Mars Time: 18:50, February 18, 2295

  Clinic Chakraborty, Eagle District, Xing Hong

  The autocab's hydrogen engine hummed to silence outside the clinic's entrance. Sigrun stepped out first, her ankle aching at the movement. "Autocab, engage Subscriber Waiting Mode. 40 minutes."

  "Of course, Subsciber #6969. See you soon." The VI replied.

  "Let me help." Xin's voice was gentle as he moved to her side, H?kon still tucked safely in his puffer jacket's chest pocket. Having taken a short nap, the little Diabolisk's scales had shifted to concerned brown, his head poking out to watch Sigrun with worried blue eyes.

  "Sky Lady hurt?" H?kon chirped.

  "I'm okay." She wasn't. The hairline fractures in her ankle sent sharp signals up her leg. The acid burns on her shoulder had stopped, but the damaged tissue beneath her coat still throbbed.

  Xin's hand hovered near her elbow, not quite touching but ready to catch her if she fell. Smart enough not to push, she thought. Different from most men who just grabbed what they wanted.

  The clinic doors slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss.

  Doctor Nikki Chakraborty looked up from her terminal, surprise on her face. "Sigrun?" Then her gaze shifted to Xin, pushing her glasses, then looking back at Sigrun. "You two know each other?"

  "We do now." Sigrun kept her voice neutral. "Met on a bounty run."

  "The High-Grade Zephyrium one? I received many patients today who wouldn't stop talking about it." Nikki turned her seat around.

  "You first." Sigrun lifted her head at Xin.

  Xin adjusted his glasses, that nervous habit she'd started to recognize. "Doctor Nikki. H?kon needs medical attention. I figured..." He trailed off, uncertain.

  But Nikki's attention had already shifted to the little Diabolisk peeking from Xin's pocket. "H?kon. Let me have a look at you."

  "Doctor Lady!" The little creature's scales brightened just a bit, excited. He scrambled out of the pocket as he half-climbed, half-fell down Xin's chest. Xin caught him gently before he hit the floor.

  "Eeeeasy, buddy." Xin set him down carefully. H?kon immediately waddled toward Nikki, his tiny claws clicking on the table's pristine white textures.

  Sigrun felt something twist in her chest. The way Xin handled H?kon. When was the last time anyone had touched her like that? With tenderness instead of transaction-based demands?

  "His scales have been dulling," Xin was saying. "And he's been more lethargic than usual. I'm worried there might be something wrong with his development."

  The Diabolisk's scales shifted to sand yellow, close to that color Xin had called 'feeling safe.' "Doctor Lady! Me draw pappa good yes-tur-dey! Then, ad-ven-chure tew-dey!"

  "Did you?" Nikki leaned forward in her seat, letting H?kon sniff her extended hand. "You've been good? Eating your supplements? Sleeping well?"

  "HAW-koon eat gray sand and pappa food! Good-good-eat!" H?kon wagged his little tail while speaking.

  "Good. Good. Let's have a look at you in a moment." Nikki stood, her doctor's gaze sweeping over Sigrun. "But first, I'm treating those injuries. No arguments."

  "Yeah. I'm—"

  "Sigrun, if you finish that sentence with 'fine,' I'm billing you double." Nikki's tone allowed no debate. She gestured toward the examination room. "Xin, there are holo-toys and crayons in the waiting area. Keep H?kon occupied a few minutes for me?"

  "Of course." Xin scooped up H?kon, who was already chirping with concerns, trying to follow Sigrun. "Come on, buddy."

  "But Sky Lady?"

  "Sky Lady will be okay. Doctor Nikki is really good at her job. Hey, look there!"

  Sigrun watched them go as she shrugged out of her trench coat, the damaged fabric stiff with dried acid residue. The cobalt turtleneck came next, revealing the angry red burns across her left shoulder and upper back.

  "H?kon's right to worry," Nikki said, already pulling up the medical scanner. "These acid burns go deep. Third-degree in places. Skuggrs?"

