Chapter Text
You first saw him at the funeral. Not just glimpsed, or acknowledged in passing, but really saw him. Before that, Caleb Xia had been nothing more than just another transmission in the static, a faceless name buried in mission logs and fleet dispatches. You had known of him the way one knew of black holes—far-off anomalies, powerful and impersonal. He was a gravitational constant in the Farspace Fleet, orbiting on the edges of your awareness, never quite intersecting your path.
And yet, that was the moment he entered your orbit. Or rather, collided into it, though it didn't feel like a collision then.
On a day like today, nothing felt like it was supposed to, not with the grief roaring through you like a storm trying to rip through steel. You were too preoccupied with more important things. Like the silence left behind by the only voice you ever truly listened to, and the weight of the small box they placed in your trembling hands, rattling with medals and empty meaning.
Bravery. Honor. Sacrifice.
All the hollow reverence the Farspace Fleet draped over its fallen like ribbons on a corpse. What meaning did such accolades hold for the dead?
You didn't know, but as you stood there, clutching a lacquered box heavy with medallions your little brother would never pin to his coat with that crooked grin of his, something curdled in your stomach.
He would have scoffed at that word—little.
"You're older by what? Five minutes?" he'd say with a grin. "Doesn't count."
But it did count. Five minutes made you the eldest. Five minutes made you his shield and protector. Five minutes meant you were the one who should have died, because otherwise, how shameful was it to be both the first one in and the last one standing?
Now, you stood in front of an empty grave, accepting hollow honours from an organization that had let him die. Your mouth was pressed into a bloodless line, your eyes dry from failing to cry. The bitterness rising in your throat was corrosive and alive, blooming like acid beneath your skin.
Then you saw him.
At first, he was just another face in the sea of mourners, wearing the polite solemnity that funerals demanded. He stood a few rows back—deliberately, you suspected. Not so far as to seem absent. Not so close as to draw attention.
But once your gaze found his, it caught. Because Caleb Xia did not cry. He did not bow his head in regret or parrot the same condolences the others did. His gaze alternated between you and your brother's placeholder grave as if he couldn't make up his mind which of you was the bigger curiosity. His gaze carved through your skin and down into the marrow, as if searching for some fault line to split you open.
He stood in full Farspace regalia, his uniform pressed with military precision, the cold glint of medals decorating him like ornaments. One might have mistaken him for a war hero, but you knew better.
That shining title—Colonel—was new. Your brother's blood was barely dry, and already Caleb had been paraded for his very first mission as commanding officer, the very same mission that had left your family in ruin.
You couldn't think of anyone less deserving of the title.
So how dare he stand there as if he had the right to mourn? How dare he pretend, when he was the one who led your brother into the stars and brought back barely enough remains to mourn?
Every second his eyes remained on you, you fantasized about tearing the medals from your brother's memorial box and ramming them through the sockets of his skull, engraving the consequences of failure right into his goddamn face.
But no, grief wasn't allowed to be ugly. You had to remain composed, and look tragic in just the right way. It was always a performance, because someone was always watching.
Perhaps what made it worse was the fact that your brother had idolized him. You remembered the way his face used to light up when he said the name. Caleb Xia, the elite pilot with impossible reflexes and a spotless record. Caleb Xia, who had risen through the ranks like a comet. Caleb Xia, who made gravity bend and enemies fold, and young soldiers believe.
Your brother had certainly believed, and he died for it.
You hadn't paid attention then, too busy to care for the ramblings of a fanboy. Different departments, different lives. You'd told your brother that you'd get him a photocard of his beloved Colonel once as a joke, and now those very same words lodged in your throat like thorns.
You had never imagined you were capable of feeling such immense loathing. You loathed Caleb's composure and the way he didn't pretend to grieve, because that meant he didn't even care enough to perform. Not even for show.
You had never wanted to be violent so badly in your life.
Eventually, the crowd thinned, their footsteps fading into the vast silence of the hangar-turned-memorial, leaving behind nothing but the scent of cold metal and the flowers you'd never asked for. But of course, the Colonel remained exactly where he was, but this time, you met his gaze deliberately, letting him see the contempt etched into every line of your face.
Words would only dilute the venom, so you glared at him until something shifted. It was barely perceptible, the slightest tick of his jaw that betrayed his otherwise statuesque stillness. He was not made of stone after all.
You almost walked to him then. Almost let your boots carry you across the short but volatile distance. Almost let the resentment do what it had been aching to since the mission report first found your inbox. But you didn't. You exhaled slowly and stayed where you were.
With luck, this would be the last time you ever saw him—this man with too many accolades and too little soul. Different departments, different lives. The Farspace Fleet was too large for casual run-ins.
Besides, you had a few days off. Enough time to cage the wildfire in your chest and coax your malice into something you could live with. Something you could survive.
Because if not...
You were the head engineer of your team. Most fleet vessels passed under your approval at least once. You had access to every bolt, circuit, and pressure seal. If you wanted, you could rig his next solo flight to fail so discreetly the black box would read it as a tragic malfunction. It wouldn't even be difficult, and you'd thought about it. You'd thought about it more than you liked to admit.
No.
You weren't a killer. You still had some fractured piece of morality you clung to, like wreckage from a shipwrecked past, even if the man standing across from you couldn't say the same.
