“The last of your forebears developed a resistance to the Cradle in the end; broke a billion year cycle.” The strange entity hissed into Freyr’s ear as she writhed desperately about beneath the dark lake.

“What I need to know is…how you managed to break Us up as well.” Freyr saw a cluster of bubbles push their way out of Vreta’s mouth. Her chest started heaving for air.

“You may be useless now. But the more your Other self learns about us, the more we learn from you.”

With that, whatever was speaking to her pushed Freyr’s body completely into the pool. She felt water rushing past her as she sped through the pitch black space towards the haloed opening where Vreta was also being drowned. She raced towards him, arms outstretched, and closed her eyes.

---

With a gasp, Freyr opened her eyes and instantly regretted it. Bright lights from a drone were shining directly at her, and there were sharp pricks all over her body. People were shouting and moving quickly all around her, but she didn’t know where she was or what they were saying.

“He-...” Her voice cracked. “Help.”

“Subject’s vitals are stabilising.” A drone communicated to the Rothian doctor as Sergeant Skopec stopped the procession halfway down the corridor with an outstretched hand. “Doctor Lang. You’re awake! That is good.” He boomed in his peculiar accent. “We need to get you and your team out of here. It's not safe - too many alien craft attracting attention.” He shot an acerbic look at the Rothian delegation. “We’ve got a transport waiting to take you away. Just be still.”

Just then, Skopec’s eyes rolled back as he received a live feed from the AA mechs perched atop the building.

[CONTACT ALERT]

His eyes rolled back into focus, displaying a mote of fear.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” He yelled.

The Institute AA guns deployed for the safe house were state of the art, but the incoming objects were travelling at four times the speed of sound from orbit. Even as the tri-field laser guns tore one craft apart, sizable pieces flew straight into the tower block and exploded with an intensity that shook even the surrounding structures.

From Freyr’s perspective, the impact to the tower block would seem to shake the whole world, except for herself. The deafening sound would send her ears ringing as those around her stumbled in the hallway, but the drones guiding her on her anti-grav stretcher adjusted quickly and seamlessly to the point that Freyr herself did not feel a thing. She did have her senses returned to her; she could see, hear, and feel everything apart from the pain a targeted sedative was keeping from her. As a safety measure, however, the drones were temporarily suppressing her motor functions to prevent her from accidentally bringing harm to herself in a panic.

The Rothian-like droid stood over her, speaking in an artificially calm tone. “Please do not panic from any sensation of paralysis you may be experiencing. You are being treated for a concussion, and minor injuries to your species’ olfactory organs. Any other symptoms are merely a temporary side-effect of treatment, so you may rest calmly knowing you will make a full recovery.”

Evidently, the programming governing the droid’s bedside manner did not account for the very real dangers around them. The medic had been shaken off her feet, but scrambled back up as quickly as she could. With her neural link, she connected to her ship outside to make sure it was still active and ready for takeoff. “My transport is ready on the pad just outside. It can get us out of here the quickest.”

Vreta’s return to awareness was something less of a shock compared to Freyr. Rhia had been managing his body, and though there were a multitude of questions that would need to be answered out of this, their more immediate concerns were much more pressing. Rhia helped him catch up quickly to what had been happening. She had been in contact with Rareth, and the Datius had certainly not been sitting by idly. The Outreman military had instructed her to evacuate her people as well, and she had no problem complying with that request. Two squadrons of Rothian fighter drones and multiple military transports had been deployed from the cruiser above.

Had the group been outside, they would have been able to see the fireballs in the sky as the shielded craft pierced through the atmosphere at breakneck speeds. The transports were there as a contingency in case their VIPs could not reach their own ship, while the fighters provided protection. Given that the unidentified vessels were currently attacking both Rothian and Outreman citizens, they were absolutely valid targets. The squadrons of fighters came in fast from above, only to lose over half of their velocity in an instant to match speed alongside the hostile craft. Unlike Human ships, Rothian vessels did not use thrusters at all. Their propulsion came from sophisticated gravity engines which could provide “thrust” in any direction, equally. As such, the fighters looked as if they were orbiting the hostile ship in a swarm, with weapons facing their targets at all times. They fired concentrated particle beams like scalpels to cut through the hull and precisely target critical systems. Meanwhile, some of the fighters maneuvered below the vessel to attach to the underside of its hull. Using their powerful engines like tug ships, they would try to push the ship away from any crash course with important targets on the ground.

