Page 10

TEN

Stavian

Stavian stood beside Cerani’s bed, watching her eyelids flutter closed. She’d fought sleep for almost twenty peks, stubborn as always, but the healing solution finally kicked in, and with it, the anesthetic additive that would put her out while the microbots did their work. Her injured leg was wrapped in protective gel, the bone already fusing back together with the help of hundreds of microstructures. She slept with her arm across her abdomen and her other hand still curled in his. Her breathing was steady.

He didn’t want to leave her.

He would stay if he could. Sit there the rest of the cycle, guarding her from the ceiling cracking again or the Axis tracking her movements or even the wind outside if it dared blow too hard against the facility. But the mine needed him. The injured needed him. He would show up for them. Not the way the Axis wanted, but the way he knew was right.

Stavian stood slowly, checking one last time that the monitors beside Cerani’s bed stayed green. They did. Her vitals looked stable. Safe. Only then did he touch her hair. Just once. Light. Like a promise.

“I’ll come back,” he said quietly.

He walked out, sealing the med room behind him with his security code. A guard raised a brow near the corridor, but Stavian didn’t pause. He entered the main lab. The stench hit before the door opened—burned ozone, old blood, antiseptic. Too much all at once.

Telren stood by a console, tapping her panel like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, though her white coat had a slash of grime across the sleeve. She didn’t look up.

“Status,” Stavian said.

“You want the nice version or the honest one?” she asked.

“Honest.”

“Eight miners dead. Five recovered, but critical. Fifteen more with injuries we can stabilize if the rest of the system holds. I’ve got two requiring extensive internal microbot surgeries. Otherwise, they’re offline within the cycle.”

He set his jaw. “Do the surgeries.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, finally looking up. “Their recovery time will be long. That means dedicating almost fifty percent of active resources to prisoners who—by Axis law—should have been cycled offline upon arrival.”

“Yet you kept them alive.”

Her lips twisted. “I needed your approval, but…” Her gaze shifted to the room where Cerani was recovering. “You were with the miner who’s immune to the radiation.”

“That’s right.” He straightened and flared his wings just enough to make his point. “630-I is under my personal protection.”

“Axis law—”

“At this mine, right now, I am Axis law.” He didn’t give a fek what anyone thought about him. His veins burned with a strange kind of heat. Smoke curled from his lips, as if embers burned in his throat. “Keep the miners alive.”

Telren held his gaze for a moment, then turned back to the table. “Yes, Controller. I’ll deploy the microbots immediately. But if another shake hits, don’t expect clean outcomes.”

“There is nothing clean about this place,” he growled, and left before she could say anything else.

The corridor outside the med lab was quieter. Mechs had cleared most of the rubble. The air still vibrated faintly with the kind of tension that told him they weren’t in the clear. Not yet.

He found Darven on the command deck running a diagnostic loop at the central terminal.

“What do we know?” Stavian asked.

Darven pulled up the sector map. Several areas blinked in yellow. Two flashed red.

“We lost most of tunnel line F,” he said. “Complete shaft collapse. Luckily, it was on rest cycle. No one was inside. Tunnels B through D are impacted, but stable.”

“And sector E?”

Darven shifted his weight. “Main support columns failed. Partial ceiling collapse, backflow damage from pulse converters when the pressure valves overloaded. Unsurprising in natural-quake scenarios like this.”

Stavian moved in closer, his eyes tracking the data. “That shouldn’t have happened. There were no warnings. The tunnels should have been able to withstand a tremor like that.”

“True. Either the readings were wrong…or it was poor planning.”

Stavian locked his jaw. “Poor planning?”

Darven shrugged. “The converters in E haven’t triggered since installation. We do regular sweeps, but the mine build was rushed and corners were cut.”

Stavian’s pulse thumped in his ears. “You just saw the casualties. Miners buried alive. Half the shafts offline. This happened because of shoddy construction?”

“The Axis set a deadline.” Darven looked up at him blandly. “And Axis deadlines are met. Period. Even if it means a rushed build.”

Stavian eyed him, trying not to hate him. “You’ve been here since the DeLink Mine’s construction. Why wasn’t I informed of structural deficiencies?”

“It wasn’t relevant to crystal extraction,” Darven replied, sounding exasperated. “Controller, our biggest problem is that when Axis Central reviews this incident, they’ll want names. Someone to blame.”

Stavian’s gaze sharpened. “If Central set an unrealistic deadline that resulted in the construction of an unstable mine, they should look at themselves.”

“You aren’t thinking clearly.” Darven exhaled. “Do you want to survive this or not?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Stavian crossed his arms.

Darven swore under his breath. “It doesn’t matter how the mine was built. Central will blame us.” His gaze turned considering. “You, specifically, as the controller in charge of the mine.”

