As if in answer, the Captain shouted.
“Hold!”
“But—!”
“It’s not time yet. Hold!”
The very moment the gravitational pull from the collapsing planet’s core and the repulsive force bursting outward in all directions surged and the balance broke — the Captain’s golden eyes flashed.
“Now! Ignite all remaining engines!”
“Engines twelve and thirteen — final ignition!”
The ship, spewing violet engine flames, began to slowly pull free from the gravity clutching at its tail. He had not missed the instant the balance of forces broke.
WHOOOOSH!
The ship pressed forward without hesitation along its calculated trajectory. Soon the flash of the explosion grew distant, and the force gripping the hull subsided. The shuddering vibrations faded along with it, and the warning lights that had drenched the interior in red returned to white. The ship slipped out and away into the pitch-black expanse of space.
“Haah…”
“Phew…”
The crew members sank heavily into their seats, bodies drained. But the Captain had no time to feel relief that the dangerous moment had passed.
“Where’s Obel?”
At his urgent question, the woman standing beside him answered.
“Waiting in the medical bay.”
“Does he know the situation?”
“Yes, I relayed it to him immediately.”
“Thank you — saves me time explaining.”
Luka, having lost consciousness, was turning as cold as a corpse in the man’s arms. The man had appeared composed up until the moment Luka closed his eyes, but in truth he was gripped by a frantic, maddening anxiety.
That Luka might really die like this. No — at this point, the odds of that were high.
Without pausing even to catch his breath, the man readjusted his hold on the small body. The body without two legs and one arm was unbelievably light. It had the strange, unfamiliar weight of holding a doll.
The man’s steps quickened. Crossing the corridors of the ship — the Nautilus — he stretched his long legs in wide, rapid strides, nearly running. The signs of life coming from the Luka in his arms were growing fainter by the moment.
“Obel!”
At last, the medical bay door slid open. The cool, sterile scent characteristic of a sanitized space drifted out. The man named Obel, standing alongside a medical assistance robot, spoke with calm but swift precision.
“Set the patient on the operating table.”
The moment he lowered Luka — whom he’d been cradling in his arms — blood spattered and poured onto the floor below. Obel looked at the tiny body and grimaced as though the sight disgusted him, then moved quickly.
“You two, disinfect and come back in.”
Obel inserted dozens of transparent nano-tubes into Luka’s ravaged body as it lay on the operating table. In the meantime, the Captain headed toward the disinfectant spray room and spoke to the woman.
“There will still be Aegis ships in the vicinity. They may pursue us. Until we’ve broken away safely, you’re in command of the ship. I’ll be attending Luka’s surgery alone.”
The woman nodded with a composed expression.
“Understood.”
“If Aegis gets too close, respond with force.”
“I don’t have that authority. That falls to you, Captain.”
“I’ll take command once Luka is saved — until then, you’re responsible.”
A slight crack appeared in her composed expression. A moment later came a reluctant, unwilling answer.
“…Understood.”
The Captain peeled off his blood-soaked coat and tossed his shoes and gloves beside it without a second thought. He disinfected his face and hair — drenched in cold sweat — and returned to the operating room.
Obel was in the midst of an intense surgery, assisted by the robot.
“Hemostatic coagulant nanobots injection complete. Cellular regeneration induction laser — maintain output at 40%.”
At Obel’s commands, the medical assistance machines moved into action. At the same time, Obel’s hands reached through the air, moving deftly across a holographic interface.
“Beginning removal of necrotic tissue.”
In place of a scalpel, he used a photon cauterizer to precisely excise the dead tissue. Where the cauterizer passed, instead of blood, a faint blue afterglow remained as the wound was sealed immediately.
“Moving into neural system repair. Activating bio-synapse link.”
Obel injected liquid artificial neural network material into the severed cross-sections of Luka’s shoulder and thighs. The transparent liquid entered along Luka’s nerves and spread outward as though finding its own path.
Luka’s body convulsed and recoiled at the brutal stimulation. But Obel continued his diagnosis without expression.
“The patient’s condition is too critical. Blood loss was far too severe. I’ve barely managed to stabilize it with synthetic blood, but if we don’t connect the prosthetics right now, the nerves could degenerate.”
