ENTANGLED SHADOWS

Chapter 3

Stationfall

The *Driftwind* dropped out of FTL with a shudder that ran through every deck plate, the kind of jolt that told experienced travelers the nav computer had just shaved margins too close for comfort. Captain Hale’s voice came over the intercom, calm but edged with steel.

“Calyx Station in thirty minutes. We’re running hot and quiet. Concordance cutter is still limping somewhere behind us, but station traffic control just pinged us twice routine, they claim. Stay sharp.”

Kessa killed the intercom and looked at me across the cramped smuggler’s nook. Her face was drawn from lack of sleep, the scar along her jaw standing out pale against olive skin.

“Thirty minutes to dock. Forty-three hours total until the second canister arrives became twenty-nine while we were dodging that cutter. We’re cutting it thin.”

I checked the flechette pistol’s magazine for the third time. Full. Safety on. “What’s the plan once we’re inside?”

“Calyx is a hub three hundred thousand permanent residents, twice that in transients. Three main rings: Commerce, Residential, Industrial. The second canister is scheduled to arrive on a bulk freighter, the *Obsidian Lark*, manifest listed as ‘industrial quantum components.’ It’ll dock at Bay 47, Industrial Ring, Section Gamma. We intercept before it clears customs.”

“Security?”

“Heavy. Private contractors augmented by Concordance plants. Automated turrets on the cargo bays, drone patrols, biometric locks on every pressure door. But I have an old credential that might still work maintenance override from my cover days.”

“Might?”

She gave a tight shrug. “Best we’ve got.”

Crab detached from its charging cradle and scuttled across the floor, legs clicking softly. It projected a holographic schematic of Calyx Station above the table: three concentric rings spinning around a central spindle, connected by spokes and elevator shafts. Red dots pulsed along the Industrial Ring docking bays, security checkpoints, customs halls.

Kessa zoomed in on Bay 47. “The *Lark* docks here. Cargo offload to bonded warehouse here. From there it goes to a secure lift to the lower labs Concordance front company called NexGen Dynamics. We hit it during transfer.”

I studied the layout. “Too many choke points. We need misdirection.”

“Already thinking it. Crab can spoof a radiation leak in adjacent Bay 46.force evacuation, reroute security. We slip in wearing hazmat rigs from Hale’s lockers.”

“Risky if they call the bluff.”

“Less risky than a straight firefight.”

The ship lurched again docking thrusters firing. Through the small porthole I watched Calyx Station grow from a distant glitter to a massive wheel of light against the starfield. Habitat rings glowed soft gold, industrial sections stark white under floodlights. Freighters and shuttles swarmed like insects around a hive.

We felt the gentle bump of magnetic clamps engaging. Airlock seals hissed. Hale’s voice returned.

“Docked. Manifest cleared—barely. You’ve got a six-hour window before my turnaround. After that I’m gone, with or without you.”

“Copy,” Kessa replied. “Debt paid in full, Tor.”

“Don’t get dead,” he grunted. Channel closed.

We moved.

Hazmat suits from the *Driftwind*’s emergency locker—bulky, anonymous, sealed. Crab compacted into a tool case that clipped to Kessa’s belt. Canister secured in a false-bottomed equipment trunk. We joined the regular crew shuffling down the ramp as if we belonged.

Calyx customs was a zoo: long lines of dock workers, merchants, tourists, off-duty stationers. Scanners swept cargo crates; sniffer drones hovered. No one looked twice at two more hazmat techs heading toward the industrial tram.

We rode the mag-lev in silence, standing room only. The car smelled of sweat, machine oil, and cheap synth-coffee. Announcements scrolled overhead in five languages: welcome messages, safety reminders, advertisements for zero-g ballet and black-market augments.

At Industrial Ring East we transferred to a service corridor—dimmer lighting, fewer people, the hum of machinery louder. Kessa led us to a maintenance locker. Inside: tool belts, mag-boots, a terminal she jacked into with a hardline from her wrist rig.

Lines of code scrolled across her retinal display. “Credential still active. Good. Uploading Crab’s spoof now.”

The little drone unpacked itself, interfaced with the terminal, and injected the false alarm. Somewhere in Bay 46 klaxons began to wail. Over the corridor speakers: “Radiation spike detected. Evacuate Section Gamma immediately. Hazmat teams to stations.”