  "Those Fenris cockroaches get bigger each year." Sigrun sighed as she sat on the examination table. Through the doorway, she could hear Xin's voice, patient and warm, as he activated a holographic dancing monk for H?kon. A soft chirp of delight from the little Diabolisk.

  Then her gaze caught on Nikki's computer terminal.

  The old Djinno woman had minimized something, but not quickly enough. In that split second before the window vanished, Sigrun saw:

  'Europa telescope images. Deep space resolution. Tagged locations across the icy moon's surface'.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  And text: 'JOKULL HORDE MOVEMENT PATTERNS - CLASSIFIED'

  Something pooled in Sigrun's stomach.

  "Nikki, I want to ask you something."

  "Hold still for me." The doctor was already applying medical gel to the burns. The familiar mint-and-metal taste filled the air. Major wounds from Skuggr acid required this medical gel to be fully treated, leaving no scars. "Going to take a few minutes for the gel to seep in and reach all parts of your body. So, relax a bit."

  [Applied: Vishnu Gel - Healing in Progress]

  But Sigrun's sapphire eyes fixed on the minimized window, barely visible as a thin line at the bottom of Nikki's screen. "You were looking at Europa data."

  Nikki's hand paused for just a moment. "Sigrun."

  "Any word about..." The words stuck in her throat. After eleven years, hope felt like swallowing glass. "Anyone from the 2284 incident?"

  The silence stretched. Nikki's dark eyes, normally so warm, carried weight Sigrun couldn't name.

  "There are no confirmed deaths for those missing persons you've asked me to track." Nikki's voice was careful. "Including Ivar Lindqvist."

  The medical scanner beeped. [Healing in Progress]

  Sigrun barely noticed.

  "So he could still be?" Her voice cracked.

  "Sigrun, it's been eleven years." Nikki set down the Medi-Vap applicator. "No confirmed death doesn't mean alive. It means the Nordic Commonwealth hasn't recovered enough remains to issue death certificates. The Fenris Horde controls most of Europa now. Body recovery is...complicated."

  "But you've been checking." Not a question. Sigrun knew Nikki well enough to read between the words. "You've been monitoring the situation."

  "At your request, yes. Every month for the past five years." Nikki pulled up her terminal, entering her passcode with efficiency. Sigrun never quite understood why Nikki insisted on manual typing instead of having the console remember the passwords for her. The Europa data returned, but now Sigrun could see it fully.

  Telescope images. Thermal scans. Movement patterns of creatures that shouldn't exist. And photos. Sigrun's breath became short, her heart beating as she scrutinized each.

  In one of the telescope images, grainy but unmistakable. A man's profile against Europa's icy landscape. Tousled blonde hair. Healthy ivory skin like her own. The strong jawline she'd traced with her fingers a lifetime ago.

  "That!" Sigrun couldn't help pulling at a strand of blonde hair tracing down her cheek, holding back the urge to jump up from where she sat.

  "We don't know for certain," Nikki said quickly. "Telescope resolution at that distance isn't reliable for facial identification. It could be anyone."

  Next to the blonde man stood creatures. Radi-Mons, clearly, but not like any of those Fenris Horde creatures she'd seen and slain. Where Bone Fiends, Skuggrs and Kraken were twisted, disgusting nightmare fuels, these looked...purposeful. Dignified, even.

  One resembled a massive crab, its shell a deep sapphire blue etched with patterns that looked like Nordic knotwork. Another looked like an oversized groundhog, but armored, carrying what appeared to be a space-worthy supply bag on its back.

  "This Jokull Horde is apparently a force against Skarn's Fenris. From what I could make out with A.I. translations, the crab-like creatures are called Krabba. The smaller ones resembling groundhogs are Grávombs." Nikki said, following her gaze.

  "They've been making these things? But who's doing it?" Sigrun was leaning forward, her Nordic blue eyes drinking in the image.

