The rehab bay felt more honest than the rest of med.

  No curtains, no quiet machines ticking over clean vitals. Just metal rails, scuffed mats, racks of bands and weights, a low-grav treadmill that looked like it wanted to hurt someone, and a smell of disinfectant that couldn’t quite erase sweat and rubber.

  “Mercer, Tanaka,” Liang said. “You’re late.”

  They weren’t. Kaden checked his HUD out of reflex and saw they were two minutes early. He decided not to mention it.

  Liang stood by a tablet on a wall mount, dark hair braided and looped at the nape of her neck, sleeves rolled to the elbow. She wore med scrubs under a light exosupport harness, a compromise between comfort and the reality that she spent all day hauling and bracing broken marines.

  She gave them both a quick once-over. No plates, no rifles. Just navy-grey fatigues and the kind of tired that training never seemed to touch.

  “Good,” she said. “You look miserable already. Saves time. Kaden, bars and dex. Tanaka, we’re going to bully that leg into remembering what it’s for.”

  Tanaka’s mouth twitched. “Standing and catching grenades?” he said.

  “Standing,” Liang said. “Grenades are extra.”

  She pointed, and that was that.

  The parallel bars waited for Kaden near the center of the bay, polished smooth where a hundred hands had gripped their way along. Beside them sat a tray with a collection of objects that looked like they belonged in a child’s toy box: rubber balls, a stack of metal washers, a mesh bag of marbles, a small box of mixed nuts and bolts, and a pair of dummy magazines with their windows blacked over.

  “Start with the line,” Liang said, coming up beside him. “Left hand only.”

  She scattered twenty metal washers across the mat between the bars, then dropped a length of cord in front of him.

  “Thread them and hang them,” she said. “You drop more than three, we start over.”

  Kaden stared at the washers, then at the cord, then at his left hand.

  The graft still didn’t feel right. The movement was there when he asked for it, but the feedback was off—a fraction late, a fraction dull. Like the signals had to take the long way around.

  “Trying to humiliate me?” he asked.

  “Trying to make sure the next time you’re working on someone and your good hand is busy keeping their insides inside, you don’t drop what you need because a washer’s too slippery,” Liang said. “Sit.”

  He sat cross-legged on the mat. The bars were there if he needed to brace; for now they just boxed him in, a reminder not to cheat by shifting away.

  He picked up the cord with his right hand first, instinctively.

  Liang tapped his wrist. “Left.”

  He sighed, swapped, and wrapped the cord clumsily around his off hand. The grip felt either too loose or like he was about to crush the fibers in his palm.

  “Tip,” Liang said. “Your brain’s still trying to treat that hand like the old one. Stop expecting it to feel normal. Let it be what it is and adjust around it.”

  “Which means?” he asked.

  “Which means you’re going to fumble until you don’t,” she said. “Start.”

  He reached for the first washer. The cool ring slid across his skin. He tried to pinch it between thumb and forefinger. It almost worked.

  The washer slipped, skated over his fingertip, tapped the scarred ridge where metal met bone, and clinked back onto the mat.

  “One,” Liang said.

  He bit down on a curse and tried again. Thumb, index, ring this time, making a triangle. The washer settled, lopsided but caught. He maneuvered it toward the cord, fought the urge to involve his right hand, and eventually bullied it through.

  It slid down to rest at his knuckles. He let it drop with quiet satisfaction.

  “Good,” Liang said. “Nineteen more.”

  He worked.

  It was stupid work, and that made it worse. He could clean a field dressing one-handed. He could slam a stim into a port in the dark. Sitting cross-legged like a kid, swearing under his breath at a handful of washers, felt like a joke.

  The fourth one flipped onto its side and rolled away toward the wall.

  “Two,” Liang said.

  Kaden tracked it, grabbed it again, jaw tight.

  Across the room, Tanaka grunted as he stepped up onto a low box, paused, then stepped down again. The movement was slow, controlled, a slight hitch in his bad leg when he shifted weight onto it. Liang had set him up with a weighted vest and a band looped above his knees, adding resistance that made his quadriceps stand out like cables.

  “Don’t cheat it,” Liang called over without looking away from Kaden’s hands. “If you favor the good side, you’ll feel it next time you’re carrying someone and your hip lights up.”

  “Feels it now,” Tanaka said.

  “Yes,” Liang said. “That’s the point.”

  Kaden threaded the fifth washer successfully, then the sixth. The seventh escaped sideways and bounced off his knee.

  “Three,” Liang said.

  “You enjoy this,” he muttered.

  “If I enjoyed it, you’d be doing it with gloves on,” she said. “You’re getting off light.”

  His HUD chimed quietly in the corner of his vision as he guided the ninth washer down the line.

