Cold metal, sterilized air, and a suffocating sense of order.
The Central Operations Control Room of the Fleet Command in the colossal fortress city, 'Ironbelt', was a massive mechanical device in itself, where countless officers moved with the precision of cogwheel components.
In the center of all that mechanical busyness, like the eye of a storm, stood a man, utterly motionless, staring at a massive holographic tactical map.
The Commander of the Imperial Special Task Force Fleet 'Fenrir', Colonel Adrian Valentine.
Much like his flawless white uniform, devoid of a single speck of dust, his icy blue eyes reflected absolutely no emotion. He was not merely looking at the tactical map before him, but piercing through it to the vast chessboard that lay beyond.
The silence was broken by an adjutant submitting a report with a trembling voice.
"Colonel, this is the final report regarding the abnormal Aether signal originating from Ecora. Inside the Sky Whale... fragments of our probe have been recovered."
Despite the adjutant's trembling tone, Adrian did not twitch. He merely scanned the attached image slowly—a blurry, long-distance capture of the Lumina Lip and the profile highlighted in red beneath it.
Eventually, he murmured in an emotionless voice. "A ghost of Arkelos...? No, merely an ember that was left unextinguished."
With a gesture, he swiped the hologram to display another file. 'Vent of Steel'. It was the wanted poster of his old rival, Vent Steel.
"Following a fallen hero, now a forgotten ghost." The corners of Adrian's mouth curled coldly.
"Amusing. I will have to teach both of them a clear lesson. That there is nowhere to run in the Empire's sky."
He turned his head toward the adjutant. His voice contained neither anger nor impatience, only the cold fastidiousness of someone intending to tidy up a messy room.
"Issue the command for 'Operation Iron Net' to the entire fleet. Tell them there is nowhere for that 'ghost' to hide."
* * *
The bridge of the Lumina Lip was filled with a vitality it hadn't seen in a long time.
"Did you see that? I improved the engine efficiency by a whopping 3.4%!"
Leon waved his data pad right in front of my nose, shouting proudly like a child. Under his genius touch, the Lumina Lip was evolving every single day.
"Now, if we just ride the Aether currents well, we'll be faster than any Imperial patrol boat!"
"Leon's technology is excellent, but avoiding the Empire's main shipping lanes is our priority."
Lilia, sitting at the helm, spoke softly with her eyes closed. She was reading the invisible currents of the sky. As her hand touched the controls, the holographic map in the center of the bridge pulsed with blue light, wriggling like a living organism.
"If we pass through that dense sea of clouds ahead, we can completely escape the Empire's surveillance network. It is the safest path I have found."
A genius mechanic on one side, and a guide of the heavens on the other. With a reassured heart, I gripped the control stick tightly.
"Alright, full speed into the sea of clouds!"
It happened the very moment the Lumina Lip thrust its nose into the thick clouds.
"Jayn! Something's been detected on the radar!"
Leon's urgent shout tore through the peace of the bridge. Before he could even finish his sentence, a formation of fighters shaped like sharp blades tore through the clouds in front of us and poured out.
They were the Empire's 'Glaive'-class interceptors!
"That's impossible! How did they predict our route? Lilia's course was perfect!"
Leon's scream was buried under a barrage of pouring red energy rounds. As a beam grazed the ship, I yanked the control stick vertically, relying on instincts honed over ten years.
The 'Lumina Lip' screamed as it nosedived toward the floating rock zone below.
"Hold on tight!"
This method was not the standard aerial combat taught at the Imperial Academy. It was the very essence of my survival instinct, forged from surviving ten years in the 'Maze of the Rusted Heart'.
I thrust the ship's nose without hesitation into a perilous gap between rocks, barely wide enough for the vessel to pass.
"Jayn! Are you crazy! The ship's going to snap in two!"
I ignored Leon's scream. Instead, I intentionally steered sharply to perform a 'Wall-Scraping' maneuver, grazing the side of the ship against the rock wall to throw off the enemy's aim.
As I did, one of the pursuing interceptors crashed into the rock and exploded into a massive ball of flame.
The core of this flight was not simple 'evasion.' It was the 'weaponization of the environment.'
