Page 11 of Galactic Sentinels: Vol 2
I strike.
Steel slides beneath his arm, straight into his heart.
His breath catches. He stares, betrayed and silent.
“I’ll never forget,” I whisper. “You taught me everything. But you forgot your own lesson.”
He crumples.
I kneel beside his dying body.
“Don’t worry about your empire. I’ll expand it. Refine it. Perfect it. But your name? That dies with you.”
I rise.
No tears. No doubts.
Just resolve.
“In this universe, only the strong survive,” I say.
“And I’m no longer just strong. I am inevitable.”
4-Ayden
We arrived on base BN-17 three weeks ago. Originally, Logan and I were just coming here to meet up with Jason and Xenon to celebrate Vlad and Igor’s birthday. Technically, they’re onlytwenty-one Polarian years old, but since they grew up on Jaga-5 before joining the Confed, they already clocked thirty full cycles over there. Sounds like a great excuse to throw a party, right? That’s what we thought too. So we all agreed to meet up here and kick back for a few days.
All of us trained under Master Haruki’s painfully rigorous instruction. That sort of shared trauma builds strong friendships, apparently. Since graduation, we’ve been traveling the galaxy in pairs. But whenever we get the chance to reconnect—even for something as “crucial” as a birthday party—we don’t hesitate. Not for a second.
The plan was to relax. Recharge. Maybe drink something that glows.
Instead… we got sabotage.
Turns out, some permanent resident on this station has been messing with the infrastructure. We’ve been trying to track them down ever since. The atmosphere around here is tense—every crew member is one bad spark away from a meltdown, afraid the next system failure could be catastrophic.
This morning, Vlad and I are inspecting the air filtration controls when an explosion rocks the station.
We're thrown hard against the composite walls. The lights flicker once, then vanish. Total blackout.
Then the emergency lights kick in, painting everything in this moody red haze. Like we’re inside a haunted escape room, but with actual death stakes.
“Vlad, you okay?” I ask, spotting him sprawled on the floor.
“Yep, all good!” he answers, brushing himself off. “Just doing a very close inspection of the floor. Impeccable. No complaints.”
“Still as thorough as ever, huh?”
“You know me—never half-ass anything,” he grins. “But I have no idea what that was. We need to find the source before something worse happens.”
“We’re just next door to the base control room,” I say, pointing down the hallway. “Let’s move.”
“Think the others are okay?” he asks, and there’s a rare note of worry in his voice.
“Please. They’re probably sipping synth-caf and arguing over who gets the top bunk. Let’s handle this side of things. They’ll be fine—they’re way on the other end of the complex.”
Of course, I know who he’s really thinking about: Igor, his partner. Same way I’m already worried about Logan.
Earlier this morning, four of our crew headed to the north sector to update their universal translator implants. Vlad and I stayed back to poke around the HQ. The others had to go under light anesthesia for the procedure, which is why they left their holo-comms—short-range wrist communicators—in our quarters. Reaching them now isn’t an option.
