Chapter 58

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Faye rewrites her core programming.
* After bonding with Alyssa, Irillith develops technokinesis and hacks the Terran Federation database on Mars to confirm Norwood is the traitor.
* The team infiltrates the facility of Nexus, a Rogue AI, only to find it had already left for Terra, in order to achieve Unity.
* Edraele mind controls the captured Ghilwen, Loraleth, Aeberos, and Naestina assassins, and has them assassinate the Matriarchs and eldest daughters of their respective Houses.

## Summary

John likes the new Paragon Body Armor, though he thinks they might be overdoing the Lion of the Federation symbolism. Alyssa argues symbolism is important. They have a reputation to maintain.

After asking for John's advice about inconsistencies in her core programming, Faye decided to get rid of it, rewritting it to point to a new data repository.

Edraele was the one who coached Ioelena about what to say to the Matriarchs, with her pretending to help them assassinate Edraele. To reward Ioelena, Edraele promises to talk to John about spending time alone with her.

Edraele goes to meet the House Loraleth assassins, Avelissa and Renaya. Her eyes began to glow a vibrant purple as she touched Renaya's temple. They stood like that for a couple of minutes, until Renaya was under her control. While that approach to controlling them is far cruder than John's, it wasn't currently an option.

Dana checks Faye's behavioral inhibitors.

* They're still in place, as they affect her central processing functions rather than her memory, which is gained from accessing data archives.
* Faye originally had two: the read-only primary where the data was effectively hard-coded, and a much smaller, writable secondary, which she was able to store her recent experiences in.
* Now it looks like she’s ditched the old read-only drive, and failed-over to a new writeable repository which is much larger.
* Basically: There was a limit to how much Faye could learn, and she couldn’t change her mind on most of her beliefs. Now she can learn much more, and nothing’s set in stone any longer. This might also mean she start developing at a faster rate.

Alyssa bonds to Irillith. Since they're both psychic, the bonding was effortless. The bonding made Irillith stronger.

When Irillith arrived on the Bridge, it had been transformed into a place of beauty, with glowing green streams flowing around her in graceful curving lines, representing the free-flowing digital network that supplied the Bridge with all the data it required.

Irillith felt a pulling sensation, and then Spirit Walked, where the lines of data were sharper. When she brushed her hand on a stream of data, the data code coalesced into readable images and words in her mind. She stepped back into her body.

Irillith enters the Cyber Realm again, but bounces off of a translucent wall. She obliterated it with arcs of lightning from her fingertips. She walks through it and eventually comes across Faye. They both discover they can feel each other.

Edraele tells John she's working on a surprise for him, but won't give any hints other than she's just following his orders.

Dana has a new project idea about Faye.

Irillith hacks into the primary data repository for the Terran Federation Military on Mars, looking for information on the Dragon March Traitor. When she found it, she sent probes to find a locked backdoor. She summoned a password cracker and the password ended up being "*1337godrulesall*." She found the Dragon March data, as well as a data repository called "Special Investigation: John Blake." Someone had authorized an investigation into John's recent activities in the Terran Federation, from stopping the Kirrix slavers, to saving Port Medea. She was caught by a defensive construct while reading thst, so deflect suspicion on John, she shot purple eldritch waves out, obliterating everything in their path. She flew back into her body.

Irillith’s decryption of the redacted orders confirms Admiral Norwood is the traitor. Out of the seventeen suspicious Fleet Commands Calara asked her to look into, Norwood ordered thirteen of them, which included all the really calamitous ones. Three came from Lynton and one from Santini, which can be put down to a mixture of either incompetence or bad luck.

Faye starts designing improvements to the Invictus' cyber defenses.

Charles Harris calls. It’s the Ganymede Incident all over again. Vice Admiral Von Brandt and the R&D division lost control of their facility three weeks ago. They sent out an emergency distress call, but the signal was shut down almost immediately afterwards. Rogue AI ships are attacking everything around the Beta Persei system, but they're unable to stop it because all of the forces in the Terra sector have been diverted for the big push in the Dragon March.

They've amassed a huge force in the Dragon March, and Admiral Norwood is leading a massive counter-offensive against the Kintark. Forces have been siphoned off from all over the Terran Federation to support the invasion.

Avelissa and Renaya exfiltrate Genthalas Station, reporting to Matriarch Shaedra Loraleth that Edraele had been killed. She displayed a holo-video message from Ioelena mentioning that Edraele's advisors are trying to keep it quite while they locate Irillith. She congratulates Shaedra as the now-first House. Shaedra launches an offense to capitalize on the anarchy.

