Colonel William Ashwood stared at the hill, paying extra attention to the conspicuous fact of its continued existence. A bit of dirt and stone should not have survived an anti-ship railgun round.

Gathering his wits, the Colonel closed his mouth and sent an order through his implants. Three additional points of view appeared in his vision, letting Ashwood quickly rewatch the past minute recorded through his cybernetics and the helmets of his bodyguards, Jameson and Pierce. Most of the footage was useless as all three of them had been staring at the Custodian. Fortunately, the hill could be seen on the edge of Jameson’s field of vision.

Speeding through the footage, the Colonel discovered two things. One, the Custodian’s eyes did not, in fact, reflect the light from the explosion. Two, the railgun round was stopped and annihilated by some sort of an energy shield.

Colonel Ashwood slowly turned his head back to the mysterious Custodian.

She just sat there with an expressionless face, staring at him creepily. Completely ignoring her servant scrambling on the ground. At least the large size of the table provided some distance from her . He wasn’t sure if he could have kept calm were he closer to the strange woman.

The Colonel did not want to jump to conclusions, but one thing was exceedingly clear. The natives, or, more likely, the Custodian, possessed something extremely valuable.

The Republic had yet to invent any sort of useful energy shields. Colonel Ashwood hardly knew much on the topic, yet even he knew that many even doubted whether it was possible. There were prototypes, but none of them had any practical use. Too expensive, too bulky, too energy inefficient.

The Custodian had proven to be much more dangerous than anyone could have guessed, yet her actions only highlighted her ignorance.

What she had shown was an impressive display of power, a fraction of it likely capable of cowing any number of savages into submission.

But the Terran Republic would see it as a siren’s call.

Most likely the Custodian had control over some sort of advanced piece of tech, perhaps something the original colonists invented. Maybe even something of alien origin. Or it really was magic or some other nonsense as the other natives claimed. It didn’t really matter. The Republic will want it.

He paused. A dangerous thought entered his mind, ‘Athena will want it too.’

At least it finally let the Colonel piece some of this world’s strange culture together. He had not lied about the impressiveness of their society. Now he finally had an explanation. Well, a part of it at least.

A cold comfort. This whole thing could easily spiral out of control.

Steeling his will, he spoke, a bit more politely, “Would you mind telling me what you just did, and how?”

He would have to make sure to study the moon’s customs properly for next time.

“I asked for Eternity’s grace. She answered,” the white-robed custodian told him.

The Colonel fought the urge to roll his eyes. Damn zealots, the lot of them.

“I see,” he responded, taking care not to let the sarcasm leak through. “This changes many things, Lady Custodian. We will need to reconvene at a later date.”

No reason to push yet, especially since he knew so little. Time was on his side anyway. For now.

The Custodian looked at him strangely, making Colonel Ashwood wonder whether he had broken another of the many weird rules.

Finally, she spoke, “So be it. Use the temple to contact me when you are ready.”

The Colonel released a breath he had unknowingly held. He looked forward to getting far away from the unnerving woman. Ashwood could already picture himself in the safety of their ship, the TRS Alcyone.

Before he could get up, the Custodian’s cold voice made him freeze.

“One last piece of advice,” The Custodian began, staring at him like a snake might at a mouse. “Laws are only as strong as those who uphold them. Our Laws are eternal, Colonel.”

With those parting words, she marched off, her servant trailing behind her.

With the Custodian gone, the Colonel straightened from his awkward pose, needlessly dusting his uniform off.

Jameson and Pierce politely pretended not to notice anything.

Colonel Ashwood sighted again, before gesturing to his guards to follow.

It was still the middle of the night, so he had to go slowly. His guard’s helmets had decent night vision, but he only had his, mostly organic, eyes. His retinal implants helped a bit with low-light vision, at least.

The lake itself sat in the middle of a forest, with no real roads leading to it. Luckily their shuttle hadn’t landed that far, though they still had to trudge through a decent bit of wild forest.

The natives could do with a bit of industrialization.

