A/N: Previously unreleased chapters 07 and 08 were written between 2013 and 2015, for those who care about that kind of thing.

07

The man who sauntered out of the shadows by the door and into the light was like a mountain, broad and tall, but he may as well have been a child. Fayt could not have fought off one any better than the other. He watched in bleary helplessness as the man swayed to a halt, jarringly casual, with one hand on his hip. In a mockery of the clarity Fayt had felt only a moment ago, he was little more than a blur of dark and light in the vague shape of a man, gesturing broadly. "You know, I thought I lost you when your distress signal went out. Might not've found you if it hadn't been for those explosions."

They're going to kill me, he thought morosely. I can barely even keep my head up.

But even as he tried to reach for his sword-ultimately futile; his muscles all useless and quivering-Norton rounded on the man, jerking the muzzle of his rifle away from Fayt and towards the newcomer instead. "What do you want? You're not one of them Federation guys, are ya?"

Fayt began to realize slowly, through the clearing fog in his brain, that the two did not know each other after all. Despite the phase gun now leveled at his face, however, the newcomer seemed unworried. He leaned back a little, jerking a thumb up to his chest. "Who, me? A Federation soldier? Hah, that's a good one!" Bizarrely, madly, as if he had no care for his life at all, the man continued forward towards the muzzle of the gun. Fayt stared at him, now looking at the broad expanse of his back and wondering if he were witnessing a suicide. "Tell me another."

But Norton was not joking, and he was not laughing. His voice, so jocular dealing with Fayt, became a hard, commanding bark. Gone were his loose gestures: he kept the phase rifle trained unswervingly on the newcomer. "Well then who are ya?"

The new man stopped, but said nothing for a moment, perhaps taking in Norton's change in demeanor. When he raised a hand again-though Fayt could not see the end of the action from where he stood, it rose no higher than as if he had placed it back on his chest- he did so slowly. "Cliff Fittir. Klausian, and member of Quark." The slow movement finally resolved itself with both arms coming up, crossing over his chest in front of him.

Fayt jumped slightly. Quark? His mind raced with it, recognizing the name of the terrorist organization. But Norton jumped as well. Despite his weapon, despite the fact that the man-Cliff-was clearly unarmed, he took a step back. "A...K-Klausian?"

"Yeah. Sorry, no time to explain. Kinda in a hurry here." Cliff dropped his arms, one falling back to his hip in an action that was more and more obviously habitual. With the other, he pointed at Fayt. "Just lemme have that Earthling boy over there, Fayt-it is Fayt, right? Of course it is-and I'll be on my way. I don't plan on butting in on whatever ya got going on over here." He shrugged, turning back towards Norton again with a shake of the head. "You take care of your business, and I'll take care of mine."

Fayt opened his mouth belatedly, but at first no sound came out except for a dull creak from his parched throat. He coughed and tried again. "How- how do you know my name?"

"I wouldn't sweat the details." Cliff glanced back at him, but nothing more than that. "Suffice it to say you're my man."

"H-hold it!" There was no doubt that Norton had meant it as a command, but his frantic tone as much as the momentary stammer gave away his nerves, and lessened it. "Hold it right there or I'll blast ya!"

"Huh?" Cliff had not moved any more than his head, and now he looked back over his shoulder again, looking around the room as if to see who else might have been moving around behind his back. Even he must have seen that Fayt was not going anywhere on his rubbery legs, because he turned back to Norton with a tone of faint disbelief. "You talking to me?"

"You think you can fool me?" The Rezerbian bared his jostling nest of lamprey teeth. Fayt could see the pale flash of them even through his blurry vision. He kept the phase rifle on Cliff, but raised one hand to point at the man accusingly. "There's no way a Klausian would come here! You're probably some sorta spy! It's so obvious!" He laughed again, hard and barking and ugly.

Rather than respond to the accusation, Cliff's head lowered, shaking slowly as he sighed. The entire gesture was jarringly familiar to Fayt; it made him think, fleetingly, of his father. "...Look. Since I'm such a nice guy, I'm gonna fill you in on a little secret." Cliff's head rose again, and he cocked a finger, pointing right back at Norton. "That gun you have there? Has no effect on us Klausians. You didn't know that?"

"Sh-shut your hole!" Norton jerked back another step and his back struck the wall, leaving him nowhere else to go. His pointing hand jerked back in to the weapon.

It all happened very quickly after that.

Fayt raised a hand, leaning forward, his mouth opening to call a warning in the moment that the phase rifle fired. It had been pointed directly and unswervingly at Cliff but now, as the brief, bright emission of energy left its muzzle, Cliff was no longer there. For a moment Fayt thought that he had been killed, vanished into the weapon's light as so many of the village's people before him. The rifle fired again-once, twice, three more times -the air rippling like a hot tide on its discharge and a trail of smoking black holes blooming rapidly in the stone where they struck. Even more quickly, something dark wove between the blasts, rushing forward towards the Rezerbian. It was not until it suddenly stopped, with a shattering wet crunch and a short, blunt scream from Norton, that Fayt realized the moving object was Cliff. It was not until that instant that he entirely registered Cliff had actually moved at all.

"All right." The crunch had been Norton's arm, bent now at a sickening angle, and the rifle clattered from his useless fingertips. He gagged, legs twitching against the wall as he was was lifted from the floor by his throat, chin balanced on Cliff's fist. There was nothing casual about the Klausian's tone now, and Fayt recoiled, as much from that as the brutality of it. "I'm done lecturing. Time to teach you a lesson."

To Fayt's horror, Norton continued to claw and struggle with his remaining hand, snarling. He heard the man's boot strike Cliff's body with a hard, blunt thud that sounded as if it should have knocked the Klausian to the floor as he kicked. "I built this!" he shrieked. "It's mine! Do you think I won't kill ya for it, bastard? My kingd-!"

