A cold wind blew across my body and I reached to pull the blanket up over me but couldn’t find it. As consciousness imposed itself upon me I became aware of my surroundings. I shivered and opened my eyes to look straight down through the glass I was laying upon. It was hard and cold and on the other side was the top deck of the tempest. I sat up and looked around. I was completely naked, sitting on top of the tempest and my head was pounding. Four feet away, Madison sat. She had a blanket wrapped around her and she was quiet as she looked out at the eastern horizon. The sun was just below the curve of the planet and would rise soon.

As I approached her she looked up at me with a smile. “Good Morning.” she said softly before opening the blanket in an offer to share. Thats when I realized, she was just as naked as I was and memories of the previous night flashed through my mind. We had been awake late, drinking and partying with the Aranka, then we climbed on top of the ship and made love before falling asleep in each other's arms.

“Good Morning” As appreciative as I was of the view I currently had, it was cold, so I sat down beside her and wrapped half of the blanket around my shoulders. We were both sitting with knees up to our chests and our sides pressed together. I could feel her soft warmth and tried to remember as much of the previous night as I could, but all I had were fleeting moments to cling to.

Her head suddenly plopped onto my shoulder and she sighed. Her eyes closed when she spoke, “Thank you Jon. Last night, last night was amazing. Nobody has ever treated me like that, like I mattered.”

I wrapped my arm around her and held her close. “You do matter.” And as I said it, I realized it was true for me. Despite how quickly and chaotically our relationship had developed, there was a part of me that wanted her to be mine. I still didn’t know if I could trust her, and I was going to need to stay on my guard for a time; but, I felt in my core that I could trust her and that there was room for more than friendship between the two of us. We watched the sunrise in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. After the sun cleared the horizon I noticed a tear on her cheek. “Are you ok?” I asked.

She smiled, a bit embarrassed and wiped the tear away. “Yeah sorry, It was just so beautiful.”

I nodded in agreement, then took a deep breath. “Let's get some food, and some coffee. I need to get rid of this headache.” I stood and held my hand down, she took it with a smile and I pulled her to her feet. I had another wonderful glimpse of her amazing body before she fixed the blanket around her. “Remind me never to try and outdrink an Arankan.” I said and expanded my armor over my legs and groin so I wasn’t entirely naked. “Now we need to figure out how to get down.” I said with a laugh. “How did we even get up here?”

“I think you used some kind of grappling hook. I remember a rope.” she said

My suit did have a grappling hook, it had two actually. But that was probably a bad idea. It could damage the hull if I didn’t anchor it on the right spot; and going down with Madison would be a lot more difficult than going up. I thought for a second, then fully armored. I swept Madison up in my arms, honeymoon style, and we looked into each other’s eyes. “Do you trust me?” I asked her.

She let out an adorable squeak of surprise when I picked her up but answered “Yes” to me with a nod after a moment of consideration. I gave her a smile of reassurance and jumped from the top of the ship. We dropped the hundred plus feet to the ground and I used the retros on my suit to slow our fall. I was getting pretty good with this suit. She screamed as we dropped and once on the ground she slapped me hard on the metal breastplate. “Owe, you could have warned me.” She said as she waved her hand back and forth in mild pain.

I laughed, which made her laugh, and carried her up the ramp into the still open cargo hanger. I set her down in front of the port side lift and followed her into it. “Taimia, breakfast, and coffee. Lots of coffee.” While we ate, the blanket would occasionally slip down Madison’s shoulders, eventually she got so annoyed that she just pushed the blanket down to her waist and ate with her chest fully exposed.

“What?” She asked when she caught me gawking. “Did I drip something?” she asked as she looked down.

“No, it’s just hard to not to look at you. You're gorgeous.”

She blushed and said “You’re not so bad on the eyes either.”

After a moment of quiet I remembered something else from last night. “The only person I know that can translate that page in your mother’s diary is in the Sol system, but I'm a wanted man there. You also can’t take public transportation there. All commercial civilian flights do a blood scan now because of that terrorist attack a few years back. The terrorists injected stuff into their body that would make them explode after a few hours and a lot of people were killed. But that blood scan would tag you as a Seraphim.”

I thought for a minute while chewing on a piece of bacon. “To make it harder, Christian is on a military outpost, on a very small moon.”

“What if we snuck in?” Madison asked

“Not really an option, the Tempest can’t sneak anything.”

“I know that,” she said. “I don’t mean on the Tempest, I mean on a shuttle or something.”

I leaned back in my chair and screwed up my face with one hand. “Maybe we could land the Tempest on Mars, and then take the Iroquoi shuttle up to Deimos.” I scratched at my chin. “But we wouldn’t want to be near a city or anything. We’d need to land in open desert on the electronically dark side of the planet. But the timing on that will be tight too. Phobos has something like an eight hour orbit and monitors the planet if I remember right. We’d have to get in, land and shut down with Taimia grounding the tempest so that we are in complete infrared balance with the surrounding environment before Phobos passes over. Then we still have the problem of getting onto the outpost. The Iroquoi is a fairly utilitarian shuttle, but I’m wanted and you’re a Seraphim.”

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“I can say the shuttle is mine and they don’t need to know you’re on board.”

“But it’s a military outpost. You normally need some kind of sponsor from an establishment there just to get in, and mountains of paperworks and IDs.” She and I let out our breaths at the same time. We ate in quiet a few minutes before the answer came to me. Bruiser. “Would Bruiser be able to get us in?” I asked Madison.