Even so, the walk back to the shuttle passed quickly, as the Colonel had a lot to contemplate. Mainly the disgustingly large complication that the Custodian had just dropped in his lap.

His luck really was quite bad. The entire mission should have been simple. A vacation of sorts. Escort a few thousand colonists to a newly discovered habitable moon and stay a few years to make sure they don’t kill each other or worse, try to secede.

People on faraway colonies had a tendency to develop funny ideas like that.

Still, it should have been easy. He would have just lazed around on Alcyone for a few years and then gone back to the core worlds with a nice bonus for deep space work.

It had all gone to shit the moment they arrived. The probes that discovered the moon had not had scanners good enough to penetrate the moon’s thick atmosphere. Which meant that its inhabitation became clear only when Alcyone, with its modern military equipment, arrived.

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Afterwards the Colonel, as both the highest-ranked person and the only person with implants capable of assisted learning, became an impromptu diplomat. No one else could learn the native language in a reasonable timeframe, as advanced implants like his were still heavily restricted. In more ways than one. Learning the language was still incredibly annoying, but there weren’t any real alternatives.

At the time he had thought that things could not get any worse. He could only chuckle at the naivety of his past self.

The natives had quickly proven quite unreasonable, while also being weirdly unbothered by the centuries ahead Terran technology. He had written their behaviour off as lost colony shenanigans, but his encounter with the Custodian had shown him that he had miscalculated. There was without a doubt something strange about this world.

To add to his problems, the colonists started fighting amongst each other over the moon’s name, of all things. One side wanted to keep the Terran name, Draugr, while the other wanted to adopt the native name, Eigos. At least they stopped insisting on accompanying him planetside.

As expected from a group with such… diverse backgrounds.

He couldn’t actually do much about the colonists brawling on their two ships from Alcyone. However, as the ranking Terran authority in the system, people still expected him to deal with it, somehow. Especially since policing the colonists was supposed to be his real task. He had yet to decide whether or not to send some of his soldiers over as the colonists were bound to be very unhappy about it.

Of course, all of these problems were paltry in comparison to the encounter with Eigos’s Custodian.

Pierce and Jameson probably realized some of the implications too. They had been walking for a while and were already nearing the shuttle, yet both of them had stayed uncharacteristically quiet.

He couldn’t really blame them. He wasn’t in a talking mood either.

The Colonel didn’t really believe the Eigosians could fight the Republic with any degree of success. Unfortunately, that might not mean that they were incapable of fighting Alcyone.

The moon possessed potent defences, at the very least.

Soon the Colonel and his two guards reached the shuttle. A sleek and modern machine, around twenty meters in length and painted in the Terran Republic’s colors, black and purple.

Its doors opened a moment later, the pilot likely having spotted their approach on the shuttle’s cameras. The Colonel quickly entered, his bodyguards following.

Soon they were all securely seated and Ashwood once again free to return to his contemplations.

It was certain that his superiors would order him to retrieve whatever the Custodian had used to block the railgun and he very much doubted the Custodian would just hand it over.

Yet it would be unlikely that anyone would see Eigos as a legitimate threat. After all, it possessed no fleet and while the Custodian might possess some unorthodox technology, the rest of the natives were just spear-wielding primitives.

He wasn’t yet sure where his own opinion on the matter lay. This little moon hid some sort of a secret, that was for certain.

The higher-up's attention was a certainty too, as well as Athena’s.

Colonel Ashwood had little idea what that might result in though. More ships, probably. Athena would likely send advice, if nothing else. The super-AI’s counsel might prove more valuable than any reinforcements anyway, but that didn’t mean the Colonel would turn his nose up at more dependable men.

The shuttle docked sooner than he would have liked. Exiting, he felt some of the tension leaving his shoulders. Ashwood still had little idea as to the full extent of the Custodian’s capabilities, but Alcyone was a top-of-the-line battlecruiser. They could at least escape.

He said his goodbyes to his guards, who went to rejoin the rest of his soldiers, and started towards the bridge. He had much to discuss with the Captain.

