I taste metal on my tongue and realize I’ve been pressing my teeth together too hard. “Then we don’t ask them to be brave. We force them to follow the paper they signed.”
Pellorin’s eyes narrow. “You’re talking about the ceasefire accords.”
“I am,” I say. “The Coalition oversight clause. Cross-jurisdiction review embedded in the accords for precisely this kind of contested record integrity.”
Pellorin exhales slowly, as if he can already see the political firestorm lighting. “That clause was designed for joint compliance audits, not for a League tribunal to be told what to do.”
“It was designed,” I answer, “to keep either side from rewriting the war alone.”
Pellorin’s jaw tightens. “Invoking it will make the League Senate scream.”
“Let them scream,” I say, and the words come out colder than I intend, because my patience for comfortable screams is gone. “They’ve been screaming at ghosts for years. I want them to scream at facts.”
Pellorin studies me, then nods once, grimly. “Alright. We can file a formal notice: defendant invokes Coalition oversight clause under ceasefire Article Nine, requesting cross-jurisdiction review of blackout window evidence and corridor authorization chain.”
“Do it,” I say.
“And Rhyx—” Pellorin hesitates, then continues, voice lower. “Sohl reached out again. He’s warning about defensive mobilization if the League interprets this as hostile revisionism.”
“I know what Sohl fears,” I reply. “He fears being held responsible for the peace he helped build.”
Pellorin’s mouth twists. “He fears fleets.”
“So do I,” I admit, because honesty matters in rooms like this. “But I fear a peace that requires constant burial more.”
Pellorin’s expression shifts, reluctant respect mixed with worry. “Alright. I’ll file it. But once we do, you should expect Senate blocs to start issuing statements within the hour.”
“They already are,” I say, because even custody walls can’t keep out the tremor of a public machine spinning up.
As if on cue, the terminal flashes a public bulletin feed excerpt—approved content, sanitized yet still revealing in theway a heavily censored document can reveal the shape of what it’s trying to hide.
LEAGUE SENATE UNITY BLOC STATEMENT:“Commander Varos’s repeated attempts to expand tribunal scope represent destabilizing postwar unity and risk reigniting Coalition tensions. The tribunal must remain focused on negligence accountability, not revisionist political theater.”
The word revisionist is thrown like a stone.
Another statement follows, from a different bloc, louder and more populist:
SECURITY RESTORATION CAUCUS:“The accused seeks to undermine League sovereignty through Coalition leverage. This is an insult to the fallen and an attack on peace.”
The fallen.
They always borrow the dead when they need moral weight.
I read each statement and feel my spine stiffen, not in fear but in the cold recognition that the machine has begun to turn, and it will not stop because stopping would require the Senate to admit it is afraid of a twelve-minute seam in the sky.
Hours later, the Coalition moves, not with the elegance of the League’s public relations machine but with the blunt efficiency of military analysts who speak in numbers and assume everyone else can keep up. A feed clip breaks through even the tribunal’s curated channels because the public pressure has become too large to contain, and a Coalition fleet analyst appears on screen in a simple uniform, face tired, voice crisp.
“Limited communication log fragments exist,” the analyst says, “including relay integrity reports and blackout onset markers for the Kirell window. The Coalition has received authorization to release non-tactical portions for evidentiary review under ceasefire oversight provisions.”
The clip loops twice, each time sending a fresh wave of murmurs through the tribunal complex that I can feel eventhrough the custody walls, because staff move differently when they smell the possibility of institutional embarrassment. Their footsteps become faster, their voices lower, their compads brighter, and the building’s hum feels sharper, as if the tribunal itself is tightening its grip on whatever control it has left.
Pellorin calls again, breathless now in the way a man becomes breathless when he realizes the fire he warned about has already jumped the river.
“Coalition analysts went public,” he says.
“I saw,” I reply.
“Drax is furious,” he continues, voice tight. “Thane is filing objections. The Senate blocs are pushing messaging about sovereignty and revisionism. And—” He hesitates, then adds, “—they’re asking who fed the analyst the authorization line.”
