The main area was composed mostly of large empty space. Set into the walls were twenty of the fighters the older students flew during advanced training, ready to launch. He saw Helen looking at those in interest, and promised himself silently that he'd bring her back later, but what he wanted to show her right now was in the small room to the left.

He produced a code key that she eyed curiously and scanned his way in. Access to these workrooms was restricted to the students who'd taken the effort to secure a pass. It wasn't much, since guests were allowed, but it was something, and the engineering students mostly left each other alone.

This room was much smaller, perhaps 50ftx30ft, and had draped works in progress on either wall. He took her to the one in the far right-hand corner and lifted the sheet back to show her.

It was a model, of course. They didn't have the parts or the permission to build anything larger...but this model was to scale, and completely functional, a modified fighter built on the same general specs as the ancient simulators they'd used at BattleSchool, but with all the modern improvements it had lacked that put it out of commission for fleet use. He's spent hours here, perfecting it, and now it was nearly complete. The front casing was off, and the engines weren't completely assembled, but she would get the idea.

It took all of her self control to stop her mouth from falling open once again. "It's amazing..." she whispered as she bent down to look at it from underneath. The porpotions were excelent, she could probably take a ruler, measure it and then do the math and it would match up exactly... the wings, the cockpit... everything. she tilted her head as she looked noticing that the wings were attatched with the right angle from the body of the fighter. Everything was perfect down to the placement of the guns.

She walked around it a little more, so she could look at Castor while she gazed at the fighter. "Did you really build this?" A smile creased her face, she knew the answer before Cas could answer... he had. Of course he had. He was here to be an engineer. But it was perfect beyond belief....like him.

"I saw what you did to her, you bastard," he hissed viciously as he prepared himself to attack. "I saw what you did, and you're going to pay."

Now isn't this amusing, Angel...all riled up and ready for blood. You think you can take him on your own?

I don't need you! He touched her. He will die.

Did he?

I saw what you did to her, you bastard. I saw what you did, and you're going to pay...

Mode opened his eyes and caught Jor's fist with one hand as he wrenched the other free of his throat and threw the boy off him, rolling to a crouch and kicking out to catch him in the eye with the heel of his boot. Jor fell backwards with a startled grunt, and Mode slowly rose to stand over him.

He watched Jor hiss in pain with satisfaction, but didn't attack him again. He was a little irritated to be breaking the promise he'd made to Wick, but only a little. What was she going to do him for breaking it that she wasn't trying to do already? Fuck it. He grinned and backhanded Jor, splitting his lip. "All those bruises, Jordan. You left them everywhere on her. You know, I'd never thought of her as pretty, but something about the way she looked while she was begging me not to hurt you...I just couldn't resist."

Fury was coming back into Jor's eyes, and he hit him again before he could lunge at him, knocking him back to sit on the floor. "She came to see me this afternoon. You really should keep a better eye on her. Too many more visits and there may not be much left for you to watch over." Horrified realization crept into those green eyes like a thief and stole his bloodlust away, and Jor was on his feet and out the door before he could say another word.

Asmodeus watched him go with a satisfied smile when a noise made him turn and look behind him.

The door slid silently aside and they stepped out in time to see a blonde soldier hit another one across the face as he tried to rise. He was saying something, but Cas couldn't quite make it out. The other soldier could hear him, though, and practically flew out of the Bay, and then the door slid shut behind them.

She backed up a bit, thinking about those eyes... the look in them. They scared her to death... She closed her eyes, leaning against the door frame, memories flooding back.. That look.it was the look her father had the night of the 'accident'.

He'd always thought Nathan was a cool-headed type of guy, until he'd attacked the commander...but there was nothing of that apparent in this cold stranger who'd just beaten a soldier in open ground right in front of their eyes. That smirk...

She clung to Cas, struggling to straighten things out in her mind. For some reason she had a strange sinking feeling in her stomach, an odd sense of forboding. They weren't supposed to see that... Nathan had come here because no one would see. And they'd seen. What was going to happen now?

No. That wasn't going to happen.

Convincing Helen to go back to the barracks hadn't been easy, but it made him feel much better to know that she was safe. There weren't really any visiting hours, but if she came with him, he wouldn't focus, and he desperately needed to focus.

Dante had asked him to keep an eye on Nathan, but he had no intention of allowing Helen anywhere near him. His memory of Dante's wounds was too fresh, his recollection of Nathan's incredible ability of movement too vivid, and the look on his face when he struck Jor, a mild sort of annoyed pleasure far too clear.

He also wasn't interested in placing himself in danger without good reason.

He turned his hand over, and the remote was completely invisible from the other side, no overlapping edges, nothing visible but the clear plastic ring on his finger that kept it flat against his palm. He flexed his fingers once and then pressed the combination required to wake his creation into the one-handed keypad.

With a nearly silent whirr of energy, the Spyder on the table came to life.

The entire assembly was smaller than his palm, two inches across and three inches long fully extended. It resembled the Spyders the military used for maintenance in the air ducts, possessed of the same eight jointed appendages, but of a much smaller stature. His Spyder had no need for size or extra attachments. It wouldn't be repairing anything. This model was built entirely around two criteria - the ability to move - quickly - and the cargo the small machine carried. A power cell recharger on the underside that operated independently of its own power system, a tiny transmitter within the center shell, and eight miniscule Flies set in a circle on the surface.

The Flies were little cylinders, thirty millimeters long and ten in diameter. Packed into that tiny space was a lens, a weak transmitter that relayed back to the Spyder, a micro-miniaturized anti-grav and a very small, very powerful rechargeable power cell. The lens wasn't as adjustable as he would have liked, and the anti-grav ate up a lot of power. The Flies had an approximate life of ten minutes before they had to return to the Spyder for recharging, but with eight, hopefully it wouldn't prove too much of a problem.

