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lilulicious · 5 days ago

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I'm trying to get Chapter 8 out before I go on vacation (or get it close to publishable so I can hit post whilst on vacation) so here's a bump on Chapter 7 until then. I'm excited that it's getting some positive response on AO3 (like, not enough to quit my day job, but like two weeks ago I despaired that no one liked it and then suddenly there was a flurry of activity, so you never know). I was going to write it no matter what, because I'm having fun, but it's nice to have a positive affirmations, I must get better at doing the same for others' works but there's just not enough time in the day with work, union negotiations, and a special election in my assembly district. I obviously need this vacation, lol!

Chapter 7: The Great Escape

LILU, NOW:

As Lilu walked briskly away from the Lodge towards the New Atlantis Transport (the NAT, as the locals called it) Station, she thought about finding yet another transport off of this rock and never coming back. Certainly, there had to be some place she could go, where she could disappear, where Constellation and UC SysDef would never find her again. Maybe she could start yet another new life doing... what, exactly? Shit, she didn't even have a solid escape plan. She still didn't know enough about the Settled Systems to figure out who she could join up with, where she could hide, if the UC would really come looking for their precious antiquity, their Old Earth girl. She was certain no one in Constellation would miss her, that's for sure.

She cursed her own stupidity on the NAT ride to the Spaceport. How did she let herself get suckered into feeling something for that man, that Sam Coe? She had been dead set against it from the beginning, so much so she practically repeated it to herself like a mantra. She knew, she KNEW he was going to mess things up for her. His appearance in her dreams back on Earth when she, well, when the worst was happening, long before she came here... that wasn't a vision of the future, it was a portent of doom. It should have come with a warning label, like a skull and cross bones: "He's dangerous, Liluana, es un hombre muy peligroso." Yeah, dangerous to her heart. Her resistance was frail, what else was new there, and when she fell, it was quickly and hard. And now look: she had been humiliated and cut loose. She didn't ask for this. He offered it, then snatched it away, like a cruel trick.

All of these things that got her in trouble, this was her mother's doing, she thought. Her mother tied so much of her own self-worth in having a man that Lilu grew up believing that she wasn't complete without a boy to be in love with. Take a penny, leave a penny, you couldn't break up with one without immediately finding another one to ease the heartache. Her mother used to spin tales about her many suitors when she was young, how she would pick a fight with one young man as an excuse to go out with another she was eyeing. It was always games with her.

In Lilu, though, there was a little girl who believed in true romance. In high school, even though she entertained notions of defying her father and joining the Army, she couldn't get enough of Jane Austen's novels and also more contemporary cozy mysteries where the hopelessly romantic female protagonist haplessly fell in love with her dream man in the most delicious ways. She had been a young woman who dreamed the big dreams of grand love stories that were meant to be, written in the stars, told in signs and portents. The "perfect" men who showed up at just the right time to save their damsel in distress. Or in her case, a vision so brief it was only a glimpse of a man she did not know that appeared to her, amongst other images she still could not place except one, that which was similar to the lights she saw when she pulled the Artifacts from the rocks in which they were embedded. That vision the man, that split second look at him, first appeared during one of the most brutal, mind-breaking moments of her life, and continued to haunt her dreams in times of physical and mental stress thereafter. That the man turned out to be very real, just in a different time and place, was staggering to her when she saw him. But now he was also a man who she felt very much attracted to, and it seemed he felt the same for her. How could that not feel meant to be... until the bottom fell out?

And now, well now she would have to forget it even happened? That he held sway over her heart for even a moment, and that it felt right? "Psssh," she told herself, "it always feels right with you. This time a bit more than it should. This is what you do, so maybe this was for the best. It would have ended in disaster like it always does." She didn't necessarily feel convinced but still. Maybe love just wasn't for her. It isn't like she couldn't always find someone to fuck when she needed it. She was thinking this was very modern and futuristic of her, very Old Earth "Sex in the City", very independent indeed, when she heard Sam and Cora climb on board, and she took one look at him. Lilu felt the yearning in the pit of her stomach flare up like a shot of hard whiskey; she liked him, god help her, and she knew that this effort would be herculean. She closed the cockpit hatch and flipped the lock, then said over the intercom, "We'll be taking off for Vectera shortly."

A few minutes later, the comms buzzed. It was Sam. "Can I come in, I'd like to talk for a few minutes, if you're able?"

"Nope." Then the sound of the engines warming. She wasn't even going there with him right now.

Up, up, and away out of New Atlantis they went, Lilu pondering the state of her heartache, wishing that Sam Coe had turned out to be a different person. Wishing she had been a different person. That last bit was something she frequently wished, though, that she was someone else entirely. Because wherever she ran to, there she always was. Totally fuckable (clearly), completely unlovable (as evidence demonstrated repeatedly), except by one person who was dead now. Thanks to her. She decided to fully wallow in her pity party for the duration of their trip.

When they landed on Vectera and disembarked from the Frontier, Lilu this time was returning in her Constellation spacesuit instead of the rough Argos mining kit with which she departed. For a minute, she reminisced about her firefight with the Crimson Fleet, her first glimpse of the Frontier, the excitement of the mere thought of joining Constellation, and everything that came afterwards. Then she snapped out of her reverie and remembered why she and Sam were there and that time could be of the essence. She didn't see anyone at all moving about the base camp and got worried. Then she spotted what looked like her former Argos supervisor, Lin, crouched by a crate, packing things up, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She jogged towards her, ponderous in her heavily booted feet.

"Liiiiiiin!" she called out, but the other woman stood, turned, and gave her a steely glare.

"Oh no, I don't need you rolling in here like Barrett 2.0 when I've had a lifetime's worth of the original," said Lin, voice caustic with disapproval.

Lilu pulled up short, deflated. "Why, what happened?"

"Don't you 'What happened?' me! What happened is you left, and more pirates came. Most of our people died, dusty. The injured and the capable. The pirates were looking for the Frontier and looking for revenge for one of their Captains, some guy named Brogan who they say someone from Constellation murdered at one of their bases on the moon of Kreet. I take it that was your handiwork?" Lin looked furious.

"Well," started Lilu, guiltily, "Yes. But I'm sorry, Lin, I didn't know."

"How could you know, you didn't bother coming back until now."

Lilu felt the guilt wash over her. Sarah had thought that they should check on Barrett first up in the list of missions on tap, but no, she selfishly opted to do the expedition with Sam because she remembered the name "Sam" from her dreams and then once she saw his face matched up with those visions, it was game-over. And how did that whole thing go? Sure, they got the artifact, but she ended up with hurt feelings on her end and dead colleagues here on Vectera. It was a win-lose-lose, so a net loss due to her poor judgment yet again. She could almost see her father's disapproving stare and barely perceptible shake of his head, as if he were alive and standing in front of her to remind her what a fool she was. Again.

"So, what happened to Barrett?" Lilu finally ventured to ask, after she slapped and wrestled her demons back into their cages.

"We were fighting the pirates off; Barrett is a hell of a fighter, to his credit," Lin said, reminiscing, eyes unfocused. "But there were too many," she said remorsefully, turning her gaze upon Lilu again. "We started to get ready to go out with a blaze of glory, you know? Even Barrett seemed to feel like this was it. He said, 'I'm sorry, Lin, I'll take care of it'. Like a suicide mission."

"Dang. That's when you know it's time to run away," said Lilu, only half joking. It was a habit to use humor, however dark, as a defense mechanism, to deflect from the grimness of a situation, and she knew the feeling of inevitable defeat and impending death.

