We wait.

And we wait.

My back aches from holding the awkward position so long. Coodi squirms at my side. Even though we're miles above our enemies, we remain silent, unable to do anything louder than breathing. They're like ants on a gameboard from up here. As small and powerless as they seem, I know that once we get our boots to the ground, all that changes.

My muscles scream from holding my bodyweight up while under John. To escape the pain, my mind repeats the plan's sequence over and over and over again until the steps drift through my subconscious without actively thinking about it. I shift more weight to my arms to alleviate my numb legs. Coodi must not be fairing much better, but she's gone completely still.

A tiny buzz builds in my ear.

Ledi's crisp accent sweeps away all thoughts of pain. "Port-two. Releasing shields now... Transferring ship schematics to Xani Rover..."

It's the same one he uses on HMS Valediction—his factory setting. He must be in a place where he can't use his voice box, so he speaks through the connection between my radio button and his synthetic body. That worries me.

A lot of time has passed. I wonder if everything has gone according to the plan so far.

"Roger. We're oscar mike."

"What does that mean?" Moon's grainy whisper comes through.

Good, so at least he can speak. "Oscar Mike. That's code for 'on the move'."

"Why didn't you simply say that? None of us are privy to your useless Earth lingo."

I cut the channel. "Okay, John, let's go. Port-two."

Movement releases some of the tension I'm holding in my body. I can shift to a different position—grip the gears inside John's hydraulics from a different angle. I twist side to side and crack my spine.

We move.

John taps along the ceiling as quietly as a shadow. We maneuver through the Olympi's corridors, sticking to the darkened parts that camouflage John's metal. Finally, we squeeze between another set of ceiling ducts and arrive at an enormous hangar. Unlike the previous hangar, this one is completely sealed—the sleek silver ship trapped within it rests in the middle as silently as if it's asleep.

It's ARC4.

The last time I saw this ship, I was running from it. I was holding my belly and pushing past the searing pain from the brand burned into my neck as I squinted past the bright rays of the alien sun reflecting off its metallic hulls.

I remember the hatch lowered. Kai ran toward me. He called my name and begged to know if my child was his. I still can't give him an answer as I've never gotten a clear-enough or long-enough look at my son to even know what color eyes he has—how dark his hair is—how bright his smile is or how strong his hands are.

I shake the sudden anxiousness biting my insides. Now isn't the time to worry.

"Okay, John. We need to enter ARC4 but keep the integrity of the ship's hull. Don't do that thing you normally do. No burrowing. Got it?"

One small light near my left cheek pulses. I'm going to take that as a grudging yes.

Down below, near ARC4's entrance, maybe twenty guards stand or pace. They carry their spears close to their chests, resting them on their shoulders as they march back and forth, circling the entire ship.

Ten more patrol the back. Beyond that, ten or fifteen more sit out of reach, scoping out the bigger picture.

Coodi activates her PAHLM. The blue hologram shines, trickling down her wrist and up her fingers until her entire hand is enveloped by the blue light. I forgot how perfectly the pixels wrap our hands.

Bending her fingers to tap at the letters that appear in the center of her palm, she types out a message—

SPIDERMAN READY—SEND LIGHT

I nod. Send it. I hope Kai still remembers that night he helped me descend the vents of the URE. I hope he remembers the name he gave me and the little nuances of our banter. If not, the whole plan will be fucked.

Please remember.

We wait.

Sweat drips down my cheek. I'm not sure if it's from the force of my fear or the strain from holding this position for so long. It drops from my face and lands on the crux of my shaking arm.

Coodi trembles beside me. John's motors are becoming oppressively hot. If it wasn't for his legs bent to support our hips, we may have fallen to our deaths a while ago.

We wait more.

A bright white beam shines upward. I see it for barely a second.

He figured it out.

Thank the Lady.

Tapping John's legs, I urge him forward. He leaps from the walls and lands on the topmost part of the ship. The beam shines one more time, directing us to an airlock facing the ceiling. Through the porthole, Kai peers through with his PAHLM's flashlight against his forehead.

His eyes grow wide as he recoils from the door.

I disentangle from John's underbelly and land on the ship's hull—as quietly as I can, I run toward the airlock. Coodi drops and follows behind.

We crouch low. Pain shoots up my back when I force it to curl in the opposite direction as we get as close to the ground to avoid detection.

When Kai sees me and Coodi, he rushes to action, quietly opening the hatch and allowing us to slip in.

He closes the door behind us, slamming it before John can crawl through. "I thought I killed that thing."

