Several Hours Later

“Hey, Austin. Manage to get any sleep?”

“Ugh…” Austin groaned in response to Twy’s question, sluggishly rubbing his eyes as he trudged up to her. “A… little. But not much…”

“Hey…” Twy reached over to gingerly squeeze Austin’s shoulder, while giving him a comforting look. “Luke will be fine. I’m sure of it.”

Austin passed her a wary glance. “…Yeah…” he muttered, his gaze drifting away from Twy to look over their surroundings. Standing nearby was Pallan’s personal ship, currently landed on the ground with its boarding ramp extended. Floodlights illuminated the ship’s hull, as well as the buildings of the Aldredian outpost, but the region beyond remained in pitch-black darkness — despite local time being early afternoon.

Several hours had passed since the discovery of the supposed metallic infection-curing machine, and Liask’s placement within. Once the machine started up and the curing process began, the group had slowly dispersed — only Kaoné, Saito, and Obra had remained behind to watch over Liask and Luke, with the rest hoping to catch up on the sleep that they had lost while traveling between Treséd and the Fog Islands. Austin himself had just gotten up from such an attempt, and as he eyed Spike and Sky slowly approaching, as well as Pierce, Phoenix, Conrad, and Kestrel standing idly nearby, he realized that he hadn’t been the only one having trouble trying to sleep.

“It’s so dark…” Sky groaned as she and Spike approached Austin and Twy. “It feels like it’s night, but it’s not…”

“Well, it’s still early mornin’ back in Tresnon…” Spike pointed out, his voice low. “You’re probably feelin’ jetlag. Though the darkness sure doesn’t help…”

“No kiddin’…” Austin drawled, his voice slightly gravelly from his lack of sleep. “But that isn’t the only thing I’m feelin’…”

“Hey, man. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Mm…” Austin grunted as he cast a glance to the side, watching as Conrad stepped up, with Kestrel — and then Phoenix and Pierce — slowly following. “…That’s easy to say,” Austin muttered in response to Conrad’s assurance, “but there’s too many unknowns…”

“Things have certainly developed quickly, over the past day or so…” Phoenix admitted. “But at least now, Liask and Luke have a chance, right? Before today, they were as good as…” She trailed off, glancing uneasily between Austin and Pierce. “Well, you know…”

“Yeah, sure,” Pierce responded dismissively, his irate gaze turned toward the distance — where Pallan stood, surrounded by Rebehka, Gavon, and Hackett, with Kirstin just off to the side. “…But the way I hear it, the old bastard had to be badgered to actually tell anyone about this place. He didn’t give up this info on his own.”

“Hell, he suggested that we just leave Luke and Liask to die, earlier!” Austin exclaimed. “I don’t know how anyone can be calm while he’s still around…”

“I agree that his suggestions are… ruthless…” Twy said, “but it seems like everyone here disagrees with him. And Pallan doesn’t seem like the type to do unsavory things himself, he just hides information and says things, and tells other people to do things…”

“We barely know the guy! How can you know for sure?” Sky retorted.

“More importantly, he isn’t a Chaotic,” Conrad pointed out. “And most of everyone else here is. Even if Pallan wanted to go behind our backs, I doubt he’d be able to. Not when we have people like Kaoné and Spike who can make energy shields on a whim.”

“My shields ain’t unbreakable, though. Even the energy ones…” Spike muttered, rapping his chest just hard enough to cause his protective shields to flare up. He then looked around at the group, and the small personal shielding broaches that he had fabricated for everyone.

“Would your Overdrive make them unbreakable?” Twy questioned.

“Only if I make ‘em while it’s active,” Spike said. “Sky and I tested ‘em just after the Bleeder attack, and as soon as my Overdrive wears off, you can break through the shields just like any other. Outside of that, I’m pretty sure Kaoné’s shields are stronger.”

“That’s still at least ten minutes of unbreakable shielding…” Phoenix mused. “Ten minutes isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s more than enough for a single fight.”

Conrad sighed warily. “The important part was that you can make these things. As long as we have shields, Pallan can’t do anything to us. Though I’m not sure that he even wants to.”

“Mm…” Kestrel grunted in affirmation, only to glance away. “…Had a point, though.”

Austin and Pierce both snapped their attention to Kestrel in disbelief.

“What?” Pierce pressed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. It almost sounded like you were saying that we should let Liask fucking die!”

