Planet: Kestra, Odaport Compound

First Insurgency War

MAIA

Shit.

Black Wolf changed for the worse since his reunion with Rayan Falae. Out on the field, his ferociousness remained unmatched in sparring matches and brought back a twinge of fear she thought herself over. He took down Elites far more experienced than himself, forcing her to step in before it worsened.

How can I ignore what he's starting to become? What are the Forces turning him into? Maia left her podbunk with a frown while the pain from Rayan Falae's words broke Black Wolf in shattered halves. What is he turning himself into?

"Black Wolf? James?" she asked at the sight of him curled in the conversation pit. Maia came closer, but froze at the wet trails down his cheeks when he looked at her. His scowl deepened when he wiped his sleeve against his skin with a scoff, sitting up and putting distance between them.

"Look, I know what happened at that location—"

"I don't want to talk about it," he mumbled with a hand on his chest, digging his fingers into his uniform. He straightened himself off the couch when their schedule beeped from the panel. "Let's just get down to the training field before we get smoked for tardiness."

"Wow, you're actually thinking ahead for once," Maia teased, but stopped when gave her a lethal side-eye. "I know you don't want to talk about it, but—" Maia scoffed when he left their bunk and rushed to catch up with him. "I think you need to. Just—" A scoff escaped her lips when he pushed forward and dropped his hand to his side. One phase, and she stood in front of him, and he came to a stop. "Holding it in isn't good for you."

James twisted around her. "I'm fine."

Commander Beckett waited for them by the obstacle course, though James lagged behind when she reached the starting line.

"Are you two ready?" Commander Beckett asked. "By the way, Aelius Matthey should be here soon."

Maia gave him a thumbs up, but turned to James who stopped out of reach of their starting timer. He swayed with the wind coursing through the base as he took another small step forward. Maia focused on the fading noise in the air, dying with the breeze.

He raised a hand to his head when he came closer to them, with Beckett lowering his watch. Maia lurched when Black Wolf knelt with the pain creasing his brow. Crimson turned to hazel. Hazel into emptiness.

He collapsed at her feet.

"Fuck!" Maia rushed for her partner to put a hand on his back, where the heartbeat faded, overpowered by the coursing edevium.

"Heartrate, now, Urtanes!" Beckett snapped as he hauled James into his arms.

"Low and disappearing," Maia replied and fought her own stress when it pushed through her ears while edevium spiked into her veins with a fiery tempest for action.

Beckett used his free hand to tap the compearl. "Illiya, we've got an issue on the training field," he said, then lifted James off the ground with ease and into a carry over his shoulder. Maia hyperfocused on James while his heart fought against the edevium once more.

A Medic Elite from one of the posts rushed over to them. "What happened?"

"Edevic charge," Beckett said. "I need a hover gurney."

As if in response to his command, General Falae burst out of the front doors of the base with two more Medic Elites. Beckett placed James into its embrace while the Elite rushed over to the panel to tap in settings. "We're losing him, General."

I don't understand... he seemed stable before...

General Falae spoke with authoritative diction, "Do what you can for him."

One attached a vitamask to James' face, where the hiss echoed in his ears. In their rush to the infirmary, Maia raced to the front to guide soldiers out of the way of their path.

"Where's Dr. Matthey?" General Falae asked.

"Enroute, ma'am," a Medic Elite responded. "I'll contact him." They broke from the rest of the group, and Maia led the way to the base hospital through the double-crossed doors.

"We don't have a lot of time," General Falae said. "We need to just keep him stabilised until Matthey is here."

Maia stared down at James where his faint heartbeat let go of the world inch by inch while General Falae sidled him onto the bed.

Come on, Black Wolf, what happened?

"Urtanes," General Falae bit her back into reality. "We need help."

How is she so calm?

Maia longed to shut her ears when the Vita-Monitor beeped out reports on James' hold on his young life.

"Warning: Low heartrate."

Maia stood to the side, useless.

"Edevium Level: Low."

