False Courtesy — Familiar Distance
By MacksWords. Episode 09.
01. The morning after
Senn takes a seat opposite Vale as Dava enters the rainlit briefing room.
Rainwater moved through narrow channels along the briefing-room windows. Beyond them, the city’s elevated walkways were filling with commuters. Delivery platforms drifted between buildings, their lights dimming as the morning brightened. Senn had been given a clean shirt beneath her coat. Her braced hand rested against her abdomen. Someone had brought breakfast; she had managed half of it before Dava called her in. Vale was already seated. She noticed the small split in his lip before she looked at anything else.
Senn: Did they give you somewhere to sleep?
Vale: A room with a chair that reclined about halfway. I found out it went farther just before they came to get me.
Senn: The control was underneath.
She pulled out the chair across from him. He looked at her.
Senn: I had the same chair.
Dava entered carrying a mug and a thin stack of printed documents. Neither spy spoke again until she sat down.
Private assessments
Vale: Dava entered carrying a mug and a thin stack of printed documents. He turned toward her before the small familiarity between him and Senn could become something anyone might notice.
Senn: She kept her coat between the brace and the table edge. The fracture still hurt. Across the table, he looked as tired as she felt. Neither spoke again until Dava sat down.
02. Before anyone crosses
Ressa explains a maintenance query to Dava and Vale over a survey and intake sketch.
Dava placed Edrin’s sketch beside the site survey. Ressa stood at the end of the table, sleeves rolled above her elbows. She had borrowed a municipal engineering jacket and left it unfastened over her ochre work clothes.
Dava: The Stratus team arrived through the diplomatic terminal twenty minutes ago. Their lead is on her way here. Before she joins us, I want to know what we can establish without sending anyone into that intake.
Ressa: There’s a maintenance address in the commissioning records. It might still answer through the contractor relay. If it does, we can request basic readings.
Vale: Would they see where the request came from?
Ressa: They’d see a relay request. Whether anyone notices depends on who’s watching.
Vale leaned forward. Edrin’s pencil line ended beneath the surveyed works. Nothing on either page confirmed that the passage was still accessible.
Vale: And could it open anything?
Ressa: I’m reading instruments. I’m not touching the transit controller. If I can’t separate those systems, I stop.
Dava: Put that limit in the procedure.
Private assessments
Vale: He wanted a route he could examine himself. For now, all they had was a recollection and a possible address. Treating either as permission to cross would put someone else in danger.
Senn: Stratus had arrived. Whatever chance there had been to resolve this quietly had passed during the night. She still needed to know what her own people had wanted from the station.
03. Something familiar
Senn studies the contractor seal on a survey page while Vale notices her hesitation.
The contractor seal appeared beside the maintenance address: three pale bars inside an incomplete circle. Senn stopped turning the page. Across the table, her thumb held the paper still for several seconds before she lowered it. Vale noticed. Ressa continued explaining the proposed connection.
Ressa: If there are people down there, I want the families told as soon as we have something reliable. I’ve spent the night hearing that someone else has to approve what they’re allowed to know.
Dava: I’ll assign someone to contact them. We’ll tell them what we have and what remains uncertain.
Dava set down her mug. Ressa stayed standing, looking at her until she had finished.
Ressa: Good. Because I’m not helping you turn another room full of frightened people into a security problem.
Private assessments
Vale: He kept the place on the page in mind. Senn had looked at that seal as if it belonged somewhere else. He would ask her when she had room to answer.
Senn: She remembered the mark on cargo certifications during the border campaigns. It could mean an old contractor had found new clients. It could mean Ordan personnel were still involved. She did not yet know which.
04. Outside expertise
Neral arrives with her equipment case and meets Dava and Ressa.
The Stratus specialist arrived without an escort of her own. She was a broad-shouldered woman with slate-grey skin, close-cropped white hair and a weatherproof field coat. A narrow equipment case hung from one hand. She waited while Dava finished speaking, then introduced herself as Neral, the containment lead.
Neral: My engineers are at your terminal with the receiving crew. They’ll remain there until we agree on the work here.
She placed the case beside an empty chair. Dava passed her the revised procedure. Neral read the limits, then looked up.
Neral: I’ve read the summaries. I’d like to hear from the person who kept the station from stabilizing.
Ressa: That was me. I changed the fault pattern after they started compensating for it.
Neral: Start with what you changed. If the report has something wrong, we’ll correct it.
Private assessments
Vale: Ressa’s shoulders settled slightly as she began. Neral was taking her work seriously. Vale listened to the corrections and marked two places in his own copy.
Senn: She had expected questions about the factions first. Neral wanted the engineer. Senn moved the contractor page beneath her other notes and continued listening.
05. What they surrendered
Neral reviews an inventory with Vale and Senn seated apart at the table.
Later, Neral reached the inventory of surrendered equipment. She glanced between the two spies. Their access tools remained in Tessaran custody with the recovered core.
Neral: You both gave up independent access to the core. Was that a condition of remaining involved?
