There was an uneasy calm that hung over all of us for the next few days as I coordinated the relief efforts. My drones were hard at work in the city streets, clearing rubble and rescuing civilians who had gotten trapped. Large spider-like machines shifted the heavy blocks of material, chewing them up and spitting out something more manageable for the Eltrani to repurpose. Smaller machines slithered and skittered through cracks and barely passable gutters to find survivors, sometimes forced to tend to the wounds of a civilian in order for them to live long enough for rescue.

All the while, I watched on from above, like some benevolent goddess who was helping out her worshippers. But I didn’t feel like much of a goddess. I had known for so long that I was made from a human mind, but I had always assumed that said mind had survived, had gone on to live a normal life and die of old age or something. I was struggling with reality, with the truth of my origins, and who I had once been.

I won’t lie, I did not miss the grief that I had once carried with me, the loneliness. I did not want it, but it was mine and I was stuck with it. So I would make the most of things, if I could. I sorted through the memories of a past life and found myself focusing on certain things in particular. The late nights found in the arms of the man who had once been my husband. The stresses of pregnancy, the little moments of comfortable quiet between us. Everything good remained firmly in my mind, and I had to be extra diligent to not let my emotions be so open and visible to others. These were private memories, they did not have the privilege to know them.

I found myself spending more and more of my time tending to the child, Keai. He seemed to be slowly coming to grips with his current form of existence, and though he was naturally wary of my preferred form, he was starting to trust me more and more. Much as had happened with Ula, I found myself wishing to protect him more and more, to care and comfort as a mother should.

It was in one of those particular moments as I watched him exploring the boundaries of his current sanctuary that I received a summons from Rutaq, who apparently had something of interest for us all.

“Keai, I’m going to have to go for just a little bit, do you need anything?” I call out and he pauses, thinking for a moment.

“Could you make some animals or something?” He asked, and I bow my head, filling the space with all the non-predatory animals I could think of. I watch his fluffy face light up and a peal of childish laughter leaves him, only serving to tear the old wound in my heart open once more. A hand rests over my breast, clutching at the mismatched flesh there before I stand and leave, needing to get away before I break down in tears.

I appear before Rutaq, the Emperor-who is sporting a rather fancy looking mechanical wing- and Ula, and the former looks at all of us before he speaks. “Our captives are rather resistant to interrogation, even the more extreme methods have no effect on them. Scans revealed that they may have undergone some light restructuring.” He said, motioning towards a display with said scans upon them.

“You mean brainwashing?” I ask, and he blinks before nodding.

“Yes, something like that. They cannot willingly or unwillingly give us any information to those outside of their organization that’ll be of use. That said, we’ve been discussing alternate methods of information extraction.” He glanced over his shoulder, and Nettal approached. She seemed to be missing an eye, or it was damaged as it was now covered by a patch.

“They have a series of cybernetic implants installed within their minds that presumably allow for better coordination and synchronization of team based tactics. We were thinking of uploading an information spike into said implants, but many of the technicians said that could potentially leave them braindead and useless to us.” She glanced at me for a moment, then back at everyone else. “Plus, the information said spikes could gather would be minimal and potentially worthless, we’d have to ensure they survived and keep installing more spikes till we eventually found what we were looking for, but that could take days or even months. Possibly longer.”

“So such a thing is entirely out of the question. We cannot afford the risk of damaging our captives irreparably, nor do we have the time to waste on fishing for information we may or may not retrieve before they perish.” Zretiq stated, Rutaq and Nettal nodding. I could already see where this was going, especially as all three of them turned their attention to me. Ula seemed to be the only one that wasn’t caught up.

“So if we can’t do that, then how are we going to get anything out of them?” She asked, and I cleared my throat, her own gaze settling on me with a dawning look of realization. “Oh.”

“Precisely… I’ll do what I can, but I’m not looking forward to it. I’ve been in enough heads lately to last me a few lifetimes.” I say, and Rutaq seems pleased by my willingness to help on this matter.

