Xaleyp pushed the door open further when Mian spoke, emboldened by her voice and grateful she wasn’t hurt too badly. At least, not so badly that she was unable to speak or unaware of her surroundings.

Inside was an assortment of different medical supplies and machines, and wires and tubes ran in neat lines around the room and over the bed in the center of the opposite wall. The steady beeps of her pulse came from one of the monitors, and the blue and red lights of the numbers on the displays shone brightly even in the white bathing the room. Three chairs sat around the bed, two on one side and one on the other, each left somewhat haphazardly and at odd angles.

Mian laid under a set of clean white bedsheets, the edges tucked neatly under the bottom of the bed and compressing tight over her body. Thin metal bars surrounded the outside of the bed, the different lights reflecting at odd angles off it. Tubes ran to different parts of her body, ending in needles inserted into her skin, and wires with electrodes were attached at multiple spots. Her hair flared out from her head, overpowering the pure white pillow with its brown. A clear oxygen mask lay over her mouth and nose, and burns covered much of her face. A gash on her left cheek was loosely held together with stitches, and a variety of cuts and scars and burns ran up and down her arms, some still dark red with dried on blood.

She was sitting up as much as she could, her eyes straining to see who was at the door when they widened in surprise.

‟What are you doing here, Xaleyp?” she asked, her voice quiet and hoarse. ‟Ardus told me he hadn’t found you guys yet but they were going to have to leave soon, with or without you.”

‟Can I come in?” He ignored her question at first, instead gesturing to one of the chairs that sat at her bedside. She nodded, and he walked in, sitting in the chair and resisting the urge to bounce his knee or tap his fingers or anything to keep his body busy. He looked out the door to where Eve stood just out of view of the bed and made a waving motion to gesture her inside. ‟Eve is here to see you too.”

Eve tried to get him to stop talking, waving her hands frantically and shaking her head, then finally stomping her foot quietly against the floor and slowly approaching the doorframe when he finished the statement. She poked her head in slowly first, and Xaleyp had a hard time telling what was whiter: her face or Mian’s bedsheets.

‟How are you feeling, Mian?” Eve asked, her voice hesitant and unsure.

‟Better than I was, but that’s not really saying much.” She coughed with the words as she tried to laugh and failed, her entire body convulsing with each gasp for air. When her fit died down, she looked at Xaleyp, a pleading look in her eyes. ‟You were right, I should’ve gone to Eredhen like you guys said.”

‟Hey, don’t worry about that right now. You were right as well because Ardus was the one that came to pick us up. We wouldn’t be here with you right now if it weren’t for him, so I guess we have at least that little bit to thank him for.”

‟Though not much else,” Eve muttered, crossing her arms and trying to look anywhere except at Mian.

‟What do you mean?” Mian asked, trying to sit up and groaning in pain before Xaleyp stood and stopped her by placing his hands against her shoulders. She struggled for a moment, attempting to issue some sort of protest, but then laid still, and Xaleyp returned to his seat.

‟We have a theory that Ardus is using us to get more power for himself and potentially take over the galaxy.” Even as Xaleyp said it, he knew how crazy it sounded, but once he started, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. ‟He recruited one of my old friends, Oliver Sudden, as a technician for the Starkiller from Arcadia just after the attack on Nevermoor Hold and before the Concord was passed. It looks like he may have purposely used the attack as a way of fearmongering and gaining compliance across the galaxy to solidify Siatia as a superpower.”

‟He wouldn’t do that,” Mian said, shaking her head and closing her eyes. ‟I’ve known him most of my life, and that does not sound like something he would do at all.”

‟Mian, open your eyes.” Eve scoffed and crossed one leg over the other as she turned her head away from the bed and towards Xaleyp. ‟Why can’t you believe that he doesn’t care about us, and that, just like I said, he may have been the one who caused our ship to crash on Arcadia?”

The steady beeping of Mian’s heart rate increased sharply as it spiked, and the blood pressure monitor sounded a brief warning. Xaleyp glared at Eve and caught her eye before glancing pointedly at the door, to which she responded with something of a pleading look for a moment. Without another word, she stood immediately and walked out, her feet clicking with each step she took. Once her footsteps faded, Xaleyp returned his gaze to Mian, whose vitals settled down closer to their normal levels.

‟What are we going to do if she’s right?” Mian asked, looking at the ceiling. Her voice was quiet, barely audible over the machines. ‟I’ve trusted him for so long, it’s hard to believe that he would betray me like that. He’s always been there for me, no matter what, even if I was just a tool of his.”

