“...you don’t remember any of it?”

Samara wracked her brain, but once again came up empty. She shook her head as she struggled to answer Kalypso’s question. “Like I said, the last thing I remember is getting caught in the Defensive Grid,” she repeated. “The next I knew you were screaming at me.”

After their escape from the At’sah system, they’d parked Rächerin as far away from any other sun as they could manage. The odds of a Troika ship stumbling over them all the way out here without warning were vanishingly small.

“And you have received no specialized pilot training I am unaware of?” Xeno pressed her.

“You know I haven’t,” she sighed. “I’m decent enough in a pinch, but that’s all.”

“That has been my estimation as well,” he agreed. “At least, until now.” He gave her an appraising look.

“I’m not lying to you!” she snapped.

“I did not mean to imply you were. As you said, your piloting skills are adequate, but not remarkable. But what I observed... and what the computer records confirm... is that your piloting during the period which you claim to have no memory were, to put it bluntly, astounding. You managed maneuvers I have never heard of, including one or two I did not believe were possible. By all rights, your efforts should have killed us all, and yet here we are.” He took a deep breath. “And I can only come up with a single explanation.”

“Then you’re doing better than I am,” she replied. “If you have a theory, I want to hear it.”

Xeno and Kalypso shared a look. “Come on, out with it,” she demanded.

“Samara,” the other woman said quietly, “you know what the answer must be.”

She winced and looked away. Despite her protests, she too had a sneaking suspicion, though she’d feared giving it credence. But they were right. Nothing else made sense.

“If it is the device, that still doesn’t answer the ‘How’,” she said carefully.

“We know nothing about what that box is, or how it works,” Kalypso told her. “Or what kind of effect it might have on you.”

“Look, if you’re right, and we still don’t know that for a fact yet, but if you are then it’s saved my life not just once but twice. That doesn’t sound like the act of something with hostile intent, does it?”

“Samara, it turned you into a puppet,” Xeno hissed. “It made you into its own personal marionette and wiped your memory as it did so. Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps it truly does not bear you, or us, ill will. But even if its motives are as pure as refined Antimatter, that does not mean it is not still potentially deadly.”

“If it wanted me dead, all it had to do was literally nothing,” she reminded him. “Both times, as far as I can tell, I was in danger of bleeding out. I probably suffered organ damage too, and it healed me.” She stuck out her chin defiantly as she defended the strange device. “It saved all of you, too, by helping us escape. You saw the plots, same as I did. The Tu’udh’hizh’ak had us dead to rights. There was no way out of that trap, and yet somehow, we still escaped. I ask again, how is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not,” he said quietly. “But it still leaves us with far more questions than answers, questions that have some rather unfortunate implications.”

“Such as?”

“Samara, whatever that thing was…” Kalypso said nervously, before working up her courage. “The entire time it was making those crazy maneuvers, we were both shouting at you, demanding you tell us what you were doing, and…” Her voice trailed off.

“And what?” she insisted.

“And you never said a word,” she whispered. “Not one. I’m not sure you could even understand us. You sure didn’t give any sign of it. Once or twice you glanced in our direction, and I hoped we were getting through, but… Samara, that look you gave us? It wasn’t you. You looked at us like you’d never seen a human before. Like we were... insects.” She shuddered as she recounted the experience.

“There is something else you need to consider,” Xeno continued. “By your own admission you were in something akin to a fugue state, as if your conscious mind had... stepped out.” He took a moment to choose his next words with care. “Whatever was driving your consciousness, it could have forced you to do anything, Samara. It could have eliminated us instead of saving us.”

“But it didn’t,” she protested.

“This time,” he said tersely, “but that is no guarantee it will continue to look out for our best interests when it next inhabits your flesh,” he said in no uncertain terms. “We have no idea of its origin, its purpose... or its motives.”

Xeno’s words gave her pause. She knew he was right, that he was merely being cautious, and that his arguments were well-reasoned. But just because something is unknown doesn’t automatically make it suspect, or at least maybe it shouldn’t. In some place inside her, in a place she couldn’t name, part of her rebelled at Xeno’s calm dissection of the threat the device presented. Somehow, she just knew it wouldn’t hurt them, even though she couldn’t explain it.

But it was obvious they wouldn’t be convinced anytime soon, at least not without more substantial proof, so she redirected the conversation to other matters. “What’s the status of the ship?”

“Not good,” Kalypso admitted. “Unless we can put in somewhere soon for repairs, we may have to abandon Rächerin.”

“Put in where?” Samara asked. “We’ve burned almost all of our bridges in this sector and considering what happened the last time we put in for repairs, I doubt the independents will be happy to see us either.”

“It is a problem,” Xeno agreed. “I will begin looking for a yard that won’t immediately open fire or turn us over to the Troika the moment we arrive.”

“I suppose we should wake up Rook,” Kalypso pointed out.

“Not yet,” Samara cautioned them. “Not until we delete the data from At’sah.”

“And your reasoning is?” Xeno inquired.

“Think about it. Once Rook sees how we escaped, he’ll start asking questions, things we don’t want him finding out if we’re right about the device. It’s bad enough he’s already twisted our arm about studying the thing but considering how poorly equipped we are for an investigation, I’m confident we can keep him from learning anything useful. But only if we delete those files.”

