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The last thing Cressida Ryder really remembered was hitting the ground. She barely remembered shouting about kicking ass while Liam propped her up on his shoulder and Drak looked her over with his best impression of a Krogan raised-eyebrow. She mobilized the Remnant ship with Cora gripping her arm. Vetra started to reach out to her, but stopped as she stomped past. Re-boarding the Tempest was hazy at best. Then, she was on the bridge, with Lexi looking her over under the too-bright lights. Poking here, prodding there. There was the sharp jab of a needle on hr inner arm as the doctor slipped her a cocktail of drugs. The world flashed into violent color, burning around her. Cress blinked a few times until the corona around the overhead light dimmed enough for her to look back at Lexi, who was haloed in rainbow light.
“Am I ready to go?”
“Are you?” Lexi’s scanner lit up orange and swept from Cressida’s feet up to her head. “You’ve died three times now. Three.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried about me.”
“Ryder.” Lexi didn’t look up from the scanner on her wrist. “We all are.”
Lexi walked away and the door to the bridge slid shut before her brain could figure out what to say. She wondered what SAM would say about it all.
She wrapped her arms around her rib cage as far as they would go and squeezed tight, like she was trying to hold herself together.
SAM.
SAM would know what to do. SAM was the key to her success as a Pathfinder. Cressida Ryder without SAM could barely get Liam and Jaal through the remnant doors and back to the Tempest. They had almost been trapped down in the bowels of the Remnant City. Jaal’s family would never have seen him again. Liam wouldn’t have been able to set up a home here. They wouldn’t have made it back to the ship and crew. Her head throbbed hard. Interfacing with the Remnant consoles had sent bright hot shocks up through her hand, touching every nerve as they raced up into her heart. SAM had been the one doing the legwork with the Remtech. And now, SAM was gone. It felt like she’d been zapped with a defibrillator fifty times. In fairness, she decided that fifty times might be a bit of an exaggeration. But she still felt like she’d been kicked in the chest by a Fiend.
And she’d almost killed everyone.
She still could kill everyone. The odds were not in her favor. Cress slumped down into Suvi’s seat and looked around the empty bridge. It was almost never empty. Kallo and Suvi were fighting with reactors or cores or whatever the hell it was that ran the ship, and Peebee was helping the rest of the crew out on the deck. SAM wasn’t chimig about messages at her terminal every few seconds. It was just quiet, all around and inside her. It was just Cress and the starmap now. The remnant city winked at her, massive and ominous in the faint glowing light of the screen. She could have gotten up and stood at her console to shut it down, but the energy drained out her fingertips and she curled up in the chair.
She had died enough times where it should feel blasé, but all she could think was that dad wouldn’t’ve. Dad would have led the charge. Dad would have already been on his way to Meridian, locked and loaded, while Cress and Scott helped the crew ready the ship for the fight. Dad wouldn’t have needed resuscitation three separate times. She cast a glance at the patched-up N-7 helmet sitting in the corner of the room with the other bits of armor she’d dropped so Lexi could look her over. Well. She wasn’t dad. She was Cressida, and Cressida was scared of dying for good this time. She thought about Dad handing her his helmet on Habitat 7, knowing full well that he would die where he stood right after finally landing boots on Andromeda. His dream. The helmet was laying on its side. At least it was her and not Scott. Scott was a bigger softy she was. Dad must have been so disappointed to have had not one but two pathetic children.
Stop that, she chided. Self-pity never helped anyone.
She buried her head in her arms, but she was too tired to even properly cry.
Her comm blinked and Liam’s voice spilled into her ear, warm and soft.
“You’ve got everyone working, Pathfinder. Where are you?”
She took a minute to respond, but finally managed to mumble “bridge.”
