Lukas' exit off the bridge had been an inelegant one. The ship's alarms had disoriented him far worse than they should have, and it was only with Ricardia's firm presence did he have the decency of mind to avoid dropping down into a protective crouch right on the spot.

"Follow me," he heard her say, and so he did, letting her lead them through the Andromeda's now-panicked corridors and halls. The calls of the crew cut through the noise; those they saw pass by were flustered, and glistened with the shine of nervous sweat.

Ricardia did not think it would be wise to bring Lukas anywhere where there was a view of the outside. She was not one to shy away from the danger; if something terrible happened, she'd prefer witnessing it with her own eyes. But the boy was sinking deeper into his panic, and since she didn't know where his quarters were, they returned to her small, compact room.

There was a silver lining. The room, which had reminded Ricardia so painfully of her imprisonment, was the perfect capsule of peace for the boy to take shelter in. As the door slid shut, the chaos beyond faded to bearable levels.

Ricardia brought Lukas to the bed, to which he promptly sank down upon. Like a nervous bird, he perched along the edge of its frame, figure taut with tension. Below his thick thatch of hair, the boy's eyes were bright and feverish.

Ricardia found herself drifting over to the kitchen. Checking the cabinets, she found that someone had been thoughtful enough to stock her room with the typical travel essentials.

She selected a small bag of pebble-rice from the supplies, then busied herself with the task of boiling water, using a small pot she found. It was an act that was surprisingly reassuring; pebble-rice was a staple on Caedem, and Ricardia had spent many evenings side by side with her mother as they washed and cooked the large, lumpy grains together. They were often at odds with each other as Ricardia grew into adulthood, but cooking was something that connected them, even during the worst of their fighting.

After a while, she left the pot simmering on the electric stove and settled herself next to Lukas. For a while, they sat in silence. The nostalgia brought on by cooking was tenuous, and she found her thoughts lingering on her mother. Ricardia was an adult, long-past her years of adolescence. It had been a long time since she lived under the same roof as her mother and her late father. In fact, the news of her Candidacy had been the first serious conflict she'd had with her mother in years.

Ricardia felt shame about leaving her behind, even though she told herself she shouldn't. Mishana Yigera had always been an ambitious, greedy woman - had been the one to push her daughter into being a temple dancer in the first place. She believed that the Yigera family had faded with time, lost much of their influence since they'd first founded the settlement, named in their likeness. But it was never destined to last. Once Caedem had become stable enough, their political autonomy had been whittled away in exchange for their new planet. Ricardia never understood the way her mother romanticized a distant past she had never been a part of, yearning for a time when they were still an Independent people. For Ricardia, safety, and prosperity for everyone was more important than anything else. Her father felt the same, and did everything he could to support the Representatives and the Rete.

She stared at Lukas, and wondered if the nagging voice in her head telling her to face the responsibility of her Candidacy was simply Mishana's.

"You don't want to let her down," she said, startling them both. The words just seemed to slip out.

"Who?" Lukas mumbled, the words coming out of him slow and muddied.

"Your mother," Ricardia said. When he didn't answer, she continued. "I spent years of my life training, both my body and my Factor. My mother wanted me to be a temple dancer - she liked the prestige it brought her, made her feel like the family was important again."

"Again?"

"My ancestors led the Caedish migration," Ricardia explained. They were leaders before we were annexed into the Rete. Our world was small, and cold. There was no future there, no way for us to develop. The Rete offered us citizenship, protection, a new home, in exchange for our support and independence. I think my mother resents that, deep down. She's very traditional."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Temple dancing?" Ricardia smiled. "I didn't, for a long time, but I thought it was the right thing to do. To make her happy. Now... sometimes, I do feel inspired. But that was something I had to figure out. I'd probably be there in the temple right now, if it wasn't for the Awakening."

Lukas didn't answer immediately, and so Ricardia took advantage of the lapse to tend to the pebble-rice. Draining and seasoning the simple dish were mechanical actions; she'd done them a thousand times. Instead, her mind lingered on Lukas, and his mother, and also the potential danger they were all in.

