The heat was oppressive.
We'd dragged Kalipuk's body from the wreckage and found a spot not far from the crash site—a small clearing where the jungle hadn't yet reclaimed the torn earth. Cullen had fashioned a crude shovel from a piece of torn hull plating, bending and shaping the metal until it had an edge sharp enough to cut through the dense, root-choked soil.
We took turns digging. The ground was stubborn, resistant, but we worked in silence, the only sounds the bite of metal into earth and the constant drone of insects around us.
On his third turn, I noticed the slight hitch in his movement, the way he favored his left shoulder—but he didn't stop, didn't complain, just kept driving the shovel down with quiet determination. He was honoring Kalipuk, carrying the weight of command and loss like it was his sacred duty, and I found myself admiring him for it. When my turn came, I dug deeper, worked harder, and we found our rhythm that way—unspoken, understood.
Sweat poured down my face, soaking through my ceremonial robes. The heavy fabric—designed for the climate-controlled environments of Alliance ships and formal occasions—was suffocating in the jungle heat. The layers clung to my skin, trapping heat, making every movement an effort.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I stepped back and began unfastening the outer robes.
"What are you doing?" Cullen asked, pausing mid-dig.
"Dying of heat exhaustion if I don't get out of these." I pulled the heavy outer robe over my head and let it fall to the ground in a heap of dark fabric. The second layer followed. And the third.
Beneath it all, I wore the black bodysuit I always kept on—a habit from my warrior days, when being prepared for combat at any moment was the difference between life and death. The suit was designed for movement, for flexibility, made from a material that breathed and moved like a second skin.
I felt Cullen's gaze on me and looked up.
He was staring. Not subtly. His eyes tracked over the lines of the bodysuit, the way it hugged every curve, every muscle. For a moment, he seemed to forget he was holding the makeshift shovel, his hands going still.
Then he caught himself, cleared his throat, and very deliberately looked away, his jaw tight.
I bit back a smile.
It was... amusing. And oddly flattering. Here we were, stranded on a hostile planet, having just buried a loyal pilot, facing an unknown enemy, and the human male I'd been tryingnotto think about for months was checking me out like a youngling seeing his first crush.
"Something wrong, Cullen?" I asked, unable to keep the hint of amusement from my voice.
"No. Nothing. Just—" He cleared his throat again. "We should finish this."
"Yes. We should."
But I caught the way his gaze flicked back to me when he thought I wasn't looking, and something warm and entirely inappropriate curled in my chest.
Not now,I told myself firmly.Not here.
But the feeling didn't go away.
We laid Kalipuk to rest with as much dignity as we could manage. I spoke the words of mourning again, and Cullen stood beside me, his presence solid and grounding. When we'd filled in the grave and marked it with stones, I stood there for a long moment, looking down at the mound of earth.
"I will honor you," I said quietly. "I swear it."
Then I turned away, because there was nothing more to be done, and we had to focus on survival.
Back at the ship, I made my way to the cockpit, stepping carefully over debris and broken equipment. The main console was dark, most of the systems offline, the communication system completely destroyed, but there was a faint flicker of power in the navigation array.
"Cullen, I need light."
He appeared beside me with a portable light source, holding it steady while I worked. My fingers moved over the controls, coaxing what little power remained into the navigation logs.
"Come on," I muttered. "Come on, just give me something."
The screen flickered. Died. Flickered again.
Then data began to scroll across the display—coordinates, star charts, planetary markers. I scanned through them quickly, my mind cataloging and cross-referencing against the thousands of systems I'd memorized over the years.
There.
