Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The ceramic doors to the medical bay opened noiselessly, though in my head I always assigned them a swishing sound, the influence of watching too many sci-fi shows as a kid. As I walked into the room, the initial odor of antiseptic was quickly replaced by the rich, raw smell of brine and dimethyl sulfide, reminding me of Fiji’s Natadola Beach at sunrise. It came from Veranyi, standing tall and erect at the main console. Turning at my entrance, she fixed me with her black reflective gaze and said:

“Golden Eagle. You are early.”

I bumped up one shoulder. “There’s not much for me to do on this ship.” We hadn’t seen a real fight since we’d come back through the Source Wall into regular space, and a Thanagarian wingman was at his best when he could fight.

“I am certain Neex or Valda would be grateful for your assistance,” Veranyi told me.

Rummaging around in Engineering or through the ship’s armory stores sounded boring. “I’d rather hang out with you, to be honest.”

Veranyi gestured toward an examination cot. “Then let us proceed.”

I moved to the cot and shifted my weight onto it. She came over, her tentacle glide as smooth and silent as the doors sliding in their tracks. Despite the alienness of the tendrils growing from her head and those poking beneath the hem of her gown, I always felt safe with her. I don’t remember much of my mother, a human woman who’d died long ago back on Earth, but I imagined her to be like Veranyi. Veranyi felt like a mother to me. Maybe because she was always ready to help or heal, no matter the person or circumstance. Or maybe it was because of her breasts, which weighed heavily against my arm as she leaned over me. Her species might have evolved from something like a squid, but she was still stacked.

I forced my attention back to her face. Her oblong eyes peered close, and she asked, “May I take it off?”

While I knew she meant the protective plate over my eye, I had to push the more Oedipal thoughts from my head. She was a contact psychic, capable of divining thoughts and emotions with a touch, a skill that had garnered her the alias Hierophant. I pulled my mouth tight so I wouldn’t giggle and muttered, “Sure.”

Two of her head tentacles moved beyond the edges of my vision toward the left side of my face. One of the tentacles was curled around a sliver-width wedge that Veranyi slipped between the protective plate and my cheek, and she used her long fingers to break the plate’s adhesive seal to my skin.

I sucked a reflexive hiss.

She stopped. “Do you have pain?”

“No. It just feels like I should.” As she drew the plate away, I asked, “How much longer until it’s done?”

“Be still, and we shall see.” The second head tentacle swooped in, gripping a tiny flashlight. Beyond the glare of the beam, a twin version of her appeared in my vision. Not so separate as the last time she’d checked, though.

“You’re almost back to being one person,” I said.

“The double vision should resolve once the ocular nerves fully reconstruct themselves.” The light swung away, leaving me with the sight of her inky-black smile. “Save for some residual scar tissue around the original enucleation site, the regeneration is proceeding well. Your new eye should be fully functional within a few cycles.”

I turned my hand in front of my face. Since the battle with Carter that had ruptured my left eye, I hadn’t imagined ever having the sight of both returned. “Who says stem-cell tech is bad?”

Veranyi cocked her head. “Bad is a moral judgment. The application of science may be used for immoral purposes, but the science itself is free from such attributions.”

I blinked at her. “I was trying to be funny.”

She returned her head to its straight position. “Then you were unsuccessful.”

I pulled my lips together and shut up.

“Close your eye, please,” she said, returning to the task at hand.

I did as requested, and she replaced the protective plate. As the new adhesive took effect, I changed the subject to one more heartfelt: “I don’t know how to repay you.”

She drew herself up into six feet of chartreuse poise; seven, counting the bob of her head tentacles. “No repayment is necessary.”

“You’ve regrown my eye,” I said with emphasis. “That’s not nothing.”

“There was no benefit to withholding aid.” She moved away, to replace her equipment into one of the infirmary’s sliding drawers. “I had the means and the technology; you had the desire. We both had the time.”

I sat up, once again watching her movements with the depth perception of only one eye. An unexpected bashfulness made my torso muscles contract. “Well, it’s been a nice time. For me, anyway. For you, too, I hope?”

She looked halfway around at me, showing me her smooth profile. “Why would you hope that?”

“Because I like spending time with you.”

She turned fully. Looking into her enormous black eyes was like looking into an abyss. Except this abyss gazed also. When she spoke, her tone had shifted from tender to taut. “We are not sexually compatible.”

I showed her my palms and attempted a fast course correction. “I didn’t mean—! Veranyi…!”

“You use that name too freely,” she said, sounding as much sad as scolding. “I should not have shared it with you.”

The bottom fell out of my guts. She was the last friend I had in this galaxy, and I couldn’t lose her. I hopped from the cot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep any bounds. If it makes you feel better, I’ll stop; I promise.”

Her stare was silent and indecipherable. I considered trying to explain myself again, but I wasn’t sure what I could say that wouldn’t dig me into a deeper hole. In the next moment, it didn’t matter, as the comm system squawk box gave a click and Neex said:

“Hierophant?” The engineer’s voice, processed through layers of hull and circuitry from the ship’s core, always sounded tinny.

Veranyi kept her stare on me but said to the comm, “Yes?”

“Captain wants Golden Eagle on the bridge.”

I frowned. “Can it wait? I’m in the middle of something.”

The squawk box fell silent. When it crackled to life again, Gana’s sharp, insistent voice burst through the brief static.

“Listen here, wingman. When the captain of a ship says, ‘jump,’ you jump. Now, get your carcass up to the bridge, on the double.”

The box clicked off with a harsh snap. Veranyi clasped her hands in front of her. “You should not keep the captain waiting,” was all she said.

We weren’t finished, but she had a way of compelling me to do what she said. I took the transport lift to the main corridor of the ship, which, after a short and uneventful walk, led me onto Skitnik’s spacious bridge. Toragg sat at his helm controls, only glancing my way as I passed. I felt his focus follow me, still clinging as I walked up beside Gana, who stood in front of the bridge’s main viewscreen with her back to the rest of the room. Holding her attention on the viewer was a small, run-down light freighter floating a few kilometers off Skitnik’s prow.

I stopped to look, too. “What’s that?”

“It’s a ship,” Toragg said; from his tone, he probably wanted to add, moron.

“I can see that,” I said. “What’s it doing all the way out here?”

“That’s what we want to find out,” Gana said without looking my way. “Neex picked her up a few minutes ago.”

“But I can’t match make or markings to anything in my databases,” Neex put in from the nearest comm box. “I was hoping you might recognize her?”

On the viewer, Skitnik’s radar and scanner analyses tallied information in quick-moving scrolls. I shook my head. “She’s not from Thanagar, Rann, or New Tamaran.” And she definitely wasn’t from Earth; too compact and slick, despite the wear. “Have you tried hailing her?”

“We’re not idiots,” Toragg said.

“No answer,” Neex informed me with more diplomacy.

I shrugged and stated the obvious. “Then either nobody’s home, or they don’t want help.”

Gana drew a breath that straightened her back and shoulders. “It’s a manual check, then.” She turned to me at last, giving me a quick once-over. “Suit up.”

I shot her a gape. “For what?”

She arched one of her prominent brow ridges. “Are you saying you want to head into an unknown ship wearing just a onesuit?”

“No, I meant, why are we doing a walkover at all?”

“Because every ship’s got some cargo worth having.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said around a grimace. “We’ve been floating around the ass end of the galaxy for I don’t know how long – when you were supposed to be taking me home! – and now you want to make a detour to pull apart some clunker just because it’s piqued your curiosity?”

“Yes.” Gana lifted her chin to speak to the comm. “Neex, drop cloak. Get your claws into her and bring her up to the port side umbilical.” She smiled, showing a lot of semi-sharp teeth and a mercenary gleam in her eyes. “We’re going for a plunder.”

Deterring a bounty hunter from some potential loot is always a lost cause. So, less than twenty minutes later, I found myself standing in front of Skitnik’s umbilical hatch in my Golden Eagle armor and helmet. My mind wasn’t on boarding the derelict, though. While I listened to the sounds of resolving air pressure on the other side of the hatch, I watched the door at the far end of the corridor, the one to Veranyi’s medical suite.

She hadn’t broken silence since I’d left her to go to the bridge, at least not to me. It didn’t feel right to head into a potentially dangerous situation without saying something to her: goodbye or sorry or simply how much I valued her as a friend. Before I could work up the nerve to walk down there and knock on her door, I heard the clomp-clomp sound of mag-boots hitting the floor plates in a no-nonsense stride, signaling Gana’s approach.

She’d wriggled into a light-armor EVA suit, and one of the ship’s electric security batons dangled from her utility belt. Her suit wasn’t as flexible or as adaptive as my Nth metal armor, but nothing much was. Still, she came up next to me with her chest out and her chin up, as though adorned for battle. For a minute, she just stared ahead of her, so I did the same. Then, through the local comm channel shared between her EVA suit and my helmet, she muttered:

“Stay away from Hierophant.”

I turned to her. “Excuse me?”

Gana kept her focus front. “I know she’s one of those earnest, compassionate souls you aggressive males find so appealing, but she doesn’t need you. And it won’t matter soon, anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Toragg’s found us a small sculptor planet, unclaimed, in the Ninkhirsag sector. Once we’ve cleared this derelict,” she said, nodding to the wall, “we’ll head out that way, finally settle down on a world of our own.”

The decisiveness in her tone made my voice crack. “But not me.”

She turned her face to mine. “I thought you wanted to go home?”

Her sneer stopped me cold. I did want to go home, though if I were more in the habit of being honest with myself, I might have been willing to admit that I wasn’t so eager as I’d once been to leave behind Skitnik’s raggedy but familiar company.

As if sensing my thoughts, Gana shook her head. “You’re not part of this crew, Golden Eagle. You never have been. I don’t know where you belong, but it’s not with us.”

I clenched my jaw as resentment and self-pity burned in my sinuses like twin stars. I didn’t dare give Gana the satisfaction of seeing any tenderer emotions, though, and pinched my brow into a glower. “That hasn’t stopped you from giving me orders all the time.”

She gave my axe a fast glance. “Having a homicidal psychopath on board comes in handy sometimes. But not in the long run. And not for the quiet existence the rest of us are looking for.”

Maybe I should have said I wanted a peaceful life, too: the chance to put down my axe for good and stretch out on a warm, sandy beach to the sound of rolling waves and gentle laughter blowing beside my ear. But then I heard my father’s voice, deep and commanding and – at the end – full of sorrow. Protect them, he’d said as he’d died in my arms, meaning the world and her people. I couldn’t turn my back on that.

I’d turned my back on too many things.

The hiss of equalizing pressure came to a stop, and Neex opened the passage in front of us. “Umbilical secure, Captain. She’s all yours.”

Beyond the hatch, the darkness of the derelict beckoned. Being the bigger and more capable fighter, I blinked away my errant emotions and moved into the point position as we walked inside.

Connected to Skitnik’s thrust, the ship had enough gravity to keep us from having to use boot maglocks. Even so, my stomach felt like it was rising into my chest cavity. A memory of deadly ambush – dulled but still in the back of my mind – tensed my muscles and kept me scanning my helmet’s internal head’s-up display for warnings. Everything scrolled by in dull gray, though, without alarm. Then I noticed the atmosphere scan.

“Scrubbers are still cycling air,” I said.

Gana grunted. “So?”

“Why keep life support running without thrust?”

“Maybe the engine’s broken.”

“Why no distress call, in that case?”

“Maybe it’s a trap,” she said, still unconcerned.

“That’s the last thing we need,” Neex grumbled across our comms.

Now, Gana snapped. “Since when did I become the captain of a bunch of yellow-bellies? Stiffen up,” she told me. “That should be C&C up ahead. We can access the ship’s manifesto from there, see if there’s anything worth pulling across.”

“You mean, stealing,” I said, showing a snarl for that yellow-belly accusation.

“It’s only stealing if the crew’s still alive. Otherwise, it’s salvage, and that’s fair game.”

“I could use some extra scrubbers,” Neex put in, and Gana gave me a knowing look.

I grimaced but resumed moving toward the fore. Nothing jumped out at us, and we didn’t trigger any alarms. The walls were broken every few meters by hatch seals that belonged to storage or crew bunks, but they looked like they hadn’t been opened in a long time. I paused by a seam and slid a finger across it. Gray particles came away, some of them sticking to my glove while others floated into the recycled air like dandelion puffs scattered on a breeze.

I looked around at Gana again. “I don’t like this.”

“You don’t like anything.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“It’s just dust.” She pushed her way around me to take the lead. “And we’re not going back without something to show for it.”

With her steady, determined stride, Gana made it to Control in less than a dozen heartbeats. She placed her hand on the access panel. There was no reaction, not even an activation light. Not totally unexpected, but a little disheartening for progress.

She stepped back from the hatch, glanced at my axe, then at me. “Time to make yourself useful.”

I shoved the blade of my axe into the center seam of the hatch. It took a concerted press of strength to force the edges of the door apart, but split they did, albeit with a teeth-clenching shriek of long-locked mechanics. With the seam broken, Gana braced her hands against one door and pushed while I pulled on the other, until there was just enough space for her to angle herself through. Even with my wings in closed position, I needed a significantly larger gap. By the time I’d gotten inside the Control chamber, Gana was already pushing buttons and tapping at panels.

Control was small, more the size of a cockpit than an operations center. A mass of monitors and close-access terminals, most of them dark, surrounded the pilot’s mounted gimbal seat in the middle of the room. In the seat, a corpse sat silent, whatever flesh it had possessed at one time all but disintegrated beneath its flight suit. At first glance, the remains could have been Earther or Thanagarian, except the fingers were too long, and the skull had a strange chitinous material covering the face.

“No marks on him,” I muttered as I examined the deflated but intact flight suit.

Gana kept on with whatever was commanding her focus; she barely seemed to notice the pilot. “Probably died in that chair.”

“I don’t recognize the physiology. Where do you think he’s from?”

“What do you care?”

I shot a glare at her back. “He stayed at his post through the end. The least we can do is give him a decent send-off.”

Gana snorted. “You and your battle code.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it! It’s just the considerate thing to do.” I frowned. “I’d want someone to do it for me.”

“Fine. Wrap the thing in ribbons before shoving it out an airlock or setting it on fire or whatever it is you think needs doing. Just don’t let it interfere with what we’re really here for.”

I made sure Gana heard my disgruntled exhalation as I rose from the body. “Aye, Captain.”

“That’s more like it.” She raised her hand for attention and, as I came to her shoulder, indicated a scroll of data in some language I didn’t recognize. My helmet’s built-in translators didn’t recognize it, either.

“These look like security codes,” she said, indicating the scroll with her finger. She moved her digit across the console to another data string. “And I’m betting these are location records.” She gave me her greedy smile again. “You know what that means, right?”

I didn’t share her glee. “You’ve found your jackpot?”

Gana clicked her cheek. “Don’t look so sour. I’ll let you have a piece, if there’s enough to go around.” Her grin turned terrible. “You can buy yourself something pretty to go with that new eye.”

“Consider my share payment for my transport home.” I hefted my axe. “So, where do you think this hidden treasure is?”

“Storage compartment on this level. Look for a symbol like two stars with a spear beside.” She pointed down the corridor. “It should be just past the umbilical lock, close to engine access.”

That sounded straightforward enough. I went back through the C&C doors and walked toward the aft of the ship. Gana came up behind me, and together our boot clicks made an irregular rhythm against the floor plates. I scanned the faint carvings next to each hatch seal, watching the symbols change. The smaller hatches had single symbol identifications, while the larger hatches farther along had identifications of two, then three, symbols.

“This one,” Gana declared from the opposite side of the corridor. She squatted in front of a long hatch with seams extending to the floor, next to which was scored that two-stars-and-a-spear symbol. Her hand brushed a corner of the hatch, and a small panel slid open, revealing a pad of manual access keys labeled with the same sort of symbolic code. She rubbed her hands together, muttered, “Here we go,” and tapped the keys in a particular sequence that her mercenary mind must have memorized.

 I gripped my axe as mechanisms within the hull clanked and groaned. The hatch stuttered once against its seams before it rolled out into the corridor with its prize. As Gana leaned back in surprise, I bent forward the same. Within the hatch lay an amber shell like a cold-sleep capsule, and within that shell lay—

“A girl?” I wheezed in dismay, though upon closer inspection, she was no typical girl. Her skin was the blue of a cloudless sky, and while she had human proportions, her body was longer and leaner, like the corpse in C&C. Unlike her dead pilot kin, she didn’t wear any face covering, giving us clear view of her features. No scars or age wrinkles marred her skin; in fact, she possessed a smooth, flawless facial symmetry like I’d seen only once before. For a second, my mind flashed back to that other beautiful young woman of my past, the one with the eyes as blue as the clear ocean and the beaming smile that – at one time – shone just for me.

I reached out my hand. “Is she alive?”

“I don’t know,” Gana said, though when my fingers grazed the surface of the shell, the girl stirred in her artificial slumber.

Her eyes flickered open. They weren’t blue but gold, as gold as my wings, and they shimmered as if in a daze before sharpening into fast focus. Her lips parted. She drew a breath and screamed, and my brain exploded with light.

Chapter Text

“Golden Eagle? Golden Eagle!”

The words ricocheted in my head, less like a bullet than a basketball bouncing around a court covered with shag rug. My body felt detached from my brain, and when I tried to get up, I couldn’t. Amid the clouded pounding in my head, more words bubbled to the surface:

“Shake it off, bro!”

“Hank?” I heard myself mumble through slow-moving lips, though that couldn’t be right. Hank was back on Earth, last I knew, and I wasn’t on Earth anymore. I hadn’t been on Earth in years, not since the fight with Carter, the one that had ruptured my left eye. He’d shipped me to Thanagar, where I’d been sent to prison before being pardoned to fight in an interplanetary war that had taken me all the way to the edge of the known galaxy. Now, I was on a dawdling journey back to the main systems, courtesy of the seen-better-days-but-still-good ship Skitnik. Or, rather, I was on a ship connected to Skitnik, where moments or minutes or hours ago, a blue-skinned girl had screamed her way into my mind.

Realization of my whereabouts had the effect of a rousing. In my ears, Neex continued to shout my name.

“Stop!” I groaned to them. “Please.”

“I don’t have monitor support for your armor.” They sounded a mix of peevish and apologetic. “And you weren’t answering.”

I managed to lift my hand to my head, the weight of my arm shifting up and then down. I was laid out on my back on the floor, like the unlucky victim of a tackle. I thought again of Hank, of his snicker and voice – “Attaboy” – before he drifted back into my memories, and I opened my eyes.

Gana was standing above the roll-out storage hatch. She looked a little worse for the moment, too, though at least she was on her feet. Next to her, the amber capsule was open, and Veranyi sat along its side. The blue-skinned girl, who’d fallen or been forced back into unconsciousness, lay slumped against Veranyi’s generous breast.

I sat up and grimaced, mostly for the taste of salty blood on my upper lip. “What happened?”

“We woke up a telepath,” Gana said.

I groaned again. That explained why my brain felt like the floor of a dirty movie theater.

“You must have initiated the revival protocol when you opened her sleep chamber,” Veranyi said.

I pointed. “That was Gana.”

“Me? You were the one who touched it!”

“It was your idea to come over here in the first place!”

“Passing blame is pointless,” Veranyi interrupted. “The deed has been done.”

Both Gana and I fell quiet. I shifted my attention to the girl, who in her current state resembled nothing so much as a vulnerable and lonely stray. “What do we do with her?” I asked.

“We bring her aboard,” Veranyi replied, as if that should have been obvious.

“What if she’s sick?” For the first time, Gana sounded cautious. “Shouldn’t she be quarantined?”

I regained my feet with a grunt. “We’ve already botched that one.”

Veranyi agreed. “If she is infected with anything, we have likely been exposed.”

Gana turned her considerable wrath on Veranyi. “Nobody told you to come over without a suit.”

“Our EVA suits do not accommodate my physiology. The two of you were not responding to comms, and one of us needed to travel across. I have the strongest psychic defenses, and I am the most well-versed in medical assistance.” Veranyi lifted her chin. “It will be easiest and most efficient to use Skitnik’s facilities to perform any tests. If necessary, we can isolate her locally. We woke her,” she said with deliberateness. “She is our responsibility.”

I couldn’t object to that logic. A glance at Gana told me that Skitnik’s captain knew that, too, despite her fierce pout. In the silence, Neex spoke up over our comms again.

“Not that anyone asked for my opinion, but I’d rather not stay tethered to this heap when there are other places we need to be going.”

“All right.” Gana raised both palms in a signal that there would be no more arguing, at least regarding this subject. “Blue can come with us. But I want to do one more pass before we give this hunk up for good. Neex, have Valda send over some of her skitterers.” She turned to Veranyi. “You figure out who our new passenger is, and what she’s doing all the way out here.”

Veranyi bobbed her head, then looked at me. “Bring her to the medical suite.”

I showed her my axe. “I’m already carrying something.”

Veranyi rested Blue’s limp body to the side of her capsule. Then she rose, grasped the shaft of the axe, and jerked it from my hand. “Now, you are not.”

I’d never quite heard that tone from her before, a kind of clipped, instructive declaration with the underpinnings of a dare. A part of my mind must have still been floating among my distant memories of Earth because I was suddenly reminded of Lilith snapping orders at me from afar, telling me where to fly and who to help. Lilith had always been concerned most with helping. Even in a fight, her commands were always about keeping us tight, watching each other’s backs, working as a team—

“Please.” Veranyi’s voice popped me back into the present.

I frowned but moved into position at the side of the pod, taking a moment to warn, “If she starts mind-screaming at me again, I’m going to drop her.”

“You will not,” Veranyi said tersely before making a gentler addendum. “I have already given her a light sedative. She should remain insensate long enough for us to get her into an examination capsule. Now, if you will?”

I bent down and lifted Blue into a carry. Her light weight matched her tender frame; holding her was like holding nothing at all. Despite the lingering ache in my head from her psionic scream, I felt a little bad for her. She was alone out here, left to drift in a dead ship with a dead pilot. If we hadn’t stumbled across her, who knows how much longer she would have had to wait for rescue? Or if rescue would have come at all before her life support ran out?

We walked through the umbilical, only to be met by a blocked hatch at the end of the tunnel. Before I could voice any complaint, the comm in my helmet exploded with an angry crackle.

“This is outrageous!” Toragg barked. “That is an unknown lifeform. You are breaking every standard safety protocol by bringing it onto this ship.”

“It is equally standard protocol to provide aid to a traveler in distress.” Veranyi’s black eyes took on a stern gleam. “And she,” she added with pointed enunciation of the pronoun, “requires our aid. Now, open this hatch so that we may take her to the medical suite.”

“Over my breathless corpse,” Toragg replied.

“Want me to arrange that?” I asked Veranyi, but she made a face at me to be quiet.

“That will not be necessary. Neex? Medical override authorization for the port-side umbilical hatch, please.”

“Neex,” Toragg cut in. “Don’t you dare!”

“Uh…!” Neex said through the comms.

“Open the hatch, Neex.” I smiled with wicked intent. “Unless you want me to take my axe to it?”

The hatch squealed open, and Toragg gave a shrill shout.

“You traitorous Kladafi worm!”

“I have my structural integrity to think about,” Neex replied. “Which affects all of us, in case you’d forgotten.”

We walked through the hatch, but not without a parting shot from Toragg:

“I’m going to take this up with Gana, mark my words!”

“You do that,” I muttered.

While Toragg no doubt opened a private channel to complain to Gana, Veranyi glided around me to Medical. I followed her into the spacious room, pausing by the main console while she swung out one of the suite’s deep-scan examination cots. I laid Blue there, and as diagnostic beams and sensors began their crisscross sweep of her body, I moved to Veranyi’s side to watch.

“What do you think her story is?” I asked.

“Hopefully, she will be willing to tell us when she wakes.”

“Do you think the others could be right? That she’s sick?”

Veranyi kept her focus on her control pad and its scroll of incoming data. “That is a possibility. Though, based on the circumstances of her finding, I am more inclined to believe she was placed in slow sleep for some other reason.” One of her head tentacles twitched. “Perhaps you should return to your quarters, if only for a few cycles.”

“Why?” A few cycles sounded like a long time to sit in my bunk with nothing to do. “Valda can stay in her rooms, and Neex doesn’t have a body, so even if this one is sick, only Toragg would be in any danger. Nobody likes him, anyway.”

“He is our navigator,” Veranyi reminded.

I shrugged. “I bet Neex could navigate just fine.”

“Why not?” Neex put in sourly. “I already do everything else on this ship.”

I glowered at the closest squawk box. “I didn’t think you were listening.”

“I like to keep up on current events.”

“Does that include eavesdropping on private conversations?”

“I can multitask.”

“You can butt out!”

“Don’t yell at me!”

“Take your arguing elsewhere, please,” Veranyi said, her voice strained. “I am trying to work.”

From the squawk box, Neex gave a low murmur. “Sorry, Hierophant.”

“I’m sorry,” I echoed. After a moment of uneasy silence, I bowed my head close to her. “Can we talk?”

“This is not a good time,” she muttered back to me.

“Will you let me know when it is a good time? I feel like there was a misunderstanding before, and I don’t want it getting in the way of our friendship—”

She straightened up with a sharp sigh. “Yes.”

I blinked. “Yes, what? Yes, there was a misunderstanding? Or yes, something is in the way of our friendship?”

She turned her face toward mine, and the overhead lights of the medical suite reflected off the surface of her black eyes like cold, distant stars. “Yes, I will let you know when it is a good time to speak. Now, please, leave me to my work.” She urged me toward the door with a wave of two head tentacles. “I need to concentrate.”

Her blunt brush-off made me retreat without objection. I retrieved my axe and watched her return to her scans just before the door closed in front of my face.

From one of the comm boxes in the corridor, Neex blew a needling snigger. “Looks like Hierophant’s got a new favorite pet project.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled. As I turned around, I nearly tripped over a half-dozen of Valda’s cybernetic skitterers transporting a collection of mechanical gewgaws that must have caught Gana’s eye. I shook my head. How in the hell had I ended up here?

I took the lift down to the residential level and walked down the corridor almost to the end, to my personal accommodations. They weren’t much to speak of. The alcove with its bunk and comms screen connection occupied one wall while a collection of cubbies lined the next closest. The privacy partition for the wash facilities was directly across from the cubbies, and the corridor door was on the last wall, next to a storage cabinet tall enough to hold my axe, armor, and wings. I shed all of it for a shower, hoping that would clear my head. It didn’t, but at least I wasn’t covered in the dust from the derelict any longer.

In the lingering steam, I looked at myself in the washroom’s mirror. Gone was the bronze surfer boy who could shrug off his troubles with a grin. I wasn’t even a wingman anymore. Just a weary mess. A bluish half-moon of fatigue had risen under my right eye, and I wondered if my left one matched. Grimacing in preparatory loathing, I wedged my thumbnail under the bottom edge of the protective plate that covered the left side of my face. The adhesive held a moment, threatening to come away with skin. Then it popped free, and I was able to peel it safely away.

I opened my left eye. My reflection separated into two of me, each one’s edges blurring as I tried to reconcile myself together with a squint. The new eye was rimmed with red blood vessels regrowing themselves, and the skin around it was bruised black, blue, and yellow. On top of that, the whitish scar tissue spiderwebbing out from the left eye, along with my squinting, caused a crow’s feet effect. For a second, I felt a bubbling of resentment against Carter and the blows of his fist that had cost me the original eye. But deeper in my heart I knew that while Carter might have done the deed, he wasn’t really the one to blame for my loss.

Veranyi had said the nerves in my left eye would grow stronger, given time. I decided to give them that time away from the mirror and retreated to my bunk.

Without edge lines, the ceiling didn’t blur so much. Even so, I closed my eyes and focused on something more pleasant than my current predicament. The future that waited for me on Thanagar was a return to the wingmen police force. Worthwhile, sure, but just a job. Meanwhile, my memories of Hank and Lilith had sparked a fresh nostalgia for the planet of my birth that I was only too willing to indulge.

I hadn’t had much of a childhood growing up in the underfunded and overburdened child services system. After being shunted out at eighteen, and with no family, friends, or prospects, I’d tried to kill myself. Carter found me, gave me my wings, and taught me to fly. It was the most profoundly amazing experience I’d ever had. Until I met them.

We’d called ourselves Titans. At first, it had been as homage to the more well-known teenage adventuring team. But we’d been more than a team. We’d been friends: Hank and Don, Lilith, Karen and Mal, Bette…

God. Bette.

I took a deep breath and let it out again in a stutter of air. Because I both loved and loathed thinking about Bette Kane.

She’d been hung up on the great sidekick superhero Robin. Made a red-and-yellow costume, named herself Flamebird, and started taking down criminals, all in an effort to get him to notice her. I’d told her she didn’t need the Boy Wonder, that she was brave and good and glorious all on her own.

“Aw,” she’d coo to me around one of her pretty pink smiles. “You’re sweet, Charley-bird. You want to fly me home?” And I would, fumbling my way through blithe Southern California surfer-dude affectations in an attempt to be endearing when I’d drop her off at her Bel Air balcony, because I’d wanted her to think me breezy and happy-go-lucky instead of the messed-up kid who’d only gotten his wings because his idol Hawkman had taken pity on him for trying to kill himself.

More than once I’d thought, if only I’d stayed with her…! Maybe I wouldn’t have been so eager to accept my father’s anger as substitute for his love. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost that part of myself that knew it was wrong and a mistake to blame and try to kill Carter for the perceived injustices he’d committed against my father and me. Maybe I’d still be on Earth, still the good Golden Eagle, the sort-of-okay once-in-a-while Titan. And maybe Bette would still love me.

Scratch that. Love was probably too strong a word for what we’d had. I’d loved her, certainly: the way she’d fold her arms around my neck and giggle in my ear when I’d hold her in a flight; the way she’d stroke my hair and call me Charley-bird when we’d lie on the sands of Zuma Beach at twilight; the way she’d kiss me and touch me and let me come to her bed, to make love to her like there would never be anyone else. To young, guiltless Charley Parker, there wouldn’t be. Of course, to bright, beautiful Bette Kane, I was just an easygoing distraction. Still, the nicer memories kept me company.

Such sweet thoughts of Bette usually led my hand into my trunks. I’d worked myself into a steady rhythm and was close to a release when I felt a subtle buzz at the base of my skull, like a feather tickling my brain stem. I stopped, pulled my hand out of my shorts, and sat up for a look around. Everything was still slightly blurred. Then the room seemed to jackknife as a scream ripped through my head for the second time in a cycle.

I fell out of my bunk and hit the floor deaf and blind. When my senses came back, I heard a tangle of voices across the comm system. Gana, Toragg, and even Valda were trying to get confirmation from Veranyi.  Veranyi wasn’t answering. I didn’t bother using the comm, just ran into the corridor and threw myself up the access ladder three and four rungs at a time. On the main deck, I stomped barefooted down to Medical, where I slammed my palm against the control panel.

“God damn it!” I barked as I charged inside, ready with a threat to throw Blue back onto her ship and set the whole thing to blow with her aboard when she looked at me from across the room and said:

“Charley-bird?”

Chapter Text

I froze at the threshold of the medical suite and stared at the blue-skinned telepath sitting up on her examination cot. My heart pounded in a combination of excitement and disbelief, and a stammer caught in my closing throat. “Buh-Bet—?”

“Softly, now.”

Veranyi’s hushed warning pulled my focus away from Blue and to her. She stood with her long fingers outstretched, as if pressing against some invisible force. “This is Golden Eagle,” she said in a slow, instructive voice. “He looks fearsome, but he means you no harm. Show her you mean no harm,” she added at me.

That comment about my looks grounded my footing and sobered my wits. I lifted my hands palms-out and stepped back.

Blue cocked her head. “Goal-duh-nee-gull?” She said it all as one long word, like learning a new language from phonetics. At least her voice was gentler than her brain.

My heart and tongue fell back into proper working order as I realized this wasn’t my dreams made reality. “Close enough,” I said, though Veranyi took an extra round to correct her enunciation.

Blue smiled and laid her hand flat to her chest, between her compact breasts. “M’Rayeh,” she said.

“M’Rayeh,” I repeated slowly, rolling my tongue around the syllables so it came out sounding almost like French. “That’s your name?”

She smiled and nodded.

I showed her a little smile in return. “It’s pretty.”

“Very pretty,” Veranyi agreed, and M’Rayeh beamed. A few silent seconds passed between them, when Veranyi held up her hand. “You must speak. The others do not have the psychic ability to receive your thoughts unguarded.”

M’Rayeh licked her lips and in the same stilted, halting voice as before, asked, “Nand’sen?”

I looked for guidance from Veranyi, who answered, “Her brother. He was flying the ship.”

My heart sank as I recalled the shriveled body in the pilot’s chair. I turned back to M’Rayeh. “He didn’t make it.”

Whether she read my mind, understood my words, or just interpreted the look on my face, M’Rayeh turned her gaze inward. Her brow puckered in a tight frown, and she clamped her lips together.

I felt a sudden urge to offer some deeper sympathy. “If it helps, I don’t think he suffered. It was probably a stroke or a heart attack. That happens, sometimes, with long-haul pilots.”

“Death is merely a change of atomic structure,” Veranyi said. “Our solids become liquids, and our liquids become gas. But energy is eternal. We are each and all a part of the universe, and as part of the universe, we continue, infinitely.”

I shot her a pained face. “How is that helping?”

“She needs to accept what has happened.”

“She needs closure, not a physics lecture!”

“Grief counseling is not my area of expertise.” As Veranyi turned to me at last, the reflective blackness of her eyes seemed to flicker. “Why are you naked?”

I flinched. “I’m not naked!”

“Your current state of undress is improper and distracting.”

I blew a fast and nasty scoff. “Have you looked in the mirror, lately? Because your cup sure runneth over!”

Her eyes gleamed, and I suddenly wished for a hole in the floor into which I could jump.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Your apology is noted.” Her tone returned to one of more typical patience. “But at the moment, your presence is agitating. It is not conducive to M’Rayeh’s recovery.”

“You want me to leave,” I guessed.

“That would be best.”

I turned and moved to the door, hesitating there in case she changed her mind. She didn’t, so I went, internally kicking myself.

In the corridor, Gana was rushing toward Medical. She stopped next to me long enough to bark, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I snapped. “It was that girl. She woke up screaming again.”

“If it isn’t one thing…!” She threw me a commanding glare. “Get back to your cell. I’ll take it from here.”

I sneered. “I’m not your crew.”

Her hand dropped to the shock baton dangling at her hip. “You can do as I say and keep your freedom, or I can drop you right here and sling you in the brig. Your choice, wingman.”

I tossed up my hands. “Fine, I’m going.”

Gana resumed her hustle, though not before shooting over her shoulder, “And put some clothes on!”

I flipped my middle finger at her back, then boarded the lift down to Residential. As I descended through the ship, the prospect of jerking off to memories of Bette didn’t hold so much allure anymore. Instead, I was haunted by M’Rayeh’s face when she’d learned about her brother, that look of singular sorrow and loneliness that comes with the dreaded confirmation that the last of your family is now gone, and you are alone. 

I knew that look. And I hated it.

I returned to my cell and dressed into a fresh set of clothes, then put on the basics of my armor, enough to protect me from vacuum. It felt weird leaving off the wing harness, but I wouldn’t need my wings where I was going. I did grab my axe, though, and some sheets from the supply cubby.

As I clomped down the corridor to the lift, Valda came lumbering out from her rooms. It had been weeks since I’d seen her last. Devoid of her cybernetic young, her bone-white body had lost much of its girth, though her movements remained plodding. She reminded me of a pale, bipedal tortoise. She stretched her neck at me, her dark hair swinging like two curtains around her face.

“Danger close?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I’m just going for a walk. You can go back inside.”

She didn’t move. The third eye in her forehead scrutinized the axe in my hand. “Dressed for death,” she pointed out.

“If I were going into battle, I’d be wearing my wings.” I showed her the plain plate of my armored back. “See? No wings.”

Her two primary eyes narrowed at me in a squint. “Not death?”

“No.”

“Ship safe?” she asked, still skeptical.

“Yes.”

Her white face relaxed, and her mouth broke into a smile terrible for its sincerity. “Tea?”

“Uh, maybe some other time. Right now, there’s something else I’ve got to do.”

Valda grunted. “Busy,” she grumbled as she began a shuffling turnabout. “Always busy.” She kicked her limp, long tail out from under her feet and headed back into her quarters, leaving me to myself when the hatch closed shut again.

I frowned at her door a moment, then rolled my eyes. Whatever. I walked into the lift, once more focused on the task before me. “Neex?” I said through my helmet’s comm.

“Yes?” the engineer drawled.

“Are we still connected to that derelict?”

“Why?” they asked, still drawling.

“There’s something I want to do over there.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Why do you have to know?”

“I’m just curious.” They added, “Captain wants it destroyed.”

I stiffened. “When?”

“As soon as we’re clear.”

I swore under my breath. “Can you give me some time? I need to do a run over there.”

“For what?”

“Never mind for what! Can you give me the time or not?”

Neex gave a dithering whine.

“Please?” I asked.

“Okay,” they relented. “But it’s your neck if the captain finds out!”

The lift doors opened, and I marched to the airlock. “I take full responsibility for my actions.”

“She’s too far for the umbilical,” Neex warned.

“That’s fine.” The Nth metal of my Thanagarian wingman armor tingled reactively, bristling the short hairs on my arms, and I smacked the access panel for the airlock. “I don’t need it.”

I stepped into the pressurized stall and closed the hatch behind me. The viewport in the outer hull door that protected the stall from unforgiving vacuum showed M’Rayeh’s transport floating less than a kilometer away.

“Releasing in five,” Neex said through my helmet, and the warning lights in the chamber blinked green, green, yellow, red. Then the outer door made a brief sound of pissing air before falling silent as it opened onto a sea of stars.

The galaxy spread out in all directions, momentarily affecting my sense of equilibrium. But the derelict was a steady point in space ahead of me, and I unlatched my mag-boots from the metal floor and pushed out of the lock. Given time, inertia would carry me to my destination. But the clock was ticking, and I couldn’t wait for a leisurely drift. I set my eyes on the derelict and willed myself forward at a greater speed.

With my Nth metal armor, a flight through vacuum was as smooth and easy as a flight through atmosphere. But without wind or the texture of air, to say nothing of the spread of my wings, the experience felt dull. I was grateful when my boots hit the derelict’s outer hull.

The hatch that Neex had used to connect Skitnik’s umbilical was still open. Of course, Gana wouldn’t have closed it when she’d left. Why bother locking up a ship when you were just going to blow it up?

I walked toward the bridge. For several steps, only the click of my mag-boots sounded in my ears. Then Neex piped in:

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get M’Rayeh’s brother,” I told them.

“Why?”

“Because his body shouldn’t be atomized with the rest of the ship, like so much trash. That’s why.”

“Captain won’t be pleased,” Neex said in a leading voice.

“Gana’s never been happy with anything I’ve done.”

“This will make her really unhappy.”

“Ask me if I care.”

“Do you care?”

I snorted; the engineer could be a bit too literal. “Not in the slightest.”

When I arrived at the bridge, I found that hatch, too, still in its forced-open position. I went over to the body in the pilot’s chair. Vacuum would leave it intact forever, while exploding the ship’s engines would destroy it to atoms indistinguishable from the ship itself. Neither seemed like a fitting end for a brother who’d died in service to his sister.

The safety harnesses had fallen loose around the desiccated corpse, and they unhitched without complaint or effort. I let my axe drift as I lifted the body from its chair and started the cumbersome process of wrapping the sheets around it. When I was done, I slipped the shaft of my axe under one of the knots, to pull the body along beside me. I walked down the ship and out the hatch.

Once back in Skitnik’s airlock, I closed the outer hatch behind me and pushed the body to the floor. The pressure inside the chamber equalized, and the body stayed put. I drew my axe free of its wrapping and stood up, rising to face the inner airlock viewport.

Gana glared out at me. “I told you not to bring that thing over here!” she growled via the ship’s comm box.

I showed her my chin. “No, you said I could do what I wanted so long as it didn’t interfere with your scavenging. Well, it didn’t, and I have. Now, let me back in.”

She scowled, but the lights in the stall shifted to green, and the hatch hissed open.

“Thank you,” I said with appropriate condescension as I passed. But when I faced forward again, I came to a sudden stop. Veranyi was standing in the corridor ahead of me, with M’Rayeh at her side.

Neex’s voice muttered in my helmet comm, “I had to tell them.”

I sucked my lips against my teeth. Reaming Neex for tattling could wait. At the moment, it was M’Rayeh’s wide-eyed look of horror that held my attention.

“I thought you’d want to say goodbye,” I said, taking a shuffling step forward.

M’Rayeh lurched backward as if I’d snatched for her hair with a dagger in my other hand ready to slit her throat. Her mouth cringed into a grimace, and she spun, her long hair trailing behind her as she raced away down the corridor.

“That could have gone better,” Neex said.

Without missing a beat, Gana took up the reins. “Toragg, pull us out. Neex, light up that cruiser once we’re clear.” She shot me a hard look. “Whether it’s empty or not.”

Her boots click-clacked away in the same direction M’Rayeh had gone, leaving only Veranyi standing with me. Her gaze showed no hint to her thoughts, but the corners of her mouth were tight.

“I’m sorry,” I said; I seemed to be saying that a lot to her, lately. “It just didn’t seem right to leave the body over there.” I looked down the corridor where M’Rayeh had gone. “Do you think I should go after her?”

“No.” Veranyi sounded weary. “You have done enough.” Then she glided away.

The silence of the empty corridor pressed in around me, and I slumped with a low-blown curse. “I’m an idiot.”

“You said it,” Neex mumbled across the comm. “Not me.”

I flipped my anger onto the engineer. “Why did you tell them?”

“What was I supposed to do? Captain wanted me to pull off, and that would have left you behind. Not to mention, blown to stardust when we activated the destruct mines. I didn’t want that to happen,” they added in a lower voice.

I grunted. “Maybe you should have.”

I took the lift to the observation and recreation deck. It was typically empty, so I had my choice of workout options. I went to an old favorite, the running wheel, where I stripped out of my armor, took position on the treadmill, and started to run. The metaphor wasn’t lost on me. I’d been running most of my life. But no matter how fast or how far I’d run, I’d always managed to screw things up.

A half-hour later, salty sweat stung my eyes. I stopped running and wiped my hand over my hair, which stuck wet to my skull. The recycled air burned in my nose and throat, and a gross but satisfying layer of perspiration clung to my skin. I dismounted the wheel, stepped over my armor, and headed to the shower cubicle when the ship reverberated with a thrum. A minute later, as I was waiting for the water reserve’s heat gauge to rise, the observation screen on the port side showed a flare bursting against the dark field of far-off stars. That would be the derelict, its final explosive farewell.

I stepped into the shower to wash away my more depressing thoughts. By the time I was finished, the water had switched to a backup cold reserve and my teeth were chattering from the chill. But my head was clear, my body was clean, and I’d stopped feeling sorry for myself. I hadn’t brought a change of clothes with me, so I wrapped a towel around my waist and was about to head back to Residential when the lift doors opened in front of me. Veranyi stood there, alone.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked.

I tightened my fist around my towel. “I was just leaving.”

“I see.” She slid out of the lift to make way. “We can speak later, then.”

“No, no! We can talk now, if you want.” I shifted my grip. “So long as you don’t mind my current state of undress.”

“Such concerns are for more sexual beings,” she said.

“I was being sarcastic.”

“And I was being plain.”

I cracked a smile. “At least you’re talking to me.”

She sent me a little smile in return and moved past, her glide taking her to the observation wall. There, she clasped her hands in front of her as she looked out upon the immense stretch of space. “I have never spent much time up here.”

“Nobody does.”

“Is that why you enjoy it?”

“It beats sitting in my bunk. At least up here, I don’t feel so much like a prisoner.”

She lowered her head. “Viza’Aziv was wrong to have brought you aboard.”

The comment came from nowhere. Despite the humiliation that came with memories of having been Viza’s plaything, I blew a dismissive snort. “I think we can all agree that Viza was a bitch.”

“She was a tyrant. But I could have tried to convince her to let you go, instead of merely following her orders.”

“She’d have probably killed you for that.”

“Perhaps. But slavery is a humiliation with which I am well familiar.” Veranyi turned her head my way, though not enough for me to see her face. “I am sorry I did nothing to spare you from it.”

There was an unspoken rule among most starship crews not to talk about your past, at least on the ones I’d served. Missions were about the present and the future, not what had come before. On a ship like Skitnik, with a crew as diverse and cobbled-together as ours, histories could cause tensions, even become explosive. Plus, you never wanted to get too close emotionally when death could come screaming at you at any moment.

Except I wanted to get close to Veranyi. I wanted to get close to anybody.

“Hierophant,” I said, and she turned fully. That black stare quashed whatever bolder sentiment was brewing in my chest. “Forget about it,” I told her instead.

“It is not something I can forget.”

“I meant that it doesn’t matter anymore. What happened, happened, and there’s no going back to change it.” I snorted. “My old crew was probably glad to be rid of me, anyway.”

 The pinching around her mouth became curious. “You were captain of that Thanagarian cruiser.”

I waved away such praise. “They only gave me that command because I was one of the few people with actual fighting experience to make it out of the war in one piece. Before that, I was just another conscripted convict; a stain on the wingman legacy.” I sighed and scanned the ceiling. “Everybody on this ship hates me, too,” I said, and snickered quickly. “But at least this crew’s smaller.”

“Everyone does not hate you,” Veranyi corrected.

“Oh, come on,” I said, still dismissive. “Even I hate me, most days.”

She tilted her head. “I understand your being on this ship is not what you would have chosen for yourself. But, despite the circumstances that first brought you here, I am grateful that you have stayed.”

I blinked at her, suddenly serious. “You are?”

She came toward me, her head tentacles bobbing in a kind of nod. “You possess honor, compassion, and generosity. And you have always acted to protect us.”

Her words flooded me with a pleasant warmth, and I chuckled behind what was probably a blush. “Well, you are my ride home. And I’m the best fighter you’ve got.”

“Agreed. Though, protecting does not always require fighting. No one else is capable of – or would have considered – retrieving M’Rayeh’s brother’s remains from the other ship.”

Reminded of M’Rayeh’s reaction at seeing the corpse, I glanced to my feet. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”

“She has been through an ordeal. It will take her time to adjust.”

“I just hope she understands, someday, why I did it.”

“She does. As do I.”

My head came up again. Veranyi had shifted closer; in her eyes, I could see my reflection. While physically I looked like a disaster, I felt and saw myself smile.

Veranyi smiled, too. “She would like you to be there, at the airlock, when she says her farewell. Will you come?”

“Of course.” Neither of us moved, and I had to ask, “You mean, now?”

“When you are ready.”

I felt a drip of water slide down my back. “I should probably get dressed first, huh?”

Her mouth seemed to twitch to one side, in what could have been a smirk. “You need not be formal,” she said, moving her head to glance at the pieces of my armor. “In fact, it would be better to attend unarmored.”

I followed her direction and nodded. “I’ll be there.”

I arrived at the airlock in a fresh onesuit, with my hair combed and my face shaved. Veranyi stood to one side while Valda, surrounded by a trio of fidgeting skitterers, huddled close to the opposite wall. Even Gana was there, her arms clamped tight across her chest and her expression grim. M’Rayeh was in the stall, re-wrapping her brother’s head and shoulders in the sheet. She’d placed around the neck a ribbon of her hair and taken a slender thread of his. Then she stood up and returned to us.

The airlock’s inner door whistled shut. M’Rayeh stared through the viewport. From the comm box, Neex said:

“Tell me when.”

M’Rayeh laid her hand next to the window. The tips of her fingers were pale blue with pressure. In a strained whisper, she said, “Now.”

With the word spoken, two jets in the corners of the lock flooded the stall with fire. It didn’t take long for the flames to consume the air inside, or the combustible remains. Black ash floated in front of the window. Then the outer door opened, and everything was sucked into space.

M’Rayeh’s slender shoulders gave one subtle hitch. A second came with more violence. Then she crumpled against the door to the sound of sobs.

Her grief sparked a memory in me, of burying my father’s remains on Thanagar. With no other family and no friends of my own to help, I’d had to do the job alone. There’d been no one to offer me comfort or compassion then. It felt wrong to make M’Rayeh suffer the same.

I glanced at Veranyi, but she only looked straight ahead, unmoving. So, I drew a breath, took a step, and laid my hand on M’Rayeh’s shoulder. She whirled around. I thought she was going to beat her fists against my chest or run away down the hall again, but she threw herself against me and bawled into my neck.

I put my arm around her and let her cry until her trembling stopped and she had no more tears to shed. It took a long time, but the release of her pain seemed to help her. It helped me a little bit, too.

Chapter Text

On the wheel, I ran, and as I ran, I wished for music.

Music could be found across the galaxy, of course. Most of it was terrible. Thanagarians, for instance, focused their musical energies on sweeping death dirges and droning battle hymns. And speed metal. For some reason, they were really into speed metal.

I hated speed metal.

I missed the music I’d grown up with on Earth: songs full of powerful beats and swinging guitars that I’d play through my earphones when I’d run along the boardwalk at Venice Pier, or that the beach patrol would pump through their speaker systems on their early morning rounds, for those of us riding the waves at incoming tide.

Mal had had great taste in music. He’d designed for me a perfect running playlist from his extensive collection of Motown, funk, pop, and rock. I’d spent most of a winter and spring on his couch one year, when my cash flow was low, and in the evenings, he’d spin up his turntable with some soul-infused song I’d never heard before but that would sing in my heart and make me want to dance. Unfortunately, I only possessed grace in the air or underwater. Mal was only slightly nimbler on his feet than me. Karen, though, could light up a room whenever she moved.

She walked in the door, home late from work again, and clicked her teeth to find us sitting on the floor among the remains of some takeaway and a bottle of Bourdeaux most of the way gone. Around us, Nina Simone sung smoothly about her baby not caring about cars and races. “I can’t leave you two alone for a minute, can I?”

Mal blew a little harrumph around the edge of his glass. “You’ve been gone longer than a minute.”

Karen stopped, looking offended, then tossed her purse to the side and kicked off her shoes. She came over and snatched the glass from Mal’s hand. Downing the rest of the wine in a swift knockback, she swallowed, smiled, and handed the glass to me. Then she summoned Mal up with her as she slipped into an easy, graceful groove to the music. They moved together, apart, and together again, blessed and blissful in their synchronous sway.

I watched them with a sense of loneliness – and a little bit of lust – before laughing to myself. “You want to be alone, don’t you?”

“No,” Mal said, but in his voice, I could hear the pang of desire for his wife.

Karen turned just her head, so she wouldn’t need to step from Mal’s arms, a subtle but enviable show of equal affectionate possessiveness. “Charley, you don’t have to go.”

“It’s okay.” I wobbled to my feet, a little drunk but mostly just depressed, and swiped up my Nth metal bracers. I ambled to the tall picture window that looked out toward the Golden Gate and pushed it high enough to clamber through. “Just leave the window open for me?” I asked before flying off into the cool night, alone.

On second thought, music was a bad idea. It would just remind me of Mal, and Karen, and all the other friendships I’d had once but no longer.

The squawk box near the ceiling crackled in preparation of a summons. Sure enough, a moment later, Neex said, “Golden Eagle?”

The wheel stopped bouncing as I reduced my pace to a cool-down walk. “Yeah?”

“Hierophant wants you.”

I stopped a bit too suddenly, nearly stumbling my chin into the still-moving treadmill floor. Veranyi had spent the last few cycles sequestered with M’Rayeh in the medical suite, doing God only knew what. She hadn’t invited interruption from anyone in that time, so far as I was aware. Until now. And she wanted me?

“Should I tell her you’re busy?” Neex asked.

I jumped off the wheel and jogged toward the shower. “No, no. I’ll be right there.”

“She’s already on her way up.”

I skidded to a halt. “What? No!” I stank of fitful sleep and sweat, hadn’t shaved, and was probably flushed red in blotches. “Stop her!”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Lock the doors or something.” I started hunting for my comb, of all things. “Just help me out here, would you?”

“I could tell her you’re psychotic,” Neex suggested in a droll voice, and I jerked up and flashed a glare at the squawk box. But a heartbeat later, the lift doors to the observation deck swished open, and Veranyi slipped through them.

I sucked in my stomach, thrust out my chest, and attempted a nonchalant smile. “Hey.”

Veranyi lifted her chin. “Your eye appears nearly fully healed.”

“Uh, yeah.” Over the last few days, the skin around my left eye had grown firmer, and the bruising caused by the reforming blood vessels was now only a dull yellowing. 

“Has your vision resolved, as well?”

