When he found Assisse she was pulling kit out of her foot locker and shoving it into a pack on her bunk.

“Don’t hold it against her,” she said.

“Hold what?” he asked.

“Whatever dressing down she gave you,” the woman’s masked face turning to regard him. “Our captain’s holding it together pretty well, but it’s not hard to see this whole thing’s got her rattled. First combat and all that, her ship gets totaled before she knows she’s even under attack.”

“And then it turns out the person attacking her is her best friend?” he finished for her. “The same best friend who’s been smuggling people offworld for years right under her nose?”

Assisse nodded. “Plus there was the whole bit where she was basically under said friend’s guns and pretty much unable to do anything about it.”

Jason snorted. “I did something.”

Assisse shrugged. “Something insane. That really shouldn’t have worked.”

Well, he couldn’t argue that. There’d been a ton of points where his plan could have failed. Hell, just getting over to Hela’s ship intact had been a small miracle.

If the ship’s sensors had registered me as an exo rather than space junk, I’d have died. If the asteroid-interdiction field had been a bit stronger, I’d have died. If the defensive system had decided I was an asteroid that might damage the hull, and vaporized the Ares as a result, I’d have died.

Yeah, there’d been plenty of ways his little gambit might have failed. Ways that weren’t even particularly unlikely.

His success had been as much a matter of luck as skill. Moreso in some ways.

“Tisi’s by the book,” Assise continued, “and the book says that when all the chips are down, it’s best to cooperate.”

Jason sighed.

Not human. He repeated in his head. Not human at all.

It was moment like this that reminded him that for as human as the Shil’vati could be, they weren’t. An example of which was that the Shil’vati very much did negotiate with terrorists. They didn’t do death before dishonor.

“There’s also the fact that the Whisker’s getting scuttled,” Asisse mentioned off-handedly. “That’s certainly got the girl in a state. Not that she’ll say as much.”

“It is?” he asked, surprise coloring his tone.

“Why do you think we’re packing?”

“Because the Whisker’s currently more deathtrap than ship? Why do you think we’re all wearing these?” he pointed out, tapping the side of his helmet.

The ship still had life-support functions in most areas that didn’t have gaping holes to the void in them, but that wasn’t exactly something anyone wanted to rely upon. Protocol was to assume that if any part of the ship might be dangerous, the whole ship was to be treated as such and the whole crew should don void worthy suits.

“I figured we’d be heading back to the Pulse once we’d packed and then waiting there for repair ships to arrive,” he said.

“Little ship like the Whisker, damaged as it is, it’s cheaper to replace it than fix it.”

Despite himself, Jason felt a small pang at the idea. And if he felt that way, he could only imagine how Tisi felt.

The Whisker was her ship.

Finished packing, Assise finally stood up and walked over to him. “So, I imagine this is the bit where you deck me?”

“Do you think I should?” he asked.

The woman shrugged. “I argued for giving you up.”

Jason glanced up into her featureless helmet. “An argument that would have kept everyone aboard the Whisker alive. Including me.”

He kept his voice deliberately toneless, giving no indication of what he was thinking.

“Alive or not, it would still be an act of betrayal,” Assisse argued.

It was almost like she wanted him to hit her.

He just nodded. She was right. It was a betrayal, not just of him, but the idea of the esprit de corps. There was no denying that.

“What’s Tisi doing with you?” he asked finally.

Assisse just sighed, slumping in place. Disappointed or frustrated, he couldn’t tell.

“Well, my demotion is pretty permanent. I imagine there’s going to be a mark in my file to that effect, so I also imagine this incident is going to be following me for a while.” She paused. “I’m also being transferred off Tisi’s crew.”

He nodded. He figured as much.

“What about Scales?”

Assisse laughed humorlessly. “Girl will probably try to follow me. She’s stupid loyal like that. Of course, she’s not exactly happy about what I did, but it’s more… disappointed than angry I think. Of course, doing so will probably torpedo her career as much as mine already is.”

The woman’s slump became even more pronounced.

“…Which is why I’m thinking of quitting the marines.”

Jason felt his eyebrows rise. He’d expected many things, but he’d honestly never expected that. From what he’d seen, Assisse’s entire life was the military. She’d enlisted straight out of school and never looked back.

