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"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."

~Buddha

Chapter Forty-seven: Grapevine

"Angelis?" Air hissed through Gallant's teeth and over his tongue, cold despite the warmth radiating off the Pacific. "As in..."

"Yes." Angelis' perfect teeth glinted in the sunset - and was it Gallant's imagination, or did the sun blaze a bit brighter when she did? "We haven't spoken in a long time, Commander."

"You're...you're an Elder." Gallant took a half-step back, toes sinking into the sand. He couldn't help but study that sarong a bit harder. "Where are your other arms?"

"Does this form please you?" Angelis tilted her head. "I can take a different one, if it would suit your eyes better."

"I..." Gallant flinched as, for just a moment, he caught a flash-image of an Elder, looming twice his height and bearing down on him with red robes flapping and all four arms glowing with purple power. As fast as it came, it subsided, and he was left with the beautiful redhead on the beach, throwing out her hair in the breeze.

"I thought not." Angelis' eyes sparkled.

"You..." Gallant tried to right his ship and forge on. "What do you want?"

"To talk."

"About what?" Gallant's heart flared as a sudden suspicion took root. "Moira?"

"In one." Angelis raised a glass she hadn't been holding before she spoke. "Mimosa?"

"Where is she?" Gallant loomed over her, fists clenched. "Tell me, Angelis, or so help me God-"

"Please, Commander!" She threw up her hands in a very docile manner. "Don't hurt me!" Her eyes glinted, and her lips twitched. "After all, I'm only an extraterrestrial goddess with powers beyond the ken of your entire race. Not the belt, please!"

"I know when I'm being mocked." Gallant's eye twitched. "Give me information, or we'll have to find out if you're full of hot air."

"I like you." She sounded completely honest. "You have a muton's spirit, and I've always been fond of mutons. Your will to fight and your will to win have never wavered, in spite of your..." She pursed her lips. "All that."

"You're not here for small talk, and I don't have patience for it." Gallant very nearly slugged her then and there. "Moira!"

"She's yours, Commander."

Silence, save for the ocean breeze rolling in. Swells rose and fell, and gulls crooned in dusk.

"Just like that?" Gallant thought of gift horses, but he also remembered a certain myth about a wooden one. "It's not that simple."

"Of course not. I'd be insulted if you thought it was, and you'd be insulted if I'd thought you'd think it was." Angelis paced for the water, giggling in a very human way as her feet hit the shallows. She waded in to mid-calf level, mindful of her dress. "She will, of course, have trackers and security overrides and all sorts of other nifty little goodies implanted."

"Tygan can deal with that."

"Well, if I'd thought he couldn't, I wouldn't have mentioned them. But some things have to at least be attempted, for form's sake if nothing else." Angelis gave Gallant a searching look over her shoulder, ginger tresses billowing. "And I'm not exactly a charitable goddess."

"You want a trade." Gallant set his teeth. "You want me."

"Oh, hell yes I do. Are you offering?"

"No."

"Fiddlesticks." Angelis snapped her fingers. "Well, that was shooting high anyway. I want you back, Commander - and you will come back, someday - but I'm going to be a bit more realistic about this."

"You have the opportunity to-"

"Do I really?" Any illusions Gallant might have had about Angelis being a fool died a quick and painful death when he saw the glint in her eye. "You wouldn't give yourself up, Commander, not if I offered you Moira Vahlen on a silver platter. You love her, but you love your duty too. That's something I do understand, believe it or not."

Gallant blinked. "So...what do you want?"

"Let's put all our cards on the table." She turned back to him, drained her drink, and threw the glass aside. It disappeared into the air before hitting the swells. "What I offer: Vahlen. Alive, unharmed. Festooned with anything I can think of to get your ship's location, but that's part of the game, as we discussed. I don't honestly expect any of those devices to work." Now she paused, and finally bared her white teeth. "What I demand?

"Jane Kelly."

"What?" Gallant shook his head. "Why?"

"I have my reasons." And she didn't seem inclined to share them. "Give me Captain Kelly, for me to do with as I wish, and I will give you Moira Vahlen for the same."

"I..." Gallant cleared his throat. "I don't see how they're equally valuable."

"Then you shouldn't object to the trade, should you?" Angelis shrugged. "It's heavily slanted in your favor. One worthless soldier, for your love? A brilliant scientist who could help you defeat me?"

