Unfortunately, while the Dionysian was only fifty feet away, there were about twenty gunmen roaring up its ramp and spilling into the cargo bay. Goddorra’s men? How had they made it here already? From here, it looked like the Dionysian crew was putting up quite a fight.

Amid the roar of gunfire, the most they could do was duck behind the nearest fence and wait.

“Okay,” Leta began carefully, “so are we going around, or should we — “

“You can get there,” Fiearius said suddenly. He sounded mercifully like his normal confident self, but Leta was far from relieved by what he had just suggested. He dropped his hands on her shoulders and turned her around toward the ship.

“Go back out the way we came, around that building, underneath the other ships. They won’t notice you. You’ll be fine. There’s a small airlock on the backside of the Dionysian. Just a door, with a ladder. You’ll see it. They’ll have a someone there watching it.” After a short pause, his expression darkened and he said, “They fucking better have someone there watching it. Just announce yourself before you try opening it.”

Fiearius took a deep breath and stood up straight again. “You’re good. You can do this. I’ll distract them.”

Leta stared. This was the same person that had been talking feverish nonsense minutes prior. “Distract them?” she cried. “You can’t go that way. You’re seriously hurt, you’re already half-dead, you can’t g–”

Fiearius gave her a gentle push backwards, to which she steeled her legs. But it hardly mattered as Fiearius suddenly turned around, grabbed the gun from his hip, and dodged straight into the fiery fray. Standing there in shock, she swore she heard something of a battle cry rise in the air.

For one wild moment, Leta gave serious consideration to following after him, if for no other reason than to yell at him some more. But even if she somehow managed to stay alive for more than three seconds, she wouldn’t have been able to convince Fiearius of anything, anyway.

Growling in frustration, Leta clapped a hand to her forehead and wheeled around to gain a view of the path Fiearius had laid out for her. This side of the docks seemed relatively clear and out of the way of the action, and so, taking care to slide the gun out of its holster and into her hand, she slipped out from behind the fence.

Ducking her head, she swept beneath the other enormous overhanging ships, and save for the shots of gunfire in her peripheral and ringing horribly in her mind, all seemed clear.  She increased her pace, slipping around a corner as the Dionysian came gratefully into view — the explosive gunfire was closer now, but so was the door Fiearius had talked about, she could see it thirty feet away, and then —

With newfound resolve, she sprinted the rest of the way up the ladder, and as she wrenched open the door, a rather girlish scream met her ears:  Nikkolai, keeping watch with a gun in his hand, ducked backwards until he realized who she was.

“You!” he gasped, looking shaken. “Get in!”

Leta never thought she’d be so grateful to be inside the Dionysian, even the Dionysian under attack. Without breaking her stride, she rushed past the young deckhand, wound through the winding halls and found her way to the cargo bay.

Predictably, the bay was a mess. She saw Cyrus working frantically with the technical controls near the door, while all around him, gunhands ducked and fired. Amid the panic, yelling and gunfire, Leta slipped along the wall and ducked by the nearest familiar face. Corra.

“Fiear, do you see Fiearius?” she breathed, a slight crack to her voice. “He was — he ran out, he distracted them — ”

Corra was far too distracted herself, however, as she fired off round after round at the attackers, to even hear let alone answer Leta’s question. When there was the slightest break in the onslaught, she finally glanced over at her, confused. “What the hell happened out there?” she asked, exasperated.

Leta could hardly think of how to answer. “Fiearius shot Goddorra,” she managed at last. “He’s dead.”

The moment the words hit the air, Corra’s rifle dropped to her side, her eyes widened with disbelief. Breathlessly and almost desperately, as though hoping for her clarification to change, she asked, “He’s what?”

Aghast, Leta wheeled around in alarm, staring at the man she’d worked to save, now lifeless in the shambles of his disassembled bed. The ease in which Fiearius had done the deed paralyzed Leta in place for several seconds, all the breath knocked out of her lungs. It might have been Roman’s innocence in this moment, his unknowingness of what was happening around him. It might have been because he’d been her patient (against her will, it was true, but still her patient). Whatever it was, the gunfire shocked her in place, as though she’d been shot herself.

