"Where is the little rat?"

Major General Yaremova snapped at the data specialist so suddenly that the woman almost dropped the tablet she was holding. She fumbled for it, and then frantically tapped and swiped across the surface, all the while she seemed to continue to shrink under the Major General's icy stare.

"Delta squad lost him somewhere in sector seven, ma'am," the woman said meekly.

"That was not the question, you incompetent oaf," Yaremova growled through gritted teeth.

Meyer watched in fascination as the woman turned on her heels and began to make another round through the command center meeting room.

In all of his four years as a hunter, Meyer had never seen her unhinged like this. Her hatred for augments was unparalleled, but usually she was calculating and composed. During her sermons he had witnessed how she could stir the masses with her perfectly articulated speeches and choreographed displays of power and authority. Now, in between shouting orders out of the blue or snapping at the data and surveillance team tasked with tracking the intruder, she was pacing the meeting room in circles like a rabid animal, taking erratic turns and occasionally mumbling to herself with a feverish look in her eyes.

Meanwhile, General Neris just stood at the window, staring out at the desolate landscape of Astraphos, as if none of this concerned him and he didn't have a care in the world. To Meyer it seemed like both Yaremova and Neris had gone mad in their own way. In truth, the whole world seemed to have gone mad within the last couple of hours.

The mere fact that he was standing here instead of rotting in the brig was proof enough of that. Perhaps Yaremova had really just lost it after all. What other explanation was there that she had believed him that the security guard he had shot in the docking bay to help the pirates escape had simply walked into his line of fire? So either she was more gullible than he had ever thought possible, or she was going insane.

So here he was, waiting for another order, or something else to happen. He knew that he was running out of time. His plan hadn't exactly worked out as intended, nothing in the past three weeks had, really, and he wondered if he would get a chance to leave this room before it was too late.

His thoughts were interrupted as a man barged in without knocking. He was panting heavily, and his dark eyed stare darted through the room wildly until he spotted the Major General and the General.

"Sir! Scandroid data's coming in from sector eight," he reported with a brief salute. "Looks like he's made his way through some ventilation shafts to shake them off his tracks. The scandroids can't follow him in there... but they're tracking him, and we're on his heels now."

His heart sank at those words. The scandroids would probably make quick work of the man once they got to him. He could only hope that the pirate would put up enough of a fight to at least delay them for a while, although it was unlikely. They were programmed to kill him – Orion's Reach had no use for a nameless prisoner.

"Useless scrap buckets...." Yaremova grit her teeth audibly, then she turned to address the man. "What's your name, Major?"

"Park, ma'am," the Major replied, still breathless.

"You're in charge of the scandroid unit that's tracking him?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Major Park, I want you to form another search party and go after him," she raised her icy blue eyes and stared straight at Meyer, causing him to straighten his shoulders.

"And take Sergeant Meyer here with you," she added.

"Me, ma'am?" he blinked at her in confusion.

"Is there another Sergeant Meyer in the room that I don't know of?" she snarled at him. "Yes, you. You're the one who got the other rat, after all. And you almost got them at the hangar, too. I trust your aim."

Meyer almost laughed out loud as she said that. It was too ironic. Yaremova had lost it, alright. And he felt like he was about to lose it, too. The corner of his mouth twitched as he suppressed his laughter.

"Send men to all possible exit points to intercept him," Yaremova continued her orders, "Wherever that little rat is gonna come crawling out of a hole, we'll be waiting for him."

"With all due respect, ma'am," Major Park chimed in, "We don't have the necessary numbers to cover that whole area."

She heaved an exasperated sigh that turned into an annoyed growl.

"Then wake up some more of those scrap buckets!" she snarled. Her lack of love for the scandroids reminded him a lot of Dixon.

"Yes, ma'am," Park replied dutifully. He cast Meyer a glance that seemed to linger on his star-shaped Saiph insignia, and then went over to the data specialist to discuss something with her, probably with regards to the scandroids. Meyer was left standing around awkwardly, waiting for the Major to leave. He was starting to get really sick of trodding behind other people all the time, but now at least it would give him a chance to finally leave this room.

"Major General," Neris suddenly spoke from his spot at the window without turning around.

Yaremova, who had continued to boss around the other people in the room, fell silent and turned to look at him.

"I want you to go to the infirmary and check on Doctor Blake and the other captive."

