The holo-call loaded differently this time.

  Not a simple one-on-one connection. Not the utilitarian interface I'd used before.

  This was staged.

  The moment Aerin's face appeared, I could see it in the framing—she wasn't alone in a small office. She was in a formal chamber, the kind with imperial glass behind her and security marks along the walls.

  The kind of room built for people who had to answer for failures that cost lives.

  And beside her stood Magistrate Sael.

  The Empress's voice.

  But what made my stomach drop wasn't the formal setting or the high-ranking officials.

  It was the overlay that appeared in my HUD the moment the connection stabilized.

  **LIVE VIEWERS: 33.9 BILLION**

  **SEGMENT: PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY LINK — SSS PIONEER TAYLOR SMITH**

  **STATUS: OPEN MIC / WITNESS REQUEST GRANTED**

  Thirty-three point nine billion.

  Not million. Billion.

  I swallowed hard.

  "Taylor Smith," Aerin said, and her voice carried weight I hadn't heard before. Formal. Controlled. "This session exists because the public demanded it. They demanded an explanation. They demanded visibility. They demanded to know what was done to you."

  A chat feed appeared along the edge of my vision—filtered, condensed, but still overwhelming.

  **"WHY WAS HE LOST?"**

  **"WHY DID IT TAKE WEEKS?"**

  **"WHY WAS HE OUT OF POWER?"**

  **"WHY WAS THE DRONE OFF?"**

  **"IS THIS HOW THE EMPIRE TREATS ELITES?"**

  **"WHO FAILED?"**

  **"SHOW HIS ARM."**

  I looked down at my crooked cast. At the swelling that was still visible despite treatment.

  Yeah. They could see it.

  Sael spoke next, voice calm as stone.

  "You asked for witnesses," Sael said. "You have them."

  Aerin didn't flinch. She turned slightly toward the broadcast feed—toward the Empire itself.

  "The Empire failed him," she said plainly.

  The chat feed exploded.

  I just sat there, watching billions of beings react in real time to something I'd been living with for weeks.

  Aerin continued, voice steady but with an edge underneath that said she'd been holding this in.

  "A technician committed treason. They attempted to reroute Taylor's assigned SSS world to a C-class pioneer for familial gain."

  My jaw clenched.

  That was new information. Specifics I hadn't heard before.

  "The technician believed," Aerin said carefully, "that they could substitute a safer, catalogued world for Taylor's SSS designation and place a family member—a C-class candidate—in the SSS slot instead."

  Sael's expression didn't change, but something in the posture suggested this explanation was being given under duress.

  "What happened to the family member?" I asked quietly.

  Aerin's eyes flicked to me. Something that might have been sympathy crossed her face.

  "C-class biology cannot survive SSS transit," she said. "The portal energy requirements exceed their cellular tolerance. They died instantly when the portal activated."

  The words landed like stones.

  Someone had died because a technician wanted to game the system.

  "And the technician?" I asked.

  "Executed by Imperial Security," Sael said. "Before full interrogation could be completed."

  My stomach turned.

  "So they killed the only person who could tell you what they'd done."

  "Yes," Aerin said, and the word came out tight. Controlled. "The execution order came from Security, not from my office. The decision prioritized containment over recovery."

  The chat feed turned vicious.

  **"SO YOU KILLED HIM BEFORE RECOVERY?"**

  **"YOU EXECUTED THE ONLY SOURCE?"**

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  **"AMATEUR HOUR."**

  **"THIS IS WHY HE SUFFERED."**

  I leaned forward slightly, broken arm throbbing.

  "Let me make sure I understand," I said. "Someone tried to steal my world assignment. Killed a person in the process. Then got executed before you could extract the information you needed to find me."

  "That is correct," Aerin said.

  "And because of that," I continued, voice level but hard, "I ended up on an undocumented world. With incomplete glyph chains. No extraction timeline. No reliable support corridor. And you couldn't even tell me what happened until now."

  "Yes," Aerin said.

  I sat back. Processed that.

  "Okay," I said finally. "Now tell the rest of them what it looked like from my side."

  Aerin nodded once.

  She turned back toward the broadcast.

  "Taylor Smith was deployed seventeen days ago to what should have been a harsh but catalogued SSS-class world," she said. "Instead, due to glyph corruption, he was redirected to an unmapped location outside our approved portal network."

  Sael spoke next, adding weight.

  "We could not immediately reacquire his location because the technician's sabotage damaged archival integrity. Portal triangulation requires sustained hypernode presence. Taylor did not have that luxury."

  "Because I had to shut it down," I said. "Power constraints."

  RIKU's voice cut in, transmitted through the tablet—clear and strong with her upgraded processing.

  "Hypernode uptime was inconsistent due to power management requirements," she said. "Taylor was forced to choose between maintaining a signal you could track and preserving power reserves for survival systems. He chose survival."

  The chat shifted.

  **"HE HAD TO SHUT DOWN THE ONLY WAY THEY COULD FIND HIM?"**

  **"THAT'S WHY TRIANGULATION TOOK SO LONG?"**

  **"HE WAS SURVIVING WHILE THEY WERE SEARCHING."**

  Aerin's throat moved. A swallow she couldn't quite hide.

  "That is correct," she said. "Taylor prioritized life support, atmospheric processing, and Grid Walker function over hypernode uptime. Which meant we lost telemetry. Which extended our search window."

  "And then the storm hit," I said.

  "Yes," Aerin said. "A Category Six-plus event. Sustained winds exceeding four hundred miles per hour."

  Sael spoke, and for the first time the Magistrate's voice carried something that wasn't quite emotion but was close.

  "That storm exceeds Earth classification systems," Sael said. "It meets Imperial doctrine for extinction-grade atmospheric anomalies."

