“Why, why, why did you have to do this?!” Gamble yelled.

“What, it’s not like the ship was just gonna stop where we needed it to. The thrusters got blasted, so what? If anything we’re…” Suno checked his tablet. “Yeah, we’re lost.”

“Now you realize, surely you couldn’t have noticed that by crash-landing the ship here, we overshot the landing zone by a solid nine miles.”

“Well, we can still get to the base on schedule. Weapon testing still seems to be being conducted from the last couple of scans we’ve seen. Especially with the fact that the off-world transport for said weapons is still a couple of days away.” Suno explained. “And if my estimation is right, then we’ll be able to get there within three days if we maintain a good pace.”

“Fine, then let’s get moving. When INCOG hears that we had their ship shot down, you’re the one who’s going to explain.” Gamble then packed all of the equipment they could and set off, their footsteps imprinting on the soft ice below.

They moved through the tundra with a deft pace, always keeping form, the two agents kept going. The forest they were passing through didn’t do them any favors.

“Do you ever wonder why we seem to get sent on the cold missions? Like seriously, we’ve been on like fourteen ice planets at this point, and I can barely even remember their names.” Gamble groaned as he marched.

“I think one of them was Mordran, and the second one was like Holdfast IX, or something- on your right!”

Something was, indeed, on Gamble’s right. 10 feet tall, with mandibles, five glowing blue eyes, and 4 raptorial arms, a bipedal insectoid-animal started to make noises towards them.

Gamble, understandably pulled out his rifle and took aim. “Hey, Suno, should we be running or fighting or Nah?”

Suno responded, “Wait, I think this being is sentient, it doesn’t seem to be hostile towards us nor is it trying to get closer to us.”

“So it’s nice?”

“Maybe it was just alerted to our presence and is warning us to stay away…”

“Alright…” Gamble said while slinging his rifle over his back.

“Wait, its eyes are glowing, and do you hear that noise too?”

The high-pitched whine was coming from the insectoid, and its eyes were glowing a brighter shade of blue.

Suno whispered, “Run.”

Suddenly, with a piercing screech, the monster began to shoot a solid blue laser out of its fifth eye. The laser moved straight down between the two of them, forcing them to separate. Suno ran to find cover behind a boulder a couple of feet behind them, and Gamble was able to make it into a small rut a couple of feet behind them.

Suno began speaking to his earpiece, “How are we going to get out of this? It's not looking good, nor are we in a good position.”

“Well, fighting giant insects tends to get us into situations like these. Also my rifle -wait, no… where is it?”

Gamble looked over his cover to see that not only his rifle had been left behind, but also cut in half.

In addition, the insect started to crawl towards him as well, occasionally firing its beam at Suno. Once Gamble realized it wasn’t going to stop, he started to run. First, going all the way to the end of the rut, and hopping over, he ran past Suno’s position yelling “It’s going after me, meet me on the other side of the woods!”

He ran on running and weaving through the woods, into the dark, shrieks still echoing through the leaves. Suno didn’t really have any other choice other than to do what Gamble said. So he did and went as fast as he could. Their walk through the forest was only about an hour at walking speed, but when running it would probably only be 20-30 minutes. He just hoped Gamble would be able to survive for that long.

Surviving long enough to get out of this forest is probably very unlikely, Gamble thought. Especially now that he’s stuck behind this log. On the other side stands a vicious, laser shooting, giant bug, that’ll likely cause him to renounce his job for something better. Or at least he hoped, but there always seemed to be something else, another job, another day. 

He took a little peek at what awaited him. It was still there but much farther, somewhere around 10 meters away, instead of two. Safe to move, might be better than waiting it out till dawn, after all, they still had an objective to complete. He skipped a bit to the nearest piece of cover he could find, as the bug turned to look his way. If he could get out of its line of sight for good, Gamble would be home free. Another couple of steps, a couple more. Now he was almost out of the little area he had gotten himself into. He was close enough, and he began to run towards what seemed to be the only passable exit, a little ditch, although it seemed he was going to have to squeeze through. Should be easy enough, until he realized the little blue laser pointing at him. The next few minutes were a haze, frantically trying to get through as fast as possible while having a monster trying to eat him all the same. Its head was doing its best trying to at least get a solid bite off, but the passage was getting narrower and narrower until it got to the point that the opposite wall was almost touching his nose. This worked to Gamble’s advantage as the creature was desperate enough to get it’s head stuck. It wasn’t done just yet as it’s middle eye began to glow blue.

