A week ago my scouts pulled a promising report — Wanderer tech remnants, Earth. By the time they landed, the Berhs were already waiting. Half the team didn't walk out. The artifacts — gone, every last one. Clean sweep, no hesitation. They'd never moved that openly before.
They left on a lab ship. Took their time about it — which was strange. And when they finally jumped, several locals went missing with them.
Now their ship has surfaced inside our jurisdiction — and they're stalling. Holding a dirty position: no clean ridge nearby, the jump geometry is bad, and every hour in that pocket costs them. Nobody sits in a hole like that by choice.
They never used to be this bold. Something changed on Earth.
One question: what — or who — is on that ship.
---
Callisto Cosmodrome, Government Dock No. 2. Ten minutes to launch.
The ship in the center looked like a tired whale—three decks of flank, a field a stadium long. Skin unmarked, except where the PMD cones had burned the paint down to bare alloy. Three times, in the same spots. That's what redline looks like from the outside.
Dr. Zhou came toward me. Weak to praise. Born in China. Tall, heavy, skin a shade darker than most. First glance—off-putting; second—he flips the coin: sociable, erudite, a top-tier surgeon who seems to diagnose by scent and doesn't miss.
In darker ages, men like him made careers on other people's pain.
Lack of brakes and the itch to experiment — neural grafts on prisoners, off the books. Life sentence on old Earth. Minds like his are rare; I offered him Callisto and a place on my team. I was clear: no freelancing. Otherwise I'm judge and executioner.
Since then he's been my man. Daylight—surgeon. Night—Wanderer technology researcher, stubborn and inspired. From rank-and-file to coordinator; respect earned the hard way—finish what you start, own the bill.
While Morgana and Taren drowned in access paperwork, I tried to read his report. Two minutes and my head started to hum.
"You're talking about moving a head onto another body?"
"It's a technological breakthrough," he said, calm.
"Three survivors out of a thousand is a leap into nowhere. A failure. What drove them to it...," I added a note of skepticism, then read aloud at last, "—an epidemic of xenoinfections? What is that?"
He lowered his eyes.
"Do you know the word Sinarhi? On the street—S clan."
Ice up the spine. Roots I prefer not to touch. I kept my voice even.
"And what's the link to the legend—the cursed clan? Matricides and bedtime bogeys?"
"There are other dimensions," he said. "Intelligent forms on the far side. Some can come through. Xenoinfection is contact with such a being. After it, the intruder takes full control of the infected. They experimented on the Sinarhi. The Sinarhi mutated—and learned to control the ones that come from outside."
"Why don't we see it now? Sounds like cheap horror."
"Possibly a side effect of one Wanderer technology thinned the barrier between worlds. Resonance between the symbiotes bred local anomalies—then the situation slipped its leash. When the epidemic hit, they took desperate measures. The price was indecent, but there was no choice."
"On what basis do you pick your donors?"
"Resonance medical markers," he said, allowing himself a rare, satisfied smile. "We just added a few refining tags."
I swallowed a grimace. The Keeper's constant jabs about that project had long since worn thin, while Zhou, on the contrary, wore it like a badge of honor. If I hadn't shoved it through the system, the resonance-screening protocol would still be gathering dust in some archive instead of ever reaching a live patient.
He fell silent—not triumphant, expectant. Old reflex: now the order comes—seal it, bury it, forget it.
"I'd love to shove this under the farthest rug," I said at last. "But we don't get to ignore a threat like that. Here's what we do: decrypt everything, all of it. Good work, Doctor."
I didn't clap his shoulder; extra gestures get in the way of words. He understood anyway—the corners of his mouth twitched.
Four minutes to launch.
Morgana arrived—not as good news, but as a fury, bile in her voice.
"Skyggeridder, this wasn't our deal. Why did you skip the neural interface for the nanomachines? Fifteen percent compatibility? That's an insult."
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"Morgana, this is a classified project," I said, flat. "Only those who pass selection fly. If the interface rejects, your person stays aboard—under observation and off the op. Not up for discussion. If that doesn't suit you, I'll go without your person."
