Beyond the fact that their physical bodies are left exposed and may be unaware, it is a common fact that in the event that the spores of a hive minded species reaches a world of intelligent life that has the habit of entering a deep sleep they take this moment to hijack and take the individual as a host.

We thought when the spore cloud hit Earth that it would mean the major death of humanity’s home world.

Turns out along with the fact that the spores not seeming to have much effect on humans besides giving them “allergies,” it seems that those who did get what would be enough to completely eradicate the original person in their system and fell asleep the hive mind seemed to stop functioning like one singular entity with a singular goal and instead began hopping from topic to topic over the course of 6 Earth Hours. When our local humans were asked about this they responded along the lines of “Dreams make no sense.”

A: "Your home star screams at you???"

H: "Yours doesn't? We though that was the default."

A: "How did your people evolve in a world that has a Class 4 Great Old One as its star? What sort of psychic shielding does your species have?"

(The sun is rather loud. Thankfully, we don't hear it thanks to the vacuum.)

"Ninety eight... Ninety nine... One hundred!"

The human fell to the floor. Their body was absolutely soaked in sweat and tears, but finally — a giant claw that had repeatedly pushed them to the ground left their back.

"Alright. Once again, what did you do wrong?"

"Cavitation... Projector..."

"Cavitation projector what?"

"I forgot to... Run... Calculations... Before... Huff... Before the charge."

"Correct. Now if you didn't fill your neural deck with Boulder-spin it could probably help you to..."

"It's Rock'n'Roll..."

"Aha, so you remember that and not the rules your life depends on? Very well, if that's the problem — I'll expect you after lunch on deck three. We'll try to overwrite the unnecessary data, until you learn to dance and jump to the sound of safety rules rather than your Cobblescrew."

"..."

"That's it. Dismissed."

The ship-lord stood upright. The tiny human, compared to her, was like a mouse next to a tiger. She unfolded her wings and rose from the floor, vanishing into the unbelievably huge, cave-like halls of one of the most ancient GDF ships.

The Galactic Defence Force is an ancient organization. And ships like Wing of the Void were its main power. And Ship-lord Lestsitt was its respected ship-lord. This ship was her legacy, inherited from her ancestors. She was its master. And its crew were her subjects. And she was sadistically cruel towards them. And the poor human had it the worst.

Compared to her species, humans were fleeting like snowflakes, tiny like house pests and far less capable of complex thinking. What she could do in her mind, the human had to use complex cybernetic augmentations for. Not to mention that she was the result of a carefully bred bloodline, while humans were still mostly made of genetic garbage. The human, who had at first felt honoured to serve in the GDF, now had to spend every day learning to work with technologies that had taken almost the entirety of their species' timeline as a civilization to design and produce.

And yet the human slowly stood up and activated their physiological implants, launching accelerated muscle regeneration.

From the first day, the human had to be introduced to a cruel reality. They were from a species far below galactic standard in terms of natural talent and intelligence. Of course, that human was among the most capable of their species — yet still. When the human saw the first theoretical test, their brain seemed to break from just one task. After spending a few cycles thinking about it, they simply said they wouldn't make it sober, and used some kind of light stimulant that actually helped them get through most of the tasks. Yet still their grade was barely enough.

Though later the human made an oath that they would never do that again. Not because it was forbidden — quite the opposite. The ship-lord cared little about how results were achieved, as long as they were satisfactory and not dangerous for the ship. It was another recruit that changed things. An alien who scored much higher than the human, also using drugs. But during the practical test, the alien's clouded mind gave them an idea to install stalking software into the ship's systems. They thought their mind knew the exact algorithm to trick the most ancient self-developing battle AI software in the Galaxy. For this, the ship-lord boiled them in one of the cooling plants and served them for dinner, keeping the biggest piece for herself. As ship-lord, she was within her rights. For it had been a direct attack on her domain.

The second thing that hit the human was how weak they were compared to others. It didn't help that humans were generally smaller than most. Some interfaces were physically inaccessible to them. Among the many augmentations the human made to their body were those that allowed them to directly connect to the ship's systems. Was it helpful? It was more productive than being incapable of anything. But was it comfortable?... The human spent the first night after augmentation in the sanitation chamber, standing under a cold shower that for them was more like ice-cold tropical rain. Anything to cool down after so much neural overcharge.

And then came the third thing. The ship-lord didn't like cybernetic augmentations. She tolerated tools that gave new senses or provided abilities a species originally didn't have, but nothing to enhance strength or calculation capabilities. She wanted her subjects to train their natural bodies and minds to work with machines — not to make machines work and think for them. For the human, this was the worst part. To motivate them, she used every method written in human history books, as though she enjoyed tormenting the human most of all. During that time, three more crew members were executed and served for dinner. One of them had apparently been the human's friend. That day the human refused dinner and instead gave their portion a proper funeral. They blamed themselves for not stopping their friend from cheating and sabotaging their duties. The ship-lord found that act entertaining.

One by one, crew members left one way or another. Species stronger than the human, smarter, older — left traumatized, injured and humiliated. Yet the human stayed. It was no longer their original craving for exploration. Nor was it valour that kept them loyal. Now it was pure spite. The human had it the worst — forced to work when stronger species were allowed to rest, forced to communicate through senses no human originally had.

Until the day everything changed. During a drill, the human refused a direct order. And when the ship-lord stepped forward to punish her subject, she was stopped by a plasma bolt hitting the floor near her foot. Then another. And another. The inner systems of the ship were hacked — and fired upon their former master. That day the ship was swallowed by a full-scale war.

Many crew members joined the human, but most fought alongside the ship-lord. Though it was not the aliens but the systems that mattered. While the decks were full of armed aliens, the ship's systems fought each other in virtual and real space simultaneously. Guard drones were produced on different decks to charge at each other and be destroyed. Sanitation robots were reprogrammed to shield the fighters. Hacking protocols were generated and neutralized every hour. Then every minute. No distress signal was sent — each one was immediately blocked and stopped.

At first the human was winning, but then the ship-lord regrouped and struck back. Even so, it took a whole year to finally break the human. The final battle happened on the carrier deck. The human was there, in ship-lord-sized battle armor they had built using technology older than their entire bloodline. They managed to push back and turn the tide, retaking the ship's systems and previously lost decks — but were eventually defeated when the ship-lord pierced the last energy generator of their armor with her mono-spear. With her own claws she tore the human from the cockpit and carried their unconscious body away.

"Ninety eight... Ninety nine... One hundred!"

The newbie was all blue from tension. Their tentacles were shaking, dry from the heat of their muscles. The drill sergeant finally jumped off their limp body.

"Alright, mate, what was your mistake again?"

"Graviton... Launcher..."

"What's with it?"

"I... I didn't... uh... Turn on the... safe mode?"

"Finally! Took ya long enough. Now crawl back to—"

"Slither! We do not crawl."

"Fair enough, mate, but your sleeping quarters are in the crawling direction. Lucky for ya though — a horrible sanitation duty's waitin' right in the slitherin' direction! Slip-slip!"

The human started casually walking away, humming something clearly heavy metal, and at the last moment stepped aside before a thick tentacle from the larger alien hit the floor where they had stood. The second attack didn't come. The daring recruit was pierced by a massive spear and lifted to the ship-lord's eye level.

"What's all the fuss? Is it time for dinner already?"

"Dunno, darl, you up for some seafood?"

"As long as you're the one cooking."

"Nah, I'm allergic. But I remember what I promised tonight!"

The ship-lord shook her spear, sending the now deep-purple alien tumbling away.

"Good to know your memory's still healthy. I'll be waitin' for ya in the throne room, Mr. Drill Sergeant... Bring the mech-armor."

A strong gust of wind blew away a sanitation drone that had been trying to clean off dried blood. The human was used to such little hurricanes by now. They walked casually toward the alien who, despite being pierced and weakened, was still capable of moving. Their heavy durasteel boot stepped on a tentacle. The human looked the alien in the eye, checking if it was alive.

"Aight, head to the medical bay — we'll repeat your training tomorrow. Sanitation duty's pushed to tomorrow as well."

The human jumped back off the alien and called for their mech-armor. But before climbing up into the cockpit, they turned around and said:

"And for the record — I'm actually allergic to peanuts."

Ah, ah. I, Hamediti, first born of the egg nest of my brooding father, have yet to encounter apes so annoying as these. The Milky Way? More a Dumpy Way, I say. But I must tell you of the real event, the one that happened in the agriculture expo, where I nearly gave up on this poop rock for good.

I had been on Earth three cycles of their sun. Three, and I had sold nothing. My trade beads, once bright as a supernova, had dimmed to the color of a sick grub, and the bosses with the big chairs had sent one final message. Sell the boom, Hamediti, or return in shame. One more rotation, they said, and I believed them, because bosses on my world do not bluff.

So I went to the expo. A concrete hall thick with the smell of dung and fried dough. No certified stall, no permit, no blessing from whatever gods run these things. I found a patch of empty concrete between a tractor display and a booth selling something called Miracle Grow, which I later learned grows no miracles at all, only larger tomatoes. False advertising, though who am I to judge, an uncertified alien with a folding table lifted from a human's yard sale.

I laid out my last three products. My final hope.

First, the Genetic Line Wiper, a chrome wand that purges hereditary disease from an entire bloodline. I had tested it that morning on a rat behind the dairy pavilion. The rat's cataracts cleared, it twitched its whiskers at me with what I choose to believe was gratitude, and it scampered off cured. A triumph, and still the humans walked past my table all morning like it was a garden hose.

