Chapter 11
JAELA
Kel is screaming again.
I rock him in the crook of my arm, pacing the narrow arc of our apartment like a worn groove in an old record. My hips move on autopilot. My spine feels like someone’s playing tug-of-war with my nerves. My left eyelid has been twitching since yesterday. I haven’t slept in two days.
“Mama’s here,” I whisper, more to the cracked ceiling than to him. “Mama’s always here.”
Kel doesn’t give a shit. He wails louder, his tiny fists flailing like he's training for interstellar MMA. One of them catches me in the jaw. Not hard. Just enough to sting.
“Stars, kid,” I mutter, adjusting him with the same touch I use for shattered limbs and shorted-out neuroports. “You’ve got your daddy’s left hook.”
He hiccups, pauses, and opens those eyes—those damn eyes.
Bright green like mine, sure, but shot through with gold. Not brown. Not hazel. Gold, like sunfire filtered through smoke.
Like Kyldak’s.
My chest cracks a little every time I see it. I tell myself it’s just a pigment anomaly. Postnatal retinal adaptation. Some mutation of the hybrid genome. But I know it’s not.
He has his eyes.
And right now, those beautiful, furious, impossible eyes are glassy and hot. Too hot.
I freeze, the hair on my arms prickling.
“Kel?”
I press my lips to his forehead. Sweat-slick. Burning. His skin pulses with heat like a faulty reactor core.
“Shit.”
I lay him on the couch, fingers flying to grab the scanner from the end table. The model’s old, but it boots up fast, chirping as it initializes. I hover it over his chest. The readout pings red.
“Fever: 106.2,” it says, annoyingly calm.
My blood turns to ice.
“No, no, no—”
I strip him down to his onesie, grab the coolant patches from the freezer, slap one on his back, another on his chest. He shrieks, arching like I’ve electrocuted him. Tears stream down his cheeks.
“I know, I know, baby, I know,” I croon, kissing his damp temple, trying to hold him steady as I swipe to call the pediatric clinic.
No answer.
Of course there’s no answer. It’s 0540 and this district doesn’t prioritize calls from unpartnered low-income hybrid dependents unless there’s arterial spray.
I try again.
Voicemail.
Again.
I punch in the override code Vira gave me—her old IHC clearance still worms its way past minor gatekeeping. The call diverts. A sleepy-looking nurse blinks into view.
“Emergency line,” she mutters.
“My son’s running a fever over one-oh-six,” I snap. “He’s hybrid. Two years old. I need a specialist. Now.”
That gets her attention. She keys something in fast. “Symptoms?”
“Fever, lethargy, random neural misfires in his right arm. And he’s—he’s glowing.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “Only a little.”
The nurse stiffens. “How long since his last gene scan?”
“Three months.”
“Bring him in. Now. Seventh floor, red wing. Ask for Dr. Mahlir.”
The screen goes black.
I don’t remember grabbing shoes or stuffing diapers into the emergency bag. I just remember the way Kel whimpered when I jostled him into the sling. The way he curled into my chest like a cooling ember. The way he whispered “Mama…” into my collarbone with the voice of a broken bird.
I ran.
The clinic is sterile-white and smells like money, which means we don’t belong here.
The receptionist raises an eyebrow before I even finish giving our names.
The other parents—polished, coiffed, probably bionic to the bone—watch me out of the corners of their eyes.
They see the secondhand jacket, the grease on my collar from fixing the toaster with my teeth yesterday, the duct tape on Kel’s bootie.
I see them seeing me.
I don’t care.
The doors open. A nurse waves us in.
The room is cold. Not just climate-control cold. Cold. Like the walls were designed to make you feel small.
Dr. Mahlir is tall, silver-haired, Alzhon probably, with a gaze that slices like a vibro-scalpel and a voice like water over ice. She examines Kel without speaking for a long time. Her assistants hover. They scan. They frown. They whisper.
I hold my breath.
Kel moans softly and clutches my finger. His skin is still too hot.
Dr. Mahlir straightens. Her face is perfectly neutral.
“Ms. Stonmer,” she says, calm as the grave, “your son is exhibiting symptoms consistent with Y-Chromosome Stem Instability Syndrome. It's an exceedingly rare hybrid-linked disorder. One we’re still studying.”
