The Triumph's infirmary felt smaller with all of them crammed inside. Harsh overhead lights blazed down on the main surgical table, surrounded by medical monitors and equipment on articulated arms. Two IV poles flanked the table: the left carried four units of blood, dark red and half-empty, running through a rapid infuser that clicked every thirty seconds. A pressure bag squeezed saline at high pressure, the plastic crinkling with each pulse. The right pole held plasma thawing in a warming bath, yellow fluid dripping into a heated line. A blood pressure pump glowed red, fighting to keep Danny's vitals stable. The steady beep of heart monitors and the hiss of the oxygen regulator filled the air. The air was cold and sterile, smelling of antiseptic that made Luca's eyes water.

  Joey and Emily stood at the center of it all, scrubbed and focused. Danny lay on the table, and the sight of him made Luca's stomach clench.

  Jesus Christ.

  What had once been Danny's legs looked like they'd been fed through a meat grinder. Shattered bone protruded through torn muscle. His left leg was barely attached at the knee, held together by trauma staples and an external fixator. His right was a mangled mess from mid-thigh down, metal fragments glinting in the wounds under the harsh lights.

  But worse than the shrapnel damage were the chemical burns. Large patches of skin were waxy and red, others charred black where Midnight Veil's toxic atmosphere had eaten through his armor and begun dissolving his flesh. The damaged tissue had a sickly sheen to it, and even under the surgical lights, Luca could see where the chemicals had burned deep into the muscle beneath.

  "Ship's time 1013, December 15th." Joey's voice was steady, but Luca caught the slight tremor underneath. "The extent of the damage is severe. We've got forty-one distinct fragments of shrapnel and shattered carapace embedded in the lower extremities. Three in the abdomen. One..." He paused, checking the scan display. "One buried in the neck muscle, right against the C4 vertebra."

  Luca pressed himself against the far bulkhead with Zoe and Ryan, wearing gowns and masks that did nothing to ease the claustrophobic tension. They were silent witnesses, close enough to hear every squelch and every beep of the monitors.

  This is wrong. Luca's hands clenched at his sides. I shouldn't just be watching. I should be doing something, anything. But there's nothing I can do.

  But Danny was their friend. Their family. And none of them could bear to wait outside like good little soldiers while Joey carved up his own brother.

  "The good news," Joey continued, activating the surgical display, "is that his cellular matrix is intact. The pod can rebuild what's damaged, but only after we remove every piece of foreign material."

  Every piece. Luca's stomach twisted. One missed fragment and Danny's fucked.

  Frozen beside him, Zoe gripped the edge of a supply counter. "What if you can't get all the shrapnel out?" Her voice came out barely audible.

  "Then the pod will try to heal around it," Emily said, checking the surgical instruments. "Best case, permanent scar tissue. Worst case, rejection syndrome kills him."

  Joey gestured to the pod's consumables bay beside the table. "We'll need to load specialized cartridges for this. Bone fusion repair, deep tissue trauma, hemostasis for the bleeding. Each one's single-use, and we're burning through our supply for this."

  If we have enough. What if we don't? What if we run out halfway through and Danny's just... fucked?

  "Beginning with the largest fragments," Joey murmured. "Emily, you're on retraction. That piece near his neck..." He gestured to the display. "It's two millimeters from his spinal cord. The laser is too wide for the final approach. You'll need to separate the fragment from the nerve sheath manually."

  Emily grabbed a micro-dissector, its tip barely visible. "I'm on it. Give me a clear field."

  The laser scalpel activated with a faint sizzle. Smoke rose from Danny's flesh in thin tendrils.

  Don't move. Don't make a sound. Don't fucking distract them. Luca fought the urge to flinch, to do anything that might break Joey's concentration.

  "First incision complete," Emily reported. "Vitals stable. Blood pressure one-twenty over eighty."

  Joey's hands moved carefully, the slight tremor visible even from across the room. He worked the fragment loose millimeter by millimeter while Emily followed his movements, applying pressure, stemming bleeding. When it finally came free with a wet, sucking sound, Luca had to look away.

  The metal hit the tray with a sharp clink.

  "One down," Joey breathed. "Forty-three to go."

  But as he examined the extraction site, his expression darkened. "We've got another problem," he said grimly. "Chemical burns from the toxic atmosphere. The tissue around the wound sites is compromised."

  Luca's stomach dropped. "What does that mean?"

