I swiped the tablet shut. The "Welcome to the sky" memo vanished.
Right. Like I ever left.
0558 hours. The hangar lights were still warming up, turning the air the color of old steel. It smelled like ion fuel and tomorrow's regrets. ADA kept sending these orientation updates. Protocol, they said. I said it was annoying.
Blackbird-3. Not the famous Blackbird-9. We were the recon-strike wing, which meant we got all the escort duty nobody else wanted, and all the blame when it went to hell. Perfect.
A soft chime buzzed in my ear. Mission brief.I opened the display while heading for Bay 12.
Operation: WARDEN RUN
Escort Destroyer Kepler's Edge to Transit Point Gamma.
Cargo: Classified.
Hostile Probability: XN-S05 – Medium.
Launch: 0615.
Fifteen minutes. Enough to get ready.
"Paige!" Mira called from across the bay. She was sitting on a crate, tying her hair back. "You look like someone just made you read the entire safety manual."
"They did,"I said.
My jet sat on Pad 4. A Stinger-VX7. Wings folded, nose down like it was already pissed off. She was old, but she was mine.
Ren jogged up, his visor clipped to his hip. "Heard the Edge is carrying something big. They didn't even bother calling it 'routine' this time."
"Whatever it is,"I said, running a hand along the cold fuselage, "an S-05 will smell it before we're halfway to Gamma."
"Always so comforting,"he muttered.
I climbed in. The cockpit sealed with a smooth hiss. The HUD lit up, crystals scanning my chip.
ACE CONFIRMED — PAIGE, LUCAS S.
CALL SIGN — FROST
SYNC — PENDING
I let the sync settle. The jet always felt… cold. Sharp. Not alive, not like Xyne tech, but aware. You had to respect it.
"Blackbird-3, report ready." came through the comms.
"Frost, ready." I said.
"Evoc, set." Ren answered.
"Shocker, active." Mira added.
The canopy slid shut. Outside, the hangar doors began to grind open, slicing a rectangle of grey morning into the dark.
Welcome to the sky.
Fine.
Let's work.
★ —. —. —. ★
The mag-clamps released. The jet rolled forward, launch lights strobing down the tunnel like a racing pulse. Kepler's Edge was already out there, waiting. Our job was simple: escort the destroyer and get its "classified humanitarian" cargo to the Rift line without it sinking. "Classified humanitarian" usually meant something nobody wanted to talk about.
"Blackbird-Escort, you are green. No XN signatures in the area."
Ren snorted over comms."Which means they'll show up any second."
"Stay focused,"I told them. "Clean run. No surprises."
"Launch in three… two… one."
The catapult fired. The world smeared.
Twenty minutes later, the ocean was a dark, restless sheet under a low ceiling of storm cloud. Ambush weather, if I'd ever seen it.
Kepler's Edge appeared on radar—a big, slow blip, already flashing its deck lights in warning yellow.
"Edge Actual to Escort." The captain said. "Good to have you. We had some sonar ghosts earlier. Probably nothing."
"Probably,"Ren said. "My favorite word."
"Keep it tight,"I ordered. "Wing formation."
We dropped into a triangular screen around the ship.
That's when the static started. A faint hiss, then a pulse, then a vibration I felt in my teeth.
My HUD flickered. Then a new frame burned into the display, clean and terrible.
ANOMALOUS MASS DETECTED
CLASS: XN-Ω
DISTANCE: 4.1 KM
My stomach dropped straight through the seat.
"Frost…"Mira breathed. "That's impossible."
"A Breach-Class can't be here,"Ren said, his voice tight. "The water's not deep enough. There's no way—"
The ocean cut him off.
The water ahead didn't wave. It rose. A mountain of dark crimson biometal stepped out of the sea. Water sheeted off plates bigger than houses. Beneath the armor, lines of glowing organ-light pulsed like a sick heartbeat. It just kept rising, until it blocked out the horizon.
XN-Ω. A Breach-Class. The kind of thing they tell you to run from.
Kepler's Edge screamed its alarms. Engines roared, trying to turn the massive hull.
I opened my mouth to order the retreat. The creature was faster.
A beam of pure white light shot from its chest. It hit Ren's jet head-on.
There was no explosion.The beam just tore through the cockpit and split the aircraft in half. One moment Ren was there. The next he was falling apart in pieces of burning metal.
Mira screamed his name, but he was already gone. Probably the second that beam touched his cockpit.
I forced a breath. "Shocker, stay high! Edge, break right—!"
The leviathan dove. Its massive arm came up and slammed into the destroyer's side.
The ship lifted out of the water. It rolled, cracked open along the middle, and fire swallowed the deck.
It shot a second beam. This one closer.
It seared past my canopy. Half my displays blew out in a shower of sparks. The jet shuddered violently.
"Frost—pull up!" Mira shouted.
I pulled. The controls fought me, gone heavy and dead. A shockwave hit us like a hammer. The jet bucked sideways.
Alarms screamed. My right engine lit up in flames. Something behind me tore loose with a metallic shriek.
The world spun in the glass—clouds, ocean, clouds again.
"I'm losing it."
Through the static, a voice. Mira, or the Edge. I couldn't tell.
"…Frost…abort… abort…"
Then the ocean filled the windshield.
Impact. Cold water blasted through the cracks. The cockpit spun, flooded, went blue, then black.
The last thing I felt was the weight dragging me down.
Into the dark.
★★.—. ★★