Medbay Fallout & Recovery
The medbay lights buzzed faintly overhead—sterile, cold, and too bright.
Rowan sat beside the gurney, his posture tight and unmoving. The white-sheeted cot beneath Lucian was stained with smoke, blood, and shattered remnants of resonance armor. Monitors hummed in irregular cadence, displaying fluctuating vitals and spikes in kinetic backlash.
Lucian's chest rose and fell shallowly.
The left side of his torso was exposed—bruised dark from rib to hip, where the Lucian Echo's blade had driven into him with uncanny precision. His breath stuttered under the pressure of internal trauma, and dried blood marked a trail down his abdomen, soaking into the waistband of his suit.
His skin was pale. Too pale.
Sweat clung to the sharp line of his jaw.
Purple bruises spidered across his side like spreading fractures. His hair was damp with effort and blood, curling slightly where it stuck to his temple. His lips were parted just enough to let out soft, unconscious sounds—groans from a body locked in residual battle.
"Stabilizer readings peaking," one of the medtechs called out. "Corruption index nearing seventy—"
"I've got it," Rowan cut in, hoarse but steady.
Without waiting, he pressed his hand to Lucian's sternum. His other hand cupped Lucian's jaw—gently, reverently—and he lowered his head, eyes closed, syncing.
The pull was immediate.
Lucian's field roared like a tidal wave, full of unspent fury and coiled trauma. The residual energy from their battle flooded into Rowan, crashing into the mental anchors he flared open in response. He gritted his teeth, forcing his resonance to weave into Lucian's like a net—catching the unraveling strands and guiding them back.
Pain blossomed in his temple. He didn't stop.
Rowan exhaled a grounding pulse, warm and golden—a thread of stillness among the chaos.
Lucian's vitals began to respond.
"Corruption levels dropping," a tech murmured, watching the monitors. "Fifty-eight… fifty-five…"
Ren stood nearby, wringing his hands, his brow drawn tight. The normally vibrant shine in his eyes had dimmed under the weight of guilt and helplessness. He looked like someone who wanted to do everything and knew he couldn't—not yet.
"I should've seen it sooner," Ren mumbled, voice thin. "If I'd—"
"You did exactly what you had to," Rowan said, without looking up. "You got to us. You helped."
Lucian stirred under his hands.
A flicker of his grey eyes—half-lidded, dazed. His fingers twitched near Rowan's, brushing weakly against his wrist.
Rowan leaned down, whispering low. "I'm here. You're not alone."
Lucian didn't respond—but the tension in his jaw eased. His breathing steadied, slowly.
The energy around his core began to dim.
The monitor pinged again:
[CORRUPTION INDEX: 42%... STABILIZING.]
Rowan sagged slightly in his seat, but his guiding never faltered. His hand remained over Lucian's heart, resonance tethered like a lifeline.
"Rest," he whispered. "I've got you."
Ren pulled up a chair nearby and sat quietly, watching both of them—eyes wide, chest rising in slow relief.
None of them spoke after that. Not for a long while.
Just the sound of soft, measured breaths. The steady hum of the medical field amps. And the dim knowledge that they'd survived.
But just barely.
The worst of it had passed.
Lucian lay unconscious but stable now, his corruption levels reduced to a manageable hum beneath the medtech monitors.
The adrenaline had drained from the room, replaced with sterile quiet and the low buzz of medical equipment still running diagnostics.
Rowan sat beside the cot, fingers still loosely wrapped around Lucian's wrist. His body was slouched with exhaustion, but his hand never let go.
Across from him, Ren fidgeted at the edge of his seat, then leaned forward slightly.
"You didn't let go of him once," Ren said softly.
Rowan turned to glance at him, lips curved into something tired, but real. "I couldn't."
Ren hesitated, then offered a faint smile. "I think… that's why he stayed tethered. Even when the system thought he wouldn't."
Rowan looked back at Lucian. "He's too damn stubborn to let go anyway."
"I meant you," Ren said.
Rowan blinked.
Ren flushed slightly, then looked down at his lap, fiddling with the chrono amp he wore clipped to his belt. "You stabilized me too. Back in the Rift breach. I didn't say it properly earlier, but... thank you."
Rowan let out a small exhale, the weight of the night catching up to him. "You're welcome, Ren. I'm glad you're still here."
Ren looked up, eyes bright but tentative. "Can I… ask you something?"
"Sure."
Ren leaned forward, elbows on knees. "How do you do it? Anchor people like that? Not just the power—anyone could learn the theory. I mean you. The way you are with people. Like you make them want to stay grounded."