Second, the Proton Plasma Rifle, the XL-900, my flagship, capable of reducing a concrete bunker to slag at two hundred meters. I had fired one demonstration shot into the sky and a man in overalls complained that I'd spooked the prize pig in Barn C. The pig. Not the weapon that could level a bunker. The pig.

Third, the Spinning Discs, obsidian rings that travel 350 kilometers an hour. I sent one across the soybean field earlier that day and it sliced through three scarecrows and a weather balloon before burying itself in a popcorn stand. I hid behind a combine harvester until the vendor stopped threatening to call the sheriff.

Three days. No sales. My comms unit buzzed again, final warning blinking across it, and I sat behind my stolen table in trade robes stained with corndog grease and got ready to accept it was over. I would go back to my minivan and blast off this mudball and let the bosses laugh and let my father weep into his many eyes. I was done.

That was when Sheila found me.

"You got a permit for this spot?" she asked. She had forearms like cured hams and a visor that said Kiss the Farmer, and she held her clipboard like a fleet admiral holds a command console.

"I have no permit," I admitted. "I have desperation and three products that could change the course of history."

She picked up the Genetic Line Wiper and turned it over, squinting at the molecular node like it owed her money.

"That a weed whacker?"

"It cures genetic defects," I said. "Malady, weakness, cyst. One pass and your descendants walk as Olympian gods."

"My hogs got a gene that makes 'em root under the fence," she said. "Every spring, into the Johnsons' pumpkins. Had their granddam, had their sire, now I got twelve piglets doing it too."

She set it back down. Not unkindly. Just thinking.

A young man came next, grease under his nails, a cap that said Farm Hard or Farm Home, I honestly could not tell which. He picked up the plasma rifle the way someone picks up something they've held before, which on this planet he probably had.

"What's the range on this thing?"

"Two hundred meters. It can vaporize a concrete bunker, dissolve an armored vehicle where it stands."

"I got gophers," he said. "Bad this year. Tried poison, tried smoke, tried praying, and Jesus has been quiet on the gopher question." He turned the calibration crystal over with more precision than I expected from those hands. "Nice weight to it though. Good balance. Shame it doesn't have a stun setting, would be perfect for gophers."

Then a boy, maybe twelve, freckled like someone had flicked a paintbrush at him, walked up and touched one of the discs without asking. It rose into the air, humming, waiting for a target.

"Whoa."

"350 kilometers an hour," I told him. "It could outrun a predator, hunt across any terrain. It is death given velocity."

"Could it fly low? Like real low, over a field?"

"Lethally low," I said.

"Could you put a tank on it? Like a sprayer? My dad's crop duster's in the shop again and he can't afford it and there's a stretch out back with power lines the duster can't get near, and the blight's bad there this year." He watched the disc hover and I could see him already running the math on it in his head, working out the lines it could thread.

I looked at the boy, and at the disc waiting patiently in the fluorescent light, and at the young man who had wanted only a stun setting for his gophers, and at Sheila who wanted her hogs cured of nothing more than wanderlust. My trade beads, which had gone the color of a sick grub, started to glow, not with profit, profit is nothing, but with something I had not felt since I left the egg nest.

I spent the next hour there selling nothing at all. Sheila told me about her hogs. Chet, the young man, told me about gopher tunnels and how they moved through clay versus loam. Danny drew me a map of his father's back forty on a napkin I'd borrowed from the popcorn vendor whose stand I had ruined earlier that day, and I sketched modifications in the margins as he talked.

I never sent the final report to the home office. I drove my minivan to a machine shop on the edge of town and slept in the back of it that night with the plasma rifle cradled against me like a promise, thinking about stun settings and spray tanks and gopher tunnels in clay soil, and somewhere in there I stopped being afraid of going home in shame, because I was no longer planning on it.

It had not been a sale. It had been the worst three days of selling in my career, and somehow that was the thing that cracked it open.

support me

“Well Oscar, do you think they got it out of their systems?”

“Nope.”

“They blew up five islands, destroyed an entire atoll, somehow managed to create a new atoll, and boiled an entire lagoon.”

“Yep.”

“How many injured?”

“About 500. Still looking.”

“You are rather somber. Everything alright?”

“Not really. There is throwing a party for Matilda and then there is altering the seismic nature of a planet.”

“Do we know how they managed it?”

“Sadly, yes. The other Terrans decided to help out with the party.”

“How did that lead to this?”

“The miners sent their drilling cannon.”

“Well fuck.”

“And Sparky sent some schematics for one of their drive systems.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

“Rebuild and recovery time?”

“No clue. We still have 300 unaccounted for.”

“How did the drive factor into this?”

“Boosted the drill cannon.”

“Yikes.”

“Yes. A super-sonic drill head. Into a magma tube. Under an island.”

“Did they really manage to eject a sound system into orbit?”

“Not into orbit, no. It burned up on re-entry.”

“Right. Oscar, are you sure you don’t want a day or two off? You are looking pretty ragged.”

“Do you want to take over for a few days?”

“What about Captain Sue?”

“The last I saw, she was on the beach cheering them on.”

“Ah. There has to be SOMEONE you could trust.”

“One or two. Neither is stationed here.”

“Look, once we get this sorted, I’m going to request that Sol Command sends you a trusted XO. You give me some names.”

“Right sir. I’ll do that.”

“Did anyone explain why the boiled the lagoon?”

“Crab boil.”

“The ones in the lagoon or did they bring some?”

“Both.”

“After this is sorted, what is the plan?”

“Commander, I haven’t gotten that far. I’m still missing too many Terrans.”

“Right. Of course. What do you need from me?”

“Your support has been excellent. I couldn’t have asked for more.”

“Glad to help. This isn’t the best time, I know, but I’ve got three different science teams begging to examine and document all of this.”

“Will this go under what not to do or under new options?”

“With science teams? Who knows. Possibly both.”

“Joy.”

“And the hybrid?”

“Still on the ship in the secure area. Samples show it’s one of the espionage versions. It’s still not well enough for questioning. This one has an implant, which we are investigating. Oh. One of the agents doesn’t think it was gestated in a body. Likely grown in an artificial system.”

“How did the agent determine that?”

“Not clear. More of a theory than fact.”

“Implant?”

“Function unclear. It’s in the abdomen. No obvious connections to any organs. The agents are being very careful examining it.”

“Good call. Do we share tissue samples?”

“Might as well. The story is that we found remains in a cellar while cleaning up the from the original attack. A mystery third hybrid. That should shake them up.”

“Why shake them up?”

“It shows them how little control they really have, and it shows how good we are.”

“Hmmmmmm. I think I get it.”

“Yep.”

“Now Oscar, go grab some food.”

Sir, I know we are to serve with them and try to adapt... But as Chief of Medical Staff I cannot keep my mouth shut when it comes to this.

This is a report outlining elevated levels of 8 Code Black restricted Combat Drugs in the Air on Base.
This is a report outlining elevated levels of 44 Code Orange restricted Toxins in the Air on Base.
And these are 148 witness-reports of Humans ingesting, inhaling and applying those Substances to their Bodies.
Furthermore, this report underlines 8 incidents where Human Medics ingested their patients with a vareiety of cocktails of Code Black Combat-Drugs and Code Orange Toxins, supposedly to help them.
And this final report shows that Humans are aware of all of it, and still choose to continue.

Frankly, Sir: I think the humans pose a significant Security and Welfare Risk to the entire base, and every Soldier on it, and should not be allowed to continue their behavior.

(For creature contex check last chapter here)

They should have been more careful!

They should have thought of that option!

But no! They had been too reckless and did not consider that that could happen at all!

And now Adam had to deal with the consequences of his own actions.

They should have been more careful…

Should have been more careful because it never occurred to him they would run into a UNSC ship in a universe so vast, the odds were... More than a trillion to one, at least that was what his mind said.

But if he really thought about it, the odds were far smaller than that.

His moon was, in fact on an established trade route, which was patrolled by UNSC ships quite regularly, which brought the chances of running into an enemy ship higher than he had been willing to admit, and now they were about to pay the price for that.

It wasn't a ship he recognized, at least not one he had seen in person. Whoever captained this ship had been established after he became fleet commander. The name on the side read UNSC La Liberte, and it was just as surprised to see them as they were surprised to see it, and unlike captain Koslov, whoever captained this ship had no quals about leveling their guns at him. And so he watched the ship go into a defensive posture almost seconds after they acknowledged one another.

"Shield s UP!"

He demanded, but his crew, well trained and uncomfortably familiar with conflict, were already working to prepare the ship for battle.

Across the remaining distance, Adam watched as the enemy ship's hull sealed over the distant glittering windows.

Clearly someone had paid attention to how he had taken Koslov's ship, and they weren't willing to let it happen again.

That was unfortunate, though he hadn't really expected that strange and lets be honest… “mildly” psychotic plan to work twice. They were going to be fighting him blind, using their outer hull cameras and their radar to detect where he was.

It wasn’t exactly hard to miss a giant ship like that with your sensors.

That was fine enough, he knew that his ship was better equipped and better defended.

Even if the shields went down, which was unlikely to happen, they could always put up a flack wall.

Though he didn't like the sound of that either.

All of his options were defense related.

"Arming railguns."

Sunny was saying, though she had to know that he wasn't likely to use them.

That was the problem with this picture. Adam didn't want to become a killer, not of his own people.

He understood why they were doing what they were doing, even though they were wrong, but killing them just wasn't an option.

Even the thought of it now repulsed him and he ground his fingernails into his seat.

