FREEFALL (REVISED 11/26/23)

Dahl entered the bridge looking for her old friends. She was finally part of the team and they were quickly approaching her first mission. For Dahl, things couldn't get much better. So, why did she feel so bad? So damn mean. She wanted to reach out to her teammates before getting to M6-117. But as soon as she stepped onto the bridge her eyes found themselves drawn to the empty commander's seat. It was as if the coveted seat called to her.

Lockspur sat in the engineer's seat, behind the two pilot seats. No big surprise there. He was always there, running a hundred different system checks at the same time. Although, he didn't run the checks as fast as he used to. The srthritis in his hands made sure of that. But old age and pain aside, Carlos Lockspur was, if nothing else, consistent about keeping the ship's little details in order. A smooth running ship is a safe ship, that's his motto. But this time, Dahl realized he was running all the checks at once.

The amount of raw data scrolling past his monitors made Dahl feel a little dizzy. The lingering effects of their lengthy hypersleep still worked at her misfiring nervous system. She turned from the blaring image, clinched her eyelids shut and wondered how he could make sense of so much data. He may be an old fart, but there was no way he had alzheimers. His neurons were firing just fine.

As for Moss, he was still secluded somewhere in the ship. Probably hold up in weapons storage where he could always be found.

Dahl heard a voice and looked in the direction of the empty commander's seat again. No one was there. But she was certain someone had called her. She turned to the closes entry hatch and had a wicked thought, he in the back, doing the usual, he'll be busy for a while.

There was one crucial difference between Lockspur and the much younger interim commander. Moss concentrated on everything mission while Lockspur concentrated on everything systems. Moss's motto was a well armed team is a team that comes home again.

Dahl slipped quietly past Lockspur, eyeing the Commander's seat in the near distance. She had flown in the left copilot's seat on many occasions, but never in the Commander's seat. That seat had always been reserved for Johns or Moss. They were the mission commanders. Not her. She was the boss's niece. A surrogate daughter come to live with her uncle after the mysterious death of his brother and sister in law. 

Carlos Lockspur didn't notice Dahl enter the compartment. Or so, she believed. He only had eyes for numbers and they were always about keeping the ship up and running like new. Much like Moss and his military toys, Lockspur was obsessed over the inner workings of the ship and all its operating systems. She admired both of their resolve and learned much of hers, from them.. In the years since the three first met, Moss and Lockspur had become not just her friends, but her teachers and surrogate family, as well.

Dahl stepped up beside the empty Commander's seat, sneaking a look over her shoulder to see if Lockspur had noticed her pass. She was sure he hadn't. She turned to the empty seat and thought, why shouldn't I sit there? It's just a seat. But it wasn't just a seat- not to Moss, and certainly not to her uncleJohns- and she knew it wasn't. It represented the pinical of their achievements. It was reserved for the current mission Commander'. And that was not her.

Dahl ran a slender finger over the contours of the control stick, tickling the surface suggestively. She longed for the feel the seat's supple leather against her slender body. It didn't matter if it was the exact same seat as the one on the left. The co-pilot's seat was ordinary, this one meant something more. She craved the power of command. Having her own crew was one more step in her journey to becoming like Lady Hemmingford.

And why shouldn't I? I'm an excellent pilot. I've flown hundreds of times, she thought, flicking a glance at Lockspur again. He was still fiddling with his readouts. They would hold his attention for hours.

Dahl wasn't lying to herself about being a good pilot. She didnt need to. When in the co-pilot's seat, she had routinely amazed her three teachers. Intuitive and natural is what Johns, Moss and Lockspur had called her. But regardless of their accolades, she had never flown in the Captain's seat. No. Never In that seat. It'll be OK, she assured herself, slipping quietly into the seat, smelling the leather and feeling the material stretch around her backside. It felt good. It felt like they made the seat just for her. She felt in command. I'll just try it on for a little while. No harm; no foul, she thought. She peeked around the edge of the seat. Carlos won't notice, she told herself as the corner of her mouth rose into an uncertain smirk. Dahl turned back to her impending bad choice.

Ten minutes later, the ship bucked violently, as if trying to throw the impostor out of the forbidden seat. Lockspur absentmindedly buckled his 4-point harness and called over the comms. "To anyone who may be listening. We're here."

"Hey, Grand pa, did you fasten your seat belt? We wouldn't want you fall out and break a hip."

"Very funny, Amigo."

After months of frozen travel and waking nightmares, the trio had finally reached their arid desert target. The lone ship skimmed M6-117s upper troposphere and the ship's autopilot made several course corrections, putting itself in orbit, skimming only a few meters above the thin air separating the planet's troposphere from the frigid vacuum of open space.

On M6-117, the atmosphere is 2/3s the density of most habitable planets, but you can still move around easily enough. If you don't overexert yourself. Due to the unknown nature of this outing, the team will use small 02 canisters to supplement their breathing needs, as moving slowly is not an option on a potentially unfriendly planet.

Dahl eyed the autopilot control. Her silver/blue eyes twinkled. It wouldn't be that hard to take control for a while. No one would know. What could it hurt? Her hand itched and she glanced over her shoulder again. Hatch still closed" engineer still busy. Check.

Dawl saw Lockspur still squinting at his monitor, focusing on the Desolate, rocky terrain racing by far below. She fingered the joy stick longingly knowing she shouldn't, but unable to stop herself. She looked over her shoulder and flicked off the autopilot. A small warning light flashed twiceand a split second before the alarm outed her bad choice, she silenced it. The stick shifted slightly forward and the ship began a nearly imperceptible nose dive into the upper atmosphere. She pulled back gently, trying not to draw attention. The ship bobbed up out of the thin atmosphere and Lockspur shifted slightly in his seat. The stick steadied in Dahl's tightening grip. She was in control. Ballsy, she thought, but you can't hide it now.

Dahl hadnt considered she may be caught until now. Someone back at base would surely notice the infraction in the ship's log. She reeled around, thing Lockspur knew everything that happensed on the ship. But he was still eyeing his monitor. A few tense moments ticked off and Dahl pressed the autopilot button again. It did not re-engage. The stick remained firmly planted in her quickly souring grasp. She pressed it again. Still nothing. She pressed it in rapid succession. And still, it refused to engage. "Dammit." she muttered with a scowl. "Should have taken a little more time to consider the consequences of a mini-mutiny." Dahl pressed the button with all her might and heard the button crack. "Great. You fucking broke the autopilot." she whispered to herself. She sat back, looked out at the star filling void above and the dazzling daylight below. Well fuck, she thought, I guess there's no goin' back now. I might as well enjoy it while I still can.

