Chapter 2
VOLTAR
The sky weeps blood-colored mist and I couldn't be happier.
Barren rock spreads around me, cracked and charred like the surface of some forgotten god's ashtray. No cover. No backup. Just me and the Baragon. They're ugly sons of glitchspawn—chitinous brutes with too many legs and not enough brains—but there's a lot of them, which almost makes this fair.
Almost.
I stomp forward, heavy boots punching deep into the mud-slicked grit.
Each step sounds like war drums being played with steel fists.
My graviton cannon—shoulder-mounted, oversized, overcompensating—pulses warm against my spine.
It's meant for puncturing cruiser hulls, but I find it works just as well on squishy ground troops.
A cluster of Baragon breaks from formation to flank me. Adorable.
I grin, baring all my teeth. "Time for the chorus, boys."
I belt out a Vakutan war hymn—“Grathgor’s Revenge, Part Three”—a classic.
Full of throat noise and enough guttural base tones to shake gravel loose from the sky.
I roar the verses as I rip through the first wave, plasma slugs vaporizing limbs, my wrist cannons carving molten arcs through exoskeletons.
The ground becomes a killing field slicked with ichor and burnt chitin.
One Baragon tries to leap over me.
I grab it mid-air, slam it headfirst into another, then hurl both into a detonated crater for good measure. My shoulder cannon swivels with a low hum of anticipation.
“Line up,” I growl.
It fires.
The blast splits the horizon in half, vaporizing thirty—maybe forty—Baragon in a glorious, wailing instant. Their screeches go from sharp to silent mid-sound. The canyon wall behind them turns into smoke and regret.
The cannon hisses as it cools.
I light a cigar. Sweetleaf, stolen off a merchant freighter last tour. Burns blue at the tip, tastes like home.
“Sometimes,” I mutter around the smoke, “it’s so easy I’m ashamed of myself.”
A half-twitch smile plays on my lips as I survey the destruction.
No more targets. No more movement. Just heaps of twitching alien limbs and the acrid perfume of victory.
The wind carries the scent of plasma and pride, and under my boots, I feel the planet itself settling—like it's relieved I'm done.
My holocom buzzes.
I groan. “If this is a commendation, make it quick. I’m in the middle of a well-earned post-rampage glow.”
General Dowron’s face appears, flickering to life in the air beside me. Stiff-necked, armor always too polished, like someone pressed the starch button too hard on a bureaucrat.
“Voltar,” he begins, voice flat. “Another successful purge. Baragon forces decimated. Command’s impressed.”
I puff smoke at the holo. “Of course they are. I decimate impressively.”
Dowron squints at me like he’s trying to remember if I’m an idiot or just pretending. “But we’re reassigning you.”
My eyes narrow. “To what? There’s still pockets of resistance on Zhara VI. Don’t tell me you’re pulling me before I get to smash their artillery line with my bare hands.”
“No.”
I tilt my head. “No?”
“You’re going back to Novaria Prime.”
I nearly choke on my cigar.
“What? Are you punishing me for being too effective again?”
Dowron doesn’t flinch. “We need someone for a high-profile witness protection assignment. The Nine’s involved. It’s political.”
My claws curl involuntarily. “Babysitting?” I snarl. “You want me to babysit some fragile meat sack who saw something they shouldn’t have? I didn’t survive four tours, three mutinies, and one orbital bombardment to be some nanny with a plasma rifle!”
“She’s a critical asset—”
“She’s a civilian.”
“She’s a target.”
I pace, every step cracking the blackened soil beneath me. “Dowron, you send me back to Novaria and I will personally replace your spine with a collapsible chair.”
“Voltar—”
“I have a reputation!”
“You have a record.”
He flicks his fingers. The holo shifts.
A figure appears—full body, paused mid-movement. Human female. Small frame. Red hair coiled like fire. Bright green eyes that don’t look scared so much as annoyed—like she’s mad the world dared inconvenience her.
“Her name’s Sable Jackson,” Dowron says.
I stop mid-rant.
I don’t know why, but something about the image catches in my chest.
She’s… sharp. In every sense. Delicate-looking, sure, but there’s steel in her shoulders, defiance in the way she’s turned slightly away from the camera like it caught her on the offensive. Even frozen in pixels, she looks like she’s trying to get back to business.
I suck in a slow drag of cigar.
“She’s a hair stylist,” Dowron adds, like that’ll dissuade me.
I exhale a ribbon of blue smoke.
“She got herself into this,” I murmur.
“She saw one of Otto’s men execute a debtor in broad daylight. She refused protection.”
“Ballsy.”
“Idiotic.”
I chuckle. “My favorite combo.”
I stare at her holo longer than I mean to.
Dowron shifts awkwardly. “So?”
I roll the cigar between my fingers, watching the ember dance.
“Send me her file.”
“You’re accepting?”
“I’m listening.”
I’ve been in orbit over Novaria for seventeen standard hours, and I’ve spent sixteen of them staring at the same flickering holofile like a lovesick explosives technician.
Sable Jackson.
Stylist. Civilian. Witness. Hot.
I swipe the page back up with a clawed finger, tilting my head as her dossier blossoms again in blue light.
It’s bare bones. They always are when they come from the civilian core—redacted chunks, vague biographical details, no combat records or flight hours.
