A deep, dark tunnel stretches out before Admiral Rodriguez and his three Kraktol followers. As they quickly but cautiously step into the underground passageway, the Admiral's party pauses to turn on the floodlights attached to their armor systems. Despite the tunnel once belonging to Ramma's Chosen, not a single activation command sent by the Admiral responds to his summons. He fails to turn on the complex's lights, leaving him and his crocs engulfed in darkness.

The Admiral turns his head from side to side. Despite the gloom's seemingly impenetrable nature, he easily adjusts his optical modules, turning the darkness into daylight. Sadly, his Kraktol followers lack such conveniences.

"I can't see a damn thing!" Grundle complains. He turns on a wrist-mounted flashlight and aims it down the hallway, yet the beam cuts off after only ten or so feet, leaving the path ahead completely pitch-black. "Graugh! There's something weird going on here, Admiral."

"Indeed," José affirms. "Yama has cast a spell on this complex. He 'solidified' the darkness, making it much harder for our light to pierce the gloom. Doing so will empower him and his Shades while putting us at a disadvantage."

"We should pick up some reinforcements before going any further," Sapphire says, as she clutches an energy carbine. "There are only four of us!"

"I agree with Sapphire," Soren adds. "The last time we faced Yama with too few soldiers, he..."

"Yes, I am aware of the danger," José says. "But we must move with haste. Yama has already started activating the Rip-Gate. Calculating the dimensional coordinates for a Warp-Gate is hard enough, but throwing temporal coordinates into the mess increases the complexity tenfold. We only have a few hours before his sick plans bear fruit."

The Admiral grits his teeth. He quickly begins marching into the darkness, while his Kraktol comrades take up arms behind him and fall into position.

"Grundle! You will take up the rear. Soren, keep an eye out for corridors and cavities on our left. Sapphire, you focus on the right. I will guide us forward."

"Okay, Darling," Sapphire says.

"Alright, José," Soren adds.

"Yes, Admiral," Grundle finishes.

Their footsteps move in rhythm. Like the beating of a heart, each stomp of their feet brings them one step closer to Yama's hiding point, somewhere deep beneath the complex.

Suddenly, José pauses. He narrows his eyes and takes aim with his shotgun as a faint, shadowy face appears in the distance.

"A Shade!"

The Admiral reaches for the trigger, but doesn't pull it. He watches, silently, as the Shade merely floats in the darkness, its ethereal body all but impossible to make out.

"Hehehe. So, you have finally come," The Shade says, her voice seductive and silky.

The Admiral searches his memories, the ones recorded during his first life.

"You. I remember your voice. Your name is... Voluptuous. I thought I killed you."

The Shade doesn't react to his provocation. "You tried. You killed many of my sisters. But that was fine by me. We all compete for Master Yama's affection. The fewer competitors I have, the fewer the barriers blocking my path to my beloved."

The Admiral's eye twitches. "You're brainwashed. I pity you. You were once a woman, free of sin. Now, that monster has corrupted you. You've become nothing more than a heretic's whore."

"You zealots all say the same things; repeat the same lines. Don't you ever tire of your boring life? Cast aside your prejudice. Join me, and I will make you feel exquisite pleasure."

The Terran snorts. "Any emotions you could give me would only be the product of brainwashing. But don't worry, I hold no quarrel with the poor women Yama has defiled. I will execute you without any hatred."

The Shade smirks. "I came to give you a message. My master wishes to inform you of a certain... tidbit."

José narrows his eyes. "And that would be?"

"You have forced his hand," Voluptuous says, her face contorting into a demonic look of rage. "Master Yama intended to slowly take this galaxy over, planet by planet, star by star. Now, because you have chosen to confront him, he will unleash Hell upon you. Come to us if you dare, fleshbag. You will meet your end."

BLAM!

José fires a spray of projectiles from his proton-shotgun, but before they can connect with Voluptuous, she explodes into smoke and vanishes into the darkness. José's bullets harmlessly whiff past where her face previously hovered, then disappear into the shadows.

Sapphire shudders. "D-Darling... that woman was... she was so frightening! Are all Shades like that?!"

