The air inside the precinct was too cold — not the natural kind, but a processed, mechanical chill, the kind that bled through recycled vents and left the back of your neck feeling like someone had opened a freezer door just long enough to forget it mattered. The filtration units were running hard, overcorrecting for heat from the overloaded servers somewhere two levels down, and the result was a kind of sterilized haze — the smell of ironed cloth, stale polymers, static-etched terminals, and the faintest trace of something burnt that no one had cleaned properly.
Her boots made no sound across the polymer tile. She walked the corridor without slowing, helmet tucked under one arm, the red-gold stripe across her shoulder catching the overhead light like a wound that had never quite closed. Her eyes didn't waver. Her pace didn't change. The diagnostic laser swept her from collar to thigh, lingered for half a breath on her IFF tag, then blinked green and moved on.
One of the terminal officers looked up — not quickly, just with the slow tension of someone trained to recognize what not to question. His eyes met hers, flickered down to the Fafnir patch, then dropped away like nothing had happened.
No one stopped her.
Fafnir didn't need permission. Fafnir was the permission.
She walked the length of the launch concourse without a word, past the scaffolds and loaded crates, past the technicians sweating beneath pressure-rated shoulder harnesses and the loader exosuits guiding dormant Vectors onto locking cradles. The walkers didn't move. Their limbs hung low, powered down, coiled with the weight of purpose not yet given shape — gods at rest, weapons waiting for instruction. Hydraulic arms clamped them one by one into the steel belly of the waiting dropship.
Kasmina didn't stop.
She took the stairs to the gantry.
From here, the world opened. Below her, the launch pad was a hive of pre-mission choreography — lift units rolled under crane tracks, status boards flickered in gold and red, and lines of movement crisscrossed the floor like veins under skin. Just beyond the prep corridor, inside a half-lit alcove where glass met shadow, she saw him.
Cain.
Leaning against a bulkhead like he had all the time in the world, one boot crossed in front of the other, coat collar half-folded like he'd never bothered to wear it right. The same slouch, the same casual grip on a too-hot coffee cup, the same way he tilted his head when pretending to listen. His badge was visible — Consultant: Tactical Oversight — clipped loose to his jacket, like it had been put there for someone else.
Her heartbeat didn't spike. But something inside her chest went very still.
He was speaking to someone — Alan, she realized, one of Broda's analysts, always frowning, always wired too tight. Alan looked irritated. Cain didn't. He never did. Even when he should have. Even when she left him at that restaurant table weeks ago without saying goodbye.
She told herself to keep moving.
She didn't.
The conversation ended. Alan turned, stalked off toward the flight logs. And before she could exhale, someone else approached.
A younger woman — early twenties, maybe. Armor half-clipped at the sides, helmet tucked under her arm. Blonde, lean, a little too nervous to be high command, but too polished for logistics. She stopped in front of Cain and said something — short, hesitant, the kind of question you ask when you're not sure if you're allowed to know the answer.
Cain didn't flinch.
He turned, met her gaze, and smiled.
Not the way he used to smile at Kasmina — but close enough to make something old ache. Not warm, exactly. Just easy, familiar. Like he'd done this before.
Kasmina couldn't hear the words.
The girl touched his forearm — just a brush of fingers, soft and short, not long enough to register as anything on paper but long enough to mean something if you were watching. Cain said something that made her smile. She leaned in, just slightly, and he didn't move back.
He hadn't looked up. Hadn't seen her standing there, high above the floor with one hand clenched around the rim of her helmet and the other hanging loose at her side like it didn't know what to do. And for that, she was grateful.
Grateful that the angle of the gantry and the shadow of the overhead struts kept her out of sight.
He didn't need to know.
Then a phrase slipped through — soft, but clear enough to catch on her helmet mic as it bounced off a steel panel two meters left:
"—you'll still be supporting us, right?"
Cain's reply didn't carry.
But it made her laugh.
