The extraction units slammed into the ground up ahead of them, and Mak pushed that little bit harder, forcing his muscles to give everything they had.

His internal suit warnings were sending him minute by minute updates on the deterioration of the atmosphere, and he was hyperaware of Nyha curled up against his chest, absolutely defenseless against all of it.

She hadn't panicked once.

He'd worried she'd shut down, gone catatonic, but then she'd lifted up her head to watch the generator explode before snuggling into him again.

Erenn and Goojie had already climbed into the cage beneath the bullet-shaped head of their extraction units, their reflective mode switched off so he could see the black of their uniforms through the swirling sand.

He switched his off, too, and saw Yari and Vasouvy had done the same.

He swung into the single seat of the cage, setting Nyha on his lap, and hit the extraction switch. He couldn't wait for the others, the air had degraded to the point of almost nothing.

Nyha was holding onto him with both hands fisted in his jacket, her face upturned to his, her expression tense.

He pulled her closer, hugging her tight, and slid the glass of his helmet open. On his first breath of Cepi's atmosphere, he realized he wasn't a moment too soon.

“We're going to get real friendly, Nyha.” He pulled her right in, until her lips touched his chin, and then set his helmet to rescue mode.

Flexiglass slid out from both sides of his helmet, molding itself to his and Nyha's heads together.

As it sealed, he took a careful breath. And relaxed for the first time since the black ship had appeared on the horizon.

“Hold on.”

He felt her lips curve against the side of his cheek. “Not much choice here.”

He engaged the engine and gripped the cage with one hand, Nyha with the other, as they were thrust upward.

Below them, where the ruins had stood for millennia, was nothing but a crater.

“How would this work if the person you had to rescue was a man as big as you?” Nyha wondered.

Mak snorted. “Not nearly as pleasantly.”

“You all good?” Sinjin's voice crackled into his ear. “I think I might have underestimated things when I called this a shit storm.”

“Any idea who just destroyed the ruins?” Mak asked her.

“No.” The vice-admiral's tone was short. “But I'm standing in the launch bay onboard my ship, waiting for you to tell me every little detail of what the hell happened down there.”

“Do you have Dr. Garett in custody? He'll have more idea than anyone.” Nyha said.

“That Dr. Bartali?” Sinjin asked. “I'm afraid to say that yes, we did have Garett in a holding cell. A guard found him dead two minutes ago.” She drew in a deep breath. “They're snipping all the loose ends, and there is no longer any doubt I have a traitor onboard.”

“What now?” he asked.

“Now that we've confirmed there are no survivors on Cepi,” Sinjin said, “you're invited to watch a show. Kalastoni is blowing this damned piece of rock to bits.”

* * *

The massive laser array was primed, but the Kalastoni waited until everyone had landed in the launch bay, and the battleship had moved back to a safe distance, before they engaged.

The vice-admiral was right, it was a show.

Nyha wondered why destruction was sometimes beautiful, and destruction on this scale made it even more spectacular.

“You didn't want to go down there and check things out first?” Nyha asked Sinjin as she stood beside her and Mak on the observation deck. “Recover the bodies of the hostage-takers?”

“The array was in the right position after its last orbit of Kalastoni, and we didn't want to risk anything else happening before we ran out of time. It's our planet on the line.”

“I understand that,” Nyha said, and then realized there was an uncomfortable silence in the room at her words. She sighed internally, because there was nothing she could say to mitigate the discomfort.

She'd tried smoothing things over for years, and realized it just made things worse. Now she tried not to speak of Halatia's destruction too often, but she refused to keep completely silent because she had a duty, to the girls at least, but also to herself, to keep the memory of what Halatia had been alive, rather than the dead, smoldering wreck it was now.

A hand slid along her shoulder, and then Mak pulled her in under his arm. It was a comforting gesture, but the low zing of attraction that she'd felt since their first back and forth on her comm set roared to life.

The jolt she felt had her looking up at him. His gaze was knowing, as if he'd been waiting for her to catch up.

She sent him a smile and curved her own arm around his back.

“You didn't hear Veld or any of his people say who was behind this?” Sinjin stood with her hands clasped behind her back, a tall, voluptuous, commanding presence with silver hair cut short and standing on end around her face, as if she tugged at it regularly. They watched the laser array reduce the bigger pieces of Cepi to much smaller ones.

“No. The only thing Mak and I heard was Cors say he'd been blinded by the money, which suggests one of the Breakaways was involved.” Nyha let her head rest briefly on Mak's shoulder, then straightened up.

“I overheard Garde, Veld's second-in-command, say that the people he'd gone in with were prepared to pay big money, but that if Veld didn't deliver, they'd be better off dead than telling their employers they'd failed.” Mak's grip on her shoulder tightened, and then he dropped his arm.

“We've still got the two hostage-takers who were ferrying the hostages on the pick-up, but they seem to be late recruits, they're just muscle and I think they were getting a flat fee, not a share of the big profits.” Sinjin blew out a breath. “But we have other avenues.”

“Whoever on the administrative council pushed for me and the girls to come up here, for a start.” Nyha knew her voice was cold, but she didn't care. Whoever it was had thrown her girls into harms' way for money. They could go down in flames, for all she cared.

“Fenik Darm,” Sinjin said. The way she spoke had Nyha turning to look at her.

“Dead?” she asked.

“Dead,” Sinjin confirmed.

“They're clearing house.” Mak rubbed his chin. “But they either have a far reach, or they've got a Verdant String base.”

“Yes.” Sinjin flicked him a look. “That ship looked cutting edge, and it was, but we have full-scan capabilities on this battleship and we identified everything on there as Verdant String tech. It's been put together in new and interesting ways, but it's ours.”

“Veld must have been able to absolutely sink them if he was taken in and made to talk,” Nyha said. “They were prepared to risk you getting a look at their ship, and at their innovations, to silence him.”

“Someone on this ship had to have warned them we had the hostages secured and Veld had no leverage left.” Sinjin's tone promised a long and thorough hunt for whoever that person was. “The leak is Kalastoni, because until you lot boarded, I had an all Kalastoni crew. Someone here was prepared to put their own planet in jeopardy for money.”

There was nothing to say to that, so they all watched the last big chunk of Cepi get turned into fine space dust, and Nyha wondered who had the connections and resources to put together a massive space ship, and fund the theft of a grav generator.

She shook her shoulders to loosen them. Not her problem.

She would, though, put her mind to the relationship between the internal spiral and the grav generator. That they were connected was unquestionable, in her mind. The thought of it excited her.

“I'd better go check on the girls. Thank you for sending a pod for them, Vice-admiral. And for the extraction units. If it wasn't for you, and for Mak and his team, we'd be dead.”

“We would never have let that happen,” Sinjin told her.

Unsaid was the notion that there were too few Halatians for them to risk losing even one.

“Thank you. And thank you on behalf of the girls.”

“Are you their official guardian?” Sinjin asked.

“I am. I lived with them in a group home when I first arrived on Arkhor. I was twelve, and they were babies. We became a family, and when I was old enough, I applied for custody. I'm more of an aunt than a mother.”

She looked out at the destruction. “Tilla's mother would have been devastated to see what happened here today. She was the foremost authority on Cepi before she was killed on the Dru.” She kept her gaze on the debris. “But she would have understood doing anything to save a planet, and she would be grateful for her daughter's safety. So would all the girls' parents.”

“Then we've done our job.” Sinjin's voice choked a little.

Nyha dipped her head in acknowledgment, sent Mak a last smile, and walked away.

Sometimes she barely remembered the destruction of Halatia. Today conspired to be very much not one of those days.