They found Glave near hydro-bay 6A.

Or what was left of him.

I was first on scene. No alarms. No alerts. Just a quiet ping on my personal feed:

Anomaly Detected. Motion Signature Not Matching Known Routes.

By now, I trust those more than people.

Glave had been missing three days.

People figured he’d cracked. Deep-cycle solitude scrambles the brain like an old radio station bleeding through static.

But this wasn’t a breakdown.

This was a message.

His body was arranged, arms folded with surgical precision.

His tongue lay in his left hand like an offering.

Eyes sealed shut with a black resin that shimmered under the fluorescents like oil and insect wings.

No blood. No bruises. No rot.

Just intent.

Scratched into the bulkhead beside him —

LEAVE IT ALONE AND NO ONE GETS HURT

I locked the corridor down myself.

Didn’t call Medical. Didn’t ping Veyron.

I know how these things spiral. Besides, I’m the one in charge.

If something’s broken on this ship, I fix it. Or I make sure no one sees it until I do.

Later, in the mess hall, Agnes sat down across from me like she was crashing a war council.

“You saw him.”

I kept spooning protein mush into my mouth like it mattered. It didn’t.

“I saw a body,” I said. “I’ve seen worse.”

She leaned in. “Then why didn’t you log it?”

“I did,” I lied. “That’s what chain of command is for. Trust.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “I checked. No log until after you sealed the corridor. You’re covering something.”

I gave her a long, slow blink. “You’re welcome.”

Agnes shook her head like she might be sick. “This isn’t the first, Nexx. There was another symbol in cryo-wing. Another near the O2 cycling crawlspace. Nobody’s talking, but they keep appearing” I raised a finger, she paused. “Aggie, please—” I said.

“No Nexx listen… rituals. Messages. I brought it to Veyron last week. He blamed stress hallucinations. But that’s crap and you know it.”

I leaned back in my chair. My bones ached.

“You ever think maybe it is stress hallucinations?” I said, “Maybe we’re all losing it.”

Agnes didn’t blink. “Not all of us are sleeping with Lexara.”

That hit harder than it should’ve.

Small twitch. Barely visible.

She caught it anyway.

“She’s not sleeping with me,” I said. “She’s… studying me.”

Agnes let out a cold, joyless laugh. “Yeah? What’s she learning — how much you can betray before it shows in your eyes?”

I didn’t answer.

She stared at me and for a moment, I saw the past: the warmth, the trust, the nights we’d spent curled into each other when the ship groaned like it might break in half.

She’d once memorized my heartbeat just to know I was still alive during cryo-drops.

And now?

Now she looked at me like I was another body waiting to be found in a hallway.

“You were supposed to warn us,” she said. “Not sleep with the bomb.”

She stood and walked out. Her footsteps felt louder than the engines.

That night, I was alone.

I didn’t even realize my hands were clenching the whisky glass.

I finished it.

A familiar sound came through my personal feed.

I checked the message, my heartbeat quickened.

Commander your presence is needed in Cargo Bay 4. Urgent.

I read it, knowing what it really meant and for the first time I welcomed the distraction.

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