Now that they had gone through the entire ship and discovered more of the mysterious light switches, though, she felt that there might be more to those rumors than just ramblings. It was possible that someone knew something. Someone might have learned about this experimental technology from a source that they weren't supposed to have learned it from and then shared it, presenting it as just a rumor in order to protect themselves while also trying to protect others who might be hurt by the clandestine weapon.

"What are we going to do next?" Cassandra asked. "We've examined the entire ship. We found all the switches attached to the emergency lights. But we still don't know what they are or why they're there. What are we supposed to do now?"

She was getting angry and Rain could sense the tension and anxiety that she was feeling. Cassandra knew as well as all the others on the ship that time was passing them quickly. There were so many who were waiting for them, who expected them to usher them onto the ship so that together they could all go to Penthos and reunite with those who are already there. The impending war was looming over all of them and though there was a sense of fear, there was also the need to press forward. They have been waiting for so long and they were ready to finally fight. They were ready to bring this to an end. But Rain knew that they couldn't until they understood all the threats that were facing them.

Cassandra nodded.

"I remember," she said. "That happened a lot when we were finalizing preparations for the StarCity. So much of the plans and blueprints had already been created, but we knew that they were details that we wanted to add to make sure that it was prepared for our specific mission. I remember so many ideas that we had and features that we wanted to incorporate, but the engineer's told us that it couldn't be done."

"But some of them we tried to do ourselves," Rain said. "And when we weren't able to do them, we just left what we had done if it didn't make a negative impact on the function or the safety of the ship. We knew that we didn't have much time and we needed to use the time that we did have as carefully as we possibly could."

"I understand all that," Heggs said. "But that doesn't mean that you can just assume that these pieces don't mean anything. We have to fully understand what they are before we're going to be able to safely use this ship."

"But we removed all of them," Elon said. "They can't do any harm if they aren't attached to the ship anymore."

"We removed the switches, yes," the other man said. "But that doesn't mean that those were the only feature that were added to the ship. If someone was going to go to the extent to implement weaponized light switches concealed with the emergency lights, then it's very possible that they would do more. If there was something so important that they wanted to sabotage the ship, they most likely wouldn't rely on just one measure. Those switches might even be the smallest element of a much larger network of sabotages designed within this ship."

"But why would they do that?" Rain asked.

Heggs looked at her for a long moment.

"It surprises me that you of all people would ask that question," he said. "You were on the StarCity. You witnessed the sabotage to that ship and to the entire mission. You have seen other sabotage. The only reason that we are here at all is because of our ship was being invaded. Do you really believe that they would go to the extent of hiding within the ship so that they could stop us, but they wouldn't make sure that they were other plans in place in case something else happened? Remember, Nyx 23 didn't happen the way that it was supposed to according to them. You told me that yourself. You found the plans the Valdicians had made about the mission. You know that the ship wasn't supposed to crash where it was. Have you really closed yourself off so much that you can't believe that things are bigger than that mission?"

Rain felt stunned. She knew that what he said was true. She had become so deeply wrapped up in how her ship and her team had ended up on the surface of the once strange and unknown planet that she had closed herself off to the realities that it was so much more. The mission was just one small piece of the much larger puzzle, and by not thinking about that, she was preventing herself from seeing what might truly be happening. This is bigger than her. This was bigger than the mission. This was bigger than Ryan. This was all of time, all the universe, all that had ever been and could be, and it was up to her to make sure that she did her part to keep it going.

"We need to find out what these do," she said. "That's the first step. If they are just light switches, then we can move on. But if they're not, then we need to start thinking about what else could have been done to this ship to make it so that it will be safe enough to transfer everyone to Penthos. "

"How are we going to test that?" Elon asked.

Rain drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

"We test them the way that they were intended to be used," she said. "Lock me into one of the containment units with one of the switches. Stay close to the door. As soon as you shut me in, I will activate the switch and we wait. Come in for me after ten minutes."

"You can't do that," Cassandra argued. "It's much too dangerous. You have no idea what could happen if those switches are what we think they might be."

"Yes, I do," Rayne said. "I know exactly what they could do. They could draw the oxygen and all the nutrients out of me. That's why you come back in for me before it could cause any damage."

