I watched Okeria shift from one foot to the other as he waited for Keratily to give the all-clear to open the hatch. He tapped his thumbs together with his hands pressed to his chest, staring blankly up at the hatch with an emptiness that had overtaken him ever since he’d talked with Thraiv. The messages we’d exchanged spoke of something happening back on his home planet, but he refused to go any further. Combine that with the radio silence on The End and Mortician’s parts, and it seemed like there was a connection there.

The End had to have done something to the Staura. But Okeria was disturbed, not hopeless, so it wasn’t utter annihilation. I’d tried asking it multiple times, but again, radio silence. Something was going on that was bigger than me, and it bothered me that I wasn’t at least informed. It couldn’t take that long to send me a message, could it?

“Get ready. The vibrations are amplifying.” Keratily warned, taking a step to the side and sinking her fingers into the rock wall as if it were warm butter. She looked up at the hatch, completely focused on the one thing before her. I got a bad feeling that that was how Keratily lived her entire life, and a good feeling that she’d be much more likely to forget about Jun when the next big thing came along.

The question was if we’d survive long enough to get to the next big thing.

Jun elbowed me and opened her interface, gesturing for me to take a look at my own. I did, and when I did, I saw a message from her that I’d missed. It read: {How do you want to break away from Keratily when we anchor?}

I glanced up at the woman in question and frowned. Even after Jun and I had accosted her, she just kept acting like there was nothing wrong. As if anything we did couldn’t hurt her. {As long as Okeria can still play his part, we’ll be fine. He’ll lead her away and we can go do whatever it takes to find Mortician’s last parts. If he isn’t in good enough shape, then I don’t know if there is a plan. I’m not leaving you alone with Keratily, and I don’t think she’d ever agree to be alone with me unless it was to kill me.}

{That’s what I was afraid of.} Jun replied, then put another message in the chat we shared with Okeria. {Okeria, are you feeling good enough to lure Keratily away?}

Okeria recoiled slightly the second the message popped up on my interface. He looked between Jun and I then shook his head and squared his shoulders with a quiet sigh. {Yeah, I can distract her. Maybe she’ll be able ta shed some light on what’s going on back home.}

{And what’s going on back home?} Jun prodded.

Another sigh from Okeria. {The End came and… talked ta Moricla. Thraiv got caught up in the middle of it, and she’s still shaking from that encounter. But that ain’t what’s got me worried; it’s the fact that the silent god’s broken her silence. Moricla’s doling out some serious punishment, and everyone’s running terrified. Juniper… your parents were among Moricla’s first victims. A lot of the Keratilys were.}

{Oh, man. Jun, I’m so sorry.} I sent, reaching out to put an arm over Jun’s shoulders. She leaned into my gesture, but felt her shrug under me.

{You know, I thought I’d be sadder. Or… happier, I guess?} Jun sent, then paused. She turned to look at me, chuckled, and went back to her interface. {Is it bad to say that my happiness and sadness at my family dying cancel each other out? Because that’s what it feels like.}

{It’s kinda bad.} Okeria sent, and held up a hand when Jun started writing her reply. {Then again, it’s almost exactly what I felt when I got the news that my own parents died a few years back. Not happy, not sad, just… nothing. I’d already written them out of my life, so I didn’t have anything left ta feel for them. Only Sebastian here had a good enough childhood that he’d cry for his parents’ deaths.}

{Hey. That’s normal.} I wrote defensively, but I stared at the text for a few seconds before deciding not to send it. Just because it was normal for me, didn’t mean it was normal for everyone. Instead, I settled for something different.

{I love my parents, and I love my brother, but I’ve already grieved for them once. I can’t tell how I’d deal with seeing them alive, nevermind getting the news that they’d died before I got to see them again.}

Okeria nodded solemnly. {Right, the end-of-world simulation. I don’t think I’ve ever said it, but I’m sorry ya had ta go through all of that. And I’m selfishly glad ya did, since it means you’re here with us now.}

That was the strangest sentiment that I’d ever felt touched by. {Thanks, I guess? I’m glad I’m here too, considering what the alternatives could’ve been.}

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Jun grabbed my hip and pulled me a little closer, which was awkward given our armor. {I owe you literally everything, so I’m more than glad you’re here too. Whatever happens out there, Seb…} Jun’s next words were only for me. {I love you. I really do.}

{Love you too.} I sent without hesitation.

My jaw clenched as the vibrations multiplied and set the entire trawler shaking. Keratily still didn’t so much as turn her eye to check on us, standing still as a statue even as everything else rumbled in preparation. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t clean, but a few minutes passed with held breaths where the trawler seemed like it would shake itself to pieces.

