Shaintro was investigating strange activity. Belching thrusters had reverberated through the cavern and were loud enough to bounce through beyond the cove. A mystery no more when Shaintro first stepped foot outside.

As though summoned by the gravel underfoot, a trio of ramshackle fighters let loose a strafing barrage of chaotic plasma bolts, tearing cavern rock to explode and collapse deep below. Their ugly engines howled when they swooped just shy of the Messengers’ Argo fighter; the Argo’s sharp spade body shook, only saved by compensation from the landing shoes gripping to the terrain against a dirt red velocity. Shaintro failed to look beyond the dust and tag who these fighters were; however, he got a good look at the back of the leading vessel. His bulbs perked up. This was no mistake, thought the Maiorian. They’d be back, judging by their ark, already riding to loop around for another run.

Blank annoyance burdened his face like somebody had uncapped his Comet Water, left it out overnight, and allowed its carbonation to run flat.

Promptly, with a steady trot to his ship, he summoned his left arm near his mouthpiece. A clear-faced pane of glass parted just shy of his wrist, cloaked to match his suit. A few complicated passwords later, and the device stubbornly allowed to be used.

Shaintro then manned the cockpit of the Argo. He caught the fighters lacing smog through the purple in the sky. He hailed for backup.

Hailing frequency: [Trusted Mercenary] a computed woman’s voice relayed through Maiorian tongue.

“That was much too close.” He would be sure to mention their tardiness in his review.

Pixel by pixel, the feed sparked to life. Shaintro was happy to hear from the mercenaries.

“You rang, blue man?” The voice spelled smug in every flap of their lip. He failed to keep a chuckle close to his chest. Others began to laugh over the line with him.

“Are you fucking serious?! He took the bait?!”

The more they rambled, the more disgust piled into Shaintro’s expression. “So that attack was you. You aren’t the honorable men I thought you were. Pitiful,” said Shaintro. “Your records stated otherwise.”

“Messengers’s worth a whole lot more than those stats, dead or alive. And! just cuz we believe in a fair fight, your weapons were cut offline when your gullible trout brought us aboard!” The crew howled like a couple of drunkards.

Shaintro suddenly sparked with something close to agency. But when checking on the coil status of their weapon systems, they were, indeed, fully operational. Just had to make sure; he’d had the system recalibrated after the mercs cut a dummy failsafe too good to pass up. “I’ll make a note of that, thank you.”

He cut the line short as to have the last word. Thank god they weren’t face-to-face, or else he’d oust his true intentions: to rid The Breath of scum like Rosqo, like all the scalpers giving locals trouble. He activated the onboard functions, secured by a naked scan of his palm. The deck emitted vibrations to confirm through his calloused hand webbing. “Right on schedule.”

Two rail-thin junk fighters led entry of a blood-red Husky Scavenger. Its bulky, rectangular body tanked through any turbulence, powered by a trio of unstable engine silos. Hot on the trail, they began their strafing run far out, with a hot orange glow charging another plasma barrage from the undercarriage visibly smoking through pockmark bulkheads.

The Argo lifted off swiftly and took to the skies in a flash. A very one-sided dogfight was now underway. The less they knew, the better.

- - -

“Where are you?” as a gust then scrambled Illain’s coat fringe at his elbows.

She spoke, but the boy still could not understand her—just Her noise. He could somehow feel Her intentions. She was leading the echoes he heard, traveled through the peaks and rivers far beyond his reach as naturally as the wind blows.

“Am I not”—he realized his strides were covered in lies—“worthy?” Was he? To lie to the council, to the gods that he met her physically—He was breaking ever rule standing in Her sanctum! Legs wobbling, Illian looked over his platform to the ground below. He could taste the bottomless pit and it tasted like death.

But Gaia’s voice perked, as if a caring laugh. Then, a bass-like hum that descended the scale of his ears.

“No?”

She repeated then swelled with an adage; more music, sure and telling like a tender kiss. Illian brightened up.

“So, you did lead me here …”

The kiss returned.

Satisfied, Illian stepped forward with more to ask. But as he did, his platform began to sink back down. Illian was mortified their time together was coming to an end: “Wait, I-“

Suddenly, the Husky freighter invaded the boy’s dreamlike haven, firing off a ballista of potent plasma slugs directly at him. The boy panicked, jumped from the platform and splayed helpless to the current! His screams then … filled Her cove.

Illian rose up, patted his coat away of timeless soil. I’m alive?

