I have it.
But exposure without structure is chaos.
I make a decision.
Jordan sees it in my face and bristles.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
“Winning,” I say.
I open a secondary channel—Kaijen secure burst.
“Rook,” I say, “prepare sealed evidence package. Full procurement chain. Sniper telemetry registry. Dead-man packet correlation. Everything.”
“Ready,” Rook replies instantly.
“Mirror it to neutral systems,” I continue. “Three. No—five. Independent jurisdictions. Timed release.”
Jordan’s eyes widen. “Lonari?—”
“Timed release,” I repeat. “If High Command fails to act within twelve hours, full disclosure triggers across neutral networks.”
Dowron goes very quiet.
“You’re blackmailing the Alliance,” he says.
“I’m giving you a choice,” I reply.
Jordan’s breath catches. She’s furious—and she’s thinking.
I look at her.
“You want full exposure,” I say softly. “This gets it without detonating civilian panic in the next ten minutes.”
She glares at me. “Or it gives him a clean narrative spin.”
“Spin doesn’t stop audits,” I reply. “And it doesn’t undo arrest warrants.”
Dowron inhales slowly. “What are your terms?”
There it is.
I feel the room tighten around the moment.
“You arrest the Councilor publicly,” I say. “Not for treason. Not for war. For corruption. Abuse of procurement authority. Misuse of civilian oversight routing.”
Jordan starts to protest. I cut her off with a look.
“You isolate him,” I continue. “You freeze his access. You initiate transparent audits of High Command security procurement. You sever all Nine-adjacent channels.”
“And if I don’t?” Dowron asks.
“Then the sealed evidence goes live across five neutral systems,” I reply calmly. “With your name included in the timeline of constrained investigations.”
The silence on the line is dense enough to choke on.
“You’d burn me too,” Dowron says quietly.
