Despite the colossal distraction that a live music performance ought to give – the band itself, flashing lights, bass that could rattle one’s teeth, and all the voices clamoring for audio real-estate in an effort to be heard over it all – Ren found herself uniquely unable to be distracted.  After all, she already was, and there wasn’t room for more amidst the swirl of a guilty conscience.


    “I don’t think I’ve seen you look like such a space cadet in years.” Ravan commented, lips on the edge of a wine glass filled with rosé.


    Ren blinked to regain her grounding, “Huh?”


    “Ah, there she is.”


    “Sorry…” She sighed, and leaned back against the circular booth they’d set-up in, the sight of dozens more Aegis crewmen having a good time all around them in one last hurrah as the SkyFortress shoved off, “I guess I’m in the middle of a certain kind of disagreement with Gabriel, and I feel a little bad about it now.”


    “A disagreement?”


    “We were sent on a joint mission with wildly different goals, and in the end…we both failed.” Ren answered vaguely, and reached forward to pick up her own drink, only to hold it under her nose without taking a sip at all, “For the last two weeks, I’ve been upset at him for what I saw as him getting in my way.  But after spotting him earlier…I wonder if I didn’t heap the fault onto him unfairly.”


    “That bad, huh?”


    Ren stared at the trickle of bubbles rising from the bottom of the flute, “…I think so, yeah.  I just don’t know what to say to him about it.  After Furion and I left-“


    Ravan’s coy giggling at that name-drop was like an owl’s hooting chirp.


    “After the Captain and I left,” Ren corrected with a nudge of a knee against the woman’s thigh, “I put the whole thing on the backburner and focused on other things.”


    “I’m sure you did.” Ravan snickered, only to get swatted across the shoulder, and she burst out laughing, “You can’t take this from me!  It took years to get you to confirm that you and him were a thing!  Now he’s just kissing your hand in front of everyone!?  Lord Rylen’s mantle-dust was right there.  And Lord Xanarken was just outside!”


    “I know, I know…” Ren shook her head with a guarded smile, “Lord Rylen has apparently known for ages, and he kinda doesn’t care…at least for now…”


    “Where did you go?” Ravan asked, sliding an arm over her friend’s shoulders to get closer to one ear, “You have to tell me everything.”


    “Well…I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you one thing.”


    “Oh my lord please do.”


    Ren smirked, “Papa Rydell is a good cook.”


    Ravan squealed so hard it made her fall backward against the booth seat, and nearly tumbled out onto the floor, only managing to stay put by virtue of still having her wine in-hand.  She eventually tired herself out and pulled herself back up to sit, “You have no idea how much I envy you.”


    “You should’ve seen the look on his face when we showed up at their house with our armor.  He thought we were fugitives.” Ren added, and finally took a sip from her drink, “And he’s a smidge taller than Furion, too…so when he opened the door, he looked right over the top of my head, like I wasn’t even there.  When he finally noticed me, I felt like I was a little kid asking for uppies.”


    “Gods, could you imagine…asking for uppies from Captain Lequerion Rydell.  The man, the myth, the legend…”


    “I didn’t have to imagine. Furion has a kid-sister who’s only four. There were a lot of uppies asked from everyone.”


    Ravan gasped, “How does the Captain have a sister that young? He’s old enough to be the girl’s father himself…by a lot.”


    Ren nodded as she leaned in closer, “Her name’s Suzushion, but we just call her Suzu. She’s adorable, but yeah, talk about popping one out late. Furion was already old enough to be Seth’s dad, now this…”


    “Do want any of your own, one day?”


    She hesitated to answer at first, but Ren shook her head, “Not if I want to be Captain first. But it’s fun living out the idea vicariously through Furion’s siblings. Such is the privilege of being a man, I suppose. They can have all that stuff because it’s not them having to do the heavy lifting.”


    “Too true…” Ravan sighed into her glass, “Oh well. …Now that you’ve publicly spilled the beans though, so to speak, you can finally answer that burning question of mine that you adamantly refused to all those years.”


    “Which one? You had so many.” Ren puffed, “I had to protect his honor.”


    “Is he good?”


    Ren snorted a laugh, and stalled her answer with another sip of that pink wine, “He’s different from you, if that explains things well enough.”


    “It doesn’t.”