"Fine, fine," she said, and the word leaked anger and hurt.
"Dr. Zhou, see to our guest and take her to the central hall of the cosmodrome," I said evenly, then lower, only to him: "and please—keep your tongue."
If a look could burn, I'd be ash.
"What?" Every word carried acid. "Skyggeridder, you're supposed to escort me yourself. That's the minimum I expected."
"Sorry," I said without changing pace. "Time. I'm shipping out with the team. Duty calls."
Her surprise was genuine.
Taren came in last. Discipline in the stride.
The team took their seats in the passenger bay. Only Patrick Callahan lived in the cockpit, chewing through a new ship's menus. Pilots read engines. So did he.
We met plain: rush-hour hop, no one would take it. He did. Looked spent, drove perfect. Born at the wheel. I gave him a card and terms: learn, dry out, the rest I'll arrange. A week later he showed. He hasn't failed me since. Bonus—he opens other people's boards.
"Gentlemen, be kind—Taren," I said. "Our guest for this cruise."
Falk Sturm. Red bristle, wide shoulders, a thick book — real paper, not a slab. Hot in bars, cold in fire: drags people out and comes back himself.
Nils Alexandersson. Broad-shouldered, a braid, green eyes. Born on Ganymede — you see it in how he holds himself in low g, like gravity is a suggestion. Sends questions back to the asker.
Gael Duval. Tall, lean. Lotus and silence. Left eye is a mapper — military-grade, pre-ban. Maps, shafts, junctions—traced as if he'd been there.
Pavlos Kidonis. Short, compact. Speed and flex. Three tours on outer stations before anyone outside knew those stations existed. Reliable lead.
Demirhan Yilmaz. Not tall; a tongue like a knife. Sparks in peacetime, turns to shadow in a fight — something in his cortex runs hotter than standard.
They were seated in seconds.
Shutter-doors split beneath us. The lift settled the ship onto the catapult, and we slid into a blind shaft—a "clean" sleeve where waste heat sinks into ice and comms run fiber-only. Above, PRIZRAK shutters meshed. No emission outward.
"Fields," Patrick warned.
The protective cocoon clapped to the hull—not a fairy shield, an inertial skin: it evens the catapult's punch across the frame and damps the microshake. A cold pull under the sternum; if anyone claims they take field-up "dry," don't believe them. That cockpit silence—everyone pretending they're not sick.
Grav-clamps bit the keel-beam. The catapult sent a test pulse—the hull answered with even tremor. Patrick brought eight PMDs—plasma-magnetic drives—up to heat: soft hum to dense, confident vibration. The panel lit: G-bands 1.05 -> 1.20, "cocoon stable."
"Three, two, one..."
Click—the clamps were gone. A magnetic ski nudged us and the shaft exhaled: speed climbed to a ragged whistle and, with the upper shutter barely winked, we punched through a short MIRAGE window. External periscopes snapped for a few milliseconds to paint a sky—so overhead they'd see only bare ice.
Acceleration pressed, not a wall, a firm hand. Callisto's vacuum was black and mute; Jupiter hung off the horizon like spilled paint, storms throwing milky scars of lightning. We held a dead profile: emission OFF, inertial nav and passive eyes only.
"Limit 10 R_J—safe height," Patrick said. "No 'dive' before that."
We passed the moons; in the side cams the giant shrank to a heavy, mottled coin. On tactical, a gray-amber baromap grew—HWI (Hyper-Wave Interferometer) drawing phase-crests of the dark wind. Three marks—alpha / beta / theta—pulsed with different hearts.
"Taking the beta ridge," Patrick said. "Clean and quick. 'theta' near Jupiter is a no-go."
We rolled to course and killed anything that might stir the background. Cabin light fell to fifty lux—the quiet regime. Isotachs crept across the HUD glass like isobars on an old weather map. Another beat, and the space before the nose went dim—not darkness, photon hush—light lost in a thin ripple of metric.
