I grinned and laughed as I held Lieutenant Commander Satomi Smith in my arms. She laughed right along with me. When I was done, I put her down on the ground and stared at her. She stared right back at me, and for a wonder? She was still smiling.

I felt a pang of guilt. I hadn't realized just how guilty I felt about my crew being stuck down here in a livisk reclamation mine while I was living it up inside a luxury tower banging a hot alien all this time. Not until I was down here being confronted with the reality that my crew, who already seemed a little annoyed with me because I made them actually work for their pay, might be pissed off at me.

My eyes darted back and forth, searching hers, but she was still beaming.

"Are you…"

I paused. There was a sudden catch in my throat. I worried I was going to lose it. I felt strength coming through the link from Varis. Strength and a little bit of curiosity.

"Are you okay?" I finally asked.

She blinked as she stared up at me. My hands were on her shoulders, and hers were resting on my upper arm. It was a comforting touch. It was a real touch. It was a reminder we were both here, we were both alive, and nothing, not even one of the most powerful empires in this spiral arm of the galaxy, was going to change that.

Finally she cocked her head to the side, and for a wonder she still didn't look pissed off. No, she looked confused.

"Why wouldn't we be okay?" she asked.

"I mean, you're in a livisk reclamation mine," I said, letting out a laugh that didn't hold much humor.

I looked around the place. I looked at all the livisk using those laser cutters trying to get chunks of technology or old bits of metal that could be recycled once they'd gone through the radiation scrubbers out.

"Come on. This isn't exactly the garden spot on this planet, and the planet isn't much to write home about."

"Hey," Varis said, sounding genuinely insulted.

But again, there was amusement that came through the link. Like she was playing a role and she knew it.

"Well that's true. The mine does suck, but it's worse for the livisk in here. They have us shacking up in some secret hideout down at the bottom of the reclamation mine."

I turned to Varis. I got the feeling, not for the hundredth time, that there was something about livisk culture I was missing here. Something important about shacking up at the bottom of the reclamation mine.

"Being forced to live at the bottom of a mine sounds like a bad thing," I said.

"Yeah, you would think it's a bad thing," Smith said, "but it turns out it's not bad at all. All the best stuff they get out of the mine and don't tell the empress about is down there."

Her eyes darted over to Varis, and for the first time since I'd seen her there was a little bit of antagonism there. Like she wasn't happy about seeing her.

Which made sense. If I was the architect of her current situation by not doing my job properly? Then Varis was the architect of their current shitty situation by being the livisk who showed up seemingly out of nowhere in Terran space to take all of them captive.

I could totally understand why she wouldn't be happy at seeing Varis.

"So this is the one," Satomi said.

I blinked again.

"She's the one who captured us at the edge of Sol, yes."

"No, that's not what I'm talking about," she said, smacking my chest. "This is the blue sparkly you've been shacking up with."

I blinked again. Surprises on top of surprises.

"How did you know about that?"

"Well, if I didn't know anything else, the way the two of you are staring at each other would make that pretty damn clear. The two of you are shacking up."

"I mean…"

"Plus stories have trickled in through the overseers when they're pretending to do their jobs."

"Pretending to do their jobs."

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Her eyes darted back and forth as she looked into mine. She seemed utterly confused at my utter confusion.

"I thought you'd been checking in on us. There was the first visit, after all."

Now the doubt was really getting at me.

"We had that first visit, yes," I said. "But honestly? I haven't had the time or the means to check in on any of you since then. I've been a little distracted by everything that's been going on with Varis over there. Bringing the fight to the empress. And on top of that, it's been impossible to get over here without the empress shoving so many fighter craft up our ass that it would be impossible to get in here without declaring open war."

"And yet here you are," Smith said, still grinning up at me.

"Yeah, here I am," I said. "But that's mostly because we snuck in. And we might've given the empress a bloody nose that has her thinking twice before she attacks us."

"Giving the empress a bloody nose is putting it mildly," Varis said, stepping forward and smiling as she put an arm around me. "William here killed a prince consort."

Smith's eyes went wide at that. "I have no idea what a prince consort is, but I get the feeling it's pretty impressive that you killed one of those."

"It's a fancy term for saying I killed a guy who's been dicking down the empress," I said. "Actually, he's the second one I killed. The first one was Varis's brother."

