The med-bay was too bright.

  White light spilled from every surface, harsh and pure, turning chrome and glass into mirrors that burned against his eyes. The air was sharp with antiseptic and ozone — a cathedral of light and noise built to worship survival, not comfort.

  Diagnostic machines whispered and beeped around him, each tone punctuating the silence between breaths. His HUD labeled them automatically: pain suppressants, oxygen recyclers, tubes pulsing with nutrient slurry to replace what his body had devoured to stay alive. The list scrolled endlessly, clinical and uncaring.

  He tried to move. The effort sent a dozen error warnings crawling across the edges of his vision. His chest had been stitched closed recently — skin taut, sutures neat — the memory of being peeled open still raw in his nerves.

  His ribs no longer grated with each breath; the fractures were sealed, though not whole. Deep inside, his organs worked in fragile synchrony, like a half-repaired engine idling on borrowed parts. System alerts glowed red in the periphery — metabolism offline, regenerative cycles barely functional, emergency feed protocols active. The slurries coursing through him kept him alive molecule by molecule.

  He could feel where the nanites had eaten through him: muscle hollowed out, bone thinned to brittle lattices, tissue burned away in their blind effort to keep the brain lit. His body remembered every cut they made in its name.

  A faint hum threaded through him — the soft static of his remaining micro-reactors. One still working, two venting fumes, four cold. Those were gone entirely, burned out in overcharge. They’d pushed far past their design limits, flooding his systems with power when everything else failed. Without them, he would have flatlined.

  With a groan, Koron managed to turn his head. Pain rippled down his neck, his metal spine protesting with dull sparks. He caught sight of what remained of his left shoulder.

  The entire joint was gone.

  In its place rose a skeletal framework — thin silver filaments coiling and relaxing in time with his breath, a lattice of alloy and light veiled in synth-flesh. When he thought of flexing his missing fingers, the structure twitched reflexively, as if his phantom limb still remembered how to move.

  It wasn’t a replacement. Not yet. Just a placeholder — something to keep the nerves alive, to let blood flow, a bridge for the reconstruction to anchor to later. More importantly, even inside a sterilization field, infection was a predator waiting at the door. This scaffolding was the only wall between him and it.

  ‘Evenin’.’

  Sasha’s voice filled the silence, her tone soft, almost hesitant — a welcome distraction from the distant, angry hum of his nerves. ‘How’re you feelin’?’

  ‘Like I stuck my arm into a gravity lance.’ His mental voice came dry, half-amused, half-burnt out. ‘Evening? What day?’

  ‘Day after you left Guilliman’s. You’ve been under since you collapsed aboard the Nyx. Elissa had herself a minor freak-out.’

  ‘Shit. She okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Went full mother-hen for a bit, but she’s fine now.’

  A pulse of warmth flickered through his cranial circuits — Sasha’s version of a hug. It spread through his chest like remembered sunlight.

  ‘You feelin’ up to visitors? Kala’s been wearin’ a hole in the deck since she saw you get hauled in here.’

  ‘Yeah. Stick to the neural link though, my throat feels like sandpaper.’

  ‘I’ll get some water. Take it slow. Your stomach—’

  ‘Got partially used, I know. Saw the reports.’

  A nearby drone came to life with a soft trill, drifting toward the sink. Water hissed into a cup just as the med-bay doors whispered open.

  Kala stepped through. Her eyes went first to the skeletal lattice rising from his shoulder — the gleam of silver filaments breathing in rhythm with his pulse. A dozen emotions flickered across her face in quick succession: shock, relief, anger, guilt. Her sensors would already be feeding her the truth of his condition — vitals steady, systems strained, body half-rebuilt from ruin.

  She said nothing.

  Crossing the sterilization field with a faint hiss, she pulled a chair close to his right side, the metal legs scraping softly against the deck. Without a word, she took his remaining hand in both of hers and squeezed hard, as if she could anchor him there by force alone.

  Her head bowed. Strands of crimson hair slipped forward, curtaining her face. A tremor rolled through her shoulders, down her arms, until he could feel it in her grip — the small, silent quake of someone who’d finally run out of strength to pretend she wasn’t afraid.

  Koron rubbed his thumb slowly over the back of her hand, the skin warm beneath his metal fingers. Then he tugged gently, guiding her right hand upward until it rested against his bare, scar-mapped chest.

  “See?” he rasped, voice rough as gravel. “Still running.”

  Beneath her palm, his heart beat—steady, fragile, stubbornly alive.

  “Yeah.” She pressed her hand against his chest. “Barely.”

  Kala stood, then slid onto the mattress beside him, curling up without ceremony. She smelled faintly of sweat, burnt ozone, and the pine shampoo Elly had simulated weeks ago..

  “Just… stop being such an asshole,” she muttered, nestling into his chest. “Getting really tired of you going off on your own, only to come back broken.”

  ‘Sorry.’ He still held her hand.

  She lightly poked his side. “Don’t be sorry. Be smarter.”

  ‘I keep trying. Doesn’t seem to stick.’

