Chapter Text
It starts with a rogue distress call from just outside the Aether lanes.
Nothing more than a tiny, desperate ping that Hank manages to pick up only because he was being extra thorough.
The call is distressed and mechanical, a synthetic wailing infant that quickly draws everyone to the bridge.
Rett is already surveying it, his eyes flickering over many brightly chirping screens.
“Someone's in trouble,” he says, Ziggy chirping from just below, “they appear to be under attack by uh, hm, pirates? Something! It looks pretty bad!”
On the overhead screen there's an outward projection of a small cruiser barreling through the dead air right outside the lanes. It seems to be flanked on every possible side by a drove of Jozza pirates. Their mechanical shark like speeders dogging the smaller ships every step.
As if it knows it's being perceived, the distress call pings again, this time more urgent.
“Well, let's go beat some pirate ass!” Ko shouts, itching to do some damage in her still fairly new personal ship.
Pyke doesn't see why they couldn't. Maybe treat it like a training exercise since it's been a while without any dog fights.
Rett looks to him for his opinion and Pyke shrugs, reiterating this aloud to the cheering of Ko and Pixel.
He'd just been lighting a cigarette when this whole thing started, so he quickly sparks a small flame and takes a drag. The tip igniting into a brilliant orange light as Pyke quickly begins to jog backwards and twists to take off running towards the hanger bay.
Distantly behind him he hears Rett trying to hail the small vessel, letting it know help is on its way as the Rhapsody free falls out of the Aether lane and into the middle of the skirmish.
Shouting and footsteps are storming after Pyke but he pays it no mind, his thoughts are solely on the Sparrow and her comforting interior. On the feeling of detaching and flying free in space to go fuck up some pirates and maybe score some extra notes if any of them are wanted.
By the time everyone has scrambled into their ships there's a transmission from Rett. The comms crackling to life as he shouts, “hurry up y'all, that ship is getting wrecked out there.”
A chorus of agreements and acknowledgment sings out over the airwaves and the bay of the Rhapsody explodes open in a wave of colors and the roar of engines.
Pyke is the first out the gate, thrusters set to max as he all but barrels clean into the now scrambling pirate crew.
From there it's like space itself ignites into a sea of fire and scrap metal.
It brings some kind of pride to Pyke's heart as his crew fans out around him, their ships dipping and weaving to chase after their prey.
He can hear the explosive melodies from the Lite-Sprite as Pixel starts to jam on her keytar.
A boom of thunder from Thunder Fang as Ko goes to support her.
Pyke knows Ziggy is somewhere on his other side, his still unnamed ship helming a small fleet of drones.
Rett stands at their most rear in the Rhapsody, he shouts something about a missile but Pyke's focus is narrowing.
Up ahead the unknown personal ship is still trying to roll and weave its way through a small throng of Jozza that won't peel away.
It fires and manages to strike one but they're too close to it for efficient combat.
“I'm gonna try to pick those pirate ships away,” Pyke calls over comms and begins to fire.
The Sparrow soars ever closer, its blasters firing in quick succession and another of the Jozza are picked away.
Suddenly the proximity chat roars to life and Pyke hears a voice that makes his heart do a funny little skip.
“Pyke is that you!? Please hurry, these guys have already pierced one of my engines.”
Rex Maxim's nervous chirp fills the cockpit of the Sparrow.
Unable to stop himself, Pyke practically gasps the name “Rex?!”
The others fall silent before Ko explodes, “Rex? Like Rex Maxim!?”
A hysterical little giggle flutters over the airwaves, “uh, yeah that's me. Please don't leave guys they're about to-”
Suddenly one of the Jozza swerves and latches onto Rex's ship, the mechanical mouth whirling to life and the radio cuts into garbled static and shouting.
“They're gonna rip his ship in half,” Ziggy calls mere moments before another Jozza ship latches on from the other side.
