Chapter 24
KENRON
“Hey, Honey,” Kristi gasps as she staggers into the light. “I’m home…”
I rush up and catch her before she hits the floor. She’s lighter than I remember. Or maybe I’m just running too hot to feel the weight.
Her blood soaks through my shirt, hot and slick and real. My arms are locked around her thighs and shoulders, one of her boots dragging where I couldn’t hook it right. Her breath’s short. Shallow. Wet.
The second I hit the resistance hub’s blast doors, I start shouting.
“Medic! Now! Get me someone with a bag and a fucking pulse!”
The guards scramble. Someone swipes the seal and the door hisses open, stale recycled air hitting me like a wall.
I don’t stop moving.
Kristi’s head lolls against my chest. She mutters something—half words, broken syntax. “—in the bag... the shard... secure it...…”
“I got it, sweetheart. You did good,” I whisper, stepping over crates and past startled volunteers. “You did damn good.”
The med station’s tucked behind the old bar, where liquor used to flow and now adrenaline does. Two field techs are already sliding gloves on. One of them, a Drevia woman with cybernetic eyes, barks, “Lay her flat! Triage kit ready!”
I lower Kristi onto the gurney and instantly feel like I’ve stepped out of my own skin.
She’s there. Pale and bleeding. Chest rising. Just barely.
But I’m across the room already. Watching. Burning.
“Laceration to the femoral region—tourniquet,” the medic says. “Get the coagulant foam!”
“I’m awake,” Kristi rasps. Her hand reaches out, fumbling for my arm. “Ken…”
“I’m here,” I say, gripping her fingers. “I’m right here.”
“Documents… in the lining. Get them… get them to—”
“Shh. Don’t talk. They’re safe. You’re safe now.”
“Not… not until it’s all out.”
Her eyes roll, and her body jerks as pain hits her like a current. One of the techs hits her with a sedative patch. I watch the tension bleed out of her limbs like smoke.
She goes still.
Too still.
For the first time since the war, I feel like a soldier again.
Not a fighter. Not a chef.
Just a man watching someone he loves bleed out while he can’t do a godsdamn thing about it.
I clench my jaw so hard my molars grind. Heat pools behind my eyes, but I shove it back. No room for tears. Not now.
The medics work. I don’t leave. I can’t.
I watch them stitch her. Foam the wound. Check vitals. Recheck them.
And when the lead medic finally looks up and gives me a single nod—I almost collapse.
“She’s stable,” she says.
My knees damn near buckle. But I catch the edge of the table and hold.
“Thank you.”
The medic nods again, already moving to sterilize her tools. Like it’s just another day.
But it’s not.
Not for me.
They let me sit with her once she’s patched up and moved to the back bunk room. The lights are dim. Just enough to cast shadows across her cheekbones. Her skin’s still pale. But she’s breathing easy now. Even. Deep.
I sit on the floor, back against the wall, her bag clutched in my lap like it’s made of gold.
Because it might as well be.
Inside: proof.
The vial. The documents. The order to kill a diplomat.
It’s all there.
I run a hand down my face. My fingers come back slick with sweat and dust.
She risked everything for this.
Bled for this.
And now we have it.
Now it’s war.
Kristi sleeps like she’s been dragged under. No tossing. No murmurs. Just deep, unmoving stillness, the kind that makes you check every few minutes to make sure she’s still breathing.
I do. I check.
Every. Godsdamn. Time.
She’s pale beneath the blankets. Her hair’s damp from sweat, curling at the edges of her brow. One arm bandaged from shoulder to elbow. Her leg’s elevated, the blood washed off but the memory of it still staining my shirt, crusted stiff where I clutched her.
I keep her satchel close, nestled in my lap while I sit on the bunk beside her. I can still smell the gun oil from the documents, still feel the chill that rolled off that nanite vial. Everything inside screams: they were going to kill them all.
Wipe out species. Silence dissent. Make it clean.
Not on my watch. Not ever.
I pull the drive from the bag. My thumb hovers over the input slot of the secure node. I could do it right now. Send it to Sheth Mornin. To Dood Radman. Burn Dennis’s world to the ground with a single keystroke.
But I stop.
My hand trembles, hovering over the port. If I release this now... Dennis will know. He’ll see the leak. And if he sees it before we physically disable the launch mechanism, he might panic. He might trigger the release early just to spite us.
I can’t risk it. Not while the weapon is still live.
I shove the drive back into the satchel. The silence in the room is a beast gnawing on my spine.
The truth is here. In my hands. But we have to time the strike perfectly.
I stand up. Walk to the weapons locker. Open it. Inside: my old gear. From the war. Wrapped in oilcloth, still sharp. My cooking knives beside my stun baton. Blades I haven’t touched since I swore I’d never kill again.
But this isn’t about killing. It’s about surviving. About protecting.
I unroll the wrap. Touch the hilt of my Vakutan plasma blade. The edge still hums. Still remembers blood. I remember it too. But I sheath it.
And as I slide a dagger into my boot and tuck a coil grenade onto my hip, I whisper the same vow I made the first time I saw her fall asleep beside me:
“If Novaria burns, I walk through the fire with you.”