Chapter Text
In a podunk sector of the A'Nuaei system, hidden amid the swirling dust of a gas giant, sits a world in a strange elliptical orbit. On its surface sits a boy.
Let's roll that back. He’s not sitting per se. Not of his own volition.
His two besties, a pigtailed girl and a thick, lumbering boy of the same age, have pushed him into a nest of motha tics, now swarming him as he whimpers and smacks at his arms and his face. He'd be full force wailing, except a gob of them got into his mouth, and so all he's able to do is spit and make gurgling noises reminiscent of Ed, the notorious busker known for wrecking ears in front of Suhna Starport.
Above them on a rocky overlook, Alex Danvers lowers her visor and cricks her neck. "Show some spine for Rao's sake,” she whispers. “Can’t you at least be pissed off or something?"
In the two years since she’s been on this rock, Kal-El, the chosen one, or the Voikirahm as the old language puts it, has failed to lift even a finger in his own defense. She’s tempted to call out to him, to urge him to pick himself up and fight, but even if Kal could hear her now, he would probably just blink through his tears and try to wave in that goofy way he does whenever he spots someone he doesn't recognize. He does that to her a lot.
She clenches her teeth and lifts her visor again, watching as he stumbles toward the voices of his so-called friends. His eyes are swollen shut and his face is puckered with welts, and his pals are calling out to him, feigning concern even as they snigger and tiptoe away to ditch him there in the field.
“Behold the great Voikirahm,” she sighs. She could dispatch both of those brats with the flick of a pinkie. She'd love to give them a scare at least, but the Oracle forbids her interference.
Only if his life is at stake , Paladin. Ours is not to meddle. Observe and report.
"Kal!"
A figure appears at the edge of the pampas, where the verdant, irrigated El farm tapers off into the dry endlessness of the scrubland. Alex slumps with relief when she sees her. Kara Zor-El is Kal's older cousin, and the only one looking out for him. Kal's Uncle Zor is too focused on tallying the supplies and making sure the irrigation systems and the windcatchers are up and running to be much of a guardian. But at least the kid's got her. For now.
The local pipeline says Kara will be leaving for the Thon-Ter Flight Academy in a few months. The Oracle's decree's going to be a hell of a lot harder to follow. Alex hates bullies, but mostly she'd just like the kid to do something, anything but wear that stupid, trusting grin on his face and play the stooge for any would-be tyrant. They're in never-ending supply.
When the Order sent her on this mission, Alex was hopeful. Kal was only eleven then, and sure, it might take a little time for him to present, but he was the best candidate they’d had in decades. Now, it’s been two years, and Alex Danvers, Paladin and faithful servant of the Order of Rao is certain of one thing.
The kid is hopeless.
A wuss.
As free of a spine as a sea sloth. He'd likely give the Realm up to the Blackblade Incursionists for a promise not to step on his toes.
"He's still only a boy," she reminds herself. "Only not quite thirteen." In The Book of Rao, the last chosen one didn’t come into his own until he was fourteen. This thought brings her a moment of comfort until her mind wanders back to the fact that Krypton rotated faster around its sun, which means that the chosen one was likely six or seven when he presented. He might not have even been humanoid, although most of the legends depict him as a watery-eyed youth with questionable facial hair.
She gathers her kit and hoists herself up on her thoughtbeast, Ermu, a shaggy creature with wrinkled hide and a white snout, who sensing her frustration, projects an array of flowers and a lulling seascape in the space between his horns as they set off. Alex murmurs a thank you and scratches his head as they ride back to her dwelling, but the image of the boy, covered in tics and welts, and snotting into the sand stays in her mind's eye.
A lie might work if subtly spoken. She could tell the Oracle she sees hopeful signs of his ascendance. The strange break in his voice for example, or maybe how the crops he'd urinated on while helping Zor-El work the fields flourished into bloom a few days later. But the Oracle would know. Barring its ability to probe her mind, it could easily detect some small, strained vibration in her voice, the tension in her muscles as she tried to sound convincing. She tugs at Ermu's bridle, urging him down the stony plateau from which she's been conducting her surveillance. The hill is right on the cusp of the wilds, far enough to prevent the locals from venturing too close, yet near enough to afford her a good view of the scrublands and the Zor-El farm.
