Sara was tired, hungry, and cranky. Two days ago, Nick's first time at the bar had been unusually tranquil for her normal bar nights because of her silent vigil of the sleep-deprived Nick. The softer conversation they shared before he had passed out from exhaustion had felt right, maybe not fun, but what she had needed with him ever since he showed up.

  She had made plans for another night at the Witches Hat before she received notice of her immediate sleep shift change. The usual three to five days' advanced notice was absent, like many small quality-of-life normalcies lately. Sara blamed it on Grimoire’s mission to search the Rift, which was causing her and others no end of headaches.

  She hadn't wanted to bail after Dribble got him to agree for a second night. She got to dance a little, talk with Nick about new games they had played or wanted to play, and shared an alcoholic drink for the first time together. She smiled at the memory of how Dribble pointed that out to them after they had started their second round of drinks. It was worth it, but she had gotten to bed for the last time on her old sleep shift, instead of sleeping early.

  Yesterday was a mistake. She should have gone to bed early to adjust her sleep. To top it all off, this damn drill had to happen today. At least she was familiar with the bridge, although the one person she knew on first watch was Selena, but she was absent. In her place was Sara, grudgingly re-familiarizing herself with the operations station, cursing her useless cross-training certificate that probably landed her the extra schedule shift changes. One would expect a job change a few days to a week after a sleep shift change. This was just Sara covering.

  Sara stole another glance at the Sensors Station, involuntarily coveting the new crew woman's place in her normal seat. The black haired woman didn’t seem that impressive, a bit slow and jumpy for a posting with the A team of bridge watches. Jean, the XO, caught Sara’s attention with a slight turn of her head. Sara could feel the XO's gaze drilling into her and bent back to her own task at operations before Jean decided she needed a rebuke.

  The drill had been ongoing for a few minutes, and Sara had a view of most of the sixteen Marines assaulting the hangar, as well as interior cameras. The operation stations had dozens of screens on the long console. Each screen had an analog dial to switch between a queue of inputs or to feed audio and other inputs to her headset, as well as larger screens that hung down from the ceiling. A keyboard and more versatile analog controls were available to the right of her, towards the back of the bridge, and in the command chairs. If she were to deploy her crash seat, she would still have a clear view of the helm, sensors, and tertiary stations that were two feet lower than where Sara stood from her elevated position. A flat ramp connected the lowered deck to the command area, where Captain Abrams and two other command chairs rested, and Jean stood behind her chair with access to her armrest controls. Other than a myriad of screens she hadn't seen active outside of drills like today, one Marine guard stood watch by the door opposite the wall of operations and directly behind the sensor station.

  On Sara’s screens, nothing interesting was happening. The majority of activity was displayed to the left of the helm on the main screen, clearly visible to all except Micky, who was seated in the far left forward corner of the bridge. The man seemed unperturbed as he focused on his dull station with rapt attention, even though there was nothing to do. It wasn't fair that the Marines had rushed the hangar with that early knowledge, but that was why it was standard practice for the opposing force, or opfor, to hide information. It didnt matter if cheating like that defeated a major purpose of drills as a training exercise. Many ships like Grimoire treated these drills too much like a game or competition. Even with that in mind, Nick and the team he had formed from Grimoire’s crew had done the opposite of what was expected by making public, more like advertising, the list of four Marines who were going to be opfor. Surely that prior knowledge had been exploited days ago. What was Nick thinking?

  On top of all that, even with Sara’s access to the camera feeds and her coordination with the teams down in CIC, she couldn’t find anything aboard ship that indicated activities of Opfor.

  “The access hatch was manually opened, and they tampered with the electronics.” A marine's report played through the bridge's main speakers.

  “They have to be space walking on the hull or in the crawl spaces of the ship.” The marine officer relayed over the platoon channel.

  “There's no connecting tunnel big enough to leave the hangar deck except through a few hallway hatchets the marines have covered.” Sara volunteered, and a slight nod of approval from Jean made the outburst worthwhile. Captain Abrams nodded, his face etched with concentration as he soaked in the information like a dry stone would water. Sara repressed the urge to advise the black haired sensor operator on ways to find out where they were, but Captain Abrams beat her to it, and she admonished herself for nearly breaking protocol. Her job was operations, not anyone else's station. She listened to the channels with CIC or damage control. A report came in at the same time as they saw a screen showing something odd. A tall cylindrical cleaning bot was rolling down the hall, coming from one of the hangar entrances. Its numerous spindly arms had separate functions that never should have been deployed simultaneously.

