Kir tried not to show her disappointment when Lyris confirmed the very thing she had tried not to think about. The impossibility of freeing enforcers from the control of their armour had been one of the very things that had stymied any previous attempts at rebellion. The empire was too vast and well-armed to stand up to easily, and enforcers were the first line of defence that had, at least previously, been the truest barrier to any sort of coup. If they really did plan to take on the empire, they’d have to destroy it from the inside instead of chipping away from the outside. The unsettling realisation took hold that it was possible their only path to success might involve using a central killswitch to disable - and likely kill - all of the enforcers. X’hondrians were pacifists; to take a life without due cause was an abhorrent to them as anything could be. Sure, they were carnivorous, but there was a vast difference between killing to meet one’s bodily survival needs and war. And yet…wouldn’t killing the enforcers be just as much a necessity to the long-term survival of any number of oppressed species under the empire’s control? Then again, didn’t enforcers deserve release from imperial control? How many, if any, had actually volunteered? Better still, how many had volunteered while truly informed, fully understanding the autonomy they were sacrificing? The moral dilemma raged on as an internal debate so loud she almost didn’t hear Lyris continue. 

She decided to table that particular problem for the moment. They still needed to get their bearings first. Kir didn’t want to be dishonest with Harrison, but perhaps telling him she probably couldn’t keep her promise seemed like something that should be done privately at the right time. With all the excitement of the day, she didn’t want to dash his hopes. He’d given up everything to free her on the vague promise to help him get the bracelet off, and now she was going to have to likely rip the rug out from under him while he was likely grappling with the notion he might never see his home again.

Lyris mentioned the prophecy, and Kir almost wondered if it was a false hope to cling onto those words. The prophecy was old. Quite a bit older than she was, and she couldn’t recall anymore if it was from before the divergence of the tribes. On X’hondria, it had been written into the poetry of song, and it was one of the first recitations any young child learned. It was so thoroughly drilled into the collective consciousness from a young age there was no hope any X’hondrian born before the empire had decimated their world would forget. But much of X'hondrian culture had been outright outlawed. To be caught signing the songs or speaking their language or wearing any piece of their traditional clothing was a punishable offence. To know they had done much the same to Serenfolia, and that they continued to do so, made her shudder. How much had they lost? How much of it would even be recoverable? The elders and keepers of the culture would begin to die out if they hadn’t been executed by the empire, and their knowledge would go with them. 

“Whatever the legend says, we’ll start with freeing Serenfolia,” Kir stated. She knew she shouldn’t make unilateral decisions for Harrison or Zev, but if she couldn’t save X’hondria, then she would save her sister world. “I doubt Harrison will hesitate to agree, and Zev… I’ll talk to him and offer him an out if he doesn’t want to be involved in this, but I have a hunch he’s a bit more than just a ceaseless flirt.”

The “how” remained to be seen. At best, there were four of them in a cargo freighter that lacked the armour, manoeuvrability, and combat capabilities to even take on a single dogfight…taking on freeing an entire planet was more than just a little daunting. They had no money, no resources, and no connections. They’d be better equipped to have a go at the empire with sticks and rocks than their current outfit. 

“I put my things in the crew bunk. You could take the other bed in there if you want,” Kir suggested. “At the very least, you should probably get some rest. Who knows what’s coming next?”

Parting ways with Lyris, Kir returned to the kitchen to find Harrison. Her clothes had already been stashed in the shared two-person crew bunk. As much as she might have preferred the privacy of the captain’s quarters or even the first officer’s, Zev needed far more space than she did, and Harrison was a stranger in a strange land and might need the privacy as he began to process everything. She figured she would be the one most comfortable with a shared space, and knowing now that it would be shared likely with Lyris, she was perfectly at ease with it. It would be like the thing on Earth they called a “slumber party”. It always seemed so fun in the movies, after all. 

“Looks like I haven’t totally lost my touch,” she smiled at Harrison as she rounded the corner, glad to see at least the pyjamas seemed to fit him well. “I feel like we need to have a whole debrief after the day we’ve had, and I have something I’d like to run by you, but I think maybe that can all wait until morning. What was it that was on your mind, though?”