By the time we had finally landed back on the Defiant, my suite had gone comatose. At first, I had started to panic but a message from the Shiraui creature helped settle my nerves. The nanites in Avery's body had forced him into a state of suspended animation so that they could better work to heal his wounds. She also stated that he would need an injection of fresh nanites if he was to survive.

When we landed X gave me leave to take Avery to Shiraui then to the medical bay, a job easier said than done. Even with my battle weak assisted servos by the time I had managed to drag his limp bulk down the ramp I was beyond tired. And was eternity grateful when Charlotte arrives to aid me in my task? Without a word, my suiter's lifelong friend ducked under and proper his sagging left arm over her shoulder and together we worked to move his armored bulk out of the hanger and down the halls.

We made it just as Avery's gorget clicked, injecting him with a soupy cocktail of painkillers, plasma, and other stabilizers. At the door, the two SI guards having been notified waited to grant us access to the Shiraui's "quarters". Corporal Hanson a man I had met only once before nodded the hatch dommed open.

Hanson snapped his M-99 up as we were greeted with coils of bone-colored plated tentacles. "What the fuck!" He shouted startled by the writhing coils.

"Please, give him to me," Shiraui said through the door. She must have mashed herself against the door.

"Ok?" Charlotte said questioningly before the tentacles snaked past us to coil gently around Avery, pick him up and carry him through the threshold.

Following the retreating form of my love, I watched as Shiraui stood to her full height. The spot below where her left breast would be flowered open as she drew Avery's limp form close before cupping him in her hands and placing him into her chest and closing the hatch.

What felt like hours passed during which time the medical team had arrived before Shiraui opened her cockpit and using an array of glowing bone-white tentacles, she lowered him gingerly onto the awaiting gurney. Relief washed over my heart as I saw his chest rise and fall through his damaged armor.

The corpsmen quickly fixed intravenous bags to him and as they turned to begin wheeling him away I turned to the flayed that had potentially saved his life. Shiraui turned her massive eyeless head from the retreating form of Avery to me and tilted her head.

Movement caught my eye and I dipped my eyes in time to see her cockpit folding itself closed. It was utterly alien its smooth pulsing interior giving the eerie feeling of gazing into an open wound. A familiar scent caught my senses and my eyes widened as I noticed that the glossy crimson coating of her interior wasn't it's natural color. But was, in fact, a thick dripping layer of fresh blood.

"Don't worry miss Miiora.... He's safer with me."

My eyes shot open, implants flaring to life as I felt something hard shift on my leg. I tensed briefly and tilted my head to see what it was. And relaxed to see It was only Miiora, sleeping arms folded under her head as she slept at my side, the shifting was the result of her left horn as it slid across the side of my leg.

A small black spot marred the ivory surface near the base of her right horn and absentmindedly I reached down and began scratching it off. Almost instantly Miiora began hissing lightly in her sleep as I brought my left arm up and began inspecting my bionic arm. It's sleek ceramic and impervasteel surface giving off a slight shine as it reflected the dull light of the of my still active ocular implants.

Because of my relationship with Charlotte and her family, it was better than anything the average COG citizen could have hoped for, and I was eternally grateful. But inwardly as I saw Miiora shift in her awkward sitting position that had her sleeping with her head on my bed, I couldn't help but miss the organic craftsmanship of my original arm.

As for my left leg, that was gone before I even had time to think of anything. It was gone because I needed to finish the mission. And a part of me resented the organic parts of me that even now protested even these minute movements. "Your flesh is weak master" Armor had told me once during my recovery, and I was inclined to agree.

There was a period of drunkenness from the morpha the doctors had injected me with as they mixed with the nanites. The bionic replacement starting just above the knee wasn't human in shape like my bionic arm. This was a slightly industrial looking thing about as thick around the thigh as I would be in full armor. With a whisper-quiet mode that worked as my knee, and a four taloned claw in the shape of a cross that took the place of my foot. I was grateful that my last backup was one with my organic leg still in place, so technically all I had to do to get a new human leg was to die and get a grow. But it wasn't very pleasant the first time, so I put that plan on the back burner for now.

