Ayla nods, eyes narrow. “Tech dealers specializing in radical war hardware. Exo-tech factions that operate outside of sanctioned markets. They aren’tIHC,but they move Earth-grade weapons.”
The color drains from me.
“I thought he was dead,” I rasp, heartbeat hammering like war drums.
“He’s not,” Ayla says softly.
I see something flicker in her eyes — not fear, but steel. “He’salive?”
“Yes.”
“Then he isn’t just hiding — he’sarming.”
Across the silent bay, the holoscreen shifts — subtle, encrypted frames rearranging math into meaning: Frederick’s voice, old and familiar and repulsive in its casual malice.
“Payment delivered,” he says, clipped, almost bored. “Prepare the Mark III exo-displacers. I want them calibrated for bone-plasma resonance. And hurry.”
That voice — thattone— it should make my blood boil, but right now my muscles are ice and fire fused together. The world narrows until it’s voice and memory and threat.
“Earth still hasn’t responded publicly,” Ayla says.
“But unofficially?” I ask.
A tense breath. “Silence at the senate level. Private channels — there’s been chatter. They wanthim gone.They just don’t want to be the ones to pull the trigger.”
I blink.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Ayla smiles, slow, amused, and all-knowing. “We scratch their back, they scratch ours.”
My brain locks onscratch their back.
My mouth opens.
“What? You wantwar?” I blurt, tone rising. “You want us to launch afull-on strikeon Earth?”
She blinks at me, clearly not expecting my interpretation.
“No,” she says, patient and soft, “I meant — once we eliminate the reagents of threat to peace — like Frederick — Earth may be willing to lift sanctions, consider diplomatic relations, maybe even trade treaties.”
I stare at her.
“You thoughtscratch their backliterally?” she laughs, eyes bright.
I flush. “Isn’t that what itsounds like?”
She shakes her head, amused, then serious again.
“It’s metaphor. It meansmutual aid.We help them deal with a rogue threat, and in turn they loosen restrictions, open channels for peace and trade. A formal alliance. Protection for hybrids. Sanctuary for the Clanless.”
I let that sink in.
Then the memory of Frederick’s grin — cruel, narrow, triumphant — clenches like a fist around my guts.
“I brought the bastard into this war,” I say, the words almost a growl. “I’ll end him.”
Ayla doesn’t flinch. She just nods, contemplative.
