Professor Sinclair stood at the podium in front of the recruits, everyone packed into rows of theater seating, most of them itching to go home and celebrate upcoming graduation or the scheduled time off their group had coming up.

Clarke? Well, she just wanted to go to her real home and spend the next few weeks partying and painting, far away from the Ark Naval Academy's campus. Each term that passed, Clarke grew exponentially more confident that she had little interest in the lives her mother and father led. Art had always been her calling.

However, she'd have nothing if she dropped out. Her mom and dad set up a small trust fund for her that she could only gain access to after graduating from the academy and putting the standard three entry-level years in of service with the navy. She was a year from graduating, meaning four years from freedom.

A long wait, and Clarke wasn't patient in the least, but Mars wasn't Earth. There weren't spare jobs on mars. There weren't coursing rivers and glorious mountain ranges, there weren't forests filled with life. If you were homeless on Mars, they'd ship you off to a mining colony, and Clarke wouldn't put it past her mother to let them take her to one if she dropped out early to pursue her dream.

And so she sat, waiting for Sinclair to dismiss them for the term. They'd completed their finals the previous day, there wasn't anything left but Sinclair giving another spiel and announcing the shortlist for the absurd trip to the R&D lab on Ceres. A four week academy-guided trip during their six weeks of freedom; whoever not only wanted to waste time on that, but pay for it, was an idiot.

"Hey, pay attention, Sinclair's about to give the list." Raven noted from beside her after jabbing Clarke's ribs a bit. And okay, Raven had an excuse to be excited; it was likely she'd get work on Ceres after she graduated next week, so her skipping the ceremony to display her talents and win a job made sense.

"Whatever. I hope for your sake that the trip's eventful." Clarke whispered back as Sinclair went on about how impressed he was with the 'tenacity' of the group of recruits before him.

"Aww, I'll miss you, too, Griff." Raven teased, bumping shoulders with her just before perking up in her seat as Sinclair changed the year-end presentation to one detailing the upcoming trip.

"And now for what a lot of you were waiting for. I know you want to use your free time as effectively as possible, so I'll stop droning on and cut to the chase. I got word this afternoon that the departure date for the trip will be in two days, on the SSV Polaris. Twenty-three of you made the shortlist, so you should have enough time to pack and prepare yourself for the next few weeks." Sinclair rambled, and it was all Clarke could do not to fall asleep. Instead, she merely tilted her head back and closed her eyes, waiting for the merciful end to the festivities.

"Trips like these are rare, so I hope all of you appreciate this opportunity. And for those of you who didn't apply, I hope you realize what you're missing out on." Sinclair continued, making it sound as if spending the next four weeks on a cramped Destroyer ship or in a cramped lab barracks would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "So without further ado, here's the list of twenty-three. I wish them the best of luck on their voyage. To the rest of you, good luck, I hope to see some of you on Luna Base in the future."

Oh right, he's been transferred...Clarke started to remember, only for Raven to rattle her brain with a hard shake.

"Clarke, what the hell?! When did you sign up for the trip? You made me think I'd be missing out on you for ages!" Raven practically yelled, still shaking her vigorously.

It was then that Clarke opened her eyes and fixed them on the main screen, jaw dropping at the sight of her name right there on the list below Monty.

Her temper flared immediately, Clarke jumping up to her feet, eyes burning with rage as she glared at her name on the goddamn list. "I didn't apply! It's my goddamn parents, again!" She growled in Raven's direction, causing her friend to recoil just slightly. "I can't believe they did this to me!"

"Poor precious Princess, getting a free ticket to a trip that will probably fast track the lot of us up the ladder once we graduate." A familiar voice chimed in a row behind her and off to the side. Clarke didn't need to even turn her head to know it was Anya Birch. "I bet that put a real damper on your plans for the break. All that drinking and partying...god, what a terrible tragedy, having to go on an extra-credit trip for elite recruits instead."

Anya Birch was, to be frank, a massive bitch. The woman was cold and unyielding at the best of times, always seemed on edge and twitchy, and had a tendency to throw verbal jabs Clarke's way for no good reason. Clarke wasn't sure what she'd ever done to the other woman.

Clarke turned her head to face her antagonist. "I'd be careful leading up to the trip. With how much you play in dirt, and the dark circles under your eyes, someone might mistake you for a zombie. Seriously, have you never heard of concealer?"

Anya's cold facade didn't crack, but there was a fire burning in those brown eyes now. "Go cry to mommy and daddy, Griffin. I'm sure they'll get you out of the trip if you whine enough. It really is what you do best."

"Go float yourself, bitch! You're just jealous Clarke got in when you had to bust your balls to have a hope." Raven chimed in at her defense, not like she needed it. Still, Clarke appreciated the support at Anya's unwarranted attack.

