Dark Matter Heart

Chapter Three

The void lit up like judgment day.

Cassian watched it through the shuttle’s cracked viewport, one arm braced over Maren’s body to keep her from floating off the med-table as the inertial dampeners stuttered. Outside, the black was stitched with white fire (rail-slugs the length of city buses crossing the dark at thirty percent lightspeed, particle lances carving glowing scars across cruiser armor, point-defense grids blooming into constellations of exploding ordnance).

The Coalition battle group never stood a chance.

They had jumped in expecting a wounded cartel shuttle and a single rogue marine.

They found the 117th Orbital Strike Wing (call-sign Revenant) waiting for them with cold engines and hot guns.

The dreadnought lasted eleven minutes. Cassian counted every second.

When it finally split open along its spine and vented a million tons of atmosphere in a silent, perfect scream, he felt something inside his chest crack wide open too.

Old friends. Old debts. Old ghosts wearing powered armor and flying the same black flag he once had.

Maren’s fingers found his wrist. Her grip was weak, fever-hot, but steady.

“You called the devil,” she whispered.

“No,” he said. “I called the only people still stupid enough to come when I whistle.”

A new signature detached from the Revenant formation (sleek, arrowhead-shaped, matte black with no running lights). A heavy assault shuttle. Marine drop-ship. Boarding claws and breaching charges and the kind of men who still believed in things like oaths.

It matched velocity with them in under two minutes, mag-locks biting into their hull with a clang that rattled Cassian’s teeth.

“Cassian Vale,” a voice crackled over the open channel, female, low, edged with smoke and old battlefield humor. “You look like shit, Ghost-Six.”

He keyed the mic. “Captain Thorne. Still ugly as ever.”

A laugh like broken glass. “Open the damn hatch before I cut it off.”

He did.

Six marines in Mk XII void armor came through the airlock like nightmares given permission. Cassian knew every single one of them.

Captain Elara Thorne (five-ten, built like a blade, left eye replaced by a red targeting optic that never blinked). She removed her helmet and her hair was still cropped short, still iron-gray even though she couldn’t be older than forty-five. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dragging his half-dead body out of a burning drop-pod on Eris-4.

Behind her: Sergeant “Brick” Malloy, two meters twenty of gene-bulked muscle, face like a brick someone had taken a dislike to. Then Doc Vazquez, still carrying the same med-kit that had saved Cassian’s life twice. Then three others he’d bled with, killed with, mourned with.

They looked at him like he was a ghost they’d already buried.

Brick broke the silence. “Thought you were dead, you bastard.”

“Tried real hard,” Cassian said.

Elara’s one good eye flicked to Maren, unconscious on the table, blood crusting her lips.

“That the package?” she asked.

“That’s the woman I’m keeping,” Cassian corrected.

The temperature in the cabin dropped five degrees. Elara’s mouth flattened into the same line she used to wear right before ordering orbital bombardment.

“Ghost-Six,” she said carefully, “the authorization code you sent is twenty-three years old. Coalition’s got a kill-on-sight for anyone using it. We just painted a giant target on our backs to pull your ass out of the fire. Start talking.”

Cassian stepped between them and Maren, slow, deliberate.

“Cartel had her wired as a cortex-slave. I extracted her. They sent a hunter-killer. I sent it to hell. Coalition showed up to collect the scraps. That’s the short version.”

“And the long version?”

He met Elara’s stare. “She knows where every cartel black ledger is buried from here to the Core. Enough dirt to burn their entire financial sector to the waterline. They’ll glass planets to keep her quiet. Coalition’s in bed with them now (always were). You want the war you always said we should’ve finished? She’s the match.”

Elara’s eye narrowed. “You’re asking us to start a new one.”

“I’m telling you it’s already started. Question is which side you want to bleed on.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the distant thunder of dying ships.

Brick cracked his knuckles. “I always hated the cartel more than the Coalition anyway.”

Doc Vazquez moved past Cassian without asking permission, knelt by Maren, started scanning.

“She’s got neural hemorrhage,” he muttered. “And something else. Foreign code crawling her implants like ivy. Cartel kill-switch?”

“Probably,” Cassian said.

