Chapter 49
INTERCEPT PROTOCOL, RAFE
The Starlight Array hums, each data strand glimmering in the dim light of the command gallery. “Run the last twenty-four hours of staff traffic,” I order. “Filter for uplink echoes tagged to guest archives.”
Lines of light cascade down the holo-table until one freezes—silver crest, two-second flash.
“There,” Lorian says, stepping beside me. “Quantum frequency nine-one-seven. Same band Terra Ka used last season. You’d think they would have changed it.”
“Prideful,” I say, as the hologram expands, revealing the source path: Receptionist Eden, Eve. Maintenance-level terminal. “She routed a data packet through our secure guest file uplink. Good human.”
“Gael’s signature pinged three seconds later,” Lorian adds, dragging the trace outward. “He thinks it’s clean. He’s moving a decoy transport toward Falcon Station.”
“Decoy?” I ask.
He grins. “A trap in plain sight. He’s trying to distract us; I’m sure of it.”
“Then we’ll oblige him.” I tap the Array, shifting icons into position. “Deploy gravity anchors at the outer ring and have the Umbral Cohort intercept. I want him breathing long enough to talk.”
Lorian’s fingers dance over the control field. “Already done. The phase-drift in his cloak will collapse once he hits the perimeter. He won’t even know he’s been caught until the shields close.”
“She delivered him straight to us,” I say.
Lorian smiles. “We laid the perfect honey trap. And she doesn’t even know it.”
Lorian leaves and I run an audit on everything Eve has given Terra Ka, just to be sure we haven’t missed anything, but it returns exactly what I expected to see.
From our side, it reads as a textbook containment exercise—controlled disclosure, predictable uptake, and no exposure of critical systems.
I should be satisfied, but I’m not. Something’s not right. I pull the packet apart layer by layer. The data is accurate. Every location, every assignment, every schedule line checks out.
But wait.
One class of information never appears. Custody transfer intervals. The narrow windows when security responsibility shifts and no single authority is accountable. When the humans are the most vulnerable in the Spire.
I sit back, very still.
That omission doesn’t benefit Terra Ka. It forces them to move blind on timing that could result in sloppy extractions and increased exposure.
It also doesn’t benefit us. Without those intervals, interception requires escalation sooner than I would prefer.
A mistake?
I review Eve’s previous transfers. No, she’s very detailed. This wasn’t an error. It was restraint.
I flag the file. Not for breach, but for intent.