Archive of Our Own

It was in the solar year of 371 when Thomas Murphy and Teresa Agnes De Lorrey first set foot on the Wayward Griever, a colonial station in the southeast quadrant of the Coalition’s Allied States. Neither of them had ever been this far from the Coalition’s main station, but now they had been sent by the Chancellor herself. Thomas stretched out his stiff limbs, while Teresa tried to free her many skirts from the heavy space suit she’d crammed herself into.

“I do say, Thomas, that I have never worn something quite so unseemly, nor less comfortable in all of my life.”

Thomas chuckled at her complaints. “Why, dearest Teresa, I do believe that it was you who begged Madam Paige for permission to come along.”

“Yes,” she scoffed, “but how could I have known that the trip would be carried out in such a manner?”

“Again, I do believe that you buried your nose in every book in the library about interstational transport. I doubt a single detail escaped you.” At this, Teresa fished out a dark red fan out of the inner pocket of her matching jacket and swatted his arm loosely with it, but she smiled at him. This kind of bickering was normal for them. “Now,” Thomas continued, “should we go meet our welcoming party?”

The “welcoming party” consisted of a grumpy looking mechanic and a curly haired kid who was maybe 13 years old. The mechanic just shot them a look and then turned to walk off, but the kid gave them a huge smile. 

“Hi!” he said, waving as he jogged over to them. “Welcome to the Griever! I’m Chuck, and that’s my brother Gally over there.” Chuck gestured to the mechanic, then leaned in theatrically to almost yell-whisper: “Pay no mind to him, he doesn’t know how to smile.” Gally scoffed, clearly having heard the jab, and Chuck looked pleased. 

Thomas reached out to shake Chuck’s hand. “Well, it’s a pleasure meeting you. My name is Thomas, and this is Lady Teresa.”

Teresa held out her hand as well, which Chuck shook, looking awkward. “Just Teresa is fine,” she said with a warm smile which Chuck returned. She was great at making people feel at ease. Where she had learned that, Thomas had no idea. It surely wasn’t from Madam Paige. 

“Come on then,” Chuck said. “Gally and I are supposed to take you to Captain Alby.” He turned and led them out of the landing dock, Gally following a bit behind them. It made Thomas a bit uneasy, as if they were regarded as a hostile presence on the station. The irony in that wasn’t lost on him. 

The walk to the control room didn’t take more than about half an hour. It was, after all, a relatively small station. Chuck was chatting away endlessly during the whole tour, leading them through narrow passageway after narrow passageway, away from any populated areas. Although Thomas appreciated the kid’s enthusiasm, especially compared to the glum presence of Gally behind him, he didn’t much pay attention to what he was rambling on about. Teresa seemed intrigued though, she occasionally asked questions which just sent Chuck into even more of a monologue. 

Thomas looked around , trying to remember the layout and match it with the blueprints he’d studied of the Wayward Griever when he had been preparing for the trip. Their steps echoed hollow on the metal walkway as they took a left turn, then a right, and another left. Thomas’ breath came out in little white puffs illuminated only by the sparse light from a few bare lightbulbs, and Teresa pulled her jacket closer. It struck him as quite odd. Even the backway paths should have been more heated than this. The station was definitely made with more than enough power for that. He would have to check into that later, and see if there was a problem that needed to be reported back to Madam Paige. 

Chuck stopped in front of a rusty door and turned to look expectantly at Gally. Gally made his way to it and dug up a big ring of keys from one of his belt bags. With some difficulty he jiggled the correct key into the door, and with a loud creak of protest the door was pushed open. 

Looking back at them, he did a mock bow and said “The fancy folks first.” It was the first thing Thomas had heard him say, and he immediately decided he did not like this man one bit. But he wasn’t there to make friends, and so he held out his arm to Teresa and guided her out the door. Gally snorted at him when they passed. I would be careful to show too much hostility towards me, Thomas thought. One might think you have something you don’t want me to know. But no, that was just pettiness talking. He based his conclusions on solid evidence and careful observations. Still, it would be good to keep an eye on this one.

Gally took the lead now, down the wide hallway that was considerably warmer than where they’d come from, up to another set of doors. Thomas reached out to touch the intricate carvings, just to confirm what his eyes were telling him. It was wood. A dark brown wood, that despite bearing clear signs of old age still was in wonderous shape. Although Thomas and Teresa came from the largest station in the system, wooden things were few and far between. These doors must have cost a fortune for whoever once had them put in.

“Well? We don’t have all day.” Gally interrupted his thoughts. Thomas shot him an annoyed look, but still lifted his hand to knock. The sound was deep and full, and twisted a bit as the walls around him threw it back. 

