"Fuck…," Apex muttered, washing his face in the bathroom sink. The room was a calm tan color with a sink, toilet, and window that someone can sit at to look outside. The blue insectoid was not having a fun time. He was never a calm individual, but this was throwing him into overdrive. People trying to sabotage the place he lived in, blowing the airfield up, and making him worry about his bedfellows slitting his throat while he sleeps. He already hated Novus, but this was taking it so far, he was nearing the end of a marathon.

*Knock! Knock! Knock!*

"Apex," Aeolus shouted through the closed door, causing the insect to jump. "You've been in there for a while. Is everything alright?"

"Fine, sir. I've just been losing my mind from all this bullshit!" he yelled through the door. "Could you have a little bit more care?"

"Apex, please calm down," he tried to soothe him.

"Hey, fuck you. Now please leave me alone," he told him, walking over to the closed toilet and taking a seat on it, shaking.

"Apex, I don't want to leave anyone alone and you know why," Aeolus told him and Apex hated to admit that Aeolus had a point. If it was someone else insisting that people don't enter the bathroom while they were in it, he would be the first to break the door down to make sure that they weren't doing anything in there, but he wanted to stay in there. Kept him away from the others.

"Just let me stay in here, please," he told him. Aeolus stayed silent as Apex took a cigarette out, placed it in his mouth and lit it up. He took a large drag from it and he immediately calmed down. He needed this.

"Alright, look, I understand why you would stay hold up in there, but we can't let you stay in there by yourself, so which of us do you trust the most?" Aeolus asked him. Apex let out a breath of smoke, pondering on the answer, before answering.

"I guess you, sir," Apex answered.

"Really? I thought it would be Kolt," he answered surprised.

"Eh, you mean well. It's everyone else I don't trust. I'm sure the rest are thinking along similar lines," he answered, taking another drag. "You're by far the most trustworthy here."

"Didn't know I was so well liked," Aeolus murmured.

"Yeah, well, there you go," he answered.

"Still, you have to let me in so that you're not by yourself," he told him, much to Apex's annoyance.

"Ughhhhhh… fine," he muttered, walking up and unlocking the door, letting him in. Aeolus walked in calmly and Apex closed the door behind him, locking it. "Don't mind the smoke," he told him, taking a seat back on the toilet. Aeolus walked to the window and looked outside to the city, lit up by many lights from buildings and light posts.

"So, Apex, what do you think of everyone?" he asked him, not taking his gaze from outside.

"At least one of them is a traitor. What else?" he asked, taking a drag.

"Well, what's your feeling on them?" he asked. "You must have an informed opinion."

"Well, I've a part of your group the shortest amount of time, so I don't know why you're asking me," he wondered.

"You're the one who have the least amount of personal motivation about everyone. On the one hand, that could make you a good mole for the enemy," Aeolus explained.

"Hey, don't go saying that!" he shouted.

"On the other hand, you have no compunction about telling me what they've been doing," he gave his other point, interesting Apex. "Now, listen, a couple of them are suspicious about you due to your recent transfer and this happening, but I think that's no good reason to be suspicious about you. I believe that one bad thing is just a coincidence."

"Thanks… sir," he thanked, moving his leg to tossed the spent cigarette in the toilet. "Well, if you want info on what I think of them, sure. While I don't trust any of them particularly well, I will say that I really don't trust Egrir, Koda, and Daemon. Egrir is violent to an extreme has been acting strange ever since we got here, Koda is equally violent and I saw here staying behind at the ship for an extended amount of time, and Daemon is just morally reprehensible; not making him a suspect would be stupid. Of all of us here, I would bet the stack on one of those three being a mole. Hell, I even bet that all three of them are moles." He capped that explanation by getting another cigarette and lighting it up to calm himself down. "Damn that got me worked up."

