The station lights dimmed just enough to register.
Not a failure.Not an alarm.
A deliberate adjustment.
The change rippled through the concourse like a held breath, subtle but unmistakable, a soft dip in illumination that caused conversations to falter mid-sentence and footsteps to slow as instinct caught up with awareness. Somewhere beneath the deck plating, far from public access corridors and polished civilian space, power was being rerouted with careful intent. Not hastily. Not defensively.
Intentionally.
Jerad felt it settle through the station before anyone around him fully understood what it meant.
He did not move.
Neither did Pethia.
Her pistol remained leveled at the man's face, steady as stone, her arm locked in place with the casual confidence of someone who had already made peace with the consequences of pulling the trigger. She wasn't trembling. She wasn't bluffing. The distance between the muzzle and the man's nose was close enough that the heat shimmer from the barrel's stabilizer was visible.
If he stepped forward, she would fire.
Everyone present knew it.
The man exhaled slowly, carefully, his gaze flicking once more toward the weapon before returning to Jerad's face. The mask of polite confidence he had worn since approaching them was beginning to crack, not into panic, but into irritation — the kind that came when control slipped further than expected.
"Captain," he said evenly, "this does not need to escalate."
Jerad's voice was calm, level, and utterly unyielding. "Then you shouldn't have tried to contain us."
"We asked you to remain docked."
"You attempted to restrict our movement without naming authority," Jerad replied. "That's containment."
The man's jaw tightened, just slightly. "You know how this works."
"Yes," Jerad said. "I do."
Around them, station security shifted uneasily. They were trying not to look like they were surrounding the group, but their spacing gave them away. Hands hovered near sidearms and restraint fields they clearly hoped not to deploy. Their posture was wrong for a real enforcement action — too stiff, too uncertain.
They hadn't been briefed for violence.
They had been told to observe.To delay.To give the man in civilian clothing room to maneuver.
That room was disappearing by the second.
Pethia leaned in a fraction, the pistol tracking the man's face with surgical precision. Her voice was sharp, venomous, and loud enough that nearby civilians could hear it over the hum of station systems.
"You keep talking like you're in charge," she said. "You're not."
The man glanced at her, irritation breaking fully through his composure for the first time. "Lower the weapon."
"No," Jerad said, before Pethia could answer. "She won't."
The man's gaze snapped back to him. "Captain—"
"You don't get to issue commands here," Jerad said evenly. "Not without showing your hand."
Silence stretched between them.
The station felt quieter than it should have been.
Then the man straightened.
The shift was subtle, but unmistakable — shoulders back, expression smoothing into something colder, sharper, more precise. The mask of civility didn't drop. It hardened.
"Very well," he said.
He tapped his wrist.
The station trembled.
Not violently. Not enough to send people stumbling or trigger panic responses. A deep vibration rolled through the deck plating, resonant and deliberate, followed by the unmistakable sense of mass shifting somewhere far beyond the concourse walls.
External systems.
Docking infrastructure.
Clamps.
Damon's voice came low and urgent over the internal channel."Jerad. External hard locks just engaged on Glaive. Multiple points."
Jerad didn't look away from the man. "You just boarded us without stepping foot on the ship."
The man nodded once. "Temporary measure."
Pethia snarled, the sound sharp and animal. "You slimy—"
"Easy," Jerad said calmly. "Not yet."
The man's eyes flicked briefly toward Damon's position, then returned to Jerad. "We are still talking," he said. "You are still free to comply."
"By surrendering control of my ship," Jerad replied. "And the people on it."
"By cooperating with a lawful investigation," the man corrected.
Jerad tilted his head slightly. "Then cite the law."
The man didn't answer.
That was enough.
Jerad tapped the side of his ear. "Mikael."
"I see it," Mikael replied instantly. "They've locked us down clean. External power feeds only. Internal systems untouched."
"Can we move?" Jerad asked.
"Yes," Mikael said. "But they'll feel it."
Jerad nodded once. "Good."
The man's eyes narrowed. "Captain. This is your last opportunity to de-escalate."
Jerad met his gaze without blinking. "You already escalated. You just did it quietly."
Pethia smiled, slow and humorless. "I don't do quiet."
She fired.
The shot cracked through the concourse like a snapped cable under tension.
It wasn't lethal. Pethia hadn't aimed for him. She was better than that. The round struck the bulkhead beside the man's head and detonated with a sharp, concussive blast that shattered composite plating and sprayed fragments across the polished deck. The shockwave slammed into him sideways, throwing him hard into a station security officer who hadn't moved fast enough to get clear.