“I say good riddance, let him go,” Ko grumbles but her voice is drowned out by a swift reprimand from Rett.
Pyke isn't paying them any attention. His heart has all but launched into his throat, all focus is on the way the two pirate ships are making quick work of twisting Rex's ship clean in two.
Pyke thinks he shouts Rex's name again but it's swept away as he slams his thrusters down and roars into the chaos with feral speed.
He's too late to stop the destruction but thankfully Ziggy's drones move in to help clear the two Jozza responsible from the wreckage.
Eyes flicker madly over the debris and Pyke prays to see just a scrap of orange.
“Rex!” He shouts over the proximity line, frantically toggling the relay switch to refresh the connection. “C'mon idiot, say something!”
Pixel says something but Pyke isn't listening, she sounds a million miles away.
He toggles, counts, toggles, prays-
A crackle and a whine of static, a rough voice croaking, “m'here.”
With swift, artful motions the Sparrow arcs around the free floating wreckage. It takes a few tries, a few loops but finally a piece shifts out of the way and Pyke sees Rex Maxim for the first time in nearly a year.
Or at least, he sees an orange Solari clad in white. The figure has a helmet on and a long beautiful white coat that flares in the absence of gravity.
It's huddled up against a small remote wall and Rex's voice comes over the line again, “I see you! I see you!”
Pyke grunts and rips back to slow himself down, grateful that he'd built the Sparrow specifically for such tight, sharp movements.
Every move is methodical, slow but urgent as one of the Sparrow's wings gently brushes up against where Rex is standing.
Pyke grabs his own helmet, pulling it on and hitting the hatch button to give Rex somewhere to run.
The door opens into the expanse of space peppered with shrapnel and personal effects and orange meets yellow.
Pyke braces himself on a safety bar, one arm flung out in salvation to beckon Rex closer.
Without an ounce of hesitation Rex coils and shoves off from his perch. It rockets him forward, feet skimming across the length of the Sparrows wing until they all but crash into each other.
There's a chorus of noise as a large and impossibly warm body slams Pyke backwards into the cockpit.
“Shit, sorry!” Rex laughs in shaky glee, one arm encircling Pyke's waist to shield him from slamming into the opposing wall.
For a heartbeat they stand like this, Pyke pressed securely between the wall and Rex who he doesn't necessarily remember being so…firm.
Hands just barely press flat to a broad chest when the Sparrow is all but ripped off its axis of balance and they spin.
They both shout with shock, the violence of the motion nearly sending Rex clean back out of the hatch.
Yet somehow he keeps his footing, one hand frantically slamming for the button to seal them off from space as the other keeps Pyke secured.
The sound of the cabin repressurizing is enough to get Pyke moving again. He drags in a sharp breath, sending a hard elbow into the taller Solari's gut to force him out of the way.
Rex makes a noise like a disgruntled cat and staggers back a step, his expression pinched with pain and confusion.
There's only a tiny bit of guilt but not enough for Pyke to comment.
Quick hands rip the helmet back off as Pyke slams down into his seat and snatches the controls with brutal force.
The control panel lights up in defiance, at war with aiding Pyke and giving up with the lose of one of his thrusters.
One of those fucking pirates had gotten a clean shot off on him.
“Guys, you're supposed to be covering me!”
Ziggy shouts anxious apologies but they're covered by Pixel wailing in panic.
A majority of them are converging on the Lite-Sprite, its light fluttering movements being the only thing keeping it safe as Pixel amps up her tunes.
Ko says something, sounds like “hold on Pix, I'm right here!”
Ziggy and Rett are firing off different warnings.
Warm hands grip the back of Pyke's seat and Rex's voice comes to him crystal clear.
“Pyke watch out!”
Something slams so hard into them it forces the Sparrow savagely out of its spin and there's a sickening crunch.
Pyke's heart is roaring in his ears, Rex is still the only sound coming through.
“Pyke!”
