The orange sun of Vipor shone brightly the next morning as Lus trudged out of the dingy apartment building by himself. A secret comm unit disguised as an earring was on his right ear which connected him to the others. Wsr was already at the museum while Cewi was doing something else in the city she deemed of equal importance. Vlqtrn remained at the apartment amongst his consoles and screens to keep all the data and communication organized.

This section of the city was in pretty rough shape all around, with most of the buildings in the same state of disrepair as the one where the Runners stayed. The majority of those he crossed were Kremel wearing their usual dark colors and furs. A few of the kids and teenagers ventured into other more trendy styles from the Gemini sector with colorful robes and loud hats, but those were few and far between amongst all the traditional Kremel garb.

As Lus walked, the buildings slowly became nicer and bigger as some started to stretch over two dozen stories tall. A wider mix of species also appeared, with a few Nemarians wandering the streets and even the occasional Human. When the silver Corporate military uniforms started showing up in the mix, he stopped looking closely at those who passed by. It was hard to not think of his own time wearing such garments.

Eventually he arrived at their target, the Southern Reach Museum of Lesser Known Galactic History. It was a simple building, only three stories tall and not overly large, but the architecture spoke of primordial civilizations with the spiraled columns full of paintings and the oval stained-glass windows that dotted the walls. He remembered learning about the Ancient Ones during school as a kid, but it was always one of those “mysteries of the galaxy” that was never going to be solved despite all the ruins available. Everyone he knew had wanted to be an Ancient One researcher at some point in their childhood. What he saw here, however, went way beyond the normal styles attributed to the Ancient Ones, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was a gimmick to draw in a larger crowd against all the competing museums.

Lus cracked the gum he was chewing. According to Wsr, it made him seem more “casual,” but he felt rather silly doing it. He wore standard Human clothes that could have been found in any shopping center that catered to his species: tight fitting pants and a simple t-shirt. He also wore a hat–a ball cap that had a brim to cover the front of his face and nothing more, which he thought looked far better than the silly full brim hats Kremel tourists typically wore. Nemarians normally didn’t wear any kind of headgear unless they absolutely had to since it was uncomfortable for their fins from Lus’s understanding.

He greeted the ticket booth operator with a smile, hoping he seemed more relaxed than he felt. Seeing all the military officers put him on edge, even though he knew they had no reason to suspect anything about him. Lus looked the part of a casual tourist, and Vipor received millions each standard year with all the museums it boasted.

“Enjoy,” the Kremel man said in a flat voice as he handed Lusac back his cryptin card. The tickets were shockingly expensive for doing something as boring as looking at old artifacts. This wasn’t even one of the major museums on the planet, but the prices were still rather inflated.

Luckily, it wasn’t his personal cryptin he was spending, just the Argo’s crew fund, so he couldn’t complain too much.

Inside the building, Lus was a little overwhelmed with all the things to see. Everywhere he looked there was some colorful object depicting something about some random species, and his eyes were starting to hurt from the mess of colors. The Argo was rather bland in comparison, and even the city hadn’t come close to this level of flamboyance.

The museum was organized according to a general timeline, and Lus knew that what they were looking for would be in the middle the entire thing, inside the section of the exhibits which represented things from in between the fall of the Ancient Ones and the rise of the Nemarians and eventually all the other three species. But Lus didn’t rush to where he knew their target was. Instead, he took his time wandering through the halls of the museum, forcing himself to pretend he cared about all the dusty old artifacts and art pieces. Some exhibits were literally just old bricks from civilizations that crumpled even before the Ancient Ones, people who might have been the first colonizers if not for their own folly.

As he walked through the museum, Lus was careful to subtly find all the security cameras he could. After each section, he’d find a blind spot and mark them on the map he took from the ticket booth. Once he got back to the apartment, Vlqtrn would compile his and Wsr’s notes to get a full picture of what they would be walking into that night.

Eventually he finished off the long series of hallways dedicated to the Ancient Ones, and he could finally safely move to the large room dedicated to that in-between period so few people cared about. Along one of the walls, away from any of the really cool artifacts, sat a shelving unit protected by thick glass. Their prize waited on one of the lower shelves, a small plaque listing it as a pottery fragment from some early society wiped out long before Nemarian colonization.

Lus did his usual scan for security cameras, but he also took a couple of extra minutes near the exhibit to check for other measures surrounding the shelves, including a quick check to see if there was anything inside the glass walls to worry about. He mentally noted what appeared to be alarms before moving on to something else and spending even more time pretending to study it in hopes of keeping suspicion low. When he got to the next stairwell, he communicated the more important bits to Vlqtrn and then marked the map as he had before. Now all that was left was to finish wandering the museum and keeping track of cameras as he went.

He just had to make sure none of the day guards caught him doing something so suspicious, or else the entire mission would be a bust. Keeping up his casual appearance, Lusac started into the corridors dedicated to the first living colonizer of the galaxy: the Nemarians.

