The base camp felt smaller after the others left, like the walls had moved inward while they weren't looking. Jessica stepped through the airlock module behind Maddie and Deke, her suit still radiating heat from the volcanic landscape outside. Vorrin and Khamm entered last, sealing the door against the toxic atmosphere.

  For a moment, no one spoke. The recycled air hummed through filters, and somewhere in the equipment, something beeped a status update that nobody acknowledged.

  Khamm pulled off her helmet with shaking hands. Her usual brightness was gone, replaced by something raw and uncertain. She wouldn't meet anyone's eyes.

  "I need…" she started, her voice cracking slightly. "I'm going to check the equipment. Make sure everything's ready for the backup window."

  It was a transparent excuse. The equipment had been checked three times already. But no one called her on it.

  She disappeared into the supply section of the module, and they could hear her moving things around with more force than necessary. The sound of someone needing to do something, anything, to avoid facing what had just happened.

  Vorrin watched her go, his expression unreadable. Then he turned to the humans, and his eyes were cold.

  "So," he said flatly. "Are you done?"

  Jessica blinked. "What?"

  "Thessarn and his lot made their case. Planted their doubts. Showed you that we're not the noble heroes Khamm believes we are." He crossed his arms. "So I'm asking: are you done? Because if you're not committed to this mission, if you're going to hesitate or second-guess every decision, then I need to know now. I can find people who will do the work without philosophizing about it."

  Deke straightened, his military posture returning. "That's not fair. They raised legitimate concerns..."

  "Of course they did," Vorrin interrupted. "Thessarn is intelligent and articulate. He knows how to make his pain sound like logic. Kaelan can make non-interference sound like wisdom instead of cowardice. And Trent..." he paused, something bitter crossing his features, "...Trent knows exactly which wounds to press on because he's been there. He's seen how we operate, knows our weaknesses."

  "So they're wrong?" Maddie asked quietly.

  "No." The admission seemed to cost Vorrin something. "They're not wrong. They're also not right. That's what makes this complicated."

  Jessica pulled off her own helmet, needing to see him clearly without the display interface. "Then explain it to us. Because right now, all we have are their arguments and Khamm's optimism, and neither of those feels like the whole truth."

  Vorrin was silent for a long moment. He moved to the observation window, looking out at the volcanic hellscape beyond. The sky was darkening as ash clouds thickened, and distant lightning illuminated the angry landscape.

  "We didn't get everything right when we started," he said finally. "Khamm had this idea...save the dying species, preserve biodiversity, be the guardians of life across the galaxy. It was beautiful. Naive. Dangerous. But beautiful."

  He turned back to face them. "The first few rescues were disasters. We didn't understand the psychological impact of captivity. Didn't account for social structures, territorial needs, the trauma of displacement. We had good intentions and advanced technology and absolutely no idea what we were doing."

  "What happened?" Jessica asked.

  "Species died in our care. Not from neglect...we gave them everything we thought they needed. But some refused to eat. Others became aggressive, self-destructive. A few seemed fine for weeks and then just... gave up. Faded. Stopped trying to survive."

  Maddie's hand went to her mouth. "How many?"

  "Of the first twelve species we rescued, only four survived past the first year." Vorrin's voice was matter-of-fact, but Jessica could hear the weight beneath it. "That's when Thessarn and the others started questioning whether we should be doing this at all. Whether we were saving these creatures or torturing them."

  "But you kept going," Deke observed.

  "We adapted. Created better habitats, consulted with behavioral specialists across dozens of species, developed protocols to minimize trauma. The rules you learned...those came from painful experience. Every parameter exists because we made a mistake and learned from it."

  "And the opposition couldn't forgive those mistakes," Jessica said.

  "Some could. Some couldn't. Some left for philosophical reasons...they genuinely believed non-interference was the right path. Others left because they couldn't handle the weight anymore. Every failure, every creature that died despite our best efforts...it adds up. It wears on you."

  Vorrin moved away from the window, his posture shifting slightly. "Thessarn is right about one thing. Being rescued without consent, being the last of your kind, watching your culture die with you...that's a burden we impose on these creatures whether they understand it or not. And we don't have good answers for it. We just have the hope that existence, even painful existence, is better than extinction."

  "Is it?" Maddie asked.

  "I don't know." The admission hung in the air. "But Khamm believes it is. She needs to believe it. And I..." He paused, something vulnerable flickering across his usually stern features. "I need her to keep believing it."

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  The statement felt like a door opening. Jessica stepped through it carefully. "Why? You don't seem like someone who operates on belief. You're practical, tactical. You see the flaws in what we're doing. So why do you keep going?"

  Vorrin was quiet for so long that Jessica thought he might not answer. When he spoke, his voice was softer than she'd ever heard it.

  "We lost our parents four years ago. Khamm and I. The ship...we call it the Last Kindness in your language as I said...it was theirs. They were explorers, researchers, traveling the galaxy documenting life in all its forms. They died doing what they loved, studying a quantum anomaly near a collapsing star. The anomaly destabilized faster than predicted. They didn't suffer. Just... gone."

  Maddie's eyes filled with tears.

  "Khamm inherited the ship. And the grief. And the desperate, impossible need to fix it." Vorrin's jaw tightened. "She tried to use the time travel technology to save them. Went back to warn them, to stop them from going to that system. But you can't change your own timeline...paradox prevents it. The ship won't allow two versions of itself to exist at the same point in time and space."

  "But she kept trying," Jessica said, understanding beginning to dawn.

  "For almost a year. She'd go back further, take a different ship, fly out to intercept them before they reached the anomaly. Every attempt failed. The universe finds ways to preserve causality. They died in accidents. Equipment malfunctions. Random chance. No matter what she did, they died."

