As I descended down into the sticky pool of core lubricant once more, I heard my sister talking from the other side of the room, "It's going to be okay, Meryll. Really. I've seen this future, and it's all going to work out. I promise."

I nodded, not yet closing the core around me. I wanted so badly to believe her, but I was stuck on it. Something was wrong; I could feel it. I just couldn't put my finger on exactly what. I took a brief look around my internal sensors to find Collins up in the utility room before I spoke. "I t-trust you on that, Lily," I started, then took in a deep breath and tried to force myself to relax. "I don't know, m-may...be my nightm-mares just have me psyched o-out."

I watched her nod on the sensor behind me. "It was a stressful thing to remember, and now you're about to do something stressful that we've all been anxious about. But everything's going to be okay. Just remember that."

She was right. It was just nerves. This was the biggest job I've ever done as Theseus, and dealing with my own traumas in the midst of that had just compounded into a feeling of dread that I was misattributing as an omen. I had to let it go. "Sorry for doubting you, sis," I muttered.

"Hey, it's alright," Lily tried to reassure me, a small smile growing on her face. "It's in the past. You're the one who taught me to embrace that. You're like... a completely different person now. Eventually, you'll remember all those memories, and then you won't have anymore surprise nightmares like that, right?"

"Or I get r-rer...uns," I grumbled, "But at l-least then I'll know w-what's coming." I shared her smile as I did my best to let go of my lingering anxiety. "I'm gonna d-dive now, okay?"

"Enjoy yourself," Lily insisted. "And don't let yourself get too psyched out. You're gonna do great."

"Thanks." I did a few breathing exercises to prepare myself for the dive, then sent the signal to close the machinery. I'd try to focus on the joy of acting as Theseus, but no matter what, today would be a very long day.

—

The moment my body was settled away in the core, I shifted my attention to the cargo bay, where the ground crew were outfitting themselves for the drop.

Mouse had covered the iconic bright yellow case of the Thunderbolt in a dark wrap, and had a submachine gun clipped to the webbing around his chest. He would be acting as Overwatch as usual.

Joel had a vest of several magazines, grenade canisters, knives, and tools on a vest, and carried a rifle strapped over his shoulder. A pistol sat in a holster at his belt as well. Hopefully he wouldn't need the firepower, but it was better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

Aisling stood against a wall, wearing her usual bandolier of handguns, as a belt covered with all the infiltration tools they might need, and a discrete pouch at the small of her back that I knew held some stable explosives if they really needed it. She looked prepared ahead of everyone else, and in her usual fashion, she planned to lead from the front.

Shaw simply didn't have that much to prepare. He only had on the harness that everyone else had under their gear to make use of the rappelling cable, a small sidearm Aisling had insisted he bring, which he'd stowed inside of his jacket, and a few tools. What he carried in a massive case at his side, however, was my key to remaining involved in this mission: A miniaturized private relay that would allow me a node to spread my influence from orbit. For a time at least. It wasn't meant to be a permanent fixture. Shaw's role was mostly technical, but he had some social engineering plans of his own to worm his way into the convention center and 'see what he can do to help', in his words.

Ray was carrying the most of anyone. A large container was tied around her lower back; supplies for everyones' weapons. She had her sword strapped over her shoulder, and a shotgun at her side. And beyond the modified harness over her chest, she didn't have much in the way of armor. They didn't make things like that in her size, and it wasn't a matter of kludging together something that worked with what we had, her body simply wasn't made to make use of modern protective gear in any form we could get our hands on. Which made me worried for her, but I also knew how tough she was without it. I told myself she would be okay. Lily said that she would be okay.

Collins was standing over the group on the second floor catwalk, watching the procession with interest. "You all look like you're having fun... I'm guessing this isn't some kind of drill." She had an unimpressed look on her face.

"Apologies for not informing you of all our plans," Aisling called back, folding her arms and leaning against a wall. "But you're not a part of this crew, and we take opsec very seriously." I could feel the vague accusatory tone aimed at Lily and I in that sentence. "We're currently over Europa, and we only plan to be that way for the day. After that, we're immediately off to Luna."

Collins let out a sigh, "And here I thought we were already on our way. Had you ever heard of viewports when you designed this crazy ship?"

