Watching Caine practice, Jupiter realized, was nothing compared to seeing him actually fight.

It was exceedingly awkward, perched on the ceiling grid and trying to keep both her balance and a grip on the gun, and Jupiter blessed the architects for putting in something strong enough to support her weight. But despite the discomfort, the danger, and the weird lighting, she couldn't look away. Caine was breathtaking.

Even in the cramped space he moved almost more quickly than her eyes could follow, first snapping off shots against their pursuers and then moving to hand-to-hand when they got too close. He was a whirlwind, flipping and spinning and almost dancing as he fought, fierce and deadly beauty, and her heart was in her throat as she watched. Part of her was terrified for him, but another part was simply in awe.

She wasn't sure how many attackers he dispatched - there always seemed to be another one coming - but there were at least three bodies heaped outside in the corridor that she could see even as he dealt with another one. The hulking form went flying away and out of her line of sight, and Caine gave the briefest of glances back and up, making sure she was okay before he turned to take on the next one - someone with blue skin and two knives, holy crap -

A sudden burst of blinding light squeezed Jupiter's eyes shut, and the boom of an amplified voice made her flinch. She wobbled on the crossbar, almost losing her balance, and grabbed at it with both hands. Don't drop the gun don't drop the gun -

She couldn't understand what the voice was saying, but as she forced her eyes back open, blinking furiously to clear them, she saw Caine holding both hands up over his head, and slowly going down to his knees. His opponent was gone.

Caine looked back at her again. "It's all right, your Majesty," he said loudly. "It's the Aegis."

Yeah, and? That doesn't mean it's safe. Jupiter stayed where she was.

The corner of Caine's mouth curled up just a trifle, and he blinked, slow and reassuring. "Please, your Majesty."

If she couldn't trust Caine, Jupiter knew she was screwed anyway. Sighing, she switched the gun's safety on, stuffed it down her shirt to free her hands, and swung down from the crossbar to land on the floor.

The voice that had spoken before said something else, fortunately at a lower volume, and Jupiter heard a snatch of incomprehensible conversation before it spoke once more. "Your Majesty - the Aegis is at your service. It's safe to come out."

And that made Jupiter feel like a five-year-old being coaxed. She grimaced and pulled the gun back out, holding it carefully down at her side as she edged around the doorframe and into the hallway.

There were at least six bodies, and a light globe the size of a basketball, and a cluster of people about twenty yards away. They were hard to see because the globe was between them and Jupiter, but as she emerged she heard a murmur of several voices. A tall figure stepped forward and past the globe, resolving into a slender woman in a black sparkly uniform, light glimmering on her cheeks; she didn't bow, but she gave the impression that she had.

"Your Majesty, I am Captain Diomika Tsing of the Aegis," she said. "We're here to assure your safety."

Jupiter blew out a breath. "Okay, but please call me Jupiter," she said. "Um...what now?" She glanced at Caine, who was still kneeling, and leaned over to hand him his gun.

Several people shouted, and Captain Tsing snatched a weapon from her belt and trained it on Caine. "Your Majesty!" she shouted. "Please don't arm him!"

"Wait, what?" Jupiter stared at her, then looked down at Caine. His hands were flat on his thighs, and he shook his head at her, face blank.

Captain Tsing raised a hand to her ear, then straightened. "Lord Balem is sending in a security squad," she said crisply. "We don't have an injunction yet - your Majesty, we need to go now."

"Go where?" Jupiter asked, but Tsing was snapping orders at the people further down the hall and didn't reply.

"This way, if you please, your Majesty," someone said from behind her - a shorter man with a mane of dark hair and the same glittery uniform. He gestured her forward, and Jupiter took a few reluctant steps.

"What about Caine?" she asked.

"We'll handle him," the man soothed. "You're safe now. We just need to get you off-planet - "

She turned to look back, but the man was blocking her view. "Go, your Majesty," came Caine's voice from behind him. "Please."

And she couldn't deny the urgency in that one word, the same anguish from when he'd begged her to run, so Jupiter let herself be herded down the hall and outside into a beam of blue light that was an elevator in disguise.

The next few minutes were a jumble of strange sounds and sights and smells, a sensory overload that was just short of dizzying. The lightbeam lifted them all up into - nothing, there was only a heat-dazzle overhead, and Jupiter would have liked to see the city again from above, if only to distract herself from the fact that they seemed to be rising into empty air, but she was crowded around with at least three people and they were all taller than her.

