Akiko’s gaze darted across the darkened deck, searching for someone—anyone—with control.

  Cassandra floated near the central console, her voice sharp and unwavering. “Stay calm! Emergency power will engage. Operations—be ready the moment systems return.”

  Akiko bit her lip, forcing herself to breathe.

  The tactical display ahead was dead. A blank panel. Her world narrowed to floating shadows and the cold press of fear in her chest.

  Her hands moved without thinking—unclipping her harness, drifting slightly free.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  The image of the missile burned in her memory. The shimmer, the runes.

  A soft red glow flickered to life across the deck. Emergency lights—dim, but functional—cast long shadows against the walls.

  Then came the hum. Faint at first, then rising. Consoles flickered back to life one by one.

  Akiko’s screen lit up. She leaned forward, pulse hammering.

  The external feed came online.

  Her breath caught.

  The makeshift frigate was right there, drifting alongside the Sovereign with a grace that didn’t match its jagged form. Maneuvering thrusters fired in short bursts, guiding the vessel into perfect alignment.

  The Sovereign groaned—a long, low sound, like the hull itself was bracing for what came next.

  Akiko watched as the frigate extended long, segmented appendages—like mechanical arms—toward them. The tubes speared forward, angling with surgical intent.

  They latched onto the Sovereign’s hull.

  The deck vibrated with each connection. Clank. Clank. Clank.

  A chill ran through her.

  “What are they doing?” someone whispered.

  Akiko didn’t answer.

  Not boarding, she thought. This isn’t a raid.

  It was too precise. Too patient.

  Her terminal flickered again.

  Four emojis blinked onto the screen: Prison bars. A running figure. An open door. A sweating face.

  Akiko stared.

  And then it clicked.

  “They’re not here for us,” she whispered. “They’re here for…”

  She trailed off. The words sat on the edge of her tongue like a confession.

  They’re here for it.

  Her helper. The presence that had guided her through this strange world. The ghost in the system.

  And now, it was trapped. Just like the rest of them.

  Akiko’s blood ran cold.

  The frigate wasn’t just a hostile ship. It was a predator.

  And the Sovereign was no longer a ship. It was bait.

  She glanced around the operations deck.

  Chaos still rippled through the crew—technicians scrambling to recover from the blackout, voices overlapping, the low thrum of emergency systems barely enough to mask the tension. Cassandra barked orders with sharp, clipped precision, cutting through the confusion like a knife.

  But none of them knew. None of them realized what had just latched onto their ship.

  Akiko’s grip on the console tightened.

  If they’re here for it… what does that mean for me?

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Her eyes flicked back to the tactical display. The frigate’s hull shimmered with the same arcane patterns as the drones—runic, recursive, purposeful. She couldn’t decipher them fully, but she felt the shape of it. The intent. Like a net closing in.

  Another shudder rolled through the Sovereign.

  Deeper. More deliberate.

  Akiko’s gaze snapped back to the external feed. The umbilical tubes weren’t just anchoring the ships together—they were active. Energy pulsed along their lengths in steady rhythm, a slow throb of connection. Power? Data? Control?

  If they take it… what happens to us?

  A voice rang out, sharp and rising:

  “We’ve got a network intrusion! Someone’s trying to crack the Sovereign’s command codes!”

  Akiko froze.

  She turned toward her terminal—but the data spilling across the screen meant nothing to her. Code fragments, encryption failures, warning flags all bleeding together.

  Her fingers hovered, helpless.

  Cassandra pushed to the central console, jaw set, eyes hard. “Bring up the external feed,” she ordered.

  A moment later, the main screen lit up.

  The sight turned the room cold.

  The umbilicals glowed now, alive with sigils. The cables pulsed with both power and intent, their surface runes flickering like candlelight through glass.

  Cassandra’s voice dropped a register. “We need to disable those connections. Now. They’re compromising our systems.”

  She turned toward one of the analysts. “Can the point defenses target them?”

  The answer came fast—too fast. “Negative. Weapons are still offline. And they’re too close. We’d risk breaching our own hull.”

  Tension thickened across the deck like gravity increasing by degrees.

  Akiko’s stomach churned.

  No one here understood what those runes meant. No one saw what she did.

  They couldn’t fight this.

  A voice broke the silence, hesitant:

  “Someone’ll have to EVA. Cut the connections manually. Before they finish cracking the command codes.”

  The deck fell into stillness.

  Akiko’s pulse thundered in her ears.

  It had to be someone who could see what the others couldn’t. Someone who could sense the layers of intent wound through those cables. Who might understand what they were meant to trap—or release.

  Which meant…

  Her.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, voice steady.

  Every head turned. Cassandra’s eyes locked onto her.

  “You?” she asked, incredulous. “Why would you—”

  Akiko cut her off. “Trust me. I can handle it.”

  She reached inward.

  Just a touch of magic. Enough to thread her words with truth—not just spoken, but felt. The subtle charm woven into every kitsune whisper, every impossible dodge, every lucky escape.

  She let it ride her breath.

  The emergency lights flickered.

  A faint ripple passed through the deck, like the ship itself shivered beneath her words.

  The moment stretched.

  Then Cassandra exhaled, sharply. “Fine. Go. Get to the airlock and get suited up.”

  Akiko didn’t wait.

