Major Kuba hadn’t commed for her father, instead she’d commed for her mother. Now, she sat in the half empty mess hall across from her, her fingers trembling slightly as she opened yet another secure report on her datapad. There were muted clatters of plates and distant talking, but she barely registered it. Sleep had eluded her since Argassa mentioned Nexus, that single word reopening wounds she’d thought long scarred over.

  Every search, every classified file had been erased from history, there were only so many people who knew its name and they never spoke it aloud, not anymore. The file in front of her confirmed her worst fears—the Brakers had resurrected the system that had cost her brother and countless others their lives.

  Professor Zhal scrolled through her own datapad, seemingly doing something similar. “You haven’t touched your food,” the Professor observed, setting down her datapad to eye her critically. “And when was the last time you even ate a proper meal? You’ve lost weight again.”

  “I eat enough, Mom,” Ashley replied, pushing the plate in front of her away, the practiced formality of ‘Professor’ falling away. She straightened unconsciously under her mother’s scrutiny. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy obsessing over AI as usual.” Zhal stated flatly, not a question but a knowing observation. “Why did you call me out at this time of night? It wasn’t just for a late snack?”

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Knew what?”

  “That the Brakers had resurrected Nexus?”

  “Damned child never stops digging,” Professor Zhal let out a breath, swallowed and simply said. “Would it have made a difference, to your work or to Doli?”

  “You buried everything so tight no one could find out anything about it, and you know I’ve been looking for years….ever since….”

  “Stop it,” Zhal said. “Why do you think it was buried so deep. Marcus was not your fault.”

  “I had the code re-written mom. I had it right there.” She tapped the table with a finger as if the code really was right there.

  “You were twelve,” Zhal said. “To them, nothing more than a child playing with systems she knew nothing about.”

  “I should have made them believe me. Mar—”

  “No,” Zhal was adamant. “The worlds best designers worked on Nexus. It wouldn’t have worked; nothing would have stopped what happened. It just happened.”

  “The Brakers and the Boutacks,” Kuba prodded, now knowing everything attached to their names.

  “Were always at loggerheads. After their falling out the Boutacks pulled their original coding back, refused to partake in anything Military. The Brakers kept going believing they could make their systems work without it. They believed it so much they convinced everyone else. After the incident, they too pulled back and we buried everything we could. Knowing it would cause nothing but more pain. You were just a child,” her mother reiterated. “A child who adored her big brother.”

  “But the Boutacks started to fund projects again, why?”

  “The Hinadas. They needled Andri’s father into believing medical usage was worth it. That helping people was worth it.”

  “So Doli and the C47?”

  “Meant to do just that, work together without human input.”

  “No one ever even tested my code.” Her mother didn’t look away, this argument hashed and rehashed many a time. It had been deleted of course, just as Nexus was, or so they thought. She had to start again, almost ten years later. “Did you really just hope the Brakers would give up?”

  “Our hope was that with your ingenuity and drive, you’d keep learning, you’d thrive and eventually we’d have a fix for all the AI problems we’ve had in the past. That we didn’t need the Breakers, or the Boutacks.”

  Kuba shook her head. “But Doli failed.”

  “Because they made her fail, everything they touch fails,” Zhal admitted. “They didn’t want you and Doli to thrive, because they want Nexus to.”

  Ashley’s jaw tightened, her hand instinctively curling into a fist. “After all the lives it cost—.”

  “The Brakers have never cared about lives lost,” Zhal reminded her softly. “Only advancement and profit. Selling AI that is flawed to anyone who thinks it will save them time.”

  “They have partial override codes from the Boutack family," she said. "If they manage to integrate those with Doli’s architecture...”

  “They could bypass the ethical constraints entirely,” Zhal finished. “Create the weapon they always wanted.”

  “It makes sense, all the times we’ve been infiltrated. Watched. It was Nexus all along. We’re up against an AI they’ve been perfecting all these years I’ve been learning.”

  “Perfecting is a very loose term for that thing.”