You were convinced that whatever cruel, indifferent beings sat lounging at the helm of the universe despised you. It was the only reasonable explanation.
The moment you returned from your time off, you found yourself summoned to the office of one of the Fleet's polished brass relics. Admiral Harkins was a man who reeked of privilege and sour cologne, and when he gestured for you to sit in the leather chair across his desk, you did. Optics and self-control were what mattered most in this place.
He began speaking at once, his temperament carefully calibrated for sympathy. "The loss of your brother was felt deeply across the ranks. A promising young pilot. A tragic sacrifice."
You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Tragic, indeed. Tragic that no one in this godforsaken institution gave a damn until his body was stardust and his name convenient for morale.
You tuned the rest of his solemn drone out until his next words cleaved through the haze.
"...which is why we felt it would be most fitting to reassign you. Temporarily, of course."
You sat up straighter. "I wasn't aware there were any issues with my current assignment, sir. I've received no complaints from my division, and I'm deeply invested in my team's current project."
Admiral Harkins offered a placating smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Yes, yes, of course. Your work has been exemplary. This isn't a demotion, I assure you."
"Then where, exactly, am I being reassigned?"
His smile widened, as if he'd been waiting for you to ask. "As I said, it's quite the opportunity. You'll be serving as second-in-command to the Colonel himself."
You very nearly let every ounce of disdain twist your lips into something ferocious, but instead, you folded your hands in your lap and forced yourself to sound professional. "I was under the impression the Colonel already has a second-in-command."
The Admiral gave a sympathetic sigh. "A pity, truly. The same mission that took your brother's life also gravely injured the Colonel's deputy. He's currently in long-term care. His condition is stable, but the doctors insist on complete rest."
"With respect, sir, I fail to see how this is the best use of my skills."
"It's only temporary. A few months at most. It would mean a great deal to the Colonel, I'm sure, to know someone reliable is supporting him. He shouldn't be worrying about work while his former second is recovering, wouldn't you agree?"
Ah. There it was, the guilt trip, delivered with just the right tone of paternal disappointment. It was fucking absurd, and you briefly imagined telling the Admiral that if Caleb wanted support, he was most welcome to jump into a black hole to find it.
"Sir, the project I'm currently leading involves calibrating the new grav-thrusters for the Titan-class vessels. We're already on a tight timeline, and my presence is fairly integral to the process."
Admiral Harkins beamed like he was about to award you a prize. "Yes, I'm very aware. Your teammates speak highly of you, which is exactly why we decided to let you continue your little engineering project as well."
"Sir...?"
"Think of it as wearing two hats!" he declared enthusiastically, as if multitasking two completely incompatible full-time roles was perfectly reasonable. "During the hours Colonel Xia has no direct need of you, you're free to return to your workshop. Split your time accordingly."
Now you really wanted to scream. Two hats? What a nice way to describe a psychological death sentence. They expected you to assist a commanding officer and continue building fleet engines on the side? It was a whole new definition of overtime.
And yet, if it had been any other officer or any other role, you would have taken it without question. Better to drown in work than return to the apartment that had your brother's jacket draped over the back of the couch. Better to never sleep at all than to fall asleep deprived of his stupid jokes.
When you didn't respond, the Admiral took it as agreement, and he leaned forward, his conspiratorial tone making your skin crawl. "You see, you're the only one we can really trust with this assignment."
"Trust with what, exactly? Taking meeting minutes?"
"After the tragedy that befell your brother, some of us on the board have begun to question the Colonel's judgment."
You stiffened.
He continued smoothly. "We just want someone reliable—someone who's already suffered the cost of a command gone wrong—to be our eyes and ears. Nothing formal, of course. Just let us know if our concerns are unfounded. Help us rest easy, you know."
Now it made sense. This wasn't a promotion, but a leash. They wanted you close enough to see if Caleb was cracking under the burden of his new position. You stared at the Admiral, and he gave you a sympathetic nod. But this was not up for discussion. There was no denying him.
"Some believe the Colonel may have been directly responsible for how catastrophically the mission deteriorated. I'm sure, given your brother's unfortunate death, you'd want to see this matter resolved. Properly. The transfer documents have already been dealt with."
The implications hung in the air. They were asking you to spy on him, giving you no choice in the matter. And the worst part? They thought they were doing you a favour.
You swallowed hard, nodding stiffly, because to protest further would be to draw attention. "Understood, sir."
The man in front of you clapped once in approval. "Wonderful! You'll be present for mission briefings and tactical updates. You'll sit in on communications between the Colonel and Central Command. Be available during inspections, ship evaluations, and security sweeps. Assist in delegating tasks. Nothing too demanding. Just ensure things run efficiently. I imagine someone of your capabilities can manage that with ease."
"Yes, sir."
"Though, who knows, perhaps your new role will come to an end sooner than we anticipate."
That drew your attention. "If the Colonel's former second recovers quickly?" you asked carefully.
The Admiral gave a casual chuckle. "I meant if the Colonel no longer requires a second-in-command."
"Are you expecting his workload to drop in the upcoming months, sir?"
"No, you silly girl. Gods above, you really don't use your head for anything besides calculations, do you?"
The words should have slid off you like water off reinforced hull plating. But they didn't. They burrowed deep into old wounds and unhealed bruises. Into that quiet place where rage and memory tangled together like rusted wire.
