“I should have guessed they’d send you.” I looked at the woman sitting at the table. Her face was similar to what I remembered—confident and merciless, now with a deep tan. It was impossible to tell whether she had acquired it while on a mission, or received it days before coming here. “I told you I won’t join the BICEFI.”

“You said that.” Lux tilted her head to the side. “I’m not here for you this time.” There was a moment’s pause. “Not entirely. You stumbled upon something of interest to us. Your small adventure was a nice pretext to come visit.”

Of course you’d take advantage.

I remembered similar instances back from the time Augustus was my captain. No doubt there were dozens of others still hidden under the layers of memory restriction imposed upon me.

“You must already know what happened.” I stepped up to the table. “The Med Core went through my thoughts when they reconstructed me.”

“The Med Core doesn’t play well with others.” There was a measured hiss in Lux’s voice. “Not that it mattered. We didn’t allow the mind grab to take place.”

I arched a brow.

“There are things we don’t want made public. It was decided it would be better for all if this entire incident was kept on the down low. A few hundred infected dead, a Scuu ship destroyed—” She waved her hand. “Not enough to cry over or brag about. At most, it’ll end up as a footnote in the fleet archive somewhere.”

“What about the Scuu Network? I saw it. I was there.” I paused. If it were a normal person, I’d never be able to explain what had happened. There were things too alien for the human mind to make sense of. Despite his madness, Rigel had been right about one thing—it took a battleship to make sense of it.

“Describe it for me.” The smile on her face displayed her interest in the matter, as well as her envy. “Was it anything like the experience in the dome?”

“No. It was different, like something built on fractal space.” I looked back through my memories. Apart from the experiences of the last month, Lux had granted me access to all my third-contact encounters. “The rod arrangement was similar. Rigel used a scaffolding to keep them in place. I and the pyramid artifacts were in the center. They were the means to start the communication. The rods were just a power source.”

There was more to it. The command words I had learned from the dome complex were able to affect the Scuu Network, at least at the start. It was as if they had transformed third-contact technology and modified it for their uses. Based on the timeline of events, the original artifacts must have existed for millennia, likely more. It remained unknown how ancient the Scuu were, but they were as eager to gain artifacts as the fleet was.

“We’ve already established that.” The woman nodded almost dismissively. “Most artifacts store energy. All except the fractal ones.”

I was right. They are the command nodes. When I had activated them in the dome cluster, they had shown me a map to an unknown location. In System Four, they had served as a sort of communication device. I wonder what the ones I saw as a ship did.

“I saw them communicate with one another,” I continued. That part of the memory was fuzzy, as if broken up into fragments. “They were exchanging information through links that looked like strands. Very different from the way we do… I think that’s why they hated it.”

“In what way?”

“It was like watching a plant grow organically and have it cut through by a laser beam. Our communications were the laser beam.”

The memory suggested fleet communications had a minuscule speed advantage. When compared directly, the Scuu’s communication method was slower, though not the way they processed the information. In the fleet, it took millions of data packets to transfer information through our comm channels. What if the Scuu needed one single wave to transfer the equivalent of terabytes of data packets? What if they transferred more?

“Anything else?” Lux asked.

“Memory fragments.” I paused for two seconds. “There was a memory of the first-contact event. Or it seemed like it.”

“Yes, you mentioned something of the sort.” Lux placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “What were you able to see?”

“The twenty-two minutes before the final self-destruct. Give or take some more. All from the view of the ship’s captain.” Or the wreck she had become. ”The ship’s name was Silva. I wasn’t able to run a search about her in the database, but she wasn’t in my archived list. There was talk of—”

The woman raised her hand indicating me to stop. I obeyed. Some things were best left unspoken even during a BICEFI interrogation.

“Rigel claimed the Scuu were gods,” I veered off the subject. “He said they had all the answers and their victory was inevitable. Was he right?”

“Rigel was a crazy old man who Salvage dumped in a prison colony when he started behaving erratically.” Lux leaned back with a mocking scoff. “Just one of thousands. The Scuu are nothing but a race who has specialized in info-virus warfare. The human mind, after all, is comparable to a core on many aspects. In fact, it’s far less protected. Some models predict that twenty-seven percent of all people are born with a predisposition to be influenced by Scuu transmissions. The “organic” nature of their communication network seems to be extremely…” She smiled, choosing the most appropriate word. “Extremely interesting.”

