Summers in Greenland were warm and dry even a few degrees above zero. Comfortability index was in the goldilocks but even if it wasn't we wouldn’t be complaining. With matter synthesizers at hand, we could fabricate clothing whenever we needed it. However, Irina warned that we would have to use our reserves of etherium crystals sparingly as the ambient aether on our dud of a planet was not dense enough to recharge them adequately.

Even for the alien and the arcane, the Law of Conservation of Mass still held. Irina wasn’t sure which of our planets in the Sol system could have etherium crystals in viable quantities. Perhaps their lack is why our planet did not seem like a tasty morsel to whichever interstellar entities roamed the galaxy.

The fear of the unknown was palpable. Fear that perhaps an unknown race would one day deem Earth as a valuable resource and strip it of its nickel and iron core. Or worse, have its flora and fauna converted into biomass energy.

It was hard to know who might be listening in or how much of that radio noise from SETI were intelligible broadcasts or just the throes of stars that died. Unfortunately, we had no way to know. Without the extraplanetary communication array from the secondary hull, our communications range was largely stunted. Nonetheless, that was a worry for the next two to three weeks because, before that, we had to make sure we were in a condition to retrieve the rest of the Velastra.

Only after our debriefing did the immensity of the task sink in. We were up against some old moneyed oligarch in the steel industry and a smattering of other personages of clout. Maybe even against entire countries who deemed us as the key to a certain alien artifact.

The stories of aliens were in the wind, some cities had been hit with the news even more than others. The grace period for scattering chaff and misdirection had already ended .By then it was more of an open secret that something extraterrestrial was prowling on Earth. Only, no one, save for a few knew where it was.

Things had already escalated three days after our Grindelwald escapade. Some stocks were falling in spite of the recession that had started hitting since the beginning of the Second Cold War. Others were rising because whispers of actual war were in the air. Despite Greenland's isolation, there were tensions in the Arctic ocean , a faceoff of superpowers. People were clenching something as they waited for the other shoe to drop.

Naval exercises were the new pissing contest around the location suspected to have an extraterrestrial object. Word was, a new kind of metal had been found or a new source of renewable energy from a meteorite had been discovered. It was doubly dangerous, moreso because I was now worth my weight in gold―I was no longer Ryan Zeus O’ciaran but Alien X.

Ryan O’ciaran was a dead man, at least that’s what some security database said―Yoshiko’s doing no doubt. My bank account had fortunately not been frozen nor had my money been moved to the next of kin. I knew that reconciliations took some time even on electronic systems and hence, I withdrew most of my money and paid for supplies in Nuuk; enough supplies to last us a few months if they were cryofrozen. Even milk could be made to last a year if we wanted.

By all means it was great, it meant we didn't have to walk around at the risk of raising a few eyebrows in the city especially with people gunning for us, literally. Were we not used to the pandemics of the twenties, we would have gone stark raving mad from staying cooped up in the Velastra, several meters below the Arctic Ocean. Between training montages and getting used to the ship there was much to do.

We could hold out for a few weeks to draft a plan for our upcoming mission, to steal 240 ft worth of Nyvari tech from under the expedition team's noses. I would have liked to think we were doing them a favour. One did not need two brain cells to realize the mounting tensions would amount to a war despite the neutrality of the expedition teams. In addition, with a steel industry oligarch dipping their fingers in the metaphorical pot, the stakes had never been higher.

“ First order of business; training regimen,”

We were having our first mission briefing, approximately 18 days to D-Day.

“ Training regimen,” I reiterated, meeting the eyes of the two other occupants of the Velastra, three, counting Irina who was acting as our secretary of sorts. The SI displayed our stats, arraying them side by side for each of us to browse. While we’d been out getting supplies, Lucas had spent the last three days getting his Gestalt Insertion and he was rather proud of his physiological stats. It was not surprising that he started high as an athlete. He already had Energy at 7, Vitality at 6, Endurance at 6 and Dexterity at 6 as well. And except for Affinity at 5, everything across the board was a sixer.

“ Since this is the first time for some, beware that the numbers are your current upper ceiling and indicate how much Vis or force you exert. For our resident nerd, hit points as it were,” Irina said , smirking. Lucas ducked his head sheepishly and pretended to be admiring his undersuit.

“ Upper ceiling?” Lucas asked, frowning. “ Like a cap?”

“ Yes,” Irina nodded sagely. “ It is not a discrete number, rather, the amount of range in percentiled potential that you are capable of. The symbionic nanites measure the value to the nearest whole number and present it in a form you can perceive. Of course every Gestalt Insertion is unique and the baseline values are affected by the preexisting conditions at the point of Insertion,”

“ Oh,” Lucas mumbled. “ And what about levels?”

