"Gribbon?"

  The first thing Steven felt was dust. Hot, dry, dust. A familiar sensation now. Next was the blow of wind, which brushed the back of his dried, sweat covered neck. He raised his head up, vision blurry, but thought he saw the rest of the crew stumbling on the sand. He felt warmth from behind him, and looked back, his neck feeling like it had been used as gym punching bag, to see the flying saucer in flames, half dug and sunk into the ground.

  "Gribbon?", a nasally voice said again. Steven focused in front of him, a man in a robe holding some type of mobile grill in his hands, a caravan behind him.

  "...what?", Steven asked.

  "Gribbon. It's the freshest in the galaxy, and authentic too. Not that imitation stuff. They're humanly caught as well. We'll give you a pound for twenty-eight beckons."

  Steven groaned, letting his head fall back into the sand (which caused his pounding headache to worsen).

  "Am I in hell", Steven groaned.

  "My father, who spent his life hunting and selling Gribbon without much success would argue yes, but let the succulent quality of my Gribbon and affordable price tell you otherwise."

  Steven sighed, his stomach rumbling. He raised his head back up.

  "...how much for half a pound?"

  ***

  The Lazy Wolf, as well as The Hartshorns, sat aboard a shuttle, leaving Tin-ful, the moon they had crashed on, and neighboring moon to Hin-ful, to Hemfiar, where Paul lay waiting. They were dinged, and dirtied, and bloodied, but that looked par for the course for the denizens of the shuttle craft. Across the aisle, a man with a eyepatch and cyborg limb fondled the breast of the seemingly unwilling woman next to him, using his one good arm. Steven watched furtively, and when he began to get up, Mozzie grabbed his arm.

  "Don't. It'll bring unwanted attention, and most importantly, it's not our problem."

  Steven looked at Mozzie, then back to the man and woman, before sighing and sitting down.

  "Some heroine you are."

  "I never claimed to be", Mozzie replied curtly. "And if it was me, they wouldn't help. None of them would."

  Steven looked at Mozzie, silent.

  "I would. Help you, I mean."

  Mozzie snorted, the sound almost adjacent to a pig.

  "You? I doubt it."

  Steven was silent again, until-

  "You remind me of someone. Someone I used to know."

  He turned to Mozzie.

  "Except she wasn't such a bitch."

  Mozzie looked at Steven a moment, her eyes cold, before beginning to chuckle, Steven following suit. After a moment, the laughter chugged out, and silence took its place. Mozzie dug back into her seat.

  "You should get some sleep if you can, this'll be a little bit. I'll keep watch."

  "Shouldn't you get some sleep too?", Steven replied, his concern genuine.

  "No", Mozzie said, staring at the broken and blinking fluorescent lights above her. "I'm used to this. You aren't, I can tell."

  Steven scoffed.

  "Alright then."

  Steven crooked his head back, the headrest unconformable and hard. He expected, due to the hardness of the seat, and the events of the last few days, not to be able to sleep, but alas fell under the obsidian slumber in less than fifty seconds.

  ***

  "-and that brings us to the matter of what really separates us all. Goals, desires, pains and sufferings. The ego."

  Professor Nelson paced, doing his routine fidget of rubbing the tail end of his jacket between his thumb and middle finger.

  "Ego. The reason why we drift from friends over changing dreams, or break up from a partner, or spend that last few dollars, or now several due to other factors, in our bank account on that Starbucks iced coffee."

  A scatter of laughter amongst the class, Nelson breaking out into a slight grin.

  "Or why that sporadic wave of laughter-"

  Nelson pointed at a burly man with a Rockies baseball cap.

  "-except you, Mike. Not a single chuckle."

  More scatted laughter.

  "-gave me, for a brief moment, a sense of fulfillment. Even if it's selfish. Especially if it's selfish. Because, unlike the collective, both conscious and unconscious, which we'll discusses in more detail later, the ego is concerned only with itself. Not yourself, but itself. Since itself is yourself."