She returned to the cot with a steaming bowl of pebble-rice, topped with a simple mix of salts and herbs.

After a slight hesitation, he took the bowl from her, digging into the soft rice with his fingers. They sat like that for a few minutes, passing the pebble-rice back and forth.

At some point, the ship began to shake occasionally, a deep thrum down in its bones. Ricardia didn't need to check her feed to know that they'd begun to engage in combat.

Strangely enough, however, she felt no fear. Her room was deep within the center of the ship, relatively close to the bridge. If there was significant damage, she'd have a fair warning. But her mood was more than just a product of rationalization. There was an odd peace within her at the moment. Simply by sharing a meal with this relative stranger, talking about her mother, she felt as though they'd built up some aspect of companionship.

Lukas appeared to feel similarly, because after they'd finished eating, his words seemed to flow easier, the tension in his body dropping away.

"I've never seen her like this before," he said, voice quiet. "She's been so intense on this trip, and when everything went down, I finally knew why. Is it wrong that I'm a little afraid of her now?"

They shared a grin at that, and Ricardia chuckled. "I don't blame you for that. She's a force of nature. But still..."

"Everyone's been saying it," Lukas cut in again. "Viktor and the others... they think she's pushing me too hard." The boy's gaze hardened as he looked at Ricardia. "But I want to see what its really like. I knew planataelogy can be a dangerous job, but that isn't something I'm afraid of."

"But that doesn't matter, does it?" Ricardia said, and Lukas seemed surprised by her answer. She thought of Ito, and the conference she had been dragged into. "Look, I'm not the biggest supporter of your mother-"

Ricardia paused then, realizing who she was speaking to, but Lukas just shrugged and waited for her to continue, so she did.

"She wants something from me, and the doctor, but won't tell a soul what her plans are. I know you feel like you're being pushed too hard here, but maybe you're focused on the wrong thing. Instead of worrying over whether or not your mother cares about you, maybe take a step back and ask yourself why she's dragged all of us across the Galaxy in the first place. I mean, you raided a prison and made it out - albeit a pretty shitty one." Ricardia smiled then. "I think you're more capable than people give you credit for."

Lukas held her gaze a moment longer before turning away, unwilling to allow Ricardia to see the color rising to his cheeks. He could handle himself, couldn't he? He'd always thought she deemed him incapable, but it was clear, upon thinking about it, that this assumption didn't line up with her actions. The trust she had placed on him during their most recent operation more than proved that - not to mention, allowing him to be present at the interrogation. If his mother was keeping him at arms-length, then maybe it was for a different reason altogether.

"Do you think... she's doing something wrong?" He asked Ricardia tentatively, still looking elsewhere. It wasn't lost on him that he knew far more about the situation than her, but he found himself enjoying her intuition.

"Well... the Purists are awful, and so are the Saiseki, right? Whatever plans she does have seem to be in opposition to them, so it can't be too terrible." She tried to keep her tone light, but failed. "I just wish I hadn't gotten caught up in all of this."

Lukas caught the heaviness in her voice, but couldn't bring himself to speak. Ito had explained that it was only her arrival that had saved him; offered a breakthrough into Project Genesis. He knew that he did not have the permission to speak this aloud, but wasn't it the right thing to do? He liked Ricardia, found her to be a solid presence. She was languid, yet possessed a defiance that she refused to hide from the people around her. It was a different sort of anger than the cold intensity of her mother; it was bright, and lively.

Ricardia studied the boy, and could tell by the way his eyes darkened that thoughts were raging behind them. She wondered what he was considering, and how much he knew of his mother's machinations.

