Chapter 12 #2
Kaede didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he circled his clanbrother, taking in the full scope of his natural form with tactical eyes.
The size—a liability in tight corridors.
The presence—impossible to ignore, impossible to conceal.
The unmistakable otherness that marked him as something ancient and dangerous and rare.
Something that would make every diplomat, every guard, every curious observer in the CEG stop mid-step and stare.
The same stunned pause they’d given him—like they were trying to decide if he was real or a mistake. His lethalness unsettled them enough to openly stop. The same hungry, unsettled attention they always turned on Selena, as if her existence rewrote the rules around her.
A presence you couldn’t ignore.
“We depart for the CEG Space Station in forty-seven hours,” Kaede said, his voice flat as a blade’s edge. “You’re part of the security detail.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you planned to attend in this form?”
Silence stretched between them, dense with what neither of them bothered to say.
Zyxel’s body drew in on itself, coils tightening by degrees, obsidian scales sliding with a faint, dry whisper—armor settling into a guarded configuration.
It was subtle, practiced, the kind of defense that pretended to be calm.
Kaede clocked it anyway. He always did.
“My Ezzaska form would be—”
“A target.” Kaede stopped in front of him, close enough to see his own reflection in those chartreuse eyes—dark and sharp and uncompromising.
“You bonded to the Beacon. That means every intelligence agency, every bounty hunter, every ishing Quaww operative in the station will be running your profile the moment you step off the Abyss. When news spread, the Verya would soon know of your existence and location. They’ll dig. They’ll analyze.”
Zyxel’s spines flattened against his back, the motion involuntary—fear or submission or both. “You think they’ll identify me as Rkekh?”
“I think they’ll identify you as interesting.” Kaede’s lip curled back from his fangs, venom sacs tingling with the promise of violence. “And interesting gets people killed. It gets her killed.”
His tail snapped once—fast enough to blur, hard enough to hiss across the floor—betraying agitation that didn’t match the control he kept locked behind his calm. “Then what do you suggest? I won’t stay behind. I won’t leave her unprotected.”
“I’m not asking you to.” Kaede pulled up a new display, this one showing schematics of the CEG station’s security checkpoints.
Species scanners. Biometric analyzers. The gauntlet of technology designed to identify, catalog, and assess every being that passed through.
“I’m asking you to be smart about how you protect her. ”
He tapped the console, and a new image appeared: a humanoid silhouette, generic and unremarkable.
“You have other forms.” It wasn’t a question.
Kaede had done his research, cross-referenced Zyxel’s profile with everything they knew about Rkekh biology.
“I assume you have a demi-human form with all your time with them under your care. Something that won’t make every species in the station wonder what just walked through their doors. ”
Zyxel went very still.
The kind of stillness that came before a strike. Or a confession.
“I do.” His mental voice carried weight now, something vulnerable beneath the caution—old wounds opening. “But I haven’t used it since... since before I arrived at the asteroid base. That’s been years. Decades. That form feels wrong. Uncomfortable. Like wearing skin that doesn’t fit.”
“I don’t care about your comfort.” The words came out harsh, and Kaede didn’t soften them.
Couldn’t afford to. “I care about Selena walking into that station and walking out alive. I care about the daughter she carries surviving to take her first breath. And right now, your comfort is a liability we can’t afford. ”
Zyxel’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, the scholarly detachment cracked, and something fiercer showed through—the predator that lurked beneath the healer’s mask. Something that reminded Kaede why the Rkekh had been hunted in the first place.
They were dangerous. Not despite their adaptability, but because of it.
“You think I don’t know what’s at stake?
” The words sliced through Kaede’s mental shields, sharp with emotion that the healer rarely allowed to surface.
“She is my enax. My fated one. The Stars gave her to me after centuries of believing I would die alone, that my species would fade into extinction without ever knowing completion. I would tear this galaxy apart to keep her safe.”
“Then prove it.”
The challenge hung between them, charged and dangerous.
Kaede didn’t blink. Neither did Zyxel.
Seconds stretched into eternities, until time felt less like a measure and more like a threat.
The tactical displays kept flickering—maps pulsing, casualty numbers updating, comms scrolling like nothing in the universe had paused—while the two of them stood motionless at the center of it all, balanced on the knife-edge between understanding and violence.
