"—ways shifting. Normally the ship's AI would keep track of that, but they're, uh, not around anymore." Ensign Jardin continued his explanation on the basics of slipspace navigation, Talon's mind whirling as she followed along. It was a lot more complex than calculating jump trajectories.

She reviewed what he had told her. "So without these intelligences to perform a great part of the tracking of these 'threads,' it is not so simple to navigate between distant stars."

"Pretty much, yeah."

Talon looked over to where Spiral dozed in her reclining seat, dream-signature radiating her contentedness. The younger Jardin had showed her how to turn the headrest so that it braced her head at a comfortable angle rather than let it hang at an orientation certain to produce a pained neck.

Five-hundred more solons until they would switch places, Talon getting her own much-desired nap while her diral-sister got to be the one wrapping her mind around the complexities of slipspace.

Although judging by the occasional image which leaked out of the sleeping narrat's mind, perhaps Talon shouldn't wake her quite that soon. She might be… 'disappointed.'

{Tenoin Arrir.} Sent one of the soroin guards posted next to the narrow doorway that led from the hangar further into the massive Soia ship. {Message from the Lashret; they are on their way back. Prepare to accommodate wounded: one severe burn injury, non-mobile; one neck injury, non-mobile; three minor and mobile.}

{Affirmative, Soroin Pideir.} Talon replied.

She stood from her seat, Ensign Jardin looking over in surprise before his own radio squawked at him in English, presumably repeating the same message.

Talon carefully stepped past Spiral, and through the open door into the corridor outside. The careful work of the doranzer earlier had meant that all but two of the fold-out medical cots had been returned to their stowed positions.

Two soroin still slumbered in induced unconsciousness, the two that had fought alongside Talon in that desperate last stand against the Shells aboard the Ring. Truly dalid had shone upon her, both by the humans rescuing her two wounded sisters-in-arms and also by leaving Talon untouched. If she had been unconscious too, she'd have missed talking to Ensign Alexander!

She pulled down two more of the folding cots and locked their arms. A clever idea, squeezing the medical station into this corridor... if you were a mind-blind alien who wasn't bothered by it leaving only barely enough room in the corridor for two people to pass, and then only if they really pressed close. How these aliens could stand that—

Something pushed up against her back.

Talon managed to keep the yelp contained to her mind as Ensign Jardin squeezed past her. It was still weird how the human appeared out of nowhere, his mind still completely invisible. "'Scuse me. Here, the loroi-pattern stabilizers are behind this panel."

"Again thanks, Alexander Jardin."

"Just 'Alexander' is fine. Or 'Alex' if you prefer. Don't need to be too specific when there's only us ten humans around. Did your report give any details on the injuries? I just heard one with a burn."

{Soroin Pideir, was there any further information on the injuries? Ensign Jardin is preparing the medical equipment.}

{He is cross-trained as a doranzer?}

Good question. "How is it that you come to know how to respond to such injuries?"

"I've flown enough casevac flights over my career. Too many… or not enough, depending how you look at it. The equipment's standardized, even on a prowler." he replied without looking up, checking the cot legs. "Good job, by the way. These are locked correctly."

Talon scoffed, but still smiled as she replied. "It is a simple system." To the pideir, she sent {He says that he has been a pilot on many flights apparently involving wounded warriors.}

"You'd be surprised how many grunts forget to lock the middle leg, though."

Instead of the soroin, it was Doranzer Mazil-toza Desire's mind that next sent to Talon, faint from distance but receivable. {Gallen Ranzadi Greyrune has suffered second-category burns to her face and upper torso. She is stable, but we are keeping her unconscious. Soroin Pideir Wildfire remains in a coma, but her autonomous functions continue through the nerve-splice.}

{Understood.}

Once she relayed the information to him, Jar— Alexander pulled another panel open. "They'll want the field-surgery suite, then. I'm afraid our regenerator's still broken, though."

Talon looked over the small volumes that the medical cabinets took up. "You have placed a regenerator in here?"

"Right now all we have is a regenerator-shaped pile of parts." He froze, and then made a snapping sound with two fingers. He then touched one finger to part of the headset he wore. "[Colonel, did you pick up any Engineers?]"

"[I'm afraid the store was out of stock; they gave us an IOU and asked us to come back tomorrow.]" Talon could hear the human leader's tinny voice as he chuckled, loud in the confined corridor. "[Now, we did 'Rescue four Engineers from the Soia's Clutches' on the way back.]"

"It is good news?"

"Yeah." Alexander said, pulling open the largest cabinet and carefully unfolding the maze of interlocking arms stowed within. "We'll have a working regenerator a few minutes after they get back. We'll also have at least one very happy Engineer — the gasbags love fixing things."

Talon tried to picture a flying Pipolsid, with a gallen's work-belt draped around its bulbous features. The thought drew a smile to her face, despite the grave injuries of her arms-sisters. "It seems that this will be very interesting to see happen."

Soon enough, heavy bootfalls on the entrance ramp echoed through the small ship as the expedition returned. From the sound of it, successfully. And—

"That is an Engineer?" Talon asked as she watched the bulbous creature floating unsteadily into the ship.

"Yup. Cute little fella, isn't he?"

It looked nothing like a Pipolsid. The brightly-colored flesh that she could see between the tool-bearing coat draped over its back did match the Soia's preferred color palette, but that was about it.

Talon took a step back as the creature whistled sharply, smoothly descending to hover protectively over the tiny regenerator. Thin tentacles probed the machinery, twisting their way deep inside.