  Vorrin's hand clenched into a fist. "I watched her break herself trying to change the unchangeable. She stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped being the person she'd been. All she could think about was the next attempt, the next angle, the next way to save people who were already gone."

  "What stopped her?" Deke asked quietly.

  "I did. Along with some of our parents' colleagues...the remains of our family that couldn’t just stand by anymore. We couldn't let her keep destroying herself over something impossible. So we redirected her." He looked toward where Khamm had disappeared. "We suggested she use the ship's capabilities to save lives she could actually save. Species on the edge of extinction. Creatures that history said were doomed but didn't have to be."

  Understanding clicked into place for Jessica. "The first rescue."

  "A small aquatic species from a world experiencing ecological collapse. Nothing impressive...they looked like Earth's bats, if bats were made of crystal and sang in frequencies that could shatter glass. We spent two weeks preparing their habitat, calculating the optimal retrieval window, planning every detail."

  For the first time, something like warmth entered Vorrin's voice. "When we released them into their new habitat and they began to sing...this beautiful, impossible sound...Khamm smiled. For the first time since our parents died, she smiled. Really smiled. Like she'd found something worth holding onto."

  "So you keep doing this for her," Maddie said, tears streaming down her face now. "Not because you believe in it, but because it keeps her from falling back into that grief."

  "I keep doing this because my sister needs purpose more than she needs truth. Because watching her save the universe, even if we're doing it imperfectly, is better than watching her try to resurrect the dead." Vorrin's expression hardened again. "And yes, sometimes that means making decisions she can't make. Like leaving Trent behind. Like enforcing rules she'd rather bend. I'm not the hero of this story. I'm the person who does what's necessary to keep the actual hero functioning."

  The module was silent except for the environmental systems and the distant rumble of volcanic activity.

  "They're not wrong," Vorrin continued, looking at each of them. "Thessarn, Kaelan, the others who left. They have valid concerns. We are playing god. We do cause harm sometimes, despite our best intentions. The Snarric mission might fail. We might save one and lose the other, or lose both. The opposition might sabotage us again. And even if we succeed, we're creating captive populations that will never know their true homes."

  He moved closer, his presence suddenly imposing. "But here's what Thessarn won't tell you: doing nothing is also a choice. Watching species die, witnessing extinction after extinction, cataloging loss without trying to prevent it...that's not neutrality. That's complicity. The universe doesn't care if we interfere or not. It's going to keep creating and destroying, birthing and killing, without pause or mercy. The question isn't whether we should act. It's whether we can live with ourselves if we don't."

  "Even when we get it wrong?" Jessica asked.

  "Especially when we get it wrong. Because getting it wrong means we tried. It means we saw suffering and didn't turn away. It means we valued existence enough to fight for it, even when fighting caused new problems." His voice dropped. "The opposition has the luxury of clean hands because they've chosen to do nothing. We don't have that luxury. We have blood on our hands, and scars, and failures we'll carry forever. But we also have seventeen species that wouldn't exist without us. Eighteen with the floofs. We have Khamm's smile when a rescue succeeds. We have the hope that maybe, just maybe, we're making things slightly less terrible."

  Deke had been quiet, processing. Now he spoke up. "The backup window. We still have it. Forty…” He looked at an indicator on his suits guantlet. “…five hours from now."

  "Yes," Vorrin confirmed.

  "And the opposition will sabotage us again."

  "Almost certainly."

  "But we could try anyway. Adapt our approach. Find a way around their interference." Deke looked at Jessica and Maddie. "If we're willing."

  Jessica thought about Thessarn's pain. About Trent's accusations. About the weight of deciding who lived and who died. She thought about her father, her dull life in the office, the beauty and cruelty of nature in the storm that had threatened to end her existence. She took a chance taking Khamm’s offer without knowing what she was showing up for.

  Sometimes showing up meant trying things that might fail. Meant getting it wrong and carrying that weight. Meant doing your best in impossible situations and hoping it was enough. It was deciding if you could accept entropy… and she didn’t think she could.

  "I'm in," she said. "I don't know if we're right. I don't know if saving the Snarrics is preservation or imprisonment. But I know that trying feels more right than walking away."

  Maddie nodded, wiping her tears. "The floofs are happy. I know Kaelan says they're prisoners who don't know it, but I've watched them. They play. They groom each other. They're going to have babies. That has to count for something."

  "It counts," Vorrin said quietly.

  "I'm in too," Deke said. "But I want to be clear...I heard what they said. I understand their arguments. We're going into this with eyes open, not blind faith. If we screw this up, we own it."

  "Agreed." Vorrin looked toward the supply section where Khamm had been hiding. "I should check on her. Make sure she's not trying to rebuild the capture cubes from spare parts or something equally ill-advised."

  He paused at the doorway, looking back at them. "Thank you. For listening to both sides. For thinking about their arguments instead of just dismissing them. For choosing to continue despite the doubts. That's more than most people would do."

  "We're not most people," Jessica said. "We're the crew of the Last Kindness. Apparently, that means carrying impossible weight and hoping we're strong enough."

  Something that might have been respect flickered across Vorrin's features. "Apparently so."

  He disappeared into the supply section, and they could hear his voice, low and gentle, talking to Khamm. Her responses were muffled, but the tone was softer than before.

  "Forty-five hours," Deke said, looking at the chronometer. "We should rest. Plan. Figure out how to do this right."

  "Or at least less wrong," Maddie offered with a weak smile.

  “Or at least less wrong…” Deke echoed quietly.