The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Jinx999]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/538299.../194024971

Gushing Succubus: In The Shadow Of Her Wings (Gushing over Magical Girls). School and Worldbuilding.

[Mamorien]

Princess of the Void.

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/1988851/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...tle-hearts

[Mamorien]

The Greenfield Family.

Here we see Raven taking the first steps toward putting her plan in motion, planting the seeds of ideas in Zander, Paula and Bobbi's minds. And also leading Paula and Heather to look at each other in a new kind of way.

https://storiesonline.net/n/52852/the-gr...d-family/5

Plus Princess of the Void.

In the massive mechanical bowels of the Black Pike, the tree-sized rail cannons rotate with gear-grinding roars to the port side of the battlefield, leaving the silent ruin of its cleared flank for the lightning storm of its foes’ fusillade.

Its cannons reverberate their rhythmic death outward, reducing vast fields of killer robot to steaming vapor and scattering shards. Waian’s ensigns watch with quiet disbelief as the chief engineer painstakingly turns a spanner, centimeters at a time, that she’s stuck into an unscrewed panel.

Sykora leans over the balustrade. “Surely there’s some kind of console option you could use for this.”

“This is fine motor skill shit, Majesty,” Waian says. “You do your thing, I do my thing.”

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/1993091/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...sykora-pov

[Mamorien]

Princess of the Void.

“I was just thinking. A couple years ago I had a ceiling tile in my bathroom fall out. Leak in the apartment upstairs. That building had a terrible landlord, a real slumlord type, and—”

A ship the size of a cruiseliner plows into the Pike and rebounds from it, tumbling end-over-end. Its metal skin peels outward from the heat and impact, bleeding great rivers of shining fuel.

“Sixty-eight, Majesty,” Waian calls. “Running out of camouflage.”

“Acknowledged, chief engineer,” Sykora calls. “Your landlord, dove?”

“Right. We were arguing over comms about getting someone out to fix it. And I remember thinking…” Grant follows a wing of interceptors tearing past the main monitor, widening from a speartip to a chevron as they strafe a beetle-shelled drone carrier. “I remember asking myself why is every day such a battle?”

A scoffing laugh from Hyax at the tactical bank. Vora’s silvery giggle sounds from the command deck. Sykora joins in. “Why is every day such a battle?”

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/1999658/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...were-in-it

[Mamorien]

On a very special Princess of the Void, the rains of Oshanta intensify for a Drone.

Waian elbows Ipqen’s hip and keys her communicator on. “Indus Blue. Your squadron just dragged an active drone into my hangar bay.”

“We EMP’d it, chief,” comes the reply. “Triple-confirmed. It was entirely inactive.”

“How’s an EMP not stop that? Fuck’s sake.” Waian makes a frustrated noise in her throat. “Get away from it, mek-Taqa. Before it pulls a self-destruct out of its ass. Put the isolator on, Maz.”

“One second.” Ipqen sniffs the drone. “Uh. Chief. Think I know how the thing didn’t shut down.”

This is a fucking tooth.

“What’s that?” Waian smells the air. Grant follows suit. Charred meat.

Ipqen hangs the drone back into its harness. Her ink-festooned muscles bulge beneath their sleeves as she mantles it in place. “Can you get this thing flipped on its tail after we isolate it, Specialist?”

“Er. Right.” Mazek stabs a few buttons on her workstation and the modular harness hums into motion, clinging tight to the alien drone and turning it round. “Isolator engaged.”

Ipqen gets her cutter back out and slices the drone along its central fuselage. She tugs armor plating away and shifts internal plates and components. A watermelon-sized lump of burnt and bleeding flesh is tucked into the central bubble.

“This thing isn’t all-the-way robot,” she says.

“Shitfire.” Waian approaches the dented line drawn in gunfire across the hangar and pries something from the wall’s puckered metal. She holds it up.

“This,” she says, “is a fucking tooth.”

