Kaden dreamed of the smell of cheap disinfectant and too-bright lights.

  Not ship-sterile, not the clean bite of a Navy medbay. This was harsher somehow, clinging to bare concrete and plastic chairs. A cramped clinic, flickering strip light buzzing overhead.

  “Sit still, Kaden,” his father said. “You’re making me nervous.”

  He realized he was bouncing his knees so hard the seat vibrated. He forced his legs still. Sneakers squeaking against the floor when he pressed his feet flat.

  “She shouldn’t be back there alone,” he muttered. “They should’ve let me—”

  “They’re just cleaning her up,” his father said. His voice tried for calm and landed closer to tired. “They said she’s okay.”

  Kaden stared at his hands. Faint brown smears ringed his fingernails where he hadn’t quite washed everything off. The clinic’s sink hadn’t been built for blood.

  He could still see it. Ten minutes ago? Half an hour? Time felt wobbly.

  Their building’s stairwell had always smelled like damp concrete and old cooking oil. No one had bothered to repaint it in years. It was a four-story climb, painted numbers flaking by each landing. He and Lira had been running races up and down because there wasn’t anywhere else to run.

  “First one to the top wins,” Lira had yelled, already halfway up, bare feet slapping the stairs.

  “You cheated,” he’d called after her. “You started before I said go!”

  “You’re slow,” she’d tossed over her shoulder, hair whipping.

  At the second landing she’d vaulted up onto the metal railing like it was part of the game, balancing on the pipe that separated open air from the drop to the first-floor landing below.

  “Lira,” he’d snapped, two steps behind. “Don’t.”

  She’d grinned, arms out. “Relax. I’m not a baby.”

  “Get down,” he’d said. “You’re gonna fall.”

  She’d rolled her eyes, turned to hop back, and her heel clipped a patch of rust. The metal rang under her foot as it flaked away. Her balance went.

  For a heartbeat she hovered, arms pinwheeling, eyes wide not with pain but surprise.

  He grabbed for her. Fingers brushed her forearm. For a moment he thought he had her.

  Her skin slicked out of his grip. She hit the stairs below sideways instead of the open landing. Not a four-story drop, only a one story. Enough.

  She bounced once, then lay still for half a second, and that was worse than any scream.

  Then she started crying.

  By the time he reached her, she was sitting up in a half curl, one hand clamped to the side of her head. Blood leaked between her fingers, bright against her brown skin. Her other arm hung close to her chest, elbow crooked like it didn’t want to straighten.

  “Kaden,” she sobbed. “Kade, it hurts.”

  He dropped to his knees beside her so fast his jeans burned against the concrete. “Hey. Hey. Look at me.”

  She did, blinking fast. There was confusion there more than anything. Not understanding how a game had turned into pain.

  He gently pulled her hand away from the side of her head.

  The cut was long but shallow, a jagged line along the hairline where she’d clipped the edge of a step. Scalp wounds always looked worse; there was more blood than the injury deserved, flowing down her temple into the collar of her t-shirt.

  His stomach lurched. For a second his fingers twitched toward the wound and froze.

  A memory surfaced: his mother leaning over him years ago with a roll of bandage, wrapping his scraped knee after he’d tripped on the curb outside their old building.

  “You’re going to see blood,” she’d said. “Yours, other people’s. The trick is not to let it tell you what to do.”

  Back then he’d just nodded because that’s what you did when your mother wore a medic uniform. Now, in a stairwell that smelled like damp concrete and frying oil, something in that memory clicked into place.

  “Okay,” he said, mostly to himself. “Okay. It’s fine. It’s just messy.”

  It wasn’t, really. But she didn’t need to know that.

  He yanked his t-shirt over his head one-handed, balling it up. The air felt cold on his chest.

  “This is gonna sting,” he warned, and pressed the shirt gently but firmly against the cut.

  She yelped, shoulders jerking, but he kept the pressure steady. “I know. I know. Breathe for me, okay? In. Out.”

  She tried, hiccupping, tears streaking fresh tracks through the blood. He matched his own breathing to hers, counting out loud to give them both something to hang on to.

  Her other arm looked wrong. Not broken-wrong, he thought, just… off. Wrist starting to swell, pink tinge blooming under the skin.

  “Can you move your fingers?” he asked.

  She flexed them with a wince. “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Sprained maybe. We’ll let someone smarter than me poke at it.”

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  “Dad’s gonna be mad,” she sniffled.

  “He’ll be mad at the railing,” Kaden said. “You’re his favorite.”

  “I am,” she agreed, a little too quickly, and that almost made him laugh.

  Footsteps pounded above. A neighbor leaned over the railing. “Everything okay?”

  “She fell,” Kaden called without looking up. “She hit her head. We need—”

  “Ambulance, right,” the neighbor said. “I’ll call. Hold that there.”

  “I am,” Kaden muttered, fingers starting to cramp.

  Lira’s crying tapered into little hiccups. She pressed her uninjured hand into his forearm hard enough to leave crescent marks.

  “You’re squeezing too much,” she complained weakly.

  “Scalp cuts bleed a lot,” he said, parroting something he half-remembered from his mother. “Pressure’s good. It makes it stop faster.”

  He had no idea if that was true. It felt true enough.

  By the time the med techs arrived and hustled them down to the tiny neighborhood clinic, the t-shirt was ruined. The tech had peeled it away, made a mild approving noise at the pressure mark, and replaced it with proper gauze and adhesive.

  Now, in the waiting room, Kaden’s father sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees.

  “You did good,” one of the med techs had told Kaden on the way in. “You kept her calm and kept the bleeding down. Makes our job easier.”

  He’d nodded, words catching somewhere behind his teeth.