According to Lus’s history teacher back when he was a kid, Humans were the unofficial original colonizers after the Ancient Ones. Their ancestors were from some other, far away galaxy and had come here a millenia ago, before even the Nemarians had started into the stars, but since they only sent one ship to colonize a single planet, the first Humans had been forced to rebuild from the ground up, centuries behind where their homeworld was. That delayed them from joining the Cinder Rock Galaxy Collective until long after both the Nemarians and Shamayim had advanced to the point of starting to travel the far reaches of the galaxy. The Kremel then advanced up only a hundred years or so later, marking the final addition to the Collective.

He was at the start of the section going over the meeting of the Nemarians and Shamayim, including their initial treaty that created the Collective when someone called out to him.

“Arten? Is that you?” the man said.

Lus’s eyes went wide as he studied the plaque before him. He didn’t know anyone who would refer to him by only his last name except…

He turned to face the person who had spoken, a Human male only a year or two older than himself wearing a silver uniform. Lusac recognized him immediately as Shent Resiw, one of his close friends from his basic training when he was with the Corporate Military.

“Resiw.” Lusac forced a smile. “How are you? They have you rotting away at a museum instead of in the action?”

“Look who’s talking,” Shent replied as he grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “How have you been? How’s the 647th Battalion doing? I heard you guys were out in the Aura sector taking out Fed factories.”

“Good. Good,” Lus lied. “Yeah. I’m here on leave for a few days, and then back to the bombing.”

Shent nodded, still grinning. “It’s so good to see you, Arten. With the kinds of casualties those rural sectors are spitting out, I wasn’t sure you’d make it out in one piece.”

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Exactly why I left, Lus thought to himself while maintaining a false grin. “You ended up pushing paper for some executive, right? What are you doing here?”

“I handle death notifications,” he said, letting the smile fade a little. “Which is funny actually. I was able to set up a system that warned me if you and the others from the training squad passed through the office, and I swear I got yours a couple of years ago, not long after we graduated.”

“Ugh. I remember that. We were ambushed on some dusty moon, and I got separated from my team during our retreat. I ended up taking a little spill off the cliff that mashed up my id chip. I guess Clvq saw me, and they assumed the worst. I ended up in a hospital for a couple of months as a Nameless until I was well enough to explain. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork required to come back from the dead.” Lus chuckled. “But of course, I can’t imagine you set the alerts up to go both ways so how would you have known about the mix up?”

It was almost the truth. All of that happened, except the explaining the mix up and coming back from the dead. In reality, when Lusac found out from the hospital staff that he was undocumented due to an error with his chip, he took the opportunity to escape the military he’d been conscripted into. He wouldn’t have made it far except for finding the Argo and begging Captain Tave to take him on. After that, it’d been two years of hard work to prove himself worthy of the risk he presented to the crew. Supposedly, other, larger ships took on deserters without fear, but they had the resources to keep those crew members hidden in a way that a small crew like the Argo’s couldn’t match.

Shent began grinning once again. “That’s some story. I imagine you’ve seen a lot of action. And I heard about Zarlk-Thoi’s death. I was sure she’d be the one to outlast us all.”

Lus swallowed, trying to accept the unexpected news about his old friend without showing any of that shock. “Yeah. I miss her. It sure sucks having all our friends die off.”

His friend put his arm around Lus’s shoulders. “Let’s not dwell on the deaths. I deal with that crap all day. Why don’t we go out drinking tonight? I can get the rest of the day off and show you the real sights around here.”

“I can’t believe you’re in a museum at all,” Lus commented, though he walked slowly, keeping Shent from leading him too far away.

“Just on my lunch break. I like to get away when I can, and museums are sort of my only option on this dump. Truthfully, it all starts to blur together anyway after two or three.”

Lus stopped in his tracks and slapped his forehead. “I forgot that I already made plans with my squad tonight. And I’m due back on ship tomorrow. I’m sorry, Resiw. I really wish I could go out, but we’ll just have to catch up next time.”

Shent dropped his arm and his smile. “Come on, Lusac. It’s been years. Blow off your squad. They’ll understand.”

“I can’t, Shent. I’m sorry. If I’d known you were stationed here, I’d have reached out sooner.” Lus checked his watch. “And I’m already going to be late meeting up with them. Next time, okay?”

“Yeah. Whatever. Get going, hotshot,” Shent said, attempting to regain some of his teasing.

“Stay safe, paperboy.” Lusac waved as he made his way to the stairs, but he didn’t look back once he started down them. He knew Cewi was going to be pissed he didn’t finish his job, but she’d probably be even more upset when she found out why.

“Good cover, Lus. But do you think he’ll go to security?” Vqltrn’s voice faintly asked.

“No. He has no reason to. If we’re lucky, he’ll go drink away his misery alone, and we’ll be long gone before he decides to investigate,” Lus said. Shent was thorough, but why would he start poking around in Lus’s story? Plenty of mix ups with id chips happened that resulted in living soldiers being marked for dead.

