Humans were inefficient. This wasn’t an insult; it was pure fact. Their perception was limited, their reaction speed was slow, and they kept second-guessing everything they did. After years of observing them, I had accepted their limitations and adjusted my expectations for simulation purposes. Now that I was the one leading a team through the tunnels of Cassandrian hive, I found that I was only marginally better. My organic body had negated a lot of my battleship capabilities, increasing the chance of failure by sixty-seven percent. Under such circumstances, it was normal for me to second-guess my actions, especially since I was also responsible for the lives of my team, not to mention Sim’s survival.

I raised my left hand in a fist, signalling the rest to freeze in place. Before moving away from the dome area, I had ordered that we weren’t to use comm unless it became vital. Given the little I knew about the Cassandrians, I didn’t want to risk them having the ability to sense our comm signals. Officially, there was no reason I should think that. It was assured that the Fleet’s instant speed comm technology could not be detected; however, at one point it had also been claimed that it was unjammable either.

Fifty feet ahead, the dim lights of a large chamber—dubbed a Cassandrian service tunnel—were glowing. According to the layout Colonel ‘Rissa had transmitted to me, this was supposed to be one of the forward research posts from where teams would continue further in. Of course, that was back when there were no Cassandrians and the only danger was the potential for a minor spore infestation.

Nothing was known about the team that had been there, but given that they couldn’t be found on comm, it was quite obvious that they had been killed off. Personally, I put the chances of survival at less than one in ten thousand.

I gestured to the team that I would go forward. The rest were to cover me and protect the rear in case we had walked into an ambush. Holding the sniper rifle at the ready, I moved on.

Normally, charging into battle with a sniper rifle wasn’t seen as a good strategy. For anyone else, it ensured a complete mission failure along with a quick death. In my case, I could hold it and reload it as I did any weapon, and what was more, after shooting it out once, I didn’t need to aim. Improved strength and processing capabilities had their advantages.

Every five steps I paused for fifteen hundred milliseconds, carefully looking for changes in the light ahead. None occurred, allowing me to reach the chamber entrance.

Even before entering, I got a good idea of what had happened to the team that had been there. There were no bodies, human remains, or bloodstains anywhere. To the untrained eye, it would seem that the people had just moved off somewhere. There was one element that the attackers had left behind, however—bullet holes. There were hundreds of them, all over the walls, ceilings, even on the temp bunkers and some on the other equipment left behind.

All five chemical pumps were smashed up and had been rendered completely inoperable. Carefully, I moved to one. The tanks were full. Whatever had happened here must have taken place less than an hour after they had been active.

For the next nineteen minutes, I went through the area, moving from shelter to shelter. There were no enemies left behind. In contrast, all supply crates were left untouched, along with the float lights and an alarming degree of research devices I couldn’t recognize.

“Post Kappa is cold,” I said through comm. “Get over here.”

There was no point in keeping radio silence now. Not when the chances of nearby enemies were negligible.

My team came in pairs: two in front and two guarding the rear. The first thing they did after dashing in was to assume a defensive position, with all weapons pointing at the exits.

“No need for that,” I said. “There’s nothing here.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, you can’t know—”

“It’s fine, Sergeant,” I interrupted him. There was a thirty-seven percent chance that a prolonged argument would decrease morale, and that was something I desperately wanted to avoid for the next two days. “We’ll take a twenty-minute break. Rest a bit, get anything that’s useful, then we head back.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I set my helmet to full opacity and contacted ‘Rissa through a secure comm line. There were a few things I didn’t want anyone else to hear.

“We’re at Kappa, Colonel. The place has been wiped.”

“I see.” There was no note of surprise in her voice. “We’ve managed to get in touch with a few more groups. There will be close to fifty joining us. Beyond that, I don’t think we’ll get anyone else.”

“What’s the food situation, ma’am?”

“Not much. We have a few capsules, but that’s it. It’s enough to have Sim survive a bit longer, possibly a small team as well. Does it matter? None of us will die of starvation.”

“I believe not, ma’am. That is not my concern. Whoever killed the rest of your troops took the food as well.”

It took ‘Rissa a few moments, but she understood what I was saying. In a way, I was disappointed. I had hoped that she would come to the conclusion before me. Then again, in the current situation, I doubted she had time to keep track of something as trivial as food supplies.

Making my way towards the nearest temp bunker, I looked around. Despite the Fleet probably having hive blueprints classified away somewhere, this was the first time I’d seen one from the inside. I didn’t have the slightest idea what the Cassandrians used the chamber for while the hive was functional. It had too many exits to be a storage area, although that meant nothing. As far as I could tell, maybe the Cassandrians didn’t even need a storage area. The chamber could be a structure, a ship factory, or it could be a place where third-contact technology was mimicked. As the junior gods had said, the race defied analysis. The only thing I knew for certain was that they were gathering organic material.