Kasmina turned away before the moment could stretch any further. She didn't recognize the girl. Didn't know the tone of her voice or the way Cain let his stance tilt just slightly inward, like he'd already decided she was harmless. She didn't know what they were talking about. And that — more than anything — was what bothered her.
It wasn't her business.
It couldn't be.
She stepped back from the gantry rail without looking again and descended the stairwell in silence. Below, the last Vector hissed as it locked into its cradle, steam curling from its exhaust intake in long silver ribbons. Its visor hadn't lit yet.
Her comm pinged once.
STRIKE TEAM FAFNIR — BOARDING. LAUNCH IN T MINUS FIVE.
She walked toward the dropship without looking back.
Cain was still leaning near the secondary pylon, coffee long cold in his hand, nodding occasionally as the girl in front of him, Kayden, spoke — her words stuttering between duty and distraction, the kind of small talk people made when trying to convince themselves they belonged somewhere. Her armor didn't quite fit yet. Her voice carried more pitch than weight. She laughed too hard at her own nervousness and wiped her hands on her thighs like they might remember how to be steady.
He nodded when she looked at him.
Said the right things. Just enough.
The launch lights above them flashed green roughly ten minutes after Bloodsucker's dropship departed — not urgent, just steady, as if the system knew better than to hurry what was already inevitable.
Kayden looked up at the signal, bright-eyed, shoulders tightening just a little as if standing taller might earn her some invisible stripe.
"Guess this is us," she said, voice too light for the sentence. "You really riding the op with us, or just playing tourist?"
"Right behind you," Cain replied.
Vector Four waited ahead, already strapped — hers, officially. Its side panel was open, cradle scaffolds flexed, harness arms spread in pre-lock position. Lights pulsed low inside the cockpit — warm amber and artificial heartbeats.
They walked along the gantry.
Kayden's breathing was shallow but focused, her glances sharp, movements rehearsed.
"Still feels weird," she said. "Being called up so last-minute."
"Best place to be," Cain murmured. "No time to overthink it."
She gave a short laugh — quick, grateful — the kind people gave to someone who didn't make them feel small.
He didn't return it.
"Hey," Kayden said, slowing a step. "I'm Vector Four, right? That's the one loading second?"
"You're right on it," Cain said.
Then he turned, quiet, and met her eyes.
"Kayden."
She blinked. "Yeah?"
His voice changed — not volume, not tone. Just depth. It settled into the air like gravity overload, heavy and unavoidable.
"Sleep."
Her knees gave out instantly, and Cain caught her before she could fall.
No stumble. No panic. Just inertia.
He guided her through the open door, into the maintenance room behind the gantry scaffolds. The light inside buzzed faintly, too dim to reach the corners, painting everything in long shadows that bent wrong around the edges. A perfect place.
He lowered her in with one arm hooked around her back. Folded her knees. Shifted her weight like she was nothing more than extra gear someone forgot to catalog.
She didn't wake. She wouldn't. Not soon.
He shut the door and hastily wiped his sweating palms before walking back to retrieve the ID tag and ignition key from the floor where it had fallen.
***
The wind got worse above the thirtieth floor. Not stronger—just colder, thinner and emptier.
Titania climbed first, hands numb on the metal rungs, each one crusted with frost and bird droppings and the rust of twenty winters. The maintenance shaft was pitch-black, except for the occasional slice of light bleeding in from broken slats. The tower had never been finished. No stairs. No power. No cameras. Just raw concrete and bone steel, exposed to the storm. Maybe that's why so-called "Hao" decided to set up meeting here.
Maybe the name was just a lure.
Titania reached the top first. She didn't pull herself over immediately—just paused, chest pressed against the frozen rung, listening. Above her, nothing. No footsteps. No voices. Just the skeletal song of wind slipping between girders, and the occasional deep-metal groan of cold-stressed beams shifting under their own weight.
She counted to five. Then moved.
