Chapter 95: Descent into Hell

Zeynn, for his part, seemed physically incapable of keeping still. He stared at the airlock door with a new kind of nervous energy. More focused. More grounded.

“I’m not slowing you down this time.”

Skye walked over, deliberately mussed up his dark hair, and snorted:

“You’d better not, kid. Otherwise I’m dragging you by the collar all the way to that bunker.”

Evelyn stepped between them, gently adjusting Zeynn’s harness with a maternal gesture that no one missed… except her.

Vykhor, who had just slipped into the room without a sound, watched the scene for a few seconds, arms crossed. His yellow eyes didn’t settle on anyone in particular, yet he saw everything.

When Evelyn finally looked up at him, their gazes met. He didn’t say a word.

But a small tilt of his chin was enough.

It was confirmation.

Yes, the Kael’seth pack existed now.

And it was ready to dive straight into the heart of chaos to retrieve a former enemy turned ally.

Z-47: orbital trash-heap station, choke point for illicit trade, a giant wreck cannibalized by the worst factions in the galaxy. The perfect place to get killed three times before you even hit the ground.

And yet, the Narak’Tharr was heading straight for that metal nightmare.

In the cockpit, Kryna, the ship’s AI, spoke in a perfectly neutral tone:

“Debris field, hostile vessels, seventy-three distress signals, survival ratio estimated at 23.6% if landing in a hot zone. Emotional pessimism filter requested?”

Vykhor, both hands on the manual controls, rolled the ship hard to dodge a torpedo, sending Skye crashing into the wall.

“Filter accepted, Kryna. And hand secondary weapons control back to me.”

“Control transferred. Please try not to die, Captain.”

The ship plunged into the chaos.

Below, Z-47 was already exploding in all directions. Armed groups were fighting it out between broken docks, defense turrets were firing at random, and charred ship hulls drifted like ghosts in a hellish ballet. A true war zone. And yet, right in the middle of that chaos, one distress signal pulsed. Jonathan Kane—former commander, ex-pirate, soon-to-be ally—was holed up in an old command module near Sector C-11. Cornered.

Rax, helmet on, was hammering away at his portable terminal.

“I’m trying to hijack a turret to clear us a corridor! Gimme thirty seconds—and a beer.”

“You’ve got ten, and no beer,” Vykhor growled, before diving the Narak’Tharr in a steep drop between two enemy ships.

Impacts rattled the hull. Blue let out a deep growl, planted next to Zeynn, who was already armed to the teeth. Skye was reloading her plasma rifle with a grin.

“I missed these vacations. Sand, grenades, explosions…”

“Skye, could you maybe wait until we’ve landed before cracking jokes?” Evelyn grumbled, eyes locked on the map of Z-47.

“Nope. Because we’re not landing. We’re crashing. With style.”

Their tactical approach had gone out the airlock the second the station had hurled its chaos in their faces. No plan held up on Z-47. Not with Jonathan Kane in the picture.

“Contact in ninety seconds!” Kryna announced, still impassive. “Recommendation: check the integrity of your skeletons.”

Zeynn let out a shaky laugh. Evelyn, though, wasn’t afraid. There was a light in her eyes. That flame.

Vykhor rose, handing control back to Kryna just before impact.

“We go in. We get him. We crush everything between us and Kane. Nothing else matters.”

“And if he’s dead?” Skye asked.

“Then we bring him back just so we can yell at him,” Vykhor replied, sealing his helmet.

The landing was brutal. The Narak’Tharr slammed into Platform C-11 in a screech of twisting metal, plowing straight through an entire barrier under its weight. Local troops didn’t even have time to react.

The ramp dropped with a hydraulic scream. And the pack poured out.

Vykhor led the charge, his armored silhouette cutting the way forward like a walking war machine.

Skye had already taken the high ground and dropped two enemies before their weapons were even up.

Rax, energy shield humming, hacked systems as they went—opening doors, scrambling radars, sowing confusion.

Zeynn, fast and agile, darted between bursts of gunfire, covered by Blue, who leapt onto an automated cannon and crushed it between his jaws.

Evelyn, further back but armed, watched their rear—steady aim, sharp gaze.

“Kane’s in a secured cell, two hundred meters ahead!” Rax shouted over comms.

