8. Rhykor #2
"Don't insult my intelligence." Daxos takes a step closer, and the tarnished-brass eyes harden into something uglier.
"The human woman medic, Ward." He pronounces her name like it tastes foul.
"You've been seen entering her clinic repeatedly.
Your crew is stationed around her building.
You've destroyed property, killed scavengers, and assaulted extremist cells; all connected to her.
The reports are consistent, Rhykor. Kraaj and human informants both. Everyone is talking."
Neither of us speaks. The freight bay's overhead lights buzz and flicker, casting erratic shadows across the concrete floor. My crew at the perimeter stations put on a show of focus with their backs stiff and eyes tracing inventory screens. They strain to catch words they’ll later pretend never to have heard.
"She's a medical asset," I grate out. "The only functioning clinic in the outermost settlements treats both species. Protecting it serves a strategic purpose."
"A medical asset." Daxos's mouth pulls sideways; contempt disguises itself as amusement.
"That's what we're calling it. Tell me, does the medical asset know you've stationed a personal security detail around her building?
Does she know you flew her through the district last night after killing three men on a rooftop where witnesses saw you sitting close enough to touch her? "
My claws extend half an inch before I catch myself.
"You're an embarrassment." The statement drops from him without heat, without anger—purely cold, objective scrutiny.
"A Kraaj commander publicly entangled with a human female in a district that's already tearing itself apart along species lines.
Do you understand what that looks like to leadership?
To the officers who fought to conquer this planet and now watch their enforcers hand out medicine to the conquered? "
"The occupation ended decades ago, Daxos."
"False, the occupation ended on paper. Power only shifts when someone stronger takes it.
" He draws himself taller, the cybernetic wing clicking as it adjusts.
"You have a job. Contain the Legion outbreaks spreading through the outer sectors.
Identify the source of the corrupted technology.
Maintain order in your assigned territory.
That is your function. Stop playing nursemaid to human refugees, and certainly deter from chasing after some?—"
"Choose your next word very carefully."
Clicking sharply against my armor, my claws slide free.
My crew members at the perimeter take involuntary steps backward.
Varrik places a hand on my forearm, grounding, measured, a silent reminder that incinerating a military overseer inside my own headquarters would create problems far uglier than the ones already stacking up.
Daxos absorbs the heat, his body utterly still, eyes steady as his muscles broadcast engineered calm. Exhaling through his nose, he loosens his tone—simply enough slack to avoid a bite.
"I'm giving you a direct order, Rhykor. Cease all civilian protection operations in the outer settlements.
Redirect your resources toward Legion containment.
And sever whatever personal entanglement you've developed with the Ward woman before it compromises your position further.
" He pauses, letting each word settle into the heated air.
"Command is watching. If you refuse to demonstrate that your priorities align with your obligations, someone else will be assigned to ensure they do. "
"Then assign them." The retort leaves my mouth before the political filters catch up, and the impact registers across Daxos's face, surprise first, followed by a cold, calculating malice far more dangerous than fury.
"My territory and resources, so my decision.
I'll contain Legion because it threatens my people—all of them, Kraaj and human alike.
But I take my orders from the ground, not from officers who haven't set foot outside Central Command in six years. "
Within the freight bay, the hostility turns razor-sharp. My crew abandons all pretense of looking busy. Varrik's hand tightens on my forearm.
Daxos pins me with a look that tastes like bile, his gaze refusing to slide away.
Then a harsh finality clicks shut behind those eyes—a door closing, a conclusion settling—and he turns on his heel to walk toward the exit, his escort falling into step behind him.
Pausing at the doorway, a glance is cast back over the cybernetic wing.
"You were the sharpest blade we had, Rhykor. Remember that when you're choosing who to bleed for."
The transport lifts off two minutes later. The freight bay settles into silence, broken only by the purr of failing overhead lights and the faint hiss of steam escaping from the cracked concrete.
Varrik releases my forearm. "So that went well."
“He’s going to make a move,” I say. “A warning alone fails to explain his arrival. This visit is purely for measuring my reaction.”
"And you gave him plenty to measure." Varrik leans against a cargo pylon and rubs his jaw. "The floor is smoking, brother."
Looking down, two boot-shaped scorch marks appear on the concrete where I stand. I force the heat back down and clench my fists until my claws bite into my palms.
"I'm not abandoning the settlements," I snarl, more to the empty doorway than to Varrik. "I'm not pulling security from the clinic, and I'm not?—"
"I’m well aware," Varrik says, his calm intensity cutting through my fury with thirty years and two wars behind every syllable. "I know, Rhykor. But every line you cross tonight has a price tag, and Command keeps very thorough receipts."
The cost announces itself that night with the shriek of spasming servos and the stench of burning circuitry.
I'm blocks away from Ash Alley when the power grid across the eastern sectors collapses simultaneously, a hard, total blackout that drops the lights, generators, and security systems into darkness within two heartbeats.
There is no gradual fade or flickering warning before the power is simply gone.
The silence that follows lasts exactly four seconds before the screaming starts.
My comm erupts with overlapping distress signals from scouts positioned throughout the outer settlements.
These are droid attacks—coordinated, simultaneous, targeting civilian infrastructure across six sectors.
But the largest concentration, the densest swarm of feral machines pouring out of maintenance tunnels and service corridors, is converging on Ash Alley.
Exactly where the clinic is.
My wings are open before the thought fully forms. One moment I'm standing on a corridor junction, and the next the air is tearing past me as I cut through the blackout toward the one point in this entire district that matters more than breathing.
The couple of miles between the junction and Ash Alley vanish at combat speed, my damaged wings screaming through every stroke, fresh pain layering over healing tissue, and I push harder, faster, until the rooftops blur to a smear of gray.
I hear the attack before I see it. The grinding cacophony features machines in motion, including industrial loaders and construction bots, all moving with that wrong, sickly coordination I recognize from the Sector Nine underground tunnels.
Malignant optics burn through the darkness in clusters of diseased light, converging on the mouth of Ash Alley from three directions.
Cassia's clinic sits at the central point of the convergence.
I crash through the swarm like a comet hitting the atmosphere.
The first machine I reach is a cargo loader twice my height, blighted limbs swinging toward the clinic's outer wall.
I grab its primary arm mid-swing to superheat the joint until the metal glows white, then rip the limb free in a shower of sparks and molten slag.
The loader's chassis collapses sideways, crushing a smaller maintenance unit. I'm already reaching for the next one.
Heat pours from my hands in waves that warp the air and melt circuitry on contact.
I rip through the drones, tear strengthened plating from construction bots with my bare claws, sending thermal blasts into clusters of smaller machines that explode into shrapnel and burning wire.
The alley fills with the stink of melted metal and blackened insulation, and the darkness flickers orange and red with the light of things I'm destroying.
Through the chaos, I recognize the clinic entrance, the reinforced door Cassia locks every night, a barrier built to stop scavengers and desperate addicts, already buckling under impacts far beyond its intended limits.
Beyond the concrete walls, Cassia’s voice cleaves the din—sharp and commanding, barking orders that override the patients’ screams and Elias’s shouts, all of it eventually swallowed by the shriek of seizing servos.
A combat drone drops from the rooftop directly above the clinic entrance, weapon mounts cycling to firing position.
I intercept it mid-descent to catch it by the chassis, pouring everything I have into my palms. The drone's armor blazes incandescently, then white, then liquefies between my fingers as I crush the core housing into slag.
Molten metal drips down my wrists and forearms, and I barely feel it.