So, look, things could be worse.

The room Niner wakes up in isn't prison, for one thing. Four bunks in a small room with no windows is kinda prison-like, sure, but most prison cells of her acquaintance don't feature dirty laundry piled high on the lowest bunk and tattered but carefully repaired posters of, like, dragons and robots and what might possibly be a lovingly rendered sketch of a toaster oven. It feels like her old college dorm room, which, okay, maybe not the best memory. But definitely not prison. Good.

Her head feels like someone stuck her brain in a blender and hit 'liquefy'. Her face is all hot and puffy where it's pressed against the pillow, but when she turns her head things get kinda sloshy and she decides that maybe it'd be smart to stay perfectly still for a while. Not a promising development, but—she reaches up a hand that feels heavy and sluggish, paws awkwardly at her own head—yeah, bandaged up. Someone's cut her hair short to get at the wound, which sucks because she was just starting to think about dreads, but hell. Wherever she is, however she got here, someone wants her alive. That's an improvement.

The door opens.

Niner sits up too fast, biting down on the inside of her cheek to keep herself conscious when darkness swarms her vision. She's tensing up the muscles in her legs like she's going for a high-g roll, breathing slowly, carefully. The darkness clears.

A bored-looking kid, maybe twenty years old, is staring at her from the doorway. He's wearing some sort of armor, his helmet under his arm, all of it painted a beige that's incredibly unflattering against his darker skin tone. His hair's dyed an even more unflattering fluorescent green. He's squinting at her with a carefully patented and refined I-am-a-little-shit-who-cares-about-nothing glower.

Niner has just enough time to entertain the possibility that she really is back in college before the kid grunts, "She wants to see you. If you're not dead or whatever."

"Yeah, not quite," Niner says, and pushes the blankets off her legs. She's wearing unfamiliar clothes, fatigues maybe. They fit a little tight at the waist and a little long in the arms. "And who's 'she'?"

"General Kimball," the kid says, slouching against the doorframe. "C'mon, I'm almost off-duty."

"General. Those are always great news." Niner rubs the bandages wrapped around her forehead, pushing her newly shorn hair up so it's practically standing on end. "And who're you?"

The kid's body makes a vague motion like it has, at some point, heard of standing at attention, but a second later he's slouching again. "Private Bitters. You're in my bed."

"Uh-huh," Niner says, staring around vaguely for her boots. "You bragging or something?"

Bitters snorts. "Could've been worse. We could've stuck you in Palomo's bed. Pretty sure he still pisses in it. Among other things." He tosses his helmet into a corner, then pulls a hoodie off the door handle and tosses it to her. "C'mon."

Niner squints at the hoodie—it's an improbably vivid shade of puce, and once her brain ticks over she manages to translate the Hindi writing as FUCK SOCKS, which she hopes is a band name and not a lewd suggestion—and drapes it over her shoulders. "Hell of a military operation you've got here, Private."

One corner of his mouth quirks into a smile. "Welcome to the New Republic. It's been a hell of a war."

The general's office is right around the corner; Niner stumbles into a wall to buy herself time to look out the window, but it's pretty determinedly night outside and all she gets is a face full of nothing. Bitters has a sidearm mag-clamped to his thigh, but doesn't seem especially aware that he's got it. Niner's pretty sure she could take him with her hands tied behind her back, but she doesn't really do that stuff these days. Desk job, right? Nice and quiet. Be good.

Bitters raps at a door, pauses for a second, then saunters in.

Niner follows. "Hey. You the fuck who stole my ride?"

The woman sitting behind the desk is small and slim, with none of the flashy dorkiness of her subordinate, although she too is wearing the ugly armor sans helmet. Her hair is drawn into a loose ponytail, and thank fuck it's black and not red, because when she looks up, her eyes are a startling green. Niner maybe forgets to breathe for a second. But no, hell, her skin's darker, face is broader, lips are fuller. Different scar on the forehead. Breathe.