This wasn't the first time, and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last.
You forced your expression into something unreadable and your spine into something unbreakable. You knew this game because you'd been playing it all your life. You were no stranger to such phrases.
Silly girl.
Feisty thing.
Overreacting.
Too sensitive.
Too cold.
Too difficult to work with.
Too ambitious.
Too much.
You'd heard it in the academy from overzealous classmates who dismissed your calculations, only to fail the thermodynamics simulation while yours earned top marks. You'd heard it in every group project where you ended up doing the heavy lifting, while the boys talked over you and then took credit for the success. You'd even heard it here in the Fleet, from officers who swaggered into your workspace with broken gear and worse attitudes—who questioned your methods, your protocols, your qualifications—until you fixed what they couldn't and sent them back out with their tails tucked between their legs.
They never thanked you.
You remembered one in particular. Commander Rusk had smirked and said, "Didn't think a girl like you'd know your way around a soldering iron."
You had smiled sweetly and replied, "Didn't think a man like you would need so many tries to plug in a simple cable."
You never saw him again, which you considered a victory.
But the truth was, the constant scrutiny wore you down. Your competence had to be proven every day, while others were simply assumed to be competent by default. Your voice had to be just authoritative enough to be heard without being called aggressive. Your mistakes, when they happened—because they always did, you weren't flawless—were seen as confirmation of your nature, while men's mistakes were dismissed as anomalies.
"The Colonel might no longer require a second-in-command, because dead men don't need someone to keep their schedule, do they?" Admiral Harkins continued with exaggerated slowness, as if speaking to a child. Then he laughed, like the punchline of a joke he'd told himself a thousand times, and all your initial hostility bled out of you because this was far worse.
Surely not. Surely, even in an institution as corrupt as the Farspace Fleet, he couldn't be suggesting...
But he was.
"Of course, no one would blame you. No one would even need to know. This isn't part of your duties, naturally. Just something to consider." He winked. "You've suffered a terrible loss. In grief, people do things. Understandable things. And the DeepSpace Tunnels, well, accidents happen in there all the time. It's a miracle half the fleet doesn't get swallowed whole."
It was as if he'd reached inside your skull and pulled out every shameful thought you'd tried to bury since the funeral. Of course, the idea had crossed your mind when you'd caught sight of your brother's favourite mug sitting unwashed in the sink.
But thinking it was one thing, and hearing it spoken aloud by this sleazy man was another. It made you want to claw your way out of this room and this goddamned uniform.
Instead, you stood and saluted. "Understood, sir. Eyes and ears. Got it."
The killing wasn't a part of your job description, and for once, you would try not to go above and beyond expectation. Although if Caleb so much as breathed the wrong way in your direction...
You weren't a saint, but you weren't a murderer either.
"If that's all, I'll be taking my leave, sir."
"Good. You may report immediately."
The Colonel's office was on the upper deck of the command wing, lined with star maps and strategic charts that flickered faintly under harsh lighting. No personal artifacts or clutter, just polished steel and silence.
When you arrived, Caleb was standing with his back to you, seemingly engrossed in a terminal screen. You watched his sharp outline, and nearly grimaced. He was practically carved from discipline. His uniform was flawless, with not a thread out of place, and you were supposed to find a crack in this man's armour? You had the worst luck.
He turned at the sound of your footsteps. Up close, he was exactly what you'd imagined, and his unreadable stare met yours with the precision of an unsheathed blade.
"Colonel Xia." You gave him a crisp salute that he didn't deserve. "Reporting as ordered."
The man did not speak, and you found your patience wearing thin.
"I've reviewed the mission logs and communication protocols. I expect I'll be briefed on the remaining duties shortly...sir." You tacked on the honorific belatedly, like an afterthought, and judging by the twitch in his cheek, he noticed.
Caleb took a deliberate step forward, his long legs eating up the distance between the two of you. "We'll go over those after the inspection tour. You'll shadow me for the next several days."
"Of course."
His gaze lingered on your face, and you saw the awareness in it. He knew why you were really here, or at least he suspected. He looked at you the way a predator studies traps, wondering what lethal thing might be waiting just beneath the surface.
You let your eyes narrow a fraction. Maybe a part of you wanted him to know. Maybe you wanted him to feel as uneasy in your presence as you did in his.
"If you have any reservations about this arrangement," he said impassively, "I trust you'll speak to Command." The words were polite enough, but the challenge beneath them was unmistakable.
"No reservations, sir. I always follow orders."
"Do you now."
"Always...sir."
A lie, and you both knew it. You were two storms circling each other, measuring windspeed and calculating damage.
Caleb nodded curtly, thrusting a datapad in your direction and walking out the door without waiting to see if you followed. "I expect these to be completed before 1800 hours. If you have questions, don't waste my time."
You hurried after him, scanning the device with a frown. There were a lot of tasks, spread across several departments, including two that were, technically, not under your jurisdiction. It had to be deliberate. He was testing you.
"Busy day," you remarked casually, flipping through the assignments. "Planning to see how quickly I crack?"
He looked over his shoulder. "I have the right to assess the competence of my new assistant, don't I?"
You hated the way he implied he owned the role as if you hadn't been placed there purposefully, like a scalpel beneath his ribs.
"And if I fail the assessment?"
"Then I report that Command made a mistake assigning you here. And I have you removed."
