I gesture to the chair. “Sit.”
Good.Herobedience is instinct now.
“You wanted to understand why reform matters,” I say, activating the holo-display. “I want you to watch something. Instructional material from our own archives. Consider it part of your professional education. Now that the Grand Championships are almost in full swing, I want you to see this.”
The projection fills the room—footage from the training rings, not Terra Ka propaganda but our own surveillance. Human pets on leashes, their skin striped from electric whips, their trainers smiling for the audience.
Eve gasps. “Is this legal?”
“Legal?” I repeat. “Yes. Every cut and every scream; it’s all sanctioned by the IGC under performance conditioning clauses. It’s what galactic civilization callsentertainment.”
She puts her hand over her mouth. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because you keep asking why the Ascendant Alliance profits from the Championships. This is why. Because as long asweown the Championships, we can limit the damage and control the narrative. Without us, you’d see ten times this horror across the galaxy.”
She doesn’t say anything. She just continues to look at the images, horrified.
“Don’t you agree that centralized horror is preferable to decentralized annihilation?”
“I don’t know, Sovereign. If that’s true then yes. But wouldn’t it be better if this didn’t exist at all?”
“That’s the goal, but no one can make it happen overnight.”
I slow the feed to a close-up of a trembling human girl with a numbered collar. “That’s what Gael the Returner calls freedom. He breaks into facilities like this and smuggles humans away without food, medicine, or legal status. They die believing they’re free.”
The next image materializes—Gala Station’s auction floor. A blondehuman woman is displayed, naked, bound, drenched in oil so her body gleams under the lights.
“Do you know her?” I ask.
“Should I, Sovereign?”
“It’s Lara, Gael the Returner’s wife. He sold her at public auction before taking her back. Observe. The auctioneer has given Lara three minutes to climax before the bidders,” I tell her, and her erotic moans broadcast through the feed as her price rises and then the crowd roars when she succeeds. “Gael did not stop the auction.”
I switch the feed. New footage: three humans sprinting through maintenance tunnels, wild with hope. “Liberated by Terra Ka.”
I don’t speak until the next sequence begins. The man’s torso sprouts grafted arms, writhing in constant agony. One woman’s skin weeps fluid through scales. Another drags a malformed tail behind her body.
“They were abandoned at a waystation without papers or resources. They were easy targets. First, they were taken by organ harvesters, then brothels.”
The footage shifts again — the scaled woman bent over, her flesh tearing as clients use her. The man’s extra limbs bound in ways that make him scream. The tailed woman drowns in a tank while clients laugh.
“They lasted six months. Not all of them end this way,” I say, “But enough do that I can’t pretend otherwise.”
“I beg your pardon, Sovereign, but how do I know if this is true?”
I project their death certificates into the air between us. “I never lie about cruelty or death. These were not isolated cases. They are the ones we know about.”
Eve’s face is pale.
“Do you require more information? The humans who were eaten alive by Nin colonists? The ones dissected in laboratories? Or perhaps thegirl transformed into an art installation, her skin and bones replaced with transparent aluminium, so collectors could watch her organs work.”
“Stop,” she whispers. Then more loudly, “Please stop, Sovereign.”
I turn off the feed. The room goes dark except for the reflection of her eyes—filled with tears, but I can tell I’ve convinced her to doubt Terra Ka enough not to run away with them, but still enough to feed them information.
“So… what are we supposed to do?” she asks with conviction.
“Help me fix it,” I say, letting sincerity color my tone. “Be the face that convinces the galaxy humans can live with dignity. The Spire is the only place in the galaxy wealthy enough to keep compassion for humanity alive.”
