“Sorry, I didn’t–” she muttered awkwardly. “I mean, that wasn’t about you. It was just–” Her frown returned suddenly, directed passionately at the floor before she forced it out, tilted her head to each side and took a deep breath. “Sorry. Look, ya want a lesson, I can give ya a lesson. Specially if he’s serious.” One of her brows raised curiously. “Nice alpha planet doctor like you musta never even laid hands on one of these.” She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at the armory door. “Wouldn’t want you gettin’ hurt out there on account of that asshole. I’ll teach ya everything I know.”

As Corra forced a kinder smile, Cyrus added helpfully, “She won’t need it. I’m gonna talk to him. I’ll get her out of it.” He grinned in a manner he probably thought was encouraging. The result was a bit creepy. And before anyone could speak, he turned and rushed away.

Corra’s eyes had gone slightly wide at his proclamation. For a long moment, she stared at Cyrus’ retreating back. “Yeah,” she decided at last, looking back to Leta as she turned around, “you’re definitely gonna need lessons. Come on in.”

The armory was a long, rectangular room with burnt brown walls. It was shadowy and dim like the rest of the Dionysian,except one wall, which glinted invitingly even in the low light. As Leta stepped inside, she saw why: it was lined, floor to ceiling, with weaponry of all sizes.

As Leta stepped toward it, the knot of worry in her chest loosened ever so slightly. In spite of it all, in spite of everything, some of her burning questions and unending nervousness was replaced with something else: interest.

Beside her, Corra took a deep breath and placed her hands squarely on her hips. “Alright,” she proclaimed, gesturing to the racks above their heads. They seemed to hold everything from the tiny, concealable sort that could be stuffed within clothing, to monstrous rifles that Leta could hardly imagine being able to carry. “First lesson, I suggest you pick one you can hold.”

Well, there was no reason not to accept the lesson, was there? She wasn’t going to help Fiearius, but equipping herself on a criminal ship didn’t seem like a bad idea. Nodding slightly, Leta stepped closer to the wall, her eyes traveling high and low along the racks.

Pressing her lips together in thought, she regarded a line of long, thin guns she thought must have been assault rifles. Her height may have afforded her the opportunity to hold the larger weapons, but she could not envision herself doing anything but fumbling with something of that size. Then, she quirked a brow at the set of bulky machine guns in the corner. At that, a wry smirked touched her eyes, before her gaze finally lowered to another shelf.

Tilting her head, she stepped closer, filling her eyes with the sight of a row of shining handguns. With careful surgeon hands, she reached to pull it from the rack, closing her fingers around the grip. She turned around again with the gun in hand, examining it. The grated metal weapon relaxed into her grasp — a small but steady fit.

“Like this one?” she said, looking up at Corra.

Despite her foul mood, Leta saw a small, almost indistinguishable smile run across Corra’s lips. “One of my favorites,” she commended as she moved over to another wall herself and began sorting through what appeared to be boxes of ammunition. “When you’re in the range, dare I even call it that, only use the FMJs,” she advised her a little absently as she held up a clip proudly. “Hollow-points have a tendency to split on impact which…well it does interesting things to human bodies, but if you’re firing into a bullet-proof wall? Ricochet. Bad stuff.”

Swiftly, Corra rejoined her in the center of the room and began fussing about with the gun in her hand. “So this is your clip,” she told her diligently as she reached to unapologetically grab for the weapon in Leta’s hand. “Release is here. Pop it out, pop another back in.” The gun clicked as Corra shoved the clip in her hand into it. “Hold it tight, but not too tight, like this, with what ever hand you feel better with.” She meticulously rearranged Leta’s fingers on the grip. “This is your safety,” she pointed out. “On. Off. Only take it off if you know you’re gonna need it off. Never put your finger on the trigger unless you actually aiming to shoot something. When you’re not.” She moved her index finger as well. “Rest it here.”

