"This is Dr. Emily Grey of the Federal Army of Chorus. Come in, Armonia."

There's a sputter of static, a cacophony of held-breath silence as the small ship bucks and swoops its way through another patch of extreme turbulence. Vanessa reaches for a hand-hold, settles for leaning against the wall of the cargo bay, tries to convince herself that this is just like her old commute on the maglev train to the university. The ship is shuddering beneath her outstretched palm, and she suppresses the ridiculous urge to give it a comforting pat.

Cutting through another burst of static: "General Doyle, here. Emily, you're alive!"

Grey leans back, rubbing the back of her hand against her helmet, leaving a smear of blood across the faceplate. "Yup, I'm super alive. But we're gonna need medical support when we land. Tucker here's been leaving his blood all over the place against my recommendation. It's kind of interesting how much you can do without and still survive, but he's probably hitting that limit about now."

A pause. Vanessa wonders, a little maliciously, whether Doyle's gone pale at this semi-graphic description, whether he's on the verge of fainting. But he only says, "I understand. I'll patch you through to the medics on the ground here and ensure they're ready to meet you. And Emily? Be careful up there. It's our ship and our pilot, but there are a lot of rebels aboard."

Simmons, perched on a bench next to Dr. Grey, glances up sharply at Vanessa, who shakes her head. Grey ignores them both, uncapping a syringe of biofoam borrowed from the pilot's IFAK. "Will do, boss. Hey, Tucker, this is going to hurt, like, a lot."

"Thank fuck," Tucker says. His voice is soft and shaky, but when Vanessa cranes her neck beyond the press of bodies surrounding his makeshift stretcher, she can see him rolling his eyes. "Maybe I'll pass out and I won't have to listen to Palomo's crying anymore."

"My captain's so brave," Palomo wails. Smith, standing beside him, sighs and pats him on the shoulder. Bitters just kicks him in the shin.

"Shut the fuck up, Palomo," Tucker says, in a fond sort of way, then hisses when Grey moves forward with the needle.

It's not that Vanessa has an irrational fear of needles, exactly. It's just that she's been on both ends of battlefield injections enough times to have cultivated a purely rational fear of needles. She looks away, swallowing hard, and makes another grab for the wall when the ship shakes violently.

At the other end of the cargo hold, as far from the crowd as it's possible to get in a tiny ship being tossed around like a tin can, the two Freelancers are sitting side-by-side. Vanessa moves in a little closer, partly to escape the medical proceedings, partly out of curiosity. These two were, after all, supposed to be the salvation of the New Republic. Two valorous Freelancers to lead them to victory.

Right now, they don't look especially valorous. The one in grey armor with a helmet at his feet—Agent Washington—is sitting with his head tilted back, a wad of cloth pressed to his bloodied, broken nose. By process of elimination, Agent Carolina is the one shoring him up against the corner of the hold with one shoulder pressed into his. She's still in full armor, the bright blue-green marred only by scuff marks and a couple spots where blood is welling through hairline cracks.

Even as Vanessa watches, Carolina shifts, presses her palm to the back of Washington's head, then pushes his head forward, down toward his knees. "Hey," she says. "You know you're gonna choke or throw up if you lean back like that. Lean forward."

Washington gives a nasal and particularly pathetic-sounding sigh. Blood drips onto the deck when he adjusts the cloth at his nose. "Okay, boss," he says, then coughs when Carolina puts more of her weight into leaning on the back of his head, tousling his improbably white-blond hair. "C'mon," he groans, but he's smiling behind the bloody cloth.

Carolina looks up, catches Vanessa staring, and pops to her feet, giving Washington a little shove on her way up. "General Kimball," she says. The grin in her voice is pure adrenaline. "We spoke over the radio."

"That's right," Vanessa says, a little blankly. The details of the past few hours have mostly been washed out by the waves of panic unfurling in her gut. She keeps tracing events back and back and back, holding them up, examining them in a new light. Her promotion to general at Felix's strong recommendation, for instance... "It looks like Dr. Grey has stabilized Tucker. I'm glad your team made it through okay."

Carolina glances back at Washington, then, more hesitantly, shifts her gaze to encompass the Reds and Blues. "Yeah," she says. "When Tucker suggested this plan, I have to admit I wasn't expecting him to follow through the way he did. He's the reason this worked at all."

