Chapter 6 - Beyond the Outer Rim
The interior of Mara’s ship was a chaotic maze of exposed wiring, secondary monitors, and weapon crates, smelling strongly of ozone, stale coffee, and hydraulic fluid. As the ship's sub-light engines flared to life with a deep, bone-rattling thrum, we lifted off the landing pad of Blackridge Station and punched straight through the upper atmosphere into the blackness of deep space.
I slumped against a bulkhead, letting out a long, shuddering breath as the adrenaline finally began to drain from my system. My shoulder burned fiercely, and my boots were caked with the grime of three different levels of the station.
Across the cargo hold, Smoke lay curled in a massive, dark circle, his heavy wings wrapped tightly around his body like an obsidian cloak. His breathing was slow and steady, matching the rhythm of the ship's pulse drives.
Old Man Reyes walked out of the cockpit, wiping grease off his hands with a rag and tossing a med-kit toward me. "Catch, kid. Looks like you took a souvenir back there."
"Thanks, Reyes," I muttered, catching the kit and tossing it onto my lap. I started tearing open an antiseptic wipe to clean the graze on my shoulder. "How bad is the situation back on the moon?"
"Bad for Voss, fantastic for the rest of us," Reyes chuckled, pulling up a holographic news feed on the main console. "The moment our broadcast hit the central hubs on Earth and Mars, civil unrest broke out in three major sectors. Protesters are surrounding the Aegis Directorate headquarters in Geneva. Senate committees are calling for emergency hearings, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs just announced an independent investigation into the Old War atrocities."
Mara stepped out of the cockpit, wiping her hands on her trousers, her face unusually grim despite our victory. "Don't pop the champagne just yet, Reyes. The Federation is a cornered animal. A cornered animal doesn't apologize—it bites."
"What do you mean?" I asked, looking up from my shoulder.
"Look at the long-range scanners," Mara said, tapping the main viewport console.
I stood up, wincing slightly as my muscles protested, and walked over to the viewport. Far across the star-studded void, beyond the rocky silhouette of the dead moon, the massive Federation dreadnought we had seen earlier was no longer just maintaining orbit. Its primary bow cannons were glowing with an intense, pulsing violet light—the unmistakable signature of a planetary-class anti-matter torpedo battery.
"They're not trying to recapture the station anymore," Reyes whispered, his voice losing its playful edge. "They're going to obliterate Blackridge Station. Every last server, every physical record, every piece of evidence left on that rock is about to be turned into cosmic dust."
On the tactical display, we watched in horrified silence as the dreadnought fired. A blinding streak of violet light cut across the vacuum of space, striking the center of Blackridge Station with terrifying precision.
There was no sound in the vacuum, but the visual shockwave was absolute. The station bloomed into a brilliant sphere of white-hot fire, fragmenting into millions of glowing metal shards that drifted slowly into the abyss.
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In less than five seconds, eleven years of my life—and every physical trace of the bunker where I found Smoke—was completely erased.
I turned away from the viewport, my fists clenched so tightly my knuckles turned white. I looked down at Smoke. The massive creature had lifted his head, his golden eyes fixed on the fading embers of the station on the monitor. He didn't roar. He didn't thrash. He simply let out a long, mournful hum that resonated deep within the hull of our ship, as if mourning a graveyard we had barely escaped.
