Dr. Cassandra Pike spent this Friday night the same way she had 
spent every Friday night for the past three months: curled up on the 
couch, eating vanilla ice cream mixed with popcorn, watching some 
cartoon that her niece had gotten her into on her laptop. She tried to 
not click on the pictures folder, but her cursor was already hovering 
over it, and her finger tapped the trackpad. 


In the folder were photos of her and her... ex-non-fiance. She 
winced, trying to tell herself it was just brain freeze, but she knew 
better than that. The photographs were of her and... him, doing 
various things. Going to a screening of the Avengers together. 
During that whole weirdness with the sentient toilet paper during 
Halloween 2011. Her handling cloned smilodon cubs. Her trying on 
a wedding dress as a joke- 


She closed the folder and breathed slowly. 


"One... two... three... four... in. One... two... three... four... Ou- 
she coughed and tried not to spill her dairy-and-corn confection on 
the laptop. As it turned out, it wasn't a good idea to try and count out 
loud while doing breathing exercises. 


She shut off her computer for the night, and got up to go to bed. She 
did her usual routine: not brushing her teeth, not showering, taking 
her pills only because her pillbox reminded her to, and flopping into 
bed. 


The next day, she went to Site 87's break room for coffee. It wasn't 
very good, but she didn't want to get out of the site for fear of... him 
seeing her. She had made a token effort of preparing her hair and 
makeup as she started up the percolator, looking up at the ceiling. 


Someone tapped her shoulder. "Cass?" 


She spun around and faced Dr. Margaret Reese, head of 
Bioengineering. "Oh. Hello." 


"Are you okay?" 


"...what do you think?" She sighed and brushed her hair aside with 
her hand. "And before you ask, yes, I've gone to see Dr. Palmer this 
week." 


"That's good. Is he helping with the... you know." 


"...Anger Management is hard to find in the Foundation, surprisingly. 
All the big groups are at 77 or 19 or something. This place is so 
smiles and rainbows-y to the point that | wonder if anyone but me in 
this town has relationship troubles." 


"Anyone but you and-" 


At that point in time, another person entered the break room. Seeing 
who it was, Dr. Pike bowed her head, shaking and hiding behind her 
hair. She needed to wash it. 


The person was a rather lanky man, with large, coke-bottle glasses 
over his eyes, who walked past Dr. Pike, heading towards the coffee 
machine. He didn't even acknowledge her presence. He looked at 
Dr. Reese and nodded. "Margaret." 


"Dr. Mattings." 


"There's going to be a transfer into your team today; it's only 
temporary. The project my team's working on keeps on shorting out 
one of our junior researcher's insulin pumps. We don't know how, 
either." 


"All right. I'll await..." 
"Her." 
"Her. Tell her to see me in my office for a project brief." 


"Very good." Dr. Claude Mattings pushed his spectacles off his nose 
and walked out of the room. 


It was only now that Dr. Pike realized she wasn't breathing. She 
gasped and coughed, putting her coffee on the table, and rubbing 
her thumb and forefinger together. It was a nervous habit of hers. 


Dr. Reese frowned. "Why didn't you say anything to him?" 


Cassandra swallowed and coughed before speaking. "I'm so scared. 
He said he has a moratorium against me- if | try to talk to him, he'll 
just... go to Weiss, and then it's off to the padded room for me." 


Dr. Reese stared, tilting her head quizzically. "...what the hell did 
you do in order to get him to do that?" 


"You did that because she tried to apologize?!" Dr. Harold West 
stared at Claude as he sat next to him at the bar, drinking a 
bourbon. 


"She was constantly pestering me. All of her e-mails were things like 
"Please come back", "I'm sorry", "I still love you, can we make this 
work"... it got tiring.” 


"Even so, not allowing her to speak to you at all... that's fucking 
harsh." 


Dr. Mattings raised an eyebrow. "She can talk to me if she wants. 
She just needs to stop constantly pestering me with apologies." 


"That... is not what Margaret said. Dr. Pike seems to be under the 
impression that if she even acknowledges you exist, she'll get 
shipped off to D-Class Conditioning or something." 


Claude sighed. "As always, she overreacts. She has issues. If she 
can ever work through them, then maybe..." He sighed. "I dunno. 
Another bourbon." 


"That's your third shot tonight." 


"Sixth. | had a couple when you were taking a leak." 


Dr. Pike raced down the hall. She was late for the seminar, and she 


needed to make it if she wanted to get raised a clearance level. She 
held her work binder to her chest, ran around the corner- 


And ran smack into the last person she wanted to see today, or this 
week, or this century. She looked up at Claude, visibly flinching. "D- 
Dr. Mattings." 


"Dr. Pike," he said, pressing up his glasses. "You do know that your 
restraining order doesn't expire until month's end." 


"l-I'm sorry, it was an accident..." 


"...you've been good, so I'll let it slide. Don't let it happen again." He 
pushed up his glasses, and walked past her. 


Dr. Pike stood there for another five seconds, then fell to her knees, 
clutching her binder and crying. 


