Gahn found himself alarmed that he has since been reported missing, likely dead, to his family for the past several months now, since their transit.

  This simple fact had somehow managed to elude him in the weeks since their arrival and stay on World Pliua. He had found himself to be so preoccupied with the affairs and worries of looking after his remaining troops, laying low, and the burning difference he felt with his old friend, Vertan. In fact, he felt himself growing sick of the other man.

  Truthfully to him, he had sent messages to his family not all that long ago. They were all in all independent enough for themselves; his wife worked elsewhere in the system, and all his children are working towards higher education in various prestigious institutions. Everyone was busy with their own time away from each other, so it was not much of a huge deal should anyone go busy for a couple days.

  However, in between the busy stress, he had somehow completely forgotten that it was in fact not just a few weeks ago. Months had already passed in between that period in their superliminal transit, the damaged and aging carrier ship slightly displacing them in the flow of time, in spite of its fullest efforts.

  And so, it was today in which he finally looked himself up, to find that he has been reported missing for several months. His wife had released a statement a while back, back home in Ulminh.

  He desperately wanted to send any message, anything, to signal to his wife and family that he was still out there, any bit of hope since his prolonged absence. He felt deeply irresponsible as a man and a father for this kind of short-sightedness, even if much of it was out of his control to begin with. Even aside from the fact that he was in charge of keeping a lot of things together, this, he could nonetheless trust his wife to handle; but there is nothing to do with the emotional distress this might have since caused.

  But, with a massive amount of restraint, he kept himself from doing so. For now.

  Gahn hated every bit of what he was doing, what he had to do. He recognized the legitimacy of the danger, yet this of course doesn’t stop him from wanting to act otherwise. He witnessed the same things Vertan and everyone else did on World Ritus. He knows that sending out any message as such could potentially have his signal traced back to him, sending people to their hidden location. For now, that risk is too great.

  But nothing about their current circumstances sat right with him. It somehow felt wrong. Gahn is a law-abiding man, an upstanding citizen and figure of authority. Vertan on the other hand is someone willing to bend the rules quite a bit to get what he wants. It’s not lawful, and it’s not moral! How is society supposed to function if everyone thought and behaved as such? Yet here they are, hiding away and laying low as though they are fugitives on the run. It felt incriminating, and highly undignifying.

  Hell, their position was secured through bribery! Gahn had yet to express to Vertan how much that bothered him, something that Vertan was able to do almost immediately. Even if Gahn believed the manager should have managed his finances better, he couldn’t believe Vertan would take advantage of another person’s vulnerability like that to get something done. Where is his morality?

  Could this entire fiasco have been avoided in the first place? Gahn thought back to when they first left Ulminh on that voyage. There had been nothing but almost nonstop incidents since. The unmarked men during their stay in Ilunia, the terrorists in Qiaou, even the protests back home in Ulminh only turned out the way they did because of Vertan and Lym’s presence.

  Maybe it would all have been easier had Gahn simply turned Lym over to Coalition authorities, and released Vertan afterwards.

  Suddenly, Gahn was angry at himself over this thought, and went for another sip of beer. Finding it to be empty, in a moment of fury, he smashes it on the floor.

  Stupid. Now I have to clean this up myself.

  Gahn looked up and around his room, a far cry from his spacious quarters on his flagship. Indeed, he was still alone in here, and nobody saw his outburst.

  But, he couldn’t bring himself to sweep up the mess just yet, and instead sat at the edge of his bed, the shards of glass, slightly sticky in some parts with residue, still strewn across the hard floor.

  Why didn’t he do all of that in the first place, then? He could have avoided all the trouble of this entire voyage. He would still be home in Ulminh right now, attending to much more tolerable matters.

  Would that have worked out?

  Gahn tries to reason and make sense of everything about Vertan and what he’s been saying, but they ultimately fail to convince him. He had always thought Tilko to be a little bit out there with some of his beliefs, but chalked it up to certain differences and perhaps his more advanced age. But Tilko couldn’t hold a match up to Vertan.

  To Gahn, it was nearly delusional to conspiracy. He doesn’t know how Vertan manages to say it all with a straight face. People have worked very hard to set up and maintain the social order, and it seemed insulting the way Vertan talked about the “system” sometimes. Law, order, and peace must be maintained, lest everything descend back into barbarism like the times of the Cataclysms. Gahn knew to be grateful for what he was given, while Vertan hated his vast wealth.

  Or, perhaps that could be wrong.

  Maybe Vertan does know all of this already, but somehow, he still sees the system as worth dismantling anyways.

  That then, would make him a very dangerous person. Hell, who is Gahn kidding. Vertan Zviedal is a very dangerous individual. Even this widespread and well known fact somehow managed to elude him. Having him by his side and knowing him personally since childhood had blinded him from this objective reality.

  The man comes out as the only ever recorded survivor of an Abomination in the Expeditions, a more potent one that nearly destroyed the most armed fortress-world the Coalition had. And then not only did he somehow spend months with what is widely believed to be a hyper-powered anomalous demon, Gahn saw Vertan demonstrate for himself live combat skills before formulating a plan that destroyed yet another heavily defended Coalition fortress-world.

