Then it completes with a silent tick.
The data is gone, out of the tribunal’s hands, beyond their scope restrictions and overnight “maintenance windows.”
I sit back slowly, letting the chair support my spine for a second, and I realize my hands are shaking, not dramatically, but in a fine tremor like someone has quietly turned up the gravity. I flex my fingers, then clasp them together until the tremor slows.
“Well,” I murmur, tasting cold air and something metallic in my mouth. “That’s one way to make sure they can’t corrupt it.”
The building doesn’t respond, but the hum of its servers sounds different to me now, less like reassurance and more like a countdown.
I leave the node with my face composed, badge displayed, posture neat, because the first rule of surviving a hostile institution is to never look like you’ve done something decisive. I walk through corridors where security has doubled, where drones hover lower, where staff glance at my hands as if they expect to see blood on them. I pass a glass wall that reflects me back—pale, eyes too bright, jaw tight—and I force my expression into something neutral enough to be boring.
By the time I reach my office pod, tribunal communications is already vibrating with constrained panic, that peculiar blend of clipped professionalism and adrenaline that makes even routine memos feel like warnings. I set my compad on the desk, open a bland docket file to look harmless, and wait with the patience of someone listening for the first crack of thunder.
It comes faster than I expect.
A tribunal-wide alert pings, then another, and then my compad lights with external feeds that someone forgot to fully lock down, because the tribunal can control its own channels but the Holonet has teeth.
A headline flashes across the screen in stark, urgent typography:
LEAKED FILES SUGGEST LEAGUE CONVOY SHIELDING OVERLAPPED KIRELL CIVILIAN EVACUATION SHIFT.
Another follows, sharper, more sensational:
DID WAR HERO ADMIRAL VOL AUTHORIZE “CIVILIAN REDIRECTION” TO PROTECT WEAPONS CONVOY?
My stomach drops, then flips, nausea rising like heat, but beneath it there’s a cold, fierce satisfaction that tastes almostlike relief. The consortium didn’t bury it. They didn’t “wait for confirmation.” They went loud, and the loudness has a particular sound, like a door being kicked open in a room full of smoke.
I scroll. I shouldn’t, but I do anyway, because I need to see the shape of the fire I’ve started.
Clips of analysts debating shield perimeters. Graphics of Kirell’s orbital grid overlaid with convoy vectors. A careful mention of “metadata headers tied to a flag-level clearance marker.” The consortium keeps the language cautious—potential civilian redirection,questions requiring tribunal disclosure—but the implication is clear enough that senators will feel it in their bones.
A third headline appears, and this one is quieter, more terrifying in its restraint:
TRIBUNAL SOURCES CONFIRM INTERNAL EVIDENCE BREACH INVESTIGATION WAS “ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSED” DAYS BEFORE LEAK.
I exhale slowly.
So that’s how it looks from the outside: not merely a tragedy, but a cover.
The compad vibrates again, and this time it’s an internal tribunal summons:ALL STAFF REPORT TO COMMS BRIEFING — IMMEDIATE.
I arrive in the comms hall to a scene that feels like a hive struck with a stick. Screens glow with live feeds. Staff cluster in tense knots. Security officers line the walls with that rigid stillness that says they’ve been instructed to treat everyone as suspect. The air is warmer here from all the bodies and all the overheating projection rigs, and it smells faintly of sweat under antiseptic, the human scent of fear and anger trying to stay polite.
High Arbiter Drax stands at the front, robe immaculate, expression carved into severity so sharp it could slice paper. Thane is nearby, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes bright with a kind of controlled vindication. A comms director whispers into Drax’s ear, then steps back as if afraid of being associated with bad news.
Drax’s voice cuts through the room, amplified and absolute. “A classified breach has occurred.”
The room stills, every breath held.
“An external entity has published unauthorized materials,” she continues, and though she doesn’t look at anyone specifically, it feels as if her gaze sweeps us all like a net. “This tribunal condemns the leak as an act of procedural sabotage designed to destabilize postwar unity and undermine lawful accountability.”
There it is: unity, the sacred animal again, already being invoked as a shield.
Drax lifts her chin slightly. “An internal breach inquiry is now active. All access logs will be audited. All staff communications will be reviewed under tribunal security statutes. Any personnel found to have facilitated this leak will be subject to immediate suspension and prosecution.”
Around me, people shift, compads clutched like talismans, eyes widening, mouths tightening. A junior clerk whispers, “They’re going to scour everything,” and someone else replies, “They’ll blame the liaison,” and I keep my face still because if I react, I’m done.
Thane steps forward with the smoothness of a man who has been waiting for this moment. “Let me be clear,” he says, voice silk and steel. “This case remains a negligence proceeding. The prosecution will not permit scope contamination through external propaganda.”