"Vanessa Kimball. Glad to see you up and about," Kimball says. She's got a fucking nice voice, too, distracted but warm. "Bitters, you're off-duty. Thank you. Sorry about the accommodations, by the way. Infirmary's been full this week, and we didn't really have anywhere else to put you."

Bitters actually snaps off a serviceable salute. Niner stares after him when he slouches out, then drags her attention back to the general, who's already gesturing with an open hand at the chair opposite her. Niner snorts and goes to prop up a wall in the corner, pulling the hoodie a little closer around her shoulders. "My ride," she says.

Kimball smoothly changes her gesture into a grab for the cup of some sort of steaming liquid on the corner of her desk. "I didn't take your ship. You crashed. Do you remember?"

Niner's starting to regret her decision to stand; she sways a little, but Kimball makes no move to help her. She flattens a hand against the wall, steadies herself. "Didn't crash. Ran out of gas. No refueling stations around here."

"Yeah," Kimball says. "The war makes resupply difficult. You should've hit the warning beacons the Feds set up around the perimeter. If your emergency radio was on, that is."

"Must've broken it," Niner says.

Kimball snorts, sending a little puff of steam off the top of her cup. She takes a long sip, then says, "Felix tells me you're probably a Fed spy, come here to assassinate me."

"News to me," Niner says. "What's a Fed? What's a Felix?"

"Federal Army of Chorus. The opposition in this particular civil war. And Felix is... an advisor. A friend. He does get a little paranoid sometimes, which is why we didn't let him slit your throat when they pulled you out of your ship."

Niner lets herself flinch, makes a point of reaching up to rub her neck. She's a little gratified at the flicker of naked concern in Kimball's face. Good people are a lot easier to dupe. "Your dramatic-pause-advisor sounds like a real winner. And a fucking dipshit. What, did my grand assassination plot involve landing my ship on your head? Brilliant war you guys are waging here."

"I'm a little more concerned about who might be following you. Maybe whoever owns that ship you stole," Kimball says.

"Nobody's following me. I was out for a stroll. In space. With a ship that's definitely mine." She's pretty sure, y'know, being wanted for complicity in war crimes by the UNSC isn't relevant to the conversation. Probably best not to mention it.

Kimball shrugs. "Look, your ship's not too badly damaged. Couple of my soldiers are assigned to repair it—you met Private Bitters, he and a couple others are working under the supervision of Lieutenant Jensen."

Niner chews on a ragged thumbnail for a second. She remembers, now, clawing at the safety harness, hearing the roar of fire coming closer and closer. "You're gonna let me go," she says, flatly. "Just like that."

"That's the tricky part. We can get you fuel, but once you're off the ground, chances are pretty high that the Feds' AA guns will blow you out of the sky."

Niner stares at an old water stain on the ceiling, tapping her chin with one finger. "Those AA guns the Type 38s?"

Kimball blinks. "Yeah."

Niner grins. "Cute. You get me that fuel, I can definitely get the hell out of here."

Kimball sets her drink back on her desk, steeples her fingers. The exhaustion in her voice is rapidly giving way to amusement. "You're not going to ask what I want in return?"

"I was hoping you'd forget it if I didn't bring it up, honestly," Niner says. Her head's throbbing again, slow and heavy. Banter. Banter's easy. Switch to autopilot, try not to fall over. "Figured you're an idealist who likes to do one good deed every day."

"I already saved you today."

Niner sways drunkenly, presses her shoulder into the wall. "Two good deeds every day. Out of the kindness of your heart."

Kimball cocks her head to one side. "Who are you?"

"I'm a pilot," Niner says, and damn, she can pinpoint the exact moment she realizes the banter isn't gonna be enough to keep her from slumping bonelessly to the floor.

