Page 56 of Ravaged By the Reaper
AMARA
The stars blink out.
One by one, the lights that filled the viewing bay like scattered jewels vanish behind hulking shadows—metal beasts painted in void-black and blood red, slicing reality with every arrival. Superluminal flashes die with a cough of distortion. Silence follows.
But I can still hear them.
The dreadnoughts. The destroyers. The slithering teeth of the Coalition, aligned with precision across the galactic plane like sharks in hunting formation. Long, lean, brutal silhouettes. No flash. No flair. Just death, carried forward on stabilized gravity fields and reinforced hulls bristling with artillery arrays.
I spot it instantly—Malem’s insignia.
The stylized quill over a blood drop, a mockery of diplomacy and precision.
He’s here.
For me.
My throat tightens. Not from fear but from that slow crawl of knowing. The sensation of being watched from orbit. Of becoming the epicenter of a political maelstrom with one too many egos and not enough exits.
Behind me, the room hums low—shield generators reinforcing the station’s outer layer, automated defense relays lighting up like fireflies under stress. Somewhere, someone’s prepping plasma interceptors. But none of it feels like enough.
I straighten my shoulders, tucking the blanket of fear tight beneath a mental iron rod. I don’t have time to be terrified.
Not anymore.
I’ve been the instrument. The asset. The temptation and the trap.
Now I have to be the hand that moves the pieces.
I turn from the bay, cloak snapping at my ankles, and stride toward the command deck. Yentil’s already there, arms folded behind his back, mouth pulled into a straight line. A military mask. But I see the edge in his eyes. He’s scared.
Good.
He should be.
“Commander,” I say, voice crisp as crystal, “we need to talk.”
He doesn’t hesitate. Just nods toward the tactical room. I follow, the click of my boots deliberate, echoing through the hush of a station on the brink.
Once inside, I waste no time.
“They’re here for me. You know that.”
Yentil nods once. “We’ve picked up fleet-to-fleet comms. Malem’s command ship is pinging us for ‘transfer of prisoner asset per Coalition judicial decree.’”
I snort. “Of course they are.”
He taps a screen. “They’ve submitted ten formal charges through diplomatic relay. All under Coalition military code. Espionage. Subversion. Obstruction.”
“They forgot breathing.”
His lip twitches. “It’s not a funny list.”
“No, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll scream. And no one wants that.”
He meets my eyes. “So what do you propose?”
I inhale deep. Let it settle. “We stall.”
