The freighter Rivera’s Reprieve sat where it had sat for as long as Tess could remember: docked, grounded, and going nowhere. But the lights were on, the air recyclers hummed their familiar low drone, and the galley smelled like coffee that was almost good enough to drink. Home, in every way that mattered.
Asha stood in the main corridor with her bag over one shoulder, turning a slow circle. Her amber eyes tracked the hull seams, the cable runs along the ceiling, the junction boxes with their hand-labeled wiring. She reached out and ran her fingertips along the corridor wall, pressing lightly as if checking for vibrations.
“She’s grounded,” Asha said. “But you keep her like she could fly tomorrow.”
“She can’t,” Tess said. “But thanks.”
“Wasn’t a compliment. Was an observation.” Asha set her bag down beside the galley bench. “Ship this old, this maintained, means someone cares about function over appearance. Seen plenty crews let a grounded vessel rot. You didn’t.” She sat, stretching her legs under the table. “Feels like a ship. Good.”
Marcus poured coffee into three mismatched mugs and set them on the galley table. “The others should be here in about twenty minutes. You eat lunch?”
“They feed you in holding,” Asha said. “Wouldn’t call it food, but they feed you.”
“Then you’ll survive until dinner.”
Text appeared in Tess’s vision:
BEE: Asha’s biometrics suggest fatigue consistent with minimal sleep. Cortisol levels elevated but declining. She is relaxed here. Interesting.
Tess took a sip of coffee and said nothing.
The team arrived in ones and twos. Mikhail first, stepping through the freighter’s main hatch with a nod to Marcus and a polite greeting to Asha, who returned it with a measuring look. Yuki came next, rifle slung across her back, a bag of takeout dumplings in one hand that she deposited on the galley table without ceremony. Petra arrived last, which Tess suspected was deliberate. She walked in wearing civilian clothes that somehow still looked like armor, took in the galley, found the seat with the best sight lines—and sat.
The silence lasted exactly long enough to feel intentional.
“So,” Petra said. “You’re the healer who punched a Network officer.”
“Broke his nose,” Asha corrected. “Need to keep the details straight.”
“Over paperwork.”
“Over a man dying while some pencil-neck wanted forms filled.” Asha met Petra’s gaze. “Would’ve done it different if there was time. Wasn’t time. So I did what was needed.”
Petra studied her. Tess recognized the look, the same one Sara wore when she was reading a room. Petra had learned it from her mother, refined it through years of watching Tertian politics play out over dinner tables. The assessment was quick and thorough: posture, hands, eyes, the way Asha held herself in a room full of strangers.
“How long have you been Delving?” Petra asked.
“Close to ten years.”
“On Tertius-Prime?”
“Wherever would have me, here’s the most recent. Came here not too long ago.” Asha leaned back. “Heard you had Alpha trouble. Figured a healer might be useful.”
“The Alpha’s gone,” Yuki said through a mouthful of dumpling. “These guys took it out.”
“That so?” Asha’s mouth curved. “So now I’m here, credits spent, no Alpha to fight. Figured I’d stick around, find work. Floor 2 parties need healers bad.”
“They do,” Mikhail said. “Three parties dead in the last rotation.”
“Know the numbers. Applied to two of those groups.” Asha examined her coffee mug. “Didn’t work out.”
Petra’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Why not?”
“Because Veldi make people nervous, yeah?” Asha set the mug down. “We don’t do polite the way you do. Don’t soften things, don’t dance around problems, don’t make speeches about feelings before telling you the truth. Most planet-folk find that…” She searched for a word. “Abrasive.”
“And the food,” Marcus said from the kitchen doorway.
Asha pointed at him. “And the food.”
Yuki looked between them. “What’s wrong with the food?”
“Nothing wrong with the food,” Asha said. “Food is perfect. Your stomachs are weak.”
Marcus almost laughed. “I worked with Veldi crews on Meridian Station as a kid. Good people, the best you could ask for in a bad spot. But the galley…” He shook his head. “I spent a week in the med bay after a farewell dinner.”
“That was farewell food. Farewell food is strong. Today is just regular.”
“Regular is enough,” Marcus said.
