She disappeared into my office, and I returned to coordinating the trap implementation with my team. Krev caught my eye across Engineering, his expression knowing and slightly amused.
I ignored him with practiced efficiency.
Two hours and forty-seven minutes later, Dana emerged from my office with an algorithm that was, frankly, brilliant.
"It monitors power distribution across all nodes simultaneously," she explained, displaying the code structure. "But instead of looking for variance, which they're masking, it looks for the timing correlations between nodes. The command signal has to propagate through the network sequentially, which creates microsecond patterns in activation timing. Those patterns are harder to mask because they're fundamental to how the network operates."
I reviewed her work, found it technically sound and creatively inspired. "This is advanced network analysis. Where did you learn this?"
"I didn't. I improvised it based on principles I know and assumptions about how their command system would have to function." She rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. "Might not work. But it's worth trying."
"It'll work." I began implementing her algorithm into Mothership's monitoring systems. "Get food and rest. We'll deploy this in eight hours when the trap is fully configured."
"I should stay and monitor?—"
"Dana." I made my voice firm. "You've done exceptional work. But you're at your limit. Eight hours of sleep, actual food, then you can return to obsessively monitoring power networks."
For a moment, I thought she'd argue. Then exhaustion won out over stubbornness, and she nodded. "Eight hours. But you call me if anything develops before then."
"Deal."
She left Engineering, moving with the careful precision of someone running on fumes but maintaining professional composure through sheer will. My team watched her go with expressions ranging from respect to admiration. She'd earnedtheir regard through demonstrated capability, not seniority or authority.
Krev materialized beside me once she was gone. "That algorithm is exceptional work for someone who's been awake eighteen hours and running on crisis adrenaline."
"Dana's exceptional. We've established this."
"We've established that you notice it more than is strictly professional."
I rounded on him. "Do you have an actual point, or are you just providing commentary on my apparent transparency?"
"Point is simple: you care about her beyond professional obligation. Which is fine, she's earned personal regard. But you need to decide if you're going to act on that or maintain boundaries. The middle ground you're occupying isn't sustainable."
He was right. I hated that he was right.
"Not now," I said. "We have a saboteur to catch. Personal complications can wait."
"Personal complications usually can't wait. But you'll figure that out eventually." Krev returned to his station, leaving me alone with uncomfortable truths I wasn't ready to process.
I had eight hours to prepare the trap, implement Dana's algorithm, and coordinate with Security on response protocols.
Eight hours to focus on the mission instead of the brilliant, exhausting, fascinating human who'd somehow become essential to my department's operations in two weeks.
Eight hours to convince myself that professional boundaries were sufficient when everything about Dana made me want to breach them.
The trap would work. Dana's algorithm would catch the saboteur.
And after that, I'd deal with the personal complications then.
My console chimed, priority alert from the security grid.
The timing pattern had triggered. Someone was accessing the power network right now.
"Vaxon," I said into the comm, my voice deadly calm. "I've got them."
The next forty-eight hours became a blur of monitoring and analysis.
10