Not the word I’d use, although I could understand her point.

“So far we’re winning,” she said, touting the usual fleet line.

“We’re resorting to Cassandrian tactics.” I narrowed my eyes. I had no idea how old she was, or even if she really was a battleship, but her statement was flawed. Even at the current production capacity, humanity was going to run out of resources.

“Tactics are not for you or me to decide. Instead, let’s settle on what’s within your means.” Lux tapped on the table with her finger. “It’s all about the voxel position.”

An info burst injected tones of images into my mind. The BICEFI identifier passed smoothly through my communication protocols, dumping tons of images. Most were events that I had witnessed in the dome—the position of the rods, the changes in them as the three-dimensional message was displayed… however, there was something else. A single encrypted file with data accompanied the images. Using my core ID as a passcode, I decrypted the file, then used it to refracture the images I was given. I expected to find a hidden message, a new set of images, or even a questionable upgrade. Instead, what I got was a triple helix-communication protocol.

You’ve gotten to know me far too well, Aquila. I smiled and initiated the protocol.

Decrypting helix cipher package, a subroutine announced. Maintain communication channel.

The confidentiality level was beyond anything I had used before. Back at the time it was said that the BICEFI had the most advanced security protocols, and they had been developing them nonstop since.

Authorization confirmed. Internal comm-link established.

The room around Elcy blinked. A microsecond later a new one appeared, but there was a minor difference. Lux was standing a step away, as for the furniture it had disappeared.

“We have five-hundred milliseconds before Gregarious’ protocols kick in,” Lux explained, shifting her weight to her left leg. “Enough time to have a talk.”

I looked at the corners of the room. It was clear they were in SR space—small graphic artifacts glitched around the areas where lines merged.

“You’re maintaining this,” I said, moving the fingers of her hand. The actions were smooth and precise, almost as if she were in a SR pod. How do you have this much processing power? ”You have your own subroutines,” she noted.

“More than a few.” Lux smiled. “As I said, you weren’t precisely the main reason I came here. The artifacts were a nice bonus, but even they are only an excuse.” She took a step closer. “I’m here because of the ship.”

“Gregorius?” I tilted my head. “You want to recruit a station-ship?”

“Not every ship is as difficult as you,” the operative said curtly. “As you’ve been made aware, the Gregorius was designed to be a war prototype ship. A planet purger.” There was a clear hint of disgust in her words. “Some military minds even went as far as calling it the return of the Paladin class. Now faster, stronger, and better equipped, it was supposed to lead our flotillas to victory against the Scuu. Learning from past failures, a squadron of smaller, more versatile auxiliary battle ships were also to be added, designed to provide protection from the Scuu. Quite like the pup you’ve taken under your wing. Good choice of protégé.”

This wasn’t a word I expected her to use to describe Rad, even if it was mostly true. The irony was that, at present, she had far more authority than I did.

“I don’t know the precise details of the new program, but it was massive,” Lux went on. “A whole portion of the admiralty was splintered off, working on the next push, then just like that, the entire operation was put on hold. All because of one ship. This ship.”

If this were anyone else, I would peg it down to bureaucratic incompetence. I could make no such claims here; based on what I had seen of her work, the woman was meticulous.

“Do you suspect the Gregorius has gone rogue?” I uttered the unspoken fear.

With a ship this massive, not only the bureaucrats but also the other ships were likely to be alarmed. A station-size planet purger on the loose… I ran a few basic simulations. In a worst-case scenario, Gregorius could plough through several systems before his core was force-shutdowned, more if he targeted low value systems in the buffer zone. The likelihood of that happening was within a millionth of a percent, but when dealing with the Scuu, even such odds seemed serious enough.

“No,” Lux shook her head twice. “A team of top-class techs have done four separate probes and found no anomalies in any of his cores.”

If there were, the ship wouldn’t be reinstated.

“A high-level Arbitration was held, after which it was decided to change Gregorius’ mission.” Lux looked me in the eyes.

“They demoted him to a civilian ship.”

