(Four hours later...)

"Fucking hell!" Boreas exclaimed when we finally managed to board the Ravager, "And here I thought your ship was going to become a bathtub toy."

I felt a half-hearted laugh rumble through my chest as I turned on the engines and felt my ship lift off. "Don't worry Boreas, I wouldn't let that happen."

"Well, I sure hope you wouldn't!"

I continued to chuckle, only to feel the laughter sputter out in my chest when I looked at Alannah. Her face was pale, and I almost thought I could see...tears running down her cheeks.

"Mijn sintel," I breathed, unsure of where to go with this conversation, "Please, talk to me."

When I received no answer, I had to quell the fear that threatened to blossom in my chest. "Alannah, we have been honest with each other before. Please, do not hide things from me now."

"...Sorry, love. I'm...still trying to come to grips with...well, what I learned."

"Please elaborate," I implored her, trying to balance my focus between my wife and flying my ship through lightning-infested clouds.

"When you get clear of Valeryx VII's atmosphere, I'll tell you."

Catching the sincerity in her voice, I nodded in response and turned my attention toward avoiding the arcing bolts of lightning that got dangerously close to hitting the Ravager.

It took more than a few harrowing close calls, but my ship was leaving Valeryx VII's atmosphere in no time at all. When I was sure we were safe, I loosed a shuddering breath.

"Boreas, start searching for any signs of life around this god-awful planet," I breathed as the doors to the cockpit closed, "If you find anything, let me know."

"Got it, mate."

With that, I engaged the autopilot and turned to address my wife.

"Please tell me what's wrong," I asked her, my voice barely above a whisper.

She fidgeted in her seat for a few moments before opening her mouth. "Back at the clinic we went to, I had the nurse–Ida, I believe–give me a pregnancy test."

"And?"

"And...I tested positive."

I thought I would've reacted differently: I had so many different thoughts flying around my mind, but they all simply scattered when my wife spoke. I tried to come up with something–anything, but I could only look at Alannah in disbelief.

She sighed and nodded to herself. "I thought you'd react like this. I...probably should've reminded you to use protection all those nights ago, shouldn't I?"

Fuck... "So...That means you're...?"

"Pregnant? Yes. I'm apparently a few weeks along–three weeks at the very minimum. When I told the nurse I missed my period, she knew. So...yeah, this has been a steadily developing situation. I always told myself the cramping and fatigue were from pushing myself too far, but...turns out that wasn't the case."

Slowly, I managed to gather my thoughts. The first thing I managed to say was. "I...should have been more careful. I'm...so sorry, love..."

"You're not to blame, Cylus. If anything, I'm the guilty one for, well, wanting to have a dizzying amount of sex with you.

"We're both at fault for not exercising more caution...forgive me, this is...a fair bit to take in."

"Yeah, no kidding," Alannah replied, taking my hand in hers, "So...what will we do?"

"I may sound selfish, but...I don't want to get rid of our child."

"Neither do I, but don't you think it'll be risky?"

"Of course it will be. I know we both want to grow our family, but...the UTF is still a problem."

"Indeed it is..."

We fell silent for a brief lapse of time before I spoke again. "What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"I...really want to keep our child," Alannah admitted, her amber eyes glittering with happiness, "It may be difficult, but I want to weather this storm."

"Very well. We've come to a decision then. That being said, I don't feel comfortable having you along on missions. I know you can take care of yourself, but it's not just you now."

"I know...We'll cover that stuff later. For now, let's see if we can find where Maximilian ran off to."

"Agreed..." I murmured, turning to face the still-closed doors, "We'll worry about telling everyone else later. I'd rather not stir the pot too much right now..."

"I get that..."

After I took several deep breaths, I contacted Boreas again. "Anything?"

"Um...Yep. Looks like there's activity nearby. It's faint, but it almost seems like someone's sending out a message."

"Can you pinpoint its location?"

