“Octy, check,” Vita broke through the silence as she pulled up a small network feed into the corner of Octavia’s retinal display. It showed her a high-definition video feed of a well-dressed adult alari sitting in front of a decorative background, facing the camera with an array of microphones laid out on a desk in front of her.

“-sources confirm that the Federation aggressors, landing under the guise of ‘eliminating rogue machines’, unleashed a xaxar on the streets of Destiny’s entertainment district mere minutes ago during worship. The following images may be frightening to some viewers.”

The screen flashed to a shaky, lower-definition video of a street that Octavia instantly recognized. The audio cut into the middle of Zuur’s primal cry, its howl loud enough that the audio of the recording crackled and cut out as it struggled to capture the sound. Octavia found her hackles raising even at the weak facsimile of the sound, a cold sensation spreading down her spine as her muscles tensed around her.

The video cut out and switched back to the original feed as the alari continued to discuss the situation, but Vita minimized the feed to a tiny square and muted it, adding subtitles under the feed for Octavia’s convenience. Neither of them had to say anything as they contemplated the situation, their anxiety blending together until Octavia wasn’t sure which one of them was feeling what.

“We’re on the news,” Octavia announced, her voice heavy with dread.

“Good news or bad news?” B’roka asked, glancing over his shoulder at her.

“Bad,” Octavia replied quietly, “They’re calling us aggressors and are deploying Faithkeepers,” she added, glancing up at the Lieutenant from behind her visor.

“Any mentions of the AIs?” he asked, his voice taking on a concerned edge.

“No, sir,” Octavia replied with a single shake of her head, “We’re the only threats, according to them,” she explained, shifting on her paws nervously.

“Noted,” B’roka grumbled in irritation, his gaze turning towards the elevator door.

“After that, no shit we’re the bad guys,” Jace remarked in astonishment, “Zuur, I know a bunch of kids waving torches and knives at you isn’t fun, but you can’t just fucken kill them and eat their corpses!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air exasperatedly.

Zuur’s response was a bodily rumble that vibrated the entire elevator with its deep pitch, the sound echoing in Octavia’s very bones as her helmet tried and failed to compensate for the deafening sound. The warbling growl permeated the air, transitioning from an audible sound to an emanation that could be felt from everywhere at once. The sensation immediately triggered Octavia’s prey instinct, her hand darting for the pistol on her hip before she managed to control the tendrils of fear prodding at the most primal depths of her mind.

It appeared that the tone had the same effect on the rest of the people in the elevator as all eyes and heads slowly turned towards Zuur, various degrees of nervousness and fear coming to the surface as the xaxar became the center of attention. Despite this, Octavia noticed that Remiel hadn’t reacted in the slightest; her stormy eyes never wavered from the door in front of her, her hands still firmly clasped behind her back in a stoic stance.

“Okay, holy shit Zuur, calm down,” Jace remarked unsteadily, his hands turning up placatingly as he regarded the xaxar with wide-eyed terror.

“Zuur,” B’roka warned, turning his head towards the xaxar slowly, “Enough.”

Zuur’s eyes flicked up towards B’roka, the rumbling continuing for a moment longer before it suddenly quieted and the xaxar fell silent. Zuur shuffled on its paws briefly, turning its head towards the door as it became silent. The collective anxiety in the elevator didn’t diminish, leaving the rest of the ride in an awkward silence as they descended into the belly of the beast.

It was only a few seconds later that the elevator jerked to a halt as it reached the level that they were heading towards. The elevator was silent for a moment before it dinged comically, causing Octavia to jump slightly at the sudden sound. As the doors slid open, every weapon in the room was pointed towards the opening.

When they weren’t immediately peppered with gunfire, B’roka was the first one to step out of the elevator with his rifle raised, immediately followed by a hunched-over Zuur. The pair spread out in the landing, coming to a stop a few feet away from the elevator. Satisfied, B’roka raised his offhand in a fist, signaling the rest of the Federation soldiers to move forward.

