Chapter 26
RYNN
The data upload completes with a sound that shouldn’t make my stomach drop—just a neat little ping—but every nerve in me hears it as a detonation.
For half a heartbeat, nothing happens. The command deck hums in its ordinary rhythm: consoles breathing light, recyclers sighing, the steady low bass of power running under the floor. Then the lights quiver, a static tremor rippling through the air like the whole station just flinched.
Drel looks up from the secondary terminal. “Did it—?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It took.”
The green indicator on the main screen slides to red.
One after another, encryption keys unfold like blooming iron flowers, and suddenly the room fills with code.
I can feel it—each packet slamming outward through Alliance intranet relays, thousands of lines of Tarek’s falsified orders unspooling into the channels he thought were buried.
A hum becomes a hiss. Then alarms.
The deck lights explode to amber, pulsing like a wounded heartbeat. Across the upper displays, system logs cascade: FLAGGED: SECURITY brEACH / WATCHDOG PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
My mouth goes dry. “Oh, hell.”
Drel spins his chair toward me. “Rynn, you tripped Black-Tier oversight. That’s central command stuff—”
“I know what it is.” My voice cracks. “Pull the feeds before—”
Too late.
The overhead speaker cuts in with that cold, female voice every soldier learns to hate.
“Internal anomaly detected. Alliance AI Cynosure now assuming control.”
Every console locks. Every light sharpens to sterile white.
And then—his name.
TAREK VALIS — FLAGGED FOR INVESTIGATION / CODE SEVEN.
His voice follows, spliced and broadcast through the open channel logs.
“Initiate bounty authorization Delta-Nine. Civilian targets classified hybrid. Proceed with retrieval—”
The recording loops. The same cold tone, the same arrogance. Over and over.
Drel’s face drains of color. “They’re airing his voice on the secured net.”
“Good,” I say, even though my hands are shaking.
“Good? Rynn, the watchdog doesn’t differentiate. It’ll lock all of us down. We need to—”
The deck doors slam open.
Vael bursts in, armor half-latched, eyes burning gold under the strobes. The siren light glints off the metal under his skin. He doesn’t ask what happened; he feels it.
“The whole station’s on alert,” he growls. “Command’s in meltdown. Tarek’s files went public?”
“Every dirty line.” I yank the data core from the console, jam it into my pocket. “He’s finished.”
“Then why’s no one celebrating?” Drel mutters.
Because I know the Alliance. They don’t celebrate truth—they contain it.
Overhead, the alarms deepen in pitch. A synthetic voice booms through the speakers:
“Containment lockdown in T-minus sixty seconds. All personnel report to designated safe zones.”
Vael’s gaze snaps to me. “We have to go. Now.”
“Through where? Every upper hatch is sealed.”
He jerks his chin toward the service access behind the bio-lab partition. “Emergency tunnels. They run under the reactor wing to the southern pads.”
“Those were decommissioned.”
“Not for me.”
I trust that tone—the one that means don’t argue.
Drel’s already moving. “I’ll stall the lockdown timer. Get her out, Commander.”
I grab his sleeve. “Drel—”
He smiles, tired and calm. “Someone’s got to stay and make it look like an accident. Go.”
The floor vibrates as bulkhead locks engage above us. Sirens claw at my eardrums.
Vael grips my wrist. His hand is hot metal and pulse. “Rynn.”
“I’m coming.”
We sprint.
The med-wing corridor is a strobing tunnel of red light and chemical haze. The recycled air smells burnt, tangy with coolant and fear. My boots slap the floor; his heavier stride thunders behind. At every junction, doors are sealing—hydraulics shrieking as blast shields fall.
“Left,” Vael barks.
I slide around a corner, nearly collide with a med-bot whirring blind in the chaos. Its voice repeats please remain calm until Vael kicks it aside.
“Thirty seconds!” he shouts over the klaxons.
I shove open the last manual hatch before the AI can lock it. The edge scrapes my palms raw, metal biting skin.
The access shaft yawns below—narrow, vertical, lined with maintenance rungs slick from condensation. Hot air rises from the depths, carrying the scent of ozone and oil.
“Go,” Vael orders.
I hesitate just long enough to glare at him. “You’re twice my size. You first.”
He bares his teeth in what might be a grin and swings onto the ladder, dropping fast. Sparks dance off the servo seams along his arm as he descends.
I follow, boots slipping once on a wet rung. My breath echoes loud in the confined shaft. Above, a thunderclap—doors sealing, sealing, sealing. The station is swallowing itself.
When my feet hit the lower platform, the air is thicker, warmer, humming with the reactor’s proximity. The tunnel ahead is a vein of dim light and noise.
