Then I blink again, slower.
“That’s not routine,” I say, though there’s no one here to argue.
The override carries a League command signature, not Coalition.
I feel something cold and electric thread through my chest, not grief this time but something sharper, more dangerous. If the reroute was authorized by League command clearance, then the prosecution’s narrative is not just simplified—it is amputated.
I expand the validation chain, tracing the override through its authentication handshake. The command passed through a League relay node before it reached the corridor mapping system. The code is clean, not spoofed, not corrupted.
Valid.
I lean back slightly, letting my breath out slowly.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Okay.”
My first instinct is to march straight upstairs and throw the metadata in someone’s face.
My second instinct is to verify everything three times before I let anyone see it.
I choose the second.
“Cross-reference civilian telemetry,” I instruct the system. “Independent of fleet command logs.”
If the corridor truly shifted at 14:01, civilian shuttle telemetry will show trajectory deviation independent of command overlays.
The projection splits, layering shuttle vectors over the corridor map. Dozens of tiny indicators—civilian transports—move along the plotted path, their individual telemetry data flickering like heartbeat monitors.
At 14:01, their trajectories adjust.
Not gradually.
Not in response to artillery.
In response to the corridor recalibration.
I feel my pulse hammer once against my throat.
“You weren’t hallucinating,” I whisper to the projection, as if the data might need reassurance.
Footsteps echo in the corridor outside the lab, sharp against composite flooring. I don’t look up. I don’t have the luxury of distraction.
Instead, I extract the authorization metadata and compress it into a clean evidentiary packet, complete with relay chain validation and timestamp integrity markers.
If I walk into Senior Legal Architect Marris Thane’s office with anything less than surgical precision, he will shred it and call it noise.
The lab door slides open with a soft hiss.
“Liaison Ardent.”
The voice is cool, familiar, clipped.
I turn.
Marris Thane stands just inside the threshold, robes falling in immaculate lines, expression as composed as it was on broadcast. He smells faintly of something sharp and expensive—citrus layered over antiseptic—like he has scrubbed himself clean of the chamber’s tension.
“I was about to request your presence,” I say, forcing my tone into professional neutrality.
His gaze flicks to the projection above the table. “You appear… occupied.”
