11
RORY
Eight days left on my contract, and the war was almost over.
Krenix hadn't surrendered after the Grand Melee—technically, the honor code allowed him to continue fighting as long as he held any disputed territory, but his forces had pulled back to the far western edge of the valley, a thin strip of rocky terrain with minimal strategic value.
His soldiers were demoralized. His supply lines were stretched.
Three of his junior officers had formally requested transfer, which was apparently the Velkorin equivalent of a vote of no confidence.
We'd won. Not officially, not on paper, but everyone knew it. The Council had convened a special session to formally recognize the tactical achievements of the Fourth Division, and for the first time in three years, Vrex stood before the Council receiving commendation instead of criticism.
I watched from the observer gallery, wearing borrowed Velkorin formal attire that Zenir insisted I needed—a deep bronze tunic over dark pants, with a collar that sat high on my throat in the Velkorin style.
Zenir had adjusted it three times, muttering about human proportions, before declaring it "adequate. "
"The Council recognizes the extraordinary contributions of Commander Talon's division," the Council Chair announced. "And notes, for the record, the effective utilization of external consultation."
External consultation. That was me. Reduced to a euphemism so the Council didn't have to say "the human from the paintball arena won our war."
Vrex accepted the commendation with a formal grace that came naturally to him and the carefully hidden exhaustion that only I could read.
His appearance was polished to a deep shine—formal grooming, Zenir had told me, usually reserved for ceremonial occasions.
The bronze undertones caught the chamber's light, making him look like he'd been cast from precious metal.
Eight days. In eight days, the Bureau's transport would activate, and I would be returned to my apartment in Scranton, to my couch with my Netflix queue, to Battlezone Arena and Kyle and cold pad thai and a life where nobody noticed me.
I hadn't let myself think about it. There was always another engagement to plan, another training session to run, another late night in the war room with Vrex where we sat too close and talked too long and pretended the countdown wasn't happening.
But the Council session ended, and the soldiers filed out. I was standing in the corridor outside the chamber when a holographic projection materialized directly in front of me.
"Ms. Sullivan! Wonderful news." The dispatcher's hologram flickered with its budget-quality rendering. "Your contract assessment indicates successful resolution of the primary objective. Preliminary transport scheduling has been initiated. Return to Earth in seven standard days!"
The floor tilted under me. Not literally—Velkorin architecture was extremely well-constructed, but something in my chest dropped like a stone.
"Seven days," I repeated.
"Seven days! Well within the contracted thirty-day window. The Bureau thanks you for your service and notes that your customer satisfaction survey will be delivered upon return. Your feedback is very important to us."
"Can the contract be extended?"
"Extended?" The dispatcher's tone suggested I had asked whether gravity could be politely rescheduled. "Extensions require supplemental funding authorization. Current budget allocation for human consultation is—" She paused. "—not available for extension."
"What about staying voluntarily? Without the Bureau contract?"
"Voluntary extended planetary residence requires immigration processing through the Intergalactic Residency Bureau, which is a separate agency with a current processing time of six to eight standard months. You would need to return to Earth during the processing period."
Six to eight months back on Earth, waiting. No guarantee of approval. No way to contact Vrex—Earth's communications infrastructure wasn't connected to the intergalactic network, and the Bureau's comm systems were, predictably, not available outside contracted service periods.
"Thank you," I said, because there was nothing else to say.
The hologram vanished.
I stood in the corridor and felt the walls close in. Not physically—the corridor was ten feet wide and twelve feet tall, but the space I'd carved out for myself in this world, the space where I mattered and was listened to and was wanted, was shrinking by the day.
"Rory."
Vrex was behind me. He'd heard. His scales were dim—his flinch response—and his bioluminescence had gone flat and cold.
"Seven days," I said.
"I will contact the Bureau. There must be—"
"He said there's no budget for extensions."
"Then I will fund it personally—"
"And immigration takes six to eight months."
He went very still. I could see his Velkorin warrior mind working at maximum speed while his body locked down.
"Do you want to stay?" he asked.
