Kaelen's presence was a stone dropped into the still pond of the rebel base, sending out ripples that disturbed everything in its path. He was housed in a monitored but comfortable chamber near the medical bay, not a cell but not free. Alexander's orders were absolute: Kaelen was to have no unsupervised access to sensitive areas, and his every interaction was logged. The official reason was security vetting. The unspoken reason hung between Alexander and Elara like a sheet of ice.
For Elara, the days after Zorax's ultimatum were a torment of divided loyalties. Her scientific mind was fully engaged, working with frantic, focused energy to finalize the ghost-biome pathogen. The clock was ticking, the alignment of the moons a celestial guillotine blade slowly descending. But her heart was in fragments. Kaelen was alive. The man she had shared years with, laughed with, whose loss she had mourned in the darkest nights of her first year on Sylva, was just down the corridor. Yet, he was a stranger marked by horrors she could only imagine.
Alexander, meanwhile, had become a vortex of ruthless activity. The confirmation of the Harvest Fleet had transformed him. The grand, strategic game had become a desperate, last-ditch salvage operation. He drove himself and everyone around him harder, his planning sessions longer, his demands more exacting. The subtle softness he'd shown in the lab, the shared moment over the sketch of Earth, was gone, locked away behind walls of impenetrable granite.
The friction came to a head three days after Kaelen's arrival. Elara was in the rebuilt main lab—now heavily fortified—running the final simulation of the pathogen's delivery system. She was exhausted, her eyes gritty, her mind buzzing with chemical formulae and data-packets. Alexander entered, followed by Vor, to review the insertion plan for Nexus Tertius.
"The simulation shows a ninety-four percent probability of the pathogen being accepted and forwarded," Elara reported, her voice flat with fatigue. "The six percent failure margin is if the node runs an unexpected deep-level biocompatibility scan during the exact millisecond of insertion."
"Unacceptable," Alexander stated, looking over the data. "The margin must be zero. Rerun the simulation accounting for the increased network activity Zorax will be generating to coordinate the Harvest Fleet. Factor in a five percent rise in random diagnostic checks."
Elara felt her temper snap. "I've been factoring in variables for seventy-two hours straight! The simulation is based on the best data we have! I can't model Zorax's paranoia to the millisecond!"
"Then get better data," he said, his eyes still on the holoscreen.
"And how do you suggest I do that? Walk up to a Sentinel and ask for its maintenance schedule?"
Before Alexander could retort, a calm voice spoke from the lab entrance. "I might be able to help with that."
Kaelen stood there, flanked by two rebel guards. He looked better rested, the hollows under his eyes less pronounced. He wore simple rebel attire that hung loosely on his frame. His gaze was fixed on the complex schematics floating above the holotable.
Alexander's reaction was immediate and visceral. A wave of cold fury seemed to radiate from him. "You were not authorized to be in this sector."
"I requested an audience," Kaelen said, his tone respectful but unwavering. "The guards deemed the lab a neutral zone for a consultation. I heard your problem. The neural scarring I told you about… the connections are faint, but they're real. I can sometimes… sense the ebb and flow of the network. Like a tide. I can't read thoughts, but I can feel periods of high activity and low activity. I might be able to pinpoint a window of maximum routine processing, where a new data packet would be least scrutinized."
Elara's scientific curiosity warred with her caution. "Kaelen, that's… incredibly vague. We need precision."
"It's more than you have now," he said gently, taking a tentative step into the room. His eyes swept over her equipment with a familiar, professional appreciation. "You've built all this… out of scrap. It's magnificent, Elara."
Alexander moved, placing himself physically between Kaelen and the holotable. "Your offer is noted. You will report your 'sensations' to Vor, who will relay them to the tactical team. You will not interface directly with this project. Your presence is a security risk I am not prepared to mitigate."
Kaelen's eyes flicked from Alexander's protective stance to Elara's tired face. A flicker of understanding, and something sharper—a challenge—passed over his features. "I understand security, Alexander. More than most. I've been living inside the enemy's mind. But if you want to hit Zorax where it hurts, you need every tool. Even a broken one."
