The ward smelled like antiseptic and burnt coffee. A ventilation fan coughed at the ceiling and a patient snored under an oxygen hum. Avery Burns kept his eyes on the holo-game anyway, thumb flicking through the constellations of falling Kepler glyphs while the ship's timecode ticked down in the corner. It was stupid, mindless, stabilizing—one fingered rhythm that stopped the world from leaning. The kid in the next bed—Hans Serra, twenty and flamboyantly earnest—kept peeking over the divider like he was trying to learn the cheat code. Hans was all thin arms and patchy optimism, every eyelash a grenade of hope. “You ever going to tell me how you made it past level twelve?” he asked. Avery didn't look up for a beat. “It’s mostly reflex and a generous moral compromise,” he said. “And not dying.” Hans snorted and thumped the mattress between them. “Come on, old man. Share the secrets.” “Old?” Avery tapped the holo with the stylus on his wrist. “I’m vintage. Like—oak furniture. Worth more the older I am.” Laughter, small and genuine, rolled cheap and warm between the beds. The ward walls absorbed it without comment. For a second the world was nothing but light and the tick of falling symbols. He liked that. Liked the lit corner of control in a place that otherwise smelled of cold metal and mistakes. Then the divider rattled. A shadow on the floor grew teeth. Commander Jenna Clarke didn't