That night, Tarn slipped into the comms vault beneath the Civic Core.
Mira was already there—arms crossed, watching a projection of the Helix Run as it drifted in orbit above Aurex, its transponder blinking like a heartbeat in open sky.
"No escort," she said quietly. "No heavy weapons. But they're not blind."
Tarn nodded once.
"Let's see what they're hiding."
Kora dimmed the lights as the transmission data unspooled across the central console. Lines of code, encryption tags, astrogation logs—clean on the surface. Too clean.
Tarn pointed. "That nav signature—it's not right. It says they used the Hydian Way two jumps back."
"But?"
"That route's shut. Republic closed it six months ago after a collapse near the Golvanta Cut."
Mira leaned closer.
"So they lied."
"Or spoofed it. But the real tell's here—"
He pulled up a secondary log, deeper in the system's passive net scrape.
"Sensor bleed from the ship's cooling systems shows dust from a hyperlane corridor that's not on any public map."
Her eyes narrowed. "Private lane?"
"Or experimental. Either way—someone gave them access."
Mira looked at the glowing silhouette of the diplomatic ship.
"They didn't stumble here," she said.
Tarn nodded grimly.
"They were sent."