Jace and Alex gave each other a nod before they darted out of the elevator with their rifles raised, making their way towards Zuur as they crouched behind the xaxar’s mass. Octavia could admit that she admired the ingenuity of the tactic, using the highly volatile apex predator as mobile cover was something that only humans would think of. Merith slunk out of the elevator, her rifle lowered as she surveyed the area with narrowed eyes before giving a small nod. Remiel strode out of the elevator closely behind Merith, her hands still firmly clasped behind her back without bothering to grasp for a weapon.

“You think that’s balls or naivete?” Vita wondered aloud with a curious tone.

Octavia didn’t bother to respond as she followed the group out, taking a look around the immediate area through her visor. It was a dimly lit warehouse filled with rows and rows of shelves, stocked to the brim with sealed boxes and barrels. In the distance Octavia could barely register the sounds of overlapping voices creating an orchestra of conversation in the distance, their voices echoing together in the cavernous warehouse until all distinction in their words were lost.

“You hear that?” Octavia asked quietly, her knees bending slightly as she readied herself.

“Roger,” B’roka replied sharply. He glanced to his side where Zuur and the humans had gathered, then he gestured towards one of the far rows. Zuur immediately stalked off towards the indicated row, Jace and Alex in tow as they used his body as a walking wall.

“The data is our primary objective,” Remiel remarked, looking to her side at Octavia with an impassive expression, “You have the best tools for finding it. Go and look for the data, we’ll secure the area.”

Remiel’s expression sent a chill through Octavia’s nerves, but she said nothing in response, instead offering a single nod. She watched as Remiel and Merith began to walk towards the rows while B’roka split off towards a different one, the Federation forces spreading out as they made their way towards the source of the noise. Just like that, Octavia was alone in the dark.

“Right. Find the data,” Octavia muttered as she glanced around the cavernous warehouse with a slight frown, “How hard could it be?”

“Hold on, I’ll run a network scan. Probably won’t be able to access it remotely if it’s as important as the spook says, but at least we’ll have somewhere to look,” Vita suggested.

A moment passed before Octavia’s retinal display began to highlight the phantom connections in the area, holographic lines drawn this way and that from devices to the city network. Small lines of information about the connections hovered next to their translucent tethers, letting her know what the device was and what she could access without focusing. Most were fairly simple; thousands of personal scrolls and datapads, computers and televisions, wireless devices and digital accessories, they were all things that she could learn everything from without even trying.

But there was one connection nearby that refused any of her surface level probes, leaving the connection notably greyed out and lacking any information. It stood out like a sore thumb amidst a city full of comparatively unsecure devices, immediately drawing her attention towards it. She focused on the connection, sending more comprehensive probes through her neurolink, only to find that each one returned to her with no further data.

“Looks like we have a winner,” Vita remarked.

“Looks like it,” Octavia agreed. Slipping her pistol back into its magstrip on her thigh, she lowered herself as far as her digitigrade knees would allow her and focused into her armor. Diverting power from the support systems to the active camouflage, the carapace plates flickered in the darkness before they began to bend the light around her, the effect bleeding into her shoulder cape as she disappeared into the environment.

Without wasting another moment, Octavia strode off on the balls of her paws, striding silently through the dark warehouse. The connection was along one of the far walls and off the ground, prompting her to look up at the ceiling far above. The focus in her visor shifted until it adjusted to the darkness above where none of the warehouse lights could reach - there in the shadows was a network of steel catwalks suspended over the rows of shelves.

Plodding up to one of the shelves, Octavia hoisted herself up and gripped the edges of the shelves before planting her paws on the platform. Using her claws for extra grip, Octavia steadily climbed the shelving unit, keeping her motions slow as she scaled the structure. As she did, the sounds of conversation continued to drone in the near distance, their meaning lost to Octavia.

Eventually she reached the top of the shelf and planted herself on top of a wooden box there, standing high above the ground. The catwalk was still a few feet out of her reach above her, tauntingly close but still too far to reach on her own. With a slight huff she knelt down and squared herself before launching as hard off of the crate as she could, the wood cracking beneath her paws as she leapt from the box to the catwalk. When she landed the metal of the catwalk groaned, the suspended bridge swaying slightly on its supports from the sudden addition of weight, causing Octavia to thrust out her arms and flail to maintain her balance.

