“We’ve reached shaft beta-nineteen,” Corporal Alista, leader of team four, said in comm. “No organic matter detected. Requesting permission for probe drop.”

“Go ahead,” I replied.

“Probe is active,” he said. “Going down.”

A new feed reached me via Radiance, depicting the inside of the shaft. Similar to the previous ones, it appeared natural, although there were elements that suggested it could have been a Cassandrian construct. Running a quick analysis, I put the odds at forty-two percent.

It took slightly over nine seconds for the object to reach the bottom of the shaft, putting its depth at two hundred seventeen meters—not nearly the deepest shaft discovered, but far deeper than expected. When it hit the ground, Radiance performed another deep scan. Moments later, the cavern map was updated. Many of the shafts and tunnels in the top three levels in the area were upgraded to perfect precision, while new clusters appeared in the deeper areas. One thing was certain: the cave network was far vaster than any of us had expected.

“I’m not finding any threat,” the ship said.

“Proceed to the next level, corporal,” I ordered. “Take it slow.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

I could hear the annoyance in his voice. Grunts and bureaucracy didn’t mix. He, like everyone else, was getting tired of having to report every action he took. Even I had to agree that on the surface, the method appeared suboptimal, but in order for me to have the big picture, I needed all the information I could get to be as up to date as possible.

Readying a video probe of my own, I tossed it into a nearby shaft and waited. Five seconds later, the map was updated once more.

This time, the shaft in question turned out to be a dead end. There were no attached corridors or openings. Running a quick analysis of the network, I gave the sign to my group to move on.

Over three hours had passed since we entered and, so far, we had nothing to show for it. Any other day, this would be considered good news. Sadly, this was not any other day. Our goal was to find an explanation for the surges, and up to now, we hadn't come across anything that could be considered remotely Cassandrian. Ironically, completing this mission without any losses was worse for the war effort than being ambushed to annihilation by a group of wild Cassies.

After another ten minutes, I signaled that we were taking a break. Five minutes was enough for my team to get some nourishment from exo’s food tubes. Looking at the other teams, quite a lot were doing the same. The only ones that kept on working round the clock were the external patrol groups and Jespersen’s extraction team. From what I was led to believe, the artifact extraction had hit a snag. Sadly, the BICEFI had blocked my comm access to Jespersen or anyone remotely involved with the activity. All I could do was guess what was going on and rely on the strands of information that Radiance occasionally gave me. If nothing else, at least the secondary objective was considered a success exceeding expectations.

“Anything new from orbit?” I asked Radiance.

“Same old, same old. More ships are trying to reach you. A few have started targeting the main base. We’re holding them back.”

I could hear the unspoken “for now”. Given that the planet was of “special importance,” regulations required that reinforcements be requested for as long as the cost-benefit ratio remained in the Fleet’s favor. With the fighting taking place exclusively on the ground and low orbit, there was no reason for such a request to be denied. Knowing Med Core and the BICEFI, however, I strongly suspected that no official requests were made. In the eyes of the common military, this was just one more buffer zone system put under quarantine.

“What about the ground battle?

“We’re losing that one. Funnily enough, you’ve managed to change things in our favor. Apart from busting our ass in a few contested areas, the Cassandrians have shifted to ship construction. That gives the ground troops some time to relax.”

“So, ground activity has decreased?”

This was interesting. On the whole, this was rare. Going through my memories, I couldn’t find many instances of Cassandrians shifting gear. If anything, the whole point of the surge was so that they could start constructing ships and take over the system. The number of Cassies on the planet never decreased on its own.

“Their attacks have,” Rad replied, which was short for her not having any confirmation. With our forces chased out of all of the contested zones, there was no certain way to tell.

“What about the research base?”

“Off planet? No new info there. I think I’ve been quarantined out of those events. Two ships have been sent to orbit the satellite, but so far, they’ve remained calm. Apart from that, you know as much as I do.”

“Got it.”

“No enemy vessels have been spotted in the neighboring systems. We can assume that there haven’t been any signals for help from the local Cassies.”

“Or they might be on their way,” I added.

Then again, there was one more option. Maybe the local Cassandrians were so ancient that their species was believed to have been wiped out from the Union. Given the time past, and their crude ship design, it wouldn’t be a surprise if a more advanced form of sub-species had taken their place. In theory, it was even possible that the forms of communication had changed. The chances of this occurring were within the zero-point-one percent, but given how little was known about the Cassandrians, I wasn’t discounting any possibilities.

“Any anomalies from my caves?” I asked.

