"Trust your friend."

Barry disappears; the Dominators retreat.

Were the situation not so dire, it would be a relief to check the satellite feed at STAR Labs and see a pod-free Earth. Instead, it creates a quiet, halting panic in Oliver's chest. He can barely hear Felicity and Cisco's conversation, gaze arrested by the empty image. The Dominators don't belong on Earth, but they should be there.

Their absence can only mean one thing.

Closing his eyes, Oliver takes in a deep breath. There's a tension in the room that no amount of calming speeches can suppress and neither he nor Sara nor Kara attempt to give them. They let it linger between them, building to unbearable proportions, until he opens his eyes and stares at the blank monitor.

They can't track Barry because the alien ships have an in-built device that creates a technological dead zone, but they can track the armada. They haven't left Earth's orbit – twenty minutes of prep time is still a tall order for any species to vanish into deep space – but Oliver knows it's only a matter of time. Once they're gone, their team won't find them any time soon.

He could spend the rest of his life searching for Barry and never find him.

The urgency to their search is palpable and Oliver misses Barry's calming presence, the way the lightning warms the room without overpowering it. It's like a safety blanket, a tie-in to Barry's big smiles and enthusiasm. The gentling power it has cannot be underestimated: Oliver has seen it work on kids and adults, even animals. He hopes – dares to hope – that it has a mildly persuasive effect on his enemies.

Assuming they haven't disabled his Speed somehow.

Then it clicks. His Speed.

"Thermal image scan," he says out loud. "Felicity," he adds, meeting her eyes, and the oh my God realization is quick to sink in as she swaps the images.

The alien ships provide a blanket of heat, disguising the overall field in white noise, but the aliens on board are still distinct, warmer than the metal around them. Including, Oliver sees with heart-pounding triumph, an unmistakably bright point near the center of the swarm.

"Terrific," Ray says out loud, caught between actual enthusiasm and doomed concern. "We found him. Now how do we get him out?"

Oliver hears a whirring noise as a gun powers up, Mick hoisting his heat gun and offering gruffly, "The old-fashioned way."

"He's not wrong," Nate chimes in – Oliver glares at him, agitated and eager to proceed – "the Waverider is equipped for combat."

"I always loved Galactica," Ray muses.

Then the bright white point on screen vanishes.

The silence in the room is a glass sheet of ice. Mick breaks it. "What the hell?" he growls, leaning towards the monitor. "He turn off his speed or something?"

He can't. Oliver can't speak, feeling that choking tightness in his throat again, very aware that their odds of finding Barry alive are decreasing by the second. "We know where he is," he forces out loud. "That's enough."

"You can't actually be serious," Felicity says, turning in her seat to look at him. Oliver snaps another arrow to his arm, meeting her gaze with dead-seriousness. "It would be suicidal."

I don't care. If he waits, they don't have a chance.

"Pilot team," he rattles off, addressing the group as a whole, "Felicity, Ray, Nate. Ground team: Sara, Kara, Caitlin, Cisco, and myself. Backup: Firestorm, Mick."

"What about us?" Rory asks in that unearthly rasp, still bedecked in his suit, gesturing at himself, Curtis, and Rene.

Rene scoffs. "We're the backup-backup, aren't we?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Oliver replies, "let's go."

. o .

"So how much ammo does this beauty have?" Ray asks, holding onto the control console with unmistakable affection. Oliver can almost hear him reciting, Captain's log, Stardate 2356.01. It's written in every excited line of his shoulders.

Were he not vital to the operation Oliver would knock him out to shut him up, but as the Atom suit mastermind he's irreplaceably skilled.

"Enough to annihilate a small army," Firestorm – Jax – responds. "Small being the operative word. I'm talking fifteen hundred shots, max."

It's a sizeable number, but looking at the swarm of two hundred and fifty pods, Oliver is very aware that it's only six shots per vessel. Ray does the same math in his head, whistling low. "Don't waste any bullets, is what you're saying."

"It takes twenty-four hours to reload so yes – don't waste any bullets."

Kara asks, "Are we sure they can handle this? Do either of you have any actual combat experience?"

"Listen, sweetheart, we've been doing this longer than you've been born," Mick says, munching away on a stash of chips. "Guy's gotta eat," he growls when Oliver glares at him, even the slightest grievance worth complaining about.

