The landing craft sliced through the clouds like a blade, the roar of its engines swallowed by Altea's endless green, and inside the cockpit the crew huddled close to the glass with their eyes scanning the alien terrain below.
"Where are we heading, Captain?" Chris asked, his voice barely rising over the hum of the backup motors.
Chris was in his mid-thirties, bald and broad, with thick shoulders, corded arms and a chest like a wall. Yet there was a softness in him that had nothing to do with his strength. He was the kind of man who could lift a generator with one arm and cradle a wounded bird with the other. His round, open face and wide, boyish smile made people trust him the moment they met him, because he never smiled to impress anyone. He smiled because he meant it.
"To find Halley's team," Oscar said flatly. "Stay cautious. If they've made contact with natives, things could get dangerous."
Youri sat by the viewport with a faint smile on his pale face, watching the treetops race past beneath them. "I just wanted to see the ground," he said, mostly to himself. "It's been so long since I've stood on land."
Oscar glanced over at him and said nothing. Youri looked fragile, almost ghostly in the light coming through the glass, but he was as stubborn as ever, and Oscar had long ago learned that arguing with him only made him dig his heels in deeper.
The craft trembled as it dropped through pockets of turbulence. "We're reaching land," Mario reported.
Mario was also in his mid-thirties, and he was the kind of pilot who did not just navigate space but mastered it. His cockpit was a sanctuary of order, every switch memorized and every protocol followed out of reverence rather than obligation, because he believed that structure was the foundation of peace. His jet-black hair was swept back in a clean, traditional style with not a strand out of place, and his dark eyes studied the world with a patient curiosity that never rushed to conclusions.
"Finally," Oscar said, his fingers tightening on the rail.
Outside, the vegetation loomed up around them — massive ferns and towering, twisted trees that blotted out the sky. Far in the distance something vast wheeled lazily across the horizon.
"Look!" Chris pointed. "Is that a bird?"
Youri's expression darkened. "That's no bird, Chris. It's a pterodactyl. A dinosaur."
Chris blinked at him. "How do you know that?"
"We studied them in school," Youri said. "They're rare life forms that only survive in conditions like these. This planet is stuck in its Mesozoic era."
Before anyone could answer, an alarm flashed red across the console.
"Oscar," Mario said sharply, "we're detecting an unidentified object approaching at high speed."
"Could it be a dinosaur?" Oscar asked loudly over the alarm.
"No. It's running on Brion energy."
Oscar's stomach sank. "Evasive maneuvers, now!"
The craft jolted violently as beams of light streaked past the windows, scorching the air where they had been a second before.
"They're shooting at us!" Chris shouted.
"Get behind them!" Oscar barked. "Fight fire with fire!"
Mario swore under his breath as the attacker matched every turn they made. "This guy's good. Are they Empire soldiers?"
"Doesn't look like Empire tech," Oscar muttered, studying the shape of the fighter on his screen. "Try hailing them." Static filled the comms for a moment, and then Oscar leaned toward the mic, his voice like iron. "This is Falcon One. Stop firing. We mean no harm. I repeat, we mean no harm. This is Captain Oscar Meilton of the Tartarusios."
For a long moment there was nothing but silence on the channel. Then the incoming fire stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Chris let out a breath he had been holding since the first shot. "Well, looks like you have fans even out here."
A voice crackled through the speakers. "This is Hawk Four. Follow us."
Oscar's eyes narrowed at the screen. "They might know where our people are," he said. "We'll go."
Far below them, in the dark room deep inside the bunker, a monitor flickered to life. "There's no record of any Institute of Darma on Morleto," a guard reported.
Halley's heart thudded, but she kept her face still. "That's because the Empire destroyed it," she snapped. "They used Morleto as an example when they took the Leora Nebula. There's nothing left to keep records."
The interrogator's eyes were cold. "Then you know what happened there." He leaned closer to her. For the first time something real moved behind his face, something old and bitter. "When the Empire released their gods on Morleto, two billion souls vanished in a blink. And what did you rebels do? You ran. I hate the Empire, but I hate cowards more."
His hand cracked across her face. Before she could recover he had drawn his gun and pressed it to her forehead. "Get ready to die."
"Stop!" a voice barked from the doorway. The interrogator turned, confused, to find a guard standing there out of breath. "Orders from the commander. Release her immediately."
For a moment the interrogator hesitated with the gun still raised, and then he lowered it with obvious reluctance. Halley straightened in her chair as the restraints came off, and her hands trembled with fury as she stood. "Thank you," she said to the guard. Then she turned and struck the interrogator across the jaw with the back of her hand, hard enough to turn his head. "And don't ever point a gun at me again."
She did not wait to see how he took it. "Where are my companions?"
"This way, miss," the guard said quickly.
The doors at the end of the corridor slid open, and the first face she saw on the other side was Oscar's. "Halley! Are you alright?"
"Oscar!" She stopped short, staring. "How did you—"
"Your DTI signal. They didn't strip it." He shook his head. "Amateurs."
"They captured us near the forest," Halley said. "They had us surrounded before we even saw them."
Oscar's jaw tightened. "You're not going to like this, but this is Stefan's base."
Halley's eyes flared. "That idiot. I should've known."
The door swung open again. Stefan strode in, all swagger and grins, as if he had arrived at a party rather than an interrogation. "Halley! Sorry for the misunderstanding!"
"Misunderstanding?" she snapped. "This was a kidnapping on a neutral planet. Don't you dare—"
"Cut me some slack," Stefan laughed, spreading his hands. "You know how I am." He turned to the bald man who had followed him in. "Sergei, these are my friends. Captain Oscar and Miss Halley. We served together back in the army."
Oscar folded his arms. "And you're still the same reckless, hot-blooded idiot."
"That's a compliment," Halley muttered.
Stefan's grin only grew wider. "And you haven't changed either. Still the same nagging bitch—"
"What did you just call me?"
Oscar raised a hand. "You two—"
But it was already too late. Halley launched herself at Stefan. For a heartbeat the room dissolved into motion, fists and shouts and laughter tangled together, and for a flicker of time it felt exactly like the old days.