Rowan's expression softened. His gaze lowered to Lucian again. "I don't think it's about being strong. Not really. It's just… I've been on the edge before. I know what it feels like to want to fall."
He paused, swallowing around the knot in his throat.
"So when I see someone else about to—fall, I mean—I reach. And hope that's enough."
Ren's brows knit together, chest rising slow.
"Do you think…" he began, voice lower now, hesitant. "Do you think I'll be able to do that? One day?"
Rowan's reply came without pause. "You already did."
Ren blinked, startled.
"You ran headfirst into danger without waiting for backup. You kept yourself in check when your powers were surging. And you didn't panic."
"But I didn't know what I was doing—"
"No one does the first time," Rowan interrupted gently. "You were scared. And you still made the right call."
Ren looked down at his hands, blinking fast. His voice cracked a little when he said, "I just didn't want you to die."
Rowan smiled, quiet and aching. "You kept me grounded too, you know."
Ren glanced up, surprised.
Rowan nodded. "It wasn't just me holding the tether."
Silence fell between them, but it was warmer now. Fuller.
After a moment, Ren stood slowly. "I should let you rest with him. But… if you ever need someone to cover your back again—"
"I'll call you," Rowan said, finishing for him.
Ren smiled shyly, then gave a tiny, almost mock salute. "Try not to die too often, okay?"
Rowan smirked. "You too, time boy."
Ren laughed, eyes crinkling. "That nickname's gonna stick, isn't it?"
Rowan just winked.
As Ren stepped out of the medbay, he paused at the doorway for one last glance back—at Rowan's steady hand still on Lucian's, at the soft light casting them both in a strange sort of glow. He didn't say anything else. Just nodded, like a silent promise, and vanished into the hall.
And Rowan?
Rowan leaned back in the chair beside Lucian, watching him breathe.
One crisis passed. Another looming.
But in this moment—just this one—they were alive.
And together.
Tactical Debrief – Control Deck 01
Control Deck 01 thrummed with residual tension. Lights hummed faintly overhead, cold white against the steel-trimmed interior, while the tactical display wall glitched in short, fractured pulses—occasional reminders of the earlier system-wide instability.
Evelyn Zarek stood at the command table, sleeves rolled up, dark eyes narrowed at the flickering Rift map. Her coat had been discarded over a nearby chair, but otherwise she looked untouched by the chaos that had just passed—save for the grim stillness etched into her expression. Her sharp silhouette was motionless as she stared at the highlighted breach points illuminating Deck 12 in blinking red.
Ava Halloway stood beside her, arms gently crossed, her resonance amp resting against her chest like a second heartbeat. Her blonde hair was tucked neatly behind her ears, though strands had come loose during the last few hours. Her blue eyes tracked the data with a heavy quiet.
"Lucian's still under observation," Ava said, breaking the silence. "They're flushing resonance burns and recalibrating his pulse network. The strain nearly overloaded his upper bands."
Evelyn exhaled sharply through her nose, her fingers flexing along the rim of the console.
"And Rowan?" she asked.
"Stubborn as always," Ava murmured. "But stable. He's down to baseline resonance fluctuations now that we've reinforced his tether points."
Evelyn nodded once but said nothing more. A beat later, the control deck door opened with a soft hiss.
Rowan stepped in—his posture straight, but there was wear around his eyes and bruising just visible beneath his collar. His uniform was clean, hastily changed, but a diagnostic band still clung to his wrist. Behind him, Ren trailed close, eyes wide with curiosity as the command deck lit up before them.
"Reporting in," Rowan said simply.
Ava smiled warmly. "You should still be resting."
"I couldn't sleep. And… I saw the notification queue on my console."
Evelyn motioned him forward. "Then look at this."
The main screen magnified a still from the Deck 12 breach. The static figure—vague, humanoid, clad in blur and flicker—stood with one hand raised. Violet light bled from its silhouette. The timestamp below it stuttered like a skipping frame.
Next to it, overlays of Lucian's past mission footage were pulled side-by-side—matched resonance curves, attack vectors, motion pathways.
Rowan's face tightened. "It's not just similar."
"No," Evelyn said. "It's a match. Within 0.01 variance."
Ava's voice was gentle. "We're classifying it as a Lucian Echo until further analysis. Not a mimic. Something more... internally sourced."
Rowan stepped closer. His hand hovered over the projection, not touching, but drawn.
