(Genesis) Chapter 9

Pride: Genesis

Chapter 9

Escalation

Kithran was a small planet orbiting a very large sun; the three planets in its system were all so far distant it had taken awhile for stellar cartographers to realize they were in an orbit at all. There were actually more asteroid belts than planets in the system. The team had carefully picked their way through the sparsest part of the outer ring, and were well on their way to bypassing the outermost planet when Keith finally felt confident enough in the autopilot to call the team together for a briefing.

He wasn't pleased with himself. The incident with the pirates had turned out well enough, true, but it had cost them the bare semblance of combat ability the Firecrown possessed. Keith liked having plenty of options. Firing off all their missiles as he had drastically limited their options in the future.

Pacing in agitation, he completely missed the door opening until Hunk's voice shook him out of it. "Yo boss, what's shakin'?"

"Oh, hi, Hunk." He turned to see the big man plopping a pot of coffee and a box of donuts on the table. "Didn't hear you come in."

"Must've been way preoccupied then," he chuckled.

"Just thinking, that's all."

Jace was the next to arrive, and stopped in the doorway to roll his eyes upon seeing the donuts. Lance nearly ran right into him, and glared; he glared right back and took the furthest seat from the donuts, flipping Keith something that more or less resembled a salute. Keith acknowledged him with a nod.

Lance acknowledged something else. "Oh, donuts!" He grabbed one and shoved it in his mouth, drawing a chuckle from Hunk and disbelieving looks from the other two.

McClain, please don't choke on that, Doc will kill you…

Sven came in next, smiling as he saw the donuts, though it faded a little when he realized there were no napkins. But donuts. He took one and sat next to Jace, ignoring the judgmental look the medic gave him.

Not unusually, Flynn was the last one in, looking like he'd just been crawling around in a maintenance shaft. Which wasn't unlikely. Keith focused on him. "Well, since we're all here. Kleid, engineering status?"

"Engines are fine. Shields are back up to full. Breach drive… isn't."

That was an uncharacteristic lack of detail. Something told Keith he was better off not asking for elaboration. Lance groaned at the reminder of the downed breach drive, and Sven side-eyed him; he wasn't the one who'd had to recalculate their entire route here to deal with it.

"Once we get there, how long will the breach drive take to fix?"

"Not long." Flynn glanced at Hunk, who looked up from his donut long enough to nod agreement. "Most of the delay will be charging it back up."

"Sounds good." Keith looked around the table, silently inviting anyone else who needed to make a report. Nobody did. "Okay, so this is our next stop." He pushed a button on his datapad, and a large tan and gold sphere appeared hovering over it. "Kithran. An uninhabited desert planet."

"Don't suppose it has a beach?"

"Well, it has the sand half of the beach."

"Ugh, sand without oceans sucks."

Keith blinked, looking between Lance and Sven, and decided to just let that go. "All we have are some coordinates, no indication of what might be there, other than sand. Not much is known about Kithran."

"Can we build sand castles?"

"We're going to be fixing the breach drive, Hunk…"

"I wanna build sand castles."

Well, he'd ignored Lance and Sven, he could ignore Hunk and Flynn too, he supposed. Though he couldn't help shaking his head slightly. "Intel seems to think even if there was any life here once, the planet became uninhabitable after a severe solar storm. Though it does still have a breathable atmosphere."

Lance crossed his arms. "So we're supposed to sift through the sand?"

"It was on that Galra list for a reason, presumably. We have to check it out."

Of course Lance couldn't let that go by without muttering some choice words about the Galra under his breath, which got him a wary look from Flynn. Hunk's priorities were elsewhere. "So you guys get to have fun in the sun while we do work." He grinned and took another donut. "I guess it's fair. Bring me some sand back, yeah?"

"You want sand?"

"It's probably irradiated by solar flares, dumbass."

"Why would you want sand?"

"Sand castles!" The big man saluted with half a donut. "I won competitions back home."

Keith sighed. "Gentlemen…"

"Gentlemen?" Lance repeated with a smirk.

Whatever response he might have made to that was cut off by the shrill staccato beeping of the ship's comms reporting an incoming transmission. Odd. He turned and adjusted the comm panel on the wall, receiving a blast of static for his trouble. Not a standard frequency, it seemed. With a few more adjustments he was able to clear the static.

A calm, deep voice filled the conference room. "Approaching vessel. You are in the wrong place. Leave or be destroyed."

Hunk dropped his donut, and Sven's eyes widened. "Uh…"

"…Porra…"

"Shit."

"That's… not ominous," Keith said quietly, standing and heading for the bridge.

"Not even a little," Flynn agreed. "Hunk, come on."

Jace watched as Lance and Sven followed Keith out, and the engineers headed for the bay. What was he supposed to do, go back to his quarters and not get hurt? Fuck that, nobody had called for battle stations yet. He followed the others to the bridge.

Keith was already in his command chair, scanning the system. "Where is that coming from?"

"Working on tracing it," Flynn answered. "It would help if we could get another transmission."

Lance looked up from his own monitors. "You want us to say hi?"

"Or tell them where they can shove their transmissions?" Jace muttered under his breath.

Obviously, Flynn hadn't heard that second part. "It would help."

Well, it was worth a try. Keith keyed up the same frequency. "Unidentified craft, this is the CES Firecrown. Please tell us the location we are supposed to be avoiding."

The response came back instantly. "Approaching vessel. You are in the wrong place. Leave or be destroyed."

"Wow," Lance muttered, "don't you know any other words?" Even the tone had been identical.

Which was explained a moment later. "It's not a live transmission."

Keith blinked. "Say again, Kleid?"

"Try to contact them again."

That wasn't an answer, but Keith shrugged. The last attempt hadn't gotten them blown out of the sky. "Again, unidentified craft, please tell us the area we are to avoid." Maybe a little embellishment would help. "We are in desperate need of repairs."

"Approaching vessel. You are in the wrong place. Leave or be destroyed."

"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile." Lance hadn't even bothered to keep his voice down that time, and the internal comms picked up Hunk's snicker loud and clear. Nobody else found it funny.

"Huh?"

"What are you talking about, McClain?"

Lance just gave a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head at his uncultured crewmates. We need movie night.

Flynn interrupted the confusion. "Got it. It's coming from somewhere near the second planet in the system. It seems to be on a frequency trigger of some sort, our passive scanners probably triggered the initial broadcast."

