Private Orinda You Glad to See Me?

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

For a former Jedi with all the training and stealth of a Shadow, it was still somehow comically hilarious how he managed to show up in places he absolutely shouldn't.

Today was no different aboard the Tracyn. Braze, in disguise and testing his hand at subtle infiltration, wore a crew member's uniform, though some might say he was a bit short for a soldier. He was in fact looking for a scaly green tail that was familiar of Laphisto in hopes of investigating some rumors. His force presence was suppressed using art of the small and he acted like a typical maintenance worker just running basic routines. Now where could he be? Perhaps the bridge?

 

[Laphisto]

The Tracyn was alive with motion and noise. The steady beat of boots rolled through the corridors like distant thunder, accompanied by the rhythmic hiss of hydraulics and the low hum of the ship's heart. Recruits marched in tight formation, their armor immaculate, rifles locked across their chests.

Maintenance crews pressed against the walls to make room,giving a silent salute as the Drill sargant marched past them. Then came the voice. It cut through the noise like a vibroblade through steel sharp, commanding, impossible to ignore."Eyes front, recruits! You're not sightseeing you're soldiers in the making!"

The sound carried, bouncing off the walls. Even the hum of the reactors seemed to quiet for it. Leading the column was a man whose very stride carried authority. His armor bore the marks of years and battles, black plates scuffed with age, crimson trim dull beneath the lights. He didn't just march he owned the deck beneath his feet. "One hundred and forty-four of you, and I still hear hesitation in your steps! You think hesitation wins wars? You think mercy keeps you breathing? Wrong. Discipline does! Now move!"

The recruits obeyed, steps slamming in perfect rhythm. The corridor shook with it. Every face behind the helmets was stone. Every motion deliberate. Then a pause. The man's head turned slightly. His stride slowed. Ahead, someone moved differently. A maintenance worker. Alone. Unarmed. The drill sergeant's boots stopped. The echo of them vanished into silence. Without a word, he lifted a hand, and the column behind him froze as one.

The ship itself seemed to hold its breath. He stood there for a long moment, watching the worker. Not a sound came from the recruits. Only the faint hum of deck plating and the soft creak of armor shifting. The sergeant took a single step forward, the metallic thud echoing down the hall. Then another. Each one deliberate. Each one heavier than it needed to be.

He stopped a pace away from the worker, his presence filling the air like a storm front. he stood infront of braze with a scowl before shouting at him "Where's your sidearm, crewman!?"

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

Braze was by no means a man of intimidating stature. He was small and lithe of frame with a willowy physic, and toned usable musculature. He was practically dwarfed by the Drill sergant that singled him out. He could feel all the eyes of about 150 individuals people fall to him. Braze froze mid-step, a hydrospanner still in his hand like a child caught with sweets before dinner.He gave a clueless look around before acting as if he realized that the Sergeant was referring to him. He took in the man's entire look scanning him over for insignia and marks of rank.

On typical ships Engineering Division don't carry sidearms on maintenance shifts. Typically, an engineer or maintenance technician would stow their sidearms in a weapons locker for safety. Weapons had no place near volatile power couplings or fuel cells. Normal regulations treated sidearms like open flames, and with good reason. This was because sidearms could have a mishap and discharge near fuel conduits or power relays, and no one wanted to explain to Command how a misplaced blaster bolt vented half the deck.

But from a quick glance, Braze could tell this ship wasn’t run in the typical manner. This was very evident by the fact that the drill sergeant was running marching drills on a ship. Even in a hangar or cargo bay, which had more room for such, it was very likely a logistical nightmare. Marching drills on a warship meant someone wanted discipline drilled into every breath, and every step... the kind of command that didn’t just expect obedience from their men; it demanded performance.

It was the kind of authority that meant on this ship, one didn’t breathe without permission. Braze didn’t like it.

Marching drills belonged on open ground, not in the narrow veins of a ship. Whoever thought this up valued spectacle more than sense. It reminded him of another who sought such dominion; It was very telling what command expected of their men. It was a conditioning of almost blind obedience.

Braze had to be careful with what he said here if he didn't want to get caught. Lying could lead to further investigation. Braze fortunately processed information and parsed through a pethora of thoughts at terrifying speeds.

The question looped through his mind as he sifted through possible responses. Too confident and he'd draw suspicion. Too nervous and he'd look guilty.

