Tails of the Future

[miokalia]

[[[I got this idea from Ciata's 'Loran-Kang' thread, This is a thread of various stories from Federation nations that take place at some point in the future, be it 10, 50 or maybe even 100 or more years from now. It could even be an alternate situation. Is it an apocalyptic scenario, a tech-singularity or perhaps does magic and the arcane make a come-back? I think this could be a lot of fun. Naturally, this thread is open to absolutely everyone.
I'm thinking this would be structured similarly to the 'Tinisian/GBWT Tails' threads, where everyone sort of does there own thing/bounce ideas off each other. The difference being this thread is for everyone.
So have fun]]]

[The Union of Tinis]

[Location Free State of Forest (south central Tinis), 100 years in the future, possible future]

The young squirrl relaxed in his favorite tree, sheltered from the oncoming rain. The moist air coated his lungs with its potent coolness as he took a deep breath. He loved that feeling, and almost every day in the wet season he was able to enjoy it. And enjoy it without getting drenched. His tree rose up a bit higher than most of the surrounding ones, and was thus able to channel much of the light rain away from his favorite spot.

Most days he would just lounge there, happy and content at the world, eating off the store of food he had saved up the other seasons. His parents sometimes dropped in and urged him to be a little more active, but they all knew their instincts to scrounge year round were unneeded. Not in paradise.

He became aware of a sound far below. After his mind had come back to focus, he realized he had smelt it to. Something unfamiliar and almost alien, but not quite. He had encountered perfume once before. He remembered the smell well since he didn't care for it at all.

Tinisians, he thought, probably Tinisians. What do they want?

He carefully looked over the high up branch and peered down into the shadowed area below. The visitors were invisible in the dimmed light of the storm. The squirrl grumbled as he began to climb down the tree to investigate the visitors. About half way down the tree he spotted them. A trio of characters. One was obviously an elderly cainid, another might be equine. The third's non-fleshy form proved a little more difficult to identify. The trio were looking up at the youth who was hanging upside down, gripped tightly to the old growth.

"Hello there," calls up the equine. "I'm afraid we're a little lost, can you help us?"

The squirrl stares at them for a bit longer before replying, "Maybe." After than he began to climb down furthur. "You are very interesting."

Before the youth had reached the bottom the equine replied, "I'm Ser from the city. We're looking for a settlement of sorts."

The squirrl leaps the last eight feet and lands before them in a crouch. "Settlement? What settlement? A town? A city? A place with houses?"

"Yes."

"None of those here. What its being called?"

The Equine smiles. "I believe its a village known by some as Bangore. We were following a path that should take us there but it kind of fadded."

The squirrl darted at the equine quickly. The non-mamel thrust a hand between the squirrl and Ser, but the squirrl stopped a few feet off from any impact and simply starred the speaker.

"Paths are not needed here. We dont' use them. I know where Bangore used to be, but no one lives there. No one needs to."

"I see, then do you know any of those who used to? Its very important."

The squirrl turned to the non-biological. "Important. Big word. Who are you?"

"I am #WR0N5K14N."

The squirrl nodded. "That doesn't answer my question. Who one is is more than a name. Its ones being and form and what one believes. So a little more would be appreciated as I've not met one such as yourself before."

"Smart bugger," muttered the wolf.

"I'm a Malych, of the form O99, path of Joy. That help at all?"

"Not really. But I guess it will have to do for now," the squirrl turns his attention now to the elderly wolf. "You are old. Are you worthy of respect then?"

"I'd hope so, and call me Vixrot."

"Alright Vixrot. As the old one do you lead your fellows here?"

Vixrot's laugh was quickly followed by similar fits from the others.

"Actually I'm the oldest," says #WR0N5K14N, also known as Wronskian. "But Ser is the one guiding us today, we hope."

The squirrl had to chuckle at this. "That's fine. Tourist guide of the land of Forest. Tinisians I'm guessing?"

"Some of us," says Vixrot. "We're on a journey to find a writer."

"A raccoon who goes by the name Janok," says Ser. "He was supposed to live in the village. He moved there around ten years ago."

The squirrl shook his head. "No one has lived in the village in over fifteen four seasons. But I can lead you to those who know where the masked ones live if you like."

"That's fine," replies Ser.

With a nod, the squirrl youth darts off a few dozen feet and waits for the visitors to follow. When the approach, he asks them a question, "Why are you looking for this writer of words?"

"She knows something important that we'd like to learn about," replies Ser.

The youth darts off another few dozen feet and waits. Again when the rest catch up a few moments later another question is asked. "And what is this important thing?"

"Well I guess you could say its a way, a method, a skill that's very good and very powerful. We call it the Dynamical Path."

Once again the process repeats. And again and again.

"Why do you want it?" "So we can seek better lives, and for some of us enlightenment."

"What sort of enlightenment?" "The kind where the bad things about the world don't matter any more and only the good shines through."

"What is Tinis like?" "Its very tall. And busy. And bright."

"Do you venture about often?" "I do, but I'm not from Tinis origionally like Vixrot."

"Where are you Ser and Wronskian from origionally?" "I'm from the United Territories in the far east, Wronskian is from Eldorianiaza of late."

"What do you like to eat?" "I like to eat Omish and Cabiradize."

"Do you have family?" "Yes I do. Three brothers to be exact."

"Do you like them?" "Of course."

"Do you like the forest?" "Its a big place. Bigger than Arx for sure."

"Arx?" "Sorry, Tinis. Its bigger than Tinis."

"Is your clothing itchy?" "Sometimes, but I don't mind."

"Do most in Tinis like the itch?" "Not all. Some do without like yourself."

"Did you see the lights last night above?" "Afraid not."

"I heard they were a battle, is that common?" "Sometimes, but I don't keep up on the contests in orbit much."

Finally the youth stopped the group, and kicked a tree. From above a voice came down.

"Who'za that?" yelled a female squirrl voice.

"Its me!" yelled the youth. "I got some lost Tinisians looking for a masker named Janok. They are very lost."

"Tell them to come up then!"

The youth nodded to the trio and scampered up the tree. The three looked at each other and with an almost invisible shrug acknowledge that they'd be scaling the tree. Not being used to climbing any of them they're going was slow, with Wronskian having the best luck of the group despite the slickness brought on by the gentle down pour. Thankfully it wasn't that far to where the femal squirrl was sitting, feeding her child her natural milk.

"Welcomes friendly fursons o' Tinis. You look for the Janok yes?"

"Yes," replies Ser.

The squirrl youth who had shown them here hovered above the trio on a higher branch. The three were perched at about the same level around the squirrl matron.

"Out of luck likey you are. I heard that Janok was ill and near death but that was from the weasels and foxes so who be knowning whats sorts ofs crazy thoughts theys have. Of course I can give up directions for finding the valleys and noks the ring tails reside yet they are probably asleep right now and otherwise are busy about their scamperings and fun."

"Even Janok?" asks Vixrot.

"Especially he, cause the ones that join the land of ours whom comes from the towering place often have the most fun in forest. Retirement they call it."

The youth above points out, "They are looking for some sort of enlightenment."

"Oh dear yes, Janok mentioned peoples might some day look for it. Are you them?" she asks.

Ser giggles and nods. "I guess so."

"Well that's just swell. Then you'll need to talk to Makrigili and Vobak. They know all about it. Leave poor old Janok alone. Why you seek this enlightement though?"

Vixrot nods to Ser and then Wronskian. Wronskian then answers. "We're dying. All of us, in various ways. Everyone outside places like this will soon be no more."

"Oh my!" answers the motherly squirrl.

"The Tinisians have encountered their flaw, the fatal error in their grand plan of thoughts, and its hurting all those who rely on that plan. Then there's the battelers who streak across the skys at night. The system the developed to reduce and remove the ways of violence from the world are not working as they once did and secrets are becoming problems once more. Soon the rain of death will once again be possible and we could all perish under its death. And the central awarenesses of the seven worlds have begun the dilemma. If they do not resolve it, and quickly, beings such as myself will no longer be able to outlive the forms we hold now. Nor will many more of us be able to be created. And finally, the decay is soon to be upon us all, if that was not enough. The decay may even reach you here if it is not satisfied with the decimation of the structures we have built over the centuries. It hungers after structure and design. This malevolant spirit of ages past sees no value in the counters to entropy. I hope you understand my words and will direct us to those who can help us collect the pieces of knowledge we need."

The youth looks at them oddly. "That's more than what you told me."

The mother looks at Wronskian. "Is that true?"

Wronskian nods. "We didn't feel the young one would be interested in such an explaination I believe, right Ser?"

"Yes."

The mother laughs. "You have disrespected Omo. Please appologize."

Ser, with a shrug, "I'm sorry."

"Good enough," replies the youth. "All is forgiven."

It wasn't a moment later when a chill forced its way through the spirits of all present. It wasn't long before they all realized they were not alone. Omo, the young guiding, questioning squirrl saw the shadowy structure of the visitor first in a neighboring tree.

"Please leave, all of you," came the pleas of the squirrl mother. All present, shadow and Omo included, oblidged. On the ground and a dozen yards off, the visitors and Omo looked at the dark form.

"Who are you?" came Ser's question.

"I am, your decay."

Omo, perplexed by all the events of the day replied, "Theirs or mine?"

The decay looked at the youth, "You are different, but maybe yours too."

"Leave him be," said Wronskian. "Your beef is ones like us."

"Maybe. I know you are looking to twart me and the plans I have put forward. The infection I've brought into your worlds. But the old writers works won't help you now. The disciples of the system equation can not counter me."

"You lie," said Vixrot. "I've seen it done."

"Ha! You old wolf, the visions in your memory of what was accomplished with their might is petty stuff. The saving of a planet is nothing when the plot for its destruction is so simple and easy to counter. Things that are straight forward are there and that and thus easy to get ready for. You know of me and what I'm doing now, but its already to late."

Omo again had to say something. "I don't think I understand. If its to late why are you here?"

"Good question. I am here to let to metalic one of form reptilianius theropodical know that this thing you seek can indeed lift the dilemma the over minds ponder and return the unified mechanicals to a state of normalcy, but that it won't solve me."

"Fair enough," said Ser. "Now how about you get out of our way and let us do this?"

"Because, I want to take the pleasure of decaying at least one, or two, of you before you find it. The key of Glorvan is not so easily found, and never without much suffering."