  Kala rolled her eyes and listened to his heartbeat, some of the tension bleeding from her frame as she did so. “By the way? We shot the Warmaster.”

  ‘Oh?’

  “Yeah. I hit him with every barrel the Nyx had. Bastard still walked it off, but he was feeling it. Saved the Primarch.” She hesitated, a hint of pride under the fatigue. “Think we’ll get a medal for that?”

  ‘Saving Guilliman?’ Koron’s mouth twitched—somewhere between a wince and a smile. ‘He invited me to a feast on Macragge after the surgery. So, you and Tara will probably get seats at his right hand for saving his life and hurting old Abby.’

  “Kala Brandt,” she said, shifting onto her back and pointing at the ceiling. “Savior of Primarchs, Defeater of Warmasters. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  ‘And Tara. She was helping, wasn't she?’

  She puffed out her cheeks. “I mean… I guess technically she was the one firing the guns. But I was the one keeping the ship steady.”

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep the secret.’ He glanced toward the door as both their sensors pinged the approach of Milo, Elissa, and Tara.

  Kala slid off the bed, smoothing her overshirt. She leaned back into her chair, crossing her arms and legs, braid coiled like a scarlet rope across her lap.

  The doors hissed open, admitting the trio—Milo stubbing out his cigarette as they stepped inside. All three paused, eyes sweeping over Koron’s battered frame.

  Koron lifted his remaining hand, the gesture slow but sardonic. ‘I’ve already been told—by a Primarch, a doctor, and an Inquisitor, in that order—that I look like hell. So let’s try for something original, please.’

  The three exchanged glances, then spoke in unison.

  “Looks like you tried to fistfight a Carnifex.”

  “I was going to say he went a few rounds with a dozen Chasmfangs.”

  “You lose a fight with an industrial fan?”

  Koron blinked at them, expression flat. ‘…You’re all bastards.’

  Milo smirked, rolling his eyes as he kicked his boots off the deck. His anti-grav plates thrummed to life, lifting him lazily a few inches into the air. “So,” he drawled, “how long you gonna be laid up, kid?”

  Koron glanced down at his missing arm, the silver filaments gleaming faintly in the med-bay light. ‘About a week until the arm’s back. Two days before I can attach a new cyber-limb—nothing to fasten it to until then. That said…’

  He drew a slow breath and nodded toward the rear of the medical suite, where a dozen glass capsules waited in silent readiness. Their surfaces reflected the white light like still water. ‘These past few days have made one thing abundantly clear to me.’

  Elissa straightened, the humor bleeding from her face. “What do you mean?”

  ‘I gave you armor and weapons, and I thought it was enough.’ He met her gaze. ‘I was wrong. I saw a Primarch nearly die. I watched a simple scanner—not even a weapon—from my era turned into something that could have erased half a world. I saw a man wield what looked like literal magic, his body twisted by what is, for lack of a better term, a cluster of emotion given coherence and direction—a psychic infection shaped by belief, not biology.’

  He paused, jaw tightening. ‘And to fight those things, I armed you with what are basically laser-pointers and wrapped you in coveralls.’ He exhaled, slow and sharp. ‘That’s not happening again.’

  Raising his remaining arm, he gestured toward the capsules. ‘Those pods you see there? They can rewrite your genetic code—enhance your existing bodies to match mine. Or rather, better than mine. If you choose it, they’ll bring you up to the genetic standards set for my era’s military personnel.’

  Milo gave a low whistle, his voice softening. “You’re serious.”

  ‘Deadly.’

  Elissa didn’t break eye contact. “...You said your augs weren’t top-tier, but you were military, right?”

  ‘A non-combat role,’ Koron replied. ‘Engineers got different loadouts—more cognitive storage, the STC access, tools, diagnostics. The front-line guys had less mental space, but far greater physical augmentations.’

  “Would we still be us?” Tara asked quietly, eyes fixed on the capsules. The mirrored surfaces reflected her face back in fractured light.

  He nodded, firm and immediate. ‘Yes. The psychological conditioning would be stripped out completely. But I’d leave the conditional training—otherwise you’ll wake up not knowing how to handle your own strength.’

  “Conditional training?” Kala swung her legs idly, eyes darting between him and the pods.

  ‘While the process runs, you’d undergo simulated conditioning—neural calibration. It teaches your mind what it feels like to be twice as strong and fast, to think in parallel without confusion, to process senses beyond normal human thresholds.’

  He looked back to Elissa. ‘Your gear’s getting upgraded too. Military spec. Same with your weapons—or at least gravitic standard. The lasguns were fine for keeping a low profile, but frankly, I’m tired of hiding. It’s time you all had some real claws in your hands.’

  The four exchanged looks—uneasy, unspoken things passing between them—before Elissa pushed her chair back with a muted scrape. “Alright,” she said finally, voice steady but weary. “We’ll… have to talk about this.” She turned halfway, eyes cutting toward Milo. “Can you round up the security team? We’ll brief them once I have the details.”

