Shortly thereafter the party parted ways. Saedah and Vorn had to make rounds and hopefully catch some sleep. Citram left to get 'lunch'. Her hours began after most went to sleep. Time was hard to track in the heart of the base, as it was deep under the surface of the planet. It was approaching dawn for the topside civilian city, but the UV lamps burned brightly in the common areas at all times.

Saedah's mission would begin in six hours.

From his and Vorn's room in the private and well-hidden Ghost's barracks, Saedah looked up at the glossy gray ceiling and sighed, speaking to the man on the other bed. He was lying facing the wall, nearly asleep when Saedah spoke. "Ever wonder where the time goes?"

Vorn, startled, snorted from his side of the room. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because this whole damned business sucks it," he paused as a yawn cracked his jaw. Saedah winced as he heard it from his side of the room. "right out of you." He adjusted his pillow while Saedah thought. "Go to sleep."

"You seeing them off tomorrow?" Saedah asked after a long moment of silence. He meant the ones destined for NaBoht.

"If the universe sees fit to grant me a few hours of sleep? Probably." Vorn growled in response.

"Have you seen the reports?" Saedah knew he was pushing the envelope of Vorn's patience. He just could not slow his brain.

"I don't really want to talk about this now."

"Fine, but you really need to start thinking about a vacation." Saedah yawned. "Mine did a world of good… At least it did 'til I got back." The resulting silence rang loudly in Saedah's ears, but he would not bother Vorn more.

That night, Vorn slept fitfully. Memories of the initial strike on NaBoht flashed through his dreams. He had gone with a crew to deliver supplies. What had greeted them upon entry was a world on fire. The weapons of the Triad were formidable. Upon clearing the smoke and clouds, the air was thick with aircraft, bullets, parachutes, and shrapnel. The earth below was nothing but charred expanses of burning structures, smoke, dirt, rock, pockets of gas, and bodies.

He hadn't gone to NaBoht to engage. He was supposed to be on a simple mission to drop supplies and a couple doctors, bolster morale, then jettison his ass out of Dodge. What had happened was a total and complete cluster fuck to top all cluster-fuckery.

Something in atmos; shrapnel, enemy fire, plummeting soldiers- take your pick - wrecked the primary engine. The bird fell like a drunken duck, landing directly in the middle of a new strong-hold held by the Triad raiders. The pilots, in a final act of 'up-yours', drove the shuttle through two of the largest field shelters. When it finally came to a rest, fire engulfed the monstrosity and quickly spread to consume the shelter they had piled against. In the wreckage, Vorn, the two doctors, and the one surviving pilot had to grab what they could and fight their way out.

Fighting against a horde of Triad troops in front, a time bomb of a flaming wreck in back, along with pain and blood loss, the quartet barely made the edge of the nearest undamaged squat building before the bird exploded. One doctor was taken down, but not dead. The remaining three suffered from the blast. As the wave crashed into them, they were forced to the earth. More bruises and scrapes were their reward.

Despite the trauma, or maybe because they were so dulled by the trauma, they recovered their feet quickly. The downed doctor, though, was cleaved from hip to navel by shrapnel. Her arms were stained and glossy from fingertip to elbow with the effort of containing her entrails to the wound.

Vorn could see more enemy coming. Three truths were abundantly clear: They couldn't successfully escape with her, they could not leave her in her current state, and she could be repaired enough to spill intel. Looking to the pilot and younger male doctor, his thoughts were mirrored back at him. Panicked and pained eyes darted between the doctor and the Ghost, mouths working but unable to utter the words. Their weapons were lowered, their eyes averting quickly when meeting their reflections in his visor.

Vorn motioned and opened his mouth to begin exploring options. He didn't get far.

