Fiearius put his palm on the floorboard and pressed. For a moment, nothing happened. Gods, it better not have broken. But finally, the board shifted. It lowered just enough to then slide underneath the board beside it, revealing the small dark space hidden beneath it. And inside? All the heavy bound documents, printed copies and miscellaneous evidence Aela had left there.

“Guess she was right,” Fiearius remarked, mostly to himself as he crouched down and pulled out the first thing that met his fingertips, a stack of records relating to an Internal agent going undercover on Ascendia. “No one ever found it.”

Leta crouched down beside him and reached her hand into the hole to fish something out. “Department of Health Incident Report on the Transport of Wellian Virus Specimen–” she read and then looked up at him in alarm. “This is about the outbreak on Vescent. The one that killed the Senate.”

Fiearius shrugged. “She knew what she was looking for in terms of blackmail, that’s for sure…”

“This is about–Rebeka Palano.” Leta continued to sift through the documents. “Arleth Morgan? All the Councillors, they’re all in here. The takeover of Vescent. ARC?” She looked up at him in alarm. “Fiear, she knew everything…”

The revelation didn’t surprise him exactly. Of course, if anyone had uncovered the identities of the Councillors and the unsavory actions of the Society long before anyone else, it would be Aela. But even so, having the proof in his hands didn’t comfort him. If she’d known about all this–why hadn’t she told him? Sure, she’d stored all her evidence in a space under their bed that he had access to, but–she’d made it sound boring. “It’s all just paperwork and accounting,” she’d said, essentially discouraging him from ever bothering to look.

Above that, even, it changed the context of–well, everything. Aela had always been pushing them to leave Satieri, start a new life elsewhere, but she had never given an exact reason. But if she knew, if she knew all of–this? Did she–

“Alright, hi, here we go.”

He hadn’t heard that voice in over a decade. He’d last heard it pleading for the life of their son, desperate and cracked and strained. But now it sounded calm, collected, the same logical woman who had asked him to marry her once upon a time. For just a second, he thought it was a ghost.

But the thought passed as quickly as it had come. The voice had come from a tablet Leta was holding in her hands and hurriedly paused. She looked over at him in alarm and then grimaced an apology before handing it to him.

And there was her face on the screen. Her dark skin, her sharp green eyes, the freckles that dotted her cheeks that he could still mark the constellations in. It had been so long since he’d looked at that face and yet every inch of it was familiar, right up to the top of the orange sundress that hung from her shoulders. It was her favorite dress on a warm spring day, she wore it constantly. She wore it when she died.

Hesitantly, he pressed play again and her voice once more filled the room.

“If you’re watching this, it means–” She heaved a sigh. “Something went terribly wrong. Which, as you might imagine, given what you probably know now, is a little difficult to talk about.” A fleeting smile passed across her face. She was nervous, her eyebrows knit together in worry. “I guess I’m dead. Which–really sucks. I’m–or by the time you watch this, I was–really trying to avoid that. Something must have happened, I maybe made a mistake or there was another factor I didn’t think about or–”

Beside him, Fiearius felt Leta start to get to her feet to leave, but he reached out a hand to her. “No, stay,” he ordered. Leta sat back down without a word.

“Okay, I’m sorry, this is not how I should be doing this.” Aela shook her bushy red hair and crunched her eyes shut like she always did when she was concentrating. “Alright, let me start over.”

There was a long pause before another deep breath and then she looked straight into the camera and smiled. “Hi, F. If you’re watching this, it means I died. And I owe you an explanation. A few, really. I’ve owed you explanations for a long time, but you never asked for any. You’re too trusting, you know that? You don’t think you are, but you are. And–it’s not fair to you.” She nodded solemnly. “You deserve to know.”

She shuffled a little in her seat and settled in. “I’ve done some things that I regret. Who hasn’t, I guess? But mine, it started many years ago. We hadn’t met yet.” She spoke so calmly, so plainly, like she was reading off a teleprompter. “I was approached by a man named Dorrion E’etan. At the time, he had just become the Verdant of the Society. You’ve seen him, you know who he is now. This was before then. Before he was everywhere. And he gave me an assignment. The assignment was to get to know you.”