I fired the ship's thrusters toward the small, unstable floating rocks on purpose. The resulting shockwave cascaded toward the pursuing formation like a 'Scrap-Quake'.
This is my 'Rust Haven Style'.
Just like that, we barely managed to lose them and when we finally exited the sea of clouds, the bridge was damp with rough breathing and cold sweat.
And only then did I realize. Leon's first words were the answer. This wasn't a simple patrol. They had perfectly predicted Lilia's 'safest natural route' using data and had dug a trap right there.
From that day on, a hellish chase began. We couldn't sleep properly for days.
"Damn it, damn it! My tech isn't working!"
The device Leon jury-rigged to jam the Imperial communication network was powerless against the enemy fleet's immediate frequency shifting. It was the moment his genius tasted frustration for the first time against the colossal system of the Empire.
With Leon's tech blocked, I lured the ship into a complex floating rock zone, just as I used to do in Rust Haven. But they no longer chased us recklessly. Instead, they blocked every entrance and exit of the rock zone with massive battleships.
They weren't crushing us with force. Like herding fish into a giant net, they were systematically driving us into a corner. And finally, one corner of that giant net opened, as if by design.
"That's the 'Grave Airspace'." Leon's voice was steeped in despair. "A place notorious for unstable Aether currents... It's right under the nose of the Empire's core military fortress, 'Ironbelt'! They spent days driving us here!"
Before he could even finish, I looked at the tactical map. Every direction was perfectly blocked by red Imperial icons.
"Right. That's definitely a trap. But..." There was nowhere else to go but that sole open path.
Eventually, the Lumina Rip turned its nose toward the 'Grave Airspace'. It was filled with fog-like Aether dust, making it impossible to see an inch ahead.
The very moment everyone held their breath, focusing on my hands gripping the helm, "No... It can't be!" Lilia screamed in horror. "The Aether... the flow of Aether is dead! This isn't a natural space!"
As soon as she finished speaking, every instrument panel on the bridge flashed madly and then went black all at once. The heart of the Lumina Rip, the Aether engine, had stopped.
Thud. With that ominous silence, the ship lost propulsion and came to a halt in the middle of a massive steel grave.
"The engine isn't responding! There's no Aether, so I can't generate power!" Leon shouted in despair. We had been perfectly ensnared by the 'Wide-Area Aether Dampener' installed by the Empire.
At that moment, the surrounding fog lifted like magic. And before our eyes, dozens of the Empire's elite warships, a legion from hell, revealed themselves, perfectly surrounding the Lumina Rip.
But what captured our gaze wasn't the number of the fleet. The existence standing at the center wasn't of the overwhelming size of an 'Imperator'-class. It was a chilling, state-of-the-art stealth high-speed ship, clad in matte black special armor that seemed to absorb light, with sleek curves like a beast of prey, appearing born solely for the hunt.
Adrian Valentine's personal flagship, 'Fenrir'.
He had perfectly neutralized all our strengths. My piloting, Leon's skills, Lilia's empathy—none of it mattered once the very foundation called 'Aether' disappeared.
A communication link opened from the Fenrir's bridge. Soon, Adrian's cold face, dressed in a flawless white uniform without a single crease, floated up as a hologram. His icy blue eyes slowly scanned us.
"Ghost of Arkelos, Jayn Rumor."
His icy gaze passed me and settled on Leon. "Ah, and the genius kicked out of 'Silverin'. Leon Bright. Miss Lilia Astrea as well."
He had already figured out everything about us.
"Your reckless game ends here. Surrender and hand over the Lumina Rip. That is the final mercy His Majesty the Emperor grants you."
I gripped the helm until my knuckles turned white, but the ship didn't even shudder. Even the blue flame in my left eye flickered faintly, unable to exert any power. 10 years ago, the day 'Arkelos' burned. The helplessness of an 8-year-old girl trapped in an escape pod, unable to do anything, washed over my entire body.
The tactical screen was perfectly blocked by red dots in every direction. I opened my dry lips and whispered low.
"...We're trapped."
A moment later, Adrian in the hologram slowly raised his hand with an expressionless face, as if he had lost his patience. At his signal, all the ships surrounding us began to open their red gunports toward the Lumina Rip in unison.