Den’s wrist communicator flashed a new instruction.
The message told him to take the data by force if necessary.
He looked through the small window and saw Vela laughing at something the nurse had said.
The girl’s case sat beside the bed.
He could have entered under the pretense of a repair and taken it before anyone understood his purpose.
Instead, Den walked to the nearest wall terminal and entered a maintenance fault code that would summon station security.
His employers would be able to trace the code to him.
He entered it anyway.
Security officers arrived within three minutes and found him standing beside the terminal with both hands visible.
He told them who had hired him and showed them the message on his communicator.
The officers took him to a secure interview room.
Vela never saw him.
By morning, Hravik possessed a copy of the coercive order, proof that somebody using Helix credentials had tried to reach the girl, and a contractor who was willing to testify if his family could be protected.
The station administrator signed the necessary protective order without requesting permission from the consortium.
It was the first decisive choice he had made since the investigation began.
The Helix representative responded by threatening to terminate the station’s antivenom distribution agreement.
Hravik said the agreement could be reconsidered after the medical inquiry was complete.
The representative demanded to speak with the governing council.
Hravik informed him that the council was already reviewing the messages sent to a child.
For once, Voss ended a conversation without a prepared answer.
Meanwhile, Hamish, Imani, and Sepha crossed the transit lane toward Bluehaven Cold Storage aboard Hamish’s aging freighter.
The ship smelled of machine oil, stored onions, and the faint smoke that came from a heater Imani had promised to replace.
Hamish piloted with the casual concentration of somebody who knew every small weakness of his vessel.
Sepha watched the outside traffic and struggled to ignore the sensation that she was leaving every familiar safeguard behind.
Imani had spent the previous night comparing approved cargo diagrams with the unauthorized schematics Nerin had given her daughter.
A difference of four centimeters in the wall thickness of one refrigeration compartment had caught her attention.
Four centimeters were not much on a ship that could transport hundreds of tons, but they were enough to hide a secondary fluid line.
The hidden line appeared to connect three compartments that the official documents described as completely isolated.