“Not this time.” Gamble remarked, as he took the opportunity to punch it in the eye, a technique he heard about back on Earth, giving him enough time to finally get away without having to worry about getting vaporized. “Never again, nope, never going here ever again.” He was finally out, but the passage led him to an empty cave, and he could faintly hear footsteps. “Oh god, finally, we made it.” Gamble uttered, breathing a sigh of relief. “Lets keep going before…” he realized that it wasn’t Suno, but a Zeranict guard. Naturally, he leapt at him.

It was one of the longest runs of his life but, Suno finally made it around and back into the forest. He spent five minutes trying to find Gamble, only to hear a series of grunts and muffled yells coming from inside a cave. When Suno finally got up to check what it was, he saw a Zeranict soldier, but right when he was about to start fighting him, he yelled,

“Woah, woah its me!”

The soldier lifted his visor to reveal Gamble’s face, looking very impressed with what he had done. Suno only realized the unconscious Zera lying right behind Gamble.

“You know, when the chance appears I’m getting you one too.”

Suno responded, “This doesn’t sound half bad,”

“Yeah, if we’re able to get in quietly and secretly, no one’ll be the wiser.”

“But that’s gonna be a-“

“Gamble? Why do you think they gave me this code name? Didn’t get it from sticking to the playbook, and I’m not gonna start now.”

“But how are we going to get in with only one uniform?”

“Easy, follow me.”

They started to go on a walk again, but this time, they had finally gotten to the compound. Nothing more than a small outpost on the outside of a medium sized building, but nonetheless, a very important site. Now the job had really begun. Gamble walked up to the nearest guard on the outer gate.

“Hey, was it just me or did you hear screaming coming from the forest?” he asked.

The guard responded with, “Uhh, if we were to investigate that we’d need a third to come with us."

“Well I already have one of the other guys already over there, and anyways, who could say no to having a little break with the boys?”

“Fine, I’ll come with you, but you owe me three of whatever I want out of the vending machine.”

“Oddly specific, but alright.”

Just like that, and a couple minutes of subduing the soldier later, they were both in uniform. Traditional red armor, with a purple visor, denoting the rank of an officer, they were now by all accounts, part of the Zeranict military.

Walking in meant they had go through the gate officer. 

"Did you guys find the source of that noise?"

"Oh yeah, it was just one of those big bug things, luckily we were able to shoot it down before anyone got hurt." Gamble said.

"Yeah, thanks for doing that, it's been pretty hard ever since they took Tere last night."

"Yeah, that was a... a terrible thing that happened to him. But you know how it is, he knew the stakes when he signed up."

" We all did, but I never thought it would get this bad. I had a family visiting Jupiter when the war started..."

"Hey, we all had something bad happen, I feel you, but the important part is to keep going. If we want this to stop, then we need to win."

"I guess, but you're new. Who are you?"

"I'm Fentril. Got here around two weeks ago."

This is what really hit Gamble hard. The hardest part about infiltration is that it often requires you to go deep, make connections, sometimes strong ones, and then ultimately cut them off at the end. The effect of knowing the people he's supposed to be fighting against, personally... it creates a sort of apathy for the job as a whole. The aliases Gamble has gained are all practically their own person, and he could go back to anyone of them if he wanted to. Although, he never did, seeing as those people he knew, were gone. 

They talked for a solid 20 minutes, Gamble knew just the right words to play someone like a fiddle. It made things easy, very easy. Or at least from what Suno could observe. He'd been partnered with Gamble for over... over what? What would've been three months back on Earth? That's probably something that's going to take getting used to, the whole time measurement thing, what with being half a galaxy away from Earth. This is going to take a long time isn't it? Can't Gamble ever go faster? It always feels like he's doing this just so he could hang out in different places. Seems like the both of them are in this for the long con, which took a few days most of the time. After his long winded talk with the gate guard though, Gamble was finally let in. Now we wait. Tomorrow.

"I think that's enough, I need to sleep." Suno whispered, still groggy, and well, tired. He dreamed of blue snow.

The compound was gigantic. The entrance into the actual compound, was somewhere around 5 stories tall, not to mention the giant watch towers that checked the outer grounds. Gamble and an advisor walked through the entrance, and started down a long hallway, with a mostly smooth and slick design.

"So what are we doing here? Other than manufacturing weapons," he asked.

"Well, you see, no one really knows. We're not the ones doing the work, we're just the security."

"So who's doing it all?"

"To be frank I don't really know, most of the time they just get flown in, and when the new guys show up, the old ones get flown off.”

Almost as if the world itself was following their conversation, a ship came down to drop off new staff and at the same time let other staff on.

The advisor then checked his watch and exclaimed, "Wait, that's my ride off! Sorry to leave you so soon, but I have to go get my stuff and leave. Remember, you're the entry advisor now! Bye!" The advisor ran off to his room. 

