With a bit of help from Vreta, 595 shrugged off the bulky transit station. Still sliding through the snow on her side with the Rothian keeping pace, she pulled the comms cable out of her back and stood up. The sky immediately above them was alight with plasma fire, but singed x-wings had found their way under the umbrella now and were flying about them.

Gritting her teeth, 595 caught a vampire out of the air as razor claws scraped her armour. She punched another one to the floor, then violently squeezed the creature she had in her hand. It disappeared in a flash, with a small cloud of ash floating out from between her fingers.

Bright blue accents appeared on the Agent’s armour, and jagged arcs of energy crackled around her. She pushed her arms out to either side of her, and chain lightning erupted through the swarm of predators, connecting all of them like leaves of a giant fiery tree. Hundreds thumped to the floor straight away, and the others screeched and rolled about them, confused.

“Lets go!” 595 bellowed, as the whole mountain shivered and vibrated under their feet. The rig dropped out of sight - was the cube staying still or rising up? - and a great shower of stone burst from the side of the peak off to their left.

The head of a giant worm, similar to the one who had greeted them into the simulation last time, poked out of the mountain. It was followed by more of its body, like a train emerging from a tunnel and off a cliff. Its beady front-facing eyes were fixed on the flickering lights of the rig. A continuous stream of light spat from somewhere below them, from the rig’s turret. It splayed across the worm’s face, narrowly missing its eyes.

---

”I need to reconnect with the Rübezahl! You won’t have the last minute, and that could be the key! Swap with me!” Freyr shouted over the crescendo of alarms blaring in the bridge now. She locked the steering controls in place then jumped up, moving back to the command console. “Power at 5%, anti-grav failing!” Dr Zimmermann reported, having transitioned from the code lab to the power plant. “Don’t let us spin!” Freyr urged Nirann. “Everyone else out, get clear!” Activating her mag-boots, Freyr keyed in her command override, trying to find the loose groundmast in the tumbling slurry of rocks around them.

With the two plasma throwers firing into the air, some of the creatures were outright incinerated, while many were kept at bay. Some were getting around the cloud of plasma with only minor burns, but they at least came in more manageable numbers than an entire swarm. Mar swapped her particle cannon to its faster firing mode to try and deal with as many as she could. Despite the speed of the creatures, she was still deadly accurate. The particle beams from her rifle traveled at near light speed, so she merely needed to point and shoot. She could cover at least one angle herself, though that still left plenty swarming around the cloud of plasma.

For this kind of threat, Vreta found the plasma throwers to be a good idea. He swapped his rifle to that same mode as well. While Mar covered one angle, Vreta picked another to immolate. These creatures were not made of stone, so they could be incinerated just as well as one would expect. Still, that did not stop some from reaching them. Agent 595, on her part, seemed intent on killing them with her hands, at least at first.

Vreta was surprised at first at the blinding glow from behind him. It was over in just a moment, but from what he gathered, 595 had some kind of electricity-based weapon integrated into her armor. He had not expected it, but it was pretty much the perfect sort of weapon for this situation. It gave them the space they needed to move, in any case. “Let’s go! We just need to get beyond the jamming field, then we can use a transit station.”

---

“It’s not worth dying over! If we don’t evacuate now, that ‘key’ will end up buried with you!” Nirann argued. He did what he could to keep the rig stable, but the limited power restricted his options. He did not have the power left to use the rig’s transit capabilities on everyone, but he did have one idea in mind. While Freyr was distracted, he rushed out to the adjacent storage room.

Marae, meanwhile, did not hesitate to make the call to evacuate over their team-wide comms. “Everyone, find your nearest transit station and use it immediately! And I mean everyone, soldiers included.”

It only took Nirann a moment to return holding one of the mobile transit stations under his arm. He said nothing to Freyr to call attention to it and instead simply started to deploy it in the center of the room without a word. With just a touch of his hand to the top, three sensors shot out from its rounded edges. They were suspended by anti-grav fields at first, until they attached themselves to the floor at three points, which encompassed most of the space in the small room. The sensors could scan in a triangular area between them as accurately as the physical platform of the larger version. It could not handle large objects, but it would be more than enough for a few individuals.

