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[...]

If Khalid had any muscles on his face left, he would have cringed at the state of the raider ship. Beaten by asteroids and worn on the outside, inside it was a cluttered mess of cables, impassible hallways and inert, barely alive scarab constructs.

His guide was in no better shape either, and every time the emaciated, angular mechanoid in front of him stumbled, it looked like he was going to fall and shatter. He straightened up and continued on every single time though, leaning on his staff like it was but a crutch, not a symbol of office or devastating weapon.

"The state of the ship is unacceptable," Khalid declared. "You should be ashamed, cryptek."

The cryptek stopped and turned his head, giving Khalid a dull, flickering stare.

"I followed my orders, praetorian. Seventy eight thousand cycles, and I shall maintain this ship for forty two more, just as the launch program stated. I have nothing to be ashamed of."

Khalid resisted an urge to scoff. The mechanoid was old, he was awake for far too long, and he wasn't even a harbinger, just a cryptek, a master of nothing. He had no right to talk to the agent of Triarch like that, but Khalid let it slide for now.

"Your launch program was damaged, and your instructions are wrong. You were not supposed to leave the shipyards. There is no fleet in this star system for you to join. Your vigil was for nothing."

He expected a reaction, an outburst, but the cryptek said nothing, and his eyes remained the same dull and flickering. Khalid would have ground his teeth, but his lower jaw was not moveable anymore, so he took a pause to drain his anger.

"How long it is to the bridge?" he asked.

"Two more machinery clusters, the second one is fully operational and clear. This way."

The cryptek turned and ducked into an adjacent cluttered corridor. Khalid followed, and disdain washed over him when a single oil drop landed on his skull from somewhere above. The dirty, filth-dwelling cryptek was surely used to this kind of thing, but Khalid took pride in perfection of his metal form, and such things were unacceptable.

He decided to find means to clean himself at the first opportunity.

They made it through a passageway, then through a noisy, worn auxiliary nexus before reaching the shaft of a service elevator. With unsurprising awkwardness, the cryptek started climbing the emergency downward ladder, and Khalid followed, again assaulted by feelings of disdain.

It was his calling in life to travel the galaxies and find things like these, things without purpose, lost, nearly destroyed tombs and outposts, forsaken labs and webway gates, things broken over the millions of cycles since the Great Sleep started.

And sadly, this abandoned "dirge" class raider was no less a part of Necrontyr as everything else. It had to be returned to the stasis dock, and this type of mission Khalid firmly considered beneath his abilities. He should have been chosen to be the prophet, the one to spread the words of Necrontyr greatness to the lesser races but no, he had to crawl the maintenance corridors and hope that his ancient guide would not crumble right in front of him, damning him to wander the ship alone.

They entered a more important and thus much better maintained section of the ship. The scarabs here were active, clumping around the cable connectors, and Khalid caught a glimpse of the multiple eyes of their massive spyder controller in the shielded alcove.

The cryptek remained silent, and it wasn't long until they reached the bridge, a room at the apex of one of the two control pyramids. A massive gilded throne dominated the center of the room, and Khalid wasted no time making his way to it.

"It is the seat of our lord," the cryptek said, and for the first time Khalid detected a trace of emotion in his words.

"By the authority of Triarch, I am taking command of this ship."

"The "Aeon Apex" belongs to our lord, and-"

"By the authority of Triarch, I am taking command of this ship," Khalid repeated, slightly raising his voice. He waited for signs of further disobedience, but the ancient mechanoid just slumped, brought up a glowing hololithic control panel, and pressed a few symbols on it.

"The ship is yours, praetorian." He pushed the panel through the air towards Khalid and shuffled out of the room.

"Bring me some sort of absorbent material," Khalid said to cryptek's back.

He received no response and inwardly frowned. This ancient custodian was not insane, and could still be useful, but just as likely he could become a dangerous liability. He had to be dealt with, but for now, the praetorian turned his attention to the display.

As expected, the damage was extensive. The ship's quantum shielding was stretched as thinly as possible to conserve energy, and it lead to some unsaved asteroid impacts. Likewise, the inertialess drive was in conservation, and had to be carefully reactivated.

Khalid opened another tab, the crew tab. The dock program that launched the ship was damaged, loading and sending often random assortments of troops to random points in space, so he expected a jumbled, nonsensical roster. It started up pretty normal: a lesser lord of Nekthyst dynasty, his royal court of a single cryptek, a squad of deathmark assassins in the retinue, three platoons of warriors…

"Will this suffice?"

Khalid nearly jumped, and instinctively clutched his weapon, pointing the pronged tip of his two-handed staff at the faceplate of the cryptek. The cryptek didn't move or squint, his dull eyes flickering as usual, a piece of torn spongy insulation in his extended hand.

"I can bring you something else if you will be more specific in your request," he said.

Khalid reflexively exhaled, a habit that remained from the time when he still needed air to survive. Silent, he set down his staff and grabbed the insulation, scrubbing his forehead and throwing the stained material away. He realized that he wouldn't be able to clean every drop that would fall on him during his stay, and he would look like the cryptek very soon.

"We need to reactivate the inertialess drive," Khalid said, irritated.

The cryptek felt silent and looked down. It was clear he was processing the request, so Khalid didn't interrupt his though process. He could try to do the procedure himself, but on such a damaged ship, it was better to leave it to a professional, no matter how ancient and quirky that person was.

