A tide of blue Irus sand was waiting for them when they touched down, miles and miles of blue dunes stretching into the distance to meet the horizon. It looked tranquil, but Adam knew better. Communications had come back up shortly after they re established the defense nexus ,and Thomas had been flooded with e a range of broadcasts from Irus surface.

The sudden fracturing of their moon had come as a shock and been environmentally catastrophic across multiple regions of the planet. Their carefully maintained gravity balance had fractured as the green moon was pulled apart and pushed closer. Debris had rained from the sky in the form of flaming meteorites, though luckily only small pieces had managed to make it to the surface. Any larger pieces had been vaporized by on-ground Surface to air missiles which had not been lost during the nexus loss. Still the result was a few sizable craters and dust in high atmosphere.

Rundi scientists were already predicting a global drop in temperature which could be potentially catastrophic.

Not only that but the sudden jump in gravity had unearthed hundred of underground springs across the planet's surface, and water now flowed freely from a thousand small oases. Entire towns had to be evacuated as, for the first time in millions of years, liquid water flowed on the surface .

Adam Celex and Sunny had picked up a troop transport from the green moon, exhausted and relieve din equal measures.

When the door to the shuttle pen, Celex stumbled out onto the sand and lay down against the burning blue. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Adam was surprised to see that Makers could even get tired, but Celex had expended a lot of energy which he didn't even known how to use. On their way down he had admitted that controlling the flow of power was the hardest part.

Adam couldn't blame him.

He pulled off his helmet and slowly went to sit in the sand beside Celex joined a moment later by Sunny. The two of them leaned against each other for support, Adam's head resting on Sunny's shoulder, and Sunny's head resting atop his.

Three warriors recovering after a long battle.

None of them spoke, too tired, and the silence reined for many minutes until the second ship dropped down to join them.

Adam lifted his head as the F-90 touched down from above kicking up a cloud of sapphire sand as it did. Sunny let him up as he stood and ran towards the jet as the canopy opened . he got there just in time as Kelly dropped from the jet and onto the sand. Usually she would have needed a ladder, but as a maker, she made the jump look easy.

Adam stopped in front of her eyes wide, not sure what to say.

Looking at her, Adam could see that she still wasn't all there. Her body flickered continually back and forth between human and void creature, and one moment he could see her face, while the next he was staring into a field of stars. Her hair never changed always glowing with a field of stars which rolled and undulated as her hair was moved by the wind. She had pulled it back in a tight bun for her flight, but a few strands had still come loose.

Unnervingly, even when her body was visible, her eyes glowed orange with void light, and nervously he wondered if it was really her he was seeing.

They locked eyes.

She flickered, and he held still.

"Kelly?"

"You don't sound so sure."

"I.... It's really you isn't it.'

The darkness on her face flickered, and her human face smiled. Despite the glowing orange void eyes, the smile was genuine. She wasn't entirely the Kelly that he remembered, sure she still had the same straight posture, the bearing of a soldier, the presence of a general, but there was also something breakable?

No

That wasn't an apt word. Breakable suggested she was fragile or in need of help or incapable. It was more like.

Burdened , like she was dragging heavy weight through the sand.

But did that really matter. She had been his hero and his mentor for forever, he still wanted to be like her when he grew up.

"Yes, its really me."

And of course Adam couldn't help himself, as soon as he was assured that he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, he leapt forward, throwing his arms around her and squeezing her right . Adam was always surprised when he realized how small Kelly was coming only to about his chest height. To him she had always seemed larger than life, still did.

She had been his hero forever.

And

Growing older, he had only recently learned the things she had sacrificed to get him to where he was. It was only after her death that Adam learned she had given up the harbinger for him. She had taken a desk job, clipping her own wings so he could fly.

He could only have imagined how much that hurt, and it had made her sudden loss that much more poignant.

"I may be a maker, but that doesn't mean my spine can't break."

"Oh, Sorry." Adam stepped away and Kelly brushed the wrinkles out of her clothes, though she looked more amused than bothered. She looked him over very slowly face flickering in and out as a frown crossed over her face, "Past few years haven't been kind to you have they."

Adam looked down at himself, "That bad huh, first thing you say to me and it's the equivalent of 'wow you look like shit."

Her mouth twitched upwards, "To be fair one of the first times we actually covered you told me to calm my tits."

