Little Moments Rebooted

by shadows59

The summer is over, they're not. As the pressure of real life and heroing builds, Ben and Gwen turn to each other more and more. Eventual Bwen. Rewritten in 2019. By Shadows59 & Erico

29. Promises

Chapter 29: Promises

Tranquility Base

Mare Tranquillitatis, Luna

April 17th, 2000

4:04 pm PST (Approximate)

Footprints crowded the endless field of gray dust in front of Max. Footprints that got sparser and sparser the further away they got until they disappeared altogether before they got even close to the mountains and boulders that were just on the edge of the horizon.

There were other footprints out there. Footprints with only a faded flag and the abandoned feet and base of a lunar lander module for company. The first.

The ones that were almost his.

Max took a breath at the thought, and it was the only noise he heard. The only noise he could hear when there was just a vacuum around him. A vacuum that stretched from the other side of his visor to the blue sphere that took up so much and so little of the black void that was the sky here.

Just the sight made him remember hearing the words that he almost said. Words that were broadcast all over the world when his friend Neil read them instead from the plaque that they left behind. Words he couldn't help murmuring now as he looked up at the sky and wondered if any of his kids were looking back. "'We came in peace - '"

And the thought made him stagger and reach for the concrete wall that was as alien to this place as the artificial gravity that was keeping his feet on the broken floor. "Colonel?" Albright's voice was just a hiss in the speakers that lined the inside of Max's helmet.

"Nothing," Max muttered even as he shook his head. "It's just what Neil - the other one - " His voice cracked at that, the old joke that always made their Armstrong glower and look proud at the same time even as it took some of the edge off of the long days and longer nights, and so did the edge of the wall as he squeezed it, "- it's what he said just before they took off. We came in peace for all mankind."

He gave the untouched gray dust of the lunar surface and the blue marble hanging over it one last look before he turned his back on both so he could look the other Plumber in the eye as he stood there on the other side of the blown-out wall.

Or try to, anyway. Even if the visor of their helmets didn't hide their faces he could barely pick the man out of the shadows. He must have had his visor set to infrared because Albright had all the exterior lights of his suit turned off, even the one on the end of the rifle that he clutched in his hands. A weight Max felt echoed in the tug on his shoulder as the man took another step closer. Close enough that he stopped on the very edge of the crater that separated them. Close enough that he bumped some of the rubble into the crater, where it fell without a sound. They came in peace...

Ashes. The words were just ashes now.

"No one was here when it happened." The sensors in Max's suit were as sure of that as they could be, and he wished that they did more to take the ache out of his stomach as he looked around the ruined bunk. He'd stayed in a room a lot like this before, and he knew that there'd been a bed right where the beam had burned through. One that was barely enough for him, but that never stopped him from imagining waking up a split second too late...

He knew that the people who'd called this room - one that was barely bigger than the back of the Rustbucket and huge compared to the simulator he still dreamed about training in - had done more than imagine that nightmare even before he found the framed picture on the floor. One that would have been blown halfway across the field outside when the wall was breached if the base hadn't been holed a half a dozen times already. The glass was cracked, but the photograph inside was somehow untouched in the vacuum.

Max didn't know if that made things better or worse.

He couldn't help glancing down again at the two he fought side by side with and the two standing on either side of them as they stood in front of a castle that looked just like the movie it came out of. There was a little girl with bright bright blue hair peeking out from under the hat with big round ears didn't look the least bit impressed, and a boy with skin as dark as his father and his arms crossed like this was the worst thing ever. The boy in the picture just glared at the two adults in the middle with his arms crossed. Not that Armstrong noticed. It didn't look like he noticed much of anything as he held Wheels in his arms and she pulled him down for a kiss.

The same kind of kiss he'd gotten from his Starshine, even if he'd given away the only picture he had that proved it. Not that he minded. He knew his grandkids would take good care of it and it wasn't like he could stand to look at it anyway. Not when it just reminded him of all the years that were between then and now. The one in his hand hurt just as much even though it was only a few weeks old in one of the few stolen moments between missions. Moments he slept through instead of doing anything like this with his grandkids. Kids he didn't even get to watch turn twelve with his wife. Max stared at the picture and didn't know he was squeezing it until he saw another crack dash across the glass. "They weren't here."

"No," Albright said, and Max felt his shoulders slump as he gave the photograph another look.

For just a second, he thought about taking it back with him. Instead, he set it down on the ruins of the shelf he'd found it on with a little sigh before he looked up. Albright wasn't looking at him when he said it. His helmet was tilted too far back if he was. No, Max knew his eyes were on the blue disk behind him, too. He wondered if the man was thinking of his own son. Max had met Alan once and knew that the boy stared at the sky through his telescope when he wasn't in school. He'd been as proud to show it off as he was all the pictures his dad sent before the Plumbers.

Photographs just like the one Max just set down, and that was why his voice cracked when he asked, "You found them?"

Albright startled at that. Not for long. If he'd ever seen the big man jump before Max wasn't sure he'd have even noticed, but he hadn't. Rangers didn't, much less Plumbers. His head shot around and Max was glad that he couldn't see the man's eyes through the gold tint that filled both of their visors as he said, "We're still looking for Wheels, but we found Armstrong - our Armstrong - in the Hyper-relay control room. It looks like he rallied the survivors there after the attack started."

Max closed his eyes at the words. It made sense. It was the most shielded part of the base except for inside the reactor that was just gone now and their best chance of getting help. A chance that didn't last for longer than a few minutes and one panicked message. It was still more of one than he'd given them. "I never should have…"

"No, sir. They needed the break, Max. We both know that," Albright said before Max finished. "After Peru… They needed the break, and it was their turn on the rotation."

This was the easiest assignment that Plumbers could draw, and usually one of the first. This and Malta so they could acclimate to a world that they'd only just stumbled on. It was a rotation that the two should have been on months ago, but the world didn't wait and it didn't have training wheels. Not anymore.

Not since Bosnia.

Which only made this posting mean more. It was already the one that everyone fought for even before the current mess, just so they could say that they'd been on the moon. Everyone wanted it, so of course Armstrong fought it when he got his orders. Max could remember every word that the man said in that low growl he had after the mess in the Amazon. A fight that only ended when Wheels took him by the hand and said, Just imagine the kids' faces when we tell them.

Not that they ever could, but Max still remembered the look on Joan's face when she said it. The short blond woman glowed at the words. No wonder Armstrong melted after that. Max didn't blame him one bit. Not for that or their sleeping arrangements. It went against every rule in the book, and it was the only one Jim looked the other way on as long as everything else was done by the book. Max looked out at the moon and the blue disk again. "At least they went out together. Maybe that will help Helen and Manny..."

Max hoped so. He liked to imagine that it would have for his boys, but he knew how his grandkids would take that news. He still remembered how they took it when he spent that day in the hospital in the line of duty, and from all the stories that Manny and Joan had told him about their kids…

He had his Starshine and he still barely managed with his boys. He didn't know how Neil and Joan managed before they found each other. At least his kids had each other, and his Grandkids, but theirs had barely even met. They might have been a family one day, but now…

Max closed his eyes at the thought.

A thought that shattered when a voice rang in his helmet. The rookie even though he was pushing thirty. Cruz, Max finally remembered, even if the first name stayed slippery. Julio maybe. The name didn't stick nearly as well as the looks on Albright's and Armstrong's faces when the man just showed up at a briefing a month ago. One that was almost lost in the trash talk and back slapping as they welcomed the man back. "Hey, Bossman, get your ass back to the control room! We found something!"

- o - o - o - o - o -

Max just stood there in the crowded room and felt so lightheaded that he was sure that the gravity generator had finally burned out.

Nothing breached the walls here, nothing could as far as he knew. At least, nothing could and leave anything that even looked like a room still standing. Not with the alien tech that filled the walls and controlled the tower of a machine that the base was built around. Walls that were pitted by plasma fire that showed off the burnt and ruined crystals inside and were just the tip of the iceberg for the ten-story tall device that stretched up into the sky on the other side.

Or it had, anyway.

Cruz finally looked up from the bodies on the ground as two more Plumbers circled the room and poked at the walls like there was some miracle that could get the alien tech working again. Even if it was just enough that they'd find some clue in them that would say who did this. There wasn't, but Max didn't blame them. No one on Earth knew how the transmitter - their lifeline to the rest of the galaxy - worked. They'd had it for forty years, and they still didn't. Not really.

