The silence stretches between us, not empty, but controlled, like he is measuring the exact point where this conversation shifts from correction to action.
“You’ve been asking questions,” he says.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been accessing restricted data.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been operating outside protocol.”
“Yes.”
Each admission lands deliberately, and I do not look away.
“And you do not see a problem with that,” he says.
“I see a problem,” I reply. “I just don’t think it’s me.”
His gaze holds mine, steady and unblinking, and something colder settles into the space between us.
“You are becoming a liability,” he says.
“Then maybe the system is broken,” I shoot back.
“That’s enough,” he says, the words sharper now, edged with command.
I do not step back.
I do not lower my gaze.
“Lieutenant Jolie,” he continues, his tone flattening. “You are being reassigned effective immediately.”
“Reassigned to what?” I ask.
“Transport,” he says.
The word sits wrong the second it leaves his mouth, and I feel it in the way my chest tightens and my shoulders square without conscious thought.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I reply.
“It doesn’t have to,” he says.
“You’re removing me,” I say.
“I’m containing a problem,” he corrects.
The phrasing settles heavy, deliberate, final.
“This isn’t over,” I say.
“For you,” he replies, “it is.”
He steps past me, the shift in air subtle but unmistakable, and I feel the weight of his authority move with him.
“Report to the transport bay,” he says over his shoulder. “Immediately.”
I do not respond, because the order does not require acknowledgment to carry weight.
