08
The inside of the ship was sparse and close. Fayt imagined that much of its already limited size was taken up by the gravitic warp engines that Cliff had mentioned, but no effort he could discern had really been put towards making the rest of it comfortable or hospitable, either.
It was dark, for one, and he was forced to stand there, huddled in place, and blink rapidly until his eyes adjusted to the darkness, bright spots still swimming in front of his eyes from the transport. Details, when they came, were slow and blurry but not comforting. The transport room was like a small, dark coffin—an impression not helped by the stretched hexagonal shape of the doors, traditional and familiar for all the wrong reasons, wide just below the top to accommodate the massive spread of Klausian shoulders and tapering down to the floor. The walls were a dark, almost black matte metal and dappled with sparse, deeply set lights which seemed to emphasize the dreariness rather than alleviate it. They were not the clean sharp white common to Federation ships, but a pale, almost sickly muted green. The screens on the walls, few though there were, looked down on him like narrow red eyes, so close their dull glow discolored his skin, the pallid script moving over them strange and jagged.
Rather than stepping out of the transport ring, Fayt balked at the edge of it, leaning back against the metal rim behind him. Even that was strange here: it did not have the smooth rounded edges and even curve of the transporters that he was familiar with, and instead of a comforting circle he found himself pressed back into an angled corner. The metal dug into his sides.
Next to him, Cliff let out a contented sigh, stretching as he stepped off the ring. His knuckles nearly brushed the low ceiling when he did so. "Ah! Home away from home. You coming, kid?"
I changed my mind, Fayt tried to say, but the words stuck in his throat and he made a weird choking sound instead. His throat and chest felt fluttery and strange. For some reason, there were bright little lights in his vision again. Send me back.
Cliff seemed to take his discomfited gurgle for a sound of assent. He gave Fayt a painful thump on the shoulder, then continued the motion to sling his arm around the young man and haul him forward. It was a temporary arrangement meant only to get him moving: neither the room nor the doorway were wide enough to accommodate two people side by side. They were barely large enough to accommodate Cliff by himself; the man almost completely filled that strange coffin-shaped doorway when the three panels that made it up slid quietly open to let them out of transport room into the equally narrow (even narrower? It seemed impossible but true) hall beyond. The walls leaned inward over and around them, the coffin shape of the doors stretched out in a long dark tunnel, and if he wobbled even a bit to one side or the other—which he did with alarming frequency, his feet not seeming to move quite the way he asked them to-Fayt found that they pushed against him. Even if he had collapsed, he could not have fallen: they would have caught him and slid him to the ground instead.
If he had been even the slightest bit claustrophobic, Fayt would have screamed. As it was his heart was beating faster, and his breath felt as short as though he had just spent an hour on the basketball court. He followed only because the thought of being left alone in such a place was intolerable.
It isn't that bad, some part of him reasoned, not quite sounding like Sophia, who he could not even begin to imagine in such a place, not with her faded pink shirts her bright hair clips, not in a thousand years, but you've been on an undeveloped planet for the past few days. Any small transport would be a system shock. The escape pod wasn't exactly bright or open either.
Cliff moved through the dark, narrow hall in silence, the strips of discolored light shifting eerily, almost monstrously over his skin as he went. He did not seem uncomfortable, certainly. Was this how Klausians lived or just another sign that his kidnapper-slash-rescuer was not as pleasant as he seemed? It did sort of seem like the sort of ship interior one might have expected of a more unsavory sort of person, Fayt thought. Of course Cliff was not as pleasant as he put on—if nothing else, the man had proven that back at the ruins. He was, first and foremost, still a member of a terrorist group, and clearly not one who was afraid of getting blood on his hands. Even disregarding that entirely, if Fayt had come across a level design that looked like this in one of his games he was fairly certain he would have been looking for the save point and getting ready for a boss encounter.
They moved past a few other small, recessed coffin-doors. Fayt assumed that this was what they were; their alcoves were like dark holes in the walls of the darker ship and he did not stop to peer into them. He stayed, at once both in spite of such thoughts and because of them, close to Cliff's back. It was not long before they entered another door directly at the end of the hall. Another short hall lay beyond it, this one featureless. The metal walls were a paler but still cheerless dull grey color, and the only light at all seemed to be provided by a single screen glowering down at them from above the far door. The door hissed shut behind him the moment Fayt passed through it. A small light clicked on in the far door.
It's an airlock, Fayt realized, at the same time that Cliff's long easy strides carried the man to the far door. He knocked against a discolored plate of metal beside the active light and the door slid open.
The room beyond it was still small, but blessedly wide open after the tight confines of the ship, even the ceiling belling upward. It was also clearly the cockpit, with the open space dominated by a set of four dark metal chairs that appeared, from where Fayt was standing, to be made entirely of hard and weirdly jutting angles. They looked as though they would have hunched, for lack of a better word, over anyone who sat in them, and Fayt immediately disliked the idea. In front of those, the open space was completely filled with consoles and displays. The light was flickering and particolored in here, and it made him dizzy; not only the red and sickly green but oranges and yellows and, at last, a few thin tracks of familiar clean white. Beyond them all, a narrow display showed the deepening darkness of the sky as they moved further away from Vanguard III and its atmosphere. The faint glow that remained of it seemed small and insignificant and then, after a moment, vanished entirely.
Fayt felt very alone all of a sudden.
It struck him both deeply and irrationally, and deeply even though he knew that it was irrational. He blinked several times, slowly, and watched the multicolored lights of the display blur and then clarify again.
"Welcome back," said a soft voice from the the front of the cockpit. Fayt blinked again, and had a moment to wonder if he was losing his mind before a slender figure unfolded from the far side of one of those awful-looking chairs and turned towards them.
"Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting." Cliff stepped to the side slightly, out from between Fayt and the other passenger of the ship. He held a hand out towards her, palm up, as if showing her off. "This is my navigator and partner in crime. I leave the day-to-day operation of the ship to her." Like Cliff, she was tall and fit and blonde, her thick braid golden even in the poor light where it fell over the shoulder of her bomber jacket. Like Cliff she wore dark clothing as well, but hers was more reasonably fitted and the collar was zipped closed high up her neck to just beneath her chin. He had no idea if she was human or not. She moved forward, looking back at him with a faint smile. She was beautiful, he thought; human or not, she was beautiful and her smile was beautiful. He was not sure if that was what made him feel light-headed or if it was something else.
He let out a faint whuf of air as Cliff held out his other hand, thumping him in the stomach as he did so. It bolted Fayt back to reality quickly, especially when he found that his breath did not want to be caught again. More bright points burst in front of his eyes, and he wheezed faintly. "Mirage," Cliff went on, apparently either not noticing or not caring, "this is our target."
"Yes, I knew right away." Mirage stopped just in front of him. She put a hand on Cliff's chest and pushed him back slightly, giving Fayt space. She did not come in much closer than arm's length, letting him keep that space. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but her soft voice and gentle tone were soothing. "It's nice to meet you, Fayt. I'm Mirage Koas."
"Uh...N-nice to meet you, too." He dipped his head and found it swimming, so that the motion tipped forward into more of a bow. He blinked rapidly. It still felt oddly like he was falling forward.
