Few things in the universe remained exactly the same. Fractal space was one of them. Not only was the white infinity identical to the ones before, but so were my sensations. I found myself thinking the same thoughts, asking the same questions, even after all the revelations that had taken place in-between. I felt as if I were a kitten that had managed to claw its way out of a box of secrecy, only to find myself in a universe so vast that all my previous concerns weren’t even a minuscule part of it. As Augustus liked to say: “The universe is large and doesn’t owe us shit.”

“I’ve entered fractal space,” I said out loud. “Everything is white. There are no discernable markers or objects.”

I paused for several seconds, waiting for a response. None came.

“Colonel, can you hear me?” Two seconds more and nothing. “Director Sim?”

Three more seconds of silence confirmed what I suspected—communication was impossible even with the new modules. Personally, I doubted that there would be any good at recording either, but even if there was a chance I had to go on with my orders.

“Comm lines seem severed,” I said, stating the obvious. “I suspect all sensory information around me is fake. I see no trace of the protective suit or the fractal cube.” I could still feel them, though. Just to make sure, I tried to touch my face. My fingers stopped an inch and a half away from my nose, blocked by a solid barrier. “I’m proceeding with my communication attempts.”

The last time I was here at the dome, it had initiated communication, giving me two words: “regora” and “jigora.” This time, though, it remained suspiciously quiet. I waited another few seconds, then a minute, but there was no change.

“Regora,” I said, modifying my voice so as to create echoes of the word as it was pronounced.

Cyan fractals emerged in the space around me constructing a full dome cluster.

That was unexpected. Last time, the word had shown me a rod, and only after repeating it multiple times before the sphere cluster had formed. Was this a coincidence, or did this dome remember what the other dome had shown me? Maybe I was wrong and this wasn’t an actual knowledge repository, but just the means to connect to one.

Even your interface is beyond me, I thought with a smile.

The logical step from here was to use “jigora” to get a view of the star-map—their star-map, which had nothing in common with the actual position of the stars in the galaxy. Through that, I would be able to see what I already knew and possibly come to some new conclusions.

“After using the command word “regora,” I have been displayed a cluster of domes forming a pattern.” I tried to be as vague as possible when describing this. “Given my previous experience, I suspect that the domes are an interface device connected to a larger store of knowledge somewhere in third-contact space. The seven-star fractal cube appears to be the means to initiate the connection; however, command words are required to interface with the system.”

I swam slightly forward in an attempt to decrease the distance between me and the cluster of domes. As I did, the three-dimensional construct moved away.

“It appears that created items can only be observed. I suspect that with their instant travel capabilities, the third-contact race didn’t see any point in creating fully immersive simulated reality.” At least there was one aspect in which human technology was better. “Regora,” I said again, this time in a normal voice. The dome construct broke up into smaller clusters of three to five spheres each. “The interface is also adapting to my speech patterns.”

Adaptive technology normally was a fascinating branch of engineering; when it came to non-human species, though, I had no choice but to regard it as a threat. The only reason the Scuu had failed to wipe out humanity was because of their inability to understand our thoughts. To a degree, the same could be said for the Cassandrians. While their battleships were largely built on our technology—which new Fleet protocols and Salvage Authority initiatives were trying to limit—their success was marginal at best. The third-contact race had gone beyond that.

What if I had it all wrong? Maybe it wasn’t the Cassandrians copying third-contact technology, it was the third-contact race had taught them how to do it?

Fractal space responding to voice commands… Technically, I had the capability to brute force my way through a series of sound combinations to find another command that worked. Doing so would be a terrible idea. There was a ninety-seven percent chance that the system had some sort of self-destruct command integrated into it. My best option was to stick to what I knew and hope that I would be taught something new in the process.

“Jigora,” I said, twisting the invisible fractal cube ninety degrees counter-clockwise.

The fractal space reacted instantly, first graying out, then exploding like a supernova. I felt myself pushed back as the darkness of real space surrounded me. Spots of light emerged, each with its unique star spectrum.

