9. Cassia #2
"The guards stay." His arms cross, mirroring mine, and the freight bay suddenly feels very small for two people this stubborn.
"The guards go, or I go. Choose wisely, Rhykor."
A growl rolls out of his chest, guttural and resonating through the freight bay's floor plates until I perceive it in my teeth as a dry, suffocating warmth floods the space. Then he exhales, and the intense temperature recedes.
"One guard," he concedes. "On the perimeter rotation that is visible from a distance but not following you."
"That's a compromise." I let the victory settle before pushing my luck. "I'll take it."
“That’s a concession. One is enough for today.”
I take the win and retreat to my temporary med bay to check on Elias, who has spent the morning interrogating the machinery in the compound with single-minded enthusiasm, bouncing between machinery and crew members like he's been turned loose in a toy store the size of a warehouse.
Five days pass before I stop counting.
Despite my best efforts to remain furious, the compound begins to feel less like a prison and more like a sanctuary.
Varrik finds me on the fourth day. I'm recalibrating a portable defibrillator on the workbench Rhykor's crew set up in my med bay when the old Kraaj mechanic limps through the doorway with a box of replacement parts under one arm and a canteen steaming under the other.
"Your generator's output is fluctuating.
" He sets the box on my workbench and uncaps the canteen, filling the room with the sharp, bitter aroma of whatever the Kraaj consider an acceptable substitute for coffee.
"I pulled the regulator last night and found corrosion on three of the five contact relays.
It's remarkable it’s still functioning."
"It has caught fire twice." Accepting the canteen he offers, I take a sip. The liquid tastes like engine oil filtered through burnt bark, but the warmth settles into my chest and loosens the knot of tension that's been living there since the clinic attack. "You didn't have to fix it."
Varrik lowers himself onto a cargo crate as old soldiers do—one joint at a time, each movement a negotiation between stubbornness and a body that stopped cooperating years ago.
His faded bronze skin catches the overhead light, burn scars warping the left portion of his face into an uneven landscape that I instinctively find myself assessing and categorizing.
Those eyes, duller than Rhykor's but warmer somehow, study me with an openness that catches me off guard.
"You're good for him," he declares. Blunt, unembellished, delivered while sorting replacement parts into neat rows on my workbench.
"He'd eat his own tongue before admitting it, but you are.
He sleeps better when you're nearby. Argues less with his crew.
Hasn't melted anything important in almost a week.
" Picking up a corroded relay, he examines it.
"By Rhykor standards, that's practically domestic bliss. "
Warmth spreads through my chest, far beyond the reach of a canteen. I force that heat into submission. “Being his medic and having him as my patient constitutes the entirety of the arrangement."
Varrik's mouth twitches. "Sure it is."
He fixes the generator, and I let him.
Elias becomes the compound's unofficial mascot before the end of our first few days here. I spot him in the east wing hunching over a disassembled comm relay alongside Rhykor’s crew.
There is Britt, a stocky human woman with a shaved head and circuitry tattoos coiling her forearms, and Dessik, a young Kraaj male whose teal-green skin and jittering energy make him seem like a lizard caught between running and fighting.
Elias has his goggles over his eyes and is explaining signal modulation with breathless authority, his knowledge pulled from broken machines and desperate necessity, self-taught and fiercely proud of it.
"—so if you reroute the secondary transponder through the auxiliary coupling, the signal bounces off the old military relay towers instead of routing through the compromised grid, and you bypass the corrupted channels entirely?—"
Britt whistles, "Kid knows his wiring."
"Kid's been keeping half the district's generators alive since he was fifteen," I call from the doorway. Three heads swivel toward me. Elias grins wide, radiant with the pure joy that comes over a lonely teenager suddenly surrounded by people who think what he does matters.
"Cass! Did you know they have a full signal array in the north tower? A real one, with military-grade amplification. If I can patch my bypass into their system, I could map the infiltrated relays in the district from one terminal?—"
"After breakfast, and after you let me check that leg."
Groaning, he limps over obediently, and I crouch to examine the healing tissue while Britt and Dessik exchange a look that tells me Elias has already made friends.
