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“Stats on grain store hull damage,” Orion demanded out loud.
“We’ve got techs working on it, but generator won’t last long. They need to get plugged in.”
Extra units to prison deck, reroute power from command deck residential sector to grain store.
Orion was remindedwhyhe wanted nothing to do withColossal. The ship was dying. If his mother were here, she’d know what to do. She’d been through enough jumps to know all the systems like the back of her hand. He was fresh blood in a ship that was used to being run in a very specific way.
“Power in medbay,” he queried.
“Eighty percent. Life support functional, but regen and Upload compromised.”
Shit.
Orion fought to focus, but it was useless. He ripped the sampler from his hand, droplets of blood spraying the air as the cable fell to the side. All eyes turned to him as he pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging at the inner corners of his eyes.
Prio Five transmission from medbay. Emote requested.
There was only one thing this could be about. They wouldn’t push through a Prio Five now with emote if the situation hadn’t gotten much worse. Kaia was dead. They were all fucking dead. He killed them.
Orion closed his eyes, slumping back in his seat. And the last thing he’d done was fuck her and call her a whore. That would be her last memory besides getting viciously stabbed by the manheinvited onto the ship. Another round of tremors jostled the ship.
“Did Upload succeed?” He didn’t bother subvocalizing it, hearing his own voice as though detached. Cool and collected, just the way he should be.
There was a beat of silence on the other end, followed by a rush of emotion that slammed him back in his seat. It was everything rolled into one: fear, ache, want. What the fuck was this?
Orion. C-can you hear me?
His eyes snapped open.
“Kaia?”
Yeah, it’s me. Still here.
He tasted her uncertainty, transmitted straight from her prefrontal cortex into his own. It was followed by another burst of everything all at once, sending him reeling.
You got an NS.His stomach lurched in that way that had only ever happened with her—a sensation he thought he’d never experience again after.
Yeah. Look, Orion…The uncertain voice grew more familiarly snippy.
“That’s my princess,” he thought.
You’ve got more important shit to do than harass medbay about me. We can deal with our shit later. Focus on keeping everyone on this ship as alive as I am right now. Forget about me, and I swear I’ll still be here for you to throw me out or space me or whatever after. Understand?
Space her? She thought he wanted to space her?
But the scattered cogs in his brain started to click back into place at her instruction. Now that he knew Kaia was not only fine but communicating, he could push her to the back of his mind. She’d still hate him after what he did. And he still fucking felt her betrayal like a knife in his back. But she was speaking to him.Feelingwith him.
Orion grabbed the sampler and shoved it back into the freshly installed socket in his hand, wincing before the device began excreting its anesthetic.
Power maps up and get me a scan of immediate topology.
CHAPTER64
KAIA
Kaia had fallen back asleep soon after getting through to Orion, worn out from the blaring sirens, each shake of the ship feeling like another stab in the ribs. On top of that, the panic of having a wormy little Neurosync shoved up her nose to twist its way into her brain drained what was left of her energy.
It wasn’t just the initial fear of it that exhausted her, but the way it messed with her mind once it was in. Most of the functions would take time to propagate, but already she felt the strange ways the NS affected her perception. It sharpened her vision—or rather, her brain’s interpretation of the images reaching her brain. And the emote connection with Orion was exhausting in its fidelity. She spoke out loud, assured by the doctors that his own NS would replicate her voice in his primary auditory cortex. The connection between their implants created a sort of magnetic link inside her skull that, by the end of it, utterly exhausted her. They said he’d feel her emotions, but she didn’t feel anything back. Apparently that function hadn't finished calibrating yet.
