The Councilor.
Not just corrupt.
Active.
Jordan steps closer, her voice low but vibrating. “What did he say?”
I don’t answer her yet.
“General,” I say into the channel, “the stream is live. Millions are watching. You can’t shove this back into a classified drawer.”
“I’m aware,” Dowron replies.
“And you’re still thinking about fracture.”
“Yes,” he snaps. “Because if I lose the chain of command publicly, we don’t get a tidy scandal. We get sectors arming up and assuming the worst.”
I glance at the city overlay—Gur still holding, barely. Kaijen shielding working. Fyr’s corridor steady. The Nine’s staged chaos contained for now.
Jordan’s voice cuts in sharply, close to my ear. “Tell him we expose the Councilor. Now. Full name. Full trail. End it.”
Her eyes are blazing.
I turn to her.
“We don’t nuke the foundation without thinking about what falls,” I say quietly.
Her jaw tightens. “What falls? The truth?”
“Civilian systems,” I reply. “Border treaties. Trade corridors. Panic.”
She stares at me like I just slapped her.
“You think they won’t panic when they find out later?” she fires back. “You think slow betrayal hurts less than fast betrayal?”
Dowron hears enough of it through the open channel.
“She’s not wrong,” he says quietly.
Jordan whirls toward the comm speaker. “Then arrest him.”
Silence.
Then Dowron says, “I can’t move publicly without leverage.”
I feel it settle in.
There it is.
He needs an out.
Jordan’s eyes narrow. “Leverage? You’re the military.”
“And he’s Council-tier,” Dowron snaps. “With executive overrides. If I move without airtight justification, it looks like a coup.”
I glance at the live feed—Morazin bleeding but conscious. Procurement trails on screen. Telemetry registry. Civilian oversight loops highlighted in bright red.
Airtight justification.