Maybe if they'd asked...

Max shoved the thought of the Galvan that his grandson could turn into away as he looked at the bodies that were waiting for their trip home. Three of them were in body bags already, lying where they fell by the controls. Controls that Max should have looked at before and glanced at now as he made his way over. Controls that the attack left just as dead everything else. Dead and frozen on full power, which explained why every television and radio on Earth went to static for the thirteen seconds that they'd broadcast their mayday in before the whole system was fried.

Hell, they had the power turned up so high that half the galaxy probably heard it. Maybe if even one of the people out there got off their butts…

But they didn't. Humanity was on its own as always.

Max stared at the bags that held the man and the woman who did everything that their duty and their world demanded. People he didn't remember ever meeting and he looked at for all too long before he finally turned to the one he did.

Armstrong was in a bag, too. One that was unzipped now, even if the thick fabric caught around his broad shoulders. A plastic that he could have sworn felt cold even through the thick gloves he was wearing. He pushed the material back, but he didn't look down. He just eyed the doorway just a few feet away. One that was more of an airlock than anything, and between that and the air scrubbers could have kept this room habitable for a week if it had to before it was blown in.

They didn't find a single working rifle or handgun in this room, but one look at the other end of the hall showed just how ferociously the man fought. He could just see Armstrong using what was left of the door frame for all the cover it was worth as the other three worked. A frame that was chewed apart by alien fire before the rescue even got started, which might have mattered if…

It was another thought he couldn't let himself have. One that came with a guardian pink light that he'd seen take so much punishment and the green that would have given it. One he couldn't stop as he finally looked down at the man who should have been a friend. One of too many that he'd lost in this job, but that wasn't why he didn't look the man in the face. The plasma had done its horrible work on him, too. Two on his chest and one on his right arm that would have been clear as day even without the holes that they'd burned through the blue-gray material of the other man's Plumber's suit.

Wounds Max never wanted to see, but he stared at now. The burns and the rough patches that covered them. Patches Max just stared at as Cruz looked up from the panel he'd been working in that was at the back of the room. Max couldn't remember ever seeing his face, but the man jumped when the call went out and had an edge in his voice now as he reported, "I just double-checked. Armstrong never touched his repair kit. Neither did the techs and the room's supply is still there, too."

Max heard the words, but they didn't sink in. He wouldn't let them. If they did and they were wrong… His mouth felt numb as he said, "He could have…"

"He didn't do it himself either. The hit on his chest was..." Albright said with the calm voice of a man who didn't dare say any of the things he was thinking as he stood next to Max. Not that the calm hid the anger and the grief that was under it all as he looked at the man he served with for years. An anger that was all turned in on himself for leaving the second he ID'd the man he'd served with even before the Plumbers instead of staying and checking, who just heard a clock in his head and all the ticks he'd wasted. Max heard him swallow all that down and wished he could say something, but it wouldn't help. Limits were for other people. Albright must have remembered that because his voice came back, and when it did there was more than a flicker of respect in it. No, it was more like awe. "I don't know how Joan managed it, but - "

"I do," Max murmured as he stared down at the man who always towered over Joan like a giant. A gentle one for her and the kids and a terror for anyone else. It took a dozen blinks before he could see anything again. And two more before he finally noticed the medkit strapped to Armstrong's arm and the little hose that went to the intake on his side. It was one of the few bits of tech that the Galactic Enforcers actually shared. That and this relay that was the whole reason that this building was here. The kits were powered by nanites and he'd seen and felt them do miracles like fixing the broken bones that should have kept him in bed for months in just a few hours.

There weren't any miracles there. Not from the box, but maybe…

"It doesn't mean - "

"Everyone else is accounted for, and no one else got down that hall. Not after the last charge," Albright said and the way he stood there, his hands at his side and almost shaking. "Joan wouldn't have left him, Max."

"No," Max agreed as his eyes finally found Armstrong's. The man didn't move. They just stared up at nothing as Max's mind raced. "And they wouldn't have taken her if she was…"

Whoever did this didn't take anyone else. He eyed the line of plasma fire that was burned in the wall by the door. Shots that weren't aimed, that must have come as someone did a spray and pray. Someone who was kneeling right where Max was when they did it.

If Joan wasn't here…

Max looked down at his gloved hand. A glove that fit and worked so much better than he would have dared dream when he was still an astronaut because of all the alien tech inside. Tech that was stolen or borrowed and copied the best they could.

Right down to the radio inside.

Max didn't say the words he was thinking as he covered Armstrong up again and squeezed the man's shoulder. Then he shoved himself to his feet as he spun on the two Plumber's who were still working on the dead equipment. "Does any of that work?"

The others jumped and stared before one shook their head. "No sir. Whoever carried out this attack only blew what they had to so they could take the base, but the relay… They slagged the relay. We think that it was the - "

Max ignored the rest as he looked up at the ceiling, too. The relay could have pinged her suit anywhere in the solar system, but beggars can't be choosers. The ship that brought them here and was just on the other side of that ceiling couldn't do nearly as much, and the life sensors on board were still the best that he'd ever seen.

Only this time, they wouldn't be looking for victims hiding in a jungle and there wasn't anything more that they could do here. Not for the dead, but maybe…

"All units return to the Defiant. We can't do anything more here, but one of our own is out there and we're getting her back. Defiant, I want you wheels up the second - "

That was as far as he got before the alarm cut through his suit and his visor burned red and a new voice cut through his message. "Negative, Whiskey Tango! We're launching now! We have incoming!"

Max felt a chill that didn't have a thing to do with the vacuum as he turned and sprinted for the door, his hands reaching for the rifle he'd stowed as he did. "Report, Defiant!"

The man's voice had an edge as sharp as any of the knives that were waiting in the Rustbucket. "Crazy bastards jumped in so close that I'm amazed that this rock doesn't have a new crater. Crazy and smart. They came in on the dark side and they're hugging the ground. If we didn't have eyes out we never would have seen them. As it is, ETA seventy seconds!"

Max stopped at the words. It would take longer than that just to make it outside. They'd have to make their stand here, in this ruin of a base. All eight of the Plumbers he'd grabbed from Avalon the second they heard the distress call. Some part of him wondered what the bastards missed that they'd come back for. The rest worried that they wouldn't even land, but if they did...

If they did, there wouldn't be any surprise this time, and Max felt his face go hard under his helmet as he unslung his rifle and his voice went cold. "All right people - "

That was as far as he got before the world screamed in his helmet before the computer got control of the radio again and picked out just one of the ten thousand frequencies that they were getting hit with, most of which no human had ever heard. Then the harsh electric tone was replaced by a woman's voice that wasn't any warmer. One that he knew wasn't speaking in English as the taste of roasted worms filled his mouth just like her words filled his ears."You viscacha have three seconds to surrender before I - "

One that he knew. One that shocked him so much that it took him two tries before he found the button so he could broadcast loud and clear. "Xylene?!"

- o - o - o - o - o -

Max stood out in the lunar dust and watched the ship come in. The alien blue metal was smooth and sleek and looked so different than most of the starships he'd seen and just like the one he'd flown in once. Even with tech that he knew that most people would think was magic, function still reigned supreme, but not with this one. This ship looked like it was sculpted, not built. It was a thing of beauty that was a joy to fly. One that Max could have stared out for hours and not seen any of the razor-sharp claws that were hiding right under the surface.

It was just like the woman who captained it.

"It's time, Colonel." Jim's voice filled his ear as he stood there. One that was all rough edges. Max was glad he didn't have to see the man who they came from. Not when he had this in front of him. Not when he got to watch a ship land on the surface of the moon. There wasn't any breeze or noise, but there wouldn't have been even when Neil did it, and this ship didn't use chemical rockets. "No."

The ship touched down smoother than Max could have imagined. "I'm not asking," Jim said, his voice muffled by the cigar Max knew he was chewing on. "It's past time we took the Watch out of the box. The Watch and the Witch."

"It's my call," Max said right back. There wasn't any heat in his voice, there was just steel at hearing his Grandkids called that. As if that was all they were. "And I said, no go, Merlin."

