Enzo had just taken out a huge burly pink man with wriggling tentacles in place of a mustache and was helping his slave to his feet when the doors on the other side of the ballroom were blown inward with a deafening bang. He hastily dove to drape his body over the svelte little slave boy, grunting when he felt a piece of metal collide with his exosuit.

When the blast had settled he pulled back so that he could examine the kid for damage. He seemed unharmed, though his thin green-and-white speckled limbs were trembling and there were tears gathering at the corners of his crimson eyes. “Hey, it’s alright. Look at me, you speak Standard?”

The kid gulped and nodded, and Enzo fought the urge to turn his attention to the commotion going on behind him before he’d made sure the kid was going to be okay. He clicked the button at the base of his throat twice to retract his visor, blinking in the sudden bright light. “Good, okay. What’s your name?”

He could barely hear the kid’s answer over the sudden onslaught of shouting and blaster fire, but he was far enough away from the door that he felt he’d be okay for just a few more seconds. “T’ilix.”

“T’ilix, I’m Enzo. I swear I’m going to get you out of here, but I need you to listen to me. You need to stay behind me until I give you the signal, and then you need to take off as quickly as you can towards the pod with the others. Can you do that?”

T’ilix nodded once and a fat tear rolled down his cheek, but Enzo had no time to comfort him anymore. He replaced his visor, vision once again filling with his red display, and stood. T’ilix sidled up behind him and used his slight form to his advantage, effectively hiding from view.

Enzo raised his blaster, but it took him a few confused seconds to puzzle out what was going on. Because the people spilling into the room certainly weren’t what he’d been expecting, were neither guards nor slavers; dirty leather over sleek space suits, manic grins, a ragtag crew with every shape and size of weapon a person could imagine.

They were… mercenaries?

That couldn’t be right, though, because in this quadrant there were six mercenary fleets (not including Kade’s personal one), and every single one of them was housed on Kade’s mother ship. He knew all of the captains, as they served as Kade’s bridge crew, and when the man who was clearly in charge of the fleet strolled boldly out into the center of the chaos Enzo did not recognize him.

The first thing Enzo noticed about him was that he was young, maybe a couple of years older than Enzo at most. The brilliant white skin of his face - not white like a Terran was white, but white like moonlight - was marred with two long raised lavender scars, lighter than the purple lines Enzo suspected were tattoos under his eyes, and his slitted golden irses were flashing with his cocky grin. He swaggered out into the bedlam, flipping the long black braid that ran over the top of his skull and down his back, and Enzo was absolutely certain he’d never have forgotten such a person.

Enzo watched as Kade elbowed the person he was fighting once in the nose, sending him sprawling, and strode out to meet the newcomer. T’ilix clutched at the back of his thighs, and he could feel the tremors still running through his skinny limbs.

The sudden tension that suffused the air as the men faced each other caused nearly all action in the room to halt. The guy’s cocky grin slipped from his face as Kade retracted his helmet and raised his four-barrel blaster rifle.

“Kade,” He breathed, and Enzo had no idea who this guy was but he could hear the shock in that deep voice. He clearly knew Enzo’s guardian, and he wondered why he’d never heard anything of him before.

“Cando,” Kade replied, cool as you please. It was the voice Enzo only ever heard when someone was in very big trouble, the frosty calm a clear indication of the admiral’s churning temper. Enzo raised an eyebrow under his helmet, his estimation of this guy going up just a little. He’d been in the room, what, thirty seconds? That had to be record, to bring out Kade’s temper so rapidly.

There was a very tense moment in which no one spoke, and Enzo used the calm to do a quick search. “Exo, search ‘Cando’ on the galactic criminal database,” he whispered, barely audible, but his display lit up with rapidly flickering text as it performed the search.

Cando seemed to have regained his momentum, to have recovered from his temporary stumble in confidence. “Aw, so formal. And here I thought we were friends!”

Enzo glanced at his guardian out of the corner of his eye, at his suddenly bunched shoulders, the way his jaw was working as he ground his teeth together. “Friends, Cando? After all that you’ve done? You disgraced all of us, kid. You’re lucky I haven’t shot you down where you stand.”

That was a good point. Why hadn’t Kade shot him down yet? The question flitted from his mind as Enzo’s suit finished its search with a trill. Text started scrolling across his screen, keywords like bounty, and pirate, and highly dangerous, flickering in and out of focus as it made more room for the next item on the list. Holy hell, this guy had quite the record for being so young.

‘Zarek Cando, Thraxian, believed to be the last surviving member of his species. Captain of the pirate fleet Nebula. Do not engage.’

Cando was laughing, an unpleasant chuckle with a sharp edge, bitter and derisive. “Oh, that’s rich, Hagen! What I’ve done? There you go, denying culpability, as per fucking usual.”

Enzo instructed his display to cut out so he could focus on the situation at hand, on the building hostility crackling like electricity through the room. Kade’s talisman, a band of blood red stone he wore around his wrist, was shining brightly, visibly even through his exosuit, and Enzo tensed. Kade never lost control of his Gift, was strict and rigid with it as he was in all things. For him to be that close to letting it go was more than a little troubling.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, kid. You have no damn clue what happened – “

“Oh, save it, old man! I know exactly what happened, and I don’t want to hear any of your goddamn excuses. You killed him. He was your friend, one of your crew, and you just – you just murdered him like he meant nothing to you!” Cando’s breathing was labored, and his fists were clenched furiously at his sides.

Enzo’s heart dropped and he jerked his gaze to his guardian. He’d never heard of Kade executing someone. Blacklisting, sure, but execution? That was extreme, even for the stern mercenary. He was going to have a lot of questions later.