"Anyone else want a snack break?" Oliver asks, turning to the rest of the team. Cisco and Caitlin haven't said a word, shell-shocked, and Sara keeps her silence and her arms folded.

It's Kara who steps forward. "We need to disable their communications system. If they coordinate an assault—" She shakes her head.

Informatively, Nate mimes an explosion with his hands.

"Already on it," Felicity responds absentmindedly, tapping away at the keys.

"Is there any way I can assist you?" a calm feminine voice asks, almost startling Felicity out of her seat.

"Yes – don't do that. And disable the alien comms, if you can."

"I'm afraid we're out of range."

"The Waverider's satellite radius is only about three hundred yards," Firestorm chimes in helpfully. "Three times the length of a football field."

"Once in range, I can scramble their satellite feed and temporarily disable their comm systems," the AI informs.

A loud boom rocks the entire ship as an energy burst strikes the helm. "Guess our alien buddies figured out we're here," Ray says, steadying the ship.

"Same party trick we used," Firestorm notes grimly. "Thermal imaging. Our visual shields don't mask the ship's systems, just its appearance."

"That's our cue," Sara says, fighting staff in hand. "Follow me."

She leads Caitlin, Cisco, Kara, and himself to the docking chamber on the lowest portion of the ship, the Waverider shuddering with another pulse impact. Oliver thinks, Warning shots and wonders if the Dominator's aren't in fact scared of their odds in open combat, too.

Hold your fire, he counsels Ray in a growl, even as the Waverider lurches underneath him. Six shots a ship.

They take both ejection shuttles, each capable of carrying two people comfortably and three in a pinch. With only two seatbelts, Oliver doesn't miss the fact that the return trip – assuming there is one, which is questionable with Captain Palmer at the wheel – could be a problem.

As the bulkiest crew member, Oliver copilots with Sara while Kara, Cisco, and Caitlin cram in the remaining shuttle. Even with Sara's cool instructions – to herself and as a step-by-step broadcast to the opposite pod to Cisco, meticulously laying out both the startup and shutdown sequences – it's still a disarming experience to strap himself in.

The size of a small Volkswagen, the shuttle isn't a confidence-inspiring vehicle to be entering the dark abyss of space in. But, as Thea astutely pointed out on their first jaunt in the great beyond, he's already been on twice as many spaceships as he anticipated being on in his life. What's a perilous journey in a third?

A loud boom shakes the ship. Oliver can almost hear Nate and Ray's whoops, their disproportionate enthusiasm a helpful cold-wash to his nerves. They're like kids on a cowboy mission, he thinks with exasperated disinterest, double-checking his belt.

"All right," Sara says, "wake 'em up, lure 'em out, shoot 'em down."

"Just like Star Trek," Cisco responds sagely. Then: "For real?Y'all have never seen—"

The shuttle lights up. "Cisco, you know where the emergency stop is?" Sara cuts in.

A beat. "The big red button?"

"That's the one. It should protect the ship's systems from the short-circuit Gideon will send out. Don't hit it until we're inside four hundred yards or you'll lose too much altitude." Flipping on a switch, Sara plunges the interior of the ship into darkness, as cloaked as it can be. "On my mark," Sara counts. Oliver can't see them, but he can hear the other ship quiet as it, too, powers down nonessentials.

Oliver checks his belt one last time. This is suicidal, he thinks, but after everything, it's hard to feel scared for himself. All he can think about is that bright white dot, somewhere in the swarm.

"Three."

The ship shudders and Oliver can almost feel a response building underneath the floor, Ray's hands stilled only with an effort.

"Two."

Safety unlocks; the ship hums with retaliation in its chest, ready, set, go

"One."

They launch and Ray fires.

. o .

The plasma blasts meet alien resistance, carving a narrow no man's land between the two assaults. With the swarm activated, it's more difficult to find their target, but the center of the colony rotates in place, leaving its hundreds of compatriots to close in on the recon team. They loop back, Oliver's stomach doing a similar loop as the ship kicks into what he can only classify as hyper drive, zipping back towards home base, thousands of Dominators and hundreds of ships on their tails.