He had the Spyder skitter back and forth across the tabletop as he opened his desk with the other hand, typing with his left on the desk keyboard to bring up the secondary control panel while he told the Spyder to deploy a Fly with his right on the handheld. The tiny Fly detached and the Spyder followed it slowly as long as the table permitted.

The display panel came up on his desk, and Cas was rewarded with a fisheye view of the room. He caught the Fly in his hand gently and made some final adjustments to the lens position and then let it go to return back to the Spyder. The other seven needed minor alterations as well, but everything appeared functional.

Putting the Spyder to sleep with the release code made the display on his desk go dark, and he closed it and lifted it with one arm as he picked up the metal and plastic body of his invention with the other. Time to check on Helen, and maybe (ha!) study. The lights dimmed a little, and he blinked in surprise. Lights out this soon?

Or did they?

Gabe took Sol's hand and led her to the space of blank wall just beside the Engineering Bay's door, and then guided her to stand with her back to the wall with a hand on her elbow. He stepped in close, and wrapped his arms around her waist as he rested his cheek against hers and spoke softly.

Her cheek still pressed against his, Sol bit her lip to stifle a grin and closed her eyes. He was alert. He was always alert. She didn't have to pay attention too, did she?

She relaxed against the wall, kissed the side of his neck just above his collar and sighed in mock resignation. The sacrifices we make, she thought to herself, and giggled quietly. The funny part was, for Gabe, this was. Not that she thought he minded cuddling with her, but this was a means to an end, and probably not something he'd ever do on his own. He was just attempting to look normal, and distracted.

But that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy it.

She slipped her arms around his neck, locking her fingers together, and pulled back enough to kiss him. The small remaining stronghold of coherent thought hoped dimly that he could pay more attention to the door in this state than she could, but she wasn't terribly concerned. If they missed the first student, there was always the second.

Gabe couldn't quite bring himself to care.

He kissed her back, enthusiastically. He told himself it was the act. They were playing a part, and had to act it. It was easier to tell himself that. He didn't have to analyze it that way. He didn't have to analyze the way it made him feel.

He did not see the door open; somehow his eyes had fallen closed, though Gabe could not, for the life of him, remember how. It was a sure thing he had given no such instruction. Nevertheless, he heard it. He heard the light steps move through the doorway, heard them slow just a bit as their owner noticed Sol and Gabe, heard the owner move away just a bit faster down the corridor. The door began to slide closed. Gabe's foot slid out, and moved into the door's path. The sensors registered him, and the door stopped and slid backward on its rails again.

Gabe kept on kissing Sol. Just until that student was around the corner, he told himself. Just to be safe.

It was a few moments before he realized that the student was already gone. Somehow he must have missed the disappearance of the footsteps. How could he not have noticed?

The kiss finally parted, and Gabe fought to regain his breath without looking like he was regaining his breath. Gabe opened his mouth to say something. He felt he should say something. She knew that it was part of the act, surely, but . . . he felt he should say something.

She smiled at him a little sadly and took his hand. Maybe someday she would learn that kind of control...but she wasn't sure she wanted it, and for a short moment, she wished he didn't have it either. It wasn't fair...but it was fun while it lasted.

The workroom beyond was smaller by far than the large Bay outside that housed the shuttles, and empty of people except for a single boy who was sitting at one of the workstations in the back, facing away from them and too absorbed in his work to notice them enter. Sol looked at Gabe expectantly. She hadn't considered what they might do if someone was here, but they could hardly go gathering supplies with the company.

Something was familiar about the boy, and she focused on his back, trying to figure out where she might know him from. One of the armies at BattleSchool, most likely, but which one? She looked at Gabe again, quizzically this time.

The boy set down one of his tools and stretched, and Sol placed him. Cassius Martin, from Fox Army.

"Cas...?"

He turned around and looked at them. The boy she'd stolen the desk from when they'd first arrived in Fox had changed a lot since then, older, taller, broader, as seemed to be the pattern with boys. He grinned in recognition, and then nodded to Gabe a bit more soberly. They didn't know each other very well, but their acquaintance had been friendly enough.

"Oh, hey...er...Sol, right? From Fox?" Well, he'd gotten better about talking to girls, at least. That was something. "And Gabe. What brings you in here? I don't remember you being much into design at BattleSchool." Sol grinned back, but was at something of a loss for what to say, and shrugged. "Just touring, really." Cas' smile shrank a little, and a small veil of suspicion fell over his eyes. Idiot, the door is carded! He knows you snuck in! she yelled at herself internally. She forced a bright, interested smile. "What are you working on?"

Instantly, Cas was all proud, ineffectively modest grin again, and nudged the little insectoid-looking metal creature on the table. She recognized it, but covered her surprise. A Spyder, like the ones they'd sent after them when the IF thought they were in the ventilation in Juneau.

"Just a walking camera rack, really. It can't climb walls or anything, but it's got an ok range," Cas said, trying to be modest and continuing to fail.

A camera rack?

He remembered Cas from Fox. In their three years there he’d only spoken a single sentence to the boy, and that had been when he was handing the boy his desk, to be sure that the boy would cause no trouble for them. It wasn’t that he had anything against the boy; Gabe had known him to be quite bright and skilled with his hands. He had not, however, imagined that the boy had this kind of skill.

The boy was beaming with pride at the moment, but he’d been on the verge of asking unnecessary questions before and would eventually get around to asking them again. Gabe decided that it was best to beat him to it.

“We’ve need of the skills of a master craftsman,” Gabe said. “We were told to come and find you.” Gabe said the words with perfect steadiness, as though he were speaking truth so true that it was simple indisputable fact. The fact that it was completely untrue did not bother Gabe; except in a very specific case, truth and lies were simply tools to be utilized when needed. The lie would make Gabe’s and Sol’s task easier, and it would make the boy feel prestigious. Everybody benefited.

