Lucas chuckled as he heard the string of profanities addressed his way when the girl crashed at the bottom of the vent. He had to give her credit; she was quite inventive. It was enough to make him feel just a little guilty for what he did to her. Was injecting her with drugs and forcing her to betray her friends ethical? Absolutely not. However, when was the last time he had done something ethical in the first place? His very training was one big violation of human rights and a stain on the physician’s oath. The Demons were a tool of destruction. It was up to His imperial majesty to decide how to use the darkness they brought for the benefit of His Empire.
He half-expected Nia to start one of her lectures on how they were supposed to keep the peace and secure a brighter future for the human race. Bring forth an age of love and prosperity. It was amazing that she honestly believed that their hands weren’t stained by innocent blood. Poor misguided Carthage; she was the only one amongst them to have a shred of humanity.
“But you can’t scold me, can you?” Lucas whispered to himself, and fresh pain wrecked his heart. “Because you’re most likely dead.”
He slammed his fist on the wall and bit back the tears. “I’ll see you on the other side. All of you.”
How many times had he uttered the words? Too many for his liking. But he never thought he would speak them for Nia or Virgil. The three of them had been together from the very start. They had been the last Gen 3’s in squad Demon. Damn, they had been the last from the entire batch grown from Project Osiris. Even their cousins at Daeva and Shayatin were populated by Gen 10 and above. Tess was the closest to them, but she was Gen 6, and the others were Gen 9. And that was if he didn’t count that the Oni Infiltrators attached to the Demons were already at Gen 18.
Although Lucas would take a bullet for each of his fellow Demons without thinking or hesitating for a single moment, the bond he felt with Puppeteer and Carthage was something else. The pain of losing them was too much. They had shared thousands of battlefields over their twenty-five years of service to His Holiness, the Emperor. And now it was all gone. He felt lost and alone and wanted to curse his conditioning for preventing him from giving up. Instead, it forced him to push on when he couldn’t see a reason to do so.
At least he had been able to restrain himself from shooting the girl the moment she mentioned the name of that traitorous cowardly snake Neverok. Lucas could have ignored her impersonating a Black Confessor. After all, the regulations regarding their sect didn’t apply all that much to the Demons. But they had a personal grudge to settle with Commodore. Lilyana Neverok. Her crime of turning against her cousin and sire Constantine V Rütter and igniting the Baal rebellion was reason enough. That angered Lucas, but it wasn’t enough to lose sleep over. In reality, he, like the others, understood her reasoning and, in a small way, agreed with her cause. It was the Commodore’s methods they found a problem with; that’s why they had offered to help bridge the chasm between Lilyana and the Emperor. However, she had broken her oath to Virgil and had killed Athena.
“We will tear your beating heart and use your skin as a banner while you still draw breath! Remember this, Commodore Neverok; the Demons will hunt you to the end of the galaxy!” Virgil’s words echoed in his head.
“I hope you’ve made good on your promise, my friend. Because I might be too late to do anything about it,” Lucas sighed and leaned against the wall.
The woman, Kurtz, had revealed much to him. Not enough to know what was going on, but enough to form a feasible theory. Her knowledge of experimental weapons and armour was at odds with her not knowing basic things. The way she knew about the Mark 9 Ripper, which was a stripped-down version of his own rifle and how she drew a complete blank at what a Black Confessor was, was enough to tell him that he had spent a way too long time in the cryo-pod. On top of that, there was the issue with the Empire she was referring to. It couldn’t be the Holy Terran Empire because that would mean the many religious groups and cults would still have a firm grip on the daily life of the faithful. After all, they were one of the reasons why the Holy Garden of Hell could control as many planets as it did and become a galactic superpower second only to the Xith Stratocracy.
Her reaction when Lucas mentioned his Sire was enough to tell him that it wasn’t that far away in the past. Theoretically, a cryo-pod could work for a thousand years before malfunctioning and another five hundred before ultimately failing. In the worst-case scenario, Lucas had woken up between ten and fifteen centuries into the future. If he wanted to be an optimist, only two centuries had passed since he had found his way inside the damned thing. Sadly, the date stamps he had pulled out Kurtz’s cerebral implant while making the fake log didn’t make any sense to him to be any more accurate. He hadn’t the slightest idea what event they used as year-zero. One thing Lucas was sure of was that these people didn’t use the Terran calendar.
