He stands.
“Enough,” he says, voice like a blade dipped in ash.
The guards hesitate.
“I saidenough.”
They let me go.
I drop to one knee but force myself up. Barely.
Dowron looks at me.
Then at Rhea.
Then at the Combine exec who escorted us in.
“You’re dismissed,” he says coldly.
“But Admiral?—”
“I wasn’t asking.”
The man leaves. So do the guards.
Dowron waits until the door seals.
Then he slams his fist into the table hard enough to rattle the floor.
“You brought themhere?” he growls. “You let Combine filth interceptmycoordinates? What thehellwere you thinking?”
I try to speak. Fail.
Rhea does it for me.
“We didn’t lead them. They were already here. Waiting. Theyknew.”
Dowron’s face turns grim.
She stands, wobbles, and crosses to me. Places her hands on my arms.
He watches.
“What they did to us,” she says, “wasn’t an accident.”
Then she reaches into the collar of her shirt.
Pulls out the data crystal.
And sets it on the table.
Dowron stares.
And for the first time, I see him afraid.
Not for himself.
For the war he knows this might start.
