Chapter 18 Lonari #2
I’m strapped into a drop harness within seconds, helmet sealed, internal comm keyed only to my encrypted channel. The world outside my helmet smells faintly of rubber seals and heated metal. My pulse is steady.
I descend with the second wave shuttle, feeling the judder of atmospheric turbulence through the harness as we skim low over jagged rock. The ridge platform appears ahead—a bright, ugly stage under floodlights, drones buzzing like flies.
We land behind the ridge, out of direct camera angles.
The air hits me the second the hatch opens—dry, dusty, sharp with ozone and burnt circuitry. It tastes like old storms.
My boots hit rock. My men move around me in disciplined silence, weapons up, visors scanning.
We slip into the service corridor and the sound changes—metal under boots, generator hum louder, the faint hiss of jammers cycling. The corridor smells like coolant leaks and hot plastic.
A guard appears at the corner, rifle raised.
My man—Jessa’s lieutenant—steps behind him and clamps a hand over his mouth, pulling him into the shadows. One quick stun jab. The guard drops limp.
No screams.
No drama.
Efficient.
We push forward.
Morazin’s command chamber is ahead—a reinforced module bolted into the ridge like a tumor. A side door, not the main stage entrance. That’s what he’s using to run the show.
I nod at my breach tech.
He places a charge—low yield, directional—on the side entry hinge.
A soft thump.
Door pops inward.
We flow in.
The chamber is bright with screens—control consoles, broadcast routing panels, drone feeds, audience windows, market tickers screaming chaos. Morazin’s techs spin toward us, eyes wide.
They don’t get time to scream.
My men drop them—stun rounds, baton strikes, clean restraint cuffs. I stride straight to the main control console and slam my fist down, cutting power.
The screens flicker.
Half go dark.
The jammers stutter.
Morazin’s voice on the main feed hiccups—brief distortion.
I hear him outside on the stage, angry, confused.
“What—” he shouts off-mic. “Get my feed back—”
He’s not here.
He’s trying to flee.
A tech on the floor gasps, “He’s—he’s headed to the shuttle—”
Of course he is.
Morazin doesn’t die for his convictions. He sells convictions and runs when the market crashes.
I sprint.
Out of the chamber, down another corridor that smells like hot metal and sweat, toward the rear shuttle pad carved into the ridge. The sound of boots echoes—my men behind me, weapons ready.
We burst out into open air.
An armored shuttle sits on the pad, engines spooling, landing gear locked. Morazin is halfway up the ramp, flanked by two guards. His face is twisted with rage and disbelief.
He sees me and freezes for half a second.
Then he snarls, “Kaijen.”
I don’t answer.
I trigger the planted charge.
A small device we slapped under the shuttle’s landing strut earlier—Jessa’s crew, always thinking ahead.
The charge detonates with a sharp crack.
The shuttle’s landing gear buckles like bone.
The hull tilts hard to one side. The ramp slams down at an angle.
Morazin stumbles, catching himself on the rail. One of his guards falls, scrambling.
Morazin whips his head toward the shuttle like he wants to scream at it for betraying him.
Then he turns back to me, eyes bright with a new kind of hate.
“You’re too late,” he snaps. “She’s dead.”
My vision goes red for half a heartbeat.
I force it back to cold.
“She’s not,” I say, voice low.
Morazin laughs, sharp. “You came all this way for a human. How poetic. How stupid.”
I step closer, weapon trained on him, and my men fan out, cutting off angles.
Morazin’s eyes flick over them, calculating escape paths. There aren’t any.
He straightens, trying to reclaim performance even now. “Go on,” he says, voice rising. “Kill me. Make me a martyr.”
His gaze is feral and smug at once. “You kill me and the truth becomes criminal propaganda. The Alliance will spin it. The IHC will bury it. Baragon will cry and call you terrorists. You’ll lose Jordan’s story under mine.”
He’s not wrong about spin.
He’s wrong about me.
I smile without warmth. “I’m not killing you.”
Morazin blinks. “What?”
I nod at Renn, who steps forward with restraint tech—high-grade polymer cuffs with shock dampeners, biometric locks, and a collar like the one Jordan wore but meaner. We clamp it onto Morazin before he can move. He jerks, snarling, trying to fight, but my men pin him clean.
Morazin spits, “You can’t hold me. You don’t have jurisdiction—”
“I don’t need jurisdiction,” I say calmly. “I need proof.”
I gesture upward.
A public camera drone—one Jordan’s feed likely compromised earlier—hovers above, still broadcasting.
I tilt my head slightly, aligning my face to the lens.
“Attention,” I say, voice carrying, keyed into the drone’s audio feed. “This is Lonari Kaijen. Morazin is in custody. Alive.”
Morazin thrashes. “No—!”