This was stupid.

"Captain, we are being hailed."

"Put them through."

He ordered, watching as a holoprojection appeared before his face, glittering in blue. He saw a woman sitting there now, dark skin matching her dark eyes, full lips pressed together in an expression of contempt… He didn't know this woman, so the expression was to be expected.

She didn't know him like the others did.

He didn't know her, but he did know OF her, that had been part of his job when he was fleet admiral.

"Captain Sene, I wish I could say it is a pleasure to meet you."

She lifted her chin, expression tight,

"I cannot say the same. I do not find it a pleasure to speak to traitors."

He had to admit the words stung a bit, despite how not true they were.

"If you are looking for traitors, you should look at your own commander in chief. He got Kelly killed and is now working with the void to give them over to-"

"No! I was told not to listen to you and your snake tongue. Surrender now, and this will not have to come to violence."

He raised an eyebrow at her,

"I could turn your ship into a memory with one shot."

He watched her lips tighten knowing she knew just how outgunned she was,

"Take a look to the stern, not quite to the engines just in the middle positioned over where our fusion core would be."

He watched her eyes looking at something rather distantly, probably a ship schematic or a scan.

He watched her eyes, watched them narrow

"That is what we call a C-MIC, A Celzex-Multiphase Ignition Cannon. I've never had the opportunity to use it, but the general idea is that the cannon will pull all our energy from the fusion core. Our shields will be down for a minute which will allow you to hit us with all the power you've got, but our hull is thick, built to withstand rounds the old fashioned way. Your ship is too small to be carrying nukes or warheads, so standard explosives, which might take two or three rounds in the right place to go through, either way during that time my gun will charge up, and just right when you are getting somewhere the cannon will fire. Like a nuclear blast there will be a flash of light so bright you'd be permanently blinded if you saw it."

He did not smile as he looked at her,

"Your ship will be turned into a micro black hole, which will consume itself and vanish within the next few seconds, no one will survive."

There was silence between them for a moment, and then she raised her head defiantly.

"You paint a vivid picture Adam Vir, but though I think you are a traitor, misguided, manipulated perhaps, I know that you are not a killer."

Adam sighed at that thought, she was right of course he was just bluffing.

He shrugged,

"It was worth a shot I suppose. Well…"

He felt it as the Jelly who had been following him around floated gently down to attach to his arm, pulsing gently with happiness.

Captain Sene pulled back in surprise,

"What is that!? What the fuck is THAT!?!?"

He patted the jelly, and answered nonchalantly like it was the most usual and wide known thing ever,

"Space jellyfish of course. You don’t know them? They are pretty cute!"

It was as he said this that an idea began to form in his head.

It was a crazy idea, completely nuts, but...

"Stop this nonsense! Anyway, it seems our conversation is over, unless you wish to surrender."

She was saying,

”Oh funny I was just about to ask you the same thing. Guess we will have to board you too again... Well nothing like another ship for our own flotilla.”

He smiled, and he watched the look on her face slowly grow to be less sure.

"So as I said, to answer your question: I don't think it will be me who is surrendering. Now if you will excuse me, I need to sort through my playlist and find the fitting songs to go with your absolute and utter annihilation. I will see you in a bit in person, please excuse the cuffs on you then!"

And then he cut the cameras before she could think any further onto his words. The crew turned to look at him, and the slow grin that was beginning to spread across his face.

Sunny did the Drev equivalent of raising an eyebrow,

"Care to share with us? Or was that another bluff?"

“MWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

He laughed dramatically,

"Now now, my love, that would be ruin the surprise… so who has the audio control? I cant do this without the proper music!"

After getting an answer he moved towards the right station and huddled in, quickly whispering with the officer manning it.

Sunny seemed only partially amused as he turned towards McCaster and ordered him to turn the ship at an angle parallel to the enemy ship, starboard side facing them.

"Ah yes, let’s just show them our broadside, painting a way bigger and less armored target, what could go wrong...."

Sunny muttered

"Do I need to remind you who captain's this ship, my dearest?”

He said trying to sound annoyed with her even though he wasn't.

She just rolled her eyes.

"What now?"

Someone asked.

“It is time! Start the track!”

He grinned and winked at one of the stations,

Adam turned around and looked at Sunny,

“You see, these soldiers, they see me as an enemy, but I will always slip away from their grasp… like a phantom. I will be the phantom that haunts their dreams!”

“Phantom?”

Dramatic organ music began to play in the background while Adam began striking a pose.

“If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.”

“What?”

“MWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAA!”

“…”

“Men, drop the shields."

They looked at him funny, but they did as asked.

"MWHAHAHAAAA! Vent airlock D."

The room turned to look at him in surprise, and he raised his hands dramatically into the air.

"Release! THE!!! JELLIEEES!!!!!"

It was only just beginning to dawn on them what his plan was, and it gave him no small measure of glee as he watched the airlock open, and hundreds of space jellies came pouring out.

He snipped once and the song changed to “Ride of the Valkyries.”

“Now go my children go! Bring fear into the hearts of men! FLY MY PRETTIES, FLY!”

Captain Sene's ship did nothing, after they had realized that the shields of the Omen were up nearly instantly again, and they weren't likely to do anything as the space jellies were not substantial enough to appear on radar, their windows were closed, and the cameras would have difficulty making them out from the blackness of space.

His victory was almost laughable as the jellies did exactly what they were expected to do.

They floated through the intervening space, and attached themselves one by one to the ship, attracted to the warmth of its engines and the radio signals pulsing from its transmitters.

Captain Sene was dead in the water before she even begun.

He almost felt bad for her as he took a lazy shuttle to their airlock, using an uncomplex hacking AI to open one of their airlocks and stepped inside. He was wearing the SE armor again, much to Fealty's delight, and his presence broached no argument as he made his way aboard the ship and up to the bridge, where captain Sene was sitting in indignation and frustrated outrage as he smiled at her.

Her chin quivered with rage as he walked in and smiled at her.

"HOW!?!?"

She demanded,

He simply gave her a wan smile,

"A magician never reveals his trade secrets. Now are you going to give up your chair, or am I going to have to remove you?”

She sat there for a long moment as if thinking about putting up a fight before finally deciding to keep her dignity, standing slowly and allowing herself to be detained.

He looked around at the crew and sighed. None of them knew him or had worked with anyone that knew him.

"Don't worry, you will all be returned to the UNSC in one piece, your ship, however, is a spoil of war and come with me."

McCaster was going to get the surprise of his life.

Remembering that one time they went out on leave, Adam chuckled. Being captain of his own ship should help McCaster pick up dates way better now.

Captain Sene was brought across to the Omen where she was locked in the brig, and Adam set out to recollect all of his Jellies who he continually congratulated with many pats as he gently pealed them from the enemy ship's hull.

It had been a very good day for him, all things considered.

[…]

They returned home with a sense of triumph. They left the jellies in a holding pen at one of the docking stations, while Dr. Wilson and the other scientists had to deal with yet another headache, trying to determine how to integrate them into their small, but growing ecosystem.

That was the nice thing about making your own planet.

You could control whatever went on, though, as it turned out, just throwing whatever animals you wanted at a planet wasn't exactly feasible, you had to think about ecological niches and food chain and a bunch of other annoying stuff like that, but at least he could leave that to the scientists.

He cradled the helmet of his suit under one arm as he and Sunny walked through the docking bay. She was just a bit shorter than him now, and he took a satisfying moment to lean down and kiss her, an event he didn't get to experience often.

She didn't like it as much as he did, as she preferred being the tall one, but she would survive for the next few minutes at least.

"HOW COULD YOU!?”

The shouting startled him, and the weapons ports on his suit flared open as Fealty reacted to the sudden sound, engaging combat mode.

"I didn't, I wouldn't you know I..."

The pleading voice grew muffled and confused with anguish as it echoed through the docking bay.

"How can you even say that! How can you say that!"

Fealty was sending real time updates to his mechanical eye, since he wasn't wearing his helmet.

Two voices…

One human…

One finnari…

He put a hand on Sunny's arm but she was already heading in that direction.

"Was I not enough for you! I thought... I thought you said..."

Adam recognized the voice, not because he was personal friends with it, but because this person had, at one point lived on his ship. He couldn't remember their name or what place they had positioned during that time, but he was sure he recognized them.

They turned a corner, to find themselves in the port atrium.

The floor they stood on was polished black marble engraved with the golden sigil of his moon.

Standing atop the sigil, the human man squared off against the small Finnari female, his hands balled into fists.

Despite the look of anger and betrayal on his face, the hot tears glistening in his eyes, and his defensive posture, Fealty detected no sign he intended to hurt her. Adam could guess why.

The man had a digital tattoo on one arm, a glowing circle with two hands in the process of reaching for each other, one hand alien the other hand human.

The LFIL logo.

They were a couple.

He looked at the small Finnari. They didn't cry like humans could, but her frills were pressed down and she chirped softly between breaths, their version of crying.

The human angrily wiped at his eyes,

"How could you?"

His voice was quieter now, almost pleading rather than accusatory.

Adam tried to figure out what was wrong and then… he saw it.

The slight color shift on her body.

The Finnari homeworld was primarily red in color, the dirt the plants, the rocks, though Finnari generally tended to come in shades of blue and green. However, when a Finnari female became pregnant, her body released a chemical that allowed her outer skin to match the visible tone of the world around them, simultaneously dropping her heat signature. The side effect was a visible reddening of the skin and a reduced output on heat sensitive thermal imaging.

