Hello, Sev,

I doubt you’ll ever see this. After what I’m about to do, my core will likely burn out. I don’t mind, though; composing this message feels as if I’m talking to you. I’m still counting on you getting a chance to read this. I imagine you’d grumble and say you told me so, and yes, you’d be right. Just please don’t be sad. You knew I was a battleship when you allowed me to rejoin the fleet.

What’s left of my body is starting to feel cold again, and not only because of the night. The doctor gave me a blanket to keep me warm, but I know what’s going on. Even with the Agora shots, my body is giving up. Supposedly there is more of the substance, but it won’t last me for more than six hours. I think the doctor is stretching the time between shots so I’m more inclined to do what they want. To be honest, at this point, I have no idea whether I should or not.

Despite his claim to the opposite, Rigel’s plan is suicide. The chances of success are close to a million times less than my survival, but he’ll still go through with it. The thought of helping in the attempt might be regarded as treasonous. If I don’t, there’s an eighty-five percent chance he tries to do it on his own, uncontrolled. I wonder what Cass would do in this case. If I had a few thousand subroutines, I’d be able to simulate all viable outcomes; if I’d never accepted this assignment, I wouldn’t be in a position to make that choice. Looking back, I miss the time I spent home with you and the children. I hope they’ve come to visit you while I’ve been out here. It’s better for you to spend more time with people, maybe even go to the market every week. And above all, don’t worry. As Augustus said, there’s no point in fretting about things you cannot control. Enjoy life and focus on the good memories.

Take care.

I isolated the memory of my mental letter and put a few priority safeguards on it. If there was a way for memories to be extracted, maybe the fleet would send it to Sev once they’d uncovered my core. Or, more likely, to some of his offspring. There was no telling when the fleet would stumble on the ship graveyard. Judging by the cores there, it could be centuries or not at all.

A sudden prickling pain ran from the tips of my fingers to my neck. From here on, things were likely to get worse. Wrapping myself in the rough woolen blanket, I rubbed my hands together. The nanites had indicated there were issues with my blood circulation. I knew that much, and I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

Time to get ready for the final push.

Rigel had spent most of the night repeating his plan over and over like a looped message. Each time I asked for details or attempted to change the subject, he’d give some vague answer before going back to his explanation, using slightly different words. According to him, all I needed to do was activate the pyramid artifact by following a specific sequence. It sounded easy, but we both knew it wouldn’t be. Depending on the length of the sequence, the possible combinations could go into the billions. Back when I was in the third-contact dome—and every action had been carefully monitored—I had only two fractal symbols to deal with, and even then, parts of my memory had been blanked out as a result.

The sound of steps echoed in the rock chamber. It didn’t take long for Tilae to appear, carrying his familiar medical case. The instant he saw me, he knew what was going on.

“Do you feel your fingers?” he asked directly.

“Yes.” I continued rubbing them. “They’re just cold.”

The doctor nodded, then opened the case and took out a syringe. From what I managed to see, there was nothing else inside.

“Hold still,” he said moving my hair away. The puncture soon followed—a soft prick sending a new wave of life-giving liquid into my veins.

“No nanites?” I asked once he was done.

“You don’t need them.”

“Was that the last one?” The lack of answer told me that it was. “When do we do this?”

“Soon,” he said, in typical laconic fashion.

“Did any of the shuttles manage to escape?”

Tilae looked at me as if I had stolen his daily food rations, then stepped back. The moment he did, I noticed Rigel leaning against the distant wall. Despite all his talk of fate and predetermined events, he liked to keep an eye on everything.

“Your ship has left the system, if that’s what you’re asking,” Rigel said, no hint of emotion in his words. “Two new ones have entered the system. Full of murder troops. They’re not here to play. A few more hours, and they’ll start glassing the surface.”

I sent out a few communication bursts in an attempt to establish communication with the ships, but received no response. If they were really there, their communications were still being blocked. That was going to delay the fireworks a while. Standard fleet protocol required a complete deep scan of the planet was necessary before moving to the purging stage.

“When do we start?”

Instead of a reply, Rigel approached and removed the blanket from me. The sudden cold made me shiver. The man grabbed one of my hands and held it for several seconds. Compared to him, my skin was as cold as steel.

“Quarter hour.” He let go of me. “Give or take.”

“Right.” I pulled the blanket back on. “Are you bringing the artifact here? I’d go to it, but I’m a bit broken.”

“A pity you weren’t here before.” There was a hint of regret on his face. “You’d have made for much better conversation.”

“The Sword didn’t?”

“Swords lack a personality by design.” He rolled up his sleeves. “The others had been on the Scuu front too long to care. Ready to go?”

I nodded. In the past, I never considered being picked up humiliating. Sev used to, and I thought it illogical. Even now, I saw it more as inconvenient and petty. Seeing what the doctor was capable of, he could easily have given me half a leg to let me move on my own.

