I thought I got better, but maybe I didn’t

Lilu flashed out her phone and sent Cora a quick text that they were walking up to the house now and Cora messaged back, “Just in time for lunch, I’ll put out extra plates.”

“We can relax a bit, Sam, they have lunch ready for us,” she called over to her co-pilot, her new husband. She still couldn’t believe it at times. But she knew he’d want the reassurance so he wouldn’t bolt up there in Akila’s high gravity, which he loved to complain about.

Sam looked both relieved and annoyed. “Lunch? After she made it sound like she was in mortal danger?” He let out a heavy sigh. “I think I lost ten years off my life.”

“I know, me too. But... I’m just worried that all this might mean... the end of everything as we know it.”

Sam stopped, turned to face Lilu, who was staring doggedly straight ahead. The carefree peace that she had briefly known seemed to be gone. The anxiety, the sadness, the wariness, they were all creeping in from the sides, showing up around her eyes first. He put a hand on her shoulder, and spun her around to look at him.

“Sunshine, I know. And I won’t blow smoke up your ass, you may be right. But if we don’t at least check it out, they’re going to come after us and the Artifacts eventually. Maybe they’ll all team up against us first before they fight amongst themselves. We may not be able to win that battle. So let’s go down the peaceful avenue first, okay? We’ll see what the options are as they open up to us. But I don’t think there’s any way around it.”

Lilu nodded, her head bowed. “You’re right, Sam. It just... it really sucks. I had hoped maybe they’d leave us alone.”

“With all the Artifacts on our ship? You had to know that wouldn’t happen.”

She shrugged, shook her head helplessly, fought back tears, swallowed hard until she got control of her emotions. “I did know... I just... deluded myself, I guess. It was easy to do for a while, there were other things to focus on. The Hunter, though... he’s persistent in a strange way, as if there’s a point he wants to make here. I just don’t understand what it is, if I’m supposed to have already seen it, or if it’s in what we’re doing that he’s planning to show me. But... I guess you’re right, there’s nothing else for it but to get started.” Lilu stepped forward into Sam and he instinctively put his arms around her, oblivious to looks from passersby.

“That’s my girl. You are beyond brave to keep pushing when I know you just want some peace in your life. Who could blame you after everything you’ve seen? But Sarah said it best, may she rest easy: ‘this could end up being a race we do not want to lose.’” He leaned forward to kiss his wife on the lips, lingering, kissing her a bit deeper before releasing her suddenly. “I’d better stop or I won’t be able to walk through the crowd without embarrassing myself.”

“You animal, Coe,” Lilu purred at him. “Come on, then.”

By the time they opened the door of the Coe Estate, the rich smell of simmering meat, onion, and spices flowed out the door, and Lilu’s stomach was growling the moment the aroma hit her. Cora ran up and gave her a hug, and then one to her father. “I’m so happy you’re back. I made food, real food! My grandma had a cookbook so I made a stew from a recipe there. I wrote it down so I can make it again.”

“It smells fantastic, Sweet Pea, I can’t wait to try it,” Sam replied. “Where’s your Grandpa?”

“I’m down here,” Jacob called from the basement. “Be up in a moment.”

Lilu went into the kitchen with Cora to “help” and Sam settled onto the sofa to wait for Jacob. Cora was essentially finished with her meal preparation and was stirring the pot of stew, the gentle bubbling and spoons of succulent meat enticing Lilu, who begged for a taste. Cora favored her with a tasting spoon of the mixture and Lilu’s eyes rolled back with pleasure as the smooth, savory soup expanded in her mouth, the spices and savory flavor hitting just right.

“Wow, Cora, have you been able to cook this good all this time?”

“Well... I’m not sure. I could cook a little, but the instructions were very clear for this recipe, so it made it easy to follow and get predictable results. Almost like Grandma was a scientist who cooked,” Cora answered, philosophically.

“Well, however it came about, you did an excellent job, so I’m ready whenever it’s ready.” Lilu was keen. The food at Paradiso was good, but a home-cooked meal was exactly what she loved best.

Jacob emerged from the basement near the kitchen and Lilu walked over to him, smirking, and said, “Hi Dad,” and kissed him on the cheek. She almost burst out laughing when she saw him blush a deep crimson, but she walked off casually as if nothing had happened.

“Uh... hi yourself,” he replied, trying to regain his composure. “Sorry your trip had to be cut short.”

“That’s okay, this is pretty serious.”

“Do you think that what Cora saw was that important?” Now Jacob looked worried.

“Absolutely, and if we don’t address it, it could turn violent right here in Akila City, which is what we want to avoid. I’m sure you’ve heard the SSNN stories about armed parties leading a shootout across New Atlantis several months back? Innocent people dead? Constellation’s leader, Sarah Morgan was killed by this... man... thing... this Starborn... who called himself The Hunter. He and another of his kind met with me on their ship a while back, but the meeting didn’t go well.” She shuddered at the memory of gradually collapsing, the glimpse of the Hunter dragging her back to the hatch. She took a deep breath and continued.

“Cora’s call brought back only bare snippets of a memory of what they said because I was fading fast while they were talking. Something about a moonbase and following clues to NASA. It didn’t make sense to me, and truth be told, I didn’t want to deal with it. Maybe I wanted to forget. I was avoiding anything to do with the Artifacts or the Starborn for as long as possible.” Lilu looked away, furtively.

“For heaven’s sake, why? If it’s that dangerous to put these people off, why would you wait?” Jacob was dumbfounded.

“Because of the effect it’s had on her physically, Dad,” Sam interjected. “Being physically close to them too long that time almost killed her, she was frequently ill, it was taking an emotional toll, so we took a break. Apparently, it was too long of one. But we’re going to remedy that now. I’m pretty sure I know what moonbase would have led to NASA if it was when humans started to leave Earth for Jemison. The Nova Galactic Research Station.”

“Don’t you think it would be safer if Cora stayed here then?”

“No, I don’t,” Sam countered. “There are other Starborn besides these two, and if they should somehow think the Artifacts are here, they’ll come in guns blazing. You do not want to fight them off, believe me. I think the best thing to do is pack Cora up and make a big show of leaving Akila City with her in case they’re watching.”

“Alright, son. Well, let’s eat, and you can tell me all about Paradiso.”

Sam and Jacob sat down at the little dining nook whilst Lilu and Cora brought out the stew and some bread, a pitcher of water, and a bottle of red wine. Lilu returned to the kitchen to retrieve bowls, glasses, and cutlery, and Cora got the rest of the table in order. Everyone was served, the wine was poured (Lilu convinced Sam to let Cora have a shot at the bottom of her glass with an additional shot of water added to it), and they set to the meal together, heaping praise onto Cora for the superlative cooking.

They chatted about Paradiso, the sun and the waves, the availability of games and sports activities, wellness spas and yoga mats. Cora was deservedly envious, and Lilu remarked that Sam had promised they would all go back together. Or possibly build an outpost on a world that had a beachfront. It was all talk about a future that no one knew for sure would happen, but it was better than dwelling on the possibilities that no such future existed.

After cleanup, Cora said that most of her stuff was on the ship, she just needed to exchange a few things from the house, so she hugged her grandpa, who looked ineffably sad, and out the door she went.

“I’m sorry, Jacob. We’ll bring her back again in one piece,” Lilu smiled reassuringly at her father-in-law, wondering if she’d ever see this place again. She leaned forward to hug him and kiss his cheek one more time.

“You’d better. This girl means the world to me. Even if she’s not family by blood, she’s family in my heart and that makes her a Coe.”

“Don’t worry, Jacob,” Sam said. “We’re all Coes now, and we look out for our own.”

“That’s right, son, we do.” Jacob was beaming proudly through his fear and sorrow. “Good luck, and God speed.”

And with that, the trio ventured across the courtyard to their own Core Manor home. They gathered what supplies and clothing they needed, put it in a luggy case, and went to the Spaceport, where Sam paused at Ship Services, telling Cora to go ahead and board the Cherrypopper.

“Hold up a second, Sunshine, there’s something I think we should do before we set out for Earth’s moon, and it’s to order improvements on that Star Eagle of yours. I sent the schematics down to Ship Services.”

“You did mention this,” Lilu shrugged. “The work would be done by the time we got back?”

“That’s the plan, you want to take a look?”

“Yeah, I want to see what you’ve been up to, Coe.”

They went inside, and the Ship Services guy was more than thrilled to go over the upgrades and buildout on the new and improved Star Eagle. “This is a masterpiece of design,” he exulted. You’ve got tremendous power and stealth capabilities, heavy weapons, a sleek, flat form, but at the same time, you’ve got luxury, interior space, privacy, separate quarters, and room for additional crew if necessary.” He sighed as if he wished this were his own ship. “This could be the start of a new class of ship, you could call it the ‘Star Raptor.’”

“Wow,” breathed Lilu as she examined the rendering on the screen. “This is truly something. And Sam, you and Cora threw this together when?”

“When we were sitting on Codos. The night I proposed to you.”

The Ship Services guy looked intensely uncomfortable as Sam and Lilu stared lovingly into each other’s eyes for what seemed an eternity, and then he cleared his throat. “So, is this something we want to do, or....”

“Yes, we want to do this.” Lilu’s voice had a ring of both certainty and authority. She pulled out her credstick. “Let me know how much you want up front.”

“This is going to run you about... 300,000 to 400,000 credits. Wow, pretty steep. You sure you’re in for that?” The Ship Services guy’s eyebrows were practically up to his hairline. “Your husband knows his parts.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Why don’t you take the 300,000 now, and I’ll pay whatever is left when we get back? Oh, and can I change the color?” Lilu asked.

“Ma’am, you can change the color to whatever you’d like. Let me pull up the screen with the color picker. It’s intuitive to use. Just pick what you want and hit ‘save’ when you’re finished. You can type the name in there as well.”

“Oh, yeah, this is going to be epic,” Lilu exhorted as she sat down, the wolf’s smile returning.

“Uh oh,” Sam groaned, but he was smiling.

It didn’t take Lilu long as she applied different colors than the Cherrypopper, but no less striking and vibrant. And the name... the poor Ship Services guy just froze. “Are you... sure about that name?”

“Yeah, it’s from a famous movie from Old Earth called From Dusk Till Dawn, I’m sure you can watch it still. You should, you’d probably love it. There’s a lady who dances with a snake, and no, she’s not House Va’ruun. Thanks so much for all your help, you’ve been the best! See you soon!” Smiling, Lilu bounced out of the Ship Services office, and Sam shrugged helplessly and followed after her.

--------------------

LILU AND SAM, NOW:

The Cherrypopper was back in the Sol System again, sitting in orbit in front Earth’s moon, and Lilu felt that same, strange pull as she did that time she came there with Sarah Morgan, so long ago, or so it felt. So much had come to pass since they had come to rescue Vanguard Moara Otero. She had barely come from Argos, barely gotten released from UC SysDef custody. She hadn’t met Sam yet. She just knew that she had a chance at a new life, a new job, maybe a career, new horizons. The Earth she had seen before her then, as now, was dead, and there was no going back.

