Vorn, AKA Requiem, looked over the fomenters of Conclave as they filed from the room, golden eyes hidden behind his helmet. He had aged much from the tattered boy on the run, to a battle-hardened man. As the last of the fomenters filed out, he began logging out of the various applications on the DebCon. At the slight - yet highly frustrating - tremor of his hands, he grimaced and closed his fists, willing the shake to subside.

Checking the room against witnesses to his moment of weakness, everyone had left but one other person. After checking the hall against eavesdroppers, Vorn addressed the point-man of Charlie squad.

"What do you need, Saedah?"

Saedah lounged with his feet propped on the chair before him, his armored attire a match to the other fomenter's uniforms. His red hair, in sharp contrast to his dark skin, fell down his back in tiny tight braids. His eyes were closed while his head leaned against the headrest. To anyone else, it would appear as though he were sleeping. Vorn knew the truth.

"You know, if you smile every great once in a while, they might even invite you to one of their dinners." It was a poor attempt at a joke, even for Saedah, considering no one would know whether Vorn was smiling or snarling; the helmet concealed all.

Saedah didn't open his eyes, or otherwise acknowledge the Ghost speaking to him.He did smirk when he heard Vorn stalk silently closer. After only a moment of hesitation, the armored man took a seat close to Saedah, before turning to have a clear view of the door.

When in the company of only those he trusted, Saedah would drop the Calm. He did just that. He instantly regret the loss as every sense dulled drastically. His eyes saw less color, less detail, and seemed to pick up much less light, as though the lights were on dimmers. His sense of smell was near enough to non-existent. The loss of his sense of touch was much worse than that of the other senses, though. There was such a numbness to his skin after releasing the Calm that he had often harmed himself during his early years. Despite the drag on his mind from the loss of Calm, he cracked an amused eye towards Vorn.

"I don't need to befriend them all," Vorn snorted as he pulled the gloves off his hands and rubbed at the scars. They itched horribly, but Vorn had to settle for rubbing them. If he really started to scratch, he would not stop until his skin was a bloody mess.

Saedah pretended not to notice.

"Hell, that'd be impossible." Saedah sighed and sat up, giving Vorn the once-over with pain in his vibrant green eyes. Vorn sat with a regal air, arms crossed, facing the door with the damned helmet still firmly in place, shrouded in a lethal aura. "You need to loosen up. I've known you, what, fourteen? Fifteen years? And sometimes you still manage to make me uneasy, your highness." The last was added as an attempt to goad Vorn into reacting. Saedah's reward was a stern smack across his skull. Given that Vorn wasn't wearing the stiff, protective gloves this time, it hurt a lot less than usual.

"Nothing makes you uneasy." The words contradicted the amusement in Vorn's voice. What he didn't voice, though, was his suspicions that Saedah was somewhat impaired when it came to a healthy respect of dangerous things. Even mentally, he couldn't outright call the man stupid. He was quite smart. But he was so close to stupid at the same time.

So close.

"The hell it don't!" Saedah squawked indignantly, bolting to his feet. He'd taken Vorn's amusement as a green-light to proceed with being the obnoxious distraction Vorn needed. "Remember the run to Phaenna?"

A feminine burst of laughter mingled with Vorn's indignant huff, followed by a quiet voice echoing down the hall. "Quit whining about that. It was a success… mostly, anyway."

"Success my ass! We had to E-Pod on re-entry because somebody" He cast a condemning glare on Vorn, "wrecked the hull and the nav systems! The ship smutching exploded!" Saedah didn't curse often. -

"Nobody died. Quit whining." The feminine voice was accompanied by a petite pale blonde woman in the white unarmored uniform favored by the desk-jobs. A band of blue marked her shoulders, signifying her department as communications.

"Nobody died –" Saedah mimicked in a high-pitched, whiny voice, flapping his hand like a little mouth. "No one was talking to you, Tramp." he spat, falling back into his chair, propping a foot on Vorn's armrest.

"Here's a thought, Sadist." She looked at him from behind her shades with pale blue-almost-purple eyes and looked almost innocent. Almost. "If you want a private conversation; close the door or keep your voice down. It helps." Vorn couldn't remember when the two had adopted the nicknames for each other, but the two had grown so used to using them that it had gotten the two into some odd meetings with HR more than once. Saedah called Citram 'Tramp'. Citram called Saedah 'Sadist'. HR called them idiots.

