Page 82 of Stars in Umbra
A ripple.
A thread, a freakin’ twist of red in her data field.
Her hands stilled mid-zip. Her head tilted.
An anomaly.
Her HUD flared to life across her inner vision. Someone, or something, was worming its way through the shared security architecture she oversaw between Sable HQ and the Pegasi United Galactic Army.
She blinked, and the glitter of her dress faded, overwritten by spectral gold threads as she summoned her complete interface.
Firewalls screamed. She flung up blocks. Redirected nodes. Routed power from SableNet’s deep core.
A freakin’ hack?
It was slick, aggressive, masked under innocuous surveillance requests.
As fast as it began, it vanished.
She froze, parsing the withdrawal.
It was an unauthorized attempt, but not contained, nor thwarted by her, as she hadn’t had the chance even to lift a nanite.
This was a voluntary retreat.
‘Fokkme,’ she whispered, one high-heeled foot planted, one still hovering mid-step.
‘That wasn’t just any breach, it was a distraction,’ she murmured to herself. ‘A flash-and-scramble to keep me distracted while another action beneath it went into play, a stealthed and fast infiltration.’
‘What or who the hell were you covering for?’
Her golden eyes flicked across the dozens of systems she monitored.
She found no evidence of red flags, zero collapsed threads, only subtle anomalies, microscopic wraiths, and a whisper of shifting cipher.
She narrowed her eyes.
This wasn’t the time for paranoia. Not yet, but it was time to ask questions. She’d have to loop in Kainan, Zane, maybe even Rina at dawn.
‘Fokkme,’ she muttered, spinning on her heel.
The sequinned dress dissolved around her like moonlight, strands of code fracturing her physical form.
She shimmered, her features disassembling into a constellation of living data, dispersing into the glowing matrix of her chamber.
The room pulsed as her reset protocols kicked in.
At her core, however, a seed of suspicion surged, and Mirage took note, never prone to forget an incursion, not even the momentary, fleeting attempts.
16
Forever and Utterly Mine
MOLAN
The United Pegasi Military Conference was drawing to a close.
With it came the expected fanfare, a closing ball designed as much to showcase diplomacy as it was to reward all the hard work behind the scenes.
