Coe-Pilot: The Space Between Us

Lilu reached up with her fingers and touched the puffy skin around her under-eye area. “Oh, yeah, going to sleep right after crying gets me every time.” She gave him a grim smile.

“I hate that it’s happened to you enough that you know the routine,” Sam said, pulling her close, and she put her head on his shoulder, and she sighed deeply.

“It’s definitely not an ideal way to live a life, but it helps a little bit to have a shoulder to lean on now,” and she burrowed her face into the crook of his neck a little more deeply. He gave her a squeeze, then she squeezed him back, leading to a squeezing match, and then she kissed him on the cheek and giggled. He was smiling from ear to ear as he let her go.

“You got this handled then, you weirdo? I’m gonna get our assault supplies ready.”

“Yeah, Sam, I got it.” And Lilu settled into the Captain’s chair and began plotting her approach to the Victor Compound. Preliminary scans showed a place to set down outside an outer shield wall of rock to the south where, if she flew in at an oblique enough angle and dampened the thrusters, their landing might evade detection. But squeezes and kisses aside, Lilu was really worried about how things would go from there. The Seokguh didn’t seem to do space battles since there was no one waiting for them in orbit, but would there be any chance they’d know that Sam and Lilu were coming?

And even then, it was the matter of preparing for an assault upon an unknown number of gunmen, but probably a minimum of a dozen, with possible reinforcements. All packed into an established camp that was probably booby-trapped with mines and tripwires, guarded with turrets, security bots, and human sentries. And she’d have jumpy-assed, trigger-happy Sam Coe at her elbow with something to prove to his wife. Well... ex-wife. Who was to know which one of them was most in denial about that? Lilu supposed this trip would tell the tale in helping her figure that part out.

Lilu still couldn’t reckon how she’d let herself fall back into this rat-bastard situation. It was a little more than a month and a half ago that she had walked out on Sam because of how he had behaved when she got her Freestar Ranger badge. She had just been trying to find a somewhat fulfilling career path in the Settled Systems that took advantage of her Old Earth/U.S. Army Ranger skillset. Their regular Constellation assignments (the gathering of anomalous Artifacts and incredible powers from what they assumed were corresponding Temples) were taking a strange, physical toll on her. She had fully intended to come back to the Constellation missions at some point, but there were other capable people still working on them. It wasn’t as if they all hinged on her to forge Constellation’s only path forward; some Jane-come-lately, arriving from Old Earth by way of a strange electrical storm opening up its own temporal anomaly to bring her to the Settled Systems. But one might have thought so by the way they seemed to follow her lead.

And no one more so than Sam Coe, her co-pilot as well as her romantic partner now. Yes, Lilu had met him at Constellation, but they had obviously transcended that connection, and he had made the decision to stick with her when she stepped away because of the destructive afflictions that kept waylaying her the more she gathered the Artifacts and the powers from the Temples.

But Sam, he had no qualms telling her how he felt about things that he disagreed with. Sometimes... make that “a lot of the time”... he was more than a little blunt, and more than a little bit of a hypocrite. It got wearing. Lilu endured it most of the time; sometimes she got mad and they argued. They argued a lot, in fact, but she got over it and they’d patch things up. She loved him, loved him beyond what she thought possible given her emotional scars, and it usually meant that all was forgiven rather quickly. After all, her PTSD-related issues led her to be fractious at times, and she was the first to admit it. She had dealt with extreme trauma and loss during her Old Earth military service without adequate treatment; “raw dogging” it, as she tried to jokingly convince herself. She knew the truth, though.

The Freestar Rangers thing was different. She hadn’t intended to join, she was helping out after she moved to Akila City with Sam and Cora, Sam’s daughter. That move had been her idea. She loved it there; it reminded her of the American southwest region of Old Earth. But a quick jaunt to help Ranger Emma Wilcox on a call from a farmer on Montara Luna who was threatened by some thugs turned into a major investigation. Which ended in Lilu killing one Ron Hope, entrepreneur, starship manufacturing mogul, self-made-man, and Sam’s idol.

Co-conspirators in the crime were a military unit from the Colony War who were wronged and sent to prison. Their commander, Paxton Hull, who had clearly gone mad, had made some good points to Lilu about corruption and betrayal by higher-ups over the common man, the common soldier. Lilu did her duty and brought Hull to justice, sending him to that great battlefield in the sky, but she wasn’t happy about it, considering his gripe was an all too common truth. Nevertheless, despite the bad taste this left in Lilu’s mouth, the job as a Freestar Ranger seemed like a good one, and she was going to suggest to Sam that perhaps they could mix exploring and law enforcement, since Sam was keen on exploration and made that known from the day he met her.

But she never got to voice that thought. Not before Sam came zeroing in on the attack the night that the Freestar Marshal made Lilu’s promotion to full-fledged Ranger official. Sam decided to choose the little party for her at the Rock to tell her that her “fun” little spin around the Rangering block was cute, but it was time to get back to Constellation business, important discoveries were waiting. And he turned his back and walked away, leaving her to try to stuff her innards back in after he gutted her. It really hurt, and she felt undermined... betrayed... dismissed.

And so Lilu bolted, ditching everything of value behind on the kitchen table and disappearing without a trace, leaving Sam heartbroken and lost for a month and a half. It was him who was the one who came looking for her in New Atlantis. He was the one ready to do anything to get her back. And now, somehow, when it should have been her putting his tit through the wringer, he had her traveling to McClure II to save his ex-wife. That sure was some magic dick he was peddling, because it had Lilu jumping through flaming hoops when the last thing she remembered offering him was a second visit to her new apartment in the Well over Jake’s bar.

But it wasn’t just about Sam. She did care about Cora. Lilu didn’t want to be a bystander to the kid’s mother being killed when she could’ve done something about it. Herself being the product of a broken home and parents at odds, she got it. It was just... the obvious unfinished business between Sam and Lillian, which he swore was nothing romantic. It didn’t always sound like “nothing romantic,” and if it turned out to be more complicated than that, Lilu would probably make damned sure on her next attempt to opt out of life. There was only so much a soul could take in a lifetime.

As much as she was trying to stifle it, Lilu was struggling to keep on an even keel as it was. Her thoughts had been growing darker, her emotions more volatile and erratic. Her “fresh start” in New Atlantis had been plagued with crippling depression and two very credible suicide attempts. If UC SysDef hadn’t given her a job as a sniper trainer... “given her,” more like forced her or else it was some sort of protective custody again... she might well have been dead.

This wasn’t unlike how she ended up in that specialized PTSD program in Salt Lake City. Behavior degrading to violence, breaking the law, substance abuse, and loss of her best friends. She wasn’t quite on that path but she was heading towards it. Lilu wasn’t sure how much more emotional upheaval she could stand before something catastrophic happened. Untreated PTSD of her severity didn’t end well in most cases. The UC’s psych ward doc pretty much told her just that.

It was with this miasma of noise in her head that Lilu got the Cherrypopper settled in its landing spot on McClure II in a flat area across a little ravine away from the rock walls surrounding the compound, flying in at a shallow aspect to avoid detection. She shut down all non-essential systems and did her best to cloak the ship’s activity while still leaving it ready for an emergency takeoff. Getting up from the Captain’s chair in the now darkened cockpit, she looked around her. Would she be coming back to the ship or would this be it? She had threatened Sam with someone not returning from this little jaunt to rescue Lillian, and she had really intended it to be her.

Her blackest thoughts were still racing through her mind. Ridiculous thoughts, heinous thoughts, childish thoughts. She fantasized about scenarios where Lillian “accidentally” died during the rescue attempt. Crossfire, so unpredictable. Bullets flying, targets moving. Friendly fire... well, Lilu knew a thing or two about friendly fire incidents, didn’t she? And who would be able to tell, it’s not as if there would be an investigation, right? Even if there was, who would blame her if the scene was particularly chaotic? Huh...

Well, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. It was pretty cold, despite the tantalizing prospect of removing a woman who, to her, was an antagonist. Directly, like when she showed up at the Lodge, and indirectly, by the second-hand news Lilu received of Lillian’s bad-mouthing. Lilu was dreadfully self-conscious as it was and already viewed the other woman as her superior romantic rival; her fear of being supplanted was always in the back of her mind.

Conversely, Lilu could just be the martyr. Straight out of some old kung fu movie, where she, the tragic hero, would sacrifice herself and be taken down in front of her duplicitous lover and his new lady. The valorous demise, the death’s head smile filled with blood, the guilt that would be visited upon Sam forever... hopefully. With her luck, though, they’d skip right over her dead body, grab Cora by the hand, take the Cherrypopper back to Akila City, and live happily ever after in the Core Manor home Lilu had purchased and thoughtfully appointed. She wouldn’t even be a footnote in Sam’s diary.

Speaking of diaries... Lilu’s eye fell upon the notebook that Sam had been scribbling in earlier while they were flying, in that weird way while he sometimes stared at her. It was laying upon the co-pilot’s console, his crew assignment. What had he been writing in it, anyway? He hadn’t done that before this trip, not so much. After all, it wasn’t really a diary, now, was it? It was just a notebook, what harm if she took a look? It’s probably just readings or something. He never said it was private or he would’ve taken it with him, surely.

She wandered over to grab it. Looking furtively over her shoulder, she didn’t see any shadowy movements down the corridor, or hear any scuffling of feet. The first few pages were numbers copied off the console. Just as she suspected, they must have been various readings; Lilu had no clue what they meant. Then...

Hmmm, wait a minute, this looks like this might be the good stuff. “Time to come clean.... first instincts are the best instincts, she’s always been the right one for me.... and she’s a classic beauty” What, was Sam talking about her? She hoped so. Although... she really wasn’t a classic beauty, that’s not what she thought. He did spend a lot of time staring at her while he scribbled, but maybe it was comparison? But what about this? “Maybe after this is over I should ask her if she wants to get back together?” Did he mean her or Lillian? She was probably the “classic beauty,” let’s be honest.

Then it turns to another page like he’s talking about someone else. “I just can’t imagine being stuck with someone like her forever.” And this: “This will be the end of things as we know them.” Oh God, what about this? “I don’t know how I’m going to tell her, she’ll be so upset.” Oh no, this can’t be good at all. “This is my future, and she’ll just have to accept she isn’t a part of it.” What? “Will she accept that it’s over?” Oh no, oh no... Sam had been staring at her while he had been writing this all that time, too. This seemed more and more a likely scenario.

