Chapter 11 #2
“You are aware,” Thane says, voice smooth, “that overreach can constitute breach of tribunal protocol.”
“I’m also aware,” I reply, “that calling relevant data ‘overreach’ is a convenient way to keep the negligence narrative clean.”
His eyes narrow by a fraction. “Watch your tone.”
“Watch your scope,” I shoot back before I can stop myself.
The air in the room tightens.
The aide’s gaze flicks between us like a spectator at a duel.
Thane leans forward slightly, hands resting on his desk with controlled pressure.
“The tribunal is under extraordinary scrutiny. Every action you take is visible. You have already been publicly framed as compromised. Do you understand what it looks like when you start pulling convoy classifications?”
“It looks like I’m doing my job,” I say.
“It looks like you are fishing,” he corrects.
“It looks like you are afraid of what I’ll catch,” I answer, and the words come out colder than I intended, because fury makes my voice sharp even when my mind is trying to stay procedural.
Thane’s mouth tightens. “Provide the full access log. Now.”
I gesture to the projection. “You already have it.”
“I want your written attestation,” he says. “On record. That you accessed convoy layers under reconstruction authority and not for personal motives.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides, then I relax them deliberately. “You want me to sign a loyalty oath.”
“I want you to sign accountability,” he replies.
I stare at him, feeling my pulse thud once, hard, like a door being kicked.
“I will sign an attestation of methodology,” I say. “I will not sign a statement about motives. Motives are irrelevant to whether the data correlates.”
Thane’s eyes harden. “Motives are relevant to whether your access constitutes abuse.”
I step closer, and I can feel the tribunal security officers at the doorway stiffen slightly, ready to intervene if my movement becomes “aggression.”
“My motives,” I say evenly, “are to reconstruct the corridor truthfully. If you want to argue about motives, argue with the math.”
Thane holds my gaze for a long beat, then gestures sharply. The aide hands me a stylus and a projection pad.
I sign the attestation as narrowly as possible, writing in clean, precise language that leaves no room for interpretive traps. My handwriting is steady, though my wrist aches with tension.
When I finish, I slide the pad back.
Thane’s expression remains unreadable. “Return to your station. Do not access convoy classification layers again without direct supervisory approval.”
I feel heat flare behind my eyes, but I keep my voice controlled. “If the convoy layer is the key variable—”
“It is not your job to decide key variables,” Thane cuts in. “It is your job to follow tribunal scope.”
“Tribunal scope,” I repeat softly, tasting the words like something spoiled.
He gestures toward the door. “Dismissed.”
I leave before I say something that would make my life easier for the next five seconds and impossible for the next five years.
The corridor outside feels brighter, harsher. The lights sting.
I take three steps, then the world tilts.
Not dramatically, not like collapsing in a movie, but subtly, like the floor has decided to become water for a heartbeat. My vision narrows, edges darkening, and my stomach lurches with a nausea that rises so fast I barely have time to clamp my teeth.
“Whoa,” I mutter, reaching for the wall.
My hand finds the console outside the office—a recessed station used for security check-ins—and I grip it hard enough that my knuckles blanch. Cold metal bites into my palm. Sweat prickles along the back of my neck, sudden and clammy.
A security officer turns sharply. “Liaison?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, because that’s what you say when you’re not fine and you refuse to become a liability.
The hallway swims slightly. The air smells too strong, like antiseptic turned into a weapon. I swallow hard, and the taste of bile floods my mouth.
The officer steps closer, voice firmer. “Mandatory wellness protocol. You’re visibly unstable.”
“I said I’m fine,” I repeat, but the words wobble on the second syllable, betraying me.
He doesn’t argue. He taps his compad. “Medical screening. Now.”
“I don’t have time—”
“You don’t have a choice,” he replies, not unkindly, just factually, and his hand hovers near my elbow as if he’s ready to catch me if I fall. The humiliation of that makes my throat tighten, but the dizziness doesn’t care about pride.
They escort me to tribunal medical, a quiet wing that smells of clean linens and disinfectant and that faint artificial floral note they use to convince anxious people they’re safe. The lighting is softer here, less punitive, but the softness feels like another kind of control.
A medic meets us at the intake bay, her expression professionally neutral. “Liaison Ardent. Symptoms?”
“Dizziness,” the officer says. “Pallor. Nausea.”
“I’m—” I start.
The medic raises a hand gently. “Let’s just run a scan.”
They guide me into a screening room with a reclined chair and a biometric scanner that arches overhead like a metallic halo. I sit because sitting is easier than arguing, and because my stomach is still rolling like a ship in bad orbit.
The medic fits a sensor patch against my wrist, then another against my neck. The patches are cool, damp, and the touch of them makes my skin crawl.
“Any chance you’re dehydrated?” she asks lightly.
