Director Sim wasn’t wrong. I was made aware the very next morning, precisely one hour before the start of my shift, via two high priority datapad messages. The first was a standard form order from Ondalov, letting me know where to be. Even text and bureaucracy didn’t stop the man’s annoyance from leaking through. The second message was from captain ‘Bo, filling in the “pesky technical details” such as what med checks I had to go through, what equipment to take, and an underlined reminder that no electronic devices were allowed on the planet, including my datapad.

Nothing like good manual labor.

Going through my feeds, I did a quick check to see if there was anything else of interest. While I didn’t find anything from Sim, there was one entry marked Special Priority. This was the first time I’d heard of such a classification. When I opened it, I found out why—the Paladin was informing me that my second trip to him would take place in two days.

“You know everything going on here, don’t you?” I asked. Just in case, I typed in “Looking forward to it” and left the datapad on the bed.

Another planetary mission. According to the information provided, all three of the planets were covered in flora without a single specimen of fauna. This in itself was supposed to be a curiosity, if not an improbability. I wouldn’t normally concern myself with such facts, there were plenty unexplained phenomena in space for me to focus on planets, the presence of third-contact artifacts, though, attracted my interest.

Three of the planets in the system had abnormal life factors. The plants on two were completely anaerobic, the one I was headed to wasn’t. I could see why the Cassandrians would attempt to take the system—oxygen was poison to them. One of the few facts the Fleet shared with the public was the assurance that the oxygen rich planets were protected from invasion. The announcement was made a few decades after second contact, when most of humanity was crippled by a sensation of doom. Naturally, it wasn’t mentioned that the Cassandrians could overrun an entire planet in years, if not months. I had seen it happen on the front—whole systems purged of human presence, not a soul left behind.

Med Core was also aware, because they were working on countering that capability of the enemy, or at least ensuring that humanity had similar means of conquest. If it became possible to terraform planets in months, the balance of power would quickly shift, turning humanity from the aggressed into the aggressor. Or maybe humanity had already done so before? All details surrounding the second war were strictly classified, but what if it hadn’t been the Cassandrians who had started it? My recent experience with the Scuu had taught me that things rarely were what they seemed, especially when the bureaucratic apparatus was involved.

My trip through med bay was brief and uneventful. The doctor performed a quick scan with a handheld device, then cleared me without a second glance. Leaving the base apparently was far more lax than I expected.

My next stop was to get the gear ‘Bo had instructed—mechanical tools, a non-standard communication device, as well as a paper notepad and some pencils. It had been a while since I had one of my own. The last was a gift from Sev’s granddaughter. It probably was still back in the house, ticked away in my desk drawer, unless Alexander had moved it.

Twenty-two minutes remained till I had to be at the vehicle bay. My time would have been most efficiently spent in the lab facility, where I’d probably be asked to assist in one or two minor matters before departure. Since there was no requirement for me to do so, I decided to go to D and D instead. One of the few good things about being asked to leave my datapad in my room was that no one could reach me. Augustus would have been furious if I pulled such a stunt, but then again, he didn’t have to work as part of the bureaucratic apparatus until his promotion. Besides, my superior would be furious with me no matter what I did.

When I got there, the hall was almost as full as on my previous visit. Taking my time, I looked around searching for Major Quod. It didn’t take long for me to find her. Unlike before, she wasn’t “working”, but rather sipping a drink in one of the more secluded areas.

“Can I join you?” I approached.

The woman nodded.

“You aren’t on shift today,” I noted with a polite smile.

“Nothing personal, starless, but you’re not my type.” Tiff started taking a sip from her glass.

“I’m a battleship, I’m not anyone’s type.”

The comment must have been funny enough for it almost made her choke on her drink. If I’d suspected such a reaction, I would have waited a few seconds longer.

“Definitely a battleship.” Tiff wiped the drink off her mouth and chin. “So, what’s the occasion?”

“There has to be one?”

Tiff tilted her head, giving me the unmistakable look of someone who didn’t have time to tolerate bullshit.

“I’m scheduled down the planet in sixteen minutes. I was hoping you’d tell me a bit more about quarantine events until then.”

My words had received an immediate response, making her pull slightly away from me and purse her lips.

“I’d like to know what I’m facing, so I’m adequately prepared.”

“Well—” Tiff crossed her arms “—you’ve nothing to worry about. You’re the Director’s golden girl.”

“News travels fast.”

“It definitely does, especially if you don’t bother to hide it. Mind telling me what the deal is?”

“We were on a mission together during my first assignment. I dealt with a situation somewhat similar to this. I’m also a battleship, and as such not completely human and quite expendable.”

“Everyone’s expendable.” The woman sighed. “Look, I don’t want to be an ass, but I come here not to think about such stuff. You want info, send a query to your superior, or better ask the Director himself. I’m sure he’ll come up with an explanation.”