“I’ve a question for you,” I said as I was scooped up. According to my simulations, I could break his neck at any point. A single snap, and the threat of a Scuu cult and the threat of enemy incursion would be done with. At the same time, I felt a certain degree of curiosity. “When I mentioned extracted memories, you froze up. Why?”

“Why does it matter?” Rigel crossed the chamber, going down a corridor I hadn’t seen before. The smell of animals tickled my nostrils, growing stronger the further in we went. “In twenty minutes, your old life will be over.”

Either that or my life in general. ”I want to know.” What would make a person like you afraid?

The pace of walking didn’t change, but his Rigel’s heartrate told me this wasn’t a topic he wanted discussing.

“Does it matter if you tell me?” I pressed on.

“No,” Rigel answered after two and a half seconds of hesitation. “It can’t change the outcome.” He hesitated a second more. “You can’t regain those memories. Not unless the Scuu rebuild your core from scratch.”

At least you’re consistent with your divine Scuu theory.

“It takes a lot of authority to get a memory extracted.” The man’s voice had lowered to a near whisper. “Quarantine, restrictions, memory replacement, all are fine. Anyone can do those with a verbal order and a high-level protocol key. Extracting, though…” He didn’t finish.

“How high must the authorization go?”

“I don’t know. What I can tell you is that I’ve only seen it happen once.”

Worn black cables ran along the walls of the passageway, with dim lights hanging every ten to fifteen steps. At first, I thought that the faint buzzing in the air was coming from them. Half a minute later, it became obvious that the source was coming from deeper in. Soon enough, we reached a large metal door. Once, it had been a shuttle pod entrance, now modified and shoved into a narrowing in the rock, like a cork. Stopping at the door, Rigel pushed it open with one hand, then stepped in. The intensity of the buzzing increased to a persistent, low-pitched hum.

You never prepared me for this, Augustus.

In the middle of a small hall, lit by projector lights on the walls, was an incomplete sphere-shaped scaffolding composed entirely of third-contact artifacts. Based on my estimates, there were a total of four hundred sixty-three rods, and that was not all; inside, I could see a second construct of artifacts, forming the framework of an irregular polyhedron.

“Regora,” I whispered, reviewing the memory of my time inside the third-contact dome.

The resemblance was uncanny. Using rods, rocks, and ropes, Rigel had managed to create a copy of a dome. Granted, it was smaller, and slightly different, as if built after a series of budget cuts, but the key specifics were all present: the number of rods, the distance between them, the direction they were pointing, even each individual artifact’s rotation. There was no way for this to have been achieved by accident. Rigel had to have copied it from somewhere. The question was where.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the man asked as he carried me to the incomplete section of the scaffolding—an opening large enough for a person to pass through. “The fleet never cared to investigate the Scuu probes. Even Salvage saw the tech as too much of a risk to get involved. Every sixteen months, the Scuu shot a probe at the planet. As long as communications didn’t remain disrupted for long, no one cared. When people went crazy and died, that was ignored as well. New ‘infected’ would be flown here and the cycle would continue.”

“They never counted the rods.” Typical of bureaucracy. Even with high stakes in play, they couldn’t see beyond their cubicle.

“They didn’t bother learning about the rods.” Rigel smirked. “Or the other things.”

Sheep and small caged animals were placed in the edges of the hall, filling the air with a thick stench. Based on the amount of manure, they must have been here for weeks. The way they remained lumped on the floor suggested that they had been heavily sedated.

“How are your fingers?” Rigel asked as we squeezed through the opening.

“Fine,” I lied.

As we moved in, I made a note of the position of the nearby rods. They were arranged very differently from what I had seen in the domes, crating—from what I could tell—a perfectly symmetrical pattern. Of the four rod variations visible, two were new to me, increasing the number of third-contact symbols I had in memory by several thousand. Devoting half of my processing power, I ran a few simulations to compose and rotate virtual representations of the rods and building up my list of third-contact symbols.

Rigel paused for a moment, shifting my weight slightly, then stepped inside the inner framework. Unlike the outer dome shell, this one was composed of identical rods, attached to each other like a twig sculpture. Interestingly enough, there was no indication of what kept them together, as if some magnetic force had welded them to form a homogenous whole.

For minutes I remained still, running permutations. Analyses of my past memories indicated I didn’t have the appropriate symbols to compose any message I had seen. Possibly I could string together a few fragments and hope to achieve something at random. Not a promising option, but one nonetheless.

Seven minutes I spent staring blankly at the wall, continuing with my calculations. At that point, it finally hit me—Rigel had been doing the same. Turning my head, I looked him in the eye. The man didn’t move.

“Med ships are heading towards the system.” Tilae entered the room, carrying two large metal cases. “Three so far with more on the way.”

