Maggie paused at the hatchway as Diggs looked up at her, puzzled why they had stopped. Gazing into the compartment she observed a tableau she recognized all too well; Blye sitting vigil at Samara's bedside.

“Here...figured you could use it,” the Tinker said, handing over a steaming mug. “Isi’s wakeup juice.”

“Thanks,” she nodded, taking a sip and then making a face. “...yuck...it really is awful,” she said, before taking another drink.

“Yeah, but it’ll clear out the cobwebs,” Maggie agreed, as she and Diggs found a crate to sit on. “How’s she doin’?”

“No change,” she said quietly. “I’m taking that as a good sign.”

“Anythin’ this side of the airlock, there's still hope,” Maggie agreed. She gazed at the Protean, lying on her stomach, the back of her head covered in gauze, and wearily shook her head. “How the hell did we wind up here?” she asked, to no one in particular.

“On this ship? Or in general?” Blye replied.

“The second one, I guess,” she shrugged. “We had somethin’ once...a home, pride, a place in the universe. Now? We’re just rats, livin’ on scraps.” She bowed her head, as Diggs snuggled in beside her. “I’m tired, Blye. Tired of fightin’ every damn day just to survive.”

“Me too,” the Knight admitted, before taking a moment to change gears. “I know there’s a lot you haven’t told us, Maggie...and not just what’s on that transponder.” She cocked her head, looking at the older woman. “Maybe it’s time. Time for the entire story to come out.”

She sighed, nodding her head. “Yeah...I reckon maybe it is.”

----------------------------------------

They’d assembled on the bridge, the only place with enough room for everyone other than the Mess deck; since the surgery most avoided that space. Blye and Samara were absent though they were linked in via monitor like Alphad. They all waited, as Maggie spoke.

“There’s things I’ve been holdin’ back,” she told them, “but you all knew that. Last time I was out here…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, as she got a distant look in her eye, before shrugging it off. “Some ghosts just won’t stay buried.”

She looked around the compartment, at their faces streaked with equal parts hope and despair. Taking a deep breath, she plunged right in. “I suppose I should start with that report I made you all read...the one from the first mission.”

“What about it?” Rúna asked.

“...it’s a lie,” she confessed, “all of it. Well...except about finding the scout. That part’s accurate enough.”

“Wait, what do you mean, a lie?” Remi snapped.

“It wasn’t an explosion that killed them,” Maggie flushed, struggling to tell the story after all this time. “It was my Master. He’d been…turned, somehow.”

“Turned? You mean, like what the Tu’udh’hizh’ak tried to do to you?” Prash asked her.

“Maybe,” she shrugged, “or maybe it was the Eleexx, like what they did to Samara. Or maybe somebody else altogether. I dunno.” She shook her head in regret. “All I can tell you is he wasn’t the same man I knew.”

“Wait a minute...I saw the images of Katabasis. There was an explosion,” Mairead insisted. “No way you faked those.”

“Yeah…there was,” she nodded, before lifting her arm and pointing at her own chest.

“You?” Genvass stared at her. “Why would you blow up your own ship?”

“Cause Master Schnoebelen came after me,” she said, barely above a whisper. “He cornered me in Engineering, started shootin’, so I…” She froze, struggling to get it out.

“...you overloaded the transformer, didn't you?” Mairead finished for her. “I thought that was what happened, based on the damage.”

The older woman could only nod. “It was all I could think of. And it worked.” She winced, seeing the explosion in her mind’s eye yet again. Maggie bowed her head, lifting the loose-fitting blouse she wore to expose her midriff, and the jagged scar that ran across her belly. “I was caught in the blast. Got a load of shrapnel in my guts.”

On the monitor, Blye stood up and looked closer at her wound. “So that’s why…” Her voice trailed off. “None of my business,” she mumbled.

“It’s okay,” she said, suddenly bone weary. “The Knights did all they could, but when it was over...they told me I couldn’t ever have kids.” Maggie looked down at Diggs, and found him staring back at her, his eyes wide in awe. His small hand snaked up to hers and squeezed it tight, smiling as he gazed up at her.

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Alphad said gently.

“Yeah...me too.” She closed her eyes and took a moment, before trying to get through the rest. “Once I was conscious, they asked me what happened. Didn’t want to tell them at first, cause of my Master, but...they figured it out. It spooked them like it had me, cause if someone like him could be turned, anyone could. So we came up with a cover story, blamed the deaths on the explosion, and dumped the bodies in deep space.” Maggie took a deep breath, before looking at the others. “And then swore we’d take the secret to our graves.”

“Why?” Sergeant Kai asked. “Why not expose what happened?”