“And where might that be, exactly!” 595 asked, as the vast cube they were standing on slowly drifted free of the mountain with an eerie creaking sound. The rocky shoulder that it’d been embedded in began collapsing into a wide avalanche. They were stranded.

The worm had uncovered about a hundred metres of its body, and was beginning to plummet down the now-sheer face of the mountain after the rig. It gnashed its mandibles and sprayed acid from its jaws. 595 assessed their options and made a snap decision.

“We need to go after them! This whole place is falling apart! Follow me!”

She lowered her hands and grabbed her gun off its mount. Energy still crackled around her armour now that she’d tapped into the cube’s power. She ran out from under the plasma umbrella and jumped, exploding up and through the vicious cloud of killer creatures above them. They dispersed around her, terrified.

Who configured this jump pack?! The Agent thought as she frantically windmilled through the snowy air. Dozens of talons raked her suit and blood sprayed all over her visor. She started firing her weapon indiscriminately in all directions, until the ground zoomed to meet her.

The Agent dropped, rolled and carried on firing, running towards the edge of the cube.

---

Without enough power, the anti-grav couldn’t stop the rig from crunching hard against the side of the mountain. One corner hit a solid section, and the rig began turning over. “Everyone inside, now!” Thebes commanded. “Kjartan! Get out of there, that’s an order!” He yelled at the Norse, who was still shooting at the worm.

Freyr was engrossed in the console, sweat running down her face. The Rübezahl was racing down the side of the mountain, on the inside, trying to get back to the mothership. She was frantically trying to make a connection that would allow her to extract it and the last bit of data. “Come on...Come ON!” Around her, loose articles began sliding around the floors, walls, and into the air.

For now, Vreta had no problem following in 595’s wake. The weapon she used was effective for clearing the creatures, and any that remained could be burned away by bursts of his plasma thrower. Her thrusters seemed overpowered for her weight, but as long as he did not delay, Vreta could keep up enough to follow behind. The farther they moved away from the hatchway behind them, the more reliable sensory information Rhia could access. She observed each and every creature within her view as best as she could, calculating their positions and velocities to identify priority targets for Vreta and overlay their projected paths onto his HUD. She had done as well as she could, given the circumstances, to keep him from getting overwhelmed. His armor would not be threatened by the odd scratch from a stray creature’s claws.

For Eti and her team, it was clear they did not have to worry about being too protective of their civilians. They could focus more on protecting the unit as a whole. With 595 clearing the space ahead, Eti and Kelest focused their fire on guarding the flanks. They could fill the air with plasma to deny space to the creatures and prevent them from flying in behind them.

The Agent herself was intent on reaching the rig. Strictly speaking, they only needed to reach some stable ground to deploy a transit station, but the rig would serve that purpose just fine. Either way, they needed to get off of this cube, so diving off the side was a plan they could all agree to.

Vreta did not hesitate to leap from the side of the cube. Once finally free from the effects of the jamming field, Rhia could finally had an unclouded view of the environment through her full sensor array. Vreta’s HUD came alive with alerts to steer him clear of danger, recommendations on burn timings and strength for his thrusters, and a clearly marked landing area on top of the rig.

---

From his console, Nirann had at least some limited view of the interior of the rig through lifesign readouts. Provided they were still accurate, it seemed that at least some of the crew had managed to transit so far, though the Sacred Band still needed to make their way inside. The common room was close to most of their positions, so Nirann added on quickly after Thebes’ order. “The common room is close. You can set up your transit station inside. Anyone else who doesn’t have a transit station in front of you, get there quick as well.” At this point, he wanted to get everyone else who was left into the same room. The Sacred Band would certainly have a station of their own to deploy, so they naturally could use it, but Nirann saw no harm in hedging his bets with multiple escape plans.

Nirann muted his comms and turned back towards Marae. “I’ll make sure they get out. Go ahead and transit, love.”

“Nir-”

Marae could not get out so much as a word before Nirann interrupted her. “We talked about this. You know my mind has the best chance of handling the trauma. Just hurry.”