It took everything she had to pull herself up out of Suvi’s chair so she was upright when the doors to the bridge slithered open. She had tried in vain to suit up and was about halfway through fastening her armor over her flight suit. His silhouette filled up the doorway before the doors closed behind him. Liam always looked broader-chested all suited-up. Bigger and stronger than cozy tank-top-and-sweats Liam who sat with her and watched movies late into the night cycle. He looked at her for a minute and she flashed as convincing of a smile as she could manage. He’d seen her cry before, but it didn’t feel right to cry on his shoulder when she’d almost gotten him sealed inside the Remnant city. He stopped just short of her and stared until she felt as transparent as polished glass.
“Hey you.”
“Hey.”
“That was a good speech out there. You can really work it when you need to.”
She didn’t remember half of what she’d said, but at least it must have sounded pretty good. She nodded.
“Bradley says they’ll throw in however they can.” She had never heard him call Bradley anything other than “Auggie.” Somehow, that made everything all the more real. “It’s looking good, Cress. Real good.”
“Good,” she echoed.
He was quiet for a little too long, but she didn’t know how to fill the awkward silence. She shot him a grin, but her face wouldn’t quite cooperate. He frowned. That bad?
“Are you okay?” He took her hands gently. “Because I get that this is our one shot and all, but it’s important to me that you’re okay.”
He was using that soft, low voice. The same one he’d used when Scott had first woken up and she’d accidentally shocked him into a coma. Soothing-a-scared-animal-voice. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
“Aww, Liam. You’re cute when you worry.” She tried to laugh, but the sound she made didn’t sound much like a laugh. He hunched down and brushed a thumb under her eye.
“Hey.”
“Mmhm?” She pressed her lips in a hard line. The tears trapped in her eyelids spilled over. And then she was just so frustrated that her cheeks burnt up and she cried even harder. Cress sucked in a deep breath, but that didn’t help at all, and she made this mortifying stuttering sob sound. She could never lie to Liam.
“Come here.” Liam pulled her in against his chest and hugged her tight, hands flat against her back. His armor was stiff and cold under her cheek, but that felt good with all the blood rushing to her head. Her brain throbbed like it was swollen inside her skull. Drowning in all those tears she was doing a bad job of not shedding. Who was she trying to fool anyways? She’d always been a bit of a crybaby. And not a pretty cry-er either. Scott had made fun of the way her face screwed up and contorted since they were kids. If she had a scrap more shame, she’d be so embarrassed. Liam pat her back with his chin rested on the top of her head. They stood there like that until the hiccupping sobs finally faded into slow, steady breathing.
“I’m sorry. Some day, huh? I almost get you killed, and now I cry all over you.” Her voice was small and hoarse. She didn’t want to look up at his face just yet. He wouldn’t judge her. Or be mad at her. Even if she was being selfish, he’d kiss her forehead and say it would all be okay. That was just the kind of guy Liam was, and that was almost worse. He rubbed her arm like he was trying to warm her up.
“It’s okay to hurt and breakdown. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
He’d managed to catch her off guard with that one. She hiccuped again and when he looked down at her face, the gentle laugh pulled an actual smile out of her.
“There you go.” He kissed her cheek and the suddenness of it brought a sad, teary little giggle up out of the depths of her chest.
“You shouldn’t be coddling me. I’m supposed to be the Pathfinder.”
“You are the Pathfinder.” He brushed his fingers over her cheek before his hand came to rest against her neck, just under her jaw. The touch spread a soothing heat under her skin, like he was a human hot-shower. She wondered, not for the first time and not for the last, how in the hell she’d gotten lucky enough to fall in love with a guy like Liam Kosta. “But you’re also Cress. And that’s why we’ll win this.”
Damnit.
He pressed his lips against hers gently before scooping up the shoulder segment for her armor and fastening it on for her.
This wasn’t the way Dad would have done things. She wasn’t sure how Dad would have done it, but this was how she was going to do it. Her. Cressida Ryder, Human Pathfinder. Liam latched the last seal on her gauntlet and she was ready to go.