Archive of Our Own

Through the viewport, the derelict appeared deceptively small. A gleaming red-gold shape in the dark vastness, it appeared as the only landmark. Devoid of anything to give it scale, it could have been a scale model of a ruined ship. Small enough that one could have reached out, through the reinforced plasteel, and taken it in hand.

Only the Imladris’s sensors showed the true scale of the ship. Vast was the only really appropriate word.

It had been a long time since the First Wars. Most of the salvage that had survived after the final, cataclysmic battle, had by now long been picked clean. And yet. Here it was. Out here at the far edge of the solar system, drifting just out of the Oort Cloud. There was no mistaking that colour scheme. That was a bona fide Fëanorian battleship.

As he stood by the viewport, one hand resting against the flaking paint of the wall, Glorfindel was not entirely sure how to feel. When they’d gotten the tip, he’d hoped, somehow . . .

“Deep thoughts?”

Turning away from the window, he registered the tall, willowy form of Arwen, her long dark hair bound up in a messy bun. She was wearing her old flight-jacket, shoulder emblazoned with a faded blue patch. And as he turned to her, she raised an eyebrow.

Glorfindel sighed. “Ever since we picked up its signal, I’d . . . hoped it might jog something.”

“Has it?”

He shook his head. “Nope. It’s all as blurry and confused as ever it was.”

“It’s not as if you can see much of it from here. And I don’t think there were many hand-sized Fëanorian ships in Gondolin anyhow.”

“I suppose,” He chuckled slightly. “Though if there ships were that small, perhaps the entire moon was swarming with microscopic Fëanorians and no-one ever noticed.”

“Erestor seems life-size enough,” She answered with a light smile of her own. “And from what Father tells me, so did the others. Although . . . maybe they had a special nanoscale spy division.”

“If they’d had that, I think we’d still be flying around in ships like that, not cobbled-together rust-buckets like this. No offence meant, of course.” He put a re-assuring hand on the wall of the Imladris and patted it a few times for emphasis.

The ship caught his eye again. Still drifting out there. Growing imperceptibly larger, as the Imladris crept steadily closer.

“I wonder if it looks anything like the Fleet of Valinor on the inside.”

The scuff of soft shoes on metal floor, as Arwen drew closer. “You’ll have to tell me. You’re the only one of us whose ever seen it.”

Intellectually, Glorfindel knew that he had died. His first real, proper memory was being decanted out of a growth tube on the Mandos. He still recalled the taste of the liquid he’d been floating in, thick and slightly sweet. The clammy, viscous feeling of it coating his skin. He remembered lying on the table, gasping air into his new lungs for the first time, and opening his eyes to see the hooded form of one of the Lord Námo’s attendants.

He’d remembered enough of something, then, to breathlessly ask “Did they make it out? Are they safe?”

But the only answer he’d received was a nod. And like a dream, his memories had slid out of his grasp like sand.

His time on the Fleet of Valinor had been of little help. After Námo’s people had determined that his body seemed to be adequately functional and under his control, they’d loaded him onto a shuttle, gleaming in white and gold, and sent to the Ilmarin. King Manwë’s ship had been vaguely familiar, in its gleaming blue halls and faint echoes of windchimes and song. But all he’d learned, when he’d knelt before the shimmering sapphire form of the king, had been that apparently he had distinguished himself before his death, and that he would be sent back.

He’d tried to ask what back meant, but his guide had shushed him. One had whispered in his ear that one did not ask the king questions unless invited to. And so, mind still foggy from rebirth, he’d bowed his head and accepted the honour of being returned to life and the world. 

From there, it had been a trip to a pod. A tiny thing, large enough for Glorfindel to lie down and strap himself into the acceleration restraints, and nothing more. Before he’d gotten in, he remembered turning to the Maia shepherding him about and asked “Where am I going?”

In a voice as much like chiming bells and rustling silk as anything Human or Elven, they had answered “To Arda once more, for the Shadow still grows there. Go, Firstborn. The shield has been opened for thee, but it cannot long remain so.”

And so, Glorfindel had slid into the pod. Lain back on the cream and blue cushions, and buckled himself in place. He remembered looking up, as the Maia closed the lid behind him, shutting off the bright light of the Ilmarin. Leaving the tube lit only by the green glow of the indicator dials.

He’d felt the lurch, as the pod detached from the ship, and hurtled away from the fleet. Down, towards the open shield, and the Arda system within. 

