Well, another man has proven his prowess and has earned the rank of Admiral. Stand proud, stand tall, hold your chin up high, for you, sir, are an Admiral the greatest Naval force Humanity has ever produced!
May your fleet glide through the cosmos and show every maggot just how great Humanity is! Spread our name, spread our glory, and rise, Admiral Seth Lumbardo! For it is an honor to have you amongst our ranks, and in your Honor, an additional chapter shall be published publicly, and I shall expedite Chapter 46 and write it in your honor.
Along with Admiral Seth Lumbardo,we honor those who've stepped into our ranks and give proper recognition to every new warrior who joins our cause.
This Royal Navy has expanded and welcomes the following courageous soul: ShadeByTheSea.
As your Fleet Admiral, I, Crimson_Reapr, welcome you, honor your commitment, and thank you for your service. May our power reach beyond the edges of charted space, and may ruin fall upon all who stand against humanity's strength.
---
3rd-Person POV: Mark Shephard, One Hour Ago
It was still early in the morning, and the private security Mark had hired to take Lyra to and from the Orphanage had yet to arrive.
The office of Shepherd Orbital Works was currently operating at a level of tranquility that felt almost suspicious. The fabrication drones in the main hangar were humming their low, electric song as they printed the final hexagonal armor plates for the Vanguard-One. Inside the glass-walled command center, Kenjiro Takagi was hunched over the holo-table, manipulating a wireframe model of a cooling loop with the focus of a monk in meditation.
Mark leaned back in his chair, the reinforced polymer creaking under his bulk. He took a sip of lukewarm coffee, the cheap, synthetic stuff from the dispenser, not the artisan blend Kenjiro kept raving about, and watched Lyra.
She had constructed a fortress of solitude in the corner of the office using empty shipping crates from the first batch of capacitors. She was currently "defending" it against an invisible horde of space pirates using a toy laser pistol Mark had fabricated for her out of scrap plastic.
"Pew! Pew! You'll never get my gold!" she whispered fiercely, ducking behind a cardboard rampart.
Mark smiled, a genuine expression that softened the hard lines of his face. This was it. This was the life. Business, engineering, and a kid playing in a box.
"Mark," Kenjiro said without looking up from the hologram. "I'm running the numbers on the revenue stream from the Void Vanguard contract. If we reinvest forty percent into raw iridium futures, we can hedge against the market fluctuation SIGS usually triggers before the quarterly review. It would save us about two hundred thousand credits in material costs for next month."
"Go for it," Mark said, swiveling his chair to look at the smaller man. "You're the money guy, Kenji. I just hit things with wrenches."
"You design things that defy physics," Kenjiro corrected, finally looking up with a grin. "And since I joined a little late on the bandwagon, I just make sure you can afford the atoms to build them."
Mark sat up, his casual demeanor evaporating instantly as Marcos tripped the proximity alarms, a red pulse flashing on the corner of his holo-screen. He tapped the screen, pulling up the feed from the main concourse entrance.
The blast doors to the shipyard were open, which they were always open during business hours to allow couriers and any possible guests who just wanted to buy vents and install them themselves access, but the group walking through them didn't look like couriers.
Leading the pack was a man who looked like he had been sculpted out of arrogance and expensive moisturizer. He wore a suit that probably cost more than many could make in a month, a midnight blue silk with gold micro-threading. He walked with the stride of a man who owned the deck plating beneath his feet, his chin raised, his eyes scanning the industrial grime of the shipyard with open disdain.
Flanking him were two men in standard corporate security armor, but they moved wrong. They were too stiff, almost as if they were trying to be visible. They were decoys.
Mark's gut churned, and he had a bad feeling about this. His eyes scanned the empty space around the man. Thanks to the augments Anahrin had done to him, he could see the air shimmering slightly to the man's left and right. Heat haze where there shouldn't be heat.
A single thought popped into his head from the video games he had played in his previous life: Active camouflage.
"Marcos," Mark said, his voice low.
"I see them," the AI replied instantly, his voice stripping away the usual snark. "Five contacts. One visible VIP. Three visible escorts. Five concealed hostiles using military-grade optical bending suites. Their weapon signatures are hot."
"Kenji," Mark said, standing up. "Get behind the desk."
Kenjiro blinked, confused. "What? Why? Who is it?"