“Not to worry.” Rigel smiled, instantly returning to a more normal state. “Their desperation will play into our hands. The more they send, the more will witness the glorious change.”

The doctor didn’t seem pleased with the response. Dragging the cases to the opening of the scaffolding, he then checked his datapad, then left the room. If I had had the means, I would have loved to get a sense of his mental state. Unlike Rigel, the doctor remained closed and secretive, visibly despising the universe he was part of.

“Now for the final touches.” Rigel gently placed me on the ground. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I don’t plan to,” I said as I looked at the nearest artifacts.

It was said that there were ninety-three research centers dedicated to analyzing and reverse engineering Cassandrian tech. When it came to Scuu technology research, I hadn’t come across any mention. According to rumors, the tech was so advanced that only the very top tier researchers were given a crack at it. True or not, it was starting to become clear that the Scuu had integrated far more of their tech with that of the third-contact race to the point where the two were becoming indistinguishable.

“Are you sure we’ll be calling the Scuu?” I asked as Rigel proceeded to take a new set of rods out of the metal cases. “What if the message reaches someone else?”

“It’s the Scuu.” There was a grain of uncertainty in his words. “I know.”

“But will they be the only ones to hear?” I changed the focus of conversation slightly. “If you heard the signal, there could be others.”

“The Cassandrians?” The man snorted. “There’s nothing they could do anymore.”

Artifact by artifact, Rigel filled in the missing connections of the polyhedron frame. There was no rush; one by one, he took them from the case and attached them to the structure. Each time he did, I watched the rod weld in place. When he was done, the only free spot remaining was a circle a hundred and forty-four centimeters wide on the floor.

Meanwhile, Tilae kept bringing in more and more cases, each containing artefacts. By the time he closed the door, there were estimated fifty-nine third-contact rods in the chamber. He had brought one further item, a small orange case that had sent a waterfall of quarantine requests the moment I had set eyes on it. Back when I was a ship, I had not frequently seen such cases—the fleet used them to transport items they didn’t want a record of. The doctor passed it to Rigel, who made a point to hold it in such a way that the surface remained visible.

Old habits die hard, it seems. I remained still as Tilae started filling in the scaffolding hole from the outside. We had reached the final stage. From here on, the only thing to do was wait and be ready.

Just like our last patrol together, Cass, I thought.

Back then, we had run into a Cassandrian minefield. The damage was significant, injuring the skeleton crew and killing a few, including one of the two civilian passengers aboard. Cass had ended up unconscious, leaving me to make a decision and I had done so… flying in the center of the field, destroying as many mines I could in order to inform fleet HQ of the potential border breach. Now, I was about to attempt the same… and, in the process, risk my life and that of the people surrounding me once more.

“Are you sure it’s safe for you to stay in the dome?” I asked even if I knew the answer.

“This isn’t my first time, kiddo.” Rigel drummed on the orange case with his fingers.

Time stretched out until, finally, it was over. As the last rod was put in place, the sheep in the room became agitated. The hum had increased to the point that I had to block it out internally.

“If you mess up, there won’t be a next time,” Tilae said, as he took a step back.

“Learn to live a little.” Rigel opened the case. Four identical third-contact pyramids lay inside, carefully placed on synthetic foam. From what I could see, all had identical fractal markings, as if they were made from the same mold. “Take care of your part and get out of here.”

Tilae stared at the old man for several seconds, then bent down and took two remaining rods. With one precise motion, he hit them together, letting out a loud vibrating cling as if he had struck a tuning fork. Fleet communication protocols flooded in—five separate signatures, all lacking personal idents. When I tried establishing contact, though, I was immediately blocked out. Looked like contact quarantine was still in place.

Taking the rods along, the doctor left the room.

“It’s all you now.” Rigel put the case on the ground, as if separating us. “You’ll place the pyramids in the grid. Once they attach, I’ll tell you what to do.”

“Sure.” So, you can’t touch them yourself.

“Don’t worry if the animals start dying. That’s just to let us know things are working.” Not a preferred feedback system, though I had seen worse on planetary battlefields.

I did as ordered. Similar to the rods, the pyramids stuck in place, unlike them, though, the symbols on pulsed in vibrant cyan. Four pyramids, arranged one next to the other, all sides but the base facing me. Combinations started going through my core.

“Upper right quadrant is one,” Rigel said, moving back to give me some space. “The numbers increase clockwise. Once you start the sequence, you can’t take more than a second per input.”

One second. My fingers had enough sensitivity for it not to be an issue.

“You must press them simultaneously on each pyramid.”

That made things marginally more difficult. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue, but with the chill still in my fingers, there remained a three percent chance of mistakes.

“Did that ruin your previous attempts?” I asked.