 “Pretty much,” I said, then clamped my lips as she drifted close to peer at my face. Her large eyes, Stygian in their blackness, reflected the me-of-now, but her smell shunted me into the past, when the scent of California Wild Rose – sweet with a faint underpinning of algal decay – filled my nose and clung to my skin. I remembered pausing on the beach at Lompoc and dragging in great lungfuls of that smell before striding out into the waves with my board by my side. The memory brought with it a ripple of good feeling, relaxed and romantic. That feeling doubled as Veranyi touched my cheek, stroking the bone structure beneath my eye.

“Quite nice.” She sounded pleased as she eased away again.

“You do good work.” I inclined my head toward hers. “Now, I hear there’s something I can do for you?”

“There is.” She turned to look behind her and called, “M’Rayeh?”

As Veranyi moved to the side, I saw M’Rayeh standing a few meters away. I hadn’t noticed her until then, she’d been so quiet and still.

Veranyi gestured to me. “Golden Eagle will take care of you from here.”

I blinked. “Come again?”

“It is important for M’Rayeh to learn about life on the ship.”

“Sure, but…why me?”

“You have no formal duties, which means there are no restrictions on your time. Beyond that, you are more social than Valda, more affable than Toragg, less critical than Gana, and you possess a relatable physical body, whereas Neex does not.”

“Why does everybody bring that up?” Neex muttered through the comm-box. “It’s not like I can help it.”

I ignored their grousing and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I’m not a babysitter.”

“I’m not an infant,” M’Rayeh said with a distinct note of defiance.

Veranyi raised a hand. She bent her head toward me for a subtler reasoning. “Her life cannot be one of isolation. She must develop connections with others on the ship besides me. Otherwise, she will always be an outcast.”

I got the feeling she was talking about more than just M’Rayeh when she added, “And you did complain you had nothing to do.”

I cursed myself for not having kept my mouth shut about being bored. “She’s not going to mind-shock me again, is she?”

“Only if you deserve it,” M’Rayeh said, and I goggled at her.

“The previous outbursts were instinctive,” Veranyi said to assure. “I am confident they will not happen again without due cause. This will be good for her,” she went on, in a tone of refreshed coercion. “It will give you purpose, as well. Something which you have been sorely lacking, of late.”

I glowered and blew a fast snort through my nostrils. “You’re not going to let me get out of this,” I mumbled. “Are you?”

“No,” Veranyi said.

So stuck, I sighed. “All right.” I beckoned M’Rayeh with a lazy come-hither wave. “I’ll show you around.”

Veranyi backed away toward the lift. “I will leave you to become better acquainted.”

I watched her go. M’Rayeh took her place, coming to my side as I started across the deck. “This is the observation deck,” I said in the tone of communicating with a toddler. “That’s the viewing wall. It’s not a window; just a series of video panels designed to mimic a port view.”

“I know what a viewing wall is.” She stepped in front of me, toward the workout stations. “What are these?”

“Recreation options. Some of us—” Me, at least. “—come up here for exercise. We’ve got resistance rigs, gymnastics pads, the wheel.”

Her focus fell on the rack of fight-training rods. “What about this one?” she asked, moving her fingers over one of the lightweight batons.

“You don’t want that.” I brushed her hand dismissively from the rack.

She snatched her arm back as if I’d set it on fire. “Don’t,” she said with a flash of sudden anger, “presume to know what I want. I’m not some worthless decoration with no mind of my own. I won’t be told what I can and can’t do!”

I waved both palms at her. “Whoa!”

She came at me, baring her teeth in a seethe. “I’m nobody’s slave. Not anymore!”

“Relax, will you? Hierophant asked me to show you around, so that’s what I’m doing.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, toward the lift. “But if you want to go, that’s fine with me, too. I didn’t ask for this.” I didn’t ask for any of this.

I wasn’t sure if it was my words or the tone of my voice that defused her anger. Either way, M’Rayeh backed off.

“All of this is very strange,” she said, lowering her head like a scolded animal. “I’m— I don’t know what to do.”

“I get it. You’re scared.”

“No,” she said, but in a too-sharp, too-quick way that in my experience meant yes.

I shrugged. “I was scared, too, when I was first brought aboard.”

Her eyes glittered with surprise. “You mean, this ship isn’t yours?”

The comm box crackled, and Neex scoffed. “No!”

M’Rayeh glanced toward the box, then back to me, still puzzling. “But…you are the warrior.”

My chest puffed in a preen. “The best we’ve got.”

“Like that means anything,” Neex grumbled.

I lifted one nostril at the box. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have a body.”

“How many times do I have to tell you: I can’t help that!”

M’Rayeh seemed immune to our bickering. She pulled her lips together, then said, “Where I come from, the strongest warrior commands.”

“That sounds nice,” I said, and she snapped me a sudden, fierce glare.

“No. It’s not.”

My breath went cold in my chest. There was a lot unsaid in that look of hers. A lot that I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. But my mouth was faster than my better judgment, and I asked, “Is that why you were running?”

Her whole body went taut. “Why do you say we were running?”

“Your ship. A cruiser that size should have had a crew of five to twelve. Yours had one. That doesn’t happen unless you’re taking off in a hurry, or in secret. Either way, you were running from something. Some warlord, maybe?”

M’Rayeh said nothing, but her gaze clouded with worry and dread. In her mind, at least, she was still there, wherever there was, still running.

I felt a pang of shame for reminding her. That was followed swiftly by vengeful anger. There were plenty of monsters across the galaxy who’d be only too eager to inflict their terrors onto a vulnerable, beautiful woman. I’d met them. I’d very nearly been one. I thought of Bette, what I’d have done to anyone or anything that threatened her, and curled my fingers into a fist at my side.

But Bette was light-years away, and what we’d had had been a lifetime ago.

I sighed, unclenched my hand, and swung it toward the training batons. “You want to use the sim-rods? I’ll show you how they work.”

That perked her up a bit, and she approached again in measured, padded steps. “They’re weapons?”

“They simulate weapons.” I plucked one from the wall and tapped its program pad. The baton extended to quarter-length, and its far end crackled with a ball of controlled energy resembling a mace. “For fight training.”

M’Rayeh reached out with curious fingers. When they came close to the energy, the pads of her fingertips pressed pale, and the pseudo-mace buzzed. She drew her hand back and stared at it. “How does it work?”

“Something about magnetic field manipulation; Valda could give you the details.” I shrugged and shut down the baton. The ball of energy fizzled, and the rod reverted to starting length. “I just know how to use them.”

She lifted a second baton from the wall and held it out. “I want to know, too.”

I programmed two batons for some simple staff work, no electrical accents, to start slowly. At full height, M’Rayeh was almost as tall as I was, but her physique was willowy; she didn’t have much muscle bulk. Of course, Viza hadn’t looked threatening, either, and I’d paid for that underestimation with my freedom, to say nothing of my dignity. I didn’t plan on making the same mistake with M’Rayeh.

I led her through a basic attack-and-parry routine that provided stance, grip, and swing fundamentals. She was a fast learner, mirroring my steps and actions with surprising ease.

“It’s like dancing,” she said, laughing softly under her breath.

I laughed back. “Do dance partners go for the throat where you come from?”

“No. But you move…” She leaned out of the way of a wide swing, then swung her baton-staff at me in return. “…And I follow. I’ve always enjoyed dancing.”

I tested her reaction with a fast feint. When she sidestepped out of the way, I laughed again. “I guess that explains how you’re so good at this.”

“There’s that,” she replied offhandedly. “And I can hear your thoughts.”

“What?” I stopped laughing, jerked up, and stared at her. “You shouldn’t do that.”

M’Rayeh stood straight, too, with the staff at her side. “I can’t help it.” She frowned back at me. “Your thoughts are loud! It’s impossible for me not to hear them.”

“Well, you shouldn’t listen.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Block them out! Reading somebody’s mind without their permission is wrong. How would you like it if I came over there and violated you?”

Her eyes went wide, and her baton clattered to the floor. Too late, I realized what I’d said, and what it might have meant for her.

“I’m sorry!” She crumpled to the floor holding her head. “Please, don’t hurt me. I promise, I’ll be good.”

I set my own baton on the floor and waved my open palms. “I didn’t mean that.” I got down on my knees to inch toward her without any sudden motion. “I just don’t want you rummaging around in my head. There’s not much nice in there.”

She peered up at me from behind a fall of hair. “You’re not angry?”

“Just don’t look in my head anymore. Okay? Friends don’t do that.”

She raised her eyes to mine. They glittered with surprise and something like hope. “You’re my friend?”

I’d said the word without thinking, simply as a counterpoint to the idea of an enemy. But when M’Rayeh said it, almost as an offer, it triggered in me a wave of yearning so strong, it made my throat contract. “Sure,” I croaked, then gave a quick cough to clear my voice. “Everybody needs friends out here.”

“Then I would like to be yours, as well, Golden-Eagle,” she said, and smiled. It was a pretty smile, honest and genuine. I liked it, and I smiled, too.

“Okay then, friend,” I said as I picked up her fallen baton-staff, “are we done for the day?” I extended the baton toward her lengthwise. “Or would you like to keep dancing?”

She pushed herself away from the lift and walked toward me, taking the staff from my hand. “I’d like to keep going.”

So, we resumed our back-and-forth. M’Rayeh stepped lightly and with growing skill for the repeated movements. She was more athlete than fighter, but that was all right. Bette had been the same, and she’d managed to hold her own plenty of times. M’Rayeh would probably get as good, too, with practice.

It couldn’t be done in a day, though.

After several taps, hits, and falls, and enough sweat to make our clothes cling, I decided we’d sparred enough. As we rode the lift down to Residential, M’Rayeh worried at her knocked knuckles. I watched her a moment, then said:

“Not as safe as dancing, is it?”

It took her another moment to look up from her hand. When she did, she didn’t seem to register I’d been joking. “Dancing isn’t always safe, either. I’m glad to be a fighter, now.”

I leaned against the wall. “I wouldn’t go that far. But with time and practice….” I nodded. “Sure. You could be a fighter.”

A tiny smile alighted on her lips, and her gaze went faraway. “That would make my brother proud.”

Her expression teetered on the edge of wistful. I didn’t want her to go over; who knew what depths of sorrow she might fall into. “Was he telepathic, too?”

Her face brightened with pride. “He was a vanguard.”

“What’s that?”

“My people,” she said to explain, “are blessed with attunement. It allows us to coordinate the ships in the Enclave even across great distances. Only the best of us become pathfinders, and only the best pathfinders become vanguards. My brother was the vanguard for the fleet’s flagship.”

“Sounds like he was an important person.”

“He was.” Her eyes became glassy with tears, but she smiled, too. “I wanted to be just like him.” Her lips twitched. Suddenly, she let out a sob, and her body hitched under a wave of grief.

I stood there a second, struck stupid by the rawness of her emotion. But in the close confines of the lift, it seemed cruel to stand idly by. So, I moved over to her and put my hands on her arms for a fast rub. “Hey. Hey, it’s all right.”

M’Rayeh wept, openly at first, then against my chest where she bowed her head. I fumbled my arms around her, holding her in a loose and awkward embrace until her breaths slowed and she sniffled up the last of her tears.

As she drew away, she wiped at the wet trails on her cheeks. “I keep thinking this is all a dream. That I’ll wake up, and Nand’sen and I will be back on the ship, together.”

“You miss him.” It was a dumb thing to say, but she pulled a dry sniff and nodded.

“Hierophant said that dying is just our matter changing from one form to another. That our energy remains a part of the universe even after our bodies are gone.” She set her golden gaze on me, and her voice became challenging. “Do you believe that?”

“I think she was just trying to be comforting.”

“But do you believe what she said?”

I thought about it, then mused: “Thanagarian wingmen have this chant we recite to psych ourselves up: ‘The soldier dies in battle, the sailor dies at sea. The scholar by the light of lamp, and the king beside his queen. The priestess at her altar, and the tradesman at his wheel. But the wingman dies with wings unfurled and in his hand his steel.’” I paused to let out a breath that wasn’t exactly a sigh. “I always thought it was about the way we die, but it’s not. It’s about the way we live.” I thought of my father, of his burnt body failing in my arms and the last lesson he’d wanted me to learn: the lesson of pride and anger gone wrong.

“Listen,” I said, trying to articulate that hard-gained wisdom. “I don’t know if, when we die, that’s the end of us, or if there’s a place where our souls go after. But I do know that a life lived with love is worth so much more than a life lived for power or glory or revenge. Your brother gave his life for something he loved: You.”

“I wish he hadn’t,” M’Rayeh said, her brow cringing. “If it hadn’t been for me, we never would have run, and he never would have…!” She clamped her lips against the rest.

“What?” I prompted.

“Died.”  In her eyes glimmered a faint note of accusation. I didn’t know if it was meant for me or herself or some other unknown entity.

I waded into the awkwardness with a murmur. “A ship can travel longer and farther if there’s only one person using up air and rations, than if there’s two. I bet he wanted to get you as far away from something as he could, as fast as he could.”

Her voice cracked. “He did.”

“Do you want to tell me why?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“M’Rayeh,” I said, but faltered. Before I could think of anything comforting to say, the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open.

She stepped onto the residential deck. I followed her, pausing in the corridor as the lift doors closed behind us.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk?” I asked. “About him?” Because I’d wanted someone to talk to after Fel had died. Someone to tell me it was going to be all right, that I was going to be okay, that he loved me. But there’d been no one.

M’Rayeh looked at me and gave another shake. “No.” A tight little smile came to her lips. “Thank you, though.” She resumed walking, passing Toragg’s cell, Valda’s string of doors, and the quarters that ostensibly belonged to Veranyi even though I’d never seen her use them. At the next door, M’Rayeh stopped again.

“This is yours?” I guessed.

She nodded. “Hierophant said I should have my own space on the ship.”

“She’s right,” I agreed. “Like it or not, this is your home, now.”

M’Rayeh gave a low chuckle. “She said that, too. She didn’t say where your quarters are, though?”

I jerked my head toward the aft. “I’m all the way at the end.” At her frown, I shrugged. “I don’t really fit in with the rest of the crew,” I said, though in reality, Gana had been the one to kick me out of the captain’s deck when she’d taken over from Viza. I guess she’d thought I might incite a mutiny or something. Which I probably would have done, once upon a time, if I’d thought anybody else would go along.

M’Rayeh seemed to accept that, though she did favor me with a kinder smile than before. “If you need me, I’ll be here.” She set her hand on the access panel, and the door swished open. Over her shoulder, I got a glimpse of a standard residential cell already decorated with colored pages attached to the walls. She hesitated and drew a breath as if to speak. But then she turned again and went inside. The door swished closed behind her.

I moved slowly down to mine.

Dropping M’Rayeh off at her quarters had felt like walking a woman home after a date. Except she was an alien, and we were on a spaceship, and we’d just spent a large chunk of the cycle hitting each other. Still, it was a nice feeling.

I got to my cell and sat down on my bunk. I’d gotten used to the sounds of the ship around me, but this time, I wanted something different.

“Hey, Neex?”

After a minute, the comm box near the sleeping alcove clicked. “Yes?”

“Does the ship’s database have any music?”

“Music?” Neex echoed, as though the concept were suspect.

“Yeah.”

The engineer made a distracted noise; the thought of a mass of interconnected ganglia wearing librarian’s glasses made me smile to myself. “The Hykraian builders left behind some audio recordings. I guess they might qualify as music?”

“Let’s hear it.”

What came through the comm box was a wordless, rolling harmony of varying pitches, like Gregorian monks performing whale song. While it had no beat or real rhythm, it was kind of soothing, and I settled back on my bunk to listen. Hykraians were massive quadrupeds burdened with heavy bodies. But in their native seas, they were said to be as graceful and agile as a leaf floating on the wind. I wondered if they danced to this odd singing, and what that looked like. Probably not as pretty as M’Rayeh gamboling with her baton.

Chapter Text

“I was beginning to think all you did was run on that stupid wheel.”

I was in the middle of hunkering over a mid-cycle meal of protein gruel when M’Rayeh spoke from behind me. I set down my spork, sat up straight, and turned halfway around in my seat. The ship’s galley had enough tables to seat forty, but since there were only five of us – six, now – who needed to eat, we often took tables to ourselves. M’Rayeh ignored that unspoken decision and pitter-patted a winding path around one table and another before coming to mine and taking the seat beside me. As she plopped there, I told her with a lopsided sneer:

“I might not look like it now, but I was a damn good surfer in my day.”

She squinted at me and asked, “What’s a…serr-ferr?”

“A wave-rider,” I said, and she reacted as I’d hoped she would, with a curious, wide-eyed look. “Someone who trusts their life to a piece of laminated redwood floating on the open water.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It is.” I smiled. “But that’s part of what makes it so much fun.”

M’Rayeh tilted her chin away, to look at me askance. “You have a strange idea of fun.”

I chuckled mostly to myself. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.” Lilith used to scold me for flying too close to passenger planes. Hank had never understood why I went out riding at sunrise if there was no one around to impress, while Don had thought me daft for going skinny dipping at any time of day. But the thrill, sensation, and seeing the looks on people’s faces whenever I did something so-called silly or foolish never disappointed.

As if sensing those thoughts, M’Rayeh said, “Not everything needs to be deadly to be interesting.”

“There are plenty of things I enjoy that don’t involve risking my neck.”

She lifted her nose and put a note of playful challenge into her voice. “Such as?”

I thought about that a second, though all I could come up with was flying….

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed!” Lilith’s voice trembled. Not for fear of my safety, but for my supposed stupidity.

I rolled my eyes to the sky, where I wished I was at that moment. “It’s not like I was close to the engines.” I loaded and locked my best Malibu grin and told her, “I just like saying hi.”

Lilith glared and pressed her lips together, and I was hit by a wave of shame. Was this what it felt like talking to a disappointed parent?

I tried again: “You didn’t see that kid’s face in the window. He was stoked!”

“He was stoked,” Lilith snapped back, “because he probably thought you were Hawkman.”

My face fell to a glower. “That’s cold, Lil.”

Bette laid her hand on my bicep, as if to comfort me, or maybe to keep my anger in check. “It was just a little fun,” she said to Lilith, who crossed her arms over her chest.

“We need to keep a low profile. You know how Dick feels about us.”

I blew a fast snort. “I’m not afraid of Boy Wonder!”

“It’s not about fear,” Lilith said sternly. “He’s got the connections and the influence to shut down this whole Titans West experiment before it even gets started, if he thinks we’re not up to it. I don’t want that. Do you?”

After a string of beats, I glanced away. “No.”

“Glad to hear it,” Lilith said, though she didn’t sound very convinced. “I’ve got to go.” She grabbed her purse from the back of a chair and hitched it high onto her shoulder. “I don’t want to have this conversation again,” she said right before she walked out the door.

I waited until she was gone before pulling a face at her back. “I don’t, either.”

Bette’s hand had gone loose at mention of Dick, but now her fingers gripped firm again. “She just wants you to be careful.”

“She needs to lighten up.”

“Look, I know you know what you’re doing up there. But Lilith’s right, too. Maybe keep the grandstanding to a minimum, at least until we have a few wins under our belts?”

I looked down at her, ready with a retort. But her big blue eyes were full of concern, and she gave me a flutter of her lashes. “My wings are all I’ve got,” I said. “If I can’t fly…!” I trailed off, slumping around a sigh.

“Hey.” She moved her hand from my arm to my face, and my heart skipped. “Nobody’s saying you have to stop. Just stay out of commercial air traffic pathways for a while, huh? We need you.”

I dropped my chin to my chest, trying hard not to blush against her palm. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, we do!” She knuckled me in the chest. “You’re our flyer.”

I cringed my shoulders. “Karen’s a flyer, too.”

“Karen would rather be behind a screen than up in the air. And let’s face it: You’re a lot more intimidating than she is.”

“You think I’m intimidating?”

“Well, not to me! Duh. Though, I do wonder why you think it’s so great to be in the sky all the time?” She hit me with one of her perky white smiles. “I mean, there’s lots of interesting stuff down here, too.”

“You ever seen the view from the Golden Gate?”

Bette pshaw-ed. “Of course!”

I grinned. “I meant, from the top.”

That was the first time I’d flown Bette anywhere not part of a mission, just the two of us in the air, her in my arms and her arms around me. I still remembered sitting there on the top of the frame of the bridge, two-hundred-plus meters above the traffic, with the thick and clinging mist chilling our breaths as we talked. And how brave and dizzy and special I’d felt when she’d leaned over and stolen my air with a kiss that was so very gentle and yet still somehow stronger than any gale.

A similar kind of dreamy, good feeling washed over me, now. “I like flying,” I told M’Rayeh then, and smiled. “In fact, I love it.”

She must have thought I was talking about piloting ships because she said, “My brother loved flying, too.” She shook her head. “I can’t fly, though. But I am good at puzzles!” she added quickly. “And I like painting.”

I put my chin on my hand and offered her a measuring look. “I thought I saw some drawings up on the walls of your cell. You made those?”

The blush that burst in her cheeks reminded me of lilacs blooming in springtime. “I’ve always loved to paint,” she said, turning reflective with a tender smile. “When I was a child, I’d spend hours hidden behind one of the bulkheads in the forum, listening to stories the Matrons told about all the worlds the pathfinders had visited: the wars and celebrations, royalty and refugees, the great, glorious heroes...” She laughed softly to herself. “I painted so many, I could have filled a storage hold! My drawings likely weren’t very accurate,” she said with a touch of self-deprecation. “But in those worlds, I felt happy. And safe.”

My grin for her delight splintered at that last. “What do you mean, safe?”

A pall turned her blue skin ashen. After a long pause, she said, “I was born…different.”

“Are you talking about being telepathic?”

“No,” she said, then quickly amended, “Yes.” 

Sensing more, I swung my head. “I don’t understand.”

She licked her lips before starting afresh. “My people,” she said, the words coming slow and heavy, “have wings. They are another blessing from the Progenitor. Sometimes, one may lose them in battle, or in sickness. For them, there is pity. And oftentimes scorn. But then, there are those who are born without.” Her face twisted into a visage of angry shame. “They’re aberrant, looked upon with hatred and disgust when they’re looked upon at all. Some manage to find their way into the echoes of a ship, working among the hidden castes to keep the engines running. Many simply set themselves adrift, unable to cope with the disgrace.” She paused again, her gaze settling into the space between us, and muttered behind almost-closed lips, “I am without wings.” She tilted her back and shoulder toward me. “As you can see.”

I closed my eyes, reminded of my own feelings of being less-than. “That’s why you were running.”

“My brother was on clutch rotation when I was born,” M’Rayeh went on, and even in my darkness, I heard the love she still felt for him. She giggled then, incongruously but with a deep-rooted gratitude. “He must have known the danger he was putting himself into when he hid me from review, but he did it anyway. By the time the Matrons discovered my existence, I could speak for myself, so they had to let me live.”

I opened my eyes to bear witness to this confession, only to find her smiling wistfully at her memories. “How did they not know you were there?” I asked. “I thought your people were telepathic.”

“We have attunement,” she corrected. “We can sense a point in space, but only when we think about it. Hearing and sending thoughts, as I can do, is very rare.”

I grunted. “I’m surprised your military didn’t recruit you. Having a telepath is usually seen as an advantage.”

“My people are a collective society, but only the strongest of us are rewarded with greatness.” She smiled again, a half-skew of her mouth that conveyed derision. “My telepathy might have spared me from pain, but my lack of wings was too much to overcome. People already didn’t like me, so it was better for me to hide what I could do.”

“So…what did you do? I mean, on the ship?”

M’Rayeh rolled her shoulders up. “My brother’s status offered me some protection, so I made do with keeping his quarters tidy and busying myself with activities I could do alone.”

“Like painting,” I guessed.

She nodded and smiled with more genuineness. “And puzzles. He’d show me star maps and have me practice finding points in space. I was getting good at it,” she said proudly, though then her smile wilted once more. “Not enough to be brought into the light, of course. As a wingless, I was deemed unfavorable.” Her face changed again, this time going blank. “Until I met Cordyl.”

I’d never heard that name before, but it sent a jolt along my nerves. Like when I’d be out on my board and knew a shark was close, even if I couldn’t see it. I lowered my head and murmured, “He wasn’t a friend, I take it.”

M’Rayeh flashed me a glare of such baleful hatred, I sat back. “No,” she said through her teeth.

I frowned but didn’t retreat. “What, then?”

She drew away, her hair falling like a shield around her face as she dipped her chin to her chest. “He…!” She pulled a stuttering breath. “I don’t like to remember him.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed her. Maybe I should have let her keep her story to herself. But I was curious, and something bubbling beneath her anger compelled me to press. I knew what it was like to hold onto resentment and rage too long, what it could do to a person. How it could twist a soul so hard, drag a spirit into the dark so deep, it would take death to bring them out. Their own or that of someone close, or someone who should have been. Like a father.

I stretched my fingers toward her hand, not quite reaching. “It’s not good to bottle up those feelings,” I told her. “Trust me on that. They’ll eat you up inside until there’s nothing left. You should talk to someone about it.”

Her expression softened. “Hierophant knows,” she said, as though that would appease my interest.

“I’d like to know, too.” I touched the tips of her fingers. “If you’ll tell me.”

“It’s difficult to explain in words. With Hierophant, I could…share it.”

The careful intonation with which the word was spoken intimated more than idle conversation. “You mean telepathically,” I said.

“Yes. But she said the rest of you don’t have the psychic strength to tolerate a share.”

My jaw clicked as I snapped up straight. I’d been a captain in the Thanagarian Royal Navy, was a wingman in the war against Rann, even went toe-to-toe with the mercenary Blackfire! I puffed my chest and said in a guttural voice, “I’m a lot tougher than Hierophant thinks. I can handle it.”

M’Rayeh sucked an anxious breath. “Are you sure? You told me I shouldn’t do this – go into your head.”

“This is different. I’m giving you permission.” I slid my hand fully over hers. “I want to understand. Why you ran; why you were floating around in cold sleep in that derelict at the edge of nowhere. What your brother was trying to save you from.”

Her gaze glittered with hopefulness; I got the feeling she’d been waiting for someone else to reach out to her. It felt good to be that person.

“Is it all right if I touch you?” she asked as she pulled her hand out from under mine. “A share can be intense, and the physical contact will help me to modulate.”

I nodded. “That’s fine.”

She lifted her hand to my face but stopped just shy of a brush. Her eyes locked to mine. “Are you sure?”

“Totally,” I said. Though that was a lie, because as soon as her palm touched my skin, a psychic hammer blow seemed to shunt my very soul loose from my sinews. My lungs gasped for air, and in a tiny corner of my working self-awareness I tried my best to keep my heart from spiraling into arrest. The rest of my body shuddered into a seize as my mind was pummeled by strange images and feelings that twisted and tumbled into a meld of my own memories. M’Rayeh examining her smooth naked back in a mirror became me preening and flexing at my reflection in my first Golden Eagle armor. My struggling in vain against induced paralysis while Viza pressed a blade to my throat became M’Rayeh going limp with defeat as two pairs of rough hands lifted her from a darkened hiding place. And her staring out a ship’s viewport as a man hard with muscle and wet with sweat thrust his body against hers became me staring at the ceiling while Viza did the same to mine.

Outside my overwhelmed mind, I felt my stomach revolt and heard someone shout my name. For a second, I thought it was Bette. Then I didn’t think anything at all.

Chapter Text

The world spiraled into a vortex, buildings and streets trading places with clouds. The noise of battle and traffic went dim, and my vision turned dark. Bette’s voice, muffled and faraway, came to me like a whisper:

“Eagle, you’re falling.”

I opened my mouth to answer, and my lunch came out.

Bette again, sounding closer: “You’re falling!”

I forced my eyes open and blinked hard. My sight cleared, and I sucked in air as the ground sped toward me. Bette was screaming, now:

“Eagle, wake up!”

I opened my eyes to the present. In front of them, six points of black swam against a chartreuse field. The six became four, the four became two, and the two became Veranyi’s glistening opal eyes staring back at me. I groaned and put my arm over my face. Waking up on the floor was starting to get old.

In a tone favored by medical professionals across the universe, Veranyi asked, “Do you know where you are?”

“In hell,” I mumbled from beneath my arm.

“If you are unable to determine your location—”

“I’m on the ship!” I waved my hand up to keep her from giving me a stimulant or sedative or whatever she might be ready to do. “Skitnik. The captain’s name is Gana. She hates me.”

I heard Veranyi blow a breath of disapproval and opened my eyes again. I was still in the galley, on the floor near the recycler, with Veranyi and M’Rayeh peering down at me. I’d also vomited and lost control of my bladder, an indignity I hadn’t suffered since my first day of shock-mace training in the wingman corps. Despite that, Veranyi didn’t seem overly concerned.

“You are lucky,” she said as she rose away. “You do not seem to have suffered any significant neurological damage.”

“Small favors.” I tried to push myself up from the floor tiles but didn’t quite make it. The wall was close, though, so I scooted backward to lean against it for support.

M’Rayeh bent to my side and touched my shoulder, holding it to the wall as if to keep me from tipping over. “I’m so sorry,” she said. I started to wave her off when Veranyi turned to her with a frown.

“I warned you not to engage telepathically with anyone else.”

“I asked her to do it,” I said.

Veranyi stared down at me. “That was extremely reckless.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say?”

“That you will learn to better control such immature instincts.”

I couldn’t help snapping. “Maybe if you were a little more forthcoming with your intel, I wouldn’t need to take matters into my own hands!”

“Please, don’t fight!” M’Rayeh’s blurt put a quick end to our bickering. She hopped to her feet between Veranyi and me and pressed a hand to her chest. “This is my fault. You warned me, Hierophant, and I didn’t listen. It won’t happen again; I promise.”

Veranyi’s mouth was tight. She called, “Neex?”

The comm box crackled. “Skitterers are already on their way for a clean-up.”

“Thank you.” Veranyi set her shoulders. “Now, can I trust that I will not be summoned away from my work for any more of your foolishness?”

M’Rayeh bobbed her head. “Yes.”

Veranyi turned to me. “You should wash. You have soiled yourself.”

“Thanks for the newsflash,” I muttered.

“Escort Golden Eagle to his quarters,” Veranyi told M’Rayeh.

I grimaced. “I don’t need an escort.”

“Then report to me in the medical suite,” Veranyi went on, still speaking to M’Rayeh. “We have matters to discuss.” She all but harrumphed as she glided out to the corridor.

“Hierophant,” I called, but she was already gone. I sighed, then pushed myself to my feet. As I did, the floor seemed to shift, and I wobbled against the wall. M’Rayeh swooped to my side again to loan me some balance support under one arm. Together, we stood there a moment while my head realigned itself on my neck. As we did, a pair of skitterers – one of them tapping on slender mechanical legs while the other rumbled along on motorized wheels – came into the galley, having been diverted from some other close-by maintenance chore.

M'Rayeh watched them a second. “Strange little creatures. Valda calls them her children.”

“You get used to them.” I walked out to the corridor, M’Rayeh’s hip moving next to mine.

After several silent steps, I regained some confidence in my equilibrium. Even so, I had little desire to pull out of M’Rayeh’s supportive hug. It had been a long time since I’d had anyone care enough about me to walk me back to my room after a rough go. Longer still since that anyone had been a pretty, young woman.

“I’m so sorry!” that pretty, young woman whistled through her lips as we lurched into the tube. “I had no idea you would react so violently to the share.”

I tapped the lift control and programmed it for the residential deck. “It’s not your fault. I have a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew.”

M’Rayeh hummed. “That is a bad habit.”

My back itched at her critique, and I couldn’t stop myself from turning snippy. “You know what else is a bad habit? Apologizing for everything all the time.”

She fluttered her lashes; in her gaze, there was a shine of hurt.

“Look,” I backpedaled, “I’m not saying you shouldn’t take responsibility when you screw up. But you don’t need to take responsibility for everybody else’s screw-ups, too. Hierophant’s right,” I went on. “I’m reckless and hot-headed, and I’ve got a nasty inadequacy complex that makes me do stupid things. What happened back there was as much my fault as anyone’s.”

M’Rayeh remained glassy-eyed. “But I’m the one who did it.”

“And I’m the one who told you to.” I shrugged. “So, we screwed up together.”

Relief bloomed in her face. But it was quickly replaced by another grim expression, and she asked in a hushed query, “Do you think she’s very angry?”

“Hierophant doesn’t really get angry. Disappointment is more her thing.”

“That isn’t very comforting.”

The lift came to a stop, and the doors opened onto the residential deck. I offered M’Rayeh a rueful smile.

“Do you want me to go with you when you talk to her?”

She shook her head. “No. If there’s a reprimand to be given, it’s mine to bear.” Her arms squeezed my ribs. “But first,” she said, leading me into a step, “I need to make sure you get to your quarters safely.”

I chuckled but went along. “I think this corridor is safe enough. It’s just the three of us down here. Four, now, with you.”

M’Rayeh seemed to do some fast math. “You’re not counting Hierophant.”

“She basically lives in Medical.”

“Nor Gana.”

“Gana’s got the captain’s deck.” I shot a glance toward the ceiling plates. “Two levels up.”

“An entire deck seems excessive.”

“Being the captain has its perks.”

She paused for a minute in pensive silence. I wondered if she might be plotting rebellion, but it was something much graver than insurrection on her mind. “Gana wasn’t the one who mistreated you,” she said at last. “That was the other captain.”

My blood froze. In my face, I felt a flush of shame and guilt.

M’Rayeh looked back at me with equal parts sympathy and sorrow. “I saw it,” she explained. “In our share.”

I juddered my head. “I didn’t mean to show you that.”

“I should have warned you. The share seeks points of connection, to help those who are part of it to understand.” Her brows pinched together. “I didn’t think we would have such similar experience.”

A fierce anger flared in my guts. Not toward Viza, but on behalf of this woman who held her arms around me in a way that reminded me – too much, if I were being honest – of Bette. She wasn’t Bette, of course. She was M’Rayeh. Still, I wanted suddenly to be standing in front of the man in her memories so I could tear him to shreds with my talons.

M’Rayeh flashed me a look as if she’d heard my thought. “But that’s the past.” With a breath, her face took on a fresh brightness that relieved some of the tension in my torso, too. She filled the relaxed space with her grip as she started us walking again. “My life is here, now.”

“For better or worse,” I muttered.

“Better, I think.”

I craned my head to fix her with a squint. “Really?”

She nodded. “I miss my brother – I wish he were here, too – but in the Enclave, everything was decided for me. I had no choice where I went or what was open to me. Now, it’s only possibilities, the life I want to make for myself.”

A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “I’d never thought of it that way.” We came to my familiar cell door, and I stopped. “Thanks for the escort. Though, you didn’t really need to walk me all the way.”

“Will you be all right? Do you need help undressing?”

“I’ve got it, thanks,” I said, biting back a snicker. “What about you? You going to be okay?”

“Yes,” she said after a passing pause. “Can we meet again later? Just to talk.” She smiled with elfin humor. “With mouths.”

I laughed. “I’d like that.”

She nodded and started back up the corridor. I watched her as she went.

She was fascinating in that way that women often are to men. To keep my brain from wandering into lechery, I reminded myself that my onesuit was soaked in vomit and piss, and no woman in her right mind would, could, or should find that attractive. Though, there had been a time when even such grossness hadn’t spoiled me to the opposite sex.

“A flyer who gets vertigo,” Hank grumbled around a slice of pizza, too loudly not to be heard. “What a joke.”

“We all got vertigo,” Don countered from the opposite side of the table. “That’s what the guy’s powers are. That’s what his name is!”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t see me puking like Parker did.”

“He was eighty feet up!” Bette scolded.

“Fifty, tops,” Hank sneered, and the tone in his voice made my toss my crust onto my plate.

Bette frowned, while Don sighed in something like dejection. Huddled around the remnants of our delivery dinner in Bette’s Beverly Hills condo, the four of us lapsed into silence for a stretch of seconds. Then Don said what at least three of us were thinking:

“Maybe Robin’s right. Maybe we’re not cut out for this.”

“Fuck Boy Wonder!” Hank was always the voice of challenge to Don. Usually loudly. “We got him, didn’t we? It was a little messy, sure,” he said, gesturing my way. “But we got him. For a first run without those uppity sidekicks callin’ the shots, we did pretty damn good.” He leaned back in his chair with a shrug. “We just need more practice, is all.”

“This isn’t football!” Don told him. “And it’s not like taking down perps in the park. We need real strategy out there.” He shook his head, sat back, and crossed his arms over his chest. “We should have called Lilith.”

“We should have called Lilith,” Hank repeated in a brutal mockery.

“She knows things,” Don said.

“She’s a know-it-all, you mean.” Hank gave a little spit through his teeth. “We don’t need Red.” He wagged his finger at Don. “What we need, little bro, is for you to quit thinking with your dick!”

“At least I think, which is more than I can say for you!”

I got up from the table, leaving the still-arguing brothers behind as I trudged to the balcony. I slid open the door, closing my eyes as I sucked a drag of the cool night air. My hand touched the rail, and I pulled myself to it. Opening my eyes again, I looked over the edge. This balcony was only three storeys high, but it reminded me of another ledge I’d looked over not so long ago.

“Hey, Charley-bird.”

Bette’s voice, soft, sweet, and floating like a butterfly on a breeze, made my stomach tighten again, for a different reason.

“Hey,” I said, forcing the easiest smile I could muster.

“You okay?”

“Just needed to clear my head.” I jerked a nod back toward the penthouse. “Bird bros were taking up all the oxygen in there.”

She giggled, and I fluttered. While she seemed content simply to share the space, I found I had to speak.

“Thanks again,” I said around a quick clearing of my throat, “for letting me clean up here. The Y doesn’t have a lot of privacy.”

“We’re a team,” she said with a little shrug. “What’s mine is yours. Not the toothbrush, though,” she added, crinkling her nose. “That’s just yours, from now on.”

We both laughed. Then her hand slid close to mine on the banister, and the tone of her voice became serious again.

“You know,” she said softly, “nobody uses this place except for me. And my cousin, sometimes, when they’re in town. But that’s not often, and they can keep a secret.”

I threw a look around the high-priced neighborhood. “Must be nice.”

“What I mean is, this place is always open.” She dipped her head and peered up at me from under her lashes. “A superhero shouldn’t be living out of the Y. At the very least, you’re welcome to stash your costume here."

Her generosity took me off guard, and I squeaked, “Really?”

“For sure.”

“That’d be great! But, uh, technically, it’s not a costume. It’s armor.”

She shot me a sideways glance. “There’s a difference?”

 “More protection.” Which she could have used, though I didn’t mention that. There was something nice – very nice – about the fit of her stretchy red and yellow tunic and tights.

Bette moved her head up and down in a humoring nod. “Protection’s good,” she said, then hit me with a sly look. “I’m a fan of protection.”

“Me, too,” I muttered, abruptly aware of how close she was.

“Sometimes, several times a night.”

I popped my brows at her. “Several sounds intense.”

She moved past me in a breezy walk-away. “If you don’t think you’re up for it…!”

“No!” I said, spinning around fast because the prospect of her offer was too delightful to pass up. “I’m up for it.” I fired off one of my cockier grins. “Or, you know, I can be. If you give me a minute. And if you can forget about me puking over West Hollywood,” I added, my grin changing to a grimace.

She drew her lips into a smooth, wide smile. “You’re not the first person to have done that,” she said, and I chuckled. Then she told me, “And, I’ll give you ten.”

I stared, and she went on in a throatier murmur:

“That should be enough time for me to send Punch and Moody on their way.” She tapped my chest. “Just you don’t go anywhere.” And as though in promise for what was to come, she rose on her toes, slipped her hand behind my head, and drew me down for a kiss that sent me into a dizzying sway even more powerful than anything Count Vertigo had thrown, and that I wouldn’t forget for a lifetime.

I found myself smiling in the mirror, my mind full of wistful memory. That had been the first time we’d had sex. It had been a little awkward and a little too eager, but definitely fun. Nice. A start to something good in my life. Maybe the only good thing I’d ever had in my life. Of course, I’d screwed it up.

I brushed my teeth, stripped down, tossed my soiled onesuit into the recycler, and stepped into the shower. When I was done, I was thinking about sex again, though not the good kind. Not like with Bette. Viza was on my mind, and with her the vision M’Rayeh had shared of the man who’d treated her the same. Cordyl, she’d called him. There wasn’t a point to hating Viza anymore, but I hated Cordyl. I decided then, as I stalked out of the washroom to put on some fresh clothes, that I would help M’Rayeh to understand that she had nothing to fear from anyone, at least not while I was alive.

I’d just finished pulling on my fresh suit when a screeching klaxon made me crumple to my knees as I covered my ears.

“Neex!” I yelled above the clamor. “What the hell?”

“Alarm klaxon,” the engineer replied. They sounded distracted.

“I figured that! Why is it going off?”

“Light freighter just tagged our starboard side,” Neex said, and my stomach plummeted. I nearly threw up again when they added, “They appear to be pirates.”

Chapter Text

The main comm frequency possessed the cacophony of a zoo at feeding time. Still, Gana’s angry shout held sway. “How in all the unholy hells did pirates find us? I thought you have stealth tech!”

“We do,” Neex warbled. “But I had to disengage it when we connected to M’Rayeh’s ship.”

Gana shrieked. “We’ve been flying around uncloaked since then?”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind!” Neex shouted back.

Gana’s swearing stopped just long enough for Toragg to break in. “You control the ship, Neex! That is the only thing that should be on your mind, ever!”

“Our first priority should be to repel any boarders and secure the ship,” Veranyi said, her tone steady for the moment but starting to strain. “Golden Eagle?”

“Way ahead of you.” I finished locking my wing harness into place over my armor, then grabbed my axe and headed out the door. “Neex, I’m switching to a locked frequency. When Gana’s done yelling, tell me what I’m in for.”

“Why, you belligerent—” Gana began, but that was all before my channel change cut her off. The silence came with an oppressive tension, and I nearly jumped when I heard Valda say from behind me:

“Death this time?”

I collected myself and gave her a curt nod. “Probably.” I started walking again when another thought occurred, and I turned back to her. “You should stay inside. This could get nasty.”

Her chin came out in a jut, leading the rest of her shuffling body. “Protect ship. Protect friends.”

“No offense, but you’re too slow. I can’t fight off a boarding party and look after you at the same time.”

“Not me.” All three of her eyes glowered. “Army,” she said, and a metallic cascade of skitterers crawled, twittered, and tick-tacked out around her.

I stared at them as they flowed into the corridor. “Uh. Yeah, okay. Sure. But you do me a favor and stay in your rooms, huh? It’s safer there.”

She grunted but stepped back into the dim shadows of her quarters without a retort. “Battle frequency,” she mumbled as her door sighed shut.

I faced front, switching my focus to the more pressing matter. “Neex, you have a sit-rep for me?”

My helmet’s comm clicked, and the engineer came back, “I’m reading five in total, armored for vacuum. Four are in Gordanian gear, but the fifth looks like a Branx.”

I swallowed. Gordanian warriors were brutal, but a Branx could twist my head off without breaking a sweat. I’d have to deal with him first. “Status?”

“They’re cutting through at the main conduit level, three decks up from you. I’ve disabled the lifts, so you’ll have to climb.”

I clicked my axe into its magnetic sheath between my wings and hustled to the access path between decks. I hopped onto the ladder and started to climb. “What about external defense protocols?”

“Skitnik was built as an ice hauler,” Neex said peevishly, “not a battleship. I can’t just pull a railgun out of my exhaust.”

“Hand to hand, then,” I muttered and kept climbing. “Where are the others?”

“Toragg’s already sealed the bridge. Hierophant and M’Rayeh are locked down in Medical.”

“Good. Valda’s sending some skitterers—”

“I see them.”

“Can they fight?”

“I can!”

I stopped mid-rail at the interruption. “M’Rayeh? What are you doing on this frequency?”

“I want to help!” she answered, her voice clear and desperate.

I resumed my climb with a shake of my head. “No. Stay in Medical. It’s the most secure place outside the bridge.”

“You can’t do this alone!”

“I don’t have time to argue about this right now.”

Another alarm screeching across the comm cut off any rebuttal, and Neex said:

“And that’s a hull breach.”

I swore and jumped for a double-up of rungs. Neex went on:

“Mitigating pressure and air loss. Whatever you’re going to do, Golden Eagle, don’t wait.”

I cursed at how slow this climb was… Then it hit me. Why was I climbing?

I shifted my focus for flight and pushed off the ladder. It was a tight fit even with my wings closed, but the glide was smooth and silent. As I approached the opening to the conduit deck, I slowed my ascent. From over the rim of the hatch I got my first glimpse of our uninvited guests.

Five bipeds in vacuum armor gathered near the charred hole in the inner hull wall. Three of the Gordanians carried slaver pain staves and machetes; a fourth clutched what looked like a Thanagarian shock-mace. The Branx hunched his massive shoulders, clenching the fists at the ends of both upper and lower sets of burly arms.

Slowly, I drew my axe from my back. The confines of the corridor were too tight to swing it with any force, but its Nth-metal blade was sharp enough to slice steel. On the other hand, the size of the pirates, including that big Branx, meant they wouldn’t be able to cluster and overwhelm me. Still, I wouldn’t be able to take all of them in a single go. I needed another advantage.

“Neex,” I hissed. “I need you to counter-thrust.”

“What?” Neex hissed back.

“Stop the ship.”

“You’ll lose grav!”

“That’s what I want!”

The engineer hemmed. “I really should get Captain’s permission…”

“Would you just do it?”

My comm went silent. Around me, the ship seemed to sigh. Already in float, I didn’t feel the shift in thrust gravity outside of my place in the shaft. The comm lights on the pirates’ helmets, though, flickered in surprised chatter. Then one of the Gordanians powered the magnetic locks on his boots, and the rest of the pirates followed suit.

“That’s it, dummies,” I muttered to myself as I eased out of the shaft. “Stick yourselves to the floor.”

I moved my axe in front of me and gripped the back of the blade. My drift took me close to the ceiling, and I lined up with the Branx’s head. With a grim determination, I willed myself forward at maximum acceleration. By some chance of fate, the Branx looked over his shoulder right before I reached him. The axe’s blade penetrated his armor at the neck seam, sending a burst of arterial spray in all directions. His draining body collapsed to the floor. Unfortunately, my axe went along for the ride. The Gordanians turned almost as one. After that, the fight became a string of actions and reactions both blurred and crystallized.

Sparking pain staves swung my way. I caught one in the side and one in my hand. I spun the attached pirate into a brief shield between me and his mates and their rain of clattering hits. My boot to his back sent him sprawling, and he shattered the drifting drops of blood into a red mist that peppered us with dots.

The machetes came out. One pirate had to stop to wipe his faceplate, and I took the opportunity to snatch the blade from his grip. I flew around him and sliced his respirator hose. Panic set him flailing. He stumbled into his mate, and they struggled against each other, leaving me time to stab the machete in and out of the neck of a third pirate.

More blood. More chaos. The suffocating one was on his knees, scrabbling at his helmet. His dance partner had disengaged himself and came at me with his blade. It spanged against my bracer, and I swiped at his head with my other hand. My punch rocked him to the side. Not enough to fall, but enough to unbalance.

He yelled behind his faceplate. When he swung his blade again, I could almost hear the screech of my glove’s Nth metal palm where I caught it. I let go of my borrowed blade, clenched my fist, and slammed my knuckle-talons into the throat of his suit. He staggered back, the mags on his boots clicking once. I grabbed the floating blade again and slammed it after my punch, driving the metal deep through the vulnerable pressure suit seal.

The pirate’s eyes rolled back, and he coughed a blinding blot of blood into his faceplate. Then he drifted backward, arms splayed to his sides like a body on the water.

The corridor was still, and I heard myself panting. The Branx and three Gordanians sprawled, floated, and swayed in the red mist. Then my stomach twisted on itself. I’d missed one.

I threw my focus around the cluttered corridor and shouted for Neex.

“He’s on the main deck!” Neex hollered back. “Trying to breach Medical!”

I burst past the bodies and flew up the access shaft to the primary deck, grabbing the ladder for a snapping redirect when I got there. In the middle of the hall, the last pirate was using his shock-mace to pummel the medical suite’s ceramic doors like a lumberjack felling a tree.

I went straight for him at high speed. My shoulder caught him in the chest, knocking the mace from his hand and ripping his boots from their magnetic hold. I threw him to the floor and swept upward, popping my wings open for maximum effect. He rolled to look at me. The face in the helmet stopped me cold.

I switched my comm to a broadcast frequency. “You’re human,” I wheezed.

The voice that came back was deep, throaty, and scornful. “Don’t make me sick.”

He launched himself at me with the skill of a fighter trained in zero-G combat. I flew backward. He somersaulted, kicked off the ceiling, and snapped up his floating mace, coming at me with a swing. I flew out of his reach again while his momentum sent him toward the wall. He got his boots under him and locked them to the surface. I didn’t see what he was doing until it was too late, and his second swing caught me in the side of the head.

“Ch’al Andar,” he said in a kind of tickled surprise, and my dizzied brain snapped to attention. He snorted. “I thought you’d be tougher.”

I got my mouth working enough to slur, “You know who I am?” It was a pointless question, but all I needed was to keep him talking.

“Those wings of yours are famous in the corps. Fel Andar’s golden gift…” he said, his tone oddly wistful before his face twisted with a sneer. “…to his half-breed bastard folly. Your father brought shame to the glory of Thanagar.”

“He died with honor—”

“He was a fool, trading his power for the cloth.”

“You’re a wingman wearing Citadel slaver armor!” I snarled back at him. “What does that make you?”

“A savvy free agent.” He detached himself from the wall and free floated toward me, holding the ball end of the mace in his palm. “I told myself I wasn’t leaving without a pretty piece to bend over my bunk, but maybe I’ll just cave your head in and take your wings instead. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a set of wings.”

I’d regained enough of my senses for another offensive flight, but first I had to spit, “You don’t deserve them.” Then I launched myself at him, grabbing for his mace.

He held it between us, rolling with every twist and turn I sent us into but never letting go. He shoved his helmet toward mine and growled behind his faceplate, “You’re a disgrace.”

“You’re a traitor!”

“At least my blood runs pure,” he said, and kicked his boot into my gut.

We flew apart. He tumbled end over end, righting himself with quick and enviable expertise. But before his boots touched a wall for lock or leverage, a spindly metal leg appeared over his shoulder. It was followed by a second leg rising above his head and a segmented tail coiling around his calf. I sucked a breath and could only stare as Valda’s army of skitterers billowed out around him like a mechanical cloud. They converged on him in seconds, tugging, hacking, and battering his suit.

“Get them off!” he shouted, as if I’d help him. He flailed his arms, swinging his mace in a blind panic. A skitterer that hadn’t attached itself yet came swimming into range. The mace hit it in its center mass, pulverizing the little mech against the wall.

That was the only hit he got.

A trio of latched skitterers focused their efforts on his mace arm, and between them, they separated the arm from the shoulder in a grotesque tear that prompted a shrill scream from the pirate.

I silenced my comm.

The skitterers overwhelmed him within seconds. Soon, there was only a pile of moving mechanical parts covering a struggling mound. Then the struggling stopped. Blood hovered in the hall.

The comm box in the ceiling snapped to life, and Neex announced, “Atmosphere restored on the main decks. Everyone, make sure you’re secure; I’m going to start us moving again.”

The ship seemed to take a breath. Around me, my armor tingled as it adjusted to the application of acceleration and the low gravity that came with it. The blood in the air hit the walls and floor, and the skitterers that hadn’t found any purchase dropped to the ground.

I floated down to my boots, too, and opened my helmet comm. “What’s the status on that hull breach?”

“Working on it,” Neex replied.

I stared at the mound even as the skitterers began to disperse. “Tell Valda her army did good.”

“You should tell her yourself.”

My gaze went to the pulverized mech, and I thought of Valda. “What happens to the dead?” I asked.

“We’ll throw the bodies into the recyclers,” Neex said.

I shook my head. “Not the pirates. The skitterers. What happens when they die?”

Neex faltered. “I…don’t know. We’ve never lost any before. But it’s not like they really die. They are just mechs, after all. Can you assist with the medical bay doors?” they asked, once more pragmatic. “That pirate really messed up the pressure seals.”

I nodded. The living needed more help than the dead. “What do you need me to do?”

It took some coordinating – and the fine-honed blade of my axe, which I had to retrieve from the messy conduit deck – to shear the layers of mangled rubber and ceramic without compromising the doors’ circuitry and sensors. After a little more than an hour, a pair of skitterers, Gana, and I managed to safely release the doors. As soon as they were open, M’Rayeh rushed out and grabbed me in a tight hug.

“Golden-Eagle!” she said into my neck. “You’re all right?”

