Drax tilts her head slightly. “You are requesting reconstruction during the opening session?”
“Yes.”
Thane steps forward quickly, voice smooth again. “High Arbiter, the prosecution has already provided a reconstruction sufficient for preliminary proceedings. Commander Varos’s request appears to be a delay tactic.”
I keep my gaze on Drax. “It is not a delay tactic. It is the record.”
Drax’s fingers rest lightly on the bench. “And you are asserting the current reconstruction is incomplete?”
“I am asserting it is simplified.”
A faint smile touches Thane’s mouth, the kind of smile designed to look courteous on broadcast. “Simplification is necessary for public comprehension.”
Pellorin murmurs beside me, low enough that only I can hear. “Easy. Don’t let them provoke you.”
I do not look at him, but I answer anyway, my voice lowered just slightly. “I am not provoked. I am refusing their version.”
Drax’s gaze flicks briefly toward the projection of casualty numbers still hovering above the chamber, then returns to me. “Your request is noted. The tribunal will determine scope.”
“I request it formally entered.”
“It will be entered,” she says, and then, because she understands procedure as well as I do, she adds, “The tribunal will call the archival liaison to present preliminary corridor overlays. We will review raw mapping in sequence.”
Thane’s posture stiffens by a fraction, but he cannot object without looking as though he fears the data, and fear is the one expression prosecutors cannot afford.
A tribunal officer speaks. “Junior Archival Liaison Selene Ardent, present.”
I do not turn my head at first, because I refuse to appear as though I have sought her out as a shield. Yet I cannot stop my peripheral vision from registering movement at the side entrance: a woman stepping forward in tribunal attire, modest and precise, her hair braided tight, her posture controlled with a kind of disciplined tension that feels familiar in a way I do not want to admit. She is smaller than most in the chamber, and yet the space shifts around her as she walks, because attention is drawn to any figure who might disrupt the narrative.
Selene Ardent takes her place at the projection console. The light from the holoprojectors catches her eyes, and even at this distance I see how they hold steady, gray-green and sharp, as ifshe has trained herself to treat emotion as something she can place neatly into a drawer.
Drax addresses her. “Liaison Ardent, present the preliminary corridor overlays. Begin with the initial evacuation order vector.”
Selene’s voice is clear, a touch dry, with the clipped cadence of someone who has learned that hesitation invites interpretation. “Yes, High Arbiter.”
She activates the console, and the projection shifts. The corridor line reappears, but now it is layered in a way that makes the truth harder to flatten: original vector plotted in pale blue, hazard arcs visible but not exaggerated, defensive satellite positions rendered with more nuance. She overlays the initial evacuation order timestamp.
13:57.
My chest tightens, not with fear but with the deep, stubborn ache of recognition, because I remember that moment with crystalline clarity. I remember the bridge lights, the sensor warnings, the way the comm relay crackled as it began to fail. I remember choosing the path that, at that moment, was the safest option for civilian traffic, because all other options were collapsing under enemy fire.
Selene’s hand moves through the air, guiding the projection like a conductor guiding an orchestra. “The initial order issued at 13:57 establishes Corridor Vector A-Prime, aligned with safe-zone projections and defensive satellite coverage.”
Thane interjects smoothly. “And yet, Liaison, the corridor that was ultimately utilized intersected hazard arcs.”
Selene’s jaw tightens slightly, a small change that most would miss, but I see it because I have spent a lifetime watching for microfractures in discipline. “The corridor that was ultimately utilized,” she says, choosing her words carefully, “shows deviation from the initial plotted vector.”
Thane’s smile remains polite. “Deviation due to command adjustment under bombardment.”
Selene pauses. It is not a long pause, not even a full breath, but in that fraction of time I see her eyes flick to a segment of the timeline hovering at the side of the projection.
14:01.
The recalibration window.
The twelve minutes compressed out of the prosecution’s clean story.
Her fingers hover, and in that suspended moment the whole chamber seems to lean forward unconsciously, as if it senses that something important has been touched.
