Returning Heroes

Excerpt

Returning Heroes
Harry F. Rey © 2022
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

The sleek, spacious travel pod sliced through the swirling burnt-orange clouds of Bazman. Daeron edged forward on the puffed, pillowy chair that consistently failed to relax him. He tugged at the high collar of his pure-white Dalvian silk jacket—yet another gift from President Ezreal. He stared out the window at the spindly towers stretching in and out of the clouds above and below. The teeming city-world of Bazman, capital of the Confederation of the Seven Suns, supposedly the richest star-state in the Shakti Democria, was to Daeron no better than any of the thousands of worlds he’d been on. The rich lived above, flying around in these perfumed and carpeted pods, while the poor shuffled in and out of a noxious atmosphere far below.

Daeron could go anywhere he wanted on Bazman; no store, restaurant, menagerie, or cultural complex was too exclusive for President Ezreal’s new favorite son. Six weeks ago, they’d barely escaped the Kyleri fleet which had blown up Aldegar’s megacollider. Daeron and the remaining crew of the Daring Huntress chased Turo and the double-crossing Ezi into the Shakti Nebula, only to end up invited to land here by Ezreal’s security forces. On Bazman, where he could go anywhere at all, just not leave.

“What’s wrong now, Daeron?” Osvai said, relaxing in his similarly styled—but all black—Dalvian silk suit. The missing heir to the Kyleri Empire sipped on a Lactarian malt from a crystal glass while grinning at an entertainment package broadcast on the holoscreen in front of his seat. Lest His Imperial Majesty get bored in the half hour it takes to get from Bazman’s presidential palace to the restaurant opening. Daeron glanced over at the prince who was now biting his lip to keep from laughing at the holovid. Daeron watched for a moment. He’d never seen anything so stupid.

“What’s so funny about people walking into things? It’s cruel.”

Osvai wasn’t listening. He gasped in laughter as some poor unsuspecting holo-person had a pile of trash dumped on their head. Daeron flung himself against the seat, but it only absorbed the shock and began to massage his lower back. Daeron could huff all he wanted, but Osvai had stopped caring about what bothered Daeron. He stroked his thick black beard, forgetting it was still glistening in the fancy oils Osvai made him use. Daeron wiped his greasy hand on the plush arm of the chair and returned to staring out the window at the traffic lanes of pods gliding through the clouds and between the towers—with no end and no beginning.

“Are Xenia and the rest of the crew coming tonight?” Daeron asked, breathing slowly through his nose, trying to let the fury of being stuck in a gilded prison subside. It wasn’t going anywhere. Just like him.

“They left.”

Daeron spun on the chair to face Osvai.

“They…left?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you?” Osvai said, not looking up from the holovid. Daeron yanked at the silk collar constricting his neck, and it let out a satisfying rip.

“No…you didn’t tell me. That was…my crew. My ship.” Daeron was doing everything in his power to stay calm, but he knew his string was about to snap. Maybe if Osvai understood that, they wouldn’t spend half their nights screaming at each other in their apartment in the presidential palace.

“I guess they went to meet your mom.” Osvai drained his glass, then stretched and placed it inside an alcove grooved into the wall where a nozzle filled it back up. “Isn’t it her crew again now she’s back?”

Daeron fell into a sulking silence at the mention of his mom. Maybe Osvai knew him better than he thought. Because the moment Captain Sanya was raised, Daeron shut down. It had been weeks since she and that Tevian girlfriend of hers, Sallah, had crossed back through the horizon point with her brat, Ales. Had they come to see him? No. Daeron had only learned their mission had been successful from the newscasts. The returning hero Captain Ales, who apparently had an Ingvarian fleet at his disposal now, as well as the entire Outer Verge, had been spotted at the Mayo resort in the Central Star States. After their collective trauma, Captain Sanya, Sallah, and Ales had decided to play happy families and treat themselves to a little vacation at one of the most expensive systems in the galaxy.

It hurt Daeron hard. He’d still not seen her. Not even a holovid call. He stretched out his hand and opened his palm-tech to flick through the only messages his mom had sent since she’d returned.

The megacollider is gone then?

Yeah, as if a rebel Kyleri fleet blowing up an ancient sphere surrounding an entire sun had been his fault. Then, loving, motherly message number two.

