Chapter 22
SANTIAGO
The última Bruto tore through the slipstream like a leviathan set loose.
At half a kilometer in length, the dreadnought was a brute by name and nature.
The dark-scaled monster boasted a hull of composite alloys and plasma-hardened plates.
Its engines flared cerulean with every pulse of its triple-banked drive core.
The rear banks roared with thrust capable of breaking asteroid belts, while its underbelly bristled with retractable turrets, torpedo launch bays, and spectral disruptors only Signet tech could forge.
Kaal stood beside Santi at the forward viewport, arms crossed, eyes on the fractured starlight flickering across the black.
Miral sat at a console just behind, fingers gliding over comms panels and data feeds.
She was tracking residual warp echoes from the pirate skiff last seen hauling ass from The Sombra’s breach.
‘They hit the decoy node trail again near the Dead Latch Cluster,’ she said. ‘It’ll take us to Asteroid J-7Z. Orbiting the lip of the Wildlight Expanse.’
What is it?’
‘A transit station. A couple of bars, a seedy motel, refueling and docking berths, nothing fancy.’
Santi narrowed his eyes. ‘Plot it. Perhaps we can get some clues as to where these fokkers are hiding in the Wildlight. Miral, if you can please find someone in the vicinity who can give us a clue, pray do so.’
Asteroid J-7Z was a spinning rock with a carved-out belly and little else.
A hollowed husk with habitation containers stacked within, its five-ship locking dock was lit by flickering crimson lamps powered by old-school nuclear batteries.
The Bruto dwarfed the structure when it approached, engines dimming as it extended a docking arm.
Once docked, Santi, Kaal, and Miral disembarked beneath the dreadnought’s shadow.
The gravity was weak but steady, the air artificially dense with filtered methane and the stink of old oil.
The bar went by the eponymous name, The Hollow Fang.
A leaking fusion torch burned over its arched entrance, where two rusted signs flickered OPEN in a dozen half-broken dialects.
Inside, the place stank of plasma whiskey, rust, and pirate sweat.
Refitted ship plating and asteroid ore made up the walls.
Holo screens buzzed with sports games and betting ticker tape, and a pit in the center of the room housed an illegal death brawl mid-swing.
Santi’s boots clanked as they stepped in, eyes tracking every twitch in the gloom. Patrons were the usual scrap-slick mercs, vulture traders, ex-cons, and unregistered synths.
A bartender with a grafted cybernetic jaw and milky eyes poured drinks behind a scratched plasteel bar. ‘Whaddya want?’
‘Two fingers of Jet-Burns,’ Santi said.
The man raised a brow but served them.
The brand of whiskey was strong enough to scorch a hair from your skin.
It was what Santi needed to get over his ennui.
He and Kaal nursed their tumblers, while Miral smoked a synth-cigar, eyes on the crowd, until Kaal muttered, ‘We’ve got company.’
Three pirates peeled from the shadows like oil slicks given flesh, filthy, scarred, and cocky in a way that only the suicidal dared to be.
Their jackets were patch-worked from flayed skins and synth-hide.
Each one smeared with sigils of the Kraken Latch Crew, a notoriously unhinged pirate outfit infamous for pillaging lost convoys in the ghost stretches of the Pale Nebula.
Every inch of their skin appeared inked with chaos: rust-colored tentacles winding up their throats, leering skulls spitting fire on their hands, and jagged teeth tattooed around their eyes.
The biggest of the trio, broad-chested, with a mohawk carved from carbon filaments, carried a collapsible plasma axe rigged to a stolen mining core.
His weapon sparked, held together by little more than magnetic seals.
The second wore a cracked exo suit modified with bolted-on plating and dual dart-guns at the wrist.
The last, a narrow-eyed freak with sharpened canines, flicked a pair of hooked blade-knuckles, each serrated edge crusted with dry serum.
They moved in a semicircle, boxing the Signet trio near the bar.
‘Well, well,’ the mohawked one purred, licking his yellowed teeth. ‘What’ve we got here? Some newbies in the system. Do they know they have to pay baksheesh, like the rest of the kinais who fly through these parts?’
Santi didn’t bother turning his head, his timbre calm as death.
‘Fokk off.’
‘‘Fraid not,’ the second pirate said, tapping the side of his head where an old neural rig blinked red. ‘We clocked you on the way in. That armor’s signature-grade. Bet you’re packing schills, command tabs, even some sweet little encryption tokens tucked away.’
The third sneered, stepping toward Miral. ‘I’ll take the synth-girl. She looks like she purrs when pressed right.’
Kaal’s lip curled. ‘Should’ve picked a different set of losers to bully.’
‘Shut up,’ the mohawked Kraken barked, brandishing a blade.
‘You really think,’ Santi muttered, ‘you’re the first gang bangers to try and jack us?’
Santi’s eyes met Kaal’s.
Then all hell broke loose.
Undaunted, one corsair tried to snatch Miral’s hand and got a knee to the groin for his trouble.
‘Ow,’ she deadpanned. ‘Clumsy.’
The wild-haired kinai went for Kaal’s shoulder.
