"Cupcake? Muffin? Pumpkin?" Harper asked. Beka looked up from her flexi and twisted in her pilot's chair so she could see Harper where he leaned against the engineering console, a teasing grin curling up the sides of his mouth. For a second, she saw him as he was weeks after he arrived on the Maru, twenty-years-old with all the bravado of a kid who knew the Universe couldn't knock him down because it'd tried and he'd survived. Invincible. Loud. Full of energy. If she closed her eyes, she could almost be back on the Maru listening to Trance and Harper's endless chatter and equally endless flirtations. She was happy for him, really. For both of them. After all this time, he'd finally found love, and it wasn't a random fling from a backwater drift brought home to meet the family like she and Dylan had feared. Over the last two weeks some of the heaviness weighing both of them down had lifted, making it clear that they were good for each other.

But enough was enough.

From her vantage, Trance wasn't visible, but her expression couldn't be anything other than incredulous. How many horrible pet names had Harper offered at this point? At least a dozen. Each one turned down with varying amounts of grace, something her friend seemed to have a limitless supply of. Had to, really, for a relationship with Harper to work.

"Isn't a pumpkin a fat, orange gourd?" Beka asked, raising an eyebrow and earning a bubbly giggle from Trance at her station.

Harper, visible out of the corner of her eye, shrugged. "Okay, not pumpkin. What about Sugar Plum, Honey Bun, Sweetie Pie, Flapjack, or Buttercup?"

With a full bellied laugh, Trance lost her composure. Beka stood to see Trance red-faced from laughter and clutching the console to remain upright. Harper looked on, utterly self-satisfied. Between breaths she tried to speak, "Harper… I…" But it was to no avail.

Beka rolled her eyes but couldn't contain her own smile, even as she shook her head. "What the hell is a flapjack, anyway?"

"It's, like… a pancake." At this, he had enough compunction to blush and shoot a sheepish smile in her direction. At least he knew how ridiculous it was.

A pancake? Honestly. "She's not a snack, you know; she has an actual name. Why do all of these involve food, anyway? If you're that hungry you can go cook lunch."

"Hey, that last one's a flower. Trance likes flowers."

This only encouraged Trance. Beka allowed her own laughter to bubble up to the surface. Yes, just like old times, but if this went on much longer she'd sprain her eyeballs from rolling them.

"Okay kids, maybe you should go find something useful to do instead of cluttering the cockpit? We have six hours to our next jump."

Redirection was a mistake. Trance had calmed enough to catch Harper's eye, and a glint of mischief passed between them. A look that said: Beka is suitably irate right now, why not press her buttons some more? Sounds like a good time.

Harper dashed from his station and she fell victim to the quick pick-pocket reflexes she'd relied on in the past as he snatched her flexi. "So, whatcha reading, Boss?"

No doubt he expected to find a steamy romance novel to read aloud—as he'd done often in the past. Instead, it contained the profile of one Atticus Valerio, Grand Vizier of the Sterling Pride. Not much better,

With twelve worlds to call their own, advanced technologies that rivaled some of the Commonwealth's, and a fleet of hundreds, Sterling was the largest pride attending this shindig on Rindra. They'd weathered the fall of the Commonwealth and the ensuing chaos by keeping to their corner of the Universe and avoiding the politics of other Nietzschean prides, but their population was shrinking steadily. They were looking to establish themselves in a position and power to attract new blood. Rhade was convinced Atticus would see the benefit in tying himself to the Matriarch.

The profile itself wasn't the issue. Standard braggadocio: how many wives he'd laid claim to; the number of children carrying his name; and his contributions to Sterling society. He was strong, intelligent, and ruthless; everything a Nietzschean should be. The kind of information Harper would usually toss aside and disregard with a disparaging comment or two about Nietzschean society. Unfortunately, this profile also included a provocative, bare-chested, full body photo that left little to imagination. An image she'd been appreciating before Harper snatched it from her hands.

And Harper, that little brat, knew it. The Drago Kasov would bow before her and name her Empress before Harper would let it slide. He whistled and jumped over to Trance's station.

"I'm just doing some research before I open up negotiations tomorrow afternoon." A weak attempt to cover up for herself.

"I bet she wants to open up negotiations. Close, personal, negotiations," he said to Trance and brought his fists together, making kissing noises. How much emotional distress would it cause Trance if she rung his scrawny little neck right here in the cockpit? She wouldn't want to get on Dylan's bad side, after all.

"Harper." Trance's admonishment was half-hearted, at best. Mischief glinted in her eyes as she grabbed the flexi. Eyebrows raised to her hairline. The twitching at the side of her mouth, at least, said Beka wasn't alone in her appreciation of Atticus' physique. Trance always did like pretty things. "Though, I'm not surprised. Check out his ass-ets. They'd be a boon to the Commonwealth when the Dragons start flexing their muscles."

The emphasis was not missed. Beka crossed her hands across her chest and tapped her foot against the deck. "Okay, you've had your fun. Go ahead and hand it back now."

