The conference room next to the bridge had no furniture.
Luca stood in the center of the empty space, arms crossed, watching his two younger brothers try to figure out where to put themselves. Matteo leaned against the bare wall. Alessio stood near the doorway, probably calculating escape routes. The room echoed every sound, tal walls and tal floor and nothing soft to absorb the weight of what he was about to say.
This was supposed to be the officer briefing room. Conference table in the center, chairs around it, maybe so displays on the walls. Instead it was an empty tal box because they hadn't bought furniture yet because they'd been too busy dealing with corporate sabotage and double overflows and his brothers showing up uninvited.
"So." Luca let the word hang. "What's your plan?"
Matteo's expression shifted. "What do you an?"
"You're on my ship. Both of you. With your entire teams. And Anastasia." Luca tried to keep his voice level, the way Dad did when he was really disappointed. "What's the plan, Matteo?"
Silence stretched between them. Alessio's eyes darted to his older brother, waiting for soone else to answer.
"We wanted to help," Matteo said finally. "With the overflow. With everything."
"And after that?"
More silence.
Luca let it sit there. Let them feel the weight of not having an answer. Because they didn't have one. They'd hopped on the Triumph because it was exciting, because they wanted to be part of whatever Luca was doing, because Zoe had thought it was a great idea. They hadn't thought past the imdiate thrill of being here.
"We have stops to make," Luca said. "The Victory Tour. Recruitnt etings. Supply runs. Geneva. And after that, we have a mission." He paused, watching their faces. "A mission I'm not going to tell you about because you're not coming."
Matteo pushed off the wall. "Luca."
"You're not coming."
"Why not?"
"Because we're only taking Level 60s." The words ca out harder than Luca intended, but he didn't soften them. "Everyone on this expedition will be capped. Pushed to the absolute limit of what Earth allows. No exceptions." He paused. "Where we're going, there's no backup. No evac. No second chances. The environnts are hostile enough that even Level 60s will be pushed to their limits." He let that sink in. "Every death is my responsibility. I can't afford to bring anyone who isn't ready to support themselves and each other."
"I can get there." Matteo's jaw tightened. "Give ti and I can—"
"When I was eighteen, I was already Level 60." Luca held his brother's gaze. "Izumi and her team are Level 60. A third of her entire company is capped. I've t seventeen-year-olds in Michigan who have already hit 60 and might miss the mission because they're not even eighteen years old yet." He shook his head. "I'm not saying you should kill yourself grinding portals. I'm saying we've made our decision. Level 60 minimum. That's the bar."
Matteo's expression went through sothing complicated, cycling through hurt and defiance.
"You brought your whole team," Luca continued. "Five people, plus Anastasia, plus whatever Alessio has going on." He turned to his youngest brother. "I don't know any of them. Did any of you think about what happens next, or did you just figure you'd ride along and see where the ship went?"
Alessio opened his mouth, then closed it.
"This isn't a party boat." Luca heard the edge in his own voice and didn't try to hide it. "We're not on vacation. Everything we're doing has a purpose, and that purpose doesn't include babysitting my brothers because they got bored with Dad."
Matteo looked away first. Alessio studied the floor like it contained answers.
Luca let out a breath. This was the part he'd been dreading. Being the stern older brother. Telling them no. Watching the disappointnt settle into their faces and knowing he'd put it there.
"You have two options," he said, quieter now. "Back to the Genesis Platform with Dad, and you figure out your delving schedule. Or redith, with Nonno."
Matteo's head snapped up. "redith?"
"Nonno could use the help. And Sandworth's going to be a logistics hub for a while." Luca paused. "You can't stay at the HQ and you can't follow along with us. Pick one."
Alessio spoke for the first ti. "What if we're Level 60 when you get back?"
Luca looked at his youngest brother. "If you have reached the cap when we wrap our first mission and co back to pick up Izumi's people," he said slowly, "then we'll talk. But until then, you go ho. Both of you."
Matteo's jaw worked. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and when he looked up, his eyes were wet. Not crying, but close enough that Luca felt it like a punch to the chest.