“I wasn’t aware you could just quit?” he said, masking his surprise.

“Fortuitous timing.” Assisse shrugged. “My Initial term of service got ended years ago. The time when I’d usually renew it is coming up in about a month.”

“What will you do next?”

“I… don’t know. Military has been all I’ve ever known. Thought it was all I’d ever know. This last incident though… maybe it’s a sign I’m not as cut out for this life as I thought.”

The woman sounded more than a little lost.

Jason just stared, before turning to leave.

“Well I hope it all works out for you.”

Behind him, he heard Assisse straighten up in a hurry.

“Wait, that’s it!?” she cried.

He paused.

“What else should I do?” he said, without turning around. “It seems to me that you’re already being punished.”

“What, and you don’t want a little personal satisfaction?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know what I wanted when I came in here. To be honest I’m still wrapping my head around everything that happened to me aboard the Maw. Let alone what happened here while I was away.”

He looked up at the dull metal of the ceiling. “But… I’ve found I don’t have much of a taste for vengeance.”

He could still remember it. The feeling of Hela’s squirming form beneath his pistol’s barrel. Just a tiny squeeze of the trigger and she’d be gone. The one responsible for all this death and destruction. She was a threat. No matter what happened going forward, she’d be a threat. So long as she was alive she’d seek vengeance. Hell, even dead, her family might. Not just on him, but on those close to him.

He hadn’t though.

He had no illusions that he was a hero or some paragon of virtue. He had his share of vices and moral shortcomings. More than his share.

But he liked to think he was… better than that. Put a gun in her hand and he wouldn’t have hesitated. But downed, defeated and unarmed? That wasn’t him.

He smiled.

“As I said, what you suggested would have kept everyone alive. Including me.”

That didn’t mean he endorsed it. He didn’t. But he could understand it. And that was enough for him. He was no avenging angel. Just a guy trying to get by as best he could.

So he just walked away.

--------

Grabbing his stuff hadn’t taken long. Mostly because he hadn’t had much to grab. What few personal effects he had were back on Gurathu and would be forwarded to their destination.

Which was apparently going to be Shil itself.

He didn’t know how to feel about that, so he wasn’t going to think about it. Not the world’s healthiest mechanism to deal with uncertainty, but until he made an appointment with that mental healthcare professional that he’d promised to see, it was the only one he had.

Which was why he found himself sitting in the bay of the cargo shuttle they’d arrived in, his kit stowed beneath him, waiting for everyone else to show up with theirs while ‘playing’ with his data-pad.

“Look’s like I’m second to arrive.”

He damn near leapt out of his seat as someone spoke up from behind right. Which only served to jolt him painfully in place, given that he’d chosen to pre-emptively fasten himself in.

“Yaro,” he grunted, rubbing his shoulders, as he turned to face the amused looking Rakiri.

And he could see that she was amused because the shuttle was just about the only location on the Whisker that they didn’t have to wear helmets. Though to say that the shuttle was on the Whisker was a little misleading. Even if the hangar wasn’t a slagged mess, the shuttle they’d come in was too big for it to fit there. Instead, the shuttle was ‘docked’ to one of the Whisker’s airlocks via an expanding ringed tube thing that wouldn’t have looked too out of place in an airport docking terminal.

“Jason,” the woman returned, demurely placing her bag into the repository under her seat. “I see that you were the first to arrive back here.”

He shrugged. “Not much to pack.”

“I suppose that is fair,” Yaro acknowledged. “You were only with us a few months.”

He sighed at that. “Given you’re using the past-tense there, I assume everyone knows Tisi intends to kick me off her crew?”

“I fear that our venerable captain will not have much of a crew left when all is said and done, what with the loss of our sky-ship.” She sat down on one of the seats. “But in response to your question, the answer is no.”

“It is?”

The woman nodded regally. “While I am rightfully proud of my home and am honored to serve in its defense, I have never had any illusions about how my fellow sisters in arms felt about it. Gurathu is a backwater. A dumping ground for the outspoken and troublesome.”

Jason felt a grin form on his face. “I’m pretty sure both those descriptors fit me.”

