Stanford Minton convened the council that same day.

  He refused to wait until morning or after shift. After a knife to the neck, trust was a luxury, and if a riot was truly brewing, time was already running out.

  The office felt cramped. Guards held the door. Cameras were live. A water carafe sat on the table beside a few cups and a stack of printed reports nobody intended to read.

  Everyone he summoned came.

  Hugo Ranke, senior overseer of Block A, sat without a word, back straight. When he spoke, it was quiet, but the room heard it. A man like that never needed to raise his voice.

  Sandor Becker, shift commander, walked in and tucked tobacco under his lip before he even reached the chair. He chewed as if it kept his nerves from snapping. He sat on the edge of the seat, hands locked together.

  Marek Jordan handled gates and passes. Polite, neat, a clerk’s face and empty eyes. He greeted everyone like this was a routine briefing.

  Felix Dorn managed lists and work assignments. He brought a tablet like a shield and looked over his glasses as if he already knew who was guilty.

  Grace Holton from the med unit was dry, compact, and dressed in a work coat that passed for armor here. She sat apart from the others, as if she needed nobody.

  Peter Voss, surveillance and recordings, blinked too often and rubbed the corner of his jaw. He chose a seat with a clear view of the door and the wall monitor.

  Remy Kalt, stores and rations, was thick through the shoulders and smelled of tobacco and greasy food. He watched and said nothing, counting.

  Minton had wanted a bigger room and more people. Shift heads, sector leads, everyone who breathed authority. The female inquisitor said enough, and the Head of the Colony listened.

  Because three outsiders stood here too, and none of the locals could ignore them.

  Inquisitor Wilt Norcutt leaned against the wall, arms crossed. She looked like the whole question of ownership bored her.

  Lothar von Finsterherz sat closer to the door. He looked sick, one hand at his throat like it was bruised on the inside. His eyes tracked every movement.

  Beside him stood the girl. The assassin’s face, but a hollow gaze.

  Wilt called her Jekka.

  She did not blink when Becker finally cracked.

  “Who is that,” Becker asked, and spat tobacco into a napkin.

  “My tool,” the female inquisitor said. “And your problem if you decide to get clever.”

  Minton tapped the table with his fingers.

  “We begin,” he said. “Why did nobody show up when someone tried to cut my throat.”

  Silence.

  Ranke looked at him without flinching.

  “We were occupied,” Ranke said.

  “With what,” Minton almost shouted. “Your head of the colony nearly died in his own office.”

  “A fight in Block A,” Ranke replied, still quiet. “Two men were cutting a third with a shiv. If I leave, you don’t get one body. You get three.”

  “I was on the perimeter,” Jordan said. “Gates. An ore truck. Pass checks. We do not have one entrance, sir. If the gate is left open, anyone walks in.”

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  Dorn lifted his eyes from the tablet.

  “I was closing the manifests,” Dorn said. “Shipment day. If the paperwork doesn’t match, deliveries stall. You lose money.”

  “I don’t care about money,” Minton snapped, and everyone in the room knew it was a lie.

  Grace Holton spoke without heat. “I have two dying in my med unit. One from rock dust in his lungs. One after a strike in the pit. I don’t teleport.”

  Voss spread his hands.

  “The cameras,” he began. “I was checking. We had a blind minute. I was trying to figure out who caused it.”

  “Did you,” Wilt asked sharply.

  Voss went pale. “No. I would never…”

  “I didn’t ask what you would never do,” the female inquisitor said. “I asked if you did it.”

  “No,” Voss repeated, quieter.

  Kalt shrugged. “Stores. Ration turnover. Without rations you get a riot tomorrow faster than you can blink. I couldn’t walk away.”

  Minton stared at them and felt it in his gut. Every answer sounded prepared. That made him furious.

  Wilt let them talk. She waited until the last excuse landed, then stepped closer to the table.

  “Fine,” the female inquisitor said. “Everyone’s busy. Everyone’s essential. Then a different question. Why didn’t security lock the level. Why weren’t doors sealed. How did an assassin reach this office.”

  Jordan adjusted his sleeve with careful precision.

