Opening: The Distress Signal
The Red Radiant coasted through the shattered remnants of Orrik Station,
once a thriving mining hub built into the hollowed bones of a dead comet.
Now?
Only silence.
Torn scaffolds drifted in the void.
Flickering hazard lights struggled to pierce the darkness.
No other ships.
No broadcasts —
only the faint, broken echo of a single distress ping, caught by Plo during their last scan.
In the Radiant's war room, the crew reviewed the station's schematic.
Zaraya stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, cosmic eyes sharp.
Kaelen studied shadow signatures flickering across the wreck's readings — frowning.
Lyren leaned against a console, silent but alert.
Aerin chewed her lip, nervous but ready.
Jaxen… sat stiffly, arms folded, staring at the holoprojection of the station longer than necessary.
Long enough that Zaraya noticed.
"Something wrong, Jax?"
"You look like you just saw a ghost."
Jaxen shrugged — too casually.
"Nothing. Just old memories. Let's get it done."
But Zaraya's instincts — the ones no battle could dull —
told her this wasn't just another job.
The past had its claws in Jaxen already.
And it was pulling.
Infiltrating the Station
The Dawnbreakers deployed:
Zaraya led the front — cosmic light ready.
Kaelen slipped through the shadows — scouting, sensing distortions.
Plo scanned for tech or traps.
Aerin kept a pulse on life signatures.
Lyren shielded the rear — staff ready, spells humming.
Orrik Station was a graveyard.
Hallways twisted and broken.
Bloodstains drifted in frozen clumps in zero-gravity halls.
Signs of struggle — but no bodies.
Something — or someone — had cleaned up.
The Whispering Past
As they moved deeper:
The ambient lighting glitched.
Old announcement systems burst to life — crackling half-broken mining songs and emergency warnings.
And every so often —
in the static,
they heard it:
A voice.
Familiar.
Mocking.
"Jaxen…"
"Little rat, running again?"
"You should have died with the others."
Zaraya's head snapped toward Jaxen.
He was frozen — jaw tight, knuckles white around his blaster.
Kaelen narrowed his eyes, shadows coiling protectively around the crew.
"Someone's playing games."
Or…
someone wasn't dead after all.
Final Scene of the Chapter
They reached the station's central command hub —
a vast, half-collapsed operations tower.
Inside:
A trap triggered.
Rift-infused suppressor fields flared to life — jamming comms, nullifying shield boosts, cutting them off.
And standing on the broken remains of the control dais —
wearing tattered, customized Black Circuit gear —
stood an old rival.
A woman with scorched cybernetic limbs, twisted by Rift energy,
eyes burning with hate and ambition.
"Cassik."
Jaxen's voice was low — haunted.
His old enforcer.
The one he had betrayed to escape the Black Circuit.
The one he had thought dead.
Cassik grinned — a smile full of knives.
"Welcome back, Jaxen."
"Time to pay what you owe."
The shadows of the past had found them.
And this time,
they weren't letting go without a fight.