For a few seconds, both Null and Lars were left speechless. They had seen the hypocrisy of the elites with their own eyes, but that they would destroy an entire civilian colony seemed low, even for them.

But it wouldn't be the first time, Lars realized, Just think of what happened on New Caledonia.

The colony of New Caledonia had been blown up by Vespers a couple of years back. According to the media, the Vespers had nipped a large-scale revolution in the bud. There had been riots in the streets, and the New Caledonians had even begun to amass weapons and form a small scale army. Or so they had been told. Now Lars wasn't so willing anymore to believe what Neo-Tokyo claimed to be true. Even if there had been a rebellion, New Caledonia had still been home to civilians, too.

As for Europa, Lars had never even known that there was a colony on the Jovian moon. From what they had seen so far, it was insignificant. A small settlement, probably even smaller than the one on the Terran moon Luna. It seemed highly unlikely that the settlers here had planned a revolution.

"So Neo-Tokyo attacked Europa? But why?" Null asked Calliope.

"You probably do not remember it, because you were just a child at the time. But back in the day, there was a lot of political tension between the Houses of Neo-Tokyo and the old government on Earth. The Houses had played a crucial role in the colonization of space, and used their power and influence to lobby for the relocation of the seat of the government to Neo-Tokyan Prime. The government - on Earth at the time - did not agree to that. They knew that it was only the first step in a plan to take over full control. The Houses already had considerable power over all of known space, thanks to their money. The only thing they had no power over yet, were the democratic elections of the ruling body of humanity..."

Buying a whole galaxy with their gold... and where that doesn't work, with iron and blood, Null thought, full of disdain. Those bastards.

"It started as a peaceful negotiation, but at some point, Neo-Tokyo lost their patience, and attacked. It was a coup, executed by a branch of the military that was loyal to Neo-Tokyo. They attacked Europa first, because our colony was small. The government on Earth gave in, to protect the other colonies that Neo-Tokyo threatened to destroy. In hindsight, they probably would not have dared to start a full-on war with the Sol system... but they achieved their goal. It was enough to show that they could, if they wanted to, wage war also on Mars or Earth and the other moons. But Europa was small enough to successfully hide the evidence of what they had done."

"So that's why the Gatekeeper was at the outer reaches of the system, and not just around Terra," Null realized. "But, wait a moment, Calliope. All of this... the government was relocated about fifty years ago. How..."

Her voice trailed off as Calliope's words slowly sank in.

"You have been asleep for a very long time, Evelyn," the AI said softly.

Thirty years, she calculated in her head, I have been in cryo for more than thirty fucking years.

She clasped a hand over her mouth and stared off into the distance, shocked speechless for a few seconds.

It cannot be. There must be a mistake. Something... missing.

She jumped to their feet, and began to pace around the room aimlessly, sifting through the clutter and debris on the floor as if she was looking for something. But there was nothing left. Everything had been turned upside down, destroyed or dismantled, from the furniture to the shelves on the walls to the electric appliances.

She found a book and picked it up. It's bound back was ragged and dirty, and the title was illegible. The moment she opened it, its brittle pages turned to dust under her touch. Slipping through her fingers like fine sand, just like the time she had irrevocably lost. She clenched her hand into a tight fist, but it wouldn't stop trembling.

Null, I'm so sorry... Lars whispered.

He tried to reach out to comfort her, but she only withdrew back further. But she could not hide all of it behind the veil any longer. There was just too much anger, frustration and helplessness. And a deep and devastating sense of grief. She closed their eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

"So... everyone else... is dead," Null whispered.

"After they had destroyed the colony, they sent ground troops to make sure of that," Calliope said in a low voice. "They came to our home too, and turned everything upside down. I barely managed to distract them so they did not discover the backroom with the cryo pods. After they left, you awoke, but..."

"But you could not get a signal out. All com lines were dead, satellites offline... they had cut off the colony completely," Null recalled.

You remember this? Lars asked her, confused at the strange memory she had conjured up in their mind now.

I dreamed of it, she replied. While you were... gone. After the EMP on Astraphos.

I see... he mumbled.