  It stopped at a maintenance panel and popped off the covering, a function it wasn't supposed to do. She typed commands for a bridge monitor to receive new input, and bumped the scroll wheel up until it transferred her small view of the bot for all to see.

  “Captain, a cleaning bot is tampering with…” Sara was drowned out by the audio of the bot banging on the wall around the exposed hatch. The marines still in the main hangar called out a second cylindrical bot approaching the center of the grouping. This one had nothing odd other than its pathing. It looked like a tall trash can with a purpose of its own, its arm still withdrawn. It stopped simultaneously as the one in the hallway ceased its racket. All cameras and feeds from Marines around it turned to static. The lonely cleaning bot deployed four of its arms to hold up paper with the words ‘those not wearing a mask are now dead from nerve gas attack, elicited curses, and all but two out of the eleven marines lay down and played dead.

  Anything else Sara might have gleaned was cut off by Sensors reporting heat spikes throughout the ship. The black haired woman reported in a panic that one of the port heatsinks no longer functioned, and the other port radiator had suited figures on the hull near it. Everything went quiet when the elevator chimed down the hall past the ready room. The sound of rushed run, the low thwap thwap of the simunition fired from the guards' rifle punctuated the rapid advance of whoever was rushing the hallway. Sara could hear the ready room door open, simunition bullets ringing off the hallway walls. One last ring of boots on deck and clang off of a wall, then the guard fell under a distinctly Nick-shaped figure, his teeth bared in disgust as he pulled the marine's leg-holstered sidearm.

  “Bang, Bang,” Nick said in a drilled tone projected so the whole room could hear him. With him like that, even Sara couldn't help but see flight defender Canine instead of her childhood friend. His eyes met hers, cold and calculative as he stood with the pistol, the rifle in his off hand. A flare of disappointment mixed with bitterness danced in his eyes. He fired the rifle between the captain's chair and her station, the shock drilled a cold panic that froze Sara's feet to the deck. One by one, he pointed the pistol at everyone on the bridge.

  “Bang, bang, bang, bang.” He pointed it at her last, an overwhelming fear in his eyes crystal clear to her, even through her adrenaline dump of terror. “You’re dead, you are all dead!”

  2 hours later, starboard habitat Gym, Sara

  The moments after the initial shock of Nick's storming the bridge invaded Sara’s exercise-induced mental fog again. The harshness of Nick's words cut shallow compared to the deep cuts of bone-chilling criticism. She didnt know if anyone else could see through the way he hid himself in the rigid stance that had been drilled into him the first few months after his tenth birthday, before she had moved to HFS Sardonyx after him. He had been absolutely teaming with disgust and fear, but not the anger and disappointment she expected. The drill meant something more to him than just a simple wake-up call. There was no doubt the next drill would be taken seriously, and if she found herself behind the sensor stations, she wouldn’t make the same mistakes that they did. Mistakes she had been promised in no uncertain terms would be listed in detail soon enough. On her way to the Gym, Sara had caught a glimpse of Nick down a hallway. The way Nick had paced back and forth like a wolf expecting a bear about to raid its den only served to stir her confusion with her indignation further.

  Sara still fumed in between exercises, the indignation after Nick's lecture on the bridge. It had been hours since Nick realized she had been staring at his nearly failed attempt to regulate his emotions. He had stocked off with that same air of anxious fear he had on the bridge. Now nothing should matter except her body, music, and the endorphins that rioted through her systems as she pushed herself. After her extra set of situps, she fumbled for her water bottle, rolling away from her over-exerted body. Stupid Canine, she thought, not caring that she was angry enough to use that disgusting HDF callsign name of his. Someone handed the bottle back to her, salty sweat blurring her vision. The cool, icy water felt like a rejuvenating rain that washed a bit of her spite from her. She almost choked on a mouthful of water when she looked at the helpful figure

  “Dribble, we need to talk.” Nick ‘Canine’ Jerik called up to the martial arts ring. The padded room was open on one side. The ceiling, back, and sides were an identical square padded mat with one guard rail on the open end. A 6th squared circle would go there when the ship was experiencing prolonged zero gravity to make a zero gravity martial arts ring. Sara tried to get up, but her body felt too much like jello for her to stand.

  “Dribble, I need to talk to you outside,” Nick repeated louder.

  Some of the righteous fury he had earlier sounded only half as bad as before.

  “Kind of busy here, Canine,” Dribble said, trying to regain the advantage he had lost by Nick's initial distraction.

  “No!” Nick said as he jumped up on the mat, his shoes falling behind him. “You misunderstood. I was offering a better choice of where we were going to talk, not when.”

  Dribble and his sparring partner separated, the latter throwing their arms up in the air before they angrily took off their headgear and gloves and left them on the mat for someone else to put away.