"Oh yeah, he's happy to see it." said Jardin.

"That whistling is a language?" Talon asked, peering at the strange alien. Its mind-signature was… 'orderly' and rather single-minded. So much so that it was difficult to read, actually.

"Yeah. It's pretty complex, but you learn to recognize a bunch of the basic messages. For the rest," he waved the datapad in his hands. "there's translators."

Unfortunately, while these Soia creations seemed to be many things, one thing they weren't was 'small.' The space aboard Did Ever Plummet Sound was rapidly eaten up as the loroi and humans filed aboard after the wounded had been moved in. A few of the last in were forced to sit on the ramp as it rose to become a slanted floor.

Talon had seen the UNSC technology perform miracles, but apparently keeping the atmosphere aboard the prowler crisp when sixty-odd loroi returned after a combat mission and worked their hair out of their helmets was beyond even their abilities.

"[Farewell, fresh air. It nice while it lasted. Never thought I'd miss the recycled breeze of a Soia moon-ship, of all places.]"

"[Back into the vanilla hotbox, eh?]"

"[Yup. Would you believe that that used to be my favorite flavor of ice cream? Used to.]"

"[Corporal, I've met your husband. I absolutely would believe—]"

Talon returned to the cockpit, taking her seat as Jardin followed in. "Bob's got the regenerator working again, and your medic's seeing to that engineer of yours."

That was good news, but… "'Bob'?"

"Uh, 'Bobs When Anxious'. The Engineer who got to the machine first."

"That seems to be a very unusual name." She wasn't sure what names Pipolsid used for themselves, but she was pretty sure that she would never find one with a name like that. Although she understood why the humans seemed to like applying nicknames to so many things, when they were limited to the glacial pace of spoken speech.

"Engineers are a funny bunch." Taking his seat, he brought up the controls and spoke into his headset once more. "We'll be ready for takeoff in fifty solons."

"Good to hear." the Colonel said from behind them, framed in the doorway. "Make for the system I sent to your console. If the Lashret and I have our maps aligned correctly, that should be the one that her strike group is still transiting."

"Got it." Alex brought up the display once more, and smoothly resumed his earlier slipspace lesson to Talon. "See, this thread here takes us back to the Ring's system, but the sensors can just barely make out a cross-filament that intersects it just short of the system boundary. So if we..."

Talon followed along as he walked through the complex mechanics of plotting a slipspace journey with an ease that indicated long experience. And yet he seemed so young — or perhaps human facial features did not show age the same way that a loroi's did?

Either way, the ease with which he walked through the steps and his flowing speech more than overcame the plodding slowness of taking in information solely through spoken verbiage.

If she'd had instructors like this back at the Tenoin Academy, she'd have been a Baistil by now, easily!

{You also might not have missed your encounter opportunity at the end of the diral trials!} sent Spiral, stifling a yawn as she stretched in her seat.

{Because I would not have talked back to the instructors, yes.} Talon replied, smiling despite herself. {And no other reason.}

{I think that might have been a useful test of concentration, actually.} her diral-sister continued, resting her chin on one fist and focusing on pretending that the idea was a deep, serious thought and not the idle daydream of a young warrior. {'Can the cadet focus on a lecture's content when the lecturer is a cute male?'} A fragment of her recently-ended dream slipped through the sanzai. {Maybe shirtless...}

{That course would have been a disaster for a certain Maia-born Narrat that I know.} replied Talon.

{But what a fun disaster!}

Talon shook her head with a warm smile, even as the prowler leapt out of the hangar bay. She changed the subject. {Enjoy your nap?}

{Mmm.} Spiral sent back, along with a bubble of pleasure as she bent over and stretched her back. {Of all their technology that is so far beyond ours, somehow pilot seats are the one that surprises me the most. Maybe we can get them installed in our own fighters? I would sleep in the hangar bay; think of the improvement to squadron readiness!}

{Improvement, yes... until we have to keep shooing young soroin out of our craft before launch.}

{Then we teach them to stick to their guns and armories!} Spiral sent with a mental wink.

Shockingly soon, Jardin called for Talon's attention again. "Coming up on our hop to that filament. It keeps going further than the sensors can see, but it looks like it takes us towards that system your Lashret wanted." He pointed to the screen. "The drive routines should nudge us over automatically, but it's worth keeping an eye on it up to the point of transition, anyways. If you miss your exit vector and try to force a sharp hop, you can fall right out of slipspace and risk tearing the drive apart."

"You speak as if one of experience."

"Nah, just good instructors." the human demurred. He looked over at her, a faint smile playing over his rounded-yet-exotic features. "Navy's got the best there are." The smile dropped, and he looked away. "Were, anyways."

Talon's heart clenched. "Your instructors' honor lives on in you, yet still. Even today just now, you helped deliver a blow that was felt by the Soia's remains."

"We did, didn't we?" he said redundantly. Did humans speak that strangely in their own language, or was it just an artifact of how they spoke Trade?

Spiral added, "You helped our team of warriors not become dead on that Ring, also. Thanks ever so from all us!"

That brought a smile back to his lips. "Glad to help. Oh, and here we go on that hop."

Talon leaned back in her seat, listening closely but also watching the human as he animatedly explained the mechanics of how the maneuver was carried out. The display's glow lit his face, casting shadows that danced as he spoke. In the dim light, he could pass for a loroi, if one ignored just how tall he was.