There was heat in Jim's. Enough that Max remembered the warnings that people gave about Wizards, and especially the one the man took his callsign from. The temper was all his, though, and it burned hotter than the lit end of the man's stogie. "This isn't a request, Colonel. Zeta X-Ray is already on his way to collect them. By the time you find our little lost lamb they'll be - "

He watched the ship settle and its landing gear sink into the surface and it looked just like the shorts he watched as a kid. An alien spaceship. He was almost 62 and the idea was still a thrill, but it was who he knew was waiting inside that took his breath away. Or it would have if he had anyone else on the line. "And I said no. If Zeta X-Ray even looks at them…"

Joel was family. Him and Camille both. She'd more than earned her way in years ago just for the way she looked at his nephew and after she helped watch over everyone for the last few months, but - they weren't his Grandkids. And the man on the other end of the radio wasn't even family. But he was the boss and Max had time. So he made himself speak. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. This part was like an old suit. "They've never operated in teams of more than three before, they haven't used plasma weapons, they've only been in space twice and they'd be a liability on this mission and you know it."

"And whose fault is that, Colonel?" The words were as cold as the vacuum outside as Max stood up. "Get the job done. You and your little 'Plumb-ette.' After this mission - After this mission you and I are going to have a chat."

Max didn't say a word as the line went dead. He could take that guilt. He could take that guilt all day. Albright spoke, though. "Are you sure that this is a good idea, Colonel?"

Max looked over at the man next to him, one of the few he'd ever met who could meet his eyes and let out a sigh. "Probably not, Major, but I'll make sure you don't get hit with - "

"Not that," Albright said with a wave of his hand. A hand he was holding like it ached for the rifle that was strapped across his back. "I'm not worried about Merlin. Are you sure about going off on your own?"

He wouldn't be. Max knew that Wes would have understood that if he was here instead of chasing another lead down in the Amazon, but Wes served with Xylene and Albright never had. "I'll be fine, Major. And we'll cover more ground if we split up."

"Roger," was all the response that Max got, and all he needed as he started crossing the hundred yards between him and the ship in the slow hopping motion that was natural now that they were beyond the reach of the base. It was another thing that stuck like riding a bike. A bike he wished he had as he watched lights burn through a doorway in the alien ship that he would have never guessed was there if he hadn't seen it before, the seam was that well hidden and when he saw who was waiting in the airlock….

Max took one look at her and felt even the moon's weight lift away.

Xylene didn't rush out. She didn't even have her helmet on, she didn't need it when the forcefield held in the atmosphere, and the look on her face as the ramp came down and the way the twin tentacles that grew from the sides of her head were curled up tight around her were the only sign of the tension she'd been under even if she did have a rifle in her hands. Those and the black and gray armor she wore instead of the usual gold and white of the Enforcers, not that she was in the branch that most people ever saw. The rifle she slung over her shoulder the second she saw him, even if he did have his helmet on, the color didn't change.

But she was never really off duty. Not any more than he was.

Which didn't keep her from having her moments. His helmet just barely caught his shout as a purple light filled her three eyes and the vacuum around him before the ground disappeared from under his feet and he flew the last twenty feet. He felt the shield that held the air like an itch as she pulled him through it, and the gravity was a kick in his knees as it came back, but right then it didn't matter. Not as he pulled off his helmet. "What's a pretty lady like you doing in a place like this?"

Her lips were as covered in scales as the rest of her, the finest though, and the shade was the darker blue-green that covered the skin around her eyes. Her lips darkened a shade more at his words. "Saving you before you get cooked, Max. What do you think I'm doing?"

Max let out a chuckle at that. He couldn't help it. "It's what you do best."

"I do have experience." That made with a full grin that showed off the sharp teeth that her lips were hiding. Then her face fell again as she looked out the hatch. "Are they coming?"

"No, they have their own ride," Max said, his words vague.

Not that it helped, or saved him from the look he got as her hand found her hip and her scowl came back even deeper. "I saw it on the scanners. That's why I… You should have left it rusting in the jungle."

"I don't know. I like thinking it drives the old owners nuts knowing we have it now. And it has the best weapons and life scanners we can find." He never liked thinking about why the scanners on the Black Sun's old ship were so good, but now?

"Which breaks two of the codes."

Level Eight tech on a Level One world? It was four by Max's count, but he wasn't going to say anything. Not now. Not for a treaty that was signed when he was just fourteen years old, and neither would she. "Want to help me break a few more?"

"Always," Xylene smirked as she hit the button and the ramp closed again, leaving them alone in the airlock that was made of the same blue metal as the ship's skin. There were only two colors better in Max's opinion. "Once you tell me what's going on. Who hit Tranquility?"

"We don't know. We think Blood Pack, but - "

The name was enough. It was more than enough from the way the woman in front of her scowled. "Please. They're more scavengers and slavers than mercs, Max. They'd never take on a target like this."

"I know," Max said, her words echoing all the worries that kept him up at night as he chased the aliens across the world. Worries that came with words like scouting attack and sappers and invasion even if they didn't feel right either. Worries would have shared with her at any other time. Now he just said the only words that mattered. "They took one of our people."

And that was all that he needed to say. The woman was always a hurricane of motion when she wanted to be in battle and in command, and Xylene proved it as she spun around and slammed her fist down on a box that almost looked like it grew out of the wall by the hatch. Her tail and tendrils both twitched as she hissed out, "X'ziss. Immediate lift off! We have a search and rescue. Your people haven't done anything stupid, have they?"

"Not with this," Max said at the last. The Plumbers suits were based on what the Galactic Enforcers used and would share, right down to the emergency beacons. He had the codes for his team's, codes that were as classified as anything on the blue disk in the sky, and he handed over Wheels' without a second thought. "But if you're detected…"

Xylene's species never evolved hair. They didn't need it on their desert of a world, but some things were universal, and the way she cocked the scales where her eyebrow would have been was one of them. "We have done this before, Max."

"I remember." The words were soft, and the story behind them was just one of the reasons he couldn't leave the planet. There were so many times he was sure he'd never see home again when he wore this uniform, but that was the only time home was the whole solar system. And she was the only reason he was wrong.

He hoped she could do it again as he felt the soft tremble of the ship rising into the airless sky again.

Her eyes studied him, her third eyelid flickering like it only did when she was worried. "What else do you remember?"

"Enough," Max said, his voice almost cracking. Things like the first time he stepped foot on a starship like this, and the offer that almost kept him. An offer that was still there, that was still written in her eyes just like they were that day by Roswell. Guilt slowed his steps, but he still made them as he crossed the space between them.

And her lips were as soft as he remembered. Softer than her grip as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. That touch almost broke him. Almost. Then she pulled away. "You look like hell."

Max let out a sound that only a soldier would have known was a laugh as he held her close, but Xylene was. "And you're a sight for sore eyes, Roswell."

"Max…" the words were a warning. The worry came flooding back with the next. "Where are Ben and Gwen? Are they…?"

"They're fine," Max said before she could finish the thought and he kicked himself for not saying so sooner. "They better be in school." If they weren't…

He didn't say the words, but they must have been written all over his face as she took him by the hand and he praised the alien tech that made it again because he felt it. Something that was just barely true for the suit he remembered wearing all those years ago. He lost himself in the feel until she tugged him to the door. "You can tell me all about it in my room, Max."

"But - "

"My crew can handle the search," she said in a tone that was just shy of offended. "They don't need you glowering behind them. Or collapsing. Don't make me make it an order."

The tease was right there, and even with the worry eating at him, he couldn't resist. "Yes, Ma'am."

He caught glimpses of the crew as they walked across the ship which was the size of an office building on its side. Some of the species he knew, some he didn't, but they were all in the same armor as Xylene. Not that any of the other Enforcers made it look as good as the woman he was holding onto. "You never did answer my question," he said because he had to say something.

Xylene made a noise deep in her throat as her purple eyes flickered away. "We were in the neighborhood."

"You were?" Max asked as she turned and pulled him into a dark room. One that was only half-lit as they walked inside and had a desk and chairs that all looked like they were growing out of the floor. The room was as warm as she liked it, and dark aside from the monitors around them showing desert - one he knew just from her stories - as she sank into her chair and he dropped onto the edge of her desk. "Well, I'm flattered."

The words weren't the tease that they should have been. Not with the worry clawing at him and the guilt curling his stomach, but they'd be fighting for their lives soon enough. They could live them now. Even if it was just for a tease.

The words took away some of the worry, but it didn't touch the guilt. It hadn't. Not in all these years.

"Not for that, Max," Xylene said with a little wave of her hand because she knew him. "An old friend asked me for a favor. One I never thought I'd hear from again, but he hates it when his work runs wild and I'm expendable."

