09-11-2355 | 13:01
HARBOR HQ — Glass Debrief.
—
The room is all angles and reflection: stormglass on three sides, the bay like gray static behind Nova Han's shoulder, a wall-screen looping clipped footage of the processing bay from four different angles. Audio sits low, just enough for the heavy thud of the fall and the screaming of stressed metal to land in the body.
Dax stands with his tablet tucked under his forearm and the team in a loose line: Bishop a wall, Sera at parade rest but vibrating with pent-up observation, Kaito trying to look like a simple piece of furniture, Irie with clean hands and tired eyes. Ryn is right of center, gloves hooked in his belt, his cheekbone still carrying the ghost of the stun graze.
Han doesn't sit. She doesn't raise her voice either. "Containment perimeter held. Zero civilian fatalities. One guard stabilized and transferred. The problem, Lieutenant, is the structural breach. That's where the good news stops." She flicks two fingers; the footage rewinds to the moment Cole throws the grenade. "Deviation from plan starts here."
Dax keeps his face still. His jaw is tight. "I agree, Director."
"You let an unauthorized device go off that wrecked the platform integrity," Han says, her voice flat. "Worse, the telemetry from the fall registered a Class-Three vector manipulation event with zero established recovery parameters."
Dax doesn't flinch. "The breach was caused by a rogue action. The dampening was a non-protocol move that saved three lives, and the asset."
Morrel is watching Ryn, his pale eyes missing nothing. "The Conductor's capacity for localized gravity shear is truly remarkable. That pressure wave dampening was instantaneous."
Ryn doesn't flinch. He holds Morrel's gaze, the quiet discipline learned from years of studying procedure overriding the impulse to snap. "In case we forget. My name is Ryn, not the Conductor. I appreciate the high-level assessment of my capacity, but I'd prefer you use the name I trained under. Now, I took the fall. And yeah, I assisted the landing. We survived a collapse that shouldn't have happened. I'll take the note."
No apology. No flinch. Just the sentence, delivered with dry certainty.
Sera exhales through her nose; it sounds less like a laugh and more like a sigh of intellectual frustration. Irie doesn't look at her.
Han rolls the footage forward. Dax's baton lands. The Rendling absorbs and pivots. Ryn's Construct Blades appear. The creature counters with unnatural precision.
"Why didn't we get the capture?" Han asks, clean, not cruel.
"Because it's learning faster than any subject on record," Dax says. "The initial baton impact fed it a vector; it stacked the return. Ryn's pull met a code that pushed back with a new cadence. When it didn't like the song, it broke the nitrogen line and ate the fog."
Ryn adds, "I tried a high-density Hydro-Helix wrap on the seam when it shifted. The infrasound spike from the sonic detonation clipped my focus for a critical half-second. That's on me. I adapted late."
Bishop's rumble stays neutral. "The shutter on the line slowed the fog, but the cage just couldn't hold a shape against that internal pressure."
Han nods once, lets the clip end, and kills the audio. "We are here to be specific. Next contact, Cole Maddox sits on his hands, and we don't authorize unsanctioned gravitational dampening just to prove a point. We'll adjust equipment to bleed the baton into dead plates instead of elastic return. Got it?"
"Got it," Dax says. He doesn't fight the leash. He files the information.
"Got it," Ryn says, the same tone as the field: I'll use the tool, but I won't make it my religion.
Morrel has let the others talk. He moves now, a small adjustment of posture that says he was always in the center of his own attention. "For what it's worth," he says, warm as tea you don't trust, "that stabilization action under an emergency breach was exceptional. I want to schedule extended sampling with the Conductor for capacity modeling immediately."
Dax doesn't let it hang. He uses the brief silence to deliver a hard fact. "No."
Morrel looks directly at him. "No?"
"On medical grounds, no," Dax says. He doesn't need to raise his voice. "He's got residual code noise in his hands and took an extreme g-force load from the dampening. He needs recovery and Irie's baseline before you stick wires in him to chase your model."