"That could cause extreme damage in just a few minutes," Heggs said. "It's too risky."

"It's the only option that we have," Rayne said. "There's no other way that we can test the switches. Just putting them in a room and looking at them isn't going to make any difference. We have to know the effect that they have on a living being in order to really know why they're in the ship."

"I'll do it," Elon said.

His voice was so calm and low that they barely even heard that he had spoken. When it sank in what he had said, Rain turned and looked at the young man. He looked stronger and more dignified than he had before, almost as though he had resigned himself to the fact that this was what he was supposed to do. This was the mission that he was supposed to go on, even if he didn't know it.

"You don't have to do that," Rain said. "I volunteered. I know what I'm getting myself into."

"So do I," Elon said. "This is my ship. This is my crew and my team. I'm not proud of what I did. I hid when I should have stood up and protected those who relied on me."

"You were just following protocol. It's what all of us are trained to do before we ever get on a ship. We are taught to follow the rules and do what we were instructed to do, because if we don't, it could mean danger for everyone. "

"You didn't follow protocol," he said. "When the StarCity landed on Penthos and you faced the Valdicians, you didn't follow the plan that you had when you took off. And when you knew that the ship was going down, you didn't stay in your position. You went to the control room to confront the pilot. You wanted to know what was happening and what you could do to help the crew. "

"That was different," Rain argued.

"How?" Elon asked. "How was it different?"

"It just was," Rain argued. "Protocols are in place for a reason."

"That's not what you said when you found us hiding in the Panic Room,” he argued.

"I was wrong," Rain said, though she knew in her heart that what she had felt when she found them was exactly the truth.

"No. No, you weren't wrong. I was wrong. Protocols are what are put in place when everything is going well. Protocols are what are put in place before anything that could possibly happen to make everybody feel better at thinking that things are going to go fine. When they don't go that way, every one of us has to make the decisions that are right for what's happening. We have to do what we have been called to do, whether or not that fits in with some plan that was made long before the ship ever even left the ground. That's what I'm doing now. I should have stepped up then and I can't change it, but I can make sure that I don't make the same mistake twice. You have done what you were called to do. Now it's my chance. I am going to do this."

Rain wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him that she was the one who was in charge and it was up to her to decide how this was handled. As she looked at him, though, she knew that even if she was truly the one who was in charge, that didn't put her in the place of telling him what to do. Just as he had said, this was his ship. He knew this ship and how it was meant to operate far better than she ever could. She knew the StarCity. She knew its structure and its operations, she knew how the crew functioned, she knew the technology and the features. If this was another of those ships, she would have been able to argue that it was her place. But she knew that it was time that she stepped back. She needed to allow Elon to be the part of this that he knew he was and that he was always meant to be.

A few minutes later they walked into one of the chambers and Rain tucked one of the light switches into place near the lights. She looked at Elon.

"This is your last chance," she said. "I don't want you to do anything that you don't absolutely want to do."

"I don't want to do this,” he said. “No one would want to do this. I have to do this. I understand that."

"Thank you," she said. "We'll be right outside. If something happens and you need to get out and you can't open the door, pound on it. Will hear you. We will let you out. We're not going to let anything happen to you. I promise."

She knew she was reassuring herself even more than she was reassuring him. He nodded and stood directly in the middle of the room, his posture speaking to the military training that was in his past, but that he didn't speak about.

"As soon as you are out of the room, I will activate the switch."

They walked out of the room and closed the door. Rain looked into the faces of each of the people who were standing in the corridor with her, seeing the same hesitation and nervousness that she felt reflected back at her. She tried to look strong, to not show how she was feeling. At least she could express her leadership in that way. They waited.

Elon was aware of nothing but the feeling of his heart thudding heavily in his chest. He didn't know exactly what he should be expecting. He didn't know what might happen. The truth was that it was possible that nothing would happen. He might stand there for the entire ten minutes just waiting only to have nothing change. But at any second, everything could change. In an instant, the rumored effects of the switches could begin, and he was afraid of what he might experience.