But she could get used to this view.

{Me too!} sent Spiral. {Now if only a certain Plunger hadn't been first to take the seat that sits next to him, I wouldn't have to choose between enjoying the view and being comfortable.}

Talon's gaze flicked to Spiral at the side-facing sensor station, sitting with her neck turned fully to one side, watching the display as their human pointed out— as their human instructor pointed out the exact moment of the hop.

"And we're over. The drive'll keep us locked on course from here on, and with this it's set to let us know when either we approach the destination system or the sensors pick up a filament that leads more directly to it."

He highlighted their new course. "The textbooks say that in the old days they couldn't see more than a light-year or two out on the filaments at a time. Can you imagine navigating like that? It'd be like driving a car at night with just a flashlight to see with."

Alex glanced at Talon, just as her gaze flicked back from Spiral. He paused, frowning, before turning around to see the tenoin narrat rubbing at her neck with one hand and squirming to sit sideways in the chair. "Oh, the seats can turn, be more comfortable. Here, let me—" Before Spiral could react, he leaned over and pulled on a control at the base of her seat.

The seat snapped around to face forwards, Spiral letting out a brief mental yelp at the sudden motion.

{Such alarm, from the diral-sister who got the instructor motion-sick during flight school?} Talon sent, laughing.

Spiral replied by lifting one leg, letting Alex's trapped hand loose from where it had become caught. Her sanzai wordlessly conveyed just where it had ended up pinned.

Through the armored plating of the combat suit that Spiral still wore — and Talon, too, largely because there simply wasn't room aboard the cramped ship for a bunch of empty armor — she hadn't actually felt anything, but that didn't stop her broadcast imagination from filling in the gaps… or a gap, anyways.

"Huh. That was fast. The spring must have, uh, been changed recently." Alex turned back and busied himself at the display, a faint alien-red blush rising.

Talon raised one eyebrow, stifling laughter at the situation. {A plausible explanation.} Her sub-channels broadcast her recognition that he was telling the truth, though.

{Well I hope he expected just that to happen!} sent Spiral with a grin.

{I doubt it.} Talon replied. {He seems too professional to do anything like that intentionally… on duty, at least.} She eyed her diral-sister. {As are we.}

Spiral agreed, but {One more good reason to get back to the Strike Group so we get some time off duty!}

A previously unnoticed mind-signature at the cockpit door brightened, as if suddenly appearing from a great distance. {I see that you are making good progress.} Mizol Parat Tempo's sanzai was level, but she did not bother to hide her amusement as she glanced between the three of them. {On our travel and other objectives.}

{We have learned how to navigate this ship through slipspace!} Spiral beamed.

{Yes, that is a laudable achievement.} sent the Mizol. {Our time until arrival?}

Talon peered at the display, now knowing where to look for the data. From the velocity along the filament, even assuming the worst-case scenario as Alex had described it... {Four thousand solon, Mizol Parat.}

{Understood.} Without another word, the diplomatic officer — the spy — turned and left.

Talon was glad that tenoin rarely had to deal with the subterfuge-enamored mizol caste very often at all. They were… not what warriors should aspire to be. For that matter, Stillstorm's 'suggestion' was probably actually the Mizol's idea in the first place.

And now that Talon had come around to seeing Alex for the warrior he evidently was, outright manipulating him that way felt doubly wrong. Even if — unless human males were even more different from their loroi counterparts than she had already seen — he was unlikely to object.

She and Spiral were veteran tenoin with strong builds, fierce characters, and enough kill markers between the two of them to cover a decent portion of Tempest's briefing room wall! Of course he'd be interested!

"Hmm?" Alex started, turning around just as the door clicked closed. "Did you say something?"

Apparently those tiny ears were as much of a hindrance as they seemed. "Mizol Parat Tempo was asking on how long time until we are arriving at the system." Spiral explained… mostly truthfully. There were advantages to spoken speech, after all.

"Oh. That's, uh—"

"Four thousand solon." Talon said. "We told her."

Alex smiled at her. "Just right!" Heavier footsteps sounded outside the door, and he glanced back at it. "Which should give us more than enough time for..."

"[Chow time.]" said Colonel Jardin, holding out three plastic-wrapped packets. He continued in Trade. "You've got a choice between mystery-orange, mystery-green, and mystery-brown."

"The Section-Three Specials, eh? I'll take brown. Even ONI can't over-promise with 'brown.'" Alex caught the tossed package. He waved it at Talon with one hand and explained. "Travel rations. We don't exactly have the room to fold the mess station out, so they're it. We've got some in back that are formulated for loroi, but I suspect your people have brought your own."

It would be interesting to sample some of the food that her ancient forebears had preferred, but also not a good idea while she was on duty. Who knew how culinary tastes had changed over the eons — maybe they'd all eaten like Perreinids back then!

She shuddered at the thought.

"Heh." Alex nodded in mistaken understanding. "Can't say I blame you. Section Three had a… lot of successes during the Wars, but their field rations were a bit of a uh, mixed bag. If a human can keep 'em down, they'll keep us running a day or two at a time, though." He pointed the package at her. "The loroi ones would keep you going for the better part of a week." Alex chuckled. "Funny story, really. The human rations were a bit of an offshoot, first made for—"

"Alex." his uncle said.

"—For, uh, people who burn a lot of calories." Alex completed. "Marines, ODSTs," he looked back at the Colonel with a thin smirk, "ONI spooks on long-duration missions, and the like."