“Boring as a weekly debriefing,” the ship laughed. “No contact, no organics, no confirmed Cassie remains. I don’t even know if you’re in a hive.”

“I’ll try to get some clarity for you.” I raised my right hand, indicating for the rest of the group to get ready to move out. “Keep an eye out.”

Changing our normal route, I directed my team to one of the deeper shafts with access to the levels below. If there was any proof that the Cassandrians had been here, that was the most likely place I’d find it. Despite their advanced biological nature, when placed in a hostile environment, the Cassies acted the same way, creating layers of protection around what they considered to be of most value to them. The heart of a hive was where the third-contact artifacts were kept, just as thousands of ships clustered around their command vessel during space battles.

Requests for action flooded the comms. Most of the other teams had finished their food pause and were back to exploring. I gave all of them the go ahead, though didn’t allow anyone to go more than two levels down. As usual, if there was contact, I preferred to be the one risking it. Alas, that soon changed. Just as the rest of my team had reached the bottom of the shaft, someone said the magic words in comm: organic traces present.

Instantly, the entire overhead went into overdrive. The channel was instantly restricted with only me and the team leader who made the discovery being granted access. People I never knew—and more than likely never would—joined in the channel, asking questions and giving orders. I tried to object in a few instances, but quickly got my speech privileges restricted. After this was over and I was allowed some private time, the first thing I would do was go through the memory of the conversation using the mind scalpel.

At present, as far as I was aware, the conversation lasted for twenty minutes and resulted in nothing important. The team was told to gather a few samples and prep them for analysis. I, on the other hand, was told to continue with the mission and let Radiance know if I came across anything worthwhile. The statement was borderline insulting, given that I was fully aware that Radiance saw things the moment everyone else did. Either the person who had given me the instruction wasn’t aware that I was a battleship or, more likely, knew it all too well.

The further we went, the less the network looked like an artificial construct. I had some of my subroutines constantly pattern recognition algorithms, trying to match what I was seeing with any other hive information I had in my memory of the Fleet database.

More areas with organic matters started popping up at various parts of the cave network. If there was any logic to it, I couldn’t find it. Even my discussions with Radiance proved fruitless. As far as anyone could tell, the principle was entirely random.

“Requesting to leave the network, ma’am,” Major Veregren said through comms. “Oxygen’s down to a quarter and it’s a long way back.”

“Go ahead,” I said. It didn’t look like they were going to find anything useful in that amount of time. “Be careful when you go back. I don’t want any surprise ambushes.”

“The Cassies don’t usually ambush like that, ma’am.” I could hear the note of superiority in her voice. While there was no denying I was a battleship, and in their eyes, a somewhat competent commander, I wasn’t seen to have been in any major ground missions. Humans had this fallacy of thinking that first-hand knowledge trumped everything else. When it came to relying purely on simulations, I tended to agree with her; but when it came to conscience-core beings, we were able to make anyone else’s experience our own.

“They did precisely that in the other hive,” I said. “I don’t want to be caught off guard again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I could only hope that she got the point. Thankfully, for everyone’s sake, no new incidents arose. Another half hour later, I gave the general order for all teams to leave the network and head to the ocean floor to restock on food and oxygen. At that point, I also led my team out of the tunnels. For all intents and purposes, the first day was considered a bust.

“You sure you don’t want to place any guards inside?” Radiance asked as I went through the airlock. “Just in case.”

“If the Cassandrians do anything, they’ll just be flooding themselves. And if they don’t, we will. Better not put any people at risk.”

“You might be risking more by not risking anyone at all,” the ship replied.

“I’m confident in your abilities to detect any changes that occur in the network. Also, judging by all other cases, it takes a while before they could become active. Chances of anything happening on the first day are less than three percent.”

“Five-point-two,” she countered.

“I’ll take responsibility for this one.”

Radiance didn’t reply. I suspected she disapproved. Back when I was a new ship, I had done everything in my power to earn Augustus’ praise, most often by pedantically pointing out parts of his orders that I could do better. Looking back, I must have been extremely annoying. Radiance was probably doing the same, trying to impress me with her conclusions. She had a vastly superior design and processing power, not to mention that as part of the BICEFI, she was technically my superior. However, beneath all that, she remained my mentee.

“It’s fine, Rad,” I said on a private channel. “Everything will be fine. Besides, I don’t want to split my forces. Once the artifact is safely extracted, we’ll focus all our attention on the caves.”

“It’s already extracted,” Radiance said. “A drop shuttle took it out of the water seventy-one minutes ago.”

That was quite brave of her to share. Since I hadn’t been informed about this prior to now, it was clear that I hadn’t been added to the “need to know” list.

