The visual of the pirate flagship's interior—now a graveyard of bent steel and broken pirates—sent shockwaves through the UCC High Command. When the retrieval teams stepped onto the ship, they didn't find a battlefield; they found a crime scene of absolute efficiency.
Arin didn't stay for the accolades. He carried Lyra directly to the medical frigate, his expression a wall of granite that discouraged anyone from asking questions.
The Kitchen of the Queen
Lyra, having studied battlefield medicine as part of her Admiral training, ran her own diagnostics. Physically, she was fine, but the silence of her room felt heavier than usual. To settle her nerves and pay a debt she felt she could never truly clear, she invited Arin to her quarters for a private dinner.
She cooked a traditional Sovereign stew—complex, precise, and requiring hours of simmering. Arin arrived exactly on time, his uniform crisp, but his eyes softer than they were on the flagship.
The dinner became a bridge. Soon, it wasn't a "thank you" anymore; it was a routine. Lyra would find any excuse—a new recipe, a celebration of a successful drill, or a "surplus of ingredients"—to call him over. Arin, the man of habit, began to integrate "Dinner with Lyra" into his daily tactical schedule as a high-priority mission.
The Habit of the Heart
One evening, Lyra was buried in a mountain of fleet logistics. A sensor glitch in the Outer Rim had her rerouting three carrier groups, and the time slipped away. She forgot to message him. She forgot to cook.
At exactly 1900 hours, her door chime echoed.
Lyra opened the door, her hair in a messy bun and a stylus behind her ear. She blinked in surprise at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing there.
"Arin? I... I didn't call you tonight. The logistics report ran over, and I haven't even started the stove."
Arin stood there for a beat, his hand halfway raised to knock again. For the first time, the Iron Commander looked genuinely confused. His feet had brought him to her door on autopilot.
"I..." Arin paused, clearing his throat. "I was in the hallway. My legs seem to have a more developed routine than my brain."
Lyra stared at him for a second before a bright, genuine laugh escaped her. It was the first time she had laughed like that since the pirate incident.
"The great Vyron Anchor, defeated by a schedule," she teased, stepping aside to let him in. "Sit down. I'll make something quick. I can't have my best Mecha Commander starving because I'm bad at time management."
The Unconscious Vow
As she moved around the small kitchen, tossing spices into a pan with practiced grace, the atmosphere turned light. Arin watched her from the table, his eyes tracking her movements with a focus usually reserved for the cockpit.
"You know, Arin," Lyra said, her back turned as she stirred the pot, her silver-pink hair catching the warm kitchen light. "You're getting too used to my cooking. What happens when you graduate and move to a different sector? You might end up married to someone who can't tell salt from sugar, and you'll be miserable."
She turned around, waving a wooden spoon at him with a playful smirk. "You'll be at your fancy battleship table, dreaming of my spicy broth."
Arin, still halfway in his tactical "auto-pilot" mind and feeling more comfortable than he ever had, spoke without filtering the thought.
"Then I'll just marry you. That solves the logistical issue."
The kitchen went deathly silent.
Lyra froze, the spoon mid-air. Her face, usually pale and composed, turned a shade of red that rivaled a supernova.
Arin blinked, the weight of his own words finally hitting his conscious mind. He didn't retract it. He didn't apologize. He just sat there, looking at her with a steady, terrifyingly honest gaze.
"I mean," Arin added, his voice dropping an octave, "it's the most efficient solution for both our diets."
Lyra let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-gasp. "You... you absolute brute. Did you just propose to me because of a 'logistical issue'?"
"I proposed because I don't want to eat anyone else's food," Arin corrected, a rare, small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "And because I don't think anyone else would survive being married to me."
Lyra turned back to the stove, her heart hammering against her ribs harder than it had during the pirate ambush.
"The stew is going to be extra spicy tonight, Commander," she whispered, her smile wider than she wanted him to see. "Consider it a preview of your future. And next time I'm stranded, I'll make sure your fleet is there to pick me up again."