“Yeah,” I nod. “And that made him a problem.”
“And Dadams?—”
“Was managing the fallout,” I finish.
She exhales slowly, her gaze dropping back to the screen.
“This goes way beyond one commander,” she says.
“Yeah,” I reply. “It has to.”
I scroll again, pulling up the last set of data I managed to extract before they shut me down.
“It’s not all here,” I say. “But it’s enough to prove the structure.”
“And once this gets out,” she says, her voice tightening slightly, “there’s no putting it back.”
“No,” I agree. “There isn’t.”
She leans back slightly, the movement careful, controlled.
“Good,” she says quietly.
I glance at her.
“You don’t sound surprised,” I say.
“I’m not,” she replies. “I’m just… past it.”
“Past what?” I ask.
“Past thinking this was smaller,” she says.
I nod once.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Same.”
The ship hums around us, steady, constant, and for the first time since we left the ground, there’s space to actually think about what comes next.
“We can’t just drop this into a public feed,” she says after a moment.
“No,” I reply. “It’ll get buried or discredited before it spreads.”
“So what?” she asks. “We hand it to someone?”
“We find someone who can’t ignore it,” I say.
“That’s a short list,” she mutters.
“Yeah,” I agree.
She studies the data again, her expression tightening slightly.
“This is going to blow everything open,” she says.
“That’s the point,” I reply.
“And you’re okay with that?” she asks, glancing at me.