“Enter.” A short command. Thomas glanced at Teresa, a look that said Are you ready? She nodded, and he could almost hear her voice saying Let us begin this. He had always been able to read her like that, though admittedly she was way better at reading him. Thomas grasped the cool handle and pulled the door open.

The elegance of the entrance did not reach into the room itself. In fact, the room was almost bare save for a ratty old sofa in one corner and a big table in the center. On the table lay a scattered array of papers - blueprints? maps? - over which a dark skinned man leaned. His outfit was civil, with only an armband identifying him as the captain. Another man leaned on the edge of the table, faced away so Thomas could only see his back and his slightly wavy blond hair. 

“Captain Alby?” Thomas said to get his attention, but the man in question didn’t look up from whatever he was studying. Thomas closed the door behind him, Chuck and Gally had already left. “This is Lady Teresa Agnes, and I’m Thomas. We are here from the Coali-”

“I know where you’re from, and I know why you’re here.” Alby cut him off, finally looking up as his guests. Thomas could not quite figure out what his expression was, Alby seemed to be very careful to show nothing but disinterest, but something else was peeking through. “You are here by order of the Chancellor to investigate the recent murder aboard the Griever. Is that correct?” 

“It is.” Thomas confirmed. “So, if we could go over the details surrounding this death, Teresa and I could get to work.”

“There's no need for that.” Alby crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t look much up for cooperation. “Tell the esteemed Chancellor that we’ve got this under control. Your presence is not required here.”

“Captain-”

“It’s ‘Alby’. Just ‘Alby’.” He seemed annoyed at the title Thomas used. 

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Alby, then. We are not the enemy here. We’re just here to help.”

“Are you, now?” A new voice spoke. The man at the end of the table straightened up and turned to come around to stand at Alby’s right. He walked with a noticeable limp. “Are you sure about that?” He said as he came to a stop beside his captain. He was taller than Alby, and looked twice as pissed. But Thomas also noticed the bags under his eyes and the dullness to his gaze. He looked exhausted. And Thomas also saw the reason for the limping. The man’s right leg was mechanical.

“Of course we are,” Thomas said as reply to the question. “We need to find the culprit before someone else dies.” 

The man opened his mouth to respond, but Alby held up his hand to silence him. “As I said, we have this under control.”

Thomas caught a grance from Teresa. He is very insistent of not having us here, isn’t he? She seemed to say. Thomas gave a small nod, enough so that none of the other two would notice. Indeed he is.  

He straightened, tried to put on an appearance of authority. “I’m afraid, Captain, that that is not your call to make. As you have so precisely pointed out twice already, these orders comes from Chancellor Ava Paige, and are to be carried out no matter what. So now, we ask you politely for your cooperation.” Thomas kept his eyes locked with Alby’s, until the latter finally gave up and broke their staring match.

“Fine,” Alby sighed, shoulders slumping a little. He gestured to the man beside him. “Newt will show you where we found the body, and fill you in on everything we know.”

Newt rolled his eyes and looked like he had a thousand things he’d rather do, but still he started towards the door. “Come along then. I’ll take ya down to Storage.” He waved to Thomas and Teresa to follow him. Unlike Gally and Chuck, Newt didn’t take them through some dark backways, but straight through the station’s central area. It was a wide open space that was a little too rusty to be called pristine, but it was clear that the inhabitants took care of it. This seemed to be the place where most of the life aboard the Griever happened. It had a dining area - though dining might have been a too fancy word for the metal barrels that served as grills and stovetops - a farming area with a few dozen planting boxes under lamps with artificial sunlight, and a small animal pen with goats, pigs and sheep.

“Well, welcome to the Glade,” Newt proclaimed. “This is where most of us spend our days, where we eat, work, and hold gatherings.” 

Thomas caught a mouth-watering smell of grilled meat as they walked past the cook, who was in the middle of preparing lunch, and his stomach gave an audible growl. The corner of Newt’s mouth twitched in the first change of expression Thomas had observed in him since meeting him, and something like humor glinted in his eyes. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Fry gives you both something to eat after this,” He said, and even his voice had a tone of something lighter than it had before. Thomas decided then that he liked him after all. He just hoped he wouldn’t get a reason to change his mind about it.

“So,” He began when they were out of earshot from the others milling about in the Glade. It was time to get back to business. “What exactly happened, with the murder?”

Sighing, Newt rubbed lightly at his temple. “That, we do not know. One of the mechanics found the body, and alerted our rules enforcer Minho.”

“One of the mechanics? Was it Gally?” Somehow, that would not have surprised Thomas. Another strike, perhaps?  

But Newt shook his head. “No, he was off working on an assignment from Alby at the time. The one who found the poor sod was Brenda.” 