Irie steps in without being asked. "He's showing tremor residual, both visible and subjective. Heart rate variability took a hit when the line went down. Pupils were slow for twenty minutes. He's fine now, but 'fine' isn't 'ready for invasive study.'" She looks at Morrel, polite enough to pass inspection and still unmoved. "You want clean data? Give me forty-eight hours and a normal sim block first."
Morrel's smile thins a millimeter. "Baseline can be taken during capacity sampling. The instruments won't harm him."
"The instruments aren't the harm," Dax says. "The load is. Do you want him at full capacity when we go back out, or do you want him looking pretty on your graph?"
Han flicks a look at Dax that says careful. Dax doesn't step back. He doesn't step forward either.
"Strike Lead's call holds," Han says. No delay. No drama. "Extended sampling waits until Medic clears. You can prep your model with existing footage and telemetry."
Morrel's eyes don't harden, but something in them stops offering quiet cooperation. "We lose opportunity when we wait."
"We lose capacity when we don't," Han says. "Ryn is an operator first. The building gets him second."
Ryn scratches the side of his thumb with his ring finger, a tiny motion he probably doesn't realize he is doing. He looks at Morrel with heavy irony. "For what it's worth, Doctor, I'm not in love with your wires. They make my hair frizz."
Morrel looks at him with that soft, measuring gaze. "Feelings don't enter it. Accuracy does."
"Great," Ryn says. "Just accurately confirm that I won't bite anyone after Irie clears me."
Kaito snorts. Bishop almost smiles. Sera doesn't.
Han brings it back to ground. "Action items. Kaito, revise the baton dumps so the vector bleeds to ground, not back into the mass. Bishop, drill redundancy placements under low viz: nitrogen, steam, cheap smoke, I don't care. Sera, I want a trick for cryo fog that won't choke your birds. Irie, write a post-exposure protocol for infrasound, code tremor, and cryo. Make it a one-pager the rest of the building can't mess up. Ryn, you run cadence variations with Noa on the sim deck tomorrow, then rest. Dax—"
"Leash acknowledged," Dax says. "No pulls without cage. No clean vectors into the mass. I'll adjust the entry call to keep the window open longer without teaching it a lesson."
Han's mouth tips, the closest she gets to a smile without paperwork. "Good. I like teams that learn faster than the things trying to eat them."
Morrel laces his fingers, a priestly shape. "I'll have a revised sim block on your slate by morning."
"You'll have it on mine after Irie clears it," Dax says.
Han doesn't look away from Morrel when she speaks. "Follow the order of operations, Doctor."
"Of course," Morrel says. The smile is back, thinner, polished.
Sera raises a hand halfway, then lowers it and just says it. "We also need to admit the obvious. It watched him." A tilt of her head at Ryn. "It picked him out of the room. That's not nothing."
"It isn't," Dax says. He doesn't sugar it. "It recognized the pull and mirrored it. Which means next time we don't give it a mirror. We change cadence, change shape, change angle. If it's doing the math, we hand it new variables."
Ryn nods. "I'll build a different song."
"Do that," Dax says. "We'll keep you off the stage till the band's ready."
Kaito mutters, "I love a metaphor. Can we get jackets now?"
"God, no," Irie says.
Han claps her hands once. The sound is small and final. "Good work, irritating work, and work I don't want to do again. You came back breathing. The guard will live. The building isn't on fire. That's a win. Next pass we do it tighter."
She dismisses them with a look. The team breaks clean. Sera goes first, jaw locked but drones already on her mind. Bishop gives Ryn a nod like a door left open. Kaito lingers long enough to waggle his jammer at the ceiling cams. Irie squeezes Ryn's forearm, the medic's benediction.
09-11-2355 | 13:15
HARBOR HQ — East Corridor to Quarters.
—
The glass doors of the debrief whisper shut behind Dax. The corridor is long and white, full of reflections that lag half a second, as if the building can't quite keep up with the people inside it. The slate under his arm feels heavy, heavier than its mass. He wants air. HARBOR smells like clean water and batteries, no matter where he stands.
"Mercer."
