The hearing room had been refitted for spectacle. Long benches faced a raised dais where the outpost's auditors sat like a small, stern jury. Cameras ringed the chamber; the feeds would carry the day's motions into every market lane and contractor house. Director Sethi had insisted on transparency; Vale & Marrow had insisted on witnesses and independent auditors. The academy had insisted on facts. The result was a stage where law and performance braided together.
Arjun stood with the mentorship circle behind him: Captain Rhea at his shoulder, Ishaan a few paces back with a dossier folded like a promise, Lira and Mave near the medics, and the Phoenix‑root medic with his bandaged hand tucked into his sleeve. Harun's empty place at the edge of the group was a quiet absence that tightened the room like a held breath. The halo at Arjun's throat felt like a small, steady lamp.
Vale arrived with the same slow, practiced ease he had shown at the earlier hearing. He wore a coat that suggested wealth and a smile that suggested patience. He moved through the room as if he owned the air; his spokespeople filed in behind him with the precise faces of people who had rehearsed outrage. When he took the stand he did not look at Arjun. He looked at the cameras.
"Let us be clear," Vale said, voice smooth and public. "The frontier runs on routes and on trust. The academy's interventions have consequences. If we are to change how trade moves, we must do so with care." His words were a map of moderation. Then he turned, and for the first time he looked directly at Arjun. "Cadet Arjun, you have been very visible. You have made seams public. Tell us—what do you intend to do when a live anchor is set in a crowded node? How will you protect the people you expose?"
The question was a blade disguised as civility. Arjun felt the halo prick. He had rehearsed facts; he had not rehearsed the moral theater Vale now staged. Captain Rhea's hand tightened at his elbow. Director Sethi's fingers tapped a tablet. The auditors watched with the patient attention of people who had seen power perform its rituals before.
Arjun answered plainly. He spoke of the market siege, of the splice plates, of the ledger they had stolen. He spoke of the courier's confession and the stamped tokens that traced payments. He did not dramatize. He did not plead. He offered evidence and the academy's methods for containment. When he finished he did not sit. He stepped forward and said, "If you want to see how we hold seams, I will show you."
There was a murmur. Vale's spokespeople smiled like knives. The auditors exchanged looks. Director Sethi's jaw did not move. Captain Rhea's eyes were a flat, steady thing. The room had expected testimony; it had not expected demonstration.
Vale rose. "A public demonstration," he said. "Very well. Let us see the academy's methods in action. But we will not allow danger to the public. If you cannot contain a live anchor, we will call a halt." His tone was careful. He had arranged for a controlled anchor to be brought into the chamber—a contractor's device, neutralized and certified for demonstration. It was a show of confidence and a threat wrapped together.
The device arrived in a crate that smelled faintly of oil and old metal. Technicians from the outpost and a contractor house wheeled it in under the auditors' watch. It was small and clinical, a plate of stamped metal and faint sigils. Vale's people had insisted on a certified anchor so they could claim the academy had staged a spectacle. The academy had insisted on oversight so they could not be accused of trickery. The result was a tight, dangerous choreography.
Arjun set the corridor with hands that had learned to move like instruments. He named a seam along the chamber's center and unrolled a narrow ribbon of starlight that threaded the floor. The corridor was thin and surgical—enough to let medics through and to give technicians a sheltered lane. He felt the halo strain as the tide‑light answered the ribbon. The device sat on the crate like a small, sleeping thing.
Vale's representative stepped forward and activated the anchor under the auditors' watch. The plate hummed and a thin tide‑light shimmered around it. The room held its breath. The anchor was a test and a provocation: if the academy could not contain it, Vale would claim the academy had endangered the public. If the academy could, Vale would be forced to answer the ledger.
Arjun widened the corridor in a single, precise motion. The ribbon swelled and the tide‑light underfoot rose like a shallow tide. The technicians moved within the sheltered lane; the Phoenix‑root medic stood ready with tinctures. For a moment the demonstration was a clean thing: method shown, risk managed. Cameras clicked. Vale's smile thinned.
