Commander Eidran emerged from Ensign Rel’s quarters. Their course was resolved. Shortly, they would steal away from the station. Captain Lewis was on Kyban, and they needed to find him and to turn from his path.

“Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”

The voice stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned, and standing there was the old captain’s protege, a true believer who’d sat aboard the Lucre and justified each of his sins as if they were normal. “How did you know I was here?” Commander Eidran asked.

“Because of course you are,” Chief Shafir replied as her eyes narrowed on him. “But don’t you think it’s a little sick, preying on the emotions of a grieving girlfriend?”

“I’m not preying on them,” Commander Eidran insisted. “I know she’d want to know.” If the roles were reversed, he knew he would’ve.

“That she’d want to know?” Chief Shafir countered. “Or that you want to use her to get to him?” She’d spent over a decade with the old spook, and she’d never seen the side of him that Elyssia Rel had brought out of him. It was exactly what she would have done if she was in his place, but it wasn’t fair to the girl.

“Use her for what?” Commander Eidran stammered. “You don’t even know what I’m planning.”

“Of course I do,” Chief Shafir smirked. “Didn’t you hear me earlier? You are predictable. Every step you’ve taken since you stormed out of Archanis CnC, they were decided for you, whether or not you realize it.” Her words were chosen with intentionality. “That you would visit us on the Lucre, that you’re going to Kyban, and that you’d come to enlist her, it was all written into this fabric before you even knew.”

Commander Eidran looked frustrated, both by how she’d read him, and by the insinuation this was all predestined, the same logic they’d used aboard the Lucre to justify Lewis’ actions. They somehow excused the murders he was committing as if it was a guarantee that each of his targets would do, in their future, what he’d seen them do in his past. “Why are you here, chief?”

“Because I’m coming with you two,” Chief Shafir replied flatly, not even bothering to ask if Ensign Rel would be joining because of course she would. That, too, was inevitable. She liked Ensign Rel. They had bled together beneath Nasera, and they had stood together against the darkness on Frontier Day. But in this moment, she was still a heartbroken kid.

Commander Eidran reached out to touch the chief’s mind, to sense her intentions, but nothing. In a sea of errant thoughts and emotions, Ayala Shafir was a void of nothingness, not a thought or an emotion slipping past her guard. “What are you playing at, Shafir?”

And this was the part where she would be honest. “Whether the captain is right, or you are, who am I to know? I’m no brilliant astrophysicist, not like Dr. Brooks, and even the old loon seems less than certain about any of this,” Chief Shafir admitted. “But on Kyban, we can put it all on the table.”

Commander Eidran considered her words. “You’re serious?”

“He deserves a chance to explain himself, and you deserve an opportunity to say your peace,” Chief Shafir offered. Ensign Rel, too, would at least get a chance to say goodbye. “Where we go from there, that’s anyone’s guess.” Ultimately, that would be Jake Lewis’ choice. And she would follow him, whatever choice he made, just as she always had.