"It's your old boss," Mark said, stepping out from behind his terminal. He moved to the center of the room, positioning himself between the door and Lyra's fort.
The glass doors of the office slid open with a hiss.
Alistair Thorne stepped inside.
The smell in the form of a wave of expensive cologne hit Mark. A smell that tried to mask the metallic tang of the shipyard but only succeeded in making the air smell like perfumed ozone. Thorne stopped three paces into the room, looking around the small office with a sneer that curled his lip. He looked at the pizza boxes stacked by the recycling bin. He looked at the half-assembled drone parts on the workbench.
Then he looked at Kenjiro.
"Kenjiro," Thorne said, his voice smooth, cultured, and dripping with venom. "You look terrible. Have you been sleeping in that jumpsuit?"
Kenjiro stood up, his face paling slightly, but he didn't back down. He adjusted his glasses, his hands trembling just a fraction. "Director Thorne. I didn't expect you to make a house call."
"I find that direct intervention is sometimes necessary when one's property has been misplaced," Thorne said. He turned his gaze to Mark.
He looked Mark up and down, assessing him like one would assess a piece of heavy machinery. He didn't seem impressed. To a man like Thorne, size didn't matter. Money mattered. Influence mattered.
"And you must be Mr. Shephard," Thorne said, unbuttoning his suit jacket and taking a seat on the edge of Mark's desk without asking. "The... former soldier turned mechanic."
"I'm the owner of the desk you're sitting on," Mark corrected, his voice a deep rumble. "And you're trespassing. This is a restricted workspace. State your business or get out."
Thorne chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Trespassing. How quaint. Mr. Shephard, let's skip the posturing. As you must imagine, I am a busy man, and I imagine you have wrenches to turn. So I'll cut to the chase and make you a generous, one-time offer."
Thorne reached into his jacket pocket. Mark tensed, his mind already opening his inventory to pull out one of the two pistols he owned, but Thorne only pulled out a platinum credit chip. He tossed it onto the desk. It spun and rattled, coming to a stop near Kenjiro's hand.
"Fifty million credits," Thorne said. "Tax-free. Transferred to an account of your choosing immediately."
Mark looked at the chip, then back at Thorne. "What for?"
"For the patent rights to the 'Recursive Fractal Lattice' and the 'Tri-Phase Capacitor'," Thorne said boredly. "And for the immediate dissolution of Shepherd Orbital Works. You take the money, you hand over the IP, and you disappear. Go buy an outpost on a moon in the Outer Rim. Retire. Enjoy life's luxuries."
He turned to Kenjiro. "And, of course, Dr. Takagi returns with me. We'll forget this little... lapse in judgment occurred. Your office is waiting, Kenjiro. I've even had the cleaners remove the trash you left on the desk."
Kenjiro stared at Thorne. For a moment, he looked like the terrified employee he had been a week ago. But then he looked at Mark. He looked at the shipyard outside, where his work was being installed on his terms.
"No," Kenjiro refused.
Thorne paused, tilting his head. "Excuse me?"
"I said no," Kenjiro said, his voice gaining strength. "I'm not going back, Alistair. And the technology isn't mine to sell. I didn't invent the fractal lattice. Mark did."
Thorne laughed out loud. It was a bark of genuine incredulity. "Him? The grunt? Kenjiro, please. Don't insult my intelligence. I've seen his file. It may be redacted, but he's presumed to just be a Breacher. A door-kicker. He doesn't even have any formal education, yet you expect me to believe that a man who used to hit things for a living derived a complex geometric thermal solution that baffled my entire R&D department?"
"I expect you to believe the patent filing," Kenjiro snapped. "It's his mind. I just did the paperwork."
Thorne's face hardened. The mask of civility slipped, revealing the jagged, desperate edge beneath. "I don't care whose name is on the paper. The technology belongs to SIGS. You developed it while employed by us, Kenjiro. That makes it ours."
"I didn't develop shit!" Kenjiro shouted.
"Semantics," Thorne waved a hand dismissively. He looked at Mark. "Fifty million, Shephard. It's more money than you'll see in ten lifetimes. Don't be stupid and take the deal."
"I've already made almost a quarter of that in the past month. So the answer is no," Mark said, his voice flat. "The tech isn't for sale. And Kenji isn't going anywhere. Now get out of my office."
Thorne sighed. He stood up from the desk, brushing invisible dust from his trousers. "I was afraid you'd be difficult. People of your... socio-economic standing usually are. They confuse stubbornness with integrity."
