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‘He’s also the most heavy-duty, undying mofo I’ve ever met,’ Kaal said. ‘Xander’s built like a walking reactor; he can pull energy from the aether. He’ll heal. He needs time.’

Santi pulled out two cryogenic pods that slid from the wall and hovered mid-air. ‘Soon as I load Miral in, I’ll patch his vitals into the med panel so we can get a good read on him. It’s not good, Savvine, but like Kaal said, we haven’t seen the last of our Commander.’

Savvine stepped back with an exhale as Kaal and Santi went to work.

First, they inserted Miral into the first chamber.

Next, they slid Xander’s limp form into the second stasis capsule.

Kaal activated both pods’ interface. ‘Xander’s metabolism lets him repair damage on a cellular level. Nuclear trauma, internal bleeding, metabolic collapse, he can bounce back in a few days.’

Savvine nodded, eyes brimming. ‘What about Miral?’

‘She’s self-generating. Her metanoids are already reconstructing the damaged segments. Her recovery will be way faster than Xander’s, and trust, she’ll be cursing the whole way.’

Savvine touched the outer casing of her lover’s pod, her fingers trembling.

Inside, his eyes flickered once. Then closed.

She whispered, ‘Come back to me, baby.’

For the first time in hours, she let her tears fall.

The transfer back to the Signet mother-ship was a blur.

Savvine hardly remembered stepping through the airlock or the hiss of pressurized seals re-engaging.

Her legs moved instinctively, but her mind was only anchored to one thing, one person: Xander.

He lay suspended in the stasis capsule, silent and still, his body blackened and raw from the blast.

His charred chest rose and fell with a rattle, each breath a miracle.

The right side of his face was still scorched, his lips cracked, and his eye swollen shut. Even broken, he still appeared potent, unbreakable, spectral-forged.

They wheeled him into the medbay, the harsh light pooling over him as the medics and techs worked on him, inputting recovery commands, calibrating the regeneration matrix.

The chamber was cold and white, and the antiseptic scent of ionized steel and bio-gel clung to everything, as she sat in a chair close by, eyes on him, unable to speak.

If she did, her composure would’ve shattered, and she didn’t trust herself not to fragment completely.

Still, she didn’t leave.

Not when they linked his neural node to the rejuvenation grid.

Not when they inserted the nucleic stimulators into the arteries along his arm and neck. Not when the medics whispered about whether he’d wake up whole.

Not even when they told her in gentle murmurs, several times, to go rest.

She stayed.

Curled in a chair beside the pod, knees to her chest as hours passed.

Maybe a day. She didn’t count.

She memorized the rhythm of the lights as they flickered over his body. The way his wounds began to pulse with a gold glow.

She studied his dermis and noticed that, little by little, it started to reweave itself, muscle knitting, nerve threads reconnecting, and skin reforming in layers like waves smoothing over torn earth.