Caelum Lex Pt. 3 Chapter 20: The Spirit

Sharing a bridge with Finn again was rather surreal. Careful to keep her eyes forward, Corra reached up to the secondary console and hit the brake thrust, pulling her ship out of its hasty traverse of empty space and settling her into a nice even pace forward. The Beacon, in all of its mass and glory, was just up ahead, barely making speed. They’d be upon her in minutes.

Corra could feel Finn’s eyes on the back of her head. He was lounging in the pull-out emergency seat in the back of the cockpit, hands behind his neck, somehow making it look more comfortable than she knew it was. The Spirit was not a ship meant for more than one person which had made the last few days uncomfortable physically as well as emotionally.

As soon as Finn had woven her his tale of losing the Beacon, they had both agreed that the issue needed to be sorted as soon as possible. As much as Corra trusted Alyx to take care of the ship just fine, the thought of Finn not being aboard at all didn’t sit well with her. Nor, she found out, did it sit well with him. Unfortunately, he’d sunk the last of his spending money into a local business. Namely, a bar. Corra had decided her next move could wait a few days to help out an old friend.

Honestly, it was the least she could do for him.

So far, they had managed to keep things light, even with the heavy unspoken words hanging in every nook and cranny of the tiny one-man ship around them. Despite many years between them, Finn still carried himself with that familiar teenage confidence and lackadaisical attitude. It was strangely comforting to Corra that even after everything that had happened, he was still the Finn she remembered. Older and perhaps more tired, but still distinctly Finn.

“So you learned how to fly I take it,” he said, sounding amused as Corra pulled the Spirit in closer to the Beacon’s great hull.

“Had to, at some point,” Corra admitted with a shrug, taking hold of the manual controls. “Lots of places I needed to go without someone in public transit noticing.”

“Yeah? Like where?” Corra hesitated far too long. When he realized he wasn’t going to get an answer, he remarked, “You’re way more secretive than I remember.”

She couldn’t help but snort a laugh. “Learned from the best.” She glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a grin.

She’d meant it in a light-hearted way, a jab at their history, but his response was more serious than she’d anticipated. “Me? I was never secretive. I told you more than I told anyone,” he admitted. “You, though … you really don’t want to tell me what you’ve been up to all these years.”

Corra released a sigh. “You know the gist of it,” she pointed out. “I was helping the Conduit. Working undercover. Freeing allies. That kind of thing. I told you that.”

“I guess,” he sounded thoughtful, relaxed. “I guess I’m just wonderin’ why you didn’t ask me to come with.”

Corra kept facing straight ahead in fear of him catching a glimpse of how tense the question made her. And they’d been avoiding it so well up until now. She had considered many times how she would address the questions around her departure and though a thousand  explanations had run through her head, when they tried to rise to her lips, they got stuck. The cockpit descended into an awkward silence until finally Finn seemed to take pity on her.

“Shouldn’t we hail them to be let in?”

The Spirit was already beginning its docking sequence onto the Beacon’s starboard airlock. Grateful for the reprieve, Corra shook her head. “Don’t need to.”

Finn leaned forward to glance at her control panel curiously. “This little bird can stealth dock?”

“If she’s careful, yeah,” Corra answered, flipping the last few switches as the ship came up alongside the Beacon and locked itself into place. When she looked back at Finn, his brows were high on his forehead, impressed.

“You really learned how to fly.”

Corra flashed him an appreciative smirk, but didn’t move from her seat. Neither did Finn. She tilted her head at him. “You ready to go get your ship back?”

“Our ship,” Finn corrected at once, sliding off the chair onto his feet before holding his hand out to her. “Are you?”

Corra looked at the proffered hand and then at his face. “What?” she sputtered. “No. I’m not–” Corra had no intention of joining him on this section of the task. Get Finn back to the Beacon, that was the mission. Nothing else. “I’m not coming with you.”

Now Finn pursed his lips, exasperated. “Corra. If I walk onto this ship and Alyx asks ‘how’d you get here?’ and I say ‘Corra brought me, but she left’…” His voice trailed off and he eyed her pointedly as though she knew what the other half of the sentence would be. She did. And it made her sigh heavily.

“Riley, I can’t stay,” she insisted.

“I’m not asking you to.” He jabbed his hand towards her again. “Just say hello. This was your ship, your crew. They miss you. Say hello.”

