Chapter Text
The mission on Hila-VI had been clinical. On the surface of the dying planet, the sky was a bruised shade of violet, choked by the gravity of a collapsing star. Amidst the crumbling ruins of a fallen civilization, the Stellaron pulsated with a sickly, rhythmic light.
Blade moved first. He was a streak of white bandages and cold steel, cutting through the automaton guards with a rhythmic precision that required no words. He didn't look back to see if the others were following. He didn't need to. The script said he would clear the eastern perimeter, and so he did. When a stray mechanical blade grazed his shoulder, he didn't wince. He simply pivoted and took the machine’s head.
Ten yards behind him, Silver Wolf stood perfectly still. Her eyes were fixed on a digital overlay only she could see. Her fingers danced in the empty air, "Aether Editing" the security protocols of the vault door.
"Door is at 40%," she said into her comms. Her voice was flat, devoid of the excitement she usually reserved for her games. This was work.
"Acknowledged," SAM’s voice crackled back.
High above, a mechanical screech tore through the thin atmosphere. Firefly descended in a trail of scorched air, the secondary thrusters of the SAM armor burning white-hot. She landed in a heavy crouch, her thermal sensors locking onto the reinforcements emerging from the sub-levels. She raised an arm, and the resulting blast of fire turned the corridor into a furnace. She was a weapon, and she functioned exactly as calibrated.
Kafka walked through the center of the chaos. She didn't draw her submachine guns. She didn't even pick up her pace. She stepped over a pile of scrap metal that had been a guard seconds ago and checked her watch.
"Three minutes ahead of schedule," Kafka noted. She stopped at the edge of the vault as Silver Wolf flicked her wrist, sending the heavy doors sliding open.
No one congratulated Silver Wolf on the speed of the hack. No one thanked Firefly for the cover fire. Blade didn't even look at them as he sheathed his sword, his gaze already fixed on the extraction point. They moved as a single unit, yet they felt like four separate storms happening in the same valley. They were assets. They were colleagues. They were the Hunters.
The return to the base was just as silent. The hangar bay hissed as it pressurized, the cold blue lights of the facility flickering to life. Blade was the first out of the ship. He walked straight toward the weapon vault, his boots echoing on the metal grating. Firefly followed a moment later, the SAM armor clanking as she moved toward the maintenance bay to begin her post-mission diagnosis and treatment.
Silver Wolf stayed in the cockpit for an extra ten minutes. She was already logged into a private server, the glow of a boss fight reflecting in her eyes. She didn't say goodbye to the others. She didn't need to. They would be here tomorrow.
Kafka was the only one who lingered in the common room. She stood by the central mission board, her eyes scanning the empty star maps. She was waiting.
The shadows in the corner of the room lengthened. Elio stepped into the light, the Terminus Cat draped over his shoulder like a heavy, living scarf. The cat’s yellow eyes scanned the room, settling on Kafka with a look of feline boredom.
"The mission was successful," Kafka said. She didn't turn around.
"As the script dictated," Elio replied. He walked toward the board, reaching out to pin a physical parchment over the glowing monitors. "However, the next script requires a different kind of preparation."
Kafka turned then. She looked at the paper. It wasn't a map or a script.
RECREATIONAL BONDING PROTOCOL: 31 DAYS.
"A sabbatical?" Kafka asked. Her voice didn't lose its blasé edge, but her eyebrows rose slightly.
"Internal synergy is failing," Elio said. He set the cat down on the table. The animal immediately began to bat at a loose wire. "You work together as a collection of tools. You do not work together as a unit. For the next thirty one days, the Stellarons are not your priority. Each other is."
Kafka let out a soft, amused huff. "And where are we going?"
"Planet Apsara," Elio said. "Silver Wolf has the coordinates. She has also coded the security protocols for this trip herself. She ensured there are no holes in the firewall. You will not be able to bypass the script."
The announcement didn't go over well.
