Out of all the times Kalthara had found herself coming out of unconsciousness that day she found this third (and hopefully final) time to be the (comparatively) most pleasant.

The headache and dizziness were still present but had lessened considerably though her stomach felt like it had been taken out, stretched every which way and placed back into her abdomen at exactly the wrong angle. The surroundings were much more quiet and peaceful than they had been and light once more stung her open eyes.

Instead of a hard pilot's chair, Kalthara had been lain onto some kind of cushion. It was far too small for a creature the size of a galra as both her head and legs hung off the raised sides awkwardly. Otherwise it was reasonably comfortable. The ache in her arm remained, but had decreased considerably to the point that it was now a mildly annoying soreness.

As her eyes focused she could see a dim light shining through a small glass panel. Moving her stiff neck to look down at herself, she was surprised to see her arm had been splinted and placed into a makeshift sling.

Funny. Kalthara couldn't remember doing that.

Sitting up slowly, she took the opportunity to take in her surroundings.

It was a tiny primitive dwelling. A poorly made one at that with cracked walls, old unattractive furniture, and a very distinctive smell.

Kalthara's ears flattened as she sniffed experimentally.

The smell was pungent. A mix of sweat and earth that permeated the air and stung the galra's sensitive nose. She tried to focus on the source of the offensive smell and found herself staring at a pile of junk, most of which looked like it had been taken from other parts of the room and turned over to create a makeshift fort.

Just as she narrowed her eyes to try and get a better look at the structure, something flew over the top of the structure and struck her in the middle of the forehead. Jolting back Kalthara sat stunned, expecting some kind of pain to overwhelm her. When none came she allowed her muscles to relax just enough to free up movement.

Her eyes wandered down to the floor where the offensive little speck that had struck her now lay.

It looked like some kind of nut.

Another nut struck her ear while she was distracted. Growling, Kalthara glared at the structure instinctively reaching for her knife freezing as she grabbed at empty air.

Looking down in a panic, the horrific sight of an empty sheath on her waist met her widening eyes.

Angry eyes shifting once more to the pile of garbage, Kalthara caught the next nut as it flew through mid-air.

"Who is there?!" When no reply came she pushed herself shakily to her feet. "I demand that you answer me, or I will come over there and extract an answer for myself!"

Something moved from behind the pile and some type of appendage raised over the top and waved.

"Alright alright! Not a pecan person? Fine! I got walnuts? Ya like walnuts?"

The odd reply gave Kalthara a turn as she watched dumbfounded as the arm was followed by a complete lifeform. One that left her with a distinct feeling of being… unimpressed.

It wasn't as though she had been expecting much.

She had traversed all over the galra empire on missions for the blades since she had been big enough to properly grip the hilt of her knife. In that time she had thought she had seen every species the galra empire had conquered. Numerous limbs and oozing orifices had become commonplace amongst her expectations when seeing someone new.

But this new creature was relatively boring by comparison. It had a basic structure similar to a galra but much smaller, leaner, with shorter arms, and practically hairless. It was only when she squinted that Kalthara could notice some noticeably coarse hair on it's arms and face. That was all save for a mop of brown hair that topped the head.

Incredibly unremarkable.

The one thing she did notice were the misshapen ears. Rounded and flat to the head but still noticeable. She grimaced at their ugliness.

Despite the hideous ears, the creature otherwise looked very harmless. No claws, fangs, or venomous spines to speak of. Just a low rather soothing tone of voice that lulled even her hardened nerves into semi-security.

"Look," the voice made her ears twitch in attention. "I know it ain't reese's pieces, but the nuts and dried food is all I've got to snack on."

It occurred to Kalthara that the tone was shaky and unsure. The creature was holding itself together fairly well under the circumstances, but it was still very clearly cautious of her given the way it stayed behind the hastily thrown together fort.

Good, she thought with some satisfaction. So long as it's afraid of me I have the advantage.

"Where am I?" she demanded. "How did I get here? Where is my ship? How long have I been out? Where is my weapon?"

Then, as an afterthought, she asked, "and who or what are you?"

"Uhh," The creature paused in thought, as if needing to take a moment to review itself.

Wonderful, Kalthara frustratingly thought. It's slow.