Dahl didn't understand why she had been feeling anxious and downright bitchy for the last few days. Or, why she had sat in the seat to begin with. She didnt want to be commander, she just wanted them to be proud of her, and now, she had screwed that up. There was no way her teammates were going to be okay with this.

Must be a side effect of the long hypersleep, she thought. But it wasnt just that. It was an effect of the region. She supposed it could have also been a result of the excruciating reanimation. Either way, she had to admit the seat did fit her. It felt good. But that was the only thing that felt good. Her gums were still swollen and bleeding. Her teeth felt loose and itched like a million ants were moving under the throbbing gums. She had messaged them constantly for days. And there was also a return of the nail biting of her youth. She felt jittery and angry. The auto-doc prescribed a number of anti-anxiety meds, but Dahl hadn't taken them. They made her feel as though she were wrapped in a layer of oily plastic wrap.

The return to nails biting had left her with stinging, exposed nail beds that weeped blood on everything she touched. She had tried to stop the biting, but it had become a mindlessly gnawing like a trapped wolf chewing at a caught limb. In fact, she felt trapped. They all felt the same way. After a few days, Dahl donned a set of black leather driving gloves. They looked ridiculous, but they kept her from chewing her fingertips down to the bone.

The ship lurched hard to one side and slammed her into the console. In a dazed state, she allowed the ship's nose to pitch forward steeply, diving the ship into the upper atmosphere. As it drilled into the atmosphere, the hull heated up, spraying the windscreen with a layer of fiery red ozone. 

Dahl fisted the autopilot button repeatedly. It would not re-engage. She slammed the comms button and blared, "Moss. Get up here!" Shit, she thought, there's definitely no hiding it now. You fucked up this time, she thought. The joy stick jerked in her hand, fighting her, but she regained control and the ship leveled out in the thickening atmosphere. There would be no going back. M6-117 had caught them in its grip, slowly drawing them down.

Lockspur lurched in his seat. Dahl's heated voice was the first he had heard in months, and to him, it was coarse and grating.

The auto-doc had set their recovery schedules to keep them apart and none of them had minded the added isolation, or gone looking for the others. None of them were descent company for the others and they all knew it. So, they stayed away.

Lockspur looked down at his console with a smirk and flicked off the auto-pilot bypass switch. He looked over his shoulder, shook his head at Dahl sitting in Moss' seat and thought that's not going to go well for you, young lady. Then he looked at the closed hatch and thought, Great. He's going to blame me for letting this happen. Like anyone can stop her.

Unlike his teammates, Lockspur had experienced the effects of the region before and had a plan of how to cope with the glut of negative emotions he knew they would all experience. Thusly, when the opertunity to do the right thing presented itself, he immediately did the opposite thing. Shit, he thought, maybe bypassing the auto pilot wasn't the best idea. He looked over his shoulder at Dahl sweating the impending conflict and thought, At least, nobody will know what I did.

Lockspur was well aware that they had to question everything they thought twice and everything they did three times before doing anything. In this region of space reckless impulsivity, debilitating anxiety and hostilities were the norm. And he had just given into to a juvenile prank that could get them all into serious trouble. Great, he thought. When she needed you the most, you were a dickhead. Real nice guy.

Both of Dahl's teammates had noticed that before they left Sol Lucia, Dahl had been noticeably excited to be on her first mission and anxious that they might not take her seriously. More than anythin else,, she wanted to prove herself. At the time, they had reassured her it was OK. But now that they had arrived, the remnants of a long trip, coupled with the region's peculiar effects on the human psyche, had begun working against her. Aapparently, against him, too. Under normal circumstances, Dahl would have never sat in that seat. Let alone, even thought about it. As it was, their combined moments of piss poor impulse control had just put them all in danger. And there was no telling what would happen when Moss found her in his seat. If he were acting as adky as they were. Things could go badly, quickly. And they had just arrived. The longer they were in the region, the more its negative effects could take hold.

Dahl wanted to keep Moss and Lockspur from noticing her bloody nail. They knew why she had chewed her nails before and didnt want them to have another reason to doubt her abilities. Unbeknownst her, and much like her teammates, the visions of old sins had come back to haunt her in a major way. The sounds of her sister's screams chased her around the ship; screams that had begun almost as soon as they dropped out of FTL speed, 6 days earlier. Her sister's voice constantly asked, why did you let them hurt me? Why didn't you stop them? She knew it wasn't real, but that didn't mean it wasn't driving her crazy. Dahl mashed a switch on the Pilot's console and cringed. Her gloved fingertips stung bitterly. They were sharp, aching reminders of a dark time she desperately wanted to forget.

Where there had once been a sense of team and belonging, now, a fiery sense of doubt filled her thoughts. She believed Moss or Lockspur trusted her wanted her there, or thought they needed her on this mission She knew none of that was true or at least hoped it wasn't. Goddamn self-doubt. We're always our own worst critics. Even so, a sense of growing doubt had begun separating her from the recently assembled team.

Although Dahl had hung around her teammates for years, she still felt like a newcomer to the long established team. The main giveaways to her newness being her pristine urban camo pants with matching camo blouse- which were both starched crisp enough to cut flesh. Lockspur had given her 5 pairs of each as a welcome to the crew gift. He also gave her a 500 year old Japanese tanto with a demascus blade folded more than a hundred times. It must be worth a fortune, she thought. Moss had given her 2 just-out-of-the-box pairs of combat boots desperately in need of a spit shine and a custom Colt 50 auto. It had started out as a Colt 2911, 45, but had been rechambered to fit cut down .50 Action Express casings. The muzzle opening looked large enough to stick a fist in. When she opened the boots, he had cringed. The bare, unprotected leather went against all his years of military service. He told her a soldier should wear boots correctly or not at all. And that meant she should be able to see her own reflection in the toes. She looked at her feet. They shined brightly. At least, I got that right, she thought.