"Why offer something like this?" It was tempting. So tempting...

"As I said, I have my reasons. And being generous to you..." She mused for a moment. "I am not a bad person to work with, Commander. And I need you. In the fullness of time-"

"Never." Gallant spat into the water at her feet. "I'll never return."

"You say one thing, I say another. Time will peel back the truth on what lies ahead." Angelis cocked her head. "Let us remain focused on the deal of the present. If you deliver Jane Kelly to the prison facility in the Outback - your team can find it easily enough, and no, Vahlen isn't there - then I will dispatch Vahlen to you at once."

"How..." Gallant fought the urge, the urge, to take the offer and damn the consequences. Jane was one of his soldiers...but Vahlen... "How do I know I can trust you?"

"I give you my word."

"The word of an alien means shit to me."

"I give you myself." She held out her hands, wrists together, and ropes appeared from nowhere to bind them tightly. "But say you accept the offer, and I will deliver myself to your ship as a hostage. Deliver Kelly afterward, and then exchange me for Vahlen."

"An Elder..." Gallant couldn't make sense of what his life had become. If he told Tygan he would have an Elder to study...a captive...the potential for scientific advancement was extreme. And he could break his word, too: he could insist on Vahlen being returned first, and keep Angelis, and...and...

"I'm yours, Commander." It was as if she plucked the thought right out of his head - which was, Gallant supposed, not impossible. Angelis gestured with her bound hands. "If you should choose to keep me, I can do nothing about it but suffer in your grasp as you experiment upon me and torment me for the suffering of your people. You can, if you desire, walk out of this with Vahlen and me both, for only the price of your Ranger captain."

"...are you mad?" His voice was almost lost in the low rumble of the swells. "You're giving me the war on a platter. With you..."

"Perhaps I trust your honor."

"No. There's more to this." Unfortunately, Gallant had always had a weakness for bound redheads, and he was having trouble calculating with one almost literally throwing herself at him.

"I think I'm being very generous." She pouted. "Don't you want me, Commander?"

He...did. A lot more than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

Gallant wavered on his feet.

"Think about it." Angelis smiled. "We will meet again."

"Wait-"

Edward Gallant's eyes opened, and he stared up at his office ceiling. He groaned, reaching back to find his headrest and confirm that he had, in fact, fallen asleep at his desk.

Then he forgot that, because-

"Moira!" He threw himself to his feet, then cried out as he remembered his waking infirmaries. He crashed on the deck, howling and clutching his bad leg. An alarm chirped at the noise, announcing that one of Tygan's medical people had been dispatched.

He tried to get up by himself. Tried...and failed.

"Fucking...fuck..." He'd been so powerful, for just those few moments...

"Commander?" The door hissed open, and she hurried in. "Where are you?"

"Behind the desk!" Gallant tried again, and got the same results. He hissed when his leg tried to implode. "Fell."

"I see." Julie Richardson looked around as she reached for Gallant's hand. "Your cane, sir?"

"I don't have a fucking clue." He pulled, snarling and hissing. Julie silently tugged, and she got him up on his good leg in a moment. Calmly, she threaded his arm over her shoulders.

"Well, lean on me." She hesitated. "Sir...chair, bedroom - it's three in the morning, sir - or medbay?"

"Medbay? Jesus Christ, Richardson, I'm not in cardiac arrest."

"Well, if you start, I know what to-"

"I don't need the medbay." He tried not to look at her unnaturally-scarlet dyed hair. It reminded him too much of Angelis. "Bedroom. I need to get back to sleep."

"Sir." Julie nodded. "I'll come back and look for your cane afterward."

"You do that, then." Gallant glared at her profile as they began their halting journey out of the office. "When did you become one of Tygan's people?"

"Commander, sir." Julie looked rather surprised. "I was the one Central sent in on your first day. I've always been a medical auxiliary."

"And no one told me?"

"I think Central assumed you knew."

"Well, you know what they say about assumptions." Gallant's eye twitched: his leg still raged and thundered. "Now why the hell are you up so late?"

"Me?" She paused. "Well, sir, Sylvie and I were-"

"Aha-"

"Oh, no!" Julie lurched. "Did I drop you, sir?"