  [AURORA//MOTOR ADAPTATION]

  Left Hand – Integration: +1%

  Context: Fine-motor repetition

  Trend: Improving

  He dismissed it and focused on the physical feedback instead. The way weight pulled at his ring finger differently now. How pressure felt duller along the outside of his hand, then spiked near the joint if he over-squeezed.

  “Breathe,” Liang said. “You’re holding your breath every time you pick one up.”

  “Breathing is for people without examiners,” he said.

  She ignored that.

  He finished the line with only one more drop. Liang nodded once, then scattered the marbles.

  “Same thing,” she said. “No line. I want them in the cup. Still left hand only.”

  “Marbles,” he said. “You’re escalating.”

  “You’re the one who wants to play with bullets and veins,” Liang said. “If you can’t manage glass on a mat, I’m not signing off on anything more exciting.”

  He started picking up marbles. They were worse. Smaller, slicker, eager to rocket out from under his fingertips. Twice he jabbed too hard and sent one skittering off into the gap under a cabinet.

  Liang did not comment. She didn’t need to. The frown lines at the corners of her eyes said enough.

  “Think of it as target practice,” she said eventually. “You’re not pitting your hand against them; you’re trying to set up a repeatable motion. Angle, pressure, release. Same every time.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  He tried to reframe it that way. Not “pick up the marble” but “get the motion right.” Thumb pin, ring finger light brace, index doing the steering. Once he locked that in, the next few went smoother. Not perfect, but less stupid.

  His HUD pinged again after the cup half-filled.

  [AURORA//MOTOR ADAPTATION]

  Left Hand – Integration: +1%

  Note: Reduced error rate

  “Better,” Liang said quietly. “Again next session. We’ll add something nastier when you start getting bored.”

  “I cannot wait,” he said.

  She gave him a thin smile and tapped the dummy magazines. “Finish with those. Table height. Left hand does all the feeding. Right just holds and presents.”

  “You’re making me cheat,” he said.

  “I’m making you mirror the ugly version of what’s going to happen when you’re patching someone with your right while your left reloads on instinct,” she said. “Stand up.”

  He did, and went back to dropping plastic, picking it up, feeding mags slot by slot while his shoulder complained about holding the weight out.

  Across the bay, Tanaka moved from the box to a set of staggered cones. Liang had him walking a lazy figure-eight, the band above his knees forcing both legs to work instead of letting one coast.

  “How’s it feel?” she asked him.

  “Like it’s attached wrong,” Tanaka said. Sweat darkened the collar of his shirt. “Like someone moved the joint while I wasn’t looking.”

  “Describe the pain,” Liang said. “Sharp. Dull. Burning. Stabbing.”

  “Deep,” he said after a moment. “Heavy. Like someone poured lead in the socket and is trying to stir it.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  “That’s your definition of good?” he asked.

  “Good means it’s complaining about work, not ripping,” she said. “You tell me if it spikes or changes. That’s my line. Everything else is just tuition.”

  Kaden watched him out of the corner of his eye as he fed cartridges into a mag. Tanaka’s jaw was clenched, but his eyes were steady, tracking his own feet. No flinch when he bore weight. Just controlled misery.

  “Pain Conditioning helps?” Liang asked.

  “Helps me ignore the part that says ‘stop,’” Tanaka said. “Doesn’t make it hurt less. Just makes the edges fuzzy.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Don’t ride it too hard. I want you walking, not collapsing in the corridor when it catches up.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  Kaden slid the last shell into the mag, thumb stinging.

  Liang checked her tablet, marked something, then clapped once to get both their attention.

  “Water,” she said. “Then we’re going to make you talk.”

  “That sounds worse than the marbles,” Kaden said.

  “Depends what you say,” she replied.

  They hit the cooler. The water was lukewarm, tasted vaguely of plastic, and still felt like the best thing Kaden had had all day. He rolled his shoulders as he drank, feeling the fatigue settle in behind the ache.

  “Sit,” Liang said, gesturing to a padded bench against the wall. “Both of you.”

  Tanaka lowered himself with care, bad leg extended slightly. Kaden slid onto the other end. Liang leaned against the opposite bench, tablet cradled in one arm, attention on them instead of the screen.

  “You’re both ahead of schedule,” she said. “Which is why you’re in my bay and not on a float somewhere.” She nodded at Kaden. “Hand’s knitting in nicely. Tanaka’s hip looks better every scan, even if it doesn’t feel that way.”

  “Is this the part where you tell us not to screw it up?” Kaden asked.

  “That part is implied,” she said. “This is the part where you tell me how stupid you’re likely to get the next time someone starts shooting at you.”

  Tanaka huffed. “Stupidity depends on the situation,” he said.

