I nod again. “Because I didn’t want to watch you die.”
She swallows hard. “I came close.”
I take her hand.
Her fingers thread through mine without hesitation.
“You didn’t,” I say. “You’re here.”
We sit like that a while. Then she shifts, eyes going sharper.
“I have to tell you what I found.”
I listen.
She lays it all out. The water. The minerals. The missing protective compound. The way the others hum now, whisper when they think no one hears. How Darwin watches her too closely. How Ciampa erased her data logs and swapped out her compad. How she suspects the fungus has gonebeyondinfection—it’s directing behavior now. Rewriting them.
“It’s not just parasitic,” she says. “It’s social. It wantsorder. Obedience. A choir, not a crowd.”
“Do you still hear the song?”
She shakes her head. “Not like they do. Not yet. I think whatever was protecting me—maybe it was something you gave me in the cave, I don’t know. But I’m immune. For now.”
I nod once.
Then I say the words I’ve been turning over all night.
“I can get you off-world.”
Her mouth parts. Her breath stutters.
“Wait—what?”
I rise slowly, pain stiff in my shoulders, but manageable. I motion for her to follow. She pulls on her jacket, slinging her pack over one shoulder.
I lead her deeper into the cave.
Past the living area. Past the carved shelves and fire pit. Past the small underground stream I use for clean water. Through a narrow crevice, we crawl—her first, me close behind—until we reach thechamber.
She gasps.
The chamber is massive—natural dome, thirty feet high. The walls are streaked with silver ore and glinting quartz. But it’s not the stone she stares at.
It’swhat’s buried beneath it.
An old starfighter. Scarred. Scorched. Still intact.
It rests under a canvas tarp I reinforced with plasma-sealant long ago. The dust around it is thick, undisturbed for years. But the shape is unmistakable.
Angular. Sleek.
Lethal.
Jillian steps forward, reverent.
“Maug… whatisthis?”
“My exile.”
