When the engine exploded, Widow’s mind was already writing the report.

Mission Report: OCNI-20955 “Toxic Shock”

Status: Failed

Agent: Leigh “Widow” Howells

Date: 2552-11-30

For future reference, this is why we tell you assholes not to tamper with our equipment. We could have had a relatively clean abort if your little techs weren’t constantly fiddling with the engines.

The mission had started cleanly enough. Wolf had taken the Weaver in nice and slow, drifting around Eupheme like another piece of debris. The ship was already depressurized, isolation suits were on, comms were full-spectrum silent. The target - a “small” Affini craft holding high-value personnel - dwarfed the stealth craft. Perfect. She lined it all up beautifully. Weaver bumped up against the hull, nice and gentle, and secured as normal. Trapdoor and Goliath started on the diversion charges while the rest of the team crept across to the bay. The Affini craft was in a nice slow roll, so traversal was simple, if not downright easy.

Just a minute later, the firebombs went off across the rear of the target, sending silent plumes of smoke up across the ship, obscuring the Weaver. Right on schedule, the team crossed over into the hangar. A prickle ran across Widow’s skin. There were no alarms, no sirens, no alerts. The hangar was empty, but it certainly wasn’t left in a hurry. Nearly a dozen smaller Affini craft were there, well-secured in dry dock, but they weren’t being repaired as far as Widow could tell. Widow signed across to Huntsman. Something is wrong. Abort? The strike leader shook his head. Not yet.

They crept across the hangar, eventually flipping to land right-side-up in the hangar, and drew their weapons. Even through the isolation suit’s gloves, the heavy precision rifle was comfortable in Widow’s hands. Huntsman took the lead, followed by Recluse. Widow crept along behind, their helmet starting to record environmental data as they walked. There was something unsettling about this place, and that initial prickle of instinct wasn’t going away. Where were the Affini, anyway?

Hold. Huntsman paused, glancing around a corner, and Widow realised what was unsettling. Everything in the ship was just slightly too large. Scaled for three, four, five-meter-tall creatures, not humans. Signage clearly intended to be at eye-level was instead above Widow’s head, and they weren’t even that short. The ceiling stretched far higher than most Terran constructions, to say nothing of spacecraft. Recluse paused for a moment, affixing one of her many remote mines to the hallway.

Go ahead. The group started to speed up, following information that was shaky at best as they tried to head for the brig. Widow didn’t know where their info had come from. They didn’t particularly want to know. All that mattered was getting in and getting out. Their boots shuffled faintly against the floor, dampened but still ringingly loud in the isolation suit.

Huntsman turned another corner and stopped dead in his tracks. Oh, fuck.

Abort. Now. Go. Came though rapid, clipped hand signals, and Huntsman slowly stepped back from the doorway. Simultaneously, Widow’s suit started to pick up… something. Readouts started fluctuating, trying to identify the new source of information. Widow started to back away, slinging their rifle to their back as their suit’s active camouflage tried to blend in with the hallway. There was a sound, now, not quite like anything Widow had heard before. It was creaking like bending tree branches, whispering like wind through tall grass, and it was growing louder. Huntsman broke into a sprint. “Go, now!” he shouted, blackout comms broken. “Abort! Abort!” Even now, Huntsman’s voice was cool, even, collected. A true OCNI operative.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Widow turned and ran. Their helmet was filled with the sound of boots on metal, their own breathing, and the quickly-growing slither-slide sound that could only mean one thing. Affini. Fuck.

“We’ve been made. Wolf, start spinning the drive. Get Trapdoor and Goliath, then come around to get us.” 

“Well, hello, cuties~” came a new voice. Higher, sweeter. And not from outside, but on their own comms channel. Fuck. “Barrik promised we wouldn’t have to wait long, and what do you know? They were right~”

“Damn it!” shouted Huntsman, an edge creeping into his voice. “What the fuck happened?”

A crackling static preceded Trapdoor’s reply. “Unknown,” he reported. “This channel is supposed to be untappable.”

“Well, clearly it isn’t! Shit! Was this whole damn op a setup?”

“Oh, no, quite the opposite,” replied the xeno, its glee shining through the comms channel. “All your information was quite accurate. We simply… waited for you.”

Widow hazarded a glance backwards. Oh, fuck. Recluse and Huntsman were right behind, and behind them was an oncoming tangle of vines and thorns, closing fast. It didn’t have any recognizable shape, or pattern, or even identifying features - just a rough mass of a wall that would swallow them if it got half a chance.

“Come on, just a little ways further,” muttered Huntsman as the trio skidded around a corner. As they passed, Widow heard the distinct click of Recluse’s mine arming.

