“No more hiding.”
She steps up beside me and looks out the viewport.
The stars are the same. But they feel different now.
Colder. Sharper.
She’s silent for a long beat. Then: “Tarek?”
“Private reassignment.”
She laughs, sharp and bitter. “Cowards.”
“Drel says it’s politics. They can’t admit how deep the rot goes.”
“Then they’ll just plant new rot. Give it water. Wait.”
I don’t argue. She’s right.
But the thing that used to crawl up my spine at that truth—the sense of futility, of being small inside a machine too big to fight—it’s not there now.
Because we tore it once. And it bled.
We dockat a quiet station in the border zones two days later. Just long enough to refuel and buy spare filters. Rynn takes Nessa out to breathe uncirculated air.
I stay aboard.
There’s nothing on that station I need. Nothing I trust.
She comes back with a bag of spice bread, two bottles of local synthwine, and a look on her face I can’t quite place.
When I ask her if everything’s okay, she says, “That’s the weird part. Everything is.”
Everything calms down--until Nessa starts asking questions.
“Where are we going now?”
“Are there more bad guys?”
“Can we have pancakes?”
That last one hits me harder than the rest.
Because it’snormal.
And I don’t know how to parent normal.
I watch Rynn handle it like she’s built for it. Like she hasn’t spent the last three years dodging kill orders and uploading blackmail data across galactic dead zones.
I watch her braid Nessa’s hair. Hear them laugh.
And something inside me cracks.
Because I want that, too.
But I don’t know if I canbethat.
One night,after Nessa’s asleep, I find Rynn outside the crew quarters, sitting cross-legged near the emergency lift, sipping wine out of a tin cup.