Brenda. Thomas made sure to file away the name for later. He would have to talk to her, as well as Minho. “And the dead man? His name was Aris, right? Aris Jones.” At least that’s what Madam Paige had told them when she gave them this investigation mission, but it didn’t hurt to confirm it with the crew. 

“Yeah. He was pretty new around here. Came from the main station, from what I can remember.” Newt said. That all lined up with the information Thomas had gotten. He had never med Aris, but the Coalition’s Main Station was a big place.

“What was he like?” Teresa asked. “As a person? Did he have any enemies around here, anyone who might wish to do him harm?”

Newt shrugged. “I dunno. Didn’t talk with him much. Maybe Minho knows, they seemed close.”

They stopped in front of a huge set of doors above which a sign hung, nearly illegible since it was covered in dust and rust, though Thomas managed to make out enough letters to know it said STORAGE. Newt got out a key and inserted it into a panel on the side of the doors.

Something grabbed hold of Thomas’ shirt sleeve. He looked down to see Teresa holding on to him. Meeting her gaze, he saw her discreetly gesturing to Newt. In a very conversational tone, she asked him: “Are these doors usually locked?” 

Newt got the doors open and put the key back into his pocket. “Hm, yeah, they’re usu-” He froze. Thomas saw his whole body jerk to a halt for one second - one very long second - before he continued on without looking at them. “I mean, not always. Usually. But you’d never guess how often someone forgets to lock up.”

“Uh-huh?” Thomas said, and he couldn’t quite keep the sceptical tone out. “And how many people around here have access to a key?”

The silence that followed was thick with unspoken questions and hesitation. It was clear that Newt didn’t want to answer, but he also seemed to realize that the longer he kept quiet, the more suspicious it became, so in the end he did reply. “Not many. Me and Alby, of course. Brenda and Gally, since they often pick up supplies and materials here. Minho has access to everything. And Frypan, our cook, has a key since we have some emergency rations in here. Anyone else will have to go through one of us to get in.” He finally started walking again, leading Thomas and Teresa through a maze of tall shelves with a variety of items. Many of them gaped empty. That wasn’t right, the storage on a station should be well stocked in case something happened that caused them to lose contact with the main station and have to fend for themselves until connection was restored.

Teresa didn’t seem to notice. She still had her mind on the people who had access to the place. “And did anyone else need entrance here on the presumed day Aris was murdered?”

Newt shook his head. His shoulders slumped, and he appeared to have given up on trying to not answer any questions. It wouldn’t help him any if he had. “No,” He said, sounding tired. “Not what I know of. Maybe someone did, but in that case they asked someone other that Alby or I, and that person didn’t let us know of it.” He halted by a shelf in the back corner. “Well, here it is. This is where we found him.”

“You mean Brenda.” Thomas said. It wasn’t a question.

Newt evaded his eyes. “Yeah. Brenda.” 

He really is a terrible liar. It’s obvious that he’s hiding something. Thomas thought. He looked at Teresa, but she was busy glancing at something on the shelf behind Newt. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem like she wanted to draw attention to it and if that was the case, Thomas was going to do what he could to not tip Newt off to it. “And where is the body now? I assume it’s in the mortuary freezer chamber?”

“No,” Newt said. Behind his back Teresa grabbed a small item off the shelf and quickly hid it in her jacket pocket. “We don’t have the power to run the freezer. We’ve already sent him out the airlock.” 

Damn . Not that he had been too excited at the prospect of looking at a dead body, but that was valuable evidence that had gotten blasted off into space. And it was yet another odd thing about the Wayward Griever. The mortuary freezers should have been powered, even if a station was to go into electricity saving mode. Somehow, this station in particular had gotten severely neglected, whether that was by the crew, or that the Coalition didn’t know how dire things were, he did not know. No matter the reason, he would need to report on this to the Chancellor so she would see to it that the issues were addressed. 

“What about the cause of death? Was it stabbing? Poisoning? Strangulation?”

Newt was squirming uncomfortably. “Uh, no, I don’t know. We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.” Another lie. For now though, Thomas would play along.

“Hm, too bad. Anyhow, I do believe that that is as much as we can get out of staring at a spot on the floor. How about that food you promised?”

Visibly relaxing, Newt let out a small relieved chuckle. “Yeah, alright. Come along, this way.”

After showing them back to the Glade, Newt left them to get lunch while we went to retrieve Alby, for as he said: “As great a leader as he is, he’ll still forget to eat if I’m not reminding him.” This left Thomas to ask Teresa what exactly is was she had found earlier.

“If you remember,” She said in a hushed voice. “All stations have means of surveillance so that the Chancellor and the council can know what’s going on.”

Thomas nodded. He knew that. “The Beetle Blades. They take photos, which can be extracted and then developed.” 

