Chapter 22 - Loyalties That Seemed Certain

The Squad Leader felt his jaw clench. He suspected it was a combination of Vanguard Operation's need to maintain order and their desire to keep secrets. Most of the civilians in the green-zone didn't even know what people like them did. Even most of the inhabitants from their world hadn't a clue about the Confluence at all.

"I don't know. I'm choosing to think there is a simpler reason for it. The simplest reason is so often the correct one. The other is that they want to study her."

Naia took a step closer. Her fatigue forgotten and a hint of anger in her voice.

"Evander. If they are hiding her, they must have a better reason than that. I know she was only just transferred here, but-"

"You're right. I don't know. That's why I've been... distracted."

The red haired man saw the woman's mouth snap closed. She was frustrated that he hadn't told her sooner. That he hadn't bothered to visit and tell her. That he'd chosen to keep this to himself for days. She shifted her gaze to the side, but remained silent.

He sighed and continued. This conversation was *supposed* to be easier than apologizing.

"I've tried looking into ways to secure an answer. But I have nothing. No information on the guards, no idea who was behind the falsification, no evidence. I've reached the limits of my capabilities."

She could hear a kind of frustration in his voice that was unusual. The man was usually so cool and composed. She wondered if this was the real reason he was talking to her about it.

He'd said he was distracted and he'd... sort of apologized before about the result of his mission oriented decision, hadn't he? Some of her resentment about his failing to visit fled her heart. Naia felt a need to console him somehow, even though she was still concerned herself.

"Evander. I understand why you kept this to yourself. But... we can't do anything about it right now. Theia's still alive, wherever she is. We... should believe that much."

He looked up into her now even more tired eyes and nodded. While the problem hadn't been solved, there was still a metaphorical weight that felt lifted from his shoulders. It was only one of a few, but the mantle of his leadership became lighter for it - and his professional side was ultimately more important to him.

"You're right. We can't do anything about it right now. We can only focus on what we are able to do."

The black haired woman smiled tightly. She could tell her words helped him... but his had not made her an ounce lighter. Quite the opposite. It made her shoulders droop, being faced with how little she could do in her state.

"I'm going to need more rest to do that, Ev."

Her informal address out here took him a little off guard, but he recovered quickly. It was a relief to be speaking to each other again without as much tension between them.

"I'll leave you to that, Navigator."

Before he could turn away, the woman took another step towards him. Her hand lightly brushed his arm.

"Evander... I really do hope she's okay. But you should stop blaming yourself. What happened wasn't... a single person's fault. It was a series of things, right? You can calculate a lot, but not everything. No matter what word they use to describe your power."

She kept her attempt to ease his thoughts simple. She was glad to be helping him, even if she felt the sting of envy. Even if she wondered that if it had been her that disappeared, would he have cared so much? She hoped it was true. Her disgust at this kind of feeling was furthered by her own sense of guilt.

Naia forced herself to give another slight smile as she turned away. She leaned her back against the pillar and closed her eyes again. She thought about the moments underneath that creature.

While she could do nothing but try and defend. After the blonde removed her gauntlet, she'd seen something that she hadn't informed Commander Orfea of. It was something she couldn't explain...

Additional cerulean silhouettes of the woman had appeared *again* overlapping with her, but all slightly different. One of them stared right toward her... and then its hand had somehow pushed her away. She thought. She saw the palm reach out - and then she was flying like something had unhinged her barrier from the space around it.

It was disorienting when it happened... and the immediate aftermath took all of her focus. But she was pretty sure that it meant... that Theia had saved her? Because she wasn't sure she could have held back that chaos from where she had been. It would have devoured her before she had a chance to resist.

So to hear that her intense return attempt at saving her *might* have ended with the woman being turned into an object of study had… angered her. So much that it actually came out in her voice. Her advice to him about the number of people at fault had really been to herself…

But Evander didn't notice it. He couldn't have. And he was already focused on his visor and the information coming from his terminal.

As Naia drifted into an uneasy rest due to the discordant sounds present in the Dead Zone, Poros phased through another of the crystalline storage formations containing the valuable resource. The Shift Walker's environmental suit hummed softly while he worked. The movement-assist features compensated constantly for the strange eddies of push-and-pull in this pocket of semi-stable space.

He approached a particularly vibrant concentration of Dynamis Plasma, its swirling energies casting an eerie glow through the translucent containment field. Poros activated the extraction module on the back of his suit.

A slender proboscis extended from over his shoulder and pierced the volatile field. It began to siphon the valuable fluid into the container specially designed to be easier to take out of reality with him. It was important that he move between each of the more dangerous retrievals quickly while the others worked.

A containment failure wouldn't do anyone any favors, except maybe the ghosts of the soldiers from the other universe.