Instead, Harper took it again and made a great show of studying the document, holding it up to his nose and scrolling down where there were more glamour shots. Damn Nietzscheans and their love affairs with their images. "I bet he even has a really big—"

There had to be something to throw. A second flexi, the actual romance novel she'd been saving for later, lay beside the pilot's chair. She lobbed it at him, careful to miss Trance. He ducked and it hit the bulkhead with a thunk and an accompanying giggle.

"Fleet! I was going to say fleet!" he defended as he shot back up, that stupid grin still in place.

"You know what, you can go back to torturing your girlfriend. Go make lunch, or make out, or something. Just go away."

There wasn't much power in a command delivered through congenial laughter. They remained together at Trance's console instead of vacating the premises. Harper whispered something into Trance's ear and she laughed again. Beka shook her head and flopped down on her chair with a sigh and a smile that stubbornly decided to stay on her face despite her so-called friends turning on her. A moment later the flexi landed on her lap and she rolled her eyes.

"Exactly how old are you again?" she called over her shoulder before picking it up and turning it on. A beep interrupted her.

"We're getting a transmission from Andromeda. They are at a six-minute delay. I'll have it downloaded in another minute." Trance announced, her tone changing to business.

Beka leaned back in her chair and made herself comfortable. "It's probably just Rhade with yet another piece of intel he forgot to impart before we left."

Rhade made a pretty good mother hen. Sometimes she wondered over the amount of hovering his children had to suffer through when he was home. Last night she'd watched him help his eldest—an eight-year-old girl with shoulder length black hair and eyes exactly like his—with her math homework during the late shift on Command. It'd been adorable but also a reminder that she didn't ever want to be tied down to a spouse and children. Must be exhausting to constantly battle his sense of duty and adventure with his familial responsibilities. Family was everything to a Nietzschean, yet she didn't need anything more than what she had here and the occasional warm body to share her bed. Children? The early days with Trance and Harper had been enough.

How could she lead a people whose values she didn't share and whose entire purpose in life was foreign and undesirable to her?

"Nah, it's probably Doyle freaking out again with another hundred questions for Trance. When I was uploading all of that medical knowledge I should've toned down her anxiety response, because she has been high strung all week."

Beka twisted around again, wrinkling her nose and brow into a look of disapproval, ready to make a quip about turning up his anxiety response, but Trance was already on it.

"No you shouldn't have. I could open you up and reprogram you during a routine check-up, would you like that?" The softness of her expression lessened the blow of her words. Harper gulped, probably remembering how skilled Trance was at brain surgery. His fault for falling in love with a dangerous woman. Not that Harper fell for anything but dangerous women.

"Oh, could you make him quieter?" Beka asked, enjoying the teasing more now that Harper was the target.

"I could probably make him think he was the Vedran Empress." Her eyes were on Harper, studying his face, always aware, in a way Beka couldn't understand, of where to draw the line—always reading the people around her. In another life, Trance would have made an amazing leader for her people. She'd certainly do a much better job of ruling than Beka.

Better not to worry. To stay in the moment. "Do you hear that? And she likes you."

"Yeah, yeah," Harper grumbled, then placed a kiss on Trance's cheek. "You know I'd never to that to Doyle. I love her just the way she is, neurosis and all."

"Good." Trance smiled back at him. "There is nothing wrong with Doyle. It's perfectly natural to worry when you are faced with a disaster of unprecedented proportions in your second week on the job. She's doing great, considering."

"She really is." Beka sighed, then turned forward again, a twinge of guilt tugging at her heart. The Tagarians needed all the help they could get. She had an extra slip-capable ship, but instead of running refugees she was out playing diplomat. Dylan had reminded her in a horrifying moment of truth that this wasn't going to be an isolated incident. They'd have even more than rogue suns to worry about if the Dragons gathered too many under their banner before the Commonwealth could fortify and rebuild their fleet. But it didn't feel like she was doing anything while attending a week long party on the foremost hospitality planet in the Tri-Galaxies.

A beeping from Trance's console signified the message had arrived.

"Well, it is Rhade, but the message is for Harper, not you Beka. I have a second message with an attachment now coming through on a secure channel. I'll have that in just a moment."

"Wanna take this alone?" Beka asked, extending the courtesy.

"Nah, throw it up on the main screen." Curiosity colored his words. Then, presumably because the person he was giving orders to was Trance and he felt some obligation to be polite, he added, "Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Onscreen now," Trance said as Rhade's image appeared, framed by Command. Crew members went about their business behind him. In the corner of the screen, Rommie tapped a console, only looking up for a brief moment when Rhade began to speak.

"Harper, figures you just left on a week long mission, but a transmission just came through for you. It contains multiple levels of encryption and its source is buried in that encryption, but I have a feeling it's what you've been waiting for. I'm going to send it to you over a secure channel. Rommie says you should be able to decrypt it yourself. Have fun out there." Here he looked at something offscreen and then back, his expression becoming more friendly than businesslike. "Have fun this week, and good luck."

