18. Josie
JOSIE
I step onto the raised dais at the heart of Snowblossom’s main square, the polished Alliance emblem—a glossed beacon of bureaucracy—glinting behind me.
Cameras from half a dozen newscasters swivel, microphones float like curious mosquitoes, and the crisp morning air vibrates with a false sense of victory.
I taste ozone and recycled coffee in the air, a hybrid of celebration and sterilization.
Beneath my skin, my heart hammers against the illusion, but I pass through the moment with open palms, calm voice, and endless resolve.
“Citizens of Snowblossom,” I begin, raising my voice just loud enough to carry.
My smile is calibrated—sunlit engineer who rebuilt more than machines; the heroic fixer wreathed in optimism.
"Today, we stand on the brink of a new dawn—one born not from ashes, but from the courage and ingenuity of every one of you. "
Polite applause ripples through the crowd. I glimpse children perched on shoulders, beaming pirates of hope, while older faces hold something more brittle. I swallow the ache, hold the moment steady.
I continue: “The Alliance is here to help ensure your safety, to bring back what was taken, and to stand with us as we grow forward. Not as occupiers, but as partners.” I dip my chin to cameras, practicing the gentle cadence and tone they want.
When the speech ends, a uniformed Alliance official strides forward and locks hands with mine—an overt handshake for the press.
I feel the cameras flash. My palms sweat against his suit fabric, warm and smooth, a hint of starch.
I force a steady smile for the photo ops.
A diplomat’s move: close enough to signal unity, distant enough not to betray my own. Everyone’s watching. Don’t flinch.
The interviews come fast. A holo-reporter jabbers, “Ms. McClintock, how does it feel to lead the colony through occupation and back into freedom with Alliance backing?”
In front of the camera, I launch into technical praise, gratitude, and polite nods toward high command. My voice stays firm: “It’s been a journey—one fueled by every person who refused to give in. The Alliance is now joining us in making it real.”
The holo-broadcast flickers. I taste bile, but refuse to let it flood. The question: “What about Colonel Vash? Will he be integrated into the Alliance?”
The spotlight swings. The crowd hushes. I inhale, speak measured: “Colonel Vash is currently undergoing necessary evaluation. He saved this colony—and we owe him our lives. Hopefully, we can welcome him soon.”
Soft laughter ripples through the cameras. The Alliance functionaries beam. But inside, my stomach twists. “Under evaluation.” They're holding him. The cameras swivel. I nod again, add, “We’re advocating for his swift system reintegration.”
Next up, a press photo: me standing by a newly built community center.
I place a ceremonial wrench on a plaque.
Flashes. The wrench clinks. I feel the cold metal against my gloved palm—roots of rebellion repurposed as symbol.
Engineers step forward, beam for the lens. I laugh, bright and engineered.
But alone, I feel its edges: vengeance, public illusion, the cost of waiting for Dayn.
Later, at an indoor round-table between IHC officials and local council members, I sit at the end, tapping tuna-salad crumbs from my notebook.
They discuss “liaison protocols” and “chain-of-command harmonization.” I flip to a drawing I made: Dayn’s hand trapping mine.
I sketch no longer. The margin remains empty.
They propose something brilliant in business-speak: "We reconstruct while ensuring colonial oversight and interoperable command with Alliance coordinators." Translation: We run this show.
I nod and take notes. Smile. Speak affirmatively when asked. Confirm communities are “engaged in policy formation.” All the while, I replay the taste of his lips, the weight of his scaled hand. They’re building a fortress. He’s in its cell.
That night, I return to the command shed—the one he freed me in, we loved in—and run fingers over soot-pitted metal. I linger at the folds where he used to stand. My stomach hollows as the cold settles in. I press against the console where he once whispered, “We did it.” The words echo still.
The radio crackles and the Alliance-connected PS takes stage again: “Tomorrow, Ms. McClintock, your presence is required at the official colony recognition summit. Attendance of your partner, Corporal Vash, is also expected, pending final clearance.”
My breath stops.
I stand, fists clenched around air, and whisper: “You have to be kidding.”
A pause. An invisible breath. “He’s in their cell.” My voice thins.
This is the price: to play the diplomat while the heart of my rebellion remains caged. If I walk that summit line smiling, I smile as his jailer. And that breaks me more than any gunfight.
