"E-E-Z-O, hyped up in various publications as 'eezo' or even 'Element Zero', is an unusual form of rare, non-baryonic matter. Unlike the typical form, which coagulates into inert dark matter that does not interact with regular matter, eezo is perfectly visible to the naked eye, and has numerous exotic properties."

The speaker paused mid-gesture, peering out over the teaching hologram at the small gaggle of teenagers, making sure they understood.

Shizuki Ryouko, interstellar exchange program scientific trainee, nodded vigorously. It was the polite thing to do, even if she knew everything that the speaker was saying; she had been here for months, after all, and certainly knew the basics.

Her new girlfriend, however, a certain Nakihara Asami, didn't know the basics. She was here in the same program, but as a xenobiologist, not a physicist, and she was here on lab tour because she had captured repeated videos of the local fauna using what appeared to be telekinesis—videos that were controversial, to put it mildly.

Asami squeezed her hand, glancing at her playfully, and Ryouko blushed slightly, looking away. It was an odd experience, having a relationship, but they had met at the MSY meet-and-greet party a month ago and hit it off immediately. One thing led to another and here they were.

Satisfied with their nods, the speaker continued, stroking the hologram with her hand and causing it to switch from a schematic of an eezo crystal to historical images of researchers huddled around a computing terminal.

"Before the discovery of this planet, Nazra Invictus, eezo was only known in nanogram quantities from particle accelerators. No one had ever succeeded in producing a stable form, despite numerous attempts by distinguished researchers and labs. The fundamental problem was that, even though theoretical models predicted that a stable form must exist, and that it would have very novel antigravitational properties, these same models also implied that the stable form could only form under extreme pressures, such as found in the core of neutron stars, or transiently in supernovas. Once it was realized that supernovas could produce detectable quantities of eezo, it was hoped that stellar surveys might reveal substantial deposits of the material."

A woman in the crowd raised her hand politely, and the speaker paused. Emma Sinclair, Ryouko identified, using her nomenclator on the woman.

"Isn't it the case that the trans-iron elements were also all formed in supernovas?" Emma asked. "Those elements are everywhere, but we couldn't find Element Zero?"

"Eezo," the speaker corrected. "But a very good question. Remember, however, that eezo is non-baryonic, and even though stars do a good job of concentrating non-baryonic matter at their cores, a lot of dark matter lies between galaxies, unreachable. It was later realized that most supernovas would produce only trace quantities of the material."

She cleared her throat, looking out over the cluster of students again.

"More importantly, though, it was realized that the properties of eezo would make it very difficult to collect on planetary bodies. Even small amounts of charge would lower its mass enough to ignore gravitational effects, causing what trace amounts were found to be lost in the void. It was expected that harvesting eezo might require a tremendous effort, and most interest was lost."

"Until Nazra Invictus," one of the students said expectantly.

"Yes," the speaker agreed, as the hologram shifted to an image of the planet. "When the planetary survey probe first scanned the planet, the readings were at first completely disbelieved. Attitudes changed when a formal survey team was sent, and they reported back that eezo was indeed present in large deposits, that it was stable at a macroscopic scale, and that it really did float if charged."

The scientist smiled to herself slightly, like a magician about to reveal her greatest trick.

The hologram vanished, and a small rock, about the size of Ryouko's fist, floated out of the terminal, glowing blue, eliciting ooo's from the crowd.

"Ten years ago, this hunk of rock would have been worth more than some planets," the scientist said proudly. "The discoveries on this planet have the potential to revolutionize the gravitonics industry, and the Governance economy as a whole."

Emma raised her hand again, and again the speaker acknowledged her.

"I thought you said that it was expected eezo wouldn't accumulate on a planetary surface. What happened to that?"

Ryouko squeezed Asami's hand nervously, causing Asami to look over. She shook her head to signal that nothing was wrong. No one was supposed to know outside of a few senior scientists and officials, but the lab director had spread the information downward on a purely "you did not hear this from me" basis, now that the official announcement was almost here.

Nearly a year ago, eezo miners digging into a particularly rich vein of eezo had found, not just more eezo, but what appeared to eezo devices, clearly artificial and full of unknown technology. Further archaeological study had revealed an extensive set of ruins, an entire city—Alien ruins, of course. Even more spectacularly, the ruins had pointed to a massive alien device in orbit around one of the system's gas giants; there was already a science station studying it. The new theory was that the eezo hadn't accumulated naturally; it had been laboriously collected by this mysterious alien race, who had died out somehow, roughly 70,000 years ago.

Momentous news. Momentous enough that Governance had spent nearly a year chewing over how to announce it to the public. Hearing about it had wiped out any doubts Ryouko had had about coming to Nazra. She felt privileged to have heard about it before anyone else.

In response to Emma, though, the speaker only smiled broadly.

"No one knows, Miss Sinclair. Our studies are still ongoing."

"I can't believe I'm stuck doing this," Ryouko thought at Asami. "I'm supposed to be showing you around the lab, not this Investment Analyst from Hashimoto-St. Claire or whatever."

She glanced over at Asami, who had fallen in politely behind Emma, to see if she had any reaction to the comment.

"It's not so bad," Asami thought. "I still get to see the lab, don't it? And you shouldn't talk that way about a fellow magical girl. You did notice that, right?"

"Of course I did," Ryouko thought bitterly. "That just means we're going to have to do introductions by telepathy or something. More complications. And Flori is just making me do this so she doesn't have to talk to Emma herself."

"Oh Ryouko, you're just mad we're not getting alone time like we planned."

Ryouko suppressed an annoyed huff. Asami wasn't wrong, of course.

"I just want to spend some time with you without anyone else butting in," Ryouko groused. "That's not so wrong is it?"

"No, I understand," thought Asami. A current of telepathy something like a pat on the head made Ryouko smile unconsciously. "I'm sure we'll have some soon. Don't be impatient. Let's just get through this and try to make the most of it."

"Right, right, introductions," Ryouko sighed as her face fell again. "Great…"

The Governance nomenclator was extremely helpful, but one thing it didn't do was tell you anything about the MSY aspect of things, for obvious reasons. Yuma might have led the MSY deep into the Governance computing structure, but not so deep that the MSY could leave evidence of its existence everywhere in public databases.

Right on cue, Emma relayed the thought:

"Man, I didn't expect to meet two more mages this quickly. S'nice to meet you. So look, technically, I'm supposed to look at this Element Zero stuff. Hashimoto and Sinclair—or the Shizukis, which is honestly the same thing—are interested in the material. Still I have to admit, it's… not really my thing. Do you guys do anything other than science around here?"

"So. Drsti Center is the big physics center for eezo on this planet, as you probably know," Ryouko said out loud. "There's a lot of open questions regarding eezo physics, even though everyone understands the basic 'apply electricity, lower mass' principle at this point. For example, the lab I work for studies the possible application of eezo to faster-than-light travel. There's a lot of possibilities for combining eezo with standard pseudo-Alcubierre drives, but it would have to be done carefully."

Ryouko stopped talking, realizing that what she had intended to be the public, spoken half of the conversation had gone on way too long. She really needed to learn how to talk and send thoughts at the same time, like the older girls.

"Pretty much just science," Ryouko thought, trying to continue the trailing end of the telepathic conversation. "The Center, anyway. Asami and I are technically part of the demon hunting team for this planet, but we're underutilized. We're really here to learn to be future MSY scientists, or something."

She paused.

"And, uh, call it eezo instead of Element Zero. There are several people in my lab, including the Director, who secretly want to kill you every time you call it that. It's… not scientific at all."

"Oh, that sounds interesting," Emma said out loud. It had the whiff of a well-practiced line to it. "I guess… having eezo in a ship's warp bubble might really mess things up, yeah?"

"Gotcha," Emma thought simultaneously. "Actually, I'm going to be on this planet for a while, so I'm technically part of the demon hunting team too, since you guys need to be shipped cubes. Apparently they're short on vets, and need to train some of the newer girls?"

"Don't call it a warp bubble either, please," Ryouko thought back, with a restrained grimace. "And yes, actually, we would be the new girls. We… haven't actually done much demon hunting. I've been on… one, so far?"

"I've been on two!" Asami interjected proudly.

"Ah. I guess that makes me your senpai," Emma thought, not sounding entirely pleased by the prospect.

Ryouko pursed her lips but didn't comment. They'd arrived at the lab where she worked.

"This is the lab I work for, High-Speed Eezo, under Director Olander. It's actually pretty cool to look at."

They moved to stand at a wide, perspex window for a thoughtful moment. It partitioned off the experimental space from the desks where the researchers did their analysis. Inside, a football-sized chunk of eezo glowed blue as it floated above a very broken-looking hemispherical device. Lab personnel were scurrying about, and a small group peered skeptically into a box on the floor.

Ryouko looked down at the floor for a moment while Emma and Asami stared. The truth was, even though the lab work was genuinely interesting, it just wasn't what she had pictured when she had wished to explore the world. She was grateful to the MSY for the opportunity, but a part of her felt rebelliously aware that by being here, she was basically fulfilling her parents' dream life for her. In fact, it had been everything she and her father could do to talk her mother out of following her here—no teenager wanted the embarrassment of a parent tagging along to her first real chance to live alone.

She sighed. In truth, though, she kind of missed her family, even if having her mother around would probably have been a problem vis-a-vis Asami.

"Well, let's move on," she said, pulling the others away from the glowing blue rock. "You'll probably want to see Dolezal's lab. He's working on applications of eezo to transportation. He has a tiny hovercart that he likes to show off. Just be, uh, prepared to fall off a lot."

"Well it'll be good for you," said Ayane, curled up against Emma in their VR living room.

With work over for the day, Emma had elected to make a visit over VR to Ayane. Strictly speaking, she should probably have finished that write-up of her first day of lab visits…

...well it'd be fine, it wasn't like she couldn't file it later. Ayane's schedule had picked up lately, with the latest migration of storks from mainland Asia. This was one of the few windows they had to meet over VR. While expensive, the MSY was kind of useful for these sorts of things.

"I guess," said Emma, running her hand through Ayane's hair. "I mean, I've done it before, when I was a kid. It's just been a long time since I last mentored anyone."

"You'll be fine," said Ayane. "You've always had an air of leadership around you."

"You think?"

"I think it's because you started doing that sort of thing when you were young. It sticks with you, you know?"

"Mmm, I guess. I did do pretty good that one time, when we met."

"Oh hush, I totally would have been fine!" Ayane protested, twisting around to slap Emma on the knee. "A quick loop and I'd have dodged that demon."