Washington snorts. "He's gonna want that in writing," he says. "And as for the Reds and Blues, I hate to say I told you so, but..."

She reaches over to give him a little shove, and Vanessa watches, fascinated, as the tired smile spreads again across Washington's face. The Freelancers aren't quite what she was expecting based on the minimal intel she's managed to dig up, not to mention the Captains' baffling and often physically impossible descriptions of them. At this point, fire-breathing drill sergeant dragons wouldn't have surprised her, but this easy and exhausted camaraderie is just... familiar. Ordinary.

She catches herself staring again, and this time Carolina stares back with a casual, hip-slung stance, apparently unconcerned by the massive unstable electric field that's threatening to shake the ship to pieces. Dragging herself to some semblance of attention, Vanessa says, "We'll have medical personnel waiting to triage you when we get to Armonia."

"It's mostly a lot of bumps and bruises," Carolina says. "Apart from Tucker." She nudges Washington again, a little more gently. "And you."

"I've had worse," Washington says.

"You were unconscious for almost half an hour," Carolina says. There's a new thread of steel in her voice. "I know, par for the course, but Locus must have left you alive deliberately. Better to get you checked out now."

Washington's brow furrows when Carolina mentions Locus's name; not in anger, but in confusion. Vanessa thinks that at some point she'd better have her people get a report from the Reds and Blues who've been stationed with the Feds all this time.

Right. Her people. It occurs to her that she hasn't even seen a casualty report yet. The turbulence has been letting up as they move further out of range of the destroyed jamming tower, but her gut's still lurching, the back of her throat tasting adrenaline-bitter.

"We'll get accommodations ready for all of you once we land," she promises, a little desperately. "If nothing else, I'm sure Doyle can set something up."

"You're pretty quick to trust him," Carolina says. She crosses her arms, cocks her head to one side. "This could still be an elaborate assassination attempt. Crash the ship. Take us all out in one convenient fiery explosion."

Vanessa feels her hands clench into fists and relaxes them with an effort. "I wouldn't send my people on a Federal Army ship alone. Everyone needs this show of trust right now. Besides, Doyle's as much a victim as we are in all this." The words are sour in her mouth. "We'll find a way to help. It's the least we can do after you... after we..."

Carolina moves a step closer, rests a hand on Vanessa's shoulder, her grip heavy and firm on the join between her pauldron and chestplate. Vanessa jolts away, startled, and Carolina draws back, keeps her hand raised for a moment in apology. "You're doing fine," she says. "We've been talking about this. We'd like to help the people of Chorus in any way we can before moving forward with our own plans. Feel free to draw on our experience, okay? We know a thing or two about betrayals."

Washington snorts, then lapses into a coughing fit. When Carolina turns to look at him, Vanessa says, too quickly, "I appreciate the offer," and retreats to the cockpit to stand awkwardly in a corner while the Fed pilot makes an obvious effort to ignore her presence.

From here, she has an open view of the planet rushing past below, green and lush and impossibly distant. It's stunning. She figures maybe she's spent too long comforted by the enclosure of cave walls.

Moving forward a little, she cranes her neck to look at the sky. They're flying low enough that the stars aren't visible beyond the cloudy blue of the atmosphere, but something about the rumble of ship's engines beneath her feet, the smell of recirculated air, dredges up memories of longer flights in her youth, of endless starscapes. She wonders, vaguely, whether the Freelancers ever forgot what it was like to live with both feet on the ground.

The remembered weight and warmth of Carolina's hand on her shoulder is already fading. She knows the Freelancers' offer of aid will last exactly as long as it remains convenient for them to stay. Which means, as always, that Chorus will just have to take care of its own.

She takes a deep breath and opens a comm link to the capital.

The Reds and Blues leave two months later.

Epsilon picks up a trail, something he calls 'Hargrove's evil breadcrumbs', leading to one of Chorus's moons. It's the best chance they've had to run Hargrove down, and Tucker spends an hour that morning trying to convince Vanessa to come with them, pacing up and down the length of her office, talking agitatedly with his hands.

"There's so much going on," Vanessa says, when he finally winds down and slumps into a chair across from her. "I can barely afford to take a long lunch. If I leave on a mission like this, one with no set endpoint, we risk losing the concessions the Federal Army has offered us altogether. Palomo will go with you, I think. The others have duties here."