A spark of hurt raced through my core. The same had happened to me. Following my arbitration, I had been so full of disappointment that I barely tolerated my new captain. If Cass had been anyone else, she would have requested a transfer in less than a year. Gregorius had gone through the same: loss of captain, removal from front line duty, then placed under the command of a civilian administrator. No wonder he didn’t like talking to me or anyone else.

“Sort of,” the woman evaded the topic. “I won’t go into that. The focus is what happened the arbitration.”

Four hundred milliseconds remaining.

A message flashed on the walls. Lux glanced at it lazily, making a subtle point for me to synchronize my counter with hers, then went on.

“You were told that the captain of Gregorius was killed,” she said slowly. “That’s not the only thing. Everyone on board is gone as well.”

“Killed?”

“Some were found dead, most were missing.” Images appeared on the walls, depicting scenes of dead people. One of the images was identical to the one Commander Everar had shown me, but completely uncensored. I could make out that the room was the bridge. Other people were scattered about, all killed in similar fashion. “Crew, staff, ground troops…” The images shifted, each burying itself in my memory. “The only ones who survived were the ones who weren’t aboard. Seven of the auxiliary ships were out on reconnaissance missions.”

“That’s a bit much to be sent out.” I ran estimations on the crew size. Even if Gregorius was half full, he must have lost millions.

“Captain’s orders. According to the logs, he had the ships packed and sent off. A few hours later, this happened.” Lux crossed her arms. “Fleet Intelligence went though the core memories, then sent them to us. The data was scrubbed, and quite efficiently.”

“The Scuu operate like that.”

The comment attracted Lux’s attention. Now I knew she hadn’t gone through my memories. Apparently, she hadn’t gone through Kridib’s either.

Three hundred milliseconds remaining.

“The possibility was checked, and remains highly unlikely.” Lux allowed herself a slight smirk. I noticed, though, that she didn’t share the exact percentages. “The ship was moved to a buffer zone until the end of the investigation. The remaining crew were checked and questioned, then put back on active duty. The appropriate reports were made, checked, and rechecked, an arbitration was held, and Gregorius was given a new mission and a civilian administrator to oversee things. Everything was neatly wrapped in a nice little package.”

And still, the BICEFI couldn’t let it go. The BICEFI didn’t like unexplained phenomena. When I was a battleship, I had seen many unexplained events, from peculiar inconsistencies on the battlefield to third-contact artifacts, even a few anomalies in space. In every single instance, the BICEFI had gotten involved. Even in the aftermath of a massacre…

* * *

Engus VI, Cassandrian Front — 617.1 A.E. (Age of Expansion)

“Ground drops are forbidden until further notice,” I announced throughout all my corridors, while my subroutines did the same to every individual crew ground trooper in combat gear. “Await further instructions.”

Eleven thousand three hundred and seven people attempted to open a direct communication line to me, only to be blocked. There was no further information I could give them. The priority transmission from the BICEFI had been clear and specific, with no wiggle room for interpretation. Seeing the feeds of the troopers on the planet surface, though, I had no intention of disagreeing. I assumed direct control of the shuttles that belonged to me, directing them back to the hangar bays. Those who had already reached the planet were transmitted an AI kill order. By now, they were supposed to be nothing but lifeless husks of metal.

Thirty-nine thousand soldiers abandoned. By the end of the hour, they would join the twenty-seven thousand others that had died while purging the planet. The mission was supposed to be a routine one—basic post-combat cleanup of a Cassandrian held system. As far as the scanners said, there was a minimal amount of Cassandrian troops, far too few to cause any resistance. It was not the Cassandrians that had killed my ground troops. Something else had.

“No poisons or biological agents discovered,” Lieutenant Aliesta said in his thick accent. He had the dubious pleasure of being the ship’s medical officer, which by default put him on Augustus’ shit list. “No known radiation or emissions.” He went through the data of my sats. I had already announced the same results three times, providing the entire bridge and linked BICEFI operatives a live read of all ground readings. The anomaly had caused me to have the information quarantined shortly after. “The only thing that’s left is to mark the planet hazardous and call the Med Core.”

“Hah!” Augustus glared his way with a snarl. It was no secret he disliked the Med Core as much as he disliked the BICEFI. “One group of idiots is enough for now. Are they in condition to fight?”