At that moment a deafening shot rang out across the room; blaster fire from one of the jumpier men. Enzo jolted, but was completely horrified when he heard a startled shout from the kid behind him and Cando’s attention snapped to them with startling focus. Enzo probably would have been alright, if it weren’t for Kade’s instinctive step towards his charge, aborted midway through, but Cando noticed and grinned wickedly.

Then he was gone, just vanished with little more than the sound of displaced air. Enzo had a split second to be confused before he felt the hands gripping his thighs torn from him, and then Cando was back across the room, T’ilix dangled before him by the nape of his shirt. Enzo’s heart stopped as the kid squirmed and shrieked, clawing ineffectually at his captor.

Cando smirked as he held the kid further away from his body. “Kade! And here I thought you hadn’t left any of these ridiculously valuable slaves. You saved one for me? How sweet!”

Enzo’s instinctive step forward was halted by Kade’s hand on his chest, by the short shake of his guardian’s head that was telling him that whatever he wanted to do was not worth it. He had never disobeyed his guardian, not since he was eleven or twelve, anyway. While he’d had no intention to at that moment, when T’ilix turned his head desperately in his direction and wailed his name, voice cracking, tears streaming down his face, Enzo resigned himself to one hell of a punishment later.

“I am so sorry,” he whispered through his helmet’s communicator, a split second before he drew on the power of his Gift and disappeared from view.

Kade’s panicked shout reverberated through his skull, but he was already halfway across the room, sending a jolt of extra energy to his feet to muffle the sound of his boots. “Enzo, no!”

Cando was no longer smiling, but tilting his pointed ears in what Enzo assumed was an effort to eek out any sound he was making. Too bad for him, Enzo thought as he crept around the back of the man and tensed in preparation for what was bound to be an extremely moronic move.

T’ilix’s antennae were swiveling around in his panic, chest heaving, and Enzo hadn’t known him for more than five minutes but he felt fiercely protective over the tiny innocent and use that as his motivation. With a tiny exhale he surged forward, grabbing the dagger he strapped to his thigh as he went.

Cando never saw him coming, but he certainly felt it when Enzo’s knife slit a long jagged cut down the arm he was using to hold up the slave boy. As he’d hope it would, the shock caused the other man to drop T’ilix, and Enzo grabbed him up without pausing. He felt his power flicker out as the pirate released an enraged scream.

He had no time, none, as the man popped to life in front of him. He was fast, though, and dodged to the left with a tiny burst of his Gift, making his way towards Kade’s red-skinned first mate, Crux, who looked just as panicked as Enzo felt.

Cando flitted in front of him, reaching out with his uninjured arm, and Enzo barely dodged him that time. “Crux! Catch!”

T’ilix’s face was filled with panic as Enzo let him fly, arms reaching out to latch onto his savior, but as Enzo felt himself jerked to the side by a pair of strong arms he saw Crux grab the boy and hurry him onto the pod with the rest. His heart soared in victory even as he crashed to the floor underneath the pirate’s thick body.

Cando’s eyes flashed above him, and Enzo was smirking as the other man pressed the release button on his helmet and his face was exposed to open air. He could tell that the pirate no longer cared about the child, could tell that he was more interested in the teen who had bested him in a matter of seconds. Good thing, too, as Enzo heard five of the eight escape vessels shoot off out of the pod, taking every single rescued slave with them.

“Ha! Gotcha,” he laughed, relief washing over him even though he was pretty sure he was about to die.

The pirate was furious, snarling above him, amulet glowing faintly yellow at the base of his throat. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he hissed.

“Cando! Let the boy go, or I swear to you I will rip your goddamn spine from your body!” Kade shouted, and Enzo could see the sparks of red electricity crackling from his fingertips even out of the corner of his eye. He was almost touched that his guardian cared enough about him to let his anger out like that.

He was not, however, going to give up without a fight. While those eerie golden eyes roved his proud face he wiggled his fingers into the pack strapped to his waist and ever so slowly pulled out a paper-thin metal piece that kind of resembled a computer chip.

“Well? Who are you?” Cando seethed above him, taking hold of the neck of Enzo’s suit and giving him a shake.

Enzo laughed, much to the other man’s consternation, and looked him directly in the eye.

“I’m Enzo Hagen, and, buddy, you’re fucked,” he quipped, reaching up and slapping the chip to the other man’s shoulder. He used what felt like the last of his energy to push up with his hips until the other man flew off of him, clearing just far enough away so that the shock which crackled along his target from the chip didn’t affect him too.

As predicted, the other man fell to the ground, body jerking with the force of electricity, and Enzo made his hasty retreat. Cando’s crew was, frankly, in shock, staring in horror at their captain writhing on the ground. The rest of Kade’s crew had used the distraction to filter back into the pod, but Kade was still standing outside the door, waiting for his charge with barely-concealed panic.

A couple of the pirate’s crew had come to their senses, were making movements to get to Enzo, but unfortunately for them Kade was still barely containing his Gift and they each went down with a bolt through their chest. Enzo knew he was in trouble with a capital T when Kade’s hand landed on his shoulder with a bruising grip and pushed him into the pod without a word, but he still felt a fierce pride in what he’d done.

The door on the pod closed behind them and Enzo watched through the window as the captain’s body ceased its quaking. He ripped the offending chip from his shoulder and tossed it across the room, pushing himself up on his elbows to watch the pod disengage and start pulling away. To Enzo’s confusion, when their gazes met the other man grinned at him, still panting, and tossed him a jaunty salute.

Then the pod was too far away, the outer airlock door of the ship had re-engaged, and Enzo could no longer see the other man. He wondered, as they floated away and Kade’s steely grip remained locked on his shoulder, what the pirate could have been thinking in those last moments.