"I've been busy." Matteo's voice ca out rough. "You know that. Karen's had running operations. Intelligence work. The whole Barkov situation. And Anastasia." His fists tightened. "I led a team into Kharun Bay to pull her out. I've been doing the work, Luca. I've been—"
"I know," Luca said softly. "I know what you've done. But that's not what I'm looking for."
"Then what?" The question cracked at the edges. "What do you want from ?"
Luca took a breath. This was the part Matteo wouldn't understand. The part that sounded cruel no matter how he said it.
"I'm looking for people who are driven," he said carefully. "Not people doing important work. Not people helping others. People who are selfishly, obsessively driven to push past what's expected. Past what's normal." He held his brother's gaze. "You've been busy doing what Karen needs. What Anastasia needed. But have you been grinding portals? Have you been pushing yourself to the cap because you can't stand being anything less?"
Matteo didn't answer. His fists slowly uncurled.
"That's the difference." Luca's voice softened. "You're a good leader. A good brother. But the people I'm taking? They're the ones who spent every spare mont leveling because they couldn't not. Because reaching the cap and breaking through it is an obsession." He paused. "I was like that. Izumi's like that. And right now, you're not."
The silence stretched. Matteo's eyes were still wet, but sothing had shifted in his expression. The hurt was still there, but underneath it, Luca could see him processing.
"Genesis Platform," Matteo said finally. His voice was steadier now. "Dad's going to want to hear about the Tucson overflow anyway."
Alessio glanced at his older brother, then back to Luca. "redith. There's portals in the area, and my team still needs to grind. We're not even close to 30 yet."
They weren't fighting him. They weren't arguing or demanding. They were just accepting it, and that was almost worse sohow. Matteo had looked up to Luca his entire life. Had waited for him to co ho, had talked about him to anyone who would listen. And now Luca was telling him he wasn't good enough.
"Matteo." Luca stepped forward and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You've got ti. Use it. When we co back to pick up Izumi and her crew, I'll make room for you. I promise."
Matteo's jaw tightened, and for a mont Luca thought he might say sothing.
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Instead he just nodded. "Count on it."
---
By the ti the Triumph settled into position beside the Interstellar Frontier Company's headquarters in Sandworth, New Hampshire, Luca had made his peace with being the bad guy.
He watched from the hangar as the IFC dropship's ramp descended.
Matteo's team boarded first. Evan, Sarah Chen, Jules, Samira. They moved without looking back. Luca watched Anastasia follow, her dark eyes finding Matteo's across the hangar before she climbed the ramp.
Just friends. Sure.
Matteo was last. He stopped at the bottom of the ramp and looked back.
Luca raised a hand. Matteo nodded once, then turned and walked aboard.
The ramp sealed. The dropship's engines spooled up, and Luca watched it lift through the hangar doors and bank east toward orbit.
An IFC van waited outside the hangar. Alessio's team was already loading gear into the back, all five of them. Luca still didn't know their nas. That felt like a failure sohow, like sothing he should have fixed before now. But there hadn't been ti. There was never ti.
Alessio appeared at his shoulder. The kid had buffed and cleaned the armor he'd worn into the Tucson portal, and he looked less like a soldier and more like what he actually was: a sixteen-year-old with a grinding schedule to keep.
"Tell Nonno I said hi," Luca said.
"Tell him yourself." Alessio grinned.
Luca shoved him toward the van. "Get out of here."
He watched the van pull away, heading south toward redith.
---
"We have a problem."
Ryan's voice echoed across the cargo hold. Luca stood on the catwalk above, looking down at the source of their current crisis.
The mustangs. They'd followed the crew aboard during the Tucson evacuation and refused to leave. Now they stood in a loose cluster in the center of the cargo bay.
The lead stallion had positioned himself between his herd and the exit. This horse had seen so shit and decided to keep going anyway. Luca respected that. Sergeant Oats, he decided.
"They won't move," Chris reported from ground level. He was standing about twenty feet from the nearest horse, hands spread in what he probably thought was a non-threatening gesture. "We tried pushing them."
