Kallum
Four days on her farm, and I’d learned to read her movements.
The way she checked the eastern fence first thing every morning, walking the line with Turnip at her side.
The way she paused at Torek’s grave on the north ridge, just for a moment, before continuing her rounds.
The way her shoulders dropped a fraction when she stepped back inside the house, the tension of vigilance easing into something softer.
I’d learned other things too. The schedule of her chores. The sounds she made in the kitchen when she thought no one was listening, soft humming that cut off whenever I came near. The way she held her rifle, finger off the trigger but ready, even when she was just walking between buildings.
Torek had trained her well. But the fear underneath, the watchfulness that never quite turned off, that wasn’t training. That was history. Something that had happened to her before she came here, before Torek found her.
I didn’t ask. Some things weren’t mine to know.
We fell into a routine without discussing it.
Mornings, I walked the perimeter while she handled the animals.
Afternoons, I helped with whatever needed fixing.
There was always something. A fence post rotted through.
A solar collector knocked off alignment by wind.
The endless small failures of infrastructure maintained by one person for too long.
She let me help now. Didn’t bristle when I appeared beside her with tools. Still didn’t trust me, not really, but she’d stopped treating me like an intruder. I’d become something else. Something she hadn’t decided how to categorize yet.
The fourth morning, I found her in the equipment shed, staring at a piece of machinery I didn’t recognize.
“The cultivator,” she said without turning. “The drive belt snapped.”
I moved closer. Looked at the mechanism, the frayed edges of the broken belt. “Do you have a replacement?”
“I ordered one months ago. Same as the pump seal.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Supply shipments to this rock are unreliable on a good day. Half the time they’re late. Half the time they never arrive at all.”
“And you can’t leave to get them yourself.”
“Can’t leave the farm unattended. Can’t leave the—” She stopped. Shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. The cultivator’s down and I can’t prep the south field, which means I’ll lose a third of next season’s yield.” She met my eyes. “If there is a next season.”
I looked at the cultivator. At the belt housing. At the drive mechanism that was simpler than it first appeared.
“I can jury-rig something,” I said. “Won’t last through a full season, but it’ll get you through the prep work.”
She stared at me. “You can fix cultivators.”
“I can fix most things.” I crouched beside the machine, examining the connection points. “When you spend years alone on a ship, you learn to improvise.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she crouched beside me. I caught her scent, something clean and warm, underneath the scent of hay and machine oil.
“Show me,” she said.
I showed her.
We worked together for two hours, cannibalizing parts from other equipment, fabricating a temporary belt from materials never meant for the purpose. She learned fast. Asked sharp questions. Her hands were steady and precise, holding components in place while I made adjustments.
“Hold this steady.” I pointed to the housing bracket.
She shifted closer, bracing it with both hands. Her shoulder pressed against my arm. Neither of us moved away.
We worked like that for ten minutes. I was aware of every breath she took.
When we both reached for the same wrench, our fingers brushed. She pulled back like she’d been burned.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. The brief contact had sent something jolting through my chest, a spark I hadn’t felt in years. If ever. I kept my eyes on the machinery, not trusting myself to look at her.
We finished the repair in silence.
That afternoon, I showed her the perimeter positions I’d been mapping in my head.
Not a full briefing on defenses. Just observations. The places where the terrain created natural choke points. The sightlines from the ridges. The approaches that would funnel any assault into predictable paths.
She listened intently. Added her own knowledge. The seasonal flooding patterns I wouldn’t have known about. The unstable ground near the old mines. The way the wind shifted at sunset, affecting visibility and sound.
“If they come from the south,” she said, pointing to my rough map scratched in the dirt, “they’ll bunch up at this gulley. The sides are too steep to climb quickly.”
“Good place for a deterrent. Something loud, to drive them toward the eastern approach.”
“Where you’ll be waiting.”
“Where I’ll be waiting.”
She studied the map. I studied her. The way her brow furrowed when she was thinking. The small scar at the corner of her eyebrow, almost invisible unless you were looking for it. The strength in her hands, calloused and capable.
