I couldn’t have cut things any closer. The team were about to drop an antimatter bomb on my chances at a peaceful end to the current situation.

“Riley, about time! Thought we’d have to start the party without you.” Chen boomed over the channel as I made the connection.

“Hold position, damn it!” I snapped. “Stand down! I repeat, stand down. Negotiations are imminent. Do not attempt to escape. Do not blow anything up! Safe your damn weapons!”

“We were just about to bust out of this place, what’s going on?” Chen exclaimed.

I scowled. “I heard. We don’t need to. Don’t worry about breaking out, they’ll let us go soon enough but not if you screw everything up. I don’t think they’re interested in grabbing the pliers and thumbscrews. Notice how they’ve been nothing but polite since they grabbed us? We’re all going to meet the boss for a friendly chat, so don’t do anything stupid. Everyone copy?”

I let out the breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding, my heart rate dropping back to a more serene and stable pace. I hadn’t realised so many words had been pent up inside me.

A trio of affirmative replies quelled my nerves for a moment, quiet settling over the open comms channel after a few moments.

“What now? Sit tight?” Carver asked.

“Yep. Someone will be along to collect you shortly. Try not to blow them up or snap their neck, please. I’m about to get us answers and maybe a way off this rock, if we’re really lucky.”

“You mean we might actually live through this?” Larsen said with mock hope.

“Yep, and I have no fuckin’ idea what these people’s deal is, or where we are, or what the hell is happening on this planet. Behave, alright? I’ll share with the class when I’m done. Riley out.”

I toggled the channel closed.

“Sorry about that.” I exhaled, tension draining from my body, frayed nerves knitting themselves back together. “Had to gather my thoughts. Please, lead on.” I nodded, exaggerating the motion slightly so Eric would see it.

He looked at me strangely for a moment, doubtlessly wondering at my strange behaviour and prolonged silence, but when it became clear I wasn’t going to elaborate on it he nodded slowly and continued leading me away from my cell.

We arrived after taking a circuitous route past lots of empty cells, but a few that weren’t, too. A set of ornate wooden doors took up most of the wall space, from floor to ceiling. It led the way out of an expansive anteroom we’d walked into. The anteroom itself was mostly empty and had only a few simple and dusty wooden chairs in it.

Looking up at the large and ornate doors attached to one side of the room, I could see each of the, had the image of a dragon carved into it. The dragons themselves were made of silver according to a spectroscopic analysis. They had some other elements that couldn’t be identified, which intrigued me.

Eric stepped forward and raised a palm to the two door knockers that sat in the centre of the two doors. Unexpectedly, he didn’t actually touch them, knock with them, or use them to pull the doors open. Instead, a dark umber colour spilled out from under his sleeves and shrouded his hand. I watched as the shadowy thing stretched from his hand to the door knockers and writhed, for want of a better term, seeming to scour it like a tongue licking a plate clean.

After a few moments, the shadow around his hand vanished as though it had never been there.

“We can go in now.”

“What was that? Magical security?”

“A way to verify my identity, yes.” Eric confirmed, finally pushing on the doors themselves with his hands.

The tall doors swung open with an ease which belied their size, twice as tall as a man and half as wide. For all that, they yawned open as though they weighed little more than a handful of feathers despite their mass.

I noticed as the light reflected off the silver dragons that both doors were pristine and dust-free. They had no wear and tear at all, not even a speck of dirt or a single unintentional mark. Were they new? They doors seemed completely at odds with the rest of the prison, more at home in a palace than anywhere else. The prison wasn’t a dingy shithole by any means, but it was built with practicality in mind, not ostentatious displays.

When the doors ceased their movement and I could see through into the next room, my eyes were immediately drawn to a high-backed chair decked in plush black leather at the back of the room. Inlaid with gold filigree on the armrests. It was by all but the most haughty of standards, a work of art.

The rest of the room was likewise dripping with borderline wasteful decadence. I wasn’t sure what to make of it all. Chairs, tables, ottomans abounded, it looked like an office and meeting room combined, albeit a very well-appointed office. At the back of the room was a large fireplace with a gargantuan desk right in front of it. The whole place looked like a comfortable, lived-in space. Again, at odds with the prison I’d just found myself inhabiting.

What eventually caught my eye was that the person sitting behind the desk was an aristocratic woman with glowing, pale blue eyes. That was a little surprising, but also kind of cool. You sometimes saw that with ocular implants, but these people didn’t seem to have any which made me curious what I was actually seeing.

I walked up, slowly, and stood at parade rest in front of the desk, looking across at the woman as I took in her form and fashion. “Ma’am.” I nodded to her. “You’re the one in charge, I assume?”

