Istep out onto the marble dais with a weight hanging behind every syllable. The Earth plaza is alive—waves of protestors, banners raised, voices like thunder. I taste dust and sweat and the bitter tang of tobacco smoke drifting from the crowd. Sea breeze tangles with exhaust, with hot metal edges in the air.
The crowd hushes in that expectant lull between storms. Cameras hover, drones drift in arcs overhead. My prosthetic leg’s servo whines faintly beneath my clothing. My heart grazes my throat.
I grip the microphone rig. The hum crackles. My voice starts low. “Veterans… survivors… people of conscience.” I pause, let the hush carry me. “I was at the front lines. I watched men fall. I watched the Alliance promise safety, promise repair. And where were we when the bullets stopped?” A ripple of murmurs answers me.
I step forward. Cane taps. “We came home not as heroes, but as wounded debts. Debts they hoped to erase.” The words land. I taste iron—not from blood, not yet—but from the weight of memory.
I scan faces. A mother holds a child. A veteran shifts his injured arm. Their eyes burn. I press on. “They built statues towar—monuments to sacrifice. But they forgot the bodies that carried it. We returned as broken vessels. They turned away.”
Jaela’s face appears in my sight’s edge—live feed overlay—eyes sharp, anxious. Her brow furrows. I falter there’s a numb flicker inside me. Good. She’s here. She’s watching. She matters.
Then the rally fractures.
A veteran, wild in eyes, charges forward—crutch held high. A ragged scream splits the air. Somewhere a banner rips. Chaos blooms.
I leap. Crowd ripples. I charge the man. He swings. Bars. Screams.
“Down!” I bark, grabbing his arm. He jerks. I twist. He lunges—but I restrain. His crutch snaps out of his hand. He stumbles. He fights. Delirium in his veins.
Security surges. We struggle. The veteran thrashes.
Suddenly he gives way. Falls backwards. Slams hard. The neck—snap. His body goes limp. The plaza convulses into horror.
I freeze. The echo of bone breaks. Silence.
Then the uproar. People scream. Cameras foam with images. The world splits.
A voice behind me: “Stand down!” Security men grip me.
I don’t resist. I can’t. I’ve rehearsed this moment since the blast. I step into their hold, arms pinned, legs forced. My breathing is thunder. My rage is coiled.
One security officer drags me. “Hands behind your back!” he says. His voice is clinical, defeated.
I spit, loud in the mic. “I did what your generals would never dare!”
Two guards snap cuffs onto my wrists. Metal bites. The camera lens rotates to me. I stare into the cold eye of it. My scale skin glints with sweat, gold shifting to bronze in early light. Mylips dry. My voice echoes, “If truth was safe, none of you would need me here.”
They push me forward. The man I restrained lies motionless. Medics swarm. Protesters cry, shout, point. The hum of drones intensifies.
I stumble slightly under their grip. The world tilts. Someone yells, close: “Murderer!” Another: “Hero or villain?” The crowd fractures.
One of the officers leans close. “No statements,” he hisses. But I lean toward the camera anyway. “I am the story. I will be your reckoning.”
They drag me into the van. The doors clang. My chest roars. My vision floods. The van’s interior smells of antiseptic and heat. I slump in the seat. The cuffs dig.
They close the doors. The van jolts. I see Jaela’s face flash across my mind. She’ll see this. She’ll hear this. She’ll know.
I taste ash. Grit. The promise in my chest tightens like a fist. I’m no longer a broken machine. I am the signal.
The tribunal chamber is ice and echo. Walls of polished steel, overhead lights cold as laser blades. No warmth. No compassion. The air smells faintly of disinfectant and old fear. My wrists are clamped to extension restraints; every motion I make rubs metal against skin—but I remain upright, rigid, defiant.
I hear the rustle of papers, the steps of guards, the distant hum of video feeds behind mirrored glass. They don’t let Jaela in. They say “conflict of interest.” I hear murmurs:“The Stonmer therapist suspended.”“Favoritism suspicion.”The words sting sharper than any physical wound.
At the front, a panel of Alliance judges sits in black robes. Their faces are blank masks, eyes cold. A prosecutor, human, thin and sharp, paces before me. They project goodwill. They spin narrative.
“Commander Kyldak,” the prosecutor says, voice oily, “you claim you intervened to protect civilians at the rally. The evidence shows instead that you acted violently, killed a fellow veteran, and turned public events into tragedy. We will show you edited footage. We will show you sanitized records. The victim’s own manifest shows aggression. The injured veteran’s file was unrecoverable due to field damage. Citizens saw you kill him in cold blood.”
I stare at him. My voice is dry. “You edited your press, you sanitized the record, you buried whatreallyhappened. You butchered his injury as collateral because you couldn’t handle my truth.”