“You’re bonded to the most important person in this galaxy.
” Kaede’s voice dropped, low and certain as a death sentence.
“That makes you a target. And a weapon.” He stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from those obsidian scales, close enough to smell the spicy warmth of Rkekh flesh. “Which would you rather be?”
The question settled over Zyxel like a weight.
His plates shifted, scales rasping against the floor as he processed.
The fiber-optic strands at his tail tip flickered through colors—uncertainty, calculation, something that might have been determination crystallizing into resolve.
His chartreuse eyes searched Kaede’s face for mockery.
For a trap. For the hidden edge behind the words.
He found only necessity. Brutal and unadorned.
Finally, he answered.
“A weapon she can wield.”
Kaede allowed himself a single nod. Not approval, exactly. But acknowledgment. He was willing to sacrifice his comfort for Selena’s protection. That counted for something.
Maybe more than something.
“Good.” Kaede turned back to the tactical display, pulling up a new set of files. “But shifting forms isn’t enough. Your demi-human body will move wrong. Fight wrong. You’ll have no coils for balance, no tail for counterweight. You’ll be a liability in any combat situation unless you train.”
“Train?” Zyxel’s confusion rippled through the air between them, carrying notes of scholarly indignation. “I’ve studied combat techniques. I understand the theoretical applications of—”
“Theory doesn’t stop a weapon.” Kaede’s psydagger materialized in his hand, the purple energy humming as he spun it once, twice, before letting it settle.
The weapon’s glow painted his features in violet light.
“You need to learn how your new body moves under pressure. How to fight alongside others instead of relying on your instincts.”
He tapped another section of the display, and a third file appeared beside Zyxel’s: Ryzen’s profile, emerald-runed and cold-eyed. The Verya male’s spirit daggers gleamed in the image, nine weapons forged from will and grief.
“Ryzen?” Zyxel’s surprise was palpable, scales shifting with the emotional ripple. “You want me to train with him?”
“I want you to train with us.” Kaede met his gaze directly, the psydagger’s hum underscoring his words.
“Ryzen, you, and me. Three individuals who need to function as a single unit when we reach that station. Eshe is a fine warrior—skilled, disciplined, loyal—but her abilities are limited to shadow combat. Defensive positioning. Extraction protocols. She can’t do what we can. ”
He gestured at the display, where tactical projections showed the three of them moving through simulated combat scenarios. Triangular formations. Overlapping fields of fire. The kind of coordinated violence that came from knowing your allies as well as yourself.
“Ryzen’s spirit daggers give him ranged precision and mental coordination. My psydagger and REI’s support systems provide close-quarters dominance and tactical awareness.” His gaze sharpened on Zyxel. “And you have genetic adaptation capabilities I’ve only seen in one other being. Selena.”
His voice hardened, edges clear as crystal.
“If you can learn to use that demi-human form effectively, you become an unknown variable. Something our enemies can’t predict or plan for.”
“A weapon they won’t see coming,” Zyxel murmured, understanding settling into his features.
“Exactly.”
Zyxel relaxed, just slightly. The tension in the room shifted from confrontation to something approaching collaboration—two predators recognizing a shared hunt.
“When do we begin?”
“Now.” Kaede deactivated the tactical display with a sharp gesture. “Show me your demi-human form. I need to assess what we’re working with before I can design training protocols.”
The reptilian medic hesitated, his tail curling inward.
“It’s been years since I shifted into that form. The process is... disorienting. Painful, sometimes. My body has to remember what it’s forgotten.”
“Then you’d better get used to disorientation fast.” Kaede’s tone brooked no argument. “We don’t have time for hesitation. Forty-seven hours, Zyxel. Every minute you spend uncertain is a minute we lose preparing.”
Something flickered in those chartreuse eyes. Old pain, maybe. The memory of a species hunted and scattered, forced to hide their true nature behind borrowed shapes. The loneliness of being the one of the last of his kind in this galaxy, always watching, always adapting, never truly being.
But beneath that pain, determination.
“Very well.”
Zyxel stood in the center of the war room like a weapon that didn’t need to be drawn to do damage.