The debate spiraled.

  Vorrus spoke of logic and legacy, of genetic templates and the fate of imperfection. Aldrok bristled at the notion of engineered superiority, insisting no code could replace conquest. The Xyrelian warned of cultural collapse, her voice wrapped in velvet threats and noble disgust. It was less a conversation, more a series of sharpened monologues, each one meant to remind the others just how powerful, ancient, or enlightened they were.

  But underneath it all, one thing was clear.

  No one here trusted each other.

  Not really.

  And yet they were all still sitting at the same table.

  Orion let them argue. Let them burn through their speeches and masked insults. He sipped his drink like the chaos was background noise—until he set the glass down, just loud enough to stop the room.

  “I believe we’ve all said enough,” he said, voice smooth but final. “Now… if you’ll allow me a moment with our guest. Valor, Miss Takahashi, join me.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply. He rose from his seat and turned toward a side chamber, its doors already open, a private room cast in low, flickering light.

  Yuki stood without a word.

  I followed, back into the hallway.

  Same stark walls and polished floors, but this door was new.

  I couldn’t remember if it had always been there. Right beside the office I’d met him in earlier, flush with the wall, seamless enough to blend in unless you were looking for it.

  Maybe it had been hidden.

  Maybe I was losing track of time in this place.

  We stopped outside the entrance.

  A soldier stood beside it, motionless. He didn’t speak, just pressed his hand to the panel and let it slide open.

  Orion turned and spoke to Yuki.

  “Nivara,” he said, like it was already decided. “Secure the package. Hold position. I’ll arrive shortly.”

  “You’ll need the mask again. Too many eyes near the perimeter.”

  “I’m prepared.”

  She turned toward a corridor branching off the main hall. As she passed me, she didn’t say a word. No glance. No emotion. Just the soft click of her boots and the faintest brush of perfume I remembered from a lifetime ago.

  Then she was gone.

  Orion stepped through the main door, and I followed.

  Inside, the room was nothing like the rest of the Spire.

  Walls paneled in dull alloy, no paint, no color, nothing to distract. The lighting overhead was too bright, harsh enough to bleach the edges of your vision and make every shadow feel like a threat. There was a long bare black table in the center, no chairs, no clutter. No art on the walls. No attempt at comfort. Just metal and silence. A room designed for one thing: control.

  A row of guards lined the walls, motionless. Blank-eyed. Silent.

  The moment I stepped inside, something twisted in my gut.

  A flicker.

  Not a memory, at least not one I remembered, just a flash of raw emotion and shattered bodies. Screams echoing off metal walls. Limbs torn from sockets like they were made of paper. Blood sprayed across a room just like this one. And in the center of it all was me, surrounded by corpses and broken men.

  It was just a flash.

  Then it was gone.

  Orion stood at the far end, hands behind his back, posture straight like a man about to deliver a speech, not a conversation.

  I followed in silence.

  Then he smiled.

  It wasn’t warm.

  “I was curious,” he said, voice low and unhurried. “When you walked in with half your face scorched off, I assumed you were one of the others. Maybe someone from Ruiz’s little clique. Or Malik, if he’d finally grown a spine.”

  He circled the table slowly, like a teacher walking behind a row of desks.

  “But you didn’t speak. Didn’t posture. You watched.”

  He stopped in front of me.

  “And then I realized… it was you.”

  He let the words hang there, like smoke curling off a fire.

  “Timus Lucian Aurelius Corvus,” he said, each name drawn out like a slow incision. “Old blood of Terra. The Hero of Valtros-9. The one who turned the tide at Hadran’s Drift and carved the Virekk Swarm to shreds. The commander who broke the Skel’har siege at Erebus and scattered their fleets like dust.”

  All just video game missions I took part in. Nothing to be proud of.

  He tilted his head, watching me.

  “Entire species fell by your order. Borders shifted. Terra rose in your shadow. And now?”

  His smile thinned, sharpening at the edges.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Now you’re here. Stripped of rank, playing rogue on the fringes of space. I never imagined a Corvus would fall this far from their legacy.”

