The soldier took first Sean's, then Alec's, words silently.  She appeared no less furious, but she did seem to be regaining some control of herself.  As she listened, she lowered the rifle and slowly looped it's strap over her head, letting the weapon drop to her hip after flicking the safety on.  Her gloved hands flexed and clenched at her sides, making fists and then splaying and clenching and flexing, over and over.<br/><br/>She fixed Sean with a brutal glare after Alec finished speaking.  "They're dead," she said, her voice liquid ice.  Her head nodded almost imperceptibly in Zoey's direction.  "She killed them.  Don't you try and pretend otherwise.  Don't you..."<br/><br/>Her voice trailed off as Zoey stood and Alec examined her chin.  Those furious brown eyes shifted to Alec next, penetrating and judging.  It was obvious that she was weighing his words and actions, trying to decide how to feel about this man, but she said nothing.<br/><br/>After a long moment, she turned to Rebekah.  Something in her words made the soldier pause, her expression softening.  She looked down suddenly, hiding her eyes.  "I'm... sorry I tackled you," she said, her voice thick and humid, full of exhaustion and hurt and unshed tears.<br/><br/>Without another word, she turned toward the far wall and leaned into it with both hands, head down, rifle swinging in the air between her torso and the clean white walls as she rocked slowly.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Alec Llewellyn and Zoey Calhoun</span></strong><br/><br/>Zoey's cheek was already swelling into a ripe bruise.  Once mature, it would stretch from her jaw up along her cheekbone to the ridge of bone just below her left eye.  Nothing was broken or out of place, although the coppery taste of blood indicated that she'd cut the inside of her mouth.  As the adrenaline began to work it's way out of her system, she felt a gradual dizziness begin to take hold of her.<br/><br/>Alec's chest still thrummed with pain, and gooseflesh crawled up his limbs as he removed his jacket in the biting air.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Sean Gallegar and Rebekah Graham</span></strong><br/><br/>Rebekah recovered her breath quickly, but the dull ache in her right shoulder and hip was bound to hang around for a while.<br/><br/>Speaking sent little slivers of pain bolting up through Sean's jaw.  As the adrenaline began to wear off, the white pain came to the fore.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>There came a sudden sharp hiss of air.  A cold wind suddenly blew around you as the sound of whirring fans filled the airlock.<br/><br/>The screen set into the wall, which had assumed a neutral white after the corridor had been jettisoned, now flashed green:<br/><br/><div align="center"><strong>AIRLOCK CYCLING<br/>ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 60 SECONDS</strong></div><br/>The intercom buzzed again, and they heard the voice of the soldier looking through the porthole.<em>"I'm cycling the airlock.  You'll be out of there in one minute."</em><br/><br/><hr/><br/>The soldiers on the other side of the airlock watched Kai's tantrum in horrified silence.  Gerry, the man who had told the cons to disengage the payload, who -- in his mind at least -- was ultimately responsible for the deaths of five Peacekeepers, stood in the forefront, his bluff face grim beneath an opaque visor.  He recited the names in his head, a grotesque poem he forced himself to repeat over and over again:<em>Jie Wang, Cassie Kabiri, Elizabeth Thomas, Medford Brooks, Chris Browning</em>.<br/><br/>When the order had come down to evacuate the cons, he had been vaguely disappointed.  Polaris, who always received priority in these sorts of matters, had been assigned to the bug hunt, while his Edda served as sheepherders.  He hadn't been expecting casualties, let alone resistance, but no one had expected it to move so damned<em>quickly</em>.<br/><br/><em>Why the cons?</em>he wondered to himself.<em>Why did that thing go after a bunch of civilians instead of Polaris or the cockpit?  And how did it get there from the fuel tanks so fucking fast?</em><br/><br/>Inside the airlock, Kai delivered a whopper to the petite woman his HUD named "Zoey Calhoun, High Priority."  He felt Simon move beside him, reaching for the intercom or perhaps the emergency override.  Gerry held his hand up slightly, and Simon froze.<br/><br/><em>Wait</em>the gesture said.<em>Wait.  Let her get it out of her system, she won't do anything stupid.</em><br/><br/>Some small part of him cheered as Kai slugged the woman who had dropped two of his Peacekeepers to their deaths, but his mind recoiled at the thought.<em>That was my decision, my order</em>, he thought fiercely, driving the vindictive pleasure away and replacing it with guilt and resolve.<em>Chris and Cassie were as good as dead already, and they knew it.  Goddamnit, it was the only fucking choice we had!</em><br/><br/>Long seconds dragged by as the cons talked Kai down.  They were a tough bunch, to have survived whatever the hell that thing had been.  The man his HUD named, "Alec Llewellyn, Top Priority" said what Gerry had already been rehearsing in his mind for when he had a moment alone with Kai.  Her anger, while justified, was dangerous and inappropriate, and would need to be addressed.  Alec struck him as a fellow leader, definitely military, so what was he doing rutting with cons?  "Sean Gallegar, Low Priority" looked like a tough brute, but that one spoke before he thought.  He almost wished Kai had punched him instead.  Last, there was "Rebekah Graham, Expendable".  She struck him as being out of her depth, although she had taken that tackle like a professional football player, and she had been the one to finally snap Kai out of it.<br/><br/>He could feel the restlessness of his Peacekeepers behind him.  Eight of the nine surviving members of Edda stood on this side of the airlock.  They were pissed, at him and Zoey and the ARC-CC in the CIC.  They were scared, of that thing that had so easily killed Jie and Elizabeth and Medford.  They were sick with grief, and they had every right to be.  That monster had wounded them more severely and unexpectedly than anything in their long history had before.  Kai, the ninth Peacekeeper left in Edda, had taken up a pat-down stance against one wall inside the airlock.  Her back quivered.<br/><br/>"Alright, that's enough," Gerry said, more for his own benefit than for his Peacekeepers.<br/><br/>He pushed the intercom so Kai and the cons could hear him.  "I'm cycling the airlock.  You'll be out of there in one minute."