It had only been much, much later, upon encountering Galadriel in her hollow asteroid, that he’d learned it wasn’t normal to be reborn without memories.

Up close, the battleship dwarfed the Imladris. Looking out of any viewport one might care to only revealed a section of its vast bulk, steel and mithril and bright paint, left untarnished by the vacuum of space. At least, some of the sections were untarnished. Some bore deep scars, dents and gashes in the metal, paint scraped or melted away. Some parts of the ship had completely collapsed in on themselves, walls bent inwards where massive projectiles had slammed into them, tearing through girders and metal sheets like paper and wax. And some had been torn away entirely, leaving gaping holes where one could look through into torn floors and twisted walls, in some cases with ancient furniture still visible, bolted down in the remains of airless rooms. 

It was a sombre sight. As Glorfindel tightened the straps on his pressure suit, he braced himself for the trip inside. If this ship really was untouched until now, there would almost certainly be bodies inside. The dead of millennia ago, still drifting unburied.

A few metres away from him, Erestor wriggled into his own suit, the engineer’s lithe form slipping into the tight gloves with an ease Glorfindel could only aspire to. And a little to the left of him, next to a pile of crates stacked against the wall of the Imladris’s cargo hold, stood Elrond Peredhel, captain of the ship, already wearing his helmet and running suit diagnostics.

The air was tense. More often than not, the crew would talk and laugh together before starting something as simple as a salvage job. Now, they were silent. Glorfindel could only imagine that for the others, this brought back memories of the long ago days when they had fought in the same wars as the ship they were about to board. From what he’d been told of those days, that could hardly be good.

Once he’d donned his helmet and run his own diagnostics, Glorfindel made sure his pistol was securely holstered at his waist. Patted his knife, hanging next to it. He flipped the switch on his tracker, setting its little red indicator light to beeping, and turned to his companions. Nods of readiness were exchanged, and then the three of them headed towards the airlock. 

The heavy steel doors slammed shut behind them. For a moment they stood together, in that little rectangular box. And then, with a hiss of escaping air that all too quickly faded to silence, the external doors opened.

Outside, the ship hung. Red hull, dotted with rivets and lines of golden paint, slowly drifted before them. As Glorfindel watched, an eight-pointed star, looking as pristine still as the day it was painted, slid into view. From point to point, it stood at least twice as tall as he did.

Elrond made the first move, stepping to the front of the airlock. He bent his knees, tensed a moment, and then launched himself in a graceful arc towards the side of the ship, twisting as he went so that he landed feet first. Engaging his magboots, he stuck solidly to the side of the ship, a little up and left of the star. Turning, he beckoned to the others.

Glorfindel and Erestor exchanged glances. The engineer’s gloved fingers flexed around the handle of his tool case. Then, lining up together, they jumped as one. For a few seconds, Glorfindel felt the strange, always slightly alarming feeling of complete freefall. No up, no down, just blackness, stars, and ships. And then his feet thudded against the battleship, the impact of it vibrating up through the legs of his suit, and he clicked on his magboots, feeling them suck him reassuringly down onto the metal.

Turning to Erestor, he saw that he had indeed landed a few seconds earlier than the engineer, who was still regaining his balance. Flashing him a victorious smile, he switched his attention back to the task at hand. The ship.

Elrond was pointing across the hull, towards a few torn girders, visible up ahead. His voice crackled over the radio. “I think we can enter there.”

“Understood.” Glorfindel responded. 

The trek over the expanse of red metal was a short one. It wasn’t long to the hole. Steel cables and mithril beams, twisted and bent, reaching inwards like gleaming roots. Darkness below, broken up with hints of flooring and bent furnishings.

The three of them gathered at the edge, gazing down into the innards of the ruin. A pause, silent and still. Then Glorfindel flicked on his suit’s headlamp, drew in a breath, and stepped forward into emptiness.

Torn girders made a good enough ladder to climb down, at least part of the way. Then, hanging from the end of one, it was easy enough to push off from it, creating enough momentum to reach the floor below. Boots clicked sturdily to metal, and they were inside the ship.

Looking about the room, Glorfindel quickly ascertained that this had likely once been some sort of meeting place or mess hall. What was left of the room was still quite large, and where the floor remained intact and flat, long tables had been set, surrounded each by about eight chairs. The chairs were still cushioned, red upholstery glittering with hints of frost in the lamplight. 

This place must have been full of life once. Now it was only still, silent and dark. At least, Glorfindel reflected with more than a hint of melancholia, there did not appear to be any frozen bodies, floating above the tables.
Elrond’s voice sounded over the radio. “Erestor, any idea where we should be going?”