"Her demonic aura is what's causing you that feeling of terror," José explains. "You'll get used to it, given time. Now, come. That woman came to slow us down. Yama must have only started calculating the Rip-Gate's coordinates a short while ago. We can still stop him if we hurry!"

This time, the Terran charges into the darkness, tripling his previous speed. He races down the secret hallway toward its exit, where he finds a blast door sealed shut, all of its locking mechanisms frozen in place.

The Kraktol gasp in dismay, realizing it will take them hours to bypass the hardened barrier. Even a high-yield explosive charge might not dent it, let alone the weaponry they brought along.

Before anyone can ask the Admiral what they should do...

Foop!

The Admiral vanishes! He teleports past the door to the other side. The faint sounds of gunshots and pain-filled screams barely worm their way through the blast doors, causing Sapphire to gasp in fright.

"D-Darling! He's fighting in there! We have to help him!"

"We can't," Soren says, clearly annoyed by that fact. "We have to wait!"

Minutes later, the sounds of struggle stop. The seemingly impassable door hisses open, and José strides through, his armor soaked in blood.

"Sorry. I had to deal with some hostiles," José says nonchalantly.

The Kraktol walk past the blast-door, where they find more than two hundred Buzor laying in a T-shaped hallway, their bodies riddled with holes, their carapaces broken, and their heads crushed. The gruesome sight doesn't affect anyone, beyond making them glance at their Admiral with even more admiration than before.

This time, the Buzor lurking underground consist of heavily armed cockroaches, beetles, and praying mantises. They all wield the same technology they did on Tarus II, making the Admiral's crew come to an important realization.

"The Buzor are trying to keep their technological capabilities a secret," Soren says. "They only ever bring out guns and weapons when the other Sentients aren't looking."

"That's right," José affirms. "They're sneaky little bug-bastards."

His group pauses only long enough for José to confirm their position before turning and walking down the corridor to the right. They encounter many groups of Buzor along the way, each one fighting like hell to slow them down.

[Filthy Kraktol! Vile Terran! You cannot stop the Dark One's ascension! We will give our lives to protect him!]

Two dozen huge cockroaches charge at José's group, simultaneously disgusting and annoying them.

"Bug off!" José roars, as he unloads multiple shots into their bodies. His Officers follow up, blasting the heads off the roaches, while Grundle takes to melee combat, whipping out a huge vibro-axe to chop through anything organic in his path.

"Bahaha!" Grundle laughs. "You are nothing before my Admiral! You are nothing before ME!"

The Buzor fire deadly 30th-Era lasers at Grundle, but his 50th-Era armor shrugs them off as if they were nothing more than mere paintballs. He beheads all the giant bugs in his path, and severs their bodies in half afterward, making sure to finish the job.

"Let's go!" José yells.

The Kraktol rush through countless advanced underground facilities, all teeming with Buzor from top to bottom. They sweep through a cloning facility, one which does not appear as broken and dilapidated as those they've heard of from the past always were. They fight their way into a Firing Range, its pitch-black and lights-off atmosphere weighing upon them oppressively, while Buzor hide behind various makeshift barriers to take potshots at the Admiral and his crew.

Sapphire does not wield a shotgun. Instead, she snipes the trickiest targets with her carbine, those who only poke out their heads or individual limbs. While José and Grundle serve as the brawn and Soren the brains, Sapphire strategizes about which enemies will take the longest to kill. Then, she slaughters them mercilessly.

Science Labs, crew quarters, lounges, and holodecks. The Terran and his comrades fight through five levels of the Ramaldius complex. The deeper they dive, the more oppressive Yama's dark magic becomes. Soon, Shades join in with the Buzor, pouncing at the Kraktol from the shadows.

"Eat shit!" José roars, as he fires a spray of energized bullets at one of Yama's harlots. The woman screeches in agony as the white-hot bullets burn her soul, but she retreats into the darkness, managing to preserve her life.

"You will never kill our master!" The Shade hisses.

"Ramma's Chosen won't stop until we fulfill their mission!" José barks back.

Like this, over an hour passes. During a moment of reprieve, José transmits a signal out of the base to the Bloodbearer in orbit.

