The corridor was a narrow throat of shadows, illuminated only by the rhythmic, blood-red pulse of the emergency lights. Caspian moved with a silent, heavy grace, his rifle tucked into his shoulder as he cleared the corners with practiced lethality. Behind him, Linnea was a shadow within a shadow. She didn't hover like a protected wife; she covered his six, her pulse-pistol sweeping the ceiling vents and floor-level blind spots.
"Three targets, ten o'clock," Linnea whispered, her voice a calm chill over the comms. "Their stealth-camo is bleeding at the edges. The humidity in the hall is too high for their cooling units."
Caspian didn't ask how she knew. He simply pivoted. "On my mark. Three... two... one."
The hallway erupted.
Caspian's kinetic rifle barked—a heavy, mechanical thud that sent high-velocity rounds tearing through the air. The first assassin, caught in the shimmer of failing camouflage, was thrown backward as his chest plate shattered.
Simultaneously, Linnea didn't just fire; she calculated. She saw the second assassin diving for cover behind a marble plinth. Instead of shooting at him, she fired a burst at the decorative brass chandelier above him. The pulse-bolt severed the chain, and five hundred pounds of crystal and metal came crashing down, pinning the intruder to the floor with a bone-crunching scream.
The third hitman managed to fire a burst of suppressed rounds. Caspian shoved Linnea into a recessed alcove, using his own body as a shield. He felt the hot sting of a bullet grazing his shoulder, but he didn't flinch. He leaned out and placed a single round through the assassin's visor.
Silence returned, thick with the smell of ozone and spent propellant.
"You're hit," Linnea said, her hands already moving to the tear in his uniform.
"It's a scratch," Caspian growled, though his jaw was set tight. "We need to move. The server room is being breached."
They sprinted through the labyrinthine halls, their boots drumming a frantic rhythm against the cold marble. The Vane Estate, once a monument to opulence, had transformed into a deathtrap. Every shadow seemed to reach for them; every creak of the settling house sounded like a cocked hammer.
As they reached the heavy reinforced doors of the server hub, Julian's voice hissed through their earpieces, distorted by static. "Commander... they've initiated a hard-line wipe. They aren't just stealing the data; they're burning the entire infrastructure. If those servers go dark, we lose everything—the evidence against the Council, the tactical maps, the Imperial codes."
"How long?" Caspian asked, slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle.
"Two minutes. Maybe less," Julian replied. "And Caspian... the team inside is led by someone you know. Biometrics flagged the lead operative's gait. It's Silas Vane."
Caspian froze for a fraction of a second, his grip tightening on the rifle until his knuckles turned white. Silas. His own cousin, a man who had been cast out of the military for war crimes and had since become the Council's most expensive shadow.
"He always was a parasite," Caspian muttered, his voice dropping to a terrifying, hollow tone. He looked at Linnea, his stormy eyes searching hers. "Silas won't fight fair. He'll use the servers as a shield. If we miss a shot, the surge will cook the data."
"Then don't miss," Linnea said, her voice steady. She reached into a pouch on her tactical belt and pulled out a small, circular device—a disruptor charge she had "borrowed" from the armory. "I'll take the high ground. You take the door. When I trigger the pulse, their optics will go blind for three seconds. That's your window."
Caspian nodded, a silent acknowledgment of her tactical brilliance. He didn't tell her to stay back. He didn't treat her like a porcelain doll. In the heat of the hunt, they were no longer a Commander and his "purchased" wife; they were a strike team.
Linnea scaled a service ladder with fluid ease, disappearing into the dark recesses of the maintenance catwalks above the server room. Caspian stood before the primary blast doors, his heart rate a steady, rhythmic thrum. He counted the seconds, waiting for the signal.
Above, Linnea moved like a ghost across the steel beams. Below her, the server room was a forest of glowing towers, filled with the hum of cooling fans and the frantic clicking of keyboards. Five men in black tactical gear were stationed around the central hub. Silas Vane stood in the center, his face scarred and arrogant, watching the progress bar on a portable terminal.
"Ninety percent," Silas said, his voice smooth and cold. "The Commander's secrets are about to become smoke."
Linnea didn't wait. She dropped the disruptor charge.
The world turned white.
A high-frequency scream tore through the air as the charge detonated, sending a massive electromagnetic pulse through the room. The hitmen's night-vision goggles overloaded, blinding them instantly.
The blast doors exploded inward.
Caspian charged in, a force of nature in black armor. He didn't use his rifle—the risk of collateral damage to the servers was too high. Instead, he drew a serrated combat blade. He was a blur of movement, a shadow that struck with the precision of a scalpel. The first guard went down with a severed carotid; the second was silenced by a crushed windpipe.
From the catwalks, Linnea provided overwatch. She fired a series of precision pulse-bolts, not at the men, but at their weapons. She disabled their rifles with impossible accuracy, turning the elite hit squad into a group of men holding useless metal.
Silas Vane lunged for his sidearm, his eyes still streaming from the flash. Before he could clear leather, a pulse-bolt hissed through the air, melting the holster to his hip.
"End of the line, Silas," Caspian said, stepping into the blue glow of the server lights. He held his blade to his cousin's throat, his eyes filled with a righteous, cold fury.
Silas laughed, a wet, hacking sound. "You think you've won? The Council has already moved on, Caspian. Linnea Song was just the bait. While you were playing soldier down here, the real threat was already in your bed."
Caspian didn't flinch. He looked up at the catwalks, where Linnea was descending, her weapon lowered but her eyes sharp.
"The real threat," Caspian said, his voice echoing with a new kind of pride, "is the only person in this room I actually trust."
He turned the blade, knocking Silas unconscious with the pommel. The data was safe. The servers hummed back to life as the backup grid engaged, illuminating the room in a calm, steady blue.
Linnea stepped onto the floor, her chest heaving, a smear of soot across her cheek. She looked at Caspian, and for the first time, the "Ghost" saw the man behind the "Iron Hand."
"Phase Three is over," she whispered.
Caspian walked toward her, sheathing his blade. He didn't say anything. He simply reached out and pulled her into a fierce, bruising embrace. The smell of cedarwood and gunpowder mingled between them, a scent that now felt like home.
But as the screens flashed with the decrypted data of the Council's betrayal, a new message appeared in the corner of the monitor. A message intended only for Linnea.
Target acquired. Phase Four: The Assassination of Caspian Vane begins at dawn.
Linnea looked at the screen, then at the man holding her. The symphony of steel and lead was over, but the war for her heart—and his life—had only just begun.