"If you want to make it out of here alive, you need to trust him." I don't look at Kai as I speak. Instead, I fuss over particles of John's flakey skin that rubbed off on my jacket. I pull out a large piece stuck between the folds of my blue pants that I'd rolled up above my favorite boots. 

"Are you serious? It tried to rip my guts out with its blade-fingers, Janika. But you probably wouldn't remember, would you? You were too busy sprinting away like I was the one coming at you with the fucking knives."

I raise my gaze and give him my hardest stare-down. "Thank the goddamn Heap I'm not here to personally save your ass. This isn't about us. Right now, we need to focus on getting ARC4 out."

Kai says nothing. His tight jaw tells me that he has a thousand words and questions brewing, but he's not sharing a single sentence.

"How are the civilians?" I turn my attention to my cracked thumbnail. 

"No. You don't get out of this that easy."

"I don't have time to—"

"Is it mine?"

I grind my teeth, glaring at him, hoping he'll leave it alone if I don't relent. His return stare is as heated as mine, his black shaggy hair framing his eyes that are just as bright as they were the last time he held me down and possibly put my son in me.

"I can't do this. There's no time." The hole in my heart is more painful than the stone in my gut. "Kai, I'm sorry."

He raises his brow.

Part of me wants to dive farther into this apology—to explain my actions on Heedeem—but the other part is still pissed and doesn't think he deserves the effort. I exhale in exasperation. "I was dealing with a lot of shit and didn't handle it well, okay?"

"I don't care about what happened." His voice is soft as he inches closer. "Is it mine?"

"Does it matter?"

Kai scratches the stubble on his chin. "Only because it's something I did that Freyer-the-Wonder-Giant couldn't."

The urge to punch him is all-encompassing.

"But, yeah. It does matter." He grabs his wrist and twists it around absently. "We probably shouldn't report it... which means it won't be registered as an active civilian. You won't get extra credit stipends for it. So I can be there for you. I can help."

I open my mouth to respond, but he cuts me off.

"—I'll take it on ARC4. I can raise it with my boys. I've got two now and two more on the way. I heard things have been floating on the ugly side of a shit-river over on ARC10, so I can do that for you. I can take it. Or them. What was it? Them? They?"

"Are you done?"

He blinks twice.

"I don't know."

"What? What don't you know?"

"All of it. I don't know if he's yours, I don't know how I'm going to take care of him and I especially don't know where he is right now."

"How is that possible?" He runs a hand through his hair, pulling it back and letting it flop back over his eyes again.

"They stole him. Cut him from my fucking body and took him away. Now I'm trying to get him back."

Kai pales. "Who did this? Who stole him?"

"The URE, Kai. It was the UR-fucking-E. They lied to us." I wave my hand between him, me, and Coodi to demonstrate. "You, me, her, them—we've been tricked into thinking that the URE had a home for all of us."

When I think the news will ignite something rabid and fierce in Kai similar to how I watched him burst into furious action a few times before, I'm startled by his continuous shrinking. "I know."

"You know? What do you mean you know?"

"Hey, it's not like I knew from when we launched or anything." He holds his hands up in defense. "I found out right before Juno took us hostage."

A blonde head appears from the deck below. Our guest's thin, pale lips form a small 'o' of surprise. "Holy Mother... Janika Lorn? Is that you?"

"Commander Cambell, it's good to see you." My heart sinks. "You look well."

Of course she looks great. They were chosen to lead the ship that the URE actually cared about.

"Does she know?" I nod toward Cambell.

Kai faces her and grins. "Yeah, she knows too."

I hope Kai can detect my furtive glances under the cover of my hair. Do you trust her? I need him to read my question. Do you trust her? Do you trust anyone? 

I've come to learn that my memories are sometimes far more sensory-loaded than my reality. I remember the night we possibly conceived my son. I remember the rushed and frantic way he held my shoulders—the possessive way he caught my body within his embrace and pinned me down. It was something I needed at that moment—to feel like I was part of something human, animalistic and hungry. I was hungry that night too and needed the release from my isolation. But when the sweat, heat, heavy hands, and rhythmic dance ended, I was satisfied. I trusted that he was too.

Can I trust Kai?

No. I don't. Not alone and not when it comes to me.

But does he love his people? Does he fight for what is good for the civilians?

All eyes are on me. Cambell enters the airlock as Kai and I keep performing our awkward interrogation. 

Finally, Kai breaks the quiet. "What I'm confused about is what's going on with you, Lorn. I imagined ARC10 was low on supplies and luck and all that. Looks like you're a product of that, Warrant Officer Coodi. But you, Lorn..." He outlines the air in front of him, his hands waving down invisible, exaggerated curves. He grins. "What's the story there?"