The alien woman deflated after she said all of that. Deflated and let her head fall back on the headrest that was made special for her as she closed her eyes, and Max didn't realize how much he missed seeing them until then. "Expendable? He can't be all that smart if he thinks that," Max grumbled as his fingers found the corner of her desk and dug in. Promises. So many promises.

Max didn't know why that made her laugh, and he didn't care. Not when one of the tendrils that grew out of her head brushed the hair on his cheek as soft as a kiss. "You always say the perfect thing, Max. Even if you do have a parasite covering your face today."

"It's called a beard," Max said with a shiver as idly reached up and stroked the hair on his chin that he'd almost forgotten about. It was easy. He did it a dozen times a day until he got an itch that needed scratching. Like the one right now, the one that made him reach for the edge of her desk and dig his fingers into it. "So what's this friend of yours so mad about?"

Xylene didn't say a word, she just let her tendril fall back and curl up around her middle as she pulled her tail tight around her feet and her eyes slid away.

And that was when he knew.

He'd seen five other Enforcers when she led him down the halls. The Tetramand was the toughest that he knew about, but there were two that looked like bugs that he didn't recognize and he was alone here, but none of that was the biggest problem. He'd gone up against worse odds.

No, the biggest problem was sitting right in front of him and sucking in a breath as her three eyes flew open in a panic. "Not for that, Max! We're not here for the Omnitrix! A dozen ships have vanished near the Hugopata sector and he needed eyes out there! I would never - !"

"I know," Max said because he did. Or he should have. He said it and shoved his hand into his face so he could wipe away some of the exhaustion. It didn't help, but the hand he felt on his arm did. So did the sight of the woman as she sank back into her chair with her leg pulled up and her armor pulled tight around it. "I know."

"Talk to me," Xylene said again. The words were an order and a plea as she hugged her leg closer and her three toes dug into the edge of her chair as she watched, ready to spring to her feet if he even tried for the door.

He didn't. He just reached out for her and started talking.

- o - o - o - o - o -

" - different villages in the last eight months. Merlin - " Max said and he almost laughed when he saw the look that codename got before she snuggled in closer. Somehow they'd ended up sitting on the floor. Somehow Xylene ended up under his arm and somehow that made telling her all of this easier even if she was so distracting. "- Jim thinks that someone's using the Pack and they're scouting us out for an invasion, but it doesn't feel right. None of this does."

"The Pack wouldn't risk their lives like that," Xylene murmured as her face scrunched up in the way he loved and that he missed and that reminded him of…

The thought made him close his eyes, like all the ones of his Starshine did. He saw Xylene watching him when he opened them again. Her face was still pursed, but with worry now. "Sorry… Yeah. Like I said, it doesn't make any sense, but…" He took a breath. The rest was classified. He touched the button on the forearm of his suit anyway, and he watched the monitors around them fill with pictures and words he knew all too well. The same ones that ended his retirement.

Xylene's eyes went wide at the sight, and she leaned forward and turned the screen so she could stare. "What are these?"

"We think that they're the Blood Pack's new management," Max said, but he didn't look. He knew the aliens by heart in all their forms now. From the one angry red eye set in the middle of their forehead to the sickly green skin and purple skin that grew over them. "We're calling them Xenocites for now and they've been running every base we've hit, but beyond that…"

And then he held his breath and hoped as Xylene touched a few buttons that were hidden in the desktop until she needed them and made a face the second she saw the one that looked like a Vulpamancer. and he never realized how much more disturbing the things would be with one red eye in the middle of their forehead until he saw her do that. Her face went still after that as she looked over the other six before she shook her head. "There are over nine thousand sentient species in the galaxy that we know about and we're still finding more, Max, but that doesn't mean I know them all. I've never seen anything like this."

"Can you tell me anything?" The words were a plea.

One that just got a shrug. "Only that most species hide their brain. The fact that this one doesn't…" She took a breath like there was more bad news and he braced himself. It didn't help. Nothing could. Nothing could have even gotten him ready when she asked, "Where are Ben and Gwen, Max?"

He felt his back go stiff, but that was his only reaction. It was the only one he had, even after her hand found his knee as she pressed on. "If things are as bad as you say…"

"They're safe," Max said finally and with finality as he pulled his arm out from behind her. "They're in school. They - "

"They charged one of Vilgax's battle drones without a thought. They're warriors, Max. They - "

"They're kids," Max bit out as he shoved himself up and away like he couldn't in Avalon. The room was a dozen paces long, and not nearly enough. He felt his hand shake as he reached up so he could bring it down on the box that opened the door. A hand that froze as her next words hit him like a baseball bat.

"You can't keep them in the egg forever."

The words were soft and all the worse for that. Enough that he forgot all about leaving and spun around. "They're kids! They - I know that your species doesn't - " he started before he made himself stop. Her species didn't raise their young. Not like humans did. Max knew that. They were so much more communal, with some raising the children while the rest did all the work that civilization took. For all that Xylene said that they took pride in leaving the children alone for the first few years after they hatched they were still watched over so that nothing bad happened.

They didn't let them fight monsters all summer. Not even so they could save the world. They didn't salute them and tell them how proud they were to serve together, either, even if he still remembered how Ben's face glowed when he said those words on the last day of the first summer while Gwen snored away in the passenger seat. They didn't…

But he did. His hand found his face and he hid behind it, but it didn't help. "Sometimes I wish that your pod had found anyone else." The most powerful weapon in the universe was too much for anyone, but a ten year old? For all the good Ben did, and he'd done so much… It was too much. "Letting them be kids for a while longer shouldn't be too much to wish for…"

"The universe doesn't care about our wishes. If it did..." Xylene said, the last a whisper as she took his wrist. He hadn't even known she'd gotten up until then, until he turned around and she was right there, her gaze hot as she stared across the few inches that separated them before she ducked her eyes and tried to turn away. "Max, I'm… I'm…"

She tried, but he didn't let her go. Not as he stared across the inches that separated them. Inches he crossed once before when he'd broken his most important promise and they'd ended up in the bunk that was folded against the wall now...

The one he didn't dare look at when he walked into the room and couldn't stop thinking about now as she looked up again, her scales catching the purple light that filled her eyes and her lips parting in a surprised gasp. If he did…

If he did…

Max's lips were just an inch away from hers when a voice filled the room. "Magister! Magister, we've got a ping!" The universe didn't care about wishes. Not usually, but sometimes…

Xylene moved before he could say a word. "Where?" She asked after she stabbed her finger down on a button he hadn't even noticed. A light flashed over the top of it, and a hologram of a world burst to life. One he knew, one he'd seen since he was six. Max stared at the ghostly form of the Earth as a bright yellow dot appeared on it in the middle of the Aegean Sea, so close to where it'd all started...

- o - o - o - o - o -

The village was almost as small and seemed as old as the mountain island it clung to. The red and black bricks and cobblestones almost made the place seem like it grew out of the rock instead of being built on it. Even if Max couldn't see the docks, he could see the wine-dark sea and all the fish that it promised and kept the people here.

It was just the kind of place he promised he'd take his Starshine when he met her.

A promise that grew with his family, until he could almost see them here, with his daughters-in-law and granddaughter crowding his wife as she stood in one of the stalls that crowded the street for the tourist season that was still weeks away. They'd be laughing and poking through the seashell necklaces and earrings looking for just the right ones even as they still dripped from their swim in the sea.

He could see it as clear as the wrap he knew his wife would be wearing as she haggled with the poor man who ran the stall. The same wrap over the same two-piece suit that he'd seen the last time they'd gone to the lake. The emerald green one that just made her hair look brighter even with the big straw hat she always wore when she was in the sun. The one that helped a little, but always left her shoulders kissed with freckles.

He saw her as clearly as he did his sons doting on their wives, as clear as he did Carl brushing his hands over Sandy's sides just to make her laugh while Frank held Lili's hand as she gave another vendor hell and hid the small smile he always had when she did. And the kids…

His Pumpkin would be tucked close to her parents while Ben dashed this way and that and bugged her every time he was close until the two were chasing each other and screaming all around the island. It would be everything his wife ever hoped for. Everything he hoped he could give her. The island was perfect.

And now it was burning. Land and sky.

The roar that was so much louder than any wave rattled the rubble all around Max. Rubble that used to be homes. Homes that were built by human hands and still looked that way from the outside, but one look at the stuff that was growing on the inside proved nothing human was still here.

