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Lost Wolves

XANDER

X ander stood at the viewport in his office, jaw clenched, arms folded so tight across his chest his ribs ached.

His reflection glared back at him, tired eyes, tension simmering beneath his skin, his soul stretched like a taut wire about to snap.

The door slid open behind him with a hiss.

Miral strolled in, her boots tapping on the sleek floors.

‘You look like you want to murder, pillage, and plunder,’ she observed, tilting her head.

Xander didn’t turn.

‘Woman trouble?’ the Synth AI guessed, voice casual, but her eyes missed nothing.

‘How do you always know this shit?’

She arched a brow at his snarl and leaned one hip against his desk. ‘I have centuries of psy-ops training, strategic deduction algorithms, and realistic scenario modeling stored in my manifolds. I can read you like a mission report.’

He grunted, scrubbing a hand down his face. ‘Alright. Point made, Senorita Vigilancia .’

‘So she saw through your broody bad-boy facade?’

He scowled at the glass. ‘She’s angry. Hurt. Because I, fokk , I don’t know. Perhaps I pushed too hard, said too much. Or didn’t push enough and didn’t say what I needed to. Or maybe she just realized I’m not worth the mess.’

‘Sounds like a you problem,’ Miral said breezily. ‘You want my advice?’

‘ Nada ,’ he snapped, still not looking at her. ‘I want my goddamn head and heart back.’

She folded her arms, expression unreadable. ‘You sure? You look like three seconds from punching through an entire deck.’

He turned, scowling. ‘Don’t you have something better to do than poke at me?’

She shrugged. ‘I would’ve stayed gone had someone kept screaming my name over comms like their ship was on fire.’

Xander’s scowl deepened. ‘Speaking of, where the hell were you? You disappeared in the middle of a damn interrogation.’

‘I was on a call.’

‘With whom?’

‘Kainan.’

Xander’s eyes narrowed. ‘The fokk ?’

Miral didn’t flinch. ‘He needed to be briefed.’

‘You couldn’t have told me first?’

‘There wasn’t time.’

The irony of this conversation was not lost on Xander, but he pushed Savvine and his woman problems aside.

‘Bullshit,’ Xander snarled, prowling to his desk. ‘You don’t run to him before looping in your commander unless you have a golden reason. So let’s hear it. It must be good to warrant you stepping over me, Miral.’

‘It is,’ she said, unfazed. ‘I need to let him know the crats were behind the unrest in the Wildlight Expanse. They’re feeding the Lombardis and the Bianchis advanced tech.’

Xander stilled. His nostrils flared. ‘Who are they exactly?’

‘They’re formerly identified as The Technocracy. A race of beings with an advanced biology who captured the Riders on their way to Pegasi and conducted a series of horrible experiments on them for five years.’

Xander jolted. ‘I didn’t know. Hell.’

‘ Naam , the crats tortured the Riders for years. The tests also spliced their DNA and injected them with metanoids. This reinforced their bones and infused their skin and body cell walls with a latticework force to withstand punches, blows, ballistics, and zero-g space flight better than most. Mirage, my mother node, was the AI on the craft ship; in fact, she was the craft’s singular, most potent sentient intelligence.

The Riders built a relationship with her; she learned what it meant to care for others, and they emulated it back to her because that’s how AI understands the human condition, by experience.

They then persuaded her to use deep machine learning to recognize and distinguish the crats from them.

They also asked her to take over the ship’s AI-controlled drones and, when they were ready, she unleashed a precise attack. ’

‘Damn.’

‘There’s more. Their escape came five years after being captured, almost to the day. Mirage used her Technocracy maps to get them to Pegasi’s safer, more populated regions.’

Xander remained silent.

All this time, he thought his cousin jetted into Eden II with zero hustle and became a hotshot without a care in the world for those left behind. He was flooded with remorse. ‘I had no idea.’

The Riders don’t like to broadcast their shit.’

Xander felt like shit for all the times he cursed Kainan out, and thankful the Sableman chose to look beyond his disdain to help the Signet Company. ‘I owe the man a few drinks and an apology.’

‘I don’t think he was aware of the extent of your rage at him, given that he was no contact for ten years. When you reestablished the connection, he was happy to know he still had family. On that note, how are you related?’

‘His father rest in peace, was my uncle on my mother’s side.

We visited him often at the orphanage, but my ma was too poor to take on another kid.

Regardless, the Eden Guards did a better job of raising him.

Still, we weren’t close because he was older than I, but I always had respect for him.

He also got me into the military academy, which I will forever be grateful for. ’

‘Fascinating,’ the AI murmured.

