Reaper signature.
Immediate mobilization.
Public accusation.
Extermination requires narrative.
This explosion provided it.
But not yet.
Not if League arbitration intervenes.
I lift my chin slightly as the guards reposition.
“I demand League arbitration,” I repeat.
And this time, the words echo.
CHAPTER 3
ELARA
By the time they call my name, the station has settled into the false quiet that follows catastrophe. Not peace—never peace—but containment. The corridors hum with rerouted power, emergency lighting strips glowing a colder shade of white along the walls. The air tastes faintly metallic, over-filtered to compensate for smoke intrusion in the central spindle. Somewhere deep in the structure, repair crews work with steady mechanical precision, but up here, in the diplomatic wing, everything feels suspended—like the moment before a verdict.
“Elara.”
Councilor Merith stands in my doorway, her silhouette framed by the corridor’s sterile light. There is ash still caught in the fine ridges along her jawline. No one has bothered to clean up properly.
“Yes,” I say without looking up from the forensic projection hovering over my desk.
“You’re assigned.”
The word is neutral. The implication is not.
I dismiss the data with a flick of my fingers and finally meet her gaze. “Assigned to what.”
Her eyes do not waver. “Interrogate him.”
The pronoun lands heavily in the room between us.
“Kael,” she clarifies when I do not respond immediately.
The name hits differently this time. Not like heat across skin. Like gravity pulling inward. I feel it in the hollow beneath my sternum, a tightening I refuse to examine too closely.
“You have intelligence officers,” I say carefully. “You have Alliance legal attachés practically salivating for access.”
“I don’t want salivation,” she replies. “I want analysis.”
“You think I won’t provoke.”
“I think you won’t grandstand.”
I lean back slowly in my chair, listening to the faint hum of life support cycling through the walls. Outside the viewport, Virex continues its patient rotation, emergency beacon lights still blinking along the docking rings like an arrhythmic pulse.
“He demanded League arbitration,” she continues, stepping fully inside and closing the door behind her. The click of the latch feels too loud. “Formally. In front of half the security wing.”
Of course he did.