The Caedish way was to value one's connections with the community; to think of the whole, rather than the needs of the individual. It was why her mother's blatant grasping for power had been such a shock, despite the constant undertones. It was one thing to feel that way, but to proclaim aloud her desire for influence and power went against the traditional way of thinking. But Ricardia had rejected her people's philosophy as well, choosing to save herself rather than become Caedem's avatar for the greater well-being. But Ferrus, being the hotbed of the largest unified territory, went by completely different rules. It was the seat of power for the entire Ferrem Rete, a place where reputation suggested that shrewdness and cunning were valued above all else.

Ricardia supposed Erin was just another player in a game of deception and leverage, working her angle to grow ever closer to the ruler of the Rete. She considered the idea of growing up in such a place, and found it displeasing. Still...

"You must really love what you do," she said. If nothing else, at least she could believe in his enthusiasm for academia.

Lukas perked up a bit at this. "Planatae are incredible. They're just... unfathomable, in a way. That's the reason I do love it," he added quickly. "It's like trying to conceptualize our three-dimensional world in a place with four dimensions. They're alive, and some of them think, but they're so different from how we function. Emotions, goals, dreams... it's impossible to say."

Ricardia was surprised by his answer. "I was expecting you to ramble on about the physical stuff," she said, chuckling, "like the way they create Factors."

Lukas was flippant. "That's all answerable, though. Observation, and logic, and data can explain how all of that works. But the other stuff... here, take this for example: did you know that on some words with particularly advanced Planatae, they actually take part in human affairs?"

Ricardia nodded. Caedem, of course, wasn't there yet, but it would be.

"They're so active that they become part of daily life. There's one Planatae that actually serves as the colony's judicial system - the most impartial judge possible!"

"Right," Ricardia said quietly. "They can use an Avatar to speak and communicate like a human would."

Lukas blanched. "Sorry..." he trailed off. Then he realized what he implied. "Sorry," he said again. "I shouldn't have learned about your business."

"It's okay," she answered, but they both knew it wasn't. "Why don't you tell me about the planet we're currently hurtling towards?"

Lukas gave a thin smile, but she could see the gleam in his eyes at the challenge. "Well... Alto II is a small, backwater colony, so Alto II - the Planatae - is barely sentient. That means that there's no conscious thought behind the planet's current Factor. If I'm not mistaken, everyone born there has a basic Body-Type Factor, gills that help them survive."

Ricarda nodded encouragingly, and so Lukas continued, talking about his predictions for Alto II's growth and eventual Awakening.

Their conversation was a thin facade, a dance around the topics that really mattered. Still, despite this, they were not uncomfortable in the small room. Both Ricardia and Lukas seemed to understand that the other had a sense of what they were going through; a shared tendril of expectations and heavy responsibility. That sense of guilt still lingered, of course, but Lukas appreciated Ricardia's honesty with him. There was a nagging part of him that had began to wonder how Erin had even known to intercept Ito's S.O.S. call in the first place...

But their ruminations were not destined to last long. The pressures of the world around them returned in full force, as if angry at their lapse in attention.

The Andromeda shook, harder than it had done so far, and Lukas almost stumbled off the side of the bed.

A quick check over the feed gave Ricardia all the information she needed. The Andromeda was truly engaged in battle now, and according to the ship's public reports, they were heading straight for a nearby planet - Alto II.

Another, more pressing detail she noticed was the deterioration of the ship. Chunks of the hull were being shorn off amidst the battle, each time triggering an alert across the feed. A crew-wide alert had already been released in anticipation, warning all nonessential crew to consolidate in the area surrounding the ship's bridge.

"We need to go back," she said aloud, and Lukas, who had just pulled himself out of the feed as well, nodded.

But as he rose to his feet, Ricardia held out a hand, stopping him.

"Wait," she said, voice low. "Are you alright?"

Lukas scowled, and Ricardia was reminded of how young he was.

"I'm fine," he said, "I just needed a few minutes to pull myself together."

"Are you sure?" She wasn't going to drop the point so easily.

"Yes!" He turned away from her, towards the door. "If we're all going to blow up, I'd rather not be surprised."

"Fair enough," she said, and rose to follow him.

...