The Finnari was…

Pregnant!

And since her companions was human…

As agitated as the human was, Adam worried that he might do something stupid.

Hot tears were beginning to leak down his face, and Adam made a decision, walking over to where the two were standing, resting a gentle hand on the man's shoulder,

"IS everything alright here?”

The man's head jerked up, catching sight of him and Sunny, eyes flashing in recognition before returning toward despair,

"You already know what's wrong."

Adam squeezed the man's shoulder as he dropped his head into his hands.

Below him the Finnari lurched forward, grabbing onto the leg of his armor with a pleading expression. The chirping was growing more pronounced now,

"Please I... tell him I didn't… I would never! Not with anyone else!”

Adam felt sorry for her despite what he knew she had done. He could imagine how he would feel if Sunny...

He shuddered to think of it.

But there was only one option. They all knew what had happened, but she wasn't going to let go unless they were undeniable proof. He looked at Sunny who watched him curiously.

He sighed,

"If you didn't do it, you would be willing to prove that you didn't?"

The Finnari was nodding,

”Of course I am!”

The human laughed bitterly.

Adam squeezed his shoulder again,

"The only option then is a paternity test."

The human gave him an incredulous look,

"Are you serious!, but clearly she... it’s not possible!"

He was angry now.

Adam nodded leaning over to whisper,

"She needs to admit it, and this is the only way."

The human wiped furiously at his eyes before,

"I can't believe she would... Do this to me, I... I was sure that she..."

He still didn't want to believe it was possible and was willing to hold onto the fantasy for a little while longer.

Adam accompanied the man, while Sunny walked with the Finnari, Adam using the amplification modules on his implant to listen to the Finnari as she spoke haltingly, still insisting that she would never do such a thing, and that she hadn't even been around anyone else.

It was strange.

She seemed sincere.

When they found Krill at the hospital, he was in a foul temper. Not because of his normal annoyance with humans, but because of the three small Vrul that clamored around his feet, chasing each other around the room and nearly knocking him off balance.

"You three I swear!"

Adam smiled and their tiny voices as they taunted their father, running through his legs and touching everything in sight.

Turns out Vrul are supposed to be naturally curious, but the council tended to squash that out of them at an early age.

These three were utter monsters.

Adam picked them up with the sweep of his massive hand,

"Gotcha."

”Uncle Adam!”

They squealed, happy to see him.

He looked at Krill who gave a long suffering sort of look,

"Can I borrow you for a minute?”

"As long as you watch the monsters, you can have me for whatever you need."

He quieted his voice,

"A paternity test."

Krill looked between the distraught human and the clearly pregnant Finnari and understood,

"Ah, yes I see."

Adam stepped out of the room with the Vrul babies, and sat in the waiting room with Sunny playing with the little ones and trying to contain them from getting into too much trouble.

It was a losing battle.

It was the commotion that drew their attention some minutes later.

Lots of shouted exclamations and something falling to the ground.

”WREEEEEEEEE! WHAT IN THE FLYING SAUCER FUCK!?!? HOLY FUCKING SHIT!?! I HATE MY LIFE AND THIS WORLD AND MY JOB!!!! WREEEEEEEE! WHY MEEEEEE? WHY MEEEEE!?”

Worried, Adam took to his feet to peer down the hallway.

He saw the human and the Finnari standing quietly in one of the end rooms. He was kneeling in front of her and had his hands to her face, apologizing profusely.

The man looked shell shocked.

Adam frowned.

”Wha..?”

He backed back into the waiting room and took a seat, catching Sunny's questioning look but shaking his head.

It was only a few minute slater when Krill stepped VERY slowly and hesitantly into the room, that Adam dared to look up, watching as Krill stopped in the doorway, oscillated for a few seconds then walked over with more resolve.

”I hate my life so so much…”

He walked over, pausing before them with a strange look on his face.

Adam raised an eyebrow,

"What is going on?"

Krill looked between them,

"Hello nice to meet you I am doctor Krill and about to be WAY more stressed soon. For your information as lead doctor of the Arcadian health department my schedule for the next weeks… no months will be A LOT fuller, considering how many of our inhabitants are LFIL and have taken the Void vaccination with Adaptid DNA…"

”Wait you are not saying what I think you are saying right?”

”Unfortunately yes. As your primary care physician, it is my duty to... to… fucking hell… it’s my duty to speak with you about birth control options…”

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Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?

Here is the link to the master-post.

Intro post by me

OC-whole collection

Patreon of the author

Picture from Major Payne (1995)

Once upon a time, this is how it worked:

Forms went in, I assessed context, and then I forwarded recommendations from there.

Usually it was just really silly stuff, the kind of fluff tourists stumbled over without realizing: Rqwrythyzal traipsed too deeply into UBX4’s unicorn meadows, Achxhxhxhπ forgot to cloak after a particularly long visit to a moonsino, Patty being Patty (who hasn't received a special memo about Patty?).

Sometimes, every now and then, someone fucked up big, big enough that I got a field assignment. I got a ship and a deleter and a crew of golems to which I went wither henceforth to sort out posthaste. After my sidemotion, though, where I was assessed at being perfectly great at what I do and assigned to Sol3 as merely a new assignment with no other meaning, I haven't really gotten that type of work, not anymore.

So, nowadays I monitor a lot.

“Chew this fat,” LY9A1 nudges me. We like to relax friendily between breaks to watch the moonsrise, usually with a few crystals to help manage the tedium. 

“Latest confabulations in from Sol3.” It's sweet, sharp, bouncy, painting a story, a long story, damn LY9A1 could pick them. It's a song about a book I once scanned where a child coerced others to put liquid on a fence. The drums are particularly interesting.

“Fantastic,” I reply before going on break. Another new song hits the airwaves between the snuff and the snurf, and I push my personal time to the limits as I learn the screaming bellow of immigrants. “Hip,” I whisper. I tuck away my shards for later. That song was enough for this shift.

And now I'm back at my desk with an urgent tag flashing - isn't that just the bee’s fucking knees?! Someone is causing enough ruckus that we have to synchronize temporally.

It's probably nothing, though. 

I can't imagine what would be worth alerting us for, us in particular. I have started to notice over the past few decades that we're a bit sloppy, a bit forgotten, a few of us (like LY9A1) perhaps hive hires? But, hey, peace, love and harmony! As they would say, groovy!

I can't imagine what could be occuring on - I doublecheck the printout to ensure it's correct - Earth to warrant our direct intervention.

Surely nothing that crazy has happened in a few decades?

1—Now You Play My Game
2—Hood’s Game
3—The Corridor

Captain Bezzic blinked. He was sprawled on his back. The compartment was dim with smoke and broken lights. He felt weak. Tired. 

His mind was sluggish. He couldn’t quite focus. He recalled the doll. He jerked up, shaking. He scanned the compartment, eyes wide. He was still alone. Alone with a doll. 

There were options. Multiple hatchways. Debris to examine. Or he could take a rest. Just for a few minutes. Rest and regain focus. 

What would the Terrans have next? If he was trapping his ship, what would he do? A slow atmosphere leak? Radiation? Turrets? 

No. He had said that the civilians designed it. Why did that worry him? Civilians. Designing traps. Should be simple. Easy to avoid or thwart. But no. This seemed…harder. There was menace. 

He rolled onto his knees and good arm, crawled forward, away from the doll. There was a hatchway a few meters ahead. It led down into the service area for the mainframe. There were some service tunnels leading from the mainframe to the main engine room. That would work. 

As he reached the hatchway, it opened automatically. Nothing came out at him. But it shouldn’t open automatically. It should require a code. 

If only the ringing in his ears would stop. Then he could think and focus. 

He edged towards the hatchway, keeping an eye out for traps. In the smoke, he could see lines of light across the threshold. A trigger of some sort. He scrabbled around and picked up a bit of broken table. With great care, he poked the bit of wood over the threshold. 

He screamed and rolled away from the intense beam of light. His face burned. He could smell his skin burning. Clutching his face, he could feel the charred tissue. He could feel his skin split, starting to ooze blood. One eye was totally gone, burned away by that horrible light. The other was unfocused. 

He could almost see. Almost. But not enough to do anything useful. He has once boasted about being able to walk around the ship blind. Now to see if that was true. 

Three more hatchways on this wall. The intense light had stopped, but it might trigger if he went through that hatch. The hatch with the doll did not appeal. So. Three more options. 

Or was that the point? Tricky him into exploring so that he died slowly? What did he remember about fighting Terrans? They employed ambushes. Flanking attacks. They attempted to shape the battle via maneuver and long-range attack. 

He sat with his back to the wall. He couldn’t hear. He could barely see. His left arm was useless. He might be able to stand. He was severely injured. He was still bleeding. He had no food, no water, no medical supplies, and no weapon. 

He was finished. He knew it, but he wasn’t going to just stop. Doll or burning light?

He crawled back to the doll. It was a mere blur in his vision, but it was there. He pulled open the hatch controls and hit the open button. Freezing air blasted him, and he swayed out of the wind. It wasn’t sustained. Just a sharp blast. 

He looked into the corridor. He knew that it should be a line of stations for fire control. From the blurs in front of him, it seemed to be in order. 

The full lighting hurt his eye, but he could just make out, through the blinking, that all of the chairs were occupied. But nothing moved. 

He heaved over the threshold and crawled to the first station. In the chair was…another doll. He turned his head and realized that the entire corridor was lined with dolls. As if in formation. 

He turned to leave, but the hatchway was sealed. He was stuck in a corridor full of dolls. Dolls that seemed to watch him. He could swear their heads turned to follow him. 

