Chapter 3
Jaxin
My body was beginning to feel like my own again.
I hadn’t thought it ever would, but three days ago, I’d woken up and hadn’t felt like my chest was breaking apart.
This morning, getting out of my tank, I felt like a new male.
Perhaps that had to do with the note Ysa had sent to my comm—somehow timed to play right as I woke, so it was the first thing I heard as I stomped into my boots.
“Report to engineering, shark dude,” that’s what she said in her cheerful voice.
She had a thick accent on the word “shark”—she wasn’t human, but Ulinial—and she’d just enjoyed adopting the description very much.
I didn’t know why that message made my heart pound with hope, but it did.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I’d begged her to take the broken, shattered pieces of Bex and solder her back together.
It was one of my lowest points, begging Ysa from my hospital bed to fix my precious cannon.
Even after a round of emotion-numbing exercises, it still made my throat grow tight recalling the absolutely devastated expression in her eyes when she had to deny my request. I’d never seen tough-as-nails Ysathea cry, but that had done it.
I bypassed the mess hall, even though I was absolutely starving, and jogged to the nearest elevator to head straight to the engine room.
She wouldn’t have timed her message like that if it hadn’t been super important.
I spent a great deal of time with her in the bowels of the ship.
She’d work on the engines or tweak a suit of armor for one of the guys, and I’d work on a new gun or polish Bex the way she deserved.
Inhaling deeply, I found the scent of the humming engines—the metal and power that crackled through the air—soothing.
When was the last time I’d been down here?
Not since I’d gotten injured back on Xio.
I’d spent weeks in the med bay, recovering far too slowly for my liking, and then I’d refocused all my time and energy on work and working out.
Ysa was at a workbench inside her office, her slender form dressed in an oversized pair of coveralls that slouched about her frame.
She had a heavy belt around her hips, weighed down with a large wrench and several multi-tools.
Clunky boots with thick soles gave her an extra few inches of height, and her long blue braid was wrapped twice around her waist to stay out of the way.
A collection of wooden beads clacked together at the tip of the braid with each jaunty sway of her hips.
She was probably listening to music through her implants, still blissfully unaware of me lurking in the shadows behind her.
It was the rumble of my stomach that gave me away, an obnoxiously loud gurgle that reminded me my body was still recovering and rebuilding muscle.
She froze, her chin jerking up, but when she pivoted, it was to greet me with a wide smile.
“Ah, Jaxy! You got my message!” she squealed happily as she jogged across her workroom and launched herself into my arms.
I caught her with one arm, my chest twinging as muscles shifted—muscles that, three months ago, had been hanging in shreds. She was slight and small, smelling of engine grease, metal shavings, and something uniquely hers.
She thudded back onto her boots with a clunk when I released her with a huff.
“You didn’t give me much choice; that message was blaring the moment I shut my closet door.
” I’d barely managed to pull on my armor for today’s mission—let alone savor being back in it and in shape enough to go.
Dravion had signed off on my clean bill of health, begrudgingly, only yesterday.
Her cheeky grin made her blue eyes sparkle, but they dimmed when the overhead lights flickered. It lasted only a brief second—barely there, then gone—but I knew it was a continuing concern for her that she had not been able to trace the issue. She hid her worry behind a cheerful smile.
“You’re such a grump! Come here, Jaxy. I’ve got a present for you, for your first mission since the doc rebuilt your chest!
” It was a good thing I’d repeated some of those emotion-dampening exercises on my way here.
The plan had been to mute my hopeful excitement; now, they helped muffle the stab of agony at recalling my injury and the loss of my trusty cannon when it happened.
No exercise in the world could have prepared me for the shock of Ysa’s surprise.
She stepped aside and pointed, and for the first time, I could lay eyes on the project she’d been fiddling with.
It was a portable laser cannon, and the sight of it made my heart lurch inside my chest. It ached to see a shape so familiar and yet so different, because I could see at a glance that it wasn’t Bex.
This cannon was newer, sleeker—a make and model I’d eyed a few months ago but that I would never get, because I had Bex, and she was my one and only.