To her credit, Kimball immediately drops the tough-guy act and rushes around the desk to crouch next to her. She smells reassuringly of sweat, not like those Freelancer desk-jockeys, like someone who actually goes out from time to time and gets her hands dirty. Maybe a bit like someone who spends a lot of time terrified. Niner stares the wall from an inch away, waiting for her head to stop spinning, and makes a token attempt at not smiling like a goof when Kimball puts a warm hand on her shoulder. She's always been a sucker for physical contact.

"Hey," Kimball says. "You with me?"

"Just wanted to get a closer look at your floorboards," Niner says. "Or, uh. Dirt. Nice dirt you've got here."

"Don't move. You took a pretty serious hit to the head back on the ship," Kimball says, "I want to make sure the medics—"

There's a loud bang, and for a second Niner's pretty sure it's a gunshot and, shit, that's one less person in the world with a modicum of wit. But no, this place is so old and run-down that the doors are the kind you can slam open. Cool.

"Felix," Kimball says, deadpan, "You're waving a knife around. In my office."

A cleared throat. "Heard a clatter, figured something was up."

Kimball's voice doesn't shift from its coolly amused tone, but the hand on Niner's shoulder tenses. "And were you coming in to save the day, or just to get your last I-told-you-so in?"

"Hey," says Felix. "Whoa, that's hurtful. That wounds me deeply. I don't need people maligning my multitasking skills. I can absolutely do both."

"Just call a medic," Kimball says. The door closes.

"Wow," Niner says. She makes an attempt at sitting up, but the world takes a few half-hearted spins and she slumps back down again. "Dude's a real winner."

"I'm still in the room, y'know," says Felix, sounding absurdly offended. "I didn't have to leave to call a medic. Got a radio in my helmet and everything."

"Good for you, buddy." With an effort, Niner rolls onto her back to see what she's talking to. Full armor, orange highlights on black. Pointy helmet. "Jesus. You find that armor in a box of crackerjacks?"

Felix cocks his head to one side so his visor catches the light. It's got a weirdly menacing effect. It's also a familiar-enough habit that Niner feels her stomach flip. Then he backs off a little, crosses his arms. "I like her."

Niner catches Kimball's eye. "Just put me out of my misery now."

When Kimball smiles, it doesn't quite reach her eyes. No laugh-lines at the corners, which means she's either absurdly young or just doesn't find a whole lot funny. Probably both. But her voice is warm when she says, "Okay, knock it off, Felix. I don't think we're under attack. Let's get her ship repaired and send her on her way."

Felix snorts. "You know, we don't really have a surplus of resources to go around repairing stolen UNSC vehicles."

"Obtained totally legally," Niner corrects him. Her head is starting to spin again, but that strikes her as a pretty important point to clarify. "You would not believe how legally I obtained it."

"Super glad you're trusting this one," Felix says, and Niner has just enough energy to flip him off before she blacks out altogether.

When she wakes up, she feels... well, not a hundred percent, but at least. Eh. Sixty-five? She gets dizzy spells throughout breakfast, but honestly they're no worse than the crap she went through during flight training. Her inner ear is basically fucked as it is. Besides, balance is overrated on the ground. Lots of things are overrated on the ground.

She picks at her bowl of anonymous gruel and stares across the table at Bitters, who's devouring his serving like it's the greatest thing he's ever tasted. Niner mentally pulls back her estimation of his age by a couple years, and bumps up her estimation of Vanessa Kimball while she's at it. He's definitely guarding her—he's in armor, minus the helmet, and she's pretty damn sure the pistol at his side isn't just packing rust—but he's also so patently non-threatening that she keeps forgetting the war-tacular attire and spends her time making fun of his taste in music instead. He's like the deadpan slacker nephew she never had.

"You wanna see your ship?" he asks, once he's finished inhaling his food. It's a surprising conversational olive branch, given how offended he'd been when she'd laughed at his collection of overwrought band posters. "We could go now, see how Jensen and Volleyball are doing with repairs."

"Jensen and who now?"

Bitters sighs, sticks his helmet on, and slouches to his feet. "C'mon."

