“Ugh,” Isa groaned as her eyes fluttered open.

  “Hey,” I said softly, trying to avoid aggravating her headache. Helping her up, I tipped a canteen toward her mouth and let her drink.

  “I know you!” she exclaimed before wincing.

  “Yes, Isa. I’m Dax.”

  “Right! Dax. Pet. And I’m Isa.”

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  She nodded. “I got a symbiote. It’s not talking, though.”

  “Give it some time—it needs to learn.”

  “Right. You said yours benefited from us talking and describing things, right?”

  “Exactly. She needed to learn our language.”

  “Well, good thing I know how to talk!”

  She then started describing the area around us and all the objects she could see before transitioning into a bunch of technical jargon I only understood about a quarter of.

  Around that time, Ontari woke up, but Ani was there to help her recover, so I didn’t need to take any action. Within a half hour, both of them were feeling better and had confirmed that their symbiotes were able to communicate. Isa named hers Zia, a tweak on her own name, while Ontari named hers Velia.

  “You two ready for this?”

  Ani nodded, while Jara looked uncomfortable.

  “Hey, you don’t need to do this if you don’t want to.”

  “No, I need to. It will be immensely helpful. I’m just nervous.”

  I nodded, not wanting to harp on the topic. I had the other two lie down, then I handed over the symbiote orbs, wincing in sympathy as the pain hit them.

  Meanwhile, Zia and Velia got started working on the [Integrated Communications] augment, leaving us with seventy-seven units of biotic alloy. Other than that, the next twenty-four hours or so passed much the same as while Isa and Ontari underwent symbiosis, only this time there were three of us getting to know our symbiotes.

  Once the last two had recovered and named their symbiotes—Hecari for Jara and Icatori for Ani—we packed up and headed back to the shuttle, making sure to carefully wrap the last symbiote even if Lumira insisted that it was difficult to damage. Thankfully, the trip was uneventful, and shortly after we arrived and settled back in, my senses woke up, for lack of a better description.

  I was suddenly aware of the presence of nearby radio waves and structured mana communications, like I would be aware of sound or scent. It was a little disorienting, though much less than I would have expected.

  “Whoa,” I said, glad I was sitting down as my augmented brain got used to the new sensations.

  “You okay?” Jara asked.

  “Yeah, my comms suite just turned on and it’s wild. Manageable, but wild.”

  ?That would be thanks to me,? Lumira interjected, a slight hint of smugness in her tone.

  “Apparently Lumira is helping interpret the data,” I added.

  “That makes sense,” Isa mumbled before zoning out, probably talking to Zia about technical things, something she had been doing a lot since they bonded.

  “…And she’s gone,” Ani quipped, clearly coming to the same conclusion as I had.

  “It’s fine,” I replied, waving off the issue. “So yeah, takes a minute to get used to, even with our symbiote’s help, but it’s pretty cool. I can tell that the only signals going out are encrypted, so I can’t interpret them, but I know that if they weren’t, or if I had the appropriate keys, I would be able to focus on one or possibly more signals and interpret them.”

  ?Ahem.?

  “Okay, sorry, Lumira would interpret them and translate for me into a form I could comprehend.”

  ?That’s better.?

  “We should discuss what we’re going to do with the rest of the alloy,” Jara suggested.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I agree. While it would be great to eventually get everyone [Subdermal Armor] and [Advanced Sensors], we just don’t have the resources right now. Plus, our symbiotes will be able to develop other augments given time, so we probably want to keep at least a small reserve available for that.”

  Ontari hesitantly raised her hand. “Um, about that—Icatori says that if we manage to find a ship, it would probably be pretty helpful for me to have the [Ship Link] augment. It builds on [Integrated Communications] to allow for a close integration with a compatible ship’s systems, making it easier to pilot and understand sensor data. She’s working on developing it for me now, but it’ll probably take a while.”

  I nodded. “Any clue how much it will cost?”

  She paused for a moment with her head tilted, a sign she was likely listening to Icatori. “She says it’ll probably cost about the same as the comms suite in both alloy and mana since it just builds on that augment.”

  “Okay, we’ll make sure to save enough for that.”

  Jara continued her previous thoughts. “I think we should at least get one or two people with [Advanced Sensors] for now. Dax, you’ve already got comms, so you’d be a natural choice.”

  I thought about it. “You sure you don’t want them? You usually take the lead when we explore.”

  She shook her head. “I might get it when I can, but I think the sooner we can get that augment, the better. As much as I agree that [Subdermal Armor] for everyone would be great, it’s expensive and we have Shield for protection.”