Satisfied, Corra stepped back and looked her up and down, her brow furrowed. “Shoulders back, feet apart,” she instructed, and Leta did as she was told, feeling somewhat bemused by the instructions, but not enough to interrupt.

“Know where your center of gravity is and keep your balance,” Corra went on. “Even little ones like that have recoil and if you’re not expecting it, you can get yourself hurt. Arm out straight. Don’t try any fancy shooting, not ‘til you’ve had more practice. The key for beginners is staying steady and keeping aim.” She nodded firmly and added, with a frown, “Also, don’t close your eyes. Either of them. People do that. I don’t know why, it’s the stupidest thing,” she muttered, but then she smiled up at Leta encouragingly and stepped out of the way.

“Go on,” she insisted, gesturing the the thick, black wall at the far end of the room, already riddled with caught bullets in its surface. “Give it a try.”

Hesitating slightly, Leta lifted her gun arm aloft as Corra had indicated. For a moment she did not recognize her own hand out in the air, her fingers grasped around the grip of a gun. A gun. She was holding a gun? She was an M.D. for crying out loud. But, before she could think more on it, she squeezed the trigger.

“Why do you deal with him?” Corra demanded angrily as she hurried up to his side. “He’s scum and you know it. There are other dealers. Better dealers. We could go elsewhere, just turn the ship around and take the goods somewhere else. To someone else. There’s no reason that we have to go to Goddora. Are you just doing this to spite me?”

At her last question, the air in the hall seemed to freeze. It was as though everyone in the room took in a breath simultaneously as Fiearius immediately stopped in his tracks and looked down at her with a tilt to his brow that seemed to say, ‘really?”

Even Corra, it seemed, couldn’t argue with that look. “Fine,” she mumbled agreeably, “but this is bull, Fiear.”

Once more, Fiearius rolled his eyes and walked away from her. Once more, the dining hall let out a collective sigh of relief and went back to — or pretended to go back —  to eating and talking.

But Leta did not. In fact, she twisted around in her chair to get a better look at the two of them. Now she was unbearably curious what they were talking about — business, it seemed like. Criminal business? She watched Fiearius as he picked a nearby table at random, sat himself down heavily next to a terrified-looking young man who backed his seat away immediately. He gestured to the chair across from him. “Corra, sit,” he said sharply.

Leta watched in surprise as Corra did as she was told: she ungracefully dropped into the chair, but looked ready to spring up again at any moment.

“I appreciate your interest in the business,” Fiearius went on calmly, entwining his fingers thoughtfully on the table before him.  He did not seem to notice Leta was completely ignoring the coffee mug before her and instead watching his every move from across the cafeteria.

“But you should know,” he went on, “You do know. That this is the way things are. This is the way things will always be.” He looked to Corra with a sort of burning intensity. “Deal with it or go elsewhere. It’s not up for negotiation.”

In response, Corra sat in silence, looking stunned, her elbows slackening where they had stood posed to throw herself forward in anger and the fire in her doused with a bucket of water. It was down. But it wasn’t quite gone. And she seemed unwilling to let this go. “There are other dealers on planets closer to where we are,” she said coldly, almost under her breath.

“Yes, but few have the resources to clean that many marked guns. And those that do don’t pay well enough,” he said frankly, leaning back in his chair and tapping his fingers on the edge of the table as though simply waiting for her to stop.

“So that’s it?” Corra asked, indignant once again. “We’ll do anything just for the money? Whatever happened to ‘know the man behind the hand’, huh? Thought you had some pride. Some dignity.” That fire returning, she finally used her poise to push herself to her feet so that she could leer down at him and allow her voice to fill the entire hall.

“But apparently,” she dared loudly,  “you’ll be the bitch of even dirty scum like Goddora for the right price, eh?”

Abruptly, a loud silence fell in the room. The audience hushed. Leta did not know if the captain was going to yell or jump out of his seat, but she watched, in perfect alarmed clarity, as his hand gave an unpleasant, unnatural twitch on the surface of the table.

