Blye slowly stirred awake, wincing as she felt the pounding in her skull. There was always some post-op pain involved with any operation, and that went double and triple for neurosurgery. It hadn’t been too bad at first, but as her body adjusted to the analgesics, they had grown steadily worse. Feeling around the small table beside her cot, she found her pain meds, dry swallowing a couple of pills before forcing herself to sit up.

Her head swam as she was hit with a sudden bout of nausea. Lovely. As if things weren’t bad enough. She’d probably been pushing herself too hard since the surgery, and now she was paying the price. What she really needed to do was take a couple of days off and just rest, but there was no way in hell that was happening with all the responsibilities on her plate, not to mention an impatient and hostile overlord breathing down her neck. Deciding to spend a few moments taking stock as she gathered her strength, Blye marveled at the demands being placed on her from all directions.

… Issuing the call to arms was one thing, but how was she supposed to lead this rebellion with the Troika hanging on her every word? She couldn’t even pass written notes, not with the implant seeing everything she could not. It left her with no way to communicate her instructions outside the clumsy backup of Morse code… which only Prash and Amar understood.

Hell of a way to run a revolution.

So far, they’d had little luck locating a poison effective against the Aggaaddub. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t exactly advertise their weaknesses, forcing the Knights to fall back on the age-old practice of trial and error. Blye had taken cell cultures of the reptilians, back when she’d been running her little deception to keep them away from the vault and had kept the samples viable. They’d tested several toxins on the cultures so far, and while a few showed promise, none of them contaminated the alien tissue fast enough.

Blye knew she’d only get one shot with Kaihautu Yugha. She had to make it count.

At least it spared her any more midnight swims through the tunnel, the downside being she could no longer train their fledgling army. Her fellow Knights had stepped up to the challenge admirably, but neither were as skilled as she was in hand-to-hand combat. Given how overwhelmingly they were outmatched in that department, it likely would make little difference in the end, but if she could have given even a handful of them a fighting chance…

Blye shook off that train of thought and instantly regretted it, feeling her stomach lurch, before forcing herself to look forward instead. She was doing the very best she could under difficult circumstances, and if she couldn’t accomplish everything she wanted, or save everyone under her protection, then as long as she could say without hesitation that she had done everything under her power, it would have to be enough.

It wouldn’t stop the endless self-recrimination, though. She knew that. Maggie had spoken often of old ghosts refusing to leave her in peace; it was only now she truly understood what the old Tinker had meant.

Another problem was she could no longer coordinate with Spata Zhai, though they still met regularly regarding camp business. Prash and Amar had explained to him the necessity of not revealing anything incriminating around her, forcing him to walk a very fine line; ostensibly following the Kaihautu’s orders while actually supporting the growing rebellion. If the Troika were to learn the truth, they would execute him and his warriors without hesitation. They’d fight back, of course, with everything they had, using all of their famed martial skills.

It simply wouldn’t be enough.

Worst of all, trying to keep all of this from the Kaihautu was reducing her to an emotional wreck. She wasn’t cut out for espionage, as a Knight and healer she had always faced the universe with truthfulness and candor. Deceit did not come easily to her, though to her eternal regret, she was learning how to negotiate the world of duplicity. It wasn’t enough to remember the falsehoods she told; she also had to recall which lies she had told to which individuals. One tiny misstep, a single slip of the tongue, and the executioner’s axe would fall.

In fact, the only thing keeping the Aggaaddub commander’s attention from the simmering uprising was his avarice for the treasures of the Precursors. Every day, he escorted Blye to the vault in order to commune with Aleph, teasing even more secrets from the ancient computer, leaving her feeling soiled and wracked with guilt. They just weren’t ready for a confrontation, not without a great deal more training, which meant she had to beg, borrow, or steal every moment she could in order to buy them more time.

Even if that meant handing the enemy the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The only bright spot in this perpetual nightmare was the Kaihautu’s unwillingness to share what he’d gleaned from Aleph with the rest of the Troika. Like a squirrel stocking up nuts for winter, he hoarded his secrets, allowing Blye and the others a very narrow window of opportunity. If they could make their move before he made his, they still had a chance to bury those stolen riches and contain the damage. All they had to do was defeat the alien commander and his warriors, destroy the ship still in orbit, and somehow not alert the rest of the empire in the process. What could possibly go wrong?

With a heavy sigh, Blye rose to her feet, leaning on her staff, her legs going wobbly the instant she put weight on them. Despite the pills she’d taken, her headache was even worse, and while she was sorely tempted to pop a couple more, she knew all too well the dangers that lay down that road. Some traps were best avoided, so she’d deal with the pain, though as she shivered in the chilly morning air, she grabbed a blanket and pulled it tight around her for added warmth.

It didn’t seem to help all that much, truth be told.

She maneuvered her way through the clinic to begin rounds. It wasn’t easy, without the use of her eyes, forcing her to rely on her other senses, including her sense of recall. She had always been blessed with an excellent memory, but its limits were being sorely tested, as the situation forced her to summon up details of each patient’s history and treatment. She’d come to rely heavily on mnemonics to keep it all straight, though thankfully one of the others was nearby to answer her questions in case she forgot some critical detail. Overall, she’d learned how to manage her newfound disability, adapting even faster than she’d dared hope, were it not for one crucial detail.

Being blind terrified her.

