Chapter Text
Adora
“You can’t hide forever, Catra.”
Adora shifts her weight from the ball of one foot to the other, fingers wrapped firmly around her bo-staff. She thinks she hears a footfall at her 5 o’clock, so she swivels around quickly, light on her feet, and swings the end of the staff outward—but there’s no impact, just a hollow, metallic whoosh as the weapon swings through air.
“I don’t have to hide if you’re this bad at looking for me, Adora,” Catra replies in her familiar, taunting drawl.
There’s a piece of an old shirt tied around Adora’s eyes at her own insistence. She follows the sound of Catra’s voice, eager to try and match her opponent’s extraordinary hearing. The space they’re in isn’t particularly prone to echoes; the ceilings are low, and there’s furniture strewn semi-randomly across the floor, creating a makeshift obstacle course.
This time the sound comes from her 8 o’clock, but she doesn’t react yet. Instead, she waits, intentionally shifting clockwise ever so slightly so as not to telegraph her next move. Then, in a split second, Adora hears claws hitting the floor and twists herself counterclockwise, bringing her staff up to block.
Their weapons collide with a loud clang . Adora hears Catra grunt with the effort, then gasp in surprise as she stumbles backwards across the metal floor. Seizing the opportunity, Adora launches forward with her staff drawn above her head. But before Adora can slow her momentum, Catra twirls deftly to the side and swings the butt of her own staff low, catching Adora in the shin.
Time seems to slow down. Adora tries not to think about the deep ache in her right shin as she feels her center of gravity falling to the floor. This is her last chance to do something before Catra has a weapon at her throat. Thinking quickly, Adora twists around just as she loses her balance so she’ll avoid a faceplant, and brings the end of her staff to the back of her opponent’s knee.
Adora’s back hits the floor as Catra yelps, stumbles, and then collapses forward on top of her. Both weapons go clattering to the floor.
As the adrenaline subsides, Adora is suddenly acutely aware that Catra is straddling her, elbows on both sides of her head, knees on both sides of her thighs, mismatched eyes with wide-open pupils staring directly at her as her blindfold is lifted up with a clawed finger. The sensation of her hot sweaty back against the cold metal floor provides a backdrop to the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
“I think I win this one,” Catra rasps, smirk barely concealing her fangs.
Adora rolls her eyes. “Only because I let you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Catra leans down a little farther and brushes the tip of her nose against Adora’s. “What else are you gonna let me do?”
Adora doesn’t give a second thought before tilting her chin up and catching Catra’s lips in an open-mouthed kiss. Their breathing only gets heavier as Adora brings her taped-up hands to the sides of Catra’s rib cage and lets her calloused fingers play with the hem of Catra’s sports bra. Catra’s hot breaths carry a rumbling purr into Adora’s mouth, and Adora can’t help but smile against Catra’s lips.
The pair startle, both at the hiss of the rec room’s pneumatic door opening and the demanding voice that follows.
“Adora,” Glimmer groans from the doorway, “Are you done with her yet? It’s time for tea and I need my tea buddy!”
“I told her not to call me that,” Catra mutters.
Adora chuckles. Glimmer and Catra are always finding new ways to annoy each other. It’s a love language, really.
“I don’t know, babe,” Adora says teasingly, just loud enough for Glimmer to hear, “Are we finished?”
Catra pushes herself up off the floor and stretches her arms as far as they’ll go above her head, exposing her lithe, fuzzy abdomen, her tail twitching languorously.
“I don’t know, babe. I mean, I definitely didn’t finish.”
Glimmer’s cheeks flush bright pink as she covers her face with both her hands.
“Stop being gross, you two! Other people use this room!”
“Oh, excuse me, Sparkles,” Catra says as she stands and pulls Adora up by the arm. “I didn’t realize you wanted to join in. Would Arrow Boy really be okay with that?”
“Shut up!” Her words seem angry, but there’s a definite smile in the queen’s voice, shielded behind her fingers.
Adora’s snickering turns into outright cackling as she picks her staff up off the floor and finds her discarded white undershirt.
“Don’t worry, Glim, we’re done. I should probably go check in with Bow anyway.”
Catra grabs Adora’s bicep gently and pulls her in for a peck on the cheek.
