They were achieving escape velocity.
Dropships were pretty versatile, so Dalton knew they'd probably be fine making it to the space station, but he could tell it was on its last legs. He sat next to Frost and across from Dix. Something was bugging him. A couple somethings, actually. Abruptly, he stood up.
"Sergeant Dixon, will you come with me?" he asked.
"Yep," Dixon replied in a tone that indicated he'd been expecting this.
There was a little storage area in between the cockpit and the cabin, and there was just enough room for the two of them in their bulky armor to get inside and seal both exits. Dalton double checked that his radio wasn't transmitting, then focused on Dix.
"Okay, what the hell was that, man?" he asked. "You really pinned my ass on the spot."
"I was making you step the fuck up, Dalton," Dix replied, sounding vaguely annoyed.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That's why you pulled me back from the edge and you know it. I was gonna die back there at Gamma Seven. I was prepped to go out in a blaze of glory. I was fucking happy to, Dalton, and you knew it. But you asked. You demanded, really. You said, and I quote, 'I need you, I can't do this by myself'. And I agreed. I put that shit on hold for you. You asked for help, I'm giving it. By making you step the fuck up."
"But why me?" he pressed.
"I don't know if it's sunk in, but this dropship? This is it. Ain't no one coming to help us. There is no backup, not this time. It's just us. And I thought that little impromptu voting session we had out there would've painted it clear as day. In fact, I know it did and you're either lying to me or lying to yourself, but you get it. I know you get it. It was never gonna be anyone but you, me, or Frost, and it sure as shit wasn't gonna be me, and clearly Frost has no interest in running this show. It's you. And you can do it. You're scared, and I can't blame you, but you've done this before, and you can do it again. I'll help you, I'll fight alongside you, I'll do what needs doing, but I'm along for the ride," Dixon replied firmly.
Dalton stared at him for a long moment. A lot of things to say came and then left, remaining unspoken. Finally, he sighed. "That wasn't the only reason I said I needed you. You are my best friend."
Dix snorted and shook his head. "Yeah, well, you might wanna work on getting a new one. I'm not exactly fun at parties."
"We can party later, right now I need an unstoppable hardass who will help me stomp giant killer bug aliens into the mud."
"I can do that," Dixon said. "By the way, you were right. I owe you twenty."
"Holy shit, you regret finding out?"
"Yeah. Those things bug the shit outta me. Something about their faces...dunno, I never really believed in hell, but these things could absolutely be demons. Man, that shit you found in that Command Center is more than enough for me. Can I go back now? I'd fucking love to catch even five goddamned minutes of sleep."
"Yeah," he said. "And, uh...thanks. For coming with me. I...recognize that I'm asking something pretty significant."
"Well...just make sure you do your job, and I'll do mine," Dix replied as he grabbed the door and opened it back up.
"Yep."
He stepped out and made his way to his chair. Dalton began to do the same, then hesitated, his eyes falling on Frost. She was still seated, but was staring at him. He tilted his head and she stood immediately, slipping into the space with him. He closed the door again.
"Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, everything's fine. Well, fine enough. I just wanted to say thanks for the support, and...I guess, I also wanted to be honest about our prospects. We'll probably die trying to make this work. I'm just a Marine, just a grunt who can fight pretty good and has picked up a few tricks. I can lead if I have to, but I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at it. And I don't know why you're leaving, but if you have a better deal somewhere...I mean, I'd understand if you left."
Frost stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, she reached up and took off her mask. She became Ari to him in that moment. "Erik...I'm not leaving. I suppose I haven't really articulated myself particularly well, but...you're the only person I care about right now. I haven't cared about anyone for a long, long time. So long that I'd...forgotten what it felt like. And it's frightening. But we can talk about our lives more later, I'll answer any question you want. Anything. I have no reason to hide anything from you any longer."
She paused, frowning deeply, looking more and more uncomfortable as she spoke. "What I'm saying is I would rather die trying to make this work than do anything else, and I will follow you anywhere, into anything, unless you tell me not to."
Dalton looked back at her. This felt more surprising than finding actual aliens. He knew that she was smitten with him. That she had insinuated herself to him so thoroughly so quickly spoke to that, but he thought most of her motivation had been whatever was causing her to flee the Confederacy.
"Ari...it sounds like you're saying that you...love me," he said.
She looked more uncomfortable than ever, almost a grimace on her blushing face now. "Inasmuch as I can love someone...yes, I do," she whispered, then cleared her throat. "I'm...sorry if this complicates things. But I...I don't have much experience with emotions. I'm scared, Erik."