“Yes. But have you noticed a single Beetle Blade here?” Honestly, Thomas hadn’t even thought about it, but now that Teresa brought it up, he thought back. No, he hadn’t seen them at all since their arrival. “Exactly. I haven’t seen any either. Until…” She pulled out the item she had put in her pocket. It was a Beetle Blade. A broken, limp thing of buckled metal and  cogs, with a few missing legs. Something had hit it. Hard. 

“It’s broken.” Thomas stated the obvious. 

“The outside maybe.” Teresa sounded exasperated that he didn’t understand what she wanted him to get. “But there is a chance the camera inside is still functioning. If it is…”

“Then we might have photographs of who killed Aris!” Thomas suddenly realized what she was saying. It was a slim chance, but it was definitely a possibility. A surge of excitement rushed through him. This was a fantastic find. “Teresa, you’re brilliant!”

She smiled a little at the compliment. “Well, wait until I’ve managed to see if there even are any photographs in it. Then you can praise me as much as you want. But in the meantime, you should talk to those with keys to the storage.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Thomas agrees. “speaking of which…” 

As Teresa hid the Beetle Blade again, they walked up to the cook Newt had called Frypan. Waiting until the cook paid attention, Thomas took the time to study him. He was a big man, and Thomas might have been intimidated by him if not for the friendly expression he wore as he told some joke to his coworker. He finally turned towards Teresa and him, and the laugh in his eyes was still in place.

“What do we have here? Newbies, clearly. So, where are you both from?” 

Thomas held out his hand, and Frypan shook it heartily. “We’re from the Main Station. I’m Thomas, and this is Teresa.”

“Pleasure meeting you folks.” Frypan handed them each a plate piled with an assortment of meat and cooked vegetables. “I’m Siggy, but everyone here calls me Frypan. What brings you to our station?”

“We’re investigating the murder of Aris Jones,” Teresa explained, and Thomas made sure to watch for any reaction Frypan might have. Was that a twitch of the corner of his eye?  

“Ah, Aris,” Frypan nodded. Maybe it was just Thomas’ imagination, but his smile was a bit more stiff, more forced. “Quiet man, didn’t speak much with anyone. Personally I never saw him except for when he came here to eat. He didn’t really have any friends. No enemies either, mind you. He just kept to himself.”

Recalling what Newt had said, Thomas asked: “What about Minho? Did Aris talk much with him?”

That did get a reaction. Frypan’s eyes widened, and he looked around quickly, as if to find someone else who could answer the question. “Minho? No, no, I don’t think they talked much. Barely anything. As I said, Aris kept to himself.”

That didn’t match with what Newt had told them, but again, Thomas decided to not question further. If he went too aggressively with his questioning, people would become defensive. More than they already were. Thanking Frypan, Thomas and Teresa turned away to find somewhere to sit and eat their lunch. 

---

It took four days until Thomas got the chance to speak to Brenda and Minho. While it had been relatively easy to find Gally, who was still quite hostile and refused to answer any questions about Aris, Brenda had been more difficult to locate. She seemed to constantly be off working on something or other, and whenever Thomas went there, she’d have already moved on to the next location. On the positive side, he had started to find his way throughout the station, and gotten the chance to talk to a lot of the inhabitants. At first they had been on edge around him, but now they’d gotten used to seeing him around and even greeted him with smiles and pats on the shoulder. The easy but tentative camaraderie remained as long as he didn’t bring up the murder. That topic sent a nervous vibration throughout the whole station, which wasn’t particularly odd since a murder was always a dreadful subject - especially with the murderer still at large - but Thomas couldn’t help but feel like there was something else behind it.

When he finally found Brenda, she was in the middle of fixing a cargo shuttle, used to send supplies between stations. She hadn’t noticed him yet, too engrossed in her work to pay attention to anything else. Then she suddenly slammed her palm against the metal, causing such a loud bang that it made Thomas jump, and swore in a more colorful way that he’d ever heard anyone back at home, much less a woman. That’s when she noticed she wasn’t alone, and she cut of her tirade to stare at him. She had a grease stain on her forehead, and buzzed short hair, another thing women at the main station would never have. It somehow suited her though, and he guessed it was practical since long hair likely got in the way while she worked.

“I’ve heard of you.” She said. “You and that woman are here about Aris. Thomas, right?”

“Yes. And you’re Brenda. I’m glad I finally ran into you.”

She snorted. “I would hardly call it ‘ran into’. You’ve been chasing me up and down this entire station for the last few days.”

“Uh, yeah.” Thomas smiled sheepishly. “I needed to speak with you. If you knew that I was looking for you, why didn’t you come find me? Or, you know, just stayed in one place until I found you.”

