Thoryn
I’d been standing in the room for thirty seconds, maybe longer. Time felt… slow. Mission parameters already felt like words from a different life.
Contact the asset. Warn her. Retrieve manifests. Extract. Serak’s briefing had been clear, precise. Standard reconnaissance and protection. Logical. Necessary.
None of it mattered now. Not with her standing right there.
My Maris.
An age. An age spent surviving Consortium hell by clinging to the memory of her face, forcing myself through agony by believing she’d somehow escaped Kestis Minor.
But the official records had confirmed the worst. Maris Elen. KIA. Ship lost with all hands. I’d seen the sterile casualty report. Processed it.
Buried her memory alongside the part of myself that died with her. Tried to move on. Then, the debrief weeks ago, after Epsilon Facility. Jessa mentioned an old contact, a logistics expert. ‘The Smuggler Queen’ of The Quarry.
Cold, ruthless, brilliant. Built an empire from nothing.
It couldn’t be. But the flicker of impossible hope wouldn’t die.
Now, standing inside, seeing the impossible standing right in front of me... the records were wrong. She was alive.
The bond hit, nearly driving me to my knees.
Pain. Immediate. Visceral. But underneath the agony, a deeper sensation... a low, resonant pull. A physical draw toward her, an instinct so strong it warred with the conditioning. The two signals were a physical conflict inside me.
Worth it. Seeing her upright, breathing? Worth anything.
I took a step forward, boots crunching softly on spilled nutrient pellets or maybe just grime.
The bond pain spiked. Copper taste flooded my mouth, sharp and metallic. Agony threatened to buckle my knees. Focus. The scientists would have loved this data point.
Subject T-7 exhibits extreme bio-physical distress upon proximity to designated bonding partner. Hypothesis confirmed. I could almost hear Dr. Solis’s dry voice narrating my suffering. Bastard.
Another step.
“We’re closed.”
My throat felt fused shut. Words were difficult for me. Always had been, even before. More so now. Pain made thinking slow, syrupy. Still functional. Barely. Need to warn her. Mission.
Another step. Boots grating on the placrete.
“I said we’re closed.” Sharper this time. Annoyed. That was familiar too.
She turned.
Recognition slammed into her. Saw it bloom across her face, replacing irritation with stark disbelief. Face blanking. Shock. Pure, undiluted shock. The glass slipping from her fingers. Falling. Shattering on the floor between us. Neither of us looked down. Couldn’t.
Her eyes locked on mine. And I saw it all. Shock fading into grief. Grief hardening into rage. Relief flickering underneath like a faulty light. Disbelief warring with the impossible reality standing in her cantina. Years of buried pain hitting her at once.
My whole body went rigid, fighting the instinct to move closer. Pain was like being flayed alive from the inside out. Forced myself to stay still. Stay upright. Don’t move. Don’t push. Give her space. The mission. Protect her. Warn her. Consortium. Coming now.
But she was right there. Alive. Real. Mine. Still mine, after everything.
The bond screamed. Proximity. Touch. Claim. Agony warred with primal instinct. My body didn’t care about the pain. My body wanted its mate. Demanded reconnection.
Stayed where I was. Braced against the agony. Let her decide. Shoot me? Listen? Fair either way. I’d earned the rage.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Voice a thread, barely audible over the station hum. Hoarse.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
True. I should be. Would be, if not for spite and the stubborn refusal to let those bastards win.
Had warnings. Important words. Consortium kill squads, inbound. Imminent danger. Need to warn her. Get her out.
What came out, ripped past the pain: “I got better.”
Stupid. Flippant. Pain response talking. Still true, though.
She stared. Expression unreadable. Cry? Kill me? Possibly both. Fair reactions. Entirely fair.
“Maris— Danger—” The words felt like tearing something inside my throat. Grinding past the pain. “We’ve got to go.”
But we ran out of time. The cantina door exploded inward.
