New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Of all places on Gohhi, the server hubs were perhaps the most valuable.  It was said that they were better guarded than even the air recirculator systems that kept the station alive.  The data in the servers contained financial and economic data that spanned every major station in the territory, which in the eyes of those who owned it, was worth far more than human life.

Which meant that it made no sense to see the gap in the defenses.

“I can’t understand it,” he muttered.  “It smells like a trap . . .”

“I can go in and simply destroy what needs destroying,” Kell said calmly.

“No, we don’t know what server it’s on.  There are millions of micro-servers in there . . .”

“Then I will destroy them all,” Kell retorted with a shrug.  He started forward.

“No!  That will be a disaster on an incredible scale for Gohhi!  We have to do this surgically.”

Kell scowled.  “You have many restrictions on your actions.”

“Yes.  It’s part of being in a civilization.”

Kell sighed.  “One reason my people did not live in one.”

As interesting as that comment was, Urle was more concerned with the server.  He could see no reason why they might be setting a trap, as there was no evidence that Madspark’s body had even been discovered yet.  When it was, it would certainly raise some flags.

While patrols of guards and drones went around the outside of the building, there was a definite gap, though.

When that gap came – only twenty seconds – he moved, gesturing Kell to move with him.  In five seconds they were at the door, and in three more he’d connected.  Another seven seconds had the door open, and with two seconds left to spare the door closed behind them.

“Easy,” he muttered.  But these were only the first steps.  The internal security was the real problem.

“I could have just forced the door,” Kell said.

Urle was busy looking down the hall.  There was not much to this building except for a main hallway, with branching corridors leading to server rooms or cooling rooms, and various other equipment.  There was no staff even inside the building at most times, and so no break or guard rooms.

The armed drones, those could be an issue.

But as he connected to the building’s internal systems, he found that they too were behaving oddly.  There was an instability in their algorithms that had left large gaps in their search patterns, enough that they could easily get into the server rooms without being seen.  What was more was that in four hours the glitch would cycle itself out and they’d be back to normal.

Someone else had been in here.  Both physically and digitally.

Which made sense, if someone wanted to hack the servers it was far easier if you could get in – doing it remotely would typically leave far too many traces in the networks, and all the defenses were built against that sort of attack precisely because the drones and guard patrols were typically enough for the outside.

“Follow me,” he said.  “We have to move quickly.”

The scuffed search pattern didn’t even cover the door, but the logs had already been falsified to make it seem as if they had been.  Whoever had done this was on another level entirely – he truly could not have done better.

The fact that this break-in had occurred so recently seemed impossible to be a coincidence.  He had to see the data to try and get an idea of what they had been up to – but if they were this good he might not find any clues at all.

Making their way down the halls, avoiding the drones, they entered a server room he thought most likely to have at least some of the camera data from around the shop.

Racks of servers lined the walls, cooling tubes going between them, with barely enough space between the racks for a person to walk.  Each server was about the size of two human hands and about as thick, stacked on the cooling racks only a centimeter apart, going up almost three meters into the air.  Tens of thousands of the machines in this room alone, able to carry and sort tremendous amounts of data.

Aside from indicator lights on the servers to show their status, there was almost no light.  But that was fine.  With a few sonar pulses he’d mapped the room, confirmed that there were no security drones present, and then connected.

Checking locality data, he found that he’d guessed right.  Looking to the data around the aug shop, though . . .

He found no evidence of himself and Kell at all.

“Someone’s already been here,” he said.  “They’ve . . . helped us.”

“Hm,” Kell commented, seeming unimpressed.

“Doesn’t that disturb you?”

“Not particularly,” the Shoggoth replied.  “It sounds convenient.”

Urle grumbled but said no more.  Instead, he began probing deeper into the servers in the room, trying to find an abnormality in the data, a track – something that might give him a clue about the person who had been in here before them . . .

They were not sloppy, he realized.

And then he triggered the flag.

He hadn’t even detected it in the files; it was keyed to his hardware ID, which was insane; it meant that they knew that he himself would come here.

He almost reflexively disconnected, but the program that executed was only a single line of text.

Cautiously, he took it in.

RACK 37  |  SHELF 5  |  SERVER 12  |  MANUAL CONNECT

Then it deleted itself.

“What has alarmed you?” Kell asked.

“. . . the person who was in here left a message for me, specifically.  They knew I’d come here.”

“They know much,” Kell replied, a note of curiosity in his voice.

“An insane amount,” Urle said.  “They know my personal identifier code, knew I’d come here, and their work deleting the data was better than what I could have done.”

He toggled his vision of the real-world back on and looked around.  Everything could be booby-trapped and he’d not even see it.  Hell, he could already have gotten a virus and not know it . . .

Would he take the risk of manually connecting to the server they’d told him . . . ?

Taking a deep breath, he disconnected and walked over, counting the racks until he’d found 37.

Kneeling down, he found the twelfth server on the fifth shelf.  It appeared entirely normal from the outside, aside from some very slight wear on the edges of its external port.  Someone had been manually jacking into this one lately . . .

He connected, putting up all the security he could manage, and found that the actual contents of the server was nothing like what the main directory indicated.  It should have been serving to route data from one of the bulk import sections, but instead . . .

---

< Ep 7 Part 30 | Ep 7 Part 32 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“. . .and that was when the man realized he had taken off his spacesuit,” the young Priest said, a smile tugging at his lips.

Apollonia burst into laughter, stopping a moment to wipe away a tear.  “Dark, what some people do on drugs!”

