Undermining [Part 2]

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In the morning I was awoken by some commotion outside, Shay and Waldo had been sparring again, I'd managed to shift my circadian rhythm to be more in line with theirs, but I was still sleeping relatively late. I usually slept through their swordplay, but raised voices brought me out of it.

“Oh no, no!” The Massive Mercenary nearly shouted. I heard some lengths of steel clatter to the deck.

“It's fine! That happens!” Waldo cried, strain in his voice.

I clamored my way off Vincent and down to meet them. Shay was covering her mouth and hesitating to step foreward as my Old Friend sat on the ground clutching his left arm.

“Whas gwan?” I slurred as I approached.

“We've, I've... Captain Wald is hurt.” Shay spoke rather quietly.

“No, no it's nothing.” B. stood up, it took him two tries. “Just a fracture probably.” He swayed as he pulled his left arm close with his right.

“We must cease this sparring.” Shay declared, her voice darkening.

“What?! No, Shay you are getting really good at this.” Waldo's strain vanished from his tone suddenly. He very slightly held out his broken arm, it hung at a horrid angle. “Shit happens.”

“Sheit, we aughta go get that fucker set Waldo.” I yawned involuntarily while I spoke.

“Yeah, yeah.” Wald waved his right hand then went back to cradling his left arm with it.

“Goodness, are you certain all is well?” Shay still seemed unconvinced.

“Hell yeah, you earned that hit Shay. Be proud.” B. Grinned broadly at her. “You might be a better swordfighter than me.” He winked and added. “Someday.”

“Just get arm dealt with, don't be like your friend with leg.” She nodded at me and gave us a half-smile. “I require drink.” With that Shay marched back towards Vincent.

“Oh, fuck.” Wald groaned and slumped back to the deck as she entered the aft hatch.

“Ya alright Wald?” I stepped closer to help him up.

“We gotta get to the hospital, right the fuck now.” The strain had returned to his voice, stronger.

I grabbed him under his arms and hauled him up, his legs shook when he tried to stand again. I lifted my friend and laid him across my shoulders. I started to jog towards the medbay, adrenaline works better than most of the painkillers you can buy. I had him on the bench in the triage area and was talking to the nurse at the desk before my hip started to hurt, for the first time in a while so too did my ankle.

“You should've seen her though.” Waldo started to muse a few minutes after the shot they gave him while we waited. “She's started favouring the fool's guard, so I started pushing mine on her. She's got the technique, but she follows the rules too strictly.”

“Yeah?” The shot looked hardcore, I wasn't sure Wald would remember much of this.

“So I'm standing there in the fool's guard, she's getting a little frustrated so she switches to her own fool's guard and says 'now we're twins'. I laugh and move in for a strike.” He leaned in to tell me what was clearly the best part in his mind. “Shay wasn't in a fool's guard, she was in Gedan-no-kamae. I walked right into her trap; it was glorious.” He turned over his shoulder to shout about how glorious it was to me as an orderly got him into a wheelchair and took him away.

His Radius and Ulna were both snapped, most of his fingers were dislocated, and his elbow and shoulder were both hyperextended. His Femur had a fracture in it too. They let him out of the hospital just over a day later. That evening back at Vincent, over a bottle of her gin, Shay and I discussed what had happened.

“I went too far.” She grimaced.

“Waldo seemed impressed.” Shay shook her head and took another shot.

“I got carried away, Captain Wald is too forgiving.” She handed me the bottle, I took a little swig.

“I think yer jus' bein' too hard on yerself.” It tasted like they distilled it from sadness and hatred, but the gin Shay brought with her was strong and it went down smooth.

“It can be hard to tell when that is, hard to ensure that 'only for those who deserve it' I believe you understand.” Her paraphrasing of my own words hurt me more than she meant them to, but I put my own issues aside.

“It sure can. Tell me how you got him.” I changed the subject.

“Got him?” Shay looked at me in disbelief.

“In the medbay Waldo tried to tell me how you got him, he was blown away with yer technique. But he forgot I don't know what any of them words mean.” I returned her bottle to her. “Must have been a neat trick ta get past Waldo.”

“Well... He taught me very lovely stance for bringing opponent closer, and another stance that looks similar yet is more versatile. I made him think I had adopted the former, when I had adopted the latter.” She took a long pull from the bottle. “I underestimated leverage during my attempt to disarm him.”

“Nearly dis-armed him for real.” I chuckled a little. Shay let out a single laugh then caught herself, embarrassed.

“I hoped to throw his weapon, not all of him.” She lamented.

“Shit Shay, Waldo weren't jokin'. You are getting the hang o' swordfightin'!” I exclaimed.

“Are you certain of this?” She sounded very doubtful.

“You beat Captain B. Wald in a swordfight, fair and square. By his own folly?” I shook my head. ”That's gotta be another thing makin' you unique.” She smiled but tried to hide it.

When Waldo got out of the Medbay, his left arm in a cast, he found Shay and insisted she come with him back to his little museum. Shay asked me to follow along, so I did. He led us into the room and directly to the section of wall that held the shiny and enormous sword that had caught Shay's attention before.

“Take it.” Wald gestured at the blade.

“You said that was for when I was ready.” Shay quietly replied.

“You've been ready for a while, it's yours.” Waldo beamed at the Moreau for a moment before adding. “We're still going to spar with the blunt ones though.”

She slowly pulled the sword from its perch and cradled it, muttering her thanks.

“You know all the drills I can teach, let's take that thing outside and try a few.” His announcement was punctuated by him pulling his Holva from the peg near the doorway.

The pair of them stood behind The Highwayman and did drills for about an hour before Waldo got tired and went back inside his ship. Shay continued to slowly and fluidly whirl the blade about for the remainder of the day. Quintina came by Vincent to speak with me sometime around evening, I'd been sullenly camping in the cockpit all the while.

“Fly with me.” The Imperial woman announced from the deck just beyond the aft hatch.

“What? Why?” I stammered, she hadn't even been fitted for a flightsuit yet.

“I would feel better about the race, if it was not the first time we flew together.” She gestured for me to follow and began to walk away from me.

She walked me to the opposite side of the docking ring, her Adder was already on the surface. She pointed to the stairwell leading below to the garage. It was only a short walk to the Eagle but it felt longer than that. It only took a few seconds for the power to come online and a few more to come out to the deck for launch. But to me, It all felt achingly slow.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: Follow me.

She lifted off and I did the same. We slipped through the docking corridor slowly as I slaved my nav computer to hers. She targeted a seemingly random system nearby and began to charge her 'Shifter. I spooled mine to follow her. The system was unpopulated and the lack of a nav beacon had my scope devoid of bodies. Quintina started 'Cruising towards a shiny speck in the distance so I followed suit.

A tiny rocky wad rolled into view, barely a planetoid. She started approaching hot, I kept as close to her as I could. We slipped back into realspace above a long and wide fissure ripped across the surface by some impact eons ago.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: Race me to the end of this canyon, there is a crater.

As the message popped up on my comms panel she flared her main thrusters and was already gone. I slammed my own throttle to full and hit the boost switch to try and keep up. I was just following her exhaust trail.

We ducked below ground level and between the rocky walls. The Eagle was topped out and she was gaining ground. I shot my eyes to the comms panel and thought to warn her about the curve ahead I noticed when we still had altitude, when I saw her flare turn sideways. She was full throttle and far out of her vector about a kilometer ahead.

At nearly eight hundred meters per second Quintina executed a high energy burn towards normal, while zipping between canyon walls. With her vector at about ninety degrees starboard, she slid the adder along the sweeping curve of the canyon and barely lost any of her velocity. I was losing ground banking to follow her, I fired the boost again once I was out of the curve just to keep her in sight.

The canyon walls suddenly gave way into the basin of the crater, and the pair of us were in open space again. Quintina went for a wide turn and bled away her velocity before swinging back and pulling alongside me. I was letting the flight assist kill my momentum as I lazily gained some altitude.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: That wasn't a fair race. I'm sorry.

[TO: Adder]: Don't matter none. Here I was worried I'd have to go easy on you.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: Was I okay?

[TO: Adder]: You flying like you were born for it.

Quintina's Adder did a quick backflip.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: I needed an honest critique. Thanks.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: Let's go home

She punctuated her last message by aiming her Adder skywards and going to full throttle. I wondered again where she'd learned to fly like that as we made our way back to Jameson Memorial. It occurred to me that she might just be one of those rare naturally talented pilots. At least she was learning about her talents on her own terms.

The drop from 'Cruise down to Jameson Memorial was a bit of a shock, it wasn't just Vincent following Quintina automatically either. The starport had it's turrets deployed and was sniping into a furball roiling around the outside of the docking corridor. A glut of inexpensive vessels were dogfighting the security forces with furor, occasionally one of them would break off and make a run for the mailslot. So far as I could see, Memorials weapons and her security wings were readily risking friendly fire to stop each one.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: We have to help!

[TO: Adder]: NO!

[TO: Adder]: Fuck that. Don't you dare!

She gave a blast of reverse thrust and added a touch of yaw to bring me into view through her canopy. We were close enough to see each-other sitting in our cockpits, The Imperial girl in her white dress was holding her hands near head level, with her palms up in a gesture of confusion. As her ship continued to slowly yaw around it occurred to me how unusual it was to see a sight like this, how comfortable she was flying that ship in that state. She dropped her arms back to her controls and whipped the Adder around to face the starport and the battle once again.

[TO: Adder]: They won't waste time trying figure out who we're helping. Best to keep our hardpoints stowed and wait for it to calm down before we try and dock.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: I don't like this.

I could almost feel her grip on the Adder's throttle. I knew what she was feeling, it hurt me to see this light die.

[TO: Adder]: We won't be anymore help than the defense batteries, they have this handled.

[TO: Adder]: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: What?

[TO: Adder]: It's a colloquialism, we'd just be in the way.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: I will take your word on this, Commander.

For a few more minutes they churned out there. We were watching from an angle, we approached from an outward radial, relative to Jameson Memorial's orbit. The ships were flickering pinpricks, barely visible against the steadier lights of the distant starfield. Their laser flashes and missile detonations were much easier to see.

The furball started to lose cohesion, two clear groups of three broke away with great velocity. All of them were security ships, their unit cohesion was magnificent. Jameson Memorial suddenly had a clear shot at the still reeling belligerent vessels. Eight enormous beam laser batteries began to cut them apart. They were scattering. I searched for the security wings, expecting to see them turning in to start mopping up the strays. I was distracted by a Gutamaya Clipper shooting through the mailslot at full throttle. A few smaller vessels were more timidly following in the violet and white ships wake. There was a bright green flash as one of the belligerent craft was thrown aside by the Clipper's unforgiving vector, and torn apart by it's shields. With a sudden roll the larger ship fired it's boost and cleared the mass-lock. It was gone in a flash, followed more erratically by the jumble of trailing ships, they all were picking their own jumps as fast as they could.

With the unexpected display over, the security teams again moved in to deflect the attack but the other group of vessels had lost their momentum, and most of their ranks. They turned tail and jumped away. Quintina and I were finally able to request docking and make our way into the docking corridor.

It was chaos, Gottdamn chaos. Half the population of the starport was massed in the docking ring and about all of them were screaming their heads off. There were groups of armed security stationed at every hanger entrance, and riot control vehicles parked at every terminal building. As we dropped down into the hangar I caught a glimpse of laserfire above me and heard a water cannon start blasting into a mob.

[DIRECT] [Adder]: What is going on?

[TO: Adder]: Stay with your ship, I'm coming to you.

Another message popped up on my comms panel. Assuming it was an affirmative, I got out of the chair and sprinted down the egress ramp. I approached the hangar door, it slid open to reveal five panicked security personnel clustered at the bottom of the stairwell. They leveled their guns at me and started to yell various things.

“Woah woah! I just need up them stairs fellas!” I tried to shout back as calmly as possible, I showed them my open palms.

“Get back in your vessel!” I heard one shout over the others. I pulled off my visor and shouted back to him.

“My wingmate's in the next hangar, she's green as hell!” I pointed through the bulkhead in the general direction of Quintina. “I ain't leavin' her alone in this!”

The one who had raised their voice was struck by my words, the others didn't seem to hear me. He lowered his weapon and placed a hand on one of his comrades shoulders. I couldn't hear them over the remaining shouters, but it only took a moment for them to get the message passed along, and let me pass. I could see the backs of another group of security through the doorway at the top of the stairs. One of them glanced backwards at me, muttering an acknowledgment into their helmet comms. He grabbed my bicep and pushed me through the mob in front of him as I approached. They pressed back so he fired his laser rifle into the ground directly in front of us as he continued to push me along. I flinched with each shot, but the rioters parted for us. As soon as we got into the thinner part of the throng he gave me a quick shove and started back tracking. He didn't make it far before a man used a large placard with something scrawled on it taped to a stick to start trying to beat the officer. I stumbled forewards through the mob, pulling my cane from my belt and deploying it. I held it in both my hands out in front of me as I pushed on, to shield myself from the waves of rioters moving against me.

I was about halfway to her docking pad when I looked up. That lunatic Imperial hadn't dropped into the hanger. Quintina was standing on the roof of her ship waving her arms and screaming into the small press of rioters who had pushed their way onto her landing pad with her. The cluster of security guarding the stairwell nearby was too small to split up and try to clear them. She had trapped herself on the surface. I had no idea what she thought she was doing.

Quintina caught sight of me, and waved in my direction, I couldn't hear her call over the cacophony filling the docking ring. The Adder rocked suddenly, Quintina lost her balance. The mob was trying to tip her off of the ship.

“No! You fucking bastards, no!” I screamed for nobody's benefit as I started to run across the remaining distance to the docking pad.

I raised my cane over my head and knocked out the first rioter I came to at the back of the press. Another turned around to face me, I knocked her out too. Using my cane as a weapon I fought my way into the throng. I'm not sure if this was a mistake in the long run, they stopped trying to roll the Adder and Quintina managed to cling to safety by grabbing onto one of the dorsal stabilizers. I miss those teeth though. I accidentally hooked one of their legs with my cane when I rolled into a ball, they fell on top of me. It was becoming difficult to breathe under the weight, but I stopped getting kicked in my ribs.

“Out of our way!” I faintly heard Waldo call out from the area of the garage stairs.

“Get back downst- Ah!” One of the security personnel's barely audible reply was cut off by something I couldn't see.

“Get away from her! Do not make me use this!” Shay's voice boomed across the docking pad.

Some of the weight was lifted as the rioters became distracted. I was able to slide out from under the dazed man lying on top of me, he had protected me from many blows after he fell. The mob surged towards my friends and away from the Adder.

“Commander!” Quintina was beside me trying to help me to my feet.

“Ya shoulda dropped into the hangar.” I mumbled, then spat a crimson glob to the deck.

“I guess you didn't get that last message then, now I know. Come on.” She was climbing back up onto her vessel and trying to pull me along. Once we were up there, I could see over the microcosm riot on the docking pad.

About halfway between Quintina's ship and the team guarding the garage stairwell was the mob, they were making all sorts of ruckus and waving all manner of signage and blunt instrumentality. Halfway between the mob and the security team were B. Wald, Derek, and Shay. Derek was holding a five foot length of pipe, while B. and Shay brandished their swords.

One of the rioters stepped forewards pointing and screaming, I could barely make them out beyond the churning mass of people behind them. Derek jabbed them in the sternum with his weaponized tube, sending them reeling backwards into the mob. After a momentary pause they pressed forewards. Someone tried to attack Waldo with a makeshift bludgeon, Wald sliced it in half easily as it was made of some kind of polymer.

Shay stepped past her allies and held her weapon at waist level in both of her hands, the tip still pointed behind her. She spread her feet slightly and put her shoulder into the mob. A placard tied to a metal rod was brought down across her bicep, it snapped in two.