I stare at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means his hybrid genetic structure—specifically the paternal Y-stem—is unstable. Mutating under stress. Failing.”
“Failing,” I echo, my mouth suddenly full of ash.
“He’s generating necrotic patches in his neuro-cells. Small now, but spreading. The fever is a symptom. So is the muscular twitching. And the... bioluminescence.”
“Stars.”
“The disease is progressive. Without intervention, it’s terminal. Most patients don’t live past their sixth birthday.”
My knees buckle. I grab the edge of the exam table to stay upright. “There’s—there’s gotta be a treatment. Something.”
Dr. Mahlir nods. “There is. We can replace the failing stem cells with regenerative Y-source injections. But they must be a perfect biological match. Half-donor won’t suffice.”
“A match,” I say.
“Yes.”
I already know the answer.
I already feel the tremor in my gut before I say the words.
“What if the donor’s… unavailable?”
She looks at me, and this time there’s something in her eyes. Not cold. Not pity, either. Something worse.
“Then you need to find him.”
I can’t breathe.
Kel whimpers and turns into my shoulder again. The heat of him brands through the fabric. His tiny hand clutches mine with frightening strength.
“Mama,” he whispers.
My heart shatters.
I bury my face in his curls and whisper, “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you. I promise.”
But my voice is already breaking.
Because there’s only one man in the known galaxy with the genes to save my son.
And he’s rotting on Jurtik—the prison planet from hell. A place of rust, blood, and desert fire. A place they send monsters. A place they sent him.
Kyldak.
My war hero.
My mistake.
My Kel’s only chance.
And somehow, stars help me, I’m going to get there.
I forge the credentials in a storage closet that smells like mildew and disappointment.
The console’s cracked, the holokeypad buzzes every fifth stroke, and the light above me flickers like it’s too scared to stay on. Perfect. Nobody questions tech that looks like it should’ve died with the last solar flare.
The fake ID is almost poetic—tactical systems repair tech, Class-D shuttle license, clearance for deep-orbit reentry if I squint and lie hard enough.
I use the old academy tags I swore I’d burned.
The ones I swiped from Revi back when we used to sneak into AI labs for laughs and shots of synthetic vodka.
“Look at me now, Rev,” I mutter, adjusting the biometric profile to mimic my pre-birthweight change. “From dropout to interstellar fugitive mom. Real glow-up.”
I can’t laugh. I try. But the sound that comes out of me is closer to a sob strangled by caffeine and spite.
I finish the last of the overlays and slot the ID chip into the dummy panel. It chirps green.
“Congratulations,” the console drones, voice cracked with age. “You are now Mx. Lysha Krant, maintenance subcontractor for penal freight transfer 9-Zeta.”
Bitchin’.
I find the shuttle in the bowels of the orbital junk docks, moored between a cargo hauler that smells like fish guts and something labeled experimental fertilizer that I’m pretty sure is just polite for space shit.
She’s rusted to hell. Barely holding together with rivets and hope. The hull groans when I board her like she’s protesting the indignity of flight.
“I feel you, girl,” I whisper, patting the cracked pilot’s seat. “But we’ve got a date with damnation.”
I pull out the nav chip. It’s a dirty little thing—jury-rigged with a stealth filter and a stolen loop from a military skirmisher drone. Only cost me two favors, one blood marker, and a conversation I’m definitely not proud of.
I slot it in. The console whines, spits digital static, then goes blessedly quiet. The new trajectory loads.
Destination: Jurtik Penal Moon.
ETA: 47 hours. One way. No return plotted.
I sit there a long time, watching the words flicker.
No return.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “No shit.”
When I get back to the flat, Kel’s asleep in my mother’s arms. He looks small. Smaller than usual. His breath rasps like he’s been screaming in his dreams. His skin’s waxy. The fever’s down from the antiserum, but not gone. It won’t stay gone.
Mama looks up at me like she already knows. Her eyes are red. Her face is older than it was yesterday.
“You’re not thinking—”
“I’m not thinking,” I say, voice hoarse. “I’m doing.”
“Jaela.” Her voice cracks. “Please. There’s got to be another way. I—”
“There’s not.”
“Kel needs you. What if you don’t come back? What if they kill you? What if they—”
“Then he still has a chance.”
