Page 182 of Red Scale Daddy
Dux.
The ship.
Escape.
Revenge.
Survival.
For the first time, none of them can stand alone.
I look at the map instead of at him, because honesty requires careful shaping to become camouflage. “Convergence.”
He studies me. “Meaning?”
“Bringing the necessary assets into the same field before conditions collapse.”
“Assets.”
He hears the word and thinks I am learning his language.
Let him.
“Yes,” I say. “My father. My vessel. Your drive architecture. My corrections. The Zenos pressure band. If any one element arrives too early or too late, the plan fails.”
“And the Vakutan?”
The question cuts through the structure.
My pulse tries to answer.
I do not let it.
“If alive, he becomes a destabilizing variable for any close-quarters engagement,” I say.
Throgg smiles faintly. “That sounded almost cold.”
“I am cold.”
“No, Roma Larson. You are disciplined.”
I dislike that he sees the difference.
A proximity alert hums across the command deck as the ship begins altering course. The stars beyond the narrow viewport shift, bending around the vessel’s new heading. Throgg’s officers move with efficient urgency, rerouting power, adjusting weapons readiness, preparing to pursue the false trail I have designed to be dangerous enough to look true.
Inside my sleeve comp, the sabotage architecture waits.
Three triggers.
The first embedded in the coolant-routing dependency I installed earlier. When activated, it will create a localized overheating event in the secondary shield emitter, forcing recalibration and sensor disruption. The second sits inside the diagnostic recursion I buried in my ship’s navigation library, a signal flare disguised as corrupted telemetry. The third is incomplete, because I need access to a live command buffer to finish it, and because the third trigger is the one that matters most.
It must open a path.
Not for me alone.
For all of us.
The thought still feels unfamiliar.
