Sohrabian gave him a smile and said, "I am certainly trying to, Herr Kapitänleutnant, but the temptation is too great to wish for some evidence that this rogue Core Unit is everything we have feared and more."

Usmanov did not like the sound of that. There had been rogue Core Units on other worlds, but none that he had to deal with himself. In the cases he had studied, it was mostly a matter of the Core Units' power fluctuating uncontrollably. To his knowledge, there had never been a case like this one, where the Core Unit succeeded in merging with an intelligence in order to take deliberate, calculated action. If it could succeed in infecting the Hybrids' network, it could lead to the biggest disaster since the Skyfall Calamity. The system the Empire had relied on for the past two hundred years could collapse and quite possibly bring the Empire itself down with it.

Usmanov watched Hauptmann Sohrabian as she crouched down and waved her hand over the ashes. Hybrids like her, derivatives of the old Æther Drives, were both an asset and a liability. During the Æther War, the technology gave as much as it took away, and yet they could not resist playing with fire still. This time they would get it right, they insisted. It wouldn't take much for all that to go out the window.

He had to resist the urge to reach for his sidearm. The Hybrids were dangerous, too dangerous. They ought to be destroyed. He knew this, but the fear of the consequences for him and his family weighed heavily against his conflicted sense of duty to the Empire. Would it not be a display of true loyalty to do what was necessary even if it defied orders and caused a short-term detriment? He wanted to believe it, but he doubted others would, especially those in power over him. Much to his shame, he was not prepared to sacrifice himself, not in this way. It was one thing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of honor and glory and quite another to bear disgrace in the name of your own moral sense. Whatever it said about him, he was not prepared to take that step. And so he simply watched as the monster did her work.

Sohrabian's hand stopped moving and she dipped her fingers into the ash. What did she expect to find? A controlled burn like this left nothing but ash and dust. Not even an electron microscope would be able to pick up the fragments of anything that had been living before the blast hit.

However, Sohrabian's arm stiffened with a noticeable jerk. If Usmanov was not watching her so closely, he might not have caught it. She did not move for nearly a full minute, prompting Usmanov to ask her, "Hauptmann, what is it?"

She did not respond.

Oberfähnrich Jamali knelt down beside her and called out to her, "Frau Hauptmann? Frau Hauptmann, what is it?"

He touched her shoulder, only to yank it back as if he had touched a live wire. A tremor ran through Sohrabian's body. Once, twice, then suddenly it was as if something under the ashes took hold of her arm and tried to pull her in. Even though the layer of ash should only have been a few centimeters thick, she was pulled in all the way to the shoulder. Her legs flailed as her body slammed into the ground. She clutched at her shoulder with her free hand as if she were trying to pull herself out, all the while kicking about in a vain attempt to gain purchase.

He tried to take hold of her to help free her, but when he did, his hands clutched her tightly and not as he intended judging by how he started shaking like someone being electrocuted. He could not scream, but a muffled cry could be heard through forcibly clenched teeth. Sohrabian herself made no sound, somewhat eerily given how she was struggling against whatever had seized her.

A man from the scanning crew rushed to their aid, but Usmanov waved him off, shouting, "Stay back! We don't know what's doing this! Give them room!"

If the Arcana was involved, and Usmanov expected it was, there was no telling what might happen to an ordinary human if he were to interfere. Of course, it would not go well for him if he merely stood idly by while he lost two of the fleet's precious Arcanists. The way it looked like they were being electrocuted, his instinct was to call for some nonconductive stick separate them from the source, but this was not electricity and he did not suspect an ordinary nonconductor would afford them any protection.

Both Sohrabian and Jamali went still. Usmanov once again motioned for the scanning crew to maintain their distance. Were they dead? If so, were the rest of them in danger?

As he was considering whether or not to pull out, Sohrabian stirred. She planted her free hand on the ground and slowly got back on her feet. Her head hung limply as she straightened herself up and as she turned toward Usmanov, he found himself letting out a gasp.

