She squints at me with one good eye. “You learnin’ that late, but you learnin’. That counts.”
I move deeper into the habitat deck. My boots crunch over detritus—brittle plastic, scorched wires, and scraps of woven insulation from when the council yanked out the last of the station’s living modules. These people shouldn’t be here.
But they are.
Because there’s nowhere else for them to go.
Children buzz past me—lanky-limbed, silver-eyed, skittering on extra joints or humming with static fields. Some of them were born here. No papers. No registries. Not even a system ID. Which means no education. No health clearance. No right to walk down a clean street without being flagged by a drone.
And I used to write reports on how “refugee populations are being integrated with compassion and efficiency across Novarian sectors.”
I swallow bile.
That was the lie I used to believe.
“Kristi,” someone says, and I turn to see Milla, one of the coordinators. She’s Vakutan, her face marked with fresh ink from a ceremonial rite she’s never had the time to complete. Her arms are filled with ration boxes, one shoulder braced with a welding plate that makes her limp when she’s tired.
“We logged six new arrivals,” she says. “Three minors. Two are burn-adrift. One’s got a shunt wound that smells bad. Think it’s septic.”
“Show me,” I say immediately, and we move.
The med bay—if you can call it that—is a corner room reinforced with torn insulation panels and what looks like a scavenged escape pod door. It stinks like alcohol pads and sweat. I kneel next to the child—Solenari, maybe seven? It’s hard to tell with their physiology. Their breathing’s fast. Fever’s high.
“Shit,” I murmur.
I unroll the kit from my belt, start flushing the wound. They whimper. Milla sings low in Vakutan, a lullaby that winds around the pain like a protective barrier. I work fast.
No one asks how I learned field medicine.
I don’t tell them it came from watching soldiers bleed out in kitchens we weren’t supposed to be in. That it came from helping Kenron stitch up mercs in supply closets while explosions turned meal plans to ash.
The kid pulls through. Barely. But they sleep easier when I tape a heating coil near the cot.
“Keep him hydrated,” I say. “Small doses. And keep him off the main grid—he’s too weak to fight a scan.”
Milla nods. “You’re good at this.”
I shrug, suddenly exhausted. “No. I’m just trying to make things less broken.”
She studies me.
“You’re different than I expected.”
“Most Montanas are,” I mutter.
She doesn’t ask more. That’s the rhythm here. We give. We take. We don’t pry unless we need to.
Later, I hunker down with a few teenagers to record statements. They speak in hushed tones, their faces ghost-lit by the pad’s interface. Some talk about border sweeps. Some about watching friends vanish into blackships. One girl, barely twelve, tells me she saw her father shot because he argued over expired credentials.
I don’t flinch.
I just hitrecordand let her speak.
They’re stories, yes. But they’re also evidence. Proof. Real truth. Not the curated garbage the council spoon-feeds into the newsfeeds.
I’m not just an archivist anymore.
I’m a witness.
