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I retract my hand from the terminal. The logic holds, yet the cold dread in my chest expands, freezing the blood in my veins.

I pull my command cube from my palm port. “Orien to Lirael.”

Nothing.

“Lirael, respond.”

Still nothing.

I don’t wait. I spin on my heel and tear out of the suite.

My nano armor floods over my skin, surging from my ports in a violent wave of dark metal and molten orange light. It encases my limbs, locking over my chest and throat, reacting to the sudden, explosive spike in my threat assessment.

I throw myself into the transport skiff, bypassing the automated navigation. I slam the thrusters to maximum output, and the vehicle launches off the pad with a loud whirr.

SUBJECT: ELMSLEIGH, MARGARET.

STATUS: MISSING.

THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL.

The flight to the spaceport takes mere moments, but it feels like endless cycles. I dock the skiff violently, the metal hull grinding against the reinforced platform, then vault over the side before the vehicle fully stabilizes.

I stalk through the pristine corridors of the Sovereign, my heavy boots cracking against the metal deck. Avaren soldiers, sensing the lethal, uncontained violence radiating from me, flatten themselves against the walls to clear my path.

The heavy doors to the primary science lab refuse to open immediately.

I don’t wait for the sensor to recognize my clearance. I jam my armored fingers into the center seam and rip the steel doors apart, the hydraulics screaming in protest as I force entry.

Cyrel yelps, dropping a glass beaker. It shatters against the floor, splashing blue liquid across the sterile white tiles. Lirael spins around from a diagnostic console, her silver-flecked eyes wide with shock.

“Where is she?” My voice is unrecognizable, a layered growl vibrating through the vocal modulators of my helmet.

The visor retracts, exposing my face.

Lirael takes a step back, her hands rising defensively. “Orien, what is wrong? Where is who?”

“Maggie.” I cross the lab in two strides, towering over the chief medical officer. “You sent an assistive unit to my estate. You summoned her for a medical extraction. Where is my match?”

Confusion washes over Lirael’s features. She glances at Cyrel, then back at me. “I didn’t send a unit. Cyrel and I were called up to the logistics deck an hour ago to finalize the medical transport manifests for Earth. We just returned.”

The cold dread morphs into a raging, apocalyptic inferno.

“Someone used your authorization seal.” I pivot, lunging toward the primary diagnostic table. “Pull the security logs. Now.”

Cyrel scrambles to the console, her fingers flying across the holographic interface. Blue light illuminates her pale face. Her brow furrows, her mouth dropping open as she swipes through empty data streams.

“They’re gone,” Cyrel breathes, genuine panic lacing her tone. “The path logs for the assistive units… the surveillance feeds for this entire sector… someone initiated a localized deletion protocol. The code is completely scrubbed.”

“Recover it.” I plant my hands on the metal table, the force denting the reinforced steel. “Find the ghost data. Check the manual overrides.”

“I can’t.” Cyrel shakes her head, her hands hovering over the keyboard. “This isn’t a standard glitch. This is a professional data wipe. Whoever did this bypassed the primary security nodes and severed the backup links. They knew exactly how our architecture functions.”

I stare at the empty blue holograms.

A professional wipe. A forged medical summons. A meticulous, surgical extraction of the most valuable biological asset in the known universe, executed from within our own flagship.

My mind races, flipping through the faces I interrogated, the nobles I threatened, the factions loyal to Zeiran Korvann. None of them possess this level of scientific access. None of them care about human immunity. They care about thrones. They care about politics.