Kai ran toward the fire like a fool chasing trouble.
The crash had carved a jagged scar through the scrapyard, metal towers split and leaning, smoke pouring into the sky. The air reeked of melted plastic and ozone, hot enough to sting his throat.
Behind him, Zira struggled to keep up, her boots clanging on steel. "Kai! Stop! Patrol drones are already swarming!"
"That's why I'm hurrying!" he shouted back, grinning even as sweat streaked his face.
He skidded to a halt at the crater's edge. Down below, buried in slag, sat a sphere unlike anything he'd ever seen. Black, seamless, pulsing with faint threads of blue light that crawled across its skin like veins under glass.
Kai's breath caught. "That's not junk."
Zira froze beside him. Her voice dropped low. "That's alien."
The word hung heavy. Relics. Dangerous, unpredictable—things you didn't touch unless you had a death wish. People told stories about them, hushed and ugly. Most ended in smoke.
Drone sirens cut through the haze, closer now. Red lights swept across the crater.
Kai didn't wait. He slid down the slope, boots slipping on scorched metal. Heat wrapped around him, heavy as a furnace.
"Kai!" Zira shouted, panic sharp in her voice. "Don't you dare—"
He pressed his palm to the sphere.
The world blew apart.
White fire shot up his arm, rattled through his bones, cracked open his vision. For one impossible second he saw everything: the drones circling above, the timing of their shots before they even fired, the tumble of chance twisting in his favor like dice already mid-roll.
Then it was gone.
Kai staggered back, gasping. His fingertips smoked.
The nearest drone shrieked and fired.
The plasma bolt should have burned straight through him—except it split midair, scattering into harmless sparks that rained over the crater.
Kai blinked. "What the—"
Another drone fired. The shot veered wide, smashing into a heap of junk. A third locked on—then coughed smoke as its gun jammed.
Zira scrambled down, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked hard. "Move! Unless you want to fry where you stand!"
They clawed their way up the slope as bolts kept coming, wild and useless. One drone clipped another and sent it spiraling into the wreckage.
By the time they ducked behind cover, Kai was laughing, breathless and half-mad. "Did you see that? They couldn't hit me!"
Zira spun on him, furious. "You touched a relic! People die from that!"
Kai flexed his scorched hand, still grinning through the pain. "Or maybe I just got lucky."
Above, alarms wailed louder. Drones circled like vultures. Guards would be there any moment.
Kai glanced across the yard, toward the skeleton of a ship hidden in the shadows. His ship. His way out.
He looked at Zira, eyes burning with the same reckless fire as before. "Time to fly."
Her jaw dropped. "That thing doesn't even have working engines."
Kai shouldered his pack and started running. "Then it's a good night to test them."