A pair of small, strong hands pressed against him, one on his chest and the other at his shoulder. It was still a moment before he realized that he had been falling. He looked up into Mirage's face—still smiling, she's so beautiful, he thought, she has such a beautiful smile—and said, belatedly, a little breathlessly, "I don't feel so great though."
"Air," she said gently, and then guided him forward. He stumbled along after her with a strange lightness, and he was not sure if it was in his head or if she was mostly carrying him. "You're not really acclimated for low oxygen, are you?"
"The oxygen's fine," Cliff said. He sounded farther away than the room should have allowed for.
"I'm going to adjust the levels upward a little anyway."
"Well unzip that thing then. You're gonna choke one of these days."
"I'm fine."
Fayt had only a limited idea-a very limited idea, something about the air-of what they were talking about. Why should the oxygen be low? Was there a problem with the ship's life support? He was vaguely aware of another hand on his back for a moment and then felt himself moving backwards again as Mirage lowered him carefully into one of the cockpit's chairs. It was not as unpleasant as it had looked from behind; the front was padded, and the hunched back nestled around him more than loomed, as if holding him safely into place. He felt like that was probably a very good thing, just now. He slumped into it bonelessly. When Mirage pressed a clear breathing mask over his mouth and nose, he lifted a hand to hold it into place and rolled his eyes up to look at her face again. "...Th-Thanks. Sorry. I don't..."
"You'll be fine." She smiled again, and put a hand on his shoulder before stepping away and slipping back into the seat in front of his. He could still see the slim curve of her shoulder and the way her braid fell over it, and watch as one of her hands moved forward to tap the lighted consoles. When she turned her head, the light framed her jaw and soft mouth like an inverted halo and he found himself thinking of Sophia.
"Fayt."
He jumped slightly, in part because he realized that he was at this point staring, and in part because Cliff's voice sounded very close again all of a sudden. When he turned his head to look over, he saw that Cliff had taken the other forward seat. He was currently perched sideways on the edge of it and was watching Fayt with a slight furrow between his brows. "You okay, Fayt?"
Still clutching the breathing mask to his face, Fayt nodded slowly. "Better."
Cliff gave a short, clipped nod, his expression clearing, and turned to face forward in his seat again. He leaned back into its angular embrace comfortably. "All right. Then let's just get a move on. She'll be expecting us." There was a brief pause as he looked over to Mirage. "The rendezvous point is Beta-747-372-406. You got that?"
"Roger." The machines hummed and clicked and chirped like small living things beneath her hands, quick and sure with long practice. She was young, but, Fayt thought, she had certainly been flying this ship, or one like it, for the better part of her life. Somewhere in the back of the ship, a deep and massive sound rose slowly, humming in the metal beneath and all around Fayt, a subtle vibration singing beneath his feet as the engines roused themselves to wakefulness like some sleeping beast. "Engaging conventional engines. Gravitic warp core, normal."
Cliff turned his head again, and, seeing that Fayt was watching Mirage again (or still, rather, if he was going to be honest with himself), grinned broadly. "Oh, and listen-don't fall for her. She may look pretty, but she is a Klausian. Any funny ideas and you're liable to meet a swift yet painful death."
Fayt felt his face warming slightly beneath the mask, and he bristled. "Hey, w-wait a sec. Who said I was 'falling for' anyone?"
Cliff looked at Mirage, not at him, but Fayt could still see the grin on the man's face. "Relax! I was just warnin' ya."
And you did blush, the small voice that was not quite Sophia's, certainly not here, reminded him. Fayt closed his eyes with a faint grunt and leaned his head back into the padding of the seat, taking long, deep breaths from the mask. A small filter was attached to it, and it hissed gently just out of time with his breathing. When the ship lurched into a jump, the seat which had looked so uncomfortable to him before held him well enough that it was little more than a jostle, the beast of the ship rumbling beneath his feet in a way that seemed almost contented. It occurred to him distantly that he could not feel his sword pressed between his back and the seat. One of them must have removed it. He felt an equally distant, almost surreal pang of regret mixed with a heady relief. The time of Adonis Klein was passed; the game had ended; it was time to return to the world. The next time he lifted a blade it would be in the safety and sanity of the simulators once more.
He did not know how long he sat like that, listening to the quiet hum of the strange ship and the soft click and chirp of the instruments as Mirage piloted them. Eventually she spoke up again, but it was only to tell him that the oxygen in the cockpit should be all right now. He lowered the mask without opening his eyes while Cliff grumbled that it was fine, should have been fine, he'd checked.
Fayt remained silent, but when had taken a few more deep, even breaths—and his chest did still ache slightly but it was not, he thought, all that bad; it felt more now like a hiking trip to the mountains he had once taken with his father than anything and at least his head felt clearer now—he opened his eyes again, looking up at the belled ceiling of the cockpit. New, pale light raced over it from the narrow display windows at the front of the cockpit in the soft, rhythmic pulses of a warp path. "Hey," he said at last. "I was wondering."
He turned his head to see that Cliff was looking back around the edge of his seat at him again. "Shoot, kid."
"Just how long will it take till we get to your leader?"
"Oh." Cliff's eyebrows went up, as if he had been expecting a different question entirely, and he looked forward out the display windows again. "We'll be there soon. It's about three more hours to the rendezvous point." He nodded, as if confirming this to himself, then again, shorter and sharper, as if coming to some decision. He pushed himself up from his seat. "Mirage, I'm gonna go take a shower. I'm leaving you in charge."
Fayt found himself passively surprised that there was room for showers on the ship. He almost said something to that extent as Cliff walked past his seat, but both of them were stopped short as Mirage casually leaned forward and flipped a switch.
"Oh, Cliff?" She spoke in the same calm, quiet manner she had used to say every other word Fayt had heard out of her mouth. But this time, Cliff stopped dead in his tracks. "It looks like you can forget about that shower."
Cliff turned towards her. "What is it?"
"I've just detected a gravitic space anomaly up ahead. I'm bringing us out of gravitic space to avoid it."
"You serious?" Fayt watched as Mirage worked and Cliff, also watching her, slowly brought one hand up to rest on his hip. Mirage said nothing in return, and eventually Cliff sighed and returned to his seat. He dropped himself into it so heavily that Fayt almost thought he heard the metal creak. "You think it's hostile?"
If Mirage responded in any way, Fayt could not see or hear it from behind her. He could only hear the sound of the system responding to her as she worked. After a few moments, the ship heaved a muffled sigh of its own and the light coursing through the cockpit from the view screen slowed, and dimmed, and finally faded entirely. The darkness of conventional space stretched out in front of them.
There was a soft chirp of sound and one of the displays shifted in a way that Fayt could not fully see as Mirage hit another panel. "Two Vendeeni battleships detected four hundred thousand kilometers ahead."
Fayt recoiled in his seat, his throat closing and his mouth going dry. Suddenly, his heartbeat was fluttery again. The Vendeeni? Again? What were they doing here—all the way out here, wherever it was that they were exactly right now, among all these undeveloped systems?