But especially them.

He didn’t look at the Spyder. To do so might give them away. They wanted to seem like they were here for his expertise, not his machine.

“We’re looking to collect recon data concerning a specific pair of students, and we’ll need some highly specialized equipment. You have a reputation as something of a prodigy.”

He was taking a chance here. He was assuming not only that the Spyder was in fact built by Cas, but built by Cas alone. For that matter, he was also assuming it worked.

“Though there are services we could offer in return, I doubt that anything we could do would be worth much to you. However, you could also look at this as . . . an opportunity. To test yourself. And your machines. This could be a field test, of sorts.”

"Yeah, I know. Nathan's back," he said with an unhappy frown. Sol blinked at him in surprise, but he waved it away. "We spotted him a couple of days back. Me and Helen," he added, by way of explanation. That seemed to clear things up a bit, and her surprise began to diminish. Their obvious concern over the commander made him relax a little. The more people were interested in protecting Dante, the safer Helen - and he - would be. At least these two were taking it seriously. Even Dante hadn't seemed very concerned.

Sol glanced at Gabe and then looked back at him, apparently trying to decide how much it would be safe to tell him, and he beat her to it. "Have you talked to Dante yet?" She shook her head silently. "Well, we have. She doesn't seem...that is, she's concerned, but I don't think she's taking it seriously enough." He remembered the look in Nathan's eyes when he stared at them in the Bay and tightened his jaw. "He's...not stable. He doesn't look stable. Pallas thinks he attacked Jordan Windhaven." Sol's confusion reminded him they hadn't transferred in until after it was all over. "Oh, that's right. You guys didn't get there until after Nathan iced. He and Jor didn't get along." It was a lot more complex than that, but Cas didn't understand all of himself, and it wasn't really worthwhile to try to explain it to them. "They were fighting - Nathan and some guy, I guess it could have been Jor - out there, in the Bay. I was showing Helen my model." He gestured to the sheet-covered fighter. "We heard something, and came out, and Nathan turned around and looked at us...there's something really wrong with him."

A little too much of his angry fear came into his voice, and Sol reflected it, looking more fearful and concerned herself. He mastered it and pushed on.

"Anyway, Pallas asked us to keep an eye on him, and that's what I built the Spyder for, so we wouldn't have to get close. Is that what you guys were going to ask me?" He wondered briefly if Helen was the one who'd suggested him. He'd have to ask later. Sol looked a little uncertain, and he grinned a little. "I mean, that's cool, we can share it, I guess, and it'd be better if Nathan didn't always notice the same person checking him out, you know? The remote's got an ok range, but it lasts longer if you can get closer in." Back on the familiar territory of explanation, Cas became more confident as he detailed the intricacies of his Spyder, demonstrating the hand-held keyboard and the Flies and describing the recharger as he walked it silently back and forth across the desk countertop.

He turned back to meet her gaze, and she laid a hand on Gabe's arm and moved the other one in a dismissive gesture. "Of course, Cas. We'll take turns, whatever you want. How does the keypad work?" They shared a small, understanding smile and Cas launched into a quick instructive course on how the handheld keypad took instruction. It was a standard of its type, with a quarter the normal keys of a regular keyboard, miniaturized, with two function buttons to press to lend the functionality of a full keyboard, and he was gratified to find that she was familiar with it, in theory, at least.

After some more demonstration, he let her try it. She was much clumsier with it than he was, but he didn't hold it against her, and after a few tries she managed to make it move back and forth without too much trouble. Gabe just watched, and Cas almost forgot he was there. Not that he minded.

When he was fairly certain Sol had the general operation down enough to practice, he took the control back. He didn't bother offering it to Gabe. "So do you want us to go first or what?" asked Sol earnestly, and Cas hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sol, precisely. He didn't trust Gabe. But it wasn't like he didn't know where they lived, and he really wanted to see Helen. This way, he could go see her and still be getting something done, and that meant a lot. He wanted to apologize for last night, at least, and maybe they could go to the observatory and he would feel like less of a fool.

Cas was a machinist -- he liked building things with his hands, make them move, give them life.  Gabe himself had never had any talent for such things, but he could understand it, at least.  The boy certainly did not strike Gabe
as a man of action.  He had assumed -- incorrectly, he now knew -- that Cas would appreciate a chance to withdraw honorably from conflict.

Gabe had not labeled the boy a coward, per se; 'coward' implied judgement on the part of the observer.  Gabe, on the other hand, didn't have to feel one way or the other about it.  The boy was what he was. If the boy had an aversion toward danger, what did Gabe care?

Except that, even if this boy had any such aversion, he was not acting upon it.  He wanted to be a part of this.  He wanted to do something too.

Gabe could not, of course, refuse him that.  It was Cas's machine they needed, and Gabe suspected that simply incapacitating the boy by some means -- either rendering him unconscious or somehow restraining him indefinitely -- would cause problems down the line.  Plus, no matter how weak Gabe's moral foundation might be, he knew he would probably feel guilty about beating up and stealing from a boy that certainly seemed to bear them no ill will.

Or, at least, bore Sol no ill will.  He didn't seem terribly fond of Gabe, but that wasn't particularly troubling.  Gabe spent a long time carefully fine-tuning his cold indifference to the perfect balance between being too unpleasant to be worth talking to but not so much as to be worth fighting.

But no matter.  Even if Cas wasn't going to give them completely free access to his machine, they still had it for the next three hours.  And although Cas did not like Gabe, it didn't seem to be hurting negotiations any, and so therefore Gabe labeled it irrelavant and -- figuratively speaking -- forgot about it.

The boy left them with the machine.

