"You guys look like shit."

I'd never been more happy to see a familiar face. "Could've given us a heads up before you broke Deimos free," I grumbled.

"The only reason why I'm able to even be here is cause practically every human in the dome is trying to patch up the hole we made," She took off her helmet and dropped it on the floor, "Seems like I came right on time too," She eyed the laser, "The fuck is going on?"

"They're trying to break our handcuffs," Astra explained, "The keys are obviously not anywhere to be found to burning a hole through them is their next big idea."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

I sighed, "Unfortunately for me, these chains are the only things 'saving my life' and stopping Astra over here from getting taken," I rolled my eyes at the idea of any of the humans killing me much less getting close enough to lay a finger. "Please tell us you come with good news."

"Depends," She eyed the laser as she rounded my cage to get a closer look at it, "Did you guys find a ship?"

Astra sighed, "They took theirs apart for spare metal."

Tempest snorted, "You think with a place like this everything would be a lot better planned out but it was rushed," She rolled her eyes, "Like everything else about the humans."

This got Astra's interest, "I thought this place was built before they invaded...like when they were still friends with Mars."

This made Tempest laugh as she ran her fingers over the laser, "You think we'd have let them build this? It's hideous," She shook her head, "They made this randomly in the middle of the war, I would never tell one but it kind of gave them an advantage because we could no longer see what they were doing."

"Why didn't you guys stop them from building it?" I asked, confused as to how they let them even begin building it. Especially if it was a rushed as they said.

"We were dealing with their hundreds of armies, Sol," She continued to fiddle with the machine, "There were so many of them, so many that they kept throwing them at as even when we slaughtered one," Her feathered face tilted, "I found out later that people were basically brought here just to fight."

"What?"

Tempest's hands ended up finding something and the laser stopped blasting it's beam. She grinned triumphantly and Astra and I watched her as she dug her heels and leaned back before slowly turning the weapon. I put my hands up defensively when the mouth of the laser and I were not face to face, "Hey, hey!"

All I could see was her feathers poking out at the end of the gun, she brought her head out and gave me a sheepish smile, "My bad," She began turning it again, checking where she was pointing it every few pushes before settling with it pointed at the thick lock that held my cage shut.

A lock I would've been able to break if my abilities were not being stunted.

"Can I turn it on?"

I narrowed my eyes to follow an invisible line from the laser to my lock to see if it would hit target before nodding. "Yes."

Once the laser had begun burning into my cage Astra was quick to change the subject. "What were you saying about people brought here to fight?" She questioned Tempest who I could tell no longer cared whatever she had been saying before.

"The people in the dome didn't fight us, Curly," She told her before her attention was caught by the camera feed being shown on the computer, "In fact when I was here, I didn't recognize a single person who experimented on me. Not a single one of those humans showed their face on the battle field."

"How big were your troops? Do you have any idea?" Astra said, her face scrunched in thought.

"We didn't exactly have 'troops', we were all fighting for our lives Astra," Tempest told her sarcastically.

Astra pressed on, "Still, how many of you were they."

"Taking out the elderly and children, I'd say the people who could fight rallied to about eight hundred million give or take," Tempest looked almost uncomfortable to be discussing it, "But they ambushed us to begin with with a bunch of bombs-

This surprised Astra who quickly cut her off, "Bombs? How big?"

Tempest shook her head, "Bigger than anything I'd ever seen, they almost took a bite out of parts of our planet. And the clouds would burst into the sky leaving radiation that had some people unable to fly permanently so they were basically left immobile when the humans came to finish them off."

"They nuked you," Astra corrected, "What you're describing is a nuke."

"Well, those 'nukes' wiped out at least three quarters of my people and with the troops that the humans brought to fight on the ground," Tempest laughed dryly, "We never stood a chance."

"And Sol you said they're only about a hundred thousand people living in this dome," She turned to me and I nodded my head, she turned back to Tempest, "And you're saying the people in here never fought you guys at all," Tempest nodded, "So I was wrong."