One smooth pull—boots over the lip, knees bent, rifle forward—and she stood in a crouch, scanning.
The floor wasn't finished. No windows, no insulation—just raw structure open to the wind, half-flooded with drifting snow and layered dust. Columns broke the space into uneven corridors, steel beams hung half-exposed from the ceiling, wrapped in sheeting that fluttered weakly in the draft. Walls had gone up, then stopped—cut short at the shoulders, like someone gave up mid-design. Piles of old rebar lay scattered in the corners, black with rust. Cables dangled from the ceiling in lazy loops, swaying just enough to notice. Most of the lights were dead. What glow reached in from the city below came fractured, bent through half-glazed window frames and broken plastic casings. Shadows covered most of the floor. Thick ones. Still ones. Deep enough to lose something the size of a man.
Her HUD flickered once, cleared, reported nothing.
No motion. No heat. Nothing.
"Clear," she said quietly. She didn't lower the rifle until Pech's boots crunched behind her
He exhaled once, low and slow. "Great place for a meet."
"Or an ambush," she replied.
"Same thing. Nice place for a date you chose."
"Keep dreaming, Ingo." She snarled.
They moved forward together—slow, rifles angled low but ready, their shadows trailing long and thin behind them in the distant light that leaked up from the city below, like the ground was watching. Her breath fogged once, then stopped. She slowed her steps. The air up here didn't taste like the rest of Amarant—it was too clean, too dry, like it hadn't been breathed in years.
That's when she saw it.
A figure, at the far edge of the floor.
Just standing there.
Back turned. Coat flaring slightly in the wind, long and dark and clean. Too clean.
He wasn't moving. Not shifting his weight. Not shivering. Just a stillness that didn't fit.
Titania stopped.
"Contact," she said.
Pech dropped a half-step behind her, crouched, rifle coming up with smooth precision.
They advanced.
Fifteen meters. Ten.
Still no movement.
Her heartbeat slowed.
She blinked once—slower than usual—and the world changed.
The air thickened, just slightly. The wind slowed down. Her fingers twitched on the grip of her rifle, but not in tension. Just readiness.
Five meters.
Her breath disappeared into the cold. Her vision sharpened—not like sight, not even like focus—just the feeling that every piece of light around her was being quietly filed away and stored before it changed again.
Three meters.
And then the lights came on.
Not from the scaffolding. Not from the floor.
From them.
Three Vectors stepped forward from the dark like statues deciding to breathe—massive, wide-shouldered, matte gray machines with Imperial insignia burned low into their armor, barely visible beneath the grime and wind-scour. They hadn't descended. They'd been waiting—crouched at the edge of the unfinished frame, crouched in the corners of the world, patient as rot.
Titania and Ingo opened fire, bullets ricocheting from thick armor plating. One of them found the target, and leftmost vector's floodlight shattered.
Titania dropped her weight left, knees folding, shoulders rotating, boots catching on grit-slick concrete as she slid under the first beam, already pulling her rifle close—not to fire, not yet, but to anchor. Behind her, Pech shouted something sharp and short and too late.
Then came the return fire.
A single, flat report—no warning burst, no suppression pattern. Just one clean sound, the kind professionals fired when they didn't expect to miss. She felt it pass. Too fast for echo. Too precise for hope.
She didn't look back. As much as she wanted, she knew the truth. There was only one way a man like Pech went silent. No scream. No stagger. Just the final thud of gear hitting the floor, a weight that didn't rise again.
The lights tracked her, too fast. She couldn't outrun it—not with muscle, not with instinct.
So she didn't.
The pressure hit her a moment later—deep in the back of the skull, just above the spine—like someone tightening a wire through her thoughts, slowly, steadily, until it hummed. She exhaled once, sharp through her teeth, and let it come.
The biotics didn't spark. Lightning didn't flash out of her body, it bloomed, cold and quiet, rising through every nerve like fog through a ruined hallway, soft at first, then absolute. Her pulse disappeared. Her breath slowed to nothing. Her limbs remembered what to do before she could name it.
