“The timeline is aggressive,” I said. “Two of these prisoners are assigned to essential maintenance details. Removing them simultaneously will create operational gaps.”
“Then fill the gaps. That is your function, Warden.” She looked at me for the first time. Her pale eyes were clinical. “Unless there is a reason you find this particular request objectionable?”
A trap. The question was always a trap. She tested me the way she tested her compounds, applying measured pressure to observe the reaction.
“There is no objection. I will coordinate the transfers.”
“Good.” She returned to her terminal. “How is our experiment progressing?”
The experiment. Kira.
I kept my expression neutral. My scales kept their color. The discipline of three years under this woman’s observation had forged control mechanisms that operated below conscious thought.
“The subject has adapted to the proximity requirements as expected. No complications.”
“I would like to conduct a follow-up assessment. Have her brought to my lab within the week.”
No.
The word detonated in my chest with enough force to shift the thrum into a frequency I had not produced since the Processing Room. Corsine would not touch Kira. Would not scan her. Would not run her instruments over the bond that lived between us, reducing it to data points in a trafficking catalog.
“The subject is assigned to critical Life-Support maintenance. Removing her from her detail during the current repair cycle would compromise the station’s atmospheric integrity.” My voice held. The voice of a warden managing resources, not a bonded male protecting his mate. “I will schedule the assessment for the following cycle.”
Corsine studied me. Three seconds. Four. She returned to her terminal, then paused
“I should mention. Maintenance will be installing upgraded environmental emitters in the Warden’s wing this week. Atmospheric calibration. Standard procedure.”
She did not look up. “You may notice some auditory interference. The frequency range overlaps with Zethrani’s hearing. It will be temporary.”
Atmospheric calibration did not require emitters installed inside residential walls. And Corsine did not notify me of standard maintenance.
I filed the information and said nothing.
I left her office with the names of three prisoners who would disappear within the week and the knowledge that I had bought Kira seven days before Corsine demanded access to her.
Seven days to get the evidence to the GA. Seven days to save Sera. Seven days to stop the next shipment before three more names joined the forty-seven.
The corridor stretched ahead of me, and I walked toward my quarters with a stride that was controlled because everything about me was controlled, because control was the structure I had built around the rage and the grief and the helplessness that had accumulated over one thousand one hundred and eight days in this station.
Then the bond screamed.
A detonation of terror that slammed through the emotional resonance link and hit me in the center of my chest like a pulse-blaster round. Kira’s terror. Her body was flooding with the chemical markers of a human subjected to an immediate physical threat.
I ran.
The corridor blurred. My stride ate up the distance in bounds, cracking the floor grating under impacts my body was not designed to withstand. Guards pressed against the walls as I passed.
A prisoner stumbled out of a junction, and I went over him without breaking rhythm. The bond pulled me forward like a tether, and the terror pulsing through it was escalating with every stride. Underneath the fear was pain.
She was in pain.
The door to my quarters was sealed. I hit the access panel and the lock cycled too slowly, far too slowly, and the half-seconddelay was enough for the red to start bleeding into the edges of my vision. A Zethrani combat response.
Blood vessels in the ocular tissue dilate, filtering the visual spectrum toward motion detection and threat identification. The world narrowed. Colors drained. Movement sharpened.
The door opened.
My office. My space. The room I had secured for her promised her safety within, given her the lock code so she could control who entered.