“If there’s anything worth stripping, it’ll at engines, or weapons. I think . . . I think we can start at the back. Should be where the engines are.”

“Then lets get a move on.”

Shaking his head to clear it, Glorfindel followed his companions through the broken room, further into the ship.

The inner wall was thick, sturdy, and intact. A door stood shut, as heavy as the wall, and about as immovable. The manual opening mechanism might well have worked, but the door itself had been crumpled from some ancient impact, twisted and crunched beyond any hope of fitting into its slot in the wall.

Without need for words, the other two stepped back. From his belt, Glorfindel drew his plasma cutter. He held it to the door and flipped it on, nozzle lighting up and vomiting bright blue flame. Beneath the heat, the metal slowly began to glow red, then white, and then to part, revealing darkness beyond.

It was slow work, cutting through the door. Glorfindel made his rectangle as small as could still be useful, but still a good few minutes passed before he turned the last corner and turned the cutter off once more. A little metal still held the panel in place, but not for much longer. All it took was a single good, hard kick, and it flew through the door and into the corridor on the other side.

One by one, they climbed through. The passage was in better shape, nearby walls still twisted from whatever impact had done for the door, but further on it seemed smooth enough. Erestor glanced about, then picked a direction to walk in and nodded to Glorfindel and Elrond. And so they went.

For a good long way, they just travelled down passages. The further they got from the hull, the better the corridors looked. Soon all of them had a consistent red strip, running down the centre of each wall. Occasional eight-pointed stars decorated closed doors, gleaming in ancient gold paint. At junctions, neat tengwar spelled out what each direction lead to. And nowhere, in none of these long airless corridors, did they find a single body.

Glorfindel hoped that meant the ship had been abandoned, rather than lost. Though he couldn’t help but worry that the lack of bodies meant, rather, that someone else had been here before them, and everything of value was already gone.

Engineering was vast. Great banks of equipment lined the walls, panels and screens all dark. Instead of a far wall, there was instead a massive transparent pane, behind which dim hints of form could be made out in the gloom. The centre of the room was taken up with a great pillar, rising from a depression in the floor, rimmed with railing. The pillar was cylindrical, but not smooth, its walls shaped into panels, each one with a catch holding it closed. In a few places, cables snaked from it, or panels hung open, revealing a morass of wires and parts. The whole thing was a pale cream in colour. And, despite the tens of empty chairs at the controls, there were still no corpses.

As soon as they entered the room, Erestor ran to the pillar, putting a hand on the side and gazing up at it.

“What is it?” Glorfindel started towards him.

Without turning, Erestor answered. “Valar I hope it’s still here. If I’m right, there should be a cloaking device somewhere inside this. No one’s known how to make these since Celebrimbor! If we can get it out . . . at the very least I can try to reverse engineer it. And at best . . .”

Hopping over the railing, he crouched at the base of the pillar, flipping open a panel to peer within.

Glorfindel had never heard of cloaking devices before. “It makes the ship invisible?”

“Not quite. It doesn’t bend light or anything like that. It just scrubs the sensor footprint,” Erestor’s voice was animated, bright in the way he tended to get when excited by tech. “I only ever did maintenance on these things before, so I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I should be able to figure it out.”

Elrond came to stand by the railing. “Is it removable?”

“It should be, I’ll just need to track down the right section . . .” Setting down his tool case, Erestor flipped it open and pulled a few tools from their settings. “Give me a second.”

A few minutes passed. Erestor clicked open different panels, fiddled with their innards. Then, with a click of his tongue, he reached into a panel half way up the pillar. “Here we go!”

After rustling around inside the pillar for a while, he removed a greyish box, ends of wires dangling from several parts of it, and set it into his case. Glorfindel wandered over to look down at it. For something that could mask a whole ship, it seemed deceptively small.

For a little while longer, Erestor pored over the remainder of engineering. He removed a few more things, thankfully mostly small components or parts that fit in his case. Glorfindel paced around the room, eyes skipping from one darkened control panel to another.

He must have ridden on something like this ship, once. Though they hadn’t gotten much use out of it, Gondolin had absolutely had a fleet. And he had been a warrior. The fighting skills he’d never consciously had to learn testified well enough to that. Though it seemed, despite his best hopes, standing here did not seem to be jogging anything.

Closing his eyes a moment, he let out a long sigh.

