Xaleyp turned the paper over several times, all the while Eve and Ardus watching him, before finally conceding that there were only the three lines written on it. The note felt rough in his hand, and he tried to consider who might have written it, who would want to meet him on Stariek, and what dangers or boons might await. He knew no one there other than General Grimaldus—at least, if he had not been restationed in the months since his discovery on Arcadia.

Without realizing it, he found himself standing just outside the door to the Helios-Two dropship. The crowd of Siatians had mostly dispersed, though a few still lingered, their gazes passing over the Vanguard Ascendancy soldiers with mild disdain. Ardus placed his hand on Xaleyp’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.

“I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye,” he said, “but I just want you to know that I truly want what’s best for the galaxy, and keeping your parents hidden doesn’t do that. That’s why I was more than happy to bring them here and reunite you with them. Now, I have important business to take care of, so, please, go meet them at the spaceport. I’m sure they’ll be beyond ecstatic to finally see you after all these years.”

Xaleyp nodded, not really hearing the words but appreciating the sentiment behind them. In his mind, this didn’t make up for things—not by a long shot—but maybe, just maybe, Seth was wrong about Ardus, and they might be able to work together in harmony and unity.

Eve cleared her throat, clasping her hands behind her back as she looked at the two of them.

“Well, what would you like me to be doing while you’re off meeting your parents?” she asked, making a point of avoiding Ardus’ gaze.

“You can come with me if you want, Eve.” Xaleyp smiled at her, unable to contain his excitement any longer. “I’m sure they’d be happy to meet someone who’s helped keep me alive these last few months.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly intrude on that.” She backed away, shaking her head and putting her hands out to distance herself from the matter. “Maybe some other time once you guys have gotten a chance to catch up you can introduce me to them.”

“Well, you can take this as personal leave time.” Ardus straightened up, looking her up and down with an air of disdain. “We have much work to accomplish before we can further our goals of galactic unity, and your help is not necessary at this time, so feel free to explore Siatia and all its amenities.”

Eve looked at him for the first time during the conversation, staring at him as if he had just appeared there. After several seconds, she nodded, and returned her gaze to smile at Xaleyp.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

Before he could do or say anything, she stepped forward, wrapping her arms tightly around him and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before pulling away and walking across the plaza. Ardus gently guided Xaleyp to the door of the dropship, and he did not resist, allowing himself to be pushed through the doorway. Before he knew it, he was in one of the seats at the back soaring hundreds of meters above the ground amid the sea of other vehicles traveling over the ecumenopolis. He stared at all of the buildings, not really processing what he was seeing and more focused on the fact that he was going to meet his parents for the first time in a decade.

Would they recognize him, or would he recognize them? What would he say, what would he do, how would they feel? An onslaught of questions pounded him from every angle, and a tight knot formed in his stomach. He took deep breaths to attempt to steady his nerves, wringing his hands tightly between one another and picking at his finger bed with reckless anxiety. Regardless of what happened, how they or he reacted, he would just have to accept the outcome.

Just as soon as it seemed they were in the air, they were descending again and flying through the open ceiling of the spaceport. Once inside, they passed an assortment of dozens of different ships from the smallest transports to the largest freighters. The Helios-Two came to a rest towards the far end between a barge and another transport, and the engines died away almost instantly.

“This is your stop,” the pilot said, taking off his helmet and standing up. He pointed in the direction they had been traveling. “Their transport should be arriving in just a few minutes, so I would get out there and be ready to meet them if I were you.”

Xaleyp didn’t hesitate, throwing the restraints of his seat off himself and nearly sprinting out the door. The sound of the spaceport—from conversations to engines—pierced his ears and seemed to mingle with the smells of oxidation and dust hanging in the air. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, he felt at ease in the area.

He half walked, half jogged down the length of the enormous building, waiting for some sign of his parents, when he finally spotted a squadron of Vanguard Ascendancy soldiers mixed with Siatian civilians standing grouped around a transport that just landed. It was larger than he expected, about four times the size of the Helios-Two and with double the amount of engines. As he watched, the back of it opened on a hinge, coming down with a gentle thud on the ground and sending a cloud of dust up around the edge.

He smiled as he approached, holding his breath in silent anticipation. The soldiers glanced his way, their expressions invisible beneath their domed helmets but nodding slightly to him.

