I stared at it, as bile rose in my throat, and my rage climbed higher and higher, I wanted to take that damn sign and rip it down, then find the scum responsible and shove the entire sigil where the sun didn’t shine EDGEWAYS.

What the hell were the Sisters doing here? This made absolutely no sense, they hadn’t even existed before the collapse, had they? Yet here was that stupid six-winged crest of there’s, as plain as day, right in the middle of a Flotilla bunker. Does that mean that The Flotilla were responsible for all the crap we had been through? I reached out and took Nara’s hand on one side, while on the other my nails ploughed grooves into my palm.

In my head I counted doubles, trying to keep my brain occupied long enough to stop me from going nova. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, it wasn’t enough, it would take more than damn counting, I shook, and tried not to scream, until Jenel took a single action, without hesitating she tore that damn badge from the wall, and punched it as hard as she could, over and over, with each punch I felt a little better. Until eventually I was calm enough to proceed to phase two, ransacking this place completely. Maybe then we’d get some closure.

Not that there was a lot in this room mind you, most of it was long-rotted paper, and a rickety old desk that had probably been pretty expensive back in the day, but now? Well, it would probably burn decently, and that was pretty much all it had going for it. From the ceiling above, half-formed stalactites dripped, made out of whatever was in those person-sized specimen tubes that were lying about. Somehow I didn’t think the tests here had been done using bunnies, not that I approved of that idea either, but if the sisterhood had offered me a choice of what they tested on, I just had ta say sorry bugs, I’d sure as hell never want to go back there, and wouldn’t wish that on any other sapient life-form either, while the scum under Sister Superior? They accepted no such limitations. There was a hole in the wall that probably once hid some kind of safe, behind the tattered remains of a picture frame (how original,) but whatever that contained was long gone.

I kept looking, feeling a damn sight less guilty about doing so now I knew what had gone on here, but apart from a pile of ash, that may possibly have been the facility director once over, I didn’t find a hell of a lot here, apart from an old terminal. So here I was, planning to break my own rules twice in a single day. Whatever was left in that terminal we needed the data. I hated this bit, it was time to jack in, and it was not my strong suit. Still, we needed the info, so I reached into my hair, and carefully extracted my neuro link cable, then plugged it in. On reflection that was absolutely not one of my better ideas.

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Nara was immensely confused at the minute unless you counted tracking down ancient vids and audio files Eileen was about the least tech-savvy of the group on the software front, yet the system was working with her. Too well, in fact, it felt almost guided. Something was wrong here, and there was nothing she could do but make sure everybody stayed safe. She reached into her jacket, checking it was still there, it was a little hard to be sure about that without checking, it was too light, once she felt the chill of cooled ceramic she calmed down a little.

That was right about the time everything went to hell in a hand-basket, as the terminal suddenly flooded with line upon line of unfamiliar code, and Eileen suddenly froze up.

“Oh, this can not be good” she cursed, as she looked for the power source, at the minute she was seriously considering pulling the plug, then she remembered that it’s generally a bad idea to unplug something jacked into

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“handshake protocol established, identity verified, beginning data transfer, paused due to rank,” a mechanical voice said over the terminal speakers. “Rank insufficient, overridden under emergency powers, Rank: Captain, Ship designation: Reliance, suitable candidate for Project Seraphim: data transfer underway.”

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Jenel did NOT like the sound of that one little bit and started trying to drag Eileen away from the terminal, but she wasn’t moving, and risking a forcible termination would probably end badly, otherwise, she would have blown the terminal to hell already, She felt a familiar panic, as she helplessly watched, she tried tapping every cancellation code into the damn system one after another, but it refused them all. What was she supposed to do here? She had to save her somehow. But what could she even do here, yanking the plug would likely fry her.

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There was just so much information here, far too much, I tried to hold onto myself, and remember who I was as wave upon wave of data washed over me. It felt like a sudden jolt, as more and more tried to jam itself into my poor beleaguered brain, wait what the hell am I thinking? Ouch ouch ouch OWWWWWWWWWW IT’S TOO MUCH MAKE IT STOP. But there was more and more, right now I was trying my best to forget as much as possible, but somehow my brain was taking it all in, then locking it all away, wait, it was giving me all this, then making it so I couldn’t even figure out what the hell it was? Oh god, there’s more. I screamed and screamed swearing up a storm from the cram session from hell, then it felt like a key turned in my brain, sealing it all away, I looked at everybody for a minute, then everything went black.