“ Ah, you’re referring to the Gestalt Quotient,” Irina chimed in realization. “ That would be the sum of your highest stats and divide by ten and multiplied by 1.25 also known as the Gestalt Coefficient—”

“That would leave us with fractions,” Lucas pointed out. “ Do we round up or down?”

“We don’t,” Irina said. “ We simply take any value after the integer and convert it into a percentage. It indicates how much process you’ve made to the next GQ,”

” When do we acquire spe—” Lucas coughed before correcting himself, “—schema?”

“Crystallization shall occur when your psychological attributes reach 10 or earlier than that as long as Affinity is a 10—”

I'd read up on the use of Vis and Aether and the more I understood its mechanics the more I realized how it was tailored to look like a game interface. To borrow Lucas' game terminology, it meant that Specialities were Skills while Schema were Spells. After discussing the training regimen, we caught up on current events in the Arctic before going to the mission layout proper.

Were it anyone else, it would have been considered suicide to even think of attempting it but not us. Not with the alien symbionic nanites in our blood and marrow , an SI and weapons that were generations ahead of contemporary arsenal.

“The armory is in the main hull, but I was able to appropriate three rifles and one sidearm. Two rifles and one sidearm are all ion pulse weapons with lethal and stun options, one rifle is a sniper railgun with a variety of munitions,”

We were all trained in guns, at least to the level of military proficiency without the experience to back it up. That would go into our training too. There was also the option of ultrasonic weapons; Vibroblades which were sophisticated tactical knives that would come in handy in a pinch.

However, none of us would trust ourselves with plasma sabers. Rather than shoot out of the hilt like a certain franchise’s, the plasma did a circuit around an anchoring fuller which defined the overall shape of the blade.

“ Apart from that we have the diamene polymer undersuits and cymbian silk reinforced armor. It has regenerative properties, though I doubt ordinary projectile weapons would leave a dent on you. Still you’ll have to be wary. Armor piercing rounds might do more than just bruise,”

All of us wore the undersuit under our ordinary clothing; we had to get used to it because soon, we’d be living every single day after this like life was a drill until we got used to it. It was the preamble to what would soon come; life in outer space. Cassandra was lukewarm about her world being flipped on its head, Lucas was ecstatic; as for me, well…I was looking forward to it. There was nothing sentimental in my life before the encounter.

“ As for the mission plan…please note that this is tentative pending changes in events around the excavation site,” Irina pointed out as we each looked at our holotabs, the see-through tablets we could carry around.

The SI motioned to the display at the centre of our table. It morphe into an almost perfect replica of the secondary hull wedged in ice and the scattering of tents, snow rovers, mobile cabins, a satellite dish and excavators.

“ At present, activity has stalled but I expect it to pick up after the shipment of equipment arrives. Nonetheless, I gathered these news broadcasts,” they said, referring to the projection of a hillborer. Its giant treads had to be taller than the SUV sitting in the cargo bay. The projections shifted to show other equipment like modified icebreakers, submersibles and gantry crane modules.

“ The ground team is expected to arrive in the next few days but the feasibility study, risk and analysis and associated procedures have already been done. When the equipment arrives, “ the image shifted back to the main-hull,” I project that they’ll get started on excavation in the next two weeks.”

The holographic slide switched again to array logos and flags. “ Among the parties with vested interests are private contractors like Horizon X, Azure Genesis, Gemini Galactica, multinational companies and various national space administrations and agencies.”

The logos and flags were very much distinguishable, more so those synonymous with pioneering the space race. I’d already had a brush with one of them and I wasn’t surprised to see it there.

“ There are also navies around the Arctic Circle, on our side of the Baffin Bay and the Greenland Sea―”

“Great, so we have destroyers and subs right on our doorsteps,” Cassandra said, speaking for the first time. “ And how exactly are we supposed to get it out when the rest need specialized equipment?”

Irina had indeed delineated the number of vessels on the projection alongside their flags. Some were moving covertly but the Velastra’s sensor array and complement of EVA’s which were barely detectable by radar saw them for what they were. Having too many vessels above water was going to skew the tenuous balance even further. One misstep and the Second Cold War could escalate into the Third World War.

“ Like I said, I had a plan,” the SI said the hologram onto a real-time map.

“ That is crazy,” Cassandra squeaked.

“ Like flying through a debris field levels of crazy to infiltrate an enemy vessel levels of crazy?” Lucas.

“ That…was an oddly specific reference―say Irina did you?” I started.

“ Yeah?” Irina’s tactile hologram grinned.