The balance had to be perfect, the tone of a man used to being ignored, the kind whose face blurred with the crowd. Invisibility was an art, and right now, he was painting fast.

"Some of the other men thought it'd be a 'funny prank' to throw it in the air lock last rotation since I'm new. "

 

[Laphisto]

The sergeant's visor angled down, slow and deliberate, like a predator studying its prey. The corridor went silent only the faint hum of the ship's systems filled the space as every recruit stood frozen in formation. "A prank," he repeated, the word dragging out through the vocoder, each syllable sharp enough to cut. "You mean to tell me that you let someone space your issued sidearm your lifeline and just shrugged it off as a joke?"

He took a step forward. The echo of his boots struck like hammer blows. "and you thought it was just dandy to go about without filing a report? and getting a new weapon issued?" The volume climbed with terrifying precision, not wild, not chaotic measured, controlled, deliberate rage honed by decades of repetition.

"You think this is some kind of pleasure cruiser, crewman? You think this is a place for jokes and pranks? A missing weapon is not a laugh, it's a liability! It's how ships burn, how crews die, how enemies win!" He stopped in front of Braze, visor inches from his face, the reflection of the smaller man visible in its dull steel surface.

"You lost your sidearm. You lost your focus. You lost your discipline." He turned slightly, voice amplifying as he addressed the formation behind him.
"Recruits! What keeps you alive out here?" A thunderous response answered in perfect unison "Discipline, sir!"

Dravos nodded once, still facing Braze. "You hear that, crewman? That's what separates soldiers from bodies in the void. Discipline. You lose that, you lose everything." The words hung in the recycled air like a sermon, the kind that carved itself into the bones of every soldier listening. Then, with a curt motion, he broke the silence.

"Get to the quartermaster," he ordered, voice cold again, back to the mechanical bark of procedure. " Here's what you'll do. You'll report to the quartermaster. You'll requisition a replacement sidearm and file a full incident record. You'll list every name involved in this 'prank.' and then you will run the length of this ship from bow to stern three times to drill the lesson home."

He turned on his heel. "Recruits! Forward march!"

Without slowing, he angled toward a passing security pair. His voice came through the vocoder low and even, the tone of a man issuing standard procedure but the words carried weight."The short pale one. Engineering colors. No weapon. Bearing's off doesn't move like one of ours. Tag him quietly and keep your eye on em."

The lead guard gave a curt nod. "Understood." One trooper broke off without a word, boots fading into the hum of the deck. The rest of the patrol kept pace as if nothing had passed between them. Dravos fell back into formation, his expression unreadable behind the visor. The recruits kept marching, perfectly silent. But the air had changed an invisible current running through the ranks. Somewhere in the ship's internal network, silent markers lit the map like faint embers, following Braze's path in real time.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

Braze stood there, letting the old windbag blow off his steam. For propriety's sake, he put on a convincing show of cringing beneath the harsh reprimand, even managing a suitably humbled nod. When the order came, he replied with a simple, dutiful "Yes, sir."

Requisitions actually sounded like an interesting place to explore... and maybe a convenient way to gather information. He even had a few names and badge numbers in mind he could jot down in that 'report,' a subtle touch of poetic justice for the ones who hadn't exactly been friendly since he'd come aboard.

Without further ado, Braze turned and did as commanded, heading down the corridor with all the weary obedience of a chastised crewman. He did, however, make a brief detour to the nearest privy along the way, and once the door slid shut behind him, the maintenance worker simply… disappeared.

 

[Laphisto]

As Braze rounded the corner, the squad shadowing him adjusted their pace, quietly tracking his movements down the corridor. When he slipped through the washroom door, one of the soldiers who had broken off earlier reappeared from the opposite end of the hallway they'd moved ahead of the main group to cut off any potential escape.

A brief exchange crackled over their encrypted comms short, precise, and silent to anyone outside the channel. With a subtle hand signal, the squad leader advanced toward the door. On his mark, the team breached. The first man entered low and fast, rifle sweeping across the nearest corner; the next peeled right, covering the stalls, while another pivoted to secure the rear. Their movements were fluid and rehearsed methodical, professional, and wordless.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

Braze was just… standing there, washing his hands at the sink. The sound of running water filled the uneasy silence as the squad burst in to the privy. He glanced over his shoulder at the men with a blank, mildly confused expression. Slowly but awkwardly he raised his hands still covered in soap suds.
"...You boys ever heard of knocking?"

