The new sound was not the sea. It was a violation. A low, predatory thrum that cut through the fog and the quiet hum of their electric cargo skiff. Ksenia Morozova felt it in her teeth before she heard it with her ears. The brief, fragile victory on the Neptune Platform was already curdling. They were fleeing into a grey wall of pre-dawn mist, the two crates containing the Void Catalyst cores a dead, heavy weight in the center of the barge. A prize that was painting a target on their backs.
Two shapes materialized from the fog. Not drones. They were sleek, black boats, impossibly fast, riding high on hydrofoils that sliced the water with surgical precision. They had no running lights. Just the cold, clean lines of military-grade hardware built by a corporation with an unlimited budget. Ksenia recognized the design from the schematics she had pulled from the Aegis Spire’s data shard. MemTech’s private enforcers. Voss’s hounds.
— Two boats, — Ansel Stern’s voice was flat, stripped of all emotion but the weariness of a man who was never truly surprised by the next bad thing. — Six mercs per boat. They’re not Ministry.
The world erupted in light. White-hot bolts of energy stitched across the water, hissing as they turned sea spray to steam. The firefight was not a negotiation. It was an erasure. Ksenia dropped to the deck, her datapad clutched in one hand. The air filled with the sharp, clean smell of ozone. Zora was already at the stern, the heavy, scavenged railgun braced on her good shoulder. The weapon hummed, a deep baritone of charging capacitors.
— They’re too fast! — Zora yelled, the words snatched by the wind. — I can’t get a lock!
She fired. The railgun’s deafening crack was a physical blow. A line of incandescent heat tore through the fog, a full meter wide of the lead boat. The mercenaries didn’t even flinch. They were professionals. Their return fire was disciplined, chewing at the edges of the skiff, forcing Ansel to swerve erratically. Ksenia knew this was a fight they could not win with guns. They were outmatched, outmaneuvered, and exposed on a floating metal tray.
Her objective was not to fight. It was to think. She shielded her datapad with her body, the stolen intelligence from Voss’s own files her only weapon. The screen’s glow illuminated her face, the data scrolling past in clean, corporate fonts. She cross-referenced the boat’s visual profile with the Aegis Spire’s technical library. The files were exhaustive, arrogant. MemTech documented its own killing machines with the pride of an artist.
The reflection of the pulse rifle fire flickered across the dark screen of her datapad, a chaotic dance of white light on black glass. It was a broken, wavering image of their own destruction.
She found the schematics. Engine specifications. Armor ratings. Power distribution. It was all there. A fortress on water. But every fortress has a flaw. Her mind, trained by the Archive State to find patterns in mountains of history, now hunted for a single error in a stream of code. She filtered for structural weaknesses, for unshielded components, for maintenance shortcuts.
— Engine coolant intakes, — she said, her voice cutting through the noise of the battle. The words were a discovery, a weapon forged in a quiet moment of analysis. — Ventral side. Unshielded against energy surge.
Ansel grunted, his mind already working. — Give me 90 seconds. And that drone husk.
He pointed to the twisted metal fragment of the hydrofoil drone Sineus had destroyed earlier. It was junk. It was a miracle. Ansel scrambled toward it, pulling a compact EMP charge from his kit. Zora fired the railgun again, the shot going wide but forcing the lead boat to adjust its course, buying them a few precious seconds.
The second boat was changing tactics. It peeled off, accelerating to flank them. They were preparing to board. Ksenia could see the mercenaries clearly now, clad in black tactical gear, their faces obscured by helmets. They moved with a liquid efficiency, readying grappling lines. They were 25 meters away and closing.
Ansel worked with a desperate, ugly grace. He was not an engineer. He was a scavenger, a master of forcing broken things to work one last time. He strapped the EMP charge to the drone wreckage, a mess of wires and raw nerve. He was building a torpedo from scrap metal and a prayer.
— It’s ready, — he grunted, holding up the device. It was crude. It was beautiful.
— Launch, — Ksenia ordered.
Ansel tossed the jury-rigged drone into the water. It skipped once, then its small, scavenged motor caught, and it sped across the waves, a piece of trash on a suicide run. It dove under the hull of the first mercenary boat. The world went silent for a half-beat. Then, a soft blue glow pulsed from beneath the water. The boat’s engine died with a choked cough. It listed hard to starboard, dead on the waves, its lights flickering out.
One down.
The second boat did not hesitate. It accelerated, its engine screaming. The mercenaries on board raised their rifles. They were almost on top of them. There were no more tricks. No more time.
Ksenia looked at Sineus. He stood near the stolen crates, his eyes closed, his hands loose at his sides. He was not fighting. He was preparing. She felt it then, a sudden drop in pressure, the air growing thick and heavy as if before a thunderstorm. He was going to do it. He was going to use his raw, untraceable talent in the most traceable way imaginable. He was going to light a beacon that Voss could never unsee. The price for their lives was his anonymity. A choice made. A cost about to be paid.
She saw the helmsman on the mercenary boat. A man with a square jaw and bored eyes. Then, his expression went utterly blank. His hands fell from the controls. His mind, for one crucial second, had been hollowed out. The memory of "forward" was gone.
The boat, at full throttle, veered sharply. It carved a tight, impossible circle, the force of the turn throwing two of the mercenaries into the churning water. The craft spun out of control, a high-tech coffin chasing its own tail.
Sineus stumbled, catching himself on one of the crates. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nose. He did not seem to notice. The air around him crackled with a faint, invisible energy, the aftershock of a wound torn in reality. On Ksenia’s datapad, the reflection of the chaotic scene warped. The image of the spinning boat seemed to shimmer with an unnatural, raw light, no longer just a reflection but a scar.
They were safe. They were also found.
Ansel pushed the skiff’s throttle to its maximum. They surged forward, leaving the disabled boats and the floundering mercenaries behind. The fog began to close in again, a grey curtain drawing over the scene. They had the crates. They had their lives. Ksenia looked from the stolen technology to Sineus, who was now wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. They had the weapon.
The fog swallowed the sounds of the battle, leaving only the hum of their motor and the slap of water against the hull. The air grew still and quiet, thick with the damp chill of the open sea.
She knew with cold certainty that Voss now had the map he always wanted.