The corner of your mouth twitched in contempt. "How efficient of you."
"I value efficiency. You should, too. Unless you're going to disappoint me before the first cycle ends."
"You'll have to work harder than that if you want to rattle me, Colonel."
You understood his game now. He wanted you to fail. To explode and prove the story he'd already started writing about you. But you weren't going to make it easy for him.
"After you finish the fighter log discrepancies," he said, clearly moving on, "you'll oversee the diagnostic sweep of Deck Nine."
"That wasn't listed on my assignments."
"Consider it a late addition."
"How convenient."
The rest of the day unfolded like a carefully staged performance, except both lead actors wanted to murder each other.
You completed Caleb's damn checklist. You reviewed the logs, flagged anomalies, and corrected three manual override entries that looked suspiciously like sabotage masked as human error. You even oversaw the hangar bay logistics with brutal efficiency.
No one could say you weren't doing your job, not even him, and in your delusion, you imagined that if every day passed by as uneventfully as your first, perhaps you'd be able to get through this assignment without losing your mind.
That was until your last meeting of the day.
The briefing hall was already full when you entered, the air saturated with recycled oxygen and idle chatter. Officers clustered in tidy rows, muttering among themselves while they waited for the Colonel.
Caleb himself had stopped to speak to another officer just outside the door, so you entered the room alone, and it was like the air changed the moment you did. It was so subtle that you might've missed it if you weren't already expecting it.
Heads turned, and conversations stuttered, paused mid-sentence. Several pairs of eyes tracked your path to the front. Most of them didn't know your name, and even fewer could connect it to your face. That was the nature of your usual role. The head of the engineering division was rarely seen outside hangars and repair bays, and certainly not parading through the corridors like she belonged at the Colonel's right hand.
Yet here you were, so it didn't take long for them to leap to the easiest conclusion. You could feel it in the amused smirks and the hushed whispers.
So that's what the Colonel's into. New assistant, or new personal toy?
Then came the voice, low enough to pretend it hadn't meant to be heard, but too clear to be accidental. "Didn't know the Colonel liked his secretaries broody. Do you think she'll last longer than poor Liam?"
The speaker—Ensign Kallan, by the look of his badge—grinned to himself, clearly proud of the comment, even when the men around him shuffled awkwardly. You saw one look away, and another smirk, but no one corrected him.
The Colonel stood in the doorway now, and although most had registered his presence by now, the idiot who had commented hadn't. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Caleb's fingers twitch, but he didn't say a word in your defence, or so much as look in Kallan's direction. He only tilted his head at you, waiting for a reaction.
You could have stayed silent. You should have stayed silent. But silence, you had learned long ago, was a language best wielded on your own terms.
"Ensign Kallan, was it?" You offered a faint, polished smile that didn't reach your eyes.
He straightened slightly, surprised to be addressed. Of course, he expected you to ignore his jibe. "Yes, ma'am?" The last syllable dripped with sarcasm.
"I understand your confusion. It's easy to mistake capability for ornament when you've never been on the receiving end of either." The room went quiet, but you didn't stop. "But allow me to correct the record. I am not a secretary or a communications officer. I'm the engineer who overhauled the shielding calibration protocol that kept half this fleet from imploding during last cycle's solar breach. My clearance exceeds yours by three levels, so unless you're volunteering to scrub machine shop floors for the next two months, I suggest you remember that."
Kallan paled. "Yes, ma'am." The honorific was uttered with a lot more reverence this time, but you didn't acknowledge it.
Caleb had finally decided to walk over and stand beside you now, his expression neutral as if nothing had happened at all. But you felt the smallest shift in his posture. Was the subtle inclination of his head approval or amusement? You couldn't tell, and you didn't care.
For the rest of the briefing, no one dared to mistake you for anything less than what you were.
You dedicated the rest of the meeting to inspecting Caleb, and it only proved what you'd already learned earlier in the day. He was damnably good at what he did, issuing instructions with absolute clarity. No wasted words or repetition. It made you even angrier. For a man so incapable of making mistakes, how had he screwed up chatastrophically enough to end your brother's life.
You were here to prove his incompetence, and yet he was giving you nothing to work with. You hated how nothing about him ever seemed frayed. He handled crises with the same composure he used to sip his morning coffee, and you tried your best to catalogue every detail.
Mental Note One: He never fidgeted. Not with his gloves, or his cuffs, or even his comm. Either he was truly calm, or he had mastered stillness so thoroughly it masqueraded as peace.
Mental Note Two: He didn't praise. Not even when a weapons officer reported a 36% efficiency increase.
Mental Note Three: He listened with a predator's patience. He never interrupted, but only because he didn't need to. The moment he so much as opened his mouth, the person speaking would fall silent, and all eyes would be on him.
You loathed how your mind kept tracking him this way. It was like studying the schematics of an engine you'd sworn to dismantle, and knowing a system inside and out just so you could find where best to break it.
He was watching you as well, and you let him. Let him wonder if you were the knife in his ribs or the hand that would stop someone else from twisting it deeper. You had been assigned to him after his previous second-in-command nearly died. He knew the game as well as you did.
When the meeting finally ended, and the officers began to file out, Caleb handed you his datapad dismissively.
"You kept up," he observed.
You smiled tightly. "And you didn't collapse from the weight of your own ego. We're both full of surprises."