 

[Laphisto]

The squad leader leveled his LO-20D at Braze, the compact slugthrower settling neatly into his grip like it belonged there. The weapon's matte finish caught the harsh overhead light as the rest of the squad moved into formation beside him, each soldier falling into place with quiet precision no chatter, no hesitation, just the seamless rhythm of trained professionals.

"Identification number and tags," the leader ordered, his voice carrying smoothly through the vocoder calm, firm, and unmistakably practiced. There was no bark to it, no anger, just the kind of tone that said he'd done this a hundred times before and never needed to repeat himself. He stepped closer, armor joints whispering with restrained motion, and extended a gloved hand toward Braze palm up, waiting.
"Present them. Now."

The squad fanned out subtly to cover the angles, rifles held low but ready, their collective stillness adding weight to the moment. The only sounds were the faint click of safety catches disengaging and the slow trickle of water from the sink behind Braze a quiet reminder that one wrong move could turn this routine inspection into something far less forgiving.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

Braze thought the amount of scrutiny he was getting was frankly absurd. Nevertheless, he raised his soap-covered hands to the top of his uniform and reached in before producing the requested items as ordered.

He handed the ID over, soap still clinging to his wrists and now covering the credentials, briefly wondering if any of these soldiers ever stopped to question the kind of perfection they served.

Braze had bartered for a genuine engineering ID from a smuggler who dealt in stolen ship manifests. The credential had been real, tied to a man named Varo Denth, Maintenance Section 3B. Braze had simply made a new one out of the old one as if it have been re printed with a new image, he had overlaid his own biosignature and updated image onto the record, borrowing a life no one aboard would think to question. He had even gone so far as to match the man's appearance with the hair and make up he had.

The ship's system would recognized him as Denth, clearance tags and all. It was a viable disguise... at least until someone dug deep enough to notice the irregularities. The original ID itself had been lifted from a dead crewman, one who'd suffered an 'unfortunate maintenance dock accident.' And hadn't checked in in about a day's length of time. Braze chose not to dwell on whether that accident had been as accidental as the smuggler claimed.

Incidentally, that was also how he'd come by his uniform, though as he was learning now no Side arm accompaniment.

Braze's gaze shifted between the two soldiers before settling on one of them. A slow, knowing smile crept across his face.

"Oh… didn't think we'd be meeting again so soon... Thought we agreed to keep that little incident between us~" He let the pause hang just long enough to make the others wonder what, exactly, again meant.

 

[Laphisto]

The sergeant held the ID card up, visor reflecting the flickering holo as his HUD began a background scan. The other eight soldiers held their weapons steady no one flinched, no one lowered a barrel. The silence in the washroom grew heavy, the hum of armor servos the only sound. Before the scan even finished, they knew. No one in the Order talked like that. Not with that tone, not under nine rifles. On the silent comms, confirmations rippled through the squad wrong cadence, wrong posture, wrong tone of voice.

The sergeant didn't let it show. His voice stayed cold and procedural."Specialist. You're wanted in the Forward Hub. Your Head of Staff's been searching for you since 0900." He stepped aside slightly, leaving just enough space for Braze to move but nowhere to run. "We'll escort you."Weapons didn't lower; if anything, the formation subtly tightened. It was clear this wasn't a request

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

This was, in truth, a frivolous venture for Braze, born of curiosity and dressed as courage.
He'd chased the lead on a rumor, and it would seem his laziness in doing any real research was finally catching up to him.

Somewhere under the hum of servos, he could almost hear the Force sigh. He wasn't getting much from the owners of the nine barrels leveled at him. They might as well have been droids with the way they moved, empty of hesitation, eyes unreadable behind polarized visors.

What he was seeing went beyond discipline; it was conditioning. Someone had scraped away the softness that made people human and left behind reflex wrapped in armor. Their paranoia and obsessive adherence to a doctrine of control had clearly paid off in this moment. Everything about this felt wrong.

He'd been told and ordered to do one thing, only to find himself shadowed by an entire squad sent to verify him. The little they'd shared was enough to piece it together: whoever he was impersonating had been noticed missing.

So what was the move?

