19. Dayn
DAYN
T he hangar bay lights shift from dim to cold white as I—and the rest of the Hellfighters—step through the massive doors.
A sea of glossy black armor and silent exosuits stretches across the floor like an unspoken oath, each plate polished so sharply I can see the reflection of the overhead girders in them.
The smell that hits me isn’t gun oil anymore—it’s ozone, synthesizer plastic, and the sharp tang of freshly stamped holo-plates.
This isn’t a makeshift warrior band anymore; it’s an institution. A whole damn empire in forged metal.
I move through the ranks, hands smoothed down the armor racks, feeling the low hum of readiness vibrating beneath my fingertips. This is their temple, and every Hellfighter here has a story—the silent code, the unspoken bond, the quiet reverence that comes with wearing this kind of power.
A technician approaches, motioning me forward.
They hand me a data-pad embossed with Alliance and Hellfighter insignias.
I flip it open, scanning the mission parameters: training regimens, assigned unit, hierarchy code, even my call sign—Vapor.
Vapor. The ghost of a man who slipped in through silicon and shadows.
The gear, though, is what roots me back here: the armor is a perfect fit—sleek but powerful, with segmented plating that flexes like muscle.
The exoskeleton hums as I move. My old claws itch, but here, I have reinforced gauntlets and cybernetic grips that channel speed into control, ferocity into purpose.
It feels like I was made for this, but knowing I earned it only adds weight.
There’s a whisper—rising in the hangar. Stories of me, murmured in tone half in awe, half in wariness. I grin, fingers brushing the cold steel, but my eyes scan the faces: human, alien, hardened. They look for the killer in me. I stand tall, shoulders squared.
Then the doors swing wide again.
She walks in—Josie McClintock with that mechanic’s vest still on, sleeves rolled, grease in her hairline, grin wide enough to crack steel.
She strides toward me across the polished floor, the subtle echo of her boots announcing her presence.
I nearly don’t recognize her—she looks tired but alive, the kind of alive that makes you ache for it.
The whole hangar seems to dim and sharpen at the same time.
I feel like a ghost stepping into daylight.
She reaches me and punches me in the shoulder—hard, playful, feral. My spine needs that. “Took you long enough,” she says, voice low enough that only I hear it. Sweat, oil, and determination cling to her words.
I wrap an arm around her, pulling her close. The armor hisses, joints flexing. “It’s called paperwork,” I say in mock apology.
She rolls her eyes and smacks my arm again. “Oh, sure—papers. I’m just glad I can call you comrade now.” She glances at the armored ranks, her eyes alighting on the exosuits. “You’re fitting in.”
I flatten my cupped hand, tapping the datapad. “Hellfighters,” I correct. “We are the fit.”
She nudges my chest. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever makes you happy. Just... try not to blow up too many things without asking.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Noted. But not guaranteed.”
She laughs—sharp, beautiful, alive. A grenade of warmth in the sterile hangar.
A sergeant strides up, crisp voice cracking between them. “Corporal Vapor, your team assembles in prep bay three. Intel drop in ten. Command directive—synchronize with local forces, evaluate planetary control nodes. Estimate forty-eight hour initial ops.”
I slip the datapad into my vest, nod once at the sergeant. Then I turn back to her. “Ready to do this?”
She leans in close, voice hushed just for me. “You know it. But don’t make me stand by while you get all heroic and forget all our plans.”
I laugh, the sound rusty from disuse. “Never.”
She twists off, heading toward a group of mechanics prepping drones. She waves, then pauses and looks back. “Hey, Vapor?”
I swivel in the armor, facing her. “Yeah?”
She grins, a spark of affection and challenge. “Don’t stay gone too long again.”
My heart stutters. “Never.”
Then I turn and follow the sergeant down the corridor.
The hangar doors hiss closed behind me. The black suits stand as silent sentinels.
Their reflections ripple across the polished floor.
My shoulders settle, the armor aligning around me like second skin.
I feel the weight of expectations—but heavier still is the pull back to her, to Snowblossom, to the man I am beside her.
I lick my dry lips. Forty-eight hours to prove we’re not just tools of the Alliance. Forty-eight hours to find a reason why I belong here. Not as a tool. As a partner. As Dayn.
And I step forward—into mission, into myth, into life beyond the cage.
Because she’s here. And I’m not just surviving. I’m rebuilding. And this time—it’s on our terms.
Rain beats a low rhythm against the hangar roof, steady and primal. Thunder murmurs in the distance like a reluctant retreat, and the scent of wet tarmac and blooming green seeps into everything. It’s the smell of endings. Or beginnings.
Josie stands before me, haloed in the faded orange glow of an emergency lantern. Her coveralls are half-unzipped, clinging damp to her curves from the jungle humidity, my old mechanic’s vest slung over one shoulder like a second skin. Her braid is half undone, fraying at the edges—like us.
Her eyes—brown, steady, burning—pin me in place.
“You gonna just look,” she says, voice low, “or finally give me that gravity-fed affection you’ve been hoarding?”
My heart kicks hard against my ribs. She always says things like that—casual, disarming—but her voice trembles just enough to betray the weight under it.
“I’ve never stopped wanting you,” I say. “I just didn’t know how to stop fearing it. ”
“Then don’t,” she whispers. “Not tonight.”
I move forward. She doesn’t flinch. I raise one clawed hand to her jaw, and she leans into it—soft, deliberate, brave. My thumb grazes her bottom lip, and she parts them for me without being asked.
“You still smell like ion grease,” I murmur.
She grins. “Better than blood, huh?”
“Both smell like survival,” I say, and then I kiss her.
It starts slow. Reverent. A claiming and a surrender all at once.
