They push me onward. The custody corridor swallows sound as the privacy fields thicken, and the air becomes colder, more filtered, tasting of metal and antiseptic, the smell of rooms designed to hold people without acknowledging they’re alive. I pass through two sealed doors, hear the locks engage with a soft finality, and I am placed in the holding room with the terminal embedded in the wall, the same restricted interface that has been my companion through too many hours of waiting.
Pellorin appears on the holo within minutes, face drawn, voice tight. “I heard.”
“You hear everything,” I reply.
“This time I wish I didn’t,” he mutters, then glances off-screen as if someone is pacing near him. “They’re calling it temporary confinement pending breach review. Drax is trying to keep it from looking like retaliation.”
“It is retaliation,” I say flatly. “She projected doctrine and made Vol look like what he is. They’re going to try to scare her into silence or at least slow her down.”
Pellorin’s jaw clenches. “Coalition envoy is pushing. Oversight Board is furious. Drax is… contained fury.”
“Good,” I say, and mean it. “Let them all be furious. Fury is movement.”
Pellorin exhales. “The envoy wants to know what you’re prepared to threaten.”
I stare at the sterile wall, at the faint reflection of my own face in the terminal’s dark edge, at the binders humming faintly with each pulse of my blood. “Diplomatic protest and suspension,” I answer. “The same thing he already said, but louder and anchored to a named consequence. No review cooperation. No joint integrity framework. No containment narrative.”
Pellorin’s brows lift. “That’s a big hammer.”
“They used her as a nail,” I reply, voice low. “So yes.”
The holo flickers as Pellorin shifts. “Be careful. If you push too hard, they’ll frame you as coercing the tribunal.”
I let out a slow breath. “They already frame me as destabilizing. I’m done caring what label they choose as long as she isn’t alone in a cell.”
Pellorin is silent for a beat, then nods once. “Alright. I’ll relay.”
Hours pass in a strange, tense blur, the kind of waiting where every sound becomes meaningful—the click of boots in the corridor, the distant hum of drone stabilizers, the occasional muffled voice through a privacy field seam—and in that time the tribunal complex feels like it’s holding its breath, unsurewhether it’s about to choke or scream. I try to keep my mind on strategy, on clauses, on evidence, but it keeps circling back to Selene, to her pale face under the lights, to the way she locked the projection feed before they could cut it, to the way her hand drifted unconsciously toward her abdomen when the threat message hit her compad, a protective gesture she thought she hid and did not.
Eventually, the door opens and an officer steps in, posture rigid, expression blank. “Commander Varos. You will be moved to supervised quarters.”
“Why,” I ask, because procedure demands you ask even when you know the answer will be a lie.
“Security detail reassignment,” he says.
I tilt my head. “And Liaison Ardent.”
The officer’s jaw tightens. “She has been released into supervised quarters under shared security detail pending breach review.”
A cold relief hits me so hard it almost makes my knees weaken, and I hate that reaction because it reveals how tightly fear had wrapped around my ribs. I keep my face still anyway, because officers notice relief and interpret it as guilt.
“Good,” I say simply.
They lead me through corridors that have changed again since the last time I walked them, security doubled at intersections, doors requiring more frequent badge scans, drones hovering lower, and the entire complex smelling of ozone and overheated circuitry as if the building is running its own nervous system too hot. In the far distance, I can hear the muffled roar of protests outside Senate chambers bleeding through external feed relays, a low human thunder that makes the tribunal walls feel thinner than they look.
The supervised quarters are not a cell, not exactly, but they are not freedom either; they are a suite designed to feel humanewhile remaining containable, with soft lighting and smooth furniture and a privacy field that can be dialed up or down depending on how much dignity the institution wants to grant you that day. Two officers stand outside the door, and when I enter, I see Selene inside, seated on the edge of a low couch, posture straight, hands clasped, face pale with fatigue, her eyes tracking the room like she’s already mapped every exit.
She looks up when I enter, and for a heartbeat the entire space narrows to the line of her gaze and the quiet force of her presence.
“Hey,” she says, voice low.
“Hey,” I reply, and the word feels inadequate, almost obscene, given what we are walking through.
The officer inside the suite clears his throat. “You will remain in supervised quarters. Communications restricted. Movement requires escort. Breach inquiry pending.”
Selene’s mouth tightens. “I love being told I’m free while being treated like contraband.”
The officer ignores her. He gestures toward a small indicator node in the corner. “Privacy field is active but monitored for security compliance. Do not attempt external transmissions.”
