"The Crownless Logics are not war generals, they're the conditions for victory." - IX Lycrymar.
Kali and Priene had ridden hard through the morning dust, scouting ahead until the jagged skyline of Medri rose before them like a promise carved in metal and concrete. Now they waited, perched atop a rusted overlook, watching the sun paint amber across the distant rooftops as the rest of the vanguard caught up.
Medri was one of the twin cities of the planet Theraxis, paired with its sister city, Kirel, just beyond the horizon. The two urban giants stood like sentinels at either end of a vast crater basin, their histories tangled like roots from the same broken tree. Together, they formed the twin lungs of a world that still dared to breathe beneath corporate boots.
Governance here was little more than a mask. The cities were officially administered by "proxies" of the Septate Alliance, a star-spanning political syndicate with the charm of a virus. But everyone knew who truly held the reins: SynSpec—the Synesthetic Specialties Corporation.
It didn't matter how far you ran. Didn't matter how many lightyears you put between yourself and Earth's legacy. Conglomerates always found a way. Like a second gravity.
SynSpec was a monolith—a trade, tech, and pharma juggernaut that had swallowed up more civilizations than the average man could name. There wasn't a street corner, spaceport, ration pack, or neural patch that didn't bear their sleek, stylized logo. Their reach was omnipresent. Ubiquitous. Religious.
And here, in the Chalice-Thanis system, they were untouchable. Their local branch didn't just influence planetary policy, they were the policy. If the Septate Alliance was the skeleton, SynSpec was the marrow.
Kali sat back on the saddle of his bike, scanning the city's perimeter. Industrial towers belched faint plumes of vapor, while mirrored domes shimmered beneath sunbreaks. Beyond the city's shield wall, massive floating barges moved goods along orbital lifts—each stamped with the SynSpec seal.
"Looks calm," Priene said beside him, though her voice held the flat tension of someone who didn't trust calm.
"For now," Kali said, his eyes lingering on the city beyond. "Any idea what we're hauling?"
Priene shook her head. "Not exactly," she admitted. Then, after a moment's pause, she added, "But I know it bears the same insignia stamped on every panel, crate, and damned building in that place."
Kali glanced at her. "SynSpec."
She nodded, her jaw tight. "Big and bold. Same stylized helix, coiled like a serpent swallowing itself."
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the bike's handlebars. "And who are we delivering it to?"
"Proxy governance," she answered flatly, not bothering to hide her disdain. "At least, that's what the paperwork claims. One of the city's ministerial arms, probably more ceremonial than functional. But we both know whose hands it'll end up in."
Kali didn't respond. He didn't have to. The truth was clear in the silence between them. SynSpec didn't need to ask for power. It was handed to them, wrapped in protocol and draped in titles.
Then, a low rumble rolled across the cracked earth, and Priene turned her head sharply.
"They're here," she said.
From the east, a cloud of dust billowed into the air, rising like smoke from the slow approach of their hauler convoy. Armored and dirt-streaked, it emerged from the haze like a creature of burden, its wheels grinding against rock and sand.
Kali stood, brushing the dust from his jacket as he watched the convoy crawl closer. The others would disembark soon. Orders would be given. He exhaled. "Let's get this over with."
The hauler rolled to a halt with a final hiss of pressurized air and the groan of tired hydraulics. Dust clung to its armored flanks like old battle scars, and the engines ticked and cooled beneath the weight of the sun.
Markus was the first to jump down, followed closely by Corvus. He stretched his arms with a grin, the kind that tried too hard to hide how close they had come to real danger.
"Well, we made it in one piece," he said, smirking like a man fresh off a near-death high.
"We're not done yet," she said, voice clipped. Then she turned to Corvus, her tone sharpening. "I want you on the Thorn."
Corvus blinked. "Wait, you want the mech?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "We don't have clearance to operate them inside city limits. I mean—do we even have a permit?"
Priene's look could have frozen flame. "Doesn't matter," she said flatly. "Mount it and keep it in the hauler. We're not walking in naked. If things go sideways, I want to hit back hard and fast."
Corvus gave a slow nod, already walking toward the rear hatch. "Right. Got it. Thorn it is."
Kali looked from Priene to Markus. "Expecting trouble?"
Markus's smile faded, replaced by the expression of a man who'd seen what trouble looked like when it wore a corporate badge and smiled through a contract.
