A line of text flashes before the screen darkens:
“Query accepted. Target profile match: R. Hart. Unauthorized offspring confirmed.”
My blood runs ice cold.
They know.
The Combine knows.
And now they’re hunting again.
CHAPTER 21
VALTRON
There’s a rumble in my bones I can’t shake.
Not the kind that comes from the arena, from fight prep or a bad bruise under scale. This one’s lower. Older. It rolls through me like predator tension before the pounce.
Rhea’s in the back room, pacing and fuming and barely holding it together under a cascade of falling sky. I can feel her through the walls. Feel the crackle of her temper like static in the air, the stifled panic she thinks she’s hiding.
I told her she still was safe.
But I might’ve lied.
I stalk down the hallway of Kaelor’s bunker like a creature too big for the space. The low ceilings make me hunch. Pipes whine when I pass. The old Alzhon tech keeps this place airtight, but it’s not built for me. Not built for anyone expecting a war, and gods, it smells like one’s coming. Copper and ozone and sweat-soaked electronics. The scent of secrets simmering too long.
I flip on the scrambler wall and key in a direct subline. Top clearance. Dead channel.
The holo crackles. Picks up slow.
Then Vice Admiral Leena Dray blinks into existence. Half-shadowed. Hair braided like wire. One eye black-ink cyberware, the other sharp as ever. She doesn’t smile.
“Vakutan,” she says, voice low and dry. “I’d ask how you’re enjoying retirement, but the answer’s obvious.”
“Was never really retired,” I grunt.
Her mouth twitches. Not a smile. Something meaner. “You don’t call unless something’s burning.”
“It’s burning,” I say. “And this time it’s personal.”
I send her the ping log—unauthorized access attempt, Combine handshake pattern, target trace: Rhea Hart. A second later, I shoot her the holovid snapshot—the one that started this hell spiral. Me. Ripley. Sweet cubes. Smiles.
Leena whistles. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
She leans forward. Her screen jitters. “Tell me exactly what you need.”
I take a breath that tastes like rust. “I need to know who’s still active. Combine-side. Arena-adjacent. Anyone flagged as sleeper or clean-up.”
Her fingers fly across her interface. “You do realize Gladiator Prime has twelve thousand staffers and over eighty shell companies laundering cred through it?”
“I’m not asking for a headcount,” I snap. “I’m asking for threats.”
“Everything’s a threat when you poke the Combine,” she mutters. “And you just handed them a family photo.”
“Not by choice.”
