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“Do I look bad?” Jace asked.

“We all look a little worse for wear, Pilot,” his father answered.

“Oh, damn. Heroic bad or just bad?” Jace asked.

“Nothing will look better to my son than you alive and well, Pilot,” his father chuckled in what was a surprisingly familiar and affectionate manner as if Jace was already in their family.

Khoth’s head had snapped up towards the sound of Jace’s voice and he was moving with all deliberate speed. He found his father and Amana lifting Jace off the ground. His dark hair was filled with plaster dust and his body appeared floppy as if he were a doll whose strings had been cut. Khoth immediately swept Jace up against him. Jace’s head lolled backwards. His face was filthy, but there was a faint smile on his lips. And his father was correct. Seeing Jace alive and uninfected made the young man as beautiful as ever.

“Hey, you’re here, Khoth,” Jace murmured. “I’m so glad you’re here. You saved the day. Draagves blast to the head. Epic.”

Khoth blinked. “You saw my actions in the hallway?”

“Through the cameras. That’s why I’m sort of a mess right now,” Jace told him as he attempted to stand with only a little of Khoth’s help. But his legs gave out beneath him. Khoth clutched Jace to him firmly. “I spread myself a bit too thin without the Osiris’ help and I sort of let my body drop a little. I’m replugging in. Went into stasis.”

Stasis…

There were so many questions he could have pursued with that word alone, but he chose to pick others that had an immediate need of answering or his Xi might overcome his Xa.

“And your parents?” Khoth asked.

“Fine. The Osiris is preening about how awesome it was against the Hives. Apparently, it and my dad had some kind of bonding moment during the battle. I’m not surprised. My parents are… well, they’re awesome,” Jace said, a smile growing. “But we’re back in full communication. The Osiris and I, I mean.”

“So you will fully recover?” Khoth asked, hoping that no one noticed the stress in his voice. Ever since Jace had come to Haseon he had been so ill. It had been that much worse losing connection with the Osiris.

Jace nodded. “Yeah, after I rest a bit. It wants me back on board, of course, but--”

“We should return to the Osiris,” Khoth interrupted, seemingly unable to help himself.

But Jace shook his head. “First, I can’t leave here without Gehenna. My little AI buddies are tracking her in the old tech. Unfortunately, the Osiris can’t help with that part, nor can I. But they’re working. And second, the last thing the people of Haseon--or the Alliance--need is to watch me scuttle back to the Osiris. This isn’t a Staulis situation. It’s safe here. That’s why we’re staying in the Moturin Compound.”

Khoth’s spine prickled with unease. Yet he recalled the red light and the complete destruction of the Khul. “The robot I saw--”

“Is one of many that will be released everywhere in the city, starting with the Moturin Compound and the apartment building,” Jace explained. “Every trace of the Khul will be gone. The buildings don’t need to be abandoned or firebombed or whatever else was being contemplated.”

Amana put a hand to her chest. Her eyes were full of tears. It was such a display of Xi that Khoth felt his own chest tighten.

“Thank you, Pilot. I thought we would lose our home,” Amana said.

His father closed his eyes and whispered a prayer, which Khoth had not seen him do in ages. He opened them and said, “We are grateful to you, Pilot. More than any of us can ever express.”

“It wasn’t just me, you know? I mean it really wasn’t. Without Khoth here, well, things would have turned out differently. And the others,” Jace paused to nod to Typhon, Davies, Nova and Dr. Hayter who were just coming into the Control Room, “made Khoth’s actions possible.”

His mother and father’s eyes met for one long moment before his mother quickly turned away and headed out of sight down the hallway. Khoth’s emotions churned inside of him. On the one hand, it appeared that his mother had abandoned her dreams of ruling the Alliance to protect him and Jace. But that seemed like a tale a child would tell themselves. His mother wasn’t like that.

“Next steps,” Jace said as he tried to take that step and nearly went down. Khoth had to catch him. Jace grimaced. “Next step is that I do need to rest. Can you provide us with someplace to do that?”

“Of course, Pilot,” Typhon said as came to Amana. They embraced even as he continued to speak to Jace, “We will do everything within our power to help you.”

“I just need to lay down,” Jace admitted.

That was what had led them to this suite. While Jace had slept, Thammah had returned from the apartment block. Her uniform was ripped but her eyes were bright. She was holding one arm rather gingerly though.

“I just popped my shoulder back in. I need to have it looked at, but there’s too much to do,” she’d explained when he’d inquired.

“Flight-Commander, we need you to have both arms working,” he reminded her gently.

She nodded, but he saw the hyper-alertness of battle in her flickering eyes. “I’m having a hard time letting go of my draagves, you know? And I need to do that to go into one of the healing pods so… yeah.”