"I know you're playing the game, Reyes. Leave the theatrics for a more opportune time...you're smarter than this." Anya shot back before slinking away, Clarke glaring the woman down until she disappeared out the door.

"I swear she gets more unstable every day. How the hell did she get into the stupid field trip, anyway?" Clarke asked as she packed up her things.

"Hey, it's not a field trip. That could be my next place of work." Raven chided her playfully. "But yeah, that girl's a mess. I don't know how she hopes to be a pilot."

Clarke let out a laugh, moving out to the aisle and up the stairs to the exit. "Maybe of an ice-hauler or a shitty space taxi."

Raven joined in her laughter and shook her head. "But seriously, though. Like, you need to pass drug tests to be a pilot, and I swear she's on something...meth or maybe that Zyntex shit? Something's fucked about her."

Clarke nodded, knowing that if there was a sketchy person in their course, it was Birch. Most recruits came in straight out of high school, but Anya was three years older than them, and no one could twist any details out about what the woman had been doing during the three year gap. "Yeah, she's really twitchy, like an addict. Hopefully she'll bomb out on the trip if she really is one, since she won't be able to get anything like that en route." Clarke continued, though the distraction Anya had provided was fading. "I just need to get home and figure out why the hell my parents slotted me in when I told them I wasn't going."

"Worst case, you can bunk with me. We can have an alright time on our way to Ceres." Raven suggested, and while Clarke was certain Raven could make good on that, she didn't like the idea of spending the rest of the trip without her friend once that lab scooped Raven up.

Whatever it was worth, she'd be giving her parents a hell of a talking to tonight.


Anya stormed her way to the LRT station out of town, still fuming over the turn of events in class. She'd spent three increasingly frustrating years in the academy with Clarke, used up nearly all her savings to afford the trip to Ceres, and had been looking forward to a vacation away from the princess of the fleet, hopefully networking her way into some future inroads down the line. After all, no matter the shortcuts and free passes Clarke got, the other blonde had been vocal about not going on the excursion.

Knowing that Griffin's parents managed to slot her in as the twenty-third spot, of the initial twenty-two person shortlist, was not only insulting but infuriating.

She just wanted to catch a goddamn break after all her years of hard work, and there was Clarke, waltzing into a prime opportunity she didn't even want, just because of who her parents were. It was a damn travesty.

Anya shook her head as she stepped onto the train and took her seat, hand gripping the nearby pole so hard her knuckles went white. Four weeks with her...I swear, if I don't kill her, it'll be a miracle...

Clarke was, to put it lightly, everything Anya hated, and mostly everything she wasn't. Clarke didn't even have to try in classes, constantly handed in assignments late and occasionally missed tests, and somehow the woman kept from being expelled, and inexplicably passed every class. Clarke went out almost every night to party or hang out with her rich and powerful friends from what Anya could tell, and had never worked a job in her life. Clarke didn't have to try for opportunities, or even ask; they were always just offered to her, and the other blonde never seemed thankful or grateful, or even seemed to recognize how absurdly rare and privileged that sort of experience was.

Anya, meanwhile, was punctual for everything, knowing that the last time she'd handed an assignment in late, and only twelve minutes late due to her home's transmitter being impacted by a massive dust storm between their dome and the academy, administration threatened to pull her scholarship and expel her. Anya knew that hammer would never come down on Clarke; unlike Griffin, her dad was an ice hauler, and her mother was a bartender over on Tethys station. It was a minor miracle she'd managed to finish her schooling and get enough certifications for the Academy to consider her.

Anya spent most of her free time working the fields of her local biodome, studying, refreshing, and remixing the fertilizer so that the area's crops would keep growing. What time she could manage after that, she spent on space-flight sims.

The trip to Ceres was supposed to be her vacation, where she'd recover, and learn, and network. She'd worked so goddamn hard to make it happen, and she'd been so proud when she saw her name on the list, but then Griffin ruined it.

Clarke Griffin ruined everything.

The train ride was shorter than usual, no storms to slow it down today, and soon enough she was walking up to the farmhouse's back entrance, making her way down the steps to the basement door. As with most early-settled prefabs, it was a bit of a shoddy building, and it took some work to get her door open as always, but she eventually got in.

The place wasn't much, but it was her home during her stay on Mars. Her mom's cousin's nephew's father owned the place, and was willing to rent it out a little cheaper than usual to her. Anya hadn't needed much, and the living space it provided was bigger than anything she'd grown up with, so she didn't complain. It had a bed, room for her sim set-up, a dresser, a toilet, a shower, and a microwave; compared to Tethys station, she was living in the lap of luxury. Having her own shower, even if it used a mist of cleansing particles instead of water, was glorious compared to the rations they were under back home. She only needed to wait a half a day for the shower to recycle the particles, not half a week or more.