Ultimately, Marae wasted no more time. Regardless of her worries, she trusted Nirann wholly. He made sure he was out of the scanning area before she moved quickly to the station he had set up between them, then transited away. He no longer bothered asking Freyr to leave, as he had his own plan in mind for the evacuation.

595 jumped off the side and quickly set her sights on the ailing rig. It had already lost some of its wheels, and was spinning through outcrops about a quarter of the way down the mountainside. She could its anti-gravity thrusters straining under the incredible pressure. The worm was hot on its tail, but had elected for a slightly more controlled descent, sliding down the side with the rest of the avalanche.

It would be on them in seconds if the rig got stuck, or if it reached the bottom without exploding, she figured. What a dumb idea this was. But she had to make sure Dr Lang got out; she needed her. “Come in, come in. Anybody left aboard the rig?” 595 called over comms. No immediate response. She could still see lights on and engines firing, which meant someone was probably still inside.

The Agent tucked her arms and legs in to assume an aerodynamic shape, and with a muffled boom her jump jets fired again. Her HUD readout alerted her that she only had one more charge left.

She sailed past the worm, aiming for the top of the rig. Before she could touch down though, it span violently over to the other side. 595 hit the side of the rig like a brick and scrabbled for a hand hold. She looked up and could see the mangled top deck gantry right in front of her. The rig carried on turning over. She was going to be on the underside of this giant flying object in a few seconds. Even now, her legs were beginning to float out underneath her.

Nirann could not help but to feel some fear creeping up inside him. The rig did not have the power to control its descent completely, and sensor information from the outside was worryingly limited. He did not know how much time they had, especially once he started to feel the rig listing farther to the side. Fortunately, he did not have to wait too long. The lifesigns readout he was watching suggested that the others had made it to the common room, and he had no reason to wait for them to get their own transit station set up.

While he had not had enough power to transit everyone in every room, he could push the power he had available to transit everyone in a single room. Luckily, the fact that they had given him the responsibility of operating most of the rig’s systems meant that he could have a great deal of control over its power distribution. He was able to shift power to the common room and transit out everyone inside at once.

The sudden drain of energy would certainly affect the anti-grav, so Nirann wasted no time in doing what needed to be done. The whole rig started to list even more heavily, but the claws on his feet could pierce through the metal floor itself to give him enough grip to keep moving. Each step reverberated throughout the small room as he bent and crumpled the paneling beneath him as he steadily made his way up behind Freyr. She still held on tight at her her console despite all happening around them.

It would be quite impossible for Freyr not to hear Nirann coming, but all the same, she might have been surprised by his next step. All the sudden, he clamped his hands down around both of her forearms from behind. He did not squeeze too tightly, but his grip was like a vice all the same: unmoving, no matter how much she might struggle.

“Sorry, but we’re leaving.” Nirann said before pulling her away from the console into the scan area. He took a few steps back, then hit the button on the station with his tail to transit the both of them away.

---

Rhia guided Vreta in every step of the way to land on the rig. He was slower to reach the rig than 595, but he could be more controlled with his thrusters, so his landing was considerably better. Instead of smashing into the hull at speed, he matched its downward velocity and spin before landing and used his magnetic boots to touch down gently. Altogether, he even had a better landing than the rest of Eti’s team. Still, anti-grav on the rig had now weakened to the point that it was spinning out of control, and the worm above them had it in its sights.

”I picked up a pair of power spikes from the rig on our way in, consistent with the use of transit stations.” Rhia quickly informed Vreta. There was a great deal else that Rhia could tell Vreta about at the moment, but she was keeping any commentary brief and mission-critical.

“We just need to get out of here!” Vreta said through comms. “I picked up some energy readings on the way in; the others have probably already evacuated. We just need some stable ground to deploy my transit station.”

“NO, I’M SO CLOSE!” Freyr pleaded, struggling in Nirann’s vice-like grip. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” She didn’t have time to say exactly how close she was to a breakthrough, because the transit station activated and her avatar was atomised.