When they reached the shimmer, it abruptly became the inside of a - well, it had to be a spaceship, didn't it? That looked a lot like a small lobby, in fact, but then Captain Tsing materialized out of the crowd. "Welcome aboard, your Majesty," she said. "We need to leave orbit immediately, but you're welcome to accompany me to the bridge."

"What about Caine?" Jupiter repeated, and Captain Tsing shook her head.

"My people have the Splice in hand. Please, your Majesty, there's no time to waste."

That wasn't enough, but if more bad guys were coming it made sense to get out of range, so Jupiter followed obediently as Tsing strode up the corridor leading out of the lobby-space. The bridge was a dark-walled room with an enormous view of night-lit Chicago, and Jupiter scarcely noticed the weird consoles and lights everywhere as she stepped closer for a better look.

It's gorgeous, she thought, enthralled - it had all the beauty she'd seen from Caine's embrace, but without the terrifying fear of falling. Behind her, people were moving around - and abruptly Chicago shrank, becoming a fragile network of lights below as the ship rose upwards.

"Your Majesty?" someone said at her elbow, and Jupiter turned to see the man with the dark hair. "You might want to take a few of these. We're going to portal soon, and it can induce nausea."

He was holding out a cup and a handful of tablets. Jupiter hesitated, because she'd been raised on don't take drugs from strangers, but - If they want to kill me, all they have to do is shove me out an airlock, I suppose. She took two of the tablets and the cup, and swallowed them down; they tasted faintly of cloves, and the stuff in the cup was just water. The man smiled politely and took the cup when she was done. "I'm Officer Percadium," he said. "Captain Tsing's assigned me as your liaison while you're with us. Anything you need, just ask me."

A second to catch my breath? Jupiter smiled at him, wondering what the heck she was supposed to do with a liaison. "Um...where are we going?"

"Orus," Percadium replied promptly. "Captain Tsing will explain as soon as we've portaled." He nodded at the screen behind her. "If you watch, you'll see the portal form."

Jupiter turned back around - and blinked, because the screen was black with a brilliant arc of Earth showing. As she watched, the arc swung past and disappeared to the right, and a moment later something bloomed in the center of the screen, an expanding ring of what looked like gas of some kind, and they sped straight towards it -

Things seemed to twist around Jupiter, and her stomach flipped violently. She gulped, trying to keep her gorge in place, and a breath later everything smoothed out again.

And then it dropped right out of her head, because before her was another world.

Holy. Crap.

It was like nothing she'd dreamed of, no pristine sphere hiding who knew what alien secrets; it was half-buried in structure, in buildings so tall that they climbed out of its atmosphere. Two separate rings haloed it, and even from so far away Jupiter could see movement and light - they were as artificial as the buildings.

"Welcome, your Majesty," Percadium said behind her, sounding dryly amused, "to the overpopulated, oozing cesspool we humbly call home."

Some imp in her nearly prompted Jupiter to ask if it was named Mos Eisley, but she was too busy looking at it all to bother.

Another planet. It's another planet, an inhabited planet, I'm really, truly, seeing one…

The next twelve hours were bureaucratic hell.

Captain Tsing assigned a crew of four, including Officer Percadium, to guard Jupiter while an absurdly nightmarish android (even more absurdly named Bob) guided her through an endless series of lines. An only slightly less nightmarish android, this one with a female form, was part of the team, and as they waited, and waited, and waited in yet another line, she explained the basics of Entitlement, the Abrasax family, and what taking title of Earth meant.

Or started to, because Jupiter kept having more and more questions, which Officer Chatterjee answered with cool, inhuman patience. When she got to the part about what Earth was for, Jupiter almost threw up.

By the time they were finished, Jupiter was footsore, starving, and dizzy with lack of sleep, and even having a hologram implanted in her wrist was hardly enough to wake her up. Gotta ask the captain about Caine, she told herself as they boarded the shuttle back to the spaceship, but she was asleep before they reached it.

