“... Peacemaker, this is Terra Nova Orbital Control. You are cleared for landing at Asgard Spaceport, at the following coordinates. Traffic pattern is clear.” A string of numbers appeared on the display.

“Roger Control, we’ve received your telemetry and are currently inbound. ETA is two-five mikes,” Remi answered. “Any special instructions for us?”

“Peacemaker, be advised there is a delegation standing by,” Control reported. “Once you are down and secure, you are ordered to stand to and receive ground personnel for Customs screening.”

“We’ll take it under advisement,” the captain answered, shaking his head. “Peacemaker, out.” He turned and looked at the others gathered on the bridge. “Customs?” he said in disbelief. “The bureaucrats really have taken over.”

“I’m certain it’s merely routine,” Genvass answered, “though I imagine they’ll have some questions for us.”

“They can call it ‘Customs’ all they like,” Samara snorted, “but they’ll be the most heavily armed border guards you’ve ever seen. They want us down and secured, in case someone suddenly gets ideas.”

The ambassador startled at the allegation, before glancing at his security chief for confirmation. “She’s right,” Rúna agreed solemnly. “There’s no way they’re going to just let us walk.” She shot a look at the captain. “Trust me, you really want to give us back our weapons before we land.”

Captain Hadad was silent for several moments as he chewed on that before signaling his gunner with a curt nod. “Slavko, do as she says,” he ordered. “Get our people armed as well, and if there’s anything left over, pass them on to Taneka.”

“Thank you,” the Valkyrie said tightly, while the gunner moved to comply. The pair had been arguing over that point for days now, and his sudden capitulation, while welcome, felt forced and anticlimactic.

“Captain,” Genvass interjected, “I would prefer to avoid hostilities if possible,” he said. “I understand the need for caution, but provoking them now with tensions as high as they are is a dangerous move.” He went to the Corsair, entreating with him. “We need to urge our people to exercise restraint in order to prevent any unnecessary bloodshed.”

“We won’t make the first move,” Remi agreed, “but I won’t let my people just be taken into custody, either. Not when your Dàifu handed us Peacemaker on a silver fucking platter and then shoved us out the airlock.”

“I agree the situation is murky, but whatever happens here will have far-reaching consequences for our people,” the ambassador reminded him. “We need to be smart about this, and not go off half-cocked.”

“Like I said, I won’t start anything,” the captain growled, “but the rest is up to them.”

“We need to stick together,” Samara stated. “If they split us up, breaking out of custody gets a lot harder.”

“Strength in numbers,” Rúna nodded, before looking askance at the Protean. “Never thought I’d be standing with you, though.”

“What about the Paygan?” Genvass reminded her. “Didn’t he start out as your enemy?”

The Valkyrie glowered. “Not. Helping.”

“If you ladies are quite finished,” Remi snapped, “I suggest you get prepped. We’ll be on the ground soon, and I’d prefer to not get arrested out of sheer incompetence.”

Samara simply laughed, while Genvass reddened in embarrassment. Rúna shot the Corsair a dirty look, before turning and exiting the bridge, with the others falling in behind her.

The compartment adjoining the airlock slowly filled as the disparate groups began forming up. Despite the tension of the last few days, their current circumstances forced them to acknowledge the fact they were now on the same side. What little solidarity there was to be found was grudging but the ancient quote regarding hanging together versus hanging separately was lost on no one.

As Peacemaker settled down on its landing struts and its engine began tapering off, an awkward sense of unease seemed to fill the chamber. They exchanged nervous glances as the power plant finally shut down, with Genvass taking a deep breath as he looked at each of his escorts.

“I am very glad to have you both with me,” he admitted, as the hatch began cycling open.

“We got your back,” Rúna growled, nodding at her team, while Samara appeared faintly bored by it all.

The heavy portal door slowly slid aside, revealing the tarmac of Asgard Spaceport. Various ships and shuttles were docked and landed across the field, the ancient site renamed and recommissioned as the primary facility linking them to the rest of the galaxy. Stepping forward, Genvass gazed down the ramp, blinking in surprise as he spotted a lone figure awaiting their arrival.

