Two cloaked figures, Helios and her squire, moved purposefully through the desert winds. At long last they came upon the same outcropping behind which they hid when they first detected the Old One presence.

<Do you see anything yet?> Helios asked her suit.

<I'll tell you when I see something,> replied the Suit, exasperated with her.

<I think this could be it. I have never given you a more important task.>

<I understand. I said I'd tell you.>

<Good,> thought Helios. <Pay special attention to the place we detected the Old Ones before.>

<What an amazing and novel idea I never would have come up with myself,> her Suit said. <You let me worry about the hypersensors and you worry about breathing and walking at the same time.>

"Wait a moment," Helios told her squire as she came to a halt herself. "My Suit is having a look around."

"I'll help too," offered Annesdaughter.

"I have it covered. Your job is to do nothing until I say so."

Helios was tense and she spoke a little more harshly than she intended.

"Where did this come from all of the sudden? Since when can't I scan for hostiles?"

"Since I told you your job was to do nothing. This is a delicate task."

Squire Annesdaughter was a sharp kid. She would keep asking questions. Helios would need to have the talk with her in the near future. In the immediate future if her hunch was correct.

Helios wanted more time to get a feel for her squire. To be able to better predict her potential reaction. Time was the one advantage she didn't have. She would have to take a leap of faith. All this would be for nothing if she couldn't show some basic human solidarity. That was the point, wasn't it?

"It's frustrating, fighting like this. Isn't it?" said Helios.

"What do you mean?" asked Annesdaughter.

"I mean with one hand tied behind our backs. The Old Ones aren't any real threat to us on an even battlefield. All their advantages come from being willing to break the rules. We hold ourselves back when if we just let go we could humiliate them even more thoroughly than we did in the war."

"Well maybe," said Annesdaughter. "As fun as that sounds I like the Parliament of Stars might have something to say about it."

"The Parliament is exactly what I'm talking about. Take this whole proxy war. It wouldn't even have happened if our hands weren't tied by the Parliament. Any fool can see what the Old Ones are doing and yet we're expected to pretend the gug-gug-gugs are acting alone and treat them like an out-of-play species. It's pathetic."

"Well what's the alternative? Quit the Parliament? We have enough enemies as it is."

"You're right," replied Helios. We would need to surpass the Parliament first.

<Do you see anything yet?> Helios asked.

<Oh sure I was just hiding it from- wait, no I actually might. Stop distracting me.>

There was a beat of silence.

<There's something at the edge of my sensor range. We need to get closer.>

"Come on," said Helios, and she led her squire onward.

They circled around the outcropping and made their way towards the place where they had originally detected the Old Ones.

<Yes. I see it now. It would be hard to hide that. Look at this.>

The Suit dumped sensor data into Helios' H.U.D. She could clearly see the disturbances in the sand that indicated the presence of cloaked Old Ones. More importantly, however, she could see they were excavating something. Something that itself had no presence on the scanners, not even an absence. Something utterly invisible even in hyperspace. Only the activity of the Old Ones around it hinted at its existence.

<Is that what I think it is?> asked Helios.

<What else could it be?> asked the Suit.

<We never should have gone on that sprelling data heist with Dane. If we had gotten here one day later...>

<He was too close to blowing everything up.>

<Oh well, it doesn't matter. It all worked out in the end.>

"Fire up your hyperscanners," said Helios. "Do you see that?"

"The Old Ones," said Annesdaughter after a moment. "What are they doing? Digging a giant hole?"

"Tell your suit to bring some AM micro missiles online. We're going to attack on my signal."

"Wait, what?" sputtered Annesdaughter. "Why would we do that? Shouldn't we go back to the safe house and report what we've found? We have Dragons with us. That's what they're for. Let them fight the Old Ones."

"No time," said Helios. "On my signal."

"Right," said Annesdaughter. Her lack of enthusiasm was palpable.