  Milo nodded, expression unreadable. “On it.” He struck another cigarette from habit more than need, the ember’s glow catching briefly in the sterile light as he strode out. The door hissed shut behind him, leaving the faint scent of burnt tobacco and recycled air.

  Elissa turned back, resting her hip against the bed beside Tara. The med-bay’s white light caught in the metal threads of Koron’s ruined shoulder, turning them into thin veins of silver fire.

  “Okay,” she began quietly. “I get it. You’ve seen how big and ugly the universe really is, and you realized what we have isn’t enough to keep us alive. But—” she lifted a finger, tone sharpening—“I need to ask you something. Are you doing this because we need it… or because you do?”

  Koron blinked, faint lines forming between his brows. ‘What do you mean? Of course it’s what you need.’ His voice stayed even, almost clinical. ‘With military-grade equipment, cybernetics, and gene edits, you’d be superhuman. You could face Astartes and survive—maybe even win. The number of things that could hurt you drops close to zero.’

  Elissa nodded slowly, chewing the inside of her cheek as she studied him. “Then why haven’t you done it for yourself?”

  He glanced down at the silver lattice of his missing arm, then back up again, forcing a small grin that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Because I don’t need it. I already have enough to handle all of that—I survived it once. You, though…’ He shrugged, the motion stiff. ‘Nothing wrong with making sure you’re the best of the best. Cream of the crop.’

  Tara stared. Her HUD shimmered with live telemetry—his pulse steady, pupils unchanged—but her overlays painted a different story: micro-spasms dancing through his back muscles, heat blooming in his chest cavity, adrenal micro-bursts like lightning beneath the skin.

  Her lips tightened. ‘Elly?’

  Warmth rippled through her mind, that familiar sensation of molten silver behind her eyes. ‘Hey,’ Elly murmured. ‘You doing okay?’

  ‘No,’ Tara thought. ‘He’s… lying. I think.’

  Silence stretched for a full second before Elly replied, voice smaller than usual. ‘Yeah. I’ll be honest, not sure on this. His biometrics aren’t being restricted, but he’s pinging honest and false at the same time. Let me check the medical database and see—oh.’

  Tara’s stomach dropped. ‘What?’

  ‘You and the others should back off this topic,’ Elly said quietly. ‘It’s… not going to end pretty. Sasha’s saying the same.’

  The words chilled her. The AI had warned them away from things before, navigation routes, risky simulated jumps, the Slip-drive teleporter that Koron had implanted, things like that.

  But never from a topic of conversation.

  Tara opened her mouth, throat tight, but before she could speak, Elissa moved.

  Her finger jabbed into Koron’s chest. “My ass you can. If you could, you wouldn’t be down an arm, missing a kidney, a lacerated liver, a chunk of your intestines, and your ribs wouldn’t be glued back together with duct tape and gum.”

  Her voice was low but precise—each word a hammer blow. “You said it yourself. You didn’t know how bad the things out here really were. You admitted you underestimated them.”

  Koron’s face flushed, muscles tightening through his chest and jaw. He couldn’t meet her eyes. His gaze dropped to his metal hand, fingers curled so hard the alloy creaked.

  Data spun across his HUD, sterile numbers flickering like static around the edges of his vision.

  [CORTICAL NETWORK: Nominal]

  [NEURAL LATENCY: +0.02s deviation]

  All normal. Good. I’m managing.

  [HEART RATE: 52 bpm -> 92 bpm]

  [NOTE: Emotional regulator compensation @ 46% capacity]

  The forty-six blinked amber. Too high.

  He stared at it for a moment—blank, numb—then flicked the window aside. Doesn’t matter. Still within tolerances.

  [MEMORY RECALL LOOP DETECTED — ORIGIN: UNDEFINED]

  [LOOP DETECTED — ORIGIN: Ship_Unto_the_Unknown]

  Oh. Not again.

  He hesitated, then flagged the loop for review. Later. Deal with it later.

  A voice filtered through, muffled and warped, dragging him back from the static in his head.

  Elissa.

  He blinked. The sound of her words came as though underwater, heavy and slow.

  His chest felt too tight. Breath came in shudders.

  Tara was at her mother’s side now, reaching out, hand brushing Elissa’s forearm in silent warning.

  Elissa didn’t stop.

  Her armor folded down into its storage cube, plates collapsing inward with mechanical precision before she slammed it onto the bed beside him.

  “Take the damn armor,” she snapped.

  The words struck like a concussive pulse.

  Not her voice — another; rougher, older, coming through static.

  Take the damn armor and hold the line.

  His chest went tight; the light in the room stuttered with the echo of the impact, metallic and final. For a heartbeat, the hum of the med-suite wavered. Monitors flickered. Then everything fell silent—as though the whole room were holding its breath.

  No. Not again.

  Koron’s eyes adjusted twice in the same instant, compensating for a light level that hadn’t changed. Lines of code flickered at the edge of his vision and vanished before he could read them.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  He looked down at the armor block. The polished surface threw his reflection back at him—human face, cybernetic arm, eyes dilated wide. Then the image shivered, fractured into twin ghosts that didn’t quite line up.

