"We’re going to die,” Jasper murmured. “I can’t believe it. We’re going to die out here.”
His ship had suffered catastrophic levels of damage after an encounter with Grimm. The hull had more than a dozen major breaches, the air supply was basically non-existent, and the ship no longer had the ability move under its own power. He’d managed to get a distress signal out, but there was no guarantee it had been received before his comms had been destroyed. And even if it had been... he was in the middle of nowhere. He’d be dead long before anyone arrived to rescue him.
And he wouldn’t be the only one either.
His son was with him. His wife had passed away a few months ago during a Grimm attack on the mining colony where they lived. That was why he was in space to begin with. He’d finally managed to secure citizenship in the Empire. He and his son were going to start again somewhere safer. But the Grimm had caught his ship on its way to the nearest Hyperspace Gateway. And now they were both going to die here.
A quiet voice in the back of his mind cut through the growing panic.
“Jasper, I can keep you alive for forty-eight hours.” The words came from Steel-Shadow-Beneath-the-Waves, a member of the Company.
Years ago, Jasper’s parents had agreed to let members of the Company bond to them. The symbiotic energy beings had made them stronger, faster, and more durable. Jasper had agreed too, and Steel had been chosen for him. Steel had become his best friend, a constant companion who had never left him and had always given him good advice. In exchange, all Steel wanted was to feed off his Aura, a slow, consistent drain that had never been harmful.
“There’s nothing you can do for the ship?” Jasper asked.
“No.” Steel’s voice was calm. “Even if I knew how to fix the ship, we wouldn’t have all the parts required to fix it.” The Company sighed. “We’re missing more than half the ship, Jasper. It’s a miracle we’re not already dead.”
“Forty-eight hours...” Jasper bit his lip, a mad, desperate plan coming to mind. “The lack of air won’t be a problem?”
“Using the Aura I’ve saved up, I can substitute Aura for air once the ship’s air has run out. However, forty-eight hours is the most I can manage. I have no idea if that will be long enough.”
“And what happens after that?” Jasper asked.
“You die. And then I die, having expended all of my energy to keep you alive.” Steel paused. “I could abandon you and seek to prolong my existence, but that was not the agreement we made.”
Jasper’s lips twitched. “No. We made a promise, didn’t we? You and me, together to the end, no matter what.”
“Correct. Besides, I doubt I’d live long after you passed. I’ve grown used to being bonded. Members of my species who have bonded rarely survive more than a day or two without bonding again.” Steel radiated sad amusement. “It seems I’ll be keeping our promise.”
Jasper took a deep breath. “What if... what if you didn’t?”
“If I asked you to bond with my son... to... to bond with Onyx... how long would you be able to keep him alive?”
Steel paused. It was a long, long pause. “Infants require less Aura to survive and consume less air than adults. Based on the amount of Aura I have saved up, I could keep him alive for roughly ninety-six hours.”
“Four days, huh?” Jasper took a deep breath... one of the last he would ever take. “I want you do to it. Break our bond and bond with my son.”
Steel paused again. “Jasper, if I do that, you will die. We will run out air in approximately an hour, and you will be lucky to survive fifteen minutes once that occurs. You are asking me to kill you.”
“So that my son can live.”
“That wasn’t our agreement, Jasper. I would be breaking my promise.”
Jasper reached out through the bond between them. Members of the Company were highly logical, their every action geared toward helping their host - and therefore themselves - survive and thrive. Steel had argued against Jasper becoming a miner, but he had eventually conceded the issue after seeing how much Jasper loved it. He needed Steel to understand. He needed him to see.
“Sometimes, we have to break our promises,” Jasper said. “So I’m asking you... I’m begging you. Please, if we’ve ever been friends, save my son.”
“There is no guarantee this would even save him. We are in a remote part of space, and we have no way of knowing if our distress signal even got out before our comms were destroyed. Even if it was heard, it might take longer than four days for help to arrive. You would be sentencing yourself to death for no reason.”
“I know the odds aren’t good,” Jasper replied. “But if I can make them even a little bit better for my son... please. Steel, I need you to do this for me.”
There was another pause, the longest yet.
Finally, Steel spoke again. “Jasper, I’m going to miss you very much.”
There was a sudden, sharp stab of agony, like a limb being cut off. Jasper screamed without realising it and slumped down beside the cot his son was in. An amorphous shape drifted away from him and over his son. It was Steel’s energy form, and this was the first time he’d seen it since they’d bonded.
Slowly, tenuously, arms formed and reached out toward him. For a moment, just one, Steel hugged him, and then Steel was flowing through the air toward Onyx. His son’s cries stopped as the bond began to form, and a look of wonder formed on the infant’s face as the member of the Company began to join himself to him in earnest.
“Thanks,” Jasper murmured. “For everything.”
He stayed by Onyx’s cot as the air grew thinner and thinner. As he took his last real breath, he reached out for something, anything to help him through the agony of his final moments. His hands tightened around the cot’s frame, and his son’s eyes - Steel’s eyes - met his.
Through the last, broken remnants of the link between them, Steel filled his dying mind with memories.
They were back on the beach with his parents, and the sun was so warm. Waves lapped against the shore, and the sand between his toes was wet and grainy. He ran into the water, laughing, as Steel warned him to stay within easy reach of his parents.
Overhead, a seagull let loose a cry, and Jasper dipped beneath the waves, a school of fish parting as he dove...
Jasper died with a smile on his lips.
The Imperial trooper stepped into the battered ship. The marks of battle were all over it, and more than half of it was just gone. From the looks of it, the ship must have run into Grimm. It had taken them four days to reach the ship. He doubted anything could have survived. Their corvette’s scanners had already noted the lack of life support systems and the absence of any air inside the ship.
Yet to his disbelief, his sensors were picking up a very, very, very faint Aura signature. He gestured to his squamates.
“We’ve got Aura. Cover me.”
He moved swiftly through the ship, his companions sweeping the wreck for any signs of Grimm. They found none. The trooper activated his emergency life support pack and broke open the door to the bridge.
There, in a cot, was a baby.
“How in the...” He swiftly activated the life support pack, and a forcefield wrapped around the child as fresh air was supplied. His gaze shifted to the body beside the cot. The father? Probably. But how had the baby survived?
“He asked me to.” The voice was a sibilant hiss. “He told me to save his son.”
“Who are you?” The trooper activated his advanced sensors. Information flowed through him. “You’re... one of the Company?”
A hazy, indistinct shape, visible only through his advanced Aura sensors appeared. The voice came again, barely audible, and his power armour isolated the channel and amplified it, so he could hear.
“Yes. Jasper was my partner. When it became clear what would happen, he asked me to bond with his son, Onyx. There was no guarantee it would let him live long enough for help to come - we didn’t even know if help would come - but he wanted me to do it. Even if it meant he would die, he wanted his son to live.”
“Shit.” The trooper’s jaw clenched. “Fuck.” A man like that? He should still be alive, not dead. He took a deep breath. “All right then. We’ll get... we’ll get Jasper out of here and give him a proper burial. And you and Onyx, we’ll get you out of here and looked after. Did Jasper have any kin?”
Onyx ran along the beach. His grandparents shouted for him to be careful, so he slowed down a bit, content to watch the crabs scuttle along the sand and into the water.
“Hey...” he murmured. “Steel, you knew my dad, right?”
His grandparents had always told Onyx that his dad died a hero, but he saw how sad it made them to talk about him. He loved them, so he didn’t want them to be sad. But he wanted to know more about his dad.
“I did,” Steel replied, his voice as calm as ever in the back of Onyx’s mind. “I knew him very well.”
“Can you tell me about him?”