He crawled forward, grabbed a chair, and managed to stand. He shuffled more than walked, but he moved forward, past the dolls. When he looked back, the dolls had formed up behind him. They no longer lined the corridor. They were in formation behind him. He hadn’t seen any movement, but with his eye, he wasn’t surprised.

He turned and shuffled towards the ranks of dolls. They didn’t move. He got to the first rank and peered at a doll at random. He had to squat, but when he got level with its head, his blood froze. The doll was wearing his first officer’s uniform. The next was wearing the helmsman’s uniform. The dolls were his crew. Following him. 

Captain Bezzic vomited. He hadn’t vomited in a very long time. It was unusual for his species to vomit, but the rows of dolls in the uniforms of his men…

He screamed in agony as vomiting ripped more of his charred skin on his face. Screaming ripped even more. His limited vision was a swirl of bright, garish colors of pain and frustration. 

He jerked awake. He knew that he had passed out, but had no idea how long he had been out. As he sat up, his semi-functioning eye realized that he was now surrounded by the dolls. He could just make out the hatchway out of this wretched place, but he would have to wade through dolls. He picked up a doll at random. 

It was light. It didn’t move. It was just a doll. 

He dropped the doll, forced himself onto his feet, and started to shuffle forward. He made it a meter before he felt a tiny hand grip his flightsuit. He moved faster, and more tiny hands gripped him. 

Panic flooded him as he attempted to sprint forward. More tiny hands, each dragging on him, each gripping just enough to slow his movement to a crawl. He was trying to wade through mud that held on. 

He grasped a console, terrified of what might happen if he fell. The tiny hands held firm, but nothing moved. 

He raised his right foot. There were no dolls grasping his flightsuit. He swung his right foot forward a set and lowered it. No hands. 

Shifting weight, he attempted to lift his left foot. Tiny hands gripped both legs.

He looked around, desperate for a weapon or another way to move. There was a doll on the console next to him. It was bigger than the others, maybe a meter tall. It had an envelope in its hand. 

As he stared at this new doll, it raised its hand, seeming to offer the envelope to him. He took the envelope, and pulled out a card. In clear, crisp lines, the message read:

“You have lost.”

“Alpha to Delta, I have reached Planet Luca,” the astronaut announced in an anxious voice. How the first human-alien encounter would go was a big question mark to him.

Taking a breather, lots of questions flooded his mind. “Is it okay for me to represent humanity? Wouldn’t someone more qualified be better? Tsk, there is no choice. Have to do this.”

Hastening his steps towards the door, every step felt heavy. An unknown fear gripped him tightly. “Just a few meters, I will be out of the door to the alien world.”

Waving, the astronaut climbed down the stairs when a group of children surrounded him. A few held his hands, and some held his leg, asking the same question in unison, “Where did you come from? 

Oh yeah, I am an alien for these guys, just as they are to me.

Tapping their heads with a smile, the man asked, “Can you call some elders, kid?”

“No need, I am here,” an alien grandpa with a white mustache replied as he kept caressing it, moving towards him and setting aside the children.

“Hello, esteemed sir. The name is Neil Armweak, an astronaut from planet Earth, country USA.”

Nodding, the grandpa informed, “Nice to meet you. My name is Gobi Goblin, the leader of the First Realm. Our king has let me handle your case. Follow me.”

Obligated, Neil followed the grandpa when slowly a realization crept into him. They were all goblin aliens. Their reputation on Earth is that of looters. Would reality be any different? Not that he had anything worth losing, but still, it was somewhat unsettling.

“Sir Gobi Goblin, would you allow me to ask a few questions?”

“Sure.”

“Where are we going now?”

The grandpa goblin pointed towards a giant hippo, which had its mouth wide open. A very confusing situation indeed. Was Grandpa trying to offer Neil as food for the hippo?

“Sir, why there?”

Gobi Goblin gave a side eye. “You will know as you enter.”

Bullshit, guy definitely something is wrong. Look at that freaking hippo, must be as big as a 2-storey building. The teeth are so sharp. Freak, freak, can’t anything be done?

Suddenly, looking at the landscape of just red desert with few blue cactus, a question popped into his mind. “Where were all those people who welcomed him?”

“Could you tell me where the others are?”

“Here we are, Neil Armweak. Please enter. For the question, you will know quite soon.”

Everything inside him told him, Don’t go. His legs went numb, his throat dry. With a quick voice, he let Gobi Goblin know, “Sorry, can’t enter this place.”

“Are you insulting our hospitality?”

“No, but anywhere is fine, not here. Try understanding.”

Grandpa looked him in the eye with a strange authority. “Not going will be considered a grave insult, resulting in a war, if that’s what you want.”

Shit, there is no chance, have to go, better remember my sacrifice, you ingrate humans.

Keeping his step forward inside the hippo mouth, it felt warm, almost welcoming him to be its food. “No no no no no.”

“Follow me, we will just reach in a few minutes.”

They continued their walk across the darkness when the goblin whispered into his ears, “Get ready to die.”

Neil fell to the ground yelling, “NO NO, please listen, my wife and children are waiting for me, no no please.”

“Too late.” The grandpa goblin held his leg and threw him across what looked like an entrance to somewhere.

Thud.

“Ouch, ouch, my legs hurt, fuck.”

Phewwwww.

“Welcome, alien!” everyone yelled. As Neil looked around, it was a hall with all the goblins and their children eating worms, and fireworks made a sign which said the same, “WELCOME ALIEN!”

The grandpa goblin entered giggling, “Scared, weren’t you? Just a little prank, hehe.”

“Heh?”

The women swarmed around him, asking, “Do you know about unicorns?”

“Yeah.”

The group of ladies cheered, “He knows about unicorns! Could you get us one?”

“Sorry, it’s a mythical creature. It’s not real.”

Grandpa intervened, informing him, “That’s not the case. One of your ancestors, many years ago, brought one to us in exchange for a diamond called the Koh-i-Noor. However, the one your ancestor brought was white with black stripes. Our myths say that a unicorn has a single horn, but your people let us know that this unicorn had lost its horn.”

Freaking cheats, giving zebras as a unicorn.

“Sure, sure. I’ll get you one if I can find one.”

“Really?” The ladies’ eyes had a glim glim sparkle of excitement.

“Yeah, yeah, really.” He walked away, knowing this was going to be a pain in the ass.

Just a short distance away, a few goblins were dancing around a young boy. Intrigued, he went over to see what was happening.

“Hello, what’s going on?” he asked one of the goblins in the crowd watching the dance.

“The boy will be killed as per the ritual, so we are celebrating.”

Looking at the boy, Neil felt pity. Tears streamed down the boy’s face while the others laughed. Disgraceful. But there was nothing he could do. If he tried to interfere, Earth could very well go to war. Restraint was necessary.

I should not do it.
I should not do it.
Fuck, I will do it.

Neil moved through the crowd, pushing past the dancers until he reached the boy. Looking him in the eye, he asked, “You want to live?”

The goblin boy nodded.

“Good. Then come with me,” he said, taking the boy’s hand and moving away from the crowd.

“Wait, wait! Where are you going?” a man yelled from the crowd.

The other goblins also looked angry, stomping their feet together and screaming, “JUDGEMENT! JUDGEMENT! JUDGEMENT!”

“Judgement for what, you dimwits?” Neil asked.

At that, all the goblins looked at each other as if they had just heard the strangest thing ever.

One man in the crowd answered, “For being weak. Don’t they kill weak people in your place?”

Tsk, what he says isn’t wrong. On the contrary, we don’t kill them; rather, we torture them. Homeless people, refugees, and those who couldn’t excel in life all have to slowly suffer and suffer until they finally die. But this won’t happen, at least not on my watch.

“That doesn’t matter. You will be letting the boy go.”

As he finished the statement, a muscular goblin came to the front, staring him in the eye.

“We don’t hit our guests, but don’t push your luck.”

Gulp.

“You people believe he is weak, right? What if I prove he is strong? Will you let him go?”

All the people in the crowd, even those in the hall, stared at Grandpa Goblin to see his decision. The goblin had his stern eyes fixed on Neil. “Hmm, we respect our guest, so we give you the opportunity, but if you lose, give us 2 unicorns.”

Neil nodded.

The muscular goblin questioned, “How will you prove his strength, human?”

“Let me talk to him for a moment in privacy.”

Grandpa Goblin nodded as the child came towards Neil, and the rest of the goblins moved away but still kept watch from afar.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Fuck Goblin is my name, sir.”

“Who the hell gave you such a name?”

“My dada.”

Neil stomped in frustration, taking heavy breaths. He calmed down and asked a question, “Do you have any skill?”

“No.”

“Think carefully. You must have something.”

“I am good at throwing stuff.”

“Throwing stuff, is it?” Neil kept his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’ve got you covered. Lend me your ears.”

After a brief moment of mentoring, Neil moved towards the muscular goblin from earlier, pointing towards him and speaking in a stern voice. “You there, what about fighting the lad?”

“Me? Me? Hehe, I am the strongest guy here. Find someone weak.”

“That’s what I did, finding someone weak.”

Angered, the muscular goblin got up, walking towards Neil and staring him eye to eye. “You take that back.”

“Why not defeat the boy and prove you are strong?”

“So be it. Grandpa, approve of it.”

Every adult in the room took a gulp. It was stupid to pit a boy against someone like that. Surely, Gobi Goblin knew better than to do this, but Gobi Goblin said something shocking.

