The chair was designed for discomfort. I was certain of it.

  Hard metal, no padding, the back positioned at exactly the wrong angle to support a human spine. I'd been sitting in it for... how long? Hours. Many hours. The sterile overhead lights never flickered, never dimmed. No windows. No clock. Just bare metal walls, a bare metal table, and me.

  I shifted, trying to find a position that didn't make my lower back scream. Failed. The table's surface was cold against my forearms. Everything in this room was cold.

  My holo-bracer sat dead on my wrist. I'd tried activating it a dozen times in the first hour, hoping to send a message to Rosalia or Cornelius. Nothing. Some kind of signal dampener built into the walls, probably. They'd taken my sidearm and personal shield at the door, but left me the bracer, knowing it was useless in here.

  Very thoughtful of them.

  I was alone for the moment. My interrogator had stepped out ten minutes ago. Or twenty. Or an hour. Time had stopped meaning anything in this room. Less than one hour. Probably.

  How did I get here?

  The trip from Hyperion Deep to Varkesh Prime had been uneventful. The frigate escort Seraphine had left behind shadowed us the whole way. Nothing of note happened. No pirates, no surprises, just smooth hyperspace transit. We'd translated into the Varkesh system and docked at the station without incident. The place was enormous. A sprawling orbital habitat wrapped around the hub of a busy trade route, teeming with ships and commerce. I'd barely had time to take it in.

  Varkesh Prime was a wheel. An enormous rotating ring, five kilometers across, spinning with the slow deliberation of something that had been turning for centuries. Two million people lived inside that ring. A minor outpost at the edge of the Empire. Small by Imperial standards, but more humans in one place than I'd encountered since arriving in this universe.

  What struck me first were the docks. In most games and movies, docks are inside stations, accessed through huge opening like gaping mouths ont he side or in the central axis of the stations. Here, they jutted outward from the ring at irregular intervals like massive structures bristling with gantries, service arms, and the blinking navigation lights of ships waiting their turn. From a distance, they looked organic. Like coral growths on the hull of some ancient sea creature.

  Traffic was constant. Freighters, shuttles, private yachts, the occasional military patrol; all threading through approach lanes with the practiced indifference of daily commuters. The Mahkkra and the Reizen slotted into the queue without raising so much as a second glance. Just two more ships among thousands.

  The plan had been simple. Find a hotel as both ships would be impounded during the citizenship process, standard procedure apparently. Rosalia would start the paperwork at the Imperial Administrative Office. The deal with the Empire was supposed to smooth everything out. Days instead of weeks or months. Cornelius would report to the local Ecclesiarch branch.

  Day one had gone according to plan, mostly. Rosalia and I went to the Administrative Office together and started the citizenship appeal. Mountains of forms, biometric scans, statements of intent. Bureaucracy, but manageable bureaucracy. After that, we found a hotel in the commercial district. Rosalia insisted on a suite in a high end establishment. A proper suite. Common room, four separate chambers, quality furnishings. I'd balked at the cost until she explained, with the patient tone she reserved for when I was being particularly dense, that appearance mattered. In a class-based society, appearances mean something. If we wanted to be taken seriously, by the courts, potential buyers for the Reizen, or anyone who mattered, we had to look the part.

  The stay would cost us almost all of our savings, but I could see the logic there.

  The first worry came that evening. Cornelius hadn't returned from the Ecclesiarch. We contacted their office and were told his meeting was running long. Administrative matters. He'd stay the night at the temple.

  Rosalia had frowned at that. I'd told her not to worry.

  Day two. Rosalia left early for the Administrative Office—she was meeting our lawyer, a public defender appointed through the Shin Saimdang Foundation. They were an independent legal foundation with a well-respected reputation. Rosalia had negotiated their representation as part of our deal. For my part, I had planned to stay put at the hotel. Maybe use their gym.

  Then I got a message from the port authority. Long-stay paperwork for the Mahkkra. Standard forms, the message said. Please report to the docking administration office at your earliest convenience.

  So I went. Nothing about the message seemed unusual.

  Like an idiot. Easy to judge, in hindsight.

  The docking office was in the lower levels of the station, near the cargo bays. Functional. Busy. I found the right counter, started filling out forms on a terminal. Name, ship registration, expected duration of stay, purpose of visit.

  I was halfway through the second form when I noticed the dock security officers.

  Two of them. Standing by the entrance. Looking at me.

  Then two more appeared behind me.

  "Mr. Beaumont? Please come with us."

  No explanation. No charges read. No rights recited. Just polite hands on my arms and a walk through corridors I didn't recognize, into a section of the station that felt very different from the public areas above.

  And then this room. This chair. This table.