Ermu hastens his pace as Alex leads him into his enclosure, a warm bind of branches and hay, supported by wooden walls that see out the wind. She gives him a kaffa root and an extra ration of milk before enters her abode. It's a modest refuge, scooped out of a cave and isulated with embau poles and weaves of salf, and perched high enough to allow her to spot anyone approaching from a good distance. It's quiet too, save the rustling wind and the distant bleating of a herd animals as they graze below
She unhitches her belt first, removing her astrolabe and placing it gently upon its charger post. The scimitar comes last. She inspects it before slotting it into its scabbard, never failing to admire the elegant curve of the blade with its battle niks and the uneven glow around its edges. She might not be as proud as she once was to be in the Order, but she still takes pride in her mastery of this weapon, the battles she's won and lost before becoming nanny godmother to a weakling.
Splashing water on her face, she glances despondently between the tea set, and the shrine, which as dictated by the Order, 'must take up a central space in the room.' The latter is a squat thing when it isn't glowing and making vague pronouncements, roughly spherical, like a poorly made sculpture of a gourd.
She'd like to put off tonight's report, to take some long needed downtime after a day exposed to nothing but the sun and the games of insufferable children. Her gaze flicks back to the tea set, a gift from her mother, and the one nightly ritual that keeps her sane. She can smell the smoky lapsang from here, but just as she's to set the kettle to boiling, a hum sounds, and a blue light emanates from the Oracle's surface, transforming the warm browns of the room into something colder and metallic.
Reflexively, she drops to the prayer rug, and after a quick show of obeisance, she lifts her gaze into the light. It never weakens, that raw, invasive shock that knots her muscles and singes every nerve in her body. She's hated it since her first induction ceremony. She hates it now, even if she knows that every resentment picked up on during communion places a black mark on her record. It's a cleansing of the ego, they say. A Paladin must reveal their bruises and naked ugliness in order to pursue the good. But Alex has never been one for the elimination part.
She likes her anger a little too much.
"What progress today, Paladin?" The voice is as smooth as the blade of a new scimitar, but there's something primal beneath that inflection, a timbre steeped in the fabric of time.
“None, Oracle.” She keeps the terseness in her tone, hoping it will add weight to her message. It’s the same one every week. The boy shows no potential.”
But if the Oracle is listening, it only reveals this in the somewhat lengthier silence. Alex counts out the seconds in the pulse of the beam until it flares enough to cause her to squint in its glare.
"Why answer have you for this?”
“Me?”
The question is a trap, of course. If she puts voice to her feelings, it will be noted. If she blames herself for the lack of progress--even though she's forbidden from interfering--that, too, will be noted. So she opts for equivocation.
"Some interpretations in The Book of Rao hint at a slower pace of development. Some say the Voikirahm did not present until he was thir--"
"We are aware of those interpretations, Paladin. We are asking you for yours."
The tone offers neither condemnation nor encouragement, but Alex suspects it's more of the latter. She looks away from the light, her mind fighting for an answer that might satisfy. But what she's really thinking--what she thinks with increasing conviction-- is that this is a fool's mission, that the Order is wrong to put their faith in a prepubescent humanoid, or really any single individual amid a galaxy spanning 60,000 light years. That’s never a good game plan to begin with.
She levels her voice. “The boy is different. But whatever you're expecting, at least as far as how our lore interprets him, will not come to be."
"Lore, you call it."
"Interpretation, Oracle. I do not imply an untruth." She waits as the blue light pulses in contemplation.
"Permission to speak, Oracle?"
"Speak freely."
“Any word on the fleet dispatched from Argo? The people here grow worried about the inroads being made by Incursionists, and I for one, have been waiting for--"
"We've encountered a problem, Paladin. A shipping dispute on Crocian II forced a diversion from their original route. They must go where they are most needed.