Anya took off her boots and flopped down on her bed, smiling into her pillow at the comfort of being able to rest. She'd scheduled today and the entire rest of the break off work, leaving her a good long while to recuperate. It'd been so damn long since she'd truly slept, and Anya was going to do her best to get in as many hours as she could before departure.

One more year.

One more year and she'd graduate. She'd find work towards being a pilot, and she'd make her dream come true. One day, she'd be helming a frigate or corvette, she'd have a nice little place of her own to come back to that wasn't the basement of a prefab farmhouse, and maybe she'd even have a girlfriend or wife to share her life with, too.

Anya pulled at her blanket and nuzzled her pillow, trying to get comfy on her thin, lumpy mattress. It was good to dream, good to set goals for herself. It kept her motivated to get through what she had to do in order to find success, to build a better life for her family.

Nothing was going to get in her way.


The SSV Polaris wasn't the flagship of the navy, having aged out of that position, but it was still among the most fearsome ships Clarke had ever stepped foot on. Not that she'd wanted to be there, but her parents had insisted, and made certain that she couldn't say no, having rented out their home to a visiting Admiral and his family for the coming weeks, leaving Clarke essentially homeless otherwise.

The six hour trip to the Polaris had been an ordeal in itself with everyone crammed into a tiny transport. Thankfully, once they reached the destroyer, she, Raven, and Wells were pulled aside and brought to the bridge to see Captain Pike, who helped distract them for a few hours by showing them the ropes and having them shadow some of the crew as they started their journey towards Ceres.

That was how the past few days had been, everyone mostly spent shadowing other crew during sims or their regular duties, and then heading back to their bunks at the end of the day to write their reports and grab some sleep. It was boring, and tedious, and the only silver lining was that Anya spent all her time down in the lower decks running sims with a flight instructor or at the docks running sims on the gunships and transports. Their paths barely crossed during the past five cycles.

Sadly, she could say the same for Raven, who she'd barely seen since they arrived, spending most of her time with the top mechs on the destroyer and shadowing them. The whole excursion felt like a big 'take your kid to work day' and Clarke was halfway surprised finding herself yearning for whatever the lab would provide, thinking it couldn't be any more boring than the SSV Polaris and shadowing Captain Pike.

When she was finally dismissed by Pike, signaling the end of her sixth cycle on the ship, Clarke made her way to the mess hall instead of the barracks, knowing she'd been let go a little early, giving her time to grab a snack.

To her surprise, Monty and Wells were at one of the tables, making her destination after grabbing a muffin an easy decision. One blueberry muffin later, she plopped down beside Wells and let out a relieved huff, happy for her day to be over. "Hey guys, please tell me your days have been better than mine."

Wells just turned his head and grinned. "Pike not your style?"

"He does a lot of paperwork, and stands around the rest of the time. I'm bored out of my mind." Clarke explained, knowing that the man got his rank for a reason, but that he didn't have much to do while ferrying a bunch of students to Ceres. "I'd kill to be down in the med bay. At least I'd be able to do something."

"Says the woman who didn't want to be here and doesn't like the work." Monty joked, but while he had a point, he was a little off the mark.

"I can't just hang out here. There's no art supplies, no music, no movies, no alcohol, no dancing...I'm tired of looking over Pike's shoulder while he does paperwork, or just standing around on the bridge." Clarke retorted, earning nods from her friends.

"Well, maybe you can ask him tomorrow to switch up. I know Lincoln's been down in the med bay, he's cool." Monty added with a hopeful smile.

Clarke searched her memory, knowing the name was familiar. It took a few moments for it to click. "The tall broody muscle-bound guy that doesn't talk? Who hangs out with Anya Birch? No thanks."

"He's a good guy. And really, if you're bored on the bridge, then you'd have a much better time down there. Every time I passed by, they were running Lincoln through drills." Wells said, bumping shoulders with Clarke. "If nothing else, it'd pass time a lot faster than standing around doing nothing."

She could admit that Wells had a point, even if she wasn't a fan of spending time with a friend of Anya's. The man was years older than all of them, including even Anya. Something just seemed off about him. Still, he'd never been real vocal, and if she'd be doing drills and exercises throughout her time there, then it'd probably be fine.

"Okay, I guess I'll give it a shot." Clarke conceded before taking a bite out of her muffin. It wasn't very tasty, but it was something. "Anyway, I was serious before. How have things been for you two?"

Wells shrugged. "I was kind of miffed when Pike decided to send me to the comms section at the back end of the bridge, I figured it was because he and dad have butted heads a lot. But from what you're telling me, I dodged a bullet. It's been fun, and I've been learning a lot about the systems, and how they do what they do."