“Then she’s a bomb with a pulse. We need a clean med-bay and a neurosurgeon yesterday.”

Elara exhaled through her teeth. “Flagship’s got both. But if we bring her aboard, she’s Revenant now. No take-backs. You understand?”

Cassian looked down at Maren’s pale face. At the violet light flickering under her skin like dying embers.

“I understand,” he said.

They carried her out on a stretcher. Cassian walked beside it the whole way, one hand on her wrist, counting heartbeats.

The Revenant flagship was a beast (three kilometers of scarred armor and bad intentions, officially designated CRS Vengeance, unofficially just Revenant). They came aboard through a marine assault bay that stank of cordite and old blood. Crew stared as they passed (a ghost in torn armor carrying a half-dead woman with glowing ports).

Elara led them straight to the secure med-bay, cleared it with a single look. Doc Vazquez and two marine surgeons went to work. Cassian tried to follow and found Brick’s hand on his chest like a bulkhead.

“Let them do their job, brother.”

Cassian’s fists clenched. “If she dies—”

“She won’t,” Elara cut in. “But you and I need to talk. Now.”

She dragged him to the observation deck (a dome of armored transparisteel looking out on the wreckage of the battle). Chunks of dreadnought drifted past like broken toys. Marine SAR shuttles were already picking through the debris for survivors. There wouldn’t be many.

Elara sealed the hatch, turned to him.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. “And do not lie to me, Cassian Vale. I have buried too many friends to let you drag the rest into whatever private war you’re fighting.”

So he told her.

All of it (the contract, the escape from Helios-9, the derelict hauler, the dark-matter blast). When he got to the part about holding Maren’s hand while reality folded, his voice cracked and he hated himself for it.

Elara listened without interrupting. When he finished, she was quiet for so long he thought she’d order him shot.

Instead she said, “You’re in love with her.”

He opened his mouth to deny it. Nothing came out.

Elara’s smile was tired and ancient. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“She’s a job,” he said finally.

“Bullshit. You called in the one favor that could get us all executed for treason. For a job.”

Cassian turned away, stared out at the stars.

“I don’t know what she is,” he admitted. “I just know I’m not giving her back.”

Elara stepped up beside him. “Then you’d better be ready to burn the galaxy down, because that’s what it’s going to take.”

Alarms chose that moment to scream through the ship (red strobes, battle stations klaxon).

Elara’s eye flicked to tactical overlays projected on the dome.

“Shit,” she whispered.

Cassian followed her gaze.

A new fleet had just dropped out of dark-space (twenty-three signatures, cartel and Coalition transponders mixed like poison in a wound). Leading the formation was a ship Cassian had hoped never to see again: CSV Tyrant’s Reach, a super-dreadnought with enough firepower to crack continents.

And its captain was broadcasting on open channel.

“CRS Vengeance,” a male voice said, cultured, cold, familiar enough to make Cassian’s blood freeze. “This is Admiral Julian Vale. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. You are harboring a class-one terrorist and a deserter. Surrender them, and the rest of you may leave with your lives.”

Cassian’s knees almost buckled.

Julian Vale.

His brother.

The man who had given the order to glass their moon twenty-three years ago.

Elara looked at him, something like pity in her eye.

“Orders, Ghost-Six?”

Cassian stared at the monstrous ship on the screen (his family’s flagship, flying Coalition colors now, come to finish what it started).

He reached up, touched the scar on his throat (the one Julian had given him the night Cassian deserted).

“Open a channel,” he said.

Elara hesitated, then nodded.

Cassian stepped into the pickup. Every screen on the observation deck lit with his face (scarred, stubbled, eyes like winter graves).

Julian appeared opposite him (tall, aristocratic, uniformed perfection). Same cheekbones. Same storm-gray eyes. Twenty years older and a lifetime colder.

“Hello, little brother,” Julian said softly. “You’ve been naughty.”

Cassian smiled. It was all teeth.

“Julian,” he said. “You’re looking old.”

“Still alive, though. Unlike certain moons I could mention.”

The words hit like rail-slugs. Cassian didn’t flinch.

“You want her?” he asked. “Come get her. But you’re not taking her without going through me.”