“Perhaps.” Yaro’s own smile was smaller. “But troublesome or not, by your actions over the last two days you have made yourself too big for this small place. What circumstances that brought you here are now irrelevant, the Hero of Gurathu will not be allowed to rot away in obscurity.”

He wanted to refute her words, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t that naïve.

“Sounds about right.”

Yaro simply nodded.

“Fear not, Jason, I will be there to support you through it all.”

He nearly sputtered in surprise, but managed to get hold of it at the last second, as he turned to regard the alien.

“That sounded suspiciously like a romantic overture,” he said.

“That is the idea, because that was exactly what it was,” Yaro continued, her tone completely level.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I thought that our little liaisons were strictly casual.”

“They were. Which is why I’m making you aware that I’m now intending to pursue you romantically. I believe you are a quarry I would be a fool to let slip from my claws,” she said, leaning in close, so much so that he found himself suddenly aware of her scent.

It reminded him of some kind of pine.

He deliberately kept himself calm. “When did you come to this conclusion?”

“Around the time I discovered that you had jettisoned yourself from our sky-ship with no real means of propulsion or maneuver,” Yaro said, and he swore if he didn’t know better, he thought he might have heard a hint of a rebuke in her tone.

“It was pretty sexy,” he allowed.

If he’d hoped to rattle her in any way, he was ultimately disappointed as Yaro just nodded.

“That it was and is,” she allowed. “However, if you think that the act of successfully subduing an entire ship singlehanded is why I’m now choosing to make our arrangement more… permanent, you are incorrect.”

“So it didn’t do anything for you?”

“I didn’t say that,” Yaro continued without missing a beat, a certain all too familiar glassiness entering her eyes for just a moment. “But exciting or not, a male that chooses to engage in borderline suicidal acts of heroism is hardly what one would describe as an ideal candidate for a long-term life partner. Quite the opposite.”

“Huh,” Jason murmured. “So, if it wasn’t my feat of spectacular heroics that brought this about, what was?”

“Simply the realization that you might disappear from my life and that I do not wish for that to happen.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Yaro acknowledged matter-of-factly. “And if I’m not misjudging our relationship, I think you feel the same.”

Shit.

She wasn’t wrong. He did like Yaro. He liked her a whole lot. But he’d been avoiding confronting that from pretty much the moment they’d met because of…

“We’ll need to talk to Raisha about this,” he said. “She deserves to have a say if this… thing becomes something more than just… sex.”

And wasn’t that an idea that he was still getting his head around.

He was also totally surprised when the woman opposite him breathed out what he could only belatedly realize was a sigh of relief.

Was Yaro… nervous? The whole idea was so totally at odds with his idea of her.

Still, she was smiling widely, and if he wasn’t mistaken, that rhythmic thudding he heard was the woman’s tail beating against her seat. Of course, that only occurred for a few seconds before she got ahold of her emotions, her features shifting back to the regal and calm countenance he was accustomed to.

…He could still hear the sound of her tail though.

“Of course,” she said after a small cough. “Raisha is as much a part of this dynamic as you. As the saying goes, ‘a single ally in the bedroom is no defense against six sworn foes in the home’.”

Despite himself, he found himself smiling back at her.

“You know I have no idea where I’m going next, right?” he said softly.

She scoffed. “It matters not, I will request to follow your posting.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” he chuckled.

He had no idea how it worked on Earth, but he was pretty sure that the military rather explicitly kept people who were ‘involved’ apart.

Then again, I might be wrong.

He really had no clue. About Earth or the Imperium. It hadn’t come up with Raisha.

“Perhaps,” Yaro allowed. “Yet I will try anyway.”

Jason found he couldn’t argue with that. Instead, he just laid a hand upon her own. Which seemed to take some of the wind out of the alien’s sass after her proud declaration of intent, as her posture shifted to one that was almost… bashful. Eventually though, she relaxed, and the two simply enjoyed the comfortable silence that had built between them.

---------------------

“First you stole my exo. Then you wrecked him.”

Jason could only nod as he weathered Kernathu’s glare. Or at least, the Kernathu equivalent of a glare, which to be honest, had more in common with a pout.