All the theories he hypothesised led him to the same conclusion. Human civilisation had suffered a collapse. Be it catastrophic or slow was inconsequential. The important part was that he was screwed, which reminded the medic that he had a more pressing matter to deal with. Obtaining a connection to the command network was just so that he could form some sort of a plan. Compound TZ-2, on the other hand, was vital if he wanted to survive. He had used one of the three dozes he had left, meaning he was good for the next three months. And if he was lucky, the next two could last him a further eight. Lucas was doubtful he would find the stuff lying around a medical cabinet. As such, securing the chemicals and equipment needed to make more had to be pushed as his number two priority. The first, without any doubt, was survival.
“Damn it,” Lucas whispered as he bumped the back of his head against the cold steel of the wall. “Balthazar, sorry for calling you a ball of lard. Please, tell me this is your revenge for suggesting you should go on a diet. I swear, I said only because your thyroid is faulty. As soon as the new one arrives, you’ll be good. I promise I won’t be mad.”
He pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes, listening to the deafening silence. “Just… please talk to me.”
Lucas might as well ask for Michael himself or one of the other Icons of Sin to bring him a cold drink. The medic knew he had to focus on his next steps, but that was easier said than done. Especially since he was making it as the events around him unfolded. He had made it this far only because of the piss poor training of the current occupants of Station 37-H. That he had avoided for hours while trying to revive the woman Kurtz in what was effectively their home was all the evidence he needed to make that assessment. A smile formed on his lips as he imagined what someone like Morgana could achieve in this place. The Oni would’ve probably sparked a civil war by the time Lucas stopped feeling sorry for himself.
But that was the thing. Her kin were trained to work behind enemy lines as infiltrators and saboteurs. They were the ones who marked the targets and opened holes in the enemy’s defences so that the Demons could unleash their fury. Although closer to humans, the Oni were as much part of MASS Demon as himself. Sure, Rage and Lucifer could voice their disagreement all they liked, but it didn’t change the truth of the matter. Besides, everyone had picked a trick or two from their lesser kin. Lucas, more so than the others, considering he spent so much time patching up the Oni after each deployment. It was because of this he knew how to use the girl.
“Control, can you hear me?” He heard Kurtz activate the comm feed, bringing him out of his dire thoughts.
“Zoë?! What the…? Where are you?” A man’s voice came from the other side of the link.
“Don’t know. Need help.” Lucas could hear the girl’s voice was laboured, as expected, though he expected her to remain unconscious for a little longer after the six-meter drop. “My heart… And I think I broke my arm.”
“I’ll get the techs to have a fix on your location.” The man on the other side of the feed paused for a moment before speaking up again in what Lucas knew was code. A poor one but a code nonetheless. “How’s your cough?”
“It’s gone for the moment, but-” He cut her connection.
“Think very carefully, Zoë,” Lucas spoke in a level tone, knowing it would convey his warning far better than an angry outburst. “The counter-agent has a very fragile container.”
>He tapped the device in his hand and freed her feeds once more. Balthazar had really outdone himself with the cortex bore he had created. The little thing worked perfectly, giving Lucas complete access and control over the comm implant in the girl’s head.
“… Second Officer Kurtz!” The panicked voice of the operator sounded once more.
“Sorry, Control… I blacked out….” Lucas smiled inwardly as he heard Zoë grinding her teeth in anger.
At least she was smart enough to know where her new loyalty should be. Although he was sure she would find some way to betray him, it was only natural that she would. But for now, she was doing as he had hoped. Actually, better than he expected. With a rank of a Second Officer, her value as a pawn increased quite significantly.
“My cough could come back at any moment, so you better hurry, Control,” Zoë continued after a moment’s hesitation.
“Copy that. Team 9 are on their way.”
This was his cue to get moving as well. The cortex bore had found a personal channel logged in Miss Kurtz’s implant’s cache. One labelled as Dr Werner, and access to a physician would help him solve the issue with TZ-2.
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Alexandra von Eisstahl felt anger and hatred in equal amounts. The four months spent on this pile of junk that someone had the nerve to call a ship had done little to help her mood. The Council had considered sending her to Last Hope a fitting punishment. Those senile old fools might have disguised it as a temporary posting serving as an Overseer to an essential source of income for the United Republics. But she could recognise it for what it was—a bloody banishment followed by a slow death by fading into obscurity.
