Over three days, they recruited their crew.
KALIA - former Drift addict, now kitchen manager. Skill: social engineering, can talk her way past any guard.
MARCUS - maintenance worker, knows station systems intimately. Skill: can bypass any electronic lock.
REZA - young hacker, taught herself coding from stolen manuals. Skill: systems infiltration, will monitor the hack in real-time.
FINN - thief and information broker. Skill: everything else, backup for every role.
And Jax and Elara, leading together while staying apart.
Each recruitment was the same. Jax explained the plan. Explained the risks. Explained that they'd probably die.
Each person said yes anyway.
"I've been Gamma my whole life," Kalia said. "Told I'm lesser, treated like I'm subhuman. You're offering a chance to prove them wrong? I'm in."
Marcus: "My daughter tested high on aptitude exams. They told her Gammas can't be engineers. This is for her."
Reza: "I'm sixteen. The system says I have fifty more years of this. I'd rather die fighting than live kneeling."
The team met in the old vault. Seven people planning to break the most secure system on the station.
"Everybody clear on their role?" Jax asked. Nods all around. "Good. We train for two weeks. Learn every step, every contingency. When we move, we move perfect."
Training began the next day.
Kalia practiced her cover stories. Marcus drilled lockpicking. Reza wrote backup code. Finn coordinated logistics.
And Jax and Elara worked side by side, professional and cold, pretending their proximity didn't hurt.
One week in, during a break, Finn pulled Jax aside.
"You're torturing yourself," Finn said. "Working with her every day, pretending you don't feel anything."
"I don't feel anything except—"
"Bullshit. You love her. Still. I can see it."
"Doesn't matter."
"It does. Because unresolved feelings compromise operations. So either actually forgive her, or actually let her go. This halfway thing will get someone killed."
Jax had no answer to that.
The training continued.
Two weeks until the heist.
Then one week.
Then days.
The team was ready.
The question was whether Jax and Elara were ready to work together without their past destroying everything.
Time would tell.