Lio swept his grin across the rest of the crew, and got a few wobbly giggles. Teres shook her head, but smiled. Someone muttered a direction for the seatbelt to release, and Lio echoed it at his own chair. His seatbelt unlocked and liquified into the rest.

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to congratulate the crew, but a sharp voice blared from outside the ship.

"Opalina Outpost crew! Get the fuck out here, right now!" thundered the voice.

Ravi snapped up from his collapsed state, his features drenched in sweat. "Archcom Huseda."

"She can't have gotten here from the Fennec region so fast," Aziri breathed.

"Must be an imager transmission," Rosareen said. She hugged her arms tight around her body.

A loud thud echoed at the back of the control room, and Lio stared at the door. It didn't move, but it was taking a battering. Someone was pounding at it furiously. His stomach descended faster than a diving lightship. That wasn't a transmission.

"Open this door!" Huseda roared.

"Shit," Duhar said. He looked at Ravi. "Do we let—"

"Yeah." Ravi's teeth were gritted. He stood and marched to the door, reaching for the interior pane to open it.

"Don't step outside the ship!" Lio blurted, just as the door hissed aside, retracting for a retinue of armored bots, Enforcers, and a spitting mad Archcom. The bots forged into the room on treads, pushing Ravi backwards. The human Enforcers who came after them were decidedly more hesitant, staring around at the luminescent interior.

Huseda wasted no time being impressed with their achievements. "What were you thinking!" she bawled. "Stealing the fucking most important asset in all the Amica Territories!"

An Enforcer com at her shoulder advanced toward Ravi. "You're the com of this crew?"

"Yes."

Lio heard Ravi's voice on the edge of wobbling, and he leapt up from his chair to get closer to him. Whatever happened, it wasn't on Ravi's shoulders. "Hang on," he said. "We haven't technically done anything—"

"You have illegally requisitioned the classified property of Suzerain Aureli's Territory," the Enforcer com said, voice unruffled. "This crew will be brigged until special trial before the Suzerain's Commissioners."

Teres whimpered, and Ravi let out a sound like he'd just punctured a lung. Lio shook his head. "We have not," he said, trying to match the Enforcer com's even tone. "We stayed at our post this whole time. This is Opalina Outpost, and we're the currently assigned crew. See for yourself."

There was a long silence. The Enforcer com cast a sidelong look at Huseda, but the Archcom was too busy glaring daggers at him, her eyes slits and arms folded.

"Check the ripples," the Enforcer said, and one of the bots rolled between crew members, scanning the metal circles hanging on the front of their uniforms. Duhar scrambled to fish his out of his pocket. The bot wheeled around, and its mechanical voice broke the quiet. "All ripples authorized. Opalina Outpost crew at full muster."

The Enforcer com's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Alior, you sneaky little shit—" Huseda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. He knew what she was debating. She hadn't reassigned them anywhere yet, so Opalina was technically still theirs. The Commissioners couldn't deny that Opalina was still an active outpost when they were about to kick up a fuss about selecting a new crew for it. And there weren't any branch rules forbidding a crew from flying around in their outpost. As long as they didn't set foot off of the lightship, they were within their assigned bounds. Thank the goddesses. Although his mother was undoubtedly still going to consider disowning him after this.

Huseda lifted her head. "Stay here," she growled. "And keep that damn door open. Half the Enforcers followed her, while the rest stayed with the bots, supervising the crew.

Lio tilted his head toward Ravi and gave him a little nod of reassurance. Ravi's expression was blank, and he turned away to pace the length of the control room.

None of them dared speak with their futures still hanging heavy in the air. He was fairly certain they would get past this hurdle, even if it was on the strength of a technicality. The next difficulty was convincing the Commissioners to keep their current assignment to Opalina. And please goddesses, ensure his mother wasn't on her way to drag him out by the ear.

They waited. And continued to wait. Lio sank back into his chair. Duhar twirled around in his seat. Onfenka stared down the Enforcers guarding them. Yorune studied the ceiling. And Ravi never ceased pacing, weaving among the nav consoles and around the room without ever once making eye contact.

Pale, young light misted the sky outside the windshield by the time Huseda finally returned. Her footsteps thudded up a gangway to the lightship, and she clumped over the threshold. Lio leapt up, his exhausted legs twitching with the effort.

"Well." Huseda shook her head. "You are all the luckiest idiots I've ever met. The Commissioners have agreed that technically, you can't steal your own assigned post."

A gust of released breath went up around the room, from everyone but Ravi. Lio adjusted his stance so he could keep his com in his field of vision.

Huseda continued, "As of right now, you are all formally decommissioned from Opalina Outpost. You will go before the Suzerain's Commissioners for a debrief on...whatever you did to the ship. Likely later tonight, when they're ready for you. Until then, the Enforcers will escort you to accommodations."

They were hustled out as soon as hovs arrived to whisk them away. Lio ran his hand along the doorframe, a silent promise to the ship that he'd be back. He followed the crew down the gangway and into one of the two waiting hovs.

It was not a long trip. The Enforcers ushered them out of the hovs and into a grassy courtyard surrounded on three sides by a low brick building with a neatly tiled roof. White doors and round porthole windows were interspersed evenly among the brick face and planters full of plastic flowers, indicating the small apartments where they would stay. The Enforcer com programed their biometrics and ripples to the doors and instructed them that they were free to get comfortable in the rooms, use the courtyard at their leisure, and go absolutely nowhere else. Then they were left alone.

