It’s like gravity forgets what direction is. The floor yanks sideways, then up, thenin, warping around us like a badly rendered sim. The guards stumble, caught off balance. One slams into the bulkhead. The other flails, tries to catch himself—and goes over the rail.
I grab the console to stay upright.
And then I see him.
Tatek, at the far end of the mezzanine, crouched beside an exposed grav-field coil with one hand still on the disruptor feed.
Of course.
Of course he didn’t come back with guns.
He came back withstrategy.
He meets my eyes.
No words.
None needed.
He’s already moving.
He crosses the space between us in three strides, catches my arm just as the system begins to stabilize and pulls me back toward the vent corridor we came through.
“You alright?” he asks, voice low and clipped.
“Fine,” I manage.
But I’m not.
Not really.
Not because of the guards. Not because of the brush with danger. Not even because the file injection didn’t finish—it did.
I’m shaken because the moment he was gone, I felt it.Reallyfelt it. That split-second absence where the world felt half-lit and off-center.
It was two minutes.
Maybe less.
But I missed him like I’d lost something vital.
I don’t say that.
I just walk beside him, fast and quiet, until we reach the lower tunnel again. He ducks in first. I follow.
And when he pauses at a junction to check the sweep vector, I grip his sleeve.
Just for a second.
Longer than I need to.
His eyes flick to mine.
He says nothing.
But he doesn’t pull away either.
CHAPTER 14
