Abel leaned against the central processing station at the heart of Fifth Fleet. The room had been difficult to locate, with its doors and passageways hidden behind false walls that were only detectable to Cambiar using pheromone signals. In the harsh white light of the room, Dusty was hard at work, alongside Titan and Cerella giving encouragement, at trying to divine some details from the computer. In the background, the others were talking loudly.

  “No, no.” Xin said, adamant. “What if it’s a trap? We can’t all go to one or the other, we might be dead meat.”

  “We don’t have a choice.” Marcus retorted. “I mean, it’s gonna take all of us to sort the fusion engine.”

  “Well, unless…” Xin seemed to consider the only person likely to have the required knowledge to fix the Juhgler Trian Fusion Engine.

  “Not yet,” Marcus interrupted. “Not until I see his stupid face. I won’t plan anything until I see him. Thomas, what do you think?”

  The Keeper, who had been in distant thought, with his cords attached to the machine to directly retrieve information, was brought back to the real world upon hearing his name being called.

  “Apologies, Marcus,” Thomas said. I am the least familiar with the exact mechanics behind resolving the overloading engines. I must state that I feel my best position would be with the Schrodinger Engine, as I can directly interface with the controls there, but for the rest of you?” He shrugged.

  The team had rushed to the central databank after splitting with Xeena, Titus and both Stannocks as they headed for the bridge to contact the Cambiar fleet for assistance. Abel had little desire to talk, his face unmoving as stone, even when Pippa had tugged at his clothes. For now, he wanted to wait until he appeared. Then, Abel would let his gut decide the best option.

  Dusty lightly coughed to get their attention. “Hey guys, sorry to interrupt, but it seems our predictions are right. Both the fusion and S-Engines and being set to overload. We have time, but they’re at opposite ends of the ship. If we don’t split up, there’s no way we can reach both in time.”

  They discussed what the results would be, but it wasn’t looking positive. An overloading engine of any type was bad – a fusion going into meltdown, as inaccurate as the term was for the cooled power generators, would overload the system and melt anything in the surrounding hundred kilometres to slag from the raw electrical current. An S-Drive going out of control would result in random jumps in the nearby area, tearing matter apart and separating people from their QIS at random. That was if a fully manifested jump happen, which would render everyone caught in it braindead without the proper tanks and Keepers. Together, however, the result was far, far worse. The massive energy release from the fusion core providing insane amounts of energy, it could send the Schrodinger into a randomized jump with an insane range.

  The end result for a combined overload for engines of the size taken from Ruby Eye could be nearly the entire star system getting their waveforms collapsed and reappearing randomly in a nearby system, killing everyone from either the jump or the net result of two stars appearing inside another. It was all highly theoretical, but Paradise had seemingly run the numbers, and their predications were growing more and more accurate as the central unit calculated likely outcomes when both engines reached their limits. Regardless, absurd reality breaking predictions aside, either engine going out of control would kill everyone on Fifth Spoke, no questions asked.

  “Alright, anything else Puppy?” Xin sauntered over to read the screen from behind Dusty’s shoulder, a level of closeness that Titan huffed at. Apparently, the giant soldier alien was rather jealous of the tattooed woman’s disregard for personal space.

  “Well… the scanners are on the fuzzy side, some interference is coming from Lighthouse but yeah, we’ve got a mix of what seem to be Paradisians and Doctrine towards those two ends. The ID tags for the ones towards the S-Engine, where Lighthouse rammed into us, are going down for some reason, but maybe they’re camouflaging? The computers labelled a bunch as ‘arti-humans’, which I think means goreskins. Most of those are stuck in the cargo hold, in the containers taken from Starheart and Ruby Eye. On Lighthouse itself… it’s bad. Really bad. There are thousands of them preparing to disembark. The ones that have moved so far are just the advance teams.”

  “Right. Ok, cool. Well, not cool, but you know what I mean. Good work kid. Anything else?”

  “Um… we’ve got a regular crew tag coming this way? Just in the hallway… outside?”

  Nobody said a word, the information processing. As one, the team then all rushed out of the room back into the main hallway, aside from Thomas who was still plugged in. Abel sluggishly followed behind the rest, dreading the decision his gut would come to.

  Stepping outside, they could see in the darkness, outlined in pulsing orange and surrounded by the fog that had started seeping once more throughout the alien ship, a figure. It lurched with every step towards them, but the rough shape of the jacket was unmistakable.

  Sal.

  Xin turned to the others, whispering, “Alright guys, you remember the plan. We get him to apologize, beg to come back to the team, we take him back in but under Dusty’s management, ok? Then, once this blows over, we go back to normal. Deal?”

  Before anyone could respond, Sal stepped closer, his breathing heavy. Clearing her throat and partially faking anger, Xin stomped up to him.

  “You fucker! What kind of sick fucking game were you playing walking aw- oh my god your face!”

  Sal heaved closer into the light, most of his cheek blown off to show teeth and sinew below. Part of his earlobe dangled loosely from his head and blood caked every inch of his clothes. Crimson leaked from the seam of knitted skin that clearly outlined a huge scar from hip to nipple on his left side, a fitting pair for his old diagonal wound. His hair was a ragged mop, and his beard was stained with gore.

  “It’s worse than it looks,” Sal croaked out. He attempted to wave off their concerns, but that only showed off his mangled hand, pale metacarpals sticking out into the open air.

  If there had been any anger within the team towards the man, real or fake at the moment, it had faded at the sight of his wretched state. Dusty winced at the sight of the Torcher’s leader being so utterly brutalized. Marcus had previously stated his intention to punch the engineer the next time he saw him and Abel genuinely thought the planned strike would kill the man in his current state.

  “Guys… I…” Sal dropped to a knee. He had been bending to bow down but involuntary fell, limbs shaking with weakness.

  “I failed you. I let you down. You can’t forgive that, not when you trusted me. I can’t excuse it, and neither should you. But… for the sake of everyone on the ship, for now, we have bigger issues.” He pointed upwards, towards the occasionally repeating message echoing through the speakers. The engines were still being rigged to blow, and everyone knew Sal had the skills to help. That was all the wounded man seemed to think about.

  No one moved, too uncertain of what actions to take. Xin stood, shocked by his state and holding her arm. Marcus still stewed with anger, but now looked on with more pity in his gaze than hate. Dusty just looked lost. Everyone had been overjoyed to hear of Sal’s return and had grilled Titus relentlessly for holding out that tidbit of info when they met up with him. To see him now, not some proud, stoic figure like usual further cracked the once pristine image they had of the man. Abel made the first move.

  Moving to the front of the group, standing next to Xin who rubbed her arm anxiously. Abel looked down on his superior officer, his friend, his brother. Slowly, the angle causing strain, Sal craned his neck upwards to return his look. Abel’s breathing had grown tense, heavy. Building upwards, the pressure rising, the tension forced him to make the only move he could.

  He crouched down, wrapped his arms around Sal’s sides, pinning them there, and lifted him up in a bear hug. Feet dangling, Sal barely whispered out, “Abel, my side, please man.”

  Abel cared not; tears flowed from his eyes freely as he rested his head in Sal’s neck. Spinning him around like a doll, he whispered, “I knew you had it in you, brother. Always. I knew it. I knew it.”

  Sal visibly attempted to hold it back, but an ugly cry escaped the man as he did his best to return the hug, legs still flailing about.

  Returning him to the ground and feeling all the better for tossing his friend around, Abel sighed and grinned once more.

  “So, brother. Where do we start?”

  Xeena climbed up flight after flight of steps upwards to the bridge. If there was one engineering design the Cambiar had made to suit the humans’ tastes that she disapproved of, it was the placement of the bridge on the outer hull of the ship, high above any regular deck. Or at least, not designing elevators capable of surviving Doctrine raids to go along with them. Even with her enhanced Cambiar physiology, the effects of her newly adapted genes kicking in, it was exerting work ascending from the lower decks. Stannock had been relegated to being carried by his body double companion, not that he complained, whilst Titus continued to leap up flight after flight of steps. Though damaged from his crash landing, his endurance had clearly not been too badly diminished.

  With great effort and time spent, they reached the final steps that led to the imposing bulkhead of Fifth Spoke’s bridge control. Lightly panting, Xeena approached the control panel for the door and activated the hatch release. Oddly, the door, one of human design, had already been unlocked. Glancing over at Titus, he nodded and readied his posture for fighting. Servos whirring, an armature locked into place over the door and pulled it wide, revealing a brightly lit interior.

  Unlike other parts of the ship, the bridge had remained fully in the style natural for the Cambiar, with organic looking surfaces made up of her people’s favourite material – bioweld. Cautiously stepping inside, the quartet made their way over to the captain chair which overlooked the other stations and gazed into space through a curved, room-spanning window. With a delicate hand, Xeena spun the chair around.

  Rexia Rubicoss was dead, orange blood trickling from a stab wound to the head. He was slumped in the chair, jaw hanging open loosely. Titus looked around the room, searching for any possible attacker but was left wanting. Both Stannocks made their way over to a panel that, as a result of her new Tenau genes giving her instinctual knowledge of its purpose, served as a communications terminal. Despite his newfound love for all things vanity related, the pilot Cambiar still remembered how to do his job as he connected to another ship, the Tenau slotting in fleshy wires into the back of his neural ports.

  “Attention, this is Fifth Spoke, Tenau Unit 7192-B2 aka Stannock requesting immediate request for contact. Please respond, over.”

  A moment passed, the room lightly humming from the equipment it seemed. A hissing, Cambiar voice replied, the sound routed through the bridge’s speakers, “Fifth Spoke, this is Rexia Zeentach, we copy. What is your request, over?”

  “Request? Sir, the ship is being assaulted by both Heaven Doctrine clans and Paradisian terrorists, and Lighthouse has been obviously highjacked. Where are our reinforcements, and why hasn’t the enemy ship been targeted, sir?” If there had been any ounce of his usual haughty tone, it had died in moments; his voice was serious and deliberate.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “We understand, Tenau. We are in a… difficult position.”

  “Copy, you have insurgents of your own?”

  “Negative, Stannock. We… as is the position of the Out-Han, we must refuse any direct involvement in this conflict. Only when our members are directly attacked can we act.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, that is outrageous! People are dying here, both human and Cambiar. And Lighthouse is just waiting to be taken out. Any minute now it will deploy its soldiers, and Fifth Spoke will be lost. Sir, please.”

  “I… I cannot. Please, understand my position. We must stay neutral. If we interfere, we are at risk of pinning ourselves against factions we do not wish to fight.”

  “Sir, surely you can see this is madness.” The Cambiar was shaking his head. “We’ve spent many weeks with these people. Can’t you see that they are worth fighting for?”

  “I see your position. The members of Henry and Huell Incorporated must be protected. However, to command the death of so many is something I cannot order singlehandedly. I… I cannot carry the burden alone. I would require the recognition of another Rexia to make such a decision, and I am still awaiting Rubicoss’ position on the matter.”

  “Rexia Rubicoss is dead, sir. They’ve been killed.”

  A gasp followed by teeth chattering was heard on the other side of the comm channel. “I am most upset by this. But as it stands, I cannot order the attack of Doctrine forces until I receive confirmation from another Rexia, and you see-“

  “I can stand as Rexia, sir.” Xeena stepped forward, announcing herself. “I am Xeena, Rewarded of the Fifth Digits. I support the motion of the removal of any humans who oppose the non-hostile crewmembers.”

  “Another Rexia? I see. I was not present at your ceremony, but I know of you, Xeena. I… I see. I can order the boarding of attacked vessels but to destroy Lighthouse is still too much for me. Even if I could handle such an order, the risk of crew who we can still negotiate with is still…”

  Xeena sighed, preparing to request the order herself when the charging hum of a weapon grabbed their attention. Titus span, ready to strike but held himself back when he understood what he saw. Peeking out from under what appeared to be tear in the seam of reality, a glowing, colossal weapon was aimed in their direction. Slowly, the seam inverted, revealing itself to be a garment wrapped around a man. He appeared to be wearing a light bending device as a blanket of sorts. Below the invisible sheet, he wore a white and black robe, a small network of golden thread stitched above his heart.

  He shrugged the light bending cloth off his shoulders, the optical camouflage falling to the ground, and it starting to match the black-green of the floor perfectly. Titus had earlier described the large weapon, with glowing lines running along its black length, held by the man – a Masslock Recoilless Rifle, capable of blowing half the room out into the vacuum of space with an errant twitch of his finger.

  “Hello everyone!” Erohin happily cried, charging the weapon to maximum output.

  The team of Torchers stood around the terminal, reading the schematics closely. Sal rubbed his beard in thought, after having washed it out with some water, as he continued working out the best combinations of team members for each task. Though many of the others chatted and discussed, Sal stood silent until Abel approached.

  “So, brother, what are you thinking?” It was good to see his broad smile once more.

  “I’ve got an idea, but I want to hear what you think first. If it goes as planned, I think we have a real shot at this.” Looking over to Dustin, he asked the young man, “Dusty, how are the enemy counts looking?”

  The young man sprang to action, switching to a different screen. “Counts near the fusion engine are dropping, but there’s still at least a few dozen in the chamber itself at the moment. S-Drive is looking better, path is pretty much clear, seems to be dropping every second. Still not sure why. Decompression maybe? Atmosphere still looks good on the readings but the scanners could be faulty.” He shrugged.

  Sal had relayed the information that Mikhail had told him. His wild ideas sounded like they would be huge problem for the galaxy’s future, but was something for Sal to worry about later. Still, as the madman had eventually helped Sal back onto his feet, he mentioned about ‘clearing a path’ to the hangers, which also happened to be the way to the Schrodinger drive. Doing his best to forget about the bizarre man, Sal wanted to get some input.

  Raising his voice, he spoke up, “Alright guys, I’ve got an idea.”

  As the room turned to face him, Sal felt nervous. Before, he had no trouble giving orders to the Torchers, but that was before his weakness and fear had overtaken him. Now, did he have the right to give such instructions? Before he could change his mind, Abel patted him on the back.

  “Our wonderful boy here does have a good plan. I’ve got a bet I want to make, but I’ll keep my mouth shut until he gives us his idea.” Abel tapped his temple, preparing to cashout on some prediction. Great.

  Clearing his throat, Sal began, “Ok, so here’s the general idea. To reach the S-Drive, there’s the transport network. The central hub still says it works, so no problem there, and if you take the undercarriage, there’ll be almost no resistance. Getting to the fusion engine will be harder. Walking will take too long, so I’ve got an alternative. The cargo line has a hauler not far from here, and can be used to get close, as long as the driver knows their stuff.” Sal replicated the motion of revving a motorcycle, as the cargo hauler used a similar styled handle for controlling its throttle and movement. He barely resisted the urge to make a sound, however.

  “So, here’s my position – Xin, Ace, Marcus, Cerella, Dusty, Titan, Pippa, and Thomas will all go for the S-Drive, me and Abel will go for the Fusion Engine. I can drive the cargo hauler – had a bike for a while back on Titanlock.”

  “Whoa Sal, I know you’re ready to prove yourself but that seems a bit of an unfair split, don’t you think?” Marcus folded his arms.

  “Honestly, I’m surprised he’s letting me go with him. I was betting on him riding solo!” Abel seemed proud to lose a bet for once.