"That is seeming useful." Talon nodded. "Maybe not so much for us tenoin, not commonly. But for soroin and teidar, infantry that fight on ground far from constant supply, yes."

Colonel Jardin glanced aside, and then stepped back into the corridor as Tozet Beryl squeezed past. The Listel held up three rather-more-modern Union ration boxes. {It seems that it is eating-time!} She gave one to Spiral and one to Talon, before leaning back into the corner opposite the door as it closed.

Three loroi and one human tore open their respective foods, Talon discovering that she was rather hungrier than she had expected. It seemed that first wrestling with hardtroops and then shattering the basis of everything the loroi had thought they'd known about their ancestors built up an appetite!

She was halfway through her first pozet when she paused mid-swallow as a thought struck her. From the echo of her sending, Spiral had made the same realization.

Tozet Beryl sent {It seems that you two really do see him as a warrior, to be so comfortable eating in his presence.} as she only now began to unwrap her own meal.

Talon swallowed the bite of misesa-grain bun before answering, the better to keep her sub-channels clear of just how good the steaming-hot spiced miros-meat inside the bun tasted after the day she'd had. {Well, of course. He's a pilot, like us. It does help that he eats like a warrior.}

She indicated the human in question as he poked a straw into his ration packet and stirred it around. A few moments later, he took a brief pull on it, swallowed, and sighed. "[Why is it always stroganoff? I swear they switch around the color codes every time I figure them out...]"

{Fascinating.} Beryl sent. {It seems to be a completely liquid-based meal. Maybe human biology is adapted for that? But no, their teeth appear similar enough to ours that they must have evolved to consume harder foods.}

{Don't forget your pozet, Listel.} reminded Talon. Best not let one of the team's senior officers forget to eat. Even if her endless curiosity was rather charming.

While the three of them discussed, Alex continued eating.

{See?} Talon sent to the listel. {He eats with speed and efficiency, not slowly and distractedly like a civilian.}

{Nor does he play with his food.} added Spiral.

Both other loroi looked at her. {'Play with his food?'} asked Beryl.

{Like civilians do! They throw it at each other and waste it, much of the time!}

{Narrat, you think of young children. Not civilians.}

{Oh. Is there a difference?} Spiral asked innocently, almost managed to keep her sanzai appearing serious.

Almost.

They shared a brief burst of amusement. Talon finished her pozet and leaned back in her chair, basking in the comforting warmth of a full belly.

Spiral nearly managed to keep her thought of {That's not the only way to get a 'comforting warmth' deep in your gut} contained in her own mind, but it slipped out just barely strong enough for Talon to receive.

Beryl too, as the two of them shared a bemused glance before looking over at Spiral. The Tozet sent {You really are from Maia, aren't you?}

{Yes!} Spiral replied, grinning through her blush.

{You see what I have to deal with?} Talon sent in mock-suffering.

{The very incarnation of every Maiad stereotype in the entire Union?} replied Beryl, matching Talon's mirthful side-channels.

{Thank you!} Beamed Spiral. {I do my best to represent my birth-world!}

Beryl took the last bite of her own pozet, and chewed slowly as her thoughts stirred just below the level of receivable sanzai. Once finished, she sent {You both are disciplined enough to keep things controlled while on duty.} Her side-channels made it clear that this was not a reproach but rather an honest observation, one that Talon appreciated.

{And when off-duty?} Spiral asked immediately.

{Once off-duty, it is up to you and Colonel Jardin.}

Talon frowned, but Spiral caught on quickly. {Alex is not a cloistered male, to have us ask his caretaker. He is a warrior.}

{He is one of the last ten members of his species.} sent Beryl. {He is absolutely under the care of his uncle.}

{Three of their ODSTs appear to be male, that's four in total. They will not mind if we borrow one.} sent Spiral.

{Humans do not work that way, as we have learned from some interesting conversations.} sent Beryl, her sanzai adding in just what she thought of the junior soroin who had wandered into those topics. Apparently Talon had been missing some of the fun, isolated up here in the cockpit.

{Then how do they work?} asked Talon, in genuine curiosity.

{As with their Colonel and Tempest, humans normally pair-bond. One female, one male.}

{She gets him all to herself?} exclaimed Spiral.

Talon only nodded. {It makes sense. Alex did say that human numbers of males and females are approximately equal.}

{Indeed so.} sent Beryl. {It would be disruptive to the cohesion of the ODSTs to introduce any loroi to their social environment.}

{'Social environment'?} Talon gave the listel a flat look. {They're people, not herd animals in a zoo. I think they can figure things out themselves.}

The listel's sub-verbal sanzai conveyed her grudging agreement.

Sensing her next argument, Talon added {And he is not in need of 'protection' from me! He is a warrior, as I said. He was born into a horrible war, just like each of us here. And he has fought in that war all his life.}

{And how long has that life been?} asked Beryl. Her side-channels ran thick with concern over how inexperienced the human might be.

Talon was quite sure that he wasn't some child, but there was really only one way to find out.

"Alex, how many years do you have?" Talon asked.

Two sanzai messages hit her immediately: with disapproval from one, and amusement at her bluntness from the other. {What? I'm not a mizol.}

Beryl added {I was more interested in your saying 'Alex.' Humans seem to use shortened names as a mark of familiarity.}

{Do they?} Talon didn't bother hiding her happiness at the thought. {He told me to, and said it was okay.}

"Hmm?" Alex looked over, setting down the empty food container. "How old am I?" He tapped a few commands into the console, and squinted at the display. "Uh, two-hundred-and-seventy-five-thousand, three-hundred-and-eleven." He grinned at Talon, the skin at the corners of his oddly-round eyes crinkling.

