Maris
Iinventoried what I had: Two bio-sealer cartridges. One coagulant pack. Three sterilization wipes. A small tube of synth-skin. Two doses of broad-spectrum antibiotic. One painkiller injector.
I inventoried what I needed: A full surgical bay. A trauma surgeon. About six liters of compatible blood. A gods-damned miracle.
This was going to be a problem.
I crossed back to Thoryn. He’d leaned against the wall, his head tilted back, his eyes closed. His scales flickered in the bad light. Gray-green. Then a flash of something else. Then gray-green again. Like a signal trying to get through a broken transmitter.
“I need to see the wounds,” I said.
He opened his eyes. They were completely exhausted.
“The shoulder first,” I said.
He shifted. Peeled his jacket off with his left hand. His right arm moved stiffly, and he made a sound low in his throat when the fabric pulled away from the plasma burn.
The edges were inflamed. Angry red around the burn site, the scales melted and fused into the damaged tissue. The bio-sealer I’d used before had held, but barely. Infection had started anyway.
Of course it had. We’d been running for hours. He’d been fighting. He’d been bleeding.
And I’d been close to him the entire time, forcing his altered biology to tear itself apart.
I opened the coagulant pack. “This is going to hurt.”
“Everything hurts.” His voice was flat. Matter-of-fact.
Fair point.
I pressed the coagulant into the wound. It fizzed on contact, a chemical reaction that forced the blood vessels to clamp down. Thoryn went absolutely still. Didn’t make a sound. Just locked every muscle and endured.
I counted to ten. Pulled the pack away. The bleeding had stopped.
I grabbed the bio-sealer. This was the expensive one. The kind that cost more than most people made in a month. The kind that could seal a sucking chest wound and keep someone alive long enough to get them to a real surgeon.
I had two cartridges. He had two wounds.
I pressed the applicator to the burn and squeezed the trigger. The gel spread across the damaged tissue, hardening on contact into a flexible seal. It would hold. For now.
“The side,” I said.
He leaned forward. Lifted his shirt.
The cut on his side was worse than I’d thought. Blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage I’d tied earlier, and when I peeled it away, fresh blood welled up.
I grabbed the second coagulant pack. I braced my hand on his uninjured shoulder to hold him steady. Pressed the pack in. Counted to ten again.
He went rigid. And under my palm, I saw it. The “glitch” from the fueling depot. His scales flickered, but right under my hand, the emerald scale flashed. It was stronger this time, holding for a full second before the gray slammed back down.
I finished sealing the wound, but my mind was racing. I didn’t dismiss it this time. It wasn’t a glitch. It was a response. I understood that my touch, while causing pain, was also fighting the conditioning. The true bond was answering me.
I used the last of the synth-skin to cover it. Injected the antibiotic into his thigh.
There. Done. He wouldn’t die in the next six hours.
Probably.
From where I knelt beside the cot I was close enough to see the individual scales on his jaw. Close enough to see the thin line of fresh blood seeping through the synth-skin on his side.
Suddenly his scales went wild. Flickering. Shifting. A cascade of colors trying to break through and failing. Gray-green. Then emerald. Then gray-green. Emerald. Gray. Emerald. Gray.
Faster. Faster.
“Maris, please—”
I lifted my hand toward his uninjured shoulder. Hesitated an inch away.
He caught my wrist. His grip was weak, shaking, but deliberate. And instead of pushing me away, he pulled my hand down. Pressed my palm against his shoulder. Held it there.
The scales under my palm flashed brilliant emerald.
And held.
I stared. The rest of his scales were still flickering, still fighting the gray conditioning. But under my hand, a patch of scales the size of my palm had locked into deep, jewel-toned emerald. The bonded color. The real color.
His grip on my wrist tightened. Holding my hand in place even as his breathing stopped. Then started again, ragged and desperate.
“Thoryn—”
“Don’t.” His voice was strangled. “Need to... see if...”
The emerald patch held for one second. Two. Three.
