Page 53 of Fought and Found

"Will they? That's optimistic. SRS couldn't trace an encrypted transmission through their own systems when I routed it — what confidence do you have they'll trace it out?" A pause. Amused. "Besides, the kill order served its purpose. Not the purpose you're imagining. I didn't expect you to actually eliminate the courier. Your compliance rate is impressive but your recent behaviour suggested a — softening. I expected exactly what happened. Chaos. Distraction. A Tier 1 agent more concerned with his crisis of conscience than with the container in his cargo hold."

The container. In the chaos of the kill order, the fight, the kiss — the container has been in the cargo hold. Untouched. I have not thought about it in hours.

Drask has.

"While you were busy with your existential drama, my secondary team retrieved the manifest data from the Tessaro Foundation's backupservers. I know what's in the container. I know who wants it. And I know that you are currently transiting to Junction One at sublight with a Tier 1 agent in your cargo bunk — the knee, I gather, no longer bends — and a woman whose ship is not equipped for what's coming." A pause, precisely weighted. "I had Agent Saar's suit feed until your AI found the link and severed it. The fight made for instructive listening. I understand the incidental Ms Knight took a blow to the head. My sympathies. Head wounds are so unpredictable." The amusement thins. Beneath it — steel. "I want the container. My acquisition team docked at Junction One six hours ago. Berth assignments are public record — I already have yours. The courier is incidental — the kill order was a tool, not a preference. Hand over the cargo and I'll withdraw my interest in both of you." A beat. "This is not a negotiation, Operative. It is a courtesy I extend exactly once."

My markings go dark. I feel them do it — the combat chemistry arriving without authorization, my claws cycling once against the console — because he heard the fight. He heard the tactical weight. He heard her hit the wall, and he has just spent it like currency, and the possessive centers of my brain have stopped processing him as a voice and started processing him as a target. Flossie does not look at me. Her hand moves two inches across the console — toward me, deliberate, a touch she does not complete. Enough. I lock the claws down.

Flossie leans forward. I watch her face change — the Morrison training surfacing, the warm surface banking to reveal the cold operational intelligence beneath.

"Mr Drask." Her voice is pleasant. Warm. The tone she used when I boarded her ship and she offered me tea. The most dangerous register she has. "This is Flossie Knight, the incidental courier. I have a fewquestions. First: if the container's contents are known to your secondary team, why do you need the physical item? Data is reproducible. Objects are not. Which means whatever is in that container has value beyond its information content." A beat. "Second: your unnamed buyer. The transaction code in your encrypted file — ten times the container's listed value. That's not a procurement fee. That's an auction price. You're brokering, not buying."

The silence on the channel stretches. Four seconds. Five.

"You've accessed my comms data." The amusement is gone. "That was in Agent Saar's pursuit craft."

"Agent Saar's pursuit craft is docked to my ship and Sprout cracked your encryption in four seconds. Which leads to my third question: if your encryption is this easy to break, what else have you left lying around that you'd rather people didn't find?"

I watch her work. The warm voice. The pleasant tone. The questions landing like ordnance wrapped in gift paper. She is dismantling a broker's confidence the way she dismantled mine — not with force, with attention. With the specific, relentless curiosity of a woman who writes down lost things and sees patterns where organizations see paperwork.

My tail reaches for her chair. I let it.

Under the console, where Drask's audio waveform cannot see, her hand finds my thigh. Not idle. Deliberate. Her fingers spread against the muscle, palm flat, a point of contact that saysI'm here and this male does not scare me and also I am going to keep touching you while I dismantle him.Her thumb traces a circle against the inside of my knee and the sensation arcs upward and I shift in the chair and press my jaw shut on a sound that would be unprofessional on the open channel.

She traces a second circle. A third. The trajectory is moving. I am on an open channel with a male who has people waiting at Junction One and I am devoting approximately forty percent of my available processing to not making a sound. The remaining sixty percent is attempting to maintain operational detachment with the focus of a male who has none left. Her lips have the curve she gets when she knows she is winning.

She is winning. I would like to table Varren Drask indefinitely.

"Ms Knight." Drask's voice has shred the cultured ease. What remains is business — the kind conducted without witnesses. No anger. Men like Drask do not get angry. They re-price. "The container. One Station day I will provide coordinates for a neutral handoff. Refuse, and I will make the current situation significantly more complicated."

"Define complicated," I say.

"SRS doesn't know the kill order was spoofed. They believe you've gone non-compliant and killed the courier. I can confirm that narrative — or I can correct it. The choice determines whether you're running from one enemy or two." The smooth register returning. "A day, Operative Xax. Ms Knight. My people will see you long before you see them. I do hope your trip to Junction One is uneventful." A final pause. "Do try to remain incidental, Ms Knight. It is the safest thing you can be."

The transmission cuts.

The cockpit hums. Stars through the viewport. Junction One waiting at the end of the run. A broker whose people are already standing on our destination and an organization that thinks I killed the woman I kissed an hour ago.

"Well," Flossie says. She picks up her mug. Finds it empty. Sets it down. "He's a charmer."

"He is dangerous."

"He's dangerous and he's scared." She turns to look at me. The Morrison assessment running behind her eyes — not the warm surface, the analyst. "He called me incidental three times. People don't repeat the thing they don't care about. They repeat the thing they're trying to convince themselves doesn't matter." She pulls the notebook from her cardigan. Opens it. The transaction code is there, written in her round handwriting. She adds a line beneath it:Drask — knows our destination. Knows container contents. Team already on Junction One. Scared of the courier. Why?

She writesscared of the courierand the accuracy of the analysis — the lateral thinking, the human pattern recognition that no SRS tactical framework would produce — lands in my chest alongside the purr and the taste of her and the embarrassing margin.

"He did not account for you," I say.

"Nobody does, lovey." She closes the notebook. Slides it into the cardigan. "That's the advantage of being incidental."

"You are not incidental." Low. The purr threading through. "You are the most consequential person I have encountered in thirty years of operational —"

"You're staring at my mouth again."

"Yes."

"A long night to Junction One."