    “I mean…I’m still with him after all this time. It’s not just for his dashing good looks.” She mused, and drained the last of her drink in two final gulps. With an exhale, she set the flute down, and twisted in her seat to directly face her friend, nose-to-nose, “He’s going to be busy for a while. You wanna have some fun? For old time’s sake?”


    “Has he truly never discouraged you from what you do?” Ravan wondered, a finger hooked to the V-split at the front of Ren’s uniform-jacket.


    “With you? No. He probably thinks it’s hot. He barely blinked when I told him I had a small thing for Gabe.” Ren teased, and leaned in a bit closer to speak the words to Ravan’s cheek, “When Gabe isn’t being a massive sourpuss, anyway.”


    “You are a walking scandal waiting to happen.”


    “And still waiting…and waiting…”


    “Ah! Yes, a thousand times yes. I don’t know how you survived a four-month drought from all this.” Ravan scooted out of the booth, and Ren followed.


    “I’ve been making up for lost time. Let’s go quickly. The rosé is starting to hit me.” Ren offered - or requested; she wasn’t sure anymore - a steadying elbow, and Ravan accepted as they went out through the room’s double-doors.


    “Maybe we should invite Sir Gabriel and show him how to lighten up.”


    “Perish the thought. He’d probably explode from the embarrassment.”


    That just made the both of them laugh, and Ren was finally able to stop swimming in her troubles.


    A few hours later, and without a word or whisper from Furion, Ren got dressed again and took her leave, and went to go find the man herself.  Checking the time, she realized that they would be crossing the equator soon, and on a different screen, a count-down to when the World Cloud would cease to be accessible.  Only 47 minutes left.  The elevator to the upper decks opened, and she made her way to the right.  The door to the Captain’s office was the first one she passed, but she went by it, and bit her lip excitedly as she wondered if the door to the man’s quarters would open without his say-so now.


    Sure enough, once she’d stepped close enough, the door hissed and slid aside, and she giggled quietly to herself before she strode within.  The grin faded quickly though when she spotted the man she’d been looking for, sitting in one of the lounge chairs in his small, personal library-nook, but with his back to the door, “…Furion?” She asked quietly, though he didn’t react.  Given his posture, it wasn’t the most concerning thing, “…Probably passed out…” She said quietly to herself, and approached on his left side.


    Ahead of him, he’d had a leg propped-up on an ottoman, but on the drink-stand on his right was an empty finger of whiskey.  Standing right over the man though, Ren finally spotted the melted bag of ice he’d propped between the left pauldron of his uniform and his cheek.  Her brow furrowed, and she leaned down over the arm-rest to run her fingers through his hair.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    It didn’t take much to rouse him, and his eyes opened, then the rest of him went up with a start, “Ren!”  The ice-pack fell from his shoulder and into his lap, “Ah damnit…”


    “What happened?  Why are you icing your face?  I figured you’d be working late but…this is unexpected.”


    He grabbed the wet melted bag and tossed it onto the drink-stand, then pushed himself up a bit higher in his seat, “Have we left the World Cloud yet?”


    “Wow, you must be tired.  You still have your uniform-jacket on and you’re asking that.”


    He just made a face her.


    “Not for another 45 minutes.” She smiled, but slid her hand forward to brush the man’s long bangs out of the way, and cupped her palm and thumb against that slightly-swollen jaw, “…It’s red…”


    “I’ll worry about blending it out later.” He slouched again, but that time he pointed the first two fingers of his right hand out and waved them down twice, making his uniform jacket, pauldrons, and cloak fade, and gave his back more room, “It’s nothing.”


    “It’s not nothing if you have to wear make-up.” She knelt beside that lounging chair and curled her fingers around the arm-rest, “Someone did this do you.”


    Furion slid his hand under one of hers.  With both hands, he cupped hers, and looked at her straight in the eyes, “I promise, it’s nothing.  Whatever you think it is, it doesn’t deserve the energy it takes to worry.  In 45 minutes, we’ll be swapping to the Aegis’ stock of nanotech, and by morning, you won’t even know this blemish is there.”


    “You’re not even gonna tell me how it got there first?”


    “Nope.” He leaned forward to nose her brow, but then stood up, and grabbed the empty glass, “It’s embarrassing.  You want something to drink?  I think I could go for one more.”


    .


    Two nanotech pods idled in Rylen’s traveling office, and the following day, roughly around 13:30, Furion went in to activate them.  The light came on and flashed green on the first one, then the other, and the Captain took a step back.


