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SIX

Stavian

Stavian ducked through the south maintenance access just after the corridor sweep cycled off. The security sensors reset for twenty piks , giving him enough time to reach the alcove behind the duct. Officially, this part of the shaft was down for wiring inspection. In reality, it was where he met with Cerani.

The duct was narrow and stale, thick with the smell of metal and pipe grease. The air was too warm, the kind of heat that clung to skin and stayed too long. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was she was there.

Cerani sat on one of the old supply crates he’d dragged in twelve cycles ago, when they began. Her knees were drawn up, elbows resting on them. The data tablet he’d stashed behind a panel, concealed from the ever-watching scanners, was balanced in her hands. She looked up as he stepped in, her mouth already pulling tight with focus—not a smile, not yet, but close.

“You’re late,” she said. A twinge of anxiety tightened the skin around her eyes.

He checked the overhead light. “Two peks, maybe.”

“That’s still late,” she said. “It’s a good thing I don’t worry about you.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ve picked up sarcasm as fast as grammar.”

She held up the tablet and tapped the screen. “That’s because sarcasm is my friend Lilas’ native language. I miss her biting commentary.” She cocked her head. “I guess you can’t see where my friends ended up, can you? If my records are locked, theirs probably are, too.”

He crossed the space and sat on the crate across from her. “I tried to learn anything I could about the Terian people, and you’re right. There was nothing about your friends in the files I have access to.” The distant echo of machines deep in the tunnel system was barely audible. He’d be able to hear if someone approached where they were.

Cerani handed him the tablet. “Look. I got pretty far. I worked on them during my first break.”

He’d set up the tablet with practice lessons, in case she felt like using it, and had been amazed at how hungry she was to learn. It was like Cerani was a dry cloth, soaking up every bit of knowledge she could. “You finished all of these?” he asked as he looked over the completed lessons.

“I did them twice. The first time to learn, the second time to see if the scoring algorithm repeated answers.”

He looked up. “You tried to outmaneuver the system?”

“I wanted to see if I could. Turns out, it reroutes the questions every third input.”

“You figured that out?” he asked, surprised.

Her face stayed even. “That’s what we’re supposed to be doing, right? Tracking patterns.”

She made something behind his ribs shift, every time. She didn’t act like anyone else and never tried to impress him, but she did.

“Impressive. This is advanced syntax,” he said. “I hadn’t planned to show it to you until several cycles from now.”

Her brow furrowed. “Am I picking this up faster than you expected?”

“Much faster.”

“Well, I started working through the safety manuals in the barracks,” she said. “No one looks at them, but since I know what each symbol means, now, I practice reading by putting the words together. It’s what I do until lights out. It’s the extra studying that’s helping me learn faster.”

He passed the tablet back. Her fingers brushed his. Comfortable and steady. Too steady. She didn’t flinch anymore when they touched. He wondered what it would feel like to touch her without gloves. Skin-to-skin. The thought made his cock twitch. He shifted on the crate and cleared his throat.

“You never fail to surprise me,” he murmured, then took back the tablet and pulled up something else. “Let’s try something different.”

Cerani tilted her head. “Different how?”

“Context translation. I give you a mechanic’s report—partial Axis-standard. You translate and summarize it. Then we talk solutions.”

“You want me to fix something?”

“I want to know your ideas. You see things from the shaft floor. I need that view.”

Cerani narrowed her eyes, but took the tablet again. Her fingers moved across the screen as the lines of text pulled up. She read fast. Faster than some supervisors he’d trained in decrypted report systems.

“You wanted a real mechanic?” she said, tapping one display. “Because this says the west sector suits are failing at the thigh seal joints. Thirteen unique reports…” Her finger paused on one passage. “What does this say?”

He leaned closer. He could catch the scent of her hair, if it weren’t for the EP suit. “It says, ‘all the reports were flagged, but dismissed.’”

Her lips pursed. She frowned at the screen and read on. “This says the repair queue updates when a shift completes quota.” She looked up at him. “But, Stavian, how can miners complete a quota if they’re too sick to mine? They’ll never get new equipment.”

He shrugged. “I’ve petitioned for new suits—twice. They won’t send them.”

“Why not?”

“Technically, deaths are still under the replacement threshold. Messy as it sounds, as long as corpses aren’t piling in the lift every cycle, Central doesn’t care.”

Cerani looked away but didn’t say anything. Her jaw locked.

“The knee and elbow seals degrade fastest,” he said. “Then the mask valves. The EP suits weren’t made for extended exposure.”