The female doctor, Reasa, grabbed his ankle. His eyes met hers as she scanned his visor. She had two children back at the base. She was a favorite in Mac's ranks of healers. Her husband was a fine soldier and one of the favorite testers amongst the engineers. Vorn had witnessed both Reasa and her husband, together, evaluating new weapons or tools, joking, and even participating in departmental sports with the engineering and medical staffs. The husband-wife duo was extremely active in the academy, as well; volunteering and teaching the youngest civilians of Conclave basic survival skills. Losing her would be a hard blow to so many.

"Do. It." She growled through clenched teeth, tears in her eyes.

Vorn looked to the inbound enemy. They didn't have much time left. As his companions opened fire on the enemy, Vorn turned to Reasa. Gnashing his teeth in a vicious snarl behind his helmet, he aimed his blaster. He couldn't help but turn his head and close his eyes as he pulled the trigger.

Vorn sat bolt upright, a layer of sweat coating his skin like chilled oil. He felt gross. His heart was beating a rapid tattoo in his ears, even as he tried to slow his breathing. He hated that dream, and it came all too often for his taste.

He ran a hand through his hair and marked the chill in the room. The blankets were piled on the floor. He looked to his nightstand, and the clock sitting atop it read 0900.

"Sparking hells, man. You okay?" Saedah whispered from the doorway. He wanted to ask 'What happened?', but instead he leaned against the doorjamb. He'd been downstairs answering a last-minute pre-launch call when Vorn had roared. Sheer panic fueled the mad dash up the winding stairs and down the hall.

Vorn collapsed back onto the mattress and let out a long sigh, very nearly a growl. Saedah's hands itched to run through his hair, but he refused to let his bond-brother know how flustered he was.

"NaBoht?" Saedah asked.

"Yeah." The voice that left his lips did not sound right. It was dry, gravelly, with a hint of something Vorn refused to name. He'd heard it in other's voices too often of late. He didn't like hearing it in his own voice.

"You haven't told me what happened." Saedah stated. It wasn't a request. It was a statement, and he was careful to keep his tone level. Without lifting his head, Vorn turned tired, golden eyes to Saedah. The effort was all too evident on Saedah's carefully neutral face. Despite the effort, tense eyes stared back.

"It doesn't matter. I'm not there anymore." Vorn closed his eyes and rolled back to face the wall. He didn't want to see the tension in Saedah's eyes. He didn't want to hear the unspoken questions. The air was chilled, but Vorn's hands were shaking too badly to reach for the blankets. None of the Ghosts would let him off light-duty if he showed that weakness, so he left the blanket on the floor. Without the blanket, Saedah could see the scars crossing his flesh.

Some of the scars were deep, crisscrossed and puckered. Those were made by blade or bullet, maybe a whip? Others were shallow, wide and jagged. Those made Saedah think of burn victims and skin grafts. Vorn simply refused to talk about it.

So far, Saedah had respected his friend and leader's wish for privacy. They both knew that Saedah could easily request the reports and piece the story together. The simplicity of it was a temptation. Saedah had the highest level of security clearance; the same as the other five Ghosts. The information was literally at his fingertips.

Saedah also knew that if he were to give into that temptation, he would cause irreparable damage to his relationship with his bond-brother. If he were to ignore Vorn's wish for privacy on this matter, Vorn would never forgive him. Vorn would likely never trust him again.

It was enough to quash the temptation, for now. However, the longer Vorn suffered in silence, the harder it was to listen to reason.

Vorn's privacy on this matter was an unspoken truce between the two. They had gone through eight shades of hell together and, contrary to popular belief, a soldier in the thick of battle - and what happened afterwards - never came out looking very good. Each had sported an array of cuts, gouges, infections, burns, and bites. Neither wanted to speak of their worst experiences after debriefing, or on a couple of occasions; therapy. There were few opportunities for privacy between the two, or any of the Ghosts for that matter. When one asked for privacy, the others granted it - if humanly possible.

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War waited for no man.

War couldn't care less how you felt.

The Ghosts tried to ease the burden of war for each other.

