Ravi braced himself at the muster room table, eyes pinned on the door. He could hear the crew barreling down the hall, already erupting with noise. If their jittery energy was anything like his own, he hadn't been the only person who had trouble getting to sleep last night. He'd fought a battle just getting them to leave the old storeroom at all. Not that it was a storeroom. Whatever it was.

Lio burst through the door first. Hair in a messy topknot, uniform disheveled, he was still beautiful. The joy in his eyes and his smile and every fleet step made him incandescent. A needling stab of jealousy lanced down Ravi's spine. Two days ago, Lio might've looked that way for him. He was embarrassed as soon as he thought it. It wasn't as if Lio was driving away from him in a lightship yelling, "So long, sucker!" over his shoulder. They didn't even know for sure if that stuff below was a lightship. He shifted uneasily as the rest of the crew found their seats.

"Morn—" He started, and the crew ran right over him with speedy greetings, leaning forward in their chairs. Ready to cut to the chase, then. "Jossen and I have decided to postpone today's schedule so we can address the...situation from yesterday."

Aziri raised his hand. "Do you mean Yorune's gloop from lunch? Because that needs addressing."

"I'd like to see you do better." Yorune grinned and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

"Focus, people," Lio murmured. He gave Ravi an encouraging smile, his eyes lit with hope.

Ravi looked away so the entire crew didn't have to watch him gawp like an idiot at Lio. "It's clear that there's more work to be done downstairs uncovering more of the metal. Jossen has worked out a system that'll help us remove rock, where half the crew works in the storeroom to move the debris up to the main tunnel, and the other half moves it outside. We'll take shifts of course, and hopefully by the time the experts get here, we'll have—"

"The experts?" Lio asked.

"I'll be contacting the ziggurat to let Archcom Huseda know we may have found something. I assume they'll send out a team."

There was a beat of silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lio's smile vanish.

"You can't do that," he said.

Ravi stared at him, heat spreading up his neck into his cheeks as the crew's gazes bobbled back and forth between his face and Lio's.

Lio blinked rapidly. "I mean...not that you can't, but we're not at that stage yet! I need—we need time to—"

Delaying notification felt a lot like lying to the Archcom by omission. "We need to notify the ziggurat. They have experts, better tools, and they're the ones who say if something is a real Mastali artifact or not. We'll follow their lead on next steps." He nodding sharply at the crew. "Our subal will give you the specifics. Head out."

The crew stood, far more subdued than they had been a few seconds ago. Good. They needed to keep their heads screwed on about this. And one of them in particular might have a hard time with that. "Lio," he muttered. "Stay a minute."

Jossen led the others out, and Lio lowered himself back into a chair. Ravi took a seat opposite him. "Look," he said quietly, "I understand that this is exciting, but we need to follow protocol—"

Lio shook his head, wayward strands of hair flying around his face. "There's no protocol for this. And if you tell the ziggurat, they'll take it away from us. They won't let it stay at Opalina."

"That decision isn't our call. If that really is a lightship, it's not...it's not ours, Lio."

Lio clasped his hands tight, leaning into the table. "Just a few more days. Please."

"And then what? We have to contact the ziggurat anyway and explain why we waited so long?" Ravi let out a frustrated breath through his nose. "Give me an actual reason to hold off on calling them."

He got a long, desperate stare, and then exactly what he didn't want to hear. Half out of his seat, Lio leaned across the table. "Please, Ravi. You know how much this means to me. If I matter to—"

"Don't." He jerked backward. Couldn't meet Lio's eyes, so he stared at his hands instead. "Don't try to use...anything about the two of us. Give me a reason that benefits the crew, and a way to protect everyone from getting in trouble when Archcom Huseda wants to know why we held out. Otherwise, I don't think there's an alternative." He couldn't quite believe the move Lio had just tried to pull. It scalded in his chest. Playing on their personal relationship was completely out of bounds.

Lio was still begging with his expression, but then he slumped back in his chair. "They'll take it away."

"Well, if they do, I'm sorry. But it's not your toy." It was harsh. Probably too harsh, and he wanted to take it back as soon as Lio flinched. He kept quiet, waiting for Lio to come up with another idea. Or better yet, apologize for forcing him to hold a line neither of them should've tried to cross. Lio said nothing, and then he shoved up from his chair, turned his back to Ravi and walked out of the room.

He was left in the empty muster room, glaring at the door as it hissed shut. Slamming back in his chair hard enough that the back of the seat protested, he raked his hands over his head. Maybe that metal wasn't a Mastali alloy. Maybe that wasn't a never-before-seen nav console. Honestly, he hoped it wasn't.

Things had finally been going well. He had a good crew, and a plan to make them great. A fresh reputation to establish. He was on the way to earning the kind of command win that he needed for his own resume, and bolstering his crew along with it. And he had Lio. The lazy, sunny dispensation days were already a million years gone.

Feeling a bit as if he were betraying the crew, he muttered a request to the Little. Sweet Mischief Goddess, make it something else. Just a storeroom. They'd be disappointed, but they'd recover, and then he could get them all back on track. If it really was an impossible, ancient, only-one-of-its-kind bullshit fucking lightship, it was going to be nothing but trouble.

He pushed to his feet, jaw locked, and found his slate to send a missive to the Archcom.

The crew was on break for lunch when Ravi went down to meet the Enlightenment unit the ziggurat dispatched. Outside, the weather was an unpleasant surprise. Classic Fennec region storm blowing through, the sky bellowing with thunder and crackling with distant lightning. He stood at the end of the mag lane, arms crossed, head lowered beneath a light spray of rain, watching the hov approach. To his surprise, only a single figure climbed out, dragging what looked like a small, wheeled toolbox. The hov retreated, and the man staggered up the muddy trail toward Ravi. "Com Endessen?" the newcomer asked.

"Yeah. You want help with that?"

"No." The clipped answer sounded a bit annoyed. "Tarik Sarrel. You reported a possible artifact? It's not a rock, is it? I can't do anything about rocks that may or may not have been handled by the Mastali. There's no way to tell."

"Uh, no. It's...I mean, it kind of has to do with rocks. But there's metal under the rocks."

"I see." Tarik followed him up the trail, wiping rainwater from his brows. He banged the toolbox against every single pebble and boulder on the mountain on their way up to the outpost entrance.

"I thought they'd send a few more people," Ravi said carefully, pausing to wait at the door to give Tarik time to catch up. The inspector wore com rank, so at least he was probably decent at his job, although unaccompanied.

"This is the Fennec region. We get reports of Mastali artifacts every other day." He and the toolbox reached Ravi. "And most of them are old hov parts. Or carved brew cans buried by the Fennec locals to prank tourists." He glared at Ravi, as if he suspected him of reported a cache of old cans. "Sending a full crew is a waste of time."

When Ravi wrenched the door open and ushered the Enlightenment inspector into the main tunnel, Tarik's upper lip curled. "I didn't think this place was as bad as everyone said it was. I stand corrected."

Ravi held his tongue. Opalina looked rough on the outside, and it took some getting used to. He'd had a similar reaction when Jossen had first brought him in. But he hadn't been so fucking rude about it.

A quick check of his holowatch told him the crew would likely still be teasing each other and cleaning up in the mess hall. Lucky they weren't in the storeroom, because Tarik wouldn't make a good impression on them. If he could keep the inspector away from them, all the better. "Let's try to make this quick," he said. He grabbed a lantern, plucked up the toolbox, and started down the old storeroom stairs, ignoring Tarik's affronted sniff.