Time stretches. I don’t answer.
Instead I replay the night—the soft lamplight, the far hum of the vent field in the mining rig, how her jacket smelled of dust and fear and resolve. How I held her. For the first time not as soldier and medic. But as man and woman. As father and mother-to-be. As family.
We both trembled.
I shiver now, but not purely from cold. The ache in my chest is heavier than my layered armor. It’s regret. It’s grief. It’s love. It’s hope.
I stand, walk to the low window slit of the bunker. The vent field outside glows faint orange, drifting steam like ghosts rising from the planet’s lungs. I press my palm to the glass—cold. Because even here, the world is burning.
I breathe in. Smell the sulfur air. Taste grit. Feel vibration from the vent turbines. The faint thrum in the floor. I close my eyes and let the memory pull me forward.
She called me “Da.” Offhand. Casual. Like I was always there. The word cracked something open in me. Not pride. Not guilt. A truth I hadn’t admitted.
I draw a ragged breath. I will fight for that name.
I will fight forher. For them.
My hand shifts from the collar to my heart. The scarred flesh above the second heart. I tap it once. Soft. Quiet.
You’re alive. So fight.
I turn back to the shadow-runner’s container. I search her armor for a data disc—proof of contract. I find it, flick the latch, pull it free. I tuck it into my pack. Evidence of the gate I crossed.
She’ll wake. She’ll scream. The next steps will hurt.
But I will endure.
Because we’re already on the line.
I walk out of the container and switch on the hidden relay. I send a burned message to Rynn’s backup channel.
Message: Message received. I’m alive. Watch skies.
No fluff. No promises. Just fact.
Then I take a ration bar and sit across from the woman. I pull out my knife and slide it into the metal floor beside her, letting the shock arc across the plate. Sparks. The light is harsh, blue. The shelter shrinks for a second.
“Wake when you’re ready,” I say. “And tell them I’m off the board.”
I lean back. My body creaks. My skin bleeds from where her blade cut through a servo line. Pain pulses in wave. I taste salt.
A drop of blood slides across the floor—my own. Raw. Real.
I close my eyes. I replay once more her lips, her fingers, the way Nessa reached for me in sleep.
And I make my vow.
I will return.
To them.
To what we are.
To what we built.
And if tomorrow burns, I’ll fight through flame.
Because in the darkness I found something I thought lost.
