17. Roma
ROMA
The air inside the corridor still carries the aftermath of violence.
Not the smell—though it is there, faint and metallic beneath the sterile filtration—but the texture of it.
The ship feels different after something breaches it.
The walls hold the memory of impact, the deck still hums with stress redistribution, and every system report scrolling across my interface reflects the same truth: we survived, but only because the margin held.
Barely.
I kneel beside the damaged airlock panel, one hand braced against the warped frame while the other works through the exposed wiring with precise, efficient movements.
The plating has buckled inward along the seam where the drones forced entry, leaving the structure compromised in a way that no clean repair can fully correct under current conditions.
This is not a proper fix.
It does not need to be.
It needs to hold.
“Tell me that’s not as bad as it looks,” Dux says from just behind me.
I do not look at him.
“If your assessment is based on visual distortion, then yes,” I reply, guiding a fiber conduit back into alignment before sealing it with a temporary weld patch. “It is significantly worse.”
A low sound leaves him—something between a breath and a restrained laugh.
“Good,” he says. “Would’ve been worried if you said it was fine.”
“It is not fine,” I answer. “The outer seal integrity is compromised, the pressure tolerance is reduced by approximately eighteen percent, and the internal locking mechanism will fail under sustained force if breached again.”
“That sounds like a long way of saying ‘don’t let anything else in,’” he says.
“That is the correct interpretation.”
I reach for the sealing compound and press it along the fracture line, smoothing it into place with controlled pressure. The material responds quickly, bonding to the damaged plating and forming a temporary barrier that will distribute stress across a wider surface area.
It will hold.
It has to.
Behind me, I hear him shift his weight, the subtle scrape of his boots against the deck carrying through the narrow corridor. He does not pace, does not fidget in any overt way, but there is a contained energy in the way he stands now, a readiness that has not faded since the fight.
“You always talk like that after something tries to kill you,” he says, his voice quieter now. “Or is that just for me?”
I finish sealing the last fracture and sit back slightly on my heels, finally turning to look at him.
“My communication patterns do not change based on your presence,” I say.
His lips twist into not quite a smile, but close enough to register.
“Right,” he replies. “That’s why you’re avoiding the part where that got real close.”
I meet his gaze directly.
“It did not get close,” I say. “We maintained control of the situation.”
“Roma,” he says, and my name lands differently now, heavier, more deliberate. “They were inside the ship.”
“And they are no longer inside the ship,” I reply, rising to my feet in one smooth motion. “The distinction matters.”
He studies me for a moment longer, his golden eyes tracking something beneath the surface of what I have said. I can feel the weight of that attention, the way it presses against the edges of my control, testing for weakness.
I do not give him one.
“We do not have time to reframe events based on emotional interpretation,” I continue, stepping past him toward the main corridor. “The breach is sealed to an acceptable temporary standard, and we are still on trajectory toward the signal.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” he says, falling into step beside me.
“It is the correct way to look at it.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “You keep telling yourself that.”
I do not respond.
The cockpit greets us with the same warped starlight bleeding across the forward display, the visual distortion more pronounced now that we have pushed deeper into the core’s influence.
The signal overlay pulses faintly against the backdrop, its frequency pattern sharper, more defined than it was before.
Stronger.
I move to the pilot’s chair and drop into it, my hands already moving across the controls as I pull up the updated triangulation model.
The previous route is no longer optimal.
The drones’ presence in that corridor suggests a higher concentration of Zenos activity than my initial projections accounted for.
I adjust.
Data streams across the interface as I map a new path, one that threads between known hotspots based on movement patterns, gravitational distortion, and residual signal interference.
It is not a clean route. Nothing here is clean.
But it reduces the probability of another direct encounter to a level I can accept.
“Course correction?” Dux asks, leaning one arm against the side of the console as he watches the display.
“Yes.”
“Want to tell me what changed?”
“The density of hostile presence in our previous vector exceeded acceptable parameters,” I reply, highlighting the new path across the display. “This route reduces exposure while maintaining proximity to the signal source.”
He studies the projection, his gaze moving over the shifting lines of the corridor mapping.
“That section looks tight,” he says, pointing to a narrowing band where the gravitational distortion compresses the available space.
“It is.”
“And we’re going through it anyway.”
“Yes.”
He glances at me. “You sure that’s the best option?”
I hesitate.
Not because I lack an answer.
Because the question itself has shifted.
Before, I would have dismissed it.
Now, I consider it.
“The margin for error is reduced,” I admit, adjusting the trajectory slightly to compensate for drift variance. “However, the alternative route increases exposure time within a known Zenos cluster by approximately thirty-two percent.”