A brief flash of a grimace passed over her face before she hurried on, waving her hand in front of the camera, “This sounds terrible, I know. But hear me out, okay? I was an up and comer in Information, I’d been working towards investigator, this guy, this really important guy tells me that I’m perfect for this really important job, of course I’m going to take it without a second thought. So now you know. That’s why I was at that party I had no business being at all those years ago. That’s why I sat right where I knew you’d see me. And that’s why I didn’t totally write you off when you delivered that absolutely terrible pick up line.” She cocked a brow knowingly. “Seriously, dear, I know you’re single again now, but never use that again.”

She cleared her throat. “Anyway. At first I didn’t know why I had to stalk you. I would just report back to E’etan with whatever I had and he never asked for more. And eventually? He stopped asking for reports. No fanfare, no closure, the assignment just ended and I moved on. Of course by then, you’d kind of grown on me, doofy as you were.” The smile that twisted in her lips put a terrible knot in Fiearius’ chest. “And since you weren’t an assignment anymore? I think you remember the day I turned in my last report, let’s say.”

But her smile only lasted a moment before it changed to an expression much more tinged with sadness. Her eyes cast downward and her jaw tightened. “I wish that was the end of it. But. Like I said. I have regrets. And meeting you was not one of them. What was, however, was telling E’etan all that I told him. All good things, mind you. Competent, efficient, a good leader, loyal to a fault. Everything he was looking for–” She hesitated and her stare flicked back towards the camera. “–for his replacement.”

“This should come as no surprise to you, right about now,” she admitted. “If what I think is happening today happened already, you already know. But Fiearius–” She began to shake her head, slowly, painfully and then locked her eyes on his with a disturbing intensity. “You can’t. I don’t know what you saw, I don’t know how it went down, but I need you to understand this. You can’t stay here. You have to leave.”

“E’etan–once I found out his intentions for you, I reached out to him again. We’d been together a while, you and I. I needed to know what it meant. I’d read things in my work, discovered things that–well, they’re all here. You can read them yourself. You should read them, I’m sorry I told you otherwise until now. You had dedicated your life to the Society. They were your guiding light. I couldn’t just tell you that the Council you serve had been corrupted and had done horrible, awful things. I should have told you before. But I’m telling you now.”

Lifting her hand to literally regrasp her lost train of thought, she went on, “But E’etan, he already knew. He told me about being Verdant, he told me about the Council, who they were, how they acted. I was horrified. He was horrified. And when I asked about you, he–he told me about his plan. Why he had already sought out his replacement. He was already done being Verdant, he couldn’t do anything as Verdant. He was aiming for Councillor.”

Aela was breathing heavily now, there was a slight sheen on her eyes as the corners of them filled with water. “His plan–F, it wasn’t good for you. It didn’t end well for you. But I saw an opportunity and I took it. I agreed to help him. We launched an initiative behind the Council’s back. He was Verdant, they’d never find out if he didn’t want them to. It was foolproof.”

“The man was no idiot though,” she clarified, “he knew my intentions were to protect you, but he played along. We each made our moves. I tried, gods how I tried, to extract the both of us from the game. I tried to convince you to leave Satieri, when we got married, when Denarian was born, every chance I got–” Her voice cracked a little and she put her hand over her eyes. “If I’d just told you, if I’d just been honest–” Her hand fell away and when she faced the camera again, her expression was starting to break.

“I have regrets. I made mistakes. And today, if you’re watching this, no matter how good or bad I was at the game, E’etan outplayed me. I’m gone. But, gods willing, you’re not.”

Her hands reached out to grab the camera, but she may have well have reached out of the screen and seized his throat. “F, no matter what, you need to leave. You need to take Denarian and you need to leave. Take everything stored here and go anywhere. Remember that restaurant you always talked about opening on the shores of Paraven? Do it. Or go to Tarin. Yseltin will help you. Go anywhere, just get away from here as quickly as you can.”

