Mune'stahr and Pylott: HELLMARROW, a tale of the Ventriculum

Part 6, "All These Stars, Burning Black, Blind Our Eyes."

Before the Away Team was dispatched down onto the central pod-tier of the city, NeeSharim unleashed her swarm to sail the skies of the thin atmosphere enveloping Lobarth Ceryndum. One hundred sparrow-sized, crescent-shaped sky-drones made from unglazed, lustreless liquid metal fanned out like a stream of raindrops from the underside of The Glide's hull. The aerial probes were not launched from out a hatch or docking bay opening, but were instead a homogenous, eutectic super-lattice that sloughed off from the mighty vessel under their own independent power, each droplet pre-programmed with telemetric commands and recognizing themselves to be responsive to the data-gathering mission of the liquid mass as a whole. Catching the heaving, billowing breezes skating across the decaying city's skyline, the drones probed the vast topographical parameters of the eerie metropolis for signs of life and population density, for energy expenditures beyond those necessary to support humanoid or mammalian life forms, for known varieties of technological weapons systems, for unshielded computer network activity beyond the operational animation for life support and utilities, and for anomalous mechanized activity indicative of defensive/offensive wartime preparations.

Nothing. It was a like the metropolis was in torpor, hibernating, revealing itself to be little more than a dead zone.

Waiting.

"I've got organic life forms, three pockets of sixteen, with very, very low body heat signatures, indicating they're either shielded or in-stasis, ... or aliens unlike any we've yet encountered ... and none of them appear to be in-motion," NeeSharim had said.

"What the hell is going on down there?" Mune'stahr had pondered aloud. The question had been rhetorical. He had known no one could yet provide him an answer.

"Not enough data yet to form a working hypothesis," Pylott had answered. "We'll find out soon enough after we go in."

"The centermost geographic district in the city is laid out like a pentagon circumscribed by a pair of concentric circles," NeeSharim had pointed out to the team composed of Pylott, who took the point, Poli'Artta Ranzireth, and Neuronia Syngulareus. "All avenues and boulevards radiate out like spokes in a wheel from the trio of columnar buildings clustered here...," the autonomous synthetic A.I. avatar had pointed at a 3D holographic schematic-projection of the targeted area, "...and there are four visible exits that lead to the foundational support-stalk's elevator tubes on the outer skin and down to the waterside docks. There's also an open area resembling an aero-platform that could be used for quick air-born vehicular egress on the eastern tower off from the concave-shaped plaza there. I think that, tactically, it would be best to target that plaza as the team's landing zone."

Klauvane Tregg's broad face had reflected his confusion at NeeSharim's dissertation. "Why aren't we going for the obvious anomaly in this picture? There's what looks to be a very large bio-organic craft, some kind of cyborg thing adapted from a huge marine echinoderm, at the foot of a stalk at the far side of the city. It's obviously a ship of some sort, probably the flagship of this Fellmanghul's naval fleet, if he has one. Wouldn't it be likely he'd keep any hostages aboard that ship? Why aren't we targeting it?"

"Precisely because it's obvious," Pylott had said. "If anyone were to consider coming to rescue the Paranescience leader and her coterie of royal diplomats, then Fellmanghul would be foolish not to use such a craft as a ruse and a lure, presenting a rescue team with a near-irresistible probable target. There's likely to be a full tactical assault force waiting aboard that ship to spring a trap on whoever comes for the Queen. And on the off-chance her rescuers survive the trap, she won't be aboard ship -- the mission would be fruitless. She'd logically be kept elsewhere so Fellmanghul doesn't risk losing his bargaining chip."