Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

Outside the main tower, PGI’s night shift went about its work in a persistent, fresh wind. The landship’s searchlights glided over the empty freight yard of the compound, where a few guards and loaders lingered, chatting, moving in place against the slight chill, or smoking a cigarette. With them was a large group of inactive civilian bots and together they waited for the arrival of the midnight train, which was already slowing down in the form of a twenty-wagon long magnet train far from the site and yet was still faster than if someone were racing against the train. However, the remaining distance was more than enough for the railway vehicle to enter the station more and more slowly and stop just before the end of the magnetic track.

“Train 8-2-7 has arrived,” announced an automated male voice. “Initiate the opening and unsecuring of the goods.”

“Well then, get to work!” shouted one of the workers, an older Davoc. All the bot workers came to life and the worker began to unlock and pull open the front wagon, where a nasty surprise awaited him. “Huh?!”

Galaen kicked the man in the face before stunning him with a shock pistol and jumping out of the carriage! She wasn’t so forgiving with the nearby guard, killing him with a swift melee grab. “Secure the area!”

The game repeated itself, spread across the stretch of carriages. Stemford and his strike force jumped in two to three head-high teams from different sides of the various wagons. The workers scared them off with shots from plasma weapons into the air while they eliminated the few guards and civilian bots.

“Lieutenant! You secure the warehouse!” ordered Galaen. She activated several groups of high-tech bots she had brought with her, which poured out of the wagons, along with a handy missile battery designed for small to medium targets, which blew the roof off a wagon and deployed. “Remaining teams set up the defence perimeter! Initiate bot support! Forward, forward, forward!” The Palanian immediately had the compact battery fire three volleys, the missiles of which hit the sluggish landship, which was just turning, on the engines and caused it to crash in an open area. Galaen then fired several more salvos, which were scattered over the surrounding area and hit the target until the company’s shrill alarm sirens finally began to wail.

The alarms in the main tower also went off. “What happened?” Lina was startled. “Were those explosions?”

“Apparently!” Adanex listened as the blast was repeated. “And they sounded very close!” There were also distant gunshots.

This immediately called the first bots to the scene, which stepped out of the wall huts in this corridor and scanned the guests. “Unregistered individuals in combat,” said the machines. “Initiate elimination.”

“Stop!” Lina hastily threw up her hands protectively in front of the visitors. “They’re not enemies!”

“Assistant Vanos recognised. Individuals are categorised as allies,” the machines replied and walked through the corridor. “Secure the area.”

“Mr Adanex!” said Kysaek Duty Fulfilled. “This seems very serious! We must get you to safety immediately!”

The Eporanian agreed, as planned. “Then we should get back to the hover wheels and get out of here fast!”

“That’s not a good idea!” Lina intervened. “The security systems are going up! The air defence will shoot at everything that doesn’t belong to PGI!”

“Then do something!” Adanex demanded emphatically. “I want to do business here, not die!”

“Of course! We’ll go to the main security! That’s where we’re safest!”

“Let’s hope so!” remarked Kysaek. Game, set and match. “Show us the way!” Following was relative for her, though, because even when Adanex hurried, it was a quick plod at best and he didn’t seem to have practised his innate prismatic abilities like Rila and her flying and gliding skills.

Fortunately, Thais was there. “If I may, Mr Adanex!” said the well-trained Talin. She effortlessly lifted the Eporan into the air with her prismatic powers.

He hovered just above the ground and things moved more quickly. “I’m a little uncomfortable with this!” Adanex admitted, which seemed to be a nod to the actual situation. “And I’m not a shield!”

“I would never think of that, sir!”

Lina was busy running and probably took it as bad humour. She brought her guests to a gate that was twice the size of the rest of the doors and whose steel outer shell already screamed restricted area, if the labelling was anything to go by. “Let us in!” demanded Lina at the access interface. “I have an important guest here from Mr Peeks! He needs to be protected!” No answer came back and moments passed before the heavy gate, with multiple panels, opened. “Do you know what’s going on yet?”

Thais let go of Adanex, who now walked through the open path himself. The main security area was large and divided into two slightly staggered levels. The entrances were guarded by bots, just as automatic cannons on the ceiling covered the rest, but technically there were only six guards, all at desks and supervised by a Hishek commander on the upper part. “Shut up!” the commander replied in a rattling lizard voice. “Go to the corner! We have to analyse the danger!”

“Of course!” Lina nodded obediently and steered her guests to the point in question with an implied urge. “Rest assured, we’re safer here than anywhere else on the premises.”

“We are, yes,” Adanex murmured back weakly. The calculated businessman was beginning to lose his nerve. “All that remains now is to wait and see.” He didn’t know what exactly was to follow and he didn’t have to. All it took was a little more chaos outside, and in that chaos, no local city security forces would come to the rescue. At least that was the plan, since the Nebula crew had planted their fake nuke, which was just a giant explosive device, at a busy train station and hopefully Aurani’s security forces were tied up and distracted.