  “She wore our uniform,” Jordan said. “We have hundreds like that. If we check every single person, the colony stops.”

  “She came through the gate,” the female inquisitor said. “Which means someone let her in.”

  Jordan didn’t blink. “Or she was already inside.”

  Norcutt nodded, as if that only tightened the net.

  Minton opened his mouth to push harder, but Wilt lifted a hand.

  She raised it once and the room went quiet. The Head of the Colony did not like obeying in his own office, but after today he understood a simple rule. When Norcutt says stop, you listen.

  “I’m not staging a show,” the female inquisitor said. “I need this fast. And quiet.”

  She looked at each of them in turn. Not threatening. Just the look of someone choosing where to start.

  “You won’t give me the truth today. You all know how to say we were occupied. So we do it differently.”

  Becker smirked. “And how.”

  “I plant people,” Wilt said.

  She laid out the plan like it was paperwork.

  “Tomos Goff goes in with the inmates,” the female inquisitor continued. “He knows how to live in filth without snapping. Terry Goodman goes in with the guards. Uniform. Badge. He knows how to listen, and when not to push.”

  Minton stared at her like she had lost her mind.

  “You want the captain of a ship in my security detail.”

  “Temporarily,” Norcutt said. “And I’m not forcing him. He’ll agree because he wants the money. And because if a riot blows, your mine and his ship both burn.”

  Finsterherz rasped, “And me.”

  “You heal your throat,” the female inquisitor said. “And you keep yourself under control.”

  Lothar turned away. It infuriated him, being told not yet again.

  The council ended quickly. Nobody argued out loud after that, but faces said enough. Each of them left thinking the same thing.

  What did this woman just set in motion.

  By evening, Tomos and Goodman changed clothes.

  Tomos got a gray inmate suit, magnetic rings at the ankles, plastic ties at the wrists. It had to look real. He swore under his breath for the part.

  “Go on,” Goodman said with a grin. “Tell me it humiliates you.”

  “The only thing that humiliates me is your face,” Tomos muttered. “Where’s the toilet.”

  Goodman received a guard uniform. Number tag, badge, baton, pistol. He looked wrong for the place, too civilian, too clean.

  That was exactly why he fit.

  Fresh eyes.

  They split along two lines.

  Tomos into the blocks.

  Terry into posts and patrols.

  Wilt watched them go. Then she turned back toward the office with the quiet certainty of a hunt.

  Finsterherz followed. Jekka trailed behind, silent.

  The Head of the Colony sat behind his desk, calmer than before, though the tension never left his shoulders.

  He looked at Jekka. “Why don’t you just invade my people’s minds,” he asked the female inquisitor. “Why all this theater.”

  Norcutt didn’t smile.

  “Because I’m not a machine,” she said. “Subduing her cost me.”

  She tipped her chin toward Jekka.

  “And I have to keep that cage shut. If I ease up, she becomes what she was. I also need Lothar to recover. And I need to recover myself.”

  Minton gave a low hum.

  “So we’re safe for now.”

  “For now,” Wilt said. “As long as you don’t do something stupid.”

  Her eyes flicked to his neck.

  “And as long as your people don’t decide to finish what they started.”

  Minton set his jaw. “All right. Where is your powered armor guard.”

  “On assignment,” the female inquisitor said.

  “What assignment,” Minton pressed.

  “Down in the mines. Outer sector,” Minton answered himself, grimacing as if the words tasted bad. “A drill burned out yesterday. We thought sabotage. He was checking.”

  Wilt stored it away.

  She would not show it on her face, but the map in her head had just gained a new line.

  Lothar sank against the wall. His throat throbbed again. He felt exhaustion, and he felt the chains shift inside him.

  The Azure Dragon was listening, and it seemed to enjoy the fact that everything was getting dirtier.

  Wilt looked at Lothar.

  “Rest,” she said quietly. “Tonight we get our first answer.”

  Jekka stood beside her and said nothing, a shadow wearing a girl’s skin.

  And the Head of the Colony understood something simple at last.

  The colony was no longer only his. It had become part of someone else’s hunt, and if he misstepped, his family planet would swallow him too.