The cargo hold of The Cradle of Gravity was a cage of quiet anxiety. Eight hours they had been running dark, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the glittering, authoritarian hellscape of Solaceum.

  Eight hours of waiting.

  Soren stood near the airlock, his arms crossed, the cool metal of the bulkhead contrasting with the anxious heat crawling along his skin. He watched the rest of the team, each of them caught in their own private version of the same tense vigil.

  Veolo was restless and pacing, her hooves tracing a repetitive path on the deck plates. Inelius stood at a secondary console, scanning tactical readouts, triple-checking they hadn’t been followed. Violet was a sponge for Amalia’s nervous energy, the younger sister bouncing and purposely annoying the elder out of sheer frustration. Across the bay, Aurania was quiet but stiff, her hands clasped behind her back. She paced, slower than Veolo, but enough of a pattern to see where the younger lacravida had learned the habit.

  It was a strange tension.

  They had been traveling alongside Pulse’s ship the entire way, but after the initial success report, they’d gone radio silent. Too much communication that close to the planet would only increase the chance they were detected.

  Now, they were simply waiting for the airlock to lock in place, cycle, and reveal their precious sister. The ship shuddered gently and a loud CLACK echoed through the hold. Everyone looked up, then to the door.

  “They’re locked,” Inelius said with a smile.

  The pressurization began cycling, punctuated by the faint-but-growing-louder metal footsteps of Raine rushing down four flights of stairs from the cockpit so she could be the first one to greet Tamiyo.

  Soren’s gaze was fixed on the inner door, his heart thumping against his ribs.

  Then it slid open.

  The first thing Soren spotted was Pulse, only because he stood a head taller than the CIPHER. His thin blue visor faintly glowed, his black outfit creating a dark silhouetted backdrop for who stood in front of him.

  Tamiyo.

  She looked different.

  She wasn't in her cream-colored caretaker's uniform. In its place, she wore a sleek, matte-black tactical dress. The fabric absorbed the light, sharp lines accented with lightly armored plates. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, but her eyes—her electric blue eyes—were sharp, steady, and alive with a confidence Soren hadn’t seen before. She had braved a place she despised—probably thought she’d never need to venture into. And she hadn’t just survived.

  She looked stronger.

  There was a beat of silence, then the air was split by dual screeches of joy as both Raine and Amalia raced forward. Raine won, arms wrapping around Tamiyo—only for them both to be tackled an instant later by more than six feet of bubbly lacravida. Pulse had to take a step back to not get caught in the stumbling group as they cascaded to the floor in a heap.

  Soren heard Raine’s muffled voice from underneath Amalia saying something about being so worried about Tamiyo. Amalia clambered back to standing, pulling both CIPHERs with her in a hug. “You look so good!” she squealed out before finally setting them down.

  “Thanks,” Tamiyo said with a small awkward laugh. “Pulse bought them for me.” She rotated her whole frame one way, then the other, flourishing her new outfit.

  “Aww,” Amalia cooed, rushing over to wrap her arms around Pulse.

  The man flinched an instant too late to dodge, and he was borderline helpless as he was carried aboard in a bear hug by the large woman.

  “Please set me down,” he rasped out from behind the mask.

  But Tamiyo countered, “We both know you could’ve dodged if you wanted to.”

  “I knew it!” Echo’s voice rang out from the mask. “I knew you liked it!”

  Pulse just groaned before Amalia finally let his boots touch the deck again.

  Violet eyed Tamiyo over with a wide, approving smile. “You came back.”

  “I came back,” Tamiyo beamed. Then she glanced at Pulse. “Couldn’t have done it alone.”

  As Soren stepped up next to them, Pulse looked right at him, a nervous energy coiling throughout his body. But Soren held his hand out, palm open. “Thank you, Pulse. Seriously.”

  He hesitated for a moment before grasping Soren's hand. “My pleasure.”

  Then Soren pulled Tamiyo into a warm embrace, and Inelius did the same immediately after. Veolo offered her sincere thanks to Pulse, who seemed not entirely sure if Veolo was joking or not.

  Finally, Aurania stepped up and said, “Tamiyo, it’s great to see you. Pulse, we can’t thank you enough. Let’s move this up to the ops center and do a full debrief.”

  But before anyone could even move, Tamiyo said, “Can we go to the common room instead? I want to relax, and…” she trailed off, her gaze locking on Pulse.