Niner trails after him into the midmorning gloom. She'd felt sick enough during the walk from the barracks to the mess hall that she hadn't really taken in her first impressions of the place in daylight, but now she drags her feet a bit, peering around. She's seen a shit-ton of outer colony warzones in her time, but this one probably takes the cake as the most pathetic. They're in a jungle, the buildings are all prefab structures struggling as much against mold as they are against poor civil engineering, and the whole place smells faintly of decay.

Bitters must see the look on her face, because he says, "This is temporary. There's a system of caves not far from here, we're gonna be bugging out and moving in there soon."

"Uh-huh," says Niner, squinting into the canopy overhead to try and find something resembling sky. "You think your general would be happy with me getting all that intel?"

Bitters shrugs. "Feds're gonna find us and kill us either way. One more person knowing isn't exactly gonna make a difference."

Niner says, thoughtfully, "Feds," then adds, "I don't want to know. I want my ship, and I want to get out of here."

"They'll shoot you down."

Niner shrugs, then has to pause and tug her foot out from a patch of mud. Her foot nearly slips out of her boot. "I used Type 38 AA guns for flight training. They've got blind spots."

Bitters bites his lip, gnaws for a moment. Says, "We could really use that intel."

"Look, kid," Niner says, squelching to a halt. "I'm not helping out when I have no fuckin' clue what's going on here. Okay? For all I know, the Feds are the good guys here. Choosing sides is how you wind up grounded."

Bitters snorts. "Look, lady, most of us don't give a fuck about the war. We need help. Everyone we've tried to send for help has been shot down."

That brings Niner up short. "Everyone? Type 38s seriously aren't that effective, and that's not just me being realistic about how awesome I am at flying."

Bitters shrugs, pushes past her to stomp across a much-traveled tract of mud. "Most of our skilled soldiers died early on. You know. Doing what they were good at. Pilots shot down, scientists killed in targeted raids. Anyone who's still here's either useless or lucky. Unlucky. Who cares. The UNSC clearly doesn't give a fuck, but the general thinks we should keep trying to get a message out."

Niner remembers that Kimball never quite got around to telling her what she wanted in return for the whole life-saving thing. She's got a pretty good idea now. "What will that message say?"

Bitters shrugs. "Leave that to the higher-ups. 'Why did you leave us, we're dying out here, shit's real fucked,' that kind of thing. Personally, I think they know what's been happening, they just don't care."

"Well aren't you just a planet of love and rainbows and sunshine," Niner says, and then has to stop to catch her breath, in part because the dizziness is coming on again, and in part because she can see her ship in the distance, and damn does the old girl look good. Singed and scorched in all sorts of interesting ways, but practically spaceworthy. She can feel it.

Bitters leads her through the open cargo hatch, and Niner has to press her lips together to keep from snapping at the sight of two people in armor poking around her ship's cockpit. One of them is digging around in the wiring, the other has the nav panel off its hinges and... okay, that looks like a pretty serviceable toolkit, but still. Her ship. "Lieutenant Jensen, I presume."

The armored figure on the left jumps, whacks her helmet on the bottom of the paneling, and sits up with a groan. She pauses when she catches sight of Niner, then scrambles to her feet. "Oh. Um. Hello. You must be the pilot. We're, uh. Boy. Sorry. Last time I saw you there was a lot more blood. Good job on not dying?"

She sounds about twelve. She might quite possibly be wearing braces. Niner rubs at her temples. "You're Lieutenant Jensen."

A big grin, audible even through the helmet. "Promoted last week. I mean, it's sad about Lieutenant Marshall blowing up and all, but here I am! Totally wasn't expecting the promotion, either."

"Katie's always the favorite," the other soldier says, in a teasing tone of voice. By process of elimination, and a healthy helping of why-the-fuck-not, this one has to be Volleyball. "She's got a crush on the general."