Vale: It became one. We each had a way to interfere with the other. Keeping them meant Dava couldn’t trust either of us around the evidence.
Senn: I still wanted the records. Handing over the tool didn’t change that. But we’d reached the point where someone could have destroyed what we needed while we were arguing about possession.
Senn shifted her brace more comfortably. Neral made a note, then set the inventory beside the maintenance procedure.
Neral: If either government has technical information about this equipment, I’ll need it before my people connect to it.
Senn: We’ll tell you what we can establish.
Private assessments
Vale: He looked down at the contractor seal again. Her answer had left space for something she was still deciding whether to say.
Senn: She could give Neral a suspicion. She could also expose old supply arrangements to an organization capable of tracing them much farther than Tessara. Neither choice felt small.
06. What she recognized
Vale and Senn speak privately across a records-room counter, with the survey between them.
The briefing broke while Ressa and Neral compared the relay specifications. Vale found Senn in a small records room off the corridor. Through its interior window, he could see her studying the same page. He stopped at the threshold and asked whether she had a minute. She checked the room, then the corridor behind him. The wall display identified the room as unmonitored document storage. She closed the door after he entered, leaving the privacy shutter open until they had finished checking the space. Only then did she turn it opaque. Vale stayed beside the counter.
Vale: That contractor mark on the survey—you recognized it.
Senn: We used them during the border campaigns. They moved equipment through civilian ports. I don’t know whether they still work for us. I’m concerned that someone at the intake might.
Vale: Ressa needs to know before she makes contact.
Senn: I agree. I was trying to decide how much I could say in front of Stratus without giving them a list of our old supply routes.
She handed him the page. He read the small print beneath the seal.
Vale: You can leave the routes out. Tell Dava there may be Ordan involvement and explain why.
Senn: I should have said something during the briefing. I kept waiting for a moment when it wouldn’t become the only thing anyone wanted to discuss.
Private assessments
Vale: He could understand the hesitation without accepting its cost. Ressa was preparing to contact that address. She needed to know who might answer.
Senn: He had asked privately and waited while she explained. She still measured what she could disclose, but she no longer had to spend the whole conversation defending the fact that she had hesitated.
07. A little more time
In a close view, Vale and Senn look down together during the quiet cuff adjustment, their hands below the frame.
Vale folded the page along its existing crease. The opaque window held the corridor’s light without revealing the people passing outside.
Vale: I understand why you hesitated. But if I notice and you say nothing, I have to start wondering what else I’m missing.
Senn: I know. I’m still getting used to wanting to tell you things.
That stopped him. Outside, someone wheeled a trolley past the door. Both listened until it had gone. Senn stepped closer and noticed his dressing was caught. He let her ease the fabric away with her left hand. She worked slowly, without pulling at the tender skin beneath it.
Senn: I’m going to speak to Dava. Before Ressa sends anything.
Vale: All right.
Senn: I would have liked more time this morning.
Vale: So would I. I’m still angry about parts of last night.
Senn: I didn’t expect you to stop being angry.
He glanced toward the door, then back at her. He turned his hand and briefly held hers. When they separated, she took the survey with her. He waited before following her out.
Private assessments
Vale: He had wanted to ask her to stay. Holding her hand for a moment was all either of them could afford before she had to go back.
Senn: She wanted to stay. Instead she straightened her coat and opened the door. What she had promised to tell Dava could not wait for a more comfortable moment.
08. The instruction arrives
Senn conceals her reaction to an amber receiver indicator inside her coat while the briefing resumes.
Dava listened without interrupting. Senn identified the seal, described the contractor’s former role and stated clearly where her knowledge ended.
Senn: I can’t tell you who they employ now. But an automated request may be noticed by someone trained to recognize outside access.
Ressa: Then we assume the first query could alert them.
Neral: We can prepare for that. We need to decide what we’re willing to reveal and what would make us disconnect.
Dava asked Senn to remain while they revised the procedure. Across the room, Vale resumed his seat. He gave her no reassuring smile. She did not look for one. Under the table, the inner lining of Senn’s coat vibrated once against her ribs. A delayed faction message had reached her receiver. She waited until Dava turned toward the display before reading it.
Beneath the instruction sat the same contractor seal. Senn kept her hand still against the inside of her coat. Ressa was asking her a question.
Private assessments
Vale: She had told them about the contractor. He could see Ressa changing the procedure because of it. For the moment, that was enough to let him concentrate on the survey.
Senn: The instruction named the records, Stratus and the Veyran operative. Beneath it sat the same contractor seal. She kept her hand still against the inside of her coat. Ressa was asking her a question.
Ordan recovery instruction
The message remained inside Senn’s coat, unseen by the others. The maintenance query had not yet been sent. 09 · ORDAN RECOVERY INSTRUCTION. KESTREL RECORDS · RESTRICTED ACCESS.
Encrypted dispatch: Kestrel records are subject to Ordan recovery. Prevent Stratus acquisition. Veyran operative is not to receive access.
Senn: Yes. I’m listening.
She lifted her eyes to Ressa. Vale sat across the table, unaware of the order she had just received.