“He said he did not drink or do drugs, he was simply . . . confused,” the Priest replied, more seriously.

Apollonia was not sure if he was saying it to be funny or if he genuinely believed that the man had been telling the truth.

After he had led her from the mission, they had begun to talk more – she had told him of life on New Vitriol, the funny stories of oddballs and weirdos of her wild colony home, and then he had regaled her with equally crazy tales of the red light district.  Quite a few of them ended up with someone being out of their spacesuit, though they were always rather . . . creative in getting there.

The shady crowds had not bothered her nearly as much when he was there.  If anything, everyone seemed to give quite a respectful distance to the young Priest of the Infinite, and it had made her feel better.

They’d been walking some time, taking a twisting route that did seem to be leading them to the spaceport.  Apollonia had seen a few signs pointing the way.

And she’d found that much of her apprehension had drained away.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” she had to ask.  “He was definitely drunk and on drugs.”

He considered.  “I know men lie.  Some lies we cling to as if a life preserver on the turgid ocean – things we need to continue living.  Many men go mad in the Dark, and my faith exists to be a safe port for them.  Thus I will not call him a liar when I did not see him drink, or a junkie when I did not see him with a needle.  One day, when he is ready to face the lies in his heart, if he is ever strong enough, then it will be for the best if he recognizes them himself.”

“But,” Apollonia teased.  “You still tell the story for a laugh!”

The young priest smiled.  “Well, I’m still a flawed man myself.  And it’s not often I have such pleasant company.”

Apollonia looked away, feeling awkward suddenly.

“We are, for your good and my ill, however, at the Spaceport,” he continued.

Raising an arm, he pointed towards a sign, which was lit up with the words ‘SUS CRATON‘ in bold letters.

“Oh,” Apollonia said.  “I guess we are.”

He seemed to be waiting for something, and started to open his mouth to speak, but Apollonia quickly spoke first.

“Have you ever considered taking your . . . mission of the Infinite out of here?” she asked.  “I mean, there are other places where people aren’t always getting drunk or high or trying to stab each other.  I know these people need the help, but in other places they might be willing to listen, too.”

He looked thoughtful before he answered.  “I have considered it.  One day, perhaps I will – if the Infinite wills it, I will be given a sign, I am sure.”

Apollonia nodded.  “Oh, right.  I guess the Infinite has infinite wisdom, too,” she said, then immediately felt bad – she had not meant it mockingly, but it might have come off that way.

He did not seem like he took it badly, though.  “With that, I bid you farewell,” he said, offering her a formal bow.  “Go with the Infinite, Apollonia Nor.”

She couldn’t think of what to say or do except return his bow awkwardly.  “And um, may the wind always be in your sails.  And red sky in morning, sailors take warning.”

The young priest smiled warmly, if faintly, then turned, his hands folding in front of him, walking back the way he had come.

Apollonia watched him a moment, then called out.

“Will I ever see you again?” she yelled.

He turned, the same smile on his lips.  “I will always be at the safe port,” he told her.  A large group of people passed between them, and when they were past, the Priest was gone.

She hadn’t even asked his name, she realized.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she jumped.

“Apollonia!”  It was Jaya.  “Oh thank the stars.  I thought you were lost!”

Turning, Apollonia saw that Jaya had a couple bruises, but looked otherwise no worse for the wear.

“Jaya!  I’m glad you’re okay . . .”

The woman smiled.  “On the contrary, I think it was probably good for me.”  Her face turned serious.  “Though you should not tell anyone I said that.”

Apollonia felt almost light, her mood was so good.  “I should have known you’d kick their asses.”

“We are lucky they decided to throw the first punch,” Jaya said, trying to hide her smile.  “Though I was mortified that you nearly got hurt.”

“Why did it matter who punched first?”

“On Gohhi, fault resides with whoever launches the first attack,” Jaya said.  “So no one wants to be the first to throw a punch.”

She gestured towards the dock to the Craton, where Apollonia now saw the Response officers from the bar, talking to a few other fresh Response officers from the ship.  A group of Gohhi’s private security guards were walking away, their uniforms ranging from frumpy to ostentatious depending on the company they worked for.  One annoyed-looking official was with them, though he did not look so upset it was worrying.

“No one is hurt?” Apollonia asked.

“Fortunately not seriously – on either side.  Though once that one drunk’s jaw sets I hope he will be more circumspect with how he addresses people who disagree with him.”

Jaya headed towards the security station, where Apollonia expected some grilling.  But the officers only gave her a scan check and asked if she had any injuries.

“I’ve got a hangover,” she admitted.  A dull ache had been forming at the back of her head for awhile, though it hadn’t yet broken her happy mood.

“That’s all?” the officer asked.

“Yeah.  I drank a lot, I guess.”

The officer opened his mouth, but then paused, his eyes going to the side as he got a message.  “Dr. Y suggests you come down to his office – he would be glad to help you.”

“That sounds good,” Apollonia murmured, heading inside where Jaya was waiting.

“I’m heading to Y’s as well,” Jaya said with a sigh.  “He is the doctor on duty and I don’t wish these bruises to fester.  I suppose he wishes to chew me out as well.”

“Wait, you?” Apolloni asked.

“Oh, yes.  I outrank him, but he . . . well, you know how Y is.  I have seen him dress-down admirals for mistakes while never breaking decorum.  It is simply his way with words.”

Apollonia laughed again.  “Yeah . . . I know just what you mean.”

Neither of them really wanted to hurry – Jaya to avoid Y, and Apollonia because she was suddenly remembering something.