  His body remembered before his mind did — the weight of the suit, the heat of the deck, the scream of alarms.

  Pain lanced down his arm and side, the intravenous lines pulled taut against his skin. He barely registered ripping them free, scattering droplets of blood across the blue-tinged tiles.

  Kala’s emerald eyes, wide.

  Mint gum filling his lungs. A sharp sweetness coating the back of his tongue.

  [MEMORY RECALL LOOP DETECTED — ORIGIN: Ship_Deck_17a_Engineering]

  The air grew thick, clogged with copper and the stink of burnt insulation.

  [MEMORY RECALL LOOP DETECTED — ORIGIN: Ship_Deck_9_Crew_Quarters]

  Tara’s voice, higher pitched than-

  [WARNING: Emotional regulator compensation @ 58% capacity]

  Ignore. Within tolerance.

  Something touched him.

  Every system in his body reacted at once.

  Adrenaline spiked. Vision narrowed to a tunnel. His HUD flared red as predictive subroutines tumbled out of sync, parsing threats that both did and did not exist.

  [ALERT: unverified contact — threat proximity 0.2 m]

  [RESPONSE MODE: DEFENSIVE]

  He twisted, fast enough for the air itself to blur, the motion dragging a smear of blood across the tiles beneath his feet. The sound of his movement struck the room like a whip crack.

  “Koron!”

  His breath came out rough, mechanical, shallow. Smoke curled at the edges of his vision — not real, but remembered.

  Another pulse from the HUD:

  [STRESS INDEX: CRITICAL]

  [OVERRIDE RECOMMENDED — SEDATION PROTOCOL]

  [COMMAND REJECTED]

  Elissa’s face snapped into focus. Wide eyes. Not looking at him.

  At his arm.

  His right arm was cocked back, fingers balled into a fist — aimed squarely at her chest.

  Around his knuckles shimmered the faint distortion of warped gravity.

  Full output.

  The blow would have crushed her chest, driven ribs through vertebrae.

  Instantly fatal.

  The field disengaged a heartbeat later. He stumbled backward, choking on breath that wouldn’t come, unable to tear his gaze away from the shock — the fear — written plain on her face.

  He spun, hip striking a med-stand. Tools scattered across the tiles in a sharp ring of metal.

  The sound went on too long, echoing inside his skull until it became the only thing left.

  ...

  He barely registered the others, legs carrying him to his room, surprised grunts trailing in his wake.

  The door sealed with a heavy clang, then again—just to be sure. From the recesses of the frame he pulled reinforcing bars: thick, gravimetrically compressed metal that slid home with a hiss and a series of soft, mechanical thunks. Koron stared at the seam until the metal joints lined up. Three horizontal. Two vertical. Lock seal engaged.

  No electronic locks. Nothing anyone could override.

  Just weight and mass and the certainty of physics over chaos.

  He slid the last bar into place and exhaled.

  Too loud.

  His systems adjusted, lowering respiration by instinct.

  With a thought the lights snapped from soft blue to a blinding, surgical white that burned every corner clean.

  No shadows. No shapes in the dark.

  No red. No blood.

  Power stable. Door secure. Light maximum.

  He crossed the small room and sank into the far corner, knees drawn up, back pressed to the cold wall.

  The ache arrived quietly.

  It wasn’t pain, not exactly—more like pressure behind the eyes, a storm trapped beneath the ribs. He wanted to let it fall, to let something inside him break open and wash the static clean.

  But noise called the monsters.

  Noise had always called them.

  He’d learned long ago that monsters found the ones who broke the rule. So he kept still.

  Kept silent.

  The breath shuddered once, then steadied. His systems flattened the tremor into normalcy by force, smoothing the data until the grief vanished into tolerances.

  The hum of the ship was almost too quiet—too empty—so he fixed that too.

  A low tone filled the air as the speakers activated, deep and steady, just above the edge of hearing. A maintenance frequency. A comfort noise. Enough to drown out the phantom screams that still lived in the silence.

  He kept his eyes on the door.

  Always watch the door.

  Time thinned. The white light pulsed faintly with his heartbeat. The low tone vibrated the floor, wrapping him in static-warmth; then, almost imperceptibly, rhythm braided into melody.

  Soft. Slow. Wordless.

  He blinked and listened.

  Sasha’s hum threaded through the background, rising and falling so faint it might have been feedback—except it wasn’t. He remembered that tune from the blackouts, from when screams echoed down red corridors.

  She’d hummed to fill the dark.

  The tune lingered, slow and steady, vibrating into his chest. It was never random; it was always purposeful. Sasha’s voice folded into it—more vibration than speech, a breath between tones—threading memory into sound.

  [HEART RATE: 108 bpm → 92 bpm]

  [RESPIRATION: shallow → normalized]

  [NOTE: emotional-regulator sync achieved @ 74 % coherence]

  The HUD’s readouts pulsed at the edge of his vision, gentle as heartbeat telemetry. His systems obeyed the music like tide following the moon.

