"And make a fist for me?"

I did as the nurse asked, clenching my fist tight as he input something into his computer.

"Good." He typed something, but before I could properly sneak a look he swiveled back around, "Alright, lay your wrist flat on the desk again."

I knew what was coming next and dreaded it, but I lay my wrist flat anyway. If my wrist didn't heal fully, I could kiss flying the Nomad through anything worse than empty space goodbye for good.

The nurse withdrew a long needle and, without warning, plunged it into wrist in a spot directly under one of my shiny new scars. It stung, then a slow burning sensation began crawling up my arm. I winced.

"And that's the last of this course of musclegen. You will technically be due another in six months, and it would be better if you got it here, but I known spacers well enough to know that's not happening, so just give this," He produced a data chip, "To your next doctor and they'll get your medical notes from whilst you've been here."

"All of them?" I asked, suddenly concerned.

"Yes, they will know we made you speak to a shrink. On the bright side, they won't know you saw the shrink because you semi murdered someone."

"I didn't…"

"Keep doing those exercises, and only use the wrist brace when you need the extra support."

----------------------------------------

Bonfire was waiting for me outside the clinic, carrying a heavy crate behind her on a hover platform and looking extremely impatient.

"So?" she said when she saw me, "Are you dying?"

"What? No! That's not what I was there for– have you been talking to the Overseer?"

She shrugged, "Perhaps." ”

I sighed, “Alright, come on. Let’s pick up some supplies and head back to the ship.”

We’d been two weeks on Reverie, and the hearing over Lux’s death had come and gone with neither of us hearing anything until we both received weave-mails telling us our names were clear and we were free to leave as soon as the doctor signed off on my wrist being flight-ready.

That’s what had just happened, so we were now heading back to the Nomad.

We hadn't talked much since agreeing to carry on together, too busy with preparations, but the promise of secrets soon to be revealed weighed us both down heavily.

Gather information: Weak hit

I'd managed to scout out something resembling a route into the Scorched Gap by asking around in bars frequented by long haulers. I had coordinates for a few potential anchor points, but nothing I'd call 'safe' or 'guaranteed'. Not that I'd be telling Bonfire that, of course.

Gather information: Weak hit

With a route semi-secured, I then began asking around after AI specialists, particularly the model installed on Ornither class ships.

Most people laughed me off - most people who had AIs knew what they were meant to do with the damned things, but I eventually learned about a settlement named 'Vigil'. They were far out on the borders of The Devil's Helix, and it'd be tough to get there. But a vow was a vow, especially when it was one with fairly obvious personal benefits.

And so, research done and ship stocked up for our trip out to the Gap, Bonfire and I headed to the Nomad together.

----------------------------------------

Half an hour later, Bonfire sat opposite me in the gallery, back rigid, but not wearing her full suit of armour. She instead was dressed casually in a baggy blue T-shirt and khaki trousers tucked into boots. Of course, she also carried at least three different guns that I could see and definitely more that I couldn't.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"We will be leaving in one hour, yes?" She confirmed as I fished tea bags out of mismatched mugs.

"Yup," I confirmed.

"Good, then we have time for a brief exchange of tails. I suggest we cover the first five to ten years of our lives to establish a baseline for each of our childhoods."

"Okay…" I said, uncertain.

"Do you wish to go first?

"Fuck no."

"Fine. Overseer, flip a coin."

Ash, you're up first!

"Hang on, there's no chance you actually randomised that!"

Prove it.

"Err, the fact that it took you half a second?"

I am an extremely advanced machine intelligence with a processing capacity vastly beyond the comprehension of your shrivelled heretical monkey brain. I know how to flip a coin.

"I thought you were trying to be nicer," I muttered.

This is me trying.

"Fine, whatever. Let's just get this over with."

I brought the tea over to the table and sat opposite Bonfire. "So, early childhood. Because apparently you find that interesting."

"You promised no secrets."

"That I did." I sighed. "I guess easiest place to start would be where I was born. Datura.” I ignored the sharp intake of breath. The mere mention of being born on one of The Quints’ black iron mining worlds was usually enough to elicit far more sympathy than I was comfortable with.

“I would tell you that it’s exactly as bad as they say, but I don’t actually remember that much of it. I was somewhere in the middle of a family of twelve siblings, only about half of which shared a dad, a lot of them were born with things wrong with them. A lot more didn’t make it.”

“Iron sickness?” Bonfire asked.

“Or something like it.”

And oh boy, that was why I didn’t like talking about my childhood. And this was the family friendly version. “Anyway, yeah, utter shithole. Then I got powers.” I called the embers to my skin and showed her, “Mum always took us with her to the mines. A lot of the time there was work to be had for us littler ones in getting to hard to reach spots. ‘Course, a lot of the time that left us pretty… vulnerable. Takes all types after all, and a lot of types on Datura you don’t want wandering off into a cave alone with your kids.” I took a sip of my drink. I didn’t remember a lot of detail about those times, so it wasn’t as hard to talk about as I thought it’d be. Like I was recounting a story third or even fourth hand.

“Anyway. This one time I was alone with a particularly nasty piece of work. Lot of pretty vicious rumours that went round about him, but obviously nothing that could be proven.”

Bonfire looked like she was about to say something and I shot her a look, “No, don’t say anything, you wanted me to tell you this, remember?” She sealed her lips and nodded before I continued.

“Anyway,” I said, “So this guy’s being a freak, and he tries to get me to… err… y’know. I wasn’t exactly sheltered, so I knew how fucked up it was, and I panicked. Then boom. I had fire powers and he was a pile of ashes.”

“Paragon’s aren’t as rare on Datura as we are elsewhere. More or less every hundredth child is one, so The Spheries keep an ear to the ground, snatch us up before the Quints can fold us into their operation.”

I still wasn’t entirely sure how we were getting away from Reverie so easily, but I wasn’t going to sniff at it. “And that’s pretty much what happened. Spheries got word of me, gave my mother ten thousand creds for me, which doesn’t sound like much but was about as much money as she’d probably ever seen in her life.”

We fell into silence. Then, I prompted, “Alright, your turn.”

Bonfire chewed her lip, then nodded, “Very well. I suppose there is not as much to say as all that. I was born on Legacy station, my parents were what most people on Legacy are - bounty hunters for the Quints.” She shrugged as if there wasn’t anything more to be said.

“Hang on, I gave you positively salacious details. You owe me more than whatever that pathetic attempt was.”

Compel: Miss

She scowled, “I owe you nothing.

"What? We had a deal!"

She shrugged, "I gave you as much as I was comfortable giving to someone I know nothing about."

Test your relationship: Weak hit

I sighed. She had a point. I’d lied to her and gotten her target killed – arguably killed him myself. It was going to take a while to earn her trust back. “Alright.” I said, “But remember, you made a vow too. I need you to be more forthcoming eventually, especially if your sister’s still after us.”

She simply huffed, and I took that as my cue to begin preparing for flight.

Embark on An Expedition: Strong Hit