Setting: Point Koro Docking Station – Outer Transfer Deck
Time: Transit End | 0.014 Concord Cycles since departure
Tags: re-entry, freighter wake, Cycle-kin memory, Orion presence, Levan banter
The hull groaned—low, unhurried—a spinal sound that made CirrusV feel hollow in the chest.
His bracer seat gave one final hiss, clamping with the soft finality of ritual. Across from him, Levan Draak stretched long-limbed and slow, a constellation of pops along shoulder and spine.
The scar under his jaw caught the light like old solder.
“Bed,” Levan said, reverent. “An actual, planet-stilled bed. Droog, I might cry.”
CirrusV gave a nod. Not toward the bed. Toward what lived beyond it.
A face.
Cycle-kin.
Still there. Still real.
They’d been co-shifted since Drift departure. Two freighter cores between them. Rehydration gone wrong. An eating contest Levan swore was tradition.
“I didn’t say whose tradition,” he’d laughed, mouth full of something unnaturally pink.
Orion had stayed quiet until spice-rush nearly took CirrusV offline.
“Serves you right,” Orion had muttered.
“Boredom makes fools of warriors.”
Now, outside, the stars slowed. Their drift turning to pause.
A sequence of lights began to blink across the curve of Point Koro’s outer mesh.
A soft chime confirmed handshake.
Mesh active. You’re here.
The docking clamps exhaled like lungs under pressure. A breath held too long.
CirrusV stayed still. Unstrapped, but unmoved.
The webbing had left its mark—a diagonal across the collarbone. The kind you forget until someone brushes it.
“Disembark when ready,” said the ship’s mesh-voice.
No more than condensation in the air.
He stood. Gravity reasserted itself slowly, knees blinking awake.
By the threshold, he paused.
The corridor ahead pulsed in soft gradient—Koro-blue into Aevyros-white.
A palette designed for diplomats. Pilgrims.
He had been both.
Now, neither.
Behind him: 0.014 cycles of silence.
Drop-seat breath.
Orion, arriving half a beat too late to be memory.
“You’re walking like a tourist.”
“My legs were sealed five days.”
“Not my fault your body still runs debug mode.”
“Still blaming Jallen?”
“Always. It’s safe.”
And Levan.
Still riffing. Still irreverent.
The banter had weight. Kept the air from thinning.
He entered the transit tunnel—a slow arc lined with sunward glass. Below, Caleront unfurled in greys and green, citylights stitched like old lace.
He stopped. Not from awe.
From the ache of return.
Somewhere down there:
Shared quarters. Leloma overfilling the kettle orb. Veinshot steeping in white ceramic. Shardnuts. Steam. Soft curses.
Uniforms neither of them respected.
A rooftop climbed in silence.
Grief, unnamed.
The air changed—metal polish and recirc pressure.
He turned toward the shuttle bay.
Cargo trolleys whispered past.
Levan had peeled off toward claim, already narrating his future nap.
No one looked at CirrusV.
But he felt seen.
“You didn’t tell Leloma you were coming, did you?”
“No.”
“Still afraid she’ll see through you?”
“I’m hoping she does.”
A boarding chime pulsed once, twice.
Bay 6 lit gold. Trenhalis Origin. Private Dock.
Jallen.
Early. Or just always exact.
CirrusV stepped forward.
Breath even.
Tattoo quiet.
He said, to no one in particular:
“Let’s try again.”