A hazy, translucent rectangle sprang into being, projected from the surface of the command terminal to float in the air above. After an uncomfortably-long delay, it began to fill with the looping spiral forms of Zorvax words in luminous green script.

Ryan studied the holographic display intently.

System initializing... initialization complete.

Connection established.

Access request received.

Verifying user credentials... user credentials verified.

Access granted to command terminal at Station-Captain level.

Greetings, Station-Captain-Phzlorp! You have [2,947] pending notifications.

View notifications now?

Hah, looks like somebody isn't very good about checking for messages. Maybe it's some sort of universal constant that middle managers are like that, regardless of species.

"It is done," the alien officer announced.

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Don't wander too far, now," Ryan warned as the knee-high vehicle backed away from the silver podium.

Cracking his knuckles, he stepped up to the terminal and got to work.

All parameters set. Create new user?

CAUTION: Review security procedures for new users and ensure user permission settings are correct before proceeding!

Confirmed. Creating new user...

Credentials created for new user Station-Captain-Ryan.

Disconnecting...

Halfway there, Ryan thought with a grin. So far, so good.

Bringing up his Implant's interface, he sent a connection request to the terminal.

Connection established.

Access request received.

Verifying user credentials...

And now for the moment of truth.

He mentally crossed his fingers.

Capturing a Station-Captain was a welcome stroke of luck after all the setbacks they'd encountered. Ryan had expected that it was going to be necessary for him to pry open the terminal and override its security interlocks manually, a tricky and (worse) time-consuming process even under the best of circumstances. Although...

"What's a Station-Captain like you doing in a place like this, Phzlorp?"

"How do you mean?"

"There are so many demands on a Station-Captain's time," he said, echoing a phrase that he'd once heard from another Zorvax. "A whole lot of effort went into setting up this base and keeping it hidden. You obviously thought the project was important, since you and your Reserve-Commander buddy over there decided to come down and oversee the construction personally. So... why?" He gestured to the cavern around them. "What's the point of all this?"

"Surely you must be aware of this location's value."

"Uh, let's pretend that I'm not. I'm just a dumb human, after all."

"...as you say," Phzlorp wheezed nervously. "When the Star Empire's scouts first arrived in your system, it was discovered that your homeworld of Sol-III possesses abnormally-large concentrations of rare resources. This," he added, almost as an afterthought, "was the justification for establishing a Forward Operating Command post in the system and proceeding with subjugation efforts."

"Rare resources like... what? Platinum?" Ryan squinted, trying to remember what he'd learned in school a half-decade ago. "Lithium? Boron? Unobtainium?"

Disregarding his last sarcastic suggestion, the alien replied, "No, even those elements are trivial for an interstellar power to obtain in the required quantities. Sol-III, however, is unique, in that it is incredibly rich in unstable transuranic isotopes. These isotopes are necessary for the manufacture of advanced military equipment, and they are far more difficult to acquire."

"Unstable transuranic isotopes... hold on, are you trying to tell me that the Zorvax invaded us because you wanted to steal our nuclear waste?"

"Waste?" The Station-Captain burst out laughing, a high-pitched gurgling sound. "Waste! How incredible. Only a human would call it waste. Transuranic isotopes generated by natural processes are unbelievably rare. And, of course, only you humans would be so deranged as to deliberately set off artificial atomic fission reactions within the atmosphere of your own homeworld. Why, even doing so in the depths of outer space would be madness. Yet your people did, at great risk... and then chose to bury the resulting riches. To the Star Empire, this site is a vast, untapped fortune, not a..." Another bubbling laugh. "...waste repository."

"But it is a waste repository, at least to us," Ryan protested. "You could have just asked us for it. We've been trying for decades to figure out a way of getting rid of this stuff! Hell, if you'd offered, our governments would probably have paid you to take it off their hands..."

"Perhaps so," Phzlorp admitted. "Perhaps so. By the time it was discovered that these deposits were not naturally-occurring, but synthetic, plans had already been set in motion. A pity. This world will become a dominion of the Zorvax Star Empire, human, whether your species desires it or not."

At the corner of his vision, a system notification icon started flashing, indicating that the terminal had finally finished processing his request. Holding his breath, he brought up the message.

User credentials verified.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Access granted to command terminal at Station-Captain level.

Greetings, Station-Captain-Ryan! You have [0] pending notifications.

Perfect.

As far as his Implant was concerned, Ryan had just been promoted from Forward-Commander to Station-Captain, skipping right over the two ranks in between. Using the elevated level of permissions granted by his new acquired rank, he could now disable the transponder function of a Change Matrix just by touching it.

Without the transponder signals to follow, the Zorvax had no way to locate him or his team... and because he'd already disabled his Implant's long distance communication receiver, it didn't matter that they'd eventually figure out what he'd done and revert the changes. Once he disconnected, his own system would be totally isolated from their network.

They'd done it.

Against all odds, his team had accomplished the mission. No more reacting to the enemy's moves. No more running away. Soon, they'd be able to go on the offense for a change.

…after we get away, that is.

But before that, there was one last remaining task that he wanted to accomplish. He'd been given unrestricted access to the Zorvax planetary network. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and there was no sense in wasting it.

Create local database backup?

Confirmed. Initiating database backup...