Shit.
You didn't mean to let that slip on your first day, but the hours had been long, and you still had a second job to attend to while your pompous superior was probably going to go home and sleep off his tyranny.
There was a long pause, and Caleb gave you an odd look, like he wasn't sure whether to reprimand you or laugh.
"You'll compile today's summary logs and deliver them to me by tomorrow morning."
"Understood, sir." Though your tone was polite, you looked at the datapad like it might explode in your hands.
But orders were orders, and you had every intention of doing this so perfectly that not even he could find fault. Maybe you should have messed up on purpose, just so he'd take you off the job, but your ego wouldn't let you do that. If anyone would lose this game, it'd be him.
"0600, tomorrow. Outer docking ring. Don't be late."
You inclined your head. "Wouldn't dream of it, Colonel."
You departed before he could say anything else, the cold burn of his stare following you down the corridor. Tomorrow would be worse, you already knew, but so would you.
After that briefing incident, Caleb's assignments took a noticeable turn, and suddenly, your duties as second-in-command bore an uncanny resemblance to administrative drudgery.
He never mocked you overtly, but you could see it in the slight raise of his brow when he handed you your daily task list. The almost-smirk that tugged at his mouth, never quite reaching a full expression, just a faint twitch, like he knew.
The list included vital responsibilities as:
- Sorting and reformatting decades-old combat logs "for archival purposes"
- Fetching and organizing requisition orders for ships you didn't even work on
- Coordinating meal rotations for his squadron as if you were a glorified cafeteria assistant
- Printing, binding, and physically delivering daily mission transcripts to his office, even though all data was stored digitally
- Scheduling appointments with officers you had no business interacting with
- And, on one especially insulting afternoon, compiling a list of docking bay lightbulbs that needed replacing
Lightbulbs.
You were an aerospace engineer, not a glorified secretary, yet here you were, jotting down broken corridor lights and organizing dinner times for grown men.
And the Colonel? He was taking some sort of sick pleasure out of all this. Sometimes he'd ask you with that irritating calm, "I trust that your new role is treating you well?"
You weren't sure what burned more, your indignation or your pride. He wasn't just being petty. No, it was too calculated for that. You began to wonder if this was his way of pushing you out. Of stacking enough insults that you'd give up and storm off. Little did he know, you had no choice but to stick around.
But the pettier his orders became, the less guilty you felt about your weekly check-ins with Admiral Harkins. You always had something for him, even if it was nothing damning or meaningful. You told him about Caleb's routines—the strange consistency of his hours, the precise loops he walked during patrol shifts, and the way he reviewed the reports no one else bothered with. You even told him how the man kept his office locked behind triple authentication when he wasn't in it.
It wasn't enough, and you knew it, because the Admiral was growing impatient. But a part of you relished that. Men like the Harkins and Caleb had made your entire life unbearable, so you deserved to enjoy their discomfort a little too. It was only fair.
Caleb's next order came while you weren't even in his office. You had assumed he was done for the day, and you were in your own lab by now, your mind busy with orbital mechanics.
A junior officer approached you sheepishly, his shoulders curled inward like he was bracing for impact. "Colonel Xia requests that his usual coffee be brought to his office. He said...you'd know how he takes it."
You blinked. "Excuse me? You want me...to fetch the Colonel's coffee?"
"Yes, ma'am. Those were his words."
It took a full second for the words to land, and then you almost laughed. "It's almost midnight. I'm off the clock," you snapped impatiently.
The junior officer looked pained. "I...he insisted it be you."
You turned on your heel and stalked to the breakroom so fast you nearly knocked the poor bastard flat. Then you made the damn drink, the coffee machine hissing too cheerfully for your mood. You stared at it like it had personally betrayed you.
Your pride was stacked like dynamite behind your ribs, and the bitter scent of roasted beans filled the sterile room. You stared at the steaming cup in your hand and considered dumping engine oil in it. You were making coffee for a man who'd once stood three feet away from your brother's sealed casket without a single word of remorse.
Then another petty thought slithered into your mind, inspired by the elementary school version of you who held grudges like oaths. You could spit in his coffee and he'd be none the wiser. But no, you were not a child.
When you arrived at his office, Caleb looked up from his desk suspiciously.
You set his drink down with more force than necessary, just shy of a slam. "Orders up."
He didn't thank you, staring down with an intensity that could've peeled paint from steel.
"What? You think I poisoned it?" You raised a brow. "Maybe you shouldn't ask people you don't trust to handle your beverages."
His gaze narrowed. "If it's harmless, you wouldn't mind taking the first sip."
The audacity. First, a glorified errand girl, and now his personal food tester?
"If I wanted to kill you, Colonel, I wouldn't use something so juvenile as poison."
You considered throwing the cup in his face, but you had never been one for theatrical displays. When he pushed it toward you, you lifted it to your lips, letting the vile liquid scald your tongue.
You grimaced. "You really drink this sludge willingly? What are you, part engine?"
Without responding, he stood to take the cup back, his fingers brushing the spot your lips had touched. Then, without breaking eye contact, he drank from the same place you had.
He met your glare without flinching, as if saying, I see your anger, and I will raise you discomfort until you shatter.
"Good to know I can trust your judgment, even with coffee."
Your next words were out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. "Sir, I'm beginning to wonder whether I was assigned as your second-in-command or your executive assistant."
