Buster was in high spirits as the Jerboa hopped across the rocky grey surface of Baldwin's Fall.

He had decided that he wouldn't be taken alive. His father entering the equation was the breaking point. If he wasn't able to scheme and manipulate his way out of this one, between the handgun and the grenade he could definitely make sure that Kincade and Mirabelle wouldn't get that extra bounty. Nakuna wouldn't get its propaganda and its dignity. His father wouldn't get to be reunited with him. A lot of people back at Zed Steadman would be without a friend, but such is life.

Buster had been terrified of dying when he was a young man. His grandparents' pool had been his first taste of it. When he grappled with his own mortality in university, he would feel a deep spiraling depression at the thought of all the wondrous experiences in the universe that he would never have. A great ache at the loss off his potential to change the world and make it a better place.

Now he had none of that. The universe was an ugly and uninviting place full of awful people. All his potential had amounted to was hurting people. Any joy and meaning was hard-fought and short-lived. It would all only get harder as he aged and society crumbled.

All he had was himself.

He would get himself out of this situation, one way or another.

If he lived, he would keep on fighting.

If he died, he would die on his own terms in the name of something greater than himself.

Both were a victory.

He was glad he had made peace with his own mortality and accepted his death. He didn't need that fear getting in the way now.

As the Jerboa closed the distance to the landing site. He ran over his mental itinerary:

He had something on Mirabelle Blackburn. It was a long shot, it was speculation, but it was something.

He had something on Kincade Vandermewe. It was concrete, the only variable was how hard it would hit him.

He didn't know about their tech, but that was OK. Tech was controlled by people, if you could get to the people it didn't matter how powerful the tech was. It was the last lesson Lance Mōdel had ever learned, and it was a lesson that Buster Harkness would never forget.

Buster leapt the Jerboa into the clearing and had just enough time to disembark. Overhead he watched the Freelancer's rustbucket of a ship plummet into atmosphere and descent towards him in a maelstrom of re-entry flames.

If they wanted me dead, that ship could cut me in half with one of its machinecannons here and now. They want me alive, we'll have a chance to talk.

The panda continued to walk away from his Jerboa and waved up at the ship. Both because he thought the playful friendliness would annoy them, and to show that he wasn't armed.

If Buster had been more familiar with military hardware, he would have been aware of the personnel weapon scanning system that ships like Kincade's were equipped with. Systems specially made to detect when a civilian is carrying a weapon on their person.

If Buster had been more familiar with military hardware, he would have recognized that that pistol and grenade in his pockets were not standard issue firearms. The reason they hadn't been found when the humans swept the base was because they were stealth weapons specifically made for smuggling into secure zones. Whoever originally owned them had their own secret mission that had been cut short by Buster's. They had carried them through spaceport scanners without issue, even outside of the carrying case they would baffle a scan at range.

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

When Kincade scanned him, the weapon scanners returned the all-clear. Aside from a two inch knife on the multitool in his shirt pocket, the panda was really and truly defenseless to their eyes.

"Well I'll be, looks like he really is coming peacefully." Kincade said to himself as he piloted, Mirabelle strapped into the copilot's seat beside him.

Mirabelle didn't say anything. She just waited.

Buster watched the ship touch down with admiration. Piloting a Jerboa was something he had never imagined he would be able to do, maybe one day he would be able to fly one of those things.

He waited patiently, keeping his communicator open to their encryption.

The hatch on the back of the spaceship lowered and out walked the Hydra. Its quadrupedal frog-like form waddling out from behind the ship. This thing turns like a boat, Buster though, No wonder it has a manned turret on the underside to draw a bead on anything that approaches.

He saw a flash of magenta in the glass of the turret and he felt a flood of emotion on recognition: It was Mirabelle. He had spent too many years cleaning that exact shade of magenta out of pillowcases and towels to not recognize it on sight.

He tried to push those emotions away. He didn't have to be afraid now. The one thing he had been afraid of more than anything was that she would leave him. It was why he never pushed back when she refused to get help. She had left him, and now she had no power over him. He didn't have any reason to be afraid or to hold back.

He tapped his communicator. "That you guys? Or another mercenary team with a crazy bird in the turret?" he taunted.

There was no response, but he could see the turret bay rotating to face in his direction. Then it blasted an arc of bright magenta flame over a dozen meters out in front of it.

Buster flinched. Of course Mirabelle would choose fire. Fire had been so scary in his old life, where he was safe and comfortable and it was a threat to everything he worked to get. Now he had nothing, and he lived in a world where everything was scary.

He might not understand her, but at least she was something that he knew how to diffuse.

Or set off.

"Cool, cool. I guess that means you guys can hear me. Yeah, Kincade? I want to apologize. I didn't recognize you earlier, you look so different now!" he continued, the Hydra starting to trundle its way closer towards him, "I'm guessing that Mirabelle didn't tell you why we stopped being friends. If she did, I don't think you'd be working with her right now."

No response. The Hydra was continuing its slow inexorable march towards him. Buster pushed on.

"Yeah, I stopped hanging out with you because Mirabelle told me to. She said that she thought you were 'too sexual', she felt threatened by you. I really liked you Kincade, I wanted to be friends with you, but she was the woman I wanted to marry. What was I supposed to do? I didn't know what she was like back then, I was like you. She's been lying to you this whole time, you can't trust her." he was trying to keep his voice calm but that playful meanness was starting to creep in.

"When she likes someone, or wants someone to like her, she hides the parts of herself that she thinks they won't like. It's not her fault she's like this, but she can't help herself. She did the same thing to me. You might have already started noticing her getting moody and losing her cool. When you hide parts of yourself like that, the pressure builds and then releases explosively. She's been hiding the fact that she doesn't like you this whole time, she's going to explode on you too." he was trying not to savor the words, he knew how hateful and hurtful he was being.

But if he wanted to survive his only chance was to say and do whatever it took to set Mirabelle off.

Still no response. The Hydra was coming close enough that he would be in range of the flamethrower in a few brief moments. Close enough for him to see that Mirabelle was struggling inside. She was yelling and gesturing, her wings were off the controls and her eyes were focused up into the cockpit. They were fighting. It was perfect.

He waited a moment longer and the Hydra came to a lurching stop. It stood there, tinted cockpit window unreadable. Mirabelle was halfway out of the turret, her upper body vanished back up into the chasis as her tailfeathers brushed against the glass.

This was it. His one chance.