"Sorran? Thank the gods you're alive; it is I," he heard the surprisingly reassuring voice of the old Unggoy harken back to him. A breath that Sorran had not known he was holding let loose. "Come closer." Hesitation gripped Sorran then, and he did not move his oars. "What's with the cloak and dagger, Jajab? Who put you up to this?" he called back, exchanging an oar for a rifle and letting it hang down the side of the boat; its heated tip gently skimmed the surface of the water, veiling its blue shine in steam. "... it's Savara, Sorran. They have her. It hurts my voice to shout; I swear to you on all whose lives I hold dear that it is safe, for now." [i]Savara![/i] was the only word in that sentence Sorran registered. Disregarding all concern for his own well-being, he quickly rowed towards Jajab's boat, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that it was foolish. At last he saw Jajab clearly, the light around his boat creating a bubble in the fog. He looked at Sorran with wide, fear-filled eyes, but seemed glad to see him. Sorran was too busy staring at Jajab's coat to return the look, or rather what lay beneath it. "Is that a--" he asked in a barely constrained voice, wondering if those words would be his last. Jajab glanced down and nodded. "A bomb, yes." "I can see that," Sorran spoke slowly, irrationally worried that if he spoke loudly he'd disturb the current peace of the explosive device. "Why did you tell me it's safe?" "It is, for now," Jajab assured him. "That's why I had you come out here; all this water interferes with the transmitter embedded within the bomb. It won't take long before they realise what's happened and come for me, though; I was about to leave when you arrived." "What about Savara, Jajab? What do you mean [i]they[/i] have her?" Sorran suddenly demanded, still keeping a wary few metres between their two boats. "Pel and his accomplices, Sorran. He's an Ossoona. He's the traitor." "We know," Sorran replied, stressed. Jajab frowned. "[i]We?[/i] Then, Hem yet lives too?" "What?" Sorran muttered abstractly, torn out of his concern for Savara. "No, Jajab. No. Hem's dead. Pel killed him. I'm sorry." "... what a sad end for such a noble man," Jajab remarked, sighing. "But at least you still live. So who is this other you referred to." [i]I can hardly tell him I'm friends with the man who murdered Restraint. Not yet, at least.[/i] "Ahkrin, a good friend of mine. He knows our plight, and is helping. I trust him with my life, you have nothing to fear," he explained in half-truths. "If only that were true," Jajab remarked sadly. "They're holed in in the Janjur Qom district, Sorran. They gave me directions to give to you, on a holodrone." "How kind," Sorran muttered, deftly catching the small orb of silver Jajab threw across the waters. "No doubt they expect me to bring over the data and myself and Ahkrin. I hardly expect they'll let us walk out alive." "It's unlikely," Jajab agreed, sweat trickling down his brow. He kept glancing out all around him, as far as he could see through the fog. "Just leave her, Sorran. There's no getting her back now. Leave this station, go into hiding, and never come back." "Oh, you would want that, wouldn't you?" Sorran retorted with derision, red flashing before his eyes. "For us all to just leave this behind and spend the rest of our lives in the dark, afraid of our own shadows! I can't do that Jajab. If you want to leave High Charity without us, then fine. Just don't expect us to follow after you." There was a small silence between them then, before a sad little smirk ran up Jajab's wizened face. He shook his head. "You misunderstand me, Sorran. I did not mean that I should go with you. I was telling you to go, I don't want you to throw your life away on a suicide mission. But I was wrong to say that, you're right. Save her, Sorran. Save her, and then run away." Sorran didn't understand what the small Unggoy meant. Waves were beginning to toss and turn about the lake. "What will you do?" he asked, confused. Jajab merely answered by reaching into the folds of his robes. He drew out a small plasma pistol; Sorran brought up his rifle, thinking betrayal. Jajab stared at it for a few moments, before bringing up his own gun and pointing it under his chin. "Leave, Sorran. Don't look back," Jajab told him through tears, the green of the pistol illuminating the Unggoy's tiny face in a ghostly way, throwing ephemerality into ever line of age and the tears that welled within them. "What are you