But, just as the tension had arrived, it began to dissolve. Fiearius’ cold glare faded toward indifference. He shrugged and muttered carelessly, “I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

Apparently, Corra’s commitment to her statement had lasted only as long as it had taken to spill from her lips. A sigh — a sigh of relief, Leta was sure — passed through her. Quietly, she pressed, “Take me with you.”

“No,” Fiearius replied immediately.

“Why not?” Corra asked, looking incredulous again. “I’m the best gun-hand on this damn ship.”

“You are,” Fiearius admitted, leaning back in his chair casually. “Which is why I want you to teach what’s-her-face over there how not to kill herself with one because I’m taking her instead.”

It was only seconds after he’d spoken so gruffly that Leta realized he was, in fact, gesturing to her. She sat there, stunned to be addressed when she’d been merely an observer. And now she was pulled into — into what? She was going along. On this — business trip?

Corra looked exactly how Leta felt: completely shocked. Corra’s jaw dropped and she did not seem to be capable of putting words together. Finally, her expression fell into despair, she turned from the table and fled from the kitchen in a rush.

In the awkward silence that followed, Fiearius simply watched her back retreating as though it were merely mildly interesting. Then he looked back to Leta and raised his brows expectantly.

“Well?” he asked impatiently. “You heard me. Go on.” He raised his hand and gestured after Corra with it . Then he caught the eye of his unfortunate neighbor and smiled grimly. He reached over, seized the bowl of oatmeal that had been sitting in front of him and said “Thanks,” as he got up from his chair and stalked from the room with it.

He fell into an uncomfortable silence for a long few seconds as he frowned at the coffee mug in his hands. Finally, he perked up and added much more lightly, “Also, Corra would want me to tell you to stay away from Maya because she is, quote unquote, an awful bitch.” He smiled innocently and shrugged. “They don’t get along. She’s the one over by the kitchen door with the curly black hair,” he added, gesturing toward the woman who was in deep conversation with a younger boy beside her.

“Oh and the one she’s talking to?” he went on. “The blonde kid? That’s Nikkolai. You’ll meet him. I can guarantee you will meet him.” Not so subtly, Cyrus rolled his eyes. “He’s alright though. And the other one? Javier, I think. I don’t really know him. But they’re the more long-term of the deckhands. They’ve been here long enough to kind of know what they’re doing so if you need anything, any one of them’s a good bet to ask.”

“The one over by the door,” he continued, a little more flippantly as he gestured toward a short, stocky man, cheerfully drinking from a murky bottle of whiskey, “That’s Rhys. Another one of Fiear’s guns. Nice guy, but medically, you might want to watch for liver problems. The older couple at the table to his right, Palia and Alastair Dmitri. Paying passengers. Across from them, Arlo Harvey. Another passenger. Then over to the left that’s Bartley and Feydran and Tihla and, you know what? You’ll probably meet them all eventually and I don’t expect you to remember all this so never mind.” He turned back to her suddenly and smiled. “Most of this lot are pretty friendly. Unless they’re handing you an orange drink,” he reminded again, the smile dropping off his face rather warningly.

Personally, Leta wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not, though the impulse was there. They were a motley crew, this bunch. Before she could ask more about them, however, they were interrupted.

“Cyrus?” demanded a sudden, too-eager female voice. “Who — who is this?”

The scratchy voice belonged to an older woman, seventy years old at least, who arrived to the table with a mixing bowl in hand and serving spoon in another. She must have been the ship’s cook, Leta thought, judging by the burns and stains in her clothing.

In this moment, she did not seem interested in serving the rest of the oatmeal in her bowl. She was frozen, her widened, round eyes set much too expectantly on Leta. “You’re the doctor then?” she asked, and then her smile faded toward a look of, all things, disappointment. “Just — just the doctor?” Her eyes darted between Leta and Cyrus, as if measuring the amount of sitting distance between them and finding it quite unsatisfactory. And that was when Leta understood.

