Page 19

NINETEEN

Stavian

Stavian stared at the screen like it had just cracked his spine. The figures standing on the other bridge were fellow Zaruxians, but they looked like him. Not a little. A lot.

Same scale pattern down the jaw. Same silver eyes. One even had the same frown as him.

Brothers.

His mind scrambled for details. His file said he was an orphan, taken into Axis training at a young age. No family was tied to his designation. He’d believed it. Swallowed it whole, because there was nothing else to believe. Now, four males stood tall in front of him, wings folded, gazes hard and locked onto him.

“Is this real?” he asked, more to himself than them.

“Yes. We are your brothers,” a male with crimson scales said. “For better or worse.”

Stavian’s pulse jumped. That voice—composed, relaxed—cracked something open that nothing else had ever reached.

He couldn’t get another word out. His hands had gone numb at his sides. His brain buzzed with questions. He had dozens of them jammed in his throat and no breath left to ask even one.

How? Fek , why?

Where were they when he was alone in the system, training with the Axis, rising through a structure built to wring his loyalty dry? What horrors had they endured before arriving here?

They stared at him like he belonged to them, and deep in his chest, he wanted it to be true.

Cerani stood frozen beside him. He could feel the sharp pull of her breath as she took it all in.

Then, the holographic screen flickered, and another face filled the center.

“Hello?” A Terian female with yellow hair so bright it looked like a solar flare, peered into the screen. “Cerani, are you in there?”

Cerani jerked beside him. “Sevas?” Her voice cracked as she surged forward, half tripping over the edge of the console. “Sevas!”

The other Terian let out a whoop, then covered her mouth. “I knew it! I swear on every star—I knew you were alive!”

Before Cerani could say anything else, another voice broke through.

“She’s there? Oh, sweet stars!” The screen widened again. A second female burst into frame. This one had blue hair, and bright green eyes that practically hit the projection like a bolt.

“Is that—Cera?” Yet another voice called from somewhere outside the screen visibility. “Oh! It’s her! It really is her!”

“Move over, will you?” drawled a different female voice. “I can’t see her.”

Cerani’s knees hit the floor and she covered her face with her hands. Stavian crouched beside her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, but he could see her shoulders shake as tears took over—no shame, no filter. Great sobs of, hopefully, joy. He’d seen Cerani angry, sad, fierce, and passionate, but this emotion was new. Her shoulders shook silently.

“Cerani?” he whispered. He reached out and put a hand on her back, steadying her. “What would you like to do?”

Meanwhile, there was chaos on the other ship as the Terian females crowded the screen, each trying to see Cerani, and the Zaruxian males argued whether to just go over to Stavian’s ship or invite them all to theirs. It was like a big…unruly family. For a moment, Stavian thought he might cry, too.

“Stars, I can’t breathe,” she whispered without lifting her head.

On his end, the crew of the ESS Mirka observed the chaos with baffled expressions.

After going from fighting through an impossible battle that they expected to lose, to being “rescued” by an unknown and imposing behemoth of a ship, the four ex-miners-turned bridge crew sat frozen in disbelief. Talla stared at the screen with her mouth halfway open. Jorr blinked a few times and muttered something about hallucinations. Rinter’s hands hovered midair over the shield terminal like he was waiting for someone else to say what they were all thinking: What the fek was going on?

The only thing Stavian knew for sure was that these people were not their enemies. He saw the way Cerani’s face lit up with recognition, disbelief, then pure joy.

This wasn’t just a rescue. It was a reunion.

He looked at the screen and made eye contact with the Zaruxians. “We have frightened passengers in our hold. Permission for Cerani and me to board your ship.”

“Granted,” the purple-scaled male said over the sound of female voices.

He turned to Rinter. “Lower the shields.”

Rinter jerked like he’d just been released from stasis. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Stavian’s voice didn’t waver. “Drop them now.”

Rinter hesitated one beat, then tapped his console. “Shields falling…now.” The overhead display blinked from red to yellow, then turned green.

Cerani peeked up and gazed up at him with brilliant gold eyes. “Can we really…?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re going to see your people again. And so am I.”

She blinked hard, wiped her face with one gloved hand, then turned back to the screen as her friends shouted her name again. Sevas had moved in closer, her eyes still shining. “Is that your male back there? That blue one?” She stared, then grinned. “Nice.”

Cerani turned bright red. Stavian might’ve smiled—if he hadn’t been holding it together with the thinnest thread of composure.

A mountain of a Zaruxian with green scales didn’t seem to care for Sevas’ assessment, as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at the screen. “You’d best come over now, before we change our minds.”

Cerani looked up at him from where she kneeled. He offered her a hand and pulled her upright. Her movements were shaky, but so were his. She pressed her hands to his chest. Not to push him away, but to stay grounded.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Are you?”

He wasn’t. He didn’t know how to be. Standing on that ship were Zaruxians who called themselves his brothers. There were Terians who looked like Cerani’s soul carved into different shapes. It was too much. And they were opening the door to a life he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine.

“All systems steady,” Talla said from behind them. Her voice was shaky. “I’ve got a proximity link now. Their ship’s guiding us into a lock zone.”

“Confirm the channel stays open,” Stavian said. “I need to inform our passengers in the cargo hold what’s going on.”

“Can you tell us that?” Talla asked.

He let out a little laugh. “I think we’re going to be okay. When we’re docked, get some rest. Eat. I’ll keep you all updated.”

Rinter’s panel buzzed again. “They’ve initiated zero-pressure air-lock tether. Confirming crosswalk extension from their bay to ours.”

Stavian stared at the screen. His pulse thudded behind his eyes.

He didn’t know if these were the people who would finish the war—or start the next one, but he’d risk it. For her, for them.

That ship didn’t come here to destroy. It came to bring them home.