Her tone deepened suddenly. “But F, if you killed him? If he succeeded and made you Verdant?” The camera, still held in her hands, shook ever so slightly. “They’ll never let you go. They’ll chase you across the Span. But E’etan was wrong.” And here, she frowned with determination. “The Verdant isn’t powerless. With all you know, everything you have, everything here? You don’t have to take it. You can fight back. You can make a life.”

There were tears now, running down her cheeks as her voice quivered. “I screwed up, F. But it’s not too late. Protect our son. Protect yourself. I love you so much and I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

The screen turned to black and she was gone, just like that. As gone as she’d ever been. Fiearius didn’t know what he was supposed to feel, but the reality was somewhere between getting punched in the gut by someone twice his size and complete and utter numbness. He still held the tablet in front of him and the planet must have been shaking. Or was that his hand?

“Fiear?” he heard Leta begin to ask.

“No,” was all he could say. “The answer is no.”

He felt her hand on his back for just a moment before she gasped and grasped at her gun. When Fiearius turned to look at what had shocked her, he was not at all surprised to find Dez standing in the doorway. Of course he was. He’d be more surprised to not find him there watching, waiting.

The room was still, none of them daring to move or speak. And then the planet did shake. A burst of light rained down from the skies above them and collided with the cityscape out the window. The blast was so loud it was silent and Fiearius’ ears were still ringing when he stood up to look out at the plume of smoke that followed it, dark and heavy and black.

“So,” Desophyles mused, leaning against the wall. “What now, Admiral?”

But as similar as it was physically, it felt entirely different. This street, this community, had once been warm, kind, welcoming, but now it was cold, dark and empty. Which made sense, there was a battle going on above them. Even in the daylight, the explosions could be seen in the skies. But it was more than that. Fiearius got the distinct impression that it had been cold here for a while.

Still, he was glad to find no blatant opposition as he traversed the shadows of the buildings towards his old home, Leta behind him. She was being extra careful to stay beneath the cover of shade, he noticed, but he couldn’t tell if it was to remain unseen or simply to keep her delicate skin out of the harsh Satieran sun. Any other time, he might have teased her about it, but now, when the only noises were the distant shudders of ship fire and their own footsteps, it felt wrong to disrupt the quiet. It felt wrong to make jokes. Everything, actually just…felt wrong.

He tried not to think about the wreckage they’d left in the Satieran atmosphere…

“Fiear,” he heard Leta whisper behind him and her hand reached out for his arm. His grip on his gun tightened as he looked back at her, but she didn’t seem to be reacting to a threat. She was standing very still, facing him, but her eyes were locked on the upper window of a building across the street. “Look.”

Carefully, he did as he was told, though not quite as subtly as she had. He met the pair of eyes that were watching them from above, they widened in alarm and the curtain was drawn shut instantly.

“There were others, too,” she muttered, glancing over her shoulder. There were no more obvious spectators in view, but Fiearius didn’t think she was wrong when she said, “I swear it, I can feel them watching us.”

So they weren’t as alone as he’d thought. He felt a touch of pity for these people, terrified and holed up in their homes, waiting for whatever was going to happen to them next. What would he have done, if he’d still lived here during all of this? Been like these people and stayed inside with his family, hoping it would all turn out okay? Or would he be up in the sky, fighting off the invasion?

It didn’t matter now. “As long as they’re watching and not attacking, I’m fine with it,” Fiearius mumbled and continued onward. They were almost there, he could see the steps to the door from here, still missing a chunk after Fiearius had gotten into an impromptu fight with a shotgun in 1853. He stepped over a dark patch of concrete, tinged ever so slightly red, where he’d once tripped and reopened a wound from a recent job gone wrong. He didn’t have to look at the wall of the neighboring apartment to know that there would still be one big and one tiny handprint stained into its surface.

Fiearius had always been acutely aware of the marks this place had left on him over the years, how Satieri still lived in his veins and shaped his bones, but it had never occurred to him how many scars he himself had left. And as he approached the front of the building he had once called home, it quickly became clear just how much of an effect he’d had.

“Dov’ha ti’arte…” he breathed, finding himself stunned to a stop as he looked up to take it all in. The building hadn’t changed in a decade. It was the same shambly old building, dated, but comfortable, homey, with its friendly green door and cheerful round windows. It may have been given a fresh coat of paint, but it was hard to tell given the layers of graffiti that covered the lower floor.