"Well… that was informative," Aeolus muttered, looking out. "You know, I don't like doubting any of you, including Tom, who isn't in the squad. You're all under my command and following my orders. I would like to think that every one of us that went there is loyal, even if some of them are not shining examples of morality."

"Yeah, well, someone screwed your fantasy over," he told him.

"It appears so," he agreed. "You insectoids are always so suspicious."

"Yeah, well, docs said we're practically overdosing on dopamine while lacking in NMDA receptors to balance it out. You won't find many who aren't paranoid, although I like to think that I'm properly paranoid. One of those three is going to be the mole," Apex told him, going through the second cigarette quickly.

"We'll see… we'll see."

"Alright, we're coming up on the place," Kuji announced to everyone as they flew through the city. "The place is ah abandon wharf, schedule for demolition in five vils," he told them.

"How long is that?" Swindle asked.

"Universal language, Kuji, Not your own," Dedan demanded.

"Oh, sorry. Five weeks or 50 days," he translated.

"10 day stellar-cycles?" Swindle asked.

"If that's your version of a week, yes," Dedan answered.

"How long is a year?" he asked nervously.

"We have 63 weeks, so 630 days," Kuji answered that time, dishearting Swindle.

"Are you fragging kidding me? Cybertron had much shorter years than that!" Swindle bemoaned, cradling his head with his hands.

"Oh, did that fact never get in your head or were you too busy trying to make a profit?" Dedan questioned him.

"Ergggg… how long is solar cycle?" he asked.

"What's that?"

"A day."

"27 hours."

"Ugggggh," Swindle moaned, further being angry about his expectations being longer than he thought.

"Have you even been here before?" Kuji asked.

"Yeah, although I didn't care enough to learn the time here," Swindle told them.

"Well, now you know, moron," Dedan muttered, looking out the helicopter. "Alright, I see the wharf. Get ready to disembark." Swindle took his head out of his hands and poked his head out to look at the place. The only lights around the area was the one from the surrounding places, as no one bother to pay the electric bill for the place, and had there were several warehouses and shacks at the area with open spaces between the area. "Kuji, what do you got about this place?"

"Blokal Wharf. A local wharf that had been falling on times recently and decided to shut down for good when a scandal about them allowing people to use it to struggle illegal goods around. The owner managed to worm his way out of punishment as well as many of the workers, although a couple were charged with smuggling. It was abandoned until we got reports about people from Novus being there, so Aeolus group went over to find it empty after splitting up and thoroughly searching the place for any members of Novus and headed back to the base where the bomb went off," he told them.

"Could Novus just do it while they were away from the ship?" Swindle asked.

"No, because the pilot, Tom, kept the plane in the air as the search took place. Someone from Aeolus's group had to get the bomb and bring it aboard without the others noticing," Kuji told him, "assuming Tom didn't just bring the bomb with him from our base and pinned it on the others."

"So, how are we going to find the answer to this?" Swindle asked. "Just look around and scrounge for any information?"

"Yes, although we're going to be a lot more through than Aeolus's group was. They were there for a cursory examination to see if Novus was around, not to find information about them," Dedan informed him.

"Alright," Swindle muttered.

"I'll be interrogating the people who live nearby and Kuji will look for any evidence for them in the area through traces that they left behind," Dedan told him. "Whichever one you want to help, you decide."

"Well, I'm a people person, so I guess I'll help you," Swindle immediately answered.

"Good. Now, before I forget," he fished for something in his jacket pocket before getting it out and handing it to him. It looked to be an injector of some sort. "Give me your hand."

"Uh, okay," he said, sticking his right hand out. Dedan roughly grabbed it and injected something in Swindle's palm, eliciting a yelp from Swindle, retracting his hand and rubbing the spot. "What the frag was that?"

"Look at it," Dedan told him and Swindle halted his rubbing to see two black circles, one in the other, and four lines from each direction converging in the center on his hand. "That's your way of identifying that you're a member of the military here. Everyone has one. There's also small computers in them that allows you to open doors at the base."

