Mai’s feet dangled as she squirmed in her chair, wearing her first official military uniform. The stern official sitting across from her tapped away on her tablet. The office was light and airy, with minimalistic decor, and a panoramic window to the outside world. Jagged peaks rose in the distance while the valley in front of them was covered by spiky, dark vegetation trying to catch the reddish light of the dwarf star always shining in the same exact point in the twilit sky since this world was tidally locked to its parent sun.

“All right,” the official finally spoke. “We’ll send you to a completely different and far-off system as we discussed. Your record will remain clean because nothing that happened was your fault, obviously. And he won’t be able to see or contact you ever again. Good?”

“Yes,” Mai nodded. “How will you punish him?”

The official furrowed her brow.

“Will he go to jail?” Mai asked only to be met with an awfully long pause. “I just wanted to know.”

“Ah, that,” frowned the official. “That’s... uh... complicated. A number of very high-level individuals are implicated, so it could take a long time to sort all this out. It’s a little too early to talk about punishments when investigations are still ongoing and cases need to be brought to trial. But we will be stripping him of the right to be a guardian for cyborg children in the meantime.”

“So, you won’t punish him,” sighed the child.

“I didn’t say that,” objected the official. “I just said it’s going to take a while to determine who’s punished and how. If we wanted to protect him, we wouldn’t have taken you from him and placed you under our care even though you did kill two humans and injured a third.”

She trailed off, realizing what she just said.

“But that was appropriate after all since it was obviously done self-defense and we very much encourage self-defense against anyone who wants to do you any kind of harm, human, cyborg, or alien,” she quickly added. A little too quickly.

The small cyborg didn’t answer. Taking this as a reprieve, the official once again returned to her tablet.

“Now, about your transfer to a new system. We’ll need a few things for the paperwork...”

The rest of her words faded away to Mai’s ears. Humans would protect their own, she decided. She’ll just need to get even stronger and faster so she doesn’t have to deal with them for much longer. From what she read over the last few weeks in her new, government-provided accommodations, the Explorer Program was her best route. She just had to qualify, but she knew she could.

Nothing else mattered anymore. Her only goal now was to ace those tests. Her scores were already in the top percentile. She just needed to push a little more and she’d be assigned to the ProxCen training facility, and then, well, explorers got more leeway than most fleet assets. She’d see what would happen if she made it that far.

...

A rover zoomed across a sprawling plateau overlooking a vast river valley rich with dark purple vegetation. It came to a stop in a particularly flat, even nook and two astronauts jumped out, stretching their legs after a long and bumpy ride to their destination. They casually made their way to the edge and looked out at the shining spires of their home outpost barely visible in the distance.

“Now that’s a view,” said the first astronaut.

“Oh, it’s perfect,” agreed his partner. “Perfect place for another city. Just imagine, in ten years, we’ll be living here in brand new accommodations, designed specifically for this world. I’m excited. I think custom astro-architecture will be the next big step.”

“Think we’ll really do it that fast?”

“All right, Fifteen years. You get my point though, right?”

“I do, I do. Imagine the faces on Earth when we send them a tour of the whole thing. I’m just hoping it’ll match the renderings.”

“Well, that’s always the question with these projects.”

“And I hope Earth won’t do the thing where they get mad and send those things to boss us around for a while again...”

“Nah, they don’t care. Just as long as we cooperate when something comes up, they seem pretty happy to leave us alone these days.”

“Yeah, guess you’re probably right.”

“Ok, we should really finish mapping out those coordinates. Let’s unpack the drones?”

“On it.”

The astronaut walked to the back of the rover and opened the cargo bay. With the press of a button, robotic arms started to unload large cubes made of small, interlocking machines and carefully lowered them to the ground.

“That should be enough for the first batch, right?” he asked, looking at a display in his helmet.

There was no answer. He turned his partner to find him frozen in shock, looking out into the distance, and swiveled his head to see an ominous, bright light in the sky coming down over the outpost on the horizon. Several other strange lights just like it began to appear in the clouds, all of them getting larger, closer, and more unsettling.

“What is that?” he asked.

“No idea. I was just about to ask you the same question,” came the less than comforting reply.

As some of the lights began to fade, the objects started coming into focus. They looked like dark shards covered in flexible scales, glowing with a menacing green aura as they began to stab into the ground, unlocking to reveal complex internal structures.

A dull, loud hum from above prompted both astronauts to raise their heads. A massive alien spike was coming down right on top of them out of a cloud. The astronauts grabbed each other in silent terror.

...

Steve reclined in his seat while looking at a computer screen. His stare was absent-minded, his mind processing having seen far too many things he probably shouldn’t have, as Christine walked by behind him.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning,” he muttered.

“Well, my attempts to learn more didn’t pan out. Kinda just bumped into Alex and got a stern talking to for sneaking into his lab. How did your night go?”

