A head and shoulders broke the horizon line, and with every step closer, more of the figure was revealed. First, a tinkertech helmet composed of angular, black panels that traced the contours of her face. It gave the person an otherworldly look, like an indistinct matte black death mask.

  She was broad-shouldered and muscular, encased in a skin-tight catsuit that left nothing of the person underneath exposed. The fabric of the suit was a similar shade of black to the helmet, although there was a light, glossy sheen to the material, contrasting with the matte finish of the helmet. Tactical webbing was strapped around her ribs, hips, and thighs. It carried a dense arrangement of compact, wicked-looking devices, most notably a double-sheath slung from each hip. Two swords stacked vertically on top of one another inside a boxy shell.

  She paused, glancing down at the upper sleeve of her suit. The flick of a finger sent the bright pink lump spinning downward. It bounced once, then came to a rest with the moist folds facing upwards and catching the sunlight. Seemingly satisfied, she brought her wrist up and tapped a series of buttons on the inner side. A quiet whirr preceded a solid clunk, and then a black metallic ramp lowered down in front of her with the hiss of air pressures equalizing.

  The figure climbed up the ramp, moving nearly silently, and it closed behind her, like a brightly lit rectangular wound in space sealing shut.

  Down the paved, hilly road she’d come from lay what might have been an idyllic rural town situated in a mostly forested valley only hours ago. Now it was a twisted, war-torn, and hellish landscape of ruined buildings, blazing homes, a flattened gas station, and huge, dirt and stone-filled craters blasted into the terrain. Hardly a building was left intact, and those that remained were in the process of being surrounded and engulfed in a rapidly spreading pyre.

  Inside the boarding bay of the cloaked ship, the woman tapped another sequence of commands into her wrist. Dense, misty fog jetted out of overhead nozzles, burying the large bay in a thick haze that lingered for around half a minute before powerful filtration systems sucked it down concealed vents. The flat plane of a violet laser swept the room, first from side to side, then top to bottom, and finally front to back. The figure spread her legs and held her arms out with her fingers splayed while it swept over her six times. Minuscule flashes of orange light accompanied tiny pops, snaps, and crackles as particles were vaporized out of the air.

  A series of loud beeps filled the bay, and a green light lit over the only other door in the room. The woman brought her hands up to the underside of her helmet, and a moment later, a seam became visible with a hiss of air as the helmet separated from the suit. She lifted it up and off her head, and a raised mating surface that ran along the top of her neck folded and curled in on itself until it looked like a snug, rolled collar. She tucked the helmet under one arm and pulled a compression skullcap off her head with her free hand as she walked through the inner doorway.

  Her dirty blonde hair billowed behind her with her quick pace as she made her way through fairly narrow inner passageways. Two extremely steep sets of metal staircases and another long passageway later, and she entered the bridge of the ship. High-backed, rigid seating for four faced the front canopy, and two rows of seating that faced inwards held room for up to six more. It was cramped for a bridge, but spacious for a cockpit, and the seating looked like it wouldn’t be out of place in a race car or fighter jet, with wide-strapped five-point harnesses and contours that hugged the form.

  She took a seat in the front left seat after unclipping her sword sheaths and locking them in a recessed panel on the wall. Two large arrays of flat screens were arranged in front of the two foremost seats. The large, central panel in front of her activated as she sat down. A logo was displayed as things blinked on and came to life: a three-dimensional, round-tipped triangle with a vertical, downward-facing sword on each face slowly rotated while flames burned on a back background.

  A softly-spoken, androgynous voice filled the cabin.

  “Welcome back, ma’am. All systems nominal, no events to report since your departure. Energy levels are at eighty-two percent, and the reactor is on standby. You have one priority alert message waiting for you.”

  The woman responded in a low rasp as she secured her helmet under her seat and buckled herself in. “Bring the reactor online. Drop the stealth field, and perform a high-rez scan of the target area for any shadows I might have missed. I want to be certain I got them all before we leave.”

  A barely audible thrum started up in the background of the bridge. The view outside the canopy rippled and distorted briefly.

  “Confirming, no signatures remaining.”

  “Good. Show me the message.”

  A brief amount of text popped up on the touch screen. The woman fiddled with a pouch on her chest, then pulled out a tiny pill bottle, unscrewed the lid, and popped two square tablets into her mouth before stashing it back where it came from. Her jaw flexed, and she chewed her gum as her fingertips raced across the central screen.

  “Are we good to make a call?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Alright, I’ll bite. Let’s see what she wants that warrants a priority message.”

  “Connecting you now.”

  A light gray box filled the screen, and a green light located at the top and center of the panel that held the screen blinked on. An animated telephone handset rattled silently on the screen. Within a few moments, the other end picked up, and a steely-eyed young blonde woman with a stylish crew cut filled the screen. She was wearing a smartly-fitted dark blue suit that suited her somewhat severe facial features and dour expression.

  The other side of the video call spoke first. “Miller. Thank you for calling back on short notice.”

  Miller paused on chewing her gum to respond. “Director. What’s the occasion that warrants contacting me while I’m on leave?”

  The Director steepled her fingers and leaned forward in her executive-style chair. “We’ve had an incident of the sort that you’d want to know about.”

  “Where?” Miller bounced back instantly.

