"Encouraging," Talia says from the corner, her voice flat enough to sand metal.
"The two that transmitted showed a stable spatial environment. Breathable atmosphere within expected parameters. Gravity at point-nine-three standard." I let the data speak for itself because the data is the only honest thing I have to offer. "What they also showed was energy signatures that don't match any known physics. And biological markers that suggest Malachar isn't alone over there."
Silence settles over the room like dust after a detonation.
Torrence stands at the head of the table, Aura beside him, and for a moment I see the alliance as it actually is. Not the political architecture or the marriage contracts or the carefully negotiated terms. Just people standing in a room, deciding to do something insane together. The offensive against the Protocol proved the structure holds under pressure. The joint strike on the relay station, Consortium intelligence married to Torrence firepower, worked with a precision that surprised everyone except Aura. She'd designed it that way.
Now the alliance faces something the architects never planned for. A hole in the universe and a monster on the other side.
I keep talking. Survival parameters, equipment specifications, the modifications I've recommended for the ship's shielding based on the probe data. My voice is steady because this is what I'm good at. Useful information delivered cleanly. A tool performing its function.
Aura catches my eye across the table. Just a glance. But her expression holds something that makes the tool metaphor feel like a lie I'm telling myself.
Ky Zalt findshis sister in the corridor outside the armory, and I round the corner just in time to see them standing close, his hand on her shoulder. I stop. Consider retreating. But Aura's eyes flick to me and hold, a silent permission, so I stay where I am and try to make myself unobtrusive against the bulkhead.
It's a skill I have. Disappearing while standing in plain sight. Though it works less well when you're the subject of the conversation.
"You're really going through," Ky says. His hazel eyes have shifted to a deep, concerned blue, the Empri heritage surfacing through the half-human genetics that usually keep it banked. He's taller than Aura by a head, leaner, built for the shadow work he does for the Consortium. But right now he looks like a younger brother trying to talk his sister out of jumping off a cliff.
"I'm really going with him." Aura's voice is calm in the way that means the decision was made so long ago it's calcified into fact. "Wherever that leads."
"I never thought I'd see you this attached to anyone."
"Neither did I."
She hugs him. I watch Ky's arms come up around her, watch his jaw tighten, watch the way he holds on for three seconds longer than casual. When Aura pulls back, she's smiling, but it's the smile she uses when she's keeping the softer thing underneath from showing.
"Take care of Mother. Try to keep her from declaring war on anything while I'm gone."
"I'll do my best." He hesitates. His eyes shift toward me, then back to her, and the blue in them deepens. "Aura. Be careful. The other side changed Malachar. It might change you too."
"I know." She steps back, squaring her shoulders. The Consortium heir reassembling herself from the sister. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."
Ky holds her gaze for a long moment. Then he nods, and whatever passes between them is a language I don't speak. Sibling shorthand. A lifetime of shared context I'll never have access to.
He passes me on his way out. Stops. Those blue-hazel eyes study my face with the particular attention of someone trained to read lies for a living.
"Bring her back," he says.
Not a request. Not even a threat, exactly. Just a fact about what will happen to me if I don't.
"I will."
He walks away. I don't make promises I can't guarantee, but that one I'll die keeping.
The training bayis half-empty at this hour, most of the crew either running final equipment checks or trying to sleep before departure. Which is why I notice her immediately.
Elissa Torrence moves through the combat sequence like water finding its level, every strike economical, every transition smooth in a way that would have been impossible six months ago. Astra's training has burned away the raw determination I remember and replaced it with something honed. She flows from a knife drill into a hand-to-hand takedown of the practice dummy, drops it, rolls upright, and puts three shots into the target wall with a sidearm she produced from somewhere I didn't see.
The Ghost. That's what they're calling her now. Watching her move, I understand why.
She's going on the mission. She earned it through months of relentless work, through proving herself in the offensive, through a lethality that sits on her like a second skin she grewinto rather than put on. And she wants answers from Malachar. Maybe more than anyone on that ship.
I stand in the doorway and watch her reload. The efficiency of her hands. The set of her jaw. The girl who looked at me with soft eyes in a garden on Veridian is gone so completely that looking for her feels like searching for a body after a ship goes down. You know what you'll find. You look anyway.
She catches me watching.
For one breath, something moves between us. Not the old thing, not attraction or its wreckage. Something quieter. Memory, maybe. Pain that's scarred over enough to bear weight. The acknowledgment that we are different creatures now than the ones who hurt each other, and that the hurting was part of what made us this way.