“We didn’t even talk about my letter,” she said, her happiness disappearing in a heartbeat.  Replaced by misery.

“Have you been considering it this evening?” Jaya asked.

“I hadn’t really thought about it since you invited me . . .  I’ve been doing research on Squat’s on Sand’s people like you suggested . . .  Abmon are so different from us.  I don’t even know where to begin with what to say.  I mean, he doesn’t have a mother and father, just . . . some pod who laid him as an egg and never knew him.  He left before his siblings grew up, so even they didn’t know him.  Who do I even address the letter to?”

“His people,” Jaya said.  “Just because his blood relatives did not know him does not mean they do not wish to know.  And he had peers, friends, of his own age who would know him.  They are different, yes, but there are similarities between all beings.  The trick is just finding out what they are.”

“What do we have in common?” Apollonia asked, her mouth twisting.

“You knew him,” Jaya said.  “Perhaps you can tell me?”

Apollonia blinked, surprised.

“As for what I know,” Jaya continued.  “He was a very stubborn being, who wanted to help no matter the cost – though you know that.

“I also know that Golgutt is a much warmer world than Earth, so he was always cold.  But aside from warming his room, he accepted it and never complained.  In fact, he sought out a transfer to a human ship because he wanted to get to know other species.  He came knowing he’d be miserable, because it was worth it to him.”

“I never knew he was cold,” Apollonia said.  She found herself thinking back on the time she’d known him.  It had been brief, but something about the being had made her feel a level of comfort – like she had known him for far longer.  He had almost immediately become like a fixture to her, as much as Y or Jaya or, in his own way, Brooks.

Jaya stopped, and Apollonia snapped out of her thoughts as the woman looked at her.

“So my thought is – tell him as you know him.  His family who were robbed of their chance to know him will be pleased to learn a little more.  And his friends, they will know precisely what you mean, and their memories of him will be a little sweeter for knowing that he was himself, to the very end.”

---

< Ep 7 Part 29 | Ep 7 Part 31 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Working in a computer time span, it felt like it took him hours to find the data, though in real time it was less than ten minutes.

Madspark’s data was far more secure than he would have expected, with layers of defenses that seemed far above what an individual might need.  Even if that individual was a murderer . . .

Much of the data had intentionally started being corrupted and overriden with nonsense as soon as his life-signs had ceased, and Urle could tell that this man was part of something bigger.

The fact that Madspark probably didn’t even know some of these safeguards existed – they were hidden from his own system – told Urle that he was far from the top layer in this chopping racket.  He was a peon, to be sacrificed.

This went much deeper.

With the losses of data, he couldn’t get any hard evidence, but he could tell that there had been other murders.  Madspark himself seemed to have been involved in several dozen, and he saw hints that others were involved in even more such crimes . . .  Possibly hundreds or even thousands.

The augmented community weren’t fools, they were dedicated enough to their lifestyle to risk life-threatening surgeries often, throwing away what evolution had crafted over billions of years for something better – but far less proven.  There was always immense risk, and data was shared on a staggering scale to mitigate that.

Scanning public records, though, he saw no evidence of strange disappearances, murders, or anything else similar.  People often disappeared – but through movement or accidental deaths or any one of a thousand other reasons that did not draw suspicion.  Over a billion augs lived in Gohhi, across thousands of stations, so fudging even a few thousand deaths would be doable – with enough resources.

That meant that it was being covered up by powerful people.  Someone with a lot of money was acting the hyper-predator against the hardest of victims.

Extracting what data he could for later digestion from Madspark, he blanked the rest and then went into the shop’s system and erased all evidence of his and Kell’s presence, along with activating the cleaning drones to scrub their physical traces.  After that, the drones would wander off and find creative ways to get themselves destroyed, taking with them the last evidence that he and Kell had ever been here.

It was a crime, what he was doing.  Kell defending him had not been, but . . .

He found himself in a moral quandary.  What he was doing was unethical, but this was Gohhi Station.  Despite the claims, all who had experienced the place knew that law and justice existed as commodities, not concepts upon which society was built.

It hurt him to behave this way.  But whoever was behind these attacks had enough power to also have made themselves invisible.  They’d bury this just as easily.  He’d never even get a chance for justice if they found him, nor would the murdered man.

He executed the cleaning program, then stepped out into the main shop area.  Kell was standing completely erect and still at the counter, which was actually kind of reasonable, given the locking mechanical legs many augs possessed.

“Let’s go.  Did anyone come in?”

“Yes,” Kell said, already heading towards the door.

Urle stopped.  “What did you say?”

Kell stopped as well, looking back at him.  “I informed him that the shop was closed.”

“And he believed a stranger?” Urle asked nervously.

“I appeared to him as the proprietor.”

Urle had to digest that.  “What?”

Kell smiled, mockingly.  “I can look how I wish.  I am quite capable of fooling your kind.  Even augmented ones.”

Urle hesitated, but remembered that it had been Kell who had made first contact with humanity, by simply mimicking an aide to the First Minister on Earth and walking up to him.

“All right, then . . . let’s get going.”

They left out the back, Urle scrambling the nearby sensors – all 437 of them that might capture some evidence of their presence – and then they were essentially free.  Except for the footage that already existed in a server hub that would show them walking into the shop . . .

“Look, Kell, you should head back to the ship.  I need to do a little more work and look into what just happened here.  You don’t need to be involved in any of it-“

“I will continue with you,” Kell said.  It was a statement, not a request, and Urle hesitated.

