The heavy iron jaws of the magnetic crushing weight cuffs snapped shut around Horatio Pendelton’s wrists with a clean, high-pressure hiss.
A jolt of blue crushing weight current coursed through the cuffs, instantly neutralizing the leftover aether humming through the dean’s nervous system. Pendelton let out a high, squealing gasp, his knees giving out as the weight of the military-grade restraints pulled him down into the dark rock mud.
“Get your hands off me!” Pendelton shrieked, his voice cracking into an undignified sob. Tears of humiliation carved pale channels through the soot on his cheeks. “I’m the appointed Dean of Ironfang Vanguard Academy! My family has held ministerial seats in the High Senate for four ages! You’re common trench infantry! You have no power to touch my person!”
“Your person is currently classified as high-treason contraband under Article 9 of the Frontier Martial Code,” Colonel Marcus Vance-Vane said without glancing down.
The Colonel raised his armored boot and brought it down squarely onto the solid-gold Academy Seal Stamp lying half-sunk in the mire. The heavy metal casing shattered with a sharp crunch, fracturing the delicate biometric lenses into useless shards of glass and gold leaf.
“Your deanship is revoked,” the Colonel announced, his voice echoing across the outer edge. “Your security clearances are purged, your personal assets are frozen under emergency military locked deposit. Your name is removed from the academy roll. High Marshals, remove this disgrace from my sight. Confine him in the lowest brig until the Grand Marshal’s…
