I feel an odd combination of relief and terror as I follow the Commander into her suite. She gestures for me to sit on one of the two small sofas that sit opposite each other with a small table between them. The cushion is surprisingly bouncy, almost as though they are never used, and it's obvious more than ever just how little time she chooses to spend alone.

"I wouldn't normally do this mid-flight, but Serena's perfectly capable in command and I have a feeling you might appreciate this." She places a bottle of blue liquid down with a pair of tall narrow glasses, and winks at me. "I won't tell you if you don't."

"What is it?" The bottle has no label, and there are no markings to indicate the contents, but judging by her smirk, I'm guessing it is possibly alcoholic or mind altering in some way.

"The closest thing on Earth One would be liquor, I guess. Don't drink it too fast," she warns, pouring us both a generous measure. "It's got one hell of an after-burn."

"I think I can handle it," I retort. If only she knew just how much bourbon I used to keep in my home office, for the evenings I spent working.

She shrugs, pushing the glass towards me, laughing quietly when I pick it up and cautiously sniff the contents. It's sweet, not unlike black cherries and I take a small sip, relieved when a delicate flavour spreads across my tongue. I take a larger gulp and regret it almost immediately as a fire spreads throughout my mouth and down my throat.

"Told you," she reminds me cheerfully, swigging back half of her glass like a goddamn professional, with barely a grimace. "You get used to it," she explains redundantly.

"Hmmm." I take another mouthful, and the burn is not so unpleasant now I know what to expect. I put down the glass, feeling far more relaxed than I had when I entered her suite. I lean back on the sofa, eyes locked on hers and the tension is suddenly back with a vengeance.

"I know… I know I haven't been an easy person to get along with since you've been on board," she starts apologetically. It's the last thing I expected her to admit. "And I'm sorry."

"You are a conundrum, Commander. I appreciate the apology, but I am no less confused. Your crew tells me you are kind, funny and warm, but that is the opposite of what you have shown me. You are so patient with Cassidy, but you have frozen me out at every opportunity. Why?"

"I don't really know how to explain it."

"Try, Commander."

"Will you knock that off? I've asked you to call me Andy, or at the very least, if you really insist, you can call me Andrea. I feel like every time you call me Commander, it's a conscious choice to distance yourself from me."

I snort in amusement, because somehow, she has hit the nail on the head. However, I am not the only one guilty of doing this and I tell her as much. "You're a fine one to talk, Andrea. You constantly keep me at arms length and I am still waiting for you to explain why."

"Your daughter has been taken into The Void-"

"I know that, Andrea. Stop changing the subject."

"Will you fucking let me talk?" she snaps, snatching her glass off of the table and chugging back the remaining contents. "I'm trying to explain."

I hold back with every last piece of strength that I have, thoroughly unused to being cursed at. Her eyes carry a haunted look though, and I can see how much this conversation is affecting her. How hard it is for her to even try to open up about this. "I'm sorry. Please continue," I urge.

She runs her fingers through her hair, fluffing the short layers distractedly. "I know far more about The Void than I would wish on anybody. As soon as I met you, I had suspicions that Caroline would be taken to Bellator. There is only one 'organised' trafficker in this part of the Universe, and that's Irv. I knew what might be in store for her and it brought up a lot of memories for me."

"You know Irv Ravitz? Bellator?" I ask, even though I already have that answer from Lily. I won't break the Ensign's confidence though.

She tops up both of our glasses, and I give her the space she so obviously needs to gather her thoughts.

"When I was six, I was playing with my twin sister and two friends in our garden at home on Nova Terra. It all happened so quickly, you know? One minute we were enjoying the sun and the next we were surrounded by guys with massive guns. I don't think any of us knew how much danger we were in at first, but then one of them made a grab for my sister, Jill, and I went nuts. I ran towards him at full speed and somehow, knocked him off balance. I screamed at Jill to run, and she did, slithering through the hole in the back fence that the men were too big to get through. That was the last time I saw her."

The pain I can still see in her eyes all these years later is heartbreaking. She wouldn't appreciate it, I'm sure, but I want to comfort her. Instead, I give her a sympathetic smile. "I'm so sorry, Andrea. That must have been awful."

She sniffs discreetly, and I turn to look around the suite, catching the movement in the corner of my vision, when she roughly wipes her eyes.

"I will never regret telling her to run. It was the right thing to do, you know? Jill and I were very different children, and I don't know how she would have survived. Maybe I am underestimating her?" She shrugs. "We were six, after all."