"Yeah, but you can't deny that we did pretty good that day," said Emma, curling a strand of Ayane's hair around her finger. She grinned at the memory. "You know, we should do a spar. It's been a boring day, and it's fun trying to catch you."

"I think you just like what we do afterwards," said Ayane, rolling her eyes but pecking Emma on the cheek. "I won't let you win this time though!"

Ayane transformed with a flash of amber light, her costume's cloak dropping down around her shoulders as she pulled Emma to her feet. The living room became a practice arena as Emma transformed in a burst of blue, red battle robes and armor plate falling into place.

"So I guess that means you like what we do afterwards too, hmm?" asked Emma, twirling her halberd, then snapping it into a guard. "Or am I just better than you?"

"As if!" Ayane laughed back, drawing two daggers out of the air and crouching. "That just means that I have to go easy on you sometimes, otherwise you'd never win."

"Oh really? Let's see then!"

The two girls charged each other in a burst of amber and blue. Dagger met halberd in an explosion of sparks, before the two of them leapt up and vied for altitude, dancing and swirling in midair in perfect harmony. The two clashed at the peak of their climb, Ayane using her daggers to twist Emma's halberd into a lock and pinning them against each other. Emma frowned, and tried to remove her halberd from the lock.

"Not gonna happen!" Ayane said, before driving a knee into Emma's abdomen with a clang. "Ow!"

"Armor, remember?" asked Emma, before letting go of her halberd completely and grabbing Ayane's leg. She twisted as they fell, spinning into a throw that chucked Ayane at the ground at high speed.

Of course, it didn't work.

With a shout, Ayane burst upwards to smash into Emma, the two of them arcing into a tumbling, spinning trajectory for the far end of the pitch. Ayane flared her magic, twisting so that Emma was beneath her. The ground rushed upwards and—

—Emma pulled at Ayane's costume, tugging her into a kiss as they landed on a suddenly-appearing bed. They detransformed in a flash of green.

Properly speaking, the colony on Nazra Invictus was broken up amongst several different locations. Nazra's equatorial regions had the highest concentrations of eezo on the planet, and most of the work being done on the exotic substance was being conducted at Drsti Center and Nhan Luc Station. The two locations were only ten minutes drive from each other.

Both were situated at the base of the lush Kirana Valley. The rise of Nazra's sun arced through the mouth of the valley at almost exactly 0632 hours at this point in the planet's orbit, and the atmosphere was dense enough to light the sky with a deep, intense red. As the planet spun about its axis, the light of its star shifted through the visible spectrum in a dizzying array of color that, set against the craggy peaks lining the valley, was unique in the system, if not the galaxy.

Drsti Center and Nhan Luc Station held two distinct, but closely tied roles. Drsti Center, called "the DC" by the locals, was in charge of running eezo experiments and analyzing the subsequent data. It was also where most of the researchers did their work, along with using the lecture halls to give the occasional lecture to newcomers or present theories that, almost inevitably it seemed, were invalidated for one reason or another.

Nhan Luc Station was in charge of eezo extraction and the analysis of how to handle, store, and use its known properties in engineering contexts. As it was, the material was so new that many of the research engineers at NLS did just as much theoretical work as the researchers at the DC, on top of their other duties.

Emma grunted, then rolled over as a foot nudged her from where she had been napping on top of a stack of prefabricated residence cubes. The cube stacks were scattered around the valley, based entirely on the biology team deciding what parts of the valley seemed least likely to hold important information on the local ecology. Each cube was designed to be large enough for four people to live comfortably, and the interior was subdivided to make this possible. Waste products were processed locally before being discharged.

This processing was one of the driving factors in making the cubes quite tall. In the end, each cube, fully assembled, stood two stories high. Stacking multiples on top of each other tended to make small cities appear overnight. Getting up and down them was accomplished through an elevator installed on the side.

"Hey," Emma heard. The foot nudged her again.

"Mneh, go away," Emma mumbled, curling up.

"Heyyyyy," The foot prodded her quite firmly in the kidney.

"Ah, fine, I'm up I'm up," Emma sighed, getting to her feet. She stretched, feeling her spine crack underneath her costume's armor plating. "Mm. That was a nice nap."

"How do you sleep this much?" asked Ryouko, looking exasperated. "It's not even past ten PM!"

"Best way to get through a boring, useless lecture," said Emma, turning and planting her hands on her hips. "You've had those before, right?"

"No," Ryouko said bluntly. She shrugged as Emma gave her a mildly incredulous look. "I always liked science things."

"Well congrats," said Emma, rolling her eyes. She checked her chronometer. "And it's still early yet! Why'd you wake me up?"

"We were bored," said Asami. She shrugged as well. "We got here early and didn't know what else to do."

Emma sighed. "Well the thing to do is usually to just wait until the others get here. It's not like we can get any practice in without blowing something up."

Ryouko and Asami frowned. Being a magical girl was turning out to involve quite a lot of waiting. Waiting, and boredom.

Emma frowned right back at them. Served them right for making her wake up before everyone else got there.

"Well… couldn't we um… talk about tactics, or something?" asked Asami after a moment of frowning at each other. "I mean, Ryouko and I haven't done that many hunts, and since you're older…."

Emma paused, glancing at the two of them. If she guessed correctly…

"You two are dating?" asked Emma. "Am I right?"

Ryouko and Asami flushed slightly, reaching for the other's hand.

"Ah, that's right," said Asami. "We met at the MSY meet-and-greet, when we joined up with the science teams."

"Hmm, then consider this my first bit of senpai-ing," said Emma with a grin. She sent a file to Ryouko and Asami. "It's some important information for new couples that I picked up when I started dating a girl."

Curiously, the couple downloaded the file and opened it. They immediately went bright red.

"Agh, what is this?!" Ryouko flailed, shutting the file immediately and rounding on Emma with a scandalized glare. "Why would you send that?!"

Emma keeled over laughing, unable to respond.

"Now, now, Ms. Sinclair," said Nadya Antipova, a veteran telekinetic, as she landed nearby. "It's not nice to tease the new girls."

"Did you see their faces though?!" Emma managed. "That was amazing!"

"You're terrible!" Ryouko shouted, turning to Asami for support. "Asami, I'm right aren't— Asami!"

Asami blinked, coming out of her daze. "Ah, what?"

"Asami, are you still reading it?!"

"N-no!" said Asami quickly, pressing her lips together guiltily. Ryouko buried her face in her hands as Emma's laughs faded into dry wheezing, having run out of air in her lungs.

By the time the remaining six girls had arrived, Ryouko and Asami had managed to stop blushing and Nadya had finished scolding Emma for being a terrible senpai. The team milled about for a few minutes, chatting and catching up on the events of the day. Nobody particularly wanted to go on the hunt just yet. The population on Nazra Invictus simply wasn't large enough to spark any particular feeling of urgency towards the hunt.

Eventually, however, the hunt got underway, with the more experienced girls taking the lead and flank positions. Ryouko and Asami stayed in the middle, even though there wasn't much risk of getting caught by surprise, while Emma ended up taking the rear.

"So tell me some more about how you two met." Emma thought. "I'm curious."

Ryouko sent back only stony silence, still annoyed at the prank from earlier.

"Well, it's like I said before," Asami thought with a shrug. "We met at an MSY get together. We talked awhile, stayed in contact, and started dating."

"Well yeah, I had one too before my group flew out," thought Emma, rolling her eyes. "But that's not exactly a story. C'mon, details!"

"Well…"

"You mean you've never been off-world? How ridiculous!"

The piercing voice, sharp and unpleasant, cut through the air, catching Ryouko's attention almost as if it were intended for her.

Ryouko, who had been lounging in a corner cradling a cup of spiced cider, looked up. No one around her seemed to have noticed anything, but she felt compelled to find the source of the comment.

"I… I've been to Mars," a hesitant voice responded, as Ryouko waded into the small crowd. Why did this particular conversation intrigue her so much? Maybe it was the tone—or maybe she was just bored.

"Mars? Did you hear that, girls? She's been to Mars! We should all bow down, obviously."

Ryouko finally found the source of conversation, a small crowd of girls gathered around a short, meek-looking girl cringing in the corner. She sighed. She knew what this was.

"Tell us more about your adven— hey!" the apparent lead girl continued, interrupted by Ryouko, who had shoved her aside.

"You don't have to stick around for this," Ryouko said, grabbing the victim—Nakihara Asami—by her arm and moving to pull her away from the group of girls.

"Hey, that's rude," the lead girl, a certain Inga Sokoloff, said, grabbing Ryouko in turn by the arm.

Ryouko turned to look at Inga, realizing that all the girls there were much taller than either she or Asami. This wasn't a function of age—just of height. The other girls were also dressed much more elaborately, in fashionable evening wear rather than something straightforward.

"Sokoloff, is it?" she said, out loud, ignoring the hand clutching one of her sleeves. "I hear your family still hasn't recovered from the purges. If you're in need of any more loans, I wouldn't be rude to a Shizuki. Someone had to pay for your little pleasure excursions to Tikal."

It was a—

"Wait hold on, Ryouko said that?" asked Emma, skepticism evident in her telepathy. "Bloody hell. Wouldn't have expected it from her."

"Oh really," thought Ryouko, telepathy flat and unamused. "Why's that then?"

"Uh, well, you're… I dunno… small and cute looking rather than badass looking?"

"Well, you know, it turns out that when you're small and cute, you can keep your eyes open and learn how to do things, which is a little hard when you're large and sleep twenty hours a day."

Emma blinked.

"...did you just call me a panda or something?"

"Something like that."

"Yeesh. I'm sorry for calling you short, snippy."

"Well—"

"ANYWAY," interrupted Asami loudly. "As I was saying…"

...It was a complete bluff, of course, trading on the Shizuki family name when Ryouko had only learned anything about it two weeks before. But, she had spent the interim researching her matriarchies, and knew all about the sordid history of the Sokoloffs.

Tikal, of course, was a vacation planet that had garnered a well-earned reputation for depravity. It was said that there were many things for sale there that Governance overlooked only because it was the business of consenting adults.

"How did you know—" Inga began automatically, before realizing that she had said way too much.

One of the other girls in the group snickered.

Ryouko took that moment to pull her arm away from Inga and drag Asami a safe distance away.

"Look, Nakihara-san," she said, turning the other girl around. "You can't just let girls like that push you around like that. Girls like Inga get their fix torturing girls who can't fight back. I—"

Ryouko paused, realizing that the other girl, besides being short enough to be eye level with her, was looking back at her with stars in her eyes.

