Luca woke to warmth, light, and the realization that he couldn't move.
Emily's leg was draped over his thigh, cutting his blood flow, and her arm was pinning his chest, while the morning sun was doing its best to blind him through the viewport. He'd never felt better in his life.
She lay beside him, her skin lit up in the morning sun, the sheets pooled at her waist. Her hair spread across the pillow in golden waves while her fingers curled loosely against his ribs. God, she was gorgeous. Luca still wasn't sure how he'd gotten this lucky.
The viewport above the bed frad a sky so blue it hurt to look at. In space, the glass would be much darker, its layers filtering out radiation that would cook them in minutes. But sohow it knew they were in atmosphere now, letting the morning's sun pour through unfiltered, painting stripes across the bed, across Emily's shoulder, across the tangled sheets that slled like her.
Luca would have to ask Ryan how that worked. Or Danny. Soone who understood why the ship was smarter than he was.
He had never woken up like this before. Not with Emily beside him and with sunlight filtering through the atmosphere, in his own cabin aboard a starship that had actually landed on Earth. The Triumph had always been a thing of space and stars, cold viewports showing nothing but black, yet now it sat on its struts on New Hampshire soil, and the sun rose in the east like it had for billions of years, and Emily was here.
She stirred against him, made a soft sound, and pressed closer. Her leg slid over his and her hand drifted down his chest.
"Morning." Her voice was all sleepy and cute, her eyes still closed.
"Morning."
She tilted her head up and kissed Luca's jaw.
"We have interviews today," Luca said.
"Mmhm." Emily lifted her head to check the viewport. Morning light hit her eyes, and she squinted them shut. She smiled.
From the top-most deck, he could see the IFC compound spread out below: the main building with its solar panels glinting, the landing pads, the road leading to the gates. Hyeon personnel moved between prefab structures, already working despite the early hour. Beyond them, in a fenced pasture half a mile east, the mustangs grazed in the morning light.
And at the gate, news vans. A lot of news vans.
Luca sighed.
Ti to get up.
By mid-morning, the compound had transford into a construction site.
Three flatbed trucks from Detroit sat near the Triumph's cargo elevator, their beds loaded with industrial equipnt wrapped in protective sheeting. Chris stood at the base of the elevator platform, directing a forklift driver with hand signals. Ryan was up top, checking clearances as a massive crate rose toward the cargo hold.
"Left! More left!" Chris shouted. "You're gonna clip the strut!"
The forklift adjusted. The crate cleared by inches.
Luca watched from the IFC building's entrance, coffee in hand. The loading ramp was ant for personnel, not six-ton industrial mills. Everything had to go through the cargo elevator, one piece at a ti. Angelo's twenty-seven million credits in manufacturing capability, reduced to a slow parade of crates and cursing.
He took another sip of coffee. They had this handled.
The interviews happened in one of the IFC's conference rooms, a glass-walled space that would have been impressive if not for the Triumph of Darron looming outside the windows. The ship cast a shadow across half the compound, its hull blocking the sun like a small mountain. Hard to focus on interview questions when a starship was parked a hundred ters away.
Teams had been flowing in since dawn. Sabine had set up the interviews, but word had spread like wildfire after Arizona: adventurers from Tucson and Phoenix, from San Diego to Seattle, from a dozen cities across the western states. Captain Rossi was recruiting, the Triumph of Darron was real, and suddenly everyone wanted a seat at the table.
The problem was finding the right skill set on the right people with the right attitude.
Emily sat beside him, tablet in hand, tracking notes on each candidate. Zoe leaned against the wall by the window, watching with the detached interest of soone who'd already made up her mind about most of them. Danny and Ryan took turns asking technical questions, probing for gaps in knowledge or character.
The teams were good. Competent, professional, saying all the right things about teamwork.
Yet, none of them had the spark.
Luca couldn't explain it better than that. The teams that worked, the ones he wanted, had sothing else. Gabriela's fierce protectiveness. The Iron Timbers' determination. That look in soone's eyes that said they were searching for sothing they hadn't found yet.
These teams? They were applying for a job.
"Thank you for coming," Luca said to the latest group, a four-person squad from Sacranto. "We'll be in touch."
They filed out, casting longing glances at the Triumph through the windows. The ship drew everyone's attention, dominated every conversation, and sohow still wasn't enough to show him what he needed to see.
Emily made a note on her tablet. "That's eleven teams today. Any standouts?"
"No."
"The Prescott group had good synergy."