    Rylen manifested first – practically having been waiting for the moment – and clapped is hands together once, “Are we there already?  I can’t wait!”


    Furion saluted, “We’re within range to deploy, sir.” He answered, then stood more casually…and gave a conspicuous head-tilt, “…Special occasion?”


    “Eh?” Rylen’s hands fell to his sides in confusion, but then he realized his outfit was different.  He gaped down at himself, “Oh…wow, I haven’t worn this in decades.  Feels so retro.” He commented.  His normal attire of white touched by lavender was replaced by black trimmed in silver.  His molten-silver hair, formerly styled in a high ponytail, was now tied low behind his neck, and he couldn’t help but laugh at himself, “I was told once that this outfit was doing too much.  Oh well, too late to update it now.  Xanarken should be here in a minute.”


    “Yessir.”


    The Eidolon stepped by with a bit of a spring in his step, and headed for the door, “I’ve completely cleared my schedule for the next three days for this.  I can’t wait.”


    Passing on Furion’s left, and not noticing a thing, the Captain knew his ‘make-up’ blending had done exactly as hoped, and the fist-shaped blemish on his jaw was invisible even to a man who’d spent the last 300+ years living in a nanotech body.  Xanarken formed shortly thereafter, but he actually took a moment to look himself over, and was pleased to find he looked exactly the same as he normally did.  The look on Furion’s face said plenty.


    “My brother didn’t come prepared, did he?”


    The Captain huffed a laugh, “No sir.” He answered.  Xanarken nodded and started heading for the same door, but just as he’d passed, Furion turned his head towards him, “Can I ask you something, sir?”


    “Sure.” The Eidolon paused to glance back.


    “Apparently Sir Gabriel was put into a foreman’s room, on the lower decks.  I can only assume it was yours or Lord Rylen’s idea…and he appears to have gotten a rather strong message from it.  Do I have your consent to move him somewhere else?  …To keep the peace.”


    Xanarken stared for a moment, but then snorted a laugh, “I swear, Rylen can be so petty…  Yes, that’s fine.  Thank you, Captain.” He shook his head again as he left the room, and whispered to himself curiously, “Is that what Gabe wanted to ask me about yesterday?  …Nah, he said it had waited 2 weeks already…it must be something else.”


    Furion nodded in acknowledgement, and followed the Eidolon out; as they walked, he pulled up the ship’s manifest and reassigned the wayward mediator to a room on the upper decks.  At the far end of the hall, the wide doors to the bridge were already open where Rylen had gone through, and once the pair arrived to join him, they all beheld the eerie sight of that dead colony-ship stuck in the canyon it had crashed into.  Evidence of its passing was carved into those sloping rocky walls; the river below it had been blasted off-coarse and followed a new path, sending part of it coursing through the ship’s hull and out the front end in a weird, faucet-like waterfall.


    Rylen’s eyes lit-up to see it, even from the distance they still had between them, “The SSCF Sterling Rose.  Long lost but found again at last…”


    “Etienne would’ve been interested in helping salvage this one.” Xanarken noted, “Since it was one of the terraforming ships she lost.”


    “She wouldn’t have wanted to see all the death we’re about to witness.” Rylen countered, “We can let her know about it once the recovery effort is finished.”


    “She is the Eidolon of the Fifth.  Her whole business is death…and the adamant need to stave it off.”


    “Still.  These were her people, and there’s nothing she could do but mourn for them after all this time.  I imagine it would’ve felt different.” The First said, eyes forward, “And given how it doesn’t look like this vessel accomplished anything it was sent here to do…I can’t fathom the kind of devastation we’re going to find when we get on board.”


    “And here you’ve been so excited to get into it.”


    “I’m surprisingly adept at compartmentalizing things.” Rylen glanced back over his shoulder at the Fourth, “Let me be enthusiastic for the good this mission will do.  I’ll have plenty of time for somber reflection later.”


    Furion stepped closer to the front of the circular command-pad, “Both Wing Teams are on stand-by.  If you’re both ready, I’ll send them out for preliminary scouting.”


    “Go ahead, Captain.  Let’s see what there is to see.”


    “Commanders Nibasai and Parker, your feeds will be broadcasted on the bridge.  Let’s get started.”


    “Sir!”


