's what Cortana said when she opened the door for Talon and I to race for the surface, and smart AIs are rarely wrong." Alex shrugged. "Don't know if she went down in the crash or not, though. Ground team's been real closed-mouth on the reports since, and we raced over here before checking in on them. No fatalities reported, at least, which is rare when fighting Soia."

"That is a field which you know more than I, fighting against Soia." Talon acknowledged, as Alex stood up from Spiral's side. "Although I think maybe even Soia are not used to fighting five teidar!"

"You may be right, there." Alex carefully climbed his way back up the inclined deck-plating. "Doubt she would have been used to being on the receiving side of a telekinetic attack."

He disappeared out of sight, leaving Talon alone with Spiral.

Well, there were the four aliens in the room, but they carried on their own private conversation in English.

{Are you truly okay, Spiral?} asked Talon, now that the two of them had relative privacy.

Her diral-sister slumped in her makeshift bed. {Yes, mostly.} Her clamped-down sanzai relaxed, allowing some of the intermittent, needling pains she felt to bleed through. Talon winced in sympathy. {Neck hurts, but Alex said nothing is dangerously injured there. And it is feeling better by the bima.}

Yet Spiral's mind-signature was still gloomy. {But?}

{...but I got shot down.} the narrat moped.

Talon shot a disbelieving look at the other tenoin. {While flying an alien ship that you had first practiced flying at all a few days before? Heavily outnumbered in combat? And it still took a point-blank plasma burst to actually force you down? And you still kept the ship mostly intact, with all crew aboard surviving the landing?}

But Talon could tell that it was truly something else that bothered Spiral.

{It's still Alex's ship, and I got it damaged.}

Talon couldn't help but laugh. With how their diral had graduated immediately into the thick of the War and those assigned to Strike Group 51 in particular had seen heavy combat ever since, it was rare for Talon to actually take a mental step back and remember that they were all only thirteen years old.

Grown warriors, yes — especially by the compressed wartime standards — but still young. And while Talon's promotion to flight leader had taught her to recognize — and try to overcome, where needed — that immaturity… Spiral had remained 'Spiral.' The eternally-joking, playful, friendly seed-head that the diral had come to love.

But also the worried young warrior, fretting over having embarrassed herself in front of not just a male, but one who was simultaneously a friend and fellow warrior who had trusted her with his ship.

Talon leaned in, resting one hand on Spiral's shoulder just as their human had done. {I do not need to see into his mind to know that Alex also knows each of those things I mentioned. He is a veteran of even more combat than we, and certainly knows that things never go perfectly in war.} She let her confidence in this judgment radiate throughout her sanzai. In a private sending — even with no other loroi nearby — she added {I am also certain that he was more worried about you than about the Plummet.}

And it was a heartwarming little vignette, straight from the sort of stories that were swapped around by the older children at a creche. The rescued male fussing over the wounds suffered by the dashing warrior who had swept in to free him from whatever villain or dangerous beast had him in its clutches.

{Really?} Spiral asked.

{Really.} Talon confirmed. {He did not even check the cockpit or look anywhere in this ship. He went straight to the crew-quarters… and you.} Of course, he might have been told by the other humans aboard the Plummet that they had already performed those checks on the crashed craft, but there was no reason to spell that out for Spiral. After all, they could just as easily have told him that Spiral was okay.

Which left just one more thing. Talon's smile widened as she sent {Now, rest well and heal quickly. I think Alex will soon want to show you exactly how much he worried over you. Privately.} By Spiral's mirroring grin — and widening eyes — the narrat had evidently received the 'details' filling Talon's side-channels.

That was the final part of those creche-stories, the one that most intrigued the older girls and most exasperated the instructors who overheard them. The rescued male would, of course, reward his rescuer… in a manner befitting his sex. And given just how little was actually known about males by girls just entering their diral years, only one manner came to mind at that age.

And none-too-accurately; thinking back, many of those rather lurid stories which she remembered being told featured acts that Talon — now speaking from some experience — knew were… not actually likely to be pleasurable for either side. Or anatomically possible in some cases.

Shaking her head bemusedly, Talon leaned back and rested on her ankles. It had been a… long day, and it was good to be able to relax from the constant combat and stress. And—

"Talon?" Alex's voice sounded over the shared radio channel. His voice was… strange. Almost 'forced,' as if he was struggling to get the words out. "The ground team's just outside. They've brought, uh… you'll want to see this."

The two tenoin shared a confused glance.

{If there had been a problem, he would have told us.} Talon mused.

{But if it is strange enough for him to not say just what is happening...} Spiral replied distractedly, clearly thinking quickly. After a moment, the narrat reached up with one hand and tapped at a control near the base of her armor's neckpiece. Engaging her suit's flight mode.