The two bickered with each other almost constantly. They acted like true siblings, and it was a wonder that their antics never came to blows. But the banter was exchanged, mostly, with smiles from both. They actually enjoyed it. The gods only knew why, but they did.

Watching the two smile and fight for the verbal upper hand, Vorn wondered about the increase in their antics of late. The girl, who appeared at most to be barely legal was only days younger than Vorn's 28 years. Her name was Citram Tidral, from a second-tier planet; Ceurul.

Hers was a petite and completely misleading race, leading most to underestimate their abilities. The Ceurish were mostly underwhelming in both statue and appearance, except for their innately delicate beauty. She was pale, as most true Ceurish people were, with blonde hair, blonde eyelashes and eyebrows, and pale eyes. One could almost consider them Albinos.

The Ceurish had not started out as such a race, but had changed over many generations on the tidally-locked massive planet under the dim sun of Ceurul. There were few planets that had affected the Gaean descendants as dramatically as Ceurul.

The immensely dense atmosphere was oxygen-thin but hydrogen and nitrogen-rich, nearly similar to high-altitude Gaen atmosphere. The gravity was much stronger than Gaea, with a gravitational force just below four times that of Gaea. Then there was the sun. The red dwarf sun burned cooler than the Gaean sun. As a result, the Ceurullian atmosphere was dark and the sky was painted in shades of crimson.

Citram was tall for a Ceur and yet, the top of her head barely reached his lowest rib. The most common mistake when dealing with Ceur was underestimating them. Her small frame concealed a strength that could crush both Vorn and Saedah in a heartbeat, especially in this low-gravity environment. The Ceurish people were extremely strong and had the endurance of demi-gods. Due to the dense atmosphere, they were exposed to lower levels of UV. As such, the fair-complected Ceurs were prone to sunburn when exposed to UV, and eye problems in brightly lit areas.

The plants of Ceurul were hardy, and equally capable of killing you, as you would of them. The animals of Ceurul were the creatures spawned straight from every nook and cranny of hell that made most nightmares seem like rainbows and butterflies. For the Ceurish people to survive, they had become excellent marksmen and killers; tough to the very atoms of their marrow.

Citram, as her coming of age test, had spent a week alone traveling through what they deemed the 'wilds'. Alone. Without weapons, food, or com. She didn't often speak on what she had endured. Even second-hand, Saedah didn't relish the stories.

There was no question as to why, especially with her tremendous support for Vorn, she had been brought in as the fourth Ghost.

Her suit, when she wore it, was a non-reflective blue with black accents. The style was inspired by ancient roman mythology. She'd wanted something a little more flashy and less 'Reaper' than Vorn's, as she had put it. Though, in Saedah's opinion, once she enters the killing field, the reaper wears blue, painted with snarling foxes.

Her symbol was a black ten-tail fox. Her ship was the Kitsune. Her handle: Penance.

"Kitty, lock the door." Saedah said to the room, "Display 'meeting in progress'. Notify if anyone requests us."

"Yes, sir" a metallic female purred from around the room as the AI followed the orders.

Vorn removed his helmet and regarded Saedah with a stern glare. Saedah returned the scowl with a lopsided grin. Vorn, used to Saedah's ridiculous antics, could only sigh in frustration.

"It's still hard to keep up with your mood changes," Vorn growled as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He sounded angry, but there was a quirk at the edge of his lips. From Vorn, that smirk was the same as a full-on, toothy grin.

"See? Isn't that better?" Saedah asked, nudging Vorn's arm with the toe of his boot.

"Saedah. You may not have a problem with my eyes or my name," Vorn growled as he looked away. "But I doubt the majority of the station would be so open-minded, considering." After a moment's pause, he continued. "Some might even stroke…Actually, I'd bet money on it."

"Ya? But wouldn't that be a hoot!" Saedah scoffed at himself and scrunched his face in distaste at the foul sound that had left his lips.

"Hoot? Really? From which gods-forsaken book did you drag that?" Citram wore a matching expression of disbelief.