  "Unknown. And those—" she pointed to giant shapes that resembled blue jellyfish, "—are Ismarr. 'Frost Floaters' in J?turmál. The intelligence community isn't even sure they're fully Radi-Mons."

  The door to the waiting area opened, a tiny slit. Xin's voice carried through, gentle: "No, H?kon, we have to wait for Sky Lady to finish. Why don't you try drawing Mister Buddha again?"

  A delighted chirp. "Pappa have crayons?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Got some green and yellow ones here. Look!" Xin's voice.

  "HAW-koon like! HAW-koon draw mees-tur Buddha now." H?kon's trill followed as the door went shut.

  Nikki quickly minimized the screen again. "Sigrun, listen to me. I know what you're thinking. But even if Ivar is somehow alive after eleven years…"

  "He is." The certainty in her own voice surprised her. She clenched a hand in front of her chest. "I'd know if he was dead. I'd...feel it inside me."

  "That's not how death works." Nikki's voice was firm. "And even if he survived, if he's with the Jokull Horde...he's somehow not made communication with the outside world." She shook her head. "It's time to let go, Sigrun. For your own sake."

  Let go. As if love was something you could unclench like a fist. As if eleven years of selling herself night after night, killing Radi-Mons day after day, to save enough money for a shuttle ticket to Europa, could be dismissed as 'trauma-induced delusion' like Nikki had tried to last year.

  Complex reasoning felt difficult these days, but some truths needed no thinking. She'd promised Ivar she'd live. She'd kept that promise. Now she needed to know, needed closure, if nothing else.

  "He told me to live for both of us." Sigrun's voice came out rougher than intended. She touched her temple, frustrated. "They keep shifting in my head. His eye color. Sometimes I remember them as blue. Other times green. I can't even hold onto his face anymore…"

  Nikki's expression softened. "Trauma does that. The brain protects itself."

  The door opened fully. Xin stood there, H?kon perched on his shoulder. The little Diabolisk's scales had dulled noticeably even in the short time they'd been separated, no longer the vibrant sapphire she'd seen earlier, but a muted gray-bronze.

  "I'm very sorry to interrupt," Xin said. "But H?kon's been asking for both of you. And his color..." He adjusted his glasses, concern evident. "It's getting worse."

  Sigrun looked between H?kon's dulled scales and the minimized window on Nikki's screen. Europa. Ivar. This Jokull Horde. Answers she'd been chasing for eleven years.

  And now this: a man who treated his Diabolisk like a son, and a tiny Radi-Mon whose scales brightened to gold when he felt happy.

  [Patient: Sigrun Fjeld - Healing Complete]

  "Let's check him," Sigrun said finally. She stood, testing her ankle. It no longer hurt, as though nothing had happened to her in the Warren.

  The examination room felt warmer and smaller with all four of them. H?kon had scrambled onto the examination table, his small body tense with nervousness. He kept looking between Sigrun and Xin, as if seeking reassurance.

  Nikki ran the medical scanner over him. Sigrun saw the doctor's eyebrows rise, then furrow.

  "Is everything okay?" Xin's voice was tight with worry.

  "His cellular structure..." Nikki pulled up the results on her holographic display. "H?kon has markers similar to Jokull-variant organisms. Look here." She pointed to a complex molecular diagram that meant nothing to Sigrun. "This genetic signature. It's not Fenris. It's the other Horde."

  "Jo-kull?" Xin blinked, tasting the word for the first time.

  "It's a new Radi-Mon horde that's recently emerged. Doc and I were just talking about them." Sigrun found herself saying.

  "But I found H?kons' egg in Taiwan. There's barely any Radi-Mon presence on Earth, let alone this Jokull."

  "When did you find the egg?" Nikki asked.

  "Well, let's see…" Xin opened his mouth. Closed it. His brow furrowed behind his glasses. "I...I don't...wait, that's strange. I don't know?" He looked genuinely confused. "I remember hatching him. I remember teaching him his first words. But finding the egg..." His voice trailed off. "Weird. Can't recall a thing."