She knew she shouldn’t. Corra had only gotten by the past few years by staying separated from her old life, her old friends (save for a few correspondences with Leta she couldn’t resist). She needed to get back to her mission. She needed to go figure out this Transmitter thing before anyone else got in trouble. She needed to leave.

But something made her reach out and take his hand and slip out of her chair. “Alright,” she relented. “Just hello.”

———————-

“I’m not doing it.” Cai crossed his arms over his chest. “Not gonna happen.”

Alyx balled her fists in frustration and let out a groan as she chased him down the hallway away from the bridge. They were fighting. Again. Fighting seemed to be all anyone was doing these days aboard the Beacon. In theory, Alyx should have been getting better at it, but she got the opposite feeling that as time went on, she was losing more and more.

“Please, Cai, it’s the easiest way,” she begged, catching up with him. “I need you to help me out on this.”

“I already helped you out,” Cai snapped. “And last time? Was the last time. I told you before, I’m not doing it again.”

“But–” Alyx growled and reached out to seize his arm, halting him in place and turning him back to face her. “But Cai. You’re the only one of us who can move about with that much freedom without anyone noticing. The rest of us don’t have the privilege of being able to slip away and–”

“Privilege?” he repeated, his eyes narrowing. A while back, Alyx hadn’t thought it was possible to make someone as typically bright as Cai actually angry. As of late, she was coming to understand otherwise. Right now, she knew she was flat-out wrong.

“Privilege,” he said again, venom-soaking the word. “Right, I’m so privileged that I can pass for a slave.”

Okay, so that had been poor word choice on her part. Inwardly, she knew asking a freed ally to pose as an unfreed ally in order to pull off a mission was insensitive. Insensitive being a bit of an understatement. Cai had already pointed that out to her quite politely the last time she had proposed the tactic and she had agreed that she wouldn’t ask him to play the slave on a job again.

But she’d thought this would be different.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Alyx mended hurriedly. “You know I didn’t mean that.” Cai raised a skeptical brow at her, entirely unamused. “But Cai, this isn’t for me, I’m not asking you for my sake, this isn’t just any old job. This is Addy we’re talking about. Addy and Kalli. They’re stuck in the middle of a Society clusterfuck and we have to help them!”

“I agree,” Cai said simply and for a moment Alyx thought she’d gotten through. Until he added, “But I’m still not pretending to be an ally.” When Alyx sighed loudly and slumped a little, he said, “There’s got to be a different way to do this. The guy doesn’t even have allies. Why can’t we just go in and get them normally?”

“Maybe because guests showing up and then sneaking around is gonna look a little suspicious,” Alyx argued.

“Anyone sneaking a couple and their daughter out of a house onto a ship is gonna look suspicious,” Cai shot back.

“Not if the Society brass are occupied with dinner elsewhere.” Alyx stared right back at him knowingly. “C’mon. This works. We’ve done it before. Dae and I distract them. You slip off into the shadows and get them out. It works. It’s a good plan.”

For a long moment, Cai said nothing. He glared at her from beneath his dark bushy hair, silent and stoic, as statuesque as she’d ever seen him. And then he said, “It’s a stupid plan. Get a new one.”

As he spun around on his heels and continued to stalk down the corridor, Alyx released a hopeless groan and shouted after him, “I’m trying, Cai!”

Not that trying seemed to be getting her anywhere. In all of her time as leader of this ship, short as that was, she had brought in exactly zero jobs and zero credits. Strange how, when she’d only been doing Finn’s job without the title, she’d been amazing at this kind of thing. But now, she was facing mutiny on all sides. Her crew suddenly hated her, her contacts wanted nothing to do with her and the ship’s coffers were becoming daringly thin. The Beacon, as they’d known it, was falling apart and Alyx didn’t know how much longer she could scramble to pick up the pieces.

Suddenly, a voice behind her said, “Being captain isn’t as easy as it looks, eh?”

“Not at all,” she grumbled in response before realizing that no, it was not her subconscious having a conversation with her but an actual living person standing in the hallway. She spun around and immediately her eyes went wide.

“Finn?” she sputtered, not even trying to hide her shock. “What–? How–?” She shut her eyes and opened them again to confirm that she had not simply lost her mind. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she had. “What are you doing here?!”