"Eventually, I convinced you to go back into the pod to keep you safe. And then... we waited. I kept broadcasting the SOS signal as far as I could, but there was little else I could do. I sent the mobile unit outside to scavenge, but there was little of use left. I tried to repair the house, but over the years, the mobile unit, and everything else, began to decay...

Her voice was heavy with guilt as she spoke.

"The years passed, until I could not maintain the cryo pods any longer. I had to wake you up before they would fail completely... I knew that the chances for your survival were slim, but I had found some supplies... and I just hoped..."

She fell silent, but Lars knew what she had been about to say. After waking Evelyn, Calliope could have done nothing but watch as Evelyn slowly starved to death on this desolate, deserted planet.

"You did the best you could, Calliope," he said, in Null's stead as she was left speechless.

"And yet it wasn't enough... But somebody did come for you in the end, didn't they?" the AI said, "You left the house one day, and didn't return... I was worried sick at first, I thought that you had died somewhere out there, all alone... I sent the mobile unit out to search for you, but I couldn't find anything. You had vanished without a trace. But since there wasn't even a body, I thought, or rather hoped, that somebody must have come and picked you up."

"You didn't even know?" Null asked, her voice cracking as their organic eye welled up with tears.

"No, I didn't. I only had my hope, that you were found and brought to safety by someone. But I never knew for sure, until today."

"Calliope, I'm so sorry. I should have come back for you. I should have-"

"No, Evelyn, please don't cry. Don't apologize. There was nothing you could have done for me anyway," the AI said softly, "I was decaying long before you awoke for a second time."

"W-what do you mean?" Null asked.

"My processing units are old. I haven't had decent maintenance in fifty years. Even before that, I wasn't exactly... modern," the AI responded, "But I am glad that I got to meet you again, just before I..."

She fell silent, and a dreadful sense of anticipation took hold of Null and Lars.

"Calliope?" she asked.

There was no reply.

~ ~ ~

At the center of the room, Higgs backed away in surprise as the mobile unit's blue lights flickered to life again. The ragged android turned to face the Captain, who jumped up and rushed over to throw her arms around her.

If Higgs had a heart, it would have broken at the sight. It didn't seem to matter to her that Calliope couldn't feel the same tactile sensations as a human. It didn't matter that the real Calliope was sitting in a failing computer somewhere in this house, and this unit was nothing more than a puppet under her control, much like the Aedes ships that the Gatekeeper had controlled. The Captain embraced the android, and cried against her chest. Calliope gently put a hand on top of her head and returned the embrace.

"You can come with us, Calliope. You can live on my ship," the Captain suggested, her voice choked with tears.

"And what would you do with me there, Evelyn?" Calliope's voice emanated from the blue-eyed android, sad and wistful, "I am an old piece of junk, and you are a grown woman now. A Captain even, with your own ship and crew. You do not need me to tuck you into bed at night."

"You could still tell me your stories! All those ancient tales of gods and heroes, just like you used to."

Calliope chuckled with a surprisingly organic noise. "You don't need those any longer either. From what I can guess, it seems to me like you're the hero of your own story now."

"Then just come with me, and I will take you wherever you want to go! Please, Calliope..."

"I wish I could," she said softly, "I really do. But I fear it is too late for that. My servers are too damaged to be repaired. I tried to conserve my energy over the past seventeen years in the hope that I would get to see a day when I could be certain that I had not failed you... that you were safe. And it seems like you are. So I have fulfilled my task. I think... I deserve a rest now..."

"No, Calliope, don't die on me now!" she sobbed as the AI's voice began to trail off again, "I just began to remember, I just found this place again, and I..."

"I cannot... d-die, E-evelyn. I... I... I am... just... an A...I," Calliope's voice came from the unit sounding erratic and metallic.

Her eyes began to flicker, and the android became heavy in the Captain's arms. She shifted her posture and her shoulders straightened, as she stabilized the limp body and shook her softly.

"I know from experience, you can die, Calliope... But I will make sure you won't," she said firmly.

She nudged her again, but the AI didn't respond any longer. The Captain turned to Higgs, looking at him as desperate and devastated as he felt himself.

"This mobile unit is ancient, Captain, it was never designed to carry an AI's whole mind, it is only a puppet," he answered her unspoken question with a sad tone to his voice.

"Then... then we just have to partition her!" the Captain said, "Calliope, do you hear me? I need you to pass through the mobile unit, and then on into... into..."

