"...You owe me," she muttered, just above a whisper, as the drones drifted toward the open lift, Velora suspended between them inside a glowing blue containment bubble.
Tienerra remained there for a moment, watching the drones escort Velora's limp body into the corridor. The blue emergency lights shimmered off the med-drone's stasis fields as they rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
Silence settled like dust.
She took a deep breath, then pushed off the floor. Her wings tucked tight, her tail trailing behind her as she floated weightlessly down the corridor. The ship groaned softly around her, ambient systems humming as they stabilized from the sudden reactivation sequence and course correction.
As she reached the cockpit door, a violent shudder rocked the Sentinel.
Warning lights pulsed across the ceiling. The ship's interior rumbled under the strain of impacts.
Tienerra caught the nearest handhold and yanked herself through the entryway. Red lights bathed the cockpit.
"Nyx! Status!" she barked, gripping the pilot's seat as another blast rattled the hull.
"Exterior scans show multiple inbound fighters closing in on our position," Nyx announced.
Tienerra pulled herself fully into the captain's chair, wings folding tight as she strapped in just as the command screens flared to life. The center screen displayed ship stats—shields, power, weapons. The left mapped enemy markers converging; the right streamed visuals and opened comm channels.
"How many targets and their capabilities?"
"Six fighters inbound," Nyx reported. "Designation: Strykes. Twin lasers, ventral missile pod. Agile, but low armor."
"Do we outgun them?"
"Yes. But they outnumber and outmaneuver us. If they concentrate fire on the engines, they may disable us."
"Prep the FTL drive. Divert maximum power—exclude MedBay."
"Thirty seconds. Shields must remain offline."
"Kill the shields," she said. "I'll keep them off us."
With a mechanical rumble, the Sentinel surged to life beneath her. Tienerra's fingers danced across the controls, palms slick with sweat. The synthetic leather of the captain's chair creaked under her shifting weight as she leaned into the motion, eyes darting between screens that bloomed with red alerts.
She gripped the throttle with one hand, knuckles white, and thrust the ship beneath a jagged asteroid overhang. Her tail wrapped tightly around the base of the seat as a brace, and her wings flexed once instinctively before pressing hard against the seatback.
Red bolts of plasma slammed into the hull. The ship shook violently, each impact rattling her teeth. Warning klaxons screamed overhead. Sparks burst from a panel to her right, briefly illuminating her face in harsh blue-white light.
The asteroid field became a vortex of chaos. Massive chunks of debris spun like blades through vacuum, some colliding with smaller rocks in silent, explosive flashes. Through the forward viewport, she could see distant streaks—hostile fighters darting in and out of range, flaring like predatory insects.
Her slit pupils narrowed to fine points. Her breathing slowed, deliberate. The violet glow in her eyes intensified, refracting off her visor.
"Come on," she whispered through clenched teeth, locking her gaze on the narrowing path ahead.
The dim light from Sable's private office flickered across fractured glass and shattered datapads. His desk—once sleek and untouched—was now scarred, fractured like the alliance he had so carefully maintained. The holographic image of the Darkstar Sentinel arced across the massive window, dancing through the chaos of the asteroid field with fire trailing behind it.
Beyond the transparent steel wall, through the thick panes of reinforced command glass, the real Sentinel came into view—dodging blasts between jagged asteroid shadows. Crimson pulses from the pursuing Stryke fighters lit up the space beyond his office like thunderless lightning.
Inside, Sable stood unmoving, a monolith of composure in his silver-trimmed armor. The soft blue glow from the data feeds reflected across his angular face, but his eyes remained hard, cold, calculating. Behind his back, his fingers flexed once—a subtle tell of controlled fury.
"Varek," he said, his voice a smooth blade. "Prepare troops to hunt down Velora."
Varek stood at the far end of the room like a shadow carved from obsidian. The faint golden etchings along his ears pulsed once as he gave a silent bow. His tail snapped behind him, sharp and deliberate, before he turned and vanished through the side door, coat trailing like a shroud.
Outside the window, the Sentinel pulled a brutal corkscrew maneuver, skimming an asteroid's edge. One of the pursuing Strykes clipped debris and vanished in a silent explosion of fire and dust. Sable watched, unmoving.
He approached the control panel, fingers gliding over the interface. Her vitals appeared—Velora's—bloodied red and blinking. SIGNAL LOST.
His jaw tightened.
"You survived the fire once… and gave me your loyalty in return," he murmured. "And now you've traded it again. For what?"
A cracked projection labeled VOID pulsed beside the data feed, glyphs distorting as if resisting his scrutiny. He tapped beside it. The holoscreen burst to life with Tienerra's face, sharp and still.
He stepped closer, studying her.
"Tienerra… Santii," he said slowly, almost reverently. "Argus's daughter. Still chasing ghosts, are we? And Velora... always orbiting you like a dying star."
The Sentinel vanished behind a burst of engine flare, diving beneath another asteroid, plasma bolts cutting close.
Sable turned back to the window just in time to see the brilliant flare of the Sentinel's FTL engine activate.
Light surged.
In a single flash, the ship was gone—leaving only static trails and debris drifting in its wake.
Sable's jaw clenched. He stared into the stars.
"Let's see what secrets you've buried in that bloodline."