“After what happened with Samara, you really gotta ask me that?” She shook her head. “We didn’t know who might be involved, and none of us wanted to find out.”

“And after?” Rúna said.

“We limped back, and got debriefed,” she explained. “We stuck to the story, and eventually they cut us all loose. I got my journeyman credentials, struck out on my own...and been doin’ that ever since.” She grinned, tousling Diggs hair. “Least til I met this little rapscallion. Guess my ramblin’ days are done.”

“And then you learned someone had been murdering your old crew...leaving you the sole survivor,” Alphad pointed out.

“Yeah...could have knocked me over with a noodle,” she grimaced. “Between that and the Clan heads puttin’ the screws to me, I didn’t see how I could avoid gettin’ stuck on this second mission.” Maggie threw her hands up in the air. “And now you know everythin’.”

“Not quite everything,” Remi told her point blank. “There’s still one last piece you have yet to share. The transponder.”

“I was comin’ to that,” she told him. “Look...after my first trip out here, and learnin’ they were all dead, I knew I had to play my cards close. Didn’t know who I could trust. That’s why I pulled the switch, to smoke out anyone playin’ for another team.” Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Remi. “And then you tried to space my ass.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The Corsair stood his ground. “You know what I was the day we met, Maggie Al-Hajjah, and I refuse to apologize for it. Despite whatever it is you think of me, I’ve always played straight with you...even when I was dragging you to the airlock.” That little admission earned him some hard looks from the others, not to mention a growl from Diggs. “But I’ll tell you this much...I wasn’t planning on throwing you out. I figured the fear of it though might shake that information loose, and it looked like it was working...at least until your apprentice intervened.” Remi and Diggs contemplated one another, and it was apparent there was little love lost between them.

Maggie held the boy close. “And thank God for it. Maybe you were just plannin’ to throw a scare into me, but I had no way to know. Still don’t. After all I seen, I don’t trust easy. Probably never will.” The two shared a look, until the Tinker sighed in resignation. “But I said I’d come clean, and I'm keepin’ my word.” She rose to her feet and moved to a nearby console, producing a small flash drive and inserting it into a data port, before typing in a decryption sequence. Moments later, a star map appeared on the main screen.

“That transponder didn’t have as much storage as we thought, and what did get saved was corrupted. I reckon that scout ship was dodgin’ some hard energy sources.”

“Wait...you mean there’s nothing?” Genvass exclaimed.

She gave him a crooked smirk. “Didn’t say that. I just said it was corrupted. Not the first bad file I’ve had to play with. Took me a while, but I could piece most of it back together.” Maggie entered a command as she highlighted an area; an elongated spheroid stretched out across a remote section of space.

“That’s the best I could do,” she shrugged. “It’s somewhere in the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, in one of these systems,” Maggie explained, tapping the monitor.

The others crowded around the display, staring at the map in wonder. “There must be dozens of stars in that sector,” Remi grimaced.

“More,” the Tinker affirmed. “Hundreds at least.”

“It’s gonna take a long time to search them all,” Rúna said.

“And you have to figure the Troika will be sniffing about, doing their absolute best to keep us from looking,” Alphad pointed out.

“Yeah,” Prash sighed. “It couldn’t be easy for once.”

“We’re Terrans,” Sergeant Kai snorted. “The Universe never gives us anything easy.”

“Too right,” Mairead nodded.

“It’s a start,” Maggie said, “and it’s more than we had.”

Remi gazed at the map with a practiced eye. “Exploiting this new data will be difficult, especially with Freya gone.” He shook his head. “That might end up crippling us.”

“Maybe we can find Tyr again,” Blye said from the screen, drawing eyerolls from the Corsairs. “Well, we could,” she insisted.

“Tyr is a pipe dream,” Xuilan spoke up. “I’ve heard the stories, hell, we’ve all heard them, but they’re nothing but fantasy...yarns spun by bored sailors deep in their cups.”

Freya’s sister ship Tyr had been lost ages ago, somewhere near the Crab Nebula, yet folk tales abounded. Plenty of people swore they’d seen the old ship...only for it to vanish before their very eyes.

“Just a myth,” Remi agreed, “like the Flying Dutchman.” He turned back to Maggie. “That’s it? No more secrets ready to bite us in the ass?”

“That’s it,” she told him. “You know everythin’ I do.”

“So now what?” Prash asked. “Where do we go from here?”

“Good question,” Genvass nodded. Despite himself he turned to Maggie, waiting for an answer.

“Oh bloody hell…” she sighed. “Look, I don’t know yet. But I don’t think we should make any plans until Samara wakes up. We need her on this.”

“And what do we do if she never wakes up?” Remi said.

“...pray,” Maggie said softly, as she led Diggs off the Bridge.