The Massive Mercenary took a sudden half-step into the riot, forcing the press in on itself. Many of them were taken from their feet, the rest of them stumbling. That was all it took to break the majority of them. They began to fall away from the back of the mob and give up. The few rioters remaining were more determined though.

Someone pulled a knife and tried to slash at her, she slid her blade past the attack flinging the knife into the air with a ringing sound. Shay whirled the sword over her head and brought it down at the man who had tried to cut her. She touched the edge of the blade to his cheek impossibly lightly, leaving a slim red line running along his jaw. He lost his footing and slid to the deck as Shay pulled the blade away and returned to her readied stance. She let go of the haft with one of her hands and shifted her feet to point her other shoulder to the group. Her off hand now hung to her side.

The former knife wielder scrabbled backwards on his hands and feet, furiously scurrying away. One of his comrades missed him with a kick as they moved towards Shay. He reached to his waist and pulled an autopistol. The weapon belched its reservoir of ammunition wildly into the deck between them before clattering down, still gripped in the man's severed hand. Shay still held her sword above her head, it hung where her first strike had ended, still ready for the next. The man gripped his stump and started to scream at Shay, his adrenaline carrying him towards her. Shay lifted a boot and placed it on his sternum, then kicked him away. He slammed into one of the remaining die-hard rioters and took them off their feet. Shay looked about again at each of the eight or nine people still standing between her and Quintina's Adder. As they scattered, Shay lowered her sword.

Terrentius burst from the stairwell wailing his sister's name, Amanda scrambled out after him trying to grab onto his clothes. The Salaryman hesitated, leaning out from the doorway for a second before releasing her grip on the frame and following him across to the Adder, Terrentius sprinted as best he could paying no heed.

“Deus Fututorum! Vos es okay!” He shouted as he leaped up to meet Quintina.

“So are you.” She replied as he embraced her forcefully

“When you stayed on the surface, et assumpsit pessima.” He sobbed. Quintina was taken aback and returned his embrace.

“It's okay Terry, everything's okay.” She said quietly to her weeping brother.

“I eram vix, Tina. I thought...” He broke down, I made the assumption that he had never been so close to such turmoil before. He was shaking uncontrollably in his sister's arms.

“I'm not leaving, Terry. Ego nunquam iterum.” Quintina consoled her brother as she brought him to a sitting position alongside her on the roof of the Adder.

“We need to drop into the hangar!” Amanda shouted from the deck.

“Okay, Gimme a sec.” I called back as I slid my way off the vessel.

Amanda was waiting by the entrance hatch, we stepped inside Quintina's ship. I made my way into the cockpit and found the button to drop the docking pad.

“Heads up.” I fingered another control on the pilot's seat to bridge my flightsuit microphone to the ships loudhailer, so as to warn everyone outside about the impending movement. Then, I lowered the Adder, and everyone around it into the hanger.

Once the docking pad was stowed and immobile I let go of the back of the pilot's chair, and turned to leave the cockpit. My gaze was drawn immediately to the floor next to Amanda's feet, a small pool of blood was growing drip by drip.

“Yer hurt.” I said and pointed at her left hand, she had balled it into a fist and it was shaking.

Amanda upturned her fist and held it in front of her, she seemed to not expect to see it there. She slowly pulled the mannicured nails from her palm where they were embedded. Blood started to pour from her hand.

“Oh dear.” She spoke in a monotone as she pulled her sleeve up to keep the blood off of it. Her eyes suddenly seemed very tired.

I looked around and found a small red box of first-aid supplies attached to the bottom of the back of the chair. I pulled a wad of gauze from the box and moved to wrap her hand with it.

“Lemme see that.” I unraveled a length of bandage and moved to wrap it around her hand.

“No.” She snatched it away from me and began to bandage herself. She didn't sound angry or startled, just exhausted.

“You okay?” I asked Amanda, she had started to walk back through the cockpit.

“Yes, everything's fine.” She lied. She was better at it than that, but she just didn't bother trying.

“Amanda? Everything's goin' ta hell.” I corrected her.

“Not for us. We're still good. Everybody is okay.” She very slightly raised her voice as she whirled around to face me. “Woah! Commander?”

“What?” Her sternness faltered when she looked at me.

“Are you okay? Your face?” She ripped off the remaining unused gauze from her hand and put it in mine.

She reached up and brushed my cheek, suddenly I could feel it. I'd been rocked around more than a little, probably looked worse than it was though.

“Naw, don't worry. This ain't nothin'.” I wiped some of the blood off of my face. Once I was satisfied I'd cleaned up enough, I pulled my visor off my belt and reattached it to my helmet.

“Commander...?” Amanda looked into my visor, I saw some recollection or realization come to her. I saw her weary expression lose some of it's hold. “We're getting through this.” She gripped my shoulder with her uninjured hand and remembered the rest. “We just have to sit through this bullshit, then get out of here as soon as we can.”

I didn't dare ask the Panemian whose words she'd just shared with me. I knew full well the odds on why they had to be second hand. I just thanked her, I think both of us needed to hear them.

The group of us camped beside the Adder for the rest of the subjective night. It's funny how easy it can be to change that, during the riot they canned the station lighting. Give a population enough darkness and it doesn't matter that it was morning an hour ago, been dark all the while so goodnight. I doubt many people were getting much sleep, one way or the other. Reggie was holding down the fort with the other vessels, evidently the station security prioritized protecting larger docking pads. I had spoken with Wald about what had happened while I was away.

“Smugglers.” He had failed to explain in response.

“That weren't smugglers, I ain't got no clue what it were though.” I replied, smugglers gave up when the cops got wise.

“That's what the word on the street is, I dunno.” B. took a puff from his pipe, he had mixed some tobacco with his Onionhead in there.

“Thargoids.” Derek announced, he pointed at Waldo with the pipe as he accepted it from him.

“Oh Gott, gimme a break. You done fried yer brain with that shit.” I laughed at him, and accepted the pipe when he offered it to me.

“I'm serious.” Derek croaked before exhaling. “There's these freaky eggs floating in space. This mad cult of rad-zapped pilots scoops them up and sells them on black markets.” Derek leaned in a little closer. “The egg-things are like a technological illness, they fuck up ships and starports just by being around them.”

“Go on.” Waldo urged as I returned his pipe to him. I found this stuff much less violent to smoke with the tobacco in there, it was also converting Derek's tirade from terrifying to fascinating.

“Well, the machine-disease, right? There's a cure, but it's not easy to find. People are really guarded about this stuff, but they say there's these... Corals that grow on planets.” He was gesturing with his hands in a confusing manner.

“Ya mean, in oceans?” I asked, bemused

“No on airless worlds, in nebulae.” He explained. “These coral things grow this alloy, and people who know where to find them bust them apart and take the alloys.”

“But why?” I muttered.

“Alloy might be the wrong word for it, but this stuff fixes the shit that the eggs do.” Derek answered, I had meant in the first place though.

“So them ships outside were tryin' ta smuggle Thargoid eggs?” I almost laughed trying to say it.

“No, they were trying to smuggle the Meta-Alloy.” Derek said, this was where I drew the line.

“It sounds like a neat story, but I'm not so sure. Thargoids ain't real, Nothin' livin' is gonna do it floatin' free in space, if you found such a thing would you even touch it? Let alone start hualin' it around after it fucks up yer ship? Then yer tryin'a tell me this place done let a bunch o' them onto the streets just to go full fucking madhouse to not let in the metal that patches the holes? None o' that makes any damn sense.” I rattled off all the questions Derek had raised.

“You are correct sir. This is complete nonsense. Wanna see one of the corals?” He produced his P.A.D. from his pocket.

“Sure.” I rolled my eyes as I said it.

Waldo leaned in next to me to get a look at the small screen. Derek played a video clip seemingly recorded by some friend or contact of his. Whoever was capturing the footage was muttering things to the recorder but hadn't been picked up very well, this combined with the distancing effect of the small speaker on Derek's P.A.D. rendered their speech indecipherable.

It didn't matter, I was watching footage filmed while slowly driving an SRV with one hand towards what looked like a simple ocean mollusk, only it was at least thirty meters across and planted on the surface of some moon. There were stalks around it, pointing into the sky at odd angles. The dark green colour of the coral-esque structures was contrasted by the light blue dust of the surface. Whoever was filming brought their turret online and fired the plasma repeaters into one of the strange spikes. After a few blasts it shattered letting out a disconcerting sound not unlike bones being broken. A cluster of metallic fragments spilled out from inside of it, one of them was glowing green. The video ended, leaving a still frame of the harvest frozen in place.

“Where was this taken?” I asked, in awe. It had to be faked, but it was incredibly well done.

“Pleione. I think.” Derek answered as he stowed his P.A.D. I shuddered involuntarily, had to be a coincidence too.

“Oh man! Next chance I get, I am headed to the Pleiades.” Waldo announced and he sent his pipe for another loop.

I politely excused myself, at this point my head was filled with enough strangeness and I wasn't getting any answers about the riot. I found Shay sitting on the bottom of the access stairwell with two of the security officers.

“I'm serious though, I could put a word in with the brass and everything.” One of them was saying.

“I am currently employed. Should this change, I shall consider offer. Thank you.” The Massive Mercenary replied softspokenly, She had her sword leaned against the wall beside her. She was occasionally buffing it with a cloth.

“Having you on staff would be awesome though.” The other security man spoke up. “You probably cost less to feed than it costs to run a riot control wagon.” He joked.

“You underestimate me.” Shay replied, chuckling along. I waved to get her attention. “Commander Revenant. Come, sit!” She slid aside to make space on the step.

“Thanks.” I then turned to the security members standing there. “And hey, thanks to you guys as well.” They nodded slightly dismissively. “Any idea what's goin' on around here? I was only gone a few hours.”

“It's been building for a while, the malfunctions and terrorism just breed panic. It only needs a few hours to come to a head from there.” His colleague offered him a smoke from a plastic package, he took it. Once it was lit he continued. “Malfunctions just happen, people are idiots. The terrorism...” He drew on the tobacco again, steadying himself. “For the love of fuck, I wish I knew.”

“Who are attacking, or who have hired them?” Shay asked astutely.

“Oh, these guys fly their own ships. Consider it a matter of pride, actually.” The local gave me a sudden look of distrust.

“What crazy fuckers have the balls to come all the way here to take on the Pilots Federation?” I asked, incredulous. He sized me up while taking another drag.

“Commanders, it's a group of Commanders.” The other one answered for him.

“Rogues?!” This was either Stercore-Prima, or the galaxy was tearing apart it's seams.

“Last 'big' group of rogue Commanders were maybe twenty, thirty people tops. Right?” The local who had taken up the conversation asked me.

“Yeah, they ran off trying to find a fucking magic portal to the 'Thargoid homeworld', probably the newest convoy ta go Missing. Was maybe... I dunno Thirty-one-hundreds, 'One-fifties?. I don't remember.” The tales of madmen always stuck with me, the more important history lessons were harder to remember.

“At last count, this group had over two hundred dedicated combat veterans in their ranks, still.” He said quietly.

“Oh my.” Shay whispered.

“This little cult are still just upstart kittens compared to the Ess Dee Cee.” The older man said as he stubbed out the end of his smoke.

“The who?” I said, and was met with three flabbergasted stares.

“You are joking?” Shay announced.

“Oh, lords. Sorry, you don't look very green. You usually just loop around Epsilon Indi or something?” The smoker said to me, I squinted my eyes at him from behind my visor.

“Who are they, and who're this cult? What the fuck?” I begged.

“The Smiling Dog Crew are dedicated group of... privateers.” Shay announced. “They are few compared to Delaine's mob, their numbers may be in the small thousands.” She explained.

“You worked for 'em?” I wondered aloud.

“They would not be interested in the type of services I provide. They are less tacit than that.” Shay's specialty was retrieving a target on foot, she had just told me that the Ess Dee Cee would rather just raze the city.

“Th- the cult?” I asked.

“Don't take too much Onionhead.” The smoker announced as he walked over me and up the stairs..

“That's just propaganda, the Artifacts zapped their brains.” His colleague retorted as he followed.

Once they were gone I looked over at Shay. She was very quietly laughing at me.

“You know not the Ess Dee Cee?” Her giggle got a little stronger.

“Oh gimme a break.” My shoulders dropped a little. Shay held up one hand in an apologetic wave, but she was still stifling laughter.

“You have probably been interdicted by them!” With that she let out her last guffaw.

“Then yer all overreactin', cus I didn't notice shit if they did.” I said as I got back up.

I had almost returned to the hangar when I stopped and turned around. I deployed my cane and leaned on it, looking at the Massive Mercenary. A large and powerful group of Commanders throwing their weight around was the sort of playing field where she had mastered the game.

“Is that shit true? There a few thousand Commanders flying out there, together. Against the Pie-Feds?” She looked at me, I saw in her face that she had heard the fear in my voice.

“They do not do so directly, nor en-masse... But...” Shay caught herself, like she was about to step on a flower or something.

“Oh f-fucking-Gottdamn.” I put more weight on my cane. I had been ready to call five or ten idiot mercenaries, hired to make a small point; the apocalypse. Just for happening here.

“I am sorry, Commander. I thought you knew.” She looked over at her sword for a moment. “I lamentably failed to bring alcohol here.” I laughed a little, that was about the most lamentable thing to happen this 'evening'.

“Thanks. Once we can, drinks are on me.” Shay didn't make any reaction, so I assumed I kept the terror from my voice.

I more-or-less staggered through the hangar, tears silently streaming down my face behind the visor. The world was ending, and I'd gotten ahead of the curve moving refugees. Oh for the love of Gott, this was early stage; high supply. The Iovianus' were going to be the the lowest cost pair of escapees. It struck me that this feeling was probably why they called it 'the cutting edge' of history. I sat on a crate and dropped my head into my hands. I'd kill a man for this to just be Gottdamn imaginary monsters.

“Commander, there you are.” Terrentius was approaching, he sat next to me on the crate.

“Uh... Yeah, Wh- what's goin' on.” I stared straight ahead while I spoke.

“Nothing, I just wanted to thank you for trying to help Quintina back there.” He started to apologize for his demeanor at the time, I started to sob. “Wha-? Here.”

He was holding out a small box with a tissue hanging from it. I took one and went to remove my visor, then hesitated and looked around.

“Here.” He waved over and climbed to the opposite side of the crate, I followed him.

Behind the storage there was a little hidden area of unused space. We sat in it while I dried my face. Terrentius' little box would produce another tissue at the press of a button. Each one extruding as a gel before condensing into an absorbent sheet, it was quite neat.

“It's okay, Commander. These have been stressful times for us all.” He told me.

“That thing's damn shiny.” I announced as I pulled another tissue from it and blew my nose.

“Oh you can buy them all over the place, maybe not as much outside of the Empire, actually.” He looked it over as he spoke.

“Empire have lots of men who cry?” I made an off colour joke.

“It would seem we have just as many as the Federation.” He laughed. “It should be over soon. This whole experience has been... Harrowing.” He sighed. “I know it must be as hard, or harder for you.”

“I gotta do what I gotta do. It's the right thing.” These ideas shouldn't be so separate. These words shouldn't feel so hollow.

“If there were more Commanders like Wald and Yourself, the Galaxy would be a better place.” He said.

“There are plenty o' Commanders like us. Most of 'em just already dead. Some of 'em running off to get dead right now.” My thoughts turned to Eidolon, and to this gang of thousands of madmen. How mad does one need to be to outweigh the rest?

“I don't understand.” Terrentius spoke quietly.

“What I'm doin' aint worth the risk, not by far.”  He went a little paler. “Don't worry, I'm sunk cost no matter what. You're safe or I'm dead. But I ain't doin' this 'cus I'm a smart man, you gotta understand that.”

“You think I should leave well enough alone.” He didn't say 'too', he didn't need to.