Eschewing the robes Eric wore, she was clad in the same leather armour I’d seen our attackers wearing, only hers was more decorated and bore two silver dragons on each of her leather spaulders. I didn’t have any trouble believing she might be one of them. She was no politician, or at least she didn’t look like one.

“I am. Sit.” The terse words rolled off her tongue as she gestured to a chair opposite her by the desk. “We have much to discuss.”

I looked back at Eric, who closed the doors with a gentle pushing motion. He had taken up a post in a corner of the room by the door, fading silently into the background. Oddly, the doors swung smoothly and silently. I would’ve thought they’d make more noise on the floors.

“Don’t mind Eric. Sit.” She repeated, drawing my attention back to her.

Doing as instructed, I took a seat in one of the leather chairs across from her. One of two. I watched her like a hawk, since she’d decided to do the same to me.

The woman was unmoving, like a statue carved from stone painted to resemble flesh and blood. I ran a discreet bioscan, but she didn’t notice. Rather than being beautiful, she had the hard look of a soldier who was well-practiced at soldiering. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she told me she’d been fighting since she could walk. I was glad for my helmet. I had no doubt she had practice at reading people, whatever her background.

“Who are you?” I asked, as I took a seat.

“My name is Lilith. I’m the highest authority for this nation, when it comes to matters of security and battle, at least. And you are?”

“Corporal Edward Riley.”

“Odd name. Corporal.”

“Corporal is my rank.” I clarified, my given name is Edward, my family name is Riley.”

“I see. Corporal. Is that a formidable rank among your people?”

“Well, I’m responsible for four men, I’m their highest authority. Commanding a nation’s military forces, though? You outrank me by far. We would call you a General, if you were in our military, which is a dozen ranks above mine.”

“General?” She asked.

I thought about how to word things for a moment. “While there are several grades of General in our ranking structure, they are all highly ranked figures within our armed forces. They command large numbers of men, thousands if not tens of thousands. They have always seen decades of fighting before attaining their rank and are typically very experienced men who have made a career of soldiering.”

“But no single person commands all your warriors?”

“No. Things are more distributed than that. There is a civilian, someone who is not a soldier called a President who commands our nation’s military in concert with a second-in-command called a Secretary of Defense who is also not a fighter. The highest-ranked soldiers—generals, report to the President and his second-in-command. That, however, would lead me into discussing how our nations are governed and that would be time-consuming.”

Her eyebrows raised at this. “I see, perhaps later then. An interesting system of command you have. You possess no King, then?”

“No king.” I confirmed.

“Why are you here?” She asked a moment later, a bit abruptly.

“Our ship was destroyed. We managed to escape, but became stranded here. We don’t know how we came to be here really, but we do know we’re a long way from home. It will likely take years for us to get home, if we can figure out a way.”

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“Destroyed?”

“We were ambushed, traitors in our midst. As far as I know, we’re the only survivors. It’s been… years, everyone we knew is probably dead, if they weren’t rescued.”

“My condolences, but how could it have been years since this event? You only arrived recently, did you not?”

“We have devices called stasis pods that are capable of greatly slowing the body’s natural processes, effectively freezing ourselves both physically, and in time.”

“Fascinating. I assume you wish to return home as soon as possible and leave our world behind?”

“Yes. Not that I don’t appreciate-“

“You needn’t weave honeyed words.” She held up a hand to silence me. “Your first meeting with another world and we attack you.” She looked contrite, she even looked genuine. “I hope you understand from Eric that we didn’t have much of a choice.”

“About that…” I began.

“You want to know who we’re fighting and why?”

I nodded.

“We have many enemies, but the most worrisome is to our west. They call themselves the Mistpoint Dominion, after a spire reaching into the sky that sits atop a grand mountain. That spire surrounds itself with dense mist, hence their name.”

“They’re a fierce and hardy people, they worship bloodshed and see war as some great crucible to prove their worthiness. Fools, all of them.” She scoffed, disgusted.

“How long have you been at war with them?” I asked. It sounded like she held quite the distaste for them, bordering on if not completely crossing into hatred.

“Generations. They constantly try to pressure us militarily and diplomatically, wishing to absorb us into their empire. We’ve held them back, so far. I believe that their plans never stop, even when one side or another claims to have ‘made peace’.” She quieted, her lip curling in disgust again for a few moments.

I stood, processing those words for a while. “Generations? How long is that?”

“Six-hundred and forty-three years.” She said, quite precisely.

“Holy shit. I mean uh… That’s a long war. I’m surprised you haven’t wiped each other out by now.”

“So am I. We have tried, of course, but neither nation has managed it. Empires and nations have risen and toppled over the years, but each time we remember old wounds and past deeds. It makes it hard to forgive.” Her lips morphed into a wry smile.

