The sea of stars beckoned from the vaulting ceiling of the celestial heavens. Samantha checked the rear view sensors on her monitor and noted the Hellesponte station disappearing slowly in the distance. It had been an interesting ride, and a few laughs were had, but she could not allow herself to become like her companions.

Strange enough for her existence, she actually did have companions now. The very idea of becoming closer to people, trusting them, caring about them beyond an offered payment was something she found to be quite bizarre.

Samantha leaned back in her command chair, no words coming to her lips. Thoughts of her fellow companions, especially a certain blue haired weirdo threatened to overwhelm her stoic visage. It was for the best. If she stayed with them for long outside of a mission, she would grow soft. At some point when all of this friendship and comradery came crashing down around her, she would be alone again. Allowing herself to grow soft in the interim would end up getting her killed.

Once she passed the outer perimeter of the patrol zone for Hellesponte, she rose from her chair then wandered back toward her room. Her little ship would alert her to any incoming concerns, and would auto-navigate around space hazards. Several days would pass before she would reach Research Station Alvaris-Hector VI. Sitting in her chair the whole time would play havoc with her circulation.

Just as she had done many times in the past, she retired to her room then began to inspect her equipment. She checked for damage, reviewed data on relevant technical information, and practiced aiming without computer assistance.

The quiet solitude of the ship, once a welcome break from the forced necessity of interacting with people, began to press inward on her after a time. She flopped down on her bunk, her arms spread wide.

Something was wrong. Samantha did not know what it was, but the solitude she often sought did not soothe her nerves. If anything it played havoc with her thoughts. Unbidden, memories rose to the surface. Initially, the memories were of recent days and the missions that they had undertaken together. In truth, the nature of the work she did at that time was little different than her normal day on the job. Zombies were a little odd, but at the end of the day they were just another alien to her.

Dire situations where her life was on the line were her bread and butter. There were many instances in her life where she fought seemingly impossible odds and won. No, it was not the zombies or the weird mechanized magic zombie creator that caused her thoughts to wander. It was how she reacted when she discovered the corpse of that overgrown idiot.

Her right arm rose up and she covered her forehead with the back of her hand. Her lips flapped lightly as she blew out a breath that she did not know that she had been holding for a time. "I refuse," she whispered softly.

What did she refuse? She did not speak her concerns aloud, but her thoughts turned to another time in her life. The last time she had reacted so strongly to the death of someone was for a different reason. She closed her eyes tight as tears began to well up. She could smell the smoke, the blood. Her eyes were closed but she still saw her home burning to the ground after the attack. The lifeless eyes of her mother stared up at her from the floor. During the assault an explosion tore a support beam free. She had been crushed beneath its multi-ton weight. Though, she had not died instantly. The pressure from the bean kept her alive for several minutes. There were no tearful goodbyes, however. Samantha quickly covered her ears, though it did not help. In her memory of that day, she would never be able to mute the agonized screams of her dying mother.

Eventually, she had been taken as a trophy by the space pirates that attacked her home colony. Were it not for the Dillozouan generational ship that they crossed paths with, she would have been sold into slavery or become a rare delicacy for some salacious alien warlord who ran a modest empire along the outer reaches of the galactic rim.

"Broken Claw..." Samantha sighed loudly as she recalled the name of the master who had raised her. Life among the Dillozou people was difficult. They lived their lives in a much higher gravity setting. They specialized in armored physical defense and agility to a staggering degree. The food they ate was often toxic to her, and sometimes even something as simple as a hug might bring pain as the chemical makeup of the human and dillozou body was different.

At times their mutual body secretions, such as sweat, would act like an acidic irritant. Sometimes she would break out into hives or develop open sores whenever she was embraced for too long. At other times, her foster father the elder known as Broken Claw would have to see a medic in order to treat the minor pits that formed on his armored plates when she hugged him. Clearly, their races were not meant to embrace each other due to the chemical disparities in their hormonal makeup. Yet, Broken Claw did not allow that fact of biology to dissuade him. She was a child, and children needed to be both embraced and nurtured as part of their growth cycle.

The suit that Broken Claw gave her, it changed everything. An advanced prosthetic by design, its technological capacity was far beyond human means. Even she had yet to fully harness the power it would provide. She loved Broken Claw as a surrogate father, but it was inevitable that she would have to return to her own kind.

The Dillozouan people were slowly leaving their home galaxy, and their cultural legacies on many worlds, behind. They had grown old as a race. It was time to allow the younger races a chance to rise or fall on their own merit. They could only do that without the threat of some elder race looming over them.

No longer would the younger races be able to try and coax the great secrets of existence out of the Dillozouan people without taking the time to do any of the spiritual and technological work needed to uncover such things in a safe manner for their respective races. They did leave behind many ancient sites across the galaxy for the younger races to discover, however. Technology, ancient and primitive by modern Dillozouan standards, rested on many worlds for the young and vigorous to discover. Each of those discoveries might prove capable of catapulting most races decades, perhaps centuries, ahead of their current technology level once the uncovered lore was deciphered.

Many secrets awaited in the vastness of the galaxy. The Dillozouans wished the younger races well, but in the end those youthful societies would either prove capable of handling the secrets of the elder race or they would destroy themselves. Thus, was the thinking of the elders.

Samantha frowned darkly. The research station she was sent to investigate was located at an ancient city left behind by the Dillozouan people. They offered to pay her quite a bit since she was one of the foremost authorities in the galaxy in regards to the vanished race.

"It never changes. People always want to claim things they did not create, and then herald it as a discovery," grumbled Samantha. The job she had originally been offered was just a cover. The real job was for her to descend into the city and defeat the guardian that blocked entrance into the great archives. While it was not an uncommon task to be set before her, it grated on her nerves. In many ways, it was like those researchers wanted to rob the tomb of her adopted ancestors.

It was only a few of the parting words spoken by Master Broken Claw that caused her to accept such jobs. Those places had been left behind on purpose to be discovered. Though, it was painful for them to leave them. Many memories of their past would remain, along with their ancient dead. If there would come a time when people asked her to delve into such a place on their behalf, at least her doing so would be less of an offense to the honored dead who slept eternally within the depths of those worlds. She was a child of the Dillozou, just as much as she was a child of man. She was the honored bridge that existed between the ancient and the new.

Samantha snickered a little as she recalled many of the words of her foster father. "Yeah, pops. You're right. It's part of my responsibility to the Dillozou to explore the old tombs of our people on behalf of the younger races..."

A ruthless smile crossed her lips the moment she finished speaking those words. "It's just that these grave robbing bastards will have to pay me for the privilege... That too, is a time honored tradition for our people."