Through the howling, Cliff sighed and shook his head, that strangely fatherly action. This time, the wet crunch was Norton's throat. Fayt looked away, his stomach roiling and the taste of vomit welling up into his mouth, but averting his eyes did nothing to take away the terrible sound of the body striking the floor.

"Well, so much for that guy." And yet, in spite of Fayt's horror and revulsion, Cliff's voice was light again. He heard the man moving, and when he looked back again, Cliff was crouched beside Norton. His massive, bare shoulders shifted slightly as he rifled through the pockets of the dead man's coat. Fayt looked away again. "But, I did try to warn him."

It did not get any easier, he thought. Hearing that sound, seeing the limp, cooling forms on the ground in its wake, did not get any easier, no matter how many times a man thought I am going to kill him, and perhaps even if he had possessed the strength or means he could not have done it himself, after all. He did not feel any more safe for Norton's passing, either. He had heard that the physical capabilities of Klausians far outstripped those of humans, but this... Norton had not been a large man, but to have lifted and then broken the Rezerbian like a ragdoll, to have dodged gunfire... Fayt's wildest imaginings would not ever have thought to translate that knowledge into what he had just witnessed. He thought uneasily of Cliff's introduction. That he was a member of Quark. As a Federation citizen, the idea that he was now in the company of an anti-Federation terrorist who could very clearly snap his spine with minimal effort was a long way from comforting. As awful a thought as it was, he almost wished that the two men had at least done each other in.

Cliff's head cocked to the side suddenly, and he stood. For a terrible moment Fayt wondered if Klausians could hear thoughts. But the man simply put a hand on his hip, tossing something small and flat up and down in his other hand as he turned back to Fayt. "Looks like I overdid it. Shoulda held back a little bit. Would you believe I was just gonna knock him out?" He shrugged it off without waiting for an answer, then tossed the object to Fayt. "Here. This is about all he's got that still works. The rest is useless."

Without thinking, Fayt jerked his hand up and caught the object. He lowered his hand to blink at it. For a moment it was simply a circular blur, but his vision was beginning to clear at last, and after a moment he realized what he was looking at. "Is this...a communicator?"

"Hey, can't live without one. I can't figure out why you wouldn't have one with you."

"Ah...yeah." Fayt cleared his throat a little, and stuffed the new translator into his pocket, glad to have it but not wanting to look at it or the slight smudge of the Rezerbian's watery orange blood Cliff had left on it. He looked back up at Cliff again, now able to see both his face and the thick, dark parallel bands of skin circling his neck through his open collar. Their faint vertical expansion and contraction was out of time with his breathing, subtly disconcerting, and Fayt jerked his eyes up away from them. Like Cliff's strength, he had known the bands were a feature of the species but not accounted for how unsettling they might be in person. The man's face, at least, looked wholly human. An idealized Aryan fantasy of one perhaps, but still human; faint lines near his mouth and eyes attesting to his age the only sign of imperfection. Fayt cleared his throat again as Cliff raised a brow at his regard, and lowered his head again. "Thanks for getting me out of that mess. You...saved my life."

Cliff let out a faint snort, and began to walk forward again. "Whoa there. Don't go thanking me yet." Fayt took a step back as he approached, one foot sliding back slightly to brace himself-for what action that would not end up futile he did not know-but the man passed him and then stopped without incident. "Ya see, earthling..." He paused, as if trying to find the best way to frame his statement, then leaned back a bit and looked over his shoulder at Fayt once more. "I'm here to abduct you and take you to my leader."

"What?!" Fayt started slightly, but then realized that yes, Cliff had already said that, hadn't he? Not in the same words, but he had told Norton that he was here for Fayt, even that he would leave Norton to his sick little empire in exchange for him. "You can't-!"

"Ah." Cliff held up a hand. This close Fayt could see the metal band over his knuckles, as dully black as man's gloves. What he had taken for a longer glove, reaching almost to the man's left shoulder, he could now see was more of a gauntlet, the dark material set with small plates and bands of armor and laced with wires. He found himself relieved by the idea that at least some of Cliff's frightening strength might have been augmented by the device. It did not make it any easier to think about where the faint, wet glimmer spattered lightly across his hands had come from. "Now don't get all worked up. I'm not going to hurt anybody. It's just my boss wants to meet you. That's why I came all the way out here to find you."

"Boss?" Fayt frowned, slowly standing straight again. "You mean...Quark's boss?"

"That's right. Our leader wants to see you. I said that, right?" He dropped his hand to his hip, hooking a thumb into one pocket. More of his hand probably would not have fit; Fayt found himself wondering a little drily how the man could move so quickly and easily in such restrictive-looking clothing. The thought seemed out of place here and now, like something he would have thought in another life. Something he would have thought back home. "But you've sure made it a tough job. First I went to Hyda and ran into that mess, thanks to you. Then I get here and find you poking your nose into matters best left alone. I mean it's what I'd expect from Federation, but-"

"Hey!" Despite everything, Fayt found himself taking a step forward. "You make it sound like it's my fault Hyda got attacked!"

Arms rising to cross over his chest, Cliff looked down and back at Fayt through slightly narrowed eyes, saying nothing. There was something chilling in that silent regard, and Fayt subsided again. He found a nervous apology bubbling up in his throat, but before it could escape the man's eyes opened fully again, and he gave an irreverent grin. "Kidding! Just kidding. Don't sweat it." He turned towards Fayt completely now, spreading his hands in an expansive gesture. "I mean, I've got you now. And I did rescue you, so no complaining."

Fayt looked down again. "Look, I said 'thank you' and I don't appreciate you treating this like a joke-"

"You want to see your old man again, don't you?"

Immediately, Fayt's head jerked back up. "Dad?!" His vision swam, with the swiftness of the motion or simply with emotion, he neither knew nor cared, Cliff blurring into a mass of dark and light again before resolving back into a man. The man was grinning, hand back at his hip, thumb hooked in his pocket, and Fayt knew that he knew he would have his way now; there was a smug self-assuredness to it that was all the more infuriating for the fact that it was absolutely right. "My dad? You have my family?"