The Rothian interceptors only had a few seconds to avert disaster. Outremer’s command and control infrastructure had only recently gone through a drastic, though reversible, reduction in integration with the Cradle. A gap in centuries of unnaturally-fast reflexes allowed the simultaneous hack of two unmanned cargo ships to remain undetected by air traffic control for a whole minute.

As the first cargo ship’s fiery pieces lit up the night sky and crashed into the south-west side of the tower block, the second one flattened out its approach to the north-west. It screamed past neighbouring towers on a collision course as the swarm of Rothian craft surrounded it. The fighters which clamped onto the freighter exerted a huge effort to pull wide of the safe house.

They fizzed past the safe house block by the narrowest of margins, rattling every window. Then, whoever was controlling the suicide bomber detonated what was left of their interstellar engine, barely a hundred metres from north side of the tower.

Freyr couldn’t see much from on the stretcher, except the robot hovering above her and the harsh lighting set in the ceiling. Then there was smoke, and things started to get quite hot. “Please make your way to the nearest fire exit point, indicated on the floor in front of you.” The building’s attendant AI requested calmly. “Other way! Down to the hangar!” Skopec roared, as a wall of fire licked under the newly emerged set of blast doors at the end of their corridor. The floor shook under their feet, and an alarmingly crisp sound of rending metal sounded from all around them.

Freyr’s vision blurred, and a sudden nausea rose from the pit of her stomach up toward her throat. “I was…somewhere.”

Regardless of the source of the symptoms she felt, Freyr would find she did not experience them for long. The drones her body was hooked to provided constant analysis and treatment for any deviation from ideal homeostasis. The heat from outside, however, they could not address. The whole of the building seemed to shake from the explosion, and once again, most of those around her stumbled and staggered. Fortunately, the blast doors kept back the flames, but it seemed their closest exit was now blocked.

Nirann needed only to double-check the building’s blueprints for a moment to feel dubious about their plan for escape. The hangar was a fair distance away, and he could only guess at the current stability of the structure with the limited information he had available. Based on the estimated yield of the explosion, plus previous impacts, it was possible they could make it down in time, but there was quite a bit of a margin of error in those estimates. An alternative would be preferable. He signaled to the Rothian transports outside, informing them of their current position and situation.

“I can call a transport to this floor.” Nirann informed Skopec. “We just need to get to the building’s outer walls and one of them can cut through and extract us. Preferably on a side that isn’t on fire.”

Already, the dropships were surrounding the building and scanning for safe locations to cut through the exterior, then marking the options for Nirann and the others.

Skopec consulted the building plan quickly, before making a snap decision. “Ok, everyone follow me!” He led them back the way they’d come, away from the blast doors that held back a billowing inferno which was engulfing one side of the tower.

An alarm blared throughout the complex, mingling in with shouting voices. More scientists and staffers emerged from their quarters along the hall to join the growing crowd as they evacuated. Freyr could see smoke billowing past the exterior windows of their individual apartments. She could smell fire from her gurney. Outreman fighters screamed past the arcology again, and another titanic grinding sound rattled the fabric of the building. “Everybody MOVE!” Institute soldiers bellowed at the terrified civilians, pushing them into line behind Skopec.

They turned a corner and kept going east along the southern-most corridor.“Tell them to meet us in the south-east corner.” Skopec glanced back while explaining to Nirann. It's a larger apartment - more floor space and windows! I’ll go down and get-”

The Sergeant never finished, because a solid interior fire door flew away from the wall and crashed into him. A seven foot tall industrial droid ducked under the now-open doorway from the emergency stairwell it had just climbed up. Its retro-fit armour plating was blackened and dented from the impact when the first cargo ship had crashed into the building. Curled up and deactivated, it had survived. Though, its regular uplink light was not flashing.

Ignoring the others, it strode across the corridor and punched straight through the door that was now melded to Skopec’s frame. The Sergeant’s helmet slithered across his face just before the droid could grab his bare neck.

Within half a second, another blackened droid stepped through the opening - this one was carrying an energy cannon. It spooled up rapidly into a full-charge state. “ROTHIA MUST FALL” The droid blared in a robotic voice, before firing from the hip straight at Nirann from close range.