“I was busy.” She shrugged. “My work waits for no one. There’s constantly things in need of fixing, some more serious than others. Besides, you caught up finally, so what’s the harm?”

Well, she had a point. 

“In that case, why don’t I get straight to the point, just so you don’t rush off again. Could you tell me about Aris?”

Brenda tapped her fingers on the side of her nose, adding another smudge. “Aris arrived a year and a half ago. He worked for the Coalition, and was sent here on orders from the council. Why, I don’t know. Nor what exactly he was supposed to do. I was the one who greeted him and showed him around. He seemed like a nice kid, but lived by the Coalition’s rules. You might have guessed that that didn’t swing too well in a place where people are set on their own way of life. But people liked him well enough, I suppose, though he never really became one of us you know?”

This was more information than anyone else aboard the Griever had been willing to tell Thomas, and even more than what Madam Paige had told him and Teresa. He hadn’t known Aris had been here by order of the council. Surely that must have been Madam Paige’s order, specifically, so why hadn’t she told them?

“What about his death? How did he look?”

Turning back to her work and no longer looking at him, Brenda replied with a carefully measured voice. “I didn’t get a good look at him. When Minho found him, he was covered up, with a tarp.”

Wait, what? Thomas tried his best to hide any reaction, but didn’t know if he succeeded. It might have been a good thing that Brenda wasn’t looking at him right then. “Minho? Was it Minho who found him?”

“Mm, yeah. He found him.” She was still focussing on her work, but Thomas noticed that she had loosened and tightened the same screw three times already.

“That’s curious,” Thomas said, crossing his arms.”Because Newt told me that you was the one who found him.”

Brenda’s head shot up and she stared at him. Her eyes was wide, and her mouth open. For a moment she looked completely shaken, and maybe even a bit frightened. Then, like turning off a switch, her face became almost too calm. “Yeah, I came in right after him. Of course, it was shocking for everyone, the details may have gotten mixed around.”

“Right…” Thomas didn’t believe her. If this had been the only strange misstep in this whole thing, he would have pinned her as guilty, but there was clearly something else going on. Everyone was nervous, everyone lied, and everyone was hiding something. The question was what. Perhaps they were all protecting the culprit for some reason. If only Teresa could get the photographs from the Beetle Blade ready soon. She had been in her assigned room working on it with barely any breaks. It was possible, she said, but difficult to retrieve because of the severe damage. The best Thomas could do was wait. And find Minho.

Having had enough of running around the station in vain, Thomas marched straight to Alby’s office. His knock on the wooden door was hard and impatient. As soon as he heard the call to enter he strode in, and not even bothering with a proper greeting he said: “I need you to call up Minho here so I can talk to him. I will not leave until you do.” Then, remembering his manners, he added a “Please.”

“Woah. Good evening to you too, Tommy.” Newt said. He and Alby were once again leaning over the blueprints. 

Alby cracked his neck and stretched out his back. “I suppose I can’t get you to wait ‘til the morning? No? Well then, I will go get him.” With that, he stepped around Thomas and out the door, leaving him alone with Newt. 

It wasn’t the first time he had been alone with Newt. Newt had found him during lunch and dinner a few times, and they had spent those occasions chatting about trivial things. Newt had started with nicknaming him Tommy already on the second day. Somehow though, despite their earlier conversations, Thomas found he didn’t know what to say now. The dull lighting caught in Newt’s golden hair, and Thomas looked away. His attention was caught by the blueprints.

“What is that?” He asked.

Newt followed his gaze to the scattered papers. He shuffled them together before Thomas could get a closer look at them. “It’s just some plans for a few upgrades to the station.” He said. “Come, why don’t we sit down while we wait for Alby to return with Minho?” He went over to the ratty old sofa, and with a hand on the armrest to compensate for the rather stiff mechanical leg, lowered himself down. Thomas followed suit and sat beside him, his focus now on Newt’s leg.

“If you don’t mind me asking-”

“How did I lose my leg?” Newt finished for him. “I don’t mind. It was a small explosion on lower deck. A gas tank and a busted outlet.” He stared intently at his clenched fists. His eyes held such a vast array of emotions that Thomas didn’t know how to even begin to understand them. “We were lucky, really. Such an explosion could have been the death of all of us, had it damaged the outer walls. Or something else important. All things considered, losing a leg was a small price to pay.”

Thomas placed a hand on his shoulder. “Still, it was a huge loss.”

Newt looked at him then, and a small sad smile broke through his chaos of expressions. “Yeah.”

“How long ago was it?”

“Almost five years now. It feels like forever, and at the same time like it just happened. I have gotten quite used to this thing though.” He said, patting the metal leg. “Even though it doesn’t fit quite right.” 

