The Next Day

— Tuesday, January 17, AD 2130 —

Faint humming from the electrical circuits running through Opportunity’s bulkheads were the only sounds to permeate the corridors. The massive space station — anchored in geosynchronous orbit — shared Earth’s 24-hour clock, and the staff on board largely followed that clock. As a result, precious few people were up and about at this early hour of 6 in the morning; many were beginning to stir for the day, and the night crew were preparing to end their shifts, but one person stood out from both groups due to waking up early to work alone in the station’s research labs.

A yawn overcame Kirstin as she sat at her desk in the back of the research lab. She then shook off the exhaustion and returned her attention to her work, though as early as it was, she couldn’t keep her tired mind from occasionally drifting. For a moment, her thoughts drifted back to her time on Nimalia, at Compound Tresnon. While Tresnon had its own share of frustrations to work with, such as the lack of quality Relaynet access or an inability for Kirstin to access or work on any of her projects due to security concerns, she now realized that she’d had one thing at the Compound that she didn’t on Opportunity: the ability to work alone. Indeed, while on Earth, she was forced to share a lab with other researchers. Due to her position in CSF-1, she was able to claim a desk alongside Scott, Sarah, and Kate, such that she had fewer officemates than the typical researcher — but three was certainly more than zero. In Tresnon, being able to work without anyone looking over her shoulder, or with minimal interruptions had been a daily blessing. But on Earth, the only way for her to satisfy her desire for both was to wake up early and get to the office before either Scott or Sarah — who were well-known for being early-risers, themselves.

And they work so late, too… Kirstin mused as she browsed some file directories on her laptop. It’s either show up super late, or super early… ugh. Tresnon wasn’t great, but at least I could have normal hours, there…

She then glanced to the side of her laptop, at the primary reason she desired to have some time without Scott or Sarah overlooking her: a handful of old harddrives, laid out on the desk and connected to her laptop. The laptop in front of her wasn’t even her main laptop — it was an un-networked “burner” laptop, provided by the ETAA for the purposes of interfacing with unknown, potentially hostile technology. It had no network card, making it physically incapable of connecting to any of the SERRCom networks; this lack of network access made it useful for investigating unknown hard drives and tech without having to worry about malware infecting proper ETAA devices or even the entire ETAA network. While a stringent precaution, Kirstin felt perfectly justified in taking it due to the drives’ source: Sunova.

Over a month had passed since CSF-1 had helped with the reclamation of Sunova; in the time since, SERRCom teams had been investigating the remnants of the Black Suns camp as well as the old SERRCom base. During that investigation, many pieces of hardware were recovered from the old base and sent back to Earth for more thorough inspection, to see if the technology had been tampered with during the 20 years Sunova had been abandoned — or if any of it contained sensitive information that needed to be destroyed. Apparently, some of the recovered technology included hard drives containing Scott’s old research from his days on the colony. As such, the hard drives had been delivered to the ETAA main office on Opportunity — the office where Kirstin worked. And upon seeing the drives, her curiosity had gotten the best of her; here she now was, investigating the contents of a handful of hard drives that she technically shouldn’t have had access to.

Doesn’t seem like there’s anything exciting here, though… she thought to herself as she continued searching through the drives’ contents. Seems like SERRCom was preparing to setup Sunova as some kind of research center, and Dad was one of the first researchers there, working on designing new spacecraft tech. That isn’t really anything I didn’t already know… …huh, it even mentions here how they first stumbled across the Master Ayas, 20 years ago. It was the first time anyone in the galaxy had seen it since the Quake of ‘88, and the one who found it was… Captain David Shepherd? Wait, that’s the same Shepherd as the Commander of the Ground Forces David Shepherd, right? I’d heard he was on Sunova, but I didn’t know he was the one who found the Ayas…

Kirstin then went on to skim the associated report, finding that it only laid out what she already knew: that the Battlecruiser Genesis spontaneously appeared in orbit at the same moment that Shepherd had touched the Ayas, and that SERRCom then contacted the Nimalians to help figure out what was going on. Hero Machina showed up to investigate, and shortly after that, the entire colony was overrun by the Nanocreatures. The fact that the report listed out so many names familiar to Kirstin — David Shepherd, Matthew Lead, her own father, Kaoné Densalin, Davídrius Wrikax — seemed almost surreal to her, especially considering that the 20-year-old report spoke of them like ordinary officers and researchers. It was hard to imagine that the Captains, Researcher, and Lieutenants from 20 years ago would go on to become the General, Commander, Director, and Deans that they were today.