Caleb's lips twitched. "Is there a problem?"
"I just want to be certain I'm fulfilling the expectations of the role."
"You are. Perfectly."
You searched his face for anything—malice or mockery—but his expression was impassive.
After the coffee incident, something in you fractured. You didn't start out trying to be petty, but you were tired, and tired people did reckless things. Especially tired people with full access to every system Caleb Xia touched. In hindsight, that was an unrealistic level of trust for someone he clearly suspected.
You'd been pulling double shifts for weeks now, spending your days enduring the Colonel's smug orders and your nights half-conscious in the reactor lab, trying to keep your side project alive.
So when you stared down at the endless stack of reports he expected you to sift through—personnel evaluations, damage assessments, duty rosters—all of it something he could've reviewed digitally in half the time, you decided to stop being a doormat.
You slipped one file into the wrong pile, marking a requisition form from two months ago with a red tag that made it look urgent. It was completely unrelated to anything happening now, but enough to waste twenty minutes of Caleb's precious time and make him bark at the wrong officer.
Next, when his weekly mission report got sent to the wrong printer, accidentally of course, you didn't correct it. You just let it sit five floors away, and when he messaged asking where the hell it went, you took your sweet time replying.
"Must've been a routing glitch, sir. Maybe the system's lagging. You could always walk down and retrieve it. Stretch your legs."
Then came the real fun.
You started adjusting his calendar. Three-minute overlaps. Swapping meeting rooms and forcing him to sprint across two floors to make it on time. He started arriving early to everything just in case.
It was easy to feign ignorance, but you noticed the way he would glare at you in those moments, like he was waiting for you to confess.
He was a man of precision, so during every mission briefing, you made sure his mic's calibration was just slightly off. The feedback was a little too sharp, and it was enough to draw a few startled glances. He fixed it within seconds, of course, but you caught the tick in his jaw.
By the third month, the bags under your eyes had gone from subtle shadows to outright bruises. Caleb had stopped trying to hide the way he studied you, half calculation, half curiosity, like he was trying to crack a cipher and was starting to hate the code.
Because you still got the work done. You still filed your reports, showed up at every meeting and every duty rotation, even if your eyelids fluttered and your voice was growing thinner with each passing day.
The more tired you got, the pettier you became.
You started rerouting his door sensors so they opened half a second late. Not enough to trigger a repair report, but enough to annoy him. You delayed his comm signal one cycle, so his input always came in a fraction after someone else had already spoken, and his alerts pinged five seconds later than usual, long enough to miss the first call. You subtly changed the temperature setting in his office by a few degrees. One day slightly too cold, the next barely too warm. You even programmed the hallway lights outside the room to flicker, but only when he walked past.
They were all childishly insignificant rebellions, but they were immensely satisfying.
Maybe you wanted to see him feel something for once, even if it was frustration. Maybe you just wanted proof that he was human, because right now, you hated him too much for him to be anything else.
Caleb, on the other hand, never directly confronted you, but he started giving you longer, unnecessarily complicated errands that took you through the most inconvenient routes. Then there was the coffee, of course. You thought you'd made your point after that humiliating performance, but the man was incorrigible. He'd request it again every few days. Never directly. Always through another officer, and always with an air of plausible deniability.
You made it every time, and when you delivered it to his desk, he'd watch you with those goddamn eyes and make you take the first sip. Then, like a ritual, he'd drink from the exact same place your lips had touched.
He was enjoying this too.
It was well past midnight, and you sat hunched over a circuit board, the smell of solder and melting alloy thick in your nostrils, your fingers trembling from a cocktail of caffeine, overexertion, and sleeplessness. The light above your workstation flickered faintly, casting dull gold across the edges of your tools.
In the background, looping through the static-clogged speaker of the overhead system, your brother's favourite song played again. It had been on repeat for several hours now, and you both loathed and needed it in equal measure.
It was like picking at a wound every time it would scab over, but the silence was worse. You couldn't bear it, especially in this place that he used to linger in after hours, where he teased you for being too much of a perfectionist.
His hours as a junior officer were more humane than yours, but he always stuck around waiting for you. In fact, the only reason he had even been here was because it was your dream to work for one of the nation's most prestigious organizations. It was your dream that killed him.
You sniffled, hastily brushing your wrist over your cheek. You had no time for this. You were rushing to finish your team's prototype before sunrise, knowing you'd miss the presentation tomorrow. The final unveiling of something you'd worked so hard to build. And why? Because you had to attend some mind-numbing strategy meeting as Colonel Xia's fucking secretary.
The thought made your soldering hand twitch too hard, nearly frying a wire and burning your fingers in the process. You let out a string of expletives.
When the door slid open, you didn't even look up. You knew the cadence of that stride too well by now, and you were halfway to biting your own tongue off before the fury spilled out of you.
"Of course," you muttered, "why wouldn't the Colonel show up to ruin what little peace I have left?"
Caleb didn't reply right away, stopping just inside the threshold to survey the space. "Enjoying yourself, are you?" His frigid tone made the temperature in the room drop by several degrees.
"Oh, immensely," you drawled, glancing at him over your shoulder. "Who doesn't love getting metal fumes in their eyes at two in the morning?"
