Halfway through, Rex’s face pulses onto my screen. His hairs are disheveled; his eyes are red. He didn’t expect me to still be up.
“You’re not sleeping again, are you?” he says, voice dry.
“Too much work,” I reply. I don’t mention that I’m writing the piece he’ll refuse.
He rubs his forehead. “Amy… I saw your draft title.Enemy Has Eyes? That’s dangerous ground.”
I lean forward. “Danger is why we do this.”
He sighs hard. “You won’t run it. You can fridge it, bury it, hell, I’ll veto it.”
I swallow the retort that it’s not my show to veto. Instead I say, “Then I’ll publish it somewhere else.”
He stares at me. “You’ll be blacklisted. They’ll tie your name to mutiny before dawn.”
I shut the feed.
Later, I find Darun in the courtyard, leaning against a turret wall. His arms are folded. The morning light washes him half in shadow, half blaze. The smell of gun oil hangs around his sleeves.
I approach him, the holopad tucked under my arm.
“Darun,” I say gently. He doesn’t move.
“What will you do when the war ends?” I ask.
“Wars don’t end. They pause.”
“Stop right there,” I retort. “That’s coward’s logic. Itmustend. People have to choose differently.”
He laughs, but it’s bitter. “Naïve—maybe. But I’ve seen wars “end” in bodies buried and flags changed. They don’t end.”
I push closer. The heat between us is brutal. “You used to believe, Darun. I saw it. Somewhere behind your armor, you believed this could be better.”
He looks away. The moment quivers. We stand too close. I can feel his breath, smell the grit on his scales. My heart drums.
A distant shout cracks the tension. Soldiers’ voices. Orders barked. The moment fractures.
I turn away first, shoulders stiff. The weight of his gaze presses me. I don’t look back as I walk off.
He watches me go, jaw pressed, heart tighter than steel.
The war resumes its roar. And so do we.
CHAPTER 10
DARUN
The canyon tastes like ash and old metal. Sand grits in my teeth like powdered bone. I feel it clinging to the sweat-slick hollows under my armor, coating my tongue, grinding against the backs of my eyes. It's too quiet. Too still. The kind of still that means something's wrong, but nobody wants to say it.
Kanapa marches ahead like a goddamn statue with a fuse in his chest, trailing the stink of ozone and burnt oil from the servo in his cyber-hip. He doesn't flinch when the wind howls through the ravine—just tilts his head like he's listening for blood. Behind him, the rest of the squad trudges with rifles low but fingers twitching. We’ve been through this dance enough times to know the tempo.
Another patrol. Another zone not on any tactical map. A cluster of half-buried shelters nestled under the red stone cliffs, too far from any power grid to be strategic. Kanapa called it a possible smuggling nest. I call it what it is—civilian. No posted flags, no open coms, no guards. Just the sound of tin roofing clattering in the wind and the faint reek of cooking grease clinging to the rocks.
“Movement, twelve o'clock,” Varr murmurs through comms. His voice tight, clipped. “Single contact. Small. Unarmed.”
I squint, adjust my sight filter. It’s a kid. A small one. Thin, limping, a dirty blanket dragging behind her like a second shadow. She vanishes behind a rusted transport hull before I can blink. Kanapa doesn’t slow.
Amy’s walking behind me. I don’t have to look to know she saw it too. Her breathing shifts—a little sharper, like she’s got words backed up in her throat. She's recording. I can hear the faint whir of the lens adjusting, the tiny click when it marks a timestamp. Damn it.