"You too, buddy." Harper muttered back, barely loud enough to hear as the screen went black and was replaced with internal sensor readouts. Neither Trance nor Harper were any happier than she was about heading away from trouble, but they'd accepted their fate with no argument, smart enough to see why no one wanted them anywhere near the Tagris system.

"How long until the attachment is here?" Harper asked. If she turned, no doubt, he'd be bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Thankfully, Trance had enough patience for both of them. "Another minute, where do you want me to transfer it?"

"How about once it is downloaded you take it to the back and get to work on it while Trance gets lunch ready, that way she's there to help you." And Beka could get back to her research in peace.

The fact he didn't complain about Trance's poor cooking skills, even playfully, said more than words.


"What was the last encryption key for the English?" Trance asked. She sat cross-legged on her bunk, flexis surrounding her, staring down at one held on her lap, finger tapping and sliding across the screen every so often. Harper manned the workstation between the galley and berth, transmitting what he had to her as he worked, breaking through the layers of outward encryption piece by piece to get to the coded English inside.

"One sec. It'll be different this time, but related." He tapped a few more commands and sent the key to Trance. The Maru's databases, despite being updated by Andromeda years ago, weren't as robust and her processors much slower. Until this moment, Harper hadn't truly appreciated how helpful Trance's knowledge of languages could be. If she could use the key to figure out the encryption and translate the message within, it would cut out hours of processing time.

Not to say he didn't already appreciate her for the sheer depth of her intelligence. It was one of the hottest things about her. He'd met very few women who could keep up with him at his level. He'd almost resigned himself to building the perfect woman. Which he had. Twice. Only to have their free will interfere—and he wouldn't have it any other way. While Trance's knowledge of mechanical things left much to be desired, she could handle almost anything else he threw at her, and then some.

"Got it. I think I'm already seeing a pattern."

"How? It's not supposed to be easy to break?"

"After you've learned a few hundred languages it gets easier to pick up the nuances that separate one language from a similar language. Encryption is kind of like that." Her voice held an air of that innocent nonchalance she'd had when she first joined the Maru crew, and he didn't think it was feigned.

"You're amazing, you know that right? I can't believe you could speak thousands of languages and never once let on, like, you could have helped us with so many deals and so many heis… Hey, wait a second, all those systems you just broke through, or those times when someone miraculously gave you a better deal—that wasn't just luck, was it?" He realized he was getting a little too animated and took a step back toward his workstation, tucking away the accusatory finger he'd pointed at her.

She shrugged and tossed him an amused smile the way she always did when he caught on to one of her old secrets. It would probably take as many years as he'd known her to unravel them all, but it had become a game. He preferred it to both evasions of the past. "I may have helped one or two deals along behind the scenes. I'm not really all that lucky, just sneaky."

"Why don't you speak English?" She asked after a few minutes of working in silence, pulling his attention to her. Her gaze bored into him. "I know the Dragons aren't too happy about people learning it, but there are hundreds of colonies that still speak various dialects and derivatives. Your own dialect of Common is heavily influenced by it." She motioned at her flexi. "Plus, the resistance uses it."

He sighed, abandoned his console, and sank down beside her, pushing away flexis haphazardly without even thinking that she might have had them organized in a specific way. "My dad tried to teach me, but I was too busy." He couldn't for the life of him remember now what had been so damn important that he couldn't spend an hour a day learning what his dad wanted to teach him. "Besides, I suck at learning languages. You know that."

In the dark brown of her eyes he saw a spark of something like understanding, but she looked away, down to her lap. A moment later she scooted closer until their thighs were pressed together. She hesitated at the faded line of a former boundary before crossing it and taking his hand, letting their joined hands rest on his lap. Trance's public displays of affection were more reserved than his and it seemed that over the last two weeks they'd had to navigate these old boundaries and draw new ones every day. All part of figuring out what it meant to be a couple when they lived and worked in the same small space.

"When we are young, it isn't often that we understand what our parents want to teach us. Or why."

He sighed. "I miss them even more since Earth. It's like… like knowing nothing is there anymore—that their graves aren't even there… I guess I just regret every moment I didn't spend with them, you know?" A lifetime of platitudes rang in his ears and he imagined the words forming in Trance's mind, dancing on the tip of her tongue. He didn't want to hear them, so he filled the silence with words. "I know. I know you can't change the past; what's done is done—all that jazz. But it doesn't make it any easier."

She shook her head slowly. "No, it doesn't." Wrinkles formed above her nose and she tapped her leg with her free hand. A deep breath, and then, "I spent the last years of my mother's life arguing with her. I've since learned that is typical of adolescents in many species, but I sometimes wish I could go back and apologize. Or do things differently. I miss her; especially now."

There was a lot packed into her comments—a lot that he didn't have the mental facilities to handle at the moment, but he made a note to hit on it later. She'd understand even if he never circled back, but he was trying. He really was.