Why is Osvai not back on Jiwani? And you lost Turo? Can’t you do anything right?

Good point. Why was Osvai not back on Jiwani?

“Don’t you care at all?” Daeron snapped, spitting his frustrations at Osvai. The prince finally looked up from the holovid, staring back with those thin eyes and sunset skin that Daeron couldn’t deny filled him with lust. Even if he was perpetually pissed off at him.

“Care about what, Daeron?”

“Your fucking empire.” Daeron stood up, kicking the chair hard so it spun like a ship out of control. Osvai drained his glass again and, with an overly audible sigh, came over to Daeron and slid his small arms as far around Daeron as they could go. But Daeron wriggled out of his half hug and slunk to the back of the pod, watching the dusty clouds spinning like a vortex as they flew.

“What do you want me to do, Daeron? Fight Viscamon for my throne with what army, exactly?”

“My mom said to take you home.”

“Oh, your mom said. It’s always the same story with you, Daeron. Your mom says you have to stay on Jiwani with a father you never knew, and you stayed. Your mom says look after me until I’m back on Jiwani, and you blame me for staying in the one place in the galaxy no one’s trying to kill me!”

Here we go. Another screaming match.

“Can we not do this now?” Daeron said, arms folded and his back to Osvai. “The president invited us to this restaurant opening, and since he’s the one keeping you safe and letting us stay for free, we don’t need you getting drunk and making a scene.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, more drunk.”

Osvai sucked in a short breath. If they’d learned one thing about each other since escaping Jiwani together on the night of Osvai’s father, Emperor Kantori’s, assassination, it was how to push each other’s buttons.

“When was the last time you saw Xenia?” Osvai asked, lathered in bitterness. “Or Tal, or Bindi? Or even Voros? When was it? Kaj’s memorial service?”

“Shut up, Osvai.”

“You haven’t asked about them in weeks. So don’t pretend you didn’t know they’d leave. You didn’t want to know.”

“I said shut up!”

“You can say I’m afraid all you want. And yes, I am afraid of going back to Jiwani when Viscamon is imprisoning nobles until he’s blackmailed enough to crown himself emperor. That’s a normal thing to be scared of. But you—”

“Osvai, I’m fucking warning you.” Daeron spun around to see him sauntering around the pod with a look of victory splashed across his face.

“You might look like a big scary man, Daeron, but you’re just a little boy. Afraid of what his mommy will say.”

Daeron had already exploded. Fury prickled his body; sweat soaked the suit. He’d throw Osvai out of this pod if he could. His fists clamped together, ready to test just how much of a punch this glass could take.

“You have arrived at your destination,” the pod’s soft female voice said with a ding. “Have a pleasant evening.”

«

They rode the elevator up two thousand floors in silence. The dusty orange clouds swirling behind the glass tube turned to a deep maroon, then a regal purple, before bursting into a universe of black space sprinkled with glittering stars and the dramatic blue-greens of the Nebula above.

“We look like a couple of board-game pieces,” Daeron said, staring at their reflections. Black and white. Little and large. Osvai ignored the comment, but took his hand—a bit too forcefully—as the elevator doors swished open.

“Welcome to the Outer Verge Experience,” said the hostess: a woman wearing only body silk and an antigravity hairstyle that made her appear taller than Daeron.

“That’s what you’re calling this restaurant?” Daeron asked dismissively, trying to catch sight of the inside through clouded glass doors.

“We’re a revolt against the oppressive fine dining regime,” the hostess continued like she was regurgitating memorized lines. “A rebellion fighting for a new order in culinary excellence, here in the stratosphere above Bazman. We fuse the exotic cuisines of the Outer Verge—”

“They have cuisine?” Osvai said quietly to Daeron.

“—to create a taste revolution.”

Daeron had stopped listening. Above the glass doors which, hopefully, would open at some point after the speech and bring them one step closer to eating, a holopic of none other than Captain Ales stared at them. It looked like a captured still from his speech to the Union troops on the ice world of Jansen. The speech that had inspired a galactic revolution, the newscasts never tired of saying. Although Daeron didn’t really think one rebel Ingvarian fleet made a galactic revolution.