“Yet here we are.”

He looked around the alcove. The walls were scratched from years of unsupervised maintenance—old tool tags, grease marks, melted patches from weld jobs. This place mirrored the entire mine: patched together and barely holding.

“You think I haven’t tried to push back?” he said quietly. “I’ve sent override requests, sabotage claims, high-priority burst alerts. They delay. Always. Sometimes I think they want the suits to fail.”

Cerani didn’t speak right away. Then she said, “Then stop reporting the truth. Lie. Tell them you’re getting zero yield because your suits are collapsing too fast to maintain output.”

“They’ll just send more prisoners and threaten to send guards from Combat Holdings. If you think things are oppressive now, wait until there’s two hundred soldiers here to put pressure on the miners.” He shook his head. “What survives pressure is given more pressure.”

“Okay.” She splayed her hands. “Even small changes could make a difference, and if you can push one through in the name of efficiency, that would be something. Like the lower knee brace. They could be easily reinforced,” she said.

Stavian leaned forward. “How?”

Hope sparked in her eyes. “I’ve looked closely at them. The seal points are too thin for the amount of time we spend on our knees scraping crystal. They’re shaped for up-and-down movement. That’s not how we work.”

He crossed his arms. “Show me.”

She tapped through the tablet until a rough sketch loaded—hand-drawn overlays on the existing brace schematic. “You’d need to reinforce here,” she said, pointing to the outer lateral band. “Add a double layer here and seal the seam. That’s where it wears down.”

He stared at the diagram, amazed. “You did this from memory?”

She shrugged. “I’ve worn the same model for almost forty cycles. You start noticing patterns of wear after a while.”

“No one in Maintenance flagged this.”

“No one in Maintenance wears one for a whole wake cycle,” she said.

Something shifted in his chest—respect and something deeper. She wasn’t guessing. She understood the system and knew exactly where it failed.

“You think you could do the same with the breathing valves?” he asked.

She didn’t blink. “I already did.”

He tilted his head, not hiding his surprise this time.

Cerani reached behind her neck and pulled out a cuff she’d detached from an old respirator unit. The foam edge was patched with scrap sealant and lined with a coil of insulation cable. Crude. But solid.

“I started doing this for every miner with an aging EP suit five cycles ago. If you could do this with real materials, it could slow down the lung problems.”

He turned the cuff over in his hands, examining it. “You made this?”

“From broken gear in the scav bin,” she said. “Whenever I find materials like this, I stuff them in my suit and work on others’ suits back in the barracks.”

He looked at her—really looked—and felt that same buzz in his chest he tried to ignore every time he left her. She didn’t just survive this place. She read it. Took it apart. Improved it.

“If I put this in front of Logistics…” he said.

“They’ll say I’m not qualified to make gear modifications.”

“Correct,” he said. “But I am qualified.”

She raised a brow. “You’re going to take credit for it?”

“If it helps,” he said with a touch of playfulness. “I can’t imagine your ego would object.”

Her face reddened behind her visor. “Of course, I don’t object. But I wish I could do it myself.”

She should be doing it herself, but input from a prisoner would be dismissed and he’d face disciplinary action. “I will rewrite the source as a field adaptation and say it was submitted by Technical Command.”

“Will they buy it?” she asked quietly.

He nodded. “I think so. These ideas are good, Cerani. Very good.”

Cerani didn’t look away. Her expression was careful, but not guarded—not with him. She didn’t look afraid of what he’d say. And he couldn’t get over how amazing she looked. Not just surviving, but healthy in a way no other miner was, not even close. Her cheeks were flushed, not from exertion, but from warmth. Color infused her skin. Her eyes—bright, golden, clear—they’d only gotten sharper since the first time he’d seen her in tunnel E.

The suits were the same. The food was the same. The radiation hadn’t changed. But she had.

“You’re different,” Stavian said under his breath.

Cerani blinked. “What?”

He hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but now it was out there.

“You’re different,” he said again, louder this time. “The others… I can’t even keep them on cycle for more than a few shifts without medical complications. But you—your vitals come back stronger each sweep. I’ve scanned every report twice, and you’re getting healthier.”

She gave a half nod and looked at the cuff still sitting in his hands. “I’ve noticed the same thing.” She glanced up. “And I don’t use stims. Haven’t from the beginning.”

Stavian’s brow pulled together. “You should’ve collapsed cycles ago.”

“I know.” Her voice was even. Soft. “But I didn’t.”