And the world—
—the world began to smear.
Motion lost its corners. Light stretched. Sound thinned out, thinner still, until it wasn't a thing she heard but a thing she recognized, something delayed and unimportant, distant as weather.
The vectors advanced, but they didn't feel fast anymore.
She was already halfway through the turn, her right heel carving a wet groove in the rooftop sludge, boots skidding across frost-bitten concrete, when one of the vectors pivoted—not toward her, but sideways—rifle swinging at chest level in one unbroken motion.
It was fast. Too fast to be pilot's mistake.
Titania caught it out of the corner of her eye—left foot grinding hard into the concrete, shoulder rotation already misaligned, rifle not pointed outward but inward, across the formation.
Then it opened fire.
Twelve rounds, full burst.
The first three punched through the adjacent unit's arm shield, snapping the servos at the elbow. The next four walked up the torso—ceramic popping like old tile, the impact ringing hollow as the shots punched into the core harness. The last five chewed through the optical mount and head linkage. The unit twisted, tried to compensate, legs locking under it—then tipped sideways and hit the rooftop with a wet-metal crash.
As its mag dropped on the ground, its rifle followed. It didn't plan to reload.
Titania heard the clamp disengage before she saw the blade appear in its palm. One quick-release click at the thigh, followed by a sharp metallic pull. The motor started with a cough, then climbed—higher, harsher, mechanical teeth spinning into a fast, wet blur.
The third Vector turned, but it was too late. The blade hit just below the sternum plate, right where the front armor split for chest articulation.
The scream of metal drowned everything.
Titania flinched back behind a pillar as the blade bit deep—sparks erupting across the beam, smoke flooding upward, the sound pure violence. The impacted unit staggered, arms flailing, knees buckling. The attacker leaned in, shoved harder, metal feet dragging across the floor as the teeth dug through cabling and subframe, right into pilot's pod.
Polymer-ringer fluid sprayed—black and pressurized—hissing as it hit the floodlights.
The wounded vector tried to twist free. Couldn't. Its left arm swung once, blind, then locked. A grinding whine followed, too high-pitched to track. Then silence. The motor cut.
The attacker didn't even pull the blade out. There was no need for it.
Latching bolts disengaged. The cockpit hissed open—slow and deliberate, steam rising in a narrow arc as warm pressure bled out into the cold.
Titania took one step forward, then stopped. Not out of fear. Not yet. Just something older, colder, locking behind her ribs.
The pilot stepped down. Same armor as the rest of police was wearing. Same black gloves. Then the hand lifted—smooth, practiced—and pulled the helmet free, replacing it with something darker. A faceplate, smooth and old. It covered his face in shadow.
At first, she thought it was nothing. Just armor. Just a mask.
Then he looked at her—and she saw what it really was.
Not an old, faded picture. Not a myth. But real.
Her breath caught.
Not from exertion. Not from cold.
Just that moment before memory becomes real.
He jumped down, boots hitting concrete. Titania swallowed, as he looked around, at the mess he made.
"Who are you?"
She kept the barrel on him.
Her arms didn't shake. But they wanted to.
"Me?" He said. "I'm Nobody."
Meanwhile, far below, the convoy stopped halfway across the bridge, not by command but because the road ahead had simply ceased to be navigable—a knot of gridlocked emergency vehicles stretched from end to end, all locked in place with their doors open and their engines cooling in the wind. Police transports, fire control crawlers, white ambulances with soft lights blinking across empty seats—none of them moving, none of them crewed. But no chatter on the comm. No movement in the mirrors.
Broda stepped down from the lead car into the sharp breath of winter air coming off the river, coat snapping once behind him before settling. He walked forward without waiting for escort or report, boots echoing against cold concrete. The tower was there—unfinished, unmistakable—rising in raw silhouette above the skyline like something dragged halfway from the ground and abandoned.