Bitters snorts, loudly. Jensen flails her hands for a moment, like she's trying to grab Volleyball's words out of the air and stuff them back in her mouth. "I do not! Have a crush! On the general!"

Niner narrows her eyes at Volleyball, likes what she sees in the easy, hip-slung pose, the hand half-raised as though to cover a smile. It's hard to tell behind the helmet, but she's pretty sure Volleyball nods back at her, just a little. Niner says, "I mean, the general's pretty hot. Nobody'd fault you for being a little thirsty."

Volleyball says, "It's all perfectly natural, Katie."

Taking her cue, Niner adds, "Super hot. Like, smoking. I can totally buy it."

"Oh boy," Bitters says. "Two Volleyballs. You'd better just surrender now, Katie."

"That's Lieutenant to you, Antoine!" Jensen swats Volleyball on the arm. "Stop it, you're undermining my hard-won authority!"

"She's helping," says Volleyball, gesturing vaguely at Niner. "Or, er. Wait. Were we doing a thing, with the teasing? Because I think possibly you were just going on about how hot the general is."

"Very," Niner says, a bit dazedly, and stumbles over to the copilot's seat, sitting heavily and dropping her face into her hands. "Hey, I'm gonna sit down now."

"You're already sitting," Bitters says.

"Thank you, Private Bitters. So much." She stays like that for a while, waiting for the chill in her fingertips to transfer to the heat of her face. The bandages feel weird around her scalp. Her hair's way too short.

"You okay?" says Jensen. "Maybe I should call a medic. I mean, there was a lot of blood when the general dragged you out. You probably shouldn't be—"

Niner blinks, feels her eyelashes move against the palms of her hands. "The general dragged me out?"

"It was badass," Jensen says, and stomps on Volleyball's foot before she can comment. "There was fire, we figured out you were in there, but, you know, there have been fires before and this armor isn't really... I mean, it's good equipment, Felix helps us get it, so I don't want to complain too much, but. It's not great at filtering smoke. We were waiting to see if we could put the fire out, Felix wouldn't go in, Kimball said there was no time, and then she just... ran in. And ran out with you."

Niner blinks again, lowers her hands from her face. She can only blame the inanity of her next question on the lingering effects of her head wound. "Is she okay?"

"Couple minor burns and smoke inhalation," Volleyball says. She's been drifting closer to Jensen the more upset she sounds, and she finally grabs at her hand, and okay, wow, no fraternization policies in this army, big surprise there. "She was in the infirmary for almost as long as you were."

"Not to sound ungrateful, but what the hell kind of army lets its general walk into flaming dropships?"

"Armies don't often let their generals do anything," Volleyball says. She sounds a little defensive, still clutching Jensen's hand. God. They're kids. They're all fucking kids, and by the sounds of things, they're dying in droves in their shitty beige armor. She knows exactly what good all the fancy tech did for Freelancer. These kids don't even have that.

"Ship," Niner says, shakily. "How's my fucking ship, and how long will it be until I can get the fuck off this fucking planet?"

"Repairs should be done by the end of the day," Jensen says, coldly.

"Good," says Niner. "I'll stay here until you're done."

She dozes in the copilot's seat, jolts awake at brief flashes of nightmarish fire to find the smell of smoke still lingering in the cockpit. Hears Bitters leave for his duties, hears Felix stop in once to make a few snide remarks, hears him leave, hears Jensen and Volleyball slowly drift back into natural conversation once they think she's not listening. They're talking, quiet and careful, about the first time they ever had to kill someone, deconstructing how it felt, what they were thinking, analyzing every emotion like it was a first date.

They're talking about the next mission, protecting a supply train next week that moves through Fed territory. Making plans, way too calmly, for if one of them doesn't make it out alive.

Niner drifts when the engines finally start cycling for their post-maintenance checks, lets the hum carry her off, focuses intermittently like she's listening to distant conversation. She's dead. She's so fucking dead. She stole a ship from the UNSC, she's a war criminal by association several times over. She's gonna be running the rest of her life.

