Jessa
Ifound him at the end of the corridor, past bodies I didn’t stop to count.
He was on the floor. Vain’s body behind him, crumpled under the command panel. Six guards down between them.
A plasma burn crossed Serak’s ribs, the fabric of his shirt blackened and stuck to the wound.
But the wound wasn’t what was wrong.
The shadow-meld was eating him from the inside.
Not one long stretch in the dark. Nearly two weeks of going in and out of it: controlled crossings, deeper compressions when the station left him no other route, too little sleep, too little recovery, then the final sustained push through Vain’s guard before the research could be isolated.
He had spent everything in increments.
Now the increments had added up.
His eyes were open. He wasn’t seeing the corridor.
I dropped beside him and put my hands on his face.
His skin was cold. Not cool. Cold.
My hands started shaking so hard my fingertips skipped against his jaw.
I locked my palms around him and tried to breathe.
Air went in and stopped somewhere under my ribs. My pulse hammered in my throat. Every part of me wanted to move faster, do more, find a control panel for this and force it open.
There wasn’t one.
There was only him, slipping somewhere I couldn’t follow.
And me.
“Serak.” I said his name. The most important word I had. “Your name is Serak. I’m Jessa. You’re on Nexus Station. The upload is done.”
Nothing.
“The Raptor is here. The crew is here. Zevik almost crashed into the external array and Deyric said their encryption was an insult to his profession.”
A faint line of light stirred under my left palm.
There.
I kept talking.
“There’s a mess hall on the Raptor. You sit at the head of the table. I sit to your left. Late watch. Everyone else asleep. Lights down. Ship humming.”
The light stopped fading.
“I put sweetness in your mug because you’d never add it yourself. You know I do it. I know you know. Neither of us ever says a word about it.”
Warmer under my hands.
“You left one at my place before the Meridian briefing. It was cold by the time I found it. I drank it anyway. You knew I would.”
The faint lines at his jaw brightened.
“You crawled through a conduit for me. You crossed deep void because you knew I was still here. You came through a gap the width of my thumb because apparently doors are optional when you’re being impossible.”
His breathing changed.
Not enough.
I bent closer until my forehead touched his.
“You covered me with a blanket on the Ghost. You kissed me in that ridiculous little cabin and your hands shook.”
The warmth under my palms spread.
“You told me you wouldn’t stop.”
My voice broke.
“And you still owe me what Mairuke means.”
The light strengthened, steady now instead of flickering.
The darkness at the edges of his face pulled back by a fraction.
“Come back.” Tears hit my hands. I didn’t wipe them away. “You made me a promise on the Ghost, Serak. I am holding you to it.”
The silver flared.
All at once.
Light ran across his face and down his neck, bright enough to throw pale reflections onto my fingers. The darkness fought. I felt it through the bond, the deep pull of the road trying to take every boundary with it.
I held on.
His next breath came deeper.
Then another.
His eyes focused.
He saw me.
“Jessa.”
His voice was raw, scraped thin, like he’d had to find it somewhere far away.
“Yes.”
“The upload.”
“It’s done. It’s everywhere. The research is burning.”
He closed his eyes.
This time it looked like closing his eyes, not disappearing.
His skin was warming under my hands.
The corner of his mouth moved.
I laughed. It came out wet and broken and real.
I put my mouth against his hair. His hand came up, slow and shaking, and covered mine where it rested on his jaw.
We stayed.
The corridor was quiet enough that Deyric’s voice carried from Serak’s earpiece, reading the channels as they lit up. Emergency sessions convening. Denials collapsing under evidence the conspiracy’s own systems had signed.
The political protection evaporating in real time. The nearest legitimate forces were half a day out and already burning toward us.
Solren arrived at a run, medkit open before he hit his knees beside us. He saw Serak and started working, scanner already in his hand.
He took one look at the readings and his face went carefully neutral, the expression he wore when the diagnosis was bad and the medic didn’t want to scare the patient.
“The ribs?” he asked me.
“Plasma burn. During the second wave.”
“And the rest of it?”
“Shadow-meld overextension. He’s been using the dark road in controlled bursts for nearly two weeks. The deepest sustained push was at the end.”
Solren’s hands paused for half a second. Then he kept working. “I don’t have protocols for that.”
“The bond is stabilizing him. It’s been pulling him back since I touched him.”
“Then keep the contact.”
“I wasn’t planning to let go.”
“Good.” He sealed the plasma burn with regenerative gel and started running a scanner over Serak’s vitals.
“His core temperature is four degrees below normal. His neural activity is...” He trailed off, reading the scanner.
“I need to research Khavai biology. There’s nothing in my databases for this. ”
“Solren.”
He looked at me. The carefully neutral expression slipped for a moment. Underneath it was something I’d never seen on Solren’s face.
Not concern. Fear. The medic who always had an answer looking at something that didn’t have one.
“He’s going to be fine,” I said. My hands stayed locked around Serak’s face. “He’s coming back.”
Solren studied me. Then he nodded. The neutral expression settled back into place.
Solren clipped the scanner to Serak’s chest and unfolded a thermal wrap over him. “I have to triage. Keep him warm. Maintain skin contact. Keep talking to him. The monitor will alarm if his temperature or neural activity drops. I’ll be back in an hour.”
He packed his kit and stood. Serak’s eyes were closed. His hand was still on mine.
I held him. The corridor was empty.