"Ah...no." Cliff lifted his other hand, making a quick pointing motion, like a child mocking a gun. "Your dad's been captured by the Vendeeni."

His head was spinning. Fayt thought he might fall. He felt like he was falling already. "But...why?"

"Hey, don't ask me. All I know is your old man was abducted from the Evacuation Facility on Hyda."

"What about my mother?!" Instead of falling, Fayt lurched forward. He grabbed hold of Cliff's arms, not for support but to shake the man. He might as well have gripped metal rods; he might as well have tried to shake a wall. Cliff did not budge, but that did not stop Fayt from trying. "What about Sophia?!"

He felt frantic, sounded frantic on his own ears, and he must have looked it as well. He would have fought for the knowledge, even knowing that Cliff could break him he would have fought for it, but he did not have to. The Klausian's voice was not even devoid of sympathy when he replied. "We know your mom's safe. She should've already arrived at Remote Station Six. But I don't know about the girl. I've had my hands full just trying to track down your escape pod."

He pushed himself away from Cliff and let go, looking up at the man suspiciously now. "...How do you know all of this? And what else do you know?"

"Not much else. Sorry." Cliff shrugged expansively, spreading his hands. He seemed to catch sight of the blood on his knuckles at last, and spent a moment examining them before wiping them off on his pants. He added as an afterthought: "Oh. I do know what your old man, Dr. Leingod, was researching."

"You mean symbological genetics?" Fayt was not impressed, and it carried through in his tone. "My dad's a well-known authority in that field. It's not exactly a surprise that you've heard of him."

"Right, symbological genetics! And nineteen years ago-" The man stopped, then looked up from cleaning his knuckles, reaching the same hand up to scratch the back of his head. "Ah, never mind. Doesn't matter right now."

Fayt closed his eyes and lowered his head, turning away. It was a lot to take in; too much, even, and none of it made sense. Could the man be lying? He didn't see why; Cliff could have taken him by force without the need to coerce him. But why would he even want to? What possible interest could the leader of Quark have in him; what possible interest could the Vendeeni have with his father; how would Quark know of it even if they did? Was his mother really safe? Where was Sophia? What-

His train of thought was interrupted by a hard sock to his shoulder. There was no doubt that Cliff had meant for it to be companionable, but it made sparks burst behind Fayt's eyes and left the limb numb. "C'mon!" His tone was absurd; Cliff might have been trying to cajole a friend into some kind of juvenile stunt instead of a stranger into allowing himself to be kidnapped. "Ya don't have any other way off this rock, do ya? I'm sure things will clear up if you just come with me. Besides, you'll be able to see your old man again."

Once the sparks cleared from Fayt's eyes, he opened them, looking sideways at the big Klausian. "...According to you, my father's been captured by the Vendeeni. So how could I possibly see him?"

Fayt wondered if the answer might not be the explanation for the attack on Hyda as well: the Vendeen were at war with Aldian, as was the Federation, but they were not allies with each other. Was it possible then that they had allied themselves with Quark, and perhaps other terrorist groups as well? But even as the thought crossed his mind, Cliff's response suggested otherwise. "Simple!" He socked a fist into his other palm, grinning, as if there could be no other response and he would have it no other way. "Quark'll go rescue your old man, too. Same as we did with you."

"I don't...understand."

"Hey, like I said, I don't have a lot of answers-"

"No, I mean..." Fayt turned to face him again, spreading his hands. The gesture did nothing to convey the helplessness he felt. "My father's done a lot of work for the government. I don't understand why a bunch of anti-Federation terrorists would want to help him."

"Well..." Cliff leaned forward, rocking on his heels a bit as he reached up to scratch the back of his head again. "Well, tell ya what, it's kinda complicated. So let's just not get into that right now. Are you coming or not?"

"You said you were abducting me. I have a choice?"

"I'm Klausian," he said, simply, as if that were somehow an answer. As if it explained everything, or anything at all.

Fayt stood in silence, helpless silence, head down and eyes closed and not feeling as if he really had a choice at all; like a game which prompted a choice but simply kept cycling, over and over, until the player chose the answer its story demanded. But even if he was allowed to choose, truly, what kind of a choice was it? He could turn Cliff down, yes. But then what? Wait, and hope, and pray that someone would find him after all, in such a remote place? What if he could not get the distress signal back up again after all? What if his father really was captured-whether by the Vendeeni or Quark or anyone else? If he did not leave, if he did not leave now, he might never know.

If this man wanted to hurt you, said the small and reasonable voice in his mind, he would have. If he wanted to lure you in with lies, he would have told you Quark already had your family.

"I've been taking chances since I got here," Fayt muttered. "So you're saying I should take at least one that makes some kind of sense?"

"What's that?"

"Nothing." Fayt opened his eyes and looked up with a short nod. "I'll go with you." Cliff did not say anything, but nodded back in response. He did not look smug, as Fayt might have thought, nor even particularly pleased; he seemed to simply accept Fayt's decision, and it left Fayt wondering how Cliff would have responded had he said no after all. Shrugging the thought off, Fayt looked away again, this time to the door of the cell. Niklas' pale hand rest limply on the ground, fingers curled loosely towards his palm. Through everything, he had not woken up. "But could we stop by the village first? I want to be sure Niklas-the boy, I came here to find him. I want to be sure he gets home safely."

"Sure, whatever." Fayt looked back to Cliff sharply, frowning at his dismissive tone. "I still think you shouldn't have gotten involved."

"You're a murderous terrorist," Fayt pointed out. "I don't expect you to understand."

"Yeah, about that — I really resent that term. Ya mind?"

"Murderer?"