“Take position at the entry!” Galaen announced over her helmet radio as she rushed up an external staircase to the roof of the secondary warehouse. It was located on a street and formed the primary entrance to the station with the single-storey main warehouse. “Armoured enemy vehicle approaching!”

Below the Palanian, soldiers of the Nebula crew had erected a makeshift barricade in the entrance and they were supported in the back by a spider light they had brought with them, which extended its limited shield to just in front of the barricades. Behind the cover of the shield and barricade, a human soldier loaded the lower muzzle of her Magnet rifle with a flammable explosive cartridge and fired it at the approaching vehicle.

The shot struck just in front of the armoured van and it raced through the fire unchallenged. Before it reached the entrance, however, it was fired upon and the driver braked hard, bringing the vehicle to a halt on its long side and easily swallowing another explosive round. The first PGI guards hurriedly jumped out of the vehicle on the safe side and established their first protected position, from which they fired back.

Galaen, however, was not yet on the enemy’s radar, hidden on the roof and through the darkness. This gave the Palanian time to steady her semi-automatic mag rifle and adjust it for range. She took the right flank of the transport under fire and landed several fatal hits before the enemy guards realised the origin of the attack and reoriented themselves accordingly.

From the distance in the northern part of the area, the sweeps of rotor blades echoed across the smooth surface and a long strip of light cut through the night. A PGI roar was approaching the station.

“Attention!” warned one of Galaen’s Davoc fighters via radio, who had taken up a position on a crane. “Enemy air unit sighted to the north!”

“We have to use our battery sparingly!” Galaen announced to everyone as she left the battle at the entrance and looked over the station. “Use the rocket launchers!”

“Understood!” replied the Galig To’Pal, who had already been a great help on the PGI science freighter.

A few seconds later, a missile whistled into the sky behind the train carriages and a Bluster reacted too late. He tried in vain to disable the explosive device with his on-board cannons, but the missile hit him critically on the left rotors and he went down.

“Target down!” To’Pal reported.

“Northwest!” warned the Davoc on the crane as heavy gunfire rang out. “Blocka-!”

A blockade breaker perforated the crane, including the Davoc, with its devastating main weapon. The pilot, in the heavy void body, stomped through the northwestern part of the station, bringing several guards and even more various bot classes with him as he fired short bursts at the main warehouse.

“Enemy soldiers on the tracks!” announced Galaen. She ordered some of her bots in that direction and targeted the enemy blockade breaker with the missile battery.

However, the armoured enemy device saw the battery’s turn and attacked it immediately. However, it was able to fire a few more volleys before being destroyed and cover the BB, including a large field around it, with explosive devices.

“Stemford here!” the lieutenant reported. “The main warehouse is under control, but the enemy bots are still pouring into the building!”

“Understood, hold your position,” Galaen instructed him and again supported the team at the entrance, where the next transporter was approaching. “Phase two should start soon!”

In the main security, the commander’s reptilian pupils narrowed and as he watched the fighting, he quickly came to a realisation. “This isn’t a normal attack! These are highly professional soldiers! Order the teams in the lower tower sections to move out to the station as reinforcements!”

“Sir, orders are being carried out, sir!” nodded one of the female soldiers on watch. However, she did not speak the order, but wiped and tapped hastily on her display.

“See?” Lina whispered quietly. “Everything is under control, Mr Adanex.”

Kysaek looked from the silent Eporanian’s back to Thais and surreptitiously pointed at the Talin’s weapon belt. Thais nodded to her, signalling that the room had been taken over. Kysaek shouldered her weapon and took a stun grenade and an electric jamming grenade in each hand. She threw both pucks and turned away with Thais.

The stinging flash of the stun grenade caused everyone else to cry out in pain and the jamming grenade sent tiny, glittering particles flying through the air, interfering with the sensors of the bots and automatic weapons, causing them to move and spin in confusion.

Kysaek gripped her plasma pistol tightly and began shooting the dazzled, writhing guards one by one.

Filled with prismatic energy, Thais shattered the bots at one door with a veritable wall of prismatics and sent the same wave to the other entrance. She concentrated that wall further and turned it into concentrated balls of energy, which she threw blow after blow at the automatic weapons until the defences were destroyed and the remaining energy drained away into nothingness.

“Secure!” said Kysaek, although she continued to scan the room with her pistol drawn. When she no longer recognised any danger, she hurriedly searched the stationary consoles, whose layout was still very familiar to her and divided into different categories. “Keep an eye on the two of them!”

“Will do!” Thais replied, pulling the still visually deprived and frightened Lina with her before pushing the Palanian against the no less worried Adanex. “Behave calmly!”