In the back of her mind, she’s been expecting this, but she chokes in surprise all the same. The Order has been dangling the fleet’s arrival over her head for six months now, promising her a ride and a two-week leave to the more developed Bahna. She's spent months fantasizing about a decent hotel and good food, about strolls through the marketplace, the streets clean and glistening from a fresh rain. Offworld leaves are guaranteed to all Paladins as rewards for their sacrifice and asceticism.
"But you see, Oracle. My leave papers came through, and I was told--"
"It has been decreed that you will remain here until the boy presents. Reinforcements will only be sent then."
"How long?" she knows she's not supposed to ask that, of the Oracle or the Order, but mostly of herself. 'Do not ask questions about what you cannot control,' is one of their prime edicts. And that other question, the one that follows it, is a no-brainer.
How do you know that you can't?
She waits, about to walk back the question, but then the blue light shimmers and fades, leaving her alone in the shadows.
When she’s certain it’s retreated, Alex doesn’t bother with the tea or the breathing exercises, the little rituals meant to instill self-control and keep her dark side at bay. She stuffs her legs into a pair of trousers and slips on a simple dark jacket more suitable for Cimark VII, before locking the gate and tossing an extra root to Ermu. He flashes back the image of a bottle and a dancing Elbarian girl.
"Smart ass," she says. "This is why I'm taking the speeder."
Not that she'd ride Ermu where she's going. The place is too far for that.
The speeder was the first thing she bought here, snub-nosed and the width of a surfboard, with one side dented up from a few too many encounters with canyon walls, and a decal on the other left by its former owner. Alex didn't scrape it off because it was for some traveling troubadour band she remembered from childhood on Midvalian, and she'd considered it an omen. In truth, the Order wouldn't like her having the thing. She's supposed to be blending in, playing the role of a humble scrap dealer or a hermit of the outlands, but there's no way she's stranding herself without a release valve. She kicks in the starter, as the blast ducts send up a whorl of dust around her and the vehicle. She coughs and brushes at her shoulders as it rises, keeping the lights off until she’s far enough from her place. The wind will whisk off the rest of the dirt by the time she reaches Suhna.
#
Alex never wanted to be a Paladin. Her childhood dream had been to join the Intergalactic Science Academy. But that goal was derailed when the local Seer seized her arm in the agora one morning, pointing out the red sun mark on her wrist. Ever since the day it appeared, Alex had kept it hidden under a thick metal bracelet that clung to her wrist like a chain. The mark was bright like a blood blister and uniform. It looked as if a hot coal was burning beneath her skin. She had heard of the sun mark and how it marked secret band of Knights who maintained the Order, but she shoved her fears down, burying herself in the lab to study cosmology and chemistry, her gloves always tucked up to her elbows. That day, however, was the first day of the Nova Cycle, and Eliza wouldn’t let her go out in her “ruffians’ clothes” and those “barnacles” she called jewelry. If not for the Seer, she thinks, she'd be an interplanetary biologist, exploring the flora and fauna of distant worlds rather than boiling roots for sustenance on this rock. But her teachers got word of it, and then the rest of the town, and then her parents--or her father really, who'd been wanting to one-up the Bantha-Hardens who lived in the big house adjacent to their own. And that was all the science she wrote.
She said goodbye to her friends and her family and at fourteen, she was living off-world on Cimark VII, a paradise of pastel skies and shining cities, where she would never want for anything, provided she didn't allow herself to want.
The Order taught Alex to shove down her feelings, even as they trained her to kill. She learned that loneliness or grief or anger were the most dangerous things of all, and that love was acceptable only if it was of the kind that could not transform into the former.
This left her with a hole inside, one that ached in a way she could not articulate, and she blamed it on a lack of discipline, on her inability to quash her curiosity or the scattershot thoughts that pinged her brain and sent her into fits of homesickness and anger and anxiety. The Order for its part was happy to point to Paladin excess, whenever they displayed too many feelings, or Rao forbid, too much affection for one another.