Mazek has that about to faint look to her again.

Waian keys her communicator back on. “Majesty, these things have organic component failsafes integrated into their systems.”

Sykora’s incredulous voice crackles through: “You’re saying these are living aliens?”

“Living? I dunno. Depends on your definition. I think they’re still manufactured. What I’m looking at isn’t… I mean, it’s clearly built for purpose. They’re machines. They’re just machines made partially out of meat.”

(...)

“This is another adaptation. Gotta be.” Waian slips a knife along the vein and digs it out of the metal housing. “Either lab-grown, or they turned their originators into this… goop. Kept working on themselves with the corpses of their progenitors.”

Grant’s eyes are dry from staring. He forces a blink. “When Sykora originally told me about the Empire’s technological sumptuary laws, I was skeptical.”

“Oh yeah?” Waian wiggles the gridded net of veins on the tip of her knife. “How about now?”

“Now I have no comment,” Grant says.

Waian titters. “Their dead creators tried hard as hell to rub them out. Like a penicillin-proof disease. Must have been a real fucking nightmare of an uprising.” Her knife tip points like a lecturer’s baton. “You can see it’s already got fresh mechanical augmentations in place to counter us. The seams on this camera cluster here to track our ships through the digital chaff we put out, the enlarged bore on the guns when their old calibers weren’t getting through the membrane. They’ve been shooting at us less than an hour and already they’re morphing themselves to get better at it. Fuckin’ freak stuff. No choice but to be impressed.”

“And horrified,” Grant offers.

“No. I mean, yes, but no, this is good. This is our vector. If it’s meat and machine working in concert, what we do is attack the handshake.”

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2003611/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617.../514-drone

[Mamorien]

Time once again for The Greenfield Family, the continuing sto~ry of one Sacramento household's journey to trading dysfunction for fun.

Keiko is back at work and back in the news chair, about to repeat her reckless stunt from the day before. Only on purpose this time. And with Barry fully aware the whole time, leading her into it.

And Rick might want to learn to check twice to make sure no one is eavesdropping the next time he talks getaway plans with his secret lover on the phone.

https://storiesonline.net/n/52852/the-gr...d-family/6

And more Princess of the Void.

“I’ve got your solution, Majesty.” Waian practically dances to her console. Her tail thwacks Sykora’s tricorne askew with her passage. “Handshake disruption.”

“Fantastic.” Sykora straightens her face and hat out again. “What’s it mean?”

“It means we transmit a signal that’ll force a reboot and reconfiguration of their enemy-targeting systems. These things—“ Waian punches into her console and her consciousness saddles into the Pike, turning her words from physical to digital mid-sentence. “—were designed to massacre organic life, with their own systems off the menu. All we have to do is an unobtrusive little tweak to their programming to put it back on. And they’ll rip themselves apart. See, Majesty? Not cancer. Just suicidal dementia...”

Symphony of Blasphemy

---

Waian’s arm shivers then ejects from her console, and a big smug grin slaps across her face. “Handshake disruption, gals. Told ya.” She leans into the bridge pit. “Get that flagship of theirs in scope.”

The main monitor acquires and magnifies one of the derelicts that float in the new stillness, as it releases a haze of…

That’s blood. It’s pumping blood into space, crystalizing a crimson blizzard around itself.

“Eqt’s tits,” Ipqen says.

“Jesus Christ,” Grant says.

“Gods of the fucking Firmament,” Sykora says.

“A symphony of blasphemy.” Waian kicks her feet onto the banister. “That’s multiculturalism.”

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2008666/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...-blasphemy

[classicdrogn]

To be entirely honest, I'm not sure this doesn't belong in the normal recs/updates thread, but given it took until ch20 to reach what I'd call the payoff for sticking with it, the "dead dove" warning seems appropriate.

