He approaches me, hands folded behind his back, and the drones tighten their orbit, lenses narrowing, hungry for the close-up.
“Jordan James,” Morazin says, voice warm as if we’re meeting for a polite interview. “Comfortable?”
I stare at him. My mouth tastes like metal. “You’re really doing this.”
Morazin smiles faintly. “I’m finishing what you insisted on starting.”
He gestures, and the holo wall behind him displays a title card in clean corporate typography:
STABILITY BRIEFING — NECESSARY RESPONSE TO CIVILIAN TERRORISM
My stomach turns.
“Terrorism,” I echo, voice rough.
“You destabilized critical systems,” Morazin says smoothly. “You attempted to incite political panic with stolen logs and misrepresented troop signatures. You threatened interstellar market confidence. You endangered millions.”
I bark a short laugh that tastes like dust. “You murdered a station full of tech workers.”
Morazin’s expression doesn’t change. “I corrected an imbalance.”
He turns slightly toward the main broadcast drone, and I feel the shift in performance—the moment he becomes a public figure instead of a man.
The camera light brightens.
The air seems to tighten.
Morazin begins.
“Citizens, stakeholders, and allied partners,” he says, voice amplified, clean. “You are about to witness the consequences of destabilizing behavior in an era where stability is the only humane choice.”
The holo wall shows him in dramatic angles—his face, my restrained body in frame, the ugly sky behind us, the platform lit like a stage.
“And here,” Morazin continues, “is Jordan James. A civilian insurgent who weaponized misinformation and attempted to undermine lawful authority.”
I force my breath slow. My compad sits on the rig shelf near my knee, screen still dark, casing warm in my bound hands like a secret heartbeat. The diagnostic trigger waits, silent.
Not yet.
I have to keep him talking. I have to drag him into the one line I need on record: high clearance approval, and anything that names the chain.
If he kills me too early, my backdoor still fires, but it won’t have the clean confession peak. It’ll have noise, chaos, and the aftermath where people argue about context and intent.
I need him crisp.
I lift my chin, letting my eyes look wide in a way that reads “scared” on camera. It’s not even hard. Iamscared. I just choose the shape of it.
Morazin keeps speaking, pacing slowly, using his hands like punctuation.
“We live in a complex ecosystem,” he says. “Markets fund fleets. Fleets secure corridors. Corridors deliver medicine, food, rescue. When reckless individuals threaten confidence, they threaten supply.”
He stops beside me, close enough that I can smell his cologne—expensive, clean, totally wrong against the dust and blood air.
I turn my head slightly toward him and speak low, like I’m bargaining. Like I’m desperate.
“Morazin,” I say, voice tight, “if this is about stability… why kill me? Why not arrest me and make your point quietly?”
His eyes flick to me, annoyed at being interrupted—then he realizes interruption on camera is useful. Drama boosts engagement.