“See you in the galley for dinner?” Catra asks in a hushed tone that Adora knows well.
“Promise,” Adora says, returning the kiss.
The lovers’ eyes meet and share a soft glance, then Adora turns to head for the door. She gives Glimmer’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze as she exits to the hallway.
The corridors of the ship are awash with warm, white light from the adaptive overhead lights that simulate Etheria’s lunar cycle. It’s been over three months since Adora felt the real thing, but at least the faux daylight is better than the eerie pinkish-purple lights that used to line the halls.
Adora reaches the diamond-shaped door to her and Catra’s private quarters and taps the touch plate. It slides open and disappears seamlessly into the wall, and the lights come on inside the sparsely-decorated bedroom. She heads to the en-suite bathroom, where she strips, showers, and dries off in seven minutes flat. Her grooming routine is meticulously planned and timed, just like the rest of the day-to-day operations aboard Darla.
That’s her job up here, for the time being: routines, schedules, maps, routes. Technically, Adora is the commander of the ship. She and her friends had established a chain of command just in case a situation demanded military-like discipline and precision, but they haven’t had to use it yet. Nobody calls her Captain, nobody expects her to give orders, and she likes it that way. The rest of the crew just trust her to keep track of time and space, and she trusts them to do their jobs in turn.
The one part of her routine that Adora hasn’t quite acclimated to yet, even after all these months, is her new haircut. Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, her reflection still feels somewhat foreign without the cascade of blonde hair that she used to wrangle into a high ponytail every day. Adora had the ponytail down to a science; five seconds or less, no flyaways. Ironically, the short crop takes significantly more time to tame, complicating her routine.
Shortly before leaving for their long mission, the whole crew—except Entrapta, for obvious reasons—had cut their hair short, both for practicality’s sake and because they had all thought it would be a fun way to measure the passage of time. Adora had opted to lop off most of her hair down to a few inches, save for her bangs, which she kept longer in order to retain her customary poof. What she hadn’t realized at the time was that in order to create that poof naturally, she had to have more hair to tie it back to. For a few days, Catra had made fun of her “forehead mop,” until she had found some pomade in Glimmer’s bathroom.
After several months in space, her hair has grown long enough that she can simply brush it to the side and tuck it behind her ear, no pomade required. But she still uses a little bit of product, just to keep it under control. Adora grunts at her reflection as she carefully arranges her hair, making no compromises, sparing no effort until every strand is in its place. Satisfied, she smiles at the mirror, then raises an eyebrow and sticks her chin out. Catra calls this the “cocky idiot” face, but Adora knows her girlfriend loves it, so she practices.
Back in the bedroom, Adora opens the storage compartment that she sometimes jokingly calls an “armoire,” and finds a fresh pair of gray pants and a white button-up shirt. She pulls them on, careful not to disturb her meticulous hairdo, then slips into an old pair of her replica standard-issue Horde boots. As she’s leaving the room, she grabs her red vest from the back of the desk chair and throws it around herself, adjusting the golden wing pin over her heart.
The walk to the bridge is short. Massive metal doors whoosh open for Adora as she approaches. Entering the bridge still fills her with wonder, although she does it every day. The panoramic viewports put the stars and galaxies on full display for her, and she can almost imagine she’s just floating free out there in the vacuum of space, launching herself off of platforms made of light just as she did while fighting Prime’s armada almost two years ago. Adora’s face lights up with a grin at the sight.
“Hey there,” Bow calls from a corner of the bridge. He’s sitting in one of the newly installed swiveling chairs at a control panel, feet up on the dashboard, taking aim with a dart at a board hung on the back wall. The archer lets the dart fly with a quick flick of his wrist, and Adora doesn’t have to look at the board; she can tell by his bright smile that it’s a bullseye. “How was sparring?”
“Hey, Bow!” Adora greets him giddily as she finds a seat in the captain’s chair, which now has embroidered cushions courtesy of Castaspella. “Sparring was good. You know, normal. No injuries.”
“Was it …” Bow pauses to launch another dart at the board, “fun?”
“Fun? Fun! Yes. Yeah, it was fun. Catra’s still doing the thing where she hides behind chairs and sneak-attacks, but I’m getting the hang of blocking it.”
