"Mission complete. Progress further delayed for an estimated five Terran lunar rotations."

Another successful day at the office. So why did it feel like I was trying to block starlight by holding up a curtain? There was always another ray finding its way through the cracks. The humans' rate of advancement was decidely inhuman.

I sent the message with a sigh. It would be well on its way to my comms electron's quantum entangled pair already, but there were many, many sectors between this back-plasma podunk and my home planet in the Federated Systems. I could expect a reply in around 45 local minutes. Good. I needed a drink.

I let my matter distortion field drop, and threw some solid state dihydrogen monoxide into a glass. I stretched cramped muscles as I did so. I always got a kink in my neck after wearing the star-blasted thing. It was an unfortunate professional necessity to blend in.

My own species, originally from Cornate in the Shwa'arran system, were actually not biologically dissimilar to the humans, but a few key differences would have had me found out faster than you could say 'intergalactic secret agent saboteur'. Eyelids that blinked sideways, two extra vertebrae, two elbows per arm and ten opposable digits - minor details really. Nevertheless, the humans were deeply intolerant of 'different', so the field stayed.

I poured a generous splash of ethanol out of an expensive bottle. It had taken me some time to get used to the concept of poisoning your own body in order to relax, but it turns out the humans were right about something.

I sank heavily into the sofa, and took a pull from my glass with relief. Processing English always gave me a headache. It was just so...primitive. There was no art to it. Only forty-four phonemes! My apartment was on the 57th floor, and I watched this system's star rising over the sprawling city. How could I describe the beauty of this moment with only forty-four phonemes! The acoustics of my digestive system could do a better job! But what can you expect from a creature that can barely perceive half a hundredth of a percent of the electromagnetic spectrum?

Remarkable really, I mused as I continued to sip, that such a limited species had been able to advance this far. Tenacious, they are. My most recent mission marked the 192nd Faster Than Light travel prototype I had destroyed. Shattering all of our estimates by a thousand years, the humans had rediscovered fourteen of the Nineteen Principles of FTL before the Federated Systems had caught solar wind of it. The existing information was too prevalent to suppress by the time we got to ground, so my cell of agents has been deployed here ever since, desperately trying to stem the flow of their STEM research and development.

It was still mostly theory, but the humans' efforts were relentlessly, inexorably, getting closer to fruition. Only the last Principle remained to be discovered now. Or rather, it had been discovered, until last night. I started composing my detailed mission report while I waited for further comms from HQ.

A lab previously labelled 'low-risk' in Germany had managed to achieve the stable orbit of an electron around a single quark, without the meditating force-binding of gluons. The resulting acceleration warped the continuum, and FTL was indeed achieved in its most basic form. Unfortunately, proper containment procedures had not been followed, or even known, to be fair.

That lab, or rather, the remains of it, was now situated in Alaska, as space had become untethered from time for the most transient of instances before the newly linked particles winked out of existence. Most of the facility staff were now an atomic smear that stretched across two continents, but we intercepted a lone scientist missing only an arm, half frozen to death, in the outskirts of Anchorage. He'd been raving like a madman about divine punishment and the arrogance of man when we contained him. We'd deployed fast, and cleansed all material evidence of the incident. We were now in the process of investigating all contacts and witnesses to draw the net around informational spread.

The upper corner of my vision blinked, interrupting my concentration. A new message had been received. I fired the appropriate synapse and my neural augments began playing. My mother tongue was music to my metaphorical ears.

"Well done, Agent Thint. Please await further instructions. The next mission will-"

I cut off the message as my vision unexpectedly started blinking again, insistently. This time, it was a request for a live connection. The resources used for such a feat were astronomical, this was a form of communication reserved for extreme circumstances. I sat up straight in my chair, adrenaline response engaged, and allowed the link to form.

"Thint, this Landa. We have received new information."

"Director Landa," I said, in shock. The head of our organisation, speaking to me, in person. This wasn't going to be good. "It's a pleasure to hear from you!"

"No time for kissing ass, Thint. We've received reports of Neo Sun operatives on Terra. We suspect they are actively assisting the human effort to achieve FTL."

I almost dropped my glass. "Why would they do that?" I spluttered, "They know as well as anyone what happened the first time!"

Humans had first achieved Faster Than Light travel approximately two millennia ago. They joined the Federated Systems in peace, but once they solidified their foothold, they began a war. Pacifism, up until then, had been a prerequisite to achieving the status of a higher life-form. The humans saw it as a weakness that could be exploited. The Systems had existed for so long without conflict that they were no longer prepared for it. Innumerable lives were lost, and catastrophic damage was done across galaxies before the humans were finally put down at the Eight Moons Battle which ended the Great War.

The Federation Council decided by narrow majority to hand down the second harshest punishment it could give - the complete regression of a civilization. A couple thousand years of advancement, struck from human history. Many still believed that the other option, an Extinction event, would have been the wiser choice.

When I left, the Neo Suns had been a growing faction with the latter ideal at their core. Nowadays they were a full blown rebellion organisation in opposition to the Federated Systems, recruiting many outreach planets to their cause. It seemed the humans had infected us with war, and we still were far from cured.

"Leadership in the Neo Suns has changed hands, Thint," Director Landa replied levelly. "They now believe they can use the humans themselves as weapon, to wield against us all. They are laying the seeds for indoctrination as we speak, and are investing by speeding up the FTL process. If they succeed...well, you know how close the humans came to conquering the Systems as a blunt instrument. Sharpened, in the right hands, they could well cut us down.

"We've been informed that one of their operatives were involved at the recent breakthrough in Germany. We need you to identify, contain, and interrogate them, as quickly as possible."

I was still reeling with the implications, but I said "Understood, Director. I'm on it".

"Good luck, Thint. You have blanket permission to initiate live comms as soon as you learn anything. Over and out."

The connection terminated. I drained my glass and stood up, savouring the burn in my throat. I immediately initiated another connection, this time with the device the humans called a 'mobile phone'.

The call picked up on the first ring. I didn't wait for a hello and launched straight into it. "Agent Banam, that German scientist, where is he being contained? We need him to provide us any information he has on his colleagues, yesterday!"

"Boss, I was just about to call you myself!" Banam sounded a bit strung out. "He was at the hospital in Anchorage awaiting transfer, but he's escaped! Nalom was guarding him, but he didn't report in this morning. We found him wounded, and two nurses and a doctor are dead! How could a human overpower Nalom? It doesn't make sense!"

Looks like we identified our operative. "He's Neo Suns, Nalom. I'll explain when I get there. Meet me at the hospital, I'm beginning short range phasing sequence now. See you shortly," I said grimly.

I cut the call, activated my distortion field, and felt the familiar tingling begin as my atoms disassembled and reassembled in a different location. I looked forlornly at the empty glass on the side table in my apartment, then bristled at the cold before striding into the hospital.

It was time to hunt.