“This is crazy.”

Once more, the crew was seated at the mess table, with conversation centered yet again on their Eleexx associate. “I mean, what the hell was that?” Isi continued.

“It could be anything,” Mairead answered, “and I mean anything.”

“As if things weren’t terrifying enough,” Xuilan shuddered.

“So what are we supposed to do now, Cap’n?” Slavko demanded. “I saw you were ready to punch his ticket. What stopped you?”

They all looked at their commander. “Because if I’m going to take him out, I need to be sure,” he replied. “We’re here at the Admiral’s orders, remember? And despite everything, Axchxairx isn’t wrong. The Yīqún are still out there, and they’re still a threat. If there’s even a chance what he’s doing can defeat them, then we need to give him the opportunity to prove that.” There were reluctant nods around the table before Remi continued. “Besides… there’s something to be said for giving him enough rope to hang himself.”

“It’s a setup, then?” Xuilan said in surprise.

“It’s an opportunity,” he clarified. “If he’s playing straight with us, if he really can come up with something to fight the Yīqún, then we support him. If he’s working on another agenda… like, say, for the Troika… then karma’s a bitch.” A wintry smile graced his features as Slavko cleared his throat.

“There’s something else I’ve noticed,” he ventured. “When we first started this, he was talking about using whatever that thing is as a weapon against the Yīqún, like smashing them to paste or ripping them apart using gravity. But that’s not what he’s doing,” the gunner clarified. “All his experiments? There’s a means to an end, nothing more. He’s not interested in making a weapon… he’s just opening up a portal to grab whatever’s on the other side.”

“Spotted that too,” Mairead chimed in. “I get the feeling he hoped us Terrans were too dumb to notice the bait and switch.”

“Does he even know what’s on the other side?” Isi asked nervously. “Or is he just rolling the dice and crossing his fingers?”

“I don’t know,” Remi said carefully, “and being honest, I’m not sure he does either. But given the circumstances, I think we’d better assume he knows something we don’t.”

“Pretty sure that goes without saying,” Slavko sniped. “Fucking Troika always keeps a few cards up their sleeves.”

“Then we operate on the belief he has a target in mind,” Remi agreed, “something he’s specifically searching for. And if that’s true, then he must have some means to control it, whatever it is. Have we found anything like that?” he asked the crew.

“Same issue as before, Cap’n,” Mairead sighed. “We still don’t know what half this stuff does.”

“So we’re just gonna stand by and let him do it?” Isi said, dumbfounded. “Just let him bring through whatever he’s fishing for? That fucking alien is crazy, Cap’n, and we all know it. Whatever’s on the other side might be too big for him to handle, and he’ll never admit it until it’s too late.”

“What do you want, a guarantee?” Remi snarled. “We’re way out on the ledge here, in case you hadn’t noticed. The fucking Yīqún are going to destroy everything unless we stop them, and right now this… whatever this is… is our best hope of doing that. Which should tell you just how fucking desperate we are. Again.” He glared at them all before finally relenting. “Or maybe I should say ‘still’, what with us being Terrans and all. We’re playing a rigged game with marked cards, and everyone at the table is armed to the teeth and has a hair-trigger temper. We can’t cash in our chips, we can’t walk away, and our hole card is a deuce. And what’s worse, everyone knows it’s a deuce. So you tell me; just what exactly are our options here?”

Silence greeted his outburst. “Exactly. Nothing. So we play these cards out to the bitter end, and if we lose?” He shrugged angrily. “Then it sucks to be us.”

“At least tell me you’ll kill that son of a bitch if it all goes south,” Slavko growled.

“With my last breath,” Remi vowed.

It took Axchxairx over a week to set up for his next experiment while he and Mairead repaired the damaged systems from the previous attempt. Upgrades came next, boosting power across the board by an order of magnitude, not a simple enhancement by any stretch of the imagination. Once installed, they conducted a series of tests to ensure the system wouldn’t explode in their faces, while Remi watched on with a dark sense of foreboding.

But far sooner than he liked, the Eleexx scientist announced he was ready to try again. They held another conference aboard Gyrfalcon as the crew prepared for the worst, before finally putting on their game faces and awaiting the next test. As a precaution, the doctor had them don their suits and set their visors for automatic polarization, in case the worst happened. Remi double-checked his weapon, transferring it to one of his pressure suit’s outer pockets should it prove necessary.