It adjusted slightly, the magnetic clamps at the rear crown of her helmet locking onto the arching handle which looped behind her head. Through the visor, Talon could see the shock-absorbing pads inflate, cradling Spiral's head between them.

{Now I can move without pain!} the narrat boasted. {If nothing is truly broken, then I do not need a proper brace; it is enough just to minimize movement.}

{Clever.} Talon sent, offering a hand to help Spiral stand up.

Instead the narrat stood under her own power, sanzai signaling that she wanted to make sure that she actually was well enough to handle herself. Smart of her, in addition to thinking of using the specialized tenoin spacesuit's flight-mode as a form of impromptu neck-brace.

That said, watching Spiral clamber her way up the inclined decking without being able to move her head was… 'entertaining.' Talon waited out in the corridor, as Spiral eventually managed to haul herself up out of the room more by touch than by sight, looking around out of the extreme corners of her eyes.

{Okay, now I see why that is a toggle mode and not permanent for the helmet. This is harder than it looks!}

The two tenoin ended up meeting the ground team just as the latter were ascending the partly-open boarding ramp. The Legion loroi came first, with the Imperial Guard teidar and Tempest's own mizol and red-haired teidar following behind. Then came the humans of Colonel Jardin's team, some wounded. The Colonel himself was in the back with the two hulking alien warriors, helping to carry—

Talon blinked in surprise, exchanging a confused burst of sanzai with Spiral. To the approaching party, she sent {Is that—}

{A Soia, yes.} Tempo responded. The parat's mind-signature was tired, but triumphant. {You may even recognize her.}

And Talon did. But that meant—

{Meet Tempest.} Fireblade sent. {She is alive, but is in need of medical treatment aboard one of the Dreadstars. Therefore, we will all ride aboard the prowler as it is carried there.}

At this point, few things could truly be said to 'astonish' her anymore. Talon shook her head in bemusement, eyeing the wounded among the ground team. An unmoving ODST, a one-armed teidar, and Tempest — in the flesh! — was herself utterly unmoving. {Broken ship, broken warriors, broken Soia.}

{But none dead.} Tempo sent, sanzai full of relief. {It is better than we anticipated, when we departed on this mission.}

Alex rushed past, moving straight to his uncle's side. The two aliens talked rapidly, Alex pointing several times to Tempest.

A thought hit Talon, and her heart skipped a beat out of raw dread. {Wait, is she the Soia who we—?}

{Negative.} answered Tempo. {That one was called 'Security,' it seems. She is dead. And… Tempest does not appear to like being called a 'Soia,' not anymore.}

{And if she's the last of the Soia, then it seems fair that she decides what she is to be called.} the ground team's listel said, from her position standing behind the Colonel.

{'Security.'} Talon mused. {That is a strange name.}

{Colonel Jardin explained how the Soia were given names, while we were making our way over here.} Beryl sent, as the group found seats around the cargo bay. Tempest herself was carefully laid on her back, Colonel Jardin kneeling at her side. {A Soia's name changed whenever they were assigned to a new command, although that apparently happened rarely. And for ones like Tempest, advanced to the Soia's ruling Council? Whatever name the individual held before their ascension to the Soia Council, it was forgotten; struck from all records. They were always to be referred to by their new name, taken from their new duty.}

{'Security.'} Talon repeated, now understanding. She indicated the comatose Soia at her feet. {So this one was the 'Councilor for Tempest'?} It kind-of fit for a war leader, but still seemed… off slightly.

The listel paused a moment before answering, and even then sent hesitantly {From what the other Soia — Security — said, it seems that Tempest was the 'Councilor for Conquest' before they betrayed her. But… she does not seem to like that name now, not at all.}

{'Tempest' it is, then.} Talon replied, forcing more levity into her sanzai than she really felt. It was all so… strange. Galaxy-changing events, ones that would shape the very future of the entire Union, were not the sort of things that she had expected to see in her lifetime. Not even one year ago, when she was assigned to Strike Group 51. An elite formation, she knew, but…

She shook her head, glancing between the still face of Tempest and the worried expressions on the two Jardins.

But it was an elite formation which — in no small part thanks to the efforts of one Tenoin Arrir Talon — had nonetheless done the impossible. Repeatedly. Had found the humans on this ancient Ring, had forged an alliance — and maybe more — with the strange aliens, and had now struck a hard blow against the Hierarchy, one that could only signal the impending end of the War.

Talon let her satisfaction flow into her sanzai. Answering echoes came from each of the Union loroi around her, from the hard-hearted Teidar Mallas who sat rigidly in her seat to the fascinated Listel who leaned over Colonel Jardin's shoulder, taking in every bit of the scene that she could.

This was it, then: the true final death of the Soia Empire.

But perhaps the birth of a new Loroi Empire.