Fluorescent tubes flickered overhead, casting the converted infirmary in a sickly, uneven light that made the rust stains on the ceiling look like dried blood. Flora Rosenkrantz lay on a repurposed First Magacorp med-table, its vinyl surface cracked and peeling with age. Her face was a canvas of violence—purple and yellow bruises blooming around her eyes, her nose still slightly crooked from where Chen's fist had shattered it. Nano-bandages wrapped her torso in a lattice of faint violet light, pulsing softly as they coaxed together fractures in three ribs.

  The pain was exquisite. Clean. Honest.

  For the first time since they'd dragged her from the ruins of the Hellwraith compound, the chaotic reel in her mind had stopped spinning. No more cage. No more leering faces. No more children screaming as concrete swallowed them whole.

  It was the pain that had cleared her head.

  A single thought landed with the weight of truth:

  Her own words echoed in the silent room. Not Chen's fault. Not Alina's failure. Hers. The realization was a cold blade sliding between her ribs, sharper than any bone fracture.

  Flora pushed herself upright, wincing as the movement sent fresh fire through her torso. She swung her legs over the edge of the table, bare feet meeting cold ferrocrete. At the far end of the infirmary, a cracked mirror hung on the wall. She limped toward it, every step a reminder that Chen Feng hadn't finished what he started.

  The face that stared back was monstrous—swollen, bruised, unrecognizable. But behind the damage, her ice-blue eyes were clear for the first time in weeks. Not the analytical gaze of Warrant Officer Rosenkrantz. Just a young woman who had broken. She turned to the door, dragging herself through the dust-littered corridors.

  Each footfall sent shockwaves through Flora's injured body as she made her way toward the workshop zone. The Red Vulture sat in the center of the plaza like a wounded beast, its Adamantine hull scarred with bullet holes crusted with dried blood—hers, Alina's, and the enemies'.

  her mind whispered as she trailed her fingers along the IFV's flank.

  She remembered Alina's face when she'd pointed the pistol at Chen's head. Not anger. Disappointment. The kind that cut deeper than any blade.

  Flora turned away from the vehicle, grabbing a roll of emergency bandages from a nearby supply crate. Her destination was clear. She needed to find Alina. At least apologize. Even if it changed nothing.

  The workshop was a cavernous space lined with skeletal remains of industrial machinery, half-swallowed by time and neglect. At its center, an ISAM-3DP military-grade printer hummed with contained fury, its chamber glowing cherry-red as it birthed a fresh Adamantine shifting gear—after it melted the broken ones. Alina Ludwig sat on a workbench beside it, sweat tracing paths through the grime on her face. She wasn't watching the printer. She was staring at nothing, seeing Chen's eyes the moment he'd fled into the darkness—like a kicked dog that finally bit back.

  Flora limped in, her boots scuffing the dusty floor. Alina took three full seconds to register her presence.

  "You're awake," Alina said, her voice rough as concrete. "Ribs still attached?"

  Flora nodded, wincing as the movement pulled at her bandages. "How are you even using that?" she asked, nodding toward the printer. "ISAM-3DP is a technology that required designated trained personnel. You're not a tech specialist."

  Flora remembered ISAM: one of the unique cornerstones of modern People’s Republic’s advance metallurgy engineering. ISAM stands for “Industrial Sub-Atomic Manipulation”; ISAM-3DP means 3D printing supported by ISAM technology. This process involves sub-atomic engineering and advanced physical manipulation, typically reserved for specialists with years—sometime decades of training.

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  Alina gave a tired half-laugh that held no humor, killing the printer with a sharp tap to its control panel. "I know my own vehicle." She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of a grease-streaked hand. "Learned on Luna. IFV got shot into Avalon cheese during the Siege of Europa. Welded it back together myself." She paused, a ghost of her old self-deprecating smirk touching her lips. "Plus, the standard training sims. Who says an old grunt can't teach herself?" Her eyes flicked to Flora. "Better than some people who spent eight years warm in a university."

  Flora lowered her head. Silence settled between them, thick with the smell of hot metal and ozone.

  Without warning, Alina lifted her tac-vest, revealing a fresh, angry scar that crossed her abdomen—a jagged red line with shiny, newly accelerated stem-generated tissue along its edges.