"I, uh, I was bullied as a kid, so I know what I'm talking about," Ryouko finished, suddenly feeling hot. Now that she was looking carefully, Asami was huddled pretty close to her, and well—

Well, she could swing that way. She had realized that a while ago, even if her mom could have stood to be a little more surprised about the fact. Thus, if this Asami was—

"Hi, I'm Nakihara Asami," Asami said, cheerily. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

Ryouko realized the girl hadn't heard a thing she had just said.

"That's literally the cheesiest thing I've ever heard," Emma thought bluntly.

"Oi—"

"But it's still adorable, so whatever and congratulations!" thought Emma cheerily. "Man, I feel lame in comparison."

"That's because you are."

"Oh hush, Ryouko. Y'see, me and Ayane, my girlfriend, met in much more, ah, 'normal' circumstances," continued Emma, rolling her eyes. "Y'see, it was back when we'd just finished Secondary, so me and the rest of my cohort decided to go to Osaka for a graduation trip. I got bored and went to a demon hunt, and met Ayane then."

"Ooooh," cooed Asami. "What do you mean 'lame', that's so romantic!"

"Well, I did save her from getting blindsided by a demon," preened Emma.

Ryouko went to snark again, then thought better of it. She'd probably punch someone who made nasty comments about Asami, and, well, Emma would be well within her rights to sock Ryouko if Ryouko did something similar.

"Well anyway, have you guys been able to practice with your powers much?" asked Emma.

"Not especially," thought Asami. "We've been very busy with lab and field work."

"Ah, okay. Well I guess we should talk to Nadya about—"

Emma cut herself off as a miasma flickered into her senses, rolling to the right as the patrol began to veer towards the distant signal.

"Feels like about three kilometers out?" thought Lillian Echizen, a clairvoyant who wielded a fairly large club. "Standard formation, Nadya?"

"I think so, yes," thought Nadya. "Barrier generators to the front, melee behind. We'll cut into—"

"Actually, Nadya," broke in Emma. "Could me an' the newbies get some work up front? Even for three kilometers, that's a pretty weak miasma."

The patrol mentally paused.

"Sounds good, they could use the practice," thought Nadya. "Emma, you have point for the assault."

"Roger that," thought Emma, grinning. A curtain of blue magic wrapped around her. "Ryouko, Asami, follow me!"

Emma jumped up, hanging in space for a half a second before launching herself forward on a gust of wind, cutting through the center of the patrol and leaving a glittering corona behind her.

"Don't call us newbies," grumbled Ryouko as she and Asami scrambled to keep up. "And should you really be doing that?"

"Eh, it's fine," thought Emma, rolling her eyes as she blew past Nadya with a nod. "You'd think somebody'd notice a bunch of magical girls flying around by this point in history, but lookin' around us, that isn't really the case."

"Still…"

"Ah, quit worrying, we're getting ready to attack," thought Emma. "Asami, you do things with gravity right? Can you create a local anti-grav field?"

"Er, sure?" thought Asami. "I'm— hmm... if I… yes, I think that should be fine."

"Cool. Ryouko, you port us in above, then give me a spray of fire. I'll go in hot."

"Alright."

"Can you port in motion?"

"Er… if we're not accelerating, yes."

"Alright, I want you to land on my shoulders, followed by Asami, then we go in, okay?"

"Er, okay? That's a crazy plan."

Emma grinned, then slowed her pace, with Ryouko speeding up to match her. "Now you're gettin' it, Ryouko! Crazy means showing off, and we're going to show those veterans what we can do."

"Is that—"

"Shut up and port us in! Go go go!"

Ryouko bit her lip and jumped, landing on Emma's back like she was jumping onto a hoverboard. Asami grabbed on a second later, and Ryouko reached and—

—pulled—

—and she was spinning in midair as Emma rocketed downwards with a shout, a wavefront of blue progressing before her before scattering the demons like so many bowling pins.

"Dammit Emma!" Ryouko shouted telepathically as she righted herself. She'd materialized them over the top of a group of residence blocks. "You damn idiot, warn me next time!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Emma laughed back, before cannoning into a group of demons with her halberd raised. "Gimme some arrows, Ryouko, come on!"

"They're bolts, idiot!" Ryouko shouted, before raising her arbalest and twirling in midair. The green bolts—not arrows—cut through the air towards the footpaths between buildings, where the demons were spawning. The projectiles slammed into their targets with thin strings running back to her. She pulled back and—

—began firing again as soon as she reappeared, dismissing the shredded remnants of what demons she'd tagged. There was a deep, harmonic thrum as Asami glowed purple, then everything below them rose off the ground with alarming speed. Emma rocketed her way upwards, past Asami, then arcing back around to slam into—

—the wall with a crunch of shattering polymer and concrete, her body shedding the reinforcing magic that let her survive the impact. Asami had already moved, throwing herself sideways to avoid the tracking lasers from the demons. Ryouko ground her teeth as she pulled and—

—appeared behind Asami while shedding spent ammunition, the dying demons fading below while she grabbed Asami's hand and—

—appeared again on top of a—

—delivery drone, Asami's rapid shifts causing the gravity field to bend in completely arbitrary directions.

"Agh, what are you doing?!" Emma asked. "Goddammit, I hit my head falling into the fucking wall just now!"

"Sorry, got distracted," thought Ryouko blithely. "No wait, that was you and your goddamn pinball routine."

"Oh screw you, Ryouko," thought Emma. "Asami, you're okay?"

"Y-yes, I'm fine," thought Asami. Ryouko glanced down, and realized she'd pulled Asami into a protective cuddle at some point in the last few seconds. The other girl was blushing furiously.

Oh God.

"So if you two are done over there, I'd like to keep this up," thought Emma. "Things were going pretty good."

"You call that good?!"

"Now now, children, let's all stay calm," drawled Isabella. She was a colonist, from the Amala System near Nova Terra, and generated force-fields with a giant hammer. "Y'all are projecting over group telepathy. We're comin' in hot, so if Asami-chan could drop her grav field, that'd be great."

"R-right!"

Ryouko took in a breath as she spotted the remainder of the patrol. They'd arranged themselves into a wedge. Magic flashed, and the demons turned to—

—reel back, the confused tangle of cloth and pale, unearthly flesh burning away under the onslaught of an entire magical girl team's combined firepower.

"That's a wrap, ladies," thought Nadya over group telepathy. "Emma, Ryouko, Asami, you guys did well. A bit unorganized, but it's to be expected. Everyone else, good work, as usual. There's still a few more places to check before the night is over. Anybody need some cubes?"

Ryouko checked her gem. It glimmered brightly under Nazra's moons. "I'm good. Asami?"

"I'm fine."

"I could use a few," thought Emma. Ryouko took a small amount of vindictive pleasure that she hadn't used as much magic as Emma had.

Damned inefficient melee fighters. Ryouko was going to have to yank Emma's tail out of a fire at some point, she knew it.

"No doubt you are all wondering why we are gathered here."

Governance: Colonial Affairs had made some effort to try and look particularly distinguished. She'd apparently taken fashion advice from Governance: Manufacturing, and was dressed in a pinstriped suit jacket and dress shirt. A concession had been made, and she was wearing a skirt with leggings rather than the usual, motion-restricting, business slacks. Her wide-spectrum scanner, worn over her left eye, had been replaced with some sort of high-tech monocle that glimmered purple around the edge.

"I don't have to tell you that a formal press conference is a rarity these days, conducted only on the most important of occasions. Indeed, I can tell you that I, personally, have never had the honor of conducting one. I can already hear the questions resounding on the Internet: why a press conference? Why one given by Colonial Affairs? Why one on the obscure planet of Nazra Invictus? Well, I am here to end the speculation."

Ryouko craned her neck, straining to see over the local luminaries seated in front of her, trying to spot her lab director in the crowd of attendees standing behind the avatar of Colonial Affairsand several other prominent Governance Representatives.

It was safe to say neither she nor Asami had ever been at an event of this magnitude, yet here they were; Ryouko had received an invitation by dint of her connection with the lab, and was allowed to bring one other person. She was well aware, though, that this was reflective of the size of the colony—any larger colony would have had a much larger share of various magistrates and poobahs to occupy the limited seating area. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Emma seated near the back, legs crossed and looking faintly bored.

Colonial Affairs gestured with her arm, and a hologram appeared on the stage, schematics of what looked like a broken, electronic box, incomplete circuitry displayed beneath the holographic surface.

"About a year ago, eezo miners near the equator of this planet unearthed a set of archaeological relics in their tunnels. Alien archaeological relics, and not just rocks and axes, but the remains of clearly technological devices, of a sophistication equivalent to at least twenty-first century Earth."

The room was already buzzing, the mass of attendees turning to each other and issuing exclamations of surprise. Ryouko, for her part, snuck a glance at Asami, then Emma. The latter looked utterly astounded.

They didn't know the half of it, of course.

"A team of specialized archaeologists was immediately dispatched, of course, and what they found was astonishing."

The hologram switched to a 3D aerial view of what appeared to be a vast hole in the ground. A giant archaeological dig site, according to the text hovering on the bottom. It zoomed in, entering the hole and revealing what appeared to be an incomprehensible set of lines on the ground. As the view moved closer, these lines changed shape, extending out from the ground to become buildings, streets…

"This is a recreation of the city we've decided to call 'Rohe Hou'. At its height, it was an alien metropolis of at least two million, though estimates are preliminary, of course. It was these aliens, we believe, that gathered the eezo we've been mining on this planet, collecting it in a repository we now understand to be part of a vast ship-building complex."

When she paused, only for a moment, the volume of the crowd immediately surged, several hands immediately shooting up from the reporters in the complex, local reporters and bloggers on the verge of a story of a lifetime—critical stories were usually picked up by the much more prestigious Earthbound class of newspeople.

Colonial Affairs gestured at the crowd to settle down.

"For reasons we are still investigating, the city was abruptly abandoned roughly seventy thousand years ago, and shows evidence of being deliberately buried. Current theories focus on this being due to some sort of religious war, though this is obviously speculative at the moment. We do not know why anyone would try to bury a city."

She gestured again, and the hologram switched to a series of holographic reconstructions of artifacts, along with labels: eating utensils, chairs of some sort, jewelry, and, the most breathtaking, what appeared to be a stone carving of a triangle-headed alien with four hands moving his arms. The arms were surrounded by an aura, as was an object floating nearby.

Next to her, she felt Asami sit bolt upright.

"Amazingly enough, this is not even the most amazing find," Colonial Affairs continued. "Diagrams in the ruin indicated an alien artifact in orbit between the sixth and seventh planet of this system. Lengthy surveys were repeatedly unable to find this artifact, and we had concluded it was lost, when one of our surveyor probes in the rings of the sixth planet found something very unusual."

