More. Demolish. Remove.

Sunundra had lost track of how far she walked and how many charges were placed. The need to reunite with her other had been matched by an acidic desire to ensure nothing in the complex survived to place him in danger, so she followed it rightly. Still, the caustic voices ate at reason and thought beyond cold mechanical execution. No twisted promises, no more practised torture, and not a single soul left within the smoking crater of cinder and ash this place would be once she was finished.

Nothing.

If that meant trudging her crippled form through dark hallways and taking down every inch of this complex bomb by blessed bomb, then she would ensure that not a single room would be left whole. She and he alone would stand upon the rubble to bathe in the glow of the Mother’s pride. Then—and only then—would all be right again. She would have him. He would have her. Purpose and future, as it should be.

It was with that goal in mind that she moved to the next pillar for the region, the voices reaffirming her decision with their fervent chanting which warped, echoed, and bent her perceptions. She exited the maintenance tunnels every so often, placing proximity charges where the updated map suggested foot traffic would surge during emergencies, setting them to only detonate after a certain threshold. Since they wouldn’t go off for anything mundane, she knew that when she was finally discovered, they would learn why it was a mistake not to confirm their kill.

Even a blunted claw could pierce the flesh if pressed too far. They had driven hers into their throats in a shameless display of arrogance, assuming her too weakened to act against them. She could almost feel the pliant flesh of a predator which thought her mere prey. The urge to crush and rip roiled her blood.

Soon.

Her terminals had received a substantial upgrade in functionality due to the assistance of the kin-slaying security officer. The navigational unit now offered so many filters and options that she needed to turn most of them off just to parse the data, while the odd wrist-mounted device had been paired to her translator and the first terminal. The end result lacked some wondrous ability for her to instantly understand any written languages or magically allow her to speak in foreign tongues, but she could read the map now, and it saved her a lot of backtracking. Making her way through the corridors and knowing her location eliminated most of the guesswork. It also came with the added benefit of telling her which floor she had been exploring for…

She didn’t actually know how many suns had passed. She had stopped trying to hold onto the fading sense of time shortly after he had left, and the rest had followed. With no sun or moonlight to orient herself, and no supplementary systems in place, it was entirely possible that she had started dragging herself through multiple suns of unceasing activity, and only now found reason to wonder. How long had she been awake? How long had she been presumed dead before being tossed off that platform? All she really knew was that since she caught the traces of her bond’s scent, she had been moving.

Has it been one sun since she first drew blood? More?

She shook her head to delay the query and dislodge the mental fog. With a single level resting between her and Bill, there were more urgent things to think about. Get off the sixth floor, get through the fifth, then find him on the fourth. Just like the map detailed.

Well, ‘detailed’ was certainly an appropriate word.

The consequence of such a thorough map was that the more traditionally-shaped terminal frequently threw up warnings about an internal data limit—something she assumed would have long since been addressed by someone in the Union by now. Though she supposed local storage only went so far, no matter the number of species to iterate on the designs. Either way, all she knew for sure was that it had been slowing things down whenever she needed to load a new segment of the map, so transferring the contents to another device was something she needed to think about.

Deleting some troublesome data to free up resources wasn’t an option for two reasons; one, it was all stored in one heavily compressed packet. And two…?

She had shed blood, sweat, and tears to get her paws on this. It would not be left behind.

Her bag thumped against the ground, the mixture of explosives, compounds, and assorted extras taking an additional moment to settle. Warmth pooled into her cooled limb, the lessened weight letting blood flow return to a burdened leg. She fetched a charge while referencing the terminal and confirming the location. As many as she had made of the overzealous items, there was still a limited quantity of them, which meant that she needed to spend the brief calibration period preparing components so that she could put more together as needed.

Another relay module joined the pile in a side pocket just as the charge let out a soft beep to confirm the completion of its arming. She double-checked the orientation to make sure that it followed suit with the others in the region and shouldered her backpack, glancing at the map to see where the next pillar lay.

A frown crossed her muzzle when she noticed that anything farther from her goal would be pointless. She wished to raze the complex and collapse it into the pit in which it was erected, not needlessly turn the crumbled aftermath to melted slag. She would have been fine with turning it into stained-glass mosaics to decorate her future den, but again, she only had so much to work with. Perhaps if she had more…

A bitter taste coated her tongue. She needed to stop thinking too far ahead. Find him. Escape. Detonate the charges. Then they could spend all the time they needed to figure out what was next.

