But I don’t need it to think. I need it to lie.
A ghost trail, Mara called it. Fake telemetry. A pattern that looks like an escape attempt, just convincing enough to send the Coalition chasing shadows while we move the other way.
I hook my compad into the port and begin weaving the signal string. My hands are steady. My breath is not.
Every few seconds, I check the hallway.
Not for agents.
For her.
I replay it. Not the conversation. Not the plan.
Her.
Last night. The taste of her skin. The arch of her back beneath my hands. The way she whispered my name like it wasn’t a word at all—but a prayer. Not for salvation. For permission.
I close my eyes. Just for a second.
Then force myself back to task.
This is what obsession looks like. I know. I’ve seen it. In war. In comrades who broke ranks because someone they cared about screamed. Who threw themselves into fire to save someone already lost. It’s not noble. It’s not romantic. It’s fatal.
And I can feel it rising in me like fire up a dry rope.
I am no longer assessing risk.
I am reacting to need.
That is not command.
That is surrender.
The code compiles. I watch the sequence take shape—convincing, erratic, urgent. It will look like a desperate bid. Someone with partial access trying to escape ahead of purge protocol. Sloppy. Reckless. Real.
It will buy us fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.
If we’re lucky.
If she’s?—
The hatch hisses open behind me.
I spin, weapon already drawn.
It’s her.
She stands in the doorway, breathless, hair damp with sweat, datapad clutched in one hand.
“You always point guns at your allies?” she pants.
“Only when they sneak up on me during lockdown.”
She smirks, but her eyes don’t match the expression. “I saw the patrol redirect. You launched the ghost, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“How long do we have?”
