He told Imani to preserve the files and asked Sepha to contact Meridian.
Then he turned to Marel and offered her the chance to explain everything to independent investigators rather than to the people who had ordered her silence.
She looked at the guards, the red light, and the names on the screen.
For the first time since the secret project began, she chose an answer that might help somebody else.
I will testify, she said.
But you must get us out before their ship docks.
The first Helix patrol approached the depot slowly, as though the people aboard already believed they owned the outcome.
Its hull carried the symbol of an open hand surrounding a medical cartridge, the same emblem painted on clinics throughout the frontier.
Hamish watched it on a maintenance monitor while Imani calculated a route through the station’s service passages.
She explained that the depot had three loading exits, but only one connected directly to the civilian docking ring.
The other two served automated cargo rails that could not accommodate people without safety modifications.
Hamish suggested borrowing one of the automated containers.
Imani said the containers carried heavy machinery and sometimes turned sideways without warning.
He withdrew the suggestion.
Marel was still shaking when Sepha asked for the identities of the workers who had witnessed the experiment.
The supervisor named six people who knew about the altered medicine and another eight who had believed they were transporting routine specimens.
Sepha insisted that both groups be warned before corporate security reached the depot.
Marel used the internal announcement system to order all staff into the central maintenance hall.
The message described the real risk of exposure and offered employees a choice to leave by civilian transport.
Several workers refused to believe it.
One asked whether the warning was part of a corporate loyalty test.
Another said his employment contract prohibited him from disclosing proprietary procedures.
Marel told them that an employment contract did not give anybody permission to experiment on patients without consent.
It was the first time she had spoken those words aloud.
Imani asked the guards to secure the storage chambers while she isolated the remaining biological lines.
They followed her instructions because the alarms had frightened them more than the arriving patrol.
Sepha opened an emergency communications channel to Meridian and transmitted the recovered logs with a record of their source.
Hravik confirmed receipt and contacted the regional health authority.