"Well, yer in my house. I took ya here in my truck, it should still be where ya left it, you've been out since last night. I, uh, I dunno about any weapon." It paused before finishing. "A-and I'm Austin. In that order. Pleased to meet ya... maybe."

Her eyebrows creased in remembrance. "I've never heard of the… Oospins before."

"No, no. See I'm human. Austin is my name. And it's pronounced like Os-tin."

"Otin?"

"Austin."

"Ovstain?"

"AUSTIN."

Kalthara paused and tried once more. "Osteen?"

"NO! I-" Austin took a deep calming breath through his nose before saying. "Ya know what? It doesn't even matter right now. We can sort that out later. What I need to know right now is what yer doin here."

"What I'M doing here?"

"Yeah what YOU'RE doing here." He clarified sounding rather annoyed. "Are ya here to scout stuff out, kill us all, or what? Cause knowing where I stand with ya will really help me decide how I should be reacting right now."

Confusion clouded Kalthara's mind before the bright light of realization dawned.

Right. She was a galra.

This strange "human" must have thought she was with the empire.

It would certainly explain why he was being so cautious with her. If she was the first of an invading force, he couldn't be too careful. While if she was just a crashed scout, patching her up would certainly help place him into her better graces and keep any presumed allies from bearing down on him.

Regardless of which it was, he was wanting an explanation for her presence. Which meant the truth was the last thing she wanted to tell.

"I was," she paused grasping at an idea. "I was sightseeing before my ship crashed here."

It was a poor excuse. Kalthara could see from the look on his face that the human didn't buy it for a moment. No one would. But she had never been particularly good at coming up with truly believable lies. She had never had to do so.

All of the missions she had been involved in hadn't involved talking to people. Unless shoving a knife into a sentries chestplate counted as talking.

"Rrrright." Austin shifted somewhat from behind his pile of furniture. "So if I come out from behind here. I have your word that you won't try to kill me?"

She thought about the question seriously.

"If I have your word that you will not try to kill me."

In response, Austin moved slowly out from behind the fort and stood staring at the alien woman.

Kalthara sat back down on the cushioned seat, doing her best to not make it seem like she was collapsing. Even if this human wasn't hostile, it didn't do to show weakness. For all she knew he could have been planning to do away with her the moment her guard was down.

(The logical side of the galran woman's brain told her that if he had wanted to kill her, he would have done so while she had been unconscious and helpless.

The paranoid side told the logical side to shut up.)

Austin stared at the alien. It was only now that the morning light shone through the window that he realized that she was a woman. That fact quickly got buried as his mind drifted to other worries. Mainly concerning the ship that he'd left alone at that outcropping.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his current position wasn't exactly ideal. If someone came across that ship, they were sure to report it to the garrison. And if the garrison started snooping around they were sure to find the alien in Austin's house. And if they found an alien in Austin's house, then everything would be over. No amount of tucking cactus into the back of his truck would hide his experiments from the proper authorities then.

Course that would be the least of his worries.

Once it became known that there was an alien crash site near his home, Austin's peaceful days of mapping out the stars would be a thing of the past. Members of the garrison would be stamping around with fancy bits of handheld technology that beeped every five seconds looking for alien radiation. His old shack would probably get bulldozed over to make a new research base. And the whole area, every little rocky outcropping and speck of dirt he had come to know and love, would be fenced off and made into the second Area 51.

The alien woman would probably be carted off and experimented on or dissected or something. Though that bit was really none of his business. She HAD tried to kill him after all so Austin's sympathies towards her were not exactly running strong.

Turning her in wouldn't absolve his worries. In fact, it would likely make things worse. Once he did that, he'd suddenly be involved in the investigation much more than he would have been if she'd simply been found on his property. And he didn't want that.

Glancing at the creature on his couch, Austin questioned what unlucky star he had to have been born under to have something like this happen to him.

Out of all the deserts in all the world, she just had to crash land in his.

Kalthara's own thoughts were not that different from Austin's in tone. She avoided looking at the human at all costs. Preferring to busy herself with her own problems. Mainly the one that worried her the most was that she had very little idea of where she was.

She had never heard of humans before. Which meant that whatever rock she was currently on was likely unknown to her as well. It was an irritating mess to be in.