By the time she’d turned around, Fiearius was lowering himself from the window.

Feeling nauseated, Leta leaned herself toward the window and watched as the rope of sheets went taut along the windowsill. Below, along the edge of the building, Fiearius was suspended in midair, his feet against the building as he eased down toward the ground.

The rope did not reach the ground, however: there was at least fifteen feet of space between Fiearius and the matress. After hanging off the last stretch of the rope for a moment, he let go and fell.

Amazingly, Fiearius somehow managed to land on the mattress with a roll and almost instantly he jumped back on his feet and called up to Leta.

“Come on, kiddo, no time like the present!”

For a moment, Leta could not decide what to do — shouting “fuck you” came nastily to mind — but as it turned out, she did not have much of a decision in the matter. Behind her, the doors flung open in an explosion of shouting and gunfire.

The panicky need to go, do, leave, act shot through her and before she could talk herself out of it, Leta holstered her gun, braced her hands at the windowsill and ventured, quickly and carefully, down the rope of sheets.

Grimacing, she lowered herself down the wall, pausing only slightly once she’d reached the end — true to his word, Fiearius stood there on ground to catch her — and, holding her breath, she released her grip.

In her falling motion toward him, Leta’s hands wrapped around Fiearius’ shoulders, her knees caved, but, thank the gods, her feet touched mercifully solid ground of the street with only a slight stumble between them. She staggered slightly against Fiearius, but she pulled herself tall to her feet, and shouted at once into his face.

“What was that for?” she demanded. “Why’d you kill Roman?! He wasn’t involved — he didn’t do anything –”

“Roman Lilliander? Didn’t do anything?” he repeated incredulously, cutting her a nasty glare. “That’s hilarious. Do you want me to tell you what he’s done? Because I don’t think you really wanna hear it — “

Turning his back on her, he started down the street the way they came. Leta’s feet pounded on the dirt beside him, and it was then she noticed something odd: looking down, she realized her palms were soaking wet and sticky. Blood. It wasn’t her blood. So that meant —

Her eyes went to Fiearius. His wounded shoulder, the same injury she’d been brought aboard to heal, was broken open and leaking crimson heavily down his arm. Of course it was. He’d fallen fifteen feet …

He did not seem to notice the injury, at least not consciously. As his eyes darted around the city and he searched for the clearest path for them to escape, the pain was settling in now. Even as he hastened forward, his expression was growing clouded, his eyes narrowing in something like confusion as he looked around over Leta’s head, curious, dazed.

Which was fucking fantastic, Leta thought, that her guide out of this city was starting to lose it. And unless she was very much mistaken, there were zinging shots of gunfire beginning to follow them.

Throwing a panicked look over her shoulder, Leta summoned her resolve, seized Fiearius by the elbow (he had halted in the middle of the sidewalk and looked up at a building) and dragged him into a narrow alley.

“Fiearius, “ she barked, resisting the urge to slap his face to get him to listen. “They’re following us. Can you get us back to the ship?”

“Following us?” he repeated, a little absently. He seemed determined to focus on her face, but his eyes were glassy. “Following us. Yeah.” Then he paused, and jabbed a thumb toward the sounds of gunfire behind them. “Oh no. These guys aren’t what I’m worried about. It’s the other ones that are gonna be a problem.”

Afraid of what that even meant, Leta squinted at him. “What other ones?”

But he simply continued his pacing. “This way, there’s a…there’s a bridge…” he mumbled, glancing blankly toward the open street. Meanwhile, he was shaking his injured, blood-soaked arm, as if to fling a fly off of it. “There’s the way..around…” His voice trailed off, until suddenly he seized his shoulder violently and shouted “Fuck!” into the din of the alley.

Then, just when Leta’s eyes went wide, he took a deep breath. “No no, it’s fine,” he went on, unaware of Leta’s alarm, as he walked in a small circle. “It’s gonna be fine. It’s totally fine. All fine. I’m fine.” He halted in place, looked at Leta, and insisted, “I’m fine.”