At those words, the Captain gave a cool, level order.
“Kai — you heard that. Prepare the prosthetics.”
The Nautilus’s chief engineer Kai’s reply came through the comm port.
— Yeah, no.
“What do you mean, no?”
— We don’t have prosthetics on this ship that fit that patient’s body size. Everything on the Nautilus is adult-scale.
The Captain turned sharply toward the comm port, his expression tightening with agitation.
“There should be medical-grade ones.”
— Medical-grade is adult-scale too.
“What about resizing them right now to fit?”
— That’s not easy. Medical prosthetics are designed for treatment at that specific scale — you can’t just reassemble them however you like.
“Then use combat prosthetics!”
— We’d have to shave down and reconstruct the existing chrome frame at the nano level, and that’s even harder with combat prosthetics! Even rushing it, the modification alone would take a solid month.
That said, they couldn’t just attach whatever didn’t fit. Luka’s small body looked far too fragile to accept a mass of machinery. Forcing a mismatch would cause the body to reject it and fail to hold.
It wasn’t a situation where pushing through by brute force was an option. The Captain’s expression twisted immediately.
“So he has to live like that in the meantime?”
Obel pointed out flatly.
“Right now, whether he even survives is uncertain.”
“Don’t say that. Save him. Period.”
“Hmm… alright. I’ll do my best.”
While the Captain wrestled with finding another solution, Luka’s tightly closed lashes gave a faint flutter. The consciousness that had sunk deep within him seemed to flicker — like an old incandescent bulb struggling to stay lit. Each time, the two men’s conversation reached his ears as a muffled drone, as though heard from underwater.
I… didn’t die…?
Blurry movement swam at the edges of his dimming vision. He couldn’t make out specifically who was doing what. But instinctively, he understood that these people were working desperately, tirelessly, to keep him alive.
Why… just leave me be…
In his hazy consciousness, Luka instinctively knew that his limbs weren’t moving. In his mind, he tried to curl his fingertips — but the nerves were severed at his shoulder and thighs. A body that didn’t respond was a horrifying thing.
You should just let me die… what are you doing…
Luka tried to open his mouth. But no sound came from between his lips, caked with blood and dust.
Obel, noticing this, mistook it for a will to live and brightened.
“The patient is regaining consciousness.”
The Captain, pausing his thoughts for a moment, moved to stand beside the operating table. He wrapped his hand around Luka’s one remaining left hand and called out carefully.
“Luka — can you hear me?”
Luka’s lashes trembled faintly. His dazed eyes held no focus. There was no way to tell whether he couldn’t distinguish shapes, or whether the pain had unmoored him from his senses entirely.
What was certain was that those eyes held neither the will to live nor any yearning for it. That look made the Captain anxious.
There were many who could not endure the aftermath of war and suffered under its trauma. It was not uncommon for them to despair at their circumstances and give up on their own lives. And yet — how could this small boy possibly bear the shock of watching his entire world, his home, be destroyed?
He would have to be cared for with great delicacy, to prevent exactly that. Ease his pain. Keep him from drowning in loneliness and despair. That was what the Captain needed to do for Luka.
“Hold on just a little longer. A very clever engineer is going to make you a beautiful pair of arms and legs that fit you perfectly. In a month, you’ll be walking again.”
The man’s voice was kind to a degree that seemed almost unnatural. As if that warmth alone could reconnect severed blood vessels — it gave that kind of illusion. Luka wanted to pull his hand away, but he had no strength even to move a single finger.
“You have to hold on. I’ll be right here. You’re not alone.”
The man pressed his lips softly to the back of Luka’s hand and whispered. Luka thought that warmth was a deception. No one had any right to perform such hypocrisy in the face of the pain he was feeling.
Kill me.
His lips moved without sound. The Captain recognized the shape of those words — and looked away. Luka gasped and mouthed, like a fish pulled from the water, unable to breathe.
Please… kill me…
“Obel! Administer more painkillers!”
“Got it.”
Through the nano-tubes connected across his entire body, unknown fluids flowed in. At the same time, everything before Luka’s eyes swirled and scattered into chaos. He sank again into the deep, dark swamp of unconsciousness. It was the moment it was decided — the extension of his hellish life.
