Blye was in the middle of rounds when the all-too-familiar sound of a shuttle landing sent her mood plunging somewhere south of the antipodes. With a heavy sigh, she rose from the patient she’d been tending, handing off her medical kit to Velsa before quickly washing her hands, with Prash and Amar both joining her moments later in the dispensary.

“What do you suppose they want now?” the former Valkyrie said suspiciously.

“Nothing good, that’s for sure,” Prash agreed.

“This isn't the time,” she admonished them. “We’re not in a position to stop them, which means we play their game. We have no choice.”

Reluctantly, the pair agreed. “I’ll go meet them while you both stay out of sight. There’s no sense in risking all of us.”

“Ma’am, I should go,” Amar volunteered. “These people need you.”

“I’m afraid I’m already a marked woman,” she said. “The Kaihautu chose me to be their emissary with Aleph, and I doubt they’d accept a substitution now.”

“It’s not fair,” Prash disagreed, earning him a rueful chuckle from Blye.

“We’re Terrans,” she reminded them with a heavy shrug. “Since when has the word ‘fair’ ever applied to us?”

Neither of the men had a response for that, as made her way to the clinic’s entrance, taking a thin poncho from the hook and throwing it over her shoulders before braving the rains. It was rough to the touch and made by unskilled hands, but their cottage weaving industry was starting to pay off. It had been treated with a plant extract for waterproofing, keeping her mostly dry as she went to meet the Aggaaddub.

As the alien vanguard approached, she bowed deeply at the waist. “Greetings, Kaihautu Yugha…” she began, only to be yanked upright by the commander’s scaly paw.

“You could have avoided the deluge,” he informed her, the rain once again leaving him unruffled as he all but dragged her back towards the clinic. “Our business is inside.”

Blye got her feet back underneath her as she struggled to keep pace with the towering lizard, the rest of his entourage falling in behind them. “What is it you want?” she asked, far less politely than she’d phrased her welcome.

“How many times now have you consulted with the Ancient’s computer?” he inquired.

“Five, Kaihautu,” she replied as they entered the clinic, struggling to make sense of where this was going.

“And after those five visits, how much usable data have you actually given me?” he snarled, as a sense of dark foreboding settled in around her.

“I swear, I have told you everything that I…” she began, desperately trying to reassure him, while Prash and Amar looked on, with Velsa hovering in the background, only to earn a cruel backhand that knocked her to the floor.

“LIES!” he thundered, shaking the walls with his roar as his crew raised and charged weapons. “You think you can deceive me, don’t you, Terran?” he hissed.

A thin trickle of blood leaked from her nose as Blye slowly pulled herself back to her feet, steadying herself against a nearby cabinet as she stood on shaky legs. It took her a moment to focus, the Kaihautu’s blow had done a damned good job of ringing her bell. She held out her hand towards her fellow Knights, keeping them at bay, as she forced herself to look up at the reptilian interloper.

“At every turn, you seek to thwart my will,” he snarled, “and it is clear now that you require additional motivation before you will carry out my commands. What will motivate you, I wonder?” he reflected, his reptilian eyes burning into hers. “Shall I order my officers to round up a hundred of your exiles and execute them? No? A thousand, perhaps?” he mused, as Blye gaped in alarm.

“Please, I beg of you…” she began, only to be interrupted yet again.

“Yes, that would make a statement, wouldn’t it?” the Kaihautu reflected, only to shake off whatever favored memory he was reliving. “Except that we have already danced that dance, have we not? And where has it got us, hmm?” he asked her. “How I miss the days before your so-called ‘Alliance’ when I could express my merest wish, and it was done. Now, however, we must be cautious,” he sneered, “lest we drive the nonaligned races straight into your waiting arms. It sickens me, that we have come to this.”

“I have done everything you have asked of me,” she said evenly, her eyes dark and smoldering. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

“Thankfully, I do,” the Aggaaddub commander smiled coldly, waving one of his people forward. They arrived bearing a small metallic case, setting it on the table beside him before withdrawing. Opening it, he gestured to Blye. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, motioning her forward.