Tucker groans, scrubs at his face with the palm of his hand. "I have duties here, which first of all, why the fuck do I care about paperwork all of a sudden so fuck you, and also, this is kinda messing me up. I want to stay and help. But If we have a chance at kicking the shit out of Hargrove for a while..."

"You should take that chance," Vanessa says. She smiles, crookedly. "You're good at this restructuring stuff, but you're not irreplaceable, Tucker. We'll do okay without you. And you're always welcome to come back to stay someday."

He blinks, startled, like the possibility's never actually occurred to him before now. "Yeah?"

She leans back in her chair and broadens her smile. "Chorus could use a hero like you. The offer stands, when all this is over. And hey, bring your kid."

Tucker smiles. Doesn't smirk, doesn't leer, just smiles, shy and genuine. "I told Wash that Sanghelios is our next stop, assuming we all survive this. He started stammering and got all high-pitched-panicky and shit. This is gonna be hilarious." He stands, pushes his hands into the pockets of his ordinary black fatigues. "Hey, thanks. I mean that. You New Republic assholes kinda fucked me up, but I think I'm okay with it."

Vanessa stands as well, leans across her desk to shake his hand. "That's our specialty. And Tucker? Can you send Carolina in here at some point? I've enjoyed working with her, and I'd like to get her opinion on a few more matters before you guys leave."

"Uh," says Tucker. "You didn't hear? Wash and Carolina left a few hours ago to scout out the moon for us. They're already gone."

Vanessa sits down. "Oh," she says. "That's all right, then."

Tucker furrows his brow, cocks his head to one side. "For what it's worth, Carolina's not big on goodbyes. It's sort of her thing."

Swallowing a sigh, Vanessa tells herself she's mostly just irritated at all the incomplete paperwork this has dumped unceremoniously on her door. Chorus will look after its own. "So I've heard. Good luck, Tucker. Take care of yourself."

He watches her a second longer, then grins and says, "Yeah. I'm real good at taking care of myself. Bow-chicka—"

Vanessa has to put her head down on her folded arms and laugh.

Two days later, Vanessa is slumped over her desk, fading in and out of an exhausted doze over the military working group's latest action plan, when the door to her office opens without preamble. She coughs and sits up, rubbing at her sore neck, says, "Next time, you should probably kno—"

She stops.

Carolina's hair catches her eye first. The dye's been fading out over the past few weeks, but now it's back to a vibrant blood-of-your-enemies red, growing messily out of its close-cropped cut. What's also new is the stripe of fluorescent blue-green, a color Vanessa immediately recognizes as originating from the dye brewed up by some of the more chemically-minded soldiers of the New Republic using the radioactive algae in the lake near their old headquarters. It's a political statement, she thinks, that might muddy waters in the ongoing integration with the Federal Army.

Her brain ticks over. Carolina. Here. Now. "You left," she says.

Carolina shrugs. There's a smugness to her casual stance, a half-smile on her lips that she keeps tamping down. She does that a lot, probably forgets her face isn't hidden by a helmet anymore. "Just to scout out the moon, make sure those assholes weren't walking straight into a trap. I mean, it was definitely a trap, but Wash and I managed to clear it out. He's leading them in. I came back once I knew my team would be safe." She squints at Vanessa. "Were you sleeping?"

Vanessa shrugs, straightens the datapad on her desk. "Long night. You left a lot of things half-finished, you know."

Carolina grins, drops a whole stack of datapads in front of Vanessa. "Military working group's fourth draft of the action plan. Got it finished on the shuttle ride over here."

Vanessa touches the front page with one hand. Carolina's New Republic fatigues are clean, but there's grit and dirt caked into the reader's screen. "You could've said something. I'm glad to see you, Carolina, but you can't just leave like that without—" She sighs, pushes the sleep-flattened hair out of her eyes. "I already reassigned your office."

Gradually, as she speaks, Carolina's smile fades to a look of concern. Confusion. "You really didn't think I was coming back."

For a moment, the exhaustion and frustration and relief take over, and Vanessa says, "I'm not just another stepping stone on your road to redemption, you know. This isn't something you can do nights and weekends to, to make yourself feel better about the things you've done. If you're here, you're here to commit. There are a lot of lives at stake. We matter."

