Yellow Jacket

The command center remained a storm of frantic activity and overwhelming sound, every monitor saturated with motion, every officer either snapping orders or screaming status reports into headsets that barely kept up. The air pulsed with urgency, tension crawling like static across every screen and every breath. Warren stood still in the middle of it all, a fixed point in chaos. Onscreen, Deck was climbing into the Neuman wing's side hatch, the thick, rugged pack strapped to his back pulsing with an ominous, steady glow. It wasn't just light, it throbbed like a heartbeat, a warning, alive with intent.

"That's a bomb, isn't it?" Warren asked. His voice was tight, rough at the edges, his throat dry. The question sounded absurd the second it left his mouth, but it was all he could push out. The implication was clear. Deck wasn't boarding to rescue. He was boarding to destroy.

Ruby didn't respond immediately. She didn't even glance at him. Her attention remained locked on the screen, her expression unreadable, dispassionate, detached. Cold. But then, after a breath or two, her lips curved into something sharp, half smirk, half warning. "Of course, darling. It's Deck. What else would it be?"

Warren's stomach twisted. He knew Deck. "What's he going to do with it exactly?"

Ruby's reply came with the crispness of inevitability. "Knowing him? He'll spoof the Neuman fleet's communication protocols, mimic their encrypted call signs, and transmit a false return signal. Something that says the wing's full, full of prisoners, Legion troops, civilians, high-value targets. They'll believe it. They'll think it's coming home to offload." She folded her arms as she spoke, like she was reading off a familiar script. "Then, once they accept the signal, once they've dropped their guard and brought it in... he'll detonate the charge. Blow a hole in that ship's flank big enough to make it try to run at least."

Warren didn't move. He couldn't. Ruby's voice carried the weight of inevitability.

"And while he's nestled in their systems, " she continued, "I'd wager he's already sliding a virus into their architecture. Something vicious. A war-spike built to eat through their command logic, blind their turrets, fracture their chain of control, overload nav relays. Deck doesn't just blow things up. He cripples them from the inside out."

She paused there. For a breath, her voice dipped lower, darker. "If he pulls it off, we won't just damage the cruiser, we'll take it. Intact. Operational. That hasn't happened in decades. We've never had the chance to get one back like this. Not without it being reduced to slag first."

Warren blinked, stunned. "That's... insane."

Ruby finally turned to look at him, her eyes glittering. "Love. Please. It's Deck. Insanity is just logistics with extra flavor to him."

On the screen, Deck slipped through the hatch. The glow of the pack disappeared behind the reinforced interior doors, which shut and sealed with a flickering red light. The wing absorbed him.

Ruby's amusement vanished. Her voice shifted, clean, surgical. "This is going to be a win. A real one. But we're going to need to clear that cruiser. From stem to stern, from command to storage. Every corridor. Every room. Every blood-soaked crawlspace. We will leave no corner untouched, no signal unchecked, no survivor armed. We will gut it like a corpse and catalog the pieces."

She took a step toward Warren, her heels clicking with precision on the command floor. "And when I say we, I do not mean you. I mean we in the proper sense. The royal we. The Legion."

Warren met her eyes, silent.

"You're not stepping foot on that ship until this entire situation is resolved, locked, and bled dry. Do you understand me?"

Warren's jaw worked. He bit down on the protest building behind his teeth, fists clenched tight. Ruby's eyes gave no room for argument.

"Yes, " he said.

"Yes what?" she asked sharply.

"Yes, ma'am."

Ruby gave a sharp nod, satisfied. She straightened the flawless line of her deep crimson dress, the motion practiced, unconscious. Her voice rose again, this time with all the calculated presence of a speech meant for the Skybox. Commanding. Broadcast-worthy. "Then watch and learn. This raid has been neutralized by the combined force of our brave Legion troops and our instructors. The Neuman came to harvest Kyrrabad. They leave as nothing at all."

She didn't stop. Her voice gathered momentum, building into a surge of finality. "They thought they could raid us. Thought they could take what they pleased and vanish into the clouds. But instead of loot, instead of prisoners, instead of submission, they gave us a gift. A wrapped surprise with a pulsing heartbeat. They gave us their cruiser."

Her tone sharpened, iron wrapped in silk. "Do you understand what this means? This is Neuman architecture. Their command systems. Their engine cores. Their flight data. Secrets they thought unreachable, now within our grasp.

She exhaled, slow and controlled, then smiled again. "They flew in for a harvest and delivered a boon. Not just to Kyrrabad, but to the Legion. We will crack that cruiser open like a seed pod and grow weapons from the marrow."

