The Stray Dog accelerated, a sustained burn that pressed Kaelen deep into the worn padding of the observer’s seat. The ship was a patchwork of salvaged tech, and the vibration of the drive hummed up through the deck plates, a constant, gritty tremor against the soles of his boots. Outside the cockpit’s main viewport, the velvet black of the void was giving way to the hard, skeletal geometry of the Dock Twelve Ring, a massive loop of metal and light hanging off the curve of Ceres. It was their last chance at an exit, a straight shot into the unregulated dark of the Outer Belt. The price for their escape from the Phobos archive was Zaina Petrova’s ship, and she was pushing it to its absolute limit.
He felt the ghost of Aris Volkov not as a haunting, but as a quiet, analytical layer over his own frayed nerves. The scientist’s mind processed the tactical display with a calm detachment Kaelen could not muster, translating the closing vectors of the Yama-Mitsui blockade into cold, clean lines of probability. They were a single, desperate point of light rushing toward a wall of fire. The plan was simple. Punch through the thinnest part of the cordon before they could fully mobilize. It was a plan born of having no other options.
— They’re painting us, — Zaina’s voice was tight, her knuckles white where she gripped the flight yoke. A constellation of red icons bloomed across the main display, each one a corporate lanceship locking onto their heat signature.
A voice, smooth as polished chrome and utterly devoid of static, cut through the ship’s comms. It was not a hail. It was a declaration.
— Target vector confirmed. Engage. — Julian Valerius spoke as if ordering a routine diagnostic.
The void lit up. Silent, searing bolts of blue-white energy crossed the distance in an instant. The ship screamed as the first volley hit, the impacts not a sound but a violent, bone-jarring shudder that threw Kaelen against his restraints. The air filled with the sharp, electric smell of ozone as the shields flared, a shimmering bubble of defiance that wavered and held. A damage alert chimed, a single, insistent note in the sudden chaos.
— Shields at 80 percent, — Walter Bell’s synthesized voice reported from the tactical station behind them, flat and emotionless. — They are concentrating fire.
— I see that, you oversized crow, — Zaina grunted, her hands a blur across the controls. The Stray Dog bucked hard to port, the main drive flaring as she threw the ship into a wild, corkscrewing evasive. Another volley of lanceship fire tore through the space they had occupied a second before. Kaelen’s stomach lurched, the G-forces a physical blow. Through the viewport, the stars became a dizzying smear of light and shadow, the Dock Twelve Ring tumbling through the frame like a thrown knife.
— They’re launching drones, — Walter announced, his tone unchanged.
A new swarm of icons flooded the tactical display. Not the heavy signatures of the lanceships, but a cloud of something smaller, faster. Kaelen saw them a moment later, a glittering storm of black composite and predatory red optics that swarmed from the bellies of the larger ships. Fifty or more, moving with the unified, insectile purpose of a hive. They weren't trying to land a killing blow. They were trying to bleed them to death.
— Point defense is active, — Zaina said, her teeth gritted. The ship’s automated turrets began to spit kinetic rounds, tiny, angry sparks against the overwhelming dark. A few of the wardrones vanished in silent, blossoming flashes, but for every one that died, three more took its place, their plasma cutters stitching lines of fire across the Stray Dog’s buckling shields.
Then the world dissolved into noise. It was not a sound, but a pressure, a wave of raw psychic chaos that slammed into the ship. The Resonance Field, churned into a violent squall by the concentrated violence and dying minds of drone pilots, was collapsing into a storm. The lights in the cockpit flickered. The displays dissolved into a waterfall of glitching static.
The Ghost-Eater Shunt at the base of Kaelen’s neck erupted. It wasn’t the familiar, sharp pain of a single ghost. It was the agony of a thousand voices screaming at once, a tidal wave of fear, anger, and confusion. He cried out, his hands flying to his head. But then, Volkov’s consciousness asserted itself, a calm, cold firewall rising within him. The scientist’s mind didn’t block the storm; it filtered it, turning the raw, agonizing chaos into a torrent of pure, unfiltered data. He could feel the emotional state of the entire battle space, a maelstrom of terror and cold corporate resolve.
— Comms are shot! — Zaina yelled over the rising shriek of the alarms. — I’m flying blind!
— I have a signal, — Kaelen forced the words out, his vision swimming. The shunt, his token of failure, was now a weapon. Through the psychic noise, he could feel the cold, empty void of a lanceship captain’s shielded mind, a pocket of manufactured calm in the storm. — Hard to starboard, now! There’s a gap in their formation!
Zaina didn’t question him. She slammed the yoke over, trusting the desperate command. The Stray Dog veered sharply, just as a lanceship materialized from the static, its main weapon glowing with stored energy. The blast went wide, a lance of pure destruction that vaporized a small asteroid a kilometer away.
They had dodged one killing blow, but the swarm of wardrones was relentless. They were everywhere, a cloud of gnats chewing the ship to pieces. The shields flickered, died, and then flared back to life at a fraction of their strength. The deck plates shuddered continuously.
Then came a sound that cut through all the others. A high, piercing shriek of tortured metal. A single, heavier plasma bolt from a lanceship had slipped through the drone screen. It struck the Stray Dog’s port side. The ship convulsed, a single, violent spasm that threw Kaelen forward, his harness the only thing keeping him from being pitched into the forward viewport.
The lights went out.
For a full second, there was only darkness and a profound, ringing silence. Then the emergency lights flickered on, casting the cockpit in a sickly, pulsing red. The main drive’s steady hum was gone, replaced by a sputtering cough and the high-pitched whine of failing systems. The ship was drifting, its momentum carrying it forward in a slow, crippled arc.
The Ghost-Eater Shunt at his neck felt heavy, its connection to the storm severed, leaving only the cold, dead weight of their failure.
— Port engine is gone, — Zaina’s voice was a ragged whisper in the dark. She slumped back in her seat, her face pale in the crimson light. — Main power is failing. We’re dead in the water.
Kaelen looked at the tactical display. It was still a mess of static, but the red icons of the Yama-Mitsui fleet were no longer converging. They were forming a perimeter, a perfect, patient cage of warships around their drifting vessel.
— I can’t hold this position, — Zaina said, her voice cracking with exhaustion and defeat. — We’re boxed in.
The frantic energy of the battle faded, replaced by the cold, patient silence of the void. The distant stars watched, indifferent and serene.
The battle was over, but the calls for their betrayal had just begun.