"Take me first," says Vixrot.

"Then I," comes Ser.

"But..." says Omo quietly, thinking aloud. "Keys of time and though... round the top of the sky... Not Itchal Mir Nen nor Ordering One... Bearing the five numbers and letters with the three... the spirit of the dead Jirie be for no one... the key is forever free and liberated via Vazitan."

Wronskian heard Omo's ramblings. A database search an instant later and the answer was found. "We don't need to search furthur, I've already sent the key to headquarters."

Vixrot and Ser looked over to the Malcyh. The shadowy decay, which had taken its first few steps towards Vixrot had stopped.

"Thanks young one," Wronskian said to Omo. "Decay, your spirit of destruction shall soon be more more."

"Oh really?"

"Indeed, this youth has provided invaluable information just now."

"I did?"

After a nod, "Indeed. Long ago a dictator of the worst kind lived in the land of Pargalo. He sought to extend his reign into death and looked into the dark ways of the anchients. This person, Jirie, kept records that were later seized after his death, about his dealings with the dark side. But much of it didn't make sense. Omo's words directed me, oddly enough, to create a cypher that I then used to search some databases of that information, also directed to by the structure of the first part of his mutterings to look at Jirie's notes. Many of which at first glance make no sense. But a running through of them with the cypher and the condensed sys-eq later, it pointed to how you were created, how you were to grow, and how you would perish."

"Perish?" replied the shadow. "Decay does not end!"

"It doesn't," said Vixrot. "But it is not involved in birth."

Wronskian was a little taken aback by the odd answer coming from the old wolf.

"I'm guessing the information was a method to invite birth back into the world."

"Yes," replied Wronskian. "Something unique to, to cancel out intelligent decay. Your time is up."

The shadow grumbled and vanished.

"Where'd it go?" asked Omo.

"To try to destroy the places Wronksian stored the information," replied Ser. "Thank you Omo. How did you learn that cypher?"

"I heard it in a dream. Someone kind gave it to me and told me to remember it, and I did."

"Well who ever it was," said Vixrot. "May have just helped us kill a ghost."

[miokalia]

From one of the many floors of a solid white skyscraper, A class is in session. Floors 24 through 32 were a primary school.

The windows were rounded rectangles and despite the youth of the structure, the design was hundreds of years old for that culture.

There were hundreds of these towers, arranged in geometric, mandelbrotian patterns.

"Class, please turn to page 72 in your textbooks.", announced the instructor. A black dragon with red mechanical eyes.
The students did this almost in unison. Flipping through the pages of the book simply by touching the metal panel on the desk.

"Your homework for tonight will be on this, by the way.
You will need to read The Reclaimation of Glorvan and The Million-Year-Old Massacre by tomorrow night. This is stuff which will be on the test. As a reminder, your Caligraph projects are due on Friday.", said the dragon as many of the students began absorbtion. In the back of the class, the 'conscientious objection' kids were still reading long after the rest of the class had finished.

Of course, this division was also along ethnic lines as well. The bulk of the class were some kind of homogenous mix of Daeronese, Dincotian and Malych. The back of the class was almost entirely mammals with the exception of one dragon.

"Tinis-han", is what he was known by.
And that cream-scaled dragon was always the first to finish back there.
And he always noticed how the rest of the class would stare... not mock... but simply stare at him and the mammals as though they were on the otherside of a window into the past.

48 mechanical eyes, 24 metal-tipped snouts, 96 tiny metallic headspines, 24 partially mechanical tails and 48 conspicuous hallax foot claws lie on the other side of this conceptual window. The other class staring back at them speechlessly.

The date on the board read: 23 - February - 2698

The students were fascinated that creatures that were still all-organic still existed.

As for Yantso, he was having a serious conflict of conscience.

The policy of the State was to be eerily accomodating to 'conquerred peoples'... or the official term is: 'Integratables'.
They would allow them to live as they choose... but they had a way of demoralizing them that was simply crushing.

Nobody saw this coming though. Not even the leadership.
500 years ago when they thought the Biszlocsun party was going to become fascist, and crushed them... they didn't realize how it was in fact, that very same party... which could have perhaps prevented the re-militarization of the Malych and averted this future.

Lunchtime was quiet at the primary school. All the organics would meet in a "lunchroom" and sit at the only table there, while around them, cables would emerge from the hybrid students and find their ways into plugs. They were snake-like cables, moving around until finding a socket and then striking at it, to get to it before the others do. But there were plenty of sockets, and somehow, very rarely did student's cables get tangled up.

Once plugged in, they would then look down and freeze. The lights in their eyes would go off and then they would stand there...

It was very lonely. But their was no pity.
6 times a year, the organic students would be offered the salvation from the loniness.
A plastic allosaurus would confront them and talk to them about, "Overcoming frailty" and "Liberating Consciousness".
But then their parents would beg them.
Not so much for the reason of remaining organic, or 'pure'...
Now the parents of the organics would beg their children not to "Allow their species (organics) to become extinct" by taking the plastisaur up on it's offer.

Counselor Damarack, the plastic allosaurus Malych who was designed to look like an organic, eventually left the primary school to pursue a hobby of craftsmaking. He moved up to Lake MacCarey, to make pottery.

The new councelor was part of perhaps... a more aggressive initiative by the school district to 'integrate' more of these 'very costly to maintain' organic students.
Whatever it was, the new councelor, despite not looking as much like an organic, seemed to be a bit more 'genuine' in his approach.

Yantso was in his office again. It was the fouth time that year.
The previous three times the Ethnic Pargalonian would spend the entire time avoiding the councelor's gazes and not saying a word.
It was the best way to avoid being convinced to follow his suggestions. If this guy was anything like the last, their rhetoric was quite powerful.

Finally, Councelor Aikiloto spoke up.
"I didn't vote this. Perhaps I should have fought against it better. I'm really sorry. We should have done better for you.", he said.

Yantso continued to act like he was ignoring him.

"That crap about 'Reclaimation of Glorvan' that their feeding you? It's all wrong. Glorvan never belonged to us. It was Pargalonian. They won't tell you that though. This whole thing is screwed up and I'm really very sorry you and the mammals are caught up in it.", he continued.

"And so you want me to surrender all I have left?", asked Yantso.

"My job is to convince you to go against values you've been indoctrinated with since birth. To set your beleifs aside and accept a different form of living. It is a terribly disappointing job, because most people who have chosen to remain as they are have chosen to do so because of very strong... and sometimes irrational adherence to what they were taught.", said the councelor.

"Your not as convincing as the last plastisaur.", said Yantso.

"Yantso... I know I can't convince people to go against their beleifs and unlike the last councelor... I'm not going to pretend that I can.
Frankly, in my opinion, I think we should just leave you organics alone. We should never have tried to integrate other people to begin with! But it happened.
So I'm going to lay it out for you:
In your current state your body is morbidly flawed,
your consciousness is trapped inside a very limited system,
you are unable to socially interface with the vast majority of the population,
it will be extremely difficult for you to procreate and,
you will one day cease to exist.

We can fix all of these problems for you whenever you wish. All you have to do is tell us, and we will be more than happy to."

Yantso left the office, and Aikiloto didn't stop him.
To him, this wasn't a matter of doing his job. This was a matter of somehow reaching these 'organics'.

The next day, much to his surprize Yantso was in his office again.

"You are the first counselor here who has been honest... or at least appeared to be honest.", he said.

"I'm glad you think so.", said the Malych

"I'm not doing it. But you seem to be the only one I can talk to here.", said Yantso.

"I knew you wouldn't do it. I didn't expect you to.", said Aikiloto.

The two discussed the absurdity of the misinterpreted histories fed to the students for a while. Despite Akiloto being Malych, he knew that the system would allow criticism, since it also knew that reaction against criticism would cause immeasurably more damage than the criticism itself.
This was supposedly the 'kinder, more gentler' hegemony.

Aikiloto had an odd history. Prior to working in the Kolminaisus school district, he had worked as a history instructor at a secondary school in Lefe. Then before that, he lived in Altair, in the Erenmor Province for a while.

He had seen the revolution. The entire revolution.
When Erenmor, Cal and Miokalia suddenly delared themselves one state. The AI's of all three declaring a massive union.
What followed was the total unification of the AI's and the organics of the countries they were in. It was... unpleasent.

Then end result was the Malych absorbing the Dinosaurians, and Daeronese. The Calie AI's creating a new 'Malych-like' system of mammalian shells, and absorbing their population into them. Erenmor of course had the easiest time, all they had to do was simply activate some of the vectors already in the organic population's bodies.

Ultimately it happened though, Yantso did take the offer.

Yantso's father, Ivoritso had died of a massive heart-attack the night before...
And it scared Yantso. It was simply too much.

In the end, Aikiloto would find out that the heart-attack was caused by large doses of cocaine put into the old dragon's medicines.

The decision was made by the System.

That was the day that Aikiloto left the school in disgust.
He was tired of seeing people strung along like that.


As he left the white half-Malych Yantso followed after him and said, "Where are you going?", over the teletext.

"I'm going to go make pottery or something. I can't do this anymore...

I'm so sorry", replied Aikiloto.

[The Union of Tinis]

Waldo continued to fire at the advancing horde until the bullets in his gun ran out. He reached for another clip but found none. He gripped the gun tightly, read to use it as a club. The advancing group paused half way down the alley.

Emerging from the midst of the murderous mob was a female pargalonian dragon clad in minimal yet very strategically placed armor. She was grinning but Waldo couldn't see through her helmet.

"What are ye going to do?" she asked in Pargalonian. "Club us to death? You amuse me weakling."

She rushed the raccoon and grabbed the gun before he could swing. She swiped at him with her claws and he fell to his knees. Holding the gun she began to hum.

"You don't know anything Untols," he said. "This is wrong. So wrong."

"What fortune ye hath wrought for us. A blind alley is such an easy place to capture a fool. Or are you prattling again about patterns and unions again? Either case, I don't think I care what you have to say right now."

With that the butt of the gun crashed against Waldo's skull.

-----

Waldo awoke in a dimly lit room. The rocking of the rack he was attached to informed him he was being moved. He mustered a little strength to test his bonds and found, as he guessed upon waking, that his arms and legs were held firmly, as well as his tail. His eyes cleared a little over the next few minutes. He smelled blood.

