There was no negotiation. Kosta’s attack was a physical expression of his purpose: a straight line from intent to consequence. He lunged across the zero-gravity space of the core chamber, his movements unnervingly precise, free from the clumsy compensations of a body born to gravity. The polished black obsidian of his eyes showed no targeting reticle, no flicker of analysis. They were simply voids, and he was the instrument of their hunger. A firefight erupted in the confines of the station’s heart, a chaotic ballet of kinetic rounds scoring incandescent lines across the cryo-frosted bulkheads.
Sineus fired twice, the recoil from his kinetic carbine pushing him back against his magnetic boots. The rounds, designed to shred armor and flesh, struck Kosta’s chest and vanished without impact, their energy absorbed into the unnatural fabric of his coat. Kosta did not bleed. He did not even flinch. The only sound was the muffled thud of the impacts against Sineus’s suit and the ragged spike of his own breathing, loud in the confines of his helmet. The Palimpsest Phantom of the long-dead technician, the one that had been looping by the stasis pods, flickered violently and was gone, its faint memetic echo overwritten by the raw, immediate violence of the present.
Victory was not the objective. Survival was secondary. The mission was the map-shard. Sineus processed the tactical reality in a cold, clean microsecond. He broke contact, firing a single shot at a conduit to create a screen of venting coolant vapor, and pivoted his trajectory. He pushed off a bulkhead, his new vector not away from Kosta, but toward the primary console at the base of the now-silent transmitter. He was a target, but he was a target with a purpose that superseded his own existence.
He hit the console hard, his boots locking onto the deck plating. Kosta was already moving to intercept, a black shape cutting through the swirling ice crystals of the vapor cloud. Sineus ignored him. His gloved hand found the slot on the console. There was no time for a clean interface. He jammed his fingers into the port and ripped the data-cartridge free. The map-shard, a physical data fragment containing the detailed schematics of the Polaris Vault, was a dense, cold rectangle of polymer in his palm. He had it.
Kosta was five meters away and closing. There was no exit. Sineus made a new one. He aimed his carbine not at Kosta, but at the manual release mechanism of a nearby external viewport hatch. He fired once. The price of this choice was the station’s remaining structural integrity, a cost he paid without hesitation. The armored plasteel hatch blew outward, its frame groaning as a century of metal fatigue gave way to explosive decompression.
The station screamed. It was a silent, violent exhalation of air, ice, and loose equipment into the hard vacuum of space. The blast threw Sineus into the void at fifteen meters per second, a chaotic tumble of limbs and gear. He fought for control, his suit’s thrusters firing in short, desperate bursts to stabilize his spin. The station, its hull integrity now at a critical 20%, shrank behind him, a dying metal ghost bleeding its last atmosphere into the uncaring dark. He had the shard. He was alive. He was exposed.
He reached his stealth ship, the small vessel a sliver of black against the starfield. He slammed the outer airlock, the cycle completing with a reassuring thud and hiss. Inside the cockpit, the silence was absolute. He strapped himself in, his systems running a frantic diagnostic. His left arm was fractured, his suit showing multiple micro-perforations from shrapnel. He ignored them. He had the shard.
The comms panel crackled, a single encrypted RosNova channel fighting its way through the system-wide noise of the broadcast. Volkov’s voice, strained and breaking under layers of static, filled the cockpit.
— They’re all coming for you, Sineus. Channel compromised—
The line dissolved into a final, harsh burst of static, then went dead. The green light of the secure channel blinked once, then extinguished, leaving only the cold, white indicators of his own ship’s systems. The last thread connecting him to the controlled lie of the old order was severed. He was an asset without a handler, a weapon without a master.
The silence of the cockpit was a physical weight. The starfield was a static, perfect grid of diamond dust.
He was alone, and Antarctica was waiting.