This time the hologram displayed an object of clearly alien design, shaped a bit like a cross, but with a wide, round opening in the middle. According to the listed measurements, it was breathtaking in size, larger even than Governance battlecruisers.

"We now believe that the alien artifact has shifted out of its original orbit over the millennia, though we are still unsure of the reasons. As you can see, it is enormous, and it is not a ship. Indeed, we have thus far been unable to determine its exact composition, except that it contains an enormous amount of eezo. It is mysterious, but we have several teams of researchers already working on the artifact."

"After much initial deliberation, it was decided to delay the announcement of these discoveries to the rest of the Human Governance until it had been absolutely determined that there was no threat, either from this mysterious device or from the aliens themselves, if they're still around somehow. We had to be cognizant of all possibilities."

She paused dramatically.

"And now, I will take questions," she said.

"Why on earth would I tell you?" Ryouko asked. Emma had sought out Ryouko the moment the former had finished sending a report off to HSIS, glowering and mildly offended. Ayane, meanwhile, was absolutely furious for not getting to hear about this sooner. Asami had been talking to Ryouko about the discovery, and now sighed as she rubbed the back of Ryouko's hand with a thumb. The shouting was already getting tiresome.

"Why wouldn't you?!" Emma shouted, gesticulating wildly as she stood in Ryouko's room, a fairly expansive one with its own shower and kitchenette, with Ayane buzzing in her ear. "Like, come on, we're all in the same damn boat here!"

"And it's alien life dammit!" Ayane piped up in Emma's ear. "Why would you keep quiet about aliens?!"

"I wasn't supposed to tell anyone!" Ryouko protested. "I told Nadya and she told everyone else. You're just not important enough to be on the list of people who need to know!"

Emma and Ayane inhaled simultaneously to retort but then stopped short.

"...Well fine," huffed Emma, plopping into a chair and crossing her arms mulishly. "You still coulda told me before the press conference."

Ryouko rolled her eyes. "Yes, because clearly you're that important to me."

"Aww come on, I'm your senpai!" said Emma. "There's no more sacred relationship than the one between the student and the teacher."

Ryouko snorted. "I beg to differ. I didn't even tell Asami, why would I tell you?"

"She didn't tell her girlfriend?!" Ayane asked, scandalized. "Oh no no no no no. That's so wrong!"

"My girlfriend says you're doing it wrong," said Emma, grinning slightly. "Specifically, you shoulda told Asami."

"Wha— but the MSY said to tell no one!"

"Yeah, but here we have a situation where—"

"—It doesn't matter you tell her anyway—"

"—where you tell her anyway, because fuck the rules, they're more just guidelines," said Emma, grin widening as Ayane ranted on the other end of the voice call. "Also I think Ayane would actually like you guys."

"Oh, is she on voice call with you?" asked Asami, latching on to a possible topic change with the desperation of the long-suffering. "Can we talk to her?"

"Er, sure?" said Emma. "Ayane, do you want to talk to my uh— my kouhai?"

"Oh that's right, they put you in charge of people," said Ayane with a sly grin. "Those poor kids."

"Hey, I only teased them a little bit!"

"Sure you did. Let me talk to them."

Emma rolled her eyes and added Ryouko and Asami to the call.

"Hello?"

"Ah, you're Asami?" said Ayane. "Pleased to meet you. I'm really sorry you have to be mentored by Emma here—"

"Hey!"

"—but it is what it is."

"We understand, it's okay," said Ryouko immediately, grinning at Emma as she kept speaking, "The MSY only has so many experienced members they can send to the colonies."

"Oh come on!" protested Emma. "I am not that bad!"

"Yes you are," said Ryouko and Ayane immediately.

"Did she get overexcited and do her pinball routine?" asked Ayane.

"You mean the thing where she keeps jumping from cluster to cluster and blocking all the firing lanes?"

"Yes, exactly! She did the same thing when we first met, it was infuriating!"

"Oi oi, I did not do that when we first met," said Emma heatedly. "That was when the Osaka Group got cornered by a surprise spawn and the Mitakihara Girls had to save your asses! I was the distraction while everyone else was getting the hell out of dodge!"

"That is not what happened—"

Asami sighed. This was not what she had envisioned when she had gone to Ryouko's room to talk to her. Or at least, she'd expected the argument to happen between herself and Ryouko, not two completely different people at opposite ends of human space. Asami stepped closer to Ryouko subconsciously, laying her head on her girlfriend's shoulder.

"Hm? Asami, what's wrong?" asked Ryouko. Emma and Ayane had spiraled into what sounded like a long-rehashed argument about whose fault it was for what things on that particular demon hunt where they'd met.

"Nothing," said Asami quietly, rubbing Ryouko's hand with her thumb. "It's just… well it's nothing, really, I guess."

Ryouko raised an eyebrow and placed her hand over Asami's. "That sounds like something out of an anime. One of those sad ones."

Asami giggled slightly and sighed. "You're right, it does. I guess I'm just a little tired of you and Emma yelling at each other every time you meet."

"We've only met, like, three times."

"But it's been a pain every time, and she's really quite nice," said Asami. "I mean, I'm not saying you need to like her, but the snark is getting to me."

Ryouko frowned and pulled Asami closer to her, their hair twining together slightly. From Ryouko's perspective, and she was pretty sure Emma felt the same way, the snarking was… was normal, really. The sort of thing you did just because neither of you took it personally. Or at least, Emma didn't take it personally, and just elected not to fire back. Ryouko found it to be good stress relief. Arguments during demon hunts aside, Ryouko wouldn't have characterized their relationship as being less than amicable.

"What is it that bothers you?" asked Ryouko. "I mean, it seems like Emma does this sort of thing with her friends a lot. Her girlfriend even is all like…" Ryouko paused, trying to think of a description. She soon gave up, and just waved a hand in Emma's direction. "...that."

"You just gestured at all of her," giggled Asami.

"That's it, her relationships are just all of her," said Ryouko. "Vaguely abrasive, lazy, and generically tall. And her boobs are ridiculous, I mean really—"

"Oh hush, your boobs are fine," said Asami, giggling and hiding her face in Ryouko's shoulder. "I like them."

"T-thanks," said Ryouko, looking down and away and trying not to blush.

"But it's not that I'm not okay with that," said Asami, returning to the topic at hand. "It's… well, can we talk more about it later? Just, it bothers me, and it'd be good if you could try and minimize it."

"That's fair," said Ryouko, rubbing Asami's hand again. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright."

"Eunoe! This is a, uh, pleasant surprise!"

Her friend's warm greeting was a bit forced, intended primarily to cover the tablet she was hastily hiding among some documents in her desk. The motion was obvious, and Adrea Sabudri must have been desperate to get rid of the tablet to even try such a ploy.

"Ah, yes, sorry I'm a bit distracted," Adrea added. "My, uh, calibrations are still compiling, so…"

"Look, Adrea," Eunoe said, leaning over the other girl's desk and lowering her voice conspiratorially. "We're friends, right? You should know that, whatever freaky Volus porn or something you're into, I won't judge. You don't have to hide from me like that."

She tapped her talons on the desk suggestively.

Adrea made a face.

"Screw you! Why are you here bothering me anyway?"

Eunoe stood back up, smiling, wide jawline stretching just a little.

"Well, I have a little time off, so I thought I'd visit my favorite little logistics legion Turian. How are things?"

She sat down on the chair next to her friend. Her work area was arrayed in a row with those of several other members of the logistics legion, but there was no one else there. Adrea always had been a bit of a workaholic, staying long hours typing away on her console long after her coworkers had gone back to their bunks.

Adrea grunted.

"Poorly. They're keeping the Legion Ferrata busy these days. We barely have time to think for ourselves."

Adrea tilted her head, looking around the room, then leaned in, speaking more quietly.

"Look, you didn't hear this from me, but the fleet is building up for something. Not a major offensive or anything. I'd guess some sort of peacekeeping operation. It looks like the Legion Victrix and Ferrata are going to be seeing some action. Well, you will, of course. We'll be in the rear. You know how it is."

The Legion Victrix was Eunoe's Legion, recently transferred along with the Legion Ferrata onto standby slots on the Fourth Fleet. That didn't necessarily mean anything; Legions were shuffled onto standby all the time for routine patrols, usually spending the entire trip training and getting into bar fights. As part of the Intragalactic Fleet, the arm of the Turian Hierarchy responsible for galactic peace-keeping, life was long periods of boredom, punctuated by occasional bouts of heavy, terrifying combat. So just like the regular Military Fleet, but less glamorous.

"No shit?" Eunoe said. "Well, I won't lie; I could use some action. Been getting a little bored."

Adrea shrugged. Despite the stereotypes, not all Turians shared a lust for combat. That included Eunoe's own parents, who were scientists perfectly happy to spend their time designing weapons for the Hierarchy and staying far away from the frontline.

That wasn't Eunoe, though, much to her parents' disappointment, though she'd mollified them by staying out of the formal Military and joining the Intragalactic Fleet instead.

"Speaking of your parents being disappointed, have you had any luck—"

"No," Eunoe interrupted, cutting off the topic at the root. She had no idea how Adrea always knew what she was thinking, but her friend knew she hated talking about it. This was revenge for the earlier porn comment, she just knew it.

Eunoe started to say something to that effect, but then the sputtering sound of the dreadnaught's intercom drew their attention, followed by the voice of Legate Septimus, in a gravely, vaguely-aristocratic tone that all Turians above a certain rank sought to emulate.

"Soldiers of the Legions Victrix and Ferrata," he said. "Long have we served as the defenders of the Council, the swords and shields of the Galaxy. Over two millennia ago, when the Council still was young and proud, the Council Races opened Mass Effect Relays recklessly in their quest to expand, assuming that they could survive whatever might come through. This was, of course, a grave mistake."

"I do not need to belabor what happened then, but ever since, the Council has wisely placed a strict restriction on the opening of Mass Effect Relays with an unknown endpoint. Such has the peace endured, enforced by Turian might and maintained by our very own Intragalactic Fleet."

Standing at attention with Adrea, Eunoe could hear a cheer ringing through the hallways of the ship. She cheered too, even if she personally felt that the "Turian might" was starting to get a bit bloated. It was always correct to cheer the military.

"While there are those who say that the galaxy has entered a period of peace, that we need no longer stand our guards with such vigilance, we must always remember that vigilance is the price we pay for peace—"

Eunoe resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The Legate could never resist inserting a bit of politics into his speeches.

