Chapter 35 Vrok
VROK
The sim grid glows hot underfoot, casting pale light across Roxy’s face as she wipes sweat from her brow with the edge of her sleeve. Her breathing is sharp and even. I can tell she’s holding back a grin.
“Three hostiles, low wall, north sector,” she says, breath hitching slightly.
I nod, pulling back just enough to watch her stance reset.
“Sniper too,” I say, nodding to the overwatch tower in the hardlight projection. “I’ll peel high, draw his line. You go low, break the triangle.”
“Copy,” she says, then after a beat, “Don’t improvise.”
I arch an eyebrow.
She shrugs. “You get twitchy in tight quarters.”
I suppress a grin. “Twitchy?”
“Yeah,” she says, turning to move into position. “Your version of patience is war crimes in slow motion.”
The simulation pulses again—red warning flares, countdown clock humming as the scene locks in.
I watch her take her spot behind cover, limbs loose but coiled, like she’s just waiting for permission to drop the hammer. And for the first time in too long, I don’t feel the twitch in my fingers to do it all myself.
I wait.
Roxy darts first, low and fast. Her form’s not textbook—it’s better. Adapted. Real. She slides under a crumbling frame and fires off two clean shots that pin the pair on the left, giving me the opening.
I take the vertical route, leaping up the support scaffold, boots grinding hard against the frame as I vault to the next level. The sniper’s barely got time to recalibrate before I’ve knocked his rifle clean from the perch.
“Clear high,” I mutter into the comm.
“Low's done.”
We converge mid-grid, breath fogging the hologram. No injuries. No reckless final gambit. Just clean, cold execution.
The sim ends.
Roxy slumps to the floor, grinning now. “That’s two minutes shaved.”
I check the display. “No civilian risk. Collateral minimized. No unnecessary fire.”
She eyes me. “That last part is new.”
“I’m evolving,” I say, dropping beside her.
“You’re retraining.”
“Same thing.”
She leans back on her palms, sweat darkening the line of her collar. “This feels different.”
“It is.”
She studies me. Not romantically. Not with soft concern. Like a squadmate.
“It’s not just the sim, is it?”
“No.”
She waits. Quiet. Letting me offer it or not.
So I do.
“I used to run everything alone. Even the stuff that wasn't supposed to be. Always figured if someone had to bleed out, it should be me.”
Her lips press into a line, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“I didn't see another way to stay useful,” I say, voice low. “Not after Horus. Not with the things I’d done. I thought making it out meant failing the job.”
“You thought living was betrayal.”
“Yeah.”
A long pause.
“Do you still think that?” she asks.
I look at her, really look. The way her knees are drawn up. The scuffs on her knuckles. The dust still settling in her hair from the sim sparks.
“No,” I say quietly. “Not anymore.”
The next morning, I delete a contract from Gnotz’s channel.
It pings loud when it hits my inbox—urgent tag, encrypted, high-yield payout. Recon to recover a lost team in Karynx’s high orbit. No backup. No partner. One-man entry.
I sit with it a while. Read the mission brief. Memorize it, even. It would’ve been a hell of a run. Brutal. Likely lethal.
I delete it.
“Solo op?” Roxy asks later as I review performance logs.
I nod.
“You let it go?”
“Didn’t even twitch.”
She grins. “Gods, who even are you?”
“Someone trying to not die anymore,” I say dryly.
“Hot.”
The next sim run is harder—urban density, biohazard layers, time-critical evac. Roxy argues to swap roles. I lead recon. She runs point.
“You sure?” I ask. “My stride’s heavier. I don’t ghost as well.”
“You’re still the better angle on vertical threats,” she replies. “And if I’m point, I can draw attention. Keep you clean for the flank.”
I hesitate.
“You trust me or not?” she challenges.
“Always,” I say before I even think.
“Then shut up and follow my lead.”
We run the op. It works.
Even when a misfire glitches a corridor wall and collapses our line of retreat, Roxy pivots instantly, drawing a hostile with a decoy pulse and leading them into my kill box.
“Nice move,” I murmur after the clean-up.
She smirks. “I know.”
I log the data. Mission times are down 23%. Civilian success up 34%. Our combined signature risk is lower than mine solo ever was, even when I was at peak.
Later that night, she sits on the edge of the ship’s observation deck, knees pulled up, eyes on the stars.
“I read your logs,” she says softly.
I sit beside her. “Didn’t hide them.”
“You used to set the sim to lethal as default.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t anymore.”
“No.”
Silence.
“Why?” she asks.
I lean back, eyes following the slow crawl of a freighter two klicks out, its lights blinking slow like a heartbeat.
“Because the only future I could picture before was one where I didn’t make it out,” I say. “Now there’s someone in it with me.”
She doesn’t say anything.
But she reaches over and laces her fingers through mine.
We sit like that.
And for the first time since Horus IV, I feel like I can stay.