"There's nothing agricultural here on the ship, so I've been working with some of the engineers, learning their protocols firsthand and how to work with their systems. In class, most of what we've been taught was on outdated tech and systems, so it's nice to be on something relatively current and learning how to adapt what I know to what they have." Monty added, both of her friends making her envious with how much they've been enjoying the experience.

"Well, I guess we should try and enjoy what we can while we can. We'll be at the lab about a cycle from now." Clarke said, wondering what it'd be like at the lab compared to the ship. Hopefully larger barracks, for one, and maybe better food.

"One last day...let's make the most of it." Wells agreed, toasting his glass of water against Monty's, and then against Clarke's half-eaten muffin.

Yeah, maybe it'll be a good day tomorrow... Clarke thought, smiling at the hope blooming within her. After all, how could it get any worse than it'd already been?


Anya let out a long exhale as she sat back in the pilot's seat, needing a moment to dump enough of the adrenaline coursing through her after the last sim.

"Damn good for a recruit, rookie." The lieutenant called out, clapping his hands twice from whatever amusement he took from running the sim with her. "You honestly might be better than two of the ensigns I have on crew here."

"Thank you, sir. I doubt that, though." Anya stated out of habit, though she felt good about the compliment anyway. It was hard to imagine a well trained pilot hand-picked by a destroyer-class vessel could be worse than her when her official pilot training had been minimal, even if she ran sims every day and had some flight experience with civilian vessels. She could gain a lot being self-taught, but it would never replace a quality instructor.

"Doubt me all you like. And I told you, call me Gustus. Captain assigned me to you, and you're still technically a civilian, so I'm as close to being off the clock as I can get." The man shot back with a grin, forcing Anya to roll her eyes.

Gustus' desire to deviate from the standard conventions did make a slight bit of sense, him being one of four Lieutenant Forresters onboard the Polaris, which had to have been a serious headache to deal with. Still, Anya didn't want to do or say anything that could hurt her career prospects.

"Besides, rookie, you're long overdue for some rack time. I'm sure your peers have been sleeping for the past two or three hours." Gustus continued, and Anya couldn't hold back her scoff if she tried.

Still, he had a point. She had plenty of time to run sims with a teacher like him. "Maybe. Yeah, sure."

"Good. Can't have you burning out on us." Gustus noted, as if Anya could. Spending nineteen hours awake at a time was practically a vacation compared to how it'd been during the term.

It only took a few minutes to lock up the gunship and head out of the docks, Anya waving farewell to Gustus as he got off a few floors earlier to head to the mess. Anya took the elevator another three levels to the starboard barracks, where she and the other students had been stashed away.

Thankfully, she wasn't the only one awake; Lincoln was leaning up against the entrance to their bunks, fiddling away with something on his tablet. "I hope you didn't wait up for a kiss goodnight, Linc."

The man's attention swiveled away from his tablet as he let out a sharp laugh. "Not so much." He said before gesturing to his tablet. "Studying. It's too uncomfortable to read in there."

"Mmmh. Yeah, it's weird going from having a bed to basically sleeping in a tiny coffin-sized bunk." Anya agreed, having felt more than a little claustrophobic in the pod-like lodgings. She made do, but Anya had honestly never thought she'd see a sleeping quarters smaller than her old one on Tethys, which had about two inches more vertical clearance than the bunks on the Polaris. Given the size of the ship, it didn't make much sense for them to be so tiny when there was wasted space everywhere else.

Lincoln's mouth opened to speak, but whatever he wanted to say died in his throat as the lights around them went blue and a dull alarm sounded, repeating after a second or two. Anya gulped, knowing the rest of her class was likely asleep. "Strange time for a drill."

A second later, a sound she'd only heard in her sims echoed through the hall. "Not a drill. Torpedoes" Lincoln said lowly, beating her to the punch. His eyes widened for a moment in a clear mix of fear and confusion, leaving Anya wondering what the fuck she'd missed, being down in the docks for hours. "Who'd have the brass to go after a destroyer with a naval base full of backup a few hours away?"

Lincoln voiced the question just as it popped into Anya's thoughts, leaving her entirely unsettled about what was happening. The Polaris was on a sluggish joy ride to Ceres; if backup launched now at full burn, they could reach the destroyer within three hours depending on the vessel. Whoever was attacking was either both desperate and stupid, or had an ace up their sleeve.

Anya hoped to hell that it wasn't the latter. "The Polaris isn't so old its radar's fucked, whatever's out there had to surprise them, or the folks shadowing on the bridge would have talked about something popping up on the scanners earlier. The defensive perimeter for a ship like this is huge, but we're deep in the belt by now. Lots of ways to spoof radar with the right surroundings and equipment."

"Still, they have to know they're screwed." Lincoln said with a shake of his head, shooting the walls a disbelieving stare. "God that's what, eighteen torpedo volleys? Twenty now? Twen...fuck, what the hell is out there?"

