Veterans I’d served with like to say that the more things change, the more they remain the same. In a way, they were correct. Technology advanced every few years; better, faster, and larger ships were flying through human space, connecting colonies that didn’t exist decades ago. The overall goals, though, remained the same—do what’s needed for humanity to survive. In a time of constant war, that thing was better weapons.

When my thought quarantine ended, I found myself in a five-planet system with an F-type star. Ve has stubbornly refused to give me any planet readings, but even so I was able to see that one of them had a significant life factor. The base I was assigned to was located on one of the rocky satellites orbiting the living planet. Approaching further, I could see a series of domes covering part of the surface like yellow pimples. Definitely not the best first impression.

“Anything you can tell me?” I asked, looking at the wall feed.

Don’t know, don’t care, the ship replied.

I strongly suspected she was lying. The first thing I would have done was to skim the Fleet’s database for every scrap of data. That was one of the few certainties of ships—we were always curious.

“You’ll remember the way back, at least?”

Ha, ha.

I could tell her that life wasn’t a series of logical principles, but she’d likely ignore me. When I was her age I thought the same, focusing on my processing speed and the efficiency of my algorithms. Back then I, like every other ship my class, were impressed with the older ships, but also wanted to prove I’m better. The future gen ships I’d had interaction with were the same. Ve was no exception.

The base didn’t have a defined landing pad. Instead, we went to a rocky plateau a short distance from the domes where a land vehicle was waiting.

“Not a high-tech welcome.” I started my way to the airlock. The video feed followed me along the wall as I walked.

They just used tech you’re used to, Ve transmitted with a smirk. Take good care of my suit. You’ll need it to get back on.

“Being sentimental?”

Security protocols.

There was no telling whether or not she was being serious. Either way, I intended to honor her request. Tucking the sandals in my uniform, I put it on, then waited patiently for the airlock door to open.

I’ll be here in a week local time, Ve opened the door. Otton will take care of the permissions.

“Sure.” It still felt weird seeing someone be on a name basis with a Paladin. “See you then.” I stepped onto the planet surface.

Vermillion Green barely waited for me to move a step away before she launched back into space. She had her own priorities and so did I. Until the end of my assignment, I would be on this rock, doing whatever the local scientists asked me to do.

“Hello, Officer Candidate Light Seeker,” a deep female voice greeted me through the comm. “Welcome to research facility seven five.”

“Thank you for having me, ma’am.” The lack of name suggested that the facility was highly classified, the number told me that it was a temporary installation.

“Glad to have you. Your record has been the talk of the day.”

“Hopefully, it’s been a slow day, ma’am.” There were several things I preferred people didn’t know. “What is the procedure, ma’am?”

The vehicle’s door moved up opening a space for me to enter.

“Hop in. It’s automated from there.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The attitude was a mix between that of a scientist and a seasoned bureaucrat. A quick analysis of her intonation and speech pattern indicated that she didn’t seem hostile. Running the voice print through the database for a match failed to give any results.

The inside of the vehicle was suited for two people, which made it comfortably wide for me. The designation Rover 4 was painted on a panel in front, just beneath the windshield. There were no screens, no steering devices, nothing high-tech.

“Hello, Rover,” I greeted. The lack of immediate response suggested there was no AI either.

It took me six minutes and fifty-two seconds to get to the base’s entrance. Most of the time I spent looking at the view outside. The position of the planet the satellite was orbiting allowed me to see it as a large marble in the sky. Even with most of it wrapped in darkness I could see the lines of continents and water—everything necessary to make the planet suitable for life. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few decades the world was as inhabited as any other frontier system.

“Almost there,” the female voice said, as the rover stopped. “Just need to get through decon-medical.”

Decontamination and medical… I was wondering when I’d go through those. In theory Fleet standards were supposed to be compatible, but every ship, station, and facility had its own unique procedures and stuck to them. Back when I was active, I had every crew member and ground trooper pass through a one-minute decontamination process during which time I pinged their internal nanobots for information. In my case I’d probably go through a long decon followed by a several hour medical examination.