“I tried to use my access to the base’s internet connection to find some information on cyborgs with tentacles, but... um...”

“It was all porn, wasn’t it?”

“Yah... I saw things,” he admitted, with a shy but surly look on his face. “Things I’m not sure I can unsee. But hey, props to Earthlings for their creativity, though. Maybe after months of intensive therapy, I’ll learn that I acquired some new fetishes.”

“Will they involve glowing neon hair and tattoos?”

Steve turned to her wide-eyed and a little surprised.

“Ah, a woman of culture, I see...”

...

Alex sat in his large, fishbowl office covered with diagrams and schematics of his work, still dressed in civilian clothing, wireless headphones covering his ears. His fingers furiously flew across the keys of a wireless keyboard. On his screen, lines of code in Pigpen appeared and changed with a steady rhythm.

He paused, scanning his work and wagging his finger as if he was conducting a tiny orchestra in the computer. He pressed a few keys on the keyboard to see an error message on the screen, groaned, made an edit, and pressed the same shortcut. The code finally compiled and began running.

Alex sighed with satisfaction, leaned back, and took off his headphones, letting them hang around his neck. He tapped on the arm of his chair and reached for a can of coffee on his desk. As he tried to drink it, he noticed that to his disappointment, it was empty. He shook it just to make sure and made his way to the lab’s kitchen to grab another.

As he walked up to the fridge, relieved that his test model was finally working, his eyes pulsed.

“Shit...” he whispered as his face went dark.

Throwing the can into a bin, he ran off towards a conference room in the central complex of the base where Dot, Alice, Izzy, and Sergio were already waiting for him in their seats. He slid into his chair and grabbed the tablet waiting for him.

“All right, I’m going to keep it brief,” announced Izzy to start the emergency meeting. “We know what happened on Psi Cygnus 22 C. Total population was six million. Fewer than three million made it out. The Hellhounds have intercepted the evacuees from the outpost and are trying to figure out where to place all of them. They’re also asking if this is pertinent to our current assignment and willing to let us investigate.”

“We have to go there, inspect the sites, figure out why they’re now going after Terra Firma bases,” said Sergio. “They used to be mostly reactive, so seeing them suddenly switch to offense reeks of desperation. Something bad could be happening on their worlds in that constellation.”

“Strong second,” nodded Alice. “Did we inform them of what we encountered here with Prometheus?”

“Not yet,” said Izzy. “Should we?”

“I wouldn’t,” frowned Dot. “We have an excellent track record of cooperation, but until we can be sure they’re not lending out ships like the Skulls, I’d advise we give them the wrong timing and carefully watch what vessels show up.”

“Agreed with Dot,” nodded Alex. “I’m also a little concerned that the Rexx aren’t confined to Draco. We need to figure out how widespread they are in Cygnus. And if they really started going after Terra Firma bases, we need a proper multi-fleet strategy.”

“So, we’re all on the same page then,” nodded Izzy. “Do we have a plan?”

“I’m sure Prometheus already knows what happened as well,” mused Leo. “In case they’re planning an intercept, we have to buy as much time as possible. I’m thinking three Dragons at most. Fewer gravity wells, harder to detect, and more effort to confirm our presence if you’re sent by Prometheus or the Rexx.”

“I’m ready to go,” said Dot. “We’ll also need someone who’s an expert on these cities in case we miss anything.”

“Hmm... I don’t think we have any on the fleet,” Sergio scratched his chin. “Izzy is probably the closest to that.”

“Technically, we have Hayes and Robbins staying with us right now and they’re experts on the exact systems we’ll need to hack or salvage,” Dot raised her brow inquisitively.

“That sounds... dangerous,” grumbled Alex. “Remember why they’re on this installation in the first place.”

“That’s all true, but we may have a very limited time slot in which to do analysis and recovery,” replied Dot. “The Rexx could come back because this was a trap, and Prometheus may be on its way as soon as they find out. It’s risky, you’re right. But we really do need to work quickly enough and get something concrete. They can at least make sure we didn’t miss anything, and that’s already gonna be a huge help.”

The room fell silent for a few moments as everyone considered the proposal.

“I’m going with you,” said Alex. It was not an offer of help but a statement of fact.

“I’ll talk to the humans,” nodded Izzy. “You get the ships ready. Let’s try to take off in an hour if we can. The rest of us will figure out what to do with the base here in light of this new information. Dismissed!”

...

A trio of destroyers broke away from the space city and was headed for the opposite side of the planet. Inside, the lead ship, Christine and Steve sat on a bridge with Dot and Alex in dark, armored space suits, examining the sidearms given to them. They looked and felt very much like the ones they used to carry back on Sigma Draconis, the design clearly unchanged for thousands of years. But then again, thought Steve, why fix it if it’s not broken and does the job?

“Ready for your first warp jump?” asked Dot.

“Yeah, I’ve always wondered what it will actually look like,” replied Christine.