"There's one on the bridge, that's all we need." Aisling shot back with a dismissive shrug. "And I didn't design it. I just put it together with the bits someone else designed."

"Oh, that makes it so much better." Collins said sarcastically. "There's a reason that starships are designed with the principals we make them with. Throwing something together like this... I'm frankly surprised it works at all."

"I wouldn't have it in any other shape, thank you!" I called from the intercom on the floor, the volume peaking slightly so I could make sure she heard me.

"You would say that about any ship we grafted you to," Mouse grumbled.

That was a good point. Theseus only felt the right shape for me because that's the shape that it was grafted into my head as. So as long as I was proud of being a starship in general, I'd probably have been happy with being any starship. This one was just mine. "Whatever! I'm done thinking about this!" I declared, getting a few snickers from the group.

Collins gave an amused huff at my antics, and steered back to the topic at hand. "So, you've got some big heist or raid or whatever. I guess just... thanks for still giving me a ride when you've clearly got a lot of shit going on."

"Couldn't drop you off, anyway." Aisling answered. "You're not in any kind of physical shape to get off here."

Collins tilted her head. "Are you landing... somewhere in the badlands of the moon?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Aisling smirked up at her. "No, we're not landing." She points up at the complex cable array above the cargo bay door. "Drop system."

Collins stared up at the winches for a moment, then did a double take back to Aisling, and the meaning of the harnesses everyone had on suddenly made sense. She shook her head and chuckled. "You all are lunatics."

Shaw spoke up next. "If you step out now, you'll not only have just a little more plausible deniability, but you won't have to deal with low-atmosphere compression." He smiled wide up at her.

She clacked her crutches back around without a moment's hesitation. "Don't have to tell me twice. Get on with whatever you're doing up here and leave me out of it."

A few moments after she left, the scissor lift started to descend from the third floor. Lily was coming down to the second level. 'All ready?' I sent her on our private line.

'Yep. I wish it was more convenient to use the bathroom when the cargo bay's going to be sealed for a bit. Not much to be done about it, I guess.'

It was pretty annoying that she needed the lift to get around, but building ramps all over the place wasn't feasible, either. 'Who knows? If we get rich off this, maybe we can afford a second elevator in the back.'

'Ha ha. Doc says I might still be able to recover the use of my legs, and I'm holding him to that. No need to make permanent fixtures for my sake.'

'If you say so. It'd probably mess with my structure anyway.'

When the lift got to the second floor, she rolled off, giving a wave down at the others before returning to the crew quarters herself. "Well, if anyone else needs to use the bathroom or something, last chance." I warned through the intercom.

"How soon's our window, Shaw?" Aisling asked.

Shaw pulled up his handheld. "Sixteen minutes, fourty-two seconds," he declared. "She is standing by with our interference."

"Then the time for bathroom breaks is past," Aisling declared. "Everyone do a final check on your gear, and get wired into the cable system. We have a five minute window, so we'll be dropping in about twenty."

—

Everyone stood tense at the cargo bay's large door. In a matter of minutes, it would open up, and they'd have to rapidly free rappel down onto the top of a skyscraper, blocks from the convention center, in near-total darkness. I would have to stop mid-air into a hover, in-atmosphere, as quickly as possible for them to land safely on target. If we wanted this operation to get on its feet running, this maneuver would have to go off without a hitch. And I didn't have the sims to practice this particular move, only math that said it would work.

I was prepared to let Alpha and Omega perform it in computational time if I had to, but I was almost certain I could handle it myself. I had a hair trigger on activating the damper, just in case anything went off even slightly, though.

"Time," Aisling demanded.

Shaw rolled his eyes, still staring at the comms app on the terminal in his hand. "I don't have a time. I've sent the signal, I'll tell you when I get it back. It's not like any of us are going anywhere in the meantime."

"Feeling tense, captain?" Joel asked with a grumble. "Not too late to call it if you're feeling spooked too."

Aisling shook her head. "Not spooked, just... anxious to start. Being on standby like this is tense."

"No matter how many times you do it, yeah." Joel nodded.

"Well aren't you two just hardened war heroes today?" Shaw scoffed, shaking his head. "Hopefully, you don't turn this into a warzone, and we get out with something useful. Remember, this is a covert op. You may all be strapped to the gills with ordinance, but we don't stand any kind of chance in a prolonged engagement. If you go all shock and awe on them down there, you better already be moving to evacuate."