If I wanted an explanation, I would have come up with one myself. In fact, I had already composed a dozen theories based on simulations. However, they were only based on my current understanding of things.

“Is there any advice you could give me then?”

“Advice? Sure. Don’t rip your suit, be careful during decon, and never piss off people you want favors from.”

“Advice on how to keep others safe,” I stressed. “I might no longer be active, but I still consider the people on this facility part of my crew.”

I watched the expression on her face change in real time along with her emotions: reluctance, realization, anger, sympathy, guilt, bitterness, and sadness. Judging by the strong smell of alcohol, that also must have helped in my favor.

“Always seal the hatches,” she whispered. ”That’s all you can do.”

You’ve been through a quarantine event, haven’t you? I could detect several tell-tell signs of survivor’s guilt. According to my simulations, though, it was too early to press her on the matter, also I didn’t have the time.

“Thanks, Tiff. Hope to see you around.”

“Starless,” the woman said as I walked away. “Next time don’t ask about work here. It’s the only bubble of sanity we have left.”

The ground troops used to say that about the SR pods. That and a few other things were the only things that helped them through the cycle of stress and boredom. This wasn’t the battlefield, but similarities kept piling up.

I arrived at the vehicle bay with three minutes to spare. As expected, that didn’t seem good enough for Ondalov. The moment he saw me, the man’s face twisted in an accordion of anger.

“Nice of you to finally arrive, Candidate. If it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, maybe you can go ahead with the mission at hand? Or am I inconveniencing you in any way?”

“There’s two minutes until the allocated time, sir.” I smiled. “I was hoping that I would be told a bit more about the specifics about the mission at hand.”

“Are you being smart?!” The man snapped. “I personally sent you over twenty messages with details. Just because you’re Sim’s favorite doesn’t mean you can toss your datapad and ignore your duties!”

So, you’re tracking my datapad, are you? Good to know.

The fact that he hadn’t mentioned anything about D n D suggested that there were no other means of surveillance, at least such available to him.

“I followed my duties to the letter, sir. Which is why I went to have my med check and pick up my equipment. I also left the datapad in my room as instructed.”

Red in the face, Ondalov turned to ‘Bo.

“Yep, we asked her to do that,” the captain replied.

“Well, you could have waited a bit longer until you got to it!” he shouted at me. “Here’s your list.” He shoved a stack of papers in my hands. “Collect the marked specimens in the marked order. Report every step of the way!”

I skimmed through. There were a hundred and nine separate items ranging from spores to entire plants. This definitely wasn’t going to be the joyride Sim had claimed it would.

“Be done in two days. That’s all.”

Two days was definitely not enough to pull this off. I opened my mouth to voice an objection, but ‘Bo silently shook her head. The message was clear: he’s already pissed, so don’t make things worse.

Cursing under his breath, the men passed away back into the main facility corridor.

“That’s a person with a very short fuse,” the captain whispered.

“Will it always be like this?”

“Nope,” the woman laughed. “It’ll get worse. The closer he gets to leaving, the less he’ll bother with niceties.”

This was nice? I was going to have to readjust my behavior model of him.

“Let’s go, I’ll drive you to the shuttle.”

Drive turned out to be more of a general description than anything else—in this case, that the captain would accompany me to a launch pad an hour away, while the rover’s AI did everything else. I had gone through the internal base regulations, so I knew there was no requirement for her to be present. Her coming along suggested that she either wanted to get away from Ondalov, or she wanted to tell me something.

“We’re using cables to link the launch sites with the base,” ‘Bo said after a while. “Very low tech, but gets the job done. In fact, there are cables throughout the entire base. Power, comms, air…” She drew a circle in the air with her index finger. “Nothing but the best low-tech facility in human space.”

Interesting ice breaking approach, I had to give her that.

“Don’t let Ondalov get to you. He wants to get his things done, so he’s rushing things. Between us, he’s glad you’re here.”

“I don’t doubt that, ma’am. I’m the only one who could do a full week’s work in two days.”

The woman chuckled, even if it was a valid description of events.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it too much. You can take an extra day or two. Paperwork will be hell, but since you’re doing it either way.” She laughed again. “Good news is that you’ll get a break from Ondalov and we could all use that.”

Clearly, I wasn’t the only one the section leader was having problems with.

“Ma’am, isn’t Ondalov worried that the directors won’t approve of his methods?” Especially since it’s common knowledge, I’ve become something of Sim’s protégé.

“He’s too valuable for that. I can barely stand the guy, but he’s an expert in his field. Also, he’s helped a lot of people in their careers, so him looking bad will reflect on them. The standard joys of bureaucracy.”

As long as he produced results, people would turn a blind eye. Augustus had received the same attitude, and recently so had I. With two wars going on and a third one on the horizon, the practice was unlikely to change.

