“Hold still, Jonarom. You’ll make it worse if you keep moving.”

“I’m steady,” Jonarom muttered, his voice low and raw. “Hurts like hell, though.”

“I know,” Chambers replied, his tone just as tired, just as pained. His own bruises trailed down his jaw and ribs.

Chambers pressed the damp scrap of cloth carefully against the ragged cuts along Jonarom’s back. The Ardanan hissed through his teeth but steadied himself, his hand gripping Chambers’ arm for balance. Jonarom sat forward on the narrow bunk, his uniform jacket stripped off, the deep cuts and bruises across his back raw and angry from where the plasma whips had scored him. Chambers knelt beside him, his expression grim but steady as he tore a strip of fabric from his undershirt and dabbed it again in the small bowl of water they had and then carefully applied it against one of the cuts.

Jonarom winced, his hands gripping the edge of the bunk. “Careful,” he muttered, though there was no heat in his voice.

“I am being careful,” Chambers replied, his tone soft, almost coaxing. He pressed the makeshift bandage down with a deliberate gentleness. “If we don’t clean these up, they’ll only get worse. Last thing you need is an infection on top of everything else.”

Jonarom gave a hollow chuckle, though it caught in his throat. “I think ‘everything else’ already covers enough misery for today.”

Chambers smirked faintly, though his eyes betrayed his worry. He tied the strip off and sat down beside Jonarom, shoulders touching, both of them staring across the dim cell. Silence stretched between them until Jonarom broke it, his voice quieter this time.

“Do you remember the pool back on the ship?”

Chambers blinked, surprised by the sudden shift. Then he nodded slowly. “Yeah. Every morning after the gym. You always insisted we swim before reporting in. Said it ‘woke the brain up’.”

Jonarom allowed himself the ghost of a smile. “It does. Or at least, it did. You’d try to race me every time, and you’d never admit I was faster.”

“I let you win,” Chambers said automatically, a familiar line, though his lips twitched as if the words almost tasted like relief.

Jonarom shook his head. “You’ve never let me win at anything. That’s why I know it mattered. Those few laps, just us, no one else around—those mornings made everything easier.”

Chambers leaned back against the wall, eyes drifting shut as though he could feel the cool water around him again. “And after a long day, we’d sit in the hot tub, letting the heat undo all the knots. Didn’t matter how rough the shift was, or what the captain had us doing for those few minutes, it felt like nothing could touch us.”

“Exactly.” Jonarom’s voice steadied, stronger now. “That’s what I’m holding on to. If we could survive those endless shifts, those drills, even Commander Jirani’s long briefings—”

“—then we can survive this,” Chambers finished for him, opening his eyes and meeting his friend’s.

For a long moment, they simply sat in silence again, drawing strength from the memory and each other. Chambers reached out, gripping Jonarom’s forearm firmly. Jonarom returned the gesture without hesitation, the pain in his back momentarily forgotten.

“We’ll get through this,” Chambers said quietly, but with conviction. “The two of us. Same as always.”

Jonarom nodded. “Same as always.” Jonarom’s cracked lips tugged into the faintest smile. “You always cheated off the wall push.”

“Not cheating. Just tactical efficiency,” Chambers countered, a weak grin flashing.

Jonarom chuckled slightly, wincing at the pain it caused him.

“You’d think,” Chambers muttered, his voice tight with concentration as he pressed the rag against Jonarom’s back, “that after all those hours in the gym, I’d be better prepared to play field medic.”

Jonarom winced, his bare shoulders flinching under the touch, but he chuckled hoarsely. “You? A medic? You can barely survive the treadmill without complaining.”

“Harsh,” Chambers shot back with a slight smirk. He pressed the cloth one last time against Jonarom’s back, then let it drop to his lap with a sigh. “We’ll get back there, Jon. We’ll get back to that pool. You’ll see.”

Jonarom turned his head slightly, meeting Chambers’ gaze with a weary but steady look. “As we said, together.”

Chambers nodded as he finished helping his friend and stood up to stretch. He kept his voice low so that only Jonarom could hear him. “The shuttle’s here. The hangar deck isn’t far.” He sat back down next to his friend. “If we’re smart, if we work together, we can do it.”

Jonarom nodded firmly. They weren’t going to let each other down. They were determined. “They can beat us, starve us, throw us around, but they won’t get the codes, and they won’t break us. If we can get to the shuttle, even to get a message out to the Bellerophon, we could be rescued quickly. As you said, Ry, we could do this.”

The two held each other’s gaze, bruised and battered, but unbowed.

A crackle split the air; it was the force field collapsing with a hiss. Both men snapped upright, shoulders squared despite their exhaustion.

The opening filled with the hulking silhouette of Maje Kerra, his scarred mouth curling into a cruel smile. Two guards stepped in behind him, rifles loose but ready.

“On your feet,” Kerra commanded.

The guards seized them roughly, yanking them upright. Jonarom stumbled but caught himself before the guard could shove him further. Chambers stayed rigid, his eyes locked on Kerra.

“You waste my time,” the Kazon leader sneered. “Since you will not share your codes, perhaps solitude will teach you hunger. No food. No water. No bed. Nothing.”

Chambers let out a short, bitter laugh. “Some punishment. This place already makes Rura Penthe look like the Hoobishan Baths on Trill.”

The nearest guard slammed the butt of his rifle into Chambers’ ribs. He gasped, doubling over, but gritted his teeth and forced himself upright again.

“Respect,” Kerra growled.

“Respect,” Jonarom cut in sharply, his voice as hard as Chambers’, “isn’t yours to demand.”

Kerra’s sneer deepened before he bellowed out his subsequent commands to his guards. “Separate them. Let them learn despair alone. Perhaps then their tongues will loosen.”

The guards dragged them toward the corridor. Jonarom twisted his head, eyes meeting Chambers’ for a fleeting instant. Chambers gave him the faintest nod; it was the unspoken reassurance that they could do this. They were wrenched apart, thrown into isolation, steel doors slamming shut between them and force fields crackling back to life.