I kneel beneath the terminal and peel back the floor panel. Inside, beneath the mesh of recycled alloy and redundant tubing, there’s a black box no bigger than a datapad.
It doesn’t look like much. But it’s not meant to.
I press my thumb to the center sigil—Vakutan design, invisible to human sensors—and the box hisses open.
Inside: a beacon.
Unmarked. Illegal. Ancient.
Alliance-class, deep-frequency, command-DNA locked.
I wasn’t supposed to keep it. They said I wouldn’t need it. That neutrality would be enough. That the war was over, and my loyalties had earned me peace.
But peace is a luxury of the uninvolved. And I’m not uninvolved anymore.
I’m in it.
Because she’s in it.
I press the beacon to my inner forearm. The dermal prongs engage instantly, heat flaring through my veins like a second heartbeat. It hurts. It’s supposed to.
The system scans me—genetic lock, command signature, neural baseline. It confirms identity.
Commander Tatek Solan. Clearance Omega-7. Extraction Beacon Authorization: Activated.
There’s a pulse.
It’s not light. Not sound. Just... pressure. Like the universe inhaled through my lungs.
It’s done.
Help is coming.
But so is the end of everything I’ve built.
The moment I hit that beacon, I stopped being neutral.
Stopped being Alliance-adjacent. Stopped being a tool with plausible deniability.
They’ll know.
Serat will know.
And so will everyone else.
They’ll strip my rank. Wipe my records. Brand me traitor before the first shuttle even reaches orbit.
But they’ll have to catch me first.
And if they want Mara, they’ll have to get through me.
I seal the panel and move.
There’s no time now.
No time for self-pity. No room for regret.
Only her.
