Glaive stayed dark as it moved through open space, its systems pared down to the bare minimum required to keep the ship alive and on course. Mikael had cut engine output to the lowest level that still allowed for controlled drift, letting inertia do most of the work while the ship slid through a region of space most navigational maps treated as an absence rather than a destination. No stations advertised themselves here, no trade lanes intersected cleanly, and no authority bothered to name the region beyond a string of coordinates and warning markers. Ships passed through from time to time, but none lingered long enough to leave a trace.
Jerad preferred it that way.
He stood behind the pilot's seat with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his posture relaxed but deliberate, his eyes fixed on the forward glass. He had ordered the overlays stripped away and the navigational highlights disabled, leaving only raw space ahead of them: distant stars sliding slowly across the field of view as Glaive adjusted its angle by fractions of a degree at a time. It was easier to think without the illusion of control that displays tended to provide.
"Empire traffic is still expanding," Mikael said, his voice calm but tight with focus. "Not fast. Steady."
Jerad didn't look away from the glass. "How steady."
Mikael tapped a control and brought up a muted tactical display on his private screen, angled just enough for Jerad to see if he chose to. Dots marked patrol vessels. Faint arcs indicated sensor overlap. The pattern was subtle, but unmistakable to anyone who knew how to read it. There were more ships now than there had been an hour earlier, and more an hour before that.
"They're not flooding the region," Mikael said. "They're stitching it together."
Pethia leaned forward from her station, studying the pattern. "That kind of coverage takes coordination."
"Yes," Mikael replied. "And patience."
Jerad nodded once. "They're not reacting," he said. "They're executing."
Thessa, strapped into the rear station with her arms folded, shifted slightly in her seat. "Executing what."
"That," Jerad said, "is the question."
The ship gave a low, almost imperceptible creak as temperature differentials shifted along the hull. Somewhere deeper inside Glaive, a system cycled on and off, quiet enough to avoid notice but persistent enough to be felt if you knew the ship well. Jerad felt it, the way he always did, like a restrained breath being held just a little too long.
Pethia glanced toward the corridor that led deeper into the ship. "The kid's asleep."
"Good," Jerad said without hesitation.
Damon, standing near the hatch with his arms loose at his sides, didn't comment. His attention was fixed on the long-range passive feed, his eyes tracking faint fluctuations that refused to resolve into anything solid. He'd been still for a long time.
"They're filtering civilian signals," Damon said finally. "That's new."
Mikael frowned. "They always filter civilian noise."
"Not like this," Damon replied. "They're narrowing variance. Tightening the acceptable range."
Jerad turned his head slightly. "Looking for outliers."
"Yes," Damon said. "Ships that move wrong. Stop wrong. Avoid wrong."
Pethia let out a slow breath. "So hiding makes us stand out."
"Exactly," Jerad said. "Normal behavior is camouflage now."
He raised a hand and tapped the side of his ear. "Saya."
For a moment, nothing happened.
The silence stretched longer than any of them liked. Long enough for the absence itself to feel deliberate.
Then the comm light blinked.
Static flooded the cockpit before resolving into Saya's face. The image was rough, fragmented at the edges as her signal fought its way through unstable relays and degraded infrastructure. She looked tired, more so than she had the last time Jerad had seen her, and there was a tightness around her eyes that hadn't been there before.
"You shouldn't be calling me," she said.
"Neither should you," Jerad replied evenly. "But you warned us."
Saya's gaze flicked off screen for a moment before returning. "Empire oversight protocols went active three hours ago."
Thessa straightened in her seat. "Across how much space."
"All of it," Saya said. "At first it looked localized. It isn't."
Mikael swore quietly under his breath.
"They're closing lanes," Saya continued. "Not completely. Just enough to see who reroutes."
Jerad's expression didn't change. "So they're watching reactions."
"Yes," she said. "And logging them."
Pethia leaned closer to her console. "Who authorized it."
Saya hesitated, and that hesitation was answer enough.
"That's the problem," she said. "No single name."
Jerad's jaw tightened. "An authority block."
"Yes," Saya said. "Old. Quiet. No oversight."
Silence settled over the cockpit, heavier than before.
"Why now," Jerad asked.
Saya's shoulders sagged slightly. "Because something forced them to move before they were ready."
Jerad looked back toward the forward glass, at stars that were still distant and silent but no longer felt empty in the same way. Space hadn't changed. The rules had.
"When do we become interesting," he asked.
Saya didn't answer immediately.
"Soon," she said at last. "If you haven't already."
The connection cut before Jerad could respond.
Mikael leaned back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his face. "That's not good."
"No," Jerad agreed. "It isn't."
Pethia folded her arms. "So what's the play."
Jerad turned from the glass, his voice steady and certain. "We stop behaving like fugitives."
Thessa frowned. "You want to be seen."
"I want to look normal," Jerad said. "Even when it isn't safe."
Mikael glanced back at him. "That's how people die."
"Yes," Jerad said. "And that's why it works."
He stepped forward and placed a hand on the console, feeling the faint vibration of the ship beneath his palm.
"We dock," he said. "We refuel. We take contracts we don't need. We pass through places we shouldn't."
"And if they stop us," Pethia asked.
"Then we answer," Jerad said. "Calmly."
Glaive adjusted course.
Ahead of them, a station beacon flickered to life, its signal weak but steady.
Behind them, Empire patrols logged another minor shift in civilian traffic.
One more data point.
Still not enough to trigger an alert.
But enough to keep the ship on the list.