Suddenly Sam broke in from behind her. "Come on... you?" he scoffed, "run away? The way I've seen you fight, we've handled just as bad together." He looked almost outraged at the suggestion.

Lilu and Lin both turned to fix him with cold, hard stares for the interruption, and he subsided, looking down at the ground. Satisfied, Lilu turned back to Lin, who continued.

"He jumped out from behind cover, took out three of the pirates... THREE... and was about to go for their leader when two more of those assholes brought out Heller from inside the station, a gun pointed to his head," Lin finished, looking down at the ground with the pain of the memory. She had such a soft spot for Heller, like he was her kid or something.

"Awww, man, poor Heller," said Lilu, and she meant it. He was kind of a big baby, and he must have been terrified.

Lin said, "Last thing I saw, Barrett was talking to the pirates' leader, Matsura, I think they called him. They talked for a while, and then this Matsura called to all the pirates, and they went to their ships, and took Barrett and Heller with them. When they took off, I tried to bounce a signal off the hull to track them but I'm not sure it worked. If it did, it'll be stored on the computer inside, except an electric pulse fried the batteries, I can't get it working again. If you think you can unbrick it, you might be able to get a location. I'm no good with tech." She looked around miserably. "I lost most of my people on this job, dusty. I just want to get out of here." And she turned away to continue packing. Lilu wasn't sure, and it was hard to see through the faceplate of her spacesuit, but she thought maybe the other woman was crying a little bit. She didn't blame her one bit. These were Lin's people, her responsibility, and she felt the weight of their loss like her own family. She was a good leader. And Lilu felt like shit for letting her down.

She turned towards the airlock of the main Argos hab, the one she had exited a mere few days ago to meet their Constellation buyer for the Artifact she had pulled out of the mine. Still hard for her to wrap her head around how far she had come. For a second, she thought about Sam and how he was a part of all that and pushed him out of her mind again just as quickly. She also felt a tremendous amount of guilt. These miners were defenseless here. She couldn't be certain, of course, but judging on how the other two members of Constellation fought that she had been on expeditions with, she doubted Barrett was a master technician with weapons and combat in the field. She had impressed Barrett, Sarah, and Sam. If she had stayed a bit longer, what might have turned out differently?

It was in this dark morass of regrets that she was pulling the levers angrily on the doors' airlocks, and Sam noticed, but he took it the wrong way. "Hey, I know you're pissed off but..."

"But what?" she said sharply. "What do you think you know? Yes, I am pissed, but it turns out I can be pissed off about multiple things. What I'm pissed off about right now is that I could have helped them if I'd stayed here instead of running off to New Atlantis with the Artifact. All these people died because they didn't have effective defense. I should have stayed. Barrett should have gone back with the Artifact instead. That... that probably would have worked out best, considering how everything has gone," she finished, miserably.

"How do you figure that?" Sam asked, as he followed her into the mining habs. "Were you going to fight them off by yourself?"

"They were ridiculously easy to pick off, even with the crappy pistol I was given. I mean, look, I don't mean to be insulting but it's gonna come out that way anyways because remember, asshole here"... and here, Sam made a sarcastic face at her, catching the reference to their first ever conversation about Akila City, the Freestar Rangers, and how she didn't endear herself to him questioning him about Cora being towed into danger on the ship... "so brace yourself, but you folks here aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed when it comes to combat, and these Crimson Fleet dorks are really bottom of the barrel. It's like someone gave an earthworm arms and handed them a gun." Lilu was rummaging through storage shelves, looking for something, occasionally pocketing spools of wire and gauges "for later".

"'Us folks here'. I won't lie, you were pretty impressive out there on Akila, but you're a miner. I don't think you can just write us all off as some kind of amateurs. You know, I was..." But she interrupted before Sam could finish.

"Yeah, yeah, maybe you were just having an off day," Lilu finished impatiently, holding up a large metal rectangle with a blue LED at one end, and showing it to Sam. "This is a battery for the radio. I remember it from orientation because if the radio doesn't work you might not get rescued for months. See if you can find two more of these, ok?" And she returned to rummaging.

Eventually Sam found another battery, and Lilu found the third. She led the way to the communications equipment room, where they inserted the batteries and Lilu tried to bring the radio and its computer back online.

"So, besides being the miner who singlehandedly would have saved her Argos crew, how else would it have worked out best if you had stayed here?" Sam couldn't let it go, apparently, and it was his turn to be the asshole.

Lilu glared at him briefly before turning her attention back to the computer controlling the radio. "Sam, I was a miner for three days. I've been away from here now for three days. So, I've now been 'not a miner' again for as long as I was actually a miner. Not counting all the time before that. Do the math."

The radio crackled to life, but Lilu turned her attention to archives and recordings, and found what she was looking for: a recording sent by Barrett, and she also heard Heller's voice, meaning they were alive when they left the planet. The last satellite ping had them going over the moon of another planet in that solar system, and then nothing. Shit, what did that mean? She looked up at Sam, who seemed to catch her wavelength without speaking.

"Well, they seemed like they were in orbit over that small moon when the beacon disappeared. Maybe to pick someone up or drop something off," he said, his tone turning upward almost like a question.

"Or?" asked Lilu.

"Or they could have grav jumped somewhere," said Sam, looking downcast.

"Or?" demanded Lilu.

"Or... game over."

"Shit. Let's go talk to Lin and then we'd better go and find out."

Lilu briefed Lin about the situation, and the older woman's face grew more serious with every word. She knew that Lin recognized the chances of either Barrett or Heller being found or more, being found alive were slim. It was likely the ship had jumped to another system, never to be seen again, but also possible it had been blown into space dust. There was nothing else but to go find out. But Lilu wasn't about to leave Lin there any longer to wait for an uncaring megacorp like Argos to come pick her up.

"Lin, come with us," pleaded Lilu. "Don't stay here. I don't like it. Maybe the pirates are done, maybe they think they got everyone, but that won't stop more of them, or Spacers, or god knows who, from coming here to scavenge and you're all alone. There's room on the Frontier, let's go look for Heller and Barrett, and then I can take you at least back to New Atlantis."

Lin considered this for a moment, and Lilu was afraid she was going to decline, but then she said, "You know what, I think you're right, and I think I'm ready for a change of scenery from Argos. After all this, I'd settle for working at a Chunks store before I put my life on the line again for another corporation who uses me as grist for the mill."

"Atta girl," said Lilu, smiling broadly at Lin. She really liked her former supervisor, she was a ball-buster and an ass-kicker, but that's what she was used to. She understood people like Lin, no guile or guise, no double-speak or false-fronts.

The three of them walked into the Frontier's landing bay, closed the ramp, pulled off their spacesuits, and climbed aboard through the hatch. Cora was immediately curious about their new passenger, and Lilu explained that Lin had been her boss at Argos. At once, Cora set upon Lin with a thousand questions about mining. Poor Lin, Lilu thought.

As Lilu started to make her way towards the cockpit, she saw Sam hovering near the hatchway door. "Christ," she muttered under her breath, and looked in his direction, feeling awkward. She'd have to walk right past him. Sam caught her eye for a moment and looked away, either embarrassed or ashamed, Lilu could not tell, before looking back at her again, searching her face. He said, "Can we talk for a minute?", appealingly, full puppy dog eyes. Those damned blue eyes. Must... resist...

"No Sam, we can't talk right now. We need to find Heller and see what's going on with Barrett. They've already been gone too long," said Lilu in a firm but measured tone that suggested obstinacy more than urgency. She would overcome.

