“Stop that,” I say without looking up from Form 12-B (Partnership Dissolution Protocols and Asset Distribution Guidelines).
“Stop what?”
“Trying to hide how much you’re hurting.” I set down my datapad and look at him. His golden skin has stress patterns darkening around his ribs, and he’s holding his left arm carefully against his body. “Take another dose of pain suppressors. We have two more forms to finish, and you won’t be any use to me if you pass out from trying to be stoic.”
“I’m fine,” he lies, then winces when he reaches for his stylus wrong.
I pull the medkit from under the table and shake two capsules into my palm. “Take them, or I'm calling Dr. Yennix to come enforce her 'no strenuous activity' order. ”
He takes the capsules with a look that suggests he’s only doing it because I asked, not because he needs them. Through the bond, I feel the medication starting to work—dulling the sharp edges of pain into something more manageable.
“Question seventeen asks for ‘projected partnership dissolution scenarios,’” he reads after a moment, his tone suggesting he’s reached the same level of bureaucratic exhaustion I have. “We’re supposed to predict how we might... stop being partners?”
“Put ‘death,’” I suggest tiredly. “That’s really the only scenario where this bond lets us dissolve the partnership.”
He types, then pauses. “It’s flagging that as insufficient detail.”
“Fine. ‘Catastrophic death of one or both partners, rendering continued operations impossible.’”
“Accepted.” He sets down the datapad and rubs his eyes. “Fifteen forms completed. Two remaining.”
I look at the chrono. We’ve been at this for six hours straight, fueled by approximately nine pots of Jitters-filtered coffee. The blob himself has retreated to the ceiling, exhausted from his brewing duties and currently displaying a tired grey color.
“We need a break,” I announce, standing and stretching. My back protests from hunching over paperwork. "Let's tackle the cargo bay workspace setup, finish the last two forms tomorrow morning, and submit everything well before the deadline."
Crash nods gratefully, rolling his shoulders in a way that makes his scales ripple with reflected light. “Agreed. Though I should mention that KiKi has been sending me increasingly passive-aggressive notifications about ‘optimal rest periods for bonded pairs’ for the last hour.”
As if summoned, KiKi’s voice fills the galley. “Finally! I have compiled seventeen peer-reviewed studies on the importance of adequate rest for newly bonded partners. Would you like me to read them aloud?”
“No,” we say in unison.
“Spoilsports,” KiKi mutters.
The Precision’s cargo bay has never been my favorite part of the ship—too much open space, too many opportunities for things to shift during maneuvers, too much potential for catastrophic failure if someone doesn’t secure their containers properly.
But right now, standing here with Crash while we figure out where to set up our official “business operations center,” it feels different. Like we’re claiming territory. Making this ours instead of mine with him as passenger.
“We should designate workspace,” Crash suggests, examining the cargo bay with his tactical assessment gaze. “Partnership requires joint operations planning. Shared logistics management.”
“Are you trying to say we need a desk?” I ask, amused.
“I am trying to say we need professional infrastructure that reflects our status as legitimate business partners rather than two people who accidentally biochemically bonded and are hoping no one notices we have no idea what we’re doing.”
I laugh—the first genuine, unguarded laugh since before Thek-Ka appeared on our sensors. “We definitely have no idea what we’re doing.”
“Affirmative,” he agrees with unusual frankness. Then, more quietly: “But we will figure it out together.”
A warbling sound from the ventilation grate makes us both look up. Jitters emerges from his hiding spot, oozing through the grate with the cautious hopefulness of someone who’s been listening to our entire conversation and isn’t sure if he’s included in this “together.”
He’s still the exhausted grey color he turned after using himself as a living circuit to bypass Thek-Ka’s EMP. Parts of his gelatinous form look singed around the edges—literal burn damage from channeling electricity through his protein matrices to restore our communication systems when we needed it most.
He saved us. Both of us. And he’s still not sure if he belongs.
That’s unacceptable.
I kneel down, bringing myself to Jitters’ level where he’s puddled on the cargo bay floor. “Hey, buddy. We need to talk.”
He cycles through several nervous colors—orange anxiety, muddy brown uncertainty, flickers of pink hope he’s trying to suppress.