It was kind of cute.

Best not to mention that though, he thought in a moment of surprising tact.

The journey from the Whisker to the Jump – the courser that was taking them to Shil - had been pretty much silent. An outcome he’d attributed to the fact that most of the crew seemed to be caught up in their own ponderings. Even Rocket, which he supposed said a great deal about how the events of the last two days had rocked the crew.

Of course, it couldn’t last. Even though the Jump was essentially little more than a set of engines with most of a ship attached, it was still a three day journey to Shil.

Not that Kernathu needed three days, he thought.

No, she’d confronted him within the first hour of their time aboard the Courser. Which he liked to think said a lot about how much more comfortable she’d gotten to be around him, when compared to the almost perpetually silent individual he’d encountered when he first came aboard the Whisker.

“Yeah,” he said slowly as he turned away from the window he’d been star-gazing out of.

Not that there was much to see. The view from a ship in phase was little more than an indistinct blur of greyish black.

Wrecked was also an entirely apt descriptor of what he’d done to Kernathu’s exo. The machine was totaled. Sure, it could be repaired, but much like with the Whisker itself, it would probably be cheaper to just scrap the whole machine and be done with it.

He’d used Ares hard.

“I desire r-recompense,” Kernathu stated, her gaze hard despite the minor stutter at the end of her statement – and the blue flush that rose to accompany it.

“That’s fair,” he acknowledged solemnly.

He’d actually already intended to buy her a new exo using the cash from his mouse thing. Or at least, pay for those parts that the government didn’t cover. He could do it too. He’d checked. While he didn’t exactly have access to the internet in deep space, there was an AI algorithm that saved pages a user might want to visit in advance to their data-pad. Which, while horrifying, also proved to be incredibly useful.

Point was, he’d been on a few manufacturers' websites, and he knew he had the means to repay his friend for her loss.

Of course, I can’t exactly tell her that now, he thought.

He wanted it to be a surprise. Or at least as much of a surprise as a custom built warmachine could be. Unfortunately, they didn’t exactly send exo’s out via mail. They didn’t send them out at all. Each one had to be custom built to fit the specifications of the pilot, just like the armor marines wore. So if he wanted to get one for her, Kernathu would need to visit a manufacturing facility to get fitted.

No, they wouldn’t just accept her measurements being sent to them either. He’d checked. While the government might have been capable of getting away with doing that, a private buyer had to abide by the manufacturers rules.

Or the buyer had to be willing to fork over a lot more cash than he was willing.

So, with his attempt to buy his way back into his fellow engineer’s good graces still a distant dream, he had to accept whatever desire she wanted right now with as much good grace as he could muster.

“And what is it that milady desires?” he asked, putting as much charm into his voice as he possibly could. Which in his opinion, wasn’t all that much.

Not that one would know it, from the way Kernathu’s face lit up.

“Sex!” she shouted, before somehow flushing an even deeper blue. “No – I mean a date!”

“Which ends in sex?” he asked.

“Yes – no!” Her eyes flitted across his face. “Maybe?”

Really? He couldn’t help but think. I trash your beloved Ares, and all you want in return is a date? With the possibility of sex at the end?

He really needed to buff up his friend’s self-esteem. Which made his decision to repay her by ‘buying’ her a new exo all the more needed in his mind.

“Sure,” he said finally, if only out of fear that Kernathu might explode if he kept her in suspense a moment longer. “We can get dressed up and go somewhere fancy. It’ll be romantic.”

Of all the responses he might have expected from that proposition, muted enthusiasm – mixed with a not small amount of relief – wasn’t one of them.

Did she just want sex? Like, he wasn’t opposed, but it somehow felt a little… cheapening. For him and her.

Then suddenly something clicked in his mind.

“Or, we could stay at a hotel, order absurd amounts of room service, and play video games?” He resisted the urge to grin at the way Kernathu’s face lit up. “Followed by a bit of hanky panky?”

She cocked her head. “Is ‘hanky panky’ sex?”

“Yes.”

“The second one!” she shouted.

“The first one still had sex too,” he pointed out.

“The second one!”

Despite acting defeated, on the inside he was smiling. He wanted the second one too after all.