Page 247 of Commander’s Mate

“I do not want your last memory of me to be leaving for Breskaa.”

She came closer.

“Then come back.”

“That is not entirely within my control.”

“No.”

She touched my chest.

“Come back anyway.”

I covered her hand with mine.

No vows.

No dramatic speech.

We had learned better.

Outside the viewport, Breskaa appeared as a dark industrial world around a pale star.

Tivid’s voice came over the comm.

“Ten minutes to operational range.”

Harper looked toward the planet.

“Bring them names.”

I understood.

Not bodies. Not numbers. Names.

“I will.”

Then I went to war.

Breskaa was not a battlefield.

It was worse.

Battlefields admitted what they were. Breskaa hid cruelty behind production reports, labor classifications, ore yields, and mortality projections.

Dreadnought Eight’s reconnaissance gave us what the auction records could not: current guard rotations, barracks occupancy, active mine shafts, shuttle pads, automated defenses, and the location of the agricultural dome that fed both guards and slaves.

Tivid spread the data across the war-room display.

“Approximately four thousand enslaved workers across the primary region,” he said. “Two hundred Farseek confirmed in the transfer batch. Possibly thirty-seven more based on partial identifiers.”

The room went silent.

Names scrolled beside the map. Some complete. Some corrupted. Some reduced to numbers.

Harper stood at the edge of the display, arms folded.

I had argued against her attending the briefing.