The connection to the SoulNet didn't feel like a river anymore. It felt like a drill.
Kael sat in the command harness of the modified heavy-assault mech, his withered legs encased in servo-braces that cost more than the GDP of a small moon. The cockpit smelled of recycled air and old sweat. Outside the reinforced transparisteel, the void of space was vast and indifferent, punctuated only by the ugly, angular silhouette of the Kantos Shipyard.
He closed his eyes.
The Shard Su Yuan had shoved into his chest wasn't a gift. It was a burden. It was a heavy, burning coal of authority that demanded fuel.
"Link," Kael thought.
The world didn't shimmer. It snapped.
The cockpit dissolved. The sensors of the mech became his skin. The fusion reactor became his heart. And the twelve thousand souls connected to the Net became a reservoir of violence waiting for a direction.
"Sir," a voice crackled in his ear. It was Voss, leader of the 'Immortals'—the mech squad Su Yuan had assigned to him. Voss sounded bored. "We are crossing the engagement threshold. Defensive grid is active. Expecting flak in five."
"Hold position," Kael said. His voice was distorted by the external speakers, booming across the open comms channel.
"Holding is death," Voss countered. "We need to scramble the interceptors. If we sit here, the railguns will peel us like fruit."
"I said hold."
Kael didn't look at the tactical display. He looked at the shipyard with his mind.
It was a fortress. Three drydocks, arranged like the tines of a fork. In the cradles sat the prizes: three Goliath-class Dreadnoughts. They were half-painted, skeletal in places, but their main cannons were installed.
Between Kael and those ships lay a dense field of automated kill-satellites and a perimeter wall bristling with point-defense lasers.
"Subject 808," Voss said, using the designation like a slur. "We are target-locked. I am deploying countermeasures."
"No," Kael said. "Save your chaff."
Kael gripped the control sticks. He didn't push them forward. He pulled the mana from the Shard.
[ SKILL: GIANT'S AVATAR (ADMINISTRATOR OVERRIDE) ]
[ COST: 4000 SOUL-POINTS/SEC ]
It didn't start with a flash of light. It started with a distortion.
Space around Kael's mech began to warp. Light bent. The stars behind him smeared into streaks.
A form materialized. It wasn't made of energy; it was made of pressure. It was a spectral projection of a warrior, five hundred meters tall, translucent and terrifying. It enveloped Kael's mech, its ghostly hands overlapping with the mechanical claws, its head roaring in silent vacuum.
The 'Immortals' on the comms fell silent.
Inside the cockpit, Kael's nose began to bleed. The strain was immense. It felt like holding up a collapsing building.
"Forward," Kael whispered.
The Giant moved.
It didn't use thrusters. It kicked off the fabric of space itself.
The first volley of railgun slugs hit the spectral chest. They didn't detonate. They slowed, caught in the metaphysical density of the Avatar, and dissolved into harmless sprays of molten tungsten.
"What in the hells..." Voss breathed.
Kael ignored him. He raised a massive, ghostly arm. He visualized a hammer. The SoulNet complied, knitting mana into a dense, blunt force construct.
He swung.
The blow didn't make a sound in the vacuum, but the impact shuddered through the sensor feeds of every ship in the sector. The defensive perimeter didn't break; it shattered. The kill-satellites were swept aside like dust motes. The heavy durasteel wall of the shipyard crumpled inward, metal screeching a protest that vibrated through the hulls of the attacking fleet.
"Breach," Kael grunted. Blood dripped onto his lip. "Move. Now."
The Immortals woke up. Their thrusters flared white, and the twelve heavy mechs streaked through the hole Kael had punched in the world.
Inside the shipyard, the silence of space was replaced by the chaos of atmosphere.
Alarms blared—a harsh, rhythmic braying that grated on the nerves. Red emergency lights bathed the hangars in the color of dried blood.
Kael dropped the Avatar. He couldn't sustain it. The Shard was hot in his chest, a physical heat that made his breath come in short gasps. His mech landed on the deck of Drydock One with a heavy thud, cracking the floor plates.
"Secure the perimeter," Kael ordered, his voice rasping. "Voss, take Alpha squad to the control tower. Beta, secure the airlocks. I want those Dreadnoughts locked down."
"Copy," Voss said. The insubordination was gone, replaced by the tight, clipped tone of professional soldiering. Seeing a man punch a hole in a space station tended to adjust one's attitude.
Kael walked his mech toward the first Dreadnought. It was a beast of iron and guns, named The Sovereign. It loomed over him, silent and cold.
It was too quiet.
Su Yuan had taught him to listen to the silence. When the enemy stops shooting, Su Yuan had said, it's not because they gave up. It's because they're reloading something bigger.
There were no workers fleeing. No security teams setting up barricades.
"Voss," Kael said. "Status on the tower."
"Tower is empty, sir. Consoles are active but unmanned. It looks like they evacuated."
"Evacuated?" Kael narrowed his eyes. "This is a strategic asset. The Empire doesn't evacuate assets. They grind them to dust before letting them go."
He looked at the tactical map provided by the Shard. The facility was huge, a labyrinth of gantries and fuel lines.