The air above Kyrrabad shimmered with electric tension. High above the battered city, the Neuman cruiser drifted in the sky like a predator deciding whether to strike, or fall. Its tilt deepened suddenly, unnaturally, a sickening roll that signaled something inside had gone terribly, irreparably wrong.

In the Citadel's command chamber, reserved only for high-ranking officers and terminal operators, a thick silence settled like a shroud. The quiet hum of active terminals and the sharp, brittle awareness of every person in the room. The weight of it was enough to press a heartbeat into stillness.

Ruby leaned forward, hands braced on the edge of the polished table that wrapped around the main tactical display. Her voice was calm, flat, and absolute. "That was one of Deck's viruses. They're firing off. That cruiser's done."

Warren said nothing. He didn't blink. His entire focus locked onto the ship visible through the 360° glass that circled the room.

Below the Neuman cruiser, the flight rings began to destabilize. These weren't decorative systems, they were massive stabilization gyros designed to keep the Neuman ships floating in perpetual stasis. For years they had hovered like gods over the mortal world, silent and untouchable. But now? One blink. Gone. The glow of contained lift vanished, and with it, every illusion of control.

The ship didn't falter. It plummeted.

A sky-cast monolith thrown to the earth.

And with it, the command chamber erupted.

Officers who'd spent the last hours managing chaos and ordering fallback lines now shouted with raw-throated triumph. Fists slammed against metal consoles. Terminal operators leapt from their stations, clapping each other on the back, some laughing, some weeping. The sound thundered through the room, filling every inch with an overwhelming pressure of joy, rage, vindication, and disbelief.

They had been on the edge. And now... now they were watching a god fall.

Ruby didn't move. She exhaled, long and slow, like she'd been holding it since the first sensor ping. Her face gave nothing away.

Warren's throat was dry. His hands clenched unconsciously. He couldn't tear his gaze from the cruiser's descent. It fell hard, screaming through the clouds with ruptured joints bleeding fire. Stabilizers exploded outward as the internal systems failed to reroute power. There was no safety net. No redundancy. The Neuman didn't build for failure.

And they had failed.

The impact outside the eastern wall hit like a meteor. The sound cracked through the sky and rolled underfoot, shaking the bones of the Citadel. A shockwave tore outward, flattening nearby terrain, throwing dust and debris skyward in a fire-crowned halo. The ground tore open, swallowing steel and stone. For a second, it seemed the ship would detonate.

But it didn't.

The Neuman cruiser crumpled. It bent and twisted, plates splitting and ribs snapping, but its core remained. Damaged. Bleeding. But whole. The hull held, and with it, hope.

The cheering reached a fever pitch.

And then the escape pods launched.

From the ruptured underbelly of the cruiser, hundreds of pods burst free, arcing desperately into the sky like insects scattering from a crushed hive.

Kyrrabad gave them no mercy.

Turrets realigned in under a second. Artillery batteries rose from their underground vaults. Missile towers locked targets. Anti-air lances painted the clouds with lines of fire. Storms of flechettes and precision bursts tracked every pod.

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The Neuman fled in every direction.

None escaped.

One by one, their pods were shredded mid-flight. They burst like eggs, flame and debris marking each final scream. In less than sixty seconds, the sky went clean.

In the command chamber, the noise was deafening.

Ruby laughed. Controlled. Cold. Fierce. Her fists were still white-knuckled on the edge of the table.

"We just took a cruiser... WE TOOK A FUCKING CRUISER!!"

Warren finally breathed again. He stared at the wreck, then looked at her. "Holy fucking shit."

Ruby turned, still smiling. "Deck took a cruiser. Let's give credit where it's due."

She paused, eyes narrowing slightly, then said it again with relish. "This is a massive windfall."

And outside, the Legion moved.

Gates opened wide. Regiments streamed out in locked formation, boots striking with perfect unity. They were not reinforcements. They were the endgame. Flare signals marked routes. Squad leaders barked formations. Sensor buoys and drone scouts swarmed the crash site.

Engineers rolled forward with shield barriers, signal towers, and field emitters. Mobile turrets deployed to fallback positions. Artillery adjusted aim, not to fire, but to guard. The cruiser was now an asset.

Breach teams were already on the move. Grapples launched. Thermal saws hissed. Hardlight cutters traced entry lines along the outer plates. They swarmed the wreck with tactical efficiency and brutal clarity. There was no mercy. No delay.

Ruby's voice dropped to something sharper. Something surgical.

"We're going to gut that thing from spine to skin. They brought us more than a raid. They brought us everything. A full Neuman command cruiser. Full of tech. Full of systems. Logs. Fuel. Design specs. Shields. Power converters. Flight rings. Sensors."

She stepped forward, eyes still locked on the distant ruin.