“I made a mistake. And I’m here to fix it.”

Alyx narrowed her eyes at him. “Fix it? You mean, fix how you tried to sell the ship out from under our feet? How you betrayed us? How you stopped caring about the Beacon and its crew ages ago and pretty much abandoned us to fend for ourselves while still calling yourself captain?”

Finn’s lips pursed and he glanced sideways as though in thought before he looked back at her. “Yep. That. I want to fix that.” When Alyx said nothing, he sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair. “Look, I screwed up. I lost sight of what was important and I was a terrible captain. I owed you better. I owed all of you better and I know that. I may not deserve another chance, but I’m here asking for one nonetheless. Let me fix things, Alyx. Please. If you’re willing to let me back aboard.”

Alyx fell silent. She had spent a long time being angry at Finnegan Riley. So long, in fact, that a spurt of irritation had become her default reaction to his presence. Yet now, as angry as she knew she should still be, as unforgiving as she wanted to appear, after their time apart, it wasn’t anger she felt upon seeing him, but genuine relief.

Still, she gave him a hesitant glare as she muttered, “I don’t know…You really don’t deserve another chance.” But she couldn’t keep the charade up for long. Her lips started to pull back into a smile before she couldn’t contain herself and marched forward to pull the man into a crushing hug. “Of course you can come back. This place just isn’t the same without you, captain.”

Finn released a grateful sigh and squeezed his arms around her. “Nor is drinking at the bar the same without you.”

Finally, Alyx pulled away and held him at arm’s length. “But I still don’t get it. How the hell are you here?”

Finn smiled back at her with a glint of mischief in his eye before tilting his head over his shoulder. Confused, Alyx followed the direction until she noticed another figure behind Finn, peering up at her with a mixture of relief and, Alyx thought, a bit of sadness. If Finn’s sudden appearance had been a shock, his companion was even moreso.

“Corra,” Alyx breathed in disbelief. The woman looked a little different than she remembered, but those deep brown eyes and freckled face were unmistakable even under the mask of age. For a fleeting moment, she thought perhaps she was dreaming after all, for both the Beacon’s captains to be standing before her for the first time in years. But there was one way to test it.

Practically shoving Finn aside, Alyx brushed past him and leaned down to seize the shorter woman in her arms. The way she felt and the way she laughed in her ear certainly sounded real enough to convince her.

“Oh God, Corra,” Alyx exclaimed, choking back a sudden need to weep. “I can’t believe you’re here. And you’re okay! God, I’m so glad you’re okay. It’s so good to see you.”

Corra chuckled appreciatively and squeezed her arms around Alyx’s back before breaking the embrace and stepping backwards. “It’s really good to see you too,” she mumbled, looking up at her, her brows creased downward in apology. “You can’t even imagine…”

“You have to come down to the crew lounge,” Alyx insisted, taking her hand and already starting to yank her down the hall. “So many people will want to see you and hear about what you’ve been up to.”

Alyx caught sight of Corra glancing up at Finn nervously, as though hoping he’d rescue her somehow. But whatever she was hoping for, Finn didn’t seem to comply. Corra glared. Finn lifted his brows. Corra jabbed her head toward Alyx. And Alyx looked between the two of them, oblivious to the content of the silent conversation going on between them.

Finally, she’d had enough. “Alright, you two are cute and all, but just tell me what I need to know.”

Corra caught Finn’s eye one last time in a last ditch attempt for help which he didn’t provide. So she heaved a deep breath and said, “Alyx, I–I can’t stay.” Alyx felt her spirits droop and her smile drop slowly off her face. “I have people after me. I have missions still in the works. I wanted to get Riley back and make sure everything here was okay, but I need to head out again.” She looked back over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I wish I could stay. Really, I do.”

None of this was surprising, Alyx realized, but that didn’t make her any less likely to argue it. “Corra, c’mon. We haven’t seen you in ages. At least stay the night. Talk to the crew, we all miss you. One night can’t hurt.”

“She’s right,” agreed Finn. “You owe us that much, don’t you? As friends?”

But Corra was already shaking her head. “I can’t,” she mumbled under her breath. “I have to go.”

Alyx reached out and laid her hand on Corra’s shoulder. “But–why? What’s the hurry?”