And, for just a moment, humanity was the last thing on Max's mind as he looked up. A second ago the sky was full of alien fire and alien ships, but now there was just a ball of smoke and fire that rivaled the sun for a second. Smoke that almost seemed close enough to touch and so wrong since the three ships that had been up there flew between the stars.

Now one of them was falling, and the world froze as he wondered which one even as burning debris rained down all around. His hand just started doing the one thing he couldn't make his mouth and moved so he could toggle the radio when the smoke roiled again and two ships shot out of it. One was still a ball of light that was trailing smoke just like he'd seen it all those years ago.

The other proved that it was every bit as beautiful and dangerous as the woman who flew it through the debris of the pirate starship.

Max let out a cheer that was almost a howl that didn't have any words in it as he bounced up on aching knees and let his rifle spit fire of its own down the street. He ducked down just as fire came back, already knowing that two of his missed.

The third didn't, and the shriek he heard didn't belong on Earth any more than the shimmering blue light that erupted in the air not a couple of feet away from him. Xylene didn't even look at the rifle he spun her way as she dropped down next to him, her head already moving as she fingered her rifle. Her face was hidden behind her visor, but the twin tendrils that grew out of her head danced with excitement even in the black armor that stretched down from her helmet and covered them as she bounced up and opened fire.

Then she was back down and he saw a flash of her teeth through her faceplate in the muzzle flashes. "You take me to all the best places!"

"It's an old Earth rule," Max laughed as he watched her stand there even as shots came back, as stubborn and determined now as she was all those years ago in the jungle. "Don't go anywhere without a pretty girl."

If they weren't wearing helmets, he would have kissed her. He settled for reaching over and stroking the base of her tail just so she'd jump. "Max!" The alien woman laughed as someone else screamed. "You almost made me miss!"

"Never gonna happen," Max said, without a doubt in his mind as he let his hand slip from her tail to her bottom so he could give it a pinch. The touch made her jump and steadied him even with the black armor that kept him from feeling the warmth of her even as the last pirate kept up his fire.

Enough anyway that he dared look at his HUD again.

The island was only a few miles long, and most of it was the mountain and the hangar that the pirates carved into it. There were red dots everywhere. Red dots that were vanishing as fire came from the sky and the ships overhead opened up on where they were hiding with pinpoint strikes. Red dots he ignored as eyed the greens that were scattered on the other side of the island where Albright was leading them in, and the yellows of the Enforcers that were scattered around on this side before he found the single blue dot near the center of the village that was the reason that they were all here, and the only reason that they hadn't waited for the reinforcements that were still an hour out.

An hour Wheels didn't have.

She hadn't said a word, but her suit was screaming data at them now that Max's was close enough and it wasn't good. All of Wheels's vitals were redlined when they got close enough for a full link. They were barely any better now, even as they read her as unconscious, not asleep and that was a difference that was written all over her EKG, which spiked over and over again. A blink showed the ghost of her sitting up with her arms behind her back and her head down. Another showed the pressure that the suit felt against her wrists and ankles. A third that the room she was in was empty except for her. And the last…

The microphones built into her suit let him hear her groaning and more voices beyond that. Alien ones that were muffled and panicked. " - almost through the last - !"

" - we have to - "

And then a third, that rumbled like the voice of God as the first let out a strangled scream. "You will stay and fight to the end. For once in your misbegotten life you are serving the galaxy, Pirate, and you will serve it well."

There was a crash then. And then someone broke. "No! No!" And the sound of more plasma fire and screams.

Max cut the feed. "It's gone bad," he said, his voice low and hard on every frequency as he eyed the nest at the end of the road as best he could even as another Xenocite stuck his head up and filled the air with more fire. "Major! We have to move!"

"Roger, Colonel!" Albright said, his voice hard and flat and he must have forgotten to turn off the channel before he roared, "Come on you apes! Do you want to live forever?"

The words hit just as there was a flash of green light that lit up the world behind him and then a shadow flew over Max's head. One that was flying too low and fast for him to see more than a flash of the white and black it was wearing before the nest of concrete and bricks and Xenocites exploded and the thing circled back just as blue fire hit the alien from three different directions.

The alien barely had time to scream before it fell, but Max had all the time in the world as his chest went tight as the whole world sat on it. "Ben!"

"Max!" Someone shouted behind him as he sprang out from behind his cover. He flipped his rifle to full auto and filled the air around his grandson's body with fire as he charged. More came back, and caught against the debris shrouded in purple light that sprang up in front of him as he ran.

"Stay here!" He shouted even as he swapped out his rifle's powerpack on the run and nailed a Xenocite right in the face just as it burst out from its cover. He hit the first one, but there were two more next to him that opened fire just as the cobblestones in front of him burned purple and were ripped out of the ground so they could catch all the fire coming his way. The ancient stone weighed hundreds of pounds and cracked under the onslaught, cracked but held. He heard the noise behind him of someone getting up, someone he couldn't believe had stayed where she was as long as she had and instinct made him thunder, "Pumpkin, stay there!" Even as he slid on his knees across the cobblestones to the alien that was all leathery wings even with its armor. Armor that was charred now as he flipped the Aerophibian over. His eyes searched for the wounds as the world went gray around him. Then a hand caught his shoulder and pulled him back.

"It's not him, Max!" Xylene got in his face and her voice hissed in his ears even as he tried shoved her away, "It's not Ben! He's one of mine!"

Max just stared through her visor, his heart in his ears and his mouth bitter before the words sank in and he looked again and didn't see that green hourglass shape anywhere. Then he hung his head and sucked in the air so fast that his suit barely kept up and warning lights flashed in the corner of his visor as she took care of her soldier.

Then her hand was back. Her hand and the thunder of her voice. "Where is your head?!"

"Picturing you back on that beach," Max said with a ragged smile as he just looked at her. Her tendrils and her tail cutting through the air behind her and he made himself push the line further. "Out of that armor and sunning on one of those rocks."

He could just see her eyes through her visor, and they burned with the same purple light that surrounded stones that hovered around them. The same light his Pumpkin's did when she was casting, and the way that her tendrils moved almost looked like…

"Stay here, Max," Xylene said, her voice soft. "Zren is just stunned, but he needs someone watching over him. Stay - "

"No." The Aerophibian said before Max could. The word slurred in its mouth as the alien pushed himself up. "I - I'll be okay, Magister. J - just give me my rifle and prop me up somewhere. The mission comes first, and I don't need a human babysitting me. Even Ultimos won't lower himself..."

The way he spat that word and used that name...

"I was wrong, Max," Xylene's eyes as they burned behind the glass of her visor as she glared down at the giant manta ray at their feet, who was rubbing his head and not paying them the slightest bit of attention. "Galactic Enforcers have more in common with Plumbers than I thought. And you don't know the first thing about Ultimos, Zren."

Or he didn't until Max reached over and brushed a hand over her shoulder. Then the alien went stiff, but he didn't care. The glare was nothing compared with what he heard in Avalon all those years ago and he'd survive. So would everyone else if he had anything to say about it. "Defiant. We have a man down here. I want you to turn the street in front of us to glass if anyone comes close."

"Roger, Whiskey."

Now everyone had a chance, especially when Xylene spat out a word that his translators didn't know but the manta ray did and hurled every stone that was still circling down the street. The screams were almost as loud as the crash, and all the louder with the silence that followed as the woman shoved herself up. "Let's get it done."

- o - o - o - o - o -

Everything else on the island was built so that it could take the worst that the world threw at it. Even the most ramshackle building had stone walls and thick wooden doors and shutters that mostly survived a grenade and the unworldly fire inside when Max dove inside it for shelter.

The door in front of him looked like it came out of a museum and splintered the second he drove his boot into it. The room on the other side might have been an office once. Max could almost see where the desk used to be as he swept his rifle over it, and the window even though it was hidden under the same pale slime-like stuff that covered all the other walls inside this church.

The slime that must do something. He'd seen monitors and controls in the walls of the nave outside, but there wasn't any of that in here, it just watched over the woman in the middle of the room and the mystery fled from his head as he rushed over the moment he saw her. "Joan?!"

Only the readings from her suit proved that she was still alive. The short blond woman didn't even flinch at the sound of her name as she sat there with her head hanging down as she sat slumped over in the chair she'd been tied to and the alien devices around her hands and middle were the only thing that kept her in it. She was only steps away, steps Max crossed as fast as his grandson could so he could see her face.

