I had just finished changing and splashing cold water on my face when I heard a bang on my door then Gem shout.

“Arie, your damn door won’t open for me! I’ve got my hands full, can you make it open?”

I laughed as I did so, the door rising to show her frowning up at it.

“I’ll change the commands so it will next time, don’t worry! How many snacks did you get?”

Gem walked into my room, her arms overflowing.

“Enough but I’ll need to go back later to stock up my room. I think I dropped some in the hall, can you grab them? Cas is hacking a servBot to deliver some snacks to his room but he said he’ll be here soon if he doesn’t get caught again.”

A laugh spilt out of me as I walked past her, following the trail of snacks she’d dropped.

“He really shouldn’t be doing that now. We’re tutors. They’ll listen to us, he could just command them.” Peggy walked in, hauling bedsquares and screens under her arms. “I found some of these in the cupboard down the hall! We can put them on your bed to make it big enough for all of us.”

She snapped them into place along the side of my bed frame, the padded squares easily doubling the size of my bed.

“That should work!”

She pulled the legs into place and dropped down onto it, opening her bioplastic info pack.

“Great, I might keep it this way.” I said grinning and running my hand over one of the bouncy, clearly brand new square.

“Cas is just coming down the hall, I think he’s hacked a servBot again.” Cory informed us as he entered and dropped down onto my bed next to Gem, kissing her gently on the head.

She laughed and passed him a drink.

“He definitely did.”

I laughed, grabbed a soda from the pile Gem brought in and cracked it open, enjoying the fizz against my lips before drinking deeply.

“Are you talking about how handsome I am? How much you missed my presence even though I was only gone for a few minutes? How great an addition to the crew I am?” Cas asked dramatically as he entered the room, holding some bed squares as well.

“Definitely not.” Gem said laughing, opening her mouth again to undoubtedly insult him more.

“Okay, I’m going to end that there. Have you all gone through your info packs yet? It says I’m teaching Weaponry with Arie!” Cory interrupted wisely, opening his pack to the assignment section.

I flicked through mine to the same section.

“Oh awesome, I’m teaching Weaponry with Cory and Flight Basics with Cas.” I did a double take. “Umm… I’ve been assigned our ship.”

“Frida? Yes! Well, it makes sense, you’re our Pilot and our Captain! Now it’s official. You know what that means?” Cas said excitedly. “We don’t have to steal one or rent Frida for our free days! Who wants tattoos and Mods? I really want a new tattoo. Or maybe I could get that X-ray vision mod like you, Cory. Or Chal said something about increasing my aural interface so that I can hear people’s heartbeat! I don’t know when that will ever come in handy but I want it!”

“Hold on, hold on! We don’t have a free until the end of the week. Don’t go getting overexcited now, we still have 3 full days of testing and 2 days of schooling and teaching before we can go get them.” Peggy pointed out.

Cas pouted and stretched out on the bed next to me, one arm resting on his stomach.

“I don’t care. I’m already overexcited. Which mod should I get next?”

Cas’ wrist monitor lit up and I saw a message pop up on the screen before he titled it away from me, his eyebrows creasing together as he read it.

“Is Aries the only one with two assignments?” Peggy asked.

“I think so? You deserve it.” Gem smiled at me.

I pulled a face at her to show that I didn’t think the assignments were an honour before looking back at Cas. It wasn’t like him to hide messages from us, he never did that before. Even when he’d gotten hate mail before, he’d told us about it. This seemed different. His reaction was different.

He was still staring at the screen, his fists clenching anxiously. I wanted to lean into him so I could read it but I didn’t want to invade his privacy. He’d tell us about it when he was ready.

“Have you seen the learning plans at the back? I am so excited to be playing with grappling hooks again.” Cory exclaimed.

“I’m teaching Physical Fitness! I can tweak the plan, right? This says we won’t be doing Zero-G until week 8. That can’t be right?” Gem frowned at the plan.

“That should be fine, apparently we can change the plans but they need to be approved before we give the lessons. I’m going to change mine too though, I’m teaching Planet Politics and it says we won’t learn about the inter-Earth wars until week 3? How can we learn about the wider universe if we don’t know about the history of it? The Council always said that Earth was one of the most important planets for the early history of our system.” Peggy quoted with a small frown on her face as she typed on the screen.

