Chapter 17 · The Coordinates They Erased

The bridge of the Blue Heron smelled of hot metal, antiseptic foam, and fear.

Evan Venn stood beneath the tactical display with one hand braced against the edge of the navigation pit. The deck trembled every few seconds as the fleet shifted its formation. Somewhere below, a damaged coolant line screamed through the hull. The sound rose and fell like a living thing trying to claw its way out.

On the main screen, the Council transmission remained frozen in its final frame: COMMAND AUTHORITY REVOKED. SERA VALE—TRAITOR. EVAN VENN—TRAITOR. ALL INDEPENDENT VESSELS ARE ORDERED TO COMPLY.

Beneath the decree, a red timer counted down.

71:43:08.

Seventy-one hours, forty-three minutes before Last Vector completed its correction.

Mara Quill stood at the communications station with one shoulder strapped tight against her ribs. Her fingers moved over the console, copying fragments of the captured file into three separate memory cores. She had gone pale from blood loss hours ago, but the look in her eyes remained sharp enough to cut through armor.

“They found us,” she said.

The display flickered. A small cluster of blue markers appeared beyond the fleet’s outer screen—