A more hearty roar from the engines, immediately familiar. Nah. She's gonna be flying.

She opens one eye in time to see Jensen and Volleyball arguing about who gets to nudge her awake; they both jolt back a little when she opens her eyes. "Hey," she says. "Good job, kids. But this is your stop."

"The anti-aircraft guns—" Jensen starts, but Niner cuts her off with a look. "Okay. Fine. Just... be careful. There was a lot of blood. When Kimball brought you out."

"All righty," Niner says, swinging past them and into the pilot seat, beginning spin-up for takeoff. "See ya. Good luck with the not-dying. Tell Bitters he needs to listen to some jazz or something. Kid's got terrible taste."

"C'mon, Katie," Volleyball says. "Let's just... we should just go."

"No," says Jensen. Lieutenant Jensen. Niner turns to see her clench her fists at her sides.

"I'm leaving," Niner says, not unkindly. "This is something that's happening. Get used to it."

"Right," Jensen says. "That's what always happens. I get it. And sure, I'll tell Bitters you said goodbye and were a charming asshole on your way out. But I have one question for you."

Niner cocks her head to one side. "Shoot."

"You want me to tell the general you snuck out before she could make you pay her back for risking her life to save you? You want me to tell her you said goodbye?"

Niner is goddamn immune to authority, especially authority wielded inexpertly by a fucking kid. She swallows, hard, and turns back to her console, powering up secondary thrusters for pre-flight checks.

"She can tell me herself."

Niner takes a second to close her eyes, because she knows that faintly amused tone, has heard it from so many different fucking faces over the years. It never ends well. Blood in the snow. Stay high, keep flying. She doesn't open her eyes until she hears a couple sets of departing footsteps; the general sending the kids away. She turns.

Kimball is standing behind her, helmet slung under her arm. She's smiling. It's not reaching her eyes. Niner catches her own eyes wandering across every plane of exposed skin—her throat, her neck, her face—looking for burns. Kimball stares straight back at her. "Glad you're feeling better, pilot."

Niner grunts and turns back to her console. "So this is the part where you tell me what I owe you for patching me up."

"I'd like for you to get there yourself," Kimball says. "I know better than to try and steer a pilot where she doesn't want to go."

Niner snorts, boots up a quick capacity test on the port thruster. "You want me to tell you I'll go straight to the UNSC and explain your situation? You want me to lie?"

Kimball shrugs, puts her helmet back on, turns away. The hiss of the seals fastening is loud in the ship's still air. "No," she says. "I don't."

With that, she walks away. Niner waits until her footsteps are gone, runs through a third check that isn't entirely necessary but gives her dizziness time to pass, then initiates takeoff.

Some of the dizziness and nausea fades once she's got her bird in the air, but there's a weight in her gut like a stone. Doesn't take long to enter the range of fire of the AA guns, but it also doesn't take long to program in a flight solution that'll lead each missile, pull her through the pattern unscathed.

She leans back in her seat, watches missiles soar past on her radar, listens to the rumble of atmo on the bulkheads. Quashes 'maybe' after 'maybe' until one pushes past her resistance: maybe she can get a message through, somehow, to the UNSC. Keep it safe, secure. She knows people, still, who wouldn't turn her in. Probably. Wouldn't let her be grounded again.

That's not gonna keep Jensen and Volleyball from going on that mission in a week. It's not gonna keep them alive in the time it takes some inner-colony bureaucrat to weigh the pros and cons of intervening in this planet's affairs.

She chews her lip a moment longer, then opens a channel, dials in her firing solution, and sends it on a tight-beam to the New Republic's HQ.

Tries to send it. Signal lost. What the hell?

She scowls a bit nervously at her console, but it's still flawlessly navigating her through the next volley of missiles, and she'd know if something were wrong with her ride, she'd just know.