"Great." Keith closed his eyes for a moment. "We're supposed to be going to the second planet." He typed in a few commands, focusing long-range scanners on the planet in question.

"No sign we've been detected by anyone."

That was something. "Maybe it's something automated, and whoever planted it is gone?"

"Yes…" Sven was obviously trying to sound confident. It wasn't working. "Maybe they are."

"Or maybe it told someone else where we are," Lance suggested quietly.

"I can build us some missiles," Hunk volunteered, "soon as we… uh… get to the ground. Uh, never mind."

If they made it to the ground, Keith was absolutely going to take him up on that, but it seemed like a pretty large if right now. The results of the deep scan were starting to come in, so he turned his attention to the monitors.

Flynn was watching the monitors from the bay, keeping sensor power boosted—wasn't as if their weapons were doing anything. The ship that started to become visible on the screen was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was long and sleek, with a sickle-like protrusion on the bow and several spikes down the sides that were probably weapons bays. The engine section had what looked like a wide delta stabilizer, but he doubted the thing could really function in atmosphere. Maybe more weapons. Every inch of it looked vicious and deadly.

The Alliance fielded nothing remotely like it, and it didn't fit any Drule aesthetic he knew of. Very few independent planets could hope to field something so large. Glancing over at Hunk, he noted the identical look of confusion, and it sent a chill up his spine as he considered the one other faction that might have cause to be here.

"Fucking dicks," Lance spat, confirming it. "It's the Galra."

"…Well, hell," Hunk muttered under his breath. Flynn nodded in silent agreement. This was going to be… something.

"Just what we need." Keith sighed, then narrowed his eyes at the monitor. "Okay. Get the point defenses up. McClain, get us closer. I want as much information as we can get."

"Will do," Lance acknowledged through gritted teeth, glaring at the ship on the screen.

"Maintain your heading." Keith stood and walked behind the pilot's seat, resting a hand on his shoulder. "But if that ship so much as twitches, get us the hell out of here."

Give me a shot at them. Just give me a shot. Lance exhaled and shook his head; they didn't even have anything to shoot with. He knew that. He had to keep it under control. All he could manage to acknowledge the order was a terse nod.

Squeezing his shoulder, Keith returned to his seat and strapped in. Sven took the cue to fasten his own restraints… if history was any indication, this could get really interesting really fast.

"How closely are we supposed to observe them, you think?" Flynn asked after a few minutes of tense silence.

"I don't know. But as closely as possible, I'm sure. If we can find a way to get a team to the ground…"

Lance looked up, frowning. "Observe? I thought we were treasure hunting?

"Didn't you listen to the briefing?" Jace snorted. "We run into Galra, we spy on them or some shit."

"Rather engage," Lance scowled.

"Rather not die," Sven mumbled quietly.

Hunk was a little less quiet. "Us and what missiles, bro?"

Yeah, there was that. "Fucking pirates."

"Missiles wouldn't do us any good anyway," Flynn broke in. "This ship is huge. Heavy battleship, easily. If we're going to ground we're going to have to sneak in."

"They're overcompensating," Lance growled.

Jace eyed him. "You'd know all about that, huh?"

Glare. "Project much?"

"You're the one who brought it up."

Keith looked between them and started to say something, but Sven—wait, Sven?—beat him to it. "If we wrap a bit around the planet we should be able to stay out of range of whatever scanners they have, to sneak in." He sounded exasperated.

"Piece of cake," Lance smirked.

"Then perhaps we should do it."

"Do it," Keith agreed. "Get us to ground."

"On it."

"I don't think we can stay grounded with the Galra in orbit," Flynn cautioned. "This ship can't react quickly enough on the ground if they start moving."

Oh. Of course. It was a valid point, but… "We don't have much choice, Kleid. I'm open to suggestions."

Sven spoke up again. "We could leave the ground team with a transmitter, and the ship can fly to a safe distance until they're called back. Or just set a specific time to meet back up?"

"That would work. We can fix the breach drive in the air, as long as it's not in use."

Keith frowned. It was risky, but everything about this was risky. It would be so much easier to just wait the Galra out, pretend they'd never seen them, they'd just been to the site too late… but no. He couldn't do that. They had orders, they had a mission, and they would complete it no matter what. "Okay. We can do it that way."

"Guess this leaves me on the ship?" Lance sounded less than enthused about that, but Keith had honestly expected him to insist on going to ground. Maybe the incident on Terina really had made an impact on him.

"Well, a ship needs her pilot, right McClain?"

"Good, 'cause I'm happy to stay." His tone dripped with sarcasm as he glared at the Galra ship. "I hate sand."

Jace looked at the monitor, frowning. It had been one thing to sit the last expedition out, a short run away if they needed him. Going back into space would be another thing entirely. Besides, he was the only person here trained as infantry… and he'd damn sure rather be wading through sand than hiding in his quarters. "I'll go on the ground team. I've done this shit before."

"Really?"

Keith and Lance both stared at him; he glowered. "You don't have to look so fucking shocked."

For his part, Sven glared at Jace. Please stop riling him up. "I'll go with the ground team as well," he offered before they could get started again.

"Sounds good, Holgersson." Keith nodded. "And I'll go, too."

"You'll what?" Flynn demanded immediately.

Keith frowned. "I didn't stutter. You'll have command until we get back, Kleid. You have to repair the ship anyway."

"Kogane, are you…" Whatever he'd been saying trailed off, and the internal link caught the sound of the bay doors hissing open and shut.

"Uh oh," Lance stage whispered, "the parents are gonna fight…" Sven rolled his eyes, and Jace snickered until he remembered just who he was snickering at and bit it back.

The door to the bridge slid open a minute later; Keith turned and narrowed his eyes as Flynn entered. "Do you have a problem with your orders, Lieutenant Commander?"

"I have a problem with you going down there, Commander." Lance looked between them, wishing he had popcorn, then winced slightly at what came next. "You don't have to start taking ridiculous risks just because I got punched last mission and you didn't."

Sighing, Keith stood. "McClain, maintain course. Mr. Kleid, let's take this to the conference room, shall we?"

"…Fine."

As they left the bridge, Lance and Jace exchanged disappointed looks. "Ugh. Spoilsport."

"He was punched on the last mission?" Sven asked, looking more than slightly concerned.

Lance didn't feel all too guilty about that; it had worked out. But he definitely didn't care to explain it. "No comment."

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Keith entered the conference room, turning to face his second and crossing his arms. Flynn actually seemed to have relaxed a little after his initial outburst, but he was still clearly annoyed. "Kogane, you know part of my job is to tell you not to do stupid things."