  Nelson continued to pace, eyeing his coffee mug across the room and walking towards it, plucking it from the desk.

  "Before I thought of spinning this into a visual demonstration, I craved my black, sugarless coffee, and my eyes went up in search of it, my legs soon following once the eyes had done their job. This wasn't on purpose, again I really just-"

  Nelson took several chugs.

  "-wanted some coffee", he said, setting the mug back down. "But me, myself, thought two things. One, and foremost, my craving for this liquid was more important than continuing the lecture you all are in deep, deep debt for-"

  More laughter, less than last.

  "-and secondly, that this display of the ego would be a good example for the class in our study."

  Laughter, now more than last.

  "It's absurd, isn't it?" I caused, if only briefly, a problem via myself, my ego, and its yearning for caffeine, only for my ego to utilize that craving in my salvation. Snake head, meet snake tail."

  Nelson yanked the bottom of his jacket as he chuckled, continuing to pace. His eyes crawled across the seats.

  "Steven, I see your ego values sleep more than this lecture?"

  Some laughter. Steven, who had been glancing out the window with absentee eyes, suddenly was sucked back into reality and gave a brief chuckle. Genuine.

  "No, my ego is interested. It's just also tired."

  Nelson gave a hearty chuckle.

  "I see, mine too."

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Nelson jabbed his thumb to his coffee mug across the room.

  "Probably why I keep slinking back over there every minute or so."

  Steven laughed.

  "But sleeping Steven is right", Nelson began, resuming his pace and pinching the end of his jacket cuff. "The ego can desire two, opposed things at once. When we look at-"

  A droplet of crimson liquid splashed on Steven's notebook, Steven's brows furrowing. He looked up, the ceiling drenched like cardboard in maroon.

  "What the fuc-", Steve began to say, before the ceiling fell apart and an ocean of blood flooded the room, screams erupting.

  A millisecond later, Steven stood outside in the alley with Greg Piotrowski, his closest friend. Greg lay slumped against the faded green dumpster, brown hair flopped over his perspiring and pale forehead, left hand pressed against his bleeding stomach. Sirens began to ring out in the distance.

  ***

  Steven jolted awake, Mozzie standing up and pushing his shoulder.

  "Steven", Mozzie said. "St-oh, he's awake"

  Steven looked around, the rest of The Lazy Wolf, as well as The Hartshorns brothers, already up with luggage in hand.

  "Bad dream?", Peter's gentle voice inquired from inside his suit.

  "You could say", Steven replied, standing up.

  The quintet departed the shuttle, entering the storming and smog filled neon cityscape of Centurion. Steven sniffed, the omnipresent smell of electricity and something burnt still present.

  "God, I don't miss this place", Steven said.

  "Well I do", Peter replied, indignant. "That whole ordeal was awful, I'm glad to be back someplace familiar. Most we have to worry about here is being shot in a bounty spat, not some psycho blowing up the sun."

  "Same Peter", Mozzie replied with a grin. "Steven's just classist, he misses the comfort of his old imperial stomping grounds."

  "Whatever", Steven replied with a sigh. "Since we didn't deliver the sickle to clan, we just give it back to Paul?"

  Mozzie put her hand up, hailing a taxi which lowered down from the ashen clouds.

  "Hopefully", Mozzie said.

  "Hopefully?", Steven repeated.

  "Paul's not just gonna let this go", Mozzie replied, curly hair blowing back in her face as the taxi lowered to the wet cement. "At best, he gives us a similarly difficult job."

  "Similarly difficult?", Steven repeated with a scoff. "Fuck both those words, I'm not doing anything like that again."

  "Well, it's not up to you. Or me."

  Mozzie turned to Steven.

  "...listen, I would let you go now if I could. But I can't. So for that I'm sorry."

  Steven opened his mouth to reply, before scoffing and getting into the taxi. The Hartshorns followed, then Peter, who gave Mozzie a gentle pat on the shoulder. Mozzie sighed, getting in.

