Chervaz.

They'd seen each other several times since she returned, but only around other people, never alone. Neither had broached the subject of the two of them, not yet. Would she welcome it if he did now? As angry as she had been, time and a cool head had given Maiga the distance to put it in perspective. She saw the faults on both sides. Both had failed to trust the other.

"You know," Chervaz said, stirring his coffee, while Maiga started washing up the other cups. "I still think we should just warn station management."

"No," Maiga said, with a shake of her head. "It's a human problem. We have to deal with it. She was a mutineer and a murderer before she was a pirate. That's what she has to pay for first."

He didn't answer, just looked at her. Wondering about her plans, she guessed. Of course he already knew many of the plans, the response they had planned for when Bara made her move. But he didn't know what Maiga had planned for afterwards. Nobody knew that. Well, nobody here on the station. Had Chervaz worked out what the plans she had revealed were really about though?

One person had. The day after she arrived back on the station, Maiga took the train to the station that existed only on the line, where she fended off a hug from Gry. She didn't have that good a sense of smell, but there were limits.

When she explained her plans, and how he could help, how he could be the secret weapon, Gry clapped his hands and cackled. All the years down here, learning every inch of the station, would pay off big now. He asked the same question as Chervaz, why not just warn the Klaff? And she gave the same answer, but Gry didn't just accept it without question. He looked thoughtful, and he worked out what the answer actually meant.

"You want her to come. You're not only ready for her; you're waiting. This is... Oh, delightful! An ambush! You're laying a trap!"

He was exactly right. But even Gry hadn't guessed the rest of it.

"Of course," Maiga said, making Chervaz look up from stirring his coffee. "You could warn the Klaff yourself."

"I could." He took the spoon out of the coffee at last, and fidgeted, passing the spoon from one hand to another. "I could go and talk to the station managers right now." He smiled and held up a hand, fingers crossed. "Mahtani and I are like that now. But I won't." He went serious again. "I'm choosing to trust that you know what you're doing and that what you're doing is for the good of our people."

"It is. The good of all our people."

"I believe you'll do it. I think that when you make a promise, that you can bend the universe into a shape that keeps that promise."

It made her smile to hear that he put so much faith in her. She knew she could rely on him in return, because of what he'd done before. She trusted him now because he'd hurt her with his newspaper story. Because she knew he would stick by his principles. He stood up even when the enemy tried to beat him down. When Maiga herself tried to beat him down, with her anger and by leaving him, he stood up.

This man was her rock. A BFR, that she could use to guide her. Nobody would be more important to her in the days to come.

"I have missed you," she told him.

"You probably have time to reload."

Maiga stared for a moment, then grinned. "You've been hanging around with Wixa while I was gone, haven't you?"

"Yes, but Station Security kept moving us on, since people nearby kept bursting into tears due to the effect of the field of misery we were generating."

"Stop trolling for sympathy." She took the cup from him, tired of watching him stir the cold coffee. "You were sulking in a coffee shop while I was a prisoner on the cursed ship of a mad pirate queen."

"Okay, you win on points." He reached across the bench towards her, but stopped short, and let his hand rest on the bench. "I've missed you too, Maiga."

She didn't answer at once, finished washing and drying his cup and put it away, then hung the towel on a rail, making sure it fell straight and neat. Her quarters were barracks room style again, very much like when she had first arrived. The throws and rugs, that Wixa seemed to have an endless supply of, lay piled in a neat stack in a corner.

The same principle went for her and for a second she ran a hand through her short-cropped hair. She'd had it cut only a couple of days ago, as short as it had been for a long time. Ready for the fight.

Her long silence must have discouraged Chervaz, and he moved his hand away again. But she spoke. "Go on. Did you want to say something?"

"I... well, was thinking, I would like... um, I'll understand if you say no, but what we had before... I still care about you. I know I messed up and..." He looked down, stumbling to a halt.

"You didn't mess up. Or we both did. But, Vaz." He looked up at that. Maiga rarely called him Vaz. Jaff did, and Wixa, his friends. But she'd been more than a friend. "We have to wait. Until this is over. I need to focus - we both do - on what's important."

A flush rose to his cheeks then and she knew she'd put her foot in it again. She took a step back from the bench, folding her arms.

"I mean, more important in the sense that it will affect a lot of people, not only us. Lives are at stake. So, I think we should wait."

"We might die." He said it quietly.

"Yes," she said. "We might. And as much of an aphrodisiac as the fear of violent death might be; I still think we should wait."

He stared at her. "Sometimes you frighten me a little."

"Frighten you?" She frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know how else to say it, but you're very like her, like Bara. So intense and focused. I suppose that means you're the one to beat her. But still, you frighten me."

"There's one difference. I'm not crazy."

He laughed; sounding relieved that she wasn't angry. "I hope not. It's hard to tell though, since you're also very mysterious." He paused and looked at her for a while, an assessing expression in his eyes. "I know you have things planned that you haven't told anyone else. Can't you tell me?"

"I can't tell anyone."

"Why not?"

She shrugged. "I just can't."

"What if I told you a secret? Would you tell me then?"

That intrigued her, but still her answer remained the same. "No."

"Maiga, someone else should know the plans. What if you fall in the fighting?"

"Well, actually, there is one person who knows the plans." She smiled. "You haven't met him. But I think he and Jaff are going to get along like a house on fire."

"You're trying to distract me."

Damn, of course his experience interviewing people had taught him to spot such attempts. She sighed. "Yes, I am."

"That's okay. I always found you very distracting, in the best possible way." He looked at his watch. "I have to go. I have a paper to print." Chervaz headed to the door and opened it. He turned to say goodbye and Maiga spoke.

"What secret?"

"What?"

"What secret were you going to tell me?"

Chervaz chuckled. "Sorry, Maiga, quid pro quo."

"What?"