"Explain the difference to me one more time, I just want to make sure I understand."

"Of course, sir you see t-"

"Admiral, I'm sorry to bother you but the Chairwoman just called, and she needs to speak with you."

Admiral Vir stood from where he had been sitting with one of the crewmen, and tucked a notebook under one arm. "My Apologies corporal, can we continue this at a later time."

"Of course, sir. I'll send those resources I was talking about."

"It would be much appreciated."

He stepped out into the hallway pausing by Lt. Simon as she stood waiting for him.

"What is this about?"

"They didn't say, apparently it's too classified for me."

"Uh-huh."

Simon looked back over her shoulder as the two of them made their way down the hall, "What was that abou?"

"Corporal Isaa is a bit of a chemistry genius, I was just picking his brain."

Simon frowned, "Since when did you care about chemistry."

Since my ex girlfriend became an exalted saint of her entire planet leaving me to wonder if I ever even deserved her in the first place, and with an overwhelming desire to be better person both morally, physically and intellectually hoping that I might eventually evolve into the kind of man that could ever compare to a woman like her. Even if it never leads to anything because regardless of how I feel, the desire to become better is never a bad thing.

He shrugged, "You can never know too much, Simon."

She glanced down at her clipboard, "You've been very busy the past few days, are you....ok?" She wasn't really sure if she should be worried. She wasn't exactly good at reading people emotionally. She only really noticed the changes in patterns, and his sudden change to serious intellectual study and going to the gym twice a day struck her as odd.

Adam smiled little, "Fine, in fact..... Better than I have in a while. Turns out, I like to stay busy, I like having things to do, and with two hours before bed to relax and unwind, it's not like I'm working myself to death."

She supposed that was true enough. Where once the men's schedule had been as hard to predict as the evolution of the seasons, his new routine was as plotted as a grid carved by a laser. He hadn't changed all that much, still goofy, still insistent on listening to distracting music on the ridge, and wearing those annoying shoes with wheels, but all between his visits to different departments and scrawled notes on hard-copy notebooks, he was beginning to collect in large piles in his quarters.

Two visits to the gym every day, once to work out and once for sparring practice with anyone who would take him on was.... Odd.

A little more so the amount of times he had let Cannon kick the shit out of him, which was many, but the man could take a beating without complaint, so she supposed that was to be.... Admiried?

Pitied?

No

"Is this about, Sunny?"

Admiral vir almost walked himself into a wall stopping just short as he turned to look at her eyebrows furrowed, "Simon?"

"What/"

"I think you're getting better at reading people."

He walked past her without answering the question and into the elevator up to the bridge. They stood quietly inside together as they waited, and Admiral Vir left her behind as he stepped onto deck walking over to take the call.

He sat in the captain's chair as the holo projection buzzed to life before him.

"Chairwoman."

"Admiral."

"What can I do for you."

"Are you busy?"

"I don't have to be, ma'am."

"Good, good, something has come up, and we need the expertise of your crew."

He leaned forward in his seat just a bit, "Go on."

"You recall the planet we sent you too, the one with proof of ancient alien inhabitants though there was no evidence of them?"

He shivered, "how could I forget."

"And you say you encountered... something."

He nodded "I seem to recall your psychological experts rejected my experience out of hand as.... Head trauma, wasn't it?"

She sighed "yes, well.... There have been some developments, come to light, and we believe that.... That we were wrong. We would like you to meet up with the scientific team we are sending over, and, if you don't mind, bring an evaluation of your experience from Dr. Adric, we may want to analyse it more. Our Team wishes to study it in more depth, if that would be acceptable."

He bowed his head, "Yes, Ma'am. I will. Expect us there within the hour."

"Our team won't be ready for a few of your hours yet, so that should give you time to get that evaluation for us."

"Yes, ma'am."

***

Dr. Adric stared at the Admiral, sitting across from him in his office. Despite him being here for wildly different reasons than were normal, he couldn't help but analyse the man as if he were one of his patients.

He looked good, healthy, rested, and relaxed, which seemed uncommon for the man within the last year. He was also more reserved than he had been, which could potentially be a sign of emotional exhaustion or simply increasing maturity, but the man's easy smile and relaxed posture calmed him to that idea, and he sat back in his chair.

"How are you doing?"

Adam smiled again, "Just can't help yourself, can you doctor,"

"No, afraid not."

"I'm alright, hope to keep doing better in the future. I think, Like everyone, I still have my days, but they are less and less as the weeks go on."

"I am very glad to hear that."

"Did you get the message from the Chairwoman?"

He nodded, "About your experience on RM-46."

"Yes."

"What do you remember?"

He held his holopad in front of him and held it up, recording while he took notes.

"I remember feeling like I was being watched, that was a big one, probably more to do with how eerie the planet was than anything. I was on edge, but not afraid. When I fell into the trapdoor, I remember it was dark at first,"

"Did you hit your head?"

"No, but I did get the wind knocked out of me pretty badly."