  "Kimar Tower", she said.

  ***

  "Fuck!", Paul shouted, waving his arm across his desk, glasses, decor and a computer crashing to the floor.

  "W-we can still deliver it to the Zhar cla-"

  "No!", Paul yelled. "I-we can't just deliver it to them like that! The mercenaries were meant to be mediators in this. Without them, we're naked! Exposed! Not just me, but the clans too."

  "Listen", Hal said, stepping forward. "This may be a blessing in disguise. From a certain perspective, the cards are now in our-"

  "What did you say?", Paul said, walking from behind his desk to Hal.

  "...well, I said a string of words-"

  "Did you just tell me to listen? After you fucked up my entire operation?"

  Hal put out his hands.

  "No, I-that's now I intended it. I meant it as in, listen-"

  Paul removed a pistol and shot Hal in his left eye, a crack like lightning emitting and Hal screaming as he fell to his knees, hand pressed against his face.

  "Hal!", Jack shouted, running towards him.

  "Don't tell me anything, dumbfuck. Don't teach me anything. Don't try to inform me of anything. If you see me making coffee in a way you and your retarded brother deem incorrect, swallow it and tell me how fucking good it is."

  Hal continued to wail on the floor, blood dripping like water from a broken faucet. Stevens's eyes widened.

  "Jesus."

  "And you!", Paul spat, pointing towards Mozzie. "After all I've done for you, making sure you and gaggle of frolicking fools weren't killed or abducted and sold to some whore house, this is how you repay me!"

  "That's not what happened-"

  Paul cut Mozzie short, slapping her across the face. A spray of blood burst from Mozzie's lip to the carpet. Peter removed his gun, pointing it at Paul. Paul chuckled.

  "Do it, I dare you. Not only will you not leave here alive, your last moments will be spent wishing you'd never been born."

  Peter stared at Paul, unmoved.

  "It's okay, Peter. I'm fine."

  Peter looked back and forth between Mozzie and Paul, sheathing his gun.

  "Keplien A-19."

  "Whats that", Mozzie replied with coldness in her eyes.

  "The location of your next mission", Paul replied, walking over to his desk. He picked up a folder, walking back to Mozzie and handing it to her. "You'll be redelivering the sickle, except with new...intercessors of course."

  "T-this is crazy", Steven said, stepping back. "We barely escaped a goddamn exploding solar system."

  "But you did escape", Paul said stepping towards Steven. "And you'll escape this, too."

  Paul observed Steven.

  "...I've always admired the Anaxian pilots, my grandfather was one. Anaxian culture being so...restrictive, there libido fueled exploits here are good for business as well. As such, I do have some measure of respect for you but...ruin this for me as well, and you won't be returning home. Not alive, or in one piece, anyways."

  Paul patted Steven on the shoulder twice before returning to his desk.

  "Clarence will have all the necessary information for you. Including briefing, preparation and the trip itself, you have eight hours."

  The doors opened.

  "Good luck."

  ***

  Peter paced as they stood the in the war room, which was really just the living room of one of Paul's many penthouses.

  "No. We can't do this. This is absurd, we al-"

  "Peter", Mozzie said, studying the papers that were spread out on the table. "It's done. And we are."

  Peter began to say something, closing his mouth then turning to Steven.

  "Steven, you regonize how insane this is, right?"

  "Even if he does, I'm the leader, not him. And not you."

  Steven sighed.

  "I know this is crazy, but she's right, I'm not the leader. So I guess we do this."

  Steven went to Peter, placing a palm on his giant, metal shoulder.

  "We escaped one exploding solar system, I'm sure we can do it again."

  Peter nodded.

  "Funny."

  Steven observed Peter.

  "I'm not trying to be."

  Steven patted Peter's shoulders, joining Mozzie at the table. He observed the papers, folders and maps that decorated the surface.