“Mr Adanex, what’s going on here?” Lina whimpered. “What are your people doing?”

“I don’t know,” claimed the Eporan, too calmly at first, and then appeared indignant. “I demand an explanation!”

Thais clenched her fist and let the prismatic energies surge in the tense limb again. “You are significantly overestimating your position right now. You have nothing more to ask and we’re cancelling - so you’d better keep quiet and stay in your seat if your life means anything to you!”

“Come on!” babbled Kysaek to himself. Most of the guards were dead in their seats or lying on the floor, but a Galig was hanging over his monitors, blocking her view. Kysaek pulled him down and found one of two important wards. “Great! I found building and terrain control!” This access allowed her unrestricted access to any doors, systems or weapons, and she did. Kysaek immediately sealed off the three towers with an emergency programme and sent out a signal via her vortex cuff. “The way is clear! Initiate landing!” she ordered, and a few moments later, the systems reported an unidentified flying object. From the nearby city, a Bolt Dropper raced towards the towers and was immediately targeted. However, Kysaek quickly changed the status of the object to allied and cleared the way to the landing platform for her reinforcements. Only the bots were still a problem, but Kysaek quickly found the necessary console and verified the Bolt Dropper. “You can come in!”

Outside, the transporter landed on the platform and Vorrn stormed out at the front, followed by Tavis, Dorvan’s bot, Wolfgang and armed Nebula technicians.

“Watch your step, everyone,” warned Kysaek, monitoring the nearby cameras. “You’ll be met by guards one corridor over.”

That was Vorrn’s job. Not only was he wielding his usual mechanical weaponry, on this mission he had donned a clunky plasma launcher tailored to Hishek’s arms and shaped like a rectangle. He came to a halt and waited for the unsuspecting guards. As the trampling of feet grew louder, he leapt round the corner and mowed down his targets with his standard Gatling weapon. “No more coming here now,” the Hishek said and his group hurried on to the main security.

Kysaek opened the door and beckoned her ally over. “Dorvan, here are the necessary terminals!”

Wordlessly, the machine avatar took the hint and connected to bot control first. Although the Nebula crew had power over all the bots and the entire area, this required direct commands and it wasn’t easy to turn everything against PGI in one fell swoop. So Dorvan began to overwrite the systems and change all the directives - especially for the bots. “The administrative digital department noticed my attacks on the programmes and tried to stop me.”

“Is this going to be a problem?” Kysaek asked, looking over his shoulder.

“No, I just wanted to make a proper note for later logs,” Dorvan replied routinely. The counterattack in the systems was nothing to him. “Fifteen seconds to complete overwrite.”

Tavis checked his handy plasma shotgun. “You’re particularly fast today. I really feel sorry for the PGI nerds at their terminals, the way they’re losing so badly to you.”

“To be fair, I should also note that I have a lot of free capacity because I can bypass most blockades via the main control and would otherwise need days for such an attack. It’s like I’m sitting in a hover wheel and PGI is trying to keep me on the ground with his bare hands. No chance for them, override complete.”

“Fast and nasty. The previously unwanted time out made you hungry, didn’t it?”

“On the contrary, I put on a bit of weight during it.”

Tavis raised a finger, but that left him speechless. He looked at the others and lifted his shoulders.

“Explain it to him after the attack,” Kysaek said, looking at the pictures of the station. “We have work to do! Get ready for the next phase!”

At the station, another missile launcher shot brought the next bluster from the sky. A group of the airmen had long since circled the embattled area, but they still kept their distance and provided cover for the enemy troops on the ground. The infantry followed rows of assault bots, intercepting much of the fire, and together they closed in on the buildings.

“The enemy have reached our perimeter!” Galaen warned her unit. She was no longer on the roof due to the enemy’s air superiority and had dug herself into a destroyed railway carriage. From there she was able to secure the right flank of the entrance, where the first PGI guards came out of the secondary warehouse.

At the Nebula crew’s rear, enemy soldiers, as well as special flying bots and drones, rose upwards with aether packs and threatened to encircle the station, while the number of assault bots was almost enough to overrun the key defence points with blunt superiority.

At the same time, one of the blusters made a bold advance and evaded the missile launchers twice before the machine was barely destroyed.

“Spirits, please!” Galaen murmured quietly to herself. The situation was critical and seconds away from collapsing when the Palanian received the signalling signal. “Thank you!”

All the enemy bots froze in their places, if only for a moment, and continued to be taken out. However, when they changed direction and began their attacks against PGI, the Nebula crew immediately stopped firing at the machines.

“Looks like Cloudburst has completed its first task!” said Stemford over the radio frequency, Cloudburst being the code name of the tower team. “Orders, XO?!”