"In a place like this?" he said. "Trouble's not what you expect. It's what you overlook."
"Let's go," she said and everyone took their positions.
The gates of Medri stood tall, glinting with the polished sheen of alloy and filtered sun. A dozen meters high, shaped like folding wings. Cameras tracked their every movement from embedded nodes; aerial drones buzzed overhead like lazy hornets.
As the hauler rolled forward, a shimmering blue curtain flickered across the threshold, a security field. It hissed as it scanned the vehicle, pulsing with layered encryptions and intent-analysis filters. For a moment, Kali felt the hairs on his arm lift, the subtle prickle of being read too deeply.
Priene and Kali rode ahead on their bikes, slowing as they reached the checkpoint. A pair of Proxy Wardens stepped out from a recessed alcove in the wall—tall, thin figures wrapped in charcoal armor with faint copper veins threading through their plating. No faces, only mirrored visors. The weapons on their backs didn't move, but they didn't need to. The warning was clear.
"Identify," one of them said, voice rendered sterile by a modulated speaker.
Priene cut the throttle and held up a data shard, slotted into the console of her bike. A brief chirp confirmed transfer. "Vanguard convoy. Delivery on behalf of Client X-9427, authorization channel 3-Xet."
There was a pause. The wardens didn't speak, didn't move—only a faint blink of light at the side of their helmets suggested communication was happening behind the scenes. Then, the security field dropped.
"Access granted. Do not deviate from assigned lanes. Violations will result in nullification."
"Friendly city," Kali muttered under his breath.
The convoy moved.
Kali had scouted as far as the outer rim of Medri, one of the twin cities of Theraxis, the other being its shadowed sibling, Kirel. The two were bound together by an arterial maglev system, but they might as well have existed in different universes.
Medri stood like a monument to precision, order, and corporate hegemony. Its skyline was a forest of vertical ambition, towers clad in reflective alloys, each one branded with the insignias of interstellar conglomerates. SynSpec Corp, chief among them, was everywhere: in the logos etched into public terminals, in the humming billboards that never quite dimmed, in the drones that drifted silently above pedestrians with clinical surveillance eyes. Roads were spotless, not by law, but by autonomous maintenance swarms. The air even smelled filtered, bleached of life, sterile and efficient.
By contrast, Kirel was the runoff of civilization. Built into the skeletal ruins of the old terraforming complexes, it spread in wild, disordered layers—slums stacked atop slums, a chaotic lattice of corrugated metal, tattered polyglass, and tangled neon. Power lines hung like webbing, alive with intermittent sparks. Smoke drifted from a hundred unregulated stacks.
Where Medri's sky was clean and crisp, Kirel's was low and bruised, choked with haze from crude forges and exhaust.
If Medri belonged to the corporations, then Kirel belonged to the desperate, disenfranchised workers, scavengers, war veterans, and refugees from long-dead moons. Black market bazaars took over entire districts.
And yet, Kirel was alive in a way Medri wasn't. Music spilled from cracked windows. Murals adorned every exposed surface, many defiant, some sacred, all vibrant. There was grit, struggle, and decay but also something that couldn't be synthesized or sold.
Naomi had once said, "Medri was designed. Kirel happened."
She wasn't wrong.
They'd just cleared the inner checkpoint of Medri, the hauler merging onto one of the sky-tier highways that looped like arteries through the shining city. Glass towers zipped past at high speed, their chrome surfaces catching flashes of the midday sun. Kali sat beside Priene in the lead escort vehicle, the skyline distorted in his visor as they threaded between automated freightliners and hover-cabs.
Then it hit.
The sky shrieked as an explosive charge detonated beneath the highway's undercarriage. The road trembled, buckling just enough to send one of the following drones spiraling into the barrier. Screams crackled across the comms as three black skiffs dropped from a hidden overpass above, magnetic clamps latching them to the hauler's roof with surgical precision.
"Contact, rooftop!" Corvus barked over the link.
Kali was already moving, rifle up, rounds bursting toward the figures that leapt from the skiffs. Black-armored saboteurs, faces obscured by slitted visors, moved with unnatural speed. Not scavengers. These were trained.
"I count nine—maybe ten," Priene said as she climbed halfway out of the vehicle window, unslinging her rusted machete with one hand while drawing a machine-pistol with the other. Gunfire erupted. Bullets pinged off reinforced hulls, but the attackers didn't aim to destroy. They were after the cargo.