Novelty aside, however, the report didn’t seem to contain any new information. As such, Kirstin went to close it out and continue looking through the drives — but stopped when she noticed a seemingly innocuous line right in the middle of the report. When the base on Sunova was attacked by Nanocreatures 20 years ago, the base commander had initially ordered a retreat to Earth through the Interstellar Gate, and as such, the Earth Gate’s coordinate was listed in the report. And each component of the coordinate had only two digits.

Kirstin stared at the coordinate in confusion. All Gate coordinates that she was aware of came in sets of three numbers, corresponding to a position x, y, and z in space. The lowest-numbered coordinate in the galaxy corresponded to a location in the outer rim, on the far edge of Riaxen space — but even that coordinate had 6 digits for each of the three dimensions. And since the Gate coordinate grid had a resolution of one light year, and the Milky Way galaxy was 120,000 light years across, even the highest-numbered Gate coordinate still had 6-digit components. It was simply a commonly-accepted fact that 6 digits were necessary, and yet, here Kirstin found a coordinate filled with only 2-digit components.

This can’t be possible… if that coordinate is real, then it would imply that Earth’s Gate used to be over a hundred thousand light years OUTSIDE of the galaxy! Kirstin stared at the report, dumbfounded. …Wait, it mentions here that you have to input a special command before you dial the 2-digit coordinate… what? Why? I’ve never seen that command, before. Does it change the coordinate system that the Gate uses, or something? If so, then I guess it’s possible that the old 2-digit coordinate points to the same location in space as our current 6-digit one, but… why keep that such a secret, then? Something else has to be going on here, right?! But how could SERRCom possibly know something about the Interstellar Gates that the rest of the galaxy doesn’t…?

A couple more seconds passed as Kirstin began re-reading parts of the report, hoping to find any further commentary on Earth’s “old” Gate coordinate. Upon finding nothing, she quickly closed the report and began digging through other files, hoping to find some kind of insight into the matter.

“Ah ha ha! Nae, that’s really how it is!”

“Ee—!” Kirstin squeaked in surprise at the sound of her father’s voice echoing down the hallway just outside of the office. Realizing that he must be approaching, she quickly moved to shove the laptop and hard drives away — she didn’t want to be found looking into matters that she shouldn’t have been. Just before she did, however, she had the thought to write down the coordinate she had found. Chances are, she wouldn’t be able to access the drives ever again, so this was her only opportunity to get to the bottom of the mystery coordinate. With great haste, she whipped open a virtual notepad on her AR display and tapped in the digits of the coordinate, taking only a brief second to double-check her inputs before hearing Scott’s footsteps stop in front of the office door. Impulsively, she force-powered down the laptop, slammed its lid shut, and shoved the device and all the hard drives onto the adjacent desk… all just in time for the office door to woosh open, revealing Scott and Sarah in the hallway.

“You really have a penchant for causing trouble, now, don’t you?” Sarah remarked with a smirk as the two entered the office, coffee cups in hand.

“Ach, isnae my fault,” Scott retorted. “When you’re backwards-engineerin’ alien tech, there’s only sae much ye can prepare for, ah ha ha!” He then stopped at the front of office, his coffee mug halfway to his mouth as he spotted Kirstin in the back. “Ah! Kirstin! You’re here early!”

“Uh… s-… sorry!” Kirstin stuttered out, her head deeply bowed. She then hastily stood up from her desk and rushed toward the office door, nearly stumbling over herself twice in the process. “I, um, n-need to t-take care of, uh, s-something!”

“…And off she goes,” Sarah commented as Kirstin fled the office. “I wonder what that was about…”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure she’s got a handle on it,” Scott declared, and then began moving towards his desk. “Anyways, it’s the beginning of another beautiful day! Let’s get tae work, now…!”

---

*

“Hey, Colonel.”

“Mm? Oh, Major,” Saito replied, looking up from the packet of papers he was reading in his left hand, and the breakfast he was eating with his right. He nodded up at Hackett, who herself had just grabbed breakfast.

“Anything interesting?” Hackett questioned as she took a seat at the table across from Saito.

“Hmm? What, in the report?” Saito eyed the papers before sliding them into a folder and shoving the folder aside. “Some interesting, some not. Mostly not. You know how it is.”

“You still prefer paper?”

“We may have received these fancy AR implants a few months ago, but don’t forget that most of SERRCom doesn’t have them. Paper reports are still perfectly normal.”

“I see.”

“Besides, reading a virtual report in a non-tangible AR environment is way different from having the actual paper in your actual hands.”