Suddenly, he knew. It started gradually. It was a feeling that he couldn't really describe. At first, he wasn't even entirely sure that he was experiencing anything. Instead, he thought that he might just have worried himself into being overly aware of every sensation and thought that was going through his mind. Then he realized that the tingling feeling on his skin really was happening. He really was feeling each of the hairs on his body start to stand up as if they were being pulled away from him. His lungs begin to burn slightly and then feel as though they were closing, crushing in on themselves and he couldn't breathe. His mind was starting to spin, and survival instincts were telling him to run. But he needed to stay. At least for a little bit longer. He needed to know what these things were and what they were going to do to him. He had committed to the rest of the team that he would stay in the room with the switches for ten minutes, and he was determined that he was going to do it.

Elon wanted to walk around the room. He felt like if he had just started moving, if he could just get out of a spot where he was standing, maybe he would feel better. Maybe it could make him feel more in control of his body. But he couldn't move. He couldn't make his feet leave the spot where they were standing. It was as though the effect of the switches wasn't just pulling the oxygen and nutrients out of his body, but drawing away the energy and control that allowed him to even operate his body. The thought suddenly crossed his mind that he couldn't get to the door. Rain had told him that if he needed to get out, that if things got too intense and he couldn't take the effects of the switches anymore, that he could go to the door. If it wouldn't open, he could pound on it and they would let him out.

But he couldn't get to the door. He couldn't even get close to it. He couldn't move even a few inches from where he was standing. The invisible power of the switches was holding him prisoner and he realized what incredible danger he was actually facing.

He didn't know how long he had been in the room. He didn't know how long he had been standing there and allowing the switches to drain his body. That meant that he didn't know how much longer he was going to have to wait until they came in for him. What if they lost track of the time? What if something happened that brought them away from the door and they didn't get back? How long would it take before the switch killed him?

Elon felt himself starting to panic. His breaths became faster and more intense, and his thoughts began to jumble. He felt like he needed to crawl out of his skin when a moment of clarity settled over him. He realized that this was exactly what was supposed to happen. This was just another of the effects of the switches. It wasn't just the actual leaching of the nutrients and oxygen from his body. It was the panic that it induced. Feeling so afraid made him breathe harder, further depleting him of oxygen and bringing him closer and closer to the brink of death. He could feel darkness closing in on him. He fought it as hard as he could, pushing against it, trying to force himself to breathe as slowly as he could. He reminded himself that they knew that he was there and that they would come for him.

Just when he felt like he wouldn't be able to take even another second, the door opened. A rush of fresh air washed over him, and he felt himself filling up with air again. He gasped, trying to draw as much into him as he possibly could. His body shook, and he collapsed to the floor. Rain rushed in and ran directly for the switch where she had secured it. She pried it away and turned it off. Almost immediately, Elon started to feel himself coming back to life. Heggs and Rain grabbed him and dragged him out of the room, and as soon as he was out, he started feeling even better.

"The panic," he finally managed to say. "It increases the panic that you're feeling and then when you're panicked, it can suck even more out of you. It kills you faster."

"Destroy them," Rain said. "Destroy them all."

"No," Elon said. "Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"We still don't know who put them there or when. We need to keep them so that we can find out as much as we can about them. We need to be able to check every ship, every shuttle, every room that any of us are in to make sure that they aren't there, or that there isn't some sort of other version of the technology that's designed to do the same thing."

"But they're so dangerous," Cassandra said.

"So, we make sure that they are inaccessible. We keep them locked away in the panic room where no one can access them."

He looked at each of them and finally they nodded back at him. They were starting down the corridor when Rain suddenly stopped. Her eyes widened, and she looked directly at Elon.

"The ship," she said. "There was someone on the StarCity that we didn't know was there. They were able to be there without us knowing and they were responsible for Etan's death. And there's someone here, too."

"What do you mean?"

"There's someone in this ship. There has been since it was taken over. They didn't leave."

"Why do you think that?"

Rain looked at Cassandra.

"You said that you needed the men to show you how to work all of the controls on the ship," she said.

Cassandra looked at her strangely.

"What do you mean?"

Rain nodded.

"Exactly. We need to get to the control room. Bring the switches."