The question was simple. The answer was not.
Because yes—yes, with every part of me that had spent the last three weeks feeling alive for the first time in years.
Yes, because this place had given me something I'd never had on Earth—purpose, respect, a community that valued what I brought to the table.
Yes, because Vrex looked at me like that.
But also—my family. My sister, who texted me articles about career paths because she cared, even if she didn't understand. My parents, who loved me in their way. My apartment, my car, my life—small and frustrating and unfulfilling, but mine.
"I don't know," I said. It was the most honest thing I'd ever said—and also the most cowardly.
Vrex's jaw tightened. The bioluminescent marks on his arms flickered once—he was hurt.
"The contract specified thirty days," he said. His voice had shifted. The wall went back up. "Seven days remain. We should ensure the remaining tactical objectives are completed before your departure."
"Vrex—"
"The western territory is not yet secured. Krenix's remaining forces—"
"Don't do that. Don't go back behind that wall."
"I am not—"
"You are. You're getting formal and talking about tactical objectives because you don't want to talk about what's actually happening."
"What is actually happening is that you are leaving in seven days, and you do not know if you want to stay." His voice was controlled, but the undertone was raw. "That is clear. I do not require further clarification."
"That's not what I said—"
"You said you do not know. On Velkorin, that has a very specific meaning. It means the answer is no, but you do not wish to cause offense by saying so."
"I'm not Velkorin!"
"No. You are not."
The words felt like a slap. Not because they were cruel, but because they were true.
I wasn't Velkorin. I was a human, from Earth, with a thirty-day contract that was running out and a life waiting for me on the other side.
And the man standing in front of me—this seven-foot alien warrior with glowing scales—deserved someone who could say yes without hesitation.
"I need to think," I said.
"Then think." He stepped back. The distance between us felt like a canyon. "I will be in the command center."
I went to my quarters and sat on the floor. The cold metal was grounding. I needed to be grounded. I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my back against the wall and let myself feel it.
The worst part wasn't the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy I could fight—I'd spent six years navigating the labyrinth of Battlezone's corporate ownership, submitting maintenance requests in triplicate, arguing with insurance adjusters who'd never set foot in a paintball arena. Paperwork was a solvable problem.
The worst part was the look on his face when I'd said I don't know.
The way his bioluminescence had guttered.
That single flicker of hurt, there and gone, controlled so fast that someone who hadn't spent three weeks learning to read him would have missed it entirely.
But I didn't miss it. I saw him close down.
And I'd stood there and let him walk away because I was too scared to say what I actually meant.
I'd done this before. Not with an alien commander on a distant planet—obviously—but the pattern was familiar.
Someone gave me the chance to say what I wanted, and I choked.
My sister offered to help me apply to four-year colleges.
I don't know, Jess, maybe. My last boyfriend asked if I wanted to move in together.
I don't know, let me think about it. My manager at the arena before Battlezone asked if I wanted the promotion. I don't know, am I qualified?
"I don't know" was my safety net. My emergency exit. The words I said when the real answer—yes, God, yes, more than anything—felt too dangerous to speak.
Because if you said yes and it didn't work out, you couldn't pretend you hadn't wanted it. You couldn't protect yourself with ambivalence. You'd wanted it, you'd reached for it, and it had been taken away. That was a wound that didn't heal. I knew because I had a drawer full of them.
I cried. Not the quiet, dignified tears of someone processing sadness, but the ugly, gasping kind that comes from the gut and sounds terrible and leaves you dehydrated and exhausted.
The metal walls of my quarters bounced the sound back at me.
I was grateful that Velkorin architecture was soundproofed.
When the worst of it passed, I sat in the quiet and took stock.
Seven days. My contract was ending. The Bureau had no budget for extensions. Immigration processing took six to eight months and required me to return to Earth during the wait. No intergalactic phone plan. No guarantee of approval.
Option one. I could go home. Back to Scranton, to my apartment, to Battlezone and Kyle and the fluorescent-lit repetition of a life that had been slowly suffocating me for years.
