“Yes.”
“Rival leaders will challenge.”
“Yes.”
“Alliance hardliners gain their example.”
“Yes.”
He studies me for a long, silent stretch, the containment lighting reflecting in his eyes.
“You will not die here,” he says finally.
“That depends.”
“On what.”
“On whether the League values treaty more than expediency.”
The engines outside shift again, a deep resonant vibration passing through the station’s skeleton. War does not begin with shouting. It begins with paperwork. With designation. With reclassification of a living being into an administrative liability.
And someone has written my name into that form.
I lift my head and fix my gaze on the sealed door.
“One hour,” I say quietly.
Varek nods once.
“One hour.”
And in that hour, diplomacy will either hold?—
Or the galaxy will lose its patience with restraint.
CHAPTER 5
ELARA
The forensic lab is brighter than it needs to be, white diagnostic light washing over suspended fragments of metal that rotate slowly in their magnetic field. The blast shard at the center turns with mechanical patience, jagged edges catching illumination and scattering it in fractured reflections across the polished walls. Data layers hover in translucent arcs around it—manufacturing codes, harmonic overlays, alloy composition breakdowns—each clean and clinical, each insisting the device makes sense.
It doesn’t.
“Run the manufacturing trace again,” I say, not taking my eyes off the fragment.
The junior tech across from me shifts uncomfortably in his station chair. “Senior Aide, we’ve already verified the stamp twice.”
“Run it again.”
He exhales softly but complies, fingers moving across the console. The projection sharpens, zooming inward until the Alliance foundry ridges are unmistakable—precision machining at sub-micron tolerances, standardized military-grade patterning embedded along the casing seam.
“Alliance production batch,” he confirms. “Eight months ago. Military supply chain.”
“Cross-reference procurement logs.”
“They’re locked.”
“Then flag the lock.”