“Oh, boy,” Leta breathed sharply, a faint lift to her brow. Her widened eyes flew to the blood soaking cleanly on his shoulder, and she could imagine few things worse for the injury than the landing he’d just made. She’d seen this many times before in her emergency room, the mild hysteria that accompanied mind-numbing pain, and now with the gunfire at their back —

“It’s that way!”

His voice broke over the alley proudly. Leta thought he sounded downright crazed, but he beamed at her with confidence. “That’s it. The way around the back. Got it.” He nodded at her, then quickly turned down another street and ran off, shouting, “Follow me! Stay close!” over his shoulder.

As they dodged through the city, Leta had to wonder what kind of hell Fiearius had in store for them next, or if he even knew where they were going. But to her surprise and relief, his manic, scattered sprint along streets and down alleyways did lead them back where they started: the ship docks.

Cyrus seemed to realize after she did what, exactly, they were reading. Quickly he closed the document and tracked back to the original directory as he told her, “We shouldn’t be looking at that.”

Even as he said it though, his expression at her was less reprimanding as it was begging ‘please don’t tell anyone’.

Frankly, Corra was not concerned with anybody finding out. She was more intrigued by what she had seen. What she had read. Corra had never received a love letter in her life nor had she known anyone that had. Or rather, nor had she known anyone that had admitted to it. This was fascinating. How romantic and mysterious. She hadn’t actually believed that people did that kind of thing outside of fiction and yet here was this doctor who had love notes saved on her back-up. Maybe all the glamour of fiction wasn’t made-up after all. Maybe Corra had just been on the wrong planets to see it.

“Relax, Cy-cy,” she reassured her concerned friend with a friendly pat on his head. “She’ll never know. I won’t bring it up, I promise. But I do wonder who Ren is.”

Suspiciously, Cyrus said nothing. Too suspiciously. His response should have been ‘I don’t care’ or ‘yeah whatever’ or even ‘maybe he’s no one and Leta just writes letters to herself like a crazy person’. But Cyrus said nothing. He always was terrible at keeping secrets.

“You know,” she realized, narrowing her eyes at him. Instantly, his eyes widened and his lips sealed shut uncomfortably and she knew she’d caught him. “You know who he is. How do you know? Why would she tell you that? Why didn’t she tell me?” Those were stupid questions, she realized. “No, scratch all that. Just answer me one thing. Who is he?”

“I don’t know,” Cyrus lied, climbing out of his seat to have an easier out and holding his hand up to her as though it might stop her onslaught of interrogation.

“Yes you do. Tell me,” Corra demanded, stern, but good-natured. It didn’t take much threatening to get information from the younger Soliveré. Especially information he didn’t care all that much about. She couldn’t imagine his attachment to Leta’s admirer was that strong.

“No, I don’t know anything,” he insisted again, backing up towards the door.

Corra rolled her eyes and held out her hand as though he might physically drop what she wanted in her palm. “Just tell me, you’re gonna lose this and you know it.”

“That’s not true,” he muttered half-heartedly, stumbling backwards. “I won’t necessarily–”

Suddenly, Cyrus’ words were drowned out by none other than the Dionysian herself. Over their heads, the ship’s warning alarm — loud, booming, intrusive — blared from the speakers.

The Dionysian had exactly one alarm for all incidents.  Yet, the captain had often claimed that each alarm meant something different and he would rattle off what “each” one meant. That its noise had a sort of code that he had cracked and the sound differentiated with each emergency. To Corra and to every sane person aboard, it always sounded exactly the same and truthfully, she had no clue why it would be going off now. They weren’t even in the air. She glanced to Cyrus, who looked just as confused.

It was then that shouts and yells that began drifting up to the bridge from the decks below provided some clarity. This was no false warning. Forgetting about Leta’s mysterious lover, the two of them fled from the bridge and hurried down the stairs.

When they arrived in the cargo bay, it was crowded — not only with crew. From the position Cyrus and Corra took on the upper catwalk, they had a view of the chaos and arguing starting to unfold. A small team of men and women — all of them armed — had stormed up into the bay and seemed to be intent on taking the crates of guns that the captain was currently out peddling.

“Great,” Cyrus muttered sarcastically through his teeth, catching Corra’s worried glance and letting out a sigh. “As if the deal wasn’t already doomed enough as it is….”

