I looked around, scanning the crater. No wreckage. No tracks. Just ash and twisted roots.

  No way this guy walked here.

  He had a ride. Dropcraft, maybe. Something quiet. Fast. Gone now, either recalled or cloaked nearby.

  I glanced down at the corpse again, sprawled like a marionette with the strings cut, one arm bent under him at an ugly angle. His helmet lay in the dirt, visor cracked, face frozen mid-smirk.

  I crouched beside him, the pain in my ribs flaring. “I’m a lucky ducky,” I muttered, wincing as I reached for his chest plate. “I’m gonna take these off your hands, bro.”

  The armor was familiar, exactly like my specter gear.

  Dark plating, matte finish, edges like shadows. Minimalist Terran design philosophy. No bright insignia, no flashy rank patches. Authority by presence, not color.

  A style I knew all too well.

  Not exactly like our old uniforms, but close enough. Whoever Valor had worked for, they’d taken a page from the Terran Republic's playbook.

  I unlatched the vambraces, fingers working on autopilot. The chest piece came free with a hiss. I ignored the heat radiating from the burn-scarred inner lining and started fitting it to my own body.

  Every piece clicked into place like it had been waiting for me.

  Breastplate. Greaves. Gauntlets. The neural mesh in the collar buzzed faintly as it synced with my ruined implants.

  The helmet stared up at me.

  I stared back.

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  Not the same make as mine, but close enough. Same bone-white interior. Same reinforced comms port at the jaw. Same cold hum at the base of the skull.

  I slid it on.

  The HUD tried to boot, flickered, then died. Fine. I didn’t need a map to find my way anymore. Just a name.

  I rifled through his gear, fingers working fast despite the tremor. And then I found it, his comms device, cracked but still blinking. One message still pulsing on the screen.

  Bingo.

  An encrypted message on his comms device, the screen flashing with the name "Agent Valor." That must've been him, the poor bastard curled up at my feet.

  “Agent Valor.”

  I looked down at the corpse.

  Poor bastard.

  For now, I’d borrow his name.

  The message ended with a symbol, an intricate star with thirteen points, each one branching into smaller constellations. Beneath it, just one word, barely visible in the encrypted footer:

  Orion.

  I paused, fingers hovering over the device, that single word sending a strange shiver through me. Orion. Something about it gnawed at the back of my mind, like a half-remembered dream, but the connection wouldn’t come.

  Nothing specific, nothing I could place. Just… familiarity. Like déjà vu twisted into dread.

  I filed it away, sliding the console onto my wrist. For now, “Orion” was just another piece of the puzzle.

  On Valor's wrist console, I found a navigation system still intact, thank God, since mine had been blasted to bits. I keyed it on, setting a course for the nearest city: New Vothar. The Spire should be there if I heard him right, and with any luck, Yuki would be waiting.

  I patted myself down, checking the compartments, the seals. Shoulder, thigh, gauntlet. Then I found it—tucked into the left wrist housing, recessed and shielded under a snap-cap.

  A small, smooth stud. No markings. Just one button.

  Of course.

  I pressed it.

  Somewhere deeper in the jungle, machinery stirred.

  A moment passed, then I heard it. A low, rising hum, soft at first, then growing. Leaves shuddered. Vines peeled apart. And like it had been waiting for the signal, the hoverbike rolled into view.

  Sleek. Black. Silent as a ghost.

  No lights. No roar. Just cold precision on antigravs, gliding through the trees like a predator that never needed to run.

  It stopped beside me with a patient whirr, engine cycling down into a barely audible purr.

  “Of course you’ve got a ride,” I muttered, flexing sore fingers as I stepped toward it.

  I looked back at the body in the crater. The one whose name I’d borrowed. No ceremony. No words. Just a pile of meat.

  I swung onto the saddle. The console lit up. New Vothar glowed on the nav.

  “Let’s go meet this Orion prick,” I said, and opened the throttle.