“Consolidate the perimeter again! I’ll take care of the rest of the raving!” Galaen ordered the unit, directing the formerly hostile bots and even anti-aircraft guns of the compound thanks to Dorvan. “Then we build up pressure on the front line at the main access point! PGI must think we want to get to the towers and throw more units at us than send up into the tower!”

“Understood, order will be executed!” confirmed Stemford.

Meanwhile, chaos reigned in the PGI ranks as the guards faced the same incidents from before. They were shot down from behind by their own machines and fought back to the best of their ability, but this significantly reduced their threat to the Nebula crew, who began to push their opponents back.

In the main security area, Kysaek watched the battle on the camera feeds. “Quite a view, eh?” she said, checking her equipment.

“Everyone gets what they deserve,” Wolfgang replied and sat down at the building control terminal. As one of the less battle-hardened ones, his job was to monitor and defend the control room with the Nebula technicians. “The wrath of the righteous, an eye for an eye.”

“As long as the righteous one keeps an eye and ear out for anything unforeseen, that’s fine by me,” Kysaek affirmed. Thanks to the override, she and her people even had the location signals of PGI’s guards and their frequencies, but that didn’t entirely rule out nasty surprises. “Is everyone ready?” The appeal was directed primarily at Dorvan’s avatar, Tavis and Thais. These three were Kysaek’s group and were to advance with her to the upper data centre.

Vorrn, on the other hand, was to remain close to the main security centre as a one-man army. “Ready to move out,” the Hishek nodded in anticipation of the battle, in anticipation of an incoming signal. “A large group by the tower bridge is calling my name!”

Tavis swung his short shotgun onto his own shoulder. “Why don’t you let the bots handle it?”

“Better not get yourself killed without me!” Vorrn huffed back, setting off at a Hishek trot. “If you can manage it!”

“A real motivator,” Tavis murmured after Vorrn had disappeared and he looked at the hostages. “Who’s taking the hostages?”

“Me,” Thais decided and put Lina and Adanex out of action with a shock pistol. “Do we still have much resistance before we reach the data centre?”

“Partly,” Dorvan analysed the situation. “The PGIE has suffered significant losses, but they are extremely efficient at eliminating the hacked machines and are far from defeated. Direct confrontations could be fatal.”

Tavis was the first at the exit and calm. “Well then, we should probably avoid direct encounters and play by our rules.”

“Trick and cheat?” asked Kysaek. Knowing and listening to the opponent’s positions and tactics was nothing else.

“That sounds like a bad thing when you put it like that.”

“Does tactical advantage sound better?”

“Oh yes, a classic.”

Kysaek nodded to the Palanian before looking at everyone on her team. “Is everyone ready?” she asked rhetorically, seeing that everyone was ready for battle. “Then let’s go!” She took the lead of the four-strong group and led them up the stairs, through which echoed the whine of plasma shots and the sounds of startled guards. The lifts controlled by the Nebula crew would certainly have been the less strenuous and quicker method of ascent here, but with them the risk increased considerably and Kysaek wanted to avoid that. Besides, every soldier taken out was one less thing to worry about once she reached the data centre.

“There’s a unit on the next floor!” Tavis said as quietly as possible, not only reloading his shotgun but also readying his shock darts on his sleeves. “They seem to be rallying!”

“You and Thais take the front!” ordered Kysaek. A scattering hot shotgun and powerful prismatics were just the thing for such a gathering, in her opinion. “We’ll cover you!”

Kysaek and Dorvan watched both directions of the stairs and Tavis and Thais pushed their way to the entrance of the floor. The door there was wide open and feet were pounding through the corridors.

“There’s a few more up ahead! Open fire!” shouted an angry woman. She sounded like Hishek and shots followed. “Apparently those were the last bots! We need to get down there and see what happened!”

All Thais and Tavis had to do was wait. The prey came straight towards them and the Palanian signalled to the Talin to attack first. She nodded to him before her body and eyes glowed a moderate white. The approaching steps didn’t sound rushed, but tactical, but that didn’t help them much. Thai’s powerful, prismatic attack was like a mighty gust of wind that swept almost everything in its path through the corridor several metres, but didn’t necessarily kill.

Only the rearmost PGIE soldiers were able to throw themselves straight out of the trajectory and let their guard down as they landed on their stomachs.

The E for Elite was therefore meaningless when Tavis took on the front line and shot the soldiers who were now lying down and trying to get up.

A single one got up quickly enough and took aim at the Palanian. “Now you die!”

However, a prismatic barrier suddenly appeared in front of Tavis and intercepted all the heated plasma charges. “Bad luck, we don’t get a second chance,” he replied casually and killed the soldier through the barrier. He gave a quick, thankful turn of his head to the Talin at his back, who rushed to him and together they finished off the last survivors of the previous prism attack.

