Chapter 10 #3
She pulled up the search function and typed in Raaze’s medical ID. The file loaded in seconds… the original diagnosis, the supporting documentation, and the chain of custody for every piece of evidence used to exile him.
Oh my god, it was sloppy. So sloppy it made her teeth ache.
“The timestamps don’t match.” She pointed at the screen.
“This diagnostic says it was run at 0340 local time, but the equipment log shows the scanner wasn’t powered on until 0415.
And this signature—” she tapped the authorization field.
“—shouldn’t be here. V’Teth signed off on the final diagnosis, but there’s a secondary approval from someone.
From what I can see…” She ran another query.
“Yeah, that’s not standard protocol for a Blood Rage certification. ”
Raaze’s jaw tightened. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
“The chain of custody is wrong, too. According to this protocol, your samples should have gone from collection to analysis to archive. Two hands. Instead, they passed through three, and the middle entry doesn’t have a name attached. Just a department code.”
He leaned in to look at the screen. “Was it falsified? Does this prove that?”
She shook her head. “I can prove it doesn’t follow procedure. Whether that’s enough to overturn the diagnosis…” she shrugged. “That would depend on who reviews it.”
She should stop there. She had what they came for. But sloppy people were sloppy more than once, and the pattern-recognition part of her brain was already itching.
She began pulling adjacent files, searching for other high-ranking players who’d been removed from the league around the same time.
The results populated, and name after name scrolled up the screen. Eight files. All processed through V’Teth’s office in the eighteen months before his death.
She opened the first one. It had the same mismatched timestamps and the same phantom department signature. She opened a second file, then a third file…
“They’re all the same,” she murmured.
Raaze stiffened beside her, and she glanced up. His jaw was tight, a muscle jumping in his cheek.
“You know them?”
“Played with two of them.” His voice was a growl. “Played against the others. Tavriik was a defender for the Vorth Strikers. Best in the League before—” he stopped. Swallowed. “Before he disappeared. The file was never closed.”
She scrolled further, her stomach twisting. Some files had death dates attached. Others were just… empty. No exit date, no current location. Just a void where a life used to be.
“Missing is worse than dead.”
She kept pulling files. The pattern was jumping off the screen now, the same way Kian’s expense reports used to jump off the quarterly audits.
She didn’t know warball. Didn’t know rankings or positions or any of the tactical nonsense Raaze had tried to explain in the cockpit, but she knew fraud when she saw it.
“Every single one of these clearances opened a slot.” She was talking fast now, her fingers moving across the interface.
“Tavriik’s disappearance… someone moved up to fill his position.
This one, Zorrat, same thing. And this one—” She pulled up the fifth file, and the pattern crystallized into something worse.
“They all cleared the way for the same athlete.”
Raaze went very still. “Who?”
She ran another search. “Vikrav R’Tev.”
She didn’t need to know who Vikrav was. The expression on Raaze’s face was enough.
Cait, we have to go, Fred urged. The checkpoint guard is looping back. The afternoon shift is arriving in five minutes. Get the data and get out.
“I need more time.”
You don’t have it. The guard is four corridors away, Fred warned.
She ignored him and kept working. She began a deep dive into the entire directory, mirroring the files onto her encrypted drive. Every scrap of data, all the mismatched timestamps…
Three minutes.
“Cait,” Raaze said her name. Ignoring him, she started copying everything.
Two minutes, thirty.
The transfer bar crawled across the screen. 80%… 85%…
Two minutes.
92%… 95%…
Cait, you need to move.
She ignored him, her eyes locked on the progress bar. 98%… 99%…
The drive chirped. Copy complete.
Ripping the drive from the console, she shoved it into her pocket and slid off the stool. “Done.”
They exfilled on her route and his timing. Fred fed her directions, and Raaze set the pace, his hand finding her elbow when she hesitated, his body angling between her and every potential danger without being asked.
The H4-RPY was exactly where they’d left her, docking clamps still engaged, ramp already lowering as they approached. Fred must have started the launch sequence the moment they cleared the archive corridor.
She hit the ramp running, Raaze half a step behind her.
Clamps releasing. We’re clear in thirty seconds.
The ramp sealed behind them, and the deck vibrated as the engines boosted. Then they were lifting, the station falling away beneath them, and she was standing in the cargo bay with her lungs burning and her hands shaking.
Raaze stopped a few feet away.
She stopped as well.
They’d done it, they’d actually done it. She had an entire drive of evidence in her pocket.
Raaze looked at her. His eyes dropped to her mouth, and he surged forward, yanking her into his arms.
This time, she didn’t hesitate as his mouth crashed down over hers.