Page 15
Chapter 15
Neon Valkyrie
“ I can’t watch you die.” The words escape before I can stop them, my enhanced vision cataloging how the bond-sickness burns through Cirdox’s veins. His tribal markings pulse with fever-bright intensity, each flash a countdown I can’t ignore. “After this mission. When we’re safe. Then I’ll complete the bond.”
Cirdox’s wings shift against the Void Reaver’s bridge, casting shadows that dance like restless spirits across the polished metal. Even standing still costs him now—I can see it in the subtle tremor of his wings, the way his markings pulse erratically against his bronze skin. My implants helpfully inform me his temperature has risen another 0.3 degrees in the last hour alone.
“You’re certain?” His voice carries centuries of carefully contained hope, though the words end in a barely suppressed grimace.
“Yes.” The single syllable feels like jumping into the void without a tether, terrifying and liberating all at once. “But we do this right. Not rushed, not desperate.” My fingers find his, twining together despite how his fever burns against my skin. “We finish this mission, stop whatever the Eclipse is planning, then...”
“Then you’re mine,” he growls, the possessive note in his voice sending electricity through my neural interface. “No more running, little hacker.”
“No more running,” I agree, though my heart pounds against my ribs. “Now let’s end this quickly. I intend to collect on that...booty.”
Cirdox’s laugh rumbles deep in his chest. “Humans and their pirate words. Though I must admit, the thought is...intriguing.” He presses a gentle kiss to my temple, his arms tightening around me briefly in a protective squeeze that makes my implants misfire spectacularly. His expression sobers as another wave of fever makes his markings pulse brighter. “But first, we have a mission to complete. Lives depend on us exposing whatever the Eclipse is doing here.”
The STI Luminore Research Facility lies before us, a fortress of gleaming metal piercing Orion’s perpetual twilight. Each level bristles with automated defenses, but it’s the deliberate gaps in their data streams that set off warning bells. Someone’s created blind spots in their security—the kind only a hacker would recognize. The kind meant to hide something.
“This is wrong,” I mutter, my implants highlighting anomalous patterns in the facility’s defense grid. “The security protocols are too...familiar.” Fear claws at my throat as recognition hits. “These are my techniques. My algorithms, twisted and inverted.”
“Kira.” Cirdox doesn’t phrase it as a question.
“She’s using everything against me.” My fingers dance across the interface, probing for weaknesses I know are there because I helped design similar systems. “Creating holes that look random but are actually—”
“A trap,” he finishes, wings mantling protectively despite how the movement makes him stagger. Fresh beads of sweat roll down his temple, his markings flaring bright enough to cast crimson shadows.
I catch his arm as he sways, steadying him even as my implants scream warnings about his deteriorating condition. “We should abort. Your fever’s climbing too fast. If we wait much longer to complete the bond—”
“No.” His voice carries steel despite the tremor in his wings. “The Eclipse is weaponizing luminore, turning an energy resource into a tool of oppression. We stop this now, or countless lives pay the price.” His burning gaze finds mine. “Some things are worth dying for, little hacker.”
“You’re not dying,” I snap, fear making my voice sharp. “Not today. Not ever. We get in, get the data, get out. Then we complete this bond before it kills us both.”
The facility towers above us like a monument to scientific hubris, its gleaming spires piercing Orion’s perpetual twilight. Each level bristles with automated defenses, but it’s the deliberate gaps in their security that set off warning bells in my upgrades. This is no ordinary research complex—it’s the heart of STI’s luminore development program, where they perfect the medical applications that keep millions alive across the outer colonies. Or at least, that’s what it was before the Eclipse sank their claws into it.
The facility’s defenses fall with suspicious ease, each security protocol falling away like a carefully staged performance. My enhanced systems recognize the underlying architecture—fragments of code I helped write years ago, now twisted into something both familiar and wrong. Kira’s signature is all over it, breadcrumbs leading us deeper into whatever trap she’s laid. But we have to know what the Eclipse is doing with their stolen luminore, even if it means walking straight into her web.
The stakes couldn’t be higher—if the Eclipse has truly found a way to manipulate luminore’s healing properties, they’ll control who lives and who dies across entire systems. Already, reports filter in from the outer colonies of mysterious shortages, of settlements going dark when they can’t meet the Eclipse’s increasingly predatory terms. This facility holds the answers we need to expose their operation. The question is whether we’ll survive long enough to use them.
The Void Reaver shudders as Grig guides us into the facility’s auxiliary docking port, his pale blue fingers dancing across the controls with characteristic precision. Through the viewport, I watch auxiliary clamps engage with a hiss, securing us against the station’s artificial gravity.