Yes, yes it was. But that was a subjective term. "Stupid things? All we're going to do is observe and report, and I'd be doing it even if you hadn't gotten punched. Besides, I'm leaving him up here with you."

"It's not him I'm worried about," Flynn retorted. "It's our commander thinking he has to go dodge Galra in a desert rather than being here in command."

"I do need to. No one else can go, Kleid. You have to fix the ship; I can't do that. And do you really want me to send McClain down there? We both know what will happen if I do that…"

"I can fix the breach drive myself if I have to. Hunk can…" Flynn trailed off as if just now thinking about what he was saying. Which was true. You're going to suggest he send Hunk on a mission that requires stealth? He sighed. "…Belay that."

Keith arched an eyebrow. "Yeah… Garrett is good at his job. He's not a good choice for this mission."

"Fine." Flynn shook his head. "Just be careful."

"I will, and Holgersson and the Doc will have my back. Just keep the ship in one piece and keep an eye on McClain. He's making me nervous."

"I'll keep an eye on him. It'll be okay. Besides," his second gave a wry grin, "we don't have any missiles."

Keith grimaced. "I know. I wish I hadn't had to fire them all."

"You did what you had to do." Scowl. "I, personally, need intel to explain that spectacular screw-up to us—how did they miss an operation with an interdiction field and a carrier? But we can worry about that later."

"Yeah, they're going to get an earful when we get back." Keith looked back towards the door. "I'd best get ready."

"Probably."

Returning to the bridge, he noted Sven was casually standing in between Lance and Jace. Well, whatever worked. "Doc. Holgersson. Get your gear ready." As they departed he turned his attention to Lance. "McClain, best behavior. Keep out of sight of that ship once we're on the ground. And listen to Kleid."

"I'm always a boy scout," Lance smirked, saluting.

Keith stared at him for a long moment, and decided it wasn't even worth responding to that. Time to go pack.

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Finding a decent landing site while avoiding the orbiting battleship had been… challenging. Getting back off the ground without being noticed had been even more so. Now Lance found himself in a holding pattern, glaring at the Galra ship on an auxiliary monitor, unable to look away. And he'd been there for entirely too long.

His fingers would've been twitching on the missile launch button, if that button had actually been on his console. Not that they had any missiles, but it would've made him feel better. Maybe. No, probably not.

Finally he snorted, checked over the standby settings, and headed back to the engine bay. The noises he'd been hearing from the lower deck seemed to have lessened a bit over the last hour; maybe the engineers needed some company.

Flynn was in the bay, bent over the access hatch to the lower deck and yelling over an echoing series of clangs. "—sure you don't want me to come back down there?"

"Dude!" Hunk's bellow easily drowned out the racket he was making. "I had to stay here and not build sand castles, I'm doin' the heavy lifting!"

Lance paused in the doorway, admiring the view he had of Flynn's backside for a few moments before speaking up. "Why do I feel like his sand castles would be epic?"

The engineer jumped, then turned and grinned at him. "Because he's insane?" Shrug. "An insane genius, but nonetheless, insane."

"I heard that!" Hunk yelled. "…And it ain't wrong!"

"Who isn't insane here?" Lance asked, grinning back.

Flynn smirked. "Apparently I'm not, that's why Kogane left me in charge of you two lunatics. Bridge isn't keeping you busy enough?"

"I'd rather be down there," Lance grumbled. "So, thought I'd distract myself."

"Thought you hated sand."

"Not at much as I hate them."

"Fair enough." Flynn leaned back against the main console, crossing his arms, as a new round of heavy clanging erupted from the maintenance shaft.

Lance couldn't help wincing at the noise. "He actually fixing it?"

Laughing, Flynn shook his head. "It's fixed, probably. He's putting the casing back on, can't test fire until it's in place."

Grin. "Might be fun to find out what'd happen."

"Oh I know what would happen, a lot of alarms would start screaming at me about a compromised seal on the charge chamber." Flynn made a face. "It would be fairly irritating."

"Alarms are worse than the banging, yeah," Lance agreed. "Maybe we should ask the big guy to change the alarms to his loud music."

How Hunk actually heard that, he couldn't imagine; maybe the big guy was just immune to all forms of loud. In any case he immediately yelled up at them again. "Can I really?"

Flynn shot Lance a halfhearted glare, which he answered with a cocky grin. "Just get that casing in place, would you?"

"I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it. Toss me the spot welder? Maybe don't actually hit me with it this time, yeah?"

"Hit him," Lance mouthed as Flynn rolled his eyes; the chief had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Then he grabbed the tool in question and pitched it down the maintenance shaft.

There was a yelp as Hunk dodged it and it clattered to the ground at his feet. "Dude!"

"You're a big target, not my fault. Catch better."

"Thanks, pit boss… I think."

"Any time."

For a couple of minutes the banging was replaced by the soft hum of the spot welder. Lance watched Flynn in the comfortable silence, grinning slightly. Then the humming stopped, and Hunk clambered out of the maintenance hatch. "Oughta be done. Test it out?"

Nodding, Flynn turned back to Lance. "It'll take forever to charge with the engines only on station-keeping power. Go do your flyboy thing."

"I just got here!" Lance protested, not that he really meant it. He was more than ready for some flying. Returning to the bridge he put the Firecrown through her paces, kicking the speed up near full just because he could.

He stayed well out of the Galra ship's sight, of course. For a minute he didn't even glare at it.

He didn't see it start moving.

Flynn didn't either; he was wholly absorbed in the breach drive diagnostics. "Lance, we have enough charge for a test fire. It'll throw the ship pretty badly, so you might want to slow down." Smirk. "Or, since you're you, you might want to speed up."

The engines roared. "I've got her under control."

Hunk raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, pit boss, coulda sworn I heard you talkin' about bein' sane not too long ago."

The only response that merited was another smirk. "Firing in five." Test firing a breach drive was simple, in theory. It would create a tiny hyperspace breach for a split second within the drive's containment chamber; not nearly enough to actually send anything into hyperspace, just enough to confirm it could function. In practice, it was also more than enough to throw the ship's equilibrium to hell.

Mentally counting down in his head, Lance checked his auxiliary monitor and his eyes widened. The Galra battleship was no longer safely out of range. It wasn't moving towards them exactly—it was moving to the edge of the atmosphere, where several small shuttles were burning for it. But that course had naturally put it much closer to them. And they were about to generate a hell of an energy spike.