"I think I understand. I hate to admit it, but I think that Cassidy would have been far better equipped to deal with whatever Caroline is going through."

"Your daughter will be changed by this. You know that, don't you? Even if we get her back, she will never be the same again. This stuff never goes away, you know?"

"Stuff, Andrea? I believe you can be more articulate than that."

"I'm really not sure you want me to be," she replies bluntly, offering me a sad smile. "It's not a fairytale I am about to tell you."

"So I gathered."

She rolls her shoulders and then her neck, a resounding crack filling the room. "As soon as they realised Jill was getting away, the rest of them were on us so fast, we didn't stand a chance. Seven guys against three six-year-old children, Miranda. There was nothing we could do."

"They took you away? On a ship like Caroline?"

"Yeah. It was a small planet hopper to start with, but then we got moved to a huge transport ship for the rest of the trip. There were other humans, but also the young of other species and we soon learned that we were the last stop on a tour of our quadrant. They had been forcefully removing the young of every planet they had come across."

"That's awful. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you."

"Cramped," she replies dryly. "We were all in pens, in the cargo hold of a ship. We were given the essentials to survive, but nothing more than that. The older kids were maybe nine or ten and they were expected to take care of the young. To be honest, I would rather have stayed on that ship than arrive on Bellator." A dark look passes across her face and for the first time I wonder whether I really do want to know what comes next. I know it can't be good. Sitting here with Andrea when all her demons are so vulnerably on display, I falter, unable to ask what happened next.

She gives me an understanding look as if she knows what I am thinking. "Bellator means Warrior in Latin. It's what the original explorers from Earth One named it when they realised what was happening there. It's not the most accurate of names, but the Latin for fighter just doesn't have the same ring to it."

"What is it?" I ask, delaying the inevitable.

"Pugnator," she answers with a small laugh.

"So… Bellator," I reply.

"Bellator," she repeats. "I don't know how to sugar coat this, so I'm not going to try. Bellator is the gambling centre of The Void. They take the young from different species, enhance them with various implants and mods, and then expect them to fight it out to the death."

"They are running an illegal fighting ring, for people to bet on?"

She nods minutely, and I can see the empathy in her eyes as what she is saying settles inside me. "Caroline will be expected to fight? Other humans? Non-humans?"

"Yes."

"To the death?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry, Miranda."

I can't speak. My daughter doesn't stand a chance, does she? I will never get her back and even if I do, it's like Andrea said, she will never be the same again. "Oh… oh. Oh, God." I blink back tears, but they fall freely down my cheeks, fiery tracks streaking down the cold that has overtaken my body. I force myself to breathe, but I can't speak over the lump in my throat. The cushion dips next to me and a glass is pressed into my hand.

"Drink," she urges, her voice soft. "It will help."

I don't think twice, desperate to do anything that will shake the images from my mind. The thought of what my daughter is going through is horrifying and for the first time since I arrived on board, I can understand why Andrea wanted to keep this from me. What was the point in this knowledge sitting over me like a cloud? The Commander has frustrated me beyond belief, but she was protecting me, and all I have done is berate her for it.

I turn to her with an apology ready to fall from my lips, but she shushes me. "Drink, Miranda."

I do as she asks, and this time I relish the burn and drink more until my whole body and not just my mouth is on fire. She takes the glass away from me with a small laugh that echoes around my mind. "That will do for now."

"I need to know everything, Andrea. Please, I know it's hard for you. It's almost unbearable to hear, but I need to know."

"Okay," She agrees, topping up our glasses again, but moving mine away from me slightly with a wink, the warning clear. I can understand why, as a slightly floaty feeling spreads throughout my limbs.

She kicks off her shoes, and pulls her feet up onto the sofa, settling back into the corner. "I think for the moment, Caroline is safe. It might have changed and I know technology has made some advancements since I was taken there, but this is not the first rescue we've done from Bellator. Caroline will be taken to a medical facility to be assessed and modded, before she is expected to fight for the first time. They will analyse her body type, and then give her a number of implants like aggression and the knowledge of how to fight. Of course, this is all mental at this stage, with no muscle memory to back it up. She will be weak, you know? So they will put her in an intensive 'boot camp' of sorts. She will train for twelve to fourteen hours a day, building muscle and endurance."

"So what you are saying is that we have time? That she is safe until she is expected to fight?"