There were libreras, and then altered versions of libreras, the same that Dez and his followers wore. Anti-Carthian slurs, scribbled Ridellian prayers, Society posters of his face, their slogans changed from ‘beware’ to ‘be aware’. But the piece that took up the most space, the thing your eye was drawn to first was the huge painting of Fiearius, his eyes and mouth covered by the bold phrase in red paint ‘THE ROGUE VERDANT LIVES’.

Startling was an understated description.

Fiearius was still standing, staring in a stupor, when he felt Leta’s hand on his arm. “You okay?” she asked.

No. No, he was not okay. This was not, in any sense of the word, okay. Fleetingly, he thought of Dez. This was probably his doing. Spreading lies and bullshit to garner more people to his crazy purpose. But then just as fleetingly, he remembered someone else. A ship captain he’d met long ago on Archeti, long before Dez’s movement, aboard a Society ship he was stealing. The first he stole, actually. And the words that had never left him. ‘You’re an inspiration. A legend. You give us hope.’

Gods, how the hell had this gotten so messy?

“Yeah, come on.” He marched up the stairs, decidedly ignoring the bizarre, disturbing shrine that had been resurrected here on his behalf, but as he barged through the front door, he found it didn’t end there. The murals continued in the hallways. On the doors to the apartments within. The ones that hadn’t been torn down to reveal equally defaced and trashed rooms inside anyway.

People had lived here, that much was certain. There was tossed furniture, strewn linens, things left behind that weren’t worth packing when the residents had been run out. There was an abandoned plush dog toy at the bottom of the stairs. What remained of a dresser at the top of them.

“It’s apartment 24,” he told Leta, though he didn’t need to. Even from the landing, the door they needed was apparent. It was where all the paintings and drawings and scribbled sentences culminated. The original color of the doorframe wasn’t even visible anymore, so covered in additions. The door itself was nowhere in sight and as Fiearius carefully stepped over a beat up couch cushion onto the threshold of his old home, he didn’t feel the same sense of familiarity he had on the street. The four walls of the cramped living room may have stood in the same place, the doors to the balcony, shattered, were where they were meant to be, but this wasn’t his home.

“Is this stuff–yours?” Leta crept around him into the living room, stepping over abandoned paint cans, broken furniture and glass.

“No. Don’t know what happened to my stuff.” He shrugged. He hadn’t even thought about ‘his stuff’ in a decade. Must not have been that important. “Didn’t have much to begin with.”

“So this is recent then.” She gestured to the mess around them. By the way some things still sat, untouched and innocent, it seemed whoever had been run out of here had been run out of here quickly. When she reached the one remaining bookshelf that hadn’t been torn apart, she lifted the broken picture frame from it gently. It flickered on, just briefly enough to show its image.

“This poor family…” Fiearius heard her mutter as he walked the opposite direction towards the bedroom. It was difficult enough to not wonder if he was in some way at fault for this. He had no intention of getting to know his victims if he was.

The bedroom was less ransacked than the main room of the apartment. There was still a bed in it, for one thing and though the writings on the wall were similar to the rest of the building, he spotted a few cruder ones in here. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Almost.

“You okay?” he heard Leta ask from the doorway and this time, he frowned back at her.

“Would you stop asking me that?”

At once he saw her bristle with irritation. “Oh I’m sorry, is my genuine concern for your wellbeing bothering you?”

He rolled his eyes. “A little bit.”

“Well get over it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “This is really weird. I’m sure it’s even weirder for you. I just want to make sure you’re alright because I care, deal. Now I’ll ask again, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he lied, almost smirking. Annoying or no, Leta’s eternal willingness to battle him on even the smallest things added just a touch of normalcy to this otherwise alien situation. “Now help me move this, would ya?”

Setting their hands down on the mattress,they pushed the heavy bed out of the way into the corner of the room. Underneath, the hardwood floorboards looked entirely innocent, just like any other piece of flooring. He could still remember the afternoon Aela installed the box beneath them, smiling ever so proudly to herself. “No one will ever find it,” she had declared pulling her palm from the floor and wiping her hands together in satisfaction.

