Page 106 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Rolaev ignores him. “Ask yourself honestly whether you want the truth because the galaxy needs it, or because you need your life’s work to justify the dead already left behind.”

Teren’s face flashes behind my eyes.

My breath stumbles.

Rolaev ’s voice softens further. “I am not accusing you of selfishness. I am naming grief.”

“Don’t,” I whisper.

Ghar turns toward me. “Anita, look at me.”

I do, because his voice breaks through the projection’s grip.

His face is tight with fury, but the fear beneath it is for me. I can see it clearly. He heard enough. He knows exactly where Rolaev is pressing, and he knows it is working.

That realization humiliates me because I want to deny it and cannot.

Rolaev ’s projection flickers as Brakk moves cautiously toward the transmitter from one side. She does not react. “You are beginning to understand. That is why I contacted you now. Not to threaten you. Not merely to bargain for Sira-Vel. To offer one last chance to prevent your discovery from becoming a weapon sharpened by everyone who touches it.”

I force the words through a dry throat. “You’re asking me to bury the truth.”

“I am asking you to acknowledge that truth is not a child. It does not become noble merely because you release it into the world.”

The sentence lands with terrible weight.

I think of my colony, fake miracle stones, grieving tourists, my uncle’s stall, temple frauds and academic politics and all the little lies people sell because everyone is hungry for meaning. Then I think of Marrit’s Well burning. Bonded couples harassed because someone leaked partial data without context. Pi’Rell families refusing new children because existence began to feel undignified. The image makes me want to scream because it sounds both manipulative and plausible.

My whole life has been built around the assumption that more truth is always better than less.

Now the archive has shown me a truth so large it has gravity.

I do not know whether anyone can carry it.

Ghar says quietly, “You are not deciding this in a corridor under duress.”

Rolaev ’s eyes shift to him. “She is already deciding. All scholars do, long before publication. Every translation is a door opened or left sealed.”

Brakk lunges and drives his tool into the transmitter.

The projection distorts violently.

Rolaev ’s voice remains calm through the static. “Return the archive, and Sira-Vel lives. Continue downward, and you will learn how many people can be destroyed before a truth becomes unworthy of its cost.”

The transmitter screams, sparks, and dies under Brakk’s hand.

Darkness rushes back into the corridor.

For several seconds, nobody speaks.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. The archive case feels impossibly heavy in my hands. The lower passage ahead glows with a faint line of silver, inviting us deeper as if the ruins themselves have been listening to every word and remain entirely unconcerned with whether I am morally prepared to continue.

Brakk wipes his smoking tool against his coat. “I would like to say something witty, but all I’ve got is that I hate her.”

Ghar watches me instead of the ruined transmitter. “Anita.”

I look down at the archive case.

My voice comes out smaller than I want. “What if she’s not wrong about the damage?”