"Yeah, but I really want to talk about what happened back at the Lodge, to clear the air..."

"Hey! HEY! Look, you jerk," Lilu barked hotly at him now with a hostility that surprised even herself, but she had to take control of the situation, her emotional situation, to launch the first volley before he could soften her up. Both Sam and Lin were taken aback, startled. Cora grinned like the proverbial Cheshire Cat at the potential drama about to unfold before her. "What air is there to clear? You made a fool out of me, shame on me for being so naive. But what price for one's education, am I right? What did I hear it called... ah yes... asshole tax. Sounds about right. Now, if I'm not mistaken, we're supposed to be rescuing your friend, someone you actually want to be around, which clearly isn't me." This last part was unnecessary and petulant, but she felt she deserved a little self-indulgence.

"Wait," said Sam, looking confused, "what are you talking about, 'someone I actually want to be around'? What is that supposed to mean? I never said..."

"Oh, get off it, Sam," she snapped, relentless now that she had him on his back heel. "Are you pretending to be obtuse or does it just come naturally? The moment I questioned you about Cora coming with us, you glared at me like I was the devil for daring to check if me risking your kid's life was A-OK with you. When I tried to ask you who Jacob was, you were a complete dick about it even though it was pertinent to the mission since he basically held the key to where we were headed to find the Artifact. When we got to the Empty Nest, you lectured me about being kind to the smugglers that had almost killed you and blew a chunk out of my arm with a shotgun; in fact, if I hadn't ducked fast, I probably would have been dead myself. So, yeah, Sam, between all that and your cute, little, bait-and-switch kissing stunt you pulled on me and my emotions back at the Lodge, I'd say I'm not sure you're particularly fond of me at all." And she turned and stalked back to the cockpit, pulling the hatch shut after herself so loudly, even the doorway sounded angry.

Sam stood staring at the hatch, nonplussed and more than a little wounded, when he heard a low whistle come from beside him. It was Lin, in almost admiration, who had taken a couple of steps to stand beside him for a moment before speaking.

"Wow, she was only gone two, maybe three days tops. How did you both get her to fall for you AND manage to break her heart in just three days?" Shaking her head and chuckling to herself, she gave Sam a little jab with her elbow, then walked towards the rear of the Frontier and sat down at the crew table. Still smiling, she stretched out her legs, put her head back against the headrest, and closed her eyes, leaving Sam standing alone, trying to wrap his head around what Lin had just said whilst simultaneously acknowledging he had no burn salve for the flaming that Lilu had given him. He finally walked over to the navigational table and leaned on it, pretending to be fascinated with the charts while the windmills of his mind churned furiously. Meanwhile, Cora just studied the instruments, but there was no way she missed eavesdropping on all of that. She was a twelve-year-old girl, after all.

It was a short flight to the moon where the beacon dropped off the transport that had been holding Barrett and Heller, and Lilu was guiding the Frontier down at a position a little way off the pin she was using as a navigational point. In case they were right there, she didn't want to land on their heads or straight into a fight with their captors. This was a pretty barren looking little rock, so she figured they'd be noticed no matter what, but it would be nice to have a few minutes to set up before the laser bolts and bullets started flying.

She didn't even look at Sam as she came out of the cockpit and headed towards the landing bay, but she seemed to sense him hesitating so she turned her face in his general direction, gave a jerk of her chin towards the hatch, and said, civilly, "Come on, let's go see if we can find that ship." So, Sam straightened up away from the nav table and started to move in the general direction of the hatch, saying nothing to be on the safe side.

"Keep an eye out for Heller?" entreated Lin.

"You bet, that poor sap," said Lilu, worried. And she made her way into the landing bay, Sam behind her. They both got into their spacesuits because there was no atmosphere, freezing temperatures, high radiation, and low gravity. Many of the worlds in this system seemed to share these traits, wondered Lilu. She knew next to nothing about astronomy, she thought maybe it was time to start understanding more about some of these patterns, it could save her life one day.

"You know," Sam offered, tentatively, "maybe we should take the sub-orbital shuttle out to go looking. The less time we spend out in these conditions, the better.

"Oh." Lilu stopped and thought about it. She had never considered this. There was so much she didn't know. Should she really be in charge of people in these situations? It was easy to get ahead of herself because they had just left her in charge, simply because she was a good fighter who got them results, no other special talents. But she had no survival skills for space. Other than the shooting/blowing things up skills. Those were universal and evergreen.

"Tough decision?" Sam asked. Lilu looked over at him sharply and saw his mouth twisted around in his familiar half smile, the sardonic little leer it formed when he was wholly and completely jerking someone's chain. So, he was going to push his luck, eh? Ok, then.

"No," she said, deadpan, "I was trying to remember if I left the stove on at home. Let's go."

She pushed the button that said, "Vehicle Bay", heard clanging outside, and then lowered the landing bay ramp. The suborbital shuttle was waiting outside the ship, like magic. "Fuck, I don't know how to fly this thing, do I wing it and kill us both or do I admit the truth and humiliate myself?" she thought. Then, brilliance hit her like a lightning bolt.

"Sam, will you fly? I want to be ready with my rifle in case I have to take anyone out on the way down." Great plan, thought Lilu. He'll never figure it out. Although, as she glanced at him, he did seem to be looking at her a little oddly, but maybe that was her imagination and guilty conscience creeping in on the sides.

She observed him climb in, and she followed suit from the other side. She realized then her fatal flaw in her instruction: it was virtually impossible to aim out the window of the flying shuttle, the window didn't work like that, it wasn't like a chopper door. "Shit,", she thought, "he's gonna figure this one out pretty damned soon. Act natural for now." And off they went.

They only flew over one rise when they found what they were looking for: a ship, crashed, part of the hull surprisingly intact, the rest strewn across a rather linear path of about 50m long and 15m wide. They started to fly a circle around the wreckage, looking for signs of life and finding none, until Lilu exclaimed, "There, see the chair and the cot?!" Sam angled the shuttle around, then nodded and began the process of setting it down near the area they had seen. They emerged from the shuttle and jogged towards the crash, Lilu slightly in the lead, rifle slung at the ready, hopeful they'd find Heller, Barrett, one of the miners, anyone but one of those goddamned pirates.

When they got up to where Lilu had spotted the chair and cot, she could see a set of space-suited legs on the ground, peeking from behind some jumbled crates. Those were Argos Extractors legs! Moving faster in the ridiculously puffy suit, she tried to hurry to them, hoping their owner would still be alive. She was rewarded when she came around the corner of the crates and saw Heller, lounging back against the wreckage, clutching his side, blinking up at her deliriously. Oh boy, she thought, he doesn't look so hot, but he's alive.

"You're back. I never thought I'd see you again," said Heller, slurring his words slightly.

"Maybe I'm not here, Heller. Maybe I'm a fantasy come to life in front of your very eyes," said Lilu, smiling, relieved to hear him able to speak.

"Yeah, but if you were that kind of fantasy, you would be wearing a lot less than that spacesuit!" Heller said this with a laugh, but Lilu faux punched him in the shoulder on the non-injured side. "What?" he continued. "I took a lot of painkillers." His shit-eating grin seemed to back that up, he had never looked that happy in the three days she had known him.

"Painkillers make you into a pervert, duly noted, Heller. But where's Barrett? Isn't he with you? Is he... ok?""

"Well, there's good news... and there's bad news," said Heller, loving his moment in the sun. He was high as a kite.

