We were fortunate that the area of the Magnus Desertus around Sanitas was not a complete sand pit. On a scale of "dunes for miles" and "dry, cracked wasteland," it was far closer to the latter. Searing sunlight, blazing heat, and blistering winds were still difficult pills to swallow, but at least the land was mostly flat terrain with almost even footing.
The ground around us was a webbed network of breaks, dips, and valleys – evidence of a lake that had long since dried. Grandfather used to tell me stories that life in town had revolved around it, when he was young. Centuries ago. It was a wonder that my hometown still thrived without it for so long. Perhaps Osmosians were similar to humans in that regard – families tended to stick together in places that were familiar, even if they could often be suited to any environment. Add in the longer lifespan, and it made for a closer family unit than most.
Or perhaps even longer held grudges.
"You sure this is the place?"
I wanted to ignore Gabriel's question – the man had shown remarkable aptitude to move through the desert without complaint, for someone less suited to the environment. Sheets of sweat poured from him, but he merely chugged water from containers at his side to keep himself moving. Mother, on the contrary, was starting to grow weary, and I was propelled along through sheer willpower to see it through.
"I'm sure we're not far."
The human – and what a trip it was to call him that – continued following the ridge, stepping deftly over small crevices and spots of weakness. "You boys were lucky you had that drone to plot your path. Without it, I don't think you'd have ma…." His voice trailed off.
No one wanted to be reminded of how close I had come to dying.
I banked on the idea that if we could somehow find the remains of the weather drone, then we'd be real close. Gabriel could study the crash site, could report back to whatever organization he worked for, and could point us in the direction toward Father. Assuming all of the pieces I thought were connected were legitimate, then we could do something.
Mother sighed as we rounded another bend and found nothing. Another strip of blank, barren land under a baking sun. "I'm calling Maximus, this is ridiculous-"
"No!" I barked. "We're not far now."
She did not stop reaching for a communicator, and I pushed through exhaustion to reach her side quickly. "We can find another way, Cassian."
"I'm telling you! It's close!"
It had to be close.
It had to be.
"For all we know, we're moving in circles-"
Gabriel cleared his throat loudly and raised his hand, revealing a compass. The most basic compass I'd ever seen, one that could have easily been bought in a Dick's Sporting Goods store. To pull such a simple device from his pocket while I am wearing a sophisticated piece of armor he created from a capsule smaller than his pinky finger? I suspected nanotech was at play, or perhaps hard-light, and I don't even know what to think.
"We're not going in circles," he promised, then leveled his attention on me. "Kid, we're gonna want to start a radial search pattern soon if you can't lead us there directly. Then, we'll be going in circles." He chuckled to diffuse the tension, but it didn't make Mother feel any better from the look of her face.
I scoured the surroundings even as Mother groaned and typed on the communicator.
… Oh.
I dashed ahead as quickly as I could, nearly tripping over loose stones, and skid to the ground. Mother and Gabriel were fast at my heels. I pulled at the upper layer of dust until finally, something familiar came loose.
A piece of metal. Thin, faded lightly on one end from exposure. One that matched the shaped frame and color of a familiar weather drone.
I held the heavy debris aloft with vindication. "This is it! I told you! We're close!"
Mother and Gabriel passed the drone piece to each other, and while she held it in her hands, her eyes softened as they glanced over its surface. Fingers traced over a serrated edge. "You… encountered something that did this?"
That alien's snarling maw haunted my dreams. Its lack of eyes, its horrendous breath, its sharpened claws, its flashing tail…. It was almost the shape of a xenomorph in its stature, and it moved like one too.
I never wanted to be that helpless ever again.
Gabriel pressed something in his jacket lapel – a camera, perhaps, or some other type of scanner I couldn't recognize. Whatever tech it was had a lens, but it was small and not attached to anything else I could make out. "All right. You got us this far, kid. I'll take it from here."
As he walked, he turned his torso in as many directions as he could. Mother followed slowly behind him, uncertain. A sense of relief invigorated me – we had found the area, and now, someone else was taking the burden of responsibility. The adults – the other adults – likely felt they had had it for the last two and a half hour hike, but it was me. It was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.
"Should we stay here?" Mother prodded as she clutched onto my arm, daring Gabriel to challenge her.
The man sharply shook his head once. "That ship sailed a long time ago, my friends. I would go on ahead myself, but I don't know what's out there." He looked Mother up and down. "You're the strongest of us here, Lucrecia. I want you watching my back."
Left unsaid was that neither one of them wanted me left alone.
That served me well enough.
Begrudgingly, she urged me forward.
