Page 184 of Red Scale Daddy
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 whileembedding 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 havedone exactly that and called it courage because she did not yet understand the difference between devotion and surrender.
