Children of the revolution

Things had moved swiftly after Rye’s impromptu demonstration. The ease with which the bunny girl had assembled a crude crossbow from spare parts she found lying around the community and a handful of gears from her pockets had impressed the locals almost as much as Bleu’s presence in their midst. Already, a group of young men and women were practicing with makeshift weapons while the leaders of the group conversed.

“I can probably get another three or four dozen made up with what I have on hand” Rye said, her fingers working on creating yet another weapon as she spoke. “But if ya want a serious arsenal, we’ll need to go back to the ship.” The locals stared wide eyed at the discussion between the disguised Bleu and her ‘angels’, the entire talk being held in English to avoid breaking the illusion the ladies had established.

Bleu waved her arms slightly theatrically. “Four dozen with the ones we’ve already got should be enough to deal with the immediate threats to our little group of revolutionaries. If we can knock out the nearest temple, that’ll give them access to resources and more manpower and we can use that to start to snowball. We’ll need to set up proper communications though - I don’t plan to spend the rest of the week looking like Defia’s ugly twin sister if I can help it, and Emely did say we need to think long term with this whole business.”

As she spoke, the Feliax woman emerged from one of the houses where she and Meli had been in deep discussion with the closest the locals had to a scientist. “They’re pretty open to new ideas” she announced, a skip in her step as the redhead approached the others. “I’ve left Meli discussing advancements in hygiene and medicine to try and ensure we don’t have to medivac too many of them once the conflict starts. But their cosmology around the Fractals is interesting - they’ve developed quite the elaborate mythology that we can lead in the direction of them engaging with the wider galaxy a lot faster than I had feared. Sir is going to be super pleased.”

While the three women were celebrating that good bit of news, a messenger hurried through the village before darting past them into the elder’s home. Moments later, one of the leaders of what the crew of the Solar Ascent were already considering to be their rebel faction approached Bleu, his face grim. “Revered one, one of our foragers reports that they have spotted the dust of a large riding party coming from the nearest grand temple. With all respect to you and the children of the stars, we cannot face down a **** of this size with the weapons you have given us yet - the warriors are not ready, not trained.”

Bleu frowned as she processed the old man’s words. The others too were worried; they’d expected to have a few days at least before they had to deal with any kind of counter-insurgency. Ideally, they’d have gotten the first blow in against the temple before any word of their presence could get out to the wider world. Now, it seemed they’d need to act sooner rather than later, which caused it’s own set of problems.

After moment’s consideration, Bleu nodded to herself. There was a solution that would not only work, but would sow chaos and doubt in their enemies ranks. Turning to the others, she double checked what she needed for her plan to work. “Rye, that shuttle does still have a low yield mining laser fitted, doesn’t it? They’re standard kit, but I know you like to tweak things.” The bunny girl nodded, grinning as she did so. “Ya thinking of putting on a light show for the enemy, bubbles? Love it. I’ll go get the shuttle ready to fly.”

The Queri medic turned back to the elder, who had watched the exchange in what he considered to be the language of the stars with curiosity. “There’s an area the other side of the forest that they’ll have to pass through to get here. All flat ground, but not something you use.” Bleu stated with certainty; she’d gone over Meli’s scans of this community with a fine brush to make sure she wouldn’t make any mistakes in her role of goddess. “I will be using the fire of my chariot to carve the land and bar their path. Choose an honour guard for me.”

Two hours later, the slime woman waited with the moonlight streaming down around her. Despite the light, her fake Fractal colouring made her almost invisible against the night; a shadow of black and red waiting for her enemies to arrive. The drum of hoof beats filled the air, and the **** from the temple crested the rise onto the flat area she had chosen for this demonstration. Raising her hand dramatically, her guard sparked their torches, fire blossoming alight and casting a ruddy glow around where she stood blocking the road.

The lead rider, a tall man wearing a fancy gold and purple robe and riding on a fine two-legged red steed reined his mount in. “What is this?” He asked with the sneering tone of someone cruel and used to being obeyed. Bleu chose her words carefully. “Hold, servant of those who would hold down the wings of this world. I stand before you as a gift from the stars, bringer of light and banisher of the false tyranny of the vanishing ones, fallen and twisted members of my kind. Return to your temple and cease your rites until I come to visit with you, for ahead lies the place where the most holy of your kind dwell, those who saw through the lies of the watchers in the darkness.”