“Why do you have a holopic of Captain Ales?” Daeron asked. The image had been stylized in chromatic colors to emphasize his dark skin against the frozen tundra of Jansen and gave him the appearance of a figure to be worshiped, idolized.

“Our executive palette artists—”

“You mean cooks,” Daeron said. The hostess gave nothing away.

“—have been inspired by Captain Ales’s heroic struggle against oppression in the Outer Verge and have created this culinary experience—”

“Restaurant.”

“—to pay homage to a galactic revolutionary.”

“You know he’s like a commander of the Union of the Outer Verge now, right?” Daeron said, getting annoyed all over again.

“Daeron, leave it,” Osvai said, squeezing his hands.

“If anything,” Daeron continued, “he’s the one doing the oppressing.” The hostess’s emotionless veneer started to crack under exasperation. “The Union overthrew the Trades Council. They’re basically a galinium-mining dictatorship—”

“We’re delighted to be here,” Osvai said to the hostess who smiled back weakly. At least she opened the doors. Quickly, Osvai dragged Daeron into the cavernous restaurant: a multilevel, multicolored mass of fluorescent bars and floating dining booths under the glowing blue-green light of the nebula.

“Forget the Kandian rock art exhibition,” Daeron said, batting away the floating holobots buzzing around them and snapping multidegree video thanks to their newly imposed celebrity status. If anything, that was more of a prison than any cage. “This is the most pretentious place on Bazman.”

“President Ezreal invested in it; why don’t you take it up with him?”

Osvai kept his otherwise delicate hand firmly wrapped around Daeron’s as he pulled him deeper into the restaurant. Another host, this one dressed in an imitation of the blue-gray uniform of the Union of the Outer Verge, greeted them warmly, shooing away the holobots. Daeron retreated into himself, ignoring the looks from patrons floating above and the waves from people by the bar dressed in what passed for high fashion in the star-state. Osvai lapped it all up though. Of course he is. Phony status is all he needs to be happy.

The host led them around the smooth edge of the restaurant, up various rounds of floating steps to a platform high above everyone else. Close enough to almost touch the bubble separating them from space. Daeron gazed longingly at the ship-studded constellation of moons and manmade stations in orbit around the capital world. He would happily captain a salvage ship from here to a black-hole dump if it meant getting back into space. The weightlessness of freedom. Having no one tell him what to do, or where to go.

“Your table awaits, Your Imperial Majesty,” the host said, pointing them toward a square of long, low couches. Holobots whirred around, bringing steaming drinks served in twisted crystal to the exclusive party.

As Daeron’s stomach dropped down to Bazman’s unseen surface, Osvai dragged him toward the group laughing like rulers who had the galaxy at their feet. The center of attention, at least until Osvai got to the couches, was President Ezreal’s newest husband, Arlan, a preened and pampered champion of some sport that required him to be perpetually pumped full of artificial muscle. When they’d met recently at a state dinner at the presidential palace, Arlan had insisted on challenging Daeron to a weightlifting contest, right there in front of the Thrangan dignitaries. Worse, Osvai had hissed at him between every round to let Arlan win.

“Osvai!” Arlan shouted like he was at a racetrack. “Daeron, my man. Haven’t seen you in the weight rooms at the palace. Wanted to give you some pointers.”

Daeron puffed out his barrel chest and pushed right past Arlan; rudely, Osvai would’ve said if he wasn’t so busy hugging and kissing half a dozen people he didn’t know, and who only cared that he was something exotic.

“I think you mean surgery room, Arlan. A body like yours doesn’t come naturally.”

“Huh?”

Daeron didn’t waste his breath. He collapsed on the farthest couch, leaned his head back and watched a convoy of cargo ships get smaller and smaller as they headed toward one of Bazman’s supply-colony moons.

“Would you like a drink, sir?” the AI voice of a holobot asked, buzzing annoyingly close to his head. “We have an exclusive range of unique cocktails. How about a Tevian twister—”

“Beer,” Daeron growled.

“Certainly, sir. We have an exclusive range of specially brewed—”

“I don’t care if it’s brewed in a space-trucker’s toilet. Just get me a beer.”

Daeron waved his palm-tech close enough to the holobot to pay, then it buzzed away without another word. At least the AI could pick up on tone, even if Osvai couldn’t. After doing his round of overblown introductions, Osvai sat next to Daeron.