She was a Knight Protector. A damned-to-hell Knight Protector! It was Alexandra who stood alone at Sentinel Hill during the food riots. And she was only a neophyte back then, but she had the resolve to crush the charging crowd where her betters had fled. She had been the one to defend the Council building when the Academy attempted a coup d’état. She was the one who broke the Khanate’s advance on Cepheron Prime during the twelve-day war. It was her battle frame that had the Snake and Sword engraved into it. But most of all, she was Alexandra von Eisstahl, and her face was the one plastered on every propaganda video board throughout the UR.
And her crime, if one could call it that, was to have had the balls to put to light the corruption of the current Overseer of the mining complex. Alexandra knew the man was well connected and had half of the Council in his pocket. But Oliver Tharks hadn’t been satisfied with syphoning half of the profits for his personal use. He had the gall to sell a third of what Last Hope produced to their enemies. As a von Eisstahl, it was her duty to act. Her only mistake was that she had done so on a live feed during the annual Congress session. By doing so, Alexandra had made sure the Council wouldn’t be able to weasel out of this mess.
At first, the Knight Protector had been ecstatic, being ordered to personally arrest the man. Until the ship made its exit from no-void at the Lumia relay, the closest transition point before the jump to Last Hope. There the second part of the order had reached her.
< KNIGHT VON EISSTAHL, NEW DEPLOYMENT >
< DESTINATION: LAST HOPE, MINING COMPLEX >
< LOCATION: SOMA SECTOR, STAR F25U-T2 >
< ORDERS: SERVE AS OVERSEER >
< DURATION: INDEFINITE >
< GLORY TO THE UNITED REPUBLICS >
The mnemonically encoded message popped in the corner of her eye, triggered by the mere thought. It fuelled a new fit of rage in Alexandra, and she rammed her fist into the status screen next to her. She had underestimated how many enemies she had made over the years and their reach.
“Mistress, could you please not do that?” Markus, the head mechanic of the team responsible for her battle frame, scoffed at her. “Who knows what replacement parts we will have access to once we get on the station.”
“It doesn’t matter. She won’t walk again,” Alexandra bit back the sour taste of the words left in her mouth.
“Not even the Council can keep Scolia grounded. She has pride. Her spirit can’t be crushed by something like this.” What he failed to realise was that it wasn’t the war machine’s spirit that’d be crushed, but hers.
The heavily augmented man disconnected from the cluster of screens and machines surrounding him and stretched. Markus was a small man, just over a meter and a half in height, but he had broad shoulders and a thick neck. A full auto-tool kit cybernetic completely replaced his left arm. The last time Alexandra had made an attempt to count all the different attachments, drills, connectors and so forth, she had stopped at seventy. That was before he had done three more upgrades to it. As for his right one, it was a delicate cybernetic frame made from carbon and dense plastic.
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Now that she looked at him for the first time in a year, she could see that the side of his head was shaven and the skin covered in an antiseptic gel. He was preparing to get a fourth cortex implant. Three was already outside safety regulations, but because of his marvellous work on the battle frame, Alexandra had looked the other way.
>“A fourth? Really, Markus?” She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow.
“I need a second processor to analyse all the data at once-” He began to speak, but she cut him off.
“Seventy percent of your brain is already paste. With your current augment level, you have about five years before it is completely melted and another six before your cybernetics fail, and you die!” Alexandra looked directly into the orange visor that used to be his eyes. “Yes, I read the report from medical. After the last examination, they didn’t clear you for duty and contacted me to offer a suitable replacement.”
The man shook his head at her words. “Mistress, they know nothing…”
“I’m not finished,” The Knight Protector’s face twisted as Alexandra approached him, and the smell of machine oil assaulted her nostrils. “You get a fourth one, and you are dead in a year.”
“That’s just on theory!” Markus snapped at her. “With the new…”
“Entering outer line of the planetary asteroid belt in fifteen minutes. All crew prepare cargo for gravity shift.” The system-wide feed massage, issued from the speakers and cut the argument short.
“Is Scolia secured?” Alexandra looked at the mighty battle frame locked to the workstation.
“Please, mistress,” Markus honoured her with a crooked smile. “Would I allow anything to happen to her under my care?”
