EPILOGUE: A LITTLE SIDE-MISSION

The report that the Nine Lives carried not one but two Spartans came as a bit of a surprise to Command, and after the questions of how they'd come to be aboard had passed, orders percolated down as to what to do with them.

Flint found it of mild interest that Tori's new assignment was to be just what she'd been uncertain about – his backup. She suddenly had a rank again, rather than a title, although he had a feeling the title would be a long time in fading. Being a doctor of sciences for thirty years would not disappear overnight.

But it only took nine days to reach the world where the duo were to be dropped off. When Flint saw it first, he wasn't sure what it was supposed to be – but the ground chief assured him that that long, skinny star-dart thing was, in fact, the sloop granted by ONI for the more efficient shuttling of Spartans.

He walked around it on the outside once, just to see what it looked like, and found someone had mostly scoured off what had once been white lettering on the otherwise shiny black hull; it read Whispers of Fate.

Tori went and explored the whole of the interior first thing, but the cat found the copilot's seat and nested there right off. She would, Flint was sure, explore eventually. By the time Tori came back up to the front, Flint had gotten them off the ground, and was spooling up the slipspace drives as she sat down.

"You can fly anything, can't you?" She asked, picking up the cat and sitting down there.

"Most anything." Flint answered, half-distracted.

"Where did they say we were supposed to go, again?"

He cast her a look. "Manticore… you'll need to learn to remember these things, Tori, and you'll also need to learn to fly too. If something happens to me, you'll be lost and grounded if you don't."

Tori cast him a frown, but it was only evident because she'd taken her helmet off and set it somewhere elsewhere in the ship.

Flint studied the look for a moment, wondering where that somewhere was – he had not explored at all yet – before turning back to look at what he was doing. He'd gotten so far as somewhere besides the airlock, dropped the duffel that held everything he'd ever need along with the pants that still had Thor in a pocket in them somewhere, and then come straight to the fore of the craft, looking for the cockpit.

And finding it, he'd settled in.

"So what's it look like?" He asked, absently, nosing the craft through the breach in normal space and into the void beyond.

"Empty, very empty." Tori answered, stroking the cat with her gloved hands. The familiar buzzsaw purr interrupted Flint's next thought, so he cast the cat a look.

"Are we really going to keep her in here for the rest of forever?"

Tori looked back at him. "Yes, until we move back out again."

He sighed.

"She's a good cat."

"She's a menace." Flint complained, looking back away.

"She likes you." Tori protested.

"If she likes me, why does she sit on my head and knead my ears until I roll over?" Flint argued. "I wouldn't call that liking me."

Tori smiled. "I would. She's a cat, Flint, she's a very simple creature."

He grumbled.

She eventually set the cat down, and after watching her wander around a little before going out the door and away down the hall to explore, ears up and whiskers fore, Tori turned back to Flint. Having done all he could possibly until it was time to come back out of slipspace, he reached up to unlatch the seal around his throat. He lifted the helmet free, and had just lowered it to one side and looked over at one of the screens when Tori jumped up, snatched it out of his hands, and ran hell for leather off down the hall.

"What – hey!" Flint protested, clawing out of his chair in a stumbling attempt at pursuit. Getting his feet under him at last, he charged after her, achingly aware that his previous nonchalance about the sloop's layout was now going to bite him in the ass – he paused at the head of the corridor, aware he had no idea where she'd gone off to.

Having heard him stop, Tori poked her arms back out into the hallway, waved the stolen helmet at him tauntingly, giggled, and disappeared again. Grumbling about everything that had ever bothered him, Flint trotted after her. She'd made the list, he was sure. Reaching the juncture she'd turned, he went down that way, a little unsure where he'd wind up before she decided to give up this stupid game.

Maybe he should just let her have it, and reclaim it later when she tired of his unwillingness to play. Catching a glimpse of her just ahead, he sped up, darting up to the next corner and hooking around it to nearly catch her. She shrieked when his fingers brushed her back, giggling as she fled around another corner more to evade than because she wanted to go that way.

"Aargh!" Flint complained, unable to catch her. She was just fast enough to stay out of arm's reach, especially using the ship's corridors to aid in her retreat. "Tori!!"

"You can't catch me! You can't catch me! Nyaa nyaa!" She called back, over her shoulder.

"You watch me!" Flint shot back, a little irritated that she was getting so much fun out of this. He swiped at her again, but directly after, he overshot when she ducked suddenly through a door. Returning, he barged through it, aware as soon as he was through the door that he finally had her cornered – unless she somehow managed to duck around him and get back past and out into the hallways again. The room was a dead-end. It looked like a maintenance access chamber, several of the door panels with labels on them that read things like 'electrical fore' or 'weapons feed lines'.

Tori went right down the narrow chamber up to the backmost part, and turned around, still grinning her fool head off at him and waving his helmet in the air over her head like some prize she'd won. "Come on, come and get it." She teased.

Flint marched up the length of the room, still frowning. "If you're going to be like this the whole time we're out here…" He began, getting close enough to reach for the helmet. She twisted so it stayed out of his reach, just enough that his reaching fingers were only able to brush the exterior and unable to get a grasp on the object. After doing this twice or three times, Flint finally grabbed for the arm, intending to bring it down and into reach one way or another.

Instead of letting him have it, though, Tori tucked the helmet behind her head, dragging his own arm around back there with her own, and slung her other arm around his neck in a capture, and kissing him.

When she felt the grip around her wrist fall slack, she let him go, to witness that same blanked-out expression she'd gotten out of him the first time. She smiled, drawing the helmet out from behind her head and down to the side. His hand didn't really follow hers that time, but the pause wasn't satisfactory. Sliding her gloved fingers around the back of his head, she nosed his cheek once before kissing him again. That time, she felt reciprocation.

When she dropped the helmet, she knew it would stay there for a while.