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“Do not,” he says quietly.

I glare up at him. “Do not what?”

“Blame yourself.”

“I was going to say sit down before I kick you in the ankle, but thanks for the preview of my emotional itinerary.”

His mouth curves faintly. “You are afraid.”

“Yes, and you are enormous, bleeding, and being weirdly philosophical in a hallway.”

A medic in pale green steps closer with a scanner. “Security Contractor Vek’Talan, we need you on the trauma platform.”

Ghar looks at him.

The medic stops.

I point at Ghar’s chest. “He’ll get on the platform.”

The medic looks relieved that someone smaller and angrier has volunteered to stand in front of the warship. “Thank you, Doctor Prentiss.”

“Doctoral candidate,” I say automatically.

Then the words hit wrong.

Nareth-Kul is gone. The final archive is sealed under a dead world that is not a world anymore. Teren is dead. Most of the expedition is dead. I have a shard in a containment case under League security seal strapped across my chest, and half the galaxy’s future may depend on whether I can lie convincingly to people with better offices than consciences.

Doctoral candidate suddenly feels like a very tiny hat on a burning building.

Ghar hears the pause. Of course he does. He sits on the trauma platform only after I give him a look that promises public violence. The platform dips under his weight and immediately begins flashing medical warnings in an offended shade of red.

Brakk limps past us with one arm around Sira’s waist and grease, blood, and soot covering every visible inch of him. “The bed is judging him. I like this bed.”

Sira’s voice is faint. “Brakk, you are bleeding from your ear.”

“I am choosing not to prioritize that.”

“You are choosing badly.”

“I choose badly with style.”

A second medic tries to guide Sira toward another platform. She looks back at me, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. The calm she usually carries has cracked into something tender and haunted, but she is still standing. That matters. After everything, standing matters.

“Anita,” she says. “The case.”

My hand closes around the strap.

Three League security officers enter the receiving bay before I can answer.

Of course they do.

The first is a gray-haired human woman in a navy command coat with League insignia at her throat. The second is an Alzhon officer with violet optic implants and a polished sidearm. The third is Council Liaison Merrow, because apparently the universe believes in comedy after all, though not kindness. His cream-colored pressure coat is cleaner than anyone’s pressure coat has a moral right to be after an archaeological apocalypse.

“Doctoral Candidate Prentiss,” Merrow says, his voice tight with poorly concealed triumph and fear. “By emergency authority of the League Preservation Council, you are ordered to surrender all recovered archive materials for immediate containment review.”

Ghar starts to rise.

The trauma platform screams.