The medical droids were efficient, if entirely devoid of bedside manner. One day after waking up, the glass hissed open for the final time. Gravity returned with a jarring thud as the last of the amber gel drained away, leaving Riven standing on shaky, newly healed legs.

  He spent an hour in the shower, scrubbing the chemical film from his skin and the lingering scent of the hive from his hair. When he finally stepped into his quarters, a fresh set of charcoal utilities lay on his bunk, crisp and smelling of ship-board laundry.

  Astrix watched him from her pad, her silver eyes following every movement. She looked revitalized, her scales polished to a matte sheen.

  It’s good to see you walking again, she projected, her tone holding a playful edge. Though your balance still resembles a hatchling on ice. Try not to trip over your own feet.

  “I’m getting there,” Riven muttered, pulling the black undershirt over the fresh, pink ridges of the scars on his chest. The DAIR Suit had been extracted for repair, and he would get it within a few days. He reached for the jacket, pausing as he looked at the Hammer emblem on the sleeve.

  Astrix stood up, her claws clicking softly on the metal deck as she approached him. She lowered her head until her snout was level with his shoulder. The squad is waiting for you. The whole platoon is. Are you certain you can handle everyone in your state?

  “I’ll be fine,” Riven said, though he felt a slight tremor in his fingers as he zipped the jacket.

  Astrix nudged his shoulder, a heavy, physical reminder of her presence. I still do not understand. You are smart enough to get past a Ravager without fighting. It was only three server boxes. How did you get caught and have to fight so many all at once?

  Riven froze. The memory hit him with the force of a physical blow. He saw the chained dragon, the pulsing veins of the dark facility, and the terrifying, cold power of Aldertire. He remembered the exact feeling of the helplessness filling his body as he floated in the air.

  “I don’t really remember what happened down there, Astrix,” Riven said, his voice dropping. He looked at her, his expression hardening into a mask. “It’s all a blur. The adrenaline, the blood loss. I just saw the drives and took them.”

  Astrix watched him for a long moment, the silence between them heavy with the things he refused to say. Finally, she let out a low huff of air and followed him into the corridor.

  I will choose to trust you, she projected. But if you want to talk about it I am here.

  They walked through the corridors of the Silent Verdict toward the main mess hall. Usually, the ship was a place of ordered military discipline, but as they approached the heavy doors of the cafeteria, the sound of music and overlapping voices spilled into the hallway.

  The doors to the mess hall hissed open. A wall of noise hit Riven. The room was a landscape of steel and light, packed with Lancers and their dragons. The metallic scent of the ship was masked by roasted meat, ozone, and the heat radiating from sixty tons of dragon muscle. Dragons of every shade draped across the floor.

  Astrix moved beside him. Her scales gleamed under the overhead LEDs. She kept her head high, her silver eyes scanning the room.

  Stay close, she projected. If the noise becomes too much, we are leaving. I will not have you collapsing because you wanted to prove a point.

  “I’m fine,” Riven muttered.

  Vex was the first to spot him. She was leaning against Raze’s flank. She shoved off the dragon and limped toward him with a wide grin. Despite the bandage beneath her shirt and her limp, she moved with her usual brash energy.

  “Look at that,” Vex shouted. “The ghost finally decided to haunt us in person. You look a lot less like a science project with your clothes on, Holt.”

  She reached him and punched his shoulder, just hard enough to make him wince.

  “Ouch. Watch the stitches, Vex,” Riven said.

  “If they can survive a Ravager, they can survive me,” she laughed. She scanned his face, then turned to the room and cupped her hands. “Hey! The hero’s arrived! Come say hello to the dead man walking!”

  The room erupted. The entire First Platoon was there. Riven was swept into a whirlwind of hands and voices.

  “Incredible work, kid,” Brick grunted, sliding a tray of brisket towards him. “Eat. You look like you’re made of paper.”

  “He always looks like that, Brick,” Tora added, leaning over from the next bench with her arm in a sling. “It’s the ‘brooding rookie’ aesthetic. Kaelo said your heart stopped, by the way. I think you’re actually a droid.”

  “I’m not a droid, Tora,” Riven said, sitting down.

  “That’s exactly what a droid would say,” she countered, waving a chocolate bar at him. “Seriously though. Good to see you’re not waxy anymore. You were a very depressing shade of grey.”

  “Glad I could color-coordinate for the squad,” Riven replied.

  Vex slid onto the bench next to him, her shoulder brushing his. “Don’t mind her. She’s just cranky because Phillean made her do inventory with one hand.”

  “I heard that!” Phillean called out from a nearby table. The Sergeant looked up from his meal, a smirk on his face. “If you can eat chocolate, Tora, you can count bullets.”

  “Sergeant is picking on me,” Tora loudly complained to her dragon, Havoc, who responded with a low, vibrating huff.

  Riven felt the heat of the room. It was overwhelming. People he did not know kept calling him brave. He felt like a fraud. He kept remembering that brutal walk up the stairwell. Vex leaned in close to his ear.

  “You’re quiet,” she said.

