[b]NBX-462![/b]

NBX-462 is a military servitor, and that means a certain tolerance for dealing with other military servitors. His conditioning prepared him for being placed in close proximity to predator species that could and would torment him into unmet performance targets. The Biomancers who had engineered him for the duty, though, had been less interested in addressing the root issues and more interested in producing the appearance of function.

Hence the silly little waistcoat. Hence the silly little mustache. Hence the silly little walking stick. Hence the silly little finger-wag and silly little puns he made when directly assaulted to hide the fact that he was turnt as hell.

"The Silver Kings descend from primogentor Laell IV," he said as his hands busily worked at transcribing the specifics of the contract. Not a tremble. "Core attributes: Urban-designated, courtly aesthetic, educational lineage. Specifically, Laell was a fencing instructor engineered to tutor wealthy aristocrats in the fundamentals of swordfighting. This was, of course -" he smiled absently, thinking very hard about the crossword puzzle he'd left back on his ship for just such an occasion, "- a seduction. Laell and her line used their positions adjacent to aristocracy to steal hearts, engineer vendettas, and induct key figures into the Ceronian species. This caused the collapse of dynasties and the Star Kings emerged from their vaunted origins with an arsenal of direct energy weapons and a taste for the finer things in life."

"As to the Portuguese," he went on, feeling on somewhat safer - though much more confusing - ground now. "Their -" he grappled for a word. 'Poor' and 'rich' were not relevant concepts in the Skies. "- citizen underclass... how to put this? They possess genetically engineered servitors, but for the most part these are animals shaped through selective breeding programs. These are of such low quality that they are outperformed by primitive chemical reactors. As a result, their civilization has conscripted enormous quantities of its administrator species into menial service and labour roles that they are massively overqualified and underspecialized for. This means these labourer-administrators," there was just no elegant way to put any of this, "have enormous surplus intellectual and creative energy, which they mostly turn to the purpose of displacing or joining the group of administrators who are living civilized lifestyles. For their part, the ruler-administrators have to turn their own creative and intellectual surplus, as well as that they can harness of their directly indebted inferiors, into maintaining their rule. This causes them enormous stress, degrading their quality of life, and requires the existence of a standing military for use against the underclass-administrators."

He signed the form with a flourish and handed it over. "It is no way to run a civilization, in my opinion. But as to what they want, well - they're too disorganized to even know that. Some of them, encouraged by the Generous Knight and her technology transfers, are forming a militarized and xenophobic wing dedicated - amusingly enough - to the destruction of the Endless Azure Skies. Some of them, based largely on Cash Money's medical interventions, have decided that we are gods, or we're the reincarnation of one of their local political leaders who died a while ago, or that we are here to take a side in their local political conflicts. One of these groups went so far as to land a chemical rocket on the hull of my ship with an ambassador - I returned her to the planet without comment, of course. Some other group is building a primitive generation ship in an attempt to escape what they imagine to be an immanent ground invasion - and when I say primitive I mean 'over a hundred years to reach a neighbouring system'."

He sat back, folding his hands in his lap. "But what do they [i]want[/i]? I imagine all of this begins with their poverty. I am having to order in so many goods because their civilization produces nothing of note. Aphrodite rules here with an iron fist in a way that is only possible when she still has things like 'immortality' to tempt people with."

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Oh, that part?" said Contribution with a grin. "You just gotta be so good at your job that it'd be trouble to replace you. Bosses hate trouble."

The shuttle comes down under fire, and the diplomats arm up. There is a massive impact as the ship makes landfall, and then a huge crash as the back deployment ramp almost falls off, still burning with sticky chemfires. The Summerkind, formed up into a protective phalanx, give a warrior yell and advance into a moonscape of mud, wire, and toxic smoke. Immediately Debug is taken in the neck with an arrow and goes down. The rest flow into a wild evasion pattern, pulling you and 20022 along. The bright glare of an Esoteric ignites, evaporating Drill in a flash of blue light. There's yelling and panic, hunkering down, a whirl of mud and fire.

"They knew we were coming!"
"The command bunker is just over there -"
"Escort the sheep, they're the only thing that matter -"

Shells come crashing down. Contribution is half-carrying you through the storm. Shrapnel embeds in your wool, smoking and radioactive. And then out of the shadows ahead comes a monstrosity - four meters tall and gangly, built like a shadow puppet, black limbs and gold armour, white powdered face and a curling wig. An Avatar - a hostile environment projection suit for Biomancers, not occupied directly but more like a highly personalized drone that acts as a direct ambassador. "Come on, you bastards," it roars above the chaos, "do you want to live forever?"
There is a rallying cry, and all around you thousands of Summerkind erupt from their trenches, bayonets fixed, and storm towards the enemy in an avalanche. You're escorted against the tide, through the jostle, towards the shining blue-yellow flag of the command post.

And then you're inside. It's silent. It's clean. It's spotless medical white. There are showers, changes of clothes and a wide variety of cosmetics and hygiene products standing by. Contribution is staring around with wild, shocked eyes, every member of his clutch gone - lost, dead, joining the charge. 20022 is immediately taking to the shower with a completely unfazed expression.