“So,” Surit continued, without waiting for Tennal, “if you don’t have a solution for us, we’ll need something new. As Captain Halkana said, we’re proceeding to the laboratory where the neuromod experiments were originally done. I don’t believe Oma stripped it; I think she was only after the remnants. So, if there is any research there, would you be able to understand it enough to do something with it?”

“I—I suppose so?” the medic said. “Probably? It’s generally a matter of programming a machine.”

“Excellent,” Surit said briskly, as if they were at a routine strategy meeting. “If we can find a way to deal with the brainwashing, we’ll have to prioritize getting that to the rest of the army. But if the sync degrades and Captain Halkana and I don’t survive the journey back, then we lose the value of his Halkana connections. We’ll have to be fast. If we can take a straighter route—ah, there.” His wristband pinged, and he opened it to a jump request. “Private Istara’s found a route in. Tennal, they’ll need you.”

Tennal gave Surit an incredulous look. Somehow Surit was talking himself out of his horror with logistics.

The medic saluted. “Sir.”

“Captain Halkana,” Surit said politely. “The jump.”

“Oh yes, the jump,” Tennal said blankly. It seemed impossible to go from my aunt tried to have you killed to mundane piloting issues. “We’ll just … carry on, then?”

Surit didn’t quite look at him. In Tennal’s head Surit’s presence was a bank of heavy cloud, unnaturally still, laden with a static that had no outlet. “If you’re all right.”

“Brilliant, fantastic,” Tennal said. “Just top form. Couldn’t be any other way.” It wasn’t him who’d been in danger. His brain still struggled to process that. Tennal hadn’t been thrown away, even when he’d been marched onto a ship, stripped of his communications, and chemically primed to be handed to an architect. Surit had been thrown away. For him. How did he make up for that? How did he deal with it? And now Surit was still in a sync, his existence irrevocably bound up with Tennal’s, because Tennal’s fuckups had diverted the whole course of his life.

As they left Medical, Surit bent his head to Tennal’s ear. “We have to be careful,” Surit said softly. “I don’t want to lose myself.” He wasn’t so perfect at control anymore. When he spoke, fear crackled like sheet lightning.

“I know,” Tennal said. “It’s okay.”

It sure as fuck wasn’t okay.