"Shit…"

That was all he had time for before the ship bucked wildly, and he cursed more as he fought to keep it from spiraling out of control. And right as he got them leveled out again, two small radar contacts detached from the battleship.

"Um… Flynn."

"What's wrong?"

"I think we might have been spotted."

There was a brief silence as the engineers brought the correct scans up. Then, "Faex."

Lance was seeing the same thing. The two signatures were Galra fighters, heading straight for them. "Yep. Spotted."

"Alliance vessel." The voice from the earlier transmission crackled over the comms. "You were warned. Leave the system now or be destroyed."

"…Hunk, point defense." Flynn ran for the bridge, which only took a minute; sometimes the Firecrown being such a small ship did have advantages. "Lance, we can't jump for at least another twelve hours. Tell me you can outfly those…" He trailed off as the fighters came onto visual scans. They were beautiful… and looked every bit as deadly as their battleship.

"I can outfly anything," Lance scoffed, but he was eyeing the fighters warily. The Endeavor-class had certain limits. He'd pushed the Firecrown to the very edge of those limits a few times already this mission, but this was a whole new level.

Flynn took a long breath. They had been warned, when the battleship could clearly swat them out of the sky with minimal effort. That didn't seem to line up with what Lance had told him, but… he reached for the comms panel.

"You wanna chat?" the pilot muttered disapprovingly. He was already pulling them back from the approaching fighters, keeping up constant movement without being predictable.

"They're starting with talk," he pointed out, and keyed up the frequency. For a moment he considered calling them out as the Galra, but identifying them might make things worse—they blew up their own ships to avoid capture, they clearly liked their secrecy. "Whoever you are, we aren't going to bother you. We're just doing some emergency repairs. We'll go anywhere you like in-system to get out of your way, but we can't leave until the repairs are done."

"Huh, the truth," Lance murmured. "Ballsy."

The Galra was less impressed. "That is not our concern. Remove yourselves from the system or we will remove you."

"It was worth a try," Flynn sighed, keeping his voice down as he looked at Lance. "Anything you want to say before I close this?"

"Nothing good."

"That's not what I asked."

Lance looked up at him, and received a grim nod. Why not? They were about to either do something spectacular or be spectacularly dead, no sense being tactful now. "Every one of you fucking dicks deserves a fucking crispy death," he spat.

Almost immediately, the fighters accelerated into an attack pattern. Excellent.

"You really have a way with words. Get us the hell out of here."

"I'm fucking eloquent," Lance agreed, narrowing his eyes and pushing the throttles as high as they'd go.

"I'm going back to the bay. I'll get you everything I can out of the engines."

"Shhh. Focusing." The fighters weren't attempting any evasion or subtlety. They knew this wasn't a battle, but an execution. Typical Galra. But he wasn't going to give them the damn pleasure.

Come on. His tongue flicked between his lips in concentration as he brought up the system scans. What can I use?

Hunk was watching the fighters just as intently, point defenses at the ready. He'd heard the whole comms exchange, and once again was reminded that not fifteen minutes ago the pit boss had been calling himself the sane one.

Now he came tearing back into the bay, taking the main console and rerouting every shred of power the ship could give. The lights dimmed and then winked out entirely, leaving only the eerie red emergency lighting as the howl of the engines picked up.

If Hunk hadn't known better, he'd have said the fighters were surprised by the speed they were managing. Or at least they pulled up short as the Firecrown shot forward, widening the gap.

Or maybe, he mused as alarms rang out, they were just firing their missiles. That worked too.

It took several hits from the point defenses to bring the missiles down; they very nearly made it through. "Those things are no joke."

"Did you expect them to be?" Flynn asked.

"Point."

The fighters were closing in again. But finally Lance had found what he was looking for. "How do you two feel about asteroid belts?"

"Depends, do they match the asteroid shoes?"

Flynn glared at Hunk through the darkness. "That's not what it depends on at all!"

Lance snorted. "I'm going to barrel into one, unless you'd rather I keep flying around while they catch up."

Of course he was. When in doubt, asteroid fields. Somehow, Flynn was pretty sure the fighters could handle asteroids just as well as the Firecrown could, but… They gave us a chance to leave. How committed are they really to pursuing us, even if Lance did say they deserve a fucking crispy death?

This was no time for overthinking things. It had to be better than being in the open. "Do it." He turned to Hunk. "Drop the shields, reroute to engines." Having an energy field projected around the ship would be actively detrimental to weaving through giant rocks.

"Doing it." Lance wrenched the ship around ninety degrees, smirking as the surprised fighters shot right past them, and barely even slowed as they barreled into the asteroid field. Tiny bits of dust and pebbles immediately started bombarding the ship, bouncing off the thick hull. It was loud and disconcerting, but he quickly tuned it out. No danger.

Larger chunks of rock were more dangerous. Every so often, the point defense turrets would flash, a stream of tracer rounds redirecting boulder-sized chunks away from them. Anything bigger than that was his job to deal with.

Hell yeah, he'd deal with it.

Everything else around him seemed to fade a bit. It was just him and the ship and the rocks. He fell nearly into a rhythm, skimming the surface of a particularly large asteroid, sneaking between two others, taking them deeper and deeper into the field.

"They aren't following us," Flynn reported. "They didn't even try." He sounded less pleased with that than he could've. Lance didn't blame him; he felt uneasy with the news, the slightest chill trickling down his spine. It was too easy. Something wasn't right…

"Energy spike from the battleship," Hunk called out. A few seconds later, dozens of energy beams erupted from the huge ship, melting several larger asteroids to slag in their wake.

"Holy shit." Lance sped up. Which was probably crazy, but they were way past crazy at this point.

Hunk and Flynn exchanged shocked looks. "Uh, pit boss? You sure about that shield dropping thing?"

Psychologically? Flynn swallowed hard, but shook his head. They were in this deep now… their lives were already depending on the course they'd committed to. "Keep them down. Won't save us if one of those hits us."

The battleship fired another volley. It didn't seem like they were really even aiming, just counting on the combination of asteroids and energy to take them out one way or another. Reasonable tactics, given the firing delay of weapons clearly meant for targeting other battleships. But if they did get lucky, there would be no dodging… and no surviving it. The Galra weapons were boring red-hot holes straight through the larger asteroids. All Lance could do was maintain speed and hope they got out of range, but the beams were hitting rocks well in front of them.

