29. Garokk
GAROKK
T hey think they’re offering me mercy.
That’s the funny part.
They sit behind curved crystal desks like some smug council of gods—robed, jeweled, well-fed. Hands folded like they’re doing me a favor. Like they’ve summoned me, not the other way around.
One of them—older, thin-lipped, voice like a knife—clears his throat and says it with too much ceremony.
“Garokk of the Crimson Flame, formerly Garokk of the Outer Fang, currently unaligned and recently… re-domesticated.”
He smirks at his own insult.
“Your choices are simple. Exile to the asteroid colonies under guarded parole. Or conditional compliance: you serve the Combine for two cycles as a navigation warden and agree to full behavioral oversight.”
I stare.
Just stare.
They don’t know me.
Not really.
Not yet.
“Those are my choices?” I ask, voice low.
“Those are your options ,” he corrects.
I tilt my head. “And what if I pick door number three?”
Another one—short, round, already sweating—frowns. “There is no door number three.”
“There is now.”
Their silence is sharp.
I lean forward. Palms flat on the council table. Let them see the scars. Let them see the teeth I’m not baring.
“I’m done being told what I am.”
The room stiffens.
“You want to leash me again? Chain me to your idea of safety? No. I’ve done that life. Pirate. Soldier. Scapegoat. I burned half this sector under flags I didn’t believe in just to stay alive.”
A beat.
Then I drop the weight.
“I’m not staying alive anymore. I’m living.”
More silence.
One of them shifts nervously. “And what would that… entail, exactly?”
I smile.
It’s not a kind smile.
“I want peace. But not the kind you write in terms and treaties. I want my mate . I want my son. I want to walk streets without being hunted by a law I never swore to serve.”
“And if we refuse?” Knife-voice asks.
“You won’t.”
He scoffs.
Then she enters.
Isolde.
She doesn’t stride.
She arrives.
Wearing black and silver, hair coiled like a crown, a datapad in one hand and a storm in the other. She stands beside me without looking at me. Doesn’t need to.
Her presence answers everything I haven’t said.
“Director Verrix,” Knife-voice says, startled. “You weren’t scheduled for this hearing.”
“I rescheduled it,” she says flatly.
She taps her pad. “Orbimall One is declaring private jurisdiction on the Garokk matter. All prior Combine charges are under renegotiation, pending civil arbitration.”
“You can’t just?—”
She cuts him off. “I just did.”
The room freezes.
She turns to me.
“You still want this?” she asks.
I don’t flinch.
“Yes.”
She nods.
Then looks at them.
“I stand with him.”
They stare.
They don’t laugh.
Not anymore.
Because they finally understand something dangerous.
We’re not asking.
We’re building.
Fire burns best when it has something to protect.