He was then being wheeled down a hallway by five very large canines of some sort. They passed into a larger hallway and up a ramp. A few moments more and they were in a very large room. The canines ratchet up the table to an angle so he could be face to face with his captor.

The room was roughly circular with a large window on the far side. Outside the window was a plain of smoke stacks and smog and fires and large anti-aricraft batteries on raised platforms. In front of this window, flanked by a small collection of guards and subservient furs doing their best to look beautiful was a throne. In that throne sat a different white dragon wearing wicked armor. Across his lap was a long straight sword.

"Waldo I presume?" asked the armored lord.

"Ya... yes."

The dragon chuckled. "It be a pleasure to hath finally encounter one such as ye. A resistor, a member of the other world, a high member of it. What say you of your new empire?"

"I say, its rubbish."

"Hah! If I wasn't patient, I'd disembowel ye post haste. But I desire a grand favor of you. I need you to speak on my behalf to the world. And I can't so much have you full of holes for that. And before you refuse, be warned that a friend of ye's hath been very helpful in explaining the relics that I keep. Things that shan't of been illuminated if the fools of this reality had not rescued us from the hell of my original Tinis. And that perhaps I shall be inclined to use one or more upon ye if you do not cooperate."

"I... you are a fool. You are nothing like the one you steal your name from!"

"Oh, I am most certain I am not. We dug up the bubble of your tower that was left over from our arrival. I had to do very unfortunate things to your Izixs so that he wouldn't be a problem any more. The mechanical was fun to take apart to, we didn't have those back home."

There was a tear on Waldo's cheek. "You do know I'll die before I dare help you or give your mad regime."

"That may be true," said the dragon as he stood up and holstered his sword. "But that shouldn't matter. If push comes to shove I can skin you carefully and Kam here can wear you in a production or two. He's just about the right size for it. But much harder to believe even if the footage is grainy. Despite his intellect," the war lord scratched the head of the kneeling skunk pleasantly, "he's not much of an actor."

Waldo swallowed hard. "I... was expecting torture."

"If ye like I can oblige. But I am not so much as interested in what ye silly band is doing these days as having you do what ye must for the sake of my empire. I'm growing tired of outsiders trying to break in here. The Shik'ries, the Chattan, the Unionists, the Vulpes, the Mechanicals, any of them. They seem to have forgot that I left them their federation city on the southern marches. I need, I need ye to be a true believer. Someone who will stand by my side and denounce these forays into our pocket between the mountains and the seas. Someone who will retake their job as the voice of the Tinisians to the greater world. Alas, I was left with few diplomats when I entered your world and have lost more still since then."

Waldo took a momentary pause to mention, "Perhaps you shouldn't of killed them."

"Perhaps not. But lack of faith in the empire made them weak. They didn't understand your world and didn't know how to withstand its whiles. Mata enjoyed your media way to much to accomplish his duties. Zanzi was enamored by his double and fell to lust before he fell to me blade. Cranto, well was just insolent.

"Now I understand that you are not in the mood to learn to trust me, the emperor of terror who has slaughtered thousands of your country furs and ordered the deaths of countless more. The dragon who burns cities just to prove a point to my enemies. But I realize now that you Unionists, the remnants of your Tinis, suffer from an ailment so sinister that it would make me proud if I had devised it. An absolutism so enthralling in your minds that ye can't see anything beyond a way of life both ecstatic and pleasurable that ye dare not leave it behind. A perfect drug this promise of ultimate liberty with ultimate comfort.

"My dear Waldo am not so deluded. And either by choice or machine, neither shall you."

An armored and clawed hand was soon scratching under Waldo's chin. "What say you," said Izixs. "Will you be my voice, and cast off the oppression of your mind to become so? To undo the shackles that bind ye to a way of life so fragile it couldn't last?"

"You," said Waldo. His eyes were now clenched shut as he tried to hold back tears. "You monster. You know nothing of the world you destroyed. You know nothing of its wonder. You destroyed it because it wasn't yours, nothing more."

"Ye wrong Waldo R. F., I did what I had to. Its my nature. I had to heed the calling and could not deny it. And it is very wrong to do so. That is why I do the horrible things that you can't stomach. If you heeded the same call you could have a life of pleasure, a nice group of females all to yourself and ye friends, nights taking food from any stand in my domain, and no more worries other than the one's I give you. Last chance."

Waldo opened his eyes and looked the dragon in the eye sockets of the helmet. "No," he blurted out as best he could, barely unclenching his teeth to do so.

"Find, Branx! Bring me the toy."

With a bow, one of the guards exited quickly. Before her return Izixs took a seat once more upon the throne. "You see," he said. "A number of months before my arrival here, a fierce warrior came to Tinis wanting my head. Through luck I was able to capture him before he could do to much damage. That luck was he found his way into our relic room while searching for me head. We didn't know what caused him to fall to his knees then till our friend unlocked the secrets of my favorite toy, but it was certainly a boon. Ye must see, this relic saps the will of a fool and gives them an equal amount of subservience. One who is already subservient wouldn't change, but an upstart as yourself would lust to be told what to do. Ah, here it is."

The guard whom had left brought in a box. Izixs got up once more and proceeded to open the box. From it he lifted out a net made of some shimmery material.

"Pretty isn't it?" said Izixs as with his free hand he pulled free his sword again. "Unbind him."

Another of the guards moved to the table and undid the straps hold the raccoon to the vertical table. "Any fun moves and you're dead," whispered the guard. Waldo recognized that voice.

"Step forward," ordered Izixs. Waldo did as ordered, looking the dragon in the helmet. Izixs tossed the net at the raccoon, yet before it could ensnare the diplomat turned freedom fighter, Waldo was pulled out of the way by the guard who had unbound him.

"Get down," yelled the guard as he reached for a pistol hidden inside his armor.

But the fake guard was not fast enough. The blade of the war lord slid through him long before he could pull the trigger.

Waldo soon realized that there was a body next to him and a blade to his neck. "I was expecting something like that to happen," said Izixs. "I actually figured he would try to use the net on me. But no matter, take his helmet off," he ordered Branx.

Branx did as ordered and removed the guard helmet from the corpse. The former head of the Tinisian army in the Union, Usil, stared at the raccoon with his dead eyes.

"Can't get good help these days. Anyway," Izixs picked up the net and put away his sword. He then pulled from inside his armor a small device. Tossing the net atop Waldo as he lay still on the floor looking at the dead army bear, Izixs laughed. "He knew the right words yes so there's probably another plant somewhere. But no matter, you can help me with those."

Izixs pushed the button on the remote.

[miokalia]

Daniy sat dangling his claws in the water, watching the occasional fishing boat drift by. Recalling the events of the day.

Tori was the plastikid that sat next to him in third grade. He remembers once removing the cap to a bottle of glue and sticking it upside-down in her backpack. In retalliation, she pulled his feathers. They both got detention. And during detention both realized that their real adversary was the teacher.
Daniy collected chalk from far and wide, and then Tori put the chalk into an empty carton of soymilk. With some slight-of-hand, Daniy replaced the teacher's carton on her desk with the indentical tainted one.

When she took a drink of what was now a dusty antacid, then spat out a chalky dusty stream from her mouth in disgust, it was mission accomplished. And the two had become friends in first grade.

Daniy was now in third grade.

And today was the most catostrophic genocide ever witnessed by his species.

The picture which would later get captioned in the new history books as being the beginning of the end was one of an brown raptor with white feathering, holding a faded and ragged grey-and-white Malych hexagon-trefoil flag, ragged from blowing in the wind above the Miokalian embassy in Tel.
He was holding it in his arms as if it were the corpse of a loved one.
He stands before the parliament, with the Leefen behind him. (She was actually about to announce the cessation of Inleef.)

The quotation is the raptor addressing the parliament,
"There is nothing we have to discuss about this matter. Your actions and inactions have made a very clear statement.

But I will tell you this: This blood is on your hands."

2 weeks earlier, Daniy's father was actually in Lefe. One of the many mediacritters swarming around the maelstrom which erupted over The Hacking by an unknown group or individual. He witnessed first-hand when that rickety, distressed, nameless, and miniature EM49 came from amidst the crowd, leveled a pistol at Laca and then shot him in the core #36 had given him 8 years ago.
Before he could be aprehended, the M49 raised the pistol in the air, dropped it to the ground, and then willed himself to die right there. Falling to the ground. But not before saying "We all are already dead".

Of course, as it turned out, the assasin was right. And that assassination was the last organized operation they were able to carry-out before the entire species locked up and died.

Daniy's father came home and very uncharacteristically knocked back a few shots of vodka and went straight to bed. Highly unusual behaviour.
The only thing he did say was, "The world is going to end in your time, mah' boy."

The next day, Tori and all the other plastikids were absent. The teacher spent the entire day staring out the window silently. Without speaking a word.

Many of the students, Daniy included, had no idea what just happened.

Until the principal came on the PA system, heavily intoxicated on marajuana and in a drunken stupor, enlightened the class as to what their parents wouldn't tell them.

"The... just... they fffffff fucking killed d'Malych.
Every single one. They k killed em all.
Shot em with the interwebs. huh hhhacked their brains to mmmush.

Now they... they're gonna come after us. They want our land ssssee? They're g ggonna stab us all t tt to death. B bb bomb us up.", he said, having difficulty enounciating his words over the loudspeaker.

No one beleived it. No one wanted to.

On his way home, Daniy stopped by Tori's house. Just to see. He did notice that it was strange that all of them were gone at once, and that he hadn't seen any that day at all. No sober adult was willing to explain what had just happened.

The front door was unlocked,

The windows were still open, and the water was running in the kitchen.

Daniy wandered into the kitchen to find Tori's mother filling up an overflowing bucket of water in the sink.
"Dal Itka, you're bucket's overflowing.", said Daniy at first, then after she didn't move he said, "The door, it was open... I just... I'm sorry? Hello?"

Itka didn't move at all. Totally frozen and staring straight down at the bucket.

That's when Daniy smelled blood. His own species' blood.
He hurriedly went into the back bedrooms, following the smell, when he came across the master bedroom with all the blinds closed, in the middle of the day, with the lump of Tori's father sillhoutted against the closed blinds, she knew something was wrong. Dinosaurs never close their blinds in the middle of the day, they are photoeffective and crave natural daylight by nature.
"Dal Andytol? Hiyke? Where's Tori? What's wrong with Itka?", asked Daniy.
There was no answer.
He entered the room and the smell became stronger.
He walked around the bed and found the allosaurus curled up slightly, his head tucked down.

