"Ember!"

Red's voice was far away. She purposefully tuned him out. She shouldn't have been able to hear him at all but knowing Red, he'd found a way to patch through. Anger coursed through her as her as she thought of the pilot they'd just run into. The one who'd just sacrificed himself to let them know there was another Vesper pilot so they wouldn't be caught unaware.

Too many sacrifices, it wasn't right...

He was dead because he broke cover to let them know. Ember replayed the last words sent to her. Another Vesper pilot is with them. Run!

The Ember shuddered as she shifted it onto a course that would cause her to intercept. She didn't think about the fact that she had no weapons, or what she was going to do with someone who could maneuver just as well as she could...

And then she felt something that she did not expect. Hands on her face.

"Ember!" Try as she might she could not tune him out, it was as if he was... Her awareness shifted, Red's face filled her vision. He was lying on the floor right beneath her, two hands on her face, he'd been shouting at her to get her attention.

"Red, what are you doing?" She snapped, one hand coming out of the controls to clamp down on his shoulder. He winced at the force of her grip, both of them forgetting that she had a reinforced skeleton and she was much stronger than she looked...

"You shut me out," he snapped back, "How else was I supposed to get your attention? You weren't listening."

"I know what I'm doing." She looked forward again, letting go of seeing with her eyes and back to the course.

"Ember," His voice was amazingly calm given that he was holding onto her to maintain his position now. "We have no weapons, we're only a commercial ship that never got used before the Purge, remember? You going to kill an armed Vesper by flying circles around them?"

She didn't answer but her eyes narrowed. Red reached up and touched her face again. "Ember, I know you're mad, but hell, if you go back now you are going to get us all killed, and that's exactly what that pilot was trying to prevent."

She felt both hands cup her face again. "Ember, don't do this." His voice still had a pleading note to it, that she steeled herself against. And then he muttered, "To hell with this." Before she could decipher what he meant she felt his lips against hers. It wasn't a gentle kiss, but rough, desperate, both hands half cupping, half holding onto her. She gasped and it was enough of a shock to break her concentration as she tried to jerk away from him. The ship following her lead spun out of control for a few moments. Red wrenched away from her and her arms locked around him in a vice grip before he could ricochet around her small cabin. Holding him to her chest, his arms wrapped around her but she tried to ignore that as she put all of her energy into pulling them out of the spin he'd put her in. She managed to lock it down but the will in her to engage whatever Vesper was hunting them down was gone.

In its wake was a flurry of emotions she couldn't even begin to decipher. A knot formed in her stomach and she maintained a grip on Red just so she could prolong facing him.

She set them on course again as fast as they could go, let the ship slip into automatic and dropped down on top of Red, like a hammer. He hit the floor underneath her with a grunt, his eyes rolling back for a moment before refocusing on her.

"You son of a bitch."

Red sighed, probably aware that she could open the doors he was lying on at any moment and drop him out of her room to the floor 15 feet below. It would hurt like hell. And if she continued to fly like this he would bounce around like a pinball at an old style arcade game. He pulled his hands up by his face in a gesture of surrender.

The silence was deafening between them. Only broken by his whispered question. "Are you listening?"

Her lips still felt raw from where his had been crushed against hers. She could still feel his hands holding her face to his. A voice told her he'd done it to get her attention, to stop her from doing something rash. And going after the other pilot was rash. She swallowed back any vestiges of anger she felt and focused on the man lying down on the floor who'd dared kiss her. Her hands clamped down his shoulders again, his wince telling her exactly how much it hurt. But he didn't fight back.

"I knew what I was doing." But she sounded less sure of herself now than she had earlier.

"You were going to get us all killed," he said in a low voice. "You weren't listening, any other time I'd want to take a shot at them too, but damn it Ember, we don't even have a gun to hit them with." His voice had gone from calm to anger, his stare intense.

She looked away first.

Wounded pride, she knew was a bitter pill to swallow.

She let go of his shoulders, staring down at his chest not looking Red in the eye. The ship hummed around them. Somehow Red had gotten in here despite the fact that she was maneuvering the ship on a wild intercept course. There was a bruise on his forearm she hadn't noticed before, a straight line up his arm. "What happened?" She pointed to it. He glanced at it, holding his arm up as if seeing it for the first time.

"May have slid right back out the door trying to get in."

She pulled her hands off of his shoulders, aware that he was probably in pain, although he did little more than wince as she sat up.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was calm, she was already making course adjustments away from contact.

"You should be." His voice was flat, and he closed his eyes, whether it was relief or pain Ember couldn't tell. The ship shifted around them as it turned and Ember held him in place trying to be as gentle as she could. I did that...

***********************************

She leaned forward suddenly and simply laid on his chest, putting her cheek against his shirt. Red didn't move for a second, and then slowly, hesitantly, he put his arms around her.

"Seems like you've got a few things you are carrying," he finally whispered staring up at the ceiling. Cables hung here and there, variously interconnected to Ember. Her weight against his chest wasn't a heavy one.

"I know," she said into his chest.