“Captain, I need a channel to the mining complex’s Security,” Alexandra gave the order, closed the direct link with the bridge without waiting for confirmation, and turned to the mechanic again. “Markus, I’m serious. You get the fourth one installed, and I’ll replace you. Now, get me a visual of our new home and redirect it to my optic implant.”
The mechanic grunted in defeat as he turned towards one of the consoles. He would most likely disregard her warning, thinking himself irreplaceable. Although correct, he most definitely failed to understand that the Knight Protector would rather put a bullet through the mush contained inside his skull than watch him turn into a vegetable. Alexandra cut the perception of her left artificial eye and allowed the video feed to replace it.
“It’s ugly,” she scoffed at what she was seeing.
“We’re still at extreme range, and the hull sensors of this rust bucket are older than the UR.” Markus scoffed and quickly stopped his protest, seeing her left hand tighten into a fist.
The mining complex was like a cancerous growth outlined by the rust-coloured planet behind it, and the grainy, pixilated quality of the feed did little to improve its revolting appearance. Last Hope was vast as if its constructor never stopped adding new sections. Most of them were cubic by design, with some overlapping others. But near one end, it was more rounded, almost like some madman had attached several long cylinders and failed to hide them in angled cages. Vast areas of the outer hull were covered in laser burn marks, and entire sections were gutted open to the void. They were a testimony to how fiercely contested Last Hope had been during the Liberation Wars and why it was so important to the UR.
Alexandra could clearly make out the enormous chemical fuel refineries attached on the planet-side of the complex. Opposite them were the main foundries, the fires of their smelting furnaces spilling into open space. Where once an asteroid ring had been present, now there was nothing but clouds of dust traversed by both manned and AI-operated mining drones. A true behemoth of production, she remarked to herself. Despite all that, only a quarter of the complex was lit, and only one of the three space elevators emerging from the planet was operational. Small cargo movers crawled like insects around the edges of the elevator’s transfer platform, ready to feast on the ores dug out from the planet’s crust it carried. Soon, she vowed that all of this effort, instead of enriching a select few, would be directed towards improving the United Republics. The video feed was interrupted by a message written in large violet letters.
< SECURITY_ SERVER_MFS37H_ST1: LINK ESTABLISHED >
< FEED_LINK REDIRECTED >
< FEED CHANNEL_ID LHMS-332T: CONNECTED >
“Identify yourself!” A deep voice with a thick Nethra accent demanded almost immediately.
“Security Chief Donovan Rex, I presume,” Alexandra managed to reply in a level voice.
“You presume wrong!” The voice barked at her. “Identify yourself, or you will be charged with illegal tapping.”
Alexandra could feel the muscles around her nose begin to contract like they always did when she was beyond angry. She had to remind herself that the feed had been redirected because the ship’s captain had probably followed her order to the letter without thinking. Who knew how many alerts this action had triggered on Last Hope? Still, being barked at by a lowly tech wasn’t something she would tolerate.
“This is Knight Protector Alexandra von Eisstahl,” she said in a cold voice that made veterans tremble and sent her authorisation code over the feed. “You will connect me with Security Chief Rex right now.”
“My… My apologies, ma’am….” The owner of the voice was clearly shaken. “I really want to… But… Commodore Neverok has restricted all private channels.”
“What is your name?” The Knight Protector took a deep breath, trying hard not to snap at the man on the other side of the feed.
“Felix… That’s, I mean, communications operator Felix King… ma’am.” Alexandra could picture the man’s hair turning grey while he stuttered the response.
“Tell me, Mr King, does a Commodore outrank a Knight Protector?” She put just a little more steel in her voice.
“No… No, ma’am. But…”
“But what, Mr King?”
“Well, I mean no disrespect, ma’am… None at all, but the Commodore is here and you… Well, you are out there.”
Her jaw dropped at what she had just heard. A mere Commodore, an ornamental party mouthpiece, had them scared like little children. The level of professionalism of the security staff was below abysmal. She had expected some degree of incompetence, considering Tharks’ action, but this went beyond her wildest imagination. Alexandra kept silent for a full minute, trying to string together enough words to convey her outrage in a meaningful way.
“Listen to me very carefully, communications operator King. You will patch me to the Commodore in the next ten seconds, or I will personally crucify you, using your own bones as nails, the moment-”
“I understand, ma’am.” The man’s voice was hollow and quivering, interrupting her before Alexandra could finish her threat.