“Yeah.” The smell of fearful sweat clung to her skin and hair, but I closed my eyes to breathe them in anyway. When I opened them again, I looked over her shoulder at Veranyi. She was speaking with Gana, but her eyes found me, too, and she dipped her head in a tiny nod. “Are you okay?” I asked M’Rayeh.

“Yes.” She shoved herself away and hit me with a glare. “But don’t fight alone again!”

I chuckled. “Yeah, okay.”

“No,” she said, still glaring. “I want to hear you promise: You will not fight alone again.”

I raised my hand in a scout’s salute. “I promise,” I repeated, “I will not fight alone again.”

“Good,” she said, and put her arms around me for another warm hug.

M'Rayeh was eager to stay by my side, but I told her I badly needed a shower. She went off to the observation deck instead, where she said she’d wait for me to return. 

I went down to my cell in Residential and got out of my armor. It was spotted with blotches of blood that took several passes to wipe away. When it was shining again, I put it away and cleaned myself up. I walked out to the corridor in a fresh onesuit, holding in my hands the crushed skitterer.

Valda answered her door after a half-dozen knocks. She looked at me, looked at the collapsed little mech, and looked at me again. “Death came,” she said.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” I lifted the remains. “I didn’t know if you’d want it back…?”

She laid her pale hand on the crumpled lump of metal. Her heavy body gave a heavier sigh. “Not fighter.”

“No. But not all of us are. Not all of us should be,” I said emphatically.

Valda’s three eyes swung down to the skitterer. She picked it from my hands and brought it close to her chest. “No,” she agreed, and moved back into her rooms without anything more.

I looked at her closed door for a minute, then turned in the direction of the lift. Veranyi was standing in the corridor with her hands clasped in front of her.

“That was unnecessary,” she said. “But thoughtful.”

I shook my head. “You want to hear something crazy? I’m sadder about that little hunk of metal than I am about those pirates I killed. I killed them,” I said through my teeth. “They had lives, dreams. They were somebody’s kid, at one time. And I murdered them.” I could only shrug against the cosmic pointlessness. “I didn’t think twice about it.”

Veranyi lowered her chin. “It was better you did not. They would have murdered you, and us. Or worse. Your actions were justified. None of us could have done what you did.”

A clutching dread gripped my chest, and my throat went tight. I looked at my hands. I’d always had large, long fingers, with hypermobile joints that let me curl and cringe them into talon shapes. Yet, no matter how tightly I’d curled or how fiercely I’d cringed, everything had always slipped through them.

“Is that all I’m good for?” I asked. “Murder and ruin?”

Veranyi glided toward me, stopping at arms’ length. “Combat and death are the warrior’s reality.”

“I used to be better than this. I used to be good.” A miserable little laugh escaped me. “A hero. But now, I’m… I’m a—!” The words of that pirate came back to me: Half-breed. Bastard. Disgrace. I shook my head again. “I don’t know who I am.”

“That pirate,” Veranyi said. “He called you a name.”

A sour taste bloomed in my mouth. “Ch’al Andar,” I repeated for her.

“Your Thanagarian name?” she asked.

“Sort of. Only, it should have been Andar Ch’al, to carry on my father’s legacy, the way Thanagarian fathers have named their sons for generations.” The strength went out of my spine, and I slumped. “Instead, that name means nothing.” I dipped my head to my chest. “Just like I’m nothing.”

“You are not nothing. You are Golden Eagle,” she said, delivering more respect for the name than anyone had done in a long time.

Despite her faith, I snorted. “What does that even mean anymore?”

“That is for you to decide.”

I shook my head. “I can’t change the past.”

“No,” Veranyi agreed. “But the future is fluid. You can continue on your current path, be who you have been: a warrior of strength and great pride. Or,” she said after a brief but thoughtful pause, “you can choose a new course. Become something different.” She slipped her hand under my chin and lifted my face with the kindly care of a healer searching for injury. “Or something you used to be. A hero, even, perhaps.”

I stared into her eyes, looking for hope. There was only black, and my own reflection. “It’s not that easy.”

“Few things worth having ever are. But,” she said with a subtle tilt of her head, “if you truly wish it to be so, it can be done.”

My heart fluttered at the chance to make things right, to reverse all the terrible decisions I’d made to get me to this point and place in my life. In a quivering voice, I muttered, “How?”

“Being good comes from doing the same. That capacity resides within you, still. I have seen it.”

I recalled my track record for missteps. “What if I screw it up?”

“The outcome may spite the attempt,” she said. “But the attempt matters regardless.”

As a speech, it didn’t inspire. I sighed, feeling defeated before I’d begun. Then Veranyi caressed my cheek and gave me one of her little knowing smiles.

“Believe in yourself,” she said. “As I do.”

I stood there immobilized, unable to do anything more than blink even as she glided away toward the lift. Only in my deepest memories had I felt a touch so gentle and certain and safe. It was like absolution, like she was granting me permission to start over. As she slipped into the lift, I reached out with one dumb hand.

“Hierophant!” I called, though the word that wanted to escape was, Mother.

She turned to me and smiled again. “I look forward to seeing your progress,” was all she said.

Chapter Text

I made my way up to the observation deck. After the pirate attack, I expected to find M’Rayeh distraught, frightened, or angry. To my surprise, she twirled around the deck in an improvised ballet, laughing and babbling to Neex as her hair bounced up from her shoulders with every pirouette.

“Golden-Eagle!” Her face alighted with a grin, and she did a clever little dance-walk across the floor to where I stood. There, she came to a quick stop, her smile falling just as abruptly. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” I said, slightly off my guard. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

She shrugged. “You look…perplexed.”

“He always looks that way,” Neex interjected.

I ignored them. “Hierophant said the attack unsettled you.” I regarded her demeanor with a smile. “But you don’t seem out of sorts to me.”

“Oh, no,” she corrected. “The attack was terrifying.” She hit me with a pouty glare. “And I’m still irritated at you for leaving me locked up in that medical suite. But the floating…!” she said as her delighted smile returned, dissipating her brief annoyance. “The floating was glorious!”

She did another happy twirl in front of me, and I laughed; her giddiness was catching. “Didn’t you grow up on some kind of galactic flotilla?”

“The Enclave was always moving. Ever forward,” she said in an imperious tone, as though repeating a mantra.

I grunted. “Always under thrust, huh?”

“I’d never truly experienced a float before today. Except for once, briefly, when our transport ship let go of the command cruiser. My brother let us drift while the rest of the ships moved on.” She frowned, an expression of miffed defiance. “But he made me strap in for it.” She shrugged. “Once we were clear, he set us on a course away from the Enclave, and I went into long sleep. The next thing I knew, you were there. And I was here.”

“You screamed,” I said, recalling that moment. “In my head.”

She looked askance, as if shamed. “I thought you were…someone else.”

“Cordyl?”

She gave a somber nod. “The Spike, they called him. His ship was the spearhead of the Enclave Armada.” Her gaze went dark, and she screwed her lips into a grimace. “He called me his n’taani: his precious, smooth-backed nymph.”

Within her voice, I heard echoes of self-loathing, the kind that comes from anger at your own powerlessness. Knowing well what platitudes weren’t worth offering, I told her, “You didn’t deserve what he did to you.”

M’Rayeh’s eyes blazed of a sudden. “No one does.”

I thought of Viza: of her hand in my hair and her knife at my throat, and the humiliation of being her plaything. How I’d hated her for that and hated myself for ending up in that situation. If I hadn’t tried to kill Carter, if I hadn’t taken up my father’s insane crusade against him, if I’d just been better…! But I’d brought about my own fall from grace. Viza had simply been my punishment.

“Some people deserve it,” I muttered.

M’Rayeh’s gaze burned hotter. “No.” She reached out to squeeze my fingers. “Your captain had no right to do what she did to you. Just as Cordyl had no right to do what he did to me.”

My heart went out to her. Once more, I wished to be her vengeance. “Did he hurt you?”

She let go a sigh; her fury had flared bright but brief. “That was almost the worst of it, that he wasn’t some demon. He was clever, handsome, charming. Plenty of females fawned over him. But he assumed,” she said with renewed righteous anger, “that I was one of them. That I would follow in his step and come at his call, to have his way with when he wanted. Did you know, there were some who told me that I should be grateful? That being his favored was a privilege, that it would grant me safety, comfort, even status that I would never achieve on my own.” She snorted. “I’d rather have died than suffer another moment in his clutches.”

I bowed my head to hers. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

She gave me a tiny smile. “I’m glad, too. Now.” She shrugged in resignation. “Even if I am still a wingless.”

I thought about her twirling in delight when I’d first come onto the deck. “You know, having wings doesn’t make someone a better person. I mean, they’re just wings.”

She pressed her mouth to one side. “Except I can’t fly without them.”

“Sure, you can.”

M’Rayeh’s body bounced with a scoff. “No!” she said with a laugh.

“Yes,” I said, stony-faced.

“Even under thrust?” she challenged, still smiling.

I kept my serious demeanor. “Even in atmosphere, on a planet generating a full G.”

That got her attention. She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed me with a stare.  “How?”

“Nth metal,” I told her. “Its primary property is anti-grav. My armor’s made of it.”

“But your armor has wings!”

I waved her off. “Those are mostly for show. It’s the Nth that gives me the power to fly.”

She considered that a moment. Then she narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin. “Show me,” she said, and I grinned.

“I’ll be right back.”

I hustled down to my cell to redress into my armor. For the first time in a long time, it brought me joy rather than anxiety or foreboding to put on the bracers, belt, boots, and breastplate, then spaulders, tassets, wings, helmet, and taloned gloves. I left the battle axe in its clips. In a deeper part of my mind, I knew I’d donned the full suit to impress, but I was leaving the axe behind to show her the Golden Eagle she should have known from the beginning. Not the one that was part of the Thanagarian war machine, that spurred in her the memory of her rapist, but the singular shining knight I’d dreamed of as a kid.

I flew back to the observation deck with speed, shooting from the access shaft nearly to the high, arching ceiling. Looking around, I saw M’Rayeh stretched out on one of the benches near the viewing wall, tinkering with a datapad. I rolled into a relaxed stoop and headed down to the floor, stopping next to her bench in a low hover with my wings unfurled.

“Got bored waiting?” I teased.

She didn’t look up, but I could see the little smile in her profile. “You take so long to get ready.”

I spread my arms. “But worth it, right?”

She turned the datapad face-down and snickered up at me with good humor. “Very handsome.”

It was mostly vanity that caused my heart to flutter, but I ran with it regardless. “Not just good-looking. Flying, too.”

“I see that.” Her lips pressed together in a purse. “Though, you do have wings.”

“Only for show,” I reminded her. I drew the wings close, unlatched the locks of my flight harness, and the wings clattered loose to the floor. I stayed in the air, holding my hover.

M’Rayeh’s expression lost its sarcastic edge. Taking its place was a wary curiosity. “How are you doing that?”

“I told you: Nth metal. Every piece of my armor is made from it, and every piece grants me the ability to fly.” I bowed my head to her. “They can do the same for you, too.”

Her brow puckered. “What?”

I floated closer, unclasping the armor tassets from around my waist. “I’m going to teach you to fly,” I said, and held them out to her.

Her first response was an incredulous laugh. But my sustained offer stopped that. She rose to her feet and reached out a tentative hand. “How?” she asked in a tiny whisper.

“Put those on, and I’ll show you.”

She took the tassets and secured the clasp around her hips. They were tailored for my aggressive male frame, so they fit more snugly around her feminine proportions. But they didn’t slip, and they didn’t squeeze, and in them she looked beautiful and ready. When she was done securing the clasp, she raised her gaze back to mine, both expectant and curious. “Now, what do I do?”

“Now,” I said, offering her the palms of my hands, “we breathe.”

She laughed. “I already know how to breathe!”

I gave a slow, knowing shake of my head. “Using Nth metal isn’t like strapping on a jetpack. You have to will it to work.” I extended my hands to her again. “Breathing exercises might not be the most exciting thing, but when you get punched in the face and you lose concentration, and you start plummeting toward the ground, you’ll be thankful for this training; trust me.”

“I do trust you,” M’Rayeh said sweetly, and laid her hands on mine.

“Then close your eyes,” I said, and she did. “Now, imagine you’re a feather on the floor. Every time you breathe in, you rise into the air, just a little bit. And when you breathe out, you drift back down. Up,” I said, pulling an audible breath through my nostrils. I exhaled the air between my lips and watched her do the same. “And down. Can you see it?”

She bobbed her head, keeping her eyes closed.

“Good. Again,” I said, and we repeated the process. As the breaths went on, I watched the muscles in her face relax and her firm, compact breasts rise and fall with her respirations. When she seemed to be in a state of sufficient serenity, I decided she was ready for the next step.

“This time when you breathe in, hold for a few seconds. While you’re holding, imagine that feather hovering in place in the air. As you breathe out, imagine yourself drifting down. In,” I intoned. “Hold. And out. Up. Hover. And down.”

We breathed to the rhythm, and I felt the familiar sensation of Nth metal-induced weightlessness surround me. It surrounded M’Rayeh, too. Not quite as smoothly as it did for me, but enough to lift her meditating form into the air.

Each round of breaths took us higher. I let us get five centimeters off the floor. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Then I moved in close and whispered against her cheek, “Open your eyes.”

Her lashes flicked up, then dropped down again as she looked toward the floor a foot below. She gasped and started to fall. Even though she’d have barely stumbled in a landing, I clutched her to hold her in the air.

“I’ve got you! Just relax,” I said. “Breathe. Remember the feather.”

Her body lost some of its weight as she pulled a deep and concerted breath. After a few seconds, that weight became nothing. I eased her loose and drifted away to arms’ length. M’Rayeh put out her hands to either side as though treading air.

“I’m flying,” she wheezed, very softly, as she scanned the space beneath her feet. Then her head came up, and her eyes were bright with joy. “I’m really flying!”

Technically, she was only floating, but I didn’t want to pop her bubble. “Come on,” I said, pushing up into a backward glide and beckoning her along with a grin. “See if you can catch me.”

She gave a flap of her arms and bobbed forward, just a bit. Despite her bafflement, she laughed. “How?”

Years spent with Nth pressed to my skin had taught me how to control its aura and effects to my will. But while I barely had to think anymore to change speed, position, or direction, I had to remind myself that it hadn’t always been so easy.

“What if I fall?” I asked, staring down at the street a hundred and fifty feet below. Streetlamps and headlights from passing cars made little pools of illumination on the pavement, where I tried not to imagine myself splatting if this Nth metal stuff didn’t do what Carter claimed it could.

“Oh, you’ll fall,” he confirmed with dry certainty. “The point is to slow down before you hit the bottom. Better yet, don’t hit the bottom at all.”

“You make it sound easy.”

He patted my shoulder. “You can do this. I’ve seen you practice.”

I scoffed. “In the museum lecture hall. That’s fifteen feet, not fifteen storeys!”

Carter hit me with a hard look. “Less than six months ago, you were ready to throw yourself off this same building without any wings at all. You weren’t scared of the height then.”

I stared down at the street again; the little pools of light lost some of their clarity. “I had nothing to live for then.”

“But you do, now,” he said, and somehow his voice was both quiet and resonant in the same breath.

He was right. I had a job – not a great job, but mopping floors on the night shift at least put some honest cash in my wallet – and a rat-less, mostly private room in a house share that was still worlds better than being stuck in the system. More than that, though, I had the great hero Hawkman on my side. I didn’t know why he’d given me a chance or this gorgeous suit of golden armor, but he had. Now, I had a purpose and a name: Golden Eagle. And wings. Grand, beautiful wings that were mine.

I’d never had anything that was just mine before.

Carter sighed next to me, taking my silence for fear or doubt or some other reason to hesitate. “I’ve done all I can.” He spread his feathered Hawkman wings, rose off the rooftop, and floated past the safety wall.

“Wait!” I called after him. “That’s it?”

He turned in the air to face me and shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ve given you the armor, shown you how to use it. From here, you can walk any path you want.” He cracked a tiny smile. “Or you can fly. It’s up to you,” he said, and turned around again and flew upwards. With wings outstretched, his silhouette against the full moon was glorious.

Seeing him up there, my heart nearly burst with longing. It was joined by a fierce, freeing joy – the first I’d ever felt – as I launched myself off the ledge, too, and flew.

“It’s going to take time to learn full control,” I told M’Rayeh, recalling the advice Carter had given to me. “We don’t have the benefit of air currents in here, so, for now, think of it like swimming in a big pool. But through air instead of water.”

M’Rayeh faltered. “What’s swimming?”

“Oh.” I should have known better than to make assumptions. “Okay.” I flew back to her side with a ready smile; I’d taught Bette and Karen how to surf; I could teach M’Rayeh how to swim. “Let’s start there, then.”

I showed her how to do some easy kicks and strokes. For someone who’d grown up on a spaceship, without any access to open bodies of water, M’Rayeh was quick to pick up the basics. She accepted my baby-step approach with good humor and gusto, and by the time we decided to break for the day, she could do the aerial equivalent of a surface dive, a solid dolphin kick, and a respectable front crawl.

“Soon, you’ll be racing,” I said as we sat together on the bench.

M’Rayeh pulled her mouth to one side. “You don’t have to make fun of me. I know I’m slow.”

“You’re fine.” I glanced down at my helmet in my hands and admitted, “Mostly, I’m just jealous.”

“Jealous?” she repeated quizzically.

“It took me almost two weeks to learn to fly,” I said, laughing under my breath. “You’ve gotten there in a little less than a day!”

She paused under an embarrassed blush. “I’ve wished for this my whole life,” she said, as if to excuse. “To have it finally come true…! I don’t want to waste another moment.”

Her sentiment struck a similar chord in me. “When I first learned to fly, I wanted to just keep going, forever.” Through the clouds, above the world. I turned to look at the viewing wall and the stars beyond. There was a song in a movie I’d seen as a kid that described the sky as part heaven and part space. The description seemed apt.

“You know,” I mused as I gazed out at the stars, “I’ve put on this armor and flown into battle I can’t tell you how many times. Somewhere along the way, I…forgot how flying is supposed to feel. But today?” I smiled. “Today, I remembered.”

Her fingers moved around my wrist, and I looked her way. She was smiling, too. “Because of this?” she asked.

My heart thumped at the tender glow in her eyes. “Because of you.”

I drew a breath and held it, like before taking flight. M’Rayeh did the same, turning her shoulders toward me and leaning into our middle distance. The thumping in my chest got stronger as I met her halfway, still holding my breath. She closed her eyes like I did mine, and we came together for a kiss.

Her lips, soft and supple, pressed with gentle affection. It had been years since I’d felt a kiss so sweet. It took me back to being with someone who actually cared for me, who wanted me the same way I wanted them. It took me back to Bette.

A keen desire for a deeper intimacy spiked through me, and I pulled M’Rayeh into a tight embrace and pressed my mouth hard to hers. She grabbed me, too, and climbed on top of me. My fingers slipped over her breast; her hand slid down between my legs. I groaned and rolled my hips, wishing suddenly to have her naked and in my bed, or to be in hers. I wanted to feel her skin, smell her sweat, taste her sex. I wanted to pleasure her for her, for myself, not under threat or order. Not like Viza. Especially not like Cordyl. I might have deserved my fate, but M’Rayeh should have known sex that came with love, or at least with care. I squeezed her closer and decided if I ever crossed paths with Cordyl, I’d put my axe blade right through his skull for her.

She snapped upright in a jerk, her hand pressed to her mouth.

I realized a second too late that in my excitement, I’d bitten her lip. “M’Rayeh?” I started, but she was already off my lap and backing away toward the lift.

“I should go,” she blurted from behind her palm.

I stood up after her, hobbled a bit by my still-eager interest. “I’m sorry—”

But she turned and ran from me, pausing only to jab her hand against the lift controls. The doors opened as if they’d been waiting for her, then closed after her just as quickly.

I slumped down to my treadmill seat again. “Nice going, Parker,” I muttered to myself, adding in my head, You idiot.

Chapter Text

I waited a while on the observation deck, in the hope that M’Rayeh would come back on her own. When she didn’t, I considered going looking for her. But Skitnik was a big ship, and while I had a pretty good idea of the places she’d go, I also guessed she didn’t want me to follow her. So, I retreated to my cell for the night, feeling dejected and still a bit horny.

While my hormones were the easiest issue to resolve, rubbing one out would likely just increase my sense of self-loathing. I needed to talk to someone. Better still would be someone who I wouldn’t have to actually articulate my feelings to, someone who could read my mind. Of course, telepaths were a double-edged sword. You never knew what they might pick out of your gray matter.

“Why don’t you just tell her?”

I’d been sitting on her front porch sipping hot coffee when Lilith had asked her cryptic question. “Tell who, what?”

“Tell Bette,” Lilith said pointedly, “that you love her.”

I stared at her over the rim of the mug, glad I hadn’t been actively drinking at that moment because I’d either have scalded my mouth or choked. “Are you high?” I asked. “Because if you are, I want some. You’ve got some of the best weed up here.”

She tsked and crossed her long, bare legs in the wicker seat next to mine. “Don’t deflect.”

“Who’s deflecting? I know you score.” I waggled my brows at her from over my slipped shades and smirked. “Bodacious babe like you.”

She laid two slender fingers to one high cheekbone and narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do you do that?”

I sipped. “Do what?”

“Put on that ridiculous slacker surfer act.”

“Hey, surfing is cool!”

“I’m not saying it’s not, but pretending to be just another SoCal stoner definitely isn’t. So, why do you do it?”

I opened my mouth to rebut, only to find myself silenced by her green, all-knowing gaze. I shrugged. “That’s what everybody expects me to be.”

“I don’t,” she said smartly. “I expect you to be you: the real Charley Parker.”

“Yeah, well, the real Charley Parker is a loser!” My snapping ire caused me to lapse back into my Midway City dialect, and I started counting off on my fingers. “He’s dead-ass broke. He barely finished high school. He can’t hold down a decent job. He doesn’t even have a car!”

Lilith squinted again. “Why do you need a car if you can fly?”

“That’s what I said! But girls don’t want to have to set down in a dim alley or on an empty rooftop just for a night out. They want to drive up to a club in a flashy sports car and hand the keys to a valet that you’ve got to tip ten bucks for the privilege of the service.”

She squeezed her lips together. “Bette is not that shallow, and you know it.”

I dropped my gaze away and scratched at the arm of the chair. “I know she deserves better.”

“Better than a superhero?” Lilith said with a leading lilt of her voice.

“I’m Golden Eagle, not Hawkman.”

“Nobody’s asking you to be Hawkman! Hawkman’s stiff and grim and ultra-conservative, from what I’ve heard.” She bumped my leg with her foot. “Golden Eagle’s bright and shiny and fun. You’re much more Bette’s type than boring old Hawkman.”

She was trying, I could see that, and part of me was grateful for the effort. But I was too deep in a valley to be lifted out. “Come on, Lil. You know what her life is like. She’s at Wimbledon right now, playing against some of the best in the world! On top of that, she’s smart, funny, beautiful, and…Flamebird!” I shook my head. “Golden Eagle’s not enough for her. Charley Parker sure as hell isn’t.”

Lilith regarded me in tetchy silence. Then, she challenged, “Why don’t you ask Bette what she thinks, instead of just assuming her life for her? She’ll be back in two weeks. I’m sure she’d be glad to see you.” She dipped her voice to a murmur. “You need to talk to her, Charley. Secrets…” She swung her head, long red hair flowing like autumn leaves on a breeze. “They’re not healthy.”

I rubbed my lips over my teeth. “What if…?” I trailed off, unable to say the rest.

“She doesn’t feel the same?” Lilith finished for me. “Then at least you know for sure.”

“Can’t you just read her mind for me?” I asked with a crooked smile.

Her expression darkened to a glower. “No.” She softened to tenderness and leaned across the arm of her chair toward me. “All you have to do is be straight with her. You’re a better man than you think you are.” She sat back again. “Or, at least, you could be.” 

Even though she was a telepath – one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet, in fact – Lilith had always favored directness with her words. Of course, I hadn’t been ready to listen, not at that time. I’d never had that talk with Bette, never said those simple words to make my feelings known. I’d been too proud, too scared to hear her answer. Then the Wildebeest ambush happened, and I’d nearly died. I would have done, if Fel hadn’t found me. He’d cut me off from everyone in my past. To focus on the mission, he’d said. His mission, the one of vengeance against Carter, the one I’d been too blinded by misplaced devotion to recognize as madness. After that, there’d been no turning back. No way home again.

I got up from my bunk and went to the door. I’d made the mistake of keeping silent too many times before in my life. I wasn’t going to do it now.

I laid my hand to the access control, but nothing happened. I touched the pad again, pressing my palm flat for a count of three. Still nothing.

“Hey.” I started to tap my hand against the pad, like I was patting a horse that wouldn’t budge. “Hey! Neex? The door’s stuck.” My palm made a hard slapping sound on the permaplas as my throat went tight. “I can’t- I can’t open the door! Neex? Neex!” I banged the side of my fist against the ceramic door. “Is anybody out there? I’m stuck!”

I yanked my helmet on and opened the comm. “Can anybody hear—” A feedback whine shrieked in my ears, and I threw the helmet off with a shout.

I shut my eyes, pressed my fists to my temples, and forced myself to calm down and think. Comms were out, but we still had grav and air pressure. That meant the ship was fine. Sound would travel if I made it. I opened my eyes again and started to make it.

For five minutes, I pounded and yelled. Nobody answered, and I felt myself getting more and more frustrated. Maybe everyone else was cut off, too. Or maybe – more likely – I was just too far down the end of the residential corridor to be heard. I glared at the door.

“Screw this,” I muttered to myself, and went back to my armor closet. I yanked my axe from its locks and marched to the door. As I lifted the blade for a smashing swing, Neex shrieked from the cell’s comm box:

“Stop!”

I gaped at the box. “You can hear me?”

“Of course, I can hear you,” the engineer replied in their prissiest tone. “I know everything that happens on the ship.”

“So, you know I’ve been yelling my head off for the last ten minutes, trying to get out of here?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you. Now, will you please put the axe down? It’s making me nervous.”

“Will you please let me out of this room?”

The comm box was quiet.

“Neex?” I said. “Hello-o?”

No reply.

I made sure to glower at the box. “Have it your way,” I said, and drew back my axe again.

“All right!” Neex shouted. “I’m sorry I locked you in!”

I almost chopped the box off the wall. “You mean, you did this on purpose?”

“I was angry. I panicked.”

“About what?” I yelled.

“You kissed M’Rayeh!” Neex cried back at me, and I fell still as if the air had been sucked from the room. The axe felt heavy, and my knees wobbled.

“You saw that,” I muttered.

“Yes, I saw it!” Neex kept shouting. “I told you, I see everything on this ship. I see you walking around with your skeleton and your muscles and your stupid soft flesh. I see you flaunting your physical compatibility. I even see you pulling out your fancy Thanagarian tricks to show her how to fly! After all that, you expect me to just float along, a victim of inertia, while she falls in love with you?”

The ache in their voice tripped a light in my slow brain, and I sat down hard on my bunk with my axe across my lap. “You like her.”

Neex turned testy. “You don’t need to sound so shocked.”

“I just- I mean, I didn’t think that you could…?”

“Why? Because I’m not like you? Visceral? Organic? Carnal?”

I held up my hand. “Whoa. Back off, dude,” I warned, but Neex kept on.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be thought of as just ‘the ship.’ I might not have limbs, or organs, or a face, but I’m not some limited intelligence program. I have a brain. I feel things.”

Their voice broke a little, as if for a cry, and I felt like a heel. We’d flown together for more than two years, and I didn’t know much at all about Neex or their people. “I’ve never crewed with a Kladafi before,” I said with a shrug. “All I know is that you’re…grown within the ship.”

“I’m not a hydroponic vegetable,” they answered with typical irritability. Then they relaxed. “Kladafi are adaptive neuro-symbiotes. On our home planet, we used to connect with cooperative species, for mobility and communication. But when the Oans discovered us, they saw a different use for our kind.”

“Smart-ships,” I guessed.

“More or less. We fell out of favor at some point, though, because we were handed over to the commercial sector. Probably when the Oans developed the Lantern rings.”

I grunted. “Why use ships when the ring lets you go anywhere?”

“Your armor lets you fly in space, too, but Thanagar still has an armada.”

“That’s because the fleet is the Queen’s pride, and you can’t conquer without an army.” I rolled my eyes. “Plus, Thanagar loves its hierarchy.”

“You are good at going to war,” Neex observed; against that, I couldn’t argue.

I changed the subject; I didn’t want to think about Thanagar. “How’d you end up on an ice hauler?”

A noise like a chuckle came from the comm. “It’s not like I had a choice. I came to awareness during construction of the engine, on Hykraius. As sections were added, I stretched out my neural network until I was part of nearly every piece of the ship.”

“So, when something happens to the ship, do you feel it? I mean, when those pirates cut through the hull, did that hurt?”

“No,” Neex said without hesitation. “I sense things like gravity, pressure, and acceleration, or the absence thereof. But pain…. I only feel pain as an emotion.” Their tone took on a harder edge. “Though, that doesn’t make it any less intense.”

I looked down at my hands. “That makes sense.”

Silence filled my cell as I sat there. After a minute, Neex came across the comm again, this time in a timid, halting voice. “Why did you kiss M’Rayeh?”

My posture crumpled under a sigh. “It just happened. We were talking and having a good time, and I just…I got swept up in the moment.” I tongued a molar, licked my lips, and swallowed. “I wanted to feel close to somebody again. Somebody nice.”

“M’Rayeh’s not just nice,” Neex said sourly. “She’s brave and honest and wonderful. The most splendid organic ever to walk these corridors. We’re lucky to have her.”

I stared at the comm box. “And I thought my love life was complicated.”

Neex’s voice clucked. “I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”

I didn’t know, either, but it was comforting, in a way. Misery shared was better than suffering misery alone.

“It’s not like it makes any difference,” Neex went on, still grumbling. “I’m still just the ship. I’ll always be just ‘the ship.’”

I leveled my palms up. “At least everybody likes you.”

“They need me,” Neex corrected.

“Well, they give you a lot more respect than they give me. Gana would toss me out an airlock if she thought she could get away with it! But she trusts you. You have a say in things.”

They gave the equivalent of a scoff. “As soon as Captain gets to her sculptor planet, she’s gone. Toragg, too. But I’m an interstellar cruiser! What am I supposed to do on a moon, except rust up and fall to pieces?”

I shrugged. “So, keep flying.”

“Without a crew?”

“Valda might stay. And Hierophant…!” My chest tightened. “What about her?”

“Valda needs a reason to stay on,” Neex said, oblivious to my anxiety. “Her skitterers have learned all they can, and it will be years before she produces again. As for Hierophant, I don’t know what’s going on with her. We used to talk, but she’s been so secretive, lately. When M’Rayeh came aboard, I was hoping she’d want to crew up. But once you leave, she’ll leave, too.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “I mean, you are a ship. With you, she can go anywhere, do anything. The universe is your oyster.”

“What’s an oyster?”

I snorted out a short laugh. “If there’s one universal truth I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you can’t ever assume what somebody else is thinking, least of all a female.”

“So, what do I do?”

“Talk to her. She’s the only one who knows what she wants. And you won’t know unless you ask.”

Neex hummed. “Can you do it?” they asked at last. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

I glanced meaningfully to the door. “You’ll have to let me out of here, first.”

There was the sound of a lock mechanism disengaging in the interior wall, then the door opened on the corridor.

I stood up to set my axe away. “Thanks.” As I closed the closet, Neex said:

“Sorry, again, for locking you in.”

“Forget about it,” I told them with a wave over my shoulder.

According to Neex, M’Rayeh was up on the obs deck. I’d decided to keep my Nth metal bracers as standard wear from now on, so as soon as I was out of my cell, I pushed into a glide.

Flying, the access conduit was faster than the lift for me. More fun, too, with the flow of air around my face and through my hair. I came to the wide opening for the main deck and paused. While I did need to talk to M’Rayeh, I felt like I owed a chat with Veranyi, as well. Foolishness and circumstance had brought us together as shipmates, but in the years since, we’d become more than friends, at least in my mind. A part of my heart I’d kept hardened since Fel had died beat for her alone, in desire for her approval. And her love.

I moved through the access hatch and set my feet on the deck floor. As I walked toward Medical, I considered how to express my feelings without alarming or offending her. The last time I’d tried, it had come out all wrong, and I’d nearly lost her friendship. The pull I’d felt toward Veranyi was more primitive than friendship, though. I wanted her arms around me. I wanted her to cuddle me to her breast as she blew shushes into my hair. I wanted her kisses on my brow and her trilling hum in my ears as she rocked me to sleep. She’d said we weren’t compatible, but being half-human and half-Thanagarian, I wasn’t truly compatible with anyone. Despite that, she was the closest to holding that role of first female in my life.

The doors to Medical stood open. I poked my head inside, a request to enter on the tip of my tongue. That flew to the back of my throat with a gasp as I saw Veranyi slumped on the floor, her limbs and tentacles fallen loose around her and the gloss of her eyes flat and unaware.

I screamed for help and raced to Veranyi’s side, sliding onto my knees next to her. As I gathered her into my arms, pulling her head to my shoulder, I babbled a mix of panicked prayers and curses.

She didn’t answer.

Chapter Text

Within a minute of my jostling, Veranyi stirred and let out a weak groan. Across her eyes a translucent membrane clicked: some sort of nictating eyelid I’d never noticed before. Her gaze became clear, and while she had no pupils I could trace, she seemed to focus on me.

“Golden Eagle,” she said, sounding surprised. “Did I summon you?”

“I found you passed out on the floor,” I told her. “Are you all right?”

She groaned another “Ah,” and touched her fingers to her temple. The tentacle there curled out like a flower unfurling for the sun. “Just a bit of overwork.”

“A bit of overwork doesn’t cause collapse.” I kept her cradled; the idea of her being hurt filled me with terror. “You’re the most important person on this ship. If anything were to happen to you…!” I let the rest of that thought hang.

A dry swallow ticked in her throat. “Your concern is well noted. Albeit misplaced.”

“Hierophant,” I started to say, when the sharp clomp of approaching mag-boots shattered the quiet around us, and Gana shouted:

“Get away from her!”

I turned over my shoulder just in time to catch her shock baton with my face. Even as I reeled away, my nose went numb, and I tasted a burst of blood. “Jesus!” I blinked both eyes to make sure they still worked and saw a little pool of blood already spreading on the floor. A stream of angry, ugly words about the female gender spewed out of my mouth as I scrambled into a defense stance.

Gana’s baton alighted with an electric crackle. “I should have spaced you a long time ago.”

I cringed my hands into talons. “Try it.”

M’Rayeh swept in from the corridor. “Leave him alone!” she said, coming around Gana’s arm to hover between us.

“Stay out of this, girl,” Gana growled at her. “I’m still the captain, here.”

“And I can liquefy your brain!” M’Rayeh snapped back.

“Enough.” Veranyi’s voice floated around us like smoke…and was just as effective. M’Rayeh, at least, relaxed her posture, though Gana and I remained taut in our physical impasse.

“This is a place of healing,” Veranyi pressed. “Your quarrel is unwelcome. Golden Eagle, stand down,” she said when we didn’t move. “Gana! Put your weapon away.”

“Neex said you were hurt,” Gana replied, still gripping her baton and glaring at me. “Then I find this one groping you—”

“I wasn’t groping!” I said with a snarl.

Veranyi’s hand grazed my arm. Her steady touch lowered the tension around my spine, and I shifted to the side, allowing her to move up. “I experienced a faint,” she said in low, balanced tones. “Golden Eagle found me and called for help. That was the cause of Neex’s alarm.”

The comm box above the medical suite doors gave a popping sound, and Neex mumbled, “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did fine,” M’Rayeh told them.

Gana’s fist creaked around the baton. “I still say we can’t trust him,” she said, still eyeing me. “He’s Thanagarian! You know what they’re like.”

“Half,” I said, for some reason thinking her accusation warranted my snide correction. “My father came from Thanagar, but my mother was from Earth.”

“Half-blood or whole, you think that makes a difference?” Gana narrowed her gaze. “We all saw how you butchered those pirates.”

“I did that for the ship! And where were you while all that was happening, huh?” I leaned into my mockery with a sneer. “Locked up tight on the bridge, safe in your chair, I bet. You do know a captain’s supposed to lead, right?”

Gana’s eyes blazed. The tendons strained in her neck. But she gave no comeback, instead whirling about and exiting the medical bay with the same angry gait she’d used to enter.

Around me, no one said a word, though the collective disappointment was palpable.

“I know!” I said, preempting any admonishing. “I have a temper and need to control it. But—”

“She should not have hit you,” Veranyi said as she glided over to the main medical console.

“Oh.” I stopped fuming to watch her while she opened a storage cubby to collect a few items. “You agree with me.”

“I fear she will never see beyond her initial prejudices.”

“Of me?”

“Of anyone. She is exceedingly single-minded,” Veranyi said. “It can be a strength in certain situations, though mostly it is a hindrance.”

“She wants her planet, and everything else be damned.” I sniffed, and the action abruptly reminded me of the state of my nose. “Ow,” I said, pinching the space between my eyes.

M’Rayeh swept around to face me. Under full effect of the Nth metal’s anti-gravity properties, her hair flowed around her face in a slow-motion bob as if she were underwater. While the idea of her as an astro-mermaid was worth a smile, M’Rayeh grimaced and pulled a hiss between her teeth.

“Bad?” I guessed.

While M’Rayeh only kept her worried expression, Veranyi returned with a wet cloth which she dabbed under my nose. “It does not appear to be broken,” she informed me after a quick examination. “Though, you are likely to have some bruising.”

“Great.” My new eye had just finished healing, and now it would be back to black. I took the cloth for a firmer press to staunch and collect the trickling blood, then accepted the cold compress Veranyi passed into my other hand.

“I can give you an accelerant,” she said, turning to the medical cubbies again. “And something for the pain.”

“I’m more concerned about you, to be honest,” I said to her back.

“There is no need,” Veranyi replied in even tones. “I am fine.”

I shot a frown to M’Rayeh, who pulled her mouth to one side in an uneasy fidget. It would have been nice to know what she was thinking. Even better would have been to know what was going on in Veranyi’s head.

She came back with a pressure hypodermic. “I suggest you retire,” she said as she administered the cocktail into my upper arm, a fast jab that prompted a quick wince on my part. “The combination of chemicals will induce listlessness.”

I resisted the urge to rub my arm. The blood from my nose had stopped running, so I let my hand with the bloodied cloth fall to my side, sniffed, and furrowed my brow at her. “You’re hiding something.”

The nictating lid passed swiftly over her eyes. For a second, I thought she might say something. She did, though not what I’d hoped. “Rest,” she told me with an inclination of her head. “I will do the same.”

M’Rayeh floated over and circled her hands around my bicep to draw me to the door. I gave one final look back toward Veranyi, then tossed the cloth into a corridor recycler and crushed the cold pack to activation. M’Rayeh led me to the access lift between decks, wafting along beside in a mellow bob, like a free diver but in air instead of water.

“You really should walk,” I muttered to her from behind the pack.

“I’ve walked my whole life. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Well, I don’t want your leg muscles to atrophy from lack of use. If you’re not going to walk at least some of the time, I’m taking those tassets back.”

“I’ll run on your stupid wheel later.” Her voice was needle-sharp. “Will that make you happy?”

My sigh rumbled through my tender nose, and I grimaced. We came to the lift, where I paused. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s Hierophant I’m frustrated at. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

M’Rayeh drifted down to her soles and leaned close to murmur, “I think you’re right. There’s something she isn’t telling us.”

I lowered the pack to whisper back. “Can’t you…you know. Scan her?”

Her eyes snapped wide, and her mouth fell open. Then she hissed, “No! That’s an invasion of privacy and a betrayal of trust. You said so!”

“I know what I said! But sometimes, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s terrible rationalizing.”

“I’m worried, okay? That overwork excuse of hers? That’s garbage.”

“Whatever is bothering her, she’ll tell us in her own time.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then she doesn’t. But forcing her isn’t the answer.”

The lift arrived, and we stepped inside together in edgy silence. I programmed our destination for Residential with one hand and pressed the pack to my face again with the other. It still stung, but the dulling, lulling effects of the meds seemed to be kicking in. I acknowledged the other source of tension with a low:

“Thanks, by the way.”

M’Rayeh raised her brows. “For what?”

“For backing me up, up there.” I flicked my gaze toward the decks above. “With Gana.”

She glanced away beneath a blush. “I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

I shared a little half-smile with her. “I wasn’t sure how you felt about me, after what happened yesterday.”

Her blush faded abruptly. “I’m sorry I ran.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable.” I threw my focus to the floor to hide my own blush. “Sometimes, when I get excited, my body—”

“It wasn’t your touch.”

I looked back to her with a quirked brow, lowering the pack from my face to give her my full attention.

“I liked your touch,” she added at my silence.

“You did?”

She nodded. “I’m lonely, too. Except when I’m with you,” she said, brushing her fingers against my hanging hand. “When I’m with you, I feel…seen. Understood. Welcome.”

At first, her words tickled another smile from me. But then I realized what she wasn’t saying, and I frowned. “So…why did you…?”

“It was what you thought.”

My pride shriveled as I forced my brain into reverse. Had I thought something particularly lewd or disgusting? I couldn’t remember. All that came back was the warmth of her lips, the slide of her tongue, the round of her breast in my hand, with its pliant softness conforming to my palm save where her nipple started to press—

“You wanted to kill Cordyl,” she said, and I snapped once more to attention. Right. I had thought that.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” I began, when she moved in close, dropping her voice as if to pass me a secret.

“I’m frightened for you. I understand how hatred and anger can sustain a heart.” She laid her palm to my chest. “But it’s not a way to live.”

A wrath that felt like tendrils wrapping around my ribs pitched my voice to a growl. “I don’t like that he hurt you.”

M’Rayeh’s own voice turned severe. “Cordyl isn’t your burden,” she said, then let go a breath that relaxed the tight lines around her eyes and mouth. Somehow, it did the same to my percolating rage.

She spoke again, her tone falling quiet. “You told me once how wrong it is to live a life for revenge. That the better life is one lived for love. I want that life.” Her hand came to my face. “And I want it with you.”

I staggered away a step with a shake of my head. “No, you don’t.”

Her eyes went cloudy. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I’m not who you think I am. I’m not a good person.”

The lift doors opened, and I walked out. I made it three strides before M’Rayeh grabbed my arm and turned me halfway about.

“I don’t believe that,” she said, sounding almost angry about it.

“You should,” I snapped back.

“You protected us. You fought those pirates without any thought to your own safety. You gave me this,” she said, tapping her other hand to the tassets hanging from her waist, “and taught me to fly! How can you think you’re anything less than good?”

“You don’t know the things I’ve done.”

“Then tell me.”

I shrugged off her hold and started away. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hurt people!” I said, whirling on her, and she retreated a floating step. “People who trusted me, who gave me a chance.” A scratchy dryness formed in my sinuses. “Who I—!” I cut myself off, unable to say the word loved, even now. Though, there was a part of me that did still love Bette and Karen and the rest of the old Titans West team, even if I had turned my back on them. A part of me loved Fel, too, despite the way he’d once twisted my mind to his own. And Carter, of course. I figured there’d always be a part of me that would love Carter Hall.

I looked at her with a wry, cracking smile. “Don’t tell me you can’t see how bad it is in my head.”

She moved up close to me, sorrowful but unafraid. “Your thoughts are loud,” she said to agree. “Full of anger. So much anger.” She spread her fingers over my sternum. “But there’s regret there, too. And…a yearning.” Her eyes locked on mine. “You want to share this. You want someone to know. So that you can be forgiven.”

“Carter already forgave me,” I said. “I don’t know why, but he did.”

“But you haven’t forgiven yourself.”

The muscle beating beneath her hand ached suddenly, both for her keenness and for her faith. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had shown so much faith in me. “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if there’s anything good inside of me left.”

Her hand went from my chest to my cheek. “We can look, together, if you’ll let me in?”

Something inside of me fluttered. Not the old darkness, but rather a kind of light, like a bird wanting out of a cage. It made my lips tremble and my breath stutter. “You won’t like what you see. You won’t like me.”

She actually smiled. “Let me decide that for myself.” She moved her hands behind my head, as if holding for a kiss. “Now, close your eyes. And let it go.”

I took three stuttering breaths, then brought my lids down as I let my mind tumble backward in time: to Fel and his long-standing hatred of Carter, and how my desire for a father had led me down a similar path of violence and vengeance bordering on psychopathy. The bodies I’d broken and the bridges I’d burned. The loss of love and friends and everything I’d once held dear in my heart, for sake of a misguided dream. The fight with Carter, the judgment of Thanagar, the stretch of days in a prison cell. Then the war, with Fel’s death and his dying words, and my pardon and promise to be a better man. My assignment to the Buteus, and my defeat by Viza and the humiliation that came after. The Source Wall. Veranyi healing my lost eye. Finding the derelict and M’Rayeh inside. The fight with the pirates; the flight with M’Rayeh. Her kiss that had left me wanting.

M'Rayeh let out a whimper.

I snapped my eyes open. Her body was stiff in the air as if trapped in time. Then her hair started to slump. The rest of her followed, and I tossed the cold pack aside and threw my arms around her, gathering her in a messy, uneven embrace.

“I’m sorry! M’Rayeh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to. Please, be okay.”

Her eyes fluttered open. For a heartbeat, she didn’t seem to be looking at anything. Then her golden irises refocused and found me.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Now,” she said, her voice stuck in a mournful wheeze, “I understand.”

I swallowed some of my shame. “I told you it was bad.”

“You did.” She held her head and groaned.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“For showing me?” She looked at me from behind her hand. “Or for the deeds themselves?”

“All of it.” I pulled her a little bit tighter. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

Incongruous to the moment, that little smile reappeared on her lips. “You still don’t see it, do you?”

I frowned. “See what?”

“The difference between the Golden-Eagle you used to be and the Golden-Eagle you are now. Deep in your heart,” she said, placing her hand there once again, “deeper than anything else, you hold much love. For the friends you’ve lost, and the ones you’ve made. Like Hierophant.”

I thought about that. The old Golden Eagle – Ch’al Andar’s Golden Eagle – had wanted revenge and blood. Carter Hall’s blood most of all, but any blood would have sufficed. Now, though, there was only one thing I wanted. “And you,” I said.

Nearly eye-to-eye in height, we stood there for a dozen beats, unmoving. Then with a sharp, fast breath, she hooked her hand behind my head and snapped her mouth to mine. I grabbed her with both arms and clutched her close until there was only the rub of our suits between us. This time, I didn’t think of Cordyl or Viza. I didn’t think of Veranyi, either, or even of Bette. There was only M’Rayeh in that moment, as lonely and in want of love as I was.

Chapter Text

M’Rayeh’s cell was closer but mine was more remote, so it was there that we stumbled, twisting in our kisses and tearing at each other’s clothes like overeager teenagers running out of time. Except time we had, though we didn’t take it. Our first foray was fast and impromptu, barely enough for a brief agreement of desire – “I want you to share your body with me.” “I want that, too.” – before we hit our clenching, panting peaks standing there against the wall; I still had my shed onesuit snaked around one ankle.

She wasn’t human under her clothes, but she was almost so. Viza had been mostly human, too, though sex with her hadn’t been pleasant. M’Rayeh, on the other hand, made it breathless. Invigorating. Orgasmic. When we were done, she pulled me to the bed instead of pushing me away, and we cuddled gently together between the sheets.

“Why do you think,” she mused as she trailed her gaze and fingers down my chest and belly, “that our bodies are so similar, when our people don’t come from the same world?”

“I don’t know.” I let my own focus wander along the curves of her cheek, neck, and breasts. “Though, I do remember a gunner I served with who said that the Guardians of the Universe were a bunch of lecherous old codgers who liked to watch people have sex, and that’s why they made all their creations in the same basic image.”

M’Rayeh snickered and flicked her gaze back to mine. “That sounds blasphemous.”

I laughed along a moment. “But probably true! Little cobalt know-it-alls…!” I settled against the pillow with a sigh. “I have to admit: it’s nice to just lie here and talk with you like this.”

Alarm flashed across her face, and she jerked up. “I thought you wanted to be physical. I didn’t mean to force you—”

I bolted up, too. “You didn’t force anything! I did want to be physical with you. I still do! It’s just, the last person I was physical with wasn’t interested in anything more than the action.” Viza’s typical post-sex dialogue had been little more than a terse, Get out. I smiled. “I like talking with you, too, though.”

M’Rayeh relaxed with a hum and a nod. “Cordyl would talk, but more at me than with me. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that,” she said, dropping her voice into a deeper range. “You’re so beautiful.”

She rolled her eyes in some dismissal, but I had to smile. “He wasn’t wrong about that last part.”

Her skin turned purple in pretty blotches. “You’re beautiful, too.” She lowered her lashes in a look-down between us. “Though, I do wonder why you have this?” she said, and I was about to make a lewd comment when her fingers stopped at and circled my navel.

It tickled, and I grinned. “It’s for gazing at when you’re bored.” At the quizzical draw of her brows, I gave a better explanation. “While human babies are gestating, there’s a tube that connects them to the mother for nutrient transport. That’s where it attaches.”

She poked, making my belly cringe. “You were connected to your mother?”

“Yes.”

“How many children did she have?”

“Just me, so far as I know.”

M’Rayeh pulled her attention away from my belly. “Your people only have one child?”

“Sometimes, they have more. Though, one at a time is the norm. Why? How many children do your people typically have?”

“A female can lay as many as ten or even twelve eggs during a breeding cycle. In my clutch, there were eight of us.”

“Eggs,” I echoed as I tried to wrap my head around that concept. It explained why M’Rayeh herself had no navel, though not so much her human-like breasts and nipples. I had no reason to complain, of course; she had lovely breasts, firm and smooth, if on the smaller side—

“Is that why you spilled onto my belly?” she asked, and I snapped my wandering attention back to her face. “Because you don’t want to make children?” Before I could contradict, she went on: “Even if our species were capable of interbreeding, and I don’t think that they are, I’m sterile.”

Memories of Thanagar’s High Tribunal sobered me, and I said, “So am I.”

Her gaze shimmered. “Not by choice,” she guessed.

I shook my head. “Thanagar sterilized me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “But…you were a great warrior. They gave you a command!”

“They also judged me to be criminally psychopathic. They said it was because my blood wasn’t pure,” I said with a grimace. “That the blood of my human mother was a contaminant in the gene pool. So, they stopped me from being able to reproduce.”

M’Rayeh put her fingers over mine. “I’m sorry.”

I lifted one shoulder. “Whatever. I’d have probably made a crap father anyway.”

“You don’t know that. And it’s not the part that matters.” Her knuckles paled as she gripped my hand. “They took that decision away from you. Just like the Enclave did with me.”

I’d expected the reason behind her sterility to be something scientific, like the relationship between worker bees and queens, but those words, spoken with so much bland resignation, ignited in me a fierce resentment for her people. “Why would they do that?”

Her face went hard. “Why do you think?”

“Because you don’t have wings?” That seemed like a petty reason, though perhaps no more so than the one Thanagar had used for me.

“It’s considered a genetic defect,” M’Rayeh said. “One not to be passed on. We might have chosen not to have children,” she continued bitterly, “but that should have been our choice to make! What they did was wrong. To both of us.”

I was pretty sure I was spot-on about my not being parental material, but she seemed to be more driven about another point. “That’s important to you,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

She traded some of her bubbling anger for puzzlement. “Children?”

“Choice.”

Her face darkened. “It’s a freedom I didn’t have until I came here. Now that it’s mine, I’m not going to let it go.”

I leaned back onto one elbow and smiled. It was refreshing to see this one-time stowaway refugee so passionate and confident. “You sound like a fighter.”

Her mouth went wide in a grin. “I want to be a fighter. And a flyer.” She shifted her weight to climb on top of me, pushing her torso against mine. “And a lover, too,” she said before adding her lips to the rest of her press.

We drifted flat to the bunk and started afresh, exploring slowly with hands and mouths this time. She was skilled at foreplay, and more forward than I’d have expected from someone with her sex-slave past…but maybe that assertiveness was simply another freedom she now enjoyed. I enjoyed her, too, the way she teased without cruelty and coaxed without demand. When she took me in her hand, she was firm but dexterous, exciting me to ready hardness with a few generous strokes. I tried to be the same kind of conscientious partner, steady but sensitive with my fingers and tongue.

Before long, we were in full throes again, thrusting and pumping and trying to bring each other to climax. Sitting on top of me, M’Rayeh let out a whine that scratched at my nerves:

“Golden-Eagle…!”

I loosened my grip on the reins of the sheet around her hips. “Can you not do that?” I wheezed into the air. “Please?”