As she gazed at Earth’s moon, it didn’t bear the signs of destruction and ruin like Earth did because there had never been much to destroy. The same barren landscape, pocked with craters. Now, apparently, there was mining and a few outposts on Luna, as it was called in relation to Sol. It still carried the remnants of old space missions from various nations: the United States, the USSR, the Chinese, etc., and subsequently, after her time, research stations that had been built there when space travel and colonization technology allowed for it. It was to one of these stations that they were traveling, the Nova Galactic Research Station.

Cora was excited to come out and see the facility, but Sam warned her off, explaining that he wasn’t sure what they might find there. Because the Hunter was involved, they warned her to keep the landing bay shut and locked until they came back, but that they would grab her something by way of a souvenir. Sam and Lilu suited up and went outside onto the lunar landscape, the bay door winching up behind them.

“Why do I have the irrepressible urge to start jumping?” Lilu joked, but Sam put his hand on her arm.

“Don’t. If you spin off into space, I might not be able to catch you.”

“What, I’d spin off into space? Come on, I saw video of the old astronauts moon walking before. They didn’t spin off into space.” Lilu glanced at him skeptically.

“Yeah, but their spacesuits were much more heavy and cumbersome. Ours aren’t. They’re meant to be light so we can move around easier. So, you might not stay as weighed down as you think,” Sam warned her.

“With my big ass? I’m like an hourglass with all the sand sunk to the bottom… okay, okay, I’ll behave, geez,” she laughed as Sam glared at her. But then she grew serious. “It’s just that… this is both strange and… depressing. I’m so close to home. Right before I met you, I had gone with Sarah to retrieve an artifact which was being held by a Vanguard Moara and we had to clear out Ecliptic and Spacers from the Nova Galactic Staryard. It was my first time seeing the moon like this, and being so close to Earth. It’s hard to know how to feel.”

Sam paused, reflected, changed tack. “Sunshine, I’m sorry. This must be difficult for you. Hopefully we won’t have to land on Old Earth.”

“Yeah, hopefully.” But she looked at the structures they were approaching, large metal buildings with a dish antenna array, some other attenuated antennas, some sort of geodesic dome coated in gold foil, and a variety of pipes and tubes that carried away from its facility to various physical plants, sanitation, tanks, and other outbuildings that kept the main facility going.

Sam let out a low whistle of appreciation. “We’re walking in history here. Man, how long has this been just sitting here, collecting moon dust?*”

“Good question. They didn’t have these types of research stations on the Moon when I still lived on Earth. They were merely being discussed as possibilities ‘one day.*’” Lilu reflected. “I guess we go inside and find out.”

“What is the Starborn’s end game behind helping you, by sending us here? What do you think they want, the Emissary and the Hunter?”

Lilu was pensive. “It felt like I was supposed to choose between them. The ruthless Hunter, the Emissary who was the benevolent benefactor. But when I was dying, it was the Hunter who dragged me back to the hatch for you to help me. So, I’m not sure who I liked best.”

“Yeah, but the Hunter killed Sarah,” growled Sam.

“I know, it’s just… look, I don’t mean to trivialize something so catastrophic, but it wasn’t personal, I don’t think. She was just… in the way. Don’t start, Sam,” she said, hastily, seeing the storm clouds brewing on his face. “I know that doesn’t necessarily make it better.”

“Is there something they teach in soldier school or spy school to switch off your heart?” When Sam extended his claws, they were sharp.

“You don’t have to be a soldier or a spy to be good at that,” Lilu replied, quietly. The rest of the journey was completed in a sulky silence.

Arriving at the door of the moonbase and spinning the wheel to open it, they expected a whoosh of vacuum sealed air, but there was none. No morgue-like smells, no dust, no cobwebs, no spirits. Just dead silence and the ventilation system, still working. No strange space-amoebas or parasites slithering within. Just silence and stillness.

“Huh,” ventured Lilu, tentatively. “It doesn’t look abandoned in a panic. It just looks… abandoned.”

“I’m guessing when the project ended. But let’s look around for clues,” Sam suggested.

They wandered about the facility, poking in desk drawers and lockers, sleeping quarters and dining areas. They found slates that pointed to an international crew. What appeared to be Chinese, French, American astronauts and scientists, maybe more. One young man who couldn’t seem to find a girlfriend. Another woman who was concerned about the type of research they were doing there.

Lilu found a working computer that mentioned something called Project Prism and a supercomputer called Voltaire. Project Prism seemed to be this team’s baby, but they were working on it with a shared partner and client that was unnamed and Voltaire was exclusively for this use. Another file mentioned the first test launch of Project Prism to be viewed or observed on the roof. The year was 2139. The file mentioned that this mysterious partner would be on the radio for the launch and that they’d be recording the event.

Sam and Lilu looked at each other. “There was an antenna array on the roof,” Sam said. “I wonder if there were any recordings still in its memory banks?”

“Let’s go look, Coe. This is kind of exciting!”

“Yeah, it is! Hey, hold up a moment… I’m sorry about what I said, about switching off your heart, that was a mean thing to say. I knew what you were saying, it was just… hard for me to look at it that way. Not that you thought that’s what she deserved.”

“No,” Lilu replied. “I wasn’t fond of her, this much is true. But if I have to be honest, even when we’re out gunning down people who shoot at us, we’re just defending ourselves. But I don’t know that those people deserve to die, either. We all kind of switch off our hearts.”

Sam put his hand on the side of Lilu’s faceplate as if he was cupping her cheek. “Were you always this wise?”

“I’ve had a lot of time for self-reflection, you know the story.”

Sam’s eyes were sad as he peered into Lilu’s faceplate. He wished he could see all the way into her soul but he was a little afraid of what he would find there. What lay behind those dark brown eyes, large and expressive at times like this, flat and black when she switched into a murderous robot.

Resuming their mission, they quickly made their way back to the entrance, impatiently turning the wheel on the hatch to make way outside, clambering up a utility ladder in their spacesuits to get access to the roof and the antenna array. There was an intercom style control that still had power. Lilu pressed the button as soon as Sam was next to her.

The first voice that was heard had an Asian accent. This must have been Lan Hsu whose name they’d seen on some of the slates.

Lan Hsu: “Engine spin up time almost complete. Total time: 5 minutes, 22 seconds. Right on schedule.” Then a man’s voice, assured, smooth: “How the Helium-3 valves holding, Nova?” Lan Hsu: “We double checked the leakage concerns this morning before the launch. All signs green.” The other man again: “Any changes to the calculation sequence from Voltaire?” Lan Hsu: “No changes since we uploaded the last figures yesterday. It’s a clean shot from here to Jupiter.” The man: “One day, the computer will be on board the spaceship. Just imagine that.” Lan Hsu: “One miracle of science at a time, Canaveral. Counting down in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Canaveral, are you reading?” The man: All clear, Nova! Indicators look good. The ship should be cruising Jupiter’s orbit right now. Visual confirmation will be possible in... 32 minutes. Afraid the speed of light is on the slow side these days.” Lan Hsu: “ How does it feel to break the laws of physics, Canaveral?” The man: “We’re all pretty excited down here in NASA, I won’t lie...” Lan Hsu: “Excited enough to tell me where you got the original data?” The man: “Not in a million years, Nova.”

Sam and Lilu looked at each other again. “That’s weird,” said Lilu. “Who is that man and what data was he keeping secret?”

“I don’t know, but I bet we can find out down at the NASA ruins on Old Earth. They’re the ones running the experiment. You saw the slates from Lan Hsu inside the station, they’re all NASA,” said Sam.

Lilu felt her heart do somersaults. “Sam, no. No. Don’t make me go down there...”

“Baby, I understand, but I think we’re on the brink of uncovering something critical. Not for the Starborn, or humanity, but something that’s going to be important for us to know. I get it...” he said, hastily, seeing her despairing face, “Or... well, I don’t get it, but I think we’ll regret not finding out. Both of us, but you especially. You’re the smarter one between the two of us and if anyone can help make sense of what the Hunter wants you to get out of this, it has to be you.”

“God... okay, Sam. But who knows what we’re going to be facing and what kind of support I’ll need. Emotional, yes. Physical... quite possible. I don’t know if I’ll have the Starborn effects again, or something else entirely, or nothing at all except grief and shock. So have patience with me.”

“Sunshine, I will be there for you every step of the way.”

“Alright, Coe. Take me back home to Earth.”

----------

 “I still can’t believe it. How could this have happened? I mean, I’ve already read the explanation, the atmosphere leaked away into space or something like that. And they managed to evacuate humankind. But I thought we had fixed the holes in the ozone layer, or whatever they threatened would happen?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s what caused it, but the whole thing was a little mysterious and I’m not sure if they ever did pin down the cause other than it was man made that we lost our atmosphere,” Sam admitted. “In any case, it was obviously a tragedy. All the biodiversity of Earth was lost, it was unsustainable in the Settled Systems. At least, it would have been irresponsible to try to recreate Earth’s conditions, and release invasive species on another world.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I’ve asked myself why there are no dogs or cats or horses or any of the things we loved. But you’re right, besides the obvious problem of feeding them, we could destroy entire biomes with them, assuming they could even survive the worlds we would take them to. I sure miss them, though.” Lilu sighed and gazed longingly at the dusty brown globe before her through the ship’s windscreen. “I miss a lot of things.”

Sam watched her, the intensity of her gaze as she stared at Earth, like she was searching for something. “Can you recognize anything from space?”

“Oh, yeah… shit, yeah. I can see the outlines of the continents. And the dust oceans in between them. How can there… I don’t understand. How can there be that much dirt even where there had been water? You would think it would be the exposed underwater canyons of the ocean floors… but it’s not, it’s filled with sand or something. Like the tears of the Earth itself.” Lilu suddenly put her face in her hands and broke down into sobs.

Sam was quick to rush to her side, crouching by the pilot’s chair. “I’m so sorry, baby. I… I don’t have words. I can’t imagine how this feels.”

“It’s okay, Sam,” she choked out in a strangled voice. “It’s just so hard to see it. I knew there was no going back, but this puts a punctuation point on it. There’s not even hope of resurrecting a memory of something familiar. If it wasn’t for you, I think I would have lost my mind in this place.” Lilu looked up at him, her eyes red and watery, face anguished.

“I’m here for you, you know that. I think I’m meant to be here for you. Just lean on me when you need to, this isn’t another trauma you have to face alone.” He pulled Lilu’s face to him, kissing away the tears, smoothing her hair, until she took a deep breath and let out a sigh.

“Okay, Coe, I’m good. Thank you. You’re right when you say together the two of us could take on the whole galaxy. You do make me feel that way sometimes.”

