Raging fires, warm blankets, alcohol… That’s how Archius imagined one of his various perfect holidays. But… not with this company, and not under this pretence. Despite his best efforts the fire was quickly being snuffed out. Archius grinded his hands against the heater, turning it back on as night fell on the freezing planet.

“Fuck…” Archius trailed off, agonising over his decision to go with Lilly’s team. But as darkness fell, the bioluminescent trees and fauna all around him started to glow even brighter hues of white, orange and green. He kept himself wrapped up, shaking slightly.

Archius heard a stick snap. He twisted towards the source of the noise, raising his revolver at a figure approaching between a series of heated tents. He lowered it as the figure scowled at him, it was Lilly. “You’re damn lucky you have a good trigger finger.”

“Ah, it’s just you… Sorry,” said Archius, nodding his head towards Lilly. She was wearing armour, with a thick coat over that. Unlike Archius, she didn’t seem too phased by the cold. “If I knew it was gonna get this cold…”

“Well, don’t give Osmond your coat next time round, let his ass freeze.” Lilly sat down around the campfire, looking around at the campsite. There was a perimeter of tents as she prodded at her uplink. A blue light signalled activity. ‘This is Vallé to all callsigns, any signs of the shipments?’

Archius pricked his uplink active from within the confines of his blanket. He heard a response from the other team leaders. ‘Negative, the pirates dumped them deep into the forest, for sure,’ said Kiri, ‘My team’s set up camp, permission to continue tomorrow?”

‘Affirm. Rest up, all callsigns, stop the search. We’ll continue at sunrise,’ ordered Lilly, ‘Vallé out.’ She flicked her uplink off, sighing as she took out a few extra branches, sticking them into the heating apparatus providing the fire.

“Where’s the rest?” asked Archius, “We should have kept up the chase, deal with those pirates once and for all.”

“Martinez’s chasing them, we have the easy job,” said Lilly. “Well, as easy as tracking unmarked cargo across half a tectonic plate.”

“Exactly!” Archius raised his voice, two pairs of footsteps shaking his ears into action. Now it was both of their turn’s to draw on the noise… Two people. In front was Quinn, and behind him was Osmond.

“Ugh, call out to us when you’re back,” snapped Lilly, snarling at the two of them. Archius noted down this very peculiar change in her attitude.

“Hmmm…” He trailed off, twisting his head back towards the fire, maintaining his warmth.

Quinn nodded, walking up towards them. “Whatever, whatever, just let us get to the fire, we got some dry wood, easy to come by if you know where you’re looking for.”

He sat down, chucking even more fuel onto the fire. Its heat intensified slowly, giving the trio a nice bit of warmth. Osmond, however, simply slinked off towards the tents. He was wearing two coats, Archius’ and his own.

Archius’ head twisted around. “Osmond, sit with us.”

“Yeah, warm yourself up, Osz,” said Quinn. “Better to fall asleep warm than cold.”

Lilly had no response, simply staring at the flames. Osmond tried sitting down beside Lilly, only for her to snap a glare at him.

“I don’t want smuggler filth sitting beside me,” she snarled, voice filled with anger towards Osmond. He twitched backwards, taking a few steps away from the startling Lilly.

Quinn shot back, “Hey, ex-smuggler!”

“Once a smuggler, always a smuggler, or so the saying goes…” Archius interjected, patting a dry spot beside him. “Come on, the fire’s warmer this way.”

Osmond nodded, and without saying a word he sat down beside Archius. Silence fell upon the group. Lilly clearly wasn’t exactly comfortable with having a smuggler with them all, but Archius didn’t mind. In fact, even he and Sato were smugglers by technicality, and Lilly doesn’t seem to mind them.

He needed to spruce up the atmosphere. With warmth no longer an issue, Archius slowly extended his hands out from his blanket, two large cans of beer in his hands. The three snapped their looks at the alcohol. “What? Want some?” Archius asked, chuckling. “Here, take it.”

He extended his gloved hands out towards both Osmond and Quinn, they took the beer. Archius was just about to take out another can, for Lilly, as she said, “No drinking. I’m in charge here, remember? In case any of those Gaussbats come back, I want us to be ready for them.”

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Quinn had a disappointed face, a finger right on the beer opener. Osmond froze at her words, slowly putting the can down beside him. “Ah, of course…”

“No, come on! You’re no fun, Lilly,” said Archius, “It’ll be a long mission, probably, might as well get drunk whilst we’re at it.”

“Absolutely fucking not,” she snapped.

