The week that followed their mission to recover Selene's clone passed painstakingly slowly for her. But pass it did. Each day carried with it a sense of impending doom. Any day now the invasion would start, and no one knew exactly how intense it would be.

  Would they wipe out humanity in an afternoon?

  Or would humanity put up enough of a fight to draw it out longer, and for how long?

  Selene knew one thing at least—her Zykra could make a difference. They would have a meeting to evaluate their operational strength and strategy going forward.

  But that had to wait until she was back in her own body. Or at least, a body that was genetically the same as her old one.

  Waking up as her old self again wasn't as surreal for her as it might be for someone who hadn't experienced what she had.

  It was business as usual.

  Fight until you lose, transform, and then repeat.

  The newly reformed queen did take a few moments to herself to get her bearings. A couple hours at most. No one knows what she did alone during this time, but when she emerged, her eyes and lips were dry. Then they set up a meeting location close enough to the territory Aboleth had established during her absence so that they could call for reinforcements if anything happened. But far enough away that it would be difficult for an enemy to find the precise planets they were located on.

  Aboleth wasn't taking any chances anymore, and any meeting with humans would be done with the Zykra having the advantage. So there was only one ex-resistance frigate to their 3 caissoks.

  They were all surprised to see her as she boarded the green ex-resistance battle frigate. Even the random people passing by stopped to see.

  The look in her eyes had completely changed. The way she carried herself.

  Anyone there could tell this wasn't a change made by the Zykra, but by her experiences.

  Those gathered at the airlock to meet her were speechless, unsure of what to say. Even her parents. They all just stared, taking her in. Xaya, Preston, and Aboleth were there too.

  Instead of her typical red hoodie from before, she was covered in exoskeleton. If you didn't know her, it could easily just be something odd she was wearing, some cosplay designed by some eldritch-loving artist like H.R. Giger.

  Gauntlets, vambraces, pauldrons, and a breastplate, all dark green chitin with exposed bits of darkened navy blue flesh around her joints. Her eyes had a slight violet glow, with swirls inside her irises, and her face was accented by purplish veins glowing beneath the skin as well as subtle scales at the very edges.

  She felt someone run into her legs.

  It was Camden.

  "Hey, long time no see!" She chuckled, kneeling down and hugging him. "How have things been?"

  He looked up to her; his face was teary-eyed and confused. A pang of guilt ran through her then.

  She really had to stop allowing herself to be separated from him for such long gaps of time.

  "That bad, huh?" Selene tousled his hair gently. The acid that could coat her claws wasn't being deployed at this time for obvious reasons. "Sorry, I've been busy doing army stuff. But I'll be over to visit later today; maybe I could read you that story I liked. Would that be okay?"

  He nodded unsurely, and their mom took his hand.

  Being a kid right now would really suck. The surprise gradually faded after that; it's not like most of them haven't seen her like this before. At least through video.

  Preston crossed his arms. "So is this your look from now on?"

  Selene stood.

  "When I'm out in public, at least."

  She could change back into her human form just like before too.

  "And what message do you think that sends to Protectorate supporters?" He asked.

  "...That I'm an alien hybrid?" She said, looking at everyone else in confusion as if they could tell her what was so bad about appearing this way.

  Aboleth moved towards the center of their gathering. "We shouldn't talk about things like this here."

  "Yeah, Preston, I'm here to meet with my family before the meeting since we haven't seen each other in so long. Read the room." Selene said.

  Preston put his hands up in a placating gesture. "Sure, sure."

  Selene looked to her mother then. She was wearing a white sundress with flowers on it.

  "You should wear dresses more often, Mom; you look pretty."

  Jen was still stupified by her daughter's appearance, but the compliment snapped her out of it. "Oh, this?" She plucked the hem of the dress and then dropped it. "I'm just wearing this because our luggage was lost."

  That made sense. They were moving around constantly these days.

  "I actually saw you in that dreamscape I was stuck in; you were like my age, wearing a golden dress in some kind of palace. Didn't see Dad or Camden, though."

  Her eyes widen in surprise. "A palace? ...When I was about your age, I did live on a core world and visited a place often that might look like a palace."