Maia stood guard at the door and out of the way with her lips between her teeth while the AI refused to shut up its incessant barking. Medic Elites set James up with the healing pod. The final report rang a song of fleeting hope in her ears, "Patient stabilised — suggest raising edevium back to optimal levels of expected parameters."

"We need Matthey," General Falae said.

Maia returned to James' side when a Medic Elite nodded at her. Youth smoothed out his features and brow and reminded her of a bitter truth. His chest rose and fell, though he remained in the event horizon of a black hole.

"Urtanes, stay with him while I go get Matthey," General Falae ordered. "I'll be back soon."

Her commanding officer disappeared through the door, and Maia resumed her post by James while the Medic Elites hovered around, ready to jump back into the action of their fight. Maia drummed on the metal pod, only ever able to sit and wait for a possible end.

"Do you require a drink, Urtanes?" the Medic Elite asked.

Her stomach churned. "I'm good."

Agonizing silence remained.

Maia jolted when James breathed deep through the mask, opening his eyes while the Medic Elite returned to the monitor. Her heart tore in two when he peered at her. One which reminded her of her volunteer work at the Odaport orphanage, one which screamed, 'I'm scared, I don't know what's happening.'

But what can I do?

Cloudy tears brimmed to the surface while the beeping of the hospital haunted her darkest days to join the torrent. Another reminder of his youth destroyed by raids and war.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, though she doubted it was her he apologised to. Maia came closer to listen, but stopped when he reached a hand out to the necklace she carried, Meryn Matthey's wish for his oldest friend. "I'm sorry, Avie," he whispered through a sob, and looked through her. "I just... should've..."

What can I do? Isn't the answer so obvious?

Tears bit at her eyes as she unclipped the necklace and pushed it into his hands, then held it there. "It's okay," she forced out her mantra when the children in the orphanage went to her for protection, for support, for rare stability in the unfairness of life. "It's scary, I know. You don't have to smile all the time and pretend that it's not."

James stared at her with widened eyes.

Maia lifted her attention to the monitor when it spiked a silent warning.

He gripped her hand tighter when footsteps sounded behind her. He shut his eyes tight in preparation or pain both.

General Falae returned with a harried man she couldn't recognize, but guessed their identity.

Aelius Matthey.

"What happened?" he asked and went through the Medic Elites to reach James' other side.

"We were about to do some training," Maia reported. "Except... his emotions have been running high lately, so I think his edevic charge..." Damn near stopped his broken heart. Unable to continue, she clung onto James, to give him the stability he lacked when Aelius nodded.

"Okay." Aelius took out a thin, crystal needle. "His body is going to react when I place this into his arm." He showed it to her. "It's going to facilitate a process not unlike the injection with the edevium already in his bloodstream. It will even out his edevium levels, but I warn you that we need to be fast about this."

"His heart?" Maia asked when General Falae nodded at a Medic Elite.

"It's fine, I can stabilise him if worse comes to worse," Aelius explained. "If you have any specific procedures you use during the first injection I'd use them here." He twisted the crystal needle. "Everyone ready?"

General Falae stepped to Maia's side with a nod, and Maia kept her hand around James'. Aelius held the crystal needle between his thumb and forefinger. "Alright. Insertion in three." He held James' shoulder with a comforting squeeze, and Maia counted to three, with the breaking moment which followed Aelius when he injected the crystal needle into James' arm.

After a single minute, James reacted in one violent swoop.

Maia bit down on her tongue when her bones threatened to crack underneath the pressure of his grip. General Falae kept the bed and James steady.

"Warning! Heartrate rising!"

"Good." Aelius never lost his grip on the needle while James writhed in the grip of the Elites.

Maia hissed through her teeth when his hand wrenched her forearm. Her limbs threatened to tear apart when his grip tightened on her. Her own edevic flames rushed to battle his strength, but she could almost hear the painful crack of thunderous bone.

"Edevic levels rising."

"Keep on it," Aelius ordered the Medic Elite at the console.