"An old one. It sounded better in text-form." He shrugged. "It had some really primitive views of space travel." He started to chuckle, but Citram decided to interrupt in a way only Citram could.

"Ops are all briefed. Packs are checked and charges counted. Ships are fueling and going through the preliminaries. Cobol wanted to see you, Vorn, about a new set of gloves he's been working on. Veda has a report on the new charge canisters, in conjunction with Loris' rifle tests. The new scopes came in twenty minutes ago and are being inspected before distribution. I need a signature of approval for pod 4's upgrades, a signature for the construction on Site 7, and a signature for the Lon'Byal Committee to approach the Council."

Vorn nodded, reaching to add his digital signature to the files she indicated. The 'signature' was an encrypted digital record, in part supplied through the biometrics scanner of his Apollo Skin, and part through the program running in Citram's devices. This encrypted signature was required for processing each approval.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"For the love of the suns, Tramp…" Saedah blurted, staring at her in mock wide-eyed horror. "This is why you- we- need to appoint some vice-whatevers!" the only response he got from Vorn was a subtle twitch of his foot, likely in irritation. Citram's lips twisted in a barely concealed smile.

"How is construction on barrack Zulu-3?" Vorn asked, signing the requests, before running his fingers through his short black hair. It bothered Vorn when it was plastered to his head, as it most often was when wearing the helmet. He'd tried shaving it once, which resulted in his scalp itching for days on end, and no shortness of teasing from his fellow Ghosts. He'd decided then to deal with the helmet-head, and wear his hair just longer than the average military cut.

"Completion is expected before the proposed date, at current progress rate."

"Hm. And negotiations with Catharsis?" Vorn retrieved his tablet from a pocket of his suit and pulled up some reports.

"He is starting to give some ground. If not a full submission, we should expect at least a small official proposal within the month."

"Hm. The-"

"-Wait." Saedah interrupted, "Catharsis? The Catharsis?" He groaned as the other two just looked at him.

"Um," Citram glanced to Vorn, who donned a mask of stoicism, more so than normal. "Yes?" she drug the word out.

"What the fuck are you talking with him for?" Saedah's words were indignant as he glared at Citram.

"He's good." Vorn responded, disliking the bite in Saedah's tone.

"Cha, that's debatable." Saedah choked, "And when the devil knocks, you answer, right?"

"There is a reason I do the recruiting." The tone in Vorn's voice was unmistakably thick with irritation, now.

"'Cause you're a crazy smutching bastard!" Saedah nearly yelled. Vorn simply turned away from Saedah and addressed Citram again.

"Training facilities on Oon'Aryx?"

"Operating at full capacity." She responded, noting the way Saedah flipped his hands behind Vorn's back.

"Hm. Very good. Thank you." Vorn concluded the impromptu meeting and Citram moved to exit. Saedah raised his hands in defeat.

"Why don't you pop a squat and relax for a few? You guys are exhausting."

"With all preparations remaining before launch? I am no fool, Sadist."

"A fool, no. A sparking workaholic? Yes. I," Saedah waved a finger at himself, "am field-bound tomorrow." Saedah paused. "Well, I'm off to 'capture the flag' in this insane suicide-plan of a mission. Seriously, from whom did this insanity spew?" Vorn swiped at him again, but Saedah ducked. "Honestly, though, you can't take five minutes for old-time's sake?" Citram eyed him distastefully for a long moment before sighing and casting a glare at Saedah.

"Getting sentimental in your old age?" she aimed the quip at Saedah as she pressed buttons on her cuff. "Kitty, permit intern 1-4-B"

"Yes, Doctor Tidral." Saedah honestly loved that metallic work of art.

They sat in silence for a few moments, not wanting to be distracted when the intern arrived. Vorn replaced the helmet over his head and flipped a rude gesture to Saedah when he started to comment. Saedah smiled and flipped the gesture back. Saedah knew it would be a bad idea to unveil vorn to the base without a sturdy handhold on the RRECs, at the least. He just enjoyed pulling Vorn out of his own skull.

When the door slid open, Saedah shot Vorn a skeptical grimace.