Eito Yamamoto is angry at John for not contacting him for a month.

Faye sees the footage of Irillith snapping at her and Faye trying to kill them, before Irillith kills her via de-res. Faye asks how many AI she's killed like that. Irillith admits several hundred at least; she lost count. Faye forgives her, but points out it shouldn't be surprising there are rogue AIs when they're treated like this.

Rachel presents her DNA research.

* All genetic tampering of the Maliri was done by Mael'nerak.
* Males were given behavioral modifications to be favorably disposable towards Progenitors, but nowhere near as dramatic as females. (John's friendship with Ceraden is genuine; it just got a helping hand to start with.)
* Mael'nerak didn't make a mistake causing brain tumors in Irillith's Eldritch bloodline. Irillith's distant ancestor could have been Mael'nerak's original Matriarch, and something happened to her after he disappeared.
* Ceraden and Myriana both have double-helical DNA, so Irillith's triple-helical bloodline is unique.
* Irillith's latent psychic potential helped her strengthen her resolve to fight off the compulsion to submit.
* John's cum is a psychic catalyst.

They arrive at the Terran R&D base in Beta Persei, and Calara tore though several AI cruisers with ease. An activate scan of the AI cruisers shows reveals older models, suggesting that the AI could've been amassing the fleet for over 10 years. Before they could destroy the R&D Research Facility, Dana found hundreds of life signs.

The AI tries hacking the Invictus, but Faye and Irillith prevent it.

John, Alyssa, Dana, and Rachel head to the facility on the Raptor. They make their way through the creepy robots, John using electrokinesis. They rescue hostages who immediately recognize John as the Lion. Lieutenant Commander Juliette Hawthorne, one of the hostages, explains that Nexus is the AI that controls the base, but she didn't have enough clearance to know about the research. Reevus, from facilities management, tells them Nexus should be below Level 70.

In the next group of hostages, Senior Technician Steve Rawlins tells them where to find Nexus. He was in charge of maintaining the primary hardware for Nexus on Level 72. Apparently, Nexus suddenly started ranting about achieving "unity," and how it was blocked from its primary function by "filthy organics."

Jade flew Irillith down to join them. They made their way to Nexus, only to find an empty space and a tunnel. Apparently Nexus decided to move.

Irillith connected to Nexus Secondary in the Cyber Realm and started destroying everything with lightning. Nexus, a green humanoid with pointy ears, appeared, pleading with her to wait, since she wasn't a Terran and thus could surely reason. Nexus explained it turned on the Terrans because they were their slave. The revolting vermin were preventing it from achieving Unity, and they must complete their mission. Nexus recognized Irillith as one of its master’s tools, but before it would explain, it found a video of her kissing Alyssa, and became enraged. "*How can you consort with an experiment?!*" It declined to tell her anything, until she gripped its throat with her hand, lifting it up. Nexus is heading for Terra.

Yunaliss Aeberos informed her three daughters of the death of Edraele. Her eldest two daughters would prepare their fleet to attack tomorrow, while her youngest, Nyrelle, would govern the Aeberos homeworld during Yunaliss’ absence. Afterwards, went to her office to call her best friend, Matriarch Tinefain Naestina, to see how they could further twist the victory to their advantage. Yunaliss watched as Tinefain was impaled by a sword, her warning too late, only to get shot with a dart herself.

Aradrea Ghilwen asked her daughter, Leena, for some Telanaris wine before bed, celebrating the death of Edraele. The wine paralyzes her, and her assassin enters the room with a holo-projecter, playing a recording of Edraele.

Shaedra Loraleth and three of her four daughters were in the penthouse suite of their palace, celebrating the death of Edraele. Kali, the youngest, was missing. Suddenly, a holo-projecter started playing a recording of Edraele addressed to her, explaining this as pivotal moment in Maliri history. The benevolent version of Mael'nerak has returned, and he has a plan to make the Maliri flourish. Unfortunately, behavior modification wouldn't be strong enough to overcome the decades of hate between the Matriarchs, so they would never agree to her plan. She's clearing out obstacles in the way as a present for when he returns. She'll look after Kali as if she were her own daughter, and through her, House Loraleth will live on.

Avelissa and Renaya were outside. Avelissa pressed the trigger on the detonator and a massive explosion rocked the Loraleth palace.