The plan came to Valoris at 02:00, when sleep refused to arrive and her mind kept circling through the same questions that had been eating at her for weeks.

  Twenty-three deployments. Forty-three entity kills. Seventeen comprehensive reports documenting behavioral patterns that contradicted everything they'd been taught. And seventeen identical responses from command, each one dismissing her observations with the same scripted language that refused to engage with the substance of what she'd documented.

  Standard protocols exist for pilot safety and operational efficiency. Entity behavior observations are noted. No tactical changes required.

  Noted. Not addressed, or investigated, and certainly not explained. Just noted, which meant filed somewhere no one would read it and forgotten before the digital ink dried.

  She stared at the ceiling of the barracks, watching shadows shift in patterns that reminded her of corruption zone distortions, and felt the weight of what she was contemplating settle into her bones.

  They needed answers. Real answers, not the sanitized briefings and approved doctrine that command provided. If those answers existed anywhere accessible, they would be in the academy's classified database systems, buried behind security protocols and access restrictions designed to keep fourth-year pilots from asking inconvenient questions.

  The question was whether she was willing to risk everything to find them.

  She brought it up during the next morning's private squad meeting, in the narrow window between formation and training rotations.

  "I want to access restricted databases," Valoris said, watching each of their faces as the words landed. "Academy archives. Classified historical records. Communication research programs from the early years."

  Zee's expression shifted immediately to something sharp and interested. "About time."

  "That's a serious security violation," Saren said, her voice carrying a reserve meaning she was already calculating consequences. "Unauthorized access to classified systems. We're talking potential expulsion. Criminal charges. Dishonorable discharge from the pilot program."

  "I know what we're risking."

  "Do you?" Saren's grey eyes were hard. "Because if we're caught, it's over. Everything we've worked for. Four years of training, summoning, bonding with our mechs. The careers we're supposed to be starting. Gone."

  "And if we don't?" Valoris kept her voice level despite the frustration building in her chest. "We keep killing refugees because Command says they're threats. We keep filing reports that get dismissed. And we stay weapons in a war that might not be what we signed up for, and we never understand what we're actually part of."

  The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications none of them wanted to voice.

  "I can do it," Milo said, his usual chaotic energy subdued into something more focused. "Technically, I mean. Buddy's been helping me understand the academy's network architecture. There are vulnerabilities in the system, especially in the older archive databases that were never properly updated when they migrated to new security protocols. They patched the obvious entry points but missed some of the legacy access pathways."

  "I can assist," Quinn added, their voice carrying that flat precision that came from processing information without emotional interference. "Academy database security remains inadequate. I accessed personnel records during our first squad meeting without triggering alerts, and have been in restricted areas since. The classified archives use different protocols, but the underlying architecture shares fundamental weaknesses."

  Milo's eyes lit up behind his glasses. "Quinn, you never told me you'd done intrusion work before."

  "You never asked. It seemed irrelevant until now."

  "How confident are you?" Valoris asked, looking between them. "Together?"

  Quinn and Milo exchanged a glance that suggested they were already running parallel calculations.

  "Reasonably confident," Milo said. "Maybe eighty-five percent that we can get into the lower-classification tiers without triggering immediate alerts. Quinn's experience with the personnel databases gives us a baseline for how their security systems respond to unauthorized access. The higher restriction levels are harder, more actively monitored, but the historical archives from the barrier break period are mostly in older systems that nobody's looked at in years."

  "The challenge is timing," Quinn continued. "There's a three-hour period every twelve days when maintenance cycles reduce active monitoring. Automated security sweeps pause for system updates. If we coordinate our approach during that window, detection probability drops significantly."

  "When's the next window?" Valoris asked.

  "Four days," Milo answered. "01:00 to 04:00."

  She looked around at her squad, at the people who'd become family through four years of shared transformation. Zee's readiness was obvious, her constant coiled energy finally having a direction that wasn't just waiting. Quinn's expression was unreadable, but they hadn't objected, which was as close to agreement as Quinn typically offered. Milo was already mentally working through the technical challenges, glasses catching light as his head tilted in that way that meant part of his consciousness was consulting Buddy through their bond.