Both went down.
For half a second, there was silence.
Then the concourse exploded.
Civilians screamed and scattered, instincts finally overpowering curiosity. Merchants abandoned stalls. Dockworkers bolted for access corridors. Someone tripped and was nearly trampled as bodies surged in every direction, the orderly hum of station traffic collapsing into raw panic.
Warning lights flared along the ceiling in harsh amber bands as a partial alert finally triggered. Containment fields began to slide into place at the ends of the corridor, transparent barriers humming as they rose from the deck with a sound like pressure equalizing.
Jerad moved.
He didn't shout. He didn't run.
He advanced.
"Now," he said.
The word carried cleanly through the chaos, sharp and absolute.
Damon was already in motion. He hit the nearest security officer before the man could even raise his weapon, twisting the arm at an angle it wasn't meant to go and ripping the restraint baton free in one smooth motion. The officer went down with a grunt, winded and disarmed, sliding across the deck as Damon shoved him aside without breaking stride.
Thessa grabbed Pethia's shoulder, yanking her backward as another guard panicked and fired. The stun round cracked through the air and scorched the deck where Pethia's head had been a heartbeat earlier, energy rippling uselessly across the floor plating.
"Stand down!" the man shouted, scrambling to his feet amid the wreckage. His voice cut through the noise, edged with command. "Do not fire!"
Too late.
Security lines dissolved as fast as they formed. Some officers froze outright, overwhelmed by conflicting orders and the sudden reality of live confrontation. Others fired wildly, stun bolts flashing bright against the concourse walls, missing more than they hit.
Jerad didn't slow.
He closed the distance in three long steps.
The man turned just in time to find himself staring down the barrel of Jerad's pistol, the weapon's targeting system humming softly as it locked on. The muzzle was steady. The angle precise.
"This ends now," Jerad said quietly. "Order your people to disengage."
The man's chest rose and fell hard. "You don't understand what you're carrying."
Jerad's expression didn't change. "Then you shouldn't have forced the issue."
Behind them, the station shuddered again, harder this time.
Glaive pushed back.
Deep in the dock, Mikael fed controlled power into the engines, not enough to tear free, just enough to make the hard locks scream in protest. The vibration rippled through the station frame, metal groaning as systems strained against constraints never meant to be tested this way.
"Pressure's on," Mikael said over the comm. "They're reinforcing."
"Good," Jerad replied. "Let them."
Pethia laughed, sharp and wild, adrenaline flashing bright behind her eyes. "Oh, they're gonna love this."
The man's comm chirped again, more insistently this time. He slapped it away without looking, his focus snapping between Jerad and the chaos spreading outward like a fracture through glass.
"You think this ends with you leaving," he said. "It doesn't."
Jerad leaned in slightly, lowering his voice until only the man could hear him. "Every plan you have assumes we cooperate."
He fired.
The stun round hit the man square in the chest.
The impact lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the deck hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. His body went rigid, muscles locking as the charge flooded his nervous system. He lay there unmoving, eyes wide, jaw clenched, unable to speak.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Then the alarms went from partial to full.
Red light flooded the concourse, emergency strobes pulsing in time with the rising wail of sirens. Containment fields snapped fully into place, sealing exits with a resonant hum that made the air feel thick and oppressive.
"Go!" Jerad shouted.
They ran.
The route back to Glaive was a collapsing maze of fleeing civilians and scrambling security. Side corridors clogged as people tried to escape sealed areas, panic spreading faster than any official warning could control. Damon moved ahead of the group, carving a path through the chaos with brutal efficiency, using momentum and precision rather than brute force.
Thessa covered their flank, her weapon coming up only when necessary, shots placed carefully to disable rather than kill. She shouted directions over the noise, her voice sharp and commanding as she guided them through a maintenance access that cut around a sealed junction.
Pethia brought up the rear, firing controlled bursts that shattered restraint fields and forced security to scatter rather than advance. Her grin never faded, even as sweat beaded at her temples.
"Dock locks aren't releasing," Mikael said over the comm, tension tight in his voice. "They're trying to force a boarding."
"Then don't let them," Jerad replied.
They burst onto the docking ring.
The sight stopped Jerad cold for half a second.
Empire marines.
No more pretense.