So, while Vorn had visited the latest installment of hell-incarnate, Saedah had been on an island sipping stiff fruity drinks garnished with umbrellas. He'd been flirting with ladies in the sun; ladies clad in little more than floss. No one had called him when Vorn's ship had gone down. No one had called him when Vorn's transmitter had been scrambled. No one had offered him a place on the recovery team, nor had they called when Vorn was found.

Citram had, as soon as his shuttle docked, pulled Saedah aside.

With a grip on his wrist, she informed Saedah that Vorn had been in an accident. Her words were clinical but rushed, as though she had to get it all out in one breath.

"Due to injuries received during and after the accident, Vorn has undergone several surgeries during the past week." The look on her face was one of grief and pity, mixed with more than a dash of trepidation or outright fear. Her solemn attitude, combined with the fact that she neither teased Saedah nor let him depart the loading dock before she finished, had him near panic.

"How is he now? And how the smutching hells did this happen?!" he growled, nearly shouting. What had happened to Vorn's Apollo skin? Surgery on Vorn? They wouldn't risk major surgery on Vorn unless it was life or death. That damned mutt's body rejected nearly every anesthetic they tried on him. Beyond the anesthetics, a large number of painkillers would leave him with new scars. It took every ounce of self-control and his thorough emotional training to bury his fury.

Well… Control his fury.

"He is recovering. He's in the therapy pool." She drew in a deep breath that steeled her nerves but set his even more on edge. "He flew a drop to NaBoht. He arrived in the middle of the raid." Saedah ripped his arm out of her grip and turned, not interested in listening to whatever else she had to say. Saedah had heard about the strike over the radio and on every news broadcast available on the island. The body count on both sides was horrifying. Even worse were the clips and images. He'd been on the island for two days of his three week leave when the news began broadcasting NaBoht. He'd called HQ to see if he was needed for reinforcement. He'd managed three long strides down the ramp before Citram caught him.

"Saedah!" From behind, Citram latched onto his arm and shouted his name for the fourth time.

"What!" he snarled, skidding to a stop and turning on her. He pinned her with a look of pure rage, one she had only seen twice in the twelve years they had been friends. His jaw ticked. His eyes, normally a vibrant green, were a deep, dark green with a band of black around the iris swelling in time with his heartbeat. The flashing rim of his eyes showed her just how hard he was working to rein in his emotions.

His posture wasn't that of the aloof mining basics or self-defense instructor. He was in a dangerous mood. His body was coiled and ready to strike. He loomed over her in a way he had never done before. Even with her strength, Citram was afraid. Saedah was gone. In his place stood Dirge.

"His body is scarred and weak, but he will recover fully. Mac saw to him, personally, for all surgeries and treatments." The flashing dulled slightly, but there was still a tick to his jaw.

"No one called me." Those four words, uttered as a growled accusation, matched the look in his eyes. It caused her stomach to clench and heart to ache. whether in fear or pity, she was unsure. She was, however, tired of his tantrum.

"He didn't want, and I quote, 'his foolishness to ruin your well-earned vacation'." She paused, watching a stoic mask take hold of Saedah's features. "He said there was little you could do, other than worry."

"That wasn't his choice to make." Saedah was always there. He was always the first one to lead the charge to pull someone else's rear out of the cook-pot. If he had been on duty and not on some pansy island, Vorn could have been much better off. It could have been prevented.

"I assure you, it was, by all rights, 'his choice to make'."

"He's my smutching bond-brother, Citram. After-" he coughed deep in his throat to prevent himself from finishing the statement. "You guys are the only semblance of family I have left. I shouldn't have been left in the dark." All the Ghosts were his brothers and sisters, by custom and ceremony. They were all legally bound family recognized by all Baultoni, but to different degrees. Only Vorn and Citram had gone through the ceremony for becoming bonded siblings.

"If it's a choice between your wrath, or Vorn's trust? I choose your wrath anytime." That pulled a sardonic chuckle from Saedah. The tension in his body melted away, followed by the banding of his eye and the tick in his jaw. His outrage dulled. She was right. It was a choice he would have made, had he been in her place.