Now she forced a smile. A perfect thing because it was just for him. He could see and appreciate how hard it'd been to pull off. How, once again, she was putting aside her feelings and personal demons to help him.

"I can teach you if you want to learn. I'm a patient teacher." The smile shifted into something a little more sincere with a hint of teasing in it. "Very patient."

Guided by something he didn't have words for, he caught her lips with his, seeking connection and intimacy. A warm palm cupped his cheek as she returned his kiss, all reticence from earlier gone. The ghost of a boundary now fully erased.

He'd always craved the touch of a woman, but hadn't understood why. After a lifetime of deprived of simple, intimate gestures, he hadn't understood the power of them until two weeks ago. It had always felt right to let a woman share his bed, but waking up next to the same woman every morning was something entirely different. A heated make-out session in the back alley behind a bar didn't hold the same power as sharing a kiss because he was hurting, or because he was happy, or just because Trance was there and he wanted to let her know he'd been thinking about her. Nothing he'd experienced in the quick flings of the past could compare to having her hand in his as they walked through hydroponics together, or to snuggling on the couch after a long day, chatting about nonsense. He'd missed these moments his entire adult life—had walked around with a hole dug deep into his soul, desperate to fill it, without knowing what it was.

He pulled back reluctantly, unwillingly, and took a deep breath to fill his empty lungs. "I love you. Thanks—thanks for offering."

It wasn't an answer. Wasn't even an adequate response. For someone who could talk his way in and out of a number of situations he'd discovered he had one surprising deficiency in the communications department. Every single day, without any preamble or expectation, Trance went out of her way to do things for him. Sometimes it was small, like remembering he liked extra butter for his rolls when she ordered dinner. Other times, she offered to teach him the language of his ancestors knowing full well the emotional land mine she was walking into and how much of a jerk he could be when frustrated.

The giant, overactive brain that helped him not just survive but thrive in a place that had killed better men could not come up with a way to tell her how much he appreciated her. Or how happy he was that her beautiful face was the last thing he saw before falling asleep every night. Lately, it couldn't even figure out how he'd gotten here, but he wasn't about to complain. Perhaps the Universe had finally decided to smile on Seamus Harper, but just in case it was mistake, he chose not to tempt fate.

She nodded and patted his knee, reading the subtext. "The offer doesn't expire. If you're ever ready, let me know."

He tossed her a small half smile, brought her hand up to his lips, kissed it, then let go. "We should get back to work."


The work, it turned out, was a stupid waste of time. He heard it in Trance's tone when she announced she was finished. The death of his hopes were written in the lines on her forehead. For the second time, he upset Trance's organization to sit beside her. She passed the flexi, an apology etched into her expression. He tried to keep his heart from sinking down to his boots because he never should have let his hopes inflate. Finding them on the first attempt would have been miraculous. Against his better judgment, he'd let himself believe he was owed a miracle. Owed a few of them, if his scorecard were up to date.

No luck.

It opened with inquiries for intel. The resistance sought confirmation on rumors about the Andromeda Ascendant and the Commonwealth, especially the presence of one Nietzschean Matriarch hell-bent on abolishing slavery. They ranged from things that could easily be confirmed, to wild rumors he'd love to know the source of. Like, when exactly had Beka found time to put three Dragon slave worlds under Commonwealth martial law?

Tucked away at the end were a few words. Words he'd hoped would be different.

We don't know where the people you are looking for are, but we'll send a call through our network and ask that they do the same. We'll keep in contact regardless. Good to hear from you, Bunker Hill. Oasis signing out.

Oasis, code name for Arrad Drift, an orbital habitat above a barely habitable desert planet whose only reason for human occupation was salt—albeit salt with an extremely attractive mineral profile for interstellar travelers with distilled water and little access to fresh fruits and vegetables. They were the first out of a half-dozen pings to call back, leading him to think that including the Bunker Hill codes from his time on Earth alongside Ollie's codes had been a mistake. But he'd wanted them to know who he was. To know he had a reason for seeking. He wanted them to understand that the Earthers were his people, and he could help them. If only he could find them.

A frustrated huff escaped and he jumped up, pacing the galley, but he resisted the urge to throw the flexi across the room so he could watch it crash against the bulkhead, it being the bearer of bad news, and all. "It's like following a trail of breadcrumbs in a hurricane."

Trance rose from her bunk and stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop. Her countenance was a picture perfect display of of sympathetic calm. Almost on instinct, his arms snaked around her waist and she brought hers up to his shoulders, meeting his gaze. A steady presence. A buoy in the storm.

"But you know where the trail is now, and you aren't the only one looking anymore. I know it isn't what you'd hoped, but you have a better chance now than you did before. We knew it would take time."

He smiled wryly, pulling her closer. "There's always a bright side with you, isn't there?"

A half-smile tugged up at the side of her mouth. "Well, I was a sun."

Five words spoken casually. Yet so significant. For the first time since waking, she'd made light of her transformation—brought it up herself and cracked a joke. If there was still a hint of sadness lurking in her eyes, it was to be expected. He should say something. Commemorate the moment. Point out to her that she was healing. It's what she would do.