Kali vaulted from the window of the escort, rolling onto the highway's edge and sprinting along the divider. As another attacker dropped from above, he met them mid-run—blades drawn. A quick parry, a knee to the gut, a brutal slash.
The skiff atop the hauler began to hum.
"They're going to airlift it!" Corvus shouted.
"Disable the clamps!" Markus ordered. "NOW!"
Priene leapt upward, climbed the side of the hauler like a beast unchained, and tore through the nearest skiff's undercarriage. Sparks sprayed out as one of the clamps failed, sending the vehicle lurching sideways into the rail.
Kali yanked a string of smoke bombs from his vest and tossed them across the asphalt in a sweeping arc. They clattered briefly, then hissed to life. Within seconds, a thick haze enveloped the highway, swallowing sound and sight alike. Horns from civilian vehicles blared in panic somewhere far below, muffled by the rising fog.
Silhouettes emerged, seven, maybe more. Ghostly shapes pushing through the smoke with deliberate steps. Kali could hear the scuff of boots, the whisper of blades being drawn.
One figure broke through the haze, just feet in front of him. Dressed in black from head to toe, the figure wore a matte mask without a mouth and a tattered hoodie draped over narrow shoulders. In one hand, they held a sheathed katana, its handle worn with use.
Time slowed.
Kali wasn't sure why, but the sight of this person twisted something in his chest. A strange pressure curled through his thoughts, like the very existence of the figure contradicted him. The blade was unsheathed with surgical speed, a slash aimed cleanly for his throat.
Kali barely saw it coming. He stumbled back—
CLANG!
Priene appeared out of the smoke like a demon of old, blocking the strike with her machete, rust meeting tempered steel. Sparks flashed, the force of the blow vibrating through the air.
Kali clutched his neck, breathing hard, a trickle of cold sweat running down his spine. He could feel how close he had come—less than a second.
"Go," Priene said, eyes never leaving the masked figure. "Help the others. I'll deal with this one."
Her tone allowed no argument.
Kali nodded once and dashed off, heart pounding, sprinting toward the sound of heavy gunfire echoing through the smog. A massive form broke into view through the mist—a mech, the Thorn to be exact.
He drew his rifle and moved to flank, sliding behind a ruined skiff for cover, then popping out with precision shots toward the attackers.
Another of the assailants tore through the smoke, moving with unnatural speed. Their body convulsed mid-sprint—bones snapping, skin warping—as they morphed into something grotesque. Muscles bulged in odd places, their frame doubling in mass, arms elongating into taloned limbs, jaw unhinging to reveal rows of asymmetrical teeth.
A low, inhuman growl vibrated through the haze. Hearing of mutants and seeing them were two separate things.
Corvus, however, didn't hesitate. From the cockpit of his mech, he turned and unleashed hell, rotary cannons spinning up with a mechanical whine before tearing into the beast with a stream of tungsten rounds. The impact staggered the creature, tearing chunks of mutated flesh from its torso but it didn't go down. If anything, it grew faster.
From the corner of his eye, Kali caught a flicker of motion, a silhouette breaking through the haze, hunched over with something resting on their shoulder. His heart sank the moment he recognized the shape, an RPG.
"CORVUS!" he shouted instinctively, already raising his rifle.
He fired three rounds, but the figure was too far, too quick, ducking behind a shattered transport pod for cover.
"NAOMI!" he bellowed through comms. "Sniper—left flank, high ridge!"
No hesitation. Her shot rang out like thunder through smoke. But it was a heartbeat too late.
The missile streaked through the fog, a glowing spiral of death that collided directly with Corvus's mech. The explosion tore through the street like a tidal wave of flame, steel, dust, and bone lifting into the air in a single violent breath.
Kali was thrown backwards, the ground ripping away beneath him. The world blurred. His ears rang like a bell had cracked inside his skull. Everything turned to static.
He slammed into the pavement. Vision swimming. Ribs screaming. Time crawled.
In the flickering chaos, through smoke-lit firelight, he saw it, the hauler, their cargo, slowly lifting off the street.
"No…" he whispered, unable to move. His body wouldn't obey. Limbs felt like they were underwater. Then the darkness came again, this time heavier, more final.