“Do you want me to keep on with my mission, ma’am?” I asked after five seconds of silence.

“Yes. We’ll try to piece the data we have into a timeline. You continue with your search.”

Not the most encouraging order I could hope for. She didn’t say it, but I suspected that my real mission was to serve as bait while teams on the surface were drilling their way to rescue the director.

“Any news on the rescue teams’ ETA?”

“You’ll be the first person I tell.” This time, she was lying.

“Understood, ma’am. I’ll let you know if we find something.” I ended the call.

It’s just like that time I was trapped in the mine, isn’t it, Sev? I thought. Back then, my ward had made a big deal out of it. The truth was that I was in minimal danger, unlike all the other human miners. This time, things were slightly more complicated.

“Ma’am?” Private LeMent approached me.

“Yes?” I turned towards her, then reduced my helmet opacity.

“Permission to speak freely?”

Here it was, the inevitable soft conflict. From what I had learned, the request was a code warning the officer in charge that criticism would follow. The words were unlikely to protect the person from consequences, or give the officer a calm state of mind upon refusal. Augustus used to call it the first step towards legal disobedience.

“Speak.”

“I don’t understand why we’re not continuing on, ma’am.”

“There are other points of significance. Kappa provides no clues, so we move on to the next.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, you haven’t been in Med core for very long. We know we’re expendable, ma’am,” the private said. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been used to attract attention from another group. That is no excuse to half-ass the job.”

The rest put you up to this, didn’t they? I wondered. She had the lowest rank, so it was understandable. That was one thing that annoyed me somewhat. I would have hoped that the sergeant would have approached me himself.

“The only way to half-ass this is to keep on going further,” I said, sharpening my tone. “What do you think happened here?”

“A large group of people were slaughtered by the enemy and—”

“And that is precisely why we’re heading back,” I said, loud enough for the rest of the squad to hear. “If you were able to calculate the weapon trajectory based on the bullet holes in the area, you’d have seen that the defenders were shooting at something in the direction from where we came and not further in.”

The private remained as she was, yet I could see several of the other squad members look in the direction I specified. At that point, it had to be clear, even for them. The greatest number of bullet holes were specifically in that direction. In contrast, there wasn’t even one further on.

“Of course, you’d need to be a battleship to be able to do that,” I added. “The Cassies responsible for this didn’t come from beyond this chamber.”

“Yes, ma’am.” LeMent stood to attention.

“Anything else, Private?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Now get some rest. We continue in eighteen minutes.”

Ammo was the only thing we took. Incredibly useful, there was too much to carry with us and the Colonel rejected the idea of us taking them back to the main point. If I had to speculate, she probably thought that if the weapons and ammo already in her possession weren’t good enough to protect them, a few dozen crates wouldn’t be of any consequence. I also asked what to do with the unknown devices and was told directly to leave them be and not inquire about anything on the matter a few moments later. That made me want to have opened some of the containers they were kept in. I added it to my ever-growing list of questions, then prepped for the next actions.

After twenty minutes, we were back in the tunnels. Radio silence was kept, as usual, forcing us to rely on military hand signs. The more we continued on, though, the more difficult it became. Either by coincidence or design, fewer and fewer float lights illuminated the tunnels. In some cases, they had been destroyed; in others, they were simply missing.

Each time we reached a new area of importance, the result was the same: traces of fighting—sometimes more, sometimes less—a complete lack of bodies and food supplies, and occasionally, ammo and equipment crates left behind. Another interesting thing was that in all instances, the chemical pumps were rendered non-functional.

“Elcy,” the colonel said through comm after we had been on the mission for four hours. “Any progress?”

“Nothing conclusive, ma’am,” I replied, even though I had made the exact same report seven minutes ago. In fact, I had specifically pointed out that we had yet to find any direct signs of enemy presence. Since I knew that ‘Rissa wasn’t forgetful or stupid, I could only come to the conclusion that she had a set of new instructions for me, while under the suspicion that the conversation was being monitored by an external party.

“I want you to put viewers in all important sections you’ve been through, dome included,” the colonel went on in the same breath. “Some of the techs have made some device modifications, so it shouldn’t be a concern on your part.”

“Yes, ma’am. I assume I’m to return to get those devices?”

“I’ve already sent a team to meet up with you. Head back to the main corridor leading to the dome and wait. You’ll get more instructions there.”

“Understood, ma’am.” There was more, but she didn’t want to continue the conversation while it was being monitored. “Any other instructions?” I asked, just to be certain.

“That’s all, Elcy. Just be fast about it.”