"They're Level 32," Danny said from sowhere behind the herd. "We're Level 74. Technically, we could just—"
"We're not shooting the horses, Danny."
"I wasn't suggesting—"
"You were about to suggest sothing involving plasma."
Danny didn't deny it.
Joey appeared on the catwalk beside Luca, watching the standoff below. "They need to eat and get so fresh air."
The stallion snorted, a sharp sound that echoed off the tal walls. Several of the mares shifted behind him, their hooves scraping against the floor. They weren't aggressive, exactly. They were just there, refusing to be anywhere else.
"And now they're on my ship."
"Now they're on your ship." Chris turned to look up at him. "We could call animal control."
"We need hay." Luca cut him off. "Tons of hay, delivered. That's the imdiate problem. Everything else can wait until they're fed."
Joey was already heading for the catwalk exit. "I'll find Izumi. Her people have to have supply contacts."
That was the whole point of partnering with a logistics company. Soone else could figure out where to buy twelve tons of hay on short notice.
Below, the stallion had stopped watching the humans. His attention had shifted to sothing behind Luca, ears pricked forward, nostrils flaring.
Luca turned.
Pixel sat on the catwalk railing, perfectly balanced, watching the horses with predatory interest. Her new helt glead under the cargo bay lights. Her tail twitched once, twice.
"No," Luca said.
Pixel's ears flattened.
"Those are not food." He pointed at the horses. "Those are passengers. Temporary passengers. Passengers who are leaving as soon as we figure out where to put them."
The Nyxocatus made a sound that was probably a sign of disagreent.
The stallion below had gone completely still. His eyes were locked on Pixel, and sothing had changed in his posture. Apparently they spoke the sa language.
Luca watched Pixel hold the stallion's gaze for a long mont. Then she stretched, deliberately slow, making sure everyone saw her not caring, and dropped off the railing.
She landed on the cargo bay floor. The horses shifted, but didn't bolt. Pixel walked toward the open ramp, where rain was sheeting down in gray curtains. Tail high, not looking back.
She stepped out into the storm without hesitating. A cat, walking into torrential rain, because she had horses to herd.
Sergeant Oats followed.
One by one, the mares fell into line behind him. Twenty-two wild horses walking calmly down the cargo ramp into a New Hampshire downpour because a cat had told them to.
A Hyeon staffer was waiting at the bottom of the ramp, rain plastering his hair to his forehead. Japanese characters were stitched to his jacket alongside the Hyeon logo. 健二. Kenji, probably. He looked up at the horses, then at Pixel, then back at Luca with an expression that said he wasn't paid enough for this.
Izumi stood beside him, flanked by her squad. The Radiant Blades, Emily had called them. Sleek black armor trimd with neon pink, platform combat boots, colorful hair plastered to their faces by the downpour. Yuna had her energy glaive across her shoulders, blue hair dripping, watching the procession with cool composure.
Kazuha stood with one hand on her katana, hair still in those twin buns despite the weather, sothing predatory in her stance. Xinran was filming the whole thing on her tablet, pink hair soaked, grinning like this was the best content she'd captured all month. None of them seed to care about the mud or the rain.
"This is amazing!" Izumi called up over the rain. "Your cat is herding horses!"
"I noticed."
"There's a fenced pasture half a mile east," Kenji said, trying to maintain so professionalism. "We can keep them there until you figure out what to do with them."
Izumi was already pulling out her tablet, rain beading on the screen. "I'll have hay delivered within the hour. Oats too. Do horses eat oats? They eat oats, right?" She glanced at one of her friends, who shrugged. "We'll get oats just in case."
Pixel was already leading the herd in that direction, her midnight-blue fur darkening with rain. The stallion followed three paces behind her, and the rest of the horses followed him.
"Great," Luca muttered. "My cat just stole my horses."
"They're not your horses," Emily said from behind him.
Luca turned. She was standing at the end of the catwalk, watching the procession with sothing between amusent and disbelief.
"They're definitely my problem."