Her reproachful stare was apparently recognizable across species, because he added "Or 'twenty,' if that's simpler."

{So old!} sent Spiral, adding a mental image of an up-aged Alex, thin gray hair framing a face covered in well-worn lines much like his Uncle.

Talon matched her diral-sister's amusement. {Almost as old as that teidar!} She sent her own image, of a stoop-backed teidar pallan with hair barely hinting at the bright-red it once boasted, using a cane to walk along one of Tempest's corridors.

{Be careful.} sent Beryl, taking Talon's image and modifying it to show the teidar breaking said cane over the head of a familiar blue-haired tenoin. {She has her own sense of humor, but you have to avoid becoming the punchline.}

The two tenoin took a moment to parse that. Then the three of them broke out into laughter. But just as they fought their mirth back under control, Talon happened to glance aside at Alex's face.

His absolutely adorable look of confusion set first her and then the other two off again.

"I didn't think it was that funny." he said, chuckling softly and shaking his head.

"It most certain was!" replied Talon, adding in sanzai {See? Not a child.}

{You are right.} Agreed Beryl. {And certainly the other humans would have been more protective of him if twenty had been considered young for their species.}

Spiral sent {Yes: they would not have left him alone in the cockpit with two tenoin!} Her side-channels listed the many things that could happen to a male under such circumstances… none of which he would mind, of course.

{Or maybe they would have.} Beryl mused. {They are evidently well-used to working with loroi, and he and his own uncle are clearly with living alongside loroi. They may not have any objections, if he has not already been claimed by one of the other females.}

"Huh. Well, I'm glad to, uh, help." The human in question, unaware of the flurry of discussion centered on him, said as he stood from his seat. "I'll go see how the surgery's going. Remember," He leaned over Talon, pointing at some of the controls mirrored at her station. "alerts show up here, the override is here, and—"

Talon beat him to the last one. "And the emergency drop control is here. I was following your explanations most closely!"

He beamed at her and clapped one hand on her shoulder. "Good learning, co-pilot." He disappeared out of the door with a last "Shout if you need me."

{A good warrior.} Spiral sent, approvingly. {Checks that his replacement knows her task before leaving his station for even a brief period.}

{That is really one of the most simple duties of a warrior, though.} Beryl pointed out.

{It is still worthy of praise. Not all warriors remember their duties at all times.} Talon sent.

{I thought both of you had been assigned to Strike Group 51 as soon as you completed your dirals?} asked Beryl, sanzai conveying her certainty that no warrior in that elite group could have forgotten any of her important duties.

{Yes. But our instructors at the tenoin academy shared with us many tales as part of their lessons. Some were examples where the instructor had been put in danger because of a failure of their superior, and some of the instructors relayed examples where their failure put their subordinates into danger.} Talon sent.

Spiral added {Such examples are a major part of training for tenoin. Is it not so for listel?}

{Not so much.} Beryl sent. {Listel training is more aimed at honing one's ability to commit events to memory without missing details, and recalling that memory in full detail later. Also survival training on Mezan's surface, to ensure that a listel is more likely to survive a situation into which she has been thrown.}

{Mezan.} Talon made a face. {That planet sounds awful. Too hot or too cold depending on the time, and always too dry.}

{Tabenid.} Beryl shook her head with a faint smile. {It is truly not so bad: expeditions to the surface are for survival training; they are not supposed to be comfortable.} Her sanzai became flooded with joy at remembered experiences. {And the Soia ruins that lie underground! They are extensive! Well-documented by now, yes, but every few years there is another discovery: of a small bunker, or a hidden alcove, or an overlooked cabinet, or so many other things. There is always something new that lies just waiting to be learned!}

{That is always exciting.} agreed Talon. {I grew up on Taben; our people have long dove for the Soia artifacts and ruins on the seafloor there.} She looked out at slipspace, mind wandering. {I do wonder if they are properly called 'Soia' artifacts, now. Our ancestors must have come to Taben — and Deinar and Perrein — as free Loroi, not on behalf of the Soia.}

{That is… not for certain.} disagreed Beryl, slowly. {Colonel Jardin's explanations to Stillstorm and Tempo have mentioned that not all 'warrior-forms' in the Soia Empire rebelled. And that those who remained 'loyal' to the Soia were granted the same sanzai abilities, to make them better fighters against humanity… and their former arms-sisters. We have no way of knowing for sure exactly whose side our own ancestors were on.}

Talon whirled to stare at the Listel. {Truthfully?}

Beryl nodded.

{That is… most unsettling.} Talon sent, gaze lingering on Alex's empty seat. Had her own personal ancestors fought against his? Against Alex, himself?

Did he know?

{It is, I think, actually more likely than not that our ancestors may be from the Soia-loyalist loroi.} Sent Beryl, radiating her own deep discomfort at the thought. {Colonel Jardin did mention that the 'rebel' loroi were attempting to flee known space while Tempest and he activated the Ring to cover their withdrawal. Why would those fleeing loroi settle on three worlds that seem to be so close to Soia space, given how fast the ships of their era could travel? And even if they did, — for whatever reason — what happened to the fleeing humans who were traveling alongside them? It seems more likely that Deinar, Perrein and Taben were populated by survivors of the Soia-aligned loroi.}

Talon sagged into her seat, the pozet bun which had been so satisfying earlier now sitting like a lead weight in her gut. First she had learned that the Soia had 'built' the loroi to be expendable footsoldiers — much as the Hierarchy built their hardtroops — never meant to have a voice in society. And now it had been pointed out that her own ancestors most likely stayed 'loyal' to such masters!