They were pouring in from reinforced access points along the ring, armor matte black and angular, visors opaque, weapons held low but ready. This wasn't station security. This was professional, disciplined, and unmistakable.
Authority had stepped out of the shadows.
"Inside!" Jerad barked.
They reached the hatch just as the first marine squad fanned out, rifles tracking, movements perfectly synchronized. The hatch slammed shut behind them, sealing with a hiss as Mikael dumped power into internal systems.
"Boarders incoming," Damon said, already taking position near the access corridor.
"No," Jerad said. "They won't get the chance."
He moved to the console just inside the hatch, placing his hand against the cool surface. The system recognized him instantly, biometric locks disengaging as command access slid into place.
"Mikael," Jerad said. "Override."
There was a pause.
A fraction of a heartbeat.
"You're sure," Mikael said.
"Yes."
The system responded.
Deep within Glaive, the quiet system that had been cycling since before they docked — the one Jerad had pretended not to notice — came fully online.
The station lights flared.
Then died.
For a fraction of a second, the entire docking ring lost power. Gravity stuttered, the deck lurching as emergency systems scrambled to compensate. The hard locks disengaged violently, clamps tearing free with shrieks of tortured metal as Glaive surged forward.
The ship lurched, scraping past the dock with centimeters to spare as debris exploded outward into open space. Loose cargo spun away, alarms howling as hull plating screamed under the strain.
Empire ships reacted instantly.
Thrusters flared. Formations broke and reformed with terrifying precision as intercept trajectories calculated in real time.
"Multiple lock attempts," Mikael shouted. "Missile guidance spooling!"
Jerad dropped into the command chair. "Evasive pattern delta. No straight lines."
Glaive twisted through the docking ring, rolling and pitching as Mikael flew like a man possessed, thrusters firing in controlled bursts that left no predictable vector. Energy fire lanced past them, splashing against shields that flared bright under the assault.
"Jump window," Thessa called. "Narrow. Closing fast."
"Take it," Jerad said.
Space tore.
Glaive vanished into drift just as the first missiles screamed through the space it had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
Silence followed.
For a moment, there was nothing but the echo of alarms fading into the void.
Then, across Empire command channels, warnings cascaded.
Containment failed.Target escaped.Authority compromised.
Orders followed.
Across the sector, authority blocks activated in full.
Tracking grids expanded.Sensor nets tightened.Protocols long dormant came screaming back to life.
And far away, in a different system entirely, Saya felt the shift ripple through the network like a shockwave and knew, with absolute certainty, that the Empire had stopped watching.
They had started hunting.
The jump was wrong.
Jerad felt it the instant space folded around them, the familiar gut-lurch of drift twisted into something harsher, more violent. The transition wasn't clean. It tore, like fabric pulled too fast, and for a heartbeat the stars outside the forward viewport smeared into jagged lines instead of dissolving smoothly into nothing.
Glaive shuddered.
Not a failure.A protest.
"Drive output spiking," Mikael said, voice tight. "We're through, but they forced the window shallow. Really shallow."
"Define really," Pethia said, still breathing hard, knuckles white as she strapped into her seat.
Mikael swallowed. "Define 'we shouldn't be here.'"
The drift tunnel stabilized slowly, light bending into warped, uneven bands that pulsed instead of flowed. Systems flickered as compensators worked overtime to correct for interference they hadn't been designed to handle.
Jerad stayed seated, hands steady on the armrests, eyes fixed on the forward glass. "Status."
"Shields holding," Thessa said, scanning rapidly. "Structural integrity nominal. Power distribution uneven but stable."
Damon exhaled through his nose. "Empire didn't follow immediately."
"Not immediately," Mikael echoed. "But they logged us. Hard."
Jerad nodded once. He'd expected nothing less.
Behind them, in the space they had just left, alarms continued to echo across the station, Empire marines flooding docking rings now empty except for drifting debris and torn clamps. The man Pethia had dropped was already being hauled to medical, authority seals slamming down over every access point he'd touched.
That didn't matter anymore.
The line was crossed.
Glaive surged out of drift violently, snapping back into realspace with a crack that rattled every bulkhead. Stars reappeared, sharp and unforgiving, the familiar hum of normal space settling reluctantly around the ship.
Mikael cursed softly. "We're not where we planned."
Thessa leaned over his shoulder. "Where are we."
Mikael pulled up the map.
Empty.
