“You need to stop having him followed.” Marcus set the report down on Elena’s desk without waiting to be invited in, and Elena looked up, startled by the sharpness in his voice, a tone she hadn’t heard from him in years of quiet, careful marriage aboard this ship. “Excuse me?” “Mercer. I pulled the surveillance logs myself this morning, curious whether you’d actually scaled anything back the way you promised me two weeks ago.” Marcus tapped the folder. “You haven’t. If anything, it’s gotten more detailed. Notes on his relationship. A description of how they hold hands walking home.” Elena’s jaw tightened. “That’s not something I ordered specifically.” “Then who did?” She reached for the folder, scanning the officer’s signature at the bottom of the report. “I authorized general monitoring. I didn’t request details this personal.” “Someone interpreted your general order broadly, then, and you didn’t notice until I brought it to you directly.” Marcus’s voice carried real frustrati

“I want you to meet someone. If you’re ready for that.” Mira said it carefully, setting down her tea, and Alex looked up from across their usual table near the eastern promenade, the same worn wooden surface that had, over the past months, quietly become the closest thing he had to a permanent address. “Meet who?” “My mother.” Mira’s fingers traced the rim of her cup, something nervous in the gesture. “She’s asked about you three times this week. I’ve been putting it off, mostly because I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it this soon.” Alex considered the question honestly. Three months had passed since his release, three months of evenings exactly like this one, and something in him had settled these past weeks into a steadiness he hadn’t expected to find again after everything. “I’d like that,” he said finally. “I think I’m ready.” Mira’s face brightened, relief and happiness both at once. “She’ll ask you a hundred questions. Fair warning.” “I’ve survived a tribunal. I think

“You’ve been quiet all morning. Something’s bothering you.” Kai said it the moment Alex sat down across from him at the market street table, studying his friend’s face with the same easy attentiveness that had carried them both through months of far worse mornings than this one. “I think I need to ask you something. Even though I told you I wasn’t getting involved again.” Kai’s expression sharpened with interest, though he kept his voice careful. “Go ahead.” “Mira’s father. He worked in engineering, years ago. He started raising concerns about some inconsistency in the ship’s systems, and then he was gone. Reassigned, according to what her mother told her, but no record ever confirmed it.” Alex kept his voice low, old caution creeping back despite his best intentions. “I don’t want to be part of your investigation. But I need to know if this is connected to what you and Sena have been finding.” Kai was quiet for a long moment, turning the information over. “What was his name?” “

Mira opened the door slowly, and Alex stood close behind her, tension coiled through every muscle he had, some old, worn instinct from months of corridors and locked doors refusing to let him relax even now, safely inside her own quarters. An old man stood in the corridor, thin and stooped, a worn cane in one hand, eyes sharp despite the fragility of his frame. “Dr. Solis.” His voice was quiet, careful. “I apologize for the hour. I saw a light under your door and thought it might not wait until morning.” “You’re the man from the clinic,” Mira said, her voice tight. “I am. Forgive me for not introducing myself properly earlier. My name is Berhane. I worked alongside your father, many years ago.” He glanced past her at Alex, something assessing in his gaze. “And you must be Mr. Mercer. I’ve followed your story with considerable interest.” “May we come in?” Alex asked carefully. “Or would you rather talk here?” Berhane hesitated, glancing down the corridor in both directions. “Insi

“Thirty years. Say that again, slower, because I don’t think I heard you correctly the first time.”Priya sat across from Kai and Alex in the same utility room that had once housed the beginning of everything, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and a grim, familiar recognition, the same room where three exhausted strangers had first stumbled onto a mystery none of them yet understood.“Thirty years,” Kai repeated. “At least six confirmed cases, going back that far, all with the same false transfer pattern. Talia’s still searching, but she thinks there might be more once she has time to dig properly.”Priya sat back, processing, and Alex watched something shift behind her eyes, the same sharp, methodical focus he remembered from her earliest days tracking the disappearances, restored now after months of forced dormancy.“This changes everything,” she said finally. “I spent years thinking Naomi’s disappearance was isolated, unusual, something specific to her getting too c