"Heller please, concentrate, I need the short version here. What happened to Barrett?" Lilu felt a little desperate with only Heller here to help her piece together the puzzle.

"When we were taken from Vectera, Barrett was trying to figure out a way to ping our location back to the surface with a transmitter he'd jammed into his jacket, but he knew we'd have to get loose, even for a few minutes, so he said we needed to pretend to fight each other."

"Heh, oh boy, that must have been a sight to see," mused Lilu, half laughing to herself.

"You don't even know the half of it! You see..." said Heller, warming to the tale, the painkillers making him sound like a drunk who was fondly reminiscing about youthful hijinks, "Barrett grabbed me by the jumpsuit, threw himself down and pulled me on top of him, and started screaming, 'Help me, help me, the kid's gone cannibal or something, he's trying to bite my face off!' I didn't think that was going to work, but I made some fake growling noises, and they came to investigate."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Lilu sat back on her haunches, incredulous.

"Truth! And when they started to pull me off of Barrett, that's when he jumped into action. He grabbed the pistol off one, shot him in the head, turned and shot one more, but then one hit him, and he shot the pilot right through the back into the flight console and we dropped out of orbit like a 20-ton brick. The G's were so intense, I passed out. When I woke up, Barrett had pulled me clear from the wreckage, but then he shoved me behind some crates because another ship started to land. I thought maybe it was someone to rescue us, but it was more Crimson Fleet. Barrett went out to talk with them for a few minutes, he never even looked back at me, and they all just left. I guess... I guess he didn't want them to know I was here. But at the same time, I was left all alone to... what? Wait? Die? I don't know. So, I'm sure glad you came along. You're gonna take me with you, right?" Heller looked at her appealingly. Lilu thought about messing with him, but that would be cruel, wouldn't it? Hmmm. In that case, she definitely should do it, just a little bit, because if there was one thing she'd learned in her three days with Argos, it was this: Heller would have absolutely done it to her. In a heartbeat.

"Darn it, Heller, I'm so sorry," Lilu said, in a saccharine sweet voice, "but there's just no more room. I picked up Lin on Vectera, and we already have met our quota of one pointless man on board, you know. I can come back and give you a ride some other time, perhaps. In a week or two, three tops, maybe?" She looked at him with large brown eyes, lips slightly parted and pouty, completely guileless.

Heller's face looked horrified. Lilu's inner laughter was roaring but she didn't break her expression. Then Sam interrupted again from behind her. "What do you mean? There's plenty of room on board, you can't leave him here!"

Lilu rolled her eyes in her helmet before she turned around, and she could hear Heller slurring, "Oh-ho! You bitch, hahaha, you were trying to punk me, I'll get you for this, mark my words," as she turned to face Sam.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. First when I joked with Lin, now Heller. Will you please let me harass my former coworkers in peace? Cállate la pinche boca. Ugh." She gave him a hard stare; Sam piped down, looking at the toes of his boots, but wondering quietly to himself that she had just spoken in another language.

Turning back to Heller, she said, "OK, now that the jig is up, yes, of course you can come with us. So, how's about you tell me if you happen to have gotten a transmission that pinged Barrett's location so we can find him? TOGETHER." She said this last word loudly and with exaggerated slowness as she half-looked over her shoulder towards Sam, who circumspectly remained silent.

"Yeah, I got your slate right here," Heller said in a lewd tone, but he produced a slate and nothing more. Lilu, laughing and shaking her head, took it from him and got the coordinates.

"Can you stand? It's gonna be a tight fit in the back of that shuttle with three people so.... I guess since I'm not piloting and I'm not injured, I'm afraid that'll be me who's going to be pressed like a Chunk in the back." She paused for a split second... Had she just made some sort of Settled System joke? Her very first. Awww. "Besides, I have the smallest head of the three of us." She cracked herself up, but she really was kind of an asshole, truthfully.

They got back to the Frontier a bit slower and lower than how they got to the wreckage because Heller was a big boy. Not overweight, but tall and, well, healthy. Sam was average for his height and Lilu wasn't a petite girl herself. That poor little shuttle was having to strain a bit, and Sam was a pedal-to-the-metal kind of flyer.

But got there, they did. Lin was overjoyed to see Heller; Lilu was pretty sure she saw a bead of moisture in those steely eyes of hers. And Heller was clearly a mama's boy, he allowed himself to be cared for as Lin checked on his injuries and actually made him some hot tea. Lilu couldn't believe it. She didn't get any hot tea after she passed out from pulling the Artifact out of the stone there in the Argos mine. And she said as much. Lin told her that she didn't look as pathetic as Heller did in that moment, and it was a fair point. Heller, enjoying the attention and knowing on which side his bread was buttered, smiled and didn't object.

Lilu punched the coordinates in at the nav table and went to the cockpit. She completed the takeoff procedure, and they were on their way to Hyperia, and a deserted UC munitions depot. There was no lack of abandoned or decommissioned food processing facilities, training camps, munitions manufacturing plants, staryards, etc. left over from the Colony Wars from a couple decades ago, scattered throughout the Systems, as Sarah had told her, but the cast of characters which occupied them was varied, from Crimson Fleet pirates to Va'ruun zealots to Spacers to Ecliptic to smugglers to possibly yet to be met foes. What she had seen so far had been woefully inept fighters, but she always kept note that one day she might stumble upon a real challenge that she wouldn't be able to handle on her own.

With this in mind, she set down on Hyperia, because Barrett's pursuers were not only persistent, but well equipped, with redundant teams and contingency plans. So, chances are, this place was well protected, probably rigged with booby traps. She checked with Lin on the way out, showed her the hold access panel so there was the ability to grab guns and ammo should they need to defend themselves, and told her if things went south to fly on out of there, Cora was a capable copilot. Cora looked a little scared, but she nodded. Maybe no one had talked to her like an adult prepared to take the reins, but if she was going to be coming along on adult missions, it was time. And again, Sam stayed out of it. Strange, but maybe he felt the same when it came to his little girl saving her own life.

Lilu and Sam exited the Frontier's hatch, suited up, and started down the path to the abandoned facility when Lilu spotted the other sniper in the crow's nest almost 100m away. She crouched down and dragged Sam with her before they were seen. Slowly, she pulled out her RK1M sniper rifle so as not to attract the other gunner with the motion, took swift but careful aim, and planted two slugs into their chest. On the low-gravity planet, the gunner slid down in extra-slow motion, like a puffy red rag doll in their Crimson Fleet spacesuit.

"Let me guess," Sam said, laughing, "You hypnotized him," carrying on the running joke that Lilu had started during their Empty Nest mission.

Lilu wasn't having any part of it. "No, Sam, don't be ridiculous. I killed him." There was no smile, no laughter, no recognition of the joke being a "thing". She wasn't going to let it be that easy for him to wiggle out of what he'd done by warming up to her past jokes. This was a whole new ball game.

"Is this how it's going to be now?" Sam asked, sounding defeated.

"Is this how what's going to be?" Lilu asked in return, creeping, low, towards the corner edge of where two ledges came together overlooking the facility. She realized she couldn't combat crawl in the spacesuit and was unsure how to approach at elevation without being seen, so she was trying to use the facility's rooflines and the ledges in combination as cover against any ground personnel whilst recognizing people on catwalks or the roofs themselves could possibly see her and Sam. This was not easy.

"That we can't at least be friends now," he answered, only to be met with a sound of derision over the comms from her helmet.