There was a sound of movement, then a group of shadows appeared in the doorway, and finally followed by a teenager, then an old man and a woman about the same age. Many different people came out, each holding different objects and bags but none resembling anything that Xaleyp would have expected his parents to look like, before finally a middle-aged woman stepped off the transport, and his heart leapt into his throat.

Her brown hair was starting to turn gray in places, and a few wrinkles ran away from her lips, but Xaleyp recognized her immediately at his mother, Kaylee Vah’Aris. In one hand was a rectangular suitcase that seemed rather light in her grip, and in the other was what looked like a child’s blanket almost dragging across the ground. She looked around the spaceport with a somewhat passive, bored expression. Her piercing blue eyes scanned the area before finally landing on her son, and she did a double take before her face lit up in surprise, a wide smile breaking out over her lips.

Kaylee dropped both of the objects she was holding, putting her hands to her face, and tears formed in her eyes. She turned, motioning to someone in the ship, and yelled out in excitement.

Appearing next in the doorway was an aged Skylar Vah’Aris, his once brown hair now mostly gray with a small bald spot forming on the top. His brown eyes were lit up in worry, misinterpreting her cries for that of distress, as he hurried out. He held onto his own suitcase, and with his other hand he was holding onto that of a small girl who could be no more than eight. She had long brown hair that came halfway down her back in a single ponytail. As she came out of the transport, she ignored the gazes of her parents, skipping out of Skylar’s grip and looking around the spaceport in curiosity. Skylar followed Kaylee’s gaze to see Xaleyp standing there motionless, his hands grasping at each other in nervousness and keeping a good distance between them.

“Xaleyp,” he said just loud enough for him to hear it, setting down his suitcase and hardly noticing the girl had bounded several meters away.

“Mom and dad.” His voice was hardly above a whisper, and he doubted that they could have even hear him from the distance they were at. He cleared his throat and briskly walked towards them, wrapping his arms around both of them and hugging as tight as he could. “I can’t believe you guys are actually alive. It’s been so long since I saw you.”

Neither of them said anything, with Kaylee simply rubbing up and down his back with one hand to make sure he was not some sort of illusion and the other holding his head against her shoulder. Skylar enclosed them both, holding all of them together in a firm hold. The girl stopped her skipping, looking at the three of them with her head cocked slightly to one side in childlike wonder.

“We never thought we were going to see you again,” Skylar said as he release them and took a step back to better take Xaleyp in. “It was a couple years before they brought me to Venator and found your mother and little Ely waiting for me there. They told us that you were dead, that they killed you and Zayne in the safe room at the cabin.”

Xaleyp felt a twinge in his stomach, as if something was stabbing him, at the mention of Zayne. They didn’t know that he was part of the reason for them getting captured, that Skylar had been betrayed by his best friend. And, hesitating with each word, unsure himself of what exactly happened, he explained the best he could what he heard on the chip from Colonel Ire.

Then as he finished the tale and before any of them could comment, there was a noise of further movement on the transport as another man began walking off. A helmet obscured his face, and he had a soldier’s formal uniform on with an assortment of different medals hanging for the left side. His chest heaved with each breath he took, as if the effort of doing so was almost more than he could handle. He looked at Xaleyp, and his back straightened up slightly as his hands went up to remove the helmet. Underneath, Xaleyp, Kaylee, and Skylar, all at once, recognized the face of Colonel Augusta Ire.

His hair was completely gray and cut close to his head, and his eyes were just as full of hate and evil as Xaleyp remembered them from Vertyn. The most noticeable difference was that his face was covered in more wrinkles and cracks than before, and his footsteps were somewhat heavier. Slowly, he walked over to the three of them.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Xaleyp whispered, taking a step back. His voice shook as he spoke, wavering at the impossibility of the situation. “You’re a dead man, literally.”

The excitement and elation he had felt from seeing his parents disappeared in an instant at seeing the man who had done his utmost to make his life a living hell alive. Last he saw, Ire had two bullet holes in his chest and was dragged out of Emperor Seth Drake’s office on the Hyperion Royal Carrier.

He pointed at Ire, his hand shaking violently with the effort of doing so.

“You should be dead,” Xaleyp said, looking to his parents for support before remembering they weren’t there when he died.