RECELL: BASE OF TRADE AND SOCIETY WITHIN THE GYRE. ALSO KNOWN AS REGENEX, NECTAR, HEAL-ALL (FOR MORE NAMES SEE APPENDIX 12/4-5A). SERUM REFINED FROM FARMED HUMANS; CAN REGENERATE THE BODY AND RESET CELLS TO THEIR ORIGINAL PRISTINE STATE, BUT MORE WIDELY USED IN DILUTED FORM AS A HEALING AGENT. CAN BE USED TOPICALLY OR AS AN INHALANT. CAN BE USED INDEFINITELY TO PROLONG LIFE. MANUFACTURE, PRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION CONTROLLED SOLELY BY ENTITLED.

When she woke, it was in a narrow bed in an austere room. Jupiter lay still for a while, sorting through memory and trying to figure out what was real and what was the remnants of some really strange dreams. It wasn't until her stomach woke as well, and started not only growling but snarling, that she sat up.

It's the captain's cabin. She did remember that much, Tsing giving up her quarters to her exalted guest and Jupiter too exhausted to argue about it. Now, when she looked around, the dim light brightened and she saw a neat pile of clothing on the small table nearby.

Good, because yesterday's stuff will just about need a flamethrower to get clean.

She staggered into the little bathroom, managed to figure out how to work the fixtures, and came out feeling a lot more prepared to face whatever was beyond the cabin door. Which could be anything. I have no idea what time it is, where we are, or what to do next, or how I'm going to explain all this to my family. Geez, they must be having a meltdown by now.

But as she pulled on the clothes - an Aegis uniform without the rank markings - she knew one thing. I have to find Caine.

Jupiter fumbled with the door, managed to get it open - and nearly fell over the crewmember waiting outside. The young man had bright eyes and some kind of mask over his mouth, and he bowed slightly when he saw her. "Your Majesty," said a smooth electronic voice. "I've been assigned to escort you. Captain Tsing asks that you join her as soon as possible."

"Yeah, about that," Jupiter began, and then wobbled as her head spun. "Um. Can we start with breakfast?"

Captain Tsing met her in the mess room, where Jupiter was ignoring the weird purple tint of the hot cereal in favor of getting it inside her as fast as was polite, all while scanning through the steampunk tablet full of Entitled rules that she'd been given the day before. She wiped her mouth hastily as Tsing dipped her head, and when the captain remained standing, Jupiter pointed at the chair opposite her. "Want to sit?"

She felt brash and awkward, but Tsing merely repeated the nod and took the seat. "Thank you, your Majesty. How are you today?"

"Better, thanks." Jupiter swallowed another bite. "I feel like I'm cramming for a test here."

Tsing unbent enough to raise a brow. "You are."

Jupiter snorted. "Look...I really appreciate your rescuing me and everything, you have no idea how much, but before I do anything else I really need to see Caine."

Tsing frowned. "Your Majesty, he's safely contained. I understand that you're grateful to him for his defense of you, but he's scheduled to be transferred to another cruiser shortly for processing."

Wait, what? "Processing? What does that mean?"

Tsing's mouth set in a hard line. "The Splice is an escaped criminal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Deadland and needs to face justice for his additional crime."

Jupiter felt herself slipping from a rising anger into a weird chilly mode she hadn't experienced before. "Yeah, about that," she said. "What exactly happened with him?"

Tsing blinked, light catching on her facial implants and glittering. "I only skimmed his file when his call came in, but he attacked and killed an Entitled without any sort of warning. The only reason he wasn't executed was because his commanding officer negotiated a deal for him." She grimaced. "Apparently Wise came across a stranded smuggler vessel in the Deadland and hijacked it to escape."

Jupiter flinched inwardly at the word hijacked; despite Caine's fighting skills, she couldn't really picture him holding anyone at gunpoint and forcing them to help him. But he had to be pretty desperate. "Did he hurt anyone?"

Tsing turned up a hand. "We don't know. The passengers were all dead by the time the vessel was retrieved, but they seem to have died from an illness."

Huh. That explains some things. "He had it too," Jupiter said softly, thinking back. "Like the flu or something."

She ate another bite, scarcely tasting it, then set her spoon down. "What's going to happen to him?"

"He'll be placed in custody until resentencing, and then he'll be executed." Tsing's voice was laced with venom. "He should have been put down originally, I don't know why they lessened his sentence…"

Jupiter's head was ringing with a strange combination of fury and cool deliberation. "Captain," she said, "I need one of those sheave things, a blank one."

