Gibraltar used to say that waiting was for other people. As a ship, the majority of my time had been spent waiting, and never had that been more obvious than now. Even linked to my core, Kridib remained as quiet as always. After spending a total of four minutes sharing what he considered useful, he went back to leaning against the wall, waiting for Radiance’s info burst. On one occasion, a member of the backup squad entered to let him know both structures were secure—whatever that meant—then left. Kridib didn’t even glance up, muttering a vague acknowledgement.

The milliseconds passed painfully slow. The only thing I could do was to go through my memories, searching for anything useful regarding the artifact. I had no reliable information regarding the forces we’d be facing, and with communications restored I dared not access any new restricted memories. All the time, I kept thinking of Euclid’s warning. The new front breaks, the old front bends. So far, I had seen plenty of that around.

How many are outside? I asked.

Same as before. Kridib shifted his gaze to his rifle.

I can’t help without data. It was bad enough having to rely solely on him to get it.

You’ll get it soon enough.

No rush, I’m already dead. The sudden pause in Kridib’s actions told me I had gotten my point through. Did you see any Scuu attacks growing up?

No. I could tell he was lying.

You’ve seen one, I pressed. He wouldn’t have a death implant if he hadn’t.

Kridib directed his attention to the window, then back to his rifle, all the time not saying a word. A few moments later, almost on cue, Radiance’s info burst came in.

There were no specific instructions or directions, just a series of sat renditions of our surroundings along with some additional data. The colony we were at was called Birch and, according to the reading, had three-hundred and seven suspected hostiles. A personal comment from Radiance’s captain stated that it was possible that scanning countermeasures were being used, providing false readings. Given the state of technology on the planet, I found it unlikely.

Flight Colonel Nitel’s location remained near the settlement center, roughly where it had been before, indicated by the letter N. In contrast, all markers indicating the captain’s suspected location, as well as Kridib and the rest of the backup squad, had been removed. My own marker—L for Light Seeker—was located in the northwest section of the colony, in a three-story building surrounded by hostiles. Radiance had estimated the exact number to be seven.

Going a little sketchy there, Rad, I thought. During my time, I would have been able to give far more details, providing building layout and material composition at the very least.

“Move out!” Kridib shouted. “Pincer approach. I’ll head straight for the target.”

“Wilco,” someone said from outside the room. Based on the voice characteristics, I assumed it was Corporal Viez. During SR training, he usually had been assigned the position of team leader, though didn’t have any particular qualities to speak of. “Tag your kills.”

“Roger that.” Kridib moved to the back of the room. Ready? he asked.

Ready. It wasn’t like I could go anywhere.

Kridib activated his sound suppressors and without warning dashed across the room. Three shots followed, each blasting a chunk off the wall behind him.

Kridib, you’re an idiot, I thought as he ran out of view. It was a useless and reckless move, obviously done for my benefit. Thanks to it, though, I had the first real image of the colony outside. It was no more than a fragment, less than half a window-view crisscrossed with the remains of old boards, but it gave me everything I needed. Unlike Ash, Birch colony was lush with vegetation, likely placed over an underground water source. I could clearly see leaves and branches partially obstructing the view to the buildings across: a hybrid species specifically designed to thrive in the current arid environment. I was also able to see the enemy snipers—two of them, two floors apart. Both were ready and aiming, but neither had any watchers.

Did you get them all? the man asked.

Roof and first floor, I replied. At least one more off site.

The impact spots made it impossible to triangulate the location.

“Suppressive fire!” Kridib shouted. “Five seconds. Roof and first floor.”

That was pretty useless, I said. You didn’t need a fix for suppressive fire.

That was to prep you. Kridib removed the optics from his rifle, then cased it and put it on his back. As he finished the sound of automatic gunfire filled the air. Time to go. Keep up.

Back on Radiance, I had spent days training for this mission. In all that time, not once had I seen Kridib in action. Nearly always, we would immediately split up, me being the decoy and him the silent support. I had often speculated about his approach, running simulations to match the known results. Seeing him in real life felt anticlimactic. There were no special techniques or advanced moves, just a lot of running. Compared to the veteran troopers I’d seen purge Cassandrian forces, he was like a child playing hide and seek. He had still managed to teach me one thing: the unknown was a powerful weapon.

