“Great,” Aquila said once the door had shut behind Andy and Elliot. “I wanted to talk to you about something you mentioned before.”

Anxiety made my brain go blank at her words. I couldn’t think of anything that I’d said to her that warranted a private discussion without even Elliot there. I hadn’t seen her speak to anyone alone other than Elliot in the entire time I’d been on Freo.

“Would you still be willing to offer yourself in place of Pegasus?”

Relief washed through me at her words.

“Yes, of course. Is that an option?” I said immediately.

I didn’t need to think about it or consider it at all. I was the Captain. It was my responsibility and my right to do this for Peg.

“Are you sure? I want you to actually think about it this time,” she said gently.

“There’s no need, I won’t change my mind. I want to do this. What’s happened? I thought Andy said the risk was too high?”

Aquila pursed her lips.

“I won’t lie to you, it is. No matter our plan, there is a possibility that you will be taken by the Council too. You saw Peggy earlier, you undoubtedly can tell that they have not treated her well. They will do the same to you. Are you willing to risk that?”

My heart squeezed uncomfortably in my chest. I didn’t want to go back to that timeless hellhole that we’d been in before but if it got Peggy back, it would be worth it.

“Yes.”

Aquila nodded and laced her fingers together, staring down at them intently.

“Today, during the mission, we received correspondence from the Council. Councillor Harvey, specifically. It seems he is taking over more responsibilities.”

I felt my lip curl up into a sneer.

Of course he was. It didn’t even surprise me that he was still trying to grab power even now.

“What did he say?” I spat out, loathing burning inside me.

“He sent a message informing us that harbouring your crew and the other fugitives puts everyone on board our ship and any fighters on planets at risk.”

My breath caught in my throat and I froze. I hadn’t thought about that but it was true. Harvey’s hatred of Cas and the people of Freo would make it too good of a target to avoid and now he knew we were together.

“Should we leave?” I asked.

I didn’t want to but I didn’t want anyone else to die because of us. I couldn’t risk so many people just for us to be able to live comfortably.

“That’s not necessary right now. As far as we are aware, the Council still do not know where we are and we have stepped up our patrols and safety procedures so we should be safe.”

I nodded. I knew what she was avoiding saying. There was a possibility that at some point in the future we would need to leave.

“Did he say anything else?” I prompted.

She sighed and pulled a screen towards her, typing quickly before looking up. I turned, watching the large screen as it buzzed to life.

Harvey’s face appeared on it and my stomach bubbled with hatred. I felt my hands squeeze into fists and immediately, I wanted to hit him. His smug smile straight at the camera felt like it was piercing my soul. He didn’t deserve happiness. He deserved to suffer.

But, wait.

He wasn’t happy. The crease in between his eyebrows was deeper than the last time I’d seen him. His shoulders were tensed and his eyes flicked to beyond the camera often. The Guardians lining the wall behind him stood to attention, their hands on the guns at their waists.

My lip curled in triumph. He was worried. Gods, that filled me with happiness.

“Hello, Captain,” he sneered. “I assumed I am speaking to the Captain of the illegal refugee vessel known as Freo? It doesn’t matter, this message will get there anyway.”

I felt Aquila bristle slightly as Harvey paused to smile widely.

“After all this time, I decided to reach out. We should put our differences aside. This rivalry is pointless and, if I’m being honest, I tire of it. Your little crusade has gotten you nothing but corpses and you’ve still not managed to take us down. But now, you’re harbouring and protecting known fugitives. Terrorists. You have Adam and the rest of his crew on board and I assume you also have Andrew Gaddon. They are wanted terrorists. Merely having them on board your ship puts every single people there at risk. Do you know the reward for handing them over to the Guardians or Interplanetary Army?”

He waited, letting it sink in, and I felt my blood turn to ice in my veins. What if that is why she asked Andy to leave? Maybe it was to tell me that she was going to trade not just me but my whole crew in exchange for everyone else on Freo’s safety. My brain warred with everything I’d been taught up until that moment. It was the right thing to do but I couldn’t have my whole crew giving back to the Guardians. I could just about cope with going alone but knowing that the rest of my crew were there too would be too much for me.

“So, I offer you two options. One, you hand over Andrew, Adam and the rest of his crew along with that slippery modifier who has been sneaking around and operating on people illegally for years and in return, I give your little ship of criminals a little planet somewhere where you can live unbothered by the Council. Or two, I find Freo and kill every last person on it. I await your response.”

He bared his teeth at the camera once more before the screen went black again.

I turned back to Aquila, my heart thumping in my ears. She was going to hand over Andy, Chal and my whole crew.

“Aquila, I get it if—“ I started, wanting to explain that I understood and ask if we could run instead of being handed over, but she cut me off.

“It isn’t happening, Aries. I don’t trust him at all. The second we agree to hand you over, we have no more value to him. He’ll continue to hunt us down or he’ll find us a planet and the second we touch down, he’ll bomb us. And even if he didn’t, he’d expect us to stop fighting. We cannot allow the Council to keep pillaging and destroying planets. Thousands of people would die without our help,” Aquila said.

She had a point. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did plan to kill them as soon as he got us.

“But then, why did you ask me to stay behind?”

Aquila steepled her fingers together on the table and stared intently at the blank screen.

“You have a plan, don’t you?” I said when she didn’t speak.

“Potentially,” was all she said.

My brain moved quickly, trying to work it out.

“If Harvey offered to make one trade… Maybe he’d be open to a different one, right?”

Aquila’s intense gaze fell on me but still, she didn’t say anything.

“What if we could make it more tempting to him? What if we could offer me for Peggy somewhere not on Nova? Then he could brag to everyone about how he managed to capture me. He’d take that, right? The universe thinks that I’m more valuable than Peggy. I’m the Captain but people don’t know that Peggy is the one who worked everything out. We wouldn’t have even known about Irision if it weren’t for her,” I continued.

My words slipped out of my mouth and I was filled with certainty that I had a good plan despite the nausea rising in my stomach.

“That could work,” Aquila mused quietly.

“It would be too tempting for him, wouldn’t it? We could make him think that we were bringing other fugitives with us. Maybe we could leak that Andy was on one of the transport ships then he’d think that the IA or Guardians could take us both and then we could… I don’t know. Capture them? Lock them up and use them to get to Harvey?”

My heart raced as I stared at Aquila. The look on her face was a strange one. She almost looked proud.

“It’s risky,” she said.

That wasn’t a no.

“I don’t care. It would work, wouldn’t it? We could get her back.”