“Prepare to be very whelmed,” smirked Alex.

His eyes pulsed. On the giant screen in front of the crew, the planet below suddenly blinked out of existence. Stars in their peripheral vision faded into dull red hues. The multitudes of red, white, and yellowish stars in front of them shifted in color until they turned bluish, slowly drifting towards them, the field of view narrowing with acceleration.

“Huh, I always imagined stars streaking by at warp speed,” said Steve. “So far this is looking a lot like light speed.”

“They’re too far away for that to ever happen,” explained Dot. “The stars in front of us just blue shift and the stars behind us redshift. Until... now.”

A blue shockwave flashed across the screen and the light from all the stars was suddenly distorted and channeled directly in front of the ship, melting into a glowing, pulsing, white light as the surrounding view turned pitch black. An occasional protuberance of brilliant white particles with blue tails like comets would erupt and disappear in moments.

“Huh,” shrugged Steve. “So it’s just concentrated light speed?”

“How long will it take to get to Psi Cygnus?” asked Christine. “Are we talking weeks?”

“About six hours,” replied Dot.

“This ship just laughs in physics’ face, huh?” Christine shook her head in dismay.

“Not exactly,” replied Dot. “It uses the radiation produced by the warp bubble to keep moving that warp bubble along, so it can do some cool things. Just think of it as picking physics’ pockets.”

...

Two librarians sat behind an open information desk of a vast library that looked more like a museum with numerous levels of artifacts, screens, and large shelves of rare books sealed in climate-controlled chambers. They were both engrossed in their work, typing furiously while they looked through reports and checklists on their screens.

“Hey, did you ever get those two books the principal from the 13th requested?” asked one of the librarians.

“Volkov?” replied the other. “Yes, got ‘em, thank fuck! He’s been asking for the most obscure shit lately. Eleven thousand-year-old books that were already rare in their day? What the hell?”

“Well, the important thing is that you got them.”

“I had to get them in physical form. Physical. Form. Like some sort of illuminated manuscript.”

“No! Really?” her colleague gasped. “You had them look for the actual book in cold storage?”

“I mean, I found them but in the most obscure formats, and the ones I could read were half preserved or half corrupted. It was nuts. So I finally had to have Earth find hard copies and scan them. Took ‘em for fucking ever.”

“Did you read them?”

“Of course. I had to at that point. Man After Man was just depressing. All Tomorrows was just crazy. Lots of disturbing ideas about what happens to humans through deep time. Not exactly reads for a weak stomach unless you just skim them.”

“Well, sorry to put you through that but the important thing is that you found them. He was starting to get concerned.”

“Seriously though, what is he doing with them?”

“That’s above our grades. Way above our grades. But the way he gets, I’m not sure even he knows.”

She typed in a few commands and clicked on a trackpad.

“Aaaand... sent,” she triumphantly smiled.

...

Christine and Steve looked at the planet below and the many indicators and information windows on the main screen of the destroyer’s bridge.

“All right, the plan is simple,” said Dot. “We get in, recover whatever footage and logs we can, and get out. Mr. Robbins, you’ll be coordinating from orbit. Ms. Hayes, you’re with me.”

Her eyes pulsed and the screen overlays cleared, replaced by a window with a plan of the city transposed on the satellite snapshots of the destruction below.

“We’ll target the command center and data rooms,” she quickly continued. “If those are too far gone, let’s see what we can retrieve from any of the sensor and comm arrays.”

Christine nodded.

“Sounds like a good plan,” agreed Steve.

“I’ll be providing backup and trying to keep the perimeter secure,” added Alex. “Just think of me as your early warning system.”

“Any questions?” asked Dot.

“None here,” said Christine.

“I’m good to go,” nodded Steve.

“Perfect. We’ll be over the site in 27 minutes,” announced Dot. “Ready?”

“Ready!” said the rest of the crew in unison.

“Let’s move out.”

A few minutes later, two heavy dropships with a complement of fighters and six drop pods emerged from the bay hidden deep in the destroyer’s belly and headed for the planet below. In the regulation cyborg eye-friendly gloom of one of the dropships, Dot and Christine were buckled into jump seats, watching their descent on a holographic screen in front of them.

Dot wore the same asymmetric armor worn by Alex but tailored to her frame and with reinforcement around her breasts. Christine anxiously squirmed in the seat across from her, breathing far too quickly and heavily, and grinding her teeth.

“First time doing recovery behind enemy lines?” asked Dot.

“We didn’t even practice this sort of thing,” she said.

“That’s ok. Just remember to focus on your task but keep your eyes and ears open. If you hear or see something, let me know, but don’t panic. The more calm you are, the more likely you are to make the right decision.”

“Understood. Thank you.”

“You’re in good hands and claws. As long as you remember the basics you’ll be fine.”

Christine exhaled and nodded in reply. She signed up for this. She couldn’t let the cyborgs down.