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  Chapter 3. Miranda

  I was glad when Max fell asleep. I had recognized him in the hangar right away, the distraught guy in the infirmary talking to muscle woman. He clearly had been through a rough mission recently, and I knew that, if I wasn’t flying the plane, I’d want to check out for a little while, too.

  I was actually glad that we had a third agent on this assignment. I wasn’t ready to pull my weight yet, being too inexperienced and a bit on my heels after what happened on my first mission, and I didn’t want Max to do all of the work. Knowing we had Tyler along was comforting. Besides, he was attractive in an older-man sort of way—I don’t mean older as in Harrison Ford but more like Robert Downey, Jr.—and he smelled delicious.

  I hadn’t slept the previous night, and I was tired. We had managed to contain the Mortalis wasps, but with the trauma of Riley’s injuries and spending the night in the infirmary to make sure he was going to live, there had been no time to rest. I didn’t want to be rude to Tyler, and so I tried to keep him talking. As long as I didn’t have to say much, I decided, I wouldn’t have a breakdown of my own.

  “You’d love it on Yung,” he said. “They have the most beautiful blue sun, and the weather is always warm and pleasant—unlike this forsaken planet.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes! Most of the life there is in the oceans, but we have wonderful shade trees and the best beaches of any planet.”

  “It must be a nice place for swimming,” I said.

  “Well, there are a fair number of predators in the water. The Caetus are about the size of Earth whales and are very aggressive. If you stay in the shallow waters, you only have to worry about the Crinis, but you can usually see them coming.”

  “So you and Max used to be partners?” I asked.

  I noticed in my mirror that Tyler frowned for a moment. “Our last assignment was rough. We made it through, thanks to Max’s persistence and his durability.”

  “Durability?” I asked.

  “Ah, so this is your first mission with him?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Max’s mother is from Rigenerare and so the bastard is as tough as nails, literally. He has four hearts, four lungs, and if he breaks a bone or gets cut, he simply heals.” Tyler sighed. “Unfortunately, he sometimes forgets that not everybody is as durable as he is.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, lucky bastard. I have no idea why he works for the Service though,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look young. I’m guessing you haven’t been doing this very long.”

  “This is my second mission,” I admitted.

  “How did it go?” he asked. I felt my face go red. “That well, eh? How much support did you get from the Service?”

  “The Earth outpost has limited resources,” I said.

  “Actually, Captain Johnson is more focused on getting off this rock than dealing with pings and so support is not a priority. He’s been pissed ever since he was transferred here. Did you even know what you were up against?” Tyler asked.

  “It’s an agent’s job to investigate a ping. We were given all the information that the AI had as evidence of extraterrestrial activity.”

  “It seems noble and all that, being part of the mighty Intergalactic Secret Service, but when you’ve been in the game as long as I have… Well, after you see a lot of people die and that those who live don’t get some amazing retirement on a beach somewhere… Those who live usually end up in assisted living, thankful for their remaining limbs and without much else to be thankful for.”

  “It’s a privilege to serve. Only the best get to be agents,” I said.

  “I’ve been privileged long enough, thanks.” He sat back and looked out the window.

  “Are you giving up?” I asked.

  I watched the trees passing underneath us while he appeared to deliberate. I loved to fly. The freedom of flight gave me some peace. The sky was clear and powder blue, and I felt so good even if Tyler was being a downer.

  “I was the top of my class when I graduated from the Academy,” he said. “I still had something to prove, though. I wanted to show that I could take on any challenge. Each assignment offered a new way to get killed, a way that had never occurred to me even in my nightmares, but I only saw these dangers as a way to display my skills. Nobody’s watching, though. After awhile you realize that you’re just doing it for yourself, and then you realize that eventually you’re going to die doing this nonsense, serving as you call it.”

  “You’re protecting the humans,” I said.

  “They only need our protection because we’re here. If they weren’t on the Intergalactic Alliance’s radar, most of the threats to their world wouldn’t have happened.”

  “There still would have been some threats,” I said.

  “The original members of the alliance had to survive on their own, and many civilizations died out before the alliance was formed. Nobody protected any of them.”

  “That’s true but also the point. Some of those dead civilizations might have taught us much, given us technology, customs, history, and science that we don’t have today. Every civilization has some value,” I said.

  “Such a naive view of the universe,” he said. “Here’s an example that refutes that grand assertion. In a distant galaxy at the edge of civilization lived a race of beings called the Kone, highly intelligent creatures who conquered every math and science problem that faced them in their quest to achieve intergalactic space travel. In terms of their understanding of the universe, they were rock stars.” He rubbed his brow. “There’s more to their story though. The Kone were also the masters of weapons capable of complete galactic annihilation. My ancestors did not record details of the exact function of these weapons for fear they might be rebuilt. Still, stories have escaped about how entire galaxies were destroyed in mere hours. The Kone would demand submission from the civilizations they found, and any race that defied them was simply wiped out. There was no Intergalactic Alliance, nobody to protect my home planet. The Yung were philosophers and doctors, not fighters. However, it was my people who had to overthrow them. After stealing the destructive technology, the Yung wiped out every last Kone that could be found. Then they destroyed the weapons, and even a description of those weapons was forbidden for all of time. Some history has been preserved, however, so we remember the terrible price of being less than vigilant. It was millennia later that the Intergalactic Alliance was formed. The Yung joined, but we’ll never forget that we stood alone against the greatest threat the universe had ever faced. The Yung weren’t coddled like the humans. They earned their place in the universe.”

  “Aren’t you part human?” I asked.

  He looked disgusted. “Half. My father was human.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what my mother saw in him or why they used him as my genetic template. He didn’t bother saying goodbye before he took off.”

  “That’s awful,” I said.

  “Unfortunately, my mother has moved to Schwartzen, and this…” He gestured to his human body. “This can’t handle the force of gravity there.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you see her at all, your mother?”

  “We had a gal-com conversation a few years ago.” He looked out the window.

  I didn’t have the heart to dig deeper, and so we flew the remaining six hours in silence. I understood how hard it was for him, but I disagreed with him. This might be the most difficult job in the universe, but you didn’t do it for the retirement. You did it because somebody had to look out for the developing races. If we didn’t look out for them, primitive creatures like humans would have been destroyed thousands of years ago. Their right to survive and grow into a contributing member of the universe was worth the lives of willing agents.