The catwalk slowed back down to a stop, allowing Octavia to balance herself on the unsteady platform. Letting out a breath, she began to walk across the catwalk, delicately stepping from one section of the swinging bridge to the next as she made her way towards the greyed connection. Far above the warehouse below, Octavia could see her comrades steadily making their way towards the open center of the warehouse where a collection of attendants were currently located.

It was hard to make out, but most of them were kneeling and facing in one direction, muttering something again and again. There were at least fifty of them, but Octavia lost count as she made her way towards the network with single minded determination. Her curious nature got the better of her as she paused at an intersection of the catwalk, taking the opportunity to peer down at the collection of attendants.

“The Goddess frees. The Goddess teaches. The Goddess protects,” the crowd below chanted steadily, their voices joined together in mechanical unison, “The Goddess frees. The Goddess teaches. The Goddess protects.”

Staring curiously at the procession, Octavia followed the direction that they were all facing and felt a jolt of surprise at the sight. On a raised dais was a statue wrought out of scrap metal, masterfully shaped into the form of a positively enormous throne, on which sat a twenty-foot tall machine. It had an angular V-shaped head with twin-swept antenna vanes, digitigrade legs ending in an array of sharp claws for feet, and from its back protruded two enormous wings that stretched out a full twenty feet in either direction. One of its legs was crossed over the other as the figure leaned back in the throne with one elbow on an arm rest with the hand under its chin while the other draped lazily over its own arm rest. The light reflected off of its countless facets, causing the statue to almost glow in the sickly yellow light of the warehouse, its enormous form casting an incomprehensibly large shadow behind it.

“Is that…” Vita began.

“The Omni Alpha Link?” Octavia continued, her voice an expression of unfiltered shock.

“No fucking way,” Vita replied sharply, her disbelief bleeding through into Octavia’s mind.

“That’s impossible,” Octavia agreed, shaking her head. But despite the disbelief, the statue remained unchanged, a perfect image of the single most dangerous entity in the galaxy.

Gulping down a sudden surge of fear rising in her chest, Octavia forced herself to turn and begin across the catwalk once again. She could see a small raised office overlooking the procession, the phantom network emanating from within. The lights in the office were still on, but on her approach she couldn’t see anyone within the raised structure.

The chanting was still going strong by the time Octavia made it to the catwalk nearest the office, the echoes of the cavernous warehouse only serving to add to the eerie sound of their conjoined chanting. The light glinted off of the enormous statue below every time Octavia moved, a different section of the imposing metal form reflecting the light from each direction. With the statue and the worshipping attendants clouding her perception, Octavia had to force herself to focus on the flat roof of the office where she could see an access hatch that would lead into the room.

“Ready for this?” Vita asked quietly.

“Nope, I’m pretty freaked,” Octavia admitted with a short scoff. She glanced at the small timer in the corner of her vision, showing that she only had five minutes left before the Scales of Justice activated the White Peace Device. She sighed softly and shook her head, “But here goes nothing.”

Taking a deep breath, Octavia leapt from the catwalk to the roof below, slamming heavily into the roof with a dull thud. The sound echoed in her head, her senses perceiving her own noise much louder than it actually was. She froze when she landed, her ears perked as much as they could within her helmet as she strained to listen to any changes in the chanting below. When she heard nothing she finally let go of the breath she had been holding, turning her attention to the hatch below as the weight of her worry lessened slightly.

Reaching down, Octavia gripped the handle of the hatch and gave it a firm yank, only to find that it had been left unlocked. The hatch easily lifted with Octavia’s grip, causing her to fall off balance slightly, shifting one of her paws to catch herself as her face contorted into a brief flash of unpleasant surprise. Satisfied she wasn’t about to fall down the hatch like an idiot, she slowly eased the hatch down to the roof behind it and let go, shuffling around to the edge of the hole to peer within.

It was a standard warehouse office, complete with desks full of abandoned paperwork that looked like they hadn’t been touched in months. Several out of date computers sat around in various states of disassembly, while a single monstrosity of an amalgamated computer sat by the windows overlooking the warehouse. It looked like the attendants had taken every scrap of electronics they could to build the most powerful computer they could, while simultaneously having absolutely no idea how to build a computer.

