Page 116 of Tracked and Taken

“You would have let me not know, and you would have died in your bunk in eighteen months, and you would not have told me?”

“Yes.”

The word costs more going out than the answer about how long did. She has the truth because she asked for it, and she would have gone the rest of her life without it because I decided she was better served not carrying it. Both of those are things I did. Only one of them was for her.

She presses her forehead against my chest. She holds there. Not moving. Not asking anything further.

I hold her until her breathing settles. I hold her until her pulse, on my overlay, falls below ninety. I hold her until her hand on my shirt loosens at the wrist in the way her hand loosens when her body decides it is done with the day.

She sleeps.

I do not move.

JINX, on the private channel, quiet: “Tael. She is at the eight-minute REM threshold. She is going to be out for some hours.”

“Copy.”

“I have her vitals continuously. SENTRY also”.

“SENTRY?”

“On her, Tael. I will alert you the second she stirs.”

“Copy. I am going back to the chamber. I will be ninety seconds from her at any point on a hard run. JINX, plot me the corridor route.”

“Copy. Plotted.”

I get up.

I do it slowly. My hand under hers on my shirt, lifting it off, setting it on the pillow next to her head. The thermal blanket up to her chin. My field jacket — which has, somewhere in the last twenty minutes, ended up on the bunk — pulled over her shoulder so she can smell me.

I go.

The induction chamber.

I take the thirty minutes to do what Natalie would not be in a state to do.

I photograph the console. The manifold. The two body-contact tables. The ceiling delivery. Kesh’s body from four angles — wound, face, hand at his own throat, full body in situ. I tag the biometric feeds. I extract the console memory core.

I go through Kesh’s kit.

His sidearm. His blade. His comm unit. The data drive at his hip — I pulled it during the fight. It is in my pocket. I take the secondary one — the smaller drive at the inner pocket of his field jacket.

I open the jacket.

Beside the drive, in the inside pocket, is a small object.

I take it out.

A worn brass disc.

It is — I see it before I let myself name it — hot in my palm. Still faintly broadcasting at the half-register, my biology reads without my permission.

I turn it over.

The pair-identification sigil on one side.

A name on the other.