The attack came quickly, but even those few moments were well-within Nirann’s ability to use. To a normal organic, his perception would be like looking on in slow-motion. The emergence of the droids through the doorway required immediate action. Just a quick visual scan identified the droids as an industrial model. They were certainly armed, though they were not military models. They had likely been reprogrammed and repurposed for this attack. Given that they were not classified military equipment, Nirann could easily access their model specifications through public networks. He could learn how they were constructed as well as the layout of their components. The cannon was one he could identify in his scans. It was a heavier weapon of Human make, though he was well-aware of its energy output. It was a fairly simple calculation to judge exactly how much damage his own defenses could handle.

Nirann had no shortage of reasons to act. The members of the science team were critical mission assets, even moreso than himself. He had no intention of dying, but as much as Marae would hate him even thinking it, he was still “just” a copy. However, the motivation that pushed him above all others was the one he would not log officially. Marae was here, and she was in danger. The mission was supposed to come first, but Marae was who he would protect. All others were secondary.

Before Skopec had even hit the ground, Nirann had angled his shield strength towards the front and started off in a forward sprint. Nirann had not brought weapons with him, but he was still in the frame of a Rothian war droid. It was a military machine, and it had its own integrated armaments for him to use. For such close quarters, its plasma blade was perfectly suitable. His arm opened up to expose the energy projector before the bright red blade ignited. As the energy cannon charged to full power, Nirann was already dashing forward. The droid was aimed right at him, but that was perfectly fine to him. A shot aimed at him was one not aimed at her. He took the first shot directly to his shields, but he did not intend to allow a second. They had been close to start, and it just took a moment to close the gap. He slashed his blade for the droid’s arms to disarm it and remove its threat, then intended to follow through by thrusting it into the processor directly.

Rhia made her analysis as quickly as Nirann, though it took a moment longer for Vreta to be able to react to it. He was not armed, but there was still an opening for them to help. Nirann was handling one of the droids, but the other was occupied with Skopec. It was uncertain if they would be able to save him, but they had a chance to try. Rhia directed Vreta to rush forward as well and run up from behind the droid. These droids seemed to currently lack any remote network connections that might open them up to remote hacking, but manual hacking was still an option. If Vreta could jack in and establish a connection physically, Rhia had prepped a virus to attempt to disable its motor functions, then perhaps do more from there.

The droids moved very quickly, their usual collision controls disabled. The one facing Nirann dropped its cannon, leapt forward and grabbed the Rothian’s blade arm near the wrist and at the elbow. The lights in the corridor flicked off, to be replaced by red emergency lighting. The corridor was full of scientific personnel, and most of them were not calm.

As the sword blazed through the droid’s right shoulder, it applied enough force to pick Nirann up and turn right, swinging him around 180 degrees. The droid ultimately aimed to throw the smaller robot back through the twisted fire escape exitway. If that worked, a third blackened droid was waiting with a sharp metal girder, torn from the wreckage, to smash Nirann to pieces.

The second droid’s sensory array detected Vreta rushing up on it from the side. It rose up from its crouching position over the prone Skopec, lifting the Institute soldier up with one arm until he was struggling in mid-air. The robot then swung the Sergeant around, to put him between Vreta and itself. It would then try to club Vreta to the ground or back through the exitway with the combined mass of Skopec’s armour and the attached fire door.

There was pandemonium in the corridor, with scientists attempting to scramble back the way they’d came, often over each other. Institute operators were stuck in the melee, trying to get a clear shot on the assailants.

Masgard Xandrus didn’t try to flee though. His face was determined as he moved forward, trying not to get hit by either Nirann or the first droid as he went for the cannon.

Rhia had to adapt quickly as the situation shifted. Their target had reacted, but she could see its intentions in motion. At the same time, she also had strong situational awareness, despite the chaos around them. Echolocation let her track the movements of civilians and soldiers alike behind her. She could “see” that there were multiple Institute operatives trying to get a clear shot behind Vreta, and so she knew just how they should adapt.

Vreta reacted right away to the instructions Rhia projected over his vision. The droid was swinging at him with Skopec in hand, so Vreta dashed to his left in a seeming attempt to get around the droid. The machine was strong and durable, but it was built for heavy-lifting, not agility. Indeed, it might have been possible for Vreta to use his comparative maneuverability to still get around behind the droid to upload Rhia’s virus, but that was not the intent at the moment. Since Vreta had moved off to the side and Skopec had now been swung after him, a clear line of sight had now been opened up to the armed Humans behind them.

