Chapter 46: The Hunt
Orion didn't move for a long time.
The more he understood, the more the illusion cracked. The Confederacy was built for one thing: survival at any cost.
When humanity stood at the edge of extinction, democracy had simply been discarded, like a tool no longer useful.
Orion had always known the Confederacy was strict. Even he who had grown in one of the most powerful Archon families, grew up with filtered news, monitored lessons, clearance restrictions on everything from library archives to planetary maps. But he thought it was about order. About control in the name of progress.
Now he knew better.
The Confederacy didn't censor because it feared dissent. It censored because it didn't have time for debate. When you're backed into a corner by extinction, you don't run a vote. You issue commands.
The war had demanded it.
And calling it "The War" felt wrong now. As if one word could carry everything that had happened. One word for the death of nearly two hundred billion. One word for the fall of planets, the screaming colonies, and the endless children that were sacrificed.
That truth hit harder than anything else. They didn't rise from the ashes victorious. They were dragged out of the rubble while still burning.
He shut the console off, exhaling sharply, his mind still racing to process everything.
A soft chime interrupted his thoughts. His wrist-com flickered to life, displaying a message: