Planning a breakout for a prisoner in the station brig would be a lot more impressive if it wasn't mostly Brent shuffling some paperwork around. Well, digitalwork, technically, but the point stands. I'll say this; bureaucracy is a tool, and like every good cop, he knows how to use it to their advantage. The brig, two rows of six cells with automated doors and controls and an AI platform to process the prisoners. No human error, and no chance of a human abusing their position. Of course, it means procedure is predictable. Neat and tidy. Plus, the block is utterly faraday-caged to keep the prisoner's avatars imprisoned as well. It works well for humans and synths. It's equal opportunity imprisonment.

  As it happens, the 'breakout' is a lot more mundane than the name would imply. No crawling through vents or spoofing cameras. No hacking terminals or feeding false credentials. Brent walks into the brig, spends ten minutes or so processing her digitalwork, and then he emerges with a slightly sour looking ecoterrorist. Her eyes widen when she sees me, and my heart skips a beat when those brown eyes meet mine. "Well, good to see you," I say, giving her a weak smile. It really is.

  Sparrow smiles back, perhaps a little more warmly, smoothing her clothes. That she clearly slept in. She blushes, brushing her blue hair back. After all this, she's self-conscious? And look at that tattoo sliding in serpentine patterns- "Yes, sorry, I have bed-head. But the Sergeant says he's escorting me to the Chimera...?" She asks, hesitantly.

  I tear my eyes up from her tattoo, blushing as I nod. "We have a plan. To take out Communion on the surface, before it spreads. We'd need the Chimera. And you." I swallow. "But it's dangerous-"

  "Done. I'm in," she says, taking a step towards me and reaching out, taking my hand in hers. I want to hug her, but with the Sergeant there, I just squeeze her hand back.

  Brent smirks. "Come on, ladies. We have a ride to catch, and an appointment with a civilization-eating abomination," he says, before turning and leading us away from the brig.

  As we head towards the docks, I briefly fill Sparrow in on the plan. "You don't have to come with us," I say, shaking my head. "I mean, I'm rated to fly a lunar shuttle, and I can't ask you to risk yourself. Just unlock it, and we'll take care of it from-"

  "No way!" She says, heated. "This ship is my home. Where it goes, I go. End of story."

  I bite my bottom lip. "Sparrow, we're hotwiring ourselves a nuke. And we can't drop it from orbit, we need to land. You-"

  "And I'm not letting you pilot the Chimera through that chop in the atmosphere. I barely landed her the last time. I'm going down. To make sure I get my ship back," she says.

  I swallow. "You could die."

  She sighs at that. "Melody, Communion threatens everyone, everywhere, right?" She gives me a glance as we ascend the axis to the docking bay. "Besides, you backed me up down there last time. You could have died, but you stopped Rusteater from killing Cartwright."

  I scoff at that. "Fat good that did us..." I say, reaching down to touch my tender side.

  Sparrow smiles as we emerge into the bay, before the Chimera. She squeezes my hand again, and the last few days seem less horrific when she does. "I'm here for you Melody... so let's kick it's ass."

  The stocky maintenance bots follow shortly behind us. Brent's directing them while Sparrow warms the engine and I file the flight-plan. The bots are vaguely humanoid, though they have treads instead of feet, and they are both short and squat. Two of them are carrying the large, one-ton reactor between them, while a third follows with a tritium tank and cargo-webbing. Oh, and three voidsuits in fresh packing. Smart thinking, Sergeant.

  The bots web the reactor in place, attaching it securely to the floor and walls of the cargo bay, while Brent fiddles with a small device. The reactor is a waist-high icosahedron; a sphere made of triangles. It looks like one of the dice from that wirehead's game in the bar, writ large. If it rolls around, though, it'll probably tear up the ship, so the Sergeant supervises the securing of the cargo. Of the bomb.

  I climb the ladder and strap in as the bots finish up. They file out with a low mechanical whir, and Brent climbs up behind me as the bay seals shut. I finish logging the flight plan; since we're going back to the surface in the same ship, I'm able to copy-paste most of the information. Handy.

  Sparrow straps herself into the pilot's seat of course. "Are we taking the maintenance bots with us?" she asks.

  I shake my head as she begins to fire up the engine. "No, we can't risk bringing anything synthetic for Communion to seize. We'll have to make sure we don't link to anything down there, either," I say.

  "True, so we'll have to just toss the reactor out the bay and skedaddle," Brent laughs. "The override is keyed in. Just load the tritium in, hit the button, and you've got about forty minutes until it goes boom."

  I gulp at that. "Not a lot of time, but enough to get out of range..." I say. We hope.

  Brent graciously offers to strap himself into the crash seat in the engine room. "I'll give you ladies some girl time," he teases, winking a cross-slitted eye, as I flip him the middle finger. I smile, though.

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  Sparrow buckles herself in, and the Chimera shudders as she pulls away from the dock. "So, how is this going down?" she asks me, her voice cracking a bit.

  I shake my head. "We'll have to touch down on the landing pad, pull the reactor out, leave it active in the bay, and leave. I don't want it exposed to the atmosphere outside the base, even thin as it is. With our luck, some component will frost over and stick. We'll set down on the same landing pad again."

  She pulls the nav console up and inputs the route. "Does it matter where we leave it? The computer core is in another part of the base. Is the landing pad good enough?"

  I snort. "It's a fusion bomb. It doesn't have to be next to the computer core; this'll do it."

  Rockchaser comes out of the back. "You said Captain Cartwright hitched a ride from the surface. He had his plasma rifle with him when he came back from the lunar base?"

  I think for a moment, but nod. "Yes, definitely, I remember it was slung across his back. Why?"

