I finally reached the dusty outskirts of New Vothar, the city rising out of the landscape like an industrial monolith. Tall buildings glinted in the dimming light, towers cutting into the sky like they hated the stars. It was a place that looked... refined, almost polished, for somewhere known as a cartel hotspot. Either they were laundering blood money into aesthetics or hiding something even filthier beneath the shine.

  A checkpoint blocked the main road. Standard Terran setup. Military-grade barricades, sensor towers, and a crew of tired guards trying to look alert. One smoked a stimcig like it owed him rent, another leaned against the scanner terminal, boots kicked up, half-dozing.

  I coasted closer, head down, helmet visor opaque. The bike’s engine rumbled low. One of the guards held up a hand, motioning me to stop. I did.

  “Identification,” he barked.

  My fingers hovered near the plasma knife at my thigh. Just one twitch. That’s all it’d take.

  Red bled into the edge of my vision. I could end this. All of them.

  But then something cut through the fog—just a flicker. A memory.

  Not of war. Of her.

  Astra, laughing in the Valkyrion’s rec room, beating my ass at some arcade fighter, flipping me the bird with a grin that could’ve started or ended wars. It was stupid, and small, but it brought me back.

  I inhaled slowly. I needed information now. Heads could come later.

  I nodded to the guard and tapped the side of my helmet. “Agent Valor,” I said, voice low and clipped. “Returning from recon. Clearance is in your log.”

  The man frowned, turned to his terminal. I counted two seconds. Three. Then he blinked at the screen and straightened up.

  “Y-yes sir. You’re clear.”

  I throttled the bike and rolled through, their stares prickling the back of my neck.

  Once I was past the checkpoint, I veered off the main road into a stretch of abandoned construction scaffolds and dirt. Somewhere quiet enough to think.

  I slid off the bike and unlatched the data pad, fiddling with the cracked screen until it blinked to life.

  ENTER AUTH CODE:

  I didn’t dare use mine. The moment I keyed in anything tied to my old sig, every blacksite satellite in orbit would ping my location and call it a target.

  They’d know I was alive. Know I was moving.

  Not yet.

  Instead, I accessed the subdermal mesh embedded in the uniform—I could feel the faint pulse of it against my spine. Whoever designed Valor’s armor wove in a neural handshake system, meant to sync his biosignature to any field console within range. Useful.

  I tapped into that—piggybacked on his mesh, routed the signal manually.

  The screen blinked again.

  Confirm DNA match: Agent Kale Drayden

  Codename: VALOR

  Clearance: Sigma-Four – 13th Sector

  “Perfect,” I muttered.

  Ares would need to see this. But after what just happened—the shuttle, the kill team, the neutron bomb—I wasn’t calling him like everything was fine. Not yet.

  I dug into the menu, disabled the uplink to central command, and rerouted the signal through a blind relay I remembered from the early days of T-88 ops. One of the few safe channels that hadn’t been blacklisted. I hoped.

  Then I spoke.

  “Ares.”

  A moment’s silence, then, “Commander? It’s good to have you back.”

  I kept my voice flat. “Is it?”

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  A pause. Longer than usual. Ares recalibrating, or choosing his next sentence carefully.

  “Your vitals disappeared for 143 seconds following detonation. The probability of your survival dropped to 0.6%. I am… relieved to have been incorrect.”

  Relieved. Coming from him, that was basically an emotional breakdown.

  Before I could answer, two more voices crashed in like twin hurricanes on either side of the comm line.

  “Are you alright?”

  “That blast, what the hell happened—”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Tim, answer us!”

  “Tim, you bastard, if you die dead I swear to God I’ll bring you back and kill you again—” Zara and Nyx, tangled in static, both talking over each other.

  “Ladies,” I snapped. “Enough.”

  Then I softened, just a touch. “I’m fine. More or less. Had a run-in with a neutron bomb and a betrayal or two. You know. Typical Tuesday.”

  Nyx exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for hours. “Merde… I thought you were ash in a crater. I—” she stopped, then snapped, “You didn’t even say goodbye!”

  “I was a little busy getting nuked,” I said. “And trying to figure out if our ship’s AI is still compromised.”

  Ares answered, slow and calm. “If you have reason to doubt me, Commander, I will submit to a full diagnostic. But time may be better spent preparing your cover identity. Republic response teams are en route to the blast site.”

