When I rise again, there is only one thought in my head.
Get her back.
“Brom,” I snarl. “Prep my fighter.”
His good eye widens. “Captain—she’s a cruiser. You’re in no shape?—”
“I said prep my fighter.”
The words leave no room for argument.
He hesitates half a heartbeat, then nods. “Aye.”
I stagger into the hangar, blood dripping down my side, every step a knife. The med techs shout after me, waving scanners and sealant packs. I ignore them all.
My starfighter waits at the far end—custom, scarred, patched together from a dozen victories and near-deaths. It’s not pretty. It’s not meant to be.
It’s meant to kill.
I haul myself into the cockpit, slamming the canopy down just as the hangar shields flare under incoming fire. The engines whine as they come online, protesting the rushed startup.
“Override safeties,” I bark.
The system chirps a warning. Hull integrity compromised. Weapons at sixty percent. Shields at forty.
I laugh.
“Good enough.”
The hangar doors peel open and I launch into open sky, punching straight up through smoke and debris, straight toward the IHC cruiser pulling away above me.
My hands shake on the controls—not from fear, but from the effort of keeping myself conscious. Blood slicks the console where it drips from my side. I wipe it away and push harder.
The cruiser looms larger.
I open a broad-band channel, no encryption, no diplomacy.
“This is Kallus of the Bloody Talon,” I roar into the comm. “You have taken what is mine.”
Static crackles. Then a calm, infuriatingly measured voice responds.
“Unidentified hostile, disengage immediately. This vessel is operating under lawful IHC authority.”
I bare my teeth.
“Return my mate,” I snarl, every word vibrating with promise, “or burn.”
Silence.
Then laughter. Faint. Distant.
“You are injured and outgunned,” the voice replies. “Stand down.”
Red floods my vision.
“I will die before I stand down.”
I slam the throttle forward and open fire.