This wasn't good…

"…Bro, just how small a needle can you thread, exactly?"

For a moment he didn't answer, preoccupied by sneaking in between two large rocks sent drifting towards each other by the fire. They crashed into each other seconds after the Firecrown shot through. "How small do I need to thread?"

"Those holes they're blastin' in the asteroids."

Lance's eyes widened. Those holes were a hell of a needle to thread. But… doable. Definitely doable. He nodded slowly. "You saying what I hope you're saying?"

"All that melted rock'll cover our heat signature easy." Hunk paused. "Also melt our hull if we don't put our shields back up though, and that'll slow us down."

"That's not all bad," Flynn countered. "If we don't make it out as fast as they'd be expecting, it'll only help our case." He was eyeing Hunk sharply, but also nodding in appreciation. 'Just an idiot who's handy with bombs' strikes again… "Who isn't insane around here, right?"

Shit, it was crazy. It was completely crazy. But Lance grinned. There was one thing that could offset the crazy; five words that were rapidly going from a purgatory sentence to a rallying cry. "We're a fucking Explorer Team!"

"Damn right we are." Flynn couldn't see Lance, but he could imagine the grin. He was grinning too. "Do it."

As the Galra ship fired again, Lance whirled them towards the largest asteroid with a new, glowing hole through its far end. "Damn, that's a fucking small needle."

"Gonna wait 'til the last second to put the shields up. Rock this thing, bro!"

Now or never. He lined up with the glowing tunnel of stone and nodded to himself. "Punching it… now!"

"Shields up!"

"Got 'em!"

Alarms started screaming instantly, a wave of heat enveloping them as they entered the hole. A second later the shields fully engaged and the temperature dropped. The alarms didn't stop—so far as the ship knew, something was still trying to cook them alive. But Lance tuned the noise out as best he could. The shields coming up had slowed them dramatically, and he compensated with a light touch as they plunged deeper into the stone.

He was also reciting a low litany of fucks as he flew, but by now he didn't even notice he was doing it. They were blind to everything but red-hot space rock, and a pinpoint of darkness growing larger and larger before them.

After a solid two minutes, the Firecrown emerged from the asteroid to find only silence.

"It fucking worked?" Lance asked, checking his scans. There was no sign of the Galra ship anywhere.

"I, uh… I think it did, bro." For the person who'd come up with the plan, Hunk sounded pretty shocked himself.

"Cevete…" Flynn sank forward, leaning heavily on the console. "That… was amazing, Lance."

"Holy shit." He finally let himself exhale. "That was awesome!" Turning, he started to guide the ship back into open space; now that they weren't being shot at, the maneuvering was really a lot of fun. "Flying in an asteroid field, can tick that off the bucket list."

"We don't suffer from insanity," Hunk declared, "we enjoy every minute of it!"

"Hell yeah."

Flynn took another moment to breathe, then straightened. "Alright. Let's get back to the landing site. May as well be waiting when the others get back from undoubtedly having much less fun than we did."

"No way they can beat that," Lance agreed.

Hunk chuckled. "We can't have peaked as an Explorer Team already, can we?"

"Nah, I'm sure the chances for insanity are endless."

Flynn tried for the most unamused tone he could; it didn't really work. "Next thing that goes horribly wrong, I'm blaming both of you."

"Like you aren't just as crazy."

"We discussed this. I'm the sane one. …It's a relative term."

"Uh huh. Suuuure, pit boss."

"Sure it is, its distant cousin."

Smirking, Flynn started setting the Firecrown's system parameters back to normal. As he reached the weapons he hesitated, looking over at their explosives expert. "So, how serious were you about making missiles? Because we're about to be Galra-free on the ground."

Grin. "Gimme some spare armor, a little jet fuel, and a lot of space, and you'll have missiles."

"Then I think you'd better do it. Just to keep our options open." He paused. "And Hunk… nice job, insane genius."

He was pretty sure the big man actually blushed.

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Kithran was probably hell. Or at least if not hell, a remarkably similar temperature.

They'd been walking for slightly over an hour. Not ideal, but it wasn't as though they'd had a choice—even without dodging the Galra, the rocky ledge they'd used as a landing site would have been the closest the Firecrown could get them. Not that landing on sand was a problem… but doing a takeoff roll from it certainly would have been. So here they were. At least the wind was at their backs, for all the good that did them.

Keith adjusted his sunglasses for what had to be the hundredth time; they kept slipping down his nose from the sweat. Sven had tried to give up on his long ago, but the searing brightness of the sand had made him regret the attempt in short order. Even Jace, who wasn't wearing sunglasses at all—he wasn't bothered by sun, Prox had three—was hot and tired and grumpier than usual.

"Dune, dune, bigger dune, dune…" Scowl. "Can I give the others some shots of questionable necessity when we get back?"

Sven paused and wiped some sweat off his forehead, turning to give the medic his habitual annoyed look. Then he realized he really wanted to say yes, and went back to walking instead.

Deciding it was better to just ignore that, Keith paused and scanned the horizon. A particularly large dune was looming ahead of them, just a little further north. "We're close."

"Oh good. Biggest dune."

"When we get to the top, we're going to need to keep low. If the Galra are down there we don't want to be seen."

"Yes sir."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

This time Sven did give Jace that annoyed look. So did Keith. "Get climbing." He started up the dune, then looked back to their medic again. "And it's Commander Obvious, Doctor Smartass."

A stunned look crossed Jace's face for a moment, then he smirked. "I'll keep that in mind, boss."

As they neared the crest of the dune Keith dropped to a crawl, the other two following his lead. He was the first to peek over the top, and what he saw made him freeze in the desert heat.

"…So," Jace whispered, coming up next to him, "giant stretch of red sand marks the spot?"

The other side of the dune dropped steeply, and where it met the ground the golden sand abruptly gave way to deep crimson. In the distance, the dune they were on looped around, like a barrier of normal sand put there to contain the great swath of red.

It would have been a remarkable sight even if it weren't for the dozens of Galra milling about.

"Damn, there's a lot of them."

"Yes," Sven agreed, crouching at his other side. "Yes there are."

Keith pulled his scouting binoculars out of his pack, flipping the recording switch and scanning the area. "There have to be… at least thirty that I can see. They're nearly all armed." In fact, he suspected they all were, but couldn't be certain. Some were taking samples of sand, while others were pacing the area with devices that vaguely resembled metal detectors and other devices he didn't recognize at all. Far in the distance, several small shuttles were gathered in a defensive formation.