A bitter laugh escaped Corra’s lips before she muttered, “The longer I stay, the harder it’ll be to leave…” She swallowed hard and met Alyx’s stare firmly. “I’d rather just go now, okay?”

Alyx wanted to keep contesting it. It didn’t make sense, as far as she was concerned. She wanted to talk to her old friend, that seemed reasonable enough. But something in the conviction of Corra’s words made her unable to conjure any more arguments. She looked up at Finn hopefully, but he too seemed to have resigned himself to her wishes. So Alyx would have to consign herself to say goodbye almost just as soon as she’d said hello.

But then Corra spoke up again. “Before I go though.” She tilted her head suspiciously. “What was it you were saying about Cy and Addy?”

——————

Addy sat on the edge of the guest bed, watching in exhaustion as Kalli dragged blankets and pillows across the room to “build a fort.” Her daughter was making a mess of the room that wasn’t even theirs, but Addy did not have the energy to scold her. Nor, she’d found, could she blame the girl for having too much energy to contain. A few more days of this and Addy would likely be on the floor building forts of her own.

They had been confined to Eriaas Argoatan’s attic (if this furnished loft area could even be called an attic) for nearly a week. They’d moved up here when it had become obvious that hiding in the guest rooms left a little too much risk that one of Eriaas’ Society houseguests would hear the tiny pitter patter of five year old feet.

Those same houseguests, much to Cyrus and Addy’s dismay, didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. Whatever their expedition was, it wasn’t going well and it showed no signs of stopping.

“P’ahti, p’ahti,” Kalli called as she barreled over to her father who was laying on one of the plush beds with his hand over his eyes, apparently trying to take a nap. Kalli seized his other hand and tugged it. “Can we go outside today? Please? Please please please.”

Cyrus slid his hand from his face and glanced over at Addy. She grimaced and he sighed. “Sorry, issyen,” said Cyrus, reaching over to ruffle her hair. “Not yet.”

Kalli let out a groan and returned to building her fort, though not without kicking one of the pillows in frustration first.

Across the room, Cyrus apparently gave up on his hopes of napping and sat up on the bed. Tiredly, he scratched his messy hair and unshaven face and for just a moment, he caught Addy’s eye. She smiled, just lightly, but he had already looked away. As if being trapped in an attic wasn’t already tense enough, the couple’s relationship was quite decidedly ‘on the rocks.’ They hadn’t mentioned it or discussed it (there were far more important things to worry about right now), but the conflict in their stuffy prison was palpable. Addy almost worried about the day they could finally get out of here and be on their way as they’d have to face it head-on.

Almost worried.

Just then, there was a small knock on the attic door before it carefully pressed open and the familiar face of Eriaas peered into the room. More than ever, the man had become a welcome presence, at least as far as Addy was concerned. A break from the monotony of their trapped existence. He brought a genuine smile to her face.

“Any news from below?” she asked, not expecting much of an answer. The lead agent said something interesting, one of the minion agents was rude, someone made some particularly good coffee, were the usual sorts of updates he had. But today, there was a different look in his eyes. Today, something was unusual.

“Actually yes,” he said, his voice hushed. No one below would be able to hear them from here, yet he continued to whisper as he went on, “I overheard something”

Addy exchanged a glance with Cyrus who sat up straighter. “Overheard what?”

“What they’re looking for,” said Eriaas, coming further into the room. He patted Kalli on the head as he passed her and her fort. The girl flinched away from his touch and Addy couldn’t help but notice Cyrus’ proud smirk. She returned her attention to Eriaas as he sat down in an armchair and leaned forward, lacing his fingers together.

“They’re usually quite good about keeping their discussions private,” he explained. “Never in the house, you know. But they slipped up. Or perhaps they’ve grown lax. Regardless, just this morning I was returning from my run and Parnassé and some of her people were meeting in the dining room. I hovered out of the way for a bit to see what I could garner from the conversation.”

Infuriatingly, Eriaas went quiet, instead looking between them excitedly until Cyrus demanded, “Well? And?”

Eriaas’ good spirits were unwavering. “And they foolishly told me everything I needed to know.”

Addy caught Cyrus’ glare of frustration. It was her turn apparently. “Which was?” she pressed, far more gently than her partner had been.

