Kanapa stops.
“Perimeter clear,” he says to no one in particular.
His cybernetic fingers twitch. I’ve seen that twitch before. Right before a drone strike in the Kuvar trenches. Right before he executed a medic who hesitated. That twitch means something ugly’s about to happen.
"Scorched protocol," he announces. Flat. Final.
I step forward before I even think. “This is a neutral zone.”
“Nothing’s neutral out here,” he snaps without looking at me. “You’ve been out in the sun too long, Sergeant.”
I feel the squad tighten around us. Not physically. Just... tension. The kind that makes your spine lock and your fingers ache. Amy steps closer too, but quiet. Smart.
“Sir, there are no weapons. No hostiles. Just a couple prefab hovels and a kid. We scan and move. Standard recon.”
He turns. Slow. That mechanical arm gleams like it’s hungry.
“Are you disobeying a direct order?”
“I’m questioning the necessity of a war crime.”
Silence.
Even the wind stutters.
I feel the words hit like a punch in the gut—on everyone. Even Amy.
Kanapa’s smile is all teeth and venom. “Big words, Sergeant Darun. For someone who owes me his life.”
I grit my molars. “Don’t make me regret that.”
He steps closer. We’re nose to snout. I can smell the copper tang under his breath, the synthetic grease leaking from his wrist housing. His real eye twitches. The green one. The part of him that’s still Vakutan.
“You think I won’t put you down?” he hisses. “You think I won’t have the command's blessing to do it?”
Then Amy speaks. Calm. Clear. Like a scalpel sliding between ribs.
“You’ll want to say that again,” she says, “for the record.”
Kanapa freezes.
The tiny red light of her recorder winks from just above her shoulder. She’s holding it up like a weapon, and gods help me, it might be more dangerous than any plasma rifle on this dirtball planet.
He turns his head toward her. Slowly. “Turn that off.”
“No,” she replies, cool as the night side of a moonshell.
We stand in a triangle of hell. Dust circling our boots like vultures. Varr shifts. Sira mutters something under her breath. I don’t move. Amy doesn’t blink.
Then Kanapa laughs. A sharp, jagged sound that slices the tension in half but leaves the anger bleeding underneath.
“Stand down,” he growls. “Scan and move.”
He turns on his heel and storms toward the nearest outbuilding, barking orders. The squad scatters like kicked dogs, too relieved to look confused.
Amy lowers her recorder, but she doesn’t speak.
I don’t either—not until we’re out of earshot, behind the hull of a wrecked crawler where the wind dies just enough to make room for words.