“There’s about twenty of them around him. Maybe thirty. Hard to tell with all the screaming.”

Behind his visor, Vykhor smiled.

“Then we hit harder.”

And they plunged deeper into the jaws of chaos.

The corridor leading to Kane’s hideout had become nothing more than a tunnel of crossfire and smoking corpses. Alarms were blaring. The walls shook. Metal screeched under the constant blasts. And through that red-tinted carnage, the Kael’seth pack advanced.

Not quietly. Not slowly. But like a controlled storm.

Vykhor, armor and prosthetic blazing, carved the way forward like a celestial battering ram. A rocket shot toward him—he caught it mid-flight and hurled it back down the throat of its wielder. Two enemies lying in wait? He skewered one with his energy blade and snapped the other’s spine with a backhanded blow.

“Rax, left flank!”

“Already on it, Captain.”

Beep. A turret blew itself apart in a burst of blue flame.

Skye, perched atop a ventilation duct, picked off targets with chilling precision. Each shot from her laser rifle punched through a helmet, a throat, a hip. A rain of blood and metal.

“Zeynn! Watch your left, idiot!”

“I was watching it!”

“No, you were cartwheeling like some space majorette!”

“It’s called marti—AARGH!”

Zeynn took a stun blast full in the leg and went down behind a crate.

“Fucking ray! I’m gonna kill that—”

Blue vaulted over him with a feral roar, landing squarely on the offending soldier. There was nothing left but a scream and a wet crunch.

Flat on his back, Zeynn let out a dazed breath.

“Okay… Thanks, Blue. I owe you a giant steak when we get back.”

Blue rumbled softly, staying planted over him like a living fortress.

Further up, Evelyn was still covering their advance, but her shots were less precise than usual. Her gaze kept flicking back to Zeynn, to Blue, to Vykhor. Too many emotions inside her. Too much instinct. She knew it.

And so did Vykhor.

“Ashcroft. Breathe. We need your mind. Not your heart right now.”

“I’ve got both, Captain. You deal with it.”

She fired and put a round straight through the skull of a soldier who’d been about to stab Rax in the back.

“Thanks, heart. You’re welcome, brain.”

But not everything was going according to plan.

A grenade slammed into Rax’s chest. His shield took most of it… but he still crashed into a wall, systems flickering.

“I’m not dead. But I’m pissed. Really pissed.”

He pushed himself back up with a groan. His cybernetic hand shifted into a miniature cannon, which roared to life with almost sadistic satisfaction.

“They tried to kill me. They’re gonna regret being born with eyes.”

They finally reached the armored hatch of Kane’s cell.

Enemies surrounded it. Well-armed. Well-prepared. But not well enough.

Vykhor raised a fist.

“We erase them.”

“With or without screwups?” Rax asked.

“With style,” Skye replied.

They unleashed everything.

Skye fired first, two surgical shots into the enemy shield generators. Blue, on Zeynn’s heels, charged like a living cannonball. They hit the enemy from the side, from behind, from angles no one expected.

Rax lobbed a homemade EMP charge he’d nicknamed Maurice, knocking out every enemy weapon for seven precious seconds.

And in that gap, Vykhor turned into a one-man war.

Blade blazing, guttural roar, his form flickering at the edges—his spectral power crackled around him. He batted bullets aside, sliced through flesh, crushed armor. Not a single enemy was left standing.

When the silence finally settled, Kane’s cell was clear. Blood still dripped down the walls.

Kane, slumped against a wall, wounded but alive, stared at them with a mix of respect, surprise, and his usual brand of cynicism.

“Fuck. Took you long enough.”

“Shut up, Kane,” Zeynn shot back, limping, covered in dust and dried blood.

“You’ve grown, kid.”

“You’ve shrunk.”

Evelyn knelt beside him, scanner in hand.

“He’s badly messed up, but he’ll make it.”

“Would it be too much to ask for a fucking medpack?”

“You want a massage too, Kane?” Vykhor growled.

But he still bent down and hoisted him up with one arm, effortlessly.

“You’d better be worth the chaos we just shredded our way through.”

The Kael’seth pack headed back out, Jonathan Kane slung over Vykhor’s shoulders, the station in ruins behind them.

It wasn’t a perfect mission. It wasn’t a quiet extraction.

But it was a victory.

And this was how they did things.