Chapter 29
KRISTI
The air in the hospital ward is too clean. Too still. It smells of antiseptic and plastic, a sterile hush that doesn’t match the storm ripping across the planet outside. The pale tubes, the soft whir of med-tech, the broken hum of my thoughts—all of it blends into a haze of victory and loss.
I’m sitting by Kenron’s bed, and he’s asleep—finally gone limp, his breathing even, the blaster graze at his side wrapped and dressed, machines beeping quietly near his head.
He looks peaceful. He looks real. And a piece of me aches because the man behind that steel shell deserves more than a hospital cot and pain meds.
My chair is too small. My body still trembles from running through fire. I feel the weight of the shard in my belt, its presence heavy at my waist, a cold reminder of what we unleashed. I didn’t expect the truth to hit the world like a hammer. I only hoped.
But Novaria Prime felt it. The tremors started in the lower city—the protest shouts, the street broadcasts, alien communities pouring into digital squares in every language.
The holonet exploded. Dennis Montana, arrested by planetary security, confronted his crimes live amid the flicker of monitors.
Guards cuffed him in the loading bay, the evidence still streaming across every screen, still clicking in and out of the circuits by that shard we planted.
I saw the council convene. Emergency reforms. Earth First supporters scattering like dust in a hurricane. I logged every shift in the atmosphere—every tremor of fear under power, every sigh of relief in the sectors we freed. All of it triumph. All of it real.
And yet, I’m here by his side, holding Kenron’s massive hand. His fingers twitch in sleep, and I feel the callouses I used to fight beside. I feel the warmth of his skin, the faint scent of spice and steel he never managed to wash away.
“What comes after,” he whispered once before the pain meds took him, “is what we do with what we’ve saved.”
Shockingly simple. And terrifying.
I lean over and press my lips to his knuckles.
“You did it,” I say. My voice catches.
He doesn’t move.
But that’s fine.
The monitors beep. A nurse walks by, asking if I need anything. I shake my head, fingers tightening around his. I don’t want “anything.” I just want him.
Outside, the city hums differently. I can’t hear the crowds from here, but I feel their ripple. The tiles in the plaza vibrating even now from the pulse of change. The air tastes fresher—oh gods, I thought it did—and maybe for the first time in years, I believe things can heal.
Yet, I still taste salt in the back of my throat. Not from tears—at least not this time. From the memory of blood on concrete tiles, from the stench of power rotting beneath the festivals. From the cost of knowing.
Kenron stirs, his thumb brushing against my fingers. I count every scar on his hand, every line that mapped a war none of us asked for.
“Hey,” I whisper.
His eyelids flutter. He opens them slow. Blue-grey eyes, swollen. He smirks, just a flicker.
“Thought you might leave me here,” he mumbles.
“When you can walk out of this with me, I will.”
His hand squeezes mine. The bed pagers near his shoulder beep and flash. I ignore them. For now, this room holds us. And for now, that’s enough.
There’s a buzzing in my ear—my commpad sparking to life. I pull it out and look at the screen: holonet headlines scrolling.
“Montana Arrested Live! Festival Attack Foiled!”
“Planetary Security Initiates Council Reform!”
“Alien Sectors Liberated—Holonet Files Show Hidden Genocide Plot!”
Pinned at the top: a still frame of Kenron and I in the plaza, garb pulled tight, blades hidden, resolve blazing. Ghosts become heroes.
I tap the headline. A clip starts playing—crowds screaming, canisters failing, drones crashing, the stage lights dying mid-blessing, and then the dock mutiny—live stream ends with a shot of Dennis’s cuffed profile and the shard shining in Kristi’s hand.
My chest tightens.
We did this.
I scroll further. Reaction from sectors. Alien communities flooding safe-zones. Earth First strongholds collapsing from within. The ripple we started is rolling outward—and I’m part of it.
Kenron shifts and the bed squeaks. A nurse hovers again.
“Can I get her anything?”