“It will be dangerous, Ambassador.”

“Yes.  You nearly died, and would have if I had not been there.”

It was hard to argue with that.  “All right, but you have to follow my lead – and we can’t do what you did back there, ripping a man’s head open!”

“He was already dead,” Kell noted.  “He could no longer care.”

“I care, damn it.  You have to promise.”

Kell took a deep breath, which Urle’s system noted did not actually use any of the available oxygen – he literally did it to show his exasperation alone.  “Very well,” he said.  “I will refrain from opening human skulls.”

Urle sighed as well, and logged into the station’s legal channels.  “I’m going to get myself a private detective license to facilitate this-“

Kell perked up.  “What is that?”

“Er, well some places allow private individuals to get special permission to perform investigations for legal purposes . . .”

“I have heard of these people,” Kell said.  “I would like this license.”

“Wait, seriously?”

Kell nodded, very seriously.

“They’re expensive, I can cover it, but . . .”

“I do not use the Ex I am told is at my disposal,” Kell said.  “I will compensate you later.”

Urle felt his head starting to hurt.  “Fine.  There.  Now you have a license.”

Kell seemed pleased, taking out a tablet that Urle did not even know he carried, and examined his new license.

Urle could not help but to ask; “How do you even know what a private detective is?”

Kell considered a moment before answering.

“Your kind are not always oblivious to the existence of Shoggoths.  Some have found evidence and attempted to learn more – and met what they sought.  Some of those people were detectives.  I have been told of them.”

“And what happened to those detectives?”

Kell looked up at Urle, his face, as always, neutral, with only a hint of tension that suggested the seriousness of his next words.

“Few who seek out forbidden knowledge meet pleasant ends,” he said.

A feeling of dread crawled up Urle’s spine, but he then thought of the store owner, who had died, ultimately, because he’d tried to pry into Urle’s own secrets.

“I think I understand,” Urle said.

---

< Ep 7 Part 28 | Ep 7 Part 30 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Urle woke up screaming.

“Calm down!” he heard someone saying.  “Fuckin calm down ya!”

Restraints held him, but his body was pulling so hard against them that he’d nearly ripped them from the bed.

He . . . wasn’t dead.  At least he didn’t think so.  He checked his sensors and saw that there were no alarms for his intracranial pressure.

“Wh-what happened?” he asked.

“You wake unexpected,” Madspark said, sounding sullen and angry.  “Ops done, no bad.  You patched up to walk and the chems be out you shortly.  I want you gone fast whence you can walk.”

Urle felt it was odd for the man to be angry with him – if he woke up, that meant Madspark had done something wrong.

He did not reply, though the man was watching him carefully.  His internal alarms were still going off, and the sudden awakening of his organic mind was making it hard to comprehend what they were saying.

FOREIGN DATA DETECTED

FOREIGN DATA RUN EXECUTED – SECURITY COMPROMISED

EXTERNAL DATA BREACH ATTEMPTED

EXTERNAL DATA ACCESS INHIBITED

INTERNAL DATA STORAGE SECURE

HOSTILE ACTIVITY DETECTED

ACTIVATING PROGRAM ‘WETMEATWAKEUP’

TIME TO GO BACK TO WORK CHAMP

What?

He tried to fathom the meaning.  He’d found ghost data . . . of death.  His own death.  Or someone else’s?  Could it have been-

“What you experience?” Madspark said, seeming concerned suddenly, leaning in with some kind of device.

It sent alarm thrills through him, and he reached up, shoving the man’s hand back.  What he’d just seen and felt was a blur to him, and despite having just lived it, he could hardly remember it.  The ghost data was being purged, a good security measure at most times, but he actually didn’t want that now.

“I saw . . . someone’s memory,” he said.  “They were dying.”

“Who do the killin?” Madspark asked.

Urle paused.

“I didn’t say they were murdered.”

The man grimaced, then lunged.

Urle raised both arms, grabbing for Madspark’s hand, stopping him just before-

He had the same shock spike.  Urle recognized it, his scanners identifying it as the exact weapon that had killed the man in the memory.

The ghost memories flashed, and he almost lost control of the man’s arm.

He was stronger than Madspark, his parts better, but his system was not running at full capacity, and he couldn’t control himself as well as he normally might.  The man had considerable weight on him as well, using it to press him back onto the bed, and the knife ever closer to his face.

The point was approaching his eye, and Urle felt panic well up inside him, just like in the memory, his mouth opened but he could only make a strangled gargle, fighting as hard as he was-

And then Madspark flew back.  Surprise widened his eyes as he was thrown, crashing into a table and flipping over onto the floor.

Kell stared at Urle, his face as stoic as always.

“Are you all right?” he asked calmly.

“N-no,” Urle panted.  “The store owner, he- he’s trying to kill-“

The man was back up and lunged at Kell now, who turned to meet him.

Just in time for Madspark to drive the shock spike into his skull.

Madspark did not laugh or seem pleased with his work, but his eyes went to Urle, already moving onto his next task with computer efficiency, and Urle knew that he was not up to fighting the man again.  He was even more fatigued, and despite what the man had said he knew that the chems were not clearing up.  If anything the man had drugged him more.

Then Kell reached up, serenely, grasping the spike by the handle, and pulling it out of his head.

Madspark’s eyes jerked back to him, and alarm flashed over his face.

Moving even faster than the aug, Kell’s hands flew up, grasping onto each side of Madspark’s head.

“Agh!” the man bit out, grabbing Kell’s hands, trying to pull them free, his arm servos straining until smoke began to pour from them.