They didn't want a firefight here, not in a washroom, not aboard their own ship. They wanted what was to come to be quiet and contained, somewhere familiar to them. They wanted control. Braze, for all his recklessness, wasn't about to hand them that kind of comfort. His cover was thin, and they likely wanted to 'escort' him to a secured area for interrogation.

This was not the place to sow doubt. Trying to turn them on one another would be a fantasy; their conditioning ate hesitation for breakfast. Short term survival by playing along only pushed him into a worse cage. Act now and the whole ship would wake; wait and they would lock him somewhere worse. He needed a move that lowered the immediate threat without triggering a shipwide alarm.

He stepped back half a pace, posture slightly off, and coughed into the heel of his hand. His breath came shallow, his knees loose, as if the deck itself had shifted beneath him. A faint, sheepish smile flickered across his face.

"Right. Sorry about that. I'll go with you," he said, voice soft and unfocused. "Haven't been feeling too great lately, head's been fuzzy." he said, voice carrying that same odd, playful cadence as before, though now it leaned toward that delusional sort of giddiness people slipped into when they were too tired to think straight and started making dumb decisions.

 

[Laphisto]

The lead sergeant said nothing at first, visor unreadable, the faint hum of his armor servos the only sound in the washroom. When he finally spoke, his tone carried that calm, mechanical certainty unique to soldiers who had rehearsed this sort of moment a hundred times before. "Understood, Specialist. Medbay's on the route to the forward hub. We'll make a quick stop there first."

He tucked the damp credentials into a mag-sealed pouch on his belt, the motion crisp and deliberate. A single, subtle gesture followed a two-finger command, barely noticeable but instantly obeyed.

Two soldiers broke formation and exited the washroom without a word, taking up guard positions in the corridor beyond. The sound of their boots faded to a steady rhythm just outside, where they would form the point and rear of the escort column. The door stayed open, the sterile light of the hallway spilling into the room like a silent invitation.

Inside, the remaining seven adjusted seamlessly. Four shifted around Braze in a slow, coordinated arc one ahead, one behind, two to either flank while the last three formed a rear echelon near the sinks and exit, weapons at a relaxed low-ready. Their body language wasn't aggressive; it was certain. Every man in that room knew his role down to the inch.

The sergeant turned on his heel toward the door, speaking without looking back. "After you, Specialist." The line was neutral, even polite but something in the cadence told Braze there was no option being offered here.
Braze

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Laphisto

There were no sudden movements, but he did lower his sudsy-stained hands and wiped them off on his uniform, leaving the sink running. It had long since overflowed, the drain stopped up with a wad of paper towels to fill the basin with hot water. Now the water spilled freely over the edge, dripping down to the tiles in a growing puddle that lapped at his boots. He half slipped in the puddle as he took a step forwards in an attempt to leave.

He took two steps, then paused, staring up at the bright light above until his body reacted just as he wanted it to. The sneeze came sharp and wet, followed by a grotesque snort and sniffle that spoke of someone sick and half-delirious. He mimicked it flawlessly, even managing that damp congestion and post-nasal drip effect. There was an unfortunate fine misted spray of... likely saliva that coated the man who was the closest to him.

Wet, clammy hands rubbed at his nose before dragging down over his face. He lowered his gaze again, blinking slow, and began to follow when prompted. His steps were uneven...just slightly off, as though his equilibrium was shot. The kind of unsteady walk that came from a clogged ear or a fever that threw balance off-kilter.

Every few paces, his hand went up to rub at his eyes and he winced, blinking through the lights and motion of the corridor as though the world hurt to look at. He kept to being rather compliant, with that sick sort of normal people didn't question.

All the while, he was watching. Reading every detail, every rank stripe, every sign and turn, every face that glanced their way. A subtle ripple through the Force sharpened his senses until every sound scraped raw at his nerves, the clack of boots, the buzz of lights, the whisper of breath inside helmets. He made faint little hums and soft "mnns" as he went, the kind of noises like moaned murmurs that came from body aches or fevered discomfort.

"I still have laps to run.... and a report to write up. " He murmured lightly as he walked along. He wanted to see exactly where they were going.

 

[Laphisto]

While the soldiers remained mostly silent, Braze's heightened senses both natural and augmented by the Force peeled back the layers of that silence until he caught the murmurs beneath it. Low voices exchanged clipped words just outside the range of normal hearing. Security protocols. The brig. The High Commander. The fragments came disjointed but meaningful, each one sharp enough to betray purpose. They weren't just escorting him they were isolating him.

