Chapter 5
The next morning arrived too soon—and with far too much pain. Sarah’s idea of “basic conditioning” involved movements the common human body was not designed to make, repeated until muscle failure became less a physical state and more a philosophical concept.
“Again,” she commanded, as I struggled through something she called a warrior’s descent but which I privately renamed torture with extra steps.
“I’m going to die,” I gasped.
“Death is failure. Failure is not permitted.”
“What about a tactical retreat? Strategic cowardice?”
“Those are also failures.”
“Okay, so basically everything I’m good at is failure. Got it.”
By the end of the hour, I was a puddle of sweat and regret. Sarah looked like she’d taken a light stroll in the park.
“You survived,” she observed, tossing me a towel.
“Barely. I think my spleen filed for divorce from my lymphatic system.”
“Tomorrow we add weights.”
“I’m moving back to my old quarters.”
“No, you are not.”
She moved closer, and I caught a scent like ozone mixed with something faintly floral.
“You intrigue me, Chuck Bartowski.”
“Because I’m so bad at exercise?”
“Because you adapt. You survive through wit rather than strength. It is… unusual.”
“In my culture, we call that being smart enough to run away.”
“Yet you do not run from me.”
“Well, you’d catch me. Seems like wasted effort.”
She smiled then—a real smile that transformed her face from beautiful but terrifying to simply beautiful. The bioports along her neck pulsed in a pattern I hadn’t seen before, almost like laughter rendered in light. She reached out and corrected my stance with hands that could crush stone but touched with surprising gentleness.
“Your form is atrocious, but you persist. There is honor in that.”
“I’ll take whatever honor I can get while trying not to vomit.”
“Vomiting is also failure.”
“So many rules! Do you have a handbook? Maybe a pamphlet? Failure and You: The Ardani Way?”
Her lips twitched. “Perhaps I will write one. You can be the illustration.”
“Perfect. I’ll pose dramatically while collapsing.”
After the training concluded, she led me into a recovery chamber—an advanced room designed to accelerate the body’s healing so it could endure the cycle of training again and again. Once inside, she sealed the chamber, and I drifted into sleep almost instantly.
When I awoke, I felt renewed: no aches, no soreness, as if my muscles had never been strained.
It was already late, so after releasing me from the chamber, she guided us straight to our temporary shared quarters to rest. On the way, curiosity got the better of me.
“So, this chamber—could it help other people? Like, say, engineers who are allergic to push ups?”
Her answer was measured: “The chamber is limited. It can only hasten the body’s natural recovery after damage from exercise. It cannot fully heal tissue.”
“Why?” I pressed.
She replied simply: “Efficiency, engineer. A warrior can train and evolve faster if muscle repair is completed more quickly.”
“Efficiency,” I muttered. “Right. Because nothing says efficiency like watching me try to do a squat.”
She gave me a sidelong glance, amused. “You exaggerate.”
“Exaggeration is my only surviving muscle group.”
I stored that knowledge away. Even with its limitations, the potential was undeniable. With the right adjustments, the chamber’s design could be expanded—an opportunity for tinkering that a resourceful little engineer might one day pour his mind into.
Unwanted Visitors
The station’s alarm tore through the night at 0300 hours. Bespin’s wail punched through my dreams like a plasma bolt, dragging me from sleep to full alertness in seconds. Living with Sarah had apparently improved my reaction time.
All hands, all hands. Code Seven emergency in the outer ring. Repeat. Code Seven emergency.
Code Seven meant hostile engagement.
My feet hit the floor before my brain caught up. Muscle memory from Sarah’s morning torture sessions kicked in. I grabbed my emergency kit and stumbled into the main room to find her already in full combat gear, checking weapons with mechanical precision.
“The outer ring is mostly storage and maintenance corridors,” I said, pulling on my boots. “What could anyone want there?”
“Cover,” she replied, sliding a blade into a sheath I hadn’t even noticed in her armor. “Minimal civilian presence. Multiple escape routes. Proximity to docking bays. Ideal for ambush tactics.”
“You’ve thought about attacking this station.”
“I think about attacking everything. It is recreational.”
Before I could process that disturbing admission, another announcement echoed through the quarters.
Medical teams to Section J 9. Multiple casualties reported.
“That’s near the backup life support systems,” I muttered. “If someone’s targeting infrastructure, then they’re not simple raiders.”
Sarah moved toward the door, then stopped. Her hand hovered near the control panel, her jaw tight. “You will stay here.”
“Like hell. That’s my equipment out there.”
Her eyes flashed. “Chuck, this is not a repair call. There are hostiles between here and there. If you follow me, you will be in danger.”
“Then it’s a good thing I have the deadliest bodyguard in the galaxy.”
She turned fully, blue eyes narrowing, voice low and sharp. “You assume I would protect you. My duty is to neutralize threats, not babysit engineers.”
I stepped closer, forcing conviction into my voice. “And my duty is to keep this station breathing. If they’re hitting life support, I’m the one who knows how to patch it before we all suffocate. You fight, I fix. That’s how we win.”
Her expression softened just a fraction, the steel in her posture bending into something more protective. “You are reckless.”
“Maybe. But I’m also necessary. You said I adapt. Let me adapt where it matters.”
A sound that might have been a growl—or a reluctant laugh—escaped her throat. She reached out, gripping my shoulder with a strength that could crush stone but carried something gentler. “Stay behind me. Do not engage. Do not attempt heroics. And if danger comes too close, you run. I will cover you.”
“Wasn’t planning on dying tonight,” I said, trying for humor but meaning every word.
Her gaze lingered, protective and fierce. “Plans rarely survive first contact with reality. But you will survive. I will see to it.”
Into the Chaos
The corridors were chaos. Security personnel rushed past shouting coordinates and status updates. Emergency lighting bathed everything in hellish red, making shadows jump and twist.