Meyer could see the tension in her jawline at the mention of that name, she hated that man even more than the scandroids. And he could feel the tension in his own jawline along with the rest of his body too. This was not good.

"Sir," she began, "With all due respect-"

"That is an order," he said calmly, casting her a glance over his shoulder. "I have a bad feeling about this..."

"Yessir..." Yaremova grumbled. She whirled around and spotted Park with the data specialist. "You! Go find me that rat. I will go check on the other one. Perhaps that insufferable NC has at least left me some wires to pull out of the little bitch..."

Major Park nodded at Meyer, and gestured him to follow as he moved to the door. But before they left, Meyer witnessed something strange. As Yaremova walked past the General, he turned around and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She didn't look at him as he muttered something close to her ear. Meyer had good ears, so good that some people around him sometimes joked he must have hidden augments. But despite that, he wasn't certain if he had really understood that right.

It almost sounded as if he had told her, "Be a good girl, Xenia."

~ ~ ~

Null stared at Nova in breathless disbelief as he pushed the corpse of Doctor Blake aside with the tip of his boot and a repulsed look on his face, and then approached the surgery table. The white rings in his eyes were glowing has his scanners swept across the room.

Suddenly, she noticed how cold the metal of the surgery table felt against her naked skin and the jamming shackles seemed to constrict further around her wrists and ankles. She couldn't help but recall the countless times Nova had looked at this body with hunger in his eyes, and now, it was lying before him, strapped down and naked. For a moment, she wondered if the real torment was just about to begin.

With closed eyes, she waited for the familiar, uncomfortable tingling of a scan to spread through their body, but it didn't come. Neither did the fiery sensation of an uninvited touch. She opened her eyes again and found him looking at the shackle at their right wrists. His expression was unusually blank.

"So... what exactly happened here?" he asked casually, "Did you forget the safe word?"

When she didn't react, he looked up and met her gaze, and his expression turned into dismay.

"Sorry. Bad joke," he mumbled as he began to fumble with the restraints.

She felt confused. She had braced herself for pain, but as his fingers brushed against her wrists, there was none.

"What..." she muttered. Their tongue felt heavy and speech came slowly to them, between shallow breaths.

"What what?" he asked, without looking up.

"What... are you... doing..."

"Despite of what you may think of me, Pirate Queen," Nova said as he worked on the shackles, "I prefer a willing partner."

"No... I mean...here..."

The erratic beeping of an alarm cut her off, and she immediately realized what it was, because it was accompanied by a painful stinging in their chest as their heart beat slowed down to an excruciatingly sluggish pace.

"Wha-what's going on?" Nova asked in confusion.

"External... life support... failing..." she whispered. "The restraints... you have to..."

"Shit."

He stepped out of their field of view and seemed to do something to the beeping machine.

"Systems seem to be locked into some kind of program... all parameters are set to decline at a steady pace... that bastard... guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way," he said with a sigh and she could hear him move to the other side of the room. She turned their head a bit further and watched him approach a nearby terminal.

"I thought... you can't interface..."

"Puh-lease!" he scoffed, "I don't need to interface to crack garbage like this."

He waved his scarred hand in a dismissive gesture and then placed them on the terminal controls. Over the frantic beeping of the life support system, she could hear him typing at a rapid pace now. He was hacking, she realized, the old fashioned way.

Lars... you're awfully quiet, she asked in the meantime. Are you alright?

I've been better, he remarked.

She could feel that he was deeply unsettled and disturbed by what had happened. It seemed to have shaken him even more than her, probably because he had never actually experienced this kind of pain directly, only through her dreams. And as vivid as they were, her recollection was not perfect. His, on the other hand, was, which meant that he would never be able to forget what had just happened.

I'm so sorry, Lars...

Don't apologize for things that are out of your control, he remarked, and from the sound of his voice she could vividly imagine the bittersweet smile on his face.

She felt the sudden urge to slip into unconsciousness to meet him at the beach, to comfort him and express to him just how sorry she was about everything. Unfortunately, they didn't get to choose to go to that place whenever they wanted to. Yet, at the thought, her sight began to go dark all of a sudden, and she momentarily wondered if she would have her wish granted. But there were no stars in the darkness before her, and she realized that she was slipping away because her heart rate had slowed down so much that her brain was not getting enough blood.

