**T-Minus 00:10:00. Location: Academy Dormitory, West Wing.**
Prince Ken Vaelstron stood before his mirror, performing the final checks.
The boy in the reflection wore sleep silks, his hair slightly mussed, his face a portrait of harmless fatigue. This was the alibi.
The other self—the one dressed in matte-black phase-weave, tools secured in magnetic holsters, mind sharpened to a surgical edge—was invisible, a ghost in the machine.
His internal chronometer synchronized with the mission clock.
**01:30.**
The delayed nutrient delivery convoy would be arriving at the service entrance, drivers irritated, guards distracted.
He closed his eyes.
In the darkness behind his lids, the plan unfolded not as hope, but as a sequence of executable commands.
**>> COMMENCE OPERATION: JAILBREAK.**
**>> PHASE 1: ACQUISITION. STATUS: PENDING.**
**>> PRIMARY ASSET: SERAPHINE. LOCATION: MAINTENANCE CORRIDOR G-11.**
**>> TARGET: INQUISITOR-CADET VORLIS (RELATION: NEPHEW OF CARROW).**
He opened his eyes, the Prince's vague worry settling over the Phantom's resolve.
It was time to move.
---
**T-Minus 00:05:00. Location: Utility Junction G-12.**
Ken moved through the academy's underbelly, a shadow in a world of shadows.
**Quantumization** was used sparingly—a brief, silent phase through a locked grate, the faint ionic trail a risk his speed had to outrun.
His **Eye of Truth** painted the world in layers: the hot, rushing lines of power conduits, the cool, static grids of structural beams, and the pulsing, anxious bio-signatures of the few night guards.
He reached Junction G-12, a niche filled with humming converter boxes.
Selene's "correction."
According to her, disabling the geothermal tunnel motion sensors required a localized surge here. A timed energy spike would fry the sensor circuit's relay without triggering a central alarm.
Ken produced a small, ceramic-bodied capacitor from his belt—a gadget inspired by Jax's own designs.
He attached its leads to two primary power lines. His fingers moved with precise grace, setting the discharge timer.
**01:35.**
He hid the device behind a conduit.
*Selene's variable. Trust coefficient: 0.6. Risk of trap: 38%. Countermeasure: If surge triggers alarm, abort and retreat via alternate route Epsilon.*
He melted back into the darkness.
---
**T-Minus 00:00:00. Location: Maintenance Corridor G-11. 01:30.**
Inquisitor-Cadet Vorlis was bored and bitter.
His uncle had him walking damp corridors while the real action was at the delivery bay. He rounded a corner, his bootsteps echoing.
He never heard the figure drop from the overhead ventilation shaft.
Seraphine landed like a panther, her form a study in lethal grace.
Vorlis started to turn, his mouth opening to shout.
Her hands were already in motion—precise, clinical, following the holographic pattern Ken had burned into her memory.
*Strike one:* The heel of her palm to the brachial plexus. His right arm went numb.
*Strike two:* Knuckles to the cervical plexus. His breath seized.
*Strike three:* A measured chop to the occipital lobe. His eyes rolled back.
Vorlis collapsed without a sound.
Seraphine caught him, lowering him gently to the floor. She felt no thrill, only the cold satisfaction of a perfect execution.
In twelve seconds, she had his handprint tablet and pried the vocal code-key from his belt.
His bio-signs, checked with two fingers to his neck, were stable. Unconscious.
*Phase 1: Complete.*
She vanished toward the secondary location, a ghost in cadet's garb.
---
**T-Minus 00:10:00. Location: Disused Maintenance Closet, Lift Shaft Gamma-7. 01:40.**
Ken was already there when Seraphine slipped inside.
She handed him the biometric tools. He took them without a word, connecting the handprint tablet to his own data-slate. His fingers flew, writing a spoofing program that would loop Vorlis's clearance for three minutes.
"Junction G-12 is primed," he whispered. "Sensors will go dark at 01:35. You have a four-minute window from lift arrival to return. The guard post is here."
He showed her a schematic.
"I will create a distraction at 01:37. A contained arc-flash in a secondary conduit. It will draw the desk guard. You go straight to Cell 3-B. Jax will be there."
"What if he's not?" Her voice was tight.
"He will be."
Ken's certainty was absolute. His intelligence network, paid for in stolen data-cores, had confirmed it.
"He may be disoriented. You must carry him if necessary."
Seraphine nodded, her jaw set.
Ken finished with the tablet and handed it back.
"Your turn."
They moved to the lift door.
Seraphine pressed Vorlis's palm to the scanner. It glowed green.
She brought the code-key to her lips, her voice a perfect, dispassionate mimicry of the young Inquisitor's tenor.
"*Cadet Vorlis, descending for cell inspection.*"
The lift doors hissed open.
Empty.
She stepped inside, turning to face Ken.
For a fraction of a second, their eyes met. No words were exchanged. A million calculations, a single shared purpose.
The doors closed.
---
**T-Minus 00:12:00. Location: Sub-Level 3, Inquisition Seminary. 01:42.**
The lift descended into silence.
Seraphine's heart was a steady drum against her ribs. The doors opened to a stark, white corridor. The air was cold and smelled of ozone and antiseptic.
Twenty meters ahead, a single junior Inquisitor sat at a monitoring station, bored.
Right on schedule, a sharp *POP* echoed from a side corridor, followed by the sizzle of frying circuits and a wisp of smoke.
The guard jumped up, grabbing a shock-baton.
"What in the...?" He hurried toward the sound.
Seraphine moved.
Silently, swiftly, she passed the empty desk and found the cell block.
3-A... 3-B.
The door was a solid slab of metal with a view slit. She slid the view slit open.
Inside, curled on a bare slab, was Jax.
