In a six-foot deep rectangular pool filled with a faint yellow-green liquid, Vorn was easing his way from one end to the other. Even through the goo, Saedah could see that Vorn's body was badly damaged. Large areas of scabs and stitches marred his skin. He had yet to notice his audience and was huffing and struggling with the thick liquid. The person instructing him was neck-deep in the water at the edge of the pool, beside the ladder, wearing a water-cap that concealed his hair. With his back turned and mostly concealed but for a strip of neck, Saedah couldn't tell who the instructor was with certainty. Knowing the medic, though, he would nearly guarantee who was watching the first of the Ghosts.

Vorn let out a strangled croak and his head dipped under. By the time the medic reached Vorn, Saedah was already at the side of the pool. With his head above water once again, Vorn floated with one hand gripping the instructor's shoulder and the other submerged to massage the muscles of his right leg, grinning impishly at Saedah.

Mac was, indeed, the instructor and medic on hand. The doctor/surgeon was roughly four inches shorter than Vorn. He sported a well-groomed goatee that only accented the sharp angles of his jaw and chin. The cinnamon eyes marked him as a Lon'Byal native. His hair would be a rich brown, if not concealed by the swim-cap. Not many Lon'Byal natives from his region became doctors. It was rare that any left their villages. It was even more unusual for any Byalan to study or enter employment within the sciences. They were an incredibly superstitious race, with medicine-men and clerics. Only the Gods knew how Mac managed to get into a university, but he was one of the best. Especially for this catastrophe-waiting-to-happen group of mixed-breeds.

"Hey. Back already?" Vorn asked, lamely, offering only a crooked smile that didn't reach his nervous eyes. He'd thought of several things he would say when he saw Saedah again. However, he'd never imagined Saedah would return just as he was about to drown.

"Seems so." Saedah collected his nerves. This wasn't the place to face the ire of his bond-brother. Nor was it the place to unleash his own. He nodded to Mac in a simple greeting when their eyes met. The medic absently nodded in return, focusing on his patient.

The two headed to the ladder, with both Saedah and Mac helping Vorn out and into a nearby wheelchair. When Saedah eyed the contraption with a raised eyebrow, Vorn huffed and looked away.

"Don't ask, man. I'm home. I'm healing. All there is to it." Since Vorn had opted out of the mechanical chair, he used the manual chair as a mode of rebuilding his upper body strength.

All of the questions Saedah had built on the walk to the pool room fled, as did the ire. Vorn looked emaciated. Saedah had to question if he could have recognized him without looking at Vorn's face. He doubted he could, never mind that he had spent the majority of fifteen years in tight quarters with the man. His body had changed for the worse, but his face still held that Vorn seriousness. A new scar ran into his hairline, exposing fresh pink scar tissue where Vorn's hair would not grow. The scar ran just behind where the tip of his ear should have been, showing the path of destruction and how the tip had been removed.

His eyes, though, were the most alarming.

Seeing the usually bright, if not cold and serious, eyes of his brother left Saedah's mind reeling. The golden eyes were no longer sculpted gold. They were darkened and dulled from gold to an earthy brown. The painful injections Vorn used to meet the temporary color change left his eyes unfocused. They were still displaying the side effects. His left eye trembled. His right eye would focus for a moment before drifting to the right, then snapping back into focus.

It was a security measure that Vorn would have only taken in the most dire of situations. In that moment Saedah could not meet Vorn's eyes. The extent of the scars became clearer. Even his fingers bore scars.

Bond-brother or not, Saedah likely wouldn't have wanted anyone to witness him in that state, either. Glancing up, he caught a nod by Citram in an 'I told you so' manner. He really did despise that smartass sometimes.

"How was the vacation?" Vorn's voice echoed in the sterile hall, nearing the recovery quarters. Saedah noticed Mac pulling Citram aside and lagging behind.

"Good booze, lots of sun, seafood, and a lot of nearly-naked women." He chuckled lightly, shrugging. "A few were naked. Eventually. It was good." He and Vorn shared a rare smirk with one another. Romance was far too removed with their busy schedules and need for secrecy. It also took a lot of prep work to have a few hours with a woman. Way more than Saedah was prepared to exert. Poor Vorn, though… with his eyes.

His eyes. His now brown eyes.

"If I had known…" Saedah sighed. "The raid was on every broadcast and all frequencies. I even called to see if I was needed there. I was told to take my leave and standby. So I stood by. I had my link in arm's reach at all times." A darkness fell over Vorn's features, and Saedah had to call the Calm to avoid the rush of anger, guilt, or whatever emotion had a death grip on his windpipe.

