And there it was. The fundamental truth I'd been avoiding since the Liberty disaster, since Earth, since long before I'd ever boarded a colony ship bound for the stars.
I wasn't living. I was surviving. And there was a massive difference between the two.
Dr. Senna waited, letting the silence stretch. Giving me space to process, to react, to choose what came next.
"Where do we start?" I asked finally.
"Wherever you need to. But if you're open to a suggestion, let's start with the Liberty disaster. With what happened when the wormhole shredded your ship apart and you crashed on that burning planet. With the patients you couldn't save."
Chapter
Six
ZORN
Er'dox's sparring staff caught me across the ribs with enough force to crack bone if I'd been human. As it was, the impact just drove the air from my lungs and sent me stumbling sideways on the training mat.
"Your head's not in the fight," Er'dox said, not even breathing hard. The Chief Engineer moved with economical precision, his bronze skin gleaming under the gymnasium's harsh lighting. "That's the third opening you've given me in as many minutes."
I recovered my stance, adjusted my grip on my own practice staff. The Zandovian combat gymnasium occupied an entire section of Mothership's lower decks with high ceilings to accommodate our size, reinforced floors to withstand the impact of beings who could bench-press small shuttlecraft. At this hour, only a handful of crew members used the space, giving us room for the weekly sparring session that had become ritual over the past year.
"Again," I said.
Er'dox obliged. This time I blocked his first strike, deflected the second, and actually managed a counterattack before he swept my legs and put me flat on my back.
I stayed down, staring at the ceiling, my ribs protesting. Not injured, Zandovian physiology could handle significantly more punishment, but definitely bruised.
"You did the right thing," Er'dox said, offering his hand.
I let him pull me up. "Which part? Forcing Bea into therapy? Threatening her with medical leave? Driving away the one person I—" I stopped. Shook my head. "She won't even look at me now."
"She will. When she's ready." Er'dox set his practice staff aside, grabbed two water containers from the sideline. He handed me one, and we moved to the bench press area where we could talk without the crack of impact wood punctuating every sentence. "Dana avoided me for three days after I made her stop working eighteen-hour shifts. Told Jalina I was overbearing and controlling."
"What changed?"
"She collapsed during a shift. Exhaustion-induced syncope, nothing serious, but it scared her. Made her realize I was right." Er'dox took a long drink, his expression distant with memory. "The ones who work themselves to exhaustion aren't running toward something. They're running from it. You can't make them stop. You can only be there when they finally hit the wall."
I'd hit my own wall years ago. After the Keltor Station disaster, when I'd lost fourteen patients to a contaminated air supply I'd failed to detect until too late. I'd buried myself inwork afterward, taking every shift, volunteering for every rescue mission, trying to save enough people to balance the scales. It had taken my mentor, Dr. Varesh, who'd died two years past, to physically drag me off duty and force me into counseling.
I'd resented him for months. Then one day, I'd realized the nightmares had stopped. That I could think about Keltor Station without my chest constricting. That the fourteen deaths no longer crushed me every waking moment.
Healing had required acknowledging I needed it.
Bea wasn't there yet.
"She hates me," I said quietly.
"She hates that you're right. There's a difference." Er'dox studied me with those amber eyes that saw too much. "You care for her."
Not a question. A statement that made denying it pointless.
"Yes."
"Does she know?"
"I haven't told her."
"Why not?"