"What do you want us to do?"

Excellent question. He took about half a minute more footage with the binoculars, then lowered them and looked around. Opposite them, where the dune hooked around, it was also much lower. "Looks like going over there might get us closer to take a better look. Let's move along the ridge, see if we can find something more."

Reaching the other side took another ten minutes. Several times one of them would pop up just long enough to make sure no Galra were coming over the ridge, then sneak back down below the horizon. If the Galra were watching the tops of the dunes it wasn't evident, anyway. Even the heaviest-armed ones were often being called over to help their companions dig through the sand.

As they circled, the side of the ridge they were on changed from the sloping sands of the southern face to the steep drop of the northern slip. And north of that was… more red. The dune wasn't containing the red sand at all, more like it had somehow been dropped on top of it. It was bizarre.

Judging that they'd gone far enough, Keith looked over the ridge again. "I think this is better."

"We should go further." Jace pointed. "Right down there, we'd have the sun at our backs."

That sounded attractive for more than one reason. Keith looked and nodded. "Okay, start moving there… slowly." Moving on the slip side was trickier, but they reached the new spot without incident. "Get comfortable, we might be here for awhile."

The other two settled in, watching silently. From here, the slip side of the larger part of the dune was fully visible, and they could see what appeared to be a wall of greenish stone underlying the sand. That only seemed to raise more questions about the terrain, but right now their focus had to be on the Galra.

Not that the Galra were doing anything all that interesting. Keith wondered how much footage of them digging in the sand Command really needed.

"Did we know they're… purple and furry?" Jace asked quietly.

"I was aware."

Snort. "Of course you were."

"Yes, I actually prepared for the mission." Sven was bitter about the heat—he was from Norway, for heaven's sake—and it was rapidly making him bitter about everything else. "Crazy, I know."

"You know what kind of spoons they use, too?"

"Spoons?" Keith had just been listening to them banter up until that point, but spoons? "…I don't want to know, do I?"

Knew I shouldn't have told him about the etiquette classes. He glared at the medic behind Keith's back. "I'm not telling you things anymore."

Grin. "Oh, sure you will."

He just glared more… not least because he knew it was true.

Okay, that was enough of that. Keith broke it up. "We honestly don't know much about the Galra, other than what a few survivors of their raids have told intel. Of course," he thought of the pirates and scowled himself, "we all know how good intel is these days…"

That drew answering grumbles, and they went back to watching silently for another stretch, which was as uninteresting as the rest had been. Or was until four Galra emerged from a gaping hole in the exposed stone.

"Damn, how many of them are really here?" Keith frowned. "Doesn't look like they're finding anything of value, though."

Nearly the moment he finished speaking, one of the Galra from the cave turned and pointed in their general direction.

"That's not good…"

"Oh, shit. We might have to—"

Jace had reflexively ducked the instant the Galra had pointed; now he reached up and grabbed the other two by the collars, yanking them back down behind the ridge. "Less talking, more ducking!" Someone really should have trained these deep space tin can jockeys in infantry tactics, or at least basic self preservation.

Sven tumbled down beside him, while Keith toppled straight over and ended up on his back. He growled under his breath, trying to extricate himself without breaking anything. "I know you love your patients, but this is a bit too close, Doc…"

"Boss, let me cordially and respectfully advise you to go fuck yourself."

At this point Keith was pretty certain that was a term of endearment, so he just rolled his eyes. "Watch your language, Gregory."

"I am watching my fucking language!"

"This really is him watching his language," Sven agreed. "It can be so, so much worse."

Jace flashed him a thumbs-up of gratitude.

"Right…" Keith arched a disbelieving eyebrow at both of them, then looked around. There was some kind of gap a bit further down the ridge, maybe another cave? He couldn't tell for sure. "Let's get down there under cover before they come up here looking for us."

The shelter turned out to be some kind of sand-covered outcropping, further proof that this dune was not really a proper dune. Sven almost immediately gave a sigh of relief; he'd take the risk of a shootout with the Galra to finally get in some shade. They crouched beneath it, weapons drawn, watching the part of the ridge they'd vacated… and watching… and watching. Finally Keith picked up the binoculars and braved another look over the edge.

The Galra weren't coming for them. In fact, they were going.

"They're… leaving?" He flipped on the recording again, watching the Galra file back to their shuttles. "I wonder if they found anything."

Sven poked his head out of the shade to take a look; their leaving was even more of a relief. "I don't know, it doesn't look like it. But who knows?"

"Well, once they take off and are out of sight, we can head down and take a look around."

"And until then would you two get back here?" Jace snapped. "You know, so the furry purple aliens with air superiority don't see us while they're lifting off?" As the other two ducked back into the shelter, he turned away and studied the stone a bit. The ground was the same greenish stone they'd seen before, but the part of the outcropping that rose up over them was something else again… lighter and very smooth when he touched it. "Weird-ass geography," he muttered to himself.

"Geology. Different stones…"

He rolled his eyes. "Geowhatthefuckevery."

"It's fascinating," Sven said as he ran a hand along the rock. It felt like there was a grain to it, making the smooth stone almost silky.

"Well, you can take a sample with us," Keith suggested.

"Gladly. I'll grab some of the red sand as well."

They heard a dull roar in the distance, the engines of the Galra shuttles as they launched. None of them dared peek out to watch the mysterious aliens leave, but as the roar faded, Keith raised his binoculars to the bright sky and watched the last pinpoints of light vanish.

"Okay. I think we're good. Get your rock sample and let's go look around."

"Yes sir." The stone chipped easily beneath his knife blade, surprisingly so. He stashed a few samples in his pack before reluctantly leaving the shade to join the other two. Keith was already moving down the dune, his rifle at the ready just in case.

The sand shifted beneath him, and as he dropped to his backside and tumbled head over heels to the base of the dune. He at least managed to let go of his rifle before his arms hit the sand, though he was rewarded for that care by being smacked in the face with the barrel several times as it whipped around on its sling. The binoculars got him a couple of times too. He could only assume it was a miracle when he made it to the bottom without a broken nose.

Sven stepped forward cautiously, watching Keith fall and doing his best to suppress a smile. Don't laugh, don't laugh…

"And there goes the paragon of propriety and grace," Jace said casually. "On his ass."

So much for not laughing. "We should probably go check on him, make sure he didn't hurt himself. Mainly you, though. You are the doctor."