The view that greeted Ricarida upon returning to the bridge was a very different one than when she had left. No longer was the crew a quiet, efficient machine. Instead, chaos reigned.

Aides scurried from one balcony to the next, pausing only to jabber status updates to the navigators. They, in turn, yanked and pounded against their consoles, trying desperately to get their ship out of range of the fighters. Although the alarm had been shut off earlier, the air was still filled with an insistent, warbling shriek. It was part of the ship's automatic systems, warning its passengers that pieces of it were literally being torn apart. Beneath it all, regular as a heartbeat, was the low thump of the Andromeda's last remaining turret as it launched volley after volley at their small, nimble enemies.

For a moment, the two of them were paralyzed by the intensity that awaited them. But Ricardia shook it off, and pulled Lukas after her as she made her way towards the edge of the balcony.

The two of them fought their way down a packed staircase until they reached the bridge's ground level. Here, there was noticeably less action; the only people present were the captain, Erin, and a handful of crew. Ricardia didn't have access to the channels, but she couldn't help but imagine the maelstrom of messages and information that was currently flowing between the two people before her, the rest of the crew, and presumably, their potential saviors on the planet far below.

Glancing at the view, however, told her that maybe Alto II wasn't so distant anymore. The chaos of the bridge itself had distracted her from the fact that the monotonous, inky landscape of space had been replaced by the bright colors of a planet. Shades of blue battled for supremacy as the sky and ocean wheeled about.

Ricardia was not a soldier, nor a space traveler. Her recent experiences had bolstered her confidence, but a full-scale dogfight was still far beyond anything she could handle. But instead of paralyzing her, it simply made the whole thing feel unreal. Ricardia knew her life was in true danger, but it felt as though she were watching an episode from an action show on the feed, rather than true reality.

When Erin noticed their approach, she eyed Lukas. The boy stood firm under her security, his expression even. If there were any lingering signs of his panic attack, they were well-hidden.

In lieu of a greeting, Erin updated them on the ship's progress in a curt, even tone. Still, Ricardia couldn't truly believe that there was nothing but calm within the woman.

Ricardia opened her mouth to respond, but the captain cut her off.

"We're landing!" he called out to the bridge, "and it's not gonna be a clean one."

Suddenly, an automatic feed alert popped into Ricardia's vision. It was a message from the ship's systems, telling her to find a secure space to strap herself in. And, being the sensible person that she was, Ricardia didn't waste a moment before sprinting for the nearest chair.

Suddenly, the viewing windows were buffeted by tall waves of water, the liquid sloshing harmlessly against the plexiglass. But no one was paying any attention; a massive, skull-rattling crash had thrown the bridge into disarray. From behind Ricardia, she could hear the short scream of a tech who hadn't reached a chair in time, and the subsequent thump as they hit something solid.

Then, everything stilled, and the Andromeda was finally at rest, floating atop the ocean. The alarms cut out, as well as the almost-imperceptible thrum of the ship's engines. The silence was only broken up by the panicked murmuring of the crew, and the distressed beeping of equipment.

Then, as consistent as a planet's orbit, Erin was the first to burst into action.

"There's one fighter left," she yelled. "We need to leave now." She was already in motion, heading towards the stairs.

But Aurrum's clear voice rang out, stopping her in her tracks.

"I am the captain here, Erin," he said calmly. "We are not leaving this bridge until all extraneous crew have gathered here."

Erin hissed. "We need to move now," she repeated, glancing at Lukas. "The last fighter is out of our reach."

Ricardia felt a chill go through her at that, but the captain seemed unbothered by her words.

"What do you need me for?" Lukas spoke up now, clearly picking up on what his mother had been implying.

"There's a sub coming to get us. We're going to sneak out the bottom of the ship, by cutting a hole right through the hull with your Factor."

"It's one thing to ask me to abandon my ship," Aurrum said, "but my crew will be the first to leave. We'll move together as one unit."

Ricardia eyed Lukas, worried, but he looked steadfast.