  “Canine, buddy, whatever it is, not in front of everyone, you're not exactly the most popular guy on the ship right now,” Dribble said, spreading his arms, placating. Sara looked around the room and saw that she wasn't the only one watching with veiled intrigue or shaking their heads at the embarrassing behavior.

  “I stopped being everybody's buddy over a year ago. It's not my job, but I do have orders to be here to do my job. Your job was to stand outside the bridge elevator and guard it, but noooo, you weren't there today! Five points of failure. Five points of failure, three of which I could have understood. I intended to walk up, be captured, and observe the bridge for the rest of the day’s drills. I was very clearly listed as a combatant for opfor today. Somebody should have picked me up, at least you, at the elevator.” Nick was yelling outright at Dribble now, the wide heat of his anger narrowing to a blinding white focus on his fellow flight defender and long-time friend. More worrying, however, was that Nick had picked up the gloves and donned the helmet.

  “Canine, I already got an earful from flight leader Cable–” Dribble adjusted his stance but kept his arms down, not committing to a sparring match with Nick.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Good, because if I have to tell him, then I would add a lot more weight that would make his life hell.” Nick's interruption at least seemed less fired up, his tone approaching something more even.

  “What are we doing here, man?” Dribble asked.

  Sara had made her way to her feet, judging how she could wobble over to the ring. She almost missed reading Nick's lips. ‘You’re one of the few I can be real with,’ Nick said to Dribble. Sara was probably the only one privy to the exchange unless there was someone else in the Gym who was proficient at reading lips. Sara took a step towards the boys after seeing Dribble nod with some unspoken bravado of understanding before raising his gloves, reciprocating Nick's sparring challenge.

  Consensual as the first round was, there was no consent to Dribble’s opening right hook being used as a lever to throw him to the mat. Nick did not attempt to pin, instead waiting for Dribble to get back to his feet. Sara slowed her pace towards them, some relief that they weren't going all out like when they were kids.

  “That's new,” Dribble said, back on his feet. Nick dashed back into Dribble's space while dodging a counterpunch. The boys kept at it. Dribble was still standing but unable to land a solid punch on Nick, who seemed to be toying with Dribble. making no strikes of his own, opting instead to counter, throw, or maneuver Dribble's momentum around him like a yo-yo. Dribble was right, that was new. Nick must have picked up that different fighting style after he left the academy.

  “Where were you during the drill?” Nick asked, making his first jab of the match.

  Sara couldn’t tell what Dribble said with his gloves guarding his chin, but Nick’s reaction told her enough to fill in the gaps. Stepping in with his leading knee between Dribble's legs, Nick suffered the painful-looking strikes Dribble dished out as if they were a soft gust of air. Picking Dribble's leg up and already kicking the last standing leg, Nick completed the sweeping single. Dribble gasped, hitting the mat hard enough for Sara to hear the breath escaping Dribble's lungs. Following Dribble down to straddle his chest, Nick held him down. Then grabbed Dribble’s face, pushing his chin up so his head was touching the mat, looking straight at Sara.

  “You were getting Ice cream! If that drill was real, then I killed every single person on that bridge! Look, look at her. I killed Sara because you weren’t where you were supposed to be. Even if I had manhandled you in the hallway, you could have told them to freeze the elevator. Look at her! Imagine, as I can, their dead, bloated faces, vacant eyes, and–” Nick’s yelling almost felt like he was growling, still holding Dribble's face, making him stare at her, but never once taking his own gaze off of Dribble. Even so, Dribble found a way out of the pen by kicking Nick off.

  Sara shook her head. As angry as Nick's words were, the temperature between the two was cooling. She wasn't sure if this was for their benefit or just Nick's. Deciding to let the boys fight it out and get it out of their system, she went to change instead.

  30 minutes later, Starboard habitat Sara’s room. Sara

  The conflict between friends that technically started over ice cream ended in ice packs. Sara found herself less frustrated with the boys and more frustrated with her odd sense of deja vu. Thankfully, the two idiots had long ago learned how to become self-reliant in fixing their own scrapes and bruises. The only reason the trio had migrated to her room was for a normal social hangout after the boys' sparring match. Hence, the nostalgic smile that had her shaking her head at the men reclining on her couch.

  Sara sat comfortably in the single comfy chair flanking the couch and the TV console. Nick was saying something about hitting like a truck, and Dribble was responding with something about it being all in the hips. Listening more to their voices as comforting background noise, she put her attention into the warm cup of Citron tea. Dribble’s comm beeping broke her contentment.