She looked down at me, her hair waving as she continued to buck. “Do what?”

“Call me Golden Eagle. At least, not when we’re doing this?”

“What?” She stopped mid-rock and wiped some sweaty strands from her face. “Why not?”

I had to stop, too. I liked talking about personal things with her, and I liked having sex with her. But doing those two things at the same time wasn’t high in my repertoire of skills. “It’s just weird.”

She huffed. “But that’s your name!”

“Yeah, I know it’s my name. But it’s not, like, my name-name.”

She slid off from me and to one side, as if sensing our activity wasn’t conducive to this conversation. “Why do we call you Golden-Eagle if that’s not your name?”

“It’s complicated. Can we talk about it later?”

“I’d prefer to talk about it now.”

I half-sat up, sighing a little; she didn’t sound like she was going to let this go. “Golden Eagle is like a codename.”

“To differentiate you from other fliers?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. See, when I first got my wings and decided I wanted to be a hero, I needed a new name. I chose Golden Eagle. But that’s not my real name. It’s not the one my mother gave me.”

M’Rayeh scrunched her nose. “Why would you need to change your name at all?”

“To keep my private life private. Secret. In case I got into trouble.” At her unbroken frown, I waved my palm. “It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid,” she said. “It’s just…confusing.”

I gave a short laugh. “You have no idea! Where I come from, we keep our real names secret, to keep the people we care about safe.” I reached out and stroked some hair behind her ear. “I care about you.”

She pursed her lips in a chiding smile. “I’m safe, here.”

“It’s more than that.” I let my fingers drift to her shoulder, down her arm, to her hand, following the path with my gaze. “Sharing our real name with someone is a sign of trust. Intimacy. Everybody around here knows me as Golden Eagle.” I forced myself to look her in the face for this bit. “I want you to know me by my real name.”

Her eyes shone. “And what is that?”

“Charley Parker.” It sounded pedestrian and dull when I spoke the words aloud, but she smiled.

“Charley-Parker,” she repeated, infusing the syllables with a kind of wonder.

I went nearly giddy hearing her say it. “Or, just Charley is fine, too.”

“But that’s only part of your name.” She snickered. “I wouldn’t want you to call me Murrh.”

“Uh, I guess not.”

M’Rayeh leaned forward, moving her face very close. “Charley-Parker,” she said again, still singsong. “Is that where it comes from?”

“Where what comes from?”

“Charley-bird,” she said.

My belly cringed as all at once I remembered the day we’d met.

“I didn’t know what it meant,” M’Rayeh said. “Only that it was so clear in your mind. But then Hierophant introduced you as Golden-Eagle, and the words didn’t make sense. But I think I understand, now.”

“It was just a silly nickname. From someone I used to know.”

“Yet, it still has meaning for you.”

I shied away from her, letting the truth spill out. “There was a woman, back home. Her name was Bette— Flamebird,” I corrected, for sake of Bette’s identity. “She used to call me that: Charley-bird.” My throat ached. “She was the only one who did.”

“You loved her,” M’Rayeh said, and I had to take a moment for a swallow.

“I did,” I said at last. “I think she might have loved me, too. Though, we never said the words out loud.”

“Was she a telepath, as well?” M’Rayeh asked.

I blew a sharp, fast snort. “No.”

“Then why not say it?”

I raised my shoulders in a shrug. “I guess, we were afraid.” After a pause, I admitted, “I was afraid.”

“Of love?” She sounded incredulous.

“Of her not feeling the same,” I told her, and she frowned again. “Or, maybe, I was afraid she did! I don’t know. That word comes with a lot of expectations where I’m from. I can’t clearly remember a time when anyone said those words aloud to me, not even my mother.”

M'Rayeh hummed and rested her hand on my arm. “Your people seem to show through action more than they share through speech.”

I chuckled, not bitterly. “I guess. Still, it would have been nice to hear. Maybe my life would have turned out different.”

She moved her palm from my arm to my face. “I love you, Charley-Parker,” she said with emphasis.

My breath stuttered. I wasn’t used to such honesty.

“For your life,” she said, “and the life you’ve shown me. I could have been a slave here, as well, but you offered me more. Freedom. Flight!” She stroked my cheek. “And an affection I’d never dared to dream to feel before. I owe you much. Everything, in fact.”

I shook my head, once more in safe emotional territory. “You don’t owe me anything. Certainly not…this,” I said, glancing briefly at the space between our naked bodies.

She dropped her hand and followed my gaze, keeping her head down as though inspecting. “This means more to you than just sharing your body. Doesn’t it?”

I slid my fingers over hers. “It does.”

“Are you afraid,” she said as she raised her gaze, “that you dishonor the Bette-Flamebird by sharing yourself with me, now? Because you shouldn’t be.” Her hand touched my face again. “I love you here, and I love you now. But here and now is only that. Not our pasts, and not our futures.”

“You’re saying this won’t last,” I muttered, but she swung her head.

“I’m saying we don’t know what comes next.” She moved her hand behind my ear. “Which is why it’s so important to me that you know I love you now.”

I sucked a full breath into my lungs, bringing our chests nearly together. I matched it with a shift of my hips that caused a renewed touch of our sexes. “It’s important to me, too,” I said, my face very close to hers.

She arched toward me, lips grazing mine. “You don’t need to speak the words,” she reminded me in a whisper.

But I put my arms around her and drew her against me, pulling her into my lap where we fit together again. “Yes, I do. I love you, M’Rayeh. Here. Now.” And maybe I would forever, though I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I kissed her and gave her a push of my hips, and we drifted down to the bed again, like two feathers falling through a forever sky.

Chapter Text

My eyelids clicked with sticking sleep as I waded back into the waking world. I focused first on the narrow space of bed beside me. M’Rayeh wasn’t there, but her honey scent lingered on the sheets. On my skin, too, though when I licked my lips, I grimaced at the taste of my own mouth. I rubbed my eyes and looked over at the timekeeper on the wall, then blew a weary breath. If it had really been seventeen hours since I’d fallen asleep, no wonder M’Rayeh had left.

With a stretch, a scratch, and a crack of my neck, I headed for the en suite. My feet shuffled as I made another visual sweep of my quarters; some forgotten task nagged at the back of my brain. Not my armor, which gleamed from its storage cabinet, nor my clothes, which lay in a tidy pile at the threshold of the washroom. I gathered them up and tossed them into the recycler, setting aside for the time being whatever it was my memory couldn’t recall needing to do.

I brushed my teeth while the shower’s heat tank did its work and braved an examination of my face in the mirror. There were strokes of purple and yellow around the hollows of my eyes, and the left sclera was shot with blood, but of my already prominent nose, there was no noticeable swelling. Veranyi’s curative accelerants certainly worked wonders.

The heat tank light flashed a ready green. Before I could step into the shower, the comm grate above the door clicked and Neex declared in a no-nonsense tone:

“I hate you.”

I groaned. That’s what I’d forgotten. “Neex. I’m sorry—”

“No, you’re not. Don’t apologize when you don’t mean it. It’s insulting, frankly. More than that, it’s dishonest.”

My hackles rose at the engineer’s snippiness. “I genuinely forgot to ask M’Rayeh about you. That’s the truth.”

“You forgot,” Neex needled, “because you were too busy thinking of yourself.”

“I got caught up in the moment; I admit that. But you have no idea what it’s like, to go…years without any real intimate, physical connection with another person—”

 “Maybe I don’t,” they broke in again. “But I also can’t help that!”

I threw out my hands. “I couldn’t help it, either!”

“You could have said no!” Neex’s voice seemed to crack. For a heartbeat, I was in another ship, listening to the echoes of a similar heartbroken despair.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Because there can be only one Hawkman.”

“I didn’t need to be Hawkman! I was already Golden Eagle.”

“A joke. A waste.” Fel’s voice cut through the recycled air with the precision of a bullet. “You squandered the gift of those wings. For what? To play at heroism? To impress a woman?”

I glared at him. “If who I am is so important, why didn’t you find me before now? Why wait so long?”

He lifted his chin with its visible cleft, the one I’d inherited, and looked down his sharp, aquiline nose. I’d inherited that, too. “Because you were weak.”

“I’m a Titan!”

He grabbed me by the jaw and slammed me against the wall, holding my head in place. “You’re a child,” he hissed as he leaned close, his dark eyes blazing. “Sad and lonely and desperate for attention. Your mother was the same.”

I faltered. “Muh- Mom…?”

“She could have been a queen.” For a moment, he seemed almost regretful. Then the all-powerful anger usurped him again, returning his eyes to a mad gleam. “But she betrayed me. The same as your friends did to you.”

“That’s not true.”

“They left you for dead.”

I didn’t want to believe him, but…there’d been no rescue, no communication, not even a telepathic tickle from Lilith. While I managed to blink back my tears, they still came out in my trembling voice. “They’ll look for me. They’ll wonder what happened to my body, where I am—”

“They’ve moved on to a new crisis.” Fel squinted his disdain. “They always do.”

“They’re my friends.”

“They’re simple-minded, tender-hearted fools! Just like Katar.”

His fingers clenched like talons in my jaw, making it hard to speak. “Why do you hate Carter so much?”

“Your starry eyes see him as a hero, but he’s a thief! He stole everything from me. My wings. My life!” His posture changed with an inhalation, and he said with an eerie softness, “That changes now.”

He let go of my face and put both hands on my shoulders. My muscles wound themselves tight, ready to sprint or fight. But he only bowed his head and said:

“You’re not Charley Parker of Earth. You’re not the late Titan, Golden Eagle.” He raised his chin for a stance of noble pride. “You are Ch’al Andar, of Thanagar, son of Fel. My son. There is a great debt that is owed to both of us. And we will collect it. Together.”

He pulled me toward him. A fast, panicked gasp caught in my throat. But then he put his arms around me and hugged me. His chest was strong and firm, and his grip could have broken me. But it didn’t. I closed my eyes and leaned against him. While he’d never been a part of my life until now, he was still my father.

I’d always wanted a father.

My body felt heavy, and I slumped against the sink. “You’re right,” I said to Neex. “I could have said no to M’Rayeh. I didn’t. What can I do to make that right?”

“You can’t.”

“Well, then, what can I do to make you feel better?”

The comm box clicked, went dead, clicked again. “You can clean out the filtration sieves,” Neex decided. “Forever.”

I stared at the box. Cleaning the filtration sieves was grimy, boring, monotonous work. The Thanagarian Navy reserved it for the indentured classes. On Skitnik, with its limited crew, we left the job to Valda’s skitterers.

I slumped with a breath of resignation. “Fine.”

Surprise lifted Neex’s voice. “You mean it?”

“You’ll need to tell me where to go and how to do it, but…yeah. I did you wrong,” I told them. “I need to make up for it.”

“Good,” Neex muttered, though they didn’t sound wholly convinced. Their next words had a more lenient tone. “Though, it’s hardly life-and-death…!”

I thought about all the bad choices I’d made across my life. Most of those hadn’t been life-or-death decisions, either. Combined, though, they’d led me here, to this person I was now: A once-upon-a-time wannabe hero turned criminal turned wingman, humiliated by a Forerunner warrior who’d reduced me to a sexual plaything, and until only very recently seen by everyone else on this ship as a jacked-up freeloader with an oversized battle axe. But being better started with doing better, as Veranyi had said, and I needed to follow that advice.

I gestured to the shower. “Do you mind if I have a wash first, get something to eat?”

“Go ahead.”

I washed and dressed in uninterrupted quiet. If Neex’s declared hatred was genuine, they didn’t show it by suddenly shutting off the hot water or locking me in my cell. That gave me a smidge of hope.

Since my Nth metal bracers had become a standard part of my dress, I flew up the corridor and the access shaft to the main deck, where I finally touched down for the brief walk to the galley. M’Rayeh was there, perched on one of the swiveling chairs with her knees on the seat and her behind cresting the back as she leaned over the table. I smiled for it as I announced myself.

She spun at my voice and floated up from the seat to greet me. “Did you sleep well?” she asked.

“Yeah, thanks. Sorry it was so long. You could have woken me up, you know.”

She waved me off. “Hierophant said sleep would be best.”

My stomach fell. “You spoke with Hierophant?”

“She asked after you earlier. I think she’d like to speak with you.”

While I had no idea if the females of their species talked about their sexual experiences, the human women I’d known had never been shy about comparing notes.

M’Rayeh went on, interrupting my thoughts: “I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you. But I got hungry.”

Any concerns about Veranyi’s opinion could wait. “I’m glad you didn’t wait then.”

“I’ve been painting,” she said with a cagey smile.

I beamed for her. “Really? That’s great!”

She gave a quick shrug. “I can’t spend all of my time training.” That might have been a dig at me, but it wasn’t a sharp one. She picked up the datapad she’d been working on, its screen pressed to her chest, and asked, “Would you like to see?”

“I would!”

She grinned and turned the datapad about. On the screen was a portrait of Veranyi done in a bold style reminiscent of Earth’s Expressionists. Almost to spite its colorful daubs and accenting strokes, the picture evoked a sense of calm, much like Veranyi herself.

I held my stare on it. “You’re a good artist.”

“Hierophant is the clearest in my mind. After you,” she added. “But you’re harder to capture.”

“It’s the nose, right?” I joked, looking her way with a snicker. “I had a friend who used to say Golden Eagle was a great name for me because of my big beak.”

“You have a fine nose,” she said, slightly scolding. “I like it. Especially the way it turns pink when you’re embarrassed.” She sent me a sly smile. “Like something else of yours I enjoy.”

I felt that flush she was talking about rise into my face.

M’Rayeh nudged me with her arm. “Just like that,” she said, and leaned toward me.

I leaned out from her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a hushed voice as she straightened up.

I lowered my voice, too, to little more than a whisper. “Neex….” I hesitated, but there was no easy way to say it. “…likes you.”

M’Rayeh was nonplussed. “I like them, as well.”

“No. I mean, they have feelings for you. Affectionate feelings.”

Her brows crept together as she seemed to grasp my meaning. She turned her head toward the comm box nearest the processor and called, “Neex? Is that true?”

The box clicked. “What?” Neex said in dramatic ignorance. “Were you talking to me?”

I groaned. “Come off it, dude! We know you’ve been eavesdropping this whole time.”

Neex stayed lofty. “You don’t know any such thing.”

“If past events are any indication…!”

M’Rayeh set her hand on my arm and gave a subtle shake of her head. She called for Neex again in a gentler tone. “Would you like to talk about this? I think we should talk about it.”

The box gave another click, followed by a tinny hum. “Only if it’s private.”

M’Rayeh looked at me, doe-eyed and pleading.

I rolled my gaze to the ceiling. “Fine. I’ll go,” I said with a wave of my hand. As soon as I stepped over the threshold, the doors swished closed behind me. My stomach growled, adding injury to insult, and I sneered. “Great.”

“Is there a problem?”

Veranyi stood outside Medical. The rounded side of one lower tentacle skimmed the hem of her gown; she’d only just glided out to the corridor.

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “Neex wanted some privacy with M’Rayeh.” At Veranyi’s puzzled expression, I added, “They’re smitten.”

“Ah.” Her contemplative utterance betrayed a level of concern, likely for our engineer. “They are young. Mature emotions remain complex for them.”

“For most of us.”

“Some more than others.” She furrowed her brow and tilted her head when my stomach gave another loud, rumbling protest. “Did you eat?”

“Not yet.”

She gestured to me with one hand. “You may use the processor in the medical suite.” She slid around into Medical again without waiting, adding, “There is something I wanted to discuss with you, as well.”

“I bet,” I said as I followed. In my growling gut, I had the suspicion she was going to give me an earful about having been with M’Rayeh. How M’Rayeh was vulnerable and impressionable, and how I was supposed to have been a good role model but not overstep the bounds of my responsibilities. Except I hadn’t overstepped anything! And M’Rayeh wasn’t some lost waif who needed extra care. She was the newest of us, that was true, but she was as smart, capable, and self-assured as any of us, too. She’d proven herself to be all the things she’d said to me last night: fighter, flyer, and lover. An admirable – and in some cases fantastic – representative of all of those, if I were honest.

Veranyi passed me one of the processor’s basic protein bars. “There is something I must tell you.”

I held up my hand to stop her. “Before you rake me over the coals,” I said, waving away any possible rebuke, “there was no coercion, no manipulation. M’Rayeh and I had sex because we both wanted to. It was a mutual engagement.” I soured into a glare. “And just because you don’t consider yourself a sexual being doesn’t mean we all want to be celibate!”

She stiffened, two of her head tentacles twitching errantly. “You were intimate with M’Rayeh?”

An uneasy cold crept into my belly. “She said she talked to you.”

“We spoke, yes. She told me you were resting. There was no mention of any sexual interaction.”

I didn’t have enough spit to swallow, turning my voice into a croak. “Oh.” A pointless bravado made me push out my chest. “Well, there was. I mean, we did…it.” I lifted my nose. “I’m not ashamed.”

“I was not insinuating that you should be.” She clasped her long fingers in front of her. “I am glad that you have found a like-minded companion in M’Rayeh.”

Aside from her initial surprise, there was no scolding or disappointment in her voice. I frowned sidelong at her. “You’re not reacting the way I thought you would.”

“Did you expect me to be jealous?”

“No,” I mumbled, though that wasn’t exactly true. While I didn’t want her to be jealous of M’Rayeh, I did want her to have an opinion about me.

She gave it with a knowing smile. “You are not a subtle individual,” she said as she glided over to one of the medical consoles. “When you first arrived, you were very…” She paused to regard me from over one chartreuse shoulder. “Thanagarian.”

I took a bite of protein bar and mumbled around a mouthful, “That sounds like criticism.”

“Brash,” she went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “confrontational, and overbearing. To say nothing of the violence you seemed only too happy to participate in.”

Veranyi probably noticed as I girded my posture. In case she didn’t, though, I said with suitable iciness, “I’ll remind you that there were extenuating circumstances surrounding my ‘arrival.’”

She bent her head in a grave little nod. “With hindsight, I can understand why Viza’Aziv was drawn to you. You were very much alike.”

“Now, you’re just being insulting,” I said, finishing off the bar with a glower.

Veranyi turned to me fully. The black of her eyes was deep as space and pulled at me the same as cosmic vacuum. “She was alone. Forsaken. Impossibly angry. It made her hostile and spiteful, like a neglected child lashing out in pain. Does that not sound familiar?”

I tongued a molar. “I’m trying to be better,” I mumbled, remembering all the mistakes I’d made that had twisted the dreams I’d had as a kid to be a hero, and how I’d only just started to feel a little bit of that hopeful innocence once more.

Veranyi’s breath was quiet, her voice quieter still. “The effort,” she said with a lilt of encouragement, “has not gone unnoticed.”

Pride bubbled up inside me and tugged at my lips, making me bold. “You’re a big reason for that, you know. You were the first person in a long time to make me feel…safe.”

“I have always felt safe with you also.” She smiled a bit off-center. “At first, I thought that strange: that I would feel safe with a warrior. But warriors protect as well as wage conflict.”

“Especially the people we care about.” I inclined my head. “I care about you.”

“And I, you,” she said.

Too many thoughts collided in my head. In the absence of a clear path, I let the topmost words tumble out. “When Gana gets to her planet, she’s going to debark for good. Toragg, too; maybe Valda. But I’m pretty sure M’Rayeh’s going to stay on. So am I. Why don’t you join us? Together, we’d make a great crew! A better crew than this ship has ever seen. Not pirates or scavengers, but a good, smart, capable team. What do you say?”

She’d held her smile for the first part of my excited ramble, but it withered under the second half, replaced by a reticent stare. Her head tentacles came forward, framing her face like a protective helm, and she drew back. “No.”

My former sureness plunged to the depths of my stomach. “Why not?”

“When the ship arrives at Gana’s moon, I must debark, as well.”

“You don’t need to,” I pressed, but she raised her palm to me.

“I do.”

I stayed back from her but didn’t let up. “Why? What’s so great about this moon?”

“It has water,” she said, her tone venturing into desperation. “My children need water to survive.”

My spine jerked itself straight. “Children? What are you saying? That you’re—?”

“Pregnant.” She nodded. “Yes.”

I swung my gaze over her, once and again. “How? There are only two males on this ship. I know I’m not the father, and I can’t believe it could be Toragg!”

She smiled briefly before returning to seriousness. “Your understanding of reproduction assumes pregnancy immediately follows fertilization. But my people have evolved to accommodate extended stretches of space travel away from our native water, prolonging gestation. In fact, birth can be delayed for many years. For example, my eggs were fertilized before I left my home world.”

“Back up a minute.” I waved my hand at her. “Are you saying you’ve been pregnant the whole time you’ve been on the ship? Like, before I even got here?”

Veranyi nodded. “In the simplest terms, yes.”

“And in not-so-simple terms?”

“When Oegosid females reach physical maturity, we wade in one of the many tidal pools across our home planet. It is in these same pools where males of my species, upon their own maturity, release their spermatozoa. If the spermatozoa survive, and if the contributing male and female are compatible, her eggs may become fertilized. While the process is not always successful, it has been for me.”

I managed to follow most of that, but: “Why didn’t you say anything before now?”

“I have only recently tested positive for the confirming hormones.”

A clue clicked in the lizard half of my brain. “That’s why you passed out the other day,” I said.

“Yes. The changes in my body…I was not prepared for them.”

“Are you all right, now?”

“I am. But my children’s birth is fast approaching.”

I looked her up and down again. If there was a way I could help, I wanted to. She was important enough to me for that. “Is there anything I can do?”

Her stare remained unfathomable. Then her chest ballooned with a deep breath, in preparation of a request. It wasn’t one I expected. “Will you leave me?”

My confidence did a nosedive. “You want me to go? I might not know anything about babies, but—”

“I am not offended. I merely require some time to think.”

She was nothing if not honest, so I moved past, sparing her one backward glance at the threshold. “You know where I am, if you change your mind.”

“I appreciate your understanding.”

I didn’t really, but for her sake, I walked into the corridor. For the second time that day, a pair of doors closed after me, shutting me out. But another door opened.

“What’s going on?” M’Rayeh asked in the low hum of the empty corridor. She floated down to her feet at my side, tilting her head for a conscientious peer into my face.

I frowned at the medical bay’s doors, reluctant to share Veranyi’s news. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?” M’Rayeh pressed. “You seem distressed.”

I waved my hand in front of my face, swatting away any troubling thoughts of Veranyi’s condition. “Forget about it.” I lifted my supposedly fine nose toward the mess hall. “How’d your heart-to-heart with Neex go?”

“Better than I expected.” M’Rayeh bowed close to keep her voice hushed. “Mostly, they don’t like seeing me be physical with you.”

I pulled my mouth into a line and hummed. “What was your answer to that?”

She shrugged. “I told them they shouldn’t watch.”

I broke into a quick laugh even as M’Rayeh smiled and put her hands around my arm.

“What shall we do today?” she asked.

I gave a little groan of resignation. “First, I need to clean out the filtration sieves. But after that, I was thinking, maybe, you could teach me how to shield my thoughts a little better?”

She frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m shouting at you all the time.”

“I can guard against even your louder thoughts,” she told me with a doting smile.

I put my hand over hers. “I don’t want you to have to. And if you can read me that easily, it means other people can, too.” I thought briefly of Veranyi. “I don’t mind so much if it’s somebody I trust, but if it’s not…!”

M’Rayeh sobered as she took my meaning. “I understand.” Her bright smile returned. “I’ll help as much as I can.”

“Thanks.” I slid free of her hold. “Now, I should probably go clean those sieves. I don’t suppose you want to join me?”

She shook her head and crinkled her nose. “No.”

I chuckled in agreement. “Later then?”

“Come find me,” she said, then pulled me in for a kiss that might have been quick if she didn’t put her arms around me, and if I didn’t put my arms around her in return.

The comm box next to the medical suite doors gave a click.

“Oh, please,” Neex complained.

I let go one hand to flick my middle finger at the box even as I held M’Rayeh’s kiss. Because some things wouldn’t last forever. Some things, in fact, would change far too soon.

Chapter Text

Standing on the observation deck, I studied the stars against the main viewer. They spread out in all directions, much like I’d been told my awareness did. Opening my senses to their farthest edges helped me to fly, but it was apparently terrible for shielding my thoughts against announcement or invasion. M’Rayeh had suggested trying to concentrate on just one of those stars, to get my brain into the practice of narrowing its focus. That was harder to do than it sounded, though, especially with M’Rayeh bouncing a ball in an erratic rhythm and Valda tinkering with the sparring simulator control panels in the background.

My fingers itched at my sides, and I willed them still. I thought of waves rolling in toward shore at low tide, a pleasant memory of calm, and asked, “Can you read me, now?”

“Yes,” M’Rayeh replied between thumps of her ball against the floor. “Is that an ocean?”

I breathed hard through my nose. “Yeah.”

Thump, went the ball. “Where is it?”

“Fiji,” I grumbled.

“It’s pretty.” Thump-thump.

I squeezed my eyes shut a second, shook my head, and tried again. I pictured a stretch of fluffy clouds settled around the peak of Mount Rainier. “How about now?”

“Mountaintop,” M’Rayeh declared. Thumpity-thumpity-thump.

I growled under my breath. Another thought popped into my head. It came with the force of a punch and the memory to match, of me spitting blood on the floor of my father’s ship while he stood above me, cursing.

“You’re pathetic. You need to focus!”

M’Rayeh’s voice cut through his. “Thinking about your father isn’t going to help.”

I growled an inarticulate expletive and clawed my fingers into my scalp. “Why am I so bad at this?”

“We only started yesterday,” M’Rayeh said in placating tones. At least she’d stopped bouncing that stupid ball. “These things take time.”

I whirled on her. “You learned to fly in a few hours!”

She put her hands on her hips. “I’d wished to fly my whole life. How long have you wanted to guard your thoughts?”

Her point hit its mark, leaving me to relent. “It figures. Even back home, I was always the dumb one.”

M’Rayeh came to my side and laid her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think you’re dumb,” she said, and for that, I managed a weak smile.

“Not ignorant,” Valda agreed from her place on the floor where she sat fiddling with the calibration meters on a practice baton. She swung her third eye at me for a clarification. “Impatient.”

I glowered at her. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

All three of Valda’s eyes narrowed to a squint. “Scatterbrain.”

My defensive barriers snapped up. “I can’t just focus on a dime—”

Valda flicked her wrist. The baton in her hand shot to staff length, its tip coming straight for my face. Instinctively, I jerked my head backward even as my hands clapped around the projected end of the baton.

“Focused now,” Valda said.

I let out my breath and looked down my nose at her. “That’s not the kind of focus we’re talking about.”

Valda retracted the baton and shrugged, when M’Rayeh mused:

“What if it is?”

I caught the glint in her gaze that I’d come to recognize as her having an idea. “Come again?”

“I know the way I learned,” she said, laying her hand to her chest. “But maybe that way’s not best for you.”

“I just want to be able to keep my brain from being invaded,” I told her sharply. “I don’t want to live my life in a constant state of paranoia!”

“I understand that. But your overall fighting technique is one of aggression, hitting first and hitting hardest.”

I sniffed. “What’s wrong with that?”

She pulled her brows together. “Even you have to admit, you don’t have very good defensive skills.” The lines in her forehead went smooth for an advocating smile. “All I’m saying is, Valda might be right.”

I looked between them, then turned my cynicism onto the tinkerer. “And just what qualifies you to give me advice about this?”

Valda opened a three-fingered hand and gestured to one of her skitterers standing at her side. “Separate,” she said, then moved her hand to a second skitterer clicking errantly among a scatter of precision tools. “But linked.” She returned her hand to her chest. “All with one.”

“The skitterers are like a hive mind,” M’Rayeh explained. “They can understand and follow rudimentary commands, but Valda is their primary intelligence.”

I squinted at her. “How do you know that?”

“She told me.” M’Rayeh beamed brightly. “We have tea.”

Valda smiled, too, stretching the pallid flesh around her mouth in an unnerving display. “Good friend.” As she swiveled her eyes to me again, she lost her smile. It was better that way, honestly. “Axe swings wide,” she said in her stilted, philosophizing manner. “Shield stops point.” She tossed me the baton before returning to studying the controller board underneath a floor panel. As she bent her head to the task, she said, “Hand and mind not so different.”

M'Rayeh leaned in. “I think she means—”

“I know what she means.” I turned the baton over in my hand. While I was familiar with offensive weapon calibration, I’d never programmed the simulator for a shield. Sure enough, the settings were there. I tapped in a sequence. The baton responded by projecting a small round shield. I stared at it a moment.

All my life, I’d been taught how to swing and strike but not how to watch my own back. It had made me a careless fighter, prone to getting clocked and one time almost killed. Even my battle axe, a Thanagarian weapon of intimidation signifying my old command, was built for giant lunges and arcing blows, maneuvers of maximum offense. I’d told Veranyi that warriors protect just as much as we fight, but I’d never truly learned how to do that for my own safety.

I lifted my chin at the skitterer hanging by Valda’s side. “I know those things can take a man apart, but how are they with precision sparring?”

Valda regarded the ticking skitterer. “Not this one,” she said, then looked back to me. “But can arrange another.”

I offered her a dramatic bow. “Then I await my opponent.”

Beside me, M’Rayeh gave an audible harrumph.

“Something bothering you?” I asked, turning to face her.

She was pouting. “I can spar with you.”

“But you’d need to fight me and look in my head at the same time.”

“That’s not difficult.”

“Well, I want to test my limits. And I don’t want you going easy on me just because we’re…you know.”

Her pout deepened. Then her hand snapped out, straight into the center of my chest. It was a solar plexus punch delivered with speed and precision, and I staggered under a winding.

The comm box closest to the lift clicked. “Golden Eagle?”

“Yeah?” I croaked.

“Captain wants you on the bridge,” Neex said.

I eased myself upright, still rubbing my chest. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

M’Rayeh furrowed her forehead, abruptly concerned. “What do you think the captain wants?”

“I’m sure I have no idea,” I said, because I didn’t.

“Would you like me to come with you?”

I waved her off. “Gana probably just wants to rub my nose in something. I’ll catch up with you later, though?”

M’Rayeh gave me one of her playfully uppity looks. “If you think you can.”

I smiled, she giggled, and I headed for the access conduit between decks. I floated down to the command level of the ship, touching my feet to the floor only until I was almost at the bridge. When I walked in, Gana was standing over Toragg at his nav console. Veranyi was with them, and she turned to meet my gaze.

I stopped on a half-step. I hadn’t seen Veranyi since she’d told me about being pregnant. She didn’t look any different, and I didn’t want to draw attention to her, so I opted for levity. “You should have told me it was a party. I’d have worn my wings.”

“This is no time for jesting,” Veranyi muttered before turning back to the others.

I walked up to them. “Oh, it’s always time for jesting.” I came to Gana’s side and peered over Toragg’s shoulder, as well. The data didn’t mean anything to me. “What’s everybody so interested in?”

“We’ve got a trailer,” Gana said, speaking against the hand rubbing her chin.

“Light cruiser,” Toragg put in. “It’s been with us for the last two cycles.”

I tried to stay calm. “The deeper we get into occupied space, the greater the chance we’re going to run into somebody else. Maybe they’ve just got the same flight plan.”

Toragg flashed me a glare. “That’s highly unlikely.”

“We’re still cloaked, right?”

The comm at the console opposite gave a connection click. “One hundred percent,” Neex said. “I’ve been monitoring.”

“Thanagarian cloak tech is solid,” I told them. “The fleet has trouble finding their own ships when they go dark.”

Gana turned on me. “Then why is this one parked up our exhaust?” She gestured to the console. “They’ve matched our path to the megameter. They know we’re here.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how, but I know I don’t like it.” Gana shot a loaded look at Veranyi. “We’re too close to our new moon to take any unnecessary chances. We need to deal with them before they deal with us.”

Veranyi kept her stoicism. “They will know for a fact we are here if we tag them.”

Neex spoke again. “Our missiles are too slow anyway. A light cruiser with that kind of power and armament? We can’t compete.”

I blew a long exhale through my nose. “So, we flare,” I said, looking at Gana. “Burn as hard as we can for your moon and try to set up defensive positions there.”

Gana was shaking her head before I’d gotten even half of that out. “We’d need to drop cloak for a burn. And a light cruiser is a lot faster than a converted ice hauler.”

“We could attempt communication,” Veranyi offered.

Gana continued her negative swing. “We may as well paint ourselves with a target.”

I waved my arm. “What other choices do we have?”

“Offensive maneuver,” Gana said.

My other arm swung out. “With what?”

“One of us could get onboard and cause some havoc, give the rest of us time to get away.”

There was no mistaking the grim, accusing light in her eyes.

“By ‘one of us,’” I said, “you mean me.”

“You’re the only one capable of coordinated flight through vacuum.” Gana gave me a quick once-over. “And we all know you’ve got the skills to do damage.”

I blew a scoff. “I’m flattered you think I can take out an entire ship’s crew by myself, but that is simply not in the realm of possibility!”

“You dispatched those pirates all right.”

“Because I had Neex helping me out, to say nothing of the two dozen skitterers Valda sent as backup. Unless you have a plan for replicating those circumstances on that other ship, the outcome is going to be very different.”

Toragg turned in his seat. “You could take the other freeloader with you. It’s not as if she’s not expendable, too.”

Anger flared in my guts. “You’ve made it this far, Toragg,” I snarled into his face. “You don’t really want me to kill you now, do you?”

Veranyi’s hand came down on my arm. “No one is expendable.”

“I agree,” Neex said. “And I really don’t want to send our most experienced fighter away when we might need to mount a defense over here.”

Gana huffed. “I’m still the captain of this ship. I say we fight.”

“I concur,” Toragg said.

“Sure,” I snapped back at him. “It’s not your ass she’s sending on a suicide mission!”

Veranyi raised her palm for pause. “Suicide is not the answer. The decision to run or fight affects all of us. That includes Valda and M’Rayeh. They should have a say.”

Toragg sputtered. “The girl’s going to side with him!” he said, waving at me.

“She must be allowed that choice.” Veranyi turned her attention to Gana. “Your wish was to build a society free from the shackles of oppression. A place where all species who want a new start could live as equals. Would you begin that journey with an act of autocracy?”

The bridge fell silent as Gana’s nostrils twitched, one and then the other. After a tense stretch of seconds, she stepped to the side and jabbed her hand flat against the comm box control.

“All hands to the bridge,” she barked. “Yes, I mean everyone.” She looked at Veranyi. “I hope I won’t regret this.”

Toragg hunched over his console. “If we’re lucky, they might only vaporize us.”

“It could be worse,” Neex said. “We could still be stuck with that idiot Captain Lazaar.”

Gana blew a short sniff of amusement. “Or Viza. She’d have had us charging in there already.” She offered Veranyi a half-smile. “At least this way, we all go down together, eh?”

Veranyi bowed her head. “Death is better met among friends than alone.”

The sound of slow shuffling and a tick-tack gait pulled our attention to the bridge doors. Valda walked in, flanked by the skitterers she’d been working with on the obs deck, while M’Rayeh floated gently at her shoulder. She looked at Veranyi, then at me, and frowned.

“Something’s not right,” M’Rayeh guessed.

“No,” Gana said. “Something is, in fact, very wrong.” She proceeded to bring them up to speed on the situation.

Valda slumped deeper under the news. “So close,” she said, as if in mourning.

M’Rayeh had other concerns. “Do we know who it is?”

Gana shook her head in the negative. “They haven’t hailed us. We don’t know for certain that they can see us, but they’ve been pacing us for a while. We even switched course briefly – twice. But it’s like they can sense where we are no matter where we go.”

M’Rayeh’s complexion paled. “Show me?” Her voice was hushed and croaking. “Show me the ship?”

Neex complied with a telegraphic image projected onto the main bridge viewer. It was a sleek light armored cruiser with twin mounted cannons above and below the bow and three engine exhausts in the stern. A vessel built both to chase and make way. In the Thanagarian fleet, she’d have served the purpose of destroyer or possibly an escort ship. M’Rayeh recognized her as something else.

“No.” Her skin went ashen. She staggered backward, and her head started a jittery swing that caused her hair to shake. “No, no, no!” she said, the words wheezing as if she were being choked.

Valda watched her as she passed. “Friend?”

“M’Rayeh?” Veranyi said in some low alarm.

I reached for her. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s him.” M’Rayeh’s shaking became a wild trembling. She grabbed her head and grimaced in despair. “He’s come for me!”

“Who?” Gana asked, even as I felt my stomach plummet.

“Cordyl!” M’Rayeh cried, hugging herself against the fear as she fell to her knees on the floor.

Chapter Text

His calloused hands traveled down my arms as the cold, hard metal of his belt pressed against the small of my back. I held my breath and wished again for the wings that, even closed, would put some space between us.

“So beautiful.” His words were hot over my ear. He slid one hand along my thigh. “But so afraid. Why are you afraid?”

I pulled my lip between my teeth and kept silent while I stared out the viewport. The other ships floated there in peaceful silence, secure in their ignorance.

As his fingers probed between my legs, he whispered again: “You have nothing to fear.” He kissed the skin along my neck, his lips like dry ice, burning with their touch. I shut my eyes tight and shoved down my humiliation and dread, leaving only numbness in their place.

He paused his kisses to mutter another motivation. “I’ll protect you,” he said, more threat than promise. His belt made that familiar click-and-flick sound, and his voice dropped to a possessive growl. “So long as you’re mine.”

My knees buckled under the weight of a terror that wasn’t my own, and my brain throbbed with panic. I wanted to be sick. These weren’t my memories; I wasn’t the one suffering Cordyl’s desires. But M’Rayeh was sharing them in nauseating waves that caused the bridge around me to waver. Veranyi, standing between Gana and Toragg, looked like she was doing her best to shield them, and Valda was blanketed by a swarm of her skitterers. That left me to stumble for M’Rayeh, who clutched herself on the floor as she babbled about the man she’d run from.

“He’s come to take me back but I won’t go back I’ll never go back I’ll die before he takes me!”

“M’Rayeh.” I grabbed her arms, using them to hold myself steady. “You’re all right.” Her gaze was wavy and all over the place, so I cupped her cheek and pulled her face close to mine. “You’re safe here,” I told her in the most levelheaded tone I could generate. “Remember? Safe.”

A shine of clarity broke through the alarm in her eyes; she seemed to see me, now, instead of her nightmare. She cycled three breaths, each one slower and sturdier than the last. When she spoke again, her voice was…not calm, but at least more focused. “Golden-Eagle,” she said.

I nodded as those waves of terror subsided and my stomach no longer threatened to revolt. “That’s right.”

Tears formed along her lashes. “I don’t want to go back,” she whispered. “Please, don’t make me go back!”

“Nobody’s making you go anywhere,” I said. “We don’t even know for sure that that’s him out there.”

“It’s him,” M’Rayeh said. “No one else would try so hard to find me.”

As if to answer, the main comms gave a ping. The rest of the bridge fell still. After a moment, Toragg muttered:

“They’re hailing us.”

Gana grasped the edge of a console. “Let’s hear it.”

The comms crackled, and a male voice declared in a clipped, authoritative tone, “Attention, cloaked vessel. This is the Enclave ship Muuneh, under command of Captain Cordyl.”

M’Rayeh moaned and shrank against me. The opposing officer’s voice went on:

“You are in possession of one of our own. You cannot run. You cannot hide. Surrender her to us or face the consequences. We await your compliance.”

As the external comm link snapped closed, Gana blew a spitting breath and clapped her fist against the console. “Arrogant bastards.”

Veranyi came down to M’Rayeh’s level. “How do they know you are here?”

Neex’s internal comm clicked. “Even if they managed to track your old ship, we’re light-weeks out from where it was destroyed. And our cloak’s been up since we dealt with those pirates.”

M’Rayeh frowned in a guilty kind of sorrow. “He must have set a pathfinder on me.”

“What’s that?” Gana asked. “Some kind of homing device?”

M’Rayeh juddered her head. “My people. We can visualize a point in space and calculate the most direct path to reach it. If a pathfinder is tracking me, it doesn’t matter how far I go or how fast I travel, they’ll find me eventually.” Her tears sprung up again. “I never should have come here! I never should have woken up!”

I circled both arms around her and drew her into a loose embrace. “Don’t say that. We’ll think of something.”

“I was not aware of this…pathfinding ability,” Veranyi said as she rose. “It does not bode well.”

Gana sighed. “It doesn’t change where we are, now. Do you know who this Cordyl is? What we’re up against?”

“A decorated war captain,” Veranyi said. “Egotistic and brutal. M’Rayeh was his favored.”

“Brilliant,” Gana said.

Toragg’s navigator’s chair creaked. “We can’t outrun a warship.” Like the others, his voice was low but not quiet; we all heard him.

“No,” Gana agreed gravely.

“Should I respond?” Toragg asked. “Let them know she’s here?”

M’Rayeh ripped herself away from me. “No!” Fright rippled up from her again. “Please!”

I flung a snarl at Toragg. “You sniveling coward!”

“Not all of us are muscle-bound meat grinders!” he shot back at me.

Gana spun on Toragg. “Maintain comms silence.”

“What if they come for her?” Toragg said, his voice breaking with his own fear.

“Then they’ll find us a hard kernel to crack.”

Toragg let out a wheeze. “Gana! You promised!”

She hit him with a chilling scowl. “If the Citadel came calling for you, would you want us to hand you over to them without a fight?”

After a long silence, Toragg mumbled, “No.” It was the first time I’d heard him express any sympathy to anyone.

“I made a promise when I took command of this ship,” Gana said, her face remaining hard. For once, I was grateful for her obstinacy. “None of us would ever be slaves again.” She turned to M’Rayeh. “That includes you, too.”

Gratitude and grace bloomed in M’Rayeh’s eyes, and she made a weak smile.

“So,” Neex said. “What do we do?”

The bridge went quiet. Gana met my gaze with a fatalistic frown. I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me, but in the current situation, our choices were limited. She knew it. I did, too.

“We go with Gana’s plan,” I said, and pushed up to my feet.

“No!” M’Rayeh clutched at my hand.

I pulled my fingers into a loose fist and rose into a float. “I need to suit up.”

M’Rayeh thrust herself to standing. “You don’t know what he’ll do to you!”

Gana put her hands on M’Rayeh’s shoulders. “Let him go.”

I flew for the corridor even as M’Rayeh cried out after me. Her call was followed by Veranyi’s one-word entreaty:

“Wait!”

But every second we waited was another second wasted. I flew down to Residential, picking up speed as I thought about the visions and sensations M’Rayeh had shared of her torment at Cordyl’s hands. The kisses pressed to her clamped lips. The fingers groping and probing along her crawling skin. The harsh hisses in her ear as he thrust against her, and when he’d had his fill, the leaving of her after to curl up and cry at her plight.

By the time I reached my cell, fury had turned my vision red. I yanked open the closet holding my gear and threw on my armor, whacking the buckles and latches into place with the flat of my hand in a series of escalating slaps to psych myself up. I snatched my axe from its clips, twisting my fingers around the haft to hear my gloves screak. It was an angry sound that matched my temperament. I marched for the corridor in a bloodthirsty delight, only to draw up short at finding M’Rayeh in my path.

“Stand aside,” I said, but she stayed firm.

“You’re not doing this alone.”

“We don’t have time for this. I need to get out there, and you need to get back to the bridge.” I shouldered my way around her.

She grabbed my arm and hauled me about. “I can fight, and I can fly—”

“You can fight me,” I corrected. “But I’m not actively trying to kill you when we spar. And you can’t fly,” I said, purposely harsh for the gravity of the moment. “You can float. Flying with Nth is about speed, maneuverability, and control, and you have – maybe – two of those. Now, go back to the others and let me do my job.”

I made to turn, but once again, she hooked her fingers into my bicep.

“You’re not the only one who can do this!”

“Well, I can’t do anything else!” I shouted into her face. Even as she drew back in a stun, I let the rest tumble out. “I’m not a telepath, or a scientist, or an engineer.” I slammed the haft of my axe against the floor plates. “This is all I know how to do. This is the only thing I’m good for. The wingman dies with wings unfurled,” I said, intoning the Thanagarian battle chant. “And in his hands, his steel. That’s who I am. It’s what I was made for: To fly fast and first into a fight.” I sent my voice low. “And to keep the rest of you safe.”

M'Rayeh regained her composure as well as the defiant jut of her chin. “You can do that without being foolish. I lost my brother because of Cordyl,” she said, swinging her arm in the vague direction of the other ship. When she brought it back, she laid her palm to my chest. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

If she expected such intimacy to soften my resolve, she was wrong. I leaned against her hand and told her through my teeth, “You kill a snake by cutting off its head.” My glove squeaked around the axe haft again. “I’m going to cut off its head.” Then I took off above her and stretched into a full flight, leaving her behind.

I got to the main deck in less than a minute amid a fresh pumping of eager adrenaline. The airlock cubicle waited with a green light. As I touched down in front of it, I heard the tell-tale slap-flesh sound of Veranyi’s tentacles moving at speed.

“Golden Eagle,” she said, her tone pitched in a summons.

I swore under my breath and gestured to the airlock. “The more time we waste, the less I have for surprise.”

Veranyi glided to my side. “You will not survive that infiltration plan.”

“It’s the best we’ve got.”

“It is not.”

I scoffed. “You have a better one?”

“I do. Cordyl is strong and calculating, but he is also arrogant. He will not expect a direct challenge. You can draw him out and lead him here. Working together, we can resolve this with as little of our blood shed as possible.”

I screwed my face into a grimace. “That’s a terrible idea! He’s never going to fall for it.”

“You did, with Viza’Aziv.”

“Yeah, well, I’m stupid.”

“You are not stupid.” Veranyi wrinkled her brow for a stern frown. “That is simply a convenient excuse you hide behind in order to run recklessly into danger.”

My already-frayed nerves threatened to snap. “I don’t hide.”

“You are so desperate to live up to the expectations of your father—”

“My father has nothing to do with this!”

“—that you would rather martyr yourself than admit when you need the help of others.”

Fel’s bitter disapprovals echoed in my skull. I shut my eyes tight a moment to block them out. “I’m not pathetic,” I sputtered toward my boots.

“No.” Her fingers stroked my jawline in a rare show of affection, and she lifted my face. “But you also cannot do this alone. If you go to that ship by yourself, you will die there. Then not only will we lose you, but we will condemn M’Rayeh to a life of running. And running is not a sustainable endeavor. You know this. You know there is a better way.” She told me how.

I swallowed down the hoarseness in my throat. “It’s risky,” I said when she finished. “Not just for me. For you, too.”

“In all things, there is risk.” She held my cheek. “Especially when there is love.”

I stared at her for a minute that felt like both an hour and a heartbeat. Was this some acknowledgment of affection? I wished suddenly we weren’t in this situation, that I wasn’t in my armor prepping for a fight. I wished she would tell me if the feelings beating in my heart were ones she felt in return. That even though we were of different species, in another place and time, we could have shared a closeness I’d longed for my whole life, a closeness that had been taken from me as a child.

“Hierophant!”

We both turned to the lift, where M’Rayeh jogged onto the deck through the doors. Her gaze flicked between us as she said, “Did you tell him?”

I frowned at M’Rayeh. “You mean, you already knew about this plan?”

“It’s my idea! I was trying to tell you downstairs.”

“You could have led with that!”

M’Rayeh pressed her lips into a sheepish pucker when the comm link in my helmet clicked open and Gana snapped:

“Golden Eagle.”

I rolled my eyes; why didn’t I choose a shorter name for myself? “Yeah?”

“New plan,” Gana said.

“Yeah, I heard.”

“We’re good for it on our end, but you’re still the only one who can sell it. Are you in or not?”

“I’m in,” I said, and Veranyi gave me a shallow nod.

“Good,” Gana said. “Get to the cargo bay. We’ll set up there.”

We headed to the large bay in the aft, a cavernous space designed to accommodate heavy machinery for excavating and moving ice reserves for distribution to other planets. One of Skitnik’s former captains had converted the hauler to a pirate vessel, over time substituting the original equipment for light skimmers and personal armament. Viza had used the bay as an ambush point, spacing most of that pirate crew when she took over. My Nth armor protected me from vacuum, but the others needed real vac suits. While I watched M’Rayeh shimmy into one, Gana strode up, already decked out in her own suit.

“Get your head in the game,” she said to me.

“It’s in.” I glanced at the hefty rifle in her hands, noting the grapnel stuck in one end. One couldn’t fire explosive projectiles within a ship – too much chance of compromising structural integrity – but those hooks didn’t look very safe, either. “You know how to use that?”

She gave me a snide look. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

I let the challenge slide. “Everybody else set?”

“Skitterers are standing by,” she confirmed. “And Neex is transmitting our counterproposal now.”

“I tried to make it sound conceited and entitled,” Neex announced over the main comm.

“Only one left to prep is your girl.” Gana stepped in for a suppressed murmur. “You sure she can handle this?”

I sent her a condescending sneer. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

Gana narrowed her eyes and walked off. In her wake, I steadied my grip on my axe and moved over to M’Rayeh, who with Veranyi’s help was locking her suit’s seals into place.

“It’s clunky,” M’Rayeh complained, grimacing at the bulky maglock boots holding her feet to the floor.

“It is necessary,” Veranyi responded.

I jerked my head toward the massive double-sealed flaps that kept our internal atmosphere and pressure intact. “You don’t want to get sucked out into space when those doors open.”

M’Rayeh frowned at me. “You’ll be careful?”

“Careful is my middle name.”

She blinked. “Is it?”

“No,” I said. “It’s Edmond.”

M’Rayeh blew a scolding snort, then dropped her voice to a hiss. “Don’t try to fight Cordyl. Just run.”

The withering dread in her gaze made me want to hold her, kiss her, make love to her so that happiness was all she knew. But that happiness wouldn’t be real – it wouldn’t last – unless she was free.

The comm boxes around the hold pinged the same as in my helmet, and Neex said, “Looks like he’s taken the bait. I’m reading one lifeform approaching from the enemy vessel.”

“That’s it,” Gana announced over the comms. “Toragg, hold us steady. Valda and Hierophant, get to the corridor.” She came up to us and passed M’Rayeh a helmet. “You’re with me.”

M’Rayeh took it, then gave me one more look. It was worried but also brave. “Stay safe.”

“You, too,” I said.

As M’Rayeh walked off with Gana, their boots click-thunking in their magnetic tread, Veranyi grasped my arm. In her eyes, there was only that deep, inscrutable blackness. But in her voice, I heard the flutter of determination.

“Fly fast,” she said. Then she let go and glided away, too, past the thick doors separating the hold from the corridor.

I gripped my axe and pushed myself a little straighter.

“Reversing thrust,” Neex said. “Lock down or hold onto something.”

The ship seemed to lurch. I let myself float up from the floor and kept my eyes on the bay doors. After a minute of weightlessness, Gana said over the comms:

“We won’t drop cloak, but we’ll stay in position here, so you can find your way back.”

I let out a grunt of acknowledgment. “Keep the lights on for me.”

“Bay doors in five,” Neex announced. As they counted down, the overhead lights flared in a warning sequence from yellow to red. Then a sliver of soul-sucking black formed between the gray metal doors, growing larger like a void maw stuck in a slow, silent yawn. My eyes were sharp, but even they needed the magnification tools in my helmet to see the small speck moving toward us.

I willed myself forward and flew out past the doors. Lacking significant gravity drag and flying at top speed, I’d meet Cordyl in minutes. As he started to take shape against the backdrop of space, I made out a helmet and form-fitting armor in a bluish-silver hue, and a long-handled spear with a gleaming tip at his side. The Spike was coming for a fight.

He wouldn’t find me wanting.

We came within shooting distance, then shouting. I pushed my wings wide and squeezed the steel haft of my axe. “Let’s dance, motherfu—” My last syllable disappeared in a whoof of breath as his shoulder slammed into my gut like a truck hitting a bug.

M’Rayeh was right. I should have just run.

Chapter Text

I righted myself out of my inertia tumble and brought my axe up in front of me, just in time to deflect a stab from Cordyl’s spear. He reached out with his free hand and grabbed the haft, surging close so his helmet tapped mine.

“You think you can take what’s mine?” The vibrations of his voice carried through our contact. “I’ll tear you in two!”

He broke our connection and thrust his spear at my shoulder plexus. The close-quarters blow glanced off my breastplate with a clang I felt in my core.

“Neex!” I hissed. “What did you put in that message?”

“Only what Gana recommended,” Neex said as Cordyl came at me again, stabbing for my head. “That you thought his reputation was overblown and that if he wanted to prove you wrong, he was welcome to try.”

Gripping the back of the axe’s blade like a shield, I managed to block Cordyl’s blow. The force made my arms tremble.