Dr. Reese was not pleased. That much was evident by the 
demeanor in her office. She usually had a pot of tea ready on a hot 
plate in case someone came in to talk to her, and the place always 
had a smell of something vaguely autumn-like in it; this was 
supposedly part of a treatment Dr. Reese was undergoing for some 
medical condition she had, but this was just hearsay around the site. 


Now, the tea was gone, and the office smelled like winter. Dead 
leaves, cold, and hopelessness. Dr. Reese looked out from behind 
her desk, frowning as Claude Mattings entered the door and took a 
seat in front of her desk. 


"What seems to be the problem?" 


"| have a right mind to just... kick you out of your project and assign 
you to... | don't know, scraping the gunk out of the nanite tank, 
Mattings." 


Claude stared at her, confused. "What did | do?" 


“You've been good, so I'll let it slide’? Are you trying to sound like a 
complete psychopath, or do you just want to drive her insane?" 


Dr. Mattings's hand greeted his forehead with a high-five. 
"Are you denying you said that?" 


"...I'm not, but..." Claude rubbed his face. "Look. She has more 
issues than a Spider-Man book." 


"As in the characters, or as in the actual number of issues of the 
comic book?" 


"Pick one," Mattings snorted. "You have any idea how often she's 
done this? How often she just... blows up, throws a fit, and almost 
instantly cools down? We've had massive fights that have ended 
with her telling me to- and | quote- "Go fuck myself with a peyote 
cactus until | start taking a magic voyage"- and almost instantly after 
that, she starts crying and acting regretful. It's bizarre, and | just got 
sick of it." 


"...!'m aware of her issues. When her cat died, she actually threw 
her computer monitor out of her window, and then spent the next 
five days cleaning it up and working overtime to buy a new one, and 
another two weeks after that to fully pay for the broken window. She 
is trying, though." 


"Or so she claims." 

"Mattings!" snapped Dr. Reese. 
"Look, | can't put up with thi-" 
"She's scared of you." 

Claude blinked. "...what?" 


"Why do you think I'm talking to you instead of her? The restraining 
order expired yesterday. She's still terrified of talking to you. She's 
missed five seminars because you attended them, too. She's only 
recently started working on containment projects again, and even 
then, your whole passive-aggressive bullshit the other day threw her 
off of work so badly that she checked herself into the infirmary." She 
threw up her hands. "But, it's moot anyway. She's requesting a 
transfer off-site." 


Claude's eyebrow went up. "...where to?" 


"Site 48. Harkness, Maryland. A Dunwich-Class Nexus. You might 
know it as 'The town that's populated entirely by people sick with 


anomalous diseases’. 


Both of his eyebrows were up, now. "...you can't be serious. She 
hates germs." 


"She hates herself even more, right now." 


"For fuck's sake, like she'd ever do it." Claude made for the door. 
"She's making a toy out of you, Reese. She's manipulating you into 
feeling sorry for her." He opened the door, and was about to close it 
behind him, when Dr. Reese asked a question. 


"Does she know she's doing it?" 


"...I've asked myself that question hundreds of times." He closed the 
door and came back into the room. "She's... frustrating. She's 
incredibly cruel and manipulative at times, but... | don't think she 
can fathom how cruel she is. She needs to see what kind of effect 
this has on others and take responsibility for it. ls that too much to 
ask for?" 


"It isn't. But... hell, she was going to propose before all this 
happened." 


"Yeah, well. Nuts to that, eh?" He sighed, rubbing his thumb against 
his forefinger in his pocket. It was a nervous habit he acquired; he 
didn't know where from. "I... do want to reconcile with her, some 
day. If she can prove she's ready. | don't hate her." 


"At least there's that." 


"Just... talk to him, please?" Dr. Reese frowned as she sat by 
Cassandra in the break room the next day. "He doesn't hate you, 
and he wants to talk." 


"...L don't know if | can," Dr. Pike replied, sipping at her coffee. "I 
just... I'm scared." 


"Scared? Of him?" Dr. Reese sighed. "We deal with the horrors of 
the universe on a daily basis. Last week, fifteen people in town were 
eaten because some nanites bounced off the back of a Foundation 
truck and their container burst. And you're scared of talking to a 
person? It's not like he's 682 or something." 


"No, | worked with 682, once. It at least had the balls to admit how 
disgusted they were by everything.” She clutched her cup, 
trembling. 


"Cassie... just... talk to him, okay?" 

At that point, Dr. Mattings walked into the break room. 

Dr. Pike stood up, swallowed, wiped her eyes, and approached him. 
"Hi." 

"Hi." 


"|. shit kinda sucks, huh?" Claude rubbed the back of his head. "It 
takes two to tango, though." 


"Yeah." Cassie looked down at the floor and rubbed her hair. "... 
want to try again?" 


He looked down at her, and walked out of the room, beckoning her 
to follow. They had catching up to do. 


08@00:00 


09@00:00 


09@15:30 


10@00:00 


10@03:20 


reinforcement of the ceiling, walls 
and floor of chamber with 
additional layers of steel and 
concrete. 

