The silence in the maintenance tunnel was thick, broken only by the drip of corrosive water and the ragged sound of Nezra's own breathing. The ambush had been perfect. The lead convoy vehicle was dead, its light extinguished by Rielle's magnetic pulse charge. The following transport sat silent and dark.
"Go!" Morgan's command was a whip-crack in the gloom.
They moved as one. Rielle was a force of nature, her wrench a blur of motion as she disabled the stunned drivers with brutal efficiency. Morgan provided covering fire, her arc-pistol humming as it dropped guards before they could fully raise their weapons.
Nezra's heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. He pushed a shaky stream of Orna into his legs, feeling the familiar, painful surge of power. He wasn't fast, but he was faster than he should be, closing the distance to the cargo transport. The crate of ORM components was right there.
That's when the world turned inside out.
Figures melted from the shadows behind the disabled convoy. Not Syndicate guards. Their movements were too fluid, their gear too sleek and silent. Ghost-Jacks. And they didn't fire on the Syndicate crew. They fired on them.
A energy bolt sizzled past Nezra's ear, scorching the wall beside him. He threw himself behind the convoy's tire, his breath catching in his throat. They were pinned. Crossfire. Syndicate guards in front, Ghost-Jacks behind.
"It's a setup!" Morgan yelled, her voice tight. "Jax, you slimy son of a—"
"Language, Morgan," a smooth, mocking voice cut her off. Jax emerged from the darkness behind his crew, his white hair almost glowing in the dim light. He looked utterly at ease. "We simply saw an opportunity and took it. You do the hard work, we take the prize. It's the natural order of things."
Rage, hot and sudden, burned through Nezra's fear. This wasn't a heist anymore; it was an insult. They were being used. He was being used. The image of Jax's smug face, the casual theft of their hard-won victory, ignited something primal.,
A woman with a vibro-blade closing in on Rielle's blind side.
No.
The thought wasn't conscious. It was pure instinct. He didn't think about control. He didn't think about the consequences. He tapped into the well of power, into Umeh's chaotic, bottomless hunger, and he pushed.
It wasn't a stream. It was a spear.
A torrent of raw, unfocused Orna erupted from him, not as a shield or a tool, but as a weapon. It wasn't aimed with skill; it was hurled with pure, furious intent. It slammed into the flanking Jack. There was no visible blast, no flash of light. The woman simply cried out—a short, sharp sound of shock and pain—as the chaotic energy overload her nervous system. She stumbled, her vibro-blade clattering to the ground, and collapsed, twitching.
Silence. For a heartbeat, the firefight stuttered. Everyone—Morgan, Rielle, the Syndicate guards, even Jax—stared at the downed Jack, then at Nezra.
He stood there, chest heaving, his hand still outstretched, energy curling from his fingertips. The air around him crackled with spent energy. He had just shot someone. For the first time, he had used his power to directly, intentionally harm another person.
And Umeh… Umeh thrummed with a deep, resonant satisfaction.
The spell broke. Hell erupted.
"You little—" Jax's mocking calm shattered into pure fury. He raised his own weapon, a customized blaster, and fired.
What followed was a brutal, chaotic melee in the claustrophobic tunnel. It was not a ballet. It was a gutter fight.
Rielle roared, abandoning finesse and simply smashing through anything that moved. Morgan's fire became precise and deadly, each shot meant to kill. Rin, from her perch in the darkness above, was a ghost. Her coil-rifle thwumped rhythmically, not just disarming now, but aiming to cripple—a shot to a knee, an elbow, a shoulder. She was systematically dismantling the enemy's ability to fight.
Nezra fought like a cornered animal. He had no skill, no training for this. He ducked, he weaved, he threw wild, uncontrolled bursts of Orna that sparked off walls and equipment, creating cover and chaos more than actually hitting targets. He was a distraction, a dangerous, unpredictable variable.
He saw a Jax level a blaster at Kara. Without thinking, he lunged, shoving her behind the transport. The bolt meant for her seared across his arm, burning through the stalk-weave and branding his skin. He screamed, more in shock than pain, and retaliated with another blind surge of power that blew a console beside the Jax into molten slag.
The fight was a whirlwind of noise, light, and agony. They were outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The prize was forgotten. Survival was the only goal.
"We can't get the crate!" Morgan yelled, deflecting a shot with a flick of her wrist-mounted energy shield. "We have to pull back! Now!"
"The hell we do!" Rielle bellowed, grabbing a one of the enemies and using him as a living shield against incoming fire.
"Nezra! The lights!" Scarlet's voice was a desperate shriek in their earpieces. "The whole tunnel runs on old conduits behind the east wall! Do that sparky thing you do! Big!"
Retreat. They were retreating. They were losing.
Nezra gritted his teeth, ignoring the burning pain in his arm. He focused everything he had left. He didn't try to be precise. He embraced the mess. He thought of the child's scream, of Silas's cold eyes, of Jax's smug face. He reached for Umeh's bottomless wrath and didn't ask—he took.
He slammed both hands against the tunnel wall.
The explosion of energy was immense. It wasn't a controlled overload; it was a tantrum. Every light strip in the tunnel exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. Conduits burst, spraying white-hot sparks like fireworks. The entire section was plunged into absolute, impenetrable darkness, broken only by the erratic flashes of wild energy arcing from the walls.
Screams of pain and confusion echoed from both Syndicate and Jacks alike.
"GO! GO! GO!" Morgan's voice was their only guide in the dark.
They ran, stumbling over bodies and debris. Nezra felt a hand—Rielle's—grab his collar and yank him along. Blaster fire lit up the darkness blindly, sizzling past them. They crashed into their skiff, which Kara had already powered up.
The engines screamed as Morgan slammed the throttle, peeling away from the nightmarish scene just as emergency lights on the Syndicate vehicles began to flicker feebly to life, illuminating the carnage they left behind.
No one spoke on the flight back. The skiff was filled with the sound of heavy breathing and the smell of ozone, sweat, and blood. They had escaped. But they had lost the prize. They had nothing to show for it except new wounds and a powerful, vengeful enemy who now knew exactly what they were capable of.
Nezra slumped against the cold hull, cradling his burned arm. He looked at his hands. They were trembling. He had shot someone. He had unleashed chaos. And the cold, approving presence coiled within him made it clear: Umeh had never been more pleased. The fight was far from over. It had just begun.