Duhar dropped to the grass with a thump. "Goddess, I'm so tired."

"I can't believe that worked," Yorune said, marveling at the sky as if she expected to see their lightship overhead.

"What happens now?" Jossen asked. "Aren't we right back where we started?"

"Not exactly," Aziri said. "We have a case to make before the Commissioners for why they should keep us on Opalina. Getting summoned is our chance to convince them. Right, Lio?"

They looked to him, except Ravi, who was staring down at his toes. Lio gave them his most confident smile. "Yes, exactly. They can't just dismiss us after everything we've achieved."

Ravi looked up. "Can I talk to you?" The crew went silent as he broke out of their circle and grabbed Lio by his forearm. He towed him into a far corner of the courtyard, as far away from the group as possible. Then he dropped his hold.

"When you came up with this idea, did you plan this part?" Ravi demanded.

Lio searched his face, trying to pick out the emotion he saw there. Worry, maybe. Possibly anger. Nothing positive. He swallowed. "I thought we'd plead our case to Archcom Huseda, not the Commissioners directly. But I think it's better this way."

Ravi folded his arms. "You were going to do this without Jossen. And without me."

"Ravi, we couldn't tell you. You're responsible and rational and you wouldn't let us do something so..." He searched for the right word.

"Stupid?" Ravi suggested. "Dangerous? Incredibly reckless? Really fucking—"

"Yes." Lio couldn't help but reach out, his fingertips brushing Ravi's arm. "All that. None of us wanted to leave you out. But we didn't think we had time to convince you, either. And besides, you ended up right where you should be. With...with the crew." He wanted to say something different. But even unvoiced, Ravi seemed to understand, because his expression softened slightly.

The com flicked a glance toward the crew somewhere behind Lio and rocked forward a half-step. "I can't decide whether I want to yell at you or kiss you, you maniac," he hissed. He passed a hand over his face and let out a shaky breath. "No, don't look at me like that—I'm still pissed at you. And you can't ever do something like that again."

Something unknotted in Lio's chest. He very nearly leaned into Ravi's arms, regardless of the fact that they weren't hidden at all. But that was the sort of impulse Ravi would want him to curb, and so he did nothing but grin.

"We should talk through a plan for meeting with—" Ravi stopped, his eyes widening at something behind Lio. "Holy fuck."

Lio turned. Enforcers stalked into the courtyard, a different crew from the earlier one, scanning everything. They wore the distinctive purple and silver armbands of an elite personal guard. The sight turned his blood to ice. Because behind them, striding across the courtyard with chin held high was—

"The Suzerain!" Yorune's awe was loud enough that it drifted to Lio's ears.

Half the crew managed to salute as she breached their circle, but Duhar was still on the ground with his mouth wide open, and Yorune was performing something that looked like a mix between a bow and a dance.

Nothing on the lightship ride had managed to make him this nauseous.

"Lio, that's Suzerain Aureli," Ravi whispered, drifting a step past him.

He grabbed Ravi's hand. "Listen, please, don't hate me, I meant to tell you by now, I just—"

"Alior!" His mother caught sight of him and doubled her pace. Her guards flocked around her. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't see Ravi's face, and dimly felt the hand he held wrench away.

His mother descended, still yelling. "That was completely unacceptable! First Goddess, I thought I was about to watch my youngest child die on that awful course—" She seized him and dragged him forward into a smothering hug.

"Not a child," he mumbled. He was undermining his protest with the fact that his eyes were squeezed shut against a nightmare. He was supposed to have found time to tell Ravi already. Ravi was supposed to know. Not find out like this.

"Lio." His mother actually sounded a bit watery, and he cracked an eye open to look at her. She never cried. "You're alright, aren't you?" she asked. Her palm was cool when she put it to his cheek.

Somewhere in the midst of his panic, a different sort of guilt arose. The blame for whatever happened next lay with him, not his mother. And he'd frightened her. "Mamina, I'm fine." At the very edge of his sight, he glimpsed Ravi poised expressionless as a carved pillar.

"Thank all the goddesses. Come on." She turned, looping her arm through his. "The rest of the family is at the house, and you need to eat something—"

He dug his heels into the grass. "Mamina. I'm staying here. With my crew."

She swung back to glower at him. "No, you are absolutely not. We need you safely home."

"This is my home, too." Gently, he extricated his arm and squeezed her extended hand between both of his. "I got the crew into this, and I need to see them through it."

She blinked and eyed the small cluster of his watching friends. Shock blazed across their faces. Really should've given them some forewarning. He'd been fooling himself to think she wouldn't swoop in at the first opportunity.

"I see," she said. "That is...quite admirable, Alior." She sighed. "The seeing them through it part, not the getting them into it bit." She pursed her lips and signaled the guards ahead. "I've recused myself from your upcoming discussion with the Commissioners, of course. But I insist you come to the house once they've made their decisions."

"Thank you, Mamina," he said.

She gave him another hug, and then waved at the crew as she and her retinue swanned out of the courtyard.

As soon as she was gone, his shoulders slumped. Dread closed like flood waters over his head. Before he could summon the courage to turn around and face Ravi, the com zipped past him with a clipped walk so rapid it was nearly a run. Ravi reached the crew, folded himself down onto the grass and sat blankly staring at his knees.

Lio drowned his groan before it could escape. Goddess, this was going to be terrible. Slowly, he inched back toward his friends. Possibly former friends.The Wrath Goddess had just repaid him for stealing her lightning.