Silence. Only the vibration of the shuttle to tell him it still functionned. Tristan kept his eyes close and enjoyed it. When was the last time silence surrounded him? When he could reasonably expect not to be disturbed for days on end? Not to have to deal with anyone? Months now. When Alex showed up again in his life, he stole his solitude away. He looked at the human, frozen under the cryo field. Tristan was tempted to keep him under there for always. Keep him out of his life this way. He could send the ship away on a course through the universe and never have to worry about him coming back in his life. Maybe he’d do that when this was all over. At least he didn’t need to wake him now. Tristan could enjoy his solitude for a time. He went to the cockpit and checked the passive scanners. It was faint, but it had detected pulses from active scans. Somewhere in the system, probably around Artus One, there was at least one merc, looking for him. He expected that. He knew there would be some mercs who be close to the planet, which was why he’d programmed the shuttle to deactivate his cryo field when they were still far outside the solar system. At this distance he could maneuver and be reasonably certain they wouldn’t detect him. He sat and considered his options. He could point the shuttle at where the planet would be when he reached it, shut everything down and hope he wouldn’t be detected, or if they did detect him they’d think he was a piece of space debris caught in the systems’ gravity. Hope was for those who couldn’t plan properly. He wouldn’t depend on some imaginary outside force to make things happen his way. The universe hated him too much to allow that. If he wanted to be mistaken for debris, he’d have to do something, provide his own camouflage. He activated all the cameras. He couldn’t use active scans. Just like he’d detected theirs, they could detect his. The area wasn’t as dense with asteroids as he would have liked, he’d have to slow his speed and maneuver. Fortunately he had time. If there was one person he knew wouldn’t show up anytime soon, it was the mark. He’d picked this planet because it was as far from the places a man like him would be and still be reachable. He waited until one of the larger asteroid was between him and the inner system before bringing his speed down to something manageable. Then he used thrusters to fly around the asteroid, looking for something both large enough and with an existing cavity he could anchor the shuttle in. He couldn’t take the weeks or months it would take to covertly mine out a space. It took him most of the rest of his ‘day’ to find a suitable asteroid. With the injuries he’d received only ‘hours’ before, he couldn't take as long as he would have liked. And had to settle for something that mostly fit. It was larger than he wanted, as was the cavity, but he didn’t want to sleep with the shuttle floating in space. He landed it, shut everything he could down and went in the hold to sleep. * * * * * He woke up in an instant. Something wasn’t right. Eyes closed and unmoving he went through his senses, trying to identify what was wrong. He couldn’t hear anything. That was normal, he’d shut everything by life support and power to the cryo units down. No sound of anyone moving about. No sound of anyone else breathing. He growled. It couldn’t have been what woke him. He didn’t need to hear the human breathing to sleep. He checked the time. He’d slept for six hours. That was enough. He swallowed two immune boosters, then went through stretches, both to limber himself and to test how much pain he still felt. He took two painkillers, he had too much work to do to let pain slow him down. He put on his EVA suit and voided the air in the shuttle. With the boy and Alex in cryo, they wouldn’t be affected by the lack of oxygen. He walked on the shuttle to survey the cavern. It was even larger than he’d thought. He didn’t have enough material he could scavenge to make a support structure around all of it. He had to either look for another asteroid, or settle for anchoring the shuttle only from the bottom and sides. He decided to give himself a few hours to find something more suitable, but at the end of it, he hadn’t found anything he could use. He used the shuttle to turn the asteroid in the direction his calculation said it needed to be and then flew back inside. When he landed he picked a better position and went to work. Three days later, the shuttle was firmly fixed inside the asteroid by a series of bars, cables and chains. So long as he didn’t have to do any sudden maneuvers, this would be sufficient. He started the engines, setting them on a ballistic trajectory that would see them crash land in one of the planet’s many oceans, then went back to work. They were blind, the passive sensors couldn’t get anything through the asteroid, and he needed to address that. He installed ten of the cameras he’d had Alex acquire on the surface of the asteroid, the coverage wasn’t complete, but with them, he could see where they were going at least. It would give him time to react if things went wrong. He repressurized the shuttle and checked their acceleration. In two weeks they’d be on the planet. The asteroid shell would provide the needed protection for a free fall reentry. He enjoyed the solitude for another day, and then he had to wake Alex. “Get to work.” The human nodded, went to his chair and then. “We’re not on the planet?” Couldn’t the human just be quiet? “No. Mercs are already here, so we need to hide our arrival.” He added that because he knew Alex would ask. “That’s…creative. You do know I could have blinded them, right?” Tristan closed his eyes and reminded himself he still needed him. He turned and fixed his gaze on him. “You’re job is to make it so this computer can do the processing for the signal it will be sending all over the universe. Nothing more.” Alex nodded and Tristan headed to get himself a couple of nutrient bars. “Just something to keep in mind for next time,” Alex grumbled, and Tristan made fists. As satisfying as it would be, he couldn’t go back and slam his face