Regardless, the traps for this coordinate were set, the demolition preparation for the floor was completed, and now she just needed to see if there was anything particularly useful left to utilize before she headed towards the freight elevators.

She turned off the filters for the terminal, leaving it to hitch and stutter while the legend on the side filled with new glyphs and symbols, countless overlays and paths outlining at a languid pace. Finding something to transfer the files onto would be paramount, it seemed. Based on the map of the next floor—or, what she could see before the terminal slowed to a crawl, anyway—some guidance would be needed for traversal. Getting that on a device which required the time it took to walk from point to point before it could provide anything useful was a risky affair at best. The last thing she wanted was an emergency to arise and her only navigational tool to be stuck loading previous directions.

The pale-furred female slipped a ration bar and some water out from a pouch on the bag's straps, resting her weight against a wall and choking down the tasteless mixture while weighing her options going forward.

True, the alien might have loaded her devices with tracking software, but given how it had apparently led the guards straight to the depot, they had surveillance enough for such to hardly matter. Even so, she had been able to fool them with some carefully placed decoys. It bode well for her in the long run, since it suggested that while she might not know what to look for when spotting video transmission devices, they couldn’t differentiate live explosives from inert either. She could save some supplies by just assembling empty shells and putting them in ‘hidden’ locations to discourage use of certain passages, then actually hide something more effective elsewhere. It was a solution to a problem she wasn’t sure existed, but it would be wise to accommodate for it.

She tucked away the leftover brick of sustenance and swirled a bit of water in her muzzle to dispel the taste, spitting out a pinkish hue. It didn’t warrant further consideration; blood was getting involved in everything she did by now. She just crunched down on another stimulant tablet to dispel the weight of her eyelids and checked the terminal.

The map had finally loaded the full spectrum of overlays on top of the region; each assorted colour of lines and shading revealed new information that the basic display would never cater towards. The synchronized language libraries let her differentiate delivery routes, maintenance schedules, foot traffic density, sanitization regularity, and anything else one could possibly want to know.

Unfortunately, it also turned the screen into a deluge of information. She hid a few of the more esoteric options in favour of actually being able to see what she was looking at, but eventually she had a fairly solid array of filters at her disposal. The most important ones revolved around where others would likely be occupying the path she intended to take—security patrols, logistics, and other miscellaneous things.

Her cold stare deepened into a scowl. The elevators that would’ve taken her up to the fourth level were hotbeds of activity—which was understandable, yet still aggravating. That only really left the freight elevators scattered around, though they weren’t much better. They were limited to connecting two floors, but although she would need to ascend one level at a time, doing so came with much less risk of security or witnesses. A problem solvable with the proper explosive, true, but a wasteful use of stealth.

She rubbed the gnawing fatigue out of her eyes, resisting the urge to stop her own heart by abusing more stimulants. Sleep was squandered time that could be spent progressing. Time that could be the difference between taking the complex down and escaping with her bond…or losing him…

The defect gave the map one last look, plotting the way forward before tucking it away. Her stomach wound throbbed.

- - - - -

The sounds of speech faded enough for Sunundra to risk cracking open the door of the maintenance tunnel. She peered around the corner to confirm, then made a silent exit into the hallway, the wall sealing seamlessly behind her. The din of heavy machinery and bone-shaking bangs of cargo being unloaded drowned out the hiss she released as her paw tugged free of her morbid pocket, the odd terminal now safely stored once again.

Each floor appeared to have its own version of a logistics bay, where surplus materials would be ferried off to wherever it was needed for use or storage in a depot. The corridors operating as the main route in the area were markedly larger than anywhere else, accommodating transport vehicles and frequently populated by workers. Whatever schedule they operated on didn’t correlate to anything she could glean from her navigation terminal, but it did list the area as ‘light use.’

If well over two hundred aliens, several massive machines, countless drones, and enough random freight to supply a Lilhun regional military base was ‘light,’ then she was well within the realm of good judgment to avoid anything more.