Ryn's voice lands close, not hurried, just immediate. Dax doesn't turn.
"If what you've got to say isn't mission-related, save it," Dax says, already moving down the hall. His voice is flat. "I've got work."
"It is mission-related," Ryn says, effortlessly keeping pace. "It's about you."
"Try again." Dax's footsteps don't slow.
Ryn keeps pace, a slight roll to his shoulders. "I know men like you. I'd usually tell you to take the stick out of your ass, but I'm guessing your last assignment ended badly, so you shoved it in there for safekeeping."
Dax stops so fast Ryn has to check his heel, stopping less than an arm's length away. Dax turns, and the look he gives would sand paint from a hull. His hands clench around the slate, white-knuckled. "You don't get to talk about Southline. You weren't in that building."
"I'm not talking headlines," Ryn says, steady, pushing his hands into his pockets. "I'm talking about the way you bite down on control like it's oxygen. It keeps us alive. But it also makes you blind at the edges. Both things can be true, Dax."
"You think I'm blind?" Dax's voice drops even lower, a forced quiet that feels louder than a shout. His chest tightens. "You think I didn't see you step early on a pull with no redundancy? You think I didn't clock you going pale when the room started to sing? I'm not blind. I'm busy keeping my team breathing while you try to make friends with code that wants to wear you like a glove."
Ryn's mouth tips, not quite a smile, just a cynical twitch. "Are you keeping score or keeping us alive?"
"Both," Dax snaps. His breath hitches, controlled. "Because I like outcomes and I hate funerals."
"Same," Ryn says, refusing to back down. "Which is why I'm gonna keep asking the questions you hate. Why split sweep today when a funnel would've bought us time with a learner? Why put baton vector into something that loves recycling energy? Why tell me to wait when the window was clean?"
"Because I don't gamble your spine to look clever. Because we didn't own the HVAC. Because Bishop was one beat out. Because paste lies and I want a cage, not a corpse. Pick one." Dax gestures sharply with the tablet.
"You're not God, Dax. You can't choreograph every breath."
"I don't need to be God. I need you to take second when I say take second."
Ryn lets out a small, sharp sigh through his nose. "You want a silent tool. I'm not a tool."
"You're a specialist on my stack," Dax says, leaning forward slightly. "You want trust? Earn it doing exactly what you did in there, minus the early pull and the editorializing."
"Editorializing? Is that what you call it when I keep you from handing the monster a lesson plan?"
"You kept me from nothing. It broke a nitrogen line and walked. Next time it doesn't. That's the work."
Ryn steps in, closer, forcing Dax to hold his ground. Dax can see the tiny, residual tremor still living in Ryn's fingers, proof of the stress load. "I don't want your pity about the shake. I don't want Morrel's wires. I just want you to stop pretending you're the only one who gets to be right."
"You poked a wound and called it insight," Dax says, his own voice tight with suppressed agony. "You want honesty? Don't talk to me about 'men like me' until you've dragged two people down a stairwell with a floor on your back while a sterilizer clock laughs in your ear. Don't talk to me about control when the only reason you're standing here is because I keep making decisions that get you home."
"Tall speech," Ryn says, his eyes dark with challenge. "Did you rehearse that in the mirror or does it come with the jacket?"
Dax exhales a sound that is a frustrated gust, not a laugh. He finally looks away, staring down the corridor. "You want to poke my file to see if I bleed, do it on your time. On mine, follow the plan. If you've got a problem with my calls, bring it to the room without the needle."
"The needle got your attention," Ryn says, softer now, which somehow lands harder. "Mission-related enough for you?"
"Perfect. Consider me attentive." Dax turns sharply and walks, leaving the confrontation behind.
Ryn doesn't follow this time. The absence of his footsteps is a cold draft at Dax's back. Dax keeps moving because if he stops, he knows he'll say something that breaks the fragile week he still needs to lead.
09-11-2355 | 13:30
HARBOR HQ — Quarters, D-Block.
—
The door accepts his palmprint and slides aside with a polite hiss. Inside, a housing tech is waiting with a smile that looks laminated.