Galadriel had explained it to him once. Námo had a vast, incomprehensibly complex computer system that took up most of the space on the Mandos. According to her, the first Elves had been creations of the Valar, static-bodied creatures brought into the world for reasons their makers had never been adequately able to explain to them. And, for whatever purpose, the Valar had bound the mind of each and every Elf to that computer. Every memory, every thought, every feeling, was reflected there. Saved and stored, forever. This, supposedly, was why mortals forgot things, but the Elves did not. Fëanor had called it a system of control. 

Glorfindel didn’t quite know what he thought of it. Given his memory problems, he wasn’t even sure if he was even properly connected to it. Maybe he wasn’t tied into that computer at all, and if he died again the memories of this life would be lost forever. 

That was not a good thought.

At last, Erestor declared everything of interest removed from engineering. And so the three of them set off towards the weapons installations.

They had been walking for a good ten minutes, down eerily empty hallways, when they were stopped in their tracks by solid sheet of metal, sealing the corridor.

“That’s a blast door,” Erestor glanced briefly at the directions written on the wall, as if to double-check, then took a step towards it. “There . . . might be pressure inside.”

“Any survivors must have left a long time ago. I doubt we’d be hurting anyone by opening it.” It took only a few seconds for Glorfindel to find the manual release, set into the wall beside the door.

“. . . best close it behind us, to keep most of the air. Just in case.” The crackle of the radio obscured tone slightly, so Glorfindel was not too sure, but Elrond sounded a little stressed. Not that that was the greatest of surprises, all things considered.

Taking hold of the hand-crank in the wall, Glorfindel braced himself in position and began to turn it. The door started to lift from the floor, and with a hiss thousand year-old air began to escape through the gap.

As soon as the door was raised high enough for the three of them to pass through, they did, bending beneath the thick metal. Glorfindel scraped through last, air whistling past him, and then Elrond flipped the switch next to the crank on the other side. The door slammed closed.

This passage was different. A light dimly in the ceiling, still burning after all this time. And, breathable or not, they were standing in air, not vacuum. Glorfindel could already feel the cooling systems in his suit adjusting to the change in external temperature. 

And now, muffled by his helmet though it might be, he could hear his boots, thudding on the metal floor. Somehow, it was more eerie than the silence.

As they progressed, the lights remained on, unsteady though they might be. They passed a room, door hanging ajar, silvery cobwebs draping from the ceiling and drifting in an imperceptible breeze.

The radio hissed to life, startling in its sudden loudness. Arwen’s voice, coming in over the long range band. “You might want to hurry up, boys. We’ve got a drive signature moving towards us. Looks big. I get the feeling we weren’t the only ones who got tipped off about this place.”

Pausing in the corridor, the three of them exchanged glances. 

“We can bail now,” Erestor. “The cloaking device is the prize. I’m sure there’s more good parts to be found, but nothing on this level.”

“Then let’s get —” Mid-sentence, Elrond fell silent. Through the curved plasteel of his helmet, Glorfindel could make out a look of complete shock on his face.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Glorfindel took a step towards his captain, straining his ears.

“Hush, and listen.”

The party fell silent. And, after a moment, he heard it. A thin, distant sound. Like a voice, thin and high, raised in song.

“Someone’s still here.” Elrond’s voice was a whole lot more certain now.

“After all this time?” Erestor’s frown was audible.

“Maybe they were stranded. We at least have to look, right? We can’t leave them here.” Glorfindel looked from one companion to the other.

“Someone who’s been stranded here since the War of Wrath?” Erestor swept his arms wide. “Maybe we should. I was there, at the end. I fought under the eight-pointed star, one final time. And those of us who stayed, that long, through all of it? We were sick. Just like our lords. All we had left was loyalty, and we clung to it for dear life. Without that, all we’d have were the terrible things we did,” He let out a sharp breath. “It took me centuries, and Elrond’s help, to climb out of that pit. And this person, whoever they are, has been festering in the darkness out here for millennia. Who knows what might be going on in their mind, but I doubt it’s anything good. They might just as soon try to kill us as want to be rescued.” 

In the distance the song continued, swelling more strongly.

“So you think we should leave them? What if that were you, stranded out here instead? You recovered, why can’t this one?” Glorfindel looked right into Erestor’s dark eyes.

“Because I don’t know if there’s any coming back from thousands of years marooned out here, and because we need to get out of here fast. We don’t have the time for this! Whoever’s on that other ship can deal with it.”

