He's on top of me. Breath hot and heavy. Hands gripping my wrists. The thick bulk of his body crushing mine.

Can't move. Can't move can't move can'tmovecan'tmovecan'tmove

No.

I scream it, over and over, and he pulls back. But his face isn't his.

It's Cargon's.

A gun is in my hand. I pull the trigger. Boom. Cargon flies backwards. Blood.

I scramble to my feet. He doesn't move, blood spreading in a pool around his head. The bullet went through his forehead this time. But then his face changes again. An ancient visor appears. It's not Cargon. It's the officer.

I drop the gun, and fall to my knees. The old hot fury and delight at my power dies, leaking out of me. First time.

I shake. Stomach churns.

Sick.

Sick sick sick.

"LeVoy!"

I open my eyes. The barracks room is shadowy, the sun too low in the sky now to reach through the window, and the sky a dusty blue-grey. Beside my bunk is the wisp of a medic, Crackjaw. I flinch when I realize his hand is on my arm, and he quickly steps back.

"Your pardon, ma'am. You were deep in a REM cycle."

"No, no, you're fine." My voice is raspy in my dry throat, and I eagerly reach for the cup of water Crackjaw offers with his other hand.

The motion delights him. "You're getting your strength back! Good. You needed the sleep, even if it was disturbed. I assume you were dreaming?"

Having drained the cup, I nod and hand it back to him. I hope he doesn't notice how badly my hands are trembling. This hasn't happened since Core and I started going steady.

It wasn't real. It wasn't real. He will never do that to you again.

"You have been through a lot in the past week, LeVoy." Crackjaw sets the cup down beside the white box containing all the fluids he's pumping into me, then quietly asks my permission to inspect my eyes with a small light and magnifier before continuing the conversation. "If you need to debrief on anything, including dreams, my services are available to you. We Medics provide the best of care for all in the League, even out here."

"You believe me, then?"

Crackjaw smiles. The expression is so warm and melting it makes me think of him as a little spindly boy, and I instantly feel safer. The water has soothed my throat, too, and my hands are steadying. My heartbeat begins to slow.

"I believe you." Core's voice had rumbled against me as he held me in a bear hug after what had happened came spilling out of me one evening. He was one of the few I allowed to do that. "What happened was awful and wrong. No questioning. But there are decent men in the world too, me love - even good ones. I want to be one of them. Tell me how."

My guess is Crackjaw's one of the good ones, too.

"Yes," he's saying, "Silar and Beau have reviewed all your records and past communications over the past five hours, and determined that you're clean. I've been sent to bring you to the tech room, if I deem you fit enough. Which I do." His hands are cool and soft on my skin as he unwinds the bandage, carefully removes the needles from my arm, and binds it back up with gauze and plaster. "You can eat solids now. I've got some nice things planned for dinner."

With his help, I sit up in the bed. The room doesn't tip and spin, and I give his skill all credit over my own durability. Then he opens a locker under the bed and pulls out a pair of socks and some trousers, which he sets on the bed beside me.

"I'll step out now. Call for me when you're done." He nods, smiling again, then practically fades from the room, he's so quiet and quick.

I've only got my underwear on beneath the big shirt. But I stare at the clothing Crackjaw laid out like it's several poisonous snakes draped on the counterpane. I'm guessing it belongs to Duster, since it came from under his bunk. But I don't know for sure. My stomach tightens, regardless. I takes me a while to even pick up the socks, my fingers clumsy with bandaging. When I finally do, I pull my legs out from under the blanket as fast as I can with sore muscles, and stuff the socks on my feet. If I don't think about it, maybe I'll be all right.

I balk at the trousers, however. I can't. I just can't. The shirt is already bad enough – I never even borrowed Core's jacket until we'd been sweethearts for a full year. It at least smells like cologne, though, instead of sweat and bad breath, like the rest of the barracks. And, since it falls almost to my knees, I'll put up with it so I don't have to wear anything else. My mama, my aunt, and pretty much everybody would scream I'm turning into my sister, again. But they're not here.

"I'm done!" I call out, and Crackjaw opens the door again a moment later. He frowns when he sees my bare calves dangling off the side of the bunk, and then glances at the trousers and blushes.