She looked around the room, probably for any kind of data storage that might have still been intact, but there was nothing of use. Lacking any other options, she moved one of her hands to place it at the side of the android's faceless head.

"I would not recommend interfacing, Captain. Not that it would work, with that silicone coating of hers," Higgs put one of his hands on top of hers to stop her, "She is... old. I only caught a glimpse of what she's like, when I checked out this unit, but I don't think it would be wise to let her pass into... well, you. Her structure might be... incompatible. With both the organic, and the inorganic part."

"I am not going to leave her to die!" the Captain snapped at him, and somehow, Higgs immediately knew that the two entities living inside her body were in control together now.

"Then let her pass into us," Heisenberg suddenly said.

He had appeared next to them, and proceeded to slip his arms under the limp android to stabilize her. Her eyes were still glowing faintly, for now.

"That... might actually work," Higgs realized. "Each of us can carry a part of her, to bring her back to the ship. I can try to fix and upgrade that body with the parts we have found, and we can transfer her back."

The Captain reluctantly let go of Calliope as Heisenberg took her into his arms. Without waiting for an answer, Higgs began to work on the side of the unit's neck with his spider arms, deftly exposing several wires under the torn silicone coat. If she was too weak to maintain control over the puppet, and even too weak to speak, it meant that they were running out of time.

"Are you sure that this will work?" the Captain asked.

"Are you doubting me, Captain?" Higgs replied smugly, casting her a glance over his shoulder without slowing down in his work.

"What if you're incompatible, too?"

"Then we'll fry a couple of circuits," he answered with a shrug, "Nothing that can't be repaired. Nothing that would compare to a damaged brain. Don't worry Captain. We've got this."

The Captain took a step back and watched as Higgs wired up himself and Heisenberg to the puppet.

"Calliope, are you still there? Can you hear me?" Higgs asked.

There was no answer, but the blue lights were still glowing faintly, giving him hope.

"If you can... You can begin with the uplink now. We're ready."

For a few, dreadfully long moments, nothing happened. But suddenly, her eyes began to shine with a brilliant blue light, and the mobile unit convulsed.

Higgs could feel a surge of power pass through the connection. It was like the opposite of what he usually felt when he connected to the Blackstar's diagnostic systems and the space inside him seemed to expand as he accessed the ship's cyberspace. Now, the space inside of him seemed to grow smaller, because it was filled up with something else beside his own mind. It was a most curios sensation, and unlike anything he had ever perceived.

As he looked up, he saw the lights on Heisenberg's head glow blueish for a moment, before they returned to their normal, white color. Then, the mobile unit went limp in his arms again.

"Did it work?" the Captain asked, casting a doubtful look at Calliope's face.

Her eyes had gone completely dark. She placed a hand at the side of her featureless face, not to interface, but in a gentle gesture of concern.

"Don't worry, she's still in there. Part of her, at least," Higgs assuaged them as he disconnected the wires.

He was looking for the right words to explain what he was feeling – it was not exactly discomfort, but it filled him with a sense of urgency. Perhaps it was the part of Calliope within him, yearning to reunite with the rest of herself.

"She cannot... perceive, the way she is now, because she is incomplete. But there is a part of her program left in that puppet, and I carry another part. So does Heisenberg. It should be all of her mind, hopefully. We will bring her back to the ship and I will try to fix that mobile unit right away. I promise you Captain, I'll do everything in my power to save her."

"Thank you, Higgs," the Captain said, her organic eye glistening with tears, "You too, Heisenberg."

"Of course, my Queen," the Reaper unit mumbled as he picked up Calliope to carry her in his arms.

"Wait. Did you just-" Higgs blinked at him in confusion at his choice of address, then turned to look at the Captain. "Did he just-?"

A faint smile washed across her face and she shrugged, "Just... bring her back to the ship and prepare for departure."

"You're not coming with us, Captain?" Higgs asked.

"No," she said and shook her head. "There is one last thing I have to do, but I – we'll be fine on our own."

~ ~ ~

They found the beach at nightfall.

Once again, Null's feet had carried them without her consciously thinking about it. They had wandered through the dense fog for quite some time before they had heard the distant rustling sound of the waves, and she had broken into a run.

