Less Resistance, More Dalliance
Author's Note: This story is a sequel to Resistances and Dalliances and should be read in that order to understand the plot.
Chapter 1: Sparkling Darkness
"Pathfinder," a woman's voice said behind Ryder, and she tore her eyes away from the stunning view of the swirling clouds of the system. She found herself staring at the angaran information analyst she had roped into working for her a week ago; Yara, Ryder recalled name. "That report you wanted?" Yara proffered a datapad.
Ryder smiled slightly and nodded in dismissal as she accepted the pad. Reading rapidly, she spoke before Yara was fully out of the door. "More Roekaar recruiting on Voeld? I thought they'd abandon that long since," Ryder frowned.
Yara paused. "They're certainly persistent," she allowed, "but by now everyone knows how they were fooled. They are no longer the threat they once were… or the inspiration." Her misty green eyes were clear with a conviction that Ryder could only interpret as loyalty.
Ryder smiled as the woman left, feeling warmed. Yara was by far not the only member of the Resistance to step forward and reassure her with words or with feeling, or both, that she was included in that loyalty now. She was family, and even if she wasn't part of the Resistance officially, there was a small group who accepted her for more than just Evfra's 'companion'; it was a show of love not just for him, but for his feelings in a way that Ryder found inspiring. Her smile dimmed as she remembered Tajix again; he had been one such. In fact, he had been loyal to Evfra in a way that let him see what happened between the Resistance leader and Ryder in a way everyone else had been blind to. His death had happened months ago now, but it still felt like a raw hole drowning in tears that she skirted every time she remembered him.
Sighing, the pad about the Roekaar joined a small pile on her desk; there was another about the notorious group, but most troubling were the whispers of 'The True Resistance' cropping up in the most unexpected places. Ashae. The thought of her was a splinter that kept digging itself deeper every time she tried to work out what she could possibly do to fix that mess. Briefly Ryder scattered them and read a few lines of each pad, trying to visualize them as pieces in her mind that she shuffled like a puzzle, arranging and rearranging each report and placing them into a theoretical chronology that would tell her what the lieutenant – the leader now, she supposed – had been up to lately. At the moment, however, thoughts of Roekaar or even Ashae were trivial compared to the situation she now faced; she decided she had stalled in facing that situation long enough, the message had come over ten minutes ago already. She left the room.
The last time she had been in Evfra's office at Resistance Headquarters, Ryder had been embarking on the most harrowing mission she and Evfra had experienced together, leaving Aya in Veraan's freighter. So many parts of the plan had been based on guesswork of what Firaan's plans had been that she still shivered to think how many ways it could have gone wrong. How it had gone wrong, despite working so perfectly according to plan; but as ever, Firaan himself was the wildcard that shuffled the deck. Mashiar, she corrected herself. Her mind wanted to shy away from his memory, especially of the things he had said and done, but she was determined to face it with strength and determination. The angara have completely rewritten my thinking, she thought wryly, realizing the direction her thoughts had taken. It was true, though.
"More fires to put out," she muttered as she drew closer to Evfra's new office. She slowed and surveyed the exterior; it was intimidating, in that way Evfra had of remodeling the energies of a place to shout from a mile away that the leader of the Resistance resided within, but there were familiarities in this particular structure that gave her an advantage.
She walked in – and immediately stopped dead, though her shock was feigned.
"Ryder," Director Tann said in that flatly polite neutrality he had mastered.
"Director," she nodded, casually walking to the side of the room to cross her arms and sit back on her heel.
"Isn't there some pathfinding you should be out there doing?" Addison asked from beside Tann, glaring her disapproval.
Ryder tilted her head. "I am the liaison to the angara… and here is the most important angara I need to speak to at this time when alliances between our peoples are so fragile," she said blithely.