"Oh, friends... friends, is it? That's what we were to begin with? And you want to go back to whatever that was before you... and what was that, anyway? Usually, when a man tries to turn my head, it's not to end up breaking my fucking neck." She finished that last in an almost menacing tone.

"Maybe we'd better let it go for now?" Sam said, getting nervous he was opening a can of really angry, vengeful worms.

"Yeah, that's what I've been trying to get you to do this entire time, so maybe WE had better do that." And she found a spot to settle where she could see some of the pirates in the base below them, a pair on the ground, one on a rampart, one on a catwalk. She brought the gun up. She took out one... two...three... then suddenly, all that she could see in front of her scope was red fabric with gold embroidery. It took a second to register that it belonged to a Crimson Fleet spacesuit, and in that second, she heard the whoosh in the air of a weapon being swung down with the force of a melee strike. "OH SHIT" her brain screamed, because she realized she was caught out, defenseless. But something arrested the weapon's fall, which surely would have landed true on her helmet or back. It was Sam.

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

SAM, NOW:

Sam had zoned out for a moment while she had been acquiring targets, deep in his own head, trying to think of how he could fix things between them. He didn't want her as an enemy, and not just because she was scary. It was because he did like her, and he still couldn't stop thinking about her. It was a good, old-fashioned crush, he reckoned. It had been so long he'd forgotten what it felt like. Sometimes people called this feeling "infatuation", and he supposed it was hard to differentiate between the two. It was genuinely a fine line, but he was up to exploring the possibilities further.

The entire trip, as they left the Lodge, had been uncomfortable. She didn't want to talk to him; when she did, she hostile at times. That chewing out there in front of Lin and Cora was brutal. When he said something to her, she treated him like an idiot. Well, maybe she had good reason, he'd behaved like an idiot after Sarah had busted them. Acting like a schoolboy being caught smoking in the school bathrooms instead of a grown man who was allowed to have whatever relationships he chose to have.

But clearly something else here was at play. What was it Sarah had said about a boyfriend? Or there had been one but he was gone, maybe dead. Whatever she had said, it was something that Lilu had taken as a cruel jab. And maybe what Sam had done by throwing away their moment together added to that pain, and he hated the thought of that. He hated the look he saw her on her face when he'd said, "I guess I've got things to think about," because it was a look of incredulity and... disappointment? Or was it rather more like fading hope? That he would stand by her? And realizing that no, she was being abandoned by him to be humiliated by Sarah? Jesus, that was even worse.

He'd been struggling to get back into some semblance of her good graces since, and maybe an opportunity to sit quietly with her and talk it out. Maybe apologize to her, let her know that he was attracted to her, and confirm that she felt the same about him if she could ever find a way to forgive him. Maybe they could just take it slow so as to keep Sarah off their backs, she didn't have to know. Sure, that wasn't the most romantic of scenarios, but he had a lot to risk, and he had to be sure. Hell, what if it didn't work out? He'd lose the girl and his place with Constellation, all with his daughter watching.

So, these thoughts were ping-ponging around his head through every verbal slap she took at him, every taunt for which he had a riposte, and as she was picking off Crimson Fleet, he was still thinking about this when movement to the side caught his eye. A pirate had crept up an inner crevice of the rock face and, as Sam watched, hit their boost pack as Lilu was engrossed in her angry target practice. The pirate's axe arm was raised, and Sam realized that his dearest Captain was about to die or at least be gravely injured. Not on his watch. No, sir. So, he leapt into motion, knowing that in the low-grav environment, he'd only have one chance to get it right before caroming off into the base.

Sam launched himself horizontally like a torpedo, using his boost pack thrusters to get momentum, conscious of his body's aspect so as not to drift upward. He was coming in from the pirate's blind side, and he had taken off low enough that he was still going to hit the attacker mid-torso. The poor schmuck never saw it coming. Sam felt a satisfying thud and saw the axe go cartwheeling away, and then thought, "Oh, shit!" Because he saw that his momentum and the pirate's upward thrust were carrying them towards the upper lip of a rock shelf, an inevitable collision course, and they both hit it with a crunch before gently drifting downward into the base. Sam could hear Lilu gasp over the coms and cry out, "SAM!" But she was ok, for now. Job done. Maybe he'd even earned a little bit of approval from her, finally? Fingers crossed. Also, ouch, he thought, as he landed on his back on the ground.

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

LILU, THEN (IN THE BEGINNING):

Lilu's new unit stayed in the crude barracks in the hangar in Egypt for three days before a plane became available to take them to Camp Lemonnier. The C-130 picked them up, along with a potpourri of other troops, pallets of food, first aid supplies, and munitions. Not enough of any one thing to make any one of them a priority. This flight was for the scraps and the strays.

Camp Lemonnier was, to Lilu, a bizarre base that warehoused many of its people in refrigerated CLU-villes. Containerized Living Units, or CLU's, were stacked on top of each other like personal storage rental yards, and each one had minimal windows/doors and a thru-wall air conditioning unit. They were clustered in little villages or "-villes". She had never seen anything so odd in the military in her life, but then she had never been stationed in Africa or the Middle East, especially during active conflicts.

Lilu's unit was assigned a small cluster of barracks together in one of the CLU-villes. As she was the only woman traveling in their unit, she was lucky enough, or so she thought at the time, to have her own CLU. Delta shared several CLUs on the bottom floors, and the other Rangers inhabited the upper floors. They took up a neat little block for themselves for their current bivouac while they waited for orders. There were several hot spots to which they could be deployed from the Camp, but which was most in need was the question.

Master Sergeant (MSG) Norm Etbauer was itching to take his "girl gunner" out to test her on some real, moving, tactical targets, but there was nothing much to do around Djibouti. So, he took his new prize to the gunnery range, which was another large hangar fortified at one end with bullet stops, and had her shooting almost impossible trick shots just to see if she could. They gathered a crowd and soon service men and women were setting up Wile E. Coyote/ACME style targets to see if she could hit them and set off elaborate booby-traps. It was all in good fun, but there was someone lurking in the periphery who wasn't laughing. It was her new unit "bestie" from Egypt, Druggers. She had an eye on him, and she hoped so did Norm.

It was the focus on Drugger's obvious hostility that really screwed her over. Because there are plenty of Druggers in plain sight. It's the hidden Druggers of the world, the ones who are polite, who smile and are courteous, who seem like really nice boys, that are plotting something completely vile. And because Lilu had the luxury of having her very own CLU to herself, unknowing how poorly the doors locked, unknowing that some of the base women felt a little resentful of this show-off instead of inspired so they didn't help keep an eye on things, unknowing that several sets of covetous eyes had been following her, not just coveting her body but her skills and the attention she seemed to covet for herself... unknowing how close she was to becoming an all too common statistic on military bases around the world.

It was the small hours of the morning, Camp was as quiet as it could be considering its size and constant operations, and Lilu was in a dead sleep, when she felt a hand clamp over her mouth at the same time a knee planted painfully into the center of her chest, pinning her dead center into the mattress. She couldn't breathe, the agonizing pressure. A flashlight shone directly into her eyes, the kind someone would wear over their head. A voice hissed: "Don't make a fucking sound or I'll crush your thorax right here. Do what we want, and you'll make it through this alive. OK?" She nodded, the pain almost unbearable, the lack of oxygen making her feel woozy. Her eyes started to roll back into her skull. She heard someone else say, "Get off her chest, she's gonna pass out," and a third man say, "Who cares if she does, she doesn't need to be awake for me to fuck her." So that was it, she was going to get raped, just like Druggers said. None of the voices sounded like his, though.