The Echo's body blurred with every frame, a smear of movement and static. No features. No voice.
But its head had tilted toward him.
"You always die before I reach you."
He swallowed.
"Where did it go?" he asked.
"It disintegrated after the final clash," Evelyn said. "Too much resonance pressure collapsed its shell. We have the residue, but nothing concrete."
Another image appeared—fragments of scorched floor plating, warped by Echo energy. A fading pulse signal was highlighted in blue, tagged: RECURSION MARKER DETECTED.
Rowan blinked. "It left a recursion marker?"
"More than one." Evelyn turned to him fully now. "And it matches residuals we've been tracking since Site V-9."
Rowan's chest tightened. "Then the system isn't wrong."
Evelyn pulled up a secondary log, this one marked: [VEIL SEED: PROTOCOL – SUBJECT CLASS S]
Lines of fractured data filtered across the screen. A trail of collapse points. Fragmented archives. A timeline trace matrix blinking with error codes.
"You think this has something to do with Project Veil?" Rowan asked softly.
Evelyn's jaw clenched. "The Veil Seed Protocol was an architecture, not an action. Someone used it—multiple times. And those attempts left… echoes."
She tapped a recursion diagram that showed a destabilizing loop pattern—oscillating in crimson rings.
"This timeline is experiencing pattern redundancy," she added. "That Echo wasn't just born from a breach. It's part of something cyclical. Something trying to correct itself, again and again."
Ren frowned from the side, standing silently all this while. "Like… a loop?"
Rowan nodded grimly. "Or a fail-safe."
Ava met Rowan's gaze carefully. "And if you're the anchor, these failures always begin or end with you."
Rowan didn't look away. "I know."
Silence settled again. The storm outside had passed, but in this room, something else was still circling. Not a monster. Not an enemy.
Just the feeling that they were all inside something far older. Far more dangerous.
Evelyn finally spoke again. "We'll keep this contained to senior command and observation. No public ripple. No talk of Veil architecture."
Rowan nodded. "Understood."
"And Rowan…" Ava's voice softened. "Get some rest. Lucian won't wake for a few more hours. He'll need you there when he does."
Rowan gave a quiet smile. "I'm not going anywhere."
A faint hiss preceded the opening of the side door as Kira Mendez stepped into the command deck.
She was still wearing the same reinforced Cryo-field boots she'd worn on deployment, their metal casing scuffed and streaked with blood and Rift residue. Her dark combat jacket was zipped high, but her face was unreadable—icy calm, lips drawn tight, eyes fixed not on Evelyn, not on Rowan…
But on the screen.
Site V-9.
Ava noticed her instantly. "Kira."
Kira didn't respond at first. Her gaze locked onto the Rift map, narrowing on the breach overlays and pulse feedback markers.
"That loop signal…" she said quietly. "It's the same kind of echo I felt before."
Rowan turned slightly toward her. "At Site V-9?"
She nodded once. "Back then, everything glitched right before the collapse. The terrain froze, yes—but not just physically. There was… a lag. A moment where I could see my captain die twice. Like time hiccupped."
Evelyn slowly turned from the console. "You never mentioned that before."
"No one believed me." Her voice was low. Detached. "After waking up in a timeline where my team never existed, it didn't seem to matter."
A flicker crossed Rowan's expression—something between guilt and quiet realization. "You felt the recursion."
Kira finally looked at him. "I was in the recursion."
Ren stepped forward, a note of awe breaking into his voice. "So… you're from a skipped timeline?"
"I don't know what I'm from." Kira's tone sharpened. "All I know is I remember my team dying. I remember freezing myself to survive. And when I woke up—this version of the world had moved on without them. Without me."
Evelyn stepped forward slightly, posture more formal now. "The reason you were never listed in the V-9 memorial is because that mission never happened. Not in this thread of time."
"But I carry the aftermath," Kira replied. Her eyes narrowed. "So don't talk to me about recursion patterns like they're theory. I lived it."
Silence fell again—heavier this time.
Rowan looked from the recursion display to Kira, then back to Evelyn. "If she's from a failed thread… then that Echo wasn't just a fluke. We're seeing the fallout of every attempt stacked on top of each other."
Ava whispered, "Like static bleeding through glass."
Kira crossed her arms, voice tighter now. "If this keeps up… it won't just be ghosts we're fighting. It'll be versions of us."
That sent a visible ripple across the room.
Evelyn stared at the pulsing recursion node at the center of the map.
"And the only person they all seem to be centered on," she said slowly, "is you, Rowan."