Her pace had slowed while nearing her objective, the ventures to place proximity mines lessening as foot traffic became commonplace in the corridors and opportunities dwindled. What was once endless expanses of empty hallways and silent junctions became processions of people and the distant noise of cargo vehicles. Every door she approached on the way to her current location had more and more activity happening on the other side, until she finally found one that seemed relatively quiet. It gave her the chance to finally exit the maintenance tunnels, because as expansive as they were, they were also restricted to the level in which they were constructed.

Of course, that also meant that she was now in the open and could be found by the—

Enemy. Remove.

The only positive part of the situation was that every worker seemed to be using devices like her translator to communicate amongst themselves while blocking out the surrounding sounds. It was no small boon to be able to move around without worrying too much about her weakened leg, and with everyone focused on their tasks, she had some degree of freedom in regard to approaching the problem.

…And she didn’t need to wrestle the scalding blood or tightened muscles that drove the claws of her feet into the metal floor, each contraction of her limbs barely resisting the urges that screamed at her.

Remove. They will prevent. They will harm.

Her ear flicked at the ephemeral volume of the voices, though she doubted anything besides dropping an unrestrained thumper amidst the aliens would quench the desires. No, this wasn’t the time. Any careless actions would alert the complex before it was strictly necessary, and then she would have a much harder time reaching him. Take the elevator, make her way through the fifth level, find another elevator, then find Bill.

Which raised the issue of actually using the freight elevator.

Large machines lifted and loaded dense pallets of material on and off of a platform, which then receded into a massive chamber in the wall and closed itself off, reappearing some time later for the next cycle. Workers inspected and confirmed that the automated systems were operating correctly, occasionally intervening when cargo didn’t meet some specification and either adjusting it or beckoning someone else to address the issue. Drones rode along their tracks and constantly delivered items or crates, while staff operated more as an error correction and supervisor for the whole process. Occasionally, something required a slightly more delicate touch in a particular way, prompting one of the menagerie to get physically involved. Those moments were rare, but drew a crowd of mildly interested others.

Sunundra eased back from the corner she had been watching from, listening out for anything that might necessitate a sudden reentrance into the maintenance tunnels, while she considered how to get onto the elevator without being seen.

Barring simply walking up and asking, she needed to observe the goings-on and determine how she was going to distract everyone long enough to board. A possible method made itself known quickly enough.

The stuttered squeak of a drone coming through the passage gave her just enough time to tuck away out of sight—a difficult task, but one which was thankfully facilitated by the crates set aside for later loading. It only took a few moments once she was situated in shade for the source of the noise to lazily drift by, the oddly malformed frame differentiating itself from others like it. She watched as the workers eyed the new addition, inspected its holdings, then left the damaged unit to continue on its way. It was a mundane example of faulty maintenance, except for the sparks occurring on a set interval, which no one seemed to notice. Or, if they did, then they failed to care.

She did. She could smell the residue of various compounds originating from the drone’s boxy storage. Compounds that she was quite familiar with. An inkling of a plan began forming, waiting for confirmation before she committed to it.

- - - - -

She watched the damaged drone travel back and forth countless times, but it was worth it for the certainty. The drone would carry an assortment to be loaded up, but every haul included containers that had a corrosive substance eating through the material. She only needed to see the workers dismiss a leaking canister once to know she had a way in.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The chemicals in question were a powder assumed to be uniquely available on Iras and commonly used as a paralytic, but when it was stored without proper measures in place, it would absorb moisture and eventually liquify. Additionally, it becomes self-reactive if left for too long—and a staple addition to her standard low-destruction charges. That said, the new effects hardly mattered when it was stored inside a metal container.

All in all, it was a fairly safe compound that often used to sit around in storage when pharmaceutical companies went out of business and nobody bothered emptying the warehouses before locking them up.

What she was counting on was the other property that the compound acquired, and why new storage regulations were put in place to prevent it from being ignored for frankly negligent amounts of time…

…Several years, for instance.

It became violently flammable, and the smoke was more than enough to cause a city-wide lockdown, straining filtration systems in a colossal area. Assuming it was gifted during the initial steps of their people's meeting, they would have been warned in numerous formats not to leave it in some random backroom, yet that had obviously been ignored—or they simply replicated it out of curiosity or for testing purposes.

The voices murmured appreciatively at the irony of the first possibility, and enjoyed the subtle comeuppance of the second. Either a gift that the Union had received during first contact would be the catalyst for their final contact, or their hubris would be their downfall. Regardless, all she needed to do was give the disaster-in-waiting a little push.