"Terrorist." Cliff waved a hand and stepped away. He clearly had no intention of helping Fayt with Niklas. "I told you, that thing with the Rezerbian was an accident, and it was self-defense anyway. Serves him right for trying to take on a Klausian with a phase rifle though."

"I didn't mean the- No one's actually 'immune' to phase rifles. You know that, right?" Fayt took a few slow, hesitant steps towards Niklas, each a little more certain than the last. His conversation with Cliff had left him uneasy and full of questions, but at least it had given him time to recover from...whatever it was that had come over him. He knelt down and carefully lifted the boy again, cradling him close to his chest. "They destroy their target's molecular cohesion through phase magnification."

When he turned back towards the room, Cliff was giving him a dull, flat stare. He wondered if the explanation, simple as it was, might not have been over the man's head. It fit with the impression Fayt had gotten of him; physically gifted, but not necessarily too smart. He certainly didn't seem to have many answers, or tools in his personal problem solving kit beyond his fists. "It means-"

"You ever see a Klausian get killed by a phase rifle, kid?"

Fayt frowned a little at the interruption. "No, but-"

"Well, there you go." Cliff spread his hands as if revealing a great truth, then hooked a thumb back into one pocket with a shake of his head. "What a wet blanket. You done over there?"

"I need to use the replicator. In the other room-"

"You can use the one on my ship. It's probably in better shape."

"...Before I leave, I mean." Fayt shifted slightly. "It's for Niklas' family."

"You're kidding?" They stared at each other for a moment, and Cliff blew out a long huff of air, too forceful to be called a 'sigh'. He turned and began to walk away, out of the room, lifting a hand to gesture for Fayt to follow over his shoulder as he went. "You're not kidding. Okay, okay. But make it quick, I've already got the place wired to go."

"To 'go'? What do you mean by that?" Fayt followed with a frown. He had to lengthen his stride to catch up. The new gait pulled at his muscles, stretching and twinging them in ways that brought out new pains. He bit back a faint wince. "Go where?"

"Go boom. You know-" The man gestured expansively, spreading his hands apart as he opened them quickly, popping the fingers wide. "Boom!"

Again, Fayt stared at him. For a moment he was not even sure how to respond to it, and they walked in silence. "...You really are a terrorist."

"Hey. Terrorists do not have a monopoly on cool explosions. In fact, I seem to remember you Terrans have a thing for them in entertainment." Cliff stopped at the end of the hall, leaning on the door frame in the soft blue glow from the computer screens within. "Now hop to it."

Uneasy, Fayt hesitated for a moment, looking from Cliff to the door to Niklas where the boy rest unconscious in his arms. At last he nodded and hurried past the Klausian, not wanting to leave Niklas in his care. He looked around the room for a moment before moving to the flight chair set against the wall, and set the boy gently down into it. "Don't worry," he told the boy quietly, brushing a hand over his forehead and wishing he could know if he was feverish or the people of this world were always so warm. "I promise I won't let your efforts go to waste."

There was a faint prickling feeling on the back of his neck, and he looked over his shoulder, rubbing at it slightly, as he straightened. Cliff was watching him from the doorway. He thought for a moment about making a joke about it-thinking that kind of feeling existed only in stories-but thought better of it. Instead he walked to the replicator. When he activated it, he saw that the language controls on this, at least, had not been tampered with so much that he could not read the displays. He went through them quickly, reaching into his pocket for the parts that he needed. He should have replicated medical supplies, he knew. Something to better tend to both his and Niklas' wounds than the bag of primitive medicines over his shoulder, the contents now brokenly clicking inside of it. But he did not know how much time they had, and he had made a promise, and Fayt, like Adonis, was a man of his word. He could only hope that the village apothecary could forgive him for not knowing what to do, and would, herself, be able to do enough. He placed the music box parts onto the replicators scanner plate and set it to run, taking the opportunity to lean on the stacked supply cases for a moment of rest while he waited. The entire day was catching up with his body quickly; sharp, throbbing pains were twisting to life in places he had not even realized he had to hurt. He closed his eyes and waited for the indicator beep from the machine.

He did not realize that he had dozed off until a hand on his shoulder shook him awake. "Hey. Hey, kid. You can nap on the ship, we've got places to go and people to meet."

Fayt blinked a few times, trying to clear his blurry vision as he opened his eyes. He tried to remember where he was, why he was there, who was speaking to him. Why his head and body so ached—anything. For a moment he could think of nothing. "What? I wasn't-"

Another hand slapped something hard and metal into his palm. He looked down, disoriented, and saw the music box parts. The day slammed back into place in his mind and it left him reeling. When he leaned back, overwhelmed, Cliff let him: supporting the young man against his broad chest for a moment. The hand on Fayt's shoulder was oddly comforting; the way it shifted to hold him, briefly, almost paternal. If the man were not so much larger and more fit Fayt could almost have closed his eyes again and pretended it was his father. It was a strange moment and a strange thought. "Come on, kid."

"...Yeah." Fayt swallowed hard, then nodded and straightened up again. The hand on his shoulder fell off easily. "Yeah, I... Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Cliff waved his hand, the other one hooking back into his pocket. "Let's blow this place. Literally and figuratively."

Fayt grimaced. "I still can't believe..." He shook his head, tucking the music box parts quickly back into his pocket as Cliff laughed and sauntered out of the room. He supposed he should have expected such a flippant attitude. He was still shaking his head in disapproval as he picked Niklas back up and followed the Klausian out. "You know, there are other people here."

"Yeah, I chased a bunch out while I was looking for you. It's amazing what a good whooping will do to get young punks to stop loitering around and go home."

"But you can't blow the place up," Fayt protested, trying for a different, hopefully more clear angle. "You don't know if you chased them all out."

Cliff said nothing. Fayt hoped that meant that he was thinking about what he had said and realizing what a terrible and irresponsible an idea it was to detonate Norton's base. It was only when they finally emerged from the basement and back into the light, pausing to blink and adjust their eyes, that Cliff spoke again and he realized this was not true at all.