Cliff sighed again. "An ambush? Man, it's bad enough having to worry 'bout Federation ships." Fayt could not imagine how he could feel so calm. He thought of the display screen on the Helre, and the bright flash-pops of light which had been Federation fighters winking out. Did he simply somehow not know what the Vendeeni were capable of? The big man drummed his fingers on the arm of his seat. "...Right. Open up a comm link."
"Hold on." The instruments chirped and hummed under Mirage's hands. Now they seemed mindlessly loud. "All right. Connection confirmed...okay." She turned her head towards Cliff, and Fayt saw that she still looked as easily calm as she sounded. "The link's open."
They don't know, Fayt thought. They must not know. But Cliff had told him they had come for him at Hyda as well—how could they have missed that?
In the front, Cliff cleared his throat and looked straight forward at the screen, no longer slouching. "This is the Eagle," he said evenly. "A Klausian ship. We don't want any trouble with you-"
You're wasting your time, Fayt thought. Did Cliff not think that the Federation had tried talking? He opened his mouth, but only a cough came out.
The words came anyway—in Mirage's calm, quiet voice. "You're wasting your time. The enemy ships are already prepared to attack."
Across from her Cliff shook his head. "Seems they know who we've got on board." He turned slightly in his seat, casting a glance back at Fayt. Fayt stiffened slightly. "So escape's our only hope. It'll be tough without using gravitic warp, but we've got no choice. Kid, strap in."
Fayt coughed again and gave a quick nod. He reached down and then realized that the chair had no actual restraints—at least not that he recognized as such. He looked at the chair in disbelief for a moment, and then back up to Cliff again. "Strap in with what?"
But Cliff had already turned his eyes forward again, ignoring him, and had resumed speaking to Mirage. "Reverse course! Conventional engines, full power!"
"Roger." The ship rumbled again as Mirage tweaked the controls. Fayt gripped the edge of his seat.
"Full power to rear shields! And lemme see a chart for this region!"
The darkness of space vanished as metal blast shields closed off the viewing panels, replacing it with more dark metal. A large grid map appeared across the front of them, a floating mesh of silver lines and brilliant orange and amber light rings cupped over a shimmering red and orange half-circle. A series of new, gleaming red arrays strewn with more alien script appeared around it. Fayt did not know how to read it—spatial maps had never been his strong point, and even at that it did not look the same as the maps that he was used to seeing in Federation ships and facilities. The single discordant point of green in the grid's center, however, he assumed to be them. Did that make the amber lights on the grid ahead of them the Vendeeni? They looked horrifyingly close.
Cliff, at least, seemed to find the readout reassuring. He relaxed down into his seat again. "All right, course 1-1-6, mark 2-6-7." He also reached forward, tapping a spot on one of the new red panels, which quickly vanished again. "Activate auto-evasion program. Fasten crew safety harnesses."
"Roger. Course entry complete. Speed, maximum. Program activated."
How can they be so calm? Fayt wondered, and then, on the heels of that, the answer was just as clear a thought: They've done this before. They've done this a thousand times. It's just the enemy that's different. It had been easy to forget that Cliff was what he was, and certainly easy to ignore the fact that Mirage was as well. Now, he was reminded.
They were professionals.
The twisted metal backing of his seat unlocked from its rigid position and suddenly clamped down over him. Fayt startled, letting out a small choked sound as he was locked into his seat.
Cliff turned his head once more and grinned over his shoulder. "Feeling lucky, kid?"
The ship lurched. This time it was not the engines kicking in. Fayt gripped the hard metal of the safety harness, letting out a faint cry. The lurch did not stop, but resolved into an erratic, rumbling tremor, the cockpit listing alarmingly from side to side. It felt as though something had picked the small ship up and begun to shake it furiously.
Through it all, the steady sound of Mirage working the controls remained unchanged. "We've evaded round one from the enemy's disrupter canon."
Fayt's grip on the safety harness tightened. That had been a miss? What would happen if they were hit?
"Nearing objective point."
"All right," Cliff turned again, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the low rumble all around them, "as soon as we're there, go into gravitic warp."
Fayt felt a small surge of panic. The anomaly. The Vendeeni. They're generating anomalies, we can't warp, it isn't safe...!
"Cliff, gravitic warp-" the ship heaved again "-is currently nonfunctional."
And how is she still so calm?
"I got a hunch it'll function the moment we reach the objective point." Cliff brought his hands up, then slapped them back down, palm open, on the arms of his seat. "Get us on a straight line between the ships and that planet, then pop us up starside—we'll open up the distance that way."
A hunch? Fayt wanted to scream, but his jaw felt locked. He knew just enough about spacecraft to know that the maneuver Cliff was talking about was dangerous even if everything was working well and no one was shooting at them—and he wanted to try it on a hunch? His stomach knotted. He did not think it had anything to do with the ship's lurching movement.
It was the height of insanity, but Mirage did not seem to object to it. She reached up and touched a yellow screen over which alien script scrolled wildly, too quickly to be read. "Very well...but we won't be able to designate our warp destination."
"Well we're toast if we stay here, Mirage!" He sounded remarkably cheerful in spite of his words. "Any-how, space is big. Our odds ain't that bad!"
Finally, Fayt's throat loosened. "You've got a hunch?" He croaked. "Our odds? Are you completely-"
"Roger." Mirage flipped a switch. Red and yellow light flickered as displays opened or disappeared. Deep in the rear of the ship, the engines rumbled. "The enemy's fired again. Four rounds now approaching."
"Four, huh? Gonna be close. Either we enter gravitic warp first or we get pummeled." Cliff fell silent a moment, his chin dropping down towards his chest as he bowed his head. "So now's the time to pray, gentlemen!"
The Vendeeni had taken apart the Helre. What chance did a tiny ship like this stand? Fayt was shaking as hard as the ship itself.
"Unfortunately it looks like we might lose the race. First round incoming, and we're still seven seconds from the objective point."
Fayt squeezed his eyes shut. He considered praying after all—he had never been much for it and Cliff was not exactly a font of good advice but it couldn't hurt—but his mind was a blank of panic.
"Aaah, who cares if we take a few rounds?" I care! Fayt thought wildly. "Warp our butts out of here!"
"The warp engine is damaged." There was a pause. A moment of surreal silence. Fayt thought that it might have been all in his head; even the chirring electronic sounds of the consoles muffled as if beneath a sudden, heavy hand. He wondered if this was what it felt like in the moments before death.
Mirage was saying something. The ship, or maybe just the entire world, keeled wildly off to one side and Fayt's knotted stomach lurched up into his throat as it did. "-still functioning," he thought he heard, but that, of course, was insane.
Except that Cliff was crowing triumphantly, laughing even. The sound shattered the muffling blanket like a stone through a window. "You bet it is! Activate gravitic warp!"
It wasn't safe, Fayt knew it wasn't safe, he knew that Cliff knew it wasn't safe, but the ship was canting and rumbling and shaking so violently he thought that it might tear itself apart before the rounds even had a chance to hit them, and maybe they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. Another choice that was not really a choice, a game's choice, except that this time there was no time and no chance to cycle through the answers until the right solution came up. Something roared through the ship. Fayt did not know if it was a round or simply the gravitic warp engine coming back to life. For a moment the lights beyond his tightly shut lids went dark.