  For a second, they just stood there, silent. And Soren realized they must have been communicating in some way the rest of them couldn’t hear. After a few moments, Tamiyo turned back to Aurania.

  “Lucien,” she gestured with her hand toward Pulse. "Lucien definitely deserves to relax after that mission."

  Aurania's brow flicked up, but she didn't question it. She gave a single nod. "Very well. Common room it is."

  As they made their way up from the cargo hold, a comfortable chaos settled over the group. The tension of the long wait had finally broken, replaced by the easy chatter of a team reunited. Amalia was already peppering Tamiyo with a hundred questions at once, her voice bright and bubbly. Soren fell into step beside Raine and Inelius, and the purple-haired CIPHER glanced over at Lucien.

  "So," Raine said, her voice laced with a teasing curiosity. "Lucien, now, is it? Seems like you and Tamiyo got close down there. Must have been one hell of a mission."

  Tamiyo turned back over her shoulder. "The masterful pair of stealthy infiltrators left over a dozen bodies, convinced five city blocks they had nuclear syphilis, threw me off a flying cargo drone into a river, and blew up a bridge."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  There was a moment of absolute silence, broken only by the overlapping footsteps climbing the stairs.

  "I feel like you made at least one of those up," Inelius said.

  “No,” Echo chirped immediately. “She’s just paraphrasing a little.”

  The common room quickly became a welcome assault on the senses.

  The air filled with the rich scent of Brolgar’s cooking. Laughter echoed off the walls as the team settled into a chaotic sprawl of limbs and blankets across the oversized couches and floor cushions. The tension of the last eight hours had evaporated, replaced by a loud, celebratory energy that felt like a dam had finally broken.

  Brolgar ladled thick, savory stew into bowls and passed them out as Soren took a seat on one of the floor cushions. The comforting heat from his own bowl seeped into his hands. He watched as Lucien stood near the entrance, his posture rigid and professional in the midst of the relaxed chaos.

  He looked... out of place. A soldier at a family gathering, unsure of the protocol. He held a bowl of stew Brolgar had handed him, but he hadn't moved to sit.

  Tamiyo had already claimed a spot in one of the large armchairs, and noticed his hesitation. She patted the floor cushion next to her. "There's room over here, Lucien."

  He turned his gaze toward her, then to the tangled, comfortable pile of lacravida around the main couch. Soren could almost feel his hesitation, an internal calculation of social threats and acceptable parameters.

  “It's okay,” Echo's voice said gently from the mask. “I think we can trust them.”

  Lucien finally moved, taking the offered cushion but sitting with a stiff, formal posture, his back straight.

  "Dude, relax," Veolo said from her perch on the arm of the couch. “You’re so tense. You just helped us make huge progress toward saving our planet, we trust you.” She blew on her stew. “Does that mask come off? Or is it like—a medical thing?”

  Lucien's shoulders tensed up even more, and he didn’t answer.

  Everyone’s eyes were on him.

  And then he flinched as Tamiyo placed a hand on his shoulder. She asked, “Remember how I showed you guys what I went through before I escaped?”

  He looked back at her.

  “The only reason I was able to heal from it,” Tamiyo gestured to the team, “is because of all of them.”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Echo told him aloud.

  “Either way,” Brana said from across the room, “none of us will judge you.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the soft clinking of spoons against bowls. Then, slowly, he reached a hand to his mask with a motion that felt like he was lifting a blast door. The seals on his mask disengaged with a soft hiss, and he lifted it away, setting it carefully in his lap.

  His eyes stayed on the floor.

  His face was a roadmap of a hard life. Scars ran everywhere, shadows highlighted by the soft lights in the room. A jagged line at each temple punctuated the network of smaller, finer marks on his cheeks and jaw.

  But when he finally looked up…

  His eyes were a startlingly clear, steel-gray, and they were filled with a raw, aching vulnerability. He looked slowly around at each of them, as if expecting every one to ridicule him in turn.

  “Wow,” Amalia bubbled first, her head laying in her sister’s lap. “Echo got herself a good lookin’ man.” She sounded like she was salivating.

  Violet covered Amalia’s eyes. “You’ll have to forgive her. Good-natured men make her horny.”

  Veolo quickly added, “Not that you have anything to worry about, Echo. Amalia’s flirty, but respectful.” She threw a piece of vegetable at Amalia, who had managed to slip free of Violet’s grasp.