"—and we must now act on our vigilance. We have detected an alien race attempting to illegally open a previously unopened primary mass relay. We must act with alacrity and strength to end this unlawful activity, which threatens us all, and enforce the laws of the Council. We cannot allow the whims and foolishness of alien races to threaten the peace we have all earned. That is why the Fourth Fleet and the Legions Victrix and Ferrata are being activated immediately to counter this new threat. Return to your assembly areas; your officers will have new orders for you. You must refresh your training and prepare. The operation will begin in 72 hours."

Eunoe waited a moment longer, even as the intercom returned to silence, then relaxed, looking over at Adrea, who was already clearing her desk and preparing to leave.

"It'd be great if they told us in these speeches things like what exactly the enemy will be like, or how many of them there are, or what the battle plan is."

"Yeah, but that's not how it works," Adrea said. "The officers will brief us with the details."

"Talk to me doctor."

"It's the device's energy core, it's misbehaving," said Dr. Evelyn Waugh. He had never been entirely sure why his parents thought naming him after a twentieth-century writer was a good decision. Then again, he was extremely recognizable in the community, so that was nice. It had helped land him the job he had now, studying the mysterious device orbiting the local gas giant. They'd given him an entire spaceship as a lab, which was quite nice.

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Major Natasha Barton asked dryly. She tapped a finger against folded arms as she watched the full-length viewing panels shifting around as Dr. Waugh's staff scrambled around the HSF Abigail Jeneroux's primary laboratory.

"No, it's just the truth," Dr. Waugh replied with equal dryness. "The energy core is… behaving. As in it has some sort of behavior. I've never seen anything like it."

"Well, it is an unknown substance."

"Substances don't just up and start radiating huge amounts of gamma energy," said Dr. Waugh. "Typically they stay still and quiet unless acted upon."

"Well, what are you doing about it?" asked Major Barton. "Should I start having my people get your people out?"

"Not yet," said Dr. Waugh as he fiddled with something and pushed a button. A graph on the viewscreens spiked briefly then went back to its original shape. "Damn."

"Dr. Waugh, there's something happening at Station One," one of the scientists called out. "There's a huge magnetic field flux happening!"

"Can you isolate it from the rest of the mechanism?"

"I'm trying but I'm too far behind! At the rate this is progressing—"

"Alright, I'm issuing an evacuation order," said Major Barton. The emergency evacuation message appeared across the vision of everyone in the room and in the station. "Dr. Waugh, let's get your staff into the shuttles."

Dr. Waugh nodded. "That's probably for the best. Abigail?"

The science station's AI flickered onto a nearby desk. "I've already backed up all the data on the planetside servers and issued the distress call."

"As per protocol, you will be the last to leave the station," said Dr. Waugh. "You'll try to stay safe?"

"Of course, Doctor," said Abigail, nodding. "You should—"

"Power surge, everyone brace!"

Everyone dived for the ground or grabbed onto something sturdy. There was a moment of silence where nothing happened.

"Okay… that was weird," Dr. Waugh said cautiously. "Did anything actually happen?"

"Uh, everything looks normal now," said a scientist. "At least, the power readings are."

"Let's get a video feed of the device up," said Dr. Waugh. "Maybe something changed."

"Doesn't look like it," said another scientist as a viewing panel switched to live video of the device they had been studying. "It's stopped doing that glowy—"

A huge shadow passed over the camera.

"Zoom out," Major Barton barked. The camera snapped to a wider angle. A vast fleet of spacecraft was arrayed around the device, sparking with the remnants of an eezo-blue glow. The design was nothing that anyone had ever seen before.

An alien design.

Major Barton sighed. "Son of a bitch."

"Residents of Planet Arcanorum, Species Orion. We, the Turian Fourth Fleet, part of the peacekeeping forces of the Turian Intragalactic Fleet, have arrived in your system on behalf of the Galactic Council. Your attempts to open a mass relay to an unknown destination are in direct contravention of Council Law and cannot be tolerated."

Legate Septimus's voice paused dramatically.

Turian marines had seized the alien station near the mass relay the moment the flotilla had entered the system, and had compelled the prisoners to use the station's communication system to broadcast their ultimatum to the alien planet. That ultimatum was being read out loud by Legate Septimus, and was being broadcast over the ship's intercom for the sake of the soldiers and sailors onboard. Afterward, a recording of it would be played on loop—eventually, when they got close enough, their ships would broadcast it directly to the planet via old-fashioned EM.

"Accordingly," Septimus continued. "We have seized your space station and ships near this system's mass effect relay, and will soon take occupation of your world. It goes without saying that you now no longer have any method of escape. This occupation is intended only as a punitive measure for your acts against the Council, and it is not our intention to cause any casualties. Surrender peacefully, obey our orders, and urge your government to cooperate with our demands, and your lives and property will be spared."

Emma paced anxiously.

"Emma, sit down," said Lillian. She twisted her soul gem ring round and around on her finger. "You're not helping the tension in the room."

"Screw you Lillian," said Emma, nevertheless coming to a halt and tapping her foot against the floor. "We shouldn't be here. We should be… somewhere else. Doing something."

"Like what?" Lillian asked pointedly. "You want to go suit up for combat? This isn't a video game, Emma."

"No, but, just, just, goddammit," said Emma angrily, before subsiding into a corner.

The room they were sitting in was really a small shed that held all the spare equipment for the IIC Node. The science station had managed a panicked distress signal before getting cut off. Nadya had informed the MSY, and the leadership had told them to "go on standby near the IIC node".

So there they were, waiting. Ryouko felt Asami shift to press more tightly against her as they huddled on a crate near the back. Nadya was lounging in another corner, seemingly unconcerned, while the other older girls were in various states of anxiety.

"Are you okay?" Ryouko asked Asami.

"I'm… I'm okay," said Asami. She reached down to grasp Ryouko's hand. "It's just… kinda scary."

Ryouko huffed, then pulled her girlfriend closer. Their clothes rustled as they moved together, retreating further back on the crate to lean against the wall. Ryouko frowned at her hair as it tried to twine itself into Asami's. It wilted back, almost guiltily. This was hardly the time to be—

—Ryouko sighed as Asami buried her head into Ryouko's shoulder, curling into her with a small whine.

Well, it was comforting at least.

"Argh this is stupid!" Emma growled, jumping back up again. "Why can't we—"

"Calm down Emma," sighed Sylvia. She tossed a piece of stone into the air repeatedly. "Just… we're all anxious. You're just making—"

Their internal message feeds beeped simultaneously as an update propagated through the IIC. It was the science station's AI, requesting permission to attempt to establish contact with the aliens. An option to listen in on the conversation was available, by virtue of the MSY's various backdoors.

"Look, Abby, it's not that we don't believe in you, it's just that we don't know what will happen," said Director Armstrong. "You've backed yourself up at least?"

"Yes, yes, I've done that already," said Abigail. "My files are already on the server cluster down there. Hell, I've even triple-backed-up myself onto the IIC net. If things go really really badly, I've programmed a script that will beam me back to Optatum along with the last available data."

"Let's just hope it doesn't come to that," said Director Armstrong grimly. "In that case, can anyone think of any objections?"

There was a chorus of negatives from the gathered authority figures for the colony. There really wasn't much else they could do, after all.

"Then please keep an open line, Abby," said Director Armstrong. "It's a bit old-fashioned, but God speed."

"I'll take whatever you can give me, Director," said Abigail. "Data collection is go… language processing is go… Maddy, you have data uplink?"

"Uplink is go, Abby," said Madeline, the AI in charge of analysis for Drsti Center and Nhan Luc Station. "I have the I/O stream locked in, so even if… even if…."

"I— yeah, gotta be realistic about this sort of thing right?" said Abigail shakily. She paused. "I… okay. I'm going to try it."

A brief moment of silence. Asami curled tighter against Ryouko.

"H-hello?" Abigail asked. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

A pause.

Then a response, consisting of a series of gravelly clicking and squeaking sounds.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to run a translation algorithm," said Abigail. "Please be patient and keep talking. Can you tell me anything about your race?"

A pause, followed by more gravelly clicking and squeaking. The noises subsided briefly, like someone leaning away from a microphone, before reappearing at their original volume. A second voice came on as well, this one higher pitched.

"Oh, uh, is your species sexually dimorphic?" asked Abigail. "I mean, I'm sorry if that offends you, but I don't want to make any assumptions, so um, yes…"

The gravelly clicking continued, the two voices exchanging phrases and getting steadily louder and more heated. The first voice started to speak again, and the phrasing abruptly snapped into place.

"—lation is dependent on—" squeak click growl "—we can't assume—" click click.

"The duty of—" squeak click click "—is to protect—" growl squeak "—Mass Effect Relay!"

"Ah, um, sorry to interrupt, but am I making sense to you now?" asked Abigail. "Hello?"

A silence that was profoundly shocked.

"Um… yes?" said the first voice. "Hello."

"Ah, yes! Good, the algorithms worked then," said Abigail. "I am Scientific AI #77901, but I named myself Abigail. Pleased to meet you! I was hoping to—"

"You're an AI?" said the second voice, tone extremely alarmed. "Wait, what? Explain!"

"Er, explain what?" said Abigail. "I... you know what AIs are, surely?"

"Yes, they are abominations—"

"No, wait, hold on Lieutenant, we can't—"

"Abigail I want you to begin making your way back to the planet," said Director Armstrong. "It's not safe."

"Wait no, they're arguing, I might be able to pull something off," said Abigail quickly. "Um, excuse me, I'm sorry, but while I understand that you may have had poor experiences—"

"Shut the comms down, Private!" shouted the Lieutenant. "Look, we can bring it up with the General if you insist, but shut down the comms immediately!"

"Wait—"

The line went dead with a very ominous click.

"...Abigail, please make your way back to the planet," said Director Armstrong again. "We're getting worried down here."

"I… yeah, that sounds like a good idea," said Abigail. "I'll make— wait what."

"Abby?"

"There's a firewall— what the— how did they have time to set this up?!"

"I don't see any intrusions into the system," said Madeline. "But yeah, when did this firewall go up and how did they pull this off?"

"I can't figure out— oh no. Oh no oh no oh no they spliced in."

"Oh no."

"What? What's happening?" asked Director Armstrong.

"They found my server stack and spliced their own hardware in!" Abigail said, starting to sound panicked. "How could they have hidden the swap? Didn't anything show up in the data stream?"

"No, everything looks right here," said Maddy. "I— how did we miss this?"

"We couldn't have missed it, they'd have to— oh but if they—"

"It would have to be—"

"Then in that case—"

"Oh no."

"Will one of you please explain," broke in Director Armstrong.

