He steps closer—not touching, but close enough that the air between us feels charged.
“You do not regret it,” he says softly.
I swallow.
“No,” I admit.
The word settles heavy and undeniable.
Outside the viewport, stars drift silently across endless black. Inside the cruiser, the projections flicker with cold forensic light.
“So what now?” I ask.
“We gather proof,” Kael replies.
“And accuse an Alliance admiral of fabrication?” I challenge.
“If evidence leads there,” he says evenly.
“That’s suicide.”
“It is necessity.”
I stare at him, at the burn still healing across his shoulder, at the steadiness in his posture despite everything.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter.
“I have been told,” he replies, a faint edge of dry humor in his tone.
Despite myself, the corner of my mouth twitches.
Then I look back at the screen where my face still hangs beneath the word TRAITOR.
There is no career to salvage.
No reputation to defend.
Only the truth.
“This wasn’t a spark thrown at a species,” I say quietly, watching the twin waveforms pulse in the air. “It was a blade aimed at you.”
“Yes,” Kael answers.
“And I stepped between it.”
His gaze softens just slightly.
“Yes,” he says again.
The realization lands fully now—not abstract, not theoretical, but real.
I didn’t derail a war.
I interrupted an assassination.
And I did it because something in me refused to let him fall.
The engines hum steadily around us as deep space swallows the last trace of Virex Station.