 That wasn't in the plan, but okay. Among all the commotion, Gamble could see that there was a line forming into a corridor. Gamble asked one of the scientists in it what was happening, he responded with "Didn't you read the message they sent us before the flight? After all you're an advisor, you need to have known some of this."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't know we needed to read an explanatory message for an explanatory presentation."

The small shrewd scientist looked disappointed, and walked off to join the line. So, with there really seeming to be no way to learn about this place fully, Gamble entered the queue, and waited.

This planet was the textbook example of "a snow planet," as there really seemed to be no different biomes or environments that Suno could detect. He had been trekking around the general region, as he had seen and collected all the info he could on the facility from outside. He started calling said facility, "Null Base" since it looked like the most mysterious and dead place you could think of. The air surrounding Null Base would immediately remind you that this place was more machine than natural. When you walked through the wastes you could see the ground morph into something you would see on a more civilized planet.

 It would get dirtier and dirtier, as the snow would literally blacken as you closer to the compound, with runoff waste coming directly from it. The sounds were even worse, as the farther you got away, the more industrial and alien sounds you would hear, echoing through the forest. Suno had been walking through the forest toward a signal that he was picking up, before he heard a deep voice, compressed and distorted, and to be frank it terrified him. It irradiated a feeling of... abandonment. Outside of the one bug-thing that they found, there really were no signs of life anywhere. It drove Suno to think whether the Rinimac had done this to the planet with the siphoning of its resources in order to power Null Base, or maybe it had always been like this, and for all they knew, that bug could've been last member of a dying species on a dying planet.

 He didn't know which would scare him more, the idea of something literally and figuratively alien landing on your planet, only to have them destroy it unconsciously and unknowingly without consent of its inhabitants, or living in a dark and dreary wasteland scrounging and scurrying to find something to eat before you froze to death. Either way, you weren't going to live a good existence. Out of all of it though, the one thing that put him off the most though, was the smell. It was almost as if your neighbor was having a campfire, all day, everyday. The constant smell of smoke had even forced his helmet's air filter to fail, leaving him with the scent of a distant flame. The only way Suno thought this was possible was through geothermal vents forming underground and coming through the cracks on the floor. Maybe this planet housed something even more unsettling under the ice. Thankfully, Suno wasn't going to stick around long enough to find out. Especially now that he had finally reached where that signal was coming from. When he listened in, it would sound like an uncanny siren, almost like some type of morse code. 

Now, though, he could finally see where it was coming from. A small little outpost with only two people inside, as he could see from the windows. He could see that the two people inside were talking to a console. A conversation was happening, could be something important, he thought. So he got closer and closer, stepping through the snow, until he was practically at their doorstep. He could overhear them talking about some high profile official coming in to check on the base, today. He listened and listened, until they finally revealed who was coming.

“Yes, the landing pad is unoccupied. Yes, the new staff have just arrived and are about to attend the newcomer’s presentation. We’d be honored to have you Ms. Sor.”

“Sor? Terrente Sor? That’s not good, that’s very not good.”

Suno needed to tell Gamble this, right now. INCOG considers Terrente Sor to be a high profile threat and target that must be taken out of the equation. Her tactical expertise and knowledge have been the sole reasons why some of the Commonwealth’s most important military operations have been squandered. If she shows up at a battle, expect a tide like the ones on Titan to overcome you swiftly and mercilessly. If she gets there and discovers that Gamble isn’t actually a person that should be there, then Suno wouldn’t be sure either of them would be getting out of this alive.

Gamble noticed that half the line had finally entered the auditorium. This thing was gigantic. He really didn’t expect there to be this many people on a project this secretive. If this many people were needed, then it meant that Gamble had to let go of any reservations about this mission being a small one off. As the line got closer and closer, he got more and more nervous. He needed at least some idea of what he was involved in, to at least get rid of some of his anxiety. So he began to talk to one of the lab workers next to him.

“So is it true that nobody has a single bit of information on this?” Gamble inquired.

The worker gave him a bit of a stare, but eventually he answered, “Yes, you’ve got it right. Some of us don’t have a clue at what’s happening here, other than it’s something that shouldn’t be talked about.” 

After the worker finished his response, Gamble could see that he was almost as anxious as he was. But that hint left as soon as he noticed it. The worker turned away and melted back into the crowd. The line was getting closer and closer, but he had a feeling something was overdue to go wrong. Speaking of which, where was Suno? He hadn't heard from him in a couple of hours. Hopefully he's getting the preparations to leave ready, Gamble suspected they weren't going to be able to stay here any longer after the presentation ended.