His eyes snagged on a heat signature deep in the station's gut. Sector 9. The main reactor core.
The temperature wasn't stable. It was climbing. Exponentially.
"Get out," Kael said softly. Then he shouted. "Abort! All units, retreat to the Black Star!"
"Sir?" Voss asked. "We just got here. The ships are—"
"It's a trap!" Kael roared, slamming his fist against the console. "The reactor is cycling for a critical mass overload. They rigged the place to blow. They're going to vaporize the ships and us with them."
"Reading it now," Voss said, his voice spiking with panic. "Thermal runaway in progress. Detonation in three minutes. We can't clear the blast radius in time."
"Go," Kael ordered. "Get the squad to the perimeter. Full burn."
"What about you?"
Kael looked at the Sovereign. He looked at the other two ships, the Monarch and the Tyrant.
Su Yuan needed these ships. The rebellion was fighting with scraps. These were hammers. If Kael came back with nothing but a story about a trap, they would lose the war of attrition.
Calculated risk.
He checked the timer. Two minutes, forty-five seconds.
The reactor was three kilometers down-station.
"I'm going to turn it off," Kael said.
"You can't," Voss argued. "The radiation levels down there will cook you inside the suit. And there's likely a rearguard."
"Get the squad clear, Voss. That's an order."
Kael didn't wait for an acknowledgement. He engaged the mech's over-boosters. The hydraulic legs compressed, and the machine launched itself down the main cargo corridor.
He moved like a cannonball. He smashed through blast doors, not bothering to hack them. He shoulder-checked a bulkhead, crumpling the steel.
The heat rose.
The internal temperature of the cockpit climbed to forty degrees. Then fifty.
[ WARNING: ENVIRONMENTAL SHIELDING FAILING. ]
[ EXTERNAL RADIATION: LETHAL. ]
Kael gritted his teeth. He pulled on the Shard.
"Deduced Skill," he snarled. "Iron Skin."
A layer of grey, metallic mana coated his body, seeping into his pores. It wouldn't stop the radiation, but it would keep his cells from unravelling for a few more minutes.
He burst into the reactor antechamber.
He wasn't alone.
Standing in front of the blast door to the core was a single figure.
It was a Praetorian Guard. The elite. Seven feet of crimson power armor, holding a vibro-glaive that hummed with a hateful purple light.
The Guard didn't speak. He simply leveled the glaive.
"I don't have time for this," Kael said.
He checked the timer. Ninety seconds.
Kael charged.
The Praetorian was fast. Faster than a machine should be. He sidestepped Kael's clumsy tackle, the glaive slashing out.
Screech.
The blade carved through the thick armor of Kael's mech leg. Sparks showered the deck. Hydraulic fluid sprayed out, hot and black.
The mech stumbled.
The Praetorian spun, bringing the glaive down for a killing blow on the cockpit.
Kael didn't try to dodge. He didn't have the agility.
He ejected.
The canopy blew off with explosive force. The Praetorian flinched, the glaive wavering for a fraction of a second.
Kael flew out of the smoke. He wasn't in a mech anymore. He was a crippled man in a exo-rig, flying through the air with a pistol in one hand and a glowing blue Shard in his chest.
He didn't aim for the Praetorian's head. The armor was too thick.
He aimed for the floor.
[ SKILL: GRAVITY WELL. ]
Kael fired the mana downward.
The gravity in the room shifted instantly. It increased tenfold.
The Praetorian crumpled. His knees hit the deck with a sound like a car crash. The glaive clattered from his grip. The crimson armor groaned, servos whining as they tried to fight the weight of a planet.
Kael hit the floor hard. His exo-rig absorbed the impact, but the shock traveled up his spine. He screamed, a raw sound of pain that tore his throat.
He dragged himself forward. The gravity was crushing him too, but he was used to weight. He had carried the weight of being a test subject, a cripple, a victim for years.
Gravity was just an old friend.
He crawled past the pinned Praetorian. The Guard was struggling to breathe, the helmet speakers emitting wet, choking sounds.
Kael reached the reactor door. It was sealed.
He placed his hand on the lock.
"Open," he commanded.
The Shard flared. He didn't hack the code. He burned it out. He pushed so much raw data into the locking mechanism that the circuit board melted.
The door hissed and slid open halfway.
Kael squeezed through.
The heat inside was a physical blow. It was a solid wall of thermal energy. His flight suit began to smoke. The hair on his arms singed away.
The reactor core was pulsing red, a throbbing heart of instability. The countdown on the console read: 00:28.
Kael dragged himself to the manual override. His legs were dead weight, the servos in his rig fused by the heat. He pulled himself up by his arms, his muscles screaming.
He reached the lever.
It was stuck. Thermal expansion had welded it in place.
00:15.
"Come on," Kael wept. tears evaporated instantly on his cheeks. "Move."
He pulled. His tendons popped.
Nothing.
He thought of Su Yuan. He thought of the man who had looked at a broken boy in a wheelchair and seen a general. He thought of the trust in those eyes when he handed over the Shard.
Use the Net, Su Yuan's voice echoed in his memory. Don't just pull from it. Be part of it.
Kael let go of the lever.
