The medical bay's soft lighting cast everything in a clinical blue-white glow as Vel approached Korven's bed. She'd been putting off this visit for days, but something about knowing they were approaching Acer had finally pushed her to face him. The advanced medical systems hummed quietly around them, a symphony of healing technology that the Carrion's Prize could never have afforded.
Korven looked better than she'd expected, though that wasn't saying much. The automated medical bay had worked efficiently on his injuries, accelerated healing treatments had reduced the swelling around his orbital fracture significantly, while surgical repair work had mended damaged tissue with military precision. The medical readouts showed that injuries that would have taken months to heal properly were progressing in weeks, thanks to the superior equipment aboard the Meridian.
Still, he looked like hell. Purple bruises covered half his face, and she could see the careful way he held himself to avoid stressing his healing ribs. When he noticed her approach, he struggled to sit up slightly, wincing despite the pain medication flowing through his system.
"Vel," he managed, his voice still rough but clearer than it had been days ago.
She pulled a chair close to his bed and sat down, studying his battered features. "You look like shit, Korven."
"Feel worse," he replied, attempting what might have been a smile.
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of everything that had happened hanging between them. Finally, Vel spoke.
"I'm still pissed at you."
Korven nodded slowly. "I know you are, and I deserve it."
"You threw away fifteen years. Our home. Everything we built together." Her voice was steady, but he could hear the hurt underneath. "For people we barely knew."
"It was the right thing to do," Korven said quietly. "You know it was."
"That doesn't make it hurt less." Vel leaned back in her chair. "Slade hasn't spoken to anyone except when absolutely necessary. Boomer keeps asking when we're getting a new ship. And I'm sitting here talking to you while you're beaten to hell because you made a choice for all of us."
Korven was quiet for a long moment, then met her eyes. "I'm leaving after Phantom."
"What?"
"Sigma 7. I need to start over." Each word seemed to cost him effort, but he spoke clearly. "I can't stay with the team. You all need to move on without me."
Vel felt something cold settle in her stomach. "Sigma 7? That lawless hellhole? Korven, that place is run by criminals and corporate exiles."
"Good place to disappear," he said simply. "Change my identity, lay low."
"You're talking about abandoning everything. Again."
"I've already lost everything." Korven's voice was barely above a whisper. "This time it was my fault."
Vel stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. "You're just running away."
Korven didn't deny it.
"Fifteen years we've been crew, and you're just going to walk away because things got hard?" She paced to the foot of his bed. "Because Slade hit you? Because we lost the ship?"
"Because I failed all of you," Korven said, his voice stronger now.
"You saved our lives."
"After I destroyed them first."
Vel stared at him for a long moment, seeing the defeat in his eyes. This wasn't the man who'd built their crew from nothing, who'd given all of them a place to belong. This was someone broken by the weight of command and the consequences of doing what was right.
"Fine," she said finally. "If that's what you want. But you're wrong about failing us."
She left the medical bay without looking back.
The bridge of the Meridian was a testament to both functionality and an unexpected nod to human psychology. Where most military vessels relied purely on digital displays and sensor readings, the Meridian featured something almost anachronistic: massive viewscreens that showed the actual view of space outside the ship. The technology was unnecessary, the ship's sensors could provide far more detailed information than optical cameras but the viewscreens remained.
It was a design holdover from the early days of space exploration, when ships were still crude metal cylinders launched from Earth on chemical rockets. The legendary aerospace engineer Geisson Rodrigues had argued in his treatises on spacecraft psychology that humans needed visual connection to their environment, even in the vacuum of space. "Windows to the soul of the universe," he'd called them in his famous paper on long-duration space travel. Despite advances in sensor technology and virtual reality, his philosophy had endured in ship design for over two centuries. Even in an age where humans traveled between stars, there was something fundamentally important about being able to simply look outside and see where you were going.
Slade stood before the main viewscreen, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out at the star field. The distant points of light represented not just suns, but entire civilizations. Humanity had spread among those stars, established colonies and stations and mining operations throughout dozens of systems. It made the universe feel a little less lonely, knowing that even in the vast emptiness, there were people out there living their lives, facing their own struggles.
"Slade?" Vel's voice broke his contemplation.
He turned to find her approaching, her expression troubled. "Vel. Everything all right?"
"I just came from seeing Korven."
Slade's jaw tightened. "How's he healing?"
"Better. He can talk now, sit up a little." She paused. "He's leaving after the Phantom mission."