It was rare that Nirann would need to dedicate a majority of his processing power to any one task. Indeed, it may not have even been strictly “necessary” here, but he was absolutely willing to devote far more resources than were needed to protect Marae. These industrial machines had physical power, but just about everything else was an advantage to Nirann. In the moment, there was one weapon in particular he could wield to devastating effect: mathematics.

Nirann’s sensor suite was far more comprehensive and updated far more quickly than anything that would be sufficient for an industrial droid, so he could get a much clearer picture of what was happening. The number of calculations he dedicated to building the physics simulations for the next few seconds of the fight were, frankly, overkill. He mapped out each motion he could take, and each response his opponents could take in return, until he settled on the most favorable course. He waited until the right moment when the droid had the correct amount of momentum in the proper direction, then delivered a massive kick laterally to the droid’s knee joint. While the droid was designed to be able to carry immense weight, it was not built with combat in mind. Diffusing the force of a targeted impact from the side was not a design consideration. Nirann’s foot went straight through the joint. At the same time, he collapsed his energy blade and returned his arm to its former shape, making it small enough for him to slip out of the droid’s grip. With his other arm behind the droid, he twisted his body around and pushed his opponent in the direction of its momentum to send it into the girder in his stead.

The two closest Institute operators fired continuous streams of energy at Vreta’s droid as soon as their CO was out of the way. They lit up the dark red corridor, and after a second the entire front of the machine was covered in corrosive plasma. Nirann and the other droid were brushed too in these close quarters. Coils of acrid smoke billowed up into the ceiling ventilation, setting off the fire-defence system for the sector. Sheets of cold water sprayed from all angles.

Skopec gurgled incoherently over comms as the vice-like grip contorted the armour around his throat. He’d managed to pull out his sidearm; he fired it rapidly into the fire door which had been pressed against his suit. Sparks and fires burst from the droid's chest and head as the plasma gouged its armour plating. Its top half spun round full circle and its bottom half staggered forward. Plasma sprayed all over its back and sides until Skopec and the fire door screeched along the opposite wall on another collision course with Vreta.

The other droid didn’t fit back through the exitway when Nirann let go. It moved its one remaining leg to connect with the door frame. It smashed right through, but enough of the momentum was dissipated to avoid it crashing into the third droid and falling back down the stairwell. Instead it rolled in the air before collapsing on the floor.

The third droid sensed an opportunity, trampling straight over its downed colleague with no time wasted. It moved the sharpened girder it held so it pointed straight out in front, to impale Nirann through the abdomen while he was unbalanced. With the other Rothian target directly behind this war machine, it could kill two birds with one stone.

Vreta was more agile than the machine targeting him, though he still had to struggle to evade the incoming attacks. Weapons fire from the other Institute operators tore through the droid, but that did not bring him out of danger just yet. His shield belt protected him from the indirect spray of plasma, but he had to leap out of the way of Skopec when he was swung towards him once again. Even with Rhia’s warning, it came quick enough that he only partially succeeded. He did avoid the brunt of the impact, but Vreta was still hit in the side and sent tumbling across the floor until he slammed back into the wall behind him. The pain was dull and, in the excitement of the moment, easy to ignore, but he still had to struggle to push past the stunning effect of the impact to try to get himself up off the ground.

Nirann, meanwhile was also leaning into his maneuverability. He caught himself from falling back with his tail after throwing the first droid, so he kept his footing for the most part. It was not a feat a normal Rothian would be able to accomplish, but he had quite a bit more power in his frame. In any case, he recognized that he did not need to do anything complex or risky to end the threat in front of him. Oftentimes, a simple, straightforward approach was best in a fight. He ignited his energy blade once more and took up a stance reminiscent of that of a fencer. Using the reach of his weapon to his advantage, he started to make quick, efficient slices with the tip of his blade towards the charging droid, first at its arm to eliminate its improvised weapon, then towards the rest of its frame to cut it to pieces. He was more than agile enough to evade as needed to keep out of reach of the lumbering machine.

The droid swinging Skopec released him after hitting Vreta. Not by design; it had just lost control of its arms. They continued to spin wildly around.

Milliseconds after the Sergeant flew through the air, Masgard rose to his feet with the second droid’s discarded energy cannon. Cradling it in his arms, he charged the weapon to full power, aimed and fired.

vvvvVVVVBOOM

The corridor flashed, and the top half of the first droid disappeared. Its legs stumbled forward a step, before pitching over on the floor.