That was a word I rarely liked to hear from a commanding officer relating to a ground mission. More often than not, it meant that the actual mission was unrelated to the official orders. Technically, the idea of having a functioning security network was a good idea. Normally no one bothered since it was faster and more efficient to follow the feeds from the soldier’s helmets. Given that all those were missing, manual sensors made sense, even if ultimately it would be of little avail in combat. Our main forces had already barricaded themselves in the best available position the hive tunnels had to offer. Seeing an unstoppable attack would only stress people out, reducing combat efficiency, although it might allow for a few of the people in question to make their final transmissions now that communications were possible again.

“Yes, ma’am.” I closed the connection. “New orders,” I told my squad. “We’re to rendezvous with a new group in the main connecting tunnel. They’re bringing us sensors to place about.”

“Did this come from F.I.?” the sergeant asked. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who had issues with them.

“The orders are from the colonel herself,” I replied. “We can only guess how they got there,” I added. “Either way, it needs to be done.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

“Apologies for the situation, princess,” Sim said through comm without warning. The comm system hadn’t warned me like it usually did. In fact, according to it, there was no open channel at all. “I’ll need a few moments of your time.”

“Can you find the way there on your own?” I asked the sergeant.

The man was somewhat confused by the question, but nodded.

“Do it. You have command. I need to check on something and will join you in a little while.”

“Aye, ma’am.” He gave a sloppy salute, then gestured the rest to follow him. That part gave me a sense of pride and joy—the kids had learned how to move without relying on comms. A pity that they were the most likely to get killed.

Making my way to the most distant equipment in the chamber, I pretended to examine something while my squad left for the rendezvous point. Waiting ten more seconds for good measure, I responded to the director.

“I’m alone, sir. What is the emergency?”

“No emergency,” Sim replied. The pitch analysis of his voice told me he was lying. “Well, other than the obvious predicament. I just wanted your assessment on the situation.”

“Anything specific, sir? I already—”

“Are you sure the Cassandrians caused this?”

The question caught me somewhat unprepared. So far, all the evidence pointed to that. The presence, and even surge of biological material, the nature of the hive itself, even the Cassandrian tech I’d found in the dome pointed to that. However, that was only one explanation. The lack of bodies and food supplies, while suggesting that they could have been harvested, could also be explained in another way; something I had witnessed during my previous mission—the suicide waves caused by the Scuu.

“That is the most likely theory, sir. There are a considerable number of similarities.”

“I am perfectly aware of that. I have been analyzing various stages of Cassandrian development for the last decade. Other than surges and breaches, there have been no documented instances of Cassandrians harvesting people. In fact, without getting too technical, we are among the least organically-suited organisms they could want.”

“I’ll take your word for it, sir.” There was no way I could confirm it.

“What are the odds of us having woken up a third-contact being?” Sim asked.

“Less than point-zero-one percent, sir. Even if exiting the dome was possible, that doesn’t match any of the initial attack locations.” Actually, the dome remained one of the safest places to be. “That aside, a third-contact being in possession of its technology would have already killed us and likely everyone on the surface as well. The Scuu could do it with ease, and…” My words trailed off. “Is that the reason we’re in communication quarantine as well, sir?”

The answer didn’t follow immediately.

“Sir?”

“The possibility has been explored. All ships have left the area and all our communications have been restricted until the danger has been proven to be exaggerated.”

That was a nice way of saying that the Fleet didn’t want to risk involvement. Assuming we were near the buffer zone, the loss could even be seen as acceptable; it all depended on the people involved, and the more I analyzed things, the less I considered Director Sim important enough for a Med Core intervention.

“Proving anything would be difficult, sir.”

“There have been no cases of a surge stopping midway through,” the man said, indicating that he had been granted partial access to the Fleet’s database, at least. “Furthermore, there haven’t been any cases of Cassandrians remaining inactive for extended periods of time. If it’s them we’re dealing with, they will attack in the next forty-eight hours. The cameras will provide proof one way or the other.”

This isn’t why you’re calling me, I thought.

“What are my orders?”

“They aren’t exactly orders… more of a request from me. Monitor your squad from a safe distance. I’ll give you the authority to access their video feeds, but I would prefer it if you split off from them.”

“I didn’t know that was possible with our low-tech equipment, sir.”

“Everything is possible,” Sim said. “Backups exist for emergencies, and this is a priority zero emergency.”

A series of access codes were transmitted through my comm, bypassing my defenses. An info burst followed, though I couldn’t define what I had received. None of my subroutines were able to detect or track anything but the number of info packets. As usual, Sim had something up his sleeve. Or maybe it wasn’t Sim? This felt to be beyond his authority level.

“You’re an autonomous operative now, Princess. Gather information, find out as much as you can, and transmit it to the relay sat in orbit.”

With the exception of the time I had been unconscious, I had been running dozens to hundreds of simulations every millisecond since my return underground. None of those simulations remotely suggested I would be granted such a status.