He thought he was ready for anything. He'd seen so much already, friends who were murdered. Friends who were caught and beaten by people just like these, but nothing could have prepared him for the thing he saw clinging to her face when he got in front of her. A thing that seemed almost as big as her head and looked like nothing as much as a nightmare vision of a squid that clung to her head and covered the whole left side of her face. Its tentacles wrapped right around her head and throat, and he felt sick as he stared because her skin was an angry red everywhere they touched, but the worst part…

Worse than even the sickly green skin that was just starting to grow between those tentacles was the single angry red eye that glared at him. The one he stared back at now and he knew. He knew that the Xenocites weren't extradimensional. That they were just what they looked like. And he knew that he was too -

"No," the word burned in his mouth as he yanked off his helmet. Only experience kept him from grabbing the alien and made him reach for the medkit he'd carried with him since they left Avalon because the Boy Scout in him knew that they might be dealing with something more than what the simple kit built into their suits could deal with. Not that even his old scoutmaster would have expected this, he thought as he sucked in air that stunk like a beach after the tide went out of saltwater and rot with the too-sweet smell of sick on top of it that went all the way down his throat. "No, you hear me? I'm going to make you into calamari," he snarled as he fumbled with the scanner even as something slammed against the other side of the wall by the door.

Something that filled the air with a purple light before that vanished and Xylene followed him in. "Max?" She said, her voice coming from her suit as she swept the room with her rifle, a rifle that she slung across her back as she hurried over. "How is - what the hell is that?!"

"If you don't know…" Max grumbled as he fumbled with the scanner and eyed the air over his left forearm even as he felt her hand on his shoulder. There was a soft click and the whirl of machinery as her helmet melted into the rest of her suit, and he saw how wide and worried her eyes were even as she reached out for the thing with one gloved hand. Reached out but didn't touch. She didn't dare, not when that red eye went narrow and the tentacles drew tighter. Joan let out a shuddering gasp of a breath, but she still didn't open her eye and that was what made Max stop breathing even before the scanner let out a warning bleep that was just the wind up before the punch to the gut of its report;

Parasitic Organism detected. DNA Corruption detected. Nervous system compromised. Vascular system compromised. Endocrine system compromised.

Then the miracle machine did the one thing it never did. It went quiet. There wasn't any recommendation, no mix of the alien drugs and nanomachines that took up most of the bulk of the medkit. He'd seen the thing do miracles before, but now there was just one word that blinked like a taunt. Working.

"If your kit is better," Max almost growled as he stared at the woman he'd come to save who was still wearing the suit that should have protected her. He never realized how young she was until now. He'd barely even seen her without her helmet, but with her short cut hair that was dark with sweat wherever the tentacles weren't holding her...

She looked so small. Like one of his kids, her face damp with a fever.

"No," Xylene said, her voice a whisper or a prayer. "No, your kit is the same as mine. We didn't…"

So they didn't skimp. Not on that. Max wondered that on too many battlefields as he fought down the urge to brush his fingers through Wheels' hair just like he used to do for his Pumpkin when she had a fever because it always made her feel better. Only Gwen would turn to his hand. Wheels didn't. He didn't even know if she knew he was there.

And then a beep cut through him and the blond was back as Max's eyes shot down to the screen. Recommend: Full Spectrum Treatment. Maximum Dose. Warning: 95% chance of total system failure. Proceed: Y/N?

Those glowing words were Max's world as Xylene's voice twisted in shock and something like horror. "Full? I've never…"

Max just stared. He'd seen the nanites in action before. They'd gotten him out of traction a couple of summers ago in only a day or two, and fixed up his kids more times than they ever knew, but that was barely a Galvan sized dose. Maximum? The only thing he'd ever seen that came close to a Galvanic Mechamorph that crash landed and was dying, and the man who found it was still dealing with the aftermath. The man and his grandson, who'd just been a baby who got too close to something that would do anything to survive. "One dose. Just to start," he decided, his voice hollow as he worked the controls. The woman next to him just nodded and somehow looked pale.

The injector felt cold through Max's gloves, and Wheels didn't flinch as he pressed it against her bare neck and the thing hissed, but maybe the thing on her face did because that eye narrowed into a fiery glare. One that Max met as he waited.

Waited for too long. "Stupid, we should have - " Max started as he went back to the medkit's controls again just as Joan lifted her head and screamed. Purple light covered her as Max jolted away. "Joan?!"

Joan's eye was blank and her muscles were tight cords in her neck as her scream went on and on and he knew that if it wasn't for the goop holding her in place she'd be on the ground, but it was and she didn't move. She didn't, but the squid thing - the Xenocyte - on her face didn't have the help and its red eye was wide as it writhed on her face, every tentacle tight.

And then one pulled away. One of the six, and the second it did the scream stopped and Joan collapsed like someone hit the off switch. "Joan?!" Max shouted for the third time as the screen that hovered over his forearm flared red as the woman gasped for air and Xylene hissed.

"Stay away from - !"

And then another voice filled the room. One that was broken and quiet. "I won't!" One that Max knew.

"Joan?" He asked, his voice a whisper as his knee hit the hard floor like he was sliding into home in front of her. He touched her knee and her head shot up again, her right eye open wide and the blue of it flickering this way and that as tears ran down her face. "Joan, can you - ?"

"I won't!" she said again. "Baby, baby I - I - !" she said, the words tripping over each other as she pulled at the ropes holding her down.

Max heard the warning sound his suit made as it echoed her vitals. He didn't even glance at the readouts that were splashed over the screen on his left forearm, he didn't need to. Not when she threw her head back and screamed as every muscle in her neck stood out like piano wire. "Joan!" he shouted as he pushed through the shield and grabbed the woman's shoulders. The tentacle that had pulled free brushed at his hand and he didn't care. "Joan, can you - ?!"

"She's not listening, Max!" Xylene shouted as her hands caught his arms. Hands that were always so much stronger than anything that looked that delicate could be. Hands he ignored as he tried to will the woman in front of him back as the alien medicine and machines fought the thing on her face.

Then, like someone cut her strings, the woman just slumped down, her head rolling as the free tentacle found her face again. Max caught his breath and waited for the warning whine that she'd flatlined - that he'd killed her - but it never came.

Another noise did. One that barely sounded human as the parasite on her tightened its grip and she lifted her head again, the move jerking and uncertain. "W - w - wh - where?" A croaking voice that used Wheels's lungs and mouth but Max knew wasn't hers even before the eye on the parasite caught his and glared. "W - where is the abom - abom - where is the abomina - ?"

Then the woman's body went tense again, not that the noise she made was any closer to human as Wheels gasped out, "No! No! N - "

Max saw her slump then, her head falling again even before he realized he heard the injector built into the neck of her suit hiss and he bounced forward so he could catch her before he caught himself. "I had to," Xylene said, her voice thick with shock and her finger still on the control built into the left forearm of her suit as she stared at the woman in front of them. She still had the codes to Joan's, some part of him realized as he stared at her. He gave them to her. "It was going to kill her, Max. That thing… I had to…"

Max felt dumb as he nodded just as the woman in the chair let out a soft snore, and dumber as realized. "A full dose. If one did that…" He reached for the med-kit so he could recharge his injector. She was almost free.

"That's enough, Colonel," Albright said, his voice filling the room. A voice filled the room and was as hard as granite, but not hard enough that it hid the worry.

"But…" Max tried as he stared at the woman he barely knew even though they'd served together for months.

Albright's voice was gentle, but there wasn't hiding any of the strength in his grip as his hand found Max's shoulder. "She's on my team, Colonel. Max. She's my responsibility. Let me take her home. The Defiant can get her back to Avalon in just a few minutes, and the doctors there can take better care of her than we can here and you know it."

Max felt the medkit in his hand, the weight of it, the promise of it. One injection and he'd keep his promise.

Or he'd kill her because he didn't know any -

"No," Max said as he stared at the woman and saw red as he pushed himself up because he didn't know, but there was a room full of people on the other side who did. He stormed out the door even as two voices called after him. Voices he ignored as he stepped back into the main room of the desecrated church. Everything that should have been there was gone. Gone and replaced by machines and tech and ooze that didn't belong on this world. Stuff that covered even the stained glass windows. Stuff that was burned and broken by alien fire and only some of it was theirs.