"Look, Saedah…" Vorn sighed, visibly containing his frustration. "We don't get vacations very often. You've been bragging and looking forward to this trip for two years." He put heavy emphasis on 'two years'.

"Bond-brother." Saedah's mind raced to formulate meaningful words. "I should have been here-"

"And what would you have done?" Vorn snapped, slamming his hands against the rubberized handrim in a rare outward burst of anger. The abuse brought the wheelchair to a stop with a jerk. Vorn was forced to crane his neck to glare up at the overly tall simpleton beside him. Saedah held his palms up, not sure what he could say against such logic.

"Anything I could have-" It sounded more question than statement, and Saedah hated himself for the doubt that bubbled in him, despite the Calm, in that moment.

"Like now?" The question caught Saedah off-guard.

"What do you mean?" Saedah asked through narrowed eyes. He could see the irritation building on Vorn's face.

"The looks of pity. The fact that when you helped me out of the pool, you treated me like I was made of glass. I don't want that. I need no-one's pity. I'm still me. I'm still Vorn. I'm not…. I'm not fragile." Vorn was practically yelling by the end. His voice was cracking with barely contained tears. It was an emotional display from Vorn that Saedah had not seen in years.

Saedah was frozen in place as Vorn wheeled angrily into his room in the recovery quarters. When Citram stopped beside him, he turned pained eyes to her. His grip on the Calm was slipping. The void was full to bursting with emotion.

She only offered a somber nod and a gentle pat on his clenched fist. He hadn't realized he'd grown so tense. Every muscle was tight and ready to snap. Citram waited for him to compose himself. Having been there during the whole of Vorn's recovery so far, she knew Saedah's pain. Every wince of pain physically hurt her. Every whimper that escaped his clench teeth caused her stomach to sour. Every time he bumped the wheelchair into something, and she could see the frustration in him, she wanted to scream. When his hands trembled, she wanted to fight something. When he cried, though. When he cried, she wanted to weep with him.

Saedah was just joining the party. He had a lot of catching up to do.

Mac strode by at a rapid clip, not even pausing as he flashed a hand gesture for the pair to stay.

"That is why he didn't call you. He knows he is your first bond of the family, and we are all the family you have. When Mac assured him that he would survive," Citram would not mention how many times Mac had repeated himself before Vorn began to believe it. "he wanted to be on the mend before you were aware."

"Damn his pride." He breathed. That foolish man thought he could handle everything alone.

"I would be lying if I thought it was more for your sake than his, but let's be honest." She turned her eyes on him, still watching the hatch to the recovery quarters out of her periphery. "If it were you, you wouldn't want Vorn there to worry over you." She turned to him fully as he opened his mouth to object. With a finger digging into his chest, a little above eye-level for her, she continued, "I've been around you both long enough to know. Don't you dare hold it against him. You got the vacation you deserved and he got to recover. Do not guilt yourself over this."

Don't guilt yourself.

Yeah, right.

That had been almost six months ago. Vorn had grown more withdrawn since the incident. Saedah hadn't asked for details since the day he returned to the station. With graduation out of the way, and the next class scheduled to begin a month later, he found a large portion of his schedule free.

With a more open schedule, thanks to graduation, Saedah and Vorn were spending more time together in preparation for their next missions. Mostly the two were sparring or competing in simulations, when their rounds didn't pull them into some departmental issue. The Conclave machine was a hungry beast. It devoured manpower and hours at an astounding rate. They had a hard enough time providing the manpower, and when the extended shift hours wore on the people, drama and accidents had the tendency to explode all over the office. Saedah had picked up far more than his fair share of office politicking and troubleshooting, as Vorn - Requiem - had developed a much shorter fuse. To buffer the masses from his quick anger and biting tongue, Saedah placed himself in Requiems standard role while leaving Vorn to deal with the less stressful cases.

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Vorn had lost something on NaBoht, and he was still working hard to get it back. Until then, Vorn would flinch -at minimum- at loud sounds and become overly tense when anyone was behind him. Mac had released him for light duty. For a Ghost, that limited Vorn to only administrative tasks. He wasn't up to par, yet. Vorn would be desk-side during the mission against DuraCore Enterprises, where he would be monitoring the com lines with Citram.

Vorn had only been at rest for three hours before he had awoken, screaming, from his nightmare, scaring the darkness out of Saedah. After the near-heart-attack Vorn had given him, the adrenaline pumping through his veins likely wouldn't let Saedah rest for any of the two remaining hours of down time. So, Saedah gathered his toiletries.