Julian tilted his head. “Still protecting strays, Cassian? Some things never change.”

“She’s not a stray. She’s the reckoning you’ve spent two decades pretending wasn’t coming.”

Julian’s smile thinned. “Then prepare to die for her. You have one hour.”

The channel cut.

Elara turned to him. “He’s not bluffing. That ship can turn us into expanding gas.”

Cassian was already moving.

“Then we don’t give him an hour.”

He stormed toward the med-bay. Marines parted for him like water around a shark.

Maren was awake when he got there (sitting up, naked from the waist up except for bandages, violet ports glowing steady now). Doc Vazquez tried to stop him; Cassian walked straight past.

She looked up as he entered. Something fierce and fragile flickered across her face.

“Tell me you didn’t start a war for me,” she said.

“Too late.”

She closed her eyes. “Cassian—”

“My brother’s out there with enough guns to end this before it begins. We have fifty-eight minutes. I need you to do something only you can do.”

She met his gaze. “Name it.”

“I need you to kill a super-dreadnought.”

A slow, dangerous smile curved her mouth.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

They gave her a neural throne in the flagship’s cyber-warfare center (a sphere of black glass and holo-projectors, every surface crawling with data). Marines wired her in like priests preparing a sacrifice. Cassian stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, grounding her.

Across the void, Tyrant’s Reach advanced, shields up, weapons charging.

Maren closed her eyes.

Violet light exploded from her ports, flooding the chamber. Code streamed across every surface (terabytes per second, petabytes, raw information given teeth).

Cassian felt the moment she breached their outer firewalls. The entire ship shuddered as Revenant’s own systems screamed warnings.

“She’s in,” Elara whispered.

Maren’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere, layered with static and something ancient.

“Their point-defense grid is singing my name,” she said, dreamy. “Their reactor is lonely. Their captain… oh, their captain is afraid.”

Julian’s voice crackled over the open fleet channel, suddenly strained.

“All units, initiate protocol Obsidian Veil. Kill the witch!”

Too late.

The Tyrant’s Reach began to die from the inside.

First the shields flickered (once, twice, then collapsed entirely). Then every airlock on the ship slammed open at once, venting atmosphere in a thousand white geysers. Crew screamed into vacuum. Turrets spun wildly, firing on empty space or (worse) on sister ships.

Maren’s body arched in the throne, blood leaking from her ears, her nose, the corners of her eyes.

Cassian tightened his grip.

“Easy,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

She laughed (a terrible, beautiful sound).

“Watch me burn it down,” she said.

And she did.

The super-dreadnought’s main reactor went critical in a controlled cascade, blooming into a miniature sun. Secondary explosions rippled along its spine. For one perfect moment it hung in space like a dying god made of fire.

Then it was gone.

Silence fell across the fleet channel (shocked, absolute).

Elara exhaled a shaky breath. “Holy fuck.”

Maren slumped forward. Cassian caught her before she hit the deck, cradling her against his chest. Her blood soaked his armor.

“It’s done,” she whispered against his neck. “He’s dead. They’re all dead.”

He held her tighter.

In the distance, the remaining enemy ships turned and ran (some jumping blind, others simply powering down weapons, surrendering to the void).

Revenant stood alone among the wreckage.

Victory.

But Cassian felt no triumph.

Only the weight of the woman in his arms, shaking with reaction, and the sudden, icy certainty that this was only the beginning.

Because in the last second before the Tyrant’s Reach died, a final transmission had punched through on a private marine channel (Julian’s voice, calm even as his ship burned around him).

“You think this ends with me, little brother? Ask your witch what she really is. Ask her why the cartel never killed her. Ask her who built her.”

Static.

Then nothing.

Cassian looked down at Maren (at the woman he had just burned a fleet to keep) and saw something he hadn’t seen before.

Fear.

Real, bone-deep fear.

“Maren,” he said quietly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

She met his eyes, violet rings dimming like dying stars.

And behind them, in the deepest black of the observation dome, a new signature appeared on the long-range sensors (massive, ancient, broadcasting on a frequency that made every system on the ship scream in terror).

Something older than cartels.

Older than Coalition.

Older than humanity itself.

And it was coming for her.