Every achievement somehow meant more work for him, not less. Even though ten other lab technicians dallied through the open space preparing stations, the pressure of attaining yet another success fell mostly on him. Everyone expected him to keep doing what he’d always done: the impossible. And maybe he could have accomplished the impossible if he hadn’t wasted so much time chasing Tayel. He might’ve been able to do some of the work on the mothership. Might’ve already finished. But instead, he’d thrown away three days for nothing. Stupid. He wasn’t any closer to curing his illness than he was when he started.
Iselglith peered over his tablet. “Sir?”
Ruxbane sighed. “Forgive me, Iselglith, you’ll have to repeat that.”
“O-of course. W-we’re nearly certain all Modnik’s indoctrinated troops have returned to the Isle. There are about twenty raiders stationed to Cryzoar who are, um, unaccounted for, sir, but it’s assumed they perished when our carrier crashed.”
Ruxbane resisted the dull heat in the front of his skull, the desire to rip apart the workstation before him. That ship’s sacrifice was supposed to end Cryzoar. It should have been a warning to the pitiful resistance rising up against the Rokkir — a final display of power and a solidified victory. Instead, its destruction was entirely wasted. Cryzoar’s salvation would become a flicker of hope for any survivors. It had been a stupid error. One more wasted effort.
“S-scouts are surveying the debris now, sir, as well as the surviving outpost — Kalanie. A-at a distance of course, sir. A-as you ordered.” Iselglith flicked his eyes to the Varg-filled tubes and immediately flicked them back to his tablet screen. “Reports have been coming in at regular intervals.”
“Any mention of the girl?” Ruxbane’s stomach twisted; he sounded pathetic, whimpering, weak. A pithy display of someone who couldn’t accept they failed.
“I-I haven’t had a chance to scan the documents yet, sir. I will. At once.”
“It’s fine, Iselglith.”
Ruxbane gripped his aching head. He should have known his destiny was to die. He’d failed to capture Tayel, and now she was soot in the snow. There would be no more wasted effort trying to save himself; his job was to get the Rokkir as far as he could, then die. Fade into the aether — into nothing, like so many Rokkir said he should have been in the first place. Nothing.
“I’ll be back in a while,” he said to Iselglith. “The team here can begin work without me.”
“Oh, sir, there’s actually”—Iselglith fumbled with his tablet—“one of the, er, someone is coming to see you right now.”
“They can wait.”
Ruxbane left the lab. He walked out into the silent, stretching corridors. Aloma — home — had always been sparse. There weren’t a lot of Rokkir around after all, at least not in comparison to the megacities in Igador, or the dense urban planets forward scouts had reported in the core empire. Even so, the Isle was too empty, like a forewarning of what would be if he failed. It was an unwelcome thought, and he walked faster because of it.
He turned several hallways later into the medical wing, where hundreds of injured, indoctrinated troops received care. A queue formed along the back wall of the largely open space, leading out from the Return Center where portals to the Isle would have let the raiders out. Their faces were blank. Even grievously injured as some of them were, their eyes were dead, their expressions level. Ruxbane couldn’t conjure a hint of empathy for them. They needed to be fixed and redeployed. The Rokkir needed to hurry along with the rest of Ruxbane’s plan.
He stopped at the wing’s central station, where dozens of computers showed supply lists, urgent care monitors, and medical databases. He slipped past a smattering of wide-eyed nurses, and stopped a safe distance from the person he’d come to find.
“…So try the heterologous transfusion, and then if that doesn’t work, space him,” Jin continued. “We don’t have the time to waste on one indoctrinated soldier.”
“Yes ma’am.” The nurse nodded and ran off, a ledger full of medical documentation in hand.
Another nurse immediately replaced him, bringing a tablet to Jin’s attention, but Jin stopped her short when she saw Ruxbane. “Consult the database for now,” Jin said. “I’m taking a break.”
Ruxbane didn’t wait for the nurse to rattle off an affirmatory before leading the way toward the edge of the room, opposite where much of the care was taking place. He stopped at the wall. Jin arrived right behind him.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thank you, Jin. I needed that boost.”
“What are you doing here? I thought Doctor…” She trailed off. “Never mind. How are you feeling?”
“Not good.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m going to die.”
She frowned.
“It’s going to be before I can finish this. I destroyed one of our carriers, and lost my one chance at fixing this disease because of it. I feel like I’m reaching the end of what I can do.” The release came with regret. He was revealing too much, but it was hard to care after accepting mortality.
“I read some of the reports,” she murmured.
“I’m going to let everyone down, if I haven’t already. If I can’t do this, then—”
“The scientists and operations crew from the carrier didn’t seem let down. Nor everyone stationed here when those Varg appeared in the labs.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve never seen you like this. You’re obviously going through something, Ruxbane, but you have to know you’re an inspiration to everyone here, and to everyone back home. You should be celebrating right now.”
“Should be celebrating that I’m going to die?” he asked darkly.
“Well, about that…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he snapped. She didn’t get it. He’d said more than he should have, and like so many other things he’d done, it amounted to nothing. “I came because I wanted to apologize. About that night in the labs.”
“I appreciate it, but…” She peered over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Someone’s here to see you,” she said.
“It can wait.”
“Can it, boy?” Dr. Savenus’ scratchy voice made Ruxbane tense.
No Exalted had ever taken step on the Floating Isle. They preferred to cower in their towers on Aloma. Of all the ones to come, it would be his physician, and as displeased as he was at the inevitable micromanagement that would come of this man’s arrival, a check-in with a doctor did seem in order.
“I should return to my work,” Jin said. “We can talk later.” She bowed her head to the Exalted and walked away.
Ruxbane sighed.
The doctor stood a full two heads taller him, but at least two heads thinner, too. Dr. Savenus’ stick-like frame hunched with age, his large, all-black eyes hardened by his sharp eye ridges.
“Up and about so soon?” Dr. Savenus asked. “I expected you to sleep a little longer than four hours. Imagine my surprise when Iselglith informed me you’d arrived at the labs.”
“I have work to do,” Ruxbane muttered.
“I’m sure it will wait. Come.”
Resigned, Ruxbane followed the man out of the medical wing and once again into the empty halls. The floor-to-ceiling windows provided him with distraction in the form of space-scape views. The inky, salt-sprayed abyss lingered beyond the edges of the Rokkir fortress, daunting in its endlessness. For all its glory, though, Dr. Savenus stared straight ahead.