  "It means we have to cut away all the damaged skin before the pod can start reconstruction," Emily said, checking the surgical displays. "The chemicals are still eating at the healthy tissue. If we don't remove it completely, the pod won't be able to get a clean cellular read."

  Joey reached for a surgical blade, its edge glowing with contained energy. "This is going to be... extensive. The burns go deeper than I initially thought."

  "How deep?" Ryan asked from his position by the door.

  "Deep enough." Joey activated the blade. "Emily, I need you to help with tissue removal. Ryan, can you assist with suction?"

  "Of course."

  Joey began cutting. The damaged skin came away in blackened sheets, tissue that had been chemically burned by Midnight Veil's toxic atmosphere. The smell hit immediately, sharp and acrid and wrong.

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  Luca watched for maybe ten seconds before his body rebelled. Joey systematically cutting away layers of Danny's skin, the way it peeled back in charred fragments—too much. He turned away, grabbing at the wall for support.

  Beside him, Zoe reached out and took his hand. Her grip was tight, almost painful, but she kept watching. She didn't look away as Joey worked, her knuckles white where she gripped Luca's fingers.

  "You don't have to watch," she said quietly, voice strained but steady.

  "You are," Luca managed.

  "Someone should." Her hand tightened on his. "Someone should... he should know we were here. That we didn't leave him."

  The wet sounds continued. Joey's calm instructions to Emily. The hiss of the surgical tools. The smell that seemed to coat the inside of Luca's nostrils.

  How much more can Danny take? Luca thought. How much more can any of us take?

  "Debridement complete," Joey announced after what felt like hours. "Moving to the left leg."

  Where Danny's legs had been mangled by shrapnel, they were now raw, stripped down to viable tissue. The toxic burns were gone, cut away layer by layer.

  "Now we can start the real extractions," Joey said, sweat visible on his forehead.

  An hour passed. Then two. The tray of extracted shrapnel grew heavy with twisted metal, each piece a small victory.

  During a brief pause, Joey pointed a bloody glove at the scanner. "His left knee is catastrophic. Patella's in seventeen pieces. The pod has to rebuild the entire joint from scratch." He wiped blood from his brow. "And it can't leave a single fragment behind, or it builds scar tissue instead of a limb. That's why this is taking so goddamn long."

  Wait for help. Wait for Earth. Wait for anything. Luca wanted to scream at them to stop, but there was no help coming. No anything. Just here and now. Just Joey's hands and Danny's destroyed legs and the seconds ticking by.

  The monitor alarms started beeping rapidly.

  "Artery's spurting!" Joey's voice cracked.

  Fuck. No, no, no—

  Red spray arced across Emily's mask. Blood everywhere, Danny's thigh opening like a burst pipe.

  "Suction's clogged!" Joey's hands disappeared into the wound. "Ryan, clear the line!"

  Ryan jammed the suction tube in, pink froth gurgling. "Clamp—where's the clamp?"

  "Forget clamps—pressure pad, now!" Joey pressed both gloved hands into the thigh, blood seeping between his fingers.

  The blood bag on the left pole ran dry. EMPTY flashed red, alarms shrieking.

  "New unit!" Emily slapped a fresh bag into place, the rapid infuser whining back to life. "Blood pressure's crashing. Sixty over thirty."

  Joey's arms shook from the pressure he was applying. "Hold... hold..." The bleeding slowed. A suture needle flashed. "Sealed," he gasped. "We're running low on blood."

  The monitors settled back into their steady rhythm. Luca realized he'd been holding his breath.

  We almost lost him. Right here, right in front of us. This is on me. The sabotage, the missing supplies... I should have turned us around. We should be at Genesis Platform right now, not four light-years from help while Joey operates on fumes.

  "The pod can regenerate blood vessels," Joey explained, his voice shaky with adrenaline. "But not if he bleeds out on this table first."

  The infirmary door slid open.

  Chris stepped inside, still moving carefully from his own injuries. One look at Danny—at the blood, the tray of extracted shrapnel, those exposed legs—and his face went pale beneath the bruises.

  "How is he?" His voice came out quiet.

  "Alive," Joey said without looking up. "Barely."

  Chris stood there watching Joey work the fragment free, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. When the monitors beeped steady, he closed his eyes.

  "I can't..." He shook his head, already turning. "Tell me when it's over."

  The door slid shut.

