Liva cried out as she fell to the deck, her legs twisting beneath her as she landed hard on the unforgiving metal. She struggled to push herself back up, but her arm muscles trembled under the strain, giving way without warning as her face slammed onto the floor.

She couldn’t help it. Liva sobbed, the pain and frustration and exhaustion ripping away the last bit of armor she still had. She bawled like a child, just wanting it to all end.

A thin graphite cane prodded her. “Get up,” the therapist said.

“I can’t,” she whimpered. “Please, I just can’t.”

“You can,” she insisted. “You still have reserves you haven’t tapped. Dig down inside yourself and find them, then get back up and do it again.”

She tried. She really did, but again her triceps betrayed her, quivering like jelly, before dropping her back to the deck. Liva tasted blood in her mouth as she bit her lip, mixing with the salt from her tears.

Whack!

Liva yelped in pain as the cane came down, striking her shoulder blade. “Get. Up,” the therapist ordered, more forcefully this time. “The gene therapy alone won’t bring you to your full potential, to do that you must drive your body to its absolute limits. You only think you’re tired but trust me, you don’t know the meaning of the word. Not yet.” She crouched down beside her, lifting Liva’s head by her chin. “But you will. Oh yes, by the time we’re done you will know exactly how far you can push yourself. Now, again.”

Closing her eyes, she tried to shut it off; the sharp stinging agony where the cane had struck flesh, the dull ache of her muscles, the millions of tiny pinpricks she felt as her genetic code was being overwritten. Liva reached out and grasped one of the stanchions supporting the parallel bars and pulled herself up to a sitting position. She peered up at the therapist, praying that would satisfy her, but one look told her she wasn’t done yet.

So she searched within herself, seeking those reserves she’d insisted were still within her. With deep calming breaths she gathered her strength, and then began pulling herself up, bit by bit. Her arms had always been stronger than her legs because of her MS, but once she had lifted her hips off the deck and got her feet back under her, she used them to leverage herself back to a standing position.

“I did it,” she gasped, the sweat pouring off her body, but a fierce grin had forced its way onto her features. She’d done it, despite everything, and she couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. By God, she’d done it!

But another glance at the Medusa torturing her killed that elation in a heartbeat, as she pointed at the opposite end of the bars with the cane. Taking another deep breath, Liva bore down, sliding her hand forward a couple centimeters, before dragging her protesting leg up to match it. Then the other hand repeated the motion, as the corresponding lower limb struggled to keep up. Back and forth, left and right, over and over, in a halting, lurching gait, she slowly made her way down the bars, arriving at the finish utterly spent. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she looked up at her therapist for approval.

Sadly, there was none to be found. “Again,” she demanded.

Liva almost collapsed on the spot. There was nothing left. She was tapped out... just holding herself upright was a brutal struggle. But there was no mercy in that Gorgon’s eyes, no give, no empathy, so with a bone-deep weariness she took her right hand from the rail and leaned to the left, using the momentum to catch herself and start the turn.

She never made it. Somewhere in that double handful of centimeters, the puppet master cut the strings. Liva crumpled to the floor, her body limp and boneless. She couldn’t even muster up a cry for help. The tank was empty. All she could do was lay there, her limbs twitching as the nerve endings misfired. Once again, she felt the cane prodding at her ribs. “Get. Up.”

Liva knew what was coming next. She didn’t care. She could beat her with that cane all she wanted. Maybe she’d get lucky and kill her. At least then the pain would stop.

“That’s enough.”

Someone crouched beside her. “How dare you interrupt a session!” the harridan screeched.

“Can’t you see she’s done?” the other voice snarled. Liva opened an eye, smiling as she recognized Xeno as he gathered her in his arms and lifted her from the deck. “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said softly.

“The Director will hear about this!” the therapist sputtered.

“Fine. You do that,” he snapped, before turning his attention back to Liva. “How about I take you back to your room?” he suggested.

