Chapter 5 of Through the Star Field for You is live!
Sorry for the delay on this one! Life’s been busy—in between wrangling longer chapters, I’m also deep into a novel project and working on a Witcher fic featuring our favorite scarred softie, Eskel. Plus, y’know… the day job.
Because of that, updates here will likely settle into an every other week rhythm. I’ll still aim for weekly when I can, especially as we start building toward the end of the story. Thanks for sticking with me!❤️
Here it is on AO3 if you want to go show it some love.
A rescue mission turns into a game of survival—dodging pirates, hauling an injured miner out of a wreck, and bargaining with a man who’d rather kill than talk. But the real distraction comes in flashes: visions that feel like memories of another life, and the heat in Sam’s eyes when the room goes quiet. Ash isn’t sure which will get to her first—the danger ahead, or the pull of something she’s not ready to name.
Chapter 5 - Back to Vectera
The Lodge held a late-afternoon hush, warm lamplight pooling on dark wood, the Armillary turning in a patient glow that painted slow gold on Sarah’s sleeve. She stood at the holo-table, hands braced, the map of the Settled Systems dim as a heartbeat waiting to be found.
“Barrett hasn’t checked in,” she said, precise as always. "We need someone to go to Vectera. Lin will have details and any leads worth our time.”
“I’ll go.”
Ash heard it leave her mouth before she’d finished thinking it. Too quick. Too bright.
Sam looked at her and didn’t move. He didn’t try to respond, just let her words hang between them. Ash held his gaze, steady on the surface even as something small tightened under her ribs.
Sarah’s tone softened by a degree. “Barrett would’ve wanted you on this. He trusts your instincts.” A beat. “So do I.”
From the corridor, Noel swept in with a compact kit and an expression that mixed fondness with triage. “Since we’re choosing movement over rest, be smart about it.” She tapped two slim blister cards into Ash’s palm. “These are for the headaches you asked about. NeuroCalm for the tension. Clearhead for… well.” She tilted her head, reading Ash with a clinician’s empathy. “For the fog. Take both, sip water, and don’t white-knuckle it if the headache spikes.”
“Thanks,” Ash said, the word clipped to keep it from feeling like an admission.
"Sam, I want you with Ash on this. She may need someone to watch her back." She gave Sam one of her stern, no-nonsense looks. "Bring them home, all of them."
—
The Frontier hummed awake like a loyal animal roused from sleep. In the hold, Sam was securing a crate to the bulkhead—strap through ring, pull, the leather whisper of a final tug.
Pulling the two blister cards from her pocket, she tore the foil, shook two pale tabs into her palm. One NeuroCalm one Clearhead. She dry-swallowed, chased with a mouthful from her canteen.
Sam stepped through the hatch in time to catch the motion. He didn’t frown. He didn’t do anything but let his eyes meet hers.
“I’m fine,” Ash said.
“You keep sayin’ that,” he murmured, voice low, “like you’re tryin’ to convince yourself.”
Ash settled into the pilot’s seat without asking, hands already moving across the controls.
Sam didn’t argue—just leaned back in the co-pilot’s chair, one arm draped over the rest as if he had all the time in the world.
The hum of the Frontier wrapped around them, steady as breathing. She kept her focus on the nav readout, adjusting course with small, precise movements.
“You fly her like you’ve done it a hundred times,” he said, watching her hands more than the stars beyond the viewport.
“Definitely not a hundred, but I'm starting to get the hang of it,” she replied, the corner of her mouth tipping up in a shy, flirty smile.
He caught it, a slow grin curving like he had all the time in the world, eyes never leaving hers. “Careful, darlin’… you keep smilin’ at me like that, we’ll overshoot the landing.”
Her laugh was quiet, but it reached her eyes. “Guess you’ll just have to keep me on course, Cowboy.”
“That was the plan,” he drawled, settling in as the stars bent into their approach vector.
-
The ship’s landing struts kissed down onto Vectera’s grey dust with a soft shudder. Outside the viewport, the dig site sprawled in half-dismantled disarray—cranes idle, tool racks stripped, the last of the crates stacked in neat rows. Generators hummed faintly, throwing heat into the thin, dry air.