It's an all-out feeding frenzy, the Waverider launching continuous purple-blue pulses with the aliens firing back red, angry spurs into space. The silence strikes Oliver, an eerie lack of evidence grounding the lethal blasts as they tear into each other. Even as Dominator ships disintegrate and their own pods take – per that same calm mechanical voice – thirty-two percent damage, they fly without fear, trained in on a target.

Closing in, Oliver reflects how untimely it would be for one of those violet pulses to take down their shuttles, but Ray's shots glide past them without contact.

Three hundred yards. He holds onto his seat as they approach, crossing six thousand feet, five thousand feet, four thousand feet, three thousand feet—

"Nine hundred yards," Sara barks into the comm.

"Locked and loaded," Felicity replies.

"Eight-fifty."

Oliver wants to close his eyes but knows it wouldn't make a difference – impact would come just as surely.

He's played Russian roulette, but Chicken with a swarm of furious aliens on their tails is truly a first for Oliver Queen.

"Seven hundred yards," Sara shouts.

"Ready to send out the pulse," Felicity says.

"Send in ten," Sara instructs, "nine…"

At four, she shouts, "Power down!"

Oliver hadn't realized how loud their little shuttle was until Sara slits its throat, leaving them dead in the water, the ongoing fireworks still silent around them. It's an incredible sight and under different circumstances Oliver might be moved by it, but all he can think is, Shut them down as they approach.

And then, on cue, the red fire disappears.

The violet ceases, too, their shuttle tilting ponderously towards Earth as they bob in the open orbit. The furious shrieks of Dominators are almost audible as their ships halt in place.

Just as the tilt of the shuttle becomes dangerously close to a freefall, Sara says, "Powering back on…" and holds the same startup button for three gut-wrenching seconds.

Then the shuttle hums, leveling out as the bare bones systems yawn to life. "Cisco, how're you guys doing?" Sara checks in.

"Shaken, but not stirred."

"Now comes the fun part," Sara says, creeping through the field of paralyzed alien ships, Cisco, Caitlin, and Kara tight on their tail. A few red shots fire at them, prompting Sara to drift up and then down to avoid, Dominator ships falling to pieces under the fire. They pass through the interior of the swarm without stirring a mass rebellion, the missing command failing to provide the critical orders to attack.

The heart of the hive remains intact, watchdogs firing explosively at their approaching shuttles. They have no defense system to speak of, but the Waverider sends long-range pulses out to help take out the players, necessitating only that the ground crew avoid being incinerated by either party. Utterly helpless, Oliver watches the red stars burst across their field of view, contacting violet pulses and exploding in silence.

They finally break the defensive ring – Oliver can almost hear Ray and Nate high-fiving – and dive in the gap. The main ship is unostentatious, only twice the size of its guardians, but there is no docking system and the only landing approach crosses Oliver's mind seconds before Sara executes it.

Gaining speed, they charge, piercing the hull and crashing into the ship. The interior is chaos as red emergency lights flash, hull breach, hull breach, a second thunderous impact tipping organized chaos into disorganized panic.

The only reason death does not swiftly find them all is the sealant effect their ships have, jammed in the pod on either side. The Dominators furiously claim their weapons and fire laser blasts at them, bathing the front shield in golden light.

The assault halts abruptly as frost accumulates on the windshield, the agonized shrieks of Dominators preceding a stunning silence as the front shield is pried up.

It smells like permafrost, thick, tundratic, as dozens of aliens lie in frozen agony on the floor. Caitlin's eyes are preternaturally purple when she meets his, but Cisco – daring to put a hand on her forearm – calms them to a human hazel. He has his goggles on, shoulders back. Let's go.

Somewhat dazed by the sight, Oliver follows Sara's lead, raising a questioning eyebrow at Caitlin and Cisco – where's Kara? – before golden fire forces him to focus. "Stay back," Caitlin commands, hands up, freezing their fire before it comes close. The Dominators, agitated and afraid, charge, several breaking through her frozen fog. Cisco blasts them off and Sara knocks both out with her staff, the remaining aliens converging on them with stunning swiftness.

It's an all-out melee, Oliver fighting for his life – not daring to fire an arrow without a clean shot – as the others strive to do the same. He loses track of time, aware that the remaining ships will be working furiously to restore their comms. With punishing rigor, he puts down four aliens in quick succession, backing off and breathing hard when the flashing red light – hull breach, hull breach – becomes the only one he sees.