But Kell seemed to not even notice.  He gave a sharp, upward jerk, and the man’s head visibly jumped up, his spine breaking and his neck stretching horribly.

Kell frowned, looking slightly troubled.  Then he jerked again and the man’s entire head ripped off his neck.

Blood and oil splattered across the wall, and Urle stared in shock as Madspark’s body fell to the floor, twitching.

Kell still held the head calmly, watching the body.  He deliberately placed his foot onto the chest of the man, and pressed it down.  Metal, flesh, and bone yielded like butter, his entire chest caving in.

Kell dropped the head and turned back to Urle.

“Are you all right?” he repeated.

---

< Ep 7 Part 26 | Ep 7 Part 28 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Urle was only vaguely aware of anything.  As augmented as he was, even the most powerful sedatives that shut down the living body had no effect on his hardware.

These moments were rare, and in a way he found them wonderful.

The outside world and his concerns were beyond him until a certain time.  He could simply be, by himself.

It spoke volumes about how much he had been augmented that there was enough mental power to be aware while he was technically not awake.  His flesh-and-blood brain was almost fully unconscious, and he became a being of pure algorithm and code, aware, even feeling, yet no longer biological.  It was not fully human, not even fully him, but he often wondered if this was better.

Sometimes he longed to break that last tether, to cut away the last of his flesh and become purely electronic; more than nature could ever devise, with none of the weaknesses of the biological.  Alive for as long as there was a server somewhere that retained a copy of his consciousness.

Immortal and that much closer to being his greatest self.

The technology still was not quite there, the wetware that composed the human mind was just not built to be digitized, and the server power and storage needed to truly replicate him was more than any one person could reasonably allocate.

But even if that was no longer an issue, there was something else that would have stopped him; his daughters.

Not that they actually had asked him not to – they didn’t even know about his wish.

But if he did end his mortal life, he knew that they would not share in it.  He would not even have a real body, only a shell like Dr. Y.  While that might function just as well, and he knew he’d be able to experience their hugs and warmth and love-

What if they felt he was gone?  What if the code that would be his person was not enough for them?

Or, what if, even though the odds were small, that the brain scan failed or messed up and he became faulty code, unable to be himself or even self-aware?  It was a one-way trip, the best method being a full scan that required slicing the physical brain into thin segments to get every detail.  An external scan was safer, but it was much more likely to make mistakes and result in a broken consciousness, which would then be his burden to bear.

Even if Verena was still here with them he could not knowingly take himself away from his children.

They were too young to safely begin getting their own augments, and he did not feel that children could truly understand and consent to such body modifications – let alone to being fully uploaded as they were, never to mature and grow.  As much as he might wish to keep his children small forever, it was a selfish thought.

No, not until their minds had fully formed.  No matter how intelligent, how learned, how advanced their children became, they were still that – children.

But one day they would be grown.  And if they decided they wanted to follow his path, as he hoped, then they might all become more.

So for now, he would just enjoy these rare moments and how they renewed him.

It was trance-like, and he knew that when he awoke, and the cuts had been fully sealed with protein glue and his organic brain resumed consciousness, he’d feel whole – restored.

He felt something connect to his internal system, felt the extension of his capabilities.  The new port had been installed by Madspark – or more properly, by his surgical machine.  Who wanted a person’s hand inside their body?  That was barbaric, a machine should always be the one doing the actual surgical work.

That meant his skull was opened, but that hardly worried him.  In a few minutes it would be closed again, as if it had never been opened.

It was just odd to realize.

His system automatically began to scan the new port, checking it.

Something was off.  He lacked the computational power to really think through it at the moment – all he could really do was consider past memories and decisions dispassionately, not deductively reason.

His system noted several errors, alarms began to go off.  This part was not right, it-

The port’s memory storage contained data – a program that had just executed.

His system was trying to quarantine it, but it was nothing like any virus it had ever seen.  It had been hidden, deeply, as if deleted and only scraps of it remained, but the sense memories were strong, and as it had been for a visual port he was getting images-

The insensate darkness was split as suddenly he found himself in a room.

Red was over his vision, and he knew it was not the effect of rage upon the living but splattered blood.  A scan told him that it was not his blood, but he knew somehow that it was.

He raised his hand to look at it, but it was gone.

Missing, from the wrist on, and he saw blood splatter out of it, pushed out by the pressure of his pounding heart.

The rate of which was through the roof, and a thousand alarms of injury and malfunction were going off for parts he didn’t even think he had.

The room around him was cold, his infrared sensors could detect it and his body reacted, feeling the hard cold floor against his back, under his kicking legs.  He was barefoot, and his bare soles were dirty and cut, trying to push him away from something.

He had no control over himself, and the audio cut in suddenly, and the vibrations he’d been dully sensing were the feeling of his own screams.

Someone loomed over him, their body hulking.  Despite the shadows, he could see the man perfectly.

It was Madspark, watching him coldly.

“—agreed to this,” he said, his strange voice lacking any humanity.

Urle only screamed again, and the large man stabbed downward with a stiletto-like knife that Urle realized was a shock spike; a device that would shut down augments with minimal damage.

He tried to wrestle with the man, but the spike lowered closer and closer to his eye.  It went in just next to it, and he felt the sharp pain as it pierced his skin, then began into his skull.

Alarms shrieked, all new alarms, ones he’d never even heard before, that he couldn’t understand in his panic.

“You should have stayed asleep,” the man said, and then the blade pierced his skull and sunk deep into his brain.

