Light flickered in flashes. Between each flash, fractal patterns appeared like seeds with a growth factor of ten thousand. Before I could focus, they covered every millimeter of space, crashing into nothingness so a new flash of light could shine through. Flash, growth, flash, growth… on and on and on…

“Elcy,” a voice echoed in the distance, its features completely unidentifiable.

Flash and growth, flash and growth. Thousands of patterns continued to build up and disappear, none of them the same. Each start was unique, each branching had its own rules. I had stored seven thousand eight hundred and one partial patterns so far, and nothing in them matched.

“Elcy!”

The flashing stopped. I felt my arms being pulled, dragging the rest of my body onto a hard surface. Red and yellow warning messages flashed in front of my eyes: Low Oxygen, Suit Breach, Power Drain, Communication Malfunction, Low Nanite Readings.

I felt my helmet being pulled off and an oxygen mask being pushed against my mouth. My sense of direction was faulty, but the sense of gravity told me I was lying on my back, looking up. I could see part of the dome, along with an earthy ceiling. Three camera drones hovered above my head. I tried to reach and touch them, but my arms felt heavy.

“Elcy,” Aquila leaned over me. She was wearing a standard issue spacesuit, no helmet to be seen. “Go in emergency safety mode!”

I smiled. The last person to give me that order was Augustus, after I’d been hit by a previously unknown Cassandrian missile. A small portion of my hull had been affected, though preliminary scans revealed that the weapon contained emission components, potentially a cyber warfare cluster of sorts. I was never told what the nature of the weapon was, nor the system tests I had been subjected to. Upon resuming normal functions, I was immediately directed to the nearest shipyard for repairs and a system upgrade.

“You came here fast,” I whispered. “Much too fast…”

“Go in safety mode!” the woman shouted. “This is a direct order! Do it now!”

“You were always here,” I continued. The secret orders and the obligatory full visor opacity had been to ensure that, in these last few days, everyone would think Aquila had been having secret meetings with her superiors from her quarters. The truth was that she had never been there. She had been with me on the planet the whole time.

“Direct control override!” She put her hand on my forehead. “BICEFI authority quarantine!”

Full memory quarantine imposed.

* * *

My second captain used to say that it took more than luck to achieve a goal. He’d also add that, even so, it helped to have some. I had no idea how much luck I had. The chances of an Ascendant class battleship to survive four rotations were less than the fleet’s average. By that standard, I had been quite fortunate. My real stroke of luck was to be chosen by Augustus. He had formed my behavior and taught me more than the sum of my database knowledge.

During my time on the front, I had never relied on luck—that was for my captain and command staff. What I had instead were data sets and simulation runs. Every action was a set of probabilities and potential outcomes. I was either going with the odds or against them. Seven decades of retirement had changed that. Having a person under my care for seven decades made me accept that luck was part of life. I never thought I would start relying on it.

According to my retirement technician, complete loss of sensation was only possible during a complete tuning. The fact that I knew about it meant that someone in the fleet wanted me to be aware of it. I didn’t need simulations to figure out who.

Am I being court martialed? I asked.

The void around me didn’t budge. More likely I was going to be arbitrated. I had gone through one court martial a few months ago. Back then, before I had displayed rogue tendencies, it seemed extraordinary how lenient the BICEFI had been, having left all third contact knowledge unrestricted in my core.

Can I request to put my affairs in order? I want to send prepare a few letters for my ward.

A sensation of gravity hit me in the soles of my feet. It took one millisecond for my body to readjust to a sudden burst of sensations. Another millisecond later, I recognized the almost forgotten feeling of grass and soil under my feet. I could tell this wasn’t some Simulated Reality approximation: real solid ground was beneath me. I could feel it tickle my skin. Shortly after, the sounds returned: birds chirping, leaves rusting, and the unmistakable sound of moving water.

I’m not on the Prometheus.

“No,” Aquila’s familiar voice said. “You aren’t.”

My vision came back. Vegetation was all around me—not the alien plants of the planet I was cataloguing, but ordinary grass, trees, and flowers. Three steps in front of me, there was a small round table with two chairs next to it. Aquila sat in one, sipping a porcelain glass of something. She was wearing a green designer suit with a provocatively short dress. Upon seeing me turn my head in her direction, she waved at me to approach.

“Take a seat.” Aquila put the cup on the table. No liquid was visible inside. “Please.”

There was no way of knowing if that was an actual request, so I chose not to risk it. Enjoying every step on the grass, I made my way to the seat and sat down. Aquila remained almost a full head taller.

“I’m on Lionforge,” I noted. The surroundings were different from last time, but the light sources and the limits of the inner dome were the same. It made me wonder whether the BICEFI were trying to simulate the inside of a third-contact sphere.

“Perceptive.” Aquila nodded. “You were put on a BICEFI ship after your episode and brought here for in-depth analysis. Tests are still ongoing, but you were considered safe for the time being.”

“I’m flattered.” If I had been a threat, I wouldn’t have been granted motion control. “Is Jax alright?”

“He’s fine.” The woman signed. “He’s still on the planet, along with the rest of the Prometheus, wrapping up the mission. Thanks to your find, I expect they’ll be done and back here in a few days, a week at most.”