"I'm so glad someone around here acknowledges that, goddamn." He walked up to where Keith had lost his footing, dropped into a crouch, and easily surfed the dune to the bottom. He probably should have been above such petty theatrics, but… nah, he shouldn't have been.

Keith groaned and sat up, shaking sand out of his hair, though there was plenty left… in his hair, in his pack, all over his clothes… "Watch your step," he warned wryly as Sven picked his way down the dune.

Sven looked concerned. "Are you alright?"

"You okay?" Jace asked at the same time, offering a hand.

Keith took it, standing and shaking the sand off his pack. "Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing bruised but my ego." He tried to brush more sand off his clothes, though it was pretty much a lost cause. "Guess Garrett is getting his sand…"

"Oh yeah, giant donut dude's gonna get plenty of sand," Jace smirked. He pulled a bag from his own pack and filled it with the golden sand from the dune, as Sven did the same with the red sand.

"Okay. Let's get to looking around."

"…Just looks like a lot of red to me."

He wasn't wrong. Keith frowned, looking around, seeing nothing but red desert and the rough stone underlying the dune. "Yeah. It doesn't seem natural, does it?"

"It's definitely odd," Sven agreed.

There didn't seem like much to be done other than starting out into the sand. Maybe they could see what the Galra had been doing. Keith knelt and inspected one of the holes a ways in, lifting his sunglasses to see better… it looked like there was normal sand beneath the red.

"Isn't that where they came out of earlier?"

Keith looked up. Jace was pointing to the gaping hole in the slip side of the dune, just coming into view from the ground. He paused, shading his eyes with his hand and squinting. From here, it was evident that not only was there a cave… the rough stone beneath the cave was stained the same red as the sand. "Looks like about the spot," he agreed, heading for it.

Sven and Jace followed silently, exchanging looks. It was eerily quiet now that they'd stopped talking. Nothing but the faint rush of the wind, the skittering of sand driven by the breeze… neither of them was about to admit to having a bad feeling about this. But they both certainly did.

The cave entrance was at least ten feet above the ground; it would be easy enough to access from above, but not so much from below. Keith was studying the transition from green stone to normal sand to red. It just wasn't right, somehow…

Preoccupied with the cave entrance, Jace neglected to watch where he was going, and immediately tripped over something. "Fuck." He bent over and picked it up; a piece of bright red metal sitting by a small hole, apparently dug up by the Galra but discarded.

Sven looked over at him. "What is it?"

"Some… weird metal that's just as red as the sand?"

That got Keith's attention. "Weird metal? Can I see it?" Jace shrugged and handed it over, and he studied it carefully. It didn't cause the same odd tingling feeling the other piece had, but it felt otherwise identical, even the edge.

"Anything you recognize?"

"This is like the metal fragment I found on Terina. Different color, but Hunk said he'd never seen metal break like that, and this seems to have broken a similar way…" He handed it to Sven, who was looking at it curiously. "Take it back to the ship. We'll have Hunk scan it, see if it matches that other piece."

Sven looked over the metal, running a finger along the edge, then put it in his pack. "Yes sir."

As they talked Jace had turned his attention to the hole again. Or more to the point, the red streak flowing down from it. "This looks like some kind of… dried up red waterfall or something. Maybe there was a lake here? Could've colored the metal along with everything else?"

A lake? Keith frowned. It wasn't a bad theory, except for there being absolutely no other evidence Kithran had ever had a water cycle. "Maybe."

"Possible."

Jace just shrugged. It had sounded good to him, but geowhatthefuckevery wasn't his strong point. "So now what?"

"I'd like to try to get in there." Keith looked up at the hole. "But it's too high and we don't have the right gear for it. Let's follow this dune around, see if there are any other openings."

"Sounds good."

"Works for me."

They followed the dune in silence, until reaching the very end and circling to the slip side. There was a large gap undercutting the stone, and some odd rock formations visible beneath it. That looked promising.

And strange.

"I've never seen stalagmites like that before," Keith murmured. They were huge and smooth, almost gleaming in the dim light that reached them. "And the stalactites… not right above them? That's not how it works."

"They're very… orderly?" Jace stepped back. The formations seemed to alternate cleanly, forming two rings that roughly paralleled the entrance. "And weird."

As Keith and Sven moved forward into the shade, Jace stepped back to get a better overall view. All it really got him was confirmation that yes, those stalactites and stalagmites were very orderly, very weird, and—as he took another step back, a blinding flash of light from somewhere above the entrance seared into his eyes. "Fuck!"

"Doc? You okay?"

"Yeah, I just…" He blinked back afterimages, then tried shielding his eyes and squinting. The blinding glare hit him again, every bit as painful as before. Maybe he should've brought some damn sunglasses after all. He started circling around to try to get a different angle. "There's something… really shiny up there."

The other two approached, turning to try to see whatever he'd seen. For a few moments there was nothing. But as they stepped back a little further, the shiny object abruptly flashed into view. It was some kind of huge glassy orb, set further back into the exposed stone.

Jace had circled around far enough to escape the horrible angle of the sunlight; the orb was covered with sand from where he was standing, but he could still make out its form. It made the cave's outcropping look an awful lot like…

It hit him and Keith at pretty much the same moment.

"What the hell?"

"Porra…"

The boss looked at him. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"I'm not thinking a fucking thing right now, boss." He took another step back. "I'm trying really hard not to think a fucking—"

"…Shit," Sven butted in, having stepped back far enough to see what the others were seeing. "That… is an eye?"

Jace glowered at him. "Oh sure, or you can be like that about it. Fuck."

"It's some sort of… huge monster," Keith whispered in disbelief, looking back at the 'cave' entrance… and what were now all too obviously two rows of vicious teeth.

"A dead one." Sven paused, then paled as he looked around at the red sand. "Does that mean… this is…" We're standing in a giant lake of dried blood. "Ew." For the second time in as many ground missions, he suddenly desperately wanted a shower.

Keith looked between him and Jace, then at the sand. "Holy shit. That hole." Everything was coming together. "What the hell is this creature… and what could put a hole into something like this and kill it?"

"And which are the Galra looking for?" Jace asked quietly. "This thing, or the thing that killed it? Because I'm pretty damn sure they don't need either one."

"No. No they don't."

Keith lifted the binoculars, thoroughly recording the sight, from the gaping maw to the fatal wound in the distance. Then he looked back at the other two and swallowed hard, dialing for confidence. "Well, I think… we don't need to go in there now—"

"I will not be going in there," Sven interrupted quickly.

