23. Roma #2
The words strike too deep, and for one second I feel the platform under my boots, the heat rising from the conduit spine, the taste of copper at the back of my mouth where I have bitten my tongue without realizing it. My body wants to shake. I refuse.
“Give me access to distributor timing,” I say.
“That is restricted.”
“Then your repair will be decorative.”
“I gave you secondary diagnostics.”
“You gave me a window and asked me to rebuild the house.”
Throgg turns slightly toward the engineer. “Can her claim be verified?”
The engineer studies the readout, unwilling to look at me. “The distributor timing is relevant to the instability.”
“Relevant,” I repeat. “An elegant way to say necessary while protecting your pride.”
The engineer’s hand twitches.
Throgg lifts one finger, and the Reaper stills.
“Limited access,” Throgg says.
The panel updates.
More data opens.
Not all.
Enough.
My pulse steadies because this is the first real gain.
I pull the timing architecture into view and begin altering a visible section of the compensation logic.
The correction I provide is legitimate. It reduces the response delay by a measurable margin, increases stability under moderate gravitational variance, and gives Throgg enough improvement to trust that I can do more.
It also leaves the deeper instability untouched.
No, that phrasing is lazy.
I write the correction around the instability like a wall built with a hidden door.
The ship will perform better.
Throgg will see results.
His engineers will grow dependent on my interpretation.
And when the time comes, the system will fail in a direction I choose.
“You are smiling,” Throgg says.
I neutralize my expression. “I solved your immediate problem.”
“Show me.”
I execute the simulation.
The drive pulse stabilizes across the projected model, the lag narrowing from catastrophic to tolerable. Heat distribution improves. The third pulse aligns closer to the expected interval. Around the deck, Reaper engineers lean toward their stations despite themselves.
Throgg watches the numbers rather than their faces.
“What is the cost?” he asks.
“Minimal efficiency loss under low-shear conditions. Increased stress on the emergency coolant routing during sustained pursuit. Manageable if your crew monitors it.”
He studies me. “And the hidden cost?”
I meet his gaze. “Supervision has made you suspicious.”
“Survival has made me thorough.”
“Then you should understand why I provide incremental solutions.”
He steps closer to the display. “You will implement this.”
“I will need tool access.”
“You will have supervised tool access.”
“I will need a fabrication unit.”
“You will have restricted fabrication.”
“I will need my ship.”
His expression cools. “No.”
“My ship contains unique hardware and design references. If you want me to improve your drive beyond temporary stabilization, I need access to my systems.”
“You would use that access to escape.”
“Yes.”
The honesty lands exactly where I intend.
Throgg laughs softly. “You admit it.”
“You already knew. Denial would insult both of us.”
“You are either very brave or very reckless.”
“I have been accused of both by better conversationalists.”
His eyes gleam. “The Vakutan.”
I refuse to look away.
“Yes.”
“He mattered.”
The answer arises but, and I trap it behind my teeth until it becomes something usable. “He was effective under pressure.”
“You reduce affection to utility.”
“You reduce people to assets. We are both tedious in our coping mechanisms.”
A longer silence follows.
Then Throgg inclines his head slightly, as if conceding a point in a game I did not agree to play.
“You will earn access to your vessel in stages,” he says. “If your corrections improve performance, you will be permitted supervised retrieval of necessary components.”
“That is inefficient.”
“That is control.”
“Control often masquerades as efficiency until it delays results.”
His smile returns. “Careful.”
“I am.”
“Your boldness continues to amuse me.”
“And your ship continues to need me.”
His smile fades into something harder, cleaner. “Do not mistake need for weakness.”
“I would never.”
I turn back to the panel before he can read too much of my face.
Need is weakness.
It is also leverage.
Throgg has survived here through force, discipline, and predation. His ship is powerful, but trapped. He has hunted signals, taken ships, absorbed parts, and still remains inside the core’s cage. He needs escape. He needs my father. He needs me.
That triangle is a structure.
Structures can be loaded.
Structures can be broken.
“Begin implementation,” he orders.
I accept the tool kit one of the engineers brings me and kneel beside the opened regulator housing.
The metal is hot through my gloves, vibrating faintly under my touch as power moves through the system.
I loosen the first panel, then the second, exposing the layered circuitry beneath.
Reaper design is severe, compact, and arrogant, prioritizing command response over adaptive resilience.
It is impressive, and it is flawed in ways that make my hands itch.
Dux would make some infuriating comment about me looking happy elbow-deep in enemy machinery.
A sharp, sudden ache opens under my ribs.
I breathe through it.
He is not dead.
A soldering tool sparks to life in my hand, white heat reflecting across the casing.
I make the first legitimate correction, then the second.
On the third, I insert a latency variation so small no one will notice it without knowing precisely where to look.
On the fourth, I write a diagnostic dependency that routes future calibration questions back through the logic pattern I control.
Partial solutions.
Partial truths.
A leash disguised as assistance.
Throgg watches from above.
“Your hands are steady,” he says.
“They usually are.”
“Even after loss.”
I tighten a connector into place. “I have work.”
“And when the work ends?”
“It will not.”
His gaze remains on me, heavy and thoughtful.
Good.
Let him think he understands the shape of my survival.
Let him believe I have chosen usefulness because grief has nowhere else to go.
Let him rely on my hands.
Let him open doors because he wants what I can build.
I seal the modified casing and rise slowly, wiping residue from my gloves.
The simulation updates with the installed parameters, and the drive’s rhythm shifts beneath our feet.
The late third pulse tightens. The heat signature smooths.
The deck vibration settles into something marginally less dangerous.
The engineers see it.
Throgg sees it.
He looks at me differently now.
“You have purchased another day,” he says.
“I prefer to think of it as selling you competence at an insulting discount.”
“You will survive here longer than most.”
“I intend to survive longer than you.”
A Reaper guard steps forward.
Throgg lifts a hand, stopping him.
“You have chutzpah, Roma Larson.”
“My father called it being a pain in the ass.”
The words escape before I can contain them.
For the first time since I was dragged aboard this ship, I feel his absence and Dux’s absence strike the same internal place from opposite directions. My father is close enough to find. Dux is gone enough to destroy me if I allow the thought to finish.
I do not allow it.
Throgg studies me, perhaps hearing the fracture under the sentence.
“Return her to supervised quarters when she is finished,” he says. “She works again in four hours.”
“I need rest if you want continued accuracy,” I say.
“You may sleep when the next correction is complete.”
“Then expect reduced elegance.”
“I will tolerate function.”
“How generous.”
He turns to leave, then pauses at the platform stairs. “You believe the Vakutan lives.”
I keep my face turned toward the display.
“Yes.”
“Against evidence.”
“Against incomplete evidence.”
“And if you are wrong?”
The deck hums under my boots. The modified drive settles into its new rhythm, carrying my hidden flaw inside its improved performance. Somewhere beyond this ship, my father’s signal continues calling through the dark. Somewhere in that same dark, Dux is either dead or refusing to be.
I know which one I choose.
“If I am wrong,” I say, “then I will become extremely unpleasant.”