As the rest of the crew made their way onto the flat rock in front of the decorative stone doorway, Octavia pushed herself to her paws and peered over the edge, looking down into the valley below. She could faintly see the Omni in the distance, obscured by the rises and falls of the grassy hills beyond the base of the mountain. They still seemed to be recovering from Zuur’s brutal attack, but she had a suspicion that they wouldn’t be occupied for much longer. She turned her attention back towards the group as B’roka crested the ridge with Jace still carried in his arms.

“Guardian Tiberius, take Minuteman Kelly,” the Lieutenant ordered immediately as he strode over to Octavia. Without giving her a chance to reply, he held the injured human out to her, forcing her to instinctively reach out to accept him. With surprising delicacy, B’roka transferred Jace to Octavia’s arms without jostling him and slipped away.

“Oh, heya butch,” Jace murmured with a weak grin, “Come here often?” he remarked playfully, only to break into a violent coughing fit. Blood spurted out of his mouth with each exhale, spattering the pockmarked carapace of Octavia’s armor with dark streaks of crimson.

“Quiet, Jace,” Octavia replied worriedly, “Try not to talk until we can get you patched up, alright?”

“You really think I’m gonna die quietly? Nah, man, I’m gonna go out running my mouth off, you know that,” Jace replied dismissively, a short laugh escaping him that swiftly turned into another short bout of bloody coughs. He let out a tired sigh as the bout of coughing came to an end, a groan rumbling through his throat as he slumped in Octavia’s arms.

“You deserved that,” Octavia replied teasingly despite herself, shaking her head at his antics even with a gaping wound in his stomach.

“Flight Officer Kelro, get on overwatch until we’re inside,” B’roka snapped as he strode towards the doorway, “Everyone else, get inside as quickly as you can. I’m going to trap the entrance,” he declared as he unslung his backpack and knelt down next to the stone doorway, rifling through his belongings for the right equipment.

“On it,” Merith agreed with a nod as she jogged over to the edge of the ridge, taking a knee as she leaned her rifle across her thigh. She searched through her flight suit for a moment before procuring a small scope which she then slid onto the top rail of her rifle and screwed into place. Satisfied with the advanced sights, she raised her rifle and rested her elbow on her knee as she peered through the scope to keep an eye on the Seraphim in the distance.

“Everyone, take care,” Cody spoke up as he peered into the darkness beyond the doorway, “This facility likely hasn’t been seen by anything living for centuries at the very least. Stay on guard - we don’t know what we’ll find down there,” he warned. Despite the foreboding sensation, Octavia distinctly noticed an excited gleam in Cody’s eyes, as if the threat of the unknown only served to fascinate him more. Without another word or a look over his shoulder, the researcher powered into the darkness and disappeared down the slope.

“Do keep up,” Remiel added sharply over her shoulder as she followed Cody into the darkness, both her hands clasped tightly behind her back as she strode down the incline and disappeared into the darkened passage.

Alex stepped up to Octavia with wide eyes full of concern, her gaze locked squarely on Jace. Octavia couldn’t help but notice her missing arm once again, her eyes falling onto the bandaged shoulder with a spike of concern. Alex was about to say something, but Octavia cut her off, “What the fuck happened to your arm?” she asked in disbelief.

Alex blinked in surprise, looking up at Octavia’s mirrored visor with an array of conflicting emotions. Finally she settled on a slight frown as she sighed, “It got caught in the panel during the crash,” she explained, looking down at her own shoulder with a despondent look, “It was basically pulp by the time we crashed.”

“I’m sorry,” Octavia replied bitterly, her shoulders deflating, “How are you holding up?”

“Better than he is,” Alex replied as her gaze settled on Jace, “Come on, we need to get some first aid foam into him,” she insisted, turning towards the stone doorway. She glanced over her shoulder towards Jace one more time before she visibly steeled herself and strode off into the darkness.

Octavia followed suit, passing B’roka as he set up a series of tripwires around the entrance. She carefully stepped over the myriad of wires, keeping Jace steady in her arms as she began to descend into the dark corridor after Alex. There weren’t any stairs, but the passageway was carved out of the natural rock of the mountain in a steep slope taking them down into the heart of the planet. The passage curved and twisted around, but the downwards slope remained the same the entire time, keeping a steady pace during their descent.