Ash powered down the thrusters and geared up in her spacesuit before lowering the ramp. The dust took her boots like it knew her weight. Shoulders squared, chin lifted—an old reflex kicking in before she could think about it.
Lin was mid-command, barking cheerful orders to a pair of techs wrangling a crate onto a loader. She turned at the sound of Sam’s voice in greeting.
“Well, look what the dust storm dragged in.” Lin’s grin widened. “Didn’t expect you back so soon.”
“Didn’t expect to be,” Ash replied, and it was the truth.
Lin’s gaze lingered on her for a beat, head tilting slightly. “You look different.”
Ash just shrugged.
Lin leaned back against a crate, wiping the dust from her palms. “One of ours—Heller—set off his emergency beacon. Signal’s coming from a crash site, a planet not far from here. We couldn’t spare the crew to go after him.”
“Barrett went after him?” Ash asked.
Lin nodded. “Barrett was with him. After you left more of the Crimson Fleet showed up and took Barrett, poor Heller was just collateral damage. They left plenty of good miners injured before they left though. It seemed like they were after Barrett. He's always been more trouble than I want to deal with, the money's not worth it. ”
"Typical Crimson Fleet MO." Sam’s jaw tightened, a faint muscle jumping.
The hum of the dig site filled the pause.
While Lin walked them through coordinates and terrain quirks, Sam’s attention stayed anchored to Ash. Their conversation drifted for a moment to dig site logistics. It was clear it threw Ash back to her life pre-artifact.
She was in her element here. Trading notes on soil density and weather patterns, asking after tool maintenance like she belonged, discovering hidden gems in the soil. She lit up—not much, just a flicker—but enough for him to catch it.
She didn’t even seem to notice the way her stance shifted, weight balanced like someone who belonged in this dirt, in this light.
He filed it away, another small truth she didn’t know she’d handed him.
“Next time,” Lin called as they turned to leave, “I expect you to visit without dragging a rescue mission behind you.”
Ash glanced over her shoulder with a faint smile. “No promises.”
__
The planet hung in the viewport like a coin tossed into black water—thin atmosphere, washed-out blue sky, and the jagged shine of debris fields on the surface.
Ash guided the Frontier down through the wisps of cloud until the fractured body of the shuttle came into view, sprawled across a rise of pale rock and rust-colored dust. Panels glinted in the sun.
They sealed their suits in the airlock, oxygen hiss filling the small space. Sam slung his rifle across his back before cycling the hatch.
“Let’s find him.”
Gravity bit harder here, boots sinking a fraction into the powdery soil. The wreck loomed ahead, its hull split wide but cold—no flames, just the skeletal frame of a ship that had tried and failed to land.
Movement caught Ash’s eye. A suited figure leaned against a boulder twenty meters from the impact scar, one leg stretched stiff in front of him. As they closed in, she saw the slack ease of someone barely holding onto consciousness.
Heller’s helmet visor reflected them in a warped oval. “Took you long enough,” he said, voice tinny through the comm.
Sam knelt beside him, eyes flicking over the splint on Heller’s leg. “You dosed yourself?”
“Full cocktail,” Heller said cheerfully. “Pain’s a hell of a motivator when you’re trying to drag yourself out of a burning tin can.”
Ash crouched, scanning his vitals—low but stable. “What happened?”
Heller’s grin tilted sideways, like he was amused by his own answer. “Barrett and I… staged a little drama for the pirates. Fake fight. Lot of shouting, some shoving. Plan was they’d get distracted, I’d slip out and set the beacon. Only…” He lifted a gloved hand, making a half-hearted trigger motion. “Somebody’s gun went off. Scared the hell out of the pilot. We hit dirt a lot faster than intended.”
Sam’s jaw tightened inside his helmet. “Where’s Barrett now?”
“Other ship,” Heller said. “A different Crimson Fleet crew. They hauled him out like they were collecting a bounty. Last I saw, he was still standing, still mouthing off.”
