She found the strength to stand, move out of his way, but lost it as quickly – fell back down to her knees.

Traejan followed the same pantomime she had, but Kyso was in a coma now: no accusations, no apologies, no demands, nothing for him at all.

That didn’t stop Traejan from trying. He knelt by the older man, tried to get a response, pleading, touching Kyso’s burnt clothing, flesh.

He repeated the dying man's name over and over.

After minutes of no reaction, Traejan finally acknowledged her watching presence, turned to glare over at her.

Tears streaked his face. There was a stain of blood on the side of his head, marring his short blonde helmet of hair.

“What did you do to him? What did you make him do?!” Traejan demanded. The words shocked her loose. She had to press a hand to the cold ground to maintain her balance.

“I told him to run,” she said in a voice that sounded remote.

An explosion rocked them. It knocked her over. Althea scrambled back to her feet, struggling to breathe as a cloud of smoke surrounded them. Gasping, she wiped her stinging eyes, the tears, looked around for the source. The smoke was coming from a chunk of machinery, a thruster assembly; a ten or two past them, further inside the city. How many volatile pieces were hidden in the wreckage? How long could they stay in such an exposed space?

Dorian’s voice buzzed in her ear.

There is a transmission coming in, Althea.

She rubbed her eyes again. The stinging smoke remained around them. She held her breath until it dispersed, glanced back at the two men.

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Traejan’s attention turned back to his dying comrade. “Kyso,” he tried to coax a response out of his dying friend. She couldn’t stay, neither should he. She walked over to his kneeling form.

“He’s dead Trae,” she offered.

Traejan looked up at her, shook his head, shook it again harder, turned back to the body.

“Dead?” he said disbelievingly, looking back at Kyso. “No, he’s still breathing.”

“You’re not dead,” he pleaded to the man, ignoring the awful evidence. “Kyso, I need you to talk to me.”

“He’s absorbed too much radiation,” she told him, holding her voice firmer. “There is nothing you can do for him.”

He tried harder, listening for a voice, slapping the puckered, burned skin of the old man’s face – turned back to her.

“Why did you let this happen?!”

His accusation hit her like a punch. It took a moment for Althea to respond.

“I didn’t do this,” she replied, far more angrily than she had intended.

Traejan glared at her as if she were a lunatic.

“We are surrounded by pieces of that mech,” he told her, waving his hands around. “You did this. You destroyed it, didn’t you?”

She backed away from him, as he started to rise, automatically changing to a defensive posture. He stood, brushing snow, bits of debris from himself. He walked towards her, face twisted in pain, eyes blazing.

“I told him to run,” she told Traejan again, struggling against her own guilt, “to find cover.”

Like I told you– like I told both of you.

“He had time, like you did.” Her words weren’t having any effect. Traejan’s expression only turned angrier. Why hadn’t he guessed Kyso’s state of mind? He had known the man for anna, decades.

“He didn’t want to hide,” she tried to explain. “He wanted to see…”

He wanted to see the light of destruction, the wonder of it all; so did she. The thought made her shudder with longing, wanting – the heart of the Macro, the light…

“You let him die,” Traejan’s accusation brought her back. Althea shook her head, she hadn’t let him die. She hadn’t wanted him to die. It was the last thing she wanted.

“I couldn’t save him!” she told Traejan, pointed back at the dead man, horrific wounds the radiation had caused. Traejan stopped, looked back. “Not from that.”

Not here, not now.

She felt herself shuddering again, had to hold herself tightly, had to look away from him, up into the gray swirling smoke, the clouds above. The codestream was calling. It was calling! She struggled, brought herself back. She didn’t want Traejan to do something stupid, while she was lost in the desire.