He lifts his brows. “Convenient.”
I keep my eyes on Drax, because I will not play Thane’s theater. “High Arbiter, may I clarify?”
Drax’s gaze flicks between us. “Briefly.”
I turn my face toward the chamber, feeling the broadcast drones tighten their focus, lenses like eyes. “I issued evacuation clearance at 13:57. At 13:52, artillery patterns intensified with targeted strikes toward our relay nodes. At 14:00, communications blacked out. Tactical updates stopped transmitting. During that blackout, I could not receive recalibration updates beyond local sensor range.”
Thane interjects smoothly. “And yet you did not publicly contest any alleged recalibration after the war.”
My throat tightens, the old ache flaring, but I do not let it change my cadence. “Accusing League command interference without confirmed documentation would have triggered Coalition retaliation and endangered ceasefire negotiations. I chose not to ignite another century of war over suspicion.”
There it is—my confession of silence, delivered with the precision of a blade.
The gallery murmurs again, and the murmurs are not all sympathetic. Some are hungry.
Thane steps closer, voice bright. “So you admit you suspected interference.”
“I admit I suspected an anomaly,” I reply. “I did not have proof.”
“And now,” Thane says, “you want to drag the tribunal into investigating League command based on—what? Feelings? Regret?”
“No,” I answer. “Based on evidence reconstruction.”
Drax’s eyes narrow. “Counsel, the tribunal has already noted motions regarding scope. Proceed.”
Thane inclines his head, then turns to the bench with a polite flourish. “The prosecution calls Junior Archival Liaison Selene Ardent to present civilian telemetry.”
The name ripples through the chamber like a spark in dry grass, because the Holonet has already turned Selene into a headline. Emotionally compromised. Neutrality risk. The audience wants to see her either break or prove them right.
Selene steps forward from the side entrance, and even from here I can sense the strain she’s carrying. Her shoulders are squared, her expression composed, but there’s a faint pallor beneath tribunal lighting, a tightness around her mouth like she’s biting back something physical. Her braid is tight, herhands steady, her gaze fixed on the console the way a drowning person fixes on a rope.
She does not look at me.
She takes her place at the projection station and activates the telemetry overlay. The chamber’s display shifts, showing civilian shuttle paths as thin white lines threading through the grid. They jitter and correct in real-time, less elegant than military displays and therefore harder to romanticize.
Selene’s voice is clear, controlled, and just dry enough to cut. “Civilian telemetry stored in municipal emergency archives indicates a corridor guidance update occurred at approximately 14:01 local orbital, preceding the corridor collapse by eight minutes.”
Thane’s smile is polite. “Liaison, is that not consistent with routine wartime adjustments?”
Selene pauses for a fraction of a second, a hesitation so slight most would miss it, but I see it because I have been watching for cracks since the day I surrendered. When she speaks again, her voice is steady, but the words are sharpened.
“The telemetry indicates a guidance update that results in measurable path correction across multiple civilian shuttles,” she says. “The update is coordinated, not incidental drift.”
Thane’s eyes narrow. “And what is the relevance to negligence?”
Selene’s chin lifts by a millimeter. “The relevance is that the utilized corridor diverges from the initial evacuation vector alignment visible at issuance.”
A murmur stirs. Drax’s gaze sharpens. Thane’s mouth tightens.
Selene continues carefully, choosing language like stepping stones across a river full of teeth. “The corridor shift occurs within a twelve-minute window between initial order and collapse. Municipal telemetry shows that civilian shuttlesrespond to updated corridor guidance rather than adjusting solely due to artillery exposure.”
She stops short of naming convoy classification or Vol. She leaves the implication hanging like a blade hidden under silk.
Thane pounces anyway. “Municipal telemetry is not proof of military authorization.”
“It is proof of corridor guidance update,” Selene replies.
Thane turns toward Drax. “High Arbiter, we object to the insinuation that military authorization occurred outside the defendant’s command responsibility. This line of inquiry threatens to expand beyond negligence scope.”
