Chapter 22
HRASK
The report sits on my console under sterile white light, its clean formatting almost glowing against the darker metal surface around it.
The air carries that faint, recycled sharpness I barely notice most days, but now it feels drier, thinner, like it is scraping the back of my throat with every breath I take.
Around me, operators murmur in controlled tones, fingers tap across interfaces, and the quiet rhythm of routine continues without interruption.
Except for the line staring back at me.
Transport malfunction. Fatality confirmed. Lieutenant Jolie.
My hand hovers just above the console, fingers curled slightly like I am about to interact with the display but never quite closing the distance, and I realize I have stopped breathing for a second too long.
I drag in a slow inhale, the air tasting metallic as it settles in my lungs, and I read the line again without blinking.
“No,” I mutter under my breath, the word rougher than I expect.
The report doesn’t shift.
It doesn’t expand.
It doesn’t explain.
It just sits there, precise and contained, like the outcome was decided long before the words were written.
“That’s not how she goes,” I say quietly, leaning forward as I pull the full report into view.
The interface responds instantly, the data unfolding in neat, efficient layers, but the deeper I go, the less it gives me. The details compress instead of expand, each line reducing the event into something smaller, simpler, easier to accept.
Departure time.
Minimal crew.
System failure.
Loss of control.
Crash.
No recovery.
I scroll back up, then down again, forcing myself to read it twice, three times, searching for anything that breaks pattern.
“No recovery,” I repeat, slower this time, my eyes narrowing.
The words sit wrong.
They sit wrong in a way I can feel in my gut before I can fully explain it.
My chair scrapes faintly as I push back, the sound sharp against the otherwise controlled environment, and I glance around the room. The operators keep working, their movements steady, their expressions neutral, like nothing here deserves more than passing acknowledgment.
“Hey,” I call, my voice cutting across the low noise.
One of them looks up, brows pulling together slightly.
“What?” he asks.
I gesture toward the screen, my hand tighter now.
“You see this report?”
He leans just enough to glance at it, his eyes scanning quickly before he shrugs.
“Yeah,” he says. “Transport went down.”
“And that’s it?” I ask, my tone flattening.
He shifts in his seat, already turning back to his console.
“Deadlands,” he says. “Not much to recover out there.”
I stare at him, the casual dismissal landing harder than the report itself.
“That’s not procedure,” I say.
“It is when command says it is,” he replies without looking at me.
I step closer, planting my hand against the edge of his station hard enough to feel the vibration of the system through my palm.
“No retrieval team?” I press. “No confirmation sweep? Nothing?”
He exhales sharply, irritation creeping into his expression as he glances back at me.
“Look,” he says, lowering his voice slightly. “Shuttles go down out there all the time. Sand eats the wreckage, heat cooks what’s left, and command doesn’t waste resources chasing ghosts.”
“Not like this,” I snap, leaning in just enough to force his attention.
His eyes narrow slightly, studying me.
“You knew her?” he asks.
The question hangs there.
I don’t answer it.
Because that’s not what this is about.
“Give me the coordinates,” I say instead.
He hesitates, his fingers hovering over his console.
“Restricted,” he says.
“Everything’s restricted,” I reply, my voice sharpening. “Give me the coordinates.”
He shakes his head.
“Command locked it,” he says.
Of course they did.
I push off the console, straightening slowly as I let my hand fall back to my side.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That figures.”
I turn before he can say anything else, the door sliding open with a soft hiss as I step back into the corridor, and the shift hits me immediately.
The air feels tighter, heavier, like the system itself has drawn inward, and the buzzing that runs through the structure carries a sharper edge that sets my teeth on end.
“She’s not dead,” I say under my breath, my pace already picking up.
Because nothing about that report fits.
Because Jolie doesn’t get erased in six lines of sanitized data.
Because she doesn’t go quietly.
“That’s not how she goes,” I repeat, louder now, the words grounding something in me that refuses to settle.
My boots strike harder against the floor as I move, the sound echoing down the corridor in uneven bursts, and I cut through intersections without slowing, my body already mapping the path before I consciously decide it.
The reassignment.
The transport.
The shutdown.
“They pulled her,” I mutter, turning sharply around a corner. “Boxed her in and called it an accident.”
A guard steps into my path too late to adjust, and we nearly collide, his shoulder clipping mine as he stumbles back.
“Watch it,” he snaps.
“Not now,” I shoot back, not even slowing.
“Hrask—” he starts.
I don’t stop.
Because I already know where this leads.
The outer corridor opens ahead, and the air shifts again as the static from the border field bleeds into the environment, raising the fine hairs along my arms. I slow just enough to orient, my gaze sweeping the exit point, the barrier, the open stretch beyond.
“You don’t do this,” I mutter, the words quieter now but heavier.
Because this isn’t protocol.
This isn’t controlled.
This is walking out.
“You stay in line,” I add, the old rule surfacing automatically.
“You follow command.”
Command just buried her.
The thought lands hard, cutting clean through whatever hesitation still lingers.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice dropping. “That line’s already gone.”
I turn.
And I walk out.
The transition into the Deadlands hits all at once, the controlled environment dropping away behind me as heat slams into my skin like a physical force.
The air dries instantly, pulling moisture from my mouth and throat, and the ground shifts under my boots, loose sand grinding against fractured rock as each step sinks slightly before stabilizing.
The horizon stretches wide, warped by heat distortion that bends the distance into something unstable, and the wind carries fine grit that stings against my face and settles into the fabric of my clothes.
“Yeah,” I mutter, scanning the terrain as I adjust my pace. “Perfect place to disappear something.”
Or someone.
I move forward, lowering my center of gravity slightly as I read the ground, letting my eyes track disruption instead of surface detail. The wind has already started smoothing the terrain, dragging thin layers of sand across anything that doesn’t belong, but it hasn’t erased everything yet.
Not this fast.
“There,” I say quietly, dropping into a crouch as I reach a disturbed patch.
The sand feels different under my hand, denser, compressed in a way the surrounding terrain isn’t, and I brush my fingers across it, feeling the uneven texture where something impacted hard enough to shift the layers beneath.
“That’s not natural,” I murmur, tracing the edge of the disturbance.
The pattern spreads outward in a rough arc, the direction cutting against the wind’s movement, and I stand slowly, letting my eyes widen the search radius.
Impact zone.
My pulse picks up.
“You didn’t just vanish,” I say, scanning outward.
A faint line cuts across the sand a few meters out, barely visible where the wind has started to reclaim it, but still there if you know what you’re looking for.
I move toward it, crouching again as I follow the line with my hand, feeling the shallow groove where something—or someone—dragged across the surface.
“You moved,” I say, my voice lower now.
The track stutters, disappears, then reappears further along, interrupted but consistent enough to follow, and I rise, adjusting my direction as I pick up the trail again.
“Yeah,” I murmur, my pace quickening. “That’s you.”
Each step pulls me further into the Deadlands, the heat pressing harder, the air thinner, but I don’t slow, because the pattern holds, because the signs are there, because nothing about this reads like a body that stopped.
“She’s alive,” I say, the certainty settling into my chest as something sharper replaces the tension.
Not hope.
Not guesswork.
Recognition.
Because Jolie doesn’t go down easy.
Because she doesn’t stop moving.
Because I know exactly what it looks like when she refuses to stay where she’s put.
The wind shifts, carrying dust across my face as I follow the trail deeper, my focus narrowing until everything else fades out.