My heart pounded in my chest and I felt dizzy as we watched the ships speed towards us through the atmosphere. The tiny speck was barely visible but it was there.

“How do we know that Peggy is in there?” I asked, not willing to even blink in case I missed something.

Nervous anticipation roared in me. We were so close. It was so close to this being over. Soon, we might have Peggy back.

And the Council might have me again.

Or this it could be a trick and Peggy might not even be in there and I could be captured anyway.

“We don’t,” Elliot muttered darkly. “Aquila says they’ve sent her pictures of Peggy inside the ship but… we don’t know for sure.”

I swallowed nervously. I hadn’t heard her say that but I assumed they had some kind of mods or something that let them communicate without me overhearing. It made sense, he was her second in command and in case something bad happened, she’d need to communicate with him privately.

Her ship's coming towards us, I told the others, despite knowing that they would be able to see her too. I just needed to say something to them. Aquila’s seen pictures of Peggy inside the ship.

Oh good! Gem sent back, an undercurrent of anxiety buzzing in her voice.

The ships grew larger along with my anxiety. I wanted to run out onto Romikhi-Eight and wait for them to arrive like we’d seen crazed fans do for famous crews. I’d seen a video of people doing that for Andy and Elliot’s crew years ago, before everything happened. When I saw the video, I hadn’t understood how anyone could ever care that much about a ship landing but now, I did.

“Almost ready?” Elliot asked me.

I nodded without looking away from the ship which was steadily moving closer. There was no point in trying to respond; I knew my voice would be unsteady.

“Do we need to do anything to get ready for the handover?” Tuc asked Elliot.

“Nah, I think we’ve got it all sorted. Oh, wait, no. You need to have your hair tied back like they said, don’t you?” Elliot said.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see he was looking at me. I’d forgotten that was one of the Council’s requests when I was getting ready earlier and had just thrown my hair into a plait. They’d specifically said I needed it to be pulled back so that they could make sure I wasn’t wearing a disrupter.

“Shit,” I said, roughly pulling the hair tie from the end of my plait and starting to comb it out with my fingers.

My shaking hands snagged on knots, pulling roughly as I tried to undo it without looking away from Peggy’s ship.

“Hey, hey, be careful. You’ll pull it all out at this rate,” Tuc said, laying a hand on my arm to try and stop me.

“I don’t care,” I said, yanking hard and hearing some hairs snap.

“You should! Your hair is already damaged from having it tied up every day, you need to be gentle with it. Wait there.”

Tuc slunk to the back of the cockpit and I could hear him digging around in one of the cupboards. He returned before long, holding a comb.

“I knew someone would have stashed this somewhere in the ship. Too many people use this ship for hookups.” He shook his head but I could hear that he was smirking.

“Thanks,” I said, distractedly reaching out for the comb as the ship started to shake slightly.

“I’ll do it, you’re in no fit state. Don’t worry, I won’t pull. I used to do my daughter’s hair all the time.”

It took a minute for his words to sink in but when they finally did, I ripped my eyes away from the approaching ship.

“You have a daughter?” I asked, my mouth hanging open.

He’d never mentioned her before and I’d never seen her around Freo.

“Had. I had her when I was just a kid myself really. It’s when I was still acting for the Council,” he said, softly combing my hair.

I was silent. The tension in the room was palpable as he gently brushed my hair out. I didn’t know what to say.

“I got another actress pregnant and we both wanted to keep the kid. There were quite a few roles going for pregnant women at the time so that wasn’t a problem for Alli. We used to stay up all night fantasising about being a real acting family. You know, like the Dogarts? They had a whole reality show about them. We thought maybe we could be the same,” he broke off with a sad chuckle.

I chewed my lip and glanced at Elliot. He was staring out the window but I could tell he was listening to what Tuc was saying too. His shoulders were tense, like he knew where Tuc’s story was going, but neither of us said anything. We just let Tuc talk.

“I proposed to her. I wanted to do it live on air when we were interviewing for this ridiculous movie we’d both been in because I knew Alli would love that but my agent had talked me out of it. Alli said yes, of course. I mean who could refuse a proposal from me,” he tried to joke but his tone was too melancholic. “We wanted to wait until we had Anya before we got married but… Our agents said to wait. Apparently, the public would have thought we were too young to get married. It was dumb. I didn’t care about that. I would have married her the day I met her and I should have but she trusted them. She said to wait.”

His fingers gently combed my scalp as he gathered my hair back into a ponytail.

“Turns out, the Council didn’t like us as a family though. They thought I’d be better suited to a different actress. One with a cleaner image. They said that the public never would have bought that Alli was a good mom but she was perfect. Our agents said the only way for us to continue acting for the Council was to continue as if nothing had happened. They convinced us to put Anya in an orphanage. I visited her as much as I could, sent them all the money I was making, tried to book roles where I was near her but… it wasn’t enough. Alli’s roles dried up but I was getting more offers than ever. She tried—“ Tuc broke off and he had to swallow a couple of times before he could continue. “She tried to adopt Anya. She would have given her everything. She would have been an incredible mom.”

I waited for him to continue but he didn’t.

“What happened?” I asked quietly.

“They refused. Council’s orders. Apparently, she wasn’t fit to be a mother,” Tuc said flatly.

I’d never heard of someone being refused to adopt a child before. On Nova, orphanages were so full that if someone came forwards to request a kid, they basically handed them out without questioning it. It was dangerous how easy it was.

“Could she not have appealed it?” I asked.

“Probably but they would have refused again. It was too late anyway.” Tuc’s voice was thick with emotion.

I could hear that he was fighting back tears. Through the window, I saw the Guardian ship land, dust pluming around the ship.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Anya died. Pneumonia. I tried to request an investigation but they didn’t care. Alli killed herself not long after that. The two loves of my life gone. Just like that…”

Tears prickled my eyes and I wanted to turn around and hug Tuc but the radio blared loudly, startling us all.

He sniffed loudly, stepping around me and wiping his cheeks.

“Your hair’s done. Elliot, it’s the Guardians,” he said.

Elliot tapped his ear once to activate his comms device before reaching for the radio.

“Captain Hanoa speaking,” he said in an unexpectedly gruff voice.

I looked at him in shock, not expecting fake name.

“Captain Ellis here,” a feminine voice said. “We have the detainee and we are ready to make the exchange.”