“There was also a bit about how he couldn’t even hold onto his one little slave girl while you were making her scream with pleasure every night.” A note of triumph slipped into Neex’s voice. “Gana said that would make him mad.”

“It worked!” As I took a swipe with the haft end of my axe, Cordyl backed out of range, giving me time for a concentrated look.

He was decked out in full armor, all of it in iridescent blue. His helmet, which covered his face completely, was divided into three sections, with a black upside-down triangle situated in the middle. I couldn’t tell how he saw or spoke through it, but he seemed to do well enough. He was also gigantic. I’d thought M’Rayeh was tall – she could almost look me straight in the eye – but compared to Cordyl’s seven-foot-plus height, she was petite.

I swung the axe in a lopping arc to keep him at bay just as Gana shouted over the comm:

“Quit faffing and get back here!”

But he had to come after me; we wouldn’t get a second chance. I flung my axe across my chest just as Cordyl swung his spear against it. As I fought to hold my defense, I noticed a blur behind his shoulders. Those had to be his wings, their frantic flap reminiscent of a dragonfly. Even without air to beat, they seemed to control his direction, equilibrium, and thrust. Their blur intensified, and he lunged again, this time cracking our helmets together the same as our weapons.

“I’ll show you who’s unworthy, you pathetic little thief!”

I had a flash of Fel’s mad, accusatory face, and my anger spiked. “I am not pathetic!”

I got my boots between us to shove him away. He recovered quickly, swinging his spear in a vicious upward arc. I held onto the axe, my arms going with it. Cordyl yanked the spear back and thrust it toward my chest. I twisted away, just in time. The spear scraped the Nth, leaving behind an ugly scar across my breastplate.

Time to run.

I smashed the flat of my axe blade against his helmet, and Cordyl fumbled like a dizzied boxer. I spun away and stretched into full flight mode to race back to the ship, my axe tight to my side.

“Neex!” I called as the cargo bay became a more realized location in space. “Is he with me?”

“Yes.” Neex’s tone was clipped, anxious. “Don’t look back.”

Despite the warning, I glanced over my shoulder. Cordyl was nearly at my heels. “Oh, sh—!”

I felt a clutch around my ankle, then a tremendous yank. Shark attacks happened like this. I twisted around and jabbed the staff end of my axe toward Cordyl’s face. It hit his shoulder, but he let me go. I sprinted for the ship again. This time, I just kept flying.

The bay’s lights gleamed like a beacon against the blackness of space. I sped into their glare, straight through the closing bay doors. Cordyl smashed into me from behind, sending me tumbling to the floor as Skitnik’s activated thrust gave us grav. My axe flew out of my hand, and Cordyl flipped me onto my back.

He rammed his spear shaft against my neck. The tri-shape of his helmet snapped open, and he looked at me face-to-face.

“You dare challenge me?” While his blue-skinned face bore no scars, it was ugly nonetheless for its vanity and rage. “The pride of the Enclave? Commander of the flotilla armada? The Vanquishing Spike?”

I grabbed his spear, holding its pressure off my throat enough to choke out: “Not me.” I flicked my gaze to the space over his shoulder and gave a snarly smile. “Her.”

Cordyl wasn’t dumb enough to look, but it didn’t matter. M’Rayeh came up behind him in a float. I focused as hard as I could, envisioning a wall in front of me, and braced for impact.

Her telepathic blast wasn’t meant for me, but its ripples still hit like a crushing wave, drowning me in second-hand rage. Cordyl wasn’t so fortunate. He buckled as if struck from behind, collapsing half on top of me. Blood burst from his nose, and he retched a slop of spittle over my shoulder.

While a pair of skitterers scooped me under my arms and dragged me backward, a slew of them converged on Cordyl. He was still strong enough to swing his spear to keep a row of them at bay. Then M’Rayeh spoke.

“Look at me,” she said.

Cordyl stopped moving. The flesh of his face went gray at her voice. He turned, very slowly, and looked up. With a click and a hiss of escaping air, M’Rayeh removed her helmet, leaving no mask or mystery to her identity. Cordyl scrambled backward, and a single word escaped his gibbering lips. “N’taani?” he croaked in the language of her people.

“How dare you call me beloved,” M’Rayeh said as she floated closer, “when you have never loved anything?”

I had just gotten to my feet when her anger buffeted my senses, sending me to my knees again. Somewhere close by, Gana groaned, too. Cordyl felt it most of all, though, evidenced by the way he fell to his back, as if he’d been struck full in the face.

M’Rayeh loomed over him, rage contorting her features. “I have a name. Do you even know it?” She swooped in for a shriek. “Do you even know it?”

I crumpled to the floorplates holding my head. Through one open eye, I watched Cordyl vomit up another spray. But through that, he sputtered her name.

“M’Rayeh…!” He coughed, cleared his throat, and asked, “How?”

“How what?” she said, straightening up again. “How do I fly without wings? How am I suddenly blessed after so many years an outcast? Is that what you want to know?” She raised her head in defiance. “Do you fear me, now that I can fly? Because I don’t fear you.” She screwed her face in repulsion. “I’m sickened that I ever feared you.”

“Your flight is a sham,” Cordyl said, his gaze roving over her. “Whatever science or sorcery you possess, it doesn’t make you blessed. You will always be an abomination.”

A grapnel whizzed past my arm and hit Cordyl in the shoulder, where the space between breastplate and pauldron provided weak resistance. As he fell back with a clamped cry, clutching at the shaft with his opposite hand, my comm crackled.

“Enough of his prattle,” said Gana. “Valda, send in the jabbers.”

A slew of skitterers descended on Cordyl from all sides, each of them armed with a hypo. He started up, his wings initiating a quiver, when the rope attached to the grapnel went taut and he was yanked once more to the floorplates. The skitterers converged like a metallic swarm on prey, and while Cordyl tried to wriggle away, it was no use. Only one needed to get close enough, and one did, stabbing him with its hypo just under the side of his jaw where the line of his helmet stood out against his skin. He let out a strangled groan, and his hand flew to the space where the needle had gone. But just as quickly it fell flat, followed by the rest of his body.

He blinked, snarled, and rumbled, “Have you poisoned me?”

Gana strode up. “It’s just a special nerve cocktail. While your autonomous systems will continue to function as normal, most of your somatic muscle actions have been suppressed. You can’t move. But you can still feel,” she said as she grabbed the hook in his shoulder, gave it a twist, and yanked it out.

Cordyl’s body went with the heave, rolling him onto his side, but the strangled sound that came out of him was full of more fury than pain.

“Go ahead and scream,” Gana said gleefully. “I don’t mind.”

He didn’t scream, though he did growl up at her, “You are making a powerful enemy!”

She snorted. “I don’t think so. We’re jamming your comm, and we’ve told your crew that their captain is in our custody. If they make a move on us or even paint us for an attack, we’ll respond in force against you personally. Something tells me they won’t risk that. So, you may as well get comfortable.”

Even though Cordyl couldn’t move, when Gana rose from him, she kicked his spear out of his reach. It clattered dully against the plates before it came to rest.

M'Rayeh floated to the floor and picked it up. In her hands, it looked slender and majestic.

Cordyl’s snarl became a stare. “What did they do to you?”

M’Rayeh shifted her gaze from the spear to him. “They set me free.”

“Free?” Cordyl echoed. “From what?”

“What do you think?” In Gana’s voice, I heard the threat that she was perfectly willing to shoot him again, this time in the face.

“I protected you,” Cordyl said to M’Rayeh. “Provided for you. Without me, you’d have had nothing. You’d have been nothing!” His expression became – briefly – one of hopefulness as he said, “I loved you.”

M’Rayeh scoffed. “You don’t even know what that means.”

Cordyl’s skin turned bright blue in rage. He scowled at me. “And that one does? Or that one?” he said, flashing a fast look at Gana.

She fixed him with her glare. “More than you ever did.”

“I’d thought you were lost to us, stolen away in the dark by a traitor.” The dark gold of his eyes blazed with anger. “But I see, now, I was wrong. You were the traitor, forsaking your life and your people.”

“I forsook you!” M’Rayeh clenched the spear like the weapon it was, holding it as though to strike. “I gave up everything I knew, everything I loved, rather than suffer another moment in your presence.”

“You’d have died if it weren’t for me.”

“I was dying because of you!” She rose again and floated toward him, still grasping the spear in front of her. Her voice went cold. “You, the Spike, to whom the Enclave gave everything. The gift of your wings wasn’t enough. You needed to conquer. To control. To covet.”

Cordyl jutted his jaw, the best he could do to show his throat. “If you despise me so much, prove yourself a warrior worthy of our ways and take my life.”

M’Rayeh stared at him, her body still. Only the tip of the spear wavered. I traced the tremor to her arms, where her muscles tensed as though in conflict with her will. Her nose cringed for a snarl, and she spat between her teeth, “You don’t deserve martyrdom. What you deserve is the disgrace you made me feel for being a wingless.” She hovered in close. “I should shear your wings from you myself.”

The blood rushed out of Cordyl’s face, and he gave a shrill shriek. “No! No, please. Have mercy!”

“Mercy?” M’Rayeh repeated. “Like the mercy you showed me when you put your hands on me? When you took me as a trophy for your own perverted pleasure? When you threatened me with pain if I refused you?”

Tears stretched down Cordyl’s cheeks. “I will lose everything without my wings. And not only me. My mate, my young: they’ll be outcasts, as well. You cannot do this!”

Gana strode in with a snicker. “Which one do you want to cut off first? I’m thinking the left.”

Cordyl was screaming, now. “No! M’Rayeh, I beg you. Please!”

Gana kicked him in the face with her heel to shut him up, then glanced around at me. “Give me a hand holding him steady.”

I strode toward them, but my gait was slow. Cordyl’s delirious screaming had touched a nerve in me. I’d screamed at Carter when I’d tried to kill him, and for Fel when he’d died on that battlefield. In the echoes of Cordyl’s shrieks, the universe felt like an endless cycle of pain and vengeance. I looked at M’Rayeh as I got close, but she didn’t look at me. Instead, she said:

“No.”

Her voice was quiet but stopped us like a bomb. Even Cordyl’s tears stopped flowing. “No?” he echoed.

“You,” M’Rayeh said, glaring hard at him, “will return to the Enclave unharmed, on condition of the following. You will forget me, and you will forget this ship, never to seek any of us out again. You will honor your mate and cherish your young.” She knitted her brows for a fiercer mandate. “And you will respect those put in your care for your title.”

“What?” This from Gana, who seemed even more surprised than Cordyl. “We’re just going to let him go?”

M’Rayeh kept her gaze on Cordyl. “Do you swear to these conditions? On your wings, do you swear?”

“Yes!” Cordyl cried.

M’Rayeh narrowed her eyes, as if judging. Her stare held on his face for several seconds, during which nobody moved or made a sound. Then she released a breath, turned away, and said, “Get him out of my sight.”

I grabbed him by the collar of his armor and started to drag him to the side airlock. “You heard the lady.”

The Spike, whose point seemed a lot duller now, yelled with fresh vehemence, “We will leave you alone, but know that alone means the Enclave will forget you, as well. You will be adrift, not just wingless but abandoned, as well, with no home, no heritage, no legacy to your name.”

M’Rayeh half-turned over one shoulder. “I would never have had that anyway.”

Cordyl fixed her with an angry glare. “You think this emancipation from me is your triumph,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain despite the drooping of his useless limbs. “But there are horrors awaiting you out there in the dark, for which you now have no protection.”

M’Rayeh lifted the spear in her hands. “I suppose I should learn how to use this then.”

“That spear belongs to me!” Cordyl started to say, when I popped the airlock door open with the side of my fist and Gana shoved him into the lock with a kick.

“I was tired of him dirtying up my deck,” she said as she slapped the door closed after him.

We suffered another second of his muted protests before the outer door slid open and he was sucked backward into space with the air in the lock.

A silence not unlike vacuum surrounded us for a minute. Then Gana turned to M’Rayeh for a grumble.

“You should have cut off his wings.”

“His humiliation is enough,” M’Rayeh said, somewhat sadly.

“If you say so.” Gana huffed, pulled off her helmet, and rubbed behind her right earfin. “Neex,” she called, all business once more. “Get us out of here and back on course. Keep our cloak up, just in case.”

“Aye, Captain,” Neex replied over the bay’s speaker. “Should I cut the suppression signal on Cordyl’s comms, as well?”

Gana gave a nasty chuckle. “Let him dead float for a bit. See how he likes it.” Then she walked away toward the main corridor.

I began to follow but stopped at M’Rayeh’s shoulder. She was still staring at the spear, her expression one of meandering thought. “You okay?”

“To think,” she muttered, “that I spent so much of my life being afraid. Of him! It feels like such a waste, now.”

I didn’t have a good answer for her. I knew from experience that realizing your life’s driving force until that moment was useless, and that you have nothing to show for it but aches and age, wouldn’t ease her depression. So, I quipped, “At least you got that kickass spear out of the bargain.”

M’Rayeh drooped under some silent weight. “Maybe Gana was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have just let Cordyl go.”

“Gana long ago suppressed her capacity for mercy.”

Veranyi had glided up to us without me noticing; behind her, Valda’s skitterers moved like a pod of eager fish as they ticked and clicked back to their slow-moving mistress mother. “It has helped her to survive longer than most.” She laid a supportive hand on M’Rayeh’s shoulder and bent her tentacled head close. “But survival is life only at its most basic level. Living is about much more: compassion, curiosity, hope, love. The passing-along of knowledge and the embracing of adventure.”

“I don’t know if Cordyl is even capable of those things,” M’Rayeh mumbled.

“Perhaps not.” Veranyi tilted her head from one side to another. “But your act of mercy has given him the opportunity to choose for himself. And would it not be a validation if he made the right choice next time, and that saved some other’s life, or spared some other from pain?”

“I suppose so,” M’Rayeh said with a tiny smile. “Thank you, Hierophant.”

Veranyi smiled in return, then glided back the way she’d come.

We followed her to the main corridor, but where Veranyi took her leave into Medical, M’Rayeh went to the lift, which she directed down to Residential. I accompanied her in silence, wondering to myself what she was planning to do next, now that her reason for running was no longer necessary, but I didn’t have the guts to ask. When we reached Gana’s moon, it would be just me and Neex left on the ship. M’Rayeh had said she’d stay on, but for what purpose, and for how long, I didn’t know. I’d told myself that I just wanted to get home, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be with friends, people I cared about. People who cared about me. People I loved.

“M'Rayeh,” I said, when she stopped and turned to me.

“Thank you for walking with me.”

I realized we were standing at the door to her cell. She opened the door and set the spear against the inside wall. She started to step in, too, then seemed to think better of it and faced me again.

“Would you like to stay?” She gave me a look of quiet longing. “I’d like you to stay.”

“Do you want to talk, or…?”

“No.” She put both hands to my head and lifted off my helm. Taking it in one hand, she cupped my jaw with the other and pulled me toward her, rising close to kiss my lips.

The “or” it was then.

I may not have lived up to the description that Neex had used to rattle Cordyl’s cage, but by the time I was finished, M’Rayeh was panting and sweating and flushed, her blue skin covered in a sheen and her limbs flung akimbo upon sheets disheveled by her clutching fingers. Some threads of her hair lay in damp bands across her face, and when I crawled back up to her, I brushed them aside and let my hand stay resting next to her cheek.

“Did you enjoy that?” I asked, because while the effects of my efforts were obvious, my ego craved confirmation.

M’Rayeh bobbed her head breathlessly and grinned through a heavy-lidded rapture. “Your tongue,” she said, reaching out to draw her finger across my lip, “is smaller but somehow more impressive.”

I chuckled as I slid one arm beneath her, to squeeze myself close in the narrow space of the bunk. “It’s just got more control.”

“I like it.” She moved her finger to the tip of my nose and giggled. “I like this, too.”

“It is good for some things,” I agreed.

I pulled the bunched blanket from the wall and drew it lightly over us. We cuddled that way under the transmitted starlight that had become standard accoutrement for when we had sex. Her breath blew slow and steady upon my cheek, and I thought she’d fallen asleep. But in the next second, her toes scraped the top of my foot, and she whispered:

“I’m sorry Cordyl hurt you.”

I shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for.”

After a minute of pensive quiet, she asked, “Do you think I did the right thing, letting him go?”

I licked my lips as I thought about it, the lemon-honey taste of her still clinging to my skin. Finally, I decided, “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It does, though.” She raised her gaze to mine. “You’re the reason I made the choice I did.”

I pitched up one brow. “Am I?” Mercy didn’t sound like me.

She compressed her mouth into a tight line and furrowed her brow. Shame shone in her eyes. “A part of me did want to hurt Cordyl,” she said with bitter desperation. “To make him suffer as much as I’d suffered.” She pressed her palm over my heart, a point of physical connection between us that was more intimate than simply friendly without being sexual. “But then I remembered something you said. How a life lived for revenge isn’t a life worth living.”

Those words came back to me, along with the regret that had prompted them. It was one thing to have everything you loved taken from you, by fate or by chance. It was something else entirely to lose everything because of your own short-sighted anger. I started on an attempt to explain that when M’Rayeh went on.

“Inflicting pain on Cordyl might have given me a sense of vindication in the moment, but that’s not the life I want. I want to make a difference, do good things, help people.” Her former frown went smooth. “Like you’ve helped me.”

A warm feeling welled in my chest, but it tugged up only one side of my mouth. “I don’t know if I could have made the same choice you made today,” I told her with a little shake of my head. “That took a lot of faith.”

M’Rayeh smirked. “Being a telepath helps.”

I gawped, then jabbed a finger under her nose. “I knew you were scanning him!”

“I needed some assurance!”

“And here I thought you were taking him at his word.”

She blew a short harrumph. “I’m not that naïve.”

There was a sadness to that, but I had to admit: “I’m glad.”

She tossed a look to the wall next to the access door. “Will you teach me how to use that?”

I followed her glance over my shoulder. “The spear?” I asked, and she nodded. “Sure. Right now?”

M’Rayeh rolled her eyes. “Not right now,” she said, and I could almost hear her add, idiot. She shimmied out of my embrace and swung one leg over me like a cowgirl climbing into a saddle. “I’d like to do something else, first.”

She lowered her head for a slow, sweet kiss. When she drew away, I started to follow, holding my mouth to hers. But she stopped me with a hand to my shoulder.

I drifted back, returning my head to the pillow. She came with me for another kiss, this one as quick as a heartbeat. Our lips clicked apart, and she smiled. Then she scooted beneath the blanket, the trail of her hair tickling my ribs, then my belly, then my hip. Her fingers stroked; her lips caressed. I drew a whistling breath that left me as a sigh.

Victory was sweet. But this was better.

Chapter Text

The hypo hissed against my neck. I did the same in reply. Skitnik may have been an intergalactic ship that had breached a Source Wall – twice – but its technology still wasn’t advanced enough to create a method of administering a painkiller that didn’t itself cause pain. The medication spread quickly, though, a cool numbness that dulled the sharper spikes of discomfort along my nerves.

Veranyi clicked closed the hypo’s safety as she drew away. “I advise you to relax here until the stimulant takes effect.”

I groaned in relief as I reclined on the exam cot. “Fine by me.” I closed my eyes and listened to the subtle tics and taps as she moved tools around and entered data into her console. “Do you ever get tired of patching me up?”

“Do you ever tire of needing patching?” she replied in a distracted voice.

“I do, actually.”

Her tone changed to one more critical. “If you were in pain, you should have come to me directly.”

“There were other things I had to take care of, first.”

Veranyi just hummed.

I opened my eyes and sat halfway up on my elbows. “What?”

She stayed looking at her console. “I said nothing.”

“That ‘hmm’ sounded awfully judgy.”

“I was suggesting only that ignoring your physical needs in the moment may cause greater grief in the future.”

I settled back against the cot with my hands behind my head. “Have you ever almost died before? Because I have. More than once. Compared to that, this is a breeze.”

“Does death frighten you?” she asked.

“Mine, you mean? Of course.” I snorted. “I’m not that stupid.”

Veranyi seemed to consider that. “I have never been afraid of my death,” she said after a moment.

“Congratulations. You’re more enlightened than the rest of us.”

“Dying is merely the transition of our energy from one form to another,” she went on. “And energy is eternal.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Yet, I was afraid of your dying.”

A strange chill shot down my spine, prickling my nipples and tightening my testicles as if I’d stepped into a bracing morning wave. I sat up again and looked to Veranyi. “You were?”

She stood at her console with her back to me. Her head tentacles twitched like a coil of agitated snakes. She turned then, and the black of her eyes seemed to pull me in. Even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to look away.

“You are matter and energy,” she said, “the same as anyone. And while I was confident in your ability to succeed, when you flew out to Cordyl, I feared the loss of you.”

My heart was pattering, and I had to swallow to get my voice to work. “You did?”

Veranyi dipped her chin in a barely-there nod. “I have developed much fondness for you.”

I slid from the cot with a slow squeak. “I’m fond of you, too,” I said, and she gave me another little nod and a smile. She was close enough to reach for, but I left my arms at my sides, well familiar with her preference for me keeping my distance.

“I am aware.” The smile fell, and she tucked her chin in hesitation. “There is…a favor I would like to ask of you.”

“Whatever you need,” I said.

She tilted her head. “You accept without knowing details?”

“You’re not the type to ask if it’s not important. And if it’s important to you, it’s important to me. So. What do you need me to do?”

Her eyes shimmered; a function of those nictating lids doing their moistening flick. “On my world, it is customary – tradition – for the male of my species to act as guardian during childbirth. Here, and on Gana’s moon, there are no male Oegosid. The role of guardian must be filled by another.” The lids flashed across her eyes again. “I would choose you.”

The request shot straight to my heart, filling me with surprise and pride. “Me?”

“You are brave,” she said, and while her tone was no different from before, I felt in it a new acceptance. “And loyal. There is, within you, a great capacity for kindness. Though, mostly, I was impressed by your support of M’Rayeh to make the decision she saw fit for Cordyl’s fate.”

I lowered my chin as shame replaced my brief burst of joy. “It was her Carter moment.”

This time, it was Veranyi’s turn to say, “I do not understand.”

I raised my head to meet her eyes, because the truth warranted the facing. “I had a choice once, between vengeance and forgiveness. I chose vengeance, and that choice ruined me. It would have ruined M’Rayeh, too. If I had my moment to do over again, I’d want to make the better choice.”

“But then you would not be here.” Veranyi glided close, so that the tentacles bobbing around her face nearly grazed my cheek. Her little smile resurfaced. “And I am glad that you are.”

The briny smell of her skin filled my sinuses, making my thoughts come dizzy. A piece of my heart still beat just for her, though in my head I knew my son-lover feelings were less than appropriate and more than folly. Despite that, I smiled back at her and emphasized, “I am here. For whatever you need, whenever you need it. What can I do?”

“You accept my request then,” she said, glowing with an inner grace, “to act as my Guardian?”

I beamed as I basked in that shine. “It would be an honor.” I chuckled. “Though, I don’t know much about babies, let alone Ee- Eegohsid?”

“Oegosid,” she corrected.

“-Oegosid babies,” I said, following her pronunciation and giving the middle syllable a short ah sound. “But I have to think you’d want to have some time on the planet before they’re born, right? Get the lay of the land, at least.”

“That would be helpful.”

“So, let’s light a fire under Gana’s ass and speed up our travel time!”

I expected her to match my enthusiasm, but her head tentacles cringed around her like spikes. “Do not discuss this with Gana.”

The sharpness in her voice startled me, and I stepped back. “Why not? The sooner we get to that moon, the sooner you can prepare, get comfortable, whatever it is you need to do to make sure things go smoothly.” I turned my head for a sidelong glance. “Or does she not know?”

“She is aware.” Veranyi pulled her mouth tight. “But it is…difficult for her to accept. Please,” she said, her forehead furrowing, “let me speak with her first? I think you will agree that Gana will be more receptive to me than she would be to you.”

She had a point, and I let my shoulders droop. “Okay.” I dipped my head, to look at her from beneath my brows. “If there’s anything else you need, anything at all—”

“I will summon you.” Her eyes gleamed, their blackness bright. “Guardian.”

My pulse pattered with a fresh dignity at that title. “Is there something special I should call you, now?” I thought back to her explanation. “Foremother?”

She chuckled behind her lips, then became serene. “My name will be fine,” she said.

The beat of my heart seemed to stop for a second. I didn’t question her judgment, only smiled softly and whispered, “Veranyi.”

I left Medical feeling proud of myself, though my confidence didn’t last long. I’d never encountered an alien pregnancy before. Even my experience with human pregnancy was limited. I naturally didn’t remember my mother’s pregnancy, and at my only foster home placement, Ms. Lacie had been past childbearing age. I’d liked her – she was one of the nice ones – but she’d had a stroke six months into my placement, and after that, I was sent to a group home where the staff was made up of mostly men who could physically handle boys with behavioral and emotional issues. Over the years, there’d been a few women on staff rotation, mostly serious, career-driven grad students and professionals. They’d never talked about sex, let alone pregnancy. When I’d started having sex myself, living in the system had made me so terrified of getting a girl pregnant, I’d always worn a condom; sometimes two, until I’d learned that was stupid. Now, of course, I no longer had that particular concern. But I still wondered what I should expect from Veranyi’s pregnancy, and my role related to it.

I tried accessing the ship’s databases in the galley for information, but the primary commands were in a language I didn’t recognize. My helmet might have been able to translate if the language was familiar to Thanagar, but that meant going all the way down to Residential, getting the helm, coming all the way back up again, and sitting there reading crimson head’s-up display data scrolls for who knew how long. The ship must have had internal translators, too, though I had no idea how to activate them; simply finding them in the web of command trees was going to be difficult enough. So, I did what anyone would have done and started poking around randomly, in the hope that something would click. After about ten minutes of my blind rummaging, the comm box near the table snapped active.

“What are you doing?” Neex asked.

“I’m looking for something.”

“Can I help?”

“No, that’s okay,” I told them, because Veranyi hadn’t wanted me to talk to Gana about this, and Neex was way below Gana.

The engineer kept pressing. “I think I should help.”

 “I think you should mind your own business.”

“Just tell me what you need, and I’ll find it for you?”

“Why are you so accommodating all of a sudden?” I said, snarling at the box.

“Because your fiddling in my systems is distracting and annoying, and I want it to stop!” Neex retorted. “There are more important things I need to be concentrating on right now, but I can’t because you keep flitting in and out of my menu structures.”

“I’m doing this myself so you don’t need to concentrate on me.”

“Yes, but…!” The engineer growled in audible frustration. “You obviously don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Well, maybe I would, if your menus were in a language I could read! Where’s even the translator?”

“The menus don’t need a translator!” Neex shouted. “It’s why you have me. Now, would you please just tell me what you’re looking for?”

I scowled at their scolding, then fixed my attitude and said, “I’m trying to find some species data.”

“Which species?”

“Oegosid.”

“Those are Hierophant’s people.”

“Yes,” I said testily. “I know.” Though, to be fair to Neex, I only knew that as of a few hours ago. “Do we have anything on them?”

“I’m sure we’ve got at least basic biological information in the medical database. But why don’t you just ask Hierophant directly?”

“Because she’s busy.”

“And I’m not?”

I pressed my hand to my face. “I thought you wanted to help me.”

An approximation of a sigh filtered through the comm system. “I’ll program a search, but it will take time to process. How do you want the results?”

“Printout, please.” I wrinkled my nose at the comm box. “I don’t suppose you can output to Earth English?”

Another beleaguered noise. “Fine.”

“Oh, and keep this on the QT, huh?”

“I’m not going to ask,” Neex muttered.

“Yeah,” I told them. “It’s better that way.”

“I’ll have a skitterer deliver the pages and ping you when they’re ready.”

I nodded at the comm box. “Thanks.”

“There you are.” M’Rayeh floated in from the corridor, the spear held at her side. She touched down with a miffed pout. “I thought you were going to help me practice?”

“I just needed to make a quick stop.” I turned toward the hall. “But we can go, now.”

She turned with me but asked, “What did you need? Can I help?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He wants to keep it on quiet torpedo,” Neex put in, and I shot a glare over my shoulder at the galley entrance comm box.

“Oh.” M’Rayeh shrugged and rose off the floor for a new float. “Okay.”

I went into a low glide next to her, impressed but also slightly suspicious about her lack of curiosity. “You’re not going to scan me?”

She glowered. “No. I told you: Sometimes, I can’t help hearing, but I don’t indiscriminately scan you.” She faced forward with a tiny sniff and swam into a quicker float. “I trust you to share things with me when you’re ready.”

I pushed myself faster, too, so I was even with her. Honestly, I did want to talk with somebody about the whole Guardian thing, but Veranyi’s faith was too precious to jeopardize. “It’s not like I like keeping secrets from you,” I told M’Rayeh gently. “But I made a promise.”

She gave me one of her little smiles. “Like with Neex and the filtration sieves?”

“Kind of. Only a lot more important than that.”

She stopped for a hover at the access conduit and looked at me gravely. “Then you should honor your promise.” She floated close to lay her hand upon my chest. “But we can still talk, if you need to. You don’t have to tell me specifics. I can just listen.”

I smiled. “I might take you up on that.”

M’Rayeh nodded, then floated into the open passage between decks and grabbed a rung of the ladder to send her on an upward climb. I went after her without the yank, staying behind her until we got to the observation deck. There, we broke from the conduit space and headed over to the wall of simulation batons. I grabbed two: one that I programmed for a single-handed blade and the second that I programmed for a shield.

M'Rayeh raised a brow. “You’re not going to match me?”

“I’ll give you some pointers. But I need to practice, too.” I gave the sim-blade a loose-gripped twirl; it felt lighter than my axe and a lot more maneuverable. The shield felt a little awkward, probably because I’d never really used one. But that’s what practice was for.

We started by walking through a series of jabs, thrusts, swings, and parries. Once we could walk with confidence, we ran. And once we were good enough at running, we flew. M’Rayeh had not-great control in the air, but that would come with time. I wasn’t so great at defending, either. But the shield started to feel less like an unwieldy rock in my hand and more like a natural extension of my arm.

Our extensive sparring workout did my mind good, too, by giving me something more immediate – and more in my control than Veranyi’s pregnancy – to focus on, like avoiding a spear thrust to the chest. I wondered if there were a way to build a shield into my existing armor, or to modify my axe somehow to give me better defense. The axe was impressive, to be sure, but having seen Cordyl work his spear then and M’Rayeh swing it now, I realized it was more worthy as a weapon of intimidation: slow, and heavy under grav. Before it had been granted to me as captain of the Buteus in the Thanagarian Navy, I’d never even used a handheld weapon, just my fists. And my wings.

We ended our practice in a draw of mostly equal skill. Though, M’Rayeh did concede that in a blood fight, I’d probably come out on top, despite my relative clumsiness with the shield.

“You’re a better warrior,” she told me as we rode the lift down to Residential.

I cringed one shoulder. “I’ve just got more flight time than you do. Remember the first rule of flying,” I said, wagging my finger. “If you’re on the ground…”

“You’re doing it wrong,” she repeated back to me.

“Every time I’ve forgotten that, I’ve lost the fight I was in.”

She laid her head against the tall spear at her side to gaze at me a moment. “That knowledge doesn’t seem to anger you anymore.”

“It did,” I admitted with some regret. “For a long time. But, really, where did that get me?”

“Here,” M’Rayeh said in my silence.

I blew a sardonic little laugh. “Yeah.” I stepped out onto the residential deck and glanced around the walls of the ship. “My penance.”

M’Rayeh frowned. In it I saw her quiet remorse for me, but also her love, and my heart thumped with joy. I thought of Veranyi then, too, of the trust she’d placed in me, and the honor I felt for that. And while shame for the sins of my past still ruled my motivations, I’d found hope here, among this unconventional crew that reminded me so much of the friends I used to know.

I smiled and stroked M’Rayeh’s jaw, bending my head to hers. “But maybe my salvation, too,” I murmured, and she leaned in to kiss me. That was all, until we reached her cell.

She locked her spear away, then turned to me, nuzzled my neck, and slid her hands under the collar of my suit. We undressed each other and had sweaty stand-up sex in the tight confines of her shower tube, breathing hot and hard so the walls were slick with condensation by the time I hit my climax. She clenched her legs around me and came quickly after, and we held each other for a spell of slowing heartbeats. When she unlatched her limbs and set her feet to the floor, she giggled in spontaneous glee. I did, too. To dampen our silliness, we started a shower and shared a soapy, snickering clean-up before settling down in her bed for a late-day doze.

I woke to a chill and the dim glow of an active datapad in M’Rayeh’s lap. As she stared at its surface, her fingers danced over the input screen.

I sniffed and stretched to show I was awake. “What are you doing?”

“Plotting,” she muttered.

“Mutiny?”

She ignored my joke. “Courses.”

“For what?” I asked, though the pretty scatter of light along the undercurve of her breasts interested me more than any navigational calculations.

“You,” she said, and smiled down at me.

That made me sit straight. “What do you mean?”

M’Rayeh moved the pad between us, so I could watch as she tapped and moved around the images on the screen. “You said you wanted to go home. I can help.”

I shifted up so we were shoulder-to-shoulder. “Oh,” I said, because since the day of the pirate attack, and especially in the last cycle, the thought of leaving behind this ship and everyone on it had been far from my mind. “Don’t worry about that.”

“You’ve done so much to help me,” she insisted gently. “I’d like to do the same.” Before I could make any other protest, she enlarged the map’s focus on the datapad. I recognized a cluster of stars as the Pleiades and the Gould Belt and held a fast breath as she pointed to the third planet from Sol, my home star. “This is your world. Urth?”

“Earth,” I corrected, suddenly intent on the screen.

She repeated the name in better pronunciation, then reduced the image to show the broader expanse of the Milky Way. “We’re here,” she said, hovering her fingers over a stretch of unknown in the Zone of Avoidance before skimming them counterclockwise along the tighter spiral of the Centaurus Arm. She tapped what could have been a mote of dust among the brighter bodies. “And this is where the captain is taking us.”

“Gana’s moon.”

“Yes.” She continued drawing with her finger, tracing the Centaurus Arm spiral nearly to its nexus. Just shy of that mark, she rubbed a circle around Sol’s steady light. “The ship’s nav has a preliminary course from there to your solar system, here.”

“It does?”

“Presumably, from Toragg.”

I grunted. “I didn’t know he cared.”

M’Rayeh pulled a face. “If he cared a little more, he’d have plotted you a better path. This one will take nearly six-point-four to the fifteenth radiation cycles.” At my blank look, she clarified, “That’s almost five hundred of your standard day-rotations.”

I did some rough math in my head and muttered, “A little over sixteen months.”

“But there’s a faster way.” She rubbed her finger over a patch of dark space. “There’s a pathway congregation here. It has offshoots going in these directions,” she said, tracing invisible lines that spread across the screen like petals on a bloomed flower. She tapped the map. “This one is a direct path to here,” she said, dragging her finger to another dot of dark space close to what I knew as the Orion Nebula. “Using that, we could traverse the distance in less than one-point-five to the eleventh.” She swung her gaze briefly away. “Or, about seventeen day-rotations.”

I drew up fast. “That’s impossible! Not even the fleet’s fastest ship could cover that much astronomical distance in that short a time.” A synapse sparked in my brain, and I leaned toward her with a hissing breath. “Unless…! Are you talking about a wormhole?”

“If that’s what you call it, then yes.”

“No.” I leaned back again. “Wormholes are dangerous. They’re unpredictable. Even if you do happen to find one, you never know where you’re going to end up if you go through.”

M’Rayeh gave me a haughty look down the line of her nose. “That’s because you don’t see the path. But to me, that route,” she said, tapping her finger on the screen, “is as clear as a crystal. All you need to know is when to enter the congregation, at what angle, and how fast.”

I scoffed. “Oh, is that all?”

“Yes.” Her perfectly serious, self-assured attitude wiped the sneer from my face. “My people have been finding and traveling these pathways for generations. We’ve always been able to understand where they go and how they work.”

“Yeah, but…how?”

She lifted her shoulders. “A gift from the Progenitor. Like our wings.”

“So…all of your people can do this pathfinding thing?”

“Yes. Though, some are more attuned. They receive more formal training and become a vanguard. Cordyl’s flagship had two of the best.”

I thought back to the massive frigate that had tailed us seemingly from out of nowhere. “That’s how he found you,” I muttered, “even though you weren’t at a fixed point in space.”

M’Rayeh gave a doleful nod. “Once they know what they’re looking for, a trained pathfinder can locate anything, however far away or close. A planet, a star, a person. So long as it’s alive, they can find the path to it.”

“How did you manage to avoid them for so long?”

“Cold sleep. My brother knew it would hide me from the vanguards, because he was one himself.” Another sad look. “It stops in cold sleep, you know. Your mind. You don’t think; you don’t dream. It’s the furthest from being alive without being truly dead.” She replaced her melancholia with a smile. “I’m glad you woke me up, though. My brother got me away from Cordyl, but I don’t think he had a plan beyond that.” She pressed my hand. “Without you, I’d still be asleep. Or running and afraid. That’s no way to live.”

“Hierophant said the same thing,” I muttered.

M’Rayeh’s golden eyes went narrow, and her brow creased in a frown. “It’s something about her,” she said. “That’s what’s bothering you.”

I shifted back. “Not ‘bothering.’”

“Concerning, then,” she amended.

“I want to help her,” I said haltingly. “But I don’t know how.”

M’Rayeh cocked her head. “Does she need help?”

“Not in a way she’s asked, but…” I froze and held my breath a second as my brain caught up to my mouth. “You can,” I blurted.

“I can what?”

“Help Hierophant!” I sat forward, grabbed the datapad, and turned it to her. “If you can find a better path to Gana’s moon –”

M’Rayeh put her hands between us in a warding-off gesture. “Toragg won’t like that. He doesn’t like me.”

“So what? Nobody likes him, either. This is about camaraderie.”

“This is about you wanting to embarrass our navigator, to say nothing of our captain.”

“Maybe a little bit,” I admitted.

“Gana must have a reason for the route we’re taking.”

“Possibly. But a faster route would help Hierophant.” I locked onto the image of a wide stretch of sea like I used to dip my wings into back on Earth, hoping that would be enough to guard any stray thoughts about Veranyi’s reason for urgency. “She really needs to get there. Please?”

M’Rayeh sat in pensive contemplation a minute. Finally, she picked up the datapad. “I’m not making any promises.”

I didn’t let her finish the rest of her caution. I put my arm around her, squeezed her once, and pressed a grateful kiss to her cheek. “Thank you.”

In less than thirty minutes, M’Rayeh had calculated a new route to Gana’s moon. It involved a somewhat risky gravity assist around an off-path planet as well as passing through a lunar debris cloud, but it would shorten Skitnik’s estimated time of arrival by almost a third. When I walked onto the bridge – admittedly, unannounced – to share the new course with Toragg, he wasn’t impressed.

“Gibberish,” he said, wrinkling his nose beneath his goggles as he shoved the datapad back at me.

“Actually, it’s not,” I told him, taking the time to argue because nobody else was there. “We had Neex verify the calculations. Just because you didn’t plot it doesn’t mean it’s no good.”

“And just because your skinny blue concubine came up with it doesn’t make it better!”

“Except that it’s shorter and faster, giving us more time to analyze, scout, and set up your base camp,” I said, jabbing my finger down on his console with every point.

He waved me off like swatting an errant fly. “The ship will be yours soon enough. What does it matter if it takes a few dozen extra cycles?”

“It matters because it’s important.”

“To whom?” he challenged.

I faltered, unable to come up with a suitable reply that would convince him while at the same time keeping Veranyi’s secret.

The clomp of boots upon the bridge’s floor plates broke our impasse, and Gana demanded, “What are you doing up here?”

“He’s trying to convince us to plot a new course,” Toragg said in a blasé voice.

Gana looked at me. “And why would he want to do that?”

“Don’t play dumb,” I rumbled. “It doesn’t suit you. We both know what’s at stake here.”

Her stare grew daggers. “Whatever it is you think you know, you’re wrong.”

“Hierophant—”

“She’s fine,” Gana cut me off.

Toragg stiffened in alarm. “What about Hierophant?”

“Nothing,” Gana snapped.

“She’s pregnant,” I said.

“She’s what?” Toragg almost flew out of his chair.

Gana whirled on him. “Calm down. There’s still time to abort. She hasn’t even decided if she’s going to go through with it.”

“She has,” I said to Gana.

Her murderous glare flew back to me. “What did you do?”

I spread my feet, bracing for a fight or flight, whichever I’d need. “She asked me to help her. To act as her Guardian.”

Gana tilted her ear nearly to her shoulder. “Tell me you didn’t,” she said, her pitch brittle with a mix of anger and what sounded like despair. “Tell me you said no.”

I pulled myself up, pushed out my chest, and lowered my chin to drop my timbre to adopt the authoritative tones taught to me in the Thanagarian Royal Navy. “I said yes.”

Gana’s face blanched. Her mouth stretched to a grimace. The sound that came out of her throat was full of anguish. “You prideful oaf,” she wailed. “You muscle-bound idiot! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I’m helping her.”

“You’ve condemned her to die!”

I retreated a step at that word. Losing my ground made me lose most of my bravado, and I stammered a weak and stricken, “Wh-What?”

Gana came at me in a stiff-limbed stalk, and I backed up several more steps until I bumped and fell into the captain’s chair. She leaned over me, her gaze and voice full of menace.

“Those children will kill her. They will suck the very life from her until there’s nothing left but husk. That is what you have agreed to help happen,” she said, stabbing her finger into my chest. “Her death is on your hands.” She stood up and sucked a hard breath through her nostrils. Tears brimmed along her lashes, but she kept them in check. “I hope you’re happy,” she said, and thundered off the bridge again in a steady, furious gait.

I wasn’t happy. Not in the least. A dark, heavy wave of emotion rushed over me, like when the social worker told me my mother was dead and no one was going to come for me. “I didn’t know,” I mumbled.

Toragg’s chair squealed as he rotated it about. “You’d better start learning then. Guardian,” he added with a scornful sniff before turning back to his console.

Gana was right. I’d accepted Veranyi’s request without question out of pride. I’d wanted to be a hero, to do something good. Instead, my actions would bring pain, sorrow, and loss.

I hung my head and wished I was dead.

Chapter Text

Depression pushed me to the cold solitude of my cell. Self-loathing made me lock myself inside. I sat for a long time on the floor next to my bunk, just thinking about how stupid and selfish I was.

I swung my gaze to the locker with my armor and axe. In a surge of anger, I slammed my elbow against the side of the bed. I slammed again, because the pain felt good. Then I hit too hard and swore, grabbing my offended funny bone. Tears burst in my eyes. I drifted fully to the floor for a long, exhausting cry. That felt better than pain.

When I couldn’t cry anymore, I rubbed my face and looked at a collection of printed pages sitting on the floor. A skitterer had left them for me during the day: Neex’s research on Oegosid. Avoiding reading about it wouldn’t delay events, so I picked up the pages and found the data on species reproduction and birth. The details weren’t any easier to digest in black and white.

Gana’s outburst – that Veranyi’s children would kill her – had been harsh but not incorrect. An Oegosid female’s body, once committed to the gestation of her fertilized eggs, would devote all energies to the successful maturation of her young. The eggs would hatch within her body, and at that time she would expel them, preferably within saltwater. The young would swim off on their own, to survive or die as fate would have it. For the mother, though, there was no question of fate. With her cells depleted, her body would shut down in a quick death that Oegosid called somewhat poetically the Red Turn.

I dropped the pages as a new wave of tears burbled out of me and crumpled to the floor for another long cry that lasted most of the false night. I was still lying there when a light tapping on my door broke the rhythm of my dry sniffling.

“Golden-Eagle?” M’Rayeh murmured from the other side. I sat up, about to tell her to go away, when she gave another, more plaintive whisper. “Charley-Parker?”

There was something about her saying my name out loud – a deep-seated longing to be wanted, understood, loved – that made me rise to my feet and move to the door. But when I got there, I stopped because she asked:

“Are you all right?”

A nugget of resentment coalesced in my chest. “You’re a telepath,” I muttered back to her through the door. “Don’t you already know?”

She sighed. “I didn’t know about Hierophant.”

The nugget hardened. “If you had, would you have told me?”

“She should have told you herself. I’m sure she has a reason for why she didn’t.”

I snorted. “Because I’m stupid.”

“No.”

“Gullible.”

“No,” M’Rayeh repeated more firmly. “Will you let me in? I’m worried about you.”

“I’m not the one who’s going to die in a dozen cycles,” I spat out at her.

She was quiet for a lengthy pause. Then she muttered, “You’re angry.”

“Aren’t you little miss perceptive?”

A humph came through the door. “There’s no point trying to talk to you right now.”

“So, why don’t you leave?”

“I will.”

“Fine!” I shouted. “Go! I don’t need you here anyway.”

I waited for her to reply or retort, but she didn’t. Listening hard, I couldn’t hear anything from past the door. I leaned my head to it, then slid down to the floor, the ceramic cold and unyielding against my back.

“I don’t need anybody,” I mumbled aloud. It was an old mantra instilled in me by Fel, a phrase I’d repeated to myself during the days and nights of my darkest depths. The familiarity of it buoyed my anger, the only emotion I had in my arsenal to keep myself from devolving once more into a wretched weeping mess. The only problem was, I knew it was a lie.

I’m not sure how many minutes I sat there feeling sorry for myself. Long enough to develop an ache in my coccyx and an emptiness in my chest. I held my head. Surely, this qualified as conduct unbecoming, not the way I wanted to begin my tenure as Guardian.

A hot shower washed away most of my paralyzing feelings. As I pulled on some fresh clothes, I ventured a cautious call into the silence.

“Neex? You there?”

The comm box clicked after a moment. “Of course.”

I managed a half-smile. “You’ve been so quiet. I thought maybe you’d cut me off.”

“M’Rayeh asked me to give you some privacy. Is there something you need?”

“How about a better personality?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help with that.”

I scratched the back of my neck and gave the box a wary look. “Is M’Rayeh all right?”

“She’s sad,” Neex said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You hurt her.”

“I’d like to apologize. Do you know where she is?”

“I do. I don’t think she wants to see you, though.”

I nodded in defeat, then thought about the other person I owed an apology to. “What about Hierophant? Does she hate me, too?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know what goes on in Hierophant’s mind.”

I slumped. Just before I was ready to lurch to my bunk, Neex added:

“But I know she doesn’t hate you.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, only somewhat grateful for the perspective.

“I don’t hate you, either.”

I stared at the comm box. Then it clicked again, and Neex said with an air of loftiness:

“You already hate yourself more than enough.”

My resentment welled to overflowing. “If you knew what I’ve done—”

“Yes, yes,” Neex said with blasé disinterest. “You’ve killed. You’ve betrayed. That doesn’t make you special. Gana was a bounty hunter who informed on and killed plenty of targets over the years.”

“I’m aware of that,” I said, but Neex kept going.

“Were you also aware that Toragg blackmailed his way into that nav chair? Or that Valda did hemispherectomies on the original command crew so she could use their brains for her skitterer prototypes? Even Hierophant left a dozen pirates to die on her exam tables because she, quote, found their manners appalling, unquote. You’re not evil,” Neex said around the approximation of a sigh. “You’ve just made some questionable decisions, like every other arrogant meat-sack who thinks themselves the center of the universe. If you really cared, you’d put your own feelings behind you and honor the promises you made. Or at least accept the consequences of your actions.”

Under other circumstances, Neex’s no-nonsense reprimand would have flared my defenses or sent me into a depressive spiral. But in light of all that had come before, I could only shrug and admit: “You’re right.”

“Yes, I know. The question is, what will you do about it?”

I pulled a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and headed for the corridor. I figured M’Rayeh would be the easier one to apologize to, but as my cell door slid open and I took my first steps outside, I froze. Valda and Veranyi stood together in front of Valda’s quarters, joined in a loose embrace. It wasn’t a lovers’ hug, but its intimacy made me start backing up toward my own cell.

Valda’s third eye found me before I could make my retreat. “Guardian,” she said, and I froze again.

Veranyi rose and fixed me with her black gaze. “Golden Eagle,” she said, part acknowledgment and part greeting.

“Uh,” I replied dumbly. “I…!” I cleared my throat and glanced to my feet. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“There was no interruption,” Veranyi said. “Valda and I have concluded our dialogue for now.”

“Return soon,” Valda said without offense.

Veranyi inclined her head. “I will.”

Valda nodded, too, and lumbered back into the solitude of her quarters. Once the door had closed after her, Veranyi turned her full attention to me.

“I was about to return to Medical,” she said. “Is there something you needed?”

“I wanted to apologize,” I murmured, pulling a face. “For blabbing to Gana. I broke my promise to you, and I’m sorry.”

She nodded once, leaving her chin down a moment. When she raised it again, her expression was neutral. “The method may not have been ideal, but the outcome remains the same.”

Hope fluttered in my chest. “You forgive me?”

“Your action, however impetuous, was spurred by concern. I cannot fault you for that.”

“Thank you,” I said, bowing my head to her, “for understanding.”

She turned in a rustle of tentacle and gown, toward the lift. “It has also had the consequence of our adopting a new course.” She looked back at me. “One M’Rayeh discovered, I am told.”

I trotted after her. “Toragg’s following the path she drew?”

“Toragg is a curmudgeon,” Veranyi told me over her shoulder as she glided into the empty lift. “But even he acknowledges the value of speed.”

I stepped into the lift beside her. “Is it so important?” I asked in a small voice. “The speed?”

Her fingers hovered at the command console in the car. Then she said without looking at me, “I would prefer to arrive early than to be anxious about time to prepare.”

“I can understand that.”

Veranyi hummed in agreement as the doors slid shut. “It helped,” she added then, “that Gana ordered him.”

I cast her a sidelong glance. “How is Gana?”

“She is…conflicted.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“But she has promised not to interfere.”

We were quiet a minute. When the lift opened on the main deck, Veranyi slipped into the corridor with an offhanded musing:

“I did briefly consider her as Guardian.”

“Really?” I asked, though the news didn’t surprise me. In terms of fighters, Gana and I were the best on the ship. Veranyi must have thought so, too.

“She is a skilled defender,” she confirmed, “and there is much she could teach my children.” Her voice took on a more solemn timbre. “But she could not understand my choice. In fact, she very nearly refused my freedom to make it.”

I lagged a few paces behind her, watching my feet as they stepped over the floor plates. “Maybe she doesn’t like the thought of losing you. I don’t.”

Veranyi stopped and turned round to me. She retained her poise, her back straight and her hands clasped precisely in front of her. “Yet, you accepted my decision.”

“I didn’t know all the details.” I strode toward her, coming to within arm’s reach so I could keep my voice low. “What would happen. The Red Turn.”

“Now that you do, you have changed your mind?” Her voice carried an edge of expectant accusation, and I blurted:

“No.”

I’d said it without thinking, but given a moment’s consideration, I knew my answer had been set before I’d stepped out of my cell. My own mother could have aborted me. Alone, confused, and on the run, Sharon Parker probably should have gone to a clinic to erase me from existence. Instead, she’d made the choice to have me, despite the danger my existence brought her. I liked to think she did it because she loved me even then, and that she believed I could be a good man no matter how mad my father or how tainted my blood.

“It’s your decision,” I told Veranyi. “It has to be. But why you didn’t tell me everything at the start?”

Her reflective gaze shimmered. “I was afraid,” she said at last.

A sharp needle of guilt pricked my heart. “Of me?” I croaked, but she wagged her head.

“I worried that if you knew the specifics of my children’s birth, you might resent them for it. But they are innocent,” she went on in a tone of quiet desperation. “And though they come from my body and will have a part of me always, they will be their own beings, free to make their own choices and live their own lives. It is that truth that I believed you, of everyone on this ship, would understand best.”

I swallowed, struck mute by her sentiment. In the silence, Veranyi unclasped her hands and raised one to my face. The dull nerves around my regrown eye barely registered the stroke of her long fingers, but my cheek felt the full warmth of her palm.

“You are of your father,” she whispered. “But you are not beholden to his legacy. You are not him. You are Golden Eagle,” she said with emphasis. “A shining winged warrior from a far-off world, who came to me by chance. Who dared to open his heart despite its scars, and for whom my own heart developed a great fondness.” Then she cupped my jaw and drew me close, tilting my head to press a kiss to my brow.

A childish desire to throw my arms around her and bury my face into the folds of her gown threatened to overwhelm me. I don’t know if she read those feelings or if some other instinct came into play, but she pulled my head to her shoulder, where I spilled a slew of tears and sobs.

After a few minutes, the massive crush of emotions passed over and through me, and I sniffled and wiped the tracks of them from my face as I raised my head away.

Veranyi let me go, too, stepping back to resume her typical prim stance. But her tone was affectionate as she asked, “Do you feel better, now?”