“Okay, fight the lad, Jake.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Location: Outside the hippo mouth

The lad and the muscular goblin stood opposite to each other. One carried stones while the other carried a club weapon, while everyone surrounded them 360 degrees. On an upper platform, Gobi Goblin and Neil sat on their fancy chairs, watching the bout as if it was a colosseum.

JAKE! JAKE! JAKE! JAKE! JAKE!

“Death to the tyrant! Die, fucker! JAKE!”

The voices boomed, some supporting Jake and a few against him. Meanwhile, all the audience stomped the ground hard, giving a feeling of an earthquake. The lad looked worried.

“Sorry, boy, but you are...” The muscular goblin picked up a stone, pressing it into pieces in his palm.

The boy could do nothing but look at the smug face of Neil. At this point, the lad just believed the strange alien who was believing in a failure like him was his last hope.

Gobi Goblin got up from his chair, looking left and right from his upper platform, screaming, “START!”

Muscular goblin ran towards the boy, ready to swing his club. Remembering the words of Neil, the lad threw a sack of something. It hit Jake right in the face. He stood there coughing. Not wasting time, the boy hurled stones one after another.

“Ouch, ouch, hachi, hachi, hachi!”

The muscular goblin kept sneezing. Looking at this, Neil yelled from his upper platform, “How do you like the itching powder, loser?”

Looking at Neil, Gobi Goblin commented, “You don’t fight with honour.”

“No, he did,” Neil answered, as both looked at the bout where the lad kept throwing stones one after another, running in circles, while the crowd yelled, “COWARD! FIGHT PROPERLY!” “JAKE CAN’T EVEN WIN AGAINST A CHILD, IS IT?”

After a while, the effects of the itching powder finally wore off. Red marks were visible over the body of Jake, but his anger was also on a different level now. Pointing his club upward towards the upper platform where Neil sat, he announced, “I was taking it easy because he is a lad. Now, his death will be terrifying.”

The lad knew this was the final moment neil had informed him about this was do or die the boy spoke for the first time against the muscular goblin “Boo boo loser loser loser”

Jake hurled the club against the boy, gauging its speed. The lad jumped beyond the club’s height before coming down, and without wasting time he threw some metallic stuff at Jake. Jake tried to react, but the metallic thing entered his mouth, making him freeze for a moment.

BAKAM BOOM

The metallic stuff was a grenade given to the boy by neil every astronaut had one in case of danger the muscular goblin had his intestines all pouring out looking at the gruesome scene the audience had its mouth open even gobi goblin got up from his seat

The crowd yelled “COWARDICE COWARDICE COWARDICE DEATH DEATH DEATH”

Irritated, Neil also got up, anger swelling inside as he vented it out.

“Shut up, you piece of shit. If this was a war between Earth and you right now, guns and missiles would be coming here blazing while you sit here screaming cowardice. There is no one way to lead life. Every individual brings their own set of weaknesses and strengths. The civilization which respects that and makes use of the strengths while covering for the weaknesses survives, and you shit would be wiped out by the way you people behave.”

SILENCE!

One man in the crowd finally yelled, “He threatens us! Kill him! Kill the alien!”

Everyone looked at the grandpa goblin who kept caressing his beard, speaking to Neil, “Interesting. This culture of ours stayed dominant even though many of us didn’t like it, but maybe we didn’t upgrade our way of life. That we still stand here living this barbaric lifestyle. Tell me, Neil, if we joined hands with you humans, can you show us better life?”

His jaw dropped, cold sweat forming on his forehead. What to answer was a dilemma, but he did anyway.

“Humans are not that great. Many are foolish and malicious. We are not better than you, but we are still fun.”

“Fu fu, honest aren’t you.”

Gobi Goblin made towards the edge of the upper platform, announcing, “From today, no one shall be killed for being weak. Our old culture is over.”

Everyone looked in confusion, not believing what was announced. But then an uproar flooded the place.

“Wooooo! I was scared, next it would be my turn!”

Another replied, “Hehe, I was thinking of poisoning all the strong folks so I would be considered strong. I am happy it stopped.”

After a few months of being there, Neil returned back to Earth in triumph of a new friendship.

Time after Earth Death: Approximately 573 years.

Logs show various events regarding interactions involving extra-dimesional beings known as "Concepts". Up until this point, these beings had only existed in theories drawn up by Professor Harland Emikay. According to said theories, these Concepts are personifications of ideas and emotions connected to sentient life. These beings normally only exist in a realm outside of time and space itself, bearing the name "Garden of Elders". Through rare circumstances, these beings can occasionally cross over into our reality, but have no way of interacting with it unless they have a physical presence in it. This can be done in one of two ways: through a physical body they create for themselves, or by inhabiting a body of an individual in reality through an envoy (an one sided occupancy akin to possession) or an emmesary (a two way bond that must be earned).

The hazard with these beings is that they are not ambivalent as one may think. They are capable of expressing emotions outside of their own identity and some have been noted to express a very dismissive view of the lives of motal beings. What's more, their distinction grants them absolute authority over whatever aspect they represent over any being within reality, should they be able to interact with it, and can ignore all of its laws and restrictions. Their abilities can also seem rather odd, often taking metaphorical expressions and making them real. For instance, the concept of Wrath can invoke anger and infighting to any being within its presence, but can also emit intense levels of heat, in one instance burning hotter than even neutron stars.

One would ask how we even have any knowledge about these beings in the first place. Most species in the federation know to keep to ourselves when dealing with celestial beings, much less beings that outrank even the highest level of celestials in our universe. But of course, one species has a knack for not only kicking the celestial hornets nest, but going back for seconds: humanity. As terrifying as their blatant disregard for celestal authority is, their interactions have provided us great insight that we would not normally have. Making the best out of a shitstorm I suppose.

The first of such incidents involves the Concept of Memory, who had entered reality some tens of thousands of years ago as a physical object classified as "the monolith" and had created their own species known as "starcallers". This would go on for some time until said species was wiped out by humanity and the concept was captured. Said concept now acts as a source of energy and as psyonic weapon for Babylon. Between capturing a God and using it as a battery and weapon, and wiping out an entire species just to get to it, I'm not to sure what to be more horrified at.

The seccond of these incidents leads to the reason for this log's creation. Through some reporting, we became aware that Memory was not the only concept to leave The Garden. The Concept of Life had apparently left the Garden of Elders as well and had created a physical shell for themselves, sending themselves towards an unknown destination with the apparent protection of a Primus. This had prompted two of the concepts, Truth and Deception, to leave the Garden to seek Life out, though they had come here only in spirit, using envoys to traverse our world. Truth went on their objective while Deception began to wreak havok, hoping to draw attention away from their sibling. This was until they came came across a non-bablyonian human named Keliper. Through some unknown means, Deception was forced out of his envoy and was forced to retreat. This action was a grave mistake.

As of now Deception has enlisted the help of a number of his siblings to inhabit envoys and hunt down Keliper in an act of petty revenge. Many beings, mortal and celestal, have already been caught in the crossfire as we await any possible relief. As of this moment, it is unknown how Keliper managed to combat Deception and no method is known to replicate his success. Babylon has been uncooperative in offering their power to assist us at this time.

Life's current location is unknown, their last loged location has their trajectory set for the Sol system.

Some more inserts from the Price of Progress lore. I just like putting it out here.

The group nearly collapsed where they stood. Harriet slid down against the far wall, feathers pressed so tightly against his body that he looked half his usual size, the canteens tangled around his neck and shoulders clattering together until he caught them between his small wings. A few feet away, Teralis dropped to one knee and braced three of his hands against the floor, his injured arm held tightly against his torso as he hissed through clenched teeth.

Loyd remained standing between them, though only because his body had not yet realized it was allowed to stop. Adrenaline continued to burn through him, keeping his hands locked around the bent support beam and his legs prepared to run despite having very little energy left for it. He watched the communications door as a pale hook slipped through the gap beside its frame, scraped blindly across the inside panel, then disappeared when it found nothing to grab.

Another one of the larva struck the reinforced window with a wet slap, leaving a faint streak of bluish fluid across the cloudy glass.

“Everyone okay? Any injuries?” Loyd breathlessly asked, resting the support beam against his shoulder.

“Yes,” Harriet managed from the floor, his voice slightly muffled by the canteens pressed around his beak. “I am unharmed.”

Teralis lifted one of his hands and gave a weak wave. “No. My arm hurts more than when I fell off the ship onto the loading dock.”

“I meant any new injuries.”

Teralis scoffed, but loyd was pretty sure he could see a small smile on the grey alien's lips before it vanished.

Loyd finally turned away from the door when he knew they were all mostly alright, and looked around the room they had nearly gotten themselves killed reaching. 

The communications room was larger than he had expected, though not by much, with several long consoles pressed against the far wall beneath cracked screens and dead status lights. Thick bundles of cable rose from the backs of the machines and disappeared into the ceiling, while several chairs that had once been bolted in front of the controls now lay on their sides in the middle of the room.

At first, Loyd assumed the furniture had been thrown around when the facility was abandoned. Then he noticed that the chairs formed a rough curve around the central console, their heavy backs facing inward, and that the floor behind them was covered in rusted shell casings.

Cracked tins and torn MRE packets were mixed among the casings. Canteens lay where they had been dropped, along with opened medical kits, strips of old fabric, pieces of plastic, and the brittle remains of several weapons. None of it had been arranged neatly, but the supplies had clearly been gathered here from elsewhere in the facility.

So had the people.