doing?" Sorran demanded, preparing to jump across to the other boat and stop Jajab. He was stopped by a small hand, the tiny palm and a resolute shake of the head freezing his legs in place. "I can't remove this bomb, and they would never do it. This will buy you some time; they'll see the explosion even through the fog, and think you dead." "No!" Sorran protested. "You can't kill yourself, you're all that's left. Hem's dead, Restraint's dead; I need you." "I've never been needed, Sorran," Jajab replied gently. "That's why whenever I ran, no one noticed. But I found out that if you always run from what life throws at you, then all you have left is survival. Sometimes to truly live... you must die." "We've got time, Jajab. We'll figure out a way to get that bomb off you; we've got Restraint's Huragok. He can--" "We're already out of time, Sorran. If you don't leave soon it'll be too late," Jajab disagreed, looking down at the water. "What do you mean?" Sorran questioned, following Jajab's gaze. A single finger pointed at the teller. "There's no wind, but yet waves rage across this lake; it's them," Jajab explained to him softly. It was then Sorran heard the distant screeching of a banshee. His eyes met with Jajab, and they exchanged a nod. "I'll remember you," Sorran promised through a suddenly-constricted throat. "My children will hear stories of your bravery, and all the worlds when the truth comes to light." "Go!" Jajab snapped back, hand gripping the hilt of the pistol tighter. "And good luck." Sorran couldn't bring himself to say anything more. He looked at his oars and realised a boat would be too easy to track. Instead he clambered to the edge of the boat, and with a deft stroke flew into the water. He carried on swimming, away from the boats, away from the approaching Banshee, away from Jajab and the last living tie to what had been his world for so long now. After a good minute seconds of frantic swimming, he saw a flash of light from the water behind him, heard the muffled sound of the explosion, and felt the surge of heat race past him. He carried on swimming for a few moments, before finally succumbing to the desire for air and the need to know what happened. His head broke through the surface. A smoking billiard was all that remained a few hundred metres away, a rising pillar of smoke all that remained of Jajab. In the distance he saw the lights of the Banshee, flying in by the flames and wreckage once and then pulling away, in the other direction. Sorran couldn't tell if he was crying as he pulled his way back to shore, but it felt like over the past few days he'd shed enough tears to fill the lake he now swam in. [i]No deeper. I'm coming for you, Savara.[/i] * The dust stood thicker than stone, mounds piled up across the cellar and drinking the drips of water which fell from a cracked ceiling. Light seemed to have given up on the room, the only struggle against the darkness emanating from the source of smoke Ahkrin was systematically inhaling and exhaling. It was a new and seldom-adopted custom amongst the Covenant, gleaned from humans. They claimed it was stress-relieving; Ahkrin felt nothing but a dirty feeling pervading his lungs. Ahkrin knew who was approaching from behind even before he heard the footsteps. He casually flicked the remains of what he had been smoking into a dim corner of the cellar, turning around and acknowledged Jeann'ee's presence. "You claim to hate the Covenant so much," Ahkrin spoke first before he could be spoken to, wafting away the ghost of smoke which lingered still. "Yet you retain the 'ee' suffix on your name reserved for members of its army. Quite the antitheses." "Chalk it down to a peculiarity," Jeann'ee answered without answering. "I was raised in the military, it is as deep a part of me as my hatred for what it stands for." Ahkrin wished he hadn't thrown the smoke-stick away; something to break the tension would have been nice. "You obviously didn't come down here to gaze at my alarmingly good looks. What is it?" Jeann'ee smiled sardonically, motioning for Ahkrin to follow him. This little display of authority didn't escape him, and he didn't appreciate it. As a guest however, he had no choice. "What happened with you, Ahkrin?" Jeann'ee asked softly as they ascended the hard-light staircase that served as a gate to seal the darkness of the cellar away. "One day I hear you just upped and left, joined the army and became the Covenant's own little grim reaper bit­ch. My partner in crime, vanished."