---

”I’m going inside, check everyone is out. Not convinced we’re getting through. Transit out, i’ll be right behind you.” 595 announced over comms. Using the rig’s spin to her advantage, she dropped onto the underside of the rig’s upper outside deck. Holding onto the metal mesh flooring, she swung round so the upside-down bulkhead door was in front of her.

Just like on the monkey bars, 595 grabbed onto the mesh again and maneuvered herself over to the door. She hit the door release with her foot as the rig began righting again; it was speeding up. She swung herself inside and fell onto one of the walls, then to the floor.

595 quickly stood up and her magnetic soles activated. She moved through the airlock into the common room. Loose furniture and supplies crashed around as the rig careered towards the ground. Alarms and red flashing lights assaulted the senses. Several of the wall panels were sparking violently.

595 deflected a chair and studied the floor. A mobile transit station had been set up in here. “Anyone here?” 595 called, in person and via the team channel.

She moved quickly through the gangway towards the bridge. It was empty as well, with another temporary transit station recharging from a recent use. The central console was mostly dead, with most extraneous functionality having been damaged. “Dr Lang! It’s me.” The Agent called over the ruckus. No response again, just the shaking from the outer hull and clanking of loose articles inside.

Suddenly, one small workspace lit up green for success. 595 saw [UPLINK SUCCESSFUL] and moved over to it. Not all of what she saw made sense, but she understood enough to realise this was important. And it hadn’t been touched yet. Resting a finger on the holo, 595 downloaded as much as she could and stored it securely.

Once she was satisfied, the Agent pulled out her sidearm and emptied a dozen shots into the command console. Sparks burst out all over the room.

595 wasted no time moving to the ‘Captain’s Panel’ by the cockpit door next. She could see through the windows there that the ground was alarmingly close. 595 quickly pulled a physical access stick from one of her pockets and plugged it into the panel. She keyed in a separate string manually, then activated the self-destruct sequence.

Holstering her pistol, 595 moved into the transit station field and prepared to exfil.

Ultimately, Vreta was not willing to follow 595 any farther this time. The rig’s anti-grav was failing, and the last place he would want to be was inside if it hit the ground at speed. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no dissuading the Agent, so all Vreta could do was to make sure everyone else got out alive.

Mercifully, there was nothing to actually stop them from evacuating. Vreta, along with Eti’s team, boosted away from the rig, back in the direction of the mountain. The worm was still in pursuit, but fortunately, it seemed to have its sights on the rig itself, rather than any of the tiny creatures flying around it. Vreta could only guess that it would end up disappointed in the end, but he would be long-gone by then.

The side of the mountain was mostly steep and jagged, but Vreta managed to find a space that was flat enough for their needs. As the worm fell past the group, Vreta did spare one more look over the edge while the transit station was deploying. Despite his rather strong distrust for Agent 595, he did hope she made it out of this alive. If nothing else, they were going to need to have a conversation soon. Regardless, once the station was ready, he joined Eti’s team in returning to the real world.

Such was the intimacy of the simulation, that Freyr’s feeling of anguish carried over to her real body. It was if she’d just sneezed in one place and found herself in another. She saw the harsh lights of the Barb’s staging area above, with a drone hovering in the corner of her vision. Quite like the rig, she could hear klaxons sounding in the distance.

When her vitals indicated it was safe, the drone lowered slightly and freed her from the harness. The familiar faces of a junior researcher and Masgard Xandrus loomed over her, cutting out the light. “Dr Lang, are you alright?” Masgard asked, giving her hand a light squeeze. At first she struggled to speak, her throat bone-dry. “The...uplink.” She croaked, carefully levering her body into a sitting position on the table. Someone handed her a bottle of water, which she drank greedily.

“The uplink!” She shouted once she was able. She took Masgard’s hand and jumped down unsteadily onto the floor.

“We tried to retrieve the full packet as soon as it became available, but the console went dark before we could.” Dr Zimmermann called back, from the holo-map across the room. Several of the scientists who had previously been in the simulation huddled around him, but looked to Freyr for direction. She felt her face and fists crumple up. “No!” She snarled, swiping a toolbox off a work table and onto the floor. It opened with a crack and metal tools clattered out.