The next few hours passed quickly as we read through the info packs and edited our learning plans. Somewhere along the way I stopped worrying so much about Cas and teaching and having so many kids rely on me and began to feel excited instead. I could fly again and I’d be teaching others how to fly and I’d get to work with my crew. I started to feel ill-fated hope that things could get back to normal or maybe even better.

“Gods! We’re almost late for dinner!” Gem gasped, checking the time on her wrist monitor.

“I said you should get that inbuilt clock last time we went to Chal’s but you said that we didn’t need it because Peggy would always keep us on time!” Cas teased, getting up and stretching.

He held his hand out to me to help me up too, a slight smile touching his lips as Peggy panicked in the background.

“I’m so sorry! I got really distracted reading up on the North Western Wars!” She cried, rushing towards the doors.

“Peg, we aren’t even late yet! Don’t worry about it!” Gem laughed, following her out the door.

“At least we’re nearer the kitchens here than we were before, I found this awesome shortcut earlier when I was hacking the Bot!” Cas said leading us to a hatch in the floor and hauling it open. “You drop down two levels, take the third left and it takes you right into the off duty kitchen! Everyone got their impact boots on?”

We nodded, wearing impact boots had become the norm for us years earlier and now we’d gotten them back from the Council. I didn’t plan on taking mine off again any time soon. Except when sleeping.

“Hell yeah! Let’s do this!” Cas shouted, jumping straight through the hatch.

I laughed, following after him as soon as he thought clear and relishing the feeling of free-falling. The boots kicked in after a few seconds and slowed my impact until I landed softly.

Clear! I called up to the group, stepping out of the way.

The rest followed down, Cory jumping last and securing the hatch behind him.

Eating in the kitchen again? I asked as we ducked out from next to the rarely used oven and headed towards the buffet.

Of course, Cas replied. I don’t like how that group is staring at us.

He narrowed his eyes towards a table of girls who were openly staring at our group and giggled when we looked at them.

I would have thought you’d be enjoying this more. Gem thought with a smirk, her eyes scanning the room.

Maybe two years ago I would have enjoyed this but I was an idiot back then and trying to get over someone. Plus they are only looking at us like that because they think we’re either heroes or war criminals. Cas thought back, loading up his plate.

I pointedly ignored what he said and the smirk Gem shot me, choosing instead to focus on carrying my plate back towards the kitchen.

Everyone thinks we’re either heroes or war criminals. Peggy sounded sad.

We are either heroes or war criminals. It just depends on how you look at it. I argued as we entered the little kitchen again.

Yeah, well, the Council basically said we’re heroes so that’s all that really matters. Gem thought, happily eating her pasta.

Most of them said that. Cas added darkly.

My eyes narrowed and I started to think a reply back to them when a kid standing in the doorway caught my attention.

“Urm... Sorry… Can I ask you a question?” She was aged about 10, her hands fiddling with the sleeve of her jumpsuit.

“Sure! How can we help?” Peggy answered enthusiastically.

“I’m really worried about the testing tomorrow… What’s gunna happen?” The girl asked, looking around the group nervously.

“We actually don’t know what your testing is going to be like but ours was pretty fun?” Gem volunteered with a shrug.

“Fun?” The girl seemed taken aback as she stared at us with wide eyes.

“Yeah! We got to play in a flight simulator, I messed about in Zero-G for a bit. What else? Oh, the weapons! That was fun… Until I got shot but that probably won’t happen again probably.”

“Plus the written testing! Maths, physics, history, all the good stuff! I wish I could do mine again, I hated it the first time!”

I held back a laugh at Peggy genuine excitement but the girl’s face fell.

“I’m a draft. I didn’t really go to school before I came here. I knew I was going to fail the testing and be stuck doing nothing for the rest of my life.”

“Hey, don't say that! I didn’t really go to school before I came here either. I had been to about one class and I thought the exact same thing as you.” Peggy smiled encouragingly at the child.

“Yeah, and now she's the smartest person I know. You know she’s teaching Politics this year? And she does all our flight plans and diplomacy. She speaks basically every language in the universe and she’s going to be on the Council one day.” Gem nudged Peggy, smiling widely.

“Really?” The kid stared at Peggy in wonder but Peggy’s face had hardened noticeably.

