Lion and Eldrinch

The night on Kalisto was a spectacle of awe-inspiring and terrible beauty. There was no moon, of course; Kalisto itself was the moon. The sky was a canvas of absolute black, dotted with the sharp, unblinking glitter of thousands of stars, like diamonds set in velvet. And dominating it all, hanging like an ancient and silent god, was the swirling eye of Jupiter, its bands of orange and white clouds casting a ghostly, perpetual light over the ice desert, bathing everything in a coppery, pale blue glow.

At the top of the hill, hidden behind a formation of obsidian-black rocks, Hood lay face down, his eye glued to the telescopic sight of his sniper rifle. He was not looking for targets. He was simply keeping watch, a motionless silhouette integrated into the landscape. Down below, in a small natural depression that hid them from direct view of the fortress, the rest of the Quetzal team had set up a temporary camp. A small plasma stove crackled in the center, its faint warmth a welcome and fragile barrier against the perpetual cold that bit into their bones.

The scene was almost domestic, a fragment of normalcy stolen from chaos. Prince of Vael, with a surgeon's concentration, was meticulously disassembling and cleaning his assault rifle, each piece fitting together with a satisfying click in the stillness. Near the fire, Corinelle gestured animatedly toward Lynel, her shadow dancing on the rocks.

"...and so a frontal assault with flank fire suppression is the only logical option," argued Corinelle, tracing imaginary lines in the air with one finger.

"Or we could just cut off their main power source and wait for them to freeze like lizards in a Petri dish," replied Lynel with infuriating calm, earning a withering glare from the warrior that promised future pain.

Eldrinch, oblivious to the tactical debate, handed out the tasteless ration bars with the efficiency of a mother at a picnic. He held one out to Airen, who accepted it with a slight nod without looking away from his book, whose pages rustled as he turned. They were a dysfunctional family on the edge of the universe, bound together by danger and loyalty, and for a fleeting moment, under the gaze of a gas giant, it almost felt like being at home.

Lion had wandered a few feet away, standing on the edge of the depression, watching the magnificent spectacle of Jupiter. His back seemed to carry the weight of the entire moon. Eldrinch approached silently, his boots barely making a sound he stood beside him, holding out a ration.

"Thank you," he said, accepting it without looking at her, his eyes still fixed on the cosmic horizon.

"This smell...," she muttered, wrinkling her nose in an exaggerated gesture. "I'll never get used to it. It's like... sulfur and wet metal."

"They're the atmospheric processors," Lion explained, his voice a murmur almost absorbed by the vastness. "They're in full swing on the other side of the moon, gutting the ice to extract oxygen and make this icy air barely breathable. A miracle of human engineering."

"A miracle that smells like burnt socks," she teased softly, seeking his gaze.

They stood in silence, watching the sky. "It's beautiful, though. This sky. So... honest. You don't see anything like it from Earth, not even from Gigi-1's dome. Everything is softer there. Here... here it's like the universe is staring you right in the face, without blinking."

"No," agreed Lion, at last turning his head toward her. His face, bathed in Jupiter's ashen light, seemed etched in stone, the shadows accentuating the lines of weariness and worry around his eyes. He turned fully around, his expression unusually serious. "Eldrinch."

the use of your name , the one he alone used in moments of extreme solemnity, caused her to give him her full attention, completely forgetting the ration bar in her hands.

"When this mission is over," he continued, the words coming out haltingly, as if struggling to escape, "you should stand down."

Eldrinch blinked, completely bewildered. "What... what do you say?"

"You are young. You are intelligent. You're... a beautiful woman," Lion said, his voice was soft but laden with a melancholy so heavy you could almost touch it. "You don't belong in this world of war and death, in this endless chain of suicide missions and freezing nights. You could be happy. Really. Go back to Earth, see a real forest, not a hologram. Find someone... someone who deserves you. Have a family. To die of old age, in a warm bed, surrounded by people who love you, not scarred comrades-in-arms."

For an instant, a deep, genuine blush colored Eldrinch's cheeks, visible even in the pale Jovian light. Surprise, mixed with the unexpected tenderness of his words, turned her head. But the emotion quickly gave way to indignation welling up in his chest.

"Retreat?" he exclaimed, his voice a hiss of fury that caused Prince of Vael to briefly look up before returning to his rifle. "Are you listening to the nonsense coming out of your mouth? After all this time? And leave you complacently alone to have your head blown off by some fanatic with a rusty gun because there was no one at your side to have your back?" he shook his head vehemently, his oscurop hair waving like a silver flag. "No. Impossible. I'll be here. Wherever you go. Forever. Watching over you. Watching your stubborn back." Her anger softened a little, and the blush returned, this time accompanied by a gleam of excitement in her eyes. "That's what...that's what best friends are for, right? To put up with each other's nonsense."

Lion looked at her, the absolute sincerity and fierce loyalty in his words breaking through the armor he'd been wearing since the Quetzal fell. The tension in his face broke, like ice under the sun, giving way to a genuine, tired but warm laugh that reached his eyes for the first time in days. It was a rare and beautiful sound.

Eldrinch tried to keep her expression angry, crossing her arms tightly, but his laughter was too infectious, too liberating. A small snort escaped his lips, then another, and soon they were both laughing, a duet of nervous, relieved laughter that echoed in the alien silence, drowning out for a moment the weight of Jupiter and the shadow of the fortress.

At the end, when the laughter died down, they were silent again, shoulder to shoulder, gazing at the infinite sky. There was no need for further words. A deep understanding, forged in years of battles and confidences in the dark, flowed between them. For an instant stolen from time, under the gaze of a giant, they were simply Lion and Eldrinch, two friends at the end of the world, and that was enough to make them feel, against all logic, happy.

The days melted into a monotonous and exhausting cycle of icy observation and meticulous planning. They mapped every patrol route, every pattern in the guards' movement. They timed every shift change down to the second. They identified the weekly arrival of the supply ship, its approach path, its landing point, and the exact time its engines remained on before shutting down. The fortress, once an impenetrable and terrifying enigma, slowly became a complex but decipherable puzzle, its pieces fitting together one by one in their minds.

On the seventh day, with the precision of a ritual, Lion gathered the team around the holographic map of the base that Hood had projected onto a flat rock. The faces, once relaxed by the camaraderie of the night, were now sharp, focused, with the hard look of those who know the hour of truth is at hand. They were soldiers again, the dysfunctional family had given way to the combat unit.

Lion pointed to a specific spot on the map, the secondary cargo bay, a less guarded but crucial location. His voice was quiet, low, but charged with an absolute certainty that instilled a tense, expectant calm in the air.

"Good," he said, and each syllable was a nail sealing his fate. "I know how we're going to get out of this hellhole."