There was a lot more, but Lilu heard the sound of footsteps approaching and she put the notebook back on the console. Trying to reassemble her features into nonchalance as she examined the navigation table, Sam walked into the cockpit. His eyes fell on her immediately, and his expression changed. It softened, and his eyes lit up. Surely this couldn’t be the countenance of a man getting ready to dump her for Lillian? Then again, Adam never showed a single sign that he was cheating on her until she found out the hard way, spotting his car in another woman’s driveway overnight when he was supposed to be on duty.

Sam strode up and slid his arms around her, planting several small, affectionate kisses along her cheek before ending up with his lips on hers. He squeezed her tight against his body, whispering his affirmations of love into her ear before giving it a little nip that made Lilu giggle and rub her cheek against his. One of the most remarkable things about Sam, to her mind, was how affectionate he was when they made physical contact. He liked to touch and nuzzle, give little kisses beside the more passionate ones. “I love you so much, Liluana. You need to know how important you are to me,” he murmured. And he squeezed her again. It was so... convincing.

“Coe, I’ve got a weird question for you, or maybe it’s not so weird, but it’s definitely a question.”

“What’s that, Sunshine?” He leaned back to look at her face, but he didn’t let her out of his grasp.

“How is it that you’re so... I don’t know... so touchy-feely like this? Do you get me? I... this is going to sound strange but I really need to step up my cuddles and kisses game because I could definitely use more of this. Especially in times like these.” She thought about what she saw in the notebook and was even more confused. Maybe she was mistaken. She felt mistaken when Sam was like this with her.

There was something in how she said it that struck Sam, like how could he have not realized that. “Of course, baby girl. Jesus, I’m not too bright sometimes. Of course.” He fully engulfed her in his embrace, and she put her arms around him. They stayed that way for a while. He could feel her taking long, deep breaths; she was trying not to cry. Sam knew the leap of faith he was asking of Lilu, and what it would cost her heart. He, too, was thinking about what he had written in the notebook, everything he had written, the parts that Lilu did not read, and his plans for when this was over. He just had to get everyone to the finish line intact.

----------

Mainly because of  her insistence, the plan had been to have Cora climb up the hill overlooking the south side of Victor Compound and be a spotter with Sam’s binoculars. Her small size combined with what appeared, from the orbital scans, to be a general lack of security on the back side of the compound against the rock walls should mean she’d be relatively safe, and she could scamper back down and into the landing bay of the Cherrypopper before any of the Seokguh thugs could come out of the rock canyon pathway and around to come get her. The rock walls were too steep to climb from their side. Sam was not enthused with this plan but he knew he’d never be able to stop her.

So, when Lilu finally came outside, both Sam and Cora were already waiting for her. Sam had a comms tablet in his hand. “Touchdown. Gimme a second, I still know some Ranger secure frequencies. ‘This is Coe. Hart, are you there? Please respond.*’”

Lilu already felt a discomfort, a growing dread, because she knew what was coming. And then her voice crackled over the comms. Lillian’s voice, with an almost Texas twang, a common Akila City trait. “Hart here, acknowledged... And... Frequency secured. Sam? Sam, what are you doing here?*” The surprise in her voice. And... was that all? Lilu didn’t know her well enough to tell if there was anything else.

But then Cora piped up with, “Mom!*” and that changed the tone and tenor of Lillian’s voice right quick-like.

“Oh, you got to be... Sam, you did not bring my daughter here, did you?!*”

“Not the time or place,*” Sam hurried through, not wanting to risk an argument when time was of the essence. “What’s your status?*”

“We will be talking about this later,*” Lillian said, with an angry exhalation that was clearly audible over the comms slate. “Cover is intact for now, but the clock’s ticking down fast. Too fast. A distract and extract should do it.*”

There were a lot of things Lilu probably read too much into, but she was certain that this wasn’t one of them when she saw Sam shake his head and smile to himself, as if reminiscing. “Like old times,*” he said, as he looked at the slate. Ah yes, there it was. The “old times” in “This feels like old times,” the phrase he was always yelling whenever they were in a gunfight. Those “old times” belonged to Lillian. Lilu felt bile in her throat, and she had to look down at the ground to keep her emotions at bay.

“Great. Just great. And Sam? If even one hair on Cora’s head gets hurt...*”

“We’re one hundred and ten percent on the same page,*” Sam agreed, and switched off the comms slate.

“All right, well, time for us to make an entrance,*” Sam said as he turned to Cora and Lilu, but he saw Lilu’s face and he faltered. The way her eyes were fixed on him... large, solemn, reproachful. She didn’t have to say anything and he was already putting his last few words and actions on instant replay. He knew where he went wrong.

“Sunshine, I know how that must have sounded, I... Shit. I’m sorry, I don’t know what... what to say. You’re still in, right?*”

“What’s a ‘distract and extract?*’” Lilu asked, changing the subject to buy time for her emotions to settle, thinking to herself, this ought to be good.

“She needs us to distract the Syndicate so she can shed her cover and then make it to the extraction point. We’ve done a couple runs like this before, I hope I’m not too rusty.*”

She stared at him with frank incredulity. The fact that they named this most basic of diversion tactics meant that they really thought they were cooking with gas with this one. “Christ on a crutch, save me from these amateurs,” she muttered, under her breath.

“What was that?” Sam asked, frowning.

“I said, we came all this way, let’s just do it,*” Lilu replied, sullenly.

“You... You are something else.*” Then he wanted to facepalm himself for slipping up again, because her look told him how much Lilu hated that phrase.

“What the fuck, man? You really trying to add insult to injury today? Great plan.” And she moved away from Sam and Cora and towards the gap in the canyon walls that would allow them to sneak into the compound.

Sam cursed under his breath for being a numbskull, then turned to Cora. “Gumdrop, take my binoculars from my bag. You’re our eyes, okay? You tell us about anything you see. You move one solitary inch from that perch and you will be grounded until you’re 30. I am not kidding. This is my deadly serious face, yeah?*”

Cora raised her hands placatingly at her dad. “I got it, I got it, I won’t move.*”

“Oh, this has got to be the most half-baked idea... Okay, let’s make it happen*!” Sam said, and he left Cora to scamper up the hill whilst he joined Lilu up ahead. He found her crouched down just a little ways away from the ship. “Do you see something already?”

“Turret on the rock face near the gap in the wall. I take it that’s where we’re going in. I’m going to shoot it out from here. If the Seokguh come running because of the explosion, they’ll be easy targets from this distance.” Lilu took careful aim with the RK1M, and pulled the trigger. There was a small, explosive bloom in the distance along top the rock wall. She waited and the sensors built into her spacesuit didn’t go off. They were clear, no one was coming, so she led them up to the gap in the rocks. There were metal barricades set up in intervals to dissuade a rush of forces from running riot into the camp’s grounds. Lilu recognized this could also mean booby traps. She turned to face Sam.

“Listen up, Coe, and listen good, because I’m only going to tell you this once.” Lilu was brusque, professional. “I don’t know for sure how many people we could be facing in there, maybe a dozen, maybe more, and it’s just me and you. We gotta pretend any help is dead.” She snorted, “At least, I’d like to pretend that. So, none of your usual bullshit. No jumping around, crossing my firing line, or I’ll drop you. If I see you endangering yourself, I’ll drop you. If you’re endangering me, I’ll drop you. I’ve got med packs on me to patch you up if I drop you. And let me clear the mines through this path, do not move ahead of me. Are we clear?”

“What do you mean by ‘drop me?’”

“I’m gonna shoot one of your pegs out from under you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, then if you stay out of my way and let me do my job, we might get through this.”

Lilu inched forward, peering through the RK1M’s scope, scouring the ground for hints of land mines... and she found one. An electrical mine, one that would stun its victim. She shot it with a silenced round and it sparked and fizzled. It attracted the attention of yet another turret, this one ground mounted, which swiveled around seeking a target.

“A-ha,” Lilu muttered under her breath. “This turret is riskier because it’s further in the camp,” she whispered to Sam. “I’m gonna pop it, but be ready if we get some Seokguh goons. Don’t do anything unless I ask you. Or I get killed. Then it’s your show.”

“Jesus,” Sam started, but Lilu had already pulled the trigger and the turret blossomed into a tiny explosion. This time, someone did come running. They looked at the turret, peered into the gap, saw nothing because Lilu and Sam were concealed in the tall grass and the active camouflage of Lilu’s spacesuit was working to keep her hidden. Lilu took aim and shot the scout through the throat and they crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Returning her attention to the barriers, there was another with sandbags and one more steel one, which in between: another electrical mine. Once past that, the camp opened up. It was a big facility. There was a large, two story security building, several storage buildings and containers, a large physical plant with generators and fuel towers, a shooting range, two spotting towers, a ship landing pad, and a building built into the hillside. The Seokguh were on heightened alert, the commotion without a clear enemy had them milling about with guns drawn.

Staying hidden in the grass under a tree where the shade increased her suit’s invisibility, Lilu started drawing down targets, firing round after round into Seokguh after Seokguh. The security building nearest the gap had about four people in it, and one combat bot. There were four people on the physical plant platform that were exposed. And two down by the firing range. One by one, Lilu picked them off, finally coming out from cover to push her way to the range.

Cora returned to the comms. “By the yellow shipping containers, there are two more hidden behind there. And a big fuel tank. One shot and ka-boom!”

“You heard the kid,” Sam told Lilu, a pleased look on his face, but Lilu wasn’t biting.

“Well, there’s also the issue of these towers. I’m pretty sure someone is in each one of them, but they’re waiting for us to cross under like sitting ducks. So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to fire a couple of rounds into the underside of the roof covering of this nearest tower here. I’m going to focus my sights on it and see what you scare out of hiding, see if I can pick it off, okay? On three, Sam... one... two... three!”

Sam fired into the spotting tower’s roof as Lilu focused her sights on the platform underneath it, and she was richly rewarded. The Seokguh who had been crouched down suddenly popped up, startled. It was their fatal error, and Lilu ventilated their skull.

“Good job,” she told Sam. “Think you can do it again for the other tower?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, I’m ready. Let ‘er rip, tater-chip.”

Sam took careful aim and repeated his successful form, and Lilu followed suit, the man tumbling from the tower and falling to the ground below with a satisfying crunch. Turning to Lilu, he said, “Now I guess we blow up the guys by the containers.”

“I guess so. I’m just gonna go for it, balls to the wall, boost pack up and shoot that tank, pray I don’t kill myself, so here goes nothing,” Lilu shrugged, and took off running.

“No, Sunshine, wait!” Sam called after her, but it was too late. He was going to offer to do this, in case it ended up being worse than she was expecting. He didn’t want her to get hurt, or burnt, or anything that would give him more regrets for having dragged her into this. But she was already sprinting towards the shipping containers. And she was so fast.