"Were your problem." She walked toward him, footsteps light on the tal grating. "Ryan, Danny, and Zoe are heading to Boston for the scientific equipnt. Joey's staying to supervise the horses, and Chris is waiting on a delivery from Angelo."
"What's Angelo sending?"
"First truckload. Custom workshop equipnt, so security hardware." Emily shrugged. "Chris wanted to be there when it arrived."
That made sense. Chris had been excited about Angelo's shop since Detroit.
Emily stopped in front of him, close enough to touch. "Which leaves you and with nothing to do for the day."
Luca had been waiting for this. He'd been thinking about it since Karen slipped him the na back on her shuttle.
"Actually," he said, "Karen gave a na. Soone to visit in Boston."
Emily's eyebrow rose. "Boston?"
"Soone she thinks we should et." He kept his voice casual, but sothing in his chest was doing that thing it did when he had a good surprise. "I believe... you're going to love it."
"You're being mysterious."
"I'm being romantic."
"Those aren't the sa thing."
"They could be." He reached out and took her hand. "Co to Boston with . I promise it'll be worth the trip."
Emily studied his face. He watched her read him the way she always did, looking for the angle, the catch, the thing he wasn't saying. But there wasn't one. Not this ti. Just him, wanting to take his girlfriend sowhere nice while the rest of his crew handled hay deliveries and scientific equipnt.
"Just us," she repeated.
"Just us."
Her fingers interlaced with his. "You've been planning this."
"Maybe a little."
"Since when do you plan dates?"
"Since I realized we haven't had one... ever?" He squeezed her hand. "We're due."
Emily's smile was slow, but it reached her eyes. "Boston's freezing this ti of year."
"We'll wear coats."
"And dinner?"
"Definitely dinner." He'd already been thinking about restaurants. Italian, definitely. "Sowhere nice."
---
He climbed into the Kestrel's pilot seat and brought up the navigation console. Boston was forty minutes away at cruising speed. Plenty of ti to figure out what they were looking for. Conference tables. Office chairs. Maybe so decorations for the walls.
"You're overthinking it," Emily said from the co-pilot seat.
"I'm not overthinking anything."
"Your forehead does that thing when you overthink. The little crinkle."
Luca touched his forehead reflexively. "I don't have a crinkle."
"You have a crinkle. It's adorable."
The Kestrel lifted off into gray skies, rain already streaking the canopy. Sandworth dropped away below them, the Triumph sitting in its cleared field like a gleaming monunt to things that didn't belong in New Hampshire. March weather was doing its worst, clouds heavy and low, visibility dropping as they climbed.
He should probably be worried about Zoe. She had the credit line, which ant she had the power to buy whatever Danny and Ryan convinced her was "essential." Scientific equipnt ant expensive, and those three had a way of talking each other into terrible financial decisions. He'd seen the lab equipnt catalogs. He knew what a mass spectroter cost.
But right now, Emily was beside him, rain drumming against the canopy, and they had a few hours where nobody needed anything from Captain Luca Rossi. Just Luca and Emily with a surprise he'd been holding onto since Karen whispered the na in his ear.
He'd been looking forward to this more than he wanted to admit. Ti alone with her, away from the crew, away from the mission, away from his brothers and their disappointed faces. Just the two of them. And maybe, if the interior designer was as good as Karen promised, they'd co back with plans to make the Triumph feel like ho instead of an empty tal shell.
Sowhere below, a farr was loading twelve tons of hay onto a truck because his starship crew had accidentally adopted a herd of superpowered mustangs. Heading down on I-93, Zoe was speeding toward Boston with two Hyeon Valkyries for escort, already arguing with Danny about whether they really needed the quantum processors and interferoters, whatever those were.
That was a problem for later.
Below, the news vans were already camping out at the IFC gates, keeping so distance from the periter but close enough to remind him that Tucson hadn't faded from anyone's mory. The world was still watching. They would want interviews. Statents. Explanations for why the Triumph Initiative's first landing on Earth had coincided with a double overflow and a corporate standoff in the Arizona desert.
That was definitely a problem for later.
Luca banked the Kestrel south and let himself smile.
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