"Thanks for that," Swindle muttered. "Could've been less painful."

"Yeah, but hearing you in pain was good to hear," Dedan said with what looked like a smile, although it was hard to tell with those oversized teeth making him look like he was always scowling.

"Attention, we're landing in the area," the pilot told them and Swindle could see that they were very close to landing in a clearing at the wharf. The pilot descended carefully until the ship landed there and the three of them exited the ship. The pilot ascended back up and kept the ship floating in the air, putting it in waiting mode to save power.

"Well, me and Swindle are going to talk to the people nearby, Kuji. Did any research on them?" Dedan asked.

"Most of the people here are homeless, so I don't got much, but there are a few shopkeepers here that could give answers about what's going on here. As far as I know, they're not doing anything wrong, so you can't hold that over their heads. Also, I heard our favorite homeless person, Weird Kaith, is around the area too, if you're looking for entertainment," Kuji explained.

"Oh, really. Ha, Swindle, you're going to love that nut-job," Dedan told him. "I can mock him in his face constantly and he would not get it."

"I almost want to not investigate the place to see him, but I have a job to do," the helmeted detective agreed before he started walking off. "Have fun and keep the comms ready!" he told them as he entered a nearby warehouse.

"Well, shall we go see the possible witnesses," Swindle asked, looking around.

"Let's go. I bet they're hanging just outside the wharf."

Tom laid back in the corner sitting next to a table, sighing to himself as most of the group was talking to each other. He didn't felt like he belong, due to them being soldiers and drinking some green alcohol that the insectoids brew, said it was called Kleitsch or something like that. He couldn't remember. The brown-haired humanoid was careful, making sure he didn't spill any on his well-trimmed beard. As he drank it, a red insectoid took a seat next to him, making him a little weary. He wasn't specist, he just hated insects and seeing some his size and capable of speech was something he still hadn't got used to. "What do you want, Kolt?" he asked, putting it aside.

"Nothing much. Just wanted to talk," he said, his mandibles splitting apart in four different pieces when he spoke, freaking the human out. He really wished they would keep those helmets on like the Frigaris like Kuji and Egrir do. At least he didn't to look at their body, which was sure to be disgusting to look at as well.

"About what?" Tom asked, still drinking.

"As a relative outsider to our group, which of us do you think did it?" he asked, causing a weird look from the pilot.

"I don't know. I can barely remember everyone's name," he told him, finishing off the glass and getting a bottle to refill it.

"Right," the insectoid muttered, tapping his finger against the table anxiously. "Do you have another glass with you?"

"Huh, oh, hold on," he said, looking near him to see a clean glass in a cabinet nearby ad grabbed it. "Here you go," he said, sliding it across the table to him. Kolt grabbed it and the bottle and began pouring some of the Kleitsch into his own glass.

"I need to calm my nerves," he told him, filling it up to the top.

"I'm doing the same," Tom agreed, although he didn't mentioned that Kolt was just adding to his need to drink.

"Great, I'm not alone. Apex smokes his anxiety away. I drink my away. Glad to see other races get paranoid," he told him, taking a swig.

"Who do you suspect?" Tom asked before taking a sip.

"Hmm, well… Egrir isn't very trustworthy right now, although I don't know why. Just a feeling. Rife is… strange. Apex is newish and this all happened when he came, so that is suspicious," he told him, taking a drink between each person. "I reckon it be one of them. Aeolus is too loyal, Koda is too violent to pull this off, you're not one of us, and Daemon, while morally inadequate, got stabbed in the back by Novus and has been plotting revenge on them. Overall… yeah, I'm competent it's one of those three."

"Hmph, you keep good tabs on them," Tom said, taking a drink. Maybe if he drink enough, he vision would blur enough to make Kolt look human somehow. That will probably require getting blackout drunk, but he was ugly.

"It's a part of our biology. Can't help it," he muttered, taking another drink. "I wish I could."