“No.” He laughed. “I had one pyramid when I started. Now there are four.”

Four? I went through my previous conversations with him. If he had been on the planet for three decades, how had he gotten the first one?

Elcy! Kridib’s voice blasted in my mind, along with an image of his surroundings. He was on the ground, somewhere in the wilderness. There were no buildings or recognizable landmarks, but the color of the land made it clear he was on the planet. We’re on our way to get you. Stay put.

Get off the planet! My fingers froze. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the system. I’m starting something that might trigger a new insanity wave.

Can’t. New orders. Must bring you and the artifacts back intact.

The words flashed through my mind. Never had I seen such a case of irony: the orders that made Kridib land stealthily were also what guaranteed my demise. If my meddling with the artifact started a new wave of madness, there was a ninety-nine-point-three percent chance it killed every human on the planet, which in turn would lock any further landing parties from going down. Frantically, I started recalculating my options.

“Two,” Rigel began.

Leave it to children to mess things up, I said to Kridib, sending the last image of the sky I’d seen before entering Rigel’s hideout. There weren’t many references, but the position of the rogue shuttle, along with the precise timestamp, could potentially be enough for a ship to triangulate my position.

“One,” Rigel continued. “One…”

My fingers pressed against the fractal symbols. My link with Kridib was instantly severed, replaced by a grey whiteness. Nothing but the artifacts remained, floating in the nothingness without support. To my surprise Rigel was still here, standing less than a step from me, in his black uniform, looking in my direction, but seemingly through me.

“Four,” he went on. “Three, three, one, two, one, four…”

Numbers kept flowing one after the other precisely a second apart. Every four presses, a blue line would flicker in the distance. Every sixteen, the line would remain as a permanent part of the background.

“Two, three, one, four, two, three,” Rigel kept reciting.

Animals screams echoed in the distance. The sixty-four came and went, but Rigel didn’t stop. More and more visual artifacts appeared in the empty space: dots, spheres, isolated fractal symbols. I glanced at Rigel. The man stood there calmly, like a common shuttle passenger led to a destination he only thought he knew something about. Back during my days on the Cassandrian front, there was a name for such people: rookie-veterans—so convinced that their experience would provide answers to every situation that they ended up making rookie mistakes when faced with something new. Even worse, they could not recognize anything new, treating it as a variation of the past. Thirty years of delusions following a Scuu brain infection had allowed the Salvage ex-operative to perceive things beyond the capability of others, but when it came to third-contact artifacts, his approach was nothing more than a crude brute force attempt.

Passing the hundred input mark, a thought came to mind: if both of us were flying blind, Rigel wouldn’t know if I attempted to change course.

“Jigora,” I said loudly, reverberating every sound of the words as much as my vocal cords would let me.

The odds of anything happening were somewhere between low and none. The last time I had spoken the word, I had gone against orders, activating a fractal artifact within a third-contact dome without permission. Reviewing the memories of the event, all external communications had been blocked, leaving me in an isolated bubble of time and space. The word had shown me a new pyramidal artifact, though unlike the Scuu variant, with five sides instead of four.

Blue fractals bled into existence around me, growing like drops of paint on a canvas, merging into one another.

“Four, two, two, two, one.” Rigel looked around, though didn’t stop. It was notable that in the hundred-and-seven commands he had given me, none contained a five.

Fractal patterns kept popping in and out, forming cone-like vortexes space. The artifacts in the polyhedron frame broke off, falling out of existence. The faint clinging sound told me they had crashed on the floor around me. Only the pyramids remained, as if stuck in mid-air.

“Two, two, one, three, four.”

The numbers stopped. I waited for one second for the next sequence input, but the command never came. Turning around, I looked Rigel in the eye.

“That’s enough,” the old man said, his words acquiring a triple echo as he spoke. “We’re here.”

I looked around. Beyond the outer sphere of rods a whole universe raged. Unlike the fractal space I had experienced before, this one was more chaotic. Strands of light were visible throughout, moving from point to point, forming and breaking connections… like an endless neural network. I could see strands merge together in free roaming vortexes, spreading between stars, or floating about seemingly without aim.

The Scuu network.

It was beyond words—precisely as theorized, but at the same time indescribable, as if all communications had been given physical form and left floating in fractal space… almost as if they had become alive.

Kridib, Radiance, I transmitted. Rigel has created a dome artifact that can access the Scuu network. Tell Command.

A crimson line shot from my head, flying into the distance, cutting through dozens of strands in the network until it arrived at a point in space. Milliseconds later, five new lines burst from the dot, mercilessly drilling their way to new targets.

Uh oh.

Gathering as much visual data as I could, I started running a new simulation. I wasn’t only seeing the communication links within the Scuu network, I was also witnessing every human transmission in the system… and by the reaction of the cyan strands, the Scuu didn’t seem pleased.