She hacks like she fights—quiet, surgical, with redundancy and spite.
Mira’s eyes widen. “That’s her signature. Diagnostic handshakes buried in maintenance pings. She’s using corporate infrastructure as a lever.”
My chest tightens.
“Use it,” I snap.
Mira nods, fingers flying. “Triangulating off her interference. She’s near the main broadcast platform. There’s a ground comm tower twenty meters east, and a relay junction under the scaffolding.”
Jessa grins. “So she’s painting us a target.”
“She’s giving us a beacon,” I correct, voice low. “Because she knows we’re coming.”
Renn’s eyes flick to me, sharp. “You sure she knows?”
I stare at the interference pattern pulsing like a flare in the dark.
“Jordan doesn’t hope,” I say. “She plans.”
I key my encrypted channel. “All strike teams. Ground insertion on my mark. Target is broadcast platform ridge. Priority: Jordan. Secondary: Morazin alive.”
Confirmations snap back.
I feel the ship’s hum beneath my boots as we adjust orbit, dropping into a stealth approach vector that hugs the planet’s curvature.
“Atmospheric entry,” Renn warns.
“Controlled,” I say. “No flares. No proud descent.”
The Nun’s Tooth dips.
The planet rises.
The hull begins to vibrate faintly as we skim the edge of Terranus V’s atmosphere, and the air on the bridge seems to thicken, smelling faintly of heated metal as the ship’s skin warms.
My comm pings—Jessa again. “Charges on sats alpha and beta detonated. Relay sats dead.”
“Good,” I reply. “Morazin is alone.”
Down on the platform feed,chaos blooms.
Jordan shifts—small movement, almost invisible if you don’t know what you’re looking for. She’s not just sitting there waiting to die. She’s wriggling. Sliding her bound hands behind a scaffolding strut. I watch her disappear partially behind a vertical support like she’s trying to crawl into the architecture.
A tech on Morazin’s side shouts. A shooter steps closer.
Then a comm tower indicator on the feed spikes—and drops.
Jordan has yanked something. A manual conduit. Forced a reboot.
Morazin’s drones jitter overhead, their stabilizers whining as their signal path stutters. His jammer system hiccups—briefly blind.
It’s only seconds.
But seconds are oxygen.
“Go,” I growl.
Jessa triggers the ground insertion.