She winces. "Probably. All new recruits are given aggression implants, to make them want to fight and we lost a lot of kids during training. Highly aggressive kids with all kinds of mods to make them stronger and more lethal is an awful combination, and unfortunately the older kids are not separated from the younger ones. You can imagine who comes off better in a fight."

I shudder. "This is barbaric."

"She has a good chance of getting through this stage, considering she is ten, which will be on the upper end of the new recruits. The next stage is physical fight training. People like me who were at the top of The Circle-"

"The Circle?"

"The fighting ring is known as The Circle. You work your way up the ranks, or you die. Those of us that reached the top had additional duties, to help the new recruits learn to fight."

"What do you mean?"

"We were bait."

"I don't understand."

She shifts uncomfortably for a moment. "I was given a defence mod. It meant that when faced with a new recruit, I could defend myself against a lethal attack, but I couldn't attack back. They could come at me over and over again, and they could inflict as much damage as they could, but I could only defend myself with the minimum amount not to let myself die."

"Against other humans?"

"Not entirely. I was good, Miranda. I had a lot of implants and mods that were new technology at the time, that were still in beta testing. I rose to the top of The Circle pretty quick and I stayed there for years."

"What of your friends? The ones that were kidnapped with you?"

The first genuine smile I've seen since we entered her quarters is sent my way. "Lily is one of them."

"You've known each other a long time, then," I reply, to cover the fact I already knew of Lily's involvement.

"Yeah, we've been through a lot."

"And the other friend? Did he survive?"

She looks at me then, face as unreadable as ever. "I don't believe I told you their gender."

"I…"

She rolls her eyes. "You already know all of this."

"No, I don't. Lily mentioned that you and a boy had all grown up together and had been kidnapped. She refused point blank to tell me anything else," I explain hastily, kicking myself for my slip up.

"It's okay, don't look so panicked. It's her story to tell just as much as it is mine."

"She doesn't see it that way. In fact, she was quite upset to have even let that slip."

Andrea smiles to herself. "Lily is the most loyal friend I've ever had. You're right, though. There was a boy with us, Nate. The three of us ran The Circle for a long time. We got injured a lot but we always came back, reclaiming our spots at the top. We were pitched against each other far too often, but we learned how to fight and make it look real, without actually hurting each other too badly."

"Clever," I acknowledge.

"Necessary," she corrects. "They expected us to fight to the death, but the rules are clear. If the opponent is unconscious, then it's not a fair fight. You can't trick the diagnostic scanners, so it's not like we could ever pretend, so we improvised. We all learned how to render each other unconscious without permanent damage."

"And you were still children at this point?"

"Yeah. I think we were the first ones to really think of doing it, but others began realising what we were up to. The trick was all in the timing. You had to give them a good fight first, you know? They had to have plenty of action in The Circle, or there would be repercussions. If you weren't good enough, you were severely punished. So we fought like our lives depended on it, and then a short, sharp jab to the part of the skull where the mods had been added, and the other person was down. Crap design, actually. I'm guessing they've probably changed it now."

"You've been through so much. You are a remarkable woman, Andrea."

"Remarkable? That's what you call the blood of thousands of children on my hands? You think that makes me remarkable? That makes me a monster."

"But you just said that you learned how to render each other unconscious."

"Yeah. Me, Lily and Nate. If everyone had started doing that, or, if we had done that to everyone we were up against, then Irv soon would have realised. No, we did that with each other, and every other fight we had was real. I am a murderer, Miranda, make no mistake."

"It wasn't your fault," I murmur.

"It was," she replies, just as quietly. "I had a choice, and I chose to live. I could have let them beat me. I could have let them end it all the first time I was in The Circle, but I didn't. I wanted to get home to my sister so badly, that I put the life of every other person I was up against, below my own flesh and blood."

"You were in an impossible situation."

"I had a choice and you don't get to take that away from me, Miranda. I've learned to own it, and you don't get to sit there and tell me that there wasn't any other way."

I can see the way her defences go up; arms folded across her chest and a scowl back on her face. I slide across the cushions, so I can reach out to her, placing my hand on her arm and tugging gently. "You're right, and I'm sorry. I have no right to say that. I do think you are remarkable though, Andrea, and you won't convince me otherwise. You didn't want to take on this job when you knew it would mean entering The Void, but you did because of my daughter. It was never about the money, I know. I saw the moment you met her, that she had changed your mind."

"I wanted to do for her, what I could never do for Jill," she confesses, her eyes suspiciously shiny.