  “Exactly why I called.” I lifted my wrist. “I’m wearing a corpse. Agent Valor, Kale Drayden. Sigma-Four clearance. I want his credentials integrated into my profile. Right now.”

  Ares processed in the background, soft clicking and signal pings filtering through. “Understood. Please verify the ID string.”

  I rattled it off. “SSN: CR4-99VX-KALE-8813. Clearance code embedded in the console matches his armor’s neural weave. Sync it, and reroute any outbound telemetry through blind channels. And as you know already no Republic pings, no beacon locks.”

  "Ares, DO NOT FUCK IT UP like you did last time. Or I might begin to think you’re still working for the Republic and destroy you.”

  “Understood commander.”

  “Confirmed,” Ares replied. “Credentials accepted. You are now operating under the identity of Agent Kale Drayden. Signal hardened. All systems synced under blackout protocols.”

  “Good.”

  Zara cut back in. “You’re not seriously walking into that city full of thugs wearing stolen armor, are you?”

  “Zara,” I said. “Do I ever do anything half-measured?”

  “Yes,” she replied immediately. “Constantly. But you pretend it’s clever.”

  Nyx muttered something in French, probably about how much she wanted to kill me and kiss me in equal measure.

  I sighed. “Look, I need recon on New Vothar. Ares, feed me any regional scans, intercepted chatter, drone feeds. Everything you’ve got. I want to know the layout, the players, the movement patterns. Especially anyone tied to Astra, if anyone’s seen her, spoke her name etc...”

  Ares replied instantly. “Uploading tactical overlay now. Cartel presence confirmed in the southern districts. Intel suggests heavy activity around a location labeled ‘The Spire.’ Public-facing as a corporate front. Rumors suggest deeper functions, like data operations, experimentation, trafficking.”

  Zara again. “Sounds like Astra’s kind of place.”

  Nyx happily agreed.

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s where I’m headed. One more thing.”

  “Yes, Commander?”

  I forwarded the encrypted image from Valor’s device. “Does ‘Orion’ mean anything to you? Thirteen-pointed star, each one branching into smaller constellations. Footer tagged with a single word: Orion.”

  There was a silence. Then the quiet tick of processing. Ares didn’t rush.

  “Symbol identified,” he finally said. “It matches archival iconography associated with the 13th Sector—commonly referred to as Orion Reach. The region lies along the eastern fringe of the Terran Republic, named for its historical alignment with the Orion Nebula. It remains a hub for both military and trade operations. We are currently on its southern border.”

  “Is it a place or a person?”

  “Unknown,” Ares replied. “The presence of a signature implies a sender. Locations do not sign messages. It is highly likely Orion refers to a codename or title, most likely belonging to a Republic asset.”

  “Rank?”

  “Undetermined. Records show dozens of Republic officers across intelligence, special projects, and command branches with ‘Orion Reach’ as their registered station. Several of them have restricted files, redacted assignments, or black project tags. Without deeper access, I cannot determine who among them—if any—uses the Orion signature.”

  “And if it’s not legit?”

  “Then it’s a false flag. Meant to draw attention to the Reach and away from whoever is actually behind this.”

  I nodded slowly to myself, eyes locked on the city skyline. “Trillions of people and not a single damn name.”

  “Correct,” Ares said. “But if I had to guess? They’re Terran. High-ranking. And extremely well-connected. This is not some street-level operation.”

  I exhaled through my nose. “Do not contact me again unless I ping you first. If I die, leave orbit. Do not look back. Take Nyx and Zara back to Rykka-9 so they can sell the dust for cash.”

  “Understood.”

  I cut the comm and powered down the datapad, tucking it into one of the side pouches built onto the bike.

  Dust curled around the hoverbike’s frame as I slowed near the edge of the bluff. Below me, New Vothar stretched wide and gleaming, like someone had taken a clean scalpel to a festering wound and built a city inside the scar. Tower clusters shimmered with sterile lighting. Neon ran down the spines of buildings like glowing arteries.

  The Spire stood tallest among them. Not jagged, not brutal. Built like a needle designed to draw blood without being noticed. Its windows pulsed with deep blue tinting, each one reflecting the pale sky like it was trying to mimic peace.

  At the top, a corporate sigil rotated in hardlight. Not just one, but an endless carousel of brands. Military contractors. Data firms. Energy syndicates. Some Terran, some alien. All clean enough to pass inspection. All dirty enough to keep this city running.

  Didn’t look like a den of thieves.

  Which meant it was exactly that.