“Fine.” Stavian was so done, he had to fight to keep his expression neutral and his raging feelings to himself. Darven would be the first to blame him, but Stavian didn’t care. Not anymore. “Then they can blame me. In the meantime, production is on hold until this mine is made safe.”

“You’re not serious.” Darven let out a disbelieving laugh. “Mechs can clear the debris and shore up tunnel E. Send word to Central that we need a new shipment of miners. We take the current group we have offline, and with fresh bodies, we’ll be back in those tunnels within two cycles.”

Every word Darven uttered made Stavian want to punch him in the face. “No.”

Darven stared at him like he couldn’t believe what he just heard. “You’re walking toward a full tribunal.”

“Then I’ll walk fast,” Stavian said, and he turned to leave before he sent Darven to the med lab himself. He didn’t stop. Didn’t explain. He left Darven standing on the command deck with a vein pulsing at his temple and a list of excuses trying to sputter out of his mouth.

Stavian made his way to the upper hangar. His boots struck the steel floor harder than normal—he didn’t bother hiding the weight of his thoughts. Above him, the emergency lights flicked every few seconds, trying to resume normal function. The mine was so quiet, as if it was holding its breath.

He bypassed the docking bay entrance and keyed into the access corridor that led to the transport inventory. The door scanned his wrist, ran three clearance checks, and opened with a hiss.

The manifest pulled up on the wall screen. He tapped fast, pulling rows of ship specs and cargo loads. Four Axis-class transports were docked. Two were heavy haulers—no good for people, slow and completely exposed. The third was decommissioned for repairs and still missing a functional nav core.

But the fourth…

Stavian’s pulse ticked.

ESS Mirka . Mid-range transport. It was technically rated for ore transfer, but the galley system and recycled air system marked it as multipurpose. Passenger-grade. It was outdated and a couple tons heavy, but the layout had everything he needed. It could fly. It had shields and defensive weaponry. And it could carry them all if he moved fast enough.

He activated his interface and opened a systems map of the ship.

Power core level: 82%.

Navigation systems: fully functional but outdated.

Dock locks: secured.

Override access: Limited to clearance B5-level and above.

Stavian stared at the screen a long moment. His clearance was A7, which meant he had full override access to this ship. It would take several cycles to manually input flight routes without going through the central system, which was monitored. He rubbed his chin, considering his options. If he overrode the system completely and forced a blind jump, it would be a big risk. That would mean rerouting. Forging destination codes. Jamming the comm feeds long enough to move without alerting Central.

The first option was safer. The injured miners needed time to recover, and during that time, he could sneak in and quietly override the ship’s systems so that when they left, they’d be cut off from the Axis network and harder to trace. He could do it. It was still atrociously risky, but once they were spaceborne, it wouldn’t matter.

This was the ship. This was the way out.

He examined the schematics, zooming into the sub-hold beneath the main loading deck. There was enough space for every miner. There were forty-nine of them, currently. He checked the numbers. There were twelve staterooms, but the cargo bay was big enough to hold fifty standard freight stacks. With some reorganization, they’d have more than enough room for every living miner. Each one.

Stavian’s heart settled into a pace he recognized—stable working rhythm. This was no longer about surviving the Axis. It was about running from them.

He turned from the console and keyed into encrypted comms. “Elite mech unit S-three-N—activate and report to dock 4B. Prepare for maintenance inspection.”

The response came fast. “Confirmed. Standing by.”

Good. With any luck, someone on the mining team would have some spaceship knowledge, so he didn’t have to manage the entire bridge once they were off this moon. He reached into the lower console and turned off the terminal behind him. No trace.

Cerani was healing. In one cycle, once the bots did their work, she’d be strong enough to walk. When she was, he’d be waiting—with more than just a plan. He’d have a ship, a path through the stars, and the kind of fury only love could forge. He’d have mapped every checkpoint, rerouted every sensor, and built a way out of this blood-soaked cage.

Because this wasn’t just about rebellion anymore.

It was about her.

Cerani was the pulse behind everything waking up inside him. The fire that had burned through the walls he’d spent a lifetime maintaining. He didn’t care what it cost. The Axis had already taken his past, his history, and—until now—his free will—he wouldn’t let them take her.

He stepped into the corridor with his heart still echoing from her kiss. The memory of her blood-streaked hands, helping others even with her own bones broken. She was terrifying in her devotion, luminous with defiance, and too fekking good to stay in a system that wanted her forgotten.

There was no more waiting.

No more obeying.

He would burn every checkpoint, every coded communication chain, every lie the Axis had used to keep her caged.

And if they came for her now?

He’d burn the whole fekking empire down before they laid a single hand on her.