Ash leaned in slightly. “Coordinates?”
Heller rattled them off without hesitation, and her HUD lit with the marker.
“That’s where we’re going next,” Sam said, rising to his feet. “Can you move?”
“With assistance,” Heller said, extending both arms like a man expecting to be carried. “And maybe a snack.”
They hauled him up between them, Ash taking his right side while Sam bore most of the weight. Every few steps, Heller muttered something half-lucid—snippets about soil composition, terrible pirate hygiene, and a very vivid rant about the state of Frontier landing gear.
By the time they got him up the ramp and into the hold, sweat had dampened Ash’s collar. She locked his restraints in the crash couch while Sam strapped in up front.
The Frontier’s engines flared, lifting them off the barren rock and angling back toward Vectera.
__
Through the viewport, the dig site appeared again—orderly rows of crates, generators humming against the thin air.
Lin was there before the ramp finished lowering, taking in the sight of Heller between them. Relief cracked her usual brisk expression. “I see you found my favorite headache.”
Heller managed a lazy salute from his seat. “You should see the other guy.”
“Get him inside,” Lin said, already gesturing toward the med bay. “We’ll patch him up before he invents more stories.”
Sam handed him off with a nod. “We’ve got another stop to make. Barrett’s still out there.”
Ash was already checking her weapon’s charge. “Let’s move.
____
The cliffs cut jagged against the dark sky, their shadows pooling long across the rust-streaked bulk of the Crimson Fleet base. Red logos claiming ownership were on the sides of the outpost walls.
Ash lay prone behind a tangle of rock, scope braced on her shoulder. Sam crouched beside her, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, scanning the patrol arcs below.
“Crimson Fleet,” he muttered, voice just above the wind. “Nasty crew. Shoot first, ransom second.”
Through her scope, she tracked two guards crossing the upper ridge, rifles loose in their hands. She adjusted the lens…
Blink—
The ridge blurred. Suddenly it wasn’t patrols in her sight—it was Sam, blood on his mouth, slumped against her chest. His eyes were glassy, skin too pale. Her own voice echoed in her head, raw with a grief she didn’t understand.
She dropped the scope, heart thudding against her ribs.
“You good?” Sam’s head turned just enough to catch her in his peripheral, the words carrying that casual tone he used when it wasn’t casual at all.
“Just a glare in the lens,” she lied, shaking it off.
He studied her a second longer than necessary, then nodded toward the ridge. “Let’s move.”
They slipped inside the perimeter, staying in the shadow of stacked cargo crates.
A guard rounded the corner, and Ash didn’t hesitate. Silencer whisper, one clean shot to the skull, and he dropped without a sound.
Sam’s mouth tipped in a half-smile, low whistle slipping out. “You’ve been holdin’ back.”
“Trying not to show off,” she said, deadpan, stepping over the body.
They moved in sync—one covering while the other advanced, rhythm tightening with each corner cleared. They left a body count in their wake.
Inside the base, the air shifted—hotter, metallic. They swept the corridor, clearing doors as they went. Sam took left, Ash right.
The attack came fast—a pirate lunging from behind a crate, slamming into her. An arm locked around her throat, cutting her air, shoving her back into the wall hard enough to rattle her teeth and her helmet visor almost cracked.
Her vision fractured—
Sam’s mouth on hers in a dim corridor, the scent of engine oil and the faint salt of his skin filling her lungs. His hands bracketed her jaw, warm and calloused, tilting her head just so before his tongue swept in—slow, claiming.
A candlelit room spilled in next, bare skin against bare skin, the slow drag of his mouth down her throat. His voice—low, rough with want—brushed her ear, followed by the weight of his body pinning her to tangled sheets, laughter caught between kisses and bitten breaths.
Then—an older version of herself lying under alien stars, the cold pressing in, no one there at the end. Alone.
The flashes snapped in and out, jarring against the chokehold dragging her body into the now.
A shot cracked. The arm fell away.
She gulped air and found Sam in front of her, rifle still up, expression tight with something dangerously close to fear.