“That would be the smart thing... Terrentius, I don't know shit from fuck. All the worst decisions I ever made in my life brought me where I's needn' ta go. Anything I ever thought through with any serious effort, just fucked me imperially.” I took a deep breath. “You gotta go do you.”

“Go do me?” That wasn't proper grammar in any language, I shouldn't have expected that to make sense.

“Will it fucking eat you alive from the inside if you let this drop, if you run away from it?” I asked him, a little more intensely than I'd intended.

“Yes.” He didn't hesitate to answer me.

“Push for this until you have nothing left to give, then push more.” I grabbed his shoulder lightly. “Don't do what I did and run away. For the love of Gott, I'm this wrecked over running away from a woman.” I ran my hand down my face. He very quietly gasped.

“Was it Landy?” Not everyone could be as astute as Shay, I could sympathize.

“Oh Gott no! No, I met Her on a haul, She needed my help to move some stuff. No one else was there.” The bittersweet memories returned, I suddenly felt an insane sense of loss for the feel of a broken P.A.D. in my hands.

“Why was no one there to help? Was she stranded?” The Imperial found my story intriguing.

“She was the governess of a starport, a little war broke out and almost killed their economy. All they needed was a Commander with a big hold and a deathwish.” I shrugged.

“Was it some 'instant-love' when you saw her?” He asked slyly.

“No.” I grabbed another tissue from his little box. “No, when we first met She called me fat and stupid. I only took the job to prove that stuck up bitch wrong.”

“Oh, I... Think I understand.” He let out a sullen chuckle. “I was married.”

“What happened to her?” I worried.

“She hired a lawyer.” He took a tissue of his own. “I think my story of love goes in the other direction, yes?” We shared a laugh, it was a dark one.

“I don't regret helping, but I won't lie to you. I wouldn't have taken this job if it was sold to me straight.” I finally said once our laughter subsided.

“That's why I hired Amanda. I cook books, she makes sales.” I enjoyed hearing Terrentius speak with surety.

“Where did you find that woman?” The rarest part of Amanda's story seemed to be that she hadn't been stopped.

“A classified advertisement. It seems your friend B. was introduced to her through his mechanic.” He managed to guess my next question.

“Damn...” Astronomical odds were too likely. “Yer sister's gonna make a fine Commander, I'd bet you will too.” I changed the subject slightly.

“I am lucky she's here. Your plan would not work if it relied on me alone.” He lamented.

“Once you get yerself a flightsuit on it gets less... Intense.” I waved my hand a little.

Terrentius looked at me for a long moment. He was carefully considering what I'd said.

“How much easier does a flightsuit make it?” Then he thought for a tiny moment longer and added. “How?”

“It plugs into the base of your spine to monitor your body. The suit can compress to keep yer blood where it needs to be.” I considered sugar-coating it for him, then didn't. “The chair's got a medical reservoir that connects to the suit, doses you when things get hot. You get used to that quicker than you'd think.” I shrugged. “Most Commanders wouldn't fly without wearing theirs.”

“Would you?” His question came fast, and was well aimed.

“Never.” I left out 'again'. I looked over at him, his eyes had unfocused.

“Quintina is not a normal pilot, is she?” He suddenly realized.

“Yer Atta was a proper father, if he thought to put a flightstick into her hands.” I knew a thing or two about improper fathering, for comparison.

“So it would seem... Commander, may I ask you a personal question?” He changed tone suddenly.

“Of course, I might not answer it though.” I replied slightly wearily.

“How much would you give up, for the dreams of someone you loved?” He asked, looking at the hangar wall beside us.

“So much... I don't even know.” I didn't try to filter my answer, just gave it to him straight. He sighed, his shoulders dropped.

“Dichotomia Damnati.” He muttered. “This is what I was worried about.”

“What's the problem?” His darkened tone confused me.

“Quintina will make ten times the pilot, than I would make a freedom fighter.” Terrentius could be astute about some things.

“I've seen smaller ships carry more dreams than two.” I've seen a stolen Hauler with thirty people on it running from thirty different things, we all made it out.

“Thank you Commander, there will never be enough gratitude for you or Captain Waldo. I hope you are right, it can sometimes be hard to imagine balance in the Milky-Way.” Terrentius smiled at me, then climbed back over the crate leaving me sitting there.

I sat behind the crate until morning. It was gratitude for what I was doing that had me so worried. The surest way to stay alive out here was to keep your head down, keep your profile low. I was gonna smash another racer to death, live on Galnet. Fuck me, he was probably half-famous at least. What was it, two more days? I needed caffeine to read off my P.A.D. and hope to remember it. I slid out from behind the crate, my bones making sounds like the fake alien crap from that holo-show trailer or whatever it was.

It was like a tomb in the docking ring, dark and silent. The kenopsic sensation that I shouldn't be there, struck me hard. My footsteps echoed back and forth as I walked towards the nearest terminal building. It was shut down, deserted. Suddenly a bizarre light was cast across me from behind. I turned around to see an indistinguishable and colossal geometric pool of illumination cast through the mailslot into the docking ring. I was being hit with the light rebounding off from where the sun was shining. Then it folded away and there was only darkness again.

I walked deeper into the starport until I was floating through it. I made it to a hub corridor at the base of the station's spine. There were a few people milling around, and a man with a small cart hawking food. Someone was lazily strumming on a broken sounding string instrument, a security team member was kneeling on a far wall, at rest using their magnetic boots.

“Could I get some coffee?” I asked the man gripping the strapped down food cart.

“If you got credits, ten of them.” He said as he pulled a packet from the box. “You want it hot?”

“Sure.” I was surprised the cart could do that.

“Ten more credits.” I nodded in reply.

He dropped the packet into another compartment on his cart and flipped a switch. A light hum sounded as the device induced some heat. I tapped my P.A.D. on the marked spot on his cart to pay him before he handed me the coffee. It was strong, at least.

I had almost made my way back out of the area when whoever was murdering that instrument stopped messing around. He started singing, a terrible pain in his tune. I was suspended in space, listening to him. I twisted around to see if I could find the musician. He was taking up a clearing to the far side of the area, near the officer crouching on the wall.

His hand was bandaged, being able to get this close to a tune out of those four strings was impeccable. There was another instrument with the bindle of things strapped to the floor next to him, alongside a sign that read 'Anything Helps'. The other instrument had six strings, and they were tied around the snapped neck.

The remaining half of the band, was fighting through their song.

He sang of meeting her by chance, and being hypnotized. Then he wailed that he had run away. He saw her as an angel, as beautiful and rare as an aurora. This time he admitted quietly after his wail, that there was no getting away. At last he sang of finding her, and immediately sang of how he lost her. He wished to be gone alongside her. Again and again he sang that he couldn't get away. He fumbled angrily through the last notes of the song over and over. Funneling his anguish into the music and blasting it at the officer nearby. As I watched, the young man under the helmet did his best to hide his tears as he absentmindedly pawed at his badge, the way you would at a mortal wound.

I went back to the stall and held my P.A.D. against it.

“What you chargin' for a hot meal?” I demanded.

“Sixty credits.” He said without looking up.

“Charge me one hundred and sixty, I want two eats and two coffees. Hot.” I fiddled with the P.A.D. to set up the payment. “Make sure that singer gets fed for me okay? The cop too.” He nodded to me as I tapped the payment through.

I never savored a shitty pouch of black coffee that much before. When I was back at the docking ring I found Waldo talking with Shay just behind Vincent. B. saw me and looked relieved.

“There you are! Where did you get to?” He shouted across the pad to me. Waldo's jovial voice momentarily filling the stupidly huge catacomb.

“Caffeine.” I answered, holding up the last dregs contained in the pouch.

“Ha!” Shay celebrated, pointing at me then Wald in turn. “I knew it.”

“Alright, you got me. Shows what I get for trying out worrying.” Waldo held his hand up a little and shrugged. Then stuck out his tongue and blew.

“Y'all were worried?” I finished the packet. “About what?”

“Race is tomorrow. We must leave, fortunately lockdown is not so severe as to disallow that anymore.” Shay answered slightly sternly. I had forgotten to check.

“Shit! My bad, let's get.” I hurried over to the aft hatch. Shay didn't make way for me.

“You are flying Eagle. We needed to discuss with you last night, you vanished.” She said pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Yeah, so who gets to fly this thing?” Waldo asked expectantly. I absolutely hadn't thought about this issue, not once.

“Yer flyin'...?” Waldo shook his head impatiently and pointed at me. Right, he was my navigator. “You know how ta-” Shay cut off my question.

“No, no oh-goodness, no.” She said squinting at me and shaking her head..

“Derek knows his way around a flightstick... You know in theory we're paying him to fly... Whatever, Reggie could fly if he needed to, and Amanda says she's passed a competence test for insurance purposes.” Waldo explained and looked at me.

“Umm... Derek I guess. Shit.” A large percentage of the reason I picked him, was that Waldo named him first.

“Good, now you two get to Eagle. The Iovianus' launched half of hour ago.” Shay motioned us away.

“Yer travelin' with me, who's flyin' The Highwayman?” I asked about halfway around the docking ring.

“Reggie.” Waldo answered with a theatrical wipe of his brow, and a wink. I rolled my eyes a little, and laughed too.

We had never flown together before. I suppose that isn't so strange of old Commander friends. I don't think Waldo had ever just Navigated before, but he seemed to know his way around it. Most Commanders just did that job too, and flew solo.

We were strapped back to back in the tiny cockpit, a little folding console in front of Waldo's jumpseat. I launched and caught sight of The Highwayman, and Vincent passing through the mailslot together, I tucked me and Wald in behind ourselves.

“This is weird.” Wald announced.

“Yeah.” I agreed before he'd elaborated.

“Not every day you sneak in behind your own vessel like this, I wonder if they have us on scope too.” He mused, I could see the targeting systems flipping through contacts as he familiarized himself with them.

“I'm not sure if yer sensors are all that fine, but Vincent probably couldn't scope us right now.” We were running cool, not pushing anything, low throttle. Vincent was built like a titanium outhouse, but his sensors were light and consumed little power.

“Yeah, I never took a good look through the systems here. Not bad, not bad at all... For stock.” He mused as the computer showed off the vessel's merits. “So, you flew this thing as a strike fighter.”

“How did you know that?” I asked, blown away. During my distraction the other two ships in our wing both jumped.

“Spool up, we're late remember.” Waldo reminded me before answering my question. “I saw it, for one. For two, you still have a few hundred songs saved on here.” He played one to prove his point, the sound of angry youth filled the Eagle. “Oh yeah, this was a strike fighter.”

“Only fer a little while, then I moved on to something safer.” I muttered as I turned down the music.

“With no shields? Those accelerators looked like McQuinn Blasters to me.” Waldo was suddenly serious.

“Yeah, so what Waldo?” I replied as I fired up the 'Shifter.

“I'm just glad it didn't work for you either. That's all.” He told me. The Eagle started counting down over him.

“What didn't?” I muttered.

“Trying to kill yourself.” His answer was punctuated by the pull into Witchspace.

Nothing spun in front of us, wailing at us. Globs of light whirling in and out of our view, it was like a spinning starfield passing by. Only those weren't stars. In Witchspace you can see lights, some look distant, some look close. Sometimes they whip past you, sometimes they seem to be traveling alongside you. You can see some stars mind you. In the ether underneath reality you can sometimes catch the refracted light from a star, or a nebula. You can almost always get a glimpse of the one you're dropping into just before you do. But ninety percent of the lights in Witchspace were a mystery to us all, as was their inconsistent behavior. In four and a half seconds we dropped into supercruise near a white dwarf.

“We want the fourth body, it's the first moon.” Wald navigated from behind be as we cut through the solar winds.

“Okay. Gimme a sec.” I said as the vessel bucked and fought.

I pulled out from the star indirectly, but inline with her significant rotation. The gravity well slung the Eagle outwards sweeping around the inner system fast enough to flash warning lights. I scanned through the canopy until I spotted it.

“Ring?” looks like... Six moons?” Wald hesitated with his answer then confirmed. I aimed us at at and broke away from the gravitational current.

“Why didn't you just scan?” He asked, slightly impressed and slightly concerned.

“Scanners are like what, two whole tonnes?” I shrugged. “'Sides, how hard was that?”

“About that, what was it?” He asked me, incredulous.

“What do ya mean? I just eyeballed it, once we're clippin' along like that; anything orbiting the star swings past anything behind 'em. You can see it.” I explained casually.

“That's amazing. Do you have any idea how amazing what you just did was?” He sounded honest about it.

“Yer pullin' my leg.” I dismissed.

“So just for the record: Escaped a shithole, found his way alone to the Pie-Feds, flied a kill or be killed ship to buy a cargo barge.” Wald took a breath. “Uses his cargo barge for humanitarian aid, survived getting shot with a bombardment accelerator, picks up a new ship and goes right back to it. And, just so happens, can discover worlds by eye, just casually. You know, no big deal... You don't even go out and do any cartography!” Waldo was cracking himself up. “Remind me again why you're so mopey all the damn time?”

“Oh, just the bits in between the stuff on yer list, that's all.” I couldn't help but laugh a little too.

“Ah... Dude, we all got bits stuck in between the good stuff. You gotta take the good with the bad.” He told me, as reassuringly as my Old Friend could.

“What do ya do when there's more bits stuck in between than there is good stuff left?” We had a few minutes of dead-stick until we were there.

“Anything you regret in there you might be able to fix?” He paused for a minute. “If you had the chance to go back there now and put in the work?”

“Gottdamn, so many things.” They were outweighed by the things that there was no going back on, and felt outweighed by the thing to come.

“Anything in there that's worth the work?” My Old Friend asked me a beautiful question.

“One thing.” I muttered, thinking of Her. The memories felt warm for once. “If I could.”

“We're a little busy right now, but as soon as we get the chance; let me know what it is so I can help.” Waldo reached around the chairs to try and grab my hand or shoulder maybe, it was simply impossible.

So he waved to get my attention, then stuck out his thumb. I looked at his hand and took a deep breath.

“It's something I'd have to go do alone. I wouldn't leave for-” I was cut off

“I would live in a fucking dome in the dirt to wait for you.” He had no idea what it was, but my Old Friend sounded ready to fight for me over it.

“Do you remember Bernoulli Gateway?” I whispered.

“Of course I do.” He sounded like he already understood.

“Once we done here, and once we sure the Iovianus' are safe. I gotta go back there. Even if all I do is let Her scream at me. I owe Her that, at least.” I'd said much the same to myself so many times I'd lost count, always lies. But, I couldn't lie to my Old Friend, he wouldn't let me.

“You better. Now watch that planet, I'm not doing much navigating with a dead scope.” He chuckled.

“It'll do it's job for the surface just fine.” I said, looked like we still had thirty seconds before I had to touch the throttle.

The moon had the appearance of a blue bloodshot eyeball with multi-coloured veins, There was a beacon set up at the start point and another broadcasting from the finish line. I brought us in for a landing. There were a cluster of pre-fab buildings set up and enough ships to start a small war parked all around. I spotted Vincent and The Highwayman and aimed us over there, I didn't see Quintina's Adder though.

“Here's the Iovianus', pull up next to them” Wald said and he highlighted them with the targeting system.

“Oh, okay.” I muttered as I changed course. “Parking for the race-ships?”

“No, the starting line. We have less than an hour.” He admonished me.

“What, but you said...” I looked at the clock on my H.U.D. It read twenty-three-twenty-two. “...Tomorrow...” Waldo laughed at me as I pulled us up alongside the Adder.

The Eagle chirped as Wald and Terrentius made the vessels share an electronic handshake. I set the ship down beside theirs. We were amongst a grid of other competitors, maybe thirty of them. More were still arriving. I brought up the contacts panel and started scrolling up and down through it. I found him and assigned him as the target of the sensors. He was flying a Gutamaya Courier, it was lathered with sponsorship decals. What of it's paint you could still see, was red.