A second round of gunfire erupted as Kridib left the building. Enemy reinforcements had come to the spot, fighting against our squad: a perfect diversion that Kridib took advantage of. Analyzing the situation, I had established that the optimal solution would be to first retreat, then circle round before proceeding to his target. Instead, he took a direct approach, heading straight forward.

You’re headed towards a cross-fire zone, I advised. It would have been easier to send a direct image, but I couldn’t be sure how he’d cope with the amount of information. Do a left-right-left to avoid it.

Kridib dashed left, then right, then left again. Looking at the colony’s layout, all he needed to do was a direct dash forward to reach Nitel’s suspected location.

Straight for five buildings, then take a right, I said. According to Radiance’s scan, the enemies had clustered at key strategic locations, allowing them to cover the entire area. Keep to the trees.

Barely had I said it when automatic gunfire erupted, scattering bullets all along the street. The shooter didn’t have a direct line of sight, though he had managed to catch Kridib’s advancement, forcing him off course and into the nearest building. Given the enemy numbers, this was a win on their part; as long as they kept us pinned down, the battlefield was theirs.

All that processing power and still sloppy as a rookie! I focused on our new location. Having a precise layout would have been useful about now.

Stop! I shouted in Kridib’s mind. The opposite side’s covered. Two hostiles with line of sight, maybe more.

Kridib didn’t even pause, rushing up the first staircase in sight. His movements were unusually precise for carrying something as large as a sniper rifle. Looking back at the events of the last twenty minutes, the majority of the colonists were snipers—an interesting choice, considering Scuu ground missions were said to have ceased ages ago.

Status, the man said, moving towards the second floor.

Hold on. I ran a few simulations. One confirmed, on the east side, partial view. The chances of getting hit were less than seventeen percent, even if it increased the distance to the objective. Two likely on the west side, limited view. I suggest you take that.

A loud explosion echoed in the vicinity, shaking the building, accompanied by the faint smell of burned polymers.

Keep an eye out. Kridib drew his sidearm. Reaching the second floor, Kridib stopped. Two doors—both heavily boarded with warnings symbols sprayed over in red and cyan paint—blocked the path to whatever rooms there were there. Several of the symbols were foreign to me, although I did recognize the sign for “Cleared” that purging troops used to indicate a structure had been checked and was empty. Kridib either didn’t know the significance of the markings or didn’t care, for he kicked the first door in. The slab of wood, as rotten as the boards that held it, gave in with ease, swinging off its hinges and falling into the room with a cloud of dust. Rays of light fbled in through the shuttered windows. Unlike the building Kridib had started from, the windows here had actual glass. Knowing him, though, it soon wouldn’t matter.

I wouldn’t go there, I said. Purgers have been here. They might have left something behind.

Sure. He ignored me, walking straight in.

You don’t listen much, do you? It was the simulation training all over again, only here we wouldn’t be allowed further mess-ups. Having me get killed already put us at a disadvantage.

Another explosion sounded, making the window panes tremble.

Orbital bombardment? I asked.

Shock charges, Kridib replied. I hadn’t heard of that of armament. Probably something in the vein of flashbangs, but relying on noise. Three more and I set off.

It’ll be difficult establishing the safest route. With every second, my calculations became less precise. After a minute, I might as well start spewing random numbers. Won’t the blasts spook the captain?

Doubtful. I could feel the smirk in Kridib’s voice. He’s not my target, though. You are.

Communication request. War protocol eight.

An external source attempted to link to my core. I paused for a few milliseconds. My first reaction was to check the validity of the request. My second—to raise my virtual defenses I had.

From what I could tell, the request was genuine, although absurdly antiquated. The last time I’d received a transmission of that nature was when I was still under Augustus. Technically the communication protocol was never abandoned, although it had become largely phased out during my time. Originally created shortly after the start of Cassandrian war, the war protocols were meant to distinguish between civilian and military transmissions. In total, there were thirty-eight of them, each reserved for a specific purpose. HQ and the admiralties used protocols one through four, the next three were reserved for establishing isolated communication channels on the front, and everything else had a specific activity attached. Protocol eight was reserved for high priority rescue emergency requests. There was no telling who was trying to contact me now, but I knew it wasn’t to ask for rescue.

Isolating the feed from Kridib, I approved the communication request. There were no specific identifiers, just a general failsafe protocol confirming the sender was considered part of the fleet.

