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“Yes, thank you for preserving professional humility.”

Kesta ordered a baseline test. She and Dreven stood on opposite sides of the dead chamber while Tavi applied separate pain and scent stimuli. Each responded independently. When Kesta’s wrist burned, Dreven noticed because he watched her face, not because the pain entered his body. That ordinary observation felt miraculous. Rath remained near the breached door. “You could have taken control of the station.”

“At the cost of becoming its preferred weapon,” Dreven said.

“You may regret refusing power when orbital forces arrive.”

“Possibly.”

Rath looked at Kesta. “And you? Would you have accepted the bridge if it saved the children?” The honest answer was not immediate.

“I might have,” she said. “That is why neither of us should decide alone while the system is manufacturing urgency.”

Rath’s gaze shifted between them. “You have built a relationship that requires meetings during catastrophe.” Kesta stood. “Yes. It is very inconvenient.” Dreven’s laugh was brief, rough, and real. The sound did more to reclaim the chamber than any weapon.

The station alarms began counting down to orbital transmission. Disabling the chamber had solved one problem and exposed the next: they still had to decide who would fit on the only ship capable of leaving.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Twenty-Eight Seats

The shuttle had twenty-eight functioning restraints. There were forty-three Hallow prisoners, three children, seven seriously injured adults, Elara, Nara, the joint rescue force, and one data core large enough to prove the empire had manufactured crimes, deaths, and bonds across multiple worlds. The arithmetic was a form of violence.

Tavi crawled beneath the shuttle’s open panel while sparks fell around him. “I can strip the cargo frame and add six floor anchors. Eight if no one objects to breathing badly.”

“People generally object,” Sera said.

“They can file complaints after orbit.”

The cradle trembled. Above them, the receiver array was transmitting Hallow Station’s activation to an imperial relay. Rath positioned Red Basin fighters at the tunnel mouths. Keth’s people carried prisoners from the wards in groups of four. Ash and Red Basin hands lifted the same stretchers without pausing to determine whose camp would receive credit.

Kesta assessed each person at the shuttle ramp while the three children boarded first. Nara watched until every restraint was secured, then stepped back off the ramp to make room for the injured.

“You are going,” Kesta said.

“No.”

“You made their extraction a condition.”

“I made their survival a condition. They need someone who understands their implants. That can be me on the ground if the shuttle carries the injured.”

“The shuttle may be the only route off-world.”

Nara’s expression did not change. “Then give the children a future before you give me an escape.” Elara, seated against the bulkhead while Sera stabilized her port, disagreed. “Nara goes. I stay.” Kesta turned. “Your data cable is the only reason the station has not reclosed the lower wards.”

“Exactly. Disconnect me and the cradle may lock. Leave me connected until launch.”

“That could kill you.”

“It could.”

“You do not get to convert yourself into evidence because you feel guilty for using me.”

Elara’s eyes sharpened. “And you do not get to refuse every sacrifice because the empire taught you that responsibility means controlling all outcomes.” The accusation landed too close to Dreven’s wound. Kesta hated it because it was partly true.

A prisoner named Hess approached with an old woman supported beneath one arm. “The ambulatory can remain. We know the maintenance tunnels.”

“Imperial recovery will come,” Keth said.