Slowly, the rumbling subsided. He was not sure how long it took, only that it felt like an eternity and that his hands had locked tight around the safety harness. It was only when light flickered back through his tightly shut lids again that Fayt dared, slowly, to open his eyes.
Mirage was still working the controls, and the blast shields were still closed, but many of the dull, ominous red displays had vanished, or turned a less threatening shade of amber. After a moment, she reached forward to tap another control, and the blast shields slid open again. The familiar, comforting pulse of gravitic warp light filled the cockpit and washed over Fayt like a soothing tide.
"We've thrown off the Vendeeni ships," Mirage said. Fayt thought that he had never heard such wonderful words in his life. His grip slowly relaxed from the safety harness, and his hands returned to his lap. They were, he was pleased to note, barely shaking; by the time the harness itself retracted to fold back into the huddled back of the seat, they were not shaking at all.
Even Cliff heaved a massive (if, Fayt thought, somewhat dramatized) sigh of relief. "Phew. That was close."
"Yes," Mirage agreed, "but now we're pretty far from the rendezvous point."
Cliff shrugged. "Well, it can't be helped. Besides, it won't hurt to make her wait a little longer. Let's take our time."
Fayt looked between the two of them. Both were acting as though nothing had even happened, or at least as if this kind of close call happened to them every day. Well, maybe it did. Maybe that was what it was like to be an interstellar terrorist. Fayt took a few more deep, slow breaths, opening and closing his hands in his lap for a moment until they stilled completely. There certainly wasn't any point in staying afraid, at least not in the immediate sense: he was still in a ship with two dangerous people, but that was a choice he had made. The Vendeeni, as Mirage had said, were gone. Just as when he had escaped the Helre in the pod, there was now nothing to do but sit and wait.
He closed his eyes, and then let out one more long breath. "Wow," he said at last, and was pleased by how even his voice sounded, "your hunch really paid off."
Up ahead, he heard Cliff shift in his seat. "Finally! Some respect!"
"Yeah—a healthy respect for your recklessness." Fayt opened his eyes again, frowning dubiously at Cliff. His voice had sounded even, but he would have defined it much more as 'amazed' than 'respectful'.
Still, Cliff—now leaning around the edge of his seat to stare at Fayt-looked so offended by this reply that he must have taken it wrong. "What's that supposed to mean? A little more honesty would be nice-"
It doesn't get much more honest than that, Fayt thought, I'm very, very honestly surprised we aren't all dead.
"-like, 'Heeey, that Cliff sure is something!' or 'You're a genius, Cliff!'"
Fayt opened his mouth to respond along the lines of the fact that Cliff definitely was 'something', even a whole lot of things, but that 'genius' was not on anywhere on the list. A low, unpleasant blat of sound from one of the consoles covered the beginning of his sentence, and he snapped his mouth shut again, teeth clicking slightly, as his head jerked around to look for the source of it.
He had no idea what the sound meant, but it hadn't sounded good. No machine ever made a sound like that for a good reason.
Not that Mirage's tone changed. "Sorry to interrupt while you're both having so much fun..."
Cliff looked over, the scowl he was aiming at Fayt clearing from his face. "What is it?"
"The gravitic warp core is overheating. We should reduce speed immediately. The engine will scram if we don't."
"What?" Cliff changed the angle of his lean, aiming a finger across the narrow space between the two of them. "Didn't I specifically request that you tell me these things sooner?" He settled back into his seat with a faint groan as Mirage's visible shoulder moved in a faint, unworried shrug. "Ugh. Get back to conventional space, pronto!"
"Roger."
Fayt stiffened in his seat, but remained quiet. Mirage moved in and out of visibility around the edges of her seat as she worked. His hands slowly tightened on his lap as he watched her, gripping the dirty fabric of his clothing. How bad was a gravitic warp core overheat? What exactly did she mean by saying the engine would 'scram'? Did warp cores melt down? He could not remember, if he had ever known. Outside on the displays, the rushing tunnel of light vanished to be replaced once again by the smooth expanse of space beyond, and the ship heaved a long, descending sigh of its own before its faint shuddering halted entirely. A strange kind of silence descended on the cockpit, somehow undisturbed by the sound of Mirage working the consoles. The light of distant celestial bodies seemed to cluster and crowd about the tiny ship, flattened by their titanic distances even as they seemed close enough for Fayt to reach through the window and dip his hand into. The sky seemed bright for regular space; he wondered if they had emerged in the middle of some kind of stellar gas cloud.
"Bad news."
His hands tightened again when Mirage spoke. Instead of soothing, her perpetual calm sent a chill down his spine now. Cliff, however, only sounded annoyed. "Now what?"
"Both the conventional and gravitic warp engines have scrammed." She tapped a console and the ship gave a stalling growl, a short heave, and then began to shudder again in earnest. "The backup engine isn't functioning either." She paused in her work and looked over to Cliff, still calm, the light of the consoles still hovering about her face like a lost halo. When something in her voice did shift, Fayt found that he could not identify it, the inflection as alien to him as the ship itself. "I'd say we have a problem."
Cold balled itself up in Fayt's spine again. It deepened, sliding downward, as the view on the narrow outside displays turned. The space around them did not seem brighter because of any stellar cloud, but because of the reflected light of those stellar bodies not so far as to be marred by distance. The massive, glowing horizon of a planet, radiantly blue and white, moved into view. He thought he saw the silvery mass of a moon peering over it before the ship's continued drift left the view nothing but that glossy blue glow; those blurry white weather forms; the ragged, dark bulks of foreign lands and their unknown foreign shores.
He jumped in alarm when Cliff's fist slammed loudly into the arm of the man's chair. "DAMNIT!" But after that, Cliff fell into silence one more. Fayt watched Cliff as he closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers across his forehead, the gesture strange for its familiarity. Slumped in his seat that way, he looked old. After a moment of silence he braced the hand he had slammed down and used it to push himself back up in his seat again. "...Where're we now?"
The consoles hummed and pinged. "We're currently within Elicoor II's gravitational field."
Fayt blinked in surprise. Not because of the name of the planet—he had never heard of it before—but because he had not imagined that they were that close. Close, yes, but not within its gravity. Was that the reason for the shuddering? It was true that he couldn't hear the engines, so if they were within gravitational range it was possible. And how close had they come to warping into the planet? Could that even happen?
No point in worrying about that now at least, he reminded himself.
Ahead of him, the conversation between the two Klausians continued. "If all our energy sources are shot, then we can't communicate either..." Cliff had lowered his hand and had resumed drumming his fingers on the edge of the chair. After a moment, he stopped, tapping his whole hand against the structure once instead as if to punctuate some silent thought. "...Well. I'm sure she'll figure out something happened to us after we don't show up when we're supposed to."
"One would hope so," Mirage agreed.
"Well, Mirage," Cliff pushed himself up the rest of the way in his seat, half-rising, and then settled back into it. "Come up with something."