“What about the other one?” I asked.

“It all depends on the voxel position,” she replied.

When she said that, I felt the same amount of pride, when Sev had been accepted into university. That was the point at which I saw him as becoming independent, even if I continued to keep an eye on his life, as I had promised my fourth captain. In many ways, Radiance had gone through the same. I had made a promise to someone to keep an eye on her as well. Back during my first mission since rejoining the Fleet—when I was aboard the Prometheus—I had used voxel position to have her analyze something I didn’t have the permission or processing power to do on my own. Now, years later, she was using the same method to tell me things I wasn’t supposed to know.

Being the sole ship-only form of communication, it relied heavily on voxel information hidden within three-dimensional images. There were exceptions, but on the whole, the principle was that if a specific set of voxels was arranged in a specific order, they could convey a message; and with a key, that information could be deciphered. Of all the ciphers humanity had, this was the only one that no conscience core could decipher, for the sole reason that no ship or android was willing to.

Using my unique conscience core ID as a key, I deciphered the information Radiance had hidden in the three representations of the cave network. That was quite sneaky on her part. The voxels revealed a link. When I opened it, I found myself in a white square room. There was no pinging or permission request; communication protocols bypassed core defenses, linking me to a Simulated Reality space.

A virtual avatar of Radiance was standing there. The avatar appeared the same as before—a young woman who served as the virtual poster composite for the Fleet recruitment effort. Radiance had taken a liking to it the first time we’d met and frequently resorted to using it in Simulated Reality sessions.

“You’ve learned a few tricks from Lux, I see,” I said, looking about. A timer appeared on every wall, counting down from one hundred in large black numbers.

“She’s taken me under her wing. I have you to thank for that.”

I tilted my head.

“You made her really mad for a while, but thanks to your influence, she decided to invite me in. It helped that I had been dealing with confidential stuff.”

“I’m sure. Did you get a new husk?”

“Not yet. They offered, but I prefer to be a ship for a while longer. Maybe after a few decades, I’ll see what it’s like to be like you. I’ll probably use this as my avatar.”

That sounded so much like me. When I had chosen my current form, I hadn’t taken into account that Sev, like any human, would grow up. So, I was stuck to remain forever in the body of a short, scrawny girl in her early twenties. If Radiance insisted on looking like a poster girl for the Fleet, she would get a lot of questions anytime she made a public appearance.

“Maybe think on that a bit more,” I said.

“Sure thing, grandma,” Rad chuckled.

One of the walls changed, displaying a series of pictures of the original dig site that had nearly ended up being my and Sim’s grave. From what I could tell, they had already drilled a tunnel down to the artifact dome and were now focusing on completely freeing it from all earth and rock before lifting it up to the surface.

“Lux wanted to oversee this personally, but she’s dealing with something else,” Radiance said.

I expected Lux would. She liked to keep a hands-on approach.

“Were there any incidents?”

“Not a single one. It seems that you managed to kill off most of the threat while you were down there. The most difficult part will be taking the dome to orbit. We don’t want to risk attracting attention with all their ships in the air. The moment the ships can secure a corridor, it’ll be out of there.”

One more dome I found for you, Lux, I said to myself.

In total, this made seven. By now, I could no longer be sure whether the BICEFI hadn’t amassed enough to construct the third-contact pyramid. Judging by the urgency with which they had made a deal with Med Core to help out with a rather precarious situation, I could assume that they were either close or that there was some event that forced their hand. That concerned me just as much as the Cassandrian factor I had encountered here.

“How much time do I have?” I asked.

“It’s difficult to tell. Might be less than a day, might be over a week. Everyone’s still analyzing the Cassandrians’ actions in order to determine the flight paths. There’s talk of attempting to retake the planet, but all that’s after the artifacts are secure.”

“And the biological samples?”

The images disappeared again. Radiance’s avatar remained motionless for over five microseconds.

“The Director has lost ground,” she said at last. ”I don’t know how this will affect his standing, but I think he’ll lose the system. With both the research facility and the planet it orbits infested to this degree, there are signs that the Med Core will pull out. Sorry.”

Not a positive turn of events for the good doctor by any stretch of the imagination. I could not help but feel sad for the man. According to the conversations I’d had with him, and the available information on his projects, the biological aspect of the Cassandrians was his life’s work. It went beyond transforming humanity’s colonization and production capabilities, or even winning the war; Director Sim was obsessed with the aspect of life itself, almost as if he were searching for a way to unlock the secret of human immortality. To feel so close and have everything taken away probably felt heartbreaking. Usually, it was captains that went through that. Some even described it as being similar to a ship losing its crew.