"Vorn didn't want me here, but what about the rescue efforts? Why wasn't I notified?" At this, Citram chewed her bottom lip. She remembered all too clearly the panic of losing his bird's transmitter. Then his personal transmitter terminated shortly after.

"That was my call. We…" Her throat tightened. "We did not want to call you in until we learned if he lived or…" Saedah raised a hand. He understood. "The Specters located him just before they were planning to transport him off world. We didn't have time to wait for you."

He saw the logic. He understood the logic. He just didn't like it.

"Then we had him, and all he kept saying was not to bring you in. So we didn't." Her eyes were pleading with him to concede the issue. Those blasted eyes. Even in the Calm that woman could pull him around by her pinky finger. It had to be a womans inborn ability to cast their puppy-dog eyes at too-soft men to get exactly what they wanted.

Aside from damning her for using that cheap shot, he was warring with himself. Within the Calm, he knew her logic was correct. If things had gone south that fast, he would not have waited on one of them before acting. History lent credence to that fact. Emotionally, he did not want to agree with her logic. Logically, he didn't want to deal with his emotions.

He forced the Calm to recede and release the numbing, enhancing hold on his senses.

"Ah, but you really know how to pull my strings." He rubbed his temple. The rush of emotions and fight with the Calm had a headache forming. "I hate you for that, by the way."

"Forever my puppet" She gifted him with a small, hesitant smile. "Do you want me to take you to him?"

"I know how to get there." He drawled, then noticed a blush burn brightly across her face. Of course, she would know he was intimately familiar with the therapy pool rooms. "But I wouldn't mind the company."

"Excellent."

The walk to the pools was filled with typical Citram topics of interest. Ten minutes off vacation, and she was preparing and confirming his agenda for the next six weeks. She confirmed that he would be tending to his lectures as scheduled. This went into her tablet. She confirmed that he would be overseeing the inspection of the mines on Oon'Aryx. This also went into her tablet. She inquired if he had received the email from the research departments. When he responded in the negative, she proceeded to read his emails to him. From those emails, three more appointments were made for projects requiring his approval: a new munition detonation device, a budget increase for the biology team, and the expansions of the botany facility.

He was only required to approve the device based on the amount of Oon'Aryn resources required to make them. He was, aside from the mining expert, the techie. But technology was Dirge's specialty, not Saedah's. Dirge was the Chief of Technology. When in his Apolo skin, he was the Ghost Dirge, near a demigod in some Conclave eyes. Outside of his Apollo skin, he was Saedah, Mr. Karth, or Teach.

Saedah Karth was just a regular man with regular, dull, menial, and mentally taxing duties.

He was the 'Basics' instructor for miners headed to Oon'Aryx, in addition to a few courses in combat. He taught the miners safety procedures and the different minerals found in approved Oon'Aryn regions. He owned the planet, at least a large portion of it, due to a complicated extended family relationship. The whole mess really made living as Saedah Karth so much harder within the Conclave. It also gave him a taste as to what Vorn lived through every day, if only a much smaller taste. The biology and botany facilities were on Oon'Aryx. Naturally, he was the overseer of those facilities as well, but overseer of facilities only. He knew absolutely about botany. He had advisors and committees to report to him for that. Had anyone told him fifteen years ago that he would have advisors and a committee reporting to him, when he and Vorn were brainstorming the creation of the Conclave and Ghosts, he would have turned them over to the psych ward.

While he enjoyed what the botanists did, and he would make an effort to collect samples when confronted with interesting species, he didn't really care about the science. He did have a rather nice solarium in his real home, where he enjoyed growing interesting and harmless plants. While he wasn't afraid of much of what the 'scientifics' did throughout the conclave, he did have one department he would avoid when possible. He would love to have absolutely nothing to do with explosives.

He would set those bad boys off when necessary.

From a distance.

Very carefully.