With Altinak looming large in their scopes, Samara turned to her counterpart. “Last chance to abort.”

Kalypso just shook her head. “We change course now; it’ll ping on every radar in the region. We’re committed.”

“Right,” she nodded. At least they’d confirmed Xeno had found a quiet place to park the shuttle as they made their run in. If worse came to worst he could attempt a rescue, though it was unlikely he’d be able to save them from the Troika or their Protean henchmen, not that it would stop him from trying. He was her oldest, dearest living friend, and the thought she might lead him to his death was hard to bear.

“All right then,” she continued, taking a deep breath, “here goes everything. Live mic.” Samara pressed the “Talk” button and spoke. “Altinak Base, this is Captain Tamari of the PCS Yōkai, on final and nearing your location. Requisition approach and docking instructions, over.”

The response came back almost immediately. “PCS Yōkai, you are to lock onto Beacon Twelve-Alpha and reduce your speed to 0.10kps. Docking Bay Two is cleared for your arrival. Standard procedures apply, over.”

“We copy, Altinak,” Samara answered, still garbed in the actual captain’s appearance and uniform. “We should complete docking maneuvers in the next twenty minutes, over.”

“Copy that, Yōkai,” the base radioed them. “We’ll see you on your arrival. Altinak out.”

Samara let out a quiet sigh. “Looks like they bought it.”

“So far, so good,” Kalypso agreed, “but that only gets us to the dock.”

“We shouldn’t have any problems there,” Samara countered. “We already planned on selling them the story we had an engine malfunction. We’ll tell them we need to meet with the station’s engineers to get some spare parts.”

She mulled that over, considering it, before slowly nodding in agreement. “Should work,” she grudgingly admitted.

“Let’s hope so, because if it doesn’t...” Samara left the rest of the thought unfinished. She throttled back the engines per their instructions, slowing down to a crawl as they neared the massive asteroid.

Docking the ship itself was almost an afterthought, with the computers handling most of the workload, calculating the craft’s direction and velocity down to five decimal points. As the ship locked into place Samara began shutting her down, killing the engines and tying in Life Support to the base’s systems as they worked their way through the checklist. Finally, they could put off the inevitable no longer.

“All right,” Samara said as she rose to her feet, “let’s do this.” The pair headed for the airlock, undogging the hatch as a contingent of base personnel waited on the other side. Stepping through the fake Captain Temari came to a halt in front of its leader.

“Captain, welcome back to Altinak,” the man told them, his mannerisms and inflection showing he was sticking to a script. “Are your passengers ready to disembark?”

“They are,” he/she nodded. “Is there any particular order you want them?”

“No need, we’ll sort them out when we take possession,” he answered, as a shadow now crossed his face.

Uh oh, something he should have already known, Samara realized. Have to fix that.

“I only ask in case there had been changes since our last visit,” she continued, covering for her faux pas. “With everything that’s happening…”

The expressions on the faces of the welcoming committee took on a sour cast. “Yes, well, they wouldn’t dare strike here,” the man sniffed.

“Excellent. In that case, I’ll start sending them through immediately,” she told him, before turning around and heading back inside the ship. Kalypso hovered anxiously nearby.

“Time to show our passengers the door,” she told her, as she punched up the intercom system. “All hands, this is the Captain speaking. We are now ready for you to exit the ship. As I call your cabin number, exit your quarters in an orderly fashion, remembering to take your possessions with you, and follow the indicators to the starboard side airlock. At this time, Cabins One through Four will now disembark.”

After just a couple of minutes, they got their first glimpse of the passengers. They were young, most of them, as young as she herself had been when she’d first arrived at Altinak. They shuffled forward, nervous, unsure, peering out the airlock to get their first glimpse of the future. Every one of them had given up all they’d ever known to be here, and it showed.

Just as she had, so long ago.

As they passed through the airlock she and Kalypso smiled, wishing them luck, as the orderlies and officials took charge of the new arrivals on the other side. Like lambs to the slaughter, she thought unhappily. If they only knew what was waiting for them…

A sudden clatter drew her attention back inside the ship. A young woman had gotten tangled up in her crutches, her body spasming as she struggled to retrieve her belongings. “I’m so sorry,” she gushed, mortified, as she fought to right herself.