Still, a pang of guilt struck through Lus as he realized his family would have been informed about what happened. Part of him hated them for what they did to him, but he did his best to redirect that anger to the real criminals: the Feds and the Corporates who started this worthless war. First the Feds mined everything that made Treft valuable and left the people to starve, and then the Corporates swooped in to “save the day” by offering food in exchange for soldiers. Since Lus was the only one old enough to serve, his family offered him up to get the bread on their table. But if the Corporates thought he was dead, his family would still be receiving his benefits, which wouldn’t be true if the truth about his desertion came out.

Back out in the city, Lus slowed to a walk, though he avoided the leisurely pace he used coming to the museum. Vlqtrn was in his ear, warning him that Cewi was already back at the apartment and wanted a full explanation. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but Captain Tave sent him on this mission knowing that there was more risk associated with him. That wasn’t his fault.

He did take a different route to return to the apartment, checking to ensure Shent hadn’t chosen to follow him after all. After a long enough of a detour, Lusac deemed it safe to return and face Cewi-Bano.

The purple Nemarian was simmering when he entered the shabby apartment.

“In Suns’ names, what were you thinking Lusac? You can’t go around buddying up with a blasted Corporate!” she shouted as soon as he closed the door behind him.

“What was I supposed to do, Cewi? He was one of my friends from training, so he recognized me. I lied my way out, though. He doesn’t suspect a thing,” Lus promised.

“Are you absolutely sure about that?” Cewi asked, taking a step closer to Lus. Despite being almost a foot shorter, her voice and posture did more than enough to intimidate him. Her indigo fins were quivering in frustration.

“I’m sorry, Cewi. I did what I could, but there was no easy way out,” he said.

She took a deep breath and stepped back. “I understand. Stay in the safe house the rest of the day. I’ll double check that this Resiw character isn’t going to mess everything up but consider the mission a go unless I say otherwise.”

“Thank you.” Lus ducked his head in gratitude.

“Just be ready for tonight. It’ll all be on you then, and we can’t afford any more close calls.”

Lus murmured his agreement as she left the apartment. Surely the mission would go smoother than this.

The hours passed slowly as they waited for Cewi to return. Wsr came back after only an hour or so, and she didn’t mention anything about finding Lus there before her. Rather, she sat Vlqtrn down and ensured he got every last bit of information she had on the museum. The sun was starting to set when their leader finally returned.

“Alright. We’re safe. That little trip up doesn’t seem to have any further repercussions. You were lucky this time, Lus,” she added menacingly.

“Sorry again,” he muttered from where he sat in one of the unstable dining room chairs. He was sure it would tip over at any moment, but somehow his weight kept it balanced.

“What’s this?” Wsr asked, finally interested in what conundrum Lus had caused.

“Nothing that matters now. We need to leave if you two are going to get into position in time.” Cewi dismissed the question with a wave of her webbed hand.

Lus scampered off to get his pack ready. Ideally, he wouldn’t need most of the tools he was putting in there, but it could never hurt to be prepared. Most of the work for getting in was going to be on Vlqtrn and his computer. Cewi-Bano also gave Lus some protective material to wrap the artifact in once he got ahold of it.

Backpack on, Lusac returned to the living space where the others waited. Cewi-Bano went first, and then Wsr left after only a few minutes. Lus was supposed to wait a whole ten minutes before following suit, but his nerves made it impossible to sit still.

“Stop pacing. You’re stressing me out,” Vlqtrn complained.

“Sorry,” he apologized as he sat in a rickety chair that seemed ready to crack under his weight. He wasn’t sure how the furniture managed to support the Kremel, but so far nothing had broken.

Lus continued to tap his fingers on the table, even with Vlqtrn’s glares. It seemed an eternity had passed before his watch buzzed as the timer ended and he was free to exit the apartment and make his way back to the museum.

The streets were even more alive than they had been in the morning as Lus made his way back to the Southern Reach Museum of Lesser Known Galactic History. The Humans he passed all made an effort to wave, excited to see another of their species. It was a sentiment Lus had often felt himself over the past couple of years after leaving Treft behind.

He soon rounded the final corner and came to the gates of the museum grounds. From here he would have to be careful since it was nearing closing time. He passed the security guard, keeping his head down as he walked through. Lus mentally retraced the path he was supposed to take to a camera blindspot to wait for Vlqtrn’s signal. Once he was settled near the tree by the far fence, Vlqtrn’s voice echoed in his earpiece.

“Cameras are looped. Everyone get into position. We have about five minutes before it’ll become noticeable,” the Kremel said.

Lus moved from his current hiding spot and crossed the grounds in a casual manner until he was near the actual building. From there, he double checked to ensure no guards were nearby and then ducked into a thick clump of bushes, burying himself deep so he would be hidden from the cameras. He got settled as comfortably as he could amongst the shrubs and then mentally prepared himself for the next few hours. It was going to be a long night.