Sarah moved through it all like she was taking a casual stroll, her awareness extending beyond normal senses. Twice, she pulled me into alcoves seconds before security teams thundered past. Once she stopped mid stride, head cocked, then led us down a different route without explanation. I followed, trusting instincts honed by centuries of warrior culture.
We were three levels from J 9 when the lights went out entirely. Emergency power should have kicked in immediately. The fact that it didn’t meant someone had done their homework.
In the absolute darkness, I heard Sarah shift, her armor’s bioluminescent patterns flaring to life in response to the threat.
“Thermal smoke,” she whispered, her voice directly in my ear. “They are masking heat signatures. Can you see?”
“Not with eyes.”
“Stay close.”
Her hand found mine in the darkness, grip firm but not painful. The contact sent an unexpected jolt through my system that had nothing to do with the danger. Her skin was warmer than I’d expected, almost feverish by human standards.
We moved through the darkened corridor, her leading with inhuman confidence. I tried not to think about what kind of sensory modifications allowed her to navigate blind. The bioports probably helped, feeding information directly to her brain through augmented channels normal humans couldn’t access.
A scream echoed from somewhere ahead, cut short in a way that made my stomach clench.
“Plasma weaponry,” Sarah murmured. “Bothan, possibly. Or Kreegan.”
“Kreegan, like the war criminal you were transporting? The bad ones? The ones that like to eat people?”
“One of many. They rarely work alone.”
The Reaper’s Lord’s Envoy
We rounded a corner and suddenly there was light again—harsh and hectic from portable flood lamps. The scene they illuminated was worse than darkness. Bodies lay scattered across the corridor. Security personnel mostly. Their uniforms were charred by energy weapons.
But it was the thing standing among them that made my blood freeze.
It wasn’t the Kreegan I’d seen in the docking bay, but it was definitely related. Same multi jointed limbs, same clustered eyes, same aura of wrongness that made human instincts scream. But this one was bigger, augmented with cybernetic enhancements that pulsed with stolen power.
It was also looking directly at us.
“Walker Blade,” it spoke, voice like grinding stone. “The Reaper’s Lord wondered if you would come.”
“I am here,” Sarah replied, releasing my hand and stepping forward. “Let us finish what we started on Kepler Station.”
“Yes!” the creature hissed, multiple eyes dilating with anticipation. “But first…”
It moved faster than anything that size should—a blur of chitinous limbs and crackling energy. Sarah met it halfway, her blade singing as it cleared its sheath. The impact of their collision shattered floorplates and sent me stumbling backward.
Forces of Nature
They fought like forces of nature given form. The Kreegan’s augmented limbs struck with enough force to dent bulkheads, while Sarah flowed around each attack like liquid death. Her blade carved pieces from its hide, each cut precise despite the fury of their exchange.
But the Kreegan wasn’t alone. I saw them before she did—two more emerging from the thermal smoke with weapons raised.
Without thinking, I grabbed a fallen security officer’s shock baton and triggered it, sending fifty thousand volts into the nearest attacker’s clustered eyes. The Kreegan shrieked, a sound that threatened to burst my eardrums. Its companion swung toward me, plasma weapon charging, and I had just enough time to think this is stupid before Sarah’s blade sprouted from its thorax. She’d thrown it without looking, guided by sound alone. The creature toppled, twitching, as she spun back to her original opponent.
But the distraction had cost her. Cybernetic claws raked across her armor, penetrating the bio layers and drawing blood. The scent hit me like a physical force—copper and ozone and… something else. Something that made my hindbrain light up with recognition I couldn’t explain.
Sarah staggered, one hand going to her side, and the Kreegan pressed its advantage.
“No,” I heard myself say, and then I was moving.
The shock baton was never meant for extended combat. It had maybe one or two charges left, but I didn’t need to win—just distract. I slammed it into the Kreegan’s lower joint cluster, discharging everything it had. The creature spasmed, cybernetics sparking.
Sarah didn’t waste the opening. She flowed up its body like inverse gravity, wrapped her legs around what passed for its neck, and twisted. The crack echoed through the corridor like a gunshot.
As the Kreegan collapsed, she landed in a crouch that immediately turned into a stumble. More blood seeped through her armor, and the bioluminescent patterns flickered erratically.
“You are injured,” I said, moving to support her.
“Observant,” she gritted out, but didn’t pull away when I slipped under her arm.
“The blade. Retrieve it.”
I did, trying not to look at the corpse it protruded from.
The weapon was heavier than expected, warmed to the touch like living metal. As soon as I handed it to her, she used it as a crutch, leaning on it with visible effort.
“We need to get you to medical,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Negative. There will be more. The Reaper’s Lord does not commit forces without assuring positive results.”
She straightened, though the motion cost her.
“The life support systems,” she continued. “They target infrastructure to force evacuation, then reap refugees in space.”
“Reap?” I echoed, my stomach turning.
“Bad Kreegans consume their prey alive. Ships fleeing a dying station are… convenient packaging.”
The words hit me harder than any plasma bolt.
“We have to warn—”
“No.” Her voice cut through mine like a blade. “We stop them at the source.”
Her blue eyes fixed on mine, pupils dilated in a way that didn’t look entirely normal.
“You know these systems. Can you prevent sabotage?”
“Maybe… if I can get to the control center before they trash it completely.”
“Then we move. Now.”
She pushed off from the wall, swaying slightly. The blood loss was affecting her more than she wanted to admit, but when she started forward, her stride was steady enough.
I fell in beside her, clutching my emergency kit tighter than ever. The corridors ahead promised more danger, but for the first time, I realized we weren’t just fighting to survive—we were fighting to keep the station itself from becoming a coffin.