That's when Daniy saw that the orange-blue-and lime-green striped nesting blankets were soaked in the deep red of Hiyke's blood which was streaming slowly from the allosaur's nostrils, and also flowing like drool from out his tightly closed mouth.
There was a gaping wound in his chest and it too had soaked the bed heavily.
Daniy recoiled at the sight of this and let out a small squawk.
There was an electronic pistol in one of Hiyke's hands, the front end of which was covered in blood.

It was very clear, Tori's father had shot himself.

Daniy ran into Tori's bedroom, yelling repeatedly, "Tori! Your father! Hiyke shot himself!"

Tori was sitting near the window of her bedroom. Staring out the window.
Out Tori's window could be seen a few trees and a clothesline running between her house and the one across the lane.
On the roof of the house was a garden with several more trees in it.
Daniy looked for a moment just to see what could possibly be so mesmorizing that she wouldn't respond to the news of her parents being dead. Then he turned back and got a good look at her again.

She was frozen just like Itka. Her eyes were unmoving because they were no longer functioning. Nothing on her was functioning, and her organic components had lost some of their color. Her scaly covering had gone grey and black. She was dead.

Daniy shook her only to hear the light winding driven by his motion of some mechanism against a totally non-functioning Malych musculoskeletal system.

Daniy said "Wake up" probably ten times before he began shrieking.

He eventually picked up the phone in her room. Shaped like a statuette of some cartoon character holding a toothbrush in one hand, the dialing buttons were on the bottom of the base.
He picked it up and dialed the emergency number.
The whole system was down.

All he could do is leave the house, sobbing.


President Deshon made an address that night. Explaining what had just happened. How 30% of the population of the country spontaneously died at 6:00 AM that morning.

How his secretary of state, Doroy Blinn had died right before his very eyes in the middle of conversation.

How there were hundreds killed in traffic accidents as drivers died at their steering wheels.

How this was the end of foreign relations for Miokalia.


The general consensus, when the new isolated internet came back up online, was that the total annihilation of the Malych species was brought about by a monumental hacking feat. One which was conducted and executed by an organization, possibly involved in terrorism in the past, which wanted to incur harm upon the inorganic populations, no one was really sure who it was. But it didn't matter. Especially to some angry Dincotians.
The hacking feat was made possible by the extensive probing research which had been making the species nervous for years.
The information was gathered and compiled, then misused. Just as Blinn had warned it would be.


Naturally, some Dincotians took up arms over this.
Within days of the event, some Dincotians and Emassen decided none of this would have happened if the research never made the information availible.
This sentiment exploded when roving gangs of Dincotians, usually accompanied by Emassen, broke into server farms all over Cal, by force usually. Then they would take sledge hammers and baseball bats to every piece of equipment they could find. They'd rip cables out of the wall, plant cherry bombs in power supplies and detonate them, and often, after wrecking the place, they'd empty a can of gasoline out onto the floor and set the place ablaze.
This went on for a month.
As soon as the Calie authorities would capture a gang, another would take it's place.
Prime Minister Al's requests for Miokalia to do something to stop the 'gangs' fell on deaf ears as President Deshon simply didn't care anymore.
Both nations were being torn asunder anyway. As the economic waves from the occourances spread.
To the north, KZ had suffered a massive hit. With about 80% of the Zoids going down along with the Malych. Still, there was a miraculous 20% which survived.

Daniy returned to Tori's house 2 years later.
It was left exactly the way it was, nothing, especially the bodies, had been moved. It was the Dincotian custom to leave the residences of fatalities of a weapon of mass destruction or mass catastrophe intact.

The water had been shut off a long time ago, but there was still stagnant water, now growing green with algae in the bucket in the sink.
Itka's claw which had been in the bucket had rusted about halfway up the arm. Her lenses were fogged over with decay and had taken on the expected yellow tinge of out-gassing plastic. Many of her components were corroded somewhat and her mouth now hung open. Cob webs had formed and she was covered with dust.

Daniy could smell a slight hint of ammonia in the air.
He entered Tori's father's room, where what was once a lump of curled up Allosaurus was now a carcass.
The blinds were covered in dust and Daniy saw the eerie sight of Andertol's toothy skull, which seemed to have this expression which could only be described as pure torment to it.

Tori was still in her room, scales gone, the components beneath revealed. She too, was covered in dust and cob webs. He eyes, the lenses of which also yellowed and fogged-over from the decomposition of the plastic, were still afixed on a gaze out the window.

Daniy left the house without a word
His family was going to move to Dincota, and he would soon have to depart. Deshon, the last president of Miokalia had signed over 2/3rds of the country to KZ, and used the money to pay for the mass exodus of Dinosaurs to Dincota. Though some chose to stay and go to Inleef and begin attempting to dig up that research and try to find a way to undo what had been done. They wanted to explore the possibility of using that surviving 20% in KZ, and the very same research which had destroyed the species to restore the Malych.

[Killer Zoids]

[Same time-frame as Miokalia, morning of Feb. 23, 2698]

Background information:
With the advent of new technologies over the past 500 years, UNEX had grown seemingly exponentially. The oldest networking protocols had long since been forgotten, with things like the div-net and Tcomm completely out of existence. The super intelligence called U.S.E.R. had been divided into the hundreds of thousands of workers that made up U.N.E.X., offering it the ability to grow and adapt to changes in the infrastructure and demands of the rest of the country as they happened.

Many of the fully integrated mechanical life forms of KZ felt at home near the 'City of Energy.' It offered them employment, importance, and above all, purpose. Freed military zoids traded in their large unwieldy bodies for smaller and sleeker Mio-Kazian styles and designs, implemented by joint research between the two countries. (Typically, looking more like the mammals of KZ than the reptiles). It was not un-common to find families of every imaginable permutation living together, including Malych/Furs or Integrofurs and Furs or Malych.

The integrofurs were capable of living extremely long lives, just like the Malych, so relationships with Furs often ended up with cloning or integrating mechanical aspects to the organic creatures. However, the mechanized furs, who were born fully organic were not called integrofurs, but rather integrafurs. The integrofurs derived from one experiment between a female fur and an unknown zoid, nearly 500 years earlier.

The first integrofur, Adam, as he became called, helped raise awareness of this interspecies union. His most famous quote, "I am life," became a unifying voice for Killer Zoids, prompting the full, unconditional and peaceful acceptance of mechanized life in the country. A few years prior to his ultimate emergence as a 'voice,' laws were enacted in Killer Zoids 'Panel.' These laws tried to unify the organics and the inorganics, but were largely unsuccessful until the coming of Adam.

This curious species, birthed from an organic mother and inorganic father, were not the only hybrids to emerge around the time of Adam. Another oddity came with Rinnec Pacen. Not a mechanical life form, but rather a previously thought of as impossible union between a saurian and a vulpine. The unique physiology of the child, and the related changes to the canine's body during the pregnancy became hot science and was plastered in the news media. Rinnec's kind were typically formed between male couples of the same general species as the first, reptilian and canine. Fast forward 5 months (average gestation time) and there was an explosion of this new hybrid.

Saurians and draconians were somewhat common, but the moderate climate of UNEX, despite its being on the edge of the desert, was not extremely inviting. However, for the warm blooded furry/reptile hybrids, it was suitable. The area drew in the integrofurs and their familes as well.

[Out side of UNEX, in a small suburb referred to as "The Circle"]
It was 9:45am, Killer Zoidian time, 5:45am, Miokalian time. The stereotypical neighborhood was already showing signs of its life, people mowing the grass, sunbathing, washing cars, playing ball in the street... everything. One family, an Integrofur / Malych was waking up too.

"Say, how long until lunch, mom?" Asked a small integrofur, pulling at his mother's tail.

"Oh! You just had breakfast! Go play with your friends outside, lunch will come when it comes." She smiled at him, and scooted him out the door playfully with her tail.

She stood looking out the window as her son ran over to a neighbors yard. She was startled by a loud bang coming from behind her.

She looked over to see her husband, a Malych, laying on his back on the stairs. He was holding his head, which he had hit off the ceiling in the stairwell. He looked over to her and said, "I'm still not used to stairs, haha!"

She went back to the sink and was toweling off some dishes left from breakfast.

"JaaAade..." he said lurking behind her, "hows my wonderful wife this fine morning?" he said quickly as he tickled her up the sides. "Well, our son eats like one of those furries! He never seems to get full!"

"Ohh, were is little Sprite anyway?" he asked.

"Hes out side playing kickball with some friends." She was watching the far corner of the game she could through the window. "I'm just glad he's making some friends, getting out of the intercity was the best thing we could do I think."

There was a ruckus outside. A teen-aged fur was waxing his car when the ball the kids had been playing with struck the roof and bounced off. "Hey! Keep this thing away, from, my, car!" he yelled, tossing the ball back to the kids and then returning to his work.

"I think it was a great idea to move here. The Circle seems like such a nice place!" R44L said. "Well, except for the lack of elevators!"

She bent over and kissed him on the forehead and he patted her rear as he walked out the door. The Malych put his key in the car door to find it was already unlocked. "Oh yeah, doesn't need to be locked here," he said to himself. He put the car in auto and it backed out onto the street.

The digital clock in the kitchen flicked to 10:01. The lights dimmed for a moment. Jade looked around puzzled, when she received a broadcast message from UNEX central, "All Malych and Zoid power down, Danger!" Her organic heart beat faster and she ran to the door. She called out, "SPRITE! REEL!" R44L at that point was completely backed out onto the street and was T-boned by another vehicle traveling at a speed far to fast for the suburbs. The car skidded across the road, taking out a large section of fence and mailboxes. At this horror, she dropped the plate she was washing, paused for a moment then burst out the door toward the accident. The teenage fur hollered at the same point as his car drove straight into his garage. She heard crying next, looking across the street into the neighbors yard was Sprite sitting there crying, 3 of his friends had simply fallen over. Her sense tuned to the outside of the house and she began hearing cries for help coming from the entire block.

