Foundation of All

Sean shifted nervously in place as the group sat curled up in the shipping container while practically stacked on top of each other. The container was ice cold and filled to the brim with raw fish and sushi inbound for Immortus station. All four of them were all wearing stealth suits like what Emily had worn for her mission on Enguli all those centuries ago.

Nyx had taken a few months to teach them how they were used and how to properly sneak around, but other than that he had brought them straight here to get started. He had already planned everything and ‘greased the wheels’ ahead of time as he put it.

The suits not only rendered them invisible to light, but also had an internal cooling system so they couldn’t be found through their signatures either. Nyx had bribed the driver of the food shipment, a mortal that took the ludicrous money Nyx offered him greedily.

All of the luxuries at Immortus station had to come from somewhere, and so it was mortal companies that delivered the goods on a regular basis. All the driver had to do was leave the door of the shipping container door wide open ‘accidentally’ for a few extra minutes after it was on the station so they could leave. That was if they made it through security.

Nyx was sure that it would work, but he didn’t know everything about security so he admitted that they might be caught. Not that he had cared all too much when he said that, it seems getting the chance of meeting Emily was worth whatever risk to him.

But it was still nerve wracking as they all stood there invisibly just waiting as they were presumably scanned as the ship flew towards Immortus Station.

Finally after what felt like forever, the ship rumbled around them then there was a heavy clunk as the ship presumably docked at the station. Sean let out a sigh of relief.

“Alright, don’t fuck it up everyone,” Nyx said, as thoughtful of their feelings as usual.

“Remember the maps, regather at the maintenance hallway. If you get caught, don’t squeal on the rest of us. Don’t fire your weapons unless you’re about to get caught. If you get in combat with literally anyone competent at security you’ll all be flattened in seconds, but best to get captured with a bang at least if you’re already spotted. Got it?”

“Yes,”

“Yes,”

“Yes, Nyx,” Lira said, a little politer than the rest of them despite her dislike for the man.

“Great,” Nyx said, “See you there then. Remember to go in order after the door is open.”

Sean nervously stalked through the strangely familiar halls of Immortus station. It felt like forever since he’d been here, but everything was exactly the same as he remembered it. Even the people that Sean carefully avoided were the same as before, continuing in the same exact routines that he had seen them performing when he was here last. He recognized most of the people here, blissfully going about their routines the same as they had over five hundred years ago.

Sean wondered if he would be like them someday, locked into an endless cycle of doing the same things over and over again. At least when he was working on his projects he could feel the improvements to himself or his designs. At least when he played Foundation of All he could feel and see the progress and growth of the factory.

At least when he explored the galaxy with his friends he always saw something new. What would he do when he had seen everything, when his progression stopped after he had already improved to his maximum?

An unfamiliar Immortal turned the corner and Sean held his breath as he almost ran into him. But the invisibility field held and the man walked by while humming a little tune to himself barely five feet away from Sean. Sean was lucky that his bulky weapon was strapped to his back so he hadn’t reflexively pulled the trigger and exposed his presence to the rest of the station when the Immortal recovered.

Sean waited until the man was a good distance away before carefully stepping again trying to be as quiet as possible while he made his way to the meeting point. The shoes on the suit muffled his footsteps somewhat, but any other noise he made could be easily picked up by people around him if he wasn’t careful.

Sean continued down the hallways, freezing and pressing himself to the walls while holding his breath if someone came by. His heart pounded rapidly every time, so loud in his ears that he worried that the person walking by would hear it.

But finally after dozens of close calls, Sean finally made it to an unobtrusive maintenance hatch in a forgotten corner of the station. He carefully pressed the code that he had memorized into a panel to the side and the hatch slid open. Sean went through and quickly did the same on the opposite side to close it again.

“Hello?” He whispered softly, “Anyone here yet?”

“Yeah, you’re the last one,” Nyx’s voice said from thin air, “Seems we’ve all made it. Things are going well so far. Alright. There will be some real security down on the prison level. Roger, you ready with the explosives?”

“Yeah,” Roger’s voice said from thin air, “I’ll plant them and set them off as a distraction. How long should I wait? Plan was for two hours, but what if it takes longer?”

“Remind me why we’re not using radios or something?” Lira asked, “Then we could talk to Roger.”

Nyx snorted, “Didn’t I explain this shit already? The Immortal Council spies on everyone, always monitoring everything they can. As soon as they know something is wrong they’ll be on the sources of any unknown signals in the station in an instant and ambush our asses. Why do you think we had to reunite in this random ass hallway rather than getting on with it?”

“No need to be so rude about it,” Lira muttered.

“Sean, Lira, you’re with me,” Nyx said ignoring her comment, “Roger, remember to hijack a ship for our escape too while you’re waiting to set off the bombs. Docking bay 5a. 5a. If you’re not there with a ship ready then the rest of this is useless.”