The silence became heavy. Khalid glanced back to the crew roster.

"We would have to reroute power from most other systems for that," the cryptek said thoughtfully. "We would be exposed and vulnerable to impacts and radiation. I still have forty two thousand-"

"I've heard enough. If we'd have to disable the shields, then we land on a nearest planet with non-corrosive atmosphere, harvest local organics and get the energy we need twice faster."

Khalid pressed a symbol, and the star system they were in came on screen. He zoomed in on the third planed from the star.

"We land here," he said, pressing his metal finger against the picture. "I briefly scanned on approach, the natives will be of no threat to us."

"My scans showed their population to be over seven billion, and they already mastered the nuclear weaponry," the cryptek said plainly. "They will destroy us."

He immediately supported his statement with screens of footage, showing expansive cities and missile launch silos, and it meant that they would have to land elsewhere and process inorganic matter, a matter-energy transfer that would take dozens of cycles. Khalid had no lips to bite, so he didn't do so, but the prospect of staying on a damaged ship for so long filled him with definite unease.

"However, there is an enclosed sub-dimension next to the planet," the cryptek said. "It is veiled by a single tesseract barrier. The level of technology is considerably lower, and the population is a little over five thousand, but sensors picked aberrant probability spikes from some of the natives."

He fell silent, and Khalid slowly turned back to the minimized crew roster.

"Start barrier breach subroutines and prepare for planetfall," he ordered. The cryptek bowed awkwardly, shuffled away, and Khalid dismissed the window after one last final reassurance of what he has seen.

There were twelve thousand and sixty six hibernating necrons on the ship.

Twelve thousand of them were destroyers.

[...]

Sanae cringed at the state of the shrine. Weather-beaten and worn on the outside, inside it was a picture of disrepair and neglect, to the point of cobwebs in room corners.

Her host was in no better shape either. Despite mid noon, the Hakurei priestess looked like she just got out of bed, yawning, stretching, her red outfit wrinkled and not very clean. At least the sleeves were ironed and bleached, but it was of little effect to the whole image.

Their track through the shrine was short, and they were currently in the kitchen, sitting at a plain western-style table, the room mirroring the overall state of the building.

"The state of the shrine is unacceptable," Sanae declared. "You should be ashamed."

"Cleaning day is Thursday, and Thursday is tomorrow," Reimu said sleepily. "I'd like to see your shrine at the day before the cleaning day. And my tea is better than yours."

Sanae puffed her cheeks. True, the tea was good, and it was a surprise visit, but this was not a proper way to treat a guest, especially her, the living goddess.

"The substitute branch of the Moriya Shrine is right outside, and it is always clean," Sanae said. "Your attitude is insufferable."

"Cry me a river."

Sanae slammed her hand on the table, stood up and pointed at the window. "Reimu, a giant alien ship landed outside the village! It's a horrible, horrible crisis and you are not doing anything!"

"Is it doing anything?"

Sanae stumbled for a moment. "N-no, but have you seen it? It's huge! And sinister! We must unite and end this horrifying threat once and for all! It is our calling in life as priestesses!"

"Uh-huh, sure. Also, the village is that way."

Reimu pointed at the wall opposite to the window. The wall featured a sliding door, which in turn featured a large greasy spot, and the sight of it nearly caused Sanae to fly into rage, grab Reimu by her hair bow and drag her outside for a brutal, pitched spell card battle.

Not that Sanae was obsessed with cleanliness in itself, it was only the surface symptom of deeper problems of the Hakurei faith, sloppiness and slowness of reaction to potential threats. Sadly, the shrine and Reimu were as part of Gensokyo as everything else, and it had to be protected from aliens like the rest of Sanae's new home.

"Fine," Sanae said. "Sit, drink tea and do nothing. I'm going to the village, and I'm going to solve this incident all by myself."

Reimu responded with a prominent yawn. Sanae bit her lip, turned on a heel and nearly ran out.

"Goodbye! Tell the villagers that the Hakurei Shrine always appreciates donations!"

Sanae stormed past the donation box, not slowing down. Reimu's attitude was somewhat understandable, but understandable didn't mean excusable, especially in the case of such a massive threat.

The ship arrived the day before yesterday, at night. The light show was impressive, bright purple as it slid through the barrier, green when it landed, but since then it lay on the fields a fair distance outside the village, unmoving and silent. Roughly the shape of the crescent moon, covered in square pyramids of various sizes, in Sanae's mind it was a deadly scorpion, waiting to grab the village in its pincers, and with almost a mile length, it had all the ability to do so.

It was only a matter of time before it would open its numerous pod gates, and hordes of disgusting grey creatures with bulbous, oversized heads and plasma blasters would surge out, drowning the land and subjugating the population to the will of their floating brain overlords. And it was up to Sanae, and her only, to stop the invaders.

Well, deep down she really hoped that she would get at least some help in her righteous endeavor, but all the help she received so far were Reimu's yawns and some uplifting words from Kanako. Which left Keine, if the historian would even listen to her.

Sanae briefly glanced to side, ensuring that their branch shrine was indeed in pristine condition, and flew towards the village, as taking the road that consisted of little else than a series of stairways was out of question. The slope turned slightly, and the view of the valley opened before her, a single gleaming dot moving from the alien structure towards the village.

Sanae increased her speed, and the dot took shape of a swaying, insect-like armored construct.

The alien ambassador has arrived.

[...]