Blam!

Less than a second after Huntsman had cleared the corner, the mine detonated, sending a shockwave down the corridor. Widow could see it ripple through the air - wait. The hallway wasn’t always pink. A fine gas hung in the air, saturating it and only growing denser. A glance at the atmospheric report confirmed it. There was something in the air. 

They made it to the hangar, and Widow jumped without hesitation, letting themselves fall towards the exit. Behind them, Recluse and Huntsman followed suit.

“Oh, so we have some fighters~” purred the Affini. “That was a good trick with the little smoke show, I have a feeling you will be fun to break.”

“Go to hell, Weed!” shouted Recluse. Widow looked up, where the Affini tangle was just coming through the doorway. Oh, fuck. It was a mess of writhing vines covered in wicked barbs, and spiked flowers capped each appendage as it hauled itself into the hangar. Huntsman had already turned midair, unleashing a fury of gunfire at the xeno, but the tangled mass parted and the Affini came on, unharmed.

It reached out one long, grasping vine, and snagged the leader by the foot. “Fuck! It’s got me! Goliath, you’re in com-” his radio cut off as quickly as it had started, and Widow saw his helmet and rifle spinning through the hangar’s microgravity. Widow turned back to the exit as the Affini laughed in their ears. “One down, five to go~”

The Weaver was perched at the corner of the hangar entrance, and Widow could see Goliath and Trapdoor waving them on. Widow tucked their legs in, and floated right into the waiting ship. Their suit registered the instant drop in exterior pressure, and a hiss filled their ears as it compensated.

“Wolf, go now!” shouted Goliath, grabbing Recluse and tossing her inside. Widow looked back to the hangar, contemplating taking a shot at their pursuer. The Affini had Huntsman, but there was no way it was getting the rest of them. The Weaver pulled away, jerking Widow’s attention away.

“Get clear!” yelled Wolf. “Jump drive is almost ready!” The door slid shut, and immediately their helmet was filled with the ambient sounds of the jump drive humming dangerously.

Goliath nodded. “Go.”

Wolf pressed the jump key. The pipes hissed as they were flooded with coolant and spent fuel, and Widow braced for the kick-

Nothing happened.

There was a quarter-second of silence.

“What the hell?” Trapdoor asked.

Another giggle came through Ariadne’s radio channel. “Jump drive suppression, cuties. Makes sure you can’t run too far. Now sit tight, we’ll come get you~”

Goliath whirled around to Wolf, slamming her fist on the ceiling. “Wolf, get us the fuck out of here.”

“Okay, okay, sit down! Shit, here goes nothing…” Wolf flicked off the jump drive and grabbed the throttle. Engines roared as fuel poured from reserves into their jets, and Widow would’ve been knocked down if their suit wasn’t already magnetically sealed to the floor and wall.

The Weaver was a top-of-the-line ship, crafted specifically for Ariadne’s needs - speed, stealth, and precious little else. So when Wolf opened up the engines, she was commanding the full brunt of nearly a decade of research and development, an additional few years of field testing, and near-constant optimizations by both Trapdoor and OCNI’s ground team.

The Affini stopped it dead in its tracks.

The hull groaned, the engines screamed, and the Weaver slowed to a halt, held in place by some unknown force.

“Wolf…” said Golaith dangerously.

“I’m trying!” the pilot protested. “I’m giving it all it’s got!”

“Oh, that can’t hardly be your best effort, cutie~” Damn affini. “That’s barely enough to keep one of our transports busy!”

From one corner of the front viewport, a vine started creeping into view. Surely the rest of the ship wasn’t already entangled?

“To hell with this. Trapdoor, open the rear bay door. Wolf, do whatever you have to to get us fucking free. Recluse, Widow, on me.” Goliath, fuming, reached up to the ceiling armory and retrieved her weapon of choice - a bulky plasma machine gun, which, if in normal gravity, would be nearly unmanageable for anyone but Goliath. She swung it about, flicked away the safety, and gestured with one hand to follow.

Wordlessly, Recluse and Widow retrieved their own weaponry and lined up, finding stable spots to lay and fire from.

“Trapdoor, whenever you’re ready,” she said gruffly. 

“Aye.”

The bay door was pulled away, revealing one of the ships Widow had seen in the dry-dock. How had it managed to deploy so quickly? It had… vines, or feelers maybe, bursting out in a ring from just behind the cockpit and stretching out to ensnare the Weaver. A tangle of vines sat inside, smugly denying their escape.

“Open fire.” Goliath commanded, and let loose.