  That was hours ago.

  The interrogation had followed a pattern. The same woman—older, grey streaks in hair pulled back severely, uniform crisp and colorless, rank insignia marking her as a Lieutenant. The logo on her shoulder was unfamiliar. Not Navy. Not any of the organizations Cornelius had described during his lessons.

  She came in. She sat across the cold metal table. She accused me of things.

  Smuggling restricted materials. Possessing banned military equipment. Operating an unlicensed military vessel. Falsified identification documents. The list went on. Some of it was technically true. The Mahkkra probably did qualify as restricted technology. Most of it was absurd.

  At first, I'd tried to explain. There'd been a mistake. I was traveling with an ambassador. I didn't mention our deal with the Empire. I didn't recognize her insignia and I had no idea if that was the kind of thing you mentioned to strangers. Probably not.

  The Lieutenant had looked at me like I'd claimed to be the Emperor's nephew.

  "Ambassadorial status," she'd repeated, her voice dripping with contempt. "How convenient."

  When that failed, I'd tried asking for representation. A lawyer. Even a priest would do—the Ecclesiarch had legal standing in Imperial proceedings, Cornelius had told me that much. If I could just get word to him...

  "Terrorists and weapons smugglers don't get legal representation until we determine the extent of their crimes."

  Terrorists. They were calling me a terrorist.

  She has a script and was not deviating from it. Like an NPC interrogator in a video game, stuck with a sequence no matter what I answer. Except this NPC has the power to keep me locked in.

  The one thing keeping me from complete panic was the Mahkkra. When I'd left her at the docks, I'd engaged full lockdown protocols. Military-grade security—the kind of systems that made Navy tech specialists stare in confusion.

  They'd tried to board her. I was sure of it. The Lieutenant's questions kept circling back to my ship, my cargo, my "hidden compartments." She wouldn't be asking if she already had access.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The Mahkkra was keeping her secrets.

  --- o0o ---

  The door hissed open. The Lieutenant entered with a data pad and the same expression she'd worn for hours. Cold. Professional. Certain of my guilt.

  She sat across from me. The chair on her side of the table looked considerably more comfortable than mine.

  Of course it does.

  "Let's discuss the weapons," she said, scrolling through her data pad. "Our scans detected military-grade laser systems aboard your vessel. Class Seven combat arrays. Restricted technology. Why are you attempting to smuggle military weapons onto this station?"

  I stared at her. "I'm not smuggling anything. Those are the weapons mounted on my ship. They're part of the ship."

  "Mounted weapons." She looked up, eyes flat. "On an unregistered vessel of unknown origin. Without a military license. Without a weapons permit."

  "I didn't know I needed..."

  "Who's the buyer, Mr. Beaumont?"

  I blinked. "What?"

  "The buyer. For the weapons." She leaned forward. The table's edge dug into my forearms. "Class Seven arrays don't appear out of nowhere. Someone is funding this operation. Someone expects delivery. Give me a name."

  "There's no buyer. They're my ship's weapons. They came with the ship. I haven't sold anything to anyone..."

  "Your contacts, then." She wasn't listening. She hadn't listened to a word I'd said in hours. "The network you're working with. The people who provided you with this equipment."

  "Nobody provided me with..."

  "We can make this easier, Mr. Beaumont." Her voice hardened. "Cooperate now, and the courts will consider your assistance. Continue protecting your associates, and you'll face the full weight of Imperial justice. Alone."

  I stared at her across the cold metal table. She stared back, waiting for an answer to a question that had no real answer.

  She's not hearing me. She's not even trying to hear me.

  The helplessness was almost worse than the fear. I could deal with fear. But this, talking to someone who had already decided what the truth was, who treated every word I said as either a lie or a confession, this was maddening.

  "I have nothing else to say," I managed through gritted teeth.

  Achievement unlocked: Exercised right to remain silent. Reward: more sitting in an uncomfortable chair.

  She didn't even react. Just scrolled to another section of her data pad.

  "Your ship's registration claims origin from an uncharted system. A system that doesn't appear in any Imperial database." She leaned forward again. "Who are you working for? Who provided you with this vessel?"

  Silence.

  "We've been patient, Mr. Beaumont. Remarkably patient. But our patience has limits." Her eyes bored into me. "If you're protecting someone, an organization, a foreign power, cooperation now will significantly improve your situation."

  I shifted in my chair. My lower back sent a spike of pain up my spine. I didn't respond.

  The way I saw it, there were two possibilities. Either the Empire had decided to betray me, in which case nothing I said would help. Or this Lieutenant was acting on her own, and when the Empire found out, this would end. Either way, keeping my mouth shut was the smarter play.

