“You have mistaken my reluctance for weakness.”

He does not raise his voice. He does not need to.

“I have spent more than a century learning how to endure things that would shatter an ordinary mind. Pain is familiar. Isolation is familiar. Your threats are neither original nor particularly interesting.”

The lights overhead begin to flicker.

“Release the prisoners. Step away from the interface. And leave this station while you still possess the ability to choose your own direction.”

If the enemy threatens to use him as a weapon:

“A weapon is an instrument that obeys the hand that holds it.”

His eyes flare, molten gold illuminating the scar at his temple.

“You have no idea what you are attempting to hold.”

The deck shudders beneath their feet. Somewhere deep within the station, a reactor answers his voice.

“I have heard worlds break. I have felt stars collapse into their final silence.” His voice deepens, layered with a thousand distant harmonics. “Do not force me to remind you what happens when a frequency becomes unbearable.”