Though given the amount of energy being pumped through the facility, whether the suits could protect them was a question even Axchxairx could not answer.

As the clock slowly ticked down to zero, the scientist was once again hovering over his console, making final adjustments. “Power is steady at 93% of rated maximum,” he murmured, “safety interlocks in place and primed. Target coordinates designated and locked in.” Taking a deep breath, he turned and looked at the captain. “We are ready to proceed.”

The captain gave him a nod, not trusting his voice. Everything about this felt wrong, like a sudden drop in pressure right before a blowout. For two centuries Terrans had been forced to endure one hardship after another in the name of survival, but this time the price just seemed too damn high. If by some miracle something good actually came out of this, so much the better, but everything he’d ever experienced in his life screamed he was being set up. He didn’t know what sort of game Axchxairx was playing or what his goals were, but as the power levels rose once more, he reached down and patted his hip pocket, just to be sure.

“Power levels at forty percent,” the alien announced, as the hum and vibration returned with a vengeance. The crew shot each other nervous looks, glancing back at their captain for reassurance as he once again took position behind the scientist. Things were likely to move fast if it all came apart, and the possibility of disaster before he could react was all too likely to ignore. He’d try to get his shots off and get his crew out safe, but if the facility’s plant went critical, or whatever was waiting behind the curtain took a personal interest, there wouldn’t be time. They’d simply be dead. Or worse.

Probably worse.

“Power levels at sixty percent,” Axchxairx informed them, the hum growing to a high-pitched shriek, like the sound of tearing metal, setting the crew’s teeth on edge. The vibrations intensified as well, as amplitude and frequency rocketed upward at a fever’s pitch, blurring the facility’s sharp edges as the deck plating send chills up their spines. The doctor himself seemed unaffected, or perhaps he’d known what to expect and was better prepared. What this experiment was doing to the terminal’s equipment and foundation didn’t bear thinking about, and it was far more advanced than Gyrfalcon. When this test was complete, would there be anything left of his ship?

“Power levels at eighty percent,” he declared, his voice steady beside the howling madness swirling all about them. One console broke free of its moorings and skittered across the deck before toppling over, sparks sputtering from where it tied into the power conduits. A massive girder groaned overhead, twisting out of shape when the brackets holding it in place deformed, while a string of lights exploded in succession overhead, one after another as Xuilan screamed in terror.

“Power levels at one hundred percent!” the Eleexx shouted, making himself heard over the cacophony of noise that raged within the space. Remi and the others struggled to maintain their footing as the oscillating tremors grew seismic in proportion, the entire structure now roaring in protest at the demands placed upon it by the crazed scientist. His vision blurred as the sonic assault continued, the infrasound hammering his visual cortex while using his digestive tract as a punching bag, his previous meal threatening to make a reappearance. Slavko was thrown to the deck as Isi hurried to assist… just as Axchxairx threw the switch, sending a beam of disruptive energy ripping and tearing into the spacetime continuum, threatening to unmake reality itself.

The target detonated like a supernova, sending out a concussive shockwave in all dimensions that shredded and contorted the nebula’s filaments. The station’s power generating system died violently as breakers snapped into place too late, the facility’s foundation shifting hard on the asteroid that housed it, savagely knocking them off their feet as the surge plunged the structure into darkness.

With the beam’s energy cut off at the source, the noise and vibrations quickly evaporated. Remi panted hard as he pushed himself up from the deck, switching on his helmet light as he scanned for survivors. “This is Remi, can anyone hear me? Report!”

“... I’m here,” Isi responded, his own light coming on as he waved from across the room.

“Fuck,” Slavko swore, staggering to his feet as his own helmet lit up. “What the hell was that?”

A groan came over the radio, followed by a string of indecipherable utterances before Mairead finally answered. “... I told that idiot…” she snarled, before belatedly marking her own position as well.

“... Ow,” Xuilan moaned, her lamp flickering to life as she struggled to sit up. “My head is killing me.”