“You’re staring,” she said without looking up.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
She met my eyes then. The air between us felt heavier. I could see the pulse in her throat, steady and strong.
I wanted to touch it. Press my thumb there and feel her heartbeat against my skin.
I didn’t.
“I’m not,” I admitted.
She held my gaze. Something flickered in her green eyes, something I couldn’t read. Then she looked back at the map.
“The processing station,” she said. “I should show you the vault mechanism tonight. Before anything happens.”
“Agreed.”
“After dinner.”
“After dinner.”
Dinner was the same simple food she’d been making all week. Roasted vegetables from her garden, cured meat from the smokehouse. She’d stopped apologizing for the plainness of it after I’d told her, truthfully, that it was better than anything I’d eaten in years.
We ate at the kitchen table, Turnip sprawled across the doorway. The fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, the sun was setting, painting the sky in fiery colors.
“Tell me about them,” Anhara said. “Your team.”
I looked up from my plate. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. Everything.” She pushed a piece of bread around her plate. “You’ve been alone here for days, but you’re not alone out there. You have people. I want to understand who I’m trusting with... this.”
With her life. With Torek’s legacy. She didn’t say it, but I heard it anyway.
So I told her.
About Rylos, the leader who carried the weight of every decision without letting it show.
About Talon and Tamsin, who’d found each other in the middle of a heist and never let go.
About Zarek and Bronwen, the warrior and the woman who smiled while she killed.
About Varrick and Sabine, the tech genius and the mathematician who spoke their own language.
About Brevan and Carys, the smooth-talker and the curator who’d burned down her own cage.
“They sound...” She paused, searching for the word. “Intense.”
“They are.”
“And you? What are you to them?”
I considered the question. It wasn’t one I’d thought about much. I existed in the margins of the team, doing the work that needed to be done, fading into the background when the work was finished.
“I’m the one they send when they need something done quietly,” I said. “The ghost.”
“That’s what you do. I asked what you are.”
The distinction caught me off guard. I looked at her, at the firelight reflected in her green eyes, at the way she was watching me like my answer mattered.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been the ghost for so long, I’m not sure there’s anything else.”
She stood without responding. Gathered the plates.
“Torek used to say something like that,” she said.
“That he’d been a weapon for so long, he’d forgotten how to be anything else.
” She gathered the plates and crossed to the basin.
“He was wrong. He learned how to be other things. A farmer. A teacher.” She glanced at me over her shoulder. “A father, almost. To me.”
The words hung in the air between us.
“You could learn too,” she said. “To be something else. If you wanted.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. Didn’t know if I believed it. But something in my chest loosened, just a fraction. Something that had been tight for years.
The comm unit on my belt chirped.
I went still. Anhara turned, the plates forgotten.
“What is it?”
I pulled out the unit, checking the display. Long-range sensors on the Turetsala, set to monitor system traffic. I’d almost forgotten I’d activated them.
The data scrolled across the screen. My stomach dropped.
“Ships,” I said. “Multiple contacts, entering the system. Conclave transponder codes.”
Anhara crossed the room in three strides, looking over my shoulder at the display. “How many?”
“Four ships. Light cruisers, based on the signatures.” I studied the readouts. “Full squads on each one. More than enough to take a farm.”
She was quiet for a moment. I could hear her breathing, steady and controlled. Not panicking. Processing.
“How long until they reach the moon?”
“They’ll need to scan each settlement, verify signatures. Two days. Maybe three.”
“Then we have two days to get ready.”
The processing station rose from the ridge like a skeleton, all rusted metal and broken windows. Abandoned for decades, left to rot when the mining company pulled out.
Inside, she led me through corridors thick with dust and shadow. Down stairs that groaned under our weight. Into a maintenance level that smelled of dust and age.
“This is where the hydraulics connect,” she said, stopping at a massive junction of pipes and valves.
Some of the equipment looked original to the station.
Some of it was newer, installed with obvious care.
“Torek spent two years building this. Tapping into the station’s old systems, connecting them to the farm’s irrigation. ”