"Bebo?"
"Beacon repair is feasible. The emergency beacon requires new power cells and recalibration of the broadcast array, both achievable with salvaged components from the wreckage. However, any signal strong enough to reach Junction One will also be detectable by ApexCorp monitoring stations. Probability of corporate interception preceding OOPS response: seventy-two percent."
"So we'd be calling for rescue and broadcasting our location to the people hunting him." The knot in my stomach tightens.
"Not necessarily." Horgox's gaze has gone distant, the way it does when he's running calculations. "ApexCorp prioritises commercial traffic corridors during peak station hours. Outer rim monitoring drops to minimal between oh-two-hundred and oh-four-hundred. A targeted burst transmission during that window could reach OOPS before detection."
"You know their monitoring schedules."
"I studied them." Flat. No elaboration on where or how or what studying your captors' surveillance patterns for a lifetime costs a person. Just the data, offered for tactical use.
Bebo processes. "A low-power burst transmission during that window is theoretically viable. Beacon repair and calibration will require four to six days, depending on component availability."
Four to six days. On a hostile planet, with ApexCorp drones overhead, six unknown creatures loose in the jungle, and a male beside me who knows more about the people hunting us than he's willing to say.
"We're committed," I say. "This isn't a quick rescue. This is survival."
"Yes." He's watching me, and there's something in his expression I can't read. Assessment, maybe. Measuring whether I understand what I'm agreeing to. "Can you do this?"
"Ask me something hard."
That lands. A micro-shift in his posture, tension easing by a fraction. Not warmth, not softening, but the specific relaxation of a male who expected one answer and got a better one.
"Krilly's vital signs indicate elevated heart rate and increased dopamine production correlating with direct eye contact with the Varkaani," Bebo announces into the silence.
"Bebo."
"You programmed me to monitor your health."
"I meant injuries. Broken bones. Blood loss. Not—" My hands are doing something frantic with cables that absolutely do not need reconnecting. "Notthat."
"The data is medically relevant. Sustained elevated dopamine in a survival context can impair decision-making through—"
"Thank you, Bebo, that's enough diagnostic reporting for one morning."
From the perimeter, a sound. Low, brief, quickly suppressed. If I didn't know better, I'd say Horgox Ka'reen, escaped gladiator, decades a weapon, three months a fugitive, just laughed.
"I like your AI," he says. First time his voice has held anything approaching warmth since the wreckage, and he directs it at the machine instead of at me, which is so perfectly, frustratingly in character that I want to throw a circuit tester at his head.
"You're both terrible. Let's move."
The three kilometers to the canyon takes four hours.
Four hours of dense jungle, skirting predator territories, wading chest-deep through a stream that's blessedly non-acidic, and scrambling up a rock face that Horgox navigates like a staircase while I cling to handholds and try not to look down. He doesn't offer to carry me. He does position himself below me on the rock face, close enough to catch, and I pretend not to notice the tactical kindness in that.
The canyon is everything he promised. Narrow entrance, defensible walls, and the first place in nine days that doesn't feel like it's actively trying to kill us.
"You scouted this." The space is too perfect to be accidental. Defensible entrance, water source, natural shelter, rock that would interfere with scanning frequencies. "This is your fallback position."
"One of several." He's doing a perimeter check, moving through the space with the familiarity of someone who's been here before. "This one has the best combination of water access and drone interference. The basalt composition scatters thermal and motion scans."
"So we're invisible up here."
"To the drones. Not to everything." He checks a narrow cleft at the back of the canyon, then returns. "We'll need to set a watch schedule. The canyon predators are smaller than the pack that cornered us, but they're territorial."
"I'll take first watch." When he starts to object: "You braced a collapsing ship this morning and hiked three kilometres carrying most of our supplies. I'm tired; you're exhausted. Let me do this."
He studies me for a long moment. Then nods, once, and settles into one of the alcoves with the controlled descent of a male who won't admit how much his body needs rest.
