"My debtor networks inside the station are flagging movement," she said. "Coordinated. Internal. Someone is using the siege chaos as cover, and they've been at it for hours. Encrypted bursts on frequencies we don't monitor. Supply movements that don't match any of our logistics chains. Whoever it is, they're not working with the Vex. They're working alongside them, using the same openings, the same blind spots our patrols leave when they rotate."
"Working toward what?" Zane asked.
"That's what I can't pin yet. Three of my sources went dark in the last hour. The fourth says whoever this is, they've been communicating with something outside the station. Not Vex command channels. Something else."
I felt the cold settle into my spine before the name formed in my mouth. Not a premonition. Something worse. Pattern recognition.
Ethan.
I'd been watching him. Not because anyone had asked me to, not because there was a specific reason to distrust him beyond the general principle that trusting anyone fully during a siege was a good way to die. I'd been watching him because something about the way he moved through the crisis made my skin prickle in a way I'd learned not to ignore.
He was helpful. That was the thing. During every engagement, every tactical shift, every moment of pressure, Ethan Eames appeared exactly where he was needed with exactly the information that mattered. He'd flagged the Vex flanking attempt on Level Seven before our sensors caught it. He'd identified the compromised airlock on the port side before it blew. He'd been calm, competent, and invaluable, and every single piece of it felt wrong in a way I couldn't articulate until right now, listening to Talia describe coordinated internal movement that didn't serve any faction I could name.
He wasn't working against the Torrences. That was what had thrown me. Every instinct I had was calibrated for betrayal, for the obvious shapes of treachery, information sold, positions revealed, backs turned at critical moments. Ethan hadn't done any of that. He'd beengenuinely helpful, genuinely present, genuinely fighting alongside Dexter during every corridor engagement.
But helpful toward what? Present where? Fighting for access to what?
I pulled up my personal log on the tactical pad, scrolling through the timestamps I'd been quietly noting for the last three days. Ethan's positions during each major event. Where he'd been, what he'd done, who he'd spoken to. Viewed individually, each entry was unremarkable. Viewed together, they formed a line. A trajectory. Every useful thing he'd done, every bit of intelligence he'd provided, every position he'd taken had moved him closer to one section of the station.
The anomaly research labs.
"Talia," I said, and my voice came out steadier than the cold in my chest warranted. "The internal movement your networks are flagging. Can you map it?"
A pause. Then the screen populated with a cluster of data points, movement tracked through security systems and debtor-network surveillance, overlaid on the station schematic. I stared at it. The pattern was unmistakable once you saw it, once you stopped looking for sabotage and started looking for someone building something. Supplies rerouted. Equipment accessed after hours. Power diverted in small increments from systems that nobody would miss during a siege.
All of it flowing toward the anomaly research section like tributaries feeding a river.
"That's not Vex activity," Dexter said from beside me. I hadn't heard him move. He was looking at the same data, and the line of his jaw was tight enough that I could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin. "That's someone who knows our systems."
"Someone with access," I confirmed. "Someone we trust enough to let move freely."
Our eyes met. I watched the calculation happen behind his gaze, watched him arrive at the same name I had, watched the anger settle into his features not like an explosion but like ice forming, silent and total.
"Ethan," he said.
"There's more." I hated saying it. "Where's Elissa?"
The temperature in the room dropped. Not literally, though the failing environmental systems had been running cold for hours. The drop was in Dexter's face, in the sudden stillness of his body, in the way his hands went from resting at his sides to fists in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
"She's in protective custody," Zane said from the tactical display, already pulling up the feed. "Section Nine, secured wing. I put two guards on her door when the siege started."
The feed loaded. Section Nine's corridor camera showed an empty hallway. The door to Elissa's quarters stood open.
Zane cycled back through the footage. Thirty minutes ago. An hour. Two hours. And there it was, timestamped ninety-four minutes before present: Elissa Torrence stepping out of her quarters, her dark hair pulled back, her expression not frightened but focused, following a figure down the corridor toward the junction that led, through three turns and a maintenance shaft, to the anomaly research section.
Ethan walked ahead of her. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. She followed like she knew exactly where they were going and wanted to be there.
"The guards?" Dexter's voice was quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet.
Zane checked. "Relieved of duty by a command code. Ethan's clearance. He told them Elissa was being transferred to a more secure location by my order."
"He forged your authorization."
"He didn't need to forge anything. I gave him provisional command access during the first Vex breach because he was the closest officer to the communications array. I never revoked it."
Dexter was already moving. I saw it in the shift of his weight, the way his body committed to the door before his mind had finished processing. I stepped into his path. Not blocking him. Matching him.
"She went with him willingly." I kept my voice level, kept my eyes on his. "She doesn't know what he's doing. She doesn't understand what she's walking into."