As the daylight from outside the cave faded into obscurity, Octavia was left to fumble through the darkness as her retinal display adjusted to the environment. However, it wasn’t long until a new light source began to guide their way. As she turned another sharp corner and descended down the next stretch, a faint blue glow could be seen around the next bend somewhere deep below her. With a curious gaze, she turned the following bend and was surprised to see that the architecture changed suddenly and dramatically.

The slope had been changed into a perfectly carved set of stairs leading down into the heart of the planet, and the walls transitioned suddenly from roughly hewn stone to perfectly smoothed rock. The glow was coming from a series of decorative engravings in the walls and ceilings where a fluid blue energy coursed through the runes and designs carved into the wall. It wasn’t bright enough to hurt her eyes, but the blue glow provided more than enough light for her to see by.

“Well, that definitely screams ‘secret precursor facility’ to me,” Vita commented.

“Doesn’t that stuff look like B’roka’s bioluminescence?” Mack replied, a curious tone in her voice.

“Whatever it is, I’m not going to touch it,” Octavia remarked with a slight scoff, making her way carefully down the center of the stairs as she avoided brushing against the walls. She glanced down at Jace in her arms, confirming that he was still breathing - his eyes were closed and his head had slumped back, but she could tell he was still drawing breath and the small movements in his neck every time she dropped a stair reassured her that he wasn’t dead yet.

Octavia descended for several minutes longer - she lost track of how long she spent in the eerie blue glow of the elaborately carved staircase around her, but eventually the stairs finally leveled out into a flat stone hallway that was bathed in the blue glow of the carvings on the walls around her. The hallway led straight out towards an opening, and beyond the end of the hallway Octavia could see a similarly lit open room with a multitude of brighter points.

She carried Jace out into the open room, pausing at the entrance to peer within. It was a large room with a high ceiling, all of which was carved of the same flat stone with glowing engravings as the hallway she had just exited from. The open area was interspersed with a multitude of stone blocks, each one with a strange and random object held in suspended animation above the flat surface. The tops of each of the stone blocks glowed a solid blue to illuminate the object in the same glowing energy as was coursing through the divots in the stone walls.

The closest one in front of her held aloft an ancient sword, the design of which reminded her vaguely of a scimitar from Earth, while the one directly next to it held a wooden cube with no distinguishing features on its surface. She lost count of how many of these similarly random items were scattered throughout the room, hovering above their glowing pedestals, but she couldn’t make sense of what they were or what they were for. At the far end of the room the wall changed into a sunken, elaborately carved stone door the size of the entire wall with a prominent vertical line straight up the middle where the door could part. Though the door was elaborately carved, it lacked any of the glowing blue energy that flowed through the rest of the engravings in sight.

Cody and Remiel were standing by the crack in the door, peering around with obvious confusion as if they hadn’t expected to find a door there. Alex was waiting near the hallway with an impatient and concerned expression, one of her feet tapping rapidly against the stone floor. When Octavia appeared, her face immediately lit up and she rushed towards the center of the room, “Octy, put him down here!” she instructed insistently, pointing at an open section between podiums.

Octavia nodded and set off to the center of the room, passing several rows of podiums as she followed the one-armed woman to the clear spot. Once she got there she knelt down and carefully set Jace down on the smooth stone floor, wincing slightly as he groaned in pain. She managed to withdraw her arms, only to discover that the armor there had been soaked red with his blood, which gave her no small amount of concern.

“Okay,” Alex declared, reaching over her shoulder with her mechanical hand. She procured her backpack and set it on the ground, awkwardly flipping the top flap open as she reached around inside with a squinted look of concentration. Finally she gripped what she was looking for and pulled out the first aid kit, setting it on the ground next to Jace, “I need you to apply the foam - I think I can handle the Xaderol myself.”

“Right,” Octavia replied sharply with a single nod. She reached over Jace and flipped the first aid kit open, her eyes immediately falling onto the aerosol can of first aid foam tucked in amongst the bandages and syringes. She gripped the can and withdrew it, eyeing over the Federation-grade dispenser. Her heart dropped as the sight reminded her of the events on Destiny, and once again she found herself kneeling over a friend with a can of first aid foam.

Pushing the thought aside, she removed the safety cap and turned her attention towards Jace’s stomach. His old shirt was ruined with his blood, the entire front and back soaked so thoroughly with the liquid that she could have easily been convinced it had been red the entire time. She reached down and gripped his shirt with one hand and pulled it up over the wound, revealing the inch-wide hole that went straight through his abdomen and out the other side.