  Saren's jaw was tight, her posture rigid with the controlled tension that Valoris had learned to recognize over years of working together. The perfectionist who believed in protocol, in proper channels, in systems functioning the way they were designed to function. The soldier who'd built her entire identity around following regulations because structure was what kept chaos from overwhelming everything.

  "Saren," Valoris said quietly. "Talk to me."

  For a long moment, Saren didn't respond. Her hands clenched briefly at her sides before she deliberately relaxed them, a conscious choice that Valoris knew cost her something.

  "I hate this," Saren said finally, and her voice was cold. "I hate that you're asking me to choose between protocol and squad. I hate that you're right that we need answers and wrong that this is how we should get them. I hate that following regulations means being complicit in whatever we're part of, and breaking regulations means becoming something I've spent my entire life refusing to be."

  She met Valoris's eyes directly.

  "I won't report you. Any of you. Because you're my squad." Her voice hardened further. "But that's all I'm offering. I won't help. I'm not going to be part of this in any way, because if it falls apart, I need to be able to say honestly that I wasn't involved, and if you get caught, I’ll tell them I had no idea what you were up to."

  "Saren–"

  "No." The word cut through whatever Valoris had been about to say. "You want to throw away everything we've worked for on the chance of finding answers that might not even exist? That's your choice. I'll keep your secret because you're family. But I won't pretend I support this, and I won't make myself complicit by participating. Not even from the edges."

  Valoris wanted to argue. Wanted to push, to remind Saren of everything they'd seen, everything that didn't add up. But she recognized the set of Saren's jaw, the rigidity in her posture. This was Saren's line, and crossing it would cost more than respecting it.

  "Understood," Valoris said quietly.

  "It's still reckless," Saren added. "It's still probably going to blow up in your faces. And when it does, I'm going to say I told you so. From whatever distance I can manage."

  The words stung, but Valoris accepted them. Having Saren's silence was better than having her opposition. And maybe, if they found something real, something undeniable, Saren would understand why the risk had been necessary.

  "So we're doing this," Zee said. It wasn't a question.

  Valoris opened her mouth to confirm, and found the words stuck in her throat.

  Four years. Four years of training, of sacrifice, of becoming something more than human. Four years of building toward careers that would define the rest of their lives. And she was about to risk all of it on the chance that restricted databases contained answers to questions Command didn't want them asking.

  What if they were caught? Expulsion would be the kindest outcome. Criminal charges for unauthorized access to classified systems. Dishonorable discharge that would follow them forever, marking them as security risks, as traitors, as pilots who couldn't be trusted. Their mechs would be recycled, their bonds severed. Everything they'd sacrificed to become would be stripped away in an instant.

  And for what? Documentation that might not even exist? Answers that might not change anything even if they found them?

  She thought about her family's legacy. Five generations of Kades who'd served with distinction and honor. Her mother's pride when she'd been accepted to the academy. Her father's quiet confidence that she would continue the tradition. The weight of expectation that had shaped her entire life, the certainty that she would be the sixth in an unbroken line of legendary pilots.

  If she did this and failed, she wouldn't just destroy her own future. She'd destroy her squad's futures too. Milo, who'd already been given too many second chances. Quinn, whose psychological evaluations were flagged for concerning patterns. Zee, whose scholarship was her only path out of poverty. All of them trusting her to lead them somewhere worth going.

  "Val?" Zee's voice cut through her spiral. "You okay?"

  Valoris realized she'd been silent too long. Her squad was watching her with expressions that ranged from concern to confusion, waiting for the confirmation she hadn't given.

  "What if we're wrong?" she asked quietly. "What if we do this, and we find nothing? Or we find something and it doesn't matter? We'd have thrown away everything for answers that don't change anything."

  "Then we'd know," Quinn said simply. "Certainty has value independent of outcome. The question is whether potential knowledge justifies potential cost."