"The moment I move, she's gonna fight me, so one of you better grab her arms and tie her up," said the first man, who still had his hand over her mouth and his knee dug into her chest. She drew in a deep breath and tried to scream, and he used his other hand to punch her hard in the side of her head. Lilu saw stars and decided to just go limp. She hoped they'd just do what they came for and would leave her alive. It was just pussy they were stealing; they wouldn't own it. She'd known the stats for sexual assault on a military base at that time were about 9% of women. Close to 1 in 10. That her number would come up was not surprising. But she didn't want to be a murder stat, that wasn't entirely unknown, either. She could hear a belt buckle unfastening and the sound of unzipping, and felt someone pulling at her own pants. And then the door burst open wildly, banging against the wall.

There, in the doorway, was Druggers. He was a picture of fury. Face red, straw colored hair sticking up in every direction, in just his undershirt and boxers. "What the fuck is happening in here? What are you assholes doing to her?" He started into the CLU. Lilu's assaulters let go of her and turned to face him.

"Hey, she invited us up here to party, isn't that right, you little whore?" said the man who had been on top of her with his knee. By now, she had curled up into a ball, clutching her chest with one hand, holding the battered side of her head with the other, peering out of the corner of one eye. And while her assaulter was laser-focused on Druggers, she gathered her strength and donkey kicked the man right in the nuts, dropping him like a shot.

"Mother-FUCKER," she groaned. The man whose testicles she hammered with her back heel only wheezed and gagged as he contorted his body on the floor.

"What's goin' on up there?" came Norm's voice from outside, down below.

"Call the MP's, Etbauer, I caught some wanna-be rapist clowns up here in the girl gunner's CLU," Druggers called back down.

"Holy shit," said Etbauer and then there was the sound of feet pounding up the stairs and down the catwalk to her door. Lilu was mortified. So, Druggers's threat had become a self-fulfilling prophecy, just not at Druggers's hand. How humiliating. It wasn't as if men weren't sexually assaulted on military bases, they were, albeit at a lesser extent than women. But it was constantly thrown at women as a reason they should be excluded or were a troubling distraction. Because of assailants like Rapey McRapersen and his crew.

Norm Etbauer surveyed the scene, taking in the two men cornered in the back of the CLU and the one on the ground clutching his balls. He turned on the lights to get a closer look at the men's uniforms. Navy and Marines. "What the actual fuck? Two jarheads and a squid? And as usual, the squid was doing all the work. I've always said the same thing about the Marines, y'all do excellent work, not one single Navy gate has ever been stolen. And lookie here, thank god you were so incompetent that you couldn't be decent accomplices to your squid friend. Now the MP's are gonna court martial you because you couldn't just jerk it in your bunk like normal guys and try not being criminals. Enjoy those dishonorable discharges, boys." The men looked up and saw the MPs were coming in the CLU.

Then Norm turned to Lilu. "You're going to the hospital to get checked out."

"I'm fine," said Lilu in a hoarse whisper, still struggling to draw air through her crushed chest, embarrassed and determined to just go about her night. "They didn't actually rape me; they just roughed me up a little. And look, I don't want to get involved with testifying against someone, you know how that goes, how they treat you afterwards like you're a snitch or some..."

"I don't give a shit," said Druggers, angry, "and if you want to make this a better army for you damned splittails, all bound and determined to fight wars with us, then you do your part and take guys like this out of the equation. I'm tired of seeing it happen. It happened to my sister and she ain't even a soldier."

"I'm sorry, man. You're right. I didn't mean to..." Lilu started, and she felt tears coming but she shoved them back down. "How did you know they were here?"

"I was watching them all day while Norm was playing around with his new prize." He looked disapprovingly at Norm, who met his eye but showed zero reaction. Lilu wondered what this was about, but Druggers went on. "The way these guys were watching was different than some of the others. Sure, there were guys leering and jeering, but they looked like predators. I got close enough to them to overhear them talk about looking for you tonight and 'pounding some sense' into your ass. I didn't figure they meant with their fists. So, I've been watching and waiting. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the first time this little crew of rapist shitheads has struck in this Camp."

"I thought you didn't like me, though," Lilu said, looking at him directly, still grimacing and clutching her chest. "You practically made it sound like me getting raped would teach me a lesson."

"I was three sheets that day, and yeah, I was mad that they put you with us because I still do think it's a stunt for political correctness. But watching you shoot, you're pretty good. I guess we'll see when the rubber hits the road, maybe now I'll have someone else worth a damn with a rifle to keep score with. And besides, I don't like seeing anyone in my unit get hurt, especially by assholes like that. Now if you're done with 20 questions, can Norm take you to the hospital?" finished Druggers, looking a little more amiable than the day they'd first met in Egypt, when he'd called her a fucking cunt.

"See there," drawled Norm, "he's just a big ol' teddy bear. Come on, let's get you over there and maybe get a chest x-ray, make sure that asshole didn't crack anything, and then we'll have to figure out where you can sleep and store your stuff."

Lilu nodded and got to her feet with Norm's assistance. She looked back one last time at Druggers, who was watching with satisfaction as the MPs cuffed the assailants and led them out, now with an air of an ambivalent observer, sort of like a child might do as he stands absently in front of a television set playing cartoons, staring blankly, stopping to scratch his ass over his boxers, his unruly hair still sticking up at odd angles. "My hero," snorted Lilu, quietly, and she caught Norm's eye. They both laughed and she proceeded slowly out of the CLU, down the catwalk, and down the steps to a waiting golf cart to go to the hospital.

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

SAM AND LILU, NOW:

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" Lilu's only thoughts were that somehow Sam was going to get himself killed again. Well, not again, he didn't die at the Empty Nest, but it had been damned close. And now this? She was horrified. That, first, she didn't see the pirate coming. She'd been a sniper without a spotter before, but she was careless here, and all because she was upset and arguing with Sam. She should have told him to stow any nonsense until they were someplace safer, but she had been itching for a confrontation, too. She lost focus and she almost got taken out but for Sam coming to her rescue. And now he was at the bottom of the ledge, inside the base perimeter, in a tangled heap with the pirate he had literally launched himself into at maximum velocity in order to keep her skull from being bashed in with an axe. Maybe it was time to cut him the tiniest bit of slack. There were still layers to pull back here. Like an onion.

She started to work her way down the corner of the ledge, sliding down the rock carefully, not sure how much abrasion her spacesuit would take. She was halfway down the rock face when she saw a pirate appear on a catwalk midway on the side of one of the base ramparts. The pirate saw her instantly because of the dust cloud she was creating and started firing upon her. There was no time to waste. Borrowing a page from the Sam Coe-boost pack-juggernaut playbook, she launched forward off the rockface, gun up, trying to boost forward and fire at the same time. Many of her shots went wild but three that counted hit their mark and the pirate went cartwheeling backwards off the catwalk. She could hear the sounds of commotion in the base as she drifted towards the bottom of the rocks where she'd seen Sam fall.

He was, by this time, picking himself up, steadying himself, looking a little shaken, but not too much the worse for wear. "Are you ok?!" Lilu asked, putting a hand on his shoulder and peering into his faceplate, concerned. He looked a little winded, but he met her eyes and nodded.

"I just need a second. I didn't think I was coming in that hot," Sam panted.

"Jesus, Sam, don't get yourself killed trying to save me. You've got a kid to think about here." Lilu straightened, looked around to make sure no one was coming for them, then jerked her head towards the pirate and asked, "Is he dead?" Sam shook his head.

