Bureaucratic Complications
Zola
Thesubspacerelaystation’smedical bay smells like antiseptic and bureaucratic doom.
Crash sits on the examination table, his golden scales still showing stress patterns from the fight—darker patches where Thek-Ka’s strikes landed, micro-fractures visible along his ribs where the impact cracked something inside. His left shoulder is wrapped in regenerative bandaging, and there’s a fading bruise along his jaw where he bit through his own tongue during combat.
I stand beside him, close enough that our shoulders touch. Not because the bond demands it—we tested earlier and discovered the claiming has stabilized us to a comfortable fifty-foot range—but because I need the contact. The reassurance that he’s here, alive, relatively intact after going up against a seven-foot Exoscarab warrior in zero-gravity combat.
The claiming marks on my throat pulse with a phantom ache every time I look at his injuries. Through the bond, I can feel the dull throb in his ribs, the way his shoulder screams when he moves it wrong. But I also feel his stubborn refusal to show weakness, his relief that we both survived, his fierce protectiveness despite being the one who nearly died.
Dr. Yennix, a Cerulean medical officer with four eyes and the bedside manner of a particularly judgmental houseplant, reviews Crash’s biometric scans with increasing disapproval.
“Permanent interspecies biochemical bond,” she announces, as if we don’t already know. “Velogian mate-claiming mechanism fully integrated with human neurochemistry. Irreversible. Documented.” She taps her datapad, then looks pointedly at Crash. “Along with three cracked ribs, a partially torn rotator cuff, severe muscular strain consistent with prolonged zero-gravity combat, and significant soft tissue damage from repeated blunt force trauma.”
“I’ve had worse,” Crash says, which is probably true given his gladiatorial past, but doesn’t make me feel better about watching him fight a seven-foot alien warrior while I sat helpless on the ship.
“You’ve also had proper medical treatment for those previous injuries,” Dr. Yennix replies tartly. “The regenerative bandaging will accelerate healing, but you’ll need at least seventy-two hours before engaging in any strenuous activity. Including,” she adds with a pointed look at both of us, “the kind of strenuous activity bonded pairs typically engage in.”
My face heats. Crash just grins.
“Understood,” he says, completely unrepentant.
Dr. Yennix makes a sound that might be approval or possibly disgust. “And according to OOPS regulations, this particular bonding situation creates approximately seventeen different forms of paperwork.”
“How much paperwork?” I ask, though I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know the answer.
“Seventeen different forms.” Dr. Yennix doesn’t even look up from her datapad. “And that’s just the initial filing. You’ll need quarterly updates, annual recertifications, and if you ever want to operate in sectors beyond Frontier jurisdiction, add another thirty-seven to the count.”
“Seventeen,” Crash repeats weakly.
“To start with,” she confirms. “Oh, and one of them requires you to officially register as a business partnership. You can’t operate as independent contractors while biochemically bonded.”
“Partnership formation?” I say, and Crash turns to look at me with an expression somewhere between curious and slightly alarmed.
Dr. Yennix’s four eyes blink in synchronized exasperation. “New policy. You can’t operate as independent contractors whilebiochemically bonded. The bond creates medical dependencies, tactical coordination requirements, and—according to subsection forty-seven of the Employee Handbook—you’re now legally classified as a ‘cohesive operational unit’.”
I stare at her. “We have to form a company?”
“Unless you want OOPS to classify you as a medical liability and terminate both contracts, yes.” She slides a datapad across the table. “Fill these out. I need documentation that you’re both mentally competent to make this decision despite the obvious evidence to the contrary.”
Crash picks up the datapad, his golden eyes scanning the first form with the kind of focused intensity he usually reserves for navigation hazards. “Partnership name is required.”
“Cross-Maxone Solutions,” I say immediately, surprising myself with how certain I sound.
He looks at me, something warm and fierce in his expression that makes my chest tight. “You want my name on our company?”
“Our company. Equal partners. That’s what we are, right?”
Through the bond—which still hums between us with that new, stabilized certainty—I feel his overwhelming emotion. Not gratitude. Not obligation. Just pure, fierce love that he’s chosen to feel, that we both chose in that moment when he could have let me walk away and didn’t.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “That is exactly what we are.”
Dr. Yennix makes a sound that might be approval or possibly indigestion. “Fine. Cross-Maxone Solutions. I’ll file the preliminary registration. You have until the end of the week to complete the full formation paperwork or OOPS will dissolve the partnership and separate you to different sectors.”
“They can’t separate us,” Crash says, his voice dropping into that dangerous register that means his protective instincts are firing. “The bond—”
“The bond has a fifty-foot comfortable range now, it may expand, it may not” she interrupts. “According to my scans, you could theoretically operate separate ships as long as they maintained close formation. OOPS could assign you to different courier routes if the paperwork isn’t filed properly.”
