Similar to what Bea was doing, really. Maintaining careful balance, keeping everything functional, never addressing the underlying damage.
My comm unit buzzed. Er'dox.
Dana says thank you for taking care of Bea. Also says you should actually rest before she sends me to physically drag you to quarters.
I sent back a brief acknowledgement, drank the stimulant, felt artificial alertness flood my system. Not real rest, but enough to function for another few hours.
Long enough to have the conversation that needed to happen when Bea woke.
Long enough to become the villain she needed me to be.
Outside the viewport, Veridian's sun began rising over the biodomes—artificial dawn painted in shades of gold and amber, beautiful in its manufactured precision. A new day began, the crisis passed, normal life resuming.
But in that small medical room, nothing was resolved. Nothing was fixed. The real crisis, Bea's trauma, her self-destruction, her desperate need for help she wouldn't accept, was just beginning.
And I was walking straight into it, eyes open, knowing exactly how badly this could end.
Because someone had to.
Someone had to refuse to let her drown.
Even if she hated me for it.
My comm unit buzzed again. This time from Zorn—wait, that was my name. I looked at the display, confused by exhaustion, and realized it was Captain Tor'van.
Report on Dr. Santos's condition when available. And Zorn? Don't let her leave that bed until she's actually fit for duty. However long that takes. Understood?
I sent confirmation, feeling something like gratitude that the command understood the situation.
Then I turned away from the viewport, from the artificial dawn, from the illusion of peace.
And headed back toward the room where Bea slept.
Because when she woke, the real battle would begin.
Chapter
Five
BEA
The medical bay felt too small.
Not literally, it was the same space I'd worked in for the past two months, the same efficient layout designed for maximum patient capacity. But after three days at Veridian Station, after working alongside Zorn in crisis conditions where proximity was necessity rather than choice, the careful distance I'd maintained between us seemed impossible to sustain.
He was everywhere. Not physically, he'd gone to file his outbreak report with Captain Tor'van, but his presence lingered. The way he'd arranged the supply cabinets to put frequently-used equipment at my height instead of his. The diagnostic protocols he'd updated based on observations he'd made watching me work. The nutrition bar sitting on my workstation with a note in his precise handwriting:Eat this. Doctor's orders.
I ate it. Hated that I was pleased he'd remembered I preferred the berry-flavored ones.
The door chimed. I looked up expecting Pel'vix or one of the other medical staff, but Dana walked in instead, her auburn hair pulled back in the practical ponytail she favored when working. She carried two steaming cups of something.
"Coffee substitute," she said, offering me one. "Er'dox says it's chemically similar to Earth coffee. Personally I think it tastes like burnt circuits, but it's caffeinated."
I accepted it. Burnt circuits were accurate, but Dana was right about the caffeine. "Shouldn't you be in Engineering?"
"Took a break. Er'dox made me." She settled onto the edge of one of the medical beds, looking comfortable despite the clinical surroundings. Two months as Mothership's junior engineer, and she'd adapted in ways that still surprised me. Found love, found purpose, found home in a place that should have felt like exile. "He's learning to identify when I'm pushing too hard. Thinks it's his duty to intervene."
"Sounds familiar."
