“Send me her file.”
“You’re accepting?”
“I’m listening.”
I’ve beenin orbit over Novaria for seventeen standard hours, and I’ve spent sixteen of them staring at the same flickering holofile like a lovesick explosives technician.
Sable Jackson.
Stylist. Civilian. Witness. Hot.
I swipe the page back up with a clawed finger, tilting my head as her dossier blossoms again in blue light. It’s bare bones. They always are when they come from the civilian core—redactedchunks, vague biographical details, no combat records or flight hours. But what’s here? It’s strangely fascinating.
She’s from the north side of Novaria Prime. Born in one of the denser vertical stacks, raised by a father with too many medals and not enough hugs. She has zero infractions, two degrees in aesthetic design and follicular biomorphics—whatever the hell that is—and she owns a salon with a name that translates in Vakutan as“Place of face-melting glamour.”Or something like that. I might be slightly off.
But it’s the attached video that’s killing me.
I loop it again, leaning forward on the cruiser’s debrief bench like a cadet in a gunner’s porn library.
Sable is standing in a dim hallway at a police station, still wearing some ridiculous crystal heels and a splatter of alley sludge down her pant leg. Her eyes are green flame, her voice sharp and perfectly modulated for maximum scolding.
“You’re lucky I’m not filing an official complaint,” she’s saying to an offscreen officer. “You detained me fortwo hoursand didn’t even offer me a cup of caf or a blanket. I’m not a criminal—I’m a stylist. Do you know how many people cry in my chair? I know more about therapy than your whole precinct.”
I snort. Loudly. Then I rewind it and play it again.
She’s got spine. That kind of confidence—you can’t fake it. And she’s not just barking nonsense, either. She carries herself like someone who knows her worth and will invoice you for it with late fees if you don’t act accordingly.
I cross my arms and lean back against the bulkhead, letting the soft vibration of the ship’s fusion core hum against my back. It’s one of the only sounds in my quarters, other than the occasional report pinging through the comm.
I pull up a new tab and search: “civilian hair styling process.”
A bunch of results come up. I tap the first holo—bright colors, peppy music, some poor guy getting his scalp molestedby a giggling esthetician. I watch, mesmerized. Tiny brushes. Sprays. Heat rods. They sculpt hair like it’s a weapon or a work of art. I don’t know whether to be intimidated or turned on.
Another clip. This one’s Sable herself—her salon security footage must’ve been included in the file dump. She’s in a black smock, eyes laser-focused as she trims a client's hair with the precision of a surgeon. Her movements are smooth, intentional, like each snip is part of a battle plan. The client is crying. Again.
I whisper under my breath, “Stars, she’s terrifying.”
I like terrifying.
I tap over to the psych profile notes. “Stubborn. Uncooperative. Shows patterns of insubordination when authority is challenged.” I grin wider. Sounds like my kind of person. I’ve been cited for insubordination so many times they just gave up and reclassified it as a personality trait.
What really gets me though? There’s a line buried in a field report. “Sable Jackson refused witness protection citing, quote, ‘I do not disappear.’”
That’s what does it.
Right there.
My second heart stutters like it just hit a plasma pocket. Not metaphorically. I mean the literal second heart that all Vakutans have—usually runs like clockwork. Now it’s doing a funky little tango and I have no idea what that means.
I blow out a breath, stand, and pace my quarters. The floor plating creaks under my weight. My pauldrons, hung on the wall like oversized trophies, catch the light.
I can’t go down there looking like a warcrime. Not yet.
I start pulling pieces down. The polished silver with crimson trim—the ceremonial ones, the ones that sayI’m not actively killing anyone but could be persuaded.I run a rag over each plate, buffing with a kind of focus I usually save for sniper maintenance or gutting Baragon.
I catch my reflection in the polished metal and freeze.
My teeth are bared. My posture’s... ridiculous. I look like a teenager rehearsing his first handshake.