His breath slowed as he looked at her—her steady hands, her posture, the way she leaned forward like she expected truth and had no use for anything else.

“I’ve been in this mine for cycles longer than the turnover limit,” she said. “Some miners have higher resistance to the radiation than others, but everyone eventually gets put offline. I’m just standing here. Still sharp. Still strong.” She met his eyes head-on. “The radiation isn’t just not hurting me. I think it’s helping me.”

He knew this from his conversation with Bendahn, but there was still no way to know the true limits of her body. How much radiation was too much? “I wonder if you need the suit at all,” he mused.

Cerani turned her head slightly, her gaze flicking to the wall. Her lips pressed together. “Maybe I don’t.”

Stavian stared at her gloved hands, which lay on her lap. He could hear the quiet sound of pipes above them, the shift and thud of machinery in the distance, but everything in him stilled. She wasn’t exaggerating. She wasn’t posing. She meant it.

The suit might not be keeping her alive.

“Have you tested that theory?” he asked.

Cerani let out a slow breath. “No. But once? My mask seal broke. Full exposure for a full shift.” She tilted her head. “I didn’t have breathing problems or burns. I didn’t feel anything.”

Stavian’s hands flexed. “And you didn’t report it.”

“I was fine,” she said. “I’m not going to draw attention to myself if I can help it.” Cerani leaned back, her shoulders pressing into the crate behind her. “But I can’t take the chance. I will wear the suit when I leave the barracks, like everyone else.”

He lowered his gaze to the cuffs of her gloves. The fabric was frayed along the seams, patched once near the thumb. He had the briefest, stupidest thought—he wanted to see her hands. Her real hands. Press his palm to hers, skin-to-skin. Just one touch.

He reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the backs of her gloves. Cerani sat still, like she didn’t want to break whatever this was either.

He wanted to pull the glove off. Just peel it back and feel—

No. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to retract his hand like it’d been burned. That was the problem. He craved more. So much more.

He shook his head. “You’re thriving down here, but—”

“I’m not taking the suit off,” she said quickly.

“I won’t ask you to.” He looked away fast. “Sometimes I wish…”

Cerani didn’t move. “I know.”

The silence that followed stretched between them. Not awkward. Not empty, either. Just full of something too big for this duct. And he couldn’t name it.

He rubbed the back of his neck and turned his focus to the schematic on the tablet again, needing something to look at that wasn’t her. The lines blurred for a second before he forced his thoughts back into order.

She shifted slightly on the crate, boots scraping softly against the floor. “So, what now?” she asked.

His jaw clenched. This wasn’t just a lesson anymore. It hadn’t been for cycles. And with every meeting, sitting this close to her—watching her mind work, listening to the questions no one else cared enough to ask—he was unraveling.

“I’ll get the seams fixed,” he said. “Quietly. It’ll make it into the next batch of mechanic updates. It won’t fix the system, but it’ll give them more time. A better seal. That matters.”

She met his eyes again, and for a second he thought she might reach out. Her fingers twitched at her side.

“I wish ‘more time’ didn’t feel like a win.”

“It is one,” he said. “Even if the Axis never calls it one.”

Her eyes closed briefly. “Some of them may have committed crimes, but many didn’t. And even the ones that did, they don’t deserve to live like this. To die like this.”

Stavian swallowed. His throat moved slow. “They don’t. You don’t deserve to be here at all.”

She looked up. “Neither do you.”

Ah, that felt like a punch to the gut. What did he deserve, after serving the Axis his whole life? Surely not her. Not the soft way she was looking at him. He held his breath for half a beat too long, then stood and stepped back. He instantly missed her closeness.

“We’ll meet again next cycle, same time,” he said.

“Okay.” Her lips turned, just slightly. The barest tease of a smile.

He couldn’t take it. The dragon inside of him wanted to roar and claim her as his own. He wanted to yank her into his arms and take her so far away from here that this place could turn into a bad memory. But here he was, still obeying the Axis—with the notable exception of teaching a prisoner how to read—and until he found a way to break from them, he didn’t deserve her smile. Or anything else from her. He walked to the exit hatch, hesitated with his hand just above the sensor.

“Stavian,” she said quietly.

He turned. “Yes?”

“You said you wanted to help people down here,” she said. “You are.”

He searched her face. The warmth in her voice. The honesty that lanced straight through his chest.

Because you made me see what I’d refused to look at. You make me feel alive. That’s what he wanted to say. Instead, he turned toward the exit. “You matter to me,” he said, and it was no less revealing than his thoughts. “In ways I don’t understand. In ways that scare me.”