Vael points down it. “Stay close.”
We run again.
The walls sweat condensation. Every step kicks up the sharp tang of rust and lubricant. Somewhere far above, muffled shouts trade with the thud of boots—security teams scrambling with no idea who the villains are anymore.
The sirens fade to a low, constant moan. In their place: the whisper of coolant lines, the rhythmic click of Vael’s prosthetic as it adjusts for speed.
He glances back. “You okay?”
“Define okay.”
He huffs something that might be a laugh. “Still talking. Good sign.”
I almost smile. Almost.
We reach a junction where the tunnel splits three ways. Vael halts, checks a small wrist display flickering with static. “East passage leads to the vent grid—dead end now. West runs under command—too hot. South goes straight to the cargo locks.”
“Cargo locks mean open ground,” I say. “Open ground means evac ships.”
“Or firing squads.”
“Optimist.”
He smirks. “Realist.”
We take the south.
The further we go, the older the infrastructure gets—weld seams thick and uneven, the walls painted with layers of dust that dull our footsteps. The air tastes of copper and machine sweat.
Every few meters, Vael slows, listening. His hearing’s better than mine; Vakutan reflexes sharpen in tension. I catch only echoes—the far-off grind of doors, a hiss of released pressure.
When we pass a grate, I glance up and see through the mesh a glimpse of the command deck above: figures running, screens flashing red, the watchdog AI barking orders no one understands.
Chaos ignites inside the Corven-7 command deck.
And somewhere up there, Tarek’s name is still flashing in blood-bright letters.
For a second, the satisfaction is sharp enough to taste. Then the fear swallows it whole.
Because if Tarek’s exposed, he’s dangerous. Cornered animals bite hardest.
The tunnel narrows into a crawlspace. Vael goes first, shoulders scraping metal. His voice drifts back, low. “Once we hit the outer lock, we’ll need to cross the flood basin. I’ll take point.”
“Fine by me.”
“Stay behind me, no matter what you see.”
I want to argue, but his tone leaves no room.
We crawl. The metal is freezing through my palms, but sweat slides down my spine. The smell down here is rot mixed with ozone—old water and newer wiring. I can taste the electricity.
Somewhere close, the intercom bursts alive again, muffled but unmistakable:
“All personnel to red sectors. Apprehend subjects Sorala Rynn and Draykorr Vael. Use of force authorized.”
My stomach knots. “They’ve tagged us.”
“They’ll have to catch us,” he says.
The crawlspace ends in a maintenance hatch bolted from the other side. Vael braces and punches through the lock with his mechanical arm. The metal buckles with a sound like thunder.
He pulls the hatch open and hauls me through into another corridor—this one lit only by emergency strips, the light trembling pale green. It smells faintly of dust and coolant; the air vibrates with pressure.
Somewhere far behind, boots echo—distant, but too many.
“Keep moving.”
I do. Because stopping means thinking, and thinking means feeling the terror crawling under my ribs.
We turn another corner. The corridor widens into a low chamber lined with pipes as thick as my torso. Steam leaks from one, misting the air in waves that taste like salt and metal. My throat burns.
Vael wipes condensation from his visor. “Almost there.”
“How can you tell?”
“I remember this place.”
Of course he does. He was stationed here before everything went to hell.
We pass an access panel where faint light spills from a crack—outside light. Cold, blue-white. My pulse jumps.
“That’s it,” I whisper.
Vael nods, presses a hand against the final hatch controls. The mechanism hums to life, scanning his bio-sign. The lock gives a heavy chunk.
He looks back at me. “Once we’re through, stay low. Run for the ridge. The atmosphere line’s thin but breathable—”
“Vael.”
He pauses.
I swallow. “If this goes bad—”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
He steps closer, the tunnel light catching on the edge of his jaw, turning him half gold, half shadow. “Rynn. Look at me.”
I do.
“We’re getting out,” he says quietly. “You. Me. Nessa. All of us. That’s the promise.”
His voice is steady enough that for a heartbeat, I almost believe him.
Then the console beside the hatch flashes red. Access override detected.
“What the—”
A new voice cuts through the speaker, smooth as oil.
“Leaving so soon?”
Tarek.
My blood goes cold.
Vael’s eyes narrow. “He’s piggybacking the security net.”
“Of course he is.” I can barely breathe. “He’s in the system.”
The lock disengages on its own. With a soft mechanical sigh, the exit door slides open.
Cold night air rushes in, sharp with ozone and dust. The sudden brightness blinds me. I blink against it, tears stinging. The world outside the tunnel is chaos—sirens painting the sky crimson, smoke curling up from the far hangars, shuttle lights flickering through the haze.
And right there—
Tarek.