The hall I entered was similar to a hangar bay—a large empty space, a dozen rover vehicles parked in their designated areas, and a series of decontamination chambers. Unlike the rovers, the decon chambers were cutting edge.

“Please enter the designated decontamination chamber,” a loud mechanical voice said as one of the chambers lit up in pale green.

Here we go again. It was almost as if I were back on Virgo station. Considering my record, the local administration was likely already keeping an eye on me, so best not to let them down.

Jumping out of the vehicle, I rushed to the indicated decon chamber and stepped inside. All walls went opaque.

Remove all clothes and personal items!

A message appeared at my eye level written in bright red letters. I did as I was told, removing the space suit, followed by the remaining items of clothing. Lacking additional instructions, I folded and arranged all items on the floor, including the sandals Sev had given me.

Do any of the items hold personal or spiritual significance?

That wasn’t a standard question.

“The sandals are a personal item,” I replied. “The space suit and helmet have a security classification.” I added, knowing what the following order would be.

Place all items of significance in the decontamination bin. They will be screened and returned to you in your facility quarters. All other items are to be left behind. A new uniform will be provided to you.

“Understood.”

A compartment opened in the base of the chamber. I put the sandals first, then Ve’s suit. The chamber closed soon after.

Prepare for decontamination. Please close your eyes and hold your breath until decontamination is over.

A spray covered me. At first it started softly, like droplets of mist, quickly increasing intensity every hundred milliseconds. By the twentieth second, I felt as if I were in a shower. There was an abrupt stop, after which the spray was replaced by waves of air, and then nanites. Precisely two hundred seconds later everything came to a full halt.

“Decontamination complete,” the metallic voice said. “Remain in the chamber. You may breathe and open your eyes.”

The instructions sounded more like orders. The walls of the decon chamber had turned red. There was no trace of my uniform.

A temporary uniform has been prepared for you.

A message appeared in black letters. There was a faint hissing sound, after which a new compartment opened revealing a neatly folded white uniform. On the surface it seemed identical to the one I’d worn.

At least it’s my size. I put it on.

Once I finished, the chamber became transparent again, letting me continue further into the base. The bay’s inner security door opened.

“Hello, hello.” A dark-skinned woman waved from inside the corridor. Her voice was a match to the person who had greeted through comms upon arrival; her appearance, though, was not even in the top forty percent of my simulations.

Only slightly taller than myself she was broad and muscular to the point that her clothes had problems keeping up. A captain’s insignia decorated what could best be described as a casual shirt. The shorts and shoes also weren’t military issue. Following a mosaic of colors that would have better suited a modern art piece somewhere. As my third captain Gibraltar liked to say, whoever had the strength to wear something objectively ugly either had the skills or connections to back it up.

“So, you’re our new starless?” The woman crossed her arms.

Immediately, I stood to attention.

“Better get rid of that habit. Everyone here has an officer’s designation. Even the cleaners. Think of it more as a civilian project. The only ones you need to be careful about are the directors and your immediate superior.”

“Are you my immediate superior, ma’am?” The simulations I’d run suggested that based on her behavior there was a ninety-three percent chance she was.

“I wish. I’m just here to greet you.” She made me a sign to stand at ease.

Judging by her stance and movements, I estimate she had spent a significant amount of time on a heavy gravity world. Most people from such planets developed an obsession with physical training, taking it to the extreme once off planet. As such it was relatively uncommon for them to join the Fleet.

“Will you also be debriefing me, ma’am?”

“Wrong again. That’s the director’s job. I just get to show you around, settle you in, then take you to your medical. Preferably in that order.”

Strange that she didn’t offer to transfer me the base layout. Doing so would only speed things up.

“Are you aware that I’m a battleship, ma’am?”