Cerani didn’t speak at first. She sat there on the crate, hands folded in her lap, eyes locked on his. The glow from the access light cut across her cheek through the visor, outlining her jaw and catching in a few loose strands of hair that fell in her face.

Her gaze didn’t waver. “You don’t get to say that lightly.” Her voice wasn’t cold—it was quiet. Measured. Careful.

He waited, his breath caught halfway in his throat. “I don’t mean it lightly.”

“This place kills things like that,” she added. “Hope. Want. Even truth.”

He nodded. She wasn’t wrong. He shifted his stance, putting pressure through the balls of his feet so he wouldn’t do anything stupid, like walk back to her, like say something he couldn’t take back.

She blinked once, slowly. “You matter to me, too,” she said. “But it changes nothing.”

“It changes things for me,” Stavian said.

Cerani’s eyes softened. “Stavian, I am your prisoner. You are my warden. Within that structure, we’re not equals, and I won’t willingly subject myself to that dynamic. Not again.”

The air between them buzzed with the hum of pipes above, and something quieter below it—unspoken, waiting.

She stood and walked toward the opening where he still stood, then handed him the tablet. Fek , he hated her EP suit. Hated the extra layer between them. It was more than a protective garment—it was a barrier that divided their two worlds. A constant reminder that they had no business being here, sharing feelings that had no chance of growing into anything, when every instinct in him bellowed that they belonged together.

They stood face-to-face. Just for a moment, her hand brushed his arm, intentional, but brief. “As long as this is how it is, I-I can’t.” Pain crossed her features, quick and potent as her voice cracked over the words. “I just can’t.” Then she stepped past him, out into the dark corridor. “Goodbye, Stavian.”

She didn’t look back.

He stepped into the passageway feeling like his chest was compressed between two boulders. He didn’t need an interpreter to know that her “goodbye” was a permanent one. If he returned the next cycle for her lesson, she wouldn’t be here. There would be no more lessons. No more contact that wasn’t official mining business. And he wasn’t ready for that.

Stavian walked the empty corridor with the weight of that moment pressing hard and deep. It wasn’t her words that cut deepest—it was the truth behind them. She was right—the way things were would not work. Attempting it would destroy them both.

This place ate feelings. Crushed them under duty and survival and fear.

Still… She hadn’t denied her own feelings. Instead, she’d told him that she cared for him, and he’d seen the regret when she’d walked away from him. That was enough to grip something solid inside him, some small tether he hadn’t realized he’d been clinging to.

Enough to contemplate crossing a line there’d be no returning from.

The lift to the supervisor wing was down. He didn’t call for another. He needed the walk. The burn in his legs, the constant thrum of pressure beneath his skin. He needed it to anchor him.

Every time he left that duct, it hurt more.

He reached the lower office and keyed in his access code. The door hissed open. The same lights blinked overhead. The same stale air pressed in. None of it felt right anymore.

He dropped the tablet Cerani had handed him onto his desk and stared at it.

She mattered. She mattered more than anything. The fact that she still couldn’t trust the feelings they had for each other made him want to tear down every checkpoint and security scan until she did.

But he understood. She had every reason to be cautious. In this place, wanting something too much was a weakness, and weaknesses got people killed.

Stavian turned back to the console and triggered the override for the equipment update request. He flagged her rebreather design under internal systems review, then buried the source tag behind several chains of tech approvals.

By the time Axis Command saw it, it’d be just another calibration add-on.

Just another survival mod.

He sat back in the chair, stared at the wall for a long minute, and let silence fill the room. His mind was a churning rush of ideas, feelings, wild rebellion.

He’d spent his whole life playing within the Axis’ rules. But Cerani had lit something in him that didn’t shrink under pressure—it grew. And now, every protocol he followed, every report he filed, tasted like ash.

He couldn’t have both—the safety of the Axis and the heat of her hands in his. One would always poison the other.

But losing Cerani? Letting her go back to the dark and the damage, and pretending he was still loyal to the Axis? That was unthinkable.

Worse—he couldn’t unsee the other miners behind her. The miners whose suits she patched up between shifts. Those quiet eyes watching their numbers drop. The ones who didn’t have whatever strange genetics that allowed Cerani to survive here.

If he wanted her, truly wanted her, he couldn’t just save her. He had to burn the whole machine down.

And stars help him, he didn’t feel afraid of that anymore.