I was in the exact spot I had been during my visit years ago. Next to me was the place I had called home of the fractals—the star system I believed to contain the third-contact race’s homeworld. Around me, the seven marker stars continued to flicker, indicating the path there.

There are seven of you, I thought. But is this your real space location?

In the past, I had assumed so. Four of the star locations I already knew—two from past memories, one I had discovered while on my mission aboard the Gregorius, and the last was glimpsed in the memories of a Scuu. I had tried multiple times to triangulate the final location using them alone, but even after I pieced together a comprehensive star chart based on all my restricted and unrestricted memories, I still came short. In order to find the location I wanted, I would have to find two more.

I’ll find you soon, I thought, looking at the elusive star beside me. Right now, however, I had other pressing matters.

I moved away from the star, swimming in the fake void the dome had provided. This time, I made sure to keep holding onto the artifact cube. More stars emerged, giving me a better picture of the section of space. The position of the stars was distorted by my standards, but I had a pretty good idea what to do.

It took a while to find a star with a familiar spectrum. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a system in the buffer zone. To my knowledge, I had never fought there, but the system was considered important enough to be included in some of my mission orders.

Once I swam to the star, I looked around.

“I have found a star chart of the third-contact race,” I said. “They are following a different system than ours.”

Running a matching algorithm, I compared the spectrum of the stars within this space with those in the star system’s vicinity. A dozen of them matched. I felt a deep sense of achievement. Finally, I had found the first corresponding link between the two map systems. It was possible to translate the star map. It was going to be a long and laborious process, but given enough time, I would be able to mark down all known stars on this map.

Before I could go any further, the fractal space closed in on itself, returning me to the liquid cobalt of the dome.

“Elcy!” I heard the colonel shouting through the comm. “Get out of there now!”

“Ma’am?” According to all instruments, microseconds had passed since I had activated the fractal-cube.

“There’s an ongoing surge! We need you out now!”

I let go of the artifact I was holding and reached for the other cube. In all my years on the front, few things could compare to a Cassandrian surge. That was why she should have had more troopers land on the planet. Even if all the two thousand were in the underground hive structure—which I knew not to be the case—it wouldn’t be enough. Once there was a surge, the odds of survival were under eight percent…

* * *

Sarion III, Cassandrian Buffer Zone, 607.9 A.E. (Age of Expansion)

“Don’t send reinforcements! I repeat, don’t send—” Captain Stom Gran suddenly flatlined along with three-quarters of his staff, marking yet another ground command camp to disappear from the map. With that, the number of casualties surpassed a hundred thousand, despite the combined efforts of five battleships and half a million ground troops.

“I warned those idiots at the admiralty,” Augustus said with a puff of smoke from his cigar. His anger had shifted to smothering rage.

“Surge has doubled again, cap’n,” Wilco replied. He and the captain went way back, and so far I had rarely seen him not back up Augustus. In this instance, though, he was the one who had called it, warning everyone on the bridge that it was a bad idea to try and resettle a contested system. Unfortunately for all, the orders from Command were crystal clear.

Thousands flatlined by the second as more Cassandrians emerged from the planet. The carnage was so great that dozens of ground troop units had requested orbital bombardment on their own locations in the hope that it would grant them a less painful death. From my perspective, each human death hurt just as much.

“Coordinate bombardment with whatever ships are willing,” Augustus ordered. “Rookie, any Cassies inbound?”

“None that I can detect, sir.” I ran a short- and long-range scan. According to Fleet Intelligence, there weren’t supposed to be any significant Cassandrian armadas heading our way. Despite that, we had received reports from frontier battleships that enemy flotillas had detached from their main forces and jumped out of the respective star systems for locations unknown. It didn’t take a strategy core to determine they were building up a fleet. The only hope was that it was meant for another sector of the front.

“Bombardment pattern set, sir,” I announced after a brief discussion with Valiant Light and Lightmaker. Of all the ships in orbit, only they had received permission to go on with the plan, possibly because they were also from the Ascendant class. “ETA fourteen minutes. Estimated casualties thirty-nine percent.”