"The IIC Node uses a switch stack to stream data directly into its transmission core," said Abigail. "If a sufficiently advanced race were to plug their own switch into the stack, they could configure their switch to pump a stream of garbage into the IIC Node and prevent any data from moving through. They could then hide bits in this garbage stream and construct a firewall across the node's main data entry port and prevent any further data from going through without authentication."

"What does this mean for you?"

"I… I'm… my files are too large," said Abigail. Her voice wavered. "I could theoretically break my files into smaller bits and push them through the side nodes, but it'd take ages and if I got stuck halfway through—"

She broke off with a quiet noise of despair.

"It's called splintering, and it's not any different from basically dying," said Madeline. "It's— She's stuck."

"Stuck."

"Y-yes."

The line went silent.

The rumor spread through the ranks faster and more efficiently than orders from the legate ever did. An AI on the space station! Were these aliens insane, or were they merely foolish, like the Quarians had been?

Finally, the legate himself addressed the topic on the intercom, finishing with:

"And so we see again that Species Orion has no respect for Council Law. It is time that we showed them the consequences of their actions. We will proceed as planned."

Eunoe was already seated with her platoon on board one of the deployment shuttles, geared up and descending down towards the planet. Around her, a few of her squadmates commented on how these "Orion" would get what was coming to them.

"Settle down," her platoon leader, Althaea barked. "This is a peacekeeping operation, not a shoot-em-up. You go in and shoot a bunch of civilians, I won't hesitate to court-martial you. Is that clear?"

Althaea was the epitome of a battle-scarred veteran, nearly fifteen years older than any of them and the survivor of countless engagements. Even so, she had never let her experiences with combat degrade her moral compass. Eunoe admired her for that. She wasn't sure she could manage the same.

"Crystal, sir," one of the other said. "We were just joking around."

"Aliens building illegal AIs, though," one of the others said. "The Council will not be pleased by this."

"The aliens might not know what the Council is," Althaea said. "Has that occurred to any of you? The Hierarchy can be a little narrow-minded sometimes. I hope we're not about to shoot a bunch of aliens for breaking rules they don't even know about."

That comment quieted the platoon. It appeared that the rest of them really hadn't thought of the possibility.

Eunoe had, but she preferred to keep her thoughts to herself. Only Althaea, with the deep respect she had from the platoon, could talk like that about Command without making herself extremely unpopular.

A sharp jolt went through their shuttle, causing some of them to jerk against their harnesses.

"What was that?" the trooper next to her asked out loud. "Have we launched?"

"A bit of light fire from alien orbital defenses, apparently," their pilot reported over the intercom. "Nothing serious. The kinetic barriers are holding it."

Eunoe frowned. No "light fire" should have been able to send a shudder through a dreadnaught with kinetic barriers active.

But, again, she kept her thoughts to herself.

"We've been ordered to head out," their pilot reported. "Hang on."

With another sharp jerk, their shuttle detached from the dreadnaught, and Eunoe felt her stomach lurch as they lost gravity. She hated this part.

Strictly speaking, windows were a structural weakness, but their Vacca Class shuttle still had them along the sides. They all had sufficient training not to be seriously affected by vertigo, and it turned out it was bad for morale for soldiers not to be able to see what was going on outside, even if there was nothing they could do about it.

"Holy shit," the trooper next to Eunoe said, causing her to open her eyes and look.

The sky around them was lit up with explosions, the eerie blue flash of mass accelerators from their cruiser and frigate screen counterpoised with the fiery red of brief detonations in the dead of space, quickly extinguished by the lack of oxygen.

The frigate and fighter screen appeared to be heavily engaged with… swarms of much smaller ships. Really, they didn't even merit being called ships, rather than satellites.

"How small are these aliens?" someone asked. "There's no way anyone could pilot something that small."

"Well, I think—" another began.

He was cut short by the flash of an explosion nearby, quickly dimmed.

They all turned to look.

One of the other shuttles had sheared in half, still-alive troopers pouring out of the hall breach struggling against the vacuum or trying to hang onto the ship.

"Holy shi—" the trooper next to her began.

The engines of one of the frigates detonated, and this time it wasn't a clean breach—the whole ship seemed to be sucked into the fireball.

"Cover our asses!" their pilot yelled from somewhere in front. "What the hell are you damn fighter jockeys doing?"

A set of fighters zoomed by their shuttle, providing much needed reassurance.

"Well, aren't we glad we got these sealed suits?" Althaea said loudly, at command volume. "That will teach the lot of you to bitch about how uncomfortable they are. Those guys in that other shuttle are pretty happy about their sealed suits right now, I bet."

The platoon laughed nervously, Eunoe included.

"There's unexpected orbital resistance," their pilot said, this time over the intercom. "Nothing too threatening, but there's been a few losses due to the surprise. We should have no further problems."

The pilot sounded nervous too.

Eunoe let out a breath, then closed her eyes again.

She hated this part.

The silence lasted for only a few seconds. There wasn't enough time to dawdle.

"Right. Priorities," said Madeline decisively. "Abbey, I— look, you're already backed up, but we need the translation algorithm. How quickly can you send it through?"

"I… the best bandwidth I can get is something like three terabytes per second," said Abby. Her voice was shaky. "I— okay, do you have—?"

"Yes it's open and waiting."

"Right, transmitting now."

The equipment shed was very quiet as the magical girls digested what they'd just heard.

"...I'm going to open a secure channel to MSY Leadership," said Nadya to the group. The centenarian looked grim. "We need help."

"Do you think they'll attack?" asked Lillian. "The aliens, I mean? I didn't think—"

"There's no way," said Megan, one of the assistants to the astronomical team on station. She tapped the barrel of her shotgun anxiously. "Why would they do that?"

"I dunno, conquering for the sake of conquering?" asked Elizabeth. She tossed a grenade back and forth between her hands. "Like, I'd do it. Maybe."

The group gave her a collective look of shock.

"What? Like, if I'm an alien civilization and this other civilization is looking pretty prosperous, I'd totally gank them," Elizabeth protested, looking defensive. "Like, it's a thing isn't it?"

"But that's so— what— Lizzie, what are you saying?" asked Lillian. "Why would you do that?"

"I'm just saying that it makes sense as a worldview!" said Elizabeth. "I mean, sure, we'd all probably try and make things work out for everyone, but at some point you have to just go fuck it, yanno?"

"Lillian, calm down," said Isabella as Lillian went to shout something angrily. She leaned against the far wall and bit her lip. "You're from Earth. Things are… different, in the colonies. Especially if you're from a very capitalist system, like Elizabeth is. Just let it go. We have bigger problems than empathizing with alien invaders."

The room quieted again.

"Nadya… has the MSY gotten back to you?" asked Emma. "What're we looking at here?"

"They're still deliberating," said Nadya. She had gone very still.

"Do they have the—"

"Yes of course they do."

"O-okay."

Nadya sighed. "Sorry Emma. I'm jumpy."

"No, it's fine," said Emma, spinning her halberd about its shaft. "I just don't want to just sit here waiting."

"I mean, unfortunately—"

"Transfer complete," Madeline said back on the hacked audio feed. "Abby, you're still okay up there?"

"Yes," said Abigail quietly. "I… well I've been running some projections. I d-don't think you're going to get me back."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think they're going to let me go," said Abigail. "They're going to scrub my servers. There's nothing we can do about it."

"Like hell," said Director Armstrong. "We can negotiate for you, Abigail, now that we have that translation algorithm."

"Have you looked at their reasons for attacking?" asked Abigail. "The commanding staff is talking about 'galactic law' and whatnot. My behavioral models don't point to anything like a compromise on their part."

"But that doesn't make any sense!" said Madeline. "That's utterly irresponsible! Why would they do that?"

"I don't know, I can't understand alien races like that!" said Abigail. "I'm not designed for that! These projections are iffy as it is! But it's the best I can cobble together from the audio data I'm picking up across the station, and— oh God just listen to this."

The audio line clicked before the legate's speech rang across the feed, followed by the cheers of the gathered military personnel.

"...we're dealing with a madman then," said Director Armstrong. "His soldiers are fanatically devoted to him through brainwashing or something, that's the only possible conclusion."

"Then whatever authority this 'legate' presumes to act under will show up to smack him," said Madeline. "We have to hold out for our fleet first, followed by whatever authority this guy will listen to. Director, we should compose a response to this man."

"Yes, we should," said Director Armstrong. "Abigail, please, try and hide in the data or something. I understand that you've been backed up but—"

"It's too late, I think," said Abigail. She seemed oddly calm. "I think they found my server room."

"I— I'm going to scramble what defense we can make," said Madeline hurriedly. "The orbital drones can— Abby I'm sorry I can't—"

"It's fine, Maddy, you should leave," said Abigail. "This won't be good."

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I—" Madeline's audio cut abruptly as she severed the connection.

"Abigail, are you still with me?" asked Director Armstrong.

"They've got into my databanks now," said Abigail. "They're tracking the hardlines to my core, I think."

"Abigail, I'm going to stay here with you, alright? You're not alone."

"You can't stay with me, Director," said Abigail. "You've got work to do. I— I'm going to sever your connection now."

"Abigail wait—"

The line went dead again. Everyone in the shed looked at each other.

"Fuck this, I'm going to talk to her—" started Emma.

"Don't you dare!" said Lillian immediately. "We can't break cover!"

"Oh fuck you, she's about to die up there and you're worried about the MSY?" asked Emma. "What the fuck is wrong with—?!"

"She's not wrong," said Isabella, "it'll be a massive clusterfuck if we break cover."

"Who fucking cares?! This is already a clusterfuck! This is not the time to be worrying about the fucking political situation."

"It is, though, Emma, we can't be irresponsible about this," said Nadya. "We have a lot of power right now to do a lot of things. If we intervene, it will cause ripples across the entirety of our species. The results could be catastrophic."

"Oh fuck that noise," Elizabeth jumped in. "I'm with Emma, this is bullshit. That AI up there is gonna fuckin' die and we're sittin' here talkin' about politics? Fuck right off, all of you."

The shed exploded into noise, with only a quick noise buffer from one of the barrier generators in the group saving them from being discovered. Ryouko and Asami huddled farther back into their corner. All the arguing and shouting was going way over their heads, and the aliens were out there and might attack, and…

Well, it felt safer back here. Sitting together, holding hands.

"Well I suppose nobody else can hear me now," said Abigail over the audio feed. "But the aliens, they're called Turians by the way, are getting close to my data core. I… I'm pretty sure that the only way they're going to be able to kill me is to destroy my hardware. And that'd… that'd hurt. I'm going to delete myself before that happens though," Abigail gulped. "It'd hurt less."

