“Everybody strap in,” Jyn announced. “We’re due to drop out of hyperspace in several minutes. Once we arrive, there’s no telling what will happen.” The entire team, Ava included, was on the bridge and seated at their stations. Ava, while under strict orders not to interact with the ship in any way, sat in Reya’s old chair and wordlessly followed Jyn’s instructions.

  Everybody was fully armed and in combat gear, including Ava. Given that they were set to breach wherever Adrian was located personally, Jyn was taking no chances concerning his team’s survival of the mission, even if the honorary member was of gru’ul origin.

  The bridge was tense as the final minutes felt like an eternity. Jyn barely registered Tassie calling out that they were dropping out of hyperspace, so focused was he on the coming mission. He ran combat scenarios over in his mind, planning as many contingencies as possible that would increase their chances of success. He did not want to return home without his friends, for he knew that if any of them perished during the mission, their bodies would not be recoverable.

  The ship lurched as they dropped out of hyperspace. Jyn was already ordering Tassie to bring up a visual of the star system they were in and to run as many scans as possible. He assumed the enemy would know the moment they arrived, for an entire fleet suddenly appearing was a hard thing to miss.

  An urgent missive stole his attention before he could properly survey the results Tassie was sending him. It came directly from High Command, and Jyn wasted no time in opening it. His eyes scanned the contents rapidly as he took in their newest orders.

  “We have new orders,” Jyn said loudly so that everybody would hear. “We’re to relay any information regarding the gru’ul’s defensive capabilities we find during our mission.” He looked towards Tassie. “Make sure you send them the scans you’re taking now,” he ordered her. “I want everybody to remain vigilant and report back anything you find, regardless of how unimportant you feel it might be,” he continued. “I don’t know why High Command wants this information, but let’s not squander their only opportunity to gather intel on the enemy.”

  “Was the order relayed to the rest of the rescue fleet?” Rann asked.

  “Yes,” Jyn confirmed. “We all received this update to our mission. We won’t be the only ones reporting back directly to High Command.”

  “Jyn,” Tassie called out, “the rest of the rescue fleet has successfully dropped out of hyperspace. Everybody’s accounted for.”

  “Good,” Jyn said. “We’re not the leaders for this mission. We’ll only have a measure of authority once we land planet-side and put boots on the ground. Until then, we fly according to the orders of the acting Fleet Commander. It’s their job to organize the rest of us while we engage in combat with the gru’ul.”

  “Understood,” Tassie replied. She immediately set about coordinating with the Fleet Commander’s team and directed the ship according to the orders she received from them. They flew for an hour uninterrupted until Tassie announced, “We’ve got incoming gru’ul ships!”

  Jyn observed the live scans Tassie was sending him on a holoscreen in front of his command chair. “Beor, Kell,” he said, “open fire once they get within range. Tassie, bring us closer towards their home planet. Do we still have a read on Adrian’s comm?” he asked.

  “Affirmative,” Tassie replied. “The distress beacon is still going strong, and I’ve got a lock on his coordinates.”

  “Ensure that the Fleet Commander likewise has access to them, if she doesn’t already,” Jyn ordered. A flashing screen appeared before him with new orders, directly from the Fleet Commander. He swiftly relayed their flight path to Tassie, who immediately set about positioning the ship correctly.

  Jyn carefully monitored the incoming gru’ul ships and the moment they were close enough, he ordered Beor and Kell to open fire. The new, potent weapons that had been installed on the ship lanced beams of energy towards the enemy. Shields appeared around their ships, only to flicker and disappear under the strain of the incoming attack from Jyn’s. Moments later, the gru’ul ships were struck by the beams and torn to shreds.

  Their destruction signaled the beginning of a long, intensive fight between the a’vaare fleet and the defending gru’ul. Contrary to Jyn’s expectations, their response times were slow and uncoordinated. Tassie maneuvered their ship out of harm’s way when she could and relied on the shields to deflect the glancing shots she couldn’t avoid.

  Though it took some time, a mothership soon appeared, one of two left in the system according to Tassie’s scans. Operating under the assumption that the other motherships were already deployed elsewhere, Jyn conferred with the Fleet Commander and ordered his team to avoid engaging with the enemy where they could.