Inwardly Ryder smiled as she imagined Addison gritting her teeth over that response, as she surely was doing right that moment, but there was too much political wind between her and Tann at the moment for her to lower herself to outright debating with her. She wasn't an idiot after all, she knew Ryder was really here to resolve what their little group couldn't do by themselves, namely come to any sort of agreement at all with the Resistance leader, a fact which probably grated at the colonial director as much as anything else; moreover, Addison was openly not happy with how much the Pathfinder managed to wrangle out of them that was to Evfra's favor, but she couldn't argue with either the results or the arguments and the obligation Ryder quoted to them. This wasn't the first time that a member of the Resistance was the one to find and summon her to Evfra's office, she was sure that the directors would have preferred her to keep away while they argued until nothing really happened.
"I am sure there is room for another voice," Evfra said dryly and Ryder's eyes immediately fixed on him. She tried not to drink him in too obviously, but it was hard; lately she had to avoid looking at him in public or risk getting completely sidetracked as she quietly plotted how to redress the balance between them for all his stubbornness and, on a more personal level, how to make sure that everything was as well as it could be between them.
"I have excellent reasons," she replied, smiling. Evfra's stormy eyes studied her with a frown, but he did not seem surprised. None of them did; this scenario had played out too many times before.
"As I explained, Director," Evfra's eyes swiveled back to Tann, his tone deteriorating into cynicism as he spoke the title, "I need those pilots, my people down there need air support. The Initiative offered its aid, this is how I need that aid today."
Tann gave Ryder a very withering look before visibly squaring himself before Evfra. "We need to make regular shipments to Eos. Without pilots we are set back weeks, their colonization efforts are set back weeks. It simply can't be done."
Well, that had technically been her fault, Ryder mused; she had promised Evfra a lot when striking a deal to let the Resistance – the actual Resistance lead by Evfra – to use Initiative resources, in exchange for staging their operations against Ashae from the Nexus. It was a plan that neither the Resistance nor the Initiative were particularly thrilled about in some ways, but the potential opportunities were more than convincing enough, once she pointed them out to each leader. At the time she had hatched the plan, there seemed to simply be no other way to move forward quickly and effectively in the aftermath of the lieutenant's betrayal, but even then she had known it would be like pulling teeth.
"Which is why I am sending my pilots to do those runs," Evfra said irritably.
"Who are tired and make mistakes," Addison pointed out in a calm, firm voice; though her glare was much farther from friendly than her tone was. "There is no room for error, our colony will fail and die without our support."
"Flying supplies tired is better than fighting tired," Evfra replied flatly.
Ryder sighed softly. After all the mistrust and animosity Mashiar had wedged between their peoples, Ryder was sure that on the one hand, the Initiative would have fallen short on their promises of support had Evfra not agreed to combine forces in a more literal sense and, on the other hand, she was sure that Evfra would have tried to win the struggle against Ashae and the war with the kett all by himself with the scattered Resistance cells that remained to him. She had made sure that Evfra was in charge of the operations, not wanting to cause an outright civil war among the angara due to the inept fumbling of the likes of Tann, but she had demanded that the Resistance leader include the Initiative as well as be physically present; which, as this moment demonstrated, meant frequent bickering over logistics and priorities between the directors and Evfra that went in circles until they exhausted themselves; it usually required the Initiative's liaison, her,to smooth things over between them for anything to get done. Not that anyone thanked her for it.
"Why don't we use it as a training opportunity?" Ryder cut in before they could continue. She walked closer to Evfra's desk, parceling out convincing stares between the directors. "We need more pilots, there's no getting around that, and the Resistance fighters do need rest. They could train our people and have more time to take it easy on the journey to Eos and back."
Evfra frowned at her slightly, but he nodded. "It is a sensible suggestion. I will even send my best supply runner, if you have a promising student to pair him with."
"That could work," Addison said musingly, frowning into the distance, but it was a speculative frown this time, not an angry one.
"It could work or get both groups killed," Tann said stiffly, but he finally nodded his head. "Very well. In light of our cooperation, the Initiative is willing to lend its aid."
"Offer its aid," Evfra corrected with a glower.
Tann cleared his throat. "Yes, quite." Again his eyes slid to Ryder, clearly saying to her that this was definitely her fault.