"Did you... um... need help?"

"No. I don't want to wear them. Let's go to the tech room."

"Silar won't like it," he begins, but I manage to glare at that kitten face of his. He bows his head for a moment, and cracks all the joints in his hands, rapid-fire.

"I'll answer for it," I say, and mean it. Better disciplinary action than wearing a strange man's trousers.

So Crackjaw puts his arm around my waist, my own arm over his shoulders, and we head into the main area of the Western Command Center. After experiencing the Academy and Main Base, it's laughably small. It's a three story stone-and-cement structure built onto the eastern facing cliff of tiny Rushan Island, and I can see the ocean spreading out around it through the windows set in intervals along the short hallway beyond the barracks. Waves break against other pillar-like islands scattered around Rushan, and, evening approaching, clouds of seabirds are returning to them, their bickering audible even inside. Crackjaw helps me past doors the doors labeled 'storage', 'lavatory', and 'data', then we turn down stairs leading to the second story of the center, below.

The entire story is open, and the eastern wall to my left is one smooth curve of glass overlooking the cliffside and ocean below. It's a stunning view, far too grand for the room that owns it. Squared off into eating, socializing, and work areas by low dividing walls and the arrangement of tables and data screens, the space is overwhelmingly utilitarian and timeworn.

The cement floor is mostly bare, only covered by a few fraying sisal rugs in the socializing area, which is marked by the handful of battered armchairs and coffee mugs full of chewed pencils and wrenches. On the wall beside it are old paper maps, a dart board, and a rare poster of a doe-eyed broadcast star titled 'Mrs. Maxvillian' in scrawled pen. In the next section is the mess. Something steams in the pot in the counter's stove pit, and a pile of mis-matched dishes and cutlery sit on the metal table. Pieces of outerwear and odd shoes are scattered everywhere throughout these two sections, the smell of dirty socks like white noise: unobtrusive, but constant. The office area – a square of desks, charts, and data storage – and the tech area beside it, however, are spotless.

The tech area is nearest the stairway, by the glass wall. Both Silar and Wrangham are seated there, facing a grid of datascreens and tapping silently through my League files. Wrangham keeps working when Crackjaw and I step through the doorway, but Silar looks up. He stands. Crackjaw salutes with his free hand, and I do the same.

"Good form, LeVoy, but bad presentation." Silar frowns at my bare knees.

"I'm not well enough to fully dress, sir," I explain. "I'll accept any disciplinary action you chose."

"Until you're confirmed as Fire-keeper, that won't be necessary." Silar gestures to a metal chair behind his and Wrangham's. "Sit."

Crackjaw lowers me into the chair, then excuses himself with another salute to Silar. He breezes over to the kitchen, and I feel alone. Even though in my condition it's a relief to sit, the metal chair is cold against my legs, and the closeness of the two unfamiliar men is unnerving. Particularly because I'm half dressed. But I still press my lips into a line at the thought of wearing some man's trousers. Then Crackjaw starts rattling among the pots, running water, and opening cabinets, and I feel a little better. It's a homey sound.

Without lifting his chin from his hand, Wrangham spares me a glance as I draw my chair up between his and Silar's, closer to the data screens.

"Where'd you get your encryption?"

He's looking at the details of the distress comm I sent them. A window tracking his different approaches to trying to open the comm is beside it. It's pretty full.

"I ain't never seen a Fire-keeper with encryption like this on their personal comm ," he continues. "It's top-shelf stuff. Either you got wad, Viridian, or connections."

I shrug. "I know a bloke who knows his stuff. I can open the comm for you now."

My fingers tremble as I enter the combinations and decryption prompts, though, and when the comm opens and the footage from the cave begins to play, I have to look away.

"What the bloody..." Silar sinks into his seat but forgets to relax back into it, hands still gripping the arms.

"That's in the Tuscanaw tomb," Wrangham says. "Not far from where we picked you up."

His casual tone surprises me. "Are there many tombs along the coast?"

"Yep."

Then silence fall between us as the footage continues. The audio is heavy with my breathing, then the unintelligible recording of the officer breaks into the base main room. I close my eyes. Behind me, Crackjaw has stopped clattering around the kitchen, and to my left, Silar draws in a long breath.