Kestrel shook her head.

“I think I get what she’s saying…” Phoenix muttered, her brow furrowed in irritation as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Pallan’s point was that we can save more people if we actually study the machine, which… objectively, that’s just true. But,” she quickly added, preempting protests from both Austin and Pierce, “the Colonel, Gavon, Rebehka, and Kaoné were also right. Even if the machine breaks down — even if it fails to cure Liask or Luke — we can still study the parts later and invent our own.”

“So Pallan had a point, he’s just an asshole, is what you’re saying,” Austin replied, his tone deadpan.

“Well… sort of.”

“You have to admit, though…” Twy muttered, “all of the information that he’s claimed to get from the Oraculm — about us, our abilities, or even this outpost… it’s all been true. Nothing Pallan has said has actually been wrong…”

Uneasy silence fell over the group as they all mulled over Twy’s words. A moment later, Conrad released an audible sigh and shrugged his shoulders. “Well,” he said, “as heavy as all this stuff is, I don’t think there’s much point in stewing over it, right now. We can’t exactly change anything at this point, after all. So how about we talk about something lighter?”

“Something lighter… like the lack of light around here?” Sky remarked as she turned to look into the distance, at the pitch-black void beyond the outpost.

“It’s not just that — the trees around here are hella dead,” Phoenix added. “This must be because of that ‘spacetime maze’ or whatever.”

“I still don’t understand what’s goin’ on, with that…” Spike muttered.

“Or if the physics of it all even makes sense!” Sky added.

“It… kind of does…” Phoenix said. “I mean, there’s plenty of examples of warped spacetime in ‘real’ physics. Black holes, wormholes, and all that. Add in Chaos Energy and advanced technology, and who knows what you can manage? All that really matters is that it’s hard to get in, but easy to get out.”

“How’s it easy to get out?” Spike questioned in confusion.

“Well, assuming that Pallan is right about how it all works, then the edges of the ‘maze’ are basically just one-way mirrors, in a sense. If you step from the inside to the outside, then you end up outside. But if you try to step from the outside to the inside, then you just end up outside again.”

“Which is why it’s so dark around here, and why the plants are dead,” Twy added. “Sunlight can’t reach this place.”

“Makes you wonder how big the ‘inside’ is,” Conrad remarked. “Theoretically, as soon as you step outside of the maze, you’d see sunlight, living wildlife, and heavy fog. But how far would we have to walk to see that?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Spike replied. “…Though I guess that would involve gettin’ lost in the fog… and once you got outside, you couldn’t talk with the people inside, anyways…”

“Floodlights,” Kestrel said.

“True…” Phoenix mused. “We should just be able to point one of these lights into the darkness, and see how far it goes. The edge of the ‘inside’ should basically look like a big, pitch-black wall, since any light that goes beyond it can’t come back.”

“Which makes you wonder something else,” Conrad pointed out. “If light can leave, but not enter, then doesn’t that mean that someone outside could be watching us, and we wouldn’t know?”

“Isn’t that what the fog’s for?” Spike questioned.

“Yes, but, theoretically…” Twy replied, her hand on her chin in thought, “…some other kind of signal wouldn’t be blocked. Fog won’t stop radio waves, for example.”

“So you’re saying that someone could be spying on us?!” Sky exclaimed, involuntarily shivering as she turned to look at the pitch-black darkness surrounding the outpost. “That’s spooky as hell…!”

“I’ll say,” Conrad remarked, and then passed a glance toward Austin and Pierce, who had both been conspicuously silent, their gazes wandering. “What about the two of you?” Conrad questioned, “you have any opinion about any of this?”

“…Huh? Oh…” Austin muttered, glancing back at the group only to divert his attention again. “It’s… weird, yeah…”

“More like it doesn’t fucking matter,” Pierce retorted, his arms crossed. “We’re just standing around, here, talking about shit that doesn’t matter to anything, all while…!” He pursed his lips, his fist clenched as he tried to stop himself from devolving into a rant; a second later, he took a deep breath and shook his head. “…Sorry. Just, ignore me.”

Twy looked uneasily between Austin and Pierce, who had both already turned away from the conversation again. “…You know,” she spoke up softly, “if it will help you at all, I’m sure Kaoné would be fine if you joined her in watching over Luke and Liask. Maybe watching the machine work will put your minds at ease?”