Number of specimens in chamber 
is estimated at approximately 
240,000 live specimens. 
Containment chamber contains 
several mounds of varying sizes 
consisting of scrapings and the 
bodies of living and dead 
specimens. 

Number of specimens in chamber 
is sufficient to fill the chamber to a 
depth of approximately 2 cm, 
although specimens are unevenly 
distributed. Although observation 
of the colony's implements is 
problematic due to the number of 
specimens, there is evidence of a 
number of crucibles and forges, 
calibrated for different 
temperatures, a number of lathes 
in various sizes, and taps and 
dies. Chamber also contains a 
spool of approximately 40 meters 
of Narrow gauge Steel wire. 
Specimens construct bellows, 
glassblowing equipment, and 
several objects of unknown 
function. 

Number of specimens in chamber 
is estimated to be at least 
400,000. 

Personnel D-334 enters chamber 
at direction of Dr. Garcia and 
intentionally attempts to disturb 
large mound of specimens with 
wooden rod. Apparatuses 
referenced at 09@15:30 are 


Dossier - FSF Delivery 


Official Designation: Foundation Space Forces Light vessel 
Varuna [Modified] Delivery 


Design Summary: The Delivery consists of a heavily modified 
Varuna-class spacefaring vessel, constructed from the salvaged 
remains of FSFL Galaxy Cruiser (see Dispatch Timeline). Much of 
the vessel's internal space has been sacrificed to accommodate an 
oversize, reinforced storage bay. Basic landing struts have also 
been added, and the ship's external structure has been reinforced to 
allow the ship to alight on planetary surfaces. See below craft 
specifications for more information. 


Crew: 5 
Powerplant: NRX/XE-II Nuclear 
Armament: 


* 2x Subach-Innes LCOL-F 3MW CO2 pulse laser 
* 1x FSFW 'Naagastra' hypervelocity coilgun (Modified) [See 
Experimental Components List] 


Craft Purpose: The FSF Delivery is a combined planetary scouting 
and resource-gathering craft for the Foundation Space Force. 
Equipped with an enlarged storage bay and specialized scanning, 
mining, and storage devices, the Delivery is dispatched to planets of 
interest within the immediate stellar vicinity of the greater FSF fleet, 
at a maximum range of one light-week. After approaching the 
interstellar body in question, the ship scans to acquire more detailed 
information for the fleet. If appropriate, the Delivery then lands on 
the planet and secures all resources necessary for FSF use, as well 
as any detected anomalous objects ascertained to be relatively safe 
to handle. 


The Delivery has been outfitted with a variety of experimental FSF 


equipment beneficial to its primary mission. This both expedites 
resource gathering and allows for field-testing of newly-developed 
FSF technologies. Due to the high level of risk already accepted by 
the crew members of the Delivery, as well as the relative ease with 
which the basic craft can be replaced, it was considered the optimal 
ship for early trials of emerging FSF technical components. See 
Experimental Components for more information. 


GENERAL POSITIONS 
Captain: Chance Sarridge 


Mechanic: Joseph Peck 
Formerly: Archie Flett (deceased), Robert Schroeder (deceased), 
Lucille Thompson (deceased) 


Navigator: Marjorie Thompson 
Formerly: Arina Bogomolov (deceased), Franklin Causey 
(unrecoverable, presumed deceased) 


Medic: Alexandrea Exendine 
Formerly: Lawrence Woodall (deceased), Theodore Dover (retired) 


SHIP-SPECIFIC POSITIONS 


Materials Analyst: Benjamin Golden 


Note: Only dispatches of unusual significance have been recorded 
here. For a full dispatch history, including approximate dates and 
galactic coordinates of dispatches, please contact FSF Information 
Services and submit appropriate credentials. 


Dispatch #: Res-0001 

Location: Planet 0-0029 "Hestia" 

Target: Various radioactive isotopes for study and use as fuel 
Status: Success 

Notes: Maiden voyage of FSF Galaxy Cruiser, an unmodified 
Varuna-class vessel. Target isotopes were successfully harvested 
from Planet 0-0037, though problems were encountered during 
transportation. Inability of the vessel to properly alight on the 


planetary surface made transfer of materials from planet to craft 
difficult. Lack of proper containment of recovered materials within 
the craft was also a noted concern, especially during artificial gravity 
spin-up. 


Due to heavy damages sustained during resource gathering, the 
Galaxy Cruiser was rendered inoperable, and a rescue mission was 
necessary to recover the craft and its contents (for more details, see 
Dispatch Summary Rec-0004). FSF Galaxy Cruiser was scuttled 
following Dispatch Res-0001, with its parts used in the construction 
of FSF Delivery. 


Dispatch #: Res-0002 

Location: Planet 0-0029 "Hestia" 

Target: Various radioactive isotopes for use as fuel 
Status: Success 

Notes: Maiden voyage of FSF Delivery. 


Dispatch #: Res-0006 

Location: Planet 1-0012 

Target: Metal ore (primarily iron) for use in construction 

Status: Success