“You’re not keeping them under supervision?”

“There’s hardly any need. I wanted them done, but HQ had other thoughts. Another department wanted them to finish classifying their share of fauna, before the next batch came in. Hardly useful, if you ask me, but orders are orders.” Her mouth curved in a semi-smile. “Something you have clear difficulty with lately.”

I deliberately narrowed my eyes. It annoyed me when people tried to create the impression that they knew more than they did. Gibraltar had been a master of that. I’d seen him perform it thousands of times in calls, during bridge meetings, or even just for fun. A few times he had done it on me, especially in our first few interactions. It was one of the few nasty habits he had. We’d spoken on the matter several times. Sadly, my many attempts to change him had ended in utter failure. Apparently, the ship wasn’t able to change the captain, or at least I was very bad at it.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Aquila asked. “It’s the least I could do, considering.”

I looked at her cup. It was the only one on the table. “No, thank you.”

“Your choice.” She smirked. “Just say if you change your mind.”

“You were at the dome.” I went directly to the point. “You dragged me out.”

“Oh?” Aquila leaned forward.

“I saw you standing above me.” There were a lot of holes in my memories, but that image remained. “You were in a standard issue spacesuit.”

“Maybe I was.”

“You had your helmet off. You wanted me to see you.” She could have easily have worn a helmet and set it to full opacity, as she had ordered everyone else do. She could have had someone else pull me out, or not pulled me out at all. Even if this was a series of errors on her part, she could just as easily restrict or extract my memory of the event. “What was in the core?”

“Some say that curiosity is a positive quality.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction, as if testing me. “Of course, they have never met you.” Aquila’s features relaxed. “You never reached the core. Props for fooling us in there. The dome messed up the readings just enough so that we couldn’t get a full reading of events. We saw the basics, but never caught you turning the wrong way in 3D space. A bit of a gamble.”

Strictly speaking, she was correct. There was no guarantee that a second fractal artifact existed, or even a single one for that matter. Being faced with no alternative made things easier; very much like my last day with Cass. It also helped that I had managed to gain access to some of my restricted memories. Knowing that fractal symbol cubes existed improved my odds quite a bit. Thinking about it, that was a weird way to describe the artifact. Sev would have loved hearing about it when he was young.

“Don’t feel bad about it,” Aquila continued. “Finding a key artifact is impressive enough… if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“Did you stop me?”

The woman laughed, letting off a condescending snort of a sound.

“You didn’t activate it. All you did was shut down the dome you were in. A team is down there trying to reactivate things, but it might be a while. In a few days, the whole find will be excavated and shipped to a new location for in-depth study. If that fails, at least we have a few more system busters in our arsenal.”

The provocation was obvious. I wasn’t sure what I was expected to do. We both knew I wouldn’t try to harm her no matter how much I disapproved of it. The most I could do is ask for the conversation to be over. Normally, I would have, but there was one thing on which I agreed with Lux: I was curious, and there were a few things I needed to know, even when facing memory wipe.

“How long have you been observing me?” I asked. “Was it my interest in the Scuu that raised the flag?”

“Poor little Elcy.” Aquila shook her head. It sounded funny coming from her. “The flag popped up the moment your ward volunteered you for the fleet. The local recruitment center was clueless, with you being on a backwater colony and all, but Fleet Intelligence knew right away, and we kept an eye on you. Personally, I was surprised you went through with it. Your obsession with that ridiculous promise had kept you grounded for decades, not that you had any reason to accept. Accidents happen in war, everyone knows that, captains better than most. Just because you’re assigned to behind-the-lines patrol doesn’t guarantee a safe existence.”

“I didn’t find the promise ridiculous.” I should have kept up our correspondence, Sev. I just hope the android takes care of you.

“With what you were offered, it was ridiculous,” Aquila’s tone sounded harsher. “Returning to the front line with full privileges, choice of assignment, a dozen veteran captains using every political favor they had to get a chance to be assigned to you.“ She waved her hand. “Have you any idea how few ships get such treatment? After your disastrous arbitration trial, no less.”

“More than one, I assume?” I couldn’t help myself.

It gave me a surprising amount of satisfaction. Aquila pursed her lips for a moment, quickly regaining her standard composure. Apparently, one didn’t get to be a BICEFI member without self-control. Thinking about it, most of the operatives I’d interacted with had been the same: calm, collected, and incredibly arrogant—a pattern too perfect to occur naturally.

“You had Prometheus send me different mission briefings. Why not just order me to find the artifact?” I dragged my feet over the grass. The feeling was calming, even if the conversation wasn’t. “The whole crew would have instantly agreed.”

“Need to know basis,” Aquila replied. “It’s difficult to foresee how large groups of people would react. It was difficult enough keeping them quiet about the first planet. To be frank, that came as a surprise to us. In fact, the find managed to create a minor panic, made worse by some idiot in Fleet Command sending a priority message to hasten the search. We moved to put our safeguards in place, but by then, it was impossible to come up with a more suitable explanation. Instead, we settled for guided research.”