The doctors said I wasn't fit to return to duty. They said I would take at least a week to acclimate to my new bionic and regrown organs. They said any normal man would be dead, but they didn't seem to understand that I wasn't a normal man. With a grown and an effort, I sat up and ever so carefully lifted and positioned Miiora in bed before getting out of bed, careful not to wake her.

The quarters in the defiant were strange. Usually, squads slept by fireteams in barracks of four or five. But due to some tech stuff, I didn't understand squads were bunked in groups of two or three creating a strangely intimate environment.

The soft snores from across the small room caught my ear and I turned to see Charlotte turning in her sleep. After the relay, she had used her rank and changed my sleep station to her own which she shared with Miiora.

The thought irritated me. She, the woman I have known since our childhood knew me better than anyone else, even better than Miiora I think. Short of Harris of course who was my instructor in boot camp and my mentor afterward, as I am to Trombley and Miiora. Or perhaps Shiraui with whom I share a neural link, even now I can feel the fingers of her consciousness lingering at the edges of my own, filtering through memories and experiences of my past.

Harris perhaps understood the most, however. The two of us, and perhaps others like us if they existed as I hoped. We processed information faster than unaugmented biology allowed, possessed the strength to snap a neck with just the slightest flick of the wrist, or while fully armored move faster than most species could react. We had to limit ourselves, lowering our abilities to such a degree that in attempting to keep our comrades alive we actively endangered ourselves in the process.

Taking time to check my PDP, the time read 0426. Our squad was on cooldown for the next two days, good. I slipped on the uniform of the day on with a pain-filled grunt of effort I holster my sidearm, one of the revolver style Nteck blaster pistols, but three of those nasty nutrient bars in a pocket and walked out of the door.

The normally quiet passageway was normally bustling with activity due to the recent influx of civilians. Civilians who wandered the corridors while marveling at the ship's systems, and if Miiora's own acclimation was anything to go by were probably wondering why there were no windows.

Making my way through the corridors to the gym I was almost blown over as a sudden mass slammed into me. My legs' stump burned as the mass of orange scales coiled around at my feet.

"Shit," I grunted through gritted teeth as spears of pain lanced up the stump that was left of my leg. I shot my bionic hand out activating its mag lock to stop my fall.

"Oh ancestors, she is so sorry. My lord. Please forgive her, her hatchling..." A panicked voice called out from behind me.

Turning I was met with what could only be a tymerian maiden judging by her figure. She was attractive but not quite up to Miiora's standard. Her kind didn't emote quite the same way humans did but I was used to reading their body language at this point. She was scared of me… or she wanted to fuck me, I'm not too sure. But judging by the context of this meeting I doubted it was the latter.

"It is fine. Don't worry about it." I said forcing a pained smile as I unclamped my arm and bent down to help her squirming child up. To her credit, the girl didn't shy away much. She had run directly into my bionic. It must have hurt a hell of a lot to run into a solid pillar of impervasteel.

The kid now on her feet fidgeted with her tail as she back up from me and into her mother's arms. "You alright kid?" I asked turning to look at the woman head-on.

"I-I am unharmed sir." The orange kid said. Her mother's tail curled around her slightly as she spoke. "Are you hurt my lord? Please Forgive her she didn't mean to lose control of her hatchling. Please don't…" she flinched back as I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's fine. I should have paid better attention to my surroundings… honestly, I'm at fault here I should have heard her coming." I said before I remembered something Miiora had told me.

Holding up a hand cutting the woman off I reached into a pocket and pulled out two of my nutrient bars. "She's my… what do you call it… my kurnellorag? Said this was how to show apology." Pressed the two with the bars, the girl took it instantly her tail swaying slightly like an excited dog.

That seemed to take her for a loop and as I turned to walk away I heard her shuffling behind me. Was she following me? 'Great another one. What do I just attract strays?' I thought to myself as I limped down the passageway listening to the sounds of two sets of claws.

"Is there something you need?" I asked trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

"Well, she…" she began from behind me only to stop as I held up a hand.

