? ? ?

  They surfaced like ghosts. Moving slow. Taking deliberate care.

  The adrenaline was running strong. They scanned the shoreline for any hidden danger.

  Cautious. Still. Listening.

  There was nothing. Only waves and a few crackling fires answered.

  Mereque stepped onto the sand first, water streaming from armor. Jenker followed, his brow rising at the sight of the ruin.

  The beach was a graveyard of craters and half-melted knights. Steam curled from water-filled trenches. The stink of cooked metal and old tears hung thick.

  No birds. No scavengers.

  Just heat (dragon heat) still bleeding from the sand. Hanging thick in the air. The fingerprints of an impossible monster.

  Mereque’s cracked visor caught the stars (cold, perfect, impossibly far).

  Leopold Seven was up there somewhere. A speck orbiting a speck.

  He felt the distance like a wound.

  The stars stared back, indifferent.

  He had crossed millions of kilometers of void to find home.

  Now home was this: a beach of melted knights and dragon fire, under a sky that felt wrong.

  He thought of the Cazues exploding.

  Of five hundred pods scattering like seeds into the dark.

  Of waking beside a lifeless friend.

  Jenker’s presence was the only thing keeping the silence from swallowing him whole.

  He looked at the sailor (wet, shaking, alive).

  For the first time since planetfall, the night didn’t feel quite so empty.

  But the stars still didn’t care.

  Jenker kicked a charred helm. It rolled, still smoking.

  “Bloody hells,” he whispered. “Your dragon?”

  Mereque’s voice came out flat.

  “The same one that tried to eat me.”

  Jenker gave a low whistle. “Remind me never to piss it off.”

  Mereque almost smiled. Almost.

  Jenker crouched, poked a twisted sword with his boot.

  “Think we can salvage anything? Armor? Weapons?”

  Mereque glanced at the slag.

  “Unless you want to wear melted Blanched Knight.”

  Jenker snorted.

  “Pass. I’d rather keep my skin unsullied.”

  He stood, wiped water from his face.

  “Still… that monster bought us time.”

  Mereque nodded.

  “Time’s the only thing we’ve got left.”

  Jenker looked at him, serious now.

  “Then let’s not waste it standing around waiting for it to come back.”

  Mereque’s grimaced and gave him a sharp nod.

  The beast’s fury had been a heart-stopping sight.

  His escape from the island? A miracle—he had no doubt now.

  But this… surviving whatever had just unfolded here?

  That felt less like chance and more like divine providence.

  Mereque scanned the corpses.

  For the most, it was a grotesque menagerie. Few were intact. Knights. All dead.

  Some charred to bone. Some pulped into red-black paste. Some just… pieces.

  He almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

  These had been men once (as hard as it was to believe). Twisted, hollowed out, filled with something colder than hate. But men.

  Now they were slag and bone.

  He remembered Tarmour’s eyes behind the helm (empty, already dead inside, inhuman).

  The dragon had just made it official.

  Mereque’s stomach turned—not from the gore, but from the waste.

  All the wasted life, human or otherwise, reduced to cooling meat in minutes.

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  He wondered if their God felt anything when it lost them.

  Probably not.

  It didn’t strike him as the type of Gods who would.

  He stood, sand sticking to blood on his boots.

  Pity was a luxury. Survival wasn’t.

  Jenker kicked a melted boot. It hissed in the surf.

  “Even if this was unintentional,” Mereque said, “it saved us.”

  He limped inland, found a flat rock, and sat.

  Jenker followed, eyes still wide.

  Mereque unclipped the tether. Jenker laughed once, shaky.

  “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig, mate.”

  Mereque didn’t answer.

  He pulled the canister, jammed the nozzle into the first hole, and squeezed.

  White foam hissed into flesh. One by one he filled the punctures. Tweezers for the shards. Suture wand for the gashes.

  He didn’t flinch. Not when foam burned cold in torn muscle. Not when tweezers scraped bone. Not when the wand sealed flesh with a hiss like frying meat.

  Hand last. Steel had gone clean through the palm and out the back. He threaded the wand through the tunnel of meat without a sound.

  Jenker watched, face pale.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  Mereque shrugged.

  Jenker swallowed.

  “I’ve seen men scream from less.”

  Mereque met his eyes.

  He threaded the wand through his palm again, slower this time, feeling the mesh knit around steel shards.

  Jenker winced for him.

  When it was done, Mereque flexed the hand. It worked.

  He looked at Jenker.

  “Still got all my fingers. Good enough.”

  Jenker stared.

  “Are you human.”

  Mereque capped the cannister.

  “As flesh and blood as you.”

  He cast a dubious glance at him.

  “Well, maybe with some extra bits stitched into me.”

  Jenker barked a laugh, the sound raw in the quiet ruin.

  “Extra bits? Mate, you’re giant already. What more do you need!”

  Mereque’s mouth twitched.

  He looked at the sailor (wet, shaking, alive despite everything).

  Jenker had kept his head when knights came through portals.

  Had pressed a gun to one of their necks and pulled the trigger when he most needed it.

  Mereque owed him.

  He capped the suture wand.

  “The mesh keeps the worst out,” he said. “Doesn’t make me invincible. Just hard to kill.”

  Jenker exclaimed. “Crabs! Toughest dirt lover I ever met!”

  Mereque’s mouth twitched again.

  He pointed upward. “Not much dirt where I’m from.”

  Jenker slapped his own thigh. “Fair! Apology accepted, star-kisser.”

  The translator stumbled over “star-kisser,” but the grin said enough.

  They laughed (short, rough, real). The sound felt foreign in Mereque’s throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed without tasting blood.