But he sucked at moments like these. So, instead, he allowed a smile to take over his face and squeezed her waist. "You definitely brightened my day. You're the Northern Star that guides me and the light of my life."

Laughter remained stuck behind a closed-lipped smile, but he could see it trying to break through in the twinkling of her eyes. Okay, try harder. "You know I'm stuck firmly in your orbit now. There's just this gravity to you that draws me in." He kissed her for emphasis.

A laugh, and a smile. Finally. "You can't help yourself, can you?"

Another squeeze. "Nope, I could go on all day. I've just gotten started. I find that your radiant personality inspires me."

She laughed again. Then her expression softened, her eyes studying his face. "Thank you."

Pulling away, he studied her expression. The smile had remained, but she also seemed a little far-away—or sad. "For what?"

"For making me laugh."

He touched his forehead to hers so that their noses brushed. "It doesn't matter what happened to you. You were my sunshine on the Maru, and then on Andromeda. Even before I knew what you were. You still are. I'll always be able to find my way if I follow your light."

"Melia so asii averason," she whispered. It sounded Vedran, but he could only recognize the root of the final word because it had transferred into common as a synonym for sun. Not many people spoke Vedran anymore, only the simplified version that formed the base of Common.

"Mel—" he attempted and stopped, raising an eyebrow.

"Mel-ee-ah ah-see ah-ve-ra-son." She broke the phrase down to its syllables. "It is how Ancient Vedrans said I love you. They didn't use the word for the emotion like humans do. That came later when they began interacting with other space faring species. The first part is difficult to translate. It is the essence of yourself. Like, the human idea of a soul. The whole thing roughly translates to: you are the sunlight of my soul. Or, more simply: you are my sunshine. When they said it, they meant 'you give me life.'"

He wrapped his arms tighter around her waist and willed her to feel what he had no words to express. Language was dumb. Why was there no vocabulary to explain what was inside his heart? But what she'd said had come close. "Then I will say it to you every day. You are my sunshine."


"Captain, the sun is interfering with communications again. I've lost contact with most of the fleet," an alarmed voice spoke off-screen.

"Rommie," Dylan demanded.

"I'm doing the best I can. Engineering is on it, but none of them are Harper so they aren't able to pull off the impossible on demand. It's going to take time."

Even on Beka's small monitor in the cockpit of the Maru, Dylan looked exhausted. He'd been given control of the fleet—if that's what they wanted to call it—of volunteer transports, cargo ship, and a handful of High Guard Vessels the Commonwealth was able to mobilize for the evacuation efforts. A few private vessels and ships from Wayist and other religious organizations had joined in as well. From what she'd already seen, they were free spirits, barely willing to cede to Dylan's command. They were a handful, and it showed in dark circles beneath his eyes and the worry-lines on his forehead that'd become a permanent feature.

"Well, we don't have Harper and I still need communications. Now, preferably. So tell them to figure something out. In the meantime, someone please tell me that our sightseers and gawkers have moved out of the inner solar system as ordered so we don't have to rescue them when the sun's magnetic forces wreak havoc on their systems and slowly start to crush their hulls?"

Testy. Very Testy.

Not that she blamed him. They were old hands at this on Andromeda, and no one else seemed to get it. She assumed these 'sightseers' and 'gawkers' were the small collection of Perseid scientists eager to explain the unexplainable, ignorant, in that annoying Perseid way, of what was happening right beneath their overly-long chins. They'd been in the way more than once. No matter how much they put their ships in danger for science, they were never going to explain this with their observations and instruments. The truth would rock the very foundations of astronomy.

"You'll be happy to know that they've pulled back and there are now no ships in the inner system. And they left just in time; the first planet in the system will be consumed in a matter of minutes," Doyle said, coming to the rescue of Dylan's sanity. Though her tone was all business, her lips were pursed and her brows slanted sharply towards her nose.

Beka could understand where she was coming from. Doyle had watched Trance's sun eat up eight planets as it found its way home. It'd been horrible to watch, yet the Vedrans had planned for it. Had built the system to make sure her sun slowed down enough to fall into the correct position. They'd just underestimated how many people would be living on those eight planets by the time of her sun's fated arrival.

This had no meaning.

There was no purpose they could discern as mere mortals. It just was. And that was never a satisfying answer. Beka really didn't want to delve deeper because, no offense to Trance, but anyone who could move a sun with a single thought was terrifying. But she was going to go deeper because the Andromeda was already neck deep in this mess.

"Dylan, the sun's flaring. Probably won't hurt us any more than a few disrupted systems, but I'd feel better if we backed up all the same." Rhade, barely visible in the frame, supplied, always the voice of hyper-cautious reason.

Beka could already see him patting himself on the back for getting her out of harm's way. The Matriarch was protected from radiation and trouble. The thought made her smile. It also made her want to get into trouble. Like when she and Rafe were kids and he reminded her—as if he didn't disobey every chance he got—that their father had said "no". Out of spite, she'd pressed on, just to remind him that no one held back a Valentine who'd already made up her mind. But perhaps trouble could wait for another day.