Glorfindel opened his mouth to continue arguing, but Elrond spoke first. “We’re going to help. At least try. Erestor, you take the salvage and go back to the ship already. If you can, see if you can get the cloaking device installed. We’ll catch you up. Glorfindel, with me.”

Reluctance obvious in his tone, Erestor still answered “Alright. But be careful.”

And he was gone, walking back the way they had come.

Alone together, Glorfindel and Elrond squared their shoulders, and continued towards the voice.

As they drew nearer and nearer, the song swelled, louder and more powerful, until the walls throbbed with it. Even through his helmet, Glorfindel began to be able to make out words. Heavy, mournful Quenya, with that unmistakable Fëanorian lisp. Something about deaths, and sorrows, and fire. It was . . . oppressive to listen to. And with every step they took, Elrond’s lips pressed tighter and tighter together, as though the song were winding its way into him.

At last, they turned a corner, and stepped into a long room. And the song fell silent.

The room looked like it had been a hydroponic garden, once. Only a few of the growth pods still held living plants, though without gravity they looked more like strange green spiders than any plant Glorfindel had seen before. Most of the pods were empty, and had been arranged neatly against one wall, leaving a large area of empty space. Against the ceiling, a large floating ball of dead, dry vegetation hung, as though it had been collected there.

Sitting in the centre of the open space, floating crosslegged a little above the floor, dressed in a faded red robe and back to Elrond and Glorfindel, was a figure. Long loose black hair hung suspended in the air behind them, twisting like dark snakes. Though the singer had fallen silent, a harp could still be seen, cradled in their arms. 

Without a word, Elrond clicked his helmet off. Coming as close to running as his magboots would allow, he clumped his way over to the singer. A little confused, Glorfindel removed his own helmet, breathing in sharp, stale, cold air. And Elrond stopped beside the singer. Then, voice slightly breathless, he said “Maglor?”

Glorfindel stopped in his tracks. Maglor Fëanoriel?! She was alive? Of all places, he supposed a derelict warship from the War of Wrath was the most probable one to find a supposedly dead ancient lord, but that didn’t mean it was all that probable. What had she been doing here, all this time?

Maglor tilted her head, hair drifting to follow the motion. Glorfindel caught sight of a pale, thin face with high cheekbones and ice-pale eyes. Her voice was clear, almost watery. “Do I know you? I . . . yes. I think I do,” She rose from her seated position, slowly drifting upwards from the floor. Her body was rail-thin, and she swept a polite bow. “Good afternoon, Lady Lúthien. I do apologise for the state of my ship. It’s a little the worse for wear, these days.”

Brow furrowing in what looked like pain, Elrond said “Lúthien is long dead. Don’t you remember? It’s me, Elrond.”

Frowning in turn, Maglor pushed against the floor with a toe and drifted a little closer. “Elrond? No, that’s not right. Elrond hasn’t been born yet. Useless hallucination. I’m not so easily fooled.”

A long moment passed. Elrond looked down. His face twisted, and then went calm again. He turned back to Maglor. “You got me. I am indeed Lúthien. And I’m here to show you my ship. Come, we’ll bring you to it.”

Maglor blinked. “We?” She turned towards Glorfindel and nodded. “Ah. Greetings, Laurefindelë. It’s been a long time since last I saw you.”

A little thrill ran through him. He knew, with a sharp certainty, that that was his Quenya name. He had no memory of it ever being used to refer to him before, and yet he knew it was his. He swallowed, hard, mouth suddenly quite dry. He managed to nod in the ancient Elf’s direction.

“Do you have a pressure suit?” Elrond, tone more than a little urgent. Maglor looked back at him.

“Yes . . . somewhere. It’s been a very, very, very long time since I used it,” Brow furrowing and voice darkening, she continued “I needed to bury the dead.”

Arwen’s voice sounded over the radio again. “The ship’s coming into visual range. Looks like it’s from Orthanc inc. I’d really, really, really not like to mess with them.”

Elrond answered almost at once. “We’re coming. There’s a survivor we need to bring with us.”

Releasing the radio, he turned back to Maglor. “Come on. We’re in a bit of a hurry, lets find that pressure suit and get out of here.”

