Ryder knew the battle was lost when she heard SAM's voice, his warning crackling through her head with an edge so blunt she staggered with the impact: "Pathfinder, the power has been severed to the room. The other exits are blocked."

"Great. On to 'Plan B' then." Plan B… she had a handful of seconds to think of a Plan B.

She laid her pistol on the ground and pressed trembling fingers against her eyelids. The clip had been exhausted minutes before but she had held it out menacingly, scarring away heads that poked over cover with a threat she couldn't back up. Her shotgun had been lost in the initial attack, a series of explosions sending the team reeling in search of cover.

At the time, the squat, portable hovel common in all the settlements had seemed like their best bet. It had been easy with SAM's help to lock the door behind them, buying them precious extra seconds to coordinate their retaliation. So concerned with covering the three points of entry - two doors and a window - Ryder didn't notice the twisters of dust dancing above their head, disturbed from where it had rested just moments before on the floor.

Beside her Cora grunted, her arms trembling above her head. Sweat, before only a glistening patter across Cora's forehead, ran in rivulets down her cheeks and into her eyes. Her barrier had been what was keeping them alive, their last hope as they held out for an override of the door they were pressed against.

Ryder didn't know how to tell them it was over. She didn't even know where to begin, how to unravel the thread of their story to find where it had begun just that morning, unpack how it lead to this.

Jaal caught her eye, his jaw tightening as he read something on her face. Noticing the pistol abandoned where she knelt, he reached across Cora to hook his fingers around Ryder's elbow. His voice dropped as he pulled her closer to him and Cora, his tone tinted with a coloring of intimacy that belied their situation. "We can't let them overwhelm us!"

As if they heard him, the exiles pushed forward, a new round of grenades raining from above, sliding down Cora's biotic barrier and bouncing away. The explosion knocked her back, the barrier flickering before snuffing out. Her limbs were too heavy to lift again and she leaned against Jaal, her eyes unfocused and mouth slack.

"Bring me the Pathfinder!" The roar of their leader carried easily across the space. This was a man who was used to being heard over gun fire and explosions. No, this was a man who wanted you to hear him over the sounds of war. His was a voice that would chase you straight into hell. "She is the only one we need alive!"

"I won't," she assured Jaal. She held no intimacy in her tone, only wistful resignation.

She took in the scene around them, felt a tremor in her bones as gun fire popped around them, bullets ricocheting. She thought of what it would mean if she couldn't get them back to the Tempest: Jaal being killed, his mothers never knowing what happened; Cora's limb body, drained near to death already, left to rot in this metal tomb, denied a chance to plant her garden.

Plan B had to be the most batshit crazy idea she'd ever had, it had to be something that would guarantee Jaal and Cora's survival, and by extension, the survival of the Tempest, her crew. Not her crew, her family.

"SAM, I'm going to ask you to do something and I need you to promise to do it."

"Yes, Pathfinder."

Could he predict what she was going to ask? Did being hardwired into her brain, given front row tickets to every stunt she'd pulled, give him an insight that allowed him to predict her moves? It was easy to imagine a web laid out in front of her, SAM calculating quicker than any human which direction she would take, resigning himself to accept the consequences.

Careful to keep below cover, she edged away from Jaal, crawling on her hands and knees. When the echo of shots subsided only to be replaced with the sound of furious reloading, she ducked from behind cover, arms raised in the air and her useless pistol sling over one hip . A bullet whizzed past her, lodging in the door behind her. "Don't shoot! I'm the Pathfinder, I yield!"

The next few seconds of confusion bought her all the time she needed. Before Cora could protest and before Jaal could reach her, Ryder took another step forward. "SAM, transfer the Pathfinder connection to my second."

"No!" Cora struggled to her feet, lost her footing and slid to the ground

"I'll come with you!" Ryder shouted at the advancing line of troops, their guns still raised. Another bullet whizzed past her. Were they threatening her or just shit shots? "For fuck's sake, I'll give you what you want but that might be hard to do if you shoot me."

"Stop firing, you idiots!" The voice rang out again and though Ryder looked for the source, she couldn't tell who was speaking. They all starred back at her through the same brown helmets, it was impossible to differentiate them.

A dozen guns lowered simultaneously. The air crackled with silence, the sudden turn of events taking everyone by surprise. Ryder pressed her lips together to keep from choking on the dust.

When she was sure she had everyone's attention, surrounded from the front by an unknown force intent on who knows what, motivated from the back by the force of lives dependent on her, she made her demands: "I go with you without a fight and they get to leave, unharmed." She raised her fingers to start a count. "And no one follows them. And you don't blindfold me, I'm not into that."

