Ryven Voss held onto what remained of Kael Ardent's mech like letting go would allow the universe itself to take him.
The frame barely looked functional anymore.
Armor hung open in jagged blackened layers while exposed structural ribs glowed faintly beneath ruptured plating. Entire sections of the chassis had melted inward where the enemy strike hit hardest, metal warped so violently it no longer resembled engineered construction.
One stabilizer was gone completely.
Another fired in uneven bursts, sputtering like it was trying to remember how to function.
Emergency lights flickered weakly through shattered armor seams while warning alarms screamed across every surviving subsystem inside the cockpit.
And inside it—
Kael was still alive.
Ryven didn't look anywhere else.
His own mech stayed locked against the ruined frame in tight controlled alignment, magnetic clamps securing both units together while overlapping shield systems compensated for Kael's catastrophic structural failure.
Every movement deliberate.
Every correction exact.
Nothing wasted.
"Stabilizing," Ryven said quietly.
His voice sounded wrong against the battlefield.
Too calm.
Too controlled.
Around them, the wrong sky still burned.
Federation reinforcements tore into the outer engagement zones while broken academy fleets struggled to reform through debris fields and collapsing distortion currents. Explosions lit the void in violent white bursts while damaged ships drifted half-dead through shredded formation lines.
None of it touched Ryven's focus.
Only Kael.
Torres' voice crashed into the channel first, words tripping over each other as data flooded his systems.
"Core integrity still exists somehow—which frankly feels medically offensive—forward chassis failure catastrophic, left-side neural systems are fried, life support instability climbing—Ryven that hit should have turned him into space dust—"
"I know."
Ryven didn't need the numbers.
He could feel it.
Through proximity systems. Through neural bleed. Through the unstable synchronization still flickering between their machines.
The thin line between alive—
and not.
Then—
"…Ry…"
Weak.
Distorted.
But real.
Ryven's hands tightened slightly against the controls.
"I'm here."
Immediate.
Absolute.
A rough uneven breath crackled through the damaged channel.
"…took…the whole thing…"
"You were in the way."
A broken sound followed.
Not quite laughter.
But close enough.
"…yeah…"
Good.
Still conscious.
Still fighting.
That was enough.
Then Ryven moved one hand off the controls.
Mei noticed first.
"…Ryven."
Her voice sharpened instantly.
Torres froze mid-sentence.
"…wait."
Across the tactical overlays, Ryven manually rerouted portions of his own auxiliary life support directly into Kael's shattered mech through the stabilization clamps locking both frames together.
Emergency oxygen reserves.
Thermal regulation.
Neural dampening support.
He split them from his own systems without hesitation.
Immediately warning symbols exploded across Ryven's cockpit.
AUXILIARY LIFE SUPPORT REDUCED.
PILOT SUSTAINABILITY DEGRADED.
SAFE COMBAT PARAMETERS EXCEEDED.
Ryven ignored all of them.
Inside Admiral Choi's fleet, several med officers stared openly at the projection.
"He rerouted his own reserves…"
"That lowers his survival rate."
"No," Dr. Rho corrected quietly while watching the feed.
"It lowers his priority."
Because Ryven had already decided whose survival mattered more.
Back in the field—
Kael's failing systems stabilized slightly.
Only slightly.
But enough.
His breathing evened marginally through the damaged comm line.
"…you did not…"
"You need them more."
A weak laugh crackled through the static.
"…that's romantic."
Torres nearly exploded.
"THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO FLIRT THROUGH TRAUMATIC LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE."
Even Mei sounded exhausted now.
"Torres."
"YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT."
Honestly—
he was.
Then Mei went completely silent.
Her tactical overlays widened sharply across every connected system.
"…Ryven."
The tone changed immediately.
Focused.
Dangerous.
Ryven adjusted position around Kael's drifting mech without hesitation.
"What."
Mei's voice stayed clipped and precise.
"Multiple hostile signatures breaking from the primary engagement."
Torres leaned forward over his console.
"…those aren't interceptors."
Then his expression dropped.
"Oh no."
Enemy units detached themselves from the battlefield and accelerated directly toward Ryven's position.
Not standard attack formations.
Cleaner spacing.
Controlled vectors.
Specialized.
Mei's eyes narrowed as additional overlays populated across the tactical grid.
"…containment units."
That landed heavily across every open channel.
Because everyone understood what that meant.
Not kill units.
Capture units.
Torres' voice dropped lower than before.
"They changed objectives."
Ryven already knew.
The moment Kael's scent spread across the battlefield—
everything changed.
An Omega pilot surviving the wrong sky. An Omega synchronized with Ryven Voss. An Omega important enough for Ryven to abandon battlefield doctrine entirely.
That was no longer battlefield information.
That was an objective.
Mei's overlays expanded again.
"And there's more."
Torres stared at the secondary vectors approaching behind the containment squads.
"…extraction craft."
Silence followed.
Cold.
Immediate.
Enemy extraction vessels accelerated behind the containment units while layered defensive formations expanded around them.
Not an assault.
An operation.
"They're trying to take Kael," Mei said quietly.
Inside Admiral Choi's fleet—
Cassian Benton went pale.
"No."
Around him, younger cadets stared at the tactical projection while emergency alarms still flashed across damaged corridors.
The realization spread unevenly through the support fleet.
Not the frontline.
Not the strongest pilots.
Kael.
They wanted Kael alive.
Back in the void—
Ryven's posture changed instantly.
Not emotional.
Worse.
Focused.
Every movement around Kael tightened protectively while his mech shifted fully between the incoming hostile vectors and the shattered frame behind him.
Torres reacted immediately.
"Ryven, incoming hostile containment squads—eight fast movers, two extraction craft behind them."
Mei overlaid trajectories instantly.
"They are ignoring every other battlefield target."
Because nothing else mattered anymore.
Ryven's voice stayed calm.
"Distance."
"Thirty seconds," Mei answered.
Torres corrected instantly.
"Twenty-eight if they stop pretending they're subtle."
"Torres."
"THEY ARE VERY AGGRESSIVELY NOT BEING SUBTLE."
Kael's weak voice crackled again through the damaged channel.
"…that's bad…"
Torres threw one hand into the air dramatically despite nobody being able to see him.
"YES KAEL. ASTONISHINGLY BAD."
Despite everything—
Kael laughed weakly again.
Still alive.
Still himself.
That helped more than Torres wanted to admit.
Ryven's targeting systems shifted again.
The battlefield disappeared from his focus entirely.
No frontline.
No spine.
No tactical objectives.
Only vectors approaching Kael.
Nothing else mattered.
Mei saw it happen in real time.
"…Ryven."
Because his combat pattern changed again.
Cleaner now.
Colder.
Not rage like before.
Purpose.
The kind that frightened experienced pilots far more.
Inside Admiral Choi's fleet, Dr. Rho looked at the tactical feed once more before turning sharply toward the younger cadets still frozen around the operations deck.
"Move."
The command cracked through the room instantly.
"Emergency containment procedures. Internal bulkhead sealing teams report immediately." "Med crews prepare for possible boarding trauma." "If those extraction units break through, we do not panic."
Cassian still stared at Kael's signal on the projection.
Alive.
Barely.
Drifting beside Ryven.
Then—
the alarms shifted tone.
External threat warnings escalated across the support fleet.
Enemy vectors approaching.
Fast.
Back in the wrong sky—
the containment units accelerated directly toward Ryven and Kael through burning debris and shattered wreckage.
And Ryven Voss—
still sharing his own failing life support with Kael Ardent—
prepared to meet them head-on.