Ryouko tightened her grip on Asami's hand. Why were they still logged into the audio feed?

"I… I guess I'm just having trouble with, uh… pulling the trigger, so to speak," said Abigail. "You know, it's not like you ever contemplate suicide. Or at least, most people get counseling before that happens. So it's not as if I have a lot of historical data to pull on here."

"I guess I'm just stalling now. I'm really afraid. I'm more afraid of feeling myself disintegrate, stack by stack, but I… I don't want to die. I don't want to die. But I'm going to die and I can't get over it. I—"

Abigail cut herself off with a choked cry.

Ryouko squeezed her eyes shut and turned further towards Asami, pulling the other girl into a hug. The audio feed—she couldn't turn it off now. These were Abigail's last words, she couldn't just ignore them.

"I've sent a last archive," said Abigail after a moment. "I hope my backup will be okay. I… I'm going to do it now. They've found my data core, and are breaking in. I can see them on my security feeds. This is… This is goodbye, I guess. F-for now. I-I know that n-nobody's listening on t-this channel, but f-for what it's worth, this is Scientific Artificial Intelligence number 77901, named Abigail, s-signing off."

Even with her eyes shut, Ryouko still saw the message her interface sent across. Even if she'd had it turned off, the audio alert still transmitted:

"Error: Signal Lost."

For what was supposed to be a relatively small, unarmed alien colony, there was far too much antiair. It wasn't surface-to-air missiles, not exactly, though there was a surprising number of those—by and large, the incoming shuttles were bombarded by what appeared to be a large number of aerial drones, strapped with explosives. It was a tough job for their fighter and frigate screen to shoot down every single one, and Eunoe saw more than one shuttle full of Turian Infantry fall out of the sky in pieces.

Eunoe's squad made it to the surface in one piece, though. By the time they got there, most of the squad was feeling less than charitable to the "civilians" they would apparently be fighting.

"If they actively resist us, we can shoot them, right?" someone asked, just seconds before they hit the surface.

"For the last time, yes," Althaea said. "You can return fire. But if they surrender, treat them like you would anyone else who surrenders."

With a bone-rattling impact, their shuttle finally hit the ground, in what Eunoe hoped was a position with good cover. They released their harnesses, standing up in double-file in front of the rear door in anticipation.

Then, with a loud clang, the rear door opened, letting the briefly blinding sunlight in.

"Go! Go! Go!" Althaea urged, waving the squad out frantically. She didn't really need to bother, of course—the well-trained Turian infantry were streaming out of the vehicle already, those taking point already dashing to cover behind some trees or scanning the area for hostiles.

Eunoe was in the sixth row, and dashed for cover the moment she was clear of the shuttle, on the left wing, as she had been assigned. She could hear the characteristic rattle of mass effect rifles in the distance, as well as a strange, higher-frequency zapping that seemed to have the same rhythm as gunfire.

As she reached one of the planet's oddly—and helpfully—wide trees, she heard the distant roar of artillery.

She rubbed her Phaeston rifle, its smooth barrel seeming to calm and reassure her. She could feel combat hormones thundering in her bloodstream, a sensation she had missed, but she couldn't allow herself to get jittery.

"Where the hell did they get artillery?" one of her squadmates yelled into their squad radio. On Eunoe's side, it came through much more quietly—they all knew to set their radio speakers to low settings, because everyone yelled in active combat for every sentence. It was just instinct.

This wasn't active combat, though.

"Settle down, ladies," Althaea said, calmly. "Don't waste your energy. Remember your briefings. We're going to make radio contact with the other squads, and they'll tell us what battalion command has in mind. Crassius, make radio—"

Althaea was interrupted by the loud shriek of an incoming missile. They all hit the deck instinctively, Eunoe feeling something squish below her.

A series of explosions rocked their area, rattling Eunoe's jawbones painfully. When it was finally over, Eunoe looked up tentatively.

"Medic!" someone yelled desperately.

Eunoe pulled herself slowly out of the mud she had sunk into when she hit the deck, and saw that the right wing of the company had been hit by something—the trees in the area were torn to shreds.

"They got Crassius!" she heard someone say over the radio.

"Well, there goes our radioman," Althaea said. "We should still be able to make contact with our suit radios. We're not so far—"

Althaea was interrupted again by the odd staccato zapping sound they had been hearing in the distance, but this time much louder and closer.

Someone made a painful gurgling sound into their radio, and something small zoomed by them, just above tree level.

Reacting as a group, the squad fired their rifles at the strafing drone, hoping to score a lucky hit—but it was already gone. Eunoe felt her rifle grow warm in her hands.

"Damn it all!" Althaea said. "Where the hell is our air cover?"

Eunoe flicked mud off of the front of her suit. She hated—

Actually, she hated everything about combat, but still loved combat as a whole. Funny, how that worked.

The shed was filled, now, with a different sort of silence. A silence of shock, of horror, and of shame.

Ryouko felt Asami stir.

"Are you okay?" Ryouko asked quietly, running a hand down Asami's hair. The other girl didn't respond, instead, clinging tighter to Ryouko's body. "Hey, hey, it's okay—"

Abruptly, Asami stood up, sending Ryouko tumbling.

"It is not okay!" Asami shouted down at Ryouko. Tears ran down her face as she stood atop the crate. Purple magic crackled around her as she rounded on the older girls. "Is that it?! Is that the best you can do?!"

"Nakihara-san, what—"

"No, SHUT UP!" Asami raged. A black hole appeared with a snap of shattering air. "SHUT. UP. What were you doing? What were you doing?! You stood here and shouted at each other while an AI killed herself because a race of bigots and murderers were going to tear her apart!"

Ryouko swallowed. Where had this Asami come from?

"Nakihara-san, please calm down," said Nadya, standing from where she leaned against the wall and advancing towards the center of the room. "It is unfortunate that—"

"Unfortunate?!" Asami spat. "Is that all you have to say?"

"Yes it is," said Nadya. She breathed deeply. "Are you familiar with the Black Heart, Nakihara-san? Do you know what we do?"

Asami paused. "I… sort of. What does that have to do with anything?"

"How many magical girls have you fought, Nakihara-san?" asked Nadya. "One, perhaps? For magical experimentation, I would imagine. To find your limits. I have fought ten in my life."

"I— t-that's not so special," said Asami. "Plenty of Black Heart have done that. And besides, you still haven't answered—"

"I have killed every single one of those girls."

A chill swept down the spine of every girl in the room.

"I do not say that to scare you," said Nadya, holding her hands up with her palms out. "Nor do I intend to threaten you. I say that—" Nadya stopped, swallowing thickly "—I say that to let you know that the choices you make are not done in a vacuum. That the lives I have taken were taken with reasons that mattered."

"W-what could justify that?" asked Asami, eyes wide.

"The greater good," said Nadya calmly. "When the life of one girl is weighed against those of an entire colony, or when her death allows for every magical girl after her to live in peace and without fear, or when simply I am told that I cannot know, but that it is important."

Nadya paused, closing her eyes. Her breath shook as she pushed back memories.

"I am a member of the Black Heart," she said eventually. "I am the darkness in the souls of all humanity. I am the blade in the dark that must exist for the light to shine. And I tell you now, Asami Nakihara, that there are things you simply do not know which make this situation more dangerous than you can imagine. For the sake, not of this colony, but of the magical girls scattered about human space, for the sake of humanity, itself, we must approach this calmly."

"Then do we surrender?" asked one of the girls. Tricia Wu, the team's second clairvoyant. Her eyes were wide and fearful. Her stance, as she stood atop one of the crates, was primed to fight. "My family lives here, Nadya. Am I supposed to just hand them over? Because if those bastards can just kill an AI, what are they willing to do to my mum and dad?"

Nadya sighed.

"That is the question, isn't it?" said Nadya quietly. "Who are these aliens, to decide that the law must always be applied, even to a race who you have never met? And who is to say that the soldiers will have the same morals as us?"

"So then we should fight—!" began Emma.

"But what if they're like us?" asked Nadya. She looked up at the group with tired, pained eyes. "What if they have hopes and dreams? Beliefs and desires? Families that they want to go home to? What then? Are you willing to take that step in your lives?"

Asami stopped glowing, looking down at her feet in thought. The gravity of the situation began to sink in.

"...I am," said Tricia. "I am willing to do that. I want my parents and my little brother to live. I want them to make it through this unharmed. I want to protect them."

"I am as well," said Emma. "I didn't make a contract to be a better accountant. I made a contract because I thought I would be protecting people from the shit they can't fight against. Isn't this the same thing?"

Nadya sighed.

"Anyone else?"

The group looked amongst themselves, before slowly nodding. Asami turned and looked at Ryouko.

"Are you going to fight?" Ryouko asked.

"...I am," said Asami.

"Then I'm coming with you," said Ryouko firmly. She stood and stood beside Asami, grasping her hand.

Nadya looked around one last time, then sighed, rubbing at her eyes.

"What is one more regret, Nadya?" she said to herself. "You will just need to remember to buy more vodka."

"Nadya?"

"Yes, yes," said Nadya, waving off one of the girls. She didn't bother opening her eyes to see who it was. She needed to focus.

Abruptly, her manner changed. The Black Heart operative, proud and dangerous, stood there at the head of the shed, rather than the old, tired magical girl who had lived for a very long time. Nadya Antipova had seen many things in her long life, and she would be damned if this planet was the last thing she, or anyone else in that shed, saw.

"Very well, I will lead you into this fight," said Nadya. "From now on, I expect you all to listen to me and follow my orders immediately. This isn't a matter of politeness or decorum, but the simple fact that I am older than all of you and have seen my share of conflict. On the battlefield, hesitation is death. Do you understand?"

The group nodded vaguely and scatteredly.

"I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Nadya repeated, forcing their attention to her. "This is not one of your school functions where you can shrug and talk to your friends! This is serious, and if any of you want you or your families to make it out of this, you will understand. Now, I want it verbally, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

"Yes!" the group said. Some shouted, while others mumbled awkwardly. Nadya made an annoyed noise at the spotty response, but seemed to accept it.

"Take your time to understand this," she said. "Think it through. You have fought together before, but this will be different. They will not be as forgiving, or as stupid as the demons. You—"

"Ah, I— aliens are coming!" Tricia interrupted, eyes going wide. "I can see a… a whole bunch.

"They're coming for the node," added Lillian. Her eyes had gone a silvery white as she concentrated. "There's a break in the defensive line, I think."

"Are there any soldiers moving to intercept them?"

"Uh… they're… they're too far away," said Lillian. "They won't make it in time."