"Umi, I need you to make some contingency plans," José says. "I still have confidence we can stop Yama. However, if I fail, I expect you to shit fire and fury on this bunker. Even if it kills me, you'd better goddamn well irradiate my position and destroy whatever the hell Yama brings out, along with the Shadow Emperor himself. You got that?"

The Admiral pauses. He waits for confirmation, yet receives no reply.

"Umi? Hello? Umi? Respond."

Still, the synthmind says nothing.

Frowning, José changes his tact.

"Synthmind 4131. Respond."

Seconds pass, yet the Slipstream's synthmind also remains uncharacteristically silent.

"What in Ramma's name...?" José mutters. He pulls up his neural link's software to perform a dozen diagnostic scans. However, he doesn't find anything out of the ordinary.

"Is something wrong?" Soren asks. She takes cover behind a desk while she and the other Kraktol wait to see why their Admiral has paused his advance.

"It's... I don't know," José says. "I've lost contact with the Bloodbearer. The enemy might be jamming us, but I can't detect any interference."

"Are we too deep underground?" Sapphire asks.

"No. 50th-Era communication technology isn't easy to censor, especially for this primitive galaxy. Ten thousand meters of planet soil wouldn't block my communicator, let alone fewer than one hundred. We still have a long way to go before we reach the Rip-Gate..."

The Admiral hesitates. A strange look enters his eyes.

"Wait. That might be it."

He switches his cerebral implants to a high-frequency scanning mode, then sweeps his eyes around in a wide circle.

"Damn!"

"What is it?" Sapphire asks, clearly alarmed. "Is something wrong? Are we in danger, Darling?!"

"Not quite, but the situation isn't good," José growls. "That fucking moron, Yama! I bet his Kessu slaves don't have a goddamn clue how to properly activate the Rip-Gate! They've bungled its temporal calculations... or something! I've detected unstable pulses of temporal activity. My implants weren't calibrated to deal with that sort of interference, so it's no wonder I can't communicate with the Bloodbearer."

The Admiral pauses. He glances back at the Kraktol, as if waging a war within his mind.

"...Sapphire, Grundle! I want the two of you to return to the surface. Contact Umi and give her my orders. If I fail to stop Yama, then Umi must, at all costs, destroy this facility, along with the Shadow Emperor and whatever he intends to bring to our universe."

Sapphire shakes her head. "Kyargh! No, Darling! We can't do that! There are already only four of us! If you and Soren go alone, you won't be able to stop Yama by yourselves, let alone all his Buzor minions! You need us to help you!"

"I would prefer to send you back to the surface alone," José says to Sapphire, "but I worry you won't make it there by yourself. Grundle can protect you from any Shades and Buzor you might encounter along the way. I'll need Soren's help to disable the Rip-Gate. So, just go! I've prepared myself to face Yama alone. As long as I have Soren with me, my odds of success are doubled!"

"But they could be quadrupled!" Sapphire protests. "We have to come with you!"

"I agree, graugh!" Grundle chuffs. "I cannot leave you by yourself, Admiral. I swore to protect you with my life!"

"We'll need all the help we can get," Soren chimes in. "Frankly, I don't think you and I can fight our way to Yama's hidey-hole by ourselves. This is no time for bravado, José."

The Admiral doubles down. "You don't get it! I can't send an order to Umi! If Yama succeeds, he could summon another Demon Emperor to this world. He could summon multiple! If that happens, they might capture me. Umi's current prime directive is to preserve my life at all costs. I must ensure she disregards that directive, so long as it means exterminating the Demon Emperors! If Sapphire and Grundle don't pass my message along, the Emperors will be able to use my life as leverage against her!"

This time, José's words have an immediate effect. Having spent five years in simulations, fighting against authentic recreations of Demon Emperors on the holodeck, all of the Kraktol know just how terrifying any one of them can be, especially compared to the much weaker Yama.

Soren lowers her voice. "I..."

"That was a direct order," José barks, pointing his words at Sapphire and Grundle. "Get to the surface! Once you deliver my message, you can make your way back down here! All you'll have to do is follow the trail of dead Buzor to find me."

