Kaelen's spine locked up entirely, his blood running cold.
He snapped his head around to look at the man standing behind him.
The Sterling Sovereign had lowered his gaze, his dark, striking eyes completely devoid of emotion. A cruel, mocking smirk played at the corner of his lips.
The sheer danger in that look made Kaelen feel as if he had just been tossed into a freezing abyss.
"M-Mr. Blackwood..."
Nicholas lifted his brow, his deep voice carrying a lazy, unreadable cadence. "So, to the ship's crew, the stability of a lot is more important than my life?"
Kaelen turned a ghastly shade of pale, furiously shaking his head. "N-No, of course not, sir. That's not what I meant at all..."
"Not what you meant?" Nicholas let out another cold laugh. "Then enlighten me. What exactly did you mean?"
The silken threat in his tone sent a fresh wave of cold sweat down Kaelen's back. His knees practically buckled.
"I swear, that wasn't my intention!" Kaelen stammered desperately, his face completely bloodless. "I just... I just thought that since Asset 07's data is stable, the immediate threat to your safety should be..."
"Should be?" The smirk on Nicholas's lips deepened, freezing the air around them. "You think it 'should' be fine, so you're actively trying to remove the only person in the room capable of keeping that thing subdued?"
Kaelen choked on his words, completely unable to form a defense.
He knew his logic was indefensible.
After all, Asset 07's murderous eyes were still locked dead on the Sovereign!
But... the person in that room wasn't one of their loyal doctors. It was The Panacea. She was too unpredictable.
Even though every security camera was trained on her, and she hadn't made a single overtly suspicious move, Kaelen's paranoia screamed at him.
The longer she touched Asset 07, the higher the risk.
She might see proprietary tech she had no business seeing. She might tamper with
a multi-million dollar investment.
If The Panacea screwed him over, it would be his head on the chopping block!
But staring into the Sterling Sovereign's lethal gaze, Kaelen didn't dare breathe a single word of his true concerns.
Nicholas watched the man sweat, his thin lips twitching in disgust before he looked away.
That one look was enough to leave Kaelen sputtering in silence, unable to force another syllable past his lips.
His voice had completely failed him, effectively ending any attempt to pull The Panacea out of the theater.
He was terrified that if he pushed any harder, the Sterling Sovereign would assume the ship's
administration actively wanteet
him.
assassinated.
If a man with that kind of power misunderstood their intentions...
Kaelen sweated even harder.
Inside the glass, Serena heard the entire exchange crystal clear through her
comms.
The faintest hint of a smile tugged at her lips.
He truly was a sly devil. Their synergy was flawless. He had instantly realized what she was doing.
He was locking down the room to buy her time.
Serena pushed the distraction aside and let her fingers fly across the silver needles.
The microchip on the tail of the primary needle had already cloned the first layer of the mainframe.
Simultaneously, she ruthlessly traced the Ghost Frequency Overlay back to its origin.
The deeper she dug, the colder her eyes became.
This hidden command protocol was vastly more sophisticated than she had anticipated.
This wasn't a simple external hacking job. It was a seamlessly integrated, fully completed code.
The foundational logic of the command contained a forced
awakening sequence, absolute
immunity to secondary interference, and a new prosty target lock 1
In an absolute worst-case scenario, the code could even forcefully Overstock Asset07's physical limits to ensure the kill.