"I'll be back in a couple hours," she says, and this time she does look at me. Those dark eyes searching my face for suspicion. Finding, I'm certain, nothing. Because I am very, very good at nothing.
"Take a comm unit," I tell her.
She nods. Talia takes a moment, pauses and leans forward. She kisses my cheek on, a gesture so domestic it lands like a fist to the sternum. The door seals behind her and I stand in the silence of my own quarters, breathing recycled air that still carries the ghost of her shampoo, something floral the station synthesizers produce that smells nothing like real flowers but that I've come to associate so completely with her skin that the scent alone can make my blood hot.
I count to ten. Then I open a secure channel.
"Dexter."
My brother's voice comes back clipped, already on edge. He runs at a higher frequency than I do, always has. Where my anger is a cold thing, patient and geological, his runs hot and fast and tends to leave scorch marks.
"What."
"Sublevel Nine. Cargo bay seven-seven-alpha. I need a tactical team in position within ninety minutes. Perimeter only, no engagement without my direct order."
A pause. "What's on Sublevel Nine?"
"Talia's walking into a Consortium trap."
The silence that follows has its own texture. I can hear Dexter processing, can almost feel the heat of his reaction through the comm. When he speaks, his voice has droppedto that register he uses when he's trying not to shout. "And you're letting her."
"I'm using it."
"Using it." The words come back at me like I spit them at a wall. "She may as well be your wife, Zane. You're going to use her like this?"
"She's also the only lead we have on the Consortium's network in this sector. Someone inside their operation made contact. If I stop her, the channel closes. If I let her walk in, I can map every operative they've positioned, trace the communication chain back to its source, and identify whoever authorized the operation."
"And if they kill her."
I close my eyes. The bond hums between my ribs, a low frequency I've learned to read the way a pilot reads instrument panels. Her heartbeat, fast but steady. Her fear, that copper taste, building but managed. Her hope, the most dangerous part, burning like phosphorus.
"They won't kill her. She's more valuable alive. They want leverage against me, not a corpse."
"You're gambling with her life on a probability assessment."
"I gamble with lives every day. That's the job."
"Not her life." Dexter's voice has gone quiet in a way that concerns me more than shouting would. "You know you'll feel everything they do to her, won't you? Through the bond you've wrecklessly formed with her."
Yes. Every second of it.
"Get the team in position," I say, and cut the channel.
I route through the maintenance corridors to reach Sublevel Nine ahead of her, moving through the station's guts where the lighting runs amber-emergency and the air tastes like machine oil and old rust. My marks pulse undermy shirt, responding to the growing proximity of her fear the way iron responds to a magnet. I can feel her descending through the station. The bond tracks her like a targeting system I never asked for and cannot disable.
The cargo bay is a gutted shell, one of dozens abandoned when this section of the station was decommissioned for structural concerns that were never actually addressed. Crates line the walls in stacked rows that create natural sight lines and blind corners. The lighting is sparse, emergency strips casting everything in that sick yellow that makes human skin look cadaverous and alien skin look worse. I position myself in the control booth overlooking the bay floor, behind filthy plexiglass that hasn't been cleaned since the sector went dark. From here I can see everything.
Astra's voice comes through my earpiece, low and professional. "I have eyes on four heat signatures inside the bay. Two concealed behind the crate stack at the north wall. Two in the access corridor at the east entrance. They've set a crossfire pattern."
"Weapons?"
"Pulse carbines. One stunner, three lethal. They came prepared for resistance but not for a firefight. This is a snatch team, not an assassination squad."
Good. My assessment confirmed.
"Dexter's team?"
"In position. Six operators, three entry points. On your word."
