Kel whimpers and turns into my shoulder again. The heat of him brands through the fabric. His tiny hand clutches mine with frightening strength.
“Mama,” he whispers.
My heart shatters.
I bury my face in his curls and whisper, “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you. I promise.”
But my voice is already breaking.
Because there’s only one man in the known galaxy with the genes to save my son.
And he’s rotting on Jurtik—the prison planet from hell. A place of rust, blood, and desert fire. A place they send monsters. A place they senthim.
Kyldak.
My war hero.
My mistake.
My Kel’s only chance.
And somehow, stars help me, I’m going to get there.
I forge the credentials in a storage closet that smells like mildew and disappointment.
The console’s cracked, the holokeypad buzzes every fifth stroke, and the light above me flickers like it’s too scared to stay on. Perfect. Nobody questions tech that looks like it should’ve died with the last solar flare.
The fake ID is almost poetic—tactical systems repair tech, Class-D shuttle license, clearance for deep-orbit reentry if I squint and lie hard enough. I use the old academy tags I sworeI’d burned. The ones I swiped from Revi back when we used to sneak into AI labs for laughs and shots of synthetic vodka.
“Look at me now, Rev,” I mutter, adjusting the biometric profile to mimic my pre-birthweight change. “From dropout to interstellar fugitive mom. Real glow-up.”
I can’t laugh. I try. But the sound that comes out of me is closer to a sob strangled by caffeine and spite.
I finish the last of the overlays and slot the ID chip into the dummy panel. It chirps green.
“Congratulations,” the console drones, voice cracked with age. “You are now Mx. Lysha Krant, maintenance subcontractor for penal freight transfer 9-Zeta.”
Bitchin’.
I find the shuttle in the bowels of the orbital junk docks, moored between a cargo hauler that smells like fish guts and something labeledexperimental fertilizerthat I’m pretty sure is just polite forspace shit.
She’s rusted to hell. Barely holding together with rivets and hope. The hull groans when I board her like she’s protesting the indignity of flight.
“I feel you, girl,” I whisper, patting the cracked pilot’s seat. “But we’ve got a date with damnation.”
I pull out the nav chip. It’s a dirty little thing—jury-rigged with a stealth filter and a stolen loop from a military skirmisher drone. Only cost me two favors, one blood marker, and a conversation I’m definitely not proud of.
I slot it in. The console whines, spits digital static, then goes blessedly quiet. The new trajectory loads.
Destination:Jurtik Penal Moon.
ETA: 47 hours. One way. No return plotted.
I sit there a long time, watching the words flicker.
No return.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “No shit.”