“Which means more chances for them to latch on again,” he says.
“Yes.”
He nods once, slow and deliberate. “Then we take the tight path.”
I glance at him.
“You agree with the assessment,” I say.
“I agree with not letting those things crawl all over your ship again,” he replies.
My ship.
The phrasing registers, but I do not comment on it.
“Then monitor external movement as we adjust course,” I say instead. “If anything approaches within breach distance, I need immediate notification.”
“You’ll get it,” he says.
I input the final command.
The ship responds.
The engines shift output, the vector adjusting with a smooth, controlled motion that threads us into the narrower corridor of warped space.
The distortion outside intensifies, light bending harder along the edges of the viewport, the stars stretching into elongated arcs that slide past in slow, unnatural motion.
The signal comes again.
Stronger.
Closer.
My heart flutters, not from the pressure of the environment but from something deeper, something that has been building steadily since the moment I first confirmed the pattern.
“He’s there,” I say, the words leaving me before I can filter them.
Dux’s gaze shifts to me.
“You’re sure,” he says.
“Yes.”
“How close?”
I refine the triangulation again, narrowing the convergence point with each pass as the signal stabilizes against the background interference.
“Within two standard sectors,” I reply. “Possibly less.”
“That’s close,” he says.
“It is.”
The data updates again.
Closer still.
A flicker of something sharp and electric moves through me, cutting through the fatigue, the residual tension from the breach, the controlled detachment I have maintained for years.
I lean forward, my hands moving faster across the console as I refine the model again, pushing for greater accuracy, tighter resolution, more precision.
“Roma,” Dux says.
“Not now,” I reply, already recalculating.
“The ship just took a hit ten minutes ago,” he says, his voice steady but edged with something firmer now. “You might want to?—”
“I am aware of the ship’s condition,” I cut in, my focus locked on the signal pattern as it sharpens. “And I am also aware that this is the closest I have been to him in nine years.”
My fingers move faster.
The numbers align.
The path tightens.
“He’s here,” I say again, quieter this time, the certainty settling into something that feels almost unreal. “He’s actually here.”
I do not realize how hard I am gripping the edge of the console until the pressure registers in my hands.
“Roma,” Dux says again, closer now.
“I have it,” I say. “I just need to refine the?—”
“Roma.”
His hand closes around my wrist.
The contact is firm, grounding, pulling my attention away from the cascade of data just long enough to break the spiral of focus.
I look at him.
Really look.
His expression has changed.
The humor is gone.
The ease is gone.
What remains is something sharper, more deliberate, a focus that mirrors my own but points in a different direction.
“You’re pushing too hard,” he says.
“I am optimizing the approach vector.”
“You’re burning yourself out before we even get there.”
“I am not?—”
“You are,” he interrupts, his grip tightening slightly before releasing my wrist. “I’ve seen this before. You lock in, everything else drops out, and you stop paying attention to what’s right in front of you.”
“I am paying attention,” I say, the words coming faster now, edged with something I do not fully suppress. “I am managing multiple variables simultaneously, including navigation, structural integrity, and?—”
“And yourself,” he says.
The words land harder than they should.
“I am fine,” I reply.
“You’re not,” he says.
The certainty in his voice irritates me.
“You are not qualified to make that assessment,” I say.
“Maybe not,” he admits. “But I’m the one who just had to keep those things off you while you were flying us into a wall of bad space, so I think I get a say in whether you stay sharp enough to get us the rest of the way.”
The statement hangs between us.
I hold his gaze.
He does not look away.
The signal arrives again on the display.
Closer.
So close.
I pull my attention back to the console, forcing my focus into the data, into the numbers, into something I can control.
“I do not require oversight,” I say, my voice steadier now, colder. “I require cooperation.”
“Then cooperate,” he replies.
I pause.
Just long enough for the meaning to settle.
Then I exhale slowly and adjust the trajectory again, this time leaving a margin I would have previously eliminated.
“Monitor the left-side drift field,” I say. “If the gravitational pull increases beyond projected thresholds, I need to know immediately.”
“Already watching it,” he says.
I nod once, my attention returning fully to the display.
The signal sharpens again.
Closer.
Closer.
Every calculation brings us nearer to the source, every adjustment tightening the path between where we are and where he is.
Nine years of work.
Nine years of certainty.
All of it converging into this single point.
I feel it building, rising, pushing against the edges of my control.
I do not stop it.
I cannot.
“He’s there,” I say again, softer now, the words almost swallowed by the hum of the ship. “I’m going to find him.”
Beside me, Dux does not answer immediately.
When he does, his voice is quieter than before.
“I know,” he says.