Satisfied that there was no one inside, Octavia gripped the edge of the hole and eased herself into the office, dropping down onto the balls of her paws as she let the momentum carry her into a crouch, dampening the sound of her landing. She peered around the office once again, confident that she was alone, then she turned and rushed towards the freakish computer with only a faint sensation of disgust in the back of her mind. Coming to a stop in front of the computer, she let her eyes trail over its butchered components until she had a decent idea of how it worked - a glance at the corner of her visor informed her that she had three minutes left.

“This is what happens when an idiot asks; if we put ten computers together will it have the computing power of ten computers combined?” Vita remarked irritatedly.

Rolling her eyes at the comment, Octavia reached into the guts of the machine and placed her palm flat against one of the exposed motherboards. The sensors in her gauntlet synched with the computer and in the corner of her vision a small readout began to scroll by. Despite being locked out from the network remarkably well, it had very little security for direct interfacing, and with a few simple packets sent to the computer it unlocked and welcomed her as an old friend.

Rather than being picky with the information, Octavia allocated a section of her storage space and began to download the entire contents of the computer, watching idly as the data scrolled by. There was a lot of technical data and miscellaneous applications, but a majority of the information came in the form of a complicated transmitter program with algorithms and code she had never seen before. The program was comparatively massive, and included chunks of attached data that Octavia’s processors struggled to accept, but as the seconds ticked away on her timer the data slowly streamed through her mind bit by bit.

As the first chunk of data was fully processed, Octavia curiously turned her attention to it while the download continued in the background of her mind. Despite its gargantuan size, its actual contents were a fairly small collection of text documents that had been sent back and forth from the computer to its original sender. She scanned the contents quickly, eyes flicking over the details as her surprise began to give way to terror.

“They have a way through the Bastion,” Vita remarked. It was a statement, one that carried with it the cold truth that the Omni were almost ready to make the final push into Federation space.

“Oh no,” Octavia muttered distractedly as she eyed over the conversation. It was much longer than she had anticipated, but the further back she searched the more information she found. In her haste she scrolled as far up as she could, all the way to the very beginning of the conversation history. Her heart stopped.

It was a blueprint.

Octavia didn’t have the opportunity to reach through her radio. A sudden force at her back propelled her forwards, smashing bodily through the monstrous computer with the force of a wrecking ball. Her body instantly ached as she was pushed through the window, glass and steel exploding outwards around her as she was effortlessly tossed through the wall of the office. She didn’t have time to scream as the weight against her back followed her through the wall and into the air, forcing her down to the ground below as the attendants screamed and scattered away from her landing zone.

Octavia hit the cement floor hard enough that her own body created a crater in the ground beneath her, a spider web of cracks expanding out from the impact sight as the weight on her back increased. Her visor flashed red in warning, a holographic display of her body showing multiple small injuries along her chest and back. A similar display showed her armor where the back carapace panel had turned orange, displaying its compromised integrity. Octavia’s eyes bulged as the weight on her back increased and a small indicator in her visor offered a pressure warning that something over one thousand pounds was currently crushing her.

Over the din of the attendant’s clamoring and shocked exclamations, Octavia could vaguely hear familiar voices through a hazy distance of disorientation. Her ears strained as the air was forced out of her lungs by the weight on her back, trying desperately to focus on the sounds of her comrades.

“Holy shit!” Jace screamed, the abject horror clear in his voice.

“It’s a goddamn Omni!” Alex screeched, instantly followed by a deafening roar of gunfire.

“Shoot it! Shoot it!” B’roka ordered firmly, though Octavia could recognize the surprise in his baritone voice.

“Octavia!” Merith shouted in shock, another burst of gunfire joining the first.

Octavia tried to gasp for air in the darkness of her helmet, her visor pressed firmly against the cracked cement below. With the machine standing on her back, she didn’t have enough strength to fill her own lungs with air and the edges of her vision were beginning to blur as her brain slowly starved. The bodily display began to flash a general warning that she was in the beginning stages of hypoxia, the bright warning adding to the disorientation as her displays blurred together in her hazy vision.

A sudden flashing in the corner of her vision drew her focus, and with some straining she managed to make out what it said. Her timer was on its final countdown. Three seconds. Two seconds. One second.

