I don’t rise to the bait. Just breathe. Let the tension sink deeper into my gut. Let it anchor me.
The first guard glances toward Dennis.
Then toward me.
And steps back.
Not much. Just a half step. But in this moment, it’s everything.
Dennis stops talking.
His neck tightens. His voice lowers. “What are you doing?”
The second guard shifts. Glances at his partner. Then lowers his weapon an inch.
“You think this ends with me?” Dennis hisses, to them now. “You think the council won’t put you down like dogs?”
Still, they don’t raise their weapons.
My blade hums low, a quiet promise in the electric air.
I advance.
One step. Then another.
Dennis’s eyes flick to the guards, then back to me. I can smell the faint curl of fear now beneath his cologne—synthetic citrus and power.
I don’t say anything else.
Don’t need to.
My eyes say everything.
They say:You had your chance.
They say:You played god with other people’s lives.
They say:I’m not here for politics anymore. I’m here for justice.
And Dennis?
He finally shuts up.
The first swing doesn’t land clean, but it doesn’t have to. The sound of Dennis’s teeth clacking together as my fist slams into his jaw is its own kind of satisfaction. This isn’t some slick cinematic moment. There’s no elegance. Just the crunch of flesh and bone, the dull ache in my knuckles, and the grunt he makes when his back hits the wall of steel crates.
He’s bleeding already. His lip’s split wide and leaking down his chin. He blinks up at me, dazed and sweating, trying to remember how to play powerful. But his guards are gone—either unconscious or turned. There’s no shield left but lies.
I drag him by the collar and slam him down onto the grated floor. It vibrates with every move, the hum of the launch platform still alive beneath our feet. “You’re done,” I growl, breath thick and ragged. The blaster graze on my ribs sears with every movement, but I don’t back off. Not now.
Dennis chokes on his own spit, coughs blood. “You think this changes anything?” he spits, eyes wild. “I built this planet’s power structure. One scandal doesn’t erase a legacy.”
I lean in, letting my blade rest against the pulse in his throat. “No,” I say. “But it rips out the foundation.”
He doesn’t get to respond—because then she’s there.
Kristi walks through the lingering smoke, her silhouette carved in firelight and grit. Her shawl is torn, her brow smudged with blood and soot, but she walks like gravity itself answers to her. Behind her, the ruined panel still sparks faintly where she fried the grid to shut down the virus. She’s limping. Her sleeve is soaked red where her wound’s reopened. But her eyes? Steady. Cold. Alive.
Dennis’s breath catches when he sees her. Not because he didn’t expect her. But because he thought she’d be broken.