After Suno finished listening and realized he needed to get back, he realized that there weren't any ways for him to get back fast, the walk here was two hours long, and he had a suspicion that he wasn't going to be able to outrun a spaceship. After looking around the outpost however, let him find that there was a vehicle, a hovercraft specifically. Sleek, smooth, and had a geometric winter camouflage too. Well, being the only option he had at the moment, he took it, and drove off. Suno was sure those two guys at the little  holdout weren't going to be okay with someone just stealing their stuff, and he fully expected some kind of retaliation, but as long as he was getting back on time, Suno was okay with that. 

An hour later and he was a quarter of the journey there. Suno checked if he could talk to Gamble over comms yet, but still no dice.

"What is that?" he told himself, after hearing the sound of... another car? He could see the headlights through the trees, but he didn't know they would know where he was, let alone catch up to him this fast. He was still only a couple of miles away, but he needed to lose them. Although when he looked around to check where they were, he couldn't see them. 

"They're around here somewhere, they can't just disappear right?"

As he expected he could hear something coming through the trees, but it was above him? And with the sounds of trees being broken and crashed through, his question was answered. It was no hovercar, it was a gunship, and the pilot clearly had no intention of letting Suno escape, as it opened fire onto him. Suno knew that if he were to stay out in the open straight he'd be turned into swiss cheese. His only option was to drive through the trees and pray that he wouldn't crash. 

And so he did, swerving and turning to the best of his abilities as to avoid the hail of lasers raining onto him. Yet he wasn't without mistake as he battered and crashed the car through multiple trunks and logs. He could definitely tell that the ship was having the worse time though, as it was having a difficult time targeting where he even was, sometimes shooting trees dozens of meters away from him. But if anything that worked to his advantage, the fallen wooden trunks gave him cover to drive under as the ship desperately tried to fly through and get him. Suno saw that it wasn't far now, in a couple miles he would be back at Null Base. 

He just needed more time. Even if the ship was terrible at aiming, Suno could tell its pilot was bent on his death. On top of that, he could tell he was getting to the end of the forest too. While trying to think of a way to get the craft off his back, he was able to come up with a plan. Suno tried to remember where he and Gamble had first landed, while the woods whizzed by him. He made a left turn and drove into where he wanted to be. Suno stopped and parked the car into a little ditch, where the ship finally stopped and shined a spotlight onto him. The ship lowered itself to get a better angle on him, when it announced through a loudspeaker, "Intruder, exit the vehicle with your hands in the air, you are now in the custody of the Rinimac."

"Yeah, that's gonna be a no from me." He responded. A terrifying screech could be heard, and when Suno turned to look where it came from, he smiled. Those blue eyes were unforgettable. Right on cue too, as the monster started to look right at the loud, looming craft hovering over the two of them. It's middle eye started to glow, and Suno took that as his signal to leave. He got out of the car and ran, as he could hear the gunship struggle to dodge and move around the blue beams, and when he looked over his shoulder to take one final glance, the ship started to shoot back at the monster as well. A battle had commenced, but the operative was long gone.

"If only, I could watch that, if only." Suno said to himself as ran back to the facility on the horizon.

After they had gotten the all clear to enter the atmosphere, Sor's ship started to go through some heavy turbulence. Bright orange flame started to form around the front of the cockpit, and the view of the planet started to get engulfed by them. How poetic, Sor thought to herself. The effort they were embarking on was tremendous and also very costly. Although now that she was a Supremor, Sor now had full control over her "pet project" as it was called by the other oligarchs. They didn't take it seriously, but to Sor it was the most important thing in her life. It was going to take everything the Rinimac had to fully complete it, and the casualties it was going to cause were, by her estimations, going to be tremendous. 

The shuttle had now entered the planet and was going to land on the grounds of the base. She thought it was funny how she hadn't named it yet, but at the same time it did accomplish exactly how she wanted it to happen. No one was going to let this leak, much less, when no one knew its name. Now, she was going to address the new staff working at the base. Hopefully they gave her younger, fresher people, a new generation to incentivize, especially those well versed in other more, exotic fields. The last few batches of staff were good... but nothing amazing. Something amazing was desperately needed. 

One of the co-pilots turned to speak to her. "So, we're receiving a communication from Noel Cei, he wants to speak to you, privately."

"Well, transfer him to my personal channel. I'll be in my dorm." She answered.

"Transferring now."

Inside her dorm she turned on the small monitor on her forearm, and saw Noel Cei's little face start to talk. 

"We've been expecting you, Sor."

"I am as well, but why do you want to speak to me? We're only 20 minutes away from getting there."

"I need to tell you that I'm retiring."

"You're retiring? Why?"

Sor gained a look of surprise.