She was reminded of human toughness at the sight, but the reminder did little to ease her worry. Mackenzie had suffered a similar wound and had died without the appropriate medical attention, and Jace’s wound was a noticeable degree larger than Mackenzie’s. Even if the initial shock hadn’t killed him like it would have with an amaranthian or an alari, that didn’t lend any credence to his chances.

Octavia bit back her concerns for the moment, focusing on the task at hand. Without giving herself another moment to second-guess her actions she reached down and jabbed the sharp tip of the applicator into the open wound, causing Jace’s eyes to shoot open and a pained exclamation to escape him. Without pause, Octavia squeezed the trigger and a pressurized hiss began to fill the immediate area as the foam was transferred from the can into Jace’s stomach.

“Holy fuck!” Jace screamed, his back arching off of the stone floor as his legs kicked out beneath him, kicking the floor in agony as he writhed with contorted features.

“Hold on, Jace!” Alex exclaimed pleadingly as she gripped an auto-injector tightly in her prosthetic hand. She eyed Jace’s chest for a moment, visibly trying to figure out how best to apply the shot to him without his movement breaking the applicator. Finally she spat, “Fuck it,” before she stabbed the applicator straight down over the left side of his chest.

“Fuck!” Jace screamed, the word coming out long and pronounced as he hollered into the room. His cries of agony echoed and reverberated around the room, reaching Octavia’s ears again and again as he screamed himself hoarse. His voice trailed off in a rough, painfully grating sound, but his mouth remained open in a wordless cry of agony as the injector dispensed the chemical straight into his heart.

Finally, the mind-shattering pain far too much to bear, Jace slumped back onto the stonework without a single sound, his eyes fluttering closed as he blacked out. Octavia winced at the sight, but she forced herself to keep her fingers tightly around the trigger, the can still hissing away as the bullet wound was stuffed full of foam. A few moments passed before the hissing slowly died off as the can bled empty, then she removed the bloody applicator from his wound and tossed the empty can over her shoulder which clattered noisily against the floor.

The foam within the wound began to expand and harden before Octavia’s very eyes, filling up the empty space within Jace’s abdomen as it clung tightly to the severed sections and held them together like cement. The foam had turned red with the blood it had soaked up, but it had done its job as Octavia couldn’t find any fresh blood around his stomach. She reached underneath him and gently lifted his hips to check the exit wound and with a small amount of relief she found that the foam had expanded to seal the second wound as well. She let his hips down and fell back onto her heels with an exhausted sigh.

“Thank you,” Alex bid gratefully, looking across Jace with a forlorn look, “You might have just saved his life, Octy.”

“A great man once told me that Rednecks have to look out for one another,” Octavia replied, surprised to find her voice breathless and weary. She looked down at the unconscious human in front of her and deflated, her shoulders slumping as a weight settled in her stomach, “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Alex. Jace is too stubborn to die.”

Alex gave an awkward snort of laughter, shaking her head in response. Octavia could see the tears forming in the corners of Alex’s eyes, but she didn’t say anything as Alex averted her gaze with the pretense of searching through her bag. She spoke with a shaky voice as she did, “You should probably check in with the spook, it looks like there’s no way forward from here.”

Octavia nodded once and stood up, pushing off of the ground with her hands as she did so. Her tail shot out behind her to balance herself as she found herself overcome with a sense of lightheadedness, stumbling a step backwards as she stood up. Catching herself before she fell over, Octavia steeled herself and forced the dizziness to the back of her mind as she focused on stepping over Jace.

“Yeah, we’re about thirty seconds from passing out, Octy. The Xaderol’s wearing off and we’re crashing hard,” Vita remarked warningly.

“Don’t have time to pass out,” Octavia dismissed sharply, focusing on keeping her balance as she walked one step at a time towards the pair by the door, “Start slow-burning my adrenaline production.”

“Babe, you can’t just ride on adrenaline for who-knows how long,” Mack complained, her voice tinged with audible concern.

“I also can’t pass out and get killed when the Omni come bursting through that hallway,” Octavia retorted, “Start the slow-burn.”

“On it,” Vita remarked. The haze of exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm Octavia’s senses abated slightly, just enough that she didn’t have to focus so hard on staying upright without swaying. She felt the buzzing in her veins as the adrenaline set in, her gut tightening and heart rate increasing in response. She let out a sigh, but wasn’t entirely sure if it was one of relief or trepidation.