  The laugh died quick, leaving silence heavier than before.

  Mereque stared at the stars again.

  He remembered the last time laughter had come easy.

  The Cazues mess hall. Ruger teasing him about his terrible coffee. The crew roaring when he admitted he drank it black because he was too stubborn to bother with sugar. The extra step was inefficient.

  Five hundred voices. Now zero.

  He flexed his patched hand, feeling the mesh pull under new skin.

  Jenker’s laugh had been real. So had his own.

  It was a gift in the dark.

  Because it reminded him what silence cost.

  He glanced at the sailor (still grinning, water dripping from his hair).

  Jenker had a crew out there. Mereque had ghosts.

  He cleared his throat.

  “That shot to the neck,” he said, nodding at the Pelter. “Smart. Whatever his armor is made of couldn’t eat it at point-blank.”

  Jenker waved it off, but his ears colored. “Pure luck.”

  “Luck doesn’t think that fast.”

  Jenker looked away, embarrassed and pleased.

  Not many could do that. Not many would. Mereque had seen trained soldiers freeze against less. Jenker had assessed, adapted, acted. All while half-drowned and terrified.

  Mereque filed it away. Useful. He’d seen action before. Jenker wasn’t augmented. Wasn’t built for this. But he’d kept his head when the world ended twice in one day.

  Mereque let it drop.

  He scanned the tree line for anything useful. They weren’t getting rescued tonight.

  Time to make a new plan.

  Mereque stood, testing his leg. It held.

  He scanned the beach again (melted armor, broken swords, craters still glowing).

  Nothing useful.

  Everything useful had been turned to slag by a dragon that wanted him dead or wanted him for something worse.

  Mereque stared at the smoldering ruin. The dragon had been thorough.

  He remembered the shadow passing overhead in the water (too deliberate, too precise). It had known they were there. Or had been there. Best guess. Chasing his scent. It had cleared the beach because it had been looking for its meal. For him. He felt watched. Even now.

  The night air carried the scent of smoke and blood.

  The dragon was out there. Hunting. Or laying in wait. He didn’t know which was worse.

  It wouldn’t matter unless they could get out of here. Got away from this cursed place and its nightmare inhabitants.

  He looked inland, where the land rose into bruised hills and sparse (discolored) trees.

  Mereque found enough half-burnt timber for a raft. Good enough.

  He was about to say something when Jenker wandered off, kicking through the debris like a man hunting buried treasure.

  Mereque let him go. A moment of respite was earned. This was something he could do all on his own.

  Jenker cursed, tossed aside some melted scrap, then froze.

  “Ah, rat crackers!”

  He held up the cracked transmitter like a broken promise.

  Mereque didn’t answer.

  He was already looking past him.

  Out on the black water, a single yellow light bobbed (growing brighter, closer).

  An engine growled over the waves. The light swept the shore, locked on them.

  Mereque didn’t flinch.

  Jenker threw an arm across his eyes.

  Three men in a dark-blue inflatable. Armor plates in Havenite colors. Rifles up, fingers on triggers.

  The craft cut its engine twenty meters out, drifted closer on momentum.

  Silence except for waves and distant burning trees.

  The boat drifted closer.

  Mereque kept his eyes on the rifles.

  Three men. Armor plates scarred by salt and use. Rifles steady, but not panicked.

  Professionals.

  The lead one (older, salt in his beard) leaned forward.

  “That you, Jenker?”

  Jenker’s voice cracked with relief.

  “Took you bastards long enough.”

  The rifles lowered a fraction. Not all the way.

  Mereque didn’t move.

  He counted exits. Three against two. But they had the guns. And the boat.

  Jenker stepped towards them.

  “It’s me. And him. He’s with me.”

  The older man’s eyes flicked to Mereque.

  Measured. Weighed. Suspicious.

  Jenker laughed, shaky.

  “Saved my life. Twice.”

  The rifles lowered another inch.

  Mereque kept his hands down.

  The boat scraped ashore and the three men leapt out (rifles at the ready, eyes wide).

  Jenker swaggered forward like a king returning from war.

  “Hail, ya salt-lickers!”

  The youngest nearly dropped his gun.

  “Captain?”

  Mereque raised an eyebrow.

  Captain.

  Jenker shot him a quick, crooked grin (don’t say a bloody word).

  The crew rushed them, then skidded to a halt at the sight of the eight-foot armored giant. Mouths opened.

  Jenker cut them off.

  “Stand down, lads! He’s the reason I’m breathing. Saved my neck from the Blanched. You’ll treat him like family, got it?”

  Three voices in perfect chorus:

  “Ay, Captain!”

  They snapped salutes so sharp they could’ve cut rope.

  Mereque felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

  They were his crew. Family.

  He hadn’t had one of those in a long time.

  Jenker clapped him on the shoulder plate, hard enough to ring.

  “Welcome to the crew, star-kisser.”

  The youngest (Puddles) stared up, eyes shining.

  “Captain… he’s taller than a mainmast.”

  Jenker laughed, loud and free.

  “Aye. And twice as useful. He saved my skin and got me away from the damned Blanched! You’ll treat him accordingly, ya go it!”

  Mereque looked at the three men who’d just accepted him without question.

  Puddles, barely twenty, still had the wide-eyed wonder of a kid who’d barely seen action.

  Fishburn, grizzled and scarred, carried a rifle like an extension of his arm.

  Chef, broad and steady, already sizing Mereque up like he was deciding what to feed him.

  They didn’t know him. They didn’t care. He’d saved their captain.

  That was enough.

  For the first time since planetfall, Mereque didn’t feel quite so alone.