----------------------------------------

Blye looked up from her post as Maggie and Diggs returned. “So? Feel better to get all that off your chest?”

“Not sure yet,” the Tinker replied. “Ask me again when this is all over.”

“And when might that be?” the Chevalier sighed, rubbing her eyes.

Maggie shook her head. “Go get some sleep. You’re exhausted.”

“Prash will relieve me in a few hours,” she informed her. “Until then...my place is here.” Blye took a moment to check Samara’s vitals, before bowing her head in quiet acceptance. “Still no change.”

“What are her chances?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “By all rights she should be dead.”

Maggie sat down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder, while Diggs sat down across the bed, staring at the unconscious woman in curiosity. “Blye...you did all you could,” she said. “Nobody could ask for more.”

“It wasn’t enough,” she said softly.

“You don’t know that,” Maggie answered. “Not yet.”

Blye just watched over her patient, saying nothing. The two women sat in silence as the Protean slumbered on, when there was a gentle rap on the hatchway.

“May I come in? Genvass asked softly.

The Knight nodded. “She’s still unconscious,” she informed him.

The Dharmist moved to the foot of her bed, looking down at her, wringing his hands. “Will she recover?” he said at last.

“I don’t know,” Blye answered. “After what happened, and with her crazy body chemistry…I just don’t know.”

The man worked his jaw as he watched over her. “She and I...we got to be…close, on this mission,” he said.

The two women shared a look, which did not go unnoticed. “I know she wasn’t interested in me,” he shrugged, “that she had ulterior motives, but we shared a connection.” Genvass looked up at the pair. “We’d both been lied to by those we trusted.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Thought you were happy with your lot,” she said. “Sure made a strong case for it back when we met.”

“It’s what I knew,” he told her. “I was born on Baishain. Raised there. I grew up around non-humans and never thought for a moment I was anything but a trusted partner. My father, he was the one that brought us to that world, and he would tell us stories about how bad it was on the ships. Never sure from one moment to the next if the air would give out, or worse. Packed in together like trade goods, living like animals, eating recycled garbage…” He shuddered, picturing it. “I was glad he took us away from all that. It sounded like a nightmare.”

Maggie started to speak, and then thought better of it. Genvass nodded in understanding. “He wasn’t wrong, was he?”

“Not so much,” she admitted.

“I thought so.” He turned back to Samara. “I never understood how someone could live like that, when there were other options.”

“Like the Dharmists,” Maggie guessed.

“Yes.” He seemed to age a dozen years as he looked at the wounded Protean. “But there was one thing he didn’t tell me.”

“What’s that?”

His shoulders sagged as he looked back at them. “That it is better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

“...Milton,” Blye spoke up, as Maggie looked to her in confusion. “An ancient tale, about a war in Heaven and the Fall of Man…Paradise Lost,” she explained.

Maggie snorted. “Sounds about right.”

Blye inclined her head, conceding the point, before returning her attention to Genvass. “You realize you’re quoting Satan, don’t you?”

“I know,” he shrugged. “And yes, Satan was arrogant, bringing about his own downfall....but that doesn’t mean he was wrong.” There was something broken in his eyes, as he gazed down at Samara. “Do you still believe, Blye?” he asked. “In your mission, your charter? To aid all who ask, and defend them with your very life?”

The young Knight shook her head. “Ask me some other time,” she said quietly, “today isn’t a good day for questions like that.”

“...I know,” he whispered. “The Baishain never mistreated me,” he told them, “never abused me, or those I cared about. They took care of us.” He winced and looked away. “Like a pet.”

Maggie slowly nodded. “I grew up on one of them ships,” she told him, “and your pa wasn’t wrong. We slept twenty to a compartment and were glad for it, ate crap that would make a cockroach puke, and had more close calls than I can remember when something important broke.” She felt every one of her years as she looked at him. “But we were free, Genvass. Free to starve maybe, not gonna lie about that...but free despite all that. Rise or fall, live or die...it was all on us. No one else.”

“...she’s right....”

They all turned in shock as Samara spoke from her sickbed. Blye appeared at her side a moment later. “How do you feel?” she asked, as she began examining her.

“....like there’s a war going on inside my skull,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” the Chevalier apologized. “I’d give you something for the pain, but you said narcotics were ineffective on you.”

“They are,” she agreed. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll try autohypnosis again.” She turned her head slightly, wincing at the pain, so she could see her doctor. “Did it work?”

“You tell me,” Blye said.

The Protean considered that. “Must have,” she said at last, “I'm still here.”

The others sighed in relief. “When you’re ready, we need to talk,” Maggie told her. “Got a ton of plannin’ to do.”

“...more than you know,” she said cryptically.