“That’s what I’m here for. Moral support. And rugged good looks.”

“Especially the rugged good looks. Heh. With that baby face and those big blue eyes. You cream puff. Give me a proper kiss, husband.”

“With pleasure, wife.” Sam moved in for the kill, but Cora walked up into the cockpit.

“Wow, Earth… oh for pity’s sake, don’t you have a job to do?” she exclaimed, dismayed when she saw her father and stepmother locked in an embrace in the pilot’s chair.

“Your stepmom was feeling a little unsure about landing on her old homeworld, Cora.” Sam stood up, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth hastily. “I was just…”

“Yeah, yeah, reassuring her. Whatever. Are you landing at Cape Canaveral?”

“That’s the plan,” Lilu replied.

“Great. This time bring me something back.” Cora turned and walked out of the cockpit, leaving Sam and Lilu to grimace and smile at each other.

“That was our warning that our souvenir collecting skills were below par at that lunar research station,” Sam chuckled.

“Duly noted. Do you have the coords for where I’m setting down?”

“Shit, sorry, yeah, let me punch them in. Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

“Yes, but it never hurts to hear it again.”

And so on until the Cherrypopper settled down on the surface of Earth, bringing its prodigal daughter home at last.

--------------------

 SAM AND LILU NOW:

 When they disembarked, Sam warned Lilu that solar radiation was fierce on Earth now because, as noted, no atmosphere, nothing to protect them from solar rays. So, they would need to move quickly. But once they came around from the shadow of the ship and they were in full view of the Canaveral launch tower, everything stopped, and Lilu fell to her knees with a gasp.

Before her, standing erect into the afternoon sun, was the front half of a space shuttle, reminiscent of those that flew on orbital missions during Lilu’s time but much more modern, the rest of the shuttle itself buried in the sand. It was still anchored to its launch tower, now rusted and derelict. It was a symbol of hope lost. An attempt to escape thwarted.

“My God, my God, my God…” Lilu kept repeating over the comms, rocking forward onto her knees. “This is Cape Canaveral? It was green, lush, like a tropical paradise with water all around it. We must be 100 feet above it right now, judging from the shuttle…and it’s just sand and rock? Where did all of this come from? How…”

“Come on, Sunshine, we’ve GOT to move, the radiation is too heavy, stay with me, okay?” Sam pleaded with her. The radiation protection on his spacesuit was depleting fast per the reading on the wrist gauge.

But Lilu was lost. Her hand reached out in front of her to grab a handful of sand, letting it run through her fingers before slamming her closed fist into the ground. Sam knelt near her, starting to reach out his hand, but she shook her head and he stopped, uncertain. For an agonizingly long moment, Lilu rocked back and forth on her knees, her chest heaving as she took deep breaths before she finally nodded and said, “Okay, I’ve got this, let’s go.”

She rose to her feet and began a resolute jog towards the launch tower, Sam keeping pace with her. They did their best over the uneven terrain as it shifted from rock to sand to rock again, occasional gas vents seeping up and causing them to alter their course.

But they got to the base of the tower, and they scrounged around for a functioning battery cell to power the lift. That at least took them up to a level where they could start using the maintenance stairs. “I shoulda kept up with my fitness routine… too many Chunks,” complained Sam as they went up flight after flight.

They found another elevator which also needed a battery to kickstart, so more time was lost on another scavenger hunt. The level they were on must have had some sort of offices. Cubicle partitions and desks were scattered about, and old papers littered the floors. Sam and Lilu spread out looking for their elusive battery power cell.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding about the radiation, my suit’s maxxing out,” Lilu warned from somewhere across the floor.

“Well, you’re in luck, because look what I found,” replied Sam, pleased with himself as he brandished the power cell he found hiding in a storage box. The blue glow at its tip showed that it still held a charge. He walked towards where he heard Lilu’s voice, and saw her with her back towards him, standing at a desk. He put the power cell down when he realized what she was looking at.

In front of her, hanging on the wall behind the desk next to a NASA poster, was an American flag, tattered and worn. Lilu studied it, her head slightly cocked to the side. She glanced at Sam as he walked up, and gave him a rueful sigh.

“I spent a lot of years in service to this flag and, at least in theory, what it supposedly stood for. Now, when I look back on the things I did in its name, in its government’s name, everything it cost me, I wish I had done so many things differently. I have a lot of regrets. But the one thing I do not regret is that it brought me here to you, Sam Coe. I will never be sorry about that.”

“Sunshine, as soon as I get you into that elevator, I am gonna helmet bump the hell out of you,” Sam said, walking forward and grabbing her by the arms. “That is probably the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. But you are going to have to move.”

“I know you love me, it’s okay.”

“You are a monster today,” Sam laughed, hooking his arms under Lilu’s and beginning to propel her towards the elevator. She complied easily, walking stiff-legged as he perp-walked her along, giggling to herself, Sam glad that he had pulled her out of her maudlin mood with some silliness.

“Damn. These things would give Energizers a run for their money,” Lilu quipped, shaking her head in amazement.

“Energizers? I take it this was some sort of Old Earth battery cell?”

“Yes, but tiny ones for personal devices.”

“Like… for bed? I could see why you wouldn’t want that to give out at the wrong time,” Sam chuckled.

“No, not for that! Well, actually, yes for that, but I meant anything from flashlights to cameras to radios, those sort of personal devices,” Lilu laughed with him, blushing slightly, glad it wasn’t visible in her helmet.

“Sure, sure. This elevator shaft looks as if it goes somewhere significant so let’s see what happens, hop on in.”

“This is kind of scary, hope we don’t die.” But she got in the car with Sam, nevertheless.

The ride down was relatively smooth considering the thing hadn’t been operational for almost two hundred years. When the doors whisked open, they stepped out into a sort of admin lobby. More office partitions and desks. And… a working computer.

“Sunshine, take a look at these logs on the computer. Launch procedures, access station logs, but this is interesting about a delivery from Mars. A Dr. Judith Tatienne said a Dr. Victor Aiza brought something top secret back and he was accompanied by two military guys. He was a theoretical physicist.”

“Huh, what else does it say?” Lilu was curious now.

“This Dr. Tatienne said she was trying to cozy up to… well, she’s calling him ‘Victor’ now, but she made a joke about him maybe finding a little gray man and it rattled him, so he asked for her background in materials science and metallurgical engineering, she was invited to the lab.”

“Materials and metallurgy… sounds familiar, like when Barrett was giving you shit about the materials in the Starborn ship and the Artifacts.”

“Well, that could go for anything, almost, but you do make a good point. But listen to this: This Dr. Tatienne says she spent time with Victor and his team talking about theoretical metals, atomic bonding, magnetism, and then she saw the lab and… I quote… ‘the periodic table just got thrown out the window.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lilu was confused. “Is there a layperson’s explanation there somewhere?”

“That was the end of it. There’s a control to open the door, I guess we go further in and see what’s there. Shall we?” Sam entreated.

“Oh, do let’s,” Lilu agreed.

The doors opened into a vast hall that was nothing less than a NASA museum. Vehicles and engines from past NASA launches and vehicles were standing or hanging from the rafters along with various banners. The emergency lighting was still functioning. Sam strode forward excitedly, taking it all in.

“This is… sooo cool. Man, I could spend hours down here.*”

Lilu walked towards the hall, looked around, and then exclaimed, “Oh SHIT, this is the Kennedy Space Center. Holy… I always wanted to come here. I… fuck man… I guess I got my wish but… not like this. Not like this.” The despair was back again. Sam could see her hands shaking. At least they were out of the radiation, he could take a minute.

“Sunshine, look at all this, though. This is what made it possible to be out amongst the stars. It’s still incredible. It did its job to get us here now. That you and I are able to look at it together is a miracle. Come on, let’s go and check it out, you and me. Okay?”

Lilu picked up her head and looked at Sam, and then his outstretched hand. He was offering her a choice: despair, or seize the opportunity. She reached out and took her husband’s hand. It was better to move forward, not let the malaise pull her down into the abyss.

They found a replica of the shuttle which was outside, and it told a story that Lilu had already heard: In 2150, scientists predicted the destruction of earth due to “atmospheric phenomena” that would cause breathable air to sputter outside of Earth’s gravity, and there was only fifty years’ time remaining to evacuate humanity. But thanks to the Grav Drive, there was a future.

They also found information on Project Prism, the same project they found on the Moon. Apparently, NASA had partnered with Nova Galactic, who had created the Voltaire supercomputer. Project Prism was an aerospace project that “pulled” gravity itself. The result was the first spacecraft capable of faster than light travel. The first successful voyage was the Jupiter launch that Sam and Lilu had heard the recording for on the Lunar research station's roof.

And something else Lilu didn’t know but learned there in the Space Center: humans had begun colonizing other planets as early as the 2090s. Beginning with small outposts on the Moon and Mars leading the way to larger colonies on Mars and other planets and satellites within the solar system. The way had been paved to create a softer landing for these refugees should the day come when humanity needed to flee Earth, and indeed that day did come.

“Here’s what I don’t get, Sam,” Lilu began after looking over these displays, pensively. “They didn’t know there was a problem with Earth until around 2150. But they had started this light speed travel initiative around 2137. And colonizing long before that. I know we had been afraid that climate change was going to render the planet uninhabitable, so the thought of colonizing Mars and the Moon had already been bandied about. But the light speed travel to have conveniently been in production more than a decade before it was actually called upon? It was almost as if someone had the gift of foresight.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong, but what are the chances?” Sam said, trying to be realistic.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I can wrap my head around what it means to be Starborn and live in a multiverse.”

“Good point.”

They finished looking at the exhibits, took a snow globe for Cora, and found a passageway that had been partially caved in but looked as if it led deeper into the facility, moving into what seemed like lab facilities. There were notebooks, slates, broken computers. But after much scouring and coming up with nothing useful, they were just about to move on when Lilu found a slate that was titled, “Judith, Personal Recording.”

“I think I’ve got something here, Sam. It’s Judith’s. At least, I hope it’s our Judith.”

“Play it!” Sam jogged over to her as a woman’s voice with a French accent came from the slate.

Judith Tatienne: I just don’t understand where these calculations came from. Victor Aiza: There something wrong with the math? I think it’s quite straightforward. Judith Tatienne: That’s not what I’m asking! We’ve had no success extracting even a sample of material from the object. No explanation for the gravitational effects. No motion graph to explain its harmonic frequencies. We can’t even establish a melting point. Victor Aiza: Judith… Judith Tatienne: But you’ve had me building these prototype colliders for months! And now you want me to pump Helium-3 into it based on this equation you’ve written on a god-damned napkin! Victor Aiza: I just need you to trust me. Judith Tatienne: I HAVE been trusting you! We keep slamming our heads against a brick wall, getting nothing, and you keep coming up with something new to try, like you know what’s going to happen! Where are you getting your information, Victor? Victor Aiza: I’m sorry, Judith. I… look, not here, okay? Somewhere off-base. I’ll tell you everything. But… I’m not lying okay? We’re going to discover something important here, I promise.

