27. Roma #2
My throat tightens, and I answer with visible annoyance because it is easier to survive than grief. “Among others.”
“You still think he lives.”
“I think killing him was sloppy.”
That makes Throgg’s gaze cool. “I am seldom sloppy.”
“Then consider it an aspirational failure.”
A Reaper officer steps toward me. Throgg’s hand rises again, and the officer stops.
“You bait me with Palindrome Larson,” Throgg says. “You insult my judgment. You admit manipulation. You ask for access to the prize before I decide whether to let him breathe.”
“I also improved your drive stability, identified your pursuit gap, and produced the first actionable route to a target you have failed to capture for years.”
“There is the knife.”
“There are several.”
“Yes,” he says. “I am beginning to see that.”
He turns back to the map. “Set course for the outer Thorn Shelf. Maintain weapons discipline until I order otherwise. Prepare containment nets and boarding teams. Increase monitoring on Zenos movement and route variance.”
A cold pulse of triumph moves through me.
Throgg has taken the bait.
Now I have to make sure it bites everyone in the correct order.
“Commander,” one officer says, “if Larson’s projection places us near active Zenos traffic, the vessel may face swarm engagement.”
“Then we will not be where the swarm expects,” Throgg replies.
“You should also prepare for my father to sabotage his own trail,” I say.
Throgg looks back. “You sound proud.”
“I sound accurate.”
“Prepare countermeasures.”
“I will need engineering access.”
“You will have supervised access.”
“I will need my ship’s sensor library again.”
“You had access.”
“I need more.”
“No.”
“Then your countermeasures will be ornamental.”
Throgg’s jaw tightens. There it is, the edge beneath his composure. He does not like needing me. He likes that he recognizes utility in me, but he does not enjoy the dependence forming around it.
Good.
Dependence can be widened.
“I can work from engineering,” I say, offering the concession before he rejects the demand. “Give me live pursuit data, partial sensor feeds from my ship, and authorization to upload counter-drift predictions into your navigation buffer.”
“That grants you influence over navigation.”
“Limited influence.”
“Influence.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Then fly blind near a man who has survived you for nine years.”
The room turns very still.
Throgg steps close enough that every guard subtly adjusts around us. “You do not speak to me as others do.”
“That seems statistically likely.”
“Fear teaches most prisoners restraint.”
“Fear teaches engineers prioritization.”
“And what is your priority now?”
There are several answers.
My father.
Dux.
The ship.
Escape.
Revenge.
Survival.
For the first time, none of them can stand alone.
I look at the map instead of at him, because honesty requires careful shaping to become camouflage. “Convergence.”
He studies me. “Meaning?”
“Bringing the necessary assets into the same field before conditions collapse.”
“Assets.”
He hears the word and thinks I am learning his language.
Let him.
“Yes,” I say. “My father. My vessel. Your drive architecture. My corrections. The Zenos pressure band. If any one element arrives too early or too late, the plan fails.”
“And the Vakutan?”
The question cuts through the structure.
My pulse tries to answer.
I do not let it.
“If alive, he becomes a destabilizing variable for any close-quarters engagement,” I say.
Throgg smiles faintly. “That sounded almost cold.”
“I am cold.”
“No, Roma Larson. You are disciplined.”
I dislike that he sees the difference.
A proximity alert hums across the command deck as the ship begins altering course.
The stars beyond the narrow viewport shift, bending around the vessel’s new heading.
Throgg’s officers move with efficient urgency, rerouting power, adjusting weapons readiness, preparing to pursue the false trail I have designed to be dangerous enough to look true.
Inside my sleeve comp, the sabotage architecture waits.
Three triggers.
The first embedded in the coolant-routing dependency I installed earlier.
When activated, it will create a localized overheating event in the secondary shield emitter, forcing recalibration and sensor disruption.
The second sits inside the diagnostic recursion I buried in my ship’s navigation library, a signal flare disguised as corrupted telemetry.
The third is incomplete, because I need access to a live command buffer to finish it, and because the third trigger is the one that matters most.
It must open a path.
Not for me alone.
For all of us.
The thought still feels unfamiliar.
Us.
It is inefficient. It complicates risk. It multiplies failure points and emotional exposure. It also feels like the first honest equation I have written since I was twelve years old.
Throgg turns from the display. “You will work in engineering under guard. If your father appears and you warn him, I will know.”
“If I wanted to warn him obviously, I would have done it already.”
“Obviously,” he repeats.
“I am better than that.”