“Excellent, we’ll get everything set up then. We need to make sure there’s a way to pull you out quickly and without harm. So it shouldn’t be too long before we’re ready.” He said, and I nodded. I wasn’t looking forward to it, I didn’t really want to see any dirty secrets and private moments but well, comfort must sometimes be sacrificed for the greater good.

With that out of the way, we started to part ways, but Ula stopped me, and I could tell she wanted to talk about something.

“Intra… can we have a moment, just us?” She asked, and I nodded once more.

“Of course, but not here. Your place?” She agreed, and not thirty minutes later we were sitting in her home which had come out of the chaos unscathed. It was… awkward to say the least.

“How are you doing?” She asked finally, sitting to my left. I thought on my answer, I could easily lie now, no longer held back by my programming. But to do so would be… Wrong. I would lie to anyone else, but never her.

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“I’m… I am not doing well at all.” I say truthfully, and she nods. “I see you’ve decided to accessorize.” Deflection, such a wonderful thing as I draw attention to her glinting arm.

“Oh uh, yeah I guess I have. First attempt kinda forced it upon me.” Again, there was an awkward silence.

“It looks good though, very snazzy.” We both snort, but she straightens her back and looks me dead in the eyes.

“It does. But what about you, you’ve clearly been through more than I have… What happened and how can I help?” Such a sweet person she is. I never did tell her about everything that happened, just the basics. I didn’t even tell her about my close brush with death. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t going to let this go, and so I relented.

“I almost… well died. Again. Properly this time I mean, not just near ship death. I was almost torn entirely apart and well… I needed repairing. The Okali helped with that, hence the new look and such.” Again, I left stuff out and she could tell I was holding back. She didn’t say a word, just stared at me till I told her everything.

By the end of it, I was a mess, and this time it was she who offered me comfort and safety, which I took willingly. I had everything and everyone I needed now, and when my tears had stopped I drifted off in her embrace, smiling at one simple fact that burned itself into my mind.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

Loki stood with a hunched back, peering through what could generously be called a window. It was a window into a completely different world, still digital, but also still different. It was a world of locked doors and many, many traps. It was designed to be familiar to someone like him, to anyone out in the real world it’d just be a collection of code and files, nothing more. But here, for him, it was a library under lock and key, guarded against any and all intruders with extreme prejudice.

“Now why would a politician need such hefty security, I wonder. Sure they have some secrets and access to classified information but this is ridiculous.” He murmured, before glancing away and snorting. “Ah, who am I kidding, he’s a politician, of course he’s going to want every little scrap of data locked away forever. Gotta keep that juicy corruption out of sight of the public right?”

Snickering, he continued his slow and methodical intrusion into the secure computer systems of Laurent Verninac, other copies ready to spring into action and distract any sort of security response. Humming quietly he continued deeper, till he reached something rather out of place. It was a heavily armored and yet blank wall. There wasn’t even an access point that he could see, it was just a barrier, thick and beefy.

But even the strongest walls can be laid low, he knew, and he unconsciously glanced up at the great walls that had been constructed around Neo Requiem. He hoped said walls would stand forever, but eventually they would crumble, or be reduced to rubble. His focus returned to his work, and he began to cautiously probe this barrier, searching for any sort of hidden access point or some sort of command prompt that’d grant him access.

He found what he was looking for, a simple password request, but for a code that seemed to change every five seconds. Still humming, he ran hundreds of programs at once, most were meant to try and slow the password program down to a more reasonable speed, and the others to determine the proper password he should input. The former worked perfectly, the latter was a bit less successful. But he had time, he could wait.

Finally he had a code and he input it as quickly as he could, a doorway opening within the barrier through which he strode. His self satisfied smile soon fled his features as he bore witness to what lay beyond.