Looking back over his shoulder, Cliff tipped his head. "Come on over here by me." He nodded again when Fayt obeyed-there was no reason not to, and with his hands full it was certainly safer to stay close to the big bruiser even if he was dangerous himself-and then looked down to his hand, tapping lightly at a bright point on the wrist of one glove. Moments later, Fayt felt the ground shift, not really rumbling but more of a shrug, strange and somehow expressive, followed by a muffled thud. Cliff had been wrong: there was no 'boom'. He did not hear the explosion itself but only the sound of the building crumbling in on itself as the ancient floor buckled with the basement's destruction. The walls teetered, leaning; rubble crashed into the open doorway. Smoke and dust belched out of the opening. Fayt wondered if any of the young men had been down there there. How many of them.

"Kid," the man said, putting a hand on his shoulder once more as he stared, "Choices have consequences. Sometimes they're little, sometimes they're big, but no one's got the right to take them away from you."

Fayt turned his stare slowly upward, neck stiff as he stared at the man. "...None of these people would have chosen to die."

"I don't just mean the choices." Cliff pat his shoulder again, then dropped his hand lower, placing it around the scabbard on Fayt's back to turn him and give him a light shove forward. "Now everything's back to normal, huh? You should be happy with that."

"You're wrong." He turned his head to stare at Cliff again, long and hard. He could feel the heat stirring in his head, but sluggishly. He was angry, but also shocked and weary and sore. It lay like a haze over everything. Finally, when Cliff said nothing, he looked down again to the boy in his arms. "Things aren't back to normal. Niklas and Meena's parents...all the people who died in all of this...they're gone forever." He shook his head, shifting slightly, leaning against the wall for just a moment, and began to trek slowly out of the ruins. After a moment he heard Cliff follow after him.

The walk was quiet, and long. It seemed that Cliff had very much meant what he said about running most of Norton's followers out on his way in. The silence only served to deepen the haunted quality of the ruins, and Fayt hated it for that even as he was thankful not to have to sneak around avoiding fights. The ruins faded into the forest, and still, they saw no one...only a few signs of hasty flight, clots of russet soil thrown up and footprints marked into the forest loam and later the road. Even the fields surrounding the village seem strangely empty as they passed them; as if the people had served some unknown purpose and so ceased to exist. Fayt paused every so often to look over his shoulder, but Cliff was always following what seemed to be the same distance behind him. He did not know if he had expected the man to vanish as well, but there was always a dull sense of surprise on seeing him there. Perhaps he was still adjusting to the situation.

It was only when Whipple itself came into view that Cliff finally stopped. Fayt heard his footsteps come to a halt in the loose dirt of the road, and he turned to look back once more. The man had folded his arms over his chest, standing in place. He jerked his chin slightly when he saw Fayt hesitating, indicating that he keep moving. "Go on. Finish up quick and get back here. I'll be waiting. But don't keep me waiting too long, okay kid?"

Fayt blinked at him a few times, shifting Niklas in his arms. He was tired-tired of walking, tired of fighting, tired of second-guessing himself, tired from carrying this dead weight, seemingly heavier with every step. Tired of the slow, swirling heat in his head. He wanted to take the boy home and then rest again.

He told Cliff none of this. Instead he nodded, lowering his head and continuing past the man to the village.

As it turned out, the people were there. Those missing from the ruins and the field alike had gathered in the village's open streets, both arguing and embracing openly between the ramshackle buildings. The 'young punks', as Cliff had said, had indeed gone home, and it was into this homecoming that Fayt half shuffled, half stumbled, carrying Niklas' still-prone form in his arms. He was distantly aware of the feeling of hands catching his arms, moving to support him; a change in the murmur of voices around him. Someone asked a question, but he missed the words and could only shake his head slowly. Someone tried to take Niklas from his arms, but he held the boy more closely, turning away even as he knew that he should have let go.

"Niklas!"

Many voices had said the boy's name, but the one that pierced through the awful warm haze over Fayt's mind was Meena's. He lifted his head and saw her running towards him through the milling villagers, arms outstretched. "Niklaaaas!"

Fayt lowered himself slowly to his knees as Meena ran to them, flinging herself onto her brother. He rocked slightly with the girl's added weight. "Meena-"

"I don't care about the music box!" She sobbed. "I just care about my brother! My brother...!"

"Shh. It's okay, Meena, don't worry...he's just asleep." Fayt shifted slightly, supporting the children partially with his knee so that he could put a reassuring hand on Meena's head. She sniffled and burrowed her face between him and her brother. "He would never leave you alone."

"R-really?" The little girl peered up at him, sniffling, and his hand moved down to gently touch her face. The action had been meant for her, but Fayt himself found it oddly soothing, and he let his palm cup her cheek, tiny and hot and damp with tears. It made the muggy heat in his own head feel somehow less, or less important. "A-and you're not gonna leave either, right?"

Fayt's hand stilled. He lowered his head slightly, not meeting Meena's watery eyes. This time, when a hand settled on his shoulder he looked up, glad for something else to focus on. The apothecary frowned back down at him. "...I'm sorry I couldn't tend his wounds," Fayt said after a moment. "The supplies-"

"I can see what happened to the supplies," the woman said. She still frowned, and her voice was still clipped and harsh, but there might, Fayt thought, have been an undercurrent of sympathy in it as well. There was certainly something else there; something softer than before. "You just give him here now, and I'll take care of him. You've done enough."

Nodding faintly, Fayt leaned forward to lean his head against Meena's for a moment. "...Hey. Hey. Niklas is going to go with the doctor, okay? Why don't you go too. That way you can be the first thing he sees when he wakes up."

Still streaming tears, but at least quiet tears now, Meena hesitated and then nodded. "Okay. I'll take care of Niklas."