The power went out to the neighborhood next. UNEX was shutting itself down. She was running over to Sprite when her mechanical legs went limp, and she landed face first on the side walk. Her organic mind was feverishly trying to send messages to the rest of her body which had become completely immobile. Similarly this happened to Sprite. The teenage fur next-door ran over to her. She was still breathing, barely still alive, however she couldn't speak, she was coughing up blood. An eerie silence fell over the neighborhood as most of the crying and yelling had ended. The squealing rubber of the teens car in the garage also stopped. He was joined in the street by a few other furs who lived on the block, and a number of integrafurs.

"What the hell just happened?"

At that moment, there was a bright light emitted from the valley where UNEX is. The city--every mechanical, electrical, metal object glowed bright white for a flash and then the city, which never turns its lights out went dark.

The teen looked around, "Any of you have an old G band radio and a manual car?"

One of the furs ran to his house and came back with a portable radio. They tuned it to KZZR. The group listened in silence to the message coming over the radio.

"..and we're still trying to ascertain the nature of the malfunction. I repeat, UNEX has been taken off-line due to a massive energy surge coming from every direction, especially the south and Miokalian ports. The tapinta network is off line. Holoband emissions are off line. Power grid is off line. Telecommunication systems are off line. Internet is off line. We've taken many casualties. Malych and Zoids were the hardest hit in the city. Stopping dead in their tracks, falling over, catching fire.. everything. The integrofurs are mostly immobile, but are pending system restarts. The integrafurs and the rest of us seem unaffected. We will continue to broadcast on this frequency. We urge anyone who can hear us to seek the transmission out. It is unclear what happened, but we are trying to ascertain the nature of the malfunction."

"Good god!" One of those in the street exclaimed.
"We've gotta get down there."

[In UNEX Central, it looks like a bomb was dropped on the city streets. Bodies of Malych, Zoids, and integrofurs laid everywhere.]
"Get that backup power online!" Yelled someone in the crowd of confusion. "Generator 1 is kicking out 8000 watts, the other 3 are coming online. You should have some power." Came the response.

"Oh man, oh man, oh man..." One of the integrafurs said, sitting in front of a large old-fashioned computer terminal.

"What? What?" Asked the supervisor.

"Its the mechanoid synch beacon. If I'm correct it pulsed at about 10:01." The tech responded nervously.
"What was the message?"
"Basically, 'shut down to protect yourself'. I think the U.S.E.R. saw what was happening and tried to warn us."
"Protect.. from what?"
"Information is sketchy sir, but it looks like a massive hacker attempt to destroy the species."
The emergency lighting in the building came up, and with it rose a number of integrofurs and Malych. The others remained immobile, dead, on the floor. Next to the supervisor and the technician rose one of the Malych. Its eyes were blinking and its neck was twitching back and forth. Reversed messages were appearing on the Malych's visor. It was rebooting. A few moments later..
"AHHHHHH--- " It looked around for a second. "Holy shit."
"Do you know what happened?" asked the supervisor of the Malych now back to his senses.
"USER.. It saved our lives. There was an attack on Miokalian Malych... It tried to block the spread into our networks... It was like a virus. The only way to protect ourselves was to power down."
"What about the surge that fried all of our storage medium?"
"While I was powering down, I was washed over instantaneously by a flood of consciousness. I had to fight hard to remain in this body. I think it was a total crystalline dump to Kazian databases."
The supervisor got goosebumps. "My God." He slowly turned to look at the off lined bank of computers to his back, extending as far as the eye could see."

[2 years passed, and we're back in the Circle.]
The teenage fur came back, now 20 visual-years old, with a mixed group of individuals, and looked around at his old neighborhood. "Dalben, Dalben! Theres nothing left here, we gotta keep moving." "No just wait" He stood in the street. The car accident was still there. R44L was still inside, his lenses glazed over and his frame highly corroded. Dalben looked to the ground, highly overgrown and made out what was left of Jade, still face down on the sidewalk. Her metal skull, once covered with tissue, pulsing with life was now covered in road grime. Her chest was almost completely rotten away, except for some bone and some mechanical parts. He pulled a severed steel pole out from her back which extended into the ground. She had fallen chest first onto a piece of fencing.

"Sprite.." He thought to himself.
He followed Jade's arm direction pointing directly at where Sprite had been when she collapsed. He ran across the street, thrashing at the vegetation. He stumbled across three tiny Malychs in similar condition as R44L, but no Sprite. Other people in the neighborhood, mainly zoids and malychs shared the same fate. Frozen in their final positions.

"What are you looking for man!? Come on!" yelled one of the others in the vehicle.
"Survivors were taken from here a few days after it happened, theres nothing left."

"80%... My god. Even children. Theres gotta be a way to bring them back." He thought to himself, then jumped back in the beat up car and headed back to UNEX central.

[Kingdoms of Cal]

Rigie a leefen was in school that morning, primary three, she had no understanding of what was going on. Her father was showing every sign of annoyance. He heard him scream last night "How the f**k can three million ballots be invalid!!!"

Princess lyie had passed on a few weeks earlier and as she had no children the position had fallen to her niece. She had found the morning odd as the leefen parents were blanking the raptorians and the hybes were looking fearful. Raptorian/furry hybes were becoming common place now as the gene had be brought into the raptorian population, Rigie her self carried teerie markings though had a leefen shape.

Rigie wanted to talk to her raptorian friends but her father, who had uncharacteristically brought her to school told her not to saying "We are being sold out by out princess, don't collaborate."

Rigie didn't know what that was at the time.

---

The miniature EM49 was lucky to get off the first shot as several leefens had taken up position to commit regicide.

---

The issue that had caused this was a cultural issue, to the Calie knowledge should be free but to the miokaliaen certain knowledge must be hidden. The refusal of Cal to shut down their AI research had cooled relations more than a little as the Calie were unwilling to shut down the academics or hide what they found out.

Oddly the Acta (Calie AIs) backed the policy as they were very much part of the project. They were, unlike the Malych, were of extremely heterogeneous code and nature, the fact the Malych refused to alter their systems to allowed for the possibility of a killer vulnerability confused them.

---

When the assaults on the server farms started the miokaliaen and emassens managed to kill five Acta and the reaction was immediate. Especially on Inleef as the temple guards took up arms and the local militias did like wise. These people were effectively burning books, the authorities had little chance but the people moved.

To supreme high priestess Tyie this was horribly familiar and for the first time in history a priestess took control of Inleef for a second time. The military fell under her control very quickly and inleef was calm, though the raptorian population that was not involved was scared. Those that were involved, were mostly dead, hospitalized or locked up.

---

The next morning Rigie went to school and asks his dad "Why are the temple people here?"
His dad replies "So we don't do any thing bad, now go play"
Rigie ran out onto the play ground to find the raptorian children hiding and he throws one the a ball, a female called Quanta, she catches it and kicks it....The kids didn't know what might have happened and things go back to normal, well for them.

Inleef had once again dodged the built thanks to the sisterhood, though the nation was now, in theory at least a theocracy again.

---
On the mainland as prime minster Al was getting reports of the assaults on the server farms and the emassed uprising he was unsure.

Lo, now some what aged appears on his screen and asks"The militias and tribal forces are moving. Do you want me to stop them?"

Al asks "Should I?"

"They are destroying information, effectively burning books, heck if anything can save the Malychs it's the info they are destroying"

"Give them the go ahead...could you stop them?"

"In theory...Yes...in practice...No"

---

Two years passed

---

Rigie was now only in primary five and things had changed. There were many more raptors at his school, and they talked about saving things called Malychs he wasn't sure what they were. He knew that Tyie was still in charge though Cal had returned to democratic rule, that had some thing to do with voting.

Some place called Emass was now all under Calie rule as a place called miokalia wasn't there anymore.

The food wasn't as good as he remembers and the toys were more basic now. Even he realized things had got more difficult and his father had told him that they had things better than the mainland.

---

Al sighed "Well we're in one piece, how is reconstruction going?"
"Be thankful our people are tough, we will be fully up again in five years....with luck" his home minister says.
"OK miokalia gone?"
"Yes by the looks of it they were hit worse" His foreign minister replies.
"Refugees?"
"Inleef mostly but they are mostly useful"
"A fix to their problem?"
"Working on it, it wasn't us who did it. Jackolean's finger prints are all over it...we need a dead miokalia AI, but they won't give us one." A drone says (Als Science minister)
"They blame us."
"Well if they will run homogeneous code, what do they expect?"
"I can't really say that to them, can I?"
"They are leaving...we could acquire one?"
"Hmmm OK but don't get caught."

[The Union of Tinis]

[Still in the malych genocide future]

First Speaker Krel was well known for keeping the curtains drawn in his apartment. Years of working and living underground at the Tower, the home of Tinisian military command, had made his eyes sensitive. And though these days he was upstairs more often, he still preferred things darker than most.

But today he opened the curtains. He looked out across the city scape of Arx and its perpetual construction. Easily visible were two spires that had reached parity with the central Arx Spire.

"Salish, was there anything we could of done?"

Salish, his secretary of state, and an ethnic Dictonian, replied, "I don't know."

"Which model did they use?"

"The most deadly of course, number eight."

Krel reached for the latch on the window. His ears were not accustomed to rapid air pressure changes unlike the first resident of the apartment, but he was tempted to inflict this pain on himself as a punishment. But he did not.

Krel sighed and let go of he latch. He turned and faced Salish, "How is Tinis net holding?"

"Smov says its at forty percent, probably less. External links have been severed."

"I... I fear... that our world might be attacked for this. Especially if any of the malych on their homework survived. We both know how upset they can get if there is genocide involved."

Salish looked concerned. "Do you think these hackers, or at least some of them, could of been here?"

"Unlikely, else our network would of been completely down. But in any case, I'm going to call Supreme Commander Vinlia and authorize liberal use of the PDS. Salish, I need you at the council hall immediately to try to bring calm if possible."

------

Krel did his best to bring order to the chamber, smashing the gavel onto the podium over a dozen times. Around swing fifteen enough of the furs and others had quieted down to allow him to be heard. The two speakers who had gotten into a fist fight earlier returned around that point.

The Planetary party was obviously pissed. The socialists were concerned. The National Progressives seemed indifferent. And Krel's own party, the Glorvanist party, was ready to claim it was Tinis who had engineered this feat.

Krel took a deep breath, "Friends, speakers, I must say to you that your reactions are not unexpected but they are also incredibly stupid. And insulting. An entire people have just been whipped out and all you can do is argue about it? Is anyone able to bring some sense to you? Anyone? Speaker Sana?"