Tess let the conversation run. This was part of the process. Let Asha meet the team; let the team take her measure. Yuki was already warming to her, leaning in, recognizing a kindred bluntness. Mikhail asked careful questions about combat healing that Asha answered with field-tested specificity. Petra was the holdout, but Petra was always the holdout. It was what made her valuable.
“Your skills,” Yuki said. “What are we working with?”
Asha held up three fingers. “Got [RAPID MEND], picked that up at Level 1. Accelerates tissue repair through direct contact. Works best with the right compounds applied first.” She tapped her medical kit on the bench beside her. “Got [PURGE] at Level 3. Strips toxins, venoms, radiation, Aether exposure to a degree. Without it, you’re treating symptoms while the cause kills them. And [EMERGENCY HEAL] at Level 10. That one’s for when everything goes to shit and you need someone standing right now. Burns through my AP fast, but it works.”
“Field Apothecary Class,” Asha offered. “Evolved from Medic at 10. Most people don’t know the class name. Just call it healer.”
“Sounds useful,” Tess said.
“Uh huh.” Asha’s eyes held on Tess for a beat longer than casual. The [ANALYZE] overlay still lingered in her peripheral vision, the stats she’d pulled when Asha first sat down. Level 11 Field Apothecary. The highest level on the team.
“Like what you see, Rivera?” Asha’s grin was sharp as she leaned forward.
“Sorry,” Tess kept her voice flat.
“Sure you are.” Asha let it go, but the grin didn’t fade entirely.
BEE: Her [RAPID MEND] interacts with the chemical compounds in her custom preparations. The skill optimizes application, dosage, and timing. A standard user would achieve perhaps 30% efficacy with those tools. She achieves near-maximum. This is worth noting.
Tess obviously noted it.
Petra had been quiet throughout the skills discussion. She leaned forward now.
“Veldi don’t usually Delve,” she said. “You said you’ve been at it for ten years. Why?”
It was a good question, and Tess could tell from Asha’s expression that she respected it.
“Most Veldi stay on ships, stations. Don’t like planets, don’t like gravity wells, don’t like being stuck.” Asha spread her hands. “But dungeons are where the money is. Healers are valuable everywhere, sure. Stations pay decent, ships pay what they can. But Delving?” She snapped her fingers. “Loot and levels, plenty. Pays better than anything else if you’re good enough to survive it.”
“And you’re good enough,” Petra said. Not a question.
“Been doing it ten years and I’m still breathing, yeah? That’s the only credential that matters.” Asha paused. “My people think I’m half crazy for going planetside at all. But the class made sense of it. Got [RAPID MEND] my first day, and I knew. Could feel it, the way the skill wanted to be used. Not in some station med bay stitching up dock workers—in the field, under pressure, where speed is the difference between alive and dead.”
Marcus caught Tess’s eye from across the galley and gave her the smallest nod. She’s solid. It helped to see her father confirm it.
“I need to handle some logistics before tomorrow.” Marcus pushed off the doorframe. “You’re all welcome to the galley. Asha, Tess mentioned dinner. If you’re going where I think you’re going…” He looked at the team with an expression caught between sympathy and amusement. “My stomach sends its regrets.”
“Coward,” Asha said.
“Survivor,” Marcus corrected, and left.
*
The restaurant did not inspire confidence.
Tucked into a back alley of Sector 8, the establishment occupied a space that had started life as an industrial supply closet and been converted through sheer stubbornness rather than any formal process. The sign above the door was hand-painted in a script Tess didn’t recognize. The door itself was a salvaged cargo panel that scraped against the floor when Asha shoved it open.
Inside, the air was thick with oil smoke and a pungent sharpness that Tess’s sinuses registered as an act of war. Four fryers dominated the back wall, each one a piece of converted machinery that still bore serial numbers from its previous life. The cook, a broad-shouldered man with burn scars mapping both forearms, looked up from a sizzling basket and grinned.
“Asha! Back again. Bringing friends this time?”
“Brought my new team. Feed them proper, yeah?”
“Proper it is.” He was already reaching for a basket of ingredients Tess couldn’t identify.
The seating consisted of three long benches crammed against the walls. Other diners occupied two of them: dockworkers, fabrication crews, a few people in coveralls so oil-stained they could pass for uniforms. The place was full. Whatever it lacked in ambiance, it made up for in loyalty.