As much as Sam wanted to save Lilu, it was like she had a death wish. She was almost hoping that the next wrong move would take her out of this world so she didn’t have to see the ultimate conclusion to the Sam/Lillian/Lilu love triangle, where Sam ultimately kicked her to the curb and ran off into the sunset with Lillian. She sprinted forward and hit her boost pack.

The relatively low gravity on McClure II afforded her a greater leap into the air than she was anticipating. Looking down, she saw the large, red fuel tank and took aim. The men on the ground just noticed her after it was too late, and she pulled the trigger. The explosion was massive, and the heat was so unbearable Lilu had to hold her breath so she didn’t accidentally burn her lungs and airways. As she started to come down, she hit the boost again, waiting for the smoke to clear, and she saw the men were dead. That was it, the compound was clear, at least on the outside.

Sam got back on the comms with Cora. “Okay, Sweetpea, we’re going inside the building that’s built into the hill. Get back to the ship, close the landing bay, and keep the engines ready to get out of there if they come for you.”

“Okay Dad. You and Lilu be careful please. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Sweetpea.” Sam looked at Lilu, expectantly, but she said nothing. Cora, however, wasn’t letting it die.

“Could Lilu hear me?” she asked, forcing the issue, and Sam looked hard at Lilu, tilting his head at the comms unit.

Blinking back tears, she glared at Sam, but answered with a strangled, “I love you, too, Cora.”

“Good. Ok, I’m out.” And Cora’s comms unit blinked off.

“I’m not letting you disconnect yourself from this family, Sunshine, no matter how hard you’re trying,” Sam said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“That’s weird, because it seemed like you were planning on doing just that, from what I saw.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Sam was confused now, and he wanted to push for an answer, because could this be what was driving her angst? But she decided to blow him off.

“Forget it, we have to keep moving, there’s no time for drama.”

“Dammit, Liluana...” but Sam was talking to empty air as Lilu made her way stealthily through the door into the hillside building. There was nothing else for him to do but follow her.

Once inside, alarm klaxons were ringing. They could see there was a downstairs office, a mess hall and kitchen, and a main staircase leading upwards, deeper into the facility. Lilu could hear the sound of footsteps coming from deep within moving towards the main staircase. Reloading quickly, she started towards the stairs so she could meet the assailants as soon as they crested the landing, crouching into a shooter’s pose.

And they made it so easy, filing over the top one by one, Lilu pulling the trigger as if they were on a conveyer belt for target practice. Just like in that Neon warehouse. The last man had the wisdom to see what was happening, skidded to a halt, and turned to run back. Lilu leaped to her feet and sprinted up the stairs after him, shooting him in the back just before he could reach a set of doors.

His cries, however, alerted more Seokguh to their presence. They popped out of some residential quarters to one side, guns blazing. Lilu felt a slug hit her shoulder and could quite literally see the splash of blood erupt out in front of her. The grazing wound hurt like a mother, but she would live, and the man who fired it definitely did not share that fate once she swung around on him.

“Are you alright?” Sam ran up to her, his eyes roaming over the wound, grabbing a med pack and injecting it into her without even asking.

“I’m fine, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, it’s bleeding a lot. Hold on, I stuck a trauma pack in this pouch, I was hoping we wouldn’t need it, it’s the only one I’ve got on me.” He popped the pack open and wrapped it around the wound, Lilu gritting her teeth and doubling over as he pulled it tight.

It took her a moment to get her breath back and straighten up, but when she looked forward she frowned and then said to Sam, “Look ahead, that office, there are people in there. Do you think... could she be in there?”

“Only one way to find out. Are you up for it?”

“Let’s get it over with, I just want to be done with this whole thing.” She saw Sam looking at her pensively. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I really don’t, and that’s what scares me.”

Together, they advanced on the office. From what they could see through the glass doors, there appeared to be four to five people in there, all moving around erratically. But then, yelling broke out inside, and shots fired within.

“Shit,” said Sam. “It must be Lillian, her cover’s probably blown, come on!” He dashed forward and grabbed the door, and Lilu went in guns blazing.

And by blazing, she was shooting at almost anything, her inner safeties were off. Better to shoot first and ask questions later. It was dark in the office, there were more people than she had anticipated, and everyone had murderous intent. Laser weapons and ballistic weapons alike were going off, flashes of light and color. She heard Sam grunt, was he shot? Then the gunfire started to slow down.

Amidst the smoke which was starting to clear, Lilu began to realize it was just her and Sam left standing. And there, picking herself up in the corner, a figure… it was definitely Lillian Hart. A bit ruffled and bloodied, but not much the worse for wear. A Seokguh henchman on the floor, looking like he might be badly wounded but still dangerous, was the focus of Lillian’s attention.

In that moment, a villainous fantasy that Lilu kept entertaining returned to her thoughts. If Lillian were to die here, now, from a gunshot wound, who would know exactly how it happened? Maybe it could even have been at the hands of the Seokguh thug on the ground, who was still very much alive and in play. Lilu had done worse things, right? She hated this woman. Lillian would always be a specter over her life if Lilu chose to stay with Sam. Jaylen Price tried to pin the blame on Sam, but all Lilu could think of was that night Lillian invaded their sanctuary at the Lodge. Sam never invited her. The peace that would exist in Lilu’s mind if Lillian were gone forever. Sure Cora would be inconsolable for a while, but less so because she would believe that at least they’d tried, right? And Lillian made the kid miserable, too. It would be the solution to all her… no, all their problems. Lilu raised her gun and put Lillian square in her sights as the other woman herself aimed her own gun at the man on the floor, commanding him to freeze.

Sam had just come up behind Lilu, and was bewildered when he saw who she was aiming at. He spoke low and urgent: “No, don’t, it’s Lillian.” Lilu must have been confused at who was Seokguh for a moment, that had to be it. Surely she wasn’t about to murder Lillian in cold blood. And indeed, she started to lower her gun, glancing back slightly at him over her shoulder. But then she gave a wicked twist of her mouth into an evil smirk, and Sam felt his blood run cold as she raised the sights back to her eye again. “Liluana, don’t... please.”

Lilu sighed and lowered the rifle. “I wasn’t. Not really. It just felt...right. For a moment.” The flat voice. The lifeless eyes. She wasn’t flat and lifeless in that split second when she thought about lowering the gun and decided to reacquire her target instead. That smirk, the look in her eye as she was targeting. Sarah had been right, so many months ago. Lilu was dangerous. It might never dissuade him from wanting to be with her, but what could she be capable of? How far might she go when pressed? Sam looked into her face, searching for some sort of recognition of what just happened, but nothing. Lilu’s expression was as empty of emotion as was her voice.

“You doing alright?” he asked her.

“Yeah, sure, never better. Never better. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your hands are shaking...”

“I’m fine. Is everyone else put down for good? No one gonna pop up and shoot us in the back?”

Sam sighed. “Yeah, they’re all dead, we’re good.”

Since she was blocked from murder and mayhem, Lilu stepped up to Lillian, who had finished dispatching the wounded Seokguh and had now turned to face her and Sam. The senior Ranger said, “So, now, seems like things have changed with you. You’re the new Ranger, right? I see the stories about you weren’t exaggerated. Thanks.*”

Before Lilu could reply, though, Sam moved up next to her. No, actually, he took just one more step past her, to the forefront, so he could address Lillian straight on. “Looks like I get to play hero for once,*” he said, in a tone that was both self-satisfied and... what was that... proud? Or was there even more to it than that? Lilu turned towards him, the look on her face registering surprise and hurt. Was this what it was all for? His opportunity to play hero for his ex-wife? To prove himself to her? That he was worthy of her, not Lilu?

The tidal wave of betrayal that threatened to sweep Lilu away was overwhelming. The air felt thick, and her ability to breathe was in jeopardy. Lillian’s words sounded as if they were coming from a tremendous distance. “I got to say your timing is spot on,” she said to Sam. “My cover was hours from being blown to hell. We have a lot to talk about, but let’s get to your ship first.*”

“I’ll meet you there,*” Lilu said, her voice choked as she struggled for control.

Lillian gave her a strange look, shrugged, and walked out of the room, leaving Sam alone with Lilu. “Are you okay?” he asked her, but all she could do was nod her head and avert her eyes as he stared at her. “Come on, Liluana, talk to me, what’s wrong?”

She turned to look at him, her eyes casting reprobation. “Hero? You got to play hero for Lillian? Sam, why? Why is that important?”

“I... It isn’t... it’s just... It’s... It’s hard to explain.”

“Well, try to explain it, Sam. Try. Because if you can’t, I think I can, and none of it is good news for me,” Lilu sniffled, the tears she’d been trying to hold back now starting to fall. “Jesus, I fucking knew it, this was always all about her, not about making Cora feel better. You really had me going for a moment but here’s where you couldn’t control yourself anymore and it all came out.”

“No, Liluana, you’re getting it all wrong. I know what it looks like... what it sounds like but... it’s not what you think. Yeah, I feel like I still have something to prove because she always had a way of making me feel two inches tall. But I do not love her, you have to believe me. Oh God, no, please do not shake your head like that, please,” Sam pleaded.

“’I know what it sounds like, I know what it looks like.’ You keep saying that. Well, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s a pretty sure case for being a Goddamned duck. You make it really difficult to believe, Sam. All of this. And not just this.”

“What do you mean, not just this, what else is there?”

“Never mind. Let’s just get back to the ship,” she shifted away from him, wiping her eyes, but now it was Sam’s turn to eyeball her with suspicion.

“Liluana, what’s going on? What is it that you think you know?”

“What I ‘think’ I know? It’s not conjecture. I know it and it’s straight from the source, so don’t try to gaslight me, Sam. Let’s go, I want out of this fucking... tomb.” And she turned and marched away towards the exit.

Sam got around in front of her again, though, stopping her progress. She frowned at him, her expression impatient. Sam blurted, “Liluana, I’m the source, I’m the only source. So, what else is there besides what I’ve said. Which, okay, fine, it’s fucked up. I’ll admit it. The whole thing that I said, about playing hero. But besides my fool mouth getting me in trouble, as always, what else is there?” He held her there by her arms, careful of her shoulder. For a second, as their eyes met, something passed between them, in the feel of where Sam held her... that look that spoke of tension and stoked flames, but Lilu’s anger and hurt was quickly overpowering everything else.

“Why don’t you think hard on that while we get the fuck out of here, huh? You can do two things at the same time, I’ve seen it. You know, like figure out how to play me while you make good with Lillian?” And Lilu stepped around him to resume her resolute march back to the ship, a frustrated Sam in her wake.