“Can you try not to look so bored?” Osvai said, lifting a glass of Lactarian malt from a holobot.

“Can you try not to be so boring?”

“Hey, Daeron,” Arlan said, injecting himself onto their couch and reaching lecherously over Osvai. “Wanted you to meet Shorla.”

“Who?”

A young man appeared next to them. He hadn’t been sitting on the couches when they’d arrived. More importantly, he was holding a beer…in a bottle.

“Hi,” the smooth-cheeked, light-haired Shorla said, offering a hand to shake instead of one to kiss. “Daeron, right?”

“Yeah. Where did you get that beer?”

“There’s a whole barrel of them downstairs. Easier to get it myself. The holobots fizz it up when they bring it. I think they’re programmed to do that.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Snobby AI.”

He could say it plainly because Arlan had dragged Osvai away. Or, more accurately, distracted Daeron with an introduction in order to drag Osvai away. The prince was explaining the finer points of the Kyleri binding system to a rapt and giggling group. Daeron’s holobot appeared with a bottle like Shorla’s, cap off.

“Here, drink this,” Shorla said, passing Daeron his beer and taking the one from the holobot. Daeron watched as Shorla whacked the bottom of the bottle onto the holobot. Foam fizzed out and dripped all down the sides of the machine, leaving it to spark angrily and swerve away, crashing into the curved wall several times. “That’ll teach it,” Shorla said with a grin, clinking his bottle against Daeron’s.

“Sure will. So, you’re from Bazman?”

“No, I’m not even from the Seven Suns, or anywhere in the Shakti Democria actually.”

“Oh?” Daeron said, taking a satisfying gulp of beer while watching Osvai out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m from the Constavros system in the Central Star States. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

“No, I know it,” Daeron said. Shorla smiled in surprise. “Near the Cygna slipstream, right?” Shorla nodded happily. “Yeah, I flew that way a lot. Back when I was captain of the Daring…eh, Hunter.” Daeron enjoyed the brief moment of pretending, at least to this stranger, that he’d been a captain all his life and had always been the master of his own destiny.

“Most people on Bazman haven’t heard of it.”

“Most people on Bazman are like that.” Daeron pointed his beer bottle at the group Osvai was laughing with.

“Yeah.” Shorla grinned. “That doesn’t help.”

“So, what’re you doing here?”

“I was the system’s hereditary ruler, then got deposed in a coup.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. Luckily Ezreal took me in, gave me asylum. Like Prince Osvai.”

“Yeah.” Daeron glanced at the prince. What’s to say Osvai would ever want to leave? “How long have you been here?”

“Three, nearly four years now.”

“Whoa, that’s a long time.” The thought of years in this place filled Daeron with more terror than he cared to admit.

“Not like I’ve got much other choice. What am I going to do, raise an army and retake my system?”

“Can’t you?”

“I say coup, but it was more of a popular revolt.”

“Ah.”

“And the CSS authorities quickly ratified it. So any attempt to retake the system would—”

“I know. Set off a galactic war, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“Disrupt the almighty Galactic Balance,” Shorla said mockingly.

“Infinity forbid something should disrupt the great and powerful Galactic Balance.”

They both shared a laugh and sipped their beers in casual silence, listening into Osvai’s tales of his antics back in the Empire of a Million Suns.

“Don’t worry,” Shorla said, nodding to the small crowd listening to Osvai like he was…well, Captain Ales returned. “They get bored soon enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was me once, the center of attention, flavor of the month. But there comes a point when everyone worth telling your story to has already heard it, and then you’re—”

“Dead.”

Shorla spluttered out a laugh.

“I was going to say left stealing beers from buckets instead of drinking Lactarian malts, but, socially speaking…yeah. Dead kind of covers it. But hey,” Shorla quickly added as Daeron felt his heart melting at this vision of his future, “I’m from a backward system no one cares about. Osvai was heir to the crystal throne on Jiwani. Empire of a Million Suns. You two can dine out on that for a lifetime.”

“Is,” Daeron said.

“Sorry?”

“He is the heir to the crystal throne.” Daeron stood up. He sucked down another gulp of beer and was about to drag Osvai by his Dalvian silk collar out of here to raise an army all by themselves, when the host who’d brought them in appeared from the floating staircase.

