Chapter 24 Lia
LIA
And it didn’t.
No one speaks.
Not even Tomas, who usually fills silence the way lungs fill with air after panic does. The chamber stays exactly as it is. The panels are dim, the lights steady, the systems settled into an unnerving calm that suggests the ship has already done what it came to do.
The recording is gone, but it hasn’t left us.
I feel it pressed behind my eyes, like a weight that doesn’t belong to my body but refuses to move.
Commander Madeleine Ortiz. Maddy. Human. Here. On Tajss.
It’s a truth that rearranges everything. Everything.
Before the Devastation—has to be.
Long enough ago that her name became dust without ever becoming a story. My thoughts keep clawing for a way back to before, and there isn’t one.
Everything I thought I understood was wrong, and the new shape of the world won’t stop shifting.
Rakkh’s hand is wrapped around mine.
I don’t remember when that happened, but at some point, his fingers closed around my hand and I didn’t pull away. His grip isn’t tight. It’s firm in that deliberate way that says I am here, not you belong to me. The difference matters. I feel it in my bones.
Tomas finally exhales, a shaky sound that breaks the tension like a crack in ice. He scrubs both hands over his face, dragging them down slowly.
“She was human,” he repeats quietly. It is not disbelief now, at least—more something closer to awe. Or grief. “She was really human.”
“Yes,” I say. My voice sounds steadier than I feel. “She was.”
Travnyk turns slightly, his tusks catching the ambient light as he studies the panel where Maddy’s image had been. He doesn’t touch it. He doesn’t need to.
“This explains much,” he murmurs.
Rakkh’s thumb shifts once against my knuckles.
A small movement. Grounding. I glance at him without turning my head fully, and the look in his eyes steals what little breath I have left.
He isn’t angry. He isn’t confused. He looks…
recalibrated. As if something fundamental inside him has been forced to change shape.
“Humans were never part of our stories,” he says slowly. “This… how did…” He shakes his head, light dancing off his horns. “How did I not know? How is this possible? Your kind… you were not part of Tajss.”
“We weren’t,” Tomas says weakly. “According to our stories we barely survived leaving Earth.”
“And yet she did long before,” Rakkh replies. His gaze flicks back to the panel. “She came here. She built this. And she trusted some of us.”
The way he says trusted lands heavier because I realize, with a strange tightening in my chest, that Rakkh isn’t looking at me the same way he did before.
It’s not worse or better or… it’s just… different.
The only way it makes sense is if it’s like the ground under his feet has shifted and he’s already adapting.
Whatever the reason for it, it makes something inside me ache.
The ship hums a low, almost imperceptible sound. It is not calling or guiding; it feels more like an acknowledgment that the conversation has reached a point of relevance.
“I don’t think she meant for this to happen,” I say quietly.
All three of them turn toward me.
“The crash,” I continue. “The contamination. Any of it. This ship was supposed to be in orbit. It was designed to disperse output into vacuum, not atmosphere. It never recalculated because… why would it? How would it?”
Travnyk nods slowly. “A system without updated environmental parameters will default to original assumptions.”
“In space,” Tomas says. His face pales as the implication settles. “So everything it’s been dumping out there—”
“Isn’t poison to it,” I finish. “It’s waste. Excess. Normal operation in the wrong place.”
Rakkh’s claws curl faintly against the floor with a scraping sound.
“Then it is not cruel,” he says. “Only blind.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “And now it is waking up inside a world it does not recognize.”
The silence that follows is different from before. Heavier. Weighted with consequence instead of shock. I feel it then—subtle, but unmistakable—as Rakkh shifts toward me.
His shoulder brushes mine, just barely, and the contact sends a jolt straight through my chest. It’s not accidental. He’s aligning himself so that whatever comes next is something we’ll face side by side.
If it was not clear before, it is now. I am no longer only a duty to him. I’m a preference. He’s choosing me. The way he looks at me, I am not mistaking the weight in his eyes—or the way my body reacts to him. The way my heart skips.
“What does it want from you now?” Rakkh asks, his voice low.
I swallow, not looking at the panel. Instead of looking at the ship, I look at him.
“I think,” I say carefully, “it’s done explaining.”
His brow ridges lift slightly. “Then what remains?”
I tighten my grip on his hand without meaning to.
“Deciding,” I say. “And that’s the part I’m afraid of.”
No guiding lights or pressure behind my eyes. No shift in vibration herding me toward a conclusion. It simply waits. Systems steady. Environment balanced. As if the explanation was the final courtesy and now it expects action.
Like Maddy did.
I step back from the panel slowly, half expecting resistance, but there isn’t any. The surface cools beneath my palm, inert again, like a scar that’s already healed.
Behind me, Tomas lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been trapped in his chest since the recording ended.
“So,” he says carefully, “we just found out humans were on Tajss before… everything. That one of them built a warship-slash-ark-slash-doomsday-machine, and now it’s more or less accidentally poisoning the planet because it thinks it is still in space.”
