Chapter 6
VOLTAR
Iam, objectively speaking, the best bodyguard in the quadrant.
And I don’t say that out of ego—well, maybe a little ego—but mostly because it’s true.
You don’t survive twenty-three assassination attempts, a failed coup, and two and a half breakups with the same explosive ordnance specialist without picking up some tactical finesse.
Which is why I’m currently walking Sable to her favorite café under a parasol large enough to shade a small shuttlecraft.
It’s pink.
She insisted on pink.
And I, being the paragon of professionalism that I am, didn’t argue. Much.
“People are staring,” she mutters through clenched teeth as we cross a plaza lined with flower kiosks and gossip drones.
“They’re admiring my dedication,” I reply, adjusting the parasol so the sun doesn’t so much as kiss her cheek.
“They’re watching you carry a city-grade satellite dish wrapped in polka dots.”
I grin. “If the sun harms even a single hair on your head, I will incinerate the sky itself.”
She snorts, which I count as a win. I clock the twitch of her lips like it’s a tactical readout. No visible fear. Shoulders relaxed. Jaw not clenched.
Good.
She’s laughing again.
Mission accomplished.
We reach the café—“Marzipan Moon”—which, despite the saccharine name, serves some of the most vicious espresso this side of the nebula. A barista once offered me a shot with a disclaimer about cardiac liability. I liked him instantly.
Inside, it’s packed. Shoulder-to-shoulder with art students, freelancers, and at least two smugglers disguised as “ethical spice vendors.” We snag the last outside table beneath a vine-covered archway.
It smells like synthetic citrus and burnt cinnamon.
Sable slides into her seat like she belongs here.
Like danger isn’t waiting around every corner.
I remain standing.
“Coffee,” I tell the server, a willowy man with six earrings and a judgmental stare, “but with meat.”
He blinks. “I… I’m sorry?”
“You heard me.” I point to the menu. “Combine number seven and number twelve. Remove foam. Add protein.”
“That’s not how—”
“I have credits.”
Sable groans. “He doesn’t need caffeine.”
“I do, in fact, need caffeine. And amino acids. It’s called balance.”
The waiter opens his mouth—probably to explain something irrelevant like health codes—but Sable grabs my wrist.
“We’re not doing this again,” she says, dragging me away from the counter.
“But my gains—!”
“No one cares about your gains, Voltar.”
“I care.”
“You don’t have muscles. You have continents.”
The server behind us is still blinking when we retreat to the table. I sit, grumbling into the parasol which I’ve now angled to cover both of us like a portable canopy of defiance. Sable sips her coffee with theatrical satisfaction.
I pretend not to notice the foam mustache it gives her.
Fail completely.
“Stop staring,” she mutters without looking up.
“Can’t help it,” I say. “You’re fascinating.”
She chokes, then glares. “You’re impossible.”
“You say that like it’s a flaw.”
The café’s courtyard bustles. Drones hover just overhead, capturing angles for some influencer’s live stream. Tourists stumble past, arguing over map coordinates and where to find the best alley noodle stall. A trio of street kids break into a choreographed dance routine near the recycling bins.
And amidst it all, she looks… calm.
Not jumpy. Not braced for impact. Just… present.
I lean back, letting my arm drape over the back of her chair casually. Not touching. Just close. My palm itches to close the gap. She hasn’t flinched once today.
That’s progress.
“Sable.”
“Hm?”
“You’ve got whipped cream on your nose.”
She wipes her upper lip with the back of her hand. “Liar.”
“I would never lie. I would omit. I would mislead. I would exaggerate with flair. But I wouldn’t lie. Especially not to you.”
She rolls her eyes and grabs a napkin.
I sit in silence for a beat, pretending to study a nearby awning.
But I’m not pretending to notice the tail.
He’s good. Almost good enough to fool a civilian. Slim build. Neutral clothes. Gray compad up, angled like he’s browsing headlines—but he hasn’t swiped once in five minutes. His eyes flick toward us every seven seconds.
Seven is a tactical mistake.
Most people check a crowd every five or ten.
Only trained eyes scan on the odd numbers.
Sable doesn’t notice.
Good.
I shift my weight, reaching for a half-eaten pastry on our table—a circular vanilla thing with a caramel core. My fingers brush a rock beneath the table’s edge. Not a big one. Just heavy enough. Rounded. Good weight distribution.
He’s still pretending to scroll.
I calculate wind resistance, trajectory, timing.
I throw.
The rock sails in a clean arc, bounces off a chair leg, ricochets—clack—right into the edge of the tail’s compad.
Direct hit.
The screen glitches, fuzzing out with a static burst. He curses, startled, nearly dropping the device. His cover broken, he stands up too quickly and bolts through the crowd, muttering about a system error. No weapon draw. No confrontation.
Testing the waters, then.
I watch him go, already running biometric snapshots through my neural implant. No matches yet. Not Tugun. Not known affiliates.
Yet.
“You just threw a rock,” Sable says flatly.
“I did.”
“At someone’s tablet.”
“Compad.”
“Why?”
“Maintenance.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “You maintenance’d that guy’s compad so hard he fled like you owed him money.”
I shrug. “He looked suspicious. Like someone who eats plain toast.”
“That’s your metric now?”
“I trust my instincts.”
“And your instincts say to assault electronics in public?”
“Non-lethal discouragement is a valid defense strategy.”
She stares at me for a long moment, then bursts out laughing.
Not just a chuckle. A full, head-thrown-back, loud, no-holding-back laugh. Every person at the nearby tables turns to look. A bird flutters out of the vines. Even the judgmental waiter glances over.
Sable doesn’t care.
She’s laughing like she’s not the target of a galactic bounty. Like her world isn’t on fire. Like she can breathe again.