  "And if we don't do this?" Zee leaned forward, her intensity focused entirely on Valoris. "We keep killing things that are trying to run away. We keep filing reports that get ignored. We keep being weapons without understanding what we're being used for. Can you live with that?"

  Valoris thought about the entity she'd watched die trying to reach the rift and the fear Quinn had felt radiating from it. She remembered the seventeen reports she'd filed that had all received the same dismissive response.

  She thought about standing in front of her family's hall of mechs someday, explaining what she'd done during her service. Which answer would be harder to live with: "I broke the rules and found the truth," or "I followed orders and never asked why"?

  "No," she said finally. "I can't."

  "Then we're doing this," Zee said again.

  This time, Valoris nodded. "We're doing this. Four days. We prepare, we plan, and we find out what they're hiding."

  The preparation took all four days.

  Milo and Quinn worked together in a partnership that surprised Valoris with its efficiency. Milo mapped network pathways with Buddy's help, identifying the specific access points where legacy protocols created vulnerabilities in otherwise secure systems. Quinn analyzed the security architecture from a different angle, drawing on their experience with the personnel databases to predict how automated defenses would respond to various intrusion patterns.

  "The key is not being noticed," Milo explained during one of their planning sessions. "Security systems aren't looking for perfect stealth. They're looking for anomalies, patterns that deviate from expected behavior. If we look like a scheduled diagnostic, we're invisible. If we look like someone trying to hide, we're flagged."

  "I will handle the initial access protocols," Quinn added. "My previous intrusion established baseline patterns that security systems learned to ignore. Milo and Buddy will manage the deeper penetration while I maintain the surface-level camouflage."

  "And you're confident this will work?" Valoris asked.

  Quinn and Milo exchanged another of those calculating glances.

  "Buddy says the probability of detection is approximately eleven percent during the maintenance window," Milo said, "assuming neither of us makes mistakes. Quinn's involvement reduces the risk because security systems have already categorized their access patterns as non-threatening."

  "The probability increases significantly if we make mistakes," Quinn added, with characteristic bluntness.

  "Comforting," Zee muttered.

  Between intrusion planning sessions, Quinn mapped what they were looking for. Historical records from the barrier break period. Communication research programs that had been referenced in a few declassified documents but never explained. Entity contact protocols from the years immediately following the breach.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Pattern analysis suggests communication research was active for approximately seven years after barrier collapse," Quinn reported. "Then complete termination. All references disappear from accessible records after that. Whatever they found, they decided to stop looking."

  "Or they found something they didn't want to share," Zee said.

  "Equivalent possibility," Quinn agreed.

  Saren maintained her distance throughout the preparation. She attended training, participated in squad activities, said nothing about what the others were planning. Her silence was its own form of support, even if it came with judgment visible in every careful interaction. She'd promised not to report them, and she kept that promise. But she made equally clear she wanted no part of the details.

  Valoris watched her squad work together toward something that violated everything the academy had taught them about proper behavior, and felt the weight of leadership pressing down on her shoulders. If this went wrong, it was her responsibility. Her decision. Her squad, following her into potential destruction because she'd asked them to.

  Minus one. Saren's absence from the planning felt like a wound that hadn't quite healed, a reminder of what this was already costing their unity. But the alternative was worse. The alternative was continuing to kill possibly sapient beings because Command said they were threats, being a weapon without understanding what they were being used for.

  She couldn't live with that. She was incapable of asking her squad to be that while she had any capacity to seek answers.

  The night arrived with a quiet that felt like reality was holding its breath.

  01:00. Maintenance window open. Security sweeps paused for system updates.

  They gathered in a study room, a small chamber off the main library that had been used for storage before Chimera Squad appropriated it. Saren was conspicuously absent, having made clear she wanted no part of what they were about to do. Her bunk had been empty when they'd left, and Valoris suspected she'd found somewhere else to be until morning, maintaining the distance she'd promised.

  Milo sat at his tablet, fingers hovering over the interface while Buddy's presence hummed through his awareness. Quinn had positioned themselves at a secondary access point, their tablet connected to the academy's network through pathways they'd established years ago.

  "Ready when you are," Milo said.

