Chapter 4: Debriefing and Denial
The signal pulsed on the screen, a ghostly heartbeat in the dead silence of the cargo bay.For a full minute, neither of them moved. The only sound was the distant, muted groan of the damaged hauler’s superstructure and the ragged pull of their own breath.
Matthew’s hand was still suspended where he’d touched the console, as if the code might burn him.“It’s the Castle’s authenticator.But it’s… wrong. Like a fractured mirror of the signal. It’s coming from the Garn System.”
Gwen forced her muscles to unlock, stepping closer to peer at the scrolling data. A year of dead ends had carved a deep caution in her.“A trap.It has to be. The Galra love using Voltron as bait.”
“Maybe.” He finally lowered his hand, turning to look at her. His eyes were blazing with a hope so raw it hurt to see. “But the encryption layer here… it’s not standard Galra spoofing.It’s messy. It’s got Pidge’s signatures all over it—the shortcuts, the nested loops she always used because she was impatient. A Galra AI would write it clean.”
The mention of his sister, the specificity of it, cut through Gwen’s skepticism.He saw it.He pushed, his voice low and urgent. “We have to get back to the Mirage. If we can sync our long-range array to this carrier frequency, we can pinpoint the source. We might have hours before the patrols from that frigate regroup.”
Getting back was its own special kind of hell. The hauler was dead in space, power flickering in and out. They moved through corridors lit only by emergency strips, past darkened holding cells that smelled of rust and fear. They found a secondary airlock that connected to a service tunnel, and from there, a shuddering elevator that took them to an external docking arm.
The Mirage was still there, clamped to the dead frigate like a barnacle on a whale carcass. The space between was a gulf of vacuum, dotted with frozen debris from the explosion. They crossed it using suit thrusters, small, controlled bursts that felt laughably fragile.
Inside the Mirage’s cockpit, the familiar hum was a relief. Matthew went straight to the comms station, his fingers a blur.Gwen took the pilot’s seat, firing up the engines. The mag-clamps disengaged with a heavy clunk. She pulled them away from the wreckage, a slow, careful retreat. On the rear-cams, the convoy was a beautiful, terrible sculpture of ruin.The frigate was split in two, glowing amethyst from internal fires. One hauler was venting atmosphere in a constant, glittering plume.The other two drifted, dark and silent.
“Setting course for the Garn System,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Two long-jumps.We’ll need to stop at Verge Station, regroup. We’re venting coolant and the stabilizer took a hit.”
Matthew barely nodded, absorbed in the signal. He was muttering to himself, a technical litany Gwen only half-understood. “...rebroadcasting on a loop, probably automated… source is stationary, planetary or a large moon… signal degradation suggests heavy atmospheric interference…”
The first jump was a tense, silent affair.They didn’t speak about the kiss. They didn’t speak about dangling over the void.The immediacy of the signal consumed everything. It was a possibility, a sudden, jagged crack in the wall of their hopelessness.
Four hours later, the jagged, rock-and-metal shape of Verge Station emerged from the starfield. It wasn’t a rebel base, not officially. It was a fringe outpost, a haven for scavengers, independent traders, and people who needed to disappear. The kind of place that asked no questions, as long as you had credits or something to trade.
Gwen docked the Mirage in a grimy, secluded bay, the clamps engaging with a tired sigh. The station’s artificial gravity felt wrong—too heavy, pulling at their exhausted bodies.
They moved through the cramped, neon-lit marketplace in a wary silence. The air was thick with the smell of fried synth-protein, engine grease, and unwashed bodies. Humanoid and alien faces watched them pass from shadowy stalls. Matthew traded a spare power cell for two bowls of questionable stew and a bunk in a transient capsule—a claustrophobic room barely bigger than the Mirage’s cockpit, with one narrow bed and a single flickering light panel.He handed her a bowl.“It’s protein. Probably.”
She took it, their fingers brushing. She ate standing by the grimy viewport, watching a battered freighter negotiate docking protocols. He sat on the edge of the bed, shoveling the food mechanically, his glasses reflecting the garish sign for a nearby body-mod parlour.
The adrenaline had burned off completely now, leaving a deep, hollow fatigue. And in that quiet, the things they hadn’t said grew teeth.She could feel him watching her. Not like he was studying the signal, but like he was trying to memorize her silhouette against the chaotic lights. It was a quiet, relentless attention. She’d seen it before, in glances across the mess hall, in the way he’d stand just a little too close when they pored over a star chart.But now, after the kiss, it was different.It had weight.
