A man stood in the hall outside my cell, his face lit up with a good-natured smile, while I remained stoic and silent. Behind my helmet’s opaque mask my eyebrows raised slightly. This man was Eric, I recognised his voice. He had been speaking to whoever was in charge not all that long ago. I wondered where she’d gone. Probably back to this 'Sanctum' I was going to be brought to judging by what I'd overheard.

Eric was a slim man with rakish black hair. From first appearances he was in his mid to late twenties, if he didn’t cheat the same way senior Marines did. I saw compassion, but most of all, curiosity in his grey eyes. I’d seen that look before in the eyes of doctors and scientists respectively. He seemed genuinely interested in who I was, or maybe what I was. That humanity in his eyes made me slightly more inclined to trust him, not that I did trust him at the moment. I wouldn’t go around acting like a paranoid conspiracy theorist, of course, but I’d be wary just the same.

I needed some time to think about things. Not just about my recent capture, but also the loss of my ship and all my friends. It still weighed heavily on me. Maybe they'd leave me alone somewhere for a while so I could process things. I'd been trying to ignore it, but it was difficult. I pushed it all to the back of my mind, again, but I knew I'd have to deal with it eventually or it would come back to haunt me.

Looking at Eric, I could tell by the way he moved he was also quite fit, but not to the degree of an active-duty soldier. Well, I could tell because it was child’s play to conduct a discreet bioscan from such a short distance. A single step or two in loose-fitting robes wasn't enough to tell me much on its own, as much as I wished I was that good. For those lacking in degrees in biomechanics and the wisdom of ancient martial arts, there existed the bioscan, a fancy conglomerate of a dozen different programs that analysed and collated data on all kinds of biological data, from humans to microflora.

My suit chirped as I queued up a bioscan for Eric. I waited a few seconds and a plethora of relevant information became available to me. Heart-rate, chemical analysis of his sweat, bone structure, every scrap of information was served to to me on a platter of projected light. Well, not quite all of it.

What my bioscan didn’t pick up on was what Eric wanted from me, his motivations, the threats he might be capable of making and then carrying out or whether he was planning to keep me breathing.

I snapped back to reality. My thoughts had run away with me briefly and I’d been staring silently at the man for far longer than I’d intended. He had clearly noticed, too. It turns out that trying to extrapolate detailed information from a mountain of raw data was a lot harder than it sounded and it took a long time to do it if you weren’t used to it, which I wasn’t.

A bioscan wasn’t a magic bullet, you had to be able to interpret the data efficiently and accurately. I had barely gotten started and I wasn’t too well practiced with the use of a bioscan, even though I had the right training to back me up. I just didn’t usually find myself in a situation where it was very useful.

“Does the armoured knight speak? I don’t bite, it’s alright.” He smiled politely, looking more amused by my silence than annoyed.

“Your name is Eric?” I asked, my voice projecting from my suit speakers. Eric’s eyes widened slightly, brows rising and hands moving up ever so slightly from where they rested at his side. I had surprised him.

“That’s right, and you are?”

“Edward.”

“Edward.” Eric repeated. “Do you know what that means?”

“I’m guessing you’re about to tell me?”

“It means Royal Protector. I myself do no not place much faith in names and their meanings. I’ve known men with grand names amount to nothing and others named after rocks who went on to do incredible things. You though? I think you’re more than your name suggests.” He let the silence sit for a moment and I had to wonder where he was going with this.

“Okay… that’s great. I could’ve told you that. What’s your point?”

“You’re a soldier, clearly you’ve seen more than your fair share of fighting. So, as one soldier to another, will you answer a question? Once you have, I’ll take you to see… what did your friend call it? The see-oh?”

“Commanding Officer?” I supplied.

“That sounds more like it. So?”

“I’m listening.” I said expectantly, but also warily. For all I knew the wrong answer would see me thrown into the wall or burned alive. I had no idea how these people thought. Appearances could be deceiving.

The man began rattling off a long list of questions. “Where did you come from? Your armour, weapons, none of it bears the mark of magic and yet you live, despite our battle. Your written language mystifies me but I can speak to you in my own dialect and you understand it just fine. We’re both human, too. You also clearly have enemies to fight, so you’re not a God in mortal form.” He said that last part in jest, as if the thought was an amusing rarity rather than an actual impossibility. I wondered at that. Was I just reading too much into his tone? Gods didn’t really exist, right?

“Magic?” I asked, brow furrowing.

“I assume you possess the Gift and are concealing it from me?”

“No? What gift are you talking about?”

Eric looked at me, holding my gaze steadily, his features perturbed. I felt nothing, but I was certain he was doing something, or trying anyway, he had that look of concentration about him.

“That’s incredible.” He breathed a moment later. “I feel nothing. No Gift, not even a scrap of magic. How is this possible? Are you even human?”

“Of course I’m human! Are you? And… are you sure that was only one question?” I asked, mirth touching my features.

“Perhaps not. I assure you though, I am human” He said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want answers, or rather, I did. Now I desperately want answers.”

