Kaden’s hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
He sat alone on the edge of a med bay cot, armor stripped down to the under-suit, gloves off, fingers bare. The academy node’s infirmary had mostly emptied out for the night. The last few cadets had been patched, lectured, and sent back to their barracks. A couple of beds down, a med tech finished logging inventory, then slipped out a side door.
The door hissed shut. Silence settled in.
Kaden stared at his palms.
The tremor was small but obvious. A fine, rapid jitter in the muscles of his fingers. Fatigue, adrenaline bleed-off, everything finally catching up after the live-fire exercise.
He squeezed his hands into fists until the knuckles creaked, then let them relax.
His HUD still showed the after-action overlay from the sim. Blue markers for cadets. Red for drones. A flashing yellow icon for the “casualty” he had treated under live fire. Aurora had already stamped the scenario complete and tagged the whole thing as FINAL EXERCISE – MEDIC TRACK.
He blinked the overlay away and pulled up his own sheet instead.
AURORA – PERSONAL STATUS
TIER: 1
LEVEL: 2
CLASS: COMBAT MEDIC (CADET)
PHY: 6
AGI: 4
COG: 7
RES: 6
AP: 5
TRAIT: TRAUMA RESPONSE
SKILLS: TRAINING MODULE ACCESS – TEMPORARY
That last line still annoyed him every time.
Training module access. Loaner skills. Aurora letting him borrow the System’s hands for a few seconds at a time, then whisking them away again like he hadn’t earned anything.
Kaden remembered the moment his vision had tried to tunnel. The way his breathing had hitched. Then the way something in him had clicked, the familiar hardening around his thoughts. Trauma Response doing its quiet work. Hands steadying. Procedure lining up like notches on a rail.
He had dropped to his knees, put pressure in the right place, popped the training injector into the right port.
Now it was over. The adrenaline was done. The shakes were free to move in.
He flexed his fingers again and frowned.
“Still functional,” he muttered.
Aurora pulsed a soft acknowledgement in the corner of his HUD, the familiar neutral white of a passive system response.
Kaden leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
Graduation was in forty-eight hours.
Assignments twenty-four hours after that.
He tried not to think about what came after. The fleet. Andromeda. Real Opp ships, real Opp marines, real blood.
He failed.
The infirmary lights dimmed slightly as Aurora shifted the node toward night-cycle. Somewhere above him, the FTL core that linked the academy habitat back to Earth adjusted power draw. The floor hum dropped half a tone.
His HUD flickered.
Not a glitch. A deliberate wipe.
AURORA – TRAINING ACCESS REVIEW
MEDIC TRACK: COMPLETE
TEMPORARY MODULE:
COMBAT MED PROTOCOL – REVOKED
Kaden blinked.
“That’s it?” he said.
His voice sounded too loud in the quiet room.
He had known it was coming. Corin had mentioned it casually after the exercise, in that way of hers that made everything sound both unimportant and life-or-death.
“You’re done with the loaners after tonight,” Corin had said. “Either Aurora decides you’re worth investing in, or you go to the fleet with basic kit and fast hands. We’ll see.”
Kaden swallowed.
“Come on,” he said under his breath. “Don’t just take it and walk.”
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the HUD brightened again.
AURORA – COMPETENCY REVIEW
SUBJECT: MERCER, KADEN – COMBAT MEDIC TRACK
STRESS RESPONSE: STABLE
PROCEDURAL RECALL: ABOVE AVERAGE
MOTOR CONTROL UNDER FIRE: PERSISTENTLY HIGH
The words were clinical, but his heart sped up anyway.
PRIOR INCIDENTS:
– LIVE-FIRE ACCIDENT, URBAN NODE, {JENSEN}
– MULTIPLE CONTROLLED TRAUMA SIMULATIONS
– FINAL LIVE-FIRE EXERCISE – NODE: BOARDING TRAINER
He flinched slightly at Jensen’s name in brackets, even as part of him was grimly satisfied that Aurora remembered what he had done there.
Another line appeared.