"What the hell is that?"

I don't answer. None of us say anything during the rest of the footage. The officer speaks. I gasp and swear. The soal cracks, the officer flails and burns, and at last, the recorded report of a gunshot ricochets off the cement walls around me. The footage ends as I throw my visor to the sand, cutting short my heaving sob.

My chest jolts with every heartbeat. I don't realize I'm clutching my chair's arms until a feather-touch on my hand makes me jump.

"At ease, LeVoy!" Silar catches my arms as Crackjaw almost melts into the floor in front of me to avoid getting punched, joints in his legs crackling like trodden sticks. 

I gasp. "I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

I drop into the seat again, gut hollow. Silar lets go of me, and clears his throat, hard, percussive. At his feet, Crackjaw crouches beside my chair to gaze at me with his forehead furrowed. His ankles pop at the motion, and when I start again at the sudden noise, he raises a hand.

"It's okay, it's okay. Just hypermobility. Are you all right?"

"Just..." Tears spring to my eyes, and the proximity of the three men is suffocating. "I..."

Wrangham closes the data screen with the frozen end still of the footage still displayed on it, and swivels his chair around. Without a word, he gets up and goes to the mess, pulls a brown bottle from a cabinet, and tosses some into a cup he finds on the counter. Then he comes and sits down again. He hands me the cup.

"What was that?" he says quietly.

"I don't really know." I rally myself. The big, scarred bloke's surprising compassion is both comforting, and angering. This is no time to be coddling me. I've already been out for three days, with no word from Core. There are more pressing issues. "That was soal, though. The real contents of soal."

"Soal?" Silar puts his hands on his hips and chews his lip. "That can't be."

"I'm a Fire-keeper," I snap at him, and sit up, distancing myself from Crackjaw's tremulous expression. "It's my job to track, dig up, and transport the stuff. I think I know what I'm talking about. I'm just as confused as you are, but how many other soal have you ever heard of making it through atmospheric entry and landing without being destroyed? We have no intact soal to compare this one to, so until further evidence turns up, I think we'll have to take it for what it is."

Crackjaw steps back, rubbing his hands together as he looks between me and Silar. Silar's eyes narrow.

"Sir," I add quickly, and take a swallow from the cup.

It was a bad idea. My tongue burns, and the punch of alcohol after I swallow makes me dizzy again. I cough, gag. But I feel the men relax around me at the sight. Silar laughs and takes the cup from me before I drop it. He sets it on the narrow counter beneath the data screens.

"Even I drink that with a little water, LeVoy. Only one here who can take it neat is Beau." He sits, sets the cup aside, and leans his elbows on his knees. "But we're all on the same side her, LeVoy. I reckon it was outside of your training to go through what you did over the past few days. You just explain how you came across that... thing... and we'll see what steps we can take."

I recover, blinking, and sit up straight. Then I tell them about Griswold. I don't mention Wolf and Melna, or the death of Cargon. I leave out most of it, actually. They don't need to know everything that went down in that dusty little town, or what brought me there. If any of them happen to be Guild, I can't risk giving them any more information. Not while Core is still stuck in that stasis-membrane. All I say is that I tracked soal to just outside of the town, picked up one intact, and was chased by Guild into the Far-Flung Territory. Since all of this is true, my delivery is convincing.

"And now we need to decide what to do," I finish. "Any suggestions?"

Surprisingly, both Crackjaw and Silar look to Wrangham. The techsmith sits motionless, eyes narrowed in thought.

"What do you think, Beau?" Silar says.

"I checked the encryption on all our lines before opening her comm. We're secure. Unless they planted a pin on her, there ain't no way the Guild knows she's here."

"Good." Silar rubs his brows then leans towards me. "This is crucial information you've uncovered, LeVoy. It will need to be shared with not only the High Officer of the League, but the Court, as well. Our next move will be to transport you, and this information, directly to Platinova City. The sooner we depart the better, too – if the Guild shot you down over this, there's no saying what they'll do if they catch up with you."

"I... I would feel safer staying here." My voice shakes, betraying me. "The Guild have factions in Platinova City, don't they?"