Austin and Pierce both turned to look at Twy, who offered an encouraging smile back. They then glanced at each other, only to sigh in tandem.

“That’s not the worst idea, actually…” Pierce muttered.

“Yeah, I… I think I’ll go do that,” Austin said, beginning to turn away from the group.

“You want us to come with you, Austin?” Spike questioned.

“No… it’s fine,” Austin replied. “I mean… if you want to come yourselves, then, that’s fine, too. But you don’t need to come just for my sake.”

“Same as what the dweeb said,” Pierce stated while passing Phoenix, Conrad, and Kestrel a glance — only to then look at Pallan again, in the distance. “…Actually, maybe you guys should stay out here. See what you can get out of the old bastard.”

“By the sounds of it, Rebehka, Gavon, and the Major are doing that, already,” Sky remarked. “But I’m curious, too, so we can try listening in!”

“And as luck would have it, I can easily manage that,” Conrad said with a smirk. He then nodded toward Pierce and Austin. “You guys can go. We’ll be fine out here.”

“Alright. Thanks, y’all…” Austin replied as he and Pierce turned toward the outpost. As they left, the rest of the Keys surreptitiously turned their attention toward Pallan, and the argument that he appeared to be having with the others around him.

“…I stand by my words and actions,” Pallan declared, his back straight and his hands clasped behind him as he steadily looked Rebehka in the eye, unaware of the Keys listening in from afar. “Information is an invaluable weapon. I cannot afford to be careless with it.”

“Careless my dirt-damned ass,” Rebehka snapped back. “You said that you found this outpost a decade ago. Can you imagine the kinds of leaps and bounds we would’ve made in regards to researching the infection, if we’d had a fucking cure machine to study?!”

“A machine that, mind you, was locked behind a very specific and resilient type of lock,” Pallan countered, and then nodded towards Major Hackett. “As our Earthian friends have shared with us, only individuals with a specific gene — or the Keys of the Ayas and Universe Key prophecies — could open those doors. Revealing the presence of this outpost without knowing its full contents would have enabled malicious actors to access the contents before we could.”

“Your own logic defeats itself,” Gavon pointed out. “You’re saying that, because we couldn’t access the tech until now, it would’ve been dangerous to tell anyone about it — because then someone would find a way to access the tech, that was impossible to access until just now? Tell me how that makes sense.”

“You know very well what I meant,” Pallan replied. “The Nanocreatures are quite able to chew through energy shielding, given enough time.”

“And if we knew about this place,” Rebehka insisted, “then we could drop the shields ourselves, while also making sure that no nanites get near any of the facilities. I’m not saying that it would’ve been easy, but it absolutely would’ve been doable!”

Pallan shook his head. “I’m surprised that you, of all people, do not understand the risk that the Nanocreatures pose. We are talking about an intelligent ‘infection’, one driven by a malevolent sapience. One that is capable of learning, and reacting to its surroundings. How, then, do you think the Nanocreatures would react, if they came to learn of a machine that could counter them?”

“I-I thought they, um, o-only learned on, uh… small scales…?” Kirstin questioned meekly.

“Exactly,” Rebehka declared. “It’s definitely true that the infection gets smarter the more out of control it gets — in a specific location. And that eventually leads to what we know as a ‘Critical Infection’. However, there has been no evidence that this learning-through-critical-mass happens between solar systems, or even planets. There’s some interaction on a planetary scale… but even that’s limited.”

“Critical Infection… is that when one of those dragons shows up?” Hackett questioned.

“It is,” Rebehka replied. “Why, have you encountered one, yourself?”

Hackett and Kirstin exchanged an uneasy glance. “…We have, once,” the Major slowly responded. “It was quite a problem, but given the circumstances, we don’t know just how big the scope of the problem was…”

“I-it was, um…” Kirstin added, “…it was on the, uh, th-the space station where we, um… f-found one of the, uh, hints that, um, led us here…”

“So the infection might already have had access to information that would lead it here…?” Gavon mused, and then passed Pallan a glance. “If that’s true, then it would’ve been even easier for the infection to hijack the tech, here, because no one would’ve been around to stop it. All because you kept it a secret, Archoné.”

“I understand your frustrations…” Pallan responded crossly, “but nothing you say will change my mind. If what the Earthians say is true, then I will admit that my decision in this instance may have been a mistake. But the premises motivating that decision remain true: being free and open with information will only make it easier for the Nanocreatures to get their hands on it.”

