“Captain? Are you alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, alright. How’s Jase doing?”

“You needed a secure line for that?”

“Captain.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I’m tired. He’s the same, no change, for better or worse.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“They say he lost a lot of blood. That he’s lucky he’s life, or he’d be far worse off.”

“Well, I guess that’s something.”

“Yeah. Sir, what happened to Luke?”

“I wish I knew. He got a little out of control, Reefer had Sam have Logan knock him out, and he was checked into West Range Hospital. They checked him out, but couldn’t find anything wrong. He woke up yesterday, pitched a fit, wouldn’t tell them anything, and was discharged earlier today.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

“Are they going after the phantoms now?”

“Yeah. They left the base a few hours ago, and should be arriving at their first site soon. Hopefully they’ll have some luck, because the area civs are getting mad, and Luke definitely isn’t known for his patience with civilians.”

“Didn’t some farmers try to burn him at the stake though?”

Lawrence groans. “God, that was a nightmare in so many ways.”

“Gotta hand it to them though; I’m pretty sure that’s the first time Luke’s been accused of being a witch. Demon, now, I hear pretty frequently.”

“You’re not helping.”

“What the hell are we going to do if Jase doesn’t wake up?”

“Still not helping, Fosher.”

“Sorry. It’s just— we’ve been here over a week now. What if he never wakes up? What happens then?”

“Fosh, please—”

“God, I’m so tired.”

“Fosher, we’ve spotted an unidentified craft to the northwest of Ptok.”

“What?”

“Recon ships Mul-7, Rak-7, and Heid-5 are flying up to investigate, and the rest of Recon is patrolling the border.”

“Great, this just gets better and better.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Do you want us to do something, ‘cause I’m not going to le—”

“No, no. And I’m taking you off the Cliffs mission.”

“What are you going to tell Luke?”

“That you got held up, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“Let me know if anything changes.”

“Yeah. Ditto.”

Previous: Scene 4-VIII

Scene 4-IX

Next: Scene 4-X