What is this place use for again? Alec asked as they crept down a steel reinforced stone hallway. The rough cut of the stones giving the look of a place that was here long before it was used as a factory. Occasionally there were offshoots that either ended in various rooms or led off into the meandering depths of this strange factory.

For the manufacturing of Serum. Nessa replied, Though, I’m not quite sure why so many of these rooms have such… sturdy doors.

Jack would almost rather if the hallways were dark, mysterious things, but every hallway and room they passed was almost unnaturally well lit. To him, it was entirely too reminiscent of the building that was simply titled ‘medical’ back on Algol.

That thought did not bring pleasant memories.

Trying to ignore the phantom pain of his Serum infusion, Jack once again threw his mind out into the world ahead. This time, he was not met with empty corridors, but instead found a Raak’Shee soldier sleeping on a pile of mattresses that had been thrown in a pile on the floor. Part of him wanted to leave this creature alone, but a much larger part understood that any enemy left alive was one that could possibly face them in the future.

We’ve got him. Nessa said as she and stalked forward into the room. Just make sure we aren’t heard.

Approaching, Nessa motioned to her Binder squad mate to begin. Silent as a ghost, threads of power extended from Candice’s equipment and slowly wrapped themselves around the hands and feet of their target before tightening slowly, but constantly.

Drawing a pair of hilts, the Breaker formed a pair of combat knives and held them at the creature’s throat. Nodding sharply to give the signal, both women struck with ferocity unseen from either before.

The knives blurred as Nessa dug deep into the tissue, slicing skin, muscle, and bone in the process. While a decapitation would have been enough, both women understood that they simply had to be sure. The tallow light to her side flared as Candice tightened her grip and turned each thread into a wire garrot.

Guys, come look at this stuff. Alec said from a room across the hallway from where the two women had just trifurcated their enemy. None of this is standard issue, is it?

Inside the room were several work benches each with equipment and weapons in various states of construction. Walking in, the group found a whiteboard with a drawing of light spectrum frequencies and their relationship to specific corps. Under that image were calculations so complex they seemed to be a foreign language.

No, none of this is standard. At least, I don’t think it is. Alec said, standing over a set of schematics on a table, I think this is where they develop new toys. If you look at this one here, the outer casing looks like something that would be attached to Dave’s gear. What is odd is that these symbols represent other frequencies that are generally not compatible with an Aegis’s equipment.

What are they compatible with? Dave asked, as the only other one in the group with extensive mechanical knowledge, he was more than capable of understanding the drawings.

Optics, Phantoms, Breakers, you name it. Whoever was working on this really wanted to be able to use abilities outside of the norm.

Their conversation was broken by the sound of heavy footfalls outside of the room. Silence spread across the group like a blanket smothering a fire. With as much grace and silence as they could manage in their armor, the soldiers moved out of any potential line of sight.

Grabbing a tool from the nearby workbench, Jack threw it to the far side of the room.

The footsteps halted and were followed with a series of grunts that Jack assumed was the Raak’Shee’s native language. The steps resumed, this time at a faster pace and directly for a room occupied by seven fully trained soldiers.

As soon as the alien crossed the threshold, a blue barrier formed behind it, cutting off any potential backup that may be nearby. With that shield formed, Candice’s threads struck like snakes in an effort to bind the creature.

The guard grunted in surprise but did not yell for help. Instead it raised a hand to the battleax strapped to its shoulder. Before it could fully draw, bands of yellow light encircled the wrist and pulled it painfully to the neck.

Nessa, repeat performance? Candice said, clearly under strain to hold her captive’s considerable strength at bay.

On it.

The Breaker dashed in, drawing hilts and sparking them into life. Ahead, the Raak’Shee growled deeply and balled his fist, swinging with a wild haymaker. Throwing herself back, Nessa dodged the clumsy attack and sprang back up with both blades leading. Before the creature could catch her in the backswing, it was already dead.

The Raak’Shee slumped to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut. The twin blades buried in its skull dissolving into motes of light, leaving no evidence of their existence, other the pair of identical holes in its chin.

Pull him away from the door. Jack said, we’re screwed if one of the others find him.

Grabbing the massive creature, the soldiers of Speir squad managed to move it away from the door and into the interior of the room. With one last look at the workshop, they stepped back into the hallway to continue their search.

With Dave on point, they moved quickly and quietly from room to room. None of them really knew what they were looking for, but Jack had a feeling that they would know it when they saw it. Afterall, a control room should stand out, shouldn’t it?

Just as they were about to turn a corner down one of the few poorly lit hallways, Dave jumped back in alarm and signaled for everyone to step back and into the last room they’d come across. Once inside, he raised his faceplate and spoke without the assistance of his radio for the first time since the beginning of the mission.