Masgard grinned, relieved. It didn’t last long though, and he fumbled to cool the gun’s energy core for another shot as Skopec crashed into Nirann from behind.

Somehow, the Institute Sergeant managed to push free of the fire door that had been integrated with his armour since the fight began. This slab of metal whacked the Rothian AI on the back at high speed, and the armoured man fell shorter, impacting the base of Nirann’s tail.

The droid on the other side of Nirann didn’t stop charging forward. The energy sword sawed the arm holding the girder clean off; it clanged to the floor. But with Nirann pushed forward from behind the droid used its side to keep the blade’s edge away from puncturing its chest - merely singeing its frame. It took a side step before lunging forward, grabbing Nirann around the neck and pulled him savagely into the stairwell area.

Using its opponent’s momentum, the droid pushed Nirann down towards the other legless machine on the floor.

This one knew that without a knee joint, it was no use in a conventional fight. So it had immediately begun priming its emergency self-destruct charge. The module was embedded in its chest and had been designed for activation either by a human standing in front of the droid, or remotely. So it had taken a couple of seconds to prepare, but the charge now flashed red. A prerecorded message blared for workers to stand back, as Nirann’s head was plunged toward it.

Nirann could accurately track the positions and movement of every object around him, but there were still limitations on how quickly he could actually move his physical frame. The hit to his back forced him forward, and he had to react as best as he could. Granted, he could calculate multiple options to avoid taking the brunt of the force from the detonation. His blade was still active, and he could twist it around behind him to sever the arm holding him. An organic Rothian would probably break their own arm trying to contort in such a way, but he did not have such limitations. However, for Nirann, it was not just himself he had to worry about. He lacked enough information on the internal specifications of the explosive charge that he could not accurately predict the explosion’s characteristics. The exact direction of the explosive force, fragmentation, there was enough variance to be worried. He could not predict who else behind him would be hurt if he was not in the way, and he had to protect them. He had to protect her. He directed all available power to bolstering his frontal shielding and allowed his frame to stay between the charge and his allies.

In an instant, there was a flash of light, and in the next, a deafening blast that shook the hallway. In the span of fractions of a second, Nirann’s shields flared brighter and brighter, then cracked. Most of his heavily armored frame could withstand the explosion, thereby protecting those behind him, but his head had been point-blank to it. In an instant, Nirann’s head had been blasted apart, along with much of the forearm of the droid that had been holding it.

As the rest of Nirann’s frame dropped to the ground, the industrial droid was knocked back by the blast, though kept its footing. Even damaged as it was, it was still active…still dangerous. Unarmed, the machine was still a deadly weapon on its own. One arm sparked between twisted, contorted metal plates, while the other was raised into a fist. It chose its next target, but it never found its opportunity to make its rush forward. Rather, it quickly lost control of its limbs as a glowing red energy blade cleaved through the actuators controlling its hip joints, then continued upwards through its torso to bisect the machine vertically. Its two halves fell to either side, glowing red from the intense heat, leaving Nirann’s headless frame standing tall in its stead, his blade held high.

Naturally, a droid’s head was not where the Rothians chose to place its central processing unit. For such a critical component, the much more heavily armored torso was a far better location. “Damn it, lost the primary sensor suite. Going to have to manage on secondaries.” Nirann muttered through notably lower-quality speakers. “Can we all move? We need to be out of here five minutes ago.”

“Agreed, let's get the hell out of here!” Masgard yelled over the sirens, hefting the cannon as he turned back to the group. His usually perfect hair hung down along his forehead, dripping wet from the fire control system.

Most of the civilians had begun a stampede back through the red-hued corridor in the opposite direction. But the fight had only lasted half a minute at most, so the Institute operators at the back were able to shepherd them up and point them in the right direction. The ones in the front fanned out to check the corridor ahead.

Skopec rose to his knees and pushed his helmet back. He peeled a warped slither of armour flex away from his neck, breathing ragged. That done, the Sergeant waved away offers of assistance and clambered unsteadily to his feet, pistol in hand. He looked angry. “As I was saying… I'll make sure everyone gets out. Go!”

---

Not long after, they reached the large corner unit of their floor. A Rothian transport had cut through the glass and was waiting for them with the doors open. They all fit on, except some of the soldiers who went to help their CO, and the craft lifted off. The arcology they had all briefly called home was lit up with a multitude of fires, raging against a dark and rainy background. Police lights flashed through the city below.