It took a few more trips, but the opportunity made itself available when none of the workers were looking. The drone clunked and rattled as it passed by, a flicker of a spark leaving behind the scent of ozone. Sunundra slipped from the shadows and placed a weakened burner charge to one of the eroded canisters, igniting it before she moved up with the cargo and took cover. She was so close to the aliens that she needed to distract herself from the foreign scents by fixating on the smell of actively oxidizing metal. The last she saw of the drone before it went out of view was the slight trickle of slurry and the melting remains of her charge. The damaged wiring sparked again, but was quickly swallowed by the compound. Her legs tensed as the moments ticked by.

A curious voice called out, summoning several others as a short crane finished loading the sliding platform of the freight elevator. More turned to see what the issue was, quickly turning the single voice into twelve, and three curious spectators into fifty. It hurt from how hard she was focusing and straining to listen. When the almost imperceptible hiss built up beneath the din, she put all her weight on her good leg and drove her claws into a crate for stability. Her ears folded back, her eyes closing in preparation. The smell of chemicals turned foul, then into a scent that she had only needed to be exposed to once before never wanting to be exposed to it again.

The odour of a lethally caustic smoke…and of the compound reaching its flash-point. The ignition was instantaneous.

The explosion was more airy than she was used to, but the diminished shockwave was appreciated. The searing heat and spots in her vision from the light of the fireball bleeding through her eyelids? Not so much.

She uncoiled like a spring, using the explosion as her signal. She was quickly swallowed by the fringes of flame as she ran towards her goal. Time seemed to slow, the hammering heart in her chest agitating the damaged ribs. Her heavy footfalls were lost amidst the screams, but she was blind to the specifics until she was already halfway through the clearing. It was only then that the fragments of realization dawned on her—the absurdity of flipping a coin with her life on the line. Incineration and perforation were far from forgiving, yet she ran through the blast fearlessly.

Her feet continued to carry her blindly forward, vaulting over boxes and containers while being guided by naught but memory and faith. Mortality was an afterthought. All she cared about was reaching Bill.

Her eyes opened just as the final licks of fire singed the edges of her fur, the automated loading of the elevator leaving only the slightest of gaps before the platform would be lost behind the descending wall, leaving her exposed amidst hundreds of surprised others.

A blur entered her periphery, a twitch reaction sparing her the beheading.

The operator of the crane had been rendered unconscious, slumped over the controls. She leapt forward with every bit of strength she could muster, clearing a pile of crates before letting her legs buckle on landing, ducking the heavy bludgeon of machinery that swung at her skull with force. The crane’s metal arm brushed her fur as it passed, crashing into countless objects behind her and intensifying the chaos.

It didn’t matter. She was so close. Just a bit farther. Just a little longer. Hurry, before they see her. Before they can place her as the cause. Before the gap became too small.

She reached the closing wall, the falling edge of the barrier threatening to leave her behind with every frantic heartbeat. Smaller. Smaller. Now.

She dove headfirst.

The door to the elevator shaft released an echoing thump as it shut against the ground. A softer repetition sounded out as Sunundra rolled and crashed into the piled cargo, struggling to steady her breath, pain radiating throughout her form. All she could do was focus on the cycling rhythm of her panting and listen to the muffled shouts for anything that suggested someone had seen her, but…

Nothing. Some workers yelled for medical attention, while others screamed in pain. A bellowing voice demanded to know what happened, answered by a nervous response trying to remind them of complaints about a faulty drone and improper storage methodology.

The elevator jolted before a consistent whirr of motors replaced the chaos outside the shaft, the cacophony fading as she ascended. She almost burst out into manic laughter. Her ‘plan’ went exactly as she had hoped, but the sobering reminder that she hadn’t thought of how she would exit the elevator chilled her blood before she could get too giddy.

That didn't last long either.

A second thunderous explosion reverberated in the elevator shaft, shaking the platform until the following flash-fire roared up from below, scorching the edges with an unrelenting inferno. A lifetime of demolition experience took over and forced the air from her lungs as space seemed to warp. A bang sucked reality away, then stopped, the pressure abating as quickly as it arrived.