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  And now, Gahn has to deal with him. Are there any other motives underneath? Perhaps, not even. But he knows that the man got himself into more trouble than what it’s worth; even as a child, Vertan attracted a lot of issues given how uncompromising he could be.

  So the question remains. Would that have worked out? A man as dangerous as that surely would have aimed to achieve his motives eventually. Perhaps it would only have been a matter of time, then. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter so much, even if things had gone differently and Gahn simply handed Lym over to authorities and released Vertan.

  Would that have made any difference? Either way, somebody else would have had to deal with this, it just so happened that this time, Gahn had to.

  But who cares, right? As long as somebody else got it. As long as it didn’t have to be Gahn.

  The statement was a little hollow, all in all.

  That doesn’t sound like the kind of thinking a responsible man like him would have.

  *****

  It was a few days later that Gahn found himself in a better state when he once again sat down with Vertan.

  “Are you doing alright, Gahn?” Vertan asks. “I haven’t seen you in a few days, but I didn’t know whether it would bother you or not if I had checked in sooner.”

  “I’m fine, really,” said Gahn. He eyes the cigarette from Vertan’s mouth. “Mind if I have one?”

  “Hm?” started Vertan. “I thought you don’t smoke. You sure you’re alright?”

  “Just give it.”

  “...Alright.”

  Reaching over to hand Gahn a cigarette, Vertan lights it for him, and after an initial cough, Gahn settles in and puffs through it. Vertan looked on with a slight expression of concern, his eyebrow a smidge raised.

  “What about you?” Gahn asks. “How have you been?”

  “Lym and I have been doing alright, though we’ve mostly just kept to ourselves.”

  “I was asking about you.”

  “Oh. I mean, yeah. I’ve been doing fine as well.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Anything new for you?”

  “Went downtown the other day with Lym, I think we’re going to stay out of it for now unless it’s necessary.”

  “How come? What happened?”

  “Been nonstop protests lately. It actually got a little dangerous, there was a lot of urban violence going on.”

  “Really? I don’t remember hearing much of that back when we stopped in Ilunia. And that was a much more populated planet, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s been a few months back here. Learned from some locals that a lot has happened in between. Everybody knows now and is very unhappy.”

  Gahn takes another drag on his cigarette.

  “Yeah,” he eventually says. “I’m unhappy too.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” says Vertan.

  “How are you okay with all of this?” Gahn asks. “To be real, here. You don’t seem as bothered about it as I am.”

  “What?” says Vertan. “What makes you think I’m ‘okay’ with anything?”

  “It’s just, I don’t know how you do it. Maybe we’re different and that’s how it’s always been. How can you look at everything going on with a straight face? Society around us has been unraveling since this whole thing—”

  “Gahn, no. It’s been decaying since long before either of us were born. It’s been unraveling since the beginning. Maybe it’s only noticeable to you now.”

  “Here we go with that again—”

  “Alright, I won’t talk if it’ll go like that.”

  “You know what, let’s say you do believe that all of this is inevitable. That this has been a long time coming. So what do you think is going to happen after that? What’s your plan? What are you going to do about it?”

  “I can’t give you a real answer, there’s too many things that could happen. All of them will suck either way. So right now, I’m just focusing on what we can do, which is getting Lym home.”

  “And you think that would make things better?”

  “You want to try your luck negotiating with those guys again? We got what we came for. At the very least, giving Lym’s people knowledge of what’s been going on out here could help end the war for good. I won’t say that it wouldn’t be hard-fought, but things would stand a better chance of giving way to more desirable outcomes than if things continued as they are.”

  “And let’s say it’s not inevitable, and we’re capable of fixing things enough here back home. You’d be bringing the conflict straight to our doorstep and for what reason? What if you’re wrong?”

  “And what if I’m right?”

  “If we can’t see each other eye to eye, then let’s just agree to disagree.”

  “You can say that, but you’ll have to see it for yourself eventually. Go downtown right now. I bet you’re going to see both my and Lym’s wanted posters up while they’re parading Lym’s image around as a symbol.”

  “I have not seen that anywhere on the news.”

  “And why would they show that to you? Why would I make that up?”

  For a second, Gahn wanted to keep arguing his point, but instead, he took another drag on his cigarette. He was too annoyed to continue.

  “You know what, fine,” said Vertan. “What’s the alternative to getting Lym home? You already see how powerful she is and now some people have her as their messiah. Do you want her to keep running around at large?”

  “Obviously not,” snaps Gahn. “The alternative is we get it off our hands and over with, and have her turned in.”

  “I can’t take you seriously given what just happened. We gave her to them on a silver platter and we almost got killed for it—”

  “That’s not how it usually goes! That General should have faced consequences, I’m sure of it! Justice will come for her!”

  “But that is how it went for us.”

  “Fine—I’m getting this off my hands either way. You’re right that the safer option all around is taking her back ourselves, both for us and the public at large.”

  “We can contact a private gateyard to see if we can set anything up. I still have enough funds, but we’re cutting it close.”

  “What’s in it for you, anyway? What made you decide to take charge and bring Lym home in the first place, anyway? You could have kept her secret, but you went out of your way to look for her gunship.”

  Vertan shows an expression of surprise.

  “She wanted to go home,” Vertan finally says. “And I wanted to help.”