While a third pressed a crackling dagger to Santi’s face.
Kaal moved first, faster than any of the pirates could register.
His body shimmered, bones stretching with a sickening crackle as ghost light flared beneath his skin.
His face twisted into a fierce mask, and razor claws burst from his fingertips. With a growl that shook the bottles off the bar, Kaal lunged.
The mohawked corsair screamed as he crashed backward into a support column, two deep trenches raked across his armored shoulder where Kaal’s claws bit through the material.
Santi didn’t hesitate. His eyes ignited with radiant fire, his teeth elongated into savage fangs, and his hands became wicked talons. The blade pressed to his ribs never even touched him.
He caught the attacker’s wrist, twisted the limb with a sickening wrench, and slammed the man over the bar with enough force to shatter the dura-steel counter. Bottles exploded.
‘Don’t spill the Jet Burn,’ Miral muttered, ducking as shards flew past her head.
The two remaining corsairs witnessed their leaders crumpling and the inhuman speed and power of their attackers.
Terror sucked the air from their lungs.
They scrambled, their movements jerky and desperate.
One man clutched his broken arm as he stumbled toward the exit; the other limped after him, clutching his groin and leaving a thin trail of blood behind, abandoning their mohawked companion.
The door hissed shut behind them.
Santi and Kaal’s features relaxed, the claws and fangs receding, their eyes still burning with feral power.
The Hollow Fang fell silent.
Patrons stared, some with awe, some with pure fear.
Kaal wiped a fleck of blood from his cheek and grinned.
‘Anyone else feel like bleeding?’ he growled.
No one answered.
Miral raised her drink again, toasting the corpse on the floor. ‘Seems these pirates need to pick their victims with more care.’
Santi cracked his neck and stepped back from the ruin. ‘No fun if they’re smart.’
The bartender, who’d vanished behind the counter moments earlier, popped back up and set a clean bottle on the bar, flicking wary glances at the trio.
Miral jerked her chin. ‘Put the damage on our tab. Signet always pays its bills.’
The bartender bowed and bobbed his head in relief.
A soft ping sounded on the Synth-AI’s wrist comm.
‘Our contact is here,’ Miral announced
True to her word, a tall, rail-thin man sidled toward them, with skin like old paper and a long black coat glimmering at the seams.
His hair was bone-white, and his eyes were mismatched: one a synthetic lens, the other human and gray-silver.
An argent band bore the mark of the Carvajal mafia clan across his left palm.
‘Landon Carvajal as I live and breathe,’ Santi growled. ‘How’s Pedro?’
‘Still running the cartel, although the deal with Xander declawed him,’ Landon murmured with some self-satisfaction.
‘Still not made up with your brother then?’ Kaal pushed.
Landon’s eyes flared with ire. ‘Never, he shoved me out of the family, called me the black sheep, didn’t want to share the spoils.’
‘I see,’ Santi grunted. ‘Love to sit around and chat about the warm and fuzzies, but still operating back door comms through the asteroid ports?’
‘Depends,’ Landon rasped.
‘You intercept any chatter on The Red Skulls? Where they hole up, to be specific?’
Landon sat up. ‘Perhaps. What’s it worth?’
‘Walking out of here alive.’
‘Fokk, you Signet kinais, always going for the jugular.’
Kaal grinned. ‘Better believe it.’
Landon gave the Signet man a quick, stressed look.
Kaal leaned forward and clapped the man on his shoulder. ‘We’re not always heartless.’
He removed a small bag and spilled a few rubies, diamonds, and gold nuggets on the table.
Santi also pulled out a credit strip and flicked it on the table. ‘Enough for you to share?’
Landon lifted it, pressed a button to view the schills loaded on it, and licked his lips, his greed evident.
‘Sawa?’ Santi rasped.
The Lombardi man jerked his chin. ‘It’ll do.’
He tapped his temple, and a hologram lit up, projected from his synthetic lensed eye.
It showed a map of the Cerulean Dimension, a quadrant proximate to a spatial rift haloing a collapsed dark stellar entity.
‘They’ve moved their holdout near here. The Red Skulls are using the gravity field to cloak their base. The only way in is to ride the curve of the swell, without burning your ship’s engines.’
‘You for real?’ Kaal grunted.
‘You asked for truth, not comfort,’ Landon replied, shutting down the vision and flicking the file to Miral. ‘That black star eats ships. But your Bruto might survive if a twin-pulse deflector boosts her. There’s a tether path embedded in this map. Use it right, and you’ll make the jump.’
Santi eyed him. ‘Why help us? Other than the loot?’
Landon’s voice was calm. ‘Because my son’s body came back in a Signet bag after the Lombardis ripped him apart in the Gaillo straits on a raid. You honored him. Tis the least I can do.’
Landon bowed, caught the booty and credit strip Kaal tossed at him, nodded, then vanished through the back door.
Outside, the team returned to the Bruto, where Miral waited with systems humming, ready for warp.
Santi stood for a moment on the gangplank, gazing out at the void.
Then up at the sky, where the Cerulean Dimension glimmered like a wound in the stars.
‘Time to bring her home,’ he growled and boarded the ship.