19. The Burn Path
The Burn Path
Jude
Something was wrong. I could feel it in my chest—almost as strongly as I could still feel her sliding up and down on my cock.
The dreams had gotten so far out of hand that lately I’d been convinced they were real.
I should have said something to her earlier over the radio.
Asked if she’d been having the same strange dreams because I swore I could still feel her—the same despondency that was lodged between my ribs.
Every dream we raced against a ticking clock, clinging to a life raft already taking on water.
Something else lived there now too. Terror.
I grabbed the first pair of pants from the pile on the floor and shoved my legs in—and stopped. My hand closed around something in the pocket before I even pulled it free.
Lace.
I held them up in the dim light of my quarters, my brain refusing to process what my eyes were seeing.
Black lace, small enough to fit in my fist. I knew exactly what they were because I was the one who'd taken them off her, sliding them down her thighs in a dream I could still feel in my hands.
I'd pocketed them, some half-conscious act of wanting to keep something of her.
But that had been a dream.
I turned them over in my fingers. My mouth had gone dry.
That had been a dream.
I stood there for a long moment, the lace caught between my fingers, trying to find a single explanation that didn't make the air vacuum out of the room. There wasn't one. There wasn't a version of this that made sense, except the one I couldn't bring myself to say out loud. Let alone believe.
I shoved them into my pocket, dragged on my boots and uniform as fast as my hands would move, and ran.
When I burst into the command center, I found it empty. There were no alarms blaring, no lights flashing, even though a siren sounded in my head.
My hand flew to my chest. Something was wrong. I glanced at my watch, scrolling through the screen for any messages I might have missed, but there was nothing to be found. Nothing.
Something is really fucking wrong.
Solace.
I powered up the system and grabbed the first pair of headphones I could find, twisting dials and adjusting frequencies until the signal was right.
Only, I was met with the thin, hollow hiss of empty airwaves.
The pressure in my head sharpened and my lungs burned raggedly.
“Fuck!” Solace was in trouble. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I knew.
Time was up and I had to get to her.
For days I’d sat through meetings and assemblies of officials explaining why I couldn’t go to Earth.
I’d pressed that she was the only survivor we knew of who was completely and utterly alone.
I’d made the case that the trip could double as reconnaissance—data collection, radiation verification, atmospheric scans.
SOLs readings were the first meager sliver of hope we’d had.
From the beginning it was never the plan to stay up here, lodged between metal.
It wasn’t sustainable—it was a fucking hail mary.
Despite the Order’s plea that those of us who survived refrain from bringing new lives into our messed up world, it still happened.
Elias and Kit were only a few months away from becoming parents themselves.
Despite my despair, despite it all, the Admiral herself turned my mission down.
We are not risking lives for the sake of one.
Fuck that. I’d risk everything for one.
For her.
Dropping the headset, I traced the path back to my quarters and threw whatever I could find into a standard issue pack—food, water, a first aid kit, spare clothes, batteries, a flashlight, gloves.
If it was within reach it went in the bag.
Then I yanked SOL from its charging bay, tucked it under my arm, swung the pack over my shoulder and ran.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Open up — Elias! Kit!” I was half a second from having SOL hack the door controls when the steel hatch hissed open.
Kit stood in the doorway, stone-faced, blonde hair wrapped into a knot on top of her head. “Ransom.”
“Sorry to wake you,” I said, breathless. “But I need your help.” I pushed past her into their living quarters where Elias was stumbling out of their bedroom pulling on a pair of pants.
“Dude!”
I threw Solace’s underwear on the counter. “You see those, right? I’m not imagining things.”
Kit’s nose scrunched, and Elias dragged a hand over his head. “What the hell is going on? Whose are those?”
“You see them?” I rounded the counter, pushing the lace toward him. “Black lace panties, right?”
“What the fuck is going on Jude? Have you been drinking? Your eyes are red.”
“Why don’t you sit down?” Kit added.
“Solace is in trouble.”
We sat at their small kitchen island, Elias’s laptop open between us. Kit waddled back and forth behind the counter, making tea while we poured over SOL’s data logs, searching for any discrepancy between the thermal scans from two days ago and the ones it was pulling now.