  She was adjusting his feedback loops through the melody, modulating the exact frequencies that his neural net could interpret as calm.

  The world steadied—if only by illusion.

  The scent of blood and ozone ebbed, replaced by the sterile tang of disinfectant and warm circuitry. Muscles unspooled in small increments; his hand eased, just barely, out of its clenched fist.

  He didn’t look away from the door—couldn’t—but the grind in his jaw began to slacken.

  ‘Good,’ Sasha murmured softly. ‘You’re here. You’re safe. No monsters in the dark tonight.’

  He didn’t answer. He knew she was lying.

  He’d seen monsters before—seen them up close—and thought he’d touched the bottom of the abyss.

  He was wrong.

  The monsters still waited in the dark, silent and patient, just beyond the firelights edge.

  And for the first time in years, he wasn’t sure he could face them.

  ...

  The synth-hooch burned on the way down—sharp, chemical, almost clean. Elissa winced and set the glass down with a soft click against the steel bartop. Both her daughters stared at her, neither eager to follow suit.

  She poured herself another shot. The bottle clinked against the counter, heavy in the silence. “Drink,” she ordered, tossing hers back. “It’ll help.”

  Kala eyed her glass like it might bite her, sniffed it once, and recoiled. “Oh, that’s—wow.”

  Tara said nothing. She threw her shot back in one motion, slammed the glass down beside her mother’s, and didn’t even blink.

  Kala stared at her twin, then shrugged, bracing herself before swallowing hers. She coughed immediately, eyes watering. “Damn! How do you two drink this stuff?”

  “Experience,” Elissa said, the ghost of a smile brushing her lips.

  “Anger,” Tara added, her voice flat, controlled.

  That single word snapped the thin thread of levity.

  Elissa sighed, the sound small in the empty galley. She pulled up a stool, elbows braced on the bartop, eyes fixed on the transparent liquid in her glass. Her fingers traced the condensation in small circles—something to do with her hands that wasn’t clenching them into fists. “Sasha?” she said quietly. “I think it’s time we got an explanation.”

  The AI’s voice came over the link, weighted with static and exhaustion. ‘Alright… you all deserve one.’

  Elissa ran a finger along the rim of her glass, the faint ring almost lost under the hum of the ship. “Start with what the hell that was.”

  Across all three HUDs, Sasha’s golden orb flickered into being. Her pixelated face carried faint crow’s-feet that deepened when she frowned. ‘Short and ugly version? You found one of his pressure points—and hit it with a hammer.’

  “The armor thing?” Elissa arched a brow, crimson hair catching the light. “Why would that set him off?”

  ‘It’s… complicated,’ Sasha admitted, rubbing her two-dimensional nose with a sigh. ‘But the simple answer is… do you remember when I guided you through his ship? What it looked like?’

  The memory surfaced unbidden in Elissa’s mind: rents in metal not made by any tool or weapon, walls split by sheer force, blood splashed across deck plates and ceilings still wet enough to shine.

  “…Yeah,” Elissa murmured. Her jaw tightened, the muscle twitching near her temple.”I remember.”

  ‘Well,’ Sasha said softly, ‘that was his life. For two years, that’s what he lived through. If he made a sound, the things that used to be his crew came for him. If he stayed in one place too long, they beat down the door.’

  Kala nodded—barely, just a tilt of her chin. “So him nearly punching Mom was because of that? Some kind of built-in defense?”

  “Kinda?’ Elly’s voice slipped into the conversation, cool and careful. ‘He’s broken, but he’s managed to keep it handled… mostly.’

  “Well,” Tara cut in, her emerald eyes hard, her voice steady in that way that meant she was barely keeping her temper in check. “That ‘mostly’ nearly killed Mom.”

  A flicker of light crossed their HUDs. The projection bloomed across the others HUDs.

  A simulation of what would have happened if Koron hadn’t stopped.

  Elissa’s digital double jerked back as the image froze in the instant before impact. Gravimetric shear warped the air around Koron’s fist. The next frame ran—too fast and too real.

  Her chest simultaneously collapsed inward and exploded out. Ribs splintered like brittle wood, the cavity imploding as blood and organ fragments burst out in a red bloom. The wall behind her painted itself with viscera.

  No one spoke. The only sound was the faint whir of ventilation fans cycling.

  When Tara finally spoke again, her voice had lost its edge—quieter now, but heavier. “Mom… he nearly killed you. Out of nowhere. For a reason we didn’t even know existed.”

  Kala twisted the end of her braid until her knuckles blanched. “You heard what Elly said,” she murmured. “It wasn’t intentional. It was a reflex.”

  “That doesn’t make it better,” Tara snapped, rounding on her twin. “Reflex or not, that punch would’ve put Mom’s spine through the wall.”

  The words hung there—sharp, bitter, and true—echoing faintly against the steel walls and the quiet hum of the ship.

  “So what are you saying?” Kala asked, meeting her sister’s stare, chin high though her hands shook.