“Perhaps we’ve read too much into this,” he sighed, before squaring his shoulders and making his way down to greet him. The individual waited patiently, dressed in a well-tailored suit of recent fashion. He smiled, gracing them with a polite nod.

“Ambassador Shaafvaazif?” he inquired.

“Yes, that’s right,” he agreed. “And you are?”

“I’m Thorben Gotama,” he answered, introducing himself, before twitching an eyebrow at the mob of armed passengers and crew making their way to join them. “On behalf of the Provisional Government, welcome home.”

“Thank you,” the ambassador replied, speaking for the others. “And what exactly is your position within the government?”

“I thought Orbital Control had explained all that?” he said, somewhat puzzled. “But to answer your question, they’ve seconded me to Customs during the reorganization.”

“What reorganization?” Rúna said suspiciously, elbowing her way to the front.

The visitor chuckled. “Now that we have an actual home of our own, we’ve been hard at work trying to weld the clans back together. It hasn’t been easy, and the Provisional Government is merely the first step of what we hope will be something far more comprehensive. Sadly, added layers of bureaucracy were inevitable, I’m afraid,” he apologized. “But I promise you, we’ll get through this with as little fuss as possible.”

“This isn’t what I expected,” Samara remarked, an odd cast to her eye as she scanned their surroundings. “I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Just some forms to be filled out, strictly routine,” Thorben smiled. “If you’ll all follow me, we’ve set up an area where we can get everyone processed in short order. As soon as we’re finished, you’ll be free to go about your business.”

Smiling, he turned on his heel and headed for a large nearby structure, beckoning them to follow. Several in the group stared at one another, nonplussed by this strange turn of events, before shrugging and tagging along behind him, though some were still on edge.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Rúna muttered, her head on a swivel as she scanned the area.

“If they intended us harm, why didn’t they meet us with guns drawn instead of paperwork?” Genvass asked her.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I still don’t like it.” She motioned to her team, who maintained their own high alert as they entered the building.

Stepping inside, Genvass spotted tables laid out inside the cavernous space, with multiple electronic tablets awaiting them. It looked like a warehouse or storage depot, temporarily repurposed for customs duties, and as he saw Thorben take up station near the head of the closest bench, he relaxed, making his way forward. He couldn’t imagine this would take up too much of their time…

“... GET DOWN!”

A silent explosion detonated, his vision going white a split second before something slammed into him, knocking him to the floor. Genvass let out a surprised “Oof” as he hit the deck, hard enough to earn bruises. Dazed, he struggled to regain his feet, but his efforts were clumsy and awkward, his body pinned by some unseen weight. The sound of weapons fire injected a renewed sense of urgency into his endeavors, but whatever was holding him fast felt like iron bands. He fought to clear his sight despite the blazing afterimages refusing to dissipate.

“Cease Fire.”

A few stray shots rang out in reply, but soon they too were silenced. The sound of uneven footsteps approached as the ambassador rubbed at his eyes, fighting to regain his sight. Finally, his vision stabilized, well enough to see Rúna protecting him, using her own body as a shield as she pinned him to the floor. “Stay down,” she whispered in his ear, her weapon tracking the movement of something just outside his field of vision.

“We have you surrounded,” the voice continued. “Lay down your weapons, and no harm will come to you. If you force us to engage, however, I make no such promise.”

His bodyguard risked poking her head up before immediately dropping back down and cursing. “Is it bad?” Genvass nervously asked her.

“Yeah… it’s bad,” she confirmed. Rúna took a moment to whisper a brief prayer before raising her weapon above her head and slowly rising to her feet as she surrendered, signaling the rest of her team to do likewise.

Struggling to stand up as well, Genvass stared in shock as heavily armed warriors… Valkyries, almost certainly… materialized out of the stacks of crates and closed in, their strange-looking weapons drawn and pointed directly at them. An older woman stumped towards them, puffing on a cigarillo, her metallic leg scraping against the floor. His security chief’s face immediately hardened as she recognized her.

“Commandant,” she growled.

“Captain,” Gerel Zakiyya answered, “you played this one smart.” She glanced over to her left.

“... just not smart enough.”

