Page 37 of Claimed By the War Brute
The shift from hyperspace is never smooth—like the universe exhales all at once, and you get caught in the tremor. My palms are sweating even under the cooling gel grips, heart a steady percussion through my chest. Targeting systems flicker awake with a low hum: coordinates locked, timing precise. I activate the EMP round. One shot. One kill.
I don’t flinch when the lead freighter shivers, shield array collapsing from a single pulse of blue-white plasma. It’s surgical, silent. The first freighter erupts in furious beauty—bright shards of energy painting the vacuum with ash and flame. My stomach flinches at the light, then flattens with resolve. The other two are scrambling for power reroutes. Perfect timing.
Garrus is already cutting them down—ramming speed, ruthless precision. He’s crimson fury in motion, a whisper of destruction against the lingering plasma glow. Vigil’s End threads through the wreckage field like a blade slicing silk. The air hums electric in my bones.
“Convoy neutralized,” I say through tightened jaws, voice clipped. The canopy rattles as debris thumps the hull. Laser scavengers swarm distant fragments, but we’re long gone from their reach.
He growls something—low, guttural approval. I cup the mic’s sensor, relay the order: “Transmit the footage.” Data pulses through buried channels—encrypted to Alliance media frigates, black-ops informants, off-grid militias. The message is loud and clear: Malmount is bleeding. And that clip of weapons stenciled with my crest? Poison in every byte.
We touch down on the wreckage site minutes later. Not to salvage. This is evidence. Accountability.
The gravity field settles me into the deck of what used to be a Malmount weapons carrier—its hull gashed, coolant puddling in snow-colored rivets of ice and black coolant. I step off the ramp and the scorch-tanged air punches my senses: singed metal, ionized plasma, the faint rust of open coolant.
I stare at the twisted crates—billets that once bore my father’s crest alongside my name. They’re burned, melted, reduced to mockery. My chest clamps shut. Footsteps crunch behind me.
Garrus steps onto the wreckage, the gravel whispering beneath his boots. He stands behind me, silent, like a tower scanning the horizon.
“You… okay?” His voice is softer than I expect, betraying concern behind the growl.
I swallow hard, taste coolant and ash and resolve. “No.” It’s the truth. Two letters. Flat. Then I turn and say, “But I will be.”
I take a deep breath, letting the cold air fill my lungs. My boots scrape against scorched metal and molten plastic. I move past the wreck, eyes flicking to shorted-out drone soldiers—fallen computerized automatons with eerily human faces, frozen in unnatural poses. Their empty stares torment me.
I step toward one and give it a sharp kick. The head breaks off with a spray of sparks.
“Enough,” I mutter, voice low. “I’m making my choice now.”
Garrus crouches beside me, voice cautious. “This… this matters to you.”
I turn to him, eyes sharp. “It does.” I swallow. “It matters more than anything he ever sold.” I glance at my burned crest—shame flickering into purpose. “He always said, ‘We make tools, not choices.’” I scuff my boot across the shattered emblem. “But now I choose.”
He nods once. Rough and sure. He stands, reaching out to me. I take his hand. It’s warm, calloused, grounding—like a conduit for my rebellion.
Working together, we jury-rig a beacon: a looped broadcast transmitter, broadcasting every shipment log, every bribe, every assassination order we’ve compiled. We wire it to pulse red–hi visibility. Message: this is war. Data dumps continue. Proof of guilt. Proof of blood.
My fingers dance across the console as I program the beacon to loop indefinitely—until someone, somewhere shoots it out of the sky. I watch the waveform rise and fall on the display like a heartbeat. It’s our message to the galaxy.
“You think he’s watching?” I ask after sealing the device.
Garrus stands with me at the edge of the wreck, watching the field of broken metal, the frozen puddles. “He’s watching.” His voice is quiet but cursive with certainty. “He’s already planning his next move.”
I stare at the stars, distant pinpricks through the smoke-grey sky. The pain’s still burning in my ribs, but beneath it is a steady heat: purpose. “Good,” I whisper. “Let him. For once in his life, I want him to feel… powerless.”
He reaches and squeezes my hand. Strong. Unyielding. Steady.
Then without warning, the field’s sensors indicate the ship is lifting off. We’re airborne again, weightless in the cabin.
I lean against the console, eyes still on the wreck behind us, but my mind’s already forward. “What now?”
Garrus watches me—my anchor, my storm. He’s silent for a moment. Then he says: “Now we disappear. Let the data leak take root. Dowron and Alliance get what they need. Then we go rogue, final strike on Malmount’s empire. Not mercy. Not ransom. Finality.”
I look at him. My jaw sets. “Finality.” I like the word. It tastes like victory.
In the stealth corridor, Vigil’s End hums into obscurity. We’re ghosts. Or phantoms. Or vengeance incarnate.
He stands at the helm; I dial in the jump coordinates. The hum of stabilization echoes off metal walls, every circuit locked. My chest pounds again—anticipation, adrenaline.
I lean toward him. “You ever think… after this—it’s just us?”