One glance at the technology this Osteen had in his pathetic little abode did not give her even the slightest bit of comfort. It wasn't quite neanderthalic, but it was still annoyingly primitive. She doubted she could make much use of it to fix her ship. If this planet had any kind of technology she could actually use it certainly wouldn't be in this rundown little shack or in the hands of this small-minded and simple little creature.

Still, she supposed he might be of use.

Her injury limited her movement, and running around asking about the most advanced technology this planet had to offer was bound to bring about suspicion. Especially if word got round that a galra had crash landed. At best she'd be turned into the empire for a tidy sum, and at worst the inhabitants themselves would stone her death or devise some other nasty fate for her. In such a case having someone around who knew of the local customs might be useful.

But that meant trusting this human, and Kalthara was hesitant to take that step.

Bits and pieces of her memory had returned, recalling that it had been this human that had crawled up her craft and peered inside. She couldn't be sure what he'd been after in that moment. Had he simply wanted to satiate his own curiosity, or had he intended to raid the wreck?

If it had been the latter, then her awakening and attack had likely wrecked his plans and rattled his nerves. It didn't explain why he had taken her here, but Kalthara wasn't about to say that it had been out of the kindness of his heart. It was far more likely that he was at a loss for what else to do with her and simply didn't have the mettle to finish her off on his own.

On any other occasion, Kalthara would have rejected the idea of trusting him as a matter of course but her current situation made that option null and void. And though she racked her brains to come up with another option, she could think of none.

It pained her to acknowledge that, at the very least, she would have to tolerate Osteen's existence until he was no longer of any use to her. At which point she would have to find an opening to abandon him. Maybe even kill him if it became necessary. But she'd rather it didn't come to that.

Dead bodies had a notorious habit of turning up and leaving a trail and besides, she did technically owe he man her life. So it seemed wrong to just kill him simply because he was no longer of use. Besides it wouldn't even be necessary so long as she kept her identity as a blade a secret from him.

Her mind drifted to the empty sheath at her waist.

Now THAT was a problem that she needed to address as soon as possible. Preferably without Osteen noticing.

Even if she managed to get her ship back together and in working order, Kalthara could not leave the planet without her ceremonial blade. Well she technically could, but she would not get a warm welcome once she made it back to the Marmora base.

The ceremonial blades had all been crafted from a rare metal mined from a now dead planet. She hadn't actually paid much attention when her instructors had explained where the metal had come from. It had seemed to be such gratuitous information at the time. Especially when a simple "This weapon is one of a kind so don't lose it" would have sufficed.

But even so, if she arrived without the weapon in hand Kolivan would undoubtedly be very cold to her about the loss. Carrying on and on about the importance of the weapon and how important it was to the history of their order, etc. And she would stand there, not really listening, but still being embarrassed as the other blades shunned her. From there she'd be shipped off to the outer reaches and join the other lesser member of the order where she'd have to work herself back up into the inner circle.

Going through such a thing would not only be difficult, but frustratingly humiliating. There were only two good excuses a Marmoran could give for the loss of their blade. Death, or succession.

In the case of death the blade would be recovered and made their memoriam until it could be passed on to a brand new member of the order. Who would then wield the weapon in their memory and carry on the fallen blades duty.

But in the case of succession, Kalthara was expected to hand off her blade to a person of her choosing. Essentially relinquishing her position in the order to her successor upon her inevitably violent demise at the hand of the enemy. Assuming they could pass the trial without ending up a corpse of course. And she HAD to relinquish the blade willingly. Otherwise the knife wouldn't change ownership until she died.

None of these potential options appealed to Kalthara on any level. She hated the idea of having to start from the bottom of the order. In the time it took her to crawl her way back to the top, Kolivan would likely have gotten himself killed. And just the thought of a bunch of inexperienced brats having authority over her made her blood boil. But more than anything else, Kalthara didn't wish to relinquish the blade for one simple reason.

It was her's.

In all of her life, in the whole of the universe, the blade was the only thing that was completely undeniably and absolutely HERS. No one else could use it as long as she acknowledged it as such. It simply wouldn't awaken for anyone else.

Her fate, her life, her role in the blades. It had all been thrust upon her as a small child. With no heed taken of her own whims or fancies.

But the blade, Kalthara's blade, had chosen her. It hadn't been a matter of her being born for it. The blade had tested her and she had proven herself to it. It was something she had earned completely of her own merit, and that held more value to her than any paltry mission her ancestors had predetermined for her.