Nathan he could have done without.

The little ship was almost complete. The only steps left now were to install the miniaturized power cell and fasten the housing. Once it was finished, he could send it with the specs to IFC, and the engineers there would look it over along with hundreds of other designs when they were ready to commission a new class of fighter.

Cas had faith in his design. His little ship was fast without being wasteful, and sleek without being overly spare. The firepower wasn't overwhelming, but still very effective. All it needed was a decent pilot, and the IF had no shortage of those. In the hands of an exceptional pilot, it would handle phenomenally well. In the hands of a master pilot, it would dance.

She'd went through the scout simulations twice.. well not all the way through, starting at about level 50 and going till she died in level 95 or so and then doing it again. She'd improved a lot since the first time she'd flown the scout for Sasha, now she was better able to judge how much time she needed for a sharp turn or how much she could push the scout into a barrel turn. But she still had a little ways to go before she would be able to beat Nicolai, and she had a weird feeling that she'd have to do that to get Sasha to finally appreciate her. She didn't so much see it as feel the way that Sasha watched her in practice, almost as if he resented having her in the quad. It was almost as if he was just waiting for her to fail, to choke, so that he could have an excuse to transfer her out along with raven and have Panther go back to having only guys. She pushed herself as much as she could in practice, doing everything that she could to try and gain Sasha's approval, but he didn't seem to want to approve of her despite her best efforts.But then again, his approval or lack there of compared nothing to smile she got from Cas after a practice. It made even Sasha's approval seem trivial.

She got to the door that led into the workshop before she remembered that you needed a code key to get in. She contemplated sitting and just waiting for him to come out, but that could be any time, so she was about to knock on the door and hope someone would open it when it slid open and a kid walked out. He gave her a weird look before moving down the hall, and Helen stepped in moments before the door slid shut. Cas didn't turn to look at her, he probably didn't expect anyone to come in since when the door had opened it had been for someone to leave. He was working intently at his workstation, from the where she was standing she couldn't get a good view of what exactly it was that he was working on. She tiptoed behind him so she could surprise him but stopped, if he was caught too unawares, he might knock something loose on his project. She stood there behind him for a minute silently and waited till his hands were clear from the fighter model that he was working on before she moved closer. She rested her hands on his shoulders, feeling the tightness underneath her touch she started to squeeze them and start rubbing out the knots.

Guilt.

Helen was young. Not just a year younger, but almost three years younger. She was almost fourteen, and he'd turned sixteen four months ago. It was easy to forget; she'd always seemed older than her age, in demeanor if not in appearance, but as he studied her now, she looked even younger than he had remembered.

She was innocent. So was he, pretty much, but that didn't make it ok, and the longer he looked at her, the less he felt he had a right to care for her as he was beginning to fear he did.

"Thank you. I don't think you should do that again."

Do what again? Come and visit him while he was working? Did he not like her giving him a bit of a shoulder massage? Or was it the part about her sneaking in here and surprising him? No matter which one it was, if Cas didn't like her doing it, she could stop from doing it.

"You don't distract me, Helen. I was just about done anyway." She didn't look up, and he placed a finger under her chin to tilt her face back up. Mistake. Her eyes showed her hurt, and it stung him deeply. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it before he tried again. Conversation was a wall he needed. It kept him from doing something he might regret.

"I don't want you to leave."

That came out much more slowly and soberly than he had intended, and he stopped talking again. While his brain was occupied with not talking, focused on preventing any further verbal damage, the rest of him leaned forward and kissed her.

From an engineer's objective observational standpoint, it wasn't a very interesting kiss. It lasted only a moment, and had no frills or other decoration, but the spirit behind it was unmistakable. When he regained enough basic function to pull himself away, he was as shocked, if not more, than she was, and he immediately spun his chair back to the workbench.

How could you do that? asked his conscience in a tiny, broken voice.

"I don't want you to leave."

A nervous smile started to creep up on her face. He wasn't mad at her after all, he- all rational, and irrational thought for that matter, left her the moment Cas started to lean forward to kiss her. But for that moment it seemed as if the world had stopped and nothing mattered for those precious moments.

He pulled away and quickly spun in his chair so that she was left to gaze at his back in her surprize. Part of her wanted to run out of the room, it was telling her to leave before she got hurt, she couldn't get hurt if she never got close. But it was too late for that now wasn't it? The other part was begging her to stay, forcing words out of her mouth that evaporated in the air in silence. She stood there, not really sure of what to do. She could leave now, and be safe, or she could stay, risk being hurt... but Cas wouldn't conciously hurt her...

She took a few steps back, not nessessarily towards the door, but towards another work bench. She pulled out the chair and pushed it next to Cas's. She sat down not really looking at him, not quite sure what kind of expression she expected to be wearing. She just stared at the fighter for a moment.

She picked up on of the tools on the workbench and started twirling it between her fingers the way that she twirled pencils between her fingers when she was contemplating how to answer a question on a test. Only this wasn't a test, and her question didn't exactly have a right answer to it.And it wasn't as if she could predict the outcome of what she did like she could a science experient... she didn't know anything about this, it was all unfamiliar territory, that made her both feel a little cautious and a little excited at the same time...

Say something, his conscience demanded. Tell her you're sorry and you won't do it again. But he wasn't sorry, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't do it again, because he hadn't intended to do it the first time. It just...happened. There was a reason, he was certain, but he didn't understand the mechanism for that reason.

Cas hated not understanding how things worked.

He toyed with the hull of the little fighter, but he was done. There was nothing left to do, and Cas was not used to trying to look busy. He had to wait for the bonding gelatin to set around the power cell before he could run any diagnostics. He was stuck, and Helen was waiting patiently for a response.

