Page 17 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.”

Yentil raises a brow. “Go on.”

“I’m an IHC citizen. My registry is public, my assignment was legally filed, and I was abducted without legal cause. That's a violation of the treaty. You’re obligated to protect me until formal appeals have gone through the Alliance judicial network.”

“That’ll take weeks.”

“Exactly.”

He narrows his eyes. “Malem won’t wait.”

“He doesn’t have to. All we need is for him to believe he has to.”

Yentil exhales slowly, rubbing a hand down his face. “You want to provoke him.”

“No. I want to corner him. Every move he makes from here on out must be recorded, transmitted, and interpreted through the lens of interstellar law. He fires? He risks war. He boards? He violates neutral territory. He so much as flicks a plasma coil, and the Alliance has reason to retaliate.”

“You think he’ll care?”

“No. But the people above him might. Malem’s a zealot. But the Coalition? It’s still a government. Governments don’t like messes they can’t control.”

He tilts his head. “You’ve really thought this through.”

I smile, razor thin. “This is what I was made for.”

He paces, muttering under his breath, then turns back. “It’s risky. But better than surrender.”

“Exactly.”

“Alright. You’ve got your stage.” He presses a few commands. “I’ll route Coalition transmissions through filtered Holonet mirrors. Every word, every image, gets saved.”

I nod. “Then let’s make it a show.”

The station’s comm systems crackle, and the air stills like the moment before a predator strikes.

Then Malem’s voice rolls out—smooth, sharp, and soaked in imperial contempt.

“This is Fleet Marshal Malem Karag of the Coalition High Command,” he begins, every syllable dripping with theater.

“I address Starbase Gamma and its current command authority. You are harboring a fugitive asset under Coalition law. Her designation: Amara Sorell, Companion class, former Interstellar Human Concord property, now listed as compromised and hostile.”

I freeze mid-step.

“Hostile.” Like I’m some weaponized glitch in their system. Like I’m a broken toy they need to recall.

“This is not a demand made lightly,” Malem continues. “We offer safe return and formal clemency. If she is surrendered alive, the Coalition will extend mercy. If she resists, all consequences fall upon those who shield her.”

I feel it in my bones—the chill. That particular, creeping kind of cold that starts at the base of your spine and wraps around your lungs. My fingers go numb, not from temperature, but from memory. I’ve heard that word before.

Clemency.

They used it at the facility, just before they erased three other girls who got too independent. “Clemency,” they called it—before the neural scythes were activated, before the cries stopped.

Clemency means erasure. Silence. Death wrapped in paperwork.

The command deck goes dead quiet. A tension falls like fog, thick and tangible. Everyone’s looking at Yentil now. Waiting.

He doesn’t flinch.

He leans into the console, presses the comms, and mutters into the open channel with a crooked smirk on his face.

“Yeah, hi there, Marshal Karag,” he says casually, as if he’s ordering caf instead of talking to a war criminal. “On behalf of Starbase Gamma, I’ve got two words for your request.”

He pauses dramatically.

“Jack. And shit.”

Someone chokes on laughter near the tactical station. Another coughs. I’m too stunned to do anything but blink.

Yentil keeps going, voice steely. “You want war? Come get it. But I’ll be damned if we hand over a registered diplomat to a tyrant and call it justice.”

Then he cuts the line.

The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s pregnant. Charged. Like the breath between lightning and thunder.

I feel it in my teeth. My heartbeat’s gone wild.

No one speaks.

Then the klaxons wail.

“DEFENSE ALERT: PHASE RED,” the automated system announces. “EVACUATION ORDER INITIATED FOR NONCOMBATANTS. ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL REPORT TO ASSIGNED STATIONS.”

And just like that, the station explodes into motion. Officers scramble. Techs start yanking data cores from consoles. Civilians stream toward evacuation corridors, some crying, some silent, all scared.

I push through the chaos, shoulder to shoulder with Yentil, and duck into the weapons locker as alarms pulse overhead.

The light inside the armory flickers like it’s as nervous as the rest of us. I scan the racks, ignoring the larger rifles and going for something fast, familiar.

A plasma pistol.

I wrap my fingers around it. Cold. Smooth. The grip buzzes faintly as it comes online. Ready.

My hand’s shaking.

I suck in a breath and force it to stop.

I’m not helpless. Not anymore.

I adjust the power setting to mid-yield, tuck it into my holster, and head for the forward command post.

All the while, my mind echoes with Malem’s promise.

Clemency.

Come and get me, bastard.

The war drums are still echoing in my ears when I find a moment of silence.

It’s a temporary hush, tucked in the bones of the station, a lull between pulses of panic. I’m alone in the observation alcove now, overlooking the fleet—the same monsters in orbit, their sleek bodies suspended in velvet black like the teeth of some god, waiting to bite.

But it’s not the dreadnoughts that turn my blood to glass.

It’s the sound of footsteps behind me. Familiar. Heavy. Controlled.

Haktron.

He’s always a presence before he’s a man. A gravity in the air. But this time... he doesn’t speak. Not at first.

I glance over my shoulder. He stands with his arms at his sides, spine too straight, like the weight of what he’s about to say is heavier than his armor.

His eyes flick to mine. Then down. Then back.

And he asks, voice low, hoarse in a way I’ve never heard from him before, “Do you want to stay?”

Not Do you want to run? Not Are you ready to die?

Just that.

Do you want to stay?

I swallow, hard. My fingers tighten around the edge of the steel panel, grounding myself.

“You asking as my bodyguard?” I murmur.

“No.” A pause. Then, “As your equal.”

That does something to me. Something dangerous.

All this time, he’s been my shield, my shadow, my monster made flesh. But this—this is not protection. This is permission. A choice.

I face him fully, stepping into the low light. It carves shadows across his cheekbones, catches the glint of old scars and fresh worry. He looks... almost boyish, like a soldier who’s only just realized the battle will take something from him.

I breathe in slow.

“I want to finish this,” I say. “With you.”

It’s not poetic. It’s not diplomatic.

But it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said.

Haktron doesn’t smile. He just nods once, like that’s all the ceremony this kind of vow requires. Like anything more would cheapen it.

And gods, the heat in my chest—terrifying and anchoring all at once. It’s not just loyalty. It’s not just war-bonding or desperation. It’s something deeper. An understanding that survival is not the point.

Doing it together is.

He moves closer, slow, like I might vanish if he gets it wrong.

His hand hovers near mine.

I let my fingers brush his—callused, inhuman, still trembling faintly from holding too much tension. He’s always been built to carry weight, but this? This is different. This is personal.

“I won’t leave you,” he says, voice soft but made of iron. “Even if everything burns.”

“Then we burn bright,” I whisper back.

He exhales like it’s a relief.

We are no longer two separate forces orbiting crisis—we are aligned.

The war is coming.

Let it.

We’ll face it together.

Or not at all.