What May Come

Not All Battles

Pacing the length of Fanthara's infirmary did nothing to lessen Nura's anxiety. It only gave it room to fester. Each step from one side of the sterile, luma-lit chamber to the other stoked the embers of her frustration. She was accustomed to lives and deaths hanging on her actions, so being excluded was altogether new to her. The doctors aboard the Fanthara were competent and skilled, but Nura would rather have been the one seeing to Canas' injuries.

She was grateful for General Trem granting her leave to board the Fanthara while the Eighteenth Fleet moved in to secure orbit above base camp. Her team on the surface was more than capable of seeing to things for a few hours, and Trem saw it fit to call Nura's absence a liaison with supporting forces. The gesture was appreciated, though Nura knew her duty was to be down on Jenitar. Now that the Jikarran blockade was more or less broken and Confed could send reinforcements, the Jenitar Campaign was all but won. The only thing left was to take roll of what the fighting had cost.

Nura found her eyes darting towards the hatch into the surgery room. It'd been three hours since the Fanthara's chief medical officer began the first of many procedures. This surgery wasn't within Nura's area of expertise, but she'd still rather have been inside. Even if just to hold her brother's hand.

She was out of her combat armor, instead wearing a gray uniform of the Service. It wasn't her dress grays, lacking in the pinned jewels and campaign ribbons she'd garnered in her six years with Confed. It bore her rank insignia and nothing else. Nura had only lingered in base camp long enough to grab a spare uniform and a few items before accompanying Canas to the Fanthara in Genna's Sparrowcraft.

Nura was only grateful she had time since coming aboard to visit the showers. It'd been weeks since her last shower, and she couldn't bear having her fur coated in Canas' blood a moment longer. Bathed but no less exhausted, Nura could do nothing more than wait to receive word.

Pacing continued uninterrupted. It went on for perhaps another hour before the hiss of a pressure hatch snapped Nura out of her feedback loop of anxiety. She stopped in place and looked immediately towards the surgery door. It remained closed. From the infirmary entrance behind her, someone entered.

"Hey, Daj."

Nura kept her eyes on the surgery door. Her lip trembled, and she fought to keep a lid on the emotions straining to burst out of her. "I'm so sorry."

Meras made hushing sounds as she came up behind Nura. Her arms enfolded around Nura's waist and pulled her close. Nura held on to Meras' hands, looking down at the familiar speckled white coat of her arms.

It all rushed back into her. Nura felt everything she'd ever felt for Meras return in a cascade. The warmth, the friendship, and the many feelings Nura hadn't yet given names to. She'd been so young then and hadn't realized sides of herself she was then unaware of. Couldn't have been aware of, not while surrounded by the expectations of the Nomadic Fleet. Now, Nura knew herself, and she had a name for what her heart held for Meras from the very beginning.

"You came for me," Nura whispered.

"Course I did. Think I'd leave my best friend on some rock with an army of insane cyborgs? Not on your life, Daj. I had the vectors plotted before I finished reading the intel."

Nura turned in Meras' arms to face her. "It interests me how the captain of a tramp freighter came by classified Confed intelligence."

"Yeah, me too. Showed up in my comms account without explanation. Origin stream tagged it as coming from some bot mechanic from the Shinkathi Hegemony."