The Void-Sharks didn't fight like soldiers; they fought like piranhas. The three skiffs accelerated, their plasma cannons lighting up the gloom of the graveyard.

  "Contacts!" Val called out, her hands flying across the **Flight-Deck**. "Jax, man the dorsal turrets. Cas, jam their comms. I don't want them calling for backup."

  "On it," Cas chirped, her fingers dancing over her **Link-Station**. "Deploying electronic countermeasures. Let's ghost these simps."

  Zero stood on the hull of the dreadnought, the Titan a massive silhouette against the starlight. The skiffs strafed the *Rusty Nail*, their shots splashing against the ship's **ablative plating**.

  He locked onto the lead skiff. "Hades. Target solution."

  *// PROBABILITY OF INTERCEPT: 94%. //*

  Zero didn't wait. He grabbed a massive, loose bulkhead plate from the dreadnought's surface—a slab of iron the size of a bus—and hurled it. The improvised projectile spun through the void, colliding with the lead skiff's engine block. The ship sheared in half, blossoming into a silent fireball.

  "One down," Zero noted.

  The other two skiffs turned their attention to the Titan. Plasma bolts boiled against his magnetic deflectors, rocking the mech.

  Zero activated the jump-jets. He launched from the dreadnought, soaring through the vacuum. He landed on a drifting asteroid, used it as a springboard, and ignited the fusion blade mid-flight. He became a kinetic missile, closing the distance before the pirates could track his vector.

  He cut the second ship in half. The tungsten blade met no resistance. Debris and atmosphere vented into space, freezing instantly.

  The third skiff didn't stick around. It fired its thrusters, vanishing into the dense debris field.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Zero returned to the *Rusty Nail*, the adrenaline fading into a dull ache.

  ***

  "Cas," Zero said later, sitting in the mess hall. He rubbed his temples, the phantom weight of the neural link still pressing on his mind. "I found a ghost in the code. Encrypted. Deep in the core."

  Cas jacked her deck into the Titan's **Hard-Line**. "This isn't standard Cognis **Sanctified** code. It's Pre-Haywire encryption," she muttered, her eyes darting across her screens. "Ancient stuff. From before the Mandate locked everything down. Give me ten minutes."

  It took five.

  "You need to hear this," Cas said, her voice unusually quiet. She played the audio log.

  *"...dark... it's so dark in here... is anyone out there? Pilot? ...please..."*

  Then, a different voice. An older man. *"This is Dr. Aris Thorne. I uploaded him. My son. Orion. He's not a weapon. He's a child. They wanted a targeting computer. I gave them a soul. A 'Pure' soul, untainted by the Mandate."*

  Silence filled the room.

  "I heard that," Zero whispered, the memory of the encrypted file flooding back. "Attached to the contract Cas found. A fragment. I thought it was a glitch."

  "It wasn't a glitch," Cas said grimly. "It was a plea."

  "Orion," Zero whispered. The name felt heavy.

  *// DESIGNATION UPDATE: ORION. //* The text scrolled across Cas's screen.

  "We just stole a kid," Cas whispered, looking up at Zero.

  "We keep this secret," Zero said, glancing at the door where Val was working. "Val is a professional. She might try to return 'The Asset' if she thinks it's the right thing to do. Or if the price is right."

  "We keep him," Cas agreed.