Another pause. Then, as if the speaker itself is smiling, “Understood.”
The line goes dead.
I exhale through my nose, jaw tight.
Available. Watched. Contained.
Lonari’s word was right. Contained. Just… with better carpeting.
I yank my compad free, open my comm suite, and begin cycling through every IHC contact protocol I’ve ever used. Old contractor channels. Emergency reporting pathways. Even thegrim orphanage-era handshake key I kept out of spite and nostalgia.
The terminal pings.
OUTBOUND ROUTE AVAILABLE — RESTRICTED
Of course. Gur may be a “protectorate,” but the Nun is a fortress, and fortresses decide which messages get out.
I initiate a call anyway, masking it through a general maintenance ticket system the way Clint taught me back when I was sixteen and desperate to get a help request past an administrator who didn’t want paperwork on their desk. The interface spins, encrypts, tunnels.
For a heartbeat, hope flares.
Then the call connects.
A holo blooms above the desk—an IHC emblem, crisp and sterile, followed by the face of a woman in a uniform that looks like it’s never had dust on it. Her hair is perfect. Her eyes are tired in the way bureaucrats are tired: not from danger, but from having to care.
“This is IHC Intake,” she says. “State your identification.”
“Jordan James,” I say quickly. “Contractor. Holo-net diagnostics. Assigned temporary rotation on Yatori Operations Station. There’s been an attack. I have?—”
“Location,” she cuts in.
I blink. “I’m sorry?”
“Your current location,” she repeats, voice flat.
My stomach clenches. “I— I’m off Yatori. I escaped. I have evidence. The station was?—”
“Your location,” she says again, more sharply, like I’m the problem in her day.
I grip the edge of the desk hard enough to make my nails bite.
“I’m in League-protected space,” I say carefully.
“Specify.”
“Gur,” I force out.
Her gaze narrows immediately. “Gur is a Coalition-adjacent criminal world.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I snap. “Can we focus on the massacre now?”
She ignores that. “Who facilitated your presence on Gur?”
I stare at her. “Are you serious right now?”
“Answer the question.”
I feel heat rise up my neck, anger and fear tangling until I can’t tell which is which.