“Correct,” Travnyk says.
Tomas winces. “I hate it when you say things like that so calmly.”
Travnyk’s gaze drifts to the wall, then to me before answering.
“Because panic would improve our outcome?”
“No,” Tomas mutters. “But it would make me feel less insane.”
Rakkh hasn’t let go of my hand. I notice it again, not because he tightens his grip, but because he doesn’t loosen it when the moment passes. His thumb rests against my knuckles, unmoving. Present and intentional.
Choosing.
It makes my pulse jump—traitorous and fast.
“The ship believes its mission is still viable,” Travnyk continues. “Preservation. Continuity. Defense. It does not recognize that there has been a failure. Only an interruption.”
“Yes,” I say. “And the interruption wasn’t the Devastation.”
Travnyk’s head tilts. “Then what?”
“A strike,” I answer, the logic snapping into place with sick certainty. “Not on purpose—maybe not. But a shock big enough to scramble orbital systems.”
Tomas’s brow furrows. “You mean the bomb.”
“I mean the kind of blast that throws an electromagnetic pulse,” I say. “If the ship was low enough in orbit when it happened… it could’ve taken a hit. Guidance lost. Engines forced into shutdown. Systems defaulting to survival mode in the wrong place.”
Tomas goes pale. “So we—”
“We might have,” I cut in. “Or our war did. Either way, it’s been bleeding into the land ever since.”
Silence stretches thick with implication. Outside this chamber, beyond layers of metal and sand, the plants are dying. Creatures are sickening. The desert is changing, slowly but inexorably, because a machine never meant to touch soil is doing exactly what it was built to do: survive.
“I think,” I say quietly, “that if we leave it here, it will kill Tajss eventually.”
Rakkh doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t soften it or try to shield me from the weight of saying it out loud. He turns toward me fully now, angling his body until I’m no longer half-behind him, no longer protected from something—but protected with him.
“And if you shut it down?” he asks.
My chest tightens.
“I don’t know what would happen,” I admit. “It’s been containing energy, matter, data—everything—for centuries. If I disrupt it incorrectly…”
“Catastrophic release,” Travnyk says.
“Yes.”
Tomas closes his eyes. “Cool. Love those options.”
I almost smile. Almost. Rakkh studies my face, eyes molten and intent.
“You said before that it does not want authorization.” I nod. “It wants correction,” he continues. “That implies guidance. A path forward that does not violate its core directive.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“And you are the only one it recognizes as capable of providing that.”
The truth of it lands heavy and undeniable.
“Yes.”
The ship hums softly at that—barely audible, but there. An acknowledgment. Rakkh exhales slowly through his teeth, then does something that makes my breath hitch. He steps closer.
Not crowding me, though he is definitely towering. He lowers his head so his gaze meets mine more evenly, wings drawn in tight behind him. His presence fills the space in a way that feels deliberate and intimate all at once.
“You are not doing this alone,” he says.
It isn’t a question. I swallow.
“Rakkh—”
“I know what you will say,” he cuts in gently. “That this is not my decision. That the ship does not recognize me. That I might complicate things.” He isn’t wrong. That’s what makes it hurt. “But understand this,” he continues, voice low and steady. “I am choosing you anyway.”
The words hit harder than any declaration I’ve ever heard. Choosing. Not duty. Not command. Not instinct dressed up as fate. Choice. My throat tightens painfully.
“And if the ship decides you are a variable it cannot tolerate?” I ask softly.
A corner of his mouth lifts, not in humor, but in something fierce and unyielding.
“Then it will have to learn,” he says, “that removing me will not earn your compliance.”
My heart stutters. I look at his hand, still holding mine. At the scars along his wrist. At the steady warmth of him, real and present and choosing me even now. The ship hums again. It’s not louder, but feels closer.
I realize then that this is the moment—the quiet before something irreversible happens.
Maddy made her choice centuries ago, alone and desperate, coding hope into metal and time.
Now the ship is offering me that choice.
All this data she thrust into the future, hoping against hope to save the Tajss she, impossibly, knew.
And Rakkh… Rakkh is standing beside me like this moment between us is inevitable. That no matter what, it was always going to come down to this. To us. Here, in this moment, with the weight of choices laid on my shoulders.
“I need to see the rest,” I say. “The command core. Navigation. Launch authority—whatever passes for a bridge on this ship.”
Travnyk inclines his head. “Then this chamber is not the end.”
“No,” I agree. “It was understanding.”
The ship isn’t asking anymore. It’s proceeding.
The lights along the far wall brighten—not into a path, but into a soft alignment that feels like doors unlocking in sequence. Rakkh’s grip tightens once, just once.
“Then we must move,” he says.
I nod, because the next step won’t just decide the fate of the ship. It will decide the future of Tajss—the future of us. I swallow hard and blink rapidly, clearing my sight.
“Yes,” I say, taking a step ahead and willing the ship to show me what is next.