"Make me bleed or make me stop Make me believe in God What is wrong and what is right

Show me the way I listen to them I have the feeling that I drown again I put my anger and my fears aside Nothing will last longer than my rage inside Where is the way I have to take? If I lose my way the said my dreams will break Now I'm standing here If I won't walk my end is near" "Show Me The Way" - Voicians

"The boys have to go into the stasis pods," Red said as his own stomach growled loudly in response. T shook his head vehemently and Alt only shrank down into his seat.

"Stasis pod?" Alt stammered. T put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's ok, I've been in one before."

"You have?"

"Yeah," T nodded and smiled at his friend. "It's like waking up."

The situation wasn't good. Red raked a hand through his hair as he considered their options. They'd gotten off world with a ship but no food. Even the gruel back in the prison sounded good compared to simply nothing. And nothing was all they had.

"We've gotten this far, Red. I can't see the powers that be just letting us die now," Dag gave him an encouraging smile, crossing his arms. Even cold reality didn't dampen his sense of hope. Plus his belief in a god who was watching over him had kept him going this far. Red didn't bother to tell him exactly what he thought about his god right now, he respected Dag even if he didn't share his beliefs. Dag had kept him going.

"Yeah, well, I didn't really think this far ahead," Red laughed even as his stomach let out a series of small growls in response.

He chanced a glance at Ember who stood off to the side. Her cheeks were slightly pink as she listened to them. She would survive no matter what. He felt a bit of resentment towards her for that but it wasn't her fault. None of this was.

"I'm ok with the boys going into stasis," Dag said. "But how long till we can get to New Elysium?"

"I don't know," Ember stated flatly, no emotion in her voice. It was just the facts, as much as she hated saying it. "I can keep us going on a high burner..."

Red knew she could simply pull a jump from here but anyone could follow in their wake if they were here when she made the first leap. Every ship left a trail, that lasted seconds before the atoms spread away from their point of departure. A wormhole would be handy, he sighed inwardly. The problem was they neither knew where they were going and only had a set of coordinates to guide them. He had no idea what was at that location.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, a habit of his whenever he was trying to solve a problem. "What's in this sector? Any place we can stop?" Any place where they wouldn't ask questions? The unspoken thought hung in the air between them. It had been years since Red had any contact with the outside world. He had no idea if anyone he used to know was still out there. He thought of Jack but Jack was more than likely on New Elysium, the place existed after all. Seven years ago, it had been barely an idea.

That was the whole reason he'd gotten into Helion 7 in the first place. The memory swam up into his mind before he could stop it. Dag pinning him to the ground as Jack drove Dag's wife and son in a desperate attempt to get away. They'd had almost everything they needed but they'd been discovered. Red had intended to die that day so that Dag, his family and Jack could make a new start.

Dag had held him down in surrender so the Scandroids wouldn't slaughter him, there had been many, more than even he could have handled.

"It's not your time, Red!" Dag's voice echoed in his mind again.

Red opened his eyes to find Ember staring at him. She said nothing but her look told him she knew he was remembering the past even if she didn't know the details.

"Outer worlds," He started. "They probably still have a few augs running around... They can't have gotten everyone, or everything."

"They're always years behind catching up to the latest technology," Dag caught his train of thought. "I bet they even still have neuro-links we can use. They probably still work. Technology would have been a tough thing to let go of." Dag uncrossed his arms and looked at the boys. "First things first. Boys, into stasis, fewer mouths the better. Believe me, you are getting the better end of the deal here."

"As long as we don't miss anything.." T held out a hand to his friend who shook his head. Alt's eyes wheezed as he zoomed in and out, a noise Red was coming to associate with panic from him.

"But— "

"I'm going in with you. And we'll both come out at the same time." Alt hesitated but nodded at his friend.

Red watched as Ember moved over and hugged both boys. "See you guys the other side," she whispered, smiling at them. His emotions flooded in a thousand different directions and he turned away from her with a clenched fist.

He met Dag's gaze and Dag nodded to him and hustled the boys out of the room.

Or rather he tried. T ran to him at the last minute and threw his arms around him. "Red you better get us out. You promised."