  "Liver took a hit," Alina stated flatly, like reading a weather report. "Round grazed, tore a chunk out." She met Flora's eyes, her gaze level and unflinching. "I grew replacement tissue in a stem-cell pouch. Didn't trust you to do it..." Her voice didn't waver. "...so, I did it myself. No anaesthetic."

  Flora's pupils dilated. "But... visceral self-surgery? Without pain blockers—"

  "Don't ask for details." Alina turned away, picking up a welding torch. "I'm alive. That's enough."

  Flora stared for four more seconds in disbelief, then she straightened, forcing herself to slip into cold officer mode. "Alina, we need to talk extraction. Chen Feng... his tactical value is diminishing. Active catatonia episodes, impaired judgment, now he's deserted.” She forced the words out, clinical and precise. “Protocol dictates we prioritize mission survival over individual retrieval."

  The welding torch clattered to the floor. Alina turned slowly, the look in her eyes pure murder. "Deserted? What the did you just say?"

  Flora doubled down, her voice clinical despite the tremor in her hands. "The data shows he's a liability. Warehouse collapse, pursuit through the jungle... our survival probability increases 37.8% without him—"

  Alina advanced until they were nose to nose, her voice rising from growl to roar. "Without him we'd be dead ten times over! He saved both of us! Saved YOU from that cage! Saved ME when the Hellwraiths flanked us at the river crossing, while we were running from that cage which held you!" Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "He only ran because YOU went insane and tried to kill him! Because you pointed a fucking gun at his head and called him a murderer!"

  Flora stumbled back into the workbench, the impact sending tools clattering to the floor. "You're letting emotion override tactical calculus—"

  "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SIGHT!" Alina's scream echoed off the metal walls, raw and final.

  Flora retreated to a dark corner of the workshop, her thoughts a screaming mess. The nano-bandages pulsed against her ribs, a counterpoint to the chaos in her mind.

  The voice in her head grew smaller with each repetition, like she was trying to convince herself rather than state facts.

  Flora hesitated for a long, suffocating minute before she snatched a heavy-duty torch and a pair of military restraint cuffs from a supply crate. Her decision was made.

  As she turned to leave, Alina's voice cut through the workshop's silence, raw with fury and something else—fear.

  "Come back here, you stupid bitch! Wait for him to come back on his own! You'll only get him killed!"

  Flora didn't stop. Her words drifted back like a prayer, almost lost in the hum of the cooling equipment.

  "No... I have to end the cycle. Deserters must be judged."

  The corridor swallowed Flora whole. Each limping step sent fresh pain through her ribs, causing the wound to weep a steady trickle of blood that darkened her uniform. The heavy rifle at her side felt like dead weight. She activated her wrist-mounted tracker, the display flickering to life with a soft chime.

  [Track-Reconstruction Protocol: Active] [Biosignature scan: Complete] [Path analysis: 87% confidence]

  The AI painted Chen's trail in glowing blue lines across Flora's HUD—sweat residue on handrails, weight distribution patterns in the dust, thermal ghosts lingering in doorways. The path was clear: plaza → workshop → main corridor → sub-level warehouse sector.

  Dust rose with each footstep, swirling in the beam of her torch like the ashes of ancestors disturbed. The air grew colder, damper, as she descended deeper into the enclave's bones.

  Her torch beam swept across a wall, illuminating faded corporate lettering that had survived two and a half centuries:

  OBEDIENCE IS STRENGTH.

  Flora stopped. The words cut deeper than any physical wound. She lowered her torch, the beam catching motes of dust dancing in the darkness like lost souls.

  "I'm sorry..." she whispered, the words barely audible in the empty corridor. Not to Chen. Not to Alina. To the entire broken squad. To the oath she'd sworn and shattered.

  She raised the torch again, the beam cutting through the darkness ahead. Somewhere in the depths, Chen Feng was walking alone, haunted by ghosts four centuries old. And she was going to find him.

  The corridor stretched before her, endless and dark. Behind, the red emergency lights blinked like dying stars. Ahead, only shadows. Flora Rosenkrantz limped forward, her silhouette swallowed by the darkness, the torch beamed a thin white knife cutting through centuries of silence.