“Knight Protector von Eisstahl, to what do I owe the honour?” A wheezing voice with a light Beliar accent spoke clearly as soon as the connection was established.
“Commodore Neverok, I take it you’re the one running that circus over there. I’d love to have you and your entire crew of clowns lined before a military board. However, since that would require too much paperwork and would be a waste of the Academy’s High Command’s time, I’m giving you a chance to change my initial opinion of your operation. Overseer Oliver Tharks is to be placed under house arrest until my arrival, effective immediately.”
“Listen here, little girl. Knight Protector or not, you cannot talk to me in such a way!”
“Let me rephrase that, Commodore Neverok. Overseer Tharks will be placed under arrest now or after your posthumous dishonourable discharge. The choice is all yours. I’ll see you in two days.”
Alexandra closed the feed and slammed her fist on the broken status screen to vent her frustration. Broken pieces of artificially grown crystal shattered like icicles against the metal floor plates, mixing with the few droplets of blood which fell from the cut on her hand. Markus shook his head, and the Knight Protector expected him to go into another lecture on how she shouldn’t haphazardly destroy his equipment. His words, however, managed to surprise her.
“Was informing them of your arrival wise, mistress?”
“Like jackals, they’ll turn on each other,” Alexandra spoke softly while examining the wound. In her mind, everyone on Last Hope was guilty, and the conversation over the feed had confirmed her suspicions. “They’ll panic and try to hide as many of their crimes as they can and, in their haste, reveal more than I could hope to find on my own.”
“Never seen jackals myself; we didn’t have them on Chern, but I’ll take your word for it.” The man shrugged before adding in a more sombre tone. “What happens if they decide they don’t like taking orders from you, mistress? You heard what the operative said over the feed. The rules at the Fringe aren’t the same as the ones back home.”
Alexandra flinched, realising too late that she had been hard-linked to Marcus’ equipment the entire time while he ran a full diagnostic scan. Exhaling slowly to calm herself, she gave him a cold smile.
“That’s what the Innari are for.”
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Donovan shifted his shoulders in a futile attempt to prevent the back of his soaked jumpsuit from clinging to his skin. The heat inside the interrogation room, which the Commodore liked to call his office, was unbearable. Even the chair he was sitting on was stripped down to its basic frame and burned to the touch. Spending ten minutes in here was torture, let alone waiting half an hour for Neverok to show his bloody face. But the Chief imagined that was the point. Alexei and his men weren’t exactly subtle in their methods. Yet, Donovan had to give it to the man. He was willing to tell Neverok whatever he wished to hear just to be able to step out of this furnace.
The head of security moved his eyes towards the only other occupant of the room. A dour lean man with a stony expression. His immaculate white synthetic jacket was kept zipped up, and Donovan had to wonder how the man didn’t sweat like a pig in this heat. Perhaps the rumours were true, and the agents of the Commodore were reptilian infiltrators. However, the Chief wasn’t as stupid as the nutjobs who had come up with that theory. He knew that in addition to specialised implants which regulated their internal temperature, their uniforms had an intricate cooling system connected to the man’s cybernetic spine. Actually, Donovan was willing to bet his monthly pay that the man sitting in the corner was more machine than human. Of course, everything was custom crafted to fool the unsuspecting observer.
The only reason the Chief knew any of this was because he was sleeping with Monic. It went without saying that she’d have him on a dissection table should he try to share those secrets with anyone else. Sure, their relationship had started as means to keep tabs on what was going on in Security, but it had grown into something more. Alexei could think his people were incorruptible, but at the end of the day, they were human like everyone else.
“The Commodore will be with you shortly.” The agent droned in a lifeless voice without so much as moving his eyes away from the data pad in his hands.
Before Donovan could form a response, the door to the room opened, letting in a brief gust of cool air. In just a few strides, a wraith of a man sat on the chair opposite him. Wrinkled leathery skin clinging tightly to his bones, sunken hollow eyes and gaunt cheeks, Alexei Neverok was a fossil. But despite his appearance and having celebrated his ninety-sixth birthday recently, the Commodore wasn’t to be underestimated. The seemingly dull brown eyes shone with intelligence and cunning, and Donovan had seen the man move as someone at least half a century younger at the training range.