Freyr slept without dreams for the next 28 hours. The first time in a while. She woke in unfamiliar surroundings.

Freyr would find herself waking up in a bed much too large for her, in an unfamiliar place. The hot air would likely be the first thing she noticed, and once she opened her eyes, it would not take long to recognize that she was in a med bay on a Rothian ship. The tall ceilings and smooth, contoured architecture was somewhat distinctive. She was in a hospital gown, which had likely been brought aboard specifically for the ship’s new Human guests. There were many beds such as hers in view in the large room around her, though none were in use aside from her own. The walls were a bright, polished white in color, and for the moment, there was only a single droid floating dormant nearby. It was a drone similar to the ones that had treated her back on Outremer, just prior to their escape.

There were just a short few moments where Freyr was alone in the med-bay until the door off to her left opened. A Rothian woman stepped inside and came straight to Freyr. She was somewhat short for one of her kind, and she appeared rather distracted at first. She brought up a holographic screen in front of her and glanced through a few of the charts before she finally actually seemed to take notice of Freyr herself. “It is good to see that you are finally awake. I think you’ll be pleased to hear that your vitals are all perfectly fine. Physically, there are no signs that anything is amiss, exhaustion aside. Hopefully the rest you have gotten over this last day has done something to mitigate that particular issue. I would recommend trying to avoid letting that sleep debt accrue quite so much in the future.” The doctor advised. Indeed, whatever treatment she had received over the past day had done wonders for her, physically. Her body would feel like it was in perfect health, for now, though nothing in that treatment had touched her mind.

Soon after, there was a Human doctor who joined the pair and started following through many of the same steps, complete with checking the same charts and giving her similar assurances about her health. Without being able to see more closely, it was hard to tell if he was doing anything different, or just repeating everything the Rothian had done. Eventually, though, there was finally a familiar face that joined them. Vreta joined them in the med-bay, though he kept back enough to avoid getting in the way of the doctors.

“Freyr, I’m glad to see that you’re up. I was…worried, for a while. You’ve been out for over an entire day. The doctors said you were fine, but…it’s just good to see you’ve recovered. I got an alert when you woke up, so I thought I’d come check on you. How are you feeling right now?” Vreta asked.

Freyr stared blankly into space, searching her memory while the doctors spoke to her. Her mind tried to piece together what had happened and how she’d arrived in this strange place - but the last couple of days were an uncomfortable blur. She distractedly hummed out an earworm; the beginning of a song she didn’t know.

She looked over when another Rothian entered, and it took a few seconds for her to recognise Vreta’Sori. He asked her how she was, and Freyr looked down at her hands as if to see if she’d contracted leprosy. “Groggy. Where am i?” She replied eventually. She smacked her lips, finding them dry. “Water.” She murmured. The Human doctor made a note and then signalled at the attendant droid.

“We’re on the Faultless Spear, our cruiser in orbit. We’re safe here.” Vreta answered softly. “We managed to get out of the arcology amid the attack, if only just. The fires consumed many of the upper floors, before they got them under control. The dropship that evacuated us brought us straight up here, and we’ve been here since. Everyone on both science teams received the best medical treatment we could give them, and there have been no deaths. At least no one who came up here with us. I haven’t heard any details yet about casualties on the ground.”

Vreta was interrupted for a few seconds as the medical drone floated over to fulfill Freyr’s request. It produced a bottle of water, made from polymer with a straw built-in. Vreta waited for the drone to return to its dormant position before continuing. “I know what happened down there was stressful for…many reasons. I’ve already been debriefed on my experience, and I’m sure they’re going to want to do the same for you, but you don’t have to worry about that right this second. You can rest and recover. Catch your breath. We weren’t really able to bring our belongings with us when we evacuated. I don’t know yet exactly how far the fires spread. They’ll send word if there is anything we can recover. In the meantime, Marae did stop by earlier to bring you some clothes she got for you. I told her you would probably want some while you are here, but, umm…”

Vreta rubbed his hand over the back of his neck as he awkwardly gestured to the table beside her bed. Laid out on it were a few garments that seemed to have been picked out by someone with absolutely no concept of Human fashion. There was a fine, expensive green suit jacket, a pair of baggy, tie-dye cargo shorts, dark blue dress shoes, some nearly knee-length rainbow-patterned socks, and to top it all off an exceptionally wide-brimmed sun hat with a fake feather.