"Look ma'am just come over here…" I began pointing at the spot at my side, "And talk to me like a person."

She paused for a second probably taken aback by my nonchalant disregard for UEC culture, well too bad we're not in the UEC and I'm not a clop or a Caleb. The kid, however, didn't hesitate however and almost immediately she was at my side staring at me as I limped my way along.

What a pitiful sight I must have been, almost half a Moth limping along, still covered in a patchwork of bandages. Soon however the woman was at my side looking like I was about to smack her down.

"Be calm alright I'm not going to hurt you. What's your name? I'm Veteran Avery Fallon."

"I'm Fla'rin. You're a lot nicer than the other humans she's met. Mother wouldn't let her talk to the ones who let us on your ship. Who's your master? I bet they must be really important. To have soldiers as cool as yours." The kid said as she hopped in front of me.

"I don't have a master kid. Never plan to, never will." Her eyes shined with admiration as I had just said the coolest thing she had ever heard.

"You're a rebel?" She asked starry-eyed.

"No. I'm just a gear in the COG war machine. I'm a trooper in the NAC defense corps."

"Your the coolest man I've ever met!" The kid squealed making her mother giggle at her daughter's excitement.

"That's one smart kid you've got there. But don't you know Flarin? This patch right here says it all, I'm more than a man. I'm a MOTH… dark ops."

A grown met my ears and I turned my head to see an SI trooper rolling his eyes at me. "Got something to say basic?" Instantly the marine backed up shaking his head. And If the kid could get more excited I didn't know-how.

"Well, how about you? You got a name?" I asked the woman at my side.

"I am Vir'nek Master Fallon, it is a pleasure to meet you." She said with a slight bow.

"Great, now we're all acquainted," I said before turning into the gym.

For some reason, the woman and her kid followed me in. Looking around the chamber I saw more civilians in the room than the crew. But I smiled as I saw the familiar form of Durge in the sparring ring facing off against another smaller Kleese, probably a worker.

In a blur, she reached out and slammed the smaller male down. Pinning him to the deck before swiveling several of his eyes" pupils to me. "Stay down, and treat the humans with respect fool." He bellowed asserting his dominance as a Zaltule before pivoting to face me.

"Tek'ma'te Veteran Fallon. Have you recovered from your injury?" He said promoting the other crew members to stand and snap off salutes as per medal of honor tradition. Sighing I returned the salute, allowing the crew to continue their workouts.

"Hey, Durge."

We talked for several minutes with the big spider acting as my spotter as I worked on the bench. Before I finally bid Fla'rin and her mother Vir'nek farewell and returned to my shared quarters. Charlotte was still asleep strapped into her bunk. Miiora's was empty but the hatch to the combined head/shower was closed but I could hear the sound of running water.

Looking around I sat at Charlotte's desk, pulled out my PDP, propped my bionic leg on the surface smart glass surface and began going over the intel we gained from the assault. GK had downloaded several terabytes of data from the relay stations main computer. And just from my cursory glance through the summery, I saw that most of it were just garbage data, private messages and the like. But what we did gain were several stellar maps, as well as the location of several more relay stations.

However, Not all of the data was useless. The changeling we had rescued instead, was the source of the most critical Intel. A queen, an actual channeling queen was being held on a clop penal planet several light-years away. Signing in with my implant I brought up the star charts for our local cluster and displayed them on the desk surface.

'Let's see. From our current position using alcubierre nodes, we could make it there in three weeks maybe four or five if we went stealth the entire way…' with a thought, I opened a channel to Shiraui.

'If we used the L-drive to get here…' I began sending the coordinates of the prison to the Lanky. 'How long do you think it would take?'

'Hmm. If you were using the designs used by the race who designed them then maybe ten of your days. But with the current pattern you use, I would say two weeks. But I wouldn't recommend it. Mister Fallon.'

[Clarify] Armor chimed in.

'Well, the "L-drive" as you call it outputs a burst of neutrinos when you make your ingress jumps, or transitions. That burst of neutrinos is easy to detect if unshielded and if you know what to look for.'