  “Situations like?” she asked.

  “Squad goes down,” he said, simple. “If Navarro or Mercer eats it in front of me, my ability to make wise choices will probably take a hit.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” she said dryly. “You, Mercer?”

  Kaden stared at his hands for a second. The left looked less alien than it had in the first weeks after the surgery. Still wrong, though. Still not his.

  “I don’t like not being able to move people,” he said. “If someone’s bleeding and I can’t get them out of the line of fire, I’m going to push until something gives. Me. Them. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Noted,” Liang said. “Now we get honest. Tanaka, why’d you agree to a heavy slot?”

  Tanaka blinked, caught off-guard. “Because they told me to,” he said.

  “Wrong,” she said, without heat. “Try again.”

  He shifted on the bench, the band of scar-hidden pain around his hip tightening his jaw for a heartbeat.

  “Man to man…well man to woman?” he said, glancing at Kaden before looking back at Liang. “Because somebody’s got to be the plate. Might as well be the one who already knows what it looks like when there’s nobody in the way.”

  Liang lifted her chin. “And before they slapped the heavy tag on you?” she asked. “You were a kid once. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “Kid?” Tanaka said. “I’m twenty-four, ma’am. I haven’t been a kid for a long time.”

  Her mouth twitched. “Age and mileage are different stats,” she said. “Keep going.”

  “Father was a dock worker,” Tanaka said. “Foreman on a loading wing. Mother pushed paperwork for a quartermaster office.”

  He stared past them for a second, somewhere else entirely.

  “When Advent hit, our block lit up,” he said. “Pings, riots, people arguing about who deserved what now that the System had numbers to point at. Some saw their stats and thought they were owed more. Some saw other people’s stats and decided they were a threat.”

  Kaden stayed quiet.

  Tanaka continued, “Next few decades everything fell into a new norm but the tension was there. People felt they were worth more and should be paid better and all the other things that come with being graded better than others. It all popped off when I was…eight I think.”

  “Dock turned into a pressure cooker,” Tanaka went on. “Cargo stuck, ships delayed, men with guns on the perimeter. Father spent most of his time trying to keep people talking instead of throwing each other over the railings.”

  Liang watched him, expression even.

  “One day it boiled over,” he said. “Crowd pushed too close to the checkpoint. Someone threw something. Nobody agrees what. Rock, bottle, doesn’t matter. Shots came back the other way.”

  He dragged a hand down his face.

  “I remember being on the ground,” he said. “Heavier than I should have been, like gravity had jumped. Father over me. The plate between us and whatever was coming. I remember the sound when something hit him. Then the way he stopped moving.”

  Kaden swallowed. “They fired into the crowd,” he said.

  “Police unit doing ‘crowd control,’” Tanaka said. “I was small. He wasn’t. He took the hits that had my name on them.”

  Liang’s jaw tightened, just for a second.

  “After that, Mother got pulled into logistics full-time,” Tanaka said. “Worked herself into the grave trying to make the most of the survivor stipend. I watched what happened when there wasn’t someone big in the doorway between my family and everything else. So when the conscription hit me, I didn’t fight the heavy designation.”

  “Because you wanted to be the plate,” Kaden said.

  Tanaka shrugged, a heavy, helpless motion. “Because if someone has to be between the squad and the blast, it might as well be the one who already knows what it looks like when there’s nobody there,” he said.

  Liang’s eyes softened by a fraction. “And how’s that working out for you?” she asked.

  He looked down at his leg. “Mixed results,” he said.

  “You’re still here,” she said. “The people behind you on that last breach are still here. That’s a better record than some.”

  He didn’t argue.

  Liang turned her attention back to Kaden. “You,” she said. “You could’ve stayed rifleman. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because of Jensen,” Kaden said. The answer came too fast. “I watched him bleed out with my hands on him. I don’t want that to happen again while I’m just another gun in the line.”

  Liang studied him for a long second. “That’s part of it,” she said. “What’s the rest?”

  He looked away, gaze unfocused on a scuff in the deck.

  “I read your med history,” she said. “Stats, injuries, flagged events. That doesn’t tell me how it felt. I asked why, Mercer.”

  The memory surfaced whether he invited it or not: stairwell, the echo of footsteps, Lira’s laugh cutting off into a scream, the thump and scrape of a small body hitting metal.

  “When I was twelve,” he said slowly, “my sister fell. Stairwell race. She jumped the landing and didn’t make it. Hit the edge, went over. One story down onto the stairs.”

  Tanaka went still. Liang’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes sharpened.

  “Scalp wound,” Kaden said. “Those bleed a lot. Nobody tells you that until you’re kneeling in it. There was so much blood. I thought—”

  He stopped, jaw tight.