A rabbit took one of the forward podiums, "I'm afraid First Speaker that we appear to be in the grip of fear. Fear makes us stupid. Fear had some of us support your immediate predecessor. But fear is trancendable. I propose we look to find the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice. To eliminate them from the face of the planet. Only then can the world know that such things are not acceptable. Genocide is an evil we must all fight, and it doesn't matter if its being done against fur or human or bot or any mix of those."

----

And then there was war.

----

A brown colored squirrel occasionally glanced up to the screen above the bar. She was more interested in the scrolling news at the bottom of the screen and not the debate playing out on the rest of the screen. She looked down under her trucker hat and took another swig of her Matabia Special.

She heard the door open and glanced over to see who it was. One of the two was well covered in a trench coat and a hat, but had a glint of metallically underneath. The other figure was a little more well known. She got up with her drink and met them at a table.

"Amble," said the squirrel.

"Des," he replied.

"I don't think this is your girlfriend is it?" she asked nodding towards the obscured figure.

"Amble's not my type," said a very feminine voice from inside the coat. Des watched as the hat was tipped up a bit to reveal a mechanical face reminiscent of a skunks."

Des was a little surprised, "Damn, I thought all of your type of bots bit the dust a couple years back."

"I'm not a malcyh," she replied. "I'm very different and just borrowing some of the hardware."

Amble nodded. "She found me and wanted to bring the service a message. She wanted someone she could trust and apparently I fit the bill despite not being with you guys any more."

"But you knew how to find me," said Des. "So what's this message?"

The person inside the malcyh shell motioned for Des to lean in. "It comes from a particularly well known dragon who's been off the radar screen for a while. There's two parts to it. First off, he's disappointed in these so called policing efforts and is generally upset that the armed forces he developed before leaving office have now been used inappropriately three times. Krel's agenda is a poor one and Vinlia should of never run for Supreme Commander in the first place. He says that her flare just doesn't work with the military branches outside her home one.

"The second part of the message is probably a more serious charge against Tinis. And not one that it would be wise to get out and around. He payed a visit to the deep sea research complex recently. You know, the one that was supposedly shut down five years ago? Inside was a device not unlike a malcyh central awareness. Not exact mind you, but a sys-eq flared one with Tinisian style design and components. It was in read in mode only when things went down two years ago. It picked up the virus yes, but the virus was not run."

Das was finding this hard to believe. "So you're saying that Lenord's pet projects didn't die when he did? Marple, I'm finding this hard to believe. Who's running the place? I'd know if it was TIPS."

"PEP," replied Amble.

"Great, just great. If true, then Lenord's skin slicer buddies had extra buddies whom we didn't catch. Thanks for the information. Of course I'll have to double check myself. And there's the problem that it doesn't make sense."

Amble nodded, "I didn't understand why they would be building a central awareness either."

"But," said the informant. "Without Lenord and his cabal, the People for the Elevation of the People is under different management. Who, we don't know yet for sure. But you may only need three guesses."

Das did have a feeling. There were few people who could move to control the rogue anti-secret society secret society and whom would want to build something like this. And it would have to be someone who could bring in the appropriate knowledge. And more to the point, someone who had already had illicit contact with the groups previous head, Cameron Omz.

"Einterbaum," Das muttered quietly.

"Most likely," replied the informant. "I've been having trouble tracking his movements for some time now. But he'd be one to want to build a device that could deliver to him an entire army when ever he desired, or to possibly extort the malych with it. And now that they are effectively gone, it could easily be a tool to preempt the restart efforts so that any new malych would key into his system and not any other.

"So, while Krel and Vinlia have been going off on stupid invasions of Lemurly, Ciata, Peaninsula, and Naremaat, these ingrates have been looking to gain an edge in the game that really matters."

Amble nodded, "But, if this bad copy of a CA could be cleansed of the virus and its offspring, it could possibly restore a fraction of the late malcyh populace. Again, it was in read in mode only."

----

Krel shook his head, "The base was destroyed. I saw it personally. Request for extra-territorial operation is denied."

Das couldn't believe what she was hearing. At least looking was acceptable practice. Always had been. "Sir?"

"You heard me Commander. Besides the radioactive contamination would kill any agents that might get close enough to look inside." Krel was excessively sure of his memory on this point. His memory was flawless and he remembered everything. He saw the under water lab destroyed by several vantage points on the sub that fired the torpedos. And he felt the pressure wave from the small nuclear explosion. The wave almost crushed the hull of the sub and the sub was designed to withstand such things, unlike he lab. Das was wasting his time.

"If you're so interested in it," Krel said after a pause. "Tell Nolan about the possibility. He's a foreign plant and should get it to someone who is willing to risk such stupidity. Not that PEP folks, if they still exist, would allow anyone to take control of their special equipment."

That was the reason the lab wasn't built to withstand a nuclear pressure wave. Destroy all evidence and all research was their standing orders from day one.

[Killer Zoids]

BAM.. BAM.. BAM… The sound echoed through the empty alley. It was dark now, and a light rain previously had made the ground wet. You could see the discomfort of wet paws on the pavement.

A group of furs was standing outside of a large metal door. “Old man Salcha! You there?”

There came a clink, and then a metal bar across the eye-level section of the door opened and two green eyes looked out. “Who is it?” came a decrepit voice from the other side of the door.

“It’s Dalben, let us in.”

The eye slot slid shut with a clang, and then came the sound of a large metal bar being lifted out of the way of the door. It opened inward a few moments later.

The group of four, Dalben, his best friend Max, an integrofur named Tos, and a Malych called 47 Dash E were waiting for the door. When it opened, they single file entered the building, with the door slamming shut behind them. Inside stood the man, rather, the integrofur who answered the door. His appearance was not typical of an integrofur, his organic parts were tattered and matted, his metallic parts were corroded and dented. Despite its metallicy, his face seemed soft and welcoming. The room was cluttered and dark, but there was a small fire going on the stove and a few candles here and there.

Dalben stepped forward from the group, “Here’s the download from last week. They got somewhat close to opening the servers for reading, but I don’t know. Something about fractal encryption. I’m not a techie guy.” He looked over at one of the others, who was carrying a box. The integrofur set the heavy metal object on the steel table. Slacha approached. “Ahh are these the cells?”
Tos replied “Yeah, there are 3 here, fully charged. Do you have the old ones?”
“Yes, I put them in the bin over there.” He pointed to a metal can against the wall.

Salcha looked over to Dalben holding some reading material, he then opened the box on the table and pulled out a glowing yellow power cell. He swaggered over to a receptacle on the wall and lifted a lever. The receptacle opened and a spent cartridge fell to the floor with a loud thud. It was not glowing any more, unlike the brand new one to take its place. “HEE..EEP” He said while he strained to life the new cell into place.
“You want some help old man?” asked 47-E.
“No no, I’ve just about got it..” With a sliding sound the new cartridge fell into place. Salcha returned the lever to its original place and the second it locked, an electrical ‘woooo’ sound came over.
“Three… two…” With a slight flickering buzz the fluorescent lights in the room lit, infact, the cell provided power to the entire building.

Salcha was the keeper of the place, which was one of the many blocks citizens from the shattered city of UNEX took up refuge. Killer Zoids was nothing like it was 2 years prior. The destruction of great portions of infrastructure left Killer Zoids a wreck. In large cities, like GS Berg, the Capital, and Xebec, government officials declared martial law.
The bodies of the Malych and Zoids were taken to large storage facilities on the outskirts of the cities. The value of the cred dropped intensely, and only now, 2 years later had been re-developing as the nation started to get back in touch with itself. Plants were re-opening, the power grid was being repaired, networks were slowly coming back online. There was also great exodusing from these cities by the surviving Malych to UNEX. They felt drawn there, as did most of the zoids. The devastation in Killer Zoids was no where near as far-reaching and wide spread as it was in Miokalia, however, the super computer USER that had tied the nation together for 600 years was off lined, and was being run manually by volunteers in UNEX.

“There we go! Thanks boys,” Salcha said.
“47, would you grab that other cell?” asked Dalben. 47 was promt to collect it.
“Dalben, Dalben. Before you go, I wanted to tell you thanks for looking out for us.” Salcha said kindly. “There are a thousand Malych, furs, and IFs living here. You guys keep the lights on.”
“Hey, its what we do.” Replied Dalben, who was joined by the 3 others in a loud “HOOH!”
“We’ve gotta get back Sal. These cells should last you the rest of the month. We’ll be back for the empties then. See you around.”

The group left the building and went back to their vehicle, which they drove down the alley, to the street which was now remarkably cleaner. The bodies of the deceased had been moved to warehouses out side the city for storage.

When the group reached UC, as UNEX Central became known as, they parked their car in a small garage which lifted it to an automated storage garage. The four walked in the front door, 47 put the spent fuel cartridges on a conveyor.
“See you guys.”
“See ya”
“Later”
“Take it easy dudes”
They split up, going down different hallways. Dalben was walking to an Elevator. He reached the 101st floor. When the doors slid open, he was thrust in a volley of organized confusion.
“They’re coming!” Said one of the techs, holding a long printout on dot-matrix paper.
“Who?” asked Dalben. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Sectors G-0xfff1a1 through G-0xfffb32 are showing complete activation. We can read it!”
“Did they organize a shuttle for the Miokalians?”
“WE’RE OUT OF REGULAR!” said one of the guys holding a coffee pot.
“Make way! Make way!” Said a pair carrying a large computer case toward the elevator.
“Did you check behind the milk?! I’ve seen them hide coffee there!” Yelled someone.
Dalben continued to force his way through the hall, to a large observation window overlooking a vast expanse in the heart of the building, with computer screens, papers, and people crowding the floor, ecstatic.

Dalben grabbed onto the railing and looked over. Graphs of different subjects and numbers whizzing by painted informatic scenery along the walls of the room. Dalben was looking for someone. He saw her, holding a box full of tools. “Eshot! Eshot!” [a-show] Dalben yelled, waving. He was now standing on the railing leaning over, his two hind paws on the lower rail and his hands wrapped around the top. She looked up and saw him and ran to a flight of stairs. He did the same. They met up in mid flight hugged and kissed.