---

< Ep 7 Part 25 | Ep 7 Part 27 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Her breathing was ragged and her side hurt, but adrenaline was a hell of a drug.

Leaning against a bulkhead, Apollonia listened carefully and looked back, to see if there had was any sign of pursuit.

But no one seemed to have followed her.  Which, frankly, she found surprising.  Even if she’d just been a bystander, security would usually want to talk to you.  Though maybe her view on that was skewed – on New Vitriol she’d always had the reputation as being the cause of trouble, no matter what.

Still, if they looked at the security footage, they’d see she was a part of it.  She might even be held responsible . . .

What she needed to do was get back to the Craton.  Surely once she was on the ship Brooks wouldn’t turn her over.  But what if she’d caused a diplomatic incident?  The kind that led to damaging relations with Gohhi, or worse – war with the Glorians?

‘The War of Apollonia’s Stupidity’ sounded like the kind of thing that might end up in a history book.

Putting her hands on her head, she rubbed her face vigorously.  The alcohol was making her give in to her own fears, she realized, and she had to fight that.

Despite the alcohol, her mind felt like it was working more clearly than it had in a long time.

Thanking adrenaline again, she looked around and realized that she had no recollection of what her path had been that had brought her here.

“Fuck nuggets!” she spat.  “Shitting dark-licking . . . gun-fuckers!”

A stream of the worst profanity she could think of came from her mouth, and she kicked a broken crate, shattering pieces of it.

The sound of movement behind her made her turn, and she saw a man, his skin oil-stained and dressed in parts of other outfits watching her from down the alley.

The whites of his eyes stood out against his dirty skin, and she did not like his stare.

Part of her wanted to lash out at him, to snap at him to look away, but she didn’t quite have it in her.  He didn’t make a hostile move, but she began to move away deeper into the narrow tunnels between the buildings that reached up high towards the center of Gohhi station.

She wondered if she should go higher, but really had no idea what she’d be looking for – the giant tube that made up Gohhi would curve away from her and possibly hide what she was looking for, if even there was a gap between the tops of the buildings and the roof above.

She took a turn, found it was blocked off, and went back, noticing that the man who’d been staring had followed her.  He was still distant, but now he was not alone, as two others were with him.

She did not like this at all.

They were still not moving towards her, at least, but she picked another route and hurried down it, coming out into a lane between businesses, though hardly where she wanted to be.

This was a red light district, and she nearly choked seeing the amount of clothing a lot of the dancers in window bubbles were lacking.

The fact that New Vitriol had been originally a religious colony suddenly snaked up in her memory, and she realized just how much worse a place could actually be than she had ever imagined.

Steeling herself, she tried to reassure herself that it wasn’t that much worse than the red light district on New Vitriol.  Larger, probably with more violence and murder and oh dark she stood out like a sore thumb-

She was about ready to turn herself in to station security, as numerous sets of eyes came to start watching her.  She had to blend, act like she was just another customer, but of course very few of their customers were young women, that was mostly what the merchandise was . . .

Walking swiftly, trying to seem self-possessed, she passed storefronts that were offering increasingly disturbing services in veiled language, and decided she was definitely headed the wrong way.

She might actually need to turn herself in.

Somehow she could do that with her system, but she did not want to whip out her tablet in this crowd.  Nor could she go into a store and ask to call security.

One sign glowed in white above a storefront, and she winced at its brightness, reading it off-handedly before pausing.

Unless it was the strange name of a club, this was not like the other places here.

The sign said ‘Salvation’, and standing out front were dumpy men in simple, uncomfortable looking garments – shawls and robes.

Dark, were they actually missionaries?  Here?

She took a risk, and stepped towards the men.

“How much?” she asked one skeptically.

The man met her gaze evenly.  “Salvation’s only cost is sin,” he told her.

Oh shit, these guys might be legit.

“Can I come in and . . . make a call?” she asked.

The man studied her a moment, contemplating, then nodded and gestured her inside.

The interior of the building was smaller than she expected.  It was very simple; the floor was simply buffed deck and the walls were covered in images of frescoes; not shown on screens, but actual cloth that depicted images of hewn rocks, with strange patterns on them.

“You were lost but are now found,” a voice said.

It was calming, and she looked – and was surprised to see that the speaker was a young man.  His face was symmetrical, his chin and nose strong, and his eyes vivid green.  He wore a brown robe no better looking than the men outside, though it seemed like it fit him better.  His hair was a paler shade, but not the radiation-washed type of pale, just . . . blonde.

“Not quite yet,” she said.  “But hopefully going to be found.  Can I, er, call the spaceport?  I need to get back to my ship and don’t know the way.”

The young man nodded.  “Of course.  But if you simply wish to be guided back to the Craton, that may be simpler.”

Her heart raced.  “How do you know what ship I’m from?” she demanded.

“You’re wearing a Sapient Union fleet uniform,” the young man replied calmly.  “And the Craton is the only Sapient Union ship here.  The local contingent at your people’s station would never come to this area.”

A smile tugged at his lips.  “You truly are lost.”

She felt foolish now; she was wearing a Craton jumpsuit, and all of that made sense.

“Ah, right, yeah . . . sorry.  I’m a bit worked up.”

Dark!  What a phrase to say in this area.  “I mean stressed!” she added quickly.  “You know . . . getting lost and found.  I guess I did need salvation after all, huh?”

The young man, who she could see now had some kind of metal symbol pinned on his chest, smiled easily, apparently not judging her for her poor choice of words.