Stepping closer, she peered inside the case, her heart skipping a beat as she recognized its contents. “No… please…” she said in sudden panic, backing away from the table as the Troika commander flashed a toothy grin.

“Oh yes,” he chortled, “a neural-optical interface, designed to be tied into the visual cortex of most sapients,” he explained, savoring the moment before leaning in, “... including Terrans. With it, I will be able to see everything you see, well enough to finally use the information the Precursor’s computer has stored within it.”

“But… I don’t really see what Aleph shows me,” she tried desperately to explain. “I mean, not with my eyes. It’s like… an image in my head.”

“Which is still processed within the optical center of your cerebrum,” he rebutted. “Or so the experts tell me.”

“You’re talking about putting that… that thing… into my brain,” Blye said with growing horror. “Do you have any idea how risky a procedure that is? I do. And what happens if it doesn’t work? What if I don’t wake up after the procedure?”

The Kaihautu didn’t look perturbed in the slightest. “In that case,” he mused, gazing over at the other Terrans, “we will still have two more chances to improve upon our technique.”

Their eyes widened as they realized just how far he was prepared to go. Amar’s face tightened, and Blye just knew he was calculating the distance to his sidearm, and if he could reach it in time… just as she knew he’d never make it.

It would be a slaughter. She couldn’t let that happen.

“All right,” she rasped, catching the others off guard, “... but my Knights perform the procedure.”

“Under our supervision,” the alien commander countered.

“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “It will take us some time to prepare. If you will excuse us.” She turned to go, but the Kaihautu grabbed her arm once more.

“Do not do anything… foolish,” he warned her. “You know who will suffer for it.”

“You have my word,” she answered, with each word a vow promising retribution, as she led the others away.

“You can’t be serious,” Prash seethed once they were out of earshot. “This is insane, Blye. I’m not doing this.”

“I’m sure as hell not qualified,” Amar chimed in. “We can sneak you out the tunnel, and then…”

“And then what?” she demanded. “They’ll turn this camp upside down searching for me, and they’ll kill whoever gets in their way. Not that it’ll stop them, they’ll just make one of you the guinea pig instead.”

“We’re not equal to this,” Prash protested, “you know we aren’t. We’ll just end up killing you.”

Taking a deep breath, she reached out and touched his arm. “You and I faced a similar challenge not so long ago,” she reminded him. “I believe in you. In both of you,” she amended, including Amar as well. “And you’ll have Velsa’s help, of course. Between the three of you, I’m confident you can do it.”

She smiled, putting on a brave face, but all three of them knew better. This was her whistling in the dark, and she wasn’t fooling anyone.

“What about the baby?” Amar asked quietly. “This procedure, you’re putting your own child at risk.”

She’d been trying hard not to think about that, but that was impossible now. “The child is only a few weeks old,” she said, her own words betraying her. “If the worst happens…”

… Blye couldn’t bring herself to finish that thought.

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Prash said sickly, “but we can try to even the odds. We’ll need to postpone for at least twenty-four hours in order to prepare, and…”

“I’m afraid that won’t fly,” Blye said sadly. “They’ll never agree to wait that long. They might grant us an hour. Maybe.”

“But we need that day!” Amar cried out. “What if you aspirate? Running an endotracheal tube under these conditions? It’s too big a risk.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Which is why I won’t be going under general anesthesia.”

They stared at her with rising dread. “I need to be awake for this, so I can assist,” she explained. “It’s the only way this works. Assuming it works at all.”

“Holy Mother Terra,” Prash whispered.

Sitting in her patient’s gown, desperately trying to maintain at least some sense of decorum while Amar shaved the back of her head, Blye felt a sense of icy dread. She’d already had one brush with brain surgery under primitive conditions as a doctor, and that had been bad enough. And in that case, she was trying to remove an alien implant, not install one. The Protean Clan had rarely discussed their failure rates with outsiders, back when they were still a going concern, but she’d gotten the sense it was uncomfortably high. There was no set standard for alien technology and Terran physiology, meaning every attempt was a gamble.