  Kuba wasn’t surprised at her mother’s tone, at first every mention of AI in their house had ended in tears and screaming matches. The only way she’d gotten away from that was signing up. Eventually she had joined her mother at the Academy, and together they’d rebuilt not just Doli, but something of a normal relationship.

  The sight of Piotr’s simulation scores were visible on Zhal’s screen and she cringed. Their last encounter, the raw anger that had overtaken her when he’d mentioned Nexus, the hurt and confusion in his eyes when she’d ordered him out. The word alone had been enough to shatter everything around her, to make her lash out at the one person who’d begun to break through her carefully constructed walls.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  There were too many lies, too many truths buried, and she couldn’t trust anyone, not even her own family. Kuba closed her eyes, stomach churning.

  “I just blew it,” she admitted quietly, almost to herself. “I blew up like a volcano because of all these walls, these lies, your lies.”

  “With Argassa?” Zhal asked, her tone careful, neutral.

  Ashley nodded, fingers tightening around her mug. “He found out about Nexus. I— I just reacted.”

  “That name has such power over you,” Zhal observed. “Even after all these years.”

  “It’s not just a name,” Kuba said, her voice hardening.

  The truth of her mother’s words were uncomfortable but undeniable. The moment they knew Marcus had died; Kuba vowed to create an AI that would do what Nexus was supposed to. It was her legacy. But every threat against Doli felt personal now—not just because of the program she’d built, but because Piotr was caught directly in the crossfire.

  Zhal picked up her datapad again. “Argassa’s latest results are... surprising,” Zhal said, trying to deflect the uncomfortable tension. “His approach to anything he does is unconventional, but he solves problems with a kind of intuitive brilliance. He’s not only catching up, but he’s also excelling.”

  “He’s using everything that Doli can provide him, I wouldn’t have expected anything else.” Kuba nodded, though her eyes stayed fixed on her mug. “He’s more capable than he realizes.”

  Zhal set the datapad down with a thunk. “You talk about him differently now.”

  “Meaning?” Kuba asked, trying her best not to look her mother in the eyes. She took another long sip of her coffee.

  “Meaning you’re personally invested,” Zhal replied quietly.

  Kuba exhaled, leaning back in her chair. Her mother’s perceptiveness was one of her greatest strengths, and her most frustrating at times.

  “He’s… unique,” Kuba admitted, choosing her words carefully. “When I first brought him in, I thought he was just another outlier, someone who could help fix Doli’s systems, see what I couldn’t, create what we needed. But now...” She trailed off, struggling to find professional language for what was becoming increasingly personal.

  “Now you see him,” Zhal finished. “Not just what he can do for the program.”

  “He’s important to our objectives,” Kuba replied, more defensive than she intended, falling back on the language of duty.

  Zhal didn’t flinch though. “To the program, yes. But also, to you. Have you spoken to your father about this?” Zhal asked carefully. “About your personal involvement with Cadet Argassa?”

  Kuba tensed. “There’s no ‘personal involvement’ to speak of.”

  “Ashley,” Zhal soothed. “We might have spent some time apart as you grew into a woman. But I can see what’s happening. And if I can see it, your father will too.”

  “He’d say I’m compromising myself,” Kuba admitted reluctantly. “That I’m letting emotion cloud my judgment—just like he warned me when I first asked him to help fast-track Argassa’s admission.”

  “And is he right?”

  “Maybe.” Kuba’s jaw tightened more. “But that doesn’t change what needs to be done.”

  Zhal sighed. “Your father has always been... rigid in his approach to duty. It’s what makes him an excellent Admiral, but...” She hesitated. “He was the same with your brother, you know. He never understood how Marcus could be both emotionally invested and effective.”

  “Until it got him killed,” Kuba replied.

  “That wasn’t about Marcus’s heart, Ashley. That was about technology that wasn’t ready, that was pushed into service too soon. The Brakers failed him, not us.” Zhal reached across the table, her hand covering Kuba’s briefly. “Nexus failed him, not you.”