Ryder gave him as innocent a stare as she could as they murmured their partings and proudly stalked out. Before they were even out the door Ryder's full attention returned to Evfra and she prepared herself for the grumbling that inevitably came after one of these 'encounters'; it usually ended in an argument that boiled down to which one of them was in charge of what, and unfortunately, he won a good deal of those arguments. It was ridiculous how easily the man got under her skin and somehow had her dancing to his tune without her even realizing it; the only thing that made it tolerable was that she appeared to have an equal power over him, if she only remembered to use it.
So far as she was aware, Evfra never consciously used their relationship to manipulate her, but Ryder kept expecting him to do it, though he definitely did have an unconscious effect on her that did unfortunate things to her judgement. Sometimes he would just look at her a certain way or his fingers would brush hers and she was hard pressed not to go doe-eyed and weak-kneed and to cave to every suggestion he made, though in all fairness part of that could be attributed to the stunned disbelief Ryder still felt every day that everyone knew about them now. Moreover, most everyone liked the idea. That was harder to get used to than the few times Evfra hadn't bothered to make sure no one was around them or looking when he stole a kiss or gripped her hand briefly. Perhaps she really wasn't the best choice as liaison to the Angaran Resistance, but there was no getting around the fact that she was still the only one really qualified for the job.
"Evfra," Ryder said conversationally. "Do you have time?"
"No," Evfra grunted. "Your directors keep pestering me with trivial problems that I need to attend to." He didn't quite glare at her, but it was clear that he was no less pleased by the fact that he had to deal with them than they did dealing with him.
Ryder crossed her arms. "You wouldn't want to cause a diplomatic incident by ignoring the Initiative's official liaison, would you?"
He narrowed his eyes at her, but evidently decided to humor her. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, stepping closer. He didn't do anything, but he appeared to be quietly savoring her closeness anyway; at least, that was as far as he seemed to intend to go while they were in his office.
"Well, you might stop putting off showing me your apartment," Ryder said casually, trying to ignore the sudden urge she had to sink into his embrace and forget the universe for a time. "I know my quarters on the Tempest are comfy, but I'm starting to think you're hiding something."
Evfra grunted. "I don't hide things – not from you."
"Then what's the harm?" she asked playfully, though the subject really did bother her.
"There is nothing special about it. I go there to sleep, nothing more."
"And to get away from things," Ryder replied pointedly. "What makes it special is that it's your space. Unless you want to keep me out?" A hint of concern threaded her tone; she didn't want to alienate the Resistance leader by being too needy, but a part of her couldn't help but wonder at his repeated rebuffs of her attempts to get him to take her there.
It was wonderful to be able to be open about their relationship, within reason, but at the heart of it that relationship had been founded on its clandestineness. By her estimation, in the beginning they would have sought out his apartment on the Nexus before going anywhere else, once they had committed to continuing their dalliance in the first place of course, while in public they would have restricted themselves to mere glances; now, Evfra met her aboard her ship and invited her to his office – often to put out fires like the one she had earlier – and more often than not their time spent together was infused with discussions about how to hold together the Angaran Resistance, countering kett incursions and swapping techniques on how to get what they wanted from Nexus leadership. In a way, that cloak of secrecy about their romance had offered an intimacy that Ryder now found she missed more than a little.
Evfra frowned down at her. "How many hours do you have here?"
"A few at least," she replied. "I have some leads I want to follow up on that won't wait for me."
Studying her face, he sighed in frustration. "We're not getting any work done, are we."
Ryder shook her head firmly.
"Can we at least…"
"Evfra," Ryder interrupted. "If you don't want me there, just say so, but don't insult me by coming up with more excuses."
"I don't make excuses," Evfra grumbled. "That doesn't mean I enjoy wasting precious time."
"How is it a waste?" she demanded.
"I didn't mean it that way and you know it," he grimaced.
"Every time we've met in the past week we've done nothing but plan. I want to be able to come here and put that aside for a while," she said seriously.