I started to nod, then stopped halfway. “I don’t want you to die.”

“I did not make my decision because I want to die,” she told me, gently chiding. “I made it because I want to give my children the chance to live.”

“I know,” I assured her in a steadier voice. “But I wish we had more time. I don’t know anything about you: your dreams, your fears, the things you love best. What your favorite color is, or even your favorite food!”

She chuckled. “What is the significance of those details?”

“I never knew those things about my mother,” I said, feeling my throat tighten again. “I wish that I did.”

The contrast of frown and smile was a look of hers I knew well, and one I would miss terribly. For the moment, though, it was a comfort. “My favorite color,” she said then in modulated syllables, “is the golden light of a new sunrise over Oegosin’s Crystal Sea.”

 I flashed a quick, unexpected grin at the image that conjured in my head. That would be easy enough to remember. “Is the sea really crystal?” I asked.

She chuckled softly again. “No. It is simply water. We call it that because when the odonto shed their horns before their long slumber, the particulate matter rises to the break, catching the light of the sun like facets of a crystal.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“It is,” she said, full of melancholy nostalgia. Before I could comfort her or make comment, she drew another breath and changed the topic with a smile. “And my favorite food is trombi, especially in nymph form. Little insects,” she told me, pinching her fingers close to each other. “Their bodies burst with salt when you bite into them.”

“That…does not sound beautiful.” I laughed. “But I’ll make sure to tell your children.”

Veranyi looked at me confidently. “You will not need to tell them. They will already know. Oegosid history is one of thought-memory. Foremothers pass on to their children the memories of their own lives as well as the lives of previous generations.” She put her hand to her chest. “I have memories from my direct foremother, and her foremother before her, and so on, all the way back to the Great Mother who first rose from the dark sea into the light.” Her mouth twitched in amusement. “Though, I admit those are likely half-borne from story.”

I gave a grunt of partial understanding. “I’ve heard of genetic recall, but I never really knew what it meant.”

“Each of my children will be born with a beginning understanding of the universe through my life and experiences: what I learned, how I lived, the ones I loved.”

My pulse pounded hard in my chest, though not with any romantic desire. I’d come to understand that my feelings for her weren’t about trying to recapture a love I’d lost, like Bette’s, but one I’d never known, or at least that I couldn’t remember. My mother’s love.

“I’ll do everything I can for your children,” I said. “And for you.” She didn’t draw them away when I grasped them in mine. “I’ll make you proud. I promise.”

“Yes.” She gave me her tender smile. “I believe that you will.”

A welcome warmth rushed through me, and I squeezed her fingers and grinned. “Your children might already know things about you, but I want to know, too. Will you tell me?”

Veranyi bobbed her head and pulled her hand away. “Of course,” she said, gesturing toward the medical suite. I walked with her inside, to stand across from her at one of the data consoles as she described to me her far-off home world, how she came to the ship, her friendships with Valda and later Gana, and other aspects of her life and past that I should have asked about long before but was still grateful she shared with me now.

We talked for more than an hour. Her manner – ever calm, ever comforting – made me start to feel better about things. Before we parted for the duration, she grasped my hands for attention.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For staying to your promise to act as my Guardian. I understand the weight it carries.”

“It’s an honor,” I told her with a pump of her fingers. I bowed my head. “I’ve enjoyed talking with you today.”

“As have I. Will you return tomorrow? I would like to hear about your world.”

A bud of confidence bloomed in my chest, and I chuckled. “Should I ask Valda to bring some of her tea?”

I’d meant it as a joke, but Veranyi was sincere. “Please do. She would appreciate that request coming from you. I know Valda is slow to move,” she added in a quieter voice, “but her mind is quick, and she has knowledge of many things. She is a valuable ally, and a beloved friend.”

I blinked, shamed and struck a bit dumb by these revelations. Even as Veranyi drew her hands away, a signal of this time coming to an end, I stayed in place another minute. “I’m sorry I’m only learning these things now.”

Her eyelids flashed once across the black. “Understanding in this case is less about the outcome than the effort.” She smiled. “Yours has not come too late.”

I thanked her and walked out of Medical, holding my head a bit higher. I passed by the galley to see if M’Rayeh was there. She wasn’t, but Gana sat hunched over one of the tables with her back to the corridor. She was rubbing her head with her hand, and from her came a string of ragged breaths. While the sound made me pause, I was neither comfortable with nor ready to try consoling her; that was a bridge a little too far. Instead, I went to the access conduit to try my luck on the obs deck. There I found M’Rayeh, hovering near the top of the giant viewing wall and staring at the video feed of stars.

“Hey,” I announced.

She turned her head my way, looked at me a moment, then turned back to the wall.

I rose into a float, stopping a few feet from her side. There was no need for a preamble. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was being a jerk. I was scared and angry, and I took it out on you, and that was wrong. None of this is your fault.”

M’Rayeh kept watching the stars. “You’re right.”

Her tone was unsympathetic, and I sighed in reply. “I just wanted to apologize. But if you don’t want to accept it, I understand. That’s your prerogative.” I started away, but before I’d gone more than a dozen feet, she called out:

“I know you love Hierophant.”

I stopped and faced her. She turned in the air, returning my look with tears brimming along her lashes. But while there was an ache in her voice, it didn’t tremble.

“I love her, too,” she said. “She was the first friend I had – the first person to be kind to me – after I woke up. And I know that she needs you.” Her hands curled into fists. “I might not need you the way she does, but I…I want you. I want you to tell me it’s all right. That this is her choice, and we need to support her in that. And that even after she’s gone, she won’t really be gone because when we die, it’s only our bodies that stop living. Our energy…” M’Rayeh faltered in her ramble. “Our energy goes on,” she got out through a tumble of tears that she tried to catch in her hands as she pressed them to her face. “Infinitely…!”

I flew to her and took her in my arms, holding her loosely to my chest.

“It is her choice,” I said into her hair, as tears started to muddle my vision, too. “We should support her. And she does need me, but she needs you, too. To tell her all the things you love about her. How she was always kind and calm, even in a crisis. How you’ll miss the sound of her voice. And how, after her body is gone, you’ll look for her light between the stars when you fly through the sky.”

M'Rayeh threw her arms around my neck and pressed her cheek to mine. Our tears commingled into a brief but rapid stream. When they ebbed, I turned my head to look at her, though it was only enough to nuzzle close to her ear.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know what you wanted.” I cupped her opposite cheek and rubbed the wet track of tears there. My attempt at a snicker came out more as a sniffle. “But I’m not a telepath, so you need to tell me when you need me. It doesn’t have to be in words. It can be a touch, or a flutter, or—”

She grabbed the back of my head and crushed our mouths together, cutting off my words and stilling my breath for a string of thumping heartbeats. Her kiss softened, and we unclutched.

“That works, too,” I said.

She exhaled through her nose something that sounded almost like a laugh but not quite. “I know it’s childish,” she muttered between our lips, “but I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

“I don’t want to lose anyone else, either.” I gave her a quick squeeze. “But at least we have this time together. That’s a gift. Not everyone gets it. So, don’t let it slip away idle.”

M’Rayeh raised her eyes to mine. The gold in them glimmered, like Veranyi’s favorite color memory. “It’s not only Hierophant. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know all that you’ve lost,” she said, her tone still grave. “The Bette-Flamebird, your friends, even your father. They left holes in your heart, great voids of sorrow that turned to anger. That anger made you cruel.” Her expression darkened for those words, and she pulled her brows together. “When Hierophant’s gone, I fear the void she’ll leave behind, and what that will do to you.”

My chest contracted at her concern. “I lost Bette because I was afraid of being left, so I left first. I lost my friends because I was too full of anger and self-pity to ask for help. I didn’t believe in me, so I thought they didn’t believe in me, either. And my father…!” I swung my head as I recalled the stench of burning flesh. “I failed to save him because I was too busy trying to save my stupid pride. I couldn’t see that he’d changed, and he wanted me to change. He tried to tell me before he died that revenge was an empty purpose, that there were better things to fight for, but I wasn’t ready to learn that, yet. Until you. You helped me to be better. You, and most of the rest of this mixed-up, misfit crew.”

A comm box crackled. “You’re welcome,” Neex put in, while M’Rayeh lowered her gaze a moment, her concern drifting into coyness.

“You’re giving me too much credit.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough,” I told her. “Without you, I’d probably still be sitting in my cell feeling sorry for myself. Or wasting away my days running on that wheel. Instead, I learned to care about people again.” I shrugged one shoulder, trying to be jaunty. “I may not be the hero I should have been at the start, and I’ll probably still make mistakes.” I stroked her chin with my thumb. “But at least I understand, now, that I’m not totally worthless.”

“Not at all worthless.” She put both hands to my face. “And much more a hero than you think.”

This time, my chuckle came out clear. “Maybe. I want to be.” My heart pattered, and I sobered for more honesty. “I want other things, too. I want you,” I said, tilting my head for another kiss. M’Rayeh met me halfway, pressing her lips to mine.

Chapter Text

The Navy – and prison – had taught me the value of routine, particularly if one wanted to avoid spiraling into fear or despair. Since I couldn’t speed things up or slow them down, I filled the hours until our arrival at Gana’s moon with more practical endeavors. There were workouts in the mornings, then chores in Engineering, learning sessions in Medical, tea breaks with Valda before supper, and a bit of friendly flight sparring at the end of the cycle with M’Rayeh. Practice made for proficiency, though the real value came from sweating out the anxieties of the day. Of course, there was sex for that, too, sometimes wild and sometimes sweet. While we never said so, I knew that M’Rayeh took as much comfort as I did in the affirmation of life that sex provided. Not that anything would come of it.

“Did you ever want children?”

M’Rayeh had asked permission for a question, but I hadn’t been prepared for that one. I stared at the mussed tendrils of her hair on the pillow as I considered it.

“The idea of kids always scared me,” I confided at last.

“Are human children frightening?”

“No. I mean, yeah, but not like some species; they don’t eat each other or anything. They’re fragile, though,” I said, recalling the lonely existence of my own childhood. “Impressionable. If you’re not careful, they can grow up…wrong.”

M’Rayeh rolled over to face me. The soft light from the overhead video feed showed off the golden glow of her eyes. “Hierophant’s children will grow up right.”

“You sound awfully certain.”

“Gana may be angry with you, but her feelings for Hierophant come from a place of love. She won’t let her children grow up to be terrible.”

“She’ll just teach them to hate me.”

“They’ll know from Hierophant herself how much you loved her, and the sacrifice of your heart that you made for them.” She shook her head. “No one could hate that.”

Maybe not. I thought about Sharon. What she’d sacrificed for me and how I loved her for that, even though I’d never known her.

“I don’t want Hierophant to die,” M’Rayeh said. “But when I think of her children, what they might do or who they might become, I feel excitement.” Her brows cringed together. “Is that awful of me?”

“No,” I said with a stroke of her cheek. “In fact, I’m sure she’d like to hear that from you.”

M’Rayeh smiled anew. “Then I’ll tell her.” She bounced up from the bunk, tumbling over me in her dismount.

I rolled over in a follow, watching somewhat dazedly as she flew to the overhead cubby to pull out a fresh two-suit. “Now?” I glanced to the timekeeper. “The day-cycle hasn’t even started!”

“You were the one who said we shouldn’t be idle.” She slipped the top over her head and flipped her hair from beneath the collar. “We’ll arrive at the moon soon, and I don’t want to waste time. Besides,” she said as she slipped into her bottoms, “you know Hierophant doesn’t sleep.”

“We do.”

M’Rayeh returned wearing an indulgent smirk. “I’m not turning you out. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I know you don’t care for your own quarters.”

“My quarters are fine,” I mumbled, though in truth, she was right. While all single cells on the ship were essentially the same, M’Rayeh had turned hers into a homey refuge with star maps and prints of her paintings adorning the walls. It gave off first-apartment vibes, and I liked it. There was more to it than that, though. Even with my armor and axe locked in the closet, their proximity in my own cell was a sobering reminder of what I would really be losing as soon as we reached our destination.

Either satisfied with my answer or unwilling to press, M’Rayeh’s reaction was the same. She popped up, flashing an eager beam before turning to the door. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

I watched the hatch close after her, and after a stretch of moments lurched up from the bunk. I knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I dressed into fresh clothes for an early morning run on the wheel. But first, I wanted some protein. I headed to the galley.

The public areas’ lighting systems were programmed to simulate the cycle of hours of our destination moon’s day and night. Neex had done it to make acclimation easier for the landing party. Even if I wouldn’t be staying on-planet for very long, I appreciated the effort. There wasn’t much more discombobulating than walking into a mostly white room filled with glaring lights in what would have been the wee hours of the morning. Though, the dimness did distort my perceptions. I didn’t notice Gana sitting at the innermost table until I was nearly at her side.

“You’re up early,” she muttered from over a bowl of something sticky-looking.

“I could say the same for you.”

Gana let out a weary breath that sounded like the dwindling aftershock of a quake. “I like these hours. They’re quiet.”

“I’ll go.” I started to turn toward the corridor when she said:

“That’s all right.”

I gave her a quizzical look, and she waved a slow hand to the seat across from her. I sat cautiously, my breakfast quest forgotten. As she scraped at what was left in her bowl, I said, “Are you okay? You’re not usually this polite to me.”

“Let’s just say I don’t have the fight in me anymore.”

“I don’t believe that.”

She snickered into her food, dropped her spork into her bowl, then raised her head. “Do you really want to know why I don’t like you?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Sure. Give me a thrill.”

Her smile was full of teeth, but there was no humor or joy in it. “You stumble into situations – most of them deadly, some of them impossible – with the forethought of a blind, bumbling infant. Yet, somehow, you manage to end up on top. It’s not about skill or savvy.” She gave me an up-and-down glance as her faux smile became a snarl. “You’re not even that pretty. It’s just luck. Sheer, dumb luck.”

“Is this about Hierophant?” I challenged.

“This is about everything. Skitnik was supposed to be my ship. Viza gave it to me,” she said, clapping her fist to her chest.

“I never tried to take the ship from you.”

“You never left things alone, either! You could have stayed in your cell,” she said, leaning at me with her chin. “Out of sight and out of mind. But no.” She cringed her fingers into claws and scratched them over the table, like tagging an itch. “You had to dig your talons into everyone’s lives, everyone’s business.”

“Hey,” I snapped back. “I didn’t ask to be brought aboard. That was Viza. And you had plenty of opportunities to take me home, or put me in a stasis pod, or shove me out an airlock. But you didn’t.” I jabbed my finger at her. “That’s on you. All I did was try to make the best of the hand I’d been dealt.”

“By convincing Veranyi to die?”

In the face of her shout, I blinked and sat back. “You know her name,” I muttered.

Gana swung her head low and spit out a scoff. “Of course, I know her name. She’s my friend.” When she looked up again, her eyes reflected a sheen of sorrow. “This planet was meant to be a new beginning, for this crew and the brothers and sisters I fought my way out of Citadel slavery with. It was supposed to herald a new life.” Her shoulders slumped. “Now, it’s just going to bring more death.”

I sat dumbly for a minute; being kind to Gana still felt awkward. But her pain – and her guilt – were plain. I knew what that combination could do to a soul. I knew something else, too.

I leaned over the table for a murmur. “One death, yes. But also tens, if not a hundred, new lives.”

Gana’s glower, focused somewhere invisible between us, cut deep into her brow. “Not hers.”

“But part of her.”

She turned the full force of her glare on me. “How does that make it better?”

“You said that you want your new world to bring better things. What are those things? Freedom to make your own choices, live the life you want? Well, this is what she wants. And we don’t have any right to take that away from her, even if it does hurt like hell to let it happen.”

Gana rolled her gaze toward the ceiling and released a long, low sigh. Regret replaced the anger in her face. “I just wanted to do something good, for a change.” Her voice hovered at the edge of a crack. “Something honest and honorable. I didn’t want anyone else to die.”

I stiffened as her words filled me with a cold shame. Gana might have had her surface reasons for disliking me, but the real reason we didn’t get along was because we were too much the same. Neither of us seemed to enjoy seeing ourselves in the other. In the face of that realization, I reminded her of the one comfort that I’d held onto:

“She’s not dead yet.”

Gana wrinkled her nose. “She will be soon.”

“So, why are you sitting here with me when you could be with her, while she’s still here?”

Her eyes came back to me: dry, blank, but attentive. She kept her lips together.

I offered my own sigh. “I don’t know about you, but I wasted a lot of my life being angry or resentful over things I couldn’t control, when I should have been paying attention to the things I could. I railed when I should have listened, closed my fist when I should have cleared my head. It got me here. And I’ve only just started to figure out how to turn that around for good.”

Gana stared at me another second, then rolled her eyes again and let out another little scoff. “I can’t believe I’m considering taking advice from you.”

A snicker threatened, but I kept it back to retain some sincerity. “You’ve got to admit: I make some good points.”

Her gaze regained a bit of its briefly lost animosity. “Is that why Hierophant chose you to be her guardian?”

I couldn’t help it. “I am the best fighter.”

Gana snorted. “We’ll need to put that to a true test sometime.”

“I’m ready when you are,” I said with a shrug.

She blew another snort. This time, a smirk came with it. “We’ll see.” She stood, and I started to rise with her, but she showed me one palm. “At ease, wingman.” With the other hand, she picked up her bowl. “I’ve got more important things to do than clash batons with you.”

I resumed my seat and let her go, only half-glancing over my shoulder when she passed me on the way to the corridor. In her wake, I rubbed the top of my spine. A knot that had been there so long I hadn’t known I’d been holding it began to unravel. I rolled my neck and let my snicker come through.

The comm box above the table clicked. “That was a nice thing you did,” Neex said.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

I put my chin in my hand and grunted into my palm. “So am I, to be honest.”

“What changed your mind?”

I stared at the table. A faint and fading ring of condensation marked the place where Gana’s bowl had sat. I drew my finger across it, spreading the drops of moisture into a line like a comet’s trail.

“I didn’t want to be a villain in Gana’s story,” I muttered. “I took the chance she didn’t want to be one in mine, either.”

While the comm provided its open-link buzz, Neex gave no comment. Then they made a tiny noise of understanding and said, “The others will be pleased to hear that you and Gana have come to a small peace. Hierophant, especially.”

That buoyed my spirits for the rest of the day. My workout went smoothly; I got some practice operating the examination cots in Medical; I even helped Neex track down and clean out a clog in the environment systems. Valda continued her instruction on how to make tea, and at supper, M’Rayeh gushed about her own session in the ship’s navigation programs. Most of that was mystery to me, but I was glad to see her happy.

“Have you seen Hierophant today?” she asked almost expectantly as we headed up to the observation deck for our evening sparring session.

“Only briefly,” I told her. “Gana called her out of Medical while I was there.”

M’Rayeh came to my side, leaning around her spear for a murmur. “Do you think there’s anything to it?”

“There’s always something to it.” Quietly, I hoped it had to do with me. A report of the understanding between Gana and me coming from Gana herself would mean a lot. Plus, knowing that women were talking about me always offered a nice ego boost.

Before my mind could stray into any more lascivious territory, M’Rayeh brought me back to the present with another thoughtful utterance. “I hope everything’s all right.”

“Don’t worry,” I said as we came into Obs. “Your flight plan is getting us to Gana’s moon a lot faster than we would have done, and even that one gave us some wiggle room.”

“Maybe I should try plotting again,” she muttered.

I sighed out a breath but didn’t get the chance to speak because M’Rayeh suddenly straightened into an alert stance. I followed her look to the far end of the deck. There, Veranyi stood, hands clasped, while beside her Valda sat among a triad of idling skitterers. Off to one side, Gana rolled a sparring baton in her hand.

“How about a real challenge?” Gana asked with a smirk, and tossed and caught her baton.

I rolled my shoulders. “Sure, why not?”

But Gana lifted her chin. “I was talking to M’Rayeh.”

There was a short pause, then M’Rayeh bobbed her head. She stepped toward the baton wall. “What should I program?”

“Keep your spear,” Gana said, still holding onto her smirk. “I want to see what you’ve got.”

M’Rayeh flashed me a look that seemed to ask, What should I do?

I snickered. “Don’t keep the captain waiting.”

M’Rayeh nodded again and stepped forward with her spear. She met Gana in the sparring ring, where the floor panels lit into a red-lined square. Gana raised her baton arm, and the practice weapon buzzed to life, projecting an extra dozen inches and crackling with electric fury at its tip. M’Rayeh braced her spear in front of her. The square gave a blinking countdown, and when the lines flashed to green, Gana charged with a downward swing. M’Rayeh blocked it with the haft of her spear, then rapped the base toward Gana’s midsection. Gana sidestepped, but only just.

“M'Rayeh has become quite a fighter.”

Veranyi’s low observation made me turn her way. “Fighting’s in her blood,” I said.

“No doubt, your influence had some effect.”

“Is that a criticism?”

“Not at all. While fighting should not be the default choice, it is imperative for a starship captain to know how.”

I jerked up in stunned silence, while the clacking, thwacking, and grunting in the sparring ring went on. “Captain?” I got out at last.

“With Gana debarking, the ship will need a new commander.”

“Our recommendation,” Valda added, bowing her head toward the ring.

I returned my attention to M’Rayeh, who lunged a full stab with her spear. Gana swatted the tip away and used a two-handed swing to send the spear clattering from M’Rayeh’s grip. She closed their distance with three quick steps, elbowing M’Rayeh first in the chest to set her off-balance, then in the face to send her to the floor. The lines in the floor went red as M’Rayeh crossed their boundary.

Gana stood straight with a panting breath. She clicked off her baton, retracted it down to starting size, and tucked it into the back of her belt. Then she stretched out her hand to M’Rayeh. “Why didn’t you fly?”

M’Rayeh relaxed her disappointed frown. “That wouldn’t have been very fair,” she said as she accepted Gana’s hand.

“Most fights aren’t fair.” Gana hauled her up with a grunt. “When you have an advantage, you should press it. And if your enemy has a weakness, you should exploit it.”

As she steadied herself on her heels, M’Rayeh paused a moment, as if considering.

A tingle tickled the top of my brain stem. I shut my eyes and threw both arms in front of me just as her telepathic wave crashed over us. It lasted less than a second, but it took another five for me to regather my senses. When I opened my eyes again, Gana was sprawled on the floor as if hit by a physical sucker punch. She blinked up at M’Rayeh, who stood unmoving and said:

“Like that?”

I couldn’t help barking a laugh.

“Golden Eagle,” Veranyi said in a scolding tone. She was scowling as she held onto Valda, who rubbed absently at her third eye.

“Oh, come on. That was funny.” I turned back to Gana. “And you told her to do it!”

Gana wiped at her bloodied nose. “Maybe I should have said, ‘Except for us.’”

Duly shamed, M’Rayeh pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I was only making a point. Sometimes, adversaries are more than they appear.” She extended her hand. “Allies, too.”

Gana gave a slow nod. She grasped M’Rayeh’s hand and wobbled to her feet. There was a moment of silence between them, then Gana tipped her head toward the lift. “Walk with me. There’s something we should discuss. You won’t need that,” she said when M’Rayeh started for her spear.

I guessed at what Gana wanted to talk about. “I’ll take care of it,” I said as I moved to the edge of the ring and lifted the spear to my side.

M’Rayeh nodded to me, then turned and walked away with Gana. They entered the lift together, a mismatch of sturdy battler and slender flier, talking lowly between themselves.

Veranyi glided up. “She will make a good captain.”

I shot her a sniff. “Better than me, apparently.”

“Yes,” Valda said.

“Thanks for the support,” I snapped.

Veranyi extended her fingers between us, as though to ward off any physical altercation. Not that I would have attacked Valda…or survived long against her skitterers if I did.

“We do not consider you incapable,” Veranyi said. “But, in time, you would come to resent the responsibility of leading this ship. Your destiny lies elsewhere,” she added in a gentler tone.

My defenses stayed primed. “You don’t know that.”

“You do,” Veranyi said, staring down my nerve. “You decided long ago that your stay was only temporary. M’Rayeh, on the other hand, has chosen to make this her home. For her, this ship represents possibility. For you, it has been little more than a prison. Do not sulk.”

“I’m not sulking,” I said, though some impertinence remained. I sighed out the rest. “But how do you know me better than I do?”

She graced me with one of her tiny smiles. “I see you without your bias.”

Love surged, threatening me to tears. I held them back with a little smile of my own. “I’m going to miss you.”

Veranyi chuckled. “You will have new challenges to occupy you.” Her demeanor became serene once again. “And I will always be with you, here,” she said, laying the tips of her fingers to my chest. Then she drew back her hand, clasped them together, and resumed her more proper stance. “We have commandeered your sparring time. Perhaps some skitterers…?”

“No!” I said with a peremptory wave. “That’s okay. I can do without a fight for a while.” I shifted the spear to my off hand. “How about a nice, hot drink to wind down?”

Veranyi nodded. “That would be lovely.”

“Valda, you in?”

“In what?” Valda asked quizzically.

“Would you like to join us?” I clarified.

“Ah.” Valda bobbed her head, her long hair swinging. “Yes. Good tea. Good friends. You make this time,” she said to me, like a teacher testing a student.

We headed for the lift. “You trust me with that?”

“Will correct missteps,” Valda confirmed, and Veranyi chuckled softly behind her lips.

After tea, I returned M’Rayeh’s spear to her quarters. She was still elsewhere, with Gana or possibly on her own. I decided not to wait for her. Veranyi’s words rattled in my head, as they often did. I walked to my own cell at the end of the corridor and went inside.

The bare walls reflected light and gray. The bed was made with military – or prison inspection – neatness. If a detective were to go poking through it, the only indication anyone had lived here for the last two-plus years would be the toothbrush by the sink and a few hairs in the shower drain. And my armor and axe in the closet. I opened the doors to the storage container and stared at them.

The Thanagarian emblems carved into the helmet and breastplate, of which I’d been so proud at one time, felt suddenly wrong. The axe, too, its blade nicked by countless swings and blocks. All of it symbolized not just what I was going to lose but what I’d already lost long ago. Friends. Family. My home. My self.

I left my cell and flew up the corridor. At Valda’s middle door, I touched down again. I called her name softly as I knocked. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” I said when she came to the door.

“Not busy,” she assured me in her plodding cadence. “More tea?”

“Not right now. I’d like to ask a favor?”

The eyes blinked, and she waited.

“You know how to work with metal.”

She nodded. A skitterer with six legs tick-tacked up beside her, and she laid a loving hand on its extended spine. “Iron. Steel. Diulustel. Pyro-Granulate.” She flashed me a look. “Very dangerous.”

“What about Nth?”

“Complicated,” she said thoughtfully. Then she swung all three eyes up at me. They gleamed with keen intelligence. “But doable.”

I grinned. “How’d you like to help me with a project?”

She grinned, too, at that word. “Yes!” She shuffled to one side and showed me into her quarters. “Tell.”

I went, so flush with fresh purpose that I nearly trembled. The real Golden Eagle was going to fly again.

Chapter Text

Sitting around the galley’s main table, I observed with silent interest as Valda directed M’Rayeh through strokes and flourishes on the datapad between them. Valda had a skill for invention, but her calculations were all in math. I’d asked for some visuals. Neither of us were very artistic, so I’d suggested M’Rayeh’s assistance, which she more than happily provided.

While M’Rayeh tended to be the bubbly chatty Cathy, with Valda occupying the role of precise and serious thinker, when put together, those lines blurred. Valda kept her low, slow tones, but she spoke freely and fluently in the language of design. M’Rayeh, meanwhile, furrowed her brow for deliberate thought as she interpreted Valda’s instructions into illustration. I just watched them work, the splay of golden colors on the pad turning me almost giddy.

“Is that an armor design?”

I turned to find Veranyi at my shoulder. She peered at the drawing, too, as she came to sit beside me at the table. In her hand, she held a peach-like ball of salty protein that she paused to chew methodically.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She kept looking, swallowed, and said, “It is not very Thanagarian.”

“It’s more like my original suit. Except this one will have articulated wings,” I added with a grin. “I’ll be able to flex and manipulate, not just open and close.”

Veranyi hummed. “That sounds complicated.”

“Complex,” Valda snapped, shooting a sharp glance in our direction. Her head rotated back to the task at hand. “Not difficult.”

Veranyi sat back, pinching in a chastened smile. “I stand corrected.”

I leaned toward her to keep my voice low and shot a thumb at the working pair. “The articulation was actually Valda’s idea.” I chuckled. “I think she wanted to give the design her own spin.”

Veranyi bobbed her chin in understanding. “Her skitterers have allowed her some design discretion, but they are built primarily for function.”

I hunched my shoulders. “This suit will be more functional, too.”

“But also beautiful.”

The forthright admiration in her voice brought a heavier beat to my heart. “I wish you could see it.”

Valda turned our way again and explained in a lamenting tone, “Build will take time. Dangerous without.”

“Best not to deprive our only space fighter completely of his armor,” M’Rayeh translated. She added with a wiggle of her nose, “Even if some of us don’t mind seeing you naked.”

The females around me shared a communal giggle while my face filled with heat. I was saved by the click of the comm box when Neex called my name.

“Golden Eagle? Captain wants you suited up.”

M’Rayeh popped higher in her seat. “For what?”

“Visual reconnaissance in atmosphere,” Neex said. “We’re approaching planetfall.”

The galley fell still, then Valda, M’Rayeh, and I turned to Veranyi.

“Already?” M’Rayeh’s voice came out as little more than a peep.

Valda shrugged her heavy body. “Faster path.” She lumbered up from the table, taking the datapad with her.

M’Rayeh watched her stand and start toward the corridor. “I got so wrapped up in everything, I lost track of the cycles.”

Veranyi rose, too, pausing to offer M’Rayeh a comforting smile. “We chose your route to have more time, not less. This is a good thing. Come,” she said, extending her hand. “Have you ever seen a planetfall firsthand?”

M’Rayeh’s expression was wary, but she grasped Veranyi’s hand and pulled herself to her feet. “No…?”

“You’re in for a treat,” I told her, and snickered. “It’s a gas.”

“Actually,” Neex said loftily, “it’s an atmospheric entry event.”

I rolled my eyes at the box. “Everybody’s a critic.”

“Captain doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” Neex reminded, still patronizing.

I stood and headed for the doors. “I’m going, I’m going.” I stepped around the others and, as soon as I was clear, kicked off into a quick flight to the access conduit between levels, then dropped down to Residential. It donned my armor and grabbed my axe, as well, recalling the first rule of flying into the unknown: hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

I flew back to the main deck and touched down right outside the bridge. When I walked in, I was a little surprised to find everyone there. Toragg was in his nav chair, Veranyi sat at the console opposite, and Valda squatted in the bulkhead alcove among a menagerie of skitterers. M’Rayeh hovered near the captain’s chair, in front of which Gana stood, arms crossed over her chest as she gazed up at the main viewer display. As if aware we were finally all assembled, Gana began to speak, in steady, eloquent beats.

“There she is,” she said. “Azadi Prime.”

Toragg grunted. “That’s what you’re calling it?”

“It means harmony in the primary language of the Vlaxin,” Veranyi said.

“A place for the abandoned and war-weary to call home,” Gana went on, as if she hadn’t heard them. Then she drew a fast breath and turned to face us. “But first, I wanted to say something.”

I snickered. “And us a captive audience.”

M’Rayeh shot me a scolding glare and blew a shush between her teeth.

Gana sent me a look, too, but hers was oddly amused. “This ship has seen more than most her age. The Hykraians built her as an ice hauler, but Daldus Lazaar turned her into a pirate vessel. He lost the ship and his head to Viza’Aziv, who, when she stayed beyond the Source Wall, passed the helm to me. Now, it’s my turn to choose a new captain. Hierophant recommended M’Rayeh for the job, and while we don’t always agree, on this matter, I concur.”

No one reacted in surprise; this was mostly formality. M’Rayeh bowed her head and answered solemnly, “I accept this honor willingly and with great care. I promise to do my best to protect this ship and all who sail on her, no matter how long or how far.”

Talk about formal. But the others seemed pleased. Even Toragg kept his mouth shut. While the overwhelming acceptance filled me with gladness, some lingering envy at not being chosen scratched at the corners of my ego. I was grateful when Gana resumed her speech with her old glint-eyed smirk.

“The captain’s chair isn’t yours, yet. I’ve still got command for the time being. That said, what’s our status?”

Toragg consulted his console. “Advance sensor response in line with initial readings.”

“What does that mean?” M’Rayeh asked as a hushed aside.

She’d directed her question to Veranyi, but Neex answered. “It means there’s native flora and fauna, but not in any organized formation that our sensors can tell. So, Captain Gana and the others shouldn’t be impinging on any already-in-place civilizations when they start building.”

Toragg snorted. “Some of us don’t want buildings.”

Gana waved him off. “You’ll get your boat, don’t worry.”

“Captain of my own ship,” Toragg mused wistfully. “I can’t wait!”

“First things first.” Gana turned back to the primary viewer. “Take us in, Neex.”

“Aye, Captain.” Neex added in a less sure voice, “Lock down or hang onto something. Stabilizers are steady, but it’s been a while since I’ve done a planetfall.”

I jerked my head at M’Rayeh to indicate the disused helm position chair. She slid into it just as the ship made a perceptible gyro shift. I locked my feet to the floor and gripped my axe. All around us, Skitnik’s walls rumbled as the engines burned for the acceleration necessary for atmosphere entry.

I glanced around. Everyone else was secure: Valda surrounded by her swarm of protective skitterers, Veranyi, M’Rayeh, and Toragg in their console chairs, and Gana braced at the head of the bridge. Then M’Rayeh gasped as an angry red glow filled the room from the viewscreen. Following it came a burst of white that blew out the contrast sensors in my helmet optics for a second. The others shut their eyes or looked away; even Gana raised a hand in front of her face. No alarms pinged, though, in my helmet or along the comms, and I held steady while the last of that white surge melted away. After a moment, a gentle blue light flooded my senses, and outside the hull, atmosphere whined softly.

Someone let go a held breath: M’Rayeh again. Her expression was one of wide-eyed, slack-muscled awe. Her spear, held across her lap, drooped in a loose grip, and along her lashes, tears bloomed against the brightness.

I looked back to the viewer. Clouds began appearing as we moved deeper into the lower atmosphere. My eyes started tearing, too. No matter how many times I’d done a planet drop – and there had been a few – and no matter how strange the planet – and there had been some strange ones – the sight of an open sky with ground far below never failed to stir in me a feeling of coming home.

The comm snapped open. “All signals green, Captain,” Neex reported.

Gana clapped her hands. “Now, the real work begins.” She turned to me. “I want a visual and readings of the base camp location. Neex can send you the coordinates.”

“I’m also monitoring your helmet’s internal scanners through the comm,” Neex put in. “So, you don’t need to take a module with you.”

Gana went on. “While there’s no organized civilization, there is wildlife. If you run into anything hostile, especially around the landing point, do not engage. There’s plenty of territory to go around. No need to get into a fight over one spot.”

“Aye-aye.” I offered her a lazy salute before turning for the corridor.

The hatch to the lock was open when I got there, and I stepped inside. It was quiet, more so when the pressure hatch swished closed. I gripped my axe and drew a deep breath.

The comm clicked, and Neex said into the room and my ear, “Atmosphere readings are good. Stand by for pressure change.”

As the lights in the lock went from green to red, the cell reverberated with a loud ratcheting sound. The hatch wheezed open, and air shrieked into the lock. I clenched my fist around the haft of my axe to keep it from being ripped from my hand. But the magnets in my boots held firm, and I approached the threshold with four clacking steps.

“Windy out there,” Neex commented.

“It’s supposed to be.” I released the magnets in my boots, took the last step out of the lock, and dropped into a loose plummet.

The screaming wind was quickly overtaken by the dull hum of fading engine noise as Skitnik passed overhead. I rolled onto my back to watch the ship fade as I passed farther away through layer after layer of moisture-rich cloud cover. Soon, only an indistinct shadow told me where the rest of the crew was.

I turned again and pulled my limbs in close, accelerating into a singing stoop while the surface fell up to meet me. Mountains and valleys took shape and filled with color: white, brown, green, yellow. I closed my eyes for a second to hold that image in my head of a whole world spread out beneath me. Around it, old memories flashed like lightning—

—Flying loop-the-loops with Karen while Mal cheered us on from below—

—Clinging desperately to Hank and Don, one of them limp and the other one screaming as I climbed us up and away from a mission gone wrong—

—Trading kisses and sweet nothings with Bette as we floated on a breeze high above the glittering city —

—Gliding low over a bright blue ocean, just me among the chirr of whirling gulls and the burst of fresh sea foam—

The wind whistled. I snapped my eyes open and pushed my wings wide. They caught the current and pulled me back, still far above this new world I would hold in my heart beside both Thanagar and Earth.

I settled into an easy soar over an expanse of green flora. Clusters of brush became what looked like forest, then meadow, then grassland. Suddenly, the ground fell away on a steep drop to a shoreline. A pristine beach stretched out along its edge, and beyond that beach shimmered an open, untouched sea.

My helmet pinged with a coordinates match, but I kept flying, following the waves with Veranyi on my mind.

My eyes caught a subtle mound of green breaking the uniform level of the deep blue sea. I dipped my shoulder for a turn and flew closer, passing over a crescent-shaped rise of land no more than a kilometer wide between its farthest edges. A narrow beach lined its center curve, while crops of squat, green bushes framed the outside. All in all, a pretty place to die.

My helmet comm pinged. “You’re off-target,” Neex said. “What’s wrong?”

“Just stretching my wings a bit,” I told them.

“Maybe do that when we’re not on a timetable?” Neex replied testily.

“Relax. It’s a ten-minute flight. And it’s for Hierophant.”

At that, Neex went quiet.

I recorded the new coordinates in my helmet’s memory, then started on a turnaround flight. “Heading back.”

I stayed straight on a line to the shore. As the cliffs rose into view, I tossed a glance over my shoulder. With a squint, I could just make out the sliver of land on the horizon. I flew on. When I arrived at the cliffs again and looked back a second time, the island was too far away to see, even with my helmet’s magnification lenses. But I’d remember where it was. I’d always remember.

 Skitnik was lower in the sky, now, cutting short my return flight time. I used the same lock as before. As I walked into the corridor, Gana stood waiting for me, with Veranyi slightly behind.

“How’s the site?” Gana asked.

“All clear,” I said. “You chose well. Lots of resources nearby, and with the cliffs, you’ve got a good vantage point. Easily defensible, too.”

“Some habits are hard to break,” Gana muttered. “Run into any locals?”

“Nothing big or angry.”

She grunted. “I’m sure there’s something.”

“Most likely,” Veranyi agreed. “Though, by remaining open and communicative, you can keep peace.”

Gana gave a half-hearted snicker. “That will be harder to do without you around.”

Veranyi inclined her head. “Hopefully, at least one of my children will have those skills and find their way to you.”

Between them passed a look of mutual regard, and Gana repeated in a murmur, “Hopefully.” Then she snapped to sharper attention. “I should check on construction pad progress in the bay. Can’t depend on skitterers to do everything.” She shot me a leading glance. “Another pair of arms would be helpful.”

“In a minute.” I watched her stride off and out of earshot before turning to Veranyi. “I found a place that should work. A little island away from the shore. It’s peaceful, private. Like you requested. And I’ll be able to keep watch while you…prepare.”

She bowed her head. “Birth is a sacred event. It deserves a location to match. Is it far from the landing site?”

“About a dozen klicks. I should be able to carry you without it getting too uncomfortable.”

“You will not need to carry me to an island,” she replied with an abrupt puff of offense. “I can swim.”

I blinked. “You can?”

She extended the tip of one of her lower tentacles. “What did you think these were for?”

I touched my chin to my chest, to hide my foolish blush. “Right. Of course.” When I looked up again, I smiled. “A flight escort then.”

Satisfaction – or possibly pride – cast a shine across her eyes. “I may be the only Oegosid ever to have a winged Guardian.”

“That’s doubtful, considering your people are scattered across the galaxy.”

Her pale flesh changed color ever so slightly. “I admit to some pleasure in thinking myself unique,” she said softly.

“You’re already that.”

“As are you.”

I bumped my shoulders, bouncing my wings. “Only because of these.”

“Even without your wings,” she said, “you would still be Golden Eagle, of which there is but one. Ch’al Andar of Thanagar. Or of Earth, if you prefer.”

I blushed again. “Charley Parker was my name there.”

Veranyi tilted her head. “Charley Parker,” she repeated, and smiled. “That sounds happy. Free.”

“My mother named me that.”

“You have spoken much of your father,” she mused. “His legacy, his crimes, your promises to his memory. I know nothing of your mother, though, beyond the name of the world she came from.”

“I don’t, either,” I admitted. “She died when I was very young.”

“Perhaps her mystery is one you should explore.”

“Maybe. For now, though, I’m focused on you. Is there anything you need?”

She pulled her lips into a tight purse, as if about to speak. But then she swung her head. “I am already asking much of you.”

“That’s all right. Tell me,” I pressed.

Her breast rose with an inhalation, and she said, “Should any of my children return to you before you leave, will you let them know…I loved them? I have always understood that my own foremother chose her fate out of love for her children, but I was never told. You were the first ever to say you loved me. It is…shameful that I am only now realizing the power in those words said aloud.” She grasped my hand. “Tell them for me? Tell them I loved them. And that I loved you as much as one of my own,” she said, releasing my hand to lay her palm upon my cheek. “My bright, golden Guardian.”

I smiled through my sadness. “You have my word.”

My promise seemed to please her. Where her flesh touched mine, I felt a pass of soothing coolness. “Thank you.” Then she drew her hand away and glided backward. “Now, there are other duties to which I must attend.”

“Me, too,” I said, tipping my head in the direction of the bay. “But call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” Veranyi said.

But she didn’t. I closed out the cycle on the empty observation deck, staring at the large wall viewing feed of the blue and brown surface below.

“Am I disturbing you?”

I turned toward M’Rayeh’s voice. She hovered near the lift, looking soft and graceful without her spear.

“No.” I extended my hand. She drifted over, grasped my fingers, and touched down at my side. I pumped her digits once and smiled. “You skipped our sparring session.”

“I was helping with the transport skiffs.”

“I thought they were all set?”

“Neex wanted someone with hands for the configuration of the comms array. There’s a message going out,” M’Rayeh told me, “as soon as it’s in place. Tight beam, fixed frequency. Gana is calling for others, friends from her former life. She wants to build a colony of free folk, where runners and slaves can find refuge from the clashing empires of the galaxy.”

“She told you all that?”

M’Rayeh hemmed a moment. Then she muttered, “I looked into her mind.”

“M’Rayeh!” I scolded.

She rolled her eyes. “I know! But I needed to be sure she wasn’t just going to amass an empire of her own. Can you imagine Gana as a despot, with an army of skitterers and who knows how many Oegosid children under her command?”

I snickered. “That’s actually pretty easy to imagine. But I think Gana’s had enough of risk and bloodshed,” I said, recalling our conversation in the galley. “Like the rest of us.”

M’Rayeh looked at the viewing wall in silence. After a minute, she laid her head against my shoulder and let out a little sigh. “Everything is going to change tomorrow.”

“Some things are going to change.” I turned to her and stroked the line of her jaw. “And some things will stay the same.”

I tipped her face up and kissed her. When we unclutched our lips, I stayed close to nuzzle her a bit. She pulled a cooling breath, then whispered:

“What if we had a child?”

I jerked back. “What?”

M’Rayeh straightened up and said in a clearer voice, “Hierophant’s children will mature quickly. Not to adulthood, but enough to communicate, and to accept space travel.” She grabbed my hands. “If they’re willing, I want one to come with us. I want them to know this ship and the stars and how their mother lived. That there’s a whole galaxy beyond the world where they were born. I want them to know you,” she said, pulling my hands to her chest. “And me, and—”

“Okay,” I said.

She stopped to blink. “Okay?”

I bobbed my head. “I’d like that, too, if that’s what they want.” I looked around the giant deck. “This ship has seen so much anger and violence. But a kid…!” I sighed in low relief and faced her again with a smile. “A kid would be something new, something good.”

A comm box clicked. “Having a neonate aboard will complicate matters,” Neex warned.

M’Rayeh looked up. “But they’ll know you from the start. Without bias or ignorance. You’d be family.”

For a long minute, there was nothing. Then the box produced a processed hum, and Neex mumbled, “I’ve never had a family.”

I chuckled and bumped M’Rayeh with my hip. “I think you’ve sold them.”

Her brow crinkled in a half-frown. “I know it will be difficult, waiting for them down on that moon. And they’ll never be Hierophant—”

“I don’t think she’d want that,” I said, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t want it, either. They should be their own person. Free to make their own choices and find their own way.”

“But we can guide them?” she said hopefully.

I nodded. “And guard.”

M’Rayeh beamed. “Guardian and guide.” She giggled and squeezed me in a hug.

I squeezed her back and kept my arms around her for a long time. Guardian and Guide. That felt right.

Chapter Text

I stood at the cliff’s edge alone, watching the in-and-out motion of the sea foam. There was a high tide that nearly crested the top of the beach below. In a few hours, it would settle back several meters, allowing Valda and the skitterers at work on the transport lift attached to the cliff to resume operations. For now, though, the beach was basically inaccessible. Save for me. And Veranyi.

She stood behind me in a cluster of the others. The sound of the waves wasn’t loud all the way up here, more a steady rustle than intermittent crash, but it covered the private murmurs of the crew as they each said their own goodbyes. I’d decided to stand apart, in wait until ready so they could have this time to themselves.

Veranyi’s initial summons had come nearly an hour ago, before the sun had crawled over the horizon. It was fully crested, now. I think she’d wanted to slip away quietly, but with a ship’s engineer constantly scanning the surface for data and a telepath in the party, a stealthy departure wasn’t going to be possible. She’d probably known that. Maybe she’d even counted on it.

I glanced over my shoulder. Toragg had left. M’Rayeh, too. Valda was shuffling away with her master builder skitterers at either side. Only Gana remained, her body pressed to Veranyi’s in a silent embrace. Their mouths moved, speaking in tones too hushed to be heard.

I turned back to the waves.

After a dozen meditative breaths, I felt the subtle brush of fingers against my arm.

“Thank you for waiting,” Veranyi said.

I looked her way. Gana was gone, too, so it was only the pair of us. “I don’t have anywhere to be,” I said with a little smile.

Veranyi tipped down her chin. “I do.”

My smile cracked. “You’re ready then?”

“Yes. Take me to the water?”

I drew my axe to my side and opened my other arm for her. “Hold onto me,” I said, and she slipped her hands around my shoulders.

I hugged her close and pushed us into the air. We hovered there, locked in time while the wind hummed around us, riffling the cloth of her simple shift. Beneath its hem, her long lower tentacles dangled in a sway. I stared at her a moment, this alien female who’d been neither lover nor mother to me but something that combined the most precious qualities of each: confidante, teacher, and friend whose place in my heart already ached for her loss. Then she looked at me and smiled in poignant gratitude.

“Do not be afraid,” she said, and that unstuck us. I floated out past the lip of the cliff and glided us down, until we touched the sands at the top of the beach.

She unwound her hands from my shoulders, and I stepped back. The tide rushed to claim us, but Veranyi stood firm against its pull. Beneath the retreating wave, she snaked out two tentacles, as if testing the temperature, then started her own measured glide into the sea.

Her lower tentacles disappeared in the foam. She waded deeper, to her waist, her chest, her chin. Then she arched forward in a stationary dive. A few seconds later, she broke the surface about five meters out, face up to the sky and gasping.

I launched myself from the beach with a shout, gripping my axe hard. “Are you all right?”

A low trilling sound, like from a slurring brass horn, rose from her throat. She was laughing. With a pang of regret, I realized I’d never heard her laugh before.

“I am fine,” she called back to me. “I had simply forgotten the feeling of being in a sea.”

I flew out to hover above her. “Would you like to wait…?”

“No.” Her voice became serious. “I have delayed too long already. Lead me to the island, please.”

I nodded, then threw myself into a full flight with my axe at my side. Beneath the waves below, Veranyi followed my trail, powerful and nimble and fast, faster than any swimmer I’d ever seen. I pushed my speed, and she matched it, her long arms out in front and her tentacles trading the efforts of propulsion until she was like an arrow in the water.

The island rose into view, and I slowed my approach. Veranyi swam ahead, all the way to the beach. She rose from the water, her skin glistening even beneath her shift, which had become translucent and clung to her in malleable folds. She lowered herself to the sand, laying one palm flat.

I flew over and touched down close to her. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes.” As she raised her head, her eyes glistened. “Thank you.”

“You belong in the sea,” I said with a little smile, the only thing I could think of to express my admiration.

“As you belong in the sky.” It came out a quiet, final confirmation of our differences. She didn’t dwell on it, though, instead returning her focus to the sand. “You chose this location well.” She drew a flowing pattern in the grains. “Should any of my children decide to journey with you beyond this moon, they will know that this is where they should return.”

I knelt beside her. “How?”

Veranyi smoothed the doodle with her hand. “It will be a final memory from me, an imprint moment that they will remember and follow. Or forget.” She sat straight. “The choice should be theirs, after all.”

I moved to rise. “Should I leave you alone for that?”

“No.” She grasped my wrist. “You should be part of that memory, too. The guardian with whom I trusted my life as well as theirs.”

“Remember this for them,” I said, pulling my hand gently from her grip as I stood up. Twenty paces inland, where there was firmer ground above the sands, I slammed my axe deep enough into the dirt so it would stand on its own. Then I unlatched my wing harness, shrugged it off, and balanced it over the haft.

“My wings will remain here,” I told her. “Your children can look for them, to know where to find me until we leave.”

Veranyi smiled her approval. Then she stiffened, with her shoulders clenched and her breast frozen in a breath.

My voice hitched on the syllables of her name. “Veranyi…?” I’d told myself I was ready, but I wasn’t. Not for this. Not for her to go. But as I flew forward off my toes, she rose and turned toward the lapping waves.

“It is time,” she said.

“Wait!” There were still things I needed to say, hopes to share, fears to confess.

She was already halfway in the water. Without looking back, she called to me, “This will not take long.” As if that should come as a comfort.

I’d read about and been told what would happen when Veranyi released her children, how their tiny, instinctive conglomeration of cells would scatter to hide and grow, and how her body, devoid of the energy to sustain them, would decline. What I hadn’t been prepared for was how it would feel to see her deliberately descend into the water, disappearing bit by bit beneath the waves until she did her final dive and vanished entirely into the sea.

I flew to the spot where I’d seen her go under. Squinting into the depths, I could just make out a slow flutter of slightly luminescent white. It wasn’t her shift but her, her limbs bobbing gently with the underwater current. Very slowly, she drew everything close until she was like an upright rod. Then, in a burst of motion, her tentacles flared out, and around her flowed an ever-increasing spiral of tiny iridescent dots, like fireflies spreading from a central nest. They passed around her in a swirl before swimming deeper into the sea in all directions, leaving her alone in the dark.

Veranyi floated, weightless and unmoving, for what felt a minute too long. Then her tentacles converged again, sending her toward the surface in a mighty push. But she didn’t quite make it, and as I watched, she faltered, floated a moment, then began to sink as the current pulled her down.

I dove straight for her. She’d slipped deeper than I’d realized, but when I checked, there was still awareness in her gaze. I twisted behind her, wrapped one arm under her shoulders, and kicked hard for air.

We broke the surface, and I side-stroked for the shore, trailing Veranyi with me. I dragged us both onto the beach, then yanked off my helmet and threw it aside as I dragged her into my lap.

Water bubbled from between her lips, but she spoke clearly if slowly, as if the act were labor. “I was not aware…that you could swim.”

I let out a little laugh among my panting. “I used to ride waves at Long Beach and Malibu.”

“You continue…to surprise me,” she said, and I laughed again. But then she added with her next straining breath, “Even at the end.”

Shaking my head loosened tears and snot. “Let’s talk about something else.”

She chuckled softly. “Life seems…so simple, now.”

Her head lolled against my arm, the tips of her cranial tentacles shimmering gold, then purple, then red as the cells beneath her skin began to die. I sniffled and took her hand in mine, moaning as her fingers changed color, too.

“There is no pain,” she assured me. “I feel…light.”

I bit my lip to keep it from quavering. Without her strength to hold it up, her body was anything but light. It slouched in my arms, heavy and awkward. Dead weight.

“This journey,” she said, more haltingly than before, “was not easy. But I am glad…to have made it. And that you are here.”

“Me, too,” I said, only barely not blubbering.

Her arm twitched, as though attempting movement. Her hands had turned color up to the elbows, though, making them useless. I squeezed her crimson fingers. They were cool and limp in my palm, as drained and lifeless as the tentacles that hung from her skull.