Her arm had been torn off at the shoulder, but within seconds, the ragged flesh bubbled over, then stretched out and twisted in thin tendrils that bound themselves together to form a new arm. The newly grown fingers flexed and Sohrabian lifted her head. She had a dazed look in her eyes.

Warily, Usmanov tried calling out to her.

Sohrabian lazily looked back to the motionless Jamali, then crouched down by his side and rolled him onto his back. She touched her forehead to his, and after a moment passed, Jamali's eyes fluttered open. He had the same sort of dazed look as Sohrabian when she first came around.

She extended her regenerated hand to him and he looked at it with momentary confusion before accepting it so that Sohrabian could help him back to his feet. As Sohrabian turned back to Usmanov, he signalled for the men around him to draw their sidearms. As they were not expecting this signal, they were not as quick to respond as Usmanov would have liked. He should have had a security detail that would have been better equipped for a situation like this.

Sohrabian seemed unfazed at the sight of all those weapons trained on her and calmly held up her hands. If she had any appreciation for the mortal peril she found herself in, her voice did not betray it.

"And then there's the third option. You give the order for these men to open fire. Perhaps it'll be enough to neutralize the threat, but all of you will be held to account for breaching protocol. I can't imagine the Lord Admiral will have much mercy on you during your court martial.

"So what will it be, Herr Kapitänleutnant?"

Sohrabian cracked a grin and said, "Hush, Jalal. That option was taken off the table the moment he had these nice ladies and gentlemen draw their weapons."

Usmanov bit his lip. It felt like anything he did would somehow be playing right along with Sohrabian's script. Did she plan all this from the beginning? It did not matter. Whatever she had or had not planned, all he could do was select the best option from among his choices and act on it. He wanted to believe that that would justify him, but he also knew that he could easily be made the scapegoat if things took an ill turn.

While he could feel his guts knotting up, Sohrabian was the very picture of serenity. How she could be so calm with all those weapons pointed at her was a mystery, but she also just effortlessly regenerated an entire arm. It could well be that they did not have sufficient firepower to pose any real threat to her.

Though it was mostly bluff on his part, Usmanov took a hard edge and told Sohrabian, "Alright, we call in a quarantine. You don't move a muscle or else I light you up, understood, Hauptmann?"

Usmanov got on the radio and said, "Falconer, this is Tercel Three-Five-One. Reporting possible contamination of site. Request immediate quarantine. Over."

Sohrabian looked at Usmanov and said, "I might be able to keep my hands up for twenty minutes, but I worry about dear Jalal."

Usmanov was loath to grant Sohrabian any concessions, but if Jamali were to get tired and drop his hands, the crewmen would be obliged to follow Usmanov's orders to shoot and he did not imagine Sohrabian would remain as calm and compliant as she was if her little pet got a few extra holes in him. Even if this was all part of her plan, he wanted to keep her compliant as long as possible, hopefully until she was out of his hands and no longer his responsibility.

Usmanov would have preferred to have them face-down on the ground, but he anticipated Sohrabian complaining that breathing in the ash would be bad for their lungs. Even if they did have time to kill, it was better to eliminate an unnecessary exchange.

A few moments passed and Sohrabian spoke up, saying, "Are we just going to stare at each other until the quarantine team arrives or would somebody like to sing something to keep us entertained while we wait? Herr Kapitänleutnant? I imagine you being a lovely tenor."

She smiled, but Usmanov was not half so amused.

From the place where Hauptmann Sohrabian's arm had been pulled into the ground, a small hand broke through the soil below. The cracks in the ground spread as the figure of a small black-haired girl emerged. Covered nothing but ash and dirt, the girl slowly opened her eyes. She looked at her hands, tentatively flexing her fingers. She then lifted her head and looked up to the sky. She reached out to the stars above and closed her hand into a fist. The casual observer might not have made much of that little fist, but the casual observer rarely grasps the true import of what they see.