Thick gray smoke billowed, mixing with the concrete dust falling from the ceiling. The sharp stench of ozone and burning metal choked the lungs. Through the gap in the two-meter-wide steel door, now bent inward, a massive shadow stepped inside, crushing the remains of the hexsteel frame beneath its heavy iron boots.That figure was not an Eclipse Agent. My mind slowed slightly, though my alertness remained absolute. Through the dust cloud, his form was clear: a Vorrak mercenary cyborg. Half of his wrinkled face was replaced by cheap cybernetic plates, and his right arm was a heavy-class plasma cannon. His remaining eye emitted an artificial red glow.He was surely a low-level tracker, a Noctis Reach rat who caught the transmission and came to claim the bounty."Transmission... signal... Imperium Nexus goods..." the cyborg's broken vocoder ground out. He raised his plasma cannon, pointing it straight at Grox near the table.Grox froze. All four of his arms shot up, his massive body tr

Morning on Level 1313 of Noctis Reach was never marked by the rising sun. At this depth, dawn was merely a shift change at the smelting factories and the neon lights being dialed up to pierce the permanent pollution smog hanging in the air. But this morning, The Garage was far noisier than usual. The air felt tense, heavy with paranoia and rumors.News of the chaos and the "bloody incident" at the upper port last night had seeped down to the lower sectors as fast as toxic waste leaking from a main pipe.On this moon, panic is a highly marketable commodity. Suddenly, everyone felt an urgent need to fix their obsolete shield generators, recalibrate their rusty rifles, or simply ensure their junk ships could start in case they needed to flee the sector at a moment's notice.My workshop was flooded with anxious faces. I clamped a power converter in a hydraulic vise, sweat soaking my collar. In front of me, a Skarix gang member slammed his scaly hand on the table."Two hundred credits for

The air in the basement felt dead. No hum of ventilators, no scent of burnt lubricant, just a creeping chill from the lead-lined walls. Darkness wrapped around me like a heavy, old blanket.I sat cross-legged on the dusty concrete floor. Directly in front of me sat a dull metal chest, its lock broken years ago. Inside lay a worn cloak no longer fit for me to wear, a black mask from my bloodthirsty days on the run, and a silver metalic cylinder that felt heavier than it should.I didn't even touch it.Instead, I closed my eyes and let my breathing slow. I felt the Veil flowing around me, cold and blunt. Memories of the flashing red blade, screams swallowed by the vacuum of space, and the bloodlust that nearly drowned me into the dark side, pounded on the door of my consciousness. Strong, urgent, demanding revenge.Slowly, I rebuilt that mental wall, locking away my anger. Slipping back into my identity as L the mechanic, covering the scars of the past with the reality of The Garage. Wh

Eighty minutes.Time is a cruel illusion. To a mind paralyzed by panic, eighty minutes feels like a suffocating blink of an eye. But to a mind trained for war, it is a luxurious expanse of time, more than enough for meticulous, lethal preparation."We have to run," Jax urged, packing scrap into a sack with trembling hands. "Out the back door, into the sewers!""A statistically fatal decision," Cora cut in, her voice slicing through Jax’s hysteria with cold logic. "The lower sewers are heavily monitored by the Nexhold cartel's automated detector drones. If we move in a large, panicked group, the figure won't even have to look for us; he will easily track our collective heat signatures echoing through the narrow, uninsulated tunnels."I looked around the room, taking in the fragile ecosystem I had built. Vex was leaning against the wall, her knuckles white as she fiercely gripped the ruined stump of her custom rifle. Kael was sitting on the floor, hugging a trembling Spark to his chest.

With one swift, ruthlessly precise, and utterly emotionless diagonal slash, my violently crackling red blade sliced through the chest plate of his black armor. The sickening, high-pitched screech of melting metal rang out, instantly followed by the stench of vaporized flesh as my plasma destroyed his life-support circuitry, breached his reinforced ribcage, and cleanly cleaved his heart.The Eclipse Agent's body stiffened for a moment. His helmet tilted up, staring straight into the void of my face that reflected no hesitation, and certainly no regret. Then, slowly, he collapsed backward, hitting the metal floor with a heavy thud, splashing dirty water in all directions. He died before his brain could process how he had been defeated so easily.My ragged breath caught hot and heavy behind the airless confines of the mask. I stood perfectly motionless over his ruined corpse. The heavy acid rain continued to pour, hissing angrily as the drops struck my still-ignited plasma blade, as if t