  "Pfft... Telepaths," Preston scoffed.

  Selene ignored him and looked to her mom before putting her hands behind her back insecurely. "Do you...?" She began to say before offering a hug.

  Jen raised a hand towards her chest like she almost touched a burning stove. "Nothing will cut me?"

  "No?" At this point Selene was starting to feel offended.

  Jen approached her daughter tenuously and then gently hugged her.

  "D'awe," Xaya said. The ex-resistance commander wore a white tank top with baggy cargo pants. "I hate to interrupt such a tender family moment, but are we ready to have our meeting concerning the fate of our species?"

  "Okayokayokay, fine. I'll talk to you guys later. Are you coming, Dad?"

  "Of course. I probably have more experience than you when it comes to this kind of thing than you do, you know."

  "You do?" Selene teased with a mock surprise expression.

  He swept an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a one-armed hug, jostling the hair between her antennae with his other hand.

  "Then again, I don't have an army, do I?"

  Selene pushed him away playfully.

  Preston coughed. "Ahem... Clock's ticking. Meeting's this way."

  "Yeah, please. You all are going to give me diabetes at this rate." Xaya said as they all began to move down the hall.

  The meeting room was like all meeting rooms. Table. Chairs. Not much else. Dark walls that slanted inwards slightly with the occasional supporting structure every few meters.

  "Dr. Bryant says the Zykra have meetings too, called 'crucibles.' "Selene said as they entered and started taking their seats.

  "Do you have any other deep insights about the Zykra?" Xaya asked, taking a seat next to Preston.

  "Hmm... They were made by some extra-dimensional being to stop life in our world from achieving self-determination. Do you know that yet?"

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  "Sounds familiar."

  "No. We don't know that." Preston corrected her. "But it is believable. Do you know anything about that, Ron? Any state secrets you care to divulge? What did Puck know during your time there?"

  Selene looked to her father curiously, who had taken a seat across from her. He folded one of his hands inside a fist on the table and looked between the people gathered there.

  "Project Icarus knew some things about the Zykra, but most of what we know was handed down to us from unreliable sources. Mostly ancient ones. Our mission was to spread telepathy to as many humans as possible, believing it would save us from some evil race that wanted us dead. The only reason any of us believed any of it was because of the artifacts and strange obelisks around the system. A lot of this info led us to them, but little more. That was the state of things when I left anyway. Honestly, just knowing telepaths are a real thing is kind of insider information as it is... How do you even know this, Selene? What do you mean by 'extra-dimensional'?"

  Aboleth was still standing to the right of Selene; she seemed unimpressed and interrupted Selene before she could speak.

  "It's hardly relevant. The Zykra were created by an intelligent being with objectives, yes. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it. For now we're dealing with a more pressing threat: the Zykra themselves. And based on my experience with how fast our own forces expand, their forces likely outnumber our own by a nearly infinite amount. But it isn't hopeless. Our only saving grace would rely on three primary factors." She held up 3 fingers as she said so.

  Selene put a palm under her chin and rested on the table, eager to hear her reasons.

  Aboleth counted off these 'factors.'

  "One. The Zykra's capacity to fight among themselves. I've seen my own queen make incredibly foolish and rash decisions because she felt her territory was trespassed. They're very antagonistic of each other."

  Ron looked to Selene with concern. "You fought with another Zykra queen? When was this?"

  "I don't know, it all blends together... Like 3-4 months ago? Ku'senai showed up and beat me up, then healed me and made me stronger. Then Puck attacked, and we all crashed into a desert planet. It wasn't long after that when I got all Zykra'd out and started infesting entire colonies of people. That upgrade I had probably made it tougher to resist my Zykra half."

  "You were also recovering after the desert battle. It was too soon to be active again, but Dr. Bryant needed us to source lazarine gas for a variant of Zykra for infestation, among other variants, and by then I believe you had changed."

  Ron was flabbergasted. Xaya was listening with interest.

  Preston had an epiphany and shot her an accusatory glance.

  "Wait, you were trying to infest people before you went full-Zykra?"

  Selene leaned back in her chair and gestured with her arms.