“Ah, there it is,” Hackett remarked with a smirk.

“Hey, what can I say.” Saito offered a shrug. “I still prefer analog, sometimes.”

“Can’t blame you, sir. Still…” The Major glanced toward the folder at Saito’s side; from the date hastily scribbled upon it — January 10, the day they had visited the Sadrenos Ark — it was easy to assume that the reports contained within had to do with that mission.

“…Just reviewing what went down, that’s all,” Saito eventually replied after noticing where Hackett was looking. “Mote’s report was… a little concerning.”

“You mean, about the fact that there was an AI down there who laid a trap that we let Mote walk into?”

“I had every confidence that Mote could deal with any issues he ran into, and sure enough, he did. What I find most concerning…” The Colonel paused, glancing over both of his shoulders; while he and Hackett were sitting in one of Opportunity’s many cafes during the breakfast hour, there weren’t many people sitting too close by. Nonetheless, Saito lowered his voice as he finished, “what I find most concerning is Mote’s own attitude toward the whole thing.”

Hackett passed Saito a concerned look. “…How so?”

“According to his report, Maenikad — that AI — begged for her life at the end.”

“…Begged?”

“Mote wrote down her words, himself. ‘I was wrong!’ ‘Please! Cease this, at once!’ Then, ‘I will tell you all that I know! But if you destroy me, it will all go to waste!’” The Colonel gave Hackett a level stare. “That sure sounds like begging, to me.”

“…Mote wrote those words down, himself, did he?” Hackett responded slowly.

“Yeah. His armor was out at the time — understandable, given that the AI had hacked it — so we don’t have independent verification of what happened, down there. All we have is Mote’s word. But, I trust him to tell the truth straight, and even if he was down-playing… what he wrote here doesn’t paint a pretty picture.”

“You’re concerned that he ignored a surrender, then…?”

“Right. She didn’t say the words ‘I surrender’, explicitly, but…”

“I think that’s where you and Mote see this differently, sir,” Hackett remarked as she slowly worked through her breakfast. “You keep calling that AI ‘she’, but Mote kept referring to her as ‘it’. I don’t think Mote saw the AI as a person, just a machine. And machines can’t surrender.”

“A machine doesn’t express the kind of emotions and curiosity that Maenikad did.”

“Well, technically, it did. AIs are machines, right? It’s just that sapient AIs should also be people. But since sapient AIs don’t actually exist in this galaxy, there aren’t any laws saying as much. There’s no precedent for dealing with this. Hell, the CSA has even banned sapient AI research, haven’t they?”

“A shortsighted move, in my opinion. And I hope Mote wouldn’t agree with them. But the only way to know is to talk to him…”

“Even if he thinks the AI wasn’t a person, I’m sure hearing those words you said before he destroyed her would’ve been… stressful. And knowing him, he wouldn’t say a word about it, even if you tried to pull it out of him.”

Saito released a wary sigh. “…Right. Well, I’ll deal with that.”

“Can’t say I envy you, sir,” Hackett replied. “Anything else in the news, though? I know you stuck around to talk with the General after our debriefing, yesterday.”

“According to the General, all three of the major PMCs have been reporting attacks or thefts from a ‘mysterious enemy’. Attacks and thefts perpetuated almost entirely by robots, carried by spacecraft with an emblem of a blue ring, with two vertical and two horizontal crossbars running through it. Sound familiar?”

“EA?”

“Exactly. The PMCs seem to have figured out that he has something to do with SERRCom, and have started hounding us to do something about it.”

“Really? We’re talking about the Black Suns, right?”

“And the Chaos Knights, and the Light Keepers, yes.”

“As a military, aren’t they all larger than SERRCom?”

“Oh, much, much larger. The Black Suns alone report 500 million active personnel across the galaxy; we have only just over 20 million. The difference, though, is that we have a space fleet.”

“The PMCs don’t?”

“They aren’t allowed to; CSA regulations forbid it. Apparently, they don’t like the idea of a non-government entity having access to spacecraft capable of orbital bombardment.”

“…Okay, reasonable. But if the PMCs are so damn large, why do they need our help in dealing with EA?”

“Because of the fleets, Major. The PMCs are all focused on planet-side activities. Now, in the pre-Genesis days, back when only the Drakkars had beaming tech, all spacecraft had to use shuttles or direct landings to move personnel between space and the surface of a planet. And that created openings that ground forces could exploit to board hostile spacecraft.”