  As the distance between their entry point into the gru’ul star system and their home planet shrunk, the fighting grew more intense. The metal debris from ally and enemy ships alike littered the path being carved towards their goal. Jyn thanked his lucky stars that High Command had sent enough fire power to repel the gru’ul while he was able to rapidly approach the side of the planet where the signal was coming from.

  “Ava,” Jyn called out, “what can we expect when we arrive?” He wasn’t sure if the android would know anything relating to the gru’ul’s planetary defenses but figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Any additional information on the enemy was welcome, and Jyn didn’t care where it came from as long as it was accurate.

  “Not much,” Ava responded. “While my data base makes no strict mention of what, specifically, might be waiting for us, I do know that they never put a big emphasis on terrestrial defense. Not when all they need to defend is their controlled space around the planet. They don’t war with each other the same way humans and a’vaare do,” she explained. “There was never any need for them to develop that aspect of their society.”

  Jyn frowned. “So once we breach the atmosphere, everything should be smooth sailing?” he asked. He found it hard to believe that such an advanced society had so little in the way of defenses. The very idea was alien to him.

  “Hardly,” Ava scoffed. “They’ll still have ships planet-side. Those, we’ll need to watch out for. I expect them to engage us soon enough once they realize what our target is. What we probably won’t have to contend with are turrets of any kind defending wherever it is Adrian is being held at.”

  “The research facility in the Arvis Sector had defense turrets,” Jyn said. “What makes you so certain they won’t have any here?”

  “This is the seat of their power,” Ava said. “Nothing has challenged them in millennia. It’s been so long since anything posed even the slightest of threats that the gru’ul never needed to develop an extensive defense system. Why would they, when their motherships are capable of destroying planets? The Arvis Sector held a top-secret facility that still warranted some form of protection in case it ever got found out. It was far away from their home planet, after all.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.” Jyn responded, still unwilling to fully believe that the gru’ul wouldn’t have considered being attacked by the people they were committing genocide against. “Tassie,” he called out, “how long until we breach the atmosphere?”

  “We’re twenty minutes away at our current pace,” Tassie replied swiftly. “I’m coordinating our entry with the Fleet Commander as we speak,” she said. “According to her estimates, we’ll have at most an hour before the portion of the fleet remaining in space gets destroyed defending our location. If they go down, we almost certainly won’t make it out alive.”

  “We’ll have to be quick about it then,” Jyn said. “Ava, you’re coming into the field with us. Your job will be to help Tassie map out our location so that we can return as quickly as possible. I don’t expect you to contribute to combat, but I expect you to help us make it out alive once we find Adrian.”

  “I understand,” Ava replied. “Rann gave me a comm for the mission and showed me how it works.” She pointed to the small device upon her breast.

  Jyn nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “If we get separated, we’ll need a way to stay in touch.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “You’re not upset?” Ava asked, surprised. “I know your Tribunal doesn’t trust me around your technology.”

  “High Command isn’t always practical when it comes to missions,” Jyn replied. “Our survival goes beyond their needs to keep you away from something as basic as a comm. If they take issue with this after the mission, I’ll take responsibility and deal with it when the time comes. None of that matters if we don’t all make it out alive. Rann made a good call.”

  The crew descended into a tense silence, only speaking when necessary. There was no witty banter or laughter as they focused on destroying the enemy and staying alive. There was only intense concentration as the team worked together to succeed in their mission. Anything less than perfection meant they would all die. Far from home, the last thing they wanted was to never return and see their friends and family again.

  Jyn called up a visual of the gru’ul home world as they approached. The atmosphere was an uninviting shade of pale green. While breathable to a’vaare, he knew that it would only be a matter of hours until exposure to it grew too toxic. Given that they were on a one-hour time limit, Jyn figured the soldiers descending planet-side would be fine since contact with it would be limited.

  Deep inside a protective formation surrounded by ally ships, the team was able to arrive close enough to the planet to enter its atmosphere unharmed. The new shields on the ship had saved them more than once from otherwise lethal shots from the enemy.