Bow laughs under his breath, but his brow furrows ever so slightly with what looks like concern. He swivels his chair around to face Adora at the center of the bridge.
“As long as you’re not hurting each other.”
Adora smiles softly and nods in response. She knows he means well, and he trusts Catra plenty. Bow just doesn’t quite understand Catra and Adora’s sparring habit; he can’t stop himself from worrying about his best friends. Which Adora thinks is fair considering the … rich and complicated past they share.
“Any updates? How’s our progress?” Adora asks, straightening her back to a more serious posture.
Bow sighs as he stands up and strides over to his own station at the helm, where a blue bomber jacket is slung across the back of the chair.
“Nothing new, still. We just surveyed our twelfth life-sustaining system, but it was all just … rocks, again. We’re coming up on the next system from Jewelstar’s map in about a week.” Bow taps a button on his control panel and a holo-display pops up, showing a series of adjacent pink spheres dotted with glowing points and a blinking yellow chevron traveling between them.
A chill runs down Adora’s spine. She remembers begging Light Hope—or, she supposes, the thing that replaced Light Hope—not to fire the superweapon at Etheria’s core, thinking of all the people on all the planets that the Heart would’ve obliterated. She thought, at the time, that if she could stop the weapon, she could save not only Etheria, her home, but countless other inhabited worlds. And maybe, just maybe, one of them might be her native planet, the planet of the First Ones—of her parents. But out in deep space, where Jewelstar’s map told them there had once been living worlds, they find nothing but barren, ashen husks—the haunting wake of Horde Prime’s desolation. Even after all the sacrifices she made, Adora still couldn’t save them all.
And now Adora thinks she may never find out where she came from. The thought doesn’t inspire the same feelings of betrayal and anger that it did when she first learned of her heritage. The way she sees it, she doesn’t need to know where she came from. She knows where she belongs, and that’s right here on this ship, with the love of her life and her best friends—her family.
But still, just because Adora doesn’t need to know where she came from doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to know. She’s gotten very good at letting herself want, provided that her desires don’t contradict what others need from her. She and her friends are on this mission because they want to explore, to discover, to spread magic across the galaxy, not because anyone asked them to. And if—hypothetically speaking—while they’re out here, Adora maybe spends some free time deciphering millennia-old First Ones star maps and maybe alters their course here or there according to said maps, it won’t get in the way of the mission.
Adora is staring out the viewport, watching distant stars, imagining what they might hold in their orbits, when she’s pulled from her reverie by a blinking red light on the command chair’s control pad accompanied by an incessant beeping. She nearly jumps out of her seat.
“Bow? What is that?” Adora asks with barely restrained panic in her voice. “What’s going on?”
But before Bow can answer, Darla answers first. A placid simulated voice comes through the ship’s computer: “Incoming Distress Transmission, Priority One. Receiving From Seven-Two Mark Three-Zero-Eight. Coordinates Received. Nature Of Emergency: Starship Run Aground. Class Unknown. Designation Unknown. Complement: One. Audio Received. Would You Like To Review The Recording?”
Bow and Adora watch each other’s expressions turn from surprise, to horror, to wonder in an instant. Adora holds her friend’s gaze as she presses the intercom button on the command chair.
“Guys? Come to the bridge. You’re going to want to hear this.”
Entrapta
In the engineering section, there are two priorities. One: keep Darla’s systems running. Two: keep an eye on Hordak. This is what Entrapta’s friends told her. She has added a few tertiary priorities to this list.
Priority three is to improve Darla’s power and efficiency. Right after that, priority four is to study the effects of extended space travel in artificial gravity on the human body. Priority five is to give Hordak things to do. This helps with priorities one through four, coincidentally. Priority six is, of course, tiny snacks. Priority seven is keeping a technical log.
Entrapta adjusts her overalls with her gloved thumbs and speaks confidently into the digital recorder in her robotic hair extension.
“Starship Darla, technical log, day 104—105?—105, 1600 hours by on-board chronometer. Our revamped power systems are holding up well to extended use. I’m still trying to resolve the coolant issue with the reverse-engineered First Ones tech warp drive, but making good progress. One place I’ve made great progress is that I’ve decided to call the crystals that the First Ones used to store data and transmit magical energy, ‘Arcanolite.’ It’s a much easier word than what I was calling them earlier, the ‘First Ones Crystalline Data And Magical Energy Storage And Transmission System,’ or ‘FOCDAMESATS’ for short. What was I talking about?”
