The Wrecking Ball was less a spaceship and more a flying, heavily armed junkyard. As it lumbered back towards the battlefield, its hangar doors opened to the void, and a fleet of smaller, uglier salvage skiffs launched into the silent space. Jett stood on the bridge, a manic king surveying his chaotic kingdom, issuing orders that sounded more like gleeful suggestions.
"Scrappy, you and the boys take the port side debris! Look for anything that still has a pulse! Zorp, get your claws on those drone husks! I want their memory cores intact! And you two..." Jett's voice crackled over Leo and Kael's private comms. "You're with me on the main skiff. Time to earn your keep."
Leo and Kael found themselves on a flatbed skiff piloted by Jett himself, flying towards the epicenter of the destruction. The truce between them was a tangible thing, a fragile sheet of glass they were both careful not to step on.
"Your role is simple," Jett explained, his eyes darting across the wreckage, cataloging every piece of scrap. "Hardware store," he nodded at Kael, "you're my expert. You point, I grab. Tell me what's valuable, what's about to explode, and what's just pretty junk. Chaos generator," he looked at Leo, "you're my navigator. That little stunt you pulled with the gravity well has left this area... twitchy. Reality is thin here. I need you to guide us through the pockets of instability. Your knack for finding trouble should make you an expert at avoiding it."
It was a strange partnership. Kael, with his encyclopedic knowledge of Syndicate technology, moved through the debris field with the cold precision of a surgeon. He'd point to a seemingly insignificant power conduit on a wrecked drone and say, "That's a Mark IV energy regulator. The focusing crystal is worth 5,000 credits alone." Jett's crew would descend, cutting it free with practiced efficiency.
Leo's job was less precise. He relied on instinct, on the strange feeling in his gut that the Pathfinder had awoken in him. "Don't go that way," he'd say, pointing to an empty patch of space. "It feels... sticky." Jett, trusting the instincts of a fellow chaos-magnet, would change course. Moments later, that "empty" patch of space would shimmer and distort, a micro-reality fluctuation that would have torn their skiff apart.
They were an effective team. Kael's order, Leo's chaos, and Jett's avarice.
They found the remains of the Enforcer squadron's ship, a small, stealthy vessel that had been torn apart when the asteroid collapsed. It was here that Kael's expertise became invaluable.
"Forget the hull plating," Kael said, directing the salvage crews. "It's all standard issue. The real prize is the sensor array." He pointed to a shattered dish on the ship's nose. "It contains a partial log of Syndicate patrol routes in this sector. Encrypted, but the hardware itself is valuable to information brokers."
As Jett's crew began carefully dismantling the array, Leo noticed something else. A small, sealed escape pod, half-buried under a piece of the asteroid's core. It wasn't on any of the schematics. It was a ghost pod, an off-the-books addition.
"Jett, over there," Leo said, pointing.
They flew the skiff over. The pod was dented but intact. Kael scanned it with a handheld device, his eyes widening slightly.
"This isn't standard," Kael murmured. "The energy signature is shielded. This is a high-level data vault, disguised as an escape pod."
"A treasure chest!" Jett crowed. "Crack it open!"
It took one of Jett's tech-priests, a cyborg with glowing optical implants, nearly an hour to bypass the encryption. When the pod finally hissed open, it contained no person. It was filled with rows of crystalline data chips, humming with a soft blue light.
"What is it?" Leo asked.
Kael picked up one of the chips, his cybernetic fingers interfacing with it. He went silent, his eyes distant. When he finally looked up, his expression was a mixture of shock and dawning realization.
"This isn't just patrol routes," he said, his voice low. "This is a full intelligence dossier. It's an internal audit. The Syndicate was investigating this sector. They were tracking an anomaly long before you showed up." He looked at Leo. "They weren't just hunting you because you knew the secret of recycling. They were hunting you because your arrival coincided with another, much bigger problem they were trying to contain."
"What problem?" Leo asked.
Kael held up the data chip. "This file is labeled 'Codename: Eremita'. The Syndicate has been trying to locate and eliminate the Hermit of the Crossroads for decades. Your Pathfinder... it didn't just lead you to him. It activated a beacon they've been searching for. You didn't just stumble into their secret; you stumbled into their longest-running manhunt."
The weight of the revelation was staggering. Leo wasn't just a renegade; he was the key that had unlocked the Syndicate's oldest closet, revealing all their skeletons.
Back on the Wrecking Ball, the mood was triumphant. The salvage haul was immense. Jett was ecstatic. As promised, he turned his attention to Leo's Phantom. Griz, the four-armed mechanic from the Bazaar, had apparently been brought on as a consultant, and the two of them worked on the scooter with a manic glee.
They didn't just repair it. They remade it. They installed a new shield generator, salvaged from one of the Enforcer drones. They integrated a short-range displacement drive, allowing for quick, instantaneous dodges—a "blink" ability. Kael even offered a suggestion, coolly pointing out a flaw in its energy distribution and recommending a more efficient power conduit from a Syndicate weapon system.
"It will increase our combined combat effectiveness," was his only explanation.
The 'Phantom' was no longer just a scooter. It was a war machine, a ghost built from the bones of its enemies.
As the final upgrades were being installed, Kael approached Leo, holding one of the data chips from the ghost pod.
"There's more," he said, his voice grim. "I decrypted the primary command file."
He showed Leo the screen. It was a new bounty. Leo's face was there, but next to it was Kael's. And the reward had skyrocketed. But it wasn't the numbers that caught Leo's eye. It was the agent assigned to the case.
The dossier showed a figure in black, featureless armor, holding a long, wicked-looking rifle. There was no name, only a title.
ASSIGNED ASSET: Hunter-Class Enforcer 'SILENT'MANDATE: Erase assets. Recover technology. Sanitize sector.STATUS: Deployed.
"A Hunter," Kael said, his voice a whisper. "They don't send Hunters for simple renegades. They're specters. Specialists in eliminating high-level threats to the Syndicate's existence. They don't capture. They don't arrest."
He looked at Leo, the last traces of their rivalry momentarily forgotten, replaced by the cold, shared reality of their new situation.
"They hunt," Kael finished. "And now, we're the prey."