She starts to cry. That’s the worst part. My mama doesn’t cry. She survives. She gets quiet, folds clothes tighter, boils water harder. She doesn’t fall apart.
But tonight, she does.
I kneel in front of her and take her hand, and gods, it feels like sandpaper and ash and every moment I’ve ever disappointed her rolled into one.
“I have to do this,” I whisper.
“I can’t lose you,” she says.
“You won’t,” I lie.
And then there’s Vira.
She’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed. Her eyes don’t shine like Mama’s. Her jaw is clenched like she wants to punch a star out of orbit.
“You’re going to a war zone,” she says flatly.
I nod.
“To find the guy who knocked you up and landed himself in galactic prison.”
I nod again.
She exhales through her nose. “You are such a goddamn idiot.”
I grin. It cracks my face like a breaking plate. “You love me anyway.”
She sighs. Walks over. Pulls a datachip from her jacket and slaps it into my palm.
“Access codes. Some Alliance overrides. And… my will.”
I blink. “Vira—”
“If you don’t come back,” she says, “Kel’s mine.”
“Mama—”
“Can barely make rent. And you know it.”
“Vira, this isn’t—”
“You trust me with him?”
I look at my son. I don’t see a hybrid anomaly. I see curls stuck to sweaty cheeks. I see gold in his eyes like a sunrise on ruined ground. I see all the best and worst parts of both of us wrapped in soft flesh and a scream like a damned reaper banshee.
“I do,” I say.
“Then don’t die,” she snaps.
“Working on it.”
I leave in the dead of night.
I kiss Mama’s forehead. Hug Vira. She doesn’t hug back, but she doesn’t let go of my wrist until I do.
Then I kneel by Kel.
He’s curled under his favorite blanket—crayon-stained, threadbare, soft as sin. His little hand is wrapped around a plastic wrench. I smile. I cry.
“Hey, baby,” I whisper, brushing his hair back. “Mommy’s gotta go get something. Something really, really important.”
His lips move. Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe he hears me.
“Mama…”
I kiss his forehead. I breathe him in like it’s the last oxygen in the world.
Then I leave.
The shuttle’s launch is rough.
She fights me the whole way out of orbit, rattling like a coffin with an attitude problem. The stealth drive kicks in late and stutters. I override the emergency ping with a wire I shouldn’t touch and a prayer I don’t believe in.
But I make it.
Deep space opens up in front of me like a throat.
And then the drones find me.
The first two are easy. Old patrol models. I blind their sensors with a static burst from the hacked navchip and punch the thrusters.
The third one?
Not so easy.
It tags me before I even see it—a sleek, ugly little Alliance interceptor. Probably flagged my trajectory the second I left lunar shadow.
Alarms wail. My HUD bleeds red. The back stabilizer explodes. The cockpit fills with smoke and curses.
“Son of a blistering whorebot!” I scream, yanking the stick to starboard. The ship lists hard, gravity pulling blood from my brain. “C’mon, baby, hold together—just a little longer—”
The panel sparks. The nav blinks out.
I’m flying blind.
“Stars, stars, stars—”
Jurtik rises below me. Brown and cracked and burning at the seams. A wasteland with teeth.
I dive.
The atmosphere hits like a fist. The heat is instant—metal howling, alarms shrieking, my teeth rattling in my skull. The console explodes in sparks. The cabin lights die.
I aim for what looks like a soft dune.
It's not.
The impact is nuclear.
The world turns inside out.
I come to with blood in my mouth and static in my ears.
The ship is half-buried in sand. Smoke curls from the consoles like dying ghosts. My shoulder’s dislocated. My lip’s split. Something’s wrong with my left knee.
I crawl.
The hatch won’t open. I kick it. I scream at it. I beg it.
Then I slam the override and punch through the manual release like a woman possessed.
Hot air hits me like a slap. Dry. Burned. Tainted with engine grease and something worse—something coppery and feral.
Jurtik.
I made it.
The ship’s fried. The navchip’s slag.
There’s no way back.
I stagger into the sand, coughing, my boots sinking, my legs shaking.
I should cry.
I should collapse.
I don’t.
Because I can still hear Kel’s voice in my head.
Because there’s only one man on this planet who can help me.
And he sure as hell owes me.