The ship descends gracefully despite her damages. The actual landing isn't so graceful, however, and everything shakes and rattles as we touch the rocky, uneven ground. The ship tilts slightly, but remains doesn't slide into a crater.

Orion nods to himself before turning to grin at me. "I'd call that a pretty successful landing, don't you think?"

"Not as nice as mine would have been, but good enough for your level."

Rolling his eyes, he secures his space helmet. "You know, I don't remember programming quite so much sass into you, Alicia Ivy."

"I must have picked it up along the way. I have no idea where."

He grunts, and then goes to push the necessary buttons to open the bay door.

I simulate a frown at his actions. "Don't you want me to scan for life forms, first?"

"Please, I grew up here. I know quite well that no one ventures to the cold side. Ever."

"Except us, apparently."

He grins at me before moving to make his way to the bay door. "Well, no one is crazier than us, now are they?"

"I think I recall a certain Venetian who may claim that title."

Orion glares at me. "What have I said? No talking about her on my ship."

Says the one who cries out her name in his sleep. "Well, we're not on your ship right now, are we."

Orion keeps his back to me as he moves to the vulnerability in the Just Way. "Don't say her name anyway. You might conjure her like the devil."

I scan the area for potential threats as he prepares his blow-torch. "Would this be a bad time, then, to say what I told her to distract her from Nicholas?"

He pretends not to have heard me as he raises the flame to the metal.

Dropping the scan, I enter into his conscious, so he can hear me above the noise of the tool. "I told you you still loved her."

Orion drops his flame torch.

"And then I told her not really."

He almost falls over reaching for his flame torch. "Alicia Ivy-"

Something skitters past us.

Just like that, Orion's flame torch is back in his hands, and he's aiming it outward. "What was that?"

I turn my sensors on and scan for life forms beyond us and the ship. My readings come up with zero.

"It was nothing," I say.

He laughs dryly. "Guess we're scaring ourselves with all this talk about the devil."

"I wasn't scared." I turn to him and give him a cheeky expression I know will cheer him up. "Were you scared, captain?"

"Shut your holographic trap and watch my back as I finish these repairs.

"Aye, aye, captain."

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