Blue Riot moved first.
The alarm hadn't even fully died before he and Renn Varos were already sprinting through the corridors, boots hammering the floor as they headed for the hangar. Caden caught up halfway there, still finishing the smoothie he'd grabbed from recovery.
"Seriously?" Renn shot him a look.
Caden took one last sip and tossed the bottle into a bin as he ran. "What? Fuel."
Blue Riot didn't even glance back. "Less talking. More moving."
By the time they hit the hangar, a ship was already warming up. The three of them boarded, the doors sealed, and seconds later they were tearing through the sky toward the distress signal.
No wasted motion.
No wasted words.
That alone told Caden how bad it was.
The outpost was already dead by the time they landed.
Smoke drifted through the air in thin black ribbons. The perimeter lights were broken. Walls were split open in places that didn't make sense, like something had hit them, vanished, then hit somewhere else before anyone could react.
Caden stepped off the ramp and felt it immediately, that same wrongness from the carrier.
Not a battle.
A hunt.
This time, though, there were survivors.
A few STF soldiers sat against the remains of a barricade, bloodied and shaken, rifles still in their hands. Renn crouched in front of them, voice steady and controlled.
"What did you see?"
One of the soldiers swallowed hard before answering.
"It was fast," he said. "Fast and… wrong. Dark. Like it was there and not there at the same time."
Another soldier cut in, clearly still trying to process it. "It kept popping out, killing someone, then vanishing. We fired on it. Set traps. Changed positions. Didn't matter."
The first soldier looked down at the ground.
"It adapted."
Renn's face darkened.
He stood back up slowly.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Blue Riot… this isn't random."
Blue Riot looked out over the broken outpost, jaw set. "No. This thing's hunting."
He folded his arms, eyes narrowing. "And if it's hitting STF outposts now, it's not just after kills. It wants attention."
Caden stepped closer, looking over the damage.
"…Or recognition," he said.
Both of them glanced at him.
Caden kept going. "Think about it. Carrier. Outpost. Clean kills. Message left behind. It's not just killing soldiers—it's making sure we see what it did."
Renn nodded slowly. "That could be true."
Blue Riot didn't answer right away.
But Caden could tell he was thinking the same thing.
Back at STF HQ, the three of them moved straight into the Intelligence Wing.
Screens lit the room in blue-white glare. Intelligence operatives worked in clusters, while cipher agents ran through records, movements, corrupted Kia traces, and old black-file cases that hadn't been touched in years.
It should've felt controlled.
Instead, it felt tight.
Every minute they spent talking was another minute the hunter could be moving.
Caden stood beside Renn, watching Blue Riot across the room. Riot looked focused, but there was something else under it, something harder to hide the longer this went on.
"Hey," Caden said quietly, leaning toward Renn. "This case is getting to him."
Renn didn't look away from the display. "Of course it is."
He tapped a projection, bringing up another map of attacked sites.
"He's trying to solve a hunt while our own soldiers are the prey."
Caden glanced over again at Blue Riot. "Yeah, but… it's more than that."
That made Renn look at him.
Caden lowered his voice. "The pattern's too clean. Too fast. It's like he wants us chasing him."
Renn's expression shifted just a little.
"You think he's luring us?"
Caden nodded. "I do."
Before Renn could answer, Blue Riot turned from the far side of the room.
"We've got another one."
The room went quiet.
No one liked how fast that had happened.
Blue Riot walked over, voice level but hard. "Distress signal just came in. Same signature. Same movement pattern."
Caden frowned immediately. "If we already think this is a setup, shouldn't we take time to prepare?"
Blue Riot met his eyes directly.
"No."
The answer came fast enough to cut.
"Soldiers are dying right now. We don't get to sit back and think for an hour while they bleed out."
Caden held his stare, but didn't push.
Renn stepped in before the moment could get sharper.
"He's right about one thing," Renn said. "We don't have the luxury of hesitating."
Then he looked at Caden, more measured.
"But keep your head up. Watch everything."
Blue Riot grabbed his gear off the table.
"This thing wants Vanguard attention?" he said. "Fine. It has it now."
There was no bravado in his voice.
That was what made it worse.
Caden looked at Renn.
Renn only gave a small shrug, like there was nothing left to say.
"Stay alert," he told him. "If this is a trap, it's not built for regular soldiers."
He paused.
"It's built for us."
And with that, the three of them turned and headed back toward the hangar, toward another distress call, another dead zone, and whatever monster had decided the STF was prey.