Saedah's head swam as his stomach tried to empty. The meager contents of his stomach refused to respond to the painful heaves of his stomach. Vaguely, he registered that Nyx was nagging at him. Jumps made him nauseous, but this was so much worse than he had ever experienced.

How had he forgotten about Jumps?

"Are you an idiot?" She growled, trying to will her joints to work with her so that she could kick the fool. The chair was angled away from Saedah, preventing her from making contact with him, but she tried anyway. "We worked hard on that, you shelumae!"

"Stop yelling." He gasped, almost pleading with her. Her screeching was making his head hurt worse, adding to the turmoil in his gut. And just what did she mean by 'unlucky bastard'? That was a low blow.

He shakily got to his feet and emptied his pockets of what he had pilfered from the medicine cabinet. He found the powder he wanted, and set about collecting a dose.

"You're a junkie?" She asked with derision in her voice.

"Five smutching minutes." He wiped sweat from his brow and attempted to keep his hands steady. "I just need you to be quiet for five fucking minutes!" He growled, turning on her. The pain and promise of violence in his eyes stilled her tongue.

He took the dose, sat in his chair, and leaned his head back. His eyes closed and he attempted to regulate his breathing as the drug made its way into his system.

It was taking too long, so he reached over and grabbed one of the pills and ate that as well, crushing it between his teeth. If his hands had been steadier, he would have opted for the syringe, but he didn't want to bleed all over his ship.

His ship. It was a miracle, and he was terrified of waking up in that Sun-blinded cell.

After a few moments he looked over to his captive. She was glaring daggers at him.

"What were you doing on my ship?" he demanded.

"I was working with the Conclave-"

"Bullshit!" He snarled, jumping to his feet. "Do not lie to me!"

"I'm not, you slug-brained lunatic!" She yelled back, fighting against her restraints while the poison barbs stiffly framed her face in banded fronds. The bonds weren't going to last long. They weren't designed to hold someone as Saedah had used them. In a few minutes she would be able to slide out of those holds. "I work for Vorn, Citram, Mac, Vector, and Vidian."

"How?" He asked, voice cold as he took his seat again. She shouldn't know those names, unless she was telling the truth. And seeing Mac in the hanger proved that he was alive. Simply knowing Vorn as Vorn was nearly enough to prove her case. Who else would throw that explosive name around so familiarly, other than an ally?

"I went to IcoMerra, like you requested - if you remember. Almost lost my life for it too, thank you very much." She drawled. "Vorn was beside himself when I used your name. He was certain it was a trap. Knocked me out and dragged me off to a dormitory on Neofel. I didn't leave again until the day prior to the second fight I attended. I had to find Troache, bless his heart. He was certain your men had killed me…" She trailed off, mumbling of her reunion with Troache until Saedah cleared his throat.

"Oh! But… Um… We couldn't attack her keep until we had enough intel. We had to plant spies. We had to gain support from the inside." Nyx stopped struggling against the binds as she looked at him. An odd look flit across her face before she schooled her features. It passed so quickly that Saedah couldn't identify what it had been.

"Jones?" He asked, thinking of the likelihood of his closest people being in on it.

"He was among our first supporters. Thalia recruited him. Apparently he was one of the few to treat you with decency, correct?" Nyx nodded, growing more free with the information.

"That is putting it mildly, but who is Thalia?" Saedah asked, furrowing his brows.

"I believe you would know Thalia as a nurse." Was that pitty in her eyes? That really went about pissing him off. He took several deep breaths to avoid losing his temper again.

"What about his kids. Are they secure?" He would never forgive himself if he got innocents injured.

"Jones? He has no children." She said, tilting her head to the side and furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. Well, that was the smart thing to do. Jones had built an image around himself, keeping Saedah far from the real person. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"The nurse, huh?" Saedah thought back to the rigid girl that had spoken with him only once at length. After that incident, she kept her distance and only spoke with him in clipped answers. Even when she was in charge of his treatments or physical therapy sessions, she rarely met his eye or spoke with him beyond the instructions she was forced to give.

