The rumbling continued deep within the planet's lower crust. Projections on the seismic map estimated the eventual collapse of the bran mining operation on the other side of the planet. Though they didn't plan to go long enough for the tunnels to completely collapse, they planned to used the abandoned mining ground as the stage for their own setup.

Mining precious metals in the GA territories were highly regulated, and the products made and sold from those precious metals were also highly monitored, however, the GA could hardly monitor what they didn't know about.

The biotin sniffed at the dusty air hating the way the dirt clung to her skin like a glove of fuzzy filth. The air here tasted sour and fake like most terraformed planets, and all she wanted to do was go back to her home world and relax where it didn't smell so bad, but she knew she had to get this job done.

She glanced down at the paper she held, and idly walked her way over to where the staging operation had been set up, made out of several interlocking grey tents that were designed to look like the rocky surface of the planet if anyone was looking, as well as bloc their transmission signals so they couldn't be spotted if anyone where to have an eye keen enough to spot them.

She stopped just inside the Tent to where the.... Human was sitting staring at the screens and tapping his long bony fingers together.

She hated this human, he was annoying and self centered, and likely thought he was enigmatic with the strange clothing he wore, and the mirrored glasses that covered his eyes, but she just found him wildly pretentious.

"How goes it, sir."

He nodded, "The mining companies have left with the help of the Omen.." he sneered as the word passed through his lips, "The property is benign abandoned, and we should have a couple of months until they send someone to take a look and see what happened, at least until they send a force large enough for us to have to worry."

She nodded but didn't bother to agree or contradict him. It wouldn't matter either way.

Besides, she didn't care what happened as long as she got what she wanted.

The GA was too large and too involved in everything in the galaxy, The leaders of her planet were too lax with their tariffs and trade deals, and because of their poor economic management, the Iotin planet had fallen into relative anonymity and been ignored by the rest of the galaxy. She believed they could be doing so much more, but it's not like they could really compete with humans and Tesraki.

She was sick and tired of the GA thinking they could control everything.

And so was this human.

As much as she despised humans on principle, at least this human and her had similar goals.

She could work with the enemy for a little while longer while they hashed out a true plan.

The human turned to look at her through his mirrored shades. The man was an older human who she was sure dyed his hair to cover the grey, and she did her best to conceal her disgust as she moved forward and handed him the drawn schematic.

He glanced down at it.

"Where is the rest?"

"He said he would deliver the rest upon payment. This was just a show of good will."

"A show of goodwill." he snarled, but then slowly sat back in his seat, "Can he guarantee that it works."

She bristled at his tone, but didn't rise to challenge him, "He assures me it has already been tested on a human and achieved the desirable results.

"That's hardly comforting if I haven't seen it."

"Then take it up with him yourself. You should have worried about all this BEFORE agreeing to hijack an entire mining operation to build the damn things!"

He bristled right back at her but she didn't care. She was coming to learn that not all humans were so like the ones the GA had met first hand. IN fact most humans weren't loyal and honorable. Most of them were greedy, cowardly predators, who wanted nothing more than to push for their own personal gain while leaving others to rot in the dust.

This human was no different.

But soon it would all be over.

Very very soon.

She glanced down at the half schematic and the Kree seal stamped on the back.

***

"The seismic activity has escalated since evacuation. So far my scientists have been unable to pinpoint the source, as far as we knew, the planet wasn't supposed to have plates, but something seems to be disturbing its stability. We were wondering if perhaps the extensive cave systems could do it, but, as far as we could tell the systems weren't nearly large enough to disturb the lower crust of the planet."

"And the evacuation?"

"The larger mining companies shipped off most of their employees on their waiting station ships, and I took some of what remained. We will be bringing most of them back to the Bran homeworld for recovery."

"And you admiral, how do your people fare?"

"The rescue teams managed to make it out alive. I was almost crushed, but some quick thinking by Lord Celex's son saved my life, but other than that no one was injured too badly, but I would take some scientists to keep an eye on the strange underground activity. We have never seen anything like it, and are worried that the planet might be destabilizing. It isn't o dire considering that the planet was originally uninhabited, but I am told this mining station carries the highest percentage of Terbium to minerals in the galaxy, so it would be a loss."

A few feet away, Ket lay curled on a ball on a pillow with a warm up of glowmoss in one hand. A few other miners sat around the room idly listening to the Admiral who was talking over communication to the GA council, a council that had grown a lot bigger since Ket had known of it five years ago.

In fact a lot of things had changed since the humans had arrived, and not for the worse as he had once suspected.

He munched on some of the moss and turned to watch the human as he paced across the floor. How strange it was to see the creature from his nightmares in such a.... non -nightmarish circumstance. He could still remember the chase all those years ago and felt the horror and concern that had almost driven him to madness down in the mining tunnels, but, there the human was talking like a civilised creature, apparently head of the GA's coalition fleet, and some sort of bigshot ambassador.

