“And now.”
I think of the depot below. Of Lena threatening to catch me with a forklift. Of thermal panels and medical skimmers and culvert repairs. Of going home in work boots instead of command dress. Of Selene bent over reform statutes at midnight with fury in one hand and tea in the other.
“Now,” I say, “I would like a quieter skill set.”
He searches my face for regret. Perhaps he finds some. I am not empty of it. I never will be. But regret is not the same as reversal.
I sign.
Rhyx Varos.
The slate seals the dissolution with a soft chime that sounds indecently polite for the death of a career.
Civilian residency confirmed. Active Coalition command status dissolved.
Something in my chest loosens. Not triumph. Not grief. More like a long-clenched muscle finally realizing it can stop hurting on purpose.
Dareth takes the slate back with the care one gives a document that will upset several powerful people.
“Well,” he says. “That is done.”
“Yes.”
He studies me, then nods once. “For what it is worth, I think you are probably wrong.”
I open the office door for him. “For what it is worth, that remains a very Coalition blessing.”
That actually earns a laugh from him, brief and unwilling.
When he leaves, the depot noise rushes back in around me—metal, voices, weather, labor. Honest sounds. None of them ceremonial.
I stand on the catwalk for a moment with one hand on the railing, looking down at the movement below.
No active command status.
Civilian.
The words are less dramatic than they should be. They do not come with music. They do not alter gravity.
What they alter is responsibility.
No uniformed structure behind me now. No rank to invoke. No command architecture waiting to reclaim me the moment it becomes convenient. Just the choices I make and the life I put together with them.
By the time I head back down, Lena clocks something in my face immediately.
She points a grease marker at me. “What happened?”
“I resigned from another life.”
She squints. “That sounds dramatic.”
“It was paperwork.”
“That tracks.”
She tosses me a structural brace manifest. “Good. Civilian now? Great. Carry those supports to housing row seven and prove your hands still work.”
I take the manifest. “Your management style is brutal.”