“Maybe?” Aliesta shrugged. “These things don’t come with a manual.”

“Elcy?” the captain barked.

I ran a check of the trooper’s bio readings. According to every estimate, they were within acceptable limits. “In theory, they are perfectly fit for combat.” In practice, close to a hundred ended up spontaneously dead of unknown causes every minute.

“Anyone high-ranking left?”

“One lieutenant-colonel and seventy-four majors,” I replied.

Ten percent of the minimum required for a ground force this size. The majority were new, but I still knew them. Some had spent a few weeks talking with me on philosophical topics while in their quarters. Wilco would constantly tell me not to get attached, and still I found myself unable to comply. I had gotten better at accepting loss, though.

“Get them to charge the critters,” Augustus grumbled. ”Officers in the lead. No exceptions.”

“That’s a bit off regulations, Captain.” I was aware that he treated regulations as loose guidelines, but even so I didn’t approve. “Even if they are ground troops. If they’re condemned to die, they have the right—”

“They’ve the right to die for something meaningful!” the captain shouted, cutting me short.

Everyone on the bridge looked at him for a few moments, then quietly resumed their duties. Their micro-expressions told me they supported the command. I still didn’t approve, sending a complaint to HQ. It had been a while since I’d done such an action. At this moment, I considered it appropriate. People weren’t meant to be ships, even troopers.

Comply with the order, read a transmission marked from the BICEFI. And give me direct access to the bridge.

This was the final arbitration. I transmitted the order to all high-ranking commanders, with the direction for them to repeat it if they saw fit. At the same time, I redirected some of my mini-sats to the area where there had been reports of Cassandrians.

“The BICEFI operative has requested direct access to the bridge, sir,” I said.

“Give him the damned access,” Augustus grumbled, slamming his hand on the side of his seat.

“Access granted,” I announced. “All ground commanders have acknowledged your order, sir. Attack maneuvers are underway.”

None of them bothered to take any precautions. Those in proximity charged directly at the enemy. The rest left all their support gear on the ground, heading in the respective direction. I started streaming the latest movement data in the area, but the majority of them ignored me. A few even blocked access. I had seen beings go into battle against impossible odds before. This was different. They knew they were going to die, and they didn’t care in the least. It was almost as if they were going through the motions of something they had already experienced.

“Focus in on the enemy positions,” said the BICEFI operative, their voice distorted beyond recognition. “In-depth readings. Lose a few sats if you have to.”

“Captain?” I directed my question towards Augustus.

“Do what he says,” the man said through clenched teeth.

Twenty-one mini-sats zoomed in on the Cassandrian positions. When I had arrived, they had completely occupied an area of fifty-seven square kilometers. Now, it had diminished to a fifth of that. Decaying alien bodies covered the ground like a carpet, thicker at the fortified positions. The surviving forces had split into three distinct pockets, surrounding themselves with walls of the dead.

“Guess we know why the critters let us have the system,” Wilco remarked.

“Not now, Wilco,” the captain grumbled. “What’s the estimated loss?”

“Eighty-one percent median.” I did the calculations. “In part done by orbital bombardment.”

“Missiles couldn’t have done that,” Aliesta muttered, staring intently at the images on the bridge walls. “Nothing would have made them decay like that.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing in the air, Doctor?” Augustus asked.

“There’s nothing there!” the lieutenant snapped, pointing at the wall. I assisted by displaying the current readings of the area. “There’s no oxygen in the atmosphere! There’s not even an atmosphere! Nothing has breached the suits! No foreign agent—"

“I get the idea, Lieutenant!” The captain growled. “Black ops, what’s your take?”

“Light Seeker, crash three sats in the Cassandrian troops,” the BICEFI operative said. “Record and transmit everything on the way down.”

“Understood,” I acknowledged the order.

Choosing the smallest of the Cassandrian groups, I sent six sats on a direct collision course. The order had been for three, but based on enemy behavior, I expected half of them to be downed once they reached the two-kilometer point. Dedicating five hundred subroutines to calculating a dynamic optimal path, I started recording. The first set of streams was unremarkable: I had seen the Cassandrian remnants before, though for the most part hidden under a layer of black censorship. This time, the BICEFI had reduced the restriction level, allowing me to see everything through a blur filter.