"Doing that now...Hmm...Alright, I'm coming up to the cockpit. I was able to generate a set of coordinates, but I don't know how accurate they'll be."

"I guess we'll see. Just get up here and input the coordinates into my nav computer."

"Aye-aye captain."

A few moments later, my best friend and partner was in the cockpit between me and Alannah.

"So...what have you kids been talking about up here?" he inquired, not looking away from his work as he tapped away at the nav computer.

Typically, I'd have a sarcastic quip primed and ready to sling back at the cheeky bastard, but I couldn't drag one out. I was still...trying to process the fact that my wife was pregnant. I'm such a fucking idiot...

Boreas noticed the silence and frowned. "Something happened. What's wrong, you two? You're acting unusually subdued, which is not a quality I would attribute to either of you–especially not you, Alannah," he continued, turning to address the silent redhead. "Come on guys, don't keep me out of this."

"We'll explain later," I assured him, "All I'll give you right now is this has to do with the clinic we went to and the...test Alannah asked the nurse to carry out."

A spark of realization danced across his eyes, and my partner was speechless for several moments.

"Ah," he finally managed to say, "I see. Well, we most certainly will discuss this at length later. For now, follow the trail of cookie crumbs your nav computer is sniffing out. Hopefully, we're not being led toward an out of order space station full of undead monstrosities or something just as horrible...Oh, and just an FYI: Owen came along for the ride."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Well, I sure as hell wasn't going to leave him behind," Boreas snapped, "What, did you think he was going to stab us in the backs?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm sorry Cylus. If he tries to stab you in the back, I'll revoke his penis privileges."

"Way to point out the obvious, Boreas," Alannah got out after she was done laughing.

He shot a wink her way before making his way out of the cockpit. "I aim to please."

After he left, my wife sighed. "You think he knows?"

"For all the verbal feinting our best friend is guilty of doing, Boreas is not stupid. He may act as such, but he's perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that you wanted to go to a clinic to take a 'test.' While yes, that could entail anything, Boreas unfortunately knows that we are rather...active in bed."

"You got me there," Alannah breathed, "Well, it is what it is. Best we can do now is hope this bloody conflict is over with soon."

"Agreed..."

We fell silent after that, and I made sure I had my wife's hand in mine as I continued to scour the empty space above Valeryx VII. The odd hunk of rock or broken down satellite drifted past us, but I didn't find much beyond that.

Finally, I reached the destination Boreas had logged into my navigation computer. Rather than empty space, a modestly-sized space station sat before us.

"Yep, whoever's in that space station is definitely talking to someone. The chatter leaving the station definitely makes it look like there's residents on it," Alannah mused.

"Well, let's go pay them a visit then," I growled, advancing on the unassuming station at a brisk pace.

Once I managed to sight a hanger to enter, I eased my ship through the rectangular entrance and felt it touch down onto the scuffed steel floor soon after that.

"Alright, it's showtime," I breathed, putting on my helmet and rising to my feet.

"Bout damn time," Alannah grumbled, following my lead, "I was about to die from boredom waiting for something interesting to happen."

I laughed while fetching Sintel from its place by my seat. "Wouldn't want that to happen."

"No, no we wouldn't."

After we were adequately geared up, Alannah and I left the cockpit and made our way back to the cargo hold.

"Ready to move?" I prompted my crew.

"I guess we're as ready as we'll ever be," Damien confirmed, "Y'know, we are going headfirst into a space station full of god knows what, but I guess that's just a regular Wednesday for you guys."

"Wait, I think it's actually Wednesday," Boreas murmured.

"Not important!" the youth snapped, "As much as I don't want to, we should get a move on while we still have the element of surprise."

"Good point," I murmured, "Come on guys."

Without further hesitation, we left my ship and started to explore the space station we had just entered. While it looked abandoned on the outside, it certainly did on the inside: the floor below us was scuffed and rusted, and the lights above us flickered periodically. A few other ships were landed in this hanger, but they didn't look like they've been used in a long time.

