“All fighters, all pilots. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”

Tessa swore silently, let her head drop to rest against Izzy’s temple. In her arms, Izzy was like a broken toy, a marionette whose strings had been cut and tossed aside. The call to action, to put one’s life on the line and fly in the face of death again couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“We should go.” Izzy said, sniffing against tears.

“Can you fly?” Came Tessa’s serious response. For a moment, Izzy looked up, met those dark eyes, saw the care, the worry, the protective pain that stained the blue depths with a deep, warlike light. They were the eyes of the protector, eyes that would die to see her safe, to keep her secure, and in a way, she found it a little intimidating, a little frightening.

“Yeah.” Izzy managed a soft smile, sniffed again, nodded. “Yeah, I can fly.”

“You sure?” Tessa asked, and in her voice, Izzy caught the sound of injury, of the cracking of broken glass. She nodded softly in response, let her smile spread a little further.

“Well, I mean, as long as my rig was fixed up and serviced before the shit hit the fan, yeah.” She grinned, looked away. “Nobody sane goes up in a rig that has something wrong with it, right?”

Tessa couldn’t help it– the smile came reflexively, spread across her face and then softened. When Izzy looked back, all she could see in Tessa’s eyes was love, kindness, joy– a kind of happiness and light that shined through all the teary darkness that still clung to her cheeks, her eyes.

“Come on.” Izzy urged. “The sky is waiting for us.”

“Yeah.” Was all Tessa could think of to say.

When they broke apart, it came slow, half reluctant, half eager. Starting toward the hangar, they went hand in hand at first, only picking up to a run as the frantic tide of rushing officers surging around them swept them up and urged them into a quick trot. The jog to the makeshift fighter bay where their rigs were housed was a five minute jog from medical, an eternity in the heat of battle, but all too soon for Tessa. All too soon they would be among the stars again, fates uncertain... Izzy’s fate uncertain.

This time, they would be going up against the Coralate at a fraction of their full strength. Both Cordova and Phoebe were integral parts of the equation, load bearing pillars holding up the structure of a squadron now as broken as any other that had roosted in the bays of the Von, a squadron no longer whole, no longer able to function as cleanly as it had when it had been a single, cohesive unit. Izzy smiled back at her, almost as if she had heard Tessa’s thoughts, and then they ran harder, pushed themselves into the wide open space of the hangar, eyes hunting, searching for the colors, the names, the insignia of the fighters that they knew were theirs.

“Tess” Izzy called, stopping amid the flood of technicians and pilots, the rush of bodies, of men and women running to rigs, rushing to disconnect diagnostic equipment, lines and hoses. As Tessa came to a stop, Izzy smiled, gestured. “My rig’s over here, I just...” She paused, swallowed. “I just want you to know that, whatever happens to me,” She paused, choked back the onset of tears, gestured. “Whatever happens to us... either of us...” She paused again, swallowed again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is...”

“Shhhh.” Tessa managed, closing the distance between them and pulling Izzy into her arms one last time, holding her close, supporting her. Izzy laughed past the burning edge of new tears, smiled softly.

“I just want you to know that I love you, Tess.” Izzy breathed, “I will always love you, no matter what happens.” She paused, and the line of her thoughts came through flesh and neuron as an echo to her words. No matter what happens.

For a moment, Tessa simply held her, breathed in the smell of her hair, lingered in the sensation, the need. When she spoke, it came slow, a thought whispered on the edge of a soft and steady smile. “I know.” She said simply, then, pulling away just enough to meet Izzy’s eyes one last time before they parted, before each woman sprinted for her plane, before the rush of battle and the onslaught of the ravenous Coralate consumed them and left them fighting for their lives among a sea of plasma and silver. In that moment, thought passed from body to body, images, emotion, the essence of a true and total love that could not be stifled or crushed, could not be set aside or killed. In the moment, Tessa laughed, and Izzy’s voice echoed the sound, a musical duet of sweet notes that left them both grinning past their forgotten tears.

Come on. Tessa smiled. The sky is waiting for us.