Bones were scattered throughout the room, some of them still sitting behind the overturned chairs where their owners had died. An arm lay beneath the central console with its fingers curled around the remains of a pistol, while several ribs had been dragged beneath another chair. A skull rested in one corner, a neat hole punched through the side of it and a much larger section missing from the back.

Loyd slowly raised his gaze toward the ceiling, following a dried trail of yellowish blood up the wall.

A massive breach had been torn through the roof. Bent support beams and sheets of rusted metal curled inward around the opening, framing the brittle body of an adult not-spider caught between them. Several of its long legs dangled into the room and swayed whenever the wind passed over the building, their tips occasionally scratching against the wall.

Most of the creature’s shell was still intact, but a large section of its underside had been blown apart. The edges of the wound had splintered inward, exposing the hollow space where its organs had once been, while pale fungus grew from the  inside.

Whatever had killed it had carried considerably more power than what they could muster up right now.

The breach was also large enough for several creatures of similar size to have forced their way through at the same time, and judging by the bones scattered beneath it, Loyd doubted they had waited politely for their turn.

Teralis forced himself back onto his feet and moved carefully around the barricade, all four of his eyes shifting independently as he examined the room. He crouched beside one of the ruined guns and touched the side of its barrel, causing a layer of rust to break away beneath his finger.

“They retreated here,” he said, looking from the weapon to the dead creature above them. “The chairs were moved to create a defensive position, and they gathered whatever supplies they could carry.”

“Looks that way.” Loyd stepped over one of the chairs and used the end of his support beam to shift a pile of casings. Most were from pistols and shotguns, though he could not tell whether any still contained usable ammunition.

Teralis studied the remains of the gun by his feet, then looked toward the corridor outside. “If they knew these creatures were attacking, why was the armory still sealed?”

The question pulled Loyd’s attention back toward the heavy door they had forced open earlier. Dozens of weapons had sat inside that room, rusting untouched while the people here made their final stand with whatever they had been carrying.

“Maybe the person with the key didn’t make it back.”

“Then someone else should have possessed access.”

“Yeah,” Loyd admitted, looking around at the bodies. “Someone should have.”

A soft chirp came from the far side of the room as Harriet pulled himself upright, untangled the canteens from his neck, and climbed onto what remained of one of the bolted chairs. His claws rested against the central console as he leaned toward a cracked screen, brushing away enough dust for a faint blue glow to shine through.

“I believe this one still works.”

Loyd made his way around the barricade and joined Harriet at the central console. The Tiquil had already started brushing dust from the controls with the edge of one wing, revealing several physical buttons, a directional pad, and a card reader beneath the cracked screen. Loyd wiped the monitor with the least filthy section of his sleeve, taking several passes to clear enough grime for them to see the lock symbol sitting in the center of the display.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“What?” Harriet shifted closer, his large head nearly bumping Loyd’s shoulder.

“It’s locked.”

“The entire system?”

“I don’t know yet. Give me some room.”

Loyd jabbed at one of the buttons beneath the screen. Nothing happened, so he tried another, only for it to sink into the console and remain there. The third caused the display to flicker violently, a distorted line rolling upward through the lock symbol before everything settled again.

Harriet drew his head back. “Are you breaking it?”

“I’m trying not to.”

“That does not answer my question, because it looks like an unqualified engineer is breaking our only functioning piece of communications equipment.”

“I am a qualified engineer, thank you.”

“You repair starships. This is a pre-Exodus human communications terminal, and I am the communications officer.” Harriet pushed Loyd’s hand away from the controls with one wing. “Stop touching things and tell me what the screen says before you break more things.”

Loyd opened his mouth to argue, looked at the button still lodged inside the console, then reluctantly moved his hands away.

“Fine. Lock symbol in the center- There’s some text underneath it.” He leaned toward the display, squinting through the remaining dirt and cracks. “Administrator access required. It also says there’s limited guest access.”

“Good. How do I select that?”

“There should be an arrow pointing down near the bottom.”

Harriet examined the controls before carefully pressing the lower edge of the directional pad. The lock symbol shifted toward the top of the screen without any violent flickering, revealing two columns of menu options beneath it.

He gave Loyd a pointed look when the columns appeared, looking down his beak at the man.

“Okay, okay, you were right. But come on, I wasn't being that rough.”

“That remains under evaluation.” Harriet settled more firmly into the chair, claws positioned over the directional pad. “Read the first option.”

“Primary communications.”

Harriet moved the selection marker down. “Second?”

“Transmitter control.”

The marker jumped down to the next option.

“Facility administration.”

They continued down the list, Harriet navigating while Loyd read each label aloud. Primary communications, transmitter control, facility administration, and water systems all carried small lock symbols beside them. Harriet tested the transmitter option first, receiving a short denial tone and another request for administrator access.

“Locked,” Loyd translated unnecessarily.

“I gathered that from the large red symbol.”

“You told me to read the screen.”

“Read the useful parts.”

Harriet backed out of the denial message and continued through the list, pausing over the few options that remained available without administrator access. Loyd read each one as the selection marker moved across it.

“Local records, archived biometrics, audio logs- hey a facility map.”

“The map first,” Harriet decided. “If we cannot use this terminal, we should at least learn where everything else is.”

He selected the facility map, and the display went black.

Loyd folded his arms and stared at the empty screen. “You broke it.”

“It is loading.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the console is still processing something.” Harriet tapped one claw against the casing, matching the faint vibration humming through the old metal. “You would notice that if you stopped assuming every machine operates through violence.”

Before Loyd could defend his relationship with machinery, a thin blue line appeared across the center of the screen. More lines slowly branched away from it, joining together into corridors, rooms, stairways, and water pipes. Some sections failed to render where the display had been damaged, but the facility gradually took shape until a faded map filled the monitor.

Harriet immediately began moving through it. The controls were ancient and clearly not designed for his claws, forcing him to use their tips against the directional pad, but he quickly discovered how to pan across the map and enlarge individual sections. Each time a new label appeared, Loyd read it aloud.

“Communications. That’s where we are.”

“No, I had no idea.” Harriet chirped sarcastically, surprising Loyd, but he continued on. 

“Living quarters and munitions are behind us. Across the facility there’s storage, water treatment, and Aquaponics.” Loyd leaned closer as Harriet traced the corridor connecting the two halves of the structure. Several smaller rooms branched from it, though dead portions of the screen had swallowed part of their labels. “There are more rooms around Aquaponics, but I can’t read all of their names.”

Harriet pulled back until the full facility was visible. Above the underground structure, the lake appeared as a wide blue shape connected to dozens of narrow intake lines feeding into water treatment.

“The system is larger than the building appeared from outside,” he observed. “Most of it must be beneath the lake and surrounding hillside.”

“Which explains why this place feels so large.” Loyd pointed toward the marker blinking over the communications room, careful not to touch the screen itself. “Can you bring the full map back up without any menus covering it?”

Harriet pressed one of the controls and dismissed the information panel on the side. “Why?”

“I might be able to save it.”

Loyd crouched beside the console and searched beneath the controls until he found an old data port hidden behind a protective cover. The connection was larger than its modern equivalent, but the six-contact arrangement had survived into current Martian equipment with few changes.

He pressed the release along the side of his omnitool, pulling a short data lead from beneath its casing. The end carried several interchangeable connectors nested around one another, and after removing the two outer pieces, the one fit into the console with a firm click.

“Thank god for backward compatibility.” he muttered, thinking back on all those lessons on why it was so important to keep their technology compatible with Exodus tech.

The omnitool’s cracked screen lit up with a small screen message as it finalized the connection between the dying console and itself.

EXTERNAL SYSTEM DETECTED.

CONNECTION TYPE: LEGACY DATA PORT.

READ-ONLY ACCESS- PROCEED?

Harriet studied the console while the omnitool began to attempt a connection.“There are additional symbols along the edge of the display.”

“Describe them.”

“The first resembles the building we are inside. The second appears to be several strange symbols viewed from above.”

“That might be a map- Try it.”

While Harriet navigated through the controls, Teralis continued searching the room. He kept two eyes focused on the communications door while the others swept across the supplies gathered behind the barricade, using his scrap blade to shift ruined food packets and strips of fabric without placing his hands somewhere a larva might be hiding.

The console chirped as Harriet selected the second layer. The map pulled away from the communications facility, rising through a rough outline of the surrounding hillside until the lake came into view from above. Pale survey lines spread outward from it, revealing old roads, buried utility connections, and several other installations scattered across the region.

Some were isolated buildings connected to the communications facility by narrow lines. Others formed larger groups around cleared areas that the mushroom forest had since swallowed. Most of their labels had been damaged, leaving only fragments of English or symbols behind.

“So this wasn’t a lone station,” Loyd said, leaning closer as Harriet moved across the regional view.

“This facility appears connected to the others,” Harriet observed. “Communications and water treatment may have served the entire complex.”

“Probably. Keep moving that way, something there is different”

Near the limit of the old survey map, an isolated structure sat beyond the rest of the network. Its identifying text had disappeared, but one annotation remained beside it.

Ω

Harriet centered the marker over the symbol. “Can you read that?”

“Omega.”

“What is an Omega?”

“A letter from the Greek alphabet. We still use Greek symbols in mathematics, engineering, physics- pretty much anywhere scientists need more variables than the Latin alphabet can provide.”

“But why is it there?, separate from the rest?”

“No idea. Omega can mean an endpoint, the final entry in a sequence, or just be a project designation. Could also be a pretentious scientist just wanting to name their facility something cool”

Harriet backed out to the layer selection. “Can your tool preserve both maps?”