Which made its absence all the more distressing to her.

But the best means she had to find it, as well as secure her own survival, was standing across the room looking at her. Kalthara stifled a groan of frustration.

She hated having to do things she didn't want to, but right now she didn't seem to have a choice. It was either partner up with the human or strike out on her own on a planet she knew absolutely nothing about. Which wasn't much of a choice at all.

On the bright side, he seemed to be only semi-intelligent. At least if his technology was anything to go by. So getting him to do what she wanted should be easy. But first she had to get the upperhand.

"Now see here-" She began but stopped as Austin began at the same time.

"Look, I-" he stopped as well.

They both narrowed their eyes at each other and tried again. This time with Austin starting.

"I think we should probably-"

"Listen, we-"

They stopped again.

The third round proved to be the tie breaker.

"We need to make a deal." Kalthara shot out before the human began.

Austin blinked.

Paused.

Then asked, "What kinda deal?"

Kolivan sat in his quarters.

He had been there ever since returning to the base. Everything that had occurred between then and now was a distant unfeeling blur. Only a few moments stood out.

Stumbling out of the ship. A few of his men greeting him and him being unable to respond. Concerned voices. Question's he'd been too numb to answer.

Ulaz had said something about shock before having Antok bustle Kolivan out of the hanger just as more of the blades arrived. The only other thing he could remember was the sight of what remained of the altean artifact moored to his damaged ship.

It was a sorry sight. Torn in half, edges of twisted melted metal jagged and sharp. The image was burned into his memory and stood out especially strongly.

As time went on more memories came back to him.

The images of the enemy ships firing on him and Kalthara. Their successful escape into the asteroid field. Then he had been hit.

At this point, the whole scene replayed itself in his mind in chilling detail.

His ship stalled both from the damage as well as the added weight of his cargo. A second shot flew through space towards him when his sister's ship had changed trajectory and, in a textbook example of clumsy off the fly piloting, collided with Kolivan's cargo before both took the full force from the blast. The artifact ripped in two and a sudden flash of blue light exploded from the inside of it. From the light a flat disk formed in the middle of the void. It's form seemed to fade and brighten sporadically as sparks of energy erupted from it.

From his seat in the cockpit Kolivan had been forced to watch in helpless horror as Kalthara was sucked into the disk as though it was sinking into a pool of liquid. But instead of coming out the other side, the ship disappeared into thin air.

Once fully consumed, the blue disk had collapsed in on itself and vanished into nothingness.

After that Kolivan could barely recall robotically returning to the base, feeling nothing. Only the threat of the pirate's firing on his rear kept him going.

None of it seemed to be real.

A part of him wanted to believe that all of it had been a dream. That he had just woken up and was now sitting in his quarters in a daze. But the aches in his limbs from the way his ship had tossed him around was a grim reminder of reality.

Kolivan wasn't normally a man who denied the truth. Yet he desperately wanted to deny this one. He didn't want any of this to have happened. He didn't want any of it to be really real.

He didn't want his sister to be gone.

Prickly and abrasive though she was, Kalthara was his sister. His twin. The only galra alive that shared his blood. The only one who had always, always, been there.

The recognition of all of this had not be obvious before. His sister not being there had never seemed… it wasn't something that had ever occurred to him.

Kolivan had lost comrades. Friends. Old mentors.

It had hurt. Each loss had affected him in its own way. Driving him to find a way to finally end this conflict with the empire so that his friends death's could be avenged.

But this… this was different.

All other emotion surrendered to the all consuming numbness. Nothing but the sight of his sister disappearing right before his eyes filled his mind.

Even worse was the knowledge that it had not been the empire that had taken her away.

It was him.

His fault.

Kalthara had always told him that his dabbling with altean technology would come back to bite him someday. If he had heeded her…

Slumping against the wall adjacent to his bed, Kolivan stared at the dark metal walls of his quarters. Something inside of him was slowly growing. Welling up behind his eyes. Strict training kept the something dammed up inside.

Other, much more distant, memories began to occupy his mind.

They day he and his sister had lost their parents. Their training days amongst the blades. How they had supported one another both before and after their respective trials.

It all seemed to flow into his mind all at once..

The damn broke.

And he mourned.