Eriaas glanced over his shoulder as though to check no one was listening, before he leaned in closer and whispered, “The Transmitter.” Addy got the feeling that it was meant to be significant to them. That she was supposed to have a mindblowing ‘aha’ moment. But all she could manage was a polite, if confused, smile.

“Ah, I forget, you two aren’t from here,” Eriaas went on, brushing off his disappointment. “It’s a bit of a local legend. See, our little moon? Was the first terraform following the Division War. As such, it was home to some of the greats of post-Colonization. Leaders and politicians and visionaries all made their way here to start the Ellegian cluster we know today. And, though we’re not proud of it now, they took most of Archeti’s Origin era artifacts with them. One of those artifacts, supposedly, according to legend, is the Transmitter.”

Still, this was ringing no bells to Addy nor, as far as she could tell from the blank look on his face, to Cyrus. Ancient history had never been either of their strong suits. “The Transmitter is said to have come from the Ark itself,” Eriaas went on. “No one is clear on what it does, though speculation runs amok. Some say it can simply transmit messages more efficiently over much more space than we can today. Others say it can contact the Origin. Some even say it can summon forth a new Ark to ferry our people onward to the next Span.” Eriaas lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It could just be a broken old artifact, for all we know. But clearly the Society believes it’s worth something at least. That’s why they’re here. That’s what they’re looking for.”

Addy propped up her chin on her fist. It sounded like something the Society could spare a handful of agents for. Legends had to come from somewhere after all and even if the device was, as Eriaas said, a useless lump of metal, the risk could be worth the minor loss.

“So is it here somewhere?” Addy wanted to know.

“On the moon? Maybe,” Eriaas answered. “But here?” He pointed to the floor. “Definitely not. They’re on the wrong side. If the damn thing is anywhere, it’d be in the Consulate archives on the other side of the globe.”

“Then why would they think it’s here?” Cyrus asked.

Eriaas just rolled his eyes dramatically. “Some idiot claimed that my house was built atop the old Consulate in an attempt to tear the land from me. I settled the matter out of court, but the rumor stuck. To this day I still get tourists stopping by looking for a museum. It doesn’t help that the actual archives are buried beneath centuries of real estate developments and dirt. I only know where it stood because I paid a brigade of archaeologists to locate it for legal leverage.”

Across the room, Cyrus opened his mouth to speak, but it was Kalli’s voice that rang out next. “O’rian!” she shouted in glee, standing by the window and bouncing up and down on her feet.

Both Addy and Cyrus frowned at her, but it was Addy who said, “No, your uncle’s not coming, issyen.” The girl was probably just tired of no one paying attention to her.

“Why don’t you just tell them they’re in the wrong place?” Cyrus went on. “Tell them they’re on the wrong side of the moon and  they’ll leave and we can go.”

“I could do that,” Eriaas agreed, but Addy shook her head sharply.

“And lead them straight to wherever this thing actually is?”

“O’rian!” Kalli shouted again, earning her a “Hush” from Cyrus.

“What if it really is something significant?” Addy continued. “What if it gives them something we wish they didn’t have? They’re not exactly known for using moral judgment when it comes to technology.”

“O’rian!” shouted Kalli once more.

“No offense, Adds, but I’m more concerned with my family getting out of here alive than the Society finding some legend that probably doesn’t exist,” Cyrus muttered.

“Whatever you two decide, it’s up to you,” put in Eriaas just as Kalli stomped her feet and said again, “O’rian!”

Cyrus let out a heavy groan and pushed himself to his feet to join his daughter at the window. “What is it, issyen?” he cooed, sounding a little impatient as he picked her up and bounced her affectionately in his arms. “What’s the matter?”

He was starting to turn away when Kalli put her little hands on his face and forced his eyes towards the window she’d been looking out of. “O’rian!” she said again, definitively and this time, Cyrus went still.

A rush of panic ran through Addy. Oh gods, he didn’t. It would be just like Fiearius to run in here and try to save them despite their explicit wishes otherwise. But please, gods. “Tell me he didn’t…” she breathed, rushing from her seat to the window herself.

But Cyrus said, “No. No…not that uncle.” And when Addy looked out onto the path below at the two figures walking towards the house, she understood what he meant. It wasn’t Fiearius. It was Finn. And the small shape beside him? It couldn’t be…

“Corra?”