I cleared my throat. “So what do you want from us? You must want something or else you would’ve let us go by now.”

She lifted her hand, palm facing upwards. A large bundle of flames flickered in her hand. She reached over across her desk and held up a piece of paper—or parchment, whatever they used here, next to the flame.

“We are on the brink of war once again. Your arrival here is fortunate and your timing is impeccable. You don’t know this, but two of the men you killed were among our strongest mages. They had two decades of experience between them, and you four killed them in seconds.”

She touched the corner of the paper to the flame in her hand and it rapidly began to char and crumple. She let it fall to the floor and then rested her hands on the desk in front of her.

“You struck them down as effortlessly as flame torching parchment.” She gave me a strange look I couldn’t identify.

My heart dropped. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know, okay? Don’t-”

Lilith laughed, cutting me off. “Fortunately for you, we discovered they were spies, after their deaths. While I’m not as inclined to think ill of you, don’t think that all is forgiven. I’m not entirely happy about that discovery.”

“Why not? I would’ve thought taking out two spies would be a good thing, not to mention you don’t have as much cause to throw me into a brick wall now.”

“It is a good thing, that’s true, but where there’s one, there’s more. I’ve all but received confirmation that there are more among us by their unmasking. If there are only two spies in my ranks I would be shocked.”

“I’ve had some… issues with spies myself. They were instrumental in our being here.” I explained.

“If what you say is true and you are looking for a way home, then you are in the perfect position to help me.”

I sat, shell-shocked at that proclamation for a moment. “You want us to hunt down spies for you?”

“Not quite, no. To answer your original question, I want you to train my army to fight as you do and to act as problem-solvers for me. We are in dire need of a way to bolster our military might. You were outmatched when you killed two of my own, there were nearly a dozen more arrayed against you.” She cocked her head and looked me over. “Still, it was impressive work. You may think that the uneven odds you faced gives me cause to underestimate you, but I know better. ”

“That’s… a lot to take in. I guess I’m flattered by your assessment of us. What makes you want us to train your people in the first place, though? Is your magic not doing it?”

Lilith scowled, looking around the room for a moment like it was full of clowns at a funeral. “I know you have more power than you show. I didn’t become a Sword by being naive, or stupid. I got here by being ruthless, smart and pragmatic. You are not as weak as you wish me to think.”

I thought on that. I couldn’t hide our true capabilities, not forever. Clearly Lilith was going somewhere with all this and I was betting it would involve some kind of benefit for us.

“What’s your point?”

“Here is my offer, Edward. You will train and equip my forces until the Kingdom’s security is assured and we are able to withstand the might of our neighbours. In return, I will bend the King’s ear to get you whatever you need.”

“You’re offering us a way home?” I asked.

“I'm offering you help getting home, yes. We will provide whatever resources or labour that you require. It may take a while to fulfill, but we honour our deals.” She confirmed.

“I suppose that’s better than the alternative." I allowed. "How much can you really offer, though?”

“After you hold up your end of the bargain? Easily a thousand men and a city’s worth of material. Iron, steel, wood, whatever you require, we will part with. Security is hard to come by here, if you give us that I will see to it you are rewarded.”

“That sounds… fair.” I said slowly. “But, what do you get out of this? Why should I trust you, about any of this?”

Lilith smiled at me as though I’d just asked a silly question. I didn't find it silly, though. More... prudent.. I'd be an idiot not to ask.

“Because I’m trusting you. I hold all the cards at the moment, true, but that means little in the grand scheme of things. Not when thousands will march on our cities in as little as a few months. I am not a tyrant or a bully, so I will not force you to accept my deal. I am desperate, however. My people are desperate. I have to take risks if I am to protect them and you present an opportunity I would be a fool not to take advantage of."

“I suppose that makes sense. Why is security such a big deal to you? Don’t you have an army to keep you safe?”

“Safe?” She cackled. “Safe? Our capital may be secure, but the rest of the kingdom is under threat from more than just our rivals to the west and south. The world outside the capital is a harsh one. The risen dead, bandits, feral beats, all manner of magical threats left over from old wars and ancient civilisations. Our army is barely able to keep up. We are far from safe.”

“Oh.” I thought about that. “So I’m assuming you don’t really have much to go around then?”

“That's what I said, yes. The number of mages we can recruit has dwindled in recent years, almost to the point of nothing. Few are willing to risk themselves in combat. We do what we can, but it isn’t enough.”

I let out a contemplative hum and thought about all that she’d told me, weighing the pros and cons. Pros, we gain an ally and we don’t have to get eaten by zombies or harassed by bandits in loincloths. Cons, she could be a stone-cold liar and I’m going to be giving her exactly what she wants and handing her Pandora's Box on a silver platter.

