The following morning, Hrake was dressed in a strange blue suit that covered his entire body, complete with a tank full of breathable air and a round, clear bubble of a helmet. He had been assured, as best he could tell, that it would keep the poison of the Mountains of Wasting from reaching him. He was once again on the shuttle, this time hurling back down to Hruduk, which somehow felt more disturbing than rocketing away from it. Watching the rocky landscape of the Mountains of Wasting coming up to meet them as they landed played on Hrake's nerves, but he avoided tearing holes in the upholstery.

"Talon Squad, this is Textbook," said Drixen over the comms, using his call sign rather than his given name. "Dr. Britkrup is requesting we land by that big ol' hole in the ground in about the middle of the mountain range. There's plenty of flat ground there, so we'll oblige."

"Sounds good, Drix- uh- Textbook," replied Reclan.

When the shuttles had landed, both crews stepped out into the irradiated air and greeted one another. Dr. Britkrup, a small Talpidarian female, looked far too cheerful for someone who had just walked into the “Gates of the Underworld.” Her assistants looked far more dour.

"Talon Squad! So glad you could join us today!" Britkup's chipper tone took Vanbrook back to his very young school days, when similarly jubilant people tried to convince him that science and math were fun.

Drixen and Kaihla waved from the ramp of the shuttle. Kailha made a motion like she was reaching out to throttle the professor behind her back. Drixen gently pushed her arms down and the couple walked back up the ramp with a final friendly wave.

"And this must be Hrake," Britkrup continued in her saccharine voice. She gave into the seemingly universal misconception that shouting helped to overcome language barriers. "Hello, Hrake! Your home is beautiful!"

"Hello!" Hrake shouted in response, politely attempting to match the doctor's tone. Britkrup looked perplexed briefly, and then recovered, smiling up at the Hrudukite warrior.

Hrake looked at Raivyn.

Britkrup say Hruduk beautiful, she imprinted, hoping Hrake would understand. She missed Rehkna already.

Hrake looked around at the stark, jagged gray and black landscape that was currently flooding the air with deadly amounts of poisonous rays and questioned Britkrup's tastes. He looked back at the scientist and nodded his head.

"Thank you," he said politely.

Britkrup nodded and turned towards the cave, throwing stones in her satchel and pointing out "interesting" rocks to anyone listening. Her assistants walked behind her, scooping up stones and measuring everything with radiation detectors.

“So are we gonna check out that big cave?” asked Vanbrook. “I don’t know if anyone ever lived to see this cave, but it’s not hard to imagine someone calling it the Gates of the Underworld if they did.”

"Adventurous spirit, are we?" asked Britkrup appreciatively. She pulled a canvas sack out of her pack and handed it to Vanbrook. "Tread carefully, and put anything odd in the bag."

A few variations of "but I don't think you'd fit in this bag” flitted through Vanbrook's mind, but he kept them to himself. He sauntered into the cave, Reclan hurrying behind him, trying desperately to send her drones in over Vanbrook’s shoulder.

“Van!” she shouted. “Would you please let me send some drones into the GATES OF THE UNDERWORLD before you charge in?!”

Raivyn laughed and shook her head, walking over to Hrake. He was stretching and going through some kind of drills with his hammer. He shook his head, looking at Raivyn.

Strange clothes? she asked.

Yes. Strange, replied Hrake.

Train. Use. Better, said Raivyn, nodding encouragingly.

Hrake nodded. He was sure Raivyn was right. Practice would make him more comfortable in the aethersuit. But there were just too many things to get used to right now.

Blasts sounded from inside the cave.

“Not again!” exclaimed Raivyn, thinking back to Hittania.

“Get those shuttles fired up!” shouted Vanbrook over the comms. “We’ve got more roaches!”

Vanbrook and Reclan shot out of the cave, firing over their shoulders. Right on their heels came a swarm of scuttling creatures similar to the Roach Lord, but with fewer armored plates. Their heads lacked the acid-spewing snouts, but still had the deadly, jagged mandibles.

Hrake leapt into action, swinging his hammer into the creatures. The first one he hit exploded into blue-green gore. The one beside it exploded, too, this one alongside a sound like thunder. Hrake blinked and looked over at Vanbrook, and saw that the man was using the strange, powerful weapon the travelers called a gun.

Talon Squad quickly engaged, with Doc and Raivyn hanging back to pick off stragglers while D’Jarric, Vanbrook, and Hrake went after the bugs head-on. Reclan tried to fall back to a position from which she could better utilize her drones, but she couldn’t break loose from the skirmish. Snarling, she grabbed her plasma cutter and ignited it, the blade glowing with deadly heat. She swung it through the swarming roaches, severing limbs and heads with abandon.

“Are the scientists clear?” asked Vanbrook.

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Raivyn looked over her shoulder to check, and saw the three scientists about halfway between the cave and the shuttles. A smaller cave she hadn’t noticed before exploded right next to the scientists, and a Roach Lord burst out. One of the scientists clamped between the mandibles before he knew what had happened and was chewed and swallowed with brutal efficiency. The roach was about nearly twice the size of the one Hrake had slain.

“Doc!” shouted Raivyn, pointing to the monster.

“On it!” said the Robot, swinging his rifle around. Hrake had turned to see what the noise was about, and watched as Doc put a single ballistic bullet through the roach’s throat. It gurgled out a strained roar and rounded on the marksman. Doc stood his ground, firing a volley of laser blasts at the charging monster’s head. He fired a final ballistic round into the weakened armor around the face, blowing the entire head to smithereens. Blood and acid rained down on the metal man, and the body of the monster stumbled, fell and slid, skidding to a stop a few feet from Doc. The Robot had made the act of slaying a Roach Lord look like a trivial task.

