25. Nyra
NYRA
My collarbone still has goosebumps from the ghost of Draevik's touch from yesterday, a lingering heat that burns far deeper than a simple gesture.
I remain on the bridge for a time, the violet shade of the command consoles washing over me in waves.
Every system rings with a vibrant, resounding clarity, a song of iron and electricity that mimics a living pulse.
I shift my weight, my boots clicking softly against the floor as I move toward the secondary engineering station to begin my diagnostics.
The air up here is different now—cleaner, sharper—lacking the metallic tang of recycled fear that defined my first days on this vessel.
K-Seven hovers at my shoulder, its tri-lens cluster cycling through a drawn-out, methodical scan of the bridge systems. The drone has been quiet since we settled in—unusually quiet, even for a machine that treats silence as an operational preference.
Its chassis still bears the carbon scoring from the boarding, the paint scoured down to bare alloy in three places, but its thrusters burn with a stubborn, functional persistence.
"Nyra," it chirps in a dry, crackling rasp.
"Unit has completed a full analysis of the bridge sub-systems during the recent repair cycle.
" "And?" I ask, keeping my attention on the diagnostic screen.
"Unit has been monitoring the ship's security architecture since the Commander restored bridge access.
During the last cycle, several internal restrictions on your bio-signature were removed.
The maintenance overrides for the lower decks have been unlocked.
The transit lifts are now prioritized for your signature. "
K-Seven projects a holographic interface onto the floor, the blue light shimmering against the dark deck.
A path—clear, unobstructed—winds through the ship’s living circuits, leading straight to the auxiliary docking bay.
I scrutinize it, my stomach tightening. No glitches here.
The access is too clean, too deliberate.
Someone threaded a needle through the security mesh and left the door wide open.
I look over my shoulder at Draevik. He stands at the tactical console, his back to me, his focus locked on the incoming fleet.
He did this. He opened the cage and said nothing.
"Escape is a viable contingency," K-Seven notifies as the hologram shifts to show a detailed map of the lower decks.
"Unit has secured a ghost-path through the ventilation scrubbers.
It leads directly to the auxiliary docking bay.
A short-range scout vessel—the Vesper-3, designation tag reads—is fueled and currently registering as a 'structural error' in the primary manifest. The Warlord perceives a hull breach. Unit perceives a departure vehicle."
I look over my shoulder at Draevik. He stands across the vast expanse of the bridge, a silhouette of pure, focused power framed against the massive viewscreen.
He remains distant, beyond earshot, as he manipulates the tactical grid.
He looks like an obsidian god carved from the very shadows of the ship.
His hands move with a lethal, mesmerizing grace, weaving complex defense patterns as he prepares to face a swarm of his own kind alone.
He sees me as his partner, imagining us as a single force of will hovering over the void.
A crushing sense of realization presses on my chest as I ask, "Is the vessel air-locked?"
"Affirmative," K-Seven concurs. "The scout vessel is pressurized.
Unit has calculated a flight path that utilizes the debris field to mask our thermal signature.
We can exit the sector before the hostile fleet completes its jump.
Probability of detection remains below 12 percent if we initiate departure within the next segment. "
Standing up inch by inch with trembling fingers, I hover over the holographic menu, navigating the data with the speed of a lifelong thief, my eyes widening as I realize the drone is telling the truth.
I find the loophole—a path that bypasses the primary security mesh.
Because Draevik has granted me full freedom to move and repair the ship, the internal turrets are programmed to ignore my signature.
I can walk right off this ship without triggering a single alarm.
"We can actually leave." The words are barely audible over the rumble of the reactor.
Carefully keeping my movements uniform to evade Draevik's peripheral sensors, I place my hands flat on the console.
I feel the ship's logic bending toward the heat of my skin.
The mark acts as a master key, tricking the neural lattice into accepting my inputs as an extension of Draevik's own will.
I dive deeper into the sub-code, manually scrubbing the sensor logs.
Because the system registers my specific biological wavelength as authoritative, the transit through the maintenance shaft remains a total secret.
