Activating my new senses for the first time was indeed overwhelming. First, the final connections tingled for about a minute, which meant my entire body felt like when you sat on a leg too long. As the tingling faded, everything suddenly seemed to explode—noises were too loud, scents were too strong, my clothes made me itch, and even with my eyes closed, the light shining through my eyelids was overly bright. And that wasn’t even including the new senses which activated a few seconds later. I immediately could sense the layout of the room in all directions. I knew exactly where everyone was sitting and where the walls and objects were.

  Fortunately, while the intensity of my senses didn’t change, I quickly adapted to them, and the feeling of being overwhelmed faded over the course of a few minutes. At that point, I finally opened my eyes, requiring another ten seconds of adaptation. Things looked weird, both too sharp and a few things with colors I hadn’t seen before.

  Lumira, what’s up with the colors?

  ?You can now see into the infrared and ultraviolet spectra.?

  Oh, yeah. I forgot about that part.

  I spent some time looking around and learning to synthesize what I was seeing with what my new senses were telling me. Eventually, Isa’s impatience seemed to win.

  ?Well? What’s it like??

  ?It was pretty overwhelming at first and took some time to adjust. I’ll have to practice with my new senses, but I can tell where everything is in all directions around me, I can see new colors, and all my previous senses are heightened. It’s pretty cool.?

  ?New colors? Now I want them,? she sent with a pout, both a mental one and a physical one.

  Jara finally asked what she thought important. ?Is it going to help us stay safe??

  ?Definitely,? I replied. ?I can hear so much. My “object sense” or whatever we decide to call it—it’s not actually a single sense, more like an amalgamation of multiple senses—has a pretty decent range, though it gets blurrier both further away and past solid objects.?

  ?Excellent.?

  It wasn’t too much longer before we went to sleep. That took some more getting used to—I could sort of “see” even with my eyes closed, after all. Nevertheless, I eventually managed.

  Over the next three days, we finished searching the base, though there wasn’t anything else interesting or particularly useful—most buildings were pretty dilapidated. Finally, though, Zia informed us that Isa’s new augment finished building overnight. Unlike my new sensors suite, this augment was quick for her to adjust to, so we made our way back to the server room.

  There, Isa pulled a cable out of her wrist and plugged it into one of the servers attached to the shelf-things filling the room. I didn’t know whether there was a reason she chose that particular one or not, but I didn’t ask. We waited, on guard, while Isa spent a couple hours sitting there, plugged into a machine.

  Finally, she opened her eyes and smiled. ?I’ve got it!?

  ?What did you find?? I asked.

  ?I have data on a bunch of bases and which ones are still reporting in. Most are dead, and most of the remainder report a bunch of errors, but there are a few that show almost everything functional. Of those, I had to dig into things a bit and take advantage of some loopholes, but I found one that is supposed to have some sort of experimental long-range surface-to-void scout starship. From what little information I could find on it, the five of us should be able to pilot it with our symbiotes. It’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to make it home, but it gives us a chance.?

  Excited, I reached over and pulled Isa into a hug. ?You’re amazing! Where is this ship??

  She stepped back, and I let go. ?That’s the only thing—it’s pretty far away. It’d take us weeks to travel there on foot.?

  ?I sense a “but” coming.?

  ?I think I figured out how to get the automated systems to allow us to fly the shuttle within the atmosphere. If that works, it won’t take us long to get there at all. Oh yeah, that’s another thing—there’s no one left on that station up there. It’s just an advanced automated defense system.?

  Stolen novel; please report.

  ?Good work, Isa.?

  She beamed at the compliment, and I turned to the others—not that I needed to, but it was courteous.

  ?Well, everyone—any objections??

  Once everyone agreed to the plan, we headed back to the shuttle to enact it.

  On the way back, I suddenly froze, sensing something large—no, multiple somethings large—entering my object sense. ?Stop!? I cried out over the comms.

  Everyone froze, and I told them what I was sensing. As the creatures approached silently, I instructed everyone to form a circle, facing out with guns ready.

  As the creatures neared, I counted seven of them, and based on my object sense, they resembled some sort of sleek, wolf-like being nearly my height.

  Within a minute or two, we were surrounded, and I only had managed glimpses of the creatures. What I had seen seemed to be dark and scaled.