Tempest crossed her arms over her chest, "Does any of this actually matter?"

"They didn't just bring the rich people," Astra was no longer talking to any one us, she seemed to be piecing together a story in her head, "When they were loading people onto the ship that was leaving earth there were probably tickets...tickets most people could not afford so they secured their spot off of earth in another way," Astra nodded her head, "They thought they were going to just fight the war and be done with it but they didn't make it. None of them made it. Because they had never planned for that many people to live in the dome in the first place," Astra looked at me.

"So, they didn't leave everyone," I finished, "They brought some people here. To die."

Tempest snorted, "Seems like there are enough problems on Earth, no clue why they would bring their bullshit here."

This made both of our eyes widen. We'd forgotten Tempest had no clue why the humans came here in the first place and that Astra was directly responsible for them leaving. Astra and I held eye-contact as Tempest started scrolling though the frames on the camera footage. When I agreed to keep her secret we never talked about when we'd tell Tempest.

Or if we were going to at all.

But I could see in her eyes that we agreed that this definitely was not the place to do it, when we were both in cages and she was our only way out. "So, what are we going to do now that the ship we were going to leave in was turned into scrap metal?" I spoke up, turning my eyes to look at the my lock that was almost done being burnt into.

Tempest didn't look too worried, "I can get a new ride for us but you won't be happy about it."

"I would do anything to get off this planet. "Astra responded quickly.

"A ship landed here about a couple of hours ago, kinda small but definitely big enough for three."

Astra went pale and I remembered what she'd said about the 'sun rays'. "What does it look like?" I asked.

"I think your lock is done," She pointed out instead, flicking the switch of the laser to turn it off again. "Its super shiny, kinda hurts to look at but it's not for being pretty it's made to fly right?"

She approached my cage and blew at it to clear the smoke a bit before leaned back and lifting up her leg to kick the lock making it crumble and fall to the floor in a heap of black. "Did you see it's owners?"

She didn't look worried, "They looked kinda stuck up, dressed down in this gilded armor like they were here for war," Tempest snorted, "I wish they were here to kill those assholes."

"We can take them," I said, speaking more to Astra whose lips were pressed together tightly as she remained in deep thought.

Tempest laughed, "Woah, slow down there. I didn't say all of that," She put her hands up, "I was thinking more of we work with the element of surprise. If you guys can hold on here I need to go looking for something and if I find it my next distraction will get us out of here."

Astra looked desperate, "What are you looking for?"

"I don't think either of you guys would have seen it, it's like kinda of stone but its black and very shiny," She made weird shapes with her hands, "It's about this big and a big heavy."

"It's in Ambrose's office, he uses it as a paperweight," Astra replied almost immediately.

Every feather on Tempest's head readjusted at the mention of Ambrose and I swore she gulped. "Ambrose's office?"

"Yes, he's kinda like the leader around here. His office is around here somewhere," I tried to calm down the fear in Tempest's eyes, "Don't worry we killed him and considering everything else that's going on, I doubt people are looking for his body."

"You killed him?" She spoke lowly.

Astra wined, "Not exactly 'we' it was more of something he ate so it wasn't intentional and we in no shape or form planned to do it at all."

Tempest went back to look at the cameras, "Tell me when you see it," She told me as the large laser had obscured Astra's vison of the computer. When the correct frame was found I told her to stop and sure enough there was Ambrose's body just going cold on the floor. Tempest stared at the monitor for longer than thought she would before pointing at his desk. 'There it is."

I could tell that wasn't what she'd been looking at but I brushed it off as she put her helmet back on and turned the laser towards our handcuffs before flicking it on again. "Her what about mine!?" Astra complained, gesturing to my broken lock.

"There are people coming, Sol will just have to be enough for the both of you," Tempest told her as she walked to the door, the door slid open and Tempest stood there for a second before looking back at us. "This is going to be a great story when it's over, I'll see you both on the ship."

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