“Who's that?” Wald had become curious, he had a duplicate screen.

“I dunno, just looking over the competition, I guess.” He made a derisive sound.

Before long a voice was projected into each cockpit commanding us all to power up our thrusters. In a short few moments the whole grid was skyborne and arranging into rows. Looking at the scope I decided there had to be about fifty or sixty ships waiting.

[TO: Adder]: Start low, you want room to accelerate.

Their vessel lost a little altitude to let the quicker ships pass overhead once the green light dropped. Waldo had given them good advice, that Outland would outrun everything else here, if it had the room. I got a bit more height under us, we were in one of the quicker ships. With my new vantage point I saw the red Courier, he was rolling his wings over slowly while he waited. Then he snapped level with the horizon. I looked forewards, the yellow number being projected across the space in front of the pack had gotten lower.

The countdown hit a green zero and the race began. Immediately a small number of vessels broke out, shooting through or away from the pack with absurd acceleration. You get used to the drugs being shot into your spine, the suit crushing selected blood vessels to keep you conscious. I hadn't forgotten how to get that Eagle to launch like that, but I'd forgotten how it felt. I'm not sure who started it, but before the boost emptied the capacitor, Waldo and I were both hollering.

Like the majority of the vessels present, the Adder's blue mark on the scope was falling away fast, until it wasn't. It was almost imperceptible but she was starting to catch our acceleration curve already. I felt bad for Terrentius. The canyon walls grew and the crevice slipped down in front of us, the pack started to flow into it. We and the red Courrier were amongst the earliest of the drops to fall before the stream.

I rolled us into the fissure so we could drop sooner, I traded altitude for speed with the jagged ice walls slipping over and under Wald and I with about fifty meters of spare room. Once we were adequately accelerated I yawed above the horizon and fired the boost again. It didn't take long for the bottom of the crevice to widen enough for us the level out.

The rest of the early leaders were squabbling overhead, and losing bits of their lead all the while. Down here we only had the geography to worry about.

“Left, two klicks.” Wald announced. Before I could question his choice of language I saw the mountainous shard up ahead, barely silhouetted against the mist at the bottom of the canyon.

I rolled and pulled up to slip beside it, then had to mirror the maneuver to dodge it's sibling. I grabbed some altitude with a spin and another boost. We still had some velocity on the top of the pack, and were still low enough to avoid their attention. Waldo let out a held breath and a laugh.

There was a flash from above, the lead place was taken by force. Their shields still shimmering, the former leader spun away behind us. They recovered control, but not the race. As the pack above shuffled, I fired the boost again and passed them all.

“Sweep to the right, five klicks.” I changed course, opting to trust Wald implicitly this time.

Along the starboard side of the canyon the floor was less broken, smoother. The course we were taking through it followed the fissure along its curve in that direction. Our lead intensified. The next stretch of the race was simply a matter of maintaining as high an average speed at possible. Holding our vector as efficiently as I could. Also putting up with the spikes in temperature inside the Eagle with the repeated dumping of the distribution capacitors through the thruster boost.

I could see on scope the rest of the main pack behind us wavering closer, I was about to ask Waldo how far back the rest were when I saw the blue mark reappear on the scope, like a cat outta hell.

Quintina's Adder broke through the pack behind and made it halfway up to us, before the curvature of the canyon changed direction. She handled the curve well but fell back into the group trailing us. I didn't fire the boost once we hit the next straight, I gained altitude.

I cut in front of the leader as close as I could, he pulled into our thruster wake and was kicked downwards by about a hundred meters. From up here, and at that angle I could see the running lights of the distant pack, maybe ten or fifteen kilometers behind. The advantaged group had only a slight lead.

The red Courier slipped under us and took first place. I hit the boost and flew through their exhaust to get beside them. Quintina lined up for third and the rest of the pack had started to smear out and reach towards the slower multitude. Before long it was hard to tell who was first anymore, and the only thing keeping that title from Quintina was the undulation of the canyon.

“A little crack on the left, klick and a half.” Waldo announced. I shot my eyes to port and saw it, 'little' was a magnificent overstatement.

The exhaust from the Eagle cut into the ice of the canyon wall, I had to roll and bank hard to turn in time. I'm surprised I didn't clip the tail. I had to pitch along the path of the crack, there was no room to fly level. I knew we'd lost the others but I checked the scope anyway, I was shocked. The red Courier was following us.

“That mad fuckin' bastard.” I muttered.

He was gaining on us, I have no clue how. Quintina had kept to the prescribed track and was already off our scope leading the rest of the race. The red Courier slipped under us, nearly scraping wingtips. I could see re-frozen methane spray clinging to the leading edges of his ship, he had been incredibly close as we cut into the crack. Waldo called out how far away the end of the crevice was, and which direction to turn in to get back on the course.

The perfect opportunity. I waited until the last moment and fired the boost as we broke out of the crevice into the canyon. The courier had banked to control his speed, we were crossing his vector aggressively. He fired his own boost just before we collided, jetting the Eagle with his exhaust. Impacting the hot gasses helped cut out velocity and keep us off the far wall, It also put a crack down the canopy.

“Careful, careful.” Waldo muttered reflexively to the fissure. I was hammering the thruster boost switch impatiently.

We finally shot foreward and pulled alongside the red Courier. We were trading first place as fast as our capacitors could trade power for velocity.

“We can't shake him!” Waldo shouted, looking to his side out of the canopy.

“Stop looking!” I commanded him.

I rolled the Eagle over and crossed paths with the red Courier as he fired his boost for the last time. The starboard wing of the Eagle slammed down onto the Starboard wing of the Courier before we swung around level again. The old Core-Dynamics vessel immediately gained a hard pull and and intense shuddering, the wing was entirely out of true. We lost power to the dorsal-aft maneuvering thruster and had a hard time getting it to hold level. The power coupling went into safe mode and locked out.

The Gutamaya Shipyards race-ship shed her starboard wing in a shower of expensive, low-mass composites. For a few seconds they held vector, the broken section tumbling off into the ice below and to port. Then they started to roll, at first only slowly. The remaining wing's thrusters were fighting to hold it level, but the vessel's computer had lost sight of things. The haywire flight assist dragged him into a death spiral. Halfway to the ground I saw his vectoring thrusters shut down suddenly, then start to fight properly. He had switched off the assist and was trying to save it. My mark was done. His efforts were already too little and too late. He fought the losing battle, all the way to the ground. A man less sure, less determined: would have ejected, would have lived. You could almost tell yourself, that he was to blame for his own death.

Well, you might. Lots of people probably would, but people do a lot of things. Gott help us if all it takes is people doing something, to make it the right thing to do.

“Woo! Hold it, we're still in the lead!” Waldo yelled. I tightened my grip on the controls and tried to keep up our velocity, I was failing to do so.

The leading edge of the pack was catching up fast, I couldn't see Quintina on the scope. I was having trouble seeing anything, on what was left of the displays though. I can't believe the canopy held, but the emitters for the H.U.D. lost alignment. I tried to ignore the distant sound of the Courier ending its tumble being brought into the cockpit by the ship's sensors.

“Holy-hell! Up! Altitude!” Wald suddenly started shouting. “Don't slow down!”

He described what he was seeing behind us to me later. The courier had gone down into a deposit of those chemicals Quintina was on about. The methane vapour at the bottom of the crevice was suddenly fed a large quantity of oxygen and heat. The reaction was only small on the planetary scale.

Most of the racers were forefitting their positions to climb above the blast. Like us, some were ahead of the epicenter and had made to outrun it. A small few were caught in the grey area between. The explosion triggered a few others, the canyon began to fill with fire. A concussive wave of vapour hit the craft approaching us, a few were knocked off course, all of them were dragged forewards. I gained some more altitude to dodge the wave of methane. I couldn't care less about first place anymore, I still couldn't see the Adder on the scope.

Something shot through the fireball. It was piercing the tops of the waves of methane. It was an Adder and it was firing off blasts of shock heated vapour as it raced below the new pack of leaders. I was losing speed to the point where my new position was indeterminate, but I brought the nose back down and went to full throttle to get a look at the newcomer.

I pulled behind and above the pack as the Adder rocketed through it into the lead. I saw the gold stripe running along the white and green Outland. I should have known it by how she flew the thing, but I had to be sure. She wasn't showing blue on scope anymore. The rest of the course was a fairly wide straight shot. There might have been some interesting dueling nearer to the bottom of the crevice, but nobody was interested in that anymore.

She finished with almost four seconds on second place. Waldo and I were seventh or eighth I think, It didn't matter. Shay stood on the podium with the Iovianus' on her shoulders. The racer in second place did his best to applaud louder than the assembled crowd. The one in third was wearing an all too familiar red flightsuit and shooting me odd glances while they clapped half-heartedly.

Wald, me, and the rest of our gang were assembled in a special cordon on the sidelines of the ceremony. The main crowd was assembled only a few meters away, our place was amongst the other pilots and their crews, on the far side of the stage. I was able to grit my teeth and ignore the pressure of the mass of people, and them watching me, only long enough to see Shay kneel so the official could reach up and put the symbolically oversized credit-slip and tiara into each of the Iovianus siblings' hands. As the Massive Mercenary stood back up, Quintina placed the jewelry onto Shay's head and held the prize aloft alongside her brother. The freed Slave was ecstatic, hollering and cheering. So too was her sibling, even though he had a wad of tissue shoved up each nostril and red marks under his eyes where he had tried to wipe. Shay was too busy being happy for her friends to worry about how silly the miniscule crown looked hanging off of her ear.

I squeezed my way through the crowd and hopped off the back of the stage. I wandered away from the noise for a while, but it didn't feel like it was getting any quieter. We were all inside a large prefab warehouse repurposed for the ceremony, sound carried well.

I heard footsteps, I stopped to make sure they weren't my own echoing. They sounded like they were getting closer. I turned around to see a woman in a white flightsuit with auburn hair. By the look of things it had been an echo, she was walking away down a different alley. Hearing me, she turned to look.

“Lucile?” The self-proclaimed pirate lord's gunner who had taken my Type-Seven from me looked up in disbelief.

“How...” She closed her mouth and looked away for a moment, before returning her gaze. “You have me mistaken for someone else. That is not my name.” She rattled off the lie and jogged away.

Was it a lie? I had been very worked up, and drugged, when I spoke with her before. But I was pretty sure I would remember her face. I pondered what was happening as I half-heartedly tried to follow her, but she sprinted away once she was out of sight. Before I could wander in search of her much more, someone held out a P.A.D. to stop me and stepped out from an alcove in the side of some small storage unit.

“Hello there, Commander. Care to give a post race interview?” They asked me in a slimy tone.

“Who're you?” I shot back at them.

“Pete Kenji, Freelance Reporter.” He gave an attempt at a bow.

“Galnet?” I asked hesitantly.

“Only when I'm lucky. I eat for hocking old stuff to local publications that haven't heard it yet. But I write every word I sell, or get them from interviews.” He held up the device in his hands, it was already recording.

“Okay, I suppose I can answer a few things.” I muttered.

“Please speak up, it helps with transcription. Is this your first race?” He said casually.

“First one in a great many years.” I replied, leaning towards the P.A.D.

“Is your co-pilot who I think he is?” The reporter asked coolly.

“... Yes.” I exhaled deeply as I answered.

“That's interesting, did he pay to do it?” The next question came conversationally.

“No, wait what? What are you talkin' about?” He'd caught me off guard.

“The hit. A newcomer to the league takes out the fan-favourite on the most contested race of the decade? I don't think so.” He smiled at me. “How much were you paid?”

“Ya... ya got it wrong.” I fought for words, stammered instead.

“Then tell me what this is.” He urged, his piercing tone gone for a moment.

“That pair who won...” I pushed to speak.

“Oh she was lucky, I'd love to get her story.” He mused.

“I brought her in on my voucher, she's my teammate.” His eyes softened, speaking was getting easier.

“Please go on, Commander.” He urged again.

“She's... She needin' a fresh start, this win's gonna be that fer her, her family too.” He beckoned me with a slight gesture. “I made a mistake trying to make that happen.” I looked away from him as I said it.

“You'll need to say that again, into the microphone, Commander.” Pete told me.

“I was tryin' ta help out a friend o' mine with this. She's getting her help, and I gotta live with where I went too far ta do it.” I looked up at the reporter when I finished, he nodded at me.

“Would you say this will be your last race?” He asked.

“For me yeah, I'm out. I got other things I gotta go fuck up.” He clearly would have rather I not swear, I made an apologetic face.

“What is it you normally do out in the black, Commander?” His question came about as hesitantly as a reporter could.

“I do what I think is right, I ain't good at tellin' all the time but I gotta try.” I took a deep breath. “That's all we can do, that or lose our minds.” Pete Kenji stopped his recording.

“Thank you, Commander. That wasn't what I was expecting.” He glanced at his P.A.D. as he made sure the file saved. “This might be a lucky one.”

“For you maybe.” I returned with more venom than I'd meant to.

“Nothing looks better on a hero's tombstone than the lament of his enemy.” He replied without missing a beat.

“I didn't even know him.” I choked on the words a little.

“That doesn't matter, people need heroes. You were just in the right place at the... The wrong place, at the wrong time, but hopefully some good can come of this.” He pocketed his P.A.D. “Maybe get some safety regulations in place. I wrote a piece about the selection of this world, but they didn't listen.”

“You think he might have lived without the deposits of uh, whatever?” I wondered, almost to myself.

“Oh of course not, but that's what I'm going to say in the article now. Five pilots died in the blast, but nobody will care unless this guy is number six.” He turned to walk away then added over his shoulder. “If I'm lucky.”

Then he waved and left me standing there, I was fighting the urge to throw up. Six more ghosts, I was building quite the collection. I needed to find a drink.

They were serving at a bar set up in an area defined more by the tables laid out around it than by being a bar. I wandered up to order something and saw Shay across the place. My friends were already here, that was silly there was only here to be, once the ceremony was over. They didn't set up two imaginary bars on this barren snowball. I purchased a bottle of some cheap sweetened stuff with a high proof and made my way to my friend's table.

“Hey, there you are.” Terrentius saw me first, he stood up to give me a hug.

“Holy shit, you a bit beat up.” Getting a good look at him, I was shocked he could see at all right now.

“Nihil suus. From the Gee forces.” He wiped his face and checked his hand. He saw nothing wet and went for another hug, he whispered in my ear. “I've never seen Tina so happy before. Vos deorum.”

“Y-you're welcome.” I wiped a tear over his shoulder. “I brought booze, we aughta drink it.”

“Though totally unoriginal, your idea is magnificent, Commander.” Terrentius told me, then he looked at the bottle in my hand.

He turned me towards the table and pulled my arm up with the bottle, like a trophy. My friends cheered. I was pushed into a seat between Derek and Quintina, Terry wandered around the table to a free seat next to Wald and Reggie. Amanda sat next to Quintina, and Shay between her and Wald. The small table was slightly overwhelmed.

I opened the bottle and grabbed a clean looking glass from in front of me. I was surprised to see the drink was bright blue. It tasted like any other cheap sugary distillate though. I passed the bottle around the table. It landed next to me and Quintina also poured herself a small glass.

“You start drinkin'?” I asked her as I held my glass to my lips. She touched my wrist to stop me from taking a slug, and made a face at me.

“No, it's a toast. Where were you raised?” She laughed and held up her glass. “Ad Victoriam.”

“To victory!” We all agreed and drained our glasses.

“That's a toast right there. Mind if I do a stumpy little one, to follow up?” B. asked Quintina half-jokingly.

“Toast away.” She agreed and poured a slightly larger glass, then handed off the bottle for another round.

“Everyone got some?” Waldo checked before standing to hold his glass over the centre of the small table. “To friendship.” He knocked back his drink and sat back down.

We all stayed sitting, and our timing on calling out was much more scattered that time. But it was no stumpy toast.