  “Oh,” Echo chirped. “I am already loving this way more than the Conservatory. Lucien, we made the right choice.”

  Lucien seemed completely caught off guard—a very faint flush creeping over him. His hand crept up to the scars on his face, still visibly embarrassed about them, but he couldn’t seem to speak.

  “They’re a warrior culture,” Soren told him.

  Lucien’s eyes darted over to him.

  “You’ve got no reason to hide those scars,” Soren added. “Except to maybe keep them off you.” He gestured at the lacravida.

  “Oh!” Tamiyo let out, mouth full of food. “That reminds me! Veolo! I want to see if you can beat Lucien in a fight!” Her feet kicked excitedly in her seat.

  That seemed to break Lucien out of his uncomfortable silence, and he looked over his shoulder again. “Wait, what?” He looked nervously at Veolo.

  Veolo’s brow had crept up over her bowl as she slurped stew.

  “Oh, don’t play coy,” Tamiyo said, and tapped him on the shoulder. “This guy can fight. Knifework for days. He never even shot his gun.”

  “The gun is a last resort,” Lucien said. “It’s not exactly quiet.”

  Veolo was staring at him with an almost hungry excitement. “So you can dance, can you?”

  “Uh, I can fight, yes,” Lucien said nervously.

  The whole group let out a round of excited noises.

  “Seriously,” Tamiyo said to everyone. “We should place bets, I’m not sure who would win.”

  The victory was an intoxicating warmth that filled the room. Tamiyo explained how Lucien completely burned any chance of returning to Conservatory space to make sure they escaped. Echo chittered with Amalia and Violet happily. For a while, there was no talk of missions or enemies, just the easy camaraderie of a family reunited, safe and whole, with two new members welcomed with open arms.

  Finally, after the second round of stew had been devoured and the initial, frantic energy had settled into a comfortable hum, Inelius’s voice cut through the chatter. "Does it look complicated to build?"

  "Not sure yet," Tamiyo replied, pulling everyone back to the mission. She had curled up in one of the large armchairs, a blanket draped over her shoulders. "The schematics are heavily encrypted. Echo already got a start on it, but it could be a little while.”

  Aurania turned her gaze to the mask in Amalia's hand. “Echo, do you have any sort of guess on how long decryption may take?”

  "If Tamiyo assists me,” Echo said, “it will speed up the process. But even with her help, the files are locked down hard. We could be looking at multiple days—maybe even a week—of cracking away at this thing before we get it unlocked."

  A tense quiet fell over the room in light of the new delay. As the team broke into smaller conversations about logistics and potential workarounds, Soren’s gaze drifted to the wide viewport. Outside, the starscape was a river of light, their ship a tiny vessel in an endless sea. He thought about everything that had happened since he’d woken up, naked and confused, under Tamiyo’s kitchen table.

  The violence in the jungle. The breathtaking presence of the lacravida. The weight of the history he’d missed while trapped. He thought about the home he hadn’t seen in eight thousand years, a place that now existed only in his fractured, unreliable memories.

  And he thought about how close it was.

  Five light-years.

  In the grand scale of the galaxy, it was nothing. It was the house next door. A ghost of a home, just a short walk away. As he stood staring at the stars, he felt a hand on his back, and he turned to see Aurania.

  “You alright?” she asked softly.

  The way she always checked on him pulled deep in his chest. He looked around the room, at the strange, chaotic, beautiful family he had been lucky enough to fall into. His voice was quiet when he spoke, but it cut through the low murmur of conversation like a blade. "I have a request I need to ask all of you. It’s a personal favor—I need to know if it’s alright with everyone."

  The room fell silent.

  All eyes turned to him, and he felt the sudden, intense weight of their collective focus. He felt their curiosity, their concern, their unspoken questions. He looked at Aurania, and through their link, he felt her steady presence, just patiently waiting without judgement.

  Tamiyo frowned, her antennae dipping with a mixture of confusion and worry. "What is it, Soren?"

  His gaze swept over each of their faces—Amalia's wide, curious eyes, Violet's steady, focused stare, Inelius's calm, unwavering attention.

  He took a deep breath. “Well. Since we’re so close, and I’m not sure when we ever might get another chance… if it’s going to take a couple days to crack those files anyway…”

  He was scared to say it. Scared it would sound selfish, foolish, a distraction from the only thing that mattered. But he felt like he had to, so he steeled himself, met Aurania's gaze, and forced the words out.

  "I want to go see Earth.”