Adam felt the blush coming on, "To be fair I had no idea that was you."

She laughed, actually laughed and he felt his entire body go warm.

"And no, you don't look like shit, but you DO look like a man.'

"I didn't before?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, "No, "

And then she left it right there leaving him rooted In the sand feeling confused.

She wasn't his only priority, however, letting him sit in confusion before turning her eyes to Celex laying I the sand on his back eyes closed. Adam stepped back a few paces feeling that the moment deserved some privacy as Kelly made her way across the sand one soft footstep at a time.

"Emperor."

Celex cracked an eye, and despite the exhaustion in his body, he sat up when he saw her, pulling himself into a sitting position, "She speaks." A gust of wind blew past them catching Celex's hair and causing io undulate in a slow technicolor wave .

Kelly knelt in the sand next to him , the expression on her face unreadable.

Adam backed up a few more steps and went to go stand behind the shuttle, tugging Sunny along with him, he didn't know what it was but soemthing abut that meeting felt private. It was too bad there was only so much he could do. The Desert was open, and the sound of their voices was still strong enough to carry.

"Thank you, for what you did for me."

"It was my pleasure ." His voice was hard and Gruff as he spoke, gruffer than usual? Adam wondered, and he really did his best not to listen in.

"You seem to be recovering well?"

Kelly ignored his question and Adam looked down at his feet shifting his feet in the sand as if he was trying to burry them in a hole. He even hummed to himself to try and keep from eavesdropping, but from the corner of his eye he did catch the next moment, watched as Kelly dropped a hand onto his shoulder cutting the man off sentence before leaning up to whisper soemthing in his ear.

What followed was a long moment of silence.

Celex nodded after a long moment, quickly turning his head away from Kelly.

Was? Was he...?

She hugged him then and Adam would have sworn he saw the emperor wipe his eyes with the heel of one hand.

But it must just have been the trick of the light.

He was almost 100 percent sure that the emperor was not capable of tears. In fact Adam would wager to say that Celex Maker construct and come without tear ducts as an attachment, but he did hear the emperor clear his throat.

"It looks like we have company."

Adam hadn't hear it, but the two Makers were well aware of the shuttle long before it appeared in the distant sky.

Adam watched it come, following its trajectory as the ship descended from the air above them kicking up another small swirl of blue dust as it came to rest. Adam was well familiar with the seal on the side of the shuttle, and he hurried forward to greet the Chairwoman of the GA as she stepped from the shuttle looking grim.

Adam wasn't really aware of how aging worked with Rundi, but he would have wagered to say that the charwoman was looking older and more haggard than ever. The posture of her body hung heavy, her long fingers resting heavily against the sand as she walked across the intervening space to greet them. The arch in her neck was unusually pronounced, hanging lower towards the ground than it once had.

Adam understood the feeling and reached up to touch the white of his hair.

"I'm glad to see you alive and well." He began and the chairwoman pulled to a stop before him. Her eyes were wary peering over to where Kelly stood flickering in and out of existence.

"We will not have any problems here?" She asked in a low voice

"No, you wont."

She straightened, "Good, I must say I have never been gladder to see you than now. Its fortunate only one of our moons was damaged before you arrived. Tell ", with the coms down, how did you no to come, none of our other allies came to our aid."

Arcadia was attacked late last night, by a single ship crashing into our nexus barrier. We thought it was odd, so a few of our communications specialists sent out a beacon to make sure everyone else wasn't experiencing similar occurrences. When we couldn't get through to you, we assumed it was some sort of distraction and came as soon as we could."

The chariwoman bowed her head, "Either way I am pleased at your arrival. Forgive my short visit as I have many other issues to take care of and very little time, There have been multiple instances of violent water spouts erupting from the earth. Several hundred have been killed as a result, and now I must find a way to integrate this disaster into aour new normal . it remains to be seen if this ancestral home planet of ours will be able to survive this event.

Adam gave her a nod and she stepped away leaving the group of them standing in the sand.

"My husband has demanded I invite you over for dinner so he can personally thank you." Kelly was saying as Andrew turned to loo kat her.

Kelly and Celex were walking over together side by side as a pair of old friends, which he supposed they were.

"How could I turn down such a demand. It would be my pleasure. Until then it would also be my pleasure to sleep for a week."

Adam would agree with celex. Who knew when they would next have an opportunity for a good night's rest