"I know." Struck by a sudden impulse, Fayt shifted up slightly, no longer bumping his head against Meena's. Instead, he kissed the top of it faintly, amid her coarse ruddy hair. "I know you two will keep on taking good care of each other until I come back."

These last words were the final reassurance Meena required. She stepped back, wiping at her face, as Fayt rose and turned to pass Niklas' prone form to the apothecary as asked. The boy hardly stirred through the exchange, and though he had seemed almost too heavy to bear trekking back to the village Fayt felt suddenly weightless in his absence, as if Niklas had been the only thing holding him down to the ground and he would now drift away. He reached out quickly, without thinking, and took the boy's limp hand again. "-Wait."

The apothecary's eyes narrowed slightly, but she did pause. Perhaps, as she said, Fayt had done enough: just enough to deserve that one concession. Now, he reached into his pocket and withdrew the replicated music box parts. Settling Niklas' hands back on the boy's chest, he closed the tiny metal components as tightly as he dared into the boy's small fingers. If he held on a little longer after that than he had to...

Surely no one could blame him for that, could they?

Another hand reached up, old and fragile, and settled over his wrists. He let go of Niklas reluctantly, and watched as the apothecary carried the boy away with Meena hurrying after to keep up with the adult's longer, purposeful strides.

Beside him, the village head squeezed his wrists gently. "...Thank you, traveler Fayt. The young men...these wayward sons of our village, they told us that a stranger with round ears chased them out and sent them home to us. You would be welcome at his bedside as well, after this. And anywhere else in Whipple village, so long as you should choose to stay."

Fayt continued to look after the apothecary and the children until they vanished from his line of sight before finally turning to regard the old man. The gratitude in his eyes was so bare and unashamed it was almost awkward to meet, and Fayt looked away again. He looked towards the road without meaning to, and found himself wondering how long would be 'too long' to a man like Cliff. It did not take much thought at all to realize that he did not want to find out. "I-" He stopped, then shook his head. "I think I should be gone when Niklas wakes up. I don't want to be another person who just vanishes from their life, but..."

"But goodbyes are difficult," the man offered sympathetically. "I understand. I will explain that you had to leave. They are strong children, and they will understand." There was a pause, but the village head did not release him. Fayt looked back at the man to see him peering up at him searchingly. "...What of Norton? Have you also sent him back from whence he came?"

Fayt repressed a shudder. He looked back to the road again. "He won't be bothering you ever again," he said after a moment. "He's gone for good."

He could feel the elder relax beside him, and the old man squeezed his wrists in thanks once more. "But not you, I hope. Perhaps someday, your travels will bring you back to Whipple again? The world is large, but surely it is not too large for that."

And it was enough that Fayt wanted to laugh, just a little, because no matter how large the old man thought he knew the world was he truly had no idea; because his was a small world, a world for Adonis, a world that stopped at the edge of the sky instead of careening off into the stars and out past even the brightest of them. The vast world Whipple's village head imagined was hardly even a footnote out there. Out where he had come from. Out where he called home. Out...wherever it was that Cliff intended to take him.

Instead of laughing, he dipped his head again, half-bowing. "I think I'd like that. I hope we do meet again."

"You will be welcomed when we do."

Looking around one more time, at the friends and families reuniting around him, some angry, some weeping, some embracing, Fayt thought that he might be after all. It was a good feeling. It made him feel a little taller, and he found himself standing up a little straighter when he rose from his bow. "...Thank you, too." he said, knowing the village head would not know how much he really meant by it. But that was all right too.

The elder released his wrists, and Fayt bowed once more, more deeply this time. The man returned it.

This is where the hero moves on, he reminded himself. This is where Adonis vanishes back into the mists.

And so he shrugged his sword up on his shoulder, resettling it, and stepped back out of the crowd. A few hands reached out for him, and he let himself take them, briefly, or let his own hands be taken and clasped into them. 'Thank you's and 'sorry's came at him in short sobs or murmurs, eyes almost always turned away from him. He was not sure any of them were looking at all when he finally turned his back on the village and walked away. And that, maybe, was the way that it should have been. The only way that it should have been.

Cliff was still waiting for him outside of the village. Indeed, he did not appear to have moved at all, even his arms still in the exact same position. "Took you long enough," he said.

Fayt felt a surge of dislike for the man. "You wouldn't understand," he said.

"Sure, kid." He said it in an easy tone: it was clear that if Fate's distaste had made it into his face or voice, Cliff did not care. He lowered his arms just as easily and gave Fayt another painful thump on the arm as he approached. "You ready?"

I don't want to go, he tried to say, but the words stuck in his throat. What other choice did he really have? "Yeah."

"All right!" Cliff smiled at him then, gave him another thump on the shoulder, and finally stepped back to give him space once more. Throbbing shoulder or not, Fayt was glad for it. He watched the big alien warily as Cliff folded his arms again and jerked his chin off in the direction of the forest. "Now. You remember that big cliff near your escape pod?" Fayt did not—the entire forest had seemed full of cliffs and hills and gullies-but nodded anyway; ultimately it did not matter, because Cliff kept right along with his directions. "Our way out is past there. So I hope you're ready for a hike. Let's go."

"Okay."

Cliff eyed him a moment. "...I won't carry you if you get tired, now."

"Uhm..." Fayt leaned back a little, not sure quite what to think or say about that.

It turned out to be for the best. Cliff tossed his head back and laughed as he turned to walk away, waving one hand over his shoulder. "Kidding! I'm kidding. The look on your face, kid! Hah!"

For a moment, Fayt hesitated, still looking askance at Cliff's back. What, exactly, was he getting into here? More than just a terrorist, it occurred to him to wonder if the Klausian might not also be just a little bit crazy. Even more than just a little bit.

But what choice did he really have?

