They made fairly short work of gathering the crew into a mess hall near the bridge. They were almost finished, with just one more room to clear. When they walked in, all three agents stopped cold.

  Every person in the room was clearly a clone.

  It looked like some kind of lounge—couches, tables, screens, even gaming consoles. Scattered across the room were 23 unconscious clones, knocked out cold by the gas. They varied in age—from maybe twelve to their mid-twenties, male and female. Some were duplicates of the same clone.

  “Holy shit,” Rollins whispered. “Do you know who these people are?”

  “Yeah. I recognize some of them,” Ving replied. The younger ones were unfamiliar, but the adults—he knew their faces. Models. Actors. Pop stars.

  It all clicked. The girl from the lab—she was one of them. A celebrity clone.

  “God, what the hell are they doing here?” Rollins asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Batin said darkly. “Money can’t buy everything. These rich assholes always want what they can’t have. And what they can’t have are people like this—too rich, too famous to sell themselves. So they make knockoffs. Depraved imitations they can own.”

  Rollins stared at them. “What do we do with them?”

  “Nothing. Leave them here. Secure the door,” Batin replied.

  “What’ll happen to them once we turn them over?”

  “No idea. That’s up to the courts. We’ve done our job.” Batin nodded to the girl from the lab. “We’ll put her in here with them. Then interrogate the crew.”

  They moved to the mess hall, where the crew and scientists were gathered. Batin handed Rollins a small canister.

  “Wake ’em up.”

  She popped the canister. A quick hiss of gas filled the room, neutralizing the sedative. Slowly, the crew and scientists began to rouse.

  Batin didn’t wait.

  “Who wants to tell me what the hell you’re doing out here?”

  Silence.

  “Alright. You wanna play hardball? We can throw all of you in SIA black sites. You won’t see a courtroom for years.” Batin’s voice was calm. Cold. A bluff, but convincing.

  One of the scientists cracked. “Dr. Warner. He’s in charge.”

  “We know that,” Batin said. “But I figured he wouldn’t be cooperative. So I gave someone else a shot. Dr. Warner, anything you’d like to share?”

  The man sneered. “Don’t insult me. You know exactly what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and who we’re doing it for. Just lock us up and get on with it, you ignoramus.”

  The scientists looked horrified. The crew? Dismayed. Everyone knew: scientists working directly on cloning got the harshest punishments. The rest might walk away with time served.

  Batin stepped forward. “Alright, let’s summarize. You fly out to the ass-end of space to breed sex slaves for the rich. Celebrity clones. Higher price tag. Probably to bankroll your immortality experiments, right? Either for yourselves, or some other fat old elites. That about right, Doc?”

  Warner smirked. “Very good, Agent. You’re not as stupid as you look.”

  Batin scoffed. “Waste of time. Lock them up. Let’s get this ship moving. Ving, Rollins—head to the bridge. I’ll check on the clones.”

  “Sounds good. I’m ready to be done with this.” Ving glanced at Rollins.

  She was staring at the prisoners. Her hands clenched. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  “No. Let’s just go.” A single tear slid down her cheek.

  They turned and left. Batin followed, locking the door behind them before splitting off toward the lounge.

  On the bridge, Rollins took her seat at the helm. Ving slid into the co-pilot station.

  “Set a course for Proxima,” he said gently.

  Rollins didn’t respond. Just stared at the console, then slowly began tapping controls.

  An alarm blared. Ving spun toward his screen.

  Pressure in the mess hall had spiked—eight ATM. Eight times normal pressure. Instantly.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “What the hell just happened!?” Ving yelled.

  Rollins froze. Tears streamed silently down her face.

  “Rollins, what the fuck did you do!?”

  Ving bolted from the bridge. He reached the mess hall, unlocked the door—and staggered back as a gust of air hissed outward.

  Inside… carnage.

  Every Cloner lay dead. Eyes bloodshot and bulging. Blood leaking from ears and noses, pooling next to their lifeless bodies. No one could survive that kind of pressure.

  He didn’t need to check for pulses.

  Ving raced back to the bridge. Rollins hadn’t moved.

  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Snap out of it! Why!?”

  She looked up, dead-eyed. Voice soft.

