Chapter 26
GYON
The air smells wrong—car oil, hot metal, and the distant taint of ozone.
Dawn hasn’t even cracked yet, and I’m crouched in the treeline, the whispergrass brushing my armor, bending under my weight.
I didn’t aim to hide. I aim to wait. The shell of my scavenged Reaper plate creaks quietly with each breath.
I taste cold sweat in my mouth, the after-burn of old battles.
The two suns are just pale ghosts on the horizon.
They land hard. A cargo freighter, wings scraping against the scrub, dust exploding.
The mercenaries spill out like predators unleashed—muscles, weapons, swagger.
They laugh. They push crates around. They call to the Solari villagers: “Where’s the treasure?
Where’s the tech?” One of them kicks over a stack of farming tools like they're toys.
I watch the elders stand off with them—unarmed, calm, voices soft. A woman pleads: “We have nothing. Leave.”
One merc laughs. “Looks like dessert anyway.” His gun barrel sweeps the crates.
My muscles coil. My claws, sheathed under gauntlets built from scavenged alloy, flex. My jaw clenches. I smell the ozone of my armor’s energy cells, the hum of the wind towers distant. Silence of the peaceful fields is broken by their boots, cracking stalks.
I step forward. The ground holds me. I’m ready.
“Ey! What was that?” one merc shouts, turning. He sees me. My visor’s cracked, but the recoil-shock filters build a red glow. He laughs. “More meat? Hey buddy—”
He never finishes. I move like storm. My boots crush the broken grass as I sprint. I raise the gauntlet. The world slows. The weapon fires, but I don’t dodge. I take it. The impact jars my shoulder, but I shrug through it.
I bring my fist down. His jaw fractures. I hear the snap. Blood sprays. He hits the ground. The metal sweet scent of blood and oil during the night rises.
The others freeze.
Then chaos.
I slash. Feel the gauntlet hiss. The smell of hot metal as claws breach plating. The veld smells raw—earth torn, anger released.
“Reaper!” another screams.
I don’t answer. I move. Each motion sharp as lightning. I don’t think. I am.
A merc swings a chain. I block with my forearm, gauntlet sparks. I rip the chain away and wrap it around his throat. His eyes bug out. I crush. The chain cuts. He gasps, life leaking. I toss him into the dirt.
“Fall back!” one merc shouts.
They turn to run. But the cargo ship’s hull is the only exit—and I’ve blocked it.
I sprint. My armor pounds with every step. Sweat beads, salt stings my eyes. My vision robs colors down to red and gray.
They crash into each other. I get to the loader ramp.
I swing the blade inside the ship’s hold.
Metal echoes. Their guns fire half-heartedly.
I ignore. The blade finds their limbs, torches their armor.
The smell of burning synthetic fills the hold.
Their screams are distant, muffled by metal and fear.
I want no survivors.
I don’t flinch at the red-streaked floor. I don’t hesitate when the last one collapses in the wrong place. I lift my head. Taut. Ready. My chest still hammers.
The hold is silent. Just echoes of defeat and burning plastics.
I pick up a data-pad from one merc’s hip. I thumb through manifest. Weapons lists. Escort points. Rescue drops. I stuff it into my pouch.
Outside, the morning suns are brighter. They mocked the fields just an hour ago. Now they shine. On victory.
I walk toward the Solari, blade sheathed. I expect fear. Anger. Praise. But the elders stand head bowed, silent.
One small girl peeks around a vine-post, eyes wide.
I stand before Tayani. Her eyes closed. She lifts her face to me. “You found your storm,” she says softly.
I nod. “I found hers.”
She opens her eyes. “Now you must leave to reclaim what is yours.”
I swallow. The grove smells of grape-vines and cut stalks. I hear my own pulse. I feel power. I feel emptiness.
“Thank you.”
She nods. She gives no more words.
I return to the landing sight. Now the freighter’s mine. I claim its hold. I haul it to the hangar beside the vine-fields. The craft’s hull is bruised; wires hang like guts in the bay. I don’t care.
I climb inside the cockpit. The smell of burnt circuitry and incoming fuel hits me like home. I sit in the pilot’s chair. I grip the throttle. The console lights blink weak. The Solari tech crew patched systems—wind-tower power cell, repurposed bio-units. It hums, almost alive.
I flip the main switch. The panel glows amber. The seat vibrates. The cabin fills with ozone and heat.