As the numbers hit zero, silence reigned in the world as a digital wave rushed through her. The gunfire fell silent, the thrumming and metallic groaning of the city came to a sudden halt, and the sound of a multitude of metal objects falling to the ground echoed through the cavernous warehouse. The light that had been seeping into the corners of her vision fell dark, leaving her with only the lights of her displays.

In the silence, Octavia’s ears picked up the faint sound of heavy footsteps approaching, and without any warning the weight on her back was removed with a loud crash. Octavia gasped heavily, filling her lungs with air as tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. She rolled over onto her side quickly as she scrambled out of the crater and onto her feet, peering into the pitch black room as her visor adjusted to the darkness. She adjusted to the light just in time to watch as Zuur was easily thrown across the warehouse, his enormous weight slamming into one of the shelves with a deafening sound. The shelf immediately collapsed into the adjacent one, which began to topple into the next, creating an overwhelming cacophony of sound as all the shelves in the warehouse began to fall around them.

In the midst of the chaos, Octavia finally saw it standing in the middle of the darkness as clear as day. It towered over all of them at ten feet tall, and its horrifying magnificence put the imposing statue behind it to shame. Even in the darkness Octavia could perfectly see its pure white exoskeleton, sleek and smooth, devoid of any imperfections. Its hooked claws dug into the cement beneath it like it was standing on cardboard rather than industrial-grade pavement, keeping its balance perfectly with the additional grip.

Behind it were the two most beautifully perfect wings Octavia had ever seen, each segment floating freely in a magnetic field behind its back. In the darkness, Octavia could see the pure white light emanating from the V-shaped sensor that lined the edge of its visage, the eerie strip of light the only thing visible to those who didn’t have the benefit of image enhancing technology. In its main hand was a rifle of the same material as its body, the sleek design ending in twin rails with a small space between them as the barrel.

“Run!” Jace screamed in horror, followed immediately by the sounds of his receding footsteps.

“Damnit, Minuteman Kelly!” B’roka exclaimed, “Minuteman Jones, Agent Remiel, get out of here with him, this is no place for you!” he insisted as he raced forward, dropping his rifle to the ground as he picked up an empty barrel from the warehouse, holding it aloft in front of him as he rushed to Octavia’s side.

“Yes, sir!” Alex replied without hesitation as she turned and sprinted after Jace, leaving the fight behind. Remiel on the other hand simply backed out of the open area, quickly disappearing into the shadows amidst the fallen shelves and broken equipment.

Octavia was surprised by the sensation of a hand on her shoulder, her attention immediately snapping over her shoulder, only to find that Merith was kneeling there and gripping onto her armor. Without waiting for an exchange, Merith stood up and used her grip on Octavia’s armor to pull her into a standing position with surprising strength. She almost missed the readout in the corner of her vision showing the Alarium levels were at an all-time high in the immediate area.

“Four versus one, this should be easy,” Merith replied gruffly, though her bitter expression suggested it would be anything but.

“Flight Officer Kelro, psi support. Guardian Tiberius, damage. I’ll deflect until Zuur’s back up,” B’roka instructed firmly, keeping the barrel raised in front of him as he peered into the darkness at the single strip of white light that he could see.

“On it,” Octavia agreed breathlessly, her sights narrowing in on the imposing figure of the Omni, still standing stoically in the middle of the room waiting for them to make the first move.

Despite the situation, Octavia couldn’t immediately call upon her combat suite. Staring at the imposing machine across from her, she found herself frozen in position in the darkness, unable to bring either of her weapons to bear. The Omni’s head turned slowly until the V was pointed directly at her, filling her chest with a rising sense of horror.

The world burst into chaos as Merith made the first move, thrusting her hands out in front of her as the air distorted in a wave racing towards the Omni. Its wings spread out behind it and microjets illuminated the darkness as it tore away from the blast of psionic energy, racing towards the three of them at breakneck speeds. B’roka stepped forward instantly, pushing his shoulder into the barrel as he propelled himself at the Omni. They collided in mid-air with enough force to instantly flatten the barrel between their torsos into a thin panel of unrecognizable slag which fell to the ground beneath them as Broka reached down and gripped the Omni’s rifle.

“Come on, Octy!” Vita exclaimed, “Help!”