"Try it and I drop you." Gallant hissed. "From the stern, dammit, at forty thousand feet."

"Then don't make cracks like that. Sylvie and I are good friends, that's all."

"Then what were you doing?"

"Our psi-practice keeps us up at odd hours. So we were settling in to share a movie in my cubicle while Hiroshi's team ran some tests on our latent shared energy. We give off different readings when together than apart." She frowned as Gallant tried and failed to bite back laughter. "Just what are you on about?"

"Nothing, Julie." He pointed. "That way."

Maybe if he got back to sleep...Angelis...

Temptation cut and dug like a blade.

Scarlet mag-fire hit him in a sudden storm. Shots ripped through his chest and shoulders, blowing scarlet spray out on all sides, and Said managed a shocked gasp before he collapsed. There was so much blood, so much gore...his choked noises so loud...

"Tariq?"

"Hm?" It was the most coherent noise Fatima could manage. Those horrible moments played over and over behind her eyes every time she closed them, and her stomach lurched and her heart boiled with every repetition.

"We haven't properly met." The brunette in the doorway tugged on her ballcap. "Captain Jane Kelly."

"Oh." Fatima tried to pull out of it. "Fatima Tariq. I'm not...really sure what rank I'm going to get."

"You're about as elite as they come, that's the rumor." Jane hesitated. "May I?"

"What? Oh." Fatima did her best to pretend she didn't still feel the searing absence of her other half. "Come in, yes. Certainly."

Jane did. She slowly entered the little barrack bunkroom Fatima had to herself. It hadn't been decorated before her arrival at still wasn't: the bed was the only piece of furniture except for the little chest where she kept her day clothes.

None of them are mine either. Her eyes tried to mist up. Charity.

"You okay?" Jane leaned on the wall. Fatima shrugged, trying to lie with her eyes.

"Yes."

Jane frowned slightly. "Fatima, you've lost everything. No one would hold it against you-"

"I'm fine." She shook her head, all the more insistent because it was a lie. "Is there a reason you're in here, Captain?"

Jane studied her for a long moment. "I'm here to get a feel for who I've got under my command. Your strengths."

"Ma'am, I'm a top-notch shotgunner with a specialization in laser weaponry. I'm trained for HALO insertion and the use of powered armor."

"We don't have access to all the tech your group seems to have." Jane considered. "Power armor, though: we can earmark you for an EXO suit. And we can dig up another shard gun, I'm sure." She paused. "Have you ever held a sword?"

"No. Swords?" Fatima scoffed. "What is this, 1299?"

"Technically speaking, swords were used as secondary and cavalry weapons well into the..." Jane broke off coughing. "God damn it, when did I turn into Central?"

"Huh?"

"Ignore me." Jane waved dismissively. "You and I need to start fencing practice then, because otherwise you hit the spot for a Ranger rather well."

"I'm not a Ranger." Fatima shook her head. "I'm an Assault."

"We don't have any of those here."

"I can cover distances you wouldn't believe and be fit to fire at the end without a pause for breath." Fatima raised one eyebrow. "You ever run and gun like a pro, Captain?"

Jane frowned. "We use swords-"

"I'm not learning a new combat specialization, and you can take that one to Commander Gallant. I'm sure you report to him." Fatima rose. "But I will share what I know of my style of fighting, and you share what you have, and between the two of us we'll take the best of both worlds and both come out better for it."

Jane considered that. "It has to pass muster with Central first."

"I'm sure he'll see reason." Fatima crossed her arms. "Was there anything else, Captain?"

She wondered if she'd have to get more obvious. But no: Jane pushed off the wall.

"No, there is not." She hesitated on her way out the door. "It's not your fault, Fatima."

"I'm not bothered."

"Don't lie to me." Jane's side-eye was a lot more hostile. Fatima had endured under Zhang's, and so was not very impressed. "You're not the only one on this ship who's lost everything on the way here."

Fatima didn't respond, but she did make a note to look up Jane's personnel file at the first opportunity. She waited in silence, long enough the Irishwoman finally shrugged.

"Whatever. It's your deal, until you screw up in action and it's mine."

"That won't happen." Fatima was sure.

"It had better not." And then Jane was gone in a hiss of pneumatics, leaving Fatima to brood alone.

"Mox doesn't look good." Cameron Rogers eyed the Skirmisher from the corner of his eye.