She had only given him pity once.

"She was cold as any of the others." Saedah chuckled. Nyx redoubled her struggle against the clasps. Saedah would have unclipped her, if she would have asked. He wasn't going to offer, though. He still held a grudge against her.

"She did what she had to do." Nyx responded, freeing one of her hands and unclipping the restraint. Seeing her free sent an unreasonable white-hot poison through his veins. Saedah needed only make one swift movement to have her throat tight in his grasp, and it was a battle to refrain. She glared up at him, and he had to smile at her total lack of understanding of how hard he was trying to leave her alive. She did leave the straps in place, though, with a calculating eye on him.

"Like it or not, we are allies; you and I." She returned his malicious smile.

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"Like it or not, you have enough information to make me almost believe you." he spat back, taking his chair again. He didn't like that he believed her.

"Just almost, huh? I need to check that the virus was uploaded before you ran off with it." She removed the harness then stood, glaring down at him. "I assume you mean to follow, yes?"

She turned without waiting for Saedah's answer. She knew it was a ballsy move, turning her back on him. He obviously did not care if she lived or died, and she could feel the tingle between her shoulder blades at the prospect of a knife or bullet piercing her skin there. He was, of course, on her heels. His hand on the grip of the pistol behind his back.

When they entered the engine compartment, Nyx bent over a console and pulled at cables leading down to the landing gear. As the torn cable end came into view, she hissed and shot him a look that promised pain. Without thinking he took half a step back. Muttering under her breath she tapped the console to bring it back to life.

The upload screen showed a blue bar and a percentage to the right, reading 93%.

"You twice-blasted son-of-a-dross!" She spun on him and slapped him across the face. "Suns and Darkness!" She spun back to the console and bit her lip, never minding that she turned her back on him, again. "Fuck."

"What is the importance of it?" he asked, keeping his tone level and adjusting his grip on the pistol. Just in case. That slap had hurt.

"I did not fully understand everything the guy was saying. Somehow, this would copy their data for us to see and use later, after the moon was destroyed."

"Moon, huh?" He wondered aloud. "What system?" He had not paid much attention to the location when he was leaving.

"The smallest moon of Morpheus, Hypnos." As she spoke, Saedah nodded in understanding.

"Never occurred to me that it was a moon." At his tone, Nyx paused in her analysis of the com and turned back to him.

"You really never knew where you were, did you?" She asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion. With her large brown eyes and their peculiar pupils, combined with the stripes of her skin and the thick quills of her hair, confusion was a mesmerizing look on her.

"Don't look at me like that." Saedah harrumphed and turned away from her pitying eyes. They still had a long while remaining until they reached their destination, and Saedah intended to make a few tweaks to his body before their arrival.

In a small chamber below the cockpit, accessible from the cargo bay, was a medi-pod. It was a tall egg-like structure with three semi-transparent walls between three pillars that formed the skeleton of the egg-shape.

"Kitty." He spoke to her, for the first time since stepping into the ship.

"Yes, sir?" Kitty responded, shimmering into existence beside him.

"Can the nodes be re-installed?" He asked as he stepped close to the opening pod. The transparent walls slowly slid into the pillars in sections. One pillar was moving out from the center of the pod, while the other two folded down slightly.

"If they have been removed… And you survived...This is a risky operation, Saedah. You know this. And with the scar tissue already…" Kitty was leaving a lot of the questions out, given Saedah's present mood.

"Odds?" He knew she was skipping over details, but that suited him well enough.

"Around 40% chance of total failure. 67% chance of partial failure above 50%."

"Do it. If I can't be a Ghost…" Saedah paused, "If I can't wear the suit…" He let the end hang. He couldn't even bring himself to say it out loud to Kitty.

The A.I. started the machine and prepped it for the node installation. Saedah stepped into the space between the pillars when the pod was fully ready. The initial scan ran.