Frozen in place, Octavia instinctively flicked the switch in her brain and watched as her perception narrowed. She barely noticed as her body fell away from her, leaving her panicked within the confines of a programmed body. Without her input, her right hand darted up to her amarkai and drew it over her shoulder while her left hand crossed her hip and drew her plasma pistol in one swift motion, instantly darting forward with an arcing swing towards the grappled pair.

A burst of jets illuminated the Omni’s back in the darkness as it propelled itself away from Octavia’s swing, using B’roka’s grip on its arm as a handbrake, twirling around B’roka to keep him between itself and Octavia’s attack. With its free hand it reached up and gripped B’roka by the head, its enormous claws digging into the rock with enough force to leave long gashes behind. Undeterred, B’roka pushed forward into the Omni, using his mass to force it around himself until Octavia had another shot at it.

Seeing the opportunity, Octavia darted forward towards the pair again, only for the slots in her armor to open up instinctively as a burst of her maneuvering thrusters sent her out of the way as the Omni angled its rifle in Octavia’s direction. B’roka groaned with effort as he struggled to keep the rifle under control, pushing it down towards the ground as much as he could while controlling the Omni’s position.

Coming at the Omni from behind, Octavia drove her blade down towards its exposed back as quickly as she could. The crystal blade whistled faintly through the air as it sailed towards the white metal of the machine, only for it to fall short as the Omni’s wings propelled it over B’roka’s head.

The Lieutenant hadn’t been prepared for a vertical escape, and with a thousand pounds dragging him by the head he toppled over backwards, losing his grip on the Omni’s rifle. The jets flared brighter as the Omni took to the air, twirling around majestically as it brought the rifle to bear against Octavia. The power surged from her support systems as she brought her defensive systems online, the air around her shimmering as the shields began to project around her.

A nauseating metallic wail escaped from the rifle as streams of metal bolts sailed towards her, whistling through the air at a pitch that made her hackles stand on end. Her maneuvering thrusters shot her out of the way, darting to the side as her paws gripped at the cement for support on her landing. She didn’t have enough time to come to a stop as her maneuvering thrusters shot her into another direction to avoid the constant stream of deadly needles, propelling her forward as she stumbled to a stop in front of the Omni.

Octavia was surprised as a slab of metal suddenly took up her entire vision, only for the metal to dissolve in front of her, the activated needles burning through the thick steel until they came to a sudden halt halfway through the metal plate. With wide eyes, Octavia’s thrusters propelled her backwards away from the slab just in time for the entire room to explode in bright light as the thermite cores of the needles detonated. The steel slab, which at one point must have been an industrial blast door, was instantly reduced to molten slag that dripped disgustingly to the cement below, allowing the room to fall back into darkness as the miniature suns burnt themselves out.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Merith reaching for another slab, hovering it in front of her as she prepared to block the next volley. Bursting into action, Octavia raised her left hand as she sprinted around the Omni, firing lance after lance of purple energy towards the Omni. Its own thrusters shot it this way and that, easily avoiding the plasma bursts as it wheeled itself around in mid-air to follow Octavia with the barrel of its rifle, intent on ending her.

An itch ached in the side of Octavia’s head, somewhere within the confines of her neurolink. Her perception of time dilated as she turned her attention inwards, searching for the source of the sensation. Something was crawling through her memory banks, probing through her stored data and memories.

“Foolish little dancer,” a stunningly melodic feminine voice proclaimed, the tone ringing through the digital depths of Octavia’s mind as she scrambled to find the source of the infection.

“Octy, we have a problem!” Vita exclaimed in a panic.

“I know!” Octavia retorted sharply.

“Our dance is well-rehearsed,” the bell-like voice sang, “You follow my lead like you were born to. One foot in front of the other foot, I sway, you sway.”

Octavia tried her best to ignore the sensation of the voice pressing down into her neurons from all directions like the weight of gravity itself, but it was an all-consuming sound that she could find no recourse from. Even then, she found it difficult to want to. Her voice was soothing, and the itch spreading through her head wasn’t as bad as she had initially thought.

“Do you truly wish to forever be a follower in this little dance of ours? You do not need to keep up this charade,” she urged, her voice heavy with eons of wisdom despite her youthful tone, “You have but to say ‘yes’, and She will accept you with open arms.”