“I drink water,” I mutter.
“Any chance you’re overworked?” she continues.
I give her a look.
She hums softly. “Okay, sure.”
The scanner activates, emitting a faint buzzing tone. A soft light passes over my body in slow bands. The room smells faintly of ozone and antiseptic. My heartbeat sounds loud in my ears.
The medic studies her display, brows drawing together slightly.
“What?” I ask, sharper than intended.
She glances up, then back down. “Just… confirming.”
My stomach clenches again, not with nausea this time but with dread.
“Confirming what?” I press.
The medic’s voice stays professional, but her eyes soften by a fraction. “You’re pregnant.”
The words don’t land all at once. They arrive in pieces, like debris after an explosion, each fragment taking a second to register.
Pregnant.
My mouth goes dry.
“That’s—” I begin, then stop, because my brain is suddenly a blank white wall.
The medic continues gently, as if she’s delivering weather. “Early stage. Based on biomarkers, likely five to six weeks. It’s within normal parameters. We’ll run a confirmatory panel, but the scan is clear.”
I stare at her, and the room feels too small, too bright, too quiet.
“No,” I say, and it comes out as a whisper, not denial so much as disbelief. “That’s… no.”
The medic tilts her head slightly. “Do you need a moment?”
I swallow hard. My hands are cold, fingers tingling. Somewhere distant, I can hear the tribunal building hum, that constant mechanical breath, and it feels like the whole institution is leaning in to watch me break.
“I don’t have time for a moment,” I say, and my voice is too flat, too controlled, because control is my only remaining weapon.
The medic nods, shifting into procedural mode. “Under tribunal wellness policy, this is confidential medical information. You have the right to designate emergency contacts or request notification—”
“No,” I cut in.
She pauses. “No contacts?”
“No contacts,” I repeat, and the words taste like steel.
She studies me for a beat. “Is there anyone who should know?”
“Not right now,” I say, and my stomach twists again, though now it’s less nausea and more the sharp, surreal awareness that my body has been quietly doing something enormous while my mind has been busy chasing saboteurs through data vaults.
The medic exhales softly. “Okay. You’ll need to sign confidentiality directives. Standard procedure.”
She hands me a projection pad. The directive floats above it in crisp text: non-disclosure within tribunal personnel, medical privacy compliance, voluntary contact notification declination.
I sign with a stylus that feels too light in my hand.
“Prenatal supplementation?” she asks, voice careful.
“I’ll handle it,” I reply, though I have no idea what “handle it” even means in a life that currently consists of corridor overlays and political knives.
She nods, not pushing. “If you experience worsening dizziness or pain, you return immediately.”
“I will,” I say, because saying I won’t would make her look at me like I’m stupid, and I am not stupid. I’m just—occupied.
The officer waiting outside the room straightens when I step out, his gaze flicking over me with renewed scrutiny. “Cleared?”
“Cleared,” the medic says. “She’s fit to return to duty.”
Fit.
The word rings strangely in my head, because my body has just rewritten the definition of it without consulting my plans.
They escort me back into the tribunal corridor, and the air feels different now, not because it changed, but because I did.
Every scent—antiseptic, coffee, polished stone—feels sharper.
Every sound—the whisper of drones, the click of boots, the hum of security fields—feels closer.
The world has become painfully tangible, as if my senses are trying to anchor me against the shock.
I walk anyway.
When I reach the archive lab, the projection table awaits, Kirell still rotating, the convoy vector still glowing faint gold beneath the corridor line like a secret artery.
I stand at my station and rest both hands on the console, feeling the cold metal steady me.
“You don’t get to do this to me,” I whisper, not sure if I mean the tribunal, the war, Admiral Vol, or my own body.
The projection doesn’t answer, but the data remains.
Convoy shield perimeter.
Corridor shift.
Forty-three percent increased exposure.
If I let myself think about the pregnancy too long, my knees might buckle, so I don’t. I tuck it into the same compartment where I keep grief, fear, and the constant awareness that my name is being chewed on by senators like meat.
Later, I tell myself. Later I will process it. Later I will panic. Later I will decide what it means.
Right now, I have a corridor to prove and a record that someone is actively trying to break, and if they think they can rush sentencing before the truth surfaces, they are about to learn that I can run on anger and discipline longer than they can run on optics.
I reopen the model output and encrypt it twice, then begin drafting the next internal submission, my fingers steady despite the tremor that keeps trying to rise in them.
Outside the lab doors, the tribunal continues to hum, to watch, to reposition its cameras and its politics and its urgency.
Inside, I keep working, because whatever is growing inside me does not erase what was destroyed over Kirell, and if anything it makes the need for accountability sharper, because I am suddenly, horrifyingly aware of how small a life is, and how casually institutions move them around like pieces on a board.