“What exactly is Ondalov’s project, ma’am?” I asked. The captain’s expression immediately soured. “I’ve been told that the facility’s overall goal is to create station food autonomy and speed up planetary colonization, but I wasn’t able to find any specifics about Ondalov’s team.”

“That’s a bit above your clearance, girl. It’s important to the Fleet. That should be enough.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Seems I had touched on a taboo topic. After that question, all casual chatter ended. The next hour passed in silence. ‘Bo took the time to read reports on a large datapad-like device, while I went through the list of samples that Ondalov had given me. According to the rudimentary map I was given, ninety-five percent of the samples were located in a ten-kilometer area from my landing point. The remaining five percent required a bit of walking, though not much, with the furthest being twenty kilometers away.

Creating a virtual map in my mind, I marked the locations, then added my own personal points of interest. If this was correct, I wouldn’t come across any fractal plants in the immediate area. The statistical probability of this happening was too low for it to be a coincidence. Sim had warned me I was not to undertake personal missions, and by the looks of it Ondalov shared his opinion.

Don’t worry, Sim, I won’t mess things up. Not for a six-month assignment.

This mission wasn’t my goal, it was the means to an end.

The launch site was what I expected it to be: a combination of high and low-tech best suited for a rural colony on a backwater planet, very much like the one back home. There were a total of twelve launch pads, nine of them occupied by identical cargo shuttles. Five large structures were in close proximity: a mini vehicle bay, two large storage structures, a decon facility, and a control center.

“You’ll get suited in there.” ‘Bo pointed at the decon facility as the rover drove towards the vehicle bay. “After that head to shuttle two. Mission control will take it from there.”

“What about my pilot, ma’am?”

“You are the pilot. Your file says you’ve done that before. Besides, you’re a ship, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Some things never change.

The instant I left the rover, the vehicle started its trip back to the main base. I watched it enter the internal airlock, then made my way to the connecting tunnel to decontamination. It felt almost quaint seeing hand-written signs providing me directions. The scene quickly changed when I entered the decon area. The machinery there was anything but rudimentary. After undergoing a series of scans, I was instructed to put on my space suit in an auxiliary chamber, then return for further scans and a thirty-second decontamination procedure. All my equipment also underwent the same procedure, after which I was granted access to the internal airlock from where I walked to my shuttle.

“I hope I won’t have to carry all the cargo myself on the way back,” I said in the suit. While it was described as being free of electronics, I didn’t doubt for a moment that it had an inbuilt comm device.

Two days, I thought. Accounting for the time it took the shuttle to get there and back, I was left with approximately thirty-eight hours to collect all the samples as well as do the small task Sim was going to give me. It wasn’t impossible, but I was going to have to push myself; despite ‘Bo’s assurances requesting more time wasn’t an option.

The shuttle was nothing more than the Fleet’s typical cargo transport designed for orbit entry. Ninety percent of the overall space was reserved for cargo, half of which was sectioned off for fuel. I climbed my way up the metal scaffolding and entered the cockpit. The space had been modified to hold two pilots and six additional passengers.

“Hello, shuttle,” I said as I strapped myself in the pilot’s seat.

Hello, Officer Candidate Light Seeker.

A message appeared on one of the three display screens on my control panel. The rest had been adjusted to be as mechanical as possible—good when safeguarding against a hack attack, not so good for the pilot operating.

“Mission control, I’m all strapped in and ready for launch.” I ran a manual check of the systems. “Systems seem good. Hatch sealed and secure. Waiting for final approval.”

“Transmission received, shuttle two. Wait for final green.”

“Understood, control.” So, I’m a shuttle now. “Waiting.”

The flight path trajectory was already set up. I scrolled through the raw data out of habit. A few adjustments were possible, though they wouldn’t have gained me more than a dozen minutes or so.

“Shuttle two, you’re green to go. You’ve got a five-minute window.”

“Thanks mission control.” I initiated the launch sequence.

It was said that each pilot had a specific way to launch, land, and dock. After observing thousands, I could safely say that was largely incorrect. It was the shuttles that were different, people just did their best to follow its path. Fighter pilots were slow to launch, fast to dock. Troop carriers were fast to launch, slow to dock. Logistic pilots… they were an entirely different thing altogether. The closest thing I could compare them were merchants—they claimed to have a tight schedule, but they never rushed anything. Time was money, as they liked to say, but so was bumping into something and ruining the cargo to gain a few seconds.

The shuttle I was in was unmistakably a cargo shuttle, so I adjusted appropriately. The launch was steady and uneventful, not meriting even a comment from mission control. I left the AI to take over and loosened my safety straps as gravity vanished. It would be a few hours before I’d enter the atmosphere. Until then there was nothing else to do but wait and review a few old memories. Cass used to call this downtime, and it was without a doubt the most difficult thing for a battleship to do.