“But SERRCom has beaming tech…”

“As does EA,” Saito pointed out. “But no one else in the galaxy does — I don’t even think we’ve given any beaming tech to the Nimalians. That means the PMCs have no way of boarding EA’s ships. They can fight off a ground raid, sure, but they can’t make a Cruiser in orbit go away. That’s why they want SERRCom to do something about EA — since he’s ‘our problem’.”

“I see… I take it the General wants us to help out, somehow, then?”

“Exactly. Apparently, the EIIC is starting to pick up on some leads, too. The General seems to think that we’ll find EA’s base of operations soon, and he wants CSF-1, the Eximius Vir, and the Flagship Strike Group to be ready for a raid. As such, he’s putting a pause on any major missions for the time being, so we can be ready to go the moment we pin down EA’s base.”

“So we’re finally taking EA seriously, are we?”

“We don’t have a choice, at this point. A few months ago, we thought that all EA had was the one Cruiser. But now, we know that he actually has multiple, as well as a way to rapidly build tons of high-quality, combat-capable, fully-autonomous robots. We’ve clearly underestimated him; at this rate, if we let him sit in the shadows for too long, then he’ll be able to create an attack force that could overwhelm even SERRCom.”

“Do you really think it could get that bad?”

“Given how little we know, I’m not willing to bet against it. Something is up with EA’s activities, someone is giving him aid. And until we know who, it’s best to assume the worst.”

“I see… well, at least that gives us some breathing room, then.”

“Not so fast, Major. We’re not about to just sit on our haunches, burning time here on Earth.”

“…Sir?”

“I’m talking about Nimalia, Major. Or more specifically, Compound Tresnon and their Bleeder problem. This lull in missions is the perfect opportunity to go there and do something about it ourselves.”

“You don’t think the Captain and Mark can handle things themselves?”

“I’m not doubting their capabilities, I just think that the Bleeder threat is more significant than either SERRCom or the NSD want to realize,” Saito countered. “Even the NSD — who are sworn to protect the people of Nimalia! — don’t seem to care about the Bleeders. It’s clear that the people of Treséd have been forced to deal with this problem on their own for a long time, and that’s a fantastic way to breed animosity towards ‘outsiders’ — as well as let innocent people get hurt.”

“Can’t argue with that. So we’ll be going to Nimalia, soon, then?”

“Well, maybe. I still need to run it past the General, but I don’t think he’ll say no. He knows he’s been jerking us around the past couple months, so I’m sure he’ll let us do as we please in this mission lull.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll just give him the ol’ puppy dog eyes. No one can resist that!”

Hackett snorted in amusement. “I’m sure, sir.”

“Heh.” Saito responded in kind. “…Well, if nothing else, it could be a good chance to talk with that Gavon fellow some more. I get the impression we could learn a lot about the Suns and the other PMCs from him.”

“He really was cavalier with what he told us, wasn’t he?”

“He was. I even looked up the things that he said were publicly known, and he’s right — it’s all true.”

Hackett passed Saito a concerned look. “So you think his speculation about Sector 2 is right? Shouldn’t we be concerned about that?”

“I’ve brought it to the EIIC,” Saito replied with a shrug, “but otherwise, it’s out of my hands. Still—“

“C-Colonel!!”

Saito and Hackett both turned to the side, just in time to spot Researcher MacTavish as she ran up to their table. Upon reaching them, she planted her hands on the table and leaned forward, breathless, as she glanced over her shoulder behind her.

Saito glanced at Hackett uneasily before turning back to the Researcher. “…MacTavish? Is something wrong?”

“No — I-I mean, y-yes!” MacTavish spluttered out, still looking between Saito and the halls she had just run down.

“Calm down, MacTavish,” Hackett gently responded, and then gestured at the empty bench next to her. “Take a seat.”

“O-oh… r-right, sorry…” MacTavish took another breath before scurrying around the Major to deposit herself at the table.

“What happened? Did you see a ghost?” Saito questioned as he looked back at the hallway she had come through; aside from some other patrons at the cafe passing the group an odd look, there didn’t seem to be anyone coming after or even paying attention to MacTavish.

“N-no, but…” The Researcher stopped for a few moments to take another breath before continuing, “w-well, I was, th-the Gate, I mean—“

“Slow down,” Hackett insisted. “Let’s start from the top. What happened?”

“Oh… r-right. W-well, um. L-last night, someone, um, s-someone from the ETAA, uh, d-dropped off, uh, a-a lot of hard drives at, um, our office. Th-they were, um, s-some of my Da— s-some of the D-Director’s, um, old drives. F-from Sunova.”

