“I wish to make them hesitate.”
Silence falls. Even Suki’s fingers pause on her console. I feel every eye in the War Room turn toward me—Zaterran warriors in crystalline armor, tactical officers, Polly with her fierce dark eyes.
Henrok studies me. His gaze travels from my torn jacket to my disheveled hair to the mark on my neck—Polly’s bite, still visible above my collar. He sees something in my face. Perhaps the same resolve that made me melt a spanner earlier. Perhaps something older. Something bred into my bloodline for generations.
“You are not a soldier, Valorian,” he says finally. His voice is low, almost gentle. A warning, not an insult.
“No,” I agree, meeting his gaze without flinching. The micro-scale plating beneath my skin ripples with tension, but I keep my voice steady. “But I know how the Meridian Consortium thinks. They are not warriors. They are corporate assets. They fear loss of profit more than they fear death.” I take a step closer to the tactical table, letting the holographic light play across my features. “And right now, they think they are fighting a simple extraction mission.”
“And you intend to correct them?”
“I intend to make the cost of this operation so high that their stock price plummets before the first boot hits the ground.”
The silence stretches. Henrok’s eyes bore into mine, measuring, weighing. Through the bond, I feel Polly’s heart racing—not with fear, but with something that tastes like pride.
Then Henrok’s mouth curves into a terrifying smile. His teeth are sharp, predatory, and entirely inhuman.
“Channel open,” he says, tapping a command on the tactical table. “Broad-spectrum broadcast. Every ship in this sector will hear you.” His eyes gleam with something that might be respect. “Do not disappoint me, Valorian.”
I step into the transmission circle. The air here feels different—charged, electric. A ring of sensors surrounds me, ready to broadcast my face across the void to every ship in the Meridian fleet.
I adjust my torn jacket. It’s ruined—singed and stained with coolant and smelling faintly of Polly’s soap—but I wear it like armor. I slick back my hair with fingers that don’t tremble. And then I summon the mask I have worn for thirty years.
The Diplomat. The Heir. The man who can walk into a room of vipers and make them thank him for the venom.
Through the bond, Polly sends a pulse of warmth.You’ve got this.
I let out a slow breath. And then I speak.
“Commander Voros.” My voice projects across the open channel, calm and aristocratic and utterly controlled. The voice of a male who has never known fear. Who has never been hunted like an animal across three sectors. Who has never spent hours trapped in a freezing ship with a woman who makes him forget everything he was bred to be.
The mask is perfect. The mask has always been perfect.
The main screen flickers, replacing the tactical map with the bridge of the Eclipse. It’s massive—I can see the scale of it in the background, the rows of officers at their stations, the vast viewport showing the stars and the nebula and this tiny rock we’re fighting to protect.
And there, in the center of it all, sits Commander Voros.
He’s younger than I expected—or perhaps “young” no longer applies to whatever he’s become. The Consortium’s executive modifications are legendary, and Voros wears them like badges of honor. His skin has the too-smooth sheen of synthetic dermal grafts, pale as bleached bone and utterly poreless. His eyes are the worst: pale blue irises that don’t quite track together, pupils that dilate in mechanical increments rather than flowing naturally. Neural implants ridge beneath the skin at his temples, pulsing with faint glow.
He sits in his command chair like it’s a throne, one leg crossed over the other, fingers steepled beneath his chin. The fingers are too long. Too many joints. Another modification—useful for complex console work, I’m told, but deeply unsettling to witness. His Meridian officer’s uniform costs more than most Fringe runners make in a decade, and he wears it like the skin of something he killed.
He looks annoyed. Perhaps even bored.
Good. Arrogance is a weakness I know how to exploit.
“Lord Valorian,” Voros says, a sneer curling his lip. “Have you decided to be sensible and surrender? I confess, I’m impressedyou survived this long. The Consortium’s retrieval teams usually don’t miss.”
The wordretrievalhits me like a blade between the ribs. I feel the old fury stir—the rage at being treated as property, as cargo, as a set of harvestable organs wrapped in diplomatic silk. But I bury it. Channel it. Let it fuel the ice in my voice.
“I am contacting you to offer a professional courtesy, Commander.” I incline my head slightly, the perfect picture of aristocratic condescension. “A chance to save your career, and perhaps your life.”
Voros laughs. It’s a harsh, ugly sound. “You are trapped in a rock, surrounded by a fleet, with shields that will fail within the hour. Your threats are empty, Lord Valorian. I expected better from a man of your... breeding.”
Behind me, I hear Henrok shift. A low growl rumbles through the War Room. But I don’t turn. I don’t flinch.
“Are they empty?” I lean forward slightly, letting the camera catch the gleam of the Aethel crystal interface behind me. The ancient Zaterran technology pulses with inner light, casting shifting patterns across my features. “You are operating under the assumption that you are retrieving a lost asset. A simple extraction. But you have miscalculated the timeline, Commander.”
For the first time, something flickers in those pale eyes. Uncertainty. Just a flicker—but I see it.