"Sara?" he calls, a groan at his side drawing his attention. "Hey," he says, crouching beside his fallen comrade – she's cold. Caitlin. He has a flashback of a cold hand closing around his shoulder, Frost meta clicking. Still: no time to address it. "C'mon," he tells her, sliding an arm gently underneath her shoulders and pulling her to her feet. "You're okay. We'll fix you up on the ship." There's a rakish line of claw marks down her side, but it's not bleeding – thank you, cold powers. She seems sluggish, though, which worries him. Cisco emerges from the fading cold-fog and promptly takes a hold of Caitlin, arm under her shoulders.

"I've got you," he promises softly. Looking up at Oliver, he turns his head side to side and asks, "Where's Sara?"

They hear a loud crash around the corner and Oliver runs, fear clogging his throat because he will not lose Sara, he will not. As he rounds the bend he finds two aliens lying in an unconscious sprawl on top of each other, Sara's face flushed with exertion and contentment as she shoulders her staff. "That all of them?" she asks.

"Probably not," Oliver replies. "Stay," he adds to Caitlin and Cisco. Cisco frowns but obliges when Caitlin nods slightly. "We'll be back."

Sara and he know these halls well enough to navigate to the central atrium, Oliver's senses wired to respond to the slightest movement. They encounter eerie silence where guards should be, the hairs on Oliver's arms standing up as he keeps a hand close to the throwing knife in his sleeve-strap.

It's almost inaudible, but Oliver still turns and almost launches the knife at Kara's chest. "Just me, just me," she assures softly. "Where are Caitlin and Cisco?"

"With the shuttles," Oliver answers brusquely, heart rate still up. "Did you—?"

Kara shakes her head, a little frustrated noise escaping her.

"Then we keep looking," Sara finishes, even as the ship rocks with a thunderous boom. Kara hovers to keep her balance, Oliver stumbling a little before regaining his. Sara moves ahead, unimpeded, a wolf on a hunt, silent and steady. The next boom is quieter than the first, but the third is ear-splittingly close, knocking Oliver and Sara off their feet and plunging the hallway into darkness.

"Follow me," a voice says to his right, Kara's hand on his arm a fleeting signal in the dark. "Fifteen steps," she guides. "Turn left."

It's unnerving, being guided through the darkness, but Oliver doesn't back down and neither does Sara, the second set of footsteps reassuring in the quiet. They're interrupted by warning booms every thirty seconds or so, clear signals to evacuate or be destroyed.

Ignoring the message – not without Barry – Oliver pauses when the silence becomes perfect. "Kara?" he whispers.

There's a whimper, barely audible, and then a thin voice replies, "Ollie?"

Oliver's heart skips a beat, flying across the hall and skidding to a halt, reaching for a Barry he can't see but Barry, Barry, Barry. "I'm here," he says, feeling blindly in the air. "We're here." Kara keeps up a continuous stream of don't move, I'm almost done and Oliver hears straps being loosened. Sara holds point-guard, ready to give commands as the ship rocks again and another pained whimper interrupts the anxious silence.

Oliver reaches forward blindly and catches Barry's sleeve, fear dissolving as a rush of relief – profound, world-altering relief – sinks into his own skin.

"You shouldn't be here," Barry rasps. Oliver needs to see his eyes, to tell him forcefully that he wouldn't be anywhere else, overwhelmed and shaken by the fact that Barry's alive.

He can say nothing, though, and jumps when another boom detonates nearby.

Then a final strap unpeels and Kara says, "Come here." Oliver hears hands slide on fabric as she picks Barry up, eliciting a long, low groan. "Let's go," she tells Sara and Oliver.

It takes every ounce of willpower not to insist on carrying him because Kara can fly and Kara has super-strength. To her, Barry weighs nothing and experiences none of the halting turbulence that Oliver does whenever the ground lurches. The ship is still blacked out even in the pod room, primary systems failing, but following Kara's instructions they find their way to the impromptu dock site.

"Let's go," Oliver barks, switching over to his Arrow voice as another loud boom erupts overhead, the entire ship vibrating with the force of it.