“Agreed,” he nodded. “I am still not convinced the device is benign by nature, but either way I would prefer keeping our options open. Should our Avatar friend take a more proactive approach to the situation…”

“In the meantime,” Kalypso interjected, “I want Persephone to look you over. Given her condition, she’s had to learn more medical science than most.”

“I’m fine…” Samara began, only to have the other woman point at her torn and bloodstained suit.

“The evidence says different,” she informed her, “and maybe this time we caught it fast enough that we might actually learn something.”

“All right,” she sighed in resignation. Not that it was a bad idea, in fact she hoped they did learn something. But if Persephone took the same position as the others, it would be that much harder to convince them the device was an ally and not a threat. “Call her and say I’m heading over,” she told them, rising to her feet, “but then get started deleting those files.”

“We will begin immediately,” Xeno assured her. She nodded and made her way aft.

But despite her assurances the alien box was a friend, there was a dark place deep within her that recalled others who’d claimed to be her friend, individuals who swore they were only looking out for her.

Liva stood perched on the small platform suspended far above the deck, her eyes closed, and her arms outstretched. Her breaths were long and slow, carefully measured in harmony with her heartbeat as she raised her left leg and curled it back behind her in an Arabesque. She flexed her knee, tensing, and then leapt, sweeping the other leg back around to give her momentum as she tumbled through the air, landing atop a pillar only large enough to give a single foot purchase. Her landing was perfect, no tremor or wobble to show loss of balance.

But the pillar was merely a stepping stone to her next objective as she launched herself once more, the aerial as she flipped her body end over end, a study of absolute control. The next piling she landed on was even smaller and further away than the first, forcing her to alight onto her open palm, the rest of her body suspended above her. She cocked her free arm to the side for balance as she hung upside-down, gauging the distance to her next target, before pushing off yet again and somersaulting to yet another pedestal, this one large for both her feet. Liva paused for a moment, thankful for the brief respite afforded her.

After the long months of rehabilitation and training, she should have realized it was a trap.

She was already off and falling before her brain registered the “Pfft Pfft Pfft” of pneumatic tubes firing. Needle-tipped darts zipped past her as she twisted her body to deny them a target, avoiding them by mere millimeters. She was already bounding off her next position as it retracted into the floor, the obstacles she faced now uncertain and dynamic. She rebounded off a heavy block dropped on her from high above, using that extra push to reach the next pole and wrap her arm around it, slingshotting herself back the way she’d come as she landed onto the deck in a forward tumble.

Liva was up and moving a heartbeat later in a single fluid motion as a manikin appeared before her, whipping a heavy staff at her torso. She jumped into the air with a war cry and lashed out with her foot, snapping the mechanical device’s artificial neck with a spinning roundhouse kick. A second drone appeared, this one wielding a sword, forcing her to disable it with a flurry of hand strikes before it too collapsed onto the deck.

Once again, her preternatural senses warned her of danger as she leapt into the air, grasping a suspended rope high above as the deck dropped out beneath her, revealing a spike-lined pit. Three powerful kicks had her past the danger as she swung from one cable to the next, before finally landing within the white-outlined box painted on the deck that marked the course’s finish.

She rested her hands on her knees as she panted from the effort, every muscle stretched to its limit and beyond as she fought to catch her breath, while the monitor noting her progress made a notation on her tablet.

“37.2 seconds,” she informed her, shaking her head. “A pitiful showing.”

“I just beat my record by four seconds,” Liva exclaimed, “and my form was perfect!”

The monitor snorted. “We’re not grading on a curve here,” she replied. “Our Clan and its patrons have given you their very best effort, and they expect the same in return.” She typed another note before jerking her head back at the course. “Again.”

Her head dropped in defeat. Arguing was pointless, she’d learned that long ago. They expected perfection and would make sure you produced it, by means both fair and foul. No trick was too dirty, no subterfuge too devious, as long as it helped them achieve their goal. She sighed before squaring her shoulders, readying herself for the climb back to the starting position as she padded over to the metal pole.

“That’s enough,” she heard behind her. Liva turned and spotted a sinewy man making his way towards them. His hair and eyes were dark, his form trim and well-muscled with a swimmer’s build. He moved with a fluid motion that spoke of years of training, but when he looked her way, she could see the mischievous grin lurking beneath the professional mask. He came to a halt in front of her, his gaze traveling down her body as Liva was suddenly made conscious of her thin leotard.

“Now see here…” the monitor began, only to be cut off.

“I said that’s enough,” the man ordered. The other woman drew herself up, composing herself before stalking off. Turning his attention back to Liva, he graced her with a gentle smile. “After that performance, I’d say you’ve earned a little downtime.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I was starting to wonder if I’d ever be good enough.”

He gave her an easy shrug. “Our standards are high,” he agreed, “and I admit we push our candidates to their limits.” The smile came back with a vengeance. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun now and then,” he chuckled. “Interested?”

Liva barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding?” she said with a grin of her own. “Anything to avoid another run on the obstacle course.”

“I think we can do better than that,” he said with a wink, before holding out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Liva,” he told her.

She gripped his hand and shook. “I didn’t catch your name,” she remarked.

The smile grew even wider.

“...call me Azrael.”