SERAK

I went to the bridge and pulled up the Meridian Station schematics.

Not because I’d changed my mind. Because I needed to see the problem clearly. One crew member, no backup, a Consortium venue with its own security apparatus. Everything I’d told her was operationally correct.

And none of it was why I’d said no.

I studied the station layout. Commercial docking on the lower ring, the kind of berths that handled civilian traffic and cargo deliveries. Conference levels on the middle ring, the polished floors and badge-controlled access of a venue designed for people who spent their lives being important. Service corridors running through the spine, connecting everything, maintained by staff who kept the lights on while the diplomats talked.

A Khavai dressed like cargo staff, scales dampened to baseline, could move through those service corridors without flagging Consortium security. The conference floors would be impossible. But the infrastructure underneath was just a station. Corridors, conduits, junction boxes. The same terrain I’d been operating in for eight years.

If someone were to map the station from underneath while Jessa worked the conference from above, the two of them could cover the entire facility. One in the light, one in the dark. Both doing what they were built to do.

I studied the maintenance access points. Six per level. Service spine with vertical connections. Ventilation shafts wide enough for a person, if the person didn’t mind narrow spaces.

I didn’t mind narrow spaces. I’d proved that at the relay.

Ressh found me an hour later. He leaned in the bridge doorway and watched me work for thirty seconds before speaking.

“You’re looking at Meridian schematics,” he said.

“I’m studying the problem.”

“You’re figuring out how to go with her.” He crossed to the console and leaned against it, arms folded. “When Alix went into Epsilon, I sat on this ship and monitored frequencies. Twelve hours of listening to static and trying not to imagine what was happening on the other side. It was the worst twelve hours of my life.” He paused. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“She can’t go alone.”

“Then don’t let her go alone.”

I looked at him. He looked back with those amber eyes, traceries shifting in slow patterns. Not agitated. Settled. The expression of a man who’d already thought this through and was waiting for me to catch up.

“You’re the captain,” he said. “Nobody else can make that call. But you should know, the crew already assumed this was how it would go.”

“How what would go?”

“You saying no, then finding a way to go yourself.” He pushed off the console. “Maris has the Ghost prepped. Thoryn’s running security protocols for the Raptor in your absence. Zevik’s already filed the nav coordinates.”

They’d planned for this. Not for Jessa going alone. For both of us going. The crew had read the situation, read their captain, and prepared for the outcome they knew was coming before I’d admitted it to myself.

“Who runs the ship?”

“Maris has command experience. Thoryn’s her second. Deyric handles tech. The Raptor will be fine for a week.”

“And if it’s not a week?”

“Then we come get you.” He straightened. “Same as always.”

I found Jessa in her quarters. She was packing. Light and efficient, the way she did everything. One bag, nothing extra. Civilian clothes, conference wear, a compact tool kit, and the blaster she’d carried at the Haven.

She looked up when I came through the door. Didn’t seem surprised.

“I’m not going to let you go alone,” I said.

“I know.”

“You can’t know that. I said no an hour ago.”

“Maris told me you were studying Meridian schematics.” She folded a shirt and put it in the bag. “You didn’t say no to the mission, Serak. You said no to losing me.”

The words landed. I didn’t answer them. Couldn’t answer them, because answering meant admitting she was right, and admitting she was right meant admitting what was underneath the refusal, and what was underneath was the thing I’d been not naming for years.

“Maris talks too much.”

“Maris is usually right.” She stopped packing. “What’s your plan?”

“The Ghost docks civilian. You go to the conference. I work the service levels. Map the station from underneath. Stay close enough to extract you if it goes wrong.”

“You can’t go to the conference floors.”

“I won’t need to. Service corridors run through every level. Maintenance access at every junction. I can be anywhere on that station in minutes without being seen.”

She studied me. “And the shadow thing?”

“What shadow thing?”

“The thing Alix won’t talk about. The thing you did at the relay.” She crossed her arms. “If you’re going to shadow my mission from the maintenance corridors, I need to know what you can do.”

I should have expected that. She was a quartermaster. She needed a complete inventory.

“I can move through shadows without being tracked. Corridor lighting, security cameras, visual contact. None of it works on me when I’m melded.”

“How long can you hold it?”

“Long enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Hours. But it costs.”

“Costs what?”

“Energy. Focus. The longer I hold it, the harder it is to come back.”

She let that sit for a moment. “And your skin going dark around me. Is that the same thing?”

“No.”

“But it’s related.”

“Jessa.”

“Is it related?”

“It’s the same biology. Different trigger.”

She nodded once and went back to packing. “We leave in four hours. I want to arrive at Meridian with a full day before Tal’s session.”

She hadn’t pushed further on the trigger. She would. But not now.

That evening, the crew gathered in the hangar. No formal send-off. Nobody announced it. Just people finding reasons to be there, the way this family always found reasons to be in the same room when something mattered.

Zevik checked the Ghost’s nav systems twice, then checked them again. Deyric handed Jessa a data drive, small enough to palm, loaded with everything he’d built for the upload. “Don’t lose that,” he said. “It took me three weeks.”

Solren pressed a medkit into my hands. Compact, field-grade, stocked for species he’d never be able to treat remotely.

“Bring her back,” he said.

“That’s the plan.”

“Bring yourself back too. I’m running low on sedatives and I’d hate to waste them on someone who doesn’t come home.”

Thoryn stood by the hangar door. As I passed, he put his hand on my shoulder. The weight of it, the stillness. He didn’t speak. Thoryn didn’t waste words on what his hands could say. The weight on my shoulder carried everything a speech couldn’t.

Alix caught my arm. “The shadow thing. At the relay. Those soldiers couldn’t see you.”

“No.”

“Can Consortium security systems see you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tested it against their hardware.”

“Test it before you need it.” She let go. “That’s free advice from a professional.”

Maris kissed Jessa on the cheek and handed her a chip. “Updated transponder codes. If you need to run, the Ghost becomes invisible.” She looked at me over Jessa’s shoulder. “Take care of her.”

“I know.”

“I’m talking to both of you.”

The Ghost was small. Cockpit, a narrow cabin with one bunk and a fold-down seat, a refresher barely large enough to turn around in, and a cargo hold the size of a closet. Maris had built it for speed and stealth, not comfort.

Jessa took the pilot’s seat. I took the copilot’s. The hatch sealed behind us, closing out the hangar, the crew, the Raptor. Everything familiar reduced to a closed door and two people in a space too small for distance.

“Ready?” she asked.

“No.”

She smiled. It was the first real smile I’d seen from her in days. “Good. Me neither.”

She brought the engines online and the Ghost slid out of the Raptor’s hangar into open space.