“Maintain full cloak,” Cirdox orders, his wings shifting restlessly as he studies the tactical display. “If anything larger than a maintenance drone approaches, disengage and retreat to the fallback coordinates.”
Zara’s fur bristles slightly as she checks weapon systems. “And leave you both trapped inside?”
“Better than losing the ship,” he growls, though fever makes his voice rougher than usual. “The Brotherhood can’t afford to lose another vessel to the Eclipse. Especially not the Reaver.”
“Understood, Captain.” Grig’s large eyes blink with careful deliberation. “But please remember—ships can be replaced. Crews cannot.”
The research labs sprawl across an entire level, their sterile surfaces reflecting harsh overhead lighting. My implants automatically begin scanning equipment, analyzing data streams, searching for anything out of place. But it’s the data analysis from my implants that catches the first sign of wrongness—molecular patterns in the luminore samples showing deliberate manipulation, synthetic compounds introduced with surgical precision. The quantum resonance readings are all wrong, shifted just enough to create dependency in organic tissue without triggering standard toxicity alerts.
“They’re not just stealing it,” I breathe, my enhanced eyes widening as I process the data streaming through my neural interface.
“What do you mean?” Cirdox moves closer, his wings mantling protectively despite the fever weakening him.
“They’re weaponizing it,” I explain, gesturing to the molecular analysis displayed before us. “Look at these energy signatures—they’re altering its fundamental quantum properties, introducing synthetic resonance patterns that make their modified luminore incompatible with standard medical equipment. The more a colony’s infrastructure adapts to their tainted supply, the more dependent they become on Eclipse-controlled power sources. And only the Eclipse would control the modified crystals.”
Cirdox studies the holographic displays through fever-bright eyes. “Controlling who has access to power. Who lives and dies in the outer systems.”
“Exactly.” My fingers fly across the interface, downloading everything I can find. “They’re turning an energy resource into a weapon of mass control. Once colonies start using their modified version—”
The anomalies in the security protocols nag at me as I dig deeper into the facility’s systems. Something about the encryption patterns feels hauntingly familiar—like looking at old code I wrote years ago, twisted and inverted into something darker. My implants highlight subtle irregularities that make my skin crawl.
Behind me, Cirdox prowls the perimeter of the control room, his wings shifting restlessly as he monitors the security feeds. The bond-sickness burns bright in his tribal markings, but he refuses to let it slow him down. Every few minutes his path brings him closer, his fever-hot presence both comforting and distracting as he checks the doors and vents with predatory thoroughness.
“These encryption patterns,” I mutter, fingers flying across the interface. “They’re...wrong. Like someone took standard STI protocols and corrupted them deliberately.” A shiver runs down my spine as my implants analyze the code structure. “Someone who knew exactly how I would try to break them.”
Cirdox pauses his patrol, crimson eyes narrowing as he studies the scrolling data over my shoulder. “Kira?” His wings mantle protectively, though the effort makes his markings pulse brighter with fever.
“Has to be. This is her signature, but twisted.” My hands still over the keys as memories surface—late nights spent coding together, sharing secrets and dreams of exposing corruption. “She always did have a gift for elegant solutions. Even when using them for terrible things.”
“These modifications,” I murmur, fingers hovering over the interface. “I know this style.” The realization hits like a punch to the gut. “Because I helped develop it.”
A shadow shifts in my peripheral vision, there and gone so quickly my upgrades can’t track it. But I don’t need enhanced senses to recognize that presence. Some things burn themselves into memory too deeply to forget.
“Elegant, isn’t it?” The voice emerges from the darkness like poison seeping through water—smooth, deadly, achingly familiar. “How a few small changes to the quantum signature can alter everything. Just like a few strategic modifications to luminore can transform clean energy into a weapon of control.”
Her movements are too precise, too calculated—like watching code execute in real-time. My enhanced vision catalogs the modifications with clinical horror: military-grade cyber-limbs that move with liquid grace, dermal armor woven seamlessly into synthetic flesh, neural processors far beyond anything available on the black market. This isn’t the work of some back-alley tech dealer. The Eclipse has systematically replaced almost everything that made her human, leaving only enough organic matter to house her consciousness. She’s a living weapon now, more machine than the sister who once taught me to see beauty in elegant code.
