Guilt looks even more specific.
I watch for both.
A pair of technicians pass, their conversation mundane, focused on shield calibration, their movements fluid, unguarded.
Not them.
Further down, a weapons officer lingers too long near a data terminal before moving on, his gaze flicking once toward a restricted panel before he catches himself.
Not necessarily him.
But noted.
I straighten and continue, my path now deliberate instead of exploratory.
If there’s a leak, I don’t have time to root it out cleanly.
And even if I did?—
It doesn’t change the larger problem.
Tyrok chose.
I felt it before I knew it.
And now the consequences are already in motion.
Combine fleet movement.
Crew tension.
Trade instability.
All converging.
All accelerating.
And at the center of it?—
Me.
I don’t flinch from that.
I accept it.
Because accepting it is the only way to do anything about it.
I turn toward Vihl’s section without announcing myself, because if I’m going to test anything, it needs to be unprepared, unfiltered, real.
His door is half open when I reach it, and I can hear him before I see him, pacing inside, boots hitting the floor with staccato rhythm, his voice low as he mutters something under his breath that I don’t quite catch.
I step into the doorway without knocking.
“You’re wearing a path into the floor.”
He stops immediately, turning toward me, and the tension in his posture doesn’t disappear—it sharpens, redirects.
“Yeah,” he says, dragging a hand across the back of his neck, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studies me. “I could say the same about you, except you hide it better.”