  He took a step closer, his tone dipping almost into regret.

  “With your name... your bloodline... you could’ve been more than a Star Warden of a single sector. You could’ve ruled.”

  “I was raised in a barracks dormitory, not some noble estate,” I said, voice quiet but steady. “An orphan stuffed into a uniform before I was ten. Told what to eat, when to sleep, who to kill.”

  “I wasn’t bred to rule. I was programmed to destroy. Nothing more.”

  Orion tilted his head, studying me like a curious insect.

  “And all those roles you’re so proud of—Warden, Admiral, High Marshal…” I scoffed. “Same job. Same leash. Different collar.”

  I leaned slightly closer, my tone sharpening.

  “They just change the color and the chain. That’s the only difference.”

  “Yes, yes. What a poetic answer from the deserter,” Orion said, his smile sharpening at the edges. “But tell me, aren’t you going to ask about your friend?”

  “I don’t have friends,” I replied flatly.

  “Is that so?” His tone feigned disappointment, but his eyes gleamed with amusement. “Astra would be so sad to hear that.”

  I didn’t bite.

  “So, what is this then?” I asked, my voice low. “You brought me here to talk about some girl? These guards are here to kill me? Or were you planning to circle back to some bigger punchline?”

  Orion chuckled low and cold. “Kill you?” He leaned forward leaning on the table. “No. I went through a great deal of trouble for your little toy. But make no mistake, I don’t need her.”

  “I need you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve run out of people to do your dirty work, and you’re hoping I’ll fill in?”

  “Oh no,” he said, almost laughing again. “You misunderstand. As I said before, orphan or not, you have the Old Blood. Terra’s first bloodline. If you raised your hand, the legions would follow. Imperial hopefuls, republic dogs, pirate fleets, mercenary warbands—all of them. You could burn the Senate to ash and carve your name across the stars. Emperor Corvus. A living god.”

  “And that’s why you made a deal with xenos, and that sparkplug? For Terra, for the humans?”

  “I'm making deals with everyone, Commander. Because I plan on surviving the end of this galaxy. And I’ll do it by standing on the shoulders of anyone powerful enough to matter.”

  He leaned forward, eyes hungry. “Do you know what I would give to have your blood?”

  I met his gaze, “Why don’t you try to come and take it.”

  Orion’s smile faded as he thought of his next words.

  “Careful,” he said, his voice quieter now. “Pride like that? It gets men killed. Or worse.”

  Around us, the guards shifted, but enough to let me know they were waiting for a signal. Maybe they thought I was about to make a move.

  Drayke didn’t flinch. Just smirked.

  “I have to leave the planet soon, so let’s drop the theater,” he said. “I know your name. It’s only fair you learn mine.”

  He turned fully toward me, eyes almost unhuman now.

  “I’m Alistair Drayke,” he said, voice suddenly colder, sharper. “Star Warden of the 13th Sector. And the boy you left behind in that jungle—the one my men found beheaded…”

  He paused.

  “Kale Drayden. Or, as he was born… Kale Drayke. My son.”

  Then came the smile that failed to mask the pain he was feeling.

  I gave a slow shrug. “Well... you can always try again.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “You’re mistaking my restraint for weakness. Don’t.”

  I met his gaze without flinching.

  “Trust me,” I said, voice cold, steady, “if I wasn’t showing restraint, you and your ten guards would be red stains scattered across this alloy floor.”

  “So do us both a favor.”

  “Give me the girl.”

  “Because unlike your son… I can’t make another one of her.”

  “You’ll see her soon enough,” he muttered. “One way or another.”

  I tilted my head, tone flat. “I assume I don’t need to clarify… alive, preferably.”

  He leaned in, close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath.

  “Oh, Commander Corvus,” he whispered. “You and I… we’re going to have so much fun.”

  Well. I sure am. I thought, but didn’t answer out loud.

  Instead, I reached inward, searching for the familiar current. The dark pulse that had always stirred beneath the surface of my skin. The force that bent to my will when nothing else would.

  Nothing.

  Just silence.

  No spark. No pulse.

  My brow twitched before I could stop it.