“I’m afraid so,” she admitted, actually laughing outloud — for the first time in days. “Just the doctor.” Not Cyrus’ girlfriend, she added silently in her head. At her side, Cyrus released a small groan and put his clasped index finger and thumb to his forehead.

“And this,” he muttered, “is Amora. Our professional chef and hobbyist busybody.” He glanced at her, both unamused and affectionate.

“Well, it’s wonderful to have you, dear,” gushed Amora, apparently pleased once more. “With how much trouble this crew gets into —  I can’t imagine how they even — bloody messes all the time — well, I’m sure you’ll have your hands full. Coffee?”

As Leta reached to accept the steaming mug of coffee from the woman (who now seemed to be sizing her up, Leta noticed), she became distracted. Near the door was, suddenly, shouting. An angry voice. And it was growing closer. It was a woman’s voice, and not just any woman — this was someone she knew. It was Corra, she realized, looking toward the door curiously, and she wasn’t alone.

Corra, in all of her fury, was marching into the room and saying, “Don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you,” to the back of the captain who seemed to be doing just that.

Fiearius seemed completely oblivious to the small furious girl tailing behind him as he strode confidently into the room and scanned for something, or someone, in particular. Leta watched with interest as the man suddenly smirked widely and, only narrowly escaping Corra’s grasp as she tried to seize his arm, came straight towards the table at which Leta was seated.

But Leta was not who he was aiming for. His attention was on Amora, who ignored him. But the look in his eyes suggested he simply could not help himself.

“Good morning, my sweet,” he murmured flirtatiously as he reached them and immediately slipped an arm around the woman’s large waist. Leta watched, silently amazed, as Amora scoffed a disgusted breath and elbowed him off.

But Fiearius wasn’t done. He swiped the serving spoon from her hand, dug it into oatmeal from the bowl and brought it to his mouth. His eyes squinted thoughtfully. “Needs salt,” he expressed finally with a grimace and then leaned in to plant a quick kiss on her forehead. “Next time,” he suggested as he released her from his grip and spun around to presumably stalk off somewhere else.

By then, his pursuer had caught up with him. Corra halted in front of the captain, arms crossed over her chest as she blocked his path. Leta could not imagine what was unfolding with this scene: Corra, furious; Fiearius, calm and darkly bemused as they eyed each other.

“Corra, we talked about this,” Fiearius said to her with a sigh. His shoulders dropped the defensive stance and he sighed again. “We had a deal.”

“The deal was that I can’t stop you,” Corra snapped back instantly, nullifying his effect of speaking quietly with her own impassioned gusto. “The deal was not that I can’t give you shit about it.”

By now, Leta wasn’t the only person paying attention to this scene. The din of conversation was fading as crew members threw awkward, too-casual glances toward the captain. Sensing the mounting tension, Leta looked over to Cyrus for immediate explanation. “Cy, wh–”

Cyrus, however, took one look at his brother and then quickly turned his attention downward. He seemed to be watching the surface of his coffee instead.

Meanwhile, Fiearius rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Maybe we should change the terms then,” before he turned from her, reverting back to his previous tactic of simply walking away as he headed for the kitchen. It hadn’t worked the first time, though. And it didn’t work the second time, either.

“He worked with them most of his life. Happily, I think. I don’t know, we didn’t speak for some ten years there in the middle. Apparently, everything was fine though. He lived in the entertainment district and he was good at his job and made a decent amount and he had no problems with the grand old Society for Intergalactic Unification. They treated him well. Until about three, four years ago now.” Again, Cyrus’ voice trailed off and his eyes moved not just on the ground away from her, but now to the wall in the opposite direction. “Something…happened…” he muttered at last, reluctantly. “Something bad,” he went on, turning his head back around to meet her gaze firmly at last. “And we got this ship and we fled. Just….picked up everything we could and left Satieri forever. Never once looked back.”