SOL was designed to read survival probabilities, and since its conception almost twenty years ago we’d managed to integrate its base software into multiple sectors of the Order—from the med bay to atmospheric monitoring, to even parts of navigation and logistics.
When SOL first pinged Solace two weeks ago, it was because the radiation and ARS-7 levels around her bunker had dropped. Just enough for the system to flag a survivable pocket. Since then I’d been running deeper scans, narrowing the coordinates, trying to pinpoint exactly where she was.
Now there was nothing.
No heat signature. Absolutely nothing. The atmosphere readings where she’d been were dismal again and hazy at best. Radiation levels spiked, swallowing the space she once occupied. My stomach twisted. Which meant…
“I don’t understand,” Elias muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face. “She was right there.”
I stared at the screen. “She didn’t just disappear.
” The words were wrong even as I said them.
I was almost half-convinced I was experiencing a psychotic break.
That this was the dream—a nightmare. She wasn’t real, only a figment of my imagination to cope with the losses I’ve faced.
I patted my pocket where I’d stashed her undergarments again.
Two possibilities pushed their way through my mind, both worse than the last. “She went outside,” I said quietly, almost to myself.
“But why? That’s suicide.”
“I don’t know.” I dragged a hand down my jaw. “Or… someone opened it from the outside?” That didn’t make any sense either, unless Paul or Bridget actually made their way back, but the chances of that were slim to none. I leaned back on the stool, mind already made up. “I’m going down there.”
Kit dropped the spoon into the mug. Water sloshed over the rim. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Admiral Pike would never allow it. Neither would Commander Zhang. Jude—” Elias began, resting a hand on my back.
I shrugged him off and stood, grabbing my jacket from the chair. “It’s a good thing I’m not asking permission.”
“Jude, how can you even be sure? I know you don’t want to hear this, man, but if she went outside there’s a good chance she’s not ali—”
“Don’t fucking finish that.” The words came out low and dangerous as I shoved my arm through my jacket and turned toward the door.
It was already difficult enough not to question my own sanity.
Did I actually believe our dreams connected us?
That there was some tear in the fabric of things that had been letting us find each other in the dark?
If that was true—if any of it was true—was she even down there?
For once in my life, I had no fucking clue.
But I knew what I wanted. Her.
Gesturing around the room, I sighed before adding, “Would you let this go?”
Their quarters were small but lived in. Two pairs of boots by the door. A stack of dishes in the sink. Kit’s books piled beside Elias’s research papers on the low table in front of the portside window where a soft lamp cast a warm glow over the small fabric cot waiting for their baby.
“Would you walk away from all of this?” I met his eyes only to watch his jaw tighten.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Well, I did.” I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing once across the floor.
The words tasted bitter, but it was true.
All my life I ran from becoming my father, only to trace his shape in the space I made by pushing her away.
“A million fucking times. She was right there, Elias. All those years—right there—and I kept telling myself the timing was wrong. That, maybe, we’d figure it out later.
” I laughed once under my breath. “Turns out later was the end of the world.”
I stopped pacing and looked back at him. “I found her and I’m not letting a few thousand miles of empty space get between us again.” I grabbed the pack from the floor. “I’d rather die trying.”
“You can take the rig.” Kit took a sip of tea, set the mug down carefully, and pulled a card attached to her badge from beside the hatch. “It’s ready.”
“Kit—babe, no.” Elias was already reaching for it, but I snagged it first.
“I love you,” I said, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek.
“Dude. No. What the hell. This is a terrible idea—” Elias followed me toward the door.
“Let me grab my jacket and some shoes. I’ll show you how to fly her.” Kit rounded the island and waddled toward the bedroom.
Elias turned after her. “Kit, no.”
I leaned back against the counter, grinning. “She can make her own decisions, Jones.” It was a low blow, and I knew it, considering they’d been fighting about birth plans for the last week. It didn't matter.
“Yeah, Lieutenant,” Kit called from the bedroom. “I can make my own decisions.” She reappeared a moment later, tugging Elias’s sweatshirt over her head and smoothing the stray hairs back from her face. “Stay here, you big scared baby.”