"I agree with the captain," he said. "I'm going to help them first."

"Fine," Erin snarled, throwing up her hands. "They have three minutes to get their asses here." 

... 

Exactly three-and-a-half minutes later, all eighty-odd inhabitants of the Andromeda were hustling through the ship's largest avenues, racing to reach the lowest level. The captain, who had jerry-rigged a portable comm setup with the help of his techs, directed their Altonian saviors to dock their sub on a section of the under-hull that boarded the Andromeda's cargo hold. It was close to the bridge, and due to the come-and-go of cargo, had wide enough passageways surrounding it to be the ideal candidate for the dropoff.

The group moved as fast as they could, the soldiers acting as escorts, herding the technicians and aides in the right direction. At the front was Ricardia, Lukas, Erin and the captain, along with Ito and his escort. The man was being dragged alongside them, a nervous, gibbering wreck; what little composure he had was long gone. Viktor and the lab assistants were somewhere in the mix behind them.

Aurrum was displeased, to say the least, by how his day was going. What should have been an easy escape from Onyx had fallen apart, and now his pride and joy was quickly becoming a smoking heap of scrap. Even as he hustled down the ship's posh hallways, he could feel the pounding of artillery as the last fighter tore the Andromeda apart. What remained of his feed network helpfully informed him of every lost section. The bridge, being in a central, fortified area, had kept them safe, but there was no guarantee the ship would last long enough for their escape.

There was a pause in the assault then, and then the captain could hear the ragged breathing of his men and women alongside him. The warbling panic of the nasty little doctor they had picked up was shrill, cutting above everything else, and it was bad enough that he almost wished that the assault would start up again, if only to drown him out.

He wanted to put the blame solely on the woman running alongside him, but that would be a falsehood. When Erin had approached him with her proposal, he knew what the risks had been. He just regretted that he'd kept so many of his crew still aboard.

There was no shortage of relief then when they turned a corner and approached the ramp leading down into the cargo bay.

"Let's be calm about this," Aurrum bellowed, and strode down into the bay. Behind him, the group followed suit, a murmuring mass. The tension was almost palpable, but thanks to Erin's armed force, the procession was relatively calm.

He didn't allow the crowd to spread out into the cavernous hold, ordering them all to form a tight-knit line. Then, after a nod of confirmation from Erin, led her boy to an unobstructed spot, clear of any logistic bots, crates, or other supplies.

"They're here?" He asked Erin. Without the full strength of his comms array, Aurrum was blind to the space outside the ship.

"Yes," she confirmed, patching him into the chat so he could see for himself. The woman from the resort - Annika - had in fact informed them that the sub had arrived, and was currently clamped to the hull below their feet.

"Alright kid," Aurrum said, taking a step back, "you ready for this? You need anything? Fac-boost?" He felt bad putting the youngster into such a pivotal position, but Aurrum's skeleton crew lacked a native Ferrus in their ranks. So, for better or worse, he would have to do.

But the boy shook his head. Much of his expression was covered by his thick shag of hair, but his voice was clear and resolute when he spoke.

"I can do it. Just one layer, right?"

Aurrum nodded. Yet another reason why he'd picked the hold.

"Alright." Lukas knelt down, hands splayed against the hold's steel flooring. Aurrum considered helping him out by sending some of the techs to fetch the cargo bay's blowtorching equipment, but thought better of it. It would take too long to cut through like that and could ruin the boy's concentration.

All he could do was watch, and wince a little, as

a section of his ship's paneling began to buckle.

The gaps grew wider, large enough to see the dull green plating of something underneath. Rather than being flooded, the sub below them had been true to word, clamping itself tight enough that the space between their two hulls was airtight.

But then Lukas stopped, his head whipping up and away, towards the plated doors of the hold.

"Lukas," Erin's voice was sharp.

"...There's a lot of metal approaching," he muttered, then his eyes widened, face dropping in horror. "Oh no-"

His voice was drowned out as the doors of the cargo hold were pulverized.