"Mmm didn't know that… and thanks Shiraui, if you hadn't given me that Injection I probably wouldn't have made it." I said eyeing my bionic leg and flexing the four two hinged toes slightly.

The thing was weird, a circular ring connected at the ball joint in the ankle, with four "toes" in a cross pattern. Each of the five-inch "toes" was locked onto the ring at my ankle and could rotate around the ring so I could position them in different positions. All in all, it looked less like a foot and more like a crane stabilizer… or a dreadnought foot.

A shadow fell over the glowing desk as I shifted my attention back to my PDP only for it to be pushed down into my lap. Looking up I finally noticed the hatch to the shower was open and that was met with the viper-like face of my fiancee.

Below her, the smart desk pulsed and waved as it tried to figure out what command she was trying to issue. The dull light from the desk shown up from below her illuminating her mostly naked form, her underwear being nonregulation, a lacy situation I recognized as being one of Charlotte's. Not entirely surprising seeing as they both had roughly the same build, with Charl being slightly larger in the chest. Light reflected off of her freshly washed and oiled scales and giving the two horns that framed her head a soft translucent glow, but perhaps the most striking thing was the way her golden eyes danced with light.

Miiora was laying across the desk propping her chin up with one clawed hand. Her other hand rested on the lip of the desk, claws extended letting out a soft clatter as she drummed them on the plastic. Behind her, her tail swayed lazily its tip making slow figure eights in the air.

Her nostrils flared once then twice before Miiora tilted her head slightly blinking both sets of eyelids. She leaned forward continuing to sniff at me like a K9 looking for drugs. Appearing to slither towards me she braced herself on the desk before leaning her head down between my legs continuing to run her snouts sensory organs across my lap and up my chest before leaning back to resume her perch on the desk.

My muscles tensed as I prepared to explain myself before her beautiful cat-like eyes narrowed to slits. She let out a low warning hiss clearly agitated by someth… oh.

'The other female I had spoken to she must smell her on me.'. Slowly I raised my hands careful not to make any sudden moves.

I had been so busy getting an eye full that I had forgotten what my girlfriend was. She wasn't a human, her kind had evolved to be one of her worlds apex predators before they had discovered fire. It was likely she had my scent before I entered the room, it was kind of worrying. If she wanted she could smell and hunt me through water, through suits, through steel.

Miiora eyed me once again, her eyes scanning every bit of my body before opening her maw to yawn, unhinging her jaw slightly as she did so to unhinge and stretch her fangs. She leaned back to rest on the desk young flicking slightly. The soft glow of the pendant I had given her as an engagement present catching my eye as it swung dangerously between her breasts.

"I'm sorry love." She said her voice slipping into the raspy accent she had when she was upset.

"For what?" She looked down, her tail going limp slightly at my words.

"I don't like the nanite injections love. I worry that could be…"

"Look, Mia, the nanites aren't bad. If it wasn't for Shiraui and the injections she gave me I would be dead."

"While that may be true, there have also been reports of people mutating into those... beasts." She said pulling herself forward and pushing the top of her head into my chest. Sounding as if she was on the verge of tears.

"Sirens, yeah I've read the reports. I've already been assured by Shiraui it won't happen to me." That seemed to calm her down and she just started up at me. With most of her body still half draped over the desk it was kind of an awkward position to be in. Deciding I probably wasn't going to get any more work done I pocketed my PDP and stood up sweeping her up into my arms and moved back to the bed. She let out a series of low subsonic hisses that I assumed was her equivalent of a giggle.

At a buck twenty, maybe one twenty-five soaking wet she was always light even when I wasn't nanotized. Now picking her up was like picking up a rather robust rifle, still light, almost not enough to notice just awkwardly shaped.

A thought scared me as I put her down on the bed carefully, even as I laid down next to her and she snuggled and nuzzled into my side and neck. I had to be light and gentle with my touch because if I wasn't I could snap her spine or at the very least break a bone.

