Chapter 5
Serna
Pain woke me.
A deep, throbbing ache that radiated from my skull down through my neck and shoulders. My head felt like it had been split open and poorly reassembled. Every heartbeat sent a fresh wave of agony pulsing behind my eyes.
I tried to open them and immediately regretted it. The emergency lighting—dim red, pulsing—felt like knives driving into my brain. I squeezed my eyes shut again and focused on breathing. In. Out. Steady. Controlled.
The training I'd received as a warrior on Vaktaire, decades before I'd ever become Prime, kicked in automatically. I took inventory: head wound, obviously. Bruised ribs. But nothing broken. Nothing that would kill me.
I was alive.
Cullen.
The realization struck—sharp and immediate—and suddenly the pain didn't matter. I forced my eyes open despite the agony and pushed myself upright, ignoring the way the world tilted and spun around me.
"Cullen?" My voice came out hoarse, raw.
Movement. To my left. I turned my head—too fast, mistake—and had to wait for the nausea to pass before I could focus.
He was there. Alive. Moving through the wreckage of the ship, pulling supplies from storage compartments, his movements efficient. He'd stripped down to a dark shirt and tactical pants, and there was blood on his sleeve, but he was upright. He was functional.
He was alive.
Relief dizzied me and I had to brace myself against the bulkhead.
"Serna." He was at my side in an instant, his hands gentle on my shoulders, steadying me. "Easy. You took a hell of a hit to the head. You need to—"
"I'm fine." The words were automatic, the response of someone who'd spent a lifetime being the strong one, the unbreakable one. But when I looked up at him, saw the concern in those gray-green eyes, I softened. "I'm... I will be fine. Are you hurt?"
"Bruised. Nothing serious." His hand moved to my face, fingers brushing along my temple where I could feel the tight pull of sealed skin. "I used the dermal regenerator on your head wound. It was deep, but clean. No skull fracture. You'll have a hell of a headache for a while, though."
"I've had worse." I had. Battle wounds. Training injuries. But this... this felt different. Heavier. Because it wasn't just my life at stake anymore.
I looked past him, toward the cockpit, and my heart sank. "Kalipuk?"
The change in Cullen's expression told me everything I needed to know before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, Serna. He didn't make it."
The words settled over me like a shroud. Kalipuk. My favored pilot. Loyal. Skilled. A male who'd flown me through countless missions, who'd trusted me with his life and given it freely in service to the Alliance.
He'd gotten us down. Gotten us down alive.
And it had cost him everything.
"I need to see him."
Cullen didn't argue. He simply helped me to my feet, his hand steady at my elbow as I found my balance. The ship was canted at a steep angle, making every step treacherous, but I made my way forward to the cockpit.
Kalipuk was still strapped in his seat, his six-fingered hands resting on the controls as if he might wake at any moment and resume flying. But his chest was still. His large, dark eyes were closed. Blood had pooled beneath him, staining the deck plates.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at him, feeling the weight of command settle over me like armor I'd worn too long. How many had I lost over the years? How many lives had been spent in service to the Alliance, to the peace I'd fought so hard to maintain?
Too many. Always too many.
I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder, feeling the cooling skin beneath my palm.
"Kalipuk of Ardesia," I said quietly, the formal words of mourning coming easily after so many years. "You served with honor. You flew with courage. You gave your life so that others might live, and in doing so, you have earned a place among the greatest warriors of the Alliance."
My voice caught, just slightly, and I had to pause before I could continue.
"Your name will be honored. Your family will know of your bravery. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. The Alliance will remember. I will remember."
I closed my eyes and spoke the final blessing in the old tongue of Vaktaire, the words my mother had taught me, the words spoken over warriors who'd fallen in battle. They felt right. They felt true.
"Alikk uttoose arsaka verre saytuia." Gods, accept this brave warrior into your care.
When I opened my eyes again, Cullen was standing beside me, his head bowed in respect.
"He was a good man," Cullen said quietly.
"He was." I took a breath, steadying myself. "We need to bury him. Properly. He deserves that much."
Cullen nodded. "I'll find something we can use to dig with."
The heat was oppressive.
We'd dragged Kalipuk's body from the wreckage and found a spot not far from the crash site—a small clearing where the jungle hadn't yet reclaimed the torn earth.
Cullen had fashioned a crude shovel from a piece of torn hull plating, bending and shaping the metal until it had an edge sharp enough to cut through the dense, root-choked soil.
We took turns digging. The ground was stubborn, resistant, but we worked in silence, the only sounds the bite of metal into earth and the constant drone of insects around us.