She crouched on the floor with her head in her hands, trying to gather some thoughts. After a moment, Freyr reached into her pocket for another pill, and watched it jiggle in her shaking hand before swallowing it down.

“Everyone is out. Cut the link NOW!” Someone commanded over the loudspeaker. “Someone tried to hack us.” Masgard offered helpfully, crouching next to Freyr and patting her back. “Come on, let's get you sat down so someone can take a look at you.”

As Freyr accepted help getting shakily back to her feet, she spotted 595 levering her legs over the side of her harness table nearby. The Agent nodded at her, seemingly distracted.

“Rig self-destruct complete. Closing connection with the FOB now.” Dr Wetherall announced.

In light of the unprecedented circumstances, Rareth had moved to the bridge of the Barbarossa along with the Captain to make sure she had access to as much information as possible, though she still stayed in constant contact with her people on the surface. As soon as she had confirmation that no more of their people remained in the simulation, she gave her orders to the engineers down at the FOB. “Do it now! Modulate the shield!” They could not block the signals while they still had people connected, but now, they could adjust the containment shield to block all incoming signals in order to protect it against whatever it was that was scanning it.

Now that the immediate crisis had ended, Rareth could not take a break in dealing with the next. A scan of unknown origin had affected the planet, as well as the object and everything connected to it. That in itself opened up a myriad of questions, and she hoped they would be able to get some answers. As soon as it was detected, Rothia directed an impressive array of sensors towards finding its source. Hopefully, the analysis of that data would give the answers they wanted, but nothing that happened would change their plans in the short run. As soon as she could, Rareth gave the go-ahead to power up the gateway they had moved into position around the object. They needed to get the object into its orbit around the void star as soon as they could.

Despite all of the unexpected events that had transpired, there was one aspect of the Rothians’ plans that had still proceeded uninterrupted. The data stream from the Barbarossa had been secretly intercepted and copied from the moment they had entered the object. Every piece of data that had been sent to the object, they now could analyze on their own time. Of course, there was one mind in particular in which they were interested. Agent 595 had secrets in her memories that could allay the Rothians’ fears, or confirm them. The data stream was immensely complex, of course, and they would have to discover how to decode the mnemonic impressions originally intended for the object. Though, the notion of digitized minds was something with which they had…relevant experience. Agent Vreta’Sori had already done a great deal to assist in isolating the memories they were specifically interested in with just a few words. As soon as they had entered the simulation, he had approached her to ask leading questions, not with the expectation that she would answer, but just to make sure she would think about the question. He had asked about her encounter with the entity, her experience in the cave, and even spoke about the motivations of the Director-General. His commentary would have ensured that the memories they were interested in passed through 595’s mind, and therefore were available to be intercepted.

The data intercepted from 595 was sent securely, to Threria. Nirann handled the virtual package momentarily, but he would not be the one to analyze it. The place the package was sent went beyond the clearance of even the Rahn’Masser, and into the care of a mind unlike any other.

Captain Andersen stood in the centre of the bridge with her arms crossed. She was surrounded by a swirling mass of hurried staff. Half of them were working with the ship’s AI to close the Barb off to further cyber infiltrations, and assess the extent of the hack. The other half were working with the Rothians to identify the source of the signal.

From what she understood, whatever scanned them had been achingly sophisticated and efficient, even by Rothia’s lofty standards. The signal also appeared to originate from extremely far away. As Captain, she had duly informed Fleet Command of the intrusion. She wasn’t in the Need To Know loop, but Andersen suspected most of the Outreman Navy was now on high alert and moving into position around their homeworld. If it hadn’t been already, that is.

For now, they were on their own with the Rothians, with zero Navy support on-station. Measures of last resort had been unlocked on her panel. Nothing could take the Barb in one piece, those were her orders.

Now, she was waiting with bated breath for more information. Rareth stood nearby, looking intimidating as usual. Andersen had half a mind to request she vacate the bridge, but was mindful of strained relations at the moment. “Ma’am, we’ve narrowed down the vector.” One of her chief engineers called.

“Well?”

“Gurguris XII. Middle of nowhere, ma’am.”