She opened her eyes after a few moments, noticing that she was still mostly fine and moving upwards. The only difference was the dry warmth and complete silence aside from the elevator’s hum. A soft breeze moved languidly through the shaft, the once impenetrable blackness above her now a hazy white light of damaged fixtures and smoke, the upper door absent from where it should be. The defect blinked.

Ah. They stored the other containers together near something flammable, didn’t they? That would do it.

At least she probably didn’t need to worry about witnesses now, though the fumes were an issue…

- - - - -

As she suspected, the elevator door had blown a good distance away. A scattering of equipment and casualties littered the fifth level logistics bay, an alarm buzzing in the background. Workers rushed to extinguish what fire had spread, others dragging potential explosives away from the scene to avoid another incident. Conveniently, the aliens were too busy ensuring their immediate survival or fleeing the scene. None were concerned with where she was hiding, allowing Sunundra to slip out into cover, then into the tunnels.

She finally let herself remove the hasty mask made from her torn shirt, coughing once the entrance sealed behind her. If it wasn't for accidentally inhaling flame on a few occasions, then she might have been dying of asphyxiation or simply charred from the inside, rather than just biting back the pain in her ribs. She pulled the map out between breaths, suppressing the bile that tried to follow.

The next elevator up wasn't very far away, and although she wanted nothing more than to rush there, something else caught her attention on the terminal.

A server room.

Whereas the sixth floor was the ‘testing’ floor—with many rooms locked behind flush walls and featureless corridors—the fifth appeared to be oriented more towards observation and experimentation. Quite a few areas were noted as laboratories, staff quarters, and more still were listed as barracks for various vocations.

The pillars and support quirks of the lower level were replaced by regular load bearing walls and columns on the fifth, meaning that she would need to place far more charges if she wanted to get all of them. Of course, she didn’t have enough on paw to rig up everything, and didn’t see a point in being that thorough anyway. Nothing would prevent a collapse once the lower floor had been taken out from under it. Still, a few explosives in key locations would make the process more reliable. She chose a couple spots here and there that shouldn’t be too out of the way, while also ensuring a clean demolition. As long as she avoided the more heavily travelled pathways, it should be a fairly quick task.

- - - - -

And quick it was. The previous explosions and permeating caustic smoke seemed to have ushered the complex into an emergency response, and although she had worried that security would come charging through the tunnels after her, it proved to be an unfounded concern. Based on the chatter she overheard while waiting for groups to leave an area, someone had reported the initial incident as a failure to adhere to protocol, and the second event was categorized as an extension of the mistake.

No one knew she was involved.

It made for a fairly uneventful skulk through the level, excluding any tense moments where she was forced to stand still behind improvised cover with a paw on her purloined pistol. Luckily, that was only a single time, and she was rather thankful that the rest of the planned charge locations weren't in an office.

…Or that anyone noticed the melted latch.

What was less fortunate, however, was how long said skulking took. The voices were of little help, only slightly mollified by the knowledge that her hesitation in dispatching every foe was in service of wiping the lot of them out in a single decisive strike. They still growled, echoing in her skull as she pressed an ear to the doors. They still clouded her judgment and caused her paws to shake. They still screamed at her to find her bond… To become whole again.

But in order to do that, she needed the map to respond more expediently, which led her to the sweltering tunnels running parallel to the server room. The door popped open, the pain of stuffing the odd terminal back into her abdomen now an eased sting of security—morbid, yet reassuring. She held a paw on the pistol, the grip too oddly formed to accommodate her anatomy for any functional duration. It would suffice for clearing a room, but her twitching claws made keeping it in the makeshift holster a smarter decision.

Much like the name suggested, the server room was filled with massive storage arrays, only the occasional cable bridging a gap between what looked like various generations of servers. Some might have allowed collaboration of the species' different systems, but all of it was too alien for her to start guessing which was which. Regardless, she searched for something that she could work with, eventually settling on an exposed screen and some odd input devices. Part of it looked like Bill's terminal—the symbols and glyphs on the board tickling at her recognition—so she chose that to use, if only because there was comfort to be found in the familiar.

Another throb of pain came from her stomach as she retrieved what was needed, the odd terminal Greg had gifted her sitting in her bloodied paw. What was his instruction again? There was a… Ah. Right.

A thin cable pulled out from the corner of the device, the corresponding port on the server nearest to her accepting the input quietly. She laid the map down and placed the tethered device atop it while she tried to figure out what to do next.