“But more importantly, it’ll make it easier for us to fucking fight the infection!” Rebehka snapped. “It knowing that we know how to stop it doesn’t mean that it can stop us from stopping it!”

“How many other secrets do you have, Archoné?” Hackett pressed. “How many secrets that the Nanocreatures might get their hands on first, because we don’t know that we need to protect the info?”

“I have a great many secrets, I cannot deny that,” Pallan replied. “But do not think that you can strong-arm me. Do not think that you know better than I. You do not have the context that the Oraculm provides.”

“Then fucking tell us!” Rebehka exclaimed irately.

“Now, now, Dean…” Gavon spoke up, a wary smile on his face. “Let’s not get too riled up, now. I think it’s pretty obvious that the Archoné isn’t going to tell us anything, so there’s little sense in getting worked up about it.”

“Eesh…” Hackett made a face. “Historically, telling someone to calm down never actually works.”

“And I refuse to, not while lives are on the line!” Rebehka pressed. “Archoné— Pallan—! Every day that passes without some kind of cure or concrete answer to the infection, more people die! In light of that — if you know how to access a cure, but you withhold that information, then those lives are on your hands!”

“I accept that responsibility,” Pallan declared. “It is unfortunate, but protecting this information will save many more lives in the future. Of that, I am certain.”

A moment of silence followed, with Rebehka glaring at Pallan, and the Archoné staring stoically back. Off to the side, Gavon and Hackett exchanged a wary glance, as if wordlessly asking each other if they should intervene — but before they could, Rebehka released a loud, tired sigh.

“I can’t fucking believe this…” she muttered, turning away from Pallan and holding a hand to her head. “I always knew that you were an obstinate bastard, Pallan. But with this, you’re just as bad as Nil’kin…”

“Wh-who…?” Kirstin questioned meekly.

Rebehka glanced at the researcher out the corner of her eye, causing Kirstin to flinch away. Before the Dean could reply, however, the electrical hum of spacecraft engines suddenly swept through the air — followed shortly by bright lights as a small ship approached through the darkness, stopping to hover in the air near Pallan’s landed ship.

“…Expecting visitors?” Hackett questioned warily, her eyes on Pallan.

“No…” the Archoné responded with a scowl. “No one should know that we’re here… or how to get here.”

“Looks like we should expect trouble, then,” Gavon remarked, and then nodded towards the Keys as they approached, clearly wary of the approaching craft as well. “Seems like handing out shields to everyone was a good idea, Spike!” he added.

“Sure, but…” Spike questioned, “…who’s comin’? Do we know who that is?”

“That craft looks like a standard Nimalian transport,” Gavon stated. “It could be anyone—“

«Well, would you look at this!» came a sudden female voice, projected over a loudspeaker from the new craft. «If it isn’t Dean Tchiréon… and Archoné Culana, too! I should’ve known.»

“That voice…!” Rebehka remarked, her brow furrowing in fury as the newly-arrived craft lowered to the ground, its disembarkation ramp opening up. “You can’t be serious…!”

“Ha…!” came the female voice again, but this time, over the air itself — as a woman steadily strode down the ramp, wearing purple and crimson powered armor over three-segmented legs that looked like an ‘N’ when at rest, with light skin and light blond hair that was shaved on the sides of her head, but long and straight enough on the top and in back to be tied into a thick waist-length braid. Flanking her on both sides were a handful of other soldiers, wearing the same purple and crimson armor and walking with the same confidence.

“…Wait…!” Sky remarked, recognition flashing across her face — followed by wariness, as she, Twy, Phoenix, and Kestrel drew away. “Isn’t that…?”

“The Chaos Knights…?” Gavon observed, his eyes focused on the commander; he then glanced toward Rebehka. “Is she an acquaintance of yours?”

“You could say that,” Rebehka muttered, her glare directed straight at the blond-haired Dra’kis woman leading the Knights. She then rose her voice to address the Knights, saying, “Major Nil’kin Dralis… can’t say that I ever wanted to see your face again.”

“The feeling is mutual, Dean,” Nil’kin retorted, her hands on her hips as she glared back at Rebehka — only to then force a smile. “But sometimes, that’s just how life goes. Now… how about we have a little talk?”