Lockspur watched Dahl with an amused interest, thinking she looked like an Army/Navy store display mannequin propped up in the Commander's seat. Had they not been bouncing and skipping off the upper atmosphere at 27,000 miles an hour, it would have looked comical. As it was, even with the looming fear of burning up on entry, he took the time to snap a picture just so he could tease her about it later. After the first turbulence bumps almost slammed him face down on the Engineer's console, his thoughts of teasing quickly subsided.

In truth, even though Dahl looked rgreen, she was ready for action and that sobering realization gave him reason to worry about what might be waiting fown there. But even that fear wasn't really fair either. She was ready. And he knew it. The three of them had spent a great deal of personal time ensuring she had adequately prepared herself for the riggers of the job.

As they plummeted like a falling meteorite through the upper atmosphere, the late 40s engineer, an olive-skinned half Spaniard / half Native American, sat behind Dahl thinking about the eager little kid hanging around the docks. Back then, she was a bratty pest who had a million questions about being a mercenary. But even way back then, both he and Moss had seen something tough and unyielding in her eyes and knew there would come a day when she would join the crew. But not like this; Lockspur thought, not without warning and definitely not on a mission this dangerous. She's out of her league, and that lack of experience only increased everyone's danger. It wasn't that he didn't want her there; it was that he didn't want to see her get hurt, or worse yet, killed.

Dahl understood her teammates probably thought she had a great deal to prove before they would trust her or place their lives in her hands. And to some extent, she was right. But for now, she was a part of the team, like it or not. Too bad for them, she thought. Lilith said I could come along, so get over it. It was that lack of say so that increased her teammates frustration, if not, made them mad as hell. Lilith had thrown Dahl into the mix without a care in the world. Or that's how it seemed to them.

Unfortunately for Moss and Lockspur, Dahl didn't see it that way. She had come on several runs prior to this one. And granted, while she had not taken part in any actual apprehensions, she had filled a support role from the security console inside the well protected ship. And she had learned everything about the business they would teach her. And the amigos had taught her a lot. Marksmanship, Johns said, she was natural with any rifle. Lockspur had taught her hand to hand, and told the others that she was deceptively lethal at close range and better with a knife than most mercenaries he had ever worked with. Moss had spent hundreds of hours teaching her tactics and strategy. So, sure, she thought heartedly, doesn't all that mean I'm capable and ready to be a part of the team?

But Moss and Lockspur knew this run wasn't an ordinary recon mission, or a simple snatch and grab. There were things on M6-117 that didn't fear the law or weapons, or anything smaller than them. And compared to most of the things down there, they were the small ones. They would be the weak ones. Moss had told Dahl, "There are monsters down there that only know hunger."

Dahl's teammates met her on the docks when she was 10. As girls, her and her sister Tahlia never left Johns side. But unlike Tahlia, Dahl wanted to be a mercenary. All Moss and Lockspur knew back then, was that something terrible had happened to the girls family and that the two girls had come to live with their Uncle. That was 8 years ago. And now, here Dahl was, a young, beautiful woman of 18. And for them, that was just another part of the larger problem. Dahl was family. She was their family. They knew she was surly and willful and even defiant, but she was also smart and funny and fearless. And now here they were, heading down to a world like M6-117, where a lack of fear equated to a lack of respect. And not giving a monster its due respect was foolish and dangerous.

Dahl sat in the pilot's seat basking in the illusion of command, fantasizing about a time when she would have her own ship. About a time when she could rule the docks. The look on her face gave away her innermost desires. Lockspur didn't like it.

Lilith Hemmingford operated the largest clandestine mercenary outfit in the galaxy. Everyone in her employ either addressed her as mam or Lady Hemmingford. Of course, behind her back, most of them called her the Lady in Black. Some joked that she was the Dark Athena. Some, like Lockspur, actually believed it. Lady Lilith Hemmingford, the Goddess of war and strife. How fitting. She always laughed when they called her that. Secretly, she liked it.

Neither of Dahl's crewmates liked her recent up-tick of cocky demeanor during the few months leading up to this mission. She hadnt even been choosen to join the team yer, and still, her head was getting to bug. Sure, she was fast to learn a new skill and unexpectedly lethal if you let your guard down; but all practice and no field experience can make Jill a very dangerous girl to be on a mission with.

To make their uneasiness worse, they had unusual orders from Lady Hemmingford to keep Dahl safe at all costs. She's important to the future of humanity, Lilith told Lockspur. He shrugged those kinds of cryptic comments off all the time, thinking Lilith always seemed to know a little too much about what was coming. And she rarely, if ever, shared what she actually knew with anyone. The one time Lilith had told Lockspur about an upcoming mission, he had ignored her cryptic warning and it had cost him 30 stitches, a shitload of aches and pains, and a week in traction. Lilith went to great lengths to give him the I told you speech. He never forgot the lesson or lived down the repeated teasing. "Goddamn woman can see the future." he told Moss, who in turn, told him it was just a coincidence.

Before this outing, Lilith had taken Lockspur aside and issued him special orders. That was nothing new for Lilith. She gave specific orders to individual team members all the time. But this time, something was different. Lilith gave Lockspur a small object for delivery to someone on sight and specific instructions about where he should hide the device. In addition, he was not to divulge the meeting or reveal the device to the others. Lilith would not tell him any more details other than you'll know what to do when the meeting takes place. In all his years working with Johns and Moss, he had never hidden anything from either of them. And now there was this ugly secret wedged between them, and only he knew it was there. It felt like a betrayal of their trust. But Lilith was compelling. So, he did as she ordered. She knew he would. After all, she is the Dark Athena, or so Lockspur believed.

They all loved Dahl like proud fathers. But that wouldn't make the mission any easier. Quite to the contrary, as we all know, when feelings become involved, shit gets utterly complicated. And quick. And that bond would undoubtedly mean shit would get worse in ways none of them could foresee. But for now, there was that ugly secret looming over his head, the effects of the region and the growing wish he hadn't come on this damn mission. In the end, he only came to protect Dahl.

"Are you coming, or not?" Dahl said, staring through the windscreen at the now glowing nose cone.

"In a minute. The auto pilot will sort it out." Moss replied, deep voice boomed through her headset. It made her eardrums vibrate sharply. She winced in pain. Moss hadn't meant to be so gruff. 

"We don't have a Goddamn minute. And the auto pilot won't engage." Dahl said, eyes going wide. She had just outed herself.

"What the fuck do you mean the auto pilot won't engage? Who disengaged it?" He demanded.