At the stairs, Kysaek received an approaching enemy signal from above and lay in wait. However, she barely heard any footsteps and therefore focussed more on the tracking device in her helmet interface than the actual stairs. Suddenly, a female Palanian PGIE soldier with an ether pack and submachine gun flew across the stairs, forcing her to retreat.

But Dorvan stopped the brazen advance by covering the soldier’s flight path with a barrage, forcing her to land. “Surrender, please,” he asked discreetly, stomping towards the woman.

“Cursed machine!” the Palanian woman refused and went for the bot, but it was far too close.

The mechanic Avatar knocked the weapon out of her hand. “Please don’t ignore my warning,” he said with restrained vigour. In response, the woman drew a plasma blade and swung it at him, but Dorvan easily caught the wrist and he broke it in a second. He showed no great effort in holding on, the pure power of a machine.

Kysaek did not remain idle during the action. “Watch out!” she warned and covered the stairs again. A guard appeared and was shot down directly by her.

“Your assistance is most welcome,” Dorvan said without turning to Kysaek. The PGIE soldier in front of him reached painfully for her pistol holster with her free hand, whereupon the bot grabbed her by the helmet and slammed her against the nearest wall several times like a doll until she was dead. “That, in turn, was most unfortunate.”

“Maybe the next one will learn from this,” Kysaek said as she walked up a few steps and secured the area.

Tavis and Thais returned as well. “We took out the little rally before us,” the Palanian said before looking at the shattered soldier. “And I see you were thorough too.”

“Indeed,” Kysaek replied and continued to lead the way. “So try to keep up!” She didn’t have to tell either the Palanian or the Talin that. Both of them and Dorvan’s bot followed her without hesitation on the strenuous march up the stairs, and for some time, the stairs were more of an enemy to the four of them than the scattered guards. Suddenly, however, there was an extremely loud bang from outside that shook more than just the windows. “What was that?!” Kysaek enquired on the radio.

“You gave Vorrn a plasma launcher and explosives,” Wolfgang reported reassuringly and obviously. “What do you think? He’s wiped out the access bridge along with a dozen guards.”

“Oh, right - carry on!”

“I’d love to,” Vorrn remarked. “But some of the soldiers left before me and are on their way up with Aether Packs.”

“To us?”

As Vorrn spoke, shots rang out from his Gatling Gun. “I can only shoot through walls, but I can’t see. Find out for yourself.”

Kysaek checked the enemy signals. “Maybe the guards are on their way to Skarg.”

Wolfgang had a nasty undertone to him. “Not for much longer. I’ll direct the air defence towards the main tower ... ah, there are the flies. Open fire!”

Just as the walls had been shaken before, it happened again! This time, however, the quake was more violent and explosions flashed through the floors that Kysaek had already left behind. “We’re not the bloody demolition squad! Watch out!” she ordered, “Or are we going to lose the ground beneath our feet?”

“It’s all automatic,” Wolfgang claimed. “And try hitting such small, mobile targets with the first shot!”

“Are they all finished?”

“They are.”

“After all! Very good! Keep your eyes open! We’re getting closer and closer to our destination,” said Kysaek. Their signals showed an almost completely clear path a few floors away from the data centre.

The path was lined with destroyed bots, dead guards and sparking electronics. Only automatic weapons were still mainly intact and secured the area for the advancing team. There were also a few civilian casualties, especially near the data centre. Undoubtedly technical staff and office employees, who unfortunately were not fortunate enough to be elsewhere that day.

However, that was Kysaek’s burden and no one else’s. It was her decision, one that would likely make the galaxy a better place as she and her companions removed the last of the resistance before them. “That’s it!” she said, facing a locked, armoured gate. “Schaefer, clear the way for us!”

“I can’t!” Wolfgang replied, astonished at the frequency. “This gate is not integrated into the system.”

“What does that mean?”

“An autonomous door,” Dorvan stated. He steered his bot to the interface of the obstacle and connected to it. “Access required a code card, with high authorisation, and without it, I have to hack the door. However, the system is quite sophisticated and will take some time.”

Kysaek tensed. “How much time?”

“It’s not easy for me to estimate. I’d say at least ten minutes as standard. Maybe a little less or more.”

“Time will probably never be our friend, but do it,” Kysaek said firmly. There was nothing she could do here, but she saw a better chance further up. “Thais, Tavis - you cover for Dorvan at his work. I’ll go to Peeks.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” doubted Thais in concern, holding out her hand as if to tamely restrain Kysaek. “We’re close to our destination. Don’t be tempted by revenge.”

Kysaek couldn’t blame Talin for thinking that of her, and she smirked to herself. After all, it was a plausible assumption and she had given everyone good reason for it, but that wasn’t her point. “Skarg is just the bonus, but I’m most interested in his code card. Who, if not him, has it?”

“There’s something to that,” Tavis remarked. There was displeasure in his voice, probably because of the plan to split up, but he didn’t oppose it. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better, but do you really want to go alone?”