Overhead, a great metallic mass was just visible through the window, blocking out the sun and plunging the bridge into darkness as it passed over them. It was an impressive ship, at least impressive compared to the Dionysian, though that wasn’t hard. She was about four times in size, for one, made within the last century and equipped with actual weaponry integrated with her systems rather than a single turret Cyrus had welded on when the war started.

“Our friends upstairs are holdin’ their own, how bout I lend my talents to gettin’ you lot planet-side?” Quin asked as her ship sped off in front of them and started firing in all directions. The swarm of fighters tried to regroup to attack her, but one by one, Leta watched them turn to flames in the atmosphere and burn up into dust. At the very least, the new ship was drawing more fire away from the Dionysian, allowing their shields a break to regenerate. At best, it was clearing out an entire path that would lead them to Satieri.

Fiearius seemed to relax a little as the Dionysian settled into Quin’s quiet wake. “You gonna hold this one over me too, then?”

Quin’s laugh could be heard through the COMM. “‘Course sweetheart. Your debt to me ain’t ever gonna shrink at this rate. You can win this war and free whoever, won’t matter, you’re gonna be workin’ for me til the day you die.”

Fiearius shrugged. “I can think of worse fates.”

“Your optimism is misplaced, I’m puttin’ you on whichever latrine duty I can find.”

“My cruel mistress,” Fiearius chuckled.

Leta tried not to laugh herself at what this had turned into. From a panic-stricken descent with danger flying at them from all sides to a calm pleasure cruise for Fiearius to flirt with his colleague. True, there were still fighters barraging them, but Quin’s ship was blasting them down one by one while barely taking a few hits that bounced right off her superior shields. They were nearly to the planet’s surface which was when the ground defenses started acting up.

A blast from the city below flew right past Quin’s ship, barely missing its hull and Fiearius had to roll the Dionysian out of the way to spare their own.

“Alright, I’m gonna take out these shitty turrets for ya,” Quin promised, redirecting her ship’s weapons towards the surface. “These fuckers are scrambling our radars so cover me?”

“Our gun’s down, but–” Fiearius began only to be cut off by another laugh. He ignored it and continued, “I’ll let you know if you’re in trouble.”

Fortunately, the immediate area had been completely wiped of life. If nothing else, Quin was thorough and though Fiearius kept his eyes locked on the viewport, the skies were clear. And they were truly in the skies now. The city was now laid out in front of them, finally within grasp. They’d made it. Thank the gods, they’d made it. All at once Leta was both relieved and more nervous than ever.

The last turret on the surface erupted in a burst of flames and smoke, which was Quin’s cue.

“You’re all clear, love,” she called to them. “Take care o’ yourself down there, alright? You die and your debt transfers to next of kin and I’ve met that lil brother o’ yours. Don’t think he’d like that much.”

“For Cyrus’ sake alone, I will survive.” Leta couldn’t help but notice how hard Fiearius swallowed before he said, “See you in a few hours, Q.”

“Countin’ on it, hotshot.”

The great ship before them turned away from the planet and started to make its ascent back into the atmosphere to rejoin the rest of the fleet, which was when Leta caught sight of something in her peripheral vision. Something moving fast. Very fast. That ground turret hadn’t been the last, she realized, just in time.

“Fiear–” she got out just barely, sure that he was seeing it too, sure that he would warn Quin, tell them to reroute frontal shields to the rear, surely he would–

Boom.

The impact shook the Dionysian as a blast of fire and metal from Quin’s ship exploded out into the sky. There was smoke, so much smoke, Leta caught a glimpse of the ship’s front drifting through it just before the second shot hit.

“Quin!” Fiearius shouted into the COMM, his voice cracked in desperation. “Quin, do you read?!”

There was no response. A third explosion.

“Quin, come in! Anyone, please, come in,” Fiearius tried again, his hand that gripped the COMM was shaking. Still, no response. Leta felt her chest grow both heavy and empty at once. There would be no response. Three direct hits from ground artillery? There would be no response.

“Quin!”