The ambassador’s gaze followed the clan leader’s, his eyes revealing an impossible apparition. They were now surrounded and being taken into custody, but that wasn’t what had his attention. He stared at the image, his mind refusing to accept the truth of it before his jaw dropped in disbelief.

Samara stood frozen, one arm outstretched while the other clutched the Repository. She looked like a statue, carved from blue-green crystal, as the Commandant nodded in confirmation.

“She was always the wild card in this Op,” the clan leader disclosed. “With her link to the Repository, not to mention her other talents, we knew we had to take her down fast. Couldn’t have managed it with our own ordnance, of course, but we then found something to do the job.”

“Precursor weapons,” Genvass said in quiet horror.

“We call it a ‘Stasis gun’,” she confirmed, sidling up to the now petrified Protean and tapping on the statue’s surface with her prosthetic hand. A loud metallic “Clink” echoed in the empty space, drawing a bemused expression as if she were rapping on a windowpane. “Amazing what it can do,” she said in obvious delight.

“You murdered her,” the ambassador spat out. “Didn’t even give her a chance to surrender.”

“You don’t hesitate against an adversary like Samara,” the Commandant retorted. “Anyone who’s made that mistake didn’t live to talk about it. Isn’t that right, Captain?” she said pointedly to Rúna, who looked away in disgust. “Besides, she’s not dead,” the Valkyrie continued, “merely frozen in time.”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded, looking once more at her ossified features.

“We’re not sure how it works,” Zakiyya shrugged, “not that that’s a surprise, considering. We’ll be trying to make sense of their technology for the next thousand years. But the way it was explained to me by folks a hell of a lot smarter than I am, the gun fires a beam that creates an energy field around the target that reaches down to the quantum level.” A grin appeared on her face. “Care to guess what it does?”

“I don’t care,” Genvass sneered, though it failed to have an impact.

“Oh, you should,” she responded, “it’s fascinating stuff. Somehow, it drops the angular momentum, spin, Brownian movement, everything, down to absolute zero. Every electron, every quark, and every photon, frozen in place. Even time itself is affected, though don’t ask me how.”

“That’s nothing new,” Rúna retorted. “The Troika have been using stasis pods for their critically wounded for centuries. All their ships carry them.”

“Compared to this? Their pods are little more than a glorified refrigerator,” she chuckled. “This technology is light-years beyond anything the Troika has.”

“So, you can bring her back then,” Genvass said with a flicker of hope.

“Can? Yes. Will?” Zakiyya shook her head. “The woman is too dangerous to be allowed her freedom, and being honest, I doubt any prison we could come with would hold her. This way,” she said, patting the statue once more, “we can just stick her in a closet. Simpler all around.”

An icy sensation settled into his stomach. “How long have you and the Dàifu been working together?” he asked quietly.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” she chuckled, “not that it matters. At least, not for you.” She gave him a condescending look. “You did well, ‘Ambassador’,” she said in a voice filled with sarcasm, “played your part in all of this to perfection. You have the thanks of a grateful world.” Her expression darkened into something far more sinister.

“But now your services are no longer required.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Rúna swore, her features twisted with pure hatred. “Still playing with other people’s lives, like they were toys for your own amusement.” She turned her head and spat on the floor.

“You know what your problem is, Captain?” the Commandant sneered. “You could never see the bigger picture. Always too focused on the individual, while ignoring the whole.” She stepped forward, glaring at the younger woman with contempt. “Never able to make the hard choices. It’s held you back your entire career. You want to save everyone.” She snorted in disgust. “News flash… you can’t. A true commander understands you have to sacrifice a portion to preserve the rest. One dies, ten live. The math is brutally simple.” She closed the distance between them until they were mere centimeters apart. “But you could never accept that, now could you?”

There was a frigid calm to her words as she glared back at her clan leader. “If my choices are between trying to save everyone and be thought a fool, versus spending their lives like water and becoming a monster, I know exactly where I stand,” she said with conviction. “That you’ve chosen otherwise tells me one thing; that you aren’t fit to lead this clan.” Her eyes locked onto Zakiyya’s. “Enjoy the moment while it lasts, because your days are numbered.”

The Commandant merely smiled.

“Take them away,” she ordered.