  “Just a lot going on, that’s all,” Riven replied.

  “We can dip out, if you need a second, go somewhere quieter,” Vex said.

  Captain Kaelen stood on the raised dais. He raised a hand to quiet the room. The transition from the rowdy celebration to expectant silence took only seconds.

  “Sit down all of you,” Kaelen ordered. “I got a quick bit to say before we can get down to truly celebrating. We are two weeks and two jumps away from Headquarters. And for once, High Command isn’t breathing down our necks.”

  A ripple of genuine laughter went through the mess hall. Phillean sat at the end of the table, leaning back with a rare, relaxed posture that made him look ten years younger. Brick and Tora leaned in, their eyes fixed on the Captain.

  “We are here because this platoon did what they were supposed to do,” Kaelen said, his golden eyes sweeping over the gathered Lancers and their dragons. “But we are here celebrating because we do not have to go back to that hellhole. Because we got the drives, we won’t be heading back to that rock for a second or third run to finish the job. Every person here contributed and made the missions successful. The staff who supported logistics, the Protectors who isolated the Queen’s chamber, and the Seeker who cleared the sky. All of you made the operation successful. But when greatness happens, it needs to be recognized. Some of you may have heard, but one man pushed forward into the unknown to get the rest of us off that rock as soon as possible. And if it weren’t for him we would be dropping again today.”

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  The Captain tapped a button on his wrist comm. The large tactical displays on the walls flickered, switching from mission maps to a grainy, first-person feed.

  “We pulled this from the visual data in the DAIR suit while Private Holt was getting treated,” Kaelen said, his voice dropping an octave. “I want everyone here to know exactly what he went through to get us all home safely.”

  The room went silent.

  The footage was a nightmare. Riven recognized the POV. It was him looking at the hallways stuffed with Ravagers. Then him charging forward into it after a brief moment. It was a chaotic blur of chitin, ichor, and his Lance. Riven watched the screen, seeing himself, or rather a version of himself, moving through the dark like a desperate animal. He saw his hands move with that desperate violent precision that he didn’t even remember having. He watched his own lance shear through a Ravager’s neck in a single, fluid motion.

  On the screen, a claw caught his shoulder, ripping through the armor.

  Astrix let out a low, sharp growl of annoyance behind him. The vibration of her chest rattled the bench. Reckless, she hissed in his mind. Every time you take a hit, I feel the sheer, stubborn stupidity of it.

  I was desperate, Astrix, Riven projected back. He watched the screen as he took another hit to the ribs. I didn’t have a choice. It had move forward or die.

  It doesn’t explain how you got in that position in the first place.

  Vex sat next to him, her mouth slightly open. She looked from the screen to Riven and back again. “Holy... Riven, you never fought like that in the sims.”

  “The sims don’t have real bugs, Vex,” Riven whispered.

  “No,” she muttered, her eyes locked on the screen as the suit footage showed him tearing through a group of scouts with a focused, terrifying efficiency. “They don’t have whatever that is, either. You’re a monster, Holt.”

  Riven tore his gaze away from the screen. A few of the other members of the platoon glanced back at him. Usually, the gazes show by those around him were arrogant, looking down on him, or as if looking at an unknown ant.

  But looking First Platoon. At his platoon, he found a sea of faces reflecting deep, heavy respect. They were watching a him basically crawl up four flights of stairs, and instead of mocking him for weakness, he saw a fire in their eyes. For the first time, Riven felt the weight of their gaze as an equal.

  The footage cut to black on a frame of Riven’s blood-slicked glove reaching for the stairwell door. Kaelen cleared his throat, breaking the spell.

  “Private Holt,” Kaelen said. “Stand up.”

  Riven stood, his legs feeling solid for the first time. Astrix rose behind him, her wings flared slightly in a silent display of pride.

  “The Inquisitors at Headquarters will decide on the official medals when we dock,” Kaelen said, reaching into his charcoal jacket. “But as your Captain, I am awarding you the Vanguard Star. It is the highest achievement award I can give for bravery and valor in the face of adversity. It is the first one I have ever handed out.”

  Kaelen walked down from the dais. The platoon parted for him, their eyes following him as he stopped in front of Riven. He pinned the medal shaped like a dragon’s claw gripping a silver star to Riven’s jacket. The Captain’s hand lingered on the fabric for a second, a firm, proud weight.

  “Congratulations, Private,” Kaelen said. He turned to the room with a sudden, sharp grin. “Now! Halloway! Bring out the rest of my stashed liquor that you haven’t raided and the real deserts! If we don’t finish it before we hit HQ, the generals will just take it for themselves!”

  The room exploded into a roar of cheers. Riven sat back down, his fingers brushing the cool metal of the star. The adrenaline of the footage was fading, replaced by a warm, grounding sense of belonging.

  Vex bumped his shoulder, “Told you it was stupid. But I guess it got you a pretty star. Don’t let it go to your head, Star-boy.”