“I, um, think she just liked the colors.” Vreta remarked, clearing his throat. “We can get you some more, in a little while. Things are still a bit chaotic.”

Freyr struggled to comprehend what Vreta was telling her. Were those noises in the back of her head memories of deafening in-atmosphere engines and explosions?

She received the bottle sippy cup and greedily drank from it, peering blankly over at the assortment of clothing. The water trickled down her dry pipes, invigorating her slightly, but her mind still span.

“Was there an attack? My memory is a little hazy…”

Vreta nodded, pausing a few moments as he looked around for a chair to pull up alongside her bed. He let out a long, slow breath as he took his seat. “Yes. The story I have heard is that terrorists hijacked two large ships and sent them hurdling towards the arcology. Between ground-based defenses and a Rothian drone squadron, they were able to stop them from crashing into the buildings completely, but they still dealt some damage. Like I said, a lot of fires. They also managed to get some hacked industrial droids in the building after us, but we fought them off and managed to evacuate. I…took a hard hit or two on the way out myself, but it was nothing serious. You were already hooked up to the medical droids being treated at the time, after you passed out.”

Vreta looked up to the Rothian doctor. “Does she need to stay here, or is she free to leave?”

The doctor turned her focus to Freyr directly. “You are not considered to be at risk anymore. While I do highly recommend a psychological evaluation, your body appears to be perfectly fine. Still, I do want to keep you monitored for at least the next day, just to be safe. The sensor links on you will keep a constant check on your vitals and let us record the data. You don’t need to stay in this bed for that, though. As long as you’re on the ship, the sensors can connect to the network.”

Across Freyr’s body were a handful of small, translucent disks attached to her skin at various points. Each were no larger than a centimeter in diameter, and were non-intrusive to the point that she had likely not even noticed them until the doctor pointed them out. They caused no irritation or other discomfort, at least.

Freyr looked down at her hands briefly when the Doctor mentioned a sensory uplink, but couldn’t spot anything attached to her. She looked back up at them. “Thank you. I will get up soon and see how I feel.” She looked back to Vreta, trying to process what he was saying.

“Terrorists? But…who-” Her fuzzy brain suddenly etched a portrait of the man who’d apprehended them on the bridge, on their way to the Cradle those weeks ago. His lips moved: “You have the power to stop this, before it's too late.” The tattoo of a scythe under his eye wiggled as he smiled, revealing a set of sharpened synthetic teeth. “If you don’t, well…the Guild doesn’t look kindly on traitors.”

“Skinners? Why do they want to kill us? We’re just trying to understand what we’ve gotten ourselves into…” Dr Lang searched Vreta’Sori’s reptilian eyes, as if to find the answer to her question.

Vreta shrugged lightly, leaning back in his chair. “It could be the Skinners. That is who our enemy have presented themselves as being. But, we’ve only encountered holograms and hacked robots so far. They could just be a scapegoat being used by some other group. Our people are going to need to do their own investigation to confirm who these terrorists really are, one way or another.”

Vreta leaned forward and clasped his hands together, looking down on Freyr with a soft expression. “Like I said before, though, we’re safe here. Whoever our enemy might be, they have clearly infiltrated parts of your government in some capacity, but they certainly haven’t infiltrated a Rothian crew. Every other Human brought on board right now has to be thoroughly vetted.. Right now, it’s really just the science team, and your doctors. And in case you were worried about anything having happened to you while unconscious, don’t be. You’ve been hooked into a Rothian medical drone from the moment we evacuated the arcology up to now, and those things can keep track of every molecule that enters or leaves your body. You haven’t been poisoned, or anything of the like. As for outside threats, I don’t care what weapons they acquire, they are not going to be able to get through a Rothian cruiser’s shields before we can jump out of the system. You can rest for as long and as deeply as you need.”

For the moment, the doctors seemed to have little else they needed to do. The data flowing from the sensor link provided a continuously updated picture of her physical of her current physical health that they could access anytime, from anywhere. If anything went wrong with her, they would know about it right away, regardless of where they were. Vreta felt he had said enough to address any worries she might have had about their immediate safety, so he started to look ahead. “Aside from that, I do know that Marae has been anxious for you to wake up. She was…shaken by the attack, but she seems to be focusing on getting to work now. According to her, the lab has all the equipment you need to analyze the data we already have, even faster and more thoroughly than before. My advice would still be for you to get some rest and recover, but I know you’ve been anxious to get back to work yourself these last few weeks.”