"That's...good." His voice was a little tight, and set down the little tool he'd picked up at random when he'd been attempting to tinker and looked at her. "Pilot..." The words wouldn't come, and he didn't know what they were supposed to be anyway. "...let's go to dinner, eh?"

She put the tool down and stepped away from the chair and glanced at Cas who was still waiting for her response. She started picking though responses in her head, trying to pick one that would sound okay, but nothing sounded fine, so she blurted out anything. "Sounds good to me."

Now you can only talk only with single sylabol words, huh? Shows lots of intelligence Helen... You can fly but you can't even master something so simple as basic communication skills....

She tugged him out of his seat and just stared up at him for a moment. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking, what he was feeling before he kissed her a moment ago...she wanted to know what she, herself, was feeling now. His eyes stared back at her, gentle as anything. They reminded her of one of the mothers in the movies earthside where she was just being reunited with their child that they thought had been hurt or lost. Tears in their eyes as they would hug and say that they'd never leave each other again. She'd always walk out of the theater at that time, saying that no one could have that look in their eyes, it was all only acting. But the look in Cas's eyes was real, he wasn't acting.

He moved out into the middle of the room, taking in the scale of it, and studying the high places. If he and Sol were going to be using these rifles to tranq the people down on the floor, then they needed to be someplace high, or things would be in their way.

Gabe looked down the row of fighters. They were much too low to serve as perches, but perhaps they could be used to access someplace higher. The interior of the bay was rather blank, however, except for the loading arm assembly attached to the ceiling.

There was a system of catwalks above, criss-crossing the bay just below the massive mechanical assembly that made up the bay's loading arm system. The rig was ancient, at least thirty or forty years obsolete, but the IF apparently did want to put up the money to buy Command School a new one.

Training the commanders of tomorrow, apparently, was not so high a priority as they would have the world believe.

The catwalks looked promising. There was a ladder running up the center of the far back wall, near which most of the fighters were parked, and two more running up the fighter-facing walls of the workrooms and the storage area.

Gabe climbed a ladder, and began striding along the catwalks, looking downward. He was pleased. They would afford a good line of sight. It wasn't until he started heading back toward the ladder running up the side of the storage room that he saw the window set into the wall, and the control room beyond. Stupid. Of course there was a control room. Someone had to coordinate the launching and landing of the fighters.

And as Gabe approached it, looking inside, he realized that if he were going to be setting up these murders, he'd run everything from the room now before him. It had a wonderful view of all of the bay, and surely inside there would be a control for the bay doors.

The trouble was, the room had a perfect view of the catwalks too.

Gabe looked down to see that Sol had entered with Cas, and quickly descended the ladder. He spoke in a somewhat-loud voice that echoed in the large bay as he strode toward them.

"Callenstrom will be watching from that room up there. We need whatever interface that controls the bay doors from that room disabled, as well as any others we can find. The room looks closed off from the bay, so we need to access it from an outside corridor. That also means that it will have it's own ventilation shaft, which would be a good place to stash the Spyder." Gabe stopped a meter from them, and stood. "Martin, we need you to disable the controls for us. And to hotwire the door, quite possibly, unless you have legitimate access. When you're finished we'll set up the Spyder. Sol, unless Cas needs your help, I could use you up on the catwalks."

"We need whatever interface that controls the bay doors from that room disabled, as well as any others we can find," Gabe continued, and she frowned uncomprehendingly for a moment before it hit her. The bay doors. She met Gabe's eyes. Wick wasn't just going to let the Creche twins have a chance to kill Mode. She was going to open the doors and let the vacuum do the work for all of them at once. Sol went cold. Why would she want to hurt the twins? There had to be a reason they were helping her, and the twin she'd spoken to in the Library hadn't seemed hateful or mean. Neither had Wick.

There was so much here she didn't understand. At least Gabe had been quick enough to catch it.

Gabe was still talking. "Martin, we need you to disable the controls for us. And to hotwire the door, quite possibly, unless you have legitimate access. When you're finished we'll set up the Spyder. Sol, unless Cas needs your help, I could use you up on the catwalks." He turned and walked back towards the ladder, and Sol was about to follow when she saw the look on Cas' face.

He looked...angry, insulted and angry. She realized slowly how Gabe's speech might have been taken as a little...arrogant, maybe. To Gabe's way of thinking, of course, he was only being efficient, but Cas apparently thought he was being ordered around, and Cas was also apparently not in the mood to take direction from Gabe. Sol hadn't anticipated any problems like this. Didn't they have enough to deal with without having to worry about hurt feelings?

Trying to be diplomatic, Sol laid a hand on Cas' arm, but he pulled away. "Hey!" he said, more loudly than necessary. Gabe stopped, but didn't turn around. "What's your problem, anyway? I'm here to help, because Sol asked me to, but I am not here to take orders from you, Gabriel. You tell me what's going on and I'll tell you what I can or can't do for you, but don't expect me to ask how high when you say "jump" just because she does."

Sol stared, and caught her temper before she said something unladylike. Cas had no idea what he was talking about. He was wasting time, and he'd just insulted her and Gabe on several different levels. Gabe's speech hadn't been exactly polite, but he hadn't been rude either, and Cas was taking this far too personally.

He turned, and started walking toward Cas again, more slowly this time, but with an intensity in his eyes and his movements. "My problem is that I am in a hurry, Martin. There are lives at stake and I am trying keep relative innocents from being murdered for the convenience of a single person. It is good that you are helping; our task is much easier and has a much higher chance of success because you are. But I'm not going to feign a polite facade and toss pleasantries back and forth just because you don't like me. We have a job to do and I'm going to do it with or without your help. I'm not going to apologize or beg." Gabe was close now. "Do as your conscience directs you."

