Hayes kept his hand on the heavy door handle, his knuckles white under the harsh emergency lighting.

“We don’t move an inch until I get some answers,” I said, turning my back to the door.

I pointed my tablet directly at Captain Turner.

“You knew about the network leaks,” I said.

Turner did not move.

His eyes were fixed on the black rubber matting of the server room floor.

“Answer the doctor, Captain,” Hayes said, his voice low and steady despite the blaring siren.

Lieutenant Carter looked between them, his fingers twitching against the seam of his trousers.

“I didn’t know it was a foreign breach,” Turner said.

His voice was barely audible over the alarm.

“Speak up,” I said, stepping closer to him.

“I thought it was a diagnostic anomaly,” Turner said, his head snapping up, his jaw tight. “We’ve had issues with the local loop for three months.”

“You signed off on three separate critical maintenance overrides this week alone,” I said.

I tapped the screen, bringing up the digital signature logs.

“The system flagged outbound data packets to an unauthorized IP address, and you bypassed the block,” I said.