“I did…love you,” she said. “In my way.”

I coughed a fast sob but tried to smile for her. “I know.” I stroked her face, where twinkling red cells signifying her death clustered and closed in. “I know you did. I love you, too. Very much.”

She managed another slow, tender smile. “Return me…to the sea? I would like to be…forever close…to your endless sky.”

I nodded, tears muddling my vision, and struggled to my feet. Her body had become graceless and unwieldy; I was grateful to reach the water and its buoying aid. As I waded into the waves, their flow seemed to subside. The cresting foam lapped gently around her, as though welcoming a child home.

“Veranyi?” I stared into her eyes, searching for some presence. But the black was dull, and she lay silent and unmoving in my arms.

I moved on until the sea floor bottomed out beneath my feet. The tears that dripped from my nose and chin mixed with the water that passed over her. What her people called the Red Turn had taken her body completely, leaving it dense and prone to sinking. I gave it a push, treading water as I watched it drift, turn, and finally descend.

I cried until my eyes couldn’t produce any more tears. Then I dipped under the rolling surf, pulled some saltwater into my nose, and snorted it out as I broke the surface. A kind of weary relief washed over me, and I swam back to shore.

I staggered up the beach to where my wings were. I fell beneath their shadow, rolled to my back, and looked up at the sky. Beyond the clouds, Skitnik hovered silently. I watched her a while, feeling numb, until I became aware of a steady, high-pitched pinging. It came from my helmet, still laying in the sand a few meters down the beach.

I lurched over, picked it up, and announced myself. The pinging stopped, and Neex came on the comm.

“Hierophant?” was all they asked.

“Gone,” I told them.

Neex made a humming noise. “I lost track of her bio-signature, but I wanted to make sure.” They paused, then said, “She taught me to speak, you know. Kladafi usually just follow input commands. We’re considered just another part of the ship’s systems. But when she came aboard, Hierophant felt me. She said I should have a voice, too, the same as anyone in the crew. So, she pulled together the first language databases and audio files for me to learn from, and we would…talk.” Another pause. “I’ll miss her.”

“Yeah,” I muttered dully.

“Captain would like a word,” Neex said in a fresh timbre.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose beneath my helmet. “Put her through.”

I’d expected Gana, but it was M’Rayeh’s voice that came over the comm, gently inquisitive. “Are you all right?”

I lowered my shoulders. “Honestly? Not really.”

Her voice turned quiet. “Would you like me to come to you? I don’t think you should be alone.”

I gave her a weary chuckle. “I’m not all right this second. I just need a little time.”

Her hesitation implied some coming resistance. But then she said, “Not too long. You need to eat, if nothing else.”

I smiled. “Message received, Captain.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

She was, and beautiful and warm and strong as she pulled me into a comforting embrace at the edge of Gana’s growing base camp. After dinner, we walked a bit, and she pointed out the progress they’d made over the day.

“The perimeter sensors are all up and functioning.” She indicated a tower near the center of camp. “And the comms array should be finished tomorrow. Gana is itching to send her message now, but you know Valda: She doesn’t accept anything less than optimal operation.”

I stopped walking. M’Rayeh did, too, and gave me a quizzical look.

“I’m going back to the island,” I blurted.

Her questioning stare became one of concern. “Any Oegosid child,” she said in a tone meant to moderate my expectations, “won’t be mature enough to come onto land for at least another half-dozen cycles.”

“I know. But it’s quiet. Calm. Being there makes me feel closer to…something.” I swung a hand at the camp. “Gana doesn’t want me hanging around here anyway.”

She pursed her lips in a show of deliberation, then blew a fast, relinquishing sigh. “All right.” She wagged up a finger. “But you’re to report for duty roster in the mornings, and even when you’re not here, you’ll stay in contact.”

I nodded. “Just ping my comm, and I’ll fly back as fast as I can. I promise.”

“You’d better.”

“I will,” I assured her, and leaned in for a quick hug.

While close to her cheek, she murmured, “I may join you sometimes, if that’s all right.”

I pumped my arms around her for a grateful squeeze. “I’d like that.”

But for now, she needed to meet with Gana and Valda – a captain’s work was never done – and I went off to collect a bedroll and some other necessary supplies.

That first night on the island, I hunkered down by my wings, watching them catch the temporary starlight. This moon’s gas giant parent world functioned as a kind of second sun, casting reflected illumination from the system’s central star save for the brief period when the moon’s surface in its rotation moved away from facing either. In that fleeting dark time, with the sound of lapping waves around me and the smell of brine in the air, I thought again about how pretty a place to die this was, and how glad I was to have helped Veranyi get here, despite her dying. How her children would come to call this world home, the place where they began, no matter how far they traveled later.

With thoughts of Veranyi’s children and their possibilities swimming in my head, I fell to sleep.

The next morning, I was back at camp, to keep my promise to M’Rayeh. While she assigned me some chores, she also kept her promise and let me return to the island when my time was my own. She even joined me now and then, to see the spot and practice her flying, and to talk about everything and nothing. After almost two weeks of this back-and-forth, I asked her somewhat needlingly:

“Don’t you trust me out here on my own?”

“Of course, I trust you,” she said, almost scolding. She drew her fingers across the low tufts of grass at the top of the beach, where we sat beneath my wings, and tossed me a hooded look. “But I also miss you.” Her posture shifted then, from coy to complaining. “Being a captain is hard!”

I laughed. “Yeah. It is.”

She pouted at my lack of sympathy. “Gana made it look easy.”

“Because she led with a fist,” I told her, more seriously. “And with fear.”

M’Rayeh hummed. “Cordyl led that way, too.”

“Most captains do.” I shrugged. “When you’re at war, or on the run, you have to.”

“Did you?”

“I did. But I wasn’t right for the job. You’re already a better captain than me, or Cordyl, or Gana.” I nudged her shoulder with mine. “Because you listen, and you care.”

She graced me with a purple blush, then said, “I’ve been talking with the others. We’re going to rename the ship.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Its name has become too much linked to its past. Harsh,” she said, glancing down at the fingers she clenched into a fist. “Wrathful. For this next journey, we want to start anew.” As she opened her hand palm side up, she returned her gaze to mine. “We’re going to call her The Hierophant.”

A flood of good feeling rushed through me, and I grinned. “That’s a good name.”

“It was Neex’s suggestion. They wanted to remember her in their own way.”

“I think she’d be honored by that.” I snickered. “Though, maybe a little embarrassed, too.”

M’Rayeh clamped down on her giggling. After a long, thoughtful moment, when her lip slid free, she said, “I know Hierophant would say that her energy is all around us, now, but it still hurts to know that she’s gone.”

I sighed in agreement, then remembered what Veranyi had told me when I’d lamented the same. “She’ll always be here,” I said, laying my knuckles to M’Rayeh’s temple. I moved my hand to her chest, just above her left breast, where I could feel her heart’s steady beat through the heel of my palm. “And here.”

She smiled again and mirrored me, pressing her hand to my chest. “For you, too.” She bent forward and touched her head to mine. We stayed like that for a contemplative minute, at the end of which she whispered, “I’d like to stay here with you tonight. If that’s all right?”

“Sure.” I glanced to my lean-to and bedroll tucked higher up the island. “Though, the accommodations are a little tight.” I turned back to her with a grin. “We’ll have to keep close.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, rising into a lean. She put her hands on my shoulders, then folded her arms around my neck and pressed her mouth to mine.

I put my arms around her, pulled her into my lap, and kissed her again, with tongue as well as lips. I’d missed her, too. While sex in this place felt inappropriate, we did strip down to basics to cuddle in the bedroll, sharing warmth and kisses long into the cycle’s sleeping hours.

The dull growl of engines drifting far overhead stirred me from my doze. They weren’t Neex’s doing but another ship. I sat up and squinted into the sky, where a slender Xebec-sized trader vessel had descended through the upper clouds, heading in the direction of the camp.

“Gana’s first mate.” M’Rayeh sat up, too, next to my arm, and peered at the sky.

I blinked at her. “You can read them from here?”

“I don’t have to; Neex just confirmed.” She slid out from between the layers and stood for a stretch. “I should be there to greet them.” She combed her hand over her hair, which was mussed from our snuggled sleeping, and sent me a smile. “Show them that the Hierophant and her crew are allies.”

“That’s very Captain-ly of you.”

“It would be even more so,” she said as she pulled on her clothes, “if I had more of my crew at my side.”

I made a face. “I don’t make the same striking impression without my wings. Or my axe.”

M’Rayeh crossed her arms over her chest. It was a very Gana-like posture, and it tickled from me a smile. “It’s a show of friendship, not force. Do I need to make up an excuse for you?”

“Would you? That would be nice.”

She glowered. “You’re taking advantage of my favor.”

I swung my gaze away, out toward the tide. “I’d just like to stay a while, yet.”

There was a rustle as M’Rayeh knelt beside me. “I’m glad your heart is open for Hierophant’s children. I want one of them to join us, too.” Her hand brushed my shoulder. “But they won’t be her. And it’s not fair to expect them to be.”

“I know,” I said, still watching the water. “And I don’t. But I did make a promise to wait as long as I could.”

She rested her chin in the base of my neck, where she laid a long kiss that tingled with worry.

“I won’t push the launch deadline,” I assured her.

Her lips untouched my skin. “There’s no deadline. I simply don’t like to see you hurting.”

When I turned to her, she was frowning. I squeezed her fingers still at my shoulder and offered an agreeable smile. “I know they might not show. I won’t feel abandoned if they don’t.”

The concerned crease in her brow didn’t budge, so I tried a bargaining tactic.

“I’ll have a swim and a scrub, then I’ll fly back for breakfast.” I pushed my smile to saccharine levels. “I’ll even make myself nice and shiny. And we can meet Gana’s friends together. okay?” When she didn’t move or speak, I reminded in a whisper: “You said you trusted me.”

That broke the spell of her silence. “Of course, I do.” She smiled in a kind of tolerant defeat and squeezed my shoulder one more time. “I’ll see you at camp.” She flew off then, leaving me to my conscience.

As soothing as it was to sit there listening to the wind and waves, my sense of duty soon pushed me up and into the surf.

The water seemed to tingle, as if the sea itself were aware of the new future coming, signaled by the arrival of the ship carrying Gana’s comrades. It invigorated my senses, and I dove into an underwater stroke. In the depths, there was only darkness, but between there and the surface light dappled around me, illuminating tiny aquatic lifeforms like stars in a submerged sky. They coaxed from me a bubbling grin, and I was struck by a naïve if wholesome thought: That Veranyi truly was still with us, even all around us.

I swam a while longer, until my skin felt suitably scrubbed by the saltwater. As I trudged out of the rolling surf, I heard a comm ping. My armor lay up near the bedroll, and as I walked toward it, I reached for my helmet.

The helmet scooted away.

I froze mid-motion. The helmet shifted again, a quick but short dash over the brush.

“Hey,” I said, and the helmet replied with a muffled giggle.

I pounced on it with both hands. Bending low, I lifted one side and peered into the space beneath. A slick black eye set against a smooth, peach-white glob of flesh stared out at me. A transparent film flashed and clicked across the black, while a second black space opened in the flesh, and the tiny creature cried out gleefully:

“Gah!”

I chuckled and lifted the helmet away. The poppet was no larger than my outspread hand, but they were definitively Oegosid. A crown of short tentacles waved around their skull, with longer prehensile appendages extending from the lower torso.

“Hi,” I crooned, offering my palm so they could investigate me, too. But they weren’t interested in any slow exploration.

They hopped onto my hand and, using their tiny fingers and a slap-slide-grab with their lower tentacles, clambered up my arm to my shoulder, where they grinned two rows of jagged white teeth and said, “Gah,” again close to my cheek.

“Well, aren’t you the adventurous one.” I started to rise off my knees when something small and hard hit me in the back of the head. I turned and looked upward. A second poppet dangled upside-down from my wing harness by their lower tentacles. In one tiny hand, they held a stone, and from out of their mouth came a little roar of laughter.

“Stop that,” I scolded gently. “It hurts.”

Poppet number two closed their mouth, blinked at me, and tossed their stone away. Then they pulled themselves upright and launched themselves from the harness, straight at me.

“Whoa!” I hopped up and put out both hands to catch them. They laughed again, doing the same slap-and-grab climb as their kin to alight on my other shoulder.

“You are cute, though.” I looked to the first one. “Both of you.”

“Gah,” the first one replied. It repeated the syllable three more times, as if testing out the sound.

I started over to the bedroll when a squeal came from near my foot. I stumbled backward, landing on my backside in the scrub, which made the second Oegosid on my shoulder erupt into fresh laughter while the first one scrambled down my arm. They crawl-walked over to the bedroll and pulled on the top cover. A third Oegosid baby poked their head out from beneath the cover. At first, they just looked at me. Then they smiled, in a shy but friendly way that reminded me of their mother.

“Hi there,” I said softly, and extended my hand to this one. “Do you want to come out?”

Number three pulled the cover around their face and simply blinked.

“No?” I drew my hand back. “Okay. In your own time,” I said, just as the second neonate yanked on my hair. “Ow,” I told them, and they laughed again. “I can tell, you’re going to be a handful.”

While the kids cavorted, I realized my helmet comm was still pinging. I reached over and put it on, which delighted the first one, mesmerized the third, and caused the middle one to start clapping its hand against the metal.

“Shush,” I told the wildling, and collected them into my hands. They hopped off and slid over to the bedroll, where they scooched under the cover in some game of their own making.

“Golden Eagle!” Neex sounded excited. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I got distracted.”

“There’s a neonate here! One of Hierophant’s children. They survived! Captain can read them,” Neex went on. “She said you should stay where you are. One might come to you, too!”

I watched as Three and Two wrestled in the layers of bedroll. “Tell M’Rayeh she’s right.”

“There’s one with you already?”

“More than one.” I gave Neex the details, and they came back with a fast plan.

“I’ll alert the captain; she can translate. We may be taking more than one with us!”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “We’ll see.”

“Wait there,” Neex said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, even though Neex had already clicked off. I pushed my helmet up so I could watch the kids unencumbered, and so they would get used to my face more than my helmet.

Two and Three were still playing, but One came close to my knee. I offered them my finger.

“What do you say?” I asked them. “Would you like to come with us? See the stars, like your mother did?”

One grasped my finger. “Stah,” they repeated.

I chuckled. “That’s right. That’s good!”

They pointed past my shoulder. “Weeng!”

I glanced behind me. “My wings? You know my wings?”

“Weeng,” they confirmed.

“Did you come here because of them?”

They smiled their jagged-toothed smile, then climbed up my arm. They reached my shoulder and placed their hand on my face. “Gah,” they said, and their little brow scrunched in effort. “Gah… Gahd. Jem. Gahd-jem.”

I stared at them. “Are you trying to say… Guardian?”

They smiled again. “Gahdjem!”

Tears sprung up in my vision. “Yeah. That’s me.” I sniffled through a wobbly smile. “I’m your Guardian.”

They put their arms around my neck and pressed their head against me. “Love,” they said, so clearly and with such simple feeling, my heart nearly burst. I hugged their tiny body to my cheek and knew in that moment that I would never be the same man I was before.

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to leave.”

I chuckled to myself. While Gana’s fretting was touching, it was also fun to watch. “You’re only saying that because we’re taking the best engineer with us,” I said.

“Second best,” Neex grumbled in my ear, and I grinned.

For her part, Valda retreated from the ramp of the transport skiff and offered Gana a comforting brush of fingers to her arm. “Will search for more refugees. Then return.”

“In what?” Gana replied with a little scoff. “A year?” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, to where a squad of Oegosid neonates clustered around a blocky Changralynian female trying to lead them in a sing-along. “Those little rascals will be adolescents by then! Who knows what they’ll get up to in the meantime.”

Valda swept her long fingers in the same direction. “Friends will learn. This one will learn, too,” she said, returning her hand to her chest before swinging it my way. “That one also.”

Gana snorted at me. “If you say so.”

“Gana. Be at peace.”

This gentle admonition from one of the new arrivals, Kizmin Tol, a sinewy Lizarkon from Gana’s past who seemed to have a keen interest in her future, as well. He slipped an arm around her waist and nuzzled his snout close to her cheek, hissing, “The ssstars are their destiny. Thisss moon is yoursss.”

Gana looked at him, her eyes alight with a desire I’d never seen there before. It was a little unsettling. “Ours,” she corrected him.

Kizmin chuckled through sharp, gator-like teeth, though he dropped the lascivious leer as he looked to Valda. “Sssafe travels.”

“Oh!” Gana said in a kind of heartfelt lament. “Take care of yourself.” She strode forward to put her arms around Valda.

Valda did the same with her. “Farewell.” Her tail flicked as she drew away with a smile. “But not forever.”

“Make sure of it,” Gana told her, pleasantly stern. Then she turned to me, that geniality becoming a cockeyed smirk. “I’d say good luck to you, but you never seem to need it.”

“Neither do you. But I’ll offer it anyway.” I extended my hand. “Good luck, Gana Freemoon.”

She looked at my hand a moment, then clapped her palm against mine in a brief, hard shake. “Goodbye, Golden Eagle.”

I wouldn’t miss her, and she wouldn’t miss me, but our parting had a finality about it that made me a little sad. Until she stepped back, and Kizmin put his arm around her and whispered something in her ear, and she actually giggled.

“Let’s go,” I said to Valda, and walked past her up the skiff ramp. As I ducked my head through the hatch, a little voice shouted from inside:

“Ship!”

Of the two-score-and-four Oegosid neonates to have made themselves known over the last several weeks, three had decided to come with us on the newly christened Hierophant. The three from the island, in fact.

I’d always assumed that other species named their young the way humans did, with parents deciding appellations of significance to their next generation, or the way Thanagarians did, where children inherited the linked parent’s surname as a first name, to identify them as part of a continuing legacy. But Veranyi’s children named themselves, as all Oegosid seemed to do. The one shouting at me was Brell, the wildest of the three, as evidenced by the way he bounced in his seat and chomped at his safety straps.

I waved him down. “Yes, we’re going to the ship, now.”

“Ship. Ship. Shi-i-i-i-ip!” Brell hollered.

Having already learned that giving in to his tantrums wasn’t good for anybody, I crossed my arms over my chest and told him, “I’m not going to start the engines until you calm down.”

He bit the strap, pulled it down in his fists, and growled at me.

Valda shuffled next to his seat. “Silent,” she commanded, and he peered up at her. After a moment, he released some of his grimace. She flattened her hand in the air. “Calm,” she said, and Brell relaxed his body. She turned her palm up. “Give.” He let the strap fall from his mouth, and she proceeded to secure him in his modified jump seat. When she was done, she smiled at him, patted his head, and said, “Good.”

I watched Valda move to her own seat and sniffed. “You’re going to have to teach me your secrets.”

Valda hunkered down with a shrug. “Not secret. Just parent,” she said, and stroked the skitterer clinging to her headrest. “Will know someday.”

I wouldn’t – Thanagar had seen to that – but I didn’t argue. I took my place at the main console, then looked over my shoulder at the other two neonates. Both sat secure and mostly sedate, Andaryi with her face pressed to her viewport while Dria played with a doll made from textile scraps. “Everybody ready?”

Valda nodded. “Home, Guardian.”

“Home!” Brell cried happily. “Ship!”

I turned back to the console and programmed the skiff’s startup sequence. “Say bye-bye to Azadi Prime.”

“Bye-bye,” I heard Andaryi pipe.

The engines rumbled to life, and the skiff rose from the landing field. In a matter of seconds, we were in the air, coasting up to the Hierophant. She loomed in the upper atmosphere, not a pretty sight by most aesthetic standards, yet still somehow beautiful in her own right. We glided through the yawning cargo bay doors, and when we were secure, those doors closed up, and Neex declared through the comm and boxes:

“Welcome aboard.”

“Neex!” Brell exclaimed.

“That’s right,” I said, unlocking him first because he was already struggling to get out of his seat. “That’s Neex.”

“Kla-da-fi,” Dria muttered. She had removed the doll’s head and was trying to reunite it with the body. Failing at this attempt, she tossed the doll aside.

I blinked at her. “How do you know that?”

“Generational knowledge,” Valda informed me as she helped Andaryi out of her seat restraints. “Standard in Oegosid young.” She touched Andaryi’s head with somber affection. “Mother was same.”

Before I could ask more, Brell kicked me with one of his lower tentacles as he rocked back and forth in his seat. “Out,” he complained. “Out!”

“Okay! Jeez.” I released his harness and started to pick him up, but he squirmed from his seat too fast for my hands. Grabbing the headrest for a launch point, he hurled himself toward the ceiling, snatched the overhead rail with his lower tentacles, and scrambled upside-down for the exit.

I turned to Valda. “He’s going to need a leash.”

She chuckled, then went to unlock the last of our neonate triplets. Dria had already freed herself from her harness, though, and glided silently past us for the door. Only Andaryi stayed with us, patting lightly at my calf. When I looked down, she raised her arms to me, so I lifted her into the crook of my elbow and walked to the hatch.

As the door opened on the cargo bay, M’Rayeh was there to greet us with a wide smile. “Hello!”

She only just stepped forward when Brell hopped into her arms and scrambled up to her shoulders, where he grasped one of her braids and touched her cheek. They stared at each other for a heartbeat. Then, as if in reply to a question, M’Rayeh said, “Yes; this is your home, now.”

Brell hugged her firmly around the neck.

The process of planet escape that normally would have been a routine became a whirlwind, with three curious Oegosid neonates aboard. It took more than an hour to get them the few hundred meters from the bay to their new quarters on the captain’s deck, what we’d started referring to as the nursery, where they could be secured in their custom-made suspension tanks. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Brell who consumed the most time for this endeavor but Andaryi, who wanted to touch and poke and examine everything mechanical that passed her gaze, including the ship’s resident environmental skitterers. She started into a tear until Valda gave her as a companion one of the tiny skitterers that could go with her into her tank, a converted residential shower tube. Brell obeyed without argument so long as requests came from M’Rayeh, while Dria just watched everything in intense awareness.

I worried a bit about the kids’ comfort, but Valda and Neex assured me the tanks had integrity. It was only for the first few days of spaceflight acclimation anyway. Above all else, they’d be safe. And contained, which proved useful for some of the other demands on my person.

As soon as we cleared the moon’s grav-pull and were well on our way to the next sector of space, M’Rayeh requested a conference. While I should have sensed something was up when she asked to meet at her quarters on the residential deck, her intentions were made abundantly clear when she answered her door wearing a short sheer robe hanging open to her waist and nothing else.

“Oh!” I said, snapping back a half-step.

M’Rayeh lost her welcoming smile. “Is something wrong?”

“I thought you just wanted to talk.”

“I do want to talk.” She tilted her head in coquettish display, blushed, and said, “I’d also like to do other things with you. While we still have time.”

I let my gaze stray down the V of her exposed skin and sighed, partly in lament but mostly in longing. “I guess I have been pretty distracted these last few weeks, with the kids and all.”

“We’ve both been.” She padded over the threshold and laid her fingers against my chest. Her eyes came to mine, so close I could see myself in them. “I’d like to rectify that.”

“Well,” I drawled as I settled my hands around her waist, “you have my full attention, now, Captain.”

The press of her hand to my chest became a push. “Not Captain,” she told me sternly. “Not here, and not with you. With you, I’m just M’Rayeh.”

I knew what she meant – how we’d both been victims of the hierarchy of power on a ship, our bodies used for pleasure without consent by the captains in our pasts. That wasn’t her, though. And that wasn’t this.

“With respect,” I said, bumping our hips together with a step, “you’ve never been ‘just M’Rayeh.’” Then I bent my head to hers, holding steady right before her lips.

She answered with an unhesitating kiss, the wrap of her arms around my neck, and the pull of me to her bed, where we landed after a stumbling strip of clothes and a lot of giddy laughter. With equal parts tenderness and passion, we brought each other to a gasping, shuddering release.

After, we cleaned up and returned to the sleeping alcove. M’Rayeh sat hunched over her datapad while I stretched out on the bed watching the starfield shift in the video viewer overhead. It reminded me of lying on Veranyi’s beach, which in turn had harkened back to dusky eves at one of the little lagoons at La Jolla, where the surf was too uneven to take out a board but where one could sit on the sand looking up at the stars and wonder what could have been. Or what could still be.

“You know,” I mused, “you could have moved to the captain’s deck, instead of staying here.”

M’Rayeh blew a low scoff. “An entire deck for one person is a ridiculous indulgence. Besides,” she added with a shrug that briefly changed the shallow angle of her dangling breasts, “the children need the space. That deck was the best suited for their transport tanks. And I like living here, close to everyone else. When the children mature, they’ll move down here, too.”

“You sound awfully sure about that.”

“They’ve already started differentiating themselves from one another. Maybe one or two of them will stay in the nursery for a while, but I think they’ll want to establish their own identities, separate from their beginnings. Everyone does.”

I looked up at the starfield video again. “Do they?”

“Of course. Our identity is the only thing we have to call our own.”

I grunted. As far back as I could remember, I’d wanted to be Hawkman. Then I’d wanted to be Carter, then my father. I forced a sigh through my nose. “Feels like all I’ve ever been is a shadow of someone else.”

M’Rayeh made a clicking sound between her teeth. “That’s not true.”

“If you say so,” I said, half giving up. “It’d just be nice if being Golden Eagle meant something.”

“It does. The only reason you don’t see it is because you’re too close.” The pressure in the bed shifted as she laid her datapad to the side and crawled up on top of me, her face replacing my view of the video feed.

“But I see it,” she said, stroking a finger along the cleft in my chin. “I see a warrior and a protector. The Guardian of Hierophant and her children both.” She moved her hand to my cheek. “A teacher. And a student, too.” She pressed closer, the firm sleekness of her body inviting touch, which I did with my hands to her thighs. “A friend,” she went on, then whispered with a flick of her tongue across my lips at the words: “A lover.”

I exhaled hard against her and clenched my fingers into her flesh.

She opened her legs and rolled her hips against mine. “And I’d say you’re ready again,” she said just above my mouth. “If you’re willing.”

More than willing and eagerly able, I hooked my hand behind her head and swallowed her breath in a kiss, then snapped up to sitting with her in my lap. There, she took me in a quick plunge of hips that became a steady rolling rhythm.

She was as fantastic as the first time, though for some reason, it felt like our last. So, I squeezed my arms around her and kept us going for as long as I could. It was only a few extra minutes, but it was enough to exhaust us both so that we spent the rest of the night cycle simply sleeping.

Duty – and my insides – woke me first. I collected my things from M’Rayeh’s floor and skulked back to my own cell for a fast toilet break, shower, and shave. Then I went up to the nursery, to check on the kids.

Brell slept, curled into a ball at the bottom of his tank. Dria floated near the top of hers, awake and keenly aware – her eyes seemed to follow me as soon as I walked in – but otherwise unreactive. Andaryi swayed in the middle of her tank, humming softly to herself while her companion skitterer waved its mechanical legs.

“Good morning,” I told them.

Andaryi swam to the side of her tank and pressed her hand against the permaplas. She smiled. “Guardian!”

I chuckled. “Your pronunciation’s getting better. Would you like to eat?”

Andaryi bobbed her head. Next to her, Dria tapped a finger against her tank.

“You want some food, too?” I asked her.

She pointed above her head, to the tank’s primary hatch.

I shook my head. “Sorry, kiddo. Not for another few cycles, yet. But don’t worry. You’ll be out and about well before we reach the next sector.”

While Dria slipped back in defeat, I pressed the control panel for the tanks’ food systems, then went over to the deck’s processor for some breakfast of my own. A sharp bang ignited my defenses, and I whipped around.

Brell was awake, clapping the side of one fist to the interior wall of his tank. “Want!” he gurgled at me. He opened his hand. “Gimme.”

“This is mine, buddy,” I told him, showing my nutrient-mix ball. “You’ve got your own food.”

Brell grimaced, snatched at some of the drifting protein flakes with the side of his mouth, and munched them petulantly. Of his sisters, Dria plucked some flakes as they came her way, while Andaryi swam in little backwards somersaults, catching mouthfuls at a time.

I ate, too, while I watched them, quietly marveling at their innocence as well as their skill. Not for the first time, I wished they could have known their mother, as more than just a thought-memory. That feeling to know a mother resonated in me, of course. A little too much.

“Guardian?”

I refocused at Andaryi’s query. “Yes?”

“Story,” she prompted.

“You want a story?” I asked, and in response, the other two neonates perked into attentive listening mode. While they were contact telepaths like Veranyi had been, I didn’t want to overwhelm them with all the junk in my head. On the island, I’d talked to them and told them stories I remembered from my own childhood. They’d seemed to enjoy that, cuddling and snuggling up to me while I’d droned.

Andaryi grinned. “Pitterpan.”

I laughed. “You’ve heard that one, like, three times already! Don’t you want something different?”

“Pitterpan,” Andaryi repeated, and Brell gave a seconding shout.

“Okay, okay.” I came over to their tanks to be close to them and sat down in front of Dria’s center tube. “This is the story about the boy who never grew up….”

Chapter Text

Those first days passed quickly. The nights, too. When the kids were able to leave their tanks and move freely about the ship, though, the hours flew. They created a special kind of trouble, demanding attention and protection just so they didn’t get hurt moving around. They grew fast, as well, to human toddler size in a matter of weeks. Luckily, their comprehension and communication skills progressed at an even greater rate, so by the time we’d cleared the sector’s edge, they were talking at the equivalent of a middle-schooler. Not that that helped much when it came to wrangling them.

“Did you find Dria?” I asked Valda when she entered the galley at supper.

She gave me one of her clever smiles. “Cannot hide long from swarm,” she said, and the tiny skitterer clinging to her shoulder ticked at me with two of its long mechanical legs.

I smiled back. “Was she in the conduits again?”

Valda bobbed her head. “Likes hide, but not seek.”

“She doesn’t seem to be scared of anything.”

“No,” Valda agreed. “Only clever.”

Crawling through the ship’s conduits sounded like a good way to get lost, but Valda had never failed to find her, yet. And Dria had never called for help.

“Did you put her to bed with the others?” I asked.

Valda paused thoughtfully. “To bed, yes. Sleep not guaranteed.”

I sniffed. “We should make that the ship’s motto.”

The comm box clicked. “Welcome to my world,” Neex muttered.

Valda raised an appeasing hand. “Sleep soon. All tired.”

Neex made a scoffing noise. “Setting fires will do that.”

“That was an accident. And Andaryi said she was sorry.” I shrugged. “She likes to know how things work.”

Neex grunted. “Those children need strict supervision.”

“I thought that’s what you were for. Don’t you see everything on the ship?”

“Very funny,” Neex said without humor, though it did get me a smile from Valda.

“Still learning,” she said as she ambled over to the processor. “Mistakes will happen.”

I watched her a few moments; she wasn’t fast. “Neex is right, though,” I allowed. “We should probably install some safeguards, especially on the stuff in Medical and Engineering. They’re learning to be careful, but they’re still pretty curious.”

“Thank you,” Neex said. “You wouldn’t want them getting into your weapons, I’m sure.”

“No.” Brell had already expressed alarming awe at my axe, while Andaryi was fascinated by construction of my new wings. I looked to Valda again. “How’s the wing build coming, by the way?”

She turned from the processor with a smile. “Impressive.”

I grinned. “I can’t wait to try them out!”

“Not ready, yet,” Valda said. “Need more.”

“More what?”

“Material.”

My stomach fell. “You need more Nth?”

“Previous build immobile,” she said, as if explaining the concept to one of the kids. “Articulation requires more pieces.”

“I don’t have any more Nth!”

As I ticked off in my head the existing armor set, Valda gave me a leading answer. “Captain has piece.”

She’d had them for so long, now, I’d forgotten about the gold tassets that M’Rayeh wore low around her hips like a buccaneer’s belt. “No,” I said with a shake. “She loves flying. I can’t take that away from her. I’m already going to break her heart once; I don’t want to do it twice.”

I sat in a sudden weighty silence. Then the comm box clicked, and Neex asked:

“Then you’ve decided?” Their voice was suddenly sympathetic.

“I think so.” I nodded more confidently. “Yes.”

“Have you told Captain?” they asked.

I turned my shoulder to the comm box and pressed my fist to my mouth to muffle my insufficient answer. “I’ve been waiting for the right time.”

Across the table, Valda frowned and uttered a low, disapproving whimper while Neex gave a snapping reprimand.

“You need to tell her!”

“I know!” I barked back. “It’s just— you know. With the kids and all, things have been…hectic. I don’t want to hurt her.”

“The longer you wait,” Neex pointed out, “the harder it’s going to be. For her and for you.”

I put my hand to my head and groaned. “I know,” I said again.

“Do you want me to tell her?”

“No!” I glared at the box, then sighed for my own resignation. “Look, just give me a little time, huh? This isn’t easy, and I don’t want to screw it up.”

“What are you worried about?” M’Rayeh said from behind, and I stiffened and jerked a look toward the corridor. She’d floated in with a beaming smile, but her expression quickly turned perplexed as she took in me and Valda. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” I forced a wide smile. “Just typical everyday conversation between crew.”

“Discussing armor build,” Valda put in. While that wasn’t a lie, it also seemed like she said it to rescue me.

M’Rayeh’s grin returned. “Is it nearly finished?”

Valda said with reluctant dismay, “Materials shortage,” then gave me a pointed look.

“The articulation design requires more Nth metal than was present in the original build,” Neex explained.

M’Rayeh settled to the floor. “Oh,” she said softly.

I waggled my hand. “But we’ll think of something.”

“Sooner rather than later,” Neex muttered.

“Shut up,” I growled to the box.

Valda labored to a rise. “Should return to bench. Will work on helmet.” Her smile showed genuine pride. “Will approve,” she said to me, “this one hopes.”

A pang of longing prompted my own smile. “I’m sure I’ll love it.”

Valda nodded, gave my shoulder a comradely pat, and shuffled past.

“I’ll retire from this conversation, as well, Captain,” Neex said. “If you don’t mind. I need to reorganize Toragg’s star maps and data notes. He was a serviceable navigator, but we didn’t exactly agree on catalog hierarchy.”

M’Rayeh bobbed her head at the box. “Of course. You don’t need to ask permission.”

Neex thanked her, and the comm clicked off. Without waiting for her to ask a question or broach a new subject, I stood up and moved toward her.

“Hey.” I pushed forward another aching smile. “You want to come up to Obs with me?”

M’Rayeh squinted. “You want to spar?”

“No. I just thought— We haven’t spent much time up there lately, just the two of us. It used to be one of your favorite places on the ship.”

“It still is.” Her expression, initially suspicious, became inquisitive. “Can we fly?”

This time, my grin was natural. “Absolutely.”

So, we flew: in arcs and circles close to the ceiling. I bested her four out of five races across the length of the deck, but the win didn’t seem to please her. She turned in the air, dashed toward me, and caught me in the chest with both hands.

“You gave me that one,” she said, her face close to mine.

I shrugged. “I figured you deserve an easy win once in a while.”

“It’s not a win if I don’t earn it.” She floated out of reach with a triumphant smirk. “Do you know what Brell said to me today?”

“What?”

“That he wants to be my Guardian when he grows up.”

“Of course, he does. He adores you.”

M’Rayeh floated into a turn. “I told him I’ll never need a Guardian the way his mother did.” She turned and faced me again. “But if he’s good, I’ll let him practice with my spear someday.”

I snickered. “That sounds dangerous. But it’s a good goal for him to work toward.” I drifted toward her. “A captain should have a solid crew around them.”

“They’re more than solid,” she said, her voice swinging with pride. “Valda and Neex are both brilliant engineers. Andaryi’s shaping up to be a fine medic. And Dria is…”

“Terrifying?”

M’Rayeh laughed. “She is a bit too clever for her own good, isn’t she?”

“That’s a sign of a great XO,” I said.

As her gentle float brought her back to within arm’s reach, M’Rayeh fluttered her lashes. “And what about you? What role will you play?”

I pulled a long, slow breath and said, “Nothing.”

She gave another laugh. “I won’t let you get away with that! Everyone on this ship is going to have a job.”

But I shook my head. “I won’t be on the ship.”

Her mirth disappeared like the snuffed flame atop a fast-blown candle. “What?”

“I’m not staying,” I said.

She hung in the air a moment, just staring. When she blinked herself out of it, she frowned and drifted to the floor. She folded her arms around her, as if staving off a chill, and turned from me to gaze at the viewing wall. “So, Hierophant was right.”

I followed her down and padded close to her. “Hierophant?”

“She said this would happen. It was why she advised against your captaincy. She told me you would come to resent the drag on your freedom.” Her voice was steady; too steady. In it was a tone of melancholy defeat. “I told her she was wrong, that you could be happy here. That I could make you happy.” She turned back to me. “I thought it would be enough: A new start. The children. Me.”

 “It would be.” I moved close but didn’t reach; that seemed like too much to ask. “For any good man, it would be.”

“You’re a good man,” she said.

I sniffed out a wry smile. “I’m probably the best man I’ve ever been, here, with all of you. But it’s not about freedom. It’s about responsibility. I made a mistake once.” I had to force the words out from between my lips, they were so ugly. Or maybe because they were so true. “I turned my back on myself and my friends, and I’ve been running ever since. And as long as I stay here, even with all the good I think I’ve managed to do, I’m still running. I can’t do that anymore. I won’t.”

She moved into my space, slowly and sadly. “I don’t want you to leave.” Her hands grasped mine, and she gave them a pump. “But I don’t want you to stay if you’ll always be wondering about what could have been.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was you who taught me that true friendship, true love, comes only with sacrifice. I cannot be true to you if I refuse to let you go.”

I smiled to spite the closing of my throat. “You’re a much better captain than I ever was.”

She smiled, too. “Let us take you there, at least? To your home?”

“Travel time to Earth is long.”

“Earth,” she echoed. “Not Thanagar then?”

I drew my lips tight against my teeth as a bitter emptiness bubbled in my throat at thought of my time spent on Thanagar and in her navy. “I know who Ch’al Andar is. He’s a petty, pompous, vindictive jerk. That’s not the person I want to be.” I turned to the viewing wall, now, and let my gaze stray out of focus. Sol and its blue planet were millions of miles away. Nevertheless, they pulled at me. “Charley Parker had friends, at least, at one time. A mother, too, who I know nothing about. But I should,” I decided suddenly. “I want to.”

“You’ll need this then.” M'Rayeh slipped her hands from mine and stepped back. She started to unfasten the tassets around her hips.

“No.” I laid my fingers over hers again, this time to stop their movement. “Those are yours.”

“But your wings…?”

“We’ll find the extra Nth some other way. I’ve already got something in mind; it’ll just take a little longer to melt down.”

She let her hands drift to her sides. “Thank you,” she said, and a tiny smile came to her lips.

“You’re welcome.”

M’Rayeh looked inward a moment, then said, “Your home system lies far away. But there is a faster path…if that’s what you wanted.”

My heart seized for a beat. I’d forgotten about M’Rayeh’s innate ability to sense pathways through space, and how she’d found a wormhole-dependent course that would take us from Azadi Prime to the Sol system in significantly less time than the regular route. We could arrive to Earth in weeks, not months. But that would mean saying goodbye to this crew who had become so much like family to me so soon after having said goodbye to the woman who’d been the closest thing to a mother I’d ever had. I didn’t like thinking about it.

“It’s your choice,” M’Rayeh said, as if she were reading my mind. She might have done, though I didn’t feel any telltale tickle.

I eked out a smile. “If it’s all the same, I’d like to have the time.”

She smiled back and put her arms around me. “I’d like that, too.”

The press of her warm, firm body brought tears to my eyes, and I sniffled into her hair at this new contradiction. “Why is it that it’s only after I decide to leave that I finally feel part of this crew?”

M’Rayeh squeezed my ribs, then stepped back to show me her face. There were tears brimming in her eyes, too. “You will always have a place here,” she told me with quiet emphasis. Then she took my hand in both of hers and laid it upon her breast, over the place of heart that we shared between species. “And here.”

She rose against me for a kiss. I hugged her tightly. A longer journey to Earth would allow for more kisses, more embraces, more moments like this to be shared. Even so, I knew, they’d never be this sweet again.

Chapter Text

The kids required a simpler telling. I didn’t want to wait too long – we were already weeks closer to the Sol system – but I also had no idea how to do it.

“Be honest,” Neex recommended. “They’ll understand. No one stays with a ship forever.”

“Except you,” I pointed out.

“My situation is unique. Everyone else leaves, one way or another. You may as well be the one to demonstrate that. Dria,” Neex added meaningfully, “will appreciate you being straightforward with her. She doesn’t like subterfuge.”

I made a face. “We’re talking about the kid who enjoys sneaking up on people.” Dria was like a tiny Batman; one minute, you’d be sitting alone at the galley table, minding your own business, and the next, she’d almost magically appear right beside you, startling with a question or comment.

“She doesn’t like subterfuge when it’s used against her,” Neex clarified. “She’s really a very sensitive soul. She just likes knowing what’s going on, and she doesn’t abide duplicity.”

Except for the sneaky part, Neex could have been describing Lilith, who’d valued honesty and candor, too. I hoped Dria would grow up to be the same as her, with a sense for justice and compassion. I also hoped my leaving while she was still so young wouldn’t derail her from that path, the way it had done with me.

“You’ve changed your tune about them,” I said with a smile.

“They just needed to mature a bit,” Neex said. “Like the rest of you.”

I laughed softly to myself. That sounded like Lilith, too.

Valda agreed with Neex. “Their lives,” she said to me later that day as she adjusted one of the mechanisms on my new wings, “began with loss. Not so fragile as you fear.”

I didn’t look over my shoulder at her when she was working like this; more than once, she’d wrenched my head into forward-facing position when I’d tried, like a frustrated parent trying to cut a kid’s hair. “I just don’t want to be a deadbeat dad. Or, you know, not dad. Guardian.”

“Duty is done,” she reminded. “Children find their own way.”

“What if they don’t? What if they need me and I’m not here?”

“Do not need you.”

I slumped. “Thanks.”

Valda jerked on my harness. “Stand straight. Almost finished.”

She tinkered a bit – I felt her make some adjustment around the ball of my shoulder – and as she did, my mind wandered. So did my mouth. “I don’t want them to hate me. It’s fine if they forget. Every long-lived species loses memory over time. But I don’t want them to think I abandoned them.”

“Hatred not innate,” Valda told me in a matter-of-fact mutter. “Must be learned. Will not learn here.”

As I looked around her quarters, which were more toolshed and forge than living space, I believed her. Skitterer parts and armament pieces held place of purpose and pride, though there was also evidence of Andaryi’s presence in the form of smaller tools and simpler projects in various stages of mid-completion. Of her siblings, Andaryi showed the most proficiency for science. She reminded me of Karen, head down in deep concentration as she studied a book or tried to make sense of a mystery. Of Mal, too, with her loyal and ever-ready smile.

“You’ll teach them?” I asked Valda. “Good things, I mean. They’re so impressionable, right now.” They were already rocketing toward adolescence, with all the insecurities and curiosities that entailed.

“Will share knowledge.” She moved around in front of me and smiled as she swung a tall piece of shiny metal my way. “Complete, now,” she said, and showed me my reflection in the mirrored surface. “Approve?”

My heart leapt despite the topic of a moment ago. The gold was brilliant, the slender articulated pieces superb. I flexed my shoulders for a test, and the wings sprung from their closed position. Another flex, and they flared wide. I folded one arm across my chest, and the associated wing came with it; I tried a faster swipe with the other arm, and the other wing did the same.

“How does it do that?” I wheezed.

“Smart,” Valda replied. “Like children.”

At first, I thought she was talking about the kids. Then I realized she meant her children, and I faced her with a gape. “You put a skitterer in my armor?”

“Impulse responsive,” she corrected. “Not autonomous. Nth listens to you, now.”

She was right. No longer stiff and dumb, these wings moved with me, reacting to my thought and motion. They didn’t invite touch like Carter’s feathered wings, and they weren’t silent. Every time I moved them, they produced a sound like a blade sliding from its sheath. But that danger made them stunning, and my grin returned. “Valda, you are a marvel.”

When I went up to the bridge to show M’Rayeh, she concurred: “They’re beautiful,” she said with a wistful smile. She turned to Brell sitting upside-down in Toragg’s navigator chair with his head tentacles dangling toward the floor. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“They’re big,” Brell said, unimpressed.

I snickered. “You know what they say about the size of a man’s wings.”

“No.”

I doubled back on the stupid joke. “They, uh, help him fly better.”

Brell turned himself upright and glared at me. “I miss the axe. You said I could have it!”

“I never said that.”

“Well, you said I could hold it.” He showed his sharp baby teeth at me. “But I didn’t even get to do that before you had Valda melt it down!”

“We needed the Nth metal to finish the wings,” I reminded him. “Besides, that axe was more cumbersome than helpful. It was slow and too big to swing in close quarters. Half the time, I was using it to block somebody else.”

Brell sat deep into the chair with a dramatic grumble. “I liked it.”

I shared a look with M’Rayeh, who gave me one of her amused frowns. With a push of my shoulders, I closed my wings into a tight fold to my back; God, that felt cool. I went over to Brell and got down on one knee to be on eye level with him.

“I know,” I said in a slow, placating voice, “that you like the big weapons.”

“I need to protect everyone!” Brell replied hotly, and I was reminded of Hank, always ready – sometimes desperately so – to jump into a fight because he knew he was the one who could take the biggest beating.

“And you will. But this,” I said, tapping him on the temple, right above the arch of his obsidian eye, “is the best weapon you’ve got.”

“Don’t forget me!”

I looked over my shoulder to Andaryi, who came gliding up to us. In her hands was a small gray metal helmet reminiscent of my old Royal Navy helm. In place of the flaring wings on the sides were four decorative nubs that resembled short tentacles. The eyeholes were larger, too, fit for an Oegosid. She pushed it toward Brell. “I made you this,” she said proudly.

Brell popped up in his seat and yanked it on. It was big for him – it moved too much when he swung his head – but he’d surely grow into it soon. With a grin, he crowed, “Wow!” which made Andaryi grin, too.

“You wanted to see us?”

Dria’s sudden presence at my other arm made me jump. “You’re getting way too good at that,” I told her sternly. In response, she beamed.

“Thank you, Guardian! I do strive for perfection.”

“I know you do, sweetheart.”

“I like your new armor,” she said, her eyes bright.

“Thanks.”

Andaryi swept in. “I helped!” She pointed at my right pauldron. “With this one,” she said, then jabbed her finger at a wing spine. “And that one.” She tapped a curved design on my breastplate. “And this one, and—”

Before she spiraled into a full listing, I grasped her poking hand and gave it a grateful squeeze. “You did a great job on all of them. Sit with me a minute? There’s something you need to know.”

“Why M’Rayeh doesn’t have tentacles?” Andaryi asked.

While her interjection baffled me, M’Rayeh said, “Not everyone has tentacles.”

“Valda has a tentacle,” Andaryi said.

“Valda has a tail,” M’Rayeh corrected gently. She gestured to me. “Golden-Eagle doesn’t have tentacles, either.”

“Yes, he does.” Brell twisted his mouth. “It doesn’t do anything, though. It just hangs there.”

I glowered at him. “That’s not a tentacle. Now, don’t change the subject. This is important.”

Andaryi and Dria settled close on either side of me, and Brell came to the edge of the navigator’s chair. I looked to each of them in turn.

“Do you remember how, in the story, Peter Pan never grew up?” I asked.

All three nodded, then Andaryi said, “I don’t like that part. He should have stayed with Wendy!”

“No, he shouldn’t,” Brell snapped at her. “Wendy’s dumb.”

“Wendy’s not dumb,” Dria scolded. “Wendy’s smarter than all of them!”

“Wendy loves him,” Andaryi said imploringly.

“Stop,” I said, waving my hand between them. “Please. We’re getting off-topic again.” They complied, and I sighed and resumed. “What I wanted to say is that, sometimes, even when we don’t want to, everybody grows up. And part of growing up is knowing when to do the right thing.” I passed my gaze from one to the next and pushed out a weak and sad smile. “It’s time for me to do the right thing. Unfortunately, that also means I have to go.”

“Where?” Brell blurted, and Dria asked:

“Why?”

“Is it because of us?” Andaryi said, her voice pained.

“No!” I told her first, stroking one of her long head tentacles. “No. This is about things I left undone and unsaid, and questions I need to have answers to. I can only find those on Earth.”

“With the Carter?” By Dria’s use of the distinct definitive, I gathered she’d had conversations with M’Rayeh beyond my own telling.

I nodded. “He’s part of it, yes. But there’s more. I had friends there, once. People who were like family to me. I turned my back on them.”

Brell cocked his head at me. “Why?”

I blew another sigh for this admission. “I was too proud. Too angry. Too scared. I thought I was alone. But the truth is, I made myself alone. If I’d just gone to them – any one of them – I think they’d have helped me, saved me from making those terrible mistakes that sent me down my path of destruction.”

The quiet sadness across their youthful faces prompted a turnabout to a more positive lesson.

“Which is why,” I went on with a new breath, “it’s so important for the three of you to trust each other.” I hugged Dria and Andaryi and looked firmly at Brell. “Talk to each other. Keep each other close. Nothing is so hard that you can’t do it if you work together.”

M’Rayeh came down into a crouch beside me. “We’re always here to help, too. Me and Valda and Neex.”

Andaryi craned her head to look at me. “Guardian won’t be here.”

“Even when I’m far away, I’ll always be with you.” I tapped my temple, then my heart. “Here, and here. You’ll always be with me, too.”

Ever direct, Dria asked, “How long until you leave?”

The comm box clicked. “We’ll reach the separation window in sixty-one cycles,” Neex said.

Everyone was silent a long moment. Then Brell said, “Teach me to use a big weapon?”

“Tell me about Earth,” Dria declared, and Andaryi grasped my hand.

“I want to make something for you! Something to remember us by.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry. We still have plenty of time.”

But while two months sounded like enough, it ended up passing quickly. Before I knew it, the great red spot of Jupiter loomed large on the giant feed screens of the observation deck. Soon, we’d be through the Milky Way’s circumstellar asteroid belt separating the inner system from the outer, and within scanning distance of Earth.

“Watching it won’t make it come faster,” M’Rayeh chided at my shoulder.

I pulled my gaze off the wall to gaze at her. She’d lost a lot of her innocence in the year-plus since the day I’d first carried her aboard, but she was still spirited, not to mention plenty beautiful.  “What about slowing it down?”

“It won’t do that, either. We could ask Neex to reduce speed,” she began, then offered me a sympathetic frown. “But that would just be delaying the inevitable.”

“I want to go back to Earth.” I wanted to find my friends, learn about my mother. “But I also want to stay here.” The life I’d built on the ship was one separate from the influences of my past, and I’d come to love it.

“You know my feelings.” She bent her head to mine. “Though, I do wish you’d let us take you straight there.”

I straightened up, trying to be firm. “No.”

“I won’t be able to sense you if you’re in stasis. If something goes wrong—”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong.” My pod would transmit an identification announcement signal on a loop, and its trajectory – programmed by M’Rayeh herself – would take it right past the Justice League satellite. They couldn’t miss me if they tried.

She pulled a breath of flashing frustration. “I still don’t like it.”

“And I don’t like the thought of Earth’s scientists getting ahold of this ship or anyone on it. Especially you.” I cupped her cheek. “To them, you’d be another unknown planetary species. They’d put you in a lab and hook you up to all kinds of machines to figure out what makes you tick. And if they learned you’re a telepath…!” I drifted off with a shake of my head. “I won’t take that chance.”

“That should be my decision to make.”

“You’re a captain, now,” I reminded. “With a crew to look after.”

Her frown made deep furrows in her brow. For a second, at the base of my skull, I felt the tender tingling sensation of her searching. Then she sighed and muttered, “Why do you have to be right about this?”

I snickered. “I’m not used to it, either.”

She cast her gaze toward the viewing wall, where the brightest of Jupiter’s light was already fading as we passed the planet by. The Hierophant would go on flying, but not with me for much longer. M’Rayeh knew it, too.

“Do you have any requests?” she asked as she turned my way again. “For your last night aboard?”

I thought about her, what she’d learned and what I’d learned since she came aboard, and what we’d learned together. I held out my hand and smiled. “Fly with me?”

She grasped my fingers and smiled back, and together, we alighted from the deck.

We whirled and climbed and stooped, racing, chasing, and tagging each other in the air. For a while, the lightness lasted. But eventually, the weight of the day to come dragged us to the floor. We cried a little, and I held her until she fell asleep. I didn’t want to sleep – I’d be in stasis soon enough – but the lulling rhythm of M’Rayeh’s breath and the warmth of her body, which had become so familiar, delivered me into a comforting drowse from which I didn’t wake until it was nearly morning.