“Give me the feeds,” Augustus whispered. “Commanders only.”

“All ground troop commanders have flatlined,” I informed him. “I’ll display the acting ones.”

Acting commanders was an overstatement. It had been minutes since the last of the top brass had been killed. The captain was one of the few remaining officers that could lay claim to the title. At present, there were twenty-three lieutenants left and one officer candidate. Every other troop unit was led by sergeants and corporals, or in some cases even privates.

There was no question that the Cassandrian surge had hit us hard. The worst part of it was that neither I, nor any of the other Battleships, had predicted such an outcome based on our simulations. The planet—a mineral-rich target estimated by HQ to be of strategic significance—had changed hands over a dozen times in the last five years. Neither side had the resources to claim it, though that didn’t stop them from trying. From a logistics perspective, humanity had an advantage. The system was on our side of the buffer zone, allowing Fleet ships to reach it in three jumps. The Cassandrians, on the other hand, applied their usual stubbornness, throwing fleet after fleet to retake it. According to official records, we had won eighty-one percent of the fleet battles, although clearly that didn’t mean a thing for the troops on the planet.

According to historical data, the planet had been colonized two-hundred and ninety-seven years ago. Starting as a mining colony, its significance quickly increased, making the Fleet transform it into a regional center. Because of the planet’s resource abundance, there had been plans to create a shipyard cluster in orbit to aid in the battle against the Scuu. The second-contact war had quickly changed those plans. The planet was hastily abandoned, then reclaimed, then lost as the Cassandrians pushed into human territory, then purged, starting a ping-pong exchange of control which had accelerated in the last decades.

When we had arrived fourteen hours ago, the system had been empty. Data from the probes and fleets suggested a minimal Cassandrian presence in areas of three planets. According to my initial simulations, twenty thousand ground troops were supposed to be enough to mop up all remaining Cassandrian. Augustus had me drop twenty-five.

“There’s a new cluster!” one of the remaining lieutenants shouted from the planet. “We’re low on explosives. Guns won’t slow them down.”

All I could see from his feed were a series of black rectangles moving forward. Fleet censor protocols prevented me from seeing the Cassandrians, but even so, I could tell there were many of them and they were approaching fast. The lieutenant’s entire squad continued firing down the tunnel, but the enemies kept on coming. After another twenty seconds, the position was completely overrun. The feed ended. Another thirty-seven soldiers had flatlined.

“I doubt the troops will survive until impact,” I said on the bridge. “Do you want me to inform the remaining troops?”

“Tell them to expect impact in five minutes,” Augustus said. “Let them have a bit of hope before they die.”

“I don’t see the reason for that, sir.” I did what he ordered. Sometimes lies help people when facing the inevitable. “Less than two thousand troopers remain. Chances of survival are zero-point-zero-two.” I was as generous as the simulations let me be. The ground troops of the other ships weren’t doing any better. I expected most of them would end up dead as well.

While still following the feeds of the survivors, I reviewed all footage of the surge. My hope was that someone within the Fleet bureaucracy would make use of the data and find a way to prevent future surges from happening.

It had all happened so fast. A group of two hundred people had gone down a mineshaft after detecting what they believed to be possible Cassandrian biosignatures. There was no indication of a massive enemy presence, but they set up a few charges just in case. After the charges set off, and the dust had settled, the team had ventured down to give a visual account of what had happened. What they found was the top layer of a deep hive. After that, all hell had broken loose.

Ships jumping in, Lightmaker transmitted in the ship comm channel. Cassandrian energy signatures. Doesn’t look like there’s a lot of them.

They are dripping in, Crystal Powers said. She was an old frigate that had been given command authority during this operation. Warn your captains. All that could proceed to jump out.

“Hostiles in the system, captain,” I said on the bridge. “Your orders?”

“About time.” Wilco sounded almost relieved by the fact. “Do we scorch our way out?”