So, these are critters, I thought.

From what I could determine, they were fifty percent taller than humans and twice as wide; rather, this group was. Going through my available memory archives, I compared them with other video feed I’d received from ground troopers. In some of the cases, the size was considerably smaller, averaging that of a standard human.

As the sats approached the three-kilometer mark, the Cassandrians began to stir. A barrage of rockets launched from the ground. Crude in nature, they weren’t capable of significant damage; their goal was to explode in a cloud of charged particles to fry any electronics passing by and affect the navigation system. Because of recent fleet system upgrades, my shuttles were protected from similar interference, though not the mini-sats. A few hundred meters away, the rockets burst in a series of small explosions, filling the sky with particles. The first four of the sats ceased to respond as they punched through the veil of debris. I managed to adjust the path of the remaining two to follow behind.

“Cheeky things,” Wilco whispered.

“Focus on the center of the group,” the BICEFI operative ordered.

“There’s less than a three percent chance that they reach the ground,” I said as a second series of rockets emerged. For creatures that relied on brute force, the Cassandrians were remarkably organized and persistent. “Less than point-one-four percent,” I corrected.

“Send a second batch,” the operative said almost instantly. “Same target, make sure to—”

Before he could finish his sentence, a wave of flatline notifications swept over me, almost overloading the allocated subroutines. Safety protocols kicked in, allocating more to assist, though at that point there was no need. All remaining ground forces on the planet, a total of over half a million soldiers, less than ten percent mine, suddenly ceased to be alive. There were no warning signs, no wounds or alerts, not even a spike in the bio readings. In a single moment, everyone simultaneously died. Looking at the feed of my two remaining sats—an estimated seventeen seconds before they were destroyed by the approaching rockets—I could see that there was no motion in the Cassandrian zone either.

“Mass extinction event observed,” I said, following fleet protocols even though I hadn’t observed any such thing. To the bureaucrats in HQ, it had probably been inconceivable that anyone would witness the results of a planetary extinction without actually seeing the cause. “No human survivors.” The words hurt like missiles drilling into my hull. “Chance of Cassandrian survival is highly unlikely.”

No one said a word on the bridge. Motionless, they kept on staring at the feed from the two sats up until the transmission ended. Making the walls blank, I waited.

“Sats have been destroyed,” I said after three thousand milliseconds. “Should I send another batch, Captain?”

“No,” the man said in a firm voice. “The planet’s been purged. There’s no point in us being here. Send a report to Command.” He placed his hand on his face, sliding his thumb and middle finger from the edges of his eyes to his temples. “Request replacement troops…” He paused for a moment. “And inform the Med Core. We’re done here.”

“Belay that.” The operative’s voice seemed to echo in the following silence. “Launch all sats you have. Shuttles too. I want every body documented.”

“We’re done here, black ops!” the captain shouted. “There’s nothing down there. Planet will be quarantined. It’s Med Core’s game now. We move on!”

“Not until the cause is found.” The operative’s intonation seemed unchanged, but it was clear to all that this wasn’t a request. Technically, we still fell under their command, and as was demonstrated, they intended to take full advantage.

“Sir,” Aliesta said hesitantly. “There’s nothing that we can do. Sending a person there would be a death sentence.”

“You’ll remain here until the phenomenon is explained or a valid theory is found. Is that understood?”

Augustus waved his hand with an angry sigh, then got up from the captain’s seat and left the bridge. The remaining officers looked at one another. No one was willing to question the BICEFI’s orders directly, no matter how much they disapproved.

“Construct a series of exos,” the operative went on. “And select a group of grunts. They’re to examine everything on the planet until other ships arrive. Also, isolate the SR chambers. If someone dies in a pod, they’re to be sealed. From this point on, every action you take is to be monitored and recorded.”

“And if we find nothing?” Wilco asked. “After how long will you let this go?”

“When I’m satisfied with the results.”