So why the radar fuck-up? Malfunction? Poor maintenance? She dismisses both with a handful of quick cross-checks. The final possibility is much more alarming. Jamming signal. Sabotage. Quick scan of the external hull. Everything clean. Internal scanner...

She says, very softly, "Oh, boy."

Device right under her damn console. 'Device' being, of course, the polite way of saying 'bomb'.

She ducks down. Now that she knows what she's looking for, it's not exactly subtle: a big chunk of metal stuck to the back of some C4. Nothing as fancy as a countdown timer. Some sort of... yeah, barometric sensor, probably tied to the ship's internal readings of ambient air pressure. Get high enough up, kaboom. It'd look like an AA gun hit. Nobody'd ever know otherwise.

Which is disturbing for a whole host of reasons, most notably the kaboom, but the thing that makes her heart slam against her chest is real simple: only a handful of people had access to her ship while she was out, and every single one of them was someone Vanessa Kimball considered a friend.

"Damn it," she mutters, and updates her flight pattern to level her off while she works on the damn barometer. Easy enough to spoof a ground-level reading, just gotta hope there's no secondary timer, and... yup. All clear, green light, still got a bomb strapped to her ride but at least it's not gonna blow anytime soon. She rests back in her seat for a moment, breathing hard. Dizzy. Definitely dizzy. Dizzy is fine. Dizzy and alive is fine.

Once she's caught her breath, she takes a stab at disarming the signal jammer, but... yeah, no, that's coming from the surface. Someone on the ground's keeping messages from passing surface-to-air and back. Why? What the fuck is wrong with this planet?

She rubs at her forehead. Not Bitters. If he'd fucked with the ship, Jensen and Volleyball would've noticed. They wouldn't have messed with anything unless they'd been working together, and okay, Jensen had been pretty pissed off that she was leaving, but not murderously so, y'know? Kimball wouldn't scuttle her own best chance at survival unless she had some seriously freaky plan for a long-haul planetary genocide, but c'mon. That's a bit of a stretch.

But she can't stop thinking of the one thing that's very much not a bit of a stretch: Felix planting the bomb when he wandered on board during her nap.

"Goddamn," she muttered, under her breath. Trusted advisor. It's always the trusted fucking advisors.

She's gotta warn Kimball. Like, being an asshole she can live with, but knowing she could've saved that general, that inexplicably optimistic general, from betrayal by someone close to her? Yeah. Pretty clear-cut line to cross, there.

One problem. If she turns tail and flies back down to the surface, Felix is gonna figure out pretty damn quick what's gone wrong with his little scheme, and that's just... wow, that's just not gonna end well for anyone involved.

Another rub at her forehead. She's sweating under the bandages, still damp from the jungle humidity. She tweaks her calculations, just slightly, to put her on an intercept course with one of the missiles. No direct hits, just a clip to take out an engine. Crash-land back on the planet near the rebel base, have a good laugh about how incredibly unlikely it is that she landed twice in the same place, what a coincidence! And stick it to that lying bastard who tried to blow up her ship.

Make it look good. It's gotta look good.

The Pelican climbs a little, lending the illusion to anyone who's watching that she's gotten impatient and is trying to gain altitude quickly. She stares up at the sky, an oppressively blue dome, but she knows what's beyond. What it would mean to keep flying. What it would cost.

She inhales. God damn it. Exhales. Fucking what the fuck is she, why is she even, how can she think this will. Tightens her safety harness. Green eyes. Ponytail. Damn heroes, the lot of them.

Two more breaths. One more breath. Here goes nothing.

Low thump, somewhere to port. Alarm klaxons screaming, heavy lurch.

Niner keeps a grip on the yoke, feels the remembered warmth of a hand on her shoulder, hears whispers from the cockpit. There are still missiles flitting past, and now she's practically in free-fall and can't rely on her flight solution. She hopes the ghosts are fuckin' happy.

But, hell. She'll be fine. She's a damn good pilot. If she's gonna crash, she's gonna crash with style.