Chapter 5
AMY
The base hums with after-midnight silence—soft electric pulses, blinking indicator lights, the faint hiss of recycled air being fed into metal bones. It’s the kind of quiet that isn’t really quiet. Just everything pretending to sleep.
My fingers fly over the holopad, slicing through timestamped footage, trimming voice tracks, boosting audio. I’ve got three interviews, two B-roll passes of the burnt-out commune, a slow pan of that goddamn toy turning in my palm. My piece is taking shape, and it’s angry.
I title it “Morality in the Mud” and mean every syllable.
The war isn’t clean. Kanapa isn’t clean. And if the Alliance is so scared of the truth, maybe they’ve forgotten what they’re supposedly fighting for in the first place.
I attach the draft, run a quick stabilization pass, and send it up the secure channel to Rex with a curt subject line:
FOR IMMEDIATE REVIEW. FIELD REPORT.
I half-expect him to wake up screaming.
It doesn’t take long.
My comm buzzes like a gnat with a vengeance, and Rex’s face appears on the secure holo—bags under his eyes, tie loosened like it’s trying to strangle him, voice as dry as a Martian salt flat.
“Amy.”
“Hi, boss.” I lean back, too casual.
“What the hell is this?”
“A report. You remember those, right?”
He rubs his temples like I just handed him a live grenade. “You called Kanapa’s tactics psychological intimidation bordering on war crimes.”
“That was the generous phrasing.”
He lets out a slow exhale, the kind that says I want to scream but I’m too tired to be sued. “You think we can run this? With his face on every recruitment holoboard between here and Earth? With Alliance Command watching our ratings like hawks on a calcium drip?”
“I think if we don’t run it, we’re complicit.”
“You don’t pick fights you can’t finish, Amy. And you sure as hell don’t punch up with wet ink.”
I hang up on him. I don't yell. I just disconnect.
Because if I yell, I’ll throw this holopad through the godsdamn wall.
I storm across the base like a voltage spike, heading straight for Kanapa’s bunker. It’s late. Don’t care. My boots slap pavement like gunfire, and the guards don’t stop me—probably because I look like I might kill something.
His door slides open with a pneumatic hiss. The room inside is dim, cluttered with armor plating, weapon schematics, an ancient flask that smells like poison and pride. Kanapa’s behind a desk, wiping something metallic—a knife, maybe.
He doesn’t even look up. “Reporter.”
“I wrote a piece.”
“Let me guess—glowing review?”
“It’s the truth.”
Now he looks at me. And he grins. It's the grin of a man who's stepped on too many landmines to be afraid of one more.
“Truth,” he repeats, dragging out the word like it’s a taste he’s savoring. “Truth is a weapon. Only fools forget who it’s pointed at.”
I blink. “Did you just quote military propaganda to me?”
He sets the knife down. “You think the war cares about nuance? It’s about control. Narrative. You shoot a soldier in the chest, he dies once. You shoot the story he tells himself to get out of bed every morning?” He leans forward. “You kill him every day.”
I want to scream. I want to punch him.
Instead, I leave.
Comms bay. 02:37 standard.
The lights are soft and blue in here, the kind that tries to be calming but just makes my nerves hum louder. I’ve got the footage looped again. My cursor hovers over Mair’s face, frozen mid-hesitation.
There’s something in his eyes—guilt? Regret?
I’m chewing on that thought when I hear the boots.
Heavy. Deliberate.
Darun.
Of course.
He doesn’t knock. Just leans against the doorway, arms crossed, gaze unreadable.
“Late night,” he says.
“Early morning.”
Silence stretches.
“You’re angry,” he says finally.
“No shit.”
He walks in, slow, careful, like I might throw something at him. I don’t.
“I saw the piece. Or part of it. The—” he hesitates, “—toy shot.”
“You like it?”
“I liked it better before you pointed it at my unit like a sniper rifle.”
My laugh is bitter. “Cute. You all play the same game. ‘It’s just war, it’s just orders.
’ But you know what I see when I play back the interviews?
People who are this close to breaking. People who’ve seen things they’re not allowed to talk about because it would make the posters peel off the walls. ”
He doesn’t flinch. But he doesn’t argue either.
“You’re defending him,” I say. “Kanapa. After everything.”
“I’m defending order.” His voice sharpens. “You weren’t there at Marn Sector. You didn’t see what happened when the command pulled out and left us in a crater for six goddamn days. Kanapa held that line. He kept us alive.”
“And now he’s using that credit to burn people alive and call it strategy.”
Darun looks at the floor. For the first time… he doesn’t have a comeback.
“Loyalty matters out here,” he says, softer.
“Even when it kills the wrong people?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
And that silence? It says more than anything he’s ever grunted at me.
He turns to go. Doesn’t speak.
But his steps drag. Just a little.
The first crack is always the quietest.
And I make damn sure to remember it.
File it away like the weapon it is.