“Sure am, along with everyone else.”

It was so tempting to request permission to speak freely. Doing so, though, ran the risk of starting a cascade of trouble. I was to be at my best behavior and keep a low profile.

“Just wanted to confirm, ma’am,” I lied. “Do we head for medbay?”

“No. Before that, I want to show you something.”

“Yes, ma’am. Might I learn how to address you, ma’am?”

A wide smile appeared on her face. “’Bo. ’Gor ’Bo.”

Finally, I had a reference. During the Age of Exploration, language standardization had become a necessity. Aided by the increasingly sentient AIs of the time a common language had emerged encompassing all previously existing languages about the point-zero-zero-two percentile. One set of symbols had been adopted following clear phonetic principles, reducing ancestral languages to little more than hobbies. Then, following the decades after the first-contact war, a linguistic anomaly appeared. People from the central systems started putting apostrophes in front of their name to indicate their system hadn’t fallen to the Scuu. The practice continued for centuries, until it was slowly abandoned for ease.

At present there less than a dozen star systems that kept the tradition alive, along with a scattering of people elsewhere. For the captain to have one in front of both her first and family name, she likely had to be born in a megapolis on humanity’s innermost star systems. If that were the case, what was she doing here?

“Thank you, ma’am.” I noted that she didn’t request that I address her in any different fashion. “Lead the way, ma’am.”

Another station, another corridor. This one was more rudimentary than most, more belonging to a mining colony than an actual research facility. While we walked, I couldn’t see a single person anywhere. The way captain ‘Bo would turn to the side every now and again, the expression of her facial expression subtly changing each time, suggested that other people were there, but I had been thought-quarantined not to see them.

“Your file says you spent decades on a planet before rejoining the fleet. Is that true?”

“Yes, ma’am. I had a family there.” I added only to see her reaction. “Still do.”

The woman stopped and gave me a squinted look. According to my simulations, there was a fifty-five percent chance for her to ask some obvious question. To my slight surprise, all I got was a hesitant nod.

“Yeah… I heard that you ships are obsessed with plants once you retire.” She went back to her original topic.

Not only plants. “Most of us are, ma’am.”

“Then you’ll love this.” She said as we reached a double security door.

When the door opened, there was no way I could deny her being right. The area before me could only be described as a jungle. Grass, trees, vines and bushes went on as far as the eye could see. From here I registered seventy-one different plant species, none of which I could identify. Light came in from a large dome above, creating the impression that I was on a live-abundant planet and not some barren rock.

You were right, Cass. Even after all this time, wonders still exist.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen a space garden; Virgo station had its own small oases, the station ship I’d served on before had several domes large as forests, even I had a menagerie of plants scattered through my decks back during my last tour as a ship. This dome wasn’t just a garden, it was a living laboratory. Rooms and elegant structures merged with the plants in almost perfect symbiosis. I could imagine scientists my sensors couldn’t see walking about, taking samples, conducting experiments, maybe even living here, all the while surrounded by organic life.

“Welcome to Sundome Alpha,” Captain ‘Bo said. “Non stop plants and sunlight. Everyone loves it at first, then quickly gets tired in a few weeks.”

“I won’t,” I whispered. “Are my quarters here, ma’am?”

“Sure.” The woman laughed. “That’s not my call. The directors assign living quarters. Don’t see why not. Not like there are many volunteers. Now that I’ve shown you the highlight, let’s—”

“I’ll take it from here,” a familiar voice said beside me. Looking in the direction I saw someone who hadn’t been there seconds ago. “Hello, princess.”

Doctor Sim…

The last time I saw the good doctor was during my mission on the science ship Prometheus. Officially, I wasn’t supposed to remember anything of the interrogation he had subjected me in his attempts to determine whether I had gone rogue. Even so, the details remained crystal clear and accessible to me. There had been no malice, no ill intent, but also little understanding either. The ease with which he switched from pleasant, funny, even warm to ruthless and focused on a single task suggested that more likely than not he fell somewhere on the psychopath scale.