I gather my datapad, my notes, adjust my pin—engineer’s lanyard by day, revolution’s spark by night. I practice the speech again. I practice the laugh. I practice the handshake. Smile for freedom—even if its reason is locked behind bars.
I sleep fitfully, dreams shredded by the image of Dayn’s clawed hand reaching through prisms of steel mesh. I wake at dawn to an Alliance-message reminder: “Be ready. Media will be live.”
I breathe the humid rainforest air. It smells like hope. It tastes like deception. And I walk out of the battered command shed, head held high. Somebody has to play this game.
If I want him to see me at that summit—not alone—I’ll have to play diplomat. On their field. By their rules—even when I don’t believe in them.
Because behind every pose is a promise—to us. And I will hold that promise, even when I feel far from whole.
So I press my palms together, whisper into the sky: I’ll save you. I’ll save us both.
Then I step forward into the light.
The main square hums with hushed conversations—whispers bubbling through the colonists like a secret heartbeat. I drift through, arms full of repair kits and tangled wiring, and everywhere I go I hear their voices curling around my name:
“That monster… Dayn saved my boy.”
“He stood between me and the guards. He didn’t hesitate.”
“I saw his scales as he held the Vortaxian down. It wasn’t horror—it was awe.”
I pause before a fresh-faced mother and her daughter who smile shyly at me. “You really believe him?” I ask softly, kneeling to their eye level. The little girl nods fiercely. “He’s our kind of monster.”
I stand and press a hand to my chest. Their belief kindles a flare of hope inside me—brighter than any alliance facade.
I’ve spent the last twelve hours in a whirl of electric fervor, rallying engineers, miners, even childhood teachers to rebuild.
Prefab structures have been torn down, replaced with sturdier modules—trio-layered beams, reinforced power conduits.
We race against administrative timelines set by Alliance reconstruction protocols, which stipulate months for what we finish in days. They haven’t caught on yet.
When Marisol the systems engineer—a quick-witted woman usually buried nose-first in orbital comm grids—mentions signal channels, my pulse quickens. “We need a flag,” I tell her, voice low and determined. “A sign that wasn’t created in their press office. Something raw.”
She flicks a tool—soldering iron humming—then winks. “Give me an hour.”
I slip away, heart pounding, to the comm shack I commandeered.
Oil-smudged generators drip in the corner, fans hum, and screens reflect hundreds of blinking signals.
There’s a weather beacon atop the communications tower—left harmless by Alliance engineers.
I climb the narrow ladder, each rung echoing beneath my boots, and reach the panel.
I place my palm against the control host, taste my own adrenaline—sweat and grease mixing hot on my tongue.
My fingers tap into the beacon’s frequency matrix.
I reroute a subspace uplink, reassign the Holonet breadth to our message circuit.
In moments, my heart races so loud I think the technicians below can hear it.
Then I speak into the mic, voice steady even as it shakes:
“Snowblossom stands. We do not forget our own.” My words loop across subspace, broadcasting pirate style across every newswire and signal net.
My breath skips as the message repeats three times. I shut down the beacon. The lights flicker. Silence descends. My chest aches in that triumphant, terrified moment before the world reacts.
Inside the hangar-size comm room, screens begin to flash with incoming pings. Then a single tweet icon pops up. Someone shares it. And suddenly hundreds more. Within minutes, our slogan blazes across Holonet feeds—#SnowblossomStands trending among ex-colonies and rebel cells.
Engineers cheer. The colonists swarm the street below, faces stunned and exultant. I watch them flood the square, fists raised, hearts newly alight. They see us —real, not polished. Not propaganda.
But I taste fear in the back of my throat. Because I know they’ll want to trace the blast. I left fingerprints in code. The Alliance bureaucracy will track it.
That night, I find Dayn pacing behind his holding cell in one of the transport decks repurposed as secure rooms. His hands curl into fists when he sees the signal flooding across a holo-panel. Green-tinged interface reflected in his amber eyes.
“Heard you made a splash,” he says. More statement than question.
I step inside the cell, running a hand through my hair. The air still tastes of antiseptic, but tonight it hums with defiance. “Lost in a moment of excitement.”
His mouth quirks into that dangerous smile—the one that says I’m proud, but oh, you’ve done something crazy again. He doesn’t say anything else. It’s enough.
A guard appears at the window—eyes shifting between us. I hold my gaze until he backs away.