Slade was quiet for a long moment, his hands clenching behind his back. "Where's he going?"
"Sigma 7."
"That cesspit?" Slade's voice carried a note of pain beneath the anger. "What's he planning to do, beg for work from Haaland?"
"I think that's the idea. Change his identity, start over."
Slade turned back to the viewscreen, his shoulders rigid. "Does Boomer know?"
"I haven't told him yet, but he's going to need to know at some point."
"And you?"
Vel sighed. "I don't know how I feel about it. I'm still angry with him, but…" She trailed off, looking out at the stars. "We've been a crew for so long. The idea of him just walking away…"
"All that time," Slade said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. "Fifteen years building something, and he just… let it go."
"Maybe it's for the best," Vel said, though her voice lacked conviction.
"Maybe," Slade replied, but his reflection in the viewscreen showed eyes bright with unshed tears. "But it sure as hell doesn't feel like it."
Vel found Riley in the recreation area, running through what looked like a maintenance checklist on one of the exercise machines. The pilot looked up as she approached, setting down her diagnostic tool.
"Hey," Riley said. "You look like you've had a day."
"Just came from seeing Korven," Vel replied, settling into a nearby chair.
"How's he doing?"
"Physically? Better. Emotionally?" Vel shrugged. "He's planning to leave after we deal with Phantom."
Riley's expression grew serious. "That's… that's rough. Starting over like that."
"I keep going back and forth about it," Vel admitted. "Part of me is still furious with him for what he did. But part of me…" She paused, searching for the words. "We've been a crew for so long, Riley. He and Slade gave all of us a place when we had nowhere else to go. The idea of him just walking away…"
"You feel guilty about staying angry?"
"Maybe. I don't know." Vel rubbed her temples. "What would you do?"
Riley considered the question carefully. "I think sometimes people make choices that are right and wrong at the same time. Korven saved our lives, but he also cost us everything we'd built. Both things can be true."
"That doesn't make it easier."
"No," Riley agreed. "It doesn't."
Nathan found himself drawn to the observation deck near Kessler's quarters, ostensibly to check the ship's status displays but really because he'd been hoping to run into her. The past few days had been a whirlwind of preparation and tension, but there were moments, caught glances, brief touches, shared smiles, that suggested something was building between them.
When she appeared in the doorway, still in her work coveralls with grease stains on her hands, he felt his heart rate pick up slightly. There was something about Damali Kessler that had always caught his attention, but it had taken their shared trials to make him really see her. She was brilliant, obviously, but it was more than that. She had a quiet strength that kept her steady when everything around them was falling apart, and a protective instinct that extended to everyone she cared about.
She caught him looking and smiled. "You're staring."
"Sorry, I was just…" He trailed off, not sure how to explain what he'd been thinking.
"Can we talk?" she asked, moving to stand beside him at the viewport.
"Always."
They stood in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the stars slide past. Finally, Kessler spoke.
"Are you scared?"
The question was simple, but Nathan understood she wasn't asking about the mission alone. "Terrified," he admitted.
"Of what, dying?"
"Of a lot of things. Dying, yes. But also…" He paused, trying to organize his thoughts. "I keep thinking about Marcus. About how he just disappeared and we never knew what happened to him. I don't want to end up like that."
"You won't," Kessler said firmly.
"How can you be sure?"
"Because you're not alone. Marcus was sent off on some classified mission by himself. You have all of us."
Nathan nodded, but the fear remained. "What if we expose everything and they just cover it up? What if we stop Phantom and Santos just develops something worse? What if we're fighting a war we can't win?"
"Then we fight it anyway," Kessler replied. "Because the alternative is letting people like Santos win."
"Sometimes I think about what comes after," Nathan said quietly. "If we somehow survive all this, what happens to us? We're branded as terrorists now. There's no going back to our old lives."
"Would you want to?"
The question surprised him. "What do you mean?"
"Would you want to go back to taking orders from people like Colonel Harrison? Pretending you don't know what the UNSC really is?"
Nathan considered this. "No. I guess I wouldn't."
"Then maybe we build something new. Something better."
"If only there was a way I could tell everyone at once," Nathan mused. "The whole system. Show them what's really happening."
Kessler looked at him curiously but didn't pursue the thought. Instead, she moved closer, close enough that he could smell her shampoo over the lingering scent of ship's recycled air.
"Nathan?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm scared too. Not just of dying, but of…" She hesitated. "Of what happens between us if we don't die."