A priority one transmission arrived from HQ. The orders were to try and retain the planet for as long as possible. Naturally, there was no mention of reinforcements. After so long on the front, I had gotten used to the notion that the only time that reinforcements were expected was when I was among the reinforcements.

“HQ wants us to stay, captain.” I displayed the order on the wall of my bridge. “Given our numbers, I doubt we’ll last much longer than the ground troops.”

“Launch a final salvo,” Augustus ordered. “Everything you have. I’m authorizing you to bypass all other human confirmations.”

“Yes, sir.” I informed the gunners and weapon specialists of the captain’s orders, then dedicated a hundred of my subroutines to proceed with rapid launch and reload. “It will take me approximately eight and a half minutes. Keeping five percent of ordinance for ship combat.”

“Override that. I want all, Rookie.”

“Yes, sir.” Fleet regulations were very clear on the matter—a minimum of five percent ordinance was to be reserved for space combat. Augustus, of course, wasn’t one to follow regulations. “Nine minutes twenty-five.”

Waves of missiles flew towards the planet. At this point, no one had any illusions that any of the ground troops would survive. Observing the feeds, the grunts knew it as well. Most of them had already accepted the fact and wanted to get it over with quickly.

Statistically, Cassandrian surges were rare, but that was only because the Fleet had learned early on how to spot the enemy’s ground presence. In all instances in which it failed, the outcome was catastrophic, just like this time.

“So much for F.I.’s info,” Wilco said as the feeds on the bridge disappeared. It was a running joke that Fleet Intelligence was never to be trusted, but this was one of their more egregious errors. The sad thing was that they weren’t the only ones at fault.

Missiles launched from the other ships in orbit. Their captains had come to the same conclusion Augustus had—since we weren’t retaking the planet, we were going to purge the Cassandrian presence there. Afterwards, it was up to HQ to find another fleet of ships to try and reclaim the planet.

“Are all shuttles in?” Augustus asked.

“All in hangar, captain.” I confirmed.

“Get us out of here, Rookie.”

“Aren’t we going to confirm the impact, sir?”

“We aren’t the only ship here. Let the others do that.”

“Yes, sir. Preparing calculations now.”

* * *

It was years later than I found out that Augustus had overseen a full-scale surge before. There had been no survivors, and none of the mission objectives had been achieved. In the annals of history, the mission had probably been marked off as unsuccessful and archived away. That had been shortly before Augustus had taken command of me as his captain. Now, it was looking like I’d go through the same, and if I were extremely lucky, I’d end up among the eight percent.

I held my breath as the dome spit me out of it. The sound of rapid gunfire echoed through the corridors. Director Sim was there, along with a squad of troopers. There was no sight of Colonel ‘Rissa, though.

“Ma’am!” A soldier rushed to me, handing me my sidearm and a heavy-duty assault rifle. Apparently, I had been granted permission to use weapons, and all it had taken was a Cassandrian surge. “The colonel has designated you in charge of the situation.”

That was a surprise.

“Where is she?” Quickly, I strapped on my sidearm, then took the rifle. Normally I’d fire a few rounds to adjust my aim, though tunnels were not the best place to do that.

“The colonel has gone to check the status of Major Jespersen,” the trooper replied.

So, Jespersen had a high rank as well. Based on his behavior, I doubted he had seen any action in his life.

“Major,” I said through comm. “What’s your status?”

“Get the director out of there!” ‘Rissa shouted back. The sounds of gunfire in the background were far more intense than they were here. “Ignore everything else!”

“Leaving artifacts is a risk, ma’am. The Cassandrians might—”

“You have your orders!” she said, cutting me short.

“Yes, ma’am.” I closed the link, then rushed to Sim. Based on the little of his face I could see through his helmet, the director was quite terrified, though hadn’t regressed into a state of panic. That made things considerably easier. “Sir!” I shouted. “Can you move?”

The question earned me a strange glance, followed shortly by a trembling smile.

“I’m merely scared shitless, princess, not completely petrified,” he replied. It was interesting to see that even in such circumstances, he had retained part of his sense of humor. “What are the odds on this one?”