Then one of Vale's spokespeople—an engineer with a contractor house badge—stepped to the crate and, with the auditors watching, attempted a minor override. It was a legalistic motion: a certified tweak that, in private hands, could be used to test the academy's limits. The override sent a pulse through the plate and the corridor shuddered. The halo at Arjun's throat flared red; the mind‑screen flashed corruption trace. The override had introduced a splice that could bleed tide‑light away, collapsing buoyant lanes into sudden sinkholes.
The chamber's air changed. Vale's spokespeople looked pleased in a way that was almost predatory. The auditors leaned forward. Director Sethi's fingers tightened on the tablet. Captain Rhea's voice cut through the tension. "Containment protocol Alpha," she ordered. "No anchors. Layered corridors. Protect the public."
Arjun had a choice that would define the day. He could hold the defensive weave and let the technicians attempt a manual neutralization—risking the anchor's pulse spreading into the chamber—or he could widen the corridor, risk the halo's corruption thread deepening, and reach the plate himself. He widened.
The ribbon strained. The halo screamed. The corridor became a buoyant lane that lifted the technicians and the auditors in a slow, careful swell. Arjun pushed the seam forward with a motion that felt like pulling a net through water. He reached the crate and felt the splice's heat like a living thing. The Phoenix‑root medic poured a stabilizer into the seam; Lira traced a counter‑rune that dulled the splice's song. Mave anchored a thin wire into a nearby tide‑vein to steady the flow.
For a breath the chamber was a place held by hands that knew how to stitch. The anchor's pulse died into a thin, black smoke and the plate went quiet. The technicians exhaled. The auditors recorded. Vale's smile faltered.
But the victory was partial and costly. The override had been a public test and a message: Vale had shown he could force the academy to act under scrutiny. The ledger evidence Arjun had presented earlier was now in the public record, but Vale's people had also demonstrated that they could provoke containment under controlled conditions. The auditors would note both facts. The feeds would replay the moment and spin it into competing narratives.
When the hearing adjourned the chamber was a tangle of statements and cameras. Director Sethi's office prepared a formal recommendation for inquiry; the outpost's representatives called for protections for market nodes; Vale's spokespeople called for independent review and for limits on academy interventions. The public's appetite for spectacle turned the demonstration into a debate about authority and risk.
Outside the chamber Ishaan found Arjun with a dossier in his hand and a look that was almost respect and almost calculation. "You did what you had to," he said. "You made the seams visible and you held them under pressure. That will slow them. It will also make you a target." His voice was a ledger entry.
Arjun felt the truth of it like a pressure at his collarbone. The hearing had exposed Vale's ledger and forced an inquiry that could not be easily scrubbed. It had also shown Vale's reach and his willingness to test the academy in public. The ledger was a wound that could be pressed; Vale's public demonstration was a counterpunch that would not be forgotten.
That night the mentorship circle gathered in the low room and cataloged the day's facts. They counted the wins and the costs: the ledger in the academy's custody, the public record, the auditors' recommendation, and Vale's public test. They counted the personal costs too—Harun's absence, the Phoenix‑root medic's burned hand, Lira's echo residue that made her dreams repeat the yard's corridors. Each cost was a small, private ledger.
Director Sethi sent a terse message to the academy: pursue the inquiry, secure the ledger, and prepare for political fallout. Captain Rhea ordered increased patrols at market nodes and a discreet watch on Vale's known couriers. Ishaan offered help that would come with a price. Vale issued a statement that praised private initiative and called for measured reform.
Arjun sat alone on the academy roof after the meeting and opened his mind‑screen. He wrote the reflective entries the medic required: the demonstration, the override, the ledger's exposure, and the way visibility had become both shield and target. He wrote about leverage and spectacle and the way public performance could change the map. Each line eased the fatigue thread a little and steadied the halo at his throat.
He folded the ledger's photocopy into his pocket and, for the first time since the market siege, let himself feel the shape of the contest ahead. He had forced a wound into Vale's network and had shown the academy's methods in public. He had also made himself visible in a new way: a named opponent now had a face and a public grievance. The next move would not be only about evidence and anchors. It would be about power—how to gather it, how to wield it, and what he was willing to trade to hold a world together.
Outside, the city's lamps burned like small, patient stars. The hearing had ended, but the campaign had only begun.