He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t answer.
And in that silence?—
I feel it.
He might not choose me.
The realization lands harder than anything else tonight, sharper than the confrontation, sharper than the truth we just uncovered.
He might not choose this.
And I don’t know what I do with that.
CHAPTER 18
HRASK
The terminal light pulses unevenly against the wall, throwing fractured reflections across the metal surface as I lean in closer, one hand braced against the console to steady myself while the data scrolls. The system hum runs deeper than it should, vibrating through the panel and into my palm, and the air around the node carries that faint burnt-metal edge that tells me I’ve been pushing access longer than this station was built to tolerate.
Lines of data blur past until I slow them manually, isolating timestamps, rerouting feeds, forcing the system to give me something clean.
It doesn’t.
That’s the first confirmation.
“Yeah,” I murmur, dragging my thumb across the edge of the console as I start pulling threads apart one by one. “You buried it right.”
The first breach lines up with a patrol shift change, the kind that should create a gap if someone were sloppy enough to exploit it. The second overlays a supply transfer window, timed just close enough to look like coincidence if you don’t dig deeper. The third?—
I stop the feed.
My eyes narrow as I lean closer, adjusting the overlay manually.
“That’s not overlap,” I say quietly, the realization tightening in my chest. “That’s alignment.”
Every breach follows the same structure, not random, not opportunistic, but calculated down to the second. I pull another layer, forcing the system to render route continuity instead of endpoint logs, and the pattern snaps into place with a clarity that makes my stomach tighten.
The routes don’t stop at the border.
They loop.
Back.
Through.
I brace both hands against the console now, the crackle of the system suddenly louder, sharper, like it’s pressing into my skull.
“No,” I breathe, the word slipping out before I can stop it.
I isolate the movement cycles next, forcing the system to map escalation instead of simple transit, and what comes up isn’t logistics.
It’s rhythm.
Tension spikes.
Localized disruption.