Remi sighed in relief as the crew reported in. None of them appeared to be badly injured, though a more thorough examination would have to wait. Belatedly, he realized there was still an individual who had not responded to his hail. Stumbling to the console, he found Axchxairx still on the deck, only now beginning to stir. “Are you all right?” he asked the insectoid.

“I… believe so,” he stammered, slowly rising to his feet with the captain’s assistance. His own suit’s lights snapped on as he looked about, investigating the damage, before finally turning to face Remi. “Did it work?” he asked hopefully.

“Did it…?” he repeated, before shaking his head, incredulous at his priorities. “I think we’ve got more pressing issues than your experiment, doctor,” he snapped in frustration, before looking around for his engineer. “Mairead, can we restore power?” he asked her.

“... give me a minute,” she mumbled, carefully making her way to a console as she attempted a diagnostic, finally relenting after a few half-hearted attempts. “Power’s cut off at the source, Cap’n,” she reported. “I need to check the generators, but after that? Don’t expect much,” she warned. “Probably get you backup power, at least.”

“Isi, go with her,” he ordered, before addressing his next consideration. “Xuilan, Slavko, check the ship. Make sure we still have one,” he grumbled, trying not to let the pessimism take hold.

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” the gunner responded, the pair supporting one another as they staggered off towards the landing bay. “You gonna be okay here?”

“I’m fine,” he assured them, eyeing the scientist. “Let me know if Gyr can still fly.” If it couldn’t, they had even bigger problems.

“Captain, I must know if the experiment was a success!” Axchxairx protested, his exuberance returning in full measure. “The fate of the Perseus Arm may well depend on it!”

“One thing at a time,” he said wearily. “If Mairead can restore power, then we’ll try to see what our status is. Until then, all we can do is wait.”

A string of buzzes and clicks erupted from the radio… the doctor’s rendition of cursing, he was willing to bet. The fact the voder didn’t translate made it that much easier to ignore.

Several minutes passed before he received his first update. “Cap’n, it’s Xuilan,” the pilot reported in. “Gyr appears to be mostly intact, though Mairead will have to run ship-wide diagnostics to be sure. I’m showing a few warning lights and error codes, but nothing too serious from where I’m sitting.”

“Thank Mother Terra,” he said fervently, before transmitting his reply. “Do what you can,” he told her. “Once she’s secure, you guys get back here. We’ve got some planning to do.”

“Copy that,” she answered. “We’ll be there soonest.”

Remi clicked off, only to have Mairead hail him moments later. “You don’t even want to know about the power plant,” she growled, “but I’ve got the backups mostly straightened out. It’ll get the basics up and running, at least, but Axchxairx can kiss off any more experiments. This place is slagged, but good.”

The scientist listening began pounding the console in frustration, much to Remi’s amusement. “Xuilan says Gyrfalcon came through it all right, though she likely needs some TLC,” he informed her. “Once you get the lights on, you and Isi get back here. Time to see what the hell we just did.”

“Be there in five,” the Tinker reported, before clicking off.

It was actually closer to ten minutes before the entire crew finally reappeared. Emergency lighting came back online as Mairead worked to restore life support, while Axchxairx frothed in disgruntled exasperation. Finally, with the bare essentials dealt with, she turned her attention to the main viewer. “Looks like we have a few exterior cameras still functional,” she noted, checking their feeds, “but most of them won’t be much help. They’re pointed in the wrong direction. There is one, though…” she muttered, her fingers tapping away at the controls, before nodding in satisfaction. “Throwing it up on the main viewer now.”

The group looked up at the monitor as it dissolved into electronic hash. “Think you can clear it up?” Remi asked her.

“Yeah, give me a minute,” she grumbled, pulling up a dropdown menu as she began fiddling with the graphics. Her first few attempts did little to improve the image, but finally, she located what she’d been searching for. “Okay, this ought to do it,” she said, at last, making one last change before glancing up at the main screen to view her handiwork.

Her jaw dropped, stunned by the display. The others almost immediately followed suit.

“That can’t be right,” Xuilan said hoarsely, staring at the image of the ancient Terran battleship. “What the hell is Freya doing here?”

Remi stepped forward, staring in shock. “That’s not Freya,” he whispered.

“... it’s Tyr.”