When they got back to the Cherrypopper, Lillian had already boarded and was talking with Cora. “Oh thank God, Cora, are you okay? Are you hurt?*” Lillian was asking Cora now.

Cora replied. “I’m fine, Mom. I was so worried about you.*”

Lillian blew out her breath in exasperation and said, mockingly, “I’m fine. You’re fine. Everyone’s fine. Now it’s time for me to kill your Dad!*”

“No!” Cora yelled at her mother. “He tried to keep me away, but I just couldn’t... I just couldn’t...*”

“I swear, the two of you are as stubborn as mules. I need to talk to the captain of the ship,*” Lillian groaned, then turned to Lilu and said, “This is your ship, right? I hate to ask, but I’m going to need more assistance with my mission.*”

“Are you for real?*” Sam erupted. “Weren’t you just chewing me out about putting Cora at risk?*” He just wanted to be rid of her so he could try to smooth over the situation with Lilu, hopefully fix things where they could talk it out, and Lillian wanted to keep going? He quickly sent Cora off the bridge, off to the galley to start heating some water and getting some food out. He mainly didn’t want her to stick around and hear the fireworks that were pending.

“Think, Sam,” countered Lillian. “What if you were spotted? Either here or I assume Neon? It means the Syndicate may come after all of you. The only way to get us to be really safe is to see this through.*”

“You are such a hypocrite,*” Lilu snarled viciously at her. Her shoulder was throbbing angrily from the gunshot wound, which wasn’t deep, but it was painful and it amplified her rage.

“If time wasn’t of the essence, I would never put Cora in any danger, but it’s the only option I see.*”

“Just like Lillian,” Sam growled under his breath, “straight from one fire to the next.*”

“That’s the job, Sam. You know that. There’s a shipment of armaments coming in on a heavy freighter... the Dumas. I know its itinerary. But I don’t know where the arms are being stored. If we find the cache, we can lure out a Seokguh underboss, Valerie Mosquera.*”

“Who is Valerie?*” Lilu wondered if this was a legit target or just a distraction Lillian was using to lend credence to her request.

“The worst kind of criminal... she’s smart. Too smart. She’s convinced a number of the Seokguh to think outside the box. She has plans larger than Neon, and that makes her very dangerous.*”

Lilu eyed Lillian skeptically, then looked at Sam. Yeah, Valerie was a legitimate threat, but not exactly one that couldn’t be handled later. Lilu was going to offer Sam another opportunity to take charge of this situation, to turn them away from Lillian’s agenda. It would be a chance for him to assert his independence from her. To stand with Lilu and establish their own partnership. So, she asked him, “What do you think, Sam?*” and looked at him encouragingly.

“Yes, what DO you think?*” Lillian asked Sam, her voice caustic.

Lilu heard Sam sigh, and start off with, “Well...,” and she felt her heart drop. She knew she was sunk. “Taking out one ship isn’t that bad. And the goal is good. Always is with Lillian.*” He looked at Lilu and immediately wished he hadn’t. If there needed to be a human image of the word “disappointment,” it was Lilu’s face at that very moment. Sam felt sick to his stomach that he’d finally seen it on hers, like he had with virtually everyone else in his life. She’d been his lone holdout, and he’d lost her right then.

Defeated, desolate, exhausted, with no one in her corner, Lilu said, “Send me the coordinates to find the Dumas, then.”

“Gladly. So, we get the location of the cache from the Dumas and then we make our move. Thank you.*” Lillian paused, regarded Lilu as she began to punch coordinates from Lillian’s slate into the navigation console. “Sam has had a lot to say about you. Cora speaks about you a lot, too. I can’t believe you’re fine with bringing my daughter along on all your ‘adventures.’ And encouraging Sam with all this ‘Constellation is great’ for Cora nonsense. It’s dangerous.*”

Lilu stopped what she was doing to look at this ridiculous woman who would berate her after being rescued by her, and said, “Mmhmm. It’s nice to meet you*. Officially.”

“It’s small talk, then? Fine. It’s nice to meet you, too. So, I’m sure Sam’s told you all about me. Go on. Ask whatever you want.*”

Laying the slate down on the console, the task of punching in the coordinates left undone, Lilu let her exasperation be shown plainly on her face. “Quite frankly, Lillian, I can’t think of anything I could care less about. I’ve heard enough to draw my own conclusions, although between us girls, one item of curiosity: who’s the father?” Lilu’s eyes glittered cruelly, a half-smile playing on her lips.

“Why, you little...” Lillian started. “Did Sam tell you?”

“Christ, lady, my own eyes told me, get a clue. I don’t know how long you thought you’d get away with that one. The kids around Akila City aren’t letting it go. If you weren’t going to be honest with him, at least be honest with your own child.” And Lilu turned on her heel and left the room. Sam followed her closely until they got back to the Captain’s quarters, and he shut the hatch.

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

SAM AND LILU, NOW:

“What are you doing out there?” Sam grabbed Lilu’s arm, but it was the one that had been grazed by the bullet, and Lilu cried out. When she turned around, the mix of emotional hurt, fury, and physical pain on her face made Sam release her and take a step backwards.

“What am I doing? I’m not giving a fuck anymore, that’s what I’m doing. Who am I trying to please, why don’t you tell me? You’re the one bending over backwards trying to prove yourself to Lillian, not me. I don’t give a fuck. She comes onto MY ship after I bail her ass out, I get shot doing it, and the whole time I have to endure listening to you ingratiate yourself to her? She demands to use me and my ship again, and then she gives me a ration of shit about Cora on top of it all? Fuck you if you don’t think I’m going to take my pound of flesh from this transaction because she fucking deserves it. And so do you, more than you’ve gotten. You’ve really come out on the plum end of this fucking deal. Let me tell you something, Sam, lest you start thinking this is how you’re living large: that dick of yours ain’t worth this kind of fuckery.”

Lilu stopped, the pain that was partially driving her incandescent fury forcing her to look down at her shoulder at last. The blood had soaked through the trauma pack, congealed to her shirt and the whole thing stuck to her skin and the wound, pulling at it with every movement, and in her anger she’d gesticulated too much. She now tried to peel it away through gritted teeth and a mounting groan of pain before she stopped. It was an ugly bit of business and firmly clotted into the flesh. “Fuck me, just great,” she muttered, looking around the room, realizing there was nothing in there to help her tend to her injuries, and starting to tear up in frustration.

“Just... sit down, please,” Sam said quietly, his eyes downcast and his face drawn. “I’ll get something to get that cleaned up.” She drew in a sharp breath like she was going to protest, thought better of it, and sat down, to his surprise. But she was seething.

Sam went back out into the passageway and shut the hatch behind him. He was kicking himself. He could not conceive of a way he could have made this situation worse. Why had he said that stupid thing about playing hero? He was so eager to score a point, he didn’t stop to think how it might sound in the ears of a worried and jealous woman. He was supposed to be reassuring Lilu along the way. He knew the very premise of looking for Lillian on behalf of Cora could trigger this response, and he got lost in the moment instead of taking care of this one vital task. And he had gotten Lilu shot. What a fool he was, yet again, and if he lost this relationship, it was going to be all his damned fool fault.

What was worse, he was going to have to find Cora to get first aid supply access. He didn’t keep good track of the supplies himself like he should. He went towards the galley but he didn’t see Cora there; a kettle of water was on the galley stove, though. He found her instead in the cockpit with Lillian, and his daughter and ex-wife both looked up. “Cora, I think I’m gonna need some suture kits and that wound spray that slows down bleeding, where are they at? That gunshot wound in Lilu’s shoulder is pretty nasty.”

“Below decks in the armory in a crate under the pistol cases, in case someone comes into the landing bay in bad shape. Do you want me to do it, Dad?”

“No, Sweetpea, I have it handled, why don’t you stay and spend time with your mother.” He studiously ignored Lillian, but she had something to say.

“I don’t know how I feel about that girl, Sam. She’s rude and disrespectful, and she...”

“Lillian, because Cora is here, I’ll say this with all due respect: I don’t really care how you feel about her. She saved your ass, much more than I did. So, some gratitude towards her is in order, not me. And to Cora, for calling in the cavalry in the first place.” Sam walked out and dropped down to the armory to gather the supplies.

Truthfully, even Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about Lilu. Oh, he loved her, it wasn’t a question about that. But the way he saw her aiming at Lillian... the image kept coming back to him. Was she capable of going through with such a cold blooded act? He thought of that video of the government hit job she’d taken, code named Amstel Light. The way she’d strangled that man in the brothel, the cold rage with which she’d looked into the camera at the end. It was more than just a job, it was personal because her handlers had sent her to be cruel to her. 

And he knew that she had done that hit on a child, and this was before her trauma. The thing was, what was he willing to do if he saw her about to kill an innocent person in cold blood? Sam didn’t think he had it in him to kill Lilu, even though it was in his nature still to protect innocent lives. It was in Lilu’s nature to do so, too. Usually. So, if he saw her aiming at Lillian again, for instance, and he wasn’t close enough to tackle her, how far would he be willing to go to stop her? Or would it be better to try to head off the feelings that made her want to kill her perceived “rival” in the first place? Because surely this was because she felt Lillian was a threat, and largely because of how he behaved.

Sam knew that in Lilu, he was dealing in damaged goods (at least, emotionally), and he was willing to accept that a relationship with her could be anywhere from volatile to, lately,  catastrophic. He had made many critical errors in how he handled this Lillian situation. He was willing to make concessions to set things right as he had originally meant to do coming into this mission. He’d just gotten off track, and he could start mending fences now if he was careful with what he said and did going forward. He took his first aid supplies, went back to the galley to get a container of hot water, a BoomPop! Cola, and an analgesic, and went back into the Captain’s quarters.

Lilu had decided to pull the trauma pack and her shirt off without Sam’s help. Not the smartest move since he had planned to use warm water to gently loosen it. Now she was sitting in her sports bra, pants, and boots, and the wound on her shoulder was ragged, raw, and red. It had started to bleed profusely again from having the scab roughly ripped off, and Lilu was unsuccessfully using her shirt to keep the blood from dripping onto the floor; a small puddle was forming near her feet.

When she looked up at him as he entered the room, her face had lost none of the hostility it wore when he had left it. Perhaps the aggravation of the wound had exacerbated it. He sat back down next to her and pulled out gauze, wet it, and went to work cleaning up the dried blood and spraying the wound to staunch the new flow. Lilu hissed in pain from the medicinal wound spray, her teeth bared, glaring at him. And she launched back into him like he hadn’t even left.