"Our enemies won't stop and wait for us," Evfra stared a challenge at her, but the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth betrayed that he was enjoying the debate as much as it exasperated him. Ryder thought it must have been hard for him to restrain himself around Tann and the others to preserve diplomatic relations, as much as he bothered to make an effort in that way in the first place. He was here at their sufferance to a degree and the directors never let him forget it, so in a very real sense she was his only outlet apart from the members of the Resistance; but they were his subordinates, shouting at them probably meant more harm done than good. Unexpectedly he sighed and nodded. "Very well. I will take you to my apartment."
Ryder bit her lip, feeling conflicted. She did want to be supportive and give Evfra what he really needed and if that meant arguing with her, then so be it; but at the same time, she craved that connection with him, their moments of bonding had been few and far between since he had been marooned here in this political nightmare while she gallivanted about the cluster looking for Resistance pockets that hadn't chosen a side yet, or fixing problems Tann or outpost leaders threw her way. Ultimately strengthening their bond would do him as much good as it did her though, so she made her decision and finally nodded her assent. Following him out, she kept a professional poise a step behind him as he gave instructions to one of his lieutenants to look after things in his absence and then they were on their way.
The journey didn't take long, though the apartment that had been assigned to the Resistance leader was not exactly close to his office and Ryder took time to really look around once they disembarked the tram and headed down a walkway. She hadn't been very far out on the arms of the Nexus before, having no reason to go there, but it didn't feel like a new experience; a lot of it reminded her strongly of the Presidium on the Citadel, although it didn't quite have the same pristine, almost sterile quality to it. Before long they had arrived at Evfra's door and he opened it with some reluctance, gesturing her inside.
"Well, this is it," he said, stepping inside after her.
Ryder turned around slowly, running eyes over the almost empty room, imagining Evfra coming in here alone to sit on the single armchair facing the tinted glass wall that looked out onto the rest of the arm, or crashing into the small bed nestled in a dark alcove of the single room that opened to the left which she could just make out if she craned her neck a little. The only decoration was a plant in the corner opposite the chair and a lamp on a small table next to it, yet somehow despite the starkness there was a certain ambiance to the place that she rather liked. She stepped further inside, approaching the armchair to take in the view fully. Maybe the dimmed lights were the reason she felt comfortable, or the muted sounds of activity that filtered through like the living breath of the Nexus. Each time Kesh and her crew fixed up another section and readied it for inhabitation Ryder imagined the Nexus' pulse quickening, being brought to life, yet even if tens of thousands more souls moved into this arm, these apartments were clearly designed to be insular enough to afford privacy, shrouded in relative quiet.
A few trees and grass accessible from the apartment beneath Evfra's lent serenity to the view off the small balcony just beyond the glass wall, as if someone had taken a slice of Earth and replanted it here. If she lay down on the balcony, just enough of the nearest tree would be visible set against the backdrop of the artificial sky that she could almost fool herself into believing she really was on Earth and not on a space station. Evfra stepped up behind her and pulled her close and for a long moment they stood there, watching the facsimile of clouds roll by, ignoring the almost inaudible hum of the station around them. In her mind though, Ryder couldn't help but wonder about their relationship; Evfra seemed to be as loving as ever, maybe even more so, despite how little time they could spend together, yet she couldn't help but feel that there were pressures being placed on him that she couldn't see that might threaten what they had. She never again wanted to be forced to face the kind of choices in loyalty Firaan – Mashiar – had provoked, but what really bothered her about the subject was that to this day she wasn't sure what she would choose if she really had to. Who and what held her true loyalty?
"We haven't really… talked that much about what's changed," Ryder said, hesitating a little. She was treading on delicate ground, but there was only so many times they could avoid the subject; it had been months already.
"Is that why you wanted to bring me here?" Evfra asked.
"No," Ryder said hastily. "I really wanted to see it."
"So does my apartment live up to your expectations?"
Ryder smiled up at him over her shoulder. "With you here it does." Her smile faded. "But you've avoided the question."
For a long moment Evfra stared out over the balcony at the sweeping expanse of the Nexus, a small frown creasing his forehead. "Almost every order I give has to be confirmed more than once, with assurances that the Initiative is not the one speaking through me. Many cells that allied with us over Ashae still question – I lost control of the Resistance as they see it."