As she talks, she paces absently towards the reactor in the center of the engine room, a massive globe of thick steel coated with a dark insulating compound, countless tubes, wires, and lights jutting out from its surface.
“Oh yeah! The warp drive. It turns out that using the Arcanolite’s magical properties to continually bend the fabric of space into a stable warp bubble creates a lot of excess heat, and even if I reroute extra coolant from the thulite reactor, she still begins to overheat after about a week of continuous flight at warp factor two. But! I’m working on a solution involving the galley refrigerator.”
Entrapta’s other robotic hair extension shapes itself into a hand and rises to scratch her chin. She hums in thought as she wanders over to her worktable.
“Let’s see, what else? Oh! Yes. At 1900 hours yesterday, we finally tested the ion cannons. Before we left, Hordak insisted that Darla have some kind of shipboard weapons system. Bow and Glimmer got really angry. They weren’t happy Hordak was coming along at all; they’re still making him stay down in engineering at all times. I’m just glad he’s here to assist me with Darla . And to … satisfy my social interaction quota.
“Anyway, Bow and Glimmer argued that since the purpose of our expedition is exploration and diplomacy, we shouldn’t need any kind of weapons. I thought that was kind of silly. Space is immeasurably vast, and I calculated a … 64.3% chance that we would run into some kind of threat. Adora agreed with my logic but said that if we ran into any trouble, we would always have She-Ra to defend us. Catra got pretty mad at Adora for that. I wanted to bring attention to other possible uses for the cannons, such as clearing space debris, but it was at that point I realized that the argument wasn’t really about ion cannons. After that disagreement, Catra managed to convince the others to let Hordak install the cannons. Bow and Glimmer were still unhappy about it—until last night! Adora had Bow take us into an asteroid field, and Catra used the asteroids for target practice! They worked splendidly, just as I expected.”
She glances down at the worktable, eyeing the circuit boards and Arcanolite crystals. Her gaze lands on a half-built device she’s been working on in her free time. Right now, it’s a hemispherical chamber, the inside covered in coils of conductive wire and thin metal spikes that point towards the center, waiting to receive a crystal.
“Ah, and my magical generator is coming along nicely too. My friends didn’t ask me to make this, but I think they’ll appreciate it anyway. It’ll convert the energy stored in an Arcanolite crystal into usable magic. Ideally, it should allow Glimmer to use some of her powers while we’re away from Etheria, and I’m sure there will be plenty of other applications! For example, if we manage to find a planet that—”
A chirp from the communications panel near the ladder interrupts Entrapta’s log. She runs over, hoping for something exciting. She isn’t disappointed.
Catra
Glimmer gingerly sips her tea, legs crossed elegantly on the gaudy Bright Moon sofa in the galley. Catra thinks she remembers the queen saying it was “lemon ginger with lavender,” which sounds pretty gross, if she’s being honest, but she isn’t going to give Glimmer a hard time about it. Not today, anyway.
Catra is leaning back on the sofa, one leg slung lazily over the armrest, as she takes gulps of lukewarm black coffee. She would have made a fresh pot, but … eh.
“What’s Hordak’s deal, anyway? Why is he still such a grump? I thought Adora, like … exorcised him, or whatever,” Glimmer asks without a modicum of self-awareness.
The fur along Catra’s spine stands on end as she remembers that day, and all the days that came before it. The invader that had violated her mind, stealing her most secretive thoughts and displaying them like pieces in a museum. The light at the end of the tunnel turning gold and looking down at her with crystal blue eyes. Watching with conflicting feelings of hatred and unimaginable loss as the woman who had tortured, manipulated and abused her—but also raised her from a baby—immolated herself. And before all that there was the hatred, the anger, the loneliness, the desperation, all the result of a one-sided love—no, not love; the love was never one-sided, she remembers—a need that turned sour in her heart.
Catra looks toward the door. A year or two ago, she would’ve run from this awful weight in her chest, but she’s not that person anymore. She stays, and she talks. She takes a deep breath, then answers Glimmer’s question.