Not unexplored — worse. Ignored. A dead stretch between routes that had never justified the cost of infrastructure. No stations. No trade lanes. Just a sparse scattering of stellar bodies and long-range sensor noise that made precision work difficult.
Jerad felt his jaw tighten. "They pushed us toward the edges."
"Yeah," Mikael said grimly. "And they knew we'd take it."
Damon straightened slightly. "Because it limits witnesses."
Silence followed that.
Then the ship chimed.
Once.
Not an alert.
A priority signal.
Jerad didn't need to look to know who it was.
"Saya," he said.
The connection took longer than usual to resolve, static clawing at the edges of the display before her face finally emerged, fragmented and dim. She looked tired. More than tired — drawn, eyes sharp but shadowed, hair pulled back hastily like she hadn't slept.
"You did it," she said.
Jerad didn't smile. "You felt it."
"Yes," Saya replied. "Everywhere."
Pethia leaned back, laughing breathlessly. "Worth it."
Saya's gaze flicked to her. "You shot him."
"Only a little," Pethia said. "He deserved worse."
Jerad cut in. "What changed."
Saya inhaled slowly. "Everything."
She brought up a layered projection beside her face, data cascading in muted colors. Patrol densities spiked across the sector. Sensor grids expanding outward like ripples in water. Old identifiers lighting up — classifications that hadn't been active in decades.
"They activated the full authority block," Saya said. "Not just locally. Network wide."
Mikael swore. "That's not containment. That's a sweep."
"Yes," Saya said. "And they aren't tracking ships anymore."
Jerad leaned forward slightly. "Events."
Saya nodded. "You confirmed it."
Thessa frowned. "Confirmed what."
"That the anomaly isn't hypothetical," Saya said. "They've been waiting for proof. Something undeniable."
Pethia's grin faded. "We were the proof."
"Yes," Saya said quietly. "And now they don't care who sees them move."
Damon crossed his arms. "How fast."
"Faster than you think," Saya replied. "They're not chasing you directly. They're tightening space. Closing behaviors. Forcing reactions."
Jerad absorbed that. "So we stay unpredictable."
Saya shook her head. "No. You stay boring."
That earned a sharp look from Pethia. "We almost died being boring."
"You survived being loud," Saya countered. "Now you survive by disappearing."
Jerad nodded slowly. "Where."
Saya hesitated.
"That's the problem," she said. "The places you could hide are the places they're watching hardest."
Mikael pulled up another scan. "We've got passive pings. Not locks. But they're there."
"How many," Jerad asked.
Mikael zoomed the display.
Several.
Empire signatures, spread wide, moving deliberately. Not converging. Not chasing.
Waiting.
"They're herding," Thessa said.
"Yes," Saya agreed. "Toward pressure points."
Jerad leaned back, considering. "Then we break pattern."
Saya's eyes sharpened. "You can't."
Jerad looked at her. "Watch me."
Silence hung between them.
"You don't understand what they're prepared to do," Saya said finally. "They reopened classifications that were buried for a reason."
"Names," Jerad said.
Saya swallowed. "They're calling it an Event-Level Threat."
The words settled like lead.
Damon went still. "That designation hasn't been used since—"
"I know," Saya said. "And it ended with entire systems erased from record."
Pethia's voice dropped. "You're saying they'll burn everything around us just to be sure."
"Yes," Saya said. "And justify it afterward."
Jerad closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
When he opened them, his expression was steady.
"Then we stop being an event," he said.
Mikael laughed once, strained. "You want to what. Shrink."
"I want to choose the battlefield," Jerad replied. "Before they do."
Saya studied him carefully. "You're planning something."
"Yes," Jerad said. "Something they won't expect."
She nodded slowly. "Then you'll need help."
"I know."
Another pause.
"I can't stay on this channel," Saya said. "They're already probing my relays."
Jerad met her eyes. "Stay alive."
Saya smiled faintly. "You too."
The connection cut.
The bridge fell quiet except for the low hum of systems stabilizing.
Pethia broke the silence. "So. Anyone else feel like the universe just noticed us."
Damon snorted. "It noticed us a while ago."
Jerad stood.
"We don't stop," he said. "We don't hide. And we don't repeat anything we've done before."
Mikael glanced up. "Destination."
Jerad looked at the stars.
"At the edges," he said. "But not the ones they're watching."
Glaive adjusted course.
Far behind them, Empire grids tightened, calculations refining, probabilities collapsing toward inevitability.
The hunt had begun.
And this time, the Empire wasn't guessing.