She tilts her head, examining me like I’ve just confessed something she wasn’t ready to hear.
“Doyouhave a pattern?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Let me guess. Wake, calibrate, intimidate civilians, suppress emotion, repeat?”
I tilt my head. “You forgot guard sleeping rebels with unresolved trauma.”
She smiles.
It’s small.
But it’s real.
I shift again. Closer now. She doesn’t flinch.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, not looking at me.
“I’m assigned.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
We’re quiet again. The kind of silence that tightens every second it’s not broken.
She sighs. “Do you ever stop beingon?”
“I do not understand the question.”
“Of course you don’t.”
She lies back, arms folded beneath her head.
But she doesn’t turn away.
I should do something.
That’s the conclusion I come to after watching her lie back on the cot, her eyes not quite closing, her arms behind her head like she’s waiting for the roof to cave in. I catalog the posture. I memorize the curve of her ribcage through the thin fabric. I calculate the angle of vulnerability. The distance between our feet. The airflow shift when I step closer.
But I don’t move.
Because I don’t know what therightthing is.
Vakutan training is precise. Reactive. It tells you how to neutralize, how to shield, how to dismantle threats and maintain perimeter discipline. It does not prepare you for this: a woman who should be a civilian variable, but who is instead a gravitational field you cannot explain.
My palms itch.
I curl my fingers into fists behind my back.
And I wait for the moment to pass.
It doesn’t.
Hours later, the meal unit buzzes for attention. Pre-assigned nutrition delivery. Civilian rations plus supplemental protein due to her flag level. I retrieve the tray before she does, scanning for tampering. The food smells like engineered starch and neutral calories—nothing appetizing, but functional. I hand it to her.
She raises an eyebrow. “You gonna eat too, or just hover like a well-dressed drone?”