Grundle glances at Sapphire. She meets his gaze.

"We... we shouldn't..." Sapphire mumbles.

"Graugh! I swore to protect the Admiral..." Grundle replies. "But I also swore to follow his orders. Let's go! I'll get us topside, then we'll immediately head back down. Won't take us long, not now that we've mopped up the Buzor in our path!"

Sapphire appears unwilling. However, with Grundle's conviction hardened, she merely sighs.

"Fine! Darling, don't you dare die on me! If you fall, I swear... I'll cut out my heart and dive into the Forbidden Swamp with you!"

"You don't need to be so melodramatic," José retorts. "I'm eighty percent confident I'll survive, but only if you hurry up and get that tail moving. Now, hurry up!"

Sapphire shoots her Darling one last look before rushing away. She and Grundle depart, zipping away like the wind thanks to their battle-armor.

"We need to move faster," José says to Soren. "I know a few shortcuts through this base. Follow me."

"Alright." Soren replies.

...

The two of them continue onward. They meet heavier resistance the deeper they travel, but thanks to their crushing advantages in armor and weaponry, they easily blast through any blockades the Buzor set up.

The two of them eventually arrive inside a drone construction workshop, one that Ramma's Chosen used in the past to craft autonomous war machines. Before entering the room, José pauses.

"Fuck."

Soren glances at the words inscribed above the doorway, easily parsing them thanks to her years working for the Admiral. "José?"

"The Buzor, or rather, their Kessu slaves, have activated multiple robots inside this workshop. Brace yourself. They won't be pushovers like we've fought up to now, but 50th-Era killing machines. The fact they haven't come for us likely means only their weapons systems are online and not their mobility modules, but still... they'll punch through our armor with ease."

"How do we slip past them?" Soren asks.

"Simple. I'll act as a distraction to confuse their targeting modules. In the meantime, you sneak around to their flanks and disable them."

"Kyargh! I can do that."

Unified in their thoughts, the Terran and his First Officer burst into the room. José immediately picks out the glint of blood-red iris-targeting modules in the darkness a split-second before a volley of high-caliber gunfire rains on his position. He teleports to the side and shoots back, attempting to blast apart anything that will stop his attackers from firing.

He fails to stop the robots, but succeeds in forcing their threat systems to target him. While the Terran teleports to the ceiling and walls, flickering around to keep the robots guessing, his First Officer sneaks through the darkness, activating a limited-stealth function on her suit. Despite its charge only lasting a minute or two, and its stealth functionality only providing electronic disruption to the drones which might target her, she still succeeds in reaching a control panel in the rear.

When she arrives, Soren curses as a pair of giant praying mantises equipped with highly-advanced Terran armor pounce at her from the darkness. These two Mentii warriors chitter angrily while stabbing at her with their claws. Their blade-like arms, coated with exotic Terran alloys, carve up the floor where Soren stood a moment before, turning her blood to ice.

These Mentii are elites! She realizes. They're much stronger than the others we fought before!

A game of cat and mouse ensues. Soren ducks and dodges while the predators pursue her. They slash at her figure, missing each time, but coming close enough to frighten the Bloodbearer's First Officer. Multiple times, the Mentii elites tear through control panels in their path, rip apart hardened metal containers filled with random scrap, and gouge huge lines in the walls.

While a perfectly competent soldier, Soren isn't nearly as adept at melee and infantry warfare as Grundle and Sapphire. She typically relies on her brain to solve problems, but the Mentii don't give her even a second to think.

[You fell for our trap!] One of the elites taunts. [Your Admiral is too occupied to save you! You cannot defeat us! We are both sons of the Lothrath!]

Soren doesn't reply. With all of her attention focused on evading the Mentii's attacks, she can't spare a moment to swap barbs with them.

Think, Soren, think! She howls internally. I need to get an advantage! I need to put some distance between myself and these bastards!

After a full minute of retreating, Soren finally gets a split-second of breathing room. She raises her gun to shoot the closest Mentii elite, only for the other one to pop up beside her and slash at her gun.

Rip!