I keep speaking, voice steady. “This capture is being transmitted to both IHC and Alliance emergency channels. If Morazin ‘dies in transit,’ you’ll know it’s a lie. If he disappears, you’ll know who made him disappear.”
The drone feed pings as external channels latch—Alliance, IHC, even civilian nodes still hungry for the story.
Morazin’s eyes widen, real fear flashing now.
“You bastard,” he hisses.
I lean in close enough that only he hears. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s called me today.”
Morazin bares his teeth. “They’ll come for you. For Gur. For everyone you—”
“Good,” I murmur. “Let them come. They can choke on the truth too.”
Renn hauls Morazin back toward the corridor, dragging him like a bag of trash that thinks it’s expensive.
Morazin screams, voice raw, “You can’t—Jordan is already—!”
I cut him off with a look that makes him shut his mouth for half a second.
Then my comm crackles—Mira’s voice, urgent. “Boss! Jordan’s down on the platform. Execution squad moving. Cameras still live. We have… thirty seconds, maybe less.”
My chest tightens so hard it hurts.
“MOVE,” I roar.
We sprint back through the service corridors, boots pounding metal, air tasting like dust and ozone. My men fan out, EM disruptors primed, smoke canisters ready.
We burst onto the main platform.
The scene is chaos.
Drones buzzing overhead, some glitching, some stabilizing. Morazin’s audience feed screaming. Market tickers still flashing freezes and halts. Shooters closing in on Jordan’s collapsed body, rifles raised to finish.
Jordan is on her side near the scaffolding, blood dark on her clothing, face pale, eyes—eyes open.
Still alive.
Thank whatever cruel god runs this universe.
She tries to push herself up with bound hands and fails, jaw clenched so hard I can see the strain even from here.
My heart does something stupid in my chest.
I don’t let it slow me.
“SMOKE!” Jessa screams.
Canisters burst, flooding the platform with thick gray clouds that swallow sightlines and break optics.
EM disruption pulses ripple out, making drones jitter and rifles glitch.
My boarding teams move like shadows inside the fog, controlled bursts of stun fire dropping shooters before they can line up clean shots.
I hit Jordan’s side in two strides, dropping to one knee beside her.
She looks up at me, eyes glassy with pain and dust, lips splitting into a tiny, vicious smile.
“Took you long enough,” she rasps.
My throat tightens.
“Shut up,” I growl, and my hands are already cutting her restraints—polymer cuffs snapping under the cutter’s heat. Her skin is cold and slick with sweat. The smell of blood hits me—metallic, sharp.
She flinches when I move her. I swear under my breath.
“Where’s—” she starts, then coughs, face twisting.
“Later,” I snap. “Breathe now.”
Med team surges in—Dr. Senn and two techs with a hover stretcher. They slide it under her with practiced speed.
Jordan’s hand—free now—grips my sleeve weakly.
“Morazin—” she whispers, eyes fierce even through pain.
“Alive,” I say immediately. “In restraints. On camera.”
A flicker of relief crosses her face, then she winces, breath catching.
Morazin’s voice—distant now, furious—echoes from somewhere behind, dragged down a corridor by my men.
“YOU THINK THIS ENDS IT?” he screams. “THEY’LL BURY YOU—THEY’LL BURY HER—!”
Jordan’s eyes close briefly, then open again, blazing.
“Let him scream,” she whispers, voice ragged. “He sounds… desperate.”
I lean close, voice low. “Stay with me.”
Her mouth twitches faintly. “Not sentimental, remember?”
I snarl softly. “Don’t start.”
The med team wheels her toward evac under smoke cover. My boarding teams keep firing controlled bursts, pushing Morazin’s remaining guards back, cutting off angles, erasing threat.
Renn’s voice hits my ear. “Boss, reinforcements incoming—multiple signatures now. We gotta lift.”
“Then lift,” I snap. “Jordan first.”
Jessa’s voice cuts in, fierce. “Evac shuttle inbound. Thirty seconds.”
I glance up through the thinning smoke.
In the sky above the ridge, distant streaks appear—ships dropping in, not ours. Morazin’s people finally found a way to scream, or someone noticed the chaos and came running.
Seconds.
Always seconds.
We haul Jordan onto the evac shuttle. The hatch seals. Engines spool. The shuttle rises hard, vibrating the platform beneath my boots.
Morazin’s screams fade into the corridor.
The live drones still hover, still broadcasting, still capturing every ugly detail.
Good.
Let the galaxy watch criminals do what institutions wouldn’t: take a monster alive and drag him into the light.
I step back, weapon raised, and bark into comms, “All teams—withdraw. Now. We leave nothing but smoke and fear.”
And as we retreat into the service corridors, I keep my eyes on the evac shuttle climbing toward orbit, carrying Jordan’s bleeding body and stubborn soul into my ship’s trauma bay.
Because I didn’t come here to be a hero.
I came here to take what’s mine back.