Page 119 of Star Claimed Omega
He inclined his head, alert.
Talk.
Miral gestured him aside to a dark alcove in the bay.
She activated his neural node to interface with her data that glowed blue across his irises.I got into the Red Skulls’ data systems through the Crimson Widow’s comms array. Root-level access. They were messy.
His brow lifted.And?
I found a batch of high-priority pings, but more worrying, a resonant pulse that traces back to The Sombra.
Santi’s jaw tensed.To whom?
Miral didn’t answer right away, then she sighed.The message recipient is what really concerns me.
She flicked to another screen.
It spun until it snapped into focus, an audio waveform spliced with a blurry face mid-scream.
The voice that came through was all too familiar.
Female, raw, hoarse, and desperate.
Soleil.
Santi’s form stiffened as if he’d been stabbed.The fokk?
She’s being tortured,Miral muttered.And forced to work for them. I traced the signal packet’s call-and-response structure. There’s a neuro-bonded sub-frequency in her body, keyed to a pain relay. It’s real.
He growled, rage already crackling behind his eyes.Why her?
I don’t know. The moment I found out, I tried to track her through her comm. It was shut down, but I sent my nanites on the hunt. They found her. She’s not in your cabin. Not on any of the habitat decks she’s registered to.
Santi clenched his fists. Where is she?
Miral’s face appeared in his view, subdued.She’s crawling through the vent systems towards the Cold Sector and the prison, and there’s only one place they lead.
His heart thudded with dread.
Varnok’s vault, he rasped.
Miral nodded grimly.
The Skulls are using her,Santi grated.They’re going to try to spring him.
Looks that way.
He closed his eyes, then opened them full of fire, speaking out loud.
‘Prep the team,’ he barked. ‘We return toTheSombra, rightfokkin’ now.
SOLEIL
Beneath the decks of the massive dreadnought, deep in its belly where light dared not linger, Soleil crawled.
The tunnel was narrow, damp, ribbed with rusted piping and coolant cables that stank of rust, mold, and engine oil.
Her elbows scraped along old residue, the thick staleness of recirculated air burning her lungs.