A sound that I could only describe as a building collapsing echoed through the trawler in a cacophony of horrible noise. I whipped my head around to see dust gathering at the far edge of the hallway, but before I could see anything else, Okeria rushed and blocked the door. He looked around in a panic as the cacophony raged on, dust and pebbles kicking up around him while the trawler seemed to continue on.

He turned his head to us and tried to speak, but nothing came through over the noise. “SOMETHING’S ATTACKING US!” He yelled over the roar, sprinting towards Jun and I to break off our display of affection before Keratily turned to look. Even then, she still didn’t move with any sort of purpose. Just how flippant was she? “I CAN’T SEE WHAT IT IS, BUT WE GOTTA MOVE. OPEN THE HATCH, KERATILY!”

Keratily finally looked back at Okeria to nod once, jumping straight up and digging her fingers deep into the stone hatch. She pulled down and brought the hatch with her, letting in a flow of stones and oil that looked nothing like the oilsea I’d seen. With a murmur of annoyance and a gesture upwards as she fell, Keratily completely stemmed the flow of oil.

One massive pink crystal appeared out of nowhere, hollow enough on the inside for one person to climb up through at a time. Oil and stone rained down through it for a few brief seconds, but once it had passed, we had a way up to the surface. However far that was.

“Sebastian, you’re going first.” Keratily ordered. Her tone left no room for me to argue, but I really felt the need to. She must’ve sensed it somehow. “No, you are not arguing with me. Go first. Clear a path for Juniper and Okeria. I will be coming up last in case the trawler is destroyed before we all get a chance. Go. I will not be asking again.”

Aside from the fact that Keratily’s normal speaking voice cut through the cacophony like it was nothing, I couldn’t find any real faults to her logic. She obviously wasn’t going to put Jun in any danger, Okeria was almost useless in a fight that he didn’t have time to prepare for, and her coming up last was the most logical. Well, the most logical aside from her going up first, which she seemed hell-bent on not doing.

So up I went.

I nodded to Jun and Okeria before ducking into the crystalline tube, brushing away oil and pebbles that had stuck to the inside to look for handholds. I found gouges cut into the crystal after a few seconds of nearly-blind groping, and jotted down another reason as to why Keratily wanted me to go first; leading was going to be dirty and annoying. With a grunt of annoyance and effort I sunk my fingers into the crystal and pulled, straining against the brief weight until I got my foot into another groove.

It was difficult and strangely exhausting work considering I had my armor on. I’d barely made it up three times my height when I heard an argument break out between Okeria and Keratily, shouts and normal speaking voices twined together to form a strange feast for my ears. Another five times my height later Jun joined me in the tube, silently making her way up to me at a pace that just slightly outmatched my own whenever I looked down. Okeria followed her, Keratily followed Okeria, and the oil followed Keratily.

“Go faster!” Okeria yelled up at me, or maybe at Jun. I couldn’t really tell. “The oil’s gaining on us!”

“I’ll try!” I called back, summoning a dagger into my hand and covering it in scales. I slashed into Keratily’s crystal with the expectation that my dagger might make the smallest of dents. Instead, I was greeted with a gouge large enough to fit the entirety of my fingers into; not just the tiny slashes that could barely take the tips. “I think I’ve got something!”

“Just do it!” Jun said from just under me, panic seeping into her voice as the gurgling and sloshing of oil rose higher and higher. “There’s something in the oil, and it’s eating away at Keratily’s crystal!”

I gulped and shoved my hand into the newly formed hold, commanding the slash I’d created with the first blow to go up a little higher and cut a new one for me. It all happened in less than a second, and once my foot touched a deeper groove, I sped up even further. Slash, step, pull. Slash, step, pull. Just fast enough to outpace whatever slyk had made the oil that was seeping in from the bottom. It was less exhausting to make the slashes and climb than just trying to climb with terribly handholds, and as the top of the crystal came into view, I had a fleeting thought about why Keratily had made such a shitty climbing track for us.

But it was just that; a thought. Before I could follow the tracks it had laid out the crystal came to an abrupt end, and I popped my head out to see a raging storm of oil and pebbles surrounding a surprisingly small island. But that was just this small slice.

Like a single large pizza attempting to serve an entire office party where everyone wanted something different, the nexus was split into countless tiny pieces. The dredged switchport slice looked like pebbly sand soaked with oil up until the oil drained away, leaving a tiny circle of pristine something at the exact center that I couldn’t quite make out.

That had to be what we were here for. Which also meant I had no time to get Mortician’s pieces.