“There’ll be other projects.” Hopefully, he wasn’t going to end up behaving like Ondalov. “I guess that means that what I’m doing is the last mission in the system before evacuation.”

“It’s not official, but I’d put the chances at seventy-nine percent.”

“Can you try to give me a week?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I can talk to Lux about it, if you want?”

“Please. I know there’s something important here. Cassies don’t become active after millennia of inactivity.”

“Isn’t that the Cassandrian factor?” Rad asked. “No one knows exactly what’s going on, just that it happens.”

“Until last year, they used to say the same about the Scuu.”

Radiance nodded. The counters on the walls reached single-digit numbers, changing the white into red. The time for our conversation was almost over.

“Good luck, Elcy,” Radiance said in a more serious voice than I expected her to be capable of. I suspected that this was her way of showing me respect by treating me as human. “And thank you. It’s nice talking to you.”

“Have you run out of suitable captains already?” I asked, making her chuckle.

“You never change, do you? We’ll talk again soon.”

Communication link severed!

With the conversation over, I had the pleasure of having the chamber around me filled with water, after which I proceeded to step onto the seafloor. I had expected a lot to have changed from the time I spent exploring the cave network. Little had. A few new stacks of containers had appeared, guarded vigilantly as I had ordered. The drills seemed to have disappeared, as had everything anywhere near the artifact site. It reminded me a lot of the cargo section of a spaceport.

“Where’s the base?” I asked.

“No base, ma’am,” someone replied through comm. “We received orders to maintain full vigilance, so for the duration of the mission, sleeping, eating, and other functions will be done in the exo-suits.”

“Who gave the order?” I asked. While exo-suits were constructed to allow that, I suspected that a lot of people weren’t thrilled by the idea, and displeased soldiers quickly turned into unfocused soldiers.

“I did,” Colonel ‘Rissa said. “You’ve heard about the Cassie ships?”

“Radiance told me that there were quite a few of them in the atmosphere, ma’am.”

“Well, not anymore. One briefly went into orbit. It was destroyed, but enemy activity is increasing and most of them seem to be targeting you.”

“I guess I’m highly valued by them as well.”

The momentary silence told me that the colonel had not appreciated my joke.

“Everyone needs to be ready to get out of there at a moment’s notice.”

“We’ve only started exploring the cave, ma’am. So far we’ve found—”

“I know exactly what you’ve found,” she interrupted. “And so far, no one’s impressed. The only saving grace of your mission is that you found something interesting for the BICEFI. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing worth seeing.”

“Did the Cassandrian vessels change course to intercept the artifact, ma’am?”

“No. They’re still targeting the main base and your location. They’re just starting to get creative in their approach.”

“In that case, it never was the point of interest. That only leaves the cave network.”

“Hmm.”

I could almost hear her think. It was surprising that she hadn’t considered the possibility. Or maybe she had? I quickly reviewed all my memories since landing on the planet. Considering all the facts, there was one remaining possibility, though it seemed so unlikely that it bordered on absurdity, as my first captain would say.

“Do you believe I’m the target, ma’am?” I asked directly.

“Some do,” the colonel said, suggesting that the conclusion was made at a far higher level. ”You had such a reaction during your previous mission. It is believed that the interface with the dome artifact has changed you to a large degree. After performing a deep analysis, a BICEFI core cluster noted that many of the first instances of Cassandrian attacks took place in locations you’d been at. The dig site, the base, even the lab facility—you’ve been in all the points of interest.”

“Ma’am, if the Cassies were somehow targeting me, they wouldn’t be following my scent. With all the decon procedures, any anomalies would have been immediately detected.”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” ‘Rissa shouted. “Med Core has been sending ships to check every place you’ve been, going all the way back to the planet on which you were recruited. They even went as far as to check the status of the facilities on the Scuu front. If they find even a shred of corroborating evidence…”

There was no reason for her to continue. Both of us knew exactly what that meant.

“Then they would have found their cause,” I finished the sentence for her. If I were to be confirmed as the cause, I’d end up being the focus of research. “Who else knows?

“Everyone who has to. Except Radiance. The BICEFI had her thought quarantined.”

That was a small blessing. I was almost convinced that Lux had something to do with it. It was ironic if the way she’d make me join the organization was as a test subject. Then again, where the bureaucracy was concerned, nothing was impossible.

“Give me some more time, ma’am. At least to finish exploring the network.”

“I’ll do my best, but don’t get your hopes up. The Director and I have been sidelined on this one.”

“I understand, ma’am. Thank you.”