"I did," Lockspur blurted, before Dahl could say anything more incriminating. "I was running a systems check and found a ground fault in the circuitry. When I tried to repair it, the system fried. I'll need to make the necessary repairs before we engage the system again."

"You think?"

"Stop giving him shit." Dahl blurted guiltily. "He didn't do anything wrong."

Lockspur twisted around and mouthed shut the hell up.

"Then I guess it's convenient you were on the bridge when the autopilot went to shit." Moss replied.

"It is, amigo." Lockspur said, holding up a warning hand, signalling for Dahl's continued silence. "And for the record, I told her to take over. Unless you'd like to burn up?"

The suspicious voice emmenating from the comms speaker made Lockspur uneasy, and Dahl's unpredictable tones only increased his anxiety that much more.

"I'll be right there " Moss snapped, not particularly appreciating Dahl's need to don a snooty authoritative tone. A tone he was certain she would not have taken if Johns were aboard to hear it.

"Now." Dahl blurted curtly, feeling an urgency to find her place in the pecking order. "We're already in the upper atmosphere, and I need your help."

"Just try turning it back on, again." Moss countered.

"I tried, damn it. It won't engage." Dahl said, punching the button wildly. The autopilot engaged and her mouth feel open. She swirled around in her seat and blurted, "You dick."

"Im not proud of it," Lockspur said, shrugging.

Moss rubbed the sweat from his forehead and mouthed the word fuck. "Do I even want to know whats going on, compadre?" Moss asked, turning to leave the weapons compartment.

Dahl knew what she should have said. But what came out was, "Just get your ass up here," come out, instead. It was the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"Listen, Missy." Moss fired back, looking down at the black canvas bag in his hands, thinking how he wanted to whack her with it. "You are aware, I'm... in charge here?"

Dahl rolled her eyes, took a slow restorative breath and said, "I'm aware you weren't at your post when we arrived at our destination."

The ship buffeted violently in the upper atmosphere as the increasingly dense air squeezed the outer hull. The turbulence almost dumped Moss on the floor before the autopilot re-engaged, snatching the controls out of Dahl's hand.

"Dammit," Moss raged. "What the fuck is going on up there?"

Under normal circumstances, Dahl never wanted to argue, the idea of arguing was foreign. It rarely solved anything and more often than not, left festering hostilities in the wake of heated conflict. But the longer they stayed in the forbidden planets region, the more Dahl felt compelled to defend herself. Although she didn't know why. To her knowledge, she and Moss had never had an argument in all the time she had known him. And even now, she didn't want to argue, she just couldn't stop herself from over reacting.

Dahl latched the heavy clasps of her 4-point safety harness and rubbed her ears. The endless silence of space was quickly becoming the shrill blare of superheated air rushing over a now blistering hull. The hull was way too hot. The ship was entering the atmosphere much faster than it should. Adjusting herself in the seat, she prepared for the jarring reentry hurtling towards them at breakneck speed. This could be a rough one and without a copilot with her, it could be a deadly one.

A tall, muscular, black man in his mid-30s yanked the cockpit hatch open. He hooked the toe of his spit-shined boot on the lower lip of the steel frame and stumbled in, catching himself on the olive-skinned engineer's chair-back. "Dammit," Moss grumbled as a barrage of inaudible expletives trailed away beneath his panting breath. He had sprinted all the way from the aft weapons room to the bridge. Moss shoved himself upright, shaking off the embarrassment of almost toppling Lockspur out of his swivel seat. "Whats going on in here," he demanded, mindlessly glaring at Dahl. Then it hit him. She was in his seat and he made to move forward and grab her.

Lockspur swiveled around, threw out his left foot, blocking him from entering any further, and warned, "Not gonna happen, amigo."

"Compadre, she's in my seat."

"It's just a seat."

Moss didn't know what he liked less, the needless struggle with squad dynamics or the cocky bullshit of a trainee. "If she wanted to fly, all she had to do was ask."

"Let it go, amigo. We have bigger issues to deal with. Like not burning up."

"Fine," Moss said in a coarse grumble. Like Dahl, the region had been stimulating his rave center since they arrived and he thought, Dammit, now she thinks her inclusion in the crew comes with rank. He knew she didnt believe that, but all saw she was enjoying her new seat just a little too much.

"Great," Moss muttered under his breath. "Now, Uncle Johns' little princess thinks...." He stopped talking mid-sentence, taking a deep breath to calm himself. He knew he was being unreasonable. Lockspur had warned them both about the region's effects.

Lockspur turned to Moss with an empathetic expression. Moss pretended not to see it. Lockspur removed an unused cleaning rag from his left cargo pocket and wiped the sweat off his bald head . His hand jittered. He tried to hide it, not wanting the others to think him weak. The hallucinations caused by the effects of the region resulted in Moss being hounded from the armory to the bridge. A half dozen of his dead comrades had taken to tormenting him.. He knew they were only leftover hallucinations of hyper-sleep, but damn if they didn't seem real on the way there. Before entering the compartment, he had to stop and check he hadn't pissed himself.

"What were you doing back there, amigo?" Lockspur asked, putting his foot down. He already knew the answer before Moss replied. Most of their previous missions consisted of Moss piloting, planning and preparing their weapons. He was a stickler for clean gear and even cleaner weapons.

Moss stood there glaring at the back of Dahl's head as if painstakingly building a scenario wherein he yanked her out of his seat and reckoned if she wanted to act like a brat, he could paddle her ass as if she was one. But more than violent fantasy, what he really wanted was for her to just get her up-start's ass out of his seat. A seat that had taken him years to earn the right to sit in. And here she comes, just walking in, sitting down and taking my post. "I don't think so," he said to himself, drilling holes in the back of her head with squinted eyes.

Lockspur cleared his throat loudly, trying to draw him out of the reverie of dream-state before the ever-building negative mindset wove its way into Moss' thoughts any deeper. He knew that under normal conditions, Moss would never act on the outside forces stroking his anger. But these weren't normal conditions, and he could see Moss was nearing the point when he would give in to darker impulses. Lockspur coughed loudly again, wanting Moss to focus on anything but the inevitable, fast approaching test of wills.

