The maintenance gantry on Deck D-6 was barely lit, its walls sloped and blistered from heat damage. Rusted magnetic clamps hung loose from broken ceiling tracks. Every third light strip buzzed weakly, casting long, twitching shadows down the narrow walkway.
Ethan moved quickly but low, one hand still brushing the inside of his cloak where the containment vault hugged his ribs. The Gryllex shard was still cold and stable, for now. But his instincts were sparking louder by the second.
Then he heard them.
The sound wasn't obvious, no boots stomping, no raised voices. Just the shift in air pressure. The way silence stopped breathing.
He stopped mid-step.
"Iris?" he whispered.
"Five individuals. Three ahead. Two behind. Closing formation."
Of course.
He pivoted slowly, back straight, cloak loose over his shoulders. And then they emerged, shadows stepping out of shadow. The veiled group from the auction. Their featureless masks still gleamed silver, unmarked by insignia. Each moved with trained fluidity, weapons hidden but presence unmistakably hostile.
"So this is the great Navren Cole," one said mockingly, voice modulated through an emotionless vocoder. "Systems analyst. Retired. A man of wealth and taste… who just happened to outbid us for a Gryllex shard."
Ethan offered a slow shrug. "Lucky guess."
The speaker stepped forward, a lean frame clad in battle-black with light armor segments that shimmered faintly with plasma insulation. A compact blade hung at his hip. His fingers curled.
"You don't look like much. And you certainly don't look like someone who truly understands what they're holding."
"I don't," Ethan said lightly. "I thought it was a nice decorative piece for my office."
Laughter. Low, cold.
"Hand it over. We won't kill you. That identity of yours still has value, someone will pay to make sure you disappear cleanly."
Another masked figure lifted a weapon, a short-barreled suppressor gun with an angular stock.
"You've got five seconds to be smart," the leader added. "Or we drop the act."
Ethan shifted slightly.
He lowered his shoulders.
Let his breathing quicken just a little.
Played nervous.
Then, in a voice edged with hesitation, "Maybe we can… negotiate-"
And then he moved.
The burst came with zero warning.
Ethan blurred forward, psionics lacing every muscle fiber with sudden reinforcement. His hand slipped through his cloak in a single breath, and the Astral Slayer sang.
One clean arc.
The lead attacker didn't even cry out, his weapon dropped from slack fingers as Ethan buried the blade under the arm seam of his armor and twisted. A crack of ribs. A hiss of air. He crumpled.
The others reacted, but too slowly.
Ethan rolled forward, kicked off the wall, and landed behind the second, slicing the tendons just above the knee before jamming the Slayer into the side of his helmet where the shielding was weakest.
A third attacker turned to fire, but Ethan threw his cloak wide, spinning it to obscure line of sight before diving low. He swept the legs and drove the blade up through the chin.
Three down.
But then the air changed.
The real threat stepped forward.
The leader, taller, heavier, armored differently. His mask had no filter grille. Just a flat obsidian faceplate with three small lenses that flickered red.
Flanking him were two enforcers, broader than the first wave, their shoulders layered in reactive plate. Their hands flexed, and faint energy shimmered around their knuckles.
Psionics.
And not the weak kind.
Ethan felt it immediately, the way they moved, how their awareness clashed with his own like sonar pings colliding. They weren't guessing where he was. They were feeling him.
He backstepped, lowering into a tighter stance.
"Iris. Give me reflex syncing on combat channel five."
"Ready."
The enforcers struck first.
One charged with a plasma baton, sweeping low. Ethan blocked it with the flat of the Astral Slayer, redirected, but caught a second blow across the side as the other flanked faster than expected. Pain cracked through his ribs.
He fell back, slashed, and nicked one enforcer across the thigh. Blood, but no pause. The man was trained past pain.
They were fast. Almost as fast as he was.
The leader joined the fray, drawing twin shock-axes that glowed violet-blue at the blades. Ethan ducked a sweep, vaulted backward, and landed on a pipe.
He needed space.
He needed tools he didn't have.
A laser pistol. An EMP. A gel mine.
Instead, he had only his dagger, his breath, and his instinct.
He kept moving. Darting. Cutting shallow when he couldn't land deep. He let the Slayer graze armor joints, elbows, necklines. One enforcer staggered after a precise stab to the side. But they weren't dying quickly.
And Ethan was starting to feel it.
His cloak was torn at the sleeve. His left forearm burned where a plasma blade had scraped close. His boots skidded against coolant-slick metal. He could end them all, but time was not his ally.
Then the tremor came.
Not from the fight.
From behind them.
The walls shook. Metal groaned.
Screams echoed up the gantry.
A screech, inhuman, wet and sharp, rolled through the corridor.
The masked leader paused. One enforcer turned back toward the hallway.
Ethan didn't wait.
From the smoke and shadows came stampeding forms, dozens of them, clawed, skittering, or flying. Creatures pulled from containment tanks during the auction, accidentally released by sabotage.
A three-legged beast leapt onto the platform behind the veiled group, mouth split open in four directions. A winged serpent wove through the ceiling, trailing acidic smoke. Red lights flickered, stuttering behind alarm klaxons.
A burst of white light flared as the creatures surged between him and the attackers.
When the light cleared, Ethan was gone.
He didn't run fast.
He ran smart.
Down the next vent corridor. Past a twisted support strut. Through a fuse-locked access panel that Iris short-circuited in two seconds. His cloak fluttered, half-torn. The Gryllex shard pulsed once beneath his ribs, as if aware it had almost changed hands again.
The sounds of battle faded behind him, claws, shouts, plasma discharge.
He didn't look back.
There was nothing back there worth saving.
And nothing left to prove.