“Yeah, yeah,” Archius dismissed her statement, cracking open a can of beer before downing it. Quinn and Osmond exchanged glances, as Lilly did nothing to stop Archius. Then, Quinn joined in, cracking his beer open and taking a swig from it… A moment passed, before Osmond joined in.

“See?” Archius continued, “No Gaussbats, we’ll be fine, they hate fire anyways.”

“That implies that there’s beings in the galaxy that like being set on fire,” Lilly snarled, maintaining an air of discipline. “One beer, that’s it. We still need to be prepared.”

Quinn, who had been chugging down on his beer, put up a middle finger towards her. Archius snickered at the sight, taking out another can of beer and tossing it over towards Quinn. Lilly was about to snap back, but grumbled under her breath instead. Archius outranks her, so he guessed that he might as well exploit that as much as possible.

“Lilly, I order you to drink up,” said Archius, throwing two cans of beer stored underneath his cloak at her. She caught both of them.

Shaking her head, she placed them beside her. “After the end of the mission, plus: I’ll have the two of you on reactor cleaning duties,” said Lilly.

“For what? Accepting my hospitality?” jeered Archius. Despite the amount of time he’s spent away, parts of his home culture still lingers within him. “Drink up, it’s rude on my homeworld to not accept drinks.”

“We’re not on your homeworld, probably never will,” she said, crossing her arms as she listened in on the chirping of whatever critters call out into the night. “Claire better be holding down Anagora for us, if we’re gonna spend a while retrieving shit-for-credits cargo.”

Archius paused for a moment. He slowly frowned as he glanced down to his alcohol. Lilly gave him a side-glance. “You’re right, never will… Even more reason to accept it, then,” he said, extending his final can out towards her. Quinn was cracking open another one, as Lilly shook her head.

Sighing, she grabbed one of the ones beside her, and cracked it open. Taking a small sip, she said, “Happy?”

“Yeah,” Archius said. Lilly choked a little on her alcohol, coughing, before clearing her throat.

“Ugh… how strong are these beverages?”

Osmond glanced down at the can, repeating to himself the alcohol content, “Twenty seven?”

“TWENTY SEVEN!?” Lilly snarled loudly, startling both Quinn and Osmond. The two cowered slightly at their superior’s authority. “I thought you’d be bringing something light…”

“But it is light, by my people’s standards.”

“The only thing light about your people is how little there is of you left,” she snapped, her voice both angry and frustrated.

Archius felt… surprisingly little offence at the jab. He merely nodded, before slowly frowning. Lilly grumbled again, before taking another swig of the beer. Damn, maybe he’ll get a hat-trick with manipulating Lilly with only a slight frown? Archius thought it would have been harder to get her into doing things, but it seems like he’s wrong.

After a while, both Osmond and Quinn were drunk, tired and asleep. Lilly wouldn’t even touch Osmond, so Archius had to throw him into his tent. By the time he got back to the fire, Lilly was already there. She tried her best to hide her red cheeks beneath a face of discipline and anger.

“You go too hard on those two,” said Archius, leaning back as he swayed forth. He finally had his coat back, and felt much more warmer than before.

Lilly glanced down at the flames, thinking. Then, she responded. “Good, better to be too hard than not hard at all.”

Archius didn’t respond. He wanted to prompt her to do specific things, but knew that she’ll probably do it herself. Why get his hands dirty when she’ll relinquish information herself?

“Damn smugglers,” she said. “I should have known Quinn had that type of background when the recruiting officer said he was from Narisa. He was already indoctrinated to death, and I still went hard on him. Know why?”

“Because you didn’t know better?” lied Archius, knowing that it was the wrong answer. Giving her the opportunity to correct him would lead to her giving far more information than if he’d simply answered correctly.

“No! My men are tough, best men and women in the galaxy. If I go hard on them in the training halls, they’ll survive anything that some nutcracks send at them.”

It was logical reasoning, but Lilly always took things a bit more extreme than normal. “I see,” Archius said. “Want another drink before we hit the hay? Oh yeah, you should probably eat some of the jerky rations.”

Archius took out another can of beer, showing it to Lilly. “You have another one?” she grumbled, thinking that it was finally over. She leaned over a now dying fire, as the stars and galaxy up above shone down at them. She snatched it from him, cracking it open and drinking from it.

He started whistling, having the highest alcohol tolerance was definitely a positive for him, he thought. Sometimes it’s not, but this is not one of those times. Sure, he’ll probably have to deal with a hungover Lilly, Quinn and Osmond in five or so hours, but that can come later.

Glancing up, he saw the trio moons, eclipsing one another in their various colours as they orbited the planet. He took in a deep breath, before letting out a burst of condensation into the air.