Private Let's Keep This Brief

[Agent Damocles]

Shuttle – Low Orbit, Passive Drift Pattern – Antarran Station Z-95

Dray’s fingers moved rapidly across the auxiliary console, her posture a study in measured urgency. The moment the minor disturbance alert pinged across the passive sweeps, she had initiated a silent diagnostic. Jara’s stumble had not yet triggered a base-wide lockdown—but it was a thin margin, growing thinner by the second.

She toggled the internal line, voice sharp, clean.

"Vector shift. Left. Vent crawlspace junction. You're five meters south of the spike node. Third hatch on your right. Keypad override, manual slice only—wireless probes will light you up."

She knew the temptation for a slicer under stress was to go remote, wireless, quick. It was a death sentence here. "Manual slice" meant physically breaking the encryption with direct interface—old school, hands-on, safer against internal countermeasures that sniffed for foreign signals.

Her other hand brought up the dummy flagger program, a false telemetry patch she had pre-staged in case of partial detection. If Jara inserted the spike clean, Dray could inject a misdirect—feeding the approaching unit false-positive data about pressure shifts near a defunct power conduit three decks down. It was risky. The anti-intrusion subroutines would sniff out inconsistencies fast. She had maybe ninety seconds after spike activation to bury her override without tripping the real alarms.

"Be advised," she said, cold and level, eyes flicking through system layers, "once the spike is live, I'll push a phantom drift packet. That should spoof the unit's sensor sweep and redirect it away from your position."

Her mind translated the jargon easily: phantom drift packet—a fabricated set of sensor readings inserted into the station's real-time diagnostics, designed to make it look like a structural anomaly somewhere else.

If it worked, Jara would get clear without firing a shot. If it didn't—Dray already had the exfil plan up, brutal and fast. The fallback was ugly. It involved explosive decompression, a hull breach near the dock ring, and a sprint back into the black under live fire. They had maybe a thirty percent survival rate if it came to that.

"One chance at this, Voss." She said into the line, tone like a blade drawn slow. "Clean spike. No fumbles. No second passes."

The window was shrinking. Dray exhaled once, steadying herself.

Her hand hovered over the injection key.

All she could do now was wait for Jara to make the insertion—and trust that when the time came, her own intrusion would be good enough to slip under the station’s nose.

No room for mistakes.

Not anymore.

Jara Voss​

 

[Jara Voss]

Tags: Agent Damocles

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Jara squeezed tighter into the shaft, the cramped space forcing her into an awkward half-crawl, half-slither. Cables brushed against her helmet, tugging at her nerves like ghost fingers. Every heartbeat felt like a drumroll against the hollow of her ribs. The station's mechanical thrum vibrated through the metal around her, an angry, living thing.

Dray's voice in her ear was a lifeline - cold, sharp, precise. So unlike the chaos blooming in her chest.

"Copy that." Jara whispered back, breathless, her voice threading through clenched teeth. "Manual slice. No fireworks. Got it."

She pivoted hard at the junction, elbow jamming painfully against the ribbing, but she didn't stop. Wouldn't. Her yellow-green eyes flicked over the faded hatch numbers stenciled along the crawlway. One... two...

Third hatch.

There it was. A narrow access plate barely big enough to swing her tool kit through. Jara hunched down, feeling the cold bite of the metal through her suit, and popped the casing with a flick of her wrist. The keypad was ancient by station standards, clunky, corroded at the edges, but that just meant fewer modern countermeasures.

Her fingers flew, sweat making the gloves slippery as she keyed into the override port with a thin blade of flexwire. She could almost hear Dray's voice in her head, dry and scathing, reminding her: Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

But Jara wasn't built for slow. Her hands moved like a street magician's - quick, brazen, too fast to be entirely smart. The lock fought back, throwing up a series of scramblers. She hissed low under her breath, twisting the probe, bypassing the trip-switch just before it could shunt power and fry her wrist.

The spike slid home with a solid clunk of contact.

Her visor flashed green. A second later, the hatch's internal readout flickered - phantom drift injection starting.

Jara's head dropped against the wall, a wild grin splitting her face. Still alive. Still good.

"Spikes in, gorgeous." she panted into the comms, voice still flirting even as she shook from exertion. Behind her, deeper in the crawlspace, the heavy thunk of the incoming unit's boots grew louder. Faster. Jara didn't move yet. She wanted to bolt. Every instinct screamed it. But she trusted Dray. And Dray told her to wait.

"Better make it fast." she muttered under her breath, resting one trembling hand against the cold hatch. "A cold cell sounds terrible right about now."

The phantom drift signal needed to fire. The sensor feed needed to shift.

Otherwise, in about ten seconds, she was going to be in quite a predicament

​

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[Agent Damocles]

Shuttle – Low Orbit, Passive Drift Pattern – Antarran Station Z-95

Dray’s fingers tapped briskly across the console. Her eyes flicked over the updated telemetry. The spike was live. She could feel the tension in the air, thickening. The station was still unaware of the deeper breach. It was only a matter of time before they realized what Jara had done.

