Routing Active Part I

Posted on Fri Jul 3rd, 2026 @ 2:20pm by Taryn Rook & Remy Naal

1,450 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Between The Orders
Location: Foxglove - Drifting Outside the Main Relief Corridor
Timeline: Several hours after “Emergency Contact”

Foxglove drifted with most of her lights down and one manoeuvring thruster dark.

Inside the cockpit, the air had gone stale.

Taryn lay slumped in the pilot’s chair, one hand still near the controls, fingers curled loosely against the edge of the console. Blood had dried at her temple, dark in her hairline, and the bruise along her shoulder had started to show beneath the torn edge of her jacket. The environmental panel blinked amber beside her.

Life support was holding.

Barely.

Foxy had muted the alarms after the first hour. They had not helped. Taryn had not woken properly since the jump, except once, briefly, to mumble something that sounded like, “Don’t let him in,” before slipping under again.

The AI had logged it as an instruction.

Outside, the URC emergency beacon continued to pulse in tight encrypted bursts. Not general distress. Not public panic. A private routing key, buried under layers of ship ID and damage telemetry.

Remy’s route.

A new contact appeared on the damaged sensor board.

Foxy waited until the authentication settled into place.

“Remy clearance confirmed.”

The cockpit remained still. Taryn did not move.

The incoming hail opened automatically, but the boarding locks stayed sealed.

Taryn had been very clear about doors.

Foxy transmitted at last, calm and precise through the channel.

“This is Foxglove. Pilot is unconscious. Life support is compromised. Medical assistance required. Boarding permission conditional.”

“Please hurry.”

The ping had come in seventeen minutes ago.

Remy had gone quiet immediately.

Not alarmed.

Quiet.

The kind that meant concern got put somewhere useful while the rest of him started moving.

The docking bay had settled into that particular kind of silence people fell into when nobody wanted to say out loud that something was probably wrong. Not still, exactly. Crew moving faster than usual. Conversations shorter. A kind of quiet purpose settling over the deck while everyone pretended they were not watching the airlock.

Remy crossed the bay toward it with long, deliberate strides, his field jacket hanging open and unzipped over a dark shirt like he had thrown it on while walking. Through the viewport, Foxglove sat locked against the collar looking wrong in ways that bothered him more the closer he got. Scoring along the starboard hull. One running light flickering unevenly. The faint, almost imperceptible list of a ship holding itself together because stopping had not yet become an option.

“Anything?” he asked.

The bridge answered immediately over the still-open channel.

“Still nothing from her. Foxy’s talking. Taryn’s not.”

His jaw shifted once.

“How’s the ship?”

A brief pause.

“Flying on spite, mostly.”

That got the faintest breath through his nose.

“Sounds right.”

The docking collar settled with a muted metallic clunk beneath his feet.

Final lock.

He didn’t slow.

The hatch had only just started cycling when he reached it, one hand settling briefly against the frame while he waited through the last few seconds with his attention fixed ahead. Foxglove. Emergency beacon. No response. Taryn. That combination alone had been enough.

The hatch finally opened.

The first thing he noticed was the air. Not failing, not dead, just wrong. Cooler near the floor. Warmer overhead. The faint stale edge of scrubbers working harder than they should beneath the familiar smell of circuitry and machine oil.

Then the corridor itself.

Open paneling. Scorch marks near an environmental relay. A toolkit abandoned where it had been dropped. Half-finished repairs done quickly and left unfinished because something else had mattered more.

“Get a medical team down here,” Remy said evenly as he stepped aboard.

No urgency.

Didn’t need any.

Behind him, the docking hatch shimmered suddenly as an emergency forcefield snapped quietly into place.

He stopped.

Turned.

Looked at it for half a second.

The corner of his mouth lifted despite himself.

Of course.

The expression disappeared as quickly as it came, and he continued down the corridor, eyes moving automatically as the pieces settled into place. Uneven lighting. Environmental controls still running, but harder than they wanted to. The faint strain humming beneath the deck every few seconds. Damage managed, not repaired. The kind of work done quickly by somebody trying to buy time.

Taryn.

Trying to keep the ship together herself.

Of course she was.

“Taryn?” he called once as he turned toward the cockpit.

Nothing answered except the uneven hum beneath the deck and the quiet insistence of a ship still trying very hard not to die.

Then the cockpit.

And there she was.

Half-slumped in the pilot’s chair, blood at her temple and far too still.

Something crossed his face then.

Brief.

Gone.

He crossed the distance quickly and dropped beside her, fingers already pressing lightly against her neck. Pulse. Fast. Too fast. But there.

Good.

“Computer,” he said evenly, already moving into the next problem. “Security override authorization Remy Seven-One-One-Four-Alpha.”

Somewhere behind him, the distant hum of the forcefield cut out.

His attention shifted toward the console.

“Foxy, download everything to my console aboard Wayfarer. Flight telemetry, sensor logs, comms. Everything.”

The console chirped softly as the transfer began.

Only then did he look back at her properly, one hand moving carefully to brush blood-matted hair back from her forehead before resting there for half a second.

Still breathing.

Still alive.

“You,” he said quietly, mostly to himself, “are going to be impossible when you wake up.”

Carefully, and with more familiarity than thought, he slipped an arm behind her shoulders and moved to lift her from the chair.

The movement reached her before the pain did.

Taryn came up out of the dark in pieces, dragged by hands under her shoulders, the shift of her own weight, the awful stale taste of air that had been breathed too many times. The cockpit was all amber blur and red warning light, the edges of everything doubled wrong. Someone was touching her.

Her body reacted before she knew where she was.

One hand jerked up and caught at Remy’s jacket, the other pushing weakly against his chest. It was not much of a fight. More instinct than strength. Her fingers slipped, caught again, and her breath came too fast as she tried to make his face hold still.

“No,” she got out, thick and rough. “Don’t.”

The word sounded younger than she meant it to.

Then the shape in front of her settled by degrees. Dark shirt. Field jacket. Familiar hands. That look he got when he was trying very hard not to scare people by showing he was scared.

Remy.

Taryn blinked hard, and the cockpit swung a little sideways for the trouble.

“Oh,” she breathed, then immediately looked annoyed with herself for saying it.

Her grip loosened but did not let go properly. She seemed to notice that a second later and tried to pull her hand back. Her fingers did not cooperate quickly enough, which made her jaw tighten.

“You used the override,” she muttered. The words blurred at the edges. “That’s cheating.”

She tried to sit up, or maybe just prove she could. Either way, her body refused with immediate, humiliating clarity. Pain flashed behind her eyes and nausea rolled through her so hard she went still, lips pressing together until it passed.

“Foxy called you,” she said, accusing the room more than him. “I hit the thing. But she called you dramatic.”

That was not right.

Taryn frowned.

“No. I mean… I was dramatic. No. Ship was. Somebody was.” Her eyes flicked toward the console, failing to focus. “Doesn’t matter.”

It mattered. It mattered enough that colour rose faintly under the grime and blood on her face, embarrassment finding her even through concussion and bad air.

“Don’t do the big brother face,” she said, softer, the words escaping before she could sharpen them. “I hate the big brother face.”

She blinked again, slower this time. Her gaze moved past him toward the dim cockpit, the warning lights, the cracked environmental readout, the ship still humming around them in uneven breaths.

“Foxy okay?” she asked.

Not herself. Not first.

The question slipped out small and unguarded, and something in her expression shifted when she realised he had heard it. She tried to cover it, because of course she did, but there was not enough of her awake to build the wall properly.

“I’m fine,” she said.

A beat.

Her eyes drifted, then dragged back to him with effort.

“Don’t write that down.”

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