TRAIT CONFIRMED: TRAUMA RESPONSE – RETAINED
He knew that one. He had felt it tonight, the same way he had in that alley with Jensen bleeding out on the cracked concrete.
The next lines were new.
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TRAINING MODULE PERFORMANCE:
“COMBAT MED PROTOCOL” – CONSISTENT COMPETENCE
RECOMMENDATION: UPGRADE TO PERSISTENT SKILL
Kaden held his breath.
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: FIELD STABILIZE (R1)
DESCRIPTION:
FOCUSED TRAUMA INTERVENTION.
TEMPORARILY BOOSTS COAGULATION AND CARDIOVASCULAR STABILITY IN A SINGLE TARGET.
SLOWS OR STALLS MAJOR BLEEDING AND PREVENTS IMMEDIATE VITAL CRASH.
LIMITATIONS:
– DOES NOT HEAL TISSUE
– DOES NOT REVERSE ORGAN FAILURE
– EFFECT IS TEMPORARY – EVAC / FURTHER CARE REQUIRED
COST: 1 AP
CURRENT PROGRESSION: 0%
His new sheet ticked over.
TIER: 1
LEVEL: 2
CLASS: COMBAT MEDIC (CADET)
PHY: 6
AGI: 4
COG: 7
RES: 6
AP: 5
TRAIT: TRAUMA RESPONSE
SKILL: FIELD STABILIZE (R1)
He exhaled slowly.
It was a small change on the surface. One line swapped out. Temporary module gone. Real skill in its place.
To Kaden, sitting on an academy cot with sweat drying on his skin and phantom blood still on his hands, it felt enormous.
This wasn’t Aurora lending him a tool anymore.
This was Aurora saying, I believe you will keep needing this.
“About time,” he said softly.
The infirmary door hissed open behind him.
“Talking to yourself now, Mercer?”
Corin’s voice. Dry as sand.
Kaden turned. The training officer stood just inside the door, still in her instructor’s armor. Helmet clipped at her hip. Short-cropped hair damp at the temples. She looked like she had gone straight from the exercise to a debrief and then straight here without stopping in between.
“Ma’am,” Kaden said, starting to rise.
Corin waved him back down.
“If you stand up, you’ll pass out on my floor and I’ll have to write more reports,” she said. “Stay where you are.”
She crossed the room with that same unhurried pace she used in simulations, as if nothing around her could surprise her enough to make her jog.
“You’re supposed to be off duty,” Kaden said.
“I am.” Corin glanced at the empty beds. “Came to see if anyone was still sulking.”
Kaden huffed a quiet breath that might have been a laugh.
“The others leave?” he asked.
Corin nodded.
“Song limped out about twenty minutes ago,” she said. “Laughed all the way to the lift. Navarro tried to argue with one of the range instructors about scoring. Your class is very consistent.”
Kaden could picture it. Song grinning around a bruised jaw, Navarro talking with her hands a little too loudly.
“Figured you’d be here,” Corin added.
Kaden looked back at his hands.
“Aurora just took the training module,” he said. “I thought I’d feel worse about that.”
“Do you?” Corin asked.
Kaden hesitated.
“It gave me something real instead,” he said. “Field Stabilize.”
Corin’s eyes flicked up slightly, the way they did when she was checking her own HUD.
“Good,” she said. “Means the last few months weren’t a waste.”
She stepped around to the end of the bed and leaned a shoulder against the wall.
“How does it feel?” she asked.
Kaden blinked. “Ma’am?”
“The skill,” Corin said. “You’ve been using the loaned version this whole time. Aurora’s hands, not yours. Try the real one.”
Kaden frowned.
“There’s no casualty,” he said. “No target.”
“Use yourself,” Corin said. “You took a few knocks. You’ve got bruising, micro-tears, elevated stress indicators. You won’t get the full effect, but you’ll feel the difference.”
Kaden hesitated. Using an active skill on himself still felt strange, even after years in the System.
Then again, everything about the last few years had been strange.
He focused inward.
Aurora highlighted FIELD STABILIZE in his HUD, a soft white outline around the skill name. A small AP bar pulsed beneath it.