  “I thought she was dying,” he said. “Dad wasn’t there. It was just me and her, and she was crying and slipping and I… I remembered Mom talking about pressure and breathing and not letting someone see you panic. So I ripped my shirt and pressed on the cut and talked about stupid things until the med techs got there.”

  “You helped,” Liang said. Not gentle, just stating a fact.

  “They told me that,” he said. “Later. Said I kept her calm, kept the bleeding manageable. But all I remember from that moment is how big everything felt. How small my hands were. How useless.”

  His left hand flexed involuntarily. He stilled it.

  “Then Jensen in the sim,” he said. “Older. Bigger. Same feeling. Someone on the floor, blood everywhere, and I didn’t know enough. I pushed for medic track after that. Officially because of Jensen. But if I’m being honest? I’ve been stuck at the edge of that stairwell with Lira for seven years.”

  The words hung there for a moment.

  Liang nodded once, slowly. “Better,” she said. “That’s an answer I can work with.”

  “You going to tell me it’s unhealthy?” he asked.

  “I’m going to tell you it’s dangerous,” she said. “Useful, sometimes. That kind of wiring is why you moved when you stopped Private Havel from bleeding out in his squaddies’ arms. It’s why you stayed clearheaded enough to stabilize yourself one-handed. It’s also how medics burn out or get themselves killed trying to fix every bleeding thing in reach.”

  “I know I can’t save everyone,” he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to.

  “Brain knows,” she said. “You said that already. Body’s still chasing ghosts down a stairwell. My job is to keep you functional long enough that you learn the difference between ‘I could have’ and ‘no one could have’ before it kills you.”

  He let out a short, humorless breath.

  “You want comfort, go talk to a chaplain,” she said. “You want to not die because your hip seized up halfway through a carry, you come to physio. I’m the one who checks off your final med card and psych eval after all, and I won’t do it if I think you’re a liability.”

  Tanaka shifted, easing his leg out. “How much longer on this cycle?” he asked.

  “For today?” Liang checked her board. “We’re closing out. For your rehab? Weeks. Longer if you decide to ignore me and start sprinting in full gear.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

  She gave him a look that said she had read his file and did not believe him.

  Kaden’s HUD pinged again, softer this time.

  [AURORA//PHYSICAL ADAPTATION]

  PHY – Microprogress: Logged

  Context: Weighted carries / rehab protocol compliance

  He flicked it away. The little bumps felt almost insulting next to the remembered weight of Tanaka across his shoulders.

  Liang straightened. “All right,” she said. “Tanaka, I want you icing that joint after this. Ten on, ten off, three cycles. No heroics. Mercer, stretch that forearm and hand before you crash, or you’re going to wake up feeling like someone replaced your wrist with a brick.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kaden said.

  She pointed a warning finger at both of them. “And if either of you skips your next block because you ‘got busy,’ I will personally drag you back in here and find new uses for the marbles.”

  “Threat noted,” Tanaka said.

  She let them go with that.

  Outside the rehab bay, the corridor felt cooler, the air less thick. Kaden flexed his left hand as they walked, feeling a dull, tired ache radiate up into his forearm.

  “You know,” Tanaka said, “if you keep talking about dragging me around, I might start throwing myself at the deck just to check your form.”

  “I’ll just leave you there,” Kaden said. “Use you as cover.”

  “I’d make some damn good cover,” Tanaka said. There was no heat in it.

  They fell into easy silence for a few paces.

  “Your father,” Kaden said finally. “You talk about him like you’re still trying to catch up to what he was.”

  Tanaka considered that. “He stepped between me and a riot,” he said. “I step between us and plasma fire. Different tools. Same shape. I’m not sure you ever catch up to that.”

  Kaden looked down at his hand. The scars tugged a little when he flexed it.

  “Then we don’t catch up,” he said. “We just try not to let the line behind us get any shorter.”

  Tanaka’s mouth twitched. “That’s the medic version of optimism?” he asked.

  “It’s what I’ve got,” Kaden said.

  They reached the junction where paths split—one way to Theta-3’s bay, another toward the mess, a third down into deeper ship guts.

  Kaden’s stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten since before the range yesterday.

  “Mess?” he asked.

  Tanaka nodded. “If I’m going to keep letting you haul me around, I need more calories,” he said.

  “Pretty sure that’s the opposite of how that works,” Kaden said, but he fell into step beside him anyway.

  Behind them, on a medbay console, Aurora quietly logged compliance, trends, and a dozen tiny improvements that wouldn’t mean much on their own.

  Out here, it would come down to whether Kaden’s hand closed on what he needed in time, and whether Tanaka’s leg held when the deck jumped.