She nodded weakly, snuggling against him. The Medusa stormed off as Xeno carried her down the corridors to her room. “Thank you,” she whispered, before gazing up at him. He smiled back at her, his blue eyes twinkling with delight and mischief.

“I’m just glad I came along when I did,” he told her. “She shouldn’t have pushed you like that.”

She pressed her hand against his chest. “You’re a good friend, Xeno,” she murmured. From the moment they’d met in Orientation, they’d settled into an almost familial relationship. There were there for each other, when their schedules allowed it, and for the first time in a long time she felt safe in his arms. It was a shame they weren’t attracted to one another, Xeno would have made a wonderful companion. She’d been put off at first when they’d grafted that metal box to his skull, but now she barely noticed it.

You saw all kinds in the Protean Clan.

“Have you thought of a name?” he asked her. Part of the joining ritual was the taking of a new name as a symbol of one’s rebirth. The Clan hadn’t chosen the Phoenix insignia by accident; it was the perfect metaphor for the transformation all inductees went through.

“Not yet,” she answered as they entered her room. There were so many choices, it was hard to decide. Xeno laid her down on the bed, adjusting her pillow and covering her with a blanket as he took a seat beside her.

“I’m sure you’ll think of one soon,” he smiled, taking her hand. Liva sighed contentedly, smiling back at him. He had pretty eyes, she thought, when something caught her attention. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, but when she looked back into his eyes, she realized the brilliant blue was now gone, growing blacker by the second. Even the white sclera was graying as Xeno’s face became a study in horror.

“...what’s happening?” he howled, jumping to his feet. “I can’t see!”

His hands went to his face, his cries becoming screams of pain. A pair of orderlies burst into the room moments later, rushing to his aid. They struggled to pull his hands from his face to see for themselves what was wrong, and when they did…

Liva shrieked as she witnessed his eyes pulping into sightless black blobs of protoplasm, even as the orderlies dragged him away.

“... Samara.”

Samara opened her eyes, staring up at Xeno and Kalypso. “What…?” she struggled to get out.

“We were actually going to ask you that,” Xeno replied. “You didn’t respond to our hails when we broke orbit, and when we docked, what we found left us with more questions than answers.”

She struggled to sit up, wincing as she expected pain from her wounds, only to gape as she felt nothing. No pain, at least, though everything else seemed normal, only how was that possible? She wore a simple shirt and slacks, shipside issue stuff made with comfort in mind, not what she had been clothed in when they’d landed on Ifig’uq. Yanking up her blouse, her eyes grew wide as she gawked at her bare midriff.

There was no wound, and no scar. There was nothing.

“You were wearing this when we found you,” Kalypso told her, holding the pullover she remembered. Several holes now pierced the fabric, and as she peered closer, she could see something had tinged it light red.

As if someone had tried washing out the blood and had been unable to remove the stain.

“Maybe you’d better tell me what you found,” she said at last. “I’m not exactly sure what happened.”

“As you wish,” Xeno replied, apparently willing to wait on an explanation. “We waited fifteen minutes after receiving your signal, just as we had planned, before Gideon blew the first power station. The explosion was a bit more robust than expected, but it certainly got their attention.” He smiled at the thought, thoroughly pleased with the mission’s success. “The other targets still had shrapnel in the air when we burned for high orbit, and Gideon took out two orbital installations as we escaped. I can’t make guarantees, but right now I imagine the Eleexx have their hands full dealing with the fallout. Literally.” He chuckled at his own macabre witticism.

“Just give me the highlights,” Samara said.

“Based on pre-landing observations, and what information I have been able to glean from the planetary authorities, I would place the death toll at anywhere between six and twelve million,” he informed her. “I’d say we made quite the impact.”

“It sounds like it,” she said quietly, though her mind struggled with the numbers he’d so blithely revealed. They’d struck a blow all right, one that would have repercussions across the entire Perseus Arm. She just prayed they hadn’t signed Humanity’s death warrant in the process. “What happened next?” she prompted him.