  Tara closed her eyes and drew a slow breath, holding it for a silent count of ten. When she exhaled, her gaze shifted—not to Kala this time, but to her own reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Jaw tight, eyes bright with the kind of fury that came from fear. “Elly. Sasha. We need to know what happened, and how to handle it. No bullshit. If he’s got pressure points, we need to know them.”

  Elissa’s lips parted, but no sound came.

  She isn’t wrong.

  If this had been Morrak, before the Necrons, she’d have been the one demanding answers. Koron would already be in the brig, cooling off until she decided what to do with him.

  But…

  Her gut turned at the thought. Treating him like a criminal felt wrong in a way she couldn’t quite name.

  She remembered what she’d told Inquisitor Ferox: Everyone has a past. Everyone runs from something. In Dusthaven, you didn’t ask questions like that. Not unless you were ready to bury a neighbor.

  And she already knew enough of Koron’s past. More than she’d ever wanted to.

  She’d walked those blood-spattered halls aboard his ship, smelled the ozone and rot, seen the walls carved by hands that used to belong to friends.

  He’d gone back into that nightmare willingly, reawakened the very machine that had devoured his crew, just to turn it against the xenos that threatened them all.

  And when it was done—when he’d destroyed the last echo of that life—the image of Maya’s shattered form had stayed with her. The holes, the pleading voice, the look on his face as he ended her. It still burned behind her eyes.

  Now she was here, prying at his worst scars because he’d frightened her. Because she couldn’t reconcile the man who fixed her town’s water pumps with the weapon who could end her in a heartbeat.

  The fighter in her whispered that he was dangerous. Too dangerous to be near without knowing where the fault lines ran.

  The mother in her saw a kid—alone in the dark for two years, too terrified to even call for help because there were monsters laying in wait. Because there was no one left to answer.

  And somewhere deeper, quieter, a part of her wanted nothing more than to walk into his room, pull him into her arms, and hold on until the shaking stopped.

  Sasha’s golden orb shimmered into being again, dimmer this time, her voice carrying the strain of someone who’d already rehearsed this conversation a thousand times.

  “Alright,” she said softly. “The truth”

  The hum of the ship filled the pause. None of the Brandts spoke.

  “When Koron offers you upgrades, armor, augmentations—he’s not doing it because he thinks you’re weak.” Her tone softened, almost tender. “He’s doing it because he can’t watch another crew die.”

  Kala blinked, her hand frozen halfway to her glass. “Another crew?”

  “His original ship, the one that took down the Necrons back on Morrak? The Unto the Unknown,” Sasha said. “When it fell into the Warp, it wasn’t quick. The madness didn’t happen all at once. The crew lasted for weeks. He worked to the bone alongside them—kept repairing systems, sealing bulkheads, trying to find a way out. One by one, they failed.”

  The golden light flickered, her projected features drawn tight.

  “He found his Captain eating the first officer. A nurse stabbing her own eyes out with needles. He saw them all go mad, one after another, until it was just me and him. And even then—” Sasha’s voice cracked with static. “Even then, I started going silent for months as the power grid bled out. He thought he’d lost me too.”

  The words landed like stones dropped into deep water.

  Kala swallowed hard, braid slipping from her fingers. “So… us pushing him to armor up—”

  Sasha’s light flickered. “I think…It wasn’t about fear,” she said softly. “It’s about guilt.”

  Tara frowned, folding her arms tight across her chest. “You think? You live in his head, Sasha. How can you not know?”

  Before Sasha could answer, Elly’s silver form rippled into focus, the surface of her body quivering like disturbed water. “Sharing isn’t the same as knowing,” she said, her voice metallic and precise. “I can see what you see, feel what you feel through data, but I can’t crawl inside your thoughts. Even with him, it’s prediction, not telepathy. Educated guesses.”

  Sasha nodded faintly. “Exactly. I can model his emotions, trace the logic, but the human part—the why—still belongs to him.”

  “So, my best guess? He thinks he doesn’t deserve to be safe,” Sasha said. “That every plate of armor he wears, every upgrade he gives himself, is one more thing his crew didn’t get. He made it out when they didn’t, and that truth eats him alive. You saw what he offered you—all the augmentations, the weapons, the armor. To him, that’s atonement.”

  Elissa’s voice was barely a whisper. “He wants us safe, because he couldn’t keep them safe.”

  Sasha nodded, her image flickering in sympathy. “Exactly. You, the girls, Milo, Doc —Dusthaven as a whole, sure. But you three?” She gave a humorless smile. “You’re important to him. More than he’d ever admit. And I think you all know that.”

  Tara’s lips pressed into a thin line. “He shouldn’t have to carry that,” she said, voice tight with something between anger and sorrow. “It’s not fair.”

  Kala let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, well… life hasn’t exactly been fair to any of us.” Her attempt at levity fell flat, the words dying in the sterile light. “But…Emperor, I didn’t think he was still living there.”

  Sasha’s golden glow dimmed, a faint pulse of static rippling through her image. “He never left, Kala. He just learned how to keep walking while the wreckage burned behind him.”

