“Yes. The synthetic catalyst was deployed during your intake processing. Your biometrics were flagged in your transfer data before you arrived. The compatibility between us is…” I stopped. “The scanner identified us as a genuine match. The catalyst forced the activation timeline.”
“So the bond is real.”
“The compatibility is real. The activation was artificial.”
“And Corsine did it because she wanted to see if she could bond a human to a Zethrani.”
“She wanted to see if she could bond me. The Warden. A bonded pair where one half controls the station’s security infrastructure would be extraordinarily valuable to her buyers.”
Kira absorbed this. I watched the information settle into her, layer by layer, the way sediment settles in water. She was processing, and the speed at which she integrated the data and began building a response framework was, again, remarkable.
“You’ve been trying to gather evidence,” she said. “To reach the Galactic Authority.”
“Corsine is one node. The Consortium operates a network of facilities, and I do not know how many others are running similar operations. What I know is confined to this station. For three years. Corsine controls the communication tower. Every outgoing transmission is monitored and filtered through her systems. I have been unable to get a signal past her blocks.”
“You need someone who can bypass her communication filters.”
“I need someone who can access the station’s core infrastructure, reroute the comm array, and transmit a data package to GA frequencies without triggering Corsine’s monitoring protocols.” I held her gaze. “Someone with engineering expertise and access to the Life-Support Hub, whichshares maintenance tunnels with the Communication Tower’s power grid.”
Understanding lit her face. Not anger, though I expected anger would come. Recognition. The recognition of a problem she could solve.
“That’s why she put me near the Hub.”
“Corsine put you near the Hub because your engineering skills make you useful for maintaining the station’s infrastructure. The proximity to the comm grid maintenance tunnels is a structural coincidence she did not account for.” I paused. “I accounted for it the moment I read your transfer file.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been planning this. Since before you touched my wrist in that processing room.”
“I have been looking for someone with your skill set for three years. I did not plan the bond. I did not expect it. I did not want it.” The honesty cost more than I anticipated. The thrum in my chest surged, and I pressed it down. “But I will use every resource available to me to protect my sister and to stop what Corsine is doing in this station. If that makes me a manipulator, I accept the judgment.”
She studied me for a long time. The protein paste cooled on our trays. The monitors cast blue light across the desk between us, and the newly repaired ventilation system moved clean air through the silence.
“My captain framed me for sabotage because I found out about his smuggling operation,” she said. “I know what it looks like when someone is trapped between the law they believe in and the people holding the leash.”
She picked up her utensil and took another mouthful of the protein paste. Swallowed. Her face twisted.
“If we’re going to plan a prison break and take down a trafficking ring, we’re going to need better food than this.”
The sound that escaped me was involuntary. Low and brief, shaped like something I had not produced in years. Zethrani did not laugh the way humans did. But the vibration that rolled through my chest and surfaced as a short, rumbling exhale was the closest my species came to it, and the surprise of its appearance was enough to loosen the lattice of my control for a fraction of a second.
Kira stared at me. “Did you… Was that a laugh?”
“It was an involuntary respiratory event.”
“It was a laugh.” Her mouth did the thing again. “I made the Warden laugh with a complaint about prison food.”
“You made an observation about nutritional quality. I responded with a physiological reflex. There is no humor involved.”
“There is absolutely humor involved.”
I returned my attention to my data pad. I felt the scales along my forearms pulse, and I could not stop them. The thrum in my chest had shifted frequency, and the new resonance was warmer than the one that preceded it.
She was still watching me. Her gaze rested on the side of my face, and the heat of it was different from the heat of proximity or biology or the bond. It was the heat of a person deciding to trust, and the weight of that decision settled against my ribs like the stone from Zethara settled in my palm.
I did not deserve it. I had brought her into this room because I needed her skills. I had told her the truth because the truth was a more effective recruitment tool than lies. Every strategic instinct I possessed told me to maintain distance, to use her competence without allowing her proximity to compromise my operational clarity.
The thrum in my chest told me none of that mattered. She was here. She was looking at me like I was a system she intended to understand, and for the first time in three years, the equation I was solving had more than one variable.
I picked up my utensil and continued eating the fuel-cell protein paste, did not look at her, felt the scales on my forearms warm with a glow I could not contain, and let them.
