"Agreed."
"Prep time is three hours. Meet at shuttle bay seven. Dismissed."
The bridge crew returned to their work. Dana grabbed my arm as I turned to leave.
"Are you sure about this?" Her green eyes were intense, worried. "Contested space. Unknown hostiles. A signal that might be?—"
"I have to go." I pulled free gently. "You know I do."
"I know." She glanced at Er'dox, something passing between them that I envied and resented in equal measure. "Just be careful. Come back in one piece. Because if something happens to you out there, I'll have to live with the fact that I couldn't stop you."
"Dana—"
"I mean it. You're not just going for them. You're running toward something because you feel guilty for being safe. For being happy. For building a life here when other people are suffering." She squeezed my shoulder hard enough to hurt. "But getting yourself killed won't save anyone. So promise me you'll be smart."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to insist this wasn't about guilt or obligation or survivor's complex manifesting as reckless heroism.
But Dana knew me too well.
"I promise," I said. "I'll be smart."
"Liar."
She hugged me then, fierce and quick and terrified. Then she let go and walked away with Er'dox, leaving me standing alone on the bridge.
Not quite alone.
Zor'go waited by the exit. His expression was unreadable, his markings steady except for tiny flickers near his temples that I'd learned meant he was processing something complex. Something emotional.
"Your quarters or mine?" he asked quietly. "We need to talk before the mission."
"Yours." Mine were still shared with Bea and Elena. Not exactly private. "But Zor'go, I don't want to fight about?—"
"We're not going to fight." He started walking, and I followed. "We're going to have an honest conversation about why you're risking your life for a signal that might be a trap. And I'm going to tell you why I'm coming with you despite believing this is strategically unsound and emotionally reckless."
"You think I'm being reckless?"
"I think you're being human. Which is both your greatest strength and your most terrifying vulnerability."
His quarters were bigger than mine, perks of being Head of Operations, but still maintained that essential Zor'go aesthetic: precisely organized chaos. Holographic models floated in designated zones. Paper sketches, my sketches, I realized with a jolt, were filed in protective sleeves on his desk. His personal effects were minimal: the crystalline calculating device, a small sculpture that might have been art or mathematics or both, and a single photograph of what I assumed was his family.
He gestured to the seating area, a low couch designed for Zandovian proportions that made me feel tiny. I perched on the edge, suddenly aware of how small his space made me feel. How vulnerable.
Zor'go didn't sit. He paced. His long strides ate up the floor space as his markings flickered in complex patterns.
"When we met," he said finally, "you showed me something I couldn't see. You made me understand that perfect efficiency isn't the same as good design. Those beings need more than optimal space utilization. They need home."
I didn't interrupt. Just watched him pace, watched his mind work through whatever he was trying to articulate.
"I've been alone for a long time," he continued. "Married to my work. Content in my isolation. Then you arrived with your sketches and your impossible optimism and your ability to seebeauty in spatial relationships I'd reduced to pure mathematics." He stopped, turned to face me. "You showed me what I was missing. What I'd been missing for years."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Zor'go?—"
"Let me finish." His ice-blue eyes held mine. "I don't know when it happened. When professional respect became something else. When I started looking forward to our morning meetings not just for work but for the chance to watch you think. To see you light up when you solve a design problem. To hear you laugh at my terrible jokes about load-bearing calculations."
"They're not terrible jokes," I said weakly. "They're just very specific humor."
"They're objectively terrible. You're kind enough to pretend otherwise." He moved closer, knelt so we were eye level. His size still dwarfed me, but the gesture put us on equal ground. "I'm in love with you. Have been for weeks. Possibly longer. My timeline estimation for emotional attachment is imprecise."