He's going to break my arm at this rate. Maia battled her instinct to free herself when Aelius glanced at the monitor, where the graphs of edevium reached its peak. He slipped the crystal needle out of James' forearm.

"Keep him still. Throw this in the burner." Aelius handed off the crystal needle to the gloves of another Medic.

"Warning — Edevium levels at dangerous parameters."

Undeterred by the AI voice, Aelius shut it off in one swift, practised motion. He tapped several settings on the side of the healing pod. Golden fields embraced James, and his grip on her arm slacked.

He opened his eyes once more — no longer crimson or empty.

Hazel.

I forgot they were that colour...

It took a few minutes of Aelius' watchful guidance for the AI to make one last report.

"Heartrate stabilised. Edevium levels within optimal parameters."

Maia sighed and sank into the chair by James.

Aelius nodded. "I've done what I can, but keep him under observation." He switched to James when he squirmed and the vitamonitor beeped. "You're alright now, James. I know it might be hard, but I need you to focus on your breaths for me." He raised a hand to his own chest to demonstrate, rolling his wrist and guiding James in the steps, who tried to copy it with his attention on Aelius. "Good. Just like that." He gave James a soft clap on the shoulder before nodding at General Falae with a smile.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Matthey," General Falae said, where exhaustion dripped through her tone.

"Well, I'm not just here for James. I need to discuss something with you."

General Falae blinked, then nodded. "Come with me. Urtanes, stay here and help the Medic Elites with whatever they need."

"Understood." Maia waited for them to leave the hospital behind before turning back to James, folding her arms while he breathed with his eyes closed. Hell isn't the word for what you've been through, Black Wolf. Not even close to the definition.

It was her one reason to become a Guardian — to protect the innocent, no matter the cost to herself, to be a shield against black holes in an overreaching galaxy.

"Maia."

He said her name.

Maia turned to him when he opened his hazel eyes, where tears swallowed it all. "You asked me when the last time I smiled was," he murmured. "At this rate... I can't be happy." He twisted around to grip onto the edge of the bed. "Do I even deserve it?" he added the final question under his breath through a soft sob while he clung onto the wolven necklace.

It took too long for General Falae to come back, guiding her out of the hospital to give James Ranier his rest.

"Ma'am," Maia forced out, trying not to cry.

"Yes, Urtanes?"

"Is it worth it?" she asked, head low. "The things we do?"

General Falae turned to her with a frown. "I can't rightly answer that for you, Urtanes," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"James said that he can't be happy — questioning if he even deserves it," Maia whispered and held her own burning chest. "Ma'am... all I've ever wanted was to help people. But I can't help one person." Maia brushed her fingers against her eyelids to stem the tide of her emotions no one believed the Elite Corps had.

General Falae lowered her head in shame. "We can't always save everyone, Maia," she said, but then smiled through the stone. "That is why, even if it's just one, it will always be worth it. At least, that's what I believe, Urtanes." Hands to the side, she nodded. "Go get some rest. You need it."

"What about James?"

"I've known James for a while now," General Falae said. "It's good of you to be concerned about him. I think he's scared of it because of what he's lost."

"Like your son?" Maia asked. "Was it... smart to get them together?"

General Falae blinked. "I don't know. I don't know everything, sadly," she joked with a soft huff. "I think that's something that we'd only see in the future. Was it smart? In James' condition, I didn't want to force a meeting between them, but at the same time what else could I do? Eventually, they would seek each other out. I know that's what James wanted when he joined the Elites. He wanted to find Rayan, whether to ask a question or try and find something which remained of their life, I can't say." Weariness aged her commander officer in a moment. "I've been at this war for a long time. I've seen friends change in front of me, I've lost friends to the conflict. I can't rightly say I haven't changed either."

Maia went quiet, and General Falae bowed to her.

"Do you think this war will end?" Maia asked before she left her.

"Everything ends, Maia," she said.

General Falae disappeared into the dark with a steady gait.