“Yes. Dorvan needs all the support here in case enemy reinforcements arrive. That’s why I want Schaefer to send all the nearby bots. With any luck, I’ll be back in a few minutes and save us time and potential trouble.”

Thais reluctantly withdrew her objection and her hand. She accepted her leader’s decision. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks! We’ll be waiting for you right here.”

“I promise,” Kysaek replied. She saluted casually and finally left her team behind her, for the moment. Her weapon was at the ready and she advanced at a deliberate pace. No more than four soldier signals were still active above her, the last PGI contingent on the highest floors and it was getting quieter here. Only from outside, muffled by the façade and glass, did Kysaek hear volleys of gunfire and rockets echoing through the night, followed by explosions. But now she only had one goal in mind, the final goal - the confrontation with Skarg Peeks himself. “Is Peeks still upstairs?” she whispered quietly into the radio. As the Chairman was not a Guardian, he did not appear in the interface for her.

“He must be,” Wolfgang replied. “I don’t have access to his floor, but I have an eye on the exits. Nobody has got through them and there’s no question of escaping from his private landing pad in a plane.”

“Understood,” Kysaek breathed out calmly. She let the remaining guards pass by and evaded them. Strangely, the security guards didn’t seem to want to defend the top floor, which made Kysaek wonder. Perhaps the Calanian had his own independent defence arsenal with him, which wouldn’t surprise her.

However, the fine, stone-flagged steps up to Peek’s office were completely unlocked at every level and there was no sign of traps or weapons. Upstairs, everything was simply one huge room. An entire floor, just for the chairman. Twisting limestone pillars, around which tiny rivers ran in a downward spiral, supported the roof of the main tower, among other things, but there was more: this whole level, which seemed to have been spared from destruction, was like a biotope of its own, a world in which exotically designed aquariums of various sizes harboured a diverse, alien fauna. Sea creatures of abstract and sometimes semi-familiar shapes swam through the watery realms, which gave off more light than the soft, skilfully hand-crafted luminous crystals on the ceiling and pillars, in addition to the few normal lights.

Vigilantly, Kysaek’s eyes followed the barrel of her mounted rifle and soon she saw the outline of a wide-spanning, silver-grey console shimmering through the water of the last aquarium. Without the glassy container, however, she quickly realised that this was more of an oversized control machine in bow form, on a raised piece of ground and a single chair stood beyond the facility.

“Just come closer,” said the familiar voice of Skarg Peeks. He sat in the chair, which now travelled along the desk, and the Calanian looked extremely composed. “So that I can finally get to know my uninvited guests.”

“Don’t move!” Kysaek demanded, shooting past the chair by a hair’s breadth.

Peeks stopped immediately. “Rude, but that was to be expected.”

“Shut up!” said Kysaek, clearly energised. She had already imagined this exact moment several times, when she would finally face the source of her problems and confront Peeks. There were so many questions and insults in her head and yet she found it difficult to choose, so she kept it simple. “It’s over for you now!”

“Is that so? Says who?”

“Me, Elaine Kysaek!”

“You indeed,” Peeks sighed in annoyance. His little fangs wiggled and he rubbed his forehead and eyes. “Wouldn’t you have the decency to die for once?”

“You want me to what?” Kysaek huffed. The Calanian’s words stunned her. “That’s what you have to say?! You slippery octopus! After everything you’ve put us through?”

“Just because I’m important to your world doesn’t make you important to mine,” Peeks replied mockingly, resting both arms on the back of the chair. It was like before, when he was the boss and looked down on his subordinates, even though the two had never met before. “Nevertheless, I never in my life expected that an insignificant nothing from a human being could harm me so much and now you even have the audacity to stand here. But don’t feel too powerful about it. This is nothing.”

“Then you’re obviously blind,” Kysaek said. From the barrel of her weapon, she looked along the row of windows behind and beside Skarg as the dark night and its clouds were repeatedly illuminated by the flashing lights of the battles on the ground. “You’re beaten and now give me your code card for the data centre!”

“Ah, that’s why you’re here - clever,” Peeks admitted, sitting up and leaning forward to rest his chin on both hands. “And that’s why you think you’ve won?”

“I think there’s enough evidence there to expose all your lies and now give me the map or I’ll blow you away and take it!”

“Yes, I suppose you could do that,” said Peeks, but he made no move to comply. He just sat there, looking like a stone, a cold, indestructible stone. “There’s a lot waiting for you beyond the data centre door, but you won’t get it. All you can do is watch me.” A devilish grimace stretched across the flaps of the Calaner’s mouth as he raised his left hand, at the joint of which was a vortex cuff.

