Chapter 62: Chapter 12: The Price of life The silence that followed the comm link’s death was a physical weight in the cryo-wing. It pressed down on Sera. One moment, the air had been thick with the distant violence of Jin’s struggle; the next, there was only the sterile hum of the cryo-pods and the frantic, shallow breathing of the three people left behind.
Clara was at her console, her face a pale in the blue glow of the monitors. Her fingers, which had been flying across the interface, froze mid-air. Her breath hitched, a small, choked sound. "No... no, no, no..." The words were a desperate prayer. She turned the tablet, her hand trembling so badly the screen was a blur. "Sera... the vitals... they just spiked to over 200 BPM, and then... nothing." Her voice cracked on the last word, a raw, wounded sound. "He’s... he’s gone."
𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎 The tablet slipped from her nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor.
"Jin." Rosa’s voice was a flat line, devoid of its usual fire. She stared down the dark corridor, her knuckles white where she gripped her plasma daggers, the first time Sera had ever seen her look truly lost.
"We have to go back for him!" Clara cried, her voice cracking into a full-blown panic. "We can’t just leave him there! The energy signature... it’s still there! The bio-scanner says he’s dead but... the energy... it’s not thermal, not electrical... it’s... unknown. And cellular decay is... it’s zero. That’s not possible! It makes no sense!"
Sera didn’t move. She stood ramrod straight, her face a mask of cold command.
But the memory of his lips on hers, the promise in his eyes—that was a variable her training had never accounted for. It was a crack in the dam, and behind it, a flood of raw emotion was threatening to break through.
"Clara," Sera’s voice was suddenly sharp, clear, and filled with a new, dangerous purpose. "Is the energy signature stable?"
"I... I think so?" Clara stammered, her eyes wide as she tried to interpret the nonsensical data. "It’s faint, but it’s not fading. It’s... holding him in a state of suspended animation."
A fragile, desperate hope bloomed in Sera’s chest. It wasn’t a logical certainty; it was a gambler’s chance, and she was all in.
"Then he’s not gone," she said, her voice ringing with an authority that surprised even herself.
She looked at Rosa, her gaze unwavering. "Rosa, you’re the fastest. You’ll get to him first. Clara and I will prep the med-bay. We’ll be ready. We don’t leave anyone behind. That’s our rule now."
Rosa looked at Sera, a flicker of her old self returning in her eyes. She nodded, a grim, understanding smile touching her lips. "You got it, boss."
---
The maintenance bay was a graveyard. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and burnt flesh, a chilling testament to the violence that had transpired. Rosa moved through the carnage like a ghost, her footsteps silent on the grated floor. The nitrogen fog swirled around her, a cold, gray shroud that muffled sound and distorted vision.
She found him near a collapsed support beam, surrounded by the shattered, frozen bodies of his enemies. He was a mess of blood and torn clothing, the Kageyoshi lying beside his outstretched hand. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought they were too late.
Then she saw it. A faint, almost imperceptible golden light pulsing beneath his skin, a tiny, defiant heartbeat in the overwhelming darkness. It was exactly as Clara had described, but seeing it in person was something else entirely. It was unnatural.
"Damn it, Jin," she muttered, kneeling beside him. "Always have to do things the hard way."
She checked for a pulse. Nothing. His skin was cold to the touch. But the light... the light was still there. He wasn’t a corpse. Not yet.
She slung his arm over her shoulder, grunting as she took his dead weight. "You know, when I said I wanted you to sweep me off your feet, this wasn’t what I meant."
The journey back was a nightmare. The fog was a disorienting maze, and every shadow seemed to coalesce into a new threat. A Crawler, its neural system only partially fried, lunged from a maintenance hatch. Rosa didn’t even flinch. She dropped Jin’s body, spun, and her plasma dagger became a blur of blue light, decapitating the creature in a single, fluid motion. She didn’t waste a second. But as she hoisted Jin back up, another one scrambled from a side tunnel, faster and more agile than the first. It was on her before she could fully raise her guard.
With a snarl, she used Jin’s body as a shield, swinging his dead weight between herself and the creature. Its claws scraped against his armor, a sound that made Rosa’s blood run cold. She kicked it away, a brutal, desperate move, and kept moving, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Incoming!" she shouted into her comm as they approached the cryo-wing. "I’ve got him, but he’s bad!"