Beneath the last line of text, a progress bar appeared. A few minutes, he estimated, watching as the line slowly crawled forward. Not bad, considering he'd just instructed the terminal to save a copy of every single file on the network to his Implant's storage.

Including, he hoped, some information that would point them towards the location of the enemy's main base.

Most of the files would be encrypted. That was okay, because they had plenty of time. He'd been looking for a new project to keep himself occupied.

The bar ticked up by another percent.

His instincts twinged, warning him that there was something wrong. What, though? Stepping away from the terminal, he glanced around the room, trying to figure out what was bothering him. Nothing immediately leaped out at him. The constant background rumble of the portal generator made it difficult to think.

When did it get so loud in here?

The droning hum produced by the generator hadn't changed in volume, he decided. It only sounded different than it had before because...

...because earlier I was in the middle of a conversation and tuning it out.

Where had Station-Captain-Phzlorp gotten off to?

"ACTIVATING AUTOMATED DEFENSES," a booming announcement declared, accompanied by a sequence of threatening metal-on-metal whirring sounds from the ceiling above. "CAUTION. TARGETING PARAMETERS OVERRIDDEN. CAUTION. SAFETY PROTOCOLS DISENGAGED. CAUTION. REMAIN CLEAR. AUTOMATED DEFENSES OPERATING IN MANUAL CONTROL MODE."

Oh, crap. That's not good.

Ryan dropped to the floor, taking cover behind the cylindrical housing of the command terminal. As he hit the ground, a neon-green plasma blast slashed through the holographic text projection hovering above the device. The wobbling, incandescent projectile detonated against the far wall with a resounding boom that shook the entire cavern.

A second blast sailed past to his left, followed a second later by another explosion.

Crap! Energy projectors in overhead mounts. He scanned the ceiling for the telltale conical shapes. Even now, knowing to look for them, it was a challenge to pick them out from the craggy rock face they'd been set into. One... two... okay, looks like there's only two of them installed. Could be worse. Lucky that the portal generator is blocking so much of their line of fire, but the second I step out, I'm cooked.

"It is becoming apparent that granting humans access to our technology was a mistake," Phzlorp said, his shrill voice ringing out across the room. "Your species is far more dangerous than you initially appeared."

"Oh, you're definitely right about that," Ryan shot back while he considered his options.

The progress bar remained stalled at thirty-three percent, stubbornly refusing to budge.

"It is not too late to surrender."

He scoffed, "Do you really think that's going to work?"

Forty-one percent.

"Of course. The position you find yourself in is hopeless. Even if you should escape today, you are merely a primitive savage, using stolen technology that your crude mind cannot comprehend, standing alone against the combined might of a hundred worlds. Any rational individual would immediately accept the offer."

"That's where you're wrong."

"You... are not a rational individual?"

"No. I'm not in this fight alone."

Fifty-nine percent.

"So be it, human. If your choice is death, then prepare to be obliged."

From above, another salvo of plasma blasts rained down, forcing him to duck back behind the terminal. None of them had landed particularly close.

As the smoke cleared, Ryan wondered why the fire from the automated defenses was proving to be so inaccurate. In manual control mode, they were aimed through a simple point-and-click interface. Even if the Zorvax officer didn't have a good angle to hit Ryan, it should be easy enough to blow apart the squat pedestal that he was using for cover.

In fact, it almost seemed like the shots were being sent wide deliberately. Why?

The terminal is controlling the portal generator, he realized, and there's an open portal in the room with us.

A hazy memory surfaced, something that he'd been repeatedly cautioned you weren't supposed to do when operating a portal generator.

Seventy-two percent.

The energy projectors switched over to rapid fire. Trying his best to ignore the wash of light and heat generated by each successive round of the impacts, Ryan began flipping through the terminal's menus.

"Human, what are you doing? Human!"

Seventy-eight percent.

Ryan made his selection. Waving away the sudden litany of warning messages that filled the display, he punched in a confirmation.

New coordinates received. Repositioning portal aperture...

To his right, the portal generator suddenly changed pitch. Electricity arced between the banks of graviational lenses, while the collimator at its center accelerated with a piercing whine that made his teeth ache. A second later, the air itself seemed to ripple, and then the spiraling blue tear in space hovering on the other side of the room lurched into motion, sliding slowly in his direction.

More importantly, it was sliding slowly through the air in the direction of the portal generator that he was crouched beside.

Under no circumstances should an attempt be made to move an active portal generator through a portal. Doing so, his instructors had emphasized on several occasions, would cause the portal to become unstable, which could result in serious damage to the equipment.

Apparently Phzlorp had been given the same lecture, and was equally familiar with the Zorvax tendency for understatement. The Station-Commander wavered uncertainly, pseudopods wobbling in alarm, then squeezed its eyes shut. With a last squeak of dismay, the officer's hostile environment transport spun around and plunged through the open portal, accepting the risk of capture by the government agents waiting below in order to escape the impending catastrophe in the teleportation chamber.

Eighty-one percent.

That would have to be enough, he decided.

Locking the coordinates into the terminal, Ryan turned away from the display and pushed himself to his feet.

I think it's time to get the heck out of here.

He threw one final glance over his shoulder at the swirling blue aperture's creeping approach, then started sprinting for the exit.