They sat in silence after that, no one really feeling the need to say anything, both lost in their own thoughts but completely comfortable in sharing the quiet with the other.

After a few minutes more, Alby returned together with a tall, dark-haired man who clearly worked out a lot. Thomas made a note to himself to never ever get into a fight with him. He wasn’t weak by any means, but Minho would crush him.

“Heard you wanted to talk?” Minho said after introducing himself. 

Thomas nodded. “Yeah. I just need you to tell me about Aris.”

Minho shrugged. “We talked a bit. I thought he was good kid, we all did, despite his views on how we should live.”

Something about the way Minho said it made Thomas think they had now changed their minds about that. “So you were friends?”

Another shrug. “I thought so. Dunno what he thought though.”

Again, there was an underlying hint of… anger? Resentment? Maybe nonchalance, or perhaps just bitterness.

“And what about his death?” Thomas asked.

“Nothing much about it. Brenda found him, then went to get me. I reported it back to Alby.”

It was the same story he had heard from Newt, so nothing new there. Deciding that would have to do for the night, Thomas thanked Minho, bid them all a good night, and retreated back to his room.

---

“How is work on the Beetle Blade coming along?” Thomas asked Teresa after a week had passed. He was starting to get impatient waiting for it, and he just wanted to have this whole case over and done. If the Beetle Blade even had the photographs they wanted.

“I’m almost done with it now.” Teresa replied. “Just a few days more.”

---

Thomas was walking aimlessly through the station. It was early morning, and only a few people was up and about at this hour. Usually Thomas would be asleep as well, but a feeling of anxiety had awoken him, and he had been unable to fall back into unconsciousness. And so he wandered. 

His feet led him to a hallway on the upper floor. He had been there multiple times the past week, and whenever he needed to be alone with his thoughts this was where he went. The reason was that this hallway had the only window in the station. It was a few feet of solid glass in a square no wider than his arm’s lenght. The thick glass distorted the picture somewhat, but he could still see the myriad of stars and far, far away a planet. No where else could he think as well as when he felt alone in the universe.

This time however, he wasn’t alone. Someone was already there, standing by the window looking out at the vast nothing. Newt. For a few moments, Thomas just stood there observing him. He was about to turn around and leave him alone, when Newt noticed he was there.

“Tommy?” Newt voice was rough from sleep. He had probably also woken up not too long ago. “Why are you up at this hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep. To many thoughts in my head.”

Newt smiled at him. He seemed to do a lot of that lately. “Yeah, me too. There’s room for one more here.” He said, scooting to the side to make room for Thomas by the window. Thomas went over to join him, and for a long time neither spoke.

“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” Newt asked finally, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “It makes you feel so impossibly small. And in some strange way it makes all your problems seem insignificant.”

“Yeah.” Newt said, now looking sideways at Thomas, still with that small smile. “Exactly like that.”

Again silence stretched out between them. Then, something heavy entered the quiet. Something heavy and difficult to voice. Thomas turned towards Newt, concerned about the conflicted expression he saw in his friend’s face.

“Tommy…” Newt struggled for words. “What do you know about the Coalition? About their work?”

Thomas was confused. Whatever he was expecting Newt to ask, this was not it. “In all honesty, not much. Teresa and I are both orphans; Madam Paige took us in when we were nine. So we grew up like siblings, and she made sure we studied, she gave us a home and food. We feel like we owe her, I suppose, so we mostly just follow her orders.”

“But what if the orders were wrong? What if they wanted you to do something you didn’t want to do?” Newt’s tone was urgent. It was as if he was begging Thomas for something, But Thomas had no idea what.

“I don’t know. When that day comes, I don’t know what I will do. Probably ask not to do it.”

“And if they don’t listen? If it was something horrible and they were forcing you to do it? Would you?”

Thomas shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”

At that response, Newt calmed down a little, though he was not fully relaxed yet. He sighed and turned to the window again. “Why are you with the Coalition, Tommy?”

It was a question Thomas had never asked himself. He never even thought about it before, and therefor had only one answer. “It’s what I’ve always done.” and then, “What else would I do?”

Newt turned to him again then. “You could go to another station. The farther from the Main Station, the less influence the Coalition has. Some of us-” He hesitated, unsure of whether it was smart to continue. “Some of us would prefer to not be under the Coalition at all.”

It was traitorous to even say it, and Thomas was for once glad that there were no working Beetle Blades here. This might even be the reason as to why it was like that, if the Griever’s inhabitants harbored such thoughts… 

Not saying anything on the matter right then, Thomas looked back at the stars outside, Newt’s warming presence beside him.

---

“Thomas!” 

Thomas looked up from his food, fork half ways to his mouth. Teresa was hurrying through the Glade. Newt had also stopped eating to watch her make her way past the crowd. She came to a stop by their table.