“It’s alright,” she said gently, coming to the girl’s aid. It didn’t take long to get her sorted out, with Samara carrying her bag as she escorted her to the airlock.

“I can’t wait to start the procedure,” the young woman said, her eyes glistening. “No more crutches, no more being confined to a cot when it gets really bad.” She turned to her; her expression filled with desperate hope. “I’ll finally be free,” she said fiercely.

Samara felt something inside her shatter. In her fight... her crusade... to free her people from the corrupting influences of the Troika and their Terran collaborators, she’d somehow lost sight of what brought so many to the Clan, men and women not unlike this young girl before her.

To have even the smallest chance at a better life.

What the hell am I doing? she asked herself, in a sudden unexpected moment of forced introspection. Who am I to deny them this?

She investigated the young woman’s face... and saw a familiar one reflected in return.

And Xeno? Persephone? Gideon? What about them? her mind countered. Have you forgotten all the broken bits of flesh on the Island of Misfit Toys?

Then tell me how I look into this girl’s eyes and say, “I’m here to destroy your dreams and leave you without a shred of hope”?

The girl came to a halt, sensing something was amiss. She gazed back at her, waiting.

... Samara, this does not help the mission, Guardian advised her.

Revolution is great in abstract, she thought sadly, but when you face the people it affects it’s a different story. She didn’t have an answer to her dilemma. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure one existed.

So instead she plastered on a counterfeit smile, squeezing the girl’s shoulder before handing her off to the waiting medical staff, saying softly, “I hope you find everything you deserve.”

The young woman smiled in gratitude, thankful for the benediction, before moving to join the others.

... Judas, she cursed, turning away. You can’t even do this right.

Kalypso could sense something was off about her, but she wasn’t in the mood to share. She had to keep her head in the game and stay focused, otherwise, everything they’d gone through until now would have all been for nothing. Maybe they wouldn’t live through this mission, but she was still going to damn sure try.

After informing the welcoming committee about their supposed engine problems, they issued them a Pass and directed them towards the Engineering section of the hollowed-out asteroid. They’d even started off in that direction, as some of the more vulnerable infrastructure could be found there, all the wonderfully dangerous bits of modern technology that were so necessary for day-to-day life.

If they were going to have any impact at all, it would have to be here.

But first they had another matter to attend to. The pair found a cafeteria and ordered a simple lunch, saying little as they watched those around them go about their business. To the casual observer, it looked as if a pair of coworkers who didn’t especially get along were killing time before going back to their jobs. That it was a fairly accurate description only helped sell the illusion, for in reality they weren’t there for the food.

Half an hour after they sat down, Kalypso nudged Samara’s knee, nodding at a pair of women in overalls getting up from their table, one of whom was lugging a small toolbox. She nodded, wiping her mouth as they also rose, dumping their trash as they followed them at a discrete distance. They didn’t appear to be in any hurry to return to work either, chatting between themselves as they made their way down one of the major thoroughfares. It wasn’t until they turned off towards the central power plant that the two moved to close the distance between them.

They never saw it coming.

Rounding a corner, once Samara was certain they were alone and out of camera range, she and Kalypso lunged in unison at the two unsuspecting ladies, wrapping their arms around their throats and dragging them out of sight. The toolbox clattered to the deck as they struggled in their grasp, but they were hopelessly outclassed. With a simple twist, Samara snapped the neck of her victim, while Kalypso smashed the trachea of hers. She died gurgling her own blood, her eyes frantic before the darkness finally claimed her.

They wasted no time, Samara gazing at the woman she’d just killed before her body rippled once more, the blocky male Captain Temari disappearing, transforming into the slender female with mousy brown hair. Kalypso found a couple of pins to put her own hair up, doing her best to imitate her victim as they dressed in their overalls and located their badges.

“We can stash the bodies there,” Kalypso spoke up, pointing out a nearby storage bin. Samara nodded, flipping up the lid and surveying the contents. It was a tight fit, but it would do the job. They hauled the corpses over and dumped them inside, taking their combined efforts to close and latch the lid.