in the screen. He was going to have to remind him who was in charge when this was all over. He glanced over his shoulder and watched as Alex fidgeted with his earpiece, turning this way and that in his ear before getting to work. He’d have to put to the test his claim he could hide his shuttle at some point. * * * * * Tristan looked at the boy frozen on the bed and took a moment to remember who he was to him. This was his buddy, the boy they were escorting to his father. He was a friend. Someone whose life he’d saved because he’d been worried about him. Because he’d cared. Tristan deactivated the field. “Hey buddy, rise and shine.” “Are we here? Is my father here?” Emil sat up and got off the bed. “Almost. There’s something I thought you’d like to see.” “Okay.” Tristan brought the boy to the cockpit and pointed to the screen there and nodded to Alex. “You ever seen a planet from space?” They were a few hours from entering the planet’s gravity well, and the blue, brown and gray sphere was still fully visible on the small screen. The boy shrugged. “I’ve seen pictures of them.” Tristan smiled. “Yeah, I guess you have. Then how about like this?” He turned the boy around and the child gasped. In front of them, suspended in the middle of the open space was the planet. He could make out difference in the blue green of the oceans where is was shallower. He could seem shadows mountains casts. Pits where the ground had been mined. This was what his computer had been able to produced by processing the input from the three cameras that could see the planet. When Alex had showed him the result, Tristan had had the idea of modifying some of the projectors to create this image for the boy. Emil reached for it and his fingers passed through the image. “It looks so real.” “This is where we’re going to meet with your father. I thought you’d like to see it before we enter atmosphere.” Emil’s face showed wonder, and then he hugged Tristan. The gesture was so sudden that for a moment his mask dropped and he almost pushed the boy away. His hands were on his shoulders when he remembered who he was suppose to be, and instead of pushing, he held him against his body. “Thank you,” the boy said in his fur. “Hey, Buddy, it’s okay. I said I’d bring you to him.” Tristan grinned at Alex, who was looking at him eyes hard with anger, hands clutched in fists. He looked away and busied himself with the board. When Emil pulled away his eyes were wet. Tristan reached in a cabinet and pulled a clean cloth and handed it to him. He crouched down. “Now, you have a decision to make. You can go back in cryo until your father gets here, or you can stay awake and help us get things ready.” “I want to help.” Tristan smiled. “I knew you would. There isn’t going to be anything to do until we land, and it’s going to get bumpy for a while, so stay in the room until I get you, okay?” The boy nodded and then he was in the room, the door closed. Tristan turned to Alex and gave him a wide, teeth showing, smile. “Don’t,” the human said, his voice shaking. “Don’t tell me how easy this was, how simple it is for you to wrap us around your fingers.” His fixed his angry gaze on him. “Don’t gloat.” Tristan took a step forward, his face hardening, but that didn’t stop Alex. “If you want me to do my job, do not rub my face in this.” Tristan could tell the human was working at keeping his voice low. “You knew what I’d do.” “He’s a child. Don’t you get that? Damn it Tristan, doesn’t that mean one fucking thing to you?” Tristan took another step, hands closing into fists. Alex’s eyes became even harder. “Don’t. I’m warning you, don’t you even think of laying a finger on me. You can beat the crap out of me when this is all over, but right now I’m so fucking angry with you that I’ll probably have the computer commit suicide.” Tristan stopped. It wasn’t an idle threat, he still had the earpiece in, so one word might be all that he needed. Alex meant to carry through with it, but he wasn’t doing it for his protection. “Do you even realize what you’re doing to that kid? You’re making him like you, fuck, he loves you.” “That is what I need.” Alex wanted to scream. His whole body was shaking. Tristan was fascinated by the reaction. He couldn’t remember ever driving someone to that level of anger while not actively in the process of hurting them. Alex managed to calm himself. It had to be through pure will. He was still shaking, but not as much. “You don’t feel anything, do you? You have no idea what it’s like to have you heart broken, do you?” Tristan didn’t say anything, or even react. No, he didn’t know what that felt like because he didn’t shackle himself by caring for other people. “What’s going to happen to him when you’re done using him?” Tristan tilted an ear. “You don’t care.” Alex deflated, resting his head on his hands. “You just don’t fucking care.” Tristan evaluated the situation. He shouldn’t let Alex get away with this. He could wrap a hand around his throat before he could say anything. Take the earpiece out, bring him to the hold, where he could explain in painful details just how this wasn’t acceptable. He could even do it in a way that would let the human continue to do his part of the job. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He made Alex snap his head up. “There’s too much still to do, and I’m not going to risk turning you against me, but I’m going to remind you that you’re here by your own choice. I told you to leave. I told you that if you stayed, there wouldn’t be anything good happening. You chose to stay. This is the price you’re paying for that decision. If you even consider betraying me or endangering this job, I will kill you. Slowly. Do you understand?” Alex nodded. “I’m not going to do that. I wouldn’t. I’m just an—” Tristan pushed himself in his face. “I don’t care. I don’t care what you feel, Alex. You’re not in some vid, where you can reach me if you say the right thing. You’re mine to do with as I please, you’re nothing more than some pet I took in because he looked miserable in the rain. When this is over, if you expect to live, you’d better leave.”