  He clicks his tongue. "Because he didn't have one when he stepped off the Chimera."

  I open my mouth, but pause. Hey, that's right. "He was unarmed when you met us at the dock. Where did he...?"

  "The bathroom," Brent says with a grin, as he pulls the plasma rifle out from behind him.

  My eyes widen, and I laugh out loud. "You're kidding? Cartwright forgot his rifle after taking a piss?" The laughter makes my rib blaze with pain, but I can't stop it.

  Brent chuckles but shakes his head. "Doubt it. That man forgets nothing. His mind is a steel trap."

  That does stop my laughter, which helps my rib. "Wait, what are you telling me?"

  Brent grins. "It's not his rifle, you know. It's not standard issue for a scouting officer. Plus, I checked its capacity; it's modded and unregistered." Rockchaser shakes his head. "It's a pretty uncommon combination, and I remember this one in particular. Cartwright confiscated it from a hydrocarbon smuggler he arrested, oh, about four years ago."

  I roll that in my head a little, but nothing comes together. "He was ditching it, because of the incoming Navy frigate? Or you mean he was setting Sparrow up to take the fall for an unregistered weapon?" But he didn't charge her over the illegal plasma pistol. That doesn't make sense.

  Brent hands the rifle to Sparrow, who's eyes go wide. She takes it in an uncertain hand, before placing it next to her seat like it might explode. Brent eyes me up and down. "Cartwright is a man that lives his life by protocol. And he knows when to break protocol. Sparrow was never going to end up in prison."

  Well... ok... "So, what? He had something else in mind? A penal colony? Rehabilitation ward?"

  Brent gives me a level look. "If I had to guess? Captain would have cut another deal. She'd have been a CI again, or something like that. He'd pretty much own her forever at that point," Brent admits, nodding his head, "but he's not a terrible boss if you work with him. And obey protocol." Brent turns his head and gives me a sad look. "You two just couldn't mesh. Wrong personality types. Plus, you're too snarky for him."

  I chuckle at that. "Fair point. So, he left her the rifle... as a gift?"

  The perpetual grin widens. "Why do you think I never bitched about the man to you, El Tee? Because he's good people in his own way."

  Eh, maybe. "He didn't do anything about Rabi or Communion," I grumble.

  Brent slaps a hand on my shoulder. "You came in and laid some wild stuff on the table about Rabi and demanded he act on it without notice or confirmation. He's not the kick-down-the-door and come in guns-blazing sort. He's the kind to file to get wiretaps and spyware and stakeouts and wait til he has all his digits in order before he makes his move." He shakes his head. "Sorry El Tee, Rabi was just the wrong sorta villian to put Cartwright up against. You were right about one thing; she'd eat him for breakfast."

  That makes sense, but... "I'm still not sure I understand why that means he'd give the rifle to Sparrow."

  The sergeant sighs. "Because he's a man who understands his own limitations and sees his own flaws." I get chills hearing those words echo from Brent. "He left the rifle so you and Sparrow would have a chance if he blew it, which he recognized as a possibility. Because you are the kick-down-the-door and come in guns-blazing sort, which might be what the situation calls for. And he knows Communion is a threat, even if he's skeptical about the alien origin. It ate Wintz, and she's a synth." Brent sighs. "He's an old-school cop. I respect him, he's great at what he does, but Communion? It's not fair to expect Ashton to take that fight."

  Maybe he would have listened to me, if I hadn't come off like a jaded, resentful asshole. I hang my head. "I feel like I screwed it up. I approached him like an adversary from the start. If I swallowed my pride, maybe things would have played out differently."

  Brent shrugs. "You were never gonna be friends. Coulda made it work professionally, maybe. But if you mean you gave him too little credit, I agree."

  I take a few moments to think. You're wrong about one thing, Cartwright. I do see my flaws. And I can learn from my mistakes. I'll work it out my own way. "I'm going to ping a message to him, even if it sits in the buffer til they get comms back. I'm tired of leaving apologies unsaid. If we all die, at least I'll have that."

  As we decelerate the second to last time, shedding altitude and velocity, the Chimera finally begins to skim the thin atmosphere. We ride out the turbulence once again, and I even manage to avoid biting my tongue this time. I mostly spend my time gripping the chair with white knuckles and trying not to think about the twenty or so spiderbots that might be hosting the newest iteration of Communion. Still, it's not as bad as last time we came in. Sparrow guides us in by transponder signal, and the Chimera kicks like an angry horse. At least I assume, I never actually rode a horse.

  I'm linked to Brent and Sparrow through the Chimera's comm system. "Sparrow, I want you to remove your temp augment when we approach; I know it seems paranoid, but do it. I'm going to shut my nodes down entirely." I'll be locked out of D-space, but we shouldn't have to go in. I hope. "Brent," I hiss, "filters up, close down everything you can, don't accept links, firewalls everywhere you can. Any protection you can think of, use it. Don't take any risks. In fact, Sparrow, shut down the Chimera's comms array entirely once we approach."

  "Are you kidding? Melody, we won't be able to talk to each other! What if something goes wrong?" Her voice is high and tight as her eyes focus on the nav display.

  I shake my head. "Hopefully, Communion won't even see us if our comms are off. We'll probably be in range of one of the base's nodes or hardware even in the landing pad, but it might not notice us at all as long as we make no noise. Either way, we land, drop the bomb, get out fast and silent. Square away whatever you have to now: there’s nothing else for us to talk about. After all, it doesn't know we're coming," I say, gritting my teeth.

  It's a decent plan, but I'm wrong about one thing. It knows we're coming.