"Aye. But the Imperial Enforcers are there, as well. There's no better security anywhere on the Continent. You'll be safe. I was stationed there ten years back, before I smashed myself up in a polo match and was deemed unfit for active duty. I've got connections, and will use them all to expedite your hearing in the Court."

I clear my throat. "The Guild will expect me to head for the capitol."

"Which is why we've got to move fast." Silar stands, and his men do as well. I remain seated in silent protest.

I can't go back there. Things are grim. But they're not that grim.

Turning away from the three men under the pretext of looking at the data-screens covered with the details of my life as a Fire-keeper, I gather my thoughts.

Silar turned down retirement after that polo injury to return to the Fire-keepers League. He returned to take a position in a "no-account" fringe outpost. And despite the fatherly traits that have warmed him to his crew – the nicknames, the acknowledgement of but no shame for their unsuitability for other positions and stations – he runs this place to the book.

Old communications from Core, before our comm links were implanted, flicker across the nearest of the screens in front of me. I make up my mind. Swiveling my chair around, I fold my hands in my lap and return Silar's gaze.

"I cannot leave this area. My Enforcer is still in the Ocean of Trees, possibly being tracked by the Guild. I left two civilians and critical evidence about the Guild presence in this area of the Continent in his care. Until I hear from him, I can't leave. I am his designated partner, and I can't abandon him, or the civilians, for that matter. You understand, of course."

Silar's eyes flicker. I do not move, do not break our eye contact. Then at last, he nods. Passing his other hand over his flat ring, he clears his throat.

"Of course. When did you last hear from him?"

"The day before the recording you just watched. So... four days ago."

My chest tightens at the realization. We've never gone so long without being in contact, before. Without thinking, my hand darts to my nape, and I rub the slight bump under the skin that is my comm link.

"He ain't tried to contact you at all, in any way?" Wrangham frowns, watching my movements.

"Not that I'm aware of. I sent him and Maxvillian a message through my visor a few hours before you found me on the coastline, but I don't even know if that went through. Both the visor and the buffer it was attached to were in bad condition."

Wrangham's frown deepens, the lines almost black on his dark face. Without another word, he slings himself into the chair beside me, downs the booze he tried to offer me in one gulp, and starts tapping all over the data screens. He almost knocks me off my chair when he reaches for the furthest screen. I scoot my chair backwards.

"What are you doing?"

"The encryption guarding all your comms is fine, damn fine. In particular the ones that are either private, or 'tween you and your Enforcer. But I did find one from an unknown recipient. Received at a little past seventeen hours yesterday. Still encrypted. But differently."

"How do you mean?"

"You know hacking, LeVoy?"

"No."

"Then I ain't explaining beyond that every hacker and techsmith got a different style of work, like fingerprints. This lot's cerebral. Methodical-like. Difficult to get a grip of if you don't practically live in a data screen."

A few more taps, and Wrangham sits back. The screen in front of him clears of the cloud of data, making way for a single comm icon.

"Reckon you know any of that?"

The icon is just a grey oval, the standard image for any unknown comm. The date and time Wrangham gave it is correct, as well. But instead of any name or ID number, the comm is simply labeled "You Owe Me A Mono Wash".

An overflow of emotion weakens me. I slump against my chair, limbs shaking, and my ears buzz.

"It's from Duster."

"What?" Silar crouches beside me. "Speak up - you know the sender?"

I clear my throat, take a deep, gasping breath. "It's from Duster! His mono – I rode it, and he was annoyed that I got it dirty."

Wrangham gives a single snort. "Max couldn't code even if you promised to pay off all his debts."

"No, my Enforcer sent it, he's with Core." Though I'm still weak, I lunge forward, dart a hand under Wrangham's arm, and tap the comm icon. "I'll know how to open it."

At my touch, a security popup appears. But it isn't a common password request, or even a DNA scan. It's a vocal scanner, with a single, simple prompt:

"Good morning, love. Sleep well?"

Wrangham, Silar, and Crackjaw stare at me as a messy sob bursts out of me.

"It is Core! It's my Enforcer!"

I press my trembling hands to my face. It is so hard not to break down crying. But I can't. I can't, not here, not