Tobias slept. I peered into the tent quietly, careful not to wake him. He looked… sad. I wasn't sure why I had even come to check on him. He was alive, still breathing and mostly bedridden. He didn’t look peaceful, his scowl etched into his face even in his sleep, a notepad clutched to his chest. His only method of communication until his voice eventually recovered. He was still having breathing problems, and recovery from surgery was obviously slow.

He would have been selfish enough to be concerned about Vander & Frakes encroaching on his planet. But now he was nothing but an old, weak man. His title meant so little.

The illusion of the aristocracy had crumbled somewhat. A divine right meant little in the face of this galaxy. How ironic.

I slipped away.

The construction robots had been halted. Captain Tameron was doing everything to conserve power, even if it brought us to a standstill. But some fancy scanner had picked up a deposit-rich rocky area not too far from camp… and also not deep in the jungle. Instead, it was inland and up along the coast. A few small scouting parties had gone to check it out and had no issues.

Now the problem was just getting the mining equipment there and getting it working.

Apparently, that meant putting a bunch of people to work rolling out long, dark, rubbery metal cables, which would then be hardened in place to create rails and thus a simple track system. Wooden trollies were being constructed, which would allow equipment to be transported and hopefully resources back.

People seemed to tolerate my presence far more. A few even found great amusement in my toothy smile. It wasn't like the Ioueeke, it was a little more condescending. But there was a lot less fear for a child-sized ape creature than one with claws and sharp teeth. Even though I was apparently venomous. I still hadn’t quite figured that part out.

After checking on the track construction and seeing they had only made it a few more metres, I went to find Nicole. She was in the medical tent, typing away on a computer, the working joe motherboard plugged in.

“Any luck?” I asked her.

“Not exactly,” she sighed. “Factory resetting the working joe would give me access, but would also delete everything. I am by no means an Android specialist, but I am trying to override the permissions.”

Huh, I would have assumed her being a synthetic would make her really good at that kinda thing. Then again, being human hadn’t remotely given me any kind of medical knowledge. Every new host I took over remained largely a mystery. Having a body didn’t correlate with understanding everything.

“I am hoping that if I can gain access, I can potentially use this model’s credentials to access the satellite,” Nicole went on. “I retrieved what was left of the Matthew-076. Currently attempting to transfer system privileges, which has so far been promising.” Despite her positive words, she said them with a grimace.

I looked at the cables, wires, and all-around thingamajigs which covered the table.

“What is the problem then?” I asked, climbing up onto the chair across from her, but being careful not to touch anything.

“The easiest and often most effective way to gain access to a system is through human error,” Nicole replied, typing something in. “Errors that androids are too meticulous to make. Even if I can transfer privileges, whatever central intelligence Matthew-076 was connected to likely locked his access upon his destruction for basic security reasons such as this.”

“Oh,” I sighed.

“So we shall just need to wait and see what oversight Matthew-076 was subject to,” she concluded. “What were you up to?” she paused, looking up at me with a smile.

I smiled right back. “Just checking on things. On Tobias.”

“How's he doing?” she asked, though less out of curiosity, I expected, than simply to converse with me.

“Sleeping. Nooot looking so great,” I shrugged.

“He will recover,” Nicole replied flatly. “I am quite curious what will happen. Tobias will certainly soon be clawing back at his crown.”

“Do you thhhink he would take Vannnder & Frakes threat seriously?” I grimaced.

“Yes, to a paranoid degree,” Nicole sighed. “I don’t agree with Captain Tameron’s laissez-faire attitude, but at the moment, the expedition is hardly in a position to stop the corporation. Prioritizing survival is important, but a central intelligence does not think like people. If our destruction was ordered, they won’t simply give up, and that concerns me.”

“Talk to Commmmander Alcantar,” I suggested. “He is security man.”

“I should,” she nodded. “I don’t want to rely on him as he is what is preventing an alliance with the Ioueeke, but I suppose we don’t have much of a choice.”

“For now,” I pointed out. “Maybe it is for the bessst. Last time was… bad.”

“Yes,” Nicole grimaced. “Technologically, they are less prepared for combating androids. I don’t wish to drag them into the expedition’s mess either.”

I nodded. “It is never simple,” I huffed.