The crew saw me off, though with the plan to go into stasis for the short journey into Earthspace, for me it felt less like a debarkation and more like a prep for surgery. Except they wouldn’t be waiting for me when I woke up.

Valda had insisted I dress in my new full armor, I guessed so she could appreciate the sight of her handiwork one last time. “Fly well, Guardian,” she said with a smile.

I nodded. “Thanks to you.”

Behind her, the kids came as a trio. They’d had a growth spurt in the last twenty cycles, but they were still small enough for me to lift off the floor as I gathered each one of them to my chest for one last hug.

“I love you so much,” I said as I looked at them in a row. “All of you.”

“We love you, Guardian,” Brell replied in an odd show of tender feeling, as Andaryi came forward.

“We made you this.” She passed into my hand a tiny data chit, readable by my helmet.

“They’re memories of us,” Dria explained. “Taken from the ship’s security camera archives. Neex helped.”

“Kladafi aren’t sentimental…” Neex said loftily, then added, “…but you were a better colleague than some.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” I told them. Then I turned to M’Rayeh. We’d already shared our more precious goodbyes, so I just let go a little sigh and smiled.

M’Rayeh stepped forward and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Remember, you’ll always have a place here, with us.”

“If you ever need us,” Neex added, “use the locked frequency in your comm. It will send a tight-beam transmission straight to us. We’ll keep our receptors open.”

I snickered at M’Rayeh. “And you’ll know exactly where I am.”

“I will,” she said, a hundred percent serious. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“So do I.”

M’Rayeh nodded, then put her arms around me and pressed her cheek to mine. There, she whispered, “Be safe, Charley-Parker.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded against her, for a moment just feeling the shape of her, listening to her breath, smelling her skin. Too soon but with necessary promptness, Neex said:

“Window’s closing.”

I gave another nod, drew a fast inhalation, and stepped back, lifting my chin and pushing my shoulders straight. I forced out a tight smile. “This is farewell, I guess.”

The kids stood in somber silence, and M’Rayeh bit her lip. Valda inclined her head and said, “Not forever.”

I gave them a brighter smile for that thought. I started to step toward the pod hatch, then paused on my turn for one last, “I love you.” I looked away before those faces changed my mind. With a press of my shoulders, my wings sprung wide. I folded my arms across my chest, and the wings came around me. With them as a kind of cocoon, I stepped into the pod, settled back into place, and watched the shield come down. In the close confines of the pod, my pulse sounded like a hammer blow.

The comm in my helmet clicked. I’d hoped to hear M’Rayeh’s voice, but it was Neex who said, “Ready?”

To spite the wantings of my heart, Neex’s being the last of their voices to hear would make this part easier. “Start the beacon sequence.”

I heard a faint echo of my own recorded voice: “Attention, Justice League. This is Golden Eagle, formerly of Thanagar….”

“The stasis environment will take a moment to go into effect,” Neex said.

“I understand.” Already, I felt an encroaching chill, and the air in the pod began to take on a sweetish smell, like knockout gas.

Neex’s voice droned on. “You won’t feel anything. You shouldn’t even be aware of time passing. When you wake, you may be disoriented….”

My eyelids drooped closed. I was aware of my breath slowing but couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was like falling asleep under anesthetic, a kind of false, forced relaxation.

M’Rayeh had said you don’t dream in stasis, but I did. I dreamt of a vibrant green light, and of a woman’s voice that made me feel safe, that I associated with Veranyi or even my mother, though even those weren’t quite right. Guided by that voice, my mind moved across all the people and moments that had formed my life for the last few years: the Thanagarian Royal Navy, Viza, Gana, the Source Wall. Valda with her skitterers were in there, too, and Veranyi, of course. Then M’Rayeh, and the pirates and Cordyl. Azadi Prime, where the kids were born. And all the moments in between where trust and love and friendship had grown.

Tears pooled in my eyes, and I pulled a deep breath. The air felt cool but stale. Recycled air. I opened my eyes. I wasn’t in the pod anymore but a gray, stark cell. A partitioned commode and sink sat in one corner, with the gray, stark cot I lay on in the other. I was in gray, too, stripped of my armor. My heart sank, and I swore in a hoarse, unused voice.

“Glad to see you’re awake.”

My breath seized in my chest. I knew that deep baritone. I lurched up and flung my gaze to the translucent cell wall. Standing there staring at me was the same big, broad man who’d dominated my dreams as a child, whose face I’d once adored, then despised, then wondered over why he’d ever set me free.

I swallowed to clear my throat, but my voice still came out croaking, not at all like the confident warrior returning home I wanted to be. “Carter?”

Chapter Text

He didn’t shift, didn’t smile or clench a fist, just stood there looking at me with deep-set eyes darkened by history and hardship. The legend went he’d been a prince, an immortal, a god of some kind, a cop, and countless other men across the centuries. The galaxy knew him as Hawkman, Carter Hall of Earth, or, as my father had called him, Katar Hol of Thanagar. I stood up from the cot and walked to the see-through cell wall, to look him in the eye. On the way, my legs wobbled. While we were almost the same height, he felt like a giant to me, even now.

“How are you feeling?” he asked in a noncommittal voice.

I steadied my stance. “Discombobulated.”

He nodded. “Not uncommon with stasis revitalization.”

“How long was I out?”

“We’re not sure how long you were in stasis before intercept, but you’ve been here about three months.”

I gawped. “Three months?!”

“You had to be quarantined,” Carter informed me sternly. “You’ve been gone a long time. They needed to run tests and update your immune system. No one wants a planetwide outbreak of some unknown disease from beyond Earth’s solar system.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. That made sense.

He lifted his chin at me. “I noticed you’ve got a new eye. Cybernetic?”

I touched my cheek under my left eye. Lying on Veranyi’s examination slab in Medical trying not to flinch as she put her needles into the damaged socket to attach the new nerves felt like it happened a lifetime ago. Memories of her dropped my voice to a murmur. “Stem cell regrowth.” I pulled a fast breath. “But that’s not really why you’re here, is it?”

Carter gave a grunt. “When the League told me they’d found someone claiming to be Golden Eagle floating in an unmarked stasis pod, I have to admit, I didn’t believe it was really you. The Thanagarian Royal Navy reported you lost over three years ago. They said you’d run afoul of a forerunner, Viza’Aziv.”

That seemed like another lifetime, too. “Yeah.”

“What happened? Did you escape?”

“She let me go.”

“Where is she now?”

I shrugged. “Still behind the Source Wall, I imagine.”

“Do you think she’s still a threat?”

“I think Viza’s a threat no matter where she is.”

Carter scowled, so I doubled back:

“But do I think she’s plotting war against Earth or anywhere else?” I shook my head. “No. She’d had enough of it: the death, the devastation, the rage that goes with it all. We had that much in common, at least.”

He kept his arms slack at his sides, though based on his tone, he should have crossed them over his broad brown chest. “That sounds like a far cry from the Golden Eagle who left his position on a Rann battlefield just to try and kill me.”

I hung my head. That was the day Fel had died. I’d been so blinded by my desire for revenge that I’d missed my chance to save him. “I’m sorry.”

Carter was silent. When I raised my head again, the lines around his mouth had softened, and there was concern in his stare. I’d never seen that look from him, or from any man, though I’d long wished to.

“Sorry for what?” he prompted in a quiet mutter. It was a familiar tactic; I’d used it myself on the kids, to make sure they understood what it was that they’d done wrong.

“Everything,” I said. “I betrayed your trust, betrayed the wings. I hurt people. Killed people. All for my own stupid, selfish pride.”

“Fel led you down a path—”

“Fel was just the trigger,” I said. “When he told me who I was, that I was his son, that you knew and never told me…!” I clenched my hand into a fist as the words came out. “I got so angry. I felt so cheated. It hurt so much, I just wanted to hurt someone else in return.”

Carter thrummed. “And you chose me.”

I released the fist, unable to hold onto that old fury. In its place came the promises I’d made to Veranyi and M’Rayeh and the kids: to be better, to be more than just a warrior, to be good. Those aspirations had started with the man in front of me, whose eyes I locked onto, now. “You were everything I’d always wanted to be. Strong, respected, a hero. You could fly! I wanted you to teach me how to be like you—”

“You wanted a father,” Carter corrected.

“So, why couldn’t you have been that?” I cried, suddenly a teary, blubbering child again. “Did you think I was too weak? Too dumb, too broken? Did you think I couldn’t have handled it?”

“I couldn’t have handled it!” he barked, and I stepped back. That strained voice didn’t come from Hawkman, or from Carter Hall or Katar Hol, either. It came from a man, just a regular man, like me or any other.

He drew a breath as if to re-center himself and let it out as a sigh. After a moment, he resumed in a gentler timbre, “You were a boy, vulnerable and impressionable. I’d seen what could happen to a child when the guidance was flawed. The pain, the confusion, the death. I had enough problems of my own. I didn’t want the responsibility of looking after you, too.” He sighed again and lifted his hands, showing his palms in a mea culpa gesture. “Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe, if I’d kept you close, you wouldn’t have gotten so lost.”

I felt something – some thick, heavy lump – unravel in my guts. “I always thought it was me.”

“Hopefully, the truth offers you some solace.”

“I’m not sure. I mean, you occupied my every waking moment. It’s kind of a spike to the ego to find out I didn’t do the same for you.”

He let out a quick snigger. “I think you’re overestimating my influence. You made your own life, your own friends, people who believe in you.”

“At one time, maybe,” I grumbled.

“Don’t be too hard on them. They thought you’d died years ago. People tend to move on from that.”

Panic – followed by a grim dread – gripped my chest. “You told them?”

Carter lifted his shoulders. “Broad strokes. Our history, and your time on Thanagar.”

I dropped my chin to my chest. “So, they know.”

“We’re all products of our pasts,” Carter said, as if that were a comfort. “It’s the better soul who faces theirs rather than runs away.”

“I guess.”

“They still believe in you.”

I jerked my head up in surprise. “How do you know?”

“Batman wanted to remand you to Belle Reve. Nightwing convinced him otherwise.”

My stomach flipped. Dick and I had said maybe two dozen words to each other over the course of the years, but he’d stood up to the big Bat for me?

“That is,” Carter continued in a firm and leading tone, “so long as you don’t step out of line.”

I frowned. “You mean, so long as I don’t have another psychotic break. I think Thanagar took care of that.”

He was silent another moment, then gave something like a shrug. “The Royal Navy’s High Command did say you’d completed rehabilitation.”

My brain did a hop that reminded me of electroshock therapy. “Do you know what happened to my old ship? The Buteus?”

“Still part of the Queen’s fleet. Under new command, of course.” He fixed me with another dark stare. “But that’s not why you’re here,” he said, repeating my own question back at me. “Is it?”

I straightened my posture to present myself as respectably as my wingless form would allow, swallowed, and said, “I want to go home.” Despite all the years and battles, I couldn’t help my voice cracking like a kid’s. “To Earth.”

“What about Thanagar?” he asked. “I thought you’d pledged yourself to protect it.”

“Thanagar was Fel’s dream,” I told him. “But there’s nothing for me there.”

“There’s another command, if you want it.”

“Where everybody hates me?” I gave another shake. “No, thanks.”

“You think Earth has something more?”

“I had a friend,” I began, looking up and away to a corner of the wall. “Her species, the female dies in childbirth. She could have taken steps to abort, but she didn’t. For her, the possibilities of those new lives were more precious than her own. So, her children…they don’t know her. They only have our memories, our stories. But at least they have that.” I sighed and swung my gaze back to Carter. “I spent so much of my life learning about you, then about Fel. I know more about both of you than I’d like to. But I know next to nothing about my mother. Who she was, what her dreams were. Why she chose my life over hers. She knew who Fel was by then, what he’d done, what he’d done to her. Why take that risk with me?”

“I don’t know,” Carter said, as if I expected him to have the answer. Maybe I did. But he went on: “Like you, I was focused on Fel. Outside of her connection to him, I don’t know much about Sharon Parker, either.”

“We should,” I said. “I should. I need to.” I pushed myself tall again. “That’s why I came back.”

One corner of his mouth twitched, very slightly. “I thought you were going to say you wanted to be a hero again.”

I glanced down at my toes in their security booties, cringing one foot over the floor. “I just want to be a good man,” I admitted. “But that part’s going to take time. And effort. A lot of effort,” I said, thinking about that warning about Belle Reve Prison. “I know that.”

There was a whoosh of air. It took me a few seconds to realize that the transparent wall had zipped away or dissolved or whatever the tech allowed, and I was standing free to the rest of the satellite station. Despite that, I didn’t move until Carter tilted his head to the side and said:

“Walk with me.”

He started off along the promenade that ran outside my cell. When I didn’t immediately follow, he stopped, turned halfway around, and asked, “You can walk, can’t you?”

I wobbled a step over the threshold. “I thought I was a prisoner?”

“You’re under observation.”

I took another cautious step and peered up at the ceiling, which was at least forty feet above our heads. “If I’m free, I’d rather fly.”

“Walk first,” he said, and resumed his stroll.

This time, I went after him. I started with an uneven trot, though I’d spent enough of my life moving between walking and flying that it didn’t take more than a few minutes to regain a more surefooted stride. We passed a few open, empty cells, then a few closed, darkened ones.

We passed into the lift, and he tapped the panel for one of the upper floors. Since I wasn’t a criminal detainee, I leaned forward and asked:

“Any chance I could get moved to the inner ring? I’ve gotten used to the lighter grav of a ship.”

Carter stayed looking straight ahead. “We’re not moving you.”

“Well, how about some real food?” I rubbed the inside of my arm, which bore the telltale itch of a recently removed IV. “Like a cheeseburger. Or a burrito! God, I could go for a burrito right now. There used to be this little place in San Diego, right by the airport, where they made the best guacamole—”

“You’ve changed your armor. How?”

Taken off guard, I eased back. “Uh, a friend did it for me.”

“The same friend? Or a different one?”

“A different one.”

“So, you weren’t so alone out there as we thought.”

I smiled softly to myself. “I guess not.”

“It’s an impressive redesign,” Carter continued. “The engineering is exquisite.”

My smile broke wider. “Really? Thanks! It took some extra Nth, but the axe was always kind of clunky anyway—”

Carter whipped his head toward me, eyes bugging and nostrils flaring. “You reforged one of the Queen’s weapons?”

The clenching in my guts returned a moment. “It was given to me! I didn’t think I’d need to give it back.”

“We’ll leave that out of the official report.” He shook his head at me. “You always did do things your own way.”

The lift opened then, on a circular room with unobstructed views all around. Half of these views showed starscape, while the other half showed the glorious glow of Earth. I stepped out of the lift and into that glow.

It had been many years since I’d seen the planet of my birth so close from space. The last time, I’d been locked in an incarceration pod bound for Thanagar, less one eye and most of my sanity. I’d screamed when I left, too caught up in my own rage to notice how beautiful the planet was. I noticed now, though, and my vision started to blur until I wiped the tears away.

“Golden Eagle.”

I turned at the new voice. It belonged to a tall, green-skinned alien I knew from newsfeeds as the Martian Manhunter. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“For what?” I said.

“To travel to Earth.”

“Really?”

Martian Manhunter exchanged a glance with Carter. “Did Hawkman not tell you?”

“I was getting to that,” Carter said.

I looked between them. “You mean, like, now?”

Carter pulled his brows together. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“Well, yeah, but…! What about, you know, everything that happened before?”

“That was before,” Carter said. “This is now. You served your sentence and completed rehabilitation. As regards that, at least, Earth and Thanagar agree.”

“Of course,” Martian Manhunter said in a more judicious tone, “there are certain conditions to which you are expected to adhere, such as observance of all local and planetary laws, regular reporting to your League-affiliated handler, and periodic mental and emotional fitness reviews.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

Carter sniffed. “You’d prefer the placement at Belle Reve?”

“No, no!” I waved my palms. “I was just expecting something more…stringent.”

“Compassion,” Martian Manhunter mused in his warm, temperate voice, “is a powerful motivator. In your mind, you hold a great remorse. Trauma and doubt, as well, but those are secondary to your desire to do good, to ‘be better’.”

I raised my chin. “You scanned that from me.”

“A sentiment so strong in one’s psyche cannot be faked.”

A hand fell on my shoulder, and I turned to Carter. He said, “We trust you to hold yourself to it.”

I drew myself up and nodded. “I will. I promise.”

Martian Manhunter spread his large green hands. “Then you are free to live your life.”

I looked past him toward the view of Earth outside the satellite. It was beautiful but also terrifying. I’d need to start over again, with nothing and no one.

Carter seemed to sense my trepidation. His fingers clutched my shoulder once. “You won’t be alone.” He smirked. “We’ll be watching you.”

Martian Manhunter gestured to the center platform. “The teleport system is ready to transport you to Earth.”

“What about my wings?” I asked.

“Your armor is in possession of your handler,” Martian Manhunter told me. “It will be returned to you when they decide you are ready.”

I bobbed my head, though not without some disappointment. “So, I’ve got to prove myself.”

Martian Manhunter’s mouth twitched with a smile. “We all have to do that, every day.”

“It comes with being a hero,” Carter said.

I nodded again, and Carter swung his hand from my shoulder to the transport platform. We walked there together, though at the threshold of the designated tube, I stopped and turned to face him.

“There’s one thing I’ve always wondered. After everything I said, everything I did, you still forgave me. Why?”

Carter drooped, as if suddenly the bearer of a heavy weight. “You may have renounced Thanagar,” he said in a deliberate voice. “That’s your prerogative. But you’re still half-Thanagarian. We’re fighters, first and foremost. But vengeance…!” He lowered his head for a slow, sad shake. “That’s a lonely, cruel path. If you follow it, it consumes: you and everyone around you. And it doesn’t stop. It just keeps going, around and around, like a snake eating its own tail. I didn’t want my life to become that. I want it to be about something more. To be better, if you will.” He raised his gaze to me. “That’s why I let you go. To free not just you from that cycle, but me, as well.”

His words plucked a dull, unused chord in my chest. It started a resonance, one that filled me with an old yearning. I pulled my mouth into a tight smile and stepped into the tube. Turning to him again, I told him, “You’d have made a better father than you think.”

He laughed in gentle humor and shrugged those wide shoulders. “I guess we’ll never know.”

“No,” I said, just as the air around me quickened with a crackle. “We do.” Then I shut my eyes against a bright flare of light, my last sight on the station that of Carter.

Everything turned white, and for a fraction of a second, I felt as though I’d been turned inside-out. After a moment, the searing illumination was replaced by a mellow luminosity, and I heard the crash of water. The smell of salt filled my nostrils, and tiny grains of grit tickled my skin as a wind blew across it.

I opened my eyes to a rolling blue ocean stretching under a setting yellow sun. This could have been any coastline on Earth, but it felt like California, and I gave silent thanks to Martian Manhunter for sending me to the place I felt most at home.

The pull of a full G dragged me to my knees. Coupled with my exhaustion, it laid me flat on the sand, which was gritty and hot and tasted like salt. Or maybe the taste was my relief, running down my face as tears.

Somewhere beneath the sound of the walloping waves, I heard voices calling my name. I thought they were just my brain playing tricks, shunting me to the past, but two pairs of hard hands grabbed me under my arms and yanked me up. I blinked and focused on the person those hands belonged to.

I remembered him as little more than an angry teenager, cocky and hard-headed, with a snarl full of ready wickedness. But this man’s dark eyes were warm with maturity and compassion. They were so unlike the boy I used to know, I had to ask, “Hank?”

He cracked a lopsided smile, but I didn’t get a chance to fully register it before another set of hands touched my face and brought my attention around. In my memories, this woman was elfin and bright, with a gaze that gleamed with mischief and cleverness. That gaze was misty with worry, now, though, and her cheeks were streaked with tears.

“Oh, Charley!” Karen said before pulling me into a hug so tight that it squeezed from me a sob.

“We had no idea what had happened to you,” I heard Mal say, and I looked over Karen’s shoulder at him. He’d grown a beard that looked so soft and like a dad’s and that made me want to feel his arms around me, too. It surrounded a frown, one that showed a deep wisdom despite his words.

“But we’re glad you’re all right.”

This last from a new voice that was also an old voice. My heart seized on its fluty trembling as I rolled my gaze to the source. There she was: Bette Kane, aglow in the light of the sun and as graceful and beautiful as Venus on her shell.

I rose out of Karen’s embrace and stared around at them. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here for you, dumbass,” Hank said with another skewed grin.

Though she didn’t release the furrow between her brows, Karen chuckled. “To welcome you home.”

“As a team,” Mal said, then shrugged his shoulders. “Even if there hasn’t been a Titans West in a while.”

“Titans West or no,” Bette said as she stepped close, “you’ll always be one of us.” Then she laid her palm to my cheek, showed her flawless whites in her calendar girl smile, and added, “Charley-bird.”

Their open-hearted absolution staggered me. Tears burst in my vision, muddling the sight of them into fragments. My nose started to run, and my breath turned to raggedy gasps. I crumpled to the ground and devolved into a long, hard cry. Though these were the friends of my past, their warmth and their comfort as they clustered around me felt like a new beginning, one in which my heart and spirit was finally free.

Chapter Text

We stayed together a while, in a little safehouse in San Jose that the Bat collective kept for California sojourns. There, we had some food and talked and listened to each other, telling stories of the years between. Sometimes there were tears but mostly there was laughter. And relief.

Despite the good spirits going around, Hank rose with a stretch. “Well, gang, it’s been fun, but I’ve gotta go.” He’d gotten bigger, a former running back turned demigod, from what I understood of his magical inheritance.

“Aw,” I teased. “I just got here!”

Hank spread both of his huge hands. “What can I say? I’m a man in demand.”

He was making a joke, but I took him seriously. “Sorry I took you away from your family.”

“Hey,” he said softly. “You’re family, too.”

I smiled and stood into his waiting hug. While his strength matched his size, he was careful with it, almost too much so; I’d have rather he crushed me. I squeezed with all my might, prompting from him a satisfying grunt. Still, when we let go and stepped back, he seized the opportunity for some friendly needling.

“We gotta get you back to fighting weight, bro! You got skinny in space.”

“Zero-G will do that to a body.” I squared him up, equally playful. “I could still take you, though.”

Hank snorted. “In your dreams!”

Karen stood up to join us. “We should head out, too,” she said, then passed a glance to Mal. “Unless you want to text the sitter, have her stay over?”

“No,” I said before Mal could answer. “You go home to your daughter. You, too,” I told Hank. I chanced a cautious smile. “Though, I’d like to meet them someday, if that’s okay.”

“Definitely,” Hank assured me, as Mal got up next to Karen.

“The only reason Rhea’s not here today is she had a project due at school. But she can’t wait to meet you.” He laid a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “And this one wants you in her lab.”

Karen blushed. “Just to get some baseline numbers!” She smiled at me around her rouging. “It could be like the old days, when you used to crash on the couch.”

“Except now we’ve got a nice spare room,” Mal interjected.

Karen shot him a sidelong look. “If you can get past all the vinyl.”

This time, Mal colored. “I’m working on the shelves…!”

“I’d like that.” I grinned. “I can even help with those shelves, if you want.”

“Now, you’re talking,” Mal said with a laugh. He pulled me into a hug that Karen joined. “We’re glad you’re home,” he muttered close to one ear.

Karen’s voice tickled the other. “You need anything, anytime, you call me.” She pushed off with another smile. “I’ll come flying.”

I nodded, bit my lip, and gave a fresh grin to keep the tears at bay. I’d already cried a lot today, and while I knew they wouldn’t judge me for it, I also knew they needed to get back to their homes, just as I’d been returned to mine.

After Hank, Karen, and Mal said goodbye, that left only Bette, who curled her legs to the side as she sat down on the sofa again. Her bare feet lay in the space between us. I stared at her pale toes with their nails painted fiery red and their strong, smooth tendons following the paths of her bones.

She noticed my fascination and seemed to recognize the reason for it. “Did you forget what human feet looked like?”

“A human woman’s, anyway,” I said, lifting my eyes to hers.

“Your friend,” she said. “The telepath. What did she look like?”

“M’Rayeh?” I shrugged. “She looked…mostly human. Blue. But two arms, two legs, one head.”

 Bette clicked her tongue. “You know what I mean.” She paused, fixed me with a seeking, penetrating look, and asked in a very low voice, “Did you love her?”

I kept my gaze steady. “I did. I do.” I blinked and made a half-smile. “I loved all of them, to be honest. They were my friends. We were…like family.”

The answer didn’t faze her. “So, why give that up? Why come back here?”

I cracked the other side of my smile. “Do you want me to say it was you?”

“I want you to tell me the truth,” she said, so bluntly that I sat back a little in surprise. She went on, her tone swinging into the realm of frosty anger. “Because while you look and sound like the Charley Parker I used to know, I’m not sure what about you – if anything – I can trust anymore.”

My stomach cringed. “That’s fair.”

Bette shifted her legs to lean toward me. Not to be gentle, but to confront, her blue eyes blazing. “Why’d you do it?” she hissed.

I swung my head. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“That it won’t happen again! That you won’t suddenly have another psychotic break and turn into some half-crazed super-villain. They said you tried to murder Hawkman,” she said through her teeth. She threw up her hands in dismay and glared hard at me through sparkling tears. “What the hell, Charley!”

“I’m sorry. okay? A million times over, I’m sorry. I was scared, and lost, and then I got so angry…!” I clenched a fist in my lap, partly for my father…but mostly for myself. I relaxed my hand with a weary sigh that made me slouch. “I’d always wanted to be Carter. When I couldn’t be Carter, I tried to be Fel. Turns out, I couldn’t do that, either. By the time I realized what I’d done, what I’d become, it was too late. I couldn’t turn back. Even if I could, I was just so ashamed…!”

She sat back, blinking her gaze clear and setting her mouth into a line. Her voice, though, came out trembling. “You should have come to us for help. You should have come to me.”

From the depths of my guts came a wave of sudden and intense honesty. “I was a screwed-up kid. No family, no friends, nothing that made me special. I wasn’t adopted by Batman or taught by the Amazons. I aged out of a crappy foster system, was given some money, and told, ‘There you go! Make something of yourself.’ But I wasn’t good at anything. Even as Golden Eagle, the only thing I could do was fly. And you know what kind of a dime-a-dozen power that is!” I sighed again.  The culmination of years I’d wasted being so angry at someone who didn’t deserve it still weighed heavily on me…but at least I knew I could take it.

“I didn’t know what I had,” I went on after a moment. “But I know now.” I chuckled ruefully. “I just needed to go to prison, get conscripted for a war, go back and forth through a Source Wall, fight for a friend’s freedom, and finally help another friend give birth to the next generation of her species, to figure that out.”

Bette’s face stayed unmoving. “It shouldn’t have taken that much.”

“No.” I shrugged. “But I’m stupid.”

The line of her lips twitched at one corner. “No, you’re not.” She stole forward once more, this time laying her palm to my face. “You can be reckless and unfocused, and a little too prone to brute force.” Her thumb stroked the skin under my left eye. “But you’re also vulnerable and sensitive.” She sniffed out a short chuckle. “Funny. And kind.”

Her words pulled at my heart, causing my voice to crack. “That was the old Charley Parker.”

She smiled. “He’s still in there. Closer to the surface than you think.” Then her smile wavered, fell, and the shuddery tears returned to her eyes. She dropped her chin to hide them. “What you did…! It was scary. And it hurt.”

“I’m so sorry.” I was afraid the words might start to lose their meaning, I’d said them so many times. “I don’t know how I can make it up to you, or if that’s even possible. But you are the last person I’d ever want to be hurt. Especially by anything I did. I hope you know that.”

She looked up, frowning but silent.

“You know,” I said, “you kept me from losing the little part of myself that managed to stay good. Or, the memory of you, anyway.”

The creases in her brow went smooth. She still didn’t speak, so I filled the quiet with more apologies.

“I know I have a lot to make up for. And I’ll probably screw up sometimes. But I promise—!” I slid off the sofa and went to my knees, a posture of supplication that I’d used only before the Queen of Thanagar. I grasped both of Bette’s hands. “I promise, I’ll do better this time. I won’t make the same mistakes I made before. I know who my friends are, and I will do my damnedest to be a good friend in return.”

She blinked at me, then tilted her head, curled her fingers against mine, and gave me a little smile. “I believe you,” she said, and the words filled me with a kind of weightless liberation. Then her smile disappeared again. “And I want to give you that chance. But you have to earn it, Charley,” she said sternly. “You know that, right?”

I bobbed my head. “I do.”

“Because this won’t work if you don’t put in the effort.”

I kept nodding. “I understand.”

Bette pulled her lips together tightly. She stood up, still grasping my hand, and drew me to my feet. “Come on.”

We walked toward the short corridor before the main door. She led me to a bedroom with a queen-size bed made with a duvet and flanked by two short nightstands, one of which supported a switched-on reading lamp.

I stopped in the doorway. “Uh, are you sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

She tugged on my hand, and I followed…but she didn’t bring me to the bed. Instead, she turned to a wardrobe on the inside wall. It was large and solid-looking, and she released my hand to grasp both metal handles on the doors. She swung them open and stepped back. Inside was my armor, propped on hooks and glittering in the light from the lamp.

It was beautiful; I’d forgotten how much. The golden Nth metal gleamed, making my eyes tear and choking the words in my throat. Finally, I managed a swallow and turned to her with a shaky smile.

“You’re my handler?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Who around here knows you better than me? Now, I’m not supposed to let you fully suit up, yet,” she added quickly, like a kind of warning. “Part of your probation is to reacclimate to Earth society without your wings. That means no heroics, and no running off on adventures unless we specifically say so.” Her smile came out again, and a tender sympathy shone in her eyes. “But I know how much flying means to you. So…!” She drew a breath and swung her arm toward the wardrobe. “I’ll let you choose a piece to take now.”

I stepped forward and stretched out my hand. I drew my fingers across the beak of my remade helm, the breastplate, the sliver of one wing. They all sang, but there was only one true answer.

I grasped the left bracer and locked it onto my wrist. The touch of Nth to my skin flooded me with familiar joy. I willed myself off the floor and floated a foot above the carpet. God, it felt good. But something was still missing.

I looked down at Bette and extended my hand. “Fly with me,” I said.

She laughed. “I can’t fly!”

“I’ll teach you,” I told her, like I’d once told M’Rayeh. “It could be like the old days. Except you could fly at my side this time.”

She looked at my hand, at me, then pulled her lip between her teeth. The crease in her brow and the lines around her mouth betrayed some deeper sadness. “Charley…!”

I spread my fingers a little wider. “I don’t want to fly alone.”

“Flying is what you do. You love it, and you’re amazing at it! But not all of us belong in the sky.” She put her hand in mine and held on. Not tight enough to rise with me…but also not so loosely as to let me go. “Just because I’m not floating up there with you doesn’t mean you’re alone. I’ll always have your back.”

“From the ground,” I said.

“Or on a cable.” She squeezed my hand and wrinkled her nose for a smirk. “I might not be an official Bat, but I can still swing with them.”

I squeezed back. “You’ll always be the best of the Bats, to me.”

She laughed, and a blush broke across her nose. “You always were my biggest cheerleader.”

“That’s ’cause you were always mine.”

A loaded quiet descended over us. We stayed close, but Bette lowered her hands until they drifted out of my grasp. Her eyes didn’t tear, and she didn’t sniffle. She simply looked at me and said between pinched lips:

“I missed you.” She clenched a fist and bopped me in the sternum with the flat of it, adding in a scolding growl, “You big jerk.”

I lowered my chin to my chest. “I missed you, too. More than anything, if I’m honest.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. Her face was blank, unreadable. But then she took another step so that her body pressed against mine, and she rose onto her toes. “Show me,” she said, hooking her fingers behind my head and pulling my head to hers.

Her lips were soft, gentle, and warm; her body firm, full, and pleasing. She put her arms around me, and I put my arms around her, and we swayed together in a long, comforting kiss. She’d changed some in the years between the last time I’d seen her, but her kiss was still the same. Even without the Nth, we seemed to float. In my heart, in fact, I soared.

Chapter Text

The brownstone blocks of Manhattan were less familiar to me than the loops of bungalows in San Diego. At least they were straight and numbered sequentially, unlike the sprawling and winding paths of Gotham, where I’d spent the last two months. The building in front of me was a five-storey greenish structure, locked to its siblings all the way down the street. Nothing set it apart save for a plaque beside the front door that declared it a sight of historical significance. Probably somebody famous had lived here once. Or died here. This city seemed to be teeming with famous folk. I’d already passed at least a half-dozen faces I’d recognized from billboards and checkout line magazine covers. Nobody mistook me for anyone noteworthy, of course. To them, I was just another stranger.

I looked down at the paper in my hand and looked up at the address to make sure I was in the right place. It wasn’t like Dick Grayson to show up late. Then again, he was probably on a rooftop nearby, watching me through his Bat-noculars, or keeping tabs through a Bat-drone, waiting for me to screw up.

“You’re wasting your time, Boy Wonder,” I muttered to myself as I scanned the sky. “This little eagle’s been good.” I’d only been back on Earth for sixty-five days, but still: good.

“Charley? Charley, hey!”

I turned to see Dick striding toward me in jeans, boots, and leather jacket: primo riding gear. “Sorry I’m late; I got stuck in tunnel traffic.” He repositioned the duffel over his shoulder with one hand and put the other out toward me. “How are you?”

I gave his grip a firm pump. He matched it without menace. “Good. Yeah. Thanks. You?”

He tossed his head so his fringe flew up, and as he shined at me his winning smile, I was hit by a pang of envy. No wonder everybody loved him. “Between keeping the peace in Bludhaven and trying to look after the new team, I feel like I’m being pulled in fifteen directions at once.” He looked around. “Where’s Bette?”

Maybe she let me off my leash for a day, I thought of telling him. But his inquisitive interest seemed so genuine, I went with the truth. “She’s shopping across the park.”

Dick chuckled. “Some things don’t change. You two making out all right in Gotham?”

I wondered if that were some kind of double-entendre. After a brief initial emotional wariness, Bette and I had snapped together like magnets. She had her life and I had mine, but when we were in the same place and headspace, it was good. Great, even. Almost like being young Titans again. That probably wasn’t what he was asking about, though.

“It’s not California. But what is?”

His easygoing smile fell. “I’m sorry we couldn’t let you stay out west—”

“Go where the handler goes.” I finished the thought for him with a dismissing flap of fingers. “I get it.”

Dick paused a moment. “Alfred says you’ve been a big help to him around the manor.”

My spine straightened, and a smile jumped to my face for the unexpected praise. “Mister Pennyworth’s a good guy to work for.”

“He likes working with you, too. You could stay on there, you know, as a caretaker. If you wanted.”

“You mean, like, permanently?” My brief sense of accomplishment plummeted. Spend my days in Gotham? Gothic, dreary Gotham, where it rained most days and searchlights filled the night sky? Sure, I had a comfy loft spot at Wayne Manor, and I did like taking care of the more physical jobs for Mister Pennyworth. I was close to Bette there, and she was close to me. But how long before she’d want to move on? More to the point, how long would I be stuck in probation, unable to stretch my wings?

“It’s an option,” Dick said with a subtle shrug. Then he waved over his shoulder and walked up the steps. “We can talk more inside.”

At the top of the stairs, he slipped into the lock a key from a ring of a similar dozen and opened the door. I followed him inside, tucking my shades into my collar as I peered around at the interior. There was nothing immediately special about it, just a tepidly furnished foyer leading into a nice-sized sitting room, with a sweeping wooden staircase off to one side. It didn’t look particularly lived-in, more like a showcase space.

“Nice digs,” I said. “Yours?”

“Technically, it belongs to Wayne Industries.”

So, that was a yes.

“You’re not putting me up here, are you?” I asked, still looking around. “Because Manhattan is a pretty rough commute to Gotham.” I chanced a leading smile. “Unless you’re giving me the okay to fly…?”

“You’ll get your wings back when your handler decides you’re ready.”

I frowned. Bette had already granted me use of most of my armor, though not my wings. The wings, she’d said, symbolized a full return to being Golden Eagle and all that that entailed. I guess she didn’t think I was ready for that, yet.

“There are rules to your probation, Charley,” Dick went on, sounding pained. “You have to honor them.”

“I know that. But…my armor’s not just an outfit I put on to fight crime or whatever. The Nth is part of me.” I pulled up one sleeve of my hoodie to look at the bracer attached to my wrist. “It lets me do things I couldn’t do otherwise. Without it, I’m just…Charley Parker.”

Dick stood there looking at me for a minute, his gaze inscrutable. Then he asked, seemingly from nowhere, “Do you know why I asked you to meet me here?”

I didn’t even have a snarky answer. “No.”

He waved an arm over the foyer. “This used to be a Justice League Embassy. Back then, there was one on every continent.” He walked into the sitting room but didn’t stop there, instead moving deeper into the house, into a steel-laden kitchen. “Regular folks lived and worked here alongside metahumans and aliens. Together, they did their best to make the world a better place.” He kept walking, through the kitchen and an empty hallway that in a regular house could have been a dining area, to a roundish room at the back of the house. This one had a crystal chandelier, and a fireplace squared off by a couple of cozy-looking chairs, surrounded by colorful but faded portraits on the walls.

“Not everybody was a hero when they got here,” Dick said as he looked over the rows of pictures. “Some of them weren’t even who they claimed to be. But even they had a hand in making something good. Something special. Blue Beetle,” he said, indicating one of the portraits before moving on. “Rocket Red. Fire and Ice.” He paused in front of a picture near the end. “Hawkman,” he said as he turned to me. “And Hawkwoman.”

I moved up next to him for a better look. The man in the familiar Thanagarian chest harness wasn’t Carter, though. It was Fel.

He looked so young! The arrogance was there, of course; he would have already been masquerading as Carter by this time. But there was a kind of dignity about him, too, as if the nobility of his Justice League colleagues had rubbed off on him simply by value of their proximity. Beside him, under his arm, was a tall, auburn-haired woman in Thanagarian garb. She didn’t have the proud self-assurance of Queen Shayera, though, and her eyes were deep and dark, almost haunted. I’d never seen a picture of her like this, but those eyes pulled at a piece of my heart so tightly, I knew who she was in an instant.

“Mom,” I whispered, my gaze going glassy at the sight of her.

“There wasn’t much in the League files about Sharon Parker,” Dick said to confirm. “But between Barbara and the Bat-computer, we managed to find some deeper details.” He tapped me with a file folder he pulled from his backpack. “If you’d like to see?”

My fingers were shaking as I took the file from his hand. I sat down heavily in one of the chairs near to the fireplace as I flipped through the papers within. Despite Dick’s downplaying, there was a lot to take in, more than I’d ever dreamed of knowing.

Sharon had been an only child, like me. On her father’s side, she had English roots, while her mother was part-Chippewa. She even had some cousins who still lived in Sault Ste. Marie. She’d been a swimmer in high school and had gotten a small scholarship to compete for Michigan State, where she’d declared as a dual major in anthropology and social policy, specializing in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. She’d left school before graduation, though. That date coincided roughly with her first appearance beside Fel, as Hawkwoman.

I put the file down. I must have spent a while sitting there reading through everything because when I looked up again, Dick had brought us a coffee setting. He passed me a mug already full.

“Thank you,” I said.

“There’s cream and sugar, too, if you want—”

“I meant, for this,” I said, lifting the file.

“Oh.” He smiled as he sat down across from me. “You’re welcome,” he said around a satisfied sip of coffee.

As far as affability went, Dick Grayson was top tier. To be on the receiving end of it still humbled, though. “Carter said you were the one who vouched for me.”

“Everybody deserves a second chance.”

I sniffed. “Even the psychos?”

I’d asked it with a drip of sarcasm, but his reply was genuine, even heartfelt. “Especially the psychos. Honest effort,” he went on, “deserves absolution.”

“Did the Bat teach you that?”

At that, Dick blew a low snicker. “I had to learn that lesson the hard way. You learned a lot the hard way, too, I heard.”

“The things I did…!” My gaze lost its focus. “They were terrible.”

“You regret them?”

I shut my eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”

His hand grasped my shoulder. “You want to make up for them.”

I nodded again, feeling tears brim. “Yes,” I said, my voice fracturing.

“That’s why we vouched for you,” he said, his tone full of grace. “When Lilith looked into your mind, she felt that remorse.”

I snapped my eyes open. “Lilith?”

Dick offered me a little smile. “When word came through about your pod, the old Titans West crew was ready to fight their way onto the satellite to see you. The League managed to talk most of them down, but not Lilith. She wouldn’t let anyone else do the deep scan on you.”

I slumped against the back of the chair, recalling that gentle voice in my mind leading me through my memories. I’d assumed that voice had been a dream of Veranyi or of Sharon, a dream used by the Martian Manhunter to keep my mind calm. But that wasn’t true.

“I haven’t even seen Lilith since I came back,” I muttered.

“She keeps mostly to herself, these days,” Dick said, somewhat sadly. Then he smiled again. “Except when needed by a friend.”

“That’s the kind of person I want to be.” I flashed a look to the portrait of my parents on the wall. “The kind of person they’d want me to be.” Sharon, certainly, but Fel, too. It had been his voice, after all, that had urged me to turn away from my anger and embrace a better path, before it was too late.

“You’re already that person,” Dick said. “The hard part’s staying to that path. But that’s what friends are for.”

I gazed into the opaque blackness of my coffee. It reminded me of an Oegosid’s eyes, the first eyes in a long time to have seen me clearly. It prompted me to another truth.

“I always envied you, you know,” I told him. “The things you had. The people.”

Dick gave an uncomfortable chuckle. “Bette and I have always been just friends…!”

“Bette was part of it.” I looked over at him. “Mostly, it was Batman.”

His face fell. “You’re joking, right?”

“He taught you, mentored you, believed in you! You have no idea how much I wanted that with Carter.”

He shook his head and wagged a finger my way. “You need to come to the next Titans reunion and hear Wally and Roy and the rest of us talk about what it was like living in somebody else’s shadow your whole life. Because that was not a fun way to grow up.” He leaned toward me. “I always envied all of you in Titans West! Every one of you made your own choices, forged your own path—”

“Made our own mistakes.”

Dick paused; I seemed to hit a nerve. Then he smiled. “There’s a freedom in that, too. And it’s not like I didn’t make mistakes. I did. A lot of them.”

“But you’ve always come out better than before.”

He fixed me with a penetrating stare. “Because I stopped going through them alone. You don’t have to, either.”

A smile pulled up one side of my mouth, but before I could assure him of my agreement, Bette’s voice wafted in from the main foyer.

“Hello-o-o-o?”

“In here,” Dick called back. He set his coffee to the side and stood, greeting Bette with a fast, tight hug as she trotted in.

“Two of my favorite guys in one place.” Bette’s blue gaze sparkled as she stepped back from him. “My day’s been made.”

“That was easy.” I stood up, too, setting the file down on my chair.

Bette gave it a glance, then looked up at me. “Mama bird info?” she asked in a hush.

I nodded. “It’s a lot.”

She patted my chest. “We’ll take it slow.”

As I smiled for her affection, Dick said, “You didn’t find anything shopping?”

Bette waved one hand over her shoulder, once more the flighty debutante. “The bags are by the door. In fact, if one of you big, strong men could help me with them…?”

I shared a look with Dick, who chuckled and said, “Aren’t Thanagarians stronger than humans?”

“I’m only half-Thanagarian,” I reminded him.

“Probably needs both of you anyway,” Bette said, and giggled. It was cut off by a muffled boom and the tinkling of the chandelier as it swayed in reply. The three of us froze, stared at each other a second, then Dick said:

“That was an explosion-!”

He raced for the front of the house, leaving Bette and me to follow. By the time we got to the foyer, he already had the door open, where I had to dodge a leaning stack of shopping bags.

“Geez, B!”

“I didn’t know there was going to be an emergency!” She skidded to a stop beside Dick, who stood outside peering up the street. “What is it?”

He touched his ear, where there was likely a comm. “Gas main,” he reported. “Construction site ten blocks away.”

“I see it,” I said. Flames and smoke were rising above a stretch of buildings half a kilometer north of our location. Flashing lights entered my periphery vision. “Looks like emergency crews approaching from the south-southwest. They’re still halfway away.”

“I need to get over there.” Dick half-stepped back into the building and pulled from inside his jacket his mask or a spare, snapping it on with a flick of his fingers. I always wondered how that worked.

Bette grabbed my hand. “We can help.”

Dick flashed her a look, then sent one my way, as if gauging our – my – fitness for a mission. He decided in a second’s time. “Follow as quick as you can. Pity you don’t have your wings,” he muttered as he strode out the door again.

“I can fly without them,” I blurted.

He spun back to me, mouth agape. It would have been funny if my heart weren’t pounding. “What?”

I showed him my bracers. “I have these.”

He looked at them, then at me. “What are you waiting for?”

“You’re giving me the okay to fly?”

“Yes! Go!” he shouted.

I turned to Bette, who squeezed my hand.

“I’ll ride in with Nightwing,” she said. “Go. Be careful!”

I nodded, gave her hand a swift pump, then hopped out the door and into the Manhattan sky.

There was some wind a hundred feet up. It caressed my face but carried with it a bitter tang of smoke. The cloud around the accident site had grown darker and more ferocious. Fire licked the sky. I willed myself higher, then stooped for speed. Less than a block out, I put on my shades and pulled my hood over my head.

One fire engine was pulling up, its crew running toward the danger. A second slowed up the block. Out of the smoke rose cries of terror. They came from the top floor, where the heat had already shattered windows. I dove through one at height.

The Nth’s aura would protect me from the flames, but not anyone with me. I flew through the first empty room into the hallway. The fire was all along the floor, leaping from the staircase at the far end. Someone shouted for help from behind a closed door.

“I’m coming in!” I told them as I twisted the door handle. It turned easily, but the door resisted; they’d pushed some towels under the base. I squeezed myself inside and shut the door behind me and turned.

Three kids, the biggest of them no taller than my sternum, stared up at me. One was at the open window above the toilet, the other two huddled in the tub opposite. Their eyes were huge with fright. I thought of Andaryi, Brell, and Dria, and my heart jumped into my throat, making my voice croak.

“Is there anybody else up here?” I asked.

The kid at the window shook his head. “No.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

The second kid yelled, “The window’s too small!”

I grabbed the shower curtain rod. With a concerted yank, it came from the walls, splintering tile and plaster. The third kid yelped and covered her head.

“Stay back,” I told them, and rammed the rod through the glass window. I scraped the sharp edges with the side of the rod, then tossed it aside in a jangle of curtain and metal rings. I smashed the top check rail with the flat of my hand. As it broke into pieces, I glanced outside. The fire trucks were working on the flames, but there was no ladder in sight.

I turned back to the kids. “Come on,” I said, opening my arms. “We’ve got to go.”

“I ain’t jumping!” the first kid cried.

“You don’t have to jump. I can fly.”

“You’re crazy!” Kid One said, but his friends or siblings or whatever they were jumped from the tub. Kid Two grabbed me around the neck, swinging there a moment before Three joined her. I scooped both close to my chest. Kid One didn’t budge, but I didn’t have time to argue. I could feel the fire snapping beyond the door.

I grabbed him and tucked him against his mates. He yelled something I didn’t catch, quickly falling quiet as I rose off the floor into a hover.

“Hold on!” I squeezed them against me and pulled my limbs taut for the tight flight through the hole in the wall where the window had been.

Fresh air replaced the smell of smoke as we broke free from the heat. I started to smile when a secondary explosion from the building hit me from behind. Two of the kids screamed while a third clutched me harder around the neck. I turned to bear the brunt of our fall, bouncing hard on my back against the pavement.

As the kids scrambled away with shouts for Mom and Dad, I heard Bette call out: “Eagle!”

I opened my eyes and groaned. Bette was standing over me, wearing a motorcycle helmet with the faceplate down and Dick’s riding leather, but I knew it was her. She crouched and put her arms around me. “Are you okay?”

I groaned. “I think so.” I righted my sunglasses, which had slipped askew in my fall. “Those kids…?”

“They’re all right. Thanks to you.”

I looked past her to where the kids clustered around a pair of adults that looked like their parents, who hugged and scolded them in the same breaths. I heard something about getting grounded. Beyond, the building’s lower floors – a restaurant under renovation that would have to go through more, now, and a second-floor dining area – were still in flames, albeit under some control from the emergency crews. Nightwing stood with their captain, coordinating relief and support efforts.

“Talk about a baptism by fire,” Bette said, smiling through her voice.

I wobbled to my feet, half-leaning against her for support. “I could have done without the fire, personally.”

Her arms hugged my chest. “You did great.”

As if to confirm, Kid One rushed up to me. “Thanks, fly-guy,” he said with a grateful grin.

“You’re welcome.” I watched him start to jog back to his family, adding, “And the name’s Golden Eagle!”

He turned to face me again with a very pre-teenager-y sneer. “You’re not gold.” He snorted and started back to his kin. “You don’t even have wings!”

“You caught me on an off day,” I called after him, but he was already away.

Bette gave me another squeeze. “I think it’s time we remedied that.”

It took me a second to register her intent. “You mean it?”

She shrugged. “Can’t have you flying into burning buildings without your full kit, now, can we?”

I looked over at Dick, who was still working with the emergency captain. “You think Nightwing will approve?”

She knuckled me in the chest. “Who’s the handler here?”

It was nighttime when we got back to Gotham, though it always seemed like night there. While the others were downstairs in the manor proper, I dressed into my suit and armor in the loft. It was the first time I’d worn it on Earth, and it felt…different. Valda had once called me in my armor “dressing for death.” At the time, the phrase had fit. I’d been a warrior seeking vengeance, and death had been my goal, dealing it to others or finding my own. This build, though, designed and forged with aid from the friends and family I’d found among the stars, wasn’t for a warrior death-dealer. It was for a guardian. It was for the man I’d wanted to be since I first put on the wings.

I floated off the floor, smiling at my golden gleam in the mirror. This felt different, too. It felt right.

I enjoyed a sweeping, easygoing flight down to the main sitting room. Mister Pennyworth was pouring something bubbly into flutes while Dick stoked the fire in the fireplace and Bette was laying out a series of ensembles on nearly every piece of furniture. As I flew down, the three of them stopped what they were doing and looked up.

“Very striking, Mister Parker,” Mister Pennyworth said with a nod. “Does this mean you’ll be joining the Titans on a more regular basis?”

“Baby steps,” Dick warned. “Though, I’ve got to admit,” he added as he fingered his smooth chin and smiled, “the new suit does look impressive.”

That kind of praise from the quintessential hero of my generation caused me to puff. A swelled head wasn’t a good way to start my new career, though. “I liked the old one, too, but it didn’t offer a lot of coverage.” I laughed under my breath. “Lilith used to say it was slutty.”

Bette twitched her nose. “I, for one, liked you slutty,” she said, and Mister Pennyworth cleared his throat. She fixed her posture and offered us a more beatific smile. “But this one’s sexy, too.” She blinked at me. “How does it feel?”

“Good.” My confidence fractured. “A little scary.” I opened my hands. “I don’t want to mess this up again.”

Dick nodded. “It’s good to take it seriously.”

Bette drifted close. She laid her fingers on the topmost breastplate of my armor, stroking the smooth metal over my heart. “You won’t know what you can do unless you try.”

“A toast?” Dick suggested, as Mister Pennyworth held out the tray with the flute glasses. There were only three of them; of course, a butler wouldn’t drink with a master of the house or the guests. I kind of wished that he would. It would have made me feel a little more at ease. But he did incline his head as I picked up one of the glasses, two fingers firmly on the stem, the way he’d told me was proper.

“What should we drink to?” I asked.

Bette raised her glass to me. “Your choice.”

I paused. The first thing that came to mind was her, and Dick, and the rest of the Titans, the friends who had welcomed me home and given me another chance to make good on the promises of my youth. Then the ones who floated somewhere beyond the shine of Earth’s light: M’Rayeh, the kids, and the rest of the crew of the good ship Hierophant, from whom I’d learned to be a better man than I’d ever been. Veranyi, who’d trusted me with a purpose greater than any heroism. And Sharon, who’d given me the life I’d decided needed living.

I looked around at them. “How about just, to friends and family?”

Dick nodded and lifted his own glass. “Friends and family,” he repeated.

I tipped my glass, and we drank in a short silence. Though, any solemnity was quickly broken when the Champagne’s bubbles felt like they went up my nose. I pinched the space between my eyes and blew a low whistle.

Bette giggled. She slipped an arm through mine and pulled my elbow close. “So. You’ve got your armor, and your wings. What’s next for Golden Eagle?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because I didn’t. I thought once again of the people here and faraway but not forgotten, those to whom I owed so much and who I wanted to make proud. I cocked a grin. “But I can’t wait to find out.”