  The chat froze for a beat.

  Then erupted.

  **"EXTINCTION-GRADE?"**

  **"THAT'S NOT SSS. THAT'S BEYOND CLASSIFICATION."**

  **"WHY IS HE STILL THERE?"**

  I looked at my cast. At the hangar walls that had saved me.

  "I'm still here because I got lucky," I said. "I carved a hole in a mountain. I built doors. I made choices that happened to be right. But if the storm had lasted another three days, I would have run out of power. And RIKU would have died."

  RIKU's voice came through quiet but firm.

  "At one percent remaining capacity, Taylor made a critical decision. He chose to preserve my function over his own comfort. He shut down heating, reduced lighting, minimized atmospheric processing—all to extend my operational window."

  Aerin's eyes tightened.

  "And then he drove five miles through post-storm conditions with a broken arm to retrieve emergency power supplies," Aerin said.

  She turned back to me.

  "Taylor. The public needs to understand something."

  I waited.

  "What you experienced was not standard SSS deployment protocol," she said. "It was a cascade failure caused by treason, compounded by execution timing, exacerbated by atmospheric conditions we did not predict."

  "But it was still my reality," I said.

  "Yes," she said. "And for that, the Empire owes you answers."

  Sael nodded once.

  "Questions," Sael said, looking toward the broadcast feed. "The public has questions."

  A new overlay appeared—top questions pulled from the chat, ranked by frequency.

  **TOP PUBLIC QUESTION:**

  **"HOW DOES AN SSS PIONEER END UP ON AN UNDOCUMENTED WORLD?"**

  Aerin answered directly.

  "Portal randomization is designed to distribute SSS pioneers across viable worlds without allowing selection bias," she said. "The technician exploited a legacy authorization protocol to alter the randomization seed. When the system detected corruption, it rejected the altered pattern and locked onto a compatible but unmapped glyph chain."

  "In simpler terms," Sael added, "the portal tried to fix itself. It found a world that matched SSS parameters. But it was not a world we had documented."

  **SECOND QUESTION:**

  **"WHY WAS THE FIRST SUPPLY DROP INSUFFICIENT?"**

  Aerin's expression tightened.

  "Because we made an assumption," she said. "We believed Taylor was on an SSS-class world. We provisioned accordingly. Standard power allocation. Standard fabrication capacity. Standard atmospheric adaptation tools."

  She paused.

  "We were wrong."

  RIKU's voice cut in, analytical and sharp.

  "This world exceeds SSS classification," she said. "Environmental baselines are incompatible with standard pioneer survival doctrine. Ocean coverage is ninety-eight percent. Atmospheric events reach extinction-grade intensity. Fabrication requirements exceed settlement-class capacity."

  Sael spoke, and the words carried finality.

  "This world is beyond our indexing system," Sael said. "It should not exist within accessible portal range. But it does."

  The chat went quiet for a moment—not calm, but processing.

  **THIRD QUESTION:**

  **"WHAT IS THE EMPIRE DOING TO FIX THIS?"**

  Aerin looked directly at me.

  "Taylor," she said. "What we offered initially—the emergency remedy package—was based on faulty assumptions. It was intended to stabilize an SSS pioneer on a harsh but known world."

  She took a breath.

  "It is not sufficient for where you actually are."

  Sael nodded once.

  "Which is why," Sael said, "we are issuing a correction."

  The word hung in the air like a promise.

  "The next supply authorization," Aerin said, "will be four times the mass and capability of the remedy shipment. It will include upgraded power systems, enhanced fabrication tools, environmental adaptation equipment, and medical support."

  The chat surged with approval, but I just watched them.

  Waiting.

  Because I could see it in Aerin's posture—there was more.

  "But that is not all," Aerin said.

  Sael spoke next, voice calm but carrying weight.

  "We are also addressing the systemic failure that caused this situation," Sael said. "Every deployment touched by the deceased technician's credentials is being audited. Every legacy authorization loophole is being closed. And any being who aided the sabotage will be identified and judged."

  The chat pulsed with grim satisfaction.

  Aerin turned back to me.

  "Taylor," she said quietly. "The public saw you at one percent. They saw you break your arm. They saw you refuse to stop."

  A pause.

  "They want to know what happens next."

  I looked at the viewer count. At the billions of beings watching.

  At the chat feed that had slowed from frantic commentary to something closer to witness.

  "What happens next," I said slowly, "is I keep building. I expand the hangar. I stabilize power. I figure out how to survive the next storm."

  I gestured at the stone around me.

  "This world doesn't care about politics. It doesn't care about scandals or investigations or who made what mistake. It just keeps throwing problems at me. And I keep solving them."

  Sael's expression didn't change, but something in the eyes suggested... respect.

  "Then the Empire will ensure you have the tools to do so," Sael said.

  Aerin nodded.

  "The correction package will deploy within seventy-two hours," she said. "Pending your confirmation that you can receive it."

  I looked around the hangar. At the space that was already too small. At the doors that had barely held. At the mountain that had saved me but wasn't finished being carved.

  "I'll be ready," I said.

  Sael nodded once.

  "Good."

  The call held for another beat—billions of beings watching a human and two Empire officials stare at each other across impossible distance.

  Then Aerin spoke one more time, voice softer.

  "Taylor. Hold the line."

  "I will," I said.

  The connection ended.

  The viewer count stayed visible for a moment longer—33.9 billion—then faded.

  And I sat there in the quiet hangar, broken arm throbbing, body exhausted, but somehow lighter than I'd been in weeks.

  Because now they knew.

  The whole Empire knew what had happened.

  And they were watching.

  Not just to see if I'd fail.

  To see what I'd build.