It happened in a literal flash. Command fell so silent that Beka worried for a beat that her stream had become corrupted on its three-hour journey across the cosmos from Andromeda's position to where the Maru had stopped for the night. The sun filled Andromeda's view-port as it bore down on a much smaller planet in the corner. Super-heated red lines crisscrossed the world's burnt crust, outlining it's tectonic plates. As she watched, it grew more and more red, and then in the blink of an eye, the entire thing broke apart, like a glass bulb shattering on the ground.

She'd seen eleven planets destroyed at this point in her career. An insane number. Yet, it still surprised her how quickly it happened. How little fanfare. There was a planet, then a flash and a pop, and then nothing more than a debris cloud. There should be a shock wave or some sort of cosmic scream to mark the erasure of an entire world from the star charts.

The debris cloud was vaporized by the sun's flare a moment later, as if she were lashing out to make sure the job was done properly. That wasn't right, was it? She couldn't possibly have that much agency if she needed an Avatar to be her eyes and ears out in the Universe, right?

Beka would never ask the one person who knew the answer.

"There goes the first one. One more world and she'll reach the first inhabited planet," Doyle said softly. "It's 80% evacuated and it's looking like we're making progress with the stubborn holdouts."

Thank the heavens for small favors. Most places were eighty to ninety percent evacuated, but that still lift millions of people. How were they going to get everyone out in time? She remembered something Rommie had said early in their journey, "In Dylan Hunt we trust." Well, if anyone could pull off a twilight miracle, it was Dylan.

"If anyone is stupidly holding out, show them this recording. That should change some minds." Dylan's frustration buzzed around him like electricity. It was in every move he made.

Beka wasn't sure what made her turn around. It hadn't been a sound—more of a feeling. She startled, then took a deep breath. From the shell-shocked expression on Trance's face and the way her eyes didn't waver from the screen, Beka didn't have to ask how long she'd been there. If only her friend weren't so soft-footed. On the one hand, it had made her a great thief and spy when the Maru was in need of thieves and spies. On the other hand, she often overheard and saw things she shouldn't. Like now.

Beka clicked off the monitor, confident the Maru would continue to record and store the feed as long as the channel remained open. The Tagris system certainly didn't need another witness to its demise, but it would have one.

"My God, Trance, I thought you were asleep." Never would have started watching if she hadn't. Beka stood and moved to stand in front of her friend. Trance looked so young in her night clothes, but her eyes gave away her age tonight: clouded and faraway with the look of someone who'd seen too much.

Trance's gaze remained on the blank screen and didn't shift to Beka. "I had a nightmare and couldn't fall back to sleep. I didn't want to disturb Harper, so I got up. I saw the light on and thought you might want some company."

"I'm sorry you had to see that." Beka reached out and put a hand on Trance's bare arm. Still a little on the thin side, but there were muscles now, tense beneath her her palm. Trance didn't move to acknowledge her, and instinct told Beka that she needed to snap Trance out of whatever was going on inside her brain. She squeezed, applying firm pressure. "Hey, let's go back to my bunk."

A nod was the only answer, but at least it had gotten her to stop staring. Beka led the way through the dimly lit halls, silent save for the sounds of the Maru's systems running.

Beka's room had gone through several iterations over the years. From the toy covered disaster area she'd shared with Rafe when they were children, to the tiny curtained-in alcove of her teenage years—a compromise to give each their own space, no matter how small—to it's current form. Where the walls weren't taken up by storage lockers stuffed full of nostalgic odds and ends, they were covered in pictures, map, and other souvenirs from a life filled with a little too much excitement. What could she say? She hated boredom.

As they entered, the lights came on, and Beka shifted a pile of clean, unsorted clothing off the foot of the bed to a stool nearby. A problem for future Beka to deal with. She patted the bed and moved off to a locker next to the headboard. From it, she pulled a box and set it onto the middle of the bed before flopping down as gracefully as a sack of Kava fruit.

Trance sank down beside her, eying the box with a raised eyebrow. "Your super secret sugar stash?" Words spoken with a hint of hopeful longing.

The 'super secret sugar stash' was one of her first acquisitions after returning to the Known Galaxies from Seefra. A girl needed her comfort food. Beka reached in and pulled out a cream filled snack cake.

"Take what you want, God knows I need an endorphin pick-me-up." As she spoke, she opened the package, getting a whiff of sweet deliciousness.

There were various types of cakes, cookies, and candies in the box, hidden away until she'd had a rough day. Or just felt like it. Seemed kind of silly on Andromeda with access to a wide selection of both healthy foods and treats, but she liked to keep her traditions, and this one dated back to her teenage years.

"Harper spent so much time trying to figure out where you hid this when we crewed for you, but you kept changing its location," Trance said, and pulled out a clear wrapped cookie sandwich as big as her palm.