“Thomas, come with me for a bit.” She said.

Glancing back down at his food, he made a displeased sound. “Can I at least finish my dinner first?”

“Thomas!” Teresa’s voice was trembling, and she seemed shaken. “Come with me. Now! ”

Finally understanding that it was something serious, he left the table with an excuse to Newt who just shrugged. Teresa started back towards her room, and Thomas tried his best to keep up. It was always a surprise to him how fast she could move with all those layers of skirts. 

“What’s going on?” He asked as soon as they were away from anyone who could hear.

“The photographs! ” She hissed.

Realization dawned on him. “You did it!” He whispered back. It had taken twelve days, but she had done it! Considering the damage, he was impressed she’s gotten anything at all, and not only that but judging by her reaction, she’s found what they were looking for.

“Of course I did. And you need to see them.”

“So? Who was it?” Thomas asked, too impatient to wait.

“It’s… Well, it’s… I’m sorry. You have to see them.” 

They arrived at Teresa’s room. On every surface, the bed, the table, the chair - even the floor - were photographs. Tons and tons of photographs. Teresa walked right over the ones on the floor and gestured to Thomas to to the same. Instead she picked up a small pile from the table and handed them to him. Dreading what he would see, Thomas slowly turned them over. 

Five photographs. There were five photographs detailing the day Aris Jones died. There was Minho, throwing a punch to his face. There was Brenda, swinging a wrench. There were Fry and Gally, holding him still as Alby raised a metal spike. And in all of them, there was Newt, arm around Aris’ throat, pressing harder and harder. And around them stood others, watching. People Thomas had barely spoken to, people that had greeted him in the mornings, joked with him, teased him and shown him the ropes around the gardening area when he hadn’t had anything to do. Jeff. Winston. Sonya. Ben. Harriet.

All of them. It was all of them. Bile rose in his throat, and his vision became blurry. But he noticed one thing through his tears. Their faces. None of them was filled with hatred, or wrath, or twisted joy. No, they were solemn, sad, regretful, and some even nauseated. It didn’t fit with what Thomas thought murderers looked like.

Turning on his heels, he stalked out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Teresa called after him.

“I need to speak to Newt.” 

---

Newt was still seated the table Thomas had left him at. He met Thomas’ eyes with a smile when he got close, but that smile died on his lips when he saw how Thomas looked. When he reached him, Thomas just stopped. He didn’t know what to do next. The only thing he could do was ask “How could you?”

Newt jerked, and his breath stuttered. He slowly rose from the table, hands raised showing his palms. Thomas didn’t know if it was to calm him, or to show that he meant no harm. But you did. You meant harm to Aris .

“Tommy, before you judge us, would you listen to me? Please. I’ll explain everything.”

After considering it for a moment, Thomas nodded. Newt lowered his hands. 

“Come with me.”

Newt led him along the now familiar way to Alby’s office, and all the while he was talking, and Thomas believed what he said. He had nothing left to hide.

“Aris came to the Wayward Griever by order from the council. You know that much already. But what you don’t know is why. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now the poor state our station is in. Well, it’s been like that for a few years. It’s the Coalition. This whole station, it’s a cage in a lab, and we’re the pretty little lab rats running around for the Coalition to do what they want with. Discovering an alien particle? Send it here with the next supply shipment to see what it does. A new medicine? Try it on us. Make us sick so we have no choice but to take it, and see if it’ll help. A new, potentially dangerous machine or way of transportation? Why, let the lab rats try it and watch through those damn Beetle Blades how it goes. That’s why we got rid of the things. The supply shipments too, we throw them out without opening them. Too much of a risk.

“And then they sent Aris. He was their new eyes, reported everything back to them, every single detail. Loyal like a dog, that one. We tried to make him see things our way, to understand us. Minho got real close to him, and he was convinced that Aris could become one of us, and stop working for the Coalition. He was wrong. The next little experiment they sent over, Aris personally retrieved and tried out on Minho. Said the Chancellor had ordered him to.

“So we did the only thing we could. To protect ourselves. He was dangerous in his loyalty to them . He needed to disappear.”

So that’s why, Thomas thought. That’s why he asked me about my loyalty to them. He felt sick again. Not by what Newt and the others had done this time, but by what the Coalition, what Chancellor Ava Paige, had done. It was horrifying. It was inhumane. How could she? And I helped. I processed the information they gave me, without knowing where they got it. He wondered how many times he’d worked with data collected from Newt’s pain, from Brenda’s, and Alby’s. From Frypan and Minho and Gally, and maybe even little Chuck. He wanted to throw up. 

Newt walked into Alby’s office, but he didn’t stop there. He continued to another door on the opposite wall that Thomas hadn’t noticed before thanks to the bad lighting. Another key, and they entered the new room.