“Ack!” Quintina shuddered after pouring the second glass of liquor down her throat. “Okay that is enough tradition.” She grabbed a bottle of water and chugged some.

“Y'all killed it out there.” I told her.

“Terrentius is the one who 'killed it'.” She corrected, I gave them a questioning look. “The blast rattled the power generator. It took Captain Wald giving it a tap with his wrench after the race to make it go to full power again.”

“Well what'd ya do then?” I asked her brother. He just looked away and sipped his drink.

“He went through the systems and got the thrusters back online before we ate ice, is what he did.” She announced, smiling broadly at her brother.

“You two are gonna ace the exams, you know. There's a history section, but they basically let you cheat.” Waldo beamed.

“I did good at history in school, so did she. We went to the same school.” Terrentius chuckled into his drink.

A long thin straight sword was drawn around my neck from behind, It nearly caught Quintina sitting beside me. I think it nicked me, I'm not sure. She slid onto Amanda's lap when she saw the flash of steel.

“Don't do anything stupid Wald!” Archimedes Kane shouted past my head as he wrapped his off hand around my arm and pulled me to my feet. He kicked the chair out from under me.

“Archie!? I always admired your subtlety, shit.” Waldo wasn't too surprised for sarcasm.

My friends started to get to their feet, Kane swung me and his sword wildly in response. I saw and felt the tip clip the tabletop and miss the Imperial girl by centimeters again.

“Errybody calm down! Please Kane, what d'you want?” I begged, for a fleeting moment the edge against my throat pulled away.

Then the blade pulled closer again, putting a thin cut near my adam's apple. I was sure that time. The group remained seated.

“Wald comes with me, or I spray this fat fuck's blood across your table.” He let that stand for a moment before adding. “You know what? You're coming with me too space-trucker, I just remembered I owe you the cold side of an airlock.” He spoke through his teeth into my ear.

“You have made your last mistake Kane!” Shay barked the words at the pirate.

Kane reflexively turned to face her with me in his arms. He swept the girls between himself and Shay with the blade again. Quintina had to duck onto the table this time. Amanda was slower, a large misshapen lock of her hair slid onto the table next to where she had laid her head. They were both trembling.

“No! No please, that's enough!” I wrapped my fingers around his sword. My gloves held until he tried to tug on it. “Kane just- Argh.”

Kane tugged the sword again, but I held it. I turned from the pirate's startled face to Derek's

“Did the papers come through?” I asked Derek through gritted teeth.

“The..? Oh yeah! Just before the end of the race, the message got to your ship.” Derek answered quickly, his eyes darting around.

“Waldo?” I gave my friend a pleading look, and shot my eyes around the table afterwards.

I saw the realization in his expression and let go of Kane's sword. I clenched my fists to slow the bleeding. The cuts in the flightsuit would seal themselves quickly with the two-part polymerizing gel captured between the layers, but I would never regain all of the feeling in my fingers.

“Put it away Kane.” Captain Wald announced as he slowly stood up. “We'll come quietly.”

Shay made a deep grumbling sound as the pirate pulled me away from the table, Reggie muttered a curse as Waldo followed us. Before three of them grabbed my friend, I hadn't even seen the fifteen or so other Kumo-Crew behind Archimedes brandishing their own weapons.

The pirates dragged Me and Wald through the prefab structure quickly and efficiently. Our hands had been bound with large cable ties and we had been searched before we were even out of the bar. They moved a splinter group through the airlock as my own visor was sealed over my face, I didn't see how they got Wald enclosed. I assume they treated him no different. They slipped us through with Kane and left three heavily armed pirates behind us to watch for our allies.

An older Cobra, a Hauler, and a Core-Dynamics Dropship were parked in formation between the structures surrounding the finish line. All three were emblazoned in bright red and and reflective black paint, slashed markings and a skull. Another troupe of Kumo-Crew were in defensive positions around the landing site. Kane was pointing with his sword and barking orders.

“Captain, they have valuable supplies; Luxury goods, Alcohol. In several of the storehouses.” A thin looking man flanked by a young looking tough announced. He held up a likely captured P.A.D. and his environment suit didn't fit very well.

“Where are- no. How long will it take?” Kane asked impatiently.

“Twenty minutes, there could be over a million credits in liquor alone.” The man's monotone was broadcast from his domed helmet.

“Leave it.” He looked away from the advisor. “We are off world in two minutes!” Kane shouted even though his helmet's comms system would have broadcast to his whole crew anyway.

“Aye Captain!” The Kumo-Crew returned in a drilled manner. Kane was already stomping his way towards the Hauler.

Wald and I were thrown through the opened airlock into the tiny Zorgon-Peterson, Kane politely thanked his allies and stepped aboard behind us. Only one of the pirates that had followed came aboard, he was carrying a plasma carbine. The ship was already powered up, the airlock slammed shut and we were aloft before there was pressure in the cabin. The vessel had been some people-mover shuttle at some time, but had been stripped bare and refitted for use as a troop transport. Wald and I had to cling to the structure under the seats. Kane pointed with his sword from where he sat. The tip of his estoc was aimed past the pilot and on towards a point outside the canopy.

“Jump to that star. As soon as we drop, jump again.” He said with unnecessary gravitas.

The pilot put us into Witchspace from the bottom of that moon's gravity well. We slipped back into reality at the star that had been directly overhead before. We slung around it and shot back into Witchspace. The Haulers computer was less than happy but the craft handled the abuse well. Then the next jump just like it, spiked the heat past compensatable levels. With the H.U.D. still flickering, and the cabin uncomfortably hot, the pilot swept away from the next star and continued in Supercruise until the ship was back at a reasonable level of heat.

Then he went for an encore. Wald managed to get himself into one of the seats and strapped in by moving between Gee shocks, but I was still clinging to the floor. Hard running jumps like that are much easier to deal with from the pilot's seat. We pulled out of 'Cruise at an Outpost I had no hope of recognizing with so little context.

They docked the other ships first, then the Hauler followed. They blew the airlock and three pirates each dragged Wald, then me from the vessel. Kane and his crewmate followed casually as we were forced  off from the deck and translated over to the docking pad containing the Cobra. The process of being tossed through an airlock was repeated and before long we were sitting across from Kane and his crony again, only inside a nicer cabin inside a better ship. At least, I had a chance to get myself into a seat properly this time.

This part of the trip was much less against manufacturer recommendations, though the Cobra Mark Three is just a more robust vessel to begin with. We were seemingly making our way somewhere distant, I couldn't tell anything other than the number of jumps we were making, it is possible our route was just complicated. Dropping off the Hauler was a smart move, if they really knew what they were doing they would keep that thing moving as bait. We probably hadn't even been going to wherever Kane was bringing us until we changed over either.

“I don't think I've ever seen you so quiet.” Kane suddenly broke the silence, Waldo shot him a sideways glance but didn't answer. “Oh wow, I finally rendered Captain Wald speechless. This is an honour.”

“He's mad at you.” I informed the pirate.

“I don't remember asking you.” He looked me over. “This would all have been better without your interference.”

“I suppose that's gotta be a matter of perspective.” Once we had atmosphere I'd re-opened my helmet and checked my neck, the bleeding had mostly stopped on it's own. He kept that blade sharp. “I don't matter, Waldo here's pissed.”

“Of course you are.” He said to my friend before turning back to me. “That's never shut his mouth before, I didn't think you could shut a mouth that big.”

“What's yer deal with my pal anyway, asshole.” I was getting tired of the 'dread captain' already.

“We're enemies!?” He gave me an incredulous look. “You two must not be very good friends.”

“Maybe Wald's just disappointed then.” I muttered.

“I could care less what you two think of me! My rivalry with Captain Wald goes further back than you know, and it ends tonight!” He declared, his anger flaring.

“Couldn't.” Wald corrected him.

“What was that?” Archimedes changed tone and looked at my friend, who simply smirked and shook his head. The pirate looked on for a moment before turning back to me. “You seem to be some kind of expert then. What the fuck is wrong with this jerk.” He pointed his thumb at Waldo.

“Expert? Jerk? Kane you busted up a fuckin' party over some fuckin' vendetta y'all can't even articulate.” I laughed in his face. “Fuck you, ya fuckin' pirate-scum.” I laughed until Kane put his pistol square with my eye.

“Call me 'Pirate' Commander, but the only scum on this ship will be what's left of your head should I decide to pull this trigger.” I had a feeling that plasma pistols showed ready with a red light not a yellow one, but I was no expert and his point was made regardless.

“Hey, l-let's not be hasty.” I held my bound hands up a little, with my palms open.

“No... No you are right, no need to be hasty.” Kane agreed slowly as he holstered the weapon and leaned back against his seat.

“So why don't you think you're scum then Kane?” Waldo asked casually without looking at the pirate. He was met with stares for a moment.

“I've put in more work for what I have than the two of you combined.” He said finally. “So has any member of my crew. You Pie-Feds think you have it so tough! 'Wahh! My insurance is so expensive.' Six Million Credits!” He shouted at me to finalize his tirade.

“What?” I had no idea what he meant.

“Six million credits, just for the Vulture. Plus another five point seven across the rest of my ships you shot down. You fucking Pie-Fed-Scum!” He crossed his arms and took a breath. Wald gave a small pensive nod.

“How about we just head back to Jaques, and I just buy you that drink you said I owe you?” Waldo offered. “Try this whole thing over again; from the beginning. What do you say Archie?” There was a resignation in my Old Friend's voice, like he knew his offer was in vain.

“It's... Far, far too late for that Wald.” The pirate said quietly after a long pause. “This goes beyond you and I now, this goes up the chain. I'm all in on this now.”

“Should we just stop by the old cyborg's place first then, for old time's sake?” Waldo asked, with a little more hope. Archimedes Kane let out a sullen chuckle.

“It's too late for that too, Wald. I guess you haven't heard?” My friend shook his head in response. ”Jaques finally went through with his jump to end all jumps.” Kane leaned closer for the second part, his voice losing some of it's edge.

“No way?!” Wald leaned in too. “He did it? I never thought he'd get the idea past the workers council.” For a fleeting moment the pair smiled at each-other, then Kane caught himself and pulled away again, his face lost it's hint of mirth.

“It didn't work. All hands lost to the void. Last week.” Kane spoke towards a bulkhead.

“Fuck me! Fucking son-of-a-toaster owes me money!” Wald exclaimed bombastically. Kane successfully fought a laugh.

We sat in silence until a planet took us into its gravity well. The Shifter dropped us into the atmosphere and we started the shaky descent through it. The pilot had us swoop under the cloud cover and over a mountain range. We descended towards a plateau high amongst the peaks. Once we were closer, the small porthole became less useless. I saw the former Federal Navy battlecruiser now named Kraken parked beside a very recent looking crater that was two or three kilometers across. A sparse cluster of smaller Kumo-Crew vessels were parked nearby. We landed in the middle of the bowl of the crater.

Neither Kane, nor his lackey with the plasma gun bothered with air supply before pushing Wald and I towards the airlock. It opened to reveal breathable, if slightly thin and dry air. Wald and I were allowed to exit the vessel under our own power this time. With the other pirate keeping his weapon trained on Wald, Kane walked towards us with a small knife in his hands.

“Wrists.” He spoke with a beckoning motion.

We presented our bound hands, he slipped a proper pair of manacles onto us both, so we were bound to each-other alongside the plastic bindings. Then Kane cut those polymer bonds, half-freeing both of us.

“There, that's perfect.” Kane announced. “This should at least be interesting to watch.”

“You're not going to fight me this time?” Wald asked looking at where his arm was bound to mine.

“No, I had a better idea. I'm going let let your past come back for you.” Kane smiled grimly. “I've put a prize on your head, I blasted this hole in the ground to make an arena.”

“That... Actually is a pretty good idea. You probably wouldn't even need that big a prize.” Wald mused.

“Well, I have put up a big prize. I've landed her over there to watch you die from the deck, before I hand her off to the winner.” Kane gestured at the lip of the crater where the Farragut was visible over the ridge.

“You can land a capital ship in this gravity?” Waldo asked, with honest curiosity. He had a point, It felt like near enough to one gee.

“What? Aren't...” Kane looked over his shoulder again at the mass of metal creaking in the distance. “Yes.” He declared turning to face us again. “Clearly it can be done.” He snapped his fingers and Wald's Holva was thrown into the dirt beside him by the pilot of the Cobra. “The contestants will be arriving soon.” Kane began to walk away.

“Wait, Kane?” Wald called as the pirate was climbing back aboard the vessel, my Old Friend was suddenly speaking very seriously. “You put up your ship?”

“That's enough.” Archimedes said as he turned away and finished boarding.

Wald and I stood in the crater for about twenty minutes completely silently before my friend spoke up.

“You don't happen to have a sneaky plan to get out of this?” He asked.

“No, that's sorta yer thing Waldo.” I found my cane on my belt, so I extended it to lean on.

“Yeah... Usually is, isn't it?” He bent over and grabbed his sword. He winced as he gave it a short swing. That arm had been in a cast under twenty hours ago.

“Hey, Waldo. I just gotta say... You been a good friend, better than I deserve.” I took a deep breath and started to apologize.

“No.” My friend declared, as he tried another swing. Then he looked me in the eye. “No. I keep my off-hand behind my back anyway, you being chained to it is nothing. Just keep behind me, try to move with me.” He practiced a few more swings, pulling my arm around while I leaned against my cane.

A Python came through the clouds above us and streaked over to land near The Kraken. A few moments later a smaller ship swung down and joined them. Before too long about ten ships had touched down on that side of the crater. The smallest of them, I couldn't identify at this distance. The largest was a beater Anaconda.

It was difficult to discern from so far away, but it seemed that a medium sized crowd of people had gathered at the lip of the crater between the capital ship and us. Some noise was echoing back this way. A red point of light slid across the dirt in our direction, it held position mechanically a few meters away. It shifted along one axis, then another before holding on the ground directly in front of Waldo. We looked at the laser dot for a moment.

“We are ready to begin!” Kane's amplified voice boomed across the crater to us.

“What is that? A microphone?” Waldo asked me while pointing at the glowing spot.

“Yes!” Came a smug reply from the distant pirate. “Do you have any last words, Captain Wald?”

“You suck.” Waldo's curt answer put a smirk on my lips.

“Let the games begin.” The red dot vanished to punctuate Kane's sullen reply.

The indistinct group of people standing on the rim of the crater began to make their way down it. The sound of them cheering and charging took a few seconds to make it's way over to us. A small skimmerbike carrying three men made it to us first. One of the men riding on it leaped off as they made a pass, and came at us with an electrified baton.

Wald parried his first strike and kicked him in the stomach. Then he grabbed the chain coming off his hand and pulled on it. I was thrown stumbling along with my friend as he whirled around to the the reeling attacker's other side. He shoulder checked the man away and into the path of the skimmerbike coming for it's second pass. Only one of the three managed to roll onto his feet from the crash. I doubt it was the man Waldo pushed, it was either the driver or the other one.

He pulled a pair of batons from his back and drew them out, they each extended to about a meter long. He came at us spinning both weapons around. Wald and him began to circle each-other, I was trying to keep to Wald's backside. They were occasionally trading parried strikes. The next fastest contestant was rapidly approaching. Someone in an augmenting suit boosting their speed and hiding their identity, they were carrying a long curved sword.

“Wald, incoming!” I barely had time to shout before they were upon us. It took me too long to realize the newcomer was aiming their strike at me.

I fell backwards in a panic, losing my cane, and dragging Waldo sideways off his feet with me. The person in the suit carelessly put their sword's tip through the baton wielder's face when they missed us both by millimeters. Judging from the sound he made, the new opening in their skull did not feel very good. B. rolled without missing a beat and came to his feet with me lying on the ground between him and the new attacker.