"We'll drain it dry, Warren. And when we're done, it'll be ours. Every last bolt and byte will scream Legion."

The cruiser shifted again, grinding into the earth like a wounded animal. Smoke curled from exposed joints. Fires licked across the slanted deck. Its scale dwarfed the skyline. But there was nothing foreign about it anymore.

It was Neuman.

And it belonged to Kyrrabad now.

They had come to take.

Instead, they gave.

They gave the Legion a prize worthy of the old wars.

They gave them a cruiser.

The alarm had long since gone silent, its echo replaced by the slow, grinding rhythm of Legion discipline. Hours had passed. The Neuman cruiser, once a monstrous threat looming over Kyrrabad, now lay cracked and defeated in the distance, ringed with flickering searchlights and cannon mounts. Legion forces had moved through it not as soldiers in battle, but as executioners. No quarter was given. Resistance was met with death. Silence was met with suspicion.

They swept the vessel from stem to stern. Room by room. Hall by hall. Any Neuman that survived the crash and still dared to raise a weapon died where they stood. There were no negotiations. No appeals. No surrender. The Neuman would never yield. From the oldest elder to the youngest child, they met death standing. Not a single one dropped their head or begged. Their pride ran deeper than blood, and it cost them everything.

Those few who could be taken alive were cuffed, tagged, and dragged into containment cells for later interrogation, or incineration. The Legion wasn't subtle. They weren't merciful. They were efficient. They were a machine of purpose, relentless in their sweep, cutting down any straggler who dared breathe resistance. The ship had become a tomb with corridors soaked in violence.

Not all of the civilians or Legion personnel captured aboard the cruiser had survived, but more were found alive than expected. It was a small mercy. Somehow, the crash hadn't triggered a full systems collapse. The ship's internal gravity stabilizers remained partially functional, and structural integrity had held across key sectors. Most prisoners hadn't even felt the impact, their cells insulated by the ship's redundant safety layers. It didn't save them from trauma, but it kept them breathing long enough to be rescued.

Warren sat near the wide wraparound glass of the command tower's upper level, overlooking the controlled chaos unfolding far below. The crash site was still visible in the horizon's haze. Smoke drifted lazily up from torn steel. Shuttles buzzed in and out of formation. Legion artillery maintained a perimeter, and the last stragglers of resistance were being silenced beneath coordinated fire. It was almost beautiful, in its symmetry. The invaders fell. The defenders claimed.

Ruby approached from behind, her boots echoing sharply against the polished floor.

"Well, " she said as she came to a halt beside him, her arms folding neatly, "let's return to our interview."

Warren turned slightly, one brow lifting.

She didn't smile. Her voice was clipped, formal. "There are some things we need to clarify. Now that the excitement's passed, it's time to talk about what you owe the Legion."

His posture tensed. He didn't respond.

Ruby kept her tone neutral.
"You owe us, not for surviving, but for the cost of your survival. Let's not pretend. You could have killed that thing using your Soul Skill at any point. You didn't. You wanted to push it, to test yourself, to finish the challenge on terms you set for yourself. You could have simply cut its chip out and ended it, but instead you clung to this fascination with value that you seem to think is worth more than your own life."

Still, Warren said nothing.

"And you went too far. Your body failed. Your systems crashed. We had to pull you out of that mess and stabilize you before it was too late. And it was my direct intervention that kept you alive." She turned to face him fully now. "We used high-priority medical gear. Reserve supplies. Trained med-techs pulled from active duty. That's not free, Warren. Those aren't just favors. That's a bill."

She let the silence build.

"So yes, " she said again, more firmly this time. "We're going to talk."

She tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable. "This is going to be in the tens of millions of credits, Warren. So, we'll likely need to set up a payment plan..."

"No need, " Warren said, cutting her off. "I can pay that easily enough."

Ruby blinked. Her eyebrows rose as she turned to look at him. "Oh?"

He nodded. "Figured out Deck's food synthesizer override. Fixed it for half the Citadel. You wouldn't believe what people are willing to trade just to never eat a bug bar again."

Her eyes narrowed as the realization settled. After a second, she exhaled slowly and gave a single sharp nod. "All right. Let me just grab a pad and we'll handle the transfer."

He nodded once more, watching as she moved toward the nearest terminal, the faint ghost of a smirk on his lips.

Outside, the Legion's new cruiser glowed under floodlights. It was still steaming, still dangerous, still full of secrets. But it was theirs now. And they would carve it clean until there was nothing left unclaimed. The Neuman had come to raid, and instead, they gave Kyrrabad a crown.

When Warren finally stepped out of the Ninth Layer, Jurpat was already waiting outside the Ugly Mug, standing perfectly still, eyes locked on the sealed door like it was a portal to hell. He looked like he hadn't moved in hours. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe he had just been there, waiting, watching, the whole time.