They squeezed onto the remaining bench. Petra sat with the rigid posture of someone trying not to touch any surface she didn’t have to. Yuki was already examining the menu, which was a handwritten list nailed to the wall. Mikhail studied the fryers with the wary attention he usually reserved for hostile spawns.
“Don’t order,” Asha said. “I’ll handle it.” She rattled off an order to the cook in a clipped cadence that was half common words, and probably half Veldi.
“What did you just order?” Yuki asked.
“Everything good.”
The food arrived in waves. Battered protein strips fried in oil that shimmered with an iridescent quality Tess associated with machine lubricant. Thick-cut tubers coated in a dark spice blend that made her eyes water from across the table. Something wrapped in leaves that leaked grease through the wrapping. And a communal bowl of a thick, amber sauce that smelled exactly like used engine degreaser.
“Dip everything in that,” Asha instructed, pointing at the sauce. “Trust me.”
Tess dipped a strip and bit down. Salt hit first, then heat, then a sweetness from either the sauce or her taste buds incinerating, and then a slow burn that settled into her sinuses and stayed.
Across the table, Mikhail chewed with the careful deliberation of a man too polite to spit anything out. Petra had stopped chewing; her expression locked in a diplomatic neutrality that would have done Sara proud. Yuki was still eating, though her pace had slowed and her eyes were watering.
Asha ate with obvious pleasure, tearing into the protein strips as if she’d finally found what she’d been missing. “Veldi ships don’t have fancy kitchens, yeah? Got fryers and whatever oil is on hand. This?” She gestured at the spread. “This is home cooking. Reminds me of the galley on Kovacs.”
“You were on Kovacs? That’s a long way away from Tertius-Prime.” Tess asked, partly for information and partly for a distraction from the taste.
“Three years, give or take. Station needed medics bad after a refinery accident. Stayed because the work was steady and the crew was good.” Asha mopped sauce with a strip of fried protein. “Veldi communities on stations are tight. Everyone works, everyone eats, nobody asks where you came from as long as you pull weight. Good system.”
“Why leave?” Yuki asked.
“Credits dried up. Kovacs got a proper med bay funded by one of the corporate guilds. Automated half the work, brought in planet-trained doctors with fancy degrees. Didn’t need a Delver-healer anymore.” She shrugged. “So I went where healers are needed most. Dungeons always need healers.”
Petra had managed to swallow. “You’ve Delved on multiple worlds?”
“Yep. My favorite was on one of those Veridian worlds. Seven? Maybe twelve, which was a shitshow from start to finish. Party leader had more money than sense. Got a lot of people killed being a rich kid with nothing to lose but people.”
A chill passed through Yuki’s expression. She set down her food.
“Nobility?” Yuki asked.
Asha looked at her. Recognition passed between them. The shared experience of watching someone with authority make bad decisions and other people die for it.
“Corporate heir,” Asha said. “Same problem, different name.”
Yuki picked her food back up. She didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t need to.
The conversation settled into an easier rhythm after that. Asha’s med kit came out on the table between plates. Stims in marked vials, healing hypos in containers scavenged from engine part packaging, dermal patches in a roll probably cut from hull repair material. A portable diagnostic scanner held together with electrical tape and determination. Half the medicines were colors that pharmaceuticals shouldn’t be.
“Did you make these yourself?” Petra asked, turning a murky vial between her fingers.
“The good ones, yeah. Station pharmacies charge triple for half the potency. I know what works. My class optimizes tool usage. Stims, hypos, patches. Things that would be maybe a third effective in someone else’s hands, I get near-maximum out of.” She plucked the vial from Petra’s hand with practiced ease. “This one’s a coagulant accelerator. Looks like swamp water, works like magic. Stopped arterial bleeding in under four seconds with it on Kovacs.”
“Four seconds,” Mikhail said.
“Four seconds. Man had a hull breach shard through his femoral. Without the coagulant and [RAPID MEND] together, he bleeds out in ninety.” She tucked the vial away. “The skill is half of it. The preparations are the other half. Can’t optimize what isn’t there.”
BEE: I would like to point out that her [PURGE] skill alone justifies recruitment. Aether exposure treatment without a dedicated purge ability requires the medical chamber, which is not portable. She is a mobile treatment option for the team. This is significant.