  Smart man, Luca thought. Wish I had his sense.

  The fragment was smaller than the others, but its position made it lethal. Joey worked with micro-instruments, carefully separating it from the delicate nerve tissue.

  "Almost... there..."

  The fragment came free with the smallest possible movement. Joey held it up to the light. A sliver of metal no bigger than a needle, but positioned to destroy a life.

  "Clear," he announced, and Luca heard the collective exhale from everyone in the room.

  During the longer extractions, Zoe started to tremble. Luca placed a hand on her shoulder and she leaned into the contact without taking her eyes off the table.

  After the third hour, Luca gave up watching the surgery itself. Numbers he could handle. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation. The monitors gave him the illusion of control, even if it was bullshit.

  Joey worked in silence for a while, his focus absolute. Another piece came free. Another clink on the tray.

  "Without the pod," he said quietly, "Danny would be dead. No question."

  "Last piece," Joey announced, his voice hoarse after six hours of concentration.

  The final fragment was embedded deep in Danny's thigh, twisted around the bone like an oversized staple. Joey worked it loose and held it up to the light. A twisted shard of metal that had nearly killed their friend.

  It hit the tray with a final, sharp clink.

  "Surgical field clear," he announced. "Beginning tissue preparation for pod integration."

  The tissue regenerator hummed to life, sealing the surgical wounds. Layer by layer, Joey closed the incisions.

  "Closing complete," Emily reported. "All vitals stable."

  Joey and Emily's shoulders slumped as the immediate crisis passed. They'd done it. Danny was alive, whole enough for the healing pod to do its work.

  "Ryan," Joey called. "Need help with the transfer."

  Ryan stepped forward, helping lift Danny's unconscious form from the surgical table to the healing pod against the far wall. The pod's interior glowed with soft blue light, lined with sensors and reconstruction arrays.

  They positioned Danny carefully inside, Ryan lifting his shoulders while Emily threaded arterial lines into the pod's perfusion ports. A neural crown clicked over his scalp, gold filaments extending to make contact. The pod's systems activated, scanning, mapping the damage, preparing for the long process of rebuilding their friend.

  "Initiating Intensive Repair Mode," Joey announced, pressing the final sequence.

  The pod sealed with a soft hiss. Bio-gel rose inside, suspending Danny's damaged body in weightless blue. His curly red hair matted down against his skull, darkened by sweat and blood. His face was pale, the familiar freckles standing out stark against his skin.

  The reconstruction process began. Luca felt the hum of the machine through the floor, watched the faint shimmer in the gel surrounding Danny's wounds.

  Please work. Please, please work.

  "He's stable," Joey said, his voice hoarse and strained. "The next seventy-two hours are critical. The pod will do the rest, but it'll take time before he's fully healed."

  Emily stepped back, stripping off bloody gloves and masks. Their faces were pale, slick with sweat, etched with exhaustion.

  "And he'll be unconscious the whole time?" Zoe asked.

  "Most of it," Joey confirmed. "The pod will wake him periodically for system checks, but his body needs to focus all its energy on healing."

  Emily gestured to the loaded cartridge dispensary. "We've used our entire emergency supply for this. Everything we had."

  "What if something goes wrong?" Ryan asked.

  "Then we're fucked," Joey said bluntly. "There's nothing more we can do."

  The operating table behind them was a mess of bloody sheets and discarded instruments. Evidence of the ordeal surrounded them. Nowhere to retreat to, no clean space to process what they'd just witnessed.

  The exhaustion hit them all at once.

  Joey slid down the wall to sit on the floor, head in his hands. "Eight fucking hours."

  Emily leaned heavily against a counter, eyes closed. "But we did it. He's alive."

  Say something. Thank them. Do something. But Luca's throat was too tight, and words felt inadequate after what they'd just been through.

  Zoe, who had been frozen for hours, slowly walked forward. At the pod's canopy, she reached out with trembling fingers and placed her hand flat against the cool surface, right over Danny's heart.

  A single tear tracked down behind her mask. "Wake up soon, you bastard," she said softly. "You owe me."

  "He's going to be okay," Emily said. "The pod will rebuild everything. It'll take time, but he'll be whole again."

  Zoe nodded, not moving from her vigil. The hum of the pod filled the space between them, a mechanical hisses pumping away.

  We made it. Luca leaned back against the wall, letting himself slide down to sit beside Joey. Somehow, we all made it.

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