The heavy doors slid open, and Sera was there, her rifle raised. "Get him inside! Now!"
They laid him on a medical cot in the center of the room. The golden light was still pulsing faintly beneath his skin.
"He’s not breathing," Rosa said, her voice tight. "No pulse."
Clara was a nervous wreck, her hands shaking so badly she could barely operate the medical scanner. "The scanners... they’re wrong! They say he’s dead but... the energy... I don’t know what it is! It’s not in any database! That doesn’t make any sense!"
"Then we jump-start him," Sera said, her voice leaving no room for argument. She laced her fingers together and placed them on the center of his chest. "Rosa, compressions. Now!"
Rosa immediately began CPR, her movements efficient and powerful, honed by years of brutal training. "Come on, hero," she grunted, counting each compression, her voice strained. "Don’t let this be how it ends. You owe me a date, you hear me? You don’t get out of it that easily."
"Clara, the defibrillator!" Sera commanded.
"I-I’m trying!" Clara stammered, fumbling with the paddles. "The energy field is interfering with the console!"
"Then make it work!" Sera yelled, her composure finally cracking, the sound raw and desperate.
"Charging... clear!" Clara shouted.
Rosa pulled her hands back. Jin’s body arced off the table, a violent spasm that was anything but life-giving. The golden light pulsing beneath his skin flickered but didn’t change.
The flat, green line on the monitor continued its mocking, unbroken rhythm.
"Still nothing!" Clara sobbed, her shoulders shaking.
"Again!" Sera commanded, her voice a raw scream.
Rosa resumed compressions, her face a mask of grim determination, tears now streaming freely down her face, mixing with the sweat and grime. "Fight, you idiot! Fight!"
They worked on him for another minute, their desperation growing with each failed attempt. The golden light remained a faint, steady pulse, a silent, mocking testament to their failure.
"That’s it," Rosa finally said, stopping her compressions, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "We’ve lost him."
Sera stared at Jin’s still face, the mask of the commander finally, completely shattering. A single, choked sob escaped her lips. She crumpled, her strength giving out, and sank to her knees beside the cot. "No... please, no..."
But as she spoke, the golden light beneath Jin’s skin suddenly changed. It stopped pulsing and began to intensify, growing brighter and brighter until it was unbearable to look at. It wasn’t a violent explosion, but a powerful, contained wave of energy that washed over him, flooding the room with a warm, ethereal glow. The medical equipment, which had been failing, suddenly sparked and came back to life, their displays showing readings that were previously impossible.
Clara stared at her tablet, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Sera... look!"
The flatline on the heart monitor was gone, replaced by a slow, steady, but very weak rhythm. *thump-thump... thump-thump... thump-thump...* His breathing was shallow, almost imperceptible, but it was there. He was alive.
The sound of his heartbeat was a thunderclap in the dead air. It was the most beautiful sound any of them had ever heard.
The relief that washed over them was so powerful it was painful. Sera collapsed forward, resting her head on Jin’s still chest, her body wracked with sobs. Rosa sank to the floor, her back against the wall, her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with the force of her tears. Clara stood frozen, her tablet clutched to her chest, weeping quietly.
"The energy... it stabilized him," Clara whispered, her voice filled with awe and relief. "It’s like... it rebooted his system. But he’s... he’s in a deep coma. I... I think he’s going to be out for a while."
Sera looked up from her knees, her face streaked with tears, a fragile, desperate hope blooming in her chest. "How long?"
Clara pulled up a new data stream, her expression grim. "Based on the energy consumption and the rate of cellular regeneration... I’m estimating... seventy-two hours. Minimum."
Seventy-two hours. Three days.
Sera took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay," she said, her voice thick but steady. "He’s alive. That’s what matters. Now... we figure out what comes next."
---
[SYSTEM ALERT: UNKNOWN BIOLOGICAL EVENT]
SUBJECT: JIN TSURUGI
STATUS: CRITICAL, STABLE (COMA)
VITAL SIGNS: RESTORED
WARNING: UNIDENTIFIED ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED
PHOENIX PROTOCOL: LONG-TERM REGENERATION CYCLE INITIATED
ETA TO CONSCIOUSNESS: 71h, 58m, 14s
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