  Suddenly, as if they had their own comms, they all charged at the same time.

  “Fire!” I called out instinctively, forgetting about the comms for a moment.

  Our blasts did some damage, but the scales on the creatures seemed to dissipate the mana somewhat before the blasts activated, similar to dragon scales. In my mind, I started calling them “dracowolves” because of that.

  When our guns did little, I instinctively reached for my favorite spell, Telekinesis. Normally, I might have been able to manage the necessary forces to safely shove one of the dracowolves, but as I went to do things, everything just felt so much easier to determine on the fly, as if my hard-trained instincts were augmented by my improved ability to calculate things. Without worrying about it too much, I managed to throw four of the leaping dracowolves back at once, startling them and giving the others time and space to dodge.

  Unfortunately, while everyone managed to avoid the three that landed their jumps, it left us out of position, and one of the dracowolves reacted too quickly, slashing at Ani’s Shield with its retractable claws.

  ?Jara! Get Ani!?

  I felt confirmation from Jara as she recovered, quickly pivoting and shooting the beast in the face, dealing a bit more damage than before, enough to disorient the beast briefly. Meanwhile, I managed to shoot one of the other dracowolves in the eye, killing it.

  ?Keep firing! I’ll distract them with Telekinesis!?

  The next minute passed in tense battle as the others fired on the creatures while I focused on using Telekinesis to disrupt their attacks and keep them off-balance. Eventually, though, we managed to take them all out, with the only injury being some bruises when Ontari’s shield broke and she fell backwards avoiding a slash.

  ?Think the meat’s edible?? Ani asked once we had all caught our breath.

  I shrugged. ?I’ve got Detect Toxin, so we can figure it out. We don’t have any seasoning, but we can probably mix it with some of our meal packs to augment them. Anything that helps them last longer increases how long we have to find our way home.?

  With that decision made, we quickly prepared one of the carcasses enough for Isa and Ontari to carry it back, then hurried back to the hangar where we finished butchering it. I had never expected to use the wilderness survival skills I learned back at NOTA, but I was glad to have them.

  While we prepared the meat, I sent Ontari and Ani out to gather wood nearby for a fire. Meanwhile, I had Isa enter the hangar and figure out how to open the roof, both so we could escape and so we had a safe place to cook the meat.

  Once everything was ready, I cooked a small piece of meat before scanning it with Detect Toxin. Fortunately, it reported it as safe to eat, so I tasted it. The meat was a bit gamey, but the residual mana in the beast made it decent enough considering the lack of seasoning. Confirming that it was edible, I got to work cooking the rest of the meat. We ate what we could, and I stored the rest in the shuttle. It wouldn’t last very long, but it’d probably be fine for breakfast the next morning.

  Sure enough, the meat was safe enough to eat when we awoke the next morning, but it wouldn’t last much longer, so we ate our fill and sat down to make a plan.

  “Isa, we’re going to need you to handle both the transponder and navigation, can you do that?”

  “Yep! Should be easy enough with Zia’s help.”

  “Perfect. Ontari, you’ll of course be piloting the shuttle.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  “The rest of us will just be along for the ride, but we’ll see what happens when we get there. Given the fact that their space station has automated defenses, I can’t rule out the possibility that there will be something similar where we’re going, given that the base in question is apparently still mostly functional. Any questions?”

  Everyone shook their heads, and I gave a firm nod. “Let’s do this, then.”

  We made sure everything was secure, and Isa plugged into the ship to use its stronger antennas. Once she signaled she was ready, I gave Ontari the order to lift off.

  Nerves wracked me as I waited to see if we would get shot down, but soon enough, Isa’s voice came over comms.

  ?We’ve got acknowledgement of our fake transponder code—we’re authorized for flight.?

  Once she confirmed that, I let out a relieved breath. ?Great work, Isa. Now to get us home.?

  She sent over the emotion of feeling pleased with herself, then I sensed comms going back and forth rapidly between Isa and Ontari as Isa helped guide Ontari towards the base. Since we were traveling more slowly and a long distance, it took almost an hour to get to our destination, but, finally, we touched down on a shuttle pad at the edge of what looked like a small base in surprisingly good condition.

  ?Everyone ready?? I asked. With their agreement, I led us out of the shuttle and hopefully towards our escape.