Page 21 of Claimed By the War Brute
My lips twitch. “Maybe a sequel.” I duck away, shoving data disks into hidden storage. “For now... watch the com link. We need either Alliance deputies on our side—or his empire breaking ranks fast.”
He steadies me with touch—a grounded anchor in my storm. “I’ve got your back.”
And beneath all the noise of ship systems and echoes of our confession, I feel it: Fierce alignment. Purpose merged.
We settle back, leaning against the console and bulkhead. Together. War is on our lips.
I glance sideways at Garrus, fierce resolve lending something almost tender to his gaze. He tilts his head once—never speaks love, but I know it’s there.
In the dim glow, I touch his shoulder deliberately. “Let’s pick the right battlefield.”
He exhales. “We will.”
Out here, in the void, we are no longer lost. We are weapons. We are message. And soon—when Malmount’s empire begins to fall—we’ll be the reason he bleeds.
Tonight, I declared war. Now, I’m ready to dominate it.
CHAPTER 18
GARRUS
It begins with a flicker. A nearly imperceptible stutter deep in the ship’s gravity readings—barely a hesitation, like someone breath caught mid-kiss. My eyes narrow. I hear the dying whine of the sensor as it recalibrates. Before the ship’s AI can flinch, the console shrieks, alarms bursting alive in red strobe flares.
“Grav shift—external—and it’s trying to mask itself,” I growl, voice iron as I fling myself from the pilot’s chair and sprint into the cockpit.
Syd follows in my wake, her footsteps swift like a dancer. She slides into the copilot seat and snatches the override panel, eyes locked on the external feeds.
I tap into optics. Three shapes glide just outside our orbit—jet-black silhouettes etched against drifting debris. Transponders are dead. But the crest? The Malmount sigil, a griffon clutching a star, stamped on each hull like a herald of doom.
He’s here. Not sending drones. Not the Alliance. No political hand-wringing. He’s sent his private fleet.
I lean in hard. “They came fast,” she breathes, voice taut.
“Means he knew we’d hit back. He was waiting,” I growl.
She tightens her jaw. “Perfect. Let’s give him a reason.”
A savage grin curves my lips. We don’t hide. We fight.
The first salvo slams into our port side before our shields even hum. Hull plating groans—an animal roared at with a heavy boot. The Vortaxian courier was never meant for combat—its sleek frame was designed for speed and stealth, not slugging it out in a firefight. But it was ours now, and if we were going down, we’d go on our own terms.
I slash the ship into an evasive spin, lightning-fast. My hands dance across controls—I cut power to life support, divert every watt to shields and thrusters. The engines scream in complaint; metal plates whine and twist, but they hold.
Syd detonates chaff canisters and old mining flares from the drift field. Smoke and shards bloom around us, turning the void into a sparkling rainbow of confusion. The radar blips fracture under the assault.
“Not good enough!” she yells over the ship’s roar.
“No!” I shoot back, voice flat steel. “We punch through.”
I launch my counter-strike: an auxiliary surge into the jump core—engine thrumming wild. Bypass locks click. The ship clatters as every spark leans into velocity. Mechanical pulse fades, replaced by humming tension.
“That... doesn't sound legal,” she quizzes, half-smile lighting at the edge of her lips.
“It isn’t,” I grin grin, voice low. “It’s Vakutan.”
A final detonation near the rear shakes us; I barrel through the asteroid field. Rock and forgotten starship husks loom. I weave us between wreckage, carving precision lanes where colliding debris meets foe fire. We give ghosts levels of confusion.
One of the Malmount black cruisers follows my trail, staggered by my maneuvers, trying to adjust vector. I launch a gravity pulse loop, slamming their hull into a floating miningrig. The impact is a brilliant supernova in the darkness—metal shreds and debris bloom like a dark rose.