He turned to face her fully. "What do you mean?"
"I mean this," she said, gesturing between them. "Whatever this is that's been building. I'm terrified that it's just adrenaline and fear, and when the danger passes, it'll disappear too."
Nathan reached out and took her hand, surprised by how natural the gesture felt. "It's not just adrenaline, Damali."
"How do you know?"
"Because I've been thinking about you since we were kids on the station. Since that day you came to find me after I got the news about Marcus."
She smiled at the memory. "You looked so lost."
"You helped me find my way."
They were standing very close now, close enough that Nathan could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. The moment stretched between them, filled with everything they'd been through and everything they might face.
"Damali?"
"Yeah?"
"I care about you. More than I should, considering everything that's happening."
Her smile was almost as soft as her voice. "I care about you too Nathan."
When they kissed, it was with the desperate need of two people who'd found something precious in the middle of chaos. Her hands tangled in his hair as his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him. They kissed like people seeking comfort in each other, finding solace in connection.
When they broke apart, both breathing hard, Kessler rested her forehead against his.
"Do you want to get some rest with me?" she asked quietly.
Nathan's answer was to kiss her again.
Kessler's quarters were larger than the standard crew accommodations, with an actual bed instead of a fold-down bunk. They moved together with the urgency of people who'd been denying their attraction for too long, seeking comfort and connection in each other's arms.
As they held each other afterward, Nathan's mind drifted to the first time he'd really seen her, not just noticed her, but truly seen her for who she was.
He'd been fourteen, hanging around Titan's Rest Repair Station's main observation deck, watching the massive ships come and go through the docking bays. The station specialized in major repairs for large vessels, and Nathan loved watching the engineering crews swarm over damaged hulls like ants rebuilding their nest. His father was working a double shift that day, and Nathan had nowhere else to be.
That's when he'd noticed the new family moving through the immigration processing area below. A man and woman with serious expressions, followed by a girl about his age carrying a single bag. The girl had dark hair and moved with careful precision, like someone who was used to being responsible for herself.
Nathan had watched as they went through the standard newcomer procedures, noting how the girl's parents seemed more interested in their data tablets than in helping their daughter. When the processing was finished, the parents immediately headed toward the commercial district, but the girl hesitated, looking around the vast station with something that might have been loneliness.
Without really thinking about it, Nathan had made his way down to the main level. By the time he reached the immigration area, the girl was sitting alone on a bench, still clutching her bag.
"Hey," he'd said, approaching cautiously. "I'm Nathan. You just move here?"
She'd looked up at him with those brown eyes, and Nathan had seen something that went beyond simple wariness. There was intelligence there, and kindness, but also a careful guardedness that spoke of being let down before.
"Damali," she'd replied. "And yeah, we just got here. My parents got jobs with the legal department." She'd gestured vaguely toward where her parents had disappeared. "They're busy settling in."
"Want me to show you around?" Nathan had offered. "I know all the good spots."
Her smile had been tentative but genuine. "I'd like that."
Nathan had spent the rest of that day showing Damali Kessler the hidden corners of Titan's Rest, the observation decks with the best views, the maintenance areas where you could watch the repair crews work, the recreational spaces where kids their age gathered. By the end of the day, he'd been completely smitten, though it would take him years to understand what he was feeling.
Nathan had fallen for her that first day, though it had taken him years to understand it.
Now, lying in her narrow bed with her head on his chest, he realized that everything since then had been leading to this moment. Not just the physical intimacy, but the deeper connection they'd found in the midst of chaos.
"I can't help but think about Vega," Nathan said suddenly.
Kessler lifted her head to look at him with exasperation. "Really? That's what you're thinking about right now?"
"Sorry, I just…" Nathan sat up slightly. "I mean, I hope they didn't discharge him or anything. Or worse, maybe they're forcing him to hunt us down. He was a good man, Damali. He didn't deserve to get caught up in our mess."
Kessler sat up beside him and rubbed his back gently. "Nathan, I think you've got something else to worry about right now."
"What?"
She smiled and pulled him back down to the bed. "Me."
As she kissed him again, Nathan decided that Vega would have to wait. Right now, there was only this moment, this woman, and the precious hope that they might actually have a future together.
Outside Kessler's small viewport, the stars continued their ancient dance, indifferent to human hopes and fears. But inside her quarters, two people who'd found each other in the darkness held tight to what they'd discovered, knowing that tomorrow might take it all away.