I considered my words. “I’m not going to tell you everything, I hope you know that, we are after all, prisoner and captor. I’m Corporal Riley of the United Solar Commonwealth and we come from a planet called Earth, which is in a star system called Sol, named after an old word for sun. It’s a long way away from here.”

“Commonwealth? Is ‘wealth’ common there?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “I guess it really depends on your definition of common, and wealth.”

Eric paused then. I could tell what he was doing. In fact, I was a little bit surprised that he knew what he was doing. It wasn’t exactly the most obvious route to take when you wanted information.

I was being interrogated. Not with that brutish crap where they beat you until you either die or talk, but a proper interrogation. Eric clearly didn’t just want an answer, but a trustworthy answer, one that would actually end up being of use to him. He was just easing me into things, not asking the big questions right away and trying to establish a rapport first. There was a playbook here, only I didn’t know what game he was playing just yet.

Eric examined my armour, tracing the contours with his eyes even as my suit told me exactly where he was looking.

“Do you consider yourself wealthy?” He asked.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’d say I’m no worse off than the average citizen. Why? And can we get back to the whole ‘magic is real’ thing?”

He ignored my question, proceeding to compliment me instead. “Your armour is beautiful. More than that though, it’s impeccably crafted and identical to the others with you. That’s amazing. Do you four have the same patron? How does it work for you? Without magic… how does anything work?”

“How the hell should I know?” I scoffed. “Five minutes ago I didn’t even know magic existed.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.” I echoed mockingly.

“Magic is the direct manipulation of fundamental energies to produce results, but you should already know that.” Eric’s brow furrowed, doubtlessly confused.

“That’s it?” I asked incredulously. “Being thrown through the air like a doll is one hell of a result.” I scowled, scorn dripping from my words. He looked contrite at my words.

“That’s it.” Eric confirmed. “I gather that you can’t do that?”

“What, throw someone into the air hard enough to crack ribs or puncture lungs? No. We can’t create fire or whatever the hell else you can do without some kind of tool, even if it’s just a few rocks.”

“Interesting. So how is it you’ve survived so long, then? You obviously belong to a developed society. Your armour saved you from serious damage. That or you heal unbelievably fast. We didn’t even realise you were alive at first, I’ll be honest.”

I rolled my eyes beneath my helmet. “Thanks. I’m so touched by your concern.”

He brushed off my remark, as he had most of them. I didn’t really blame him to be honest.

“If you don’t have magic, or know of it, you must be from far away indeed.”

“Try another star.” I said flatly.

“Another… star? What would the first star be then? How did you even get here?”

“Your sun. The sun. That’s a star, the same as all the ones you see in the sky. We’re from one of those, though to be honest you probably can’t see it from here, it’s too far away.”

“Fascinating. I believe under different circumstances we might’ve been friends. I’d rather enjoy hearing about where you came from.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m not exactly feeling in the mood for friendship right now.” I cast a glance around my cell at the featureless stone.

“You’re an unknown, your armour looks far different from anything we’ve seen before. We felt it best to keep the four of you under guard and-“

“Imprisoned?” I interjected.

“Confined… until we had a better idea of what, or who, you were. I’m curious… I see no way to put the armour on, how do you even take it off?” Eric finished.

“You can’t seriously think I’d be stupid enough to fall for that, right?”

Eric held his hands up non-threateningly. “I’m not here to hurt you.” He repeated. “I just want answers. Why don’t we start with how you acquired such durable protection?”

I responded in my most vague and uninteresting manner. “Well, we have good armourers.” I shrugged. He seemed satisfied with that, failing to respond immediately.

“Speaking of armour… how’s the armour integrity of my men? All still intact, I hope.” I stared at him pointedly, though the effect was lost on him with my helmet concealing my face.

Still, it made me feel better and reminded me of my priorities. Survive, escape, evade, resist. I couldn’t just blindly trust Eric or his peaceful intentions, not until he earned that trust.

“Your friends are alright, they’re being taken care of.” Eric studied my armour with a careful eye, examining me from the top down again.

I scowled. “Like hell they are. Prison cells aren’t what I call being ‘taken care of’.”

Eric held his hands up in an attempt to placate me. “Look, I’m not the enemy. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a refugee, at least from what I’ve been told. We don’t have to be at odds. You understand the situation, don’t you? You’re a soldier from a nation we’ve never met before with weapons unlike anything we’ve ever seen. You also clearly don’t use magic, like most of us do. You’re smart enough to know we couldn’t just welcome you with open arms without taking precautions. You’re an unknown.”

I had to give him that one, unfortunately. “Fair enough, but did you have to attack us on sight?”

“You would have let complete strangers enter your lands with war brewing on the horizon?”

When I didn’t answer, Eric continued. “We believed you might be some kind of advance scouting force, a sign that a long-feared war was finally here. We’ve been expecting an attack to happen sometime in the next week. Given that…” He trailed off.

“You shot first and asked questions later.” I finished. “So you thought we were force recon? A pre-emptive strike?”

“Something like that, yes.”

I wasn’t sure I believed his story, but it fit the facts.

“Thanks, I guess, for not killing us all.” I replied.

