“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.

“But he wrote you,” said Cyrus. “From…wherever he’s being held? How do you know for sure it’s really from him though?” he added, sounding hesitant it seemed to even speak the words.

Leta was not offended. But, for the first time, she did falter. Here we go, she thought uneasily. But what did she have to lose at this point? For seconds longer, she kept her eyes on Cyrus before, finally, reaching to the side and grasping the long sleeve of her blouse. She pulled back on the fabric, pulling the tattoo on her forearm into view.

Immediately, Cyrus’ eyes widened as he took it in, that all-too-familiar sight of the black angles of the Society Librera. The same mark his brother wore.

The silence dragged on and on, quite painfully so, until he muttered, “Oh,” blankly. “Well.” His face compressed into a concerned frown and he nodded ever so slowly. “You should probably just…keep that to yourself.” He passed her a sheepish and apologetic smile. “Whether you’re with them still or not, it doesn’t make too much of a difference, really. Best to just not let that out around here. We’ve yet to run into anyone with that mark that my brother left breathing.” He grimaced at his own words. “He has…trust issues. What is he always says? If he were still working for them, he’d be lying about it too.”

“I’m not with them,” she said quickly, tugging down on her sleeve once more and attempting to absorb what Cyrus had said invisibly and quickly. “I worked in a medical research division for a year, then I met Ren. But I don’t anymore. Obviously. I’m not anymore. I got lucky. Because of my dad,” she admitted, uneasy once more. “He’s one of their latchkeys. He’s a speech writer. He’s worked for the Society my whole life. Political advising, mostly. Never important enough to make a difference, but he knows enough. He’s the one who told me.  I guess the guilt got to him, because a few weeks after the funeral, he told me what I already knew. That he was alive.”

Because these were words Leta had spoken before, because it was a story that she knew every detail of, it was easy to swallow the lump in her throat. It was easy to keep her gaze evenly on Cyrus, even when he looked surprised.

“But now it’s your turn,” she said quietly. This was the part Leta was eager for. She sat up straighter.  “Your brother. Your brother hates the Society too. Why?”

Instantly, Cyrus’ expression of intent listening blanched with discomfort. The crease in his forehead and the nervous tapping of his fingers against the edge of his seat said it all. It was a question he did not want to answer. Or perhaps, she thought, he just didn’t know how. He’d warned her that Fiearius would go so far as to kill her if she mentioned the Society. Did the same rule apply to his own brother? Or was Cyrus not hesitating out of mistrust of his sibling, but rather mistrust of her?

“It’s a long story,” he began lamely, finishing the statement with a tired sigh and casting her another apologetic smirk. “Not really my story to tell, either. There’s a lot of reasons for him to hate them. Well, you’ve seen the mark.” He tapped his own upper arm knowingly. “And you saw the nice welcome we got back there,” he added grimly, jabbing his thumb back over his shoulder as though towards Vescent.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug and his voice faded off again so that she thought he was just going to leave it at that. The same, vague answer the captain himself had given her. The non-answer. Cyrus, however, wasn’t done.

“My brother joined the Society back on Satieri when he was young. Fourteen, fifteen, I don’t know,” he explained dutifully, still frowning seriously at the ground. “I don’t know what kind of work you do for them when you’re that age. Delivering messages or making coffee runs, no clue. What I do know is that he eventually ended up with Internal Affairs.” His voice softened considerably as he added, “I do know what they do. I just don’t like to think about it.”

Internal Affairs. Internal Affairs? The name stirred something in Leta’s mind — something vaguely uneasy — but nothing immediate came to her. Before she could add that to her dozens of burning questions, Cyrus continued.