“Hordak spent his whole life trying to be something special, trying to get big brother’s love. But Prime,” she still shudders when she says the name, but tells herself it’s the stale coffee, “Prime tossed him aside like a piece of trash just for being different. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like him either, but … I get it. You don’t just get over that kind of pain. Not even She-Ra can heal that.”
Glimmer huffs and places her mug of tea on the low table in front of them. Catra doesn’t have to turn to see the look on Glimmer’s face; she can feel that grimace in the back of her skull. They sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment, their otherwise pleasant tea time turned bitter. It’s neither of their faults, Catra knows. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to dig her claws into something.
Thankfully, Adora’s voice on the intercom breaks the tension. Catra lets out a small chirp and her ears perk up at the familiar sound, only to flatten back down as she recognizes her girlfriend’s ‘panicking-but-trying-to-stay-cool’ tone. Without another word, Catra and Glimmer spring up from their seats and head for the bridge.
Adora
In less than a minute, Catra and Glimmer, followed shortly after by Entrapta, run through the doorway to the bridge, all shouting some variation of, “What’s going on?”
Adora stands in front of the command chair and waits for her friends to join her in a small circle.
“We’ve received a distress signal. Downed ship, one person aboard. Coordinates are about a week out at our regular cruising speed, not too far off our course.” She finishes, and is met with stunned silence from her friends. Catra is the first to speak.
“Adora,” she says with a tone Adora knows too well: the ‘don’t-be-an-idiot’ voice. “Are you about to suggest we run headfirst into a potentially ship-crashing situation just to save one person?”
“I know how this sounds, Catra, but we have to do this. I can’t just leave this person out in space to die.” Adora reaches a hand to her girlfriend’s shoulder, squeezing gently, a grounding touch. “We’ll be careful. No unnecessary risks, I promise.”
A purr—not the comfortable kind, but the desperate kind—rumbles through Catra’s body and into Adora’s hand. Catra glances to the floor, then back up at Adora with a furrowed brow.
“Okay.” The doubt on Catra's face shifts to determination and she crosses her arms. “But we have to take every precaution. We approach as fast as we can without sacrificing maneuverability, with shields up and cannons armed. This could be a trap.”
“No, we can’t go looking for a fight,” Bow says solemnly as he approaches the group from his place at the helm.
“Bow is right,” says Glimmer. “We’re on a diplomatic mission, remember? If there’s someone there and they see us coming in hot like that, we could appear hostile.”
Bow nods in agreement. “We should send a response to the signal and approach conspicuously.”
“But we can’t send a response,” Glimmer says. “If someone attacked that ship, they could still be there, and we’d risk an attack too if we announced ourselves like that.”
“So you admit there could be an attack waiting for us?” Catra snaps. Then, before Adora can stop them, everyone is talking at once.
“I didn’t say that! I just said—”
“We can’t assume—”
“You said we couldn’t risk—”
“—that if there was one, we shouldn’t—”
“—that this was an attack! We’re not—”
The voices blur together in Adora’s mind. She shuts her eyes tight and tries to sort it all out, tries to see the right path through all this, but there’s too much noise. She has to keep everyone together. They can’t fall apart now.
“Everyone stop!” Adora shouts with more power behind her voice than she intended. The room goes quiet, save for the quiet hum of the engine. She takes a deep breath, going over everything again, looking for something she missed. And, sure enough, “We didn’t even listen to the recording yet. Maybe that will give us more information.”
The crew exchanges worried glances, then all nod. Adora taps a button on the command chair behind her. “Darla, play the message.”
There’s static over the bridge’s speakers, then the message comes through, barely intelligible.
“...shot down by...Horde...beyond repair...provisions...not enough…”
The final words of the message come through louder and clearer than the rest.
“Please. Help.”
As the static fades, Adora feels all of her uncertainty vanish. She watches her friends’ hearts change in an instant. Catra’s defensive posturing falls away and her eyes go steely; Bow’s careful pragmatism gives way to dutiful determination; Glimmer’s nerves harden and her fists clench, looking for magic to grab hold of.
“We have to go, and we have to go fast. This person probably doesn’t have enough supplies to last them a week,” Adora says.
Glimmer fires back. “Adora, you heard the message! There’s a rogue Horde ship out there, maybe a whole fleet! We don’t stand a chance!”