  “You don’t know. You don’t fucking know what they did to those clones. When one came out defective, they gave them to the crew. For fun. Rape. Torture. Kids, adults—it didn’t matter. And when they were done? They’d throw them out the airlock. Alive. Just for the thrill of watching them die.”

  She swallowed hard. “They didn’t deserve a trial. Or a Federation cell. I couldn’t make them suffer like they made those clones suffer. But I could make their lungs explode in their chests.”

  “Goddamn it, Rollins!” Ving shouted. “They could’ve had intel—clients, base locations, other ships. You better hope that shit’s in their computer, or a tribunal’s going to have your ass.”

  “I don’t care,” she said flatly. “I don’t fucking care.”

  Ving stared at her. “How the hell do you know all that? We haven’t even cracked their systems yet.”

  Rollins turned her eyes to him. Calm. Certain.

  “The same way I know you’ve been talking to Mage through a direct neural link. The one they installed after a training accident blew your arm to shreds.”

  Ving froze.

  No one knew that except a select few, and they were sworn to secrecy.

  “Oh God…” he breathed. “You’re a Stargate.”

  The term dates back to a defunct CIA program—Project Stargate. A short-lived attempt to weaponize psychics. Officially, it failed. Unofficially, a few promising candidates were sent to Area 51, where the real work began.

  By the late 21st century, nations with loose genetic ethics were actively enhancing psychic genomes. Some succeeded.

  When the Colonial Federation formed, the SIA took over psychic research. The gene work was outlawed, but it was too late. The traits were in the population now.

  The SIA hunted for psychics early—usually teens. Those who survived training became rare assets. But most didn’t. The noise of a thousand thoughts, day in and out, broke them. Suicide rates were high. Some just had to be committed; isolated from human contact.

  Fieldwork was nearly unheard of.

  How Rollins got through… Ving had no idea. But it explained her restraint. And her breaking point.

  He pulled out his comm.

  “Batin, you there? We’ve got a problem.”

  No response.

  “Batin?”

  Nothing.

  Ving looked at Rollins, cuffed her hands to the chair. “Stay put. I’m finding him.”

  He rushed down to the lounge.

  The clones were still there. Unharmed. Still unconscious.

  But Batin wasn’t.

  “Mage, locate Agent Batin,” Ving thought.

  “Agent Batin is not aboard the Cloner’s vessel,” Mage replied.

  “Check Specter.”

  “Unable to connect. Specter is out of range.”

  Ving swore under his breath.

  “Mage, do a headcount. Are all clones accounted for?”

  “No. One is missing—the girl from the lab.”

  Ving felt his blood go cold.

  “Oh fuck. That’s why they weren’t surprised to see him. Why all the bogus samples checked out. Batin planned this. He played us all.”

  He locked the lounge door and marched back to the bridge.

  This op had gone to hell. His team was unraveling.

  What the hell did Batin want with a twelve-year-old girl?

  Was he…?

  No. Ving had worked with Batin for decades. Called him a friend. He’d never shown a hint of anything like that.

  Unless… unless it wasn’t about that.

  He walked onto the bridge and sat down.

  “Where’s Batin?” Rollins asked.

  “He’s gone. Took the girl. Took Specter. Just… gone.”

  Rollins nodded, unsurprised. “Yeah… that was the plan.”

  Ving stared at her. “You were in on this?”

  “No. I just read it in his mind. I wasn’t going to say anything. He had his reasons. Good ones. Or… good enough.”

  “What reasons could he have for taking a child?”

  “She’s not just a clone,” Rollins said. “She’s his daughter.”

  Ving was stunned by what she just said.

  Then he remembered. The shuttle crash. Batin’s wife and daughter—killed during takeoff from Flora. A vacation. A fluke.

  They were everything to him.

  “He never got over it,” Rollins said. “The Cloners wouldn’t give him both, so he chose his daughter.”

  Ving sat in silence.

  Batin had spent years serving the Federation. Years holding onto the memory of his daughter as the reason for everything.

  And when that was gone…

  He began inputting commands on the console, rebooting the ship’s engines and setting a course.

  “You going after him?” Rollins asked.

  “That’s not my mission,” Ving said quietly. “Not today.”