He turned around and took several strides toward the ladder before stopping again. "And Martin," he said, without turning, "I don't care what you think of me. But Sol has been nothing but nice to you, and I don't ever want to hear you talk about her like that again."

What the hell?

Cas was confused on several different levels, and attempted to construct a mental diagram to decipher what had just occurred. He'd come in with Sol, Gabe had given him a set of orders in what Cas had taken for an extremely arrogant tone, and Cas had decided to set him straight about the role he intended to play. After that, things got a little hazy. Gabe had responded, but not in any way he had been expecting. He'd expected to be ignored, maybe, or to have Gabe glare at him silently, something along those lines. Instead, the man had stopped and turned around, and for the first time since he'd known him, Cas felt truly uneasy under that cold gaze.

During their time in Fox, Cas had only had to deal with Gabriel a handful of times, but he'd always reacted the same way - silence, unless speech was absolutely necessary, and then one and two word responses, as the situation required. It wasn't like he was sullen or resentful. It was like he just couldn't possibly have cared less, and like he wasn't really paying attention. Having Gabriel's full attention was an experience he would happily have done without.

Cas didn't understand Gabriel at all, and he didn't want to, but when Gabe started to advance on him, he had to fight not to take a step back. Who knew what was going on in his head? Sol, maybe, since she was inexplicably comfortable around Gabe, but Cas had no clue, and that lack of understanding gave the man's actions a sheen of menace. The closer Gabe got, the harder it became to focus on his words, and when he finally stopped moving forward, Cas silently let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

After he'd turned around and begun to walk away, Cas had quickly replayed what Gabe had said and come to a very hard conclusion. Gabe was right. There was work that needed to be done, and he was getting difficult about...what? Gabe not saying hello? Not smiling when he told him what needed to be done? His firm conviction that Gabe had done something offensive when he outlined the necessities upon their arrival wavered and faded. Gabe was right. They didn't have time for his complaints...but that didn't mean he had to like Gabe.

It just meant he had to do what needed to be done to keep some fellow soldiers alive.

He didn't say anything else, just began walking towards the bay doors. If the bay doors needed to be offline, it would be pointless to search for the separate control boards if he could just disable the mechanism itself. That goal settled the last of the uncertainty in his mind, and he looked up at the catwalk briefly. Gabe was standing near the base to the loading arm, and Sol caught up with him as he crouched to examine the large joint assembly nearest the level of the catwalk. Her fingertips barely brushed the back of his neck, and Gabe looked up. He couldn't see their expressions, but he didn't have to.

Gabe had told him not to talk about Sol like that again. In truth, Cas hadn't even thought about what he was saying before he said it. He'd been too angry. Yes, that's pretty goddamn evident, Castor. How would you have reacted, if it was Gabe saying something like that about Helen?

That brought up another big problem, and Cas eagerly shoved his thoughts aside as he pulled the access panel nearest the bay doors free and got to work.

The brush of her fingers on the back of his neck sent a slight shiver down his spine. Gabe realized that he'd hardly been breathing, and let out a soft sigh. He looked up at her, and managed a weak smile. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have considered my words to Martin more carefully." He glanced down to see Martin at work near the bay door.

"I'm sure that he didn't really mean . . ." Gabe's voice trailed off.

I don't want us to be like he said, Sol. I didn't ever mean to be giving orders. I don't want you to do anything I say unless you want to, and unless you trust me. Because I trust you.

Gabe stood, and took her hand, and opened his mouth to speak. The loudspeaker cut him off.

Damn it. Parade Review.

Gabe started to speak again, but again shut his mouth. Now there wasn't time. They had to get back to their cell and get into those damn dress uniforms.

Gabe and Sol took a bundle of rifle parts and a pressure skin-packed helmet each. Sol questioned with her eyes when he handed them to her, and as they ascended the ladder and strode along the catwalks, looking over the loading arm assembly for an easy place to climb up, Gabe told her about the keycard and the security closet. And when he finished with that, he explained to her what he expected Wick to do, and how they would stop her.

". . . door disabled, Wick shouldn't be any more trouble," Gabe was saying. "We'll have her on disc just in case. It's the ones on the floor that we need to worry about. We need to simultaneously keep the Creche twins from killing Kat and Mode, but then make sure Kat and Mode don't kill them instead. I don't know what the dosage is in these darts, but assumably it's enough to drop most of the students here. However, Mode's drug tolerances might make him more difficult to put down. So we're going to have to just keep on shooting until he falls."

Gabe stopped, and knelt down on the grating floor of the catwalk, untying the bundle that contained the rifle parts. Sol did the same. They went through the assembly and disassembly a few times, until Sol had the process down. She always learned quickly. She was not fast at it yet, but they would practice once they'd found places to perch.

Soon enough they did find a way up onto the assembly. A large gear was positioned with its axis running in the same direction as the catwalk, and the teeth were large enough that even greased, climbing would be easy.

They did. Once atop the assembly moving about was fairly simple. The network of shafts, gears, pistons, and other mechanical parts that Gabe didn't know the names for were easy to navigate. Gabe and Sol walked all the way to the end of the assembly, on the side of the bay farthest from the doors. There Gabe found a flat area and set down his articles, and Sol followed suit. They unfurled the pressure skins and figured out how they were put on, and Sol assembled the rifle again, much faster this time. There was no need to drill; they would leave them assembled up here.

They then sat atop the assembly, having no more to do for the time being. Lights out was coming soon, but they had some time. They would wait for the confirmation that all was ready from Cas, and then wait some more, for the quarry to show its face.

The vents were all closed with flatblade bolts with oversized heads, supposedly intended to allow manual removal, but someone with an electric screwdriver had fastened these down last, and they were almost too tight for him to budge. It took some considerable effort to move them, but once he had them loosened it went quickly, and the vent cover came free from the ceiling. He left it to hang and reached down to lift the Spyder and place it into the vent.