Sara and Cisco help Caitlin into the less damaged shuttle as Oliver climbs into the opposite one, Kara lowering Barry into the space beside him. In the semi-light, Oliver can see how gingerly he holds an arm to his chest, little else revealed in the twilight other than his tiny, hitching breaths. Forgoing a seatbelt, he straps Barry in, wincing when the ship rocks and Barry lets out a thin moan of pain, hunching over his stomach.

Sara climbs in the shuttle carefully, wedging herself on Barry's opposite side so she can get to the controllers, strapping herself in as well. With a forceful crunch, Kara seals the front panel back onto the front of the shuttle, tapping the lid twice. Good luck.

God speed.

Then she pushes carefully on the shuttle, metal grinding on metal as it escapes its chokehold in the pod's side. She leaves them wedged to offer the same treatment for her own vessel, climbing inside before they open a true breach to space.

Even with the extra help, Oliver doesn't know if the shuttle has enough oomph to escape the clawing hold of the pod, straining mightily against its iron captive. Just when it seems certain that they'll tear the thing in half, they lurch free, flying through a storm of red pulses as the Waverider zaps its own quarries in the distance.

Comms up, Oliver thinks grimly, holding onto his seat for his life as they soar through the sea of alien pods. The two-seatbelt rule is painstaking under such circumstances as Sara jerks the wheel virtually continuously to avoid head-on collisions with pods or fire. They're small and nimble enough to avoid the worst contact, skirting like a rowboat around a battleship, surviving only by their own agility.

He's so caught up in the melee that it isn't until the Waverider's doors close behind them that he acknowledges the passenger beside him.

The Waverider jumps underneath them, a faint yeehaw! perceptible in another universe above them, but Oliver only notices the pallor to Barry's expression and the ginger way he holds his left arm to his chest. There's a black-and-blue bruise swathing half of his face, cut lip still bleeding. There's no acknowledgment, Barry's gaze fixed ahead, tense shoulders shaking slightly.

Kara lifts the front panel clean off this time and Oliver unbuckles Barry. Sara climbs out and takes off for the main floor, a fierce let me handle this aura around her as she takes the stairs two at a time. Out of the corner of his eye Oliver sees Cisco help Caitlin out and walks her to the staircase, but he can't take his attention from Barry.

"Barry?" Oliver says, ignoring the way the Waverider shivers under fire and reaching out to cup the unbruised side of his jaw.

Barry turns his head but looks over his shoulder, brow furrowing as he reaches out – another soft groan slipping past – and fumbles a hand against Oliver's chest. "Ollie?" he tries again, lost and hurting, whining when Oliver hugs him, gentle as he can, because Barry, Barry, Barry. "I can't see," he whimpers, Oliver's heart jerking as he shushes him.

"We'll fix it," he assures, certain. "It's okay, it's okay."

"I can't see," he repeats, tears bleeding out onto Oliver's shoulder. "I – why'd you –"

"Let's get you to the med bay," Oliver says, rubbing Barry's back gently even as the Waverider rumbles underneath them. "C'mon. C'mon, Bar."

Kara helps him lift Barry out of the shuttle, his face even more ashen in the light, eyes undamaged but unseeing, wandering around the room without taking any of it in. "Where am I?" he asks, legs trembling underneath him.

"Home," Oliver replies, steadying hand under his shoulders.

The onslaught relents ("Told you we could give those bastards the slip!" Nate hoots, high-fiving Ray), an almost-calm overtaking the ship. ("With forty-two bullets to spare," Firestorm replies, sinking into a chair.) Sara's commanding voice ("Vibe, you feeling up to this?") oversees the situation upstairs, but Oliver doesn't care. He lets Kara pick up Barry and follows them to the med bay, never letting go of Barry's sleeve.

I am not letting you run this time, he thinks fiercely, aching tenderness extinguishing any thoughts of a rant when Kara sets him down on a bed. C'mere, his arms entreat, folding around Barry, safety louder than Cisco's affirmation ("Bring it on," he says, standing in the same shuttle room with his palms up, ready to dismantle the ships because in the temporal zone everything is strings and strings vibrate). It's okay, his heartbeat promises against Barry's ear, in a way that Felicity's relieved exhale can only partially encapsulate in an overdue hug a lifetime later.

"You're gonna be okay," Oliver says softly, here and now and uncontestable.