“Ash?!” His voice was sharp now, no drawl in it. “Talk to me.”
“Just… shaken. Got the wind knocked out of me. Headache’s worse now, that’s all. Getting choked does that.” She braced a hand against the wall, forcing her breath to steady.
Sam’s eyes narrowed, searching her face through the helmet. He didn’t press, but the disbelief was there in the set of his jaw. He stepped back, giving her space, but the taut thread between them didn’t loosen.
They pressed deeper into the base, Sam taking point now. He checked every corner, his movements efficient but never rushed—trusting she’d be right on his six.
Ash kept pace, but her thoughts gnawed at her: What if the visions were real? What if they’d lived this before? Died this before?
She shoved it down. Mission first. Emotions later.
The deeper they went, the deeper the quiet felt. The corridor was a ribcage of rust-streaked bulkheads, air damp enough to cling inside the helmet seals. Somewhere far off, a drop of water fell with a hollow ping. No guards. No voices. Just the hum of the base’s old generators pushing stale air through narrow vents.
Sam’s voice was low in her ear. “Too quiet.”
Ash slid him a look over her shoulder. “You just had to say it.”
They moved in tandem. She scanned corners, he kept a hand near the rifle slung across his chest.
Then they reached the bottom floor, and the hallway opened to an atrium. It was cluttered with cargo boxes, random odds an ends, Crimson Fleet banners hanging at odd angles and a mess hall that hadn't been cleaned since last century.
Instead of the standoff she was braced for, there was Barrett, seated in a chair with a chipped mug of tea steaming in his hands. Across from him, a broad-shouldered man with weathered skin, intricate black-and-red tattoos fanning out from his jawline, and a gaze like the barrel of a loaded gun: Matsura the Grim.
They were mid-conversation. Something to do with philosophy.
Barrett looked up, grin already in place. “Hey! Took you long enough. I was just about to win him over with my unbeatable carrot cake recipe.”
Matsura’s eyes shifted to Sam, then to her. He inclined his head, slow and deliberate. “Barrett makes an entertaining hostage.”
Sam’s stance tightened, weight shifting forward, hand hovering close to his rifle. Ash stepped in before the air could turn.
“We’re not here for trouble,” she said evenly. “Just our guy.”
Matsura’s gaze lingered on her, studying the cut of her suit, the way she didn’t fidget under his stare. “Most people who show up here don’t leave breathing.”
Ash didn’t blink. “Most people don’t offer you the kind of reputation boost we could.”
His brows lifted, faint amusement breaking the stillness. Matsura lounged back in his chair, the weight of his stare heavy as chain.
Ash kept her tone level. “You could keep him. And in a week, he’s just another mouth to feed, another body in the way. A story that dies in this room. Barrett doesn't have the money for ransom to be worth it. Your snitch gave you bad intel, because he didn't''t have anything of value on him.”
"Except for my stimulating conversation." Barrett gave an award-winning smile to back up the statement.
Matsura smirked at that.
She let her gaze flick between him and Barrett. “Or you let him go. Let him walk back into the black with us. Every ship he steps on after that? Every port he visits? People will know he sat across from Matsura the Grim and lived to talk about it. ”
One brow ticked upward.
“That doesn’t read as mercy,” she went on. “It reads as control. It makes you the kind of man who doesn’t need to pull the trigger to win. That gets under people’s skin. Makes ‘em wonder what you’re planning. Makes ‘em afraid to cross you.”
Matsura’s mouth pulled into a faint, wolfish smile.
“And when we do meet again—because we will—you’ll know I walked back in here owing you. That’s a debt you can collect whenever it suits you.”
A long pause. Matsura leaned back, the chair creaking under him, fingers drumming once against his knee.
Then, with the air of someone granting a small, rare mercy, he said, “He’s been amusing. And you’re not wrong.”
He gestured lazily toward Barrett. “Take him. But if I see you again, the price triples.”
Ash’s nod was a clean, unflinching line. “Fair.”