"Your self-assessment is accurate," Alexander replied coldly. "You are damaged. Your data is unreliable. We will not risk the entire operation on your psychic impressions."
"Even if it raises your success probability from ninety-four to ninety-nine percent?" Kaelen pressed. "Even with Earth hanging in the balance?"
The mention of Earth was a low blow, and they all knew it. Alexander's jaw clenched. Elara saw the conflict in him—the ruthless pragmatist who would use any weapon, warring with the man who viewed Kaelen as a threat, not just to security, but to something else entirely.
"Elara," Alexander said, turning his back on Kaelen, dismissing him. "Rerun the simulation. Use projected fleet coordination models from the outer moon signatures we're tracking. I want new results in two hours."
He strode out, a clear dismissal. The guards motioned for Kaelen to leave. As he turned to go, he caught Elara's eye. "He's afraid," Kaelen murmured, too low for the guards to hear. "Not of Zorax. Of me."
Then he was gone.
Elara stood frozen, the words echoing in the silent lab. He's afraid of me. Was it true? Was Alexander's harshness not just tactical caution, but jealousy? The idea was both absurd and electrifying. The Alexander Blackwood she knew feared nothing. He calculated risk, he didn't feel it in a way that clouded judgment.
Yet, his behavior was undeniably… possessive. The way he'd placed himself between them. The absolute refusal to consider Kaelen's help, even when it made logical sense to explore every avenue.
Furious, confused, and more tired than she'd ever been, she didn't rerun the simulation. She went to find Alexander.
She found him in the command center, standing before the massive star chart, the moon-alignment countdown glowing ominously in the corner. He didn't turn as she entered.
"You let your personal feelings interfere with the mission," she accused, her voice echoing in the quiet room.
Now he turned. His expression was carved from stone. "My judgment is based on logic. Marcellus is an unknown. His 'gift' is unquantifiable. To base a mission with these stakes on a feeling is the height of irrationality."
"It's not just a feeling! He has firsthand experience inside Zorax's network! Experience we lack! You're dismissing it because you don't like him. Because he's from my past."
A dangerous glint appeared in Alexander's grey eyes. "Your past is irrelevant. Your present attachment to him is a liability. He looks at you and sees a lifeline to a world he lost. You look at him and see a ghost. Neither perspective is clear-eyed. It will get you killed."
"So this is for my safety now?" she scoffed. "How generous. You've made it perfectly clear the mission comes before any single life, including mine. Or have your priorities shifted?"
He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a low, intense growl. "My priority is the successful deployment of the pathogen. Every variable must be controlled. He is a variable I cannot control. And you, when you are near him, become unpredictable. Therefore, he is isolated. It is simple cause and effect."
"I am not one of your variables to be controlled, Alexander!" she shouted, the frustration of weeks boiling over. "I am your partner! Or did you forget that in your boardroom in the sky? Partners trust each other's judgment! I am telling you, Kaelen's information could be vital!"
"And I am telling you," he said, his composure cracking for the first time, a raw edge in his voice, "that the man who returns from the wolf's den often carries the wolf's scent. I will not have him near the heart of this operation. That is my final decision. Your duty is to the science. Focus on it."
The finality in his tone was absolute. He had drawn a line, not as her partner, but as her commander. The partnership, it seemed, had a strict chain of command after all.
Elara stared at him, seeing the fear Kaelen had named. It wasn't fear for the mission. It was the fear of a man who had built his entire life on controlling a predictable universe, now faced with two uncontrollable elements: a woman who defied his logic, and a ghost from her past who threatened to pull her away.
In that moment, she hated him for his arrogance. And she pitied him for his loneliness. The combination was devastating.
"You're wrong about him," she said quietly, her anger spent, leaving only cold certainty. "And your inability to see past your own… your own issues… might cost us everything. Do your duty, Alexander. But don't expect me to thank you for it."
She left him standing alone in the glow of the countdown, the weight of the worlds on his shoulders, and a new, more personal enemy taking shape in the shadows of his mind. The jealousy was not a petty emotion. It was a strategic liability. And for a man like Alexander Blackwood, that was the most unacceptable flaw of all. The battle lines were no longer just drawn against Zorax. They were drawn through the very heart of the rebellion.