Suddenly, a small noise broke the tension.
*Crinkle.*
Thorne turned. In the corner, behind the wall of shipping crates, a small head popped up. Lyra, curious about the shouting, peered over the cardboard rampart, her wide eyes fixed on the stranger in the shiny suit.
Thorne stared at her. A slow, cruel smile spread across his face.
"Well now," Thorne said softly. "What do we have here?"
Mark took a step forward. "The fuck do you think you're going?"
Thorne ignored him and brushed past him, taking a step toward the fort. "Is this your daughter, Shephard? Cute thing. Does she live here? In this... industrial hazard zone?"
"She lives where I live," Mark growled, his fists clenching at his sides. "And if you don't want to swallow your teeth, then you better back the fuck up."
"This is a dangerous place for a child," Thorne mused, turning back to Mark. "Accidents happen in shipyards all the time. Heavy machinery falls. Air locks malfunction. Fires magically start."
He looked directly into Mark's eyes, and the threat was as clear as daylight.
"It would be a tragedy if something were to happen to her because her father was too stubborn to make a smart business decision," Thorne threatened. "Think about her future, Mark. Fifty million credits buys a very safe life. Refusal... well, refusal buys a lot of uncertainty."
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Mark didn't think. He didn't calculate. A red haze of pure, protective fury slammed into his brain like a freight train, and he made a move.
To Thorne, it must have looked like teleportation. One second, Mark was standing five feet away, and the next, a hand the size of a dinner plate had clamped around his throat.
Mark slammed the Director into the wall, and Thorne's feet dangled six inches off the floor, his hands clawing uselessly at Mark's wrist.
"You threaten her again," Mark snarled, his face inches from Thorne's, his voice a guttural roar, "and I will rip your head off and make it kiss your own ass."
*Click.*
A soft, mechanical sound cut through the air, and something cold and hard pressed against Mark's right temple.
To his right, the air shimmered and dissolved. The active camouflage deactivated, revealing a man in black tactical armor. He was huge, nearly as broad as Mark, though a few inches shorter. He held a K-982C pistol steady against Mark's skull.
"Let him go," the man said. His voice was deep, calm, and utterly professional.
Mark didn't let go, keeping his grip on Thorne's throat, squeezing just enough to make the Director's face turn a blotchy purple. Mark's eyes didn't leave Thorne's, but he spoke to the man with the gun.
"You pull that trigger," Mark said through gritted teeth, "and I snap his neck before my body hits the floor. We both die. Is he worth it?"
"He pays the bills," Calloway replied, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Let him go, Shephard. I won't ask twice."
Mark slowly turned his eyes to Calloway. The man may not have been former military, but in him, Mark didn't see a corporate drone. He saw a soldier. He saw the posture and the discipline of one, or at least someone raised by one, as he had.
"You got kids?" Mark asked.
Calloway blinked. The question caught him off guard, but the barrel of the gun didn't waver. His eyes, on the other hand, flickered.
"That's irrelevant," Calloway said.
"Is it?" Mark asked. "He just threatened mine. An eight-year-old girl. He threatened to burn her alive in a shipyard accident."
Mark squeezed Thorne's throat a little harder. Thorne made a choking, wheezing sound as his eyes bulged.
"If someone walked into your house," Mark continued, his voice low and intense, "and told you they were going to hurt your kid because of a business deal... what would you do? Would you let him go?"
Calloway looked at Thorne. He saw the pathetic, terrified man dangling like a rag doll. He looked at Lyra, who was watching from her fort, terrified but silent. Then he looked back at Mark, and, for a second, the corporate veneer cracked, and his professionalism faltered.
"Let him go," Calloway repeated, but the edge was gone from his voice. It wasn't a threat anymore. Calloway had killed many before, but at this moment, he was trying to de-escalate the situation. "Don't make me do this in front of her."
Mark held the stare for a second longer. He saw the hesitation. He saw the line Calloway wouldn't dare to cross.
Mark sighed in disgust and opened his hand.
Thorne dropped to the floor, gasping for air, clutching his throat. He coughed, retching, scrambling backward on his hands and knees like a crab until he was behind Calloway's legs.
"Kill him!" Thorne shrieked, his voice a broken rasp. He pointed a shaking finger at Mark. "Kill him! Kill the girl! Burn this whole place to the ground!"