“We began searching for your shuttle, and as luck would have it Rook spotted your transponder fairly quickly. We hailed you several times, with no response. You must have been unconscious during that period,” he said, stating the obvious. “It took us some time to dock; the shuttle was tumbling, and with no one able to correct its trajectory…” He shrugged helplessly.

“Get to the part where you found me,” she said tightly. Samara wasn’t certain she wanted to hear what they saw when they boarded the shuttle, she only knew she had to hear it.

Kalypso and Xeno shared a look... an eerie sight, given his blindness... before Kalypso took over the narrative. “Once we docked, Xeno and I entered and started searching for you. We weren’t sure what we’d find, what with the bloody smears and handprints on the bulkheads. Then suddenly, the trail ended.” She shook her head. “It was weird, like someone had wiped down the decks behind you, but that trail we’d been following? It ended in a perfectly straight line. Like, straight enough to shave with.”

That explains the shirt, she thought to herself. “And me?” she continued, steeling herself for what was coming.

“You were lying on the deck, clutching that... thing,” Kalypso shuddered. “That alien cube. We didn’t find any obvious injuries, but you wouldn’t wake up, and when we saw your clothing…” She reached out and took her hand. “Samara, what the hell happened?” The woman sounded a little hysterical.

She looked up at the pair. “I can’t explain it,” she said sotto voce. “The situation spiraled pretty badly right after the first blast. I broke out of the cuffs and ran back to the ship as planned, but…” she sighed, shaking her head. “It’s my fault. I should have never given him a loaded weapon, at least not until I’d disabled it first.”

“Jibril shot you,” Xeno said coldly. A statement, not a question.

“Twice, I’m almost certain,” she agreed. “In the back.”

“I knew we couldn’t trust that bastard,” Kalypso snarled.

“He probably saw it as a way to get back into their good graces, and prove he was still loyal,” she shrugged. “From his position it was a smart move.”

“Why are you defending him?” Xeno asked.

“I’m not,” she disagreed, “but I understand him. Were our positions reversed, I’d have done the same thing.”

“I doubt that,” Kalypso sniffed.

“I, on the other hand, do not,” Xeno shrugged. “Unlike our friend here, I have followed your career, as closely as I could manage, that is.” He smiled in sympathy. “I know there were times they forced you to do far, far worse.”

“I’m not sure it’s fair to say they forced me,” she answered, choosing her words carefully. “Deceived, perhaps. ‘Seduced’ might come closer on reflection, but no one put a gun to my head.”

“No, they merely put one in your hand,” Xeno said in clipped tones, “and then limited your choices to that, or nothing.”

“I don’t want to have this debate again,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I made my own choices.”

“Enough, both of you,” Kalypso snapped. “You still haven’t explained what happened, Samara. You say Jibril shot you, there’s blood smears throughout the shuttle...and yet there’s not a mark on you. How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” she said carefully. “My abilities let me do some healing... it’s just another way to rearrange my cells... but if that were the case, there would be scars.”

“... and the box?” she whispered.

Samara shook her head. “I... don’t remember much,” she admitted, “and most of it’s jumbled. Some of what I recall must have been a hallucination, at least that’s the only thing that makes any sense. So I just don’t know.” She shrugged helplessly.

“Which brings up another point,” Xeno interjected. “You say Jibril shot you, and the evidence we found confirms that.” Kalypso dangled the shirt in front of her to emphasize the point he was making. “In fact, it’s likely you lost a great deal of blood, which brings me to the question I find troubling.”

“And that question is?” she asked.

Xeno took a deep breath. “Samara, if you lost that much blood... then where is it? Are you saying you somehow reabsorbed it after being wounded? Because it wasn’t ablated off into vacuum, as there was no vacuum in the shuttle, no leaks or hull punctures detected at all.” He reached down and touched her shoulder. “If there is something aboard this ship... and I am purposely not saying what... that has developed a taste for human blood, then we should all be concerned.”

And for that, she had no answer at all.