  “How long does it take?” he asked now, glancing at the closed door that led to the treatment area.

  “As long as it takes,” his father said. “They said it’s stitches and a wrap and maybe a brace for the wrist. That’s… that’s not bad. Considering.”

  “Considering she fell off a railing,” Kaden said.

  “You grabbed for her.” His father’s voice turned quieter. “That matters.”

  “Didn’t catch her,” Kaden said.

  His father looked at him like he wanted to say something and didn’t have the words for it. His gaze slid to the empty seat beside them, where their mother would have been in any version of this that wasn’t real.

  The door opened with a hiss. A woman in scrubs stepped out, mask hanging around her neck.

  “Mercer family?”

  They both stood.

  “She’s fine,” the woman said. “We cleaned the cut and put in a few stitches. She’ll have a cool scar to brag about and a headache tonight, but there’s no sign of concussion. Wrist is sprained, not broken. Wrapped for support.”

  Kaden’s knees went a little loose.

  “You got the bleeding under control quickly,” the woman added, looking at him. “That helped. Less mess, less stress on her. Not everyone thinks to do that.”

  “Oh,” he said, because his brain apparently refused to supply anything better.

  “She said you were bossing her around the whole time,” the nurse said dryly. “Said you sounded like a drill instructor.”

  His father snorted. “That tracks.”

  Lira was fine. Sore and annoyed and smug about the future scar, but fine.

  For a long time, that was the part that stuck with him.

  Later, the edges blurred—the exact words, the way the nurse had smiled, the pattern of cracks on the clinic floor. What stayed sharp was the feel of his hands working even while his head wanted to spin. The decision to do something instead of waiting for an adult.

  “You shouldn’t have to know how to do that,” his father said quietly, once they were alone for a moment. “You’re twelve, Kade.”

  “She needed help,” Kaden said, looking at the faint red stains at his nails. “You weren’t there yet.”

  His father’s mouth twisted. “Your mother would’ve said the same thing.” A pause. “And she would’ve been proud.”

  The clinic bled away.

  The buzzing light above became the low, steady hum of ship systems. Voices in the waiting room washed into the soft rasp of breathing from a dozen bunks.

  Kaden opened his eyes.

  Dim red strips along the deck threw long shadows through the barracks. The underside of the bunk above him filled his vision, scuffed metal close enough to touch. The smell of old concrete was gone, replaced by the Valiant’s familiar recycled air.

  For a second, his heart thudded like he was still on stairwell concrete trying not to drop a bloody t-shirt.

  A hand shook his shoulder.

  “Mercer.”

  He turned his head. Tanaka’s silhouette loomed over him, broad and solid in the low light.

  “You with me?” Tanaka asked.

  “Yeah,” Kaden said automatically. His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Just… loud dream.”

  Tanaka grunted. “Ship changed posture. You feel it?”

  Now that he was awake, Kaden did. The ever-present thrum of the Valiant’s systems had a new tension in it, a faint vibration under the bunk that hadn’t been there when he’d crashed.

  “What’s going on?” Kaden asked, pushing himself upright. The blanket slid into his lap.

  “Gaunt put out a priority call,” Tanaka said. “All marines to the auditorium. Aurora just pinged you, right?”

  As if on cue, his implant gave a soft blue blink in the corner of his vision.

  [AURORA//STATUS]

  Mercer, Kaden – Tier 1, Level 2 – Combat Medic (Shock Outfit)

  PHY: 6

  AGI: 4

  COG: 7

  RES: 6

  AP: 5

  Traits: Trauma Response

  Skills: Field Stabilize (R1) – 63%

  He blinked the overlay away and swung his legs over the side of the bunk. The deck was cool under his bare feet.

  Around them, the compartment was waking up fast. Bunks rattled as boots hit metal. Locker doors opened and closed. Someone complained about always getting called right when they finally got comfortable.

  Navarro’s voice drifted over from two bunks down. “If this is another ‘readiness talk,’ I’m defecting to laundry duty.”

  “You’d still find a way to get shot at,” Vos muttered. “Industrial washers are dangerous.”

  Kaden grabbed a clean shirt from his locker and tugged it on. The last echoes of the dream clung for a moment; the feel of warm blood through cotton, Lira’s small fingers digging into his arm—then it faded under the weight of the ship around him.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the dull reflection of the locker door. Short dark hair going in every direction, eyes a little too wide for someone who’d supposedly just had a nap.

  “You good?” Tanaka asked, leaning a shoulder against the neighboring locker.

  “Fine,” Kaden said, then amended, “Dream. It’s over.”

  “Better here than in a pod,” Tanaka said. “Come on. Navarro’ll start a rumor if we’re late.”

  They joined the flow of marines funneling into the corridor, helmets clipped to belts, harnesses hanging open.

  Ahead, Jax walked with the other squad leaders, head turned slightly as she listened to something tight on her channel. Vos and Navarro argued about whether the captain would be dramatic or just depressing this time. The familiar low-level noise of the squad moving together filled the corridor.

  He wasn’t twelve in a stairwell anymore. There were no neighbors to shout for help, no ambulance sirens coming.

  If someone started bleeding now, if something went wrong in whatever this assembly was about, he was the one people would look at.

  “Kaden,” Tanaka said. “Stop daydreaming. We need to go.”

  “I’m here.”

  He matched his pace to the squad’s as the corridor opened into the broad passage toward the auditorium. More marines merged in from side hatches, tags lighting up in his HUD as Aurora cross-referenced units.

  Theta-3 moved with the stream, swallowed by it but not lost.

  He adjusted the hang of his med harness, checked the mag in his sidearm by reflex even though it wasn’t going anywhere yet, and followed his squad into the light spilling from the auditorium doors.