Alcyone was a few hundred meters in length, but the winding corridors of its interior stretched the distance he had to walk.

The atmosphere on the ship felt tense, with crew members hurrying around him through the corridors. The Colonel paid them little mind. While they were technically under his command, they weren’t truly his people.

He could guess what had them worried anyway.

Soon, he reached the bridge.

Entering, he took in the taut atmosphere. All consoles were manned and everyone present had suited up. As he had thought, the Captain had put the crew on alert.

Some turned their heads upon his entrance, quickly alerting their compatriots upon recognizing his distinct blue uniform and medals.

Ashwood barely acknowledged them with a nod, scanning the room for Captain Song and swiftly noticing her near one of the displays further inside the bridge, surrounded by a few of the bridge crew.

Captain Song was an Asian woman of average height in her mid-thirties, with sharp brown eyes and a black ponytail. She wore a uniform in the black colour of the navy, with dark purple stripes, signifying her rank. Unlike his own uniform, hers had no medals. Her face was scowling, though this time the captain’s perpetual unfriendliness didn’t make Ashwood annoyed.

Dealing with the puritan Captain after his dealings with the Custodian was like petting an angry puppy after wrestling a bear. In a way, Captain Song’s scowling face felt almost nostalgic.

After getting his bearings, Colonel Ashwood went straight to her. The few navy officers in black uniforms around her quickly left, letting the two speak alone. Well, as alone as they could get on a bridge full of people stealing glances at them.

“Captain Song. There’s been a… development. The situation should be stable, but keep the ship on alert for now.” Ashwood said, carefully watching the older woman’s face.

The captain frowned. “What happened, exactly? The only thing we could tell from up here is that the hill is still intact.” She said, before belatedly adding, “Colonel.”

“Come with me to my office, I’ll show you. We need to talk in private anyway,” The Colonel replied, mildly enjoying the flash of irritation on the captain’s face at the mention of his office.

Having said everything he wanted to, Colonel Ashwood turned and started walking towards the office, the captain following without a word.

Even in such a serious situation, he couldn’t help but feel amused, and subsequently a little guilty, at the Captain’s obvious annoyance. Taking delight in a subordinate’s bad mood was hardly appropriate. Though thinking that only made him more amused.

The source of both the Captain’s annoyance and Ashwood’s amusement stemmed, indirectly, from the inefficient organization of the Terran’s military ranks. The Captain was the party most negatively impacted by it, while simultaneously opposing a reorganization.

A most amusing stance, in Ashwood’s opinion. On the surface, at least.

The root of her consternation and much debate throughout the military was the Republic’s “One Rank” policy. It unified ranks and their authority across the various branches of the military and had been meant to make the chain of command clearer.

It succeeded in that, at least. The problem with it was that it granted unquestionable authority to the person with the highest rank on site, no matter their qualification.

This meant that an army colonel with little experience in commanding starships was technically the person supposed to give orders in a crisis when on a ship. The Colonel, like most in his position, wasn’t actually dumb enough to do so.

Unlike the commanding officer of the late TRS Unvanquishable.

Only since the ship’s destruction many started clamouring for reform.

The incident also made the navy’s captains rather wary of people in his current position, making his life much harder. On the other hand, it turned many people away from the traditionalists.

Many, like Captain Song, stayed true to their beliefs and opposed reformation, for various reasons. Some simply hated change, though most opposed it for the simple reason that Athena had proposed it. As far as he could tell, Captain Song was one of the latter.

Colonel Ashwood had yet to figure out her reason for opposing Athena, however.

Did she simply dislike AI like so many from the corporate colonies? Or was she among the smarter ones, who were worried about Athena gaining more influence over the military?

He had a feeling that he’d find out soon.

Reaching his office, the Colonel sent the password through his implants and walked through the opening door, Captain Song on his heels.

He sat behind his desk, a nearly unnoticeable smirk on his face.

They were right to worry about the AI’s influence.

It might have even helped, had they done so decades ago.