‟Right now, you don’t need to do anything but rest.” Xaleyp reached out and stroked Mian’s hand, feeling how soft her skin was even with the burns and contusions and cuts. She flinched slightly at the unexpected touch but relaxed after a few seconds. ‟We’re not strong enough to take him head-on, at least not yet, so we’re going to let him think we’re still on his side until it’s too late for him to do anything about it. All you need to focus on, though, is getting better, and don’t worry about what’s going on outside the medical bay.”

‟Do you remember when life used to be so much simpler?” she asked, looking at the wall across from her. She took deep, almost gasping breaths between each sentence, her chest seeming to inflate and deflate under the covers each time. ‟When I was little, I used to love spending so much time outside with my sister and parents, just playing and enjoying life. Now, everything’s changed and is so different and difficult.”

‟I didn’t know you had a sister.” He felt stupid as soon as he said it, but it was all his mind could come up with.

‟She’s a few years older than me and went off to be a diplomat on Terra.” A small smile came to Mian’s face as she thought of the memory. ‟The last thing she told me was to be good for my parents, and a few months later is when Ardus showed up, took my parents, and began training me to be one of his secret agents.”

Xaleyp sat silent for a few moments, unsure of what to say, before simply settling on, ‟I’m sorry.”

‟It’s all in the past.” She waved one of her hands dismissively, letting it fall and rest across her stomach with the movement. ‟I hope someday to find them, but Ardus doesn’t seem any closer to telling me where they are than when he first took us.”

‟I can’t remember if I’ve told you, but my last real moment of childhood was the day the Hyperions kidnapped me and my parents. My best friend, Rach’El, and I were just playing in the snow, and she told me how we’d always be friends, no matter what. I haven’t seen her since, and I would do anything to talk to her again for a few more minutes.”

With the last word, a silence fell over the pod, filled only by the hum and whir of the medical equipment keeping Mian healthy and alert. Her breaths came in sharp intakes of air with gentle exhales, seeming oddly soothing to Xaleyp. Finally, she spoke, her voice cutting through the ambient noise with ease.

‟Xaleyp, I just want you to know, I—”

Before she could finish the sentence, the squid-like doctor appeared in the doorway, clearing their throat and tapping their wrist despite the fact no watch was on the shiny, smooth skin. Mian’s face immediately turned red, and she looked away from Xaleyp, staring at the wall in silence.

‟Time’s up,” the musical voice said, and they stared explicitly at Xaleyp. ‟Please vacate the medical bay, and rest assured that we are doing our best to ensure that your friend is cared for during her time of injury.”

They wrapped a smooth and slimy arm around Xaleyp’s shoulder, gently guiding him away from the room as another doctor approached and entered, closing the door behind him. Mian raised her hand in a weak farewell before disappearing behind the frosted glass.

A sudden feeling of numbness came from his hand, and he looked down at the blood-soaked bandages.

‟Hey, doctor, would you mind fixing my hand a little now?” Xaleyp’s voice was hesitant, stopping frequently as he tried to form the words without sounding patronizing. Regardless, their face lit up at being asked for aid, and they rummaged in the pack at their waist before pulling out a roll of what looked like cloth.

‟This cloth is laced with typnal, which will help accelerate the rate of healing, especially after letting it go untended for so long. After a few hours, it should naturally fall off, at which point your hand is well again and the cloth can be discarded.”

The doctor had a deftness with their appendages that Xaleyp had never seen before, unwrapped his hand with one of their tentacled claws as the other unrolled the typnal cloth. Balling it up, they stuffed the dirty rag into a bag at their back and enveloped his knuckles with the new bandage. At once, an invigorating feeling ran through his wrist and up his arm, sending a wave of euphoria into his body. With a bow of their head, the squid made their way back down the rows of cubes, glancing towards each to make sure none needed aid.

Xaleyp looked up and down the rows of the pods without thinking, some sort of animal trying to break its way free from inside his body. How could Ardus just lie about Mian, telling them that he didn’t know where she was when she was on the ship the entire time? How did he expect Xaleyp to not find out one way or another and catch on to his bullshit? What did he even expect to gain from that, other than infuriating Xaleyp when he inevitably found out?

Even as he stood there and fumed, a message came through on his CAM from the very last person he wanted to talk to at that moment.