Maglor’s suit was obviously old, covered in a thick layer of dust. But when it had been new, it had been of far higher quality than the patched and cobbled pressure suits the crew of the Imladris boasted. Made from what looked like fine, shimmering cloth and mithril, it bore a Fëanorian star on its breast, and a long, shining sword still hung, sheathed, from the belt. Glorfindel found himself quietly thankful that, despite her confusion, Maglor appeared quite docile. While he might not personally remember the First Wars, he’d heard more than enough stories about them, and didn’t fancy trying to fight an Elf Lord out of legend. He might technically be one himself, but without any memories of the fact, he did not feel particularly adequate.

For Glorfindel, it was a relief to feel gravity holding him comfortingly to the floor of the Imladris’s cargo bay. Maglor, on the other hand, slid to her knees with a cry.

“Damn it, all that time in microgravity, her muscles must have atrophied to almost nothing,” Elrond rapidly began to peel off his own suit. “Glorfindel, get her out of the suit and lie her down somewhere comfortable,” Leaning a hand against an intercom switch in the wall, he continued giving orders. “Arwen, we’re safe on board. Get us out of here!”

“With pleasure.”

As Glorfindel finished crawling out of his suit, the Imladris began to hum, and he felt the surge of the engines kick in. On the floor, Maglor groaned and weakly tried to lift an arm.

Coming to crouch beside her, Glorfindel tried to help. “Can I help you out of the suit? Then we can find you somewhere to lie down.”

A moment. Then Maglor nodded, before lowering her head again. And, quick as he could, Glorfindel set to unbuckling the suit and sliding the skeletally thin Elf out of it. Scooping her up in his arms, he set off out of the cargo bay and toward the ship’s common room. There were a few big, battered sofas there. Maglor could fit on one of them.

As he was climbing the stairs out of the cargo hold, Arwen’s voice sounded over the intercom again. “We were too slow to leave. The Orthanc ship has spotted us. He just sent me a hail, demanding we hand over everything we salvaged. I’m about to send him our answer, so hold on tight.”

Shifting Maglor in his grip so that he could put a hand on the railing, Glorfindel braced. The engines thrummed harder, and for a moment he felt a force pushing him back, off the stairs and to the rear wall, before the gravity generators corrected for the new direction and the pressure was gone.

Thankfully Arwen only pulled two more manoeuvres hard enough to be felt before Glorfindel made it to the common room and deposited Maglor on one of the sofas. Then, making sure their new passenger was secure, he ran up to the cockpit.

Arwen was leaning forward over the controls, joystick clutched tight in one hand. On the viewscreen, the stars span and twisted, moving sickeningly fast.  Elrond stood behind her, one hand bracing against a beam. As he entered, Glorfindel caught sight of the pursuing ship, a dark grey with the white hand emblazoned on its side, twin flowers of red indicating the firing of its guns.

“Glorfindel!” Elrond turned as he entered. “Maglor is safe?”

He nodded.

“Great. Then can you go and help Erestor install the cloaking device?”

“They’re too fast to outrun,” Arwen said, without turning. “And out here there’s nowhere to hide.”

Glorfindel nodded again. “I’ll do my best.”

Turning on his heel, he hurried out of the cockpit and down towards the engine room. A little nagging voice in the back of his head wondered aloud if it might not have been smarter to leave Maglor behind on the ship. Taking the time to bring her might have cost all of them their lives, after all.

Gritting his teeth, he hissed at the voice to be silent. He didn’t leave people behind. They’d find some way out of this. Erestor would be able to make the cloaking device work.

The engine room throbbed. The very walls themselves seemed to shake a little, as the glowing sphere in the centre of the room was pushed to its limits. The tubes and wires snaking off from it glowed too, a lesser gold than the bright yellow-white of the sphere itself. The room was full of the sharp ozone smell of overdrive.

Erestor knelt beside one wall, a panel hanging open, revealing snaking wires and cables. One of his tools sparked in his hand as he held it to two wires, bonding them together.

Running over, Glorfindel came to stand beside him. “Anything I can do to help?”

Without looking up, Erestor answered “Bring me a roll of wire from the shelf.”

Glorfindel glanced about, before setting eyes on a series of compartments mounted on the far wall, components, tools and wires arranged in them. It was the work of a moment to hurry over, pull down a roll of green wire from its place, and return. He handed it down to Erestor, who took it and cut off a small piece, rapidly stripping the ends. 

Opening what Glorfindel realised was the grey box of the cloaking device, now mounted inside the wall, Erestor held the wire in place and soldered it down, before cutting another longer one. 

“They should have made better rad protection.” He muttered as he soldered the new one in place.