“The man is Dr. Victor Aiza, then; Judith identified him, she called him ‘Victor,’” Sam concluded, and Lilu nodded her agreement.

“That did sound similar to the voice we heard at the lunar research base up on the roof. Huh. Well, let’s see what else we can find. The only thing that seems certain is that whatever they were working on, it was some weird shit that he couldn’t explain and she was suspicious. It never pays to lie to women.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Sam snorted. but patted Lilu affectionately on the behind. “Come on, let’s see what’s down this passageway.”

“Looks like a bunch of caved in rock, I hope we can squeeze through.”

“Me, too, because I think I see light way down at the end. There must be more labs here."

Lilu thought for a moment. “If this is anything similar to the Pentagon, I’d bet a lot of the structures are connected by underground tunnels. We’re likely deep underground besides the additional dirt and rock that’s piled up over the last couple of centuries. Let’s hope this is a main thoroughfare. It looks like it may have been wider before some of the cave-ins.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad so much of this was destroyed, but at least the museum was spared. Those relics are priceless.”

Lilu looked at Sam with a smirk. “Careful what you’re calling a relic around here. This is the domain of my people, and some of those things were from my time.”

“That’s right. You let me know when you need to sit down and rest. I don’t want you expiring on me at your advanced age.” Now it was Sam’s turn to smirk.

Lilu went up to him and pressed her faceplate against his, the tiniest contact of metal upon glass. “I can’t kiss you but it’s the thought that counts. Come on, Coe.” And she grabbed Sam’s gloved hand as they almost traipsed down the narrow, stone-occluded passage.

They came upon a large manufacturing room with towering ceilings and a variety of work tables and conveyor belts that housed several robots and turrets, some in partial assembly, others fully functional and aggressive. One looked like the great-grandfather of a Settled Systems combat bot, and Sam expressed condolences to a far-away Vasco for killing his ancestor.

But it was at the end of the room, where a metal roll up gate was, that everything changed. The gate seemed to be protecting some sort of shaft that had a precipitous drop but also seemed to have an opening leading elsewhere into the facility near its top. The gate wouldn’t roll up, and Sam spied a set of stairs leading up a level, but it still dumped them on the wrong side of the shaft. It was a pretty broad jump; they wouldn’t make it without assistance.

Lilu thought she’d try to use her boost pack to get across, but the opening to the floor on the other side was narrow; she might hit the wall above it, or if she was lucky, she could hit the rungs of the maintenance ladder just below the gap. “Sunshine… I don’t know…” Sam said, uncertainly, worried that she’d fall. She took a deep breath and jumped, ready to hit the button on her boost pack. But before she could, she immediately felt the embrace of zero gravity catch her and lift her.

“Holy shit, Sam, there’s no gravity in here, come on.”

Sam looked uncertain, but he saw Lilu begin to move forward with small bursts of her boost pack, so he stepped out into the shaft and relaxed as soon as he felt himself float. Following Lilu’s lead, he drifted over beside her. They were looking into a hallway, well lit, that led to a utility door.

Lilu shrugged and floated into the hallway towards the door, tested it, and it opened on her first turn of the handle. The door opened to a brightly lit corridor, almost like a laboratory. One wall backed against the facility, the other faced some sort of viewing area, and the upper half of the wall was made of glass. It was hard to make out what was in the viewing area, except more glass tubes and a set of metal walkways. But something was in the glass tubes, it was just hard to make out what it was.

“Let’s keep going down the corridor and see if we can get inside that center part,” Sam suggested, and Lilu made off towards the right. From what they could see of the glass windows, the corridor surrounded the viewing area in a square formation. They encountered, from time to time, workstations and computers, but they were all non-functioning. Debris, paperwork, pencil sharpeners, file folders, all of it was floating around in Sam and Lilu’s wake as they made their way around.

But then they saw a workstation with something strange caught in the desk legs, preventing it from floating. As they drew closer, they could see the form start to make some sort of sense: it was a dead, human body, desiccated after so many years in a dry air environment, untouched, the skin a dry gray, the hair long gone. There was no smell. It almost looked fake. Lilu bent down and grabbed the badge from its lab coat: Dr. Victor Aiza. She showed it to Sam.

“So, this is what happened to the good Doctor. What could have killed him in his own lab?” he wondered aloud.

“I sure don’t like that,” Lilu admitted. “But look at this. His computer is functional. Let’s take a look. There are… a few logs on here…” She was clicking through folders. “Holy shit, paydirt. Listen to this:”

April 14, 2138 Project Log. Doctor Victor Aiza. We turned on the prototype today. The gravitational field around it began to fold as we long suspected. Complete reversal of gravitational pull was observed on dozens of loose objects around the lab. I’m setting up a meeting with the directors to propose a larger test. The prototype proves we don’t need the original anymore, but further work is going to have to take place in space. Somewhere with abundant Helium-3, and with a civilian partner. Someone with access to large scale manufacturing resources and computational equipment. Engineering gravitational folds, “pulling” the far side of the solar system closer to us? It’s all going to be possible.

“This jibes with the dates from the lunar research base. When they were first starting to work with the early prototype of the grav drive,” Sam said. “What else is there. Lilu started reading the next log.

December 8, 2141 Project Log. Doctor Judith Tatienne. I watched the Grav Drive test from the Moon today. It was the first time we were able to talk to the team at Nova Galactic directly. So many things were under wraps before, but now everyone wants all the publicity they can get. I’m already seeing proposals for manufacturing hundreds of drives. Expeditions to Alpha Centauri and beyond. It’s all so overwhelming… and worrying. It could take years, decades, before we know what all the side effects of operating a Grav Drive can be. But no one wants to hear that right now. Like a bunch of pioneers, racing towards the edges of the frontier without knowing about grizzly bears in the mountains…

“Why does this not surprise me at all?” Lilu asked herself under her breath, bitterly. Sam glanced at her but said nothing wisely. She scrolled to the next log.

“This one’s weird, it’s just some warnings about a prototype drive. Secure loose objects, remove metal from your person when you’re working on it, only the strictest clearances for working with it, no materials or information to leave the lab, kind of standard stuff.” Lilu gave a little shrug and Sam was ambivalent, so she moved on.

“Wow, this one is 2149, so eight years after the last one. It’s a transcript, it looks like. This is interesting,” Lilu said as she began to read it.

February 12, 2149 Lan Hsu: I never actually got to visit your labs back when we were working on the Grav Drive projects. Victor Aiza: Seems like ancient history now. Only thing we’re doing these days is launching weather satellites. Lan Hsu: Guess this is as good a retirement as any. Now Project Demeter. You want our help manufacturing scanners to better track these new meteorological patterns we’re seeing? Judith Tatienne: Our guess is that the poles might be naturally shifting, causing some gravitational fluctuations that are throwing off our old models. Lan Hsu: Why do you need the scanning tolerances to be so small? What are you trying to find? Victor Aiza: I… just want to be sure. It’s not like we’re doing much these days, anyway. The glory days are over. Why not give ourselves a challenge before they write us off into the history books?

“Meteorological patterns?” Lilu queried, frowning. “It was a weather anomaly, a freak electrical storm, that brought me here. This seems weirdly coincidental and familiar.”

“Huh, when you put it that way… yeah. Is there more?” Sam saw that Lilu had flicked to the next log, but her face went slack as she read to herself. Then she turned to look at Sam, her eyes registering pain. She cleared her throat, but when she began, her voice was shaking.

August 21, 2149 To: Judith Tatienne, Victor Aiza, Lan Hsu As requested, the Astrophysics Research Team has done a full analysis of the data you provided us. The measurements of the Earth’s magnetosphere show clear signs of fluctuation, often in correlation to the periods of frequent and large gravity wave spikes emanating from the Moon. These gravity waves seem to be affecting the magnetic shield provided by the Earth’s inner core and may be affecting the core itself given the proximity of the source. The data indicates the change rate is increasing exponentially. As our magnetosphere falters, its ability to protect us from the Sun’s solar wind falters. Beyond the devastating effects of solar radiation, this will lead to something more dire - the sputtering, or stripping away, of our atmosphere. This has happened before, to Mars, a planet studied since the earliest days of space, to see into the Earth’s possible future. We are afraid this future may be closer than we ever thought imaginable. Some may view this data as normal. There have been historical fluctuations and polarity changes of Earth’s core, but this is orders of magnitude greater. We see echoes of previous generation’s debates over global warming, and we want the science here to be clear. Like waves in the ocean, these gravity waves rise and eventually crash onto shore, the Earth, with devastating consequences. Dr. Lukas Andrews ART Chief Scientist

“Oh my God,” Sam breathed. “You mean to tell me… No… it’s not possible, it can’t be our fault…”

“It sounds like it is, though. Because listen to this next one…”

August 22, 2149 Judith Tatienne: I know what I’m seeing, Victor. The data coming back from the satellites is very clear. It’s the Grav Drives. Lan Hsu: All those jumps from the Moon. At this rate, Earth’s atmosphere is going to start sputtering out into space. Victor Aiza: Can the drives be fixed? Lan Hsu: I’ve working on some designs that should… discretely solve the problem under the guise of an emergency update to the fueling pumps. Judith Tatienne: We’re talking about the end of the Earth and you’re trying to be subtle about it? Victor Aiza: Judith. The last thing we need is people losing faith in Grav Drive technology. That might be our only option. Judith Tatienne: To what? Are you seriously saying we should abandon Earth? Lan Hsu: The timeline is under 50 years. A blind of an eye for a planet, but more than enough time for a human exodus. Judith Tatienne: And what do we tell people? Victor Aiza: We say that it’s an act of God. One that science has found a solution for. Time for humanity to take its place in the stars. Judith Tatienne: … You knew? Didn’t you? You lied to me! Victor Aiza: I… Judith Tatienne: All this time! I dedicated my LIFE to this discovery, Victor! And you KNEW we were going to kill off our planet! Victor Aiza: You haven’t seen the future I’ve seen! There’s an infinite expanse of promise out there. A meteor could have hit Earth. A plague. Another world war. Colonizing other galaxies secures humanity’s future for all coming generations across all time! Judith Tatienne: At the expense of our home! Lan Hsu: Stop it! Both of you! All that matters is building enough ships to get everyone off this planet. And we need to start now. Victor Aiza: I’ll… draft up a statement. We’ll need to address the entire international community. I’m sorry, Judith… Judith Tatienne: There isn’t a planet in this universe that will be far enough away from you, Victor. We are never speaking again after this is over.

“This… is monstrous. If this guy knew and did it on purpose because he had some weird agenda to colonize the galaxy…” Lilu began. “But, how would he know?”

