A second alert follows: tribunal security directive—movement restrictions increased within chamber complex, communications audits expanded, non-essential staff access reduced.
Then, the one that makes my spine tighten:
SENTENCING PROJECTION UPDATE — EXPEDITED JUDGMENT WINDOW UNDER REVIEW.
They’re going to rush. They’re going to try to slam the book shut before Coalition log fragments arrive in full force and before Selene’s metadata fingerprints can be validated outside their control.
Pellorin’s face appears on the holo a few minutes later, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, his voice strained.
“They’re tightening security,” he says.
“I noticed,” I reply.
“They’re also floating an expedited judgment option,” he adds, lowering his voice as if the walls might bite. “If Drax can justify containment, she might push sentencing up under ‘diplomatic urgency.’”
“They’ll hang me fast,” I say, voice flat.
Pellorin’s gaze flicks away, then back. “Yes.”
I breathe in slowly. The sterilized air tastes like cold metal and old regret. “Can you stop it?”
Pellorin hesitates. “Not directly. But if we force a broadcast disclosure—something they can’t edit—then rushing looks like cover-up.”
I nod once, the motion small. “Then we need Ardent.”
Pellorin’s expression tightens. “She’s under pressure. Thane is watching her logs. Vol—” He stops, then continues carefully. “Vol is moving.”
“I know,” I say, and the word tastes like blood.
Pellorin lowers his voice further. “We have a narrow window before the next broadcast session. If she has anything… anything that proves strategic intent rather than reactive adjustment, we can force Drax to confront it on air.”
I don’t tell him what Selene told me in the archive chamber, because even thinking the pregnancy too loudly feels like handing it to surveillance, and because Selene didn’t confess it for me to weaponize. She confessed it because secrets rot people from the inside.
“I’ll meet her,” I say. “Get me access.”
Pellorin’s eyes widen slightly. “Under these movement restrictions? They’ll never allow?—”
“They’ll allow a supervised evidentiary review,” I reply. “They love supervision. Request an archive node meeting under prep protocol. Make it routine.”
Pellorin exhales, resigned. “Alright. I’ll try.”
The holo cuts. Minutes later, custody officers arrive with new escort orders: supervised movement to a secured archive node for evidentiary review. Routine. Contained. Monitored. The kind of meeting the tribunal believes it can control because it can stand in the doorway and count breaths.
They escort me through tightened corridors where security has doubled, where staff badges are scanned twice, where drones hover low enough that I can hear the soft whir of their stabilizers like nervous insects. The building’s lighting seems brighter, harsher, as if illumination itself is a form of discipline.
The secured archive node is smaller than the main lab, a secondary chamber designed for “sensitive review,” which is tribunal language for “we want to watch you.” It smells of cold composite and faint ozone, and the lights hum softly overhead. Two officers stand at the door. Another sits at a recessed monitoring console, eyes flicking between us and his compad.
Selene is already inside.
She stands by the console with her shoulders squared, her braid tight, her face composed into tribunal neutrality, yet the pallor beneath the light makes her look like she’s holding herself upright by will alone. Her eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, and in that glance there is no softness, no romance, no escape—only the hard, bright thread of shared defiance.
“Commander,” she says, voice clipped, for the officers’ benefit.
“Liaison,” I reply, matching her tone.
The officers settle into their watching posture. The room becomes a stage with only two actors who refuse to perform.
Selene activates the projection, but instead of the usual corridor overlay, she pulls up a file header lattice—metadata trees, creation stamps, signatory chains, cross-links that look meaningless to anyone who hasn’t spent their life reading systems. The visual is messy and ugly in the way truth often is.