"Ari," he said quietly, and then hugged her. It was awkward in the power armor, but he managed it. He raised his visor and kissed the top of her head. "It'll be okay."
"Are you sure about that?" she murmured.
"I mean, no, not so much with the damn zerg but–"
"No," she said, looking up at him, "not that. With us."
"Oh. Yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"Why? I don't really know how to have a relationship, Erik. I never have, not really. And I'm feeling things...they're so intense. I haven't felt anything this intense for a long, long time. Not since I was a kid."
"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, Ari," he said quietly, still staring into her electric eyes. "But I'm willing to work with you on this."
"Why?" she whispered. "Why do you care?"
"Well...I mean, you're pretty great."
"I'm a monster. I've done horrific things. You have no idea what I've done."
"You were a tool, crafted and honed and utilized by an uncaring, unfeeling government, Ari. They literally conditioned you to follow orders, to not ask questions. They did the same thing with me. With everyone on this ship. But I've done some pretty bad things, and not because I wanted to."
She stared at him in tense silence for a few seconds. "Answer the question," she said finally. "Why? Why are you bothering with me?"
"Because…" Dalton thought about it. Really thought about it. He wasn't sure he had a good answer. "Because I like you. Because while it's a complicated mess right now, I'm reasonably sure that I'm falling in love with you, too."
"So...it's not really a choice," she murmured.
"No," Dalton replied firmly, startling her a little. "No, Ari, that's bullshit. It is a choice. How we feel isn't a choice, but what we do is. And I'm choosing to be with you."
"It doesn't feel like a choice for me," she whispered. "It feels like...I must be with you, near you, beside you. The idea of leaving you terrifies me. I've never felt like this before."
"But you could leave me, if you had to. Listen, what you're experiencing is what they call the Honeymoon Phase. It happens when you meet someone who catches your interest and you engage with them and you have chemistry. We have chemistry. But it won't last forever."
"I'm going to fall out of love with you?" she asked, dismayed.
"I don't know," he said. Dalton thought for a moment, then sighed. "It's-Ari, this is a very complicated subject. I guess, to give you a crash course: falling in love is easy, but after a little while, a few weeks, maybe a few months if you're lucky, you gotta choose to keep the relationship going. The feelings fade. They don't vanish, not really, but they do fade. What you're feeling right now is more lust than love. Love is...it isn't as potent, but it is...deeper." He sighed again. "It's so very hard to describe and it's different for everyone in one way or another, but we can discuss this later. Here's the important part: I want to be in a relationship with you and I want to communicate to you that you can trust me to be patient with you, to work with you. I acknowledge that this is going to be an...unusual relationship, but I'm willing to work with that, because I care about you. Okay?"
Emotions and questions played across her face. They both looked around suddenly as the rattling surrounding them began to smooth out.
"We're leaving the atmosphere," she said.
"Yep," he replied.
She pulled her mask back on, becoming Frost again. "I accept what you've told me. Let's get back to work."
"Yep," he repeated.
They split up, Frost heading back into the cabin while Dalton went forward. He found Alder working the controls. Beyond the single bubble window that sealed them in, he saw the last wisps of the atmosphere trailing away and then they could see the stars with a cold, hard clarity. He spotted a few vessels flying around far off and, closer, the broad bulk of the space station. It looked pretty well lit up, at least.
"Everything okay back there?" Alder asked.
"Yeah...could you hear us talking?" Dalton replied.
"No, but you shut my door and I figured something serious must be going on."
"Ah. Just...discussing things. Where are we?"
"Presently, we're about ten minutes from docking with that space station out there. We've got the airspace more or less to ourselves up here, but that won't last. And honestly, I'm not sure this ship is gonna last, either. We'll probably manage to dock, but beyond that? Doubt it."
"Perfect," he muttered. He glanced down at her again. "So you're really just cool walking away from your life? From all this?"
"More than cool with it," she replied easily. "Hate the Confederacy. Hate this fucking planet. Hate most of the people I had to work around. You might think I'm a hateful person, but the truth is, I'm not. I love people, I just kept finding myself in situations with assholes. But now you're telling me I can walk away from all that, try and carve out a life for myself? My life was already rough, and if that's the case, then I'd rather it be rough in pursuit of real happiness." She was chewing gum, he realized suddenly. She blew a bubble and popped it, then looked at him in the reflection of the glass. "And it doesn't hurt to have a leader so easy on the eyes."
Dalton stared back at her. She was laying it on kind of thick, and goddamnit did he want to respond. He'd kind of forgotten it, but he had a thing for pilot babes, especially dropship pilots. Something about them just got to him in the best way. Something about the sunglasses they tended to wear, the baseball caps and the way they wore their hair in ponytails, the jumpsuit that always seemed to hug and accentuate their bodies.
