Page 88 of Heired By the Reaper

Guilt looks even more specific.

I watch for both.

A pair of technicians pass, their conversation mundane, focused on shield calibration, their movements fluid, unguarded.

Not them.

Further down, a weapons officer lingers too long near a data terminal before moving on, his gaze flicking once toward a restricted panel before he catches himself.

Not necessarily him.

But noted.

I straighten and continue, my path now deliberate instead of exploratory.

If there’s a leak, I don’t have time to root it out cleanly.

And even if I did?—

It doesn’t change the larger problem.

Tyrok chose.

I felt it before I knew it.

And now the consequences are already in motion.

Combine fleet movement.

Crew tension.

Trade instability.

All converging.

All accelerating.

And at the center of it?—

Me.

I don’t flinch from that.

I accept it.

Because accepting it is the only way to do anything about it.

I turn toward Vihl’s section without announcing myself, because if I’m going to test anything, it needs to be unprepared, unfiltered, real.

His door is half open when I reach it, and I can hear him before I see him, pacing inside, boots hitting the floor with staccato rhythm, his voice low as he mutters something under his breath that I don’t quite catch.

I step into the doorway without knocking.

“You’re wearing a path into the floor.”

He stops immediately, turning toward me, and the tension in his posture doesn’t disappear—it sharpens, redirects.

“Yeah,” he says, dragging a hand across the back of his neck, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studies me. “I could say the same about you, except you hide it better.”