Chapter 9 Freya
FREYA
They’re arguing again.
Kintar, Rection, all the various hangers-on from both sides, and in the middle of it all, Vokar.
He sits as if his patience is inexhaustible.
Yet, I know that if he doesn’t get what he wants--namely me--not only will these negotiations break down, but the IHC people might not even make it out of the room alive.
But once again, everyone is trying to decide my fate for me. Just like the courts did, sending me to the orphanage. Just like the war mongers did, when my parents were killed in the crossfire of the stupid war between the Alliance and the Coalition.
Enough.
I slam the pitcher onto the table. Water inside sloshes, the plastisteel body ringing like a bell before the room goes silent. The drop echoes.
“Has anybody thought to ask me what I want?” I say, voice louder than I intend — sharp, brittle, cutting across the room like a thrown knife.
For a heartbeat, the air catches. Then the humans freeze. The Reapers still. The chatter dies. The soft hum of ventilation seems to quiet, like the ship itself is holding its breath.
I take a slow breath — let the silence hang around me — and reach for the cred-tablet before me. I don’t look down at it. I don’t have to. I speak from memory. From gut. From spite.
“My salary for the next ten years,” I continue. “All of it. Paid now, into escrow. And you direct it to the state-run orphanage on Hadar-Nine where I grew up.”
My calm voice echoes again. Steady. Cold.
Faces around me shift — panic, confusion, indignation. Nervous coughs. The kind that people suppress when someone shouts in a library.
Ambassador Kintar’s eyes widen. His skin is pale, surgically done to exaggerate his Reaper features, but in this moment he looks more thin and fragile than any human I know. He clears his throat, falters.
General Hugh Rection’s face goes red — I swear I see veins under his skin. His jaw works, like he’s trying to chisel words out through rage or confusion.
I hold the glass steady — I don’t drain this last pitcher yet — let the water catch the overhead light and fracture it. Let the weight of my words settle before I finish.
“You listen to me now,” I said louder, leaning forward so my palms slap flat on the table, water rattling inside the glasses.
“Because I’m not some back-room voice nobody hears.
I’m flesh, and I’m danger. If you want my compliance in this — if you want me to keep running your corridors with mop and comms and silence — this is what I get.
Ten years pay up front to save kids like me. No negotiations. No games.”
Silence crushes the room.
Only the soft click of a distant datapad snapping shut.
Kintar shifts, forcing polite calm. “Miss McDonnell — your request is unusual. You know that. Perhaps you’d reconsider—”
I straighten, muscles coiled, eyes burning bright. “I’m done reconsidering what I deserve.”
Rection rises from his chair — the metal scraping, echoing off the walls. He leans across the table, veins pulsing. “You can’t demand something like that. You’re a contractor, a civilian — not a diplomat or claimant. This is insane.”
I look right at him. My eyes cold, fierce. “I’m more human than most around this table. I’ve seen what human means. I don’t need your permission to decide I’m worthy.”
There’s a shift — a ripple. The other humans glance at each other. The Reapers behind me exchange tight looks. Even the air feels raw, stretched thin.
Kintar clears his throat. Voice fast. Barky. “If you insist — I… we will, uh — forward this demand. Process the paperwork. But understand — this complicates negotiations.”
I nod. Lean back a little. Iron in my spine, conviction in my chest. “I understand. And good. Because I’m not here to make things easy.”
A harsh chuckle from Rection. “You’re asking for ten years’ worth of salary — upfront — for an orphanage no one’s audited in fifty years. What proof do we have you won’t take the money and vanish?”
The laughter drips poison. My throat tightens from bile, but I push the feeling down. I breathe out slowly.
I pick up the glass — cool water against my palm — and swirl it slowly. Eyes locked on his.
“You test my honesty?” I ask, voice low, cold. “Do you know what honesty means in my world?”
His sneer corners. “Maybe not — but I know what treachery looks like.”
“Then look again,” I say. “Because there’s more honor in this room than any bar of trade goods you’ve dealt in.”
The silence comes again. Deeper. Harder. Somewhere a ventilation grate clicks. A datapad hums.
And then — a soft sound.
The scrape of chair legs.
The seat at the head of the table — where Vokar should sit, where he does sit, every f’n time — shifts. He doesn’t rise. He doesn’t lean. He doesn’t even move — but the room feels him. The weight of his presence cracks the shell of human lips like ice.
All eyes flick toward him. Doubt, fear, awe.
I try not to flinch. My heart rattles in my chest.
He grounds the stir.
He inclines his head — just a fraction. Just enough.
He speaks.
“Let the demands stand.”
The words land like cannon-fire in still air.
I don’t need to see his hands to know they rest on the table, bone-spurs pressed against wood and metal, fingers splayed like claws ready to tear. I don’t need to see his eyes to know they are burning with promise.