She continued, "We need you, you can't leave now, you're one of our most beneficial researchers!"

"The things we've discovered are very distressing to say the least. So much so that I can't function here anymore, not as the region administrator, or chief of research. I'm sorry Sor, but my work here is done. I advise that you take caution moving forward. Stay on track, and watch out. I'll be messaging our latest findings to you. It's been an honor." He finished, and with a face of sorry resignation, signed off.

Sor could only hope that she'd find someone as valuable as him. Now it was up to her.

"Sir, we're here!" 

She walked out of her room to see the shuttle touch down on the landing pad. The general walked out and smelled the air. Now's when the real job starts.

At long last, Gamble was finally in the auditorium. All in all, the preparation was three hours long. His legs were aching and he was tired. No one should have to go through that. No one. He made a mental note to blackmail whoever supervised this. Thankfully the presentation was about to begin, but before he could sit down, he started to get a communication notification on the inside of his helmet. He walked over to a secluded area, and opened the window on his HUD, where he got a transmission from Suno? Where has he been? The message didn't cover anything of his recent whereabouts, but it told him some very bad news.

"Gamble, sorry for only reaching to you this late, and I'll explain to you later, but Terrente Sor is coming to the base. I know you understand the gravity of the situation that you're in now, so watch out. I'll be calling an evac ship to get us out after you're done. See you later."

Gamble strained out a grunted "Now what..."

Suno was right, this op had gotten exponentially more concerning. Terrente Sor had a track record of rooting out spies within her ranks, some thought this was because of her cybernetic enhancements, but most knew it was because of her being an experienced agent herself. Truly, she was a jack of all trades. All he could do now was hope that this presentation would go quickly so he could leave. This mission would be considered a failure, there was nothing gained, but nothing of importance lost, and especially now, Gamble would be fine with that. 

Now that Gamble had returned to his seat, he was horrified to realize that the orator of this presentation would be Terrente herself.

"Welcome newcomers." She announced.

He needed to get out. He looked around and thought of different escape routes. Through the front door? No, he'd be shot on sight. Maybe through the exit? Not quiet enough, would cause alarms to go off. Maybe a straight sprint through the stage? Again no, he'd be caught by Sor herself.

"Right out of the gate, I'm going to need you all to forgive me for being so blunt, but this will be the most important project you will be working on in your lives. You all might be wondering, "'What's going on at this place?'" Well to explain the secrecy behind this all, you're going to need to understand what you're going to be working on for the upcoming months."

He really was stuck here. So the only way to leave was to stay put. That's exactly what he did.

She turned around to a large, wide table, and seemed to press a few buttons, and turned it on. It emitted a huge, bright, and detailed hologram of the Milky Way. 

"As you all can see this is our galaxy. And I'm sure you all know that in the middle of it lay a black hole, the Commonwealth of Stellar Territories has designated it as Sagittarius A. We know it as Acro'wel, which if any of you speak human, translates to "'Devourer Prime.'"

She turned back to the console and zoomed into the center of the galaxy, where you could see an absence of space, the black hole.

"I can hear some of you asking why this would be of importance if it's been proven to have no ill effect on anything? The truth is that it's expanding. Very, very rapidly. We have no idea what has caused this sudden exponential increase in growth. By our current estimations, it will reach current general inhabited space of both the Rinimac and Commonwealth... within three years."

When those words had been said, the murmuring audience went dead silent. You could smell the shock in the crowd. This also had the same effect on Gamble. A black hole? Assimilating everything? In three years? That changed everything, not only the war, not only the standing between the two civilizations, but how the future will be approached in general. It seemed so surreal. To know that everything will be... gone.

"Currently we have discovered no possible ways to stop this. This is not the only research base we have. We have multiple secret facilities, on multiple undiscovered worlds, hard at work trying to find a way to stop this. In fact many of you are probably from one of those other bases. For those of you out of the know, after you are done with this shift, you will go to one of those. When you volunteered, you signed on to protect Zeranict space. You signed on to protect the galaxy in the name of the Rinimac. I realize that many of you have family fighting in our current war, and I know that many more of you have lost them as well. Although I ask of you, not to sacrifice yourself fighting the enemy at our gates, but to unite to fight the faceless enemy that is edging closer and closer to us. That is what you are for. This is our future, and our only chance to save it. Go in peace, get comfortable and hold fast. We're in this for the long run."

The presentation had ended, and while Gamble might've been shaken after that bombshell, he still knew that the mission must be completed. If anything, they just scored the jackpot. Now he just needed to leave. He exited the auditorium along with the horde of others trying to find their stations and get their things in order. He and Suno had agreed on a clearing next to their crash site to be their rendezvous site. All that was left was the matter of getting out silently.