Option two. I could fight. File the immigration paperwork. Go back to Earth for six to eight months of silence, not knowing if I'd be approved, not able to contact Vrex, holding on to everything I'd found here—in a world that had no idea any of it existed.
Option three. There had to be something I hadn't thought of yet. Some creative loophole, some honor-code-style reading of the fine print, some solution that existed in the space between the rules.
I was good at option three. I just couldn't see it yet.
There was a knock at my door, lighter than Vrex's. His knock was heavy, the knock of someone who telegraphed their presence as a courtesy.
"It's Zenir."
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. It didn't help much. "Come in."
Zenir entered, assessed me with a single glance—puffy eyes, tear-streaked face, sitting on the floor emotionally collapsed, and without a word, sat down beside me.
For a full minute, she said nothing. Just sat with me. The silence was companionable in a way I hadn't expected from someone whose primary conversational mode was blunt tactical assessment.
"He is in the command center," she said finally. "Staring at the tactical display. He has been staring at the same display for forty minutes. He is not reading it."
"I know."
"He does this when he is processing grief.
He did it for three days after his parents' deaths were confirmed.
He did it for two days when the Council rejected his first campaign proposal.
" She paused. "He has been doing it for forty minutes.
By Velkorin standards, this is an accelerated recovery. He is either adapting or in shock."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"It was not intended to make you feel better. It was intended to give you accurate information." She looked at me with those sharp amber eyes. Zenir's eyes were slightly lighter than Vrex's, more gold than amber, and they missed nothing. "You had a disagreement."
"I told him I didn't know if I wanted to stay. And he heard that as no."
"Because in our culture, it would be."
"I'm not Velkorin."
"He said the same thing." She tilted her head. She was choosing her next words carefully, which for Zenir was unusual. She typically chose words the way she chose weapons—efficiently, with intent to hit the target. "Rory. Do you want to stay?"
"Yes." The answer came out without thinking. The truth I'd been too scared to say to the person who needed to hear it. "I want to stay. I'm scared of how much I want to stay."
"What frightens you?"
"Everything. Giving up my whole life for something that might not work out. Being wrong. Wanting something this much and losing it. I've been playing it safe for so long that wanting something feels like standing on the edge of a cliff."
"Hmm." Zenir considered this. "When Commander Talon took this campaign, he gave up a promotion that would have advanced his career by a decade.
He was offered a position at Central Command—prestigious and safe, the kind of appointment most officers spend their careers pursuing.
His peers told him taking the valley campaign was a mistake.
That the war was unwinnable. That he was letting grief make his decisions. "
She paused.
"He took the campaign anyway. And he was right.
Not because the valley is worth more than a promotion.
But because he could not live with himself if he did not try.
" She looked at me, her expression almost gentle.
"You and the commander are more alike than either of you realizes.
You are both so accustomed to sacrifice that you have forgotten that wanting is allowed. "
My throat closed. I pressed my face against my knees and breathed through the ache.
"He will not ask you to stay," Zenir said.
"He will not pressure you. He will let you leave, and he will carry the loss the way he carries everything—silently and at great cost, without complaint.
That is who he is." She put her hand on my shoulder.
"The question is not whether he wants you to stay.
The question is whether you will let yourself want it enough to fight for it. "
"I want it."
"Then go talk to him. And this time, say what you mean."
I nodded and wiped my face. I stood up—my legs were shaky, but they held.
Before I could reach the door, the base's alarm system erupted.
Red light. Klaxons. The deep, bone-shaking pulse that meant combat alert. Zenir was on her feet instantly, her hand on her sidearm, her comm activating.
"Report," she barked.
The response came through garbled and panicked. Krenix's forces had launched a full assault. Not a scheduled engagement. Not a negotiated battle. A full, unauthorized attack on the central compound, in direct violation of the ceasefire that had been informally observed since the Grand Melee.
And the compound's defense systems were not responding.
Sabotage again. But this time, it wasn't the training equipment.
This time, Therak had given Krenix everything.