My eyes open. Too bright. Whiplash-white lights buzz overhead. The scent of antiseptic hits me like shards of glass. There’s static in my ears. The world spins slow and sharp.
I’m back on Rhavadaz.
Familiar and horrible in equal measure.
I’m strapped into a med-vault—tubes in my arms, wires crawling across my chest, monitors beeping low. The walls are too grey. The air too cold. I feel the hum of systems and the drip of some leak into a tray beneath my bed.
“Vital signs stable,” a voice says. Soft. Male. Scientific.
The words bounce inside me.
Another voice mutters: “Still no pilot match the Meld readings. He’s… floating between sync states.”
Floating. Hell.
I don’t understand how long it’s been. Minutes? Hours? Days? These things blur here.
I sit up—or I try. My muscles protest. Every joint fires. The bed shifts like it’s wound on springs.
I see myself in the reflection of a screen. My body is bruised. Bandages where joints should bend. My chest is scarred—not the fresh wound, but healing. I remember the scar: Me. Aria. The contract we made.
She said:"You weren’t supposed to survive me."
I remember her voice like a pulse.
Then the visions. Flickering. Stars rearranging. A mask of light. Spectra standing in the heart of a titan’s core, laughing.
Prophecy. I never believed in it. Didn’t have the time. But something in me nowknows.
“Lieutenant Naull Vakuta,” the doctor says, voice clipped. “You’re awake—barely. The Meld core is offline. We’re rerouting synaptic nodes. You’ll need days—weeks to recover.”
I shut my eyes. The hum closes in. I taste iron in my mouth.
“Where’s Sanchez?” I croak.
Silence.
Then the doctor: “Investigation ongoing. Pilot Sanchez eject confirmed—uninjured though burn trauma observed. Base wants you both grounded until debrief.”
I try to absorb it. Sanchez.Uninjured.I want relief. Fear. Guilt. I don’t know what I feel.
“I… saw her.” I say, though I’m not sure if the voice is mine.
The doctor shifts. “There are reconstruction logs. She was ejected successfully. Evac pod activated.”
That’s not what I mean.
“What did she see?” I say. “What happened… to us?”
He doesn’t meet my gaze. “We’re collecting data. You’ll be briefed.”
I close my eyes again. I remember the megafauna. The Titan. Whiplash crumpling. My own scream slashing through the cockpit. And in that rupture, I felt something move inside me—her. The Meld latch.
And then… darkness.
Hours later—or perhaps days—I’m moved to a recovery suite. The room smells like lavender sachets, antiseptic, recycled air. I shift on the bed. The isolation is heavier than any battlefield. The beep-lights flicker. I feel the OSS-type monitors clamp to my fingers. A nurse wheels in medicines I don’t see, but taste the bitterness of them like the residue of dreams.
My head swims with static. I imagine I hear her voice.Aria.Her hair pushed out of her face by sweat. Her eyes glowing in that moment when I held her in the workshop. When we said things we had no room for. There was no promise then. Just… need. Just truth.
