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Wolves Hunting Rats

MIRAL

M iral glimmered into the secure tech chamber adjacent to Xander’s office aboard the Sombra .

The room was cool and dim, lit by a lattice of glowing mauve circuit veins threading across the walls and ceiling.

Holo glyphs hovered in stasis above the central ops node.

She surged forward in a rush, her glyphic skin pulsing with silver strobes as she interfaced with the core, initiating a galaxy-spanning holo call.

She waited a minute before a voice answered in the adjoining universe.

An obsidian-skinned figure, uncannily similar to her, appeared on-screen.

A smile broke over her counterpart’s face. ‘Sister, I see you.’

Miral gave a slight bow. ‘I see you too, Mirage.’

She pulsed and sent a sub-neural request.

Mirage’s brow arched. ‘I believe we need a confab with Kainan and Zane.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Give me a few.’

Mirage glimmered away, while Miral stood stock still, waiting.

Minutes passed until finally, three figures materialized in the room with her, in full-body holo projections.

Kainan Sable sat in a massive command chair, backlit by the stormy windows of Sable HQ on Eden II.

Mirage perched beside him, arms crossed and jaw tight.

To Miral’s left, Zane Sable sat on the edge of an oak table, hip braced, feet interlocked before him, brows raised.

He was a lean, towering, striking, and muscled man in an exquisite suit.

He had dark, thick hair with silver highlights, a neat mustache, and a beard with piercing blue eyes.

His elegant presence contrasted with his more relaxed-dressed companions.

He was the Sable Group’s business and financial controller, overseeing its sales, logistics, private equity, and finance divisions.

He was also a psionic meta-shifter with the power to cast his mind over vast regions of space.

Which made him a lethal operator and one of the most brilliant thinkers and strategists in all Pegasi.

‘ Sante , for your time and aid in this urgent matter. I’ve identified the players behind the unrest in the Wildlight Expanse,’ Miral began without ceremony. ‘It’s the crats.’

Zane blinked. ‘The fokk ?’

Kainan straightened in his chair, brows knitting, brow arching. ‘They’re back?’

‘They got decimated but not in entirety,’ Miral said.

‘Seems they’re now stirring shit up and making quiet, calculated moves.

They’ve embedded themselves in the flotilla bound for Eden II, using its mafia clans as proxies.

They’ve been feeding them weapons, crat-grade Hades and Oedipus missiles, forbidden, catastrophic warheads. ’

Zane let out a long breath, low and sharp. ‘Those bastards are like roaches, they just don’t die.’

‘Regardless, they’re weak, what you’re witnessing is an extinction burst,’ Mirage added with a grim shake of her head.

‘When the boss khan nuked them, he went hard, and all fifty-one of their capital ships turned to slag. Also, the noids we infected their tech with? They took them home, and they pulverized them, eating to the core of their exo-planet.’

‘So sad,’ Kainan huffed.

‘How did you do it?’ Miral asked, her synth-brow furrowing with interest. ‘It happened before my awakening.’

‘The Technocracy’s machines use subconscious processors to encode and decode data,’ Zane said in his timbred drawl.

‘We found a flaw in their system, an arbitrary code that, once embedded in a metanoid, spread like wildfire. It forced their bots and AIs to download a virus that mutated endlessly, corrupting their systems until they failed or self-destructed.’

‘It was an extermination,’ Mirage confirmed.

‘The noids burrowed into their root script, ate through every systemic layer from fleet servers to planetary cores. Half their tech tree got eviscerated before they even realized it. From what I can gather, only a dozen vessels, light-class Corvettes and gunships, survived.’

Zane nodded. ‘It was brutal. However, it sounds like those who prevailed now seek vengeance.’

‘They’ve been licking wounds ever since,’ Mirage said, flicking a hand. ‘But instead of regrouping for open war, they’re playing dirty. Sowing chaos through smaller players, letting others carry the fire. It’s smart.’

‘And cowardly,’ Kainan snapped. ‘So what’s their endgame?’

‘I might hazard a guess at revenge,’ Miral said. ‘They’re stirring up threats, and funding enemies of the Sable Group.’

‘They want us destabilized,’ Mirage added.

‘It’s an infiltration strategy, to inject their evil into a huge flotilla of millions about to land in Pegasi.

To use these mafia clans by arming them with advanced weapons to attack us, so they don’t have to lift a finger in a proxy war of their making.

After they probably wish to swoop in and gather the spoils. ’

Zane let out a growl. ‘Backdoor rats.’

Kainan leaned forward, his utterance hoarse with steely menace. ‘Wasn’t it an old world prime minister who said that even a cornered rat is dangerous? We can’t underestimate the crats’ desperation. We have to flush it all out now.’

A beat of silence passed.