"This really smart woman, once told me to leave it behind," he ventured. "But I think we both know it's not as easy as it sounds."

She didn't answer, nor did she move. Red wondered how long she was going to stay there, he was pretty content not to move, he was also slightly terrified. He knew he probably had another bruise on his shoulders. Ember had almost the full strength of an android wrapped in human flesh in her grasp. He might have faster reflexes but he didn't have those particular augments. He couldn't match her strength for strength. It was an odd thing for him to have to admit.

"What did your father do?" He finally asked over her head. Ember sighed and sat up. Red let go of her not wanting his intentions questioned at all. Her gaze was distant for a moment. Her voice suddenly sounded through the ship that everyone could get out of their crash couches. She levitated up into the air and sat down again on her knees next to him.

Red pulled himself up into a sitting position wincing at the new ache in his shoulder.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The remaining cables disconnected from her back, and Ember sank down next to him drawing her knees up to her chest. When she looked at him it was with an uncertainty he wasn't not accustomed to seeing on her. She flushed and stared at the floor again.

"He's ruthless," she started. "He wants his way, it's almost obsessive really. Long story short I didn't go along with the decision. I didn't want to be a blind vegetable. Nor did I want to be part of his plans to be a tool to exterminate augments for the greater good." She reached over to a small niche Red hadn't notice and dug out a protein bar. "Vegan," she muttered making a face before tearing it open. She turned to Red again. "My father had very set plans for us. My eldest brother was going to take over his seat as head of our house. My younger brother was a scientist, and me, the crippled daughter, I wasn't going to do anything until the Vesper program came along. My brother brought me in to do it. He's a genius and he performed the surgery as a preteen. My father did not care if I lived or died...so I was assigned to the program. I loved it though. Being able to walk, run, fly like another person."

She paused taking another bite, her eyes glazed for a moment as she walked through her own memories. "And then the purge came along. And my eldest bro—" She paused. Red said nothing, he reached over and put a hand over hers. "He died." She continued. "All the evidence pointed to my other brother..." She stopped again. "The bottom line is that he put me in Helion to teach me a lesson about what happens to augs. I was supposed to change my mind. I was supposed to submit. I didn't do either. He's not going to stop. This is a loose end; the family honor is at stake and all of that. My father doesn't like loose ends."

"Family honor?" Red shook his head. He had no family to take care of. The concept was foreign to him.

"Neo-Tokyo runs the show, remember?" Ember looked away. Red felt the familiar pangs of anger tighten in his chest. He pulled his hand back and adjusted his position, again wincing as he did so.

"Don't remind me." His voice was harsh but it wasn't directed at her.

"We're pretty particular about who is in charge, what house runs this or that." She sighed. "Luxury, who controls what. It's all about control. I was lucky... I mean any Vesper was. We got away from that."

"So, your father is going to chase you around the galaxy, until one of you is dead."

Ember glanced sharply at Red before nodding. "That's the simplest way to put it."

"...and I thought I had issues being a bastard."

"Won't we be leading the enemy right to them?"

"Maybe," Red hesitated. "But we need help, and did you see the ship that guy had? I don't believe they are that defenseless. We talked about this when we first sent—"

"You helped organize it." She looked at him with an awed expression on her face.

He nodded. "I helped send a few ships out into space with food, weapons, tech, people, you name it. I smuggled a few people here or there...but never went myself."

"You got caught."

"Caught in the same transport as Dag. We got his wife and kid out... but we got picked up by scandroids. I hate those things."

Ember smiled at him. "That's the short version."

"Well now I'm a criminal mastermind, and I've massacred a settlement at New Caledonia."

"You've been busy."

"More than I want to be." He looked down at the floor, running out of things to say.

"Let me see your shoulder." He glanced up and nodded. The concern and guilt were written all over her face. She reached over and tugged at his shirt pulling the collar over the shoulder. He tensed at the touch of her fingertips but held still. Her eyes went wide when she saw the bruising there. "Geeze, Red... I--"

"Sorry, I know." He pushed her fingers away and turned towards the door. Shifting towards it he let his augments go to work, dulling the pain. He was uncomfortable with the tension in the room. You could put a knife in it and it would stay there, suspended in mid air.

He put his hand forward and crawled, the immediate threat neutralized, he wasn't going to die at the hands of the ship, and she wasn't dragging them into a lethal dog fight.

But she had hurt him in another away, breaching the walls he'd surrounded himself with. She'd gotten in and he trusted her. That could hurt a lot.

"And I'm now going to get a shower, so don't vent me because I kissed you," he let that hang in the hair chancing a glance behind him. Ember's mouth clamped shut, her face going scarlet. "It was the only way to get your attention apparently."

He swung his legs over the opening that dropped down into the pilot's room.

"Hey Red," Ember called out to him.

"Yeah?" He leaned back to look at her.

"That kiss needs work." 

He grinned because they were back to taking jibes at each other.

"I'm up for more practice if you are." 

His mouth snapped shut and he dropped out of the room before he could hear her response.