  Valoris looked around at her squad. Zee stood ready near the door, prepared to provide distraction if needed. Quinn's form flickered slightly at the edges as they divided attention between physical presence and digital intrusion. Milo was waiting with that mixture of terror and excitement that meant he was about to do something brilliant and probably inadvisable.

  Four of them instead of five. The absence felt wrong, a gap in their usual formation that reminded Valoris exactly what this was costing.

  "Do it," Valoris said.

  Quinn moved first, their fingers dancing across the tablet with precision that seemed almost inhuman. "Establishing surface access. Security protocols recognizing my signature as previously categorized. No alerts."

  "Following through," Milo added, his own fingers moving across the interface as Buddy's presence guided him through the network architecture. The connection device hummed quietly, establishing pathways that shouldn't exist, accessing systems through vulnerabilities that maintenance teams had never bothered to close.

  "In," Milo whispered. "First security layer bypassed. Quinn's camouflage is holding. Moving to archive databases."

  "Maintaining surface distraction," Quinn reported, their voice distant as most of their attention focused elsewhere. "Security systems are reading our activity as routine diagnostic. Proceeding to secondary access tier."

  Valoris watched over Milo's shoulder as screens filled with directory structures and file listings. Archive records stretching back decades, organized by date and classification level. Most of it was mundane: training schedules, equipment manifests, personnel files. But deeper in the structure, she could see folders marked with restriction levels that shouldn't be accessible to fourth-year pilots.

  "Historical records from the barrier period," Milo said, navigating through the architecture with Buddy's guidance while Quinn maintained their digital cover. "Here. Dimensional research archives. Classification level..." He paused. "Most of it is level three. Restricted but not maximum security. We can access that."

  "And the higher levels?"

  "Level four and five are actively monitored," Quinn answered, their attention momentarily returning to the physical conversation. "Independent of maintenance windows. If we attempt access, we trigger alerts regardless of our current camouflage."

  "The communication research files are all level five," Milo added, frustration evident in his voice. "So are the early entity contact protocols. We can see they exist, but we can't get to them."

  "What can we access?" Valoris asked.

  "Secondary documentation," Quinn said. "Meeting minutes from research oversight committees. Budget allocations. Personnel transfers. The administrative infrastructure around the classified programs, even if we can’t access the programs themselves."

  Valoris considered for a moment. Secondary documentation was still documentation. Sometimes the edges of a secret revealed more than the secret itself, precisely because the people hiding it didn't think to conceal the supporting structures.

  "Start downloading. Everything connected to the barrier research period that we can access safely."

  Milo and Quinn worked in tandem, pulling files and transferring them to local storage through pathways that wouldn't leave traces in the main system logs. Quinn maintained the surface-level camouflage while Milo handled the deeper extraction, their coordination smooth despite the pressure of the ticking clock.

  Minutes passed in tense silence, broken only by the quiet hum of data transfer and the sound of Valoris's own heartbeat loud in her ears.

  "Sixty percent complete," Milo said. "Another five minutes."

  Valoris scanned the files as they downloaded, reading headers and summary fields while the full documents accumulated. Most of it was administrative noise, the bureaucratic residue of programs that had been funded and staffed and eventually terminated. But certain phrases caught her attention and refused to let go.

  Barrier destabilization incident. Structural integrity analysis requested.

  Entity communication research program. Year Seven status report. Results classified level five.

  Pilot retirement protocols. Long-term corruption management. Medical containment procedures.

  She felt something cold settle into her chest as she read, a recognition that the edges of what they were finding confirmed fears she hadn't wanted to name.

  "Got something," Milo said quietly. "Research committee meeting minutes from the year after the barrier broke."

  He pulled the file onto the main display.

  It was dry, administrative language, the kind of sanitized documentation that recorded decisions without explaining reasoning. But buried in the agenda items, Valoris found references that made her hands shake.

  Item 7: Review of barrier collapse incident timeline. Committee requests updated analysis of initial destabilization event. Dr. Reyes notes discrepancies between official record and preliminary field data. Recommendation: classify all pre-collapse documentation level five pending further review.