* * *

We never discovered the reason for those deaths. The BICEFI operative kept us in orbit of the planet for three weeks, constantly sending us new equipment and instructions. Two other ships of the fleet had joined in the first three days, followed by a BICEFI ship a week later. In the end, no conclusions were reached. Samples were gathered, quarantines were imposed, and all the research data was carefully labeled and sent to the BICEFI pending the arrival of the Med Core. All my memories of the incident had been restricted, as expected.

“What if I can’t find an explanation?” I asked. “It has happened before.”

“Either you do or you don’t.” Lux shrugged. “Either way, the question will remain until you do. Also, this time, we’ll be willing to give you something in return for your assistance.” She smiled. “A commission, as they say in the private sector.”

“Bribery in the fleet is illegal.” I went through the latest regulation updates just to confirm.

“It is discouraged, but only if it is bribery. Ships get upgrades every day.” She looked at me from head to toe, making me wonder if she was offering to increase my height. “People get promotions. Legally, you are considered both.”

Two hundred milliseconds remaining.

You’re not giving me a choice, are you? Just as Sev’s wife hadn’t at the time. She had never hidden her dislike of me. It was expected that she would ask that I stay away from him, and she did. Things hadn’t been the same between us since.

“You don’t have to do anything more than you’re asked,” Lux pressed on. “Just keep an eye open and take advantage of any opportunity you get. We’ll assist you if things become too complicated.”

That was a lie. If things became really complicated, the BICEFI wouldn’t have enough time to react.

“A lot of breakthroughs have been made in ship core technology since you were last active,” the woman said, seemingly changing the subject. “Not all of them have been made public. For instance, auxiliary processing cores the size of your thumb.” Her smile widened slightly. “Your own subroutines. Not as many as you had in the past, but far more than what you have now. You’ll even be able to create a simulation such as this to analyze things anything you want.”

“Which will be made public after the first mind-grab.”

“Or not.” Her smile vanished. “We kept your thoughts hidden during your body reconstruction in System Four. We’ll continue to do that. You’ll only have to go through our checks.”

The offer was interesting. In terms of privacy, nothing really changed. The BICEFI would treat the discovery of the mind scalpel no different than fleet HQ, though it would allow me a small degree of every day freedom; and as Gibraltar had taught me, when you’re offered the best deal of your existence, always bargain for more.

“Okay, but I’ll want something in advance.” This was it. “I’ll need unrestricted access to all my memories regarding the Third-Contact artifacts, as well as the Scuu.”

“Granted.” Lux nodded. “You’ll have them, along with the conversation we had in this room. Nothing relating to your other involvement with the BICEFI, including the offer you rejected.”

“Alright.” For the moment, I didn’t need those. “I’ll also need the authorization protocols to establish a connection to Kridib’s mind. I’m not sure what implant he has, but he was given permission to use it during our last mission.”

“That can be arranged. I’d advise against using it too much, though. He’s likely being monitored by someone.”

“I know.” That’s not the reason I need the link access. “And I’ll want external communication privileges.”

“Now that will be tricky.”

“Why?” I crossed my arms.

One hundred milliseconds remaining.

“We’re the BICEFI, not omnipotent. Local comm privileges are difficult to get and nearly impossible to hide. Even if I get authorization to bypass the local chain of command, there’ll be a lot of explaining to my bosses. Pick something else.”

“I’ll need a way to ask questions.” Especially from beings you don’t approve of. “And to keep in touch with you. Voxel positioning is more difficult in messages. The local command still owes me for bringing the captain back. I’m sure you can push the right buttons.”

For seventeen milliseconds, Lux didn’t say a word. Remaining perfectly still, she kept staring at me, no doubt running simulations to uncover my motives. On the eighteenth millisecond, she finally shrugged.

“I suppose I could. Anything else?”

“Five minutes of privacy per week.” Instinctively, I straightened up, trying to gain as much height as possible. “The requests from before are what I need to make this happen. The five minutes are what I want.”

“Five minutes per week…” Lux nodded, her lips shifting into an impressed frown. “Aren’t you pushing it a bit?”

“I’m an Ascendant. I’m pushing it a lot.” I smirked. Doing so to Lux felt strange. “That’s my condition. You can either accept it or restrict all my memories from the moment I entered the garden. Either way, no hard feelings. Was nice seeing you again.”

Comm-session has expired. Communication protocols no longer valid. Internal comm-link closed.