"Weapons check." Moss snapped absent-mindedly, still glaring malevolently at Dahl sitting in his seat. His somber, darkening tone suggested his displeasure with Dahl could spill over into their conversation and for Lockspur, that was OK. It showed he could still divert him from his current path. Although, now it was too late to do anything about it. Lockspur realized they should have held off the reentry for a few more days. None of them were anywhere near functioning at 100%. But, too late now, they were being drawn in by the planet's gravity.

"Let it go, amigo." Lockspur warned again. "It's just the stasis fog." He was well aware that a heated confrontation could put their mission status in jeopardy. But neither of them seemed willing to control their behaviors or even though they were both aware they were being unreasonable.

"Compadre, that's my seat." Moss said again, his thundering voice echoing farther than he had intended. Or maybe not. Maybe he wanted her to hear. To say something. To give him the right to just go the fuck off. He stared at the back of her head, imagining she had heard him and that she was smirking through the windscreen. In fact, she had heard him and she was grinning But thankfully for everyone, he didn't know that. But Lockspur did. He saw her reflection in the windscreen.

"If you need a seat so badly, amigo. Take mine." Lockspur said, trying to further defuse the slowly escalating volatility. What he really wanted to sat was, cut the shit you big baby. But he knew that would only lead to further hostilities, or possibly escalate the situation to a dangerous level. Moss' head wasn't screwed on straight. He needed more time to gain control of his thinking and the glaring look in his eyes did little to hide his inner thoughts or feelings. And come to think of it, Dahl was looking more than a little bitchy herself.

"Who's side are you on?" Moss replied, staring at Dahl fiddling with several knobs and buttons on the pilot's console. Unbeknownst to Moss, she was indeed fiddling with them just to aggravate him. Fortunately for everyone, he didn't know that either.

"Ours." Lockspur countered, losing a little of his tact and a whole shit-load of his patience. The idea of letting them duke it out crossed his mind, but then he remembered he was supposed to head off the impending power struggle, not encourage it. "No good can come from seat wars, amigo." Lockspur said, rolling his eyes at Moss.

"It's my-" Moss began.

"Christ," Lockspur blurted loudly, cutting Moss off before he could continue. "Amigo, she's barely more than a kid. And you're supposed to be the fucking adult here. You're supposed to the Commander. So, try acting like it." Lockspur added in a harsh whisper. He turned back to his duties, leaving Moss a few moments to ponder his response. When he felt Moss glaring at the back of his head and knew he was pissed at him, and said, "Let it go, amigo. We have a mission to complete." Moss looked from him to Dahl and let out an exasperated sigh. Lockspur was right about Dahl. She had turned18 days before they dropped out of FTL.

"What she is..." Moss said weakly, "is a monumental pain in the--"

"True." Lockspur said, cutting him off again ss he swiveled around, almost knocking Moss over. "And such is the arrogant folly of youth." He glared up at Moss for a quick moment, before adding, "Pity, you seem so hell bent on returning to your own youth.." He had finished no longer dancing around it. They were both being childish, and Lockspur wanted them to cease the hostilities immediately. He smirked up at Moss and added, "But you have always been a little anxious right before the tailgate drops. Aye, Amigo?"

"And you're not?" Moss countered, jabbing a finger towards the hyper-tightened harness holding Lockspur in his seat. The sidebar had finally diverted Moss' attention from the power struggle. He looked down at the heavy black canvas bag Moss dragged in and added, "It would appear we share a common dread."

"Probably why we work so well together."

"In deed, Amigo. In deed."

Prior to joining the crew, Moss had been a highly regarded intelligence officer in an elite Company Rangers outfit. But that was before they unceremoniously booted him out for physically disagreeing with several orders that led to the deaths of half the men in his command. Up to that point, Moss had been a model officer and a career minded leader. Although, his bruised and severely battered company commander would probably disagree. His Company Commander claimed Moss cared for the well-being of his men. A sentiment that made Moss wish he had finished the job.

Lockspur left cargo transport to join Dahl's uncle, Colonel Nathaniel Johns, while docked at Sol Lucia some 20 years earlier. That night he had gotten drunk and helped Johns chase a fugitive into an alleyway, only to find Lady Lilith Hemmingford instead. The details of that highly frightening encounter, as Dahl tells it, is a tale of drunken exaggeration and the dangers of excess drug use. But no one can say what happened for certain as Lockspur never spoke of the incident in great detail after that night. The surrounding rumors swirled and grew throughout the years. Lady Hemmingford was more than happy to fan the exaggerations to new heights.

An eye-squinting glare burst through the windscreen as the nose cone heated to a cornea searing orange. The light reflecting off Dahl's eyes made Lockspur remember the first time he met Lilith on Sol Lucia. The memory of what she looked like that night still scared him witless even now, almost two decades later.

"Get strapped in," Dahl ordered, peering over her shoulder at Moss. "I need help to slow our descent or we're either gonna skip off the atmosphere and break up in space or fry like steaks on a grill."

"I hate this part!" Lockspur thought aloud, swiveling back around and grabbing the console with a white knuckled death grip. And that is no small feat for a man with an olive complexion. Lockspur braced for the worst; he always braced for the worst. Dahl was a crack pilot that had taken to fucking with him on entry.

"You realize that's my seat?" Moss snapped, standing next to Dahl, waiting for her to vacate his spot so he could sit down.

"If that's true, maybe you should be in it when we arive." Dahl said, staring at the glowing nose that was minutes from burning off.

"Don't question me." Moss snapped. Then, noticing the white hot nose cone and red warning lights, he jumped into the co-pilot's seat, hastily strapping himself in. He fumbled through several calculations on a nearby console and said, "Decrease our descent vector by 18°, keep our pitch attitude at 45° and lower the flaps. That'll bleed off enough speed to cool the forward hull." Dahl did as he instructed, and as he watched her effortlessly making the course corrections, the glaring light forcing its way through the windscreen began ti dim, their flight pattern smoothed and the warning lights on the console blinked off.

A real natural in the seat, he thought. Then the evil little voice added, just not that seat. He laughed, shook his head and thought, shut up dickhead. Dahl had an intuitive style of flying, like a bird following magnetic fields. But that knowledge didn't matter in the here and now, he was fighting a storm front of raging anger and the ghosts of his own past. They all were. If any of them had been thinking right, they would have waited another day or two before attempting a landing. But, as it was, damn the torpedoes were going in now.