Vorn wasn't far behind Saedah in the shower room. He deposit a towel on a peg and a change of clothes on a short stool just outside one of the stall doors. The Ghosts had a private shower room with six high-walled stalls containing state of the art technology. Citram was notorious for spending hours in her stall, soaking in the shower while she addressed her volumes of backlogged reports.

Vorn hated paperwork. He knew it was a necessary evil, and he accepted it as a part of life. Not as a part that belonged in the shower, however. He really hated whoever had been demented enough to combine a relaxing shower with work. It was a gross waste of engineering enginuity. He did, however, enjoy the ability to bring up videos or music when he had the time.

This was not one of those times. He was too tired for it. As if to emphasize his exhaustion, an eye-watering and jaw-cracking yawn blurred his eyes. His body felt stiff and heavy with exhaustion. He looked at the shave kit in the corner of the stall, resting on a shelf beside the shower mirror, deciding that was definitely not happening that morning. He was going to have to dose himself with one of Mac's alert-aid pills. Not for the first time, Vorn envied Saedah's Baultoni blood. Requiring so little sleep would be a godsend. Vorn hadn't even tried to go back to sleep. He'd purposely forced his heavy eyelids to open and his heavy, sleep-numb limbs to move and carry him out of the bed. He wanted no more to do with that variety of dream. And he knew, without a doubt, that was the exact dream he would return to if his head touched the pillow again.

The quick wash was rushed and devoid of conversation. Vorn finished his shower before Saedah, yet Saedah was the first out of the room. Vorn was left to assemble the Skin around him in silence. The silence was punctuated only by the sound of dripping faucets and the metallic clicks of his Skin locking into place.

When Vorn withdrew from the shower room to face the day, someone had left a cup of water and two alert-aid capsules skillfully balanced on the railing of the stairs leading down to the elevators. Vorn was nearly positive it had been Saedah. Mac and Citram wouldn't be off duty for another two hours. With Saedah shipping out, though, they would not retire until the ship left Lon'Byal air and voidspace.

Checking his HUD, Vorn noted Saedah's location. Fully outfit as Requiem, he met Saedah in the mess hall. Saedah had already gathered two trays at a table as secluded as the mess hall allowed. The only flesh Vorn exposed was where the chin piece of his helmet was folded away to expose his mouth and stubbled chin. Saedah was outfit as a simple fomenter. Both were hunched over matching bowls of stew.

Yes, it was technically their breakfast. Due to the nature of Base shifts, the mess halls served bacon, eggs, stew, and bread around the clock. There were three shifts to each department, and each department did not necessarily rotate shifts at the same time. Saedah and Vorn were the Chiefs of their departments, respectively, but also advised several other departments. Since they were always needed somewhere, they took to keeping extremely odd hours. They had planned their routines so as to be available to each department director at least once each day during their work week. Vorn was 'off' on Wednesdays. Saedah was 'off' on Mondays.

Today, Friday, was launch day for both those destined for NaBoht and those destined for DuraCore. For those destined for the frontlines on NaBoht, the trip would take One hour and fifty minutes. For those headed to DuraCore, they would spend eight hours and twenty minutes in Jump. That did not include the time to reach the exchange nor observing the crucial blackout security measures and system scans before entry to and after fall from Jump.

"The miners are reporting higher than expected yield at the new location. The vein was rich." Saedah spoke quietly, reading from new reports on his tablet.

"And how goes the Expansion?" Requiem asked, matching Saedah's quiet, solemn tone. Without the mouthpiece clipped in place to provide minor alterations, they were all somewhat wary of someone capturing a digital snippet of Vorn's speech patterns."The Botanists?"

"It goes well, I suppose. Looks like Oscar found a plant on Ceurul and they've managed to propagate a good field of it. It's got them excited. They're hopeful about finding something new for Mac's crew. They've been extracting and testing different fractions and compounds."

"Hm." Vorn pushed away the empty bowl and cocked his head at Saedah. "Feel like sparring for a bit?"

"Of course," Saedah grinned. Neither noticed the way neighboring onlookers shied away. The two, always the center of attention, grinned at each other like terrifying demons. With Vorn still working through the echoes of the nightmare, and Saedah still frustrated with the upcoming mission, they could use the mind-numbing escape.

Whispers followed the pair as they returned their trays and left the room.

Mostly ignoring the usual base-wide commotion around them, they made their way through the base's labyrinthian tunnels. There was no daytime or nighttime in the base. It was a series of enormous caverns connected by lengthy tunnels. The base lay under the surface of Lon'Byal, contained within one of the largest caverns. The underground civilian counterpart sprawled throughout the remaining caverns, surrounding the subterranean base and providing life and leisure to the Fomenters; the soldiers, workers, students, and everyone else that made the rebellion work. The 'buildings' of the base proper were built in levels around three supporting spires. The spires supported the dome of the primary cavern, as well as providing anchors for the railcars that ran between the different sections of the caverns. Those who made a living in or around the base, below the surface, referred to home as 'Under the Dome'.