But now it was time for Dray to execute.

Her hand flew over the keys as she initiated the false telemetry packet, ghosting a signal across the station’s diagnostic feeds. It was a small window of time—barely fifteen seconds—before the system’s internal countermeasures flagged the discrepancy.

The algorithm she had inserted would loop the data, feeding the security unit false information about a power fluctuation on the far side of the station. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to redirect the unit away from Jara’s position.

"Phantom drift. Now." She whispered under her breath, eyes fixed on the terminal’s blinking green light.

Her thumb pressed the final command key. A subtle hum from the shuttle’s systems told her the packet was in motion. The station was already swallowing the lie.

She toggled the comm link to Jara, her voice clipped and razor-sharp, no trace of the warmth she might have shown in less urgent moments. "Unit redirected. Your window’s extended. Move."

The internal systems had already confirmed the data injection. Now, it was a race. Jara had the path cleared, but her margin was still dangerously thin.

"Get to the extraction point. You're two corridors from the airlock, but there’s a full patrol rotation there. I’ll keep them off you as long as I can, but move now, or this will be a bust."

Her fingers hovered over the console again, watching the system status, ensuring the falsified information held steady.

"One more breach and they’ll know you’re in their system. Don’t make it worse."

As the false data began to propagate throughout the station’s internal systems, Dray allowed herself one small breath of satisfaction.

The job wasn’t finished yet. But Jara had made it this far. Dray had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time she’d need to intervene.

Jara Voss​

 

[Jara Voss]

Tags: Agent Damocles

​

Jara didn't wait to be told twice.

The moment Dray's voice crackled through the comms, "Move", she was already in motion, twisting her body out of the shaft like a bullet from a barrel. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she didn't listen. She hit the corridor floor in a low crouch, one hand catching her balance against the cold plating, and launched forward into a sprint.

The lights flickered overhead as if trying to keep pace with her, casting her in alternating stripes of gold and shadow. Her breath came fast and raw through gritted teeth, fogging the edge of her visor. The pack on her back rattled with each step, the spike tool still faintly warm from the override.

Two corridors. Full patrol. Tight margin.

Dray's warning echoed in her ears - "One more breach and they'll know you're in."

No pressure. Just everything on the line. Again.

Jara skidded around the corner, boots barely making a sound against the composite floor. The station layout rushed past her in a blur of vents and utility doors, her mind working three steps ahead, scanning every shadow, every alcove.

She ducked into a maintenance hatch as the first patrol swept by, silent as breath, eyes narrowed. She could hear the low static hum of their comms as they passed - so close she could've whispered something charming and regrettable and still gotten shot in the face.

She waited.

Counted.

Then moved again.

Each step was instinct now, adrenaline carrying her where logic wouldn't. Her arms pumped, her grin returning even as her lungs begged for mercy.

"Extraction airlock in sight," she whispered into the comms, voice a breathless, triumphant purr. "Hope you left the shuttle warm. I'm coming in hot."

And just for the hell of it, she added, "Might want to start that drink now. I've earned it."

She didn't slow down. Not for a second.

Behind her, the corridor lights blinked again, just once, like the station itself knew it had been fooled.

And wasn't happy about it.

​

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[Agent Damocles]

Shuttle – Extraction Vector, Asteroid Drift Alignment – Antarran Station Z-95 Perimeter

Dray’s hands worked the flight controls with surgical precision, the soft hum of realignment thrusters whispering beneath her boots. Outside the viewport, chunks of rock and metal drifted like lazy predators, but her calculations had been sound. The gap between danger and disaster was just wide enough—if Jara didn’t miss.

She shifted the shuttle half a degree, one gentle correction that would place the extraction port directly in Jara’s path. No alarms yet. No shots fired. Just the pressure. The kind only a razor-fine trajectory and a seconds-long leap into open space could provide.

Dray toggled the airlock controls. Rear hatch: open.

The interior lights of the shuttle flicked amber, signaling to Jara that it was time. No second tries.

Her voice came through the comm—measured, low, but threaded now with something warmer, something earned.

“Hatch is open. You’ll have five seconds of clear vector drift once you breach vacuum. After that, I’d suggest not missing.”

She paused, watching the readout of Jara’s signal moving into final position. Her hands slid back to the yoke—steady, graceful. Tension curled in her spine, but for the first time, she didn’t push it away.

“I’ve cleared the aft deck for your arrival. Lights dimmed. Rear cabin warm.”

She paused for a breathy beat. Then softer, too casual to be casual: “Might even be out of this jumpsuit by the time you land.”

She adjusted the yaw again, breath still even, but her heart had picked up pace—and she hated that she noticed. This was the final move. The culmination of weeks of planning, of careful maneuvering.

Dray toggled the forward stabilizers and whispered into the comm, this time only for Jara to hear. “Make the jump, Voss. And try not to get me all worked up for nothing.”

On the tactical readout, her hand hovered over the docking sync override. One flick would seal the deal.

All Jara had to do… was fly.

Jara Voss​