"Go on."

"There were these little red glowing orbs on the wall and they pulsed on and off as I walked. They were everywhere, and they sort of permeated the room around me which grew bigger and bigger and bigger as I walked, until I was in a massive room, it could have housed a stadium inside it, and at the center of the room I saw this..... this .... Thing... It's hard to describe really but.... Not, impossible to describe, like a tree root, but curled into impossible combinations and connections, where it seemed like one should end another would begin, and where you would assume one would go in front of another it went behind, but in ways that seemed impossible. Like... Like an M.C Echer painting where the water flows uphill. Everything about it seemed to defy the laws of nature but not in a way that one could really explain.... And when I saw it I.... I had such an urge to... to touch it. Like i.... It's impossible to describe. But you know when you've been underwater for too long and you really need to breathe, and you are so desperate for air that you claw your way back to the surface..... It was like that. And so I reached out, and when I touched it it was... warm, and soft like skin. I Didn't really have long to think about that thought because before I knew it, itw was like I had been knocked away from my body. Ripped out of myself and cast into the universe."

He raised a hnd to his head rubbing his temples eyes squinted slightly, "Trying to think about it.... Makes my head hurt because.... It was, unfathomable, there was so much of everything extending into infinity, and all of it was trying to fit inside my head at once. I saw things made and unmade and I felt like I was part of the universe. I was being pulled through everything and nothing and.... I." He closed his eyes, "I'm sorry, it... it almost hurts to think about."

He took a deep breath,

"And then I felt as if I was going towards something, somewhere specific, and as I approached.... I.... I felt as if I was going home. Not like home to my parents or even my brothers and sisters but... home." He sighed, "I'm not explaining this very well. But I felt like I was heading back to somewhere I belonged, it felt warm, like if peace was a location, and there was the only place I could find it. It felt like going to somewhere where I would never hurt again, I would never, want anything ever again. And then....." he rubbed his head again, "And then I can't describe, it was like I could see.... Like a veil was being lifted from over my eyes and just as I was looking into... whatever it was, the veil slammed down like an iron shutter and I was pulled back.... I.... Have never felt such a sense of loss...."

He reached up a hand and wiped at his eyes, "I can't even think about it without crying. It hurts so bad, like heartbreak, not metaphorical,but it physically hurts like my chest is being pulled apart. I think about it and I can't breathe." He took a deep breath resting his hand against his chest, "It never seems to fade. If I try to think about it too much, I just hurt."

Dr. Adric reached out a hand and rested it on the other man's arm, "We can stop."

He took a deep breath and nodded, "It's just so, strange. Nothing has ever had that kind of effect on me before, and then just to be told it was all from head trauma, well I don't buy it. But that wasn't even the weird part."

"No?"

"No, when I was there... I didn't feel... alone.... It felt like, as I was carried away, I was wrapped in the arms of.... something .... Like a child, and when they took me away they said that I wasn't' ready yet. I Could have imagined it I guess, but I swear, it told me that I wasn't ready yet, and that is when I woke up five miles away from the city before it collapsed."

They drew into a long silence."

"I see."

"Do I sound crazy?"

"No, I have just never seen a reaction like that.... And you say whenever you think about it."

"I try to think very little about it. The last time I tried in any sort of way I ended up on the floor in the fetal position sobbing like a child and fell asleep there waking up with an absolutely massive headache, so ys, I try to avoid it whenever possible."

Dr Adric frowned, "I think that is something we should look into."

It looked as if Adam was about to argue, but then sighed, "Alright after this is over, I promise, we can look into it, but I am almost 100 percent positive, it isn't just my head. There was something out there.... something .... Something I am supposed to be a part of, but I'm not."

Adam turned his head to stare out of the room and into space.

***

Deus, that word again.

He sat at the desk in his room staring at the piles of notebooks before him, and the projected map hanging in the air just off to the side. He spun in his chair to stare at the projections.

Deus.... The latin word for god or deity repeated back to him from the mouths of aliens.

At the projected map before him, the locations where he had heard those words blinked and pulsed slightly as little lines of glowing thread connected them.

First, it had been the infected starborn, and then it had been the Leviathan, and then from the city before the collapse. Why would a latin word make its way into the vocabulary of creatures who had never even heard latin before. Or perhaps this was just some sort of fluke, it was a big universe and some of the sounds that alien made sometimes made human words, it was bound to happen. But the fact that they meant the same thing swas odd.

He wondered if it was some kind of greeting instead, but shook his head thoughtfully, no, they had been talking to him when they said it, directly speaking to him, but that hardly made sense either, last time he checked he wasn't some great dity of overwhelming power.

He assumed he would have noticed by now.

He tapped his foot lightly against the ground, and off to the side waffles raised her head, wagging her tail slowly across the floor.

"You confused too, girl?"

She whined softly and rested her head back on her paws.

He turned to look back at the map. He was missing something here, a very big piece of something. And he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what.

Of course that wasn't going to stop him he supposed.