EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Piaccta returns to find the galaxy has changed without her.
A trio of heavy four-wheel-drive vehicles emerges from the desert dust, crushing man-sized bugs and alien foliage beneath their oversized wheels.
The vehicles screech to a halt below a low slope. The heroic drivers, clad in black and yellow emerge. They have been sent to this no-man's-land to raise the flag of Managed Democracy!
Before them stands a tall flagpole, its polished surface reflected in their visors.
All three are thinking the same thing...
Suddenly, the landing of a Hellpod nearby turns their helmets around!
Just narrowly missing the parked FRVs, a Hellpod painted in Cxdixn green emerges from within, holding her Lasrifle pointed towards the sky!
"Hey guys, what's up? Did I miss anything?"
"Oh P1... It's horrible...!" One of the Hxlldivers rubs a gloved hand against their own visor, "This is a sad day for Managed Democracy!"
The trio that had come in on Incinerator four-wheel-drive vehicles exchange grim looks. Their friend, P1, could not have known. She had been away organizing a tournament of some sort for the past few days. Now that she had returned, someone had to break the bad news to her.
"What's wrong? New bugs? Bigger bugs? We can take them!" P1 slaps the butt of her Lasrifle, completely oblivious to the tragedy that had occurred.
The trio stays silent.
It is best P1 finds out for herself.
They take up positions, focus now on the large and noxious bugs appearing on the desert horizon. The drone that oversees the entire flag-raising ceremony begins its work, and amid faraway explosions, eagle strikes and lasrifle blasts, P1 notices something odd...!
It's quiet...
Too quiet!
It feels like... something is missing!
She turns her head around suddenly...!
"Guys...! Guys!! Where's the Super Earth anthem?!"
P1's shock is met with grim silence.
It is said that one does not understand what they lost until they lose it.
For all of Super Earth's wisdom, the floating drone no longer plays the uplifting and supremely patriotic jingle that all Hxlldivers know by heart.
Nobody understood the reason for its exclusion.
An automaton hack? Squid treachery? Some trick of bug fascism?
Whatever the reason, an empty silence fills the backs of the brave defenders of Managed Democracy. Even though nobody can see, hot patriotic rain flows from behind every Hxlldiver's visor!
What were they defending, if even the glorious hymn of Super Earth was denied to them?
Nobody knew the answer.
The missing anthem hangs in the air like a phantom limb.
Even if it was missing, it still hurt, and no amount of stims is able to cure its absence!
Not far away, the bug horde draws ever closer, the steady rattle of bullets slowing down...
The WHIRRR of a chainsaw lands on a particularly sneaky bug that had crawled up the atoll! P1 throws the giant bug off the chainblade, frustrated!
"This isn't right! This isn't right at all!"
Between the slowing gunfire and the sounds of bugs exploding on mines, P1 unlatches the bottom of her helmet...!
And throws it at the base of the flagpole!
How convenient if this were all a mechanical malfunction!
But the flagpole stays silent!
The helmet strikes the base of the flagpole and ricochets past P1's short brown hair!
And then...!
A strange miracle occurs...!
P1 stands bareheaded beneath the flag.
She takes a breath.
And then...!
"Freedom must reign over every last star..."
In the middle of a firefight, every Hxlldiver in the squad recognized the opening lines to the Super Earth anthem!
Except this is no digital delivery from a hover drone...!
The singing that comes from behind them is like a clear stream, unaccompanied by instruments, the unadulterated voice of democracy resounds in their hearts! Piaccta's song is like a missing piece of the puzzle, slotting in perfectly between the screams of anti-democratic bugs burning in napalm!
That day, even though nobody took note of it,
it rained twice on Achernar Secundus.
We are trying something different! This is a simul-posting at the same time as the Scribblehub release! Go check out the entire series at this link!
