"Yes." Torvyn's voice was rough. "He has."
We stood there a moment longer, hands clasped, watching the surgical team work.
"I'm needed on the bridge," he said finally. "Let me know if anything changes."
He held my hand for a moment longer than necessary, then left. I watched him go, noting the tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there before.
Time passed strangely after that. I watched the surgical team work, their movements precise and unhurried. The auto-doc's mechanical arms pivoted and retracted with precise movements. The corridor lights dimmed slightly, the ship's automatic cycle shifting toward evening hours, and still I stood there.
At some point, I sat down in a chair across from the window. My legs had started to ache, but I hadn't wanted to leave. The hum of the ship's engines vibrated through the deck plating. Somewhere distant, I heard voices, crew members passing through adjacent corridors, keeping their tones low. Everyone was waiting.
I closed my eyes and let the tether connections drift to the surface of my awareness. Torvyn on the bridge, focused but troubled. Lyrin inside the surgical suite, his concentration sharp and steady. And fainter, Vaelix—
"Kira."
I opened my eyes. Vaelix stood a few feet away, looking down at me. He looked terrible. His hair was disheveled, he had dark circlesunder his eyes, and his uniform was wrinkled. But what struck me most was his expression. He looked lost.
"Hey," I said. "Come sit with me."
He sat, his movements stiff and uncertain. For a long moment, he didn't speak. He just stared at the window, his hands clasped tightly in his lap.
"I keep running the numbers," he said finally. "Probability matrices. Outcome projections. I've analyzed the mission data seventeen times since we jumped to slipspace."
"Vaelix—"
"I know it won't change anything." His voice cracked slightly. "I know that. But I don't know what else to do."
I reached over and took his hands. They were trembling.
"You don't have to do anything," I said. "You can just be here."
He shook his head. "That's not how I work. I need to understand. I need to find what I missed, the data point I overlooked. There has to be something I could have—"
"There isn't."
He finally looked at me, and I saw the fear beneath the exhaustion. The fear of helplessness. Of facing something his brilliant mind couldn't solve.
"The corporations hacked their own surveillance cameras," I said gently. "They fed us exactly what they wanted us to see. Analysis isn't omniscience. You can't predict what you can't see."
"I should have modeled for more contingencies. More frigates. More variables."
"Where does that end? Ten frigates? Twenty? At some point, you have to act on the information you have. That's what we did. That's what you did."
He didn't respond, but I felt something shift through the tether. The smallest loosening of the knot he'd tied himself into.
"You saved us," I said. "The artifact, the weapons array, the burst that disabled the frigates. That was you. Kaedren is in surgery instead of dead because of the choices you made under fire."
He closed his eyes. A single tear tracked down his cheek, and he didn't wipe it away.
We sat there for a moment, not speaking. Then he looked at me.
"You haven't eaten," he said. "Or slept. I can see it in how you're holding yourself."
"I'm fine."
"You're not. But I understand why you need to say that." He turned his hand over in mine so he was holding me back. "Thank you for letting me sit with you. I know you're carrying this too."
Something in my chest loosened slightly. He saw me. Even through his own pain, he saw me.