As if divining her need, the screen filled with a bland stretch of text, presenting options in an unknown format. A moment of frustration passed before it was updated to display Unified Lilhun, earning yet another belated gratitude to the male who had passed to see her successful. She navigated the confusing interface, eventually finding the navigational device and the files therein to be accessible wirelessly. Yet that was where progress stopped. She didn't have anything to pass the files off to, nor had she encountered anything during her traversal. All she had was…the gifted terminal.

She glanced at the crimson-stained item and exhaled slowly. A quick check confirmed that she could use it to free up some space, but if it would alleviate the issues she had been facing or merely cause both devices to falter was yet to be discovered. Not seeing any other option, she decided to risk it. The only remaining question was that if she were to keep it inside the safest place she could, then what was prioritized? Any organization of the files was slapdash at best, and a large portion of the contents were designated glyphs and numerals that failed to translate due to never being a conventionally conveyed message at all. It was mostly abbreviations and quick designations to be referenced by someone specializing in the field, not just someone who happened across them.

She picked out a few to decompress and observed the results; a star chart around a farming world, a blank testing file, and a recipe for something that might be edible. Not particularly promising. Some were potentially worth the added security, though nothing truly seemed valuable to her—not that she was an expert, nor could she hazard a guess as to what might prove critical.

It took a while longer until she stumbled across a file that caught her attention. It listed pages upon pages of names, affiliations, origins, occupations, and everything else that might be useful for sorting. What really drew her eye was the pairing notations—more so when she came across her own name. Her documented details were sparse, aside from the criteria she fulfilled: female, no den, and defective. An addendum referenced her procedure, but that was all they really bothered to learn about her, save for ‘Bonded status: Highly probable’ tacked on at the end. She selected the suspected bond, another file opening in its place. Her brows knitted in confusion. This profile seemed to be significantly more detailed, including employment history, financial records, known associates, and much, much more. Family trees were referenced, and mutual acquaintances were cited, yet her focus remained fairly centred on the name which was different from the one she knew, and a note about why she had never learned it.

‘Bill’ was a moniker, it seemed—a common abbreviation of a longer name. It appeared to be a regular occurrence amongst humans to allow those close to them the privilege of using the shortened name, and a comment was left for others to be aware that the species was known to give an alias to those they were fond of.

Sunundra was…confused, but warmed. Her being his ‘Sunshine’ was proof of Recon being wrong. Someone cared for her.

Her eyes drifted to Bill’s profile once more, lingering on the name of his past mate and his two kits. The ones he worried about so deeply. She moved the files to the odd terminal before properly considering it, yet before she knew it, more files related to her bond were added. At first, it was just information regarding those he held dear, but soon she was adding pictures, reports, and anything else she found about his home planet. Each addition was novel and interesting. It was an entire species that wouldn’t reject her or any defect based on a condition they had no control over. A species that would accept them.

Soon, she had alleviated some of the storage issue, though she hadn’t really chosen anything significant to her people. A random selection resulted in the transfer of a few blueprints for some technologies that seemed suitably alien to her—including a ‘fabricator,’ whatever that was—and a now reasonably full pair of devices, instead of the single burdened one. After confirming that nothing would break, she retrieved her possessions and set back out into the tunnels, finding that the odd terminal could actually display text files.

She ended up making her way to the next elevator while reading all she could about her bond and his kin, even if most of the information was technically irrelevant.

It mattered to her. He mattered to her. If whoever was mentioned here was important to him, then they would live in her heart as well. They would be two as one, as it should be.

It was right.

- - - - -

Possibly due to the disruption she caused with the…‘storage failures’…the next freight elevator was unattended. It made for a surprisingly stressful trip, truth be told. Between setting charges and listening for muffled voices that never came, her nerves were highly strung by the time she finally mustered the strength to enter the corridors again. Yet there was no one to be seen, the equipment left to idle and most automated processes paused. The elevator platform was unaffected, carrying out its cycle as she used the time to make up for dwindling explosives.

Another five charges were completed by the time it returned, an unfinished sixth promptly tossed into her bag when the massive door opened. She crept towards it, careful not to get overeager and needlessly expose herself.

A wise decision, apparently.