Suno had just one thing left to do after packing up all of his gear. He just needed to get a ship to pick them up and leave. Simple enough, except there was a problem. There was no form of communication at his disposal that was able to communicate to a single INCOG base anywhere near to them. The only way he could communicate to them? The transmissions base at the very top of Null Base. The easy part of this plan was getting in, since he was still wearing the guard's officer armor, it should give him good enough clearance to get to the very top. The hard part was getting out. Once he called in a ship, the base admins would very well know that there was an unauthorized transmission to an offworld location. From there it was just going to be a sprint to get out without being caught. He just hoped that he and Gamble were able to get to the rendezvous point on time. 

As he walked into the towering base, he himself needed to go through the entrance. 

As he was nearing the gate, the guard stationed there looked at him suspiciously. 

"Hey, weren't you supposed to be dead?"

 Sumo thought up some half brained explanation.

"Well you know, I got ambushed by one of those things out there and barely escaped. When I come back, I still have to deal with this? How disrespectful, I'm your superior and I demand to be treated with respect, do I make myself understood?!"

The guard had a look of shame form immediately.

"Woah, woah, okay I'm sorry, I'll let you in, just please don't talk of this to my superiors."

"Finally." Suno said, as he walked past.

Now he needed to get through to the elevator. Which was also guarded. What is it with this place and guards? The only logical step left would be for every square inch to be guarded. This time though, he just needed to show them his clearance, which he had driven to having the armor of a high ranking officer. Once in the elevator, and on the way up, Suno took the time to just take a breather. Military sabotage, monsters, chases, was this really what he wanted to get into? What he wanted to do with his life? As the lift kept going up, he could see the snowy mountain ranges encircle the horizon. Suno knows that he could've died in any of those confrontations. He just never knew they would be that intense. If this was really what being an operator meant, he really needed to reevaluate his position. 

At last the lift made it to the top, right under the giant satellite dish shadowing the entirety of Null Base. Understandable, knowing that this place was completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy. When the doors opened, he could finally see it, the master transmissions console. Still, there were two operators standing in his way. Both of them had headsets on, likely listening and responding to messages and signals. They were both also very conveniently sitting right next to each other. He'd always been waiting for a chance to do this. He walked up to the two, pulled off their headsets, and their two heads together, knocking them both out. Suno had seen that so many times, and now he could prove that it's one-hundred percent true. 

Once at the console, he punched in the coordinates to the nearest INCOG site, and transmitted a distress signal, asking for a pick up at their rendezvous. Finally, the job was done. Suno had completed all he needed to do. He correctly predicted the admin's response though, as the transmissions center was completely shut down. By the time it was though, Suno had already gotten to the bottom of the base, and when he saw armed soldiers getting ready to go up there and arrest whoever they thought was in the transmissions center, he came out telling them all that a maniac had taken the operators inside hostage, he left telling them that he would go get more backup. They were never the wiser, as Suno ran into the woods, grinning.

After the presentation Sor had been informed of someone in the transmissions center sending unauthorized messages and taking hostages. How could this have happened? Everything inside the base was created with the intention of having absolute security, but clearly it was nowhere near enough. As she was walking towards the elevator that went up to the satellite tower, she could see a crowd forming trying to gain peeks at what was happening. When Sor got there however, the guards that went up to stop the supposed hostage taker, came back down and said that no one was there except for two unconscious transmissions operators. After that situation she went to the admin's office to call a meeting.

During the admin meeting Sor and the other base administrators looked over the cure evidence they had. She reviewed the ship manifest to see who left and came to the planet, and after close inspection revealed that two patrol guards hadn't cycled out as required. The two patrol guards had gone missing for 30 minutes, after, one was seen reentering the base. The other has been considered MIA. That “missing” officer was seen stealing a hovercraft and being chased by a gunship, unfortunately the “officer” escaped while the gunship was shot down by native fauna. Luckily the pilots survived. 

The leading theory between the admins was that the two spies separated, one was the chase escapee, while the other was the comms saboteur. Sor proposed the notion that those two, were in fact the same person, due to the gate logs showing that a high tier officer had entered after the other, hours earlier. This combined evidence showed that while one spy had slipped out of their hands, the other was still unaccounted for, thus still able to be caught. Sor knew just where to look.

The presentation audience was exactly where Sor would think a Commonwealth spy wanted to be at. A large gathering giving them the perfect cover in order to see top secret information served to them on a silver platter via a presentation. Infiltration doesn’t get much easier than that. She looked at the attendance and saw that there was one high tier officer that was unaccounted for. That couldn’t have been because there were only supposed to be six, but there were seven at the auditorium. Meaning that her spy was still somewhere in the base. 

