He smiles like he’s proud of it.
“You took a while to come around,” he says. “We even gave you the fancy chair.”
I say nothing.
He circles me.
“Do you know what this shipwas, agent Valtron?”
I remain silent.
He chuckles. “It was theJustice. Commissioned during the Ataxian War. Hundreds of missions. Thousands of kills. She wasmothballed after the Centuries Treaty. And now?” He pats the wall. “Now she’s ours.”
I spit blood at his feet.
He sighs. “So uncivilized.”
Then he walks out.
A second later, a shock runs through my chest like a thunderbolt dipped in glass. My whole body jerks. My vision whites out.
I don’t scream.
But it’s close.
They want to know what we sent. Where the files are. Who else knows. How deep Dowron’s ties run. They don’t understand that this isn’t just a mission anymore. This is apromise.
And I don’t break promises.
Even if it kills me.
When they finally drag me out of the cell, I don’t know how much time has passed. Minutes? Hours?
They shove me through corridors that shine like antiseptic nightmares, walls echoing with the quiet hum of tech built to silence screams. I don’t ask where we’re going.
But when they throw open the next door, I know.
Rhea’s there.
She’s sitting upright, her hands cuffed in front of her, hair a mess, but her spine? Straight. Her chin? High.
She sees me.
Her mouth opens, then slams shut again. Fury and heartbreak war on her face.
I stumble into the room. The guards shove me forward.
And that’s when I see him.
Dowron.
Alive.
Old.
And very, very angry.
He’s seated at the head of a long steel table, one hand curled into a fist. He’s thinner than I remember, but his presence still hits like gravity. His uniform’s ragged. His left eye is covered with a fresh patch. And his chest bears the old sigil of the true Alliance.
