Chapter 4: Course Change

Light from the navigation display caught the edge of Prime's jaw, casting a thin gold line across the dark glossy surface of his chassis. He stood at his station with both hands flat on the console, not operating it — just standing there, weight forward, like someone about to step off a ledge. Sera sat in the captain's chair, a cargo manifest open on her datapad she hadn't read in an hour. His blue energy channels burned at a frequency she'd never seen during downtime. Brighter than routine processing. Heat behind it. Pip's workstation sat empty to her left. A half-disassembled power coupling lay on the worksurface exactly where they'd left it, micro-tools fanned out in the precise arrangement that only made sense to an eight-inch engineer with opinions about tool organization. A smudge of coolant on the edge of the console caught the overhead light. The smudge caught the overhead light. "I need to talk to you about something," Prime said. He didn't turn from his console. His voice sat between his analytical cadence and the softer register he used when they were alone, but harder. "I'm listening," Sera said. Now he turned. The full effect of his channel intensity hit her — blue light running along the seams of his arms, his torso, the articulation points of his hands, all of it elevated beyond anything she associated with conversation. His facial surface shifted into an expression she'd learned to read over years of partnership: focused, but not on a problem. On her. Waiting for her to be ready. "HAVEN's intelligence was more detailed than what I shared with the Council," he said. Sera set the datapad down. "Go on." "The network isn't scattered. It's organized." He stepped away from his console and toward the center of the cockpit,…