“No,” I say firmly.
She nods, steps back.
When the door clicks shut I lean back. I pull the shawl from my shoulders and straighten it over Kenron. It still smells of smoke from the hub and staleness from the stairwell but there’s a note of freedom in it now. A badge.
The light in the ward shifts around midmorning, filtering through polarized glass in long, slanted stripes that paint Kenron’s face gold and shadow. He’s still out cold, machines humming soft beside him, his chest rising in slow, shallow breaths. I haven’t left since they wheeled him in. Not once.
My body aches, but it’s that kind of pain you don’t fight. It’s the price of still being here. The cost of making it out.
I sit curled in the plastic chair, his hand wrapped in mine, thumb tracing the ridged scars I know by heart now. My head rests on the mattress edge. I should sleep. But I’m scared if I blink too long, I’ll miss it.
Then, just past the noon hour, he stirs.
It starts with a twitch—fingers flexing like they’re remembering what it means to hold, to fight, to live. Then a groan, low and gravelly, slips from his chest.
I bolt upright, eyes wide. “Kenron?”
He blinks. Slow. Bleary. Like he’s rising from underwater. Then his lips crack open and he mutters, hoarse and dry:
“You didn’t run.”
It’s not a question. It’s a benediction.
And just like that, I laugh. Loud, ugly, relieved. My throat tightens around it, and tears spill hot and fast down my cheeks.
“I didn’t,” I whisper, clutching his hand like it’s the only thing tethering me to the planet. “You’re stuck with me now.”
He tries to smirk, but it pulls at the stitched side of his mouth. His nose scrunches in protest. “Guess that makes me lucky.”
“Damn right it does,” I say, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve, not caring how I look. “You should see the other guy.”
He grunts, then winces. “Remind me to let you do the stabbing next time.”
I lean in, pressing my forehead to his. “You almost died.”
“You would’ve brought me back,” he says without missing a beat.
“Cocky bastard.”
His fingers curl around mine. We just breathe for a while. No explosions. No alarms. No poisoned sky. Just two fools who made it.
“I quit,” I say into the silence.
His eyes slide open again, brows low and curious. “What?”
“The archives. I turned in my credentials. Formally. Finally.” I shrug. “There’s no going back to that life. Not after this.”
He hums, like he’s thinking that through. “They probably boxed your office already.”
“I hope so,” I laugh. “They can keep my chair. That thing was cursed.”
His lips twitch in something close to a smile. “So what now?”
I take a deep breath, feel the weight of what’s coming settle on my shoulders again. “I testified yesterday. Before the tribunal. Gave them everything. The shard. The data. My own account. They’re holding emergency hearings. Global, not just planetary. People are watching.”
“Good,” he says, like it’s an order fulfilled.
“But that’s not all.” I shift in the seat, square my shoulders. “I’m launching something new. A foundation. Dedicated to interspecies justice. Cultural preservation. Reparative research.”
He whistles. “Damn.”
“I’m calling it The Shard Initiative.”
His brow rises. “Nice name.”
“It’ll be messy,” I add. “Dangerous, even. There are still Earth First sympathizers out there. Still rot in the system. But this… this could be a real step.”
He squeezes my hand again. “Does it come with hazard pay?”
“No,” I grin. “But it might come with a restaurant.”
He blinks. “A what?”
I lean closer, brushing hair off his forehead. “Only if the chef still wants me around.”
His lips find mine before he answers. It’s soft, but steady. A promise written in touch, not words. He tastes like antiseptic and spice and all the things I never knew I needed until now.
When we break apart, he’s grinning.
“You’re gonna make a terrible sous chef.”
“Then I’ll wash dishes.”
“I’ll burn the pasta on purpose,” he mutters, eyes fluttering shut again.
I sit back and let him rest. Outside the window, Novaria Prime begins again. Not clean. Not perfect. But better.
And for the first time in a long, long time, I believe we can build something worth keeping. Together.