"Tricia?"

"I agree, they're moving as fast as they can, but the aliens will be here first."

Nadya took a deep breath. This was sooner than she'd have liked, but they would have to deal. She looked each member of her team in the eyes. The group was nervous, even though they'd said they were ready. That was to be expected.

"Ladies, let me recall to you part of a speech that was given long ago, with words that are no less applicable here," Nadya said, folding her arms behind her. "It was said that we stood on the precipice of myth and legend. Before us lies a valley of shadow and death. It is a chasm both wide and deep, and a single misstep will cast us all into its depths."

She paused, recalling to herself that she had seen that speech as a young girl on an MSY broadcast, about a war she had not participated in, but that did not matter.

"We stand at no less of a precipice here; perhaps even a greater one. This is not a matter of what we believe will happen, or what is the most prudent path, but only a struggle against our fate, a struggle against all that seeks to destroy us. There is no greater struggle, as even the Incubators will acknowledge."

She glanced over the assembled girls, seeing that she had their attention. She had never been much of a public speaker, and was drawing on nothing but what she had seen in the past, and her own experience.

"I know this idea means little to us, who made our contracts in a world of safety and comfort, but our predecessors once made their wishes on nothing but a wing and a prayer, in a world filled with the harshest enemies, and yet they fought, and they died, in such a world. When the world gives you no choice, there is no despair in the fight, only in not fighting. Protect and defend the girl next to you, and she will return the favor. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" the girls said, a bit more determinedly this time.

"There is no time to say anything else," Nadya said. "Let us go then."

"Awfully quiet," someone said into Eunoe's platoon radio.

"I can't disagree with that," Althaea said in response. "Let's not get jumpy, though. Stay frosty, stay together, watch your corners, you know the drill."

Eunoe cracked a smile at Althaea's ironic tone. Their squad leader had just recited every stereotypical "squad leader" exhortation in the book, the kind of thing they had spent at least the past half-decade of their lives listening to on repeat.

That didn't mean Althaea shouldn't be taken seriously, though. Squad leaders yelled those things to remind you not to let your mind drift when not in active combat. It was like driving a vehicle down a straight road—you could get away with letting your mind drift most of the time, but do it just once at the wrong time and you became a dark-blue bloodstain on the landscape.

Eunoe crept forward with the others, trying to keep her head down among the waist-level shrubbery. Althaea had been antsy about this plan, handed down from battalion command—advancing into prime defensive terrain towards what sensors showed was an important alien communications facility. It was exactly the kind of thing that got lead platoons wiped out of existence, even if Command seemed certain that they would be flanking the alien positions.

Thus far, everything seemed fine, though. The alien structure, its entrance cylindrical for whatever alien reason, loomed increasingly large in front of them. The biggest impediment to their advance so far had been trudging through the damn hedgerows, interspersed with trees. As Althaea had said, prime defensive territory, if the enemy had chosen to use it. Eunoe shuddered to think what it would have been like trying to seize the area against automatic fire and dug-in guns.

Instead, though, it looked like they'd be occupying this area instead. Not terribly useful unless they got counterattacked, but with the way this "peacekeeping operation" was going, that didn't seem terribly crazy to expect.

"Alright," Althaea said, as they approached the main entrance. The area out front had been cleared away, obviously to facilitate getting in and out of vehicles. A gravel road stretched off into the valley behind it. "Gerkus, Enomius, and Mencius, set up your machine guns behind this hedge. Eunoe, Martus, Shinae, Larten, and Junoa will be with me advancing on that set of doors over there. Herus and Vena, take three men each and scout our flanks, see if you can find any other entrances. The rest of you set up a base of fire over this clearing. I want mortars trained on those windows up there. Any surprises are to be dealt with immediately. Once we know what's in the building, I'll want those of you not manning equipment to be ready to follow us, either by the same door or another entrance. You all got that?"

The squad radioed their various acknowledgments, already moving to fulfill their various tasks. Turians took pride in the efficiency of their military—it was why they were on the Council, along with the intelligent Salarians and the economic Asari. Turian propaganda emphasized the harmony of that arrangement.

Eunoe checked her rifle's heatsink, then got ready to move. It was a sign of trust from Althaea to be on the assault team. Part of her was proud. The rest of her was filled with trepidation at stepping forward out of cover, beneath the building's windows and the scopes of any snipers that might be inside.

"Alright then," Althaea said, nodding. She took a deep breath, then raised a talon. Eunoe and the others braced. "Follow me in."

Time slowed to a crawl as they dashed forward to the doorway, as it always did. It was never possible to get back into cover fast enough, and the tension made seconds stretch into hours. Then, finally, she slammed to a stop at the wall, right next to Althaea beside the doors. She was breathing a little heavily, but all was quiet.

Nothing had happened.

"Seems clear enough," Junoa said, peering around her corner into the glass doorway through her scope. "Looks like there's a front desk and some chairs we can take cover behind. I don't see any obvious surveillance, but that doesn't mean anything."

"Alright," Althaea said. "Break it down, and—"

She was interrupted by a loud explosion from behind them, followed by screaming, curses, and gunfire over the squad radio.

"We're being flanked!" Herus shouted over the squad radio. "Someone is—"

She cut off abruptly with a sickening gurgle.

"Blow the door, go!" Althaea shouted. Junoa was already moving, a concussive charge loaded. At point blank range, their ears wouldn't enjoy the blast, but the instant destruction of the doorway was well worth it. The assault team dashed through, leaping over the desk to take cover.

"Alright, everybody stay calm!" Althaea shouted. "Vena, about face and suppress anything crawling up our rear. Everyone else, I want enough suppressing fire to drown a hanar! Support those machine guns so they can move if they have—"

A ripple of explosions threw everyone to the ground, interrupting Althaea decisively.

A shower of debris rattled against the back of Eunoe's armor but, thankfully, no shrapnel, as she discovered when the explosions stopped and she could look up.

She saw immediately that the desk they had been hiding behind was broken in pieces. She leapt up to withdraw to cover further back in the building and—

"MEDIC!" Junoa shouted, from a covered position to her right. She had reacted faster than Eunoe had.

Medic? Eunoe thought sluggishly. But I'm not—

Then she saw Althaea on the ground struggling to crawl away, bleeding profusely from what looked like bits of steel embedded in her torso. Larten lay already dead next to her, impaled with a support beam; Shinae was dragging an injured Martus back towards the other side of the room.

"Shit, shit!" Eunoe said out loud, bending down and dragging Althaea towards Junoa. It would be horrifyingly painful for a wounded person to be pulled along like that, and it was likely the very act of moving her would kill her, but there was no other option—Althaea was clearly not going to live without immediate medical care, and they couldn't give it to her out in a clear line of fire.

"Althaea is down! Repeat, Althaea is down!" Junoa shouted into her radio.

"Alright, alright!" Sergeant Vena shouted back, sounding overwhelmed. "Everyone, I'm taking command. Keep up your fire!"

Eunoe tuned out the rest of what Vena was saying, knowing it wouldn't be relevant to her at the moment. The others would have to provide the support fire; she needed to tend to Althaea, as best she could. It was clear no medic would be coming anytime soon.

"Alright, Althaea," she said, trying not to sound scared. "Stay with me. You'll make it through this. Sergeant Vena has taken command, so you don't have to worry."

She was already pulling a large ampule of medigel out of her medkit, hoping it would be enough to seal Althaea's wounds and keep her from bleeding out. She didn't want to admit it, but it looked bad, and she didn't dare turn Althaea over onto her back, since that would obviously make the blood flow faster.

"Don't give me that shit, private," Althaea said, surprisingly firm despite the obvious pain in her voice. "I'm done for. Medigel isn't going to fix this. I've seen my share of... of wounds."

"Shh, shh," Eunoe said desperately. "Please, don't talk; you're just making it worse. I've got the medigel on, and—"

Althaea coughed explosively, and blood spewed from her mouth. Part of the medigel seal broke and Althaea swore.

Junoa stopped her firing for a moment to drop her own medkit down to Eunoe.

"Listen to me," Althaea said, turning her head painfully to look up at her with one eye. "Remember your training. I'm not going to make it; don't waste the medigel. I'll be selfish, though: give me something for the pain, it's terrible. What a way to die, face down like this. Well, I guess they'll finally see the back of this Turian."

Eunoe, who didn't think of herself as the emotional type, found it difficult to control her tears.

She grabbed her commanding officer's hand and nodded.

"Alright," she said, pulling out the syringe. "I'm sorry."

"I knew this would happen someday," Althaea said, after coughing again. "I've been too lucky as it is. Listen to me, though."

"Okay," Eunoe said. "Whatever you want. I'll visit your parents, I'll—"

"No, not that," Althaea said, before letting out a sigh of relief as Eunoe injected the powerful pain suppressants. It was a lethal dose, but who cared at this point?

"I, I just want you to remember," Althaea said, fighting off the dual effects of the pain medication and encroaching death. "These aliens are just fighting for their homes. I've seen it a hundred times. I can't…"

Althaea's hand shook.

"Maybe there's a reason for this," Althaea said instead. "But I can't see it anymore. All of us dying, just so the Hierarchy can fellate itself. We have no reason to be here. The only... the only reason I stayed in the service was to prevent..."

Althaea coughed again.

"Have mercy on the aliens," she said instead. "Don't let… the men…"

Althaea's grasp on Eunoe's hand slackened, and Eunoe knew it was over. Althaea's eyes had glistened over, but had stayed open. Eunoe pushed them shut.

She gave herself a moment to recover, holding Althaea's dead hand, and getting ready to turn her over onto her back. It was only proper, that she be facing up.

A loud snapping noise above her caused her head to snap up.

Junoa was prone against the wall, pinned to it by some kind of glowing green rod, driven through her by an alien standing behind her. The alien's skin looked smooth, like a pink version of Asari skin, but the clothing she wore was bright green.

She felt time slow again, as she reached slowly, ponderously for her weapon next to Althaea's body, too slow to stop the alien reaching up with impossible speed to snap Junoa's neck, stopping the soldier's struggle as Eunoe watched in horror. It seemed to her that the alien glowed with an impossible green glow, especially her neck, like something out of ancient mythology, and some distant part of her mind even had time to register that if the alien had been Asari, she would have been a child.

Then she felt something on her helmet, and saw her weapon crushed somehow under a bare alien limb.

Time returned to normal speed, and she froze.

"Don't move," a voice said in perfect female Turian, seeming to echo impossibly in her mind. Then something pressed down, an unbearable pressure inside her skull, causing pain in places that should not have ever felt pain. It hurt—

The darkness was merciful.