He had been in stasis on an unmoving platform. Still, there was a cataclysmic shakeup rattling the caverns. Before he could think, another schism roared, causing the cavern to kick up a trail of dust from its small ceiling rock.

“What the. Shaintro!”

Illain darted out the hole. Heart racing, blood pounding, the boy headed to an early grave. No weapons on his person. No proper training to fight. Not a chance.

- - -

“This is gonna be one hell of a payday,” said one of the Husky’s crew.

A stark red vessel on the inside, too. Hardly any place to move, congested interior littered with loose tools, guns, and booze. The place reeked of dirty fuel; whatever they were feeding the thrusters, it was crispy gunk now.

Nobody could give less of a damn.

A middle-aged mercenary by the name Rosqo then looked upon one of his co-operators, noting his lack of celebration. “Look alive, Mitch!” His dirty-brown gloves dusted their shoulder, pelting against armor padding.

Mitch put his solder tool down and faced Rosqo. “Yeah—It’s gonna be pretty sweet,” Mitch said. His tone was drowsy, his slurring lips hidden under full-faced square optics. Even obscured, Mitch could play connect-the-dots on Rosqo’s damaged Greek complexion.

He fell back to his maintenance of a leaky, dorkily hoisted plasma coil far too wide to accommodate the truss systems. Class B tech on a Class D scrapper was hampering their factory-stock Ballista systems down to nothing but patchwork and aftermarket plating for a human man’s hubris.

“You almost done with that thing? You’ll singe your brow if it goes off again.”

“Yeah, Rosqo—just re-routing some power.” Mitch turned to him with a cheeky smile. “Though, I’d wager Kor and Jeri will get ‘em’ before then.” Rosqo laughed, nearly spitting his freshly-lit cigar that smelled of ashy mangos. The only taste strong enough to be tagged through burning fuel.

“Not if their lives depended on it.”

“Man,” now sifting through his tool sash, “can’t imagine this negotiation going so well, can you?” There was a tongue-in-cheek playfulness about ‘negotiations.’ He then parted scraggily blond hair from his eye by adjusting his face mask.

“We’ll get a shot off. Dig the scraps up for that good delegate shit.” His rasp bitter with time: a prejudice heart for Rayvine off-worlders. “Either way, our message is sent, and they stay off our land till the next batch. You ever held a Messenger coat before?” He shot a quirked eye and smarm grin at Mitch.

He said knowingly, “It barely singes.”

Rosqo turned back, itching to bug the pilot to gain on the blue man’s vessel; he took a step up an abused grate step.

Much like the windshield, these fine gentlemen were truly seeing through shit-smeared glasses. No idea the warrant they had signed for themselves. Foggy in his optics, Mitch rode up his face mask to breathe all he could salvage, lime green pupils directed at Rosqo, up to no good for the captain. He returned to his duties.

- - -

Shaintro flung back with an allergy for flak rounds. Yet, the two fighters sprayed their wrath relentlessly. Fresh bullet holes trailed the Argo’s thruster undulations. Stressing time, Shaintro could only hope for an easy out. His attention darted to his system. Rear thrusters compromised. Overheat imminent. “Shit.”

 Thankfully, a swirling set of low clouds were looking to build not too far from his fellow Messenger.

He headed into the storm wall, immediately slowing his pace to a crawl just as the jets peaked red in his diagnostic layout. When they leveled, Shaintro brought the Argo to a slow hover down. Like bolts of lighting, the trifecta whirled through, gaining speed recklessly through the wall’s black plumes. Easing slowly, the Maiorian loosened his fibers to unlatch from the manual override controls. Shaintro got back to work. He hailed through his hidden communication device right away.

Contact: MECHAIS

A slight delay of dial codes chimed, possibly to auto-decrypt a series of complicated maneuvers for classified frequencies. Or Shaintro was just that into classic human memorabilia to retrofit his device to chime like an old cell phone.

The other line ceased their questionable delay and answered the blue man. Shaintro registered first contact: “Yes, hello. Swan birds out.”

“Y’mean Songbirds,” the other line corrected in a gruff, roasted drawl.

“Oh. Songbirds. My mistake.”

“So you’ve got a bead on ‘em.”

“Yes, they’re here. All three ships.”

“Good.” The other voice keyed in some joy, but weighed it down with sheer credential—nothing personal, of course. “Be sure you boys stay clear. We’ve had enough casualties near the breach point. We get Rosqo and his troupe today. No witnesses, no casualties.”