"I'll see what I can do."
Fayt shifted in his seat. "What can we do? Aren't all the engines scrammed?"
"Well for starters," Cliff drawled, infuriatingly unconcerned, "we are in a planet's gravitational pull, so we gotta land before we crash. Then, we wait to be rescued."
"Great plan."
The sarcasm was not lost on Cliff. He half-turned in his seat to look back at Fayt. "Look. My mission is to bring you back to our leader. Until then, I'll watch out for you—trust me! You're as safe as...ah..." He settled back into his seat once more, facing forward, and raised one hand to gesture vaguely. "As a turtle in its shell!"
Fayt shook his head. "Yeah," he muttered. "A turtle dropping out of orbit."
"Huh?" Cliff turned his head. "Did you say something?"
"No. Nothing."
Cliff stared back at him for a moment, narrowing his eyes in a way that he had seen a thousand times before over his teenage years: the eyes of a grown man trying to figure out if he was on the receiving end of teenage sincerity or teenage lip but none too positive of how to tell the difference.
Mirage's voice broke the small standoff. "We'll be entering into Elicoor II's atmosphere in another 30 seconds. Get ready for a bumpy ride, you two." Fayt turned to look forward at her seat again and saw her head turn away as she continued to operate the ship's controls. "Keep wagging those tongues and you'll bite them off. I wouldn't want either of you to die of blood loss."
"Roger," Fayt said, echoing her without thinking about it. At the same time he heard Cliff sigh a resigned 'Yes, ma'am' from the front. They both settled back as the safety harnesses unfolded from the back of the chairs once more and pinned them down against the padding.
They hung suspended, looking down onto this new planet, and then the shuddering of the ship deepened. Fayt's hands tightened into fists where they rest on his legs again, and he clenched his jaw as the violence of the tremors began to rattle his teeth against each other. The light on the display window began to glow, first red and then white, and he thought fleetingly of the heat in his head, the heat that had swallowed his vision. His head began to ache and pound, and for a moment—for just one moment—Fayt thought that he would find himself watching as they crashed to the planet's surface so far below.
The blast shields slid closed again. Mirage tapped a few more panels, and a number of the consoles went dark, dimming the mottled light in the cockpit even further. The small ship continued to shudder furiously, then to rattle back and forth. An eerie sound of stressed metal began to rise out of the structures all around them, not quite a groan, not quite a howl, some quality almost enraged. Fayt squeezed his eyes closed again. Strong, heaving lurches joined in with the massive shuddering. And then, suddenly, with one final, immense heave that sent Fayt's stomach hurtling up to somewhere around the underside of his scalp, so monstrous he felt as though he would be wrenched out of the seat, even with the safety harness holding him tightly in place, it stopped.
The silence, the stillness, seemed to go on forever. He found himself taken with the brief, wild thought that they would not crash to the planet's surface after all but had become hung up, somehow; suspended on some shuddering, impossible gravitational point as if balanced on the head of a pin for eternity within its orbit instead. Or, more realistically, the monstrous heave that had left him feeling so rattled had been the crash itself, and now it was over, as quickly as it had begun. He let out a long breath of relief, and even began to relax slightly in the seat.
When the ship truly crashed, he realized that the second fancy had been every bit as foolish and unrealistic as the first. He was thrown forward so hard against the safety harness that he heard a loud cracking sound from his chest, pain and breathlessness stabbing through his body in equal parts-massive bursts of light and uneven black splotches bursting in front of his eyes—and then backwards into it again just as hard and just as quickly. His arm jarred against it and flared with pain briefly before going tremendously numb; his neck was a nest of thorns; the taste of blood filled his mouth in a flood, and he realized that in relaxing his jaw, he had bitten deeply into his tongue on impact, just as Mirage had warned him. When he opened his mouth to gasp the warm fluid leaked out over his bottom lip. Somewhere, distantly, he heard metal crunching and a long, uneven screeching that was far more felt than heard; a vibration that felt as though it would splinter his bones. It seemed to go on for its own small eternity, dragging and stretching itself into more and more horrific sound-forms and sensations, until finally, with another wrenching lurch, it stopped. The cockpit pitched to one side with a thick, empty thonk of sound and then, at last—after one last guttural snarl of effort from deep within the ship's interior—there was true stillness.
When he opened his eyes, Fayt found that the lights had gone out. In the absolute darkness, Fayt was not entirely certain they had not all died in the crash. Game over, he thought, a little fuzzily. I would like to try that level again. While he had not played many flight simulators, the ones that Fayt had taken the time to try out had not prepared him for being in an actual shuttle crash. He was not sure if they would be more or less popular if they did.
After a moment Cliff grunted slightly, and he heard the soft, steady sound of Mirage's hands moving over the ship's instruments begin again. Soon, the faint warm light of the consoles returned. The pale running lights in the walls followed after.
"Not a bad landing," Cliff remarked quietly.
"You don't know that yet," Mirage responded. Her tone was still even and unflustered. She tapped the console and the safety harnesses lifted once more.
Fayt slumped bonelessly forward without his holding him up; his elbows moved down to his knees and he leaned forward, hair hanging in his face. He let out a low groan, staring down at the floor between his faintly spread knees. A few drops of blood fell onto the dark metal from his mouth. He reached up to rub the back of one hand across his mouth to wipe away what had made it out onto his face, and swallowed the rest hard.
"Are you all right, Fayt?" Mirage asked.
He nodded at first and then, realizing that she was trying to assess the ship's current state and not looking in his direction at all, spoke up instead. "Ye-" He paused, coughing wetly, and made sure to cover his mouth when he did so. "Yeah."
Cliff glanced back at him, then looked over to Mirage again. "He bit his tongue."
"I warned you both."
"Yeah," both Cliff and Fayt said this time. Cliff seemed to have escaped that particular fate; Fayt wondered if the man had been in many other shuttle crashes before. It seemed likely given his occupation and general demeanor.
Cliff continued speaking—probably, Fayt thought not without some small twinge of bitterness, because he had not bitten the tip of his tongue off and just thinking about talking did not hurt him. "So...was it a bad landing?"
"We still have life support."
"Great!" Cliff clapped his hands together, and when Fayt glanced up at him he saw that the man was grinning hugely. He looked like someone who had just won the lottery, or at the very least been told much better news than simply 'we still have life support'. 'We can still get off of this planet', perhaps, or even 'communications are actually back up'. "That's fantastic. Any hull breaches?"
"Probably." Mirage's slender shoulder moved up and then down in a smooth, unworried shrug. "But the cockpit is sealed."
"Even better."
"Wait-" Fayt sat up with a start, eyes widening slightly and bleeding tongue forgotten in his sudden alarm as he realized what they were implying. "Is this planet...non-survivable? Is it toxic? Does it have air?" It had looked so bright and blue from space, it had not even occurred to him that it might not be safe outside the confines of the ship, but that of course was absurd. The likelihood that the environment of any given planet was safe for humans, terran or otherwise, was far slimmer than the possibility, even probability, that it would be dangerous or even deadly.