OSMOS V
August 04, 16:29 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The Ambassador knew his role and he knew it well. Preparations were well underway for a meeting with the Triarchy's enemies in the far-flung continents across the oceans. Within the week, the Osmosians would be deep in discussions over sovereignty, conflicts, and eventual assimilation. The Ambassador's agents had already been in talks with important pillars from each of the independent city-states, and it would be only a matter of time before they, too, came to the table and were ready to deal. The Reach stood to gain the most from any negotiations, and the Ambassador was looking forward to sharing this new world with the rest of the empire once their machinations were complete.
A panel of data floated at his mental command – substantial blackmail material he would only use against one of the more stubborn resisters if necessary – but he had no time to review its intricate details before someone barged into the room, uninvited.
He softened slightly as he saw her. The Enforcer and her golden scarab armor gleamed under the artificial light of the chamber, details from the monitors displaying a stunning view of the Triarchy's Capital glittering across her feathered wings. Her body language was tense – not at all like what he expected to see. Behind her entered two of her guard, red cloaks billowing under plate and plasma spears at the ready.
Old paranoia gripped him – perhaps this was a power play. It would not be the first he had endured, and it would not be the last. This was the perfect time, too – on the cusp of victory, without the Reach having to lift a single appendage against the populace. All it would take is a single stroke, and she could take all of the credit.
Instead, the Enforcer spoke with haste, offering only a faint amount of the mirth that she normally held in conversations with him. "Amby, there has been a breach in planet sector B24, near crash site seven."
He winced at the nickname said in mixed company but did not deign to admonish her.
The Ambassador thought carefully of where that might be, before she ordered her scarab to take command of the security panels. The display of the Capital marked with points of interest shifted to that of a desert environs. A map of its perimeter, the site of the crash, and its proximity to an outlying Osmosian town joined the displays.
"Why is this of urgent interest to me? Protocol dictates that-"
"Preliminary data indicates one of the three who have breached the perimeter is not Osmosian, nor of any species among the Reach."
The Ambassador could not hide his curiosity. "Fascinating. And we are certain it is no fluke of our sensors? Perhaps they are merely one carrying the genetic factor for Osmosian Exceptions and reading incorrectly in our systems."
Scanned data from perimeter probes raced onto the screens, and the Ambassador studied them with interest. No… this man was no Exception, and no native, despite sharing many of the same morphological structures. The Reach held no data with a cursory glance of their archives that could reveal his nature, and that was of interest.
"I can perform a more thorough analysis at your command, Ambassador," the Enforcer's scarab offered as it broke the silence of the grand meeting chamber. "Perhaps the Enforcer and I can investigate in person."
The Ambassador shook his head. "Negative. Enforcer, send Xandros."
"But Amby, he's in a-"
He waved her off. "Never mind. I'll do it."
The Ambassador reached onto a carapace-like console and interfaced with the only other infiltrator-class scarab in the system. A live feed revealed that Xandros and his wife Camila were mid-coupling. With the command of a button, the armor slid over the nude man's form, and Xandros yelped as he lost control of his body. The Ambassador spoke for Xandros through the connection. "Camila, I have an urgent mission."
Xandros begged for this to stop, but his wife could not hear him. The commander of the Reach operation on Osmos V had little care for what their pawn wanted, and it brought the insect a great satisfaction that he could witness Xandros' most private moments.
The Ambassador took control of their Osmosian asset for the second time in twelve hours. Without much more fanfare, the Scarlet Scarab rocketed high into the sky, a crying wife left behind amid broken skylight glass.
OSMOS V
August 04, 18:47 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Maximus hated waiting in the vehicle for a sign that they needed him. He had never been a patient man, in youth or in his now older years. He had a lot more life to live, and he doubted that mindset would change any time soon.
He had no shortcuts to make his role in all of this easier. He'd constantly sought ways to make things simpler, to make things faster, to automate what he could so that he could focus time on his children. But now? His son was missing, and he had no Gift to try to fix any of it.
Lucrecia did. Cassian did, too, for all the good that would do for the boy without experience. The boy's mother – Maximus'd have to pin all of his hopes on her, for the woman had years of power under her belt, even muted after all the time of a desk job.
During those early years of their relationship, Horatio must have seen something in the woman that Maximus hadn't. She was pretty, but pretty doesn't excuse bad behavior. It was clear that she was trouble for others or was in trouble herself. Maximus wasn't sure when Lucrecia evened out, but it was long before Cassian came along. The boy probably had no idea that his parents both held some pretty rough patches in their past.
