Corena swings her legs up onto the table, massaging Best's dog tags between her thumb and forefinger. The two metal plates rest on a chain around her neck, one with Best's information, the other with her forehead implants. The Pitchfork leans against the tent post behind her.

Our camp—Solitude's Edge—has been tense since The Colonel confirmed the vault hunters were back on Helios. What for, she couldn't understand. It's been weeks since her last message. Radio silence says a thousand things.

We sit smack in the middle of Vorago Solitude, a far less habitable offshoot of Triton Flats. Plants are a rarity. Animals less so. All we have for company are the guardians, the canyons of slag, and the fissure, howling and spewing curtains of light. Maybe the howling is unique to Eternals. Boxer and Corena haven't complained about it and we sleep in the same tent.

"Do you talk to them?" Corena asks suddenly, looking at me over Best's tags.

I stare at her.

"The guardians."

Boxer snorts.

"No, I can't talk to them," I reply pointedly. "I don't even think they speak, just click."

"They click?"

"Yeah, they—" I gesture vaguely, "It's like a bat, or a cricket or something." I mimic the sound best I can with my tongue.

Corena chuckles. "So you do speak to them."

"I don't—whatever. Why? You want to ask them something? Hoping I'll put in a good word for you and you'll get a pretty scepter?"

Corena's eyes flash. "A scepter, I hadn't thought about that . . ."

Boxer laughs just as his ECHO, sat in the center of the table, pings with an incoming com. I lean forward and flick it on. A voice I'd deliberately avoided in the last four years rumbles through the static.

"Troops," Lieutenant Colonel Avett booms, "I bring bad news." His voice is that clipped, raucous tone nearly all the top-brass Dahl soldiers have. I swear it's part of their training to sound like a hardass with a bone to pick with the world. "Our enemy has stormed Elpis. Our control of the battlefield wanes. Worse, your Colonel is dead."

Corena slides her legs off the table, staring at the ECHO like it's a bomb.

"Jack and his cadre of vault hunters stormed the Eye of Helios and killed Colonel Tungsteena Zarpedon."

My blood goes cold. Boxer makes a slight oh sound, eyes wide, staring at nothing, picturing it in his head.

"Other high-ranking officer casualties include: Corporal Sparks, Lieutenant Contreras, Corporal Bob . . ." He continues. I'm not listening. First Best. Now this. The Colonel and Bob, cut down.

"Shit . . ." Boxer breathes.

"They know the vault is open and they are coming to ruin our mission. Do not let that happen, troops. By the process of elimination, I am now the commanding officer of the Lost Legion. Do not abandon the mission laid out by The Colonel. Do not let them in the vault. Avett out." The ECHO goes dark. I stand, shoving my chair back. The air in the tent is suddenly stifling.

Stumbling outside, Boxer calls to me, I hear the news reach everyone else in the camp. A few others come out of their tents. We all wear the same wounded expression of lost, confused grief. We're all wondering what the hell happens now.

She's dead. The reason I stayed by. The reason I bothered with any of this vault business. She's gone. Same with Bob.

It seems all this vault has done is take from me. My face, my sleep, Best, The Colonel, Bob. In the end, what am I left with? Boxer and Corena, as shackled to this empty cause as I am. All destined to fight and die a war heavily out of our favor.

Like in the fissure, the camp has a set of floodlights that turn on during the "day" and off during the "night." I lie awake in my bunk, roving the ECHOnet. We didn't have access in the fissure, now that we do, I'm trying to catch up on all the news I missed out on. One thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is that Atlas vanished. Gone. Even their guns are disappearing all over the galaxy.

Which makes it frustratingly difficult to get a read on Promethea. Atlas all but owned the planet, and now that they vanished with the night, Promethea's down too. From what I can tell they don't have access to the net there. If my sister is still on that stupid planet, I can't contact her. If she's even still alive.

No.

She's fine. She's a fighter.

I glance out the thick window into the bleak camp. The Watcher has been absent since The Colonel died. I can't help but think that it's abandoned us. It knows we will split down the middle without The Colonel and it has left us to die on this moon. I lean back, close my eyes. I haven't slept in who knows how many weeks. Months maybe. Still, it's nice to rest in the dark and recharge.

The plastic floor creaks as someone enters. I open my eyes, filling the room with that electric, blue glow I'm still not used to. Boxer pads to my cot and sits on the end. Eyes distant and tired, brow creased with some internal battle.

"I can't sleep," he admits. I sit up. "First it was the dreams and now . . . it all keeps me up. I can't stop thinking about her daughter. What is going to happen to that poor kid?"

"I don't know," I say sympathetically.

Boxer shakes his head, glancing over at me, face washed blue from my eyes. He's as lost as the rest of us. Floating absently through a sea of grief. Like The Colonel left her daughter, like I left my sister, like Bob left his wife and kids, Boxer left his loved ones behind. And even now, he's thinking of others. Worried about someone else's family.

I reach out to him, touching his hand, bicep, shoulder. I pull him to me and he moves across the cot, resting his head on my shoulder, sighing as he does so. The weight is warm and comforting. He takes my hand, bringing it to rest on his chest. I feel his heart beating through the thin fabric. I lean back against the wall, his breath soon slows, eyes fluttering closed. He mumbles out a thank you and my stomach fills with a familiar warmth.

Is this love? This foreign, silent thing we've forged? It's something. Something wrapped tighter around my heart than the relics. Something deeper than the vault's hold on me. The vault has me in a vice-like grip, suffocating me when I dare stray. Boxer is intertwined with me, a whole, complex person who sees me as the same. Who listens to my problems, comes to me with his. This trust is new and so incredibly filling. Two people, both with our own complexities and faults and paths, and yet here, we cross and create something whole and beautiful together. Despite everything, he is here, I am here.