“Director.” ‘Bo’s smile quickly vanished. “I was just about to—"

“It’s alright.” Sim raised his hand with a smile. “Elcy and I go a way back. Don’t we Elcy?”

“Indeed, we do, sir.” I didn’t feel overly concerned, although the likelihood of this being a calm and boring mission just became extremely unlikely. “You know my thoughts better than most.”

“Quite, quite.” The director gave a warmhearted chuckle which clearly made ‘Bo even less comfortable. “I can assure you this time we’ll limit our sharing to work and poetry.”

“I’d like that very much, sir.”

“Anything else, you needed, ‘Gor?” The tone remained unchanged, but I caught the warning glance that lasted just under five-hundred milliseconds.

“Nothing, sir. I’ll get back to the lab.”

“Much obliged.” Doctor Sim nodded a few times. By the looks of it there were some underlying issues between them. “How do you like it so far?” He asked the moment ‘Bo had disappeared from view.

“I’m still waiting to be briefed, sir. Other than that, I like what I can see.”

“You’ll see the rest soon enough. Until then, you’ll have to do some more dancing in the dark.” There was no secret what he meant. “It’s standard procedure.”

Probably a bit less standard in my case. “I understand, sir. Do you need me to enter sleep mode?”

“No. There’ll be no thought grabbing. There are a few things we need to talk about before the debriefing.”

The last time this was done to me, the BICEFI were involved.

“There’s nothing to worry about. It’ll all pass in a—"

The dome garden disappeared. I was sitting in a large office. All the furniture had a neoclassical design, even if synthetic. Greyish opaque windows composed half of the walls, the rest being sterile white with a few archaic screens attached. Looking down in my hands, I saw I was holding a gelatin ration, labeled only as Exotic 23.

“You’re free to finish that,” Doctor Sim said, focusing his attention on one of the screens. “How do you consistently manage to keep your calcium level so low, I’ve no idea.”

All four screens displayed weather information along with statistics for pollen count, mutation variants, and allergy reactions. At the very bottom, marked in red, was stat that only stated active experiments. The number given on all monitors was ninety-six.

“I take it our discussion went well?” I asked, peeling off the foil of the plastic container I was holding.

“Both our discussion and your medical,” the man replied. “Good thing, too. It saved me quite some time in the long run.” He glanced over his shoulder. “When I read that you were considered a third-contact specialist, I had my doubts. Our time on the Prometheus wasn’t the most amicable.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” I lied.

“To think you were a BICEFI asset all along. Don’t get me wrong, I like working with them. Some of my best friends were BICEFI operatives. Unfortunately, when following the greater good sometimes bridges get burned.”

“Will I be working for the greater good on this mission?” I looked around for a spoon.

Seeing my reaction, Sim went to his desk with a sigh and took a stack of synthetic spoons. He then made his way to me.

“We all work for the greater good.” He offered me the stack. I picked one. “The only difference is our approach.”

That was an understatement. I had hours of memories illustrating the rivalries between the BICEFI and the Salvage Authorities. In a few instances, skirmishes had almost broken out between the organizations, requiring that Fleet arbiters get involved. My first captain rarely had anything good to say about Salvage and voiced it even less. From what I knew, the BICEFI was of the opinion that the only way for humanity to gain an advantage was through accumulation and study of third-contact artifacts, while Salvage focused on capturing and reverse engineering Scuu and Cassandrian vessels. As for the exact relations between the two, I could only speculate.

“Have you heard of project Cornucopia Seven?” The man asked.

“Not that I remember.”

“It’s one of Med Core’s most significant projects that has everything to do with third-contact artefacts and the Cassandrians. In fact, according to the classified section of your file, you stumbled on one of our prototypes during your previous mission.”