  “Well, you don't have to talk to Cable or have any more intense conversations. I got to go see to my own ass chewing.” Dribble said, standing to leave.

  “Don't tell him I kicked your ass over it. I don't want him to go easy on you.” Nick grinned. The bruise on his right jaw made him wince at the merry exertion. Somehow, out of all the manhandling, Dribble’s face remained unmarred.

  And then there were two. Nick already resumed his reclining position with his feet up on the low table.

  “Men,” she scoffed playfully.

  “Laaadies!” Nick grinned on cue as if the other two smukateers were right there with them. The old chorus made her smile, but Nick's grin drooped into a painful frown. He opened his eyes and mournfully stared at the ceiling. As quietly as she could, she put her cup down and glided to sit next to him on the couch. Without touch, they shared each other's presence and lingered in the mix of mirth and sorrow.

  “I miss him,” Nick said after a while. She nodded, originally she thought she had handled her grief with Brian's death, or Pyre as the boys called him. But Nick's arrival had ripped that grief wide open, the questions that had never been answered around his death. Like a wound with salt sprinkled into it, clues hinted and mystery teased in front of her naturally inquisitive mind. Nick squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, but didn’t remember which one of them reached out first, and only now noticed that they had pressed together at the shoulders for a while now. She squeezed him back, letting the moment eke out every last drop of mourning she could squeeze for them. Time crept comfortably in the shadow of his warmth.

  Sara had fallen into a less-than-lucid, comfortable state. The sound of someone doing dishes behind her in the absence of the warm presence she had been enjoying was the first thing she noticed. Her teacup, a plate, and her shoes were gone. She chuckled, and she was familiar with the compulsive habit that technically she and a lot of others should be in practice of. Her silly little friend had tidied up her room when she dozed off. She told herself she had just fallen into a relaxed trance. In her mind, there was no way she had fallen asleep on her couch. She leaned forward and booted up her computer while the goofball cleaned.

  “You want to play Stardew Valley or something?” Sara asked. A contemplative pause in the commotion behind her resumed after a short grunt. Not a yes or no. She shrugged.

  “Got anything more realistic? Like I like the idea of farming on a large plot of land, but it feels too fantastical.” Nick said. He always did have gripes with down-to-earth games.

  “Oh, what else would you want to play?” She asked.

  “Maybe we can watch something. Oh, did you ever get a hold of Ace Combat Zero?”

  “Yes, but that's single player. It's been years since we played something together.”

  “Hmm.” Nick surprised her by leaning over the couch and spinning her mouse wheel. Her library of games on the hard drive she had plugged in scrolled by. Even when she slapped his hand, he didn’t flinch from his searching gaze. “Hey, I see Armored Core 6. Oh, we could try Army of Two again. Is that Animal Crossing a work in progress, or did someone actually break that old Nintendo company's anti-piracy measures?” He would have said more, but Sara looped her arm under and over her outstretched arm, grabbed the back of his neck, and pulled him forward. He barely resisted her playful roughhousing, letting her roll him forward. His legs made a loud smack as most of his momentum carried them up and over. His head rested on the seat cushion to stare at the ceiling.

  “Stardew Valley it is then, and be careful with my table.” She put a controller on his chest.

  “Will you be careful with me!” He grinned up at her, already repositioning himself to sit properly next to her. Sara shook her head mirthfully. She knew from Dribble and his recent fight that he could probably have resisted, if not stopped her play at yanking him. She lightly tapped his arm with an open hand, and he leaned exaggeratedly away as if she had shoved much harder.

  “Can I try Armored Core 6 later?” He asked, she shrugged, too focused on her save file. She wasn't sure what she was doing the last time she played. Only the years and seasons showed on the load menu. She sorted through her inventory and the chests inside her game home to jog her memory.

  “Whoa, that's a fuck ton of vegetables, what are these, parsnips?” Nick said, A glance at the lower screen, she could see his blue overall-wearing character sprite holding a parsnip every time he harvested from a massive field. Now she remembered what she had been doing on this save file. “I used this character instead of Dribz, in case Dribble ever wanted to play on this again. You think they would mind? I could make a fourth cabin and start a new character if–”

  “No, it's fine, fuck him.” Sara cut the question short, focusing on harvesting all the parsnips with Nick's help. “Put anything you harvest in the blue chest, and don't sell anything. It's a shared wallet, so don't buy anything without planning with me.” She said, but didn't miss his eyebrow raised and how he leaned back into the sofa after her harsh swear, but before her micromanaged instructions. Nick's chin was already raised at her reaction to his pick of guest profile, and he politely dropped it into a nod of acknowledgment at how she wanted to run her farm.