“Interesting…” Saito remarked. “So the ETAA finished scrubbing them?”

“W-well… s-sort of. N-not completely,” MacTavish continued. “I-I think, um… th-they wanted the Director to, uh, l-look at them himself. …B-but I, um…”

When the Researcher trailed off sheepishly, Saito passed Hackett a knowing look before turning back to MacTavish. “You looked at the drives, didn’t you?”

“I, um…” She began fidgeting uneasily, fiddling with her fingers while unable to make eye-contact with Saito. “I… d-didn’t… not…”

“Does the Director know you looked at them?” Hackett questioned.

“I… d-don’t know…”

“I’m not going to lie, MacTavish…” Saito commented, “this is something I expected from Kate, not from you. What compelled you to look through a bunch of hard drives that you shouldn’t have access to?”

“Yes, how did you?” Hackett added, “I thought all SERRCom drives were encrypted, or… something.”

“P-password protected, y-yes, but…” MacTavish briefly glanced up at Hackett before diverting her gaze again. “Uh, D-Dad always, um, u-uses the same p-passwords, so…”

“Figures the Director of the ETAA wouldn’t be up to speed on info security,” Saito grumbled.

“Is that why you came running in here, then?” Hackett questioned. “You’re afraid he might’ve caught you?”

“W-well, s-sort of, but, no. Th-there’s something else,” MacTavish insisted. “I… C-Colonel… r-remember when you, um, t-told me about Earth’s, uh, Gate?”

“That was a couple months ago, now, wasn’t it?” Saito remarked, and then passed the Researcher a wary glance. He lowered his voice as he asked, “did you find something related to that?”

MacTavish offered a meek nod. “I… I think I, um, f-found Earth’s old… o-old coordinate.”

“’Old’ coordinate?” Hackett echoed incredulously, “what are you talking about? Aren’t Gate coordinates locked to specific locations in space?”

“Y-yeah, b-but… i-if those old, um, reports are r-right, then… Earth’s Gate used to, uh, have only 2-digit numbers i-in its, uh, c-coordinate.”

“What? But the current coordinate has three 6-digit numbers. You’re saying it used to be three 2-digit numbers?”

“Um, y-yeah…”

“But that doesn’t make any sense…”

“It doesn’t make any physical sense… but it makes a lot of logical sense,” Saito mused. “I’d always thought that something was off with how SERRCom handled the acquisition of Earth’s Gate from the US. The level of secrecy surrounding the Gate’s coordinate before it was moved to New York always felt excessive. But if the ‘original’ coordinate was entirely different, then… the secrecy starts making sense. SERRCom wanted to hide our ‘unique’ Gate from the rest of the galaxy.”

“It still doesn’t make any sense, though,” Hackett countered. “If I understand Gate coordinates correctly, then a coordinate that’s all 2-digits would be well outside of the galaxy! Clearly, Earth’s Gate has been inside the galaxy all along, so something is wrong, here. Are we sure that old report is correct?”

“I-I… d-didn’t have time to, um, v-verify the integrity of, um, the d-data…” MacTavish admitted, “b-but… n-none of the digits in the o-old coordinate, um, m-match the c-current one. A-and the report even mentioned, uh, s-some kind of s-special instruction th-that you have to put into the Gate before d-dialing the, um, o-old coordinate!”

“So, an entire other coordinate…” Saito muttered. “…This is huge.”

“If it’s true, then we should tell the ETAA at once, right?” Hackett pointed out. “Or, wait… wouldn’t the ETAA already know this?”

“I have no doubt that most of the higher-ups know,” Saito stated. “This is SERRCom’s own history, after all. There are probably several people at my level who know. Despite that, I also have no doubt that this old coordinate is still highly classified, since even I’ve never heard of it, before. And we only have it because MacTavish had an uncharacteristic moment of misbehavior.”

MacTavish practically wilted in her seat. “S-sorry…”

“My job demands that I reprimand you for ‘hacking’, so… don’t do it again,” Saito declared, and then winked at the Researcher. “But also… good job, MacTavish. And don’t tell anyone this information. Even if the Director himself finds out that you snooped through his files, I want you to take the fact that you know this coordinate to your grave. Got it, Researcher?”

“Um… y-yes?!”

“And send me that coordinate, too. Oh, and the keeping quiet thing applies for you, too, Major.”

“But, sir…” Hackett’s brow furrowed in confusion. “…Why?”

“Because,” Saito replied with a daring smirk, “we’re going to investigate this matter ourselves.”