Approaching a closed blast door, I watched Boreas as he got to work on a panel that was built into the wall beside our only way out.

"Well, this makes things easier," he mused when the panel fell off, "Fucking hell...nothing says true grit more than manually opening a god damn blast door."

He fell silent after that, and it took my partner roughly five minutes to get the door open.

"Alright, we have a way out," he stated, "Here's hoping I can find a map or something–anything to help us navigate this old rustbucket."

"Here here," I grumbled, stalking through the opening that was still slowly widening by the minute, "If something pops up in front of you, don't hesitate to shoot."

"Got it," Alex replied, "Thankfully, I inherited your trigger finger."

A wicked grin spread across my features. "That's all that matters, son."

With that, we began to explore. To absolutely no one's surprise, the rest of the station was in a rather sad state of disrepair. The halls we walked through were dirty and several wall panels were missing.

"Geez, What lovely scenery," Boreas grumbled when we walked by a hole in the wall. Several wires could be seen, and sparks emanated from the ones that were stripped bare, "Ah, that's totally not a safety hazard."

"For sure," Alex replied in a bitter tone, "Ugh, I just can't wait to get out of here..."

"You and me both..." Owen breathed.

We continued to navigate our way through the decrepit halls until we managed to happen upon an elevator.

"Oh, wack," Boreas began as he pressed the up arrow button beside the lift, "This is the perfect way to explore!"

When the doors opened, everyone piled into the elevator.

"Um...What's this?" Boreas breathed, "Jail cells? Let's go there."

"What? Why?" I demanded.

"Think about it: if Maximilian is holding anyone hostage here, they could potentially help us."

"Yeah, like I'm helping you," Owen grumbled.

"Oh, don't worry. We'll take you back to Valeryx VII when we're done here," I assured him, "Just help my crew finish our job, and we'll get you home safe."

Understandably, the soldier didn't look to thrilled with the prospect of heading back to his home planet. Moving on from that, we reached our destination several rickety moments later.

"Alright...let's see if any guests are being kept down here..." Boreas murmured.

I grunted in response, too busy studying our surroundings to offer up an actual answer. By the looks of it, we just entered a circular room with three hallways leading off into different directions. I was about to go down the right hall when I caught sight of a workstation that took up the middle of the room. Standing behind it, I realized it was a simple display of what cells were currently being occupied.

"Hm, strange..." I murmured, "Most of the cells look to be empty...except one."

"Wait, really? Only one?" Boreas prompted me.

"Yep. The solitary confinement cell..." I clarified, growing more confused as the seconds ticked by, "It appears to be down the hall that goes straight ahead."

Not waiting for an answer, turned around and started going down the hall I had mentioned. Several doors lined the walls, but what caught my attention was the lone door sitting at the end of the hallway. Approaching it, I tested the door handle and growled when I realized it was locked.

"Here. Allow me," Alannah offered.

Stepping back, I allowed her to rig an explosive to the door handle and yelped when I heard her bomb go off.

"There you go!" she chirped, "The door's open now!"

"That...was solid steel, Alannah," I pointed out.

"Yeah, and?"

"...Good point."

After that, I decided to enter the cell. Unlike the rest of the station, it appeared to be clean and maintained. However, the lighting was still fairly spotty.

When I had managed to gain my bearings, I realized I was standing in front of a Plexiglas partition. A chair sat in front of said divider, but that wasn't what caught my attention.

Seated in a far corner of the padded solitary confinement cell was a lone figure. I couldn't make out much with respects to their features, but I could've sworn I saw them rock back and forth at a steady rate. What chilled me to the bone were their eyes: one was a dark purple, while the other...was a stunning shade of silver.

"Ah, visitors," the unknown figure began, slowly rising to their feet before approaching the partition, "And bounty hunters, no less. I see you came here to answer my bounty."