“Okay,” I whisper into the empty cockpit. “We’re doing this.”
The engines roar. The vibration shakes the chair. The skylight above shows the dual suns. I strap in. The wind towers tilt. The vines ripple outside.
I lift off. The ground recedes. I hover. The only sound—engine hum, my breathing, the wind towers fading.
I look back once. At the settlement. The whispergrass. The Solari domes. The fields. I expect desperation, and I find calm.
They gave me healing.
Now I’m ready to reclaim what was mine.
The Journey is both endless and timeless.
I don’t remember the last time I slept. Maybe I did once, somewhere between the fields and the fire, but if I did I woke with half my soul missing.
Tonight I sit in the cockpit of the ship I claimed, fingers on the throttle, hull humming beneath me like a wounded beast learning how to run again.
The air smells of burnt circuitry and fresh vacuum.
I taste metal and old battle screams in the back of my throat.
I replay it—all of it—the crash in the Maze.
The white-light firestorm. Her face. The way she screamed.
The way I reached for her and failed. Every heartbeat I missed.
Every moment I froze instead of acting. And the child I dreamed of, silver eyes calling me “Papa.” I don’t know if she exists.
I don’t know if she’s real. But the ache for her is as sharp as a blade.
Beside me the data-feed flickers: Earth orbit. The lone blue gem of the world we call home. Coordinates locked. Destination: the city she once called home. I trace it with my finger across the hologram map.
“Home,” I say to the silent cockpit. “We’re going home.”
I engage the thrusters. The ship lurches. My body hugs the seat, the vibration crawling along my bones. I clutch the armrests. The metal tastes of ozone. The wind towers I left behind spin in the memory of my mind. This craft is crude. Jury-rigged. But it flies—and that’s enough.
A voice crackles over the radio.
“Unidentified ship, you are entering restricted space. Identify yourself.”
I unclip the headset, toss it aside. Silence is better. I lean back and close my eyes for a second, letting the engines hum lull me. But there is no lulling. Not now.
“Liora,” I whisper. “Where are you?”
The city approaches: lights glittering like stars plucked and placed on a velvet black blanket.
My senses thrum: the smell of ozone again, the hum of atmosphere re-entry bristles the cockpit windows.
The heat shields glow faint orange. My armor’s scars tingle in sympathy.
I adjust the controls—one hand steady, one hand shaking.
The city’s name scrolls on the HUD: New Helios. She lived here. She said she lived here when there was still hope. I stare at the light-ribbons, at hover-cars glinting, at towers reaching like spears for the sky.
I don’t cloak this time. Let the world see me. Let her see me. I don’t care about hiding.
The atmosphere hits. The craft shudders: re-entry burn. I grip the throttle. The nose swings upward to bleed the angle. The heat rises. The canopy glows red. The smell: hot metal, scorched glass, fear made physical.
“Steady,” I growl. “Just another fight.”
The g-forces claw at my chest. My lungs strain. I breathe in shallow, control the rhythm—Because I know how to survive this. I know how to fight it. I know how to take. But I don’t know how to have. Not yet.
The landing gear deploys with a whump. The engines roar, then silence. The ship touches down on a designated pad in the city outskirts. The smell of exhaust and urban ozone hits me as the hatch opens.
I step out of the cockpit. My boots hiss on heated metal. My armor is battered, the visor cracked, but I stand tall. The city lights shine too bright. Noise rushes in. Smells of grilled food, of trash, of human bodies and synthetic clothes. The city is alive. Too alive.
I walk forward. I don’t look sideways. I don’t smile. I don’t hesitate.
“Hey! Authority!” A security drone hovers above. “Identify—”
I raise one hand. The scar under my sleeve tingles. “Gyon.”
The drone scans me. The prisms blink. “Gyon--Genetic scans indicate you are a Reaper, and have no legal status on an IHC world. It would seem you are in violation—”
I step toward it. My voice low. “I don’t care.”
The drone backs off. People clear. I feel their gazes—fear, awe, curiosity. I smell sweat, cheap perfume, engine fumes. My ribs ache. My heart roars. I carry history and promise on this landing pad as if it’s a weapon strapped to my back.
A comm-buzz in my ear: a Solari transmitter I pressed before liftoff. Tayani’s voice, calm. “May you find what you seek.”
I close my eyes for a second and nod. “I will.”