"Mox never looks good." For once, it wasn't Liang at his side. Johannes Vermuelen pursed his lips, something dancing in his gaze as it traveled over the hangar bay. "And I don't suppose you can blame him, given what happened to his girlfriend."

"Right. Call her that when she's on the ship, why don't you?" Cameron didn't quite know what to think about the South African. Aloof, detached, hanging in the background...he hoped the man knew how to use the sniper rifle and pistol he'd been assigned.

"Assuming she is returned."

"You're just a ray of sunshine." Cameron rapped him on the shoulder. "Be positive! We'll find her. And that scientist lady."

"I'm sure we will. Eventually." That seemed to exhaust Vermuelen's sociability. He turned and started off without another word, hands in his pockets. Cameron eyed him contemplatively.

"Not doing a great job of convincing me you're on the level." No one could have heard him over the banging of metal parts as techs pushed fuel cells and spares around. Cameron made his own turn, beginning down a path he pretended was random. "Someone sold me and Liang out..."

He walked. He wove around the activity in the room as best he could, trying to stay out of the mechanics' way. For it all, he barely noticed them.

Vermuelen wouldn't have access to the covert action log. But he would have known we were off the ship. Cameron's lips pursed. And if he snuck access to the computer system...he could have found out.

But it didn't feel right. An asshole Vermuelen might be, but he didn't seem the type to ninja skulk around stealing data. Cameron's gut said there was more to it. Unfortunately, it didn't seem intent on sharing the whys, the wherefores, or the whats of what more there might have been.

If it's not Vermuelen, that leaves the command crew. Jane, the Commander himself, Bradford...

That name gave him pause. He ground to a halt in the mist of the hangar, very intently studying the floor plating. Central was above reproach, but what about Mariah?

"She misses a lot." Cameron frowned a little deeper...then a little more. "What if that...that desperation to prove something...what if it's not Central she's trying to..."

"You look lost, little boy."

"Firebrand!" Cameron jumped. He glanced over to the jumpsuited pilot, lying under the Skyranger with a wrench in hand. She waved lazily, then returned to tugging on bolts and pushing wires around.

"That's what mama called me." She whacked something, and a big iron bong echoed through the hangar. "That's what I wanted to hear."

"What are you doing?" Cameron chanced a few steps her way.

"I'm working on my baby, Moose. What did you think I was doing?" She scoffed. "We had a bit of a fuel leak, and it's cheaper and less time-consuming to fix it than build a new Skyranger."

"You can really do that?" Cameron blinked. "I thought you were talking yourself up."

"Talk myself up? Me? Come on, now. I'm a pilot: I'm naturally modest." Firebrand stuck out a hand. "I need the fifteen as long as you're standing there."

"What?"

"The fifteen." Cameron thought he caught a glimpse of bright eyes behind her visor. "Fifteen millimeter socket. You use them on bolts..."

"Oh." Cameron spotted a red toolbox, and he hurried over. A moment of searching later, he found the rusty old fifteen. "Here."

"Good boy. You get a cookie." And then she pulled one out of God-knew-where and tossed it into open air. Cameron's fingers closed around it almost automatically.

"You..." He cleared his throat. "Being around you is always an adventure, you know that?"

"Well, I hope so." Firebrand continued working for a minute. "I'd like to think people remember me for more than the codename and the suit."

"They help."

"I'm my personality above all."

"I can't argue with that." Cameron tried a bite of the cookie. "If there's raisins in this..."

"Jesus, Moose, do I look like an Ethereal?" Firebrand made that scoffing noise again.

"How should I know?" Cameron gently kicked the heavily padded shoulder of her flight suit.

"Oh! Touché." She paused, and Cameron thought she was smiling even if he couldn't see it. "You're all right, Moose."

"I'm glad someone thinks so." Cameron cleared his throat after a minute. "Um, since I'm here...is there anything I can..."

"There's not enough room under here for two." And then she snickered when Cameron spluttered. "Actually, being honest, if you can climb up in the cockpit and check the rudder pedals, that'd be a help. I need to check the lines."

Gallant sat alone.

"What would you do?" The same four words he'd been muttering since he awoke. They ran through his mind and out over his lips in an unbroken repeating spiral, directed all at once at a different set of targets.