“Jesus, Sam, I gave you a chance to shut this shit down, to not continue her mission, but noooooo.  Once Lillian says so, her wish is your command, and by default it becomes mine? Now we have to go after this Valerie because she might be a ‘smart’ criminal? If Lillian thinks the cause is righteous, then it must be? Well, miss me with that shit. If you want to be her good little pet, that’s on you. Leave me out of it. I may be a bitch, but you’re her little bitch, you’re not gonna put a leash and collar on me, too.”

“Come on, Sunshine, what is going on with you? I don’t understand why you’re turning on me like this. I know you feel like I’m going to betray you but I haven’t done anything except say something stupid, which isn’t exactly out of the ordinary.” Sam looked at her, trying to meet her eye, fighting to control his own anguish. Her vitriol and hostility were palpable things stemming from fear and pain, he knew that, but it still hurt.

“Feel like you’re going to betray me? You already have, right to my face. And what do you mean, you don’t understand? You should. You wrote it all down in your fucking notebook out there. I read it. How this was going to be the end of things as we know them, and how I had to accept I’m not a part of your future, that it’s over, or some such noise. I read all of it.”

“My notebook? What notebook... Wait... the one on the console? You weren’t supposed to read that. Those were my private thoughts.” Sam wiped the area around the wound on Lilu’s shoulder clean and dabbed the surface gently with some gauze. He examined the sheen of pink that came off it, but the real blood flow had stopped. The wound spray was working.

“Well, guess what? Your secret is out ahead of schedule. When were you planning on letting me know that it was you and Lillian again, and it was time for me to go bye-bye? Or were you hoping the problem would take care of itself on this trip?”

“Wait, you didn’t read all of it, did you? The whole notebook?”

“I read enough. It’s obvious. You didn’t even start writing in it seriously until we started down this path. Don’t think I didn’t notice you staring at me and scribbling away.”

“Well, this explains a lot. Because if you HAD read it all, you’d have the whole story and you’d feel like a fool right now.” He taped a gauze pad over the open surface, then started winding more gauze around the pad and her arm.

“I already feel like a fool. I let you hoodwink me into saving your ex so you could...”

“Liluana, stop it. Just stop it. You’re one hundred percent wrong about this. I’m not going to tell you what else is in that notebook because it’s meant to be a surprise and it’ll happen when it’s meant to happen.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Taping off the gauze and looking at his handiwork, he handed her the BoomPop! Cola and analgesic.  She paused long enough to look at her arm, flex it, and said, “Good field dressing,” approvingly, before popping the drugs and drinking the soda.

“It means what I’ve been saying all along: I love you, I do not love Lillian, and yes, I know I’ve majorly fucked up here because, you’re right, I am a fucking idiot. Old habits die hard, and I fell into the trap of wanting to show her that I can do something right for once so... badly... that I did it all wrong for you.” Lilu was sipping on her soda, but her large, earnest, reproachful eyes over the top of the soda pouch looked watery now, and she nodded her head.

“When I saw the way you looked at me when you asked me about Valerie, the disappointment on your face, it almost killed me, Liluana,” and Sam’s voice broke a little here, “Because you were the only person left in the universe who hadn’t been disappointed in me yet, in some little way. And finally, I’d managed to disappoint you, too. Sam Coe, perpetual disappointment to everyone he meets. You thought I was going to make your choice and I chose Lillian’s. I’m so sorry, Sunshine. But can I tell you something about that?”

Lilu had finished her cola so there was nothing behind which to hide and just look at Sam; she was forced to speak. “What’s that, Sam?” She just sounded tired now.

“The truth is, I thought it was a better decision to go after Valerie while the Seokguh were off kilter. I genuinely believe that if it were just you and I, and Lillian weren’t involved, if we were on the mission together and thinking about it objectively, we’d probably do the same thing ourselves.”

Lilu was silent for a long while, then reluctantly admitted, “I mean, maybe. It could be the right thing to do, if the information really is that easily obtainable. Could save a lot of lives. Could. But that’s just conjecture.”

Sam sat next to her in silence for a bit, then decided to roll the dice and give her more information. More than he intended, but not everything. Not yet. “Sunshine, what if I told you that what you read in that notebook wasn’t about you? There’s stuff in there that you obviously didn’t read, but the stuff you did? Not you.”

Lilu frowned, deep in thought for what, to Sam, felt like an interminable silence, then said, “You can’t just get rid of Cora like that.”

Sam stared at her, his mouth open. Then he got up, locked the hatch door, and turned around to face her..

“Woman, you are mine.”

“Hold up, two things. Are you saying what I think you’re saying? About whom it’s really meant for?”

“Absolutely,” Sam said, pulling Lilu from the sofa, his lips already exploring her throat while his hands were trying to work her pants down.

“Ok, second question: did you lowkey want to fuck me in that office after Lillian left, back there in the Victor Compound?”

“There was nothing lowkey about it. I was ready to push you against the wall, pull your pants down, and really give you something to cry about.” He bit her neck and took her good hand to press against the hard bulge of Little Sam in his pants. She squeezed it and he moaned, “Fuck, baby.”

“Let’s do something about that,” she whispered. “I might need a little help getting everything off, or off enough.”

“I’ll help you get off, alright.”

Sam guided Lilu over onto the bed. He unzipped her sports bra to expose her lush, full breasts, their dark, coral nipples alive in the cool air, and even more so once his mouth had suckled them into perfect points, needy and yearning for the touch of his lips again. He reached under her ass to pull her pants from over her hips and down over her knees, pulling them and her boots off so he could spread her legs. It had only been a handful of hours since he’d last visited that little patch of heaven, but his tongue went to that sweet spot instinctively.

Lilu moaned loudly when she felt Sam lick her from vagina to clit. “You’re so wet, baby, did you miss me already?” he growled to her in his low, gravelly voice, and all she could do was swallow hard and look down at him as he pleasured her, his eyes meeting hers occasionally, then closing again as he luxuriated in his task. Her gasps and moans filled the hab, but he teased her, tongue swirling around her clit, exploring her dewy folds, penetrating her, taking her to the edge and backing down. She was bucking her hips and making soft mewling sounds, desperate for release.

“Please, Sam, don’t tease me, I need it. Oh God, I’m so close, yes, yes... oh God Sam no, why did you stop?”

“Because I have the power now,” he gave her a wicked grin, sliding a finger inside her, curling it, rubbing his thumb on her hard little nub. “I want you to beg for it. How bad do you want to cum, baby? As bad as I do? I don’t think so... not yet... you haven’t asked nicely.”

“Jesus, Sam, don’t be... please, don’t... okay, I want to cum for you, please let me cum for you,” her hips trying to undulate towards him as he continued to evade her.

“Maybe, if you’re going to be a good girl. Are you going to be a good girl for me? Yeah? I’ll let you cum and then I’m going to fuck you so hard...” He buried his lips around her clit and sucked as he thrust another finger into her, twisting his fingertips and rubbing them inside her walls. Wanton with need, she screamed out his name.

“Sam, yes, I think... no, don’t stop! Oh, my God, stop teasing and just give it to me, you bastard!” she yelled at him.

Sam knew his cock was about to burst, so he hurriedly unleashed Little Sam, shoving his own pants down just enough because the urgency had become too urgent. Then he was on top of her, inside of her, exulting in her whimpers of ecstasy as he thrust his painfully throbbing member into her as deeply and as powerfully as he could. Lilu came with a wail that sounded as if she’d been murdered, and Sam made no effort to quiet her. He groaned when he felt his balls tighten and his asshole clench, and he knew that was as far as he could last. His ejaculation was so powerful that his body shook, and a low, trembling whine escaped his throat, Lilu clinging to him with her long legs wrapped around his hips and her own orgasm still quaking in her muscles. They lay panting, entwined, their heads next to each other, then Sam looked at Lilu’s face, her beautiful face, and kissed her, long and appreciatively. “This is where I belong,” he said, laying his head upon her bare breasts and closing his eyes.

“You always say that. I think you belong in an insane asylum. With me. But I love you, Coe. This has been horrible precisely because I love you and I’m terrified, as always, that the one little bit of happiness I find in the world will be snatched away from me. Even worse, by the one person who held a prior claim.”

“I know, Sunshine. I know. But this story will have a happy ending. You’ll see when this is over, I promise you, just stick it out and you’ll see. Now, come on, let’s get cleaned up and changed and go back out there to face the dragon lady.”

Lilu snorted a rueful laugh. “I guess so. But it still fucking sucks and no promises that I’m going to be nice. Also, you’re gonna have to help me with those boots again.”

They got as cleaned up as they could considering yet another one of them had an open wound that needed managing. But Lilu put a patch on her shirt, threw it in the laundry to get the blood out because it was a favorite, and donned something that worked over the bandage until they needed to go fight again. Sam grabbed her and gave her a kiss before they went out to face Cora and Lillian.

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

LILU AND SAM, NOW:

Sam and Lilu went back out to a quiet bridge and found Cora busying herself with some of the instruments, but Lillian was sitting in the co-pilot chair with a face like thunder. Lilu ignored her and went to the Captain’s chair, with Sam at her side.

Sam was about to tell her he would get the coordinates to the Dumas’s rendezvous point from Lillian when Cora came by. She handed Sam a notebook, and Lilu recognized it immediately as the one that had been on the console where Lillian had sat down. “Oh, snap,” she said in a low voice.

“Just to let you know, we could hear you guys, you were really loud. Also, Dad, I don’t know what was in this, but Mom read it and she got super mad. She asked me who wrote it and I said you, and she said, ‘We’ll see about all this,’” Cora warned.

“Well. Does anyone know where I’m going?” Lilu asked.

“The Rasalhague System,” Cora said.

“Okay, then, off we go.”

“Lilu... thanks for doing this, Mom’s mad but she’s safe. I’m sorry you got shot,” Cora leaned in and gave Lilu a side hug.

“Hey, of course. Your Dad kind of gave me an attitude adjustment, you know? Helped me see the bigger picture. I guess that’s why he’s good to have around. Mostly.”

“Oh, thanks,” Sam smiled at her, a lazy smile, contented, as he settled into a crew chair to her left instead of her right-hand man in the co-pilot’s chair, but Lillian had coopted that position, not that she was actually serving that utility.

“Is that what you two are calling it now? An ‘attitude adjustment?’ Oh, brother.” Cora rolled her eyes, and sounded for all the world like the late Sarah Morgan. Both Sam and Lilu looked at each other and busted out laughing, leaving Lillian to bristle in her seat.

Lilu punched the coordinates into the navigation computer for the Rasalhague system, watched the timer on the grav drive count down, and they were on their way. As soon as they decelerated, she could immediately see a ship about 5,000km away, and targeted it. Sure enough, it was the Dumas. Those coordinates were very precise.