But what’s here? It’s strangely fascinating.
She’s from the north side of Novaria Prime.
Born in one of the denser vertical stacks, raised by a father with too many medals and not enough hugs.
She has zero infractions, two degrees in aesthetic design and follicular biomorphics—whatever the hell that is—and she owns a salon with a name that translates in Vakutan as “Place of face-melting glamour.” Or something like that. I might be slightly off.
But it’s the attached video that’s killing me.
I loop it again, leaning forward on the cruiser’s debrief bench like a cadet in a gunner’s porn library.
Sable is standing in a dim hallway at a police station, still wearing some ridiculous crystal heels and a splatter of alley sludge down her pant leg. Her eyes are green flame, her voice sharp and perfectly modulated for maximum scolding.
“You’re lucky I’m not filing an official complaint,” she’s saying to an offscreen officer.
“You detained me for two hours and didn’t even offer me a cup of caf or a blanket.
I’m not a criminal—I’m a stylist. Do you know how many people cry in my chair?
I know more about therapy than your whole precinct. ”
I snort. Loudly. Then I rewind it and play it again.
She’s got spine. That kind of confidence—you can’t fake it. And she’s not just barking nonsense, either. She carries herself like someone who knows her worth and will invoice you for it with late fees if you don’t act accordingly.
I cross my arms and lean back against the bulkhead, letting the soft vibration of the ship’s fusion core hum against my back. It’s one of the only sounds in my quarters, other than the occasional report pinging through the comm.
I pull up a new tab and search: “civilian hair styling process.”
A bunch of results come up. I tap the first holo—bright colors, peppy music, some poor guy getting his scalp molested by a giggling esthetician.
I watch, mesmerized. Tiny brushes. Sprays.
Heat rods. They sculpt hair like it’s a weapon or a work of art.
I don’t know whether to be intimidated or turned on.
Another clip. This one’s Sable herself—her salon security footage must’ve been included in the file dump.
She’s in a black smock, eyes laser-focused as she trims a client's hair with the precision of a surgeon.
Her movements are smooth, intentional, like each snip is part of a battle plan. The client is crying. Again.
I whisper under my breath, “Stars, she’s terrifying.”
I like terrifying.
I tap over to the psych profile notes. “Stubborn. Uncooperative. Shows patterns of insubordination when authority is challenged.” I grin wider. Sounds like my kind of person. I’ve been cited for insubordination so many times they just gave up and reclassified it as a personality trait.
What really gets me though? There’s a line buried in a field report. “Sable Jackson refused witness protection citing, quote, ‘I do not disappear.’”
That’s what does it.
Right there.
My second heart stutters like it just hit a plasma pocket. Not metaphorically. I mean the literal second heart that all Vakutans have—usually runs like clockwork. Now it’s doing a funky little tango and I have no idea what that means.
I blow out a breath, stand, and pace my quarters. The floor plating creaks under my weight. My pauldrons, hung on the wall like oversized trophies, catch the light.
I can’t go down there looking like a warcrime. Not yet.
I start pulling pieces down. The polished silver with crimson trim—the ceremonial ones, the ones that say I’m not actively killing anyone but could be persuaded. I run a rag over each plate, buffing with a kind of focus I usually save for sniper maintenance or gutting Baragon.
I catch my reflection in the polished metal and freeze.
My teeth are bared. My posture’s... ridiculous. I look like a teenager rehearsing his first handshake.
“Get a grip,” I mutter, adjusting my shoulders.
Then I catch myself in the mirror again—this time, on purpose.
“Greetings, civilian,” I try.
Nope. Too stiff.
“Miss Jackson. I’m your new guardian. Voltar. Yes, that Voltar. Yes, the one from the war crime tribunal. It’s a misunderstanding.”
Stars, no. Terrible.
I scratch at my brow ridges. Think.
“Hey,” I say, letting the word roll low and easy from my throat. “I’m Voltar. You’re the only assignment I’ve ever had that came with better cheekbones than I do.”
I pause. Smirk.
“Closer,” I tell myself.
I try again. “Hi. I’m your bodyguard. And I’m only legally allowed to vaporize people if they try to vaporize you first. But I can get creative.”
Okay. Getting better.
I wipe the sweat from my upper ridge and sit back down. My armor’s half on now—gleaming plates over my chest and thighs, boots laced tight. I look like a gladiator with feelings. I hate it.
But also?
I don’t.
The holoscreen still plays her loop in the background. Her telling off that officer. Her holding her own in a world trying to grind her down.
There’s a deep ache in my chest. Not the war wound kind. The kind that means I want to understand her more than I want to kill anything.
And that scares the hell out of me.
Not because I’m weak—but because this feeling might be stronger than anything I’ve fought before.
The comm chimes.
Pilot’s voice crackles through. “We’re descending to Novaria Prime, Commander. Landing clearance approved. Estimated contact in thirty minutes.”
I grab my gauntlets and lock them in with a hiss.
“Understood.”
My voice comes out steadier than I expect.
As the cruiser’s thrusters tilt and the ship drops toward atmosphere, I let my eyes close for a second.
Sable Jackson, you’re probably gonna hate me at first.
But I think I’m already in.