Page 36 of Claimed By the War Brute
I ease the stick forward. “Engage.”
Space fractures into motion.
Thrusters flare. The convoy comes into view: four transports escorted by two heavy gunships. No soldiers aboard. No sign of life. Just metal and intent. And blood on our hands.
I plot the attack course. “You hit the engines, we ghost through the shadows. I’ll hack the point-defense turret.”
She nods, arm moving like it’s painted steel. “Copy.”
We ping the convoy.
As we slice toward them through particle shimmer, the first payload-ship’s engines dip—we hit them with an electromagnetic pulse burst. The ship shuts down like a corpse deflated in a morgue. My jaw clenches. We’re alive.
She releases a decoy beacon. The escorts divert—caught between reloading and scanning. With a grunt, I punch through the cockpit door, override safety protocols, and step into their turret room via EVA port—vacuum cold and metal teeth under my boots.
I taste rotation in the telescope. Gunship pilot tries to lock a salvo, but sensors fail, shields flicker. I stand in silence—just heartbeat and vacuum. Then a reconnect pulse rips through the console, mincing the turret head apart.
I return to the airlock, suit hiss, then exit back into the cockpit.
“Easy?” Syd’s voice, razor-dry.
“Delicate.” I keep it short.
She flips switches, cuts the main transponder. “Broadcasting logs,” she says. “Leaders will see proof in real-time.”
The wreckage glows behind us—the convoy sent drifting toward a silent reaper cluster. No survivors, no trace. Just the remains of bribes and bones.
I grab her hand. She lets me. Her fingers are small but fierce. We stay linked through every turn, every forgotten star.
Jump arcs clear the zone. We pass through void and unclaimed space. Vigil’s End hums low, like a steel cocoon stabilizing.
“It works,” she breathes, leaning back in nav chair. “He should bleed now.”
I glance at her. Fatigue etched in the margins of her jaw. But her eyes still burn real. “He will.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “What comes next?”
I fold us close. The silence holds star-dust and clarity. “We figure out what justice looks like—on our terms.”
She smiles, sharp as a blade. Uptick in her allergy to mercy. “I like that.”
Dark-space flows behind us. Ahead? Alliance contact station, political strings, black ops eyes. We’re sending renegade tremors through corridors of power.
Dowron will deploy assets to suppress or leverage this. Malmount will scream betrayal, bleed credits on retrieval teams. And we? We stay hidden—ghosts who left carnage in our wake, but a map of truth in our fists.
I lean my head back against the console, breathing slow. I taste victory’s ash. Not sweet—but earned.
She slides closer. Whispers in my ear: “I trust you.”
I grip her hand around the controls. My voice is low. “I won’t let him take you again.”
She tightens her hand in promise.
So we are—the killers, the lovers, the ghosts made real.
CHAPTER 29
SYD