  “I know it sounds stupid, but here’s my reasoning. The S-Drive is relatively easy to power down, but the problem is the number of layers. It’s less a matter of difficult, more of time. If you want to reach the inner core, it will take a lot of effort, even with a whole team. It’s meant to take a team of ten an hour to do it, for reference. Thomas can plug into the diagnostics of the Schrodinger, the Cambiar can handle the heavy parts or small spaces whilst Xin, Marcus and Dusty can work on the actual core itself. The fusion engine on the other hand requires specific knowledge for the different errors that can pop up. In a split second, a different configuration of control rods might be needed, and that knowledge can’t be taught in the time we have left. But I know it, since I’ve had experience babysitting a Juhgler before. In terms of manpower, it’s closer to a one-man job, but I’d like Abel with me, just in case.”

  “Um, sir?” Dusty raised a hand. “Can we… actually do it? I was thinking you would go the S-Drive, since it’s a reality bending teleport machine and all.”

  “Dusty, Xin, Marcus. You guys are not some crappy mechanics stumbling in from New Paris or wherever – you are the best of the best. Don’t forget the time we’ve put into this. The danger at the S-Drive’s core will be relatively low – no rads like the shows. It just takes some time and numbers to get to the centre. The fusion engine on the other hand only requires one or two pairs of hands but will need someone with experience to carefully power it down without blowing all of Fifth Spoke to hell.”

  “Sorry, Sal, just a question.” Xin sheepishly asked, as if she should know the answer. “Why don’t we just deal with the fusion engine alone? Won’t that cut power to the S-Drive? Stop this whole thing?”

  Sal shook his head, and Thomas spoke up to support him. “Unfortunately, once the S-Drive reaches a certain power level, its components can continue to generate its own electricity by drawing chiral-waves from throughout the nearby environment. It naturally self-sustains itself until an operator or Keeper can step in. Honestly, we Keepers are actually on a bit of a time limit after each jump to switch it off.”

  “So, we need to go to both, no matter what?” Marcus asked.

  “That’s right. So, that’s my plan, any objections?” Sal crossed his arms.

  “I have one, Senior Supervisor,” a harsh, ragged voice answered behind them.

  As they were talking, they had forgotten to lock the door. From the archway, coated in cuts and slices stood Captain Curtin, a wild frenzy to his eyes, and a shotgun in his hands. His once proud uniform had been torn and shredded, his thin beard nicked, and a swollen wrist held the large weapon.

  “Well, well, well, here are some traitors it seems, trying to take all the data for yourselves, hmm?” His voice was a stretched wire, close to snapping. There was little of the direct anger Sal had seen many times before – the Captain’s psyche was hanging by a thread. The shaking of his hands, finger pressed on the trigger, did little to ease the tension.

  Ah shit.

  Everyone else in the room stepped back as Sal limped into the line of fire, raising his hands.

  “Hello sir,” Sal asked, voice as soft as he could make it. “Are you ok? H&H requires all commanding staff to be able to perform their functions, right Captain?”

  “Am I ok?! Am I… Yes. I am well. Henry and Huell needs me.” He feverishly giggled, the corners of his mouth twitching. “It is people like you who are unwell, you who are breaking company policy. Everyone’s a traitor. All of Titus’ useless fucking intelligence teams have gone to the Doctrine, my goddamn bodyguards turned out to Paradisian dogs. And you… all of you…”

  Sal had to handle this carefully. He trusted that Abel remembered a one-off stupid conversation they had shared during a film night many years back as he shuffled forward and put great effort into his voice.

  “Ah sir, I’m not a traitor! In fact, none of us are. I know this might look bad, but I am securing the future of H&H endeavours here, sir!” He tried speaking lightly, calmly so as to not sound rebellious to the thin-skinned officer. He recalled the way the man focused on H&H and their future after the investigation of Ruby Eye and banked everything on trying to relax him.

  “Yes… H&H. That’s right. That’s what I am here for. What are you doing, if not betraying the company? Your superiors?”

  “Well, sir, I was actually about to get on Marshstrider, my name is on the register if you wish to check, but I actually volunteered to get something H&H would desperately need – the diagnostics of the Cambiar fleet from this here terminal, see?”