"What happened to her, Andrea? Lily said you came back from Interstellar Enforcement when you were twenty four, but I don't understand why you joined the Agency in the first place, rather than just go home."

A shudder wracks her body and she frowns, rubbing a hand over the sudden goosebumps on her arm. She takes a deep breath and I brace myself for her words. "My sister killed herself. I went home when I was sixteen and my parents told me. I was devastated. I had spent years fighting to come home to her, but she had killed herself on her tenth birthday.

"But, why?"

She lifts her shoulders defeatedly. "No one really knows. Survivor guilt? Trauma? I know she missed me, I missed her too. I knew the moment I walked inside the front door, I couldn't imagine living life there in that home without her. So within two days I had signed up to the Agency and I left to start my training. My parents haven't spoken to me since."

A flare of anger sizzles through my veins. "They won't talk to you? All because you chose your own life?"

"No, not really. It was more because I rejected theirs. They had this idea that if I ever came home, that they would have another chance, but it could never be like that. I had been through too much to ever be that sweet six-year-old again, and it took me very little time to realise it."

"And the boy, Nate?" I remind her, bringing the conversation back around to my original question.

She grimaces, a sneer curling up the corner of her lips. "He made his choice."

"He chose to stay?"

"Yeah. Without me there, he would literally be at the top of The Circle, you know? And at sixteen he was about to move into the big leagues, where he would actually become his own person. He would earn money, and live the life of a victor."

"He chose to fight? He wanted to carry on living a life of violence?"

"We had a pretty big fight about it, actually. Every fighter that lives to sixteen, is paired off. As the two strongest human fighters, I was matched with Nate and that idea terrified me more than any other opponent I had ever faced."

"When you say paired off…?"

"We were selected to mate," she replies bluntly, but her words carry their own fission of anger. "But I knew, you know? I already knew that I would never willingly be with a guy."

There it is, my suspicion about her front and centre, undenied. I think back to the blue sports bra I saw in her suite, the one belonging to Destra, and now I know with certainty that they are sleeping together. Is it more than that? The idea irks me, though I'm not sure why.

When Destra had comforted me in the workout room, I remember the sad look on her face when she told me the problem wasn't that Andrea doesn't like me, the problem was more likely because she does. Does Destra see me as a threat to their relationship?

"I've shocked you," Andrea says with some amusement.

"No, not really. I was just thinking about something Destra said to me," I reply honestly, too exhausted by our conversation to lie.

"Ah. Destra," she says awkwardly, a faint flush rising to her cheeks. "We're not together."

"But she would like to be," I deduce. "She wants more than what you are currently giving her."

"Did she talk to you?" she asks, angrily. "So much for being fucking discreet."

"No, Andrea. No. She didn't talk to me. It's just not all that difficult to work out."

"Well, shit," she replies, grumpily. "It's over, anyway. I can't give her what she wants. I can't give anyone what they want."

She doesn't have to tell me what she means. I'm not sure how, but I know she's talking about a relationship. She gives her body, because that has never been hers to control, being forced to fight for all those years. Her mind and her heart, though? Those are hers and hers alone. I feel a rush of complete understanding wash over me, and I realise why she tries to keep people at a distance.

"You have a lot to offer people, Andrea."

She scoffs. "You think I'm a cold hearted, murdering, psycho."

"I told you before, I think you're remarkable," I counter, ignoring her theatrical roll of the eyes. We're nearing the end of our conversation, I can feel it, but I still have questions. Maybe they're not necessary in regards to the situation with Caroline, but I find myself yearning to know more about the Commander. "So, you left Bellator?"

"Subtle," she remarks with a grin, sitting upright and reaching for her drink. "Yeah. I had a huge fight with Nate, who thought I should be honoured to have his babies and live as some kind of power couple. He was fucking delusional, you know? Even if I was straight, I would never willingly have kids there. They are automatically the property of The Circle, and they start training them when they are toddlers; weaponising them for the future."

"And he wanted that? He was happy with that?"

"He wanted the money. He wanted the status, I guess. Nothing I said could convince him otherwise, and he started pointing out that I didn't have a choice, so I should just submit to him." She laughs angrily. "Me? Submit to him? I could take him down in less than a minute if I wanted to and we both knew it. So I made a plan with Lily, and with a little luck, we got off the planet."

"Dare I ask how?"

"It's not pleasant," she shrugs, sheepishly. "Did you know that humans are a delicacy on some planets? Irv has a deal where the dead are cryogenically frozen and shipped off to Caskani 5 in return for a huge amount of cash. Lily and I crept on board and hid in the cargo hold. Once we knew we were free of Bellator, we incapacitated the crew, jammed the tracking signal and stole a small ship that was docked in the back."