You set your soldering iron down and blinked rapidly. The burning sting reminded you—too late—that you had forgotten to put on your safety goggles again. Your watering eyes betrayed you, and you blinked harder, pretending to inspect a nearby tool so he wouldn't see the redness or the sheen gathering in the corners of your lashes.
Caleb took a step closer. "You've been busy lately."
"Yes. My workload has doubled thanks to you."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then enlighten me, sir."
"The scheduling errors. The misrouted transmissions. The false alarm in Bay Six."
"Sounds like a lot of administrative chaos. You might want to speak to your secretary about that. Your actual secretary."
"I am," he returned coolly. "And I'm observing a pattern. You tampered with the launch logs today."
"I fixed a misfiled routing loop. You're welcome."
His tone sharpened. "You don't have that kind of clearance as my—"
"But I do have that sort of clearance!" Your eyes were really burning now, and you weren't sure if it was the soldering fumes, the lack of sleep, or that awful tendency from childhood to cry whenever you were frustrated. "You keep on forgetting that I'm not just here to fetch your coffee and arrange your calendar. I was running propulsion schematics while you were still..."
Caleb's lips twitched with amusement. "Is this where you say, while I was still learning how to walk?"
"Judging by your competence, that was probably last year, so yes. Yes, I was."
"Perhaps you should've stayed in your workshop if you wanted to avoid responsibility."
As if you had a choice.
"You've got some fucking nerve," you snapped. "Coming into my space at this hour to scold me like I'm one of your little soldiers."
Caleb shrugged. "I came because I expected professionalism. Forgive me for assuming we could have a mature discussion about your antics."
That was the last straw, and you stood so suddenly your stool screeched against the floor. "Professionalism? You mean the professionalism I show when I make your drinks? Or the reports you make me deliver in person, because God forbid you send an email like a normal person? Or do you mean the professionalism I've shown while letting you humiliate me in front of every officer in this fleet? You let them call me every name in the book and say nothing at all, and mind you, I do not need you to defend me, but everyone knows they'll only stop if a man tells them to!"
Caleb's face remained stoic, but his silence was telling. You were getting to him.
Good.
"I have one place where I can breathe freely," you continued. "One place where I still feel like I'm doing the job I worked so hard for. So you can't just come in here and defile it, simply because you feel like it."
When he took a step forward, you matched it, refusing to be cornered.
"You think this is a game?" he inquired softly.
"No, I think this is a job. In fact, I'm doing two of them, and I'm doing a hell of a better job than you are. All you do is get people killed and pretend it's leadership."
Caleb's expression darkened with the kind of danger that only existed in the seconds after a gun misfired.
There was no other warning before the very air collapsed inward, as though a singularity had bloomed in the center of the room. Your ears popped, and the pressure struck you from every direction at once.
When your legs buckled beneath the impossible weight, you reached out instinctively to catch yourself, your hand fumbling against the cluttered edge of your workstation. A solder scraper tore a gash into your palm, and you slipped anyway, the blood-slicked metal clattering to the ground as your knees slammed hard against the floor. The gravity was unbearable, like the air itself wanted to crush you.
When you looked up at Caleb, trembling under the invisible force he commanded, he was serene.
“Say that again,” he ordered. “Go on. Tell me more about what I do. About who I kill.”
You bared your teeth, but then he tilted his head in contemplation.
“You know, it’s funny. The way you talk, anyone would think you weren’t the one who pushed your brother into joining the Fleet.”
Your blood ran cold. “What?”
He stepped closer, and you could feel your joints ache beneath the force of his will. “What, you think I haven't read your files. You were the golden one, weren’t you? He just wanted to keep up. Wanted to impress you. Look where that got him.”
“Shut up.”
Caleb smiled faintly. “Maybe the guilt you’re so desperate to dump on me belongs to you. Not the first time I've been made a scapegoat for someone else's inadequacy.”
Your vision went white. “Don’t you dare pretend you know anything about me.”
“Oh, but I think I do. You talk like I held the gun, but really, he died chasing your shadow.”
“You were his hero," you snarled. "He followed you into that mission with stars in his goddamn eyes, and you let him die like he was nothing.”
Caleb flinched. The gravity around you warped tighter than before, pinning your arms to your sides. "No, you made him want to be a hero. I simply let him try. Too bad he didn't have it in him.”
Your stomach turned. The air kept pressing down, and your vision blurred from the pain in your hand and the shame clawing its way up your gullet.
“He died under your command,” you hissed. “And the only reason you’re still standing is because I haven’t put you in the ground yet.”
For a moment, neither of you moved, and the only sound was your brother’s music, still looping behind you, soft and sweet and impossibly cruel.
You barely had time to flinch before Caleb was right above you. His presence pressed against your skin like violence waiting to be unleashed, and his hands hovered near your head, twitching with hesitation. He looked like he didn’t know what he wanted: to cradle your face like something precious, or to grab a fistful of your hair and wrench your head back until your neck snapped to attention.
What he ended up doing was something halfway. His fingers threaded into your hair with an unexpected intimacy, tightening just enough to sting. “Oh? Is that your grand plan now? Kill me? Put me in the ground right next to your brother and call it justice?”
You didn’t answer, but the flicker in your expression must’ve betrayed something, because his smirk widened, venomous and knowing.
He leaned closer, and his breath grazed your cheek. “I know all about you. Your late-night meetings with the Admiral. The hours you spend in his office, talking about me.”