“Chief Rex, I’m disappointed. I thought we had an agreement. Your people stop doing stupid things, and I turn a blind eye when a crate of precious metals gets misplaced.” Alexei’s voice was quiet and wheezing.
He conveniently skipped the part that, in exchange for his generosity, Security had stopped looking into what a Commodore as ancient as Neverok was doing on Last Hope in the first place. Donovan had a few theories, and the fact that Alexei had approved the arrival of the archaeologists before he could even have a chance to look at the forms significantly reduced their number. The Commodore was looking for something the Third Empire had hidden on Last Hope. Whatever it was, the old bastard wanted it badly to have devoted the last sixty years of his career to this soul-crushing place.
“Care to explain why the mainframe thought that some abomination of a bio-nuclear weapon evaporated a third of the station? A vital server had to be disconnected? Forcefully, mind you. Seven Science Department personnel were wounded. One dead. A guard was killed in a firefight. Another one was injured and in critical condition. An officer kidnapped, presumed dead. And this is my favourite part. All in the span of five minutes.” The Commodore paused for a minute staring into Donovan, before speaking again.
“Come on, Chief. You’ve had close to five hours now to think of an explanation.” The man began cracking his fingers one at a time. “I’m really curious to hear it. Please. Enlighten me.”
Donovan thanked his luck as he opened his mouth. He had the perfect volunteer to place into Neverok’s hands while he sorted this mess.
“It all started with Officer Second Class Moe-”
Alexei raised his hand, stopping him. “My agents are on their way to collect Mr Bishop. His conduct is a topic for a different discussion.”
Shaking his head, the Commodore leaned back on the chair and let out a tired groan. Letting the silence stretch for an uncomfortable moment, he returned his attention to Donovan.
“You have to do better, Chief. Unlike you, I haven’t spent the last five hours looking for excuses. It’s answers I’m more interested in.”
“We are still investigating,” Donovan spoke through clenched teeth.
Curse Bishop. Curse Kurtz, and Dr Werner and the shooter. He cursed King and his half-assed techs. But most of all, he cursed this entire damned station. Last Hope was supposed to be an uneventful, quiet and easy posting. As head of Security, he was supposed to patiently count the days to his early retirement before returning home with a small fortune in his account.
“Now that’s an interesting choice of words,” the Commodore’s lips twisted in a lacklustre smile. “I’ve been doing the same thing. However, I can’t seem to find the video feed recordings from those involved in the incident. It might be because I’m a senile old man, so would you kindly help me?”
“The files were stored on the server, which was forcibly shut down.” Donovan wiped the sweat from his brow with the palm of his left hand as he spoke. At this rate, he’d be lucky if Neverok didn’t execute him on the spot for gross incompetence. “They’re gone.”
“Ah. Unfortunate.” Alexei clicked his tongue before continuing in a voice as hard as steel. “I’m aware of your dislike towards Officer Kurtz. She probably pushed your buttons a little too hard or stumbled onto your adorable smuggling operation. I really don’t care about the reason. You decide to take care of her and, presented with the perfect opportunity, arrange for the girl to have an accident. Things don’t go according to plan, so someone at Control panics and triggers an emergency situation to hide your tracks. But not Mr King. He’s too talented to do something so utterly idiotic. And here we are now.”
Donovan wanted to kiss the Commodore. That theory was better than anything he could’ve come up with, even if it was detached from reality. It also gave him a clean way out because it could never be proven.
“I enjoy our arrangement, Chief,” Neverok drummed his finger on the bare steel table between them, “so I’ll do you a favour and sort this mess for you. All I need are a couple of names for the execution orders, and things could return to normal. And Donovan, those names must be more convincing than Moe Bishop.”
“Silence.” Suddenly, the Commodore’s face turned stone cold as he addressed someone over the feed. “Knight Protector von Eisstahl, to what do I owe the honour?”
This had to be a mistake. Donovan’s eyes were ready to pop out of his head. He must have misheard the name. Knight Protectors weren't interested in simple, barely functioning mining complexes, let alone people like Alexandra von Eisstahl. This was bad. He could feel it in his gut. A moment later, his fears were confirmed.
“Listen here, little girl. Knight Protector or not, you cannot talk to me in such a way!” Alexei raised his voice before going silent for a few more seconds. Once the speaker on the other end of the feed had finished, he turned towards Donovan.
“It appears we have bigger problems.”
----------------------------------------