“Ah, Daeron,” he said, stepping over like there was a serious problem. Osvai hadn’t even noticed. “The president would like to see you. Immediately, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Nodding a polite goodbye to Shorla, Daeron followed the host back to the staircase. Osvai still didn’t notice, but Daeron had never been happier to be called to an audience with one of the most powerful leaders in the galaxy.

«

As if their group of couches floating high above the rest of the restaurant had not been exclusive enough, the host took Daeron into a “staff only” elevator he opened with an iris scan. The elevator took them to the tip of the bubble separating them from space, and into a much smaller bubble—a private dining room surrounded entirely by the busy orbital space of Bazman. Only President Ezreal was there, sitting at the end of a solid diamond table, finishing a meal. He dabbed the corners of his swollen mouth with a Dalvian silk napkin and then swatted the host away with a swipe of his bejeweled hand.

“Daeron, my boy,” he said, breathing heavily and pushing his chair backward to take account of his ample belly. He was as powerful and ancient as a mystery monolith on an unvisited world, with a shock of perfectly groomed silver hair and a grizzled beard covering his several chins. “Do come in; take a seat.”

“Thank you, sir,” Daeron said, taking up his offer of the chair next to him, instead of farthest away. The host disappeared back down the elevator, and Daeron was quietly glad of the spectacular silence of their little bubble. Like being alone in space itself.

“I told you, son, call me Ezreal. We’re practically family…if not more so now.”

“What do you mean?”

Ezreal took a deep drink of golden liquid from his crystal wineglass and then poured a glass for Daeron from the decanter on the table.

“Drink, my boy. I can smell cheap beer on your breath.”

“Oh, sorry.” Daeron sipped the wine. It tasted like liquid honey.

“Your father is dead.” Ezreal said the words like he was describing the age of the wine. In fact, with less emotion.

“My…my father?”

“Yes. Navron.” Ezreal sighed. “Our ambassador to the Kyleri Empire. He was found dead in the Royal Baths of Alsata, where Viscamon is holding tens of thousands of nobles prisoner.”

“Dead?” Daeron didn’t know what else to say about a man he’d seen precisely twice in his life. A man who had been involved in the very explosion that had ripped through the heart of the empire’s power structure, killing Osvai’s father, the emperor, and forcing Daeron to flee with the Kyleri prince whom he’d known for about a day and a half at that point.

“My agents are still investigating the exact circumstances,” the old president said, his voice clearly struggling because of the heavy meal and rich wine rather than any sort of emotion over his dead former husband. “But we can only assume this is the work of Viscamon, trying to provoke a response from me.”

“Oh.”

“But provoke me they have; make no mistake, Daeron. I loved your father very much. Although he betrayed me by fathering you”—Ezreal spat out the words—“he was still a member of my family, and still an ambassador of this…” Ezreal let out a heaving great cough. “Of this star-state. No one—” He erupted into a fit of spluttering breaths and coughs. “No one, not even Lord Viscamon—” The coughing mutated into an attack of phlegm, turning the president’s face angry and red. Daeron started to look around for water, or a way to call back the host. Ezreal took several deep gulps straight from the decanter, then wiped his mouth, giving an uncouth burp.

“I’m an old man, Daeron.”

“Sir…Ezreal. You’re still…you know.” Daeron didn’t know what to say. Still powerful enough to attract young, hot husbands, perhaps?

“I have many children, but none are worthy of being my heir.” Ezreal clapped his sweaty hand heavy with rings onto Daeron’s hand resting beside his glass.

“Heir?” Daeron backed away, uneasy at yet more unearned platitudes from the president. “I thought this was a Democria?”

“Ha!” Ezreal heaved with laughter that seemed to shake their pod. “Oh, my dear boy. The people love me. They want to choose a leader I deem worthy, and, son, I choose you.”

“Ezreal, you can’t be serious.” Daeron felt like he was being tricked but couldn’t work out how. “I’m…I’m not…”

“Not what? Handsome? Capable? Practical? Son of a war hero?” Ezreal flashed him a grin. “Lover of the heir to the Kyleri Empire?” Daeron felt himself flush with embarrassment. Worse than talking about his love life with his mom. “I was a lot like you, Daeron. I was raised by my mother on a scrap ship in the far moon of the seventh sun. But I wanted more, even though it was a ridiculous notion for anyone in my situation to even dream of more. I came to Bazman with ambition, and I took advantage of every opportunity that came to me…and here I am. The most loved leader, in all of the Confederation’s history, asking you to take my legacy and build something even greater.”