Barrett rose, still holding his tea as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I told you she’d charm you, didn’t I?”
Sam shook his head as they stepped out into the corridor. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re just mad I found her first,” Barrett shot back, winking as they walked.
Outside, the damp air gave way to the clean bite of wind. Sam glanced sideways at her—half admiration, half something he wasn’t ready to name.
“How the hell did you do that?”
Ash smirked faintly. “Turns out not everyone responds to a gun in their face. Weird, right?”
Barrett chuckled, the sound spilling into Sam’s reluctant laugh. The three of them walked toward the ship with the kind of ease that only comes after a win, the hum of danger fading—for now.
The Frontier cut through the quiet dark, engines purring low like the steady pull of a heartbeat. Stars drifted past the viewport in slow, endless procession, each one a pinprick of cold fire.
Ash sat in the co-pilot’s chair, legs drawn up, arms folded loosely across her chest. She looked outward, but her gaze wasn’t on the stars—it was somewhere further, somewhere that wasn’t in the room at all.
Bootsteps on metal pulled her partway back. Barrett stepped in from the rear cabin, patched up, freshly showered and moving stiffly but wearing the same signature grin he always had. He clapped Sam on the shoulder in passing.
“Thanks for the save. I owe you two one.” He tipped his head. “Or ten.”
Sam returned the nod, a half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “We’ll keep a tab.”
Then his eyes shifted toward Ash. “You gonna tell me what happened back there?”
He said it lightly, but the question carried weight beneath the ease.
Ash didn’t answer right away. She kept watching the slow drift of stars, her jaw tightening just enough for Sam to notice. Finally, she said, “It started after the cave. The artifact.”
Barrett leaned back against the console. “What started?”
“Headaches,” she said. “Bad ones. And then… flashes. Not dreams. Not hallucinations.”
That got his attention. “Flashes?”
Ash turned to face them both. Her expression was unreadable; the stillness in her voice deliberate. “They feel like memories. But they’re not mine. Except they are. It’s… hard to explain.”
Sam leaned closer, folding his arms without tension. “What kind of flashes?”
Her mind lit with fragments she didn’t dare give voice to: —Sam’s body in her arms, blood seeping warm between her fingers. —A kiss in the shadowed hush before a mission. —A wedding night—bare skin, laughter low against her ear. —Her own face, older and worn, lying beneath alien stars, breaths growing shallow.
She didn’t speak any of it.
“Pieces of another life,” she said instead. “Or a hundred.”
Barrett’s grin faded. He studied her more carefully now, something close to worry replacing the humor. “You sure they’re not just dreams?”
“I know the difference,” Ash said. “Dreams fade. These stay. And it’s like they’re waiting for me to catch up.”
Barrett and Sam exchanged a glance—brief but heavy. Sam’s brows pulled together, though he kept silent.
Barrett said, quieter now, “I’ve heard of things like this. Rare. And never easy.”
Sam finally asked, “You think it’s the artifact?”
Ash nodded once. “I think it changed me.”
She didn’t say: I think it woke something up.
Silence stretched between them, the hum of the Frontier the only constant sound.
“I just want to know who I am,” she murmured, turning back to the stars. “And why this is happening now.”
Sam’s voice was steady when it came, his gaze supportive and comforting. “We’ll figure it out.”
Barrett gave a lopsided shrug. “If it’s cosmic destiny, might as well enjoy the ride.”
That earned him a tired laugh from Ash, but her gaze stayed fixed on the black beyond the glass.
What if I already lived this life before? ____
Once back at the lodge, she beelined for her own space. She didn't have the energy for the performative chatter that she usually would have enjoyed. Inside her quarters, she dropped her bag and jacket in a heap. The thud was soft, but it still felt too sharp in the stillness.
She sank into the nearest chair, elbows braced to her knees, fingers pressing hard into her temples.
Her body was a map of tension—shoulders drawn high, breath thin, skin buzzing faintly like the artifact had left a charge in her veins that wouldn’t fade.
When she finally lifted her head, her eyes caught on the mirror above the dresser.
She stared.