"That's the plan," Aisling noted. "We may not be able to win a war, but we'll bring what we need to finish a battle. You just focus on your part, and figure out what you can from the convention floor."

"Hah! You think I'm not going to find my way backstage, that's adorable," Shaw taunted, then glanced down hard at his terminal. "Typing..." Everyone tensed up, standing at attention while Shaw continued to watch the screen. He then quickly tucked the terminal away as he exclaimed. "Five minutes! Move!"

And so I did, breaking free of the orbital formation and jerking down at a steep angle toward the colony. We didn't have a large window, and I would have to make some rough moves, but judging by the only slight judder of the line of crew standing at the door, the new artificial grav system was up to the task. Through subtle shifts along the array of ships over the moon, I'd jockeyed to a position that would offer me an optimal approach to our landing site, and I was going to make as much of it as I could.

It was faster than I'd normally make an approach at, and the crew actually did have to grab onto the wall to keep steady once we started breaking atmosphere, but once we were through, I stabilized to a high altitude cruise and began compressing the cargo bay. It would take a conspicuous amount of time to fully open the door if I waited until I was in position, so I had to prepare far above. Wind whipped into the large room as the bulkhead pulled open, and the others held tight to their cables as they held their ground in front of the opening.

"Have I mentioned how positively insane this is yet?!" Shaw shouted excitedly, a wide smile on his face. He was enjoying this.

"She's got this!" Ray called back. "Just trust her!"

I did have this. Once the door was partially opened, I took a gentler descent toward the colony, keeping a close eye on the timer. That had taken two and a half minutes. Our window was already half gone. I needed to hurry. I swooped down just over the landing site. It was impossible that somebody didn't see me, but Shaw was right, they'd just mistake it for a ship that needed a little bit of piloting calibration moving to land at the nearby port, rather than anything malicious.

The crew was carefully leading the cables down onto the cargo ramp, ready to toss them overboard when I gave the signal, and then follow shortly after.

Three minutes, fifteen seconds. "In position! Go go go!" I called through the intercom, a slight feedback trailing the end of my words. And off they went. They tossed the cables down from different positions off the side of the cargo bay, and twenty seconds later, human bodies were careening down hundreds of meters at varying speeds, onto a wide roof we'd chosen for the landing.

As I maintained a stable position, I also watched with my external sensors as they each touched down onto the rooftop, too dark to make out exactly who made it when, and I stared at the timer for the maneuver. At the four minute, thirty second mark, I watched the last person hit the roof.

They were in, but this was too slow. I immediately started closing the cargo bay door again, raised my altitude, and barreled off into the night, winching in the cables as fast as I could. "Everyone hold on! I need to escape faster than planned!" I broadcasted to all the intercoms, not checking who was where.

I gave a sigh of relief that the door had managed to close just before I hit the edge of atmosphere. I did not want to blow out the cargo bay again. Four minutes, fifty seconds, and I still had to finish breaking atmosphere and get back into orbital formation. I just had to hope that Shaw's estimate was a little lenient. Five minutes passed just as I tore up into vacuum and switched back to my orbital control scheme.

I gave a request to the nearest few ships to make room for me, and they complied in just a few seconds, but I was nowhere near my original position before the blackout when I slid in, and we were sitting at the six minute, thirty second mark.

Immediately, the comms terminal at the helm lit up. Fuck. There were two demands for an explanation for my reckless flying from a couple of the ships I'd made the requests to, as well as the port authority apologizing for the temporary service blackout and asking if something had gone wrong while they could not reach us.

Thinking quickly, I messaged back to all three that we had made a request to shift orbit just before the blackout, and the core had malfunctioned when an expected response wasn't received. One of the ships was sympathetic and complained about the outage, while the other told me to 'get my shit together' and cut comms immediately. The port apologized again for the outage, recommended that our core be recertified for orbital maneuvers, and that due to their error, any fines would be waived for the incident. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned my attention back to the ground crew.

I'd done it. I'd gotten them into position, and I was written off as an anomaly of the service outage Shaw's contact had caused. That, at least, was successful. Sure, I was probably about to get a bunch of paperwork about the incident, but I was never going to submit it. One daunting maneuver down, so many more to go.

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