Lilu stepped over and looked into the pirate's faceplate. The eyes were closed but the lids were fluttering, it looked as if the pupils were rolling back in their sockets. There was no Geneva Convention here, and she didn't want him waking up only to follow behind them to shoot them in the back. Oh well, she thought, war is hell. She turned her rifle perpendicularly, barrel pointing skyward, raised it in the air, and brought the polished hardwood butt down hard right in the center of the pirate's faceplate, cracking the glass. There was a whoosh of escaping air, and a brief sound of gasping as the pirate's heels drummed the ground for a couple of seconds before asphyxiation took the last of his life.

"He is now," she said, her voice different, flat, emotionless, her eyes empty, her face blank behind her faceplate. The difference was like someone had inserted a perfect imitation of Lilu, but devoid of humanity. The effect was a little bit chilling to Sam.

He shrugged, feigning casual disinterest. "One less baddie," he said, trying to sound indifferent. It wasn't murder in combat situations, right? Unbidden, Sarah's words floated through his head again ("Be careful around her, Sam, I think she's dangerous, and I'd hate for you or Cora to get hurt."). But he let it go. Leaving a pirate alive, who's aware of their presence, in a hostile base wasn't a good idea, and they had no way to secure him, nor bring him in safely for the law to handle. These pirates had sealed their fate by pursuing the Frontier and annihilating the Argos Extractors employees, then taking Barrett hostage and bringing back here, hopefully still alive. There would be no prisoners taken.

"Ok," said Lilu, all business again, "since we're down here now, we're going to stay down here. I'm going to start sweeping the area for targets, will you watch my back? I'm going to have my eye fairly glued to my scope, I'm going to look for land mines, too, so try to watch the rooflines for me?"

"I've got your six," Sam confirmed.

"Good man," Lilu said, and then was overcome with melancholy for her old life, but she shook it off. This was her life now, and at least this was something she knew: gunplay and sharpshooting. And yes, it was a hell of a lot better than mining. "Come on, let's boogie."

Returning to her crouched position, she crept through the base, going around corners, slowly, checking the ground, sweeping left to right, then elevated positions. She found and disarmed two land mines behind the buildings, then when she came around the corner towards the front, she saw two turrets keeping an eye on the front gates. She took those out, but the resulting explosions brought out what was left of the pirates, putting her and Sam on the ropes. But that RK1M rifle really shined, the accuracy, power, and velocity of its rounds, plus the speed at which she could reload it, meant that her targets went down fast, and she seldom missed. She couldn't wait to tell Reisha back at Laredo Arms what a treasure this gun is, and its effectiveness made it priceless.

Sam was clean-up for wounded targets as she kept acquiring new ones. Again, just like at the Empty Nest, in the heat of the firefight, he'd say, excitedly, "This feels like old times!" It was great that he was warming to the task, but that warning light was blinking away in the back of Lilu's mind again; she just knew she was bound to find out a terrible truth, sooner or later, and all the better that it's sooner, she thought. When it seemed like the gunfire had died down and there were no more live targets, they ducked inside the first of two main buildings, a two-story job, and started looking through lockers and containers for valuables. Yes, they wanted to find Barrett, but the facility and its personnel looked as if they could at least be storing considerable materiel that would be useful on the ship or save them credits that they wouldn't have to go begging from Constellation. A little independence went a long way. And Lilu thought this might be a good time to ask what had been playing on her mind.

"What are these 'old times' you keep talking about?" she asked Sam, casually, tone light.

"What?" Sam was perplexed.

"You keep saying, 'This feels like old times,' or something like that, whenever we're fighting enemies. You did it at the Empty Nest and you did it here, and I just wondered... what 'old times' do you mean? Since, you know, you and I don't have any 'old times.'" She cocked her head slightly, trying to look casually curious, but on the inside she was burning with dread. "Never ask a question to which you're not 100% prepared to hear the answer, Liluana," her mother had always told her.

Sam felt like a deer in the headlights. Shit, this wasn't the time or place to get into this part of his past. Not without looking like a bit of a hypocrite and maybe scaring her off while she seemed to be warming to him again, at least a little bit. He thought fast. When in doubt, play dumb.

"Oh, it's... just force of habit. Something I used to say when I was with the Rangers, and I just never lost the saying. You know how it is, when the adrenaline's pumping, you fall back on old memories." He didn't look at her when he said this, until the very end, when he chance a sidelong glance to see how his explanation was landing. He cringed inwardly when he saw her face, which was a large order of deep-fried skepticism served with a "this is bullshit" dipping sauce, but he maintained his poker face. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"Uh huh," she uttered in a voice so monotone, it could have been robotic, and she moved forward without looking at him again. He knew she didn't buy it, and he trailed behind her, chiding himself for his stupidity. Why did he try to lie? He was always a bad liar, and women were experts at sniffing out even the good ones.

They had squeezed everything of value out of that building and made their way across to the other major building on the base, this one built into the ground with a subterranean bunker where they could shed their spacesuits. As soon as they entered that one, they could hear voices from below. And one of them was Barrett's. Eureka! They had found him, and he was alive.

Lilu paused, though. She could hear Barrett laughing with the pirates now. And... could it be... what sounded like the pull tab of a can opening. Were they drinking beer? No wonder Lin was so exasperated with this guy. Half the Argos miners dead, a ship crash-landed that almost took out Heller, and Barrett here was yucking it up with the Crimson Fleet? Maybe it was out of the need for survival, but it sounded pretty goddamned cozy to Lilu.

She continued to creep down the corridor to its end, there it opened up into a storage room, and to the left, another room where she could tell the voices where congregated. A peek around the corner confirmed this was some sort of work room or assembly room considering the large table with hoist, and the various equipment scattered around. She could see Barrett, in street clothing, tilted back onto the two rear legs of his chair, his own legs extended forward insolently, holding a bottle of some amber ale, smiling with benevolent largesse. One pirate, a middle-aged Asian man, spacesuit on but helmet off, thick black hair and weathered skin, was looking at Barrett and smiling, a tall-boy can of beer in his hand. The other pirates, in full spacesuits and helmets, were leaning against various tables and machines, also listening with rapt attention. This would make Lilu's job easier, as she silently slid into the perfect spot to take them all down, the random crates strewn about plus the poor lighting giving her the perfect cover to slide closer, inexorably closer.

"What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen out there, Barrett?" said the helmetless man, looking eager and excited. He seemed to be the leader.

"Well, I'm sure you haven't heard of the time we found a strange Artifact on Bindi," started Barrett.

"From the way that cute lady supervisor told it back at Argos, that was Ka'zaal," said the pirate leader, wagging his finger at Barrett like he was scolding a naughty schoolkid being caught out for lying.

"Lin always gets that wrong," laughed Barrett, condescendingly. "It was Bindi."

"It was Ka'zaal!" said Lilu, as she popped up from behind the crate, and shot the helmetless pirate leader right where his helmet should have been. The man lurched wildly backwards but she didn't wait to see if he got back up again. From what she could tell, the scope of the RK1M had him right on the temple, with the caliber, load, and velocity of that round, he was gone. She swung around to face the other three, and for a split second, no one moved. Then, all hell broke loose.

One of the pirates was clever and boosted themselves to the mezzanine which Lilu had been unable to see until she popped into the room. That pirate used the elevation to their advantage. Finding an empty crate to get behind, they started taking shots at Lilu, Barrett, and now Sam who had just made it into the room for support. They all ducked for cover against that, and then the two live and now thoroughly pissed off pirates in the room coming for them.

