"Shit. It's jumping to the hydrostatic reserves," she hissed, tracking the data trail as it slithered through the system. "It's trying to find a back door to the docking ring."
"Cut hydrostatics," Kirr ordered.
"Pressure will fall just below safety margins in the habitation sectors," someone reported.
“That’s still within tolerances even for human physiology,” Someone else replied. She looked up for the speaker, relieved to see the teal sash he wore and the scars across his skin. A healer. He would know what humans vs Latharians could take.
"Reroute air scrubbers to manual," Kirr’s voice was firm.
"Hydrostatics cut."
They fell into a rhythm. She watched the data, spotting the virus's desperate lunges for power, and called out the targets. Kirr became her voice, amplifying her analysis into absolute commands. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing. She pointed, and he fired.
"It's cornered," she said, sweat beading on her forehead. The red signals were bunching up in the primary distribution hub. "It's stopped trying to spread. It's going for the dummy nodes. In three… two… one.."
"Kill it. Pull the nodes," Kirr's hand braced the chair back behind her, steadying without touching.
"Pulling now."
She hit the execute key.
The Command Center went dark.
For a heartbeat, there was total silence. No hum of drives. No whir of fans. Just the void of a dead power grid.
She stopped breathing. Oh shit. Had she killed it? Or had she just killed them all?
A low thrum started in the floorboards. A vibration that worked its way up through the soles of her shoes. Consoles flickered to life one by one. Then the overhead lights blinked on, steady and bright.
She swiveled her head to the main display.
The angry red blotches were gone. The station schematic was a calm, cool blue.
The air rushed out of her lungs in a ragged gasp, and her hands dropped to her lap. She clamped them together to stop them shaking.
"Report." Kirr's tone was calm, as if he hadn't just authorized a station-wide shutdown on a prayer.
"Core online," the lead engineer said, his voice hushed with awe. "Power distribution is nominal. The viral cascade is gone. Systems are resetting to standard parameters." He turned to her, shaking his head slowly. "We wouldn't have found the echo if not for your female, my lord. We were chasing the spikes, not the cause of them."
"You saved the station," Kirr said to her, his hand on her shoulder lightly. “And the lives of everyone on board.”
She sat back in the oversized chair, trembling as the adrenaline crashed out of her system. She was lightheaded and drained but sharply alive. They were all alive.
Delilah was safe.
So why did she feel like she was about to burst into tears?
His female had saved the station.
Pride, hot and fierce, expanded in Kirr's chest until it felt like his ribs might crack. He looked down at Harper, slumped in the oversized engineer's chair, her hands trembling in her lap. She'd just saved them all. His female.
"System integrity at ninety-eight percent," the lead tech announced, the words echoing in the quiet room. He turned from his console, his gray face still pale but his expression transformed. The disdain from ten minutes ago was gone. It was hard to sneer at someone who just saved your life.
He wasn't the only one.
Around the room, the paralysis broke. Warriors and technicians who had been bracing for vacuum death turned toward the center of the room. Toward Harper.
The lead engineer approached the central terminal. He stopped a few feet away, looking at the small human female almost buried in the command chair. He hesitated, then placed a fist over his heart and bowed his head low—a warrior's mark of respect.
