Page 12 of Big Bad Red Protector

She stops walking. The officers behind us adjust their positions without being told to.

"I am a member of this investigation," she says. "If you pull me out of my quarters and station access, I lose the ability to work the customs records, the Bridge archive connection, and?—"

"All of which can be transferred to a secured terminal inside Vakutan security territory." I don't stop moving. After a moment, she falls back into step with controlled irritation after evaluating her options and finding them limited. "You will have access to everything you need. You will also have walls between you and anyone carrying station-issued weapons with orders to use them."

She says nothing else until we reach the reinforced corridor marking the edge of Vakutan security jurisdiction, where the walls change from standard station plating to heavier construction and the officers at the entry nod without requiring confirmation.

The quarters are functional and larger than her previous assignment. She takes in the space the way she takes in everything—quickly, cataloguing exits before furniture.

"Your people are going to treat me like a problem you've dragged home," she says.

"My people will treat you as I direct them to."

I should leave. The attack produced evidence that needs processing, an access trail that needs following, and two bodies that need to disappear from customs control before they become a political incident. There is no tactical reason to remain in a secured room with a woman who has just survived an assassination attempt and is currently standing in my territory wearing borrowed calm over clear adrenaline.

I stay long enough to confirm the terminal access is functioning and the perimeter is sealed.

When I finally move toward the door, Nina says, quietly: "Thank you."

The words land somewhere I refuse to examine.

I leave before I have to decide what to do with the fact that the assassins had a window of forty minutes between when she was logged at her terminal and when I reached her—and I covered the entire distance to customs control with less tactical efficiency than the specific, unacceptable thought of arriving too late.

That is not duty.

I do not name what it is.

CHAPTER 9

NINA

Vakutan security territory smells like weapon oil, recycled air, and discipline.

The corridors are wider than the residential sectors, built for bodies larger than mine, and the lighting runs cooler—blue-white instead of the warm amber standard throughout the station's civilian areas. Every door I pass is reinforced. Every officer I encounter pauses their work to track me with the particular attention of people trying to determine whether I am a threat or a mistake.

Probably both.

My quarters inside the secured block are larger than my original assignment and half as comfortable. The furniture is designed for a species that does not sit so much as anchor itself. The sleeping platform is functional and approximately the height of a standard cargo shelf. I have access to a secured terminal, a direct line to Kheltor's command office, and approximately zero privacy.

On the second morning, a Vakutan officer the size of a vehicle stops me in the main corridor and asks, in careful Standard, what my purpose is in the secure block.

I tell him I was assigned here.

"By whom," he says.

"Kheltor."

He looks at me for a long moment, then steps aside without another word. The deference is not for me. It is for whoever gave the order.

I keep that in mind.

Watching Kheltor run a briefing is educational.

He does not raise his voice. He does not need to. He delivers orders precisely, as if every possible point of failure has already been calculated and sorted into acceptable losses. His officers do not fidget. They do not ask unnecessary questions. They absorb and respond and disperse with a speed that would be unsettling if it were not clearly the product of genuine respect rather than fear.

He is brutal in his efficiency and his people follow him like gravity.

"You're studying him," Zevra's voice says in my earpiece. She is not in the building. She is somewhere in the station's lower sectors with a comm relay and too much situational awareness. "I understand the instinct. He is architecturally compelling."