I roll my eyes. "Do you always have to be an insensitive prick?"

He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the bulkhead. "I'm waiting."

When I tell the story in its entirety—starting from the moment we all shared in the briefing room of Level 6 Combat Room 4, and capping it off with hiding in John's undercarriage to climb aboard the ARC4—a weight is lifted from my heart. A streak of pride rushes over my skin and I sit a little straighter, hold my head a little higher. 

"I've fucked up a lot," I say as Kai and Cambell stew in my story. "But the people are alive and I'm here to make sure they find their freedom."

Kai reaches out as if to grab my hand but stops inches above it. "Then what?"

Pulling my hand out of his reach, I scratch at an itch I don't have on the back of my head. "Then I stay with them. Protect them. Raise my son away from the URE's touch. I'm sticking to the plan this time."

He raises one of his sculpted brows at me in the exact same way he used to when we were still young and playful underground. "You? Stick to a plan?"

"I'm a new woman who's off quelling mutinies and inciting revolutions and everything." 

Staring at me with those startling blue eyes that were easy to disappear into before, he radiates hope. It's the first time in a while I've seen it clearly.

"So... Spiderman, huh?" He pulls a pair of needle-nose pliers from his back pocket. Most likely, those are the exact same pliers he used to break into Dome 3 when I was trying to find a way into Operation Homecoming back when Dean thought I was pregnant and was trying to stop me. "You remembered that?"

I laugh at the inside joke while Coodi and Cambell stare blankly at the tool. "It wasn't all a huge tragedy. We had some good times."

"You never let me tell you how sorry I was about that day. I was losing my mind. I never wanted to hurt you. You've always been the famous Janika Lorn and I was starstruck that you were almost mine. Can you forgive a dumb kid?" He clips me with his elbow.

"I need you to gather your VIPERs and any militia presence, any willing civilians you can. Gather them at your ship's main deck." I gaze up the ladder toward the hatch we crawled down from maybe thirty minutes ago. Turning to my button, I tap it, activating the communicator. "Nuna, this is Lorn."

"It's good to hear your voice again, my good Commander."

"Dock two."

"We're on our way. Or how do you call it? Oscar Mike?"

She laughs in her response. Kai's interest is piqued. He studies the button. "What is this? That's not Earth's Militia."

"No. It's not."

He grabs my hand and flips it over, my palm up. "Where's your PAHLM?"

"It broke."

Coodi clears her throat.

"Okay, okay. It broke a long time ago and now that it's fixed, I've had enough time without it that I don't want it anymore."

He grunts in response. It's a noise to indicate that he heard me, but I don't think he understands. It's the same non-committal noise he'd make every time I told him that nothing was ever going to happen between us. "That's going to make it hard to—"

"No. It won't. Wait for my signal. Prepare everyone and wait for my signal."

"I'll know the signal when I see it, won't I?" The bubbly humor is back in his voice.

"Always." Leaning on the ladder, my foot and hand already on the ascent, he wraps his hand around my shoulder. He squeezes. For a second, my body reacts with panic, but I realize he's keeping his distance. He's standing at arm's length.

Kai and I are the same in this regard. We touch. We touch and like to be touched in return. I feel his strength passing through us like blood through vessels. "We'll get him back. We'll find him. Mine or not, We'll get your son."

"I know."

I exit, Coodi close behind me on the ladder.

When we slip out the hatch and John tik tik tik tiks over to us to provide our cover, I crouch down and tap the blue button on my collar again. 

"Phase three, begin."

**A/N**

ARE YOU READY FOR A BIRTHDAY PARTY???

HotSawwsNHoney HAPPY BIRTHDAY-- you asked for an early update, but I couldn't deliver 😭. But I promised cake and fireworks, so here we are. 🍰

You all have been such incredible support through these books, I wanted to learn more about you and hope that we can all get a little closer. 

First off, we need to learn more about the birthday girl. HotSawwsNHoney, what can I get you to drink? Cake, cupcake, or pie?

For the rest of the party guests--what are your favorite party drinks? What should I be serving here?

ALSO I AM ALWAYS UP FOR A GAME OF TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE. HotSawwsNHoney, would you be willing to start us off? You give us your three "facts" about yourself and I'll try to guess what are your two truths and which "fact" is your lie. I love this game so much. 

And we need party music. I've got a new band I just discovered playing in the background (The Family Crest). What are you listening to?

Ahh! Can't wait to learn more about all of you. I love you all so much 😭🎉