Was he someone with some authority, she wondered?  The two outside hadn’t had that symbol on them, and it looked official.  Almost like a stylized eye.

“May I ask what faith you are?  There is no wrong answer, of course,” he said.

“Oh, uh . . . Reformed Tedian, but not really practicing . . .”

“I see.  You are from the Begonia system, then?  I am sorry for your people’s troubles.”

That caught her off-guard.  “Thanks,” she said, unsure how to feel about it.  “It’ll work out, I’m sure.”

“Things always work out how they should in the eyes of the Infinite,” he said.  “Though sometimes it takes longer than we should like.”

She nodded, unsure what else to say to that.  “What church is this, anyway?  Are you the leader?”

“We are the Esoteric Order,” the young man said.  “And I am merely a novice Priest.”

She had not heard of that – it must have told on her face, as he continued.  “We seek order in the cosmos by reaching out into the places man has never tread.  Only by experiencing the Infinite can we truly understand our role in the universe.”

“Wow, that’s . . . well that sounds pretty neat.  Do you guys really get a lot of souls to save in a wretched hole of scumbags and pervs like this?”

“You would be surprised.  Sometimes people achieve clarity after moments of their greatest darkness, and seek a deeper meaning.  When they come to us, we help them as best we can.”

He inclined his head towards her.  “And in that vein, may I show you the way back to the spaceport?”

Apollonia swallowed.  “Yeah.  Thank you, I’d . . . really like that.”

She kind of hoped he’d actually be the one to show her the way.

---

< Ep 7 Part 24 | Ep 7 Part 26 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Apollonia smiled, not understanding the words that Jaya had just said to her.  They made sense, of course, but-

The other woman’s face was turning to a level of serious that made clear there was no joke.

Looking over her own shoulder, Apollonia saw that a group was rapidly approaching the bar, straight towards them.  There were the spacers who’d bothered them several times – and behind them some of the Glorian officers.  Two of whom towered over all others.  Their uniforms were tight on angles that were too sharp to be natural, and she realized that they were heavily augmented.  The Glorians were famous for their colossal, augmented soldiers.

Apollonia stepped back and looked around for a security drone or officer, but she realized this wasn’t the Craton, and there wasn’t anyone to keep a handle on things.

Jaya clearly seemed set to stand her ground, glaring at them, despite how they towered over her.

“You the one defending the occupation of New Vitriol?” one of the officers demanded.

“I don’t believe it’s any of your business,” Jaya replied.

The tallest of them pushed through the spacers, looking down at her.  Jaya’s head barely reached up to his pecs.

“I’m making it my business,” the man replied.  “You know what happens when Glorians get their hands on sapeholes.”

Jaya felt her blood run cold – the Glorian elite were walking human tanks, called Dreadnoughts, more than capable of ripping a normal person in half.

“You’re not even a baby Dreadnought,” Jaya replied.  Her words were a taunt, but she said them coldly.  Only informing him of his own inadequacies.

The man glared harder, leaning forward, and Apollonia wondered just why no one had thrown the first punch; she knew it’d come at any moment.

“Hey!” the bartender yelled loudly.  “Take it outside!”

Jaya and the tall aug didn’t break eye contact.

Then Jaya shoved her away.  She was startingly strong, and Apollonia felt herself thrown hard enough to slide nearly a meter more even after she’d hit the floor.  The force had knocked the breath out of her, but she felt arms grab her, pulling her upright.

“Are you all right?” someone yelled in her face.  Apollonia didn’t know them, but turned to look back at Jaya.

She felt the arms release her, and she finally realized that it was some of the other officers from the Craton.  A dark-haired woman had helped her up, and the others were advancing towards the bar to back up Jaya.

“Stay here,” the woman said to her, and Apollonia nodded.

More heated words were being exchanged from the bar, and they were reacting to the Response officers approaching by moving to partially face them.

Apollonia wasn’t sure if one side would back down.  She was not sure if Jaya even wanted to, what with the slips of anger she had shown.

“. . . fuck up a place that was doing fine, you fucking sapeholes can’t stand a place that’s standing on its own legs . . .”

She realized he was still talking about New Vitriol, and suddenly she just couldn’t hold back.

“That’s a total fucking lie,” Apollonia found herself shouting.  Her head was swimming with white rage at the man’s words.  “I saw New Vitriol.  It was a dying shithole, and when the Sapient Union came in, you know what they did?  They brought fucking doctors.  They didn’t have soldiers.  They didn’t go in shooting.”

The man’s bloodshot eyes went to her, and she saw visible shock on Jaya and the other Craton officers.

“And how the fuck do you know?” the man challenged her.

“Because I’m from New Vitriol,” she snapped.

The man’s face contorted in rage, and he spat out angry words it took her a moment to understand.

“Fucking shill!”

The bottle the man threw sailed past her, hitting the wall near the entrance.

Apollonia ducked all the same, her skill at dodging thrown objects well-honed.  Jaya threw herself at the man who had thrown the bottle, who had immediately turned to to swing for her.  Jaya dodged it, moving faster than a normal person and grabbed his metal arm, slamming it onto the bar and driving an elbow into his neck.

All hell broke loose.

A full melee began as people began to punch, kick, throttle, and throw each other or objects.  The bartender was shouting for order, but no one was inclined to listen.  People who had been sitting peacefully one moment were now attacking each other in a mad brawl, or else rushing to watch and cheer the fight.

She’d seen plenty of bar brawls, and had always made it her plan to get the hell out of the way.