The little machine was charged and ready to go, and he only looked it over to make sure all the joints were arranged properly before setting it inside the duct. Once inside, he immediately refastened the vent and hopped down from the table to take a seat and open his desk. This done, he went over and unlocked the door. There was no reason to keep it locked anymore; if anyone came knocking, he was simply doing his homework in a quiet place. A locked door under such a circumstance would be more conspicious than anything else.

Returning to the desk, he sat down and began to work. The pilot program launched, and he was rewarded with a dim view of the interior of the vent, a long dark space with a distant slatted splash of light indicating another vent. Guiding the Spyder was easy. Cas had been handling quarter-keyboards for years. Determining where it had to go was also easy, but following the schematic with only the visual feed from the Spyder as a guide was tedious. It took him almost ten minutes to get the blasted thing to the right vent, and another five to position it to the best viewing advantage.

He dimmed the display on his desk and moved it to the floor under the table. He doubted this room would be in use again before it was time for him to collect it again, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little careful. He didn't like leaving his desk in here untended, but he had no choice; it had to stay in range of the Spyder. His files were all backed up elsewhere, of course. Ever since his desk had gone missing in BattleSchool he'd made it a point to have a weekly updated file cache, but it was still unpleasant.

The consequences if this wasn't successful would be even less pleasant, he reminded himself. He left the room and jogged towards the Engineering Bay, pausing long enough to stick his head in the door and nod before trotting away. At least he was done with what they asked him to do, and he'd done something worthwhile. He wondered where Helen was, and what she was doing. Whatever happened tonight, he didn't want her anywhere near the Engineering Bay.

Their rifles were already assembled and positioned. They hadn't wanted any clattering that might cause the occupants below to look up too soon.

Gabe was silent, and she put her gloved hand on his momentarily to attract his attention. He turned towards her, and she leaned in and touched her helmet to his. The vibration transferred the sound more easily.

She didn't really have anything to say, but even with the suits in the way, the contact was a little comforting. Sitting up here with anyone else who was this quiet would have felt mostly like sitting all by herself. With Gabe, it felt almost normal. "You ok?" she asked at last. An inane question, especially for Gabe; if he wasn't, he would have told her by now, but it made her feel better to ask. It translated roughly into Are you sure about this? If so, please reassure me, because I'm feeling a little nervous and uncertain. A closer interpretation might have been, I'm scared, and would like to know that you're not, because you always know what you're doing. And as with most of what they spoke to each other in moments of stress, the same underlying meaning was there.

The lights in the control room went out, and the lighting in the bay dimmed a little. Lights out, finally. She took a silent breath and tried to still the butterflies in her stomach, but gave that up and concentrated on the doorway to wait.

The sound of the sunshield deploying made her catch her breath. It was harder to see the control room up here; this spot was suited to looking at the floor, which made it an excellent hiding place, but she wished briefly that she'd brought her desk up here so she could receive the Spyder feed and see what Wick was doing. It would have been pointlessly cumbersome and probably difficult to balance, though. Cas was recording it. That would have to be enough.

She looked at Gabe. Until now, it had been entirely surmise, but Wick was obviously planning to flush the bay. Otherwise, why the sunshield?

Then the bay doors opened, and she turned her head away to see who was coming in. The twins...and Katera, unconscious.

Not a game.

God damn. She was supposed to be unconscious. He instinctively dropped her as his hands went up to touch the wound she'd given him, blood leaking from two small pricks on the side of his neck. What the fuck was she, a fucking vampire? He cursed and kicked her before she could roll away, rewarded by her hiss as she spit blood on the floor at his feet. Stupid bitch. It all could have been easy for her if she hadn't insisted on fighting back. Dominic didn't like resistance.

His twin watched silently as Dom kicked her again, kneeling down to grab a fistful of those curls and haul her to her feet. She snarled, lashing out at him weakly, but Donovan caught her wrists, and Dom gave him a mirthless smile. Just wait until she had to watch them kill her precious Mode. That would teach the cat; especially when she discovered she'd been framed.

"Let me go let me go!" He backhanded her as Donovan held her restrained, pleased by the crimson mist that spattered her uniform from the force of his strike. Her head lolled to the side and, confident that they would meet no further protest, he nodded to his brother and then to the partially disassembled Talon that Wick had indicated before. It didn't take them more than a minute to haul her unconscious figure inside, and Dom took one last moment to cup her chin in his hand and smile at her bloodied face. "Sorry, sweetheart. Sometimes you just can't win."

He wished he could hear her answer.

"Out." They left her inside the fighter and re-entered the bay, and it was with a decidedly cocky grin that Dominic looked up to the sunshielded window of the command room and made a thumbs-up signal. He knew Wick would be inside.

Dom motioned for Donovan to follow him a safe distance away, and they hid themselves behind another fighter, waiting.

It's Kat, you idiot. Kat, the one that stabbed you. Kat, the one that has tried to kill you, tried to kill Sol, again and again.

But it wasn't Kat being hit that bothered him. Kat deserved to get hit. What bothered him was that the boy from his cell enjoyed it. Justice and revenge were fine; Gabe would not deny anyone's right to administer them. But they should be solemn things. They should be cold and impersonal. And they should be remorseful. They shouldn't be enjoyed.

Gabe shut his eyes and reopened them. Now was not the time. Now was the time to shut down. Gabe slowed his breathing, and as he lifted himself to his feet in a steady, graceful movement, he began calling up images and memories from his past. The crash. The hospital. The orphanage. Eric. Mai. Kat. Jax. Mode.

He moved over the top of the assembly, keeping low, keeping silent, until he found a spot that would give him the best visibility.