  He leaned over slightly to reveal the schematics of the ship, discretely switched over by Dusty to show the manufacturing areas layout, their structure highlighted in green. Curtin surveyed them before seemingly checking the Marshstrider registrar on his in-eye visual display. One his eyes flicking up, showing nothing but white, Curtin eventually relaxed, Sal’s story so far matching up.

  “I see. Well. What about these freaks here? Why are they alive?” Curtin pointed his gun towards Titan, Ace and Cerella. The Delkar looked like she was resisting the urge to charge forward and crush the man in seconds. Sal might not be able to tank a shotgun blast to the face, but she certainly could, probably a hundred times over.

  “Ah sir, we were just using them to access the terminal.” Sal did his best to switch to the Doctrine language, praying Curtin wouldn’t shoot him.

  “They don’t know this language. We’re planning on killing them once we have the data. Stupid not-humans.” He emphasised with a wink. Abel had shuffled slightly to Curtin’s side and was sweating bullets.

  Curtin was no longer pointing the gun at Sal, but at Ace, a feral smile on his lips. “Good work, boy. Good work. How long left until you have it all?”

  “Ah, sir, we need some more time to fully extract it all. We can’t risk corrupting it. Mr Dexter would want it all intact, wouldn’t he?” Sal made his final move and did a corporate salute at the mention of the board member’s name. Curtin, swept up in madness and rapturous praise for the corporation went to copy the salute, lowered his gun just enough for everyone to be out of its line of fire.

  Seizing the moment, Abel leapt forward and clocked him one across the jaw. The shotgun went flying, discharging as everyone else ducked for cover. Thankfully, Curtin’s weak grip led to the only casualty being a vent panel to the side. The Captain slumped to the floor unconscious, murmuring something about traitors.

  “Whoa… That… was tense,” Abel shook his hand in pain, apparently having hit in-skin implants or augments within the broken man’s jaw. “Thanks Sal. Guess you remembered that chat? The one from ages back about if we were ever in a hostage situation?”

  “Hell yeah. Didn’t have any duct tape to hold a gun on my back this time, but a talk down and surprise attack works just as well.” Nevertheless, Sal laughed nervously. That had been too close for comfort.

  Abel hefted the shotgun and pumped it, smoking spent shell falling to the floor. Sal bent down and retrieved the officer’s shock baton Curtin had secured to his belt, giving it a test shock. Lightning arced along the outer surface of the prod’s head, and he was satisfied.

  “What should we do with him?” Dusty said, uncertain.

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Marcus mimed turning the gun on its former user for a moment and firing a shot before Dusty gave him a scowl.

  “As much as I’d like to crush him, it’d probably best to just tie him up for now.” Titan sorely said, snapping her claws. “Let H&H pick him up once the situation is a bit clearer.”

  The team gathered their supplies, tied up the captain and made their way out of the central processing room. Aside from Pippa repeatedly telling Abel to be safe, everyone seemed on board with the plan, and the two groups separated for some last discussions. Watching the rest of the team talk amongst themselves, Sal wondered when the next time he would see them, or Xeena would be. Xeena… He would need to definitely make it up to her, no matter what.

  Abel could see the consternation on his face and thumped him on the back. “Come on brother. Waiting here all day won’t fix things, right?”

  “Too right. Let’s make a move, cargo tunnel’s not far from here.”

  Abel grunted in agreement, but before they could leave, he spoke up. “Oh Sal?”

  “Hmm?”

  “It hasn’t been long, and there’s the risk we get might not get out of this in one piece but for the record… I’m glad you’ve changed, for the better, that is.”

  “Yeah. Me too. I’m not turning back. And besides, I’ve got you by my side.” Sal savagely grinned, fleshless cheek spreading it wide. “Oh, I’ve got to do one last thing. For the team.”

  Abel cocked his head, watching his friend. With a deep breath Sal closed his eyes and raised his head to the heavens. The others in the hallway all turned, noticing their leader preparing something. A moment passed, his heartbeats like drums signalling the beginning of the end.

  “Torchers!” Sal snapped his eyes open and flared a wild smile. “Let’s do this!”