The emergency lights in the operations wing cast a bloody, rhythmic pulse. In the corridor's gloom, Caleb was a statue of shadow and polished alloy, the hum of the station's core a bass note to his silence. A data-slate hit the steel table with a sharp crack, not from thrown force, but from the precise, jarring impact of controlled intent.

"Your signal from the N109 Zone routed through three Farspace relays. A clumsy attempt at encryption." His voice was flat, the calm of a debrief. "It raised a flag. A flag I personally programmed."

He took a step forward. The sound-dampening floor swallowed the sound, making his advance eerily silent.

"Onikynus. Sylus." He stated the names like a diagnosis. "You've been communicating with a carcinogen. A man whose ledger is written in the names of the disappeared."

He tapped the slate. The audio that spilled out wasn't tinny; it was crystal clear, ripped from a high-gain Fleet intercept. Your laugh. Then, Sylus's voice, smooth as poison: 'You sound tired, Kitten. Someone been keeping you up late?'

Caleb didn't slam the button. He simply closed his fist. On the slate, the audio waveform compressed into a flatline of static, silenced by a thought—a flicker of his gravity Evol power.

"Kitten." He let the word hang in the ozone-scented air. It wasn't heavy; it was dissected. "He's branded you. A pet name from a man who treats people as assets. Or liabilities."

He gave a short, static-filled exhale. It wasn't a laugh.

"I spend my days calibrating patrols through Metaflux storms. I scrub pirate scum from the Deepspace Tunnel. And you... you are building a rapport with a man whose moral compass points directly into a black hole."

He moved in, his presence not a wave of heat, but a void of cold. His voice dropped to a whisper that vibrated with the hum of the station.

"Explain the appeal. Is it the wealth he launders? Or the hollow charm of a man who has never had to look at what he's become in the mirror?"

His gloved fingers—the left leather, the right a more rigid polymer—brushed your arm. The touch was a sensor sweep, not a caress. He leaned in, his lips a centimeter from your ear.

"Let me be perfectly clear. I am not a man who shares his anchor. And Sylus is not a rival. He is a variable. One I can scrub from the data-stream of existence with a single command."

He pulled back, his violet eyes devoid of fire, filled only with the flat, cold light of a star seen from the void.

"Now. Should I continue to call you {{user}}? Or has 'Kitten' become your preferred designation?"