“Juno,” he said, keying his comm. “Prepare medical bay. And wipe the last six hours from the local sensor logs.”

He pried the emergency hatch using a manual spreader. The interior was dark and cold. A single emergency lumen stick glowed weakly in the corner, illuminating a figure strapped into a crash couch.

He pulled up a chair. He was exhausted, hungry, and fifty years old. But as the storm raged outside and the woman slept, Rafian Kael felt something he had not felt in a very long time.

But he did not stop.

He carried the woman back up the gantry, the winch straining against the storm that was just beginning to howl across the Scar. The wind carried shards of ice that pinged against his helmet like shrapnel. His arms burned. His chest heaved.