When she came of age, the other Paladin began taking her to the Pleasurescapes in the cities. They used their leave time to revel in drink and brawling, those shows of anger they'd never allow themselves within the walls of the Sun Citadel. It was there that they sought out partners, the kind who'd play along with them as they indulged themselves in 'romances.' Fast-paced flings that speed-bumped from flirtation to courting and into the bedroom in the space of a single day. It was good, the Order dictated, to experience love provided it was brief and in strictly controlled circumstances.
If the Paladins knew they were missing something, they didn’t show it. Back in the Citadel, they'd swap stories, showing off their holos or locks of hair, commiserating over their lost loves as if they’d spent years pining over those whose affections they’d purchased for a weekend or a night.
Alex had thought it laughable, but she let herself be carried along, finding the sex with boys to be unfulfilling at best, and revolting at worst, and she hated their ridiculous overtures. As if plying her with flowers would impress her. She wondered during these encounters if love was just a myth. Some bugbear the Order dreamt up to frighten their servants into submission.
But then came Vicky. Vicky who worked in the cabarets and was saving up for a homestead on Banha. She never made Alex feel like it was an act, or that she was rushing her through some fake courtship just to get to the sex.
Alex still remembers that first night, and she sometimes hits herself for refusing to psi-log it into a replayable holo. She remembers how Vicky disrobed, laughing gently as Alex blushed and tried to stop herself from trembling as she watched. When she stood undressed before her, she didn’t touch her at first, but simply moved within an inch of Alex’s body, teasing the embrace and letting the warmth of their bodies fill the space between them.
“Take your time,” she whispered, her breath tickling Alex’s ear. “We still have hours.”
Only hours.
Alex reached up, her hands shaking and clumsy as they slid over Vicky's waist. Vicky’s smile broadened, acknowledging her shyness, and she kissed her, softly at first, her arms snaking around her like silk until Alex’s confidence flared and she pulled her to her. It was like Rao's red light was firing through her veins, showing her the true depth of that hole she'd had in her heart while at the same time filling it with something she'd never known she needed. As she lowered herself to take her nipple in her mouth, she knew what this was now, why the Order saw love as something dangerous. It was the want that mattered, that she wanted something, and that dance between delayed gratification and fulfillment was what powered the discipline they required. Should she be allowed to let go, to truly give in to that need, then all their means of keeping her would crumble.
She knew. She couldn't lie to herself about that.
And yet she went back. What else was she to do?
Alex loved her.
The way she laughed. The way she reclined in the bar, ordering up drinks and singing in that velvet voice that never faltered even when the patrons jeered and tossed their credits up on the stage.
She loved her in the way that some people were certain that Krypton was still out there, pristine and unbroken.
This love made her see her future in a different way, trading those impending years, that slog of duty under the Order with something shiny and undefined. And Vicky was a constant in that future. Vicky, with whom, if Alex could just free herself, she might stay not just for a few stolen hours, but whole nights and weeks. Years. A lifetime.
She went to see her whenever she had leave, ditching her fellow knights to seek her out in the cabarets, bringing her wine and sweets, and sometimes even those ridiculous flowers she'd been gifted by the boys. Vicky seemed bemused by this, but Alex, in her daze and the ego of a young servant of the Order, read it as being flattered.
She was a young protector of Rao, after all. And although never allowed herself to think it, underneath she sensed that Vicky was lucky to have her attentions.
But her fellow Paladins, even though they'd first welcomed the stories about her blooming romance, started to be discomfited in how she told them. Theirs were stories, after all, things in the past that would be added to the legends of their lives. But Alex, Alex talked of next weeks and tomorrows, of her plans to read the poets Vicky mentioned; and how, if there was enough time for it, she might take her on a surprise trip to Desmond’s moon.
One morning, when she was sparring with Wyeth Thah, he landed her a blow to the sternum that knocked her flat and sent her insides to vibrating.