She had some fight in her, at the end of the day, and that fight would have to be enough to get them through anything dangerous they might find. Maximus hoped they wouldn't see anything, of course, but well, they'd be fine with her there.
Still… he considered what he'd uncovered in these trying weeks, what he'd been trying to create. He desperately wished to make contact, to set plans into motion that would only be necessary if the worst comes to pass, and he was close to making the call.
A tone alerted his attention, and he activated the communicator to hear Jula's voice cutting into the din of the car. Maximus sighed slightly, not quite sure if he was prepared to hear whatever this was.
"Father, how goes the search?"
Distracted from his desperate thoughts, the sound of his daughter's voice brought him some amount of calm. "I'm on vehicle duty, while the others go out there to see what they can find."
Jula hesitated. "How's my nephew doing cooped up?"
Maximus wanted to chuckle when he realized she was trying to talk louder, to prod at the boy if he were here. Instead, he focused on the grim reality that their eight year old was out there. "He's not. He went with them."
A pause. "Did he sneak away?"
"No, but I wouldn't put that past him."
Jula sounded exasperated. "Listen – Cassian wasn't lying about the aliens. They're real. The Reach confirmed it!"
She played an audio recording of the interrupted product announcement broadcast, and Maximus felt every muscle grow taut with tension. None of this was a coincidence.
"I didn't think the boy was lying," he muttered, more to himself than to her, "but I don't like any of this."
Jula's voice shook. "I-I don't either. Father, you have to listen to me. Don't stay out any longer than you have to. Honestly – bring them home as soon as possible. We're hearing a ton of things in the Capital, and things don't look pretty if even a quarter of it is true."
Maximus sensed the seriousness in her plea, and it was not like her to be so worried about any shift in the state of affairs. She was more collected in moments where it counted. "I'll give 'em some more time. But only some."
As she ended the call to make preparations of her own, he adjusted his communicator and engaged in paranoia. He prayed they would not be needed, but he hoped that they would be ready in the worst possible outcome.
OSMOS V
August 04, 19:22 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
The moment I stepped around a particular rock formation is the moment I knew we had arrived. The sun had begun to set in the distance, and the way the shadows fell around it reminded me of that night. Mother clutched onto my arm when I abruptly stopped, and it did not need to be said that we had found it.
Gabriel immediately dropped into what should be the impact crater, something that was much deeper several weeks ago. Sands had largely pooled within the space, coating the bottom, though not evenly. A bit of digging, and we should be able to uncover the ship. I hurriedly moved to follow him, but Mother held tight and shook her head.
"I'm trusting you to stay right here," she answered my pleading eye. "I'm going to help him dig. If you spot something, shout us a warning and then run."
I started to complain, but I soon realized that it was the best I would get out of her. I had a nebulously strong piece of intergalactic tech covering my torso, and she probably thought it would be enough to stave off injury until help arrived. It would have to be enough.
Mother slid down into the crater with an almost unnatural ease. Gabriel began directing her to help him uncover the earth in several places, while he pulled a chrome rod from the back of his belt and brandished it before him. Every few seconds, a flicker of light would emanate from its widened tip. Once he performed a seemingly full sweep, he reached for a pair of thick-rimmed goggles hidden in a jacket pocket and slid them over his eyes, looking nearly every bit an emerald version of Cyclops.
"What do those do?" I called out to ask him, curious about whatever tech a human would bring with them in this likely futuristic society. One that apparently still used a compass for navigation, but perhaps had a spaceship somewhere hidden. I still wanted to ask him so many questions.
He seemed to consider the question for several seconds before he cleared his throat, the goofy device so tight around his head that it pulled his cheeks taut. "Both are scanners for types of radiation. If we find an ion trail, or something like it, it can tell us a lot about where the alien came from, or perhaps even where it went."
"Why ions? What's that mean?" Mother asked. I doubted anyone here did not know what ions were, but I was also at a loss for why that would be relevant.
"When ships move through space, they tend to leave behind a trail of material you can track. Not with your eye, but with tools like these."
"You have devices that can track spaceships?" I prodded. "Where'd you get them?"
"Took them from an engineering lab a few years back," he explained casually. He was a good liar – might even be true. "A buddy let me use them to look some things over, and I figured they'd come in handy during an investigation like this."
"You getting anything helpful?" Mother asked, impatient. "Where am I digging?"
He gestured for Mother to start in a different place from himself, and the two began sifting through earth as quickly as they could. Mother had a significant advantage after turning her hands into something metallic, fingers and palms acting almost like shovels to break apart the more packed earthen chunks and dig deeper. She was determined.