By the afternoon, the common room felt smaller than usual. Silver Wolf was slumped in a chair, staring at her handheld with a look of pure betrayal.
"I tried to delete the file," Silver Wolf muttered. She didn't look at anyone. "I tried to rewrite the server logic. I even tried to spoof Elio’s biometric signature to cancel the order. But Elio made me code the Vacation Firewall myself last month. He told me to make it perfect. He told me to make it so even the best hacker in the galaxy couldn't crack it." She tossed the device onto the table. It skittered across the metal and hit Blade’s arm. "I did too good of a job. I locked myself out of my own life."
Blade didn't move. He didn't even look at the device. He was staring at the physical parchment on the board. His hand habitually twitched toward his hip, but his sword was already locked in the vault. Elio had taken it personally an hour ago.
"Thirty one days," Blade said. His voice was a low, dangerous rasp. He looked at Kafka. "This is a waste of time. I am a weapon. Weapons do not take vacations."
"Even weapons need to be polished, Blade," Kafka said. She was leaning against the wall, sipping a cup of tea. She didn't offer him any. "Besides, Elio’s word is final. We leave at nightfall."
Firefly stood by the window, staring out at the void of space. She was still wearing her flight suit. She looked like she didn't know what to do with her hands. She kept adjusting the collar of her suit, then smoothing her hair, then checking her watch.
"I don't have civilian clothes," Firefly said. She didn't turn around to face the room. She spoke to her reflection in the glass.
"Elio handled that," Kafka said. She gestured toward four crates sitting by the teleportation pad. "Pack what you need. Or what you think you need."
The silence returned, but it was different now. It was the awkward, heavy silence of four strangers who had been told they had to share a life. They moved around each other like magnets with the same polarity, always keeping a careful, measured distance.
Silver Wolf stood up and kicked a crate. "Blade. You're the strongest. Move my rig to the pad."
Blade looked at her. He didn't say anything. He didn't nod. He simply walked over, hoisted two of the heavy boxes onto his shoulders, and carried them toward the teleportation zone. Silver Wolf followed him, her eyes glued to a secondary device.
"Don't drop them," she said. "If the cooling system leaks, I will find a way to hack your internal clock and make your alarm go off every five minutes for the rest of eternity."
Blade set the boxes down with a heavy thud and walked back for the next pair. He didn't ask her why she needed forty boxes. She didn't explain. They worked in a vacuum of communication, doing the task because it was there, not because they wanted to help each other.
In the corner of the hangar, Kafka was sorting through a pile of items. She held up a wide-brimmed straw hat and looked at Firefly.
"Try this on," Kafka said.
Firefly walked over. She moved with a stiff, military gait. She took the hat as if it were a delicate piece of technology. She put it on her head. It was too big. It flopped over her eyes.
"It is for a disguise," Kafka said. She reached out and adjusted the brim, but she didn't touch Firefly’s skin. She kept her fingers an inch away. "You look like a tourist. It's perfect."
"It feels... light," Firefly said. She looked at herself in a nearby reflective panel, observing the change.
As the station’s clock ticked toward the departure hour, Elio reappeared. He was still carrying the cat. The animal looked remarkably pleased with itself.
"I will remain here," Elio said. He looked at the four of them. They were standing in a loose circle around the teleportation pad, each of them at least five feet away from the next person. "The cat requires a very specific diet. He has already rejected the synthetic tuna and the organic salmon. I suspect I will spend the next month negotiating with a pet."
"Good luck with that," Silver Wolf muttered. She stepped onto the pad.
Blade followed. He stood at the very edge, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he was preparing for a battle, his body tense and his eyes alert. Firefly joined them, clutching a small bag of essentials. She looked at the floor.
Kafka was the last to step up. She stood between Blade and the girls, the only one who looked remotely comfortable. She checked her nails.
"Last chance to back out and tell Elio we would rather fight an Aeon," Silver Wolf muttered.
No one spoke. Blade looked at his empty scarred hands. Firefly adjusted the brim of her hat. Kafka simply continued to check her nails with an air of complete indifference.
