Velinkar dutifully passed the negotating offers up the chain, but he was completely certain now the Aotrs would not be dealing with the Azura through those channels. They'd reacted exactly as he'd expected, with that air of superiority that assumed everyone they encountered was an inferior. It made him think of the steriotypical vampire attitude (the sort the Aotrs had actually culturally obliterated from their own vampires over two-thousand-odd years). He doubted the Azura would truly understand how central Aotrs Gate technology and magic was to the Aotrs and to Lord Death Despoil himself. And they could pry those out of the Aotrs' collective truly-dead hands.

And aside from their own military secrets hoarded to preserve their own superiority, he suspected there was nothing else the Azura would be interested in the Aotrs would offer. (He was tempted to have his aides tell the diplomats to try talking to the Herosines, but resisted the urge.)



On the fleet front, the only good news was that the reinforcements had finally arrived, bringing his requested anti-magic gear. It would still take some time to start to fit it, but the process could now begin.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	

Killstorm and Vivisector stood side-by-side regarding the stasis tubes. 

The first job had been to fortify the bunker properly and dig in far enough to be reasonably safe from orbital attack. They'd punched through well enough to allow Killstorm to open a couple more [i]Gates[/i] and ship in experts and even a small local planetary shield generator from one of the Crypt Bearers to solidify thei beachhead, at least from anythign short of a concerted orbital bombardment effort, and it would give them enough time for an exfil.

They had only loosely examined the ruins so far, but now a speciaist team was being sent to properly scan and catalogue the ruins. Ordinarily, getting specialist would have been more difficult, but as she was casting Gate XXV anything, she'd had the bright idea of tapping Myst Mase's specialist were perfect for the job. All they needed to do was go through the Myst Gate to Tanshin II and then Killstorm could [i]Gate[/i] them to the fortification.

Myst Base had sent back Alpha team, under Captain Fleshslicer and they were all quite eager to tackle the next part of the Tanshin problem. 

First, proper specialist scans to determine whether any of the stasis tubes had retained enough function to preserve anything alive - and if not, to ensure the contents were non Undead or construct. And of course a full analysis of their biology (and presumably offensive capability).

She watched the team with amusement, the clear delight in Third Startrooper Voidslay's voice as she reported her findings to Flashslicer, having found a computer component that was almost in perfect condition. Likely still too old to have preserved data, but Voidslay seemed hopeful they might be able to connect it up to see HOW it stored data.

Vivisector grunted, breeaking Killstorm's reverie. He'd been quietly talking on his helmet comm.

"Reinforcements arrived," he told her. "The admiral has given the go-ahead once the new supplies are unloaded to use the transport space to shuttle back anything - and possibly everything - we can salvage here."

"That's good," Killstorm's clear contralo replied dryly. "I'd have hated to come all this way to come back empty-handed."

"Figure someone will be wanting to take one of those tubes back," Vivisector observed laconically. "Even if they're all dead, someone ought to learn something. Seems like at the moment that's all we can do, at least until we can hit these guys hard enough to make them wince. At the moment, all we're doing is luring them into a false sense of complaceny."

Killstorm nodded with only a trace of humour. "Indeed. Until we can get heavy reinforcements. Though," she added wryly "from the looks of the situation up there, the complacency part seems to be working. Maybe enough of them will get bored and go home eventually."

Vivisector grunted morosely. "The reminder we're still far from the top hurts, but probably is for the best. Wouldn't want us to get into the same mindset as these people - Carrionrise says," - one of Velinkar's aides and a good friend of Vivisector - "they were trying to hire us as mercenaries, like we were some two-bit little power for hire."

Killstorm was startled enough to drop her folded arms and spun to regard her comrade with open shock. "What? WHILE we are figthing them? What, did they ask to buy our ships too? I-" She stopped again, catching the shift of the other's head. "[i]NO![/i] Really? I... What."

Vivisector's tone came to as close to amused as Killstorm had ever heard him. "Carrionrise said it took all he had not to lose control right there. Said the creature had an attitude it reminded him of an elf lord we encountered once, seven centuries back; wet-navy engagement, forget where, must have been tech-locked world, since we were using early gunpowder tech. Smug superior bastard, one of [i]those[/i], you know, 'I am righteous so the universe will conform to me'types. Not thought about that incident in... Centuries, likely, but smashing his self-satisfied smirk was a good memory for both of us."

"What happened?" Killstorm inquired, interested enough to follow the latter's derail. Vivisector was an old hand at this (which is why he was the fleet's senior ground field commander) and he'd seen a lot of action over the centuries. Killstorm was a child of the FTL-age, so it was all unliving history for her.

"Made the mistake so many wet-navy commanders made - tried to fight a fort with ships. Thought one fort verses a squadron was the same as one ship verses a squadron. Idiot. He certainly wasn't expecting us to supplement the guns with some home-made trebuchets, either, and not with proficiency. Was watching him through a telescope when we got him. He saw the shadow coming, of course, but no amount of dodging gets you out of reach of a two-hundred-and-fifty kilo rock when you're on a ship."