"I don't know what you're talking about—"
His grip tightened, and when he spoke again, it was darker. If it had been anyone else but him, you might have thought that was...jealousy in his tone? But it couldn't possibly be.
“You get cozy in his office, feeding him reports about how I'm unfit and dangerous. What does he do in return, hmm?” Caleb's lip curled maliciously. “Does he stroke your ego? Or does he stroke something else?”
Disgust flared in your throat. “What the fuck did you just say—”
“Come now, don’t act innocent. You play all the parts so well. Loyal soldier, mourning sister, reluctant assistant. But let’s not forget how you got this position in the first place.” He crouched, eyes locked to yours. “You nearly killed Liam.”
The accusation struck like a slap, and you scowled. “What? I didn’t even know him. Why the hell would I—”
The moment the denial left your lips, the density around you became overwhelming. Your bones protested against the strain, achingly close to crumbling to dust. Caleb's hand slid lower, almost digging into the soft flesh of your jaw. Your face was tilted up, forced to meet his eyes.
“Do. Not. Lie to me.” He had lost all pretense of calm. “I don’t appreciate liars. And I despise traitors.”
A strangled sound left your throat, but you could do little else.
“You think you're the first person who’s tried to kill me?” he whispered. “You’re not. Do you want to know what happened to the last few?”
You didn’t answer, and he didn’t wait.
“Do you know what it feels like to have every bone in your body pulverized at once?”
Your blood ran cold.
“Most people assume it to be quick. Merciful and instant.” A quiet chuckle vibrated against your cheek. “It’s not. The ribs go first. You can actually hear them crack. Then your lungs collapse. Can’t scream without lungs, can you?”
You couldn't help the shudder that went through you.
“Next come the limbs. They don’t shatter all at once. Your own skeleton turns against you, and the skull…it doesn't explode, like in the movies. It implodes. Like a delicate egg in a fist.”
"You—"
“I’ve done it before,” he added lazily. “So, tell me, Engineer, which method would you prefer?”
His gloved fingers brushed over the bloodied lower lip you'd been chewing on, prying it from between your teeth. Then they trailed higher, up your cheekbone, and over the ridge beneath your eye.
“Or shall I come up with something new, just for you?”
A single tear slipped free and trailed down your cheek. You didn't even know it had fallen until Caleb caught it with his thumb.
“Ah,” he murmured, studying your mouth like it was something he could read, “so there is something left inside you after all.”
Without a word, he took your hand. You didn’t give it to him. You couldn’t have, but he took it anyway. The same hand you’d sliced open rested in his palm now, dwarfed and vulnerable, like a broken wing.
"Still bleeding," Caleb noted to himself.
You tried to snatch it back, but the gravity around you pulsed tighter, slamming you back into stillness.
“Don’t. Let me see what you’ve done to yourself.”
Then he pressed his thumb directly into the cut.
A gasp tore from your throat, and if you had been allowed any movement, your spine would have arched in pain. The kind of pain that hijacked your pulse and burned through your veins. Your vision blurred again, not from rage this time, but from the fresh tears threatening to spill over.
Caleb's expression didn’t change, eagerly studying the way your lashes fluttered with the effort not to give him the satisfaction. His thumb dragged lazily through the torn flesh of your palm, where the blood had pooled, half-dried and tacky. The sting was unbearable, but you refused to cry out, swallowing the sound, which seemed to annoy him greatly.
"Didn't expect you to bleed so easily," he muttered. "Didn't think traitors could...feel."
You bit your tongue so hard you tasted iron. “Get your hands off me.”
He ignored you, pressing the wound again, just hard enough to be cruel. When he raised his hand to examine his fingertips, he almost looked revenant. Then, without breaking eye contact, he brought it to his own mouth.
His thumb dragged across the curve of his lower lip with a gentleness that made your stomach churn. Now, his mouth was stained red too—not quite a kiss, not quite a cut—but something blasphemous between the two.
“Now we match,” he hummed.
And you did. No one else had ever been this close. No one had dared, and maybe he knew it. Maybe he was staking his claim before anyone else could. Before anyone else could trace their mouth with your wound and make your pain feel so horribly personal.
He was your grotesque mirror of sorts, until he licked his lips, and the blood dispersed.
Your eyes widened in alarm, but Caleb's burned with an unexpected hunger, like something inside him had finally stirred.
"I wonder what you'll tell the Admiral during your meeting tomorrow," he mused. "If you wanted me dead, you should’ve tried a little harder. I expected better from our resident overachiever."
Then, the pressure vanished, and his hand dropped from your face, as if he’d never touched you at all. When he stood, composure wrapped around him like a second uniform once more.
You collapsed forward, catching yourself with trembling hands, gasping in shallow breaths. Blood from your sliced hand smeared across the metal flooring, the scent of it mixing with solder and machine oil.
You resisted the urge to retch, and when you looked up again, he was already halfway to the door. He paused there momentarily, like he, too, was trying to remember how to breathe.
"I didn't come here to fight you," he stated in place of a farewell, and you nearly flung a wrench at his head.
"Then maybe next time, stay the fuck out of my workshop," you grunted hoarsely.
He was gone before you had a chance to say anything else, leaving you on your knees in the ruin of what used to be your safe haven, the imprint of his hand burning on your skin, and your lungs rattling in your chest.