But to his concerns, Cliff spread his hands and shrugged expansively. Nothing more. Mirage was more helpful, but still had no answers for him. "We don't know yet," she said. "I'm trying to get external sensors and the ship's database back up to analyze the situation. But we're fine in here, so don't worry."
"Oh." Fayt shifted slightly, wincing at the pains of his past few days and the pains of the rough trip and rougher crash in the shuttle all made their own individual protests at the action. He leaned back in the seat again and let the cushions support him; for now, that seemed like the least painful option. He let his eyes close again.
"Hey, kid." He heard Cliff moving but did not open his eyes to look. "You need a first aid kit?"
"I'm okay," Fayt said. He probably should have let Cliff take a look at him, but he did not necessarily trust the guy from a medical standpoint. He could wait until they had their communications up again and made it to their rendezvous point, or if they had managed to get too far away from that, he could ask Mirage when she was not as busy. He did not think he was hurt badly; it was simply that everything hurt.
"Okay. Mirage already said she didn't want you bleedin' to death, now."
"Yeah."
"Mirage, I want you to note that I asked him if he needed help."
Mirage did not turn her head. "Roger."
Cliff continued on. "So that not only can you not blame me, but so you can back me up if she gets mad at me for bringing a bloodless noodle back instead of-"
"Roger."
"Noodle?" Fayt tipped his head (and regretted it immediately; his neck was already stiffening alarmingly and the motion sent new and entirely unfamiliar kinds of pain bellowing through his body) and opened one eye, giving Cliff an odd look. The man was still grinning.
"Sure. You're scrawny enough."
Fayt made a faint sound of disgust. He was prepared to close his eyes again, but the ship's systems made a new, odd noise, and suddenly a new light flickered over the room.
"Found a working camera," Mirage said. "We have an outside visual,"
Fayt lifted his head, and his eyes went wide. A small holoscreen had appeared between them and the blast shields where many of the readouts and charts had hovered during flight. Now, instead of a three dimensional map of the space around them, it was simply a display showing one small part of the scene outside the ship: a tiny, fixed glimpse of Elicoor II afforded by a tiny exterior camera, the image smaller than the television he had enjoyed back home.
But like the television back home, there were people in this image.
The tiny, fixed picture showed the wreckage of a primitive street, paved with broad flat stones. Along one side, just barely visible, it seemed to join with a wall made of similar large rocks; in the background, Fayt thought he could see what looked to be a building constructed of the same, and part of some kind of gate. A thick coat of some white substance was evident on much of this, but all of it was disturbed by the Eagle's crash: stones blackened and broken, some laying upended in the street where they appeared to have been thrown or toppled from the wall; the white substance scattered and broken (it looked, Fayt thought, like nothing so much as snow, and perhaps that was why none of it seemed to be in too close to the ship); the flickering orange glow of fires cast over the grey gloom that pervaded all of it and a haze of black smoke that moved in such a way he could tell there were high winds in spite of the walls. And in the middle of all of this, dressed in heavy clothing that covered most of them but left their dark, curious eyes peering up and out at this metal monstrosity that had fallen among them, was a huddle of no fewer than six clearly visible humanoids. Fayt thought that he could see more milling about at the edges of the camera's field of vision.
Fayt stared back up at the image as if transfixed by those stares—and they were not frightened stares, or at least he didn't think so; they did not look frightened but more like they had so little concept of what they were seeing they didn't know if they even should consider being frightened, and that was a harrowing thought—and then tore his gaze away, lowering his face with a low groan. "Just our luck-we landed right in the middle of a city!"
"Not to mention-" Cliff held up one hand, reaching out to tap a console on his side of the cockpit, "we're outta power and the helm is outta whack. You know, you should be happy just to be alive."
Fayt groaned again. He raised his eyes to the screen once more. The people outside were clearly talking among themselves, by the way they leaned towards each other, exchanging glances but mostly milling about this big new thing that had (apparently) broken their wall. He saw no signs that anyone recognized it as a shuttle or that there might be people injured inside of it needing help, and no signs of any structures less primitive than the rough stone wall. He reached up and rubbed at his face, watching the natives move about with a creeping feeling of despair. "I guess this is no time to be worrying about the UP3," he muttered, half into his palm and more to himself than to anyone else. At this point he began to wonder if there were any circumstances that it might come up where one was in a position to respect it. Shaking his head and heaving another sigh, he moved his hand off of his mouth and spoke up again. "So...what do we do now?"
"Well, first you calm down." Cliff shrugged, holding out one hand. "Panicking won't change a thing."
"Calm down?" Fayt dropped his hand entirely now. He gave Cliff what was probably the most baleful stare he was capable of mustering. "I think I'm already pretty calm, considering I was hijacked by terrorists who just crashed our ship into the middle of a city on an underdeveloped planet! I mean...this is more than just kidnapping and it's definitely more than just a simple violation of the Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact! I know you guys don't care about Federation law, but-!"
His voice had begun to rise, and so had he: Fayt did not realize that he was on his feet and had actually taken a step forward until Cliff, turned towards him, held up both hands and made a placatory motion: calm down and sit down, the gesture universal. Fayt blinked a few times, then receded back into his seat.
"You know what?" Cliff said once he had, "You worry too much."
Fayt frowned. "I think you don't worry enough."
"Yeah. You're probably right." Cliff did not seem concerned by this, admittance aside. He watched Fayt a moment longer, possibly to see if the younger man intended to try to get in his face again, then looked over at Mirage. "So, do we have a read on what's going on out there? Other than us making friends and influencing people in whole new neighborhoods."
Fayt rolled his eyes, but if Mirage so much as batted an eye at Cliff's antics, he could not tell. "I have the database up. The entry is pretty sparse." She paused, perhaps to read the entry in question. "Elicoor II is the second planet in the Elicoor System, axial tilt of thirty two point six degrees. Point eight AUs from its parent star. Gravity is point nine G."
Cliff let out a low whistle. "Floaty. How's the air out there?"
"Close to Earth." And now Mirage leaned out a bit, just enough to look around her seat at Fayt. She gave him a small smile, and he found himself a little surprised by how comforting it was. She settled back in her seat again without saying anything directly, but he felt that he had been reassured. "Mostly noble gases, however—a lot of neon. It looks like that makes up the atmospheric bulk instead of nitrogen."
For a moment, both Mirage and Cliff were silent. There was an odd heaviness to it, and Fayt found himself wondering at it. He had almost, in fact, made up his mind to open his mouth and ask about it when Cliff spoke up.
"How bad?"
"It's fine."
Cliff looked over to her. "You gonna unzip?"
"If I go out there, I guess that I will."
Cliff shook his head. "Bad then."
"It's fine."
They fell quiet again. Fayt furrowed his brow, now even more deeply confused than before. He cleared his throat. "What-"
"According to the data entry here, the technology level is about equivalent to seventeenth century Earth." It was not what he had meant to ask about, but Mirage turned her head and offered another of those small, soothingly beautiful smiles. It was hard to believe that anything was wrong, Fayt thought, when a beautiful woman was smiling. "It's easy to tell when these Galactic Atlas entries have been written by the Federation, isn't it?"