Every fiber of Anya's body was telling her to run, instincts that she ignored for the moment. Damn it, she hated running away. "We need to get everyone up. Just in case." She stated reluctantly before marching to the nearest double bunk door and pounding on it with one fist, and pressing the comm alert button with the other, trying to distract herself from the feeling that the walls were closing in on her. "Get up, fuckers, we're at general quarters!"

She only waited a second before moving to the second door, Lincoln catching on and taking the next. Anya pressed the comms again. "General quarters, people! Get up! This is not a damn drill!"

Before she could step away, the door was opening, and Clarke was stumbling out all bleary-eyed. "What the fuck, Anya?"

"Polaris just launched thirty two torps by my estimate, meaning this is for real. Something's out there, and..." Anya started, jaw clamping shut when Clarke let out a scoff and went to turn back towards the bunks. Before she knew what she was doing, Anya had swung Clarke around and had her pressed up against the corridor wall. "I don't think you understand the gravity of this, Princess. They'd fire a half dozen to a dozen torpedoes to blow a bunch of low-tech pirates into the stone age. You don't throw out more than that unless you're worried or being swarmed, so wake up!"

"Hey, ease up on her!" Raven yelled, pulling Anya away with a lot less force than Anya knew the woman was capable of. It was enough to keep her from retaliating as she took two steps away. "Look, this ship's understaffed a bit, but we're in good hands. And I'm sure Ceres has backup en route, okay?"."

"Raven's right, there's no reason to panic." Wells stated firmly, having been woken by Lincoln, apparently. "And we were told that in case of emergency, we're to stay here. So we're staying here."

Anya cast her gaze around at the growing crowd of students and grit her teeth. One glance at Lincoln had her knowing the big lug wasn't comfortable with the plan of action either.

One thing was for certain, Anya never went into a problem without a few backup plans. Now, what do I know about this big tin can of ours...and what could anyone want with it?


Clarke only needed six minutes to start pacing. After all the days trapped on the bridge with Pike, she knew very well that the Polaris had a large defensive perimeter, and that the time for a torpedo to travel from the ship to the edge of that perimeter was thirty-seven minutes.

And what...two, three minutes after they fired, Anya woke me up? And then a few minutes of arguing...maybe thirteen or fourteen minutes in. Maybe... Clarke mused, trying to think, but every cell in her body was bracing for impact. Which didn't make any sense, but for the first time in her life, Anya was making sense.

And that alone had Clarke feeling like the apocalypse was about to rain down on them all.

For the past four minutes, Anya and Lincoln had been standing close together, whispering to each other, clearly cooking something up. Despite the duo's sketchiness, she wanted in. Wells had always been by the book, and that served him well in most things, but a space battle just didn't seem the time or place for following orders that left them without an exit strategy if things went awry.

As gracefully and inconspicuously as she could, Clarke pulled Raven aside. "You've been working with the mechs, right? They've had you doing repairs around the ship, right?"

Raven nodded, eyes narrowing with clear curiosity. "What are you up to, Griff?"

"You've probably looked over the ship's blueprints, then." Clarke stated, earning a slow nod from the mechanic. "Great. Is there any area of the ship that's safer than..."

Clarke's words died in her throat as a very different sound resonated throughout the room, Raven, Lincoln and Anya perking up in kind. "What the hell? That can't be right." Raven muttered.

Anya, however, marched directly over to Wells, grabbing hold of him just as the ship shook violently from one impact, then another, and another. "Those are the rail guns powering up. We're in CQB now, so it's time to get your head out of your ass, Wells!" The wiry woman yelled, shoving him backward into a group of other students. "Thirty two torps, and the Polaris didn't send them all to hell. Sixty-four PDCs on this bird and three of their torpedoes still made it through. Whoever they are, they're good, and they have this boat on its heels." Anya added as another two explosions rocked the Polaris and sent Clarke and others stumbling towards the wall. "Make that five."

"Captain Pike's orders were for us to remain here. I don't know about you but my first experience with the real Navy isn't about to be defying a direct order from a superior, Birch. Maybe people do things differently from where you come from, but where I come from, we do as we're told." Wells shot back, appearing and sounding uncharacteristically angry as he stepped back into Anya's personal space. It wasn't often that Wells ever lost his cool.

Clarke took two long strides towards the group and separated the two, keeping them both at arm's length. "Look, I think we need to just cool off for a moment and figure things out. I know our orders were to stay here, but I'm not alone in saying that I'd like a backup plan in case something goes even more wrong."

"Clarke, this is a destroyer, they can handle..." Monty started to say before everything went dark, auxiliary lighting shifting on as the ship went silent. "...a few...pirates...okay, so maybe I'm on board with a backup plan."