Tsing glanced over at the young man who was Jupiter's escort, waiting patiently by the door, and he vanished through it. Jupiter scooped up more cereal - she was still hungry - and paged rapidly back through the device she was reading, cursing the fact that she didn't know how to use its search function. I know it's here, I saw it -

But by the time he returned with the palm-sized device, Jupiter was ready. She used the little attached stylus with a silent prayer of thanks that the thing could read English, wrote out her order in clear, simple words, and held her wrist over it.

It was fascinating to see the symbols on the screen rise up to meet the faintly glowing tattoo on her arm; there was a muted flash, and then the symbols sank back down onto the tablet's surface, subtly different. There.

She handed it to Captain Tsing, keeping her face calm while her heart beat wildly. I don't know if this'll work, but I have to try -

Tsing took it and bent her head to read. It was interesting, one corner of Jupiter's mind noted, to see her color change to near-gray. "Your Majesty...you can't possibly be serious."

"Is it legal?" Jupiter leaned back and folded her arms, because she was ninety-nine percent sure that it was. Well, ninety-seven percent.

"Yes - but - " Tsing took a deep breath, and visibly reached for control. "Your Majesty, you are new to the greater universe, and it may be that you don't understand. Wise is a Splice. Splices are - not human. They're bred for specific purposes, and they don't deviate from them."

She set the sheave down. "What Wise did was a horrific, unforgivable crime. He's little better than an animal. I understand that you're grateful, but - "

Jupiter wanted to reach across the table and smack her. "I don't care."

Tsing gaped at her. "You - what?"

"I don't care," Jupiter repeated. "I don't care what his punishment was, and I don't care that he's a Splice. I'm pardoning him."

She fixed Tsing with a glare, hoping to imitate the stare of her mother's that quelled even Vladie. "I want him released right now, and I want to see him."

Tsing started to speak, stopped, and then shook her head. "Very well, your Majesty." Her voice was grim, but she pushed to her feet, picking up the sheave and departing.

Jupiter blew out a breath and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them, she glanced over at her escort, but his mask hid his expression and he said nothing.

The little cell was hardly big enough to stand in, and held nothing but a water dispenser, a sanitary slot, and a bench, but it could have been worse. Caine was grateful that the Aegis had left his limbs free when they'd shoved him into the tiny space.

He'd spent the subsequent time trying not to think too much. It was easy enough; he slept for some time, curled up awkwardly on the hard bench, and tried to clean off a bit of the accumulated grime and blood using the trickle of water from the dispenser. The makeshift bandage had stopped the bleeding enough for his wound to start to scab over, and he was resistant to most infections, so he peeled it off and set it aside.

And waited.

He knew what was coming. The only uncertainty was whether the Aegis would simply take him out and shoot him, or save him for a public execution. No one had ever escaped the Deadland; if news had gotten out, they'd have to make an example of him.

But he'd known that when he'd made the call to the Aegis. The escaped murderer they'd been searching for and an emergent Recurrence - that had brought them faster than a tachyon stream. He'd succeeded. His life for Jupiter's - it was a fair trade.

Caine tried to keep her out of his thoughts. The fragile dream he'd harbored, small as it had been, was done. Jupiter was beyond his reach - had always been beyond his reach, and he was a fool to have ever thought otherwise.

There was nothing left, and shortly there would be nothing left of him, either. It seemed fitting.

The click of the lock opened Caine's eyes, and he straightened on the bench. He wouldn't resist, whatever they did -

The vessel's captain was in the corridor, radiating astonishment and rage. "Get him out," she said impatiently, and Caine got to his feet and let the two burly crewmembers yank him out of the cell. He was expecting the heavy cuff-plate they fastened onto his wrists, but not the moment when the captain stepped in front of him and looked up, practically vibrating with restrained fury.

"Caine Wise," she said, the words clipped, "you have been pardoned for your crimes by her Majesty the Recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax. You are hereby released from all unserved punishments, and ordered to her presence."

...What?

Caine barely felt the shove as the guards propelled him down the corridor. His mind was spinning in circles, trying to find the trap, because there had to be one somewhere. Things like this didn't happen.