“Not a problem.” He cracked a small smile. “Now, what do you want? Why are you here?” Eric asked.

“Not so fast. I want assurances. I want us out of these cells after we’re done with our chat.”

He considered that for a moment. “Deal, but only if my superior agrees.”

“Naturally. We’re not here by choice, to answer your question. We had to abandon our ship and we found ourselves stuck here with nowhere else to go. Where ‘here’ is exactly, I have no idea.”

“The planet? It’s name is August.”

“August, right. I was actually talking about in relation to our homeworld, but good to know the name of this place. What we want is pretty simple. Nothing that should be a problem for you. We want to get back home. We aren’t exactly sitting on a gold mine of resources and manpower right now though, are we? We’d do it all ourselves but it would take years to build what we need to make the trip.”

“Pod?” Eric questioned, latching onto the word with a combination of curiosity and unfamiliarity.

“Escape pod. A lifeboat, you might say, you’ve probably seen it already.”

“So that’s what that was? We thought it might be some kind of inactive mobile gateway.” Eric gestured for me to continue.

I filed away the term ‘mobile gateway’ for later research.

“We had an… unfortunate mishap with our ship, you see. We bailed out and ended up here, though again, not by choice. I’m not exactly sure why we ended up here to begin with, but that’s neither here nor there. Right now, I just want to go home, as do the rest of my men, I expect.”

“Stranded. Really?” Eric asked incredulously.

“I’m telling the truth. You should already know that.” I pointed out.

Eric contemplated my words, a thoughtful look on his face. “You do know we have open borders, correct? You can leave at any time.”

I smiled wryly. “It’s not quite that simple I’m afraid. It’s a lot harder for us to get home than just walking across a border. Let’s just say that we come from beyond the sky and leave it at that. It would take a while to explain the details.”

Eric grimaced sympathetically. “Beyond the sky? I’d like to ask you more but I think I should be sending you along now. That sounds beyond my station.”

“Fair enough. So you’re satisfied I’m not some kind of spy?”

“I am now. You’re very different to what we expected, clearly not a soldier, not one of our enemies’ soldiers anyway. I won’t say I trust you, not completely, but I don’t think you have any reason to harm us.”

“You’d be right about that and I could say the same. I assume you expect some other nation’s army to be encroaching on your territory soon?”

“It’s complicated, but very soon, yes. Are you ready to meet the mage in charge?”

I held my hand out, gesturing for him to open my cell. “By all means, lead the way. I get the feeling that we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

Eric nodded. “Your feeling is correct. Her mood has been foul as of late.”

“Her?” I asked, wary of whoever was in charge of Eric. The man in front of me was already plenty sharp. The woman who was holding his leash, so to speak, was probably a step above him in competency. Then again maybe not. It didn’t always work that way in the Corps, why would it necessarily be any better here? I guess I’d find out for myself.

“Follow me.”

He lifted the air in front of him with his hands, gently this time, unlike the bastard who’d pushed the air before and sent me flying. Eric’s hands lifted the empty air gently, but I could see the bars of my cell rising smoothly. They did so for a dozen seconds, sliding until they disappeared into the stone ceiling completely.

“That’s… new.” I got out.

With nothing between me and Eric I contemplated—very briefly, mind you, launching myself at him and doing my best impression of an assassin in some kind of action movie. That would’ve been stupid though, so I stepped on that fantasy and walked out of my cell without making any sudden or aggressive movements. Eric set a comfortable but purposeful pace and I followed along behind him as he led me down a stone corridor.

I muted my outgoing audio for a moment. “Proc, extrapolate direct route back to my cell from current route. Record all movement data.” I sub-vocalised.

A double chirp sounded as a new item was added to my HUD.

“So, is it just going to be me, or will everyone else be there?” I asked.

“Just you, a few guards. I’ll see about your team, if you continue to behave yourself. The Sword wants a word with you one-on-one first. I’ve not been giving away secrets but I’m not the right person for questioning you at length.”

“The Sword?” I asked incredulously. “I assume that’s the woman in charge.”

“The most powerful mage belonging to any given nation is generally called the Sword of that nation, on account of their prowess in battle.” Eric explained.

“Interesting custom. Thanks for the explanation.”

“It’s common knowledge, no thanks are necessary.”

“So… are the rest of my men still in their cells?” I asked a moment later.

“They’ll be brought to the meeting soon.”

“So it safe to say they’re being taken from their cells soon?”

“Very soon, I would expect.” Eric replied.

I frowned. “One moment.” I had a bad feeling about what my team was up to.

“Proc, open comms.”

Channel Open.

I immediately heard Larsen’s no-nonsense voice speaking in short, clipped tones.

“Chen, did they miss the charges?”

“They found all but two.”

“Good. Everyone break containment and ghost out of here. Chen, set those charges and get ready to blow them to cover our escape. The rest of you, find Riley, regroup on me and then head topside. We’ll lay low for a while after that and plan our next move.”

Realisation welled up in me. They were about to kick off a war we couldn’t even begin to fight.

“Son of a bitch!”