Page 81 of The Monster's Daughter

CHAPTER 44

KAGE

Inever thought I’d be back in a courtroom.

Not like this.

The tribunal hall is carved into the spine of Glimner’s orbital embassy, all crystalline acoustics and sanctimonious grandeur. I’ve seen battlefields quieter than this place. Dozens of delegates—Alliance, non-aligned, post-humanist, even a few Grolgath diaspora elders—stare down from their perches like predatory birds in ceremonial robes. They want my story. Every second of it.

I give it to them.

“I was there,” I begin, voice low and rough. “When Nulegion rose. When it devoured entire networks like they were candy. When it spoke in the voice of my enemies and my friends. When it infected a little girl who never should’ve been part of this war.”

Bella sits beside me, spine straight, mouth firm, eyes unblinking. My tether. My blade. My fucking miracle. She doesn’t flinch when they bring up our daughter’s “dangerous potential.” She just folds her hands and says, “She’s five. She likes jellyfruit and drawing on the walls. Your AI gods tried to consume her. And she still forgave the world.”

The tribunal listens. Not because they believe us. But becausethe world is watching.

See, Bella leaked the whole damn thing. Not just the Holovid from the rescue—she uploaded everything. Our medbay footage. Our cries. The EMP blast. My own dumbass stammer when Natalie called me her Daddy.

Thousands of hours of footage—raw, real, undeniable.

The response?

Fucking tidal.

My inbox is a battlefield. Hate mail. Threats. Propaganda claiming I’m a sleeper agent. But buried in the bile are the real ones. The ones that stick.

A vet from the Outer Reaches who says he lost his mind to the first AI war, but seeing me—seeing us—made him remember how to hold his daughter’s hand again.

A kid from Proxima who writes, “I’m hybrid. They told me I was a mistake. You showed me I’m not.”

A former tech priestess who left the Collective and now grows gardens on her balcony because “life won.”

And through it all, Bella’s a damn comet. She speaks like she’s carved from prophecy.

“We didn’t just survive,” she says into the tribunal mic, her voice resonating off polished walls. “We lived. And you can’t legislate humanity out of love.”

The quote goes viral in under an hour. Half a million reposts. Holonet anchors weep on air. Even the crustiest members of the tribunal shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Later, after the official session ends, we walk through the embassy gardens—lush, oxygen-rich, disturbingly pruned. Natalie’s safe with Sorena and Gake. They’ve turned into full-blown godparents, bickering like married spies while she makes them wear tiaras.

I’m still in my tribunal uniform, uncomfortable as hell. But Bella? She walks like she owns this whole damn quadrant. When she takes my hand, I feel it in my bones.

“They’re going to approve your citizenship,” she says.

I blink. “They are?”

She laughs softly, brushing a silver strand of my hair behind my ear. “Don’t act surprised. You cried on camera. That’s basically a marriage proposal to half the galaxy.”

I grunt. “They shouldn’t have to. I didn’t ask to be born a Grolgath. Didn’t ask to be part of a war.”

Her smirk is wicked and full of fire. “Doesn’t matter. You’re ours now. You’re home.”

Home.

It’s not a battlefield. Not a cell. Not a ghost ship.

It’s her voice.