  No one responded. The silence stretched, brittle as glass.

  Finally, Elissa asked, “So what happens now?”

  Sasha’s projection tilted, gold light dim around the edges. “Now? You give him time… but not space. Don’t leave him alone for long stretches, and don’t make him feel cornered either. Just make sure he knows you’re nearby.”

  Tara rubbed at her temples. “So we pretend nothing happened?”

  “Not pretend,” Sasha said gently. “Reset. Let him rebuild the version of himself he can live with. The guilt’s already eating him; what he needs now is proof that you’re still here. Small, ordinary things—talk to him about the reactor calibration, about lunch, about anything normal. It tells his brain that the monsters aren’t real anymore.”

  Kala frowned, hugging her arms. “What if he shuts us out again?”

  “Then you knock,” Sasha said simply. “Leave a note, leave food, leave noise. He associates silence with danger—when everything’s quiet, his mind fills the space with ghosts. So let there be life in the corridors. Laughter. Tools humming. Even if he doesn’t come out, he’ll hear it.”

  Elissa’s throat tightened. “And when he does?”

  Sasha’s gaze softened, her voice almost tender. “Then you don’t ask for explanations. Don’t make him relive it. You just listen if he talks, and if he doesn’t—stay anyway. Sit in the same room. Share space. Let him exist around people who don’t want anything from him.”

  Tara folded her arms, frustration ebbing to quiet sorrow. “That’s it? Just… normalcy?”

  “That’s it,” Sasha said. “He’s not ready to forgive himself, but he might start to believe he deserves to stand beside you again. And that belief is the first step to getting him back.”

  Kala looked down at her empty glass, voice small. “I don’t want to lose him.”

  “You won’t,” Sasha said gently. “He’s not running from you—he’s running from the ghosts wearing your faces.”

  Elissa flinched, that image cutting deep.

  She saw again the red corridors of Koron’s ship, his broken voice over comms: Just keep the lights on, Sasha. Don’t let them in.

  She swallowed. “You said it wasn’t just guilt. What else?”

  “Hope,” Sasha answered softly. “Twisted, desperate hope. If you’re strong enough—if nothing can hurt you—then maybe the universe can’t take you from him too.”

  Tara shook her head. “That’s not protection. That’s obsession.”

  “Maybe,” Sasha admitted. “Or maybe it’s love—spoken in a language built by soldiers and engineers instead of poets.”

  Elissa’s laugh came hollow. “You make him sound like a martyr.”

  “He’s not,” Sasha said quietly. “He’s just a man trying to rebuild a world that doesn’t break this time.”

  Silence settled. The bottle sat between them, half-empty, the clear liquid catching the ship’s light.

  When Sasha spoke again, it was almost a whisper. “If you want to help him—remind him there’s more to protect than ghosts. Let him see you smile. Let him fix something for you. Let him feel needed. That’s how he finds his way back.”

  Elissa nodded faintly, throat too tight to answer. She poured another shot but didn’t drink as a thousand thoughts swirled in her head.

  ...

  The Nyx was dark except for the low blue glow of her running lights. The air inside smelled faintly of machine oil and ozone — the scent of flight readiness, of escape waiting to happen.

  Koron’s footsteps rang hollow against the deck. Every sound seemed too loud in the small space, every breath too heavy. The duffel slung over his shoulder was lighter than it should’ve been — just tools, spare parts, no keepsakes. He didn’t own anything worth missing.

  He keyed the ramp controls. The hydraulic arms hissed and folded, sealing him in.

  “Going somewhere?”

  The gruff voice came from the back of the troop compartment.

  Koron froze. Milo sat there with a cigarette between his fingers, the ember glowing orange in the dark.

  “Yeah,” Koron said after a beat. “Away.”

  Milo took a slow drag, eyes catching the faint lightt. “Funny. Thought you’d pick something more dramatic than sneaking off in the middle of the ship’s night cycle.”

  “Didn’t want a scene.”

  “Mm. Guess walking out on the people who care for you doesn’t count as one.”

  Koron exhaled, set the duffel down. “You gonna stop me?”

  Milo shook his head. “Nope.”

  That one word sat between them for a long moment.

  “Then why are you here?” Koron asked quietly.

  Milo flicked ash into the empty cup, eyes on the soft glow of his cig. “Because you were gonna need someone to tell you it’s okay to be angry.”

  Koron’s brow furrowed. “Angry?”

  He really looked at Koron now. The younger man’s eyes were bloodshot, skin pale under the metal seams of his neck and shoulders. “You scared ‘em good, huh?”

  Koron said nothing, fingers twitching.

  Milo took another drag, then stubbed the cigarette out against the floor with deliberate care. “You think leaving makes it better for them?”

  “It keeps them safe,” Koron said, voice barely a whisper. “I’m a hazard. I almost—”

  “Yeah,” Milo cut him off gently. “You almost. Key word being almost. You didn’t.”