“Put it up.”

A tight cluster of suns, strewn with galactic debris, appeared on the vast 3D holo in front of them. It lay far beyond the bounds of Human and known Rothian civilisation.

“Any idea what’s scanning us?”

“Not yet, we’re working on it.”

“Ok. Any advance on how much they got?”

Another science officer answered, from the other side of the Bridge. “We’re still tracing the steps they took, ma’am. But it looks like they got to most of the top network.” Andersen grimaced. "Keep looking."

Rareth had all of the relevant results from her people’s scans sent to her implants, as well as observing whatever the Barbarossa had managed to detect. The foreign signal had scanned the planet itself, but it had interacted directly with the Human ship’s internal systems, so they had at least been in position to get a close look at the signal. In any case, her people’s trace of the signal did agree with that of the Humans, so they had a likely location for a source.

“We have a source and a vector.” Rareth commented. “Our trace agrees with yours, so we know the star system of origin. The scan was carried through sophisticated FTL signaling, perhaps even somewhat faster than our own. What we need to determine is the reason. This scan was particularly directed at the object itself, and connected systems, but how would the source know of it? Neither my people nor yours were broadcasting about our investigation towards this remote portion of space, and certainly not along FTL channels. So how did this source know to scan us at all?”

Meanwhile, the Rothians did not delay in carrying out the next part of the plan, regardless of the interference of this outside scan. A gateway had been moved into position around the object, so once it powered on, they were able to send it through the wormhole in an instant to another that a Rothian cruiser had moved into position in orbit around the void star. Without delay, smaller tug vessels surrounded the object and started to carefully slot it into a specialized frame they had fabricated with thrusters to allow them to steer the object into its carefully calculated orbit. They had planned out its path and calculated the effects of relativity down to the second, so they knew exactly when it would be returning from its orbit.

Andersen looked curiously at Rareth, then directed an eyebrow at her team.

“Well…it could be these signals have always been transmitting, just hidden.” One of her chiefs hypothesised. “Like a sleeper cell, waiting for the activation sequence.”

Andersen nodded, then turned back to Rareth. “My instructions are to stay with the asset until it’s safely back on Outremer. In sixty seconds i’m going to report this new info to my superiors, who will undoubtedly want to investigate. Do you want me to recommend a joint operation?”

Rareth turned her head towards Andersen. “That would be for the best. I believe we…” Her voice trailed off for a moment as she performed a quick search of the Rothian gateway network. “Yes, we do have a gateway that can get us closer, though it is still quite a remote system. No official survey of the system has been performed; only remote observations.”

In mind frustration, Rareth growled softly under her breath. “I doubt we will make much progress with our guesses. We need actual analysis of hard data. These scans would need to come through an FTL medium in order to react to the object at such a distance, and if they are persistent scans, as you suggest, then they would be detectable in historical data. Perhaps now we will be able to look back and find it, now that we know what to look for.”

---

In the evening after their excursion into the simulation, Vreta had personally debriefed with Rareth and Director Valic’Ans in Threria. Even without having yet completed their analysis of the data intercepted from 595, they had still learned enough to act. Rareth and Valic both had several ideas on how they might take advantage of the information, but Vreta first wanted to try a diplomatic approach. He was not sure how much success he was truly expecting, but it came with little risk to try. There was nothing he would be sharing that she did not already know.

It was during the next day that Vreta once again made his way into orbit as a guest of the Barbarossa. He was permitted in the crew quarters already, so he required no special permission to go seek out the agent. He wanted to speak to her privately. Although it was essentially guaranteed that nothing they spoke of would be secret, it was still prudent that they both be able to choose precisely who heard it. Regardless of what had happened to them the previous day, Vreta still doubted that 595 expected to see him when she answered her door. “Good day, Agent. There is a matter I would like to discuss with you. May I enter?”

595 had a lot to think about after the operation. She’d been taught from ancient texts, like everyone else. No one could deny her fanaticism for the cause. Yet, her role as sin-eater required a certain open-mindedness, to avoid compromising the mission. It was this thread of assimilation with Outremer at large that pulled at the back of her mind. Something was different between what she’d seen today and everything she’d been told before.