Kira steps into view, each movement proof of the Eclipse’s cruel perfection. Her neural implants pulse with that wrong-red glow, casting scarlet shadows across features I once knew as well as my own. She looks exactly as I remember—tall, lean, dangerous. But there’s something mechanical about her now, something that suggests the sister who taught me to hack, who shared dreams of exposing corruption, is gone. In her place stands a weapon forged from grief and revenge, precision-engineered by the very organization that killed her brother.
“The colonies think they’re receiving treatment,” she continues, that broken-code smile never reaching her enhanced eyes. “They don’t realize each dose binds them tighter to the Eclipse. True power isn’t about force, Neon. It’s about creating necessity.”
“Hello, Kira.” My voice stays steady despite the way my heart pounds against my ribs. “I wondered if I’d find your signature here. Still twisting everything you touch into weapons?”
“Your laugh still sounds the same,” she says, her modified eyes scanning me with cold precision. “Still trying so hard to be tough little Neon Valkyrie, the infamous hacker who answers to no one. But we both know that’s not who you are, don’t we, Lyra?” Her smile turns cruel. “You’re still that scared girl I found crying in the maintenance shaft after your parents died. The one who needed someone else to teach her how to survive.”
Every word hits like a physical slap, each one precisely targeted to old wounds. “At least I didn’t betray everything my brother died for,” I spit back. “He fought the Eclipse’s corruption while you—”
“While I what? Learned from his mistakes?” Her enhanced eyes pulse with an unnatural red glow. “Kai died screaming because he thought he could change things. Because you convinced him to keep pushing, keep fighting a system that was always going to win.” Something flickers beneath her mechanical calm—grief or rage, I can’t tell anymore. “I chose to survive. To thrive. And now look at us—you’re still running, still hiding behind false names and borrowed strength, while I...” She gestures to her modified form. “I’ve become something greater.”
The bitterness in her voice speaks of years of carefully nurtured hatred, of a sister-bond twisted by loss and betrayal into something monstrous. But there’s something else there too—a desperate need to justify her choices, to prove that selling her soul to the Eclipse was somehow worth the price.
Cirdox’s wings snap wide despite the obvious cost, creating a barrier between us. The movement costs him—I can see how his markings pulse erratically, how his muscles tremble with the effort of maintaining the defensive posture.
“So this is what you’ve become,” he growls, his voice rough with disgust despite the fever burning through him. “From mentor to hunter, stalking your own student through the void like wounded prey.”
“Hunting implies I don’t know exactly where she’ll be.” Kira’s enhanced eyes never leave mine. “But I taught her everything she knows about hacking. Every pattern, every technique.” Her head tilts slightly, the movement too precise to be natural. “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize my own algorithms when you used them to break into places?”
“You taught me to fight corruption,” I snap, though my voice wavers slightly. “To expose people who abuse power. Now look at you—working for the same monsters who killed your brother.”
Something flickers in her enhanced eyes—pain? Regret? But it’s gone before I can be sure. “Kai died because he was weak. Because he thought ideals could change anything in this galaxy.” Her voice carries years of carefully nurtured hatred. “The Eclipse understands what you never did, Neon. Power is the only truth that matters. The only thing that keeps you alive.”
She gestures, and Eclipse operatives materialize from the shadows, their modified armor gleaming under the harsh lights. But it’s their neural signatures that make my blood run cold—the same unnatural uniformity I detected earlier, suggesting extensive enhancement.
“Your mate is dying,” Kira continues, that broken-code smile returning. “I can see it in his vital signs. The bond-sickness burns through him while you hesitate, too afraid to commit, too weak to actually fight for something beyond your own survival.” Her enhanced eyes narrow. “How long before he collapses completely? Hours? Minutes?”
As if in response to her words, Cirdox suddenly staggers, his wings drooping as another wave of fever hits. I move to support him, but Kira’s next words freeze me in place.
“Don’t help him,” she says softly, her enhanced troops raising weapons. “Let him fall. Watch him suffer, just like you watched Kai die. Remember how that felt? Watching through your neural link while they tore him apart, calculating odds instead of acting?” Her smile turns cruel. “I’ve always wondered—did you feel it when he died? When his neural signature just...vanished?”
“Enough!” The word tears from my throat as I launch my prepared virus, sending it racing through the facility’s systems. But Kira’s already moving, her own upgrades countering my attack with brutal efficiency.
“Still predictable,” she taunts, her neural commands flying faster than thought. “Still thinking in patterns I helped create. When will you learn? True power isn’t about following rules—it’s about breaking them.”