  The Director’s frown intensified by several degrees. “Here, locally. Happened thirty-six to forty-eight hours ago. The timing is tricky to pin down, since the site is heavily degraded.”

  “Show me?”

  The Director reached forward until her hands disappeared beneath the field of view of her camera, but rapid typing and clicks were loud over the connection. A second window popped up, with the video call scaling down to an overlay in one corner.

  The scene was harshly lit by intense floodlighting, and the lower bodies of several faceless, partially-cropped individuals wearing white clean suits were visible in a loose circle around a mess on the floor. The surface was damp, dark concrete. On one side was the outline of a woman burned or etched into the surface of the concrete. Pitch black, cleanly and plainly visible even with the wetness. To the left of the shadow was a stainless steel meter stick with a strip of color-coded blocks on it for image calibration.

  On the other side, an even stranger sight. A formation of golden yellow columnar crystals with chisel-shaped tips growing from the floor in a perfect mirror outline of the shadow. The crystals ranged in height from a few inches to several larger ones, which were around a foot long. They angled in different directions as they extended upwards, which broke the silhouette along the outer edges. Brown sludge, scraps of heavily rotted clothing, and bits of human bones were the only other features of the photograph.

  Miller turned to rapidly type and gesture on a side screen. Avionics came up on the remainder of the screens, and the craft rumbled and vibrated for a few seconds before settling down into a louder hum. She turned back to the video call when she was done.

  “Any radioactivity or decay elements?” She asked the Director.

  “No, it’s clean. Well, expected baselines, to be more precise. No heavy elements present.”

  “Mm. I’m on my way. I’ll be back in the city in… just over sixteen minutes. I assume the site is locked down airtight?”

  “Of course, only my best people are being allowed to access this location. The rest is fairly mundane, run-of-the-mill sorts of parahuman activity signs.”

  Miller nodded once, sharply. “I’ll get my experts packed up. Send me the location, and we’ll be departing as soon as I land. Does she know?”

  The Director gave Miller a serious look through the link. “Yes, of course she does. And she knows that I’ve contacted you. She won’t be present when you arrive.”

  Miller nodded once more. “Last question, before I disconnect. Who’s to retain custody of the material?”

  The Director leaned back in her chair and sighed quietly. “You can keep it, just as long as you keep us fully appraised on your findings.”

  “Works for me. Be there shortly. Miller out.” The call closed itself and minimized on the main screen, a large, colorful rendering of the ship, and its myriad system status reports taking its place.

  “Are we ready? This needs to be an express trip,” Miller asked the cockpit.

  “Ready for departure, ma’am.”

  “Let’s get out of here then, we’ve got work to do.”

  Miller’s hair shifted as the craft lifted off, the canopy darkened, and holographic flight path details snapped into place. She tucked her gum into her cheek while the ship accelerated at a rapid clip, pulling an indicated two and a half gees of acceleration as it rocketed into the sky. The panhandle of the southern coast shrank into the distance behind her as she darted through the cloud layer, and the sky started to darken. The warm tone of the drive's humming intensified as the atmosphere grew thin enough to allow for hypersonic flight well within the safety tolerances of the hull.

  She remained silent over the course of the short flight as the ship crossed over the North American continent, seemingly content to chew her gum and think in peace. A quarter of an hour later, the ship descended back down over an empty grassy plain. The crescent shape of the bay was visible during the descent, but was out of sight now as the ship rotated to face northward.

  What looked like a targeting display popped up on the central screen, a hollow, thick-bordered green box with a bright green crosshair in the center. From the central crosshair, a ray extended outwards to the northwest with a distance reading steadily ticking down. A bar altimeter display similarly approached the target destination with precision. When both the targets were reading decimal measurements, Miller closed her eyes.

  The lights inside the bridge dimmed, and an omnidirectional, loud electrical buzz filled the air. The world outside the canopy vibrated in place until it there were two distinct afterimages for everything. The sound built until it was all-encompassing, then, without warning, everything went dead silent. A faint thud sound, and the ship settled down on its extended landing gear.

  Miller exhaled, pulled the gum from her mouth, and stuck it into a plastic baggie she produced from another pouch. Switching sides on her gear, she pulled out a black elastic string with a triangular patch and fixed it into place over her left eye, then thumbed a switch on a control panel.

  “Flowers, prep the team for immediate departure, local destination inside the city. I want Orlov on point, with Bensaad and Dupont along for the ride. Two eggheads from sixteen, that one girl, what’s her name?”

  “Thursday?”

  “Who the fuck names their kid Thursday? I swear,” Miller asked the empty cabin.

  She held the button down again. “That’s the one. Full scanning kit, and everyone needs to be fully suited, too. Top-level.”

  “On it.” The other side went dead, Miller unbuckled herself and retrieved her helmet.

  “Delta, make sure you’re fully refuelled and rearmed.” Miller paused inside the doorway as it slid open automatically. “On second thought, have them swap the underbelly out for the accelerator, while they’re at it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Miller stepped out of the bridge of the ship, and the door sealed behind her. Panels blinked off one by one as the interior lights dimmed to standby. Beyond the canopy, the landing bay rose around the ship, vaulted concrete ceilings precise and deliberate. Jumpsuited flight crew team members approached with hoses, tubes, cables, and rolling toolboxes. Larger equipment circled the vessel where it rested, ready and waiting for use, like a nest built up around it.