“I got it,” Roger said with tension in his voice, “Why do I have to do all the bombing and ship hijacking again?”

“Because your ass is expendable,” Nyx said reflexively before pausing, “Errr, forget I said that. Usually the idiots that accept those parts of the job are expendable and used as the fall guy if things go sideways, but you aren’t that here. Totally not expendable according to your friends. Sean needs to go so the Plaguemother will trust us. And Lira is better at hacking apparently so she can help open the cells. That’s way harder than breaking into a ship. And don’t worry, we’re at a higher risk of getting caught. If we don’t make it you can just turn invisible and slip away and escape later. We’ll be right in the prison doing the breakout, so security will be right on us.”

“I suppose…” Roger replied, “Fine. Two hours, then the bombs go off. You guys better make it back or I’ll be pissed.”

“I’m touched you care so much about me,” Nyx said sarcastically before the door to the hallway slid open again.

“Alright, I’m going,” Roger’s voice said from the opening, “See you all soon.”

“Okay you two,” Nyx said, “Waiting time. Then off to the prison break, what fun.”

Sean followed Nyx through the hallways, the man occasionally making a soft clicking sound with his tongue so Lira and Sean could follow him as they all remained invisible.

They reached the door to the prison level, and Nyx typed in a code into the panel. According to him those codes had been the hardest part, and he had to pull several favors from Immortals that he knew to get it. All the defenses here were automatic since none of the Immortals wanted to be constantly standing guard over the prison.

But that being said, they were on a timer now. Even if they went in and did nothing then it was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the Enforcer whose codes they were using was nowhere near the prison at the moment. The door opened and Sean saw the long hallway stretching into the distance with bulky doors on either side.

The three went inside and pulled out their tools. There would be no speaking until they were sure they would be caught. There were microphones and cameras covering every inch of this place, and only the military grade infiltration suits they were wearing stopped them from getting caught immediately.

They immediately got to work, hacking the panels at the doors of each of the cells. They were flying blind from this point, with no knowledge at all of where Emily would be held. Sean finished hacking his first panel, and the file of the prisoner appeared. With one look he saw that it was a man and moved on.

They went one by one, breaking just far enough into the system to display the prisoner information before moving on when confirming that it wasn’t Emily.

“Psssst. Found her. End of this long ass hallway,” Nyx's voice suddenly said right next to Sean’s ear, “Figured she wouldn’t be imprisoned with the rest of these losers. She got a big special cell, and I need some help breaking into it.”

“Okay,” Sean whispered back.

“Head on down it’s at the very end, I’ll tell Lira,” Nyx said and then Sean heard soft footsteps across the hallway where another one of the prison door panels was flickering and displaying prisoner information.

Sean complied after a moment's hesitation and carefully walked down to the very end of the hallway that seemed to stretch for forever.

But at the end was a massive circular door unlike the others, looking like a single massive block of steel and completely smooth in blocking the entrance.

Sean started inspecting the panel, but it was one of the most advanced pieces of software he had seen so far. He would likely need to get in the internals and start rewiring things to get it open. Something that would surely be picked up by all the cameras pointed at him right now…

Sean heard two pairs of footsteps approaching from down the hallway. Sean waited as they approached and they were all standing over the panel.

“Can you get through the panel?” Sean asked, “Lira, Nyx?”

“I don’t think so,” Lira admitted.

There was a long pause as Sean stared into the apparently empty hallway.

“Shit, I don’t think I can either,” Nyx said, “Not without setting off the alarms.”

“But we planned for this, right?” Sean said, “We just have to wait on Roger and break her out while they’re distracted.”

“Yeah. Guess we just have to wait now. So much for getting away clean.”

And they did, standing there in silence nervously. Suddenly Sean let out a sigh of relief as the floor shook slightly underneath them, like a minor earthquake.

“Lira, you rewire the insides. I’ll do the software. Sean, get your pretty face ready to explain things to the Plaguemother once we get her out.”

Sean stood to the side and waited just outside the door as he heard Nyx and Lira furiously muttering to each other as the panel sparked and fizzed and Lira used her tools to dig around its insides to get the door to open. Sean shifted from foot to foot, waiting as they worked without him. There was only so much room at the panel as it was and he would only get in the way.

After a minute there was a loud clunk and the door in front of Sean started rumbling open. No loud alarm, no massive siren went off as the door fully opened. But Sean knew that station security would be coming soon.

He stared in confusion inside where a giant stone block sat in the center of the room, looming over the space.

“Damn, old school,” Nyx said from the side, “She’s inside the block, let’s blast her out.”

Nyx suddenly revealed himself as his suit flickered off, covering his whole body head to toe in its gray surface. He was hefting the bulky weapon that they all had and pointed it at the block. Sean revealed himself along with Lira and followed his lead.

