The aura came without warning and light erupted from Ash's skin, silver green and cold, flooding the chamber. Rhea threw her arm up against the glare.
"Ash!" Rhea dropped her toolkit and crossed the distance in two steps, grabbing his shoulders hard.
She shook him. His head moved but his eyes didn't.
"Snap out of it!"
She used her Metal Weave and blue threads surged out from her hands and wrapped around his arms, trying to drag him back. The threads hit the aura and the current shot back through her whole body.
The shock drove her to her knees with one hand still locked around his arm. She didn't know how long she'd been out. Seconds probably but it felt longer.
Ash was gasping above her, the aura bleeding off faster and the light retreating back into his chest.
He looked at his hands. Then at her on the floor.
"Rhea."
"Don't." She was already pulling herself up, pulling him with her, her whole body shivering. "Don't talk. Just move."
"Are you okay?"
"Move, Ash."
They ran back through the corridors.
Ash's mind was still racing when they cycled back into Luna. Rhea slammed the hatch shut and immediately started undocking procedures.
"What the hell was that?" she demanded once they were clear. "You looked like you were about to burn up from the inside." She shot him a hard look.
Ash leaned against the bulkhead, still catching his breath.
"There was a body in the cockpit," he said quietly. "Dead. And on his shoulder was a symbol. The symbol of a noble family..."
Rhea hit her head with her palm. "Damn it." She said it low, like she'd already half known. "I knew the second we docked this was a some deep level mess." She turned on him. "And you? You just had to touch it."
"Rhea."
"Your core," she said, cutting him off. "That's what happened, isn't it. Something changed."
He nodded slowly. "I don't understand what happened fully either, but it's not frozen anymore, Rhea… it's not what it was before."
She stared at him a beat longer then dropped into the pilot's seat, cursing under her breath.
"I've never heard of a core awakening like that," she said, eyes back on the controls.
"Neither have I," Ash said. "But it happened."
"We'll talk about it properly later. Right now let's get out of here."
Then the proximity grid lit up.
All of it. At once.
"Shit," Rhea hissed, pulling up the scan.
The Hounds hadn't left. They were waiting at the edge of the belt, patient.
"Damn, can't we catch a break?" She hit the console in frustration.
Then Ash remembered Zelth's warning. They'd been planning something.
"They're sitting right on our exit vector," Ash said. Gut sinking. Then the pressure started building again. His chest tightened.
And then, from deep inside him a voice spoke again.
"You can hide."
A pause.
"...For a while."
Ash sat very still for a second.
Probably imagining it. It didn't matter.
Something inside him let go. The silver green aura bloomed out and spread like liquid light along the deck plates, racing through Luna's hull in thin shimmering threads. The entire ship glowed faintly for a few seconds then it sank into the hull like a second skin and went quiet.
Rhea's head snapped around. "Ash! The ship is glowing, they're going to..."
"They won't," he said.
He didn't know how he knew. He just did.
The Hound patrol swept right past their vector. The corvette's active scan washed over Luna… and kept going.
"Holy shit," Rhea whispered.
"We've got maybe a few minutes," Ash said, feeling the power already slipping from him. "Long enough to ditch them."
Rhea didn't argue. She adjusted course with steady hands, threading Luna through the gap the Hounds had just vacated.
The threads flickered once more along the viewport then dimmed completely.
"You're still an idiot," Rhea said finally. There was something underneath it though. Equal parts awe and worry. "Nice work. For once."
Ash grinned. "Progress."
The belt spat them out into open space. The station's distant beacon winked on the nav display ahead of them.
Meanwhile, someone else was watching the belt with considerably less patience.
Jackal Draven had been pacing for the better part of two hours. He'd stop occasionally and check the scanner then start pacing again.
Where did it all go wrong?
A few weeks ago in Careyn Hub he'd met Colin. Colin was his link. Had been for years. A tech specialist who intercepted encrypted comms, Conclave internal channels, and the kind of information that wasn't supposed to exist outside certain locked rooms. A little greedy but his information was never wrong. That was the only thing that mattered to Jackal.
Ever since becoming Korv's underling arranging these meetings had gotten complicated. It's hard to move around freely when you were someone's errand boy. But thankfully Korv was easy enough to manipulate. Jackal smiled as he thought about how korv is eating out of his hand and doesn't even know it.
Then the smile faded.
Because being good at managing Korv wasn't the same as being free of him. Years of humiliation were eating him from the inside. With Korv gone it would be easy enough to take control of the Hounds. So Jackal had been biding his time. Waiting for the right moment.
Then Colin came in with exactly what he needed.
Jackal had known for a while that smuggling was moving through the Eryndor system. Ships carrying goods to black market dealers Nobody had dared intercept them because the shipments were tied to the Fractured Hand and nobody with any sense would want to provoke them.
But according to Colin they'd had a run in with the Stellarguard a while back. The entire crew got arrested and most of the cargo confiscated. But both Colin and Jackal knew that dealers like the Fractured Hand always kept things hidden away for scenarios like this. There was a window. Narrow, but its there. Not many would dare move in it. But it was a golden opportunity and Jackal decided to risk it.
Colin wanted a quarter of whatever Jackal pulled. Jackal agreed without hesitation.
Then he carefully put the plan in motion. He mentioned the ship to Korv, how there could be some scavengable metal scraps worth picking through. As expected Korv sent out a crew and he was so delighted with it that he allowed Jackal a few escorting corvettes for his routine patrol.
Jackal made sure to pick the Hounds that had some loyalty toward him. The ones he'd brought to his side with booze, food and the promise of revenge against Korv. Shortly after becoming Korv's underling Jackal had figured that many Hounds quietly resented him. Korv ruled through intimidation and it bred resentment. So it wasn't that hard to rope a few in. They weren't totally loyal to Jackal but they weren't going to run back to Korv to snitch either.
The plan was simple. Let Korv's crew get the useless scraps while Jackal went after the valuable stuff. And if the Fractured Hand ever came looking for it, well, Korv was the one in charge wasn't he. And if they didn't come looking, Jackal had ways to make sure they heard about it. The Fractured Hand might overlook a few missing valuables. What they wouldn't forgive was thieves. That's what Jackal was counting on.
With Korv gone he could rule the station. Become a major player in the system. Simple and effective.
That was before those two showed up.
Walking around like they owned the place. No crew, no affiliation, no one to answer to. It made his blood boil. He'd never understood why the Hounds gave them such a wide berth. But he'd been working on Korv about it for months, planting the idea that letting them move freely was setting a bad example for everyone else.
When they'd shown up at the freighter it had genuinely shocked him. But he didn't panic. He had the numbers and the firepower. All he had to do was wait for them to come out with whatever they'd pulled from the ship.
Simple.
Until that girl did something suicidal with her ship and vanished into the deeper belt with his cargo before anyone could react.
Two hours and counting now.
A few minutes ago the scanner had caught something. A ship. Then it was gone. He'd been staring at that spot ever since.
Jackal turned from the scanner and started pacing again.
The Hounds were growing restless. He was too. Staying out this long was risky, sooner or later Korv would start asking questions.
But he chose to wait a little longer. They'd come out eventually. Had to. And when they did, they'd face the wrath of Jackal Draven.
He just had to be a little more patient.