She looked at Alex's seat once more. What would he think? {Do they know?} She asked Beryl. {The humans, here.} She managed to change it from 'our humans' at the last moment.

The listel looked back at her, one eyebrow raised. {I imagine that they have reached the same conclusions. But it has been a quarter-million years. I do not think they would hold it against us, any more than we would let it color our perception of them. It is, quite literally, ancient history.}

{To us.} Talon sent back. {To them? They were fighting against the Soia, against loyalist loroi — possibly against our very foremothers! — not even three days ago.}

{And yet they have been nothing but polite and helpful to us, thus far.} Beryl pointed out. {They even went into battle alongside us, with no signs of friction.}

{But,} interjected Spiral with her own question, {if it was loyalists who settled onto the Sister Worlds, why did they keep telling the Legend of Tempest at all? The story portrays her as a vengeful and bloodthirsty warrior, yes, but one who had cause to be that way. Wouldn't these loyalists have just not kept the story in memory at all? Why honor an ancient enemy who destroyed your entire civilization?}

Talon and Beryl exchanged a look. That was a good point.

The three of them were still trying to come up with an explanation, nobody's thoughts having crystallized enough to break out into verbal sanzai when Alex re-entered the cockpit. "The docs say your wounded should be back up and kicking by tomorrow, probably not long after we rendezvous with your fleet."

He climbed into his seat and glanced over at Talon with a lopsided smile "They might miss their spots, though — those cots are the closest anybody in the back's got to a bed."

{I could use a bed right now.} sent Spiral, sanzai remarkably focused solely on the comfort of sleeping in a proper position. Alone, even. She let out a small yawn — apparently, her brief nap earlier had not been quite enough.

Alex turned at the sound. "The chairs recline all the way, you know." He made to reach out, before stopping his hand and instead demonstrating on the controls of his own seat. Returning to an upright position, he said "Here, we've got almost an hour left until arrival. You two take some rack time; I'll watch the dials."

"That is uncommon kind of you, Alex." Talon said, heart warming at his generosity. "But I think maybe it is more good to have two crew awake in the cockpit. Perhaps you can be sleeping while I and Spiral watch the ship?"

{Finally I would have a nice view!} Spiral sent, replaying her previous perspective looking down on Alex as his seat reclined almost all the way to reaching her.

{'Watch the ship,' Narrat.} sent Talon with a smile. {Not 'watch the human.'}

{I can do both at the same time!} replied her diral-sister. {Although the important displays are the two from your seats.} A burst of playful amusement. {Which means that I would have to— no! Better! I sit at your chair and watch the secondary screens; you sit on Jardin's seat while he sleeps there and you watch the main screen!}

The accompanying mental image was rather suggestive, if one ignored that both parties still wore their armor. Well, Alex was dressed in more of a 'jumpsuit' than proper armor, but—

Talon shook her head in amusement at her wingwoman's mostly-joking idea. {Do not memorize that particular image, toz—} Ah. The listel sat with her back against the wall, head leaned slightly into the corner, dozing away. {Well, it seems that one of us is ahead of schedule.}

"Nah." Alex said, to Talon's earlier point. "I've slept for a quarter-million years, I think I'm good for a while."

He laughed, before lowering it to a quiet chuckle when Talon pointed to the sleeping Beryl.

{So much for that idea.} Spiral sent.

{It would never have worked.} Talon added. {For one thing, I do not think he would get much sleep with my armor pressing into him.}

She realized her error a solon before Spiral responded with a peal of sanzai laughter {I think he would be more distracted thinking what he might be pressing into you!}

Spiral clapped a hand over her mouth to keep her laughter from escaping into the audible range, reclining her seat down to horizontal.

{I sailed right into that one.} Talon acknowledged, amused despite herself. She knew that Spiral played up her enthusiastic endorsement of Maia's 'loose' social standards more to get a rise out of Talon rather than out of any real support for them… but that was what Talon loved about her. What the whole diral had loved about their energetic Maiad comedian.

"Well, that's, uh, Spiral going for it." Alex said, head turning to look at the junior tenoin.

"Yes it is." Talon agreed. "She will take a resting period next, and you and I will be remaining alert."

{Clever.} Spiral sent, without objection. {Now you and Alex get to speak alone.} Her sanzai was swiftly fading into the hazy patterns of sleep. Apparently she really had needed the rest. {Speaking aloud sweet nothings to each other, that nobody else will ever hear...} This time, the faint image which accompanied the thought was more heartwarming than anything else, really.

Her diral-sister's mind submerged completely into the depths of slumber. Talon watched her armor rise and fall rhythmically for several solon. Smiling warmly, she shook her head at the endless teasing from the junior tenoin. Spiral had seemed to take it as an insult to the whole diral when Talon had been denied the warrior-graduate's usual encounter upon acceptance to the tenoin caste.

She'd never stopped teasing Talon over the years since, always planning how the rest of the diral were going to arrange their first rest period, sent home from the front lines. How they were going to 'ensure' that Talon made up for her missed opportunity — which had been Talon's own fault, she was fully aware — to learn 'What — and who — we're fighting for!'