“Yeah, and what did he mean when he said, ‘You haven’t seen the future I’ve seen,’ did he have visions?” Sam was confused. Lilu flipped to another log, and suddenly gripped the console with gloved hands to steady herself.

“Oh Jesus, Sam. Jesus Christ, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…” Her breath was coming rapidly.

“Hey Sunshine, are you okay, what is it?” Sam moved next to Lilu, who could only point a trembling finger at the screen.

September 8, 2160 My name is Doctor Victor Aiza, and if you’re listening to this, then you probably already know the truth. I was young when I first headed the retrieval team of an odd gravitational anomaly on Mars, but I kept what really happened that day hidden from everyone except… one other person. Even she didn’t believe me at first, but I have no reason to lie to anyone now, so I hope you’ll accept this… confession, whoever you are. When I touched the anomaly, I experienced 12 days of lost time. I met… myself. He told me everything that has since come true. The Grav Drive equations. The tests on the Moon. Earth’s atmosphere sputtering away because of what we had done. But he also told me about a city, thriving on a planet orbiting a distant star. Human culture, art, music, lifestyles evolving and shining brightly across all of space. What price would I be willing to pay for that future? Maybe you don’t believe me. Maybe Judith was right and I’m just a coward who wants to believe his mistakes were justified. But everyone has forgotten about the real origins of the Grav Drive. This… Artifact, from Mars. I hope you make better use of it than I did.

“He touched the Artifact and saw visions. Visions that came true, that saw the future. But I can’t see anymore….” Lilu whispered.

“Because you stopped gathering them, and the powers?” Sam suggested.

“Maybe.”

“The date… 2160… My grandpappy Solomon made his solo jump from Earth in 2167. From Cheyenne.”

“Heh. If the Grav Drive had never been invented, if Earth had never been destroyed, if Norm had never been killed and we’d survived being in the Army together, just think, our kids could have been marrying Solomon’s kids. Or wait, we could have been related, maybe I would’ve been…” But then Lilu stopped, frowning.

“What is it? I kind of like this speculation even though it would’ve meant we never would’ve met, which I don’t like so much.”

“Sam, I think I understand now why all of this is happening, why it’s you and me, how Cheyenne has been front and center in my life even though Norm is gone. Something about this genuinely is meant to be, and the answer is getting closer, I just can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Well, let’s grab this Artifact and get out of here, and then we’ll try to figure it out.”

“Good call.”

There was a big red button to kick the gravity back in, and Lilu gave it a hard slap to punch it down. But it didn’t work. Looking around the room, she saw a power supply leading to the conduit was off. Cursing under her breath, she floated to the power switch, flipped it, and gave the thumbs ups to Sam. And immediately tumbled to the ground as he hit the red button.

“Shit. You know, I knew it was coming and I still fell over,” she laughed, some of the tension and dread falling away for a moment. Sam smiled at her, but his face was drawn. This place, which only a little while ago seemed so fascinating, now felt like a crime scene for the planet Earth.

They ran down the corridor until they found a service door that allowed them into the center of the viewing area. Making their way around the catwalks, they found their way down to the multilayered glass cylinder at the room’s nucleus, which indeed housed an Artifact on a metal platform in its center. Lilu stepped up to the end of the cylinder, and it must have had a motion detector, because its door slid open and the platform moved along two rails towards the door so that the Artifact could be handled or removed. It was short in length, but it was thick, with about five different pieces seemingly laminated together.

Lilu reached out her hand to take it, but no visions occurred. It had already been handled too many times. But a startling echo boomed around the room, and it was as if outside comms had penetrated the chamber. The voice of the Emissary came through loud and clear.

“Constellation. We’ve arrived on the surface of the Earth. We need to discuss what you’ve found.”

And before either Sam or Lilu could react, the voice of the Hunter joined in. “And it looks like other Starborn got here before us. So… you might have company.”

“Shit, Sam, let’s get the fuck out of here, then, and keep your head on a swivel. You know how these things are, invisible one moment and in your face the next. Our best bet is to haul ass out of here.”

“What is it you always say? Let’s boogie.”

Lilu gave him a grim smile, squeezed his arm, shoved the artifact into the sling where her gun usually went and pulled her gun around front in a ready position. Then she started flying up the steps, over the catwalks, back into the lab corridor, and started looking for another service exit out since that shaft they came up now had gravity and she didn’t want to fall to her death.

They were working their way back down to where they came from so they could come back up through the elevator, but this meant traversing some unfamiliar territory. They found a lab that had a variety of outpost habs set up for testing. And it was there that the other Starborn ambushed them.

There were only two, thankfully, and neither were as powerful as the Hunter. Still, they were formidable, and in a room with so much cover and so many obstacles, it was a deadly game of cat and mouse, their ability to come out of stealth in a new position creating chaos.

But in Sam and Lilu, there was now a tenacious pair of relentless fighters themselves. Used to each other’s moves and tempo, staying close enough together to watch each other’s backs, but not so close that an enemy could take them both out at one time. They were watching for the Starborn to reappear along a predictable route every time they faded from sight. And they were mostly right. Starborn were, after all, just people, and not all were very bright. They were able to beat them back and escape from the room, and keep running for the exits.

They were back in the offices when the Starborn appeared again. But here, the office partitions offered cover and concealment to turn the tables on them, allowing for ambush attacks and a strange sort of guerilla warfare that had a white collar feeling there amongst the desks and empty water coolers. But once again, Sam and Lilu prevailed and bolted back up the passageway through to the museum to the smaller lobby and thence onto the elevator.

But as they got out of the elevator, Lilu’s heart fell. There in the sand facing the launch tower were two Starborn ships. And two figures clad in black looking up at them where they stood on the platform.

“Shit,” Lilu groaned.

“They want to talk to us. To you,” Sam said.

“Yeah. I guess. Come on, let’s try to get down from here.”

--------------------

LILU AND SAM, NOW:

They made their way to the catwalk and maintenance stairs and began the long, winding way down, down, down the tower until they got to a platform that extended in the general direction the Hunter and Emissary were standing. There was a short jump into a very tall sand dune and Lilu decided to take it, Sam a little more hesitantly. Once they were together, they ran to meet the Starborn.

This was Sam’s first time seeing the Emissary, and he pulled up short behind Lilu. She turned to see why he faltered, and saw the shock on his face. She had told him, and maybe he had forgotten, or maybe it was just the horror of seeing the ghost of Sarah Morgan in that faceplate for a moment. The Emissary seemed to recognize it and flipped the faceplate to black.

“Do you understand now why I asked you to come here? The Artifacts unlocked the secret of interstellar travel. At the cost of Earth,*” the Emissary explained to Lilu, ignoring Sam and his reaction, because it was still Sarah’s voice that said the words.

“An easy trade, honestly. Why have one world when you can have all of the Settled Systems?*” the Hunter added, smugly.

“Sacrificing Earth wasn’t worth having Grav Drives. We lost our home,*” Lilu burst out, hotly.

“Billions of lives were lost. Not even the stars are worth… that,*” Sam added.

“Assuming we weren’t going to lose it anyway. War, disease, famine. All the classics.*” The Hunter seemed so sure. What could he know about it?

The Emissary turned to the Hunter. “Don’t you see? The power of the Artifact forced humanity to the stars. They didn’t get to make a choice. How many would’ve chosen Earth? What gave Victor Aiza the right to choose for them?*”

“You see the hypocrisy in what the Emissary is saying, right? They don’t want to rob people of their free will, but then they steal the Artifacts for themselves.*”

The Emissary turned to face the Hunter again. “In the wrong hands, the power of the Artifacts can make anyone a tyrant. That’s why we watch over them. The only thing you’re watching out for is yourself.*”

Lilu shook her head, angrily. “You’re both wrong. It’s time someone other than a Starborn made a decision.*”

Sam backed Lilu’s play. “You are so wrapped up in your arcane… war. You’re oblivious to the cost you’re making the rest of us pay.*”

“Don’t be a fool,” warned the Hunter. “The Emissary and I may have our differences, but you don’t want to give us a common enemy.*”

“For once, he’s right. Don’t do this. We can collect the final pieces together,*” urged the Emissary.

“As in I choose one or the other of you to ally myself with? Why would I do that? Besides the common enemy thing?” Lilu looked disgusted.

“I’ll tell you why, and it’s something the Emissary can’t match. I can help you with something that I know you want. You see, I have learned many lessons, and I have a long memory. Lots of memories. Much of it’s all a blur to me these days. Although my favorites are the ones related to my time on Earth. I’m older than you might think.*” There was that smugness in the Hunter’s voice again. But Lilu stared at him, a dawning realization pushing at the edges of her mind.

“So… So what is it that you think I want that you think you can help me with?”

“That Artifact you grabbed from NASA is special, the one from Mars. Most just use it to complete the Armillary but it isn’t absolutely necessary. At least, not all of it. I can show you how to use it as a tool, a tool to bend space and time. Do you ever dream about going home?”

“Don’t toy with her, you can’t promise her something like that!” the Emissary protested.

“Oh, but I can. I’ve made it work for me. The fact that she’s here is evidence that it’s possible. And she carries another tool around her neck that she brought with her through the void. If anyone can do it, it’ll be her. It’ll take hard work and repetition, but she can do it if she has the strength of will to persevere.” The Hunter’s voice was firm with conviction.

The windmills of Lilu’s mind were spinning wildly with speculation. She didn’t know if this was real or a trick, but she couldn’t take a chance and lose this gossamer thread of a lifeline. She almost didn’t recognize her own voice as the words came out of her mouth. “An alliance with the Hunter seems like the winning strategy.*” She could see nothing through the Starborn’s faceplate but she imagined she could see him smiling. But then she heard Sam groan and she flinched.

“I can see your point. But… Damn it.*” He turned and walked away a few steps.

The Hunter, though, he merely chuckled with satisfaction. “I also like picking winners.*”

“Fine. You two have made your choice. The usual place?*” The Emissary was miffed now.

“The Buried Temple. Oh. Yes. We’ll be there.*”

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,*” the Emissary said, regretfully. But somehow, Lilu wasn’t sure the Emissary was terribly sorry, even though it was still Sarah’s voice coming from the faceplate. But the Starborn vanished, leaving Sam and Lilu with the Hunter.

“You and I better have a chat, talk through next steps. I have a little favor to ask you, too.*” The Hunter’s blank, black faceplate regarded Lilu for a moment. “Besides, there’s no point in going to the Buried Temple until all the other Artifacts have been gathered. Your friends in Constellation should be able to help you there. They always seem to have a knack for finding the stragglers.*”

“Will you be coming with me?*” Lilu asked, dreading the possibility.

“Oh, I’m not missing this, I’ll be meeting you there.*”

“Let’s hear about this favor you want done,*” Lilu pushed.