  “Enter the atmosphere, full speed ahead,” Jyn ordered Tassie after receiving the green light from the Fleet Commander. Tassie obliged and the ship plunged downward and was soon enveloped in a green haze that gradually thickened the closer to the surface they got.

  Piercing through the atmosphere brought additional visuals of the planet’s surface. Trusting in Tassie to bring them safely to their destination, Jyn shared a screen with Ava where she was strapped in. It was a close up of the rapidly approaching ground.

  Mounds and spires of rock and metal rose up from the ground, alien and elegant. There were no gru’ul loitering about upon the surface, a detail that baffled Jyn. “Where are the gru’ul?” he asked Ava.

  “Inside their buildings or below the surface,” Ava responded. “My databases indicate that this atmosphere must be slightly toxic, even to them. It’s not supposed to be this colour.” Indeed, her memory banks informed her that the planet should have a pale, yellow atmosphere. She informed Jyn and wondered aloud what had happened to it for the phenomenon to be planet wide.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Jyn replied. “However, maybe it’s responsible for the mutated gru’ul that are attacking Verilia as we speak.” Despite his earlier claims about his obligation to save Adrian, Jyn knew that diverting such a large portion of their fighting force would only result in more casualties back home while they were on their mission. The dichotomy between wanting to save Adrian and the duty he had to protect his own people tore at him. “Tassie,” he called out, “have you located the Adrian’s signal yet now that we’re closer?”

  “I’m having trouble locking onto to it,” Tassie admitted. “I do know that it’s not on the surface, however.”

  “Ava,” Jyn said, “where do you think Adrian would be held?”

  Ava studied the surface near where the signal was supposed to be. She spotted a particularly large spire jutting out of an immense mound around fifty kilometers away from their current location. It certainly looked important. She quickly queried her data banks for anything that resembled it. “There,” she declared, highlighting it in the systems for everybody to see. “That building is the Highest’s personal lab.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Jyn asked. “If we breach the wrong place, we’re guaranteed to fail the mission. We won’t have enough time to backtrack and try again.”

  “I’m certain,” Ava said. After asking Tassie to share her reading with her, she briefly studied them while Jyn relayed the information to the Fleet Commander. “It’s also where the signal is the strongest,” Ava added.

  Jyn nodded as he read his new orders. The Fleet Commander had decided to trust Ava’s judgement, figuring it was the best shot they had at finding Adrian. “Tassie, bring us to the building that Ava highlighted,” he said. “We have orders to breach that building and begin searching for Adrian. Beor, Eimir, Rann, Ava,” he called out, “follow me to the hangar. Once we have an entry point, we’ll use our hoverbikes to enter the hole Tassie will blow into the side of the building.”

  “Won’t this risk affecting Adrian if he’s inside?” Beor asked. He was all for making an entry point, but if they inadvertently killed their payload while trying to find him, that would make any casualties already suffered completely pointless. He was conscious that good men and women were dying with every passing second just to give them a chance at success. He refused to let them die for nothing.

  “No,” Jyn declared. “Tassie has indicated that the signal is below the surface and that spire is decidedly above it. It should be safe to breach near the top. Does everybody have their gru’ul badge High Command gave us?” After receiving a chorus of affirmatives, he ordered the team to move into position.

  With that, the others followed him down into the hangar. True to Ava’s word, Tassie confirmed that there weren’t any turrets firing at them as they approached. On Jyn’s command, she fired into the side of the spire, a little over halfway up. The shot rocked the building as debris exploded outward. Tassie brought the ship to a slow and hovered near the opening in the spire.

  Ava mounted behind Jyn on his hoverbike and held on tight once the hangar door opened. Jyn waited for the ally ships to be in position until he gave the order for everybody to attack and swarm the impromptu entrance.

  Dozens of soldiers flew out of their ships and joined the team as they all approached the opening, which was large enough for five people to enter at a time. It didn’t take long for everybody to land and clear out the room of any enemy gru’ul.

  Jyn ordered a portion of the contingent to remain behind while the rest were to advance further into the facility. Everything was bathed in an angry red sheen as the warning lights in the spire rid it of its normal, blue-lit corridors and engravings. The first room they all entered brought the entire group to a pause.