She fell back, the air tearing out of her as the pain radiated through her core. Thah stood atilt in her shaky vision. He was looming over her, his mouth a smear and his fists pulled back in self-restraint.
"You disgrace us, Paladin!" he said. "We depend on you in battle. Do you not see that? Every time you tune out, you put all of us at risk!"
Her vision dropped leadenly back into place, righting itself as she glanced around and saw that the others had stopped sparring. They were all looking at her with the same concern mixed with sober condemnation. She felt her face burn, the tears coming with the stain of shame and revelation. Thah sighed and spat something to himself before bending to grab hold of her arm.
"Consider this a warning," he said. "None of us here wants to report you to the Prelate." And then, more gently. "It gets to all of us, Paladin. None of us are immune. You just need to let it go."
Alex nodded in assent, but she wasn’t going to let it go. Vicky had plans to leave this place, and Alex had her own savings, a small fortune she’d not even needed to access during her years with the Order. She could go to her on her next leave. Tell her that she was renouncing her vows and that they could leave on the next freight out.
She stayed focused over the next weeks, training hard, and always offering to do extra, to help her comrades as they scrubbed the floors of the dining hall, and polished their scimitars into glass.
When the day came, however, they must have known. For she left that morning, without leaving so much as an invite for a drink.
Vicky was backstage when she got there, smoothing in her makeup, and turning this way and that in the mirror. When she caught Alex in it, she spun around, a tight smile on her face.
"I didn't expect you tonight," she said.
There was something cold in her tone, and Alex felt her heart drop a degree. She offered a smile, a little too open, and said, "That's because I've something important to tell you. Something wonderful."
Vicky's eyebrow crooked on that last word.
“That’s wonderful.” She sounded as if Alex was a child, interrupting her cocktail party with a request to read a bedtime story. “But you see, I’ve got a show in a few minutes and—”
A loud knock on the door. Showy and boisterous. Vicky stiffened. “You’ll have to tell me later. Maybe next time you’re in—"
Alex felt herself shaking. What was Vicky not understanding? She went over to her, thinking that if they were face-to-face, she might get through to her.
"Your plan," she said. "About Bahna--"
The knock sounded again before the door flew open, and a tall Lycurgian man ducked his head into the room.
He saw Alex and frowned.
"Aren't you ready?"
"I'm coming."
Vicky didn't take her eyes off Alex as she slipped on her jacket, but she did reach over and pointedly take the man's hand.
"Danta," she said. "This is Paladin Danvers. Of the Order."
He snorted. "You've got a guard now?"
"She's a friend," Vicky said.
Friend.
Alex felt her mouth grow dry. The man was looking back at her, his eyebrows raised in friendly appreciation as he slipped his arm around Vicky's waist.
"My wife has connections," he said, offering her a smile. "Say, you want to come by the club sometime? My boys would get a kick out of hearing some of your stories. Is it true that you're not supposed to like..." he made a vulgar gesture with his hand. "... you know."
"Danta," Vicky said, smacking his shoulder lightly. "Please!"
"Honest question." He said, winking at her.
“You can be honest with me,” Vicky said, “after the show’s over.”
And then, as if punctuating an end to their relationship, she gave the man a kiss before turning back to Alex, her eyes blank and noncommittal. "You can stay here if you like. I'll send drinks around."
"No," Alex said, feeling her heart crack with her voice, and feeling all the more the fool for having neglected her training. If she’d focused, she wouldn’t have to feel this now. She wouldn’t have that hole blooming inside her, seeping into her soul like the darkest of inks. “I have duties to attend to. I'll go.”
The Order had been right. They always were. Alex had let herself love and love had turned on her and spat in her face. She would never make that mistake again.
#
Sunha Starport is the closest chunk of civilization, a rustic saloon town, coated in dust and reeking of rocket fuel and the bad cuts of burnt meat. It's the only place in 1,000 versts where she can let her hair down and speak in Interlac. Out in the scrublands, Interlac would mark her as an outsider, and so she falls back on the local patois.
