“No,” I answer.
He studies me for a moment, then nods once.
The technician lifts her hand. “Going live in five.”
I inhale slowly.
Filtered station air slides into my lungs, carrying faint traces of mineral dust from the asteroid’s exposed strata. Somewhere beneath that, the metallic tang of docking clamps cycling.
The red indicator flares.
The feed opens.
“My name is Elara Vance,” I begin, and the sound of my own voice returns to me from the monitor beside the camera a fraction of a second later—steady, clear, stripped of diplomatic polish.
Across the screen, viewer metrics spike upward in jagged climbs. League channels, Alliance channels, independent blocs. My face fractures into smaller windows as commentary feeds latch onto it.
“Until recently,” I continue, “I held League diplomatic clearance and intelligence authority.”
An Alliance commentator appears in a side pane almost immediately, his mouth already shaping rebuttal. A League analyst scrolls across the bottom ticker, labeledFormer Analyst Vance Addressing Status.
“I am here to confirm that my resignation from the League is voluntary and permanent.”
In the split-screen inset, a League spokesperson’s jaw tightens.
I let the silence breathe for half a second.
“I have been offered reinstatement,” I say. “Protection. Asylum under reassignment.”
A murmur ripples through the live reaction column. Comments cascade fast enough to blur.
“You should take it,” one League-aligned commentator says, speaking over my feed but not interrupting it. “This is reputational self-immolation.”
“I decline all of it,” I say.
The words settle like dropped metal.
“I decline because neutrality in the face of engineered conflict is not objectivity. It is avoidance.”
Behind the camera, I hear the oversight technician’s breath hitch almost imperceptibly.
The Alliance commentator leans forward in his frame. “You are accusing entire institutions of moral failure.”
“I am describing what I observed,” I reply calmly.
The feed remains clean. No cut. No distortion.
“I will not recant evidence that has been independently verified,” I continue. “I will not denounce individuals who acted to prevent systemic annihilation.”
Kael’s presence at the edge of my vision is solid, grounding.
“And I will not return to a position that requires selective blindness.”
The League spokesperson’s image expands in a reaction pane. “You misunderstand the function of diplomacy,” she says tightly. “Institutional continuity?—”
“Does not excuse complicity,” I answer, not raising my voice.
The reaction column surges.