“Keeper Aquilus. My illustrious counterpart. He’s a loose end that needs tying.*”

Lilu frowned. “Isn’t he you? Why murder him?*”

“First, he led you to my meeting with the Emissary. Now that’s turned out well for me, but it’s hardly good to have someone who knows your secrets hanging around. Second, I don’t like him. You’ll understand once you’ve been through a few times. Other versions of yourself have a habit of being distasteful.*”

“No, I’m not murdering an innocent man in cold blood,*” Lilu said, trying to hold firm.

“Well, I hate to be pushy at the beginnings of this new partnership, but I need to insist*. Besides, you’ve done worse.”

Lilu glared at the Hunter now. “I won’t ask how you possibly know this because I probably won’t like the answer.”

“Oh, you definitely would not. But… Let me take in this moment. It’s not every day you get to send an assassin after yourself. Good luck.*” And the Hunter disappeared. Apparently teleportation was a Starborn power Lilu had yet to get for herself. She turned and walked to Sam.

“Hey…” she started, but when Sam turned around, he was visibly shaken and angry.

“We need to talk when we get back to the ship.”

“Well, I sort of imagined we would…”

“You bet your ass we will.” And he turned and made off in the Cherrypopper’s direction, oblivious to whether she was following or not.

Lilu stood and watched him go for a few beats, then followed after, hesitantly, replaying the scenes in her mind, trying to think of what made him most angry. Siding with the Hunter had to be top of the list, likely agreeing to kill Aquilus but he had to know she wouldn’t. Could there be anything else that had him breathing fire? She was about to find out.

--------------------

SAM AND LILU, NOW:

Sam was a whirlwind of fear and anger and hurt on his way back to the Cherrypopper. What was Lilu going to do, use this Unity thing to leave Constellation, to leave him? Is that what the Hunter had offered her? She was willing to side with a murderer, someone who killed Sarah, their leader, just for a chance for something for herself? She hated it in the Settled Systems that much? They had just gotten married, how could she do this?

He could hear her walking in silence behind him, trudging through the sand and over the rock ravines. His anger and annoyance built and gathered as they toiled. At least the sun was down.

When they got on board, Lilu got out of her spacesuit and hung it up, pulled a toy NASA rocket from a side pocket, put her gun in the rack in the armory, and started up the ladder.

“Where did you get that?” Sam asked, gruffly, eyeing the rocket.

“I found it on the floor of the museum, I grabbed it for Cora.”

“She’s not a baby.”

“I know, but she wanted a souvenir and it was the only thing I saw that still looked serviceable. Were you able to find anything?” Lilu had paused on the ladder, peering through the rungs, clutching the rocket in one hand. Sam said nothing and kept straightening out his gear. He’d forgotten, and that just pissed him off more. Lilu said nothing else and eventually she went on up the ladder. It took a few seconds before he heard her and Cora chatting animatedly in the galley. He waited until the conversation died down, and then he went upstairs to look for his wife.

Sam looked in the family area but it was empty, and he could see Cora moving about in her room, alone. He didn’t see anyone up in the cockpit, so he went to the Captain’s quarters and found Lilu changing her clothes. There was a livid welt on the side of her left hip down her leg to about the level of where her boot top would have been, and a matching one on the outside of her shoulder down to her elbow. His anger cooled considerably and was replaced with concern.

“Shit, you got burned.”

“How do you mean that?”

Instantly, Sam’s anger returned. “Not everything has to have a smart-assed comeback, Liluana. By the solar radiation on the side of your suit. It must have been too thin near the seams.”

“I think you forget just exactly who it is that you’re talking to,” Lilu replied, tossing those clothes into a plastic basket next to the wall and looking for something else to put on that wouldn’t irritate her inflamed skin.

“Oh? Who am I talking to? My wife or the Earth girl?”

“Turns out that’s the same person, Sam. What did you think, I’ve fully assimilated in under a year? Have you fully assimilated into UC culture? How long have you lived there and not in the Freestar Collective? Huh? And what do you consider yourself? Spare me the flak over how I identify. I still don’t understand half of what goes on here.”

Sam sighed heavily, then said, “Wait, don’t get dressed yet. Let me get some burn gel for those before you put anything over them.”

Lilu sat down on the bed in her underwear and waited for him to come back. When he did, she asked, “How come these things never happen to you? Could it be that you actually understand what you’re doing here?”

“Okay, you made your point. Here, hold out your arm first.” Sam opened the burn gel, squeezed a healthy dollop onto some gauze, and started to stroke it down the angry red skin on Lilu’s arm, going slowly when he heard the sharp intake of her breath. “It’s just that… you made a deal with the Hunter after he killed Sarah. That didn’t sit well. For what, you think he can help you go home?”

“No. Not directly. He said it would take hard work and repetition, so I think he means for me to repeat the cycle and keep at it until it does work. I don’t know that’s something I’m willing to do, but… I just want to understand, Sam. Understand why this happened to me, and what’s meant to happen next. About the Starborn and the Unity.”

Sam motioned for Lilu to stand, and she got to her feet. He used a finger to lift up the leg of her panties to peer underneath along her hip and butt cheek, then said, “Sorry, Sunshine, but panties off.” She wiggled out of them and flipped them into the laundry basket, and Sam put more burn gel on his gauze and began slowly applying it to Lilu’s hip working his way down her leg. “So, we know the answer… Who are the Starborn? Well, we are. Or some cracked mirror versions of ourselves. The whole thing seems unreal.*” He paused in his task, staring straight ahead, deep in thought.

“You theorized they were people outside the Settled Systems. Score one for you,*” Lilu shrugged.

Sam snorted a little laugh, “Yeah, who’s keeping track? But you know, yeah, plus one for Team Sam. I was hoping the Starborn were somehow so advanced that their concerns were cosmic? Significant? Instead they’re fighting over goddamned toys like we’ve been doing since cave man times. It’s just a stupid game to them, and all of our deaths and suffering: not relevant.*”

“I think it may be more complicated than that,*” Lilu suggested.

“God, I hope it is. So the Unity is… a gateway. A gateway to countless possibilities. And you have a chance to go through it. Imagine. I’d be lying if it doesn’t sound like the adventure of a lifetime. I don’t know if you’re taking anyone with you. But if you take me… I got no idea if I’d go through or not. If it weren’t for Cora, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat. And Cora would probably shove both of us out of the way to dive in first. Born explorer, that girl.*” Sam half-smiled at Lilu now, looking for some sort of positive reaction. Maybe he’d overdone it but… while he had been angry before when it sounded as if Lilu was trying to run out on him, the more he thought about it, the more it sounded exactly like what he had been searching for: to be the Coe who discovered something significant, to restore the family name to that of the great explorers. Take that, Dad*.

But Lilu didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t want to go to another universe,*” she stated, flatly, jolting Sam out of his reverie. He glanced at her face, then resumed applying the heal gel further down her leg.

“I can’t say I blame you,*” he finally replied, trying to hide his disappointment in her response. “Not sure everyone in Constellation wouldn’t make that leap, though.*” He continued what he was doing and realized it was silent in the room. Sam risked another glance at Lilu’s face and saw the wary look had returned, the strain around her eyes. “My head is still spinning. Maybe after a few night’s sleep it’ll be clearer.*” Getting to his feet, he said, “Let that dry for a few minutes and then you should be able to put some clothes on over it.” Straightening up, he gathered his gauze and supplies and walked from the room. But he knew he’d fucked up, pushed too hard. He had always been too easy to read.

--------------------

LILU AND SAM, NOW:

As soon as Sam left the room, Lilu buried her face into her hands. She knew Sam had been angry. She had assumed it was because she had agreed to kill Aquilus, but then it seemed like maybe it was because it looked as if she was trying to find a way back to Old Earth and leave Sam here, bereft of his new wife and marriage. But once it was clear those weren’t her intentions, he seemed to warm to the thought of going through the Unity. Even to the point of implying that hey, if she didn’t want to go, others would, and by others, he meant him. Of that she was certain. The adventure of a lifetime, he said. If it weren’t for CORA he’d jump on it in a heartbeat, he said. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about her, his wife, who just moments before he was afraid was going to leave him high and dry. “I want you to stay and keep me company, but if you don’t want to do the cool stuff I want, toodles, toots!” Welcome to the Lillian Hart ex-wives’ club.

How did she not see this on her bingo card for selfish assholes? It’s not like he didn’t have a history. Sam-zilla was back, just when she thought that little monster had been slain and buried. “Well, bitch, this is what you get. This is what you get for believing. You got suckered into it, you knew who he really was. He left his first wife for exploration. He’s behaved like an ass half the time. Now that he’s married you, he figures he can do whatever the fuck he wants, no repercussions. You may as well have married a paisa. This is where you get your heart destroyed, just watch,” she quietly ranted to herself like a madwoman.

The darkness crowded around Lilu again. But there was too much to do to give in to it. She still had to go back to Akila City to pick up the new ship being fashioned from the Star Eagle, and from there to the Lodge to see Vladimir about any signs of remaining Artifacts to collect, as well as last Temples to gather powers from. She had a feeling she’d need every last one.

She touched the heal gel and it was dry, so she slid on a loose shorts set and went to the cockpit. No matter what happened, she couldn’t forget that now she was a step-mom, so she had to take Cora’s feelings into account. Because she had felt yet another shift in the relationship between her and Sam. Ever so slight.

Sam usually couldn’t resist making a bawdy comment about her nude body, even if she was injured. As she stood there with no panties on, his hand working its way from her hip down her thigh, his face at crotch level, it was as if she was invisible. Nothing, not even a leer. It was always playful when he did so, no big deal. But now it was devoid of anything. Not even a kiss on the cheek.

Something between her and her husband was lost that day. She didn’t know what it was or what triggered it. But just as she had predicted when her Paradiso honeymoon was cut short, so was the end of her perfect existence, so brief it could be measured in the blink of an eye. How nice that she had been able to touch it, how cruel it was only a taste.

Now there was just bitterness again. And pain. Real and emotional. The burn was starting to sting, piquing her mood. She hoped Sam would keep to himself for a while because she didn’t need any pissing and moaning about what he wanted to do. She always bore the brunt of these missions and was expected to stick her neck out first. Constellation as a whole had done this to her.

She angrily punched in the coordinates to Akila City, lifted off, and left the lifeless hulk that was planet Earth behind for the last time… in this universe.

Once she hit the Cheyenne system, Lilu felt a wave of melancholia wash over her. She thought about the Core manor home, and how she’d imagined settling down in it, considered becoming in a family way, a baby perhaps, one of Sam and her own. It wasn’t going to happen, was it? Would she be able to have children as a Starborn? Would she even be human? She had seen them bleed red blood. She didn’t want to cross over, but was there a reason she had to? Like, a “for all mankind” reason?