“We’ll be sure to evade the blast radius.” Shaintro’s bulbs momentarily sighted the distance spreading between them and their pursuers on his radar feed. “I appreciate your concern commander. Bless you.”

“Mhm.” The transmission cut with a whir.

- - -

Finally, Illian emerged onto the outside cavern, witnessing the damage that had already been done near the Argo’s now-vacant landing zone. Unsure of where to go next, he stood in place, overwhelmed by the majesty of the cavern walls; made worse by its howling decree.

Suddenly, this howl arose in his wake. Dust kicked against Illian’s coat, left it to tatter and flap as he braced the gust of the three fighters striking through the sky.

And all he could do was wait for their return.

“The red ship …” He turned to the sky, stricken. “Well. Come and get me!”

He spread his arms, barrel-chested like readying to catch them mid-collision. A blip cracked through the clouds, prompting the boy to breathe in deeply; the Husky hailed a powerful plasma round that reverberated for miles outward.

This is it. This is what I deserve.

Then a fourth broke from the back of the pack and dived. Or … floated down to land?

Much to the boy’s surprise, the Argo now traversed the cavern, cooling its turquoise-boosted descent when Shaintro spotted Illian.

A hail came through the boy’s own communicator device. No other person could get his prospect codes so easily; not without hacking the Rayvine station itself and compromising an incredibly reinforced database.

He’d been spared.

Soon completing another happy landing, Shaintro appeared: a bristling peak of his vitals sprouting alive when he embarked from the ship.

165 BPM

Please stabilize subject: SHAINTRO

Probable cardiovascular (MAIORIAN) risk:

56.89%

Illian committed to his stance, unable to let go.

Shaintro seized this window of opportunity. He ran to his fellow Messenger and hugged him.

“Yes—I missed you, too, Sol! Come now, it’s about to start.”

“What? I—hey!”

He rushed Illian along to an ample spot, hands propping his sightline in place from the shoulders. “Can’t this wait-“

“Look.” Shaintro pointed to a dissipating cluster of fluffy, amber-headed clouds on the horizon.

There, the mercenary trio maddened a search effort, desperately seeking out some stray Messengers. That was their first mistake.

Suddenly, the Husky class ignited, drenched in its own coat of orange plasma as it then barreled down into The Breath. Panic ensued, scattered the other fighters now without an operable fortress to rely on. It was then that an ion shriek pierced through the clouds, skewering both, causing them to explode into many raining shrapnel chunks.

A vessel emerged to claim the awesome power of its ion technology. Illian was dumbfounded. But relieved, nonetheless.

“We are not fighters, nor should we take part as a holy weapon.” Shaintro was repeating a lesson learned several months ago, but this time he had a deviated route to take this fresh, eager pupil—as though granted by this victory. “But with enough practice,” he said. “You’ll never have to worry about fighting up close.”

“Right.” The only word concrete enough to fall from Illian’s mouth without sounding zealous, or worse: stupid. Shaintro’s comms flickered alive. In fact, both of their devices sprang to life, clashing tongues outside of the realm of their translators.

Incoming hail from: MECHAIS

Strange. Illian’s chiming tone was just a series of generic triplet gallops. Shaintro’s, not so much.

Illian smiled finally: “Nostalgic?”

“Incorrect. Nostalgia would imply that I grew up on Earth.”

“I guess-“

Shaintro accessed the incoming transmission, possibly to avoid his choice of tone for another time.

“Yes, commander, this is Messenger Vadis. I regret to inform you that subject Mitch is unaccounted for.”

“You’re talking to him,” said Mitch. Both the Messengers took another look at the chrome ship. “Mechaís sends their regards! The Commander will be in contact soon. Out.”

The feed died and the vessel backed off, thrummed its glossy silver thrusters to distort the air before taking off south of The Breath.

It was at that moment that—under a glass floor—Illain felt a strong burden: the Earth’s only outside connection to their deity.

“Great,” he said, gaze unmoved from the sky. “I’m a target.”

“No. We’re a target. I assure you are on the winning side of that exchange, Sol.”

Shaintro began the venture back to the Argo, as did Illian only seconds later. Seconds drudged in second thoughts.

“Sol?” said Shaintro. He had unlatched the back docking ramp.

“Yes?” More wisdom for free, Illian hoped.

“The Courtship awaits your report.”

“Yes, Shaintro. Right away.”

Oh boy. Homework. Bite me, blue man.