“Alright, Squad,” Nyx shouted, “Let it rip!”

All three of them began firing and carving into the stone with their plasma beams even as Sean heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching from down the hallway.

They were cutting it close.

One moment Emily was being imprisoned with Peter standing right in front of her, and the next her body was covered in searing pain. She fell forward onto something hot, and the smell of burnt skin reached her nose. She could feel her hands embedded in her skull and with a groan she strained and pulled until her hands were free and ripped out of her head with a wet squelch and burst of blood. She was still blind, the heat around her cooking every inch of her skin over and over as she flailed around

She rolled and squirmed forward, feeling at the burning walls blindly to the cooler outsides like she was emerging from an egg. Finally, she fell out onto the blessedly cool floor and breathed heavily for a few seconds as she lay regenerating on the floor.

Something wrapped around her wrist and she flailed at it, only for the presence to immediately back off again. She felt the refreshing wave of nanites from a clothing band cover her as her eyes finally healed and she sat up blinking. She stared at the man standing a few feet away looking nervous.

“Sean? What are you doing here?” She asked dumbly.

“Getting you out,” Sean said, “C’mon. Let’s hurry, the security is coming.”

Emily stood slightly unsteadily still trying to figure out what was happening in the chaos. What was he doing? He shouldn’t risk… But he was already here, it was too late. The Immortal Council wouldn’t forgive him now, especially when he was saving her.

There was weapons fire from the hallway outside. What was going on out there? Had he come with more people?

She took a deep breath to calm down.

“Okay… Okay. You have a plan?”

Sean nodded, “Yeah, we do. Just put on the infiltration suit and we’ll fight our way out. In case we get seperated its docking bay 5a. 5a, that’s where we’ve got a ship so we can escape.”

He took something from behind him, a bulky suit rolled up in a tube that he tossed to her. She caught it and put it on as quickly as she could even as the combat outside intensified.

Sean handed her a small blaster and after giving it a brief check she followed him in running out of the door. She didn’t like combat, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t well trained in it.

Emily raised an eyebrow as she saw a man in a deactivated infiltration suit wielding a sword and pistol fighting three of the security team at once. A woman stood in the back with a rifle and was firing when she had the chance past the man’s form, but her stance was terrible and most of her shots went wide as she was thrown off balance by the recoil from her fire.

Emily stepped over to Sean, “Give me that,” she said before taking his rifle and handing him the pistol in exchange. He didn’t resist and nodded to her and raised his weapon to one of the three men fighting the security team.

“Nyx! She’s out!” Sean shouted, “Let’s go!”

Emily holstered the rifle and pointed at the team and took a ready stance and began firing. The first man she targeted stumbled back as her shots targeted his knees and elbows, hitting with pinpoint precision as she fired and stressed his shield by firing at different segments in sequence. Finally just as the shield finishing strengthening itself on the man’s lower body, Emily adjusted the rifle power to the maximum and blasted him in the skull, vaporizing it in an instant.

The other man, Nyx, exploited the surprise of the other two to leap forward and jump on top of one of the remaining men. He bore the man down to the floor and pressed his large sword into the shield in front of the man’s face. The two forces struggled together for a few seconds as Nyx pressed down with his full body weight and the shield glowed brighter and brighter to stop the tip of the sword from dropping down any further.

After a second, there was a loud crack and the shield broke allowing the sword to embed itself in the skull of the Immortal below Nyx, causing the struggling man to collapse.

The remaining security officer looked indecisive, head snapping side to side as he tried to decide if he should deal with Emily or Nyx first.

But before he could decide, a rain of fire from Sean and the unfamiliar woman both rained down onto him straining his shield to the absolute maximum. Emily raised her rifle and fired again at maximum power evaporating this man’s head as well as his shields finally failing.

She glanced to the side and saw that the first man she had taken down was already recovering with his skull almost fully reformed by now.

Nyx stood, leaving his sword embedded in the head of the officer on the floor.

“Alright let’s go,” he said, “No time to waste.”

Emily nodded to him and he tensed and his posture changed into what she could only read as exceptionally proud.

“Fuck yeah,” he muttered under his breath to himself as all of them ran for the exit at the end of the long hallway.

There were two more members of the Security team there at the end of the hallway, but they seemed surprised to see the large group charging them and the guards fumbled at their weapons at their sides.

All of them fired their weapons at once, and the two officers went down before they could even return fire. Emily checked her rifle. Thirty percent charge left. She only had a few more shots left.

They all jumped over the two limp bodies into the hallway. Nyx stepped to the side and the door to the prison level slid shut, and with a quick blast Nyx shredded the panel into scrap. There was some shouting coming from their left and so they all ran right as quickly as they could before whoever it was spotted them.