He placed both hands on the hot metal casing of the reactor. His skin sizzled. The smell of burning meat filled his nose.
He didn't pull mana. He pushed.
He pushed the concept of Stasis.
He pushed the feeling of a frozen lake, of absolute zero, of time stopping.
[ SKILL DEDUCTION: ENTROPY LOCK. ]
[ RANK: B ]
[ WARNING: BIO-FEEDBACK CRITICAL. ]
The mana poured out of him. It turned grey, then white. It flowed into the reactor, wrapping around the fuel rods.
The pulsing red light slowed.
Thump... thump... thump.
The countdown froze at 00:03.
The roar of the reaction died, replaced by the ticking of cooling metal.
Kael slumped against the console. He couldn't feel his hands. He looked down. They were black, charred, the skin ruinous.
He keyed his comms.
"Voss," he croaked.
"Sir! We registered the thermal drop. What happened?"
"The fire is out," Kael whispered. darkness was creeping into the edges of his vision. "Send a tow crew. I want my ships."
The infirmary on the Black Star was quiet.
Su Yuan's holographic projection stood by the bio-bed. It flickered slightly, a byproduct of the long-range transmission.
Kael lay on the bed. His hands were wrapped in regenerative bandages. His legs were strapped down. He looked smaller without the rig, without the mech.
"You disobeyed orders," Su Yuan said. His voice was calm, unreadable.
"I secured the assets," Kael replied. His voice was rough. "Three Dreadnoughts. Operational. We can mount the new cannons on them within the week."
"You almost died."
"Almost counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," Kael muttered, reciting an idiom he had read in the Archivist's database. "Not in war."
Su Yuan looked at him for a long time. Then, he sighed. The holographic shoulders slumped.
"The Praetorian?"
"Crushed," Kael said. "Gravity well. Left him for the salvage crew."
"And the Shard?"
"It... it hurts," Kael admitted. He touched his chest. The glowing light beneath his skin was dimmer now, pulsing slowly. "It feels like it's eating me."
"It is," Su Yuan said bluntly. "It's too much power for one conduit. I'm recalling it."
Kael's eyes widened. "No. I need it. I can handle it."
"You proved you can handle it," Su Yuan said. "You also proved you don't know when to stop. That makes you dangerous, Kael. To the enemy, and to yourself."
Su Yuan raised a hand.
Kael felt a wrenching sensation in his chest. A cold hook pulled upward.
The light left him.
The Shard drifted out of his body, turning into digital motes that vanished into the transmission stream.
The loss was immediate. The sense of omniscience, the feeling of infinite strength—it vanished. Kael felt the weight of his own broken body crash back down on him. He felt the pain in his burned hands. He felt the uselessness of his legs.
He felt small.
"You did well," Su Yuan said softly. "Rest now. You're the Iron of the Trident, Kael. Iron doesn't need magic to be strong. It just needs to be forged."
The transmission cut.
Kael stared at the ceiling. He felt hollowed out.
The door to the infirmary hissed open.
Voss walked in. The squad leader was still in his flight suit, smelling of sweat and ozone. He held a bottle of clear, unmarked liquid.
He stopped at the foot of the bed. He looked at Kael—at the burns, the withered legs, the bandages.
He didn't sneer. He didn't look away.
Voss uncorked the bottle and took a swig. Then he held it out.
"To the Iron," Voss said.
Kael looked at the bottle. He looked at the soldier who had doubted him, mocked him.
He managed a weak, painful smile.
"To the Iron," Kael rasped.
He couldn't hold the bottle with his bandaged hands, so Voss tipped it for him. The alcohol burned going down, almost as bad as the reactor.
But it was a good burn.
*
[ LOCATION: KANTOS SHIPYARD - LOWER LEVELS ]
[ TIME: 2 HOURS POST-ASSAULT ]
The salvage drone drifted through the silent corridor. It was scanning for scrap, for usable metal.
It hovered over the body of the Praetorian Guard.
The armor was crushed. The chest plate was concave, caved in by the immense gravity pressure.
But the Guard wasn't dead.
A hand, encased in crimson ceramite, twitched. It reached out and grabbed the drone's manipulator arm.
Crunch.
The drone sparked and died.
The Praetorian pulled himself up. His breathing was a wet rattle. Blood leaked from the grill of his helmet.
He reached for his belt. The emergency beacon was smashed.
He reached for his neck. He activated the sub-dermal implant.
[ TRANSMISSION: PRIORITY ZERO. ]
[ RECIPIENT: HIGH COMMAND. ]
[ MESSAGE: THE GLITCH HAS SPREAD. ]
[ SUBJECT 808 EXHIBITED ADMINISTRATOR-LEVEL CAPABILITIES. REALITY MANIPULATION CONFIRMED. ]
[ REQUESTING: THE INQUISITION. ]
The transmission sent.
The Praetorian slumped back against the wall. He looked at the empty reactor casing.
"Trident," he wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "He called it... a Trident."
The lights in the corridor flickered and died, leaving him in the dark.
But he smiled.
Because now, the Empire knew. It wasn't just one man anymore.
It was an infection.
And infections could be burned out.