All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter (AO3 link) is a Youjo Senki/Halo fic, wherein the once-salaryman has found themself (as a her again) in a third life, and this time managed to get into a safe, comfortable, academic career track... only to be blindsided by the discovery that the joke paper she and three housemates wrote in a drunken fantasy of how to waste the absolute greatest amount of research grant money on the stupidest and most impossible goals somehow found its way to the highest levels of the Office of Naval Intelligence, and rather than the improved FTL and AI research her entire actual career has focused on, she, Dr. Catherine Halsey, is now in charge of the blackest of black programs to somehow turn seventy five kidnapped children screened from all of humanity's billions into super-soldiers using a combination of a dozen cybernetic augmentations that don't exist, to connect to a powered armor that doesn't exist, using a mind-to-machine interface that doesn't exist and a power supply that doesn't exist, so they can be paired up with AI partners that, yes, exist, but each cost as much as a small warship and only last an average of seven years before falling into digital insanity and having to be erased, with the initial projected survival rate for the whole process being less than five percent.

It takes a lot of chapters of false fronts and misunderstanding before getting to the point where it's understood that everyone running the program loathes it from the basic concept on up except (possibly) the offscreen bigwigs who greenlit it in the first place and the distant ONI security watchdogs, and even then the requirement that nothing be said openly leads to a heavy helping of doublethink and less-than-accurate conclusions in the typical YS vein.

It bears mentioning that the general quality and positive trending tone after reaching that tipping point did leave me adding to my list of things to check for updates despite all of the above and generally not giving a fig about anything to do with Halo, but like I said it was a slow burn to that point and on another day I might easily have closed the tab long before and moved on.

On screen violence is limited to paintball training, reprimands for off screen incidents, and obliquely described medical procedures, to be clear, but it is a story about an intensive, relatively hard-SF military training program for child soldiers, so be advised.

[Jinx999]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/538299.../196065226

Gushing Succubus: In The Shadow Of Her Wings

[Mamorien]

The Princess of the Void and her crew honor The Valorous Dead.

Down on the hangar floor, the clerics of the omnidivine affix seals and sanctifiers to the three black stone coffins waiting in front of the membrane. Lance Corporal Varkori practiced the religion of his homeworld, something Sykora called storm worship. His remains are being shipped to his family.

A sister of the Omnidivine chants in Taiikizi’nekan, the ancient language of prophecy and prayer whose mysteries Grant’s implant is too modern to pierce. Grant is surrounded by a sea of Taiikari, some with heads bowed or damp eyes. He’s joined on his mountainous island by Ipqen-mek-Taqa and her keeper/fiancée/property, Ruaq-nai-Taqa, who stand vigil with him on the lit and living shore, watching the crossing before them.

You feel that burden?

“You’re moving up, Junior Engineer,” Grant murmurs, as the liturgy continues before them. “Nice pips.”

“I know, right? A woman in uniform.” Ruaq’s tail nudges playfully against Ipqen’s. “Throwing starships around.”

Ipqen rubs the back of Ruaq’s neck. “It was a lot smaller than you’re picturing, I reckon.”

“Still,” Ruaq says. “Bet you could throw me even further.”

“So when are you two getting hitched, anyway?” Grant asks.

“Well, we can’t yet,” Ruaq says. “Not if we want a proper Uvaniqish wedding. Gotta find a third.”

“Oh,” Grant says. “Interesting.”

He looks over to see Hyax, standing within earshot, stock still and staring down at the orating cleric. The ear closest to the three non-Taiikari twitches. On the Brigadier’s other side, Waian stands by a marine with his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking. That must be Kamen. Reina’s boyfriend.

“Whenever that happens,” he says, refocusing on the Eqtorans, “you could get some shore leave back to Harok, I’m sure.”

Ruaq smiles. “Perks of being a faithful servant, eh?”

“You can think about it that way if you want,” Grant says. “I’d call it a reward for demonstrated excellence.”