His expression warms by a degree that carries no comfort. “Yes. That is what concerns me.”
“Then assign smarter guards.”
“I did.”
Two Reapers step forward.
I recognize one from the airlock.
The memory of Dux being dragged backward into the chamber flashes behind my eyes with such force that the command deck tilts for half a second. His blood on the deck. His hand on the glass. The ridiculous attempt at a grin he gave me while death opened behind him.
My hands remain still.
Throgg watches.
I meet his gaze because looking away would cost more.
“If your father is recovered,” he says, “you will persuade him to cooperate.”
“Yes.”
“And if he refuses?”
“He will not refuse me.”
“That is confidence.”
“That is my father.”
“And if the Vakutan lives?”
The room fades down to that single question.
I think of Dux laughing with blood on his teeth. Dux standing between me and the drones. Dux putting his hand over the controls because he cared more about my survival than my permission. Dux disappearing into the core.
If he is alive, he is coming.
If he is coming, Throgg will try to kill him again.
If Throgg tries, I will stop him.
The certainty arrives quietly, without drama, settling deeper than fear.
“If he lives,” I say, “you should hope he does not reach your ship angry.”
Throgg laughs once, low and genuine. “You care for him.”
I lift my chin. “I recognize danger.”
“Convenient.”
“Frequently.”
He gestures toward the exit. “Go.”
The guards move me out of command and back toward engineering.
The corridor feels different now, though nothing has changed except the direction of the ship beneath my feet.
The vibration has deepened, the engines pushing us toward the Thorn Shelf and the collision I have arranged.
Every step carries me closer to my father, closer to whatever remains of Dux, closer to a moment where the pieces will either align or destroy one another.
I flex my fingers once at my side.
The sleeve comp warms faintly against my wrist.
In engineering, the same amber lights crawl over the walls, the same heat rises through the grated floor, and the same Reaper technicians pretend not to watch me as I am escorted to the central console.
I request live pursuit data. They deny full access.
I insult the denial’s intelligence. They escalate.
Throgg authorizes a narrow feed three minutes later, exactly as I expected.
I begin working.
Every command I enter has two purposes.
The visible purpose improves Throgg’s pursuit stability, keeping the ship balanced as it approaches the turbulence around the Thorn Shelf.
The hidden purpose prepares weakness with the delicacy of a surgeon placing a blade where flesh will eventually move.
I reduce shield recalibration lag by four percent while planting a timing dependency in the heat vent cycle.
I refine the predictive model for debris drift while embedding a false confidence interval that will widen at the precise moment Zenos movement complicates the field.
I route my father’s projected escape path toward the only corridor where Dux, if alive, has any chance of reaching us.
My guard steps closer. “Your output increased.”
“I work quickly when surrounded by mediocrity.”
“You are agitated again.”
“You continue talking.”
The guard’s hand tightens on its weapon.
“Let her work,” the engineer beside me says, though the words sound painful to him.
That is new.
Reliance begins as annoyance.
Good.
I continue.
The ship banks through a gravitational current, and the deck shifts under my boots.
A low warning tone rolls through engineering as the Thorn Shelf’s outer turbulence begins pressing against the hull.
On the display, Throgg’s pursuit route intersects with my false signal trail.
Farther out, a narrow band of corrupted telemetry pulses once, then disappears.
My signature.
A hidden summons.
I do not know whether anyone sees it.
I choose to believe someone will.
I choose, against every habit I have built, to let belief alter my actions.
The cost of that choice is terrifying.
The necessity of it is worse.
I think of the escape sequence I could have triggered from my ship.
I think of how easy it would have been to run toward my father’s last known signal with no one else added to the equation.
I think of the version of me who would have done exactly that and called it courage because she did not yet understand the difference between devotion and surrender.
I am not that girl anymore.
Dux broke that equation by existing inside it.
My father made it matter by answering from the dark.
The screen updates.
Throgg’s vessel enters the outer Thorn Shelf.
The collision begins to take shape.
I finish the first sabotage trigger and arm it beneath a routine coolant subroutine.
Then I begin the second.
My hands are steady.
My heart is not.
For once, I do not punish it for that.
I lean closer to the console, watching the route, the predator band, the false trail, and the hidden recursion pulse beneath the noise.
Somewhere ahead, my father is alive. Somewhere behind or beside or impossibly near, Dux may be fighting his way back to me with all the subtlety of a reactor breach.
I am done choosing only one impossible thing.
I am going to save them both.