Jason: "GG what do the marines want us to do?"
Gabe: "Prepare for evacuation."
Charles: "That's not normal."
Gabe: "Today was not normal."
Charles: "Do you want to introduce us to the squire?"
Gabe: "Later. You know them already. They are a squire until debrief. You know this to be true."
Charles was hostile to the troubles and tribulations of operational security. He understood why it was necessary, especially with their client. But he had always opposed the nature of actions taken without an identity. Indeed, the record of the recruitment would have been deleted at the end, to remove any identity of the squire.
In the face of an unknown enemy it was rationalized. But if you had not sinned, then who would come against you?
Charles: "Squire, do you have any knowledge of key resources we should take with us aboard the escape shuttle?"
Squire: "We have 7 minutes until it arrives."
Charles: "Plenty of time to retrieve something if you know its location."
Squire: "What if there is a second creature?"
Charles: "Then we won't be leaving anyway." It was an odd form of gambling, that which Charles was proposing. "Suppose we live but it is not worth the trouble?"
Squire: "This station kept biological lab samples. They were extremely valuable only a week ago. We are abandoning them."
Gabe: "Then let us go!"
And they did. Or rather Charles and Gabe did. The squire was not capable of operating the power armor beyond the strict minimum of walking and talking, dangerous enough in the wrong hands, but not unmanageable. The machine was "dummy proof," but most of the functions were behind at least a little security. Not to mention the unsafe nature of the equipment. In the civilian world, the Squire would have studied for at least a few months before operating the suit of armor. A proper education might require a full six months to a year. Masters would claim that true skill took decades of practice to acquire. Such was the nature of skill.
In truth, Charles had learned from a robot within a few weeks of operating with one of the civilian robotic labor models. Without that robot, he would have stayed an operator of dozers and skid steers. It was a long story, but in a legal sense, Charles had skipped acquiring the commercial licensure most places required to allow someone to use exoskeletons. Not that the church minded about that sort of thing. It had been years now. Charles was just as much a user of the armor as any more accredited operator; indeed, when tested and examined, he performed adequately, but the paperwork had never been filed; it was simply not important. Perhaps if he retired someday.
Gabriel had followed the more traditional route. Oscar and Jason, well, Charles had never asked them.
Surely the squire would pass the basic suit checklist in the near future; it was simple.
For now, the Squire would stay back and act like he belonged in the armor, waving the civilians into the escape shuttle soon to arrive. Picking up the slightly more holy than normal emergency generator and carrying it with him onto the spacecraft if Charles and Gabe didn't get back before the shuttle departed.
Charles and Gabe made it to Biologics and found a door ripped out of the wall with T-3 minutes until shuttle arrival. Stepping over the ruined aperture, they found themselves in a state of reverent awe. They shouldn't have been; they had seen it on video. But to find alien technology in the middle of the laboratory was an experience few achieve even if it is only for an instant.
The alien's lander, the scorch marks on the floor. It was lithe, elegant. It had breached the station paneling and deployed an "umbrella" of what appeared to be lead, or graphite, or some combination material, to plug the violent hole it had ripped in the station's thin skin.
The room was still pressurized. The creatures in terrariums along the wall were still living, flicking their tongues, buzzing, curled up and hibernating in the room temperature environment.
One terrarium notably was flopped sideways on its rack. The wire mesh on top had fallen to the ground. A mess of moss and stones littered the floor. Two massive footprints, claws that scratched the gentle tiles that decorated the human environment. A laboratory desk sat empty aside from sticky notes and a closed laptop. It was messy and clean at the same time.
A detective would have enjoyed the room; it kept the air of an undisturbed crime scene of an ephemeral mountain lake. Synthetic though the room was, it was life rarified. Tranquil in its clean destruction.
The knights had no time for this. The shuttle would be leaving in minutes; they had only the delay of the civilians as their timer. To preserve what little experience of the station they could, they had ventured to this corner of the world, and if they died here, they could die a good death, venturing where no other human trod. In such an event, hopefully someone could have eventually found shreds of their adventure recorded on one of those anemic hard drives they kept somewhere around the waist of the power armor. But that time would, given the Syndicate and state of sad humanity, be a long, long time.
Indeed, the information they had obtained simply by walking into the room and recording basic signals, by taking the basic pictures with their helmet cams, was already worth the trip. Many times the trip.
Gabriel grabbed a loading cart, conveniently kept in the lab.
Charles kicked the warped and useless broken piece of metal that used to be the gateway to this sanctified realm away.
Charles: "What do we take?"
Gabriel: "Anything that isn't a corn snake."
It could not be assumed they both knew what a corn snake was. As it happened, they both did.
Charles: "What about these dome-headed looking guys?"
Gabriel: "A dime a dozen, you can leave 'em."
Charles: "Bad day to be the majority."
Most of the creatures were corn snakes. And for 2 minutes, they loaded snakes and lizards and frogs onto the cart. Easy work with an exoskeleton.
"Shuttle Has Arrived!" The emergency broadcast system had been turned back on. A signal that no enemy was predicted at this location.
It was their cue to leave. They didn't know how long the shuttle would stay.
They didn't run; they calmly walked, pushcart full of terrarium creatures ahead.
A rattlesnake, an unknown number of frogs, 4 lizards in a sandy container, the empty terrarium (they had shoveled the gravel and moss back in as best they could), 3 lizards in a leafy glass box, and two humid salamanders.
Gabe: "You know those 'dome-heads' are actually gopher snakes; they mimic rattlesnakes but lack venom."
Charles: "What were they doing with these creatures, Squire?"
Squire: "The official line was product development, advertising, and research."
Charles: "Yea, but what was it really, do you know?"
Squire: "Wouldn't you kill 'em if you knew it was something you hated? You are working for these freaks for free; at least we got paid."
Some things were worth more than material goods, but the squire would learn in time.
Charles: "Nonsense, life is sacred, as well as honesty."
There was a slight silence as the squire considered their answer.
Squire: "It was stem-cell research and gene therapy. Honestly, I wouldn't take 'em; it ain't our place to meddle."
Great, the squire was a Luddite as the secular imagined, one of those Path of Ignorance followers.
Gabe: "Abominations of man or not, Some of the cute critters live."
Charles pondered as the lift brought them back to departures, the long way around.
Charles: "What's going on with the shuttle?"
Jason: "Relax, it's fine. The civilians are gonna take their time boarding. The cargo airlock is mostly empty for you anyway. The marines are gonna rip you lads up for saving the pets."
Charles: "No, we got images of what looks like the alien's initial breach. If we had a few hours, we could investigate that thing's breach drone."
Oscar: "Just talked to the Syndicate; they wanna go hot in this system, really hot. They think that alien is just an advance scout."
Jason: "And there is no majesty and there is no might..."
Squire: "Y'all ain't Abrahamic, are you?"
Jason: "...Save in Yasu Christi!"
Charles: "No, that's just JJ abusing comms. He's gonna give the church a bad name."
Jason: "It's apocrypha. It's classic stuff, really."
Oscar: "It's gonna be a long week. Enjoy it while you can."