Farther down the corridor, a dull metallic clunk echoed. Then another. The rhythmic pattern of automated locks sliding into place reverberated through the deck plating. Somewhere behind them, a bulkhead door sealed with a hiss of pressure. Ahead, another did the same, the overlapping sounds forming a slow, deliberate cage.

A faint vibration carried through the soles of his boots something mechanical shifting through the walls. The background hum of the ship's ventilation began to waver, replaced by the hollow rush of redirected airflow. He could hear it now: vents sealing off, ducts re-pressurizing, and oxygen slowly being bled out of the adjoining maintenance tunnels. The hiss and churn of environmental systems shifted the air pressure around him just enough to feel it in his ears.

The corridor itself began to change character. Where before there had been the distant murmur of technicians, the chatter of crew, and the metallic thrum of tools against plating, now there was only stillness. No maintenance teams. No idle motion. The usual background noise of life aboard the ship had vanished. They were alone now boxed in by procedure and reinforced steel Even without looking, Braze would know: this section had been quarantined.


Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

Braze's senses were so augmented he could practically hear the heart beats and blood flow of the men escorting him. It was a grating experience and made him see what Aris Noble likely lived with at a constant in a new light. He took stock and tore of the sound she could hear trying to piece them together like a puzzle with an end result that he couldn't quite glean.

From what scraps he could pick up from it seemed like the goal was still to isolate, contain, and deliver him for interrogation without a public scene. He sniffled here and there seemingly remaining compliant and sickly. It would seem as though none of his 'tricks' were phasing a single person aboard this ship.

Braze smiled into the fevered mask and let the ship do the heavy lifting for him. This was a free, fully stocked training range with live targets and live data. He could hear it all and he could map it all. Every phase in this little capture operation taught him how they thought. Every sealed bulkhead told him how they contained a problem. And every quiet comm chattered sentence told him what they trusted and what they did not. This was gold.

Braze kept his hands limp, his eyes half glazed, and let the escort funnel him forward. Up close he catalogued them like a set of instruments. He picked up on all the small things, like patterns, and subtle habits. He filed them away in to his ever growing library of information.

He could still easily escape. But what fun would that be? Causing chaos would also risk someone getting shot. He did not come to cause harm. He came to pay an impromptu visit to Laphisto but learning how his men worked would no undoubtedly teach him how to break them as well.

He let them route him where they wanted.

If interrogation came, he would be ready. If Force suppression tech waited, he had contingencies. If a cell was clean and cold, it would be an excellent classroom. But his mission was likely going to be sucessful as it seeme dthe High Commander was coming to him.

 

[Laphisto]

Soon enough, the soldiers marched Braze into a side room at the end of the corridor. The metal door sealed behind them with a muted hiss, locking the sound of boots and voices outside. The room was simple steel, light, and silence. A single table sat bolted to the deck, the kind of space used for debriefs or interrogations, depending on how the conversation went.

Laphisto stood at the far side, arms folded, posture straight. He didn't speak at first; he just watched them enter, one ear flicking toward the sound. When his gaze finally settled on Braze, a quiet frown pulled at his features. "Whoever you are, you've caused quite a stir. Engineering personnel don't usually need a full squad to escort them off the deck." he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "So let's start with your name the real one.."
As he spoke, a faint glow of golden-red kindled in his eyes. The shift wasn't deliberate; it was instinct the Force responding to his focus. What followed felt like the world itself taking a deep breath.

The energy that poured from him came not as a strike, but as an inevitability vast and heavy, like an ocean breaking against stone. It wasn't rage or threat; it was simple reality, the weight of a man who could no longer contain all that he was. The Light and the Dark surged together, each current folding over the other until the air itself seemed to ripple.

That was when Braze felt it. The Force wasn't simply present around Laphisto anymore it moved. Not in flickers of light or traces of shadow, but in steady, synchronized waves. Light and Dark radiated from him as one current, blending so seamlessly that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. The air around him carried that charge warm and cold at the same time, like standing too close to both a flame and an open freezer vent.

