The controls have gone sluggish. Like the ship’s drunk, dying, or both. I can’t tell how fast I’m falling anymore—just that the gas giant is pulling me in, and it doesn’t care about my grief.
Or my blood.
There’s so much of it now.
I can barely feel my left side. Every breath scrapes through me like gravel. Something vital’s punctured. Maybe a lung. Maybe more. Doesn’t matter. I can’t fix it. Not here.
Not now.
I slump forward, forehead hitting the console. The metal’s cold against my skin. I close my eyes, just for a second. Just to remember her.
Ayla.
Her voice, sharp and defiant. That stubborn tilt of her chin. Her body tangled with mine, the sound she makes when she gasps my name. The way her fingers tremble when they touch my face—like I’m fragile and sacred all at once.
I see her mouth, parted on a breathless moan.
I feel her body, warm and wrapped around me like she belongs there.
I hear her scream my name in the bond when they took her.
I can’t breathe.
I can't think.
My claws scrape the armrest weakly. “You’re not gone,” I whisper. “You’re not.”
The sky outside the viewport glows gold and orange and violent. Swirls of gas churn, hungry and endless. I can’t see stars anymore.
Only fire.
Only death.
I try to sit up, but my limbs don’t respond. My body feels too heavy, like the gravity’s quadrupled. Like I’m already being crushed.
I won’t die here.
Not like this.
“Stars,” I rasp, voice broken and thick. “If you hear me—if any of you old bastards still listen—I don’t pray. But I swear. I swear on the bones of my ancestors, on the blood in my veins,on every oath I’ve ever broken and every soul I’ve sent screaming into the void?—”
My hand trembles as I press it to my chest. The bond flickers. It’s faint, but it’s still there. Somewhere in the black between stars, she’s breathing.
“I’m coming for her.”
Pain blooms behind my eyes. My vision doubles. Triples.
Systems begin shutting down one by one.
First the weapons array. Then the nav suite. Then the stabilizers.
The cockpit dims as the auxiliary power fails.
My fingers twitch against the console. “Just a little longer,” I murmur. “Give me that, and I’ll give you everything.”
The ship doesn’t answer.
No AI. No comfort.
