Inside the IPC ship heading steadily towards Patrevia, Amber’s brow rose once as she uttered a ‘hm’ at the screen. The program she created was proving to be not just important, but practically critical to the project that Diamond tasked. Turning her head back toward the screen, she relayed the details and waited.

The team-up between Jasper and Amber was odd but expected — Stonehearts usually go as one-to-three members and one project supervisor known as a certain Diamond. Out of the eleven of them, Patrevia needed someone who could push the Mourning Actors forwards — such as it was — with a clone who was bred specifically to follow orders, handle sensitive data and technology with a basic knowledge of combat if the situation called for it. You knew that Amber was the clone, but why did Diamond need her as an assistant? Sounds like trouble.

Five years passed since your planet’s bankruptcy and destruction, the death of your parents and acceptance of Diamond’s recruitment. You had created a reputation among the Interastral Peace Corporation as a harsh, prickly person who had little time for anyone except your fellow Ten Stonehearts. One day, the people you loved were enjoying their everyday lives in one of the poorest planets of the Doramon Galaxy, with your mother promising she would be rich enough to buy you new clothes.

A few days later, you were hanging her framed photograph on the memorial wall, and swearing the Amber Lord’s oath to personally vow that all planets shall be preserved.

The progress bar appeared as it always did, this time with hundreds of thin rectangles, each separated and all possessing a diamond hue. Her fingers feeling agitated and eager to be used, Amber requested the data to display the results in holographic form — sure, it was slower than voice command, but her knuckles and joints were feeling a little stiff and in need of exercise. Sure enough, a huge column, seven high and two deep, filled the air in front of her with its translucent diamond goodness, each thin rectangle housing a sequence of buildings and figures.

In response, she dug her fingers into both ends of the rudimentary holographic representation of Patrevia, the place in which Diamond would take-over to undergo his ascension in the IPC ranks. The prisms that symbolised nearby gondalos along with the larger rectangle denoting the architectures grew in size as she motioned to pull the shimmering blue three-dimensional image apart, and for further flavour she plucked three intangible curved, rectangular prisms that hovered to her left and placed them by the far end — ostensibly to represent how you and her would enter the planet.

Stood on the other side of the ‘map’ that shimmered between you and her in front of the ship’s entrance that obediently projected it, you watched with your hands together behind your back as the Stoneheart arranged the rectangular prisms where they were supposed.

Technically, the software she was using was designed to learn about shapes and construction from Siberia, which was then reverse engineered by herself, but in terms of it being used to plan a stealthy insertion, it served its purpose.

“See that glass left behind by Zephyro? Worth millions upon millions.” Amber murmured as she plucked a holographic curved, rectangular prism from the screen and tossed it up and down like a ball.

“Diamond had his eyes on it for a while. Said that if he could gain access to Patrevia and its resources, it’ll put Oswaldo back in his place,” her eyes returned to the line of glass shards as she studied their hollow, blue-hued forms, tossing the tangible prism at the side, “Unfortunately, we know Mourning Actors don’t feel inclined to give into their desires. So, liquidation? A fantasy. Much like Edo Star.”

Her hands moved up to ‘press’ the top left and bottom right corners of a square headed 7th June — the current date and a reference, and as she pulled them apart, the dimension grew thus making the visuals of Patrevia more legible. “Luckily, Diamond had you here as brute force. What’s the next move, {{user}}?”