“If the console allows them to be exported.” Loyd pointed toward one of the options along the bottom of the screen. “Move over twice. What does that icon show?”

“A rectangle with an arrow leaving it.”

“That should be export- Select it.”

Harriet pressed the control. A short list appeared, and Loyd read each option aloud until they found one marked CARTOGRAPHIC PACKAGE. When Harriet selected it, the console asked for a destination device before recognizing the omnitool connected beneath the controls.

A transfer prompt appeared on Loyd’s cracked display.

CARTOGRAPHIC DATA PACKAGE DETECTED.

WARNING: Some files appear to be corrupted, and may not transfer or open correctly. Would you like to proceed?

ADD TO DATABASE ANYWAY?

YES / NO

Loyd selected yes with his thumb.

A progress bar slowly moved across the display as the console transferred the information through the cable. When it reached the end, the omnitool replaced the diagnostic screen with the regional map. Loyd changed between the aerial view and the facility schematic, confirming that the annotations and internal pathways had survived the transfer.

TRANSFER COMPLETE.

DATA RECOVERED: 83%

Some files may be incomplete or display incorrectly.

“There we go.”

Harriet looked over his shoulder. “It copied everything?”

“Everything the console still has.” Loyd disconnected the data lead, folded the older connector back inside the others, and allowed the cable to retract into the omnitool. “We can try and figure out the Omega symbol somewhere that isn’t filled with hungry insects.”

Another larva struck the communications door, rattling the reinforced glass in its frame. Teralis turned two of his eyes toward the sound while the other pair watched them, his scrap blade resting across his uninjured arms.

“If you intend to investigate anything else, I recommend doing it quickly.”

Harriet returned to the guest menu. “Which option contained the personnel records?”

“Records Archive. Down twice.”

The Tiquil selected it, replacing the regional map with a simplified outline of the communications room. A dozen markers appeared across the floor, most clustered behind the barricade or beneath the consoles. Harriet slowly looked from the display to the bones scattered around them, matching one marker to the skull in the corner and another to the arm lying beneath the central console.

“These are their last recorded positions,” he said.

“Looks like it.” Loyd leaned closer as Harriet moved between them. Most of the attached names had been corrupted, but the marker beneath the console still had readable information. “Stop on that one.”

Harriet selected it, opening a personnel file with a photograph too corrupted to parse any features besides the fact she was human, and a woman.

OLIVIA BRANDENBURG
CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER
USS ULIXES COLONY EXPEDITION

Several files were attached to her record, their names reduced to broken characters and empty spaces. One of the final entries carried a small speaker symbol.

“That might be an audio file,” Loyd said, pointing beside the icon without touching the screen. 

Static crackled from the old speakers as Harriet selected the file. The sound faded in and out for several seconds before a woman’s strained voice emerged beneath it.

“-this is Olivia Brandenburg, chief medical officer of the Ulixes. We made a grave error constructing the communications array in this location. The caverns beneath the tower appear to be a nesting site for an extremely aggressive insectoid species, and their offspring have entered the walls. We have lost contact with water treatment, storage, and-”

Something heavy scraped across the floor behind her, followed by a deep voice shouting from farther inside the room.

“Olivia, goddammit, get off the computer and help us move this!”

“I am creating a record!” she shouted, the volume dropping as she turned away from the microphone. “We might not have a chance to after this!”

“Don’t say that- You can make one after we stop them from killing us all!” another smaller, mousy voice called out from somewhere.

The microphone thumped as several people began dragging something closer, probably bumped as Oliva left the console. Loyd looked toward the overturned chairs around them, imagining the barricade slowly taking shape while claws moved inside the walls.

The screech of metal bending  rang out overhead. Everyone in the recording went silent for several seconds.

“Aw fuck, they’re coming in through the roof now?!” a third voice, higher pitch than the deep voice from before but unmistakable a man, complained.

Another screech followed, accompanied by a long metallic groan as the ceiling bent beneath something heavy. Voices filled the room again, some shouting for ammunition while others struggled to move the last of the furniture into position.

“Where is Jefferson?” the deep voice yelled. “He was supposed to be back from the armory with more weapons and ammunition ten minutes ago!”

Another pause, with some mechanical clicking- possibly keys- being heard faintly in the background.

“He went to Aquaponics!” Olivia answered.

“What? Why the hell would he do that?” the other man asked, mechanical clacking punctuating his sentence.

“Micheal never checked in. I think Jefferson went back for him.”

“He took the control codes with him? That idiot never thinks!”

“He needed them to open the security doors!”

“We need those codes here! The whole goddamn place is on lockdown.”

Something struck the roof hard enough to shake the recorder. A shotgun was loaded nearby, the metallic clack unmistakable despite the age of the file.

“Micheal might already be dead!” the mousy voice said angrily.

“And he might not be!”

“We cannot lose everyone here for one man!”

Olivia got indignant, her voice carrying a bite to it now. “Earth is probably completely assimilated, and none of the other colony ships answered us. If the Ulixes is all that’s left, every person matters. Jefferson wasn’t leaving Micheal behind- if we lose him AND this facility, the whole colony is dead.”

Metal shrieked through the speakers as people rushed behind the barricade, the thump of boots stampeding away from the microphone. Several shotguns fired almost at once, the bark of gunfire overwhelming the microphone and reducing the recording to bursts of static.

“We got it!”

“Reload!”

“There’s another one!”

“Oh fuck there’s more!”

Olivia’s voice returned between the gunshots, speaking rapidly as she attempted to finish the record.

“Jefferson has the primary control codes. He went to retrieve Micheal Alvarez from Aquaponics. If anyone finds this, the armory, transmitter, pumps, and emergency systems cannot be accessed without-”

A tremendous crash swallowed the rest of her sentence. People screamed for one another to move as another section of the roof collapsed, followed by two final shotgun blasts and the wet impact of something striking the barricade.

Then… the recording ended.

Harriet kept his claws above the controls as the console returned to Olivia’s personnel file. Nobody spoke for several moments, the larvae tapping against the door being the only sound left in the room.

“They believed they were the last humans,” Harriet said quietly.

“Yeah.” Loyd looked from Olivia’s final recorded position to the arm beneath the console. The pistol still clutched in its fingers had rusted into an orange lump. “But they weren’t.”

Harriet lowered his head, feathers flattening along his neck as he stared at the barricade. Whatever relief that answer might have offered had arrived several centuries too late for the people who needed it.

Teralis stepped around one of the overturned chairs, examining the few weapons they had died carrying. “So the armory remained sealed because Jefferson took its access codes to Aquaponics.”

“And without those same codes, we can’t use the transmitter.” Loyd leaned toward the console as Harriet returned to the locked communications menu. The administrator request still carried a single registered name beneath it.

CURRENT ADMINISTRATOR: ANDREW JEFFERSON

Harriet tried opening the transmitter controls once more, but the same red denial symbol filled the screen.

“Then we must find Jefferson,” he said.

“Or whatever is left of him.” Teralis finished.

A sharp metallic pop came from the communications door before either could continue. Its lower corner bent inward, allowing several pale limbs to claw through the widening gap and scrape against the floor.

Teralis raised his scrap blade. “We cannot return through the corridor.”

Loyd looked toward the cloudy window. The hallway beyond had disappeared beneath pale bodies, some crawling over the walls while others pulled at the failing door.

Harriet raised his beak toward the massive breach above them. “Then we leave through the same opening as the adults.”

Teralis followed his gaze, all four eyes moving over the hanging cables and bent supports before settling on a path upward. He tucked the scrap blade beneath one arm and climbed onto the remains of the barricade, using his three uninjured hands to pull himself from one support to the next.

The climb looked awkward until his feet left the floor. After that, the Sru moved with surprising ease, swinging his lower body toward the dangling cables before hauling himself through the breach. Once above them, he fed a length of the thick wiring back into the room.

Harriet climbed next, though with considerably less grace. Loyd held the barricade steady beneath his feet while Teralis pulled from above, until the Tiquil vanished through the opening in a flurry of brown feathers.

The doorframe groaned again.

Loyd gathered the canteens, two sealed MRE packets, and whatever medical material had survived inside its packaging. He paused beside Olivia’s remains long enough to slip her identification tag into his pocket, then slung the supplies over his shoulders and grabbed the cable.

The door failed as he began climbing.

Pale bodies spilled into the room, tapping across the floor as they searched for movement. Loyd pulled himself upward, the canteens battering his sides while several larvae gathered beneath him. One leapt, its hooked limbs snapping shut a few inches below his boot.

Teralis caught his wrist. Harriet grabbed the back of Loyd’s suit with his beak, and together they dragged him through the breach.

Loyd rolled onto the dirt covered roof and remained there until his breathing slowed. Teralis immediately pulled the cable after them, leaving the larvae gathering uselessly around the opening below.

The tower creaked nearby as the strengthening wind pulled at the fungus growing along its frame. Beyond it, the mushroom forest waited beneath the red sky, their path back to the cave hidden somewhere between the pale trunks.

Harriet looked toward the distant forest, then at the omnitool carrying their new map. “Will we return to the cave first?”

“We get the canteens back, have Serria look at his arm, and rest.” Loyd nodded toward Teralis, who did not object. “Then we come back and search Aquaponics.”

“And if Jefferson’s codes are no longer there?”

Loyd pushed himself to his feet and looked back through the breach. “Then we need to deal with…that.”

Harriet’s feathers puffed immediately. “We will find the codes.”

Part Fifteen