I reviewed my memories. There had been a Cassandrian artefact in the bioengineering section of a ship I was on. Its original goal had been to increase food production on distant ships, reducing or even removing the need of resupply. For what I had seen, it had done so successfully for several years at least, but required a lot of maintenance. Back then, one of my jobs was to clean the ship’s food system from organic mush along with thousands of others. No high-tech equipment was allowed anywhere near the artefact. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen many examples of high-tech equipment here either.

“The artifact was given to Salvage, among other things, as a means to create the new station-ship class. All in all, it could be called a success.”

“But?” I added, before scooping a spoonful of colorless gelatin. The taste was surprisingly rich and nowhere close to the usual fruit additives I was used to. After some analysis the closest I could compare it with was spicy fried mushrooms and bananas.

“There’s no but. The program has moved to its next stage, fueling the need for additional devices. Thankfully, that’s not what we’re focusing on here.” He pointed at the nearest screen. “This used to be a Cassandrian system, one isolated from their domain. Five planets, all of them full of life.”

“Five, sir?” From what I had seen, there were only three.

“Two were purged when the fleets first came here. Command spent a vast number of resources clearing the area before they sent for us. They were highly concerned that the Cassandrians might use it for a staging ground, so tasked us to find a faster solution of destroying everything. Imagine my predecessor’s surprised when he found that the planets had an obscene life factor way before the clickers even got here.”

I took another pike of the ration, focusing on every word.

“In fact, it was they that had started destroying the ecosystems of the two purged planets. By the time our ships arrived, only a few clusters remained.”

Hundreds of simulations ran in my mind in parallel. Planets suitable with a ready ecosystem were exceedingly rare. Up to now I had seen only one other of the sort, back when we were both on the Prometheus. At the time the BICEFI had devoted their efforts on finding a dome artifact buried on the planet—a task I had helped with.

“There are artifacts there,” I stood up.

“Indeed. Lots and lots of artifacts. About as much as on the planet you found during our time together on Prometheus.”

You weren’t there by accident, were you? “Do the BICEFI know?”

“Yes, and they’ve been instructed not to interfere. This is Med Core’s playground until we’re learned all we can from it.” His tone became frighteningly sharp. “Domes aren’t the only wonders the third-contact race has left behind. Everyone marvels at the technology and destructive power of their toys, but only we dare ask the obvious questions.”

I remained silent. Knowing the doctor’s fascination with theatre and poetry, there was little doubt he’d tell me on his own and in the most dramatic fashion.

“Life. Nineteen percent of all ecosystem planets we’ve found are linked to artefacts, not even counting all those in Cassandrian space. The Fleet wants to learn how to use them to make bigger and better ships, but why not take the opportunity to find out more?”

Red flags popped up as he spoke. A few years back I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but after my experience with the Scuu I’d seen first hand how artefacts had the ability to change people. Sim wouldn’t be the first Med Core operative to get his priorities mixed up.

“What if through following their footsteps we acquire the same knowledge they had? Not just building stations that don’t need resupplying, but be able to terraform planets—any planets—in months instead of decades? Then the Age of Exploration can one day finally resume.”

The tenseness of the moment was gone. Doctor Sim wasn’t affected by an artefact, he just remained a romantic dreamer. Not a bad thing, in itself. Everyone had their own dream, even me.

“Will I be assisting with artifact retrieval and analysis like I was back on the Prometheus?”

“Sadly, nothing as grand this time.” He shook his head, then took a seat next to me. “Originally your assignment was to be on bureaucratic duty. All the things that need to be done, but no one wants to do. I’ve no doubt that Ondalov will use you to carry stuff around as well. I have something else in mind.”

“I’ll be serving under you directly, sir?”

“Think of it as an extra credit assignment. I’ve upped your facility access level. Now in-between bureaucratic chores, you’ll do some actual field work. No combat, no cloak and dagger, just research. What do you think?”

If only things were this simple. “I’m looking forward to it, sir.”