"We don't negotiate," one of the exiles spat at her. He rushed to fill the gap between them, his long legs making quick work of the distance. To illustrate his point, he swung his gun towards the stack of crates she had been cowering behind moments before. "You're the only one we require."

"I'll make it easy, there's no need to negotiate." She stepped in front of his gun and pulled her own, holding the muzzle to the space beneath her chin. "Someone wants me alive. Are you going to be the one to disappoint? In my experience, schemes like this tend to thrive when the person you're trying to take alive doesn't die."

"Come now, we can speak about this like adults." Jostled aside from behind, the exile yield the floor to the man whose voice matched the commands Ryder had been hearing.

Noticeably absent of any weapons, this one was dressed differently than the shock troops they had squared off against. No armor, dressed like a man running errands, Ryder wondered where he had been this whole time. He approached with his chin held high and arms folded loosely behind his back. About the same size as Ryder, he moved like a caged beast. Underestimating him based on his small stature hinted at being the wrong choice.

"Oh, no wonder I couldn't see you!" Ryder snapped her fingers together like she has just solved the most pressing mystery of the evening. "Did you use a megaphone to be heard from down there?"

He inspected Ryder like a disappointed teacher preparing to lecture his least favorite pupil. When his gaze swept over her, climbing slowly from her feet to the top of her head, her stomach soured and it took every ounce of defiance in her to hold his gaze. "Your terms are acceptable," he conceded. Without turning to the others he dictated a series of orders in a language she didn't recognize and her translator couldn't pick up.

With an expectant and wicked smile, he focused his attention on her once more and held out his hand. "Your weapon."

She had already decided when she saw Cora's barrier falter that she would be willing to do anything to get the other two off this damned astroid. "This is my favorite gun," she told him as she passed it over. "Keep it safe for me."

He examined the gun in his hand, the fingers of his free hand roaming over the barrel and grip before finding the clip release. Surprise, followed by a twisted smile of approval, blossomed across his shriveled features. "How bold."

"I was never very good at math, could have sworn I had one bullet left," Ryder said with a shrug. "I would never willingly deceive you."

Quick as a viper strike, he grasped her upper arm and jerked her forward, his grip strong enough to pinch her skin beneath the armor. The smile had melted, his face pulled into a scowl that left crevices in his brow and cheeks. "It would be best not to test me," he hissed in her ear before shoving her backwards. "Take her now!"

"NO!"

Ryder turned to see Jaal rushing from cover with his gun raised. Cora reached out to stop him, her hand closing on the edges of his cape before it ripped from her finger tips. She lowered her arm in defeat, agony etched deeply in her sallow features.

The air disappeared, sucked out of the room or else out of Ryder's lungs, speckles of dust halting their downward spiral to hang in the air like decoration. She counted the steps it would take for Jaal to reach her and the number of bullets that would hit their mark when he did.

Careening recklessly, she thrust herself in front of Jaal, her hands held out to stop him. She meant to yell at him, tell him to stop or urge him to turn back, but the words fizzed on her tongue when she heard the pop of a round being fired behind her.

It was hard to tell what was worse, the loss of feeling in her legs or the ripping sensation across her back that sent shockwaves of spams through her body. The ground was not kind as she bowed to meet it. Another sharp pain stabbed through her shoulder and she finally gasped, the air bubbling in her throat.

Through a rapidly narrowing tunnel, she saw Jaa thrown to the ground. A glimpse of a boot pressed against his chest. The muzzle of a gun swung low, an easy shot.

"Leave them!" She winced as the shout reverberated in her ear. "Get her out of here. When I find out who pulled the fucking trigger - "

Blissful darkness and silence finally enveloped her as frightfully strong arms gripped her around the middle, lifting her off the ground and into unconsciousness.

- x -

Cora heard the door's lock click seconds before it hissed open. She had triggered the motion activated mechanism being pressed so closely to the metal, but she was too tired to shift her body away from the door in time. Yelping in pain, she fell through the opening, tumbling onto the stairs, only a last second decision keeping her from snapping her wrists as she attempted to catch herself.

Starved of fresh air, she drew in as many lung fulls as she could handle without making herself black out. Even in the open she could smell the sweat and dust that clung to her. Without the stench, she might have confused the silence all around her for peace.

Bruised and limping, Jaal followed her out into the open, although his entrance was less dramatic. If he noticed the tumble Cora took, he didn't make a move to help her up. Instead he lowered himself to the top step.

The pair sat in silence, drifting through space the same as they had been when they had first left the Tempest. Neither could say how long ago that had been. Time had stopped for them while they had been trapped but apparently it had kept a linear path all around them.

"We lost the Pathfinder," Cora finally said.

"No, we have the Pathfinder." Jaal's hand found hers and he gave her a consolatory squeeze. "We lost something we can't replace."