The girl, appearing to be in her early teens, looked up from her tablet and froze in the doorway. Saedah and Vorn were both looking at her, but she saw only the command head Requiem, and Saedah. She fought an inner battle to not outwardly fangirl over Saedah. In her opinion, he was quite possibly the finest and biggest badass of the Lon'Byal Academy faculty. He was, after all, in good standing with the Ghosts!

There was no shortage of theories on their relationship, some of which nauseated both Vorn and Saedah. Others made them laugh. Once or thrice the rumors had gotten a little too close for comfort to truth. When the 'Ghost Watch' forums began to approach the truth on his standing as a Ghost, the team had fabricated eye-witness reports of Dirge and the instructor in a disagreement. They'd gone so far as to construct a shoddy video of the argument, made to look as if had been recorded on a mobile.. All the Ghosts had taken their turns at acting when the fans grew too wise.

The 'Ghost Watch' forums were an issue, but suppression had been a total failure. After removing the sites for the fourth time in as many months, the team created a crew that would submit false data on the Ghosts into the feeds. They also scanned and scrupulously searched for new forums or posts regarding the Ghosts. The 'watchers' acted like all the other fanatics, going so far as to - seemingly - get into very heated arguments with the other members.

Saedah tried to smile at the little flower of a young woman. It was meant to be reassuring. It was meant to calm the child down. It was meant to help. What it did was the opposite. That one simple smile merely served to paint her cheeks a deep crimson.The poor thing nearly burst into tears. Citram smacked him across the back of his head and walked to the shaking girl.

"Take these to my office and order my lunch. I will pick it up on my way to the labs."

"Yes, sir!" she squeaked, eyes wide in abject terror. Her eyes darted from Citram to Saedah to Vorn and back. She nodded a hasty bow and practically sprinted from the room.

"Doctor Tidral, the system is registering an elevated heart rate in intern 1-4-B."

"That is because we have two very big and incredibly stupid males in this room." Citram spat, giving them both a glare that mirrored the fires of hell.

"I would really love it if someone, anyone, would stop hurting me." Saedah rubbed his abused scalp. "We're on the same side. I don't know if you guys didn't get the message but-" smack! A creepy sound escaped Vorn's throat, something akin to a chuckle. The man, the incarnation of death, didn't do it often anymore, but usually when he did; something incredibly stupid and/or off the Richter scale of deadliness was in store. Making Vorn smile was one of Saedah's small accomplishments in life, accomplishments he strived to achieve on a regular basis. "Tch. Anyway, she was a young'n."

"Where do you get these words?" Sighing exasperatedly, Citram smiled despite Saedah's antics. She shook her head, but wheeled another armed chair over to Saedah and Vorn. She collapsed into the chair, groaning ,and allowed herself to relax for the moment. Vorn removed his helmet again and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"All we need now is a bottle of that kick-ass hooch, like-"

"No." both Vorn and Citram growled in unison.

"Easy. Easy. I yield." he raised his hands in mock-surrender. "Sheesh, it's hard enough to get you two power-idols to sit down, let alone drink anymore." Though a literal taste of the old days would have been nice, in Saedah's opinion. A taste of the time when this wasn't all politics and calculations. Or planning. With some paperwork, sweat, and blood thrown in. Plus more planning. Groaning, he continued, "Tomorrow's a big hit."

"Hm." Vorn hummed, nodding.

"It has to be done." She sounded like she was still trying to convince herself. "DuraCore's development teams are honing some really dangerous weapons-" Citram began, only to be interrupted by Vorn's growled words.

"Derived from tech WE'VE lost on sideways missions." Even with the self-destruct mechanisms, there had been multiple occasions when Moles had sent alarming reports. Reports of teams of scientists being able to retrieve enough information to mock the originals.

"What happens when this thing turns pear-shaped?" Saedah asked, losing the air of the clown and focusing on being serious. The arguments had been heard hundreds of times, already, in the last ten weeks. It wasn't a conversation Saedah wanted to have. He wanted nothing to do with the mission. But he was the only Ghost that could go.

"We've planned for two months. We have four squads on this." Vorn ran his hands through his hair again. "Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta. They know what to do. You know what to do." Saedah was on Charlie Squad, after all.