That thought was cut short as I felt both the tip of her tail and hand tracing both the new scar over my kidney and the seam where my bionic leg met the binoc. Turning my head to the side I kissed the top of her head causing her to nuzzle closer.

"Well, I suppose there is one good thing about the new leg…" I whispered getting a curious side-eye from Miiora. "Hmm?" She responded sleepily.

"I'll never lose my balance again," I said before a shock of phantom pain shot through the stumps of both my leg and arm. Miiora must have noticed my discomfort and held onto my side tighter.

The sight before me stood out like a sore thumb. We were somewhere we had no business being. Sure, I'd served, and it gave me a little leeway, but taking a civilian salvage ship into a certified War Zone was insane. The problem was money. Money made the worlds go 'round, and I needed to make a huge score for my crew. The news wave painted a picture of the new enemy for humanity, but regardless their destroyed ships typically went for about as much as any other ruined ship in the black. I looked toward my second in command. To someone that never served in the military, or served some hard time on a prison planet, they wouldn’t be able to tell why her eyes were similar to a cat’s eyes.

Of course, I trusted her vision a whole hell of a lot better than my own.

“Noel, what do you see?”

She stood a few moments longer, “Long-range transport vessel, looks like it was in a major battle, there are places near the port side that’s been ripped open. I’d wager long gunfire.”

I nodded, I hadn’t seen the damage, but I figured the Nostro would confirm everything she just said.

“Is the Nostro right? We have a UEC ship on our hands?”

She nodded, “We do, don’t know if there’s anyone left alive on board, but if they are I’m sure they’ll be confined to mid sections by now. And of course, depending on how long it’s been out here there’s a damn good chance that their air has long since run out.”

I studied the ship itself for a moment. The idea of running up against living combatants wasn’t high on my list. I was retired, but then again if we did and we still seized the ship there’s every chance we might get contracted to do recon work on dead ships. It’d be a steady gig, but at the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure how well some of my crew would take it. There was more than a couple that had less than stellar ties with any authority.

“Alright, I want you to get us close, dock up on the left side, and we’ll board her. Enviro suits on, we go in armed, and I want everyone to have their radio working.”

She nodded as she walked away.

“Captin’ Not sure how well of an idea this is.”

I looked toward the ship’s pilot, “Why Tucker?”

He scratched his bare chin, something his wife, my second in command, liked on him was a clean-shaven face. His off red hair was pulled into a ponytail, and it contrasted with the ancient shirt he’d bought before he became part of the crew.

“Captin’, it’s just… Look, we’ve been really lucky the last couple of times we tried this, but what if we run into something else on board? The last thing I want for us is to find something that isn’t responsive to civilian firepower.”

Tucker had a point, but the ship needed maintenance done to it, we all had a mighty powerful need to eat, and this would be enough to take care of both of those things. At least it would be for a good long while. I glanced at him.

“We don’t have much of a choice. The bulk of our income comes from salvage. We scrap what we can from the inside, we tow it back, and hopefully, there isn’t anything inside that will make our lives any more interesting than they already are.”

“What if there
is?”

I touched my sidearm, “Either way, we don’t have a choice.”

I had been on the way to reprimand Fallon when the kid ran into a pair of civilians we had picked up on the station. At first, given how he had reacted on the station's citadel I had assumed he would have attacked them. After all, it wouldn't be the first time I had seen an augmented person act erratically. That's why I had my blaster pistol strapped to my leg. I wasn't about to take any chances, not after last time… not after Francis, Not after Casper… Another kid who had seen real evil in the Galaxy, I had shown him myself. Shown him, told him about our real enemy, the Cybar and instead of joining in the fight, turned tail and joined the UEC.

"And because of my time on the Reaver…" I thought to myself all these years later. "I've lived to see those horrors made real. In the centuries of war that was to follow."

So with a sigh, I walked back to my quarters, sealed the door and crossed the room to a small locker I had brought with me. My bones creaked as I took a seat on the bed and an inventory on the only things that helped me remember. Remember who I was before I had been a Hell-Diver before I joined the COG, a more peaceful time. A time before the bloodshed, before the lankys found earth, before the expedition, before the cybar.