  "What are we thinking?"

  Mozzie sighed, leaning up.

  "That we need The Hartshorns to make sense of half of this."

  ***

  A painting of a captain, steering his ship past a sun, beyond that a pale moon, canvassed the baby blue ceiling that Hal stared at. Hal stared at it, and felt strange sensations brew deep within him, eyes starting to almost water. A knock, twice done, echoed, a moment later Jack coming in.

  "Hey", Jack said. "How are you feeling? You're looking pretty good."

  Hal chucked.

  "First Ishmael got my left cheek, now Paul my left eye. The odds. Be honest, how do I look? Not that I ever cared."

  Jack stepped closer, observing his brother.

  "...you could still find love. Marry. I can see an extremely down on her luck prostitute on the edge of the outer rims settling and realizing she probably won't be able to do much better."

  Hal burst into laughter.

  "Just what I've always wanted", Hal replied.

  After the last of the laughter died, Jack stepped closer, now only inches from the bed.

  "...we'll have to move soon. I know it's not ideal-"

  "It is what it is", Hal replied, gaze returned to the painting.

  Jack nodded.

  "Should we-"

  "Did we have paintings like this? Growing up I mean."

  Jack looked at the ceiling.

  "You know, it took me awhile to find you. I assumed you were in the adult wing, after searching for thirteen minutes I asked a nurse and she said you were in the children's wing. I guess shooting out your eye wasn't enough, the bastard had to-"

  "It seems vaguely familiar", Hal interjected.

  Jack sighed,observing the painting.

  "Yeah, we did. This is a famous Nodean captain, Arnold Allistar. Expect ours was just the ship, no captain, or crew."

  Hal continued to stare at the painting.

  "Mozzie and the rest...they need our help with what to do next. I...I'm sorry."

  Hal continued to observe the painting. After a few moments-

  "Don't be."

  ***

  Steven sat on the sofa, which was admittedly nice. Tired and sore behind sticking to rich and crinkly leather, it reminded him of his uncles old couch from the eighties that he refused to get rid of. As Steven reached for the whisky bottle on the table, refilling his glass which had previously held two glasses, he felt like him too. Three knocks banged against the door.

  "It's us", Jack's voice emitted.

  Steven looked at Peter; who stood in the kitchen with a straw in his mouth opening that led to a container of soda. Steven nodded, Peter going to the door and opening it. Hal and Jack proceeded in, Steven wincing as he got off the sofa, glass of whisky still in hand.

  "Ouch", he said, walking over. "Hurt as bad as it looks?"

  "Looks worse than it feels", Hal responded. "Where's Mozzie?"

  "She's", Peter began.

  "-taking a breather", Steven interrupted. "She's been studying the plans the last several hours. I'll get her."

  Steven disappeared down a hall, coming to a metal door. He knocked, twice.

  "Mozzie, it's me. The Hartshorns are here."

  Silence, which lasted several moments, and almost seemed to be approaching a minute before a sigh was heard.

  "Okay", Mozzie replied. After some shuffling and a thud, the door opened. Mozzie stood in white pants and a white blouse. She stared at Steven.

  "Move."

  Steven stepped aside. Mozize walked for the living room, The Hartshorns circling the table as they studied the papers that lay on it.

  "Gods above", Jack said.

  "Gods below would be more apt I think", Hal replied.

  "What do you mean?", Peter asked.

  "This is a descending spiral of increasing intersessors and third parties. You thought the ordeal with The Andar and Hilgreen Gang was complex...this is a web. Paul's scared of this being tracked down back to him. Specifically, probably the-"

  "Hunter Wolvesbane", Mozzie interjected.

  Hal nodded.

  "To be pursued by The Hunter Wolvesbane is certain death. Something Paul most certainly doesn't want."

  Jack sighed.

  "Well, we better move then. We have less than an hour."

  Silence filled the room, palpable dread with it.

  "Fuck", Steven said.