The machine gun, in atmosphere, was a deafening powerhouse of machinery that hurled lethal plasma rounds so quickly it looked like a stream of molten matter more than any conventional weapon. In space, it was a silent but formidable weapon, spewing barely-contained gas forward and out in a shockingly bright cone. It could sever limbs and vaporize objects without a second thought. It could melt through reinforced concrete and composite spacecraft, if you gave it some time. In normal circumstances, the arrival of this weapon meant the fighting was about to end in a truly spectacular light show.

Nothing. The gas dispersed, the gunfire slowed, and the Affini across the gap just smiled though clear, undamaged glass.

And then the engine system exploded.

A half-spark of warning was all Widow got, a stray electrical surge jumping the gap in a nearby panel, before the blend of experimental fuel running through the Weaver’s engines detonated.

A thousand thoughts flashed through Widow’s head. I wonder if the techs tampered with the fuel before this mission. Did they change the injector design? Maybe they forgot to fully seal the electrical conduits. They started drafting the “Mission Failed” report that they surely would not survive long enough to write.

The engine, or rather what used to be the engine, disintegrated under the explosion, ripping through the Affini’s grasp on the Weaver and knocking it into a spiral. Debris sheared off the front portion of the Weaver, and the last thing Widow remembered was thinking how stupid it was to get killed by their own side’s mistake.

Day One.

Leigh “Widow” Howells. Miraculous Sole Survivor. Not a title Widow wanted to wear, but when they flashed awake, distinctly alive, it really seemed it going to be forced on them.

They were laying on their back, and warnings were blaring across every bit of visor space. Low Oxygen. Depressurized Environment. Severe Injury. Suit Breach. Communications Offline. Beyond the visor, Widow faintly registered a charred section of spacecraft that had crashed down around them. The ground was pitted, charred, and covered in dust, and the titanic form of Eupheme dominated what they could see of the horizon.

They lay their head back down. Fuck. All of that, and they were going to die because they ran out of air. What a way to go. They rested, breathing shallowly, as they watched their oxygen meter tick. Fifty-two minutes. Fifty-one. 

Fifty minutes.

Slowly, but surely, something awoke inside Widow. A constant, aggressive burn of determination sprouted from within, and it started to shout. It shouted of will, of raw determination, of the unstoppable drive that had pushed humanity out into the stars. You will not die here!, it shouted. You have not earned it! Death must take you, outsmart you, defeat you at every possible avenue! Impossible odds alone cannot kill you! Death must take you for its own, and you MUST fight it every step of the way!

Some part of Widow recognized it - OCNI conditioning, drilled into their skull over years of brutal, brutal training. All the same, the burn rippled through their body, purging the pain and the apathy. Widow’s breathing steadied, their head cleared. Damn right, death hadn’t earned them. If they were meant to die, they would have already. Slowly, painstakingly, they pushed themselves up, jaw clenched and sweat breaking out across their body. Their arms shook, their heart and lungs screamed, but eventually they sat. Success. The burn flushed throughout their body, steeping Widow’s mind in white-hot will. A grim smile came across their face. Impossible odds had nothing on them.

With a wave, they dismissed the warnings crowding their visor, keeping the ticking oxygen timer in the corner. Forty-eight minutes to find air. Their mind started to run, their eyes flicking about their surroundings. The wreckage that had crashed down all around them was part of the main bay of the Weaver. That was good. The compressed-air tanks may have survived intact. More wreckage was strewn about outside. Widow could check them for supplies. They were on an asteroid orbiting Eupheme. Not one of the fancy paradise-worlds, not a refinery, just a plain rock. Unfortunate.

Okay. Standing up. Widow tapped their wrists together, and the electromagnets embedded in their gloves activated. They pressed a palm against the wreckage, and it stuck. Yes. The second glove followed, and Widow took a few quick breaths before they pulled themselves up.

Oh, god. Widow nearly blacked out. Their head was spinning, their chest lanced with a sharp pain, but they stayed standing. They leaned against the wreckage, catching their breath bit by bit. Forty-five minutes. Forty-four.

They took a moment to orient themselves. This was the bay hull. Pipes and wires that once carried the lifeblood of Weaver through its shell were now empty and dead. Still, following the life-support pipe…

Bit by bit, hand-over-hand, they followed the empty pipe along the short length of wreckage. Eventually, it should eventually lead to the compression system— the wreckage stopped. A jagged tear marked the end of the Weaver’s hull. Wearily, Widow looked up and out, eyes blurring to try and focus.

Forty-one.