Calloway looked down at his boss. The facade of respect he had always maintained just to keep his job was replaced by an expression of pure contempt.
"No," Calloway refused.
"What?" Thorne screamed, pulling himself up using the desk for support. "I gave you a direct order! He assaulted me! Neutralize him!"
"We are leaving," Calloway said, holstering his pistol. He looked at Mark. "You're lucky, Shephard. Keep your head down, because next time I'll make sure the kid isn't around to save you."
Calloway turned to the other four invisible operatives, who shimmered into view near the door, and signaled the retreat. "Move out."
"You... you incompetent..." Thorne spluttered, adjusting his tie with trembling hands. He glared at Mark with hatred that burned hot and bright. "You think this is over? You think you can touch me? I am SIGS! I own this system!"
"Get the fuck out," Mark said, stepping forward.
Thorne flinched, turning to march toward the door, regaining a shred of his haughty composure as he stepped out of the office. Calloway and the other guards flanked him, backing out slowly, weapons low but ready.
They walked out onto the hangar floor. The vast, echoing space of the shipyard surrounded them.
As they reached the blast doors, Thorne stopped. He turned back, shouting across the hangar, his voice echoing off the hull of the Vanguard-One.
"You want a war, Shephard? Fine!" Thorne clenched his fists in anger. "Calloway! If you won't shoot him, then destroy his work! Burn it down! Target the fuel lines! Blow this place to hell!"
The silence that followed was broken by a calm, digital voice booming from the overhead speakers.
"That," Marcos said, his voice amplified to a deafening volume, "would be a very bad idea."
*CLACK-CLACK.*
From the ceiling of the hangar, four heavy automated turrets dropped from their concealed bays. They swiveled instantly, the red laser sights locking onto the SIGS squad.
Thorne froze and looked up, his face paling.
Inside the office, Mark didn't hesitate. "Kenji, keep Lyra down!"
Mark reached into the air, and a ripple of blue light materialized, his K-272 energy rifle snapping into his hands from his inventory. His pendant came to life as well, covering him in the same armor he had used to face off the gangsters on the Eidolon Reach station.
"Move!" Calloway shouted, shoving Thorne behind a stack of crates.
There it was again, that trance he had entered all those months ago, where he didn't think and simply acted with the precision of a special operative. Mark sprinted across the gantry, vaulting over the railing, hitting the deck of the hangar floor with a roll, coming up in a firing stance.
One of the guards raised his rifle, but Mark was faster.
Mark fired a single round. He had his rifle tuned to maximum output, so the shot that caught the guard in the helmet shattered the helmet and the head inside. The guard dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
"Contact front!" Calloway roared. "Engage! Engage!"
The hangar erupted into chaos.
The operatives fired their energy rifles. Bolts of red plasma sizzled through the air, scorching the floor near Mark's feet. Mark dove behind the landing strut of the Vanguard-One.
"Marcos, mind lending me a hand?" Mark spoke calmly.
"Already on it," Marcos chirped.
The ceiling turrets opened up. Heavy caliber rounds chewed up the floor around the SIGS squad, forcing them into cover behind a cargo container. Thorne was screaming, curling into a ball.
But Mark didn't stay pinned. He moved forward, breaking cover and sprinting toward the container. A guard popped up to fire, but Mark shot from the hip. The burst of rounds caught the guard in the chest plate, sizzling through the armor and sending him flying backward.
"Flanking right!" Calloway shouted.
The Security Chief stepped out, his rifle raised. He fired a controlled burst that walked up Mark's path. One round clipped Mark's shoulder plate, spinning him around, but it didn't do anything other than make Mark grunt. He slid into cover behind a scrap parts drum.
"Marcos, blind them," Mark ordered.
The lights of the bay suddenly brightened to extreme levels.
"My fucking eyes!" someone screamed.
Mark vaulted the drum and rounded the corner of the container. The lights lasted long enough for Mark to get into a better position before exploding from an overload of energy.
Calloway was blinking, trying to clear his vision that had just gone from a blinding white to darkness, with the exception of a few lights from the station, his rifle sweeping blindly. The other four guards were stumbling, rubbing their eyes.
Mark didn't shoot Calloway. Instead, he slammed the butt of his rifle into the Chief's face twice, breaking his jaw and sending him crashing with blood spraying from a broken nose.