Vibration slammed through the deck plates a millisecond before the sound ripped through the cavern.
Rock dust, pulverized laminate, and twisted plasteel shrapnel filled the air, thick and choking.
The blast wave threw me sideways like a doll.
Hit the floor, tucked, rolled – instinct, eight years of forced combat trials taking over.
Came up on one knee behind an overturned table, weapon already in my hand.
Scales hardened instantly, dull gray-green locking into a protective layer. Combat mode.
Seven hostiles. Counted them through the swirling dust. Four through the ruined doorway, moving low and fast. Three dropping like rock-mites on grav-chutes from ceiling maintenance vents I hadn’t spotted.
Sloppy assessment. Get focused. Professional.
Coordinated. The air filled instantly with the metallic tang of fresh adrenaline – theirs and mine – sharp from discharged weapons sizzling against damp rock walls.
Consortium contractors. Military grade gear.
Weapons up. Scanning. Acquiring targets.
Lead one—human, heavy augments gleaming on both arms—snapped his rifle up, targeting Maris.
No.
The bond screamed protect.
Pure, white-hot imperative. Overrode the agony.
Didn’t think, just moved. Crossed the space between us in two strides.
Grabbed the nearest ferrocrete table – heavy, meant to withstand bar fights, and hurled it end over end.
Felt the satisfying crunch as it hit the lead shooter square in the chest. Armor buckled. He went down hard. I didn’t stop.
Grabbed Maris around the waist, felt the rigid tension in her body, the sudden intake of breath, smelled the sharp spike of her fear mixed with pure, familiar fury and pulled her bodily behind the thick plasteel bar plating just as plasma bolts stitched across the spot where she’d been standing, leaving sizzling scorch marks on the rock behind her.
“Stay down.” Voice a growl. Deep. Resonating in my chest. The bond pain was still there, a searing static under my scales, but combat adrenaline surged, a welcome chemical suppressor. Functional again. More than functional.
“The hell I will.” A blaster appeared in her hand, pulled from a concealed holster under the bar. Of course. “This is my cantina.”
Her remaining security guard returned fire. Good training. He’d found cover behind a thick support pillar, laying down suppression. Pinned the door team momentarily. But the ceiling team was already flanking, dropping silently to the floor on either side of the room.
Saw the angle. Saw their movement through the settling dust. Saw one of her people, a young woman, maybe twenty, pinned behind flimsy booth seating, directly in their line of fire.
I uncoiled, moving faster than he could track.
Hit the first ceiling attacker before he could bring his weapon to bear. Claws extended – not lethally, just enough for disabling grip through the armor joints. Felt armor weave tear, heard the gasp. Grabbed his pulse rifle as he went down and spun low.
Three rounds, center mass, into the second attacker. Impact threw him back against the rough cavern wall. The third got smart, used his grav-chute to ascend rapidly back into the ceiling vents. Rat. Coward.
Plasma fire snapped past my head from the door team.
Felt the heat sear across my shoulder scales.
Burned. Not deep. Ignored it. Young guard was down.
Unconscious. Grabbed her by the back of her vest, threw her bodily behind better cover – an overturned ore cart near the back wall. Solid metal. She’d be safer there.
Maris was moving. Flanking the door team along the far wall, using the jutting rock formations and bolted-on prefab structures as cover. Smart. Always so damn smart. She’d designed this place defensively. Knew every shadow, every angle.
Always loved watching her work. Even now. Especially now.
Heard the sharp crack of her blaster. Twice.
Two of the door team dropped. Clean shots.
Center mass. No hesitation. That long time apart hadn’t dulled her edge.
The other two scrambled for better cover behind the wreckage of the entrance.
Augmented leader – the one I’d hit with the table – was getting back up, shaking his head.
Consortium tech. He was getting up. Annoying.
He saw me, registered the threat. Saw Maris, flanking him. Made a new choice.
He went for her instead.
Wrong choice.