Kainan’s tone shifted, decisive, and rasped. ‘Mirage, send the Protocol Veritas-7 update to Miral. Full schematics. Weapons intel. Upgrade her network interface and combat shell. Include the recalibrated noids, we’ll use their mistake against them again.’

He raised a chin to Signet’s AI. ‘Which means that Miral, you’ll need to get into the fray, to protect Signet, the flotilla, and by extension, us all.’

‘Of course,’ Miral intoned.

‘Uploading now,’ Mirage said, fingers flicking across her holo console.

Above the command node, golden-red glyphs flared to life, cascading toward Miral.

She closed her eyes as the stream downloaded into her synaptic matrix.

Her breath hitched as her networked frame absorbed complete schematics, countermeasures, advanced defensive runes, new weapon and ship blueprints, and multi-environment combat overlays.

When she opened her eyes again, they glinted with a harder, darker hue. ‘ Sante ,’ she murmured. ‘I’m now a fokkin ’ war goddess.’

Zane grinned. ‘Stomp on these last remaining crat skulls so hard they won’t dare scamper out again.’

Kainan raised his chin in agreement. ‘Make it final.’

Miral gave a tight smile. I’ll do my best, Khan .’

The holo faded away, and the group on Eden II disappeared from view.

On the Sombra, Miral remained, shimmering, her new data manifolds throbbing with unleashed and unimaginable power beneath her skin.

SAVVINE

After the interrogation, Savvine marched beside Xander through the sleek corridors of the executive wing.

Their strides matched, yet every step reminded her how far apart they were now.

Xander glanced over at his XO, his rasp slicing through the quiet. ‘Santi? Seen Miral?’

The Sombra’s XO looked up from his comm tab at his desk, expression distracted. ‘ Nada .’

Boaz passed by with a tablet pad tucked under one arm.

‘She’s in the secure call suite,’ he said.

Xander frowned. ‘Why?’

Boaz shrugged. ‘How the hell am I supposed to know?’

Then he exited, swallowed by the lift.

Xander exhaled as he and Savvine entered his office. ‘We’re flying blind until she updates us.’

Savvine, however, had her mind on other things.

She eyed Xander as he tapped on his holo comm to send a message to Miral.

She waited till he was done, his eyes meeting hers with an arched brow.

Her heart thudded so hard, her limbs so shaky, she thought her knees might give way.

Still, she kept her voice level, steady. ‘Xander, I need a private sidebar.’

Xander’s head turned. ‘Now?’

‘ Naam , please.’

His eyes narrowed, trying to read her face, but she gave him nothing.

He studied her momentarily before turning heel and stalking toward his office.

She followed, her pulse roaring in her ears.

The door sealed behind them with a soft hiss.

Xander activated the privacy shield as he sat with one hip leaning on his desk.

Light shimmered at the room’s edges, cloaking them from the outside world.

‘What is it, mi reina ?’ he asked, arms crossed over his sinewed chest. ‘Don’t sugarcoat it.’

Savvine aimed her gaze at the floor, staring at the tips of his polished boots. ‘For the duration of my stay, I’d like new quarters, please.’

He froze.

She sensed his breath ratchet into a heavy and thunderous cadence.

‘The fokk ? Why? You’ve seemed happy in mine last night.’

She swallowed. Her throat felt lined with razors. She kept her eyes fixed on the carpeting, hands clasped behind her back to hide the shake.

‘Eyes on me.’

His utterance was a rough, commanding growl. The inflection that on any other day might have had her knees weakening. Not today.

She lifted her gaze, keeping her composure, as she met his stormy eyes. ‘Because I need space.’

His brow furrowed, his rasp grating, his accent deepening. ‘ ?Hostia ! From me? Why? What did I do?’

She inhaled and sighed out her ratcheting stress.

He stepped in close. ‘Savvine, talk to me.’

She took an inhale and then blurted out the words. ‘You want to knot with me.’

His expression darkened as he jolted. ‘ Fokk , baby, of course, you know I like you. I don’t play games or spin shit Savvine. My intentions for you are righteous.’

‘So you did mean it when you told your pack that what we have is a permanent thing and that you intend to claim me for eternity.’

‘You overheard me,’ he murmured.

‘ Naam .’

‘I thought I scented you,’ he huffed. ‘I’ve nothing to hide or be ashamed of. I meant what I said. Regardless, isn’t that what a woman like you wants?’

‘Tis a decision and assumption you made on your own; you never thought to check with me.’

‘I planned to.’

‘ Nada . You said you’ll use your spectral energy to change my mind. Also, if anyone comes up against us, you’d rip them apart.’

He frowned, a lock of his violet-sable hair falling over his brow. ‘It’s a figure of speech, Savvine. I know what I want, and it is you. Fokk me for expressing it in a savage fashion.’