I spent a few hours thinking about the third race, attempting new approaches to cracking their language, and just like before, I failed. It had long become obvious that such a feat was beyond me, and the entire human race for that matter, but something kept pushing me to try. In less than a year, I’d be back on the front—provided all went well on my current mission—and able to continue my search for the marker stars. Before that, I had to be ready.

Preparing for atmosphere entry.

A message flashed on the screen as the shuttle got near.

“Thanks, shuttle.” I tightened all safety belts. This was one of the things I didn’t miss.

It didn’t take long for air and gravity to make their presence known.

“Mission control, this is shuttle two. I’ve started entry. ETA two hours forty-two. Any additional instructions?”

“Keep going, shuttle two. All seems fine here.” The person sounded surprised. I could assume they didn’t have the habit of hearing from their pilots unless there was a problem. So much for reporting every step.

“Are there any weather pattern deviations I should be aware of?” I specified my question.

“You’re fine, shuttle two. The AI will handle the landing. You just hang in there.”

“It’s a wonder we haven’t had any accidents, isn’t it?” Sim’s voice came through the shuttle comm. “Forgive the practice. Most of them haven’t gone through military training. An undersight, if you ask me.”

“Hello, Director.” I was wondering when you’d get in touch.

“Hello, Princess. Looking forward to starting the workday?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Good, because there’s been a slight change. You’ll be dealing with my issue first. I take it Ondalov has given you a list of locations?”

“Indeed, he has, sir.”

“Wonderful. First thing’s first. The moment you land and give the all clear, you’ll go dark. No comms unless something tries to kill you or you stumble across a Cassandrian army, understood?”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind, sir.”

“Second, you’ll go to the spot between locations hundred and five. Take digging equipment and an L3 sample case.”

“I take it the object in question is underground.”

“Quite so. There’s a metal capsule on the surface. Should be easy to find with your hand scanner. Be sure to only use it in that area, understood?”

“I understand, sir.” Artifacts and scanners didn’t always mix.

“Inside the capsule you’ll find a specific set of coordinates. Use them to find my sample. When you get that, place it carefully in the container and bring it back to the shuttle. Then you’ll restore comms and say you had experienced some technical issues with the shuttle’s cargo section.”

Lying so early in the mission? This sounded more serious than office politics. For decades I’d always been cautious of the BICEFI, but it seemed that the Med Core was all the more ominous. While not widespread as the other dark organizations I had dealt with, their divisions had full autonomy to proceed with their research and no accountability I could see. Ondalov cared little for Sim's opinion, who in turn inserted his own personal secret missions.

“Anything else I should be aware of, sir?”

“Nothing you can’t handle,” Sim laughed. “Oh, one last thing. I learned that you’ve been approved for a short trip off base in two days.”

“That is correct, sir. I received the order this morning.” I strongly suspected he had already checked.

“All clearances seem to be in order, but there seem to be no details relating to the reason. Any chance you could elaborate on that?”

“That wouldn’t be for me to say, sir.”

“It didn’t come from dear Lux, did it? It wouldn’t be very sporty of her to meddle in other projects too often, would it?”

“Only she would say, sir. But no, I haven’t been in communication with her or anyone from the BICEFI for a while now.”

There was a long pause. There was no way Sim would be convinced. Even if I were telling the truth, the BICEFI had the authority to have conversations with ships, then restrict their memories of the event. Fortunately for me, the low-tech bubble that enveloped the station worked to my advantage. If nothing else, I hadn’t had any external communications since I had arrived.

“Please keep that in mind, Elcy. Just because this isn’t the front, it doesn’t mean it’s not a battlefield. I want your priorities to be very clear on this. The research we’re doing here has proved more valuable than a few thousand victories in the buffer zone.”

“Of course, sir.” I remember our conversations on the topic.

“In future, let me know of other surprises in advance, will you?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Sims closed the comm link. I couldn’t tell if he would take any action on this or not. The fact that he asked me directly meant he was more open on the topic than before, but I didn’t want to push my luck. The dilemma was that I couldn’t afford to burn any bridges with him or the Paladin. One held my past, the other held my future. If I were to achieve what I wanted, I needed to secure both.

I plotted the spot Sim had told me on my virtual map. The location was two thousand four hundred and thirteen meters beyond my main area of interest. Based on the sat images and surface scans, it was going to take me between ninety and a hundred and fifty minutes to do the director’s errand—just enough time to explain away as a technical malfunction. What the good doctor hadn’t explicitly mentioned was that I had to ensure that such a malfunction was to be found.

One thing at a time, I told myself. I was given three tasks by three different sources. After I completed them all, I’d have the data to make a choice.