  "What? Are you saying the ends don't justify the means? And for the record, I planned on only using it on willing participants... at the time."

  "Speaking of infestation, that leads me to the second of the 3 factors that give us an advantage against the Zykra."

  They all looked towards Aboleth hopefully. The tall, muscled woman let the moment linger for a while longer before speaking.

  "Infested human telepaths. That was our plan before, and I think we should stick to it. The Zykra feared us to begin with because of humans' high rate of inheriting telepathy."

  Selene started to give her dad questioning glances at that. He had said something similar about the Icarus program.

  "Infesting telepaths increases their powers tenfold. Experiments with Danny Erickson proved it."

  "Danny's powers got stronger?" Selene asked.

  "Yes. He can emblazon any surface about ten meters around him."

  Selene made an impressed expression. "Good for him. Candleboy got an upgrade. Shame we can't get him back yet."

  "It's costly to infest humans this way at the large scale, which is why the infested population we have on Endelon 2 looks slightly different than typical humans. The method for Zykra camouflage was never meant to be authentic replication, and it's costly to force it."

  "Slightly..." Xaya said incredulously.

  "You should've seen what they looked like before." Selene said. "At least now they have all their bits intact. And let me tell you from personal experience, it makes a difference."

  "The 1000 infested you have on Endelon 2 aren't telepaths, I assume." Preston sighed, sidestepping his niece's inappropriate comment.

  Aboleth gave him an annoyed look.

  "Of course not. Telepaths are widely dispersed across the system, and many of them keep their abilities secret for good reason."

  "Sounds like I should've recruited those telepath hunters rather than..." She looked away from her dad. "What I did."

  He gave her a sympathetic look. "We all take lives in this business, kiddo; we do what we have to."

  "And the one you spared slit my throat... So, you were probably right to take care of them." Aboleth reminded her.

  "She apologized!"

  "The question remains: where do we find telepaths if we want to build this unit of superheroes?" Preston asked.

  "We'll let it be known that we have a cure to telepathy degeneration, and they'll flock to us, though our Zykra hardly have the resources to convert so many at the moment. It takes biomass, Lazarine."

  "So we need to use whatever precious time we have left fattening up your swarm off our natural resources? Great... Can't you make your own? Farm, or something?" Xaya asked.

  "Yes, we do have something similar to a 'farm.' But that's only adequate for sustaining our current territory; it's not conducive for rapidly expanding our forces... For future reference, I would just skip future questions like that, Commander, and assume I've already considered it."

  Xaya scoffed.

  Selene folded her hands on the table and looked about the room at each of them.

  "So we make a public announcement: 'Get your terminal illness cured by joining my army.' But won't the Protectorate be tipped off by that? Come knocking?"

  "Yes. Which is why we create an alliance with Puck."

  They all looked at her like she was crazy.

  "But I have to—oooooh. I guess I don't anymore, huh? That deal's busted now." Selene realized. "But Puck sucks."

  Aboleth finally took a seat next to Selene and turned to face her.

  "The Protectorate is strong, Selene, and you know how I feel about our political differences. I was a proud major in their army. If we have any shot of winning this, it's with them."

  Selene turned to face her in turn.

  "But I want to run things my way. I don't want to be anyone's weapon."

  Xaya gave her an annoyed glance. "Don't be selfish, kid. This is bigger than any of us."

  Selene snapped to look at her. "The hell it is! And it's queen to you. I will not submit to Protectorate authority. I refuse. Flat out." Selene crossed her arms.

  Xaya went to speak again, but Preston raised a hand, cutting her off.

  "She's right."

  They all looked to him then.

  "We don't need to join Puck. We just need an alliance with them, just for mutual survival. It doesn't mean Selene couldn't have her own sovereign kingdom."

  Aboleth closed her eyes slowly, as if accepting someone other than her could say something with merit. "That could work..." Her dark eyes went to Selene again. "It's not... My position to draft policy; I'm a tactician. And even now that you've removed my instinctual loyalty, I choose you, Selene. I trust you. Even if I'm fine with the Protectorate personally."

  "W-why?" She asked; she was prepared to argue for this but was surprised that no one intended to. "I took your life from you. You were talking about wanting to see your family again... Masuka."