This path provides an absolute erasure of my presence from the ship's internal logs for the duration of my transit.
To Virex Prime, I will simply exist in a state of digital invisibility the moment I step into the maintenance shaft.
I glance toward the docking bay where the Harrow remains tethered.
My ship—my only real home—is still there, most likely a beacon for Korr's fleet. I know Korr’s scavengers will tear it apart the moment they board Virex Prime.
They will strip the sensors I spent months recalibrating and gut the hull for scrap.
Leaving in a Hegemony scout shuttle is the only way to slip through the net.
Leaving the Harrow feels like tearing off a limb, but survival has always come with a price.
I grew up on Fringe stations where a "good day" meant the air scrubbers functioned and everyone left your boots alone while you slept.
Survival depended on grit and quick deals.
I was an orphan taught to navigate dangerous space lanes and even more dangerous people.
I built my livelihood scavenging. My entire worldview is grounded in independence and the hard rule of self-reliance. Then I boarded the wrong ship.
"Biological heartbeat is elevated," K-Seven notes, its sensor flickering a frequent, expectant green.
"Logic dictates immediate departure to maximize survival probability.
Standing near a Warlord during a fleet engagement is statistically suboptimal for your longevity.
You have frequently stated a desire for 'getting the hell out of here. ' This is 'here.' The exit is 'there.'"
Staring at the escape shuttle's coordinates burning into the screen like a brand, I let the instincts of a scavenger and a survivor take hold once more.
Every instinct I have ever honed in the Fringe stations is screaming at me to run while the Warlord is looking at the stars instead of me.
Freedom has arrived, yet the connection woven through me pulls tighter than ever, a warm weight that defies every lesson of my past.
I pull up a technical manual for the scout ship, Vesper-3, my eyes skimming through the engine specs and manual override codes.
A tiny, sleek needle of obsidian and glass, designed to slip through the cracks of a war zone.
It has enough fuel to get me to the jump gate at Krellis-Four.
From there, I could disappear. I could find a backwater moon, sell the shuttle for parts, and buy enough anonymity to last a decade.
I mull over the Harrow. I reminisce about the way the portside thruster always whistled when I pushed it past sixty percent. That ship was my safety net, my only possession in a universe that wanted to strip me bare. Leaving it behind feels like abandoning a part of my own soul.
"The Harrow is still clamped." The statement feels like a leak in a pressurized room—a sudden, escaping breath that vanishes into the immense, cold volume of the bridge before it can reach the sensors.
"Even if I could get to her, the docking cradle is locked to Draevik's command authority.
She's not going anywhere without his say-so. "
“Evaluation: Correct,” K-Seven agrees as its primary lens narrows. “Additionally, the Harrow possesses a high-reflectivity hull—a visual and thermal beacon in a combat zone. The scout vessel utilizes a passive cloaking lattice. The Harrow is an unviable departure option under current conditions.”
I look back at Draevik. He maintains his position, a statue of grim determination, with his mind likely miles away in the tactical data.
He has been silent since coming back to the bridge.
He has left my presence entirely to my own will.
He simply gave me the tools to fix the ship and then let go of the leash.
That trust feels heavier than any chain he ever put on me.
"Why isn't he looking?" My fingers curl into a fist.
"Data suggest he trusts your biological consistency," K-Seven announces. "Or he is currently managing a power surge in the forward batteries that would vaporize this entire deck if left unattended. Unit’s sensors indicate the latter is taking up 74 percent of his attention."
I dive back into the console, my fingers flying as I finalize the ghost-path.
I create a secondary loop that will trigger a fake maintenance alarm in the opposite wing of the ship the moment I leave the bridge.
It will draw any automated drones away from my path.
It’s a clean break. I slip out the back door like a severed shadow.
I replay the way his thumb felt against my skin. It was the touch of a being finally finding something worth holding onto. That realization makes my stomach flip. I belong nowhere on the bridge of a Warlord’s ship, and certainly nowhere in a war that has no claim on me.