Their course would deliver them to the only elevators with access to the Ghost barracks. The Ghost's barracks, only a rumor to most and a tight-lipped secret to those who knew, rested at the base of the center spire. The spires were reported to provide support for the cavern only. They were natural formations, and provided necessary seclusion for the Ghosts when they needed rest.

To anyone but the Ghosts, the spires appeared as solid rock, even on schematics. To the Ghosts, they were home: Oasis. Given the proper key, the elevators would open the hidden back door onto only one of the many special floors for the Ghosts. This provided only a single point of entry.

That one floor was the failsafe to maintain Ghost confidentiality. From that room, there were numerous stairways that lead throughout the spire, all lacking windows. Their barracks contained everything they could need. Saedah went up one set of stairs while Vorn took another that wound down. The stairs Saedah took would lead to a hallway with three rooms. The first was his to share with Vorn. the second was Vector's and Mac's. The third belonged to Citram and Vidian. He quickly entered the spartan apartment and threw on his sparring skin, emerging as Dirge. Vorn had taken the only set of stairs that led down. That stairwell led to their exercise quarters. In one corner of the massive room stood the sparring ring. He turned on the surround-sound system, cranking up the sparring music as he checked the ring and waited for Saedah.

He didn't have to wait long.

Dirge entered the room; tall and clad in black and green armor styled after the ancient knights in old tales. His shoulders and helmet were emblazoned with the Celtic circle and angry Pegasus in a vibrant green that matched his eyes. The music pulsed through Saedah's bones.

Nodding to his bond-brother, Vorn held the ropes as Dirge entered the ring.

Citram found them in the ring thirty minutes later, beating the snot out of each other. Vorn was cursing about Saedah's Baultoni heritage. Saedah moved like a dancer in elegantly choreographed, mesmerizing circles around Vorn. When Saedah displayed his prowess, he was all grace and poise wrapped in a solid shell of muscle and lethal ability, even when he wasn't wearing the Suit.

"Using that shit isn't fair, asshole." Vorn growled, landing a lightning-fast blow across Saedah's helmet. The next five minutes passed with Vorn and Saedah striking and blocking in such rapid movements that Citram was hardly able to follow.

"Boys!" she hissed. They froze. "Launch in twenty. Clean yourselves up." She spun on her heel, fighting the smile that tugged at her lips.

"Sparking hells, she scared the shit outta me." Saedah whispered, panting for breath. "When the hell did she get here?"

"No clue. We're going to have to start…" He froze and cocked his head toward Saedah. "She's not showing up on the HUD." The HUD was their in-house developed Heads Up Display. It was a little device that sat at the back of one ear. It used the node implants, similar to any publicly available node available, to send signals to the brain. The brain would translate those signals as though they were physical objects, and the wearer was actually seeing the displayed content physically, in front of their eyes. The HUDs displayed notifications, Personnel positions, notable formenter positions, navigation, targets, and a volley of other things. The developers had been rather thorough in their job.

"The hell?" Saedah scanned his peripheral and made the mental command to enlarge the map. Citram should not be able to hide that icon from the other Ghosts. But she had.

"Yeah…" Saedah could tell Vorn was going to get the answer to that little gem ASAP. "Get changed. We'll see some of the NaBoht teams off before Charlie makes the jump."

The crews were leaving in small waves to avoid drawing notice to the base entrances. The topside civilian city, Harbor, was cooperative in covering their exit, but smaller numbers were harder to notice. Saedah had to double check the massive number leaving for the war on NaBoht, again feeling that twinge of wrongness. He would much rather be on a ship headed to NaBoht, than be going to the nastiness on Duracore. It was too late for that though.

Far too quickly, it was Charlie's turn to take the jump. Saedah stood with his team as Vorn checked over the ship, as he had for nearly every launch since he was allowed back on the Launchpad.

Saedah watched as first Citram, Mack, and finally Vorn winked their customary 'gods-speed' signal in his HUD.

Saedah strode aboard, hooking his hands into the metal hoops overhead and looking down at the three seated Fomenters comprising his team. As the ships' hatch began to close, Saedah returned the signal and turned to his team.

Looking at their relaxed, tired faces, Saedah couldn't help but wonder which god would be answering that short invocation for protection. Would a benevolent god really offer protection or aid in a mission of violence? It was more likely that the Darkspinner himself would answer. He was the god of chaos and pain, as well as the master of Darkness and the hells, after all.