Chapter 32 · Twenty Minutes Ago

"Your authorization expired twenty minutes ago, Captain." Voss's voice came through the speaker flat, almost bored, like he was reading a shift log. "You're not overriding anything. You're just standing there."

I slammed my palm on the panel anyway. The screen didn't care. Numbers kept climbing sideways instead of down, and that door — the one that wasn't ours, the one on the feed we shouldn't even be able to see — kept sliding open an inch at a time on the other side of the wire.

"Who's on that door," I said. Not a question. A demand.

"Not your business anymore," Voss said, and cut the channel dead.

Milo grabbed the panel edge before I could hit it again. His hand landed right on top of mine, heavy, hot, holding it flat against the metal so I couldn't slap it a third time and break something that actually mattered.

"Stop," he said. "You're gonna crack the sensor and then we lose the readout completely."

"I don't need a readout, Drake, I need a door."

"You need to breathe.