The blinded guards tried to bring their weapons up, but Mark opened fire, killing three of them and slamming into the last one. He yanked him over his shoulder and slammed him onto the floor with a bone-shattering crunch that probably pulverized the man's collarbone.
Cries of agony filled the hangar, and smoke drifted from the barrel of Mark's rifle. The smell of ozone and cordite was thick.
Mark stood in the center of the carnage, his chest heaving. He looked down at the man he had slammed on the ground, who was groaning, and then to Calloway, who was on his back, groaning, his nose a ruin, his pistol lying five feet away.
And there, huddled in the fetal position against the crate, was Alistair Thorne.
Mark walked over to him. His boots crunched on the broken glass of a shattered light fixture that had popped.
Thorne looked up, seeing only the intimidating dark outline of the armor that loomed over him.
"Please," Thorne whimpered, holding up his hands. "Please... I- I'll pay you double. A hundred million, two hundred. I'll do anything."
Mark reached down, grabbing Thorne by the lapels of his ruined silk suit, and hauled him to his feet. He then slammed him against the crate, pinning him there.
"You threatened my daughter," Mark whispered.
Thorne shook, tears streaming down his face. "I... I was angry. I didn't mean it. It was a negotiation tactic! Please! You have to believe me!"
Mark raised a fist. He had already killed a man with a single punch before. One hit would turn Thorne's face into pulp.
"Do it," Calloway spoke from the floor, barely even understandable. "He deserves it."
Mark looked at Calloway. Then he looked at Thorne. He felt that the state he was in was slowly receding, and thought of Lyra in the office.
He lowered his fist.
"Marcos," Mark said, his voice steady.
"Yes, Mark?" Marcos replied.
"Call Station Security," Mark ordered. "Tell them we have intruders. They launched an armed assault and attempted to murder me, my friend, and my daughter."
"I already reported what happened," Marcos replied. "They are two minutes out. They were surprisingly fast."
Mark let go of Thorne, letting the man slide down the crate, sobbing quietly.
Mark walked over to Calloway, kicking the pistol away, and looked down at the Chief.
"You should have just walked away," Mark said.
Calloway looked up, his eyes swollen, and though his jaw was broken, he managed a grim smile. "I know. But the pension was really good."
Mark snorted and stood guard, watching the broken squad.
Two minutes later, the Mechanicus Station Security team stormed in. They weren't the polished IUC soldiers. They were pretty much glorified cops with badass uniforms, rough, tired, and used to cleaning up messes. But when they saw the carnage, the dead SIGS operatives, the battered security team, and the sobbing Regional Director, they stopped in their tracks.
The lead officer approached Mark, weapon lowered but wary.
"Are you Mark Shephard?" the officer asked.
"That's me," Mark said. "These men broke into my facility. They threatened my daughter's life, my staff's life, and my own life. Then they eventually opened fire before leaving."
"That's a lie!" Thorne screamed from where he was being cuffed. "He attacked us! He's a maniac! I demand to speak to the Station Master! My name is Alistair Thorne! They'll surely know who I am."
The officer looked at Thorne, then at the dead bodies, then at Mark.
"We'll take your statement, Mr. Shephard," the officer said. "And we'll need to secure the scene."
"Do what you have to do," Mark said.
As they dragged Thorne away, the Director was still screaming threats, promising fire and ruin.
"Marcos," Mark spoke softly. "I'm sure all of that was recorded."
"Yup," Marcos said. "The audio of the threat against Lyra. The visual of Calloway de-cloaking. The order to 'burn it down'. The first shot was fired by their team. And Calloway's body cam feed, which I accessed when he entered the network range."
Mark watched as they shoved Thorne into the back of a security transport.
"Leak it," Mark said coldly.
"What?" Marcos asked in confusion.
"Leak everything," Mark said. "The body cams, security feed, everything. And send it to all news networks, independent bloggers, and upload it to the public web."
Mark turned and walked back toward the office. He needed to check on Lyra. He needed to make sure she hadn't seen the blood.
"It's the third time someone has tried to kill me for my shit, Marcos," Mark whispered. "I'm fucking tired of it."
---
For advanced chapters, you can head to my Patreon at
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Crimson_Reapr
where you can read up to 26 Advanced Chapters
Chapter 46 is in the works and will be uploaded today to honor our new Admiral. Crimson_Reapr is the name, and writing Sci-fi is the way.