"Dive," Patrick said, easy.
No "funnel"—just a dull thump in the bones, as if someone tuned space down half a note. Stress lenses laid over the ribs; the cocoon took the heavy end. Sounds folded into cotton; even blood-noise seemed foreign. On tactical the baromap flipped to reverse perspective: we weren't flying—we were rolling the beta crest, holding phase. Miss it and HWI would throw us into a difference where hulls tear without impact.
"Keep phi-shift in the corridor," the nav whispered. "Relative to target—minus two hundred forty-one km/s on the tangent."
The target moved deaf, a creeping heat-wake on a dark carrier. Straight exit is suicide; their HWI would catch our front. We chose the lee-side: stern-shadow, blind to their passives.
"Prep resonance dump," Patrick set the markers. "On 'two'—drop the field to glass; on 'three'—nose PMD, no more than twelve meters per second. Enough to sit in, not spook the phase."
Seconds dragged thick. SOP PRIZRAK blinked hard: no external comms, periscopes OFF. We trimmed micro-delta-v in breath-sized puffs, not to tear the glide. Inside—just HWI, inertials, and our pulse counts.
"Two... three."
The cocoon loosened its clamps. The world made noise again—color returned, weight returned, but a sliver of g—platform-soft. We came out under the wind: their wake still shivering on the scope while our silhouette drowned in the warm lantern of their own exhaust.
"Contact. Range nine-hundred, relative minus twenty-seven m/s. They don't see us," the nav sounded almost guilty.
"Hold passive," I said. "Quiet intercept."
Nose optics caught micro-flashes—repair drones near their stern. We slid onto an offset curve to let Jupiter itself blind their HWI. Patrick gave us four m/s more, and our ship lay down into a perfect parallel.
"Six hundred. Three. Two..." the nav breathed numbers. "One fifty. Aft's got blind sectors; the lane is clean."
"Vector," I said.
The nose PMDs twitched a spark—smaller than a match. We eased into the dead cone of their passives, hiding in the warm shadow of their own heat. A green winked: Lock—acquired.
The intercept held. Not a single external beam. Just fine work by HWI, the patience of PRIZRAK, and the right geometry of the beta ridge. The rest would come later: orders to assault, anchoring our Shadows, and a short, sharp talk with those who still thought you could walk loud in this space.
"A Brief Guide to Dark Wind, Jumps, and the Shadows"
-- from a talk by the PRIZRAK/MIRAGE node chief (Archive S-19)
* beta -- faster, twitchier; combat egress and express hops.
* theta -- a "sharp ridge"; demands dual field and perfect phasing; FORBIDDEN near massive bodies.
r_min >= k * R_planet, k in [8,12] per C-24 [1]
* XI-S -- synarchic: partial control, tracked by S-index 0-100.
* XI-H (Umbra-S) -- heritable, the "Clans of the Shadow."
* XI-R -- relapse. [3]
* Periscopes -- schedule only (ms).
* Heat -> ice/buffer.
* Illumination: 50 lux amber.
* Emergency -> Plasma Veil, close SHUTTER-1.
* Engage ONLY under an external "eye" in sector.
* BRDF skin/plasma/scintillation tuned to regolith profile.
* Bands: alpha/beta allowed; theta by special waiver and NEVER in a gas-giant system.
* Vector: slip "downwind" of target; delta-v micro-doses <= 12 m/s.
* UMB-YELLOW -- buddy-observer, restricted access to critical systems.
* UMB-RED -- sector quarantine, full PRIZRAK cycle.
* XI-F -- evac/neutralize; conversion to XI-S possible ONLY within 6 h with ASIP and anchors. [5]
* "PLASMA VEIL: STANDBY" -- an external eye may be on; MIRAGE likely.
* "UMB-GREEN S=38" -- a Synarch (Shadow) in the safe corridor; such pilots literally feel "quiet hyper-weather."
* "r_min >= 10 R_J" -- they're doing it by the book; if the heroes take theta below threshold, expect a price.