Apollonia knew she couldn’t do a damn thing to help; if anything, she’d just be a liability, a puny fucking normal person surrounded by people with titanium muscles and steel bones.  One hit from an aug, and she might just be a splat on the wall.

Stumbling towards the door, she grabbed onto the frame and looked back.  A chair flew, and she saw two of the Response officers tackling one of the Glorian augs to the floor, while Jaya was smashing the original drunk’s head against a table.

Shouts came from behind her, and she looked, seeing that men in official uniforms, with security drones, were rushing towards the place.

Getting arrested here, of all places, gave her immediate flashbacks to the pit she’d been locked in on New Vitriol.

She melted away, the security not even paying her a glance as she disappeared into the labyrinth that was Gohhi station.

---

< Ep 7 Part 23 | Ep 7 Part 25 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Patri,” Apollonia said.

“What?” Jaya asked.

“Patri was one of them.  She was an older gal . . .  Nicer than most.  She came over from Vitriol like I had.  We had that in common, but we hadn’t known each other before.”

“Why did she go to New Vitriol?” Jaya asked.  “It does not seem a desirable move.”

“Some people thought they could do better there.  ‘I’ll get a claim and strike a rich phosphorous vein and be set for life’ kinda thing.  But not Patri, she came over to escape like me.  I think she had a husband who beat her and she thought one day he’d just beat her to death.”

Apollonia’s drink was empty, and she signalled the bartender for another.  The man put one down and she continued.

“But Patri would wrap stuff up and leave it for me.  Actual meals sometimes, I knew she couldn’t spare them, but she did it anyway.  I guess she believed some of the religious stuff about being kind to the hungry.”

“She sounds like a good soul,” Jaya said.

“I don’t think I ever even said thank you,” Apollonia said.  “We barely spoke.  She wouldn’t meet my eye – or anyone’s, really.  She’d just come near me, set it down, and walk away.”

“Shy, perhaps?”

“She was shy,” Apollonia agreed.  “But I thought of it more like . . . tribute.  I was considered weird, ya know?  People thought I had spooky powers.  Sometimes people asked me to read their fortunes or try to take some curse off them.  But most of the time they just blamed me for bad luck.”

Apollonia twisted, touching her back above her shoulder blade.  “I have a scar there from a rock someone threw at me when I came into a restaurant.”

“Stars!  It’s . . .”  Jaya paused, as if trying to find the words.  “I’m glad you were not more seriously hurt.”

Apollonia went quiet a moment.  Then; “I guess they thought it’d be worse luck to hurt me.  But anyway – Patri.  She just seemed to want to keep on my good side by giving me food.  I didn’t question it.”

Jaya pursed her lips.  “Or maybe she just didn’t want to see you die.”

“I suppose,” Apollonia drawled.  “I wonder how she’s doing.  You think she’s getting medical attention now?”

“Certainly,” Jaya said.  “On the last report they’d driven the cancer rate down to . . . not quite zero, but near it.  We’ll hit zero soon.  And the rad shielding . . . it’s something like . . . eighty-four percent . . . oh bother, I can’t remember a damn thing right now.”

Apollonia could not push her thoughts past how she was feeling about all of it, though.  None of this sat well with her, and yet – she’d thought often about how much she wished the whole of New Vitriol would just fall into a star.  Even if she’d been on it, she’d thought it for some time.

But the guilty thought always came up, as if her thoughts actually mattered in the survival of the place, of people like Patri.

She took another drink.  She needed a lot more before she could really cope with all this.

Jaya seemed at a loss for something to say, and one of those long-standing questions that Apollonia had thought of at other times popped up.

“Why did you join the Voidfleet?” she asked.

For a moment, Jaya’s face was open with surprise, but she caught herself and looked down, trying to compose.

“My brother and I always talked about it,” she said.

The mention of her brother caused alarm to rise in Apollonia, and it took her tipsy mind a few moments to place why;

Jaya’s brother, who had been sent to his death in the line of duty.  Who had done so gladly, because he alone had been able to save the thousands of others on his ship.

An ache was growing in her chest, but the question had already been asked, and Jaya continued.

“He was the oldest of us,” she said.  “I was the youngest by ten years.  But we were very close – I followed his lead, and he always respected and listened to me, he saw my talent, I suppose.”

She paused, and Apollonia opened her mouth to change the topic, but Jaya pushed on.  “He joined first and wrote to me a lot.  Told me all about his adventures – I knew he embellished them, but I loved him for it.  Exploring planets and meeting aliens.  He even came here to Gohhi often – I don’t think this bar, but I don’t know for sure.”

She emptied her drink, but this time did not ask for another.  “I was in my first year when he died under Brooks, and-“

“Wait!” Apollonia said.  “He died under Brooks?!”

“Yes,” Jaya replied sharply.  “And I hated him for it – for years.  But I eventually realized that Brooks was right in his order, and my brother was right to obey.  But he’s gone either way, and we’re never going to-“

Jaya cut herself off, hissing a curse.  She took a few moments, visibly putting herself together before meeting Apollonia’s eyes again.

“It’s not pointless, though.  Even though it was not supposed to be this way, I am here.  I do my duty, and one day – I don’t know.  Perhaps there will be true closure.”

Apollonia didn’t really know what to say to that for several long moments.

“We always come back to serious shit, don’t we?” she finally said.

Jaya almost smiled.  “The universe is serious.  Now, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I believe trouble is about to break out.”

---

< Ep 7 Part 21 | Ep 7 Part 23 >