"They did." Luca rubbed his eyes. "But I don't know if good synergy is what we want."
Zoe pushed off from the wall. "You're looking for drears. People who want to go because they can't imagine staying. These folks want to go because it sounds exciting." She shrugged. "Different motivation."
The roar of engines interrupted the afternoon session.
Luca looked up from his notes to see a Valkyrie tearing through the compound gate, all-terrain tires throwing gravel as it slid around the corner. The 4x4 was smaller than a car, built for speed rather than cargo, and it ca in fast enough to make Luca's heart skip.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The driver hit the brakes at the last second, drifting to a stop in a cloud of dust that bordered on showing off.
Luca was already moving toward the door.
Alessio hopped out of the driver's seat before the dust had settled. His team piled out behind him: three from inside the roll cage, one dropping from the minigun mount, and a brunette in scout armor who'd been hanging off the side like that was normal.
Sixteen years old. His baby brother was sixteen years old and driving a combat buggy like he'd been born to it.
"Luca!" Alessio jogged over, helt under one arm. "We're heading north. Level 22 portal opened up near Mount Washington yesterday. Figured we'd hit it before anyone else claims it."
"In March?" Luca glanced at the sky. Clear now, but March in the White Mountains ant unpredictable weather. "There's still snow up there."
"That's what makes it fun." Alessio's grin didn't waver.
Luca wanted to say no. Wanted to ground his brother, lock him in a room, keep him safe from portals and monsters and his own teenage invincibility. But Alessio had led a team into an overflow Class 15 portal and co out the other side. He'd stabilized the rift and earned his crew's loyalty.
"Be careful," Luca said instead. "And make sure HQ knows where you are before you go in."
"We always log our portals, Luca. You know that."
"I know. Just..." He trailed off. There wasn't a good way to say it. Just co back. Dad can't lose another one of us.
Alessio's expression shifted from protest to sothing softer. "Yeah. I got it."
He jogged back to the Valkyrie and swung into the driver's seat. The engine roared to life, and gravel sprayed across the tarmac as he gunned it toward the gate.
A blur of black fur shot past Luca's legs.
Pixel bounded across the compound, her panther-sized form eating up the distance. The Sandveil Recon Hood glinted on her skull, purple energy flickering at its edges as she ran.
The notification appeared before Luca could process what was happening:
[System Notification]
Pixel [Nyxocatus Companion - Lv 16] has left your squad.
[End of ssage]
The Valkyrie didn't slow. Pixel matched its pace at the gate, running alongside as they tore through and disappeared up the road, heading north toward mountains and portals and whatever.
Luca stood there, watching the dust settle.
She'd been with him since New Dawn. A tiny kitten who'd grown into a Level 16 predator. And now she was chasing portals with his little brother, because Alessio offered sothing Luca couldn't: constant danger and constant growth.
He turned back to the interviews.
Evening found Luca in the Triumph's engineering deck, watching Ryan and Chris secure the last of Angelo's equipnt.
"That's the induction furnace," Ryan said, patting a massive crate. "And the electronics fab line is already in the workshop space. Hyeon's people will need a week to get everything installed and calibrated, but the hard part's done."
"Good work." Luca checked his tablet. "We leave in two hours. Hawk's fueled?"
"Ready to go," Chris said. "You sure about leaving the ship here?"
"I'm not flying a frigate across the Atlantic for a science conference. Too much attention, too much fuel, and we don't have engineering crew to handle constant maintenance." Luca shrugged. "Besides, Izumi's people can handle security while we're gone."
"Speaking of Izumi," Ryan said, and the look on his face told Luca everything he needed to know.
The conversation he'd been dreading ca an hour later.
Izumi found him on the hangar deck, watching the sun set over New Hampshire. The Radiant Blades trailed behind her: Yuna with her energy glaive collapsed at her hip, Kazuha's katana gleaming in the fading light, Xinran already filming the sunset on her phone.
"The ship's security systems," Izumi said without preamble. "Walk through them."
Luca pulled up the interface on his tablet. "Nobody gets in without my authorization. The sensors will pick up anything that gets close, and I'll get an alert if soone tries." He handed her the tablet. "I'm giving you monitoring access. You'll see everything the ship sees."
Izumi studied the display. "The compound is secure. My people have eyes on every delivery from origin to destination, and we'll keep the periter clear of reporters." She looked up. "And I'm coming with you."
Luca blinked. "What?"
"To Geneva. You don't expect to stay here, do you?"
