Page 8 of Savage Bond

Just like that.

A whole ship reduced to static and ghost data because they thought they could contain something older than time itself. Something that doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t belong in this part of space.

And we’ve got one of those sitting five decks beneath my feet.

I close the file, my jaw clenched so tight I feel it in my temples.

Nobody wants to admit what these relics really are. Not command. Not intel. Not even the science division that catalogues them like they’re just another oddity to be dissected and filed away.

I glance toward the cell feed again.

A Reaper.

A goddamn Precursor relic.

And me, smack in the middle of it.

I sit straighter. Watch the screens.

Focus. Survive. Don’t fuck up.

And that’s when the ship explodes.

CHAPTER 4

KAIRON

They never see us coming. Fucking amateurs.

“Breaching now,” Nyra’s voice cracks through my comms, all business. I can hear the hiss of pressure equalizing as our grapplers punch into the IHC hull. One of the sleek little bastards. Smooth, sterile. Not for long.

“Cut clean,” I growl, standing at the boarding hatch, hand wrapped tight around my rifle. “We’re not here for a body count. Get me to the core.”

Renn’s grin flashes in the smoke. “Says the guy who leaves trails.”

I slam the butt of my rifle into the bulkhead. “Shut it, Dravik.”

The doors burst open. Screams follow.

Smoke floods the corridor, and I move like a ghost through it—fast, brutal, surgical. The IHC boys scramble in the haze, all panic and training wheels. They aim high. I aim for throats.

The first one goes down with a crunch, his helmet cracking like a cheap shell under my boot. I drag the second into the wall so hard he folds before he can beg. Another rounds the corner, yells something righteous. I put a round through his kneecap and let him scream.

“Move, move!” Nyra’s voice again, closer now. My crew's sweeping through the ship, cutting through their half-assed resistance. They’re trained, sure—but not for me.

Never for me.

We take the right junction, and I slam my fist against the control panel to overload the doors. Sparks spit. The corridor lights strobe. For a second, I see her—an IHC officer ducking behind a console at the far end.

She’s quick. Small. But she moves like someone who’s expecting hell. The kind who doesn’t run from a fire—just tries to box it in.

The lights flicker, strobe-blinking like a club on fire. I jam a spike into the wall panel, fry the lock, and rip the next door open.

More resistance. Useless.

I slam one soldier into the ceiling and crush his chest against the floor. Another takes three shots to the vest before I gut him anyway. The hallway starts to smell like a butcher’s stall.

“Three decks down,” Renn pants into the comms. “That’s where the AI’s housed.”

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