They brought their blade up above their head and swung it down at me. My friend shouted gutturally as he hauled on the manacle to drag me out of the way. Instantly, the augmented swordfighter brought the blade about and sliced at us again. Waldo parried the blow, standing back up to do so.

“Not bad.” An almost synthetic sounding voice crackled out from their mirrored visor. “Slower than I'd hoped.”

I scrambled to get behind my friend as he danced sidelong around the person in the suit. They were very slowly walking opposite Waldo, dragging the tip of their blade along the ground. Waldo gave a quick pair of thrusts, the first was ducked, the second parried. B. reeled with the force of the strike.

“You are injured, disappointing.” They mirrored Waldo's Thrusts back at him, only they fired off four in the same amount of time.

Waldo backpedaled to avoid the first three strikes, I managed to keep up at first. My friend slammed into me and he turned his head to look. I saw him jam his eyes shut and clench his teeth as the tip of the suited one's blade pierced his shoulder. Momentarily, all of my friend's weight fell onto me. Then his muscles tensed again as he supported himself against the pressure of his assailant. His Holva slipped around his fingers until he held it upside down. He opened his eyes and turned to face the suited swordfighter again, I caught a glimpse of the fire burning in my Old Friend's pupils.

“Whatever.” He told them as he pushed off me, and slid a meter along the blade towards the person in the augmenting suit holding it.

Waldo slashed his Holva along their throat, opening it down to their spine. The suited one let go of their sword and reflexively reached for their now severed jugular and carotids, their strength didn't last them for the entire gesture. Wald started to stumble, I caught him and did my best to avoid the sword.

I pulled him to his feet, he thanked me quietly and held his sabre in a ready stance. I heard the crackling in his shoulder when he did it. The other blade was still running him through. He looked at it when he noticed me staring.

“Oh... Yeah, I oughta pull that... Outta there.” He fumbled at it with his mostly inoperable arm.

I grabbed the hilt of the sword and hauled it out of my friend, letting the bloodied steel clatter to the ground. He inhaled sharply and nodded. Blood started to gush from the hole.

“Ready for retribution, Captain?” A deep voice called to us. A man wearing a military grade haircut and a powersuit to match, minus the helmet was approaching.

“Claudius? You're still mad?” Wald mumbled at him.

“You set fire to my ship!” He was brandishing a massive long-handled hammer, the kind used to drive large machine pins into place.

“That was an accident, I said I was sorry.” My friend was starting to lean against me.

“You will be.” He stomped foreward and swung the hammer with one hand.

Wald ducked under the blow, I was too slow. It was lucky that Claudius had fine aim with his weapon, I felt the air it displaced as it passed my nose. I was reflexively stepping back while Wald tried to move in for a slash, the Chain binding us went taut and we pulled back together. I hadn't managed to escape, nor had Waldo been remotely close with his slash. The man in power armour looked at us with pity as he raised the hammer again.

Wald lifted his Holva and braced it with both of his hands. My arm was pulled slightly into the air. The finely crafted ceremonial dueling blade bowed slightly under the blow, and my friend was put on his knees. Wald's shoulders made a series of less than pleasant sounds, one emanated a spray of blood. My friend tried to stand under the resistance of the hammer, and the powersuited warrior wielding it. He even made a little progress.

“Stay down.” Claudius commanded as he put his other hand on the haft and pushed Waldo back to his knees.

“No.” I declared as I wrapped my hands around the hammer and pulled upwards.

Waldo took advantage of the added resistance by slipping his off hand from the back of his sword to grip the hammer alongside me. He slid his misshapen Holva out from under the hammer and stabbed wildly for Claudius' liver. It took three tries to find a soft spot in the powersuit.

Claudius grunted in pain and started fighting for the sword with one hand, he managed to grab it and tried to wrench it from Waldo. I leaned against his shift in weight while holding on to the hammer for dear life. The group of us came apart with me holding the blunt weapon and the powersuited man grasping the sharp one by it's blade. All three of us went to the dirt.

I pushed myself from the ground and saw that a ring of people carrying murderous intent had gathered around us. They seemed hesitant to enter the fray alongside Claudius' armour. I started to prop myself up with the hammer and looked to my friend. He was still laying prostrate on the ground beside me. He was holding up a pair of fingers and muttering. I think he was asking for a moment to rest.

Claudius grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him off the ground, I was taken sideways by the manacle. The incensed man rotated my insensate friend in his hands before standing him up at arms length. Claudius reeled back one of his armoured fists.

“Now, what in the fuck is that?” Waldo asked pointing behind the man in power armour. I suspect he would have been ignored, if Kane hadn't asked the exact same question in unison through his loudhailer.

I thought it was a meteorite before it changed it's course. A tiny ship was cutting a flaming swathe through the sky towards us. The craft lost a large proportion of its velocity as it pierced the lower atmosphere, a gout of plasma burst from its nose as it did. They slid down the rim of the crater opposite The Kraken throwing up an enormous cloud of dust. As the ship came over head it pulled it's nose up and fired the ventral thrusters to slow down. It was a green and white Adder, being flown sans flight-assist, like a cat outta hell. The Doppler effect of their supersonic approach was distorting it, but as they slowed they were caught up to by the sound waves.

They were blasting music from the vessel's external loudhailer, it was the prelude to the second act of Carmen. I hadn't heard that aria since my childhood. I'd never heard it played at that tempo or on a pair of electric guitars before. The access ramp dropped open from under the still retro-thrusting Adder.

The Massive Mercenary slid herself out of the hatch and clung to the Adder's wing with one hand, her foot still planted on the ramp. She pulled her sword from inside the ship and held it into the airstream. Seeing this, Claudius let go of Waldo and whirled around to face the oncoming craft. Waldo staggered slightly away from him, pulling the chain taut again.

The Adder fired a final ventral flare nearly overhead, then as Shay let go of the craft it fired its main engines and blasted directly into the sky. Shay was thrown from the side of the ship, she held her arms out for balance. Her hair and tail streaming behind her as she shot through the air. She had her boots off.

The Moreau's feet came down together into the centre of Claudius' breastplate. She compressed her legs and rebounded off of him back into the air. The military grade poweresuit held but was thrown to the ground with the force of a planetary impact. Claudius' neck was broken by the whiplash before his body crumpled down. Shay's vault back into the air had her waving both her arms and legs trying to control her movements. She soared over Wald and I, landing behind us with the tip of her sword piercing the ground. She stood back up, pulling her blade from the dirt and swinging it overhead as she whirled around the face us. Her blade severed the chain binding Wald to me.

Facing us for only a fraction of a second, Shay immediately brought her sword into a defensive stance, and whirled around to meet the incoming attacker behind her. Her initial sweep of her sword took him in half at the waist, she flourished to alternate stances and caught another man who had approached from the side. Shay took a bounding step towards the group of people between her and the parked capital ship beyond, she brought her weapon around twice while she did. The crowd was parted whether they wanted to be or not. There was suddenly a moment of calm as the blood finished landing, and the remaining members of the crowd surrounding us reeled from what had just happened. There were now thirteen corpses strewn around the crater. Less than one quarter as many seconds ago; that number had been four.

“Oh sweet. Shay's here.” Wald mumbled as he lost consciousness and fell backwards to the ground.

We were between the Moreau, and what was left of the mob of murderers. One of them approached Waldo's form. He was carrying an axe, one likely intended for rescues. I had halfway shot my gaze back towards Shay when she had crossed the distance to him. She stepped over Captain Wald and laid a flying roundhouse kick into the man. His shattered body took down three more when it slammed into them. The axe spun off into the air, I didn't see or hear it come back down.

The hesitance the crowd had shown to enter the fray next to the power armour had abated none for the change in status-quo. A small contingent had already given up and was making their way back towards the rim of the crater. Three men remained, they shared a glance directed primarily to one of their group. That one looked down at Waldo, then shot a glance at me before returning his gaze to Shay.

He slid a cutlass from the loop on his belt and brought himself into a ready stance with a flourish. Shay gripped her sword in both hands before her, the blade perfectly vertical. The man threw out a quick thrust to test her defenses. Shay didn't even parry, she just rocked her weight on her toes to move out of the way.

He pranced sidelong and swiped at her, she whipped the tip of her sword down to catch it, stepping around him. He slipped back and thrust again, Shay was forced to backpedal. He gave her no quarter and pressed with another thrust. The Massive Mercenary managed to parry this as well, but she had no room for a riposte. She began to rely on blocking, her attacker kept up the pace of his strikes until Shay punctuated a parry by snapping her jaws in his face.

He slipped back then regained his composure and stance. Shay stood up straight and let the tip of her blade settle on the ground, she dropped her off hand to her side and waited for him. The fools guard.

The cutlass wielder took the bait without hesitation, and threw the tip of his sword towards her heart. Shay lifted the haft to kick the strike aside and continued to swing the blade around until she held it perfectly vertically aloft in one hand. The Cutlass was airborne, before it reached it's apex, Shay had wrapped the fingers of her off-hand around his neck. Shay let her sword arm drop as she lifted the man up above her head.

Without pause the Massive Mercenary brought the man down to throw him with all of her might into the dirt between where she stood and the final pair of belligerents. He hit the ground traveling above terminal velocity. She broke their stunned and spattered silence with a shouted query, loud enough to easily carry back towards The Kraken.

“Next?!” The pair of men ran so fast, they didn't bother heading for their ship. The musical fanfare booming from overhead hadn't even finished yet.

Quintina had come back around, and was setting the Adder down a short distance away. Before it was completely supported by its landing gear Derek had stepped off the ramp and began to jog in our direction. Reggie and Terrentius were following him and keeping their heads down.

“Oh Fucking hell.” Reggie muttered when they got close. He was holding a first aid kit and opening it for Terrentius. Derek was brandishing a familiar looking sawn-off shard-gun.

“Just get 'im aboard, c'mon.” I told the men as I grabbed one of my friend's legs and gestured.

Reggie closed the box of supplies in his hands and grabbed Wald's shoulders, placing the box on B.'s stomach. Terrentius took up the weight in the middle and we started to haul him away. My friend felt far too light, I looked at the red pool where he had been laying and wondered how much blood weighed here.

“No! That's enough!” Kane's voice was followed by some amplified scuffling. “The microphone you idiot. Stay where you are or we will destroy your vessel with The Kraken's guns!”

A red dot lit up on the ground in the distance, then started to move away from us before stopping and waving around. Shay either didn't see it, or didn't care.

“Kane, you lie as badly as you captain!” Her voice was impossibly loud. “I would suggest you begin by powering up wessel, rather than making threats!” There was a silence punctuated by the sound of the amplifier picking up Kane's lips sealing a few times in a row.

“You will not stop me again!” He declared eventually, almost keeping the concern from his tone.

“I already have!” Shay pointed the sword towards The Kraken threateningly. “I am coming for you, you should leave; I will break you.” The Massive Mercenary started casually sauntering in the direction of the pirate.

“Start the en-” His hushed voice was nearly cut off in time. A moment passed before he used the loudhailer again. “You will not survive climbing the rim! I have an army up here, bitch.”

“I hope you find this reassuring!” She gave a theatrical shrug, and continued walking.

“What now? Oh Fu-” The sound coming from the rim of the crater cut off with the feedback inducing thud of the microphone being dropped.

Gunfire erupted at the rim of the crater, stray bolts of plasma began flying off into the distance. The sound of shouting started to echo back to us. A fleeting fragment of a familiar psychopathic laugh came and went as Eloise Guy-Faustine moved past the microphone laying on the ground up there. A blast went off lighting the underside of the capital ship for a moment. A streak of light was drawn from a point on her ventral hull outwards towards the horizon. The plating deflected the impact and sent the round away, spinning so quickly it was generating heat against the air. The high pitched wailing sound continued to echo for some time. Three more shots just like it sounded off in short order, though none of those continued on so spectacularly. Shortly thereafter was silence.

Something was thrown over the lip of the crater, it tumbled down kicking up puffs of dust and debris. Then a gleaming object appeared at the edge, it began to descend the ridge in a controlled fashion. Once at the bottom of the crater, the shining figure started walking towards us. I squinted and could see violet in the reflected sunlight. We almost had Waldo all the way to the Adder by now. Shay had stopped when the commotion sounded, now she had started to walk forewards again.

“What do you intend, Inquisitor?!” The Massive Mercenary brandished her sword dangerously.

“We told you before!” The faint reply came across the dirt.

Eloise charged suddenly, she produced and deployed her sword as she galloped at Shay. The horizontal sweep of the shiny blade missed the leaping Moreau by a centimeter. Shay touched the ground several meters behind her previous place for but a moment as she propelled herself back at the Inquisitor. Shay pulled the blade upwards for a vertical strike that was parried with brutal efficiency, as was it's downwards swinging sibling as the Massive Mercenary returned to the ground.

Eloise smiled past the locked blades as she shifted the grip of her off-hand along her weapon. Shay's blade slid down to the miniscule crossguard of the Inquisitor's sword. Eloise stepped sideways to cantilever her blade around to Shay's back. Shay shifted her legs and brought about a new stance where she held her sword at head level and horizontally. She gripped the weapon by its haft in one hand, while her off-hand was supporting the rest of the blade lightly on the backs of her fingers. Shay had turned fourty five degrees towards Eloise when she changed stances and given her sword a tight swing around.

The Inquisitor was thrown six meters away, clattering and rolling. A trickle of red was soaking the fur on the Moreau's shoulder. Eloise stood using her sword to lift herself up. There was a jagged line drawn across the front of the grinning Inquisitor's armour where Shay's blade had gouged the composites and flaked a swathe of the purple paint away.

“Oh good, We were worried you were all bluster.” She adjusted the positioning of her wide-brimmed hat and started to swing her sword around as she stepped towards Shay.

The ramp into the Adder was so small that we had to go to single file to slide Waldo up it. I ended up standing beside Derek outside while Reggie pulled Wald from the top of the ramp, and Terrentius pushed from the bottom. There was a sharp ring of metal slapping on metal.

Shay was backpedaling towards us, furiously trying to parry the onslaught of blows the smiling Inquisitor was sending her way. Eloise kept her sword moving, changing hands, alternating grips. She was almost dancing with the weapon. Shay was outmatched, her skills with the sword had been pushed to their limit and now beyond. The smiling Inquisitor pirouetted with her blade, Eloise was starting to enjoy herself.

Shay moved so fast I almost missed it, she slipped around her assailant in time with the spinning attack. Eloise slashed her sword at nothing, and found Shay's blade was held flat against her torso. The Massive Mercenary had the lower half of the weapon held in both hands, one on either side of the shocked Inquisitor's waist. I was informed later that the attack is known as a 'German Suplex'. Shay was unsure where the name comes from.

The Inquisitor was lifted off of her feet for a moment, before the pair came to the ground with an immense clattering sound. Shay quickly rolled over and brought herself back to her feet. The Inquisitor paused on her knees. A domed helm had sealed shut over Eloise's head right before impact, the severed brim of her hat hung around her armoured neck. As she stood up she tore the piece of her headgear away.

The domed helmet retracted to reveal an animalistic rage on the Inquisitor's face, and a raggedly trimmed designer hat. She removed what was left of her headgear and let it drop to the ground. The Inquisitor stowed her sword and hooked the haft onto her belt.

“I am done with you, Monstrum.” She spoke calmly, in hard discord with her expression. Then she produced her sidearm.

Shay was ready and jumped before Eloise had fired off the first round. The Massive Mercenary dove away from cover, drawing the second shot off target of the Adder behind her. The first round probably made orbit. The second round landed in a rocky outcrop about thirty meters away, mineral shards rained down. The third round was met much closer to the Inquisitor by the blade of Shay's sword.

The deflected bullet was shattered instantly and sprayed high velocity alloy shards in all directions. It caught both of them by surprise, Eloise lifted the muzzle of her weapon slightly and her eyes bulged for a fleeting second. Shay's sword took up a harmonic vibration that forced it out of the Massive Mercenary's hand. The Moreau's face was a momentary portrait of shock and pain before Shay snapped back, continued her charge, and produced her own gun.