“But,” he added suddenly, raising a brow at her. “You said it yourself. You got lucky. You had connections that allowed you to disassociate yourself cleanly? Yeah, we didn’t have that.” A bitter smile touched his lips. “We ran, but it took all of six hours before they were on our tail. And three, four years later?” The bitterness faded into simple disappointment. “They’re still just one step behind. Always chasing. And we’re always running.” The sad tonality culminated in a heavy sigh before he shrugged it off and continued thoughtfully, “So that’s why we couldn’t land anywhere in Exymeron to get treatment. And that’s why even Vescent was a bad idea. And that’s why I couldn’t bring him to the clinic and why I lied about where you were from and why we had to leave so quickly and why he hates the Society.”

“And sorry about that, again,” he added hurriedly. “About all of that. But, hey.” He smiled hopefully, though not without a distinct hint of nervousness. “At least you’re not with them anymore.” He gestured vaguely to the mark on her arm and the smile disintegrated into a grim realization. “I don’t like to imagine what we would have done to you if you still were…”

“Me either,” said Leta quickly, determined not to be put off by something as slight a threat on her life. Not now. Not when she had all of this to digest. Not when she had found an actual ally here. Unable to stifle the eagerness in her voice, she said, “I guess I ended up on the right ship then. Because — I doubt I need to tell you now what I want to do,” she continued, a little bemusedly so, though her eyes were cold. “I want to get Ren out of there. Wherever he is. But I’m getting nowhere alone.”

“Ah,” Cyrus responded at once with a swift nod of his head. “Right. Of course. Naturally.” He hesitated, but the wheels in his head were visibly turning as his fingers tapped on the edge of the bed. “I can’t promise anything. If it’s not already obvious, I don’t call the shots on this ship. But, hey, you helped us out. It doesn’t seem unreasonable we could help you back. And hey, Fiear’s always game for taking cheap shots at his old buddies. It’s not impossible.” He paused. “Also, the message you said you received. Do you have the data? It should be possible to dig up its source. It might be buried, but in my experience with Society data encryption, it probably won’t be buried that deep,” he remarked. His voice was almost boastful as he offered, “I could take a look at it if you’d like.”

“Y — really?” said Leta, suddenly startled. She thought nothing could surprise her anymore, really. But the look of thoughtful curiosity on Cyrus’ face, his eager tone of voice, that stunned her breathless. Someone willing to help? After three months of screaming at bureaucrats? Unthinkingly, words tumbled out of her. “That’d be — well, I’ve tried that, but it’s never really — and it’s been a really long while si…”

Before she could think to do otherwise, Leta slid down from the bench, her feet came to the floor, and her arms found the man’s shoulders in an embrace that startled them both. Cyrus especially so. When she felt him stoop awkwardly and his hand pat her back, twice, decisively, she couldn’t help but smirk. Still, nothing could keep her from grasping his shoulder warmly as she pulled back and smiled at him out of pure relief.

“Yeah,” was what he said after, not meeting her eyes and apparently attempting not to act as bewildered as he was. “I mean, yeah really, it’s not that big of a deal. I can at least give it a shot. I’m…” He frowned briefly before smiling at her in false humility, “kinda good at that kinda stuff. Shouldn’t be a problem. But hey, in the meantime, since you’re stuck here.” Again, he looked away shamefully and muttered once more, “Sorry. I can find you some empty quarters to stay in. I’m sure you’re probably tired. Long day of being abducted and all.” A wide smile came across his face in hopeful cheeriness as he stood up from the bed and made for the door, perhaps a little hurriedly, Leta noted. “Better luck tomorrow maybe?” he added over his shoulder.

“Well, I guess we’ll see,” said Leta, flashing a hesitant smile at his back as she followed after him. For a moment, she could not help but linger in the doorway that led to the rest of the ship, a pause of inward bewilderment. If everything Cyrus said was actually true, she’d be aboard longer than she’d thought.