Rynn’s quiet.
I let the silence stretch before I say it.
“We should go back.”
She blinks. “To Corven?—”
“ToVakutanspace.”
The air shifts.
Not cold. Not hot. Just… denser.
Rynn’s mouth flattens. Her fingers curl around the edge of her boot. “Vael…”
“She needs training. Discipline. Balance. I can’t give her all of it—not alone. But there are people who can.”
Her voice hardens. “People like your old command? The ones who taught you how to shove emotion into a box and bury it under protocol?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Her eyes flash. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” I meet her stare evenly. “You’re still thinking of Vakutans like the ones you met in uniform. That’s a sliver of us. A shard.”
She rises, too fast. The tin cup clatters against the deck.
“I’ve spent half my life dodging Alliance checkpoints, half pretending I belonged anywhere, and now you want me to go play house with a culture that didn’t even wantyou?”
I stand too, slow, deliberate.
“Theydowant me. And they’ll want her.”
“Because she’s strong? Useful?”
“No.” I step closer. “Because she’sours.”
Her shoulders tense. I see the thousand arguments fighting to get through her throat.
“I know what it cost you,” I say. “The in-between. Too human for their caste structures. Too alien for the Federation’s leash. You’ve never belonged anywhere that didn’t try to clip your wings.”
Her jaw works, but no sound comes out.
I reach down. Take her hand. Not gripping—just covering.
She stiffens. Then stills.
“We don’t have to belong tothem,Rynn.” My voice drops. “Just to each other.”
She swallows. Eyes dart to the side.
The hallway’s dim, lit by two busted overheads and the emergency panel glow. Her face is half in shadow, but I can still read every flicker.
The fear. The hope. The disbelief that she gets to choose something softer.
“I don’t want her growing up like we did,” she says, voice barely audible. “Looking over her shoulder. Wondering if love’s a liability.”
“It won’t be.”