A plume of smoke and thrum-beats envelops her as Alex steps into The Raft, one of the few drinking establishments in Sunha that doesn't discriminate by species. Most bars in port towns make a practice of it. After all, the argument goes, if an Infernian accidentally took a shot of Blandish shochu, they'd go up in a firestorm that could reduce a forty-block radius to ashes. The Raft solves that problem with a tersely worded disclaimer above the bar, and a staff of assiduously polite synthetics, coded with every chemical recipe and plant variety from here to the Inner Core. They and The Raft’s owner have never fucked up an order.
Maggie Sawyer’s been on Iraiza for a long time, although her acumen for languages and intergalactic cultural competence reveal that she definitely didn’t start out here. Rumor has it she ported in as a stowaway on a grain ship at fifteen, winning this bar in a bet with Har Dent, who took a quick shine to her and gave her a role managing his growing network of casinos along the outer belt. Maggie doesn't do much to discourage these stories, yet she never confirms them either.
She’s here tonight like she is most nights of Iraiza’s nine-day week, perched behind the neon curl of the bar, keeping a watchful eye out over the scene as she makes easy conversation with the patrons. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she wears a loose tan shirt with the sleeves rolled up, all the easier for dipping her hands into the side rail as she produces a bright pink bottle of Nothian palinka.
It's Alex's usual, although she doesn't know how Maggie clocked her that fast. It’s not like she's paid more than a few visits over the last two months. And Maggie keeps her stance noncommittal, chatting with another customer in Thanagarian, not even glancing at her as she slides the drink toward her across the bar. Alex isn’t sure if she should feel grateful or affronted, but what she does feel is a lot of both.
Alex takes the hint and keeps her own gaze averted. She lifts the bright pink liquid to her mouth and sips, keeping her ears cocked to the conversation happening next to her.
"Another shipment of parts gone," says the man sitting next to her, a craggy-faced, jump pilot, known for ferreting jailbreakers to the outer rim. "Bloody Blackblade Incursionists. They're getting cheeky, they are. Got a line up of clients who don’t take lightly to having to wait inside Order territory."
“This is hardly Order territory,” Maggie says, casting a quick glance at Alex. She’s not sure if Maggie's ferreted out her identity, but her voice is just a little too loud, like she wants her to overhear.
“I do hate to say it though,” the man says. “We could use a few more Realmships out in these parts. Not too many,” he chuckles. “But just enough, so you know, things start working around here again."
Alex takes a sip and looks away, digesting the stream of news that follows. A shortage of burnstone has left an entire fleet of supply ships stranded here for the indefinite future. The crew has taken up all the rooms at the Lorcloss Inn and have turned the place into a brothel/gambling den. Another battalion of Incursionists has taken a whole world in the Eskey system, a little too close for comfort. Alex wonders if that's where her ride to Bahna went and feels a stab of despair mixed with guilt at the thought. She's mulling this, the palinka sending her muscles to loosening, a bitter salve to all the questions and resentments when she sees him.
Zor-El, the boy's uncle is in the bar. He's sitting in a booth in the back corner, the coruscating prism of a holo game dissolving half of his figure into the light. Zor-El isn't the type to come to Suhna, much less to The Raft. He's a man of the soil and the simple life, which is one of the reasons Kal has been allowed to stay with family. This place is not much more than an oversized asteroid, but it’s distant and under the radar of the Incursionists, who would jump at the chance to murder a symbol of the Order. Zor-El has an ale in front of him, but he isn’t drinking it. He's just sitting there, his body rigid, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, as if he’s waiting for someone while at the same time hoping they’ll pass him right by.
Alex lowers her head and stares into her glass, keeping Zor in her peripheral vision. She wonders now if he spotted her coming in, if he’d even recognize her from her wanderings around the scrublands. She trains her ears on the man’s heartbeat, filtering out the conversation, and reluctantly, Maggie’s laughter. The Order has taught her to narrow in on sounds, however faint, to find herself in the stillness with distant birdsong or the tap of an insect as it lands against a window pane.