“Yeah.” Ipqen lets out a sigh through her nostrils. “Yeah, uh. Look, Gran—Majesty. Ruaq’s just being a little shit on account of we’ve been talking lately about the whole servant thing.”

“Won’t be long until we can get that bracelet off her, you know.”

“Not mine. I’m all good.” Ruaq shakes her head. “Ipqen’s.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve decided… I’m okay with the servant word,” Ipqen says. “Don’t love it, but it is what it is, and it’s a nicer sounding word in Taiikari, anyway. Thing is I don’t think—” She leans closer and drops her voice. “I don’t think I can stand being the servant to the fuckin’ Empress.”

“I had the same crisis, Ipqen. Trust me. What I do is consider myself a servant of Sykora’s instead. She’s—”

“I’m your servant, Grant.” Ipqen stares solemnly down her snout at him. “That’s what I’m trying to say. Eqt love Sykora, but she doesn’t get it. You do.”

“You feel that burden?”

“I do.”

“All right, man.” She punches him on the shoulder. “Use me right.”

Sykora has taken her place at the front of the caskets. Her arms are laced tightly behind her back. Her chin is high. “Glory to Lieutenant Suthuk of the Black Pike,” she says.

“Glory to Suthuk,” they echo.

“Glory to Gefreiter Reina of the Black Pike.”

“Glory to Reina,” they say, and Kamen’s cracked voice joins the chorus.

“Glory to Corporal Tarsi of the Black Pike.”

“Glory to Tarsi.”

“Glory to Lance Corporal Varkori of the Black Pike.”

“Glory to Varkori.”

“Their duty is discharged. We who remain in the safety for which they gave their lives praise their valor and petition their gods to do the same. May Suthuk, Reina, and Tarsi be sung and celebrated and joyfully received in the Heavenly Court of Empresses Past. May Varkori drift in peace within the Eye of the Renewing Storm, awaiting the day its rains bring paradise to this realm.” She turns to face the vast firmament before the silent coffins. She fires her fist into the sky. “Pike’s up.”

“Pike’s up,” they thunder behind her.

Sykora lets her hand fall forward. That same polar chill Grant felt before washes over him again; he watches the coffins drift out into the firmament, tracking their shapes against the aquamarine orb they died over, until they’re dwindling dots in the infinite void. And seconds later he can’t see them at all.

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2013562/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...orous-dead

[Mamorien]

How do Sykora's activities look to a typical citizen of Black Pike Sector? Some sort of lower-decker who sees his Princess of the Void in a view from the gallery?

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2019542/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...s-changing

[Mamorien]

The Greenfield Family.

It's just a typical morning in the Greenfield house.

Only... maybe it's not so typical.

Mother and son don't typically look at each other by the pool in quite that way.

And Marcus and his girlfriend don't typically get up to those kind of antics right in front of his mother.

And his siblings aren't typically watching either.

https://storiesonline.net/n/52852/the-gr...d-family/7

Princess of the Void.

Qilik-mek-Eqtor’s nostrils flicker; her broad chest expands with a slow, pondering inhale.

When I was Ipqen’s age, I lived with a sledge convoy on the Southern Ice. I was the best diver in my convoy. Put me down below the ice with a spear and a searchlight and I could come up with a banquet’s worth of fish. And I loved it, loved the pressure and the dark. Like the ocean was embracing you. I moved to Highstep because I caught something called Whirlpool disease. A degenerative infection of the gnuik.

The tablet puts a dot next to that, and an amber line of text: (trans. note: an Eqtoran organ responsible for electroreception and barometric stability)

When I went below two lengths, Qilik says, that embrace I loved spun me around instead, made me sick and panicky. I met with an Eqtoran doctor who told me that I could never dive again. I met with a Taiikari doctor a smallspan (trans. note: eight days) ago, She tells me that I could have an artificial gnuik within a cycle. That I could dive deep again. Told it to me as if she was advising tea for congestion.