"I... yes? That was the plan. You handle logistics while we handle the tour."
"I can handle logistics from Europe." Izumi's expression didn't change. "My teams are still running rotations. Europa, Hyperion, three portals in the Pacific Northwest. They don't need hovering. But you?" She tilted her head. "You need security."
"We can handle our own security."
"Every intelligence agency on Earth is watching you." Izumi's voice was flat. "The news vans are the least of your problems. You need security. And my girls are bored."
Behind her, Yuna grinned while Kazuha's hand drifted to her katana hilt like she was hoping for trouble. Xinran kept filming.
"The more the rrier," Emily said, appearing at Luca's shoulder. "Right?"
Luca turned to find Emily and Zoe approaching, both of them wearing expressions that suggested this had already been decided. Zoe was smiling in that way she did when she found sothing amusing.
"Co on," Zoe said. "It'll be fun. Girls' trip to Geneva."
"It's not a girls' trip. It's a Victory Tour stop. With a scientific symposium. And..." Luca caught himself before saying too much. There were people around. People he trusted, but still. "It's a working trip."
"Working trips can be fun," Emily said. Her hand found his. "And Kazuha's been showing so blade forms. Figured I might as well take advantage."
"Xinran promised to teach that spinning thing she does with her daggers," Zoe added. "The one where they blur."
Luca looked at the assembled group: Izumi with her girls, Emily and Zoe already planning training sessions. He thought about the operation waiting in Geneva, the infiltration.
He thought about trying to slip away from Izumi's security detail to commit espionage against the UER.
"Fine," he said. "But we leave in two hours."
The Granite Hawk lifted off from the Triumph's hangar as the last light faded from the sky.
Luca sat in the pilot's seat, hands steady on the controls, watching New Hampshire shrink beneath them. Zoe sat at her spot in the copilot chair. The Triumph was a dark shape against the compound lights, massive and still, waiting for them to return. Beyond it, the news vans were still parked at the gate. They'd get footage of the shuttle departing, at least. Sothing to show on the evening broadcast.
Behind them, the passenger compartnt was chaos.
The Hawk seated twelve, but between Izumi's combat gear, the Radiant Blades' weapons cases, and everyone's duffel bags stuffed with power cells, clothing, and Chris's questionable sock collection, the cargo hold was packed to bursting. Their own armor and weapons sat compressed in a single armored briefcase under Luca's seat, but nobody needed to know about that.
Ryan had claid the bench seat near the cockpit, Danny and Joey across from him, already deep in a debate about the symposium's keynote on stellar anomalies. Sothing about missing stars and a presentation on the data they had gathered in Alpha Centauri. Emily had ended up between Kazuha and Xinran, all three of them laughing at sothing on Xinran's phone.
And in the back, Izumi sat with her tablet, coordinating logistics across three continents. Chris and Yuna had taken the last two seats, talking in quiet voices. Luca caught the way Chris leaned in when she spoke, the sa look he'd had in Puerto Rico when Sofia smiled at him.
So things never changed.
"Comfortable up there?" Emily called from behind him.
"Compared to back there?" Luca glanced at the mirror showing the crowded cabin. "Absolutely."
Soone opened a bag of chips. The crinkling was imdiately followed by complaints about sharing. Kazuha said sothing in Japanese that made Xinran choke on her drink.
Luca had always hated crowds. Too many people, too much noise, too little control. His cabin on the Triumph was his sanctuary, the one place where he could breathe without an audience.
But this was different. These were his people, ssy and loud and impossibly alive. They trusted him to get them where they needed to go. And sowhere beneath all the noise, beneath the chips and laughter, there was a mission waiting.
CERN.
His crew knew what was coming. They'd all been there when Karen laid it out at Athan's apartnt. But Izumi and her girls thought this was just another tour stop, and that was how it needed to stay. Easier to slip away when the mont ca.
A notification pulsed on his interface.
[Objective Assigned: FTL Schematic Acquisition] (0/1)
Task: Scan Vanguard Displacent Drive FTL Engine
Contribution Reward: To be determined
Luca glanced at the mirror. Emily's eyes were already on him, her smile small and knowing. She wiggled her fingers once, a wave that said I just made it official, and went back to whatever Xinran was showing her.
The Atlantic stretched out beneath them, dark water reflecting starlight. Europe waited on the other side.
"Forty-five minutes to Geneva," Luca said over his shoulder. "Try not to make a ss back there."
The response was a bag of chips hitting the back of his seat.
He smiled and kept flying.
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