Same eyes. Same face. Same faint scar along her jaw.
But none of it felt entirely hers anymore.
Who am I really?
What am I?
Visions stirred just beneath the surface—heat in a kiss, blood cooling under her hands, a name she knew but had never spoken aloud. A thousand lives pressing at the edge of her own.
Her gaze broke from the mirror. She opened the top drawer, fingers brushing over the contents until they found a small field journal—blank, bound in plain canvas. She had shoved it there weeks ago, never touched it.
For a long moment she just held it, weighing the choice.
Then she flipped it open, pen in hand.
She wrote the date.
She wrote about Vectera.
About Heller’s rescue.
About Barrett sitting cross-legged, drinking tea with a pirate philosopher.
She wrote about the visions, because saying them out loud was still too much.
The pen didn’t stop. Words bled into the page, a tether she looped around herself to keep from drifting too far from what she knew was real.
When she was finally done, she sat back and stared at the last line. Her handwriting was steady. Her hands weren’t.
“Don’t let me forget who I am,” she whispered into the empty room.
She closed the journal. It felt heavier than when she’d picked it up.
Still, she set it down carefully on the desk—like it might be the thing holding her together come morning.
The knock was soft—two light taps, barely more than a suggestion. For a second, Ash thought she’d imagined it.
When she opened the door, Sam was standing there, one hand shoved awkwardly into his back pocket, the other holding a small plate.
“Didn’t know what you liked,” he said, voice pitched low. “So I guessed. Figured dessert might bribe you into not ghostin’ me.”
On the plate—two neat slices of pie, edges uneven like someone had cut them fast before the Lodge kitchen crew noticed.
Ash stepped aside without a word. She was barefoot, in a loose sleep shirt, legs bare, hair twisted up in a haphazard knot. His eyes flicked over her just once—quick, unreadable—before meeting hers again. He didn’t comment, didn’t let the moment drag, just moved into the room with a kind of careful weight, like the air might splinter if he wasn’t gentle with it.
They sat on the edge of her bed, close enough that the warmth between them felt intentional.
Her knee brushed his. Neither of them moved.
“Thanks,” she murmured, taking a fork.
“You scared me today,” he said quietly.
Her fork paused above the crust. “I scared me too.”
They ate slowly. The pie was good—sweet, a little tart—but neither of them cared about the food. The rhythm of lifting a fork, chewing, swallowing was something to hold onto—a fragile tether that kept the room steady.
When he spoke again, his voice had softened even more. “Cora tried to bake cookies once without a recipe. Swore she remembered how. Ended up with somethin’ that looked—and smelled—like engine sealant.”
Ash’s laugh came low, unguarded. For a second, the tight coil in her chest eased… but the air between them stayed charged, like either of them could lean just a little closer and change everything.
The heaviness in her chest didn’t vanish, but it shifted—just enough to breathe a little deeper.
Without thinking, she leaned into him. Her shoulder brushed his, heat bleeding through the thin cotton like a secret neither of them had spoken aloud.
He went still—not startled, but as if weighing something in that half-second of pause—then let his head tip until his temple rested against hers. The contact was light, careful, but there was an unspoken weight behind it, a quiet claiming.
“Whatever’s goin’ on in that head of yours…” his voice dropped, low enough she felt it more than heard it, “…I got you.”
Her eyes closed. The words landed somewhere deep, where the ache had been sitting all night. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t move away either—not even when his breath skimmed the curve of her cheek, warm and steady.
Eventually, he stood, taking the empty plate. The space he left behind felt colder than it should.
At the door, he looked back—no smile, no goodnight. Just a lingering, unreadable look that held her still. For a moment, it felt like he was memorizing her face, tucking away every detail as if he might need it later. Her pulse hitched, heat catching low in her chest, and then—without a word—he turned away.
She watched him go, the quiet rushing back in like a tide. Only now, it hummed with the ghost of his heat.
Her heart felt too full. Too strange.
Please don’t leave me again.
The thought looped in her chest like a prayer, even if she didn’t understand why it hurt so much to think it.