Qilik pauses to take a drink of her own tea, as if she’s only just remembered she’s holding it.

I fought so hard against this. And I still remember my reasons. All my reasons. And how important they were. And now I am so comfortable, and I remember them as if remembering something embarrassing from my childhood. Is that right? Is that how it ought to be?

He realizes by her probing face that this is a genuine question. “I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t been in the Empire long enough to know. But if there’s anything amiss, anything you can think of, I want to hear it.”

A greedy sorrow.

It had been my fear that when the Empire claimed us, they would be cruel. Treating us with suspicion or derision.

“Have they?”

Oh, no. Of course they haven’t. Qilik shakes her head. There is a—matronizing attitude I can detect at times. They think us provincial. This rankles some of my colleagues. But I find little grit in the bite of it. We are, after all, provincial. As splendid as we thought ourselves, we are provincial. No; you have treated us well in these early days. There is friction, there are incidents, there’s compulsion and confusion. Inevitable that these things should happen. When they are brought to your attention or that of your ministers, they are rectified. My problems… aren’t logical, Majesty. It’s just a greedy sorrow. You need not listen.

“I know I don’t,” he says. “But I want to.”

Qilik sighs, and speaks:

Ipqen-honoring-Taqa now lives a life of awe and discovery. A long and splendid life. And the Empire is discovering in her the best of our kind. We are strong, and civic-minded, and loyal, and to many Taiikari, I’m told, we are beautiful. The integrated ships and the integrated armies. They progress well. You told me we’d fit, and we do.

But Ipqen is the first, you see? Before I go to the far shore, I will bear witness to generations of Eqtorans who have never seen the first aurora of the dark season, who have never seen snow or the sun shining through the ice. They’ll never suffer from Whirlpool disease, as I suffered. And they’ll never dive Eqt’s waters, as I dived. They’ll never know the Republic. They’ll have their lives laid before them, packed and prepared like a gorgeous gift. Already they grow accustomed to obedience. When your Empire masters the peak and the music, it will only accelerate.

It took many long turnings of the Republic for my people to learn to love such a wide and woeful thing as freedom. The vertigo of a choice placed firmly in their hands. It took scripture and song and generations. It will go away quickly, and the ones to come after will not miss it.

Grant remembers his conversation with Ipqen. The way she has to remind herself to be sad.

And so the Empire will adopt the Children of Eqt, as it adopted you. They will board Imperial ships and journey across the stars, away from the cold, dark, backward chill of their homeworld. They’ll find their place in the Imperial sun. As warriors and explorers and engineers and husbands and wives. They’ll learn how to fly Taiikari ships and how to sing Taiikari songs. And here I stand like a still-breathing wraith, asking the unlistening wind—who will teach them to fish? Or ice-crawl? Or carve wqinik (trans. note: religious charms wrought from ivory or qlek nut) to the gods? They will have more of this life than my siblings in the council could ever offer. And I should be happy. I am happy. I am, Majesty.

She chuckles ruefully.

I’m like an overshelled qipnuq (trans. note: Southern Ocean shellfish, common food source of the High Ice Eqtoran tribes). My joints are too calcified for the crawl forward. My fellows will cheerfully drag me along, I’m sure. I’ll be no trouble, Majesty.

Her thick, blunt hand pats him on the shoulder.

Better this way, maybe. Better for everyone. Even for me, with my grumblings. Forgive an old woman her sentimentality.

“Nothing to forgive. Really. And, uh—” Grant hesitates. He doesn’t know what to say. He raises his hand to his eye, puts thumb and forefinger together around it. It’s a gesture he’s seen the Eqtorans make many times.

Qilik smiles and mirrors the gesture. “Mjuk Eqt nqunuik,” she says, but she’s already tucked her translator under her arm, and Grant doesn’t see what it meant.

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2023451/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...edy-sorrow

[Mamorien]

Princess of the Void.

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2028866/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...sykora-pov