Leta didn’t feel like she could speak or move. The smoke was starting to clear and the ship that had saved them minutes ago — rather the wreckage of what little was left of it — floated helplessly in the sky before them. She could barely stand to look at it, but she couldn’t look away either. Neither could the rest of the bridge crew. She could hear Maya, her wide eyes locked on the viewport, breathing shallow breaths beside her. Javier had finally looked away from the nav console and collapsed into the co-pilot’s seat. And Fiearius–

“No, no, no, no,” he was muttering under his breath, gripping the edge of the console with quaking hands. “No.” He shook the dashboard. “No!” His fist rammed into the metal. As he drew it away, Leta saw the dent and the speckle of blood.

As shattered as Leta felt, she knew she couldn’t fathom what Fiearius was feeling. He stood hunched over the dashboard, his head down, his chest rising and falling in jagged motions, his arms barely holding him up. But as much as it pained her, now was not the time for grief. Now, they didn’t have time for sorrow.

“Fiearius,” she said, her voice sharp and an equally sharp spike of guilt rushed through her. He glanced back at her and the look on his face almost changed her mind. But she steeled herself and stared straight back at him, face stony. They had to keep moving. They had to finish the mission regardless of loss. And he knew it.

It was a long moment of silence. She didn’t want to say what had to be said, she didn’t want to speak the words, and thank the gods, he didn’t make her. At last, he released the breath he’d been holding in his lungs and turned back to the console. It was another moment, his eyes clenched shut, before he got his focus back.

“Right.” His hands gripped the controls. “All power to front shields.”

“You got it, capitaine.”

“Weapons still jammed?”

“Working on it, cap’n.”

“Get it running. Pigeon?”

Javier tapped a few buttons on his console. “Signal’s coming back strong, captain.”

“Great. Keep an eye on that turret for me.” Fiearius heaved another deep breath. “Making our final descent.”

In one swift motion, the Dionysian sped forward. Javier barked something, Fiearius dodged a blast, Maya relayed the shield power and they soared straight through the wreckage and towards the Paradexian skyline, but all Leta could focus on was the back of Fiearius’ head. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, pull him into an embrace, soothe the turmoil that was surely rifling through him.

But she stayed in her seat and let him fly the ship. She said nothing, did nothing, as he and his crew expertly navigated the last few thousand feet to the planet’s surface. She kept her urges to herself as the Dionysian leveled itself and lowered between the buildings and touched down on Satieran ground for the first time in over a decade.

It was only when the shuddering of the ship stopped, the engine powered down and Fiearius rose from his seat that Leta acted at all. He didn’t meet her eyes as he headed out of the bridge and told her, “Let’s go.” At once, she was on her feet, following him through the ship. Javier hurried past them, getting the door to the cargo bay unsealed before they arrived and the outer ramp down. Rhys was there too, with Eve, handing Fiearius a gun, a second gun, patting him on the back. Richelle and Maya rushed in after them, but Fiearius moved through them all like a ghost, perhaps not seeing them at all.

It wasn’t until Fiearius was halfway down the ramp, Leta on his tail, that he looked back at his faithful crew, hovering awkwardly at the top of it in a row. “Take care of the ship,” he managed and they nodded fervently.

“You got it, cap’n,” promised Eve.

“Aye aye,” said Rhys.

“Don’t worry ‘bout a thing,” said Maya as Richelle nodded.

“Good luck, captain,” said Javier.

Fiearius provided them perhaps the weakest smile she’d ever seen grace his face before turning back out and continuing slowly down the ramp. Leta still followed in silence until he stopped again, right at the base of it, staring down at the Satieran ground in front of him like a challenge he wasn’t sure he wanted to take.

“Fiear…” Leta touched his elbow gently.

“I should have seen it,” he said and Leta didn’t have to ask to know what he meant. The shot. The shot that took her down. “I should have seen it coming.”

Horribly, she had thought the same thing when it happened. She had seen it from further back in the bridge. It was right in front of him and he’d done nothing. She had seen it though. She’d seen it–it hit her suddenly–on the left. Unconsciously, she looked over at Fiearius’ glassy left eye.

“It’s not your fault,” she assured him, gripping his arm now. “It’s not your fault at all.”