“Here’s your ship,” she called back over her shoulder to Lillian. “Do you want to hail it? You can from that console.”

Lillian leaned forward, hit the comm’s button, and hailed the big freighter. “Freighter Dumas, this is Freestar Ranger Lillian Hart, you are ordered to stop your engines under the authority vested in me by the Freestar Collective.”

Lilu saw the ship go from neutral to red on the HUD, and said, “Well, I see your way with words has done it again, he’s gone weapons hot, Lillian. What do you want to do here? Board him or blast him?”

“With Cora on board... blast him and sift through the wreckage,” Lillian confirmed.

“Will do.” At least Lilu could get some of the destructive rage out of her system. She hit the engine boost on the Cherrypopper and the big ship shot forward. The Dumas hit its boost, too, and began firing on the brightly colored ship.

“Well, well, well, we’ve got us a player here. I don’t know what they think to achieve but they plan to go out fighting. Good for them. Too bad it won’t work out,” Lilu smirked.

And Sam saw it again. The evil gleam in her eye. Other than when she was drawing down on Lillian, had it been there before, ever? Now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe it had, and until he’d seen it on a “friendly” target, he hadn’t really noticed it as more than just a “taking out baddies” look.

Lilu hit the boost again as soon as it was available and pushed the Cherrypopper far above the Dumas and pull the stick back around in a tight U-turn. She got the freighter in her sights and hit max engine speed, pounding the freighter with pulse lasers and ballistics, waiting until she was almost on top of it to slam a pair of missiles into its hull, breaking it apart as she pulled out again. “Yessss, that was amazing,” she smiled to herself, and looked over at Sam, who was watching her speculatively. “What? I gotta let it out somewhere.” And she slowed the ship while they scanned the wreckage.

Salvage was sometimes easy, sometimes tricky, depending on how large or small the item was they were looking for and how well a ship broke apart, or if it burned up too much. The quality of their scanners came into play, and the amount of patience or time they had to kill were factors. Luckily, Lillian knew exactly what she was looking for and spotted slates quickly and easily. Lilu grudgingly took note of the details for future reference; she’d be a fool not to try to learn.

Valerie Mosquera’s weapons cache was on Andromas III, and the Seokguh were meant to come pick up the shipment the Dumas had been carrying in 12 UT hours. With the differences in planetary time, they’d have to wait approximately 6 UT hours for the ships... and Valerie... to arrive.

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

SAM AND LILU, NOW:

The Cherrypopper was skillfully set down in a copse of conifer trees just to the north of Valerie’s cache, and all the exterior lights were extinguished, the interior lights were dimmed, and the portholes were shuttered. The ship was a black hole, and its paint job reflected no light.

Lilu made to help Cora in the galley to prepare a meal for the four of them, but Sam wouldn’t hear of it so she knew that a hearty dinner of Chunks was soon to be headed their way. But at that point, it didn’t matter. She would’ve eaten anything put in front of her.

Sure enough, the platter of assorted Chunks was placed in the middle of the table and Lilu smiled at Sam and Cora. Her face was drawn and weary, and she looked as if she was in some pain again. Before she could dive into the Chunks assortment, though, Sam stopped her.

“Hold on, Sunshine, I’ve got a plate just for you,” he said, and he came back from the galley with two plates: One with three teriyaki beef Chunks and a small plate with a Chunks Pie and a Chunks Cake. “I’ll be right back.”

Lilu stared after him in bemusement as he disappeared, then returned and placed an analgesic pack on the table in front of her. He quickly grabbed a BoomPop! Cola from the beverage fridge and placed that next to the analgesic. He bent over Lilu’s shoulder and said, “I love you, now take those and eat up so we can grab a catnap and get ready.” He tipped her chin up to give her a kiss and was gratified to see her blush.

As he sat down next to her, he could see the desired effect was achieved. She was flushed and looking pleased as she tore open the analgesic pack and dutifully took the drugs and dug into her food, chancing a glance at Lillian and then at Sam, who never stopped looking at her. He didn’t dare. Not yet. If he did, he would have seen Lillian’s face run through a gamut of emotions. Irritated, then wistful, then amused, then irritated again. But he wanted to keep his attention on Lilu. He reached over and rubbed her knee and she smiled at him.

“Still haven’t learned to do any better than Chunks, Sam?” Lillian ventured. She wasn’t going to be put off by the loving couple.

“Works for me,” Lilu intervened, now looking up at her rival. “All the basic food groups are covered. Meat and dessert.” Cora giggled and Lillian seemed even more irked by this.

“Well, it must be hard to keep your weight down if you’re always eating like this, surely,” Lillian countered, her voice like saccharin. There was no doubt that Lillian’s form was trim, much more slender than Lilu’s, and that was true in both weight and frame. Even if Lilu carried no extra fat, her hips just weren’t as narrow, nor her shoulders. Sam could see that uncomfortable look creep into her eyes, and he decided it was his turn to intervene.

“If you see a place where she needs to keep her weight down, I don’t. She’d damn well better not lose an ounce off the places that count.” He gave Lilu a knowing leer and a wink and she let out a bark of laughter, the mounting tension breaking like a wave over the rocks.

“Sam... not in front of the children,” Lilu scolded, in jest, jerking her head at Cora.

“You two rabbits know I’m not a child anymore, right?” Cora sniffed, feigning offense. “I’m twelve and a half. Almost thirteen.”

“Well, let’s not forget that half,” teased Lilu. “There’s an awful lot of experience packed into that half.”

Lillian was clearly not having a great time with this conversation. Her attempts at throwing barbs at Sam and Lilu fell flat; she was feeling like an outsider amongst this trio that included her ex-husband and daughter but not her anymore, and she was used to going it on her own, anyway. She ate a few of the Chunks, then asked where she could sleep. Cora showed her to her own quarters and said she’d use a sleeping bag to hang out with her mom so they could talk more.

Sam looked at Lilu, who was contemplating her dessert plate, and he said, “Let me have a bite of that pie.”

“How do you mean that?”

“Well.”

“Well?”

“Let’s finish your dessert together and then let me have a bite of that pie.”

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

LILU AND SAM, NOW:

Sam got treated to a lot more than pie. Their lovemaking was tender and slow, and Lilu showed her appreciation for Sam’s thoughtful attentiveness at the dinner table by giving him a treat. He laid back on the bed as they made out and she slithered beneath the blankets. Sam’s breathless anticipation as she slid his shorts down was rewarded as he felt her take him into her mouth, deftly working his shaft, sucking his sensitive head, tonguing the slit and swiping away the salty drops of pre-cum as his eyes rolled back and his hips thrust at her, needy and lusting.

She thought about edging him like he did to her earlier, but she didn’t want him that close, she wanted to fuck him, so she climbed on top of him and rode him like “one of her Old Earth horses” until they were both satisfied, and they went to sleep, setting an alarm for three hours planetary time, Lilu trying to sleep on the “wrong side” to protect her injured arm and Sam locking her in with his own arms and legs so she wouldn’t roll over and cause herself inadvertent pain.

The alarm went off all too soon, and they found themselves gearing up, Sam helping Lilu get her clothes on, especially those blasted boots and her shirt. She looked in the mirror at herself and noted at how exhausted her face appeared. Dark circles under her eyes, her usually rounded cheeks looking pinched. Sam came up behind her and looked concerned.

“This is going to be over soon, Sunshine, I promise. For the record, I’m sorry it’s turned out this way.”

“I know. I really believe you didn’t intend it to go this far,” Lilu admitted. “I don’t think you would have set me up for all this. The Victor Compound stuff, sure. But not this.”

“Baby, come here,” Sam said, and he pulled Lilu into him in a tight embrace, avoiding her shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, that’s the one thing I hoped you’d understand. I would not have done this to you on purpose, not without talking to you.”

“Well, we’re in it now, Coe, so let’s go finish it our way, okay?”

“Okay, Sunshine, let’s do it.”

“Let’s boogie, you mean.”

“Yeah, let’s boogie.”

And they met Lillian by the hatch to make their way to Valerie’s cache.

----------

Valerie’s cache turned out to be a little door built into a snowy hillside. Most of Andromas III where they had landed was snowy. Lilu was unsure if it was the season or a permanent state of being. There was a utility light and a power line leading off into the distance. Lilu’s first thought was, Who’s in charge of the power? But there was no time to unravel that mystery.

“An old fashioned hidden door,” Sam mused. “Careful, there might be a trip wire...” But Lilu already ran into the door and tripped it.

“Yep, I know. Let’s get the alarm bells ringing and this party started. Have them fly in here in a panic, not calm and prepared. And then we’ll see what we shall see.” She climbed up into the rocks above the cache door, crouched down into a little niche, pulled out her RK1M rifle, and waited.

“What are you doing?” brayed Lillian. “You’re going to hide in the rocks?”

“Yeah. I’m a sniper. See this? It’s a sniper rifle. It’s got a 200 meter range. I’m going to try to get most of them before they even get over here. Now, you want to do... whatever it is... that you do, you go right ahead, but I’m staying at this elevation, which is about fifteen feet off the ground, to pick off targets. I should have no reason to hit you if you’re fighting up close. If you run all the way out there to mingle with the baddies, all bets are off.”

“I don’t know...” started Lillian, but Sam jumped in.

“Lillian, trust her. She’s a trained, military sniper. She’s made some incredible shots at distance, scary shit. Let her do the job she’s best trained to do. We can do ours best at ground level.”

“If you say so,” Lillian grudgingly agreed, but the skepticism was heavy in her voice.

“Thanks, Sam,” Lilu breathed in relief, and just in time, because the screaming thrusters of descending spacecraft could be heard. They all looked up, and two craft were coming in at the southerly ridge across the ice plain from where Valerie’s cache was. “Here we go,” she warned.

The two craft settled, and in the distance, the landing bays opened. Clearly visible on one, obscured on the other. Lilu took aim on the visible one. Her sights magnified the view, and she held her breath as the targets became clear. Six targets, she had six bullets. Don’t fail me now, she told herself as she squeezed the trigger. One...two...three...four...five...six... and the landing bay door closed quickly. The ship launched back into the sky, and she was reloading.

“What happened?” Lillian asked, bewildered.

Lilu explained. “Got ‘em all on the first try. The second ship, the bay is occluded by the rocks, gotta wait for them to come out from behind cover on their own.”

“What did I tell you?” beamed Sam, and Lillian looked at Lilu with new appreciation.