Dahl looked over her shoulder, studied Lockspur sitting at his engineer's station, gripping the console for dear life, and then smiled a Faustian grin. She yanked back sharply on the stick, watching his normally toasted almond complexion suddenly morph into a sickened green grimace. The kind of sweaty, hopeless grimace someone gets when speeding up out of the bottom of a roller-coaster dip on a ride they shouldn't have gotten on. Then, quite predictably, the laws of physics reached up, pulled the contents of his stomach downward as if aiming an overloaded slingshot filled with puke at the roof of his mouths. Spit built, eyes watered, his guts flip-flopped, and time slowed to a crawl as the unwanted game of who will blow first played out.

"Really," Moss warned, looking over his shoulder at his comrade's worsening facial expression. His face had gone from green to ash and then scarlet. "He's gonna blow." Moss said to Dahl.

Dahl had taken to provoking explosive reactions from Lockspur on entry. In part, because Moss and Lockspur spent hours pranking each other and, in part, because she thought their lack of inclusion meant they saw her as an outsider. She was wrong, of course. However, they had decided at the beginning of the mission that, like or dislike, had nothing to do with the current situation. It was about her lack of field experience. A lack of experience they now blamed themselves for. Partially because they never let her leave the ship, but primarily because of the brutality of what had happened to her in the past. They knew she was dying to get a little payback. And they knew it was that need for vengeance that made her dangerous to anyone around her. Especially herself. And only to a slightly lesser extent, them, as well.

The rubber band snapped, releasing the entirety of Lockspur's stomach contents upward, coating his throat with a tenacious bile that splattered against the roof of his scorching mouth. He gagged and covered his blistering lips, preventing a geyser of chunky bile from spraying the pristine console in front of him. A split second later, he leaned to the side and laid down a soggy carpet of goo that wafted through the cockpit like a cloud of mustard gas drifting through a WWI trench line. Everyone's eyes watered. Moss gagged and Dahl covered her nose in disgust.

"Every time?" she asked, as if she weren't personally responsible for the gastronomic eruption spreading across the cockpit floor.

"No," he answered, forcing down the remaining acid clogging his constricting esophagus. He fought off the urge to grab a handful and throw it at the back of her head. A boot perhaps, he thought. But how do I get it off without her noticing? The thought trailed away. Replaced by the realization, his cohorts were about to break into laughter. "Not every time," he added.

"Compadre, that's fairly disgusting." Moss said, waving the stench of stomach acid away from his nostrils as he barely stifled the grin forming on his face.

"You think." Lockspur replied, spitting a multi-colored gob of snot on the back of Dahl's seat, missing the back of her short blonde hair by an inch. It oozed down the back of her headrest.

Would have served her right, he thought, wiping his dripping chin with the back of his well-pressed sleeve. As his suddenly giddy teammates stifled their giggles, he bitched angrily beneath his breath.

"What did you eat?" Dahl asked, barely containing her own stomach contents as the stench churned in her throbbing sinuses.

Lockspur peered down at the festering carpet through a take that you little shit expression and said, "Chimichangas and a bag of sour patch candies. Tasted OK on the way down. Not so much on the way up."

"Out here?" Dahl replied, waving a hand in front of her face, trying to clear away the assault on her sinuses. "Where the hell did you find chimichangas out here?"

"Chimichangas are one thing," Moss said, "Where the shit did you get sour patch candies? They haven't made those in a 150 years."

"Lilith gets them for me. No idea where. They must cost a fortune. "

"Suck up." Moss said.

"Suck this," Lockspur blurted, and then both he and Dahl broke into hysterics. "I always try to bring a bit of home with me wherever I go." Lockspur added, thinking about the duffel bag full of snacks he hoarded in a locker out back.

"Home." Dahl repeated, then chuckled. "What do you know about Earth? You've never been to Earth." And she was right. Lockspur, like most mercs, had never been to Earth. Most mercs were off world trash or military rejects looking to earn a few easy credits just to get by. Most mercs never survived more than a few missions. But John's, Moss and Lockspur had survived hundreds of them. They were that good. She wanted to be that good.

The ebbing red glow illuminating Dahl's alabaster features gave way to an empty pale blue sky of the arid planet far below. It was over. The ship flew straight in the frigid air of the lower atmosphere. They had finally arrived 3 months, 14 days, 6 hours and 5 minutes after leaving Sol Luca.

Moss jumped out of his seat, scaring Dahl and making Lockspur laugh. He ran out of the compartment at a frantic pace that caused Dahl to lurch in her seat. Lockspur just shook his head. He knew where Moss was headed.

Moss returned a short while later, hauling two heavy black duffel bags in one arm and a load of weapons slung over his shoulder. "Crap," Lockspur said, as Moss lugged the overburdened load towards the front of the compartment. "You really are fucking paranoid."

"If by paranoid, you mean prepared." Moss replied, tossing Lockspur a bag of armor that pushed him deeper into the engineer's seat. "Then yes, I am. And thanks for noticing." Moss said, remembering of his final meeting with Johns the day before they left Sol Luca. "Johns warned me what's down there." The ominous warning warped his face into a mixture of concern and uncertainty. The worried expression have rise to an ominous dread in the others.

"Vanjo," Lockspur whispered, shoving the bag off his lap just in timevto catch the weapon hurtling towards him. The bag fell off his lap, barely missing the puke,. He fumbled comically to secure his rifle.

Moss looked at the bag sitting at the edge of the puddle with a raised brow and said, "Nice job, compadre."

"Funny. I was just about to say the same thing." Lockspur replied, kicking the bag away from the puddle.

"Doesn't count. I said it first."

"Cut the shit." Dahl said, still amped up on the leftover adrenaline of entry. She stared over the edge of the windscreen as an icy chill ran up her spine as if someone had raked her with an ice cube. She, too, knew what waited for them down there. And the inevitability that they would encounter the creatures scared her more than a little.

Lockspur's left brow slowly lifted his chiseled face into a dark scowl that drew a sympathetic snicker from Moss. Apparently, Lockspur didn't appreciate being told to cut the shit anymore than Moss did. Even he had a limit to the shit he would take from Dahl.

"Let it go, compadre" Moss teased, flashing a- how do you like it when she does it to you- smirk. "She's just a kid."

"Fog you." Lockspur said, considering the idea that he should spit at the back of her head one more time.