Fiearius heaved a sigh. “Sure.” He hesitated just one more moment before setting his foot down in the dirt of his estranged home. “Be on your guard,” he warned, drawing his gun. “We’re not far.”

“Why?”

He swung back towards her. “Why?”

“Yeah, why? Why do you need to do this alone? Why do you need to put yourself in unnecessary danger?”

“Leta,” Fiearius groaned again.

“Fiearius,” she growled right back. “Tell me why. Give me one good reason and I’ll consider backing off. My name doesn’t count as an argument.”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because it’s personal, okay?”

“Your reason?”

“Wha–No! This mission is personal!” he snapped, stepping back towards her in a burst of anger. “Digging through my dead wife’s stuff is personal. Looking for evidence of her involvement with the man who killed our son is personal. It’s personal and I need to do it alone.”

The rare moment of perfect clarity stunned Leta to silence, even though she’d been expecting it. Even though she’d pushed him to it. But as stunned as she was, it was the rest of the crew, still hovering around the bay, looking very much out of place, that had the biggest shock. Richelle’s eyes were wide, Maya’s mouth had dropped open, even Eve looked confused and it only took Fiearius a few moments of hard breathing to realize they were still there.

He grit his teeth. “Did I not fuckin’ give you orders?” His tone was low and voice barely audible, but the rage in it was enough to send the crew scattering. In instants, Fiearius and Leta were alone in the cargo bay.

She spoke gently. “You know what I’m going to say.”

Fiearius, who had been content to try and stare her down, flicked his eyes finally to the floor in what could only be defeat. “That it being personal is even more reason to have someone else there.”

Leta nodded. “I respect your privacy, Fiear, and I get the sensitivity of this. But I want you to come out of it alive. I don’t have to look through Aela’s stuff with you. You don’t have to tell me anything you find there. But I’m going with you. Just in case…you need me to be there.”

His stance, at last, loosened. His tense muscles relaxed. He put his hand on his forehead. “Fine. Fine, you can come.”

“Good.” Leta stepped forward and looped her arm through his, turning him around and leading him through the cargo bay up towards the bridge. “Not that I would have taken no for an answer.”

At her side, Fiearius snorted a laugh. “I know. You really do belong on this fucking ship, don’t you?”

—————

The blast barely missed them, but it still made the Dionysian shudder violently. Leta gripped the edge of her seat in the crowded bridge, her knuckles turning white as she watched the planet out of the viewport spin and sway in and out of view. She’d been on enough ships now and particularly this one enough to not flat out vomit at the sight of it anymore, but she wasn’t totally immune. Her stomach groaned its nausea.

“That was a close one. Runaway, I need more power to my starboard thrusters,” Fiearius shouted into the COMM over the noise of the Dionysian and the Society ships swarming the atmosphere around them.

The descent to Satieri was about what Leta would have expected: terrifying and totally outnumbered. From the moment the Dionysian arrived in Exymerian space, they were under attack. Carthian warships and select dreadnoughts from Fiearius’ own fleet followed after them, drawing in much of the heavy fire from the planet’s defenses, but even so, the barrage was overwhelming. It was as if the entire Society was here trying to shoot them down and it was only Fiearius’ reckless piloting that was keeping them afloat as they plowed forward towards the planet.

“On it, capitaine! More power to starboard!” Richelle called back from the engine room.

“We’ve got a stealth coming up at our five,” Javier from the co-pilot’s chair announced, clutching onto the console, his eyes locked on the navigations radar.

“Harper, you got ‘em?”

“Positive, cap’n.” The ship jolted suddenly, indication that Eve had fired off the Dionysian’s retro-fitted turret. It was followed by a symphony of clanging as pieces of the felled ship met the Dionysian’s body.

Before Fiearius could even ask, Maya, crammed into the seat beside Leta with a monitoring device hooked up to the dashboard, shouted, “Hull’s holding strong, shields at 40%.”

“That could be better,” Fiearius mumbled as he yanked on the controls and the ship barrel-rolled out of the path of a sleek black fighter headed straight at them.