Inside were a set of Dog tags with the identity code "LS-01" and beside it another read "LS-23". A weathered white sleeve with a blue patch, stitched into the fabric where red letters that spelled something called NASA whatever that was. Tears threatened to fall as I picked up the last thing buried under two tattered uniforms one grey, one black, and orange.

The dull lights in the room Illuminated the old paper picture. Turning it over I read the note on the back. The faces of ten men in eerily familiar armor stared back at me. Exo, Trident, Dodger, Zack, Chun, Bolo, Frost, Rogue, Tyler, Doc, and Brian. All but one stared at me, at the old man I had become. That armor, so similar to what I wore now, they mocked me, like ghosts that had risen from the grave to torment the living.

That ship... That planet… we didn't know what we had awakened until we were strapped to the tables and the knives had started cutting. Fifty men, fifty martian marines went onto that ship, and years of torture and time spent in a kind of twilight between conciseness and death, we were the only ones out.

Then there was the woman, we didn't know how long she had been there. She came through the squads of fleeing half cybar. Walking as though she was oblivious to the return fire from Rechs and the soldiers around him. She held up one hand, her right it was slender, bony, and pale almost bloodless. She seemed like a normal if alien woman, periods of extended weightlessness had caused some humans to turn into living scarecrows.

I remember Rechs and his fireteam had no reservations about putting her down. We switched from engaging the running cyborgs who were dispersing into the passages, to targeting her. The first shots landed out almost in slow motion. Orange tracers and hot green energy sizzled from our weapons barrels illuminating the silvery walls.

I remembered that, remembered the first shots of jagged serrated flechettes and charged electricity speed toward her in slow motion. Knowing they would punch glowing times through her slender form and continue off onto the dark tunnels past her. Except the shots did not do that, instead the concentrated fire was deflected away from her as though she had some kind of personal deflector shield. Which was impossible at that time, and only just now being fielded to dark ops teams form testing.

One deflected shot smashed into the ceiling just above her head, sending a shower of bright sparks down around her, announcing her presence with pyrotechnic fanfare. Other shots simply curved away from the bright disks of destabilize energy and burning hot tracers seemingly controlled by something beyond their own force and momentum. But still, we continued firing for all the good it was doing.

And when she attacked she cut us apart like so much chaff. Our bullets and grenades missed. Not inaccuracy… the memory was still vivid in my mind. All of my shots were on point, center mass. But the streams of flechettes missed. The tracers seeming to veer off in different directions as they drew close, like a shield.

Then before we knew it she was on us. She waved her hand and five of our numbers were dashed into the pristine silver metal of the bulkheads. Their armor buckled, bones snapped, and organs were pulped. And still she came, we used grenades and they were thrown back into our ranks.

Ten men, frozen in fear simply crumpled to the deck, their armors computers notifying us that their necks had either been snapped or their hearts crushed. She was slowing, however, her face was twisted into a knot of concentration and as we continued to pour on the fire her shield seemed to be weakening. Two shots skipped off the deck at her feet and another grazed her slender left thigh.

In my mind, she loomed over all of us and she was death incarnate. Then she held one hand up to her temple, the other hand the hand that had been held limply at her side her left hand. She held it as though she were experiencing a sharp headache or were having some serious thought that needed concentration, a deep thought that needed the world to be blocked out if only for just a moment.

Then one of the marines heads a man beside Rechs exploded inside his helmet. The infantryman beside Rechs stopped firing, none of us had ever seen anything like that. And as we would have told you we have seen many strange things during our crossings of the known galaxy, or at least what was known of the galaxy at that time, which in hindsight wasn't all that much.

It was clear this woman had used her mind to pop this man's head like some blemish that needed lancing. But that was magic stuff, voodoo, something out of that old star wars movie that was so popular at the time. The opposite of the science we knew back then.

'And still, do.` I mused here in the present.