The ship swooped again, hard, and for a moment everything on the floor began to slide back towards the rear wall, Elves included. Glorfindel staggered, stomach lurching as gravity righted itself once more, and caught at the wall, fingers tightening on flaking paint and rusted metal.

“Eremandu! Stop throwing me about!” Erestor shouted at the ceiling. Then he took hold of the wall in one hand and cut another piece of wire. “Come on. One more, and then you’ll work for me?”

Glorfindel watched, heart loud in his ears, as Erestor fixed in the last section of wire, then crossed his fingers and flipped a switch.

It began with a shuddering. The floor began to vibrate beneath Glorfindel’s feet. Then the walls began to rattle, components in their shelves on the wall jittering up and down. The light of the engine dimmed a moment, before strengthening once more. Glorfindel’s vision swam for a moment, everything fogging as though seen through frosted glass, before clearing again.

And the floor stopped shaking. The rattle fell silent. And Erestor got to his feet with a long breath. He slapped a hand against the intercom, and spoke into it. “It should be working.”

Arwen’s voice sounded immediately back. “They can still see us. Their shots have gone haywire, though.”

“Good! Then it's working, their weapons can’t lock on anymore.”

“Then I’m heading to Forochel to lose them in the ice.”

Intercom clicked off. Erestor leant against the wall with a shaky gasp. “Valar, that’s a relief. Whoever you found had better be worth it.”

Perhaps twenty minutes passed, as Arwen guided the Imladris, far more steadily and comfortably now, towards the outermost planet of Forochel. Glorfindel brought Erestor up to see their guest, who was still lying on the sofa where she’d been left.

Despite knowing who he would see before he stepped through the door, Erestor still paled a little at the sight of Maglor Fëanoriel, in the flesh. Almost reflexively, he swept a bow.

With apparent effort, Maglor lifted her head a little. “Do I know you?”

Erestor shook his head. “Likely not. I served your brother Lord Maedhros for a long time.”

Maglor’s face darkened for a moment. Then it cleared slightly, and she said “Oh.” 

Then her head dropped once more. Erestor and Glorfindel exchanged glances, before retreating. 

“She mentioned hallucinations,” Glorfindel said in the corridor outside, booted feet sinking into a mismatched section of yellow carpet. His heart-rate had still not managed to return to normal. “I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I don’t think she’s well.”

“Hardly a surprise,” Erestor said as the two of them headed back towards the engine room. “After all that time alone with her guilt and pain.”

They passed the kitchen, and Glorfindel briefly ducked inside, opening a packet of crisps and pouring the contents into a chipped white plastic bowl. As they continued walking back together, he picked one out and crunched down on it, salty potato flavour flooding his mouth. Oh, that was better. He could already feel the tension starting to leave him.

Back in the hallway, Erestor had been leaning against the wall and waiting for him. A little smile played on his lips. “Time to de-stress? We’re not out of the woods quite yet.”

“I know,” Glorfindel put a hand on Erestor’s arm. “But at least we’re in a quiet part. I hate only being able to watch you work. I wish I could help.”

Erestor brushed his fingers against Glorfindel’s arm in turn, soft touch all but electrifying. “Well, maybe you can help me calm down a little too. It’s been a while since I had a nice hug.”

Setting his bowl aside, Glorfindel wrapped the lovely, lithe form of his dark-haired engineer in his arms and rested his head on his shoulder. The smell of his hair, tickling Glorfindel’s nose, was as delicious as it had always been. 

“How’s this?” He murmured into Erestor’s ear.

“Mmm,” Erestor melted into Glorfindel’s arms, rubbing his forehead against his chest. He felt as warm and soft and wonderful as he always did. “Absolutely delightful.”

Back in the engine room, they stood at the window, watching the green, ice-ringed sphere of Forochel swell before them. It wasn’t long, before the smooth pale-green rings above the cloudy surface resolved into individual chunks of ice, and then the Imladris was flying between them, vanishing into the thick field of churning ice.

In silence they watched the ice flow past, as Arwen wove the ship in between the river of spinning bergs. 

Her voice came over the intercom. “They’ve lost us. They look like they’re searching back and forth now. I’m going to sit it out here until they give up.”

It was then, as the the intercom fell silent, and the glaucous light of Forochel tinted the window green, that with a horrendous suddenness, all the lights went out, the hum of the engine died and its glow began to fade, and a voice Glorfindel did not recognise at all began to speak.

