About Rylos, the leader who carried the weight of every decision without letting it show. About Talon and Tamsin, who’d found each other in the middle of a heist and never let go. About Zarek and Bronwen, the warrior and the woman who smiled while she killed. About Varrick and Sabine, the tech genius and the mathematician who spoke their own language. About Brevan and Carys, the smooth-talker and the curator who’d burned down her own cage.
“They sound...” She paused, searching for the word. “Intense.”
“They are.”
“And you? What are you to them?”
I considered the question. It wasn’t one I’d thought about much. I existed in the margins of the team, doing the work that needed to be done, fading into the background when the work was finished.
“I’m the one they send when they need something done quietly,” I said. “The ghost.”
“That’s what youdo. I asked what youare.”
The distinction caught me off guard. I looked at her, at the firelight reflected in her green eyes, at the way she was watching me like my answer mattered.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been the ghost for so long, I’m not sure there’s anything else.”
She stood without responding. Gathered the plates.
“Torek used to say something like that,” she said. “That he’d been a weapon for so long, he’d forgotten how to be anything else.” She gathered the plates and crossed to the basin. “He was wrong. He learned how to be other things. A farmer. A teacher.” She glanced at me over her shoulder. “A father, almost. To me.”
The words hung in the air between us.
“You could learn too,” she said. “To be something else. If you wanted.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. Didn’t know if I believed it. But something in my chest loosened, just a fraction. Something that had been tight for years.
The comm unit on my belt chirped.
I went still. Anhara turned, the plates forgotten.
“What is it?”
I pulled out the unit, checking the display. Long-range sensors on theTuretsala, set to monitor system traffic. I’d almost forgotten I’d activated them.
The data scrolled across the screen. My stomach dropped.
“Ships,” I said. “Multiple contacts, entering the system. Conclave transponder codes.”
Anhara crossed the room in three strides, looking over my shoulder at the display. “How many?”
“Four ships. Light cruisers, based on the signatures.” I studied the readouts. “Full squads on each one. More than enough to take a farm.”
She was quiet for a moment. I could hear her breathing, steady and controlled. Not panicking. Processing.
“How long until they reach the moon?”
“They’ll need to scan each settlement, verify signatures. Two days. Maybe three.”
“Then we have two days to get ready.”
The processing stationrose from the ridge like a skeleton, all rusted metal and broken windows. Abandoned for decades, left to rot when the mining company pulled out.
Inside, she led me through corridors thick with dust and shadow. Down stairs that groaned under our weight. Into a maintenance level that smelled of dust and age.
“This is where the hydraulics connect,” she said, stopping at a massive junction of pipes and valves. Some of the equipment looked original to the station. Some of it was newer, installed with obvious care. “Torek spent two years building this. Tapping into the station’s old systems, connecting them to the farm’s irrigation.”
I examined the machinery. Pressure gauges. Flow regulators. A series of manual valves that would need to be turned in sequence.