And even if there wasn’t and she decided to stay, and Sam decided to go anyway? What then? Would she want to stay? Who would fill his shoes? What would she do alone? Maybe become a merc, a paid killer, there’d be no reason to hang onto the pretense of morality or civility. She doubted she could hold the hurt and fury of her heart at bay. Every injury and insult ever done to her body, her soul, would be revisited on those she was meant to target. It was always simmering under the surface. There were so many cruel people out there who deserved a taste of what they were dishing out.

Jesus, Lilu, where is your mind going with this, nothing has even happened yet. He just acted weird for a moment, it’s not a sign of anything for certain, she thought to herself. But she wasn’t so sure. She set the Cherrypopper down on a landing pad at the Akila City spaceport and then went looking for Sam. He was sitting alone in the family area at the table, staring off at nothing at all, his fingers drumming a nervous beat on the table. He looked up, startled, when she cleared her throat.

“Can you and Cora see if the new ship is ready and start moving everything from this ship to that one if it is? I’m going to take the shuttle to New Atlantis and see Keeper Aquilus, get that out of the way, and see Vladimir about new coordinates for any remaining Artifacts.”

“Uh, by yourself?”

“Yeah. I’m an adult, I’ve been known to do things by myself. Clearly.” Her eyes bore steadily into him, and Sam squirmed.

“Look, Liluana, I…”

“You what?”

Sam looked uncomfortable, shrugged, and stammered, “I didn’t think you’d want to go to New Atlantis by yourself.”

“I’ve been there before. By myself. What’s so different about this? Saves time.”

“Yeah, but… well, what are you planning to do?”

“I’m going to see Keeper Aquilus and then go see Vladimir about…”

“Goddammit, Liluana!” Sam exploded. “Knock this shit off. I know you’re pissed, stop pretending.”

“I’m not pretending about anything, Sam. You didn’t ask me how I was feeling. If you’d asked me, I would have told you I’m not happy. But you know what, it’s interesting that you tell me that I’m pissed. You’re the one whose attitude changed the moment I suggested I might not want to go through with it, going through the Unity. You acted worse than if you’d been cockblocked, which is saying something. You think I can’t tell the difference in how you touched me? How you looked at me, or rather wouldn’t look at me? Please. But I’m going through the motions of doing what the Hunter asked so if and when the time comes, there are no issues.” She turned away and started to walk off but Sam was out of his seat in a heartbeat.

“Liluana, wait… Keeper Aquilus… what are you planning on doing?”

“Whatever I have to do for a convincing conclusion. Here’s hoping he cooperates. If not?” She shrugged. “Like the Hunter said, I’ve done worse.” The flatness in her voice, her expression, her eyes. She was shutting down and shutting out emotion.

“You don’t want to even see your new ship?” Sam tried a different tack, but it didn’t work.

“I’m sure it’ll be lovely.”

Sam sighed, looked around himself helplessly. “I didn’t mean to act like that, to push or make it seem as if I didn’t care when you said… I fucked this up, didn’t I?”

“No, Sam, I did. I expected too much, I let myself get set up for the fall. Anyway, I’ll be back.”

“Wait, you’re going like that?”

“No, I’m taking a pistol.”

“I meant, in those clothes?”

“Oh.” Lilu looked down at herself. “I don’t feel like dragging anything on over this burn, it’s tender.”

“I should have wrapped it in gauze, I still can if you want?”

“Thanks, but no, I’ll be going now.”

“I love you, Sunshine.”

“Love you, too, Sam.” And she dropped out of sight down the ladder. A moment later, the hatch opened and shut.

Sam noted that she didn’t once call him “Coe” or any other pet name. He had to get everything moved from the Cherrypopper to the new ship and do everything he could to redeem himself. He’d acted like an entitled brat, he knew it. Giving her the cold shoulder while he was administering aid was some grade A bullshit, he should’ve known she’d see right through it and react appropriately. He’d be mad, too. She’d already gotten roped into more than she’d bargained for. These weren’t the actions of a loving spouse fresh off honeymoon just because she didn’t say the pretty words he wanted to hear.

----------

The shuttle dropped Lilu at the New Atlantis spaceport, and she did get some strange looks in her little short set, especially with the livid sunburn marks (what was excess solar radiation except for sunburn, after all) running down her arm and leg like a racing stripe. She took the NAT to the M.A.S.T. district and walked to the Sanctum Universum, the gold and white facade glistening in the midday sun.

Keeper Aquilus was in his office paging through a book when she walked in. He seemed surprised to see her back. “Did you find it? Your answers? I haven’t had a chance to talk about all the truths of Unity in quite some time.*”

“You’re a Starborn. You’re the Hunter.*”

Aquilus cryptic half-smile remained. “Unfortunately, I’ll need to maintain my habit of saying “yes and… no. Are you really Starborn if you’re not hunting for the Artifacts? When you stop racing towards glimpsing the Unity? They may have no unified culture, but rituals persist that make all Starborn who they are. Am I really the Hunter anymore? Can you call all of us the same man? Each version through every universe? At what point do we have a right to our individuality?*”

Lilu sighed. “This multiverse talk makes my head hurt. I want to be mad at just one version of one person.*”

“Wait until you cross universes yourself. If some other version of you causes mayhem, is that really ‘you?’ Anyway, if you do get to the Unity, I hope you get to keep our conversations in mind. Figure out your own truth and hold on to it. It could end up being the only constant you have amidst the infinite worlds that will stretch out before you.*”

“Just how many universes have you been to?*” Lilu’s curiosity got the better of her.

“That’s… actually a difficult question to answer. There was a time when I just stopped counting. I didn’t care anymore. Only touching the infinite again mattered. But as my need for answers deepened, my pace slowed. I began to take in more. Sometimes I would try to share my experiences with others. It was a long time until I realized this is where I belonged. In this universe. Building the Sanctum.* Do you have anything that calls to you, that tells you where you think you belong?”

“I… yes. Before I even came here to the Settled Systems from Old Earth, I was having visions of someone who was already here. These visions… they came to me at a time of… incredible pain, duress… he was like the answer to a prayer, his presence in the visions and dreams were like a comfort. When I finally met him here, he wasn’t quite like I expected him to be, and truthfully, I’m not sure I was right about him. But the initial feeling I got was that somehow we’re meant to be together and there’s something we’re supposed to do, but I don’t know what. But I feel like I’m meant to go home, back to Earth. But how?”

“Ah yes, now your presence here makes sense.” Keeper Aquilus looked at her sharply.

Lilu took a deep breath and admitted, reluctantly, “I met the Hunter. He wants me to kill you.*”

“Of course. How could he not? It’s exactly what I would do if I was… still as lost as he is… You are never fully separated from your other selves. Not completely. Do we somehow share a soul, and is it merely our actions that differ? Hmm. Another of a million questions to ponder.*”

“I still don’t understand. Why does he want you dead?*”

“Imagine that there’s someone that looks like you, knows everything about you, but whose choices might as well be a stranger’s for all the sense they make. It can make your skin crawl. As if someone is playing a joke with your very existence. Murdering them is a way to take back control. To say ‘no.*’” Aquilus gazed at Lilu calmly, waiting for her next move, whatever his fate dictated.

“Leave, Keeper. Go somewhere the Hunter can’t find you.*”

The Keeper smiled. “I see you did pay attention to our talks. Very well. I’ll leave. Thank you for giving me this chance. I’ll need to… make some arrangements here, then I’ll be gone*. But… if the Hunter gives you advice on how to wield the Mars Artifact, listen to him. He won’t steer you wrong or lie to you. If nothing else, he is unfailingly honest. I believe that you and your young man do have a destiny to fulfill together and it does not lie in the Settled Systems. Good luck.”

Lilu nodded, her heart leaping with hope at his words. She was glad she was able to spare him, she thought as she left the Sanctum and headed towards the Lodge. He was a good man, the Keeper, and proof that even the Hunter did have a heart of gold under the darkness. That even if she became Starborn, she didn’t have to be evil or cruel. And that she and Sam could be together? That would be incredible.

With a lighter heart she walked through the doors of the Lodge. It was quiet. Vasco startled her with a loud greeting to break the silence.

“Greetings, Captain, and welcome back! The Lodge has been lonely without your presence. You did not bring Captain Coe with you?”

“No, Vasco, I’m sorry, I took the shuttle from Akila City, I’m moving into a new ship today, and Sam is overseeing. I came to see Vladimir.”

“In here,” Vlad called from the Library, and Lilu waved farewell to Vasco and walked into the other room to find the man sitting by the fire.

“Hey Vlad, how’s it going? I had to take care of a little business here in New Atlantis and I was wondering if you’d gotten any data on possible Artifacts that Sam and I could follow up on?”

“I was wondering if you were ever going to come back. Wow, that’s quite a sunburn you have there. Anyway, I do have some data, the others have been looking but no luck, so I saved these for you because you have the track record to back it up. These last glimpses from the Eye are from the farthest reaches of known space. Could be the only remaining pieces outside the hands of the Starborn.*”

“Thanks, Vladimir, I’ll follow up on these.*”

“Oh, and someone left this slate for you. Catch a smile out there.*”

Lilu took the slate, which said, “That recipe I promised you - H.” She drew a blank for a moment, and then said, “Oh, yeah, thanks, Vlad.” Walking out the door, she hastily opened the slate and read it. “These are instructions to build a Quantum Entanglement Device in the Lodge before you leave. You will leave items behind in it that you wish to have when you come back. Including items you wish to continue working on like fragments of the Mars piece. I will tell you more when I see you again. Until then, gather the materials to build the box. - H.” Lilu noticed how vague the Hunter was with the wording. No one would know exactly what he was talking about.

Returning on the shuttle to Akila City, she realized she didn’t see the Cherrypopper on the spaceport tarmac anymore. She saw, instead, a large turquoise and burgundy ship in the general shape of the Star Eagle, but with a copperhead snake profile and wider wings. Her new ship, the Tiddytwister was ready to fly.

She walked towards the loading ramp just as Sam was coming back out, looking sweaty and tired. “Oh, just in time, all the work has been done. Well, almost, I didn’t unpack your clothes. I figured you might want to figure out how you wanted to arrange your stuff yourself, the dressers are basically the same but still, I’ll leave that to you. I did stake my claim to at least a few drawers this time.” He grinned and put an arm around her like nothing had happened before she left.

“Wow, it’s genuinely imposing now that it’s actually here on the pavement in front of me. I didn’t think it would be so… big. Or pretty. And Christ, look at the size of these guns.”

“Yeah,” agreed Sam. “It’s pretty impressive. But come inside and take a look, I think you’ll love it.” Grasping Lilu’s hand, he pulled her in through the ship’s hatch, showing her the big armory and workshop on the bottom deck, and then the recreation area, family area with fireplace, a crew all-in-one with galley and bunks in case she took on help, Cora’s special room still intact, a larger all -in-one with another fireplace, galley, and dining area, and then her Captain’s quarters tucked away in a more private spot, with a small fireplace in the corner along with two cozy chairs to sit in.