As if we knew there's a supernatural and so refuse to let it jam a foot in the door of our imaginations, less something uncomfortable jam it's the whole body in after that. Science was something to be bent to the will of the House, and Council. But what I and my friends were seeing then was power. A power that defied explanation that verged on the uncomfortable realm of sorcery and the supernatural. Because if she was not a witch then what was she? What was the explanation for someone who could destroy another with the will of her mind?

Her hand fell away from the skull, her breathing was heavy we could see she was drained by the effort required to keep our shots at bay, not to mention throwing fully armored marines around like toys and exploding a man's head. Everything was deadly silent.

Rechs tossed his rifle to the deck and surged toward her. This was always his way, and now in the present, he had found another, a moth who was always more than willing to face his enemy head-on. Where others ran from the fire, they ran toward it. He dragged the plate cutter from off his harness, martian infantrymen all kept the circular saw breaching tool on their back, handlebar above their right shoulder blade attached to their rucks.

He pulled the tool, pressed auto start, and swung it at her in a furious arch of savagery. It's spinning blade hissed to life an instant before he began slicing her from shoulder to hip. She screamed as he drove its industrial diamond circular saw into her body and she collapsed to the ground in a foamy and gory heap.

In the half-light of the mad tunnel standing over the body of the dead girl. Rechs looked like some primordial warrior who had just clubbed the other tribe's high priestess to death with a bone handheld axe, or a rock; nevermind the tech weapons and armor.

This was an ancient image. He was like some ancient warrior, he always would be. And now he stood staring down at his vanquished foe.

She was murmuring something, her gaunt almost ethereal face was splattered in her own blood. But it was still the face of a young woman. I wonder if she was as old as I am now? A victim of the House, and Councils thirst for eternal life? Or had she been born here? Looking for the promised land explorers promised land, no one had ever promised them but themselves.

Her lips moved, repeating something as she wound down letting go of this life and all that the galaxy ever was. The others leaned down to listen, I did not, though I could still hear. To me, life has always been black and white. There were no great mysteries, there was only remaining in your feet, that's how you went forward.

"I embrace the quantum. And it embraces me." She whispered, over and over as she left this world to pass onto the next. Those words would come to haunt us later because as stated before we didn't know what we had taken from that ship, we didn't know what would happen… what would come?

As I come back fully to myself, hearing that girl speaking those words in my memory I am sitting in the observation deck overseeing the flayed as it dances slightly in the ship. She, it was looking up at me, it's huge eyeless head staring into me through the view screen that acted as a window.

There was a metallic jingle in my hand and I opened my palm to find the ident tag I had worn all those years ago. I hated the name that stared up at me. Hated it because it belonged to a better man than I. It belonged to a young man, to a man who had not yet been forced to kill his half of his only when they swore not to pursue the terrible power that woman wielded, and had broken that oath. And kill the rest when they had threatened to destroy the humanity he had worked so hard, and sacrificed so much to protect.

I remembered Francis during the war, who had been so focused on being a good man, that he forgot how to be a good friend. And then forgot how to be a good man. He had almost cost the infant cog the war, and that man had been forced to do what needed to be done.

'I will just have to wait and see if the kid ends up like the others.' I thought to myself. 'He has a tether that the others didn't. Only time will tell, and I will be ready'

Now two were all that was left. One scored the edge to worn the other for the return of the true enemy. And the other stayed behind to prepare humanity for the coming storm. Their scions were already here, and no one knew it. No one but them, and lankys.

"You and Exo are it now an old man. We're the last of the old breed." I said to the tags as much as to myself. The lights flickered as the ship groaned around me illuminating the name on the tags once more. The dull light bringing me back to when the note had been written by a young man ready to see the stars.

'Accept your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. And face your future without fear.'

I read the name once more before slipping the tags back into my pocket and returning to my quarters deciding to get some sleep. The name was an old one, one I knew would return one day soon. When the chips were down, and the legion would return.

"MMC-DO-81. CPT, Rodriguez. Tryus R."

Author's Notes:

I apologize for the wait, I have been having an extra-large case of writer's block. Planning and story boarding for the new story ROE: Helldiver.

And have been busy coming up with the lore of my table top space marine chapter. And trying to learn how to play 40k