Chapter 25
VALTRON
Pain is a language I’ve forgotten how to translate.
The moment Varn’s suppression fields kick in, it’s like my blood turns against me. Like my bones start rejecting the weight of my own body. The armor he wears hums with purpose-built tech—dirty Combine relics tuned specifically to shut down Vakutan physiology.
And it’s working.
Every instinct I have screams to move, to fight, but my limbs drag like I’m knee-deep in a gravity swamp. The muscles in my back spasm. My vision fuzzes out at the edges.
He circles me slow, like a predator toying with a broken kill.
“Not so mighty now,” Varn purrs through his speaker array. “You always were just another project. A piece of meat in a lab. A hammer looking for something to break.”
I lurch forward. My fist connects with his armor and nothing happens but the crunch of my own knuckles.
He slams into me with one gauntlet, throwing me ten meters across the ring.
The world spins.
My skull cracks the sand, ears ringing, lungs screaming for air. Something inside my chest tears. Ribs, maybe. I can’t tell. Too much hurts at once.
I try to stand. Collapse.
Varn stalks closer. “You’re a relic. A failed experiment wrapped in flesh. They should’ve let you rot.”
He lifts his arm. Power cores whine.
I close my eyes.
And then—
A crack.
Not thunder.
Closer. Sharper.
Like electricity arcing off steel.
My eyes snap open just in time to see Rhea leap onto Varn’s back, shock baton in both hands. She slams it into the junction point of his suppression field.
Sparks explode.
The node dies.
The weight lifts.
It’s not total, but it’s enough.
Varn roars, spinning, trying to shake her off. She holds fast, face twisted with fury and terror and something incandescent.
“You don’t get to win,” she spits. “Not after everything.”
He throws her.
I catch her.
Just barely.
She scrambles back to her feet, already pulling a toolset from her hip.
“Hit him again,” she snaps.
I don’t need telling twice.
I charge.
This time, when my fist hits his jawplate, it cracks.
He stumbles. His balance shifts.
Rhea dives for the armor’s exposed interface, wires trailing from her toolset, fingers flying with the grace of someone who’s hacked every system they were told to stay away from.
Varn lashes out—kicks me in the gut—but I absorb it, twist with the blow, grab his leg, and drive him into the ground.
The earth shudders.
I climb on top of him and I don’t stop swinging.
Fist after fist. Elbow. Knee. Every strike fueled by the names of the dead. The ones he silenced. The ones I couldn’t save.
“Valtron!” Rhea calls. “Now!”
She yanks the last relay free.
I grab Varn by the faceplate and rip the helmet clean off.
He’s bleeding. Gasping.
His eyes are wide.
“Please—” he chokes.
But mercy died the day Quinn did.
I slam his head into the dirt.
Once.
Twice.
He goes still.
Unconscious.
Not dead.
Because we’re better than he is.
Rhea staggers to the broadcast station, dragging cords, jacking into the emergency feed line.
I step beside her.
She looks at me, eyes wild.
I nod.
She hits the comm.
“This is Rhea Hart,” she says, voice shaking but strong. “This is what freedom costs.”
She glances at me.
“And what love survives.”
The crowd erupts.
Not in panic.
In hope.
They chant our names—mine and hers—over and over, until the sound shakes the walls.
I reach for her hand.
And in the ashes of our enemies, we stand together.
They say history gets written by the victors. That’s true. But the part they leave out—the part nobody warns you about—is that after the battle, after the blood and the reckoning, somebody still has to clean up the mess.
I’m sitting in a sterile conference room. White walls. No windows. The kind of room designed to make you forget time exists.
Opposite me sits a man in a suit so sharp it could slit throats. Arena Council liaison. Combine survivor. Bureaucrat in the cleanest war there is—the one fought over data, rights, narratives.
“We’re prepared to offer you full amnesty,” he says, folding his hands like this isn’t a pitch meeting. “Record expunged. Past affiliations deleted. You walk out clean.”
“And?”
“A permanent contract. Gladiator Prime wants to rebuild. You’d be our foundation. You’d never want for anything.”
I lean back, letting the silence stretch long enough to make him squirm. He doesn’t. He’s too polished for that.
Finally, I say, “No.”
His brow twitches. “May I ask why?”
“Because I’m done being someone else’s weapon.”
He opens his mouth like he’s going to argue. I stand before he can.
“Keep your clean slate,” I growl. “I’d rather have a dirty one I own.”
Rhea gets the same pitch a day later.
Different setting. Different suit. Same bullshit.
They offer her her show back—bigger, better, unfiltered. Prime slot. Unlimited access. The voice of the new order.
She stares at them for a full thirty seconds before saying, “Go to hell.”
I love her so much it hurts.
We don’t say goodbye.
We don’t do press tours or interviews or retrospectives.
We take our daughter.
And we vanish.
This time, together.
The ship’s a piece of junk.
She’s old. Ugly. Half the paneling is sun-faded and the other half is probably held together with spit and bad decisions.
She’s also fast. Small. Unregistered.
Perfect.
I carry Ripley up the ramp while Rhea negotiates docking clearance with a grumpy little Sarkan who keeps calling her “missy.” Ripley’s hugging a stuffed warbeast she named Wobble.
“You sure this thing flies?” she whispers in my ear.
I grin. “Barely.”
We settle her into the co-pilot seat. She swings her legs like she owns the stars.
Rhea finally boards, hair windblown, grinning like a thief who just pulled the heist of her life.
She drops into the pilot chair beside me. Flicks a few switches. The ship hums to life, shuddering like an old cat stretching its spine.
“Where to?” she asks.
I glance at Ripley.
Her eyes are bright. Free.
“Anywhere she can grow up without needing to fight.”
Ripley chirps, “Can I pick?”
We both laugh.
Rhea kisses my cheek. “She gets that from you.”
“Nah,” I say, wrapping my arm around them both. “She gets the fight from me. The soul? That’s all you.”
The ship lifts off.
The stars stretch wide.
And for the first time in forever, the horizon doesn’t look like a battlefield.
It looks like a home.
A new chapter begins.
Not of war.
But of peace we earned.