“Activate stealth and gather at Docking bay 5a,” Nyx said after they ran around a few corners and gathered together. There were footsteps and shouts all around, slowly circling in around them but still seeming confused about where exactly they were, “Split up and they won’t be able to block all of us. Hope Roger did his job.”

“Are you sure?” Sean said, “We should push through together, no one left behind.”

“No Sean, he’s right,” Emily said, “A group that’s invisible is still detectable. If there’s only one then each of has a better chance of being hidden.”

Nyx straightened, “Yes!” He said excitedly before appearing to calm himself, “I mean, yes. She’s right, that’s what we should do.”

“Okay,” the unfamiliar woman said, “Split up and meet up at the ship?”

“Alright,” Sean allowed, “Get back safe, Lira.”

“See you soon, Sean,” The woman said in a familiar tone. Emily looked between the two of them. Huh. Was she reading too much into things or were they…

“Really feeling the love here guys,” Nyx joked, “Let’s go before Security spots us and we’re sprung. Leave the lovey dovey eyes for when we’re all back at the ship.”

“Shut up, Nyx,” The woman, Lira, said in annoyance before her suit activated and she disappeared from sight. The rest of them followed suit and started off, each going their own way. Emily knew where 5a was, and quickly started sneaking her way there around the security that rushed past her in the chaos. And past all the confused citizens wandering around looking curious about what was causing all the fus.

Emily was nearly there, when suddenly the whole station shook and Emily staggered and braced herself against the wall. There was the sound of screeching metal and roaring wind behind her, and she heard screams in the distance. What was happening? Was this part of Sean’s, or Nyx more likely, their plan?

Emily’s thoughts raced as she finally reached the docking bay, jogging and speeding up after realizing that no one would be able to hear her move over the screaming and chaos behind her.

She immediately saw the ship with the open exterior door and raced into it and through the tube inside connecting the station and stolen ship. She made sure she was right next to the interior door before uncloaking and waving where she knew the camera would likely be.

After a few seconds the ship door slid open with a hiss and she quickly stepped inside, leaving the door to quickly shut again behind her. She went to the command center and saw Sean and another unfamiliar man there. The two were arguing with each other.

“It wasn’t me!” the man said, “I don’t know, I did exactly what he said. We’ll just have to wait for them.”

“Hi, Emily,” Sean said distractedly to her, “Glad you made it. We’re just waiting on Nyx and Lira still. Hoping that Roger didn’t blow them up with whatever extra explosives he planted.”

“It wasn’t me, I’m telling you!” Roger shouted, “Quit saying that!”

“Fine, fine,” Sean said, shifting foot to foot as they watched the screen showing the exterior door to the ship. Emily checked the time on the ship, and waited alongside the two men in silence. After what felt like forever, Emily checked the time on the ship again. It had been nearly thirty minutes.

“Look,” She said hesitantly, “How much longer should we wait? If we don’t leave soon we might all be caught.”

“We won’t leave until they’re back!” Sean snapped, “I’m sure they’re coming— I’m sure of it.”

“Ten more minutes?” Roger said and Sean shot him a look of betrayal.

“Look,” Roger said defensively, “She’s right. We only have so much time before we have to go, we can’t let all of this to be for nothing. Or to leave Ash alone. What would Lira tell us to do?”

Sean gritted his teeth, before turning away from the both of them.

“Fine,” he said, “Ten more minutes. But not any sooner.”

Ten minutes passed and no one appeared.

“Just wait a little longer…” Sean said desperately as Roger began to prepare the ship to detatch from the station.

“Sean, we have to go,” Emily said softly, “I’m sorry. They’re not coming.”

Sean didn’t reply but didn’t stop Roger from detatching the ship from the station and navigating them away. Even now despite what had happened, there was still some space ship traffic coming in and out of the station. Emily looked at the view behind them as Immortus Station shrunk into the distance. All along one side was a massive scar spilling out little chunks of debris from the station like a bleeding wound.

Had Sean’s friends done that? Emily hoped not, that seemed extreme just to help her escape from there…

Half way out of the system, someone finally noticed them through the chaos of ships helping repair and provide relief at Immortus Station. Or at least enough to mount a response and send three military ships roaring full speed towards them.

But it was too late, and before the first missiles could hit them a few hours later they were gone. Jumping into hyperspace and away free, two companions short.

Nyx woke up at the bottom of a giant pit filled with twisted metal and sparking wires. He hadn’t thought he had even given Roger that many bombs. Even if he had wanted to go wild and brought his own, and what kind of idiot just set them off without even telling his allies first? Nyx was going to beat his ass when he next saw him. Nyx stared down the barrel of the blaster of the Immortal Enforcer standing above him, the end of their weapon glowing as it pointed down at him.

“Sean better give me a fucking glowing recommendation to the Plaguemother,” He grumbled to himself as the blaster lit up brighter and in the next second Nyx’s head was seared away in a bright flash of plasma.