Her message to Mode was short and to the point. There was no mailed response, but she did receive notification when he'd opened it. Shortly after that, the message would quietly delete itself. No loose ends to tie up this time. Whatever clumsiness she'd still had at BattleSchool two years ago when they were handling Dante and Swede had departed with the rest of her inefficiency the moment the Wolf Quad door slid shut behind Jordan. The only thing that mattered now was her plan, and that was proceeding well.

The twins hid themselves, and academic curiousity made her lean a little closer, studying Donovan's back where she could see him from this angle. Even in the short contained conflict with Katera, their synchronization had been...interesting. From what she knew about the Creche Twins, from what they'd told her and from what her own research had uncovered, it was practically typical. What could a larger group of that caliber of fighter do? It was too bad they hadn't managed to duplicate their feat of training with triples yet.

She glanced at the timer on her desk and frowned, an entirely ungoverned gesture that left her eyes untouched.

Asmodeus was late. He could have been here twice by now. What was keeping him? Would he really leave Katera to her mercy to save himself? That wasn't something Wick had planned for...but she constructed a contingency plan now. If Mode didn't show in the next ten minutes, she would simply have to send the twins to fetch him. Katera would be easiest to keep restrained if they left her in the Talon, and they'd have to bring Mode back in to complete the frame.

The trigger would work as well then as it would now.

Her musing was interrupted when the door opened, and she had a very brief glimpse of Nathan Terrence, a wild rage on his features that hadn't existed in the cold, smirking countenance he'd worn when he burned her. That glimpse was nearly enough to shake her free of her icy complacence, and she stood to get a closer look as he swung a hand out and hit the main switch for the illumination.

The bay went dark.

"Fuck!" she hissed angrily as she scanned the console board and located the emergency lighting controls, the old bulbs flickering into life, the emergency strobes flickering red and white and casting a weird tint to the room below.

Nathan was over halfway to the Talon, moving in a hyper, accelerated fashion that caused her more than a little disquiet, his eyes too wide, his head flicking back and forth too quickly as he reached it. He pulled the door open with far too much strength, and Wick's jaw dropped a little before she clenched her teeth in frustration. One of the metal hinges was broken, and that would decrease the strength of the seal she wanted. She couldn't afford to waste time.

He slipped inside, folding himself in easily, and the door fell shut behind him. The twins stirred a little, but didn't move.

Now.

Jor stood from his position outside the engineering bay doors and strode inside.

He'd been stalking the corridors for ages, it seemed, searching for her. He knew something was going to happen; he knew it because he got that same drowning sensation he'd had when they first began their plotting against Nathan and Dante. It felt like duty, like something he knew he had to do yet was reluctant to... and it was even more evident now, as his heart sank the moment he spotted the Creche twins and their unconscious captive. That was the defining moment of his suspicions, and Jor had known right then that he couldn't remain a spectator in this final fight. He simply couldn't.

And so he'd waited until the sounds of a struggle inside had abated, and had begun to move toward the doors when sounds of pounding booted foosteps reached him. Wary, he'd thrown himself into the shadows, emerald eyes widening in disbelief as a raging Mode nearly flew past him and into the bay. He had never seen that sort of murderous fury in the other man's eyes before... not when he'd beaten Dante before him, not when he'd gotten him iced from Battle School, not even when... never. It was the selfsame fury he himself had carried the night he faced down the MPs and the IA interrogator to get Wick back. Absolute, instintingly homicidal rage. As if he'd kill anyone with his bare hands; anyone who dare step between him and...

He sighed and clenched his jaw. But if he was expecting an all-out brawl inside, then the silence and emptiness was more shocking than any amount of bloodshed could have been. There was no one inside. Angry confusion struck him, and Jor stood squarely in the center of the deserted engineering bay and turned in a circle, searching, looking for anything that might give him some sort of indication of a fight. There was nothing. Just silence... and Jor rubbed the brand on his back absentmindedly as he glanced around.

She stepped to the glass of the window to get a clear view of the intruder. Maybe it was Dante come after Donovan, and she would be spared the effort of having to find another way to deal with her.

The figure stepped into view, and Wick stopped breathing. The transmitter fell to the floor at her feet.

Concerned, angry and a little puzzled, Jordan Windhaven stood in the center of her stage and looked around in confusion.

Black teased her vision, and Wick wrested control by the barest of margins and pressed her trembling hand flat against the glass for the merest second, as if she could erase him, put him back in his quad with Bianca where he belonged, but Jor just stood there, looking bitter and irritated and nervous as he scanned the bay.

She turned to the side, took a step towards the door and stopped.

It took me three minutes to get up here from the Engineering Bay when I was setting my charge, at least. I didn't time it. I should have timed it. Three minutes - less, and the Bay is going to lose its airlock and the resulting vacuum is going to flush everything not nailed down into empty space. The intercom. I can tell them all to get out. The twins won't be pleased with me, and the pods aren't soundproofed. Mode will hear too. All of them will have very good reasons to want to kill me. Jor will be safe. Jor will live.

She was over the console and reaching for the intercom when another thought stopped her.

No. He won't. Asmodeus will kill him, or the twins will kill him, if only to make me suffer. Dead either way. Damn you, Jordan.

Her white fingers tightened into a fist and struck the edge of the console, near the bottom of the panel. Near the radio controls for the individual Talons, set up to give instructions to the students as they practiced maneuvers in the "safe" space nearest the Command School station.

The fuse is routed through the cabin. All I have to do is tell him to cut it and make sure he cuts it clear of the burn point, if he's lucid enough for that. I wonder what he took. The rest of them won't know any difference; they wouldn't listen to him, anyway, and once the line is cut I can get Jordan the fuck out of there.

Two minutes and fifty seconds. Wick activated the radio and was rewarded with a snap of static before the channel cleared. She was still in control. She still had a chance to salvage this.