Chapter 18
VAEL
Pain is a better companion than silence.
At least it doesn’t lie to me.
The weights strain against my rebuilt shoulder as I push through another rep. The servo in my left arm hisses—overloaded—but I grit my teeth and press harder. Sweat drips from my brow, pooling on the mat below me.
The training deck is mostly empty. The lights dimmed, the hum of grav-stabilizers low and steady. It’s late. Everyone else is either sleeping or pretending to. I can’t afford either luxury.
Not tonight.
“Still think you’re invincible?” Kael’s voice cuts across the silence like a plasma torch.
He’s leaning against the wall, arms folded, a towel slung around his neck like he owns the place. His eyes flick to the readout on my vitals display.
“You’re overclocking again,” he says. “The med techs are gonna have a stroke.”
“They should’ve programmed me better then,” I grunt, dropping the weights with a sharp clang.
Kael saunters over, tossing me a hydration pack. “You’ve been pushing like this for three days. What are you chasing?”
I don’t answer.
“Or are you running?” he adds, brow arched.
I shoot him a look.
He just shrugs. “Look, I’m not your therapist. But I’ve been down the hole before. Got the scars to prove it.”
I squeeze the hydration pouch, gulping it down, trying to silence the storm behind my ribs.
“She let you hold her, huh?”
That stops me.
I turn slowly.
Kael doesn’t smile. Doesn’t smirk. He’s just… watching me.
“I hear things,” he says. “Med center gossip is louder than a gunship engine. Word is, you’ve got a mate and a cub under this roof.”
“I don’t know what I have,” I say finally, the words sandpaper against my throat.
“You’ve got a second chance,” Kael replies. “Don’t waste it acting like a lone-warrior stereotype. You know how those stories end.”
I let the silence stretch, heavy and full.
Then I mutter, “I might not be here much longer.”
Kael’s eyes narrow. “You planning on skipping out?”
“I’m planning on surviving.”
“No, you’re planning on running,” he says, stepping closer. “I get it. You’re scared. You’ve got a past full of fire and ghosts and now suddenly you’ve got a future again. But instead of facing it, you’re looking for an exit.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“Yeah, but you needed it.”
I exhale through my nose. He’s not wrong. That’s the worst part.
“You think she’ll be better off without you?” Kael asks. “You think your cub’ll grow up stronger with a mother carrying this secret alone, always looking over her shoulder?”
“She was never supposed to raise her alone.”
“But she did,” he snaps. “And you’re here now. Don’t throw that away.”
Later, when the station finally settles into its nightly rhythm, I walk the halls like a shadow. Every step feels too loud, every breath too sharp. I pause outside their door, palms slick, heart pounding.
Rynn opens it before I knock.
She looks exhausted. Pale. Beautiful.
“She's asleep,” she says, voice low.
“Just for a moment,” I ask.
Rynn doesn’t answer. But she steps aside.
Nessa is curled under a blanket shaped like a solar bear, one foot poking out, her hair a wild halo around her face. Her little chest rises and falls in slow, steady rhythm.
I crouch beside the couch and reach out—hesitating just before I touch her.
Then gently, so gently, I lift her into my arms.
She’s warm.
Small.
Real.
Her head lolls against my chest, cheek pressed to my collarbone.
For a long time, I just sit there. Holding her. Breathing her in.
She stirs once, half-mumbling, “You smell like warm metal.”
I huff a laugh, soft and broken. My arms tighten instinctively.
It’s the first time I’ve laughed since I woke up on this godsdamned station.
Rynn sits across from me, watching. Quiet. I don’t meet her eyes.
Because if I do, I’ll fall apart.
I’ve spent my whole life making exit strategies. You don’t survive three campaigns and a black site capture without knowing when the trap is about to spring.
This trap? It’s coiled and twitching.
Tarek’s orders came in coded and slick. A field reassignment. Sudden, too sudden. Not a test—they don’t do tests with ghosts like me. This is leverage. This is checkmate.
Unless I flip the board.
“You’re serious,” Rynn says, voice low and tight as she double-checks the reinforced door seals in her quarters.
“Dead serious,” I tell her.
She shakes her head, arms folded so tight they might snap. “You want to fake your death?”
“No. I want to give them what they already think they own—my corpse. Just on my terms.”
We’re alone. Nessa’s tucked away with Drel under a sleep stim in the lower med tier. Rynn insisted. Said she didn’t want her daughter hearing any more arguments tonight. I don’t argue back. I don’t want her to, either.
“Vael, this is madness,” she hisses. “You’ve been cleared for physical reactivation for, what, a week? Now you want to stage a fatal accident?”
“I don’t want to,” I reply, voice steady. “But I’ve run the variables. There’s no way we vanish clean—not with Tarek crawling through our comms. We’ve got one shot. And it has to be dirty.”
She turns her back to me, palms braced on the edge of her console. The glow of her holoscreen bleeds across her fingers, casting her in a cold blue shimmer.
She’s silent for a long beat.
“Why now?” she whispers.
“Because if we wait, he’ll come for her.” I don’t say her name. I don’t have to. It’s carved behind my teeth like prayer. “And because I’m tired of hiding.”
That makes her whip around, eyes gleaming with a thousand unshed truths.
“And you think I’m not?” she snaps. “I’ve lived like this for five cycles. Looking over my shoulder, rewriting registry logs, fabricating DNA data. I’ve slept in clothes so I could run if the wrong knock came. You think I like hiding?”
“No,” I answer. “But I think it’s all you’ve known since me.”
That hits.
She sucks in a breath, sharp as a blade.
I walk toward her. Slow. Deliberate.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” I say. “I’m asking you to trust the man who bled for this family even before he knew it existed.”
Her voice breaks. “I can’t lose you again.”
“You won’t,” I swear. “Because this time, I choose the fall.”
We plan through the night.
Rynn pulls up escape charts and local sector drift patterns. She’s better at logistics than I am, always was. I work the blackout routes—deep grid tunnels where even Alliance sensors glitch. Drel feeds us archival access codes—some forged, some stolen.
Kael brings the wildcard.
“You owe me two field sim points for this,” he mutters, dropping a burner compad on the table.
“I’ll owe you a dozen,” I say.
“Damn right.”
The plan takes shape like a wound: ugly, but necessary.
The sim run will be broadcast in the morning. Tactical drills, fast evac scenarios. Perfect cover. During the maneuver, my evac harness will trigger a surge spike—looks like a core overload. Enough to fake telemetry loss. Enough to let me slip.
Rynn’s job is harder.
She has to lie.
To her coworkers. To the station. To Nessa.
She has to play the grieving partner while she sets fire to every trace of our existence.
She doesn’t flinch when I ask.
But she doesn’t agree out loud, either.
The night before the run, I find her standing by Nessa’s bed.
She’s not touching her.
Just looking.
The kid sleeps like a warrior—one arm thrown across her head, tiny fists curled like she’s ready for a fight.
“You still think we shouldn’t run?” Rynn asks without looking at me.
“No,” I answer. “I think we run smarter. And this time, we run toward something.”
Her head tilts, just barely.
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we go down trying to build her a world where she doesn’t have to hide.”
The silence stretches.
Then Rynn murmurs, “She deserves better than shadows.”
I cross the room, place a hand on her back.
“She deserves firelight,” I say. “And stars.”