"Pwah." Cliff scoffed and rolled his eyes. "They're the only ones nosy enough."
Fayt shot him a frown. "Hey."
"Well." Mirage shrugged again. "Be that as it may, according to this database the planet is registered as underdeveloped, and protected by the UP3, but since it appears to be in a constant state of conflict there are no studies on the total population of sentient beings or anything else. I guess even busybodies have their limits."
Cliff cackled. Fayt leaned back in his chair, frowning. Somehow, it hurt more when Mirage said it. "Okay, so...we're stuck on an underdeveloped planet, and it's an underdeveloped planet that no one knows anything about. Great. Okay. Great." He blew out a sigh. Cliff just shrugged. "Well...what about our sensors? Do you have any up that can tell us about our current location?"
Mirage leaned forward, tapping another light on her console. "Well, clearly sentient life forms do live in this area. I can't give you any detailed information such as on the government or census data, but proximity scans are indicating that this is a pretty large city, at least spatially."
Cliff tipped his head. "You mean for an underdeveloped planet?"
"I mean this city takes up a lot of the available space." Mirage tapped another key without looking up. "External air temperature is minus five degrees Celsius, not factoring windchill. I'm getting-" she tapped the key again. "Minus ten point five eight degrees with windchill. Both falling and deposited snow—basic, H2O liquid base as far as I can tell-have been detected."
Mirage stopped again. When it became apparent that the sensors had no more information to offer her, Fayt leaned back in his seat again. "...A city."
Mirage nodded. "According to the Galactic Atlas there are two major continents here. There's the one we're on now, and another to the east. That one appears to have a slightly higher civilization level."
"Of course!" Cliff laughed. "Because that's how these things work out. Anything else in there?"
"Judging by the air pressure, I'm guessing we're at a pretty high altitude. Scanners are otherwise down and the ship's database contains no other information."
Cliff hummed softly, nodding. Fayt leaned back and rubbed his hands over his face. It was reassuring to know that the environment outside was not toxic, certainly, and that there was at the very least water available. But it didn't really solve any of their problems. Knowing that they were on an underdeveloped planet—and an unsurveyed underdeveloped planet, which he had not even known was a thing that happened—filled him with a kind of queasy dread that had not been there before. If the planet was unsurveyed, there was no chance of them being found if they couldn't get their communications systems up, and because of its level of development they would not be able to get any materials they needed for those repairs. The distress signals on their communications would function, but in such a remote and unstudied place, who could possibly be out there to pick them up?
Fayt looked up again when Cliff clicked his tongue against his teeth, the sound so odd and normal that it managed to intrude on his glum musings. "Looks like we got trouble on the make."
On the display screen, the crowd was parting. Three larger humanoids, the forms of these ones obscured not by heavy clothing but by curved, smooth black segmented shell forms (armor, Fayt realized with a start, a weird sense of creeping awe, they're wearing actual, metal plate armor) were making their way through the opening in the milling people. Each of the armored figures was hidden entirely from their feet to the tops of their heads, and each of them carried a long smooth pole with an equally dark metal shape at the head; sharpened triangles with their broad edge facing forward and the top hooking down off the back. Above that, the connecting cap holding the metal head to the pole terminated in a sharp-looking point. They were some kind of polearm, but he could not remember much of such weapons from his games; Adonis had always favored swords.
Only one of the armored figures had any visible features at all: dark eyes, seen through an opening in his helmet, narrowed up at the bulk of the ship.
"They think we're dangerous," he murmured quietly.
"They know we're dangerous," Cliff pointed out. He reached out, a finger hovering in front of the image on the small screen as the three armored figures stopped to confer among one another. One of them took an extra step forward and, with no hesitation whatsoever, rapped his weapon against the side of the ship. "See all this damage we did? They don't need to know what's going on to know it's dangerous. Just because their planet is 'underdeveloped' doesn't make them stupid. Don't make the mistake of thinking they are."
Mirage tapped a few keys, then leaned back in her chair. She looked over at Cliff again. "We seem to be surrounded by a group of local soldiers now. What will you do?"
"Surrounded." Cliff looked over the small image from outside one more time and then leaned back in his chair again, hand dropping back. "Not much we can do with the Eagle scrapped like this. Fighting our way out isn't really an option..." He looked over and grinned again. "Well, at least we're still in one piece!"
"For now, maybe."
"Hold on." Fayt leaned forward. "They can't get in here, can they?"
"Nah." Cliff drummed his fingers on his legs, eyes closing as he tipped his head back. After what might have been a moment of deliberation, he opened his eyes again. "Oh well. Let's just step outside and see what happens."
Mirage turned towards him, but it was Fayt who rose. He fairly rocketed to his feet, using his hands to propel himself out of the chair. "Hold on just a second!" Cliff did not even look back at him. Fayt clenched his jaw and stepped forward. Now he stood between the two Klausians, and he grabbed Cliff's shoulder in one hand. It felt like grabbing a rock. He tried to ignore how small and fragile it made him feel. "Even minimal contact with the inhabitants of an underdeveloped planet" -an unsurveyed underdeveloped planet- "will get us in trouble, and besides, we have no idea what they'll do to us once we're out there!"
Still, maddeningly, Cliff did not even bother to look at him. Fayt grit his teeth. "You got any better ideas, kid? I hate to point this out, but me and Mirage are already in trouble with the Federation, and I think all three of us've already made contact." He gestured to the image of the wreckage outside. "Rather forcefully at that."
"Well-!" Fayt opened his mouth, then closed it again. Suddenly he did feel small again, not fragile but brittle. He drew his hand back from Cliff jerkily; it settled first on one hip and then jerked up to cross with the other over his aching chest. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, letting out a halting huff of air. "Well...still..."
For a moment there was quiet except for the sound of Cliff shifting in his seat, and then Fayt was aware of the man's mass moving in front of him, then beside him. Cliff's hand came down on his shoulder, firm and a little painful but also, weirdly, a little comforting as well. "Hey."
Fayt looked up at him again.
"Don't worry." Cliff smiled at him. "I've got a hunch they won't kill us right away."
The feeling of comfort fled and Fayt made a face. "Another hunch?"
"Yeah! C'mon, trust me! Didn't we make it here safely? I tell you, my hunches are always right!"
This was not really reassuring Fayt at all; Mirage was no help, either. "How about that time we almost warped into that asteroid because of a...hunch?"
Cliff grimaced, taking his hand from Fayt's shoulder to rub at the back of his neck. "Aw, but it was almost! And that was just one time!"
"One time," Fayt said, but he was thinking, and one time is all it takes.
"At any rate." Cliff crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't think we have any other choice."
We could just stay here and wait, Fayt thought, but somehow he knew that wasn't plausible here. Not the way it had been on Vanguard III. Yes, said the still small voice in the back of his mind, and you didn't even do it there. He swallowed hard, rolling his shoulders a little, and then looked up at Cliff. "...What do you think they'll do?"
"Well, we'll probably be taken prisoner."
"You say it like you don't even care."
"Yeah." Cliff reached out, nudging Fayt with his knuckle. "Only you and I are going out."