  Silence fell between them again; they were going around in circles like they did after Marcus’s death.

  “Remember that day we said goodbye to him at the docks?” Zhal asked softly. “How he refused to show fear, even when the systems were still being tested? You couldn’t eat for days afterward.”

  Ashley swallowed hard. “I knew it, I knew he wasn’t coming back because I was just a kid with a dumb idea. A fix to a code even adults couldn’t work out.”

  The fact no one even looked at it had hurt her even more. It didn’t stop her from trying to fix it now though.

  “And that’s why you’re driving yourself so hard with Doli now,” Zhal observed. “You think she’ll keep him safe out there, don’t you?”

  “I know she will. She’s different. She can think, adapt—she won’t fail like Nexus did.”

  “We’ve both lost too much to let history repeat itself.” Zhal’s gaze softened, and her voice with it. “Protecting Argassa and Doli isn’t just your burden, Ashley—it’s ours.”

  The use of her first name made Major Kuba look up.

  “You know I only got a three-minute comm from him this week,” she said. “He looked exhausted. The front-line reports aren’t good. Four more drone carriers lost to system failures during engagement.”

  Ashley’s fingers tightened around her mug. “Did he say anything about the new defense protocols?”

  “Only that they’re struggling. The current AIs can’t process tactical data fast enough in combat situations.” Zhal paused. “I know how important Doli is to you.

  “To everyone.” Kuba said. “You miss him, don’t you?”

  “Who?” Zhal asked. Then added. “Of course I do. But being here, teaching was my calling. Besides, watching you, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

  Kuba looked up, surprised. Her parents rarely spoke of their early relationship. “He never told me that.”

  “Of course not,” Zhal said with a soft laugh. “Your father likes to pretend he’s always been the embodiment of military discipline. But there was a time when he was willing to risk quite a lot for what he believed in, including me. The officer and the teacher—the council nearly had a collective meltdown.””

  Kuba’s grip tightened around her mug. Finally, Zhal reached for the datapad again, her tone shifting to something more professional, offering Kuba the reprieve she desperately needed.

  “What are you going to do going forward?” Zhal asked. “This transcript, Macks’ conversation with the Brakers?”

  “We can’t change…” she checked the time. “We can’t change todays’ missions out there, they’ve been planned for weeks. If we abandoned it all now, and left the station, they’d know everything was compromised. Not just what Piotr and Andri uncovered.”

  “But an outright attack, in plain sight?”

  “We have to let it play out. They know, they can deal with it. They’ve done nothing but train together, almost twenty-four-seven.”

  “We are all aware of the team’s extracurricular activities. Both in Zero-G and in the pods.”

  Kuba sighed. “And your thoughts on Doli?”

  “She responds to him in ways she doesn’t with anyone else—not even you.”

  Kuba remembered the way Piotr spoke to Doli—not as a program or tool, but as a partner, a friend. That connection was something she’d never anticipated, something that made both Doli and Piotr uniquely valuable.

  “Then trust him. Trust yourself too, while you’re at it.” She hesitated, then added, “And maybe give your father a bit more credit. He might surprise you with his understanding. After all, he did marry me despite the council’s objections.”

  Zhal reached into her pocket and pulled out a small metal object—a worn tactical compass with the Fleet insignia. “Your father kept this with him on every mission after Marcus died. Before he left this time he gave it to me.” She placed it on the table between them. “Maybe you’ll find strength in it. Like we both have.”

  Ashley stared at it, unable to reach out. She sucked in a breath, took it and gently held it, feeling its weight in her palm. Now she had the strength to stand, her posture as straight and rigid as ever, armor sliding back into place. “Thank you, Professor. Keep me updated on your progress.”

  “Of course,” Zhal said, dipping her head. “Just look after yourself.”

  Kuba tucked the compass into her pocket. She couldn’t promise that—not when Doli’s completion might demand everything she had.

  Ashley turned just before she was out of ear shot. “Mom?” Zhal looked up at her. “I’ll make this right. For all of them. I promise.”