She stopped eating and just sat there for a moment. “Yes, he probably could.” I could see the tense muscles along her neck and bare back as she thought about Brigand’s Hold.

“I can’t think of any other way of getting onto that base. Or any other way of getting that translated. It’s up to you. I won’t force you to go back there, but I don’t know any other way of finding Aegis. There is no guarantee that what the book says will help us find them, but it’s literally our only lead.” I said

She took a deep breath and said, “No, you’re right. It's the best option. With Steiner dead I’m free. Let’s do it.” She was putting on a brave face but I could tell she was terrified.

After eating I asked Taimia to create some clothing for Madison and I dressed in my customary black jumpsuit. Together we went down to the village and said goodbye to the Aranka. To my surprise we were given gifts by the villagers. Crizah’domn gave me a large jug of the alcohol we had consumed the night before and a bowl of purple fruit native to the planet. The young girls of the village came together and collectively gave Madison a long red ribbon that she tied her hair up with. Several minutes later we were strapped into our seats on the bridge, blasting off the planet. Madison’s eyes were red. She and I probably could have been happy with the Aranka, they treated us like family, but we both knew it wasn’t our destiny to stay here.

Taimia had been able to generate enough of a charge to make a jump from in the system and once we broke free from Golfin 4’s gravity well, we jumped back to EQ Pegasi. This time we weren’t challenged by Brigand’s Hold station security and I made a call to Bruiser. The call was answered by General Ford. “Ah Johnathan, I’m afraid that Bruiser and Aaron are currently indisposed. The Albatross has just returned and they are having words with Kasey Avallon. How can I help you?”

“I need a favor.” I said

“Oh? What kind of favor?”

“I need to get onto and back off a Starforce military outpost without detection.”

“I see. Come aboard the station and I’ll let Bruiser know you want to see him. This isn’t a conversation to have over coms.”

I nodded and Ford closed the call. “Can we trust them?” I asked Madison.

She tapped her lip in thought then said, “Aaron would have told Bruiser everything he knew and guessed about this ship, including the fact that you are the only one that can operate it. It’s in Bruiser's best interest to keep you as a friend. He knows how easily you destroyed Steiner’s ship and how quickly you can jump between systems. He will most likely ask you to a job in trade, but he may just keep the favor and ask you to do a job at a later date. He’s probably guessed what kind of person you are and that you won’t want to work with him often, so he may save the favor for a time he really needs you, like the job we just did for him.”

What she said made sense and I felt better about landing on the station. The signs that we flew past inside the entrance tube illuminated the bridge in neon colors and Taimia set us down in the same place we’d lifted off from the day before. “What about that implant?” I asked.

“Steiner had the control box for it, he is the one that owned me. With him dead and the box destroyed, the implant is effectively dead. I’d still like it out, but it’s not a priority.”

“All the same, let’s do that before we go see them, just in case.” I said. “We’ll stop at a doctor, then go see Bruiser.”

“But I don’t have any credits.” she said confused

“I do. Bruiser paid me a hundred and fifty thousand credits, remember?”

“The surgery won’t be cheap, you’ll probably spend more than half of that money on it. You’d really do that for me?” I looked into her eyes and nodded. She crushed me in a bear hug, “thank you Jon. You don’t know what that means to me,” she said with a genuine sob. My heart went out to her and I held her to me until she stopped crying. I rocked her gently and she eventually pulled back, sheepishly wiping her eyes with the backs of her fingers. “Sorry,” she sniffled.

“It’s ok,” I said

“How did I get so lucky? You are so kind and you have been so wonderful to me, even though you don’t even know me. I don’t deserve it, I’m not a good person like you, I’ve done really bad things. I’ve killed people, tortured people.”

Aaron’s first words to me about her flashed into my head. ‘I've seen her kill quickly and without any remorse’. I realized there was a lot there that I did not know about her. She had been living in brutal conditions for years, and the person she had become as a result would not change overnight. I also thought about her dancing with the Arankan children and laughing with the merriment of the previous night.

“Madison, look at me.” When she did I continued. “I know you have had a very difficult past and it has forged you into what you needed to be, to survive it. But I also know, that inside you is a good person. I’ve seen it. We are ultimately what we choose to be, not what others try to make us. You have the potential to be whatever you want, good or evil, and only you can decide which road you really want to walk down. I see the potential for good in you, I see more than your powers but your heart and if you want to walk down the good road, I’ll be here, holding your hand, every step of the way.” I wrapped her hand in mine and she looked down at it with astonishment.

Madison was stunned and her brain didn’t seem to be working. She just stared blankly at our clasped hands. I led her down the lift and into the station. I called for a taxi and had it take us to a reputable surgical doctor that would take walk-ins. She was quiet and introspective the entire time, staring at our hands when now looking at the ground when walking. I didn’t let go of her hand all the way there. I negotiated with the doctor and it cost me a hundred and thirty thousand credits, but it was worth it for Madison’s piece of mind. She seemed like she was in a daze the entire time, right up until she was laying face down on the surgical table. I was still holding her hand and she squeezed before letting go. “Thank you Jon.” she said as the doctor gave her a sedative to put her under.

I watched from the observation room as the doctor opened up the back of her neck and disconnected the implant from the nerves along her spine, he then closed the cut and stitched the wound closed, before applying some ointment and a bandage to it. The entire process took nearly two hours. An hour later Madison woke up, her eyes were groggy but found mine. I could see the question in them and I held up the glass vial that contained the removed implant. She looked at it, then back at me and took my hand in hers.