Dayn moves to the bars. “You’re relentless.”
“I need you to come home,” I answer. “I need them to know why I’m fighting.”
He rubs thumb along velvet steel mesh. “You broadcast us as heroes.”
“We are.” I reach to his hand, fingers brushing cold metal, touching the man I love through the divide. “Because we are.”
He studies me—slow and intense. “Then remember: heroes have to be free. Not boxed away.”
I nod, breath trembling. “I know.”
He steps back. Silence stretches between us—grafted with guilt, promise, aching hope.
I leave before dawn, stepping into a new day. Reporters swarm, but I meet every camera with the same calm steel tone. Quiet announcements, praise for “a symbol of hope.” I answer questions with well-crafted care. Every question I anticipate.
Inside, I carry the biggest truth: that message beacon hack. That signal wasn’t just rebellion—it was a rope between us.
Even if they trace it to me.
And at the end of the day, when the holos dim and the pressure builds, I whisper under my breath: “Hold on, love.”
Because right now, we are the story they can't erase—and I’m not done broadcasting us.
A sharp rapping at my door rattles me awake in the pre-dawn hush, the whisper of my breath in the dark louder than usual.
My stomach drops—a sense of foreboding I can’t shake.
I swing the door open. Dowron stands there, silhouette backlit by dim corridor lights, coat immaculate, expression unreadable. For a moment, the world grinds to hush.
“Morning,” he says, voice soft—an anomaly for him. He holds a sealed envelope marked with classified-clearance stripes. “Thought you’d want to see this first.”
Inside, the memos are bald and opaque: The Hellfighters have requested a new operative. No trial. No acquittal. Just reassignment status with immediate release. And that operative… is Dayn.
My fingers tremble as I let the papers slip from my hand. Dowron takes a step forward, gaze steady.
“He did… what needed to be done,” he says quietly, eyes locking mine. “He’s free—leased to the Hellfighters. You’ll both have clearance.”
I swallow against a flood of emotion—relief, rage at the bureaucracy, triumph, grief. I stare at Dowron’s placid face. “You… rode us out of the fire again?”
He shrugs, practised cool. “Results matter. But so do the right players at the right time. You both earned your place at the table.”
My heartbeat hammers: Table. It’s not a cage.
He hands back the memos. “Pack a go-bag. You’re authorized to accompany him.”
That’s all it takes. No hesitation. I slot the paper in my pocket, clench my fist.
“Fuck bureaucracy,” I say, teeth tight. My voice trembles with emotion and adrenaline. “But take me to him.”
He nods and gestures for me to follow. Safe houses morph through shadowed corridors as I suit up, slipping tools into pockets, a spare image inducer tucked beneath my coat for him. The room hums with dry heat, ducted air, the promise of dawn.
I come to a stop at an empty cell—clean, sterile, but still infused with stale fear. My eyes lock onto the steel-meshed door. I taste antiseptic and hope in the air.
Dowron places a hand on the data pad beside the door. “Here.”
The cell unlocks. The door swings silently, slides open. I step inside.
Dayn is seated on the bench—clean-shaven, leashed only by his image skin. He looks up slow, surprise flickering across his golden eyes. Relief smacks his face in a raw rush.
I cross the cell in two strides and collapse into him. My arms curl around him, breath ragged.
He grips me tight. “You came.”
“I never left.”
He swallows. “They… released me?”
I pull back, searching his face. “Strong-armed, candy-coated, but yes.” I touch his cheek—warm, real. “Hellfighters pulled my strings.”
He lets out a breath I think he’s been holding since his cage closed. “Then I’m coming home. To you.”
I nod, half-laughing through tears. “Exactly.”
Dowron clears his throat. We release. He stands off to the side. We turn toward him. Dayn steps forward first—tall, cautious but sure.
Dowron hands Dayn a clearance pass. “Welcome back, Corporal Hellfighter.”
Dayn flexes his arms as cuffs fall away. He smirks. I squeeze his hand.
We walk down the corridors—together—toward the rising sun and the world that needs saving beyond this moonlit cage.
As we emerge, I breathe in the humid dawn air again—earth and promise swirling. Dayn shades his eyes as light lands between us.
“No more cages,” I murmur.
He pulls me into his side. “No more.”
And together, we step into the new light—rebels, lovers, warriors—ready for whatever comes next.