His name is said so frantic, so worried, so full of concern but all Pyke can see is the red wing that's shattered through the Aether.
Fury burns hot and unmistakable and Pyke grinds his teeth, ignoring the way his fangs dig harshly into his lip.
They're sitting ducks like this, the Sparrow can't move with a thruster and a wing broken and smoking.
Wires are frayed and sparking, the alarms are shrieking louder than anything Pyke has ever heard before and they make his ears ring.
It's nearly impossible to tell what happens next.
Pyke tries to make sense as it's occurring, as they're slammed into with the force of a large transport ship and sent skittering clean out of the area.
They sail like a comet, race like a shooting star as they're ejected clean into the closest Aether stream and simply…swept away.
For once Pyke is at a loss. The Sparrow isn't under his control, she's like a bucking bronco in a frenzied last stand.
The Sparrow is in her death throes and Pyke and Rex are simply captives along for the ride.
“Pyke-” Rex yells his name desperately, one of his impossibly warm hands pressing to Pyke's cheek.
It's a shock but only enough for the smaller Solari to finally snarl in unbridled rage.
“WHAT?!”
“WARP GATE!” Rex shrieks back.
Pyke whips around to look but it's too late, he feels it before his remaining sensors can warn that they're being ferried away.
It's like slipping through sand, like being stretched and unraveled and pulled in every direction at once.
A damaged ship isn't meant to slip through the Aether lanes like this. They don't know where it's going or where they'll drop out and they're moving further and further from the crew and the Rhapsody and this is all Rex-fucking-Maxim's fault.
Pyke wants to scream at him, wants to ask why Rex was even out so far and why ‘Lady Luck’ seems to have forsaken him.
Logistically this is all bullshit but Pyke might as well be a wild animal. He slams his teeth shut with a nasty click and ignores the finger tips digging into his jacket.
Whatever else Rex says is swallowed in the Cacophony and the endless warp gate before they're shot back out like a skipping stone.
Then it's free fall.
One of the sensors is miraculously still working, announcing that they've entered a planet's atmosphere at terminal velocity.
Pyke feels the spiking heat, the way the Sparrow has ignited and is coming apart at the seams.
He shouts his defiance against wailing metal and flames, feels the fingers move to fully embrace him up against a hard chest.
The last thing Pyke remembers is the sky burning, a rumble in his ear, and then-
Silence.
Anything that happens directly after comes to him in waves of muddled sensation.
A snap and excruciating pain. The volcanic heat threatening to swallow him whole. Gentle, strong arms that drag a limp body across soft almost slippery terrain.
Screaming.
Screaming and screaming and screaming.
Pyke feels himself wake only once, with a quiet seeking noise that’s quickly smothered by quivering fingertips.
“Hush,” a low voice urges, pleads like Pyke is a particularly stubborn and restless child. Perhaps any other time he would rise to prove that right. For now though, all he can focus on is how comforting the touch becomes. Slightly rough finger pads pressed firmly to his lips before cupping his face, a thumb brushing his cheek.
There’s a trembling that races along the hand, and far off Pyke thinks he can still hear primal sounds of rage and terror.
He makes one more noise of agreement, so faint it might as well be a trick of the wind. Yet he must’ve made it because he’s rewarded with whispers of praise and something soft being packed around his body.
His arm still hurts but the hand and the material is nice and with little else to keep him tethered, Pyke slips into sleep once more.
The next time awareness creeps in, Pyke feels so fucking sore. Like all his bones have been painstakingly rearranged while he slept.
His brain is throbbing, beating at his skull like a caged animal ready to escape. He chuffs and there’s quick footsteps before something drops down at his side and fingers urgently press to where his pulse rests along his throat.
“Pyke?” it’s a low, pleading voice, nearly tipping into desperation and it takes a moment for Pyke to register who it belongs to.
Rex.
After some struggling, Pyke’s own voice pipes up, thick with a syrupy exhaustion. “Rex? Wha…what happened?”