“What? But… why?! Shouldn’t the ETAA already know about this?”

“I’ll admit, part of this is just curiosity — and if we bring this up with the ETAA or the EIIC, I have no doubt that they’d shut us down and keep us out of any ongoing investigations, if there even are any,” Saito stated. “But the truth is… SERRCom’s secrets are dangerous, and us not knowing them is dangerous to us, given how close to some of them we are. Just take a look through all the reports from SERRCom’s first decade or two of operations — hell, even from the last decade. You’ll find more black marker than you will text! From recruiting the Eximius Vir as children and hiding their existence until they were of age, to everything that happened on Sunova 20 years ago, to the full details of the Zhou Incident, to the true purpose of our ‘public works’ projects on Earth, and now, this matter of Earth’s Gate coordinate? SERRCom’s current well of power is built on a foundation of damaging secrets, and the thing about secrets, is that they almost never stay secret forever. Eventually, that information is getting out. And when it does, it’s going to rock SERRCom to the core. I don’t know about you, Major, Researcher… but when that happens, I want to at least be ready for it.”

Hackett and MacTavish exchanged an uneasy glance before they both turned back to Saito. “That’s… I guess I can’t argue with that,” Hackett eventually replied. “I hadn’t even thought of it that way, before. I just thought the layers of confidentiality were normal.”

“A-are the p-public works projects, um, r-really secretly bad?!” MacTavish questioned.

“Not all of them, I’m sure, but some of them are downright fishy,” Saito replied. “Take, for example, that dam we’re building down by San Francisco. I heard from Bradley — one of the recruits — that there’s apparently a particle accelerator running down the length of the dam, or something like that. That’s the first I’d ever heard of that, so at first I thought he was bullshitting. But then I remembered a complaint from Mote — back when the dam was attacked by EA’s robots, an entire afternoon passed before the Eximius Vir were given clearance to clear out the dam themselves. I thought that was suspicious, so I decided to look into the matter. And sure enough, that project is as mired in confidentiality and black marker as any report from 20 years ago. And if one public works project is like that, then I have no doubt that others are, as well.”

“A particle accelerator… in California?” Hackett muttered in disbelief, “if SERRCom just wanted a particle accelerator, I’m sure California would’ve been more than happy to let them build one. But why do it secretly? And in a place prone to earthquakes, at that…”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Major — there’s just too much that we don’t know about our own organization,” Saito said. “If I ask the General, then half the time, he’ll give me an answer. But the other half, he’ll blow me off with some excuse about security. I get where he’s coming from, but it still doesn’t sit right with me. Things are changing, recently — have been changing, ever since that short Chaos Quake a few months ago. And we can’t afford to just sit around and let those changes blindside us.”

“And you think that looking into this Gate coordinate mismatch will help…?”

“The more we know, the better. And the less the EIIC knows about what we know, even better still. In fact… this is even more reason to go back to Nimalia.”

“W-what?” MacTavish questioned, “we’re… g-going back to N-Nimalia?”

“I was already planning on it, for unrelated reasons, but it works out well,” Saito declared. “Travis has told me that the recruits have been going on frequent trips, occasionally to other planets. That’s an opportunity to test Earth’s Gate coordinate, both new and old, while outside of SERRCom supervision.”

“…Are you sure about this, sir?” Hackett responded warily. “Even if we learn more about this ‘old’ coordinate, and even if it still works, somehow… what would we do with that information?”

“Hard to say until we have it,” Saito pointed out. “At the very least, knowledge — in the worst case — can be used as a bargaining tool. And even then, doesn’t this interest you at all, Major? We’re talking about one of SERRCom’s foundational secrets, here!”

“True, but…” The Major trailed off, eying Saito warily the whole time. “…Fine, sir. I’ll trust you for now. But if we get in trouble with the EIIC for this — well, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

“Ha! Duly noted, Major,” Saito replied. He then glanced between Hackett and MacTavish, saying, “alright, then; that’s the plan. I’ll talk to the General about letting us head back to Compound Tresnon, for the time being. And until then, not a word about what we just discussed to anyone. Got it?”

“Understood,” Hackett replied, while MacTavish added a quick nod.

“Good!” The Colonel flashed a smile before gesturing at the empty table in front of MacTavish. “You should go grab some breakfast, MacTavish! The Major and I will wait for you. In the meantime, Hackett, remember that one time when…”

With that, the three then went on to finish their breakfasts while discussing milder topics, their previous conversation left to simmer in the back of their minds.