"—unless the medic wants to have a look inside the dead creature?"

Jace glared. "Nope. No thanks. I dissected enough weird-ass shit in training."

"All right then. Let's head back."

"Yes sir." Sven turned and started south just as quickly. The heat didn't seem so bad anymore. Marching through it for another two hours would be so much better than staying near this… thing… a second longer.

As he picked up the pace, Jace came up beside him and whispered in a singsong tone. "You said shit, I heard you…"

Dammit, of course he did. Sven blushed. "I know, and I apologize. It won't happen again."

"Oh fuck that." The medic clapped him on the shoulder and mimed wiping away a tear of joy. "I was so proud of you. Don't ruin it."

Sven hung his head, but privately couldn't help feeling good about the praise. And that was worrisome. This is that peer pressure my mom was always talking about. "You are a terrible influence."

"Damn straight." Grin. "Come on, pick it up. We've got some assholes waiting around chilling on the ship while we were climbing around on a giant monster, and I'm really looking forward to bitching them out."

Of course he was. Sven knew he should probably roll his eyes at that, but all he could do was nod and laugh.

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

After receiving a message from Keith that the ground team was on its way back, Flynn and Lance had done the only logical thing: they'd set up camp on the Firecrown's entry ramp, sipping beer and watching the sand.

There was a lot of sand.

Hunk was about a hundred yards away with some scrap armor, jet fuel, and quite a few other assorted parts that he hadn't mentioned before. Flynn had offered to help him and been brushed off. But every few minutes he looked over to see half a dozen new missiles gradually taking shape.

"He's unbelievable," he said quietly, shaking his head.

Lance looked up, grinning. "I'll take it." He took a long swig of his beer, then squinted out at the desert. "Hey, I think I see them."

Sure enough. Their three crewmates were trudging back to the ship in what was visible even from a distance as varying degrees of surliness.

"Beer? Seriously?" Jace yelled almost immediately. "You assholes have been literally having a picnic while we—"

"Hey we earned it, we had to dodge Galra in a fucking asteroid field while you—"

"—were out there climbing around on some fucking mile-long monster corpse—"

"—were just out here playing around in the sand—"

"—wait, you what?"

"—wait, you what?"

Keith looked between the pilot and medic for a moment, then arched an eyebrow at Flynn. "Kleid?"

"Not one word, Kogane." Flynn tossed a can of beer to him, or maybe at him, it was hard to say. "You could've stayed here and had better ideas."

Keith caught the beer and sighed. Clearly they were going to have an interesting debriefing session. "Where's Garrett?"

Flynn pointed. Hunk was actually trudging back now, carrying two of his homemade missiles over his shoulders. "Ain't as fancy as the real thing," he said cheerfully, "but they'll fly straight and blow up big, and that's what matters, right?"

Wow. "Right. Get those loaded and let's get in the air. Seems we've all got some stories to tell."

⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒

Mendar was one of the castle footmen. The very best, according to Nanny. That endorsement meant Larmina immediately disliked him, even when she hadn't met him yet. Meeting him didn't change much. He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man with perfectly-styled dark hair and a dazzling smile; even her glaring as he introduced himself didn't seem to faze him.

"Warmest greetings, Lady Larmina." He flashed that smile again as he rose from his bow; his teeth were unnaturally white. "My name is Mendar, and I am at your service."

"Okay. Well, you already know who I am, so—"

"—Lady Larmina!"

How does she do that? Nanny seemed to be able to detect an etiquette violation from anywhere in the castle, and appear before the rules were even finished being violated. Or maybe she'd been hiding in a corner of the ballroom to see how long it took for things to go badly. "I know, I know." She turned to Mendar and curtsied, which made the frilly purple skirt she was wearing billow dramatically. "Good morning, Mendar. I am Lady Larmina of the Seven Isles, and I hope you're happier to be here than I—"

Nanny made a noise that was not unlike a rampaging plainsbeast.

"—I mean, I am honored to accept your service."

"Very good," said Nanny in a tone that said it hadn't been good at all. "Now, Lady Larmina, I have spoken to your instructors from your finishing schools… both of them," she added with a scowl. "They both spoke highly of your dancing."

Did they really? Must be the only thing they spoke highly of. Though it didn't surprise her that much. She had enjoyed dancing more than anything else there—it was kind of like heavily choreographed musical sparring. And she did love music, though formal ball music barely counted as such. "Okay, and?"

"For a debut ball there are very particular dances you must learn. I expect you to do much better at this than you are doing in your other lessons." The governess waved Mendar forward. "Now, we will begin with the Aria Taheu."

Larmina looked at Mendar, who offered his hand graciously. She grudgingly took it—and much more grudgingly resisted the urge to yank him over and kick him right in the too-shiny teeth. Not because she was afraid of Nanny, obviously. But nobody could really be as unflappable as this guy was acting; if she hit him he might decide to hit her back.

Then she'd be obliged to mop the floor with him.

Then she really would be in trouble.

"I'll follow your lead, then?"

"It will be my honor, Lady Larmina." He put a hand on her shoulder and took a step back, but she didn't follow. "Is something wrong?"

More than you think. But yes, something was wrong with the dancing, too. "We're not seriously going to do this without music, are we?" She turned to Nanny and gave her best impression of the governess' disapproving scowl. "There's no dance without rhythm, where's our beat?"

She actually looked momentarily flustered—in a that's actually a good point way, not the usual what did this finishing school dropout just say to me way. It faded quickly. "This is only the first lesson, it's best if you focus on—"

"—Nope! Not how it works. But no problem, if you didn't bring music, I've got some." She pulled her digipad out of a pocket in the frilly skirt and grinned wickedly at Mendar. "Hope you can keep up with my rock star moves!"

His irritating grin suddenly became a bit more genuine. "I'll accept that challenge."

Huh. Maybe he's not so bad after all…

Nanny opened her mouth to say something Larmina was certain she didn't care to hear, but she was preempted by an epic guitar riff as Easy Chair Infidel began blasting through the ballroom. "Now this is more like it!" She grinned, grabbed Mendar's hand, and half dragged him into one of the ballroom dances she'd learned in the Seven Isles. Maybe about three times faster than it was supposed to be, but her dance partner was keeping up!

Somewhere in the middle of the song, Nanny walked away, grumbling under her breath about hopeless royal bastard cases.

Larmina was pretty sure that meant she'd won this round.