“I guess I owe you an apology,” she admitted, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

“Well, thanks, but depending on how long this attack lasts, you might not see it for too long if my shoulder starts hurting much worse. This gun is heavy, but I’ll do my best. Ah, here comes the other group now.” Lilu took aim as the column, now wisely split, came around the rocks in two directions, four in one group, two in the other. She picked off two, and everyone scattered, leaving her to swing the gun around to find the other four targets, but they never even made it halfway across the plain before they were dead.

The sound of more thrusters and engines caught their ears: another wave of starships. This time, the landing points were well away from each other. The first was in the trees on the hillside directly across from the cache, the other was down the plain to the east.

“Watch for the column from the east and make sure they don’t get me. I’m going to kill all these from the trees here in the west across from us, hopefully before they get out of the landing bay,” Lilu ordered, and Sam and Lillian acted without question, as if recognizing her natural command.

Lilu did exactly as she said, the fact that the landing bay was open directly in front of her making it that much easier despite the shadowy trees. She dispatched everyone inside with quick and ruthless efficiency, then turned her attention to the east. Lillian and Sam were having trouble with that column, which had seen the carnage to the west and had scrambled into the rocks. Lilu couldn’t acquire any of the targets from her vantage point, so she jumped down to get closer.

And already, the sound of more thrusters and engines. Shit, thought Lilu, another wave and we haven’t even gotten this group down. She saw a Seokguh thug, a real “looker,” with a tall mohawk hairstyle and one of those cheesy, white, pinstripe suits that some of the Seokguh liked to wear, come out from behind the rocks to draw down on her, and Sam took a shot at him. The slug from Sam’s rifle hit the thug’s gun and broke it in half at the stock. The thug scrambled for cover as Sam fired at him again, climbing up the rocks like a mountain goat, in and out of cover. Lilu tried to acquire him and took a shot, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock. The Seokguh with the mohawk disappeared up and over the hill.

“Goddammit! Come back here!” Sam yelled in impotent rage.

“Shit! I can’t believe I missed him, too. Squirrely bastard. Well, don’t worry about it, Sam, we’ve got bigger fish to fry, more starships incoming!” Lilu saw the dismay in Sam’s face as he looked upwards, and then he nodded his head and yelled at Lillian.

“Incoming, by the cache and on the hilltop!”

Lillian looked at him and looked up. She nodded and pointed at the Seokguh she was still fighting in the rocks on the eastern plain, and didn’t run to meet up with Lilu and Sam. Maybe it was for the best, Sam thought. Didn’t want those thugs running up on their backs while they were fighting.

As the one starship landed next to the cache, Lilu crouched into her shooter’s stance and waited for the landing bay to open. There was one doggy-style, Model S combat bot, four men, and a woman inside. They couldn’t have made it any easier for her than when one of the men yelled, “Valerie, the cache hasn’t been broken into.” Lilu took aim on the woman’s forehead as she stepped onto the snow and blew her brains out the back of her skull.

From there, things went crazy. The Model S bot came for Lilu like a vengeful demon and Sam barely got it down in time while she focused her efforts on the remaining men, taking every ounce of grit and trust in Sam to get it done so as not to flinch while she kept firing. Once that wave was cleared, she turned to Sam, and said, “We have to go up the hill.”

Together, they clambered up and over the boulders and found there were only a couple of Model A combat bots staying with the ship. Once they had been destroyed, the ship flew away, Lilu firing incendiary rounds at it. She looked around, puzzled if there were more thugs roaming about, but a burst of fresh shooting from what sounded like more guns began down on the ice-plain.

“Lillian,” said Lilu. “The rest of the Seokguh from this ship must have gone down there. Let’s go kill us some more!”

“Right you are,” Sam agreed with enthusiasm.

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

SAM AND LILU, NOW:

Turned out sliding down the hill was a lot easier (and a bit more fun in the snow) than going up, but the problem was there were about six remaining Seokguh scattered amongst the rocks and trees. Once they reached the plain, Sam and Lilu spread out to help Lillian put a stop to them. The thugs were mostly disorganized and out of their element, and without leaders, orders, or a method of escape, they were rather hapless trying to mount any real offense. Slowly but surely, they were getting picked off, one by one, and they knew their demise was imminent.

Finally, Sam thought it was starting to look like their little trio was going to prevail. Most of the Seokguh henchmen were dead on the ground, scattered about the ice plain, and the ships were long gone with no more coming in. Valerie Mosquera’s body was laying in the snow where Lilu had shot her dead as she stepped off the landing bay ramp from her ship. The mission was nearly a fait accompli. Lillian had moved back to the west side of the ice plain across from the cache door, away from Lilu and Sam, to the neighboring hillside to fight a couple of strays by a stand of dark trees. Sam looked around, there wasn’t much left but mop-up duty.

Looking for Lilu, he saw her staring intently towards Lillian with a glowering frown, and then scrabble up on her original rock perch at the cache for elevation. She raised her rifle and pointed it in Lillian’s direction again, fitting her eye to her sights. “I’ve got you now, bitch. You aren’t getting away this time,” she muttered.

“Liluana, no!” Sam couldn’t believe it. He raised his gun at her and took aim. He couldn’t let her execute the woman in cold blood. What had flipped the switch in her? Was it mere opportunity? He loved Lilu but he had to stop this from happening. It wasn’t right. “Don’t make me do it.”

“Say goodnight,” Lilu’s voice said in a low murmur..

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Sam choked out, and pulled the trigger as soon as he saw her hand tighten.

It all happened so fast. Lilu’s gun went off just as Sam pulled the trigger. She screamed in agony and cartwheeled sideways off the other side of the rock, rifle flying. “Oh Jesus, God forgive me,” Sam half-sobbed, and he looked over towards Lillian, who, by some miracle, was still standing. Her face was shocked, and Sam saw the reason why.  

At her feet, right behind where she had been standing, was a dead man, a hatchet in his hand. It was the Seokguh with the mohawk hairstyle and the white pinstriped suit, the one who fled after his gun had broken when Sam’s slug had hit it near the stock. He had been hiding in the trees and was sneaking up behind Lillian. His feet were still amongst the roots and rocky scree. The man’s head was ruined by Lilu’s bullet.

It took a moment for Sam to comprehend what he was looking at, then realize the magnitude of the mistake he’d made. He scrambled desperately around the rocks to find where Lilu had fallen. He could see Lillian sprinting towards them out of his peripheral vision.

Lilu was on the ground, clutching her thigh above the knee, bleeding profusely from her leg, which is where Sam had intended to hit her. Lilu had mentioned, back at Victor Compound, dropping him by shooting him in the leg if he started acting up. That had been his intention. This didn’t look like the intended result. Not by a long shot, no pun intended.

“Sunshine, Sunshine, how bad is it? I think I fucked up. I was just trying to stop you from assassinating Lillian. What’s happened?”

“I wasn’t going to kill Lillian. There... was a man sneaking up on her from the trees. Did… I get him?”

By then, Lillian had arrived. “Yes, you got him. He would have killed me, I didn’t know he was there in the trees.” Then to Sam, “Her femoral artery is hit, she’s bleeding out.”

“Oh Jesus, no. No, no, no. I couldn’t have… you said, ‘I got you now, bitch,’ I don’t understand...” Sam lamented.

“I meant ‘bitch’ in... the unisex way,” Lilu gasped.

“How the hell is ‘bitch’ unisex?” Sam was beside himself.

“I’m an asshole Latina from East Harlem. It’s... Goddamn this hurts... it’s how we roll sometimes,” she explained, her eyes screwing shut.

“Oh my God, I fucked up... I fucked up... I’m sorry...”

“It’s okay, Sam. I told you one of us wouldn’t be coming back from this trip. It’s better that it’s me. I’ve been trying hard enough to end it for a long while. It’s time, just let me go.”

“No, Sunshine, no. This is my fault, I can’t…” Sam started to cry, but Lillian snapped him out of it.

“Sam, calm down, she’s not dead yet, give me your belt and get a stick.”

Sam did what he was told and went to fetch a small branch. Lillian pulled out some Emergency Kits and stuffed them directly into Lilu’s wound, then put Sam’s belt high up on the girl’s thigh. She used the stick to twist it tight for a makeshift tourniquet.

“Now to get her back to the ship, she’s no lightweight.”

“I can hear you,” Lilu said, weakly.

“Good, go on a diet,” Lillian said.

“I should have shot you instead,” Lilu grumbled.

Sam was going to intervene, but he saw that the look on Lillian’s face was relatively good natured and she was just trying to keep Lilu awake and alert. He called up Cora on the comms and told her to be ready at the landing bay and have the coordinates for the Clinic punched in and the ship warmed up. Cora said she had some synthetic blood product on hand and she’d have it ready to go the moment they got there.

It was the most painstaking, slow-going Sam could ever remember. He was checking on Lilu constantly to make sure she hadn’t died, that she still had a pulse and respiration. He had never felt more grateful to see his daughter in his life, brave through her fear, smart as a whip, ready with medical supplies which she administered to Lilu, got vitals which were thready but steady, and dragged her on board before running through the takeoff sequence  and getting the ship airborne, into orbit, and on its way to the Clinic.

Lillian stayed with Lilu so Sam could take over and set the grav drive to the Narion system and the space station that housed the Clinic, and he prayed that they’d be in time. Or he’d be responsible for murdering the one person in this world, besides Cora, who was capable of bringing him lasting joy and happiness. No big deal, right? No pressure at all.

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

LILU AND SAM, NOW:

When Lilu woke up, she felt strangely woozy and her leg hurt. She reached for it with her hand and found it tightly wrapped. Looking around, things started to snap into focus, and she realized she was in a hospital room. Tubes snaked out of her arms, one of them was a blood bag, she was getting a transfusion. She thought hard, and then flashes came back to her. Taking aim at the man sneaking up behind Lillian. Sam yelling at her to stop. Pulling the trigger and then the tremendous pain in her leg. Everything woozy after that.

“That son of a bitch shot me,” she suddenly exclaimed to the empty room.

“In my defense,” she heard Sam’s voice coming from the other side of the hospital room. And there he was, perfectly healthy except for a black eye.

“Oh, this ought to be good. And where’d you get the shiner? I hope I punched you.”

“No, Cora punched me for shooting you.”

“Good.”

“Liluana…”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“Liluana, please…”

“Does this place have security? My assassin is here for another try. Security!”

“Liluana…”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what, Coe?”

“In fairness, I thought you were going to shoot Lillian because you aimed your gun at her before and you looked like you were doing it again. And you said, ‘I’ve got you now, bitch,’ it was kind of hard to know. So, I tried to wing you. You know, like you said you’d drop me. You were willing to take that kind of chance with me, too.”

