Chapter 11
VROK
She emerges from the corridor with that same tightly wrapped calm, like a wire coiled too neat to be harmless.
She doesn’t speak first, doesn’t ask where we’re headed or what she should be doing.
Just walks in, finds a wall to lean against, and watches me like we’ve known each other long enough for silence to say things.
Fine by me.
I let her simmer for a while before I speak. It’s a trick I learned years ago in interrogation—let them think they’re safe in the quiet. Then cut through the room with a question sharp enough to bleed.
I tap a command on the nav console, flipping the external cam feeds off the jump haze and onto a projected 3D render of Kaerva’s outer compound. Gritstone walls. Triple-perimeter fencing. Turrets that don’t advertise, and patrols that do.
“How would you breach this?”
Her eyes narrow just a fraction. “You mean in theory?”
“No, I mean if I parked this ship outside the killzone and said ‘go.’”
She steps forward slowly, studying the display. But I’m watching her, not the map. Watching how her pupils dilate. How her jaw ticks.
“How many guards?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She lifts a brow. “It always matters.”
“If you’re the Butcher, it doesn’t.”
There it is. That flicker in her spine. Like a dog told to heel and wondering if it’s worth biting instead.
She circles the holo, arms crossed. “Pattern recognition,” she says finally. “Watch their rhythms. Movement loops. Find the cracks they don’t think are cracks.”
“Obvious. Then what?”
“Read the guards. Behavior tells you more than gear. Fatigue, distractions, ego.”
“And after you get in?”
She pauses, shrugs. “Same thing in reverse. Read the flow. Break the parts that hold structure.”
No terminology. No tactical framing. Like she read a combat blog once and memorized the highlights. I lean back, arms folded.
“Okay. Change of scene. Say the breach goes wrong. They spot you. You’re ambushed halfway in. Do you fall back or push?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Instinct.”
I snort. “That’s a good way to get dead.”
She smiles, faint and sharp. “Worked so far.”
I switch the holo again. Another compound. This one with hostages—fictional, for now.
“Same entry, but now you’ve got civilians. Hostiles are jumpy. What’s your play?”
She doesn’t answer immediately, and when she does, it’s slow. “Keep the hostages calm. Shift the energy. If they panic, you lose leverage.”
“And extraction?”
“Create a wedge. Make the threat chase the wrong thing while you move the real asset.”
I nod, slowly. “Huh.”
She looks proud for a second. Or relieved. Like she passed a test she didn’t study for.
But that’s the problem.
She didn’t.
I rise, cross the small distance between us, and unlock the side armory panel with a flick of my wrist. The case hisses open. Rows of weapons, precise and clean.
I pull one of my sidearms—a compact shock-load buster, modded for rapid fire and silence.
“Field-strip this.”
Her eyes flick to mine, then down to the weapon. Her throat bobs once.
“I don’t usually run maintenance,” she says.
“You do now.”
I hand it to her.
She takes it like it might burn. Her grip’s wrong—thumb too high, wrist too relaxed. Not dangerous, just unfamiliar.
She kneels by the console bench and sets the gun down like she’s prepping for surgery. I crouch beside her, saying nothing.
She starts with the slide—wrong. Fumbles with the release lever. I watch her jaw tighten as she forces it, the mechanism grinding just enough to make my skin itch.
She manages to get the casing open, barely, and starts pulling parts free like she’s trying to remember what order they came in from a dream.
Spring clatters to the floor.
She flinches.
I pick it up, hand it back without a word.
She mutters something under her breath that sounds like “stupid piece of shit,” but her voice cracks on the last word.
The magazine goes in backwards.
The barrel she seats upside-down.
By the end, it looks less like a weapon and more like a failed art project.
I hold out my hand.
She hesitates.
Then surrenders it.
I take the gun apart in three movements, clean and quiet, then reassemble it in two more. My hands remember things I don’t need to think about.
When I look up, she’s watching me with something like fury in her face—but not at me.
At herself.
I set the weapon down.
“You ever fired one of these?”
She doesn’t answer.
I let the silence ride the edge of tension for a few beats. Then, quietly:
“Tell me what you’re good at.”
She lifts her chin. “Surviving.”
That lands. Not because it’s dramatic. Because it’s true.
I nod once. “Fair.”
She swallows. Her hands curl into fists at her sides.
I could press. Could snap this thing open right here and force the truth out of her. But I don’t.
Because something in her—maybe the grit, maybe the stubborn refusal to admit fear—says she’s not here to betray me.
She’s here trying not to die.
And I understand that kind of mission better than most.
I reach for the weapon and holster it again, turning my back on her fully. A risk.
But a message too.
“I’ll handle weapons training tomorrow,” I say casually. “For now, don’t touch anything you can’t name.”
She nods, once, fast.
I glance over my shoulder. “You hungry?”
She blinks. “What?”
“Food. You do eat, right?”
“Yeah. Just… wasn’t expecting dinner.”
“Expect the unexpected. Unless it’s poison. Then expect indigestion.”
She snorts. “Wow. Inspirational.”
I walk to the galley and start up the heating unit. Nothing fancy—reheat trays and pre-cooked synth protein. But it smells halfway decent once the spices kick in. She lingers near the doorway like she’s still not sure she’s allowed to be here.
“You can sit,” I say without looking at her.
She does.
Her movements are too careful, like she’s waiting for a tripwire.
I hand her a bowl, and we eat in silence for a while. It’s not awkward. It’s tactical. We’re both gathering data, whether we admit it or not.
Finally, she speaks.
“Why’d you pick me?”
I chew, swallow. “Didn’t pick you. Found you.”
“Still.”
I consider her question. “Because you walked up to me in a bar full of predators and slapped me.”
She smirks. “That’s the bar now? Assault equals job offer?”
“It was the eyes.”
She blinks. “What about them?”
“They didn’t look away.”
She doesn’t reply. But her smile fades.
She finishes her food in silence.
I do the same.
And somewhere between the last bite and the clatter of empty dishes, something in the ship feels... different.
Not safer.
Just seen.