The lift doors opened with a squeal, and a rush of stale air hit them. Jackson was out of the car before the doors had fully retracted. The lights within the cavernous space winked on as the pair walked through stacks of equipment and old transit crates. There were some makeshift desks and even a few trays of half-eaten meals, oddly well-preserved in the sterile environment.

"You guys leave in a hurry, sir?"

"All this was from a black project Fleet R&S had going down here," Jackson said. "Pitt evicted them before we got here to drop off Aegis. We just never bothered to clean up after them."

"Wonder what secret was so dirty that R&S put people down in this pit working on it," Barton said.

"I sometimes forget you're a hobby conspiracy theorist," Jackson said, looking at him bemusedly.

"Sorry, sir."

"Point of fact, they were working on a new type of starship sensor. They were down here for security, but later it was decided the type of work they were doing was a risk to the base personnel. They were taking their time packing up when we showed up and told them to drop everything and leave."

Starfleet had two separate, autonomous science divisions. Fleet Research and Science was tasked with purely theoretical work. It had originally just been a management office that interfaced with the Tsuyo Corporation, the mega-company that had produced every human starship from the time humans left the Solar System until the company was caught playing both sides against the other and was dissolved.

The second division, Fleet Research and Development, worked entirely on practical applications for those theories and prototypes. They were the engineers and scientists who developed the manufacturing process for Bluebird entangled pairs and the new gravimetric powered drives.

"And you guys never bothered to clean up after they left?" Barton asked.

"Didn't seem necessary. There were only a few of us, and the permanent resident we left behind didn't mind the mess," Jackson said. "Isn't that right, Aegis?"

"Admiral Wolfe," a deep, omnipresent voice said from somewhere ahead of them. "Am I being moved again, or has Parliament decided I should be destroyed completely?"

"Moved," Jackson said, coming around another stack of crates to stand before an onyx block. It was rectangular in shape, approximately two and a half meters tall, maybe a meter deep and half as wide. It had rounded edges, and its surface was so smooth it looked like liquid. "The Alliance has come here for Bluebird, and we can't risk them finding you. As far as I know, Parliament hasn't actually been fully briefed about you yet."

"I can imagine," Aegis said. "Your governing body is so full of moles, sleepers, and outright traitors it's a wonder the ESA is even bothering to send ships to invade you. Who is this Marine?"

"This is Gunnery Sergeant Willard Barton. He's my security detail. Barton, this is Aegis. It's a semi-sentient AI system…the first that didn't originate from alien hardware," Jackson said.