On his third turn, I noticed the slight hitch in his movement, the way he favored his left shoulder—but he didn't stop, didn't complain, just kept driving the shovel down with quiet determination.
He was honoring Kalipuk, carrying the weight of command and loss like it was his sacred duty, and I found myself admiring him for it.
When my turn came, I dug deeper, worked harder, and we found our rhythm that way—unspoken, understood.
Sweat poured down my face, soaking through my ceremonial robes. The heavy fabric—designed for the climate-controlled environments of Alliance ships and formal occasions—was suffocating in the jungle heat. The layers clung to my skin, trapping heat, making every movement an effort.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I stepped back and began unfastening the outer robes.
"What are you doing?" Cullen asked, pausing mid-dig.
"Dying of heat exhaustion if I don't get out of these." I pulled the heavy outer robe over my head and let it fall to the ground in a heap of dark fabric. The second layer followed. And the third.
Beneath it all, I wore the black bodysuit I always kept on—a habit from my warrior days, when being prepared for combat at any moment was the difference between life and death. The suit was designed for movement, for flexibility, made from a material that breathed and moved like a second skin.
I felt Cullen's gaze on me and looked up.
He was staring. Not subtly. His eyes tracked over the lines of the bodysuit, the way it hugged every curve, every muscle. For a moment, he seemed to forget he was holding the makeshift shovel, his hands going still.
Then he caught himself, cleared his throat, and very deliberately looked away, his jaw tight.
I bit back a smile.
It was... amusing. And oddly flattering. Here we were, stranded on a hostile planet, having just buried a loyal pilot, facing an unknown enemy, and the human male I'd been trying not to think about for months was checking me out like a youngling seeing his first crush.
"Something wrong, Cullen?" I asked, unable to keep the hint of amusement from my voice.
"No. Nothing. Just—" He cleared his throat again. "We should finish this."
"Yes. We should."
But I caught the way his gaze flicked back to me when he thought I wasn't looking, and something warm and entirely inappropriate curled in my chest.
Not now, I told myself firmly. Not here.
But the feeling didn't go away.
We laid Kalipuk to rest with as much dignity as we could manage. I spoke the words of mourning again, and Cullen stood beside me, his presence solid and grounding. When we'd filled in the grave and marked it with stones, I stood there for a long moment, looking down at the mound of earth.
"I will honor you," I said quietly. "I swear it."
Then I turned away, because there was nothing more to be done, and we had to focus on survival.
Back at the ship, I made my way to the cockpit, stepping carefully over debris and broken equipment. The main console was dark, most of the systems offline, the communication system completely destroyed, but there was a faint flicker of power in the navigation array.
"Cullen, I need light."
He appeared beside me with a portable light source, holding it steady while I worked. My fingers moved over the controls, coaxing what little power remained into the navigation logs.
"Come on," I muttered. "Come on, just give me something."
The screen flickered. Died. Flickered again.
Then data began to scroll across the display—coordinates, star charts, planetary markers. I scanned through them quickly, my mind cataloging and cross-referencing against the thousands of systems I'd memorized over the years.
There.
"I think I know where we are," I said.
Cullen leaned closer. "Where?"
"Msituni." I pulled up the planetary data, what little there was.
"It's a jungle planet on the outer edge of Alliance space.
Uninhabited. The Alliance established a research outpost here about fifty years ago—in the foothills of those mountains.
" I gestured toward the viewport, where distant peaks were barely visible through the canopy.
"They were studying the vegetation and wildlife, trying to determine if the planet could be colonized. "
"And?" Cullen asked. "Could it?"
I shook my head. "No. The ecosystem is too hostile. Too many predators. The plant life is toxic to most species. The research team recommended against settlement and abandoned the outpost after two years."
"So we're stranded on a planet that's actively trying to kill us. Great."
"Yes." I met his gaze. "But the outpost should still be there. And it would have communication equipment—long-range transmitters capable of reaching Alliance space. If we can get to it, we can call for help."
Cullen studied the data on the screen, his expression thoughtful. "How far?"
"Forty, maybe fifty kilometers through the jungle. Two days on foot if the terrain cooperates. Longer if it doesn't."
Cullen nodded slowly. "Then we head for the mountains."
"We head for the mountains," I agreed.
I looked out through the shattered viewport at the alien jungle beyond—the sickly green light, the dense vegetation, the sounds of things moving in the shadows. It was hostile. It was dangerous.
But I'd faced worse.
And this time, I wasn't facing it alone.
I glanced at Cullen, saw the determination in his eyes, the set of his jaw. He was ready. He was with me.
And somehow, that made all the difference.
"Let's gather what we can carry," I said. "We leave in an hour."