"Nova-" she croaked hoarsely.

"On it."

With a silent click, the shackles opened up and retreated back into the surface of the table. A feeling of relief replaced the uncomfortable prickling sensation of the jamming fields. Their diagnostic program immediately began to run screens on all of their systems – everything still seemed to be where it was supposed to be and fully operational. For a few moments, she just continued to lie there motionlessly, as she waited for their heart rate to steady and their full vision to be restored. She had feared that Blake's spider contraption might have damaged they eye, but it came back online without a problem too.

No damage, at least, she concluded.

Not to the augments, no... Lars whispered.

Slowly, she propped herself up on both arms, and then sat up, legs dangling off the side of the table. Her sight fell on a cart beside the surgery table, on top of which sat a tray with numerous horrific looking surgery tools. The mechanical spider was next to it, with its legs curled in and the crystal core on top looking dull and dim. And on the floor beneath her feet, there was the corpse of Martin Blake.

The reality of the situation and the events that had led up to it dawned upon her slowly. It was as if her mind was completely wrapped in that comforting, blueish haze, something that kept the horrific memories concealed and blurred out. It left her feeling strangely detached from it all.

"Here," Nova said in a flat voice.

She hadn't noticed him approaching, until he stood directly in front of them and put his jacket over their shoulders. It once again made her acutely aware of the fact that they were practically naked, and despite their fogged mind, she felt the sudden urge to run away from all of this, as fast and far away as possible. She hopped from the table and would have keeled over instantly if Nova hadn't grabbed hold of their arms to steady their body. Several urges were fighting inside of the body now. One to run, one to cry, and a third to throw up. She successfully fought down all three, but only with great effort.

"I... I don't feel so good..." she whispered.

"Yeah, you don't exactly look like a picture of health either," he said, casting a brief glance at their face. To her disconcertion, she couldn't read his expression at all.

"Sit back down. I'll find you some clothes."

He helped her back up, and she was grateful that he wasn't looking at them and avoided touching any part of their body that wasn't clothed. Their heart rate began to stabilize now, but their breathing was still ragged and painful, and talking wasn't easy. Neither was thinking, thanks to the haze in their mind. Lars had fallen completely silent, too, but she could sense that he was mulling over something behind the veil.

"I didn't know... that you could hack..." she spoke one of the first thoughts that finally came to her mind as she watched Nova rummage through the room.

"There's a lot about me you don't know, Pirate Queen," he said without looking at her. "Isn't that precisely why you wanted me around?"

She didn't know what to reply to that, so she just stared at the corpse on the floor. Nova had killed this man to save them, he had come back for them. And he hadn't laid a finger on their body when he had found them here. She really didn't seem to know anything about what kind of person he was, she realized.

"Found your suit," he interrupted her slow-paced train of thought. "The guns don't seem to be here though."

He handed her the pile of sleek, grey fabric and her boots, and turned away again immediately to move back to the terminals at the far side of the room. She stared at his back, still puzzled. Why was he even still here? Had he come looking for them instead of escaping after they had missed the designated rendezvous for their escape?

The thought about their escape plan reminded her of the fact that they were still in danger, and she forced herself to snap out of it. Sluggishly, she unfolded the suit and began to put it on. It helped that it was wider when inactive. She managed to wriggle herself into the legs and sleeves and then hesitated. A skin-tight suit didn't feel like a huge improvement over being naked, and she regretted that she hadn't thought of a way to hide her combat armor under their disguise when they had come here.

"You done?" Nova asked without looking back over his shoulder.

She sighed and activated the Sharkskin material. Immediately, it began to shrink, adjusting its form and fit to their body. Meanwhile, the diagnostics had finished all system scans. As she hopped from the table, she managed to stay on their feet this time, and slipped them into her combat boots.

She walked over to Nova slowly with an unsteady gait.

"Thanks..." she mumbled and held out his jacket to him.

He just cast a glance over his shoulder at her and shook his head.

"Keep it. For now."

"But-"

"What the hell did that guy do to you?" he cut her off, while staring at something on the screen that she couldn't make any sense of. Probably some scanner data. "What happened to you?"