"I told you I would," Red ruffled the kids hair one last time, stealing a glance at Ember before turning away to focus on T. He dropped to one knee. "And we'll take care of your spine when we get there, ok? But for now..."

"That's the least of my problems," T finished. He straightened standing as tall as he could and turned towards Dag.

Soon it was just Ember and himself.

"Red I swear, no matter what I will get them there," she whispered into the silence.

Red didn't say a word for a moment because as soon Dag and the boys had left and it was just the two of them again, he felt tongue tied. The truth was there was nowhere on the ship he could escape Ember. She didn't have to physically be in the room with him, but once connected every part of it hummed with her presence. He found it both terrifying and comforting. He couldn't escape it, and he didn't want to.

But he didn't know what to do or say about it either.

"Red," she started.

He didn't look up at her, his left hand fidgeted at his side and the he scratched his neck, all the while managing to stare waist level at the door.

"I'm going to run a system's check," his gaze flicked up to her face meeting her eyes briefly before moving away again. He fled before he could see anything else. He was more terrified of exchanging words with her than anything else he'd done in his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Red escaped into the small hallway and wandered towards the pilot's chamber. He probably should have gone to his quarters but he was pretty damn sure Ember would have followed him there to talk. Talking was the last thing he wanted to do. He focused on the problem at hand, realizing that they did indeed need to talk and that was about the closest outer world they could get to. Crap. He started to move back towards the galley. Peering inside he noticed Ember sitting alone on the floor, her eyes staring at nothing. Remotely connected to the ship she probably knew he was coming back towards her before he'd made it into the galley. He steeled himself, focusing on the problem at hand and not whatever it was he knew she wanted to bring up.

"Thank you." Ember stared at her hands for a moment. "Why did you help?"

Red glanced at her sharply. "Did you want to let it go on?"

"No." She was silent a moment. "If I had been anyone else...would it have?"

That conversation bloomed into his mind before he could stop it. The moment he'd stopped Karik from raping her in the prison, when he'd learned an ugly truth about himself. He'd stopped caring, stopped feeling, and a glimmer of hope that escape might be possible had shown up and he'd reached out and grabbed it without regard for many of the others that were in the prison. He wasn't any better than Karik had been although he'd never forced himself on anyway, that hadn't stopped him from using a willing woman to pass the time, someone he'd push away again.

He hadn't saved any of them, he'd been desperate, he'd taken the few he'd really cared about and left the rest. Hell, he would have left Ember too if she hadn't been so damn selfless. And it was that one act that was tearing him apart. He didn't deserve that kind of sacrifice, not for him...

He didn't deserve to be here, let alone in the same room with Ember.

"Hey, we need to figure out where we're landing," he said quietly, still staring at the floor.

"I told you not to take it with you." The words were low and quiet and enough to tear down the wall he'd been building up brick by brick. Just like that the guilt roared up inside of him before he could stop it. A tidal wave that refused to be denied. He sank onto the floor next to her.

"I don't— "

"The hell you don't know what I'm talking about." She scooted closer, Red still stared at the floor. "Look at me, Red. Look at me!"

Surprised,Red, breathing hard dared a glance up at her face. "I told you not to take it with you, any of that stuff that was in there. That's behind you now, just leave it." She repeated staring at him. It wasn't anger he saw there, though. If he was honest he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Pity? To hell with that...

His anger flared, he pushed himself up and for the first time in days looked at her. "What do you know about it. You were right, if you weren't essential to the plan I wouldn't have interfered. That doesn't make me any better than Karik." He'd said it out loud. Even with his outburst, she stared at him, her expression never changing.

"But you hate yourself for it," she whispered. His anger deflated like a popped balloon.

"I left all those other people," He sank down to the floor again. "I could have saved more and I was too worried about getting a few out, there were so many more..." His shoulders shook. "Why did I get out, there were others, probably more deserving," he said again to himself.

Ember was at his side in an instant. She sat next to him and put her own back against the wall. "When I was flying, we were ordered to strike on New Caledonia."

Red listened as they both stared straight ahead. "What happened? I barely remember that...incident. Small insurrection, right? Rioters?"