Fayt swallowed hard, his throat still hot and dry, and dipped his head in a nod. Cliff had not stopped moving, and Fayt was once again forced to lengthen his stride painfully to keep up with the man. He did not relish the thought of the long hike back to his his escape pod, or especially one even further, into even less-traveled parts of the forest. What he wanted more than anything was to turn around, back into the village, and tell them that he had changed his mind; that he would stay the night, at least; to lie down and rest his weary body and quench this dull muddy heat in his head and throat with cool water.

But he said nothing. He followed Cliff down the road and back into the forest in silence, and when he did speak at last, it was not to protest. "What should I do about my escape pod?" was what he said.

Cliff did not pause, but glanced over his shoulder. "What's that?"

"My pod." It had not really occurred to him, even, until he had spoken—but now that the thought was in his head, Fayt could not believe he hadn't realized it sooner. "I mean, Norton took all of the key parts. The replicator, the communicator, the gravitic warp and creation engines—he...he even took the emergency generator and breathing gear. It's useless."

"Okay. So, what's the problem?"

Fayt frowned. "The UP3 is the problem. I can't just...I can't just leave it there. It needs to be removed, or...or something."

Cliff raised an eyebrow at him, and Fayt bristled a little, his slumping shoulders coming up defensively. "It's for the sake of the people here."

"It's for the sake of Federation law," Cliff said, with the tone of someone correcting a mistake. "You just said so yourself."

"The law is there for the sake of protecting the people on planets like this," Fayt shot back. "Look, this isn't an easy thing to say. I don't...I don't want to. I don't even know how. But it has to be dealt with."

Cliff looked him up and down, once, in silence. His eyes were slightly narrowed again, and Fayt felt himself drawing up a bit more under the look of regard, though he could not have pinpointed why.

"It's my responsibility," he said, stiff and lame and feeling defensive to the point of childishness about the whole thing—he shouldn't have to defend himself. Not about this and not against someone like this. He knew that, but the feeling was there, and knowing that only made it stronger. "I crashed here. It's my responsibility to clean it up."

After what seemed like a long moment—though it was not, measured by their steps—Cliff's eyes cleared and he looked back to the front again, lifting both hands. "All right. We'll deal with it. Like you've got the means to get rid of a whole escape pod, right?"

Fayt was not sure what to say to that. 'Thank you' did not seem quite appropriate, so he drew his shoulders back in and said nothing, lowering his head to watch his steps again.

The hike was not as long or rough as those before. By now—between himself, Norton and his men, and Cliff—the way out to the pod was much clearer than it had been before. Certainly Cliff knew the way, and there was no fumbling blindly about in the forest following after him; he pulled down any branches that still blocked the way and offered the occasional 'watch your step' as they went. They did not pass by the pod itself, but finally veered off of that well-trod route towards the end of it. He could, Fayt thought, almost make out its half-hidden bulk through the undergrowth; a smooth, foreign darkness looming in the wilds. It was just the sort of thing to spawn all sorts of superstitious stories on a backwater world like this one, and the thought was at once both satisfying and singularly uncomfortable. It was, he found, not unlike the feeling that Cliff's reassurance that 'we'll deal with it' left him with—he was glad that it would be taken care of, but at the same time did not know how; he could only assume that 'we' meant Quark, and Cliff's methods for dealing with problems seemed to skew towards the violent or explosive.

He was struck with a sudden and fierce longing for home. Not a place, not even the people: just a world where solutions were simple and clean and sensical and did not leave this weird, muddled emotional residue behind. The feeling was so strong he found he had to stop, putting his wrapped palm on the trunk of a tree and turning his face towards it; leaning his forehead against the back of his hand. It felt feverishly hot against his knuckles through the bandages and he wondered if he was not ill. He closed his eyes.

"Hey."

Fayt groaned softly. He left his head on his hand, only turning it towards the sound of Cliff's voice as he cracked one eye open narrowly. The dappled light of the forest was piercing after that brief but comforting darkness, and for a moment his vision swam.

Cliff was not talking to him, however. The man had continued on in front of him for a few steps and then stopped between two trees, a black man-shape in the brighter light between them like a radiant gate. One arm was raised so that his wrist would have been held up around his collarbone in front of him as he spoke. "Hey, we're at the location. Transport us up as soon as you can."

We are?

Fayt turned his head further, resting his cheek against the back of his hand now, and blinked at Cliff's back. It did nothing to clarify him, and as his eyes re-adjusted he saw the reason: the light where Cliff stood was no longer shadowy and shifting through the branches of the trees. Just beyond the Klausian's feet, the trees and brush abruptly ended and the world opened up entirely into nothingness, the shadows of hills distant beyond them.

How close had his pod come to crashing off this very cliff? The thought was chilling. If he had gone in a different direction when he first emerged- Or what if he had started his stumbling first trek through the forest in the dark? Foolish things to think about now, after the fact, but they came to him and were chilling all the same.

Cliff was still speaking into his communicator. "Hmm? What? Oh, no problem. I got him." There was a pause, and then, surprisingly, even amusingly, it was Cliff's voice that took on a sullen defensive tone. "I said it's okay. I haven't done anything!"

Fayt pushed himself off of the tree and stepped forward, trying to hear the other end of the conversation. He knew that it was pointless; the Klausian was probably using an earpiece. But he couldn't help but be curious.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Now hurry up and get us outta here." He reached up, tapping something on his wrist, and turned around. Fayt stopped (feeling a little guilty, maybe, for trying to eavesdrop, but not really) and looked up as Cliff stepped down from the edge of the ravine and walked back towards him, his features clarifying once more as he left the brilliant daylight beyond the trees. "My ship'll be here soon. And good riddance to this hunk o' rock." He crossed his arms over his chest again, and Fayt thought, just maybe, that the man puffed up slightly as he went on. "My ship's not so big, but it's packing a gravitic warp engine. Quite the speed demon."