Who were they? They couldn’t have been Goddora’s men, Corra was sure of it. Goddora would never dress his people so poorly and, had the deal been sanctioned, they wouldn’t have barged in with their weapons raised. They would have waited to be ushered in by the captain himself. This wasn’t right. The rest of the crew seemed to agree.

Arty, the Dionsyian’s product manager, was arguing with them, a handful of the crew backing him up. Unfortunately, Corra noticed, they were all unarmed and thus Arty blatantly yelling at the intruders was likely not the best idea. Not when they were carrying standard assault rifles that could clear the bay in all of ten seconds.

From where Corra stood beside Cyrus on the upper catwalk, her hands clenched over the railing tensely, she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but it didn’t matter. It was hostile. Even if she couldn’t hear the words, the loud bang as poor Arty took a shot straight to the shoulder was all she needed. The gunshot exploded over the cargo bay, and Arty staggered backwards.

And then all hell broke loose.

Furious and frenzied, the rest of the crew shot off, some straight towards the assaulters and some straight to hide. They’d been unarmed, but the one who’d done the deed went down regardless when five of her own peers piled onto him viciously. The others, wisely, fled down the ramp, shouting unintelligibly.

Corra and Cyrus looked at each other for a moment, both in shock. Frantically, her head whipped back to the ramp and the ground below just as a swarm of people, just as armed as their predecessors started flooding into view as they sprinted towards the ship, ready for battle. A battle that they, the Dionysian, was hardly prepared for.

“Shit,” Cyrus summed up in a single word, clapping his hand to his forehead in mounting panic. “Who the hell are these people and why are they attacking us?”

Corra glanced sidelong at him in disbelief. “I don’t think that really matters right now, do you?”

“It could,” Cyrus muttered back. “If we knew who they were maybe we could talk to them and…figure this out … “

Down near the ramp, bullets were flying, ricocheting off metal, shouts were erupting from both parties, people were running and ducking out of the fray Corra drew a deep intake of breath before looking back to him, wide-eyed.

“I don’t think they’re interested in talking, Cy-cy,” she stated firmly.

“Well…” Cyrus began, the panic cracking his voice, as he waved down at the crew below him. “Why aren’t we shooting back then? Shouldn’t we be defending ourselves? What are they doing?”

“What are they doing?!” Corra repeated incredulously. “They’re panicking. Like you’re panicking. They need their captain. Their captain who is currently a few miles away making arrangements to sell weapons that are about to be stolen out of our own cargo bay while we stand here panicking.”

They may have been without their captain, but Dionysian did have a replacement. A replacement who shared the same genes, a fact that, looking at the two of them, was easy to forget. But Corra knew because Corra had seen it before. She also knew that sometimes the second in command just needed a little push.

“They need a leader,” she pressed more seriously, grabbing his arm, hoping to remind him as well. True, Cyrus wasn’t like his brother. In fact, he made an effort not to be. That is, until moments like these. Cyrus stared at her for a moment longer, looked pained, before sharply turning away.

“Listen!” he suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice bouncing in echoes off the wide metal walls of the bay. No one had ever described the engineer as ‘commanding’, but in that moment, every crew member halted, looked up at him and went deathly quiet.

From her vantage point, Corra could see him swallow uncomfortably before continuing on. “You three!” he pointed to a hardly fight-worthy group. “Go with Corra to the armory and bring weapons and ammo back. We need someone covering the other entrance. You.” He pointed at Nikkolai. “Get a gun from the armory first. In the meantime, someone get those crates open. Use what’s inside. Cover the entrance, don’t let anyone up that ramp.”

Cyrus halted again and looked down at his crew below him, all looking up attentively and ready. He winced uncomfortably and Corra could see him struggling for that final order. The motivation. The inspiration. In the end, he gritted his teeth and settled on, “Let’s kick some ass!”

To his surprise, a sudden yell of approval roared from the crew below, before they all shot off in directions to follow orders of their stand-in captain.

At his side, Corra smiled a little pathetically at her friend and patted him on the back. “Nice one,” she commended, before rushing down the stairs herself, calling, “To the armory, with me!” just as the first wave began.