Eloise's last bullet passed through Shay's left bicep. Shay's first and second rounds both landed in a tight group on the Inquisitor's right pauldron. The smaller bullet began to tumble shortly after passing through my friend's arm, I heard it. The meaner rounds both flattened against the thick composite. Shay grimaced in pain and gripped her left hand into a tight fist. Eloise was twisted into the air and thrown face down into the dirt behind where she had been standing. Her pauldron had blown apart.

“A cheap reproduction: firing competition loads.” Shay growled the words and cocked her hammer. “This is your opportunity to give up, Inquisitor.”

Eloise lifted herself from the ground and rolled over to sit and face Shay. The shattering composites had gashed her face, it was hard to tell the severity of the wounds but she was bleeding profusely. That said, Shay's arm wasn't dry by any means.

“We seem to have underestimated your ferocity.” The smiling Inquisitor said, mostly to herself. “I suppose this is how I die then?” Her eyes unfocused slightly.

“That is up to you.” Shay declared, edging closer, keeping her weapon trained on a headshot.

Eloise made a strange expression then looked down at her firearm. She hit a latch and it hinged open, spilling empty casings into her lap. She tried to close it with a flick of her wrist and failed, then used both hands. She slid it back into it's holster and looked at Shay.

“It has never been up to me Monstrum.” She slowly climbed to her feet. “Now, are you going to kill me or not?” Eloise spoke in a way that reminded me of when I'd mentioned my Naval stint near her.

“Step closer, find out.” Shay dared. Eloise showed her unnerving toothy grin.

The rock left the Inquisitor's power armoured hand traveling fast enough to whistle against the air. The stone broke apart on impact with Shay's stomach. My friend's immediate reactions were to let out a sharp involuntary yelp, and to dump her readied shot into the middle distance between herself and Eloise. I had no way of knowing if it was the result of luck, or incredible deduction on the part of the Inquisitor; but that rock landed almost exactly in the same place as the nearly fatal shard-gun wound from less than a month earlier. Shay's legs wobbled slightly as she doubled over, clutching her stomach.

Eloise brought an armoured knee up into the Massive Mercenary's chin. Shay was thrown backwards into the dirt. The smiling Inquisitor was on top of her before Shay had even hit the ground. The Inquisitor straddled the Moreau and threw a punch, she tried for another but Shay almost managed to level her gun, so Eloise was forced to fight for control of the firearm. Shay's off-hand swiped for the Inquisitor's face but just missed. Eloise caught  my friend across the cheek with the back of one hand, still gripping Shay's armed wrist with her other. The Moreau went limp.

“That wasn't so har-Argh!” The Inquisitor had loosened her grip and Shay was faking.

The Massive Mercenary managed to pull her hand from Eloise's, but the Inquisitor had slapped at her arm as she fired the gun. The muzzle flash engulfed the Inquisitor's head from my perspective. At the time I'd thought that it was over right there, just for a moment. Eloise had lost a quantity of the hair from that side of her head. If I were betting; I would say that she couldn't hear from at least that ear anymore, and I have doubts about the state of her vision. It's not like I know, I'm not asking her. But if I had to guess.

The somehow still smiling Inquisitor didn't hesitate for a second. She was like some rabid beast, I'd never seen anything like it before. She reached out and put both her hands around my friend's neck. Shay put the barrel of her gun against the Inquisitor's temple, Eloise flicked out her elbow and deflected another shot. This one ricocheted off the back of her gorget and was sent in the general direction of the Adder, I flinched. Eloise leaned her weight onto Shay's throat.

A pair of massive knees were suddenly freed, and just as suddenly brought up into the Inquisitor's back. Eloise was thrown off of Shay and rolled a meter or two towards us, before catching herself. She was almost instantly back on her feet and storming towards the Massive Mercenary.

Shay was clutching her neck and sputtering, trying to catch her breath while she rolled in the dirt. I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Terrentius wrenching the shard gun from Derek's stunned hands.

“Stop this furor stupri!” He yelled, charging towards the pair of titans clashing before us. “Non Imperio, Inquisitor!”

Eloise was given pause by this, she caught herself and stood up straight, then slowly turned around.

“Quis es?” She gave a casual gesture as she asked, seemingly oblivious the shard-gun pointed at her, or her smoldering hair.

“Terrentius Iovianus, Civis. Hoc est iustitia?” He spoke with a tone of utter disgust.

“Iovianus?” Eloise blinked a few times as she tried to remember something. “You are wanted for shipping fraud, aren't you?”

“What are you babbling about, vos demens bitch?” Terrentius took the question straight out of my mouth, more or less.

“Obfuscating the identity of Operarius is a capitol offense.” She said as she pulled her sidearm back out of it's holster and produced a clip of rounds from her belt. She sighed as she began to load the gun.

Terrentius loosed a blast from the shard gun to the Inquisitor's centre of mass from close range, she didn't seem to notice. She finished loading the weapon and snapped it shut, then leveled it at the man in front of her.

“But-” She cut him off with a round to the sternum.

That round performed better than the one that got Shay's arm. If I had to guess, I would say it either came apart, expanded, or both. Terrentius was shredded, rent into two rough strips of meat hanging off a pair of legs. I couldn't hear anything over the built up tinnitus, but if not for that I would have heard Quintina screaming from the cockpit all the way out there. I did catch sight of the hardpoints opening up on the Adder out of the corner of my eye though. The multicannons began to spin up.

“Oh Gott no!” I shouted as I pushed Derek behind a large rock and dove on top of him. But I don't think I was audible.

The multicannons began to vomit ammunition into the Inquisitor. Eloise's helm sealed again, but knowing her she was probably smiling away beneath it. The rounds were shattering against the composites of her armour, those shards were retaining a large portion of the initial kinetic energy. I had no idea how long that suit could have held out like that, I assumed the manufacturer would be surprised to learn how long it did. Rendered immune, even momentarily, to the torrent of bullets pouring into her; Eloise calmly pointed her weapon back along the stream and returned a single round. It passed through the canopy and the multicannons suddenly went quiet.

Eloise's armour was bare metal across the front, fissures running around it. Her domed visor was spiderwebbed but intact somehow. There was a bleeding hole punched through her shoulder where a single round had found the weakened plating, Eloise seemed unfazed by having been shot through with a starship battery. I hadn't even noticed when it happened.

The ground around the Inquisitor had been scoured deeply by the spalling. The gouges in the dirt looked like a pair of wings extending nearly a hundred meters in either direction. The rock Derek and I had taken cover behind was significantly thinner now.

A final cacophonous report sounded off inside the crater, Shay had carefully put her last bullet through the back of Eloise Guy-Faustine's left knee. The Inquisitor dropped to the ground before she understood what had happened. Shay slipped the weapon back into it's holster and got the rest of the way to her feet.

Eloise tried to stand on her disabled leg and fell. She made a strange whimpering sound and dropped her gun to try again. Shay grabbed the back of her gorget and kicked the Inquisitor's weapon into a high arc through the air. Shay put a foot down across the Inquisitor's broken limb. With a twist and a pull Eloise was lifted away from the ground and the lower half of her left leg. Sparks and hydraulic fluid spat across the dirt as Shay threw Eloise aside.

Shay walked grimly over to where the Inquisitor lay in the dirt and snatched the sword from her belt. Shay deployed it and slipped it down to the crossguard through the back of the Inquisitor's remaining shin and into the ground. Then the Massive Mercenary found her own sword and scooped it up. Shay started to walk back towards the Adder, exhausted. Eloise began to laugh.

“Again? How many of my legs do you Foederatis need?” Her laughter was becoming manic.

“I am no Federal!” Shay turned around to shout with a venom I didn't expect.

“Another bellum-machina set loose to burn all in it's path! Another Farragut come to burn my home!” Eloise Guy-Faustine was ranting and sobbing and giggling, it was quite unnerving to watch.

Shay was overcome with an expression of horror as she stared down what had become of the Inquisitor. She slowly pulled her gun from it's holster, swung out the cylinder, and pulled a single round from it's place on her belt.

“Wait!” Someone called.

A Commander in a white flightsuit was shooting across the distance from where The Kraken still sat. He was riding a skimmerbike, not too dissimilar to the one used to attack Wald before, other than the enormous discrepancy in value. He drifted it to kill some speed and jumped off, letting the bike roll sideways and scrape to a stop. He sprinted towards us for a few steps before suddenly slowing down.

“Please wait.” He begged again, holding his hands in front of himself and taking a furtive step towards the spitting howling Inquisitor.

“Who are you?” Shay asked, bewildered.

“The unfortunate Commander tasked with flying this lunatic around.” His arms dropped to his sides. “Look, the Inquisitorial council will crucify me if I can't at least drag her in for a debriefing.”

“She is monster, she will come back.” The empty casings were let out of Shay's gun.

“... She...” He had his visor on, but I can guess at how torn his expression was beneath it. “She's not very good at finding people.” He offered desperately.

Eloise grabbed one of the man's ankles, he knelt down beside her and gripped her hand against his leg. He shot a glance up at Shay, then looked back at the Inquisitor.

“Let's just go Shay, Wald needs a medbay.” I called. Shay suddenly looked at me and the Adder before glancing back to the Inquisitor.

“Yes, we must go.” She agreed hesitantly.

Shay began to make her way back to the Adder, I ran up the ramp. Reggie and Amanda had Waldo strapped onto a seat in the rear cabin, but I barely glanced their way. I burst into the cockpit to check on Quintina. There was broken glass everywhere but I didn't see the Imperial girl in the pilot's chair. I leaned over the seat to look for blood and found none. I turned back towards the hatchway at the back of the cockpit and saw her. Quintina was at the aftmost port corner of the cockpit lying on the floor with her knees in her arms. I made my way over to her and crouched down.

“C'mon we gotta get you-” She wailed and threw her hands at me.

I was struck across the face, and a few times in the chest before her strength started to fail her. She tried grappling at me which made it easy to get hold of her, and lift the hysterical girl to her feet. I nearly carried her into the rear cabin, and brought her over to where Amanda and Reggie were trying to stabilize Wald as best as a wrench jockey and corporate stooge could. I tried to get her into a chair but Quintina was having none of it.

“Quintina, please.” Shay was behind me, her voice stalled the hysterics.

I was pushed aside and the Imperial girl fell into Shay's arms. I thought she had been crying hard before. Shay did her best to coddle Quintina and move into a seat. Under any other circumstances the Massive Mercenary's stunted movements inside the tiny ship would have seemed comical. Shay gave me a desperate look, I could only return it with my own slack jawed expression.

“I'll get us out of here.” I declared and put my visor back on.

I lifted the Adder off once I was assured everyone was secure back there. Leaving whatever was going on between that Commander and Eloise on the surface. I was passing The Kraken when I saw the shape moving along the bottom of the rim of the crater, there looked to be plenty of shapes not moving up on the lip. Some foolish notion got me to turn around for another look. Through the hole in the canopy I saw Kane stumbling away from the spot where he had landed after Eloise threw him over the rim. I brought the ship back down.

“Get in before I change my mind.” I shouted at him through the opening. He gave me a confused look for a short span then climbed up the nose and in through the shattered canopy.

He put on his visor immediately and gave me a raised thumb. I brought us up through the atmosphere and tried to bring up the navigation panel. The holographic menu did not appear when I gestured for it.

“Where are we going?” Kane asked as he brought the route plotter up on his main panel. The Adder was set up to be operated by two people.

“Hospital.” I told him. An outpost only a single jump away was brought up and fed to the nav systems.

“For me? You shouldn't have.” I heard a wet cough follow his quip.

“For Wald. He's in back. Might make it.” Kane looked from me to the hatch behind and back.

“Oh.” Kane's dismissal was steeped in false disappointment, he was trying to hide his surprise too. “Why did you pick me up then?”

“If Wald pulls through an' I told him I'd left you down there, he'd just give me the silent treatment.” I answered as I charged the 'Shifter.

We broke through the sky and punched through the night. The Adder was dropped back into reality and the outpost was only a few light seconds away. I demanded a medical team as I docked. The paramedics swept through the ship and took my Old Friend away to the medbay. Reggie, Derek, Amanda and Kane all followed. I found Shay holding Quintina, still folded into the rear cabin.

“You need to get to the medbay too, Shay.” I said quietly.

“I can wait.” She replied grimly.

The Massive Mercenary was caked in blood and dirt, her face was swollen. Quintina had buried herself into Shay's torso and was still violently weeping. Shay gave me another look as she let her bruised arms fall across the Imperial girl. The Massive Mercenary was piercing me with her eyes aggressively. I slid off of the Adder.

My hip hurt, I waved my hand over the empty space on my belt where the cane used to go. I pushed myself across the hangar. It doesn't look like much when your legs give out in microgravity. I started to spin as I drifted off the ground into the air.

“You need a hand?” Kane grunted from the hatchway out of the hangar, It seemed he hadn't followed the paramedics after all.

“Yeah.” I sobbed.

He used his translation belt to come over and retrieve me, he came down at a catwalk built into the side of the hangar. I gripped the railing as he shunted himself back against the wall.

“You ain't need the hospital too?” I asked to shift my focus away from myself.

“Of course I do, asshole. What do I have left to pay a medical bill with?” There was a painful rattle in the pirate's voice.

“C'mon, my treat.” I gestured for him to follow me.

The Medbay was well equipped for such a small outpost, I figured this must be a pass-through system or something.

“Well, there goes the neighborhood.” Quipped one of the staff as I led Kane to the reception area.

“We need some help.” I told the man at the desk.

“What's wrong?” He asked me. I turned to Archimedes and repeated the question.

“I think I've got a broken rib.” He wheezed. The nurse glared at him.

“Ugh, we have enough pirate-scum taking up beds right now.” He pointed towards the exit.

Kane sighed, and turned to leave.

“The fuck did you just say?” I asked the smug nurse.

“Did I stutter? Get your shit out of here, one redcoat is more than enough.” I was taken aback.

“You wanna be takin' up a bed yerself?” I asked them, leaning across their desk.

“Did you just threa-” I pulled them over the counter by their scrubs.

“Get him a bed, take my credits, and shut yer fuckin' trap.” I tried to throw them back at the desk, in microgravity this just caused both of us to spin in place. “You ain't got the balls to even imagine what the fuck we just went through.” I shouted in an arc, directed across most of the room.

“Don't make me call security!” The rotating nurse shouted at me.

“Don't make me come back here with my Federal Assault-Ship and a few of my Pie-Fed pals looking for blood!” The pirate placed a hand on my shoulder, stopping me from spinning, trying to calm me down.

“You're not a pirate?” The nurse's anger was shuttered by this information.

“Neither is Wald, you fuck!” They seemed to realize their error at this point.

“I'm sorry Commander. You can never be too careful.” He pulled himself back to the proper side of his desk and started to punch things into the console.

“You gotta funny way o' goin' about it.” I spat my words at them.

“Can I get your name Commander? For our records.” He asked Kane as he typed furiously.

“Archie Kane. Don't call me Commander.” The pirate shot me a wink as he answered. “I think I might have just figured out why old Waldo keeps you around, Space-Trucker.” He added over his shoulder, following the directions gestured at him by the angry looking nurse.

“You'd better not need anything.” He shot in my direction once Kane was gone.

“Nope.” I clenched and unclenched my fists, breaking the scabs. “Treat my pals like shit, and you get to see me angry.” I added, I was tired.

I drifted inside the hangar for a few minutes, trying to remember what vessel was supposed to be parked there. I needed to get the canopy fixed, she probably needed her magazines refilled too. Quintina appeared in the cockpit and began to idly touch a broken edge of the glass. I pushed myself in her direction, catching my momentum on the ceiling nearby.

“Don't cut yourself.” I said.