Dahl stared out at the sun bleached surface far beneath, thinking about the luck it took to get this far out. Riding the ghost lanes out to the forbidden planets was a dangerous proposition during the best of times. They had just completed the entire journey while in stasis chambers. She thought it was a gutsy move passing through an unregulated region used as a haven for pirates, rogue mercenary factions, clandestine Mega Corp Security teams and fleeing criminals of all varieties. None of whom came there for anything good; and none of whom you wanted to encounter while defenseless in a stasis pod.

"Where is it?" she muttered to herself, searching the desolate terrain below as if she might find what they came for simply by happenstance. Of course she didn't. The long buried answers hidden on M6-117 would not come out without a certain amount of blood-letting and toil.

Moss went back to the seat on Dahl's left, switched on the topographical scanner and hurriedly began scanning the terrain for signs of the Hunter Gratzner wreckage. They were just outside scanner range, but he figured the sooner they found what they were looking for, the sooner they could head home. "This could take a while." he warned, switching on the back-up telemetry array in order to run overlapping scans of the planet's surface. That was a trick he had learned from Johns long ago. Sure, he was in a hurry to get what they came for and leave; but he didn't want to miss anything important either and running overlapping scans meant they could search the area from a far greater distance.

Lockspur pulled up the mission brief Johns gave them at the start of the mission. It had been months since they had discussed the plan and now was as good a time as any for a quick refresher. "After Johns broke into the MegaCorp server. He accessed the Company's crash report. Luckily, he had time to clone a copy."

"What are the coordinates of where to look?" Dahl asked, maintaining their altitude. She, like her teammates, was in no hurry to reach the surface before they knew where to look. Walking aimlessly out in the open was a dangerous proposition on M6-117. Their were hungry eyes on you everywhere you went.

"These coordinates are shit. Someone redacted the latitude numbers," Lockspur answered, scrolling through the files. When he didn't find what he was searching for, he turned to Dahl with a grave look and added, "Let's hope we didn't just put ourselves through 3 months of hell for nothing."

"Let's." she agreed, trying to decipher the data files in front of her. The bright crimson readout reflected off her pale skin. "We need to locate the abandoned mining facility cited in the report. We have a full set of coordinates for that location." she banked hard left, lowered the nose and headed down towards the mining facility. "Johns said, a small group of survivors reached the facility before the eclipse." The ship dropped quickly, approaching a small mountain of jagged rocks. The facility was just on the other side. "We can start there."

"Already on it." Moss replied, trying not to lose his temper at her constant need to issue a steady stream of unwanted and unappreciated commands. He sighed and shook his head, knowing he was being petty, and that she was right. He widened his scan to include the area surrounding the mine.

"The crash site shouldn't be too far away." Dahl continued, staring out the side window at the rocky, barren terrain far below. "Accounting for shit terrain, low O2 and blinding sunlight. They couldn't have traveled more than a few kilometers before the lights went out."

Lockspur walked up between them. His sudden appearance made Dahl shift uneasily in her seat. She wished he would stop doing that. He had an odd habit of appearing out of nowhere. It reminded her of Lilith. It was his hunter gatherer heritage, she supposed. He steadied himself by holding onto the backs of their seats and leaned forward, peering out the windscreen with an ominous squint. "Aye, amigo. Do you think Johns was messing with us,? You know... about the vanjo." The sincerity in his deep voice only made Dahl feel that much more uneasy.

"Vanjo?" Dahl repeated, staring at the deepening grooves dividing Lockspur's dark brows. She knew what he meant. There were differing forms of vanjo, as Lockspur called them, littered throughout the known galaxy. And they were all lethal.

"Type 2, Bio-raptors." Moss clarified, in a foreboding tone that contorted his features even deeper than Lockspur's. The creatures looked like giant scorpions with the heads of hammerhead sharks. He had encountered them before, during a mission with the Rangers. In fact, it was the mission where his entire team had died and he ended up spending a week in the infirmary with a half dozen tubes jammed in every oraphis God gave him.

"Johns doesn't mess with anyone. The mission always comes first." Dahl blurted, coming to the defense of the man who raised her. She did that all the time. They jokingly told her it was precious.

"Sure. Sure. If you say so." Moss said, voice stretching out in a playful, sarcastic tone. She missed the playful part. Moss looked over his shoulder at Lockspur and winked as if she was being naïve. She didn't miss that. Both men laughed in unison, only making her feel more like an outsider, and more pissed off than ever.

"Aye, amigo, remember..." Lockspur began, signalling a memorable tale was on the way.

"Pegrino 3." Moss said, finishing his thoughts for him. The two men shared the unspoken memory replaying in their heads, causing Dahl's sense of being left out to grow 10 fold. "Did he actually believe he could hide on a world of farmers?"

She frowned and her soft features turned pensive. "It's best to prepare for anything." She said, staring down through the side screen.

Lockspur strained to get a look at the terrain far below, his nose almost touching the thick windscreen. "Why does it always have to be chupacabra? Why can't it be fuzzy bunnies or glittery unicorns?"

"Hey, man." Moss said, in a half-hearted tone that clearly meant he and Lockspur had encountered an assortment of bizarre creatures in the past. "Everything out here can't be cute and cuddly."

"I'd be happy with a hard shelled vegetarian. Why does everything have to have jagged teeth and eat meat?"

"Yeah," Dahl added, staring out the windscreen as if this wasn't her first mission. "It would be nice to go somewhere something wasn't trying to eat us."

"Not gonna happen." Moss replied, tilting his head in Dahl's direction. "No matter though," he continued, looking at Lockspur out of the corner of his eye. "At least we're gonna have time to see how the newbie measures up."

"Newbie," Dahl blared, face reddening. "Screw you."

"Too bad Johns had to stay on Sol Lucia?" Lockspur teased, winking at Moss as if to say, this will push her buttons. "He's going to miss a real shit show." he added, drawing out his words to an exaggerated length he knew she really wouldn't like.

"Shut it," Dahl snapped, squinting through the windscreen at something below.

"Seems like convenient timing." Moss added, raising an eyebrow at Lockspur and then shooting him a sly wink Dahl missed. He wasn't just messing with her to be an ass, but they were including her in their lighthearted teasing. It was tradition. However, the fog in her head prevented her from realizing they had included her.

"Say that to his face."

"Remind me later." Moss countered, suddenly becoming agitated by her reaction to the game. "Like... when he's here."