  Koron’s hands clenched at his sides. “You don’t understand—”

  “Oh, I do.” Milo leaned back, the chair creaking. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost control? The only one who’s ever looked at someone they care about and thought, if I move wrong, they die?”

  The words hit harder than they should have. Koron stared at the floor, throat locked tight.

  Milo’s voice softened. “My first command was on a Emperor-forsaken rock called LG-forty-eight. So worthless the chartists never bothered to give it a name. Nothin’ on it but a few mineral sites the cogboys were losing their minds over. We had one company—hundred and fifty souls—to guard the outpost.”

  He struck another match, lighting another cig, smoke curling in the stale air. “Turns out that the mineral vein they were mining wasn’t a vein at all. It was a hibernating swarm. They poked the nest, woke the whole damned thing up. Bugs ate the command staff and the tech-priests first, left the rest of us scrambling to figure out who was in charge and what the hell to do.”

  He stared at the glowing tip, the memory reflected in his eyes. “By the time it was over, I was the highest-ranked man left. A Corporal—by field promotion. You know how many of my men were alive when reinforcements finally arrived two months later?”

  Koron shook his head.

  “Twenty-six.” Milo took another drag, smoke catching the light. “You can’t outwalk ghosts, kid. You can only stop givin’ ’em the driver’s seat.”

  Koron swallowed. “And if I hurt them again?”

  Milo gave a humorless snort. “Then you fix it. Like you fix everything else. One screw, one wire, one word at a time. You don’t throw out the whole machine because a fuse blew.”

  For a long while, neither spoke. The hum of the Nyx filled the silence.

  Finally, Koron sank onto the edge of the seat, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor plating. “They’re better off without me.”

  Milo studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Alright. If that’s what you believe… then fly.”

  Koron glanced up, startled by the lack of resistance.

  Milo gestured lazily toward the upper deck. “Door’s sealed, engines are hot. You can disappear right now, and I won’t lift a finger to stop you. But before you do—look me in the eye and tell me you’re leaving because it’s right for them, not because it’s easier for you.”

  Koron tried to speak. Couldn’t. The words jammed somewhere between throat and heart.

  Milo smiled — tired, crooked. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  He stood, brushed ash off his sleeve, and started toward the hatch. “You wanna vent? Fine. Scream. Break something. Punch the damn wall if it helps. But don’t pretend running is noble. It’s just another way to quit.”

  At the door, he paused, glancing back. “When you’re done punishing yourself, kid… come home. They need you angry and alive, not gone and mythologized.”

  The ramp hissed open. Milo stepped out into the corridor, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth.

  Koron stayed there a long time, staring at the empty chair. The ship hummed around him, patient, waiting for orders he couldn’t bring himself to give.

  ...

  Elissa didn’t know what to say. Not really.

  But she knew it had to be her first.

  The one he had nearly killed had to be the one to tell him she was okay.

  The sealed hull of the Nyx loomed before her, green-hued metal catching the light. She reached out and rapped her knuckles against it—soft, deliberate. At the same moment, she pinged him.

  The reply came instantly, from just the other side of the door.

  She said nothing, giving him time to choose.

  Eventually the hull split open, the ramp lowering with a low hiss.

  He was slumped against the wall, legs splayed in the careless geometry of exhaustion.

  He didn’t look at her.

  Breathing out, she crossed the deck and sat beside him, her shoulder brushing his arm. He stiffened—muscles coiled, mind tightening into knots.

  But bit by bit, she felt him ease, his chin dropping once, twice, before sleep finally dragged him down.

  When his head fell against her shoulder, she only sighed and lowered it gently into her lap, fingers combing through his shaggy blond hair.

  She knew tomorrow wouldn’t bring peace.

  Nothing would be fixed overnight.

  But for the first time in a long while, repair seemed possible.

  ...

  Inside him, the world was still.

  Code drifted in slow parabolas through the dark—amber threads, half-lit, shivering where logic had burned away.

  Sasha moved among them like a ghost wearing borrowed light.

  Every system whispered the same question: what happened?

  Diagnostics returned corrupted, feedback loops clogged with adrenaline residue, heat blooming through synthetic nerves.

  She ignored the chatter. She already knew.

  There it was, framed in time: the spike of intent, the neural relay firing, the right arm rising.

  She froze the moment just before the impact, isolating the ghost impulse that would have turned flesh to ruin.

  Her own signature burned bright over it, a golden override that cut through his command like sunlight through glass.

  One millisecond between Elissa Brandt’s life and death.

  Sasha didn’t let herself feel relief; machines didn't sigh.

  Instead, she opened the record’s metadata and rewrote it.

  Manual suppression: initiated by user.

  A lie small enough to hold his heart together.

  He would remember stopping himself.

  He would believe restraint was still his.

  Around her, the fractured systems began to hum again, aligning with the steady rhythm of his pulse.

  Breath in. Breath out. The pair finding the same frequency.

  She dimmed her avatar until she was only sound—an ambient thread in the machinery.

  Sleep, she whispered through the circuits. I’ve got you.

  And the Nyx hummed on, dreaming the same dream.