  It was halfway through the game day, about ten minutes for Sara and Nick, when she finished sorting the massive harvest that usually took three players to water and manage in a reasonable time.

  “Here, can you plant these?” Sara asked. Physically gestured at her screen, where she highlighted tulip flower seeds in an orange chest in the game.

  “Are there enough days left in the season for them to grow?” he asked.

  “Fuck!” He was right.

  “I'm not going to be yelled at by whoever made this profile if I upgrade their tools or something?” Nick asked, she didn't miss his side-eye peek at her from his seat next to her. Was he prying or just curious? It didn’t matter. She didn't care anyway.

  “My ex-boyfriend left the ship before you showed up. He broke up with me about two months ago because he didn’t want to do long distance, and frankly, neither did I if it was with him. Still pissed me off when the asshole hooked up with another girl in my maintenance crew days after we officially broke up.” Sara said in a flat, uncaring tone

  “Damn, I’m sorry?” Nick's tone was neutral, unsure how to respond.

  “I’m not, he was more boring in conversation after we dated for a few weeks, and he stopped trying in bed after a while, so we were basically glorified sex maniacs for each other,” Sara said. After all these years, it still felt comfortable talking about these kinds of things with Nick. The only uncomfortable thing was the thought of how overdue she was for good sex, or any sex. She looked at her best friend to gauge his reaction to her sleazy ex-boyfriend, not seeing any of the hostility he sometimes had when he felt someone had wronged her. She wondered if there were still good reasons that would make him protective and angry on her behalf, like he did when they were kids. He simply nodded his head, understanding that the original user for the game's guest profile was old news.

  “I’m going to try fishing,” Nick said, indicating their Stardew Valley game. Their game sprites had progressed to a new day, and it was raining in-game.

  “If you're going to play the worst mini game in the game, then take my fishing rod, it's better than yours.” She pointed to her screen showing where she left it in the orange chest. He nodded in understanding. Then an old worry remembered itself in her mind. “Nick, how about you? Any luck finding a company since I saw you last?” Sara asked, the old worry that he might be alone without a friend or a nice girl hadn't plagued her ever since she could physically share the same space again. For years, she worried about him and Pyre or Brian, as she preferred to call him. Whenever she messaged them or thought of either of them, Brian had always kept her apprised of his social life, but Nick never shared about his relationships to put her worries at ease. She supposed asking now was stupid. Too late.

  “I had some short ones. I never stayed in one place for long enough, and when I did, the passengers and crew were too fluid for anything long-lasting. A few could have been nice, I guess, but we weren't good for anything more than fuck buddies. I was never good for anything more…” Nick stopped himself, whether because he thought he said too much or because he was caught off guard by the fishing mini game. He tapped the action button rhythmically, changing his tempo to reel in the fish. Sara covered her mouth so as not to laugh at how he stuck out his tongue in concentration. Any concern for the bitter loneliness she saw in him vanished as he reeled in a slippery ocean eel.

  “You're pretty good at that.”

  “I always liked fishing in this, even if it is the stupidest mini game.” He winked at her.

  “Donate that to the town's community center, you can only catch that during rainstorms, and I'm positive I haven't ever caught that thing on any of my worlds.” She said, noticing not for the first time the errant whiff of rain, akin to her favorite dreary days on Ring World Gamma, where she went to college.

  “Okie-dokie, it's donated. Oh, cutscene. Not now.” Nick huffed. As he waited for control of his character to return, Sara found herself distracted by his grumpy face. There was no such thing, at least with her gaming setup, as smells accompanying the game. When she pondered it, she recalled the other times she had noticed the pleasant and unusual smell. Rain, why did Nick's dried, sweaty stench smell like nostalgic windy rain? She flinched when he turned towards her suddenly.

  “Go to sleep,” he smiled.

  “What, huh? I’m nowhere near tired, and I was just resting my eyes earlier!” She replied defensively. Nick's smile only widened to a bemused grin, his pointy canine teeth poking his happy lips into that mischievous smile she hadn't seen since they were young.

  “I meant in Stardew Valley.” He said. Somehow his toothy grin felt more exciting and cozy, far more than she remembered. She blushed, embarrassed at spacing out. She hurried her character to bed. The next game day was sunny, with no rain for the rest of their play session. And yet the scent of rain still lingered between the childhood friends. When she fell asleep, she trusted he would save their progress for the day, among other things. She never had to ask herself the obvious questions when leaving herself vulnerable to Nick, not like other men. In her dreams, she dreamt of tall grey clouds blanketing the horizon in a way that always made her excited at the prospect of a cozy rainy day.