  Large eggs lined the room in neat rows, climbing high along the walls of the large, expansive room. Surrounded by strange vines keeping them in place, they all pulsed at differing rhythms, clearly alive. Everyone’s introspection was quickly cut short by a plasma bolt hitting one of the soldiers dead-center in the chest. They screamed out in pain and dropped to the ground, dead upon impact.

  The remaining soldiers quickly scattered for cover, and Jyn gave the order to dispatch the four enemy gru’ul hiding amongst the eggs. Two more soldiers took glancing shots, vaporizing the limbs that were struck before the final gru’ul hit the ground.

  After a moment’s reprieve, Jyn came to a decision and gave an order to all the soldiers present. “Eliminate every last one of these eggs,” he said in a cold, hard voice. He pointed towards three of the soldiers. “Bring the injured and the dead back into the other room and then return here.”

  The soldiers complied and Rann silently approached Jyn. “Are you sure you want us to destroy these eggs?” she asked tentatively. “These gru’ul haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Yes,” Jyn replied, leveling her a flat stare. “Every egg here is a potential enemy that will kill our people back on Verilia. I don’t know how long the war will last, but if we can help mitigate the impact of even more enemies swarming the planet, so be it.”

  Rann swallowed her response and nodded. “Alright,” she said. She didn’t agree with Jyn’s decision but couldn’t fault his logic. She’d borne witness to the atrocities the gru’ul had done against their people. She might not have wanted the innocent to die for the decisions of others, but even she found it hard to care too much about the culling that was being carried out. She joined the other soldiers in methodically eliminating every single egg in the room.

  Once the shooting died down, Jyn proceeded to have the contingent move forward into the next room through the only one other familiar square-wave pattern along the walls of the hatchery. This time, they were ready for immediate combat, unwilling to be taken by surprise by whatever contents lay beyond the wall.

  Another soldier with a badge approached the pattern on the wall and it melted away with a hissing, bubbling, melting sound. The moment it was gone, the soldiers stormed into the next room and immediately fired upon any movement they found.

  Jyn was expecting a hallway of sorts, limiting their ability to make use of their numbers. What they found instead was another hatchery, this one far bigger than the last. Jyn knew they wouldn’t have the time to eliminate every hatchery they came across, so he ordered explosives to be set around the room that would destroy it on their way out and then had the group continue to venture forth into the facility.

  Ava guided them downwards towards the ever-increasing signal. Now that she was inside the building, she was able to clearly sense where it was coming from thanks to the equipment Tassie had loaned her. She directed the soldiers through the maze of rooms and corridors, often turning in ways that made no sense, only to double back on themselves.

  It was a race against time, and each new room slowed down the process due to combat. The defending gru’ul were not happy about being invaded in their seat of power. Luckily for the contingent, most of the gru’ul were unarmed and easily dispatched.

  The closer they got to the signal’s source, the more dangerous it became. Armed gru’ul appeared frequently in large numbers from all sides. Undeterred by the losses they were sustaining, Ava and Jyn continued directing the group to venture forth further into the facility. They continued for twenty minutes, until Ava spotted a special engraving in one of the walls near their destination.

  “Jyn,” Ava called out urgently, “that room there should be restricted to the Highest only. If we access it, I might be able to sabotage their systems. You still have the Highest’s badge from the Arvis Sector’s facility, right?”

  Jyn nodded. “I do. But we simply don’t have the time right now to do so. We still need to find Adrian and we only have half an hour left until we run out of time. If we don’t find him soon, we’ll need to return back if we want to make it out alive.”

  Ava bit her lip. “It won’t take long. A few minutes at most,” she reiterated. “We should find Adrian soon. If we do, I think we should stop on the way back if we still have time. Coordinate with your Fleet Commander and explain the situation. Let them make the call.”

  “I will,” Jyn said. “Until then, we need to keep moving.” With that, the restricted room was left behind as the soldiers continued their search for Adrian. Ava made a mental note of its location, determined to return should the opportunity arise.