“It will force the tribunal to confront the blackout timeline,” I say. “It will corroborate that I could not receive recalibration updates after 14:00. It will widen the seam. They can still try to patch it, but at least they will have to patch it in public.”
Pellorin’s jaw tightens. “You are gambling with the ceasefire.”
“I gambled with it when I chose silence,” I reply. “I just didn’t admit it.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re going to be painted as orchestrating this.”
“Let them paint,” I say, and my voice hardens. “I’ve been painted for years.”
Pellorin goes quiet, studying me, then nods once, reluctantly. “Alright. If you do this, we do it right. We control the scope. We release only what’s necessary, and we attach it to formal evidentiary submission so they can’t spin it as propaganda.”
“Good,” I say. “Do that.”
He hesitates. “Rhyx… once this begins, it won’t stop.”
“I know,” I reply, and the knowledge sits heavy but clean. “It should have started years ago.”
Pellorin’s expression softens for a fraction of a second, and in that fraction I see the man beneath the advocate, the one who has carried political nightmares for too long.
“Get some rest,” he says quietly, as if rest could be a shield.
“I’ll try,” I answer, though we both know trying is meaningless.
The holo fades.
I sit alone again, the custody room returning to its manufactured quiet. The terminal’s glow is the only light that feels alive, and even it is filtered through restrictions and warnings. Somewhere beyond these walls, Selene is still moving through tribunal corridors with her shoulders squared, carrying municipal telemetry like a concealed blade, refusing to be reduced to a headline. Somewhere beyond, Drax is balancing on the razor edge between law and politics. Somewhere beyond, senators are already drafting statements about “diplomatic urgency” and “public interest,” words that taste like smoke.
And somewhere in the Coalition’s sealed archives, a clerk or an officer or a diplomat will soon open a classified drawer andpull out fragments of my fleet’s communications, fragments I once allowed to remain hidden in the name of peace.
I lie back on the narrow platform, not to sleep—sleep is too indulgent—but to stare at the ceiling panel and listen to the filtered air hum through vents. My mind returns again to the corridor line over Kirell, to the twelve-minute seam, to the way the projections looked in the tribunal chamber, polished into simplicity for the public to consume.
I whisper into the sterile air, not a prayer, not quite a vow, but something close.
“Alright,” I say. “No more passive acceptance.”
The words do not echo, because custody rooms are designed to swallow sound, but I feel them settle anyway, deep in the chest where old decisions live, and I know that by morning—maybe sooner—the case will no longer be only about whether I was negligent.
It will be about who had the authority to move civilians like pieces on a board, and who has spent years pretending the board was fair.
CHAPTER 11
SELENE
The municipal telemetry sits on my console like contraband, not because it is illegal—nothing in it violates statutes—but because it tells a story the tribunal did not authorize, and in this building authorization is the difference betweenevidenceandinsubordination. The archive lab is bright enough to feel punitive, the light panels washing every surface into sterile clarity while the storage columns hum in steady, low-throated vibration, as if the room itself is trying to warn me not to make sudden movements. I can taste cold metal in the air and the faint bitterness of stale coffee from the corridor beyond, and the combination makes my stomach turn in a small, slow wave I pretend not to notice.
“Okay,” I whisper, and the word fogs in front of me for a heartbeat before dissolving into the lab’s recycled air. “One more pass. Clean overlay. No drama.”
The projection above the central table blossoms into life, Kirell’s orbital grid rotating slowly, the planet rendered in pale blues and bruised grays, its upper atmosphere marked by faint bands where bombardment heat once kissed it into turbulence. The evacuation corridor line threads across the lattice in soft blue, and when I see it I feel the old, familiar tightening behindmy ribs—an involuntary response, like a scar remembering weather.
I open the municipal shuttle telemetry again, then reach for the convoy classification layer I pulled the night before, the one the tribunal prefers to pretend does not exist in any context that isn’t strictly military. My fingers hover over the access toggle, and I hear Drax’s voice in memory—Do not give them a real reason—and Thane’s voice too, silky as poison—mistaking curiosity for advocacy.
“Yeah,” I mutter, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of my tone because the room is empty. “Because truth is such a dangerous hobby.”
I authorize the layer.
A security prompt flashes, a bland little warning wearing the costume of politeness.
NOTICE: CONVOY CLASSIFICATION LAYER ACCESS OUTSIDE CURRENT CHARGE SCOPE.