Cirdox lunges at her, wings snapping wide despite the fever burning through him. But Kira anticipated this—her enhanced reflexes letting her sidestep his attack with mechanical precision. As he passes, she triggers something in her hand—a device that floods the air with a concentrated aerosol compound.
The effect is immediate and devastating. Cirdox drops to his knees, his tribal markings flaring like burning brands against his skin as the chemical catalyst interacts with his already unstable biochemistry, amplifying the bond-sickness to unbearable levels.
“Fascinating,” Kira observes, her broken-code smile never wavering. “The Eclipse’s research into Kyvernian biology has been quite enlightening. Did you know their bond-sickness creates unique chemical markers? Makes them so very vulnerable to the right compounds.”
“Get away from him!” I snarl, my hands already flying across my interface, trying to trigger the facility’s ventilation systems. But she’s locked me out, her viral countermeasures spreading faster than I can hack through them.
Cirdox struggles to rise, his wings trembling violently as the amplified fever tears through him. But even weakened, he’s still dangerous—his claws leaving deep gouges in the metal floor as he fights against the chemical assault. His predatory instincts won’t let him stay down, won’t let him stop trying to protect me, even as the compound pushes his body past its limits.
“Stop!” I scream, my hands flying across the interface as I try to counter her attack. “You’ll kill him!”
“That’s the point.” Her voice carries a terrible mechanical calm. “Choose, Neon. The encryption key you stole from the Eclipse database, or your mate’s life. Watch him die knowing you could have saved him, just like Kai.”
Time seems to slow as I process options, my enhanced vision calculating probabilities and escape routes. Cirdox writhes on the floor, his wings spasming as Kira’s attack tears through him. The bond-sickness burns through his veins like plasma fire, turning his tribal markings into lines of liquid agony against his bronze skin.
The encryption key I stole from the STI that night—the one that revealed how deep the Eclipse’s tendrils reached into official channels—burns in my neural cache. The same data that forced me to run, that exposed how they were manipulating luminore supplies and falsifying shipping manifests to hide their control over medical distribution. The tactically logical choice is clear—sacrifice one life to save many. It’s exactly the kind of calculation that got Kai killed.
I’m done letting fear control my choices.
“You’re right about one thing,” I say, my fingers dancing across my neural interface as I access the dormant virus I embedded in the STI’s root protocols that night. “Action matters more than words.”
I trigger the modified version of Kira’s own signature encryption—the one she used to teach me about system vulnerabilities, about how the most sophisticated defenses often ignore threats that mirror their own architecture. The virus flows through the facility’s network, using the same security protocols she helped design to breach her neural implants. Each line of code is a lesson she drilled into me, twisted and inverted until her own techniques become the key to bypassing her enhanced defenses.
Her eyes widen as the first failsafes trigger, recognition dawning as she realizes I’ve weaponized her own methods against her. “You wouldn’t,” she breathes, but we both know I already have.
Her eyes widen as the first line of code hits. “What are you—”
“Showing you what you taught me about power,” I say, launching wave after wave of corrupted data at her neural interface. “About breaking rules. About survival.”
She staggers, red implants flickering as my virus tears through her defenses. Her control over Cirdox breaks, but the damage is done. He lies motionless on the floor, his wings spread limply, tribal markings pulsing with dangerous irregularity.
“Kill them both!” Kira screams, her mechanical calm finally shattering. She signals to someone out of sight, and blast doors slide open revealing a squad of Eclipse operatives who must have been lying in wait. They move with that unnatural synchronization that marks them as enhanced, their neural signatures burning like cold stars in my tactical display.
I throw myself over Cirdox’s prone form, my enhanced systems working overtime to counter incoming fire. But we’re surrounded, outnumbered, and he’s not moving. My implants flash urgent warnings—multiple hostiles converging, their movements suggesting a practiced containment protocol. They’re not just trying to kill us—they’re herding us away from the exits, cutting off escape routes with clinical precision.
“Stay with me,” I beg, my fingers pressed to his throat where his pulse flutters weakly. “Please, Cirdox. I can’t lose you too. Not like this. Not when I finally—”
A subtle vibration in my neural port signals an incoming transmission: “In position. Light it up on my mark.” McCoy’s voice, tight with controlled tension. Of course—she insisted on having her team standing by when we infiltrated, despite my protests about keeping this quiet. “Standard procedure,” she’d said with that sharp smile. “Always have backup when raiding STI facilities.”
I trigger the preset signal, and the far wall explodes inward exactly where we’d mapped structural weaknesses during our initial scan. McCoy’s tactical team pours through the breach right as my virus hits the facility’s security grid, turning automated defenses against the Eclipse operatives. The timing is perfect—a synchronized strike that catches our enemies in devastating crossfire.