Three hundred meters of exposed structure clawed into the sky, all concrete slab and skeletal steel, wind netting still bolted to open girders and torn sheeting flapping at the edges. The top levels were naked. No cladding. No glass. Just broken lattice and framing left to die in the cold.
He keyed the comm.
"Veres."
The voice came back fast, almost too fast.
"Sir—Delta went silent above floor forty, Gamma's vitals dropped thirty seconds after that. Echo team's last ping cut off mid-transit. We have no visual, no telemetry. They're gone."
Broda didn't blink.
"What about drones?"
"Suppressed. Ground-level jamming. Full interference across our band."
"Send another team."
There was a pause.
"Sir, we don't have another team."
Before he could respond, the tower answered first.
The explosion wasn't sharp, not a clean report of ordinance, but something deeper—low and wide, a heavy displacement like air being shoved out of a room all at once. Smoke punched out through the frame somewhere around the thirteenth floor, dragging scaffolding, loose debris, and a flash of tools or cables in its wake. A moment later, the pressure arrived—dust and shattered composites bursting out across rooftops like dry surf. Shards of glass—stacked, not installed—fell in a slow hiss against the pavement below.
"General!" Veres again, tighter now. "All units are dark. We've lost the tower."
Broda stared ahead.
The frame was moving.
Not much. Just enough to feel it in the bones—beams shifting out of alignment, load-bearing braces bowing slightly inward as the vertical stress began to redistribute. From a distance, it looked like the whole structure had taken a breath it couldn't quite finish.
Then the second blast came, higher and harder, tearing out a section of upper spine and throwing it into the open air like scrap. The echo traveled down the length of the tower, not as sound but as resonance, each floor trembling slightly before the motion passed through to the next. A crane snapped off at the base and vanished behind a curtain of smoke.
The bridge shook.
Broda turned to signal fallback—raise his hand, shout something, anything.
But no one was answering.
Not the comm. Not his escort. Not anyone on the bridge.
He looked around.
The sirens were still spinning. The floodlights still pulsing red and blue against the guardrails.
But the seats were empty.
Every rig. Every ambulance. Every control deck.
They were gone.He hadn't noticed it until now. Too focused. Too late.
He looked around once.
Then up.
The tower was falling—not into itself, but outward, away from its own foundation.
The upper third twisted first, then dragged the floors beneath it, steel peeling sideways as concrete slabs split like dry bones. A full floor of staging deck came down as one piece, spinning. Wiring whips arced loose from the skeleton like veins snapping.
Sabotage. Or a message. Maybe both.
The shadow fell over him before the sound did.
He didn't try to run. There was nowhere left to go.
Empire's precious capital city was scarred. The bottle was broken. The ship had started to sink.
On the orbit of the barren world Admiral Akkbar stepped toward the observation window, hands behind his back, posture too tired to be formal. Beyond the glass stretched the rust-colored sprawl of a dead world—flat, pitted, silent. A planet that looked like it had never been alive to begin with.
""It's all just so... dull. I'm tired of uprisings," he said. "Tired of putting them down."
Behind him, the adjutant stood still, boots locked at parade rest. The man didn't look up.
"I understand, sir. But there's nothing to be done. The Empire is the only power left in the Oort Cloud. After Sol fell, there's no one left to fight."
Akkbar gave a short, low noise. Not quite a laugh.
"No one left to fight doesn't mean the war is over."
He didn't elaborate.
The silence stretched, long enough to make the glass hum.
"When the purges are done," he added, "I want a full report."
"Yes, Admiral." The adjutant dipped his head, just enough to count. "And your next directive?"
Akkbar turned slightly, eyes still on the horizon.
"I think it's time we paid the Cradle a visit."
He said it quietly, like a man remembering something too old to matter.
"When the troops are loaded, plot a course for Earth. And—yes. Fuel analysis. Route projection. I want it exact."
"Understood, sir." Another nod. "It will be done."