It hits the counter with a sharp clatter that echoes too loud in the silence of the medbay backroom, like a gunshot ricocheting through my chest.
I stare at the data stream unfolding on my private console — authorization tier seven, active inquiry… initiated from Commander Vael Draykorr’s ID.
My file.
He’s accessing my personnel file.
My stomach knots so fast and so hard it’s like being gut-punched. My fingertips go numb.
He knows.
Or he suspects.
Stars.
I move before I can think. Fingers flying over the interface, bypassing standard protocols with override codes I was never supposed to keep memorized — but did. I dig into the query root, trace the request back to the system it originated from, and reroute the return node through a dummy buffer I coded during the last power outage.
It won’t stop the request. But it’ll slow it.
I just bought myself ninety seconds.
I slam open another interface pane, pull up my archived logs, and start deleting.
One by one, I erase every digital footprint I can find — appointment notes, flagged scans, shipment inconsistencies. Anything tied to the medcenter’s neonatal wing five years ago.
The software whines at me. Red prompts flash across the screen.
I override them.
I open the bio-registry and my breath catches in my throat.
There she is.
Nessa.
Line 12. Hidden but not gone.
My fingers tremble.
There’s a part of me — the mother — that wants to stare at that entry forever.
Wants to run her name across my tongue and remember the moment I first held her.
Her wail. The way she kicked at the blanket. The faint shimmer of gold in her eyes even then.
But I don’t have time.
I run the lockdown script. Erase visual records. Scramble the genetics tag. Nessa’s file vanishes from public access in a blink. Her registry markers are now under a dead code flagged for deletion.
She’s a ghost.
Again.
I back out. Lock the shell. Wipe the buffer log.
By the time Vael’s access clears the dummy node, he’ll get a sanitized version of my file — field surgeon history, station transfers, fake evaluations, zero references to Corven-7 until four years ago.
Nothing that shows the truth.