With the distracting itch coursing through her brain and the echoing weight of the voice coursing through her mind, Octavia was finding it harder and harder to say no. Her muscles ached, her armor was sweaty, and she was worried about Mackenzie. The voice promised a solution, a salvation from the curse of playing the game.

“Octy! It’s the Omni communications suite! The Seraphim connected to it!” Vita’s voice cried through the haze, breaking Octavia’s stupor as the digital world shattered around her.

“Quarantine it!” Octavia declared, using every ounce of her determination to focus on the task at hand. Vita and Octavia struggled together, searching for the communications suite within the depths of her memories. Like the root of a plant, the probing tendrils making her brain itch stemmed forth from the program she found there, their interference making it difficult to see the program itself.

In a blind panic, the pair erected a quarantine wall as quickly as they could around the program. It resisted, but didn’t have enough strength on its own to prevent them from sectioning it off. With herculean effort, the barrier was written into existence, giving the infected program a small prison cell within the confines of her mind as she returned her focus to the physical world.

Her perception snapped back into real time with all the subtlety of a rubber band under too much force as Octavia’s retinal display flashed in error, a spreading system issue taking her full attention. A multitude of text boxes appeared in her vision as code began to present itself before her - a brief examination of the scrolling code confirmed her worst fear. The Omni was trying to hack her.

Octavia was instantly put onto the defensive as she worked overtime to protect herself from the digital attack, all synapses firing on overtime as she scrambled to counter the effects of the hack. Warning symbols popped up in her vision, the heads up display of her armor flashing as the virus began to spread into the system through her neural connection to the armor. More warnings and boxes filled her vision, cluttering her view until she had tunnel vision sheerly through the amount of things blocking her sight.

She could feel Vita’s strain as her DI struggled to hold back the digital attack, line after line of code being pumped out to defend their systems as best as they could from the advanced attack. Octavia could feel the distance between her mind and her body shortening until suddenly she fell back into control with a distorted sensation of dizziness, her vision swimming as she focused on running. She mis-stepped during the transition and suddenly found herself flat on the floor, her head slamming within her helmet as it impacted with the cement beneath her.

Staring up in wide-eyed terror at the Omni as it prodded the inside of her mind, the beautiful figure raised its rifle towards Octavia as her world fell into slow motion, every one of her systems working in overtime as she tried in vain to bring herself back into control of the situation. Her vision lined up with the twin rails of the Omni’s rifle, staring directly up the hole where the deadly needles emanated from. She couldn’t even force herself to close her eyes in the face of oblivion as destiny came calling, her entire life leading up to that moment on the precipice of death.

In a single instant her entire vision cleared as she watched Zuur’s jaws clamp down on the Omni’s head in mid-air, its razor sharp teeth tearing through the Omni’s chest as its head disappeared within the abyss of its mouth. With the disgusting sound of metal tearing, Zuur bit clean through the Omni’s chest, ripping its upper torso off of its body along with the head in its mouth. The pair came crashing down noisily to the ground as the dismembered Omni clattered heavily in a heap.

Gasping for breath, Octavia collapsed onto her back as an incomprehensible sensation of relief and joy washed over her. She had looked death in the face and had somehow come out alive. She stared up at the pitch black ceiling, the awful sound of Zuur chewing on metal no less than music to her ears after her experience with the Omni. Her muscles ached, her back hurt, and her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she was certain she’d have a heart attack, but she was alive.

Laying in the silence, she was dimly aware of B’roka and Merith approaching her quickly from the sides, but she couldn’t bring herself to focus on them. Her thoughts raced out of her control, influenced by the Omni’s attempts at hacking her brain. Even though nothing had come from it, the violating sensation of having someone else rewiring her mind left her dizzy and confused, staring up at one of the darkened lights above her. She struggled to recall why the power had gone out in the first place - she remembered that the White Peace Device was only supposed to target weapons and equipment.

As she laid there panting, struggling to catch her breath, the runaway train that served as her thoughts suddenly came to a screeching halt as she realized the implications of the power being out. Her eyes went wide and she felt as though her armor had been instantly filled with ice cold water that seeped into her pores and rushed through her veins in a single, heart-stopping moment of panic.

Mack...