To the soldiers in the room, it was barely noticeable a faint pressure in the ears, the kind of subtle distortion that came with heavy shielding or high-output power cores. But to Braze, it was unmistakable. The Force was bleeding from Laphisto in equal parts serenity and gravity, washing through the room in slow, controlled pulses. This wasn't imbalance or excess emotion it was containment. A man carrying too much energy to ever fully hide it, whose presence alone bent the atmosphere.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

Braze decided he had hidden long enough. The quiet mask of art of the small fell away as easily as a breath released, and with it came the full gravity of who he was.

A powerful presence rippled through the room, soundlessly. It washed over those present in a singular wave as his Force presence expanded outwards in a broad, steady sweep. Within moments it filled the chamber completely and stretched beyond it, bleeding through the bulkheads until it felt as though the very air aboard the ship was alive beneath his awareness. It carried a radius of dominion that left no question who stood at the center.

His presence was distinct, cold and resilient at its core and warm at the edges, threaded with that peculiar empathy that made his influence feel like an open connection to a guarded point. It was not suffocating nor forceful, but intimate, like a door left slightly ajar between minds.

He reached up and removed the head covering of his uniform along with the wig, shaking out the white hair beneath. The sterile light caught the strands, gleaming faintly like starlight as they fell around his face.

"It's me," he said, voice laced with a playful teasing tone. "Braze~ I think we've met a few times now, haven't we~? Aren't you glad to see me?"

He asked in a cheeky sort of playful manner that suggested that he'd come here on a whim as he continued giving Laphisto a cat like grin.

"So... what happens next, Commander? Do we compare notes, or do you prefer the part where you pretend I'm a prisoner~?"

 

[Laphisto]

Laphisto let out a quiet, tired sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl as his hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. His ears twitched back slightly, betraying the mild irritation simmering beneath his calm exterior.

"Oh, for the love of the gods..." he muttered, his voice low, gravelly with restrained exasperation. "What are you doing here, Braze? If you wanted a routine conversation, you could have just asked to come aboard. There was no need for all this..." he gestured vaguely toward the squad still standing on edge, "...procedure."

The faint glow faded from his eyes as he drew a steadying breath, the residual haze of his Force sight clouding his vision. He blinked a few times, squinting against the harsh light. It wasn't entirely clear if he was glaring at Braze or just trying to bring the man into focus.

His tone softened slightly, though the edge of command never left it. "You know the kind of reaction this stunt provokes. So, I'll ask again plainly this time." He shifted his weight onto one leg, tail flicking once behind him as his arms crossed again over his chest. "What are you doing here?"

The words carried no malice, only the heavy weight of a man too experienced and too weary to be surprised anymore. The air still hummed faintly around him, a reminder that even when he wasn't trying, the Force refused to stay quiet.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Laphisto ​

"Your troops train constantly, so I treated this as a live-fire practice for myself; a harmless test to see how good your security really is. I learned a lot from it, and since I came here to see you anyway, I'll call it a successful mission.... Consider it empirical observation. I came to MAINLY see you, of course. I wanted to look into some rumors I'd heard and make a proposition if they turned out to be true… I'll admit, I got further than I expected. If you think about it, you should be thanking me. Every defense system needs stress-testing. I just happen to specialize in creative methodologies. Consider this easy mode.... Your sink in the privy however is still running... I can only imagine the water damage that might come from that. None of your men thought turn it off. "

 

[Laphisto]

"I'm sure they had more important matters to attend to… all things considered."

Laphisto's tone was dry, but the faint edge of weariness behind it said more than sarcasm could. He turned his head toward the sergeant, gave a small, formal bow, and brought his fist to his chest in the customary salute. The motion was echoed immediately by the soldier, who then gathered his men with a silent nod and filed out of the room. The metallic thud of boots against the deck faded down the corridor, leaving only the low hum of the ship's systems in their wake.

Straightening to his full height, Laphisto thumbed the side of his commlink. "Release the lockdown," he ordered, his voice carrying the calm finality of command. "All hands, return to normal duties."

The brief crackle of confirmation over the comm was followed by a deep exhale through his nose. He turned back toward Braze, one ear twitching in muted irritation, the other flicking toward the lingering echo of footsteps. "You've already wasted enough man-hours as it is."

He gestured for the young man to follow, the movement sharp but unhurried. As he stepped through the threshold, a low rumble built in his throat a sound halfway between a growl and a sigh, instinctive and restrained. "And what rumors, were worth all this trouble to come verify in person?"

Braze