Whatever this was, Kysaek wasn’t going to let it happen. “Don’t move! I mean it!” she warned, but her words fell on deaf ears and the chairman’s hand shifted to his vortex cuff. “Bastard!” Kysaek shot through the Calaner’s chest, but something was wrong! There was no wound left, no hole, nothing! Her target was completely unscathed, unlike the burnt back of his chair. “What the?!”

“Pathetic,” Peeks commented unimpressed and activated his cuff.

Kysaek was on alert, expecting hell to break loose, but nothing happened and she noticed the comm port sensors under her feet and on the ceiling, well embedded in the façade. “What did you just do? And where are you hiding?”

“Well out of you reach. My only regret is that I couldn’t be there in person to dash your hopes, because at this very moment any files in the data centre are being deleted and the room subsequently destroyed - you’ve lost.”

“You rotten-!”

“Don’t, control yourself and if your pathetic foot soldiers are down there, give them a few more seconds.”

What was that supposed to mean? Kysaek didn’t have time to think about it. “Kysaek to everyone!” she spoke into the radio. “Get away from the data centre! Peeks are about to destroy it!”

“What?” Thais listened. “Stop it from happening! Stop him!”

“He’s not here! Only via Komm Port!”

“Crap! Get out of here!”

Skarg found the whole thing rather amusing, like a show I suppose. “Marvellous. Let them run, but it won’t save anyone and I’d like to thank you for that.”

“We’re not going to give up! We could win here, so we’ll find and beat you elsewhere too!”

“If only you could, I would have enough soldiers to sacrifice. I don’t fight so primitively and don’t bother with such things, but you won’t see the real fight,” Peeks promised ominously and used his cuff again. “Three minutes until verification and your life ends, along with your minions and all of Auranis.”

“What?! What have you done?!”

“I?- nothing. You did this: the merciless terrorist struck again, destroying the splendour of the expanses. That will be the headlines after my just-armed neutron bomb goes off.”

“Are you insane?” Kysaek gulped. Would the Calanian really go to extremes because of her? She fell into a rage. “Stop this, now!”

“It was inevitable,” Skarg replied coolly, standing up to walk along his console, a digital clock counting down the time beside him. “Although Aurani’s end is coming sooner than planned, but you’re too good an alibi. That’s what I wanted to thank you for.”

“What’s in it for you?” Kysaek shouted, firing randomly into the console, but the countdown continued. “You filthy pig!”

“Do you really want to spend your last moments in a rage? Just when I’m giving you a conversation as a reward for all your useless, pathetic deeds?”

Every second of the virtual clock was like a stab in Kyzaek’s stomach and she wanted to at least save her people. “Everyone, this is Ky-!”

Skarg laughed. “Better let your people die in battle and the uncertainty of them all failing completely. Besides, no one will escape in time.”

“Bastard!” Kysaek raged, even though she knew the chairman was right about the escape. That’s why she ignored the incoming questions from her team. “Me, nrgh!” She wanted to fire again, but her magazine was empty and so she threw her weapon to the ground and then her helmet through the Calaner’s image. “Tens of millions live in Auranis! Families! Children, mothers, fathers! You’ll even wipe out your own employees! For what?! What kind of sick game are you playing?”

“It’s pointless to explain it in detail, but new things always require sacrifice - that’s an immutable law of the universe.”

Time was running out and Kysaek was pacing back and forth in front of the table. “Like you give a damn about laws! And fuck the universe! Stop the bomb!”

“Anything else?”

“Everything!” Kysaek gritted out. She had nothing, absolutely nothing, to threaten Peeks with and she could only think of one last thing. “Take me! Spare Auranis, for my life! Isn’t that what this is all about?”

“You greatly overestimate your value,” the Calanian dismissed the offer. “Besides, I already have your life, right now. Don’t take a businessman for a fool.”

Come on, Elaine!” rushed through Kysaek’s head. Come up with something!

“Our time together is coming to an end,” Peeks said triumphantly as the clock ticked down to under a minute. “I must confess, I massively underestimated you and should have kept you by my side. But who knew you had such talent?”

“I would never have continued to work for you! Not for all the foreign currency in the galaxy!”

“Your loss.”

She simply couldn’t come up with a saving idea and Kysaek fell to her knees in despair. “Please, don’t do this!” she pleaded, shedding a few tears. Her crew, she had let everyone down and millions would die. She had never felt such powerlessness in her life.

“Sweet, sweet victory. Close your eyes. Apparently you’re not strong enough to see it coming.”

Should Kysaek do that? Close her eyes? Give up? She was about to as the countdown approached ten seconds and her face shone with tears and sweat. “I’m not giving you that satisfaction!” she sobbed defiantly. She wanted to get up, but she couldn’t. Her knees were as soft as butter. However, she narrowed her watery eyes and stared at Calaner. “You’re going to fall, for sure!”

“Even if, still after you,” Peeks countered, spreading his arms triumphantly. “Seven, six, five ...”