"When you looked through the other crash sites," I began, "did you ever find the ships?"
"No," Gabriel admitted, "but the big difference here is that this one happened much more recently than the rest, and it's in such a far-off place. It'd take days to get into position to retrieve it."
Mother was confused, even as she swung her shoveling hands further into the dirt. "You think the Triarchy has the other ships?"
"Who else?" He shrugged. "Them or the Reach. No one else stands to gain as much, and that's a big question you have to ask yourself when you investigate anything."
On that somber point, the digging continued. Gabriel's tools were curious and multi-purposed, and contemplating why he would be carrying such a strange collection of gadgets kept me entertained throughout the long, arduous process. It did not take long before they allowed me to assist with the digging, to give one of them a break while they watched for danger. Throughout each moment of intense exertion, I posited a few potential scenarios in my head for Gabriel.
One – the man worked for NASA, or a futuristic equivalent of it. Perhaps he was a scientist sent into space to investigate alien life. The tools he carried were meant for exploration, discovery, and research.
Two – the man worked for a space-age arm of the military. A lone scout sent to infiltrate a potential hostile planet. Maybe we were close enough to Earth that it was feasible we could be a threat, even without the planet having access to interstellar travel. These gizmos could easily just be for threat assessment.
Three – and the more likely option – I didn't have enough information to guess. I didn't know how to ask him outright without tipping my hand, and that paralysis just kept me from-
"Got it!"
Mother's shout broke my hour-long reverie. Torso covered in strange metal, she pulled and pulled at a large, protesting piece of the same substance until it finally lurched in a whine from the more solid base. Beneath the panel she bent into two pieces with impressive strength lay a container capable of holding a single one of those canine aliens. Sand trickled into the interior of the pod from several spaces, and a bit of light emanated from machines that were still running, weeks later.
Gabriel moved so quickly he nearly tumbled, end over end, down an incline. "Incredible! We found it."
I joined them a moment later, and Mother did not turn to look at me when I clapped her on a metallic arm. She stared in horror at the pod, as though surprised to see the ship and having all of what I'd said confirmed.
"We're the first to find this?" I asked. "Can you tell?"
Gabriel ignored me and climbed into the space, adjusting the lip of the ship so that the sand would stop pouring into the interior. Mother took the moment to clear some of it away from the edge, but I didn't want to miss anything that the human was going to do. He tried interfacing with any of the tech that seemed to still work, and it was difficult to tell what was meant to look like it was cracked into pieces and what was not. Perhaps he knew better, because he began taking things apart and adjusting switches and knobs.
"Are there any clues?" I finally asked. "Things you think will lead to Father?"
I had placed a lot of thought into how Gabriel would know what to find to lead the two of us to the missing people. It would not be as simple as finding a trail in the sand, but I did not have much of a gauge for how much more complex it would be. There could be any sign in the data here. I couldn't read the man to see exactly how well or not he understood what he was studying, but he seemed confident.
The man barely responded, still adjusting anything he could touch and applying various implements that he had yet to explain from his pockets. "When I find something, I promise you'll know. This is going to take us some time."
A whine sounded throughout the area, painful almost to my ears.
"I don't think we have it."
Mother's comment confused me until I heard a sizzling bolt of plasma strike against her metallic side.
She threw me to the dunes so quickly that I had little time to react. A grunt of pain from her heavy torso slamming into me escaped my lungs, but the sound of it barely reached my ears above the din of super-heated material splashing against the impact crater. She rolled atop me and covered my smaller frame with hers, and each wince on her face was as painful to me as a dagger to the chest.
"Gabriel!" she shouted, turning her head long enough to try to see what's happening. The smell of charred flesh was overpowering, and I couldn't catch my breath long enough to sense if that was me or her.
From the angle she had me pinned, protecting me with her transformed upper body, I couldn't see much. Choking from smoke that billowed up where the hot material touched, and the crunch of hot glass beneath my fingers, I clawed for some free space to move, but she held me tighter.
"No, no, no, no!" Mother croaked. "S-stay down!"
I reached for something – anything – that could get me an idea of what the hell was happening. Pushing hard against Mother's chest, I barely managed to move her a fraction of an inch – or perhaps she merely moved out of the way enough for me to see – but I caught a glimpse of something in the air above us.
High in the sky, amid billowing black smoke, was a familiar man coated in scarlet armor. A single arm pointed down, a circle brimming with light the same color as the oozing plasma where his hand should be. A moment later, another volley fell from the flying Scarlet Scarab, and it was all I could do to shout a warning to the human nearby before concentrated heat glassed everything in sight.