My chest does something weird. Tightens. Warms.
I let the parasol tilt a little more her way.
A kid walks past—a scruffy little gremlin with neon-stained fingers and the audacity of youth. He stops beside me, staring up like he’s seeing a mountain that talks.
“Are you a robot?” the kid asks.
I grin. “No. I’m better.”
“Can I climb you?”
Sable looks like she’s about to object, but I shrug. “Sure.”
The kid grabs onto my arm and starts hauling himself up like it’s a jungle gym. He perches on my shoulder in seconds, legs swinging, whooping like he’s reached the summit of Mount Absurd.
“Best café trip ever!” he yells to his equally sticky siblings.
I don’t even mind.
Sable watches, half exasperated, half amused.
“You’re unbelievable,” she mutters.
“Compliment accepted.”
She leans back, sips her drink again. “Don’t think this means I like you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of assuming.”
“But thanks,” she adds. Quiet. Real.
And I don’t say anything.
Because right now, I’ve got sunshine on my back, sugar in my mouth, a kid hanging off my arm, and Sable not flinching when I sit close.
That’s a win.
Later, when we return to her dwelling, I realize something.
I don’t like this building.
It creaks when it settles, like it’s whispering secrets to the walls.
Too many blind spots. Too many entry points not reinforced.
One whole side of the roof’s accessible from the neighboring balcony and the motion sensors on the fire escape are set to discount “small mammals” which, on Novaria, can include a grown human in a hoodie.
I told the landlord. He offered a discount on utilities and a box of mints.
So now I’m working around it.
Sable’s in the other room doing something with a jade roller and a podcast about alien astrology.
I’m crouched in the crawlspace behind the kitchen cabinetry, elbow-deep in a cluster of cables that aren’t even connected to anything useful.
I’ve already rerouted the power grid through an adaptive phase inverter—technically a war crime in this sector—and installed two motion-scramblers on the third-floor landing.
Not because I expect another sniper today.
But because I do.
I slide out, covered in dust, and tap the arm panel on my gauntlet. A silent wave pulses through the room—infrared, radio, sub-thermal. My HUD flickers with diagnostic data.
No anomalies. No breaches.
“System secure,” I murmur.
“Voltar?” Sable calls from the living room.
“Crawlspace,” I call back.
There’s a pause. “Why are you in the crawlspace?”
“Upgrading your substructure to reduce acoustic bleed and thermal trace.”
“Say that in Common.”
“Making it harder for someone to track you or hear you breathe.”
She appears in the doorway, wearing leggings and an oversized tunic that says Don’t Talk To Me Until I’ve Had My Nebula Brew. Her hands are on her hips. Her expression: unimpressed.
“Is that a breach crystal?” she asks, pointing to the orb hovering near the kitchen vent.
“Yes.”
“You’re violating six laws.”
“Seven,” I correct. “I’m very efficient.”
She groans, dragging her hand down her face. “Stars above, you’re gonna get us both arrested.”
“Unlikely,” I say, standing. “The city’s monitoring grid is two years out of date. I rerouted the detection nodes with a decoy pulse. If someone tries to track the crystal’s signature, they’ll end up at a pet grooming salon three blocks over.”
She blinks.
I resist the urge to smirk. Barely.
“You routed your tech signature to a dog spa?” she asks.
“Correct.”
“You just committed cyber impersonation of a poodle.”
“The system lists him as Mr. Fluffington.”
She presses her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh. I count it as another win.
“Fine,” she says finally. “Just don’t turn the whole place into a crime lab.”
“I won’t.”
I already have.
By nightfall, the windows are layered with stealth shimmer—a thin, almost invisible coating that bends light just enough to scramble optical sensors.
I’ve replaced the front lock with a biometric access point keyed to her vitals, and the fire escape now features a proximity mine disguised as a decorative planter.
She hasn’t noticed that one yet.
I sit cross-legged on the couch, my gauntlet projected out in front of me like a data console. I’m halfway through configuring a pattern-recognition routine when I hear the soft pad of her footsteps behind me.
“You’re still working?”
I don’t look up. “It’s what I do.”
She walks around to the front of the couch and freezes.
“What is that?”
I flick my eyes up. She’s pointing at the screen.
I almost close the file on reflex.
But then I don’t.
Instead, I tap to enlarge the text.
“Just learning what a hemline is,” I say.
She blinks.
Then blinks again.
“Wait. Are you… studying fashion terminology?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I want to understand why you have five jackets that are all black but apparently not the same.”
She covers her mouth. I think she’s going to snort, or sigh, or possibly scream into a pillow. But she doesn’t.
She laughs.
And this time—it’s not sharp. It’s not startled. It’s not even at my expense.
She laughs with me.
And something in the air shifts.
It’s not big. Not seismic. Just… different.
She drops into the chair across from me and tucks her feet under her. “Okay, hit me. What have you learned?”
I turn the screen toward her and recite: “A hemline is the bottom edge of a garment. It can be high, low, asymmetrical, scalloped, or bubble-shaped.”
Her smile stretches wider. “Impressive.”
“I also learned what ruching is. And that chiffon is not a weapon.”
She snorts. “It could be. In the right hands.”
“I am those hands.”
That earns a full grin.
We lapse into a comfortable silence, the kind I never expected to find in a safehouse on a planet I can’t legally operate on. I study her face—the way the lamplight softens her features, the relaxed way she curls up, her fingers absently fiddling with a stray thread on her sleeve.
She’s not tense. Not recoiling. Not waiting for the next attack.
She’s just… here.
With me.
I look back at the screen and pretend to read. But I’m memorizing something else entirely.
Not her vitals. Not her patterns.
Just her.
And it’s more terrifying than any mission I’ve ever taken.