Kysaek’s pupils dilated and her breath came in and out of her open mouth extremely quickly. With the number zero, even her heart stopped emotionally and her eyes searched for the white that would herald the neutron wave - but she saw nothing. Even after several moments, absolutely nothing happened!

The zeros flashed next to Peek’s image. “What is that?!” he asked loudly. “WHY ISN’T ANYTHING HAPPENING?” Pure anger suddenly rose from his Calanian throat and he looked around, perplexed. “What’s going on here? Die already!” Was this all just a trick? Certainly not, because Peek’s reaction was too violent for that. A man with control who no longer had any.

Nevertheless, Kysaek only realised this after a few blinks and a glance at her hand. She was still there, alive, and her adversary was full of resentment, but in the maelstrom of her emotional chaos, she could find no words of reply or clear thoughts.

“Deactivation successful,” a Davoc voice sounded out of nowhere and Dorvan’s real image appeared next to Peeks’. “That was really close, if I may say so. A hundredth of a millisecond later and we would have been finished.”

“Dorvan,” Kysaek murmured quietly, but with absolute relief.

“Who on all the oceans are you?” Skarg asked, looking back and forth between his two guests. “Who is that?”

“I am Dorvan,” replied the Davoc in his polite naivety. “I was once destined to be brought to your research colony on Trayden, but your business partner Reed betrayed you and kept me for petty thievery instead.” Dorvan’s face wrinkled with consideration and he looked to his leader for advice. “Then again, I got to Kysaek through that route, so I guess that was all right, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely right,” nodded Kysaek, glaring at the PGI chairman with water-filled eyes. “Reed’s greed has not only put us on a new track, but has now also saved Auranis.”

“No,” Peeks shook his head and although he wasn’t on the scene, he backed away and gradually disappeared as a projection. “This can’t be true.”

“He’s disconnected,” Dorvan noted. “It seems I’ve put him in a state of shock. A state I’m all too familiar with.”

Kysaek wiped his eyes dry and, after a deep breath of relief, spoke clearly. “Forget him - you just saved not only us, but all of Auranis from annihilation. You’re a real miracle, no, a hero, you know that?”

“I merely reacted,” said Dorvan. It was uncertainty rather than modesty that made his hands clasp together. “As soon as you said Peeks was on a link, I sought out the frequency and hacked it. This allowed me to track his signal to the bomb and in turn hack into it. Luckily we had the towers’ systems under control, otherwise he could have activated the bomb without verification.”

“And yet we’ve lost again,” said Kysaek, walking towards the windows. “The data centre is down, right?”

“I’m afraid that’s correct, but Tavis said something else would cheer you up.”

Kysaek raised an eyebrow as the dark night on the horizon was broken by the first rays of sunlight and she suddenly realised that there were no more battle sounds. “Like what?”

“Everything Peeks just said to you, I recorded and transmitted over the local PGI radio. The fighting is over and the PGI guards are retreating or throwing their weapons to the ground. Apparently their paid loyalty reached its limits when their chairman wanted to sacrifice them,” Dorvan surmised. It was a real mystery to him, where to others it was an open secret. “Plus, I’ve been following the transmission trail. There are several possible locations, but once I get rid of these strange anomalies in the data, I can find Peek’s location.”

“Finding him will be our next objective,” Kysaek determined as she looked over the innocent façade of the still-sleeping city of Aruanis. “And definitely not just ours - publicise the conversation. Let everyone see and hear it. Time to give the octopus its own medicine.”

“I’ll start spreading the word immediately.”

“Very good, and Dorvan ...?”

“Yes?”

“You really did a great job,” Kysaek said, looking at the Davoc with a warm smile. No, she could see now that she and her crew hadn’t lost again. This was a victory and Dorvan especially deserved it. “Thank you, I can never make it up to you. You have your heart in the right place.”

“That’s a human metaphor, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Phew, I was right after all,” said the Dorvan with relief, tapping the centre of his chest. “Because we Davoc have the heart in the centre.”

“And we humans are actually on the left,” laughed Kysaek cheerfully. Her counterpart clearly didn’t understand why she was doing this, but he didn’t need to, because there wasn’t much to understand. Despite the circumstances, she was simply satisfied.

“Disappointed? Impatient? Yes, that journey really dragged on then, full of danger and constant uncertainty, and if you’re perhaps frustrated now and whoping for an end, what do you think it was like for the crew?” the Davoc great-grandfather recalled, his voice slightly stricken and dry as he sat peacefully in a public place and rather artificial surroundings. “Besides, one thing slowly became clear - this story, was no longer just Kysaeks and to reassure you: The final confrontation with PGI was coming after the attack on their headquarters and it was a massive and revelatory battle. An end and a beginning, but let me not get ahead of myself. According to Auranis, it was as follows ....”