"Point is." Lockspur cut in, rolling his eyes at Dahl. "We're here; he's not."

"Yeah." Moss said. "He's 150 light-years from this sundried shit hole."

"And safe." Lockspur added, as Dahl's face became a deep burgundy.

"And... f you." she snapped. "When she gives an order, he follows it like everyone else."

"Kid, Johns and I have worked for Lilith since before you were in diapers." Lockspur said, looking down at the planet with an expression that encompassed their storied exploits. "And it's always been the same. She lines up the work and we get it done. Hell, now and then she comes along just for fun."

"So what?"

"I'll tell you what," he added, "This is the first time Lilith has ever told him to stay behind." He turned to Dahl with an expression of concern. A concern she could tell was genuine. "Staying behind, isn't S.O.P. Hell. Nothing about this mission is."

"No one cuts off their strongest arm right before getting in a fight for their life." Moss shook his head ominously. "Something just feels wrong with this mission."

The two men were not joking anymore. Their employer's willingness to deprive them of a seasoned team member while letting them embark on a dangerous mission with an inexperienced crew member in his place, especially one that was family, made them both worried. To them, it seemed more than just a little wrong; it seemed irresponsible; if not outright reckless and dangerous.

"She's his mother, for God' sake." Dahl stressed, grabbing Lockspur's arm. "She's family. She wouldn't put us in danger."

He looked at her hand with a raised brow that warned she was about to cross a line, and said, "She is his adoptive mother." He didn't like the sudden invasion of his personal space, and lucky for her, he had long since come out of his own fog.

"There are some who say she's the Dark Athena." Moss added, knowing it would get another rise.

"Superstitious bullshit." Dahl countered, scowling at him as if he were messing with her. "There's no such being. Besides, I have known Lilith my whole life, and she has always been perfectly wonderful, and normal as far as I can tell."

"Yeah." Moss said with a slanted grin. "Just be glad you don't have a bounty on your head. If you did, I can assure you, you'd redefine your idea of perfectly wonderful."

"And normal." Lockspur added quickly.

"Leave her alone."

"What do you think people would say if I told them about the day I met her? About what I saw?" Lockspur asked, politely removing her hand from his arm. He thought about the first time he met Lilith in an alley twenty years earlier. The night he cornered a dark-skinned man with jet black hair at gunpoint. The man had calmly led him into the empty shadows of a back alley, and when he demanded he came out, Lilith emerged instead. Tall and sleek, pale as the grave and fierce as anyone he had ever encountered before. Her look was both eerily enticing and yet... frightening. Then, as she stepped back into the shadows, he was certain she had changed again. Only that time she had changed into something massive and terrifying. When he shown his light on the spot, she was gone. Vanished without a trace.

"They'd say you're exaggerating." Dahl interjected, with furrowed brows. "There's no way Lilith can change or disappear. That's nuts."

"Why." Lockspur asked. "I've seen her black magic for myself. That bruja is no more human than the things down there are. She looks like us. She sounds like us. But she's not one of us."

"Have you said any of this to her?" Dahl said, straightening out his sleeve. "Superstitious nonsense, Carlos."

"Maybe," Moss added, the tone of his voice suggesting there may be some validity to Lockspur's story. "But you have to admit Lilith has darkside. Its like she's two different people."

"Like one minute she looks hot; and the next, she can scare the shit out of you with a single glance." Lockspur added. "And that brings me to her age. Look at her. She looks 35.

"So," Dahl said.

"She looked 35 when I met her 25 years ago." Lockspur replied.

"And I swear, she can see inside your head." Moss added, remembering she seemed to know everything about him before they met.

"And what about the way she vanishes whenever she wants?"

"Typical," Dahl warned, cutting them both off. "That's what happens when a strong woman threatens a man's frail ego. Automatically, there is something wrong with her and not with you."

"Oh, chica. There's a whole shit-load of things wrong with me. But that doesn't means I can't see oddities in others."

"And since when have you ever heard of a strong woman?" Moss said, winking at Lockspur.

"Right," Lockspur replied.

Dahl wanted to jump up and hit him until she saw them grinning like idiots and suddenly realized they were just teasing her. She felt a sense of relief. They had accepted her. She felt a pang of guilt for messing with Lockspur and how she had treated Moss when they arrived. If this guilt shit is how it feels to be on the team, I don't think I want to be on it; she thought. Then she smiled and the anger of the past few days faded.

"Over there." Moss blurted, gesturing down at an instrument cluster. "The wreckage is twenty degrees off the starboard bow." Moss tapped the console touch screen in front of him. "I put the coordinates in the nav-system."

Dahl pitched the ship hard to starboard, pushed the nose into a steep dive and said, "Hold on. I'm taking us in. She turned to Lockspur, who had started turning green, and said, "And don't puke on the console. It already stinks in here."

He looked at the noxious gob of puke hanging off the back of her headrest and thought; I bet it does.

Dahl circled the wreckage as Moss checked for signs of life on a nearby instrument cluster. When he was certain nothing was in the vicinity, Dahl set the ship down one hundred fifty meters in front of the wreckage with the tail ramp facing the crash site. She didn't lower the rear tailgate, as all three of them feared the area may not be secure.

"Suit up," Dahl instructed, walking towards the rear of the craft, donning her equipment as she went along. She halted, thinking of her recent bout of guilt, turned to Moss and added, "I mean, we should suit up, Sir."

Lockspur laughed at Moss, as if to say the girls got spirit. Then pursued her towards the rear of the ship, ensuring she didn't get too far ahead. After all, he cared for her in his own way, and, he had his orders.

A few minutes later, Dahl stood by the ramp control waiting for the others to finish gearing up. "Everyone ready?" she asked. The danger of what they were about to do filled her wide eyes with an ominous sense of foreboding.

"Do we have a choice?" Lockspur asked, flipping his weapon's selector to fire as he took a deep, restorative breath before the ramp opened.

"Not if we want to get paid." she answered, starting the ramp open sequence. "Make sure your 02 is on. This rock has a less than optimal atmosphere."

"Affirmative." Moss replied, pulling his nasal cannula down and pushing it inside his nostrils. The high 02 levels made him feel momentarily jittery. A side effect, he attributed to getting too much of a good thing. The feeling would lessen outside. So too, would the good thing.

"Come on." Dahl said, squinting as light pierced the lowering ramp.