It feels like an eternity after that for him to fight his eyelids open and when he does he’s rewarded with the sight of one Rex Maxim hovering above.
Wild fire lit eyes and messy sunset hair; lips that try to quirk into a memory of a cocky smile.
Rex is slick with dirt, soot and blood, a gash caked in mud is plastered to the slope of his forehead; teeth stained a light pink that shimmers in the dim sunbeams.
“Hey starboy,” Rex casts a quick look around, gaze alert and ever tracking before he settles down closer to Pyke’s side.
His voice has become impossibly lower, a wisp of words that the shorter Solari struggles to catch.
“We crashed. Sort of just,” his fingers twirl in a circle, “spun right out of the sky?”
A shaky noise rumbles from deep in Rex’ chest.
“You’re really banged up and um….”
Whatever’s next seems to stick in Rex’ mouth and he nearly chokes on it. Pyke watches the light fade from his eyes and somehow he just knows what comes next but waits to hear it all the same.
“We found our way back to Sylph, don’t think anyone's been here since the last time we were.”
That sets Pyke's synapses ablaze, thoughts chugging and burning to life at the thought of planet Sylph and the horrors that stalk her surface.
No, he wants to say, we sent people to purge Sylph.
But Pyke’s memories drag him back into a den of depravity that haunts his dreams and he knows why Sylph is still standing.
A dead world with no communication towers and no way off minus the Sparrow-
“Wait,” the word burbles out in panic, “the Sparrow?”
Rex can’t meet his gaze and Pyke won’t pretend it doesn’t quietly devastated him. “Burned to the ground,” Rex replies.
A harsh and ragged breath grates at Pyke’s lungs as he inhales sharply. Of course she wouldn’t survive. It’s a miracle the both of them had even survived.
Silence crawls in on them, settles over their forms as Pyke falls to contemplation, Rex hovering and ever attentive to their surroundings.
Before he can ask his next question, Rex is already speaking, slow and breathy. “I dragged us out of the wreck,” he explains, fingers idly and gently plucking at Pyke’s jacket.
“I, uh, I buried you in moss and leaves so they couldn’t find us. Cuz they came running,” a giddy laugh sticks in the back of Rex’ throat before it’s bitten off abruptly.
“They came so quickly, Pyke, swarmed all over the area and stayed for so long.”
Rex sounds afraid that he doesn’t know how long hey’d been trapped, the concept of time both meaningful and utterly meaningless.
Pyke can feel those warm, rough fingers pulling too hard at his jacket in their nervous plucking.
He tries to swat at them only to be struck by a searing white hot pain that crackles up his arm like lightning and rips a raw gasp clean from his chest.
One of them curses and Rex clamps a hand firmly around Pyke’s wrist to stall his motion. “Wait, don’t do that, it’s broken!”
Broken?
Broken??
Pyke makes an incredulous noise, he can’t even begin to recall the last time he’d broken a bone.
Yet…, there’s a rawness to the appendage that’s both new and horrifying and Pyke knows it’s true.
His arm is broken. The arm clasped in his gauntlet is fucking broken and there’s nothing to be done about it.
A well of fear curdles wildly in Pyke’s stomach as the realization overtakes him.
He’s lame, like a horse broken by battle and rendered useless. Its only option left to be put down by the comrades it can only fail now.
Pyke sharply stomps at the feeling, tamping and bottling it and choosing instead to focus on his other arm.
This one flexes and bends like it’s supposed to and his fingers wiggle free of shredding pain.
Rex seems to catch on to what he’s doing and says, “nothing else seemed to be broken. Not sure about your ribs or hips but I’m sure you’ll feel it if they are.”
Pyke finds the firm assurance to be strange. When did Rex become so knowledgeable about field medicine?
He contemplates pestering for an answer but chooses to focus on more pressing matters and sits up in a flurry of leaves and moss.