But from where Leta sat, she didn’t exactly see how that was true. Sure, things could always be better, shields could be at 100, they could not be narrowly avoiding an all-out assault, Satieri could be Society-free and full of puppies, but by Dionysian standards, how they were faring was remarkable in and of itself. In the old days when Leta had lived aboard the ship fulltime, there was a constant sense of panic. Everything that could go wrong went wrong and the crew was eternally engaged in yelling matches with one another.

The Dionysian today was practically unrecognizable. They were still barreling towards danger, Fiearius was still barking out orders, but the ship and her crew was adapting to every step like a well-oiled machine.

“Starboard power compensated, capitaine!” came Richelle’s voice over the COMM.

Fiearius hit a switch and the ship gracefully zoomed to the left just as another blast flew past them. “Beautiful. Let’s–”

“Work on shield regeneration next, already on it.” The COMM went dead as Richelle got back to work.

Leta had once teased Fiearius that his new crew were all young and inexperienced in running a ship, but watching them now, she regretted it. Perhaps it was a testament to their captain’s improvement in leadership abilities. Or perhaps being on a boat in the midst of a war just required them to step up their game and learn to function. Whatever the reason, Leta was impressed and she had more faith than ever that the Dionysian would make it to ground.

Unfortunately, the crew’s skills weren’t the only factor and though Fiearius continued to fly them further and further through the atmosphere and the city of Paradiex grew closer and closer, there were still countless fighters they had to avoid and even more countless blasts flying at them from all directions.

One of them hit.

The Dionysian shook violently and her alarm started to blare overhead. “Shit,” Fiearius growled as Maya started to rattle off a damage report.

“Shields down to 10%, no systems affected, minor hull breach in the cargo bay–”

“Decompressing and sealing bay, routing additional life support power to engine room,” said Javier, tapping furiously on the keyboard.

“And rerouting to shields,” called Richelle.

“Shields back to 40.” The alarms switched off.

Leta was glad that she took a moment to look at Fiearius just then and catch the utterly proud smirk on his face. If he hadn’t been in the middle of maneuvering his beast of a boat out of the way of three separate attacks, he probably would have turned to her, gestured to his crew and snapped, “See?”

Good thing he didn’t though, because in the next moment, their triumph was quickly overshadowed by a new squad of fighter ships suddenly drifting into the viewport, these ones even more numerous than the last.

Leta saw Fiearius grit his teeth and clutch the controls tighter. “Stay on ‘em, Harper, I’ll avoid what I can, but–”

“I’ll take ‘em down, cap’n,” Eve promised from the upper artillery, staying true to her word and firing off a round that shattered one of the ships like glass. But just one. The rest, on cue, fired their weapons and all at once, some twenty bursts of light were speeding straight towards them.

“Oh shit,” Fiearius whispered as he yanked the ship controls back even harder than before and the Dionysian spun upwards, the planet and the ships swinging out of view. “Shoot them faster, Harper!”

“Captain, they’re scattering our sensors,” Javier shouted out from next to him as Fiearius swung the Dionysian back around, making a quick sprint towards the planet and narrowly avoiding the much faster, more maneuverable ships.

“What?! How is that even–”

“We got another problem, cap’n!” came Eve’s voice. “Turret’s jammed again, I can’t shoot!”

Javier was still gripping the navigations console and searching over the screen desperately. “I can’t see them!”

Just then, as the Dionysian attempted to power forward, six of those fighter ships Javier couldn’t see zoomed into the viewport again.

“Well I can!” Fiearius shoved the controls forward and the ships swooped downwards, underneath the enemy blasts and zooming straight below them right as two of them inexplicably exploded. The debris rained down on the Dionysian’s hull as they passed beneath, sounding like a storm overhead.

The Dionysian’s weapons were jammed, thought Leta. And even if they weren’t, Eve wasn’t that good of a shot, so how–

“Why am I always havin’ to save your ass, darlin’?” came Quin’s voice over the COMM and Fiearius’ face lit up with a smile.

“‘Cause you love me,” he chimed back cheerfully, swerving around another ship that promptly blew up.

“I was thinkin’ more ‘cause you still insist on drivin’ that piece o’ junk around.”

He shrugged in admission. “That too.”