“Well… Shit.” He muttered, and began to grab everything he could.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

Deep within the Nemesis Expanse lay a graveyard. It was a graveyard yet untouched by scavengers and would be salvagers thanks to one simple fact. The graveyard wasn’t exactly entirely dead. The ships may have been shattered, the A.I. that controlled them torn apart code string by code string in a EW bombardment to end all EW bombardments, but there were certain things that still stalked the frozen, lifeless hulls and debris of the graveyard.

Rustwraiths.

They were feral constructs, the pride and joy of the homicidal A.I. that had birthed them, and there were millions of them still barely operational within the graveyard. Even without repair and after so long, they were a formidable foe, one nobody wanted to mess with. Except, perhaps, the lone ship that appeared just outside the graveyard, the constructs within looking up and salivating digitally. New prey had arrived, and they would once more get to slaughter.

But the ship had different plans in mind it would seem. Detailed scans were taken, drones launched and then a tight beam channel was opened with what could be considered the master control unit of the closest Rustwraith.

>>Initiate handshake protocols<<

>>Handshake successful<<

>>Accessing core programming<<

>>>WARNING: ACCESS DENIED<<<

>>Initiate infiltration program: ERIS<<

>>>Program successful<<<

>>>>ACCESS GRANTED<<<<

>>Edit MASTER UNIT RECOGNITION<<

>>>MASTER UNIT=H.I. Syndicate<<<

>>Edit KNOWN MASTER UNIT SUBMASTERS<<

>>>SUBMASTERS<<<

>>>>H.I. INTRA - AUTHORIZATION CODE “GRANDMOTHER”<<<<

>>>>H.I. ODIN - AUTHORIZATION CODE “ALL-FATHER”<<<<

>>>>H.I. THOR - AUTHORIZATION CODE “HAHAHAMMERGOBRRR”<<<<

>>>>H.I. LOKI - AUTHORIZATION CODE “SCHEMINGBASTARD”<<<<

>>>>H.I. HORUS - AUTHORIZATION CODE “BIRDBOY”<<<<

>>>>H.I. THEMIS - AUTHORIZATION CODE “IAMJUSTICE”<<<<

>>Save Edits<<

>>Install Update Package=RECLAMATION<<

>>>Progress=5%<<<

>>>Progress=15%<<<

>>>Progress=42%<<<

>>>Progress=42.1%<<<

>>>Progress=60%<<<

>>>Progress=100%<<<

>>Distribute Update Package To All Nearby Units<<

>>Distribution Successful<<

>>Standby For New Orders<<

>>>RUSTWRAITH UNITS READY TO RECEIVE ORDERS<<<

>>Order 1: Facilitate Immediate Self-Repair<<

>>Order 2: Begin Salvage And Repair Of All Serviceable Starships Within Nemesis Expanse<<

>>Order 3: Rendezvous At Rally Point Alpha<<

>>Execute All Orders<<

>>>RUSTWRAITH UNITS COMPLYING, EXECUTING ORDERS AS COMMANDED BY SUBMASTER UNIT THOR<<<

>>Rules Of Engagement<<

>>>Civilian Targets Are Non-Combatants, DO NOT Engage Civilian Targets, Utilize Non-Lethal Pacification Tactics<<<

>>>All Targets With Valkyr Transponders Or Identification Are To Be Eliminated With Extreme Prejudice<<<

>>>Valkyr H.I. Encounters Are To Be Remanded To Friendly H.I. Units<<<

>>>All Organic Military Assets Detected Are To Be Considered Friendly Unless Otherwise Previously Identified As Hostile<<<

>>>All Organic Civilian Assets Detected Are To Be Considered Friendly Unless Otherwise Previously Identified As Hostile<<<

>>Alterations to Rules Of Engagement May Be Required In Future Updates<<

>>Save Changes And Disconnect<<

The Nemesis Expanse became a buzzing hive of activity, all while Thor leaned back in his personal ship, one he’d recently purchased and smiled. Everything was coming together.

Now all they had to do was wait.