And damn if Alder wasn't the spitting image of the poster girl they tended to use in their dropship pilot program propaganda. Shit, he'd had a pinup of that chick all through Basic.
Why now? Dalton opened his mouth to explain to her that while he would be fucking thrilled to have some fun with her, he couldn't, because he was falling in love with a Ghost apparently and was committed to her, when Dixon called his name from the cabin.
He sighed. "Uh, I'll be back in a moment."
"I'll be here waiting for you," she replied and popped her gum again.
What a stupid time to have this problem.
"What?" he asked, coming back and looking around the cabin.
"Kids are wondering about this place you're staking our entire lives on," Dixon said.
"Right. Well, I was only there for about two days. It's called Thule, and it's mostly frozen mountains and frozen forests. It's a hard land. Some dangerous wildlife, too."
"What were you doing there?" Baker asked.
"Looking for a fugitive." He paused, glanced uncertainly at Frost. "A rogue Ghost. I was part of an outfit sent in to back up another Ghost they sent after the first one."
"Did you get 'em?" Baker asked after a long, awkward moment of silence.
"Yeah, we got him. I remember there being a lot of mineral fields from what I could see as we flew in. And we passed several abandoned outposts and a derelict colony even. Plus, there's an orbital graveyard. We'll be able to salvage a shitload. Just gotta get there first."
"Dalton, you're gonna wanna see this," Alder called back from the cockpit.
He noted the teasing tone was completely gone from her voice. Great. He hurried back up front and before he could even ask, he saw the problem.
"Oh fuck me," he muttered.
The space station was a lot closer now, and it was indeed quite well lit. Unfortunately, that light wasn't what he'd hoped it would be. Several geysers of flame were blasting into space, supplied by jets of oxygen or Vespene venting from damaged pipes. Big bits of debris formed a rough ring around the station.
"I'm flaring red," Alder said flatly. "We need to hit that station."
"Yeah, do it," he replied. "Land how you can."
"You'd better buckle up."
He nodded and shouted for the others to get secure as he hurried back to his seat.
"What's happening?" Frost asked.
Dalton strapped in. "Station's in really bad shape, and we're coming in for a rough landing."
"Par for the course," Forrester muttered.
The next two minutes passed in tense silence, with the dropship creaking and groaning around them.
"Okay, we're coming in hot!" Alder called.
A moment later, something popped loudly somewhere overhead and then abruptly the dropship lurched violently. The sound of rending metal came to them and the lurching continued, becoming a strong trembling. Dalton realized they'd hit a solid surface and were now skidding along it. The trembling slowly subsided, though several more things popped and snapped around them. Sparks flew and a faint smoky haze began to appear on the air.
And then it was over, and all was still and silent.
"Okay," Alder said, her voice growing closer. She appeared at the head of the cabin. "Good news: I got us down in one piece. Bad news: this ship is dead, the hangar we managed to get into is exposed to hard vacuum, and I'm pretty sure those monsters are onboard. Saw a dead one out there."
"Can the hangar be repressurized?" Dalton asked.
"Well I sure as shit hope so because I don't have a suit and several of you have compromised suits of armor," Alder replied.
Dalton frowned deeply as he glanced at his shoulder. "Right...okay, someone's gotta get out there."
"I'll go," Dixon said, already unbuckling and getting to his feet.
"Dix–" Dalton began, but Dixon pressed on relentlessly.
"If someone's gonna risk their life, it's gonna be me. Don't worry, I know how to repressurize a hangar bay."
"Yeah, but you've got a damn flamethrower. Those don't work in space," Dalton replied.
"I'll manage," Dix replied, and headed into the airlock.
"Definitely going to have to work on the chain of command," Dalton muttered as he leaned back in his seat.
A long moment went by as the airlock cycled. Then he heard a crackle over the radio. "Okay, I'm out. Gravity still works. It's a fucking mess out here, though," Dix muttered.
"Combat?" Dalton asked.
"Yeah, a shitload. I mean a slaughter. Wonder how they got onboard...okay, I see a control console. Going for it. From what I can see, the door looks intact. I think someone opened it instead of blew it out. Gimme a moment."
Another long pause, the only sound the damaged dropship around them and Dix muttering occasionally to himself. Finally, Dalton thought he felt the faintest of vibrations, like something huge moving nearby.
"Okay, got it. Bay door is closing. And...reintroducing atmosphere now...okay, give it two minutes and then we'll have pressure."
"Perfect," Dalton said, getting up. "Let's get this show on the road. We don't have a lot of time."