“You built this?” Nate asked, impressed.

The two of us – not counting the guards – were in dock 313. Nate looked up at the Benevolence in awe. I didn’t really get it. It was a well done job, sure, I was satisfied with my work, but it was very clearly patchwork. Painting was my least favorite part, so I had been procrastinating, making the mismatched armor tile stand out. Listher had been getting on my case about it as of late.

“Just rebuilt,” I replied, still mentally exhausted. Pointing to a few chairs scattered around a folding table next to the ship, I said “We can sit there. This is usually where I spend my off time.”

“Wow,” Nate said, taking a seat and looking around. The guards remained standing behind him. “How did you afford it all?”

I sat down heavily across from him and sighed. “I… Good pay and no expenses. Look, we can talk about the ship later,” I said. “I need you to tell me what’s going on. I get why you’re here, but I don’t know how. They said you were arrested. You were going to be retrained.”

“Oh, right,” Nate said. He rubbed the back of his neck. The air in the dock began to feel heavy. “So, when you… left… I was pretty much right there. They were taking me planet-side when the station blew up. After that, all hell broke loose. I was interrogated pretty harshly. They tried to imply that we had planned it… They said a lot of awful things about you.”

“Like what?” I asked, not quite able to meet his eyes. I thought Nate had died or simply been retrained into a dull, happy little worker. Not once did I consider he had to go through all that. 

“That you were a terrorist, a separatist, trying to undermine Ulthea from the inside,” Nate said, wringing his hands. “I know we joked about Ulthea more than we should have, but it wasn’t serious, right? I told them you weren’t like that, it had to have been something else.”

Finally meeting his gaze, his eyes were piercing, pleading for me to assure him that he was right. I hesitated, maybe too long, before I spoke. “I’m not a terrorist. I didn’t plan it. They were going to arrest me, too. The guard who tried, I-I… I hit him, hard. Then I ran. I was so scared, I wasn’t thinking.”

“They showed me the remote camera feed from that day,” Nate said. His face was pained, reliving a memory. “I don’t even understand how you were able to steal this ship, I thought our security was impassable. They said you unshackled an AI?”

“Um… yes. I don’t know if I should tell you how, yet,” I said. “It would be really dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.” 

“But our superiors want to know,” Nate said, leaning forwards in his chair. “Blessed Lawsek gave me this mission personally.”

My heart skipped a beat. The Blessed Madsen Lawsek led the Department of Cooperation. Their agents were scattered all across Ulthea, and if Helga was to be believed, across the Frontier as well. Their eyes watched the citizens of Ulthea from electronic posters reminding us that ‘Vigilant observation leads to happy cooperation’.

“You’re joking,” I said.

“I wish I was,” Nate said gravely. “I spent a long time in various holding pens. They shipped me around a lot, and there was always someone new to accuse me and ask more questions. Then, one of them came to me saying they were the Blessed Lawsek, but only kind of. They said they were a proxy. The true Blessed was speaking through them because they couldn’t be everywhere at once.”

“That’s…” I began.

“I know,” Nate said. “It sounds insane. But they told me they needed me, that I could bring you home. They had been trying but couldn’t convince you themselves.”

“Convince me?” I said, almost spitting. My awe and reverence quickly turned to revulsion. “They tried to kill me. There’s a bounty on my head. The only argument I’ve heard from anyone trying to bring me back so far has been ‘submit to arrest or die’.”

Nate was grimacing. “Yeah, Blessed Lawsek said that their methods so far have been a little aggressive, so they wanted to try something different.”

“A little aggressive,” I said, deadpan.

“But that’s why they sent me!” Nate said, desperately trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t even have to decide right away. Honestly, I really just want to spend some time with you again. It’s been so long.”

I slumped in my chair, staring at the floor. “What could they possibly give me that would make up for me having to live with one eye and a foot long scar in my side? Aren’t they just going to retrain me as soon as they have the chance? Or just execute me?”

“What? No!” Nate said. He looked shocked that I would even suggest such a thing. “Blessed Lawsek wanted to offer you a job, for figuring out holes in their security. You would get to live planet-side and have your own office. They even said I might be able to be assigned as your guard!”

“I don’t have any reason to trust that,” I said. “How could I possibly believe a single word of that?”

“It’s a serious offer,” Nate said, sounding hurt. “Just think about it. This was an actual Blessed, asking you to work with them. In the meantime we can spend time together! It’s been nearly a year, you must have learned a lot about life out here. I always thought it would be way less… put together? This station seems pretty well run, despite the owner.” 