"And you flew home?"

"Basically. We kept one of the crew alive, and he took the controls. I didn't learn to fly until I was with the Agency."

"You kept 'one of the crew alive', Andrea? You said you only 'incapacitated' them!" I remind her, shaking my head. How am I possibly so amused by the way she is bending the truth. Shouldn't I care more that she murdered an entire crew in cold blood?

"Incapacitated," she nods. "It's not like they were about to get up and walk," she tells me with an impish grin.

I have to look away from her. She is incredibly charming when she wants to be and I find myself forgetting who she really is. What she has done slips far into the background, and all I want to do is spend time with her, discovering who she is underneath her many layers.

I stare at our now empty glasses, reminded forcefully of why we are even having this conversation. How can I be sitting here like this with Andrea, talking so casually, when my daughter is about to go through everything she has told me?

I'm exhausted; bones heavy, eyes dropping. I yawn. Whatever was in that blue liquid is wearing off and I realise how long it is that we have been talking.

She looks at me apologetically. "I'm sorry, I know you're tired, but I never really finished explaining myself when we started this talk. I apologised for keeping my distance, but do you understand why, now?"

I think about everything we have discussed and I feel like I am missing something, but I am too tired to make a serious attempt at figuring it out. "No, I'm still not sure I understand."

She smiles softly. "I never disliked you, Miranda, but it was difficult to allow myself to get close to you, knowing what I did about The Void."

"But why? None of this was your fault. In fact, you're going out of your way to reunite my family."

She nods sadly, lips turning down at the corners. "True, but I always knew. I always knew that one day I would have to give you some of the worst news of your life. I knew we would have to have this conversation."

"And you couldn't do that if you cared about me?" I take a guess.

She nods, and the sad smile is back. "I thought it would make it more difficult for both of us. In the end though, none of that mattered."

"Why?" I ask, not containing my curiosity.

"Because…" she pauses, scrutinising my face for a moment, but then nods, continuing quietly. "Because I came to care for you anyway."

I stare at her in shock, unsure if she really just said that, but she won't meet my eyes, staring across the room with her mask firmly back on her face. Understanding that she has reached her limit for being vulnerable, I try to open up to her in return.

"I just want to hold my daughters. I would do anything to have them both by my side. I miss Caroline so much, but I also miss Cassidy. She has not been the same since her sister went missing."

"I know," she replies gently, getting up off the sofa and coming to stand in front of me. "Come with me."

I take the hand she offers, allowing her to help me up off of the sofa. She leads me to a room I realise is her own personal bedroom, and my breath hitches. Surely she doesn't expect…

"Stop. It's not what you are thinking, Miranda." She pushes me down onto the bed, until I am sitting, and kneels to remove my boots. "Get in," she orders softly, pulling the covers back for me.

Bemused, I do as I am told, allowing her to pull the covers back up over me. She brushes the hair off of my face. "This is the only double bed on the ship. The sheets are clean, I promise. I changed them this morning. Wait here, okay?"

I blink up at her sleepily. "Okay."

"Good girl," she teases, winking at me.

I watch as she leaves the room, wondering what she is doing and when she will come back. Is she expecting to sleep in here with me? I'm not opposed to the idea, and it's almost comforting, but it does seem a little sudden. The door hisses open, and my daughter stumbles in; still in her pyjamas and half asleep, by the looks of it.

I look up to the Commander, who just smiles sweetly. "I can't give you them both, but for tonight, you have Cassidy."

I'm confused for a moment until I remember my confession; 'I just want to hold my daughters.'

Andrea gestures for me to move over, and then guides Cassidy into the bed, who instantly snuggles up next to me, her warmth seeping into my bones.

"Thank you, Andrea."

"You're welcome. Sleep well, you two. I don't want to see either of you before breakfast."

"Where will you sleep?" Cassidy asks, yawning loudly.

"Don't you worry about me, Cassy. Go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she agrees, closing her eyes.

Andrea smiles softly at the sight, the warmth in her smile remaining when she meets my eyes. "Everything is going to be alright, Miranda, I swear. I will do whatever it takes, I don't care what it is. No price is too high." Her voice is firm and her confidence is absolute, reigniting that spark of hope our earlier conversation had doused.

With that, she turns on her heel and leaves the room, dimming the lights on her way out.