"Because of us?"
"No," Evfra shook his head, his grip around her waist tightening fractionally. "Because I am here. But the Resistance needs the Initiative now… but many will not see the need and only see that I answer their every demand."
Ryder considered. "That's why you push back so much… is that also the reason why you only come to me now instead of letting me in?" she looked up at him again. His eyes were glacial looking out at the view, but when they fell on her they softened to a storm at bay, though still troubled.
He sighed in frustration. "It shouldn't be this way. First the secrecy… now politics," he said in disgust.
"I understand, Evfra," Ryder said gently. It was good to know that it bothered him as much as it did her; she could work with that. As long as he wasn't pulling away from her.
A pinging sound interrupted their conversation and Ryder turned as Evfra released her, bringing up his comm. "This had better be important," Evfra growled.
"Apologies, Evfra. You said you wish to be informed if we detected any open movement from Ashae," Yara's voice said. Evfra and Ryder locked eyes.
"Go on," Evfra commanded impatiently.
"She has been reported to have met with the leader of the krogans."
"Call a meeting," Evfra said tiredly, lowering his arm as the comm channel closed.
Ryder groaned. "Morda," she said. "This could get ugly if she's receiving Ashae… and not ripping out throats."
"You know this Morda better than I," Evfra frowned. "How likely is it that she would ally with Ashae?"
"With our history?" Ryder snorted, crossed her arms. "Too much for comfort. The krogans have no loyalty to the Nexus, with reason."
"I need to send scouts… perhaps your people," Evfra mused. "We need to know what they are talking about before we make a move."
"Wait, no – we can't send Initiative to spy on the krogan, that would be a complete disaster if they were discovered! They're not recon specialists."
"Apex could do it," he said, also crossing his arms.
"I can't have Kandros pull them away now, you know kett activity is way up, especially around Initiative outposts, we don't have the kind of protection your bases do."
"If the krogan ally with Ashae, the kett will be the least of your problems," Evfra pointed out.
Ryder shook her head in denial, but another thought occurred to her. "Why the krogan? I thought Ashae was all about purity from aliens."
"Because she is an intelligent woman, she knows their 'True Resistance' can't survive against the Angaran Resistance and the Initiative working together for long. All she would remain as is a splinter group until she has her own version of our alliance."
"But she hates aliens, the people who follow her definitely do."
"She's no Roekaar," Evfra replied.
"Yet, Roekaar activity is up – and I think Ashae may be involved. Either way," she forestalled Evfra's counterargument, "the krogan would never agree to a partnership where they are the lesser half and Ashae's power is based on no contamination of Resistance leadership… the whole reason she left was because of you and I."
"It wasn't that alone," he replied.
Ryder bit her lip, coming to a decision. "Evfra, we need to go there. You need to go there."
"No," Evfra shook his head. "I cannot be seen as a supplicant to the krogan in addition to accepting the Initiative's charity," the edges of his tone were crusted with the bitterness of needing their aid, but Ryder hadn't realized how much the alliance bothered him in its present incarnation. Perhaps it was past time to get him away from here before this whole arrangement imploded in her face.
"Not as supplicants," Ryder said slowly. "But as allies, real allies. Our Resistance doesn't require other species to be less and that will appeal to Morda."
"You just said that she wants nothing to do with the Nexus… you represent the Nexus."
"Which is why you need to be there also. I've already approached her about our affairs, we have a… relationship of sorts, but I can't represent the angara." Evfra was silent for a long time considering her. "Think about it," Ryder continued. "Spying on her will only enrage the krogan and it won't help our standing with them in any case, we need to play Ashae's game and beat her at it, prove to the krogan that we're the better option."
Finally Evfra sighed and nodded. "Very well."
Ryder smiled. "As a bonus, you won't have to listen to Tann or the others anymore."
Evfra grunted, glancing around his apartment as if saying goodbye. "When the stars call… it is wisest to listen."