It was almost as burned and broken as the handful of pirates that they'd found here. Pirates that the handful of Plumbers and Galactic Enforcers who weren't out securing the rest of the island were watching over and treating. None of the aliens were Xenocites, and none looked big enough for the voice he'd heard on the radio.

They were just the mix of species that pirates always were. Five of them survived in all, most suffering from the plasma burns that came with their line of work, but one… One that looked like a giant praying mantis with a couple more legs and a charcoal dark skin didn't have more than a cracked carapace.

It looked so fragile as he crossed the distance, but nowhere near as much as the woman he'd left in that office, her hair soaked with sweat with a baby waiting at home and a thing on her face. The slaver made pathetic little clicking sounds as the Plumber waved the injector over the crack and foam sprayed out. "How is he, Corporal?"

Dying, he hoped the man would say. Dying like the woman in the room behind him, like Armstrong and everyone on the moon over their heads. Like so many had already. It would be easier if he was. The alien sure sounded like it was as it moaned and the look that the boy gave it - God he barely looked twenty. Max couldn't remember ever being that young - was one of disgust. "He'll be fine, Colonel."

"Good," Max said with a quick, sharp nod. Then his hand blurred as he caught the alien by its thin neck and yanked it to its feet. "Talk."

"Sir!" The boy shouted as he jumped to his own.

"Stand down, Corporal," Max said the words that were a magic spell in the army in a voice that sounded so far away even as the alien shrieked. Its arms were handcuffed behind it's back, and its six legs scrambled at the ground and kicked at Max, but none of it got through the suit. "I'll take full responsibility."

"Can't!" The alien cried out, its mandibles clicking in panic and the bugs in his head buzzed as they turned what he said into broken English because even translator Microbes weren't perfect. Max wondered how hard he'd have to squeeze before that sound went away. "Can't! Surrendered! Enfor - !"

Not all that hard at all, it turned out.

Its mandibles bit at the air when he made himself relax his grip just a little as they got back to the door and all the fight went out of the alien because it knew. "N - no! Not my fault! Not my fault! Boss - Boss had big idea! Tired of ships and stations, so we come here! We take! Here and other places! This one bad but last! Last! We wanted to go, but he said no!"

"Where's this boss?"

The thing let out a kenning wail at that. "Don't know. Don't know. Gone. Gone when you come. Used Rings."

Max sucked in a breath at that as he followed the move the alien made with all its arms to the corner of the room and the rings he hadn't even seen that were set into the floor. They had a teleporter! One that was burned black now so no one could follow. He sucked in a breath and jammed his chin down on the radio control. "Avalon? We have a runner! Have any ships left the atmosphere in the last twenty minutes?"

The world was quiet after that. Quiet enough that Max wondered if Albright was reporting this. He wondered if he'd be in handcuffs, too, soon. Wondered and didn't care. Not now. "Affirmative, Colonel. We scrambled but one made the jump just a few minutes ago."

Max stood there, his mind racing and body still even as the alien in his hand was anything but. "Traitor! Traitor! Boss traitor! Blood Pack hunt across the - !"

"Don't promise more than you can deliver." Max growled as his mind raced. They'd still taken the base. He told himself that over and over. The last if the scum he was holding up was telling the truth, but the boss got away. If the Pirate was right then Wheels…

No.

Every eye was on them as the alien's voice shattered and died as he dragged it across the room and into the little room. Max didn't see the shock on Xylene's face or the way Albright jumped in his suit and the man's voice sounded so far away as he asked, "Colonel?"

No, he just saw the woman that the two were working on. The woman that they were trying to make comfortable. His hand shook as he pointed at the thing on Wheel's face. "And what about that? What's that?"

The alien froze as he stared with every eye at the squid thing on Wheel's head. "B - boss had it. Brought it. Kept locals in line. Made them loyal. Made everyone loyal." And the way he said that...

"How do I get it off?!"

"Don't know," the thing whimpered its whole body tense. "Don't know. Left if we knew."

Max stood there and tried to breathe as he stared at Joan and he saw one of the tentacles move. It pulled at her skin and left little strands of something behind as it stroked her short hair before it settled in just behind her ear and she shuddered at the touch.

"If you don't know…" Max said as he stared and tasted bile, but that was all. He should have felt sick as he threw the alien back into the main room. He heard the thing scream again and all the other pirates join in or try to hide even as he brought his left hand up and made a fist. The alien flinched and let out a hissing whine that matched the sound that the laser that was hidden in his wrist of his suit made as it powered up.

He should have been screaming, too. Max knew it, but he wasn't. He couldn't remember ever feeling so calm as he waited for the full charge, the kind that melted through armor plating. Not since that crazy summer started. And then when that ended, when he was finally sure they wouldn't lead all the bad guys home, there was just the panic where the months flew by as he looked for a teacher for his Pumpkin and a way to get that watch off of his Sport and not in the last when he gave up everything just to keep them out. Just so they could be kids.

Kids like the woman in the chair and her daughter at home and carefree like his Starshine...

Calm. He marveled at the feeling and held it close as it filled his voice. "If you don't know, then maybe one of your friends does. Maybe they just need some - "

"Max."

Max jolted when he heard Xylene say his name, and he spun around. He didn't let the alien go, and he didn't move his left wrist at all. She didn't try to stop him. She didn't even move. For once the twin tentacles that grew out of her head and her tail were still as she watched him with all three eyes. Sad, worried eyes. Purple eyes that he lost himself in more often than he could ever admit. Eyes he stared into now.

"This isn't you, Max," she said, her voice still soft as more Plumbers and Enforcers circled them.

And he almost laughed. "I've been a lot of things, Magister," he croaked out, not moving an inch. More things than even he could keep track of. Son, brother, soldier, pilot, astronaut, Plumber, husband, father, uncle, grandfather, hero. So many things. More than he could ever live up to and that didn't matter. Not as long as his little girl had that thing on her.

"Co - " Albright started, but he stopped when Xylene held up her hand.

"Everyone out," she ordered, her voice hard enough that it didn't matter that she didn't raise it. It was all she needed. Even the Plumbers obeyed her. All but Albright, who stood there like a mountain behind her. Max saw her face twist at that, but her eyes never left his. "What would Ben and Gwen say?"

Max shuddered at the names. His Grandchildren were heroes. They'd never…

That thought stopped him a year ago when he'd had Animo unconscious and dead in his sights. It stopped him even though he knew the madman would never keep his mouth shut when the rest of the Plumbers came to take him away and he hadn't. It took Jim all of a day before he found out, before his grandkids got dragged into all of this. If he'd just pulled the trigger back then on one monster…

"What would Helen? Or Manny?" he snapped right back and the alien at his feet jumped and curled up at his tone as Albright winced behind Xylene, who didn't even flinch. "How many families did this thing destroy already?"

"Didn't!" The thing whimpered. "Didn't!" He saw Albright reach for the pistol at his side. The one with a stun setting. The stun setting his laser didn't have, but it would make one hell of a show. "Amends! Will make amends! Will change!"

More promises that would never be kept. Max saw the world tunnel as he tightened his grip. The grip that would set off the laser with just a little more pressure. They'd taken the prisoners with them, but they'd still hear and maybe one would talk.

One would be enough.

"What about your Starshine?" Xylene asked, her voice so soft. "What about Verdona?"

Max just froze at hearing her say that name. Some part of him wondered how she knew it. He'd never told her. He never had the guts, even if he did tell her why he never could share a bunk with her again. Xylene barely understood the idea of a wife, but he did. Another difference. Another temptation. Another promise he'd…

He wouldn't break this one. He wouldn't let another woman down. He couldn't. His hand tightened around the trigger...

Max, the memory of his wife's voice echoed in his ears before he could pull it. One he hadn't heard since he buried their grandson. One that wasn't the least bit angry, just sad, and he could never stand hearing his Starshine sad, even if it seemed like that was all he ever made her.

He didn't even know he'd let his hand drop until a purple light engulfed the alien. A purple light he spun away from as he stormed out of the church and left them all behind.

- o - o - o - o - o -

The waves never stopped coming, and Max couldn't take his eyes off of them. Not as he heard the work going on behind him, the prisoners who were led away and the mix of Plumbers and Enforcers who still searched for the survivors, or as he heard the endless chatter on the radio until he turned it off. Some part of him waited for the runner, but Albright must have warned off the rest of the Plumbers because he was a good man and a better officer, and as for the Enforcers…

"Max," he heard a voice call just as the Defiant found the sky again. It didn't make a sound when it did, there were just the lights as its drive kicked back on. The same lights he still saw in too many nightmares, but for once it wasn't Chris's voice calling out to him as he sat there on the edge of the cliff and stared at it.

