Serat unfolds his arms and walks closer to the edge of the forcefield, close enough that the halo of it reflects off his jaw. His coat flares behind him with every measured step.
“She’s not what you think,” he says.
My fingers tighten around the grip at my hip, still holstered but not for long.
“She is exactly what I think.”
“She’s compromised.”
“She’s awake.”
He tilts his head. “So were a thousand others before her. And every one of them had to be corrected.”
“That what you call it now?” My voice cuts sharper than I intend. “Correction?”
“This isn’t a bond anymore, Tatek,” he says, soft. Still in Vakutan. “It’s an infection. You’re too close to see it. The system is fracturing, and she’s the crack that will split it in two.”
“She’s not the crack,” I say. “She’s the mirror.”
Serat’s expression doesn’t shift, but I catch the flicker of breath in his shoulders. A beat. A signal.
Behind him, the guards tense.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he says. “I taught you better than that.”
“You did.”
He waits.
I unclip the holster.
My hand closes around the grip.
I don’t raise it yet.
“You know what Vakutan means, Serat.”
He nods. “Memory.”
“It means memory.”
A beat.
Then I say it—soft, final:
“She is mine. I remember her. You will not take that from me.”
And I draw.
The momentmy weapon clears the holster, everything changes.
Serat steps back, fluid and precise, motioning the guards into position.
I fire first—low burst, suppressing arc. One of the guards stumbles, shielding flickering. The other pivots to flank, rifle rising.
I roll left.
My shoulder clips the edge of the corridor, pain sparking down my arm. I don’t stop. I press into the momentum, come up firing.
