The blue-white light of the Weft of Vigil etched into her quarters’ walls flickered, then died. For a single, silent heartbeat, Anastasya Orlova was plunged into absolute darkness. Then the emergency system kicked in, bathing the sterile room in the rhythmic, pulsing crimson of a general alert. It was the wrong color. This was not a drill. This was a power failure, a flaw in the perfect system of Vigil-Stone Outpost.
A power surge. The thought was immediate, analytical. A surge in Sector Gamma, where the detention cells were located. The diversion was crude, but it would be effective. It would draw the bulk of the sector’s guards, their movements dictated by the rigid logic of emergency protocols.
The door to her quarters hissed open. A silhouette stood against the flashing red, a figure whose presence here was a crime punishable by crystallization. Dmitri Volkov, her second-in-command, stepped inside. He held her sidearm in his hand, its Crystalline Myxoid core pulsing a soft, steady blue that was an anchor in the chaotic red light.
— We have a 10-minute window, — he said, his voice a low, urgent murmur. He offered her the weapon.
Anastasya took it, the familiar weight a cold comfort. The price of his action was etched on his face. This was not insubordination. This was treason. He had chosen loyalty to her, his commander, over loyalty to the state and its new, unyielding Justicar. He had chosen active maintenance of a principle over passive decay into tyranny.
— Lauri? — she asked, her voice clipped.
— Secured. This way, — Dmitri said, already turning. He moved to the adjacent cell where the Silvanus warden was held. A moment later, Lauri Vatanen emerged, his tall frame stooped, his hands no longer chained. The tremor in his muscles was a constant, low hum, but his dark eyes were clear, alert. He looked from Dmitri to her, a silent question in his gaze.
— Follow me, — Anastasya commanded, taking point. Her mind, a repository of every schematic and patrol route in the outpost, was now a weapon turned against its creators. — Utility corridor C-7. It's unmonitored.
They moved into the service passages, the station’s unlit arteries. The air was cool and smelled of damp stone and the sharp tang of ozone from the power surge. Water dripped from an overhead conduit, each drop echoing in the oppressive silence. They moved quickly, their soft-soled boots making little sound on the grated floor. Anastasya’s world had been one of light and order; this world of shadows and whispers was Lauri’s domain.
A klaxon blared, a shrill, piercing sound that vibrated through the very walls. The general alarm. The red strobes were joined by a sweeping yellow pulse. Lockdown.
— Sabotage in Sector Gamma, — Gerasim Frolov’s voice echoed from the comms units, the sound of splitting shale amplified to an overwhelming presence. — All units, converge. The fugitives are armed. Lethal force is authorized.
He was faster than she had anticipated. His crystal eye would have analyzed the power failure not as a malfunction, but as a deliberate act. The deception was over. The escape was now a manhunt.
They were moving down a long corridor when Lauri suddenly stopped. He grabbed her arm, his grip surprisingly strong, and pulled her and Dmitri into a recessed alcove behind a bank of dormant conduits.
— Wait, — he whispered, his breath a cloud in the cold air. — Patrol.
Anastasya heard nothing but the alarm. She trusted her senses, her training. But she had seen what his senses could do. She held her breath, flattening herself against the cold metal. A moment later, a patrol of four Regalis guards sprinted past their hiding place, their blue armor casting fleeting, cold shadows down the corridor. They hadn't been seen.
She looked at Lauri. He was still trembling, a consequence of his body’s long war with the nectar, but his focus was absolute. His gaze was fixed down the corridor, listening to a world she could not hear. She noticed the empty spot on his belt, a darker patch of worn bark-cloth where his cracked gourd flask used to hang. The absence of the token was a statement, a quiet testament to a change she was only beginning to comprehend.
— Clear, — he said.
They reached the canal dock just as the rain began to fall, a hard, driving sheet that blurred the outpost’s rigid lights. A dull, mottled green Myxoid barge, one of the swift interceptor models, bobbed at the mooring. Dmitri had prepped it. Their escape was here.
They clambered aboard, the living deck slick and cool beneath their boots. Lauri went to the prow, placing his hands on the control node, ready to coax the creature into motion. Anastasya turned, expecting Dmitri to follow. He remained on the dock, his hand resting on a large, greasy lever connected to the controls for the primary sluice gate.
— Dmitri, what are you doing? — she demanded, the rain plastering her fur to her face.
— My duty, — he said, his voice calm amidst the wail of the alarms. He looked at her, and for the first time, she saw not just a subordinate, but a man who had made a final, calculated choice. — To you. I’ll send them the wrong way. Go.
He was sacrificing himself. He would use the sluice gate to block the canal, to misdirect the pursuit, to buy them the time he knew they needed. The price for their freedom was his own. It was an act of perfect, selfless order in the service of what he believed was right, a concept so pure it shattered the last remnants of her faith in Gerasim’s brutalist doctrine.
She opened her mouth to argue, to order him aboard, but Lauri was already chanting, his low voice weaving a command into the barge’s consciousness. The living vessel shuddered and began to pull away from the dock.
Dmitri did not look back. He simply turned and faced the approaching sound of armored boots on the causeway, his hand firm on the lever. A loyal soldier, facing the consequences.
The barge slid into the dark, rain-swept canal. The sound of the massive sluice gate beginning to grind shut was the last thing she heard from him, a final, metallic groan of sacrifice.
The rain felt clean on her face, washing away the sterile air of the outpost. The cold blue light of Vigil-Stone shrank behind them, a dying star of a faith she no longer possessed.
