Maris
The augmented merc crumpled at Thoryn’s feet, twitching once before going still against the ruined support column. Silence crashed down, broken only by the crackle of damaged lighting conduits and the ragged sound of my own breathing.
My cantina. Wrecked. Bodies littered the floor, three attackers, two of my own. My gaze landed on the one by the door. Jax. His eyes were open, staring at the cracked ceiling, blaster still clutched in his hand. Dead.
Thoryn turned. He moved so fast I almost missed it, none of the hesitation or pain I’d glimpsed moments before. Scales now smeared with blood. His amber eyes, slitted pupils narrowed, scanned the room, dismissed the dead, found me. The heat rolling off him was almost visible.
I raised my blaster again, centering it on his chest. Habit. Assess the threat. He was the biggest threat in the room. Always had been.
“You came back,” I said. My voice sounded flat in the sudden quiet. Accusing. Stating the impossible fact. “And brought assassins.”
“They were coming anyway.” His voice was a low rumble, deeper than I remembered, rougher. “For you.” He took a step toward me, through the debris. Winced, a sharp breath hissing through his teeth. He pushed through it. “Consortium. Wants your data.”
It made no sense. From my comm, Grevik’s voice crackled – he ran station surveillance feed for me, bless his paranoid efficiency – sharp, urgent. “Boss. More inbound. Station cams show three vehicles converging on Sector Gamma entrance. Armed heavy. Twenty plus.”
Twenty more. Now. When my security forces were at the other side of the station.
Against the remaining handful of guards?
Bad odds. Terrible odds.
I finally looked away from Thoryn. Scanned the wreckage. My empire. Burning before it was even fully built. All that work. All the surviving. For this.
When I looked back, the decision was made. Grief could wait. Survival came first. Always.
“Fine.” My voice was cold again. Back in control. “I’ll come with you.” I holstered my weapon. Felt the weight shift, familiar, grounding. “Later. We talk.”
He just nodded. Once. Sharp. The pain seemed momentarily banked behind pure focus. “Fair.”
I turned to where Vashil was helping one of the wounded guards. Her face was pale, streaked with dust. “Vashil—”
“Boss,” she cut me off, her voice tight. “Grevik’s right. And... Jax. He’s... he’s gone.”
He’d been loyal. None more dedicated. He didn’t deserve to be left, but I’d learned long ago that the dead didn’t care about the living.
“Vashil. Evacuate everyone who can walk. Contingency plan Theta – seal Tunnel Four access behind us! Now! Torch the manifests in the Admin Block vault. Burn everything. Go!”
She met my eyes. Saw the order was final. Nodded. Moved. Good people. Loyal. I hoped they’d make it.
I grabbed my survival pack from behind the bar. Pre-loaded. I also palmed the small, shielded data chip from the hidden panel beneath the counter. My personal backup. I was always ready to run. Just hadn’t expected it to come with a ghost.
I looked at Thoryn. He stood waiting, a massive, scaled wall between me and the door. Ready. “Lead.”
He moved toward the back exit, the one leading into the deeper service tunnels and I fell in beside him. Who knew that habits from almost a decade ago could still feel so right.
“Thoryn.”
He stopped at the tunnel entrance. Looked back at me, his eyes were hard to read in the dim emergency lighting.
“Don’t die again.” My voice was rough. “Doing this once was enough.”
A low sound rumbled in his chest. Almost a chuckle, strangled by pain or maybe something else. “Deal.”
The heavy service door slid open onto a narrow tunnel, rough-hewn rock slick with condensation.
The air hit me, thick with the smell of machine oil, and cold, damp rock dust. I could hear the whine of grav-engines now, close.
Echoing down the main access corridors. They were already inside the station.
We ran.
I led him through the maze I knew better than my own skin, my boots splashing through stale water. The sounds of pursuit echoed from the main concourse behind us, a chaos of shouts and heavy boots on metal. They were clumsy. Loud. But numerous.
I didn’t take the direct route. I took mine. Down a rusted ladder into a ventilation sub-level, through a narrow crawlspace choked with abandoned conduit, and into a section of tunnels marked “Unstable” on all official station schematics. They were stable enough.
He followed without question, his size a liability in the narrow passages. I heard his shoulder scales scrape against the rock, heard the harsh drag of his breathing in the enclosed space. It was too loud. Too ragged.
I stopped at an intersection that looked like a dead end, a solid wall of raw rock. “Here.”
I dropped to my knees, prying at an almost invisible seam near the floor. A hidden panel grated open, revealing darkness. An old emergency maintenance bunker, long since purged from the station’s records. I crawled inside, blaster first.
He squeezed in after me. The space was tiny, maybe three meters square. He barely fit. The panel slid shut, and the heavy magnetic lock engaged with a solid thunk.
Darkness. Then dim emergency lights flickered on, casting the cramped compartment in a pulsing red glow. It smelled like dust and isolation.
I took the far wall, my pack on my lap. He took the opposite, folding his long legs awkwardly. The proximity was immediate. Suffocating. He was too close, maybe a meter and a half away. I could feel the heat rolling off him, a dry, feverish wave.
And I could see him. Really see him.
He was in agony.
Inventory: One Tamzari, severely compromised.
He wasn’t just “pushing through it.” He was sweating heavily, droplets catching the red light. His scales, that sick gray-green, wrongness.
“What’s wrong?” My voice cut through the silence.
He looked up. His amber eyes were too bright, the pupils blown wide.
“The pain.” It wasn’t a question. “Being near me. It hurts you.”
He couldn’t deny it. It was too obvious. He just nodded, his whole body rigid. “Yes.”
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “The bonding instinct. It’s...” He stopped, searching for words. “Wrong now. Twisted.”
Tamzari bonding. We’d talked about it, years ago. Planned for it. Before Kestis Minor. Before everything went to hell. He’d explained how his species bonded for life, how the connection went deeper than human marriage. Physical. Permanent. We’d been ready to try.
Now something had twisted it into a source of pain.
“How?”
“Later.” His voice was rough. “When we’re safe.”
“How bad?”
He looked away. “Bad enough.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were useless.
“Don’t be.” His voice was rough, ground out. “Worth it.”
Worth it? He looked like every nerve was on fire. I processed the implications. “I can keep my distance. Make it easier.”
“No.” The word was too fast, too sharp. Possessive. He tried again, forcing a reason. “Need you close. Can’t protect you... from across the room.”
I stared at him. He was lying. Or, not lying, but twisting the truth. He wanted to be close, even if it was killing him.
“Fine.” I wasn’t going to argue. But the reality of it settled on me like a shroud. He hadn’t just come back from the dead. He’d come back broken. And his broken parts were screaming because of me. “But if you pass out, I’m leaving you.”
It was a lie. We both knew it.
He just nodded. Once. Sharp. His pain seemed to fade behind his focus. “Fair.”
“Now that we have some time, you owe me an explanation. What the hell was that?” I demanded, the adrenaline finally fading, leaving me shaking. “Why are they here? What data?”
Thoryn looked at me, his face grim. “My crew...”
His crew. Of course he had a new crew now.
He didn’t seem to notice the flash of pain that lanced through me.