Intel Mission

Saim’el stalked through the hallways. The metal glistened strangely; when he first entered, he’d been ready to jump at his own self reflected in the low light. He got used to it, however, and he made his way through the ship with slow deliberation,

He hadn’t gotten there on his own, of course, much like he hadn’t gotten to Candoris on his own. He was even used to being taxied around, in every sense of the word, and of course he’d volunteered to get some information from the new invading aliens.

Now slowly - new, invading aliens. Because Candoris didn’t mind the other visitors from the outer realms before, or they’d minded it, they hadn’t kicked up much of a fuss. Hell, Saim’el had met some people, taking part in the community, and was even living with a Gleamstic who was, well, a regular citizen. He’d observed his roommate closely. He didn’t seem like a criminal. Saim’el felt he would’ve just known.

Another turn through the ship hallways, another fork in the road. Left or right?

If I was an alien, Saim’el thought, where would I hide the key? Left or right?

Of course, that made no sense at all. Saim’el was an alien in his own right and that didn’t help him at all. He probably wouldn’t even put the key to the Vault on a random ship hovering above a random planet. Then, of course, his plan could only work in the vault wasn’t in a random ship hovering above a random planet. If it was, say, back where they came from, why would they take it with them? The plan, shaky as it was, made an awful lot of sense to Saim’el. He could even see the appeal of conquering the planets and universes. His main issue was that this was his planet, the one that he liked now.

Left.

He didn’t decide the direction because he followed his gut feeling. He did it because he heard steps behind him and realized that he’d lingered in this hallway far too long.

The invaders were impressive and beautiful, gleaming and shining even in the low lights, with halos of radiance splashed around them. Saim’el could see how they appeared to the citizens of Candoris — as outlandish and bizarre. But to him, their vibrant tones and slated armor were a testament to their confidence and might.

Then again, a fleet of ships in their orbit also had something to say about that.

Saim’el was never made to be in one place, he thought as he moved down the hallway. His clawed feet moved him more silently than he could’ve even hoped, and the adrenaline pumping through him kept him alert. He hadn’t had this much action since forever ago, and he missed it deeply. He hadn’t even realized how much he was craving danger until he was right in the middle of it. He wasn’t afraid. He was excited.

“You’re not looking for an actual key,” a stern-looking Gleamstic woman had briefed him before he was dropped off near an enemy ship by a stealth-covered carrier. “You’re looking for its location, but you’ll hardly find a map.”

Another left turn.

“I know,” Saim’el said, “It’ll be a chip, or a drive, or something like that. Something light storing the location of the key, not the vault.”

See, if this was Saim’el — he’d put a decoy there, or something. Of course, they couldn’t know if they were chasing a decoy, but Saim’el’s mission was a little bit different. He wasn’t chasing anything at all. He was snooping, and while he was sure that the distinction wouldn’t matter if he was captured, he was more… sightseeing. Window shopping.

He turned right then because the lights were off in the right hallway. If it was nothing and he’d stumbled upon a broom closet, he’d just have to wait the patrols out and find another hallway. But now he had a gut feeling, and he was sure he was on to something.

As he sunk into the darkness, even his own reflection in the dark metal disappeared. Saim’el wouldn’t call himself any similar to the invaders. He was different from other Gleamstics because of his coloured sclera and furless tail, but he had no armour that the foreigners boasted — no hovering wings or mechanical tails adorned him. He could, very vaguely, pass for one of them, from a great distance. And that, perhaps, was enough to help him board the ship.

He moved slowly, feeling along the edge of the wall in the darkness, eyes narrowed as though that would help him at all. It took him a long time, or so he thought, of moving down this darkened hallway to feel a crease beneath his fingertips. He moved his up and down — it was vertical and straight, dull-edged familiarly. Bizarrely, his position reminded him of late nights in his — Veyron’s — apartment and groping through the darkness because he didn’t want to wake Veyron up by flipping the light switch. He was certain he was touching a door frame.

Doors in invaders’ ships were, to his knowledge, varied. However, in his situation, this helped him, because he had a card someone else had stolen on a mission before his. If a door had a handle, the room behind it wasn’t the one he was looking for. In the darkness, he blindly touched around the right side where the card panels were usually mounted until his fingers caught on a metal fissure. Bingo.

He took the card, and then inserted it. Wrongly placed cards, he had learned, emitted a short, but high noise. In this hallway, he was certain he could hear his own breathing, so he was afraid of the echo.

He’d never heard what noise would come to be once he encountered the right room. So, when the card panel blinked to life, green and silent, his eyes widened a fraction and he pushed inward.

The room, unlike the hallway, was bathed in low light. Used to the darkness, he had to squint, but he’d only given it a cursory once-over, just to make sure no one was lurking in the corner. There was nobody there. Instead, the room was small, barely larged than a closet, and filled with shelves. Shelves lined with weapons, or something that could be weapons. His eyes, however, landed on something else. A vaguely cube-like object, so matte that it seemed to be swallowing the light around it. Could that be an information container?

Saim’el thought his course of action through. He took a few pieces of the equipment — just in case — and did his best to sabotage the rest. He took the cube, too, and pocketed it the best he could.

Got you, he thought. Now he just had to make his way out.