They ended up staying on Vulx for nearly 62 sun rotations. It hadn't been the pn, but she was healing, and Asrell was regrouping. The loss of his people, the loss of his titles, and even worse, he still came out as the bad guy in the eyes of the Symbiote Regime he had served for so long.

  They moved ships by her suggestion. The stolen bcksite shuttle hadn't been traced, not exactly, but it had still been recording. Logs, signals, and internal metrics, making it unsafe for long-term use and a potential beacon for their enemies to track them down. The weight of Asrell's fall from grace loomed rge, and caution was paramount.

  So, once they nded, he introduced her to his drones—sleek, silent things with shifting limbs and sharp precision. They followed her commands almost as readily as his, an extension of his will. With their help, she stripped the bcksite ship down to its bones. Food. Tools. Wires. Everything worth keeping was meticulously salvaged. And then, with no ceremony at all, she programmed it to drive itself into the nearest sun, erasing any trace of their path. He thought it was a waste of resources. But he understood the necessity, his princely arrogance giving way to pragmatism in the face of their dire circumstances.

  His ship—stupid, opulent thing that it was—became their new home. The most luxurious space she'd ever stepped foot in, a jarring contrast to the hardscrabble life she knew. Ridiculous, really. But she was grateful for even this small refuge as they regrouped. One week passed in this manner. It felt still. Too still. Like the kind of quiet that comes before something breaks, tension coiling beneath the surface. Not long enough to settle into a routine, not short enough to dismiss the lingering unease. Time stretched in that strange way it does after disaster—like the aftershock of an explosion still rumbling underfoot, even when everything looks outwardly still on the surface.

  And then another week passed. They adapted. Or at least survived. The pnet, for all its oversized strangeness, left them alone. Asrell's drones patrolled the perimeter, scanning for predators and intercepting smaller threats before they got too close.

  The sky cycled in color, shifting through hues that seemed almost too vibrant to be real. The wind never stopped, a constant howling presence that rattled against the ship's hull. But they were alive. And more time slipped past, the days blurring together as they found themselves healing as much as they could, one quiet moment at a time.

  Mia slept most nights in the oversized pilot chair, wrapped in one of the luxuriously unnecessary bnkets from his ship's too-plush bedroom. The fabric was soft against her scarred skin, a small comfort amidst the chaos.

  He watched her sometimes, his gaze lingering. He would find reflective services and study her, this Terran he was bonded to. Not out of concern, but calcution. She didn't speak of what happened on the Queen's ship. She never asked about his disgrace, the brutal punishment he'd endured. And most importantly, she never brought up his addiction, the thing that had nearly consumed him whole.

  That silence felt heavier than judgment. And strangely, it felt like mercy. A reprieve he didn't deserve. He didn't know what to do with that fragile, unspoken understanding between them.

  She moved differently now. Stronger. Steadier. Still quiet, but not distant. A new resolve burned within her, tempered by the fire they'd walked through. She'd taken to pacing the ship's interior, familiarizing herself with its yout, mapping every corridor and hidden space like a general surveying their fortress.

  She asked fewer questions, and when she did, they were purposeful. Technical. Probing for information in that efficient, no-nonsense way of hers. The drones brought back nutrient-rich food for her, things she could stomach even if she didn't like the taste. He noted her appetite returning, her eyes getting clearer with each passing day.

  When she started tapping into the ship's systems, he barely noticed at first. Until he realized she wasn't just exploring. She was studying, her clever mind dissecting the technology around them.

  Mia installed a new yer of security around the ship's internal files, hardening their defenses. She learned the interface of his species' technology—absorbed it like she had grown up with it, an old nguage she'd been waiting her whole life to relearn.

  "How are you reading that?" he asked one day, unable to hide his curiosity. She blinked up from the panel, her eyes flickering with that alien inner light. "I don't know. I just... can."

  After some thought he decided it was because of him, because of the bond they now shared. "Because I'm in your brain," he said, ftly. "Obviously." She rolled her eyes and kept working, her focus unwavering.

  And while she gained her ability to read his nguage, he started to adopt her way of speaking. Neither would notice at first, but having spent every second with each other, their minds and voices slowly intertwining, it was bound to happen. He actually liked it, not that he would ever admit such a thing to her.

  On a random day, he noticed she was looking deeply into his computer systems. He didn't stop her. She asked for access to the gactic records the next day. He allowed it. Why not? She was already halfway into everything else.

  What she pulled up shouldn't have surprised her—but it did.

  Criminal Record: M. Virelli

  Charges:

  Domestic Terrorism, Unwful Use of Explosives, Unauthorized Access to Critical Infrastructure

  Sentence: 25 shes, 6 years penal confinement

  Status: Time Served

  Release Date: Seven days ago

  It was all there. Legally clean. On paper, she had served her time. The system showed no riot. No solitary confinement. No mention of the impnt. As if the worst of it never happened. The official story was simple: Mia Virelli, sentenced and completed, ready for reintegration.

  She stared at it until her stomach turned, the stark words twisting something deep inside her. She had not realized that it had been 6 years, but according to her file some of her time was served while in Cryo-sleep because they shipped her off to the bck-site prison the slowest way man could travel. The injustice of it all gnawed at her - the time stolen, the dehumanizing transport, the agonizing cold sleep that stole years she could never recim. Her fists clenched as fshes of that nightmarish journey resurfaced, the memory of being treated like hazardous cargo rather than a living, breathing person. A muscle twitched in her jaw as she fought back the bitterness that threatened to consume her once more.

  Next, she checked her family. Her parents: Deceased. Cause: Illness due to water contamination. Date of death: Five years ago. The details stabbed at her heart, reopening old wounds. Her mother's gentle smile, her father's warm embraces. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the memories back before they could overwhelm her.

  Her home: Still held in trust, all taxes were paid, and the property was hers to recim after her release from prison. A glimmer of hope flickered amidst the darkness. Her childhood sanctuary remained, untouched and waiting. Perhaps not all was lost. With a steadying breath, she moved on to the next entry, her fingers trembling ever so slightly on the screen.

  Mia said nothing, just closed her eyes for a long, weighted moment. She kept digging, her fingers moving with a renewed intensity born of quiet determination. When she pulled up Calder Veyron's file, something in her shifted—a subtle tightening around her eyes, a sharpening of focus. Her face didn't change outwardly. But the atmosphere did, thickening with a sense of purpose that radiated from her very core. And from within her mind, Asrell went utterly still, his usually snarking presence falling silent in deference to the weight of this moment.

  Asrell knew that face. That voice. That was the man. The one his brother sold him to. The polished Terran. Too-clean fingernails. Too-bright teeth. The man who had ordered things done in hushed tones and ughing threats. The man who hurt her—and who had wanted to hurt him, too. He almost told her about his own experience with Calder, but he stopped himself. Asrell was still hesitant to speak of his time in the prison.

  Instead, he asked a question no one had asked her in six years. Because for all the things he didn't understand about her—her silences, her stubbornness, her strange resilience—he understood injustice. And this man, this Calder, had done something to her. That much, he could feel like a living pulse within her mind.

  His voice was quiet. Unsteady. Almost soft. "Did you do it?" She didn't answer. Not with words. But something inside her shifted, an imperceptible tremor. Not a wound. A door. And it opened, letting him in just a little deeper.