The Sentinel's FTL system rumbled to life, engines pulsing with a deep, resonant hum that vibrated through the deck plating beneath Tienerra's boots. Her screen lit up with the countdown, the red digits blazing with urgency.
5… 4… 3…
Light flared from the prow of the ship, bathing the canopy in brilliant gold.
2… 1…
A burst of energy expanded around the hull. The ship pierced space, and in a final flash, it vanished—streaking into the void.
Silence fell like a weight.
Tienerra sat frozen in the pilot's chair. Her heart thudded in her chest, a solitary sound amid the fading echoes of acceleration. Her fingers, white-knuckled on the controls moments before, slowly uncurled. She exhaled long and slow.
Around her, the ship's systems stabilized. Displays dimmed, shifting into standby. The flicker of alerts faded to soft blues. Only the quiet hum of successful FTL drifted through the cabin.
Unstrapping quickly, she pushed out of the seat and floated through the corridor. Her wings folded tight to her back, and her tail drifted behind her like a slow ripple in low gravity. Each movement was automatic—repetition born of survival.
She caught a bulkhead corner and pivoted, boots grazing the floor as the soft thud of magnetic locks responded to the ship's restored gravity.
The MedBay hatch hissed open.
"Nyx, turn gravity back on. Status on Velora."
"Stable," came the AI's crisp reply. "Her V.A.S.H. system sustained vital functions. Military-grade framework. Unique genetic bonding detected."
The hum beneath her feet deepened as artificial gravity kicked in. Tienerra's boots planted with quiet finality.
The harsh glow of the med-gel tank lit the room. Inside, Velora floated naked in the thick fluid. Her normally sleek midnight-purple fur was only present along her shoulders, upper back, and the curve of her neck—leaving her face, chest, waist, thighs, and legs hairless, smooth-skinned with an opalescent shimmer. The usual sheen of her coat had dulled, mottled with burns and cuts beneath the swirling crimson mist.
A faint scar crossed just above her left breast, a ghostly white line over her heart—barely visible through the translucent gel. Beneath it, the glow of the embedded device pulsed faintly.
Her sharp jawline was slack, her eyes closed, but faint pulses of color shimmered beneath her skin—deep violet threads of residual Aether energy. Her long bushy tail drifted beside her, curling faintly with the medgel's movement. One ear twitched—a Kitsurai reflex, faint but defiant.
Her chest rose and fell beneath the oxygen mask strapped gently to her muzzle. Wisps of vapor fogged the interior glass with every breath.
Tienerra took a step forward. The subtle weight of gravity returned to her limbs—along with everything else. Guilt. Exhaustion. And uncertainty.
"Will she live?"
"Yes," Nyx replied. "However… there is another complication."
A screen lit up beside the tank, pulsing with a sharp red warning.
PHOSPHOROUS DEVICE DETECTED.
Tienerra's body stiffened. "That's a bomb?!"
"Affirmative. Sublight-triggered. Embedded near the cardiac wall."
She stepped back, brow furrowed. "But I dropped the shields—why didn't it detonate?"
"I initiated a localized containment field inside the tank the moment of detection. This precaution delayed our FTL departure by twenty-two seconds."
Tienerra stared at Velora's floating body, a cold knot forming in her chest.
She moved to the console, flipping through the layered scans. Internal trauma. Fractures. Neural inflammation. But the foreign object shone brightest—encased in shimmering metallic filament, like a parasite coiled beside her heart. Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"Can we remove it?"
"Not with current tools onboard. Data suggests the presence of multiple failsafes, including a deadman pulse, heartbeat dependency, or genetic locks."
Tienerra circled the tank, her claws flexing at her sides. The slow rise and fall of Velora's breath, the twitch of her tail, the faint flickers beneath her skin—these tiny motions kept her grounded.
She exhaled through her nose. "Of course it would."
The soft whir of machines and the pulsing blue light filled the space with an eerie calm. Despite the danger, the room held an unexpected peace—a silence carved from survival.
She started for the exit, but her steps slowed. At the threshold, she turned.
Velora floated in silence, her silver-streaked fur drifting with the gel currents like the trails of a comet. The faint violet glow from her inner Aether flickered through her arms and temples, drawn toward the implanted device like iron to a magnet. Her ears, though limp, shifted faintly. Her tail curled again.
The oxygen mask fogged with every breath. Her eyes remained closed, but something in her posture—some deep-rooted defiance—still lingered.
Tienerra stared for a long moment.
"You're not done yet."
Then she turned and stepped into the corridor, but her tail lingered behind her, curling tightly once before slipping through the threshold—an unconscious flick of hesitation.
Her wings shifted close to her spine in a subtle tremor, quivering with a restrained energy. The tension in her shoulders didn't release as the MedBay doors sealed shut behind her, nor did the slow, deliberate curl of her claws retract. Even her breathing, usually measured and calm, faltered for half a step.
Velora was alive. But barely.
And Tienerra's instincts—those sharpened Soltarian reflexes bred for precision—couldn't ignore how close she had come to losing her.
The MedBay doors sealed behind her with a final hiss, leaving Velora suspended in the blue-lit chamber, her body guarded only by the soft pulse of machines and the rhythmic churn of life sustained.