Chapter 41
KAZ
The bottle’s half empty. So is my patience.
The screen on my wall keeps flashing briefing reminders I’m never gonna show up for. Screw 'em. I’m not in the mood to talk about flight paths or anomaly thresholds. Not when the world tilted sideways three days ago and hasn't righted since.
I toss the cap across the room. Miss the sink by a mile. It clinks against the floor and rolls under the bunk.
My fingers tighten around the glass. Whiskey burns down my throat, bitter and clean.
I should be stronger than this.
But hell if I don’t feel like a splintered wing caught in a tailspin.
A knock rattles the door.
I don’t answer.
Doesn’t matter.
Verzius kicks it open like the place owes him rent. His face is pale—no snark, no shade. Just raw, sharp-edged panic. I’ve never seen him like this.
He doesn’t wait for me to speak. Just strides over and slams his hand down on the desk beside me.
The screen lights up.
A message.
Three words.
He has me.
Everything in me locks.
“Where?” My voice is gravel. “When?”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Verzius says. “Straight from a blind channel. She’s got it piggybacked off old courier frequencies—military-grade, cloaked and scrambled.”
“And we just got it now?”
“Encryption. Took my system two passes to crack it.”
I stand. Fast. Too fast. The whiskey in my gut churns, but I push through it. “She’s underground. Stark’s got her in one of his vault labs or worse. She found something. Something big.”
Verzius nods once, curt. “She’s not just snooping. She’s bait.”
I’m already grabbing my flight jacket. “We don’t have time.”
He’s ahead of me, tossing me a weapons kit. “I’ve got armor prepped in my hab. You got gear in launch?”
I nod. “Standard recon—plate-reinforced.”
“We’ll need better.”
“We’ll make it work.”
I pause just long enough to swipe Dar’s toy ship off the nightstand. I don’t even think about it. Just shove it in my pocket like a talisman.
Then we’re moving.
We hit the launch bay fast.
The corridor lights flicker red—night cycle’s almost done—but everything feels like it’s on high alert.
Except it’s not.
The base is calm.
Dead calm.
Which makes it worse.
Like the storm’s already passed, and none of us noticed it hit.
I spot Kelsey near the intake valve, tapping through requisitions. She sees us—two men geared up for war—and raises a brow. “What the hell?”
I kneel beside Dar, who’s half-asleep in her arms.
“Keep him,” I say quietly. “No matter what happens. You keep him safe.”
Her face tightens. “Kaz—”
“No time. You trust me?”
“With my life.”
I touch Dar’s curls. He stirs, murmurs something about juice and spaceships, then drifts again.
My chest cracks.
But I stand anyway.
Because Nova’s out there. And I’m not losing them both.
Verzius leads the way to the far end of the hangar where emergency deployment gear is stashed under lock.
“Code won’t work unless we have clearance,” I say, already bracing to smash something.
“We don’t need clearance.”
He pulls out a tiny data key—slick, matte black. No markings.
“Where the hell did you get that?”
“Stark’s tech, Remi. Owes me from a… situation on Vastral II. Let’s just say I made a scandal disappear.”
The doors slide open like they were never locked.
Inside is armor. Modified.
Verzius grabs a suit with Vakutan gold stripes and power assist braces. It gleams in the light, half ceremonial, half killstorm.
“You still paint your combat kit?”
He smirks. “Intimidation’s an art form.”
“You know this is suicide, right?”
He clicks his helmet on, voice muffled now. “Still Vakutan, motherfucker.”
I laugh. It’s short. Bitter. But real.
Then we suit up.
We load into the skimmer—light, fast, designed for stealth entry.
Verzius hacks the bay controls with the same calm he uses to fix my comms after I break them. The man may joke like a drunk pirate, but he handles tech like it’s an extension of his own damn skin.
The skimmer hums to life.
“We get in,” I say, voice low. “We extract her. We blow the lab if we have to. If she’s in containment, we override the field with the breaker key.”
“You still carry that?”
“Never stopped.”
Verzius nods. “Then we go dark. No traces. No questions.”
We launch.
Stars whip past the viewport.
I tighten my grip on the control yoke.
This time, I’m not letting anyone take her from me.