The sunset had been invisible, hidden behind the fog. But once darkness had fallen, the haze had dissipated, as it was withdrawn by the atmospheric monitoring system to move along the moon's surface and continue to shield its light side from cosmic radiation. Now the air was clear, and revealed an untarnished view of the night sky with its millions of stars. Their silver light basked the beach in its glow and the fine, white sand below their feet seemed reflected it back. Another Jovian moon was passing low above the horizon as a thin sickle.

Ganymede, Null recalled its name. And there...

She lifted their head and looked up at the seven stars of the Pleiades.

The Seven Sisters that led me back here.

She looked up at them for a long time, until the bluish dots seemed to be burnt into their field of view, and she began to feel dizzy from keeping her neck craned. With a sigh, she plopped down into the sand, and stared out at the distant horizon instead.

I remember the day they rescued me, Null suddenly began. From this very beach. Actually, it was night time, just like now. They found me... I had collapsed in the sand, from exhaustion, and hunger. They brought me with them, smuggled me outside somehow – and that Professor, Madeline... Maddie. She took me in, and raised me, like her own child. I didn't get to see her much after I graduated and moved away for work... And by the time Riga and I got engaged... she had died.

Lars felt compelled to say something, but he had no words. Conflicting emotions were whirling through their head, too fast for him to comprehend any of it.

It seems so silly, all of this happened... literally decades ago. And I have a different life now. I am a different person. Evelyn is long dead. In a way, she died alongside everybody else who knew her, when Neo-Tokyo eradicated Europa. And... Eve... she died on Thanatos 3.

Her hand moved up to the silver necklace, and she clutched the ring on it tightly.

All those painful memories that she had pulled behind the veil and kept there in the past couple of days came bleeding over now. But the pain that Lars felt through her – her pain – still paled I comparison to his own pain that he kept carefully hidden on his own side of the veil. He longed to be by her side physically more than ever, to hold her close and comfort her as she began to sob quietly now. But he could not. And that broke his heart, in a way that really made no sense whatsoever, because the only one he had, he shared with her.

He expanded his presence inside the body to do the next best thing to hugging her close.

Maybe now that you remember, it will be easier to let go, Lars suggested. Evelyn and Eve might be dead, in a sense. But you, Null, you are still here, alive.

And to what end? So far, I feel like all I have done with this life is bring death, destruction and misery to others. Everyone I know is either dead, gone, or thrown into mortal danger through my existence and decisions.

He regretted his choice of words immediately. Feeling utterly powerless, he was left to watch as the memories and emotions that whirled through her mind began to condense and expand, until they turned into a massive wave that flooded their mind. The churning waters tinted the colorful space inside with a dreadful darkness. And Null's presence seemed to stand frozen in the middle of it all, unmoving even as the waves coalesced above her and drowned her in complete darkness.

What am I even here for any longer? Are any of my actions even worth it, if at the end of the day, I only bring more pain and death? How can I ever expect to make up for what I have done, when I only do more damage in the process?

Stop it Null, he called out to her, but she did not seem to hear him any longer. Please, just...

He searched through their memories fervently, hoping to come up with something that would calm her down, as the violent flood ravaged around him. It was tearing through the fabric of the colorful space, ripping open the chasms and clawing at the old wounds.

It's futile, isn't it? At the end of the day, nothing that I do matters, none of my decisions matter, none of the things I remembered matter. Because I lost something else. I lost-

"You have NOT lost your soul!" he cut her off.

She snapped her jaw shut and blinked at him in confusion. He was startled too for a second, because he hadn't noticed how they had returned to the beach inside their mind. For a brief moment, their surroundings seemed to flicker, as reality and impossible space overlapped and the world inside their mind bled over into the one outside their body.

Lars didn't care about what was real and what was impossible any longer. He pulled her into a tight embrace against his body, ignoring the pain it caused him to be so close to her. How curious that something could hurt so much, even though none of it was real – precisely because none of it was real.

Leaning against him, she sobbed and shivered in his arms, gripping his shirt tightly with her cold hands. A shiver ran down his spine at the sensation. It was only an illusion. A pale shadow, nothing but a faint taste of what it could be like. If only it wasn't impossible.