“I know,” Ysa said kindly, her smile warm but not as blindingly bright as before.
“There wasn’t much left of her, Jaxy. There was no way I could repair her, but…
that is her barrel. Look.” She took my hand and pulled me with her, then pressed my numb fingers to the sleek barrel of the cannon.
I did not want to touch it; it felt too much like betrayal.
But then my skin caught on a scratch in the metal that was so familiar I instantly recognized it.
She wasn’t lying, this really was Bex’s barrel attached to a newer, sleeker body.
The image twisted in my mind, harsh, uncomfortable, and so very confusing.
Bex but not Bex, my cannon but not my cannon, my sister but not my sister.
Ysa was talking through the specs, explaining which parts of Bex she’d managed to integrate.
It sounded like water rushing in my ears, and I didn’t hear a word.
My thumb kept stroking that scratch along the barrel—Bex’s barrel—while I felt a very differently balanced weight in my arms. It was all wrong, but I could not find the words to express that.
When a ship-wide announcement called all of the away party to the hangar bay, I was incredibly relieved.
Yes—the mission. That I could focus on, not this mess of things inside my head.
I breathed deeply, forced my thoughts away from the cannon and into familiar lanes.
To feel nothing was a blessing right now, and I embraced it.
“That’s my cue,” I said to Ysa, and, still cradling the weapon, I jogged away.
My arms had locked around it, and I was not ready to tackle that problem yet.
She did not call out after me; she didn’t shout my name or joke about the mission.
That was unlike her, but I’d gone numb, so I couldn’t feel how much I cared about that.
Ysa was sweet—she had done this for me—and I knew it was rude to walk off without a word.
I still didn’t turn around to say anything.
I had a mission to go on, and I’d worked hard to make sure I was allowed to be part of it.
I’d only gone around the first corner after leaving the engine room when Thatcher slammed me bodily into the wall.
The human was strong—too strong—and he didn’t seem to care that the barrel of a laser cannon was practically jammed into his gut.
“You should have said thanks, bastard,” he snarled, eyes flashing with a fury he didn’t even try to bank.
“You made her sad, and she slaved over that thing for days for you!”
My still-numbed feelings made me cool and calculating as I stared the male in the face and tried to plot the best course of action.
Kill him, break his arm, or just shove him away?
I opened my mouth, and I could see his sense of survival kick in at the slow reveal of all my teeth.
He stepped away with a last shove and a glare that might have intimidated me—if I hadn’t made myself numb.
I was impressed; not many dared tangle with a Rummicaron with their bare hands.
People tended to lose them when they tried.
Leaning toward him, I made use of my bigger size as I snarled a warning.
“Do not touch me, Thatcher. Try again, and you die.” I did not tell him he was right about Ysa, that I should thank her and apologize.
To do so would require me to let in more of my feelings, and that would make me break on the spot, when I was holding a cannon that wasn’t Bex. I knew it, so I didn’t.
Stalking away, I was silently aware of the male following me like a shadow down the hallways.
His footsteps were quiet, like a predator’s; his gaze sharp, and still angry.
It was a good tactic, and I applauded him for using it so effectively.
A little less numb, and I would actually feel threatened.
It was a fact that Thatcher was a dangerous opponent, even unarmed, and it made me want to avoid another confrontation.
Right now, I needed to be on the mission, not in the brig for brawling.
The hangar bay was filling up with more crew in armor, armed to the teeth and hauling supplies aboard the two shuttles that would take us down to the planet.
Aramon and his twin were at the helm of the lead vessel, and Raukesh was manning the second.
Brace was loading heavy artillery, and it was my job to help him with that.
I’d personally picked each of the weapons to help us breach the facility and protect our landing site.
Asmoded wasn’t going down this time. He had to navigate the diplomatic waters tied to this mission from aboard the ship.
That left the Sineater running the show, and if there was one male I could count on not to make a fuss about my abilities after the injury, it was him.
“Get a move on, ladies,” he boomed, with a sharpness that made everyone kick it up a notch.