The stitches are holding. Thanks to the military-grade Kraaj tissue-regenerators Rhykor had smuggled in, new skin is forming pink and clean around the lacerations at a speed human medicine could never achieve on its own, and the underlying muscle flexes without the grinding resistance from when I first stitched him up.
"Looking good, Sparks," I murmur, using the nickname Britt coined yesterday that Elias has already adopted with embarrassing pride.
"Does that mean I can?—"
"You must restrict your physical activity to walking, as running or climbing exceeds your current physical capacity. Ensure your feet remain firmly on the ground, well clear of any signal towers."
Another groan erupts as he hobbles back to his relay project, and I straighten up to find Rhykor standing at the far end of the east wing corridor, watching.
Leaning against a support column with his forearms drawn tight across his torso, his massive frame radiates a coiled, still predator-resting tension.
That searing stare tracks between Elias and me, lingering on each of us in turn, and the stinging grip of it makes a flutter rise in my throat that I shove aside before it can take root.
Turning, he walks away to leave me caught in the silence of my own indecision.
I'd given Rhykor Junia's name and description on the second day—told him she was my tech expert and closest friend, adding that if he wanted me cooperative, she needed compound access.
He'd grunted, which I've learned translates to "reluctant agreement.
" So when Junia arrives that evening, the perimeter guards wave her through with minimal fuss.
Crashing into the compound with her usual disregard for entrances, she talks before fully coming through the door, hauling a canvas sack bulging with salvaged tech.
"I've been mapping the corrupted relay network since the clinic attack, and it's worse than I thought.
" She dumps the sack on Varrik's workbench, sending a cascade of circuit boards and wiring across the surface.
Her hair is wilder than usual; dark circles shadow her eyes, and her scavenger gear is full of tunnel grime.
"The Legion code has moved beyond individual machines.
It's now embedded in the infrastructure itself, like the power grid and the ventilation networks. When the district uses a compromised relay, the corruption spreads deeper.”
Picking up a circuit board, Varrik turns it over with a furrowed brow. "How far has it reached?"
"At least eight sectors confirmed, probably more.
" Junia pulls up a hand-drawn map covered in annotations and angry circles.
"The code hinges on standard operational signals.
Maintenance droids download it during recharge cycles; civilian terminals pull it in through routine updates.
By the time anyone notices a malfunction, the corruption has already jumped to six more systems." She taps the map, tracing the spread pattern outward from the central districts. “Somebody is feeding this thing unauthorized access. The corruption signatures I’m pulling match military-grade encryption protocols, Kraaj military, specifically. The sophistication rules out a rogue fragment stumbling through outdated networks. Someone with serious clearance is helping it spread.”
The room goes quiet. Varrik and Junia stare at each other across the workbench, and the stark reality of what she's describing settles over all of us.
"Can you trace the source?" I lean over the map, studying the relay paths she's charted.
"Working on it. The encryption is layered; when I peel one back, there's another underneath.
But the pattern is consistent, and patterns leave trails.
" She chews her bottom lip, eyes appraising.
"Give me more time and better equipment, and I can map the whole network.
Right now, all I can tell you is that this thing is growing fast, and whoever is helping it wants it to stay hidden. "
"Your boyfriend's compound has military-grade signal equipment in the north tower," Junia adds, jerking her chin toward the corridor. "Mind if I borrow it?"
"He's not my?—"
"Cass." Junia levels me with an even stare. "The man stationed armed guards around your sleeping quarters. Pick your battles."
I let the silence speak for itself.
Much later, as the compound settles into the low, rhythmic hum of a skeleton crew and Elias finally sleeps, I haunt the halls by myself.
The single perimeter guard Rhykor assigned tracks me from a distance, visible but unintrusive, exactly as negotiated.
Tipping my head to him, I keep walking to follow the elevated walkway that connects the main freight bay to the north tower.
Cooler air circulates up here, carrying traces of surface wind filtered through the compound's ventilation system, offering a luxury after years of breathing recirculated staleness underground.
I find Rhykor on the north tower's observation platform.