Tired yellow eyes cast themselves around the area, drinking in each detail to catalogue as best he can.
The sun seems to be in the middle of the sky, her face peeking between the boughs of twisting elder pine that encase them.
It brings no warmth, the dense foliage is simply too strong for the beams to cut through.
He follows one particular shred of light down to an impact crater some yards away and there, nestled in the middle of the carnage, is the Sparrow.
The blast radius around her is brutal and large, no scrap of ground untainted by her final moments. Her fire has ravaged everything even
remotely close to her, be it trees or bushes or flowers that crept just a bit too close. It’s all simply gone. All but the skeletal remains of what was once Pyke’s greatest joy.
Something thick wells in his throat but he drags it back down slow and steady.
Not too far from her corpse lay the charred remains of creatures unidentifiable and strange.
They’re clearly chimera, little ones that were pushed and trampled and trapped in the blaze.
Pyke can’t think about this right now.
“Hey, help me up,” he turns to Rex only to see the taller Solari nearly stumbling to his feet. Like he knew what Pyke had wanted just a bit before even he did.
…That thought is…also unsettling and he doesn’t want to think about it.
It’s chased from Pyke’s mind as he’s all but lifted clear onto his own two feet. He blinks startled, ignoring the way Rex won’t take his eyes off him now as he coughs out his thanks.
Rex’ eyes crinkle with warmth, like he’s pleased and Pyke makes sure to keep his own gaze firmly pinned on his broken arm.
…right, his arm is broken.
Much to Pyke’s surprise his arm is pinned up in a sling of ripped white fabric. It’s well made and surprisingly comfortable, allowing Pyke to gently inspect the length of his arm for the damage.
At first it’s hard to find even as its presence is made known by the throbbing sparks of pain. But before long Pyke spies the tender, swollen skin pinched and trapped under gold, gleaming metal.
Fuck.
The slivers of skin under the gauntlet look horrifically angry in mottled shades of blue and purple and deep magenta. Pyke’s pretty confident he won’t be able to get the gauntlet off without injuring himself even further.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
No ships, no comms, Pyke’s arm is broken, his gauntlet useless and he’s stuck on this portal to hell with Rex Maxim.
Though, Rex hasn’t been as hysterical and bitchy as Pyke assumed he’d be. In fact his wilderness survival skills are surprisingly good and probably the only thing that saved Pyke’s life.
He supposes it could be worse.
He’s not entirely sure how it could be worse, but it could be.
Pyke blows out a sigh and scrounges around absently in his pockets for his pack of smokes.
Their options are slim to the point of being suicidal but nevertheless Rex pipes up and states what Pyke is thinking almost as if he’s once again plucked it from the other Solari’s mind.
“Site Omicron isn’t too far, maybe a day away if we walk quickly.” Absently, as if to lighten the mood, he adds in a warmer voice, “if Lady Luck is on our side.”
Hues of sunset clash with vivid stars and Pyke wants to be snide. He wants to say something shitty and mean to chase down the ghosts clawing at the pit of his stomach.
Instead he sighs more forcefully, finally inspecting his crumpled pack of cigarettes only to find maybe four tops.
…There were definitely more before.
Stars blaze as he glares and Rex quickly puts his hands up in surrender, “don’t look at me like that! That’s how I found the box when I was picking through anything that got flung far.”
Pyke holds his breath for a moment before spitting out a sharp swear, “damnit. Fine, let's get out of here before something else comes back to take another look.”
The now sacred box is safely tucked back in Pyke’s jacket, he’s going to have to ration them out or smoke all of them at once and say to hell with it.
Rex offers a strange little smile and chases closely behind Pyke. A ghost in his footsteps as they slowly but surely begin the grueling trek through beast laden woods.
The sensation of eyes follows them and owlish sunset hues follow back with a silent intensity wholly unseen to Pyke.
He doesn’t notice how the taller Solari curves almost protectively over him, he simply walks and hopes and prays.