“Utquomque.” She sighed dismissively.

“I'm sor-” She shot her glare in my direction, daring me to apologize for this and take responsibility. A missile lock wasn't half that threatening. “If you need anything, I'm here.” Her eyes softened.

“Okay.” She snapped a shard of broken glass away and stared at it. “Can you try and get Shay to have someone look at her arm, please.” She added after a while.

I climbed in through the hole and moved past Quintina, brushing aside the odd piece of glass floating around. I made my way into the rear cabin. The hatch slid open revealing Shay sitting against the opposite wall. She looked up at the opened door then nodded at me slightly before letting her head drop back down. I moved across the cabin towards her, finding a seat and pushing myself into it.

“Your arm?” It didn't look good.

“Fine.” Shay answered.

“How's your head?” I was just some doughy asshole; I had no idea how to compare getting shot across the face, with being punched by power armour. Gottdamnit Shay.

“Please Commander, I am fine.” She lied to me. I sighed and looked around.

There was a small red box floating nearby, one of it's two clasps was done up. I grabbed it and carefully opened it. Most of the contents hadn't been returned but there was a bottle of antiseptic and some gauze inside. I removed them and closed the box.

“Lemme clean it, just ta stop me from worryin'.” She didn't reply, but she gave me a small glance then held out her arm. “Sorry if this hurts.”

I wet the pad with the liquid then held it against the entrance wound. I gave it a wipe to try and clear some of the dirt. I went to do the same to the exit wound.

“No, use fresh.” Shay sighed. “Never mind. Thank you, I will finish.” She waved me away and grabbed the floating box and bottle. “Why is Dread-Captain Douche-Nozzle here?” Shay was staring daggers at me.

“Uhh...” I didn't have a very good answer for her. “He needed help.” I muttered.

The Massive Mercenary continued to stare at me. She didn't seem to be accepting that explanation. She was holding eye contact while she taped down a bandage.

“Be careful.” She shook her head at me. “Do not leave him alone with anyone.”

“Okay. He's pretty beat up. I don't think he has any shenanigans in mind.” Shay's expression softened slightly.

“Shenann... Ugh, what?” The Moreau asked me in a tired tone.

“I ain't think he's about ta try nothing.” I gestured vaguely. “He knows you're here.”

“I was at bar, after race.” Her rebuttal sounded remorseful.

“That didn't work out too well for him, did it?” I tried.

“That remains to be seen.” She looked at the wall. “If Captain Wald dies...” She closed her eyes.

“I-I think Kane knows what will happen.” I said, Shay was scary when she wanted to be.

“Yes. He does...” She muttered at me. I decided to excuse myself from the ship.

Wald recovered, his doctor was not comfortable with releasing him so early, but my Old Friend just agreed with his recommendation and left anyway. It had been fifty six hours, Kane had been released only a few hours after he was admitted and then disappeared. Wald insisted on drinks, we found Kane, they had the same taste in bars. Shay moved through our group to face him, the pirate had his back to us as he sat and drank.

“Archie, I owe you a drink.” Wald announced, lightly gripping Shay's elbow.

“You wanna pick up my tab?” Archie was extremely inebriated.

“Sure, that works. C'mon, drinks are on me guys.” Waldo gestured and made his way over to the bar.

Shay remained near the entrance as everyone else filtered over and started ordering, I remained with her. Wald and Kane tapped their packets against each-others before drinking them. The Massive Mercenary had her arms crossed, and a look of confusion on her face.

“I do not understand.” She admitted after a little while.

“Me neither, but it could be worse.” I sighed, Wald's judge of character worked differently, but it was good. “D'you need a drink? I need a drink.”

“Yes, yes I do.” She answered with confidence. We drank plenty.

I sat beside Wald, Shay chose not to sit at the bar. She sat at a nearby table with most of the rest of the group.

“Where you going from here?” My Old Friend asked the pirate at some point.

“If I'm lucky I can get some salvage value in exchange for the location of that planet.” Archimedes answered, dejected.

“Never give up Kane.” Wald's reply was given without hesitation, the simple affirmation of natural law.

“You've beat me Wald. This is the end.” Kane shrugged sullenly.

“Nothing ends Archie. This was just bad luck, for both of us. Tell me what you want, it was never revenge.” They stared at each other drunkenly for a moment. “You just wanted glory didn't you?

Kane started laughing uncontrollably. He was slapping his knee and wiping a tear before he pulled himself together.

“No no, it's not you Wald. It's that fucking ship, I spent three weeks fighting the transponder to make 'Glory' piss off. I most certainly don't want 'Glory'!” His fading chuckle was slightly contagious.

“Oh!” Waldo grabbed Kane's shoulders in excitement. ”This is easy! I wish I'd known, I'd have told you sooner.”

“Oh lord, Captain Wald's had too much to drink again; he's not making sense anymore.” The pirate told what sounded like an old joke of theirs, Eden colonists could handle alcohol the way a Farragut handles a siege. Everyone knew it was like nothing to them.

“Listen to me Archie, it's a curse to rename your ship. It always has been, since they made them from wood.” My Old Friend was deadly serious, he rarely was. “If you want to find your own glory you can start by giving her's back. Where did you scavv The FNS Glory anyway?”

“I gave Big-Teef thirty casks of Mega-Gin to lend me a hand, and take her.” Kane's answer clearly came with memories of a better time.

“Who did you steal thirty casks from? I'll shoot your ass over a Truckers-Union bounty.” Wald was probably joking.

“Bought 'em.” Kane sipped his beverage. A sly smile spread across their faces.

“Then, you captured The FNS Glory?” My Old Friend asked slowly.

“It only took five minutes, we had an inside man do their systems.” The pirate gave his answer grinning.

“You have glory. Go back to your ship, Captain.” Waldo commanded the pirate, whose smile was fading.

“And do what, exactly? I've done so fucking well since I got her.” He snapped his fingers for another drink.

“Ya shot me down.” I piped up suddenly.

“You shot him down!” Wald agreed, slapping Kane's shoulder.

“Well...”  He took a deep breath and shook his head, his shoulders dropped. “I need a crew.”

“Did I hear that right?” An older man ordering a drink had over heard. “I used to fly for Eravate Network a few years back, wouldn't mind another run out in The Black. If you looking.”

“Er... Thanks, I'll keep it in mind buddy.” Archimedes replied awkwardly while Waldo tried desperately not to laugh at him.

“Yeah, that's always an issue.” My Old Friend said sarcastically once the aged prospector left with his drink. “You might have had some weight with 'Where would I take Glory?' That's what you should have said.”

“So what's your answer to that, smartass?” Kane was incredulous.

“Like I said, that's a good question. I don't really know wh-” I came to a realization, and interrupted my friend carelessly as I muttered about it. “Wait what?” Wald asked me.

“The Pleiades cluster, go tussle with the Feds.” I said again, being heard this time.

“Holy shit!” Kane sounded impressed. “This guy is a fucking madman, I love him!” I gave him a look.

“I heard tha Imperial fleet's gettin' ready to head on out there too.” I let him know. “How interesting it might be to have Admiral Patreus in yer debt.” Kane was aghast, then he smiled.

“I am so sorry I shot you down.” He gave Wald a look. “Well, she did. I guess.”

“Was she down there?” My Old Friend asked quietly.

“No, oh thank gods no.” The pirate said. “She didn't want to go through with the plan once she saw you.” He pointed at me.

“Lucile?” I asked him.

“Yeah.” Kane's answer was melancholy. “She bailed on that rock after the race.”

“Oh shit.” I said drunkenly, as apologetically as I could muster.

“It's only a few billion worlds. Small Bubble.” Kane said and downed his beverage. “Of all people, my inside man would recognize The Glory if I did something showy with her.” He pushed himself away from the bar.

“You going already?” Waldo asked him.

“Why wait? I have to go shout about needing a crew in my Dread Captain voice, and that's easier wasted.” He winked at Wald and I. Then threw a drunken messy salute over our group before making his way out of the bar.

We headed back to Jameson Memorial a few hours later, once the Adder was ship-shaped again. Amanda had a service move Vincent and The Highwayman back there. They adjusted my seat, and I had trouble getting it back to where it had been when I first sat down in him. It wasn't much of a big deal or anything, I don't think anyone else noticed even: Quintina had started drinking regularly. She was weeping less often though. The group of us were recuperating back at the Memorial. The next semester of the academy was starting only a few weeks away.

I'm not sure how long after we arrived I decided to check on her, a couple of days maybe. I'd asked each of the group if they'd seen Quintina, everyone had and said she seemed okay. I found her in the cockpit of her ship. She was halfway through a bottle of spirits, her face was red and puffy from crying. She was wearing the Tiara her brother and her had won.

“Hey.” I greeted her, it was the best I had. She waved the bottle slightly to acknowledge me.

“Look at me, I'm a Furor Commander now.” She said. I laughed, for a while I'd thought that Quintina might have become the first sober Commander in the Milky-Way.

“Oh Gottdamn everything, I should've stopped him.” I slumped into the co-pilot's chair.

“I've been saying that to myself since I was thawed.” Her answer was punctuated with a slug of alcohol and a shudder.

“Still don't like the taste?” I wasn't the best at making conversation.

“I'll get used to it.” The words of a great Commander in the making.

“Or find somethin' too damn expensive that ya like.” The words of a stupid-space-trucker.

“He died for nothing, after all this.” Her tears were silent.

“No. Gottdamnit, no he didn't.” I couldn't believe that, wouldn't accept her believing that.

“What lies about truth and conviction do you have for me then?” The Imperial turned to me to ask.

“Everything's lies Quintina. You know who any of us are?” Her expression turned to confusion. “Wald's some rich-kid decided ta head of into The Black and play space-dandy. Shay's an escaped bioengineerin' project just tryin' ta get by. I'm a Gottdamn murderer on the run out here, been runnin' since I was a kid.”

“Why are you saying, these things?” She spoke slowly, staring at me.

“There ain't a Commander out here not livin' a lie Quintina. Most people out in The Black have no choice but to pick a lie they have lying around and run with it. Terrentius didn't have to die, I'd give anything I had ta undo what's gone on. But he ain't died for nothin'.” I looked her in the eyes as best as I could. “Your brother died to give you the most beautiful lie I ever heard someone have to live. Gott knows that's a horrible consolation prize and I wouldn't wish it on ya. But it's what is.”

“A beautiful lie?” She blinked at me a few times, then looked at the bottle. She put the lid back on it and offered it to me. “Is this another colloquialism or something?”

“I'm tryin' to tell ya that this can be a new beginning, I'm just doing a shitty job of it.” My hip hurt. “The lie is beautiful because it's yours to tell. You wanna track that bitch down and finish the job?”

“Maybe I do.” She muttered.

“Nobody could stop you. Maybe you wanna go find some planet you can live on, some earth like moon with a pretty view, nobody but you ever gonna see in a trillion years? You could do that too.” She started to understand what I was telling her.

“I want to take Terry with me.” She squeaked.

“I wanna not be haunted by Pops' ghost.” She gave me a look, I shook my head. “Regrets happen. I ain't got no magic way of makin' em' feel any better.”

“I thought that's what that was for.” She pointed at the bottle.

“I wish.” I said, opening it and taking a drink. “You need a name.”

“Pardon?” She asked, dismissing the liquor when I offered it to her.

“Pilots Federation likes call-signs, you ain't stuck with it if you don't like it. But most Commanders take pride in their new name. It's their identity.” I hoped she wouldn't ask why I cared so little for the consistency of my own, I had no clue.

“I see.” She started to think carefully.

“Ya got a lot a time before classes start, so don't-” She cut me off with a decision.

“Quinn.” She nodded to herself. “'Commander Quinn'. I like how that sounds.”

“Not 'Commander Tina'?” I jabbed lightly.

“Terry called me Tina, I don't want that to be for anyone else anymore.” I decided then, that I like the way 'Commander Quinn' sounds as well.

Commander Quinn was given a send off by all of us as she walked into the campus block and into her future a few days later. I had no reason to make such assumptions, but I had high hopes for that woman. Quinn would make happen whatever she set her mind to, she had sunken far too great a cost to do anything else. If only I knew.

Amanda hesitated only a few more hours to let Wald know that she would always clear a space in her schedule for him if he needed her, then Derek and her rented a ship, and left. Derek had pressed his knuckles against each of ours in turn wordlessly before going. Reggie booked passage back to 39 Tauri a day later. I'm unsure of the nature of it, but Wald and his mechanic shared a commercial property on Porta. Two more days passed before Wald asked Shay an interesting question while we were eating dinner at some diner.

“So your contract with me, I should have asked this earlier; when does that end?” My Old Friend's question was casual.

“Kane is not issue anymore?” Wald agreed with this. “Since then.” She answered.

“So I guess I've been getting freebie days then.” He shrugged. This was all, for a few moments. “Are you leaving then?”

“I suppose that I have left your employ, yes.” She concluded.

“Where ya gonna go?” I asked her, the Massive Mercenary gave me a questioning look.

“Unless you have objection, back to my room on your wessel?” Her phrasing caught me and I took a moment to process this as a question, Shay watched me expectantly.

“Of course y'all can stay on Vincent.” I don't think I would be able to keep flying him alone.

“Thank you.” She replied and continued eating.

“Awesome. So after dinner, are we off then?” Wald asked me casually, I had no clue what he meant.

“Where to?” I must have forgotten about something.

“Korwei. I'm gonna make you keep your word on that.” My Old Friend said as he chewed.

“Oh, oh yeah.” I had forgotten, completely.

But Wald was too good a friend, to let me forget something so important. A tiny determined smile spread onto my lips.

“Yeah, right after dinner.” I agreed and started to eat a little faster.

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Wingqvist Enterprise Evening Star. 13 MAY 3302.

[ARCHIVE] Requested: 8 JUNE 3302

Retired Administrator Seeks Adventure

Former Bernoulli Gateway Administrator, Huxley Ratherford has made her first public appearance since beginning her retirement nine months ago. She has announced plans to leave for Jaques Station immediately. She was reached in the docking ring of Bernoulli Gateway for an interview.

“As soon as I heard about [Jaques'] plans for 'The Big Jump' I was interested.” She told this reporter while booking passage. “A longtime family friend moved to Jaques Station many years ago, and always wanted me to join her there. I suppose Caylee probably meant just to visit.” Caylee Eaton is one of three daughters to the late Carl Eaton of the Eaton Logistics fortune.

Ms. Ratherford explained that she had been looking for a change after finding her retirement dull, and that the recently announced plan to move Jaques Station to Beagle Point is something she considers an opportunity.

“I think the risks have been examined.” Ms. Ratherford said when asked for her thoughts on the dangers of this unprecedented journey. “Honestly though, I would be going even if I didn't think that. As soon as I heard, I just fell in love with the idea.”

This reporter asked Ms. Ratherford if she was happy to leave the Bubble. “If you had asked me a year ago, I would have told you about how hesitant and worried I would have been. It's strange to admit, but yes. I am.”

Her retirement was controversial as it came on the heels of the end of a bloody civil war still remembered by all residents of Korwei. Ms. Ratherford has been accused of mishandling affairs at Bernoulli Gateway leading up to the conflict, and many residents feel that her retirement was an exercise in avoiding consequences.

“Good riddance.” Said 'Fred' a dockworker. “She's the reason most people around here have a dead family member or two. If it weren't for brave Commanders like the Raptor stepping in, there wouldn't even be a Wingqvist Enterprise anymore.”

Though such ire can be found for Ms. Ratherford among the people of Korwei, this reporter notes that after interviewing her: there was little fanfare in the docks. Huxley Ratherford boarded a transport vessel, economy class. She was among a large group of people who seemed not to know her. A controversial woman, pivotal to the local history, has left quietly. Shoulder to shoulder with the laborers and commuters, whom she tried to serve in her time as leader.

-Pete Kenji, Freelance Reporter.