Eve and Cesna squad were tackling the monstrosity in the middle of the city.
Team bravo, Mira's latest alien recruits were coming handy. The mutated surges however were outnumbering available Nomad resources.
The mutants manifested sometimes in the form of a swarm. Sometimes giants. It took a bit of a strategy as to who to send to handle the situation. Mira perfectly coordinated the commander's network.
K'tharr and Volrag were busy fighting a lava giant. Voila and Zohan daughter a zombie horde. Different worlds, different alien threats.
Like Amorfati, planets surrounding the Dark Galaxy were most affected. IC petrol ships crawled the galactic scale perimeter. Hundreds of commanders were monitoring the situation. Including two high space commanders. Eve was one of them.
The behemoth stood 40 meters tall. Looked like a lizard, except for three heads breathing cold blasts that exploded everywhere iceballs landed. Nomad soldiers were helping the local military clear the area of civilians while Eve and Cesna girls fought the monsters.
They successfully placed charges on the creature's belly and neck. Then a powerful explosion sent chunks of meat flying in the air. It fell down.
Nomad guards escorted Eve and Cesnas back to the extraction ship. As always, the local government wanted to host a ceremony thanking Eve but Nomad diplomatic officers took care of it, filling in her place.
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"How did this happen?" Eve asked Mira.
"You have to see what Kai has to show us." Mira responded.
They stood in Nomad's medical bay 5. Hannah was still unconscious. Dr. Salam Shah, as always, was present to the situation along with a dozen other Nomad doctors… highly skilled to treat cybernetics, human and alien patients.
Later Kai, Eve, Mira and Salam stood in the briefing room. The screen showed footage of the team's encounter back at Amorfati wasteland town.
Kai's drones had captured details, no one could see otherwise. As the masked woman fought. Her skin rippled and crawled with nanobytes.
"Xenomorph?" Eve asked, surprised.
"Or something just like it." Salam Shah added.
"Thelarians have their next big gun," Mira said, "we have been seeing Thelarian dreadnoughts patrolling the outer edges of the dark galaxy. Reports of new outposts on several planets."
"So they are already out of their mouse hole?" Eve asked.
"Now we know why." Kai noted.
"She asked for me, she's going to get me."
"Hold your horses Eve. We don't know what she's capable of."
"She literally let us walk away. Perhaps to deliver you her message. While we are blind, she knows about you. She might know your powers. Weaknesses." Kai spoke up in protest backing Mira, "Commander, you can't just go in like that."
"We don't need Intel, we already know her location. Get me to that planet."
"Just think of Hannah…" Mira knew how to get to her nerves.
Eve sighed, completely disarmed.
"You got one week, Mira. Then I'm going in."
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Eve headed back to her sleeping quarters. She was furious. Even more so that she couldn't do anything about it immediately.
Inside her room. She was sitting in her chair, multiple screens, digging information on the new Thelarian recruit. It was in ages she had logged into commander's logs. She neurally operated, scanning streams of data at unhuman speeds.
Suddenly a file came up, labelled Dr. Kyle Seraphis. Eve realized she never thought once of checking out the IC records on him.
The file uncovered several unknown facts about Dr. Kyle Seraphis. Including everything from his past achievements, his amazing work on human and alien genetics, evolutionary work. Enhanced mutants he had created and developments that lead to foundation and making of the likes of Cesna sisters. The file spoke in depth of Kyle's work on Eve. Then something caught her attention.
Eve's pubils widened as she read the name. DR. ZAALTHORE SERAPHIS.
Her jaws opened. She kept looking at the name dumbfounded. All this time she never though Dr. Kyle, her maker, had a brother. And it all sat right in her lap.
She opened Zaalthore's file. Archives speaking of a mischievous maniac whose genetic experiments only caused trouble. Kyle tried to protect him. Eventually, Zaalthore was kicked out of IC labs. Events that followed also lead to Kyle's voluntary resignation.
'If Kyle joined the Thelarians to continue his work, is it possible Zaalthore was with him at the lab while I was under captivity?' Eve took a mental note.
She dug more. But there was no info on the whereabouts of Zaalthore. None.
She comm-ed command center, "This is commander Eve, now declassifying files on Dr. Zaalthore Seraphis. Authorization Code: Alpha-Zero Level 3 Clearance. The analytical wing is to immediately prepare a full report. Find anything on his whereabouts. I want Nomad agents crawling every space. All the places where he could have been before he disappeared into the dark galaxy."
Eve took off her earpiece and put it on the table, got rid of her mini-jacket and walked into the washroom.
She splattered water on her face. Water streaked down her neck and seeped into her crop top.
Looking at her reflection in the mirror. It angered her. How she could have been so careless.
One. She missed out on Kyle's IC files. Two. She let the squad go alone.
She raised her hand to punch the mirror, but before her fist could punch the glass. Something crawled out from the skin of her forearms and turned into a shining bracelet with a leather harness.
Eve paused. Looking at it. 'Of course, the Syndicate, they must know something about it.'
She had almost forgotten about the badge. She had visited Talcador after the rebellion and clearing the demon threat from Virtuality with Mother Cetra's help.
As instructed she had told the Syndicate to stay away from the monoliths. She had also announced that's how far the Syndicate and Nomad could walk together. She remembered the last part of that conversation.
"So here is your badge," she tossed it on the table.
The badge jumped back and disappeared in her body.
"Madam Eve, the badge has been pieced together from a lightform species, it has a consciousness and feelings. Once given it can never be taken back. It syncs to your DNA and your brain. You become its master, it becomes your slave. Your leaving the Syndicate just needs saying so. Keep the badge as a souvenir and as a pet. I promise you, it will come handy."
This was the only time it had crawled out of her skin ever since. It had been listening to her thoughts. It was neurally linked.