Drax straightens. “Now I convene an emergency ethics review.”
She touches her compad, and a secure channel opens with a sharp, clipped tone. “Ethics panel. Immediate convening. Chamber C. We have a personnel neutrality breach in public perception.”
She ends the call and looks at me again.
“Ardent,” she says, “I will be blunt. If I remove you, the Senate will applaud. The media will frame it as responsible. The tribunal will regain superficial legitimacy.”
“And the record?” I ask, my voice low.
“The record will continue without you.”
I hear how that sounds, and something sharp twists in my chest. Not pride. Not ambition. Something else—something closer to grief, but sharpened into anger by the idea of being erased from the place where my parents’ names finally surfaced in raw truth.
I take a step forward, stopping at the edge of her desk. “High Arbiter, with respect, if you remove me after this leak, it will look exactly like intimidation. Like someone can smear a staff member and force the tribunal to obey.”
Drax’s eyes narrow. “You are not wrong.”
“And Varos’s request is already filed,” I add, and now I hear the steadiness in my own voice, the way discipline can become defiance if you let it. “He argued that removing me after the leak would signal interference.”
Drax exhales slowly through her nose. The sound is small, but it carries exhaustion.
“He did,” she says.
The ethics review convenes fast, because the tribunal knows how to move when its own legitimacy is threatened. Within minutes, Drax and I are seated in Chamber C, a smaller procedural room with a curved bench and embedded recording nodes that hum faintly as they activate. Three ethics officers sit opposite, their robes crisp, their expressions guarded.
The room smells faintly of warmed circuitry and the bitter edge of recycled air.
One officer, older, with silver hair braided back in a severe knot, looks directly at me. “Junior Liaison Ardent, do you acknowledge that your parents were casualties of the Kirell corridor collapse?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Do you acknowledge that this constitutes a potential conflict of interest in a tribunal proceeding against Fleet Commander Rhyx Varos?”
“It constitutes a personal context,” I answer, forcing myself not to bristle. “It does not constitute procedural misconduct.”
Another officer leans forward. “Have you made any statements indicating intent to seek revenge?”
“No.”
“Have you altered any data?” the first officer asks.
“No.”
“Have you shared restricted materials with outside parties?”
“No.”
The third officer, younger, watches me as if trying to decide whether to pity or distrust me. “Do you believe you can remain impartial?”
I breathe in and let the air fill me, then answer the same way I answered Drax, because it is the only honest answer I have.
“I believe I can remain disciplined,” I say. “I believe I can remain accurate. I will not bend the record for anger or sympathy. I will follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if it leads away from the story everyone wants.”
The older officer’s gaze flicks to Drax. “High Arbiter?”
Drax’s posture remains rigid, her hands folded on the bench. “Fleet Commander Varos has filed a formal request that Liaison Ardent remain assigned, citing continuity of reconstruction and technical specialization,” she says, and her voice is pure tribunal steel. “His request further argues that removal following the leak would constitute the appearance of tribunal intimidation.”
The ethics officer’s mouth tightens. “How convenient.”
