“I can do this,” she whispered.
He placed his hands on the controls. Steady. Calm. nulled alternative
And then she was gone, leaving him alone in the command seat. The system still showed him as NULLED in the crew manifest. But the ship didn’t care about manifests. “I can do this,” she whispered
Silence. The countdown clock on the main display ticked toward launch. But the ship didn’t care about manifests
Kaelen stood. He walked to the viewport of the orbital station. Below, the Event Horizon —the ship he was supposed to pilot—gleamed like a silver needle. And walking up its boarding ramp, flanked by aides, was Darya. She moved with that practiced, theatrical steadiness. But Kaelen had seen the medical files. Her tremor wasn’t gone. It was just hidden.
He crossed the hangar. No one stopped him. He was, after all, a nullity. A ghost. By the time security protocols registered his approach to the Event Horizon , he was already inside the auxiliary maintenance shaft—a route he had memorized during his “discarded” training simulations.
He looked down at his own hands. Steady. Calm. Three years of training for this single trajectory. Three years of being the shadow to her light.