Three dead. Four injured. Including Kaedren.
I was surprised it wasn't worse. The corporations had us dead to rights. They should have wiped us out, shuttles, crew, Starbreaker included. Five frigates against one ship.
And yet, we made it back.
I set the tablet aside. The numbers didn't help. Knowing them didn't change the fact that Kaedren was lying on that bed, his heart beating only because of the hard work the medical team was doing.
I'd made hundreds of decisions over the last few months. Most of them small. Some of them dangerous. All of them mine. But standing here, watching doctors fight to keep him alive, I realized I couldn't strategize my way out of this. There was no action to take, no order to give.
So I stayed. Not because staying helped. But because leaving felt like betrayal.
The surgical doors remained closed. I pressed my hand to the glass where the crewman had touched it, and I didn't move.
I heard a soft knock on the wall, and I turned to look behind me. Torvyn stood in the doorway, hands behind his back, not looking at me, but looking at Kaedren. I gave him a moment to process what he was seeing, then I motioned him over.
"Come stand with me," I said.
He walked over and stood. The silence lay between us, a shared acknowledgment of the consequences of our choices. I felt his quietresolve through the tether, but it wasn't as strong as before. He was still there, just more distant than usual. More uncertain.
"I don't think there was anything we could have done differently," he said, eyes locked on Kaedren.
"I agree. More importantly, I think Kaedren would agree."
"He called it out as a trap. We knew it was a risk."
I nodded. "We made a plan, and we stuck to it."
"Except for the frigates. We didn't plan for those."
I shrugged. "How do you plan for five corporate frigates? Sometimes overwhelming firepower is just that. Overwhelming."
"Using the artifact was a brilliant idea."
"Want to know a secret?"
Torvyn nodded.
"I had no idea it would work so well."
He barked out a laugh, but it died quickly. His jaw tightened, and he turned back to the window. Through the tether, I felt something shift. Something he'd been holding back.
"He threw himself on a grenade," Torvyn said, his voice quieter now. "It should have been me on that table."
I didn't argue. Didn't tell him it wasn't his fault, or that Kaedren made his own choice. He knew those things already. They didn't help. He needed to process this in his own way.
"Kaedren wasn't a martyr," Torvyn continued. "He took action because he believed it was the right thing to do. He didn't throw himself on that grenade for a greater cause or because of some deep conviction. He did it because that's what he was trained to do. That was his job."
He turned and looked at me. I reached out a hand, and he took it.
"We chose this plan together. All of us," he said. "And I would make the same choices again."
I squeezed his hand. "I keep thinking about the grenade. How I just stood there. If Kaedren hadn't shovedme—"
"You would have tried to kick it away," Torvyn said. "And you would have lost your leg instead of your life. He knew that. He made the call."
I hadn't thought of it that way. Kaedren hadn't just saved me. He'd calculated the best outcome in a fraction of a second and acted on it.
"He's always been the fastest thinker in a crisis," I said quietly.