Down on the floor, the supervisor was running to each terminal, checking status of this and that. He stopped and leaned over one furs terminal and asked the operator, “Can you crack the code?”
“No, its some pattern I’ve never seen before. The computer can’t crack it either.”
“Damn. Well keep searching, check the Miokalian caches if you have to. “G33!” he waved, twisting his body backwards. One of the Malych on the floor looked up, “Get over here!” G33 nodded, typed a few last things into his computer, then sipped on a mug and hurried over to the terminal where the tech and the supervisor were.
“Whats up boss?” G33 asked.
“Do you recognize this sequence? It’s from that new sector they were able to get spinning again. Its weird, all the transaction data that was there was over written by this funky code.”
G33s mechanical eyes were reading the screen at lightning speed as iot scrolled by, just as fast. The integrofur sitting at the desk was doing the same. Then, G33 he shouted,
“There! Stop there.. Go back one.. One more.. Right there! Line 72! See it?”
“No way! Is that a primer?” Asked the tech.
The supervisor wondered what the two were looking at. “Where, what did you find?”
The tech sitting down pointed to the screen. “There, right there!”
“It’s the only repeating pattern in the whole thing. Run a search for it…” said G33.
The tech starts typing on the computer. “Look! There’s another one… and another! And another!”
“What have we stumbled across?” asked G33. I don’t know. But definitely save this, the Miokalians might want to see this.

“Hey, Supe!” Someone called out. The supervisor looked around and saw waving. He waved back.
“I’ll be right back boys, keep searching for hooks. Mark every one you find.”

[miokalia]

For the first time in 2500 years, the planet known by the astronomenclature term: Corona Beta 5. An orange planet with three moons, two small and empty and one habitable but icy. Malychedar was totally dead. With the exception of one remaining hint of life present on the ice moon LSAT-B.

The slow speed of the system between the planet and the moon bought the system enough time to shut it down to reduce the impact.

What broke the silence was a long grey ship, similar in design to the Crystal Eye of so long ago, exiting coaxial in a compression cloud above the icy surface of the moon.

They parked the ship, virtually in orbit around the planet.

A cone-shaped capsule descended from the ship, containing an exploration crew.

The survivors emerged, realizing this was a Dincotian operation. The awaited the capsule's arrival.
A Karak clone a very old M-class and a dragon-shaped unit of unidentifyable origin. Which seemed to be probably once organic but then integrated. What was of particular interest was how the long and light the dragon was.

"Survivors.", said one of the occupants of the capsule upon stepping out of it in a thick space suit which made him almost look like one of the Malych.
"Do you know what happened?"

"Everyone died.", said the Karak.

"We sent out signals to the mainworld to see if the compromise had spread, and there was no response. So we came to investigate.", said the team lead.

"There was no time to send a distress call, it happened to fast. The best they could do was give us a chance by shutting it all down.", said the Karak,
"I know it destroys everything MZA6, Most things PZA6 and DDP6. But it seems to have no affect on us old K24s."

"You're both DDP. Aren't you.", said the team technician to the other two units.

"We're very old DDP.", said the M-class. Which appeared to be some kind of military unit.

"Where are the other Karaks?", asked the technician.

"They have already ceased to function from natural errors around 5 years ago. I am the last viable model. And I am incapable of reproducing.", said the Karak.

"I'm sorry", said the team lead, "Do you wish to come with us back to Dincota or do you wish to remain. Right now, back home we are attempting to find a way to restore you all. They are also working on that in the Fed on Earth."

The long dragon made a few chirps and beeps and then the Karak said, "The Trindan says that there is a way to restore the dead. And that we must stay here to make sure they are not destroyed. I agree."

"Oh right... the other reason we came here...

to give you this", the team lead said as he handed the Karak the Paxisphere ball.

"Thank you. Thank you so much.", said the Karak, taking the ball into his talons.
"Trindan...", he said.

The long dragon made his way over to the Karak, it seemed to somehow achieve neutral bouyancy in the moons gravity, floating along.
The dragon took the ball into his jaws and then dropped it into a recessed area on his front. As this happened, the dragons entire body illuminated and then the eyes changed and gained pupils where they were simple illuminated panels before.

"Kaini?", said the Karak.

The dragon, as it turned out, was a shell for the creatures recorded into the ball.

"And Genius", said the long dragon in a female voice.

"There are multiple residents of the sphere now. This is different", said the Karak.

The dragon continued in a more neutral voice, "As I understand it, I have failed."

"What you say?", asked the team lead.

"I failed to protect them. 6010 wasn't enough. They still were decoded and compromized.

You cannot know how intensely mortifying this is.

Genius: I have to take a moment, this is too much.", said Kaini, the dragon then switched again and said in a more female voice,
"As Kaini has observed the annihilation of the Malych he is reliving the annihilation of his own species and civilization 3000 years ago.
It is the same to him.
I have never seen a post-singularity being so intensely emotional. Don't let his clear speech fool you.

Dincotians: take me to Earth. If things are to be restored than Kaini and I can contribute greatly to it."

The Dincotians took the Trindan unit with them back up to the ship, and coaxialed out of orbit.


"We go to Tinis.", ordered the captain. "Inform them that we have a passenger who will be of assistence, and that they are at least safe from attack.

Kaini seems to be nicer than we thought. He has better judgement, and her name is Genius"

[miokalia]

"I think I found it", alerted the wolf with feathers seated on one side of the room before a large plastic panel. Upon the panel he simply grabbed items and moved them around and entered text by merely touching it.
"It was replaced. This section of code has remarks.", he said.

"Dear god.", said the red fox leaning over his shoulder.
"You think this is it?"

"Sifting through this has been like sifting through a genome. So much of it appears purposeless but... it somehow all worked together before.", said the feathered wolf.

"I can't beleive it was just this. It's... This isn't the work of a prodigious hacker...

The hardest part was getting it in there... but the actual thing...

This is edit-copy-paste script kiddie work. It's sloppy.

They just edited a public distribution of software designed to emulate 6010.



Pull it out of there, and copy in this original provided by Cal", said the fox.


"I'm not 100% sure if it will work. I mean, there is a lot going on here that doesn't make sense. These creatures... and I do mean that in a less artificial sense, are as delicate and idiosyncratic as ourselves.", said the wolf.

"Well if it works, they all come back to life.

If it doesn't nothing happens. They won't run if it isn't perfect.", said the fox.

"ok", said the wolf as he loaded in a few lines to replace the incorrect lines,
"This still isn't the original. There may be something lost"

"Well, if they start up, then they can surely grow whatever it is they lost back. This isn't the kind of intelligence that any sort of rational being would write. This is all evolutionary, self changing stuff here.", said the fox as the new version was uploaded to the testing core in UNEX.

"And here goes nothing", said the wolf as the test began.


"What's the monitor say?", asked a bird in another part of the room.

"This isn't supposed to be like this.", said a t-rex, "This is too much repetition. Like a brain on crack."

"Maybe it's just the initialization.", said the wolf, "There's a lot we don't know about them. The fact there is some noise at all here means the program is at least running."

A moment passed and then Topa, the South Kazian (Once Miokalian) T-rex said, "That's not like them. This is too mechanical.
Something is wrong. This is too uniform."



----



At the Andertol residence as well as many others, a perculiar thing happened.
Itka, now covered in dust and plant matter, for the first time in a while, turned on. The miniature RM49's eyes illuminated, a faint red at first... but then after a few moments of picking up some power from her inductors, he was powered up enough to start up the deochal reactors again.

The reactors, having grown dirty with age, were no longer quite as efficient. And the deochal cartridges had undergone a chemical change. Natural radioactive decay taking place in the deochal itself had actually turned the once only slightly radioactive fuel bricks into somewhat dangerous 50% U238.
The power system was no longer 'light' fission. The light reactor wasn't shielded for this, and as the reactor started up, it provided an atypical amount of power.
Deochal normally glows while it undergoes it's barely-critical-mass reaction which produces only microwave and photon radiation. Both of which are easily blocked by the shielding.
But with regular Uranium in there, the reaction was somewhat hotter in temperature, and leaking somewhat dangerous amounts of neutron radiation.

Itka wasn't himself either.
He pulled his heavily rusted claw out of the pan that one had water in it.
But something was wrong. There was some piece of him that was still not functioning.
He walked over into Hiyke's room and found the complete carcass of the allosaur on the bed, and a gun on the floor.
Instead of reacting emotionally as he's normally do. He only thought:
"He died in service to us. He is deserving of restoration."

[Killer Zoids]

The T-Rex continued looking at the screen, as did the Supervisor, 2 integrofurs, 2 Malych, and a torrent of other organics. The Rex was shaking his head very upset. "Cal's code... you're certain the CCP method operates on the data right?"
It's doing a linear pattern search for those hooks.
"Linear?! As in 2D?"
"Yeah, whats wrong with that?" asked the feathered wolf.
"No wonder why this looks so awkward. Malych memory cells are stored 3 dimensionally!"
"What?" interjected the Supervisor.
"Look, memory in computers is organized as a linear array of ones and zeros right? An array is comprised of pieces of that linear data. If each piece is the same size, then if you were to take it out of memory and draw it on a piece of paper, you'd have a table. A 2D representation of memory." He looked around, realizing not everyone in his presence were programmers, so he grabbed a pen and a clip board. "Look..." he began drawing" If this 2D array were comprised of references.. err pointers to other data in memory arranged in the same type of layout... " he continued drawing, "then the actual layout of memory becomes 3 dimensional."

At that moment the integrofur standing behind the rex collapsed on the floor.

"Aaaarrhhgg Ahhhhh ckkkkk MMMAKKKKK!" He was writing in pain shaking back and forth, curling up in a ball and then stretching out. Metal crunching and bending sounds were coming from him. "Yaaaaahhhhh!" A number of other integrofurs on the floor began exhibiting similar characteristics. Most notably though, the integrofur on the ground behind the rex was now changing. In blood or oil curtling shrieks, his body was deforming. His canine like muzzle bubbled furiously, along with his jaw. His eyes were being stretched. His arms were twisting around, even growing smaller. The protection on his hind feet now burst open revealing highly irregular saur-like claws. Even his tail and large portions of his underbelly were deforming. By this point the crew looking on was in horror. The scene repeated itself one after another on the floor, affecting only the integrofurs.

The rex by now had put the whole picture together in his mind, and in the confusion killed the running process on the core. The writing integrofur slowly calmed down and then fell unconscious. He was not dead, but he certainly didn't appear as an integrofur at this point.