"Huh?" For a moment, Fayt froze. When he turned to face Cliff again it was with wide eyes, more a rough mechanical jerk than a turn. "Wait, what about Mirage? You can't just-"
Cliff simply continued to look at him, that same casual air of not caring. "Mirage is going to wait until later to make an escape." He turned his eyes from Fayt without moving his head. "Mirage, stay until nightfall, then leave under the cover of darkness."
"Right. That shouldn't be a problem."
And it was then that Fayt realized what Cliff was saying. They were not casually walking out for no reason and nor were they abandoning Mirage; the two of them were a diversion. It was not them who were escaping, it was her. He swallowed again, and slowly turned to face Mirage in her seat. "But Mirage...all alone? Will you-"
"You're forgetting: she's a Klausian." Cliff thumped his back. "She'll be fine! I pity the soldier that tries to take her in."
Fayt was not sure what to say to that; it was just as well, as the two seemed to be continuing their conversation around him anyway. "You want me to come rescue you two?"
"Nah, no need. There'll probably be too many of 'em in a prison situation anyway. We'll think of something." Cliff settled his hands on his hips, thumbs slipping easily back into his pockets. It was like some kind of strange signal: all clear, everything normal, take a break. "You scout around and find a way to contact the Diplo. Might have to hit up that other continent...don't put yourself in danger trying to hook up with us. The crew should be able to home in on our position as long as we make contact. That's the priority."
"Roger."
Fayt's head was spinning. This was their plan? This was insane!
Cliff thumped him on the shoulder again. It throbbed through his back and neck. "All right!" He said cheerfully, practically in sing-song. "Time to go!"
But before they did, Mirage rose to her feet. She turned out of her seat to face them, and reached out to take a hold of Fayt's bandaged hands in hers. They were so small and so strong that he could not help but continue to marvel at them, at her; so small and so strong. He could not believe that they were leaving her behind. It was insane. Even she could not possibly be strong enough for that. "Fayt..." She smiled up at him, and squeezed his fingers gently. "Be careful."
"Thanks." His mouth felt dry. All of a sudden he saw his father's face in the back of his mind's eye, lit with flashing red as he screamed you have to protect her! into the teeming madness of the evacuation. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He shuddered and released her hands quickly, jerking his own back to himself. "...You...you too, Mirage."
If Mirage minded his sudden retreat, she gave no sign of it. Instead, she simply turned towards Cliff. "Cliff-"
"I said it'll be okay." Cliff waved a hand. Mirage made no effort to take it, simply looking up at him evenly. Eventually he shrugged. "...I'm counting on you."
"Okay. Be careful."
"And unzip that thing."
"When I go outside."
"I mean it. You're gonna choke one of these days."
"It's fine."
"I don't want to have to explain that to your dad."
"Goodbye, Cliff. I'll meet up with you when I can."
"I'm serious!" Though Cliff continued to speak to Mirage, he turned his head to do so: by this point he was using the hand on Fayt's shoulder to turn him and steer him back towards the cockpit exit. His other hand was pointing over his shoulder at Mirage. "That's not a conversation I want to have!"
"Goodbye, Cliff. Enjoy prison."
Fayt looked over his shoulder. Mirage was still standing between the seats and smiling after them. The displays hovered over her casting their weird light like an alien halo; they spread out around her on either side like alien wings; and he thought of Sophia but she was not Sophia, he could not even truly visualize Sophia here in this dark and frightening place but only the memory of his father screaming after him that she must be protected, that he must protect her, which meant nothing here at all because Mirage was strong enough to not need protection at all and he believed that on a reasonable level, absolutely, but this feeling was not one founded in reason or anything like that. It simply hit him and washed over him in a hard, sudden, rush; and just as suddenly, it was gone again. She was a woman—a stranger-in a bomber jacket standing in a ship's cockpit, nothing more, and then he was pushed through the airlock and it closed behind him so she was not even that. She was simply gone.
He shook his head, trying to clear the last clinging fragments of the strange feeling. It occurred to him belatedly, as Cliff moved him through the ship at a steady pace by that one hand on his shoulder, that he was still unarmed. He looked up at the man. "Hold on. My sword, where did you-"
"Don't bother." Cliff did not look back down at him. "We're not taking anything out with us, and we're definitely not taking weapons. It'd just make things worse, and besides—they'll search us before they throw us in prison."
Fayt considered this, realized that it was probably true, and felt his shoulders slump. "...Do you do this a lot? Go to prison?"
"I know how the world works," Cliff said, which was not a real answer but Fayt was fairly certain meant 'yes, several times' anyway.
Cliff turned him down one of the alcoves they had passed before. They were no less dark and grim now, or for knowing what waited outside. Soon they were passing through another set of airlocks, this one more complex. He did not need to recognize the details to know it was the exterior airlock. "So...what about our communicators?"
"Hide it the best you can and just hope for things to work out. We'll still be able to talk, anyway. It'll be fine." They stopped in one final chamber, and the guiding, driving hand on his shoulder gave a faint squeeze, half lifted to give him another companionable but painful thump, and then drew away. "You ready?"
No, Fayt thought, even as he reached beneath the poncho he wore and took his communicator from the pocket of his shorts. He stared at the small, bland disk, running his thumb along the edge thoughtfully. While it was true that Cliff spoke Terran, he did not want to be in a situation where he could not understand the people around him again. Even more than that, he did not want to be in a situation where the people around him could not understand his words. He thought about the people huddled together in the small display screen, and what Cliff had said to him then about them: they know we're dangerous. But if they could hear him and understand him, Fayt knew just as surely that he could convince them otherwise. Especially after the way that they had made contact, the ability to communicate would be more important than anything.
His grip tightened on the small device for a moment, squeezing around the smooth edges, then he reached back into his poncho again. The pockets on the outside of his shirt were mostly for show, it was true, but there was an interior pocket as well; and though it was also small it was large enough (perhaps, Fayt thought wryly, with a mind towards people who chose to wear pants more along the line of Cliff's) to hold any standard sized communicator unobtrusively. He unzipped his shirt far enough to reach inside of it and tuck the device securely into that interior pocket, then zipped it closed as far as it would go once more and smoothed his hand down over it. The faint bump it made in the material was, he thought, hardly noticeable at all. And in any case, who would take a man's shirt in weather like what Mirage had described outside?
Cliff watched him, one eyebrow raised very faintly, but he did not say anything and he certainly did not tell Fayt to hurry up, which Fayt was thankful for. When Fayt looked back up from hiding his communicator, he simply nodded.
"Okay then," Cliff said. He walked to the far door, and lifted one hand up above his head, arm extended faintly. Reach for the sky, Fayt thought, and for one bizarre moment all that he could think of was old Westerns, and how maybe the thought was not quite so crazy after all, even if the men they were going out to face were armed with polearms and not with primitive guns.
Cliff looked back over his shoulder. "Keep your hands up and forward. And remember—" He paused, grinning, as Fayt lifted his own hands up above his head, fingers open and palms out, "whatever happens, don't worry. I got you."
He did not wait for Fayt to respond. His other hand reached out to strike the door controls, and the two of them, together, stepped out into the blinding flood of light.