“I know how you love your fireplaces,” Sam said, looking at the fireplace in their quarters. “I have to admit, it truly makes this hab feel homey.”

Lilu stared at it, frowning. How could she reconcile all this with the narrative she’d been building in her head, that Sam was hellbent on going through the Unity, with or without her? This kind of thoughtfulness, this couldn’t be from a man who thought of her as a disposable tool taking him to where he wanted to be, only to abandon her? It couldn’t. He was part of her destiny, everyone was confirming it, even Aquilus. She was being foolish.

“Sam… I don’t know what to say.” She raised her gaze from the fireplace and looked at him. This whole thing is amazing. I couldn’t have put something like this together myself. Thank you.” And with the weight of what felt like the galaxy on her shoulders, she characteristically burst into tears.

“Oh, Sunshine, I know. I acted like an ass, I am not good at rolling with the punches sometimes. Moving stuff from the Cherrypopper to this ship gave me a lot of time to think. I thought about how you looked when you left, and I felt so guilty. I want us to be together forever. I don’t ever want us to part, just like you said in our vows when we got married. We don’t even know what’s going to happen, so one day at a time, okay?” He put his arms around her, careful to avoid her sunburn, and she leaned into him, her hands clutching at his back while it all came pouring out in wracking sobs. He peppered kisses along her cheek and whispered loving words, and then he led her over to their new bed and sat her down on it.

“I think you’re tired and probably in pain. Do you think you can lay down comfortably? I can take us out of here and this heavy gravity so you can maybe get some better rest….”

But Lilu shook her head. “Nope, no way. I want the honor. I mean, I know you and Cora designed it for me, but I’d like to… if you don’t mind?”

“Of course not, it’s yours, baby. Let’s go up to the cockpit. Wait until you see it.” Sam was excited again. He grabbed a couple of tissues for Lilu to clean up her face and blow her nose, and then he walked her back up to the cockpit, turning the hatch to let her inside.

Lilu’s jaw dropped. Opening before her was an expanse of glass, consoles, a center bridge, two side rooms with desks, bunks, windows, and the pilot’s seat sitting on a pulpit with two observation platforms on either side. The whole space was brightly lit and cheery, and there was room for decorations, potted plants, a veritable palace in the space of a cockpit.

“I didn’t know that they made cockpits like this. I mean, you could live up here and never leave.” Lilu’s hushed, awestruck voice matched her surprise.

“And the best part? My co-pilot’s chair is right next to yours. Cora can come sit on the platforms and hang out with us. It’s perfect for long hours out in the space lanes between in-system planets and satellites.”

“Sam, this is amazing, you and Cora outdid yourselves. I want the schematics for this on a slate or saved somewhere in case anything ever happens to this ship. I need to be able to reproduce it faithfully. I can’t imagine having anything else now that I’ve seen this. I can’t thank you both enough.”

Sam went over to Lilu and ushered her into her pilot seat, then leaned down to kiss her on the lips. “Your reaction is thanks enough. That’s all the satisfaction I need.”

“Well, hopefully not all the satisfaction you need.” She caught his eye, and he smirked.

“Oh, I see my wife is back.”

“As long as this is my husband I’m talking to.” She gave him a pointed look.

“Point taken. Let’s see this baby go, then.”

Lilu fired up the engines, and out of nowhere, Cora came running up into the cockpit.

“Are we taking off? I want to try out the viewing platform!”

“Settle in, brat, we’re going for a ride!” Lilu told her, and once Cora was sitting cross-legged on the platform, Lilu hit the throttle and lift thrusters, and the big ship started to hover and tilt, rising above Akila City slowly with smooth, humming vibration until they’d reached the optimal altitude. Then Lilu altered their attitude, kicked in the big engines, and with a crackling roar, they were shooting up towards the stratosphere. In no time at all, they were in orbit and hit apogee.

“Holy shit, Sam, this thing has some power. Do we want to just orbit here where we don’t have to worry about getting shot at while we chill at lighter G’s?”

“Great idea. We can get the rest of our stuff put away, have some food, get some rest, and then follow up on whatever data Vlad gave you. And I wanted to ask you how your trip to New Atlantis went. Cora, do you think you could make that simple chicken and rice soup you cooked a couple of weeks ago? That was good.”

“If you just wanted to get rid of me, you could say so, Dad.” Cora rolled her eyes.

“Well, fine, I want to get rid of you, but I’m also starving, so do you think you can make that soup, because it was pretty good?”

“Oh, okay. But please, no funny business at least until tonight. My eyes… I’m a child.”

“You keep telling me you’re not a child, you brat!” Lilu objected, laughing.

“Oops. Well, it’s a condition that comes and goes.” Cora walked out of the cockpit haughtily, Sam and Lilu barely containing their mirth.

“Okay, so what happened with Keeper Aquilus?”

“Nothing.”

“Sunshine…”

“Sam, I’m not going to tell you. I don’t know what powers the Hunter has, but if you don’t know, you can’t tell him anything. He’s gone, that’s all you need to know.”

“If you’d killed him, you’d just say so? I don’t think you’d tell me this way if you had.” Sam was looking at her shrewdly, eyes narrowed.

“If that’s what you want to believe. The smart move would be to tell you the same no matter the outcome.”

“Did you kill him?” Sam pressed.

“He’s gone.”

“Did you let him go?” Sam asked.

“He’s gone.”

“Is he dead or alive?” Persistence was Sam’s strong suit.

“He’s gone.”

“Fair enough,” Sam relented. “Did you learn anything?”

“Yes. But I don’t know if I should say anything that could sway your thoughts. There’s something that occurred to me, though, Sam. This is going to be my first time through the Unity if I go. But Sarah as the Emissary… I don’t think it was her first time through. Aquilus had been through countless times. It may be fair to say that many of you in Constellation could have been through already. It may be that I’m the holdout. That I’m the one who hasn’t been through before. Which is why both the Hunter and the Emissary are taking such a keen interest in helping me.”

“But… wouldn’t I know?” Sam looked confused

“No, I don’t think so, not you in every universe. The Starborn Hunter and human Keeper Aquilus are coexisting in this universe. It’s possible that there’s a Starborn Sam and you existing in this universe. Maybe we’ve already seen him and killed him. Maybe we haven’t found him yet. Maybe he’s been vanquished elsewhere. But we have no way of knowing. It’s something I mean to ask the Hunter when we see him next.”

“Well, let’s go eat and spend time with Cora, and then we can work on putting stuff away in the bedroom.” They put on the ship’s running lights, left it in stasis, and went back into the dining area to the rich scent of garlicky chicken broth. It was just a basic chicken broth and rice with mushrooms but it was a tasty concoction which Lilu gulped down. Sam saw her eyelids grow heavy and he told Cora that he was going to take her back to lie down while he finished putting their clothes away. Cora gave him a narrow-eyed look.

But Sam was true to his word, at least for a while. He had Lilu lay down on her non-sunburned side and started arranging her clothes in the drawers in a way that made sense to him. There was still room for his clothes at the end of the dresser and space to spare. Exhausted, he took a shower, slid into some shorts, pulled Lilu’s shoes and socks off, and climbed into bed beside her, dropping off to sleep almost instantly.

Sometime during the night, he woke up to Lilu nuzzling him in her sleep, and he wanted to return the favor, but there was no place to easily grab her without disturbing her burns. He finally snaked an arm under hers so he could wrap it around her waist and pull her tight against him, and in the dim light, he could see her eyes snap open.

“You’re not asleep.” It was a statement.

“No. Not for a bit now. I was wondering how long I needed to snack on you before you decided to open your eyes.”

“I didn’t want to hurt your sunburn.”

“Then let me do it, Coe.” She pushed him on his back and carefully straddled him. “We don’t have to get crazy. Just pull my shorts leg aside and do your worst.”

Sam’s hand reached between her legs and through her shorts leg to find her soaking wet. He found her clit with his thumb and started massaging it, then demanded, “Drop one of those beautiful nipples into my mouth.”

Lilu complied, leaning forward, freeing a breast on her non-sunburned side. Sam’s lips wrapped around the nipple, suckling as he played with her clit even faster, Lilu’s gasps coming louder and more urgently until she threw her head back and let out a low, guttural groan as she came, her juices flooding Sam’s hand. He withdrew it for a moment, licked his fingers before sticking them in Lilu’s mouth.

She grabbed his wrist, holding his hand there as she sucked her own goodness off his fingers, then she said, “Fuck, baby, put your cock in me now.” Sam was more than willing to oblige, pulling it free from his shorts, holding her clothing to the side as she lowered herself onto it, her face contorted as she took all of him in, getting used to the stretch of him. Then she started to ride. Sam was excited, but she needed to come a second time and she kept edging him until she was close, playing with her own clit because she knew that Sam touching her was just exciting him too much.

“Hurry, baby, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out,” he grunted, struggling to maintain his control.

She ground her hips onto him, bouncing and grinding at her clit until her back hit that familiar hard arch, her tits jutting into the air, and as her wail of release rang throughout the hab, Sam lost his grip and spilled his load inside her with a force she felt, causing her to gasp even more. They both twitched and convulsed like they had been tazed. Finally their climaxes slowed and stopped, and they panted and slumped, but Lilu fell off the wrong way onto her sunburn, yelped, and in her haste to get off the painful burns, hurled herself off the bed and onto the floor.

“OW,” she said.

“Oh, shit, Sunshine, are you okay?”

But she was laughing now, and then Sam was laughing, and he got out of bed to help her up, none the worse for wear. “I don’t think we have a future as adult film stars,” she lamented.

“Not unless there’s money in blooper reels,” Sam agreed. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up and I’ll put some fresh burn gel on those burns.”

Sam took good care of his wife, and they crawled back into bed once the gel dried. When they finally woke up, he looked at his wife, cradled in his arms, beautiful and content, and said, “I love you, Liluana. This here is a little patch of heaven. Please, love, don’t ever let it end.*”

“I love you, too, Sam. I don’t intend to.” Lilu didn’t know what secrets the Hunter still intended to teach her, but she planned to do everything in her power to be with Sam to the end. If the infinite called, it was calling for them to stay together forever.

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cc: @a-cosmic-elf

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Chapter 29 Song: Six Billion - Nothing But Thieves

Sometimes the cord likes to break Sometimes a light tries to bend away Sometimes you're thrust against the wall Sometimes the world wants to see you crawl

And you can't decide if it's enough You can't decide if it's enough Six billion lives looking for love You can't decide if it's enough

The end is the same for everyone Should be enough for us to be as one Watch me fall apart over you Watch me fall apart tryna please you

And you can't decide if it's enough You can't decide if it's enough Six billion lives looking for love And you can't decide if it's enough

And you can't decide if it's enough You can't decide if it's enough Six billion lives looking for love And you can't decide if it's enough