“Get him out of here!” McCoy shouts over the chaos, her team moving with practiced efficiency to secure our exit route. “We’ll handle this!”
The next few moments blur into a symphony of plasma fire and breaking glass. My enhanced vision tracks multiple targets, highlighting escape vectors as McCoy’s team systematically pushes back the Eclipse forces. They’re good—better than standard police tactical units. The way they move suggests specialized training in dealing with enhanced opponents.
But none of that matters as much as the weakening pulse beneath my fingers, the way Cirdox’s tribal markings pulse with increasing irregularity. I have to get him out of here. Have to save him. Because I finally understand what I’ve been running from—and I refuse to lose him just when I’ve found the courage to stop running.
I don’t hesitate. Using strength I didn’t know I had, I half-drag, half-carry Cirdox toward the exit. His wings drag limply behind us, leaving trails of shed membrane that make my heart clench. Every few steps he tries to help, to support his own weight, but his legs keep buckling.
“Stay with me,” I repeat, the words becoming a desperate mantra. “Just a little further. Please, just hold on.”
The screech of tearing metal drowns out Kira’s howl of rage as we sprint through the facility’s collapsing corridors. Her fury follows us like a physical force, making my neural implants misfire with phantom echoes of past pain. But I can’t let those memories paralyze me. Not now. Not when Cirdox’s life depends on every second we can steal from fate.
“Stay with me,” I growl as he stumbles again, his wings dragging against the walls. The bond-sickness burns through him like plasma fire, turning his tribal markings into a frightening display of erratic pulses—some areas barely flickering while others blaze bright enough to cast crimson shadows across the sterile walls. My enhanced vision catalogs his deteriorating vital signs with merciless precision, each new reading worse than the last.
We dodge another volley of plasma fire, the heat of it singeing my tactical suit. Behind us, Kira’s enhanced soldiers move with terrifying synchronization, their modified reflexes letting them gain ground with every step. But they’re not trying to kill us. They want us alive—want me alive—and that’s somehow worse than death.
“Almost there,” I pant, though my own muscles scream in protest. Cirdox’s weight grows heavier against me as the fever consumes what little strength he has left. His skin burns hot enough to make my enhanced sensors glitch, tribal markings pulsing with a desperate, primal need that tears at my heart. This is my fault. My fear. My hesitation slowly killing him.
The Void Reaver’s airlock appears ahead like salvation, its emergency lights painting everything in shades of blood and shadow. We stumble through somehow, though I’ll never remember exactly how we made it. As soon as we cross the threshold, Cirdox’s legs give out completely. His magnificent wings spread across the deck in a display of defeated grace, their thin edges quivering with exhaustion.
“No,” I whisper, dropping to my knees beside him. My hands shake as they trace his fever-bright markings, each touch sending feedback loops of data through my implants—temperature critically elevated, neural patterns growing erratic, cellular degradation accelerating. “Don’t you dare give up. Not now. Not like this.”
His eyes find mine, crimson depths clouded with pain but still burning with that fierce protectiveness that makes my heart ache. “Worth it,” he manages, voice rough as plasma-scored metal. “Keeping you safe... always worth it.”
“Not if it kills you,” I say fiercely, my own voice breaking. “I won’t watch someone else die because I was too afraid to act.”
The ship’s engines roar to life around us as Zara initiates emergency launch protocols. But I barely notice, too focused on the way Cirdox’s markings pulse with dangerous irregularity—some areas barely glowing while others burn bright enough to leave scarlet ghosts dancing in my enhanced vision. He’s running out of time. We’re running out of time.
And I have a choice to make.
“No,” I whisper, gathering him into my arms despite how his fever burns against my skin. “No, no, no. Stay with me. The mission’s over, remember? I promised. I promised after the mission...”
His eyes flutter open, crimson depths glazed with fever and pain. “Little hacker,” he manages, the words barely audible. “I’m sorry...”
“Don’t you dare,” I choke out, tears burning my eyes. “Don’t you dare apologize. Don’t you dare leave me. I choose you, understand? I choose us. Just stay with me long enough to complete the bond. Please...”
His wings twitch weakly, trying to curl around us one last time. “Always knew... you’d be worth... waiting for...”
“Then keep waiting,” I beg, pressing my forehead to his. “Just a little longer. Stay with me, Cirdox. I love you, you stubborn, noble idiot. I love you, and I won’t let you die.”