He kisses me again, softer now, but no less certain.
The perimeter alarm detonates the silence.
A harsh, metallic tone that slices through the room and strips warmth away in a single stroke.
He’s upright before I am fully sitting.
“Perimeter breach detected,” the automated system announces.
I’m already pulling my shirt back on, crossing the room toward the console.
“Reengaging comms,” I say, fingers flying over the interface to restore the external relay.
The uplinks flare back to life. Tactical feeds cascade across the projection wall.
A small craft hovers just beyond the outer docking arc, its hull dark and unmarked.
“Unknown approach vector,” I say.
Kael is fully in command mode now—every line of his body sharpened, every movement precise.
“Alert guard units,” he orders.
“Already done,” I reply.
The moment we carved out collapses into motion.
Whatever we chose inside this room now stands inside the threat with us.
CHAPTER 34
KAEL
The breach corridor still smells wrong.
Even after the exterior hull is sealed and the emergency foam stripped away, there’s a sharp metallic tang hanging in the air—burned alloy, vaporized insulation, the acrid residue of shaped charges detonated in a confined space. It settles into the back of my throat and refuses to leave, as if the station itself remembers what just happened.
I step over a warped section of plating where the inner hatch blew inward. The impact scar is still visible—jagged edges curled like peeled skin. Two of my guard units stand at attention near the docking clamp, helmets off, faces grim but steady.
“Status,” I say.
“Craft secured,” the senior guard replies. “Two hostiles deceased. One stabilized for questioning.”
“Alive?” I ask.
“Yes, Captain.”
Good.
They’ve restrained the survivor in a portable containment field near the impounded vessel. The field hums faintly, a low oscillation barely audible over the ventilation system. Theprisoner kneels inside it, wrists magnetized behind his back, helmet removed.
His armor lies in pieces at his feet.
It’s not pirate work. Not clan fabrication. The underlying weave is unmistakable—Alliance standard issue, just stripped of insignia and overlaid with neutral plating.
I crouch in front of him, lowering myself to his eye level.
He smells faintly of burned metal and blood. There’s a cut along his brow that hasn’t fully clotted.