The moment the door cracked open, Jurpat surged forward, concern flaring across his face like a flare lit in a dark room. "Are you okay? I saw what happened. I mean... you look normal, I guess, but did you see what happened with the city? What's going on? Everything just... changed."

His worry wasn't veiled. It wasn't masked. It was carved into every syllable.

Warren blinked at him slowly, exhaustion bleeding from the edges of his posture. He stepped through the threshold and took one last look back, like the door might vanish or erase itself the moment he turned away. When it didn't, he exhaled, met Jurpat's eyes, and said, "I might have melted my face off in that last fight. Ruby had to save me. So... yeah, there's that. And yeah, I saw it all."

He ran his fingers down his cheek, then frowned, as if still unfamiliar with the skin beneath his touch. "But I'm here. We can go back to the others now. Hopefully, they've figured out what they want from me. Maybe now we can finally move past this whole situation. I'd rather not dwell on the fact that I basically have a whole new face. I don't even know what to do with that yet."

He took a breath. "Let's just go."

Then, quieter, he added, "Sorry for making you wait so long."

Jurpat shook his head quickly. "Don't be. I'm just glad you're okay. It looked... it looked fucking awful, Warren."

"It was, " Warren admitted. "But I passed out before the worst of it. I had a weird dream again. Might need to talk to Imujin about it. Probably will. But... I think I'm okay. Yeah. I think I'm okay."

He paused, gaze falling away from Jurpat and toward the floor. Something flickered behind his eyes.

"I need to plan better for the future, " he muttered, mostly to himself.

Jurpat furrowed his brow. "What was that?"

Warren exhaled through his nose, like the words were heavy. "I keep making these plans that get us to the future, but I never stop to think about what that future even looks like. I've got... not foresight, exactly, but something close. Combat modeling. Predictive reactions. I can see angles and outcomes, adjust for variables, calculate winning paths. But it only works in fights. I only ever plan for violence."

He scratched the back of his head. "Maybe that's a flaw. Maybe I don't want to see the future like that all the time. Maybe it's not about seeing the future. Maybe it's about shaping it. Knowing what we want from it, not just surviving long enough to reach it."

Jurpat stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder.

"That's why you've got us, " he said. "You don't have to do this alone. But you also need to talk to us. You come up with these brilliant, insane, incredibly reckless ideas that somehow work, but that doesn't mean they're perfect. You don't have to carry the weight of every decision. We're here for a reason. You can ask us what we think. Let us be part of it. Help spot the flaws you might miss."

Warren looked like he might respond, but Jurpat wasn't finished.

"And maybe... maybe you should go apologize to everyone. For the bindings. For what you did, what happened. You didn't give them a real choice. Even if they wanted to follow you, you made that decision for them. You didn't tie the knot yourself, maybe, but you pulled the thread that started the whole thing. You changed their lives without asking. You bound them to your cause. That was you."

Jurpat met his eyes, steady.

"And if I was in their shoes? I'd probably feel the same. No, scratch that, I know I would. Because this whole thing? It's bigger than any one of us. And we still followed. But that doesn't mean it didn't hurt."

Warren didn't respond right away.

But the silence said plenty.

Warren and Jurpat followed a quiet side street, one of the cleaner arteries weaving through Kyrrabad's underbelly. The cleanup crews were out, scraping debris from the gutters and hauling damaged haulers into side bays. Nobody saluted them. Nobody stopped them. They weren't in uniform, and this wasn't the part of the city that cared.

They said little on the way.

Warren's thoughts ran slower now, fuzzier, like smoke drifting in the corners of his vision. The exhaustion hadn't lifted. It had just nested somewhere deeper. He was grateful for the silence.

At the pad, Warren stepped on first, Jurpat half a second behind. The pad lit once, and then they were there.

At the front of his estate.

Warren stepped forward.

Jurpat followed.

And she was already there.

Deic.

Standing just outside the gate.

Not inside. Not on his property. Just there, like a statue etched into the last bit of sunlight. Her hands were clasped into fist. Her eyes were locked on the door.

She didn't look surprised when he arrived. She didn't smile. Didn't wave.

She just watched.

And he watched her.

Neither moved. Neither blinked. The air between them was still, like the city had exhaled and forgotten to breathe again.

Jurpat glanced between the two of them, then let out a small breath of his own. Without saying a word, he stepped past the gate, through the threshold, and into the house. The door whispered shut behind him.

Still, Warren and Deic didn't move.

Wind stirred the edge of his jacket. His new face itched, but he didn't raise a hand.

No words were exchanged.

But something passed between them anyway.

And then...

She took a step forward.