The weapon falls in half, easily sliced apart by the Mentii's lethally sharp blade-arm.

"Ah!" Soren yelps, momentarily frightened. She stumbles backward and falls on her ass, allowing the Mentii to chitter and pounce on her.

[DIE!]

At the last second, Soren uses her tail to throw herself to the side. However, in doing so, she exposes her flank.

Skriiik!

"AIIIEEE!" Soren shrieks.

Without hesitation, despite fumbling its killing blow, the Mentii succeeds in slicing Soren's tail off her rump. The robust armor system enveloping it provides no protection against the huge mantis's blade-limb. It drops to the ground and flops around reflexively for a few seconds, while blood spurs from the freshly opened wound on Soren's rear.

"Soren!" José calls, as he recognizes it has taken longer than he anticipated for her to finish her job. "What's going on? SHIT!"

The Admiral finally spots the commotion happening behind the drones. However, with the automated defenders constantly unloading armor-piercing rounds on his position, he doesn't dare jump to Soren's side, lest he draw fire upon her, too.

The Admiral's mind, enhanced by the peak of 50th-Era cerebral augmentations, works in hypertime, allowing him to rapidly compute ten thousand battle possibilities.

Teleport north by northwest. Sabotage power lines A3 and A7. Failure. Will not stop enough power flow to the drones.

Teleport north by northeast. Grab heavy exotic container. Throw toward drones as a distraction. Teleport to Soren's side. Failure. The drones will immediately recalibrate, and the containers will provide little protection.

His eyes move from left to right, picking out dozens of potential routes he can use to rescue Soren, all while calculating probability vectors and each route's odds of success.

In the blink of an eye, he chooses one potential option. He teleports directly above one of the automated drones, pulls out a pair of explosive charges, then slaps them against the ceiling. He teleports to a gigantic shipping container, grabs it with one hand, and performs an Olympian-level throw toward one of the Mentii elites.

"Hey, heretic! Here's a present!"

The Mentii elite flicks its eyes toward the Terran. Despite its superior warrior physiology, enhanced by Yama's magic, it only gets a split-second to react to the twenty-ton, fifty-foot-long container flying at its face.

BOOM!!

The container crashes against the Mentii, splattering it against the wall and crushing it like a bug.

However, the Mentii chasing Soren still remains within arm's reach. It slashes at Soren, causing her to scream in pain as she barely dodges a lethal attack. The Mentii severs her right arm from her shoulder, spraying blood across the deck.

Reflexively, Soren kicks her leg upward.

THUNK!

The Mentii doesn't see her kick coming. She makes contact with the bug's thorax, sending it hurtling straight upward! With her body's might greatly enhanced by her Terran combat armor, she outputs a superhuman level of strength, making each kick hit like a truck.

The Mentii elite crashes against the ceiling and drags along its perimeter for a split second, only to coincidentally end up within a hundred feet of José's planted charges.

THOOM.

The charges explode, blasting the Mentii elite to shreds while raining more than two hundred tons of debris onto one of the six drones. The automated robot instantly collapses under the tremendous weight, while the others continue firing upon the Admiral.

Soren grits her teeth. Her eyes turn foggy as waves of pain and nausea roil her stomach.

"H-hurts... hurts..."

She fumbles with her left arm, trying to stop the ceaseless flow of blood from her right shoulder.

[Severe bodily trauma detected,] A bland, automated male voice says from within her suit. [Applying emergency field treatments.]

Icy cryo-fluid pours from the severed sections of Soren's suit onto her amputated tail and arm. She weakly whimpers in pain as all the breath escapes from her body.

"Nnn... nnn..."

Moments later, Soren falls unconscious, unable to wake herself after suffering such a traumatic injury.

José, left alone, grits his teeth.

"She's alive. That's what matters. I can regenerate her missing limb later. For now, I have to break these last five drones!"

In the back of his mind, the Terran continues to count the time. Every minute he spends fighting Yama's minions gives the Demon Emperor more time to finish his evil plan.

In the worst case scenario... the Admiral may even have to give his life to stop his most hated adversary from succeeding.

Such are the lengths the galaxy's unnamed savior will go to.