With a quiet sigh she slipped back into his jacket, feeling grateful beyond words to have more to dress themselves in than the suit in that moment. She didn't mind that the jacket was too big and felt heavy on their shoulders – probably because of all the hidden knives and whatever else it was the he was carrying around. On the contrary, there was something comforting about it, it was like a blanket in the real world to match the one in their mind. A hint of peppermint scent clung to it, and it seemed to clear her mind as she inhaled it.

"I... was in the General's office. I was hacking... I got distracted," she began to explain in a low voice. The memory still seemed distant and hazy, as if it had all happened ages ago.

"I don't remember much afterward... Meyer shot me with an EMP and KO-ed me," she recalled.

"Meyer?" Nova snarled and he whirled around. There was a furious look on his face and he clenched his hands into fists. "Seriously? I'm gonna kill that little-"

"No!" she cut him off, "He couldn't know that I would black out completely like that. He probably thought it's better to incapacitate me than to have anyone shoot me... or that Yaremova woman tear me to shreds on the spot."

She shook her head in emphasis. "He couldn't have known what it would do to me."

A furrow appeared on Nova's brow as he looked down on them now. He narrowed his eyes slightly and the white rings of his augments emitted a dim glow.

"Come to think of it. How did you manage get knocked out by an EMP like that?"

She blinked at him in confusion.

"That's... because I have some life support..." she replied hesitantly.

"But that should have only weakened you. Like the shackles," he argued, nodding his head in the direction of the surgery table. "Not caused you to black out completely."

The haze in her mind caused her to process this conversation too slowly. She seemed to speak before she thought and something told her that she had told him too much already. She stared back at him with the blankest expression she could muster.

"I don't know," she lied.

His eyes narrowed further for a moment, but then he sighed and the expression on his face softened.

"It's something with that augment in your brain, isn't it?" he asked.

She willed herself to keep up her poker face. But she probably couldn't hide the emerging panic in her eyes as her gaze darted past him, and she realized that the data displayed on the screens were about her.

"Yeah, I saw that scanner data..." he admitted as he followed her look, "Or whatever this is."

The blue haze was fading now, and his words began to sink in. Lars stirred uneasily somewhere in the back of their mind. Their heart beat accelerated again, the feeling was still painful after the muscle had been forcibly slowed down by the external systems before. But a feeling of icy dread took hold of them nonetheless.

How much does he know, just from that data? Lars asked in a worried tone.

"I didn't quite understand it," Nova continued, waving a hand at the screen dismissively, "But hardware in your brain... it would explain a lot, I suppose."

"Explain?" she repeated, confused.

Slowly, something else dawned on her. Her augments had told her that they hadn't been out very long. They hadn't even missed the rendezvous yet. So why had he come looking for them? She took a step back and eyed him warily.

"Nova. How exactly did you find me?" she asked icily. "Why did you come back?"

"Well, I..." he averted his gaze, and rubbed the back of his neck while looking for his next words, "I... I heard you... scream. Over the com link."

The com link? She thought. Impossible. I cut it after I transferred the data. I would have noticed if -

Her eyes widened with shock as the realization hit both her and Lars at the exact same time, and at the same time the sound of Nova's voice cut them off as it seemed to cut through the blue haze within their mind.

Both of you.

She recoiled and backed away until she felt the surgery table behind them. In an instant, Lars rose from the back of their mind and took his place beside her in the body. He wanted to tell her something, but she hushed him.

HOW?! was all that she could think of right now. Their heart was pounding frantically, each beat resounding through the space in their mind like a drum.

"I think it has something to do with... with Blue," Nova answered her question in the real world.

The feeling of having her thoughts answered by somebody else than Lars was unsettling.

But she realized now that this was what Lars had been trying to tell her without words. He had put the pieces together before her. That blue haze, the light in their mind that had helped them fight the black wave, the echoes of Blue's voice – those had been remnants of their connection to the choir. And when she had established the com link with Nova to transfer the maps, that connection had somehow been refreshed. Not enough to keep them connected as closely as during the fight on Six, but enough to have Nova hear them.

As to what exactly he had heard, she could only imagine. Blue had specifically kept their mind isolated from the others during their connection to the choir, so nobody would hear the two voices in their mind. Still, they had gotten a glimpse of what that connection was capable of conveying, like the panic Ed had felt when Dixon had been about to shoot his lover Becky, and the pain in Nova's shoulder when he had been shot. Most of all, she could still vividly recall that dreadful, gaping feeling when three of the other voices in the choir had fallen silent. She shuddered at the thought.