Lilu grabbed Sam's shoulder and roughly pulled him behind the corner of the work table and said in his ear, "Sam, back behind us, that doorway, I think maybe there's a ramp to the mezzanine; can you take out that asshole up there, or at least distract him?" She studied his face, all of it, looking for signs he was panicky but he looked solid. And sure enough, that fast, he was nodding to her.

"Not a problem." His tone was confident, and he gave her that weird little smile, his mouth twisted a little bit, that usually meant he was being sarcastic. Maybe he was feeling like, "Duh," but she wanted nothing on her conscience right now. She was coated with Teflon, nothing was sticking to her today. She gave him a nod and then raised her gun and fired wildly at the pirates in the room and toward the mezzanine to keep them down while Sam went back through the door and disappeared. Barrett was unable to reach the dead pirate's gun, and he was neatly tucked into a corner, trying to stay alive.

Lilu listened for a few moments, and then she heard the pirate in the mezzanine shout, so she knew Sam had arrived to commence "negotiations". She sprayed bullets towards the pirates in the room with her to hold them down again, then looked up to see the upstairs pirate and Sam starting a shootout. She took careful aim and shot that pirate right through the throat while he was distracted. She crouched back down and gestured for Sam to start shooting the pirates from above, and he was more than happy to comply. She popped up and helped mop up, and it was over. Teamwork makes dreamwork.

When Sam got back to her, he seemed to have the same sentiment. "I have to say, we make a great team," he said, proudly. Lilu smiled at him, thinly, and hoped that the sadness that washed over her again didn't show at the corners of her mouth, hoping that he didn't falsely attribute any of it to him. This was an older, deeper wound, before Adam, the whole reason for Adam even becoming a thing. But Sam saw that same sad smile and wondered why his words made her unhappy, and of course came to the wrong conclusion, because how could he know better?

Barrett spoke up, breaking the awkwardness of the moment, and certainly noticing it. "Am I glad to see you two. Sam, good buddy, nice to know you wouldn't forget your old pal, Barrett. And hey there, dusty, or as Lin called you, the 'new girl', looks like I made the right call sending you on to join Constellation. What do you think so far?"

Lilu thought carefully. She wasn't sure how this was going to work with Sam going forward. She didn't want to be cruel or rub in the fact that she had been hurt. She didn't want to get into the weeds with her issues with Sarah. She couldn't explain what the real problems were. She wasn't sure she could even trust this man with the secrets she was forced to hide by UC SysDef's orders. So, she crafted the only answer that seemed to tick all the boxes without violating the divulgence of any classified material. Good little soldier girl.

"Well, it's certainly a lot more than I expected, and it's already had its shares of ups and downs. I'm sure, given enough time, I'll be able to form a more complete opinion for you, but I fully expect it to be favorable," Lilu concluded.

"How long did you spend in the military?" asked Barrett.

"Sir?" Lilu asked, then immediately thought "SHIT, wrong answer," and tried again with, "Barrett, I don't know what you mean?"

"An answer like the one you gave me isn't one I'd expect from a miner, from Argos or Deimos or anyone, so what are you hiding, dusty?" pressed Barrett. Sam was now watching intently, much like he did during the dogtag conversation with Sarah.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Barrett. Now, we'd probably better get out of here."

"Come on..." Barrett started but Lilu turned around and now she was pure flames and anger.

"NOW, BARRETT!" she roared at him, leaning towards him, her face grim, her eyes intense. "I'm not fucking around, there'll be time for bullshit when we not in a goddamned pirate's lair, ok?"

"All right, all right, dusty, let me get suited up." And they waited for Barrett to get into his spacesuit so they could get back up to the entrance of the bunker, hop back into their own suits, now replenished in the oxygen rich environment, and head back to the Frontier with Barrett in tow.

Once on board, Lin and Heller reunited with Barrett, happy to see him alive, scolding him for getting them into that mess in the first place. Lilu grabbed a cheesesteak Chunks (she was gradually starting to warm to the weird franchise food of the Settled Systems, it was handy, small, individually wrapped, and in a variety of flavors, so when in Rome, baby) and her newly beloved Boom Pop! cola, and watched these reunions while she refreshed herself. Sam and Barrett started talking about sports. Apparently there was a game called "batball" which sounded very much like Old Earth baseball. Cora had a silly joke for Barrett that she had written herself.

Noel had said something about these people being like family. Obviously that didn't include Lin and Heller, but those two were family through Argos. Sam, Barrett, and Cora were family through Constellation. And Lilu? Where did she fit? Apparently nowhere. Because of the truth that she kept secret. Or that UC SysDef was making her keep secret. That secret which Sarah was holding over her head now, because she knew that Lilu couldn't talk about it. That secret which she was feeling more and more like she needed to tell someone else in Constellation, someone who she could turn to for help when she didn't understand the Settled Systems. Sam had already let her down once, maybe it was unreasonable not to give him another chance, but with something so important, she couldn't risk him folding up like that again. So, who? Who could she trust? That answer wasn't making itself plain yet.

In a funk and feeling totally deflated despite their success in rescuing Barrett, Lilu turned their ship towards Alpha Centauri, Jemison, New Atlantis, and The Lodge. She maybe didn't feel like Constellation was family yet, but at least there was some semblance of a home there at the Lodge. Something she could build upon. "Make lemonade from these lemons, Liluana," she told herself, and she kicked in the grav drive.

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Chapter 7 Song: Nothing But Thieves - Forever & Ever More

Down in the gutter and looking for trouble Or something to that effect And there she was, a metal cross ironically 'round her neck And then she kissed me on the lips And a fever came without a warning

Said give me a holla And then I will follow you down into the dark And I was left in the depths surrounding her feral heart Oh, there's just something about the sun That seems so very, very boring

What did you think when you made me this way? What did you think when you love me this way? Hold me so close when we get to the gates And we'll be together forever and ever and more

#coe pilot #starfield #fanfic #sam coe #coemancer #thank you for reading

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lilulicious · 9 days ago

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Two people, against...

...Watchtower

Gale didn't leave her universe for the sake of exploration. She just didn't want to live among the shattered pieces of her broken bond with Sam Coe.

Going through the Unity didn't seem fair; not to everyone they'd leave behind, not to Cora who would be on her own against the multiverse, not to Lillian who would never see her little girl again.

The way Sam tried to justify it only made Gale realize she could never love him again, and would rather go find a universe that doesn't have a Sam Coe.

But just before she found the final artifact for her second armillary, that's when Watchtower found her... and more importantly... HE found her.

---

...and that's how my character's story went after I discovered a new reason to play the game.

Watchtower is a must, if you play Starfield. It's worth the purchase and definitely worth waiting with a while so they can fix some more bugs and... maybe add more stuff...

Having a fleet is neat and sky drops are a great mechanic, got some epic story moments, great dialogue, great characters, works seamlessly with the rest of the game and... well... Torin. No romance... yet, but he is a perfect addition to the game.

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lilulicious · 13 days ago

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youtube

Oh, you have to see this)

Starfield #StarfieldGame #StarfieldShow #Space #SciFi #VirtualPhotography #VirtualCinema #Machinima

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lilulicious · 13 days ago

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Just a Sam Coe appreciation post because this meeting is boring me and I’d rather daydream.

#starfield #sam coe #photo mode #video games #coemancer #the coemancer crew #coe pilot #coe-pilot #romance #starfield fanfiction #why am i like this #he’s so pretty

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lilulicious · 13 days ago

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lilulicious · 18 days ago