Helios' Suit finished its calculations and settled on an angle of attack.

"Now," said Helios.

She and her squire exploded into the sky and came blasting straight at their target.

"Missiles," said Helios.

Both rangers warped in the micro missiles, already in flight, and they went screaming towards the excavation site. They peppered the area. There was a brief moment of silence, the eye of the storm, before a series of matter/antimatter annihilation reactions shook the planet's crust. The noise was deafening. The shockwave tore the rangers' cloaks into tatters. Sandy mushroom clouds rose from the detonation sites.

Communication jammers or not every gug-gug-gug within a hundred clicks would know what happened.

"Start looking for survivors," said Helios, swooping down towards the devastation below. "Give me a shout if you find any."

The both landed. Sand obscured everything. It was impossible to see. Helios disappeared into it.

"Where are you going?" asked Annesdaughter.

"To check something."

"No. Not good enough," said the squire. "What's going on? Why did we do all this? Are you deliberately trying to sabotage the war effort?"

"Quite the contrary," said Helios. "What I propose to do is win this war and every war to come. Tell me: what do you know about the Inxon?"

Annesdaughter was confused but clearly intrigued.

"That they've been dead since before our earliest ancestors evolved," she said. "And apparently they were succeeded by a bunch of humorless geometric shapes who blow you up if you try to mess with their stuff."

"Not inaccurate," said Helios. "The Successors of Inxon are right to fear the technology of their creators. It contains the secrets of nearly unlimited power. Why do you think the Old Ones risked so much in these attacks? So they could conquer a few strategically irrelevant planets? They arrived at the same conclusion I have: there's an Inxon Data Tomb on this planet. That's what the Old Ones were excavating. That's why they're here. This entire proxy war was just a distraction so they could dig it up without anyone suspecting."

"Well it's not going to be much of a threat anymore, we just blew everything in the area to smithereens."

"Oh no. Not this. The walls are made of sculpted space/time. Nothing can harm them and active sensors pass through like they're not there. Are you starting to understand? This is technology beyond our wildest imaginings. Once we understand it humanity will be the sole superpower in the galaxy. We won't need to fear the Parliament. We will be untouchable."

"Are you completely insane?" asked Annesdaughter. "You've gone to some extreme lengths to mess with me before but wounds of Tellus..."

"No," said Helios, very seriously. "What's insane is the galaxy as it exists today. What's insane is allowing ourselves to be bullied by less powerful species out of some demented alien sense of propriety. What's insane is leaving power of this kind on the table when we so desperately need it. Where's your loyalty, Ophelia? Is it to the human race?"

"This isn't us. This isn't what humanity is anymore. We've worked so hard to move past it."

"No. But it's what we will be," said Helios. "I'm disappointed in you squire. I thought you would understand. That's why I chose you."

"I don't," said Annesdaughter. "I don't understand."

"I know," said Helios.

<Suit!> she thought.

Helios raised her hand and an ion rifle warped into it. She fired three quick pulses. They tore through the squire's shields and exploded on impact with her Suit. The force of it knocked Annesdaughter from her feet and half embedded her in the sand.

Annesdaughter was in complete shock. This wasn't supposed to be possible. Helios calmly stepped forward and leveled her weapon at her, grabbing it with her other hand to steady it.

Annesdaughter shot backwards, skimming along the sand on her back as she dragged herself away using AG. Helios fired at her as she fled, scoring several more glacing hits, but nothing that managed to penetrate her Suit.

Annesdaughter flung herself into the air, spun around so she was facing the right way, and continued to fly away at top speed.

Helios looked back at the cloud of dust, and then to her rapidly disappearing squire. She wasn't worth chasing. It was too important to secure the data tomb. Nothing else mattered. Once that was complete there was no one who could stop her, not A.R.C., not the Parliament, and certainly not a squire in a half-ruined Suit.

Helios walked deeper into the dust cloud until even her silhouette disappeared.