It was one thing to enter general quarters. It was an entirely different bowl of shit to actually get hit hard enough to lose power to the engines. "Lincoln, what's your plan?" She asked, deciding to bypass Anya entirely, figuring the man would be able to tell her anything her nemesis could.

Her question immediately had Anya growling, but Lincoln stepped closer anyways. "We make for the docks. Worst case scenario, we're boarded and we don't want to be stuck here in the barracks when that happens, we want to be in the docks before the raiders could set up and prevent evacuation. Better to stow away on a transport than to die or be taken prisoner here where we're easy pickings."

"There's a maintenance shaft that runs vertically through the ship, I think it reaches down to the top level of the docks. Could cut the travel time if the elevator's locked down like it probably is." Raven offered, giving exactly the kind of intel Clarke had hoped for.

"We'll need access to the main console down there, or the clamps will never unlatch from any of the ships there. I think with a bit of time, I might be able to hack in." Monty added quickly, sounding oddly excited.

"Guys, we're going to be..." Well started, but the multiple violent impacts against the hull of the Polaris killed whatever words he'd been planning on speaking.

Lincoln grabbed Anya's arm and leaned in, though despite his lowered voice, Clarke could still hear. "Those are breaching pods. Maybe ten minutes until they're in, so we need to go!" The man whispered harshly, earning a swift nod from the wiry woman.

The blood in Clarke's veins froze. Breaching pods meant soldiers. Soldiers meant gunfire. Gunfire meant wounds and casualties. This is actually happening...shit shit shit SHIT!

Anya immediately stepped towards the group, shrugging off Clarke's extended arm before she could react. "I'm leaving for the docks. Lincoln's with me. You all can stay here, or come with us."

Surprisingly, Raven's chin lifted, her mechanic friend stepping closer to Anya. "I'm in. Already graduated as of six hours ago. Not being where they asked me to be won't mess with my career prospects, and you two need me to get down there."

"Like I said, I can get you through their systems. Might be a tight window, but I know I can do it." Monty chimed in immediately afterward, making it two of Clarke's friends joining the duo's excursion.

Which, really, sealed the deal for Clarke. "You four could use another medic in case any of you get hurt. No offense, Lincoln, but I have more experience, and we could use all the help we can get."

It was an utter mess, and Clarke figured she'd regret it anyways, but if everything ended up well and she got expelled, she could hardly imagine her parents holding it against her, given the circumstances. Also, she had to keep her friends safe, and by joining up, she knew Wells would too, ensuring no one was left behind. Staying locked up in the barracks just really didn't seem like a good idea, not in the least. They'd be fish in a barrel, as her dad sometimes said.

"Then I'm coming, too." Wells said after an exasperated sigh, predictably making good on her assumption. "Anyone else?"

The rest of the group remained still, but Murphy cast his gaze across the group. "Not gonna risk expulsion after three hard years at the Ark. You losers can do what you want, but I'm staying."

Anya didn't wait to hear the murmured agreements from much of the rest of the crowd, charging past their peers and to the door, Lincoln in tow. Rolling her eyes, Clarke rushed after the duo, the rest of their impromptu group following. "You don't even know where you're going!"

"Well they're not going to give us the damn courtesy of waiting, so let's go!" Anya yelled, grabbing a spacesuit from the barracks storage and quickly slipping into it.

Clarke followed suit, hoping that whatever was happening was just a bit of bad luck, and that it'd clear up quickly.

She didn't want to think about ways it could get worse.


The moment Anya dropped down from the service ladder to the upper level walkway of the docks, her stomach dropped. The power had kicked back on, and the two gunships had already left, leaving a solitary transport for the taking. She'd been desperately hoping for Nighthawk One or Two, but she'd be able to work with the Corvus in a pinch, hopefully.

She could hear the tools of the raiders clear as day as she made her way down the ladder in pursuit of Monty. She could see some of the ship's marines camped out in cover throughout the bay, waiting for the intrusion, but if Anya had to guess, they'd be outgunned and outnumbered. There was no use in supporting a plan that would only delay the inevitable.

Her feet hit the metal of the next walkway when the first loud crash sounded, gunfire immediately following. Anya shook her head as her heart thudded heavily in her chest and kept descending, knowing she had to keep from thinking about it, keep from worrying about it, keep from fearing what those weapons could do to her. Her father always said to keep her eye on the escape route and nothing else if raiders ever came down on her.

Of course, that was back when she'd been hauling ice or various other contraband, but that lesson still held true. She couldn't control her environment, but she could control her actions leading to her escape.

Two more crashes reverberated through the docks by the time she reached the final walkway before the main level, and Anya practically slid down the last railing in hot pursuit of Monty, knowing the transport had a small armory near the airlock. If she could make it in the ship, she could get weapons to defend it. If they could defend it long enough for Monty to hack the clamps free, they'd be clear.