Around the circle, tension bursts — a crack in the hull. Papers flutter. Chairs clatter. Diplomats’ skin pales.
Kintar sputters. Rection’s jaw tightens — a mirror of buried rage and … something else. Recognition. Respect. Fear.
I lean forward. I peek. His eyes meet mine. The world tilts.
I don’t back down.
I can’t.
Because I know what I want.
Because I walked into this room not to bend, but to break the silence.
Because I told them what I want — not as a whisper, not as a plea — but as a demand.
Vokar sits back. Calm. The seat creaks under the weight of iron and patience and power.
No one interrupts. No one calls him insane. No one tries to bargain again.
The only sound is the hum of the ship — the warning lights flickering. The air tastes like stale plastic and recycled oxygen.
And I taste something sharper. Possibility. Reckoning. A future redrawn on my terms.
I swallow. My throat dry. My pulse too loud.
But I don’t step back.
Because I’m not just the girl who wipes the decks and hears whispers. I’m the girl who speaks.
I’m the girl who demands.
And right now…
I am the one holding the terms.
The room thins around us — the others filing from the chamber like dry leaves blown from a tree in autumn.
Their footsteps echo briefly, then fade.
The only sounds left are the soft hiss of systems going into standby, the distant murmur of corridor traffic, and the faint drip of coolant somewhere deep in the walls.
Vokar and I stand under harsh white lights — the same lights we stood under when I demanded what I wanted. Now their glare feels different. Hot. Exposed. Like glass against skin.
He’s dressed in his dark bone armor, plates shifting slightly as he moves. The ridged metal gleams, cold and harsh. But around his eyes — those burning red eyes — I see something else. Curiosity. Surprise. Something deeper.
The weight of his gaze presses against me. I feel it like gravity.
I raise my chin. My back straightens.
“You get my body,” I say, voice flat but strong, like steel pulled from fire. “That’s all.”
He flinches. Or maybe only his jaw tightens — I can’t tell. The rest of him stays still. Dangerous. Controlled.
“You want more?” I continue, carefully. “Then you’ll have to earn it.”
Silence settles like dust. The empty chairs around us—human and Reaper alike—watch us. The air tastes stale: recycled oxygen, metal, the faint scent of burnt incense leftover from diplomatic negotiations. My throat feels rough. My pulse pounds in my ears.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Just studies me — as if trying to weigh the weight of my words.
I bite back a memory — a swirl of sensations from nights before: damp skin, heat, bone against flesh, his voice low and possessive. I keep it locked behind my teeth.
If I surrender again — I lose more than clothing. I lose control. I lose me.
“You think this is some bargaining chip?” I murmur. “This… this isn’t me being weak, or scared. It’s me being honest.”
I glance down at the polished floor. Foreboding reflections ripple under the lights. My own face, drawn and mapped in chrome and shadow. In the glass I’m small. Framed by metal and suits and alien bone — but small. Fragile.
Yet I stand.
He steps closer. The groove of his armor creaks softly. The scent of him rises: metallic, primal, iron-and-bone and something darker, deeper. A smell that’s heavy and binding.
“You took the easy way,” I say, voice shaking. But not with fear. With anger. With clarity. “When you came into my quarters, you scared me a little at first, but you were honest. Real. You demanded me with your roar. Your power. You didn’t ask if I’d come. You claimed.”
Steel creeps into my voice.
“But now? Now you’ve used your political power to put me in a position where I can’t say no.”
“You are free to do whatever--”
“If I said no, Vokar, what would you have done?”
The question hangs there between us like a curtain of flame. He doesn’t answer, so I do it for him.
“Vokar, would you have slain Kintar and Rection? Dragged your clan into a war you can’t hope to win in the long run?” I shake my head. “You put peace, and the lives of a lot of innocent people in MY hands. That…that pisses me off.”
Silence pushes between us again. I can hear my own breath.
Then he doesn’t move. He just — watches.
I draw a breath. Then another.
“I might have said yes,” I whisper, almost to myself. “If you’d asked me, before all this show and bone and blood. Maybe I would’ve said yes.”
His eyes flash. Shock? Regret? I don’t care.
I turn — not quickly, but deliberately. My shoulders squared. I walk away, heels echoing across the floor, each step measured.
Halfway out of the chamber I glance over my shoulder.
He remains. Still. The picture of controlled tension and quiet power. The red glow of his eyes under the harsh lights. The bone spurs catching reflections, casting fractured light across the table.
Then I keep walking.
The doors hiss closed behind me. The world blurs back into muted corridor lights, recycled air, the distant hum of machinery.
My footsteps carry me forward — not running. But leaving.
A tight knot of something — hurt, maybe. Surprise. Something raw and ancestral. I don’t let it sink in.
I tell myself: I’m not yours. Not yet.
Not until you earn it.