As she approached Remiel and Cody, the young researcher turned towards her with wide eyes and inappropriate excitement, “Ah, Miss Tiberius! I trust all went well with your comrade over there?” he asked, his lips parted into a wide grin as his eyes sparkled from behind his thick-rimmed glasses.

“No, Cody, all is not well,” Octavia replied bitterly as the adrenaline coursed through her veins like electricity, setting her skin alight with a tingling sensation as an eerie cold settled into her core, “Jace is down for the count, Alex has one arm and don’t even get me started on how fucked up I am right now,” she continued sharply, “So please, for the love of the Laws and all that makes sense in this world, tell me that you can open this door and get us into the control room so we can do our job and get back home.”

Cody’s excitement evaporated instantly, his smile falling off of his face and the glint fading from his eyes. He stammered awkwardly as he glanced at the door behind himself before fixing Octavia with a remorseful look. He shook his head once, “I am afraid I cannot, Miss Tiberius. This is the furthest we’ve ever gotten - our research drones couldn’t make it this deep into the planet before.”

“So we’re stuck?” Octavia asked sharply.

“It appears so,” Cody replied quietly, giving a small nod in response, “I am truly sorry. There is much we don’t understand about the Curators and their works.”

Octavia felt anger welling up inside her and it took great focus not to snap at the researcher, her maw clenched tightly behind the obscuring safety of her visor. She turned her head away quickly and surveyed the room around them in a slow, broad sweep, taking the features into consideration. Nothing stood out beyond the pedestals and the random objects hovering ominously above them, but there were enough items that if one of them were the key to opening the door they’d have no chance at going through them one by one. She cursed quietly within her helmet, one of her eyes twitching in her deepening irritation.

“What is this place?” Octavia finally asked, glancing towards Cody expectantly.

“We believe it is a trophy room of sorts,” the analyst explained quickly, “As you know, the Curators quite literally planted the sentient species on this planet to be used as psionic nourishment. We believe that these items are artefacts representing each harvest cycle.”

“We?” Octavia asked, blinking in surprise, “I thought you said this is the furthest anyone’s ever been.”

“It is,” Cody defended quickly, “But by we I mean Agent Remiel and myself,” he explained quickly, pointing at Remiel and himself in rapid succession with a nervous expression.

“Since when are you an analyst?” Octavia replied suspiciously, turning her attention towards Remiel with narrowed eyes.

“Perseus Station is my primary assignment,” Remiel replied boredly, “I would be a fool not to make myself as knowledgeable as possible on the topics researched there.”

Octavia gave a quiet grumble in response and turned her attention back to the pedestals around her, “What are the chances that one of these trophies is the key?” she asked, making a broad sweeping motion with her hand.

“Unlikely,” Remiel remarked, “The Curators were a proud people, they would not resort to using something they did not create themselves as a key to open their planetside sanctuaries. However, they were also a vain people - if an artefact catches your eye, I am certain you can take it without adverse effects. I highly doubt you’ll find a single trap on the premises,” she added offhandedly with a faintly annoyed expression, her gaze turning back towards the door.

A movement in the center of the room caught Octavia’s eyes, drawing her attention towards Jace and Alex. It appeared that Jace had begun to stir and Alex had taken his head into her lap with a concerned look. Though the anger remained a small point in the back of her mind, Octavia’s concern for her friend overrode her irritation towards the hopeless situation and she found herself rushing back to his side, taking a knee next to him as she peered down at him.

“Well heya, butch,” Jace remarked weakly, his face even more pale than it had been when she had carried him inside.

“Hey yourself,” Octavia replied with a short scoff, “You gave us a bit of a scare there.”

“You know me, just gotta get a rise out of you. I was born with free will, so I’m gonna use it to die on my terms,” Jace teased with a short laugh. His laugh turned into a dry cough, but much to Octavia’s relief no blood was expelled from his lungs. When he recovered a moment later he continued, “Speaking of getting a rise out of you, you mind helping me up? I’d ask ironhand here, but I think she needs a hand herself.”

“Oh my god, you asshole,” Alex exclaimed, a laugh escaping her despite the situation. Octavia found herself grinning in response, shaking her head in amusement.

“Okay, but if you fall over I get to laugh at you,” Octavia replied as she stood up, reaching down with her hand extended towards the prone human.