The computer beeped. Nicole frowned. “But sometimes it is.”

“Oh?”

“Matthew-076 still possessed administrative privileges,” she replied. “Why would they not be wiped?”

“Don’t knnnow. Can yoou transfer them to you?” I asked excitedly.

“Well… yes. But now this feels suspect,” Nicole said, leaning back in her chair, glaring at the screen.

“A trap?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she hummed. “I have firewalls, but at the very least, it would be perfectly simple to intercept my messages with the satellite."

“What if you just used it to unlock the working joe brain, then used that wwwith tower to access satellite?” I suggested, hoping it was at least plausible and not just dumb.

“Well, all communication could be intercepted,” Nicole conceded. “But doing it that way would be safer for me.”

“Good,” I nodded. “Do not ppplug evil robot into you.”

She smiled. “Righty ho.”

It wasn’t exactly an interesting process to watch. Nicole tapped away on the computer after plugging a few different things in. It wasn’t a fast process either, from what I could glean; far too many loading bars were involved. I couldn’t read, let alone puzzle out what was going on. That familiar shame bubbled up. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but everyone else could read. It was yet another thing I was missing out on that all the other people could do without thinking about it.

“Okay,” she finally said, snapping me out of my dreary daze. “I’ve overwritten motherboard security. Let’s see… Special Order 937. Priority one - Retrieval and return of samples for analysis. All other considerations are secondary.”

We both let that sink in for a moment. It certainly didn’t sound… reassuring with the context of the sample coming from the equivalent of Hell. At the very least, whatever was down there was dangerous, right? How else would it have earned such a reputation? Fuck.

“This is not exactly comforting,” Nicole grimaced. “Priority one overrides even self-preservation. Whatever was down there, they really wanted.”

“Can you see where they took it?” I asked.

“There are coordinates,” Nicole sighed. “I should have brought the whole working joe back just in case it had preserved the footage. Though it likely would have been automatically erased at a point, maybe I could have recovered something.”

“Does the sateeellite take pictures?” I suggested. I had watched a movie where the government had used one to really zoom in on someone's house. I didn’t know how realistic it was, but maybe we could get an image.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “But it is certainly worth investigating.”

Nicole unplugged the working joe motherboard, and we beelined for the communication tower. I even managed a handful of steps on only my hind legs, the momentum of our speed carrying me forward.

“Evening, John,” Nicole nodded at the guard stationed by the chain link gate. She scanned her badge, and we waltzed inside before the guard could even respond.

At the console, Nicole began inputting stuff. She pulled out the motherboard and a few wires to plug everything in. She input some information and hit a button with finality. A loading spiral spun.

The console beeped green, and a dialogue opened, cursor blinking green as words were typed out.

“I’m requesting any images of the coordinates,” Nicole explained, typing a very long string of numbers in.

The console beeped and started loading again before images began to appear. It took me a moment to understand what all the red was; it was the jungle. A top-down view of the jungle, or at least a part of it.

Nicole typed in a few more things, and the image began to zoom in one square at a time. It only got blurrier, but a dark shape began to appear behind the jungle leaves. Nicole highlighted it, a rectangular shape attached to a square. Clearly artificial beneath the foliage, at the base of some kind of large cliff… a waterfall.

“It’s confirmed then,” Nicole muttered, tapping the screen. “It must be some kind of research facility or laboratory.”

“Ominouus,” I replied. “Secret experimennnts.”

“Damn. Hold on, the satellite might allow me to send a more complex message to the Imperium than just a basic distress signal,” Nicole sighed, getting right back to work. “If the Imperium knows Vander & Frakes is responsible for the sabotage, it might bump it up their list of priorities. Hell, a few imperial knights could probably be here just as fast as an unmanned drone, far before the SS Argonaut at least.”

The screen flashed red, the dialogue panel vanishing.

“Shit,” Nicole grimaced, running her hands over her face. “They noticed and locked me out.”

“It's okay,” I reassured, stepping up to squeeze her hand. “We confirmed they are heeere. You did amazing.” I didn’t entirely understand what was going on, but it was still impressive. And we had learned so much.

Nicole stared forlornly at the message displayed on the screen. “No, Elsy… now they know what I was doing. I fear I may have only made things worse.”