Kaylee initiates the sequence, and reality tears apart around us. I hold the quantum fields together through sheer force of will, my consciousness scattered across light-years of folded space. Through our bond, I feel Kaylee’s terror, her desperate plea for me to hold on, her love wrapping around me like a lifeline in the chaos.
When we emerge from jump space, I’m already fading. The effort has cost me too much—my vision is gray, my tendrils limp, my consciousness fraying at the edges like worn fabric.
“Jhorn!” Kaylee’s voice seems to come from very far away.
I try to respond, to reassure her that the jump was successful, that we’re safe, but the words won’t come. My consciousness is fragmenting, pieces of myself lost in the quantum foam we just traversed.
The last thing I feel through our bond is Kaylee’s fierce, protective love—and her desperate promise that she won’t let me go.
Then darkness takes me, and I fall into the void between stars.
10
Safe Harbor
Theemergencylightingbathesthe cockpit in crimson as I struggle to stabilize our trajectory. Alarms scream through the ship, warning of system failures cascading through every deck. The jump drive is fried—we got one desperate leap andnow it’s dead, circuits melted into useless slag. But we’re alive. We made it.
And Jhorn is unconscious.
He lies slumped in the co-pilot’s chair, his indigo skin dulled to a sickly gray-blue. The tendrils that were so alive with light and purpose just minutes ago now hang limp, their bioluminescence reduced to the faintest pulse. Only our bond-link remains attached, a single thread connecting us, though even it seems thinner, frailer than before.
“Jhorn,” I call again, reaching for him even as I wrestle with the manual controls. “Stay with me!”
Through our attenuated bond, I feel his consciousness flickering like a dying light. Whatever he did to make that impossible jump work has drained him to his core. I taste his exhaustion on my tongue, metallic and bitter, feel the hollow ache of it in my own cells.
The terror of losing him hits me like a physical blow. When did that happen? When did the thought of existing without him become unbearable? The realization that I’m more afraid of losing Jhorn than I am of dying crashes over me with stunning clarity.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” I mutter, dividing my attention between the failing controls and his still form. “Not now. Not after everything. Not when I’ve finally figured out that I—”
I can’t finish the thought. Not yet. Not while we’re still in mortal danger.
The ship shudders violently as we enter the outer atmosphere of the rogue planetoid—a massive, scarred chunk of rock drifting alone through the void. No sun, no orbital companions, just a wandering world cast adrift from its system eons ago. The perfect hiding place, if we can just land this broken vessel in one piece.
I force the ship into a steeper descent, aiming for a dark plain visible through breaks in the cloud cover. The hull temperature rises alarmingly as friction builds, but the heat shields are holding—barely. We’re coming in too fast, too steep, but there’s no time for finesse. Not with Jhorn fading and ApexCorp potentially only minutes behind us.
“Impact in thirty seconds,” the ship’s AI announces with mechanical indifference.
I reach over and grasp Jhorn’s hand, his skin cool against my palm. Through our bond, I push every ounce of strength I can spare, willing him to hold on, to stay with me.
“Brace for landing,” I tell him, though I don’t know if he can hear me. “We’re almost safe.”
The ship hits the surface with a bone-jarring impact that rattles my teeth and makes the hull shriek in protest. We skid across the rocky plain in a shower of sparks and screeching metal, restraints digging into my shoulders as we’re thrown forward, then back. Something cracks—in the ship or in me, I can’t tell. The viewscreen goes dark as external sensors fail, leaving us blind as we continue our violent slide across alien terrain.
Then, with a final, shuddering groan that sounds like the ship’s death rattle, we stop.
Silence descends, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and the soft, persistent beep of emergency systems. We’re down. We’re alive.
I release my restraints with shaking hands and turn immediately to Jhorn. His chest rises and falls with shallow breaths, but his eyes remain closed, his consciousness still withdrawn into whatever protective state saved him during our desperate jump.
“Jhorn,” I say, touching his face gently. His skin is cool, almost cold, and far too pale. “Come back to me.”
Through our connection, I sense him struggling toward consciousness, drawn by my voice, by my need. His eyelids flutter but don’t open. The bond between us feels stretched thin, a fragile thread where once there was a pulsing lifeline.
The ship’s systems continue their shutdown sequence around us, power diverting to life support and essential functions. We can’t stay here—the vessel is too damaged, too exposed. If ApexCorp managed to track our jump, they’ll find us soon enough.
I force myself to focus on immediate survival, though every instinct screams at me to stay by Jhorn’s side. The environmental scan shows breathable atmosphere outside—thin, cold, but sustainable. Gravity slightly less than standard. No immediate signs of hostile life forms, though unusual energy readings continue to interfere with detailed scans.
Moving quickly, I gather emergency supplies from the storage lockers: medical kit, rations, portable shelter, weapons. My hands move with practiced efficiency while my mind remains divided—part focused on the tasks before me, part tethered to Jhorn through our bond, monitoring his faint presence like a lifeline I’m afraid to let go.