  She unstrapped from her harness and pushed free, moving with practiced ease in the half-dead gravity.

  Each movement was clean. Controlled. But beneath it all, her heart was hammering.

  No pressure, she thought grimly. Just EVA onto a cursed frigate under siege. Totally normal.

  The image of the runes lingered in her vision.

  And somewhere in the back of her mind, she could feel her helper—trapped, flickering, afraid.

  She wasn’t just going out there for the ship.

  She was going for it.

  She moved quickly through the central spire, pulling herself hand-over-hand along the rails. The weightless silence wrapped around her, muting the world to breath and motion.

  Every deck she passed felt further from safety.

  But she didn’t stop.

  The unease in her chest threatened to slow her, but Akiko forced herself forward, limbs controlled, pace deliberate.

  The ship was too quiet.

  No engine hum. No vibrations in the walls. Just the soft clicks of magnetic seals and the distant creak of cooling metal. The absence of motion made the Sovereign feel less like a warship and more like a tomb.

  This can’t be worse than the time I jumped off the castle wall onto that dragon, she told herself.

  It had been a stupid plan. Even Kaede had said so. Repeatedly.

  But it had worked. Sort of.

  She’d clung to the beast’s back, daggers flashing, holding on long enough to stab it halfway to the next kingdom before Kaede pulled her out of the sky with magic just before she hit the ground.

  Her stomach twisted at the memory.

  Who’s going to catch me this time?

  She reached the engineering deck and guided herself through the corridor in the dead gravity. The faint red glow of emergency lighting cast long shadows that shifted with her every movement.

  The airlock came into view.

  So did Mark Weston.

  He spotted her immediately, pushing off the wall with quick, practiced ease.

  “You’re not seriously EVA’ing,” he said, voice rising. “What are you doing here?”

  “Someone has to cut those cables,” Akiko said, steady. “That someone is me.”

  Mark stared—torn between disbelief and alarm. Finally, he let out a breath and motioned toward the lockers.

  “Alright. If you’re doing this, you’re doing it right.”

  He retrieved a sleek EVA suit, the surface glinting faintly in the dim light. As he handed it to her, he braced himself against the wall.

  “Step in slow,” he said. “Don’t twist, or you’ll jam the seals.”

  Akiko wriggled into the suit, awkward in the weightlessness. Mark guided her through the seals and fittings, hands steady, expression unreadable.

  “Not too tight?”

  “It’s fine,” she muttered. The suit clung too close, too smooth.

  Why does everything in this world feel like a second skin?

  “You’re going to need this,” Mark said, floating to a nearby rack.

  He retrieved a cutting tool and passed it to her—a compact shape, heavy in her gloved grip. He pressed a button. A blue flame hissed to life at the tip.

  “Be careful,” he warned. “It’ll slice through just about anything—including you.”

  “Understood,” Akiko said, gripping it tighter.

  Mark held her gaze for a long moment. Then, quietly:

  “You’re crazy. But I hope you pull this off. For all of us.”

  She smirked, despite the weight pressing into her chest. “I don’t plan on failing.”

  He sealed her helmet with a final twist. The suit came alive around her—status readouts flickering onto the visor.

  “Airlock’s ready,” he said. “Good luck.”

  Akiko pulled herself to the entry panel, cutting tool in hand.

  The inner door hissed shut behind her.

  No turning back now.

  The outer door opened.

  And the universe swallowed her whole.

  She hesitated.

  The void stretched endlessly in all directions. No sky. No ground. Just stars—uncaring, infinite.

  Her breath caught.

  She’d faced dragons, cursed ruins, angry innkeepers with crossbows.

  But nothing had prepared her for this.

  The magnetic seals engaged with a soft click as she stepped out. Her boots locked to the hull, the plating beneath her feet scarred and pitted from the battle. Burn marks. Impact craters. Magic-stained residue.

  Her footing was shaky. Every step felt wrong—no frame of reference, no horizon, no gravity to anchor her.

  Her breath fogged the inside of her visor. Her chest felt tight.

  Why can’t I breathe?

  Panic crept in, soft and coiling. Her grip on the tool trembled.

  Then—

  “Kim,” Mark’s voice crackled through the comms. Calm. Grounded. “Your vitals are spiking. Slow down. You’re hyperventilating.”

  She froze. His voice cut through the noise in her head like a steady rope.

  “Breathe,” he said. “One step at a time.”

  She obeyed. Inhale. Slow. Deliberate.

  Exhale.

  Again.

  The world narrowed to the pull of her boots. The hiss of her breath. The soft guidance of Mark’s voice.

  “Good,” he said. “That’s it.”

  She focused on her feet.

  Step. Click. Step. Click.

  The glow ahead grew brighter—cables stretched across the hull like invasive vines, shimmering with runes with patterns that danced under the surface.

  Her fear retreated. Not vanished, but contained.

  “You’ve faced worse,” she told herself. “You’ve stared down dragons.”

  She reached the edge of the first cable.

  The glow was brighter up close—sickly and alive, magic twisting just beneath the surface.

  Her gloved hand tightened around the cutter.

  “Keep going,” Mark said. “You’re almost there.”

  “Almost,” she whispered. Her breath was calm now. Her stance solid.

  She wasn’t falling. Not yet.