Her lips are warm and alive under mine, tongue teasing, tasting.
My third eye pulses faintly, glowing soft crimson as our foreheads meet.
I press her backward until she hits the cool bulkhead.
Her hands slip under my armor, dragging it from my shoulders in practiced motions.
I help her. Piece by piece, I let it fall away. My scales, dark silver and red-striped, catch the stormlight as I lift her effortlessly up onto the crate she’d leaned against. Her thighs part, inviting. I settle between them, feeling her heat through the thin, soaked fabric of her underwear.
“I can smell how wet you are already,” I murmur, letting a claw trail up her inner thigh.
Josie shivers. “Then stop teasing and touch me. ”
I slide two fingers beneath the fabric, spreading her folds. Her pussy is slick and hot, clit swollen and begging. She moans the second I touch it—short, high-pitched, almost angry with need.
“Right here?” I murmur, circling slowly. “Where you want me?”
“Gods—Dayn—yes. Yes, there ?—”
I kneel.
The steel floor is cold beneath my knees, but her heat pulls me in.
I press my tongue to her pussy, licking broad and slow, savoring every twitch and cry she gives me.
My tongue—longer than a human’s—flicks her clit as my fingers slide inside her, thick and deliberate.
She clenches around me, head thrown back against the crate.
“Fuck, your mouth—your tongue —I forgot how good?—”
“You didn’t forget,” I say, pulling back just long enough to meet her eyes. “You ache for it.”
Her nails dig into my shoulders, and she cries out again as I suck her clit into my mouth. Her pussy throbs. Her orgasm builds fast and hard.
“I’m gonna come—I’m— fuck ? — ”
She does, shaking, panting, eyes wide and wet. Her thighs tremble against my jaw. I stay there until she’s gasping for breath, pussy soaked and twitching around my fingers.
When I rise, her eyes flick to my cock. Her lips part.
I’m already hard. My cock is thick, flushed dark and ridged, a gleam of precome beading at the head. It pulses in time with my racing heart, the red tracer patterns on my body glowing brighter.
“Your turn,” she whispers, eyes hungry. “I want to feel all of you. Inside.”
I hook her thighs over my arms and pull her to the edge of the crate. She gasps as I drag the head of my cock through her folds, teasing, slicking it with her come.
When I push in, she moans like a litany. Her pussy stretches around me—tight, hot, perfect .
“Gods—Dayn—fuck, you’re—” Her words break off into breathless noise. “So big ?—”
“You’ll take all of it,” I growl, sinking deeper. “Every inch. Every ridge. ”
I thrust slowly, grinding against her clit with each motion. Her back arches. Her hands claw at the crate. Her nipples—dark and stiff—press against the vest still clinging half-off her shoulders.
She’s gorgeous like this. Wild. Real. Mine.
I pick her up again, not pulling out. Just standing, holding her weight as I thrust upward. She gasps into my mouth, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Harder,” she begs. “Don’t hold back. Just fuck me. ”
I do.
I slam her against the bulkhead and fuck her deep, each thrust timed with the thunder outside. The sounds—wet slaps, her breathy moans, my growls—echo off the metal walls like holy noise. Her pussy tightens again, drawing me deeper, her second climax rising fast.
“Gonna—gonna come again—don’t stop?—”
I don’t.
She shatters around me, her cry sharp and helpless. Her pussy clamps on my cock, milking it, and I lose control. My hips stutter. My claws dig into her thighs as I roar into her body, cock pulsing, come spilling deep.
We collapse together onto the rain-cooled floor, tangled, still connected. Her head rests on my chest, cheek slick with sweat.
“I missed this,” she whispers, almost too soft to hear. “Missed you. ”
“You never left me,” I murmur, stroking her back. “Not really.”
She breathes out, content. “We’re going to win, you know.”
I kiss her temple. “With you? I never had a doubt.”
Outside, the rainforest breathes and the storm moves on.
Inside, the world is quiet. Just her heartbeat and mine, tangled in rhythm.
And for the first time in lifetimes, I believe in tomorrow.
Morning light filters through hangar slats, illuminating steel and sweat, dreams and destiny.
I sit at my locker and slide the new Hellfighter armor over my shoulders.
Each panel snaps into place like a vow. The exoskeleton hums with promise and duty.
I run a hand over the insignia etched on my chest—Hellfighter Corps, symbol of a chosen few.
My armor feels alive, buzzing beneath the plating, armored for war but also for love.
Josie stands next to me, hand already pressed to my gauntleted hand. That warmth pulses through the metal—the promise of what we’ve built together. I feel steady, anchored. The gauntlet’s thermo-grip presses back like she’s in my hand.
We turn toward the cargo bay aperture, the rainforest beyond and the distant glint of Alliance shuttles.
The world opens up—galaxy wide, cruel but hopeful.
I see children rebuilding schools, colonists forging fences, the echo of our revolution painted on rebuilt walls.
I smell wet earth, ozone, and distant starships.
The thunder of new beginnings rolls overhead.
Josie steps closer, voice low. “Ready?”
I breathe deep. “More than ever.”
She links her fingers through mine—me through the gauntlet, her strengths meeting mine. I feel her pulse; she feels mine. Two hearts in sync.
She lifts her chin. “Let’s go.”
I nod and step forward. Together.
Outside, the galaxy waits—chaos, hope, conflict, redemption. But now, we walk into it side by side. The world might break, but so will we—because our armor isn't just forged steel. It’s built of love, grit, and rebellion that refuses to be hushed.
As the shuttle’s ramp lowers, I carry her hand with me. And through the hum of star engines, I know: we stand ready. For war. For peace.
For everything in between.