Chapter
One
BEA
The Krellian's second lung was collapsing.
I adjusted the regeneration field parameters while monitoring the patient's oxygen saturation levels on the holographic display floating above the medical bed. Sixteen percent. Not critical yet, but trending wrong. The mining accident had punctured his thoracic cavity in three places, and despite Zandovian medical technology that looked like something out of a fever dream, basic physiology still applied. Lungs needed to exchange gases. Damaged tissue needed time to regenerate.
Time we might not have.
"Increase the cellular acceleration by point-three," I told Nurse Pel'vix, who stood across from me monitoring the Krellian's neural activity. She was a Zandovian woman with pale lavender skin and those unsettling vertical pupils they all had. Competent. Quick. Didn't ask stupid questions.
She adjusted the settings without comment.
The regeneration field hummed higher, its blue-white glow intensifying around the patient's torso. Zandovian medical technology was extraordinary as microscopic machines that literally rebuilt damaged tissue at the cellular level, guided by holographic mapping systems and powered by energy fields I still didn't entirely understand. Six months working under Zorn's supervision, and I was learning fast, but there were gaps. Always gaps.
The Krellian's oxygen saturation climbed. Eighteen percent. Twenty. Stabilizing.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
From somewhere down the corridor, music drifted through the medical bay's open doors. The celebration for Jalina and Zor'go's bonding ceremony. Traditional Zandovian harmonics mixed with something that sounded suspiciously like Earth jazz. Laughter followed, warm and genuine. The kind of joy people felt when they watched two beings find each other in the vastness of space.
I should be there. Dana had asked me personally. Jalina had practically begged. Even Elena, who avoided social situations almost as religiously as I did, had promised to attend.
But someone needed to monitor the mining accident victims. All three were stable but required constant observation for the next six hours. Medical protocol. Non-negotiable.
And if I was being honest with myself, which I tried not to be, because honesty made things complicated, I was grateful for the excuse.
Watching people in love made my chest ache in ways I couldn't afford to acknowledge.
"Oxygen saturation holding at twenty-four percent," Pel'vix reported. Her tone was professionally neutral. The Zandovians were good at that. Emotions existed beneath their calm exteriors, but they kept them buried deep. I appreciated the restraint. "Neural activity normal. He should remain stable for the duration of his shift."
"Good." I checked the regeneration progress on the holographic display. Forty percent tissue repair. At this rate, the Krellian would be fully healed in another eight hours. "Keep the cellular acceleration at current levels. If oxygen drops below twenty percent, increase by another point-two and page me immediately."
"Understood, Doctor Santos."
Doctor Santos. Two months, and they still called me that. NotBea. Not evenSantoslike my colleagues back on Earth used to snarl when I'd been on shift for thirty-six hours straight and started getting sloppy with paperwork. Always the formal title. Always that careful distance.
I moved to the second patient,a Zandovian engineer who'd taken debris to the face when a support beam collapsed. Fractured skull, internal bleeding, massive trauma to his optical nerve. Zorn had stabilized him six hours ago, but head injuries were tricky across any species. I checked his cranial pressure, monitored the healing progress of his shattered orbital socket, adjusted his pain management protocol.
All stable. All progressing according to projected timelines.
All desperately boring.
No. Not boring. That was the exhaustion talking. The work wasn't boring. The work was never boring. Every patient was a puzzle, every injury a problem to solve. That's what kept me functional. The puzzles. The problems. The satisfaction of seeing someone stabilize under my care.
It was everything else that felt empty.
More laughter from the corridor. Closer now. Someone was coming this way.
I didn't look up from the medical display.
"Bea."
Zorn's voice, warm as summer rain, patient as stone. The Chief Medical Officer of Mothership stood in the doorway, his eight-foot frame making the entrance look smaller than it was. Deep forest-green skin, gold healing markings that traced his major muscle groups, golden-brown eyes that saw entirely too much. He wore his dark green hair tied back, standard medical protocols, but a few strands had escaped. Made him look almost approachable.
Almost.
