“Hey, Lar. How are you doing, man?” Drake came into the room, where Larry was rapidly shuffling his Kohstr deck, which Terira had given him for a bag of crab apples. The sound of the metal cards clinking against each other seemed to dispel some of his nerves.

“What?” Larry looked up, dropping the cards on the floor, resulting in a sound similar to the pouring of coins into a counting machine.”Oh, hey, Drake. I’m — I’m doing great, yeah. Whoo!” He took a deep breath and widen his eyes. “Doing great… How about you, man? Do you think the whole thing’s going to go okay?”

“Lar, you were the first pure Earther to perform a Timids hype. You’ve been to the moon and back a hundred times. Terira and I are the only people on Earth that you can’t beat in a fight, and you’re one of the best men I know.” Drake grinned at Larry, who was just staring blankly at him. “I think you’re gonna be fine, Lar.”

Larry breathed hard again, nodding slowly and exaggeratedly. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m gonna be fine… Totally fine. Great, even! I’m going to be great…” He trailed off, returning to his thoughts and picking up his cards, which he then began to shuffle again.

“Lar, how have you never been caught with those things? They are so loud,” Drake said, nonplussed at his friend’s ability to prevent anyone else from realizing he had a deck of alien game cards.

“Oh, I just tell people they’re old trading cards and then make up the name of some fake anime when they ask what kind. They usually stop caring pretty quickly.” Larry stopped shuffling and looked at Drake. “You know, it does kind of play like a trading card game.” Drake and Larry exchanged looks of realization. “Dude, Drake, your people are a bunch of dorks that play a trading card game instead of poker.”

“That is so messed up, Lar. I can’t believe you would be so heartless as to point that out. Still, you’ve gotten way better at that game than I am, and you can even beat Terira most of the time, so who’s the bigger dork?” He gave Larry a joking punch on the shoulder.

“Hey, it’s not dorky for me. I got it from an alien.” Larry gave Drake a jab of his own, the sound of his arm cracking the air. Drake just brushed it off.

“Well, I mean, technically, Terira was born in the United States, same as you and me, so I’m not sure she qualifies as an alien.” Drake came quickly to the defense of his wife, who wasn’t in the room at the time.

“Dude, she has blue hair and eyes that literally shine. I think she can count as an alien, even if she was born here. She’s an Alien-American, but she’s still an alien.” The term Alien-American was a joke that Larry had come up with to describe his half-Thorlinthian friends. They seemed to find it just as amusing as he did.

“Yeah, yeah,” Drake said. “Well, since we’re aliens, then, we can’t be dorks, either, right?”

“No,” Larry replied. “You’re still dorks. You’re just Alien-American dorks.” He got another punch for that one. The young men chuckled, enjoying the calming effect the conversation had on both of them.

Larry’s watch started beeping, and Terira peeked her head in. Her hair was blue again, since people just wrote it off as being a great color job despite the fact that it was natural. Today, however, she was not sporting her usual straight bob; instead, she had brought it up into a traditional Thorlinthian double bun with tightly curled pigtail that she said called Maerskor. “Hey, hon. Is he ready to go?”

Drake looked at Larry, who nodded, smiled, and stood. “Yeah, he’s ready, Terira. I’ll see you in a bit, man. I gotta go.” He gave Larry a quick pat on the arm before walking out and joining his wife.

“Right!” Larry said to his Kohstr deck, since no one else was there to listen. He put the deck in its box and placed that in his jacket pocket. “Time to go get married…” He laughed for a few moments, sported a cheery smile, and walked out to wait for his bride at the altar.



“You alright, Grie?” Veriar opened the door and found a nervous Grie Khuda’Mundi nervously shuffling his Kohstr deck, relishing the sound of the clinking made only by the ever so rare Classics deck, which Priha’Di had given him shortly into their relationship. Apparently, she and her sister had played quite a bit as children. It had been one of the first things they both found they enjoyed when Pri was growing up. When she had given him the deck, he had thought she was just challenging him to a game, but apparently the decks were important to both of the girls, though Pri hadn’t seen Terira in several cycles.

“Yeah, Ver. I’m doing great, man. I was just thinking, though, what if I’m not good enough for her? I mean, come on. She’s a Valkyrie, and I’m — I’m just some Timids technician.” He sighed, putting the cards on the desk behind him and putting his hands over his face, leaning into his seat.

“What are you talking about, Grie?! It’s not like she hasn’t had plenty of time to walk out of this relationship any time she wanted. You’ve been together for over six cycles, man. This woman could have picked any guy she wanted, and she picked you. Not only did she pick you, I think she’s probably even crazier about you than you are about her!”

At this, Veriar was interrupted by Grie, who spoke through his hands, “Not possible. No one could be crazier about anyone than I am about her.”

“There you go, then.” Veriar patted Grie on the shoulder lightly. “No one’s more in love with anyone than you two are with each other. It’s not a matter of being good enough. You’re my best friend, Grie. You and your family have always been good to me. As far as I’m concerned, if anyone’s not good enough, it’s her. The fact that you’re worried it’s the other way around just shows how good you two are for each other.”

“Thanks, Ver. I appreciate it.” Grie grabbed his deck again and started to shuffle it. “How much longer until it starts?”

“You’ve got about…” Veriar looked at his timepiece. “Four millidays.” A knocking was heard, and Veriar’s wife, Avrin, peeked her head in, her green hair sporting the traditional Maerskor worn by female members of the wedding party.

“Ver, is Grie ready?” Veriar looked at Grie, who stood and shook his hand, and nodded back to Avrin.

“He’s ready,” Veriar said, more to Grie than to Avrin. She backed away from the door into the hallway. “I’ll see you out there, Grie. Good luck.” He smiled and gave Grie a quick pat on the shoulder before heading out with his wife.

“Right,” Grie said, putting his deck back into its box, which he placed in his uniform’s hidden pocket. “Time to go get married…” He chuckled, smiled broadly, and walked out to the altar to await his bride.



“What do we do now, L.T.?” Summer asked as Larry Denton walked out of the safe house. Her eyes were red from the tears that had been pouring down her face for the past several minutes as the team had listened to the intermittent screams and cries of Wilhelm Baker’s last moments as Larry had pulled out the information he needed about the way Baker’s own intentions had affected the Resistance’s plans.

“Well,” Larry said, “Now Mickey gives me back that card. I have a theory.” Mickey complied, his hands shaking as he held out the card. When Larry grabbed the card, he returned the cigarette that Mickey had dropped on the ground, only the end slightly burned. “You might want this back, Mickey.” Mickey smiled and put the cigarette back in its place in the cigarette box as Larry looked more carefully at the card.

After staring at the card for a few seconds, Larry handed it back to Mickey. “Now,” he said, “I call Nora and tell her I’m not coming home yet. This was a whole lot bigger than I thought at first. Let’s get going. We have to be in New Qzcivden by this time the day after tomorrow.” They loaded up the SUV in the driveway and headed back to the shuttle.