A feathered biped chirped as it exited the elevator shaft, the winged arms flapping in one large motion. It was avian by her estimates; the taloned feet and stubby, sharp beak were the main determining factors. The alien looked around, muttered about trying to find somewhere with decent airflow, then wandered off. Sunundra waited for all signs of it to disappear before she eased a paw off her pistol, hurrying onto the platform before it departed. The door closed behind her while she tucked away and loaded the map for the fourth level.

The server room was well worth the detour.

Not only had she gained a wealth of information, the navigational terminal actually managed to answer her request long before the elevator reached its destination. The hallways seemed much more navigable, the rooms were spacious, and none of the overlays suggested that there were any concerns about being spotted by a patrol. The floor appeared to just be a residential affair.

Even the smaller logistics bay proved different as the elevator door opened; it lacked the large machinery and drone tracks of previous levels, and the platform remained in the shaft as opposed to cycling outward. What’s more, only a single free-moving drone entered the chamber before loading its boxy storage compartment with a few items and leaving.

The quiet atmosphere was…unsettling, however. She gathered a breath and checked the map for maintenance tunnels, but was rather distressed upon finding that the level was devoid of any. That just left traversing through the halls normally, which was enough to make her paws tremble from both fear and adrenaline.

Find him.

The map was invaluable for actually locating Bill, if only because the upgrades also included notes regarding a room she came near enough to. As much as she would have preferred to check everything on the terminal before leaving the relative safety of the elevator, the feathered alien had proven that people did come this way, if only occasionally. Instead, she walked carefully through the halls, stopping every so often to check the details of her surroundings and listen for others she might be seen by. It took far too long, but she found what she was looking for after a few hundred rooms, guided through the final stretch by wisps of scent.

She stood in front of a door that was largely indistinguishable from its neighbours, her heart pounding as hard as it did when trying to push slurry through her veins. What if he had been moved? What if he was genuinely gone? What if everything had been for naught? She pushed aside the concerns and reached out to turn the knob of the entrance, receiving a jarring lack of movement. It was locked. Her paw hovered before hesitantly rapping the barrier, both of her ears twitching to listen for whatever consequence the noisy disturbance might have caused.

They snapped forward at an unintelligible response from inside the room. Each pump of blood strained her chest, yet the wisps of expectation stoked a fire that had laid dormant. The door clicked and rattled, then creaked open to reveal a human male rubbing the fatigue out of his eyes, groggily grumbling his seething irritation.

“It’s like three in the morning and I told you guys to leave me alone. This place better be on…fire…” Bill’s eyes widened, flicking from point to point over her form. His fatigued ire melted into slack-jawed shock. “Sunshine? What…? How…? T-they said…?”

Whole.

She didn’t even register lunging at him, nor that she had knocked both of them to the floor in doing so. Even the pain of her limbs and wounds were but a distant memory as she wrapped her arms around him as hard as she could, only the burning warmth in her shoulder telling of how stressful the act was. She tried to speak—to warn him of the dangers and tell him how desolate she was without him near—but only choked sobs squeaked out from her tightened throat. Tears flowed freely as she breathed deeper and deeper. The well of worry, sadness, and panic was captured and held by her core, pushing her own mind into overdrive as it absorbed and mirrored the sensations.

Yet as his arms wrapped around her, another set of emotions pierced through the maelstrom.

Relief. Joy. Affection.

Her weeping grew as the endless stress and stimulants failed to fight back possible suns upon suns of activity. The ceaseless pursuit of the male that was finally back in her grasp. She took in all that he was, feeling his warmth against her fur and the scent she had grown to need so desperately. The voices finally ceased their disorienting deluge of distorted demands.

No, they wept with her. They cried with elation to reunite what had become a part of her. They sang their contentment to hold him and never let go. They whispered so gently into her ear that denying it would be sacrilege.

Claim him. Make him her own.

The curtain of rest closed swiftly, yet she could feel the resistance of flesh against her teeth and taste the iron tinge of blood on her tongue as she absently licked the punctures, driven by instinct and…

Hers.

…She had failed to adhere to her own warnings, it seemed. Bill was speaking, but nothing made it through the thick blankets of his touch, nor how comforting it was despite the pain. His surprise and concern were a drop amongst the oceans of joy.

For the first time since he left oh so long ago, Sunundra truly slept, and she did so in the arms of one who meant more than life itself.