Kiri woke up. The surrounding walls were rough, textured, dark stone. The room was strangely shaped - as if two ovals had been merged half-way at an odd angle. No corners or windows could be seen. A muted yellow light from a floating electric lantern gave the entire place an other-worldly look. Were it not for the foldable desk next to her bed, on which an array of monitors was mounted, the room would have looked like a prehistoric cave.

Some distance away, on the other side of the room, Norman was sitting on a mat on the floor, hunched over an array of haphazardly scattered electronic devices in various states of disassembly. Celine was curled up in a corner.

"What is this place?" She coughed, but otherwise felt alright. Her clothes had been changed, and her right leg was completely bandaged. She could not feel her leg at all. Celine, always the light sleeper, immediately got up and jumped upon Kiri with a soft mew.

"Good, you are up," Norman looked up, "I was getting worried. This place is not suitable for a long term stay. It was the best I could do in a short time."

"That creature? Remus?" The memories flooded back as she drank the water on the bedside table to satisfy her parched throat.

Norman nodded his head. "Remus didn't make it. I couldn't do anything for him." With a stoic resolve, he held at bay the tempest of emotions brewing deep within him.

A wave of nausea passed through Kiri. "He died to save me. We need to notify his family."

Norman's face hardened. "We can't do that, Kiri." The swelling tide of guilt and anger threatened to engulf him, yet he stood firm.

"What?"

"The Academy will not let us return if something like that comes to light. And Senator Greymus is known to be a brutal and ruthless man. We may very well be signing our death sentence if he finds out that we were involved in his son's death."

Kiri gaped at Norman open mouthed, "Norman, we can't just cover up murder." Celine meowed in apparent agreement.

"A murder we did not commit. Remus was told this operation could be risky. He chose to come." Norman himself felt uneasy saying this out loud. They both knew Remus had vastly underestimated the risk. Though the turmoil raged within, on the surface, he remained an unyielding bastion of calm, defiant against the onslaught of his inner demons. "There is another problem."

"What?... What happened to that creature who attacked us?" Kiri had too many things swirling through her head at that point. Focusing on anything was too hard. "They were the Nightwyrms right?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yes, and they have sent an envoy to accompany me." Norman filled her in on the events that transpired after she had passed out, and Kiri's eyes grew wider with every sentence that came out of Norman's mouth.

At last Norman lifted up his bottom hem to reveal the dark bulbous sac. Kiri covered her mouth. The backside of his leg was now a spiderweb of dark veins. As she looked at the swirling tentacles inside the sac, she could feel the bile rising up her throat. "We need to get rid of it."

Before even those words had left her mouth, a sharp pain jolted through Norman and he had to balance himself by grabbing the edge of the bed. "You need to be careful with your words..." He said with gritted teeth.

"It is listening to everything we say?" Kiri gasped.

"Yes, I think it is integrating itself deeper into my physiology. Initially, I could only feel occasional jolts and stabs of pain. But now I think it can insert itself into my thoughts as well. Over the last two days, I have been having some rather strange dreams."

"Two days." Kiri sat up straight, "Norman, how long have I been out?"

"Five days, roughly. I submitted an application to the academy. On record, we are exploring a certain Dr. Petrucia's multi-year research on making long-distance research outside wormholes more economical."

"God damn it, my dissertation..." Kiri felt like she would throw up again.

"Would be the least of your concerns if this entire chain of events comes to light." Norman tried hard to keep his tone measured, but it was hard to suppress the tension. "So what do you say? Let's continue with our original plan?"

Kiri opened her mouth to protest, but then paused.

Norman was right. Someone as powerful as the senator could easily destroy all their careers with one word. And nothing they did would bring Remus back.

The other issue was Norman himself. They had known each other for three years and gotten somewhat close, but how well did she really know him? She was alone here, and nobody else knew about her location. Norman valued nothing higher in his life than his own ambition. If she said something that could jeopardize his career, was there a chance Kiri herself would never see the light of another day?

"You are right," she finally uttered.

Norman's face slightly relaxed. "If you are feeling better, I'll prepare for dismantling this safe-house. We can leave in a couple hours."

"Dismantle? Where are we exactly?"

"Inside an asteroid. Over the last year I had this hollowed out and set up a safe place to experiment with essence harvesting."

Kiri's eyes widened yet again. "We are inside an asteroid? Norman, this setup, the artificial gravity, and arranging supplies would easily cost you north of a hundred sols per day. How do you have so much money?"

Norman had already started gathering up the assortment of loose electronics on the ground and carefully arranging them in the backpack. "It costs over three hundred sols per day. You didn't take into account security precautions. Doing something like this discreetly is hard."

Yes, Kiri knew something about that. The Protectorate had its eyes everywhere. It was only the vastness of the sprawled-out empire that made it possible for any modicum of discretion for people who did not play by the rules. "Nobody knows about this place. The money comes from a few people who owe me favors. A year ago, I was contracting with Assian Kordaeous. I helped a high-ranking bloke there save his career after a particularly nasty blunder. He has been quite generous with me to keep the matter under wraps."

Kiri had known that Norman was talented, but this went beyond her expectations. Assian Kordaeous specialized in military applications. If Norman really had links deep into the weapon manufacturing industry, he could be a big help with her own secret endeavors. But of course, this was too soon and too early for something like that.

"I see. So there is absolutely no chain of records leading to this place."

"None. And I think that is precisely what makes it the perfect solution for the next step of our plan."

When Norman told her, Kiri actually retched.