“Butch, I will never deny you your right to laugh at me,” Jace remarked with a weary grin as he reached up and weakly gripped her offered hand. His grip slipped slightly in hers as he slid in what remained of his own blood in her palm, but after a moment he managed to lock his grip and finally nodded at her. With barely any effort at all she pulled him by his hand and took a step backwards to leverage the maneuver, pulling him up to his feet carefully.

Much to her surprise, he managed to follow the motion all the way up to his feet, standing up with a dazed expression and wide eyes. He stumbled forward with a sudden gasp and flailed his free arm out as he collided with one of the pedestals, knocking over the artifact that had been suspended there. It clattered to the ground on the opposite side noisily, the sound of metal rapping against stone causing Octavia’s ears to strain in displeasure.

“Intentional,” Jace declared in a wheeze as he slipped his hand out of Octavia’s grip and placed both of his hands on the glowing pedestal. Octavia couldn’t help but laugh quietly at his clumsy recovery which drew his gaze towards her as he offered a tired grin himself, “Yeah, yeah. Told you I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Yes you did,” Octavia remarked, crossing her arms in front of her chest, “You be careful, I don’t want to have to carry you any further than I already have.”

Jace smirked as he slowly circled around the pedestal, keeping his hands on the glowing blue surface for support as he did. His gaze turned towards the ground and he slowly bent over with a faint groan, keeping one hand firmly planted on the glowing surface to keep himself from falling over. When he straightened back into view, he held up the artifact with a proud beam, “I can offer you a million year old glowing knife in payment for your services, good lady.”

True to his word, the artefact that he had knocked out of its display was a short, curved knife with a narrowed blade and a decorative handle. There were vivid red runes glowing along the metal of the blade, with tendrils of some ancient decorative design following the curve of the blade and warping around the front and back sides of it. Octavia didn’t recognize any of the materials used in its construction, and a quick retinal scan simply proclaimed it as anomalous.

“Jace, I’m not just going to take some creepy glowing knife. Put that back,” she instructed with a shake of her head.

“Psh,” Jace dismissed as he slowly scooted his way back around the pedestal with one hand firmly on the glowing surface and another hand holding the knife. When he rounded towards Octavia, he stepped forward with an unsure look and swayed on his feet briefly before he managed to straighten himself out after a moment. With a proud grin, he reached forward with the knife and pressed it against the unoccupied magstrip on her left hip, “No,” he declared simply as the knife magnetically snapped to Octavia’s thigh, sticking there without a sheath in full view.

Octavia was about to retort and put the knife back where he found it when a sound behind her drew her attention, causing her to whip around automatically with her pistol raised as her combat suite latched onto her fight or flight instincts. With the adrenaline coursing through her veins she was a hair trigger away from shooting at anything that moved and every small sound drew her full attention. It took a herculean effort not to pull the trigger immediately, every ounce of her focus rushing to reigning in her automatic responses, and she was glad that she did as B’roka and Merith came rushing through the hallway.

“Status report!” B’roka declared sharply as he came to a stop in front of the rows of pedestals.

Forcing herself to lower her pistol, she snapped it back into place on her thigh and stepped closer to the Lieutenant as she spoke up, “Jace is stable for now; Xaderol and foam, but it won’t last long. Cody and Remiel can’t find a way to open the door and there’s no other way out of this place.”

“And the Omni?” Alex asked urgently as she stood up, making her way over to the group with a look of concern.

“They’re on the way,” Merith replied bitterly, “Probably five, ten minutes before they get here.”

“Only one way in, and the only way through is blocked by doors,” B’roka mused quietly. He gave an annoyed grunt and nodded, “Alright, we’ve got our backs to the wall. Guardian Tiberius, I’ll need your help setting up a defensive position in this room.”

“Roger that, sir,” Octavia agreed sharply with a nod.

“Where does that passage lead?” Merith asked, pointing off towards one of the corners with a curious gaze.

Octavia blinked and looked off in the direction that Merith was pointing, but she saw nothing there but a flat wall with glowing blue carvings on its surface. She turned her attention back towards Merith with a frown, “What passage? It’s just a wall.”

Merith turned to face Octavia with an expression that made Octavia think she had sprouted a second head spontaneously. Without a word, the alari turned and strode purposefully across the room towards the corner that she had pointed at. She paused at the wall and turned her head to look over her shoulder at the rest of the group, all eyes squarely on her.

Without an ounce of fanfare, Merith stepped forward and phased through the wall as if it had never been there in the first place.