“Well I’ll need a good wax, that’s for sure,” was all he had to say about it.

“Hrake!” shouted Vanbrook.

Hrake turned in time to see one of the larval roaches lunging for him. He crushed it to the ground, then looked up and noticed that the larvae were acting strange, sniffing at the air like there was something terrifying in the wind. They fled back into the cave.

“Must have sensed mama die,” said Doc, walking over to the others. "Food that can kill you ain't worth trying to eat."

“Alright,” said Raivyn, “I think that concludes our little exploration." She looked out to where Britkrup and her surviving assistant were running to Drixen's shuttle.

"Doctor," she said, "the immediate danger has passed; do you have everything you need?"

"Specialist Raivyn," said Britkrup, huffing with effort. "One of my assistants is dead. That is enough field work for this expedition. Possibly the rest of my career."

"We're not all warriors," said Raivyn, though not over the comm line.

***

Hoon-Kra paced in his run-down study, a glass of mead in his hand. Darvik waltzed into the room with an annoyed look on his face, rubbing the stubble on his chin. The murderer had become all too comfortable in Hoon-Kra's house, but their shared goals made him a reasonably trustworthy ally. It helped that it would be all too easy to to kill him and make it look like a suicide.

"Can I help you, Darvik?" Hoon-Kra asked carelessly.

"Just wondering what the plan is here," he said with a shrug.

"Currently, I am waiting on intel," offered Hoon-Kra. "Unfortunately, it is an exercise in patience."

"Not my strong suit," said Darvik.

Hoon-Kra once again considered killing the goon now, but something told him Darvik was a more promising investment than he first appeared.

"Tell me, Darvik, what do you worship?" He asked the question suddenly, as though springing a trap.

Darvik paused, regarding Hoon-Kra with an inscrutable look. "Nothing."

"None of us worship nothing, Darvik. What do you value, what do you dedicate your life to?"

Darvik's face contorted in thought. "I value my own neck, I guess. I'm a survivor, not a worshiper."

Hoon-Kra sighed. "Self-worship is still worship. One of the more commendable forms, in some ways. But it fails to satisfy because it is not transcendent. Some worship the Progenitor, some their ancestors, some a vague sense of an un-personified 'universe' or simple chance. These things give a sense of serving something greater than the self. But do those things hold the power to be worthy of worship?"

Darvik rolled his eyes. "Just cut to the part where you ask me to join your cult and worship your shark god. Look, if you want to kill me, then go ahead and try. I don't like my chances but I'm willing to take them rather than join some religion. But if you didn't think I'd be useful, you wouldn't have kept me around this long, and you're my best shot at getting to Vanbrook. So why don't we just keep this nice and transactional?"

"It's decided then,” said Hoon-Kra with a cordial nod. “I have business to conduct on Krauqia. While I'm away, I want you to keep this safe house. I'll send you code words daily. Kill anyone trying to enter the safehouse without the proper code. I will be back when my business is concluded and we will set out for the Wingspan as soon as we know where we're going. You will get a stipend for groceries and other needs on top of pay."

Darvik laughed brashly. He hadn’t really considered the financial side of things. "Hey, you're the boss."

***

Over the next few days the samples were analyzed, preliminary diplomatic relations were started with a few more Hrudukite city-states and Hrake continued to study Talpaertan. With the benefits of Raivyn’s impressionistic psychic communications and Hrake’s interest and skill in language, he was picking it up rather quickly.

Finally, the diplomatic fleet arrived from Kirakna, and Jasken happily handed the baton over to them. Jasken stood on the bridge of the Wingspan, waiting for the newly arrived ships to make contact.

“Jasken,” said a chipper voice over the comms.

The Admiral smiled at the Dromean female on his comm screen. “Ambassador Wyrkii, good to see you.”

“Same to you, Admiral. Looking forward to establishing diplomatic relations with a new species!”

Jasken laughed. “Better you than me, I suppose. One thing to note is that, despite the dangers of the region, the area known as the Mountains of Wasting looks to be a promising resource for our nuclear fuel.”

“Yes, I was sorry to see you lost an expedition member,” said Wyrkii gently.

Jasken nodded and sighed. “I appreciate it, Wyrkii.” It was expected that a certain number would lose their lives on an expedition like this, but it never got any easier to lose someone under your command or write back home to their loved ones.

“Will I be seeing you clayside?” asked the Ambassador.

“I’m afraid not,” answered Jasken. “We’ve filled our water tanks and plan to head out immediately. I have to see to our final pre-jump preparations. Specialists Raivyn and D’Jarric of Talon Squad will be joining you, however, to briefly introduce you to King Hrynkak.”

“Alright then, Admiral. Providence shine on your expedition.”

“And on your efforts as well.”

***

After a brief meeting with Wyrkii, Hrynkak, and Rehkna, Raivyn and D’Jarric flew back up to the Wingspan and found their seats as they prepared to jump.

“Did we achieve galactic peace?” asked Vanbrook as they strapped in.

“We’ll have to settle for planetary peace at the moment,” answered Raivyn. “But most Hrudukite nations have been very open to us. Unfortunately, Zrykyk seems to have rallied a number of supporters to his side, and seems to be looking to cause trouble from his palace to the south of Gred. For now, though, I suppose that’s not our problem.”

Vanbrook nodded.

“We will now be departing Kir147-WB1.08, also known as Hruduk, for Hru14-NN0.93,” said Admiral Jasken over the comms. The planet looks to be cold and inhospitable, but hopefully this will simply be a stop on our way to the Cornucopia Cluster. The jump will take roughly fifteen days, so be prepared to scrub your ships down from keel to stern.” Despite the fact that he could not see or hear the crew from his place on the bridge, Jasken paused as a groan rose up from the gathered sailors. “May providence shine on our journey.”