Amsa was three hours into a routine maintenance shift — coupling in her left hand, wrench in her right — when Vee said the pressure was wrong. Three minutes later the bomb went off at the choke point where all cargo between the Belt and Mars funnels through one handoff.

Inside ninety minutes a militant faction — the Forge — claims the attack publicly. Inside three hours the station AI’s read pings every senior investigator on both sides: wrong scale, wrong target, wrong method. Somebody is impersonating a militant operation.

Somebody needs Belt-Mars trade stopped for exactly six days.

Amsa works the Belt side with Vee in her ear. Kvor works the Mars side with his own AI on his wrist. The clock ticks against both of them — not toward another bombing, but toward whatever the real perpetrators reopen on day seven. Whatever they’re covering blew on day one and rolls back into place on day seven.

Highgate — Book 3 of the Amsa Logs.

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