  Aboleth gave her a pained grin. "Just call my Aboleth. It represents our relationship better... Because don't get me wrong—my service might not be out of blind loyalty, but it isn't out of blind altruism either. Serving you gives me more control over my family's fate than if I continued working with Puck. If you hadn't assimilated me, I'd have no idea how fragile our current peace is."

  "Do you two argue like this often?" Xaya asked.

  Selene had a bittersweet smile. "Yeah, but there were more of us before. It was even more chaotic. You've always been the pillar I leaned on, though, Aboleth. Even more than Dr. Bryant. Or Raymond. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way about Puck as I do, but if you're willing to cede to my opinions, I'd be willing to hear you out on yours. When I'm drafting those 'policies'..."

  "I do have some ideas." She said.

  Ron spoke up next.

  "I probably hate Puck more than anyone here, and quite frankly, Aboleth, I have no idea how you can be a major and not know the truth about them. About the noble royalty that actually govern, what they're like." Aboleth went to speak, but Ron raised a hand and shook his head. "We don't have time to get into it now. Like you said, our political disagreement doesn't matter at the moment. If we do this alliance, it's strictly a united agreement to defend one another from the Zykra. That's it."

  "Agreed. But we require territory as well; we should factor that in. I recommend we petition them for a quarter of the outer rim."

  "Good luck negotiating that," Preston scoffed.

  Xaya rubbed her temples with her fingers. "What was the final factor of the 3?"

  Aboleth stood up from her chair once more and moved to the head of the table.

  "Yes, the resistance probably isn't aware. Ron, you said something earlier about ancient texts guiding you towards these obelisks. Selene encountered one as well, led there by a vision granted to her by a mysterious non-Zykra alien. The same aliens are responsible for the artifact that gave you your powers, which Selene inherited."

  They all looked to her in confusion.

  "Do I have to spell it out for you? A race as ancient as the Zykra has thrown their lot in with humanity, probably since our inception. For all we know, we have a creator, same as the Zykra do."

  Xaya waved a hand and blinked her eyes. "Whoa, whoa. Slow down... Your third advantage is 'aliens'? Really? If there's another race of aliens out there that wants to help us, where are they?"

  "I won't pretend to have all the answers; this is just what I've observed during my time helping Selene. She might know more than me."

  Selene nodded. "I might. The Zykra tried to turn me against them too. And vice versa. The Zykra said my humanity would fade in a few hundred years, and I'd stop caring about preserving humanity. Then help them fight the Preservers. But the Preservers said I could beat the Zykra with their help, and they didn't seem to want anything else, which sounded like a better deal."

  "The who-now?" Preston asked.

  "That's what I call them. The alien told me they were preservers of 'the great song' or something like that, so that's the name that stuck with me. It sounded like their religion. I think the Zykra are all pro-imperialism, conquering other races and assimilating their most beneficial traits. While the Preservers seem like the opposite, they keep to themselves. I did fight one before, but that's because it sensed I was a Zykra."

  "I assume you won. But how tough was it?" Xaya asked.

  "Very. If they're all like the one I fought... As much tougher as I am now, I'd say 10 to 15 of them could probably kill me."

  Preston whistled. "Damn. Where can we find these aliens?"

  "Wait." Selene said, then looked to Aboleth. Who looked back to her in concern. They both were seeing the same thing through the alarms their Zykra were sounding.

  "What is it?" Ron asked.

  Selene started to breathe quickly and half-stood. "The IBT is here... How?"

  Preston considered her question for a moment before sighing. "One of our guys must've leaked the location of our meeting. They probably saw us working with you on Cyteen and knew they could track us to get to you."

  A man's voice emerged sourcelessly from around the room.

  "Commander, a Protectorate vessel is hailing us... Should I patch you through?"

  "—Do it."

  There was a monitor at either end of the room that flicked on. Showing the face of a very satisfied general with a full beard. Luan was positioned behind him to the left. And Riddick to the right.

  "I'd suggest you surrender." Desuran said complacently. "As it goes without saying that you are surrounded."

  Behind the Chapter...

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