Adora knows that tone of voice too. It’s the one that demands to be listened to, but refuses to compromise. They can’t afford to have this conflict right now.
“We didn’t stand a chance before, Glimmer, but we still took down Prime. We have to try. We have to put up a fight.”
“We can’t just fly in guns blazing, Adora, we need a strategy,” Catra says like she’s repeating a mantra.
Catra’s doing a good job of concealing it, but Adora can still read her loud and clear. Her mouth says “strategy,” but her gold and blue eyes and her freckled cheeks and her creased forehead are saying, Don’t be a hero. Not again. Adora’s heart breaks a little at the thought, and she rubs at her chest, feeling the outline of the Failsafe scar through her shirt.
“You’re right. And we’ll have one.” Adora reaches out to touch Catra’s arm, but Catra flinches away. She sighs. “I trust you all to get us through this. I need you to trust me, too.”
“I trust you, Adora,” Bow says, squaring his shoulders. “I think you should take the conn.” He smiles assuredly at her, and she smiles back, scared but grateful for the show of confidence.
Adora looks to Catra, ears flat and tail twitching. Catra looks back hesitantly, but Adora can still feel the unshakable bond between them, solid as steel. They’re still here, still together after all this time, completely open to each other. Catra doesn’t have to speak for Adora to know that she trusts her.
Adora turns back to Glimmer, whose scowl has softened with sadness in her glittering eyes.
“Glimmer—”
“I know,” the queen replies before Adora can finish her thought. She lets out a held breath. “I trust you.”
Adora lets herself smile again before she turns to Entrapta.
Entrapta, though, looks preoccupied. As Adora watches her expression, she realizes there’s horror written on Entrapta’s face. Then, Adora remembers their sixth crew member, the one down in engineering, who they never see, never talk to—Hordak. That ship was shot down by the Horde. If there’s a Horde ship out there, there’s clones—Hordak’s brothers. Adora doesn’t quite understand Entrapta’s relationship with Hordak and the clones, but she knows Entrapta has found something like a family with them. Adora will do everything in her power to protect her friends—and that includes their families, no matter how strange.
“Entrapta,” Adora begins, already thinking of ways this could go wrong, “do you think you and Hordak can think of a way to disable a clone ship without destroying it?”
The scientist’s eyes light up once again with her usual enthusiasm, plus an unmistakable twinkle of love.
“Yes, absolutely! That should be a piece of cake!” Entrapta takes a deep breath, then steels herself with sincerity. “Thank you, Adora. I trust you, too.”
Adora smiles at Entrapta with gratitude, then steps backwards and takes a seat in the command chair. She makes eye contact with each of her friends one more time, then straightens her posture and puffs up her chest.
“Stations, everyone.”
The crew members walk to their respective seats at the bridge’s various control panels. Catra goes to the defense station to the left of Adora, near the dart board, and Adora thinks she sees—maybe—a little bit of pride in her step. Glimmer walks to the communications station, her posture a little smaller than usual. Bow goes back to the helm and picks his jacket off the chair, showing off the large red heart emblazoned on the back as he shrugs it on. Entrapta stands over his shoulder to peer down at his instruments.
Adora calls to the helm. “Bow, how soon can we get there at top speed?”
The archer-turned-helmsman punches a few buttons on his console, then swivels around to Adora.
“We can get there in 28 hours at maximum warp.”
Entrapta lets out an anxious whine. “I’m not sure Darla can sustain that speed for that long! We’d risk a potentially catastrophic coolant leak!”
“We’ll have to take that chance,” Adora says. “We can do this.” She says it mostly for Entrapta, who starts running back to the engine room to wrestle with the warp drive, but also for herself. This is the first time in a long time that she’s been in charge of a mission. It’s not the most comfortable position to be in, but if everyone else believes in her, who is she to question them?
She takes one last look up at the stars through the massive viewports on the bridge.
“Bow,” with her eyes on the sky, she gives the order. “Punch it.”
The stars blur into lines of multicolored light overhead. There’s a high-pitched whine, a powerful rumble, and then a buzzing hum that fills all silence. Darla is engulfed in a dazzling blaze of purple as she flings herself into the unknown, faster than light.