  "The silent treatment won't help you." She stood, her chair scraping against the floor with a sound that made my teeth ache. "Think about your choices. Think very carefully."

  She left. The door sealed behind her with a soft click.

  I sat in my uncomfortable chair, my back screaming, my hands clenched under the table, and I tried very hard not to scream myself.

  How long has it been now? Eight hours? Ten?

  I had no idea.

  The lights hummed overhead. The chair dug into my spine.

  So far, it had been words. Accusations. Pressure. The Lieutenant cycled between disappointment and aggression all by herself. Though mostly aggression, if I was being honest.

  But they'd called me a terrorist. In my limited understanding of Imperial law, that word meant things. Bad things. Expanded powers for security forces. Reduced rights for the accused.

  I didn't know where the line was. When "psychological pressure" became something else. Something physical.

  Rosalia. Cornelius. Do they even know I'm here?

  I'd disappeared from a public docking office. No message. No explanation. They had to know something was wrong by now. They had to be looking for me.

  Right?

  All I could do was wait. And hold it together.

  I stared at the cold metal table and waited.

  --- o0o ---

  The night passed. I think.

  They let me leave the room twice. Bathroom breaks, both times with an escort standing outside the stall. No privacy. No dignity. Just function.

  Food came after hours of complaining. If you could call it food. Two energy bars that tasted like compressed sawdust and a bottle of water that had clearly been recycled too many times. It left me with a metallic aftertaste that coated my tongue and wouldn't go away.

  I ate anyway. Drank anyway. I was starving.

  Sleep was another matter. The metal chair was clearly not designed for comfort. The light never dimmed and the constant hiss of the air recycling made it even more difficult.

  I managed something like unconsciousness for brief stretches. Minutes at a time. Never more.

  By the time morning came, I felt like I'd been beaten.

  My back had settled into a constant dull throb. The kind of ache that becomes background noise, always there, impossible to fully ignore. My right leg was worse. A cramp had been building for hours. I could feel the muscle twitching, threatening to seize. I tried to stretch within the constraints of the chair, the table, the narrow space they'd left me. It wasn't enough.

  The exhaustion made everything feel distant. Muffled. Like I was watching myself from somewhere outside my body.

  Bored and anxious at the same time. I hadn't known that was possible until now. The same walls. The same table. The same door that opened only when they decided to open it.

  I waited.

  The door hissed open.

  The Lieutenant entered. Same uniform. Same expression. Same data pad.

  She never gave me her name, I realized. Hours of interrogation, and I didn't even know what to call her.

  "I hope the night brought you to your senses," she said, settling into her chair. "Are you ready to cooperate?"

  I looked at her. Didn't straighten my slumped posture. Didn't adjust my aching back.

  Something had changed during the long, sleepless hours. The fear was still there—but it had burned down into something else. Something harder.

  "You know as well as I do," I said, my voice rough from disuse and bad water, "that you don't have the right to keep me here like this. Why don't you tell me what you truly want?"

  It was a bluff. I didn't know Imperial law well enough to be certain of anything. But I remembered Rosalia mentioning the Empire's obsession with due process: the right to representation, the right to legal counsel, the elaborate procedural protections they were so proud of. This couldn't all be legal. It couldn't be.

  The Lieutenant's eyes narrowed.

  "I am entirely within my rights," she said, her voice sharp. "Your infractions are too numerous and too serious for you to be so casual, young man. You truly have no idea how much trouble you're in. Why don't you come clean instead of playing games?"

  I sighed. Here we go again.

  The same questions. The same accusations. The same circular dance we'd been doing for over a day.

  I stopped responding.

  The hours dragged on. She kept asking questions, but something had shifted. The aggressive edge had dulled. The Lieutenant went through the motions. Still the same accusations, the same demands. But she sounded like someone who knew she wasn't getting answers but had decided to continue asking anyway.

  I didn't know what to make of that. Was she giving up? Was she waiting for someone else to take over? Was something happening outside this room that I couldn't see?

  None of the possibilities felt good.

  I sat in my uncomfortable chair, my back one continuous knot of pain, my leg threatening to cramp, and waited for something to change.

  Hours later, the Lieutenant was mid-sentence when the sound cut through.

  Voices. Coming from outside the door. Loud voices.

  She stopped. Her head turned toward the sound, irritation flickering across her features.

  Then the irritation changed. Her posture shifted from annoyance to something else entirely.

  Fear.

  She was afraid.

  What the hell is happening out there?

  The voices grew louder. I couldn't make out words, but I could hear the tone. Command. Someone who expected to be obeyed and wasn't hearing the word "no."

  The door burst open.

  Seraphine strode in like the storm I'd been praying for.