“Hello, rookie,” a familiar voice said. Instantly, I matched it to the old man I had seen at Ash colony’s monument. “I warned you that even sheep bite when you get too close.”

Funny, I attempted to transmit back, only to receive a wave of notifications I was blocked.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to speak soon… we just need to patch you up a bit. It won’t be clean, trust me, but better than nothing. Sorry for that, but I didn’t want you to go all crazy-like.”

A third explosion rumbled at the building Kridib was at. It sounded closer than the previous two, this time followed by a series of shouts. Someone had likely lost a limb as a result. The screaming continued for six more seconds before abruptly stopping. Best case scenario, the wounded had been knocked out, though it was more likely that he was dead. Interestingly enough, while I heard the explosion from both sources, the screaming was only audible from Kridib’s.

“Do you believe in coincidences, kiddo?” the man went on. It was obvious he was stalling for time. “You being you, I guess you don’t. It’s all odds and percentages with you, right?”

Someone’s here with me, I told Kridib. It’s one of the Ash colonists. He’s setting up something. Not sure what, but there likely are others.

Are you sure? Radiance didn’t get any life signs at your location.

All I have is audio from a comm link. Might be a trap, but he’s stalling.

As far as I was aware, there was no way to triangulate Kridib’s position, not that anyone would have to. Thanks to his stunts, everyone knew exactly where he was.

Stay put, Kridib said out of habit. I didn’t feel the need to make a sarcastic reply, focusing on my other conversation instead. Based on the sound quality, the person had used some low-tech transmission station to link up to me. If I was to guess, he had probably taken the device the colony used to communicate with the orbital station.

“I used to be like you when I was young. Serious and punctual, a real poster boy for the fleet.” He let out a single dry laugh. “A few decades in this hell and I know better. Nothing in this galaxy happens without a reason, you only have to find the underlying logic.”

Red flags popped up. I had seen such behavior before when I was on the Cassandrian front. Most often, it happened to veterans. At one point, after fighting for decades, they started seeing patterns that weren’t there. Superstitions of causality crept in, making them convinced that everything was related. The fleet pretended to tolerate such behavior while instructing ships to monitor all psychological deviations. I had done it for decades, even if I couldn’t recall a thing. Those specific memory data fragments were extracted along with my psychiatry core the day I retired. Only the fleet’s medical branch had them now, probably locked in a secure database somewhere. However, I had been left with knowledge of the basic symptoms.

“You probably think I’m rambling,” the voice sounded closer. “Nothing wrong with that. You can speak your mind now that you’re human. Well, not now. You still have to go through the procedure. I won’t lie that it’s painless, but your kind never felt pain, did they? I bet the shots were more a surprise than actual pain. Nice skill to have, to be honest. Saves a lot of screaming.”

I heard a door open—less than two meters away from the comm device, if I could judge by the sounds. Two pairs of steps came in, walking heavily. Moments later, there was a loud thud on the floor.

Two more entered my room, I told Kridib. They’ve brought a device with them.

Kridib didn’t answer. I watched him check the magazine of his sidearm, then open one of the windows. There was an abundance of smoke visible through the board cracks.

No hostiles visible, I said, although I knew they were out there. Even in a colony this size, the expected fatalities caused by our backup squad and the following bombardment were likely to be in the mid-thirty range. That meant several hundred veterans still remained.

A sharp pain shot through me, giving the sensation of all body nerve endings being scraped out of my body. The closest comparable feeling I had was when my mind was probed aboard the Prometheus.

“Bear with it, kiddo,” the man said. “It’s part of the process.”

Process of what? I wondered.

Auxiliary data connection established.

Auxiliary data connection established.

Auxiliary data connection established.

Millions of notifications flooded my core. There was no way of stopping or blocking them. One after the other, connections latched onto me, each with a blank ID that was quickly catalogued away without any involvement on my part. At first, I thought I was the target of a virus attack—without military grade defenses and firewalls, I was an easy target. The medical team aboard the Gregorius had done a lot to reinforce my outer core shell, but I had no idea if they had ramped up my software defenses. Shortly later, I realized—they weren’t hacking my core, they were injecting me with nanites.

“You won’t get all of it back, but some sensation is better than nothing,” the voice continued. “Think of it as a second retirement.”

I’m being injected with nanites, I quickly informed Kridib. Consider me compromised and get Radiance to bomb my location.

Those aren’t my orders, Kridib replied.

Wasting resources on me is risking the mission. If they find a way round my failsafe, I’ll expose the entire operation. Make the call.

“Close to done,” my captor said. “Do you know how many nanites are put in the average soldier? Roughly five times as many as a flight cadet. I forget the numbers, but it’s a vast difference. Makes sense. Grunts get cast all over the place, while bridgers stay safely in orbit.”

Bridgers? I hadn’t heard that term before, even if the point was clear.

“It’s different on the Scuu front. Grunts here get no nanites. We’re sent out with nothing. Those that make it back get pumped up.” A one millisecond echo trailed his voice as he spoke. “You’re also different. Retired battleships get up to two liters of nanites in them. Most of it is for bone maintenance.”

My communication link was suddenly severed. The only stream I had access to now was Kridib, who had shot two boards off the window and was now waiting for something to happen. Unlike before, no one had fired at him, although shooting was still going on in the distance. The backup squad was holding on.

“She’s all set,” a new voice said—younger, with a slight speech defect pronouncing the vowels far shorter than they should be. “I can use more agora to speed things up.”

“Save it for later,” the old man asked. “Can you hear me, battleship? You should have some muscle control.”

I tried moving. Even with nanites in communication with my core, I couldn’t feel my body or detect my heartbeat. At the same time, there was no denying my hearing was there. Slowly, I tried to open my eyes. The blurry image that appeared in front of me told me I had succeeded. Judging by the distorted focus, my ocular organs had suffered considerable damage. My sense of taste and smell were nearly intact, slamming me with a strong stench of rot.

“That’s it.” I could tell someone was leaning above me. “Shallow breaths. You need to take in air in order to speak. One of humanity’s many imperfections.”

“Lungs…” I managed to whisper the word. Despite the complete lack of sensation, they were there. “Why do I have lungs?”

I heard a burst of dry laughter nearby. At least one person seemed amused by the entire situation.

“How’s your sight?”

“Getting there,” I lied. The only thing I was capable of seeing remained blurry outlines and dull colors. Algorithms helped a bit, but even so eighty percent of my viewing capacity was lost. “I still know who you are.”

“You think you do.” The man pointed a finger at me. “You’ll get your sight back. For a while, at least. What happens after that depends on you.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I tried to move my head. There was equipment nearby. I couldn’t make out its exact nature, but based on its size and position from me, I could assume it was medical tech. The room itself, though, didn’t look like part of a medical facility. It was too large and empty. The way I was placed, I could see no doors or windows, suggesting the room was fairly isolated.

I’m underground, I told Kridib. I can make out five people. No doors or windows.

“The fleet will scorch the planet,” I said as loudly as I could. “It’s already started.”

“Hah.” The man moved away. “I’m sure they want to. I bet right now there’s a bureaucrat somewhere who’s dying to send the order, but he wouldn’t dare. That’s one of the beauties of bureaucracy. Even with a full riot going on, it’ll take days for someone to get all the permissions, and by then we’ll be long gone… one way or the other.”

“Doesn’t sound too optimistic.” An explosion echoed from Kridib’s feed. That made five.

“Your masters are getting restless.” The old man looked up at the ceiling. Even now, I remained unable to make out his face. “They know what will happen if the rest of the fleet finds out about this scheme of theirs, so they want to settle it quickly before someone finds out. I don’t want to be in the shoes of whoever has to explain it to the Arbiters. What did you think would happen? Seriously?”

“Nothing was supposed to happen.”

“You dangle a get-off-the-planet-of-no-return carrot and you expect nothing to happen?” The man waved as he spoke. From the angle, I could tell the signs weren’t meant for me. “You know what the life expectancy here is, right?”

“Not much.” I tried to nod. The effort proved too much.

“A full decade living in shit, pissing yourself every night, praying to any gods out there that you might die before you wake up.” The man had his back to me. “That’s what passes as a reward. Renaan knew. That’s why he set off in the middle of the night. That’s why he promised a way off to everyone with him.”

So much for operational security, though it did explain the rush.

“He was a desperate coward.” The old man turned around. “And all desperate cowards forget that there are even more desperate cowards.”

“Hello again, battleship,” came a familiar voice from the corner of the room. “Thanks for the ticket out of here.”