“Jack, why the hell didn’t you catch the two guards up there?” He hissed through his teeth, “If they’d have seen, we woulda alerted the whole damned building by now.”

Surprised and ashamed of his mistake, Jack threw his senses down the hall in question and found two Raak’Shee standing guard over a door. Neither was doing a very good job at guarding anything, at the moment, one was playing what appeared to be a game on some sort of handheld computer, and the other was watching what must have passed for porn among their species.

Luckily, neither one is paying very much attention to what is happening right now. He said, reaching over and forcibly closing Dave’s faceplate, But you’re right, I screwed up, but we have to move on with the mission.

Around, looks of agreement came back to him, but he knew that he would hear about this later once they were back onboard the ship.

How do we want to handle this?

I can send in a crawler to act as a distraction again. Jenkins said, already funneling Light into the spiderlike machine that he wore like a backpack.

Too much noise. We start a fight like that and we will have the whole building on it like Alec on a beer.

We could strangle them. Candice said, Or even repeat what we did on the last one. I can bind their arms and Walker can murder the shit out of them.

“That could work.” Nessa replied with a grin, “But I think it is about to me made a moot point anyway. Notice anyone missing?”

Whipping his head around, Jack did indeed notice that a member of the squad was missing. Thea.

Focusing his vision on hers, he watched in silent horror as the woman he loved crept silently. As she moved, she hugged the wall, blending as best as possible with it and trying to stay out of either foes line of sight.

Motioning for the squad to move quickly, they stacked up on the corner just before the hallway in question. Constant peeks through all three points of view continued to verify that she was still safe, but he was more than a little afraid for her.

Ten more steps She thought to herself as she closed the distance between her and the targets. Ten more perfectly silent steps toward the giant rhino things that could rip me limb from limb. On the bright side, if I die, I don’t have to listen to Jack complain about how reckless this is.

She hoped beyond hope that these soldiers were just as easily lulled into complacence as any human soldier she’d ever met. If they’d had this watch for any real length of time, their focus would be more on whatever was on those devices they carried than little old her creeping up behind them.

One of the two grunted in a rhythmic pattern and held his device up for the other to see. Apparently, it was interesting enough that its partner replied, and seemed to adjust himself beneath his armor.

One more step and I’ll be in position.

Her foot scuffed the ground, but it was either not as loud as she thought it was, or their conversation was much too interesting to be worried about such a negligent sound.

Standing behind the creatures, Thea drew on the well of power inside herself and turned the healing ability into something much more sinister. Her fingertips began to give off a soft green Light as they closed in on the creatures necks. From this angle, she could see what they were watching and was unsurprised – but still disgusted – to see what looked like two rhino things wrestling in a mud pit.

Well… that is in my head forever now. She thought as she clamped down on both of her targets and sent her mind into their bodies.

Her first, and most important task was to find the tangled web of electrical impulses that passed for a nervous system in this species, and sever it. In her training it was made very clear that most bipedal creatures were similar, and the Raak’Shee were no exception.

Sharpening her Light into microscopic scalpels, she sliced through the nerve bundles and spinal cords of both creatures with ease. They slumped to the ground, their newly paraplegic bodies unable to sustain their weight. Not willing to leave an enemy alive to be healed in some way, she finished the job with a quick slice through a pair of main arteries.

The whole process took less than a second, but in that second, she truly understood the reason her corps was called ‘Phantom’ for the first time.

Jack watched in grim fascination as Thea killed the two guards at the door. While he understood the concept of her Corps, he’d never seen a Phantom in an offensive role, and it was impressive.

“Alfson, that was more than a little reckless,” He began in a chastising tone, “But, you solved a problem that we had, and you did so without revealing that we were here.”

“Thanks Monroe, someone had to do the dirty work. May as well have been me.” She shot back, standing but not pulling her gaze from her two targets. “Now, lets get these two bodies hidden and figure out what they were hiding, other than the rhino porn.”

“Oh, gross…” Neilson exclaimed over the comms, “I turn my radio back on for a second and you sick assholes are talking about rhino porn? Come on, where is the line?”

“It wasn’t us.” Alec defended, “Dave and I have been looking at regular porn.”

“Oh, so like two puppets on a wool sock?” Warren jabbed.

“Not a wool sock, Alec is into this frog slash pig combination.” Dave added.

“That frog had her number on the truck stop door. What, am I just going to ignore bathroom art?” Alec asked.

“Yes. That’s what any reasonable person would do.” Nessa said, grabbing the door handle and pushing it open. “What in the actual fuck?”

Jumping to her perspective more out of habit than curiosity, Jack was met with a sight that trumped almost everything he’d experienced so far.

On an elevated table in the middle of the room was the body of Unranked Officer Benjamin Hargrave.