Ardus said, apparently unaware of what Xaleyp had just seen.

For a brief moment, Xaleyp considered telling Ardus off, refusing to do what he said, but part of him remembered what he and Eve agreed on, to leave him thinking nothing changed. Another part, however, screamed from the rooftops, trying to convince him to listen to his heart, not his brain. With a deep breath and rubbing his hands over his face, he subconsciously nodded and sent a message to Ardus.

he said in his reply, not even bothering to think of an excuse. It seemed innocuous enough, and Ardus didn’t respond to call him out on it, which left him at ease.

His heart still racing but his breathing somewhat calmer, he looked around, searching for where Eve had gone after he sent her out of the pod. The area was empty, devoid of even the doctors that once seemed so prevalent in the medical bay. He began walking down the path back the way they came, each of his footsteps seeming unnaturally loud in the vast medical bay. As he passed the hexagonal desk, the squid-like doctor raise one of their tentacled hands in farewell.

‟I hope you enjoyed your visit, though I apologize that it was so short,” they said. Xaleyp nodded his head towards the being in reply, and they seemed satisfied enough by the answer to return to their work.

Sitting next to the closed door of the lift, he finally saw Eve, her head tipped back against the wall and staring at the ceiling with her eyes closed. Her knees were brought up to her chest with her arms wrapped around to hold them in place. As he approached her, his footsteps clicking with each movement closer, she opened her eyes and looked at him, a somewhat skeptical look on her face.

‟So, what did you two talk about after kicking me out?” She flattened her legs against the ground and folded her hands in her lap, cocking her head slightly to the side as she stared at him. ‟Any plans for how you’re going to be buddies with Ardus after everything you’ve discovered, or to turn me in and get me arrested?”

‟Actually, we barely even talked about him.” Xaleyp felt a new bout of anger rising through him at her accusation, and he had to force himself to remain calm and steady his breathing. After everything they had been through, how dare she suggest he would betray her like that? ‟She thinks you might be right though, so ought to consider that before lashing out for no reason. Besides, Ardus wants to see us both on the bridge, so we better not keep him waiting.”

He didn’t give her a chance to respond, walking to the lift and walking through the now open door. Eve pushed herself up, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and followed him in. The door hissed shut behind her, and it immediately went into motion, shooting back up towards the top of the ship. A heavy silence reigned between them, accentuated by the gentle whirring of the lift, before Eve finally broke it.

‟Listen, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice seeming to strain with the apology. ‟I was just angry or something, and I shouldn’t have suggested you two would want to get rid of me. Right now, we should be focusing on what we’re going to do about Ardus and avoid arguing with each other. We’re all we got, and if we can’t even trust one another, he’s going to walk all over us before we even know what’s happening.”

As she finished the sentence, the door of the lift opened to reveal the hallway they came from, and standing there was Ardus Kaine, his hands folded behind his back and with a curious expression. As they stepped off, he looked them both over, saying nothing for a moment and neither of them daring to speak.

‟I thought I would be a good leader and escort you two to the bridge for a debriefing of the developing situation with the Arcadian Emperor, or Praes Dominion, whatever he’s calling it.” Ardus held the datapad up for them to see before clearing his throat and continuing. ‟The ship logs indicated that you two were in the medical bay, and I saw fit to retrieve you both. Though, I can’t help but admit that I am intrigued for why you two decided to go down there without first telling me.”

His eyes narrowed, locking onto Xaleyp’s, who stared right back at him. Eve took a deep, careful breath in, trying her hardest to not let her emotions show. Xaleyp raised his bandaged hand without looking away from Ardus, rotating his wrist to show the wrapping from all angles.

‟I figured now’s as good a time as any to get my hand taken care of, seeing how we had a bit of downtime.”

Ardus looked at him with the same piercing look as he did in the conference room on his first trip to the Starkiller. As if he were probing his soul. A chill went down Xaleyp’s back that he hoped the man couldn’t see. After several seconds of the penetrating gaze, Ardus seemed to relax slightly, turning and heading back down the hall after gesturing for them to follow.

‟We have a team ready for insertion at the Delargivic Palace, so I thought you would want to be there to see how they do, given everything that’s happened.” He held up the datapad again. ‟They’re going in before we get back to the bridge, so, if you’d like, we can begin watching their progress off here until we get up there.”

Xaleyp nodded, and Ardus pressed through a few different menus to bring up a live feed from one of the soldiers’ helmet cameras.