She then tried the only reasonable way to weed the spy out from the others. In the admin office there was a loudspeaker from which she announced, “To all red-armored officers, assemble inside the administration office in ten minutes. To the rest of the base, if you see a red-armored officer after ten minutes, incapacitate and capture them. Announcement over.”

Sor knew that a spy wouldn’t willingly show up. She already knew the faces of each of the current officers, and had the pictures of  the last cycle’s officers at hand. If they really were dumb enough to show, she would know who was who in an instant. Now she waited.

Gamble was nervous. The base had been silently locked down to prevent anyone from leaving, and now every officer had been ordered to show themselves in the admin office. If he failed to escape, it would either be because he got singled out in administration, or he got captured after ten minutes. Speaking of which, these were his only ten minutes to escape. Escape routes, escape routes, what could he do?

Each plan required much more time in order to get out silently. At this time though, he realized, there was no silent way out of this, and only one option left. Going loud. But how? Well from Suno’s observations from the outside, the emergency escape system was automated, and overrided any manual shutdowns. 

In the event of a major emergency, the doors to the outside would open allowing all personnel to leave the base. There were 8 minutes left. The only way he could cause a big enough emergency to override a major shutdown would be... to drop the elevator, let it gain momentum, and let it create a giant crash at the bottom. Would that be enough? Gamble doubted it, which is why he also decided to overload the satellite at the top. 

These types of interstellar satellites were extremely powerful because of their transmission distances, but it was also known for one big flaw in its design. If someone were to send a particularly long enough transmission, it would overload the dish and cause the automated hydraulic support system that holds it, to completely fail. With 6 minutes left he entered the elevator to go up to the top. Right when he was entering the elevator, a soldier saw him and asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be going to the admin’s office?”

Gamble knew that at this point his cover would’ve been blown eventually, so he told the soldier the most original response he could come up with. 

“I’m going up to finish a transmission.”

He saw that the soldier immediately saw through his bluff, as he closed his red visor, and aimed at him with his rifle.

“You’re coming with me, now.”

Gamble came back with, “Catch me if you can.”

He closed the elevator doors and went up. The time didn’t matter anymore, he knew that when he came back down, everyone would be waiting for him. Thing is, he wasn’t going to be the one coming down. When he finally got up top, the first thing he did was to try and upload the entire Rinimac database that was on his armor’s data pad onto a transmission. That was going to take a bit, so while it tried to do that, Gamble set his sights on the elevator. 

For as many innovations the future had brought, it left much to be desired, especially with elevators. This one was still a normal sheave and motor system that’s been used since the nineteenth century. All he needed to do was break the sheave. He went inside the elevator and climbed on top, where there was just enough space for Gamble to crouch down and bashed the sheave to the point where it would break. He realized that once he did he would need to jump back into the comm center right as it started to fall. 

So with heavy consideration of what he was about to do, Gamble weakened the sheave, after which he was barely able to jump back into the center. He looked down the shaft and saw the elevator plummet a hundred floors down, and at the bottom he heard a thunderous crash as it hit the ground. As he predicted the crash wasn’t enough, but he hoped it knocked down some of the forces waiting for him down there. When returned to the transmission console it looked exactly as he thought it would. The console had become the Zeranict equivalent of a blue screen, and could feel how the stability of the dish was swaying. 

Gamble’s only escape was through the elevator shaft. The line was still there, due to only the sheave holding the elevator, breaking. The armors gloves were resilient though, and used them to rappel down the shaft. When going down, Gamble could feel the heat, but it never hurt. He was going to miss the armor after this mission, it legitimately provided him with so much protection he hadn’t felt like anything broke, well not counting the visor which had shattered. 

He understood why the Rinimac were winning the war a bit better. Maybe once he got back he could convince his superiors to have one custom made for him. When he reached the bottom, the alarm was finally going off, with bright red flashing lights going everywhere. He could see that the elevator’s impact rendered a couple soldiers that seemed to be waiting for him, unconscious. The doors were now open, and there was mass panic everywhere around him. 

Everyone was evacuating, as the dish continued to sway. This was Gamble’s golden opportunity to escape. There was both left to do except run to the rendezvous. He ran past everyone, workers, scientists, and guards. They were all in a state of panic. It was reasonable, considering that their only way of communication with the outside galaxy was in jeopardy. 

Gamble was close, he would be at the evac point within a couple hundred meters. He was deep in the woods. Then he heard something. 

“Not again.” He told himself. He wasn’t about to deal with another one of these bug monsters, not so close to home base. Thing is, there was no screech, no roar. Yet he could hear footsteps in the ground, and branches in the tree creaking. 