Kaden picked a point to anchor on: his own heart rate, still a little high. The ache in his knees from hours in armor. The tightness in his forearms from holding pressure on that cadet’s chest.
“Field Stabilize,” he said quietly. “R1. Self.”
The System didn’t need the verbal cue, but it helped him focus.
AP dipped.
AP: 5 → 4
Warmth spread from the center of his chest outward. Not heat, exactly, more like a subtle loosening, a feeling of being braced from the inside. The tremor in his fingers eased. His breathing evened out. The ache in his shoulders didn’t vanish, but it felt one step further away from breaking point.
Aurora logged the event.
FIELD STABILIZE (R1) – USE LOGGED
PROGRESSION: 0% → 1%
Kaden flexed his hands again.
The tremor was still there if he looked for it, but it no longer threatened to climb up his arms and shake the whole world loose.
“Feels cleaner,” he said.
“Cleaner?” Corin repeated.
“The loaner version felt like I was borrowing someone else’s instincts,” Kaden said. “Like Aurora moving my hands for me. This… feels like a brace. It doesn’t do the work. It just gives me more room to do it before someone dies.”
Corin watched him for a moment.
“That,” she said, “is the difference between a medic and an injector jockey.”
Kaden looked up.
“You’re not a spellcaster,” Corin said. “You’re not a priest. You are a pair of hands with training and a couple of tricks that make those hands better. Field Stabilize won’t save someone whose chest is vaporized. It will save someone who would have bled out in thirty seconds and give you five minutes instead.”
Her gaze sharpened slightly.
“What you do with those extra four and a half minutes is the part Aurora won’t automate,” she said. “That’s on you.”
Kaden nodded slowly.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Corin pushed off the wall.
“Don’t get sentimental about the skill,” she said. “It’s a tool. You use it until it breaks, then you make do without it.”
She started toward the door.
Kaden watched her go.
“Ma’am?” he said.
Corin stopped and glanced back over her shoulder.
“Did you know?” Kaden asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “Know what?”
“That I was going to get it,” Kaden said. “Field Stabilize. A real skill. Not just the training.”
Corin considered that for a long moment.
“Aurora doesn’t tell me ahead of time,” she said. “But I’ve been watching you. You kept your head the first time someone’s blood got on your hands. You kept your hands steady every time after. You didn’t quit when it hurt. If Aurora hadn’t given it to you, I would have assumed it glitched.”
Something like the ghost of a smile tugged at one corner of her mouth.
“Or,” she added, “that you offended whatever passes for its sense of humor.”
Kaden let out a short breath.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
Corin shook her head.
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “You’re the one who has to use that skill on real people now.”
She paused.
“Go get some sleep,” she added. “Graduation’s in two days. After that, the next time you use Field Stabilize, there won’t be a safety rail under you.”
She walked out without waiting for a reply.
The door slid shut. The infirmary fell quiet again.
Kaden sat there, watching his HUD.
He flicked the skill list open one more time.
TRAIT: TRAUMA RESPONSE
SKILL: FIELD STABILIZE (R1) – 1%
He let the numbers sit.
Trauma Response had come from failure, from Jensen’s blood on his hands and the sound of a heartbeat flatlining in his ears.
Field Stabilize had come from practice. From repetitions and sims and one last exercise where the “casualty” had been a cadet with a blood pack and a script instead of a real person dying.
The next time, it wouldn’t be fake.
He knew that.
He swung his legs up onto the bed and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The med bay lights dimmed another notch as Aurora slid toward night-cycle proper.
Somewhere in the node, Navarro and Song were probably arguing over a deck of cards.
Kaden looked at the little line of text that said FIELD STABILIZE (R1) and felt, for the first time, like he might be able to do the job he had chosen, not just the job he had been shoved into.
“Next time,” he said quietly, to the empty room, “I’m not going to watch someone die because I didn’t know what to do.”
Aurora did not answer. It didn’t need to.
The skill sat in his HUD like a quiet promise, waiting for the day the safety rails were gone.