‘So what the hell do the crats want now?’

Miral crossed her arms, her shimmer-skin flickering with residual data.

‘Revenge. Kainan, Mirage, and Zane think they’re using Eugene, and maybe even the entire flotilla, as a Trojan vector.

They’re placing illegal weapons and tech into the hands of our enemies.

First, they want Signet out of the way so the Sable Group will be targeted when the armada arrives in Pegasi.

Perhaps even stir up an interplanetary war. ’

‘So we’re being used,’ Xander growled, every muscle in his body tensing.

‘Seems so.’

He dragged a hand over his jaw.

‘ Fokk that shit and those lame ass losers.’

His voice dropped to a dark promise. ‘They’ve no chance. Not if I have anything to say about it.’

Xander sat in his ready room, hunched over the data slate but barely seeing the words.

His mind whirled with thoughts. On The Technocracy, Eugene’s political trap and the bullshit Signet was being put through.

It made his pulse throb in that slow, dangerous way that usually came before violence. But today, it wasn’t just the crats getting under his skin.

It had been twenty-four hours since he’d last spoken to Savvine. A day since the argument, their voices heated, flaring with words that slayed the soul.

He hadn’t slept much. He hadn’t eaten much. Every time he thought about her walking away, her back straight but her shoulders tense, it made something behind his ribs ache. Sick. Like he’d swallowed regret and it wouldn’t settle.

He finally pushed himself up and headed to the mess, his stomach growling out of spite more than hunger.

The doors opened, and there she was.

Savvine, exiting a few feet away.

Her hair was braided back, and her expression was unreadable until her gaze caught his. Her steps faltered, and her face softened for a moment before she closed up, with a sad twist of her mouth.

His heart wrenched as she kept walking, tracking toward her new suite with such poise that it was hard to tell if she was breaking or surviving.

He didn’t move, nor call after her. He let his eyes follow her silhouette, the sorrow of missing her punching through him all over again.

Fokk. He wanted, needed, and was desperate for her like oxygen.

He growled under his breath, tracked into the food hall, and rustled a tray.

He sat down with a plate he didn’t want and poked at it, dragging his fork through the grains without lifting it to his mouth. His appetite was gone, burned out with everything else.

He sensed a presence as Miral slid into the seat across from him.

She didn’t say anything for a second. She studied him, shaking her head.

‘Xander Roman, you need to lose your stubbornness. Go to her.’

He blinked, jaw twitching. ‘She might not want that.’

‘She might not ask,’ Miral corrected, her brow arching. ‘But she wants it.’

He leaned back, crossing his hands over his muscled chest, frowning. ‘She doesn’t seem to show it.’

Miral tilted her head. ‘You’re not the only one learning to feel things, Xander. She’s processing years of conditioning, ideas drilled into her about love, safety, and who’s worthy of trust. She’s trying to unlearn a lifetime in real time. However, none of that means she doesn’t want you.’

He exhaled hard through his nose, but didn’t interrupt.

‘She needs to know you’re the rock,’ Miral said. ‘The one who doesn’t move. The one who stays steady while she unpacks every learned fear she has about who you are and what it means for her future.’

Xander glanced down at his untouched food. ‘ Fokk , you’re good at this. You could start a psych clinic as a side hustle.’

‘What makes you think I haven’t? I’m freakin counseling all the star wolves now, for free. I should charge by the hour, hmmm?’

Xander huffed, then surged to his feet, his chair scraping as he pushed it back.

‘You do that while I go off and become a fokkin ’ rock.’

SAVVINE

Savvine paced the length of her new, small, clean, impersonal quarters, feeling like a prisoner inside a locked cage.

The walls gleamed with ship-grade polish, it had all the latest mod cons, including a tiny bathroom and kitchenette, but all she perceived was its confinement.

It was nothing like Xander’s cabin or his executive-level suite.

Not that she missed the refined luxurious space.

Nada , she yearned for him .

She rubbed her arms, trying to rid herself of the lingering chill Xander’s words left behind.

Her heart still thudded with agonizing ache, the echo of their fight hammering in her skull.

The room was too quiet. Too sterile.

She crossed to the comm panel and tapped her neural link, hoping, praying, for a signal link to Abby, her parents, anyone on the Eterna .

No matter what she tried, all she got was static, thick, grating, and cruelly absolute.

Her chest constricted.

She turned in a tight circle, breath catching.

Her soul was screaming for motion, space, air, and freedom.

Just then, a chime sounded at the door.

Not expecting a visitor, she startled.