There was a million thoughts whirling about in their mind now, about half of them belonging to her, the other half to Lars. If Nova could still sense what was going on within them, it would have probably seemed to him like a raging storm. Above all, she wondered just how much he had heard, felt, or seen during this strange, residual connection between them.

She opened her mouth to say something – but she was unable to put into words what she was thinking. She wasn't even certain what exactly it was that she was thinking.

"Well, I don't really understand any of it myself, really," Nova mumbled, casting his eyes down. She wondered if he had read her thoughts or just coincidentally thought the same.

"But, well... it's good that I came back, don't you think? We can sort out the rest later. Come on. Let's go."

Shrugging it off as if nothing in particular had just happened, he strode past them and moved toward the exit of the infirmary. She stared after him in disbelief until he stopped at the door and turned around to look back once again. He wore his usual, cheeky smile on his lips againnow as he leaned against the doorframe and crossed his tattooed and scar-coveredarms in front of his chest.

"Are you coming? Or would you like me to carry you, Pirate Queen?"

It was as if nothing had changed, and yet everything was different.

~ ~ ~

Meyer followed Major Park along the corridor in silence and he mulled over his options. He was running out of time. He had to get to Larsson soon, or god knew what that bastard Blake would do to her. Not to mention that he'd have to get there before Yaremova.

The Major General had worn a strange look on her face after the General had spoken to her quietly. He still wondered what that had been about. He didn't even want to imagine what exactly might have been going on between her and the much older General, the thought alone was disturbing. But there was something going on there, and he found his thoughts return again and again to that strange, empty look on Yaremova's face.

He snapped out of his weird thoughts as they approached an intersection. One way led to the main server room, which was where the scandroids lay dormant. The other way led to sector three, and the infirmary. If he didn't act fast, none of these thoughts would matter anyway.

It was time to make a choice.

He reached for his gun – the one loaded with actual bullets, not the EMP. With two quick strides he had reached the Major, and pressed the muzzle against the back of his head. The man seemed to recognize what it was and froze up immediately.

Meyer hesitated. He wished Amy Larsson was here. She certainly would have known how to say something eloquent and convincing. He, on the other hand, suddenly couldn't think of anything smart to say to the man he would probably have to shoot in the back of his head anyway.

"Do you believe in fate, Sergeant?" the Major broke the silence all of a sudden.

"Fate?" Meyer repeated, and a furrow began to crease his brow.

"Coincidence... Luck... call it what you will." Park said in a calm voice. "A higher power perhaps."

He wondered what had gotten into the man all of a sudden. Most people he knew would have probably begged for their lives in this situation. Most hunters he knew would have probably cursed his treacherous ass with their dying breath. Yet this man seemed more interested in a philosophical discussion. Meyer sighed. Who was he to deny a man his dying wish?

"I don't," he replied. "If our fate was set in stone, it would absolve us from the mistakes we make. It would be too easy to simply say that things were meant to be that way. I believe our mistakes are our own."

"Mistakes...Yes." Park mumbled, "And yet, sometimes, you're thrown into a situation you can't control."

Meyer's hand began to tremble on the trigger. He recalled something that Amy Larsson had said to him on Six, and her voice resounded in his head now, sweet like honey but laced with sarcasm.

You follow orders, and then, one day, you find out that perhaps you don't want to. But by then it's too late. You're already in too deep.

And yet she had shown him another way. A way out. She had given him a choice.

He pressed the gun against the man's head harder.

"Indeed. I never wanted any of this, and yet here we are," he said, "But that's not fate. That's-"

"I agree, Sergeant," Park interrupted him, "I don't believe in it either. I believe we always have a choice."

Meyer's eyes widened in surprise, and then the realization settled in.

He lowered his gun with a smile on his lips. Perhaps there was such a thing as fate after all.

_________
A.N.
The plot is moving forward once more, finally! I'm excited to write some real-life action again in the upcoming chapters, there will be some answers to questions you probably didn't even know you had, haha.
I had to go back and promote Park to Major, and fixed some other minor discrepancies between the previous chapters mentioning the hunters. There might be some other minor tweaks and changes I might have to make in the next days. But if you spot a plot hole, please don't hesitate to leave a comment and tell me, might be that I overlooked something.
Thanks for reading <3