And it wasn't his old friend who sat down next to him close enough that she could have touched him with her hand or her tentacle, but she didn't. Xylene didn't say another word, she just stared out at the ocean with him. An ocean that was red with the setting sun and caught the last light from the Defiant before it disappeared.

There was just the sound of the waves until Max finally opened his mouth. "This is why I don't want them here. We don't win." The words came out, but he still didn't look at her or the ruined village and ruined lives behind them. He didn't have to, not when he could still smell the smoke.

"We won today," Xylene said, her voice soft and worried. Max just snorted, but he didn't pull his hand away when she took it. "The Blood Pack is done after this, Max. We couldn't get the prisoners to stop talking and I've already sent the report. Ultimos, Synaptak and Tini all agreed. They're the priority now. They'll be gone in a month and if we find any more of those things…"

"There'll be others." Max said, and he knew it down to his bones. Or the same ones, even Ben made jokes about that during the first summer. Jokes that stopped being funny after they'd run into Animo for the fourth time, and even thinking about the mad scientist again…

Max felt his shoulders slump.

Xylene made a noise at that. Not a snort, even alien women didn't do that, but it was close as she pulled a leg up and caught the edge of the cliff with her three-toed foot and she looked so tired for a second. He knew that she was older than he was. He still remembered how she laughed when they worked out their ages and cooed that her partner was a hatchling, but this was the first time she looked it. For a moment anyway, before she put her head on her knee and looked at him. "There will be more of us, too, Max." He laughed at that. Laughed and shook his head and she made a face. "If you're worried about today…"

But he wasn't. He should be - there were lines and he crossed them today even if he didn't pull the trigger - but he wasn't. Jim wouldn't care and the Enforcers…

They didn't expect anything better from humans. None of them but her, and she wouldn't report him. She should, but she wouldn't. Her hand squeezed his, and he wished that they weren't wearing gloves. That they weren't wearing anything as his eyes fell to the beach at the edge of the island. The slip of sand and boulders. "You really would look good sunning on those rocks."

"Flatterer," Xylene hummed at him. A hum that he felt as she turned his head with a brush of her powers and kissed him, full and hard on the before she broke away and asked, "What are you doing here, Max? You're too old for this. You should be off telling tales somewhere and inspiring the hatchlings and me."

"I always thought," Max said as he turned back to the ocean and watched the waves again. Waves that would wear down even the hard rock of this island one day. "I always thought that if I was the soldier then maybe…"

Maybe his kids could be something more. His kids and Grandkids. "They couldn't do it. Ben and Gwen. They couldn't do this. They couldn't just walk away from here even if we did win." And it was a win, he knew it was. She was right, if the Enforcers were involved then the Blood Pack and their new boss really were done. They were already done on this world. There were still the stragglers and the cleanup - there always was - but he'd done his job and his duty. He'd won.

It just didn't feel like it, even if he could go home now. "They couldn't walk away, not like we are. Whole towns are gone and we're just… They couldn't do it."

There weren't any promises about how they'd find the missing people. The woman next to him knew better than that, there was just the warm weight as she put her head on his shoulder and sighed, "I know."

"Jim doesn't," Max said and he felt so tired. "If he had his way..." Or worse, he would and he would use it against them. Keep them on the field until they wore down to nothing, the missions as endless as the waves. Max could see it so easily. Them in this uniform…

That was the only thing that still kept him up at night. They should be more.

Xylene's laugh cut through him, and he pulled away when he heard it even as it turned into something else. "I'm sorry," the woman said as she turned away. "I'm sorry I brought all of this down on you."

Max just stared at the back of her head and the tendrils that clung so tight around her. "I think that you have that backward. I was the one who dragged you - "

"Not today, Max," the woman said. The one who spent a century fighting the worst that this galaxy had to offer and didn't even blink or flinch, but she flinched now. "For bringing the Omnitrix here. If I hadn't…"

He reached out for her back. "Don't blame yourself for that. If Vilgax - " Max started and stopped as she jumped at his touch.

"He chased me here, but he wasn't the reason…" Xylene started, and there wasn't any light in her eyes at all as she turned. "I didn't bring the Omnitrix here because of him. I brought it here because… Because after Ultimos told me about it, about what it could do, what it could be…" Eyes that vanished as she closed them tight. "All I could think about was what it could do in the hands of a good person, the best one I've ever known, and when he said that its creator wanted it back so he could destroy it…"

"A good…" Max's hand dropped as he stared. Her twin tendrils hung limply from her head and her tail was on the ground, vulnerable in a way she never was, in the way a Magister in the Galactic Enforcers couldn't be, but it was her eyes that showed all the guilt she must have been holding since she found out her probe missed. Neither of them knew how, but it didn't matter. There wasn't anything that they could do about it now.

And just seeing her like this…. And after what he'd almost done. A good person...

"A better one got it." Ben would never go as far as he almost did. Max knew that down to his bones.

"Impossible," the woman said as she finally met his eyes again with a challenge in hers. A challenge and a hint of something. "Ben's too much like you. They both are." That made Max close his eyes, and they stayed that way until he felt the hands catch around the back of his neck. When he opened them again he saw her smile as she settled into his lap, her fangs sharp under the tiny scales of her lips as they stretched in a grin. "But the idea that anyone could make those two do anything that they didn't want to? Please, Max. I could barely get them to listen when we had to save you, and they wanted that more than anything."

"Wrangling cats, those two," Max agreed with something like a laugh as he reached over and cupped her bottom.

Her hand found his again and squeezed it even as she wrapped a tentacle around him for the hug only she could give. "Just like you."

Max felt his back go stiff at the words. "They're nothing like me. They're heroes."

"They're just like you, you stupid ape," Xylene said with a laugh as she leaned over. A sad laugh. "You've just been here for too long. I could use your help for one last favor and after that… We've spent enough time protecting this galaxy. Let's go see some of it. I don't even care what. The Gardens of Alder, or the plasma storms around what's left of Betelgeuse, or we could even spend the rest of our lives hunting for Anodites if that's what you want to do. I don't care..."

"You'd spend the rest of your life looking for the mermaids of space?" Max asked with a laugh, only mermaids were real. He knew. He'd seen one once in a museum. Or as much of it as he could when Ben and Gwen had their faces pressed against the glass. Enough that he could see the stitches that held together the halves of the poor dried out thing.

Xylene went quiet at that, and her usual frown finally melted away, and she looked so young. "Perhaps not my whole life, but if I was doing it with you…" There was so much hope in that look and those words. Hope that died as she hung her head. "I don't blame you for hating me, Max. Not after - "

Max heard the pain in those words. Words he couldn't meet with anything but a kiss. One that caught her surprise before she just kissed him back. Then there was just the feel of her in his arms until they finally broke apart. "Never," Max swore as he looked her right in the eye. Eyes that were alien from the color to the slit of her irises, but it didn't matter. Not when they had the same look that he'd seen before in another woman, the only other woman. The one he'd promised his life and his heart to and who time stole away. He hoped she could forgive him now. "The kids still need me," he said because it was true, even if he could go home now, even if he'd done his duty as a soldier he'd still have to report in. There would be more crises. More calls he'd have to make.

And that was just being a Plumber. That wasn't anything compared to being their dad and Grandpa. He'd missed too many tournaments and competitions, too many birthdays and games and proms, too many first dates. and the kids were almost teenagers now. They'd need him more than ever for the next few years but after that…

He saw the hurt in those purple eyes, a hurt that didn't go away even when she closed them, and that was gone when he caught her lips with his. "But they won't be kids forever, and they'd love to see you again this summer if you can swing by again after you've done your favor."

If they meant it when they said that they still wanted to go. If they could forgive him for being gone so long. One more summer. A normal one this time, too. if he had his way.

She hummed into his lips as her arms and tentacles circled him and held him tight until she broke away and whispered in his ear, her breath as hot as her words. "Just the kids?"

"No," Max answered and there was so much more that he wanted to say. Things like the kids needed him now, but they'd be eighteen soon. Adults. They'd always need him after just like he'd need them, but maybe…

But he didn't say it. He didn't make that promise. He learned his lesson. He just kissed her again under the light of the setting sun.