Then the gray slammed back down.
He made a sound like he’d been gut-shot. His entire body convulsed. His back arched off the cot. But his hand stayed locked around my wrist, keeping my palm pressed to his shoulder through the agony.
I tried to pull back. He held on for another heartbeat, then his grip failed and his hand fell away.
He collapsed against the wall, gasping. Shaking.
“I’m sorry,” I said. The words came out automatic. Useless.
“Don’t.” He forced his eyes open. “Don’t apologize.”
“I’m making it worse.”
“No.” His voice was hoarse. “You’re helping me fight it.”
I looked at my hand. At the place where I’d touched him. Where his scales had remembered what they were supposed to be.
The gray was the Consortium. The conditioning. The eight years of torture designed to break his bond.
The emerald was him. Was us. Was the bond trying to complete itself despite everything they’d done.
And when I touched him, my half of the bond answered his. My side was undamaged. Healthy. Reaching for him.
His side was broken. Conditioned to reject the connection. To punish him for wanting it.
But the emerald had flashed. Had held. Had proven that underneath the conditioning, the real bond was still there. Still fighting.
Still possible.
I stood. Moved back to my cot. Put five feet of cold air between us.
His breathing evened out. The scales stopped flickering quite so violently.
The drip of condensation filled the silence. Drip. Drip. Drip.
I pulled out the data chips. Two of them now. I turned them over in my hands, feeling the weight of all those years of shipping records. The evidence that would prove I’d been a slaver. That I’d helped the Consortium...
“We need the third chip,” I said.
Thoryn nodded. Didn’t open his eyes.
I ran the numbers. The third cache was in The Fortress, the old central command core I’d claimed as my deep-level insurance. The most secure location I owned. Which meant it was now the most dangerous location on The Quarry.
Vashil would know about it. Of course she did. She’d been my lieutenant for six years. She knew every cache, every safe house, every contingency plan.
She’d be waiting.
But we needed that chip. Three caches. Three pieces of the puzzle. Without all three, the data was useless.
I tried to study Thoryn like a puzzle. Looked at the bio-sealer covering his shoulder. At the synth-skin on his side. At the way his chest rose and fell, too shallow, too fast.
He was on a ticking clock. The wounds were sealed, but the infection had already started. Without a real medbay, without proper treatment, he had maybe a day before the infection went systemic.
Maybe less.
“How long do we have?” he asked.
“Before Vashil finds us?” I checked my stolen security feed on my datapad. “Four hours before they finish sweeping the upper levels and start down here.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
His steady gaze watched me, and I knew he already knew the answer. Was waiting for me to accept it.
“A day,” I said. “Maybe two if we’re lucky.”
“We’re not lucky.”
“No.”
He smiled. Small. Tired. “Then we’d better get moving.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he needed rest, needed time to let the bio-sealer set, needed to stop trying to protect me and focus on not dying.
But I’d run the numbers. Four hours until the patrols reached us. One day until his wounds went critical. Zero options for safety.
The only way out was through.
“Four hours,” I said. “We rest for four hours. Then we move on The Fortress.”
“And if Vashil’s there?”
“Then we go through her.”
Thoryn’s smile widened. Just slightly. “I like your plans.”
“My plans are terrible.”
“I know.” He shifted on the cot, settling into something that might be comfort if comfort existed in this place. “Still like them.”
I set an alarm on my datapad. Four hours.
I lay down on my cot. The metal frame pressed into my back. The emergency light flickered overhead. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Thoryn’s breathing evened out. Not sleep. Just rest. His scales had stopped flickering quite so badly. The gray was solid now. Locked in.
But I’d seen the emerald. Seen it flash and hold under my touch.
The Consortium had tried to break him. They’d failed.
His bond was still there. Still fighting. Still reaching for me even though every attempt caused him agony.
Still worth it.
I closed my eyes. Counted the drips. Counted the seconds. Counted the ways this could go wrong.
Four hours.
Then we’d see if spite was enough to survive whatever came after my empire.