She put the empty bowl down with a dull click. “You’re doing it again.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand.“Doing what?”
“Staring. Like I’m a puzzle you’re about to solve.” She turned, leaning back against the cold viewport. Her arms were crossed, a defensive posture she couldn’t drop. “It’s unnerving.”
He looked down at his own hands, then took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. There was a smudge of grease on his cheek. “I’m not trying to solve you, Gwen.”
“Then what?”
He put his glasses back on, met her gaze. His expression was open, unbearably so.“The kiss.Back on the Mirage. I need you to know it wasn’t… it wasn’t a mistake.A lapse in judgement. It wasn’t the adrenaline.”
The words hung in the recycled air between them.She’d known they were coming. She’d been dreading them, and craving them, in equal measure. Her heart hammered against her ribs.To name the thing was to give it a shape. And anything with a shape could be broken.She pushed off from the viewport, the movement sharp. “Matt, don’t.We have a lead.A real one. That’s what matters right now.” Her voice was harder than she intended.He didn’t flinch.“It matters. This matters too.”
“Why?” The question snapped out of her, angrier than she felt. “Because we almost died?Because we’re alone? That’s not a reason, that’s… circumstance.” She was parroting her own fears back at him, and it sounded hollow even to her.He stood then, slowly. He didn’t move toward her, just stood by the bed, a tired young man in a stained shirt.“You think it’s that simple? That I’m just scared and lonely?” He shook his head, a faint, sad smile touching his lips.“Gwen, I’ve been scared and lonely for a year. You’ve been right there.The reason isn’t the circumstances.The reason is you. It’s the way you chew your lip when you’re concentrating. It’s how you always take the watch on the night-cycle so I can sleep. It’s the fact that you’re the only person in this entire godforsaken galaxy who understands why I can’t stop looking.”
She had no defense against that.His quiet certainty was a wave, and she was drowning in it. She looked away, her throat tight. “If we find them… if we find Keith and Pidge… everything changes. You know that.”
“I know.”
“So then…” She trailed off, the unsaid words what’s the point hanging in the air.
“So then,” he finished softly, “we cross that bridge if we get to it. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel this.Not with you.”
She had no answer. The noise from the station corridor seeped in—shouts, laughter, the thump of music. A different world, a simpler one. Here, in this capsule, the universe had narrowed to the space between their bodies, charged with a truth she was too terrified to hold.
“We should sleep,” she said finally, her voice drained.“We need to be sharp for the next jump.”
He heard the dismissal. He didn’t push.He just nodded, that quiet acceptance she both relied on and resented. “You take the bed. I’ll rack out in the pilot’s chair on the Mirage. It’s basically the same thing.”
“Matthew.”
“Gwen.” He said her name like a period.A full stop.He gathered his bowl and walked to the door. Before he left, he looked back.“I’ll be on the ship. Running diagnostics on the signal.”
Then he was gone, the door sliding shut with a final hiss.
She stood in the sudden, suffocating silence for a long time. Then she sank onto the edge of the thin bed, her head in her hands.She was so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of running, tired of holding this hope like a live wire in her chest.She must have lain down. She must have closed her eyes. Because the next thing she knew, the weak station light was off and the room was lit only by the flickering neon from the sign outside. The door slid open, a soft whisper in the dark.She didn’t move, watching through slitted eyes.It was Matthew. He moved quietly, on sure feet. In his hands was the jacket he’d been wearing earlier—the one she’d grabbed onto in the cockpit a lifetime ago. He didn’t look at her face.He simply laid the jacket over her, tucking it gently around her shoulders. The worn leather carried the faint, familiar scents of the Mirage: ozone, solder, and him.He stood there for a moment, a dark shape against the neon glow. Then he bent down. His lips didn’t touch her skin, but she felt his breath stir her hair as he whispered, so softly it was almost lost in the station’s hum.
“I’ll wait.”
He straightened and was gone again, sealing her into the quiet. She pulled the jacket tighter around her, burying her face in the collar. In the dark, with the weight of it on her, she finally let herself cry—silent, shuddering tears for a brother who was a ghost, for a future she couldn’t picture, and for the steadfast, terrifying boy on the ship who refused to let her drift away.Outside, the station throbbed with oblivious life. Inside, she held onto the fabric and, for the first time, admitted to herself that she wasn’t holding onto just a jacket.