  Item 12: Update on entity communication research. Dr. Vasquez reports successful establishment of structured signal protocols. Entity responses demonstrate pattern recognition consistent with sapient awareness. Committee authorizes continued funding for expanded contact attempts.

  "They knew," Valoris said, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears. "They knew entities could communicate."

  "What's that about discrepancies in the barrier collapse record?" Zee asked, pointing at item seven. "Preliminary field data that doesn't match the official version?"

  "It's vague," Milo said, scanning the text. "References to pre-collapse documentation being classified, but no details about what the discrepancy actually was. Whatever they found, it's locked behind level five."

  "Another question we can't answer," Valoris said. The frustration burned in her chest, but she pushed it down. One revelation at a time. The communication research was concrete. The barrier collapse hints were tantalizing but incomplete.

  "There's more," Milo said, pulling another file. "Budget documentation from eight years after the barrier break."

  More administrative language. Funding allocations for research programs with coded designations. But the numbers told their own story: massive investment in entity communication research for seven years, then sudden termination. All funding redirected to what the documents called "containment and elimination protocols."

  Communication research program discontinued per Executive Order 7-Alpha-12. All personnel reassigned. Documentation classified level five. Entity contact attempts terminated effective immediately.

  "Executive order," Quinn observed. "Government level decision. Someone at the highest authority stopped the communication research."

  "Why?" Zee demanded. "If they were making progress, if entities could be communicated with, why stop?"

  "Because communication changes the narrative," Milo said. His voice was quiet but certain. "Entities you can talk to are harder to justify killing. People you can negotiate with are harder to frame as existential threats."

  Quinn and Milo searched with increased urgency, pulling files that related to the communication research termination. Most of them were still classified beyond their reach, locked behind level five restrictions that triggered alerts if accessed. But secondary documentation continued to accumulate, painting a picture through negative space.

  Seven years of funding for entity contact protocols. Dozens of researchers assigned. Multiple "contact events" referenced in administrative records. Then sudden termination, personnel scattered, documentation buried, the entire program erased from official history.

  "Here," Milo said, pulling one final document while Quinn maintained their protective screen over the intrusion. "Personnel transfer records from the termination period. Research team reassignments."

  Names scrolled across the display. Scientists and analysts who'd worked on entity communication, their careers tracked through bureaucratic records that documented where they'd gone after the program ended.

  Most of them were marked as "transferred to classified assignment" or "retired from service." Administrative euphemisms that could mean anything.

  But one name caught Valoris's attention.

  Dr. Elena Vasquez. Lead researcher, entity communication protocols. Transfer status: Containment Facility 7-Alpha. Extended medical observation.

  "Containment facility," Quinn said. "Not reassignment or retirement. Containment."

  "They locked her up," Zee said flatly. "The person who thought entities could communicate. They put her in a containment facility."

  “Maybe if she was studying entities she started showing corruption symptoms and they didn’t know what it was?” Valoris offered, but the justification sounded weak even to her own ears.

  Milo's interface chimed softly. "Window closing in sixty seconds. We need to disconnect."

  Quinn and Milo began the careful process of withdrawing from the system in reverse order, Quinn maintaining camouflage while Milo closed pathways and erased traces of their access. It was delicate work, requiring coordination that would have been impossible without the hours they'd spent planning together.

  "Surface access closing," Quinn reported, their attention fully on the digital space now. "No alerts triggered. Security systems logging our activity as routine maintenance diagnostic."

  "Deep pathways sealed," Milo added. "We're out. Maintenance window closing now."

  The tension in the room shifted but didn't dissipate. They had answers, or the beginnings of answers. Enough to confirm their worst fears about some things while leaving the most important questions still unanswered.

  Communication research had proven entities could respond to contact attempts. Someone in authority had terminated that research and buried everyone who'd been involved. And something about the barrier collapse didn't match the official record. Discrepancies that someone had worked very hard to classify out of existence.

  "Why would they hide information about the barrier breach?" Zee asked quietly. "Unless the truth was worse than the story they told everyone."