I gestured to the squad protecting him to be ready for a rapid rush. Each gave me a nod in confirmation.

“The standard odds are eight percent,” I replied, while checking the ammo state of my assault rifle. There were only fifty rounds. “Ammo belt!” I shouted.

One of the nearby soldiers tossed one toward me. It had a total of fourteen magazines, grouped into sets of two. Immediately I put it on, strapping it as tightly as the belts allowed.

“Not to worry, though, sir. Usually it’s triple for VIPs,” I said, adding a bit of humor of my own.

The director let out a nervous laugh.

“I wasn’t able to retrieve the cubes.”

“Let’s make it to debriefing and we’ll discuss it more.”

“Roger that, sir.” I gave the sign for half the squad to move forward. “Stay behind me at all times and keep low.”

Waiting another second, I led the rest of the squad forward.

Protecting civilians under fire was a rare occurrence on the front. In the vast majority of cases, they knew better than to enter a potentially life-threatening situation. Every now and again, though, someone would, and the massive screw-up that followed was the talk for decades. During my time in the Fleet, I had heard dozens of stories while undergoing repair from older ships. The conclusion was always the same: if there was something that had to absolutely be avoided during such an operation, four times out of five, the civilian would find a way to do just that.

I ran ten simultaneous simulations of our actions as we moved forward. With a large portion of the side tunnels sealed off, I didn’t foresee us having any serious trouble for the next ten minutes. After that, the real trouble would start.

“What’s the overall status?” I asked the trooper a few steps ahead of me. According to the insignia, he was a corporal.

“Difficult to say, ma’am. Shit hit the fan a few minutes ago. Reported gunfire in the far tunnels, then everything escalated fast.”

Things are always fast during a surge, I thought. ‘Rissa must have known this as well, because she called it right away. Half an hour longer and there wouldn’t be any chance of escape. All that the Med Core could hope for was that they had enough ships to class the hive from orbit before the Cassandrians managed to get a foothold in the system.

“Escape route?” I asked.

“Secure. The elevator position is heavily fortified. As long as we get there, we’re good to go.”

That sounded a bit overoptimistic.

“Sir, are you able to pick up the pace?” I asked.

“My suit doesn’t have adrenaline shots, if that’s what you’re asking,” the director replied. “But I can run for a bit.”

“Dash!” I shouted.

On the sound, everyone rushed forward. Everyone except Sim, who had to pause a moment before going into a run. Naturally, I had to wait as well. Keeping him close was my objective.

If we kept the pace, I estimated we'd reach the safety zone of the elevator in roughly twenty minutes. The increasing volume of gunfire told me that even that would be cutting it close. The surge was progressing in full force.

“Colonel, we’re on route to the elevator,” I said though comm. “ETA twenty minutes. No contact.”

Thank the stars that the new comm devices were functional. Without them, even the chance of minor victories—such as having a VIP escape—were unthinkable. “What’s your status?”

“Heavy losses, but we’ve established control of storage point two. No hostiles in sight.”

That was atypical behavior. Cassandrians didn’t lessen the pressure, especially not during a surge.

“Repeat that, Major. Did you say there are no hostiles?”

“They’re gone, Elcy!” ‘Rissa shouted. “We’re grabbing what we can and joining you at the elevator. I think we’ll make in there in—”

A loud explosion shook the tunnel. Caught by surprise, Sim stumbled, about to fall on the floor. I reacted, catching him before he smashed his helmet in the chemical covered stone. Everyone else in the squad remained in place, weapons aimed in all directions, ready for an attack.

Five seconds later, none followed. The sounds of gunfire had faded away, creating an eerie silence throughout the tunnels.

“All channels, this is emergency point Bravo,” a new voice said through the comm. I didn’t recognize the voice pattern, but he had to be of significant rank to have one of the new comm devices on him. “Elevator access has been sealed. I repeat. Elevator access has been sealed.”

“On whose orders?” ‘Rissa shouted.

“No one’s orders, ma’am. We’re not the ones who did it.”