I sat there quietly for a moment, just trying to put everything together in my head. Quiet didn’t work, however. My brain, tired as it was, couldn’t focus on a single thought. Blessed offer. Nate is here. Yelled at my boss. Maybe it was genuine? Can we still be friends? Am I going to be fired? What happens to him if I say no? Maybe we could keep him here, but how much is being relayed to Ulthea? Not that Helga wants anything to do with me now. How do I introduce Nate to Benni? 

By this point, Nate had been patiently waiting for a few minutes. My brow hurt with how long it had been knitted together under the pressure of thought. Nate looked on empathetically. 

“Maybe we should try to work this out tomorrow?” Nate said. “You look like you need a break.”

“I’m– yeah,” I said, sighing. “I need a lot of things.”

Nate opened his mouth to speak, reconsidered, deflated, then took another breath. “Have they been treating you well here?” he asked. “It looks like you and the station manager don’t get along well.”

“What? No, Helga’s fine,” I said, maybe a little more defensively than I intended. “We butt heads sometimes, but it’s pretty uncommon. She actually owns the station.”

“This whole thing?” Nate asked, flabbergasted. “It’s huge!”

“She owns it,” I said, shrugging. “I’ve even made some friends here. I can introduce you.”

“Do they speak our language?” Nate asked, glancing up at the guards flanking him. “It doesn’t seem like many do.”

“Oh, right,” I said. I twisted one of my horns in embarrassment. “No, it’s pretty much just Helga that knows it. Everyone in the Frontier uses an implant called an Intra-Lingua. It’s like a real-time translator.”

Nate looked disappointed. “Well, I’m supposed to stay until I can convince you,” he said. “So I guess you can translate for me?”

I nodded, but what he said made a previous thought stick out to me. “What if you can’t convince me?” I asked. “What happens if you go back without me?”

A deep silence opened up. Nate looked like it was the first time he had that thought. Bewildered, he said, “I don’t know, they didn’t say.”

Of course they didn’t say. Blessed Lawsek would tell him everything he wanted to hear, and nothing he didn’t. You can bring your friend home, Private Brooks! We won’t punish her for the tragedy she caused! In fact, she’ll get a promotion! Both of you will! What was one more lie? This wasn’t a rescue mission, Nate was being used as a hostage. Now I had to decide how much to tell him.

“I’ll… I’ll think about it,” I said. After a pause, I continued, “I could probably convince Helga to let you stay.”

Nate screwed up his face in confusion. “Stay?”

“Yeah, like live on Brock Station,” I said, leaning forward. “If you worked as a station guard, you could get free room and board, and then we could still be together.”

“Well… I don’t know,” Nate said,  scratching the side of his face absent mindedly. “Let me see if I can convince you first.”

He wouldn’t be able to, I knew, but I could still work on him while he tried to work on me. There was a lot I didn’t know about Ulthea before I came here. So, I shrugged and nodded. “Sure, that’s fine. I get a lot more time off here than I did back home, so there’ll be plenty of time for you to try.”

“Great!” Nate said. “Now–”

The guard on Nate’s left coughed to catch our attention. “Sorry, but we need to take him to Dr. Skisk. Orders from the boss.”

“What for?” I asked.

“What did they say?” Nate asked.

“Standard checkup,” said the guard. “She said if he’s going to stay, she wants to make sure he won’t get anyone sick.”

“Well, okay,” I said, then turned to Nate. “Helga wants you to get a checkup with the station doctor.”

Nate looked worried. “A Frontier doctor? Is that safe?”

The guards looked at each other, and I winced. I wasn’t much better when I first came here, but at least I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut. “Nate, they’re about on par with Ulthea, they just don’t have our cybernetics technology.”

“Oh,” Nate said, unaware of the offense he caused. “Where can I find you afterwards?” 

I took a look at the station time above the door to the dock. Somehow, it was only a little past when I would be taking a lunch break. With a sickened jolt, I remembered that I had left Vulka alone with a large repair job, and jumped to my feet.

“Whoa!” Nate exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

“I was in the middle of a job when you showed up,” I said. “My coworker is probably at lunch now, but I’ve got to meet him there soon. Did Helga give you anywhere to stay?”

Nate stood as well, and shook his head. “No, she said I should stay on the Hope. I guess I do need to make a report…”

“Okay, then I’ll meet you there after my shift,” I said, trying to ignore the last bit. I didn’t know how Helga would feel about him making reports to the DoC about Brock Station, but if he wasn’t barred from it, it was probably fine, right?

We hugged again, longer than before, then went our separate ways. As he headed down the corridor away from me, I noted how people were looking at Nate, guards to the fore and aft of him. It reminded me of my first month of living here, except he looked entirely oblivious. I hurried off, a new pit of anxiety in my stomach, praying that he’d be alright.