I hear him outside on the stage, angry, confused.
“What—” he shouts off-mic. “Get my feed back?—”
He’s not here.
He’s trying to flee.
A tech on the floor gasps, “He’s—he’s headed to the shuttle?—”
Of course he is.
Morazin doesn’t die for his convictions. He sells convictions and runs when the market crashes.
I sprint.
Out of the chamber, down another corridor that smells like hot metal and sweat, toward the rear shuttle pad carved into the ridge. The sound of boots echoes—my men behind me, weapons ready.
We burst out into open air.
An armored shuttle sits on the pad, engines spooling, landing gear locked. Morazin is halfway up the ramp, flanked by two guards. His face is twisted with rage and disbelief.
He sees me and freezes for half a second.
Then he snarls, “Kaijen.”
I don’t answer.
I trigger the planted charge.
A small device we slapped under the shuttle’s landing strut earlier—Jessa’s crew, always thinking ahead.
The charge detonates with a sharp crack.
The shuttle’s landing gear buckles like bone.
The hull tilts hard to one side. The ramp slams down at an angle.
Morazin stumbles, catching himself on the rail. One of his guards falls, scrambling.
Morazin whips his head toward the shuttle like he wants to scream at it for betraying him.
Then he turns back to me, eyes bright with a new kind of hate.
“You’re too late,” he snaps. “She’s dead.”
My vision goes red for half a heartbeat.
I force it back to cold.
“She’s not,” I say, voice low.
Morazin laughs, sharp. “You came all this way for a human. How poetic. How stupid.”
I step closer, weapon trained on him, and my men fan out, cutting off angles.
Morazin’s eyes flick over them, calculating escape paths. There aren’t any.
He straightens, trying to reclaim performance even now. “Go on,” he says, voice rising. “Kill me. Make me a martyr.”