She never realized just how much she relied on her sense of sight until they stole it from her. There were important diagnostic tools she could no longer employ because they required vision to be effective… she couldn't even read a simple X-ray! Forget surgery, an area where she truly excelled, without the ability to see she could barely manage post-op care. And it wasn’t only the world of medicine where she felt the loss, simply maneuvering from one side of the clinic to the other was a painful exercise in banged-up shins, bruised elbows, and frightening panic attacks. It took every bit of strength she possessed to hide her fears from the others, to not let them see her moments of weakness. She wanted to weep, to wallow in self-pity, but of course, she couldn’t. She had to stay strong for the others, her fellow Knights, the refugees… everyone. Everyone but her.

… These things we do, so others may live.

Those words still meant something to her. She believed in those words, had lived her life by them, and if it came to it, would die for them as well. Terra knows she’d risked her life time and again to protect the evacuees who now called this worthless patch of dirt home while asking nothing in return. The Knights existed to serve while making no promises of safety or acclaim. She lived like a monk and owned little more, and not once had she complained, instead putting her principles and faith above all else.

She’d just never expected it to be quite this hard.

The ground suddenly went sideways, her arms flailing for purchase as she fought to steady herself, but only found air instead. Her staff clattered to the floor as she swooned, following a heartbeat behind as she landed with a solid thud on the wooden planks. She only avoided doing serious damage to herself by twisting her body at the last instant from muscle memory, the years spent training with staff and sword paying off dividends. The room seemed to spin all around her, while the sound of her spill brought the others at a dead run. She felt her head being cradled as Prash said, “Don’t move. Let us check you out first.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, as she struggled to get up, “tripped or somethin’, that’s all.”

“Terra, she’s burning up,” Amar said in a worried voice, as she felt a hand on her brow.

“It’s nothin’,” she told them, though the words came out slurred, “jus’ a little dizzy…”

“Blye, listen to me,” Prash commanded her, “you’re showing all the signs of a serious infection. If it’s related to the surgery, we could be looking at meningitis. I know I don’t need to tell you just how dangerous that possibility is.”

That brought her up short. Maybe somewhere in the back of her mind, she recognized the signs something was wrong, but with everyone relying on her to be strong, with the consequences of failure so damn high she’d ignored them, certain she could just bull her way through.

Apparently, the bill had just come due.

She felt them hoist her up just as she was hit with another wave of nausea, this one too powerful to ignore. Her body convulsed as she retched, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the floor, wracked with violent heaves until there was nothing left. The effort left her drained and limp as they carried her back to her cot, shivering as they cleaned her off and covered her with blankets while they diagnosed her.

“We need to get you started on chloramphenicol and ampicillin immediately,” she heard one of them say, even as she felt the familiar prick of an IV needle in her arm.

“... can’t be sick,” she tried to tell them as she labored to sit up, only to be firmly pushed back down onto the cot. Her muscles refused to cooperate as she tried to fend them off, her limbs suddenly as useless as overcooked noodles. Her thoughts immediately went to the child she was carrying, worrying about what this might do to him or her. Racking her brains, she couldn’t recall any links between meningitis and fetal risk, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a connection.

“When they say Knights make the worst patients, they aren’t kidding,” Amar muttered as Velsa took her temperature, a sharp intake of breath betraying her shock as she saw the results, before showing the Knights. “... 39.1º,” he reported ominously. “We’ve got to get that fever down now.”

“Help me roll her,” Prash told the other man, as she felt her being pulled onto her side while he removed the dressing from her skull. “I really don’t want to go back in there…” her fellow Knight fretted as he inspected the surgical site. “I’m not seeing anything obvious, no pus or discolored drainage,” he said in relief, as he continued his search, “and no obvious signs of sepsis either, thank Terra. I think we caught it in time.”

“Still need to do a lumbar puncture to confirm it’s meningitis,” as Blye suddenly got chills that had nothing to do with her fever.

Brain infections were dangerous as hell, and meningitis was both one of the most common, not to mention one of the most deadly. They were especially prone to appear after neurosurgery; any time you opened up the skull, you were risking all sorts of infections. Unfortunately, the only way to confirm that diagnosis was to take a sample of spinal fluid and run tests. In the meantime…

“Can’t stay in bed,” she maintained, though her attempts to sit up were easily fended off. “The Kaihautu is coming, and I…”

“He’ll just have to wait,” Amar snapped, the anger in his words impossible to ignore. “If he needs information that badly, one of us can go.”

“... no…” she whispered, but they were no longer listening.

“Velsa, while we’re setting up for the puncture, start a sponge bath for her,” Prash directed the alien nurse. “Evaporation should help with the fever, and given her condition, I want to stay as minimally invasive as I can.”

“Of course,” she heard as the young Ksot acknowledged the order, before rushing off to gather the necessary paraphernalia.

Damn it, no one was paying attention to her. “... jus’ need some prednisone and painkillers,” she mumbled, “an’ I’ll be fine.” Blye tried sitting up once more, but had no better luck with her third attempt than she had before. She fell back onto the thin cot, gasping from the effort, the others not even trying to restrain her as she felt someone take her hand.

“Blye, would you please just stop?” Prash begged her. “We already lost Joona. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“Listen to him,” Amar urged, “we’re just trying to help.”

And that’s when she broke. Tears appeared in her eyes as the darkness she’d long feared overwhelmed her, the barriers she’d built around her now crashing down as her reserves were depleted. She trembled in the cold air, the panic she’d been suppressing bubbling to the surface as she bawled like a baby. “.. I’m scared,” she whispered, finally admitting the dark truth she’d fought so hard to keep hidden.

“Don’t worry… we’ve got you,” Prash vowed, as he squeezed her hand.

“We started this together, and we’ll finish it together,” Amar reminded her.

“The people are behind you as well,” Velsa chimed in, starting her sponge bath.

For some reason, she found comfort in those words as she slowly drifted off to sleep.