  The celebration roared on around them and many more people that Riven had seen but never spoken to approached, including the other squad leaders. Everyone spoke of the one hell of a fight, and how they would have helped if they were down there with him.

  Every time a soldier came over they staked another drink in front of him. Riven drank the first few, the liquor burning his throat, but stopped after he stood up and the room spun around him. After that Vex happily volunteered to make the sacrifice and drink the alcohol on his behalf.

  The party began to slow after a few hours. Many heading back to their rooms, some unable to make it out the door littered the tables, their dragons resting peacefully beside them.

  As Phillean left the room, Vex pulled Riven away from a conversation with the second squad lead, that had been going on too long. She pulled him into a quiet alcove behind a stack of empty equipment crates. She leaned heavily against the bulkhead, her face flushed from the many glasses of bourbon. She was using Riven’s shoulder for support, her grip tight on his jacket almost pushing him against the wall.

  “Vex, are you okay?” Riven asked staring up at her.

  “You’re a real pain, Holt,” Vex murmured. Her usual abrasive tone had softened into something dangerously close to a slur. She stepped into his personal space, her eyes scanning the new silver star on his chest before traveling up to his face. “I spent four days thinking of all the ways I was going to yell at you when you woke up.”

  “Vex, you’re a bit drunk,” Riven said, though he didn’t move away. The heat from her body and the scent of chocolate and spirits were a dizzying mix.

  “I’m exactly the right amount of drunk,” she countered softly. She reached up, her fingers grazing the line of a fresh scar across his cheek. “You’re brave. And you’re terrifying. And I think... I think I’m really glad you’re the one watching my six.”

  She leaned in closer and Riven felt his heart skip a beat, the noise of the party fading into a distant hum.

  “Am I interrupting the tactical briefing?”

  The voice was like a bucket of ice water. Riven and Vex jumped apart as Captain Kaelen drifted into the alcove. The True Drakeon had a glass of bourbon in one hand and a knowing, amused glint in his golden eyes.

  “Captain,” Riven managed, straightening his jacket. For some reason his face was exceptionally hot.

  Vex coughed, suddenly very interested in the toes of her boots. “Just... discussing how he is healing, Sir.”

  “Of course,” Kaelen said, his tail twitching. “Try not to break him again, Vex. I need him in one piece for the debrief.” He turned his gaze to Riven, and the humor vanished as his tone grew more serious. “Private. Enjoy the rest of your dinner. But when you are done with… your talk. Meet me on the Bridge. I have to talk to you about you award and some of the money that comes along with it.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Riven replied. A monetary reward would be nice. But the tone felt off. Like he wasn’t telling the truth.

  Kaelen offered a small, sharp nod and walked back toward the laughter of the platoon, leaving the mood in their corner altered. Vex looked at Riven, slightly more sober, as what happens when your commanding officer catches you off guard.

  Riven and Vex both awkwardly stood there for a second, before Riven spoke up.

  “I am also glad that you are watching my six.” Riven managed to get out.

  “Yea.” Vex said, looking anywhere but his face. Her voice lacked the confidence it usually possessed. “Anyway… I said what I want to say. Want to get back to the squad?”

  It felt like a trap question. Like Vex was waiting for an answer, but Riven’s head was spinning a little too much to grasp the undertones of what she was getting after.”

  The rest of the dinner passed in a blur. He sat with the squad, enjoying some delicate deserts, listening to Brick and Tora argue over who worked better. But his mind was already on the Bridge and what the commander wanted. Astrix was with him, but other than questioning what he had been doing with Vex, she was uncharacteristically quiet.

  When the last bottle at the table was emptied, Riven stood up, unlatched a sleeping Vex from around his shoulder, and slipped out the door. Astrix looked up at him.

  Are you going to bed. She looked back at Vex, then at me. Leaving her here?

  Can you watch her for a moment? Riven thought. The captain wants to see me in the Bridge.

  Sure. Astrix blinked slowly. She looked at Raze who was sleeping next to his sleeping Lancer. Come back soon. I am also tired.

  Riven waved her off as he walked through the corridors. They twisted and swayed as Riven walked. The incessant buzz of the engine filled the air. The buzz. Aldertire. The dragon that said the ship was powered by the energy and suffering of dragons.

  Was it true?

  Before Riven could think about it further, he was in front of the doors to the Bridge. They quietly hissed open as he approached.

  The Bridge was quiet, bathed in the soft blue glow of the navigation consoles. The vast command deck was empty except for the Captain. Kaelen stood at the central holographic projector, his back to the door.

  Riven walked forward, his boots clicking on the polished floor, the door hissed closed behind him. “You wanted to see me, Sir?”

  Kaelen didn’t turn around. He tapped a command into the console.

  A massive hologram flared to life in the center of the room. It was a still frame from the deepest level of the facility. In high resolution, a dragon was suspended in a web of pulsing, dark machinery. Heavy black chains, bit deep into its scales.

  “We need to talk, Riven,” Kaelen said, finally turning to face him. The blue light of the hologram cast long, skeletal shadows across his emerald scales. “I want to hear directly from you what you saw down there.”