The high-pitched whine of the toolkit was a rhythmic drilling sound that made Ken's teeth ache. Maya's "test drive" had left the Aegis Heart's containment field hanging by a thread, and the radiation leak was strobing a violent crimson on Dorian's tactical HUD.
Dorian stepped forward, his golden mana flaring in response to the perceived threat. "I asked you a question, Bronze-Wing. Drop the box and back away before I take your head off."
Ken's heart hammered against his ribs, but he maintained the hollow-eyed stare of a coward. He knew that if he dropped the box, the physical impact would shatter the compromised seal entirely. If he handed it over, Dorian's visor would instantly identify the Royal signature on the Heart.
"I-I don't know!" Ken stammered, his voice rising in a panicked pitch as he stumbled backward. "The industrial drill... I think the battery casing is melting! It's going to explode!"
"Batteries?" Dorian scoffed, his lip curling in pure disdain. He reached out with a gauntleted hand. "Hand it here, you pathetic whelp, before you blow your hands off and stain my armor."
As Dorian's fingers closed toward the handle, Ken intentionally tripped over a protruding copper root. He went down hard, slamming his shoulder into the dirt, and used the cover of the fall to jam his thumb against the toolkit's hidden pressure-plate. He focused a micro-pulse of his Null-Core into the lock, sucking the kinetic energy out of the internal mechanism to freeze the latch in place.
Click.
The whining ceased instantly. The radiation spike on Dorian's HUD vanished as the Null-energy acted as a temporary dampener.
Ken lay in the mud, clutching the box to his chest and trembling for effect. "I... I think it stopped. Please don't take it, Dorian. The Instructor will fail me if I lose the salvage gear."
Dorian paused, his hand hovering in the empty air. The silence of the forest returned, broken only by the distant hum of the extraction shuttles. He looked down at Ken—covered in sludge, shaking, and smelling of ozone—and let out a sharp, jagged laugh.
"Garbage equipment for a garbage student," Dorian sneered, retracting his hand. He wiped an imaginary speck of dust from his golden bracer. "Get to the shuttle before the atmosphere filters reset. I don't want to breathe the same air as a failure for longer than necessary."
The extraction shuttle was a cramped, vibrating tube of brushed steel and flickering fluorescent lights. The air was a stagnant mix of burnt mana and the metallic tang of sweat. Ken sat in the furthest corner, the toolkit wedged firmly between his boots.
Isabella Thorne sat directly across from him. She had removed her helmet, her silver hair damp with perspiration, but her eyes were sharp and fixed on him. She stood up, her magnetic boots clanking against the floor plates, and moved across the aisle.
She pinned Ken into his seat, placing her hands on the bulkhead on either side of his head. The shuttle lurched as it broke the forest's canopy, forcing her body against his. She was radiating an intense, fierce heat—the lingering aftereffect of her high-output mana use.
"You're hiding something," Isabella whispered, her voice barely audible over the roar of the engines. "Dorian is an idiot who only sees what he expects to see. He thinks your gear malfunctioned. But I watched you in the clearing. You reacted to his movement before he even made it."
"I was scared, Isabella," Ken said, keeping his voice flat. "Anyone would flinch with a High Knight charging them."
"Liar." She shifted her weight, her knee pressing between his legs to pin him more securely. Her grey eyes darkened with a mixture of suspicion and something Ken couldn't quite name. "A 0.8 failure doesn't have the spatial awareness to trip exactly when the radiation spikes. I'm going to find out what you're playing at, Ken. For your own safety."
She pulled back just as the shuttle's docking clamps engaged with a heavy thud. As she returned to her seat, Elara Vance walked past. Elara didn't say a word, but her fingers trailed along the back of Ken's neck, a cold, lingering touch that felt like a brand.
The doors hissed open at the Academy's primary spire, revealing a hangar bay swarming with technicians and security droids.
"Formation on the flight deck!" the Head Proctor barked, his voice amplified by the hangar's acoustics. "Gear audit begins now! Every toolkit is to be opened and logged for contamination. Move!"
Ken's stomach dropped. He couldn't hide the Heart in his dorm, and he couldn't keep it inside the kit during a manual inspection. He stepped onto the flight deck, the last one off the shuttle, searching for a gap in the security perimeter.
A shadow detached itself from a massive support pillar.
"You're being sloppy, brother."
Selene Vaelstron stepped into the light. She was dressed in midnight-blue silk that seemed to absorb the hangar's lights. She moved with a silent, lethal grace, stopping directly in front of Ken. She grabbed his chin, tilting his head up with a firm, cold grip.
"Selene," Ken breathed, trying to pull away. "I have the salvage to log. The audit—"
"Forget the audit," Selene interrupted. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned his face, then her gaze dropped to his collar. Her thumb reached out, rubbing a thick, black smear of heavy engine grease off the white fabric of his tunic.
She held her thumb up, staring at the sludge. It wasn't the clean, refined oil used in the Academy's labs. It was the gritty, sulfur-heavy filth of the Under-Sector.
"This isn't forest mud, Ken," she hissed, her voice dropping into a deadly register. "This is Scavenger filth. You've been in contact with a Grasberg."
"It was an accident in the clearing," Ken lied, his mind racing.
"The Grasbergs don't do accidents," Selene snapped. She leaned in, her forehead almost touching his. "You're letting them get too close. You're carrying something they want, and now you have their stench on your skin. Do you have any idea what will happen if the Audit Team finds that mark?"
"I need to stash the kit," Ken said. "Help me."
Selene gripped his wrist, her mana pulsing cold against his skin. "There is no 'stashing' it now. The Empress is already here. Her flagship just broke the upper atmosphere. She felt the pulse you released when you killed that Golem, Ken. She didn't come for an audit. She came for you."
Ken turned pale as he looked toward the massive hangar bay doors. High above, a jagged obsidian silhouette was descending through the clouds, blotting out the sun.
End of Chapter 13