Page 5

While drawn to her curves, flawless nails, and polished looks, they were also staggered by her ability to flatten warriors twice her size and leave them broken and begging for mercy.

Her unyielding endurance and explosive power were her armor, which she wore with pride.

Under it, however, in her quiet private moments, she admitted that she wanted forever with someone.

She was undoubtedly complicated, but she knew that when she encountered her man, she’d love him for eternity.

She just hadn’t met him yet.

The racer’s hum was steady beneath her palms.

The vacuum beyond the safety beacon grid was ink-dark, lit only by the pulse of navigational beacons and the slow drift of stars across her HUD.

With nothing but clear space and cold stars as her companions.

Still, she stayed alert. Always. Because out here, even in the silence, danger had a way of arriving in whispers.

So far, nothing unusual, she leaned back into her couch with a happy sigh.

With no warning, her proximity sensors screamed so loudly that she jerked and poured scalding liquid on the front of her suit.

‘Fokk!’

A Lombardi stealth fighter de-cloaked a few hundred meters off her flank, black as death, edges angular, burning a trail of blue reactor flames through the void.

She identified the sigil of a silver and black beast and braced, hissing as she tossed the cup in her hand.

It wheeled mid-air, its auto seal shutting as it tumbled upside down and hovered in zero g.

‘Manual control,’ Savinne muttered, tightening her seat restraints.

The console responded, switching to her flying hands and tactical mastery.

Her neural node flared to life, sending her urgent, flashing telemetry.

She banked hard, almost grazing the massive generational ship’s hull beneath her, the g-force punching through her stabilizers.

It followed. Close. Too close.

‘Not today,succubus, not on my watch.’

The enemy gave chase, and she ran.

Her body reacted on instinct.

Her right hand tapping with furious intent on the controls, her left hand on her wheel and throttle.

Dodging, weaving, and spinning through tight spirals between antenna arrays and drifting debris.

They were out in the open in moments, streaking away from the Bianchi fleet.

Plasma rounds lit the darkness behind her like a trail of falling suns. Her steely calm held, her inhales even, her jaw clenched.

Until her display panel blinked.

Incoming threat.

A sleek, bone-white torpedo locked and deployed from the Lombardi fighter’s undercarriage, inked with glyphs she didn’t recognize.