Inexplicably, Clarke's voice came across their closed comms before she could lift a hand to her wrist. "Raven, Lincoln, Anya, you three and Wells head to the ship. I'll cover Monty!" The other blonde yelled out.

Honestly, it seemed like a ridiculous plan, but Anya wasn't deterred or upset, figuring her plan would have swapped Clarke with Lincoln. Having someone strong to carry any wounded to the ship had to take priority over defending the bay; for whatever it was worth, Clarke seemed to think up something halfway decent for once.

The second her feet hit the ground, she was off at a run towards the docking bridge to the Corvus. Gustus had punched the entry code in earlier that day, and she'd been paying attention, so that much was easy.

When a bullet grazed her right side and sent her tumbling to the ground and twisting her ankle, moving all of a sudden became a more difficult task. In the moment, with pain searing through her body, she almost forgot about Lincoln.

Key word being almost, the man swiftly picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder in one swift motion, barely breaking stride as he dashed down the long bridge to the transport.

Anya watched as two more breaches opened up behind them, bringing a hail of gunfire with them. She watched Clarke rush over to a fallen marine and take his gun, strafing from cover to cover, firing brief bursts to draw attention away from the engineer who was halfway huddled behind the console as a defense, connecting his personal table to it as a remote access of some sort. She watched a bullet shred through Well's leg, sending the prodigal son crashing down against the bridge.

"Drop me here, and go rescue Wells! I'll be fine to get the door!" Anya yelled out over their closed comms, Lincoln only barely hesitating at the order.

The man was a former soldier, so Anya trusted him to get the job done. All she had to do was stagger her way down the last fifteen feet of the docking bridge and punch in the code, and she'd have done her part.

Each step was painful. For a largely superficial wound, every stumble forward took a lot out of her. Fuck, at this rate, I'll absolutely HAVE to stim up after takeoff...goddamn it... She cursed internally as she took another step, and then another, hobbling closer as gunfire erupted against the walkway around her and the hull of the Corvus, letting her know the marines had been dealt with, and the raiders were trying to contain them.

Anya stumbled into the ship's outer console just as the docking clamps released. Monty, it seemed, was in fact a miracle worker. She quickly typed in the sixteen character entry code and used all of her energy to lunge through the airlock, rushing into the cargo bay to the weapons lockers.

The inconveniently locked weapons lockers. "Fucking goddamn it!" She yelled, tugging at one of the doors and growling at the fact that it wasn't opening. "Weapons lockers are restricted, you all need to get in here right now! I'll start up the ship!"

If running across the bridge with a bullet wound was painful, climbing the two flights of stairs to the upper deck was excruciating. By the time she cast her eyes on the cockpit, she was practically crawling on her hands and knees, but she had her plan. She had her escape route.

She knew what she had to do, and she'd damn well do it.

Anya willed herself to the lead pilot's chair and tapped in the code Gustus used to start up the engines. She could only hope the others would make it.


Everything was exploding.

The pillar beside her, the console Monty just finished hacking, the railing of the docking bridge, the final marine on their level of the dock after a well-placed grenade, the hull of the ship, the heart in her chest.

Everything was exploding, and Clarke could hardly think as she fired a spray of bullets at the raiders that had moved into cover to flank their retreat. "Monty, you need to finish up now!"

"One second!" Her friend yelled in return, as Clarke darted over to another column and ransacked a dead marine's corpse, needing something, anything that could help. She'd only taken two courses in combat training, but when she palmed one grenade, and pocketed the other, she knew she at least had some options. She swapped rifles and peeked out from cover, narrowly avoiding a hail of bullets.

For a brief moment, she felt like she could stay there a few seconds longer, but when she saw Wells get gunned down on the bridge, her legs began moving without her permission.

Clarke set the timer and tossed her grenade as she darted from cover to cover as fast as her mag boots would allow, feeling the impact of a round going through the side of the suit's backpack as she let out another spray of bullets at the raiders.

Wells was laid out on the bridge, leg busted to all hell. She watched Lincoln practically throw Anya to the ground and rush back for him. Whatever it was worth, Lincoln was what Raven would call a 'brave sonovabitch'. The same Raven who hobbled past Wells towards the ship.

The explosion from her grenade was smaller than she'd hoped, but it still sent two of the raiders flying out of cover from the force of it. Even with her lack of training, it wasn't hard to fill one of them with lead by the time she reached cover.

The sound of the clamps unlatching had Clarke grinning, feeling like they might have a chance. "Stay low, Monty!" She yelled out as she shot another burst at the invaders, giving Monty a running head-start as she pulled out her other grenade and set a shorter timer.