They rushed through the ship and into the control room. Rain shut the door and secured it, then turned on the lifeforce scanner. They carefully checked each of the rooms to make sure that the system didn't detect any other forms of life. At first it showed nothing, then there was a flicker in one of the far corridors.

"What is that?" Heggs asked.

"Get a closer scan," Elon said.

Heggs input the commands into the computer and the monitor brought up a series of statistics. At first the green writing flashed "unknown", then it shifted to "human".

"Who is that?" Cassandra asked, sounding terrified.

"It's you," Rain said.

"What?" the other woman asked, her voice rising to a high pitch.

"At least, if one of us were to walk down that hallway, it would look like you. Unless you did. Then it would look like one of us."

"I don't understand," Heggs said.

"Give me the switches," she said.

Elon handed them to her and she wrapped her hand tightly around them.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Stay here," Rain said, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Don't leave the control room, no matter what. I will be back as soon as I can. When I get back, ask me something that you know that only I would know. It doesn't matter what, but something that I'm the only one who could answer it."

"What's going on, Rain?" Elon asked.

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

Rain walked out of the control room and the others sat silently, unnerved by what just happened. They didn't know what she was doing. They didn't understand what she had said. But none of them was going to go against what she told them to do. They would wait, just as Elon had. It seemed like the time that Rain had been gone had stretched on endlessly. They watched the lifeforce monitor, seeing another signal that reported a human walking methodically through the corridors and dipping into the different chambers for a few moments before leaving again. The first signal stayed away, even seeming to avoid her at times. Finally, they saw the signal they thought was Rain makes its way back to the control room.

She knocked, and they opened the door. Before letting her inside, Heggs stepped forward.

"Before you left here, what did you tell us to do?"

It was a brilliant question, a question that none of the others would have thought of. Anything they asked could have been learned by anyone who knew her. That, however, could only have been answered by someone who was in the room.

"To ask me something that only I would know."

They let her inside and Rain immediately went to the lifeforce monitor.

"What now?" Heggs asked.

"I'm going to deactivate all of the power in the ship," she said.

"Why?" Cassandra asked, sounding frightened again. "Why would you do that?"

"So that the emergency lights will come on."

The ship was engulfed in darkness. Rain waited. She hated the feeling of helplessness that the darkness created. But she wouldn't let herself turn the lights on. She needed to wait. She had to force herself to wait long enough to know that the emergency lights and the switches that she had planted back in the chambers. Finally, she felt like enough time had passed and she restored the power. Moving as fast as she could, she turned the lifeforce monitor back on. When it came on, she pointed to one of the chambers where there was a very faint flicker of a being.

"There," she said. "Look."

The statistics appeared on the screen.

"Klimnu."

"It's a Pretender," Elon said under his breath.

"What?" Cassandra asked.

"A Pretender," Rain said. "Remember what Eden told us. She was attacked by a Klimnu who disguised himself as Pyra. It is a very powerful Klimnu who can make themselves look like whoever they want to. The veil is so strong that it will actually change their makeup temporarily. It's enough to confuse the lifeforce monitors."

"Then why can this one detect it?" Heggs asked.

"Watch," Rain said. A few moments later, the statistics changed, and the screen yet again identified the signal as human. "The switches weakened it to the point that it wasn't able to disguise itself anymore. It couldn't trick the monitor. But now that the emergency lights are off, it has shielded itself again. It's been doing that since we got onto the ship. It separated us and then replaced one of us with itself so that it could learn as much as it can about the ship and the efforts of the resistance. I realized that Cassandra would never have asked how to use the controls the way that she did."

"Why not?"

"Because I helped design these systems," Cassandra said. "The technology is directly related to what I created in the University. I would never ask how to use it. I would figure it out."

"But how did this thing separate us? Where did you go?"

"When we got on the ship, I thought that I heard something, so I followed it. It brought me down a corridor and deep into the ship. Finally, I was lost, but I found my way back. None of you even seemed to notice that I had been gone."

"Because to us, you weren't."

"So now the Klimnu knows some about how to operate the ship and that we are planning on collecting the people from Uoria and bringing them to Penthos."

"Which means we need to stop it before it can let anyone else know."