Not Angelis. He knew what she would do: she'd been the one to make the offer, after all. She wanted him to take it. Why? Gallant didn't know, and he didn't trust her, but damn if he could see her advantage in being taken captive and returning her own hostage. And for Jane?

Speaking of her...she wouldn't take the deal. Jane was a nice woman, but she wanted to fight. She wouldn't give herself up for Vahlen, not when she didn't know her in the slightest.

And what about John? Bradford would do it, and never look back. Bradford knew about the cost of war.

"Costs of war..." Gallant rubbed at his forehead, even as his other hand kept turning that picture around and around in his lap. "Sometimes, Edward, being in command just means you get to choose who dies..." He let out a long, slow breath. "Dad, if this was your call..."

He didn't know. He didn't know, and he never would, and it wasn't anyone's call but his. If rescuing Vahlen - if capturing Angelis and maybe winning the war - meant giving up Jane, choosing her to die or worse...wasn't that worth it? Was it?

Nothing made sense.

"What would you do?" he repeated, eyes lingering on the portrait. He drunk in the lines of her face and the white of her lab coat, imagining the lovely notes of her mixed accent...

"Moira Vahlen would do what was necessary to win the war."

Slowly, Gallant looked up. He deliberately set the picture on his desk, then reached for his cane. He pushed the end into the deck, and a moment later he rose to his feet without even a grunt of protest.

"The hell is this?" His eyes flicked left, then right...and then back to center. "It's usually just one of you."

"Commander." Janet Ross, on the right, inclined her head very seriously. "May I present Anne Lawrence, also of the Templar Order." She gestured past the man in the middle to his left-hand woman, a ravenette in red, eyes dark and somber. "And, of course, you remember-"

"You son of a bitch." Gallant's voice cut over hers like a gunshot. He glared up at the bald bastard with his purple-searing eyes, and the Commander's lip curled. "The hell do you want? The hell do you think you're doing, invoking Moira's name here?"

"Hello, Commander." Geist didn't linger on formalities beyond that. "We heard about what happened in Poland. We know what has become of Doctor Vahlen."

"Yeah?" Gallant narrowed his eyes. "Here to gloat, or to get your ass kicked again?"

"Watch your tongue!" Ross' purple eyes flared. "You are the one who-"

"I'm not afraid to hit a girl, red. You'd be out in two hits with a shot to the crotch and a snapped knee." Gallant slammed his cane into the deck for emphasis. "Your girlfriend would get the jump on me, but I'd smash her skull on my desk - benefits of being a cripple, young lady, is that I don't have any reason to hold back anymore - and then it's me and Geist. We both know how that ended last time." Gallant hissed through his teeth. "Come on. Give me a reason. I've got some rage to work out."

"We are not here to fight you." Lawrence rapped Ross' shoulder rather harshly when she stirred. "We have come in peace, so saith Geist himself."

"Indeed, so I say." Geist inclined his head now. "We are not friends, Commander Gallant, and that was unlikely to change even if hostility did not linger so near to the surface of our conversation." His eye twitched. "I will speak no more of threats and conflict between us. Our war, while perhaps inevitable, is not today's battle."

"Oh, yeah?" Gallant worked up a good spit. Right in Geist's eye, he figured: that would buy him a minute to deal with the magic call girls.

"I come with an offer of good faith." Geist seemed unaware of how close to death he lingered. "I come with information you will find most valuable."

"I'll be the judge of that." Gallant glared. "Unless you can tell me-"

"I give you the identity of an Advent scientist who can provide Moira Vahlen's location."

Author's Note 47: Back in the Saddle

Okay, so, everything up until this chapter was written on the normal schedule. As of the time of writing this, that MS review is done and I'm moving forward again. I believe there will still have been a break over the end of April - hi, readers in the FUTURE - but if you've read the previous chapter and this one, then we're off again. I'm not happy with how condensed all this wound up being, but it's what's necessary to keep the later parts of the season working smoothly.

I don't know what it is about Vigilo Confido, but it is kicking my ass something fierce. I'm having a really hard time getting myself to get chapters out and written and all that stuff. Anyone who's left comments or hit that nice favorite button, THANK YOU! Nothing perks me up to get working more than seeing that someone out there thinks I'm doing a good job.

Now, let's see if I can't get the rest of this done...

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.