“Just like your parents should be dead?” Ire asked, cocking one eyebrow. With one hand holding the helmet under his arm, he pointed at Skylar and Kaylee with the other. “Given the fact you are standing here with those two, I’m sure you saw what was on the chip. It was against my better judgment to make that file, but when High Command asks you for something, you deliver, regardless of your personal feelings for it. Though, from what I’ve heard, Hyperia is not the power that it used to be.”

He looked around in mild curiosity, taking in the sights of the Siatian spaceport. With a deep breath in, he returned his gaze to the group in front of him, his eyes landing on the little girl now standing a meter away.

“I was locked away after that day in the office, biding my time and waiting for when someone might find a use for me. And find a use they have, and for none other than the Vanguard Ascendancy of all people.” He looked at Xaleyp, holding out his free hand to the younger man and stepping closer. “I know that we weren’t on the greatest terms when you were at Vertyn, and I can never apologize enough for how I treated you or any of the other cadets, but perhaps we can let the past stay in the past, let bygones be bygones and all that.”

Xaleyp hesitated, unsure of what to do. Part of him wanted to kill the man with his own two hands, give him what he deserved after so many years of torment. Another part, however, knew that would accomplish nothing but furthering hatred—continuing the cycle of violence he condemned Ardus for. And with the thought, he made his decision, clasping Ire’s hand, who seemed just as surprised as Xaleyp that he actually shook it.

“We can’t change the past, but we can only hope that we learn from our previous mistakes,” Xaleyp said, smiling slightly at the man.

He took a deep breath, not able to fully believe that he was not taking revenge for how the man treated him. Then he wondered what exactly it would even accomplish if he pummeled the man.

“Yes, well, I have a lot of work to get done, so I’m going to get to it, especially since I hate to interrupt such a disgustingly sweet reunion.” He bowed to each of them and began to walk away when he stopped and looked back at Skylar and Kaylee. “I truly am sorry for how I captured you, Missus Vah’Aris, and how I treated your son after taking him. If I could take it back, do things differently, I can’t say that I would, but, knowing what I know now, I would strongly consider a different course of action.”

“Just one question for you, Colonel,” Xaleyp said before the man could walk away. “Why did you use Zayne Alcatar to get close to us and betray us like that?”

Ire shrugged, his eyes rolling into his head slightly as he considered the question.

“It was more a matter of convenience. It was easier for me to capture you if I could narrow your escape options, hence why he suggested you hide in the safe room and guided you there. You were limited on where you could go, and it made it that much easier to capture you in the estate. It wasn’t anything personal, at least that I know of.”

Without another word, he turned and walked briskly away, replacing his helmet on his head as he went. Xaleyp stared at him for a few seconds before he turned back to his parents and the small girl who was now standing directly behind them.

“So, is that…” he started to say, nodding to the girl and unsure of exactly what to say.

“Oh, Xaleyp, I’m sorry,” Kaylee said, kneeling down to the same height as the girl and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “This is Elmira, your sister. Ely, this is Xaleyp, he’s your older brother I told you so much about.”

The girl said nothing, bringing a finger to her mouth and chewing on the fingernail as she stared at him. Xaleyp scratched back of his head as he looked back at her. What exactly was someone supposed to say when they met a sibling they didn’t know they had when they were already several years old?

“Hi, how are you doing?” he asked awkwardly. “Nice to meet you.”

The girl gave him a forced smile, immediately looking to her parents—his own parents—with a somewhat fearful expression, as if asking if she should be trusted this strange person. Kaylee gave her a reassuring smile and nudged her forward with a push to the small of her back.

“Go on, say hello.” When Ely said and did nothing, Kaylee shrugged, looking at Xaleyp apologetically. “She hasn’t known a life outside of the prison, so she’s not that trusting yet. We have a week together right now, though, so you’ll have plenty of time to get her out of her shell.”

“Only a week?” Xaleyp asked, surprised. “That’s not that long after we’ve been apart for eight years.”

“Well, it’s what we have right now.” Skylar moved forward, wrapping his arm around Xaleyp and guiding him back down the spaceport. “From what we’ve seen so far, you’re apparently pretty busy for a dead son. Let’s go and make the most of it while we can, then Ely can finally go to school and we can get some relaxation time.”

Xaleyp nodded, tears coming to his eyes as they passed under and between the assortment of ships. For the first time in what felt like forever, probably since the last time he talked to Lina, he actually had a sense of happiness surge through him.