His pulse is going a pace; he's definitely nervous, but after a long moment, the rhythm slows into something like a coward’s relief when he realizes he won’t have to do whatever scary thing he’s been planning. She hears the leather of the booth creak as he rises, ambling over to leave a few coins on the bar, and to thank Maggie with the kind of politeness only a true galactic bumpkin would display in a place like this.
When he’s out the door, Maggie grabs the bottle and pour another shot of palinka into her glass.
“You know that guy?” she asks.
Alex blinks at her, surprised by her directness. Maggie's good at being discreet and she's danced around Alex, giving her space when she comes in for a brood. “I do not,” she says, finding herself stammering for an excuse. “I thought he might approach me. Men like that are always on the lookout for wives.”
A faint smile breaks across Maggie’s face, and Alex belatedly realizes the real information she’s been steered into giving. Despite her talent for mind weaves, which protect her from suggestion, she's got a vulnerable spot for beautiful women.
“You know,” Maggie says. “It is funny to see a guy like him here. Folks are getting nervous. The Incursionists taking Eske? That’s a little too close for comfort. Even here.”
Alex bristles at this sudden turn in the conversation, although she’s not sure if Maggie’s trying to quell her embarrassment or ply her for information.
“Is that so,” she says, looking at her. “I don’t hear much about these things out where I am.”
“Right,” Maggie says, giving a once over to her black jacket and those trousers. “I forget you like to rough it.”
Alex is about to react when a series of clicks sound from one of her synths. Maggie cocks her head, deciphering it, and then snatches a glass from under the counter. The glass has a bottom but only half a rim, the other is lined with a paper-thin layer of gelatin with a saucer for catching liquid at the bottom. Maggie’s Krii patrons imbibe through the flaps of skin on their cheeks.
She gives shrugs apologetically and pulls a jug up on the counter, slipping on a pair of gloves before she pops open the cork. An iridescent gas rises in a funnel from the top, and the patrons around the bar gasp in pleasant awe at the sight.
Alex does too. It reminds her of her school lab on Midvalian.
"Want to see some magic?" Maggie grins, loosening up again after the tension between them. She lifts the glass and cups it over the top, and they both watch as the liquid rises against the pull of gravity, settling in it like waves of shimmering foil. Maggie lifts her hand, glancing about theatrically as the liquid rises from the glass, not a single drop spilling. She tilts it upright and passes it to her customer as the patrons around the bar clap in delight.
"Nice trick," Alex says.
"I'm sure you know quite a few more," Maggie says, and Alex's smile tugs down even as she feels a heat stoke inside her.
"Not like that."
Maggie holds her in her gaze, not pushing it, but contemplative. “You know, quite a few folks are frustrated with how the Realm is handling things." She grabs an ale from the swing back cooler and twists it open. "They say that some hokey religion shouldn’t be dictating things like commerce or security.”
Alex's feels the sting of the barb. People have questioned the Order’s place in the Realm for years, but they’ve rarely voiced their misgivings so bluntly.
Hokey?
The Order had brought peace to the galaxy, after all; an end to hunger, and free education to all sentients living within its boundaries, even out here. She's fairly certain that Maggie hasn't pegged her identity, that she's probably just displaying a little more trust --which makes Alex feel really good--but she's got to be careful.
"I'm sure the Order has a lot on its hands," Alex says. "They've got to put their resources where they're needed."
"Need's subjective," Maggie says. She takes a sip of her ale, her eyes never leaving Alex's. "What do you need, Danvers?"
The answer stalls itself halfway in her throat before it bolts back to where it came from. "What I need," Alex says, "is another drink and not so many questions. You okay with that, Sawyer?"
Maggie lifts her hands in a loose surrender. "Hey, I'm just doing my job," she says. She nods to her synth and clicks out an order before sliding over the remainder of the palinka. "Enjoy. This bottle is the last I've got for a long while. A lot more than that will be running out soon unless we get help." She watches as Alex takes in the news, then turns and walks over to the billiards table.
"See you around, Danvers."