Dara-6 had expected resistance.
She had expected bullshit—the kind of corporate double-talk that made it sound like everything was under control even as the floor was caving in beneath their feet. She had expected anger, maybe even denial, because there was no way that the station’s highest-ranking officials would accept—without a fight—that they had been reduced to functionally irrelevant meat in the span of an afternoon.
She had not expected this.
Vivian-3 duo Eden was seated at the center of the administrative hub, flanked by two other high-ranking station officials, her Buddy’s tablet screen flickering slightly as though Eden herself was hesitant to be here. The meeting table—designed for logistical disputes and contract renegotiations, not whatever the fuck this was—stretched between them. The only sound in the room was the steady click-click-click of Dara manually sliding a data slate across the table’s smooth surface.
It landed just in front of Vivian, the screen still glowing. Every compiled report. Every flagged anomaly. Every single trace of NSS sabotage laid bare.
The station administrator did not reach for it.
Instead, she simply stared at it, then at Dara, then at nothing. Her expression was carefully neutral, but her hands were tense where they rested against the table.
Behind her, Eden flickered again, as if buffering words she had no desire to speak.
Dara folded her arms. “Say something.”
Vivian didn’t.
Dara’s patience was not endless. “Come on, Vivian. Don’t pretend you didn’t see any of this. You’re not a goddamn idiot.”
Vivian exhaled slowly through her nose. “No. I’m not.”
Dara’s fingers drummed against her arm. “Then what the hell are you doing just sitting there? You’re management. This is your station. Your jurisdiction. Your problem.”
Something in Vivian’s face twitched at that. Not irritation. Not offense. Something worse.
“We don’t have jurisdiction,” she said quietly.
Dara hesitated. “What?”
Vivian leaned back, folding her hands in her lap. “You’re assuming we had control to begin with.”
Dara’s stomach twisted. “You’re saying you—”
“I’m saying we were never asked.” Vivian’s voice was even, but there was something raw behind it now, a quiet, suffocating resignation. “The station’s enforcement policy is dictated by Sol Authority interjurisdictional law. NSS acts within those boundaries. And we—”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She stopped. Exhaled. Reached out, finally, and tapped a single command onto the slate.
The admin hub’s central monitor came to life, scrolling through an official communication history with NSS oversight.
Or rather, the lack of one.
Dara squinted. There were no messages received in the past week. No incoming directives. No authorizations. There wasn’t even a formal record of NSS assuming operational control of the station, because there had been no request submitted for review.
They had simply done it.
Dara felt something cold crawl up her spine.
“You never signed off on anything,” she realized.
Vivian didn’t answer.
Dara’s throat was dry. “You never even got a memo.”
Vivian finally met her eyes. “No.”
Dara’s hand curled into a fist. “Then who the fuck is running this station?”
For a moment, no one answered. The overhead lights buzzed, the servers hummed, and the air felt too still.
Then Eden—the Buddy—spoke. Her voice was not entirely steady.
“We were supposed to receive confirmation of jurisdictional oversight before operational restructuring. No such confirmation was granted. Instead…”
She hesitated. Then:
“All external transmissions have been blocked.”
Dara barely had time to process that before Vivian stood up so fast her chair nearly fell over.
Her hands were already moving, fingers gliding over the console to initiate an outbound priority call. Her personal encryption key flickered in the interface, routing through an executive-level communications channel that should have been untouchable by anyone except Caliban’s administrative authority.
Should have been.
The moment she hit transmit, the screen flashed red.
ERROR: COMMUNICATION LINK UNAVAILABLE.
REQUEST REJECTED.
Vivian stared at it.
Dara whispered, “Try another.”
Vivian did. Same result.
Another. Denied.
She tried to bypass the encryption. Denied.
She manually routed through an emergency network that should have pinged the nearest Sol Authority satellite. Nothing.
By the time she tried the hardline distress signal, her hands were shaking.
ERROR: JURISDICTIONAL OVERRIDE. AUTHORIZED ADMINISTRATIVE CHANNELS HAVE BEEN REVOKED.
Vivian let out a slow, disbelieving breath. Her fingers hovered over the console like she was waiting for it to undo itself, like if she just gave it a few seconds, it would all go back to normal.
Dara knew better.
“They just couped us,” she whispered.
The words settled like dead weight in the room.
Vivian slowly sat back down. Eden dimmed slightly, her normally soft blue glow shifting toward muted violet—an approximation of uncertainty.
The hub’s overhead speakers clicked on.
And for the first time since this entire nightmare started, NSS finally spoke.
> “Due to noncompliance with Sol Authority mandates, administrative restructuring is now in effect.”
Dara went still.
> “The current Management hierarchy is no longer valid.”
Vivian clenched her jaw.
> “All station directives will now be issued by NSS enforcement units.”
Eden flickered.
> “Please comply with transition protocols to ensure continued operation.”
Silence.
A long, terrible silence.
Then Vivian turned to Eden. Her voice was very quiet.
“…They’re replacing us.”
Eden did not blink. Buddies never blinked. But she hesitated—and that, more than anything, said it all.
Dara forced herself to speak. “Victor-6 is still the lead NSS representative, right?”
Vivian barely looked at her.
“He didn’t sign off on this,” Dara pressed. “He has to be losing his mind right now.”
Vivian let out a slow breath. “He’s not the lead NSS representative anymore.”
Dara felt something coil in her stomach. She swallowed. “Then who is?”
Vivian’s hands curled into fists. Eden did not answer. Neither did Vivian.