"Saedah. The damage to your body has been extensive. More extensive than I previously thought. Your left arm is mostly non-organic. The nodes require an organic anchor. You will not be able to use the suit with your left arm." Kitty said in a clipped clinical manner. "The nodes were removed crudely and they did not heal well. My previous estimation is incorrect."

She had not realized the extent of his injuries until he stepped into the pod. She had spent the long minutes since he boarded monitoring his speech and the way he moved, rather than his internal physical state. He was very much not-Saedah.

"What does that mean, Kitty?" Saedah asked in a flat tone.

"It means that you can proceed with the operation presently, but until modifications are made on either your arm or the suit, you would need to remove the left arm of the suit. It would create a very large weak-point, if it would work at all. There is nearly a 90% chance of partial failure above 70%, and a 72% chance of total failure."

"Do it. And start planning the adjustments." He shut his eyes. Akumini was the gift that just kept giving, wasn't she?

"Yes, sir." Kitty sounded resigned.

Nyx watched from around the corner as the pod cushioned him with wide bands stretched between two pillars. Those two pillars began to tilt on previously unseen pivot-points nearly half the height of the pod. Two legs remained when the pillars were flat. When he was fully supported by the bands, a dozen robotic arms sprang forth from the third pillar, armed with needles and extremely small knives. The whole station rotated as the robotic arms moved, focusing on different parts of the body.

"Kitty?" She whispered.

"Yes, Nyx?" The AI responded quietly from the nearest sensor.

"What is this?" She gestured toward the pod.

"This is a medi-pod. It is useful-"

"Not that, smartass. What Saedah is doing?" Nyx interrupted. She knew full-well what the pod was, but wanted to know what was happening with Saedah.

"Saedah is undergoing a painful procedure that has a high chance of failure. His captors removed his nodes during his captivity." Kitty paused. "According to your facial expression, you do not understand. You have seen Citram's nodes. The implants just barely visible below the skin, yes?"

"I thought that was a Ceurish thing." Nyx responded quietly, watching Saedah's face as pain etched itself into his features.

"If Vector were not of tougher skin, you would have seen the same under his. Mac also has them, but he wears too much clothing for it to be apparent. Vidian has camouflaged her nodes with tattoos. Their hair covers what would be visible on the scalp and neck."

"Why is it so painful?" Her hand covered her mouth as she watched the blood around the wounds be vacuumed away with arms flitting from the two inner pillars.

"Because, for this to be successful, there can be nothing to slow the nerve responses."

"What is this for?" She was growing very concerned. Vorn would have her skin for a rug if she let Saedah do something crazy while not in his right mind. And from all the stories she'd been told, this was not Saedah in his right mind.

"Not just anyone can wear an Apollo suit. The suits are designed to connect to those nodes, and react to nerve signals. They really are like extensions of the body this way."

"But he runs a high risk of failure." Nyx's voice was flat.

"Yes." Kitty's was equally flat as she confirmed.

"Why, kitty?" Nyx asked, exasperated.

"The scarring of the nerve sites, and of the remnants of the old nodes. That is part of why this will take much longer than if you were to go under the blade for this operation. Those old parts must be removed. Once a node is inserted, it grows around the surrounding nerves, becoming stronger. A person who has nodes implanted for a month will achieve gradual growth for around two years, when the nodes fully mature. As such, the old nodes will be preventing the new nodes from forming a solid connection with the nerves. It is risky, because it is much like skinning the nerve to graph a new skin. This will be very painful for him."

"And if it works?" She watched the strangely hypnotic movements of the pod, brows furrowed as she thought of everything the male had lost.

"That is a bridge I do hope to cross. If it fails, I fear that we may have truly lost the Saedah I knew. If it does fail, I pray I can report to the others before they pass judgement on Akumini." If the AI truly did feel emotion, she was filled with rage. Even Nyx looked at the nearest sensor with question and agreement in her eye.