She’d checked Dr Lang was alright after the bumpy extraction. The scientist had seemed badly shaken, and for good reason. 595 had long since been desensitised to stressful situations like the rig falling off a cliff, but she was aware that many of these academics had led relatively sedentary lives until the last few months. The Agent had made sure they were accessing the support they needed, then retired to her quarters to fuck a crewmate and then meditate.

The Agent was holding a Dragon Squat in the middle of her room, low to the floor and completely motionless with her eyes closed when there was a knock at the door. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at her armour, which stood to attention in front of her with its visor down. “Answer it.” She ordered calmly.

The suit of armour padded silently to the door and unlocked it. It swished quietly open, and 595 could see her opposite number standing in the entryway. Already? The guy was insatiable. “What a pleasant surprise, Vreta’Sori! Come on in.” 595 ladled on the syrup, seamlessly exiting the squat and warming down her fiery muscles. “That was a close one, huh? Nothing like a bit of skydiving to make you feel alive.”

Even Vreta had to admit that his facade had grown rather thin by this point. For someone who was meant to be a diplomat, he had done fairly well diving off of a cliff in pursuit of a falling vehicle, weaving between falling debris while outrunning a giant worm. At this point, his excuse of being a former soldier was mostly just for official records. The unspoken truth was likely known between them, though it would have to remain unspoken.

“I think our peoples have very…different responses to near-death experiences.” Vreta remarked as he stepped into the Agent’s room, ignoring the armor entirely as he approached her. “I know not everyone is satisfied with how the mission went, but for what it’s worth, I am glad we were able to get everyone out alive this time. And I feel we still learned a great deal. I’ve already given my people my best report of my experiences, but, and I’m not sure about you, there is still some of it that I am trying to make sense of. I was going to suggest that it might help to talk through some of it.”

Vreta crossed his arms, staring ahead at nothing in particular for a few moments. “I remember being in that darkened room. I was…excited. The most exciting day of my life, really. As much as I tried to avoid it, I couldn’t help but to be a bit anxious. I didn’t show it, though, except for maybe a bit of sweat on my brow. But I stopped thinking about all of that as soon as the Director-General started talking. It was my time, and I was ready.”

Vreta finally looked more directly towards 595. “I remember all of that as clearly as if it had actually happened to me.”

595 nodded placidly along as Vreta discussed the mission, idly massaging her bum and inner thighs over the top of her shorts. But soon, her facial expression turned hard and she stared coldly at Vreta when he began describing something to her. A darkened room? The Director-General? Was he talking about the Institute? He couldn’t possibly know about that!

...Unless...

595 recalled the jumble of strange scenes that’d played out immediately after she’d looked inside the Navigator’s head. Before they’d turned into those squid things, she’d seen something as if she were Vreta. It’d felt like a dream in its brevity, with a long time crunched into a few seconds. But it was really as if she’d felt those emotions herself. Could that have been an actual memory, rather than a construct of her own making? 595 supposed it was possible. She tried to remember the events that’d unfolded, and found she could still clearly recall.

And if she’d received one of Vreta’s memories as her own, could he have received one of hers in return? The prospect of this giant lizard seeing through her eyes made 595’s skin crawl.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Agent calmly picked up her water bottle and took a big drink. “Are you sure you’re not just imagining things? Fantasising about me and my life?" She smirked. "Turn around, I'm going to take a shower.”

The Agent was deflecting the subject, which certainly meant that he was on the right track. He just had to keep pressing in the conversation, rather than let her try to derail it. “I really do think this is worth discussing. We shared several memories when we looked into that beam of light, including one of mine and yours. It might help us both to discuss it.”

Vreta crossed his arms, briefly staring off at nothing as his mind went back to the memories. “I always thought you hid your name, operating behind a moniker to better maintain your anonymity. Now I see, though, that you don’t have your old name anymore. Agent 595 is who you are. It’s a strange ritual you have, but…I think I understand it, in a way. You might be in a better position than you think to understand what it is to be Rothian. You know what it means to serve something much greater than yourself. And what we serve doesn’t necessarily have to be at odds. If you truly do serve the best interests of your people, then we can work together. My people don’t want to hurt yours, and I think you know that. Or you can know it, if you remember.”