Clarke tossed it towards cover and immediately turned around to make a run for it, knowing there'd be nothing to hide behind the rest of the way. Bullets flew by her grazing through her suit, impacting against the hard rear shell of her backpack, acting as makeshift body armor.

Lincoln was a machine dragging Wells and Monty to the ship's entrance and throwing them inside. As soon as he turned, Clarke's arms shot out, tossing him the rifle. Without gravity, it barely beat her out, but the sound of a detonation and the complete half of gunfire behind her had Clarke rushing faster, not wanting to waste the opportunity.

Lincoln shoved her into the ship and closed the airlock doors. "What the hell did you do to make them stop?"

Clarke took off her helmet and let out a heavy breath. "Grenade. Long, cylindrical. Narrow tip."

Lincoln gave her a disbelieving look, his eyebrows rising in kind. "An EMP grenade? That makes no sense, they shouldn't affect their weapons."

"Whatever, let's just burn like hell and get out of here." Clarke ordered across comms, following Raven deeper into the ship as she helped Wells. The ship was entirely unfamiliar, but it seemed at least Anya and Raven knew their way around.

They'd just found their way to the med bay when Anya's voice came over the ship's comms. "Everyone strap in, this could get ugly." The woman said, voice marked with an alarming level of exhaustion and strain.

As much as she hated to admit it, Wells wasn't a vital crew member at the moment. The entire crew's survival wasn't resting on his shoulders. And honestly, the pain in Anya's voice had her chest feeling awfully tight and heavy. "Lincoln, I need you to handle Wells and Raven. Monty, help him out however you can." Clarke ordered, marching through the ship and up the ladder to the upper deck, reaching it and plopping down on the co-pilot's seat just in time to brace for acceleration as Anya guided the ship out of the hangar and into the cold darkness of space.

"I'm going to need Monty and Raven in about an hour, Princess." Anya grit out, the g-force from the acceleration painfully pushing each of them back in their seats as Anya sped away from the Polaris, narrowly avoiding the worst of the PDC spray, a pair of railgun blasts crossing right in front of the cockpit before the pilot accelerated further.

Clarke kept her eyes on the holo screen in front of her that showed four ships hovering around the SSV Polaris, sweat beading on her forehead as she waited for one of them to start moving to chase. "You get us clear and I'll make sure they get up here."

"I'll need them to get clear, and they need to be ready to make this ship silent when I need them to." Anya explained weakly, eyelids dipping as Clarke shifted her gaze to the pilot. The woman looked like she was about to pass out. "Those were...were System Alliance frigates, Princess. If we want to disappear, we have to do this right."

The navy shot up their own...but...fuck... Clarke tried to piece thoughts together, but nothing was making any sense, so she decided to shelve that for later. Those four ships on radar weren't following, so she just prayed that would still be the case fifteen minutes from then.

Clarke forced her gaze away from Anya's face and down her body, quickly noticing that the side of the woman's suit was shredded. "You got shot!"

"Patch me up when we've put enough distance between us. I'll be fine." Anya grit out as she strained to tap commands into her console, plotting out a trajectory and destination, the lab on Ceres.

"How can you be sure the lab's safe?" Clarke asked, deciding not to harp on about the woman's health quite yet, not wanting to distress the already fragile pilot.

Anya's eyes fluttered closed for a brief moment. "My guess...it's not. But we're burning hard and in range where the other ships can tell where we're heading. We get out of range...we turn our transponder off. Make it seem...like we're sloppy, panicked, green. Stay on course a bit longer, then we go silent. And you leave this bird to me."

"Just tell me what I can do." Clarke said, not liking the uncertainty and wanting to keep her people safe, wanting to ensure their escape.

"Well, you fucked up by wasting yourself up here with me when you could be down in the med bay being halfway useful. We'll be in high-g conditions for the next hour so ask me then. For now, just shut up and let me work." Anya retorted with a bite that Clarke had never before felt from the woman's words.

Anya thought she was useless, and if there was one thing Clarke hated it was feeling useless and having it validated by someone else. She'd felt a rare shred of worry for the terrible woman, one that derailed her from her duties out of entirely justified concern, but placed her in an entirely useless position.

Clarke shut her eyes and focused on the future, knowing that whatever came next, she wouldn't make the same mistake of caring about Anya again.


A/N: So I finished reading Leviathan Wakes the other day, and despite not really digging the show it inspired ("The Expanse"), I felt an urge to write something space-faring again. And because I adored how they handled the Donnager both on screen and in the books, I decided to pay it a bit of a ham-handed homage in helping kick off the main plot arc here in this one. FWIW, this fic won't follow the hard sci-fi approach, in case anyone's expecting that

This fic is a true WIP, I'm literally winging it, and there's no pre-determined endgame here, so fair warning. Fic's name inspired by my tumblr friends who insisted on it.

Anywho, I hope you enjoyed!