He was puffing up, Fayt decided. Just a little. He reached up again, rubbing at his mouth but also hiding the smile that he hadn't realized he was fighting until he felt his hand go over it. Just another old guy with a hot rod, he found himself thinking. The voice he thought it in sounded like his father's, like the voice he'd first heard the words spoken in, and it tempered the remembered laughter with a kind of sharp, sudden pain. Textbook midlife crisis.

Sure. It had been Robert's, too. Fayt squeezed his eyes shut again and took a deep breath around his hand. It shuddered at the end.

"You okay, kid?"

No, he thought, but nodded anyway. He opened his eyes again and his vision swam for a moment, but when he blinked the tears vanished without falling, and he was glad for it. He didn't need to cry in front of this guy. "Hey, Cliff."

The man was frowning down at him, arms still crossed, not quite looking like he bought it. For a moment Fayt thought he might say something, but all that came out of his mouth was "Yeah?"

"There's something I wanted to ask you."

"What's that?"

Fayt rubbed at his mouth again. It was beginning to hurt, and he thought he might have made a raw spot with the rough bandages. He lowered his hand slowly. "Why does Quark's leader want to meet with me? I'm just a college student from earth." Not even a particularly good one. He almost added it, but bit his tongue, his expression creasing into one of frustration. The question had been nagging at him all through the forest, tugging at the back of his mind without really articulating itself into words. Now that it had coalesced, though, it was like an icepick in his brain. Why? Why? Why?

"Oh." Cliff blinked at him, then smiled a little, crookedly. His arms lowered from his chest and his thumbs slipped back into his pockets again. "Uhm...'no comment'? Heh."

He was not, Fayt realized, even looking at him any more. His eyes had moved off and upward, as if something in the branches had become suddenly fascinating. He realized in the same moment that whatever Cliff said, he did know. He knew and whatever it was made him, this man who had approached everything else which had happened so far with the same casual flippancy, too uncomfortable to speak of or dwell on it for even a moment. Fayt set his jaw.

"That's..." Cliff did not look at him, but smiled wryly into the trees. Maybe he could feel the look on Fayt's face, he thought, the way that Fayt had felt the man's eyes on him earlier in the ruins. "Heh. That's not doing it for you, is it?"

"No," Fayt said evenly, "It's not."

"Right. Let's see, well... I guess the biggest reason would be..." He rolled his head to one side, but his eyes still avoided Fayt. "Our leader wants to chat with you?"

"Nice try, but that's just avoiding the question!" Fayt stepped forwar, frustrated. He even started to reach out towards Cliff—to do what he had no idea—and turned the gesture into one of negation when he caught himself, cutting his hand through the air between them. "Why do they want to chat with me? About what?"

But Cliff only shook his head. One hand fell from his hip, hanging at his side, and he finally looked back to Fayt's face. "Hey, how should I know? I just do what I'm told. There's probably something our leader wants to talk to you about."

"And that 'something' is...?" Fayt turned away as a thought struck him. It was about his father, of course. About his parents, both of them. The government work they had done for the Federation. It had to be—what else could a terrorist leader have to talk to him about? Nothing else made sense. He grit his teeth, staring down at the loam at his feet. And he was just a college student, not even a very good one, but he was studying that kind of thing, wasn't he? It couldn't have been hard to look that kind of thing up. Maybe they thought that he knew something.

"Well-" Behind him, Cliff shifted, and heaved a massive sigh. "Well, you'll just have to come with me and find out for yourself. I'm sorry kid, but-" There was a weird hitch in the man's voice, a kind of half-stop, and the small voice in the back of Fayt's mind, the one that sounded not like his own and not like his father but like Sophia and no one else, said very quietly, as if to spite his sense of conviction, this is the truth. He's telling you the truth and he would tell you in a heartbeat if it wasn't, "I don't know much more than that."

Fayt stared down at the forest floor. He shut his eyes tightly again, so tightly light should have burst behind his lids, but all he saw was darkness and a slow, muddy curl of red. The truth, he realized, was that he did not want it to be the truth. He did not want Cliff to be simply acting on orders, to not know, to not have the answer. He wanted to be able to be angry at him for lying. For hiding things. For...

For something other than making you think of your father.

He opened his eyes and nodded, but whether it was to Cliff or to the small sensible voice in the back of his head, he was not sure. But there was an entire list of other things to be angry at Cliff for, wasn't there. For being a terrorist. For kidnapping him. For blowing the ruins.

And he's too young for that anyway.

And Fayt smiled at himself a little in spite of it all.

Behind him, there was a light, rapid pinging sound. It was electronic, not mechanical, and so utterly familiar to him that he jumped slightly; something so benign rendered alien in this primitive setting. He looked back over his shoulder to see Cliff reaching down to tap his wrist beside the small light blinking on his communicator. The man made no remark, but offered Fayt a lopsided grin and pointed straight up with one finger.

Fayt looked up, squinting at the light through the trees as the air began to fill with a thick, electric rumble that was not so much a sound as a sensation. The branches did not rattle or whip but vibrated with it, trembling against the grey sky. Fayt stepped out from between them, lifting a hand to shield his eyes as he stepped out (through the gate, it still felt like stepping out through a gate from darkness into dazzling light) into the open space at the edge of the ravine. His feet were on solid ground but he still felt as though he were falling, the very stones humming against themselves beneath him.

It was, as Cliff had said, not a very big ship. It moved downward through the overcast sky like a darker, more solid cloud: squared at the back and tapering to an old-fashioned shuttle muzzle with a turret above a trigger-like curve below. Two narrow wings jutted off to either side from the rear, each nearly as long as the ship itself before ending in four-point stabilizers like tilted crosses. He had a moment to think that he'd never seen a ship like it in person before—strange and blocky-sleek and typical of the Zeta sector races—and then the familiar took hold of him once more. Light swirled around him, and blessed, mundane cold bloomed in the center of his skull, banishing that terrible new heat at last.