"Rioters on the streets? People plotting to strike from New Caledonia into the heart of Neo Tokyo?" Ember laughed. It sounded bitter. "New Caledonia was a peaceful community. They had a few unrest issues but nothing compared to what the media said. We were ordered to blow it up. And that was after they had us spend a few days there while the higher ups were deciding what to do." Her voice caught. "Innocent men, women, and children because an example had to be made somewhere and they decided on a new settlement with the smallest population. They had done nothing. Nothing."

Ember inhaled. "And we did it." She turned to look at him. "So, I know what it's like to feel the guilt, and what it's like to say never again am I going to let that happen."

Red was staring at her now. Her arm was against his and it was contact comforting, even if the stories they were sharing were gut wrenching. "And did you?" He whispered.

Ember stared at her lap. "I never got the chance to say no. The purge happened, I found out my brothers died... Neo-Tokyo-- The elites got jumpy." He noticed how she separated herself from Neo-Tokyo. He turned to look at her, noting every detail, from the way her hair fell as she moved her head to how her hands moved animatedly in front of her.

And then she fell silent and they both stared at the space in front of them, in companionable silence.

"Wait," Red popped up. "New Caledonia? Did they strip it after they blew it?"

Ember furrowed her brows in confusion as she followed him to her feet. "Not that I know of...why?"

"So how long do those food packs last?" Red started walking to the pilot's chambers. "The ones they ship out to the new colonies?"

"They are supposed to last for ages..."

He smiled at her forgetting for a moment that he had just spent twenty minutes looking at everything but her. "Perfect."

"Coordinates are set. Red, you realize this is a long shot, right? Someone else could have stripped it before we even got there, it's more than likely..." Ember stared at him, her eyes alight with excitement and hope despite her words.

Hope for him and Dag, at least that was how he chose to see it.

He nodded. "Kind of our best bet right now..."

The ship shuddered as the engines kicked in. The artificial gravity on the ship stalled for a moment and Red was tempted to turn it off. Floating around on a ship was fun but extended stays resulted in bone loss, a hard lesson learned after years of exploring space, kids growing up in low to no-grav could no longer step foot on a planet's surface. Their elongated limbs had a spindly look, reminiscent of the slender man bedtime story. Every ship now had its own artificial gravity system in place. Humans needed it, period.

Dag came into the room just as Red stood up holding a hand out to Ember, which she took to his surprise.

"Kids are in bed." Dag responded to Red's questioning look. "Did you two kiss and make up?"

Both of them stilled at the words Red jerked his hand away and Dag paused glancing between them.

"What? What did I say?"

"Nothing," Red glanced over at Ember, who only shrugged. Her cheeks were pink and he turned away quickly to keep from looking at her again. "We have an idea... But..."

"It's a long shot," Dag pushed in.

"Fuck, you two are like echoes of each other." Red snapped glancing between the two of them.

"Great minds," Dag tapped his head with his metal hand. Ember only smiled.

"They might have something there we can use. The surface is clean, breathable, no jumpsuits required."

"Unless there's radiation." Ember stood near the entrance to her own chamber and turned lifting her shirt as the metallic arms that connected her to ship snaked out and snapped into her back. She rose like an androidial angel and pushed into her own chamber where she too could recharge alone.

"Downer." Red called after her. He got smile in response.

"Seriously, you didn't kiss and you know?" Dag's voice had dropped to a whisper.

Red shot Dag a look. "It's not like that between us."

"Whatever, Red." Dag sat in a chair behind Red as he watched Red scan the screen. They could see Ember floating in her room and making turns while suspended. The ship copied her every move. Red watched for a moment and then turned his attention to space. It would take them a day to get to New Caledonia, he was going hungry. He hoped something would be there. They would at least have water. Death wouldn't be immediate, what was it three days without water? A week without food? His augments would hold him even longer... But not all the way to New Elysium. His body powered his augments, he needed to eat.

At least in prison he'd had food. He pushed that thought away immediately. There was no going back to that depressing hell hole.

He turned his attention back to Dag. The bigger man was still staring at him expectantly.

"Nothing happened," he snapped. "Nothing is going to happen." At least nothing that he was going to talk about it. The truth was, he'd been close to reaching over and doing just what Dag had suggested, until the idea that there might be something left in New Caledonia popped into his mind. Survivor's guilt be damned...if they weren't in dire straits, it was the worst time for him to have had a good idea.