He kept on running but more cautiously. This was something different, more dangerous. As he passed over a log, he could finally see what was stalking him. Three bright red eyes, positioned into a triangle. They looked at him with curiosity, almost like a predator looking at easy prey. 

“So you’re the one causing all this commotion.” It spoke. It then jumped down revealing bright yellow and black armor, with the three eyes being on a green visor. Only now had that information fully registered in Gamble’s head. That armor could only belong to fully accomplished Rinimac generals, and the only one of those that was on the planet was Terrente Sor.

“What do you want from me Sor? You know you’ve failed right? Everything about this place, Acro’wel, it’s all coming out, whether you like it or not.”

“Of course it’s coming out, you’ve proven that, but the plan was never to keep it a secret forever. You’ve just gotten yourself killed for something you were already going to know.”

They circled each other, both knowing that this confrontation would evolve into something more. 

“So why all the secrecy? Why create hidden places on hidden planets, when you were already going to reveal them?”

“One thing you must understand, is that my interests extend beyond my nation’s. I may lead the Rinimac, but that doesn’t mean that I am tied to it.” 

Sor looked straight into Gamble’s green eyes. Gamble looked into the triangular red dots. Sor opened with a lunge trying to tackle him, but he was able to dodge it. Then a back hand so fast, Gamble didn’t see it coming. It sent him flying at least a foot back. She was a cyborg after all, Gamble remembered. He tried to come back with a few jabs, none really having any effect. He threw one at her face, which Sor was able to counter and use its momentum to knock him down. She kicked him in the gut. Pain surged through his whole body. Gamble was definitely able to grasp the fact that this was a losing fight. He got back up, but was roundhoused instead. Back on the ground, Sor kneeled down to him. Gamble was able to fully see her size. She had to be seven feet tall. She got closer to his face, until they were just inches apart.

“I’m sorry agent, but you just weren’t up to par.” 

“I know... but he is.”

A ship then appeared through the trees and began to open fire. Sir backed grunted as a few plasma shots bounced off her armor, she then backed off and ran into the trees. But before she fully escaped, she muttered, “One day, you’ll understand.” Sor promptly disappeared.

The ship landed next to Gamble and inside, was Suno and a few other INCOG agents. They picked him up into the ship, where they tended to his wounds.

Suno spoke to him, “Hey, stay with me, you still need to hear all the stuff I did... hey... hey!” Gamble had lost consciousness. The craft then left the planet, even if Gamble took a beating, their mission was a success.

Three months later.

OPERATION: WINTER MONOLITH

DEBRIEF

Two INCOG agents known by the aliases Gamble and Suno were sent on a covert mission to infiltrate and collect data on a secret Rinimac research facility.

The facility, which has since come to be known to INCOG as “Null Base,” was successfully infiltrated. Whereupon information was found that the black hole known as Sagittarius-A*, which resides in the center of our galaxy, is rapidly expanding at an unprecedented pace. At its current rate, it will expand into current inhabited space within three years. No working plans to prevent its expansion have been developed.

END BRIEF

“So what now?” Suno said.

“We just discovered that we’re all going to die in three years. How do we deal with that?”

“The answer is we keep going.” Gamble replied.

“We keep going until we do find a way.”

“How though? We’re secret agents, stopping black holes is a bit out of our pay grade, no?”

“I’m not saying that we need to be the only ones that stop it. What we can do is find those who can.”

“So you’re saying we form some kinda squad?”

“Yes, but-“ Gamble was cut off as he looked at a message on his data pad.

“Agents Gamble and Suno, your applications for custom armors have been approved. Expect delivery within one week.

The two friends looked at each other with excitement, they also looked towards the future, even though it was mostly next week.

Research Base 9938 

Designation: Adamantine Shield

Status: COMPLETE COMPROMISE, ALL RESEARCH LEAKED, RESTRUCTURING AND REBUILDING PENDING

Causes: INFILTRATED BY TWO COMMONWEALTH AGENTS, CODENAMED GAMMA AND NOVA. FAILURE TO APPREHEND/TERMINATE

The moon was bright, and the snow still fell. The horizon was dotted with the lights of cruisers in the skies. The base itself was being deconstructed and rebuilt. Sor stayed to watch over it, she wasn’t going to let the other Supremors destroy what she had built over the years, just because her plan started earlier than previously thought. The future was going to be grim, she wondered.

An aide came to her side, “What’ll we do now?”

“Now we continue. We move forward, and we don’t look back.” Sor answered.

“Will we leave this world?” The aide asked.

“No, we’re just getting started.”

The future may be dark, but from here, it looks incredible.