The man laughed, drawing his sword. “Heretics! I was right! Forward with me, let us cut down this abomination and on to purge those who would fail to properly honour the great ones!” Bleu stared impassively forward, her arm still raised from signalling the lights be lit. “Truly, I cannot convince you otherwise?” She asked, genuine sadness tinging her voice - she was after all a medic, and this wasn’t exactly playing fair.

With a snort, the priest kicked his heels into his mount and surged forward, before everything happened at once. Bleu called out in a voice that carried across the plains “see then the true power of the gods” and dropped her arm. The priest’s mount sprang towards her - and then a beam of glimmering light lit the plains, the light so bright it left tracers in the vision of Bleu’s guards even though she had warned them to close their eyes tight the instant her arm dropped.

The plinking sound of slowly cooling rock a moment later let Bleu know that it was safe to reconnect her optic nerves; blinking, she stared at the riders - now on the other side of a deep chasm, the bottom of which was filled with glowing molten rock. Of the lead priest there was no sign - he had been directly in the line of the laser’s path. As planned, Rye had taken a tool intended for mining asteroids for emergency supplies and turned it into a siege weapon with which she had carved a moat across the landscape.

Bleu did her best to mimic Defia’s sharp-toothed grin and raised her arm once more. “Return to your temple, cease your rites, and await my attendance - or face my judgment and my wrath. The choice is yours.” To no great surprise, the remaining members of the hostile party wheeled their beasts and fled back the way they had come, torches flickering in the wind from the speed of their departure.

Raising both hands to simultaneously stretch and signal to Rye that it was all clear, the Queri glanced at the awe-struck faces of her honour guard. “Let us return to your village” she said, her voice dipping softly as her medical training kicked in and she noted the signs of severe stress on several of the curious butterfly folk’s faces. “You will rest” she added firmly, before finishing her advice with “and then you will tell the others of what you have seen in the morning. Those riders will tell of what they saw, but those loyal to the vanishing ones will not return again before the day has risen.”

Back at the village, the crew gathered in the shuttle to talk. Emely kicked her heels up onto the console and sighed, considering the nails on one hand carefully. “Things are progressing well from an integration point of view. They’re remarkably adaptable; I think we can probably get them through one good battle and then start a back and forth from the ship to set them up for a quick push to the capital, and an overthrow of this stupid sacrificial religion.”

Meli pursed her lips as she retrieved a drink from the automat. “I concur. They are naturally inquisitive and scientifically minded. While they may be almost as flighty as Emely at times…” her comment earned her a glare from the fox girl “…they are likely to be ready for uplift to the early industrial age by the time we are done with this insurrection. We should remain here if possible until a suitably trained group arrive to finish the deprogramming and development of their species though. I’ll need to contact Dustin and try to persuade him.”

Rye snorted. “Like that’ll be hard, nerd. Out of all of us, Dusty’s wrapped around your finger the most and ya know it. No, don’t try and apologise or deny it; he got with ya first, and without prodding from you he’d have barely let any of the rest of us get a look in. Enjoy your rewards, love - and just ask Dusty to stay here ‘til we can safely leave. On which note - bubbles, how are ya holding up with the shape-shift? Gonna be able to keep it up?”

Bleu grimaced. “I should be able to hold it for another couple of days. The shape isn’t too hard - it’s keeping the dye in place that’s the problem. Worst case, I’ll ‘go and speak with my sister’ for a day or so - or we can get Defia to come here to take over. Any news on how Dustin’s side of things is going?” As she spoke, the console chimed. Rye scanned the incoming message quickly and winced. “Alright, bubbles, looks like ya get to turn back to ya normal sexy blue form sooner rather than later. Dusty’s finished up - but he’s found a local the Fractals took captive, and wants your help waking her from some kind of cryosleep. Says we need to make excuses tomorrow then return to the ship.”