A rest period that the rest of the diral never got to see, in the end.

Sighing, she turned back to gaze out of the front window, at the featureless black plain of slipspace visible between the text and images of the display.

And conscious of Alex's eyes on her.

"Are you all right?" He asked, softly. "I know it's uh, been a tough day for you. For all of you."

Now that Spiral was safely asleep, Talon could let herself agree that yes, he was kind. And considerate, and possibly even gentle. All things that males should be… but warriors not so much. Yet he clearly was a warrior, too — even in the short time that she had had to observe him, she felt confident in saying that as well. It was a remarkable contrast, to have such different characteristics in one person.

An intriguing contrast.

"I am well." She replied, also quietly. "'A good warrior can withstand the shocks of duty, both physical and mental.'" Quoted straight from the most basic training that any loroi went through, if she had the good fortune to not be born a civilian.

For several solon, the cockpit was filled only by the soft breathing of two sleeping loroi.

Eventually, Talon glanced over at Alex, meeting his level stare. Slowly, he nodded. "That's all well and good while a warrior is still in combat, but nobody can hold all that stress in forever. The whole point of downtime for a warrior is to give them the chance to let it all out."

A thought which few loroi were unacquainted with, yes, but she was still on duty. Not 'in combat,' yes, but there were still the pressures of being in such close proximity to these strange aliens who had upended so many things which all loroi had taken for granted.

That being said, there was a way for him to help her clear her mind of at least some of her worries. And no, it wasn't any method that Spiral would have suggested.

"Where do you think have gone the loroi that fled with your own people after the War?" asked Talon. She was — proudly! — no mizol, but even she knew better than to directly ask what she wanted to most know.

Now it was Alex's turn to let out a long breath, slumping into his seat and looking aside. "I don't know. Never wanted to know. Wherever they were headed, Uncle Pierre and Tempest weren't going to follow. And I wasn't going to leave my family; there wasn't anything for me on the evacuation arks."

"Truth?" Talon asked, surprised. "No family members? No diral-siblings?" And wasn't it a weird thought to picture males going through diral trials! Then one last question, more because Spiral would want to know than for any curiosity on Talon's part. That's what she told herself, anyways. "No long-term bonded mate?"

"Never had much close family. Mom and Dad died early; I ended up being raised by Uncle and Tempest — and the rest of the Furies — more than anyone else. 'Gangs'?" He chuckled softly. "I guess there was the rest of my old squadron, but they went down with the ship when Punic was lost over Earth."

Alex rolled his head over to look again at Talon, a wan smile on his lips. "No uh, 'wife' either." The smile disappeared. "Wasn't something that anybody was really looking for, towards the end. What was the point, with the Soia bearing down on us?"

Talon tried to imagine how she would feel, if the Hierarchy had been pushing ever-farther into Union space. If the war was obviously lost, with the end being only a matter of time. How would loroi — from the youngest soroin up to senior torrai like Stillstorm — handle it?

How would Talon handle such a situation?

"It seems that you must have had much familiarity with 'stress.'" She said.

"Me and the rest of humanity." said Alex. "'s why I tell you that people have to let it out at some point. Bottle it up, and you'll explode at the worst moment."

Well, if he insisted. "Then, where did we loroi come from?" She asked bluntly. "Us loroi, I mean. On Taben, and Deinar and Perrein." She was glad that he couldn't pick up her sanzai side-channels, as choked with worry and shame as they were.

"Ah." he replied. "We wondered when that realization was going to kick in."

So they did know.

Alex continued, "I could say that one of the Legions might have turned around. Maybe they decided they'd rather seek a more immediate revenge, or maybe they thought we'd need a hand stalling the Empire. Hell, maybe they came looking for us, for Tempest."

He sighed, leaning forwards and tapping a quick command into his console. The display, visible to them both, shifted to show a map of the local region of the galaxy.

But the part she actually recognized was only a small part, surrounded by vast swathes of marked regions.

"We haven't quite compared star charts just yet, but from what I've picked up talking to a few of your people it looks like your worlds are around here." He pointed to the map.

After a moment, Talon reached out and corrected him. It's not like the approximate map of the Union was classified information. Well, not too classified.

"As I thought." He gestured to the label which sprawled across a vast region of space, including as a small corner within its influence the entirety of what was today the Loroi Union.

Soia Empire.

"Not exactly their core worlds — God knows those were so distant that even ONI struggled to reach out and touch them — but far enough into the Empire that nobody would have 'accidentally' ended up there if they were trying to get away."

He looked back at her, Talon unable to quite meet his eyes. "So to answer your real question, no, we're pretty sure you are descended from the loroi that stayed with the Empire."

"Your enemies." Talon said.

"'My enemies' all died almost three-hundred-thousand years ago." Alex emphasized. "They have no influence on you, as far as we can see. Hell, your people didn't even remember we ever existed!"

That was how the loroi viewed the humans, yes, but what about the reverse? "How recent were you in fighting, before going to your 'stasis-sleep'?" asked Talon.

"We'd been on the Ring less than a day before the Council arrived." Alex said. "Fought our way to the Control Room, and dug in there."

"Even you as a pilot?" A tenoin would have happily joined the soroin in a ground battle — 'Every warrior fights,' after all — but would more likely have been assigned to stay with the ship they'd arrived on. Unless—

"Of course. It was a one-way trip, we all knew that." Alex responded.

