Like a sliver of a strand of hair that touches down on a calm lake, the lake rippled in its entirety. Altair's heart beat faster and faster, as if he was running a mile in less than a minute. A silent but agonizing pain struck deep chords within his mind, amplified by the raging heat within his chest and blood.

  "W-What?" he silently muttered in the cockpit that was dimly lit by the numerous interfaces scattered in front of him.

  "Adjutant!" He spoke with a clear and firm voice, with a slight tint of nervousness that was negligible to the naked ear. Yet the Adjutant, who was observing from the side, heard and processed it.

  Among the inner workings of the Adjutant's code, numerous codes, variables, and lines were being replaced, intercepted, and implemented. The Adjutant didn't know what was happening, but for some reason, it started to slowly think.

  "Acknowledged, Lieutenant!" The Adjutant fizzed in an interval manner, its systems slowly changing and being rewired across multiple interfaces. "External communicators are now working, Lieutenant!" The Adjutant hummed.

  With his heart pounding loudly, Altair shifted his body into a more comfortable position and spoke to the strange sentient person in front of the Ironside.

  The ancient construct stopped in its tracks, and a moment of silence followed.

  Brennan and Lyria stared at Mira with wide eyes, sweat sliding down their cheeks and their hands trembling at what they had just seen and heard, their expressions contorted into a mixture of fascination, confusion, and understanding.

  Brennan was the first one to break the ice. "Y-You're a Scholar?" He stuttered, but soon regained his composure. "I see, that makes sense," he said in amazement as he gazed back and forth at the inscriptions on the construct's hull.

  "E-Earth? I don't think I have heard of such a kingdom or nation back at the academy?" Lyria gazed at Mira with eyes screaming with curiosity, like those of a puppy waiting for attention.

  Mira pivoted her eyes to the side, directly avoiding Lyria's. Instead, she focused with laser-focused intensity on the ancient construct before her.

  She waited as rays of sunlight glinted over her irises, her chest thumping like crazy. Then, as the moment dawned, like that of a bullet train passing by, the ancient construct whirred at an unknown frequency of sound. The vibrations it emitted travelled in a concentric wave with the ancient construct at the center.

  Across the dilapidated forest, the leftover leaves from the trees fell one by one as the vibration intensified. Once a moment passed by, the waves became less intensified and became more harmonious to the ears.

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  As the sounds mellowed out, a strange masculine voice spoke. "How do you know that language?" The mysterious voice spoke in a calm manner, but deep down in Mira's heart, she felt fear and awe.

  She pivoted her head around her party mates, fearing for their lives, as they all stared at her. She gulped down a mouthful of saliva and came forward, moving much closer to the ancient construct.

  She breathed a mouthful of air, her hands trembling, but still inclined to show courtesy. She dropped her bow, her arms at her sides. She then slowly bowed with grace, as the tips of her fingers grabbed hold of an imaginary hem of a skirt.

  "My name is Mira, a scholar who researches the civilizations of old, and an accompanying guild member of my cousin Lyria." She straightened her body and continued. "The language I spoke is known as the 'First Tongue,'" she said with a confident voice, yet nervousness still persisted in her eyelids.

  A moment of silence then followed suit.

  Upon hearing the strange woman before the Ironside, Altair felt as if he had been struck by a speeding space liner going through faster than light speeds.

  Altair felt his chest tighten further as confusion and assumptions ran rampant throughout his enigmatic mind.

  He snapped toward the interface. With his face ashen, tears streaming down his cheeks, he wanted to speak but couldn't; he wanted to know what happened to Terra; he couldn't. There was a lingering feeling within him that there must be something else. Perhaps a distant hope from a dying nebula surrounded by numerous shimmering starlights.

  "A-Agh!" he uttered, unable to breathe.

  The Adjutant sprung into action. "I understand, Lieutenant." The Adjutant buzzed. "However, a matter that needs fixing as soon as possible is present… Please forgive me." The Adjutant whizzed in a low humming frequency.

  "Bypassing authorization… Pilot incapacitated due to emotional trauma… Implementing backup directive… Administering stabilizers… Administered." The Adjutant buzzed at an even lower frequency.

  Numerous needles immediately appeared behind Altair's back. Upon seeing what was happening while in a state of deliriousness from confusion and anger, he growled in anger and tightened his fist to the point that his nails penetrated deep into the skin, followed by a crimson liquid dripping between his fingers and into the metallic surface of his cockpit.

  The needles went in with utmost precision, administering precise doses and only increasing or decreasing it according to the pilot's status.

  Altair's bloodshot eyes cleared up almost immediately, and the deep boiling ball of hatred, anger, and confusion dissipated like the leaves of a tree in autumn. His shaking body and breathing stabilized, now replaced with intense exhaustion and a sense of defeat.

  Now with a sane mind, he glanced towards the interface and into that of a person named Mira. Behind her silhouette, he saw his family, friends, colleagues, and his entire kind, and most of all, his fiancée Elena.

  One by one, they all turned their backs and slowly left. With a gust of wind, they all disappeared, a distant delusion created by his mind as a coping mechanism. Now that the medications were in effect, he glanced back into his cockpit.

  It was empty and cold, akin to that of a prison cell.

  With a defeated expression, he pivoted towards the interface, and behind that interface, he knew that the Adjutant was watching and silently observing.

  With a sigh, he then forced a smile to distract himself from the depressing topics.

  "Adjutant, what is the situation?" His voice was calm and deep, but beyond it lay a broken man who had lost everything.