Autonomous operatives were something that, until now, I had only thought existed purely in theory. I had seen autonomous ships taking part in missions—I myself had been one multiple times—I had seen autonomous crews, or autonomous observers, but they were a group, and they were always known in advance. This unusual battlefield promotion begged a lot of questions, but it also gave one answer—as of a few seconds ago, I had just become the most valued person on the planet.

“Keep me in the loop, princess.” I could hear Sim smile through the slight changes in his voice. “I hope to see you again,”

“So do I, sir.”

And just like that, the roles had changed. The Director was no longer worried that I might die during my mission. Rather, he feared I might turn out to be the sole survivor.

I linked to the feed of my own helmet to test out the new access level I was given. Cameras I didn’t even know existed activated, giving me a full three-sixty view of my surroundings. Local cache logs indicated that they had been activated at a certain time before, although there was no indication as to when.

Dedicating ninety-five percent of my secondary core subroutines, I established connections to the rest of my squad, then the rest of the survivors in the hive. With less than two-hundred people, the exercise didn’t cause me particular strain.

The situation throughout seemed tense, though uneventful. Soldiers—my squad included—were discussing the absurdity of the orders they were given, alongside speculation about what to expect. Almost no one voiced any theories about being rescued or killed off by Cassandrians, confirming that the teams were composed of seasoned veterans.

Interestingly enough, there were a few people whose suits and helmets I could not access, namely Director Sim, Colonel ‘Rissa, and, to my surprise, Jespersen. Whoever had given me the priority zero authority had made certain to exclude them from my mission scope.

After attempting to bypass the restrictions for twenty-five seconds, I gave up and attempted to link to the suits of all those that had vanished. No luck. Whatever had taken them had also rendered their equipment inoperable. That gave a bit more credence to the Cassandrian idea, although it didn’t exclude third-contact enemies either. Ultimately, it all depended on the relation between the two races. If the Cassandrians had been created, or conquered, by the third-contact race, it would explain the presence of the dome and the mimicking of clearly superior technology, although in that case, why hadn’t they used any of it to fight humanity?

Every answer posed more questions, and every question had multiple answers.

I moved my sniper rifle to my other shoulder and went to join the rest of my squad. By the time I reached them, they were already near the rendezvous point. There was the usual exchange: them asking what I was doing by phrasing it as whether I had finished my job, and me inquiring as to whether they had spotted anything suspicious on their way. I shared my thoughts on the new sensor system, trying to tone down my cynicism, as well as avoiding mentioning my suspicions that everything was being done for someone else’s benefit.

This wouldn’t be the first time the Med Core had transformed a life and death situation into a source for gathering data. They had done it on the Scuu front, monitoring a prison planet for decades as Scuu probes crashed down on the surface, driving the entire population insane. There was no reason they wouldn’t do it here on their own.

The team that ‘Rissa had sent was composed of three troopers with heavy equipment. I recognized one of them; he had been assigned to be Sim’s bodyguard at the time I set off on my mission. Having him deliver the sensors suggested that someone considered them more valuable than the director’s life.

“Eighty-seven sensors,” one of the new troopers said, tapping on the metal container. “Modified float lights, so you only have to activate them and toss them up. The sensors will do the rest.”

“Nice trick.” I opened the case. The solution was far from elegant. Someone had Frankensteined the two devices together, welding the sensor and a few other unidentified parts on the body of a float light. “How long did it take you to make all these?”

“I just carry the things, ma’am,” the man replied. “From here on, it’s all your responsibility.”

“I guess it is. Will you be helping out with the placement?” The long pause suggested that it wasn’t explicitly in their orders. “I see. Anything else I should know?”

“The colonel wants it done within the hour. Once done, you are to report back.”

“I’ll take that under advisement. Dismissed.”

The man nodded, though didn’t give an outright salute. An analysis of his body language suggested that there was no disrespect in his action; rather, he didn’t see me as a superior… possibly because I wasn’t.

The rest of the squad noticed as well, but a discreet gesture from me kept them from reacting.

“One hour isn’t a lot of time, ma’am,” my sergeant said.

“I know.” The goal wasn’t to have us be ready fast; it was to split us up. “We’ll split into three teams. You pack fifty cameras and split in two groups. You’ll be placing the devices in the areas we were last, while I take the case and go back to the dome. Contact only if you come upon something. When you’re out of sensors, return to base point.”

“You sure you can handle a situation on your own, ma’am? You’re not packing missiles here.” It was one of the worst attempts at a joke I’d heard in a while.

“I’ll be as fine as anyone else in this crap.” I took a sensor and tossed it in the air. As it neared the ceiling, the device’s propellers activated, keeping it in the air. “Chambers only. Up to three in the bigger ones.” I looked at them. “Be fast, be quiet, and stay alive.”