Carolina actually flinches, and then, without missing a beat, snaps to perfect attention. Her voice, when she speaks, is tense and cold and, Vanessa realizes, desperately apologetic. "I never said you didn't matter."

Vanessa watches her for a moment, the way her knees are locked, the way she's looking fixedly at the wall just over Vanessa's right shoulder, the way her face is frozen and pale and expressionless. This acceptance, this expectation of a dressing-down, she thinks, is an old habit for Carolina. She feels like there's a stone sinking slowly in her gut, a slow, horrific realization unfurling.

"I'm sorry," Vanessa says. Carolina blinks once, slowly. "That was unfair. You've put in a lot of work, and I appreciate the help. I'm just exhausted and a little overwhelmed that you're here, is all. And I wish you'd told me you were coming back."

The mask crumbles a little; Carolina meets her eyes again. "I should be the one apologizing. I guess I made an assumption that you knew..." She stops, takes a breath, goes back to staring at the wall.

"Sit down," Vanessa says, and then, because Carolina falls more than sits in the chair across from her, she adds, "Have you had anything to eat since you got back?"

"I came straight here," Carolina says, and leans back in the chair, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thought I'd surprise you."

Vanessa snorts. "Well, you certainly managed that. I'm calling out for curry. In the meantime, you can work here, if you'd like. It might be some time before we have another office free."

Carolina nods, reaches for one of the datapads, and sits crosslegged in the chair. After a moment, she says, "General, I have a report to make."

Vanessa glances up at her, but the formality is more self-consciously polite than anything else. She crosses her arms, pushing back in her chair. "I'm not gonna like this, am I?"

Carolina sighs heavily. "I was debating whether or not to bring it up, whether to maybe start investigating myself, but you deserve to know. We ran into some of Felix's goons on the moon, got some information from them. They've got people embedded in both the New Republic and the Federal Army. Key positions, by the sound of things."

"Yeah," says Vanessa, tapping her fingers against the edge of her desk. "We knew that from the start. A few have been caught out. Others are being fed misinformation."

Carolina shakes her head. "No, I mean, new converts. People who're unsatisfied with the merger with the Federal Army. People you might otherwise trust."

Vanessa shrugs. "Okay," she says. "We'll keep an eye out."

Carolina actually does a double-take. "We'll keep an eye out? These people could be planning, I don't know, assassinations. And it's not gonna be the people you're watching, the ones who're sitting on the fence, it's gonna be the people who believe in your cause the most strongly, your most trusted allies. Do you understand that?"

"Yeah," says Vanessa again, leaning forward. "I do. Let me remind you of something, Carolina: it's in Hargrove's best interest to sow chaos and suspicion in our ranks. He can accomplish that by planting spies, riling up the extremists, or he can do that by sending you here to spark a witch-hunt." She shrugs. "Given the option, I'd rather trust my team. I'd rather have my trust betrayed again than be the one to betray theirs."

Carolina actually splutters for a moment before finding her words. "Even after what happened with Felix?"

"Especially after what happened with Felix."

Carolina stands, shakily, leans forward against the desk between them. "Then let me be paranoid for you, General. Let me be the one to doubt them. I can start pulling some histories, look for connections." She wilts a little under Vanessa's calm gaze. "I'll be subtle. Nothing overt. Just another set of eyes on the situation."

"Okay."

Carolina says, "I'm not going to back down on this," then pauses, seems to backtrack over the conversation. "Okay?"

"Yeah," says Vanessa. "Okay. It sounds like a reasonable precaution. I imagine you could be discreet if you really put your mind to it. And I'd appreciate the intelligence reports."

The crack about her discretion earns her a suspicious squint from Carolina, but then her face melts into a relieved smile. "Okay," she says. "I'll start investigating."

"Sounds like a plan," says Vanessa and, in the same breath, adds, "I like your hair."

When Carolina blushes, it's a fascinating process that starts with a faint flush at the back of her neck and spreads to her cheeks and the tips of her ears. But her voice is warm and steady when she says, "Yours looks like you just mashed it into your desk while you were sleeping on the job. Get some rest next time, huh?" Grinning, she folds herself back into the chair with her datapad.

Vanessa smiles into her hand and pulls up a list of curry delivery menus.