  No one had an answer for that. But the question hung in the air between them, adding weight to suspicions none of them could yet prove.

  They retreated to the barracks as dawn approached, each of them processing what they'd found in their own way. Saren was already there when they arrived, awake and sitting on her bunk with a tablet she wasn't actually reading. She looked up when they entered, saw their expressions, and said nothing.

  But she didn't ask what they'd found. Didn't want to know, maybe. Or didn't want to be implicated by knowing.

  Valoris lay in her bunk, staring at the ceiling while her mind refused to quiet.

  The documentation they'd recovered confirmed some of what she'd suspected. The communication research was real. Entities had demonstrated sapient awareness, responded to contact attempts, shown behavior consistent with intelligence rather than mindless aggression. And someone had shut that research down, scattered the researchers, buried the evidence.

  But the barrier collapse remained a mystery. Hints of discrepancies in official records. Pre-collapse documentation classified at the highest levels. Something that didn't match the story everyone had been told, hidden so thoroughly that even the edges of it were barely visible.

  She needed more. They needed the level five files to understand what had actually happened and why someone had worked so hard to ensure no one ever found out. Through the nascent bond with Paragon, she felt the entity's vast consciousness stirring.

  We found something, she thought toward it. Evidence that they lied about entities being mindless. Evidence that communication was possible. And hints that they're hiding something about how the barrier broke in the first place.

  Paragon's response came slowly, filtered through dimensional awareness that humans weren't meant to comprehend.

  You are troubled by what you have learned.

  Yes. And by what I still don't know.

  Understanding changes nothing about tactical function.

  She felt frustration bloom in her chest. It changes everything.

  You were weapons before understanding. You remain weapons after. The knowing does not alter the being.

  And maybe that was the most terrifying thing of all. Paragon was right, in its limited way. Knowing even part of the truth didn't change what they were. It didn't stop them from being pilots being bonded to mechs made of processed entity matter, from being instruments of policies that looked increasingly monstrous the more they understood.

  Partial understanding just made complicity harder to ignore. And the gaps in that understanding made everything worse, because imagination filled them with possibilities that might be better or worse than reality.

  What do we do? she asked, though she didn't expect Paragon to have an answer.

  You continue. You function. You survive. The rest is complexity beyond dimensional comprehension.

  There was no attempt at comfort. Just Paragon being Paragon, focused on tactical function, unable or unwilling to address moral questions that existed outside combat parameters.

  They couldn't fix this today. But they could keep looking, questioning, documenting what they found while they searched for the evidence that would complete the picture they'd only glimpsed the edges of.

  The communication research proved entities were sapient. The classified barrier documentation proved someone was hiding something about how all of this had started.

  Now they needed to find out what.

  When morning formation came, Chimera Squad stood together in their usual configuration. Commander Thrace called assignments. Routine deployment. Standard patrol rotation.

  "Squad Chimera, Zone 12-Gamma, patrol and observation. Transport departs in three hours."

  "Yes, ma’am," Valoris responded automatically.

  They headed to equipment preparation in the careful silence that had become their default, processing individually while maintaining the appearance of normalcy. The files they'd downloaded were stored on encrypted local devices that Milo and Quinn had prepared, distributed across multiple storage points to reduce the risk of discovery. Evidence of partial truth, waiting for the rest of the puzzle to complete the picture.

  They were still weapons in what might be a manufactured war, but now they were weapons who understood part of what they'd become. And understanding, however incomplete, meant they couldn't go back to ignorance.

  The question was what they'd do with that understanding. What any of them could do, trapped inside a system designed to use them until they broke. And where they'd find the rest of the truth that remained locked behind classification levels they couldn't breach.

  Valoris didn't have an answer yet. But she was certain of one thing: she would keep looking until she found one. Until she understood completely and she had evidence that couldn't be dismissed or buried or classified out of existence, whatever it cost. Because the alternative was being complicit in something wrong without ever understanding how wrong, and that was something she refused to accept as her legacy.

  Five generations of Kades before her had served with distinction and honor.

  She intended to make the sixth generation mean something different.