It took a while for Thomas’ eyes to get used to the dark, but when they had he saw Newt make his way to a table. A sound of a match was heard, and then a small candle lit up the room. The table was no table at all. It had buttons, switches, dials and turned off lights in colored glass. It was a control panel.

“I told you the state of the Griever is also because of the Coalition. It’s because they control everything here, and lately they seem to think we can do without stuff like heating and electricity. We had to shut off things and focus the power where we needed it most. This here-” He waved to the control panel. “-is just for show. It has never worked. We don’t control shit. That’s why Alby hates being called Captain. What is a Captain without control over his ship? It’s an insult, quite frankly, a constant reminder of how powerless we are. The only one calling him Captain is Chuckie, because he’s a kid and doesn’t know why it’s not good.

“But,” Newt continued. “We have a plan. See, Brenda and Gally has been working with Alby on this thing for months. If we could just get it up and running, we could take control. We could fire up the emergency generators, and maybe even fix the old ones. It’s just-”

Newt pushed a button. The lights flashed on for a second, and then they became dark again. 

“We think it needs a passcode. We’ve been trying to find a way around it, but no luck. But now…” Newt took a few hasty steps until he stood right in front of Thomas. He reached out and grabbed Thomas’ arm. “Tommy, can you help us? Please. Please Tommy, help us.”

Thomas’ head swam with all the information Newt had told him. It was too much, but he believed it. Every word of it. Unlike before, there was no single trace of a lie in Newt’s eyes, just desperation, and he was looking intently at Thomas. He didn’t look away, didn’t evade his gaze. And with the truth about the Coalition and the Chancellor out in the open, a truth that felt like a gut punch of betrayal, Thomas wanted to help. But there was one problem.

“I don’t know any such code, Newt. I’m sorry.” He saw Newt’s hope fade, and he knew he would do anything to restore it. But how could he help? He had just come there with Teresa… 

Teresa! That was it! 

“Wait, Newt! Teresa! She has read everything she can get her hands on, everything about our trip here, every manual back at the main station. She wants to know everything, how everything works. If anyone here knows how the controls work, it’d be her.”

---

Thomas found Teresa back in her room, where she was in the middle of packing up her things.

“What are you doing?” 

Teresa didn’t even bother giving him a glance. “Packing of course. The case is closed. All we have to do now is return to the Coalition with the evidence and report on our discovery.”

“You can’t!” Thomas burst out. 

Teresa actually looked up then. “What do you mean, I can’t? That’s the whole reason we came here in the first place.”

“I- I know, but listen, things have changed.”

Teresa leaned her head slightly to one side. “What do you mean?”

Thomas had no idea where to begin, and therefore, he started rambling. “They didn’t mean it! Well, I mean, they did, but they wouldn’t have done it if they had a choice. It was the Coalition, they’re bad, and they’re controlling the station and Aris was with them and the crew wants to be free. Anyway, the point is, do you know any passcode for a station’s control panel?”

“What?”Teresa tried, in vain, to keep track of Thomas’ mess of a story. “What are you talking about?” 

“The control panels! You read every manual you found back hom- back at the Main Station, do you know how they work?”

“Well, I know how the ones back there works, and yes, I have a personal passcode for those. What does that matter?”

Taking a deep breath, Thomas tried to sort out what he needed to say. “It’s a bit of a long story, and I’ll tell you everything later, but the important thing now is that we must free the Wayward Griever from the Coalition’s control. Their control panel needs a passcode to work. Can you do it?”

“Yes, if it works the same as the others I’ve worked on, it shouldn’t be a problem. But Thomas,” She had a small worried crinkle between her eyebrows. “Are you sure you want to do that? They did murder Aris.”

Thomas nodded. He had never been so sure of anything. “I trust them, Teresa.”

“Alright then,” She said with a nod of her own even though her voice still rang with hesitation. “If you are sure. But what will you do then? You can’t return after this.”

“I’ll stay here,” He didn’t even have to think it over. “I never want to return to the Coalition anyway. And there would be a place here for you too, if you wanted it.”

Teresa smiled. “I would appreciate that. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

---

There had gathered a small crowd inside the control room to observe when Teresa tried to start it up. There was Alby, Brenda and Gally to study how everything worked, and Teresa guided them through what she was doing. Thomas stood beside Newt and Minho, who seemed much less tense now that the truth was out. In fact, all of them seemed at ease now. Even Gally had actually greeted Thomas when he got there. It was a very clipped “hello”, yes, but it was a start. 

Teresa put in command after command, flipping switches in a certain order, and finally typed in her passcode. And while everyone held their breath, the little blinking light at the top, turned green.