“W-what can be greater than this?” If there were an exit, Daeron would’ve run. Or found an escape pod and blasted himself into space and hoped to be picked up by a passing slave ship rather than fall into this trap by default.

“Marry Osvai.” Now it was Daeron’s turn to splutter. Ezreal refilled Daeron’s glass from the decanter, and he drank deeply, gasping between gulps.

“We’re barely— We’re not even—”

“Seize the opportunity, Daeron. You, heir to the richest star-state in the galaxy. Him, heir to the most powerful. Together, you two will be unstoppable.”

Daeron’s mind rumbled back to that fateful night in the secret gallery of the Royal Baths on Jiwani. Two lost souls fumbling into each other by chance, or was it destiny?

“The Galactic Balance is tipping, Daeron. Right before our eyes. The Outer Verge has come under the sway of this Captain Ales character, and half the Ingvarian Empire as well.”

“Who cares about the Outer Verge?” Daeron scoffed with a gasping, nervous breath.

“Who cares about the Kyleri nobles Viscamon has locked up on Jiwani, while trying to crown himself emperor? Who cares about your father being murdered? Who cares that your mother traveled to a new galaxy and back and hasn’t even come to see you? I care, Daeron. I care that when the Galactic Balance tips, I and my people are not on the wrong side. Like Teva was. There can be glory in death, but there’s no greatness in oblivion.”

Daeron sat quietly for a moment, looking up at the stars. He stroked his beard; the oil had at least soaked in. It was softer than it used to be. Back when he’d been no one but an unwanted man on an all-woman ship. The hair no longer twisted and tangled like his fate, but felt supple, smooth. Osvai loved to stroke his beard as they lay in bed together, twisted in bedsheets. Even their nastiest fights couldn’t dampen their passion. It was wild and unexpected; heart-wrenching and electrifying all at once.

“Even if I do…marry Osvai. How…how are we meant to get him on the throne?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Ezreal said with a grin. “Viscamon has scared a lot of the Kyleri nobles, it’s true, but not quite enough to secure a coronation. At least not yet. The nobles hated the moralizing crusades of the last emperor, and the one before him. If Prince Osvai returned to claim the crystal throne with you by his side, Viscamon couldn’t buy enough loyalists with all the money in the galaxy to stop the nobles flocking to the rightful heir who can give them exactly what they want.”

“But he has loyalists, Viscamon. We’re only two people.”

“Two, plus an army.”

“What army?”

“Your army. The army of the Confederation of the Seven Suns, and more than a few of our Shakti allies. I can promise you that. They will escort you both to Jiwani to ensure your husband-to-be secures his throne, and that you, Daeron, my president-elect, can lay claim to your inheritance. And I—” Ezreal raised his glass. “—I have my legacy.”

Daeron swallowed nothing but angst and stared at his own glass. The golden liquid reflected his own face, his untold future. Greatness or oblivion. Maybe this old man was right. There were only two options in life. Downstairs, the face of Captain Ales was shining upon the restaurant patrons while Arlan drank stolen beer on the edge of irrelevance. Ezreal put his glass back down, gently dinging against the diamond table.

“Here,” he said, pulling an all-diamond ring from his swollen pinky finger and placing it in front of Daeron. “Take this ring. Propose to Osvai. Tonight.”

“It’s…captivating.” Daeron picked up the pure-diamond band, with yet another diamond on top. Inside, though, was something deeper than diamonds. Colors swirling like a nebula. Galaxies bursting and collapsing inside every facet. Looking at the ring was like staring into infinity itself.

“It’s one of the most ancient objects in the galaxy.”

“It’s Tevian?”

Ezreal shook his head. “Much older than that.” He raised his glass again. This time, albeit with a shaky breath, Daeron did too. “To a new Shakti-Kyleri Galactic Balance. To your engagement, to your investiture, and to the Daeron-Osvai dynasty, rulers of the Empire of a Million—and Seven—Suns.”