“No, because I’m a trained sniper, I know where to shoot where chances are I won’t hit your femoral artery, and I rarely miss. Especially a stationary target.”

“Oh. Well. I guess I know that now. My point is I wasn’t trying to kill you. My hope was to make it so you didn’t kill Lillian and you didn’t die. I fucked up. Another fuck up in a series of fuck ups around this whole affair.”

Lilu snorted. “You know what, Coe, the funny thing is, I’m not even mad. I mean, I am, but not seriously. It’s just about on brand for this entire fucked up relationship.”

“I’m so sorry, Liluana. Whatever you want to do going forward, I’ll accept your decision and move on.”

“Well, I hope so. Because I need to see what happens at the end of this notebook.”

Sam looked up at her, hopeful. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes, I do. But what about Lillian?”

“That’s the other thing. Lillian pretty much saved your life out there. I had no idea how to stop the bleeding so she took my belt and fashioned a tourniquet and then used some emergency packs to shore it up until we could get back to  the Cherrypopper. She’s… uh… she’s waiting outside to talk to us both about the mission when you’re able.

“Now is as good a time as any. I feel okay. As long as I don’t have to get up and jump around.”

“Alright. And, Sunshine, it might be a lot to ask, but… can I give you a kiss? A small one? I thought I had killed you.”

“Yeah, Coe, why not? Come here.” Sam sat down on the edge of the bed and carefully leaned in, giving the most delicate kiss on her lips. He looked into her eyes searching.

“I love you, Sunshine. I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”

“We’ll see, Sam. Just give it time. You’d better go get Lillian,” Lilu prompted.

It only took a few minutes and Sam returned with the senior Ranger, his ex-wife, into Lilu’s hospital room.

“I hear I have you to thank for saving my life,” Lilu said, and Lillian smiled noncommittally.

“You would have done the same for me, I’m sure. Glad to see you’re doing ok. As for the Seokguh Syndicate and Valerie Mosquera… it’s over. I could see why they were eager to recruit you for the Rangers,*” Lillian admitted.

“I’m just glad everyone’s safe,*” Lilu replied.

“For now. I swear the bad guys never sleep.*”

“We need to talk. Really talk, Lillian,*” Sam pressed.

“Maybe somewhere private?*” Lillian suggested, glancing sideways at Lilu.

“No... I may need a little... dammit... emotional support, alright?*” Sam also glanced at Lilu.

Oh, no pressure, only in a hospital here. But she wanted this, too, so she stepped up to the plate. “You really need to hash this out. Once and for all.*” Lilu looked pointedly at Sam.

“Ain’t that the truth?*” Sam sighed.

“If you want to fight in front of your friend, I’m ready,*” Lillian countered, and Lilu didn’t wonder that she was ready to fight. That was all she knew. Fight, complain... and disappear.

“I know you don’t approve of Cora being with me...*” but Lillian cut Sam off before he could finish.

“Don’t you see why? If you keep this up, she could get hurt, or killed, or worse,*” Lillian shouted. The dreaded “worse.” Lilu knew all about “worse.”

“But she hasn’t. She’s been safe. I’ve been keeping her that way her whole life. And she’s not a little girl any more, she helps keep me alive, too.” Sam looked at Lilu. “Back me up, here,*” he pleaded.

“Sam does everything in his power to keep Cora safe and I keep both of the Coes alive. And like your life is so much safer, Lillian,*” Lilu added.

“You are being hypocritical, don’t you see?*” Sam suggested.

Lillian sighed, heavily. “I wish there was someplace safe and secure she could live. You’re right, okay? I wish there was a better option...*”

“Listen, all this... This. It has to stop. Every time we talk it makes me want to punch a wall.*”

“I don’t want to be mad at you, I really don’t,*” Lillian insisted.

“Lillian, I don’t know if what we had was ever love...” and here Lilu looked sharply at Sam, “but we used to like each other. We need to get back to at least being civil for Cora’s sake.*”

“Why do the two of you fight?*” Lilu asked. Better to find out now.

Sam didn’t answer her, though, he directed his response to Lillian. “It always feels like you’re judging me, Lillian. Like I’m not a good enough dad, a good enough partner. And there’s all this messy history.*” Lilu imagined she knew what that entailed, maybe there was more, but what mattered was that the history ended here.

“I don’t think that, Sam. I don’t. I know I can hit below the belt... But the way you turned your life around? It’s... impressive. Truly.*”

Lilu was afraid to even offer up this suggestion because she didn’t exactly mean it, but to sound fair, what else could she say? “As long as you keep talking like this, you can get over it. Communication is key.*”

Sam nodded. “It’s hard. But you’re right. Isn’t this good, Lillian?*”

“Yeah, it... actually is. If we’re going to be really honest here... Sam, Cora and you... You were always together. Back when we were a team... Cora would follow you everywhere, like a little adoring dog. I... just felt out of it. Long before we separated.*”

“Lillian, I...*” Sam started, but Lillian cut him off.

“No, no, Sam. I need to get this out. But it’s not fair that I take that out on you.*”

“That’s messed up, Lillian,*” Lilu said.

“No argument from me on that, I know I’m a mess.*”

Sam said, “I know it’s my fault, too. Truce?*”

“Truce.” Lillian took a deep breath, and asked, “But I need something Sam. I need to see my daughter more. These messages just hurt, they’re such a tease.*”

“And she misses you. But, Lillian, the last three times we planned something, you bailed twice. Twice. Every time you do that, it destroys Cora. And I’m the one that has to deal with it.*”

“I don’t think Lillian can put Cora first right now,*” Lilu suggested.

“Listen, whatever you’re doing right now with Cora... I won’t stand in the way of that. But Lillian... If an emergency comes up, you sure you’ll be there?*”

Lillian sighed again. “It’s often a matter of life and death... You... You’re right. Maybe when she’s older?*”

Sam looked at Lilu, then back at Lillian. Lilu had a feeling something momentous was about to happen. She held her breath.

“And Lillian. You know I care for you, right? But you and me...*”

Lillian’s voice was ineffably sad, and Lilu almost felt for her. Almost. “I know. We were over before we even began.*” Flights of doves and butterflies were going off in Lilu’s mind but she kept her face impassive.

“It’s none of my business, I know, but you need to put yourself out there. There’s bound to be someone... hell, lots of someones... that would be thrilled for the complete Lillian Hart bad-ass Ranger package. I know a certain person on Neon...*”

“Oh stop.*”

“I’m just saying there are people that would do right by you. There’s more to life than Rangering.*”

“I’ll think about it.*”

Lilu was skeptical. “You really are over Sam?*”

“Sam and I didn’t really choose to be with each other. It just sort of happened and then Cora... I admire Sam, and he’s one of the few people in the Systems that can make me laugh. But I never really was... And I’m certainly not now.*” Somehow, Lilu didn’t quite believe her, but she said the words.

“I think a certain Jaylen may be getting lucky,*” Lilu said in a singsong voice, the smile not quite reaching her eyes, the intent saying, you relinquished Sam, now stay away.

“Oh my. You’re... You’re terrible!*”

Sam chuckled and said, “Oh, that was priceless.*”

“Now it’s my turn. Sam, you... you’re a good Dad. I know I don’t say it enough, but you are. But there’s more to life than being Cora’s father. So same advice to you. Find someone. Or maybe you already have.*”

“Aren’t you just loving the turn-about is fair play nonsense?*”

“See you around, Sam.* You, too, Lilu.” And Lillian went to the rendezvous point to meet the incoming Rangers. Lilu turned to face Sam.

“So do you see why I like her?*”

“No.”

“Well, we were never a good fit. But Lillian’s good people.*”

“Nope.”

“Okay, you. I have a lot to think about, but for the first time in ages, I feel good. Really good. Listen, in Akila City, there’s an old haunt of mine. On a balcony near that good old statue of Solomon Coe. I want to show you and have our own real talk, okay? And maybe figure out a way to repay you*. As soon as they release you from the hospital.”

“You mean I have to wait?” Lilu’s face registered skepticism. “That’s kind of anticlimactic.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault it ended up like this,” Sam shrugged.

“Oh, I think it kind of is, there, Doc Holliday. A little trigger happy, I’d say,” Lilu sniffed.

“Only because you were fixing to gun down innocent people, there, Annie Oakley.”

“You know who Annie Oakley is? Impressive,” Lilu nodded approvingly.

“Yeah, but don’t keep this up much longer because I’m tapped out on Old Earth Wild West names,” Sam admitted, and Lilu laughed.

“Okay, well how long am I stuck in the hospital?

“Another day, two tops, your favorite Doctor said,” Sam raised an eyebrow.

“Dr. Cassidy. I hope he wasn’t too sore about the way we left things after the Catalina Rivera-Maya Cruz-VIP wing bait-and-switch,” Lilu said, grimacing.

“On the contrary, he was grateful, didn’t realize how close he came to possible death.”

“Oh, well, in that case, maybe he’ll be more amenable to letting me go early if he knows some earthshattering fate is in the balance and I have to be in Akila City to hear it,” Lilu joked.

Sam sat down on the bed and took her hands in his. “Oh, it’s no laughing matter. You’ll find out. But for now, rest again. We’ve got plenty of time. The important thing is you’re okay, and you’re not out for my blood.”

Lilu looked up at Sam with her large, expressive, brown eyes, and there in her hospital gown, with ECG leads and dark shadows cast in the hollows of her face, he thought she’d never looked more beguiling. She seemed at peace, at least for now. He couldn’t wait to tell her everything he’d been waiting to say. Just a little while longer...

And then he smiled to himself as the sound of soft snores emanated from his girl. His delicate flower who had dropped suddenly off to sleep because she was still weak. Mouth open, the occasional snort. “I love you, Sunshine. You’re going to be mine forever,” he murmured as he leaned into her mattress, laying his head next to hers on her pillow, and he closed his eyes, too.

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cc: @a-cosmic-elf

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Chapter 27 Song: Real Love Song - Nothing But Thieves

This is a love song, real love Dirty rip out the whole of your soul love I'll hate myself for days love Sitting all alone and listening to Nick Cave love

This is a dark song, real dark Feral tear off your skin to the bone dark I'll drink myself to death dark Do anything to feel your breath on my neck dark

Can I sing this to you? Got a thing about you And it won't go away, no It won't go away It won't go away

This is a sad song, so sad Aching like it's more that I can take sad I cried so hard I died sad Losing all that's making me human inside sad

Can I sing this to you? Got a thing about you And it won't go away, no It won't go away It won't go away

This is a love song, so what? Did it slide into your heart? I guess not I still want your love a whole lot Have you heard a better song? I hope not