  Alistair noticed.

  His smile deepened, spreading like a crack in ice.

  “You were smart not to trust me,” he murmured, his voice almost fond. “But stupid enough to follow me in here.”

  He stepped closer, just enough for the words to sting.

  “The wine dulls your powers. Just a little. Just enough. And these walls?” He tapped one of the alloy panels with two fingers. “Lined with dampening alloy. Old tech. From the Directorate's black vaults. Suppresses neural conductivity. You’re not the first we’ve tested this on.”

  Behind him, two soldiers pushed in a sealed containment unit. Smooth, dark, shaped like a coffin—and made from the same alloy as the room. It slid onto the black table with a soft metallic clunk.

  He didn’t have to explain. I already knew it was for me.

  “The compound that lines this room?” he continued. “Same alloy used in psychic null chambers. Suppresses neural conductivity. Shuts down higher-order brain functions tied to anomalous activity. Very effective on your kind.”

  I didn’t respond.

  He didn’t expect me to.

  “There were others,” Alistair said, stepping slowly around the coffin. “Not like you. None of them had your blood. Just people they called freaks. Unstable mutations who touched something they shouldn’t.”

  He stopped on the far side of the table, tapping the coffin again like a vault waiting to be filled.

  “Some call it the Hollow. Others just call it the darkness between stars. The Xyrelian scholars believe it’s the origin of all psionic potential—like gravity, but for the soul. A pull. A whisper. A hunger.”

  His voice lowered, eyes locked on mine.

  “Most species can interact with it in limited ways. But humans?” He scoffed, amused. “We only touch it by accident.”

  He started listing them off, each word sharper than the last:

  “Sleep paralysis. Night terrors. Astral projection. Sudden nosebleeds. Children who speak in voices they’ve never heard. Veterans with seizures that light up psionic monitors like a fireworks display.”

  He leaned in.

  “You think those are illnesses? No. Those are fractures. Points of contact. The Hollow doesn’t knock when it visits, it simply... brushes back.”

  “And when it does, something always brushes back harder.”

  I tilted my head slightly, giving him the flattest look I could manage.

  “This has all been very enlightening,” I said. “But I really should get going. I parked at a meter downstairs, and I’d hate for your dead kid’s bike to get towed.”

  Alistair blinked once. Then gave a short nod.

  The room ignited.

  The first two charged in, rifles slung low.

  I ducked under the nearest, drove my elbow into the soft seam beneath his helmet, cracking his neck.

  His spine folded, and he hit the floor dead.

  The second swung his rifle.

  I caught it, yanked him forward and headbutted his helmet, splitting my own forehead open and cracking his visor.

  I wrenched the rifle from his hands, flipped it to lethal, and drove the barrel through his broken faceplate and pulled the trigger.

  His visor burst inward. Plasma tore through his skull.

  He went limp, but I didn’t let him fall.

  One hand on the rifle, the other gripping the front of his armor, I held him upright like a meat-shield bipod and fired through his skull.

  Two shots. Center mass. The next two guards folded instantly.

  Something slammed into my side.

  Non-lethal plasma burst.

  Another round cracked against my shoulder.

  I shrugged it off, teeth clenched, vision red.

  I moved straight for Alistair.

  They swarmed me like ants trying to pin down a storm.

  One managed to get the injector in.

  A sharp hiss at the base of my neck. Cold liquid snaked down my spine like poison.

  I tried to turn, to fight, but my body was already giving out. Limbs seizing. Muscles locking.

  My fingers twitched once, reaching for the bastard behind me. But my balance was gone.

  The floor tilted.

  Vision bled sideways.

  Colors bleeding into each other, shapes fracturing like glass.

  I caught one final glimpse of Alistair Drayke through the blur.

  The fear was gone now. The smirk had returned.

  He stepped over one of the corpses, hands behind his back again like he hadn’t just watched ten men die.

  “Sweet dreams, Corvus,” he said softly.

  His words followed me down.

  “Maybe when they’re cutting you open for samples… when your blood is feeding a thousand replacements… maybe then you’ll wish you’d taken my offer.”