“You don’t understand the first thing about me.” 595 sneered derisively. She snapped her fingers at her suit which was stood by the now closed door. “Come and stand here.” The suit duly obeyed, padding over and standing between 595 and Vreta. It crossed its arms, mirroring the Rothian’s stance.

595 quickly peeled the top and shorts from her sweaty body and chucked them across the room into the laundry unit. “Outremer at large may be willing to overlook your extension of soft power throughout the galaxy. Your bleeding heart doctoring and compromised technology. But I don’t need you. We’re more than capable of handling this ourselves.”

Leaving her suit facing off with Vreta, 595 turned and headed into the bathroom cubicle behind her. She turned the shower on, staring at the floor to process this information. So he’d seen her graduation. That meant he could know about her first assignment, the start of it all. That complicated things a bit.

Without looking, she called back: “Was that all, Vreta’Sori?”

Briefly, Vreta gave a curious look towards the suit of armor, not necessarily because of the armor itself as much as the mere fact that she had it with her. From his stay on the Barbarossa, he had been under the impression that military arms and equipment would need to be checked into the armory when not in use. The fact that it was not implied that it was not military property. In any case, he did not spare more than a passing thought towards it before returning his attention to the conversation at hand. He did not care much for what 595 was doing, just that he keep her willing to talk.

“Not at all. I would be the first to admit that my people, as a whole, are not operating purely out of charity. We do have our own reasons, our own goals, but that does not mean the charity isn’t genuine. The universe is quite literally infinite, with more resources than all of us together could ever hope to exploit, even moving into Eternity. We have no reason to make enemies.” Vreta explained, though there was some slight delay from him as he thought back into his own memories. One he now shared with the Agent. It was an emotionally charged event for him, one that could bring him a smile or tears depending on his mood. It had not seemed like it at the time, but a few words he spoke there had altered the course of his life, and Karaz’s. “That day that you saw. That you experienced, really; it was an important one for me. You remember Karaz, yes? How couldn’t you? I know I can’t forget him. You seem to think that the way we treat other species is just a political game to gain favor, but Karaz believed in everything he was doing, fully and genuinely. You know it’s true, because I knew it was true. He was willing to give up everything to do what he thought was right. He was willing to give up his safety on Rothian worlds, friends, his marriage, all because he knew he could help people who needed it. And you know how I felt about it? Well, I don’t think I actually have to tell you.”

In this case, Agent 595 would indeed know the answer to Vreta’s question. He had felt proud of Karaz. Vreta had always felt that Karaz was perhaps too idealistic and did not consider practical concerns as much as he should, but Vreta still admired his ideals. He even felt some guilt about the fact that he had not been willing to take the step to join Karaz fully. It had been an option for him, but his own pragmatic concerns had prevented him from committing to it. He had not been willing to put as much trust in other species as Karaz had. Vreta was not completely selfless, and certainly not completely trusting, but those memories did show that Vreta did not lie about wanting to help other species, in addition to his own.

“Maybe we’re not perfect. Karaz certainly didn’t think so. But we’re not that bad, Agent. Perhaps your people can handle this on their own, but they don’t have to. Karaz, he might have been naive in some ways, but he was willing to step up and do what was needed in ways that others wouldn’t. I was too worried, not just about taking risks with our technology, but my career, wealth, my next retirement. I could have helped him more, but I was too worried about keeping my company and maintaining business agreements. And none of it even mattered in the end; it wasn’t long after that when I retired anyway.” Vreta’s voice softened, and he let out a sigh as he once again glanced at the armor suit’s cold, expressionless faceplate. He was not exactly sure how this would go, but in any case, his words would not just be words this time. His words would conjure up emotions that he knew now existed in the Agent’s mind. “Now there are more people in danger. Your people. Now I’m in a position to step up and act, and this time, I’m not going to make excuses to avoid it. We can work together; we don’t have to be at each other’s throats.”