  “All right, I’ll have Lumira get started on it.” I went to collect and absorb the necessary biotic alloy, knowing the actual build process would take a bit under a week. While I was doing that, I had a thought.

  Lumira, when the others get [Integrated Communications], will you be able to use the augment blueprints the other symbiotes develop?

  ?It’s possible, but it depends on how similar your physiologies are to each other. Even still, there will likely be at least some extra work to adapt for both the differences between species and your personal biology. For you, it will be even greater thanks to your shapeshifting.?

  Makes sense, thanks.

  We spent another boring two days waiting for everyone else’s augments to build. When Isa’s woke up, I immediately knew, and that instinctive sense of how to use it had me reaching out to her mentally.

  ?Hey, Isa!? I sent while she was still registering the changes, causing her gaze to immediately look to me.

  It took her a good fifteen seconds to respond, and when she did, I heard her voice coming from the correct direction, though it had an indescribable quality that meant I knew it was coming from comms.

  ?Hey, Pet! Isn’t this awesome!?

  I sent back the sensation of a head nod, surprised when it worked.

  ?That was trippy,? she replied, followed by the impression of her sticking her tongue out at me, to which I responded with a mental eyeroll.

  “I take it Isa’s comms woke up,” Jara said drolly, interrupting our silly conversation.

  “Yeah!” she exclaimed. “It’s great! When you comm someone, it sounds like your voice except sort of ethereal but not exactly? Plus, you can send nonverbal information along with it.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, first Pet sent me a head nod, then I sent her the idea of me sticking out my tongue, then she—”

  “I think I get it,” Jara cut her off with an exasperated but fond shake of her head.

  “So yeah, it’s a lot of fun.”

  “I’m more concerned with it being helpful, but that’s good to hear.”

  “Oh, it should be that, too.”

  Jara just rolled her eyes before leaning back and closing them, clearly ending the conversation.

  Once everyone had comms, we loaded up with refreshed supplies and returned to the base. Skipping the armory, we continued on past to the next building, which ended up being what looked like a gym and shooting range, though the machines and devices there were strange to our sensibilities, not to mention worn-down. We checked the building thoroughly, but there wasn’t anything useful there.

  From there, we found more potential office buildings. On the ground floor of the third one, though, we found another door locked by a scanner. Before I could even suggest it, Isa was down on one knee opening it up and working on it. Soon enough, she had it open, and Jara led us down a flight of stairs into a room filled with racks of technological equipment.

  Isa gasped at this. ?I think this is a server room.?

  The various symbiotes signaled their agreement.

  ?What does that mean for us?? I asked.

  ?If we can get into their systems, we might be able to find the location of a ship!?

  My eyebrows shot up. ?What do you need??

  She paused—in thought or communication with Zia, it was unclear. After a few seconds, though, she responded, ?Apparently there’s an augment Zia can develop called [Computational Warfare Suite] that will work with the [Integrated Communications] to give me tools to hack into computer systems and similar devices.?

  I nodded. ?Zia, that’s great! Do you need anything to develop it??

  She sent a negative. ?It’ll take half a day, maybe a bit longer, then however long to build and however much biotic alloy to do it. Given estimates, it’ll probably require four to five units. You see, I need to construct a—?

  ?Zia, we don’t need the details. If you want to discuss it with Isa or other other symbiotes later, that’s great.?

  ?Sorry,? she replied, a hint of embarrassment coloring her communications.

  ?It’s fine. Just get started on the development.?

  ?Aye, captain!? Zia replied.

  ?Since we can’t do anything here, let’s keep exploring and come back when Zia is finished.?

  A mental chorus of agreements settled it, and we headed back up to continue exploring. Unfortunately, the rest of the building was a bust, so we moved on.

  The rest of the day was a bust, but by the next morning, Zia was ready to start building, so I handed over the necessary alloy cubes and let Isa absorb them. Zia told us it would probably take about four days to construct the augment, so we had plenty of time to keep searching the facility for anything else of note.

  We did eventually find a series of shuttle pads, but there was nothing on them.

  As we were searching the following day, Lumira spoke directly to me. ?The sensor suite is ready. I haven’t activated it yet—you’ll want to be sitting down with your eyes closed for that.?

  I sent an affirmation and put it out of my mind until that evening when we settled in for the night.

  ?I’m going to activate the [Advanced Sensors] augment now—Lumira warned it might be overwhelming.?

  Once the others had acknowledged my plan, I told Lumira to go ahead, and if I had thought the [Integrated Communications] augment was intense, I was wrong.