“Yep! Now eat up kid, you’ll need the energy tomorrow.” Gem said after a pause.

She’d been waiting for Peggy to say something but she was glaring at her plate.

“Oh, cool! Thanks!” The girl walked off looking happier.

“That went better than I expected.” Cas sounded surprised.

“Alright, Aries, your arm should be numbed now. Please look away as I cut into your forearm and remove the device from your muscle.” The MedBot said in it’s calming, monotoned voice.

I ignored the instructions, watching with morbid curiosity as its scalpel cut into my arm and the MedBot reached its tweezers delicately into the wound.

“Urgh, I don’t know how you can watch that. I might ask to be knocked out whilst it does that to me.” Cory shuddered, his face tinged a delicate shade of green.

“Says our ships doctor. Should we be worried?” Cas asked with mock concern, placing a hand on his chest dramatically.

“It’s different when it’s not me doing it! Or when it happens to me. I was completely fine when I had to pull that shrapnel out of your back.”

I smirked as Cas laughed, remembering the incident well.

“Yeah, I actually think you enjoyed that.”

“I didn’t enjoy it! But I will say you deserved it for free-flying that close to a dead ship. You barely even scanned the wreckage, if you had then you would have seen how unstable it was. You should have known better.”

Cas rolled his eyes at him as we laughed at him. He was right after all but we’d all done dumb stuff like that. My hand still itched from where I’d reached into an engine without checking and the blade stabbed right through it. There wasn’t even a scar but the memory of seeing my hand impaled stayed in my mind forever.

The MedBot withdrew the tweezers which were clasping a small metal chip and placed it on the side.

“I will now seal up your wound, Aries. You are required to stay seated for four minutes to ensure you do not pass out.”

The MedBot deftly sealed the wound and wiped rapidheal over my arm before turning back to the rest of the group.

“Gemini, please be seated. You will have your tracker removed next.”

Gem sat down on the bed next to me, Cory reaching out to grab her other hand and smiling at her nervously.

“I’ll be fine. This is nothing compared to the damage that laser pulse did to my leg in testing.” She laughed, nudging Cory in the side and smiled at him.

He smiled back wanly and continued to watch the MedBot’s scalpel intently, wincing as it cut into her arm.

“It’s so weird to think that we’re now free to travel wherever we’d like.” Cas said, picking up the discarded tracker.

“Put that down! That was in my arm!”

I slapped his hand lightly and he dropped it, laughing.

“Where shall we go first?”

“You know me, I still think tattoos and Mods!” He laughed. “Or we could go anywhere. Just fly around for a bit. Actually be free.”

He smiled at me and my stomach fluttered. We were free. I had a moment of happiness before I remembered his weird reaction earlier.

“Hey… What’s with that message you got when we were in my room? Is everything okay?”

His face froze and his hand, still poised over the tracker, trembled slightly.

“Yeah, completely fine.”

I watched his throat bob as he swallowed, certain that he was lying.

“Cas, what’s going on?”

He squeezed his hands tightly and looked down at his wrist monitor, starting to fiddle with it uncomfortably.

“I got a weird message.” He admitted finally, refusing to look at me.

“Weird how?”

His eyes flicked around the medBay, his knuckles clicking as his hands clenched anxiously.

“I think it was from my dad…”

My heart stuttered before pounding in my chest. I was so glad I was sitting down because I honestly didn’t think my legs would have been able to hold me up any more.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know… I just think.”

I’d had nightmares about him coming back for us ever since we’d returned to the base. Fear swept through me, turning my veins to ice.

“What did it say?”

His finger trembled as he brought the message up onto his wrist monitor and read it to me.

“‘I will see you again. You did not win this.’”

“Oh.” Was all I could say.

Cas was right, it did sound like Councillor Harvey.

“Yeah.”

I paused, trying to think of something to say but I couldn’t. I knew even then that it was bad.

“Well… I’m sure it’s nothing… It could have been from anyone?”

“Yeah.” He agreed even though we both knew I was lying. It sounded like his dad, even I knew that.

“Cassiopeia. It is your turn to have your tracker removed. Please be seated.” The MedBot moved towards a free recliner, gesturing for Cas to follow.

“You got this, Cas.” I smiled at him, trying to not show how rattled I was.