Vihl glances back once, then forward again. “You think we just made a smart move,” he says, “or a complicated one?”
I look at her again, the way she stands in a space that should overwhelm her and doesn’t.
“I think,” I say slowly, “we just changed the terms.”
CHAPTER 7
STACY
The moment I step onto the ship, everything shifts in a way that feels immediate and undeniable.
The air hits first, warmer than the estate but sharper, carrying the layered scent of metal, ozone, and something faintly organic beneath it, like heat settling into surfaces that have been used too often to ever feel sterile again. The hum beneath my feet is constant and deeper than anything in the estate, not hidden or softened, but present in a way that makes the ship feel less like a structure and more like something alive and aware of its own movement.
I slow just enough to take it in without stopping, letting my gaze move without drawing attention to it as I track the corridor ahead. The layout stretches forward in angled lines, nothing symmetrical, nothing decorative, and everything built for function rather than presentation. Surfaces show wear where hands have touched them repeatedly, edges marked by use instead of polished smooth, and that tells me more than any display ever could.
“Don’t lag,” a voice calls from behind me, sharp but not aggressive.
I don’t turn, adjusting my pace by a fraction so it reads as compliance instead of calculation. “I’m not,” I reply, keeping my tone even.
Two crew members pass in the opposite direction, both of them glancing at me without trying to disguise it. Their attention is quick but deliberate, assessing instead of curious, and I feel it in the way their shoulders shift as they move past, the subtle adjustment in their spacing marking me as something that does not belong.
They’re not used to seeing someone like me here, and that alone changes how I need to move.
“Eyes forward,” another voice mutters, not to me, but about me, and I file that away without reacting.
We move deeper into the ship, and the layout reveals itself in fragments instead of symmetry. Intersections branch unpredictably, pathways narrowing and widening without a clear pattern, creating a structure that is harder to memorize at a glance but easier to defend. I track distances as we move, counting steps without looking like I am, noting turns, lighting shifts, and the way the hum changes pitch depending on proximity to core systems.
The closer we move inward, the stronger the vibration becomes, pressing up through the floor and into my body in a way that grounds me even as it unsettles everything else.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“Up,” the guard replies without looking at me.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
I glance at him briefly, just enough to read the tension in his jaw and the uncertainty beneath it, then return my focus forward. “You always talk this much?” he asks.
“Only when I need information,” I reply.
He exhales quietly. “You’ll get what you’re given.”
“That depends on what I can take,” I say.
He doesn’t answer that, and the silence that follows is more informative than anything he could have said.
We reach a vertical lift, the doors sliding open with a heavier mechanical sound than anything in the estate, and I step inside without waiting to be directed. I position myself slightly off-center, angling my stance so I can see both the door and the control panel without turning my head.
The lift rises smoothly, the pressure shifting just enough to register as the levels change. I watch the indicators climb without appearing to focus on them, committing each transition to memory as the doors open again before the final marker settles.
The space beyond is immediately different.
The air is hotter, sharper, carrying the faint crackle of active systems layered beneath the steady hum, and the lighting shifts from controlled uniformity to something more functional and uneven. Panels cast angled light across the floor, interfaces flicker with real-time data, and the room opens wide enough to hold movement without constraining it.
The bridge.
That is not what I expected.