“Let’s hope no one needs anything out of there,” Samara remarked, checking her new look one last time before bending down and retrieving the toolbox. “That way,” she pointed as they headed deeper into the complex.

She hadn’t been in this section during her previous sojourn, as a patient there had been no need. She was operating purely by instinct, making her way by sound and smell and touch, seeking the machine lifeblood that pumped through Altinak’s body. Luckily, they’d chosen their victims well, as their badges had access to the very sections they were seeking. If they hadn’t, it would have been trickier, but they’d planned for that contingency.

It’s why they had the Cognates with them, after all.

Samara could feel a heavy thrum vibrating through the deck plates and she followed that, sensing it would lead her to the heart of the complex. They passed the odd worker here and there going about their own tasks, keeping their heads down and offering a muffled grunt as a greeting. No one gave them the slightest notice.

That familiar sensation slithered down her spine, burrowing into her soul. The mission was going well... too well, in her opinion. No one had challenged them; they’d found no doors they weren’t able to bypass. In short, it was all too easy.

And anything this easy just had to be a trap.

At the next junction Samara took a random left, bundling Kalypso into a maintenance closet. “We should abort,” she hissed in her ear. “There’s no way we get this far without running into Demon Murphy.”

Kalypso rolled her eyes. “Jesus, you’re a paranoid bitch,” she whispered back. “You heard the guy at the dock, there’s no way we’d attack here.” Her eyes positively twinkled with delight. “They let their hubris get in the way, and that arrogance is about to cost them dearly.”

“I’m telling you, this feels off,” Samara warned her. “Something should have happened by now.”

“Will you relax?” she demanded. “If it all goes south, you can whistle up your little demon warriors, right?”

“Well... yes, but…”

“But nothing,” Kalypso snapped. “You’re letting your fears dictate. Stop that. You’re the one who started this Jihad, remember? Are you going to see it through to the end?”

She took a deep breath. Kalypso was right. It was just her nerves talking. There was no sign someone had spotted them; no alarm that had been raised, no security teams rushing about with weapons drawn. Just people going about their daily business.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

“Later,” she growled, “we’re wasting time.”

Samara nodded and slipped back out of the closet. They’d made it this far undetected, letting all fall through their fingers because of a case of jitters was as stupid as it got. Once this place was just a distant memory, she could freak out all she wanted. Until then, it was time to get down to business.

Taking another turn, she came to a hatch marked “Containment”. The two grinned as they swiped their badges across the reader and stepped inside, taking a moment to let their eyes adjust in the gloom. This space saw little use; everything was coated with a thin layer of grease and grime while electric lamps sputtered overhead, throwing grotesque shadows all around them.

Making her way to the console, Samara got to work. She wasn’t a Tinker or even a Cognate, but she had spent enough time around machinery she could usually hunt and peck her way through. She gave herself five minutes; if she hadn’t figured it out by then, she’d hand off to Guardian and let it do it.

Kalypso inspected the nearby wall panels, her brow furrowing as she gave them closer scrutiny. “Hey, get over here,” she whispered.

She hastened to join her. “What did you find?”

The other woman tapped the panel. “There’s something behind this; an empty space of some kind.”

“Like a hidden room?” Her mind whirled as she tried to come up with a reason why they’d go to that much trouble. “See if you can find a release switch,” she told her, as the two of them began searching the bulkheads.

It was another ten minutes before Samara felt something shift beneath her fingers. “Found it!” she whispered in triumph, as she depressed the hidden toggle and felt the panel give way, swinging inward to reveal a much larger compartment, hidden in gloom. They inched their way inside, feeling their way across the bulkheads when suddenly a loud clang echoed behind them as someone cut off their escape route.

Harsh lights snapped on, making them wince and hold up their hands to shield their eyes. As they adjusted, Samara’s breath caught as she stared at a dozen or more security professionals, their weapons trained on her and Kalypso...as an all-too-familiar face appeared before them.

“Hello Samara,” Azrael smiled.

“We’ve been expecting you.”