The best she could realistically hope for was for it simply failing to function. She’d still have a chunk of metal in her head, but with luck, it could be removed eventually. The worst, on the other hand…

People assume dying is the worst possible outcome, she mused, but they were wrong. There were worse things than death… far worse. Maggie had taught her that, but she hadn’t really believed it, not then. Cracking open a woman’s skull to remove a biological time bomb had shown her the error of her ways, and since then she’d added to her personal list of horrors.

Considering the alternatives, death was probably the second best result she could expect.

Prash appeared beside her with a catheter kit. “I assumed you’d rather do this yourself,” he said awkwardly.

“Yes, thank you,” she agreed primly, taking the kit and setting it aside. She’d deal with that particular indignity just prior to the surgery itself. Being on this side of the equation had given her a newfound appreciation for the stress a patient goes through during any procedure, and while she would have loved to examine that insight in greater detail, mostly she was trying not to freak the hell out in front of the others. She’d clamped down hard on her emotions, and for the moment was just barely holding them at bay.

“It’s not too late,” he said in a rush, “we can still get you out. I’ve sent word to Spata Zhai, though I have heard nothing back yet, but I’m certain that…”

“... No,” she said sharply, “we will do nothing of the sort.”

The two men stood before her as they readied themselves to plead their case, but Blye just shook her head. “Nothing has changed, gentlemen,” she told them. “You both heard the Kaihautu; while killing hostages may not be his first choice, it is most definitely still on the table. We can’t let that happen.”

“We can’t lose you,” Amar countered. “These people need you, Blye. You’ve become a symbol to them; for some, knowing you’re here looking out for them is the only thing keeping them going. If they lose that?” He shrugged helplessly. “A lot of them are going to lose the last bit of hope they still have.”

Her features softened as she forced a smile onto her face. “Then I’m counting on the both of you to pick up the torch and carry on.”

“Then we fight,” Prash said vehemently, smacking his fist into his palm. “We gather up the Ixians and the refugees we’ve been training, and we hit them now, when they’re not expecting it.”

Blye sighed. “Except that they are expecting it. You have to know this whole thing is a setup. They want us to try something, just to give them the excuse they've wanted all along… to grind this camp and everyone in it to dust. And even if by some miracle we overpower Kaihautu Yugha and his guards, that still leaves the ship up in orbit. They’ll glaze this camp down to the bedrock before the last Aggaaddub body falls.”

“So… what?” Amar said in desperation. “We’re just supposed to lead you to that operating table and cut you open, and watch you die? You and your baby?”

And just like that, suddenly everything was clear.

Closing her eyes, Blye whispered, “... these things we do, so others may live.”

The two men froze, their clan’s most solemn oath striking them both like a plasma discharge. Opening her eyes, she smiled, reaching out and taking their hands in hers. “I know it’s hard,” she said gently, “but then the important things always are. This is who we are as a clan. We serve others, sacrificing what we might wish for ourselves. That is our single most noble purpose, and I will not subvert our guiding principle just to avoid my fate.” Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she concluded, “... or that of my child.”

“Our clan doesn’t need another martyr,” Prash argued, “we have far too many already. Remember Joona?”

Blye winced at the mention of their fallen comrade, but Prash wasn’t letting her off the hook. “He was my best friend. We started out in training together. Always eager to help out, ready with a joke or a smile… and for his troubles, he died with a To’uuk stinger in his belly, on some backwater desert planet no one cares about. And for what?”

Her chin jutted out defiantly. “Joona died saving the lives of four fellow Terrans, including you, and me. If my death had half as much meaning as his, I would gladly count that as a victory. And so should you.”

The pair now looked embarrassed, struggling to even meet her gaze. “I thank you for your concerns,” she told them gently, “but we have a mission to complete. Now, if you could give me some privacy so I can deal with this,” she said with distaste, pointing at the catheter, “I will meet you both shortly in surgery.”

The two men nodded, awkwardly shuffling off and giving her some much-needed space as she contemplated what had just transpired. The moment of clarity she’d experienced was already dissipating… leaving her to dread what awaited her next.