"I am no noob, V. I've been on more than enough runs. It's the scale, the rush, the informant… The whole smutching situation rubs me the wrong way." Saedah scrubbed his face with both palms before dropping them to his knees.

"There's no more time to dig." Citram began, indicating notes on her slate. "If we don't move now, the informant says-"

"Where is the informant now?" Vorn asked, before Saedah could bash the mission any further.

"She's in hiding." Citram stated. Vorn raised a brow.

"On her own, or through HUSH?" Saedah asked, beating Vorn to the question. Saedah had worked a lot with HUSH after Vorn had been saddled with more and more responsibilities as the Chief of Conclave Command. Saedah had since had to relinquish his hold over the EVAC safe-houses to a remarkable engineer, Cobol, due to the same infliction of increasing responsibilities. Responsibilities seemed to multiply quicker than others could be trained to take them on.

'HUSH' was Halcyon's Unified Safe Houses. It was named after the man that had founded the civilian-run underground network back in the days of the railroad. The man had died in a raid a few years after the establishment of the first house. Vorn had picked up the pieces a number of months later. The network had unraveled and the houses had gone rogue. He'd somehow managed to get everyone working together again, even planting roots that spanned nearly three quarters of the known galaxy. But it was never the same. In Halcyon's day, the houses were cozy, comfortable places that inspired happiness. Over a decade later, each house was more a half-way house than anything resembling the homes that Halcyon had created.

Both Vorn and Saedah had been considerably more focused on saving lives than improving the quality of those lives. Medicine, food, education, and other services were offered, but the ability to forget what lay beyond the walls was not something on which the Ghosts focused. What little comforts each house offered came from the landlords. The HUSH landlords were called 'Librarians'.

Everyone hoped Cobol was the man that could change that lamentable fact.

"What do you think of the teams?" Vorn asked Citram.

Citram's fingers flew across her slate's display, pulling up files and histories of the people Vorn was inquiring about. The DebCon whirred to life and the profiles of each of the fifteen graduates revolved around the display. "Three operatives deployed for this mission are fairly green, but efficient. I chose them from the recent graduates. Inexperienced or not, this should be an easy first exercise for them."

"First exercise? Hells inferno, Tramp, I swear you're trying to kill me." Saedah moaned, collapsing further into the chair.

"Stop your whining. They're good. Top marks." She flipped her tablet around to show Saedah the tiled reports of graduate ranks with four highlighted names. They were the top of the class. "Our resident OPS vet for this mission is Sajer Maze." Citram glanced to Vorn, who looked deep in thought.

"We have who we have. The whole purpose of the academy is to build cohesive and capable teams." Vorn spun his chair, dislodging Saedah's foot and nearly dumping him to the floor. "What do you think of Charlie?"

Saedah righted himself and leveled a serious gaze at Vorn. "Maryse has been on two missions. Her first was that shit-storm of a disaster last year. She was one of three in her squad who survived, and the only one who didn't go desk-side. She's hard, and knows how to do the hard things to survive. Her last team leader recommended her for promotion.

"Berga's been with us for almost five years. So far, his missions have gone well. He's never been on the short end of the shit-stick." Saedah paused to glance at Citram. "He volunteered and managed to get placed on my team. The last is a green, straight out of the academy, but the rest of the teams all have one vet to three newbies. Seriously, for such an important mission, why do we have so many noobs?" He set pleading eyes on Citram, who shrugged before setting her tablet aside.

"To be honest, the majority of our forces, including the vets, are fighting on NaBoht. We can't pull them back now. The graduates kept out of this mission will see their classmates on NaBoht when they get back."

"In other words, it's a cluster fuck out there?" Saedah scratched his chin as he spoke.

"In such eloquence, yes." Citram tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking at Saedah without her typical mischievousness.

"Vector's there?" Saedah asked. He was not facing Citram directly. He couldn't look his bond-sister in the eye while asking that question. Citram looked away, allowing her bangs to fall over her eyes. Her response was barely audible.

"Yes." No one liked having the youth so close to danger. Citram least of all. If something happened to him, it had the potential to create a nasty backlash that could politically cripple the Conclave. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Vector was good at what he did. The rest of the Ghosts couldn't sit on him forever, though. So Vorn had finally relented, given the kid a team, and sent him into the red zone.