Traejan drew closer. Althea had moved to the side of the tech she was building, fixing the frame, looking up and down to a holographic display radiating from her handheld computer, whispering things as she fixed links adjusted fibers and cylinders. She glanced back up at him.

“So that’s why you didn’t want them killing each other,” why Althea had insisted Obe and Teffa continue with them to the city. He looked down at her through the tech. “You wanted them for yourself.”

Her expression changed to anger.

“I don’t have time for this,” she told him harshly, fingers trembling over a connection. “We don’t have time. Get out of here. Go!”

She looked away from him, up into the sky.

“It’s coming Trae,” she added. “I have to finish this. I have to try.”

“You killed them,” he accused.

She looked back at him, eyes burning, posture defiant. She looked over to the old man.

“Kyso,” she said in a quieter tone. “I told you to–”

Traejan looked back at Kyso, who turned to look at him, then back at Althea. He stepped towards the framework thing.

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“Stop!” She was up in an instant, a thin wedge in her hand. The same thing she had back at the Brother’s Hall – her weapon. He stopped. The wind dropped to a whisper around them. “Stay away!”

“Or what?” he demanded “Or you’ll kill me too?”

“I told him,” the old man broke in protesting, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

Traejan turned to Althea.

“This was your plan – all along,” he began again, feeling a cold calm come over him. “Smash their heads in.”

The Consortia didn’t kill in cold blood. They didn’t use people, throw them away. They didn’t lie.

“They were bastards, most of them,” he admitted. “But they didn’t deserve to be betrayed. Not like that.”

She had even warned him, and he had done nothing.

She shrank back down, behind her tech, the hand that held her little weapon dropped to the snow. When she looked back up at him, her expression was contrite, pained. As was her tone.

“The greggas, those people were implanted by the Macro,” she told him softly, “They were in communication with it. They would have killed us or worse. There was no other way – us or them, your world – or them.”

He couldn't look at her anymore, turned away, struggled with what he'd been told, what he'd seen, what he know.

Warring emotions forced Traejan to turn back to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he pleaded. “Why didn’t you trust me? Did you think that I want the mechs to kill us? What do you think I would have done this if I knew what you were planning?!”

“I didn’t want to do it Trae; I hoped I wouldn’t have to be the one to kill them.” She turned her face away from him as he looked back up at her. “I ran out of time. You have to leave now. I don’t want you to die.”

He wasn’t going to leave. Not until she answered his questions. He wasn’t going to run like a coward, not again!

“Tell me the truth,” he told her, building his anger back up.

“This isn’t a strecking Consortia plan,” he accused, not caring what Kyso thought anymore, letting the fury out. “And you’re no Legionary! Who– what the hell are you?!”