Beka winked. "I like to keep Harper guessing. Anyway, I would have shared if he'd asked, but he never did. Just kept sneaking around."

They munched down on their goodies in silence for a few moments. Trance had liked those spicy cookies as long as Beka had known her. Harper said they were kind of like gingerbread, whatever that was.

"If there is a more complicated way to do something, Harper's always going to choose it."

Beka sighed heavily and kicked her legs up onto the bed, leaning against the headboard and facing Trance. "I think that's true for all of us. Why else would be be on this crazy trip. I thought I'd find a way to make the big score, pay off all my dad's debtors, and live the easy life. Instead…" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out.

Trance turned, crossing her legs in front of her, gaze trained on Beka's face. "Instead of saving the Universe every other week, or leading squadrons into battle? Instead of taking command of the entire Nietzschean race?"

She opened her eyes. Trance was the picture of sympathy. Beka let her lips curl up on one side, as much of a smile as she could muster when faced with the sheer scope of everything she'd done in the last five years and everything she still needed to do. Most of the time, she chose not to think about it. Was easier to think about herself. Immediate needs and all that. "Yeah, all that stuff. I just… I don't know."

"Tell me?"

Staring straight into her friend's eyes now, Beka could see how they drooped and the puffiness of the skin around them. Trance didn't look like someone who needed to take on the weight of another's burdens. She already carried quite a few of her own and had added some of Harper's on top of them, because that was the nature of a relationship. For a moment, she debated brushing Trance off, telling her not to worry about it and to go back to bed. To get the sleep she obviously needed. But she chose to let it out, instead, because she needed to, and she faced the only person who might understand.

"This isn't who I ever thought I was going to be. I felt like enough of an impostor the first time Dylan had me take control of a wing of slipfighters and play space commando, but I got used to that. Figured out I could live with it. Now, I'm expected to take command of the Nietzscheans and bring them together. Bring them to the table and ask them to fight the Dragons for me." Her hands were going, gesticulating to punctuate her words. "How do I ask people to go to war for me? To die for me? At the end of the day, those slip pilots were Dylan's, not mine, and the war was the Commonwealth's."

Trance folded her hands onto her lap and sat statue-still. Though her expression remained smooth, there was a battle beneath the surface. It played out in small twitches around her lips and eyes. "You could choose not to do it."

What a wonderful thought. Choose herself over the Universe. Leave the Nietzscheans far behind. Like vanquishing a recurring nightmare. Live a life of freedom where she could be Beka Valentine, Captain of the Eureka Maru—and nothing more.

Beka shook her head. "I can't do that. There are millions of humans living like Harper did, like the Lange family did. You didn't see it down on New Burke. I can't even describe how awful it was. If I don't unite them under my banner, the Dragons will, and not only will it continue, but it'll get worse. If the Dragons send a united Nietzschean race against the New Commonwealth, they won't stand a chance."

But Trance already knew all this. She watched silently, letting Beka finish. What a relief it was to finally say something and get it out there in the open.

Trance tilted her head to the side, her attention still on Beka. "I'm going to tell you something I have never told anyone; not even Dylan or Harper. It isn't something I am proud of, but I did learn an important lesson from it, and maybe that lesson can help you." Trance took a deep breath. "When many of my people are teenagers, we go through a sort of…religious phase."

That caught Beka off guard. "What, you mean like joining a cult to spite your parents?"

Trance as a rebellious teenager was an interesting thought.

"Not exactly," Trance said, fidgeting and picking at her pajama pants. "More like, setting yourself up as a God and starting the cult."

Oh.

Wow.

Nothing in Beka's lifetime of experiences ranging from odd to crazy prepared her for this. She had no response and barely stopped her mouth from falling open. Looking at human history, though, it explained a lot. A lot of the mythology. Her dad had been fascinated by human mythology. Then again, at the time, the Vedrans had also been a myth.

She wasn't quite sure what she'd expected. It wasn't hard to imagine godlike aliens playing, well, God. In fact, teenage Beka Valentine in her poster covered alcove might have been tempted to do the same if given the powers Trance had possessed. It was just hard to imagine Trance setting herself up as a deity to be worshiped.

"It's true," Trance said, as if she'd read Beka's mind. "You can ask Harper. He saw it when the Perseid Librarian downloaded the All Systems Library into his brain. I discouraged him from prying into it, but it's only a matter of time before he asks and expects a real answer this time."

"That's what happens when someone loves you. They want to know what makes you tick." No, she wasn't thinking of Tyr. All his prying questions. Of him calling her Powerful Woman. He'd told her he wished she were Nietzschean. He'd been drawn to her, and she to him; caught in each other's gravity, but never able to meet, their destinies diverging because they'd each chosen their own path to saving the Universe.

This would all be easier with Tyr here. He'd know how to unite the prides. He'd done it before.

Nothing would be easier with Tyr here.