Smith looked over to Varis again. She arched an eyebrow.

"He was an asshole," Varis said.

Smith shrugged as though that was all the explanation she needed. Family could be complicated after all.

"Well, even if you haven't been coming down here to check up on us," she said. "What you did on that one visit was seriously impressive."

"What I did on that one visit?" I said.

I mean, sure, I shot the original overseer. I could still see her doing her best impression of Baron Harkonnen flying around on anti-grav units. It was actually kind of funny when I thought about it, though there was a part of me that worried at how bloodthirsty I was getting that I saw killing another sapient as amusing rather than horrifying.

I comforted myself by reasoning that she had it coming.

"They say you came down here and you straight up ripped into the old overseer's rib cage and pulled her beating hearts out. Like you had to rummage around a little bit to get the second one, and she screamed in pain the entire time."

Smith was looking up at me with some of the same bloodlust I was feeling ambivalent about in that moment.

"Did she treat you poorly?" I asked.

Satomi's face turned dark for the first time since this whole interaction had started.

"She was horrible. She said the empress wanted to make us as miserable as possible. She wanted to use us to send a message to the livisk that brought us here."

"I'm so sorry, Satomi," I said, shaking my head and tightening my grip on her shoulders.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment. A single tear ran down one side of her face.

"It was bad for the first few days. Honestly, it's hard to keep track of time when you're buried down here in a pit and you can't see the sun overhead through the smoke billowing up out of the refineries down near the bottom. We wouldn't have gotten through it if it wasn't for Rachel and Olsen."

"Rachel and…"

I paused. One of those names didn't belong in my conception of how the world worked. At least not a world where both of those names were helping keep the crew together under dire circumstances.

"Olsen?"

Satomi's smile was suddenly more understanding than a bright grin.

"Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you missed out on while you were out there doing whatever, but the point is we heard stories that you came down here and demanded to see us. That you killed the old overseer and suddenly the new boss was a whole sequel trilogy of a lot nicer to us than that old bitch."

I could only stare at her in astonishment. All this time I'd been worried about my crew. All this time I felt like I hadn't done enough, and now here she was acting like I was their savior.

It was an odd feeling, that was for damn sure. Kinda a relief, too.

"I'm glad I could help?" I finally said, though it was a statement that took the form of a question.

"Believe me, you helped more than you could possibly imagine," she said.

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight, and it was a surprisingly strong hug. Not at all the kind of hug I'd expect from somebody who'd been trapped in a reclamation mine and worked nearly to death because cruelty was the point when the livisk sent people to one of these things.

She pulled away and stared up at me, and again her eyes were watering.

"I knew you'd come for us. I knew Rachel and Olsen were right. I knew Keen was wrong."

"Rachel was wrong?" I asked, feeling a moment of confusion before I remembered that she totally had a husband who worked with her on the ship.

"Her husband," Smith said, reaching up and wiping some of those tears away from her eyes and letting out a laugh that almost came across as more of a sob. "He was convinced you were in league with the livisk the whole time. He went on about how she was in your head. That you led her right to us."

Again, I felt a pang of guilt at that.

"Look, there might be some truth to that," I said. "I was linked with Varis over there, but it was an involuntary thing. I promise that I didn't…"

Smith patted my chest.

"I know. I always knew you wouldn't do something like that. Just know there are some in the crew who've been listening to Keen, and some of them actually believe him. So be prepared for that."

I took in a deep breath and let out a long slow sigh. A lot of tension I'd been carrying with me this entire time disappeared along with that sigh. This had been weighing down on me for pretty much the entire time I was with Varis, and I was glad it was finally being released.

I wasn't out of the woods yet. It sounded like some of the crew weren't happy with me, and honestly? They were totally justified in not being happy with me considering what had happened.

I could talk about how I never meant for any of this to happen, but at the end of the day I was the captain. I was the one who was linked to the livisk who used that link to get to us. I was the one who was responsible for everything that had happened on Early Warning 72. For losing a second ship.

Now it was time to face the consequences, even if it seemed like those consequences weren't as bad as they could've been thanks to me blasting the ever loving shit out of that overseer bitch who was mistreating my people.

And maybe I was alarmed by the bloodlust percolating inside me, but a strange peace washed over me as I realized I'd totally do it again and I still wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

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