I mentally shrugged. It was a tough decision, but I went with my gut. Right now, I figured she was telling me the truth, though I doubted she was telling me everything.

“Do we have a deal?” She asked.

I stared at her for a long moment. I knew that I was in command and it was my decision, but the moment weighed heavily on me. If I said yes, I would be committing myself and my team to doing something we hadn’t been trained to do and parting with powerful military technology.

If I said no, we’d have to do everything ourselves and carve out a place for ourselves while defending ourselves against whatever horrors this place had in store, all the while giving up a valuable ally and source of information. It would take years, maybe even decades to build something capable of making the trip home.

If I got back alive this would be the part that I was court-martialed for, but I didn’t feel that I had much of a choice. It had been eleven years already.

If we took years to get home then the world would keep slipping by just that little bit more and I’d rather retire than be stuck on an alien planet. Retiring here wasn’t an option, I didn’t even know if this place had ice cream or sausages. A faint smile ghosted over my lips.

My thoughts strayed to a friend of mine, Colonel Waters. Former Colonel, I should say. The few friends I had left back on Earth were waiting on me and I knew that Larsen and Chen had family on Mars.

I sighed again, this time louder. I knew what my answer was, I was just afraid to come out and say it.

“Who do we report to and where do we start?”

“No bargaining?” Lilith asked, her lips quirking up.

“Not much to bargain with.” I admitted, chuckling dryly. “Plus, you’re offering about the only thing of value to me, a way back home for my men and me.”

“Fair enough.” She allowed. “You will report to me directly. The guards will not know our arrangement, no one will. Only Eric and the King will know due to the need for secrecy, but you may bring others into the fold, if you feel they can be trusted. Eric can likely escort you here, but the more you come to speak with me the more suspicion will be aroused.”

I nodded. “Make sense to me. We’ll have to work on that problem. Do you have any solutions in mind?”

“Few, if any. Nothing that could be implemented as quickly as I’d prefer.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Indeed. As much as it pains me, I do not have a foolproof way to communicate with you and it is too much of a risk to give you an artifice that is vulnerable to theft or tampering.”

“Artifice?” I asked.

“A small magical device to allow you to speak to me over a distance.” She explained.

A radio then, or the magical equivalent.

“You will have to meet with me in person until we establish a more discreet system, at least until these spies have been eradicated.”

Lilith paused, walking out from behind her desk to examine a strange orb of glimmering purple mist that sat on a shelf behind her desk. After a few moments, she turned back to face me.

“As for where you can start? I think we should wait for the others you arrived with, I dislike repeating myself.”

“Alright, then…” I said, trailing off as the silence reigned over the room.

As if to save me from said silence, inspiration struck me. I had an idea.

“I might have an idea for keeping in touch.” I told her.

“An idea? Of what kind?” She said, pulling her chair away from her desk to lounge in it. I didn’t see any wheels on it, but it glided across the floor without a sound, perfectly level and smooth.

“One of our communications devices, similar to your artifice. I will need one of my men to work on making one for a while, but it should work flawlessly. We don’t use magic so I doubt it carries the same risks as your artifice. Is… five days soon enough?” I asked.

She smiled like a wolf. “Devious. No chance at interception, alteration or detection, except at the source. Five days is enough, yes.” She looked past me towards Eric, abruptly giving an order to him and simultaneously derailing our topic of conversation.

“They’ve arrived, send them in and I’ll brief them all together on the rest.”

“As you command, my Sword.” Eric stepped forward with a long stride, crashing his forearm and fist against his chest. Then he turned to face away from us and pulled the doors open with his magic.

It was still a bit surreal to see someone just motion with their hands to do things. I knew it wasn’t much different than motion controls in a normal home, but these people didn’t have any of that tech and the knowledge made everything strange about them even stranger. How they did any of this was a mystery yet. ‘Magic’ didn’t really explain all that much to me and I was eager to sit down and figure things out.

Waiting on the other side of the now open doors were my team. I’d known that of course, I’d seen their friendly blue outlines as soon as I’d turned around, just before Eric had opened the door.

“Hey guys. Took you long enough.” I waved hello briefly. “Speakers on, let’s not be rude to our guests.” Mine were already active and transmitting since I’d turned them on to talk to Eric.

Very deliberately, I dropped a text-only message through to the team’s open comms channel.

CPL.RILEY: Trust, but Verify.

“So, mind filling me in?” Larsen asked, eyes bouncing back and forth between me and Lilith, who was all but stabbing us with the intensity of her gaze. “Who the hell is she?”