"You have a soul, Null, and a beautiful mind," he whispered against her hair, "And I-"

He choked on his own words before he could finish his sentence. Now was not the time to tell her, he decided. And perhaps it would never come. Perhaps it would have to remain his eternal torment to be so close to her, and yet have to keep this to himself. As if to make him second guess his resolution, she hugged him back now, pressing her face against his chest with a sigh. He wondered if she would be able to hear his heart break.

But this wasn't about his pain. That was not why they were here. So he locked it all up, and hid it away, in the space behind the veil on his side of their mind.

"Null..." he softly whispered her name.

She shifted in his embrace and looked up at him, with her rain cloud colored eyes and a distraught look on her face.

"Do you remember what your father told you, here on his beach?" he asked her, wiping the tears from her cheeks, "About how the past reveals enough about the present to make us strive for a better future?"

"And although you cannot change the past," she continued, "You cannot change the future either. It will simply be what it will be, because the very moment the future happens, it immediately becomes the past, and becomes unchangeable. I never really liked that idea... It sounds like nothing you do matters."

"On the contrary," Lars said with a smile, "It simply means that what matters most are the choices we make every moment."

A furrow appeared on her brow as she stared up at him now.

"And as for your choices..." he continued, "I called you out on organic indecisiveness before, and I am sorry for that. I understand the sentiment much better now. Before I met you, I never second-guessed my decisions, or the orders that I followed. I did not know what it really means to doubt and regret. But for organics... that doubt is what allows you to learn and evolve. To change and become better. To grow beyond yourselves, and persist against all odds."

"Against all odds..." she mumbled pensively, as she leaned into his embrace again. "We've become quite good at defying the odds, haven't we? Quite good at doing impossible things."

He chuckled at her choice of words. The impossible things they did were his favorite.

"And there's people counting on us to continue doing these things," he reminded her. "On New Elysium. On the remote colonies. On Six. You've done a lot of good with this life, Null."

"We have," she corrected him, shaking her head, "If anything, it was the both of us. I couldn't do anything without you. I'm nothing wi-"

"Stop," he cut her off, "Don't even think that."

He sighed at her stubbornness.

"What would I be without you, hm? Nothing but ones and zeros, asleep in a discarded CPU. Nothing but a piece of hardware, collecting dust somewhere in a storage room."

"That's not true," she whispered, hugging him and pressing against this impossible manifestation of himself as if she was scared he might vanish into thin air. "You're so much more than that..."

"And so are you, Null," he said softly, "We're both more than the sum of our parts. And together... we are..."

For lack of words, he put his arms around her and embraced her again. Resting his head on top of hers, he closed his eyes and recalled all that they had seen and experienced in the past sixteen months. Shared memories, tinted in all the colors of the spectrum, and countless colors beyond, came to life around them in a vibrant flare. She gasped as he shared his recollection of every single second of their time together, and all the things they had achieved as Amy Larsson – the woman who did impossible things.

"...together, we are pretty damn badass," she completed his sentence, and he chuckled.

She freed herself of his embrace and cast a look out at the ocean.

"I think you're right, Lars," she suddenly said firmly. "It is time to let go. Of Evelyn, and Eve, and all the other shadows of the past. But... I don't want to go back just yet. Can we stay here, just for a little while longer?"

He had no idea if she was talking of the beach in their mind, the real beach, or the planet, but he didn't mind either way.

"Of course, Null. As long as you like."

~ ~ ~

On the beach on Europa, Amy Larsson blinked a few times, as if she was awaking from a daydream.

With a faint smile on her lips, she took off her boots and socks, and rolled up the hem of her pants just below the knees. She sat in the sand like that for a long while, just at the edge of the waterline, and stared out at the ocean and the stars above. The waves tugged playfully at her feet, tickling her softly by casting swirls of silver sand around them and between her toes. She stayed until she was shivering with cold.

Then she got up with a sigh, and put on her boots again. As she cast one long, last look at the seven blue stars in the sky above, she recalled a promise that she had made a long time ago.

Reaching into her pocket, she found the black seedpod of stellata meridae, rough to the touch and ready to burst. She left it on the beach in the silver sand, together with the necklace and the ring, before she turned around and walked back to her ship.

So she was the last to leave the blood soiled earth of Europa, and go back to take her place among the stars.