“It appears you are a thief,” The voice was vaguely androgynous, and its Sindarin bore a strong Fëanorian accent. And it was coming, Glorfindel realised with a faint sense of horror, from the intercom. “Well, thief, know that the House of Fëanor does not tolerate your kind. You have taken what is ours, and for that, we shall take what is yours. In ten minutes, your ship will self-destruct. You may use that time to prepare yourselves for Mandos.”

A few seconds ticked by. Erestor and Glorfindel stared, wide-eyed, at one another.

The intercom clicked on again. Elrond, voice outwardly calm but with an edge of fright beneath it. “Erestor? What was that?”

Another moment, pendulous and awful. Then Erestor pressed the palm of his hand full against the intercom. “I should have known there was a security system built in! It’s the Valar-damned cloaking device!” He paused, letting out a breath and looking down at his boots a moment, before continuing. “It’ll have infiltrated the ship by now. Maglor might know the override, there should be a phrase to speak. I’ll — try to root it out.”

He pulled his hand back, shoulders visibly rising and falling as he breathed hard, looking at the intercom. Glorfindel swallowed, throat dry.

Elrond answered. “Understood. I’ll ask her. Do what you can.”

The intercom fell silent. Erestor hissed between his teeth, loud in the darkness. A rustle of his clothes, and then rummaging sounds. A lamp clicked on, revealing him kneeling on the floor beside his tool case. He handed a headlamp up to Glorfindel. “Go and get me all the tools from the shelf.”

Heart loud in his ears, Glorfindel nodded. Picking his way across the darkened room, he emptied the shelves of everything that looked like it might remotely be a tool. Then, arms full, he crossed back to Erestor and dropped them all beside him. The engineer was already reaching back into the panel, cloaking device open once more. 

“Anything else I can do?”

Erestor shook his head. “Not now. Just stay close.”

And so, Glorfindel leant against the wall. His torch illuminated a section of the floor, and the base of the now darkened sphere of the engine.

He closed his eyes. Hoped, silently, that if he died here, he would not lose his memories of this life, as he had his last. And then, because he didn’t know what else to do, he opened his eyes again and continued eating his crisps. It was but a small bulwark against the dark fear that pressed in on him, but it was at least something.

“Glorfindel!”

He looked down at Erestor, hopeful that he could do something. “Yes?”

Erestor hissed out a sharp, taut breath. “Please, I know you stress eat, but does it have to be over my head?”

Glorfindel swallowed. Then he shook his head and slid sideways along the wall.

Erestor continued his work, sparks occasionally crackling from the panel in the wall.

It seemed as though an eternity passed, there in the dark. Glorfindel itched with the suspense, with the endless ticking of yet so short a time, and nothing for him to do! 

He longed for some enemy to face, some problem that could be solved with his combat skills, or with his voice. This insidious dead foe, he could not face. Could only stand, and wait, and hope that Erestor or Elrond could work their way around it. 

Once, Erestor asked him for a drink. And, fast as he could in the darkness, he made his way to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water for his lover. But then, it was back to waiting. Back to wondering if the next moment would be his last. Back to hoping that if it were, he would remember this when next he returned to life.

He didn’t think he could bear the alternative.

When, finally, Erestor let out a victorious cry and leapt to his feet, Glorfindel jumped in shock.

“Vórima!” As soon as the Quenya word passed Erestor’s lips, the lights flickered back on, and the engine hummed back to life.

A shuddering breath escaped Glorfindel’s throat. “You found it?”

Erestor nodded, teeth shining in a victorious grin. “Luckily I still remember how Fëanorian encryption worked. After that I just had to look through hard-coded memory. Thank fate it wasn’t corrupted.”

The intercom crackled on. Elrond spoke. “Maglor just told me it might be vórima. But I’m guessing you got there first?”

Laughing only slightly shakily, Erestor answered “Seconds before. How much time did we have left?”

A pause. It was Arwen who answered. “Thirty seconds. Nice and timely.”

Lifting a hand still trembling with directionless adrenaline, Glorfindel turned off his headlamp. He set it back in Erestor’s tool case. Looked down at his bowl, and realised it still contained two crisps. He took one, and bit into it, then offered the other to Erestor. The engineer took it, set it aside, and instead enfolded Glorfindel in his arms, pressing the warmth of his lips against Glorfindel’s.

Hurriedly swallowing, Glorfindel wrapped Erestor tight in his own arms, kissing back with all his might. The taste of his beloved flooded his mouth and he closed his eyes in a mixture of relief and joy.

It was wonderful to be alive, to be here, and holding Erestor in his arms. He wanted the moment to last forever.