CHAPTER 23
TATEK
The extraction ping hits me like a gut punch—fast and sudden, jarring enough to make my breath catch. It flashes red-hot across the back of my retina for a heartbeat, then disappears, leaving afterimages that pulse like bruises.
Mara.
I don’t need to decode the signal. I know the encryption. Hell, I built it.
And it’s broadcasting on a burn-only channel.
No trail.
No delay.
No coming back from it.
She lit the fuse.
And I’m late.
I slam the locker door shut hard enough that it rattles the frame, the sound sharp and hollow in the stillness of the room. The old wiring groans in response—a mechanical whine like the station itself resents being stirred.
Good.
Let it.
I jam the interface band onto my wrist, barely waiting for it to sync. My fingers fly across the command inputs, punching through old codes—obsolete, according to Command, but still active if you know how to coax them. Coalition never did figure out how deep Serat’s protocols went.
And neither did I.
The lift is too slow. I don’t even glance at it. I turn on my heel and sprint for the access shaft three corridors down—raw plating, no rail, just handholds and maintenance rungs. The kind of shortcut they don’t put on schematics anymore.
Mara’s already gone.
But I can still find her.
My boots clangagainst the rungs as I drop, metal-on-metal echoing down the shaft in hollow bursts. My breath is tight in my chest, not from exertion, but from pressure—the kind that wraps around your ribs and doesn’t let go. I hit the deck running.
The garden’s colder than it should be.
The power grid’s already gone through its reset cycle—twice, maybe more. I can feel it in the floor, in the buzz beneath my soles. The rhythm is off. Thinner. The base pulse of the station has changed. Mara’s override worked.
The lights in the corridor outside the memorial chamber flicker like they’re unsure who they answer to now.
The door hisses open before I reach it.
I slow.
Walk in.
The air inside is still holding her breath.
Dust hangs in the starlight like ash suspended mid-fall. The garden is dead quiet. No breeze. No footsteps. Just the glass pillars standing vigil, their etched names glowing faintly under the overheads’ struggling glow.
And Mara?—
Gone.