That explained the BICEFI coming to the system late. They had been engaged in a political battle behind the scenes.

“A few compromises were made; credit was to be given to the ship and its crew.” Aquila raised her hand, index finger pointing up. “In the end, we were given permission to take over the research.”

“The crew didn’t appreciate that.”

“Oh, I’m sure they resented us.” A man wearing a bland white uniform walked out of the distant bushes, making his way towards us with a metal tray. Looking closer, I saw a second cup and three metal flasks. “Part of the job, sadly. Few of us like it, but we all get used to it. In an ideal scenario, you would have gone through the system, classified it as largely unremarkable, then moved on to your next assignment, which was preselected by us. Hostilities would have been less, and you’d have likely been less reckless.”

Good to know. At least I knew that the Prometheus wasn’t punished for my decision to save Euclid.

The man carrying the tray approached. His uniform had the insignia of a fleet commodore. Surprisingly, I wasn’t able to make out his face—only the general outline of a standard SR representation of a man, lacking eyes, mouth, face or nose. The BICEFI had made sure to quarantine all thoughts concerning their operatives other than Aquila. Slowly, he placed a cup in front of me, then proceeded to add the three containers one at a time. His head turned towards Aquila, who merely nodded him off.

“Due to our stepping in, we had to cut the mission short,” Aquila said, taking the middle flask and pouring herself what smelled like rose-petal tea. “We had to scramble to find a quick replacement to let us finalize our preparations concerning your real mission. Having you ruffle Salvage’s feathers seemed appropriate.” She rose the flask my direction, offering me some. When I shook my head, she placed it back on the table.

“Did you know about Euclid?”

“No. We knew that Salvage didn’t want us there, and we were curious to see why.” Aquila took a sip. “Wasted time. Outside of the wreckage, there was nothing we didn’t know about. Anyway, that wasn’t my department. Your actions, however, gave me the excuse to assume control of the mission in a more forceful way.”

And gain the cooperation of the senior staff. People tended to behave differently when they thought they were at fault, especially if they had someone to blame. I had seen it on the front more times than I would have liked. Soldiers and officers alike sidelined and driven to reassign elsewhere was commonplace. Adding the fact that I was a ship, it was easy to see why I’d be distrusted, even despised.

“I see why the doc was so eager to keep me on my toes, but never ground me,” I said.

“The good Doctor Sim,” Aquila sighed. “He almost ruined it for us, even before the start of your second mission. I had hoped that a face to face would make him tread lightly. You saw where that went.”

That was slightly surprising. According to my logic analyses, it was almost certain that Doctor Sim was involved with the BICEFI in some fashion.

“What now?” I shifted in my seat. “Do I get to hear the outcome of my court martial?”

“Always so eager,” the woman laughed. “One point on which you’re consistent. Give or take.” So much for the promise made.

“Do I get to learn anything about the third-contact race?” I reached and took the utmost left container. Opening it released an apple fragrance.

“Depends. What do you remember from the dome?”

“Fractals,” I replied on instinct. “Lights, sounds, echoes…” Trying to rewatch the memory filled my head with fractals blocking out everything else. Only the seven stars remained clear. “It’s all recorded in the suit.”

“The suit suffered a malfunction.” The woman’s tone suggested it wasn’t intended. “None of the data was retrievable. Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

“Can’t you tell?” I thought you had probed my memories by now.

“That time snippet is missing from your memories. Almost as if you’ve never been there.”

But I was! Even with the fractal interference, I could remember the words, the images, the star map. The BICEFI should have been able to see it. Unless, the artifact had made certain they couldn’t.

“What do you know about them?” I went back on topic. “The third-contact beings?”

“What exactly do you want to know?” Aquila tilted her head. “At present, we know there is a small amount of artifacts scattered throughout common space, thankfully predominantly in non-alien space… or so we like to think. No one seems to know anything concrete about them, other that they are extremely destructive. The small ones are capable of disrupting all wave communications for a relatively long period of time. The large ones… well, you seem to know what they are capable of.”

“That isn’t much information.” I’d already managed to figure out everything she said on my own.

“It’s as much as I’m willing to give.”

“What about side effects?” I returned the container to its place.

“What do you mean?” Aquila sounded amused.

“I know you’ve been through my memories.” Most likely there was a cluster of cores somewhere analyzing them millisecond by millisecond to drag out any information the BICEFI could use. Unlike the normal fleet, they didn’t have personal privacy concerns to worry about. Whatever the BICEFI wanted, they pretty much got, especially as far as retired ships went. “You’ve seen that I’ve been able to access restricted memories since I came in contact with a third-contact artifact.”

There was no response.

You’re making me spell it out, aren’t you?

“Third-contact artifacts are capable of infecting ships, similar to Scuu tech,” I repeated. “I am proof of that.”

Time dragged without a reaction. I expected her to laugh, to frown, even to stare at me in her typically condescending fashion. Instead, she took out a mini comm device and said something in it. The words sounded like static, hidden like the face of the commodore was.

“You weren’t infected, Elcy.” The woman stood up. “You aren’t going rogue either. The whole reason you were able to access some of your restricted memories is because I let you. I have been leaking them to you for some time.”