    All 13 Fafnir filtered out, five following Ren and six after Donivan.  It took all of them to set up a perimeter around the massive vessel, and beyond them, forming a triangle around it with the Aegis, the two Inquisition ships positioned themselves as well.  Once everyone was where they needed to be, the Lucas and Fibonacci turned to face inward…and an eerie blue light came on at their bows.  The Fafnir all lifted their arms, and pointed their forearm-mounted plasma weapons away from themselves, at an angle towards the hull of the massive colony ship.  The same blue light manifested at the muzzles of those vambraces, and – instead of a devastating blast – a flare-like pulse shot out.  Those flares doubled the points of the perimeter, and then quadrupled, as more of them were sent into the air.  The blue lights hovered until all were in place, and all at once, sent thread-like projections out in each direction, connecting them in a net around the vessel.  Within those threads, ripple-like panels of energy went out, and the next moment, transformed into a dome.


    “Hemisphere deployed.  Ready for biologics detection sequence.” Ren announced.


    The Inquisition ships’ blue-lights started to pulse, not unlike a heartbeat, and iridescent color flowed over the dome and back again.  The sound it made echoed out like thumping, deep under water, and could be felt by each Fafnir where they idled for it to complete.


    .


    The appearance of the Kitezan royal flagship over Stoneface Bluffs was a sight to behold, flanked by two smaller escort ships as it moved towards the nearby docking port.  When it landed, a conspicuous convoy of vehicles departed to head a little ways further north.  When it arrived at the R&D facility it was bound for, Magistrate Regulus Laurier alone was there to greet them.


    Both the Duke and the Duchess exited that main vehicle then – security detail surrounding them, keeping a careful vigil of their surroundings - and Far’nah looked around curiously, “It’s a nice little place you’ve got here.”


    “I can assure you, your Grace, it’s anything but small.” He answered, and gestured back towards its only obvious ground-floor entrance, “Shall we?”


    The top-most sections of the facility looked rather more like a business office than a lab site, and seeing that royal procession go through was a little strange for those who worked there.  Elevators soon took them out of sight again though, and employees were just dumbstruck, looking at one another in confusion.


    One of those offices, however, was Kourin’s.  She looked over – with newly-repaired glasses – distracted from her careful micro-dissection of one of the nanotech implants she’d been entrusted with.  Once the guest-group was out of sight – heading into an elevator – she reached under her desk for a somewhat-hefty supply-box, and lifted it up on top.


    To the Duke and Duchess’ eyes, the business office imagery gave way to something more akin to a hospital ward on the lower level.  At least, on the outset.  Mardu’s eyes scanned the windowed walls, able to see into each alcove and room, where technicians in bulky clean-suits were working, “…I don’t think I’ve ever considered that a Magistrate would be overseeing something like this.  Seems like a departure from the duties one would expect them to carry out.”


    “Fear not, your Grace, this isn’t entirely mine.” Regulus answered, “I simply take advantage of what it does.  This facility has been instrumental in the design, construction, and maintenance of my Sovereign Shadow for many years.  The rest is owned and operated by various hospitals and data-labs in the region.”


    “…Is that what you call it?” Far’nah wondered skeptically.


    “Pardon, your Grace?”


    “…Sovereign Shadow?”


    “Oh.  Yes, that’s right.  Not many know it.  Just as well, though.” The Magistrate answered, “The Prince is kept up ahead, where he’s been getting treatment.”


    “How’s he responded?”


    “Fairly well.  He’s…more comfortable now than he was when he arrived.” He explained, and they came to the far end of a long, lonely hall.  He set his hand onto a scanner and a light on the door clicked over, then reached for the handle, only to pause and glance back at them, “Be warned, he’s been broiled on the same side twice.  Field-dressings did more to save his life, and keep him from dehydrating through his wounds, than it did to preserve his looks.  He’s not pleasant to look at.”


    “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”


    Regulus waited for a skeptical a moment, but then pushed the door open.  What awaited inside was a startling sight; Aamin was propped-up on his bed, left side exposed to the air, with all the debrided burns exposed, covered only by a layer of special clear jelly.  While it made inspecting his injuries easier for those trained to assess them, it also made him a bit of a bloody spectacle, especially where his left eye – as well as the cheek and lips below it - had been lost to the flame.


    Far’nah took one look at him, and immediately looked away, a hand over her mouth in shock.