Not to mention all the strange alien creatures that he had come across since stepping on the towering four-armed warriors and the fuzzy fluff balls of anger. The one that had come to rescue him was still sitting on the human's shoulder, interjecting the occasional point to the council when the human missed something.

It was all so surreal.

For years he had been hiding in that tunnel, what he originally only saw as maybe half a year turned out to be around five years, and the galaxy had grown in scope and involvement. What had once been a coalition of uneasy allies held together by economics, the GA was now a thriving galactic metropolis based on mutual backing and delicate diplomatic involvement.

Or at least that's what he had seen so far.

"Thank you." The human said before shutting off the hologram and walking back across the room full of evacuees

His single green eye fell on Ket skin still dusted with the grime of rocks and dirt, and stepped over to kneel next to him and where he sat on his cushion. It had been a very long time since he had been aboard a spaceship and even longer since he had talked to anyone. He was still getting used to that.

And the human still managed to unnerve him.

"How are you feeling."
"Overwhelmed."

The human's rubbery, mobile face deformed a bit so one corner of its mouth stretched upwards for a moment, "I can hardly blame you for that. You've been away a long time." The human paused, and Ket watched him curiously as he reached up to rub the back of his head, "Look I, know i've already apologized for what happened five years ago, but it was sort of a half assed apology considering that we were being crushed at the time." He shifted his weight so he was now resting on his other knee, "I want to explain myself. Before I saw you, my entire planet thought that we were the only living things in the galaxy. No one believes in extraterrestrial life, and upon seeing you, I was just excited, and wanted to make sure it was all real."

Ket waited.

"I know that doesn't excuse years of psychological trauma, but I promise, when I was.... Chasing you, I didn't mean to hurt you. I was excited, and I should have been more diplomatic about it. I can see that now, but back then we didn't really know anything about politicking with aliens. I am not trying to excuse my behavior, but I just want you to understand that I made a mistake and I am willing to apologize for it."

It seemed so strange, and unusual coming from the mouth of a predator, but he found that he.... Believed it?

How odd.

"I understand...... I admit I am a bit surprised as to how things turned out."

The human showed its teeth, which he was coming to realize was supposed to be a good thing, "Yes, a lot of things have changed in the last five years, come and I'll show you." ket let the empty cup of moss fall to the side by his cushion and stood to walk at the feet of the human who was at least four feet taller than him since ket stood on six legs and the human stood on two, they might have been around the same height if the human had decided to walk on al fours, but at this point ket had to crane his neck up to look at the human.

"We began peace talks with the GA shortly after you were relocated to your new post. We signed the treaty in a little over a year and I offered to help in the Drev war, which I believe you might have heard of since it started before we showed up."

Ket nodded his head.

"We won the Drev war for the GA and the Drev began peace talks after the war ended. I Was promoted to captain shortly after and given command of the ship under loan from the UNSC to the GA in order to support diplomatic relationships between our people. Since then the Gnarlak nation has fallen, and those remaining have been confined to a plot of land on their planet where they can no longer hurt the FInnari, a subjugated species which was farmed by the Gnarlak. Other notable discovered species have been the Tvek, Lumin, Mikes, Iotins, Celzex, dort of, Starborn Tricar, and hopefully I am not forgetting anyone. We have fought in two burg wars and won them both releasing the burg population from total supremacy under an unfeeling tyrant. Interspecies relationships are legal now, though the discrimination they face is still something we are working on. Planetary GDP has risen for petty much everyone and our job market is only getting better. The tourist industry is becoming a gib thing. My Tesraki market analysts say that humans, the Tesraki and and Rundi are currently galactic superpowers in regards to power and economic influence, but as far as we can tell this hasn't caused to man problems between the other less influential groups. The Bran for instance." he glanced down at ket, "are selling precious metals used in electronics at ten thousand percent higher output rate than you were a few years ago and selling at a fifty percent markup. As far as I know, no one is hurting."

He tapped his fingers against his arm, "I think that is most everything important you need to know, oh I forgot the Kree war and discovering that, somewhere out in the universe, there is another sentient, and likely multi species galactic coalition, though we haven't had the pleasure of meeting or interacting with them just yet." he frowned, "Well, I have, but I hardly consider it interacting because they kept me in a cage most of the time."

Ket stared at the human, and the human shrugged, "that should catch you up to speed."

It most certainly did not, but he supposed it was as good of an opening as he was going to get.

Honestly he had no idea what he was supposed to do or think. It was all so new to him, and all so strange. How was he going to actually catch up?

How was he going to integrate back into society after all this?

After months of being nearly incoherent?

He could still feel that part of him lurking somewhere in the background and knew that it was not gone.

He was going to have to figure out something eventually....