There was one other large piece of debris, a few dozen meters away, across rough terrain. Widow swore to themselves. This was assuming the Weaver’s life-support even landed here. They looked back, where their crash had left a small impact crater in the dust, and the scuffed, line-in-the-dust trail they’d left even making it here.

Forty.

Okay. They could do this. They must do it. Widow took a few stabilizing breaths. All they had to do was disengage the gloves. Then get across the gap into the next bit of wreckage. Wreckage meant the possibility of air. Air was good. As they looked, the distance seemed to multiply, the dunes and small fissures of the moon seeming to expand into kilometers of mountains and canyons. Widow’s legs threatened to give out at the sight, but they grit their teeth. You haven’t earned your death. All they needed to do was disengage their gloves, and get from here to there. Easy. Easy.

Almost hesitantly, Widow flexed their fingers, and promptly collapsed to the ground as the electromagnets shut down. Oh, not good. What was going on? Gingerly, Widow unfolded their legs from beneath them and looked over their body as sweat broke out across their skin.

Well. It could have been worse. Small bits of debris were embedded in their torso, but the blood from the wounds below had boiled away in vacuum, sealing the suit in a gory but effective manner. Their legs had been spared the worst of the shrapnel, but their left was definitely fractured. Widow would have to fix that if they were going to get anywhere.

Breathing through grit teeth, they gingerly maneuvered their injured leg into a neutral stance, stopping a few times to breathe and swear. 

Thirty-five.

From their visor, they could access the first-aid override, disable movement of the jumpsuit along the injury… There. The cloth constricted a little tighter around their leg, locking it in place. It wasn’t going anywhere.

Thirty-three.

With their leg set, Widow took another look across the expanse. Their suit would shield them from the worst of the radiation, but still, crawling bit-by-bit across the moon was probably not in their best interests. Gently, they reactivated their gloves and stuck to the hull, pulling themselves back up. That was odd. The gravity was low, but not nearly as low as they would have expected - moving felt more like training on the Moon than it did operating in deep space, and none of the Euphemic moons wasn’t all that large.

Thirty-one.

Fuck. No time to waste. Taking a quick few breaths, Widow prepared for the next movement. With some luck, they should be able to to mostly throw themselves off the hull than have to put weight on their injured leg. Pull back, throw, release the gloves. Quick and easy. After that… Nope! 1, 2, 3!

Disallowing themselves more time to think, Widow threw themselves off the hull, gliding gently across the dune. Perfect. They fell back to the ground, hardly a meter off, and a quick scramble got them back under cover. The entire time, their leg stuck out, unnaturally stiff, but it was spared the brunt of the impact. Success. 

Thirty.

Okay. Now for air. Widow took a minute to reorient themselves; luckily, the Weaver had come down about as cleanly as they could have hoped, and they quickly located the pressurization line. Relying mostly on their hands, they followed the pipe back into the depth of the wreckage, until a faint glimmer caught their eye. Oh, beautiful.

One of the few pressurized air canister on board had survived. And survived intact. A quick glance around the surrounding hull revealed the tool storage for the pressure system embedded in the wall. Just where it should be. They smiled as they gently slid the panel aside, reaching inside and grabbing one of the hoses.

Twenty-two.

Connecting the hose to the canister and their own helmet was trivial, and soon enough, Widow had all the oxygen they could want. The blinking red timer finally disappeared, replaced with a small “resupplying” icon.

With the threat of imminent death gone, exhaustion finally flooded Widow’s body. Yes, they were hooked up to a gas tank, alone, with a breached suit, on some random moon, in the wreckage of their old ship, with hostile powers actively searching for them. Their body didn’t seem to care, and Widow felt themselves sliding into a dreamless sleep.

“Root and rot, what happened? The Drive suppression was in effect.”

“That ship was supposed to be top-of-the-line! Why did it tear itself apart?”

“We’re missing three of them. Stars. We need to find them, and quickly.”

“How do we even-”

“That’s enough.”

Though spoken barely above normal conversation, the captain’s voice was more than enough to silence the room. Leaves rippled and feelers piqued up, responding to the armored Affini at the helm.

“This is a special operations Terran force. They were likely using experimental equipment. The details are no longer relevant,” said Barrik Thern, Fifty-Second Bloom. “What matters now is recovering them before they perish in deep space. Illana, Rixxic, get transports out and scanning. We know their frequencies, we can find them. Tey, get started on modeling that explosion. I want to know where every bit of that ship ended up. Medical teams are already working on those that we have. Once they’re stable, Act’all, use the D-H mix from the Centauri System. I want to know everything about these Terrans. Are we clear?”

A ripple of confirmation passed over the assembled Affini.

“Good. Go. No time to waste.”