Just like how Talon had taken the dropship back after Tempest's crew on the Ring, rather than flee with Strike Group 51. Had made her choice to die alongside her last diral-sister.

"You knew that you were not to be coming back?" It was something that every warrior accepted may come up during her life: a mission from which it was known from the outset that she would not return. Sometimes a desperate gamble against impossible odds, sometimes a mission which simply must be accomplished no matter the cost in lives.

"What was there to come back to?" Alex said, echoing his earlier description of a life bereft of any social bonds outside of the small group he traveled with. "Eleven people wouldn't be missed in the evacuation fleets, and there was always the risk of some remnant following us back to them."

Even for Talon, born into a war that had raged for long before she was born, trying to put herself into his mental position was intimidating. To know that your entire people now numbered fewer than lived now on one of the smaller colonies of the Union, and that their only hope for survival rested on your sacrifice.

And then to wake a quarter-million years later, with no trace of that fleeing remnant… and only the daughters of your enemies left to greet you?

Speaking of which, she still had to know: "Where there other loroi on the Ring when you landed?"

"Soia loyalist ones, you mean?"

She nodded.

"Yes, there were."

"Did you fight them?"

He looked away from her, but Talon could see the steel in his eyes. "Wasn't much of a 'fight,' with Tempest there. Not near the Control Center, at least. Once she teleported herself to the ship and us to near the STO battery, though, it was hard fighting all the way in."

"What happened to them? After the fighting?" Talon left the issue of just what 'teleport' meant for Beryl to explore, later.

Alex looked over at her. "I couldn't say. We left the dead lying in the forest outside the bunker, didn't have time for a burial detail." He glanced aside, eyes hard. "Not sure we'd have done so, even if we'd had the time. They'd made their choice."

Talon breathed "Our ancestors."

She hadn't realized that she'd spoken aloud until Alex snorted quietly. "Those ones didn't get the chance to be anyone's ancestors."

But there was no way to know for certain, was there? She did not know how the Soia Empire handled its warrior population, but if it was at all like how the Union did it was easily possible that the ancient loroi who fell under those powerful bright-blue energy beams of the ODSTs had already had daughters elsewhere.

Daughters who eventually came to land on Deinar? Or Perrein?

Or Taben?

For all of her life — and so many generations before her — the loroi of the Union respected their ancestors. Those ancestors were the Soia, after all, they who strode through space aboard warships whose power and majesty were beyond reproach!

And now that image of the past was gone.

Dead, burned away to nothing.

"Hey."

Talon looked over, at Alex's single word. The human held out a hand across the console towards her, carefully threaded between the control inputs to sit palm up. "They weren't you. 'New era, new loroi,' right?"

His strange words were pushed to the back of her mind by the open gesture of his hand. Did that mean the same thing among humans as among loroi?

But no, of course it couldn't. They were mind-blind, unable to truly see into each other no matter how much contact they shared. But it was still a friendly gesture, one between friends, yes?

She grasped his hand in hers.

His hand was larger than hers, the warmth surrounding her pleasant even in the near-stuffy air of the crowded vessel's cockpit.

With a smile, Alex dropped his lotai.

At the forefront of his mind, glowing like a flame, was his satisfaction at the destruction of the Soia Empire having been so complete that even its own descendants knew so little about it. A warrior's pride in a foe utterly demolished.

Intertwining with that, his sorrow at the extinction of his people in general and the deaths of so many of his friends in particular. To Talon's surprise, among the faces which flashed through his memories in less than a solon she counted at least two loroi.

Lastly, his thoughts came to the loroi which had found his team on the Ring. On his surprise at first seeing them, confusion at their primitive weaponry and armor compared to the loroi alongside whom he had fought. His bewilderment and shock at the revelation of just how much time had passed.

Then how he had been jolted from his half-dazed marching out of the bunker with the rest of the column when a pair of tenoin came to speak with him, faint echoes of the camaraderie he had once felt with other pilots of his own era. Energetic and outgoing Spiral — whose vocal speech patterns seemed especially amusing to him; Talon she would have to tease her diral-sister about that later — joined soon by ever-curious Beryl, whose boundless curiosity seemed to have struck a chord with him.

And finally, he pushed to the fore his thoughts of Talon. Her friendly discussion with him, framed in his mind with mild amusement and happiness at meeting such alien pilots. Her calm and steady flying of the dropship, and then her questions while he flew the prowler. His memories still marveled at how she had so quickly taken to plotting the jump when the Ring had opened its slipspace tear, and relaxed at her friendly conversation with him as a peer.

Culminating in a bubble of his subconscious noting just how cool and soft her hand felt in his.

Talon contained a mental groan. Not him, too! Just because tenoin spent their days training for flight operations rather than hefting blasters, or practicing martial arts, or swinging a hammer, didn't mean that— oh.

He liked that softness.

"I—" her spoken words stumbled over each other, piling up before they made it all the way out. What did one say to someone who chose to open their thoughts that way to you, when they had no ability to peer into her own mind in an equal exchange? "I thank you. For what you have shown to me in this."

And it was true, it did help put some of her fears to rest. Alex's mind, at least, saw no comparison between the loroi around him now and those loyal to the Soia whom he had fought, in memories so recent to his mind.

"Of course." He replied. Alien as his mind was, Talon had no problem recognizing the bubble of warmth that rose to the front of his mind. Tinged with… affection? "And—"

An alarm blared on the console.