It didn't matter, she wasn't thinking of him anyway. And she wasn't ever going to fall in love like that again. Didn't need a permanent man in her life to be happy. Didn't need to be tied down. Didn't need to be thinking about any of this; time to get back on track. "So, your people like to play God?"

Trances fingers twitched in her lap, but she kept her gaze steady. "Many sentient species choose to worship the sun when they start to develop religion, just look at how many sun gods humans had. Rindra still worships the sun. So, being mostly children, the Lambent Kith decided to have fun with it.

"To my people, it is a natural progression from pretend play. You have to understand that most of the Lambent Kith have never lived among organics as equals. We have all watched hundreds of sentient species evolve and go extinct. I've lost count of the number of civilizations I've seen rise and fall in my lifetime. The lives of organics are so short compared to that of a star, that many Lambent Kith mistakenly believe it is simple as well. If not simple, then childlike. I was conditioned by the Nebula to think the same."

"That's just wonderful." Beka tried to keep the disgust from her expression, but judging by the frown on Trance's face, she wasn't successful. It wasn't her goal to make Trance self-conscious, but here they were.

"Minds can be changed." Words spoken with conviction. Certainty. "The phase usually happens in the early stages of adolescence, but I joined the Nebula young. I was developmentally about twelve when I joined. I was never allowed the same freedom my brother and his friends were. So I was much older. Pretty much an adult.

"The Nebula is supposed to exist as one mind, and they spend most of their time as energy unless they need to stretch out and work in the organic world. But, it isn't in our nature. We are individuals and we want to be free. When the stifling nature of existing as a whole grew too much for any of our members, their melancholy would infect the others, so the Nebula sent them out to do their own thing for a while. They held onto me a lot longer than they would anyone else. Even then, they knew they didn't have me.

"When they let me have some time to myself, I went off to this backwater world and decided I would play children's games to keep myself occupied. I don't really know what it was I wanted. They'd forbidden me from going home, afraid of the influence they imagined Sol had over me, and I was so lost. I think—I think I wanted to feel special. Unique. After spending so long as a part of the Nebula, robbed of my individuality and my agency, I just wanted to be loved."

As a spacer, Beka liked to think that she had a pretty expanded worldview, that she held fewer of the prejudices towards alien species that plagued many planet-dwellers who'd never had the chance to deal with Perseids and have sushi with a Castallian. Yet, sometimes it still surprised her at how human aliens could be, despite coming from such vastly different worlds. Her heart ached for the loneliness Trance suffered, because even with a brother right there beside her, and her father home on the ship every night—though not always present—she'd felt the same at that age. How many times had she wished she could live a different life?

"I get that," she said, patting Trance's leg, earning a grateful smile in return.

"As Harper would say, I was a benevolent Goddess. I presented myself to a people that were barely at the agricultural stage of development. I helped their plants grow, told them a few ways they could be nice to each other once I'd picked up their language, and just sort of let their belief system grow. I never explicitly told them I was now their God like many of my people do. They loved me, and I took care of them. I made sure that they prospered peacefully for nearly two-thousand years. They grew from an agrarian culture to a post-industrial culture, and they were beautiful."

"What happened to them?" Because it was impossible to imagine Trance abandoning the people she cared for deeply without good reason.

The faraway look returned with a frown to keep it company. "One of my brother's friends found out I was out there and thought it would be fun to set himself up as a rival God. At first, it was a harmless joke, but as time went on things grew violent, and a holy war sparked. I begged my people not to fight. The last thing I ever wanted was for someone to go to war for me. To die for my name."

"But you couldn't have known."

"You're right. It was later, when I lived among organics—with you—that I understood. I had given them more peace than most civilizations will ever experience. I thought that I had somehow led them to their deaths, that I had somehow in the time I watched and and guided them miscommunicated my intentions. But they were capable of making their own decisions. They chose to elevate me to a role of leadership, they chose to worship me, and then, despite what I said, they chose to fight not for me, but for what they believed in. For the society they'd created with my help. They'd chosen to fight for their way of life.

"I know it isn't quite the same, that the power imbalance between myself and those people was huge. But these prides have chosen to follow you, Beka. They haven't been misled. Nietzscheans are well aware of the threat to life involved in every decision that they make, and they know that there will be a war. You can count on it. You are not asking them to die for you. They are choosing to fight because they believe it is their best chance for survival as a species. It just happens to be your fight they are choosing."

A few minutes later, after Trance had gone back to bed, Beka sat on her bunk cradling a photograph in her lap. A journalist had insisted that she and Tyr pose together during one of the many singing ceremonies they'd attended in the early days. They both wore formal clothing. She looked uncomfortable. He looked bored.

She had loved him, even then. She wasn't sure if he ever understood how much. He'd chosen his fight over her, and that had hurt. After Trance's words tonight, she understood. He always chose what was best for his people. For himself. It wasn't her war, but theirs. She was simply the banner they'd rally under.

It didn't make it much easier, but it eased some of the burden. She sighed, put away his picture, and turned off the lights. She could be their banner if it meant a more peaceful Universe in the end. If it meant they all survived.