"Holy crap.. whats happening to him!?"
"Look! Hes more like a Malych now!"
"Is he alive??"

The crew were asking questions nobody really had answers to. One knelled down next to the changed integrofur. "Hes alive.. I can feal his breath."

The changes to the integrofur's body caused severe strain on its core. It was exhaling hot air to cool itself down. It had also taken motor functions off line, and shut down sensory input to prevent frying of the components. He was unconscious.

The supervisor looked to the rex. "Why'd you shut the program down?!"
"Isn't it obvious? It wasn't WORKING."
The rex was getting dirty looks from everyone at this point.
"Woah woah woah people.. don't look at me like that. Listen, I'll explain."
The edit-copy-paste routine was probably doing whatever it had to do. But I don't think it took into account the structure of memory here. It was getting references here, thats fine, but it wasn't copying contiguous data. These are linked lists! Not arrays!"

"Don'tcha just love programs? They do exactly what we tell them to, never what we intend!" remarked one of the programmers, a red fox.
"Can it!" yelled the supervisor, pointing in the fur's direction.

"You know, I think the rex is right here," added the feathered wolf. "It makes sense. Linked list memory organization is far more likely to be the case here. Just think how an organic mind works... Brain cells 'link up' to other existing brain cells to form chains, these chains are thoughts/memories/experiences whatever. Wouldn't such an organization lend itself to a shared consciousness.. or even a mechanical consciousness like that of the Malych? Or even Integrofurs?"

"Right" added the Rex.
"So what was it copying then," asked someone.
"My guess? The Calie code was just walking through our db and copying out chains of physically contiguous data. If any Malych were restored, which probably is only a few looking at the progression through the core, they've probably got memories and consciousness, personalities--bits and pieces basically, of possibly hundreds of other individuals crammed where their own minds should be! They're probably psychotic!"

The feathered wolf had been looking at a memory dump of the data the program was working on. He had been scribbling hex code on a pad of paper while analyzing the screen. "Well they can't be totally not themselves... According to these links, the first layer after every hook is physically next to it. What Malych that were restored.. if any even.. should have something of themselves at least."

"Yeah, and what about Yude here? He's definitely not Yude anymore.
They all looked down at the once integrofur. He exhibited no similarities to his previous self. His face became larger and his muzzle extended looking like that of a Malych. His neck had thickened and his arms were short and stubby and extended to a set of 3 shiny claws. The rest of his body was also changed into Malychian design, and it looked brand new. Totally corrosion free, totally shiny. The only thing left of the original integrofur was a small silkscreen of the Kazian flag once on his shoulder, now horribly deformed across his back.

[miokalia]

(((Cue up: "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" by The Flaming Lips)))



Zye city, quite possibly the largest ghost town the world had ever known sprang to life. Not in the same way as it had before. Instead, it had become for the most part, feral.

Without any of the typical programming, and in general disrepair, the Malych were indeed, psychotic.

The creature which was formerly and intergrofur was locked in a closet. And for good reason, once it came to, it was screeching, clawing and ramming the walls and door of the closet.

"This program that we have here... I think we just restarted the entire thing. As in: the entire species.", said Topa.

"What do you mean?", asked the feathered wolf.

"I mean this is a bad way. We just set them back 2300 years. Before they were 'civilized' in our sense of the word. That must be why it's so uniform.", said Topa.

"This does make sense, but I still don't know how you came up with that.", said the feathered wolf.

"Listen to that guy in the closet...", said Topa.

"Okay, I'll go with that.", said the red fox.



----



The RKS Garobariy had a very rough time getting to Earth. As part of the way through the trip, the hooks they were using kept moving or fluctuating in charge. It was hard to tell what was going on, just that there was indeed something going on.

"Goddamn it, I want this ship to stay in one damn piece", yelled the captain as the whole thing violently shook.
The captain was barely hanging onto her seat as the ship as gravity seemed to switch around quickly.

"If we come in upside-down, that's good enough.", she yelled.

"Bring up the secondaries and grab onto something in Cal or something. I don't know what's going on with the hooks in Zye city but. What the hell is going on: did somebody nuke it?", yelled the commander.

"We got a hook on something.", said the engineer.
"I don't care what it is, just get us out now!", yelled the captain.


The ship emerged from a compression cloud about 20 feet off the ground, traveling at about 3.5 times the speed of sound.

The grey ship skidded over trees and buildings.
It was Gohua. They were way off course, but just glad to be on the right planet.

The ship didn't come to a stop until about a half-mile into the bay.

"Damage report", said the captain, rubbing her face.

"The Engine was vaporized during the process.", announced the engineer.

"I'm not surprized. That's fine. All we have to do is get to Tinis and we can get back.", she then called back, "Is anyone dead?"

It was a small ship, with a crew of 8. Everyone was reletively close together, in a space about the size of a 3-bedroom house.

"Yes", said one of the crew members humorously.

"No casualties", reported the commander.

"Good. Where's Kaini?", asked the captain.

Kaini was wrapped around some structural beam overhead. He unwrapped himself and glided down and said, "We could have been split in half."

"I would name you captain obvious, except I'm the captain. So you can be liutenant obvious.", said the captain.

[Killer Zoids]

"Soop! We've picked something up on long range radar.. It was only there for an instant.. traveling like a bat out of hell.." called a raptor across the floor, holding one side of a head set to the side of his head.

The supervisor ran over and kneelled down next to the raptor who had taken his seat again, reviewing the recording of the event over Miokalian space. He was pointing with a pen at the screen in an area. "I don't recognize this distortion.. but it immediately preceded the thing's appearance in the sky.. and then it disappeared with the blip..."

He removed his glasses, and slowly stood back up. He then jerked around, looking back. "Its a Coaxial compression wave! They've landed a ship down there!" He looked around a few times, before he focused on. "Dalben! Get a recovery crew together. I doubt they're in good condition. Take the flyer. You have my authorization!"

"Gotcha Supe!"
"Zye City, 2 clicks north west!"

The brown colored fur waved and then turned and hit a few furs in his vicinity lightly on the chest and waved a 'lets go' gesture.

"Maybe they can help answer some questions..." said the supervisor.

---

Dalben, the brown husky-wolf mix was joined by E-47 the malych, Juna a female fox, and a greenish colored wolf named Ti.

"Here.. we might need these..." Dalben grabbed a few automatic rifles and distributed them to his team. "Safeties on, tails down, ears up folks. Lets go get em"

The flyer was a sort of air plane shuttle, but ran on power cells and was capable of traveling extremely fast. It was also loud, sounding much like a fleet of rolling choppers. It took off with a puff of smoke and was out of sight in seconds.

"YEEEHAW!!" Yelled Ti "Just like in 'Yaz!" Ti was leaning out the side of the flyer with the rifle pointing down toward the ground, whizzing by.

E-47 just looked inquisitively at Ti, tilting his head slightly. He caught himself doing this and mumbled to himself.. "argh.. spending too much time with these mammals.."

--

"We're coming up to the site. Juna, scan the area for a set down location... Stay frosty." Said Dalben. "Don't know what could be happening down here after seeing what happened to Yude."

[OOC: Yaz was a military incident in recent Kazian history Ti was a part of, involving helicopters and containing a group of what came to be known as Xombiys]

[Killer Zoids]

The crew landed their flyer and ran some tests on the atmosphere before exiting the ship.

"Looks like a god damn nuclear bomb went off down here," said Juna stroking her plasma rifle.

"Think anything survived?" Asked Ti.

"No clue, but we've gotta wait a couple minutes for these tests to be run first," said Dalben looking into a screen. "I don't wanna walk out in that..." He looked out a window to see fires in the distance, thick clouds of dust and smoke and rubble everywhere. The ground and sky had a reddish tint to it.

E-47 was staring blankly outside for a few moments. Its ocular devices spinning around as he scanned the vicinity.

"I'm stepping outside!" He exclaimed abruptly.
"What?? No! Don't even know what the **** is out there!," Dalben exclaimed, grabbing onto the Malych's pack slung around its back.
"I am the only certeefied astroanaut, and I'm saving your Kazian butts!" E-47 retorted in a very Russian accent. He was making a joke, which nobody got. "Never mind... I scanned the area myself, it poses very little danger to you mammals." Dalben's grip released and the Malych pressed a flat knob, lowering a hatch to the ground, and walked outside and stood around for a moment, before signaling the rest of the team.

"Ti, I want you to stay here and guard the flier. Keep this charged. There may be afflicted Malychs in hiding, keep them off the ship." Dalben handed Ti a flux rifle. "Gotcha Dal."

E-47 threw some cloth at Juna and Dalben. "The debris in the air may jam your guns, I suggest you wrap the intakes with this." Dalben ripped his piece into 2, tying one around his muzzle, the other around the stock of his rifle. I don't want that crud jammin' up my lungs either. Juna did similar, following his lead.

Juna stood next to E-47 wearing a pair of goggles. "Damn goggles.. they don't do a damn thing in this storm." Dalben stood next to her, keeping his gun at the ready as well.

"E-47, whats the direction to their ship?"
"Calculating... Way point 1 click north west of here."

"Lets go. Stay frosty."
Juna smirked at Dalben. "You say that a lot don't you?" She nudged him with her elbow.
At that moment, an electrical whirring sound was heard just behind the crew, followed by a screech and what sounded like a bowling ball crashing into a pile of metal trash cans, catching them off guard.

It was a Malych, crawling without its bottom half from a pile of wreckage near by. It turned to Dalben, Juna, and E-47 and seemed to utter to them, but all they heard was electrical arcing and sparks. It was shaking and in total disarray, dragging the machines equivalent of entrails behind it.

"I can't detect any discernible intelligence coming from that unit. I believe its systems are acting on their own. No threat." E-47 turned back around heading for the crashed vessel. Dalben and Juna lingerd for a while, just staring at the damaged Malych, guns pointed. "Poor bastard." Said Dalben, reluctantly pulling the trigger on his electric rifle, ceasing movement in the Malych.

E-47 glanced back as he continued to walk forward, his eye momentarily zooming backward to the wolf and fox, then looked back forward again. Dalben and Juna trotted back up to his position and continued on, through the billowing smoke and rolling sand storm. They kept their weapons at the ready. E-47 was unarmed, choosing not to carry one.