Jupiter was in the officers' mess with one attendant, looking somehow regal despite her simple clothing and her nervousness. He wanted to drink in her scent, but instead he breathed shallowly. Don't let it happen again, he told himself as she ordered the guards to remove his cuffs despite their objections and then told them to get out. She's royalty now, she probably just wants to…

But he couldn't think what she would want of him, and that's when the door slid shut and his arms were suddenly full of Jupiter.

Caine held her carefully, still dazed, and kept his gaze on the far side of the room despite the tight wrap of her arms around him and the surging relief in her scent. He knew he should shake her off and step back, he was nothing she should be touching and filthy besides, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.

It took a while for her grip to loosen, and when she lifted her head to look at him Caine dropped his hands to his sides. He felt her breath on his throat when she spoke. "Caine? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Your Majesty," he said, unable to use her name now that she'd taken up her power. "Thank you for my pardon."

Jupiter stepped back. "Bullshit you're fine," she snapped, and one gentle hand tilted his chin down so he would meet her eyes. "Caine, I'm sorry. I didn't know what they'd done to you - if I'd had any idea I would have gotten you out of there hours ago."

Caine blinked. "It doesn't matter," he said. "It's what I deserved."

Jupiter actually growled at that. "Nnngh. No, you didn't, but we can argue about that later. Look, Caine…"

She let him go entirely and looked away, suddenly uncertain. "I claimed my title, that's what they called it, because it was the only way to keep Balem from just killing me and turning the entire population of Earth into a bunch of youth serum, but frankly I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

She bit her lip, obviously uncertain. "I do know that if I'm going to make this work, I'm gonna need help."

Caine tucked his hands behind his back. "I will be happy to serve you in anyway I can, your Majesty." And it was true; she'd just handed him back his life, and he was already bound to her, and even though he would just be a Splice in her eyes, that was proper, after all. And he would get to breathe her in, every day he was near her.

Jupiter frowned at him, looking - hurt. "No! I mean - no, I don't want a servant."

Caine shook his head. "I don't understand."

Jupiter waved both hands. "I want - I need - a friend. An equal. Somebody I can talk to, not order around."

Oh. It shouldn't have hurt so much, but it did. "In that case, you need a pure human. Splices aren't equals."

"Yeah, that's crap." Jupiter reached up and laid a tentative hand over his heart, and Caine barely kept himself from leaning into it. "I know this whole setup is crazy, and it's probably going to be dangerous, and if what everybody keeps telling me about Splices is true, it'll be ugly too. But I thought we were friends, and I really, really want you to stay. If you want to," she added hastily.

She was so small, came the irrelevant thought; so small to hold the weight of worlds, so fragile to turn everything he knew inside out with just her words. Did she even know what it was she was offering him?

He couldn't fly any longer, but he felt light all the same. Maybe it was a dream, maybe it would get taken away again, but he had the odd feeling that if it were Jupiter wouldn't stop until he was with her once more.

Caine bowed his head, and it wasn't until he felt the warmth of her skin that he realized his hand was covering hers. "I want to."

Her smile bloomed, and this time when she hugged him Caine returned the embrace. He knew that it was all impossible, but he couldn't bring himself to care, and oh she felt good in his arms; she felt right, as though she really did belong there.

And when she kissed him, he sank into her touch, because even if it was impossible, his dream was truth again.

It was quite some time before he thought to ask. "Your Majesty?"

Her brows went up, but she didn't protest. "Mmm?"

"You said you were going to need help. If - if you mean it, what you said about Splices - "

"Of course I do." Jupiter pressed a quick kiss to his chin. "What are you thinking?"

Caine exhaled. "There's someone I know - two someones - who might be useful."

Her grin lit up her face. "Seriously? Who are they?"

Two days later Caine was clean, healed, and shaking his head over the fact that Stinger and his daughter had been practically under his nose the whole time he'd been on Jupiter's planet. But as they stood on a rickety porch surrounded by frozen fields, Kiza's arm around Caine's waist and his across her shoulders, and watched Jupiter relight the hope in Stinger's eyes, he knew this was better.

Nothing about the future was going to be easy. But he wasn't alone any more; he had a pack, and a place, and a purpose.

"Hey, Caine," Jupiter said, grinning over her shoulder; next to her, Stinger wore a dazed, rusty smile. "Why didn't you tell me the wings were replaceable? We're going shopping as soon as we get back up to space."

Caine took her outstretched hand, and felt the last of the Deadland fall away.

He had everything.

End.