Chapter 28
KENRON
Dennis Montana stands across the loading bay like he owns gravity.
Flanked by two guards dressed in the white-and-gold trim of Earth First paramilitaries—gilded patriotism over cold steel muscle—he looks untouchable.
Too clean. Too smug. My sword’s slick in my hand from the blood leaking out of my side, hot and thick and soaking through the tear in my tunic.
I feel every heartbeat as a drumbeat against the wound, but I don’t waver. Not now.
The room hums low, the charge from containment pylons whispering like angry bees through the air. It stinks of ozone, overclocked machinery, and the tang of burnt coolant. Somewhere above us, the celebration has turned to chaos—scattered voices, distant screams, a crackle of failing broadcast tech.
But down here?
It’s just us.
“You’re done,” I say, my voice flat but loud enough to cut the space between us.
Dennis laughs. Not the maniacal kind. Worse. Controlled. Arrogant. Like he’s still giving a press conference.
“I built this planet’s power structure,” he says, and it rolls off his tongue with the same rehearsed cadence he used in every speech. “You think one scandal changes that?”
His guards shift.
Subtle. But I see it.
A tilt of the shoulders. A recalculation.
Dennis doesn’t notice. He’s too busy basking in the glow of his own voice.
“Do you know how many deals I’ve cut to keep Novaria running?
How many council votes I own? Hell, half the contractors on this station still owe me their pensions.
” He steps forward like he’s trying to reclaim the floor.
“You and your little alien whore think you’ve started a revolution? You’ve lit a match in a hurricane.”
I don’t rise to the bait. Just breathe. Let the tension sink deeper into my gut. Let it anchor me.
The first guard glances toward Dennis.
Then toward me.
And steps back.
Not much. Just a half step. But in this moment, it’s everything.
Dennis stops talking.
His neck tightens. His voice lowers. “What are you doing?”
The second guard shifts. Glances at his partner. Then lowers his weapon an inch.
“You think this ends with me?” Dennis hisses, to them now. “You think the council won’t put you down like dogs?”
Still, they don’t raise their weapons.
My blade hums low, a quiet promise in the electric air.
I advance.
One step. Then another.
Dennis’s eyes flick to the guards, then back to me. I can smell the faint curl of fear now beneath his cologne—synthetic citrus and power.
I don’t say anything else.
Don’t need to.
My eyes say everything.
They say: You had your chance.
They say: You played god with other people’s lives.
They say: I’m not here for politics anymore. I’m here for justice.
And Dennis?
He finally shuts up.
The first swing doesn’t land clean, but it doesn’t have to.
The sound of Dennis’s teeth clacking together as my fist slams into his jaw is its own kind of satisfaction.
This isn’t some slick cinematic moment. There’s no elegance.
Just the crunch of flesh and bone, the dull ache in my knuckles, and the grunt he makes when his back hits the wall of steel crates.
He’s bleeding already. His lip’s split wide and leaking down his chin. He blinks up at me, dazed and sweating, trying to remember how to play powerful. But his guards are gone—either unconscious or turned. There’s no shield left but lies.
I drag him by the collar and slam him down onto the grated floor. It vibrates with every move, the hum of the launch platform still alive beneath our feet. “You’re done,” I growl, breath thick and ragged. The blaster graze on my ribs sears with every movement, but I don’t back off. Not now.
Dennis chokes on his own spit, coughs blood. “You think this changes anything?” he spits, eyes wild. “I built this planet’s power structure. One scandal doesn’t erase a legacy.”
I lean in, letting my blade rest against the pulse in his throat. “No,” I say. “But it rips out the foundation.”
He doesn’t get to respond—because then she’s there.
Kristi walks through the lingering smoke, her silhouette carved in firelight and grit.
Her shawl is torn, her brow smudged with blood and soot, but she walks like gravity itself answers to her.
Behind her, the ruined panel still sparks faintly where she fried the grid to shut down the virus.
She’s limping. Her sleeve is soaked red where her wound’s reopened. But her eyes? Steady. Cold. Alive.
Dennis’s breath catches when he sees her. Not because he didn’t expect her. But because he thought she’d be broken.
“You,” he says, voice shaking just enough to be real. “You could’ve had everything.”
Kristi steps close. In her hand is the shard—a sliver of vengeance and proof, polished and humming with encrypted data. “No,” she says softly. “I could’ve helped you kill more quietly. That’s not the same thing.”
I tighten my grip on Dennis’s collar as he squirms. “Kristi…”
She looks at me, then nods.
I tilt his head. Expose the neural port just behind his right ear.
Dennis’s whole body tenses. “Don’t,” he hisses. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“On the contrary,” Kristi murmurs. “For once, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
She drives the shard into the slot with a sharp click.
His back arches, and for a heartbeat, the whole bay seems to hold its breath.
Then the scream hits.
It’s not human—not entirely. A raw, animal wail torn from somewhere too deep to name. His limbs seize, every muscle locking as the data override burns through his implant. All around us, the screens flash—every terminal, every holoprojector, even the security feeds.
One by one, they start to broadcast.
Footage. Audio. Transcripts.
Dennis authorizing “humane containment” in alien wards. Approving assassination orders. Pocketing bribes. Smiling during the Fratvoyan diplomat’s final moments. The nanovirus schematics. The Earth First recruitment blacklists. Every filthy thread in the tapestry he’s woven, unraveling in real-time.
Kristi stares at the screens. At the history she’s unmade.
Dennis collapses. Convulses once. Goes still.
She drops to her knees beside me, trembling.
“It’s done,” she says, voice barely more than breath.
Outside, the plaza is chaos. Not panic—something else. The crowd isn’t fleeing. They’re watching. Holopads lit. Projections dancing across tower walls. The truth is loose now. And it’s not coming back.
I wrap my arm around her, pulling her close. Her skin is cold and burning all at once.
“We have to go,” I say, even as I don’t want to move.
She doesn’t argue.
Because the war isn’t over. But the mask is off.
And the world just saw the monster beneath.