"Fine. Initiating jump," Silver Wolf said. She tapped a final command into her wrist-mounted computer. The air around the teleportation pad began to shimmer. The blue light of the base started to bleed into a blinding, golden white.
For a heartbeat, the four of them stood in the center of the light. They didn't look at each other. They didn't speak. They were four separate entities, bound by a script they didn't understand, heading toward a world they weren't prepared for.
The base vanished. The hum of the machinery was replaced by a sudden, deafening roar of wind and the smell of salt.
The light faded.
Blade stumbled as his boots hit wet wood instead of metal. Silver Wolf tripped over a stray piece of luggage. Firefly reached out to steady herself, her hand hovering just inches from Kafka’s sleeve before she pulled it back, tucking her arms against her sides.
They were standing on a dock. The sun was setting over a vast, turquoise ocean. The air was warm, heavy, and smelled of flowers.
"Day one," Kafka said. She looked at the horizon and smiled.
The others just stared at the water. They were 8,000 miles from the nearest mission, and for the first time in their lives, they had absolutely nothing to do.
Extra:
Hours before the sabbatical had even begun, while the Hunters were still on Hila-VI functioning like a set of high-carbon steel gears that refused to touch, Elio was having a crisis in the dark of the base.
He sat hunched over a terminal that looked like it had been salvaged from the stone age compared to Silver Wolf’s rig. His glasses were sliding down his nose, and the Terminus Cat was currently sitting on his keyboard, adding a string of zzzzzzzzzz to a search query that was already doomed.
"Get off, please," Elio whispered, his voice cracking with the strain of a man who could see the end of the universe but couldn't figure out how to 'double-click' a folder. "I am trying to save our interpersonal future."
The cat blinked slowly and batted at a blinking pop-up ad that promised ‘ONE SECRET TRICK TO MAKE COWORKERS LOVE YOU.’ "Is it a trust fall?" Elio muttered, squinting at a forum post from twenty years ago. "No, Blade would let them hit the floor. It would be a tactical decision to conserve energy."
He desperately reached for his comms to call Silver Wolf, then stopped himself with a pained groan. He couldn't ask her. He had already set the 'Vacation Firewall' into motion. If he asked her for tech support now, she’d find the backdoor he’d accidentally left open by making the admin password password123.
"Search..." Elio typed with one finger, his tongue poking out in concentration. “How to make four terminators act like a family.”
The search engine returned zero results.
"How to... bonding exercises for people with high kill counts."
A warning from the Interstellar Peace Corporation’s safety filter immediately blocked the screen.
"Useless," Elio hissed. He shoved the cat aside, only for the animal to hop onto his shoulder and dig its claws in. "I can see the path to Nanook’s destruction, but I cannot find a single PDF on team-building that doesn't involve a 'potluck.' Blade doesn't eat. Firefly only eats her nutrients. Kafka... Kafka would bring a bottle of wine and convince everyone into doing the dishes."
He stood up, pacing the room while tripping over a stray ethernet cable he’d tried to plug into a power outlet earlier.
"They need a vacation," he told the cat, who was now chewing on a stylus. "I saw a future where they all stood in a line on a beach and didn't try to kill the lifeguard. It was beautiful. But I don't know how to get them there. Is it the sunhat? I'll buy the hat. I'll buy four crates of hats if I have to."
He turned back to the screen, his face illuminated by a bright red error message: 404 FILE NOT FOUND.
"I wish I had recruited a social worker," Elio sighed, burying his face in his hands. "Or at least someone else who knows how to clear a browser cache."
The cat let out a loud, judgmental meow and walked across the 'Enter' key, accidentally ordering four hundred pounds of organic salmon on Elio's personal credit card.
Elio didn't even notice. He was too busy staring at a print-out of a WikiHow article titled 'How to Be a Fun Boss' and wondering if he could pull off a Hawaiian shirt. He decided against it. The universe wasn't ready for that ripple in the timeline.