Tess filed that away. Bee was right, but now wasn’t the time.
Then Asha ordered dessert.
It arrived in a clay bowl, steaming, and the smell hit the table like a physical force. Fermented, sharp, and layered with an undertone that reminded Tess of the time a waste line had burst in the sector and the resulting chemical spill had required actual bio-warfare teams to clean it up.
The diners at the next bench promptly relocated.
Petra stood up. “I’ll wait outside.”
Mikhail followed without a word. Yuki lasted three more seconds before her eyes began streaming, and she retreated with her hand over her nose, muttering about chemical warfare.
Asha spooned a generous portion into her mouth and chewed with her eyes closed. Bliss. “You want some, Tess?”
“I’m… uh… good.”
“Suit yourself.” Another spoonful. “Even most Veldi won’t touch this stuff. Acquired taste.”
Tess watched her eat, breathing through her mouth, and decided this was her limit. She patted Asha on the shoulder and joined the others outside, where the Sector 8 alley air felt clean by comparison.
Yuki leaned against the wall, still wiping her eyes. “I understand now. Why the other teams…”
“It’s more than the food,” Petra said. Her arms were crossed, but her posture had shifted. Less guarded than at the Reprieve. Almost refreshing. Almost.
“She’s good,” Petra said. “I’ll give her that.”
“She’s better than good,” Yuki said.
They were a block ahead of Asha by the time the Sector 8 corridor straightened out toward the tram station. Tess could see her behind them, strolling at her own pace, eating whatever that rank dessert was from a container, looking more content than she had all day.
“Do you think her [PURGE] skill works on her breath?” Tess muttered.
Mikhail huffed a quiet laugh.
Asha caught up with them at the tram platform. She fell into step beside Tess as the others drifted ahead, Yuki already talking to Mikhail about positioning drills for tomorrow.
They walked in silence for a few meters. Tess let it sit.
“Level 11,” Tess said.
Asha glanced at her. Her eyes sharpened. “Do your homework, yeah?”
“I try.”
“Figured someone on the team would check.” Asha’s pace didn’t change. “Most parties I’ve approached, they don’t even ask. Don’t care about the number. Care about what I look like, how I talk—whether I make them comfortable.” She let that sit for a beat. “Comfortable don’t keep you alive on Floor 2.”
“You’re the highest level on the team,” Tess said. “By two levels.”
“That a problem?”
“It’s why we want you.”
Asha was quiet for a few steps. The tram platform lights cast long shadows ahead of them, and the distant hum of the transit system vibrated through the floor.
“Teams don’t want a healer who talks back,” Asha said. “Don’t want someone who tells the party leader they’re making bad calls. Don’t want Veldi directness when they’re used to people who nod and smile and let them walk into a killbox.” She looked at Tess. “That going to be a problem with your people?”
“Petra’s going to argue with you. Yuki’s going to talk your ear off. Mikhail’s going to be quiet about it, but he’ll tell you when you’re wrong.” Tess shrugged. “We don’t need comfortable. We need someone who keeps us alive and tells us the truth.”
Asha stopped walking. Tess stopped with her.
For a moment, the corridor noise filled the space between them—fabrication plants cycling down, a cargo loader rattling in the distance, the tram humming closer.
“Rivera,” Asha said. The same words she’d used that morning, but warmer now. “Said you might be the real thing. Starting to believe.”
“We’ll see,” Tess said. “Tomorrow we show you the rest of the operation. The parts Marcus couldn’t talk about in a holding cell.”
“Looking forward to it.” Asha started walking again. “And Rivera?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you saw when you were staring at me earlier.” Asha didn’t look back. “When you’re ready to tell what you were doing, I’ll listen. No rush. Felt like a skill, yeah?”
Tess watched her go, feeling a wave of goosebumps run up her back. People could feel when she used [ANALYZE]? That was news to her.
The tram arrived. They boarded with the others, and the car rattled toward Sector 7 in comfortable silence. Yuki dozed against the window while Mikhail sat with his hands folded, digesting both the food and the day. Across the car, Petra caught Tess’s eye and gave the smallest nod.
She’ll do.
Tess almost smiled.