His goggles were gone. One eye was swollen shut. He was shivering, muttering to himself about resonant frequencies. He looked small.
"Jax," she hissed.
He flinched, curling tighter.
"No more questions... the crystal lattice was unstable, I told you..."
"Jax! It's Seraphine. We're leaving. *Now.*"
Recognition flickered in his one good eye. He uncurled, moving stiffly.
"Sera...? They took my tools..."
"Forget the tools."
She used Vorlis's tablet on the cell lock. It clicked open.
She hauled Jax to his feet. He was light, unsteady. She half-dragged, half-carried him back down the corridor.
The guard was still poking at the smoldering conduit.
They reached the lift.
Seraphine jabbed the button.
The guard turned.
"Hey! You! Halt!"
The doors slid shut just as he started to run.
Seraphine leaned against the wall, Jax clinging to her, as the lift ascended.
*Phase 2: Complete.*
---
**T-Minus 00:18:00. Location: Motor Pool, Bay 4. 01:50.**
Ken watched from the rafters as the two guards assigned to Inquisitorial Skimmer Theta-9 played a game of cards.
At 01:52, their comms crackled.
*"All available personnel, sub-level three, electrical incident. Assist and secure."*
The guards groaned, dropped their cards, and jogged away.
Ken dropped to the floor.
The skimmer was a sleek, black vehicle with the stark white eye of the Inquisition on its door.
He approached the diagnostic terminal. As predicted, the system was mid-diagnostic, security protocols in a standby loop.
He inserted a data-spike—a modified version of Jax's own code-breaching algorithms.
The terminal screen flickered, error messages scrolling.
**SECURITY LOCKOUT PURGED. MANUAL OVERRIDE ENABLED. 90 SECONDS.**
He wrenched the driver's side door open. Slid inside.
The interior smelled of stale fear and cleaner. Behind the dashboard, just as Selene had said, was a small, physical lock with a keypad.
He typed the code-phrase.
**P U R I T A S - P E R - I G N I S**
A green light.
The steering column unlocked.
He loaded the pre-plotted navigation course into the console: a direct path to the main gate, then to the weather station.
He powered up the repulsors, a low hum filling the bay.
Headlights cut through the gloom of the bay entrance.
Seraphine, supporting Jax, stumbled into view.
Ken leaned over and shoved the passenger door open.
"Get in. Now."
They scrambled inside.
Jax stared at the Inquisitorial controls with his one good eye, a spark of his old self returning.
"You *stole* it..."
"Borrowed," Ken corrected flatly, engaging the thrust.
The skimmer glided out of the bay and onto the empty service road toward the academy's main gate.
---
**T-Minus 00:22:00. Location: Main Academy Gate. 01:58.**
The gate was a massive arch of reinforced crystal. Two gate guards waved them down.
Ken slowed, rolling down the tinted window just enough.
One guard peered in, saw the black interior, the Inquisitorial markings.
"Vehicle ID?"
"Theta-Nine," Ken said, his voice altered by a sub-vocal modulator to a bored, official baritone. "Scheduled systems check. Transponder is live."
He tapped the console; the vehicle's ID flashed on the guard's data-slate.
The guard glanced at his partner, who shrugged. The log showed a diagnostic. The skimmer looked official.
From the back, Jax held his breath.
"Proceed," the guard said, waving them through.
The skimmer passed out of the academy's aura of light and into the freedom of the star-lit night.
---
**T-Minus 01:05:00. Location: Abandoned Weather Station. 02:45.**
The skimmer settled on the rocky outcrop.
The silence was immense, broken only by the wind. Ken shut down the systems.
In the back, Jax was crying silent, shuddering tears of relief and pain. Seraphine awkwardly patted his shoulder.
Ken got out, surveying the area.
His **Eye of Truth** detected no pursuit, no lurking signatures. Selene had not betrayed them. The capacitor at Junction G-12 had fired as programmed.
The plan, against all statistical probability, had succeeded.
He turned as Seraphine helped Jax out of the skimmer.
The engineer looked at Ken, really looked at him, for the first time.
"You..." Jax whispered, his voice raw. "You're the quiet prince. You did all this?"
"We did," Ken said, glancing at Seraphine. "You are a high-value asset. Your loss was... operationally unacceptable."
It was the Phantom's reason.
But as he said it, watching Jax's trembling hands—the hands that built and fixed and understood—he knew it was also a lie he told himself.
There was no operational matrix that fully justified this risk.
Jax let out a wet, hiccuping sound that was almost a laugh.
"Operationally unacceptable. Right."
He swayed.
"I think... I need to sit down."
As Seraphine tended to him, Ken looked back toward the distant glittering spires of the academy.
By now, Vorlis would be waking with a headache. The Seminary would be in an uproar. Carrow would be incandescent with rage.
The hunt for the Phantom would reach a fever pitch.
He had won the night.
But he had also escalated the war to a new, more dangerous level. And he had bound himself tighter to two people he could no longer view as mere tools.
Seraphine approached him, her face illuminated by the moon.
"He needs medical attention. Real medicine."
"I have a contact," Ken said. "A discrete physician in the lower capital. We'll go at first light."
He paused.
"You executed Phase 1 with 98% efficiency."
She didn't smile.
"What's the other 2%?"
"Vorlis will have a bruise on his knee from the fall. Aesthetic imperfection."
He said it deadpan.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips before fading.
"What now?"
"Now," Ken said, turning his gaze back to the academy, where alarms would now be silently flashing, "we become what they fear most. Not a ghost they can hunt, but a cause that has rescued one of its own. The legend of the Phantom just grew a conscience."
He looked at her.
"And that is far more dangerous to them than any heresy."
In the distance, against the first hint of dawn, the shape of the academy looked less like a school and more like a fortress they had just successfully besieged.
---
**[End of Chapter 8]**