"Lieutenant Mercer? Fen Aro, Unit Services," they say, crisp and eager. "Welcome to D-Block. Let me give you the tour."
"I can—" Dax starts, already tired.
"It's two minutes, promise." Fen gestures with a narrow tablet. "Stormglass window with environmental tint, adjustable privacy. The bed modulates firmness. Closet prints hangers to spec. We can schedule a fit-out, boots, civvies, a jacket that isn't... that."
"It's fine."
"Is it? It looks like it lost a fight with rain." Fen pauses, clearly uncomfortable with the ensuing silence.
Dax stares at them until the small joke dies. "I'll do the rest of the tour myself."
Awkwardness settles. Fen nods, backing toward the door. "Key's on the console. If you need anything, tap Services. We, uh, like it when you make it homey. It helps."
"I'll manage."
"Of course. Welcome to HARBOR." Fen's voice goes thin at the edges. They're gone a second later.
Silence settles the way a cat tests a new couch. Dax sets the slate on the desk, drops his bag by the bed, and stands at the window. The city throws itself at him: stackable gardens, a tram ghosting its loop. He rests his hands on the cold glass until the tension in his shoulders eases, then heads for the shower pod.
The pod lights when it sees him. He strips, tosses the worn jacket at the couch, and steps inside. "Cascade," he says. Steam drops in a skin, then the sonic starts, a low hum that shakes the dirt free without the slap of water. The glass fogs in a quick, even bloom.
He doesn't look away from his reflection. Scars climb his torso in a catalog other people don't get to read. The pale ladder across the right ribs where Southline kissed him with a slab; the newest seam still healing, stubborn and pink. He palms water off his face even though there isn't any. Habit.
"Rinse," he says. Sonic drops to a murmur. The pod sends a brief, cold mist that feels like a dare. He takes it and steps out.
He pulls on a dry underlayer and sits on the bed with the slate. The squadron file blinks a blue icon, patient as a dog. He ignores it and opens the case feed. The processing-bay footage unspools on the stormglass like a memory he can rotate.
He tracks the exact angle where the grav field hands the mass a gift, muttering, "Bleed it to ground." He rolls forward to the water sheath. The skin rises clear and tight.
He watches Ryn's palm against the water, the code turning toward the ring like a cat that recognizes its name. He makes himself watch Ryn's breath stutter when the low note slides under the ribs. He makes himself watch Ryn push anyway.
He tracks Sera's birds vanishing from usefulness, hears Kaito's voice in the recording: the building's blind and thinks it's napping. The runner in the net, a decoy with opinions. It wanted to see their hands.
He pushes the feed to the desk, stands, and goes back to the window. He tells the plan out loud, writing the new rules in the still air. No baton returns. No mirrors. Ryn pulls only off-cadence at angles that feel wrong to the hand.
The slate chirps. A message from Irie pops in the corner: Don't brood. Hydrate. Pulse check at 07:30.
"You messed that up big time." A voice, a familiar voice, speaks behind him. The air temperature in the room drops instantly.
Dax doesn't turn, not yet. His heart pounds a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "Not this again." He turns, and there she stands: Tamsin, burnt uniform, patchy, zombie-pale skin.
"Hey, this is your subconscious." Tamsin grins, a terrible, forced expression, and Dax grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. "You keep forgetting this isn't your fault."
"I could've done what you did. I would've—"
"What?" She cuts him off, frowning. "Took the glory? Seems like you got a lot of that in the tabloids."
"That wasn't me." Dax shakes his head violently, a wave of nausea hitting him.
"Is this the part where I remind you this is all in your head?" she says, and Dax bristles, tears welling hot in his eyes.
"Leave me alone!" He shouts, his voice raw, and turns, hands clamped over his ears, desperate to shut out the sound. "Leave me alone, leave me alone." He says, the words breaking as he lowers to his knees, his forehead pressing against the cold stormglass.
"You're not a failure, yet, Dax," Tamsin says, her voice slightly ghostly, fading. "But if you fail him, it will break you."
—