Security channels crackled with urgent chatter. Boots thundered past our door as response teams mobilized.

Kessa smiled without humor. “Showtime.”

We stepped out into controlled chaos. Workers streamed away from the affected bays; armed guards herded them toward evacuation lifts. No one questioned two more hazmat figures moving against the flow.

Bay 47 was half-empty when we arrived—most personnel redirected to the “leak.” The *Obsidian Lark* had already docked, its massive cargo ramp yawning open. Robotic loaders trundled crates into the bonded warehouse. Among them: one unmarked black case, larger than the rest, escorted by four armed guards in corporate gray.

Kessa murmured into her suit mic. “Target acquired. We follow the case to the lift.”

We kept pace at a distance, blending with the remaining dock crew. The guards scanned retinas at a security arch; the case passed through a separate cargo scanner that chimed green. Concordance override codes—clean.

They wheeled it toward a freight elevator marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” We trailed, pushing an empty maintenance cart as cover.

At the elevator the lead guard keyed a panel. Doors slid open. The four of them plus the case rolled inside.

Kessa glanced at me. Decision point.

We moved.

I shoved the cart forward, “accidentally” ramming the rear guard’s heels. He stumbled with a curse. Kessa was already there—stunner pressed to his neck. Silent discharge. He dropped.

The others spun, weapons rising. Too late.

I fired twice—flechettes whispering through the suppressor. Two guards down before they cleared holsters. The fourth managed a shout into his comm before Kessa’s blade took him in the throat.

Four bodies in under five seconds. Blood pooling on the decking.

Alarms began to shriek—motion sensors on the elevator, no doubt.

Kessa dragged the case inside. I hit the close button, then the override for lower labs. The elevator dropped fast enough to lift our stomachs.

“Thirty floors,” she said. “Security will lock the shaft in ninety seconds.”

Crab jacked into the control panel, fingers of light dancing. “Buying time.”

The car slowed, stopped between floors. Emergency brakes engaged.

Kessa pried the ceiling hatch. “Maintenance ladder. Up.”

We climbed into the shaft—dark, echoing, the smell of coolant and ozone. Below us, doors forced open; shouts, flashlight beams sweeping.

We ascended three floors before Crab released the brakes. The elevator plummeted past us, empty, drawing pursuit downward.

We pried open doors at Sublevel 8—research labs, restricted. Corridor sterile white, humming with power. No immediate guards.

Kessa checked the case’s lock. Biometric, keyed to Concordance execs.

“Crab,” she ordered.

The drone extended a probe, interfaced. Thirty seconds of tense silence.

Click.

The case opened.

Inside: a second quantum entanglement relay. Identical to ours. Red band around the middle. Armed and ready.

Kessa exhaled. “We have both keys now. Game changer.”

Bootsteps echoed from the stairwell—reinforcements.

We moved fast. Kessa sealed the case; I took point with the carbine.

The corridor branched: left to fabrication labs, right to server farms. We needed an uplink strong enough to broadcast our proof-of-control pulse.

“Right,” Kessa decided. “NexGen has a dedicated array for off-station bursts.”

We rounded the corner into hell.

Ten Concordance operatives in full tactical armor waited in ambush—rifles up, visors down. They’d anticipated the elevator ruse.

“Drop weapons!” the leader barked, voice amplified.

We dove back as blaster bolts scorched the wall where we’d stood.

Pinned.

Kessa slapped a disc onto the bulkhead—portable shield generator. Blue energy shimmered, absorbing the next volley.

“Options?” I asked, returning fire blindly around the corner.

“Crab can vent plasma from the coolant lines—force them back. We push through to the server room.”

“Do it.”

The drone scuttled along the ceiling, planted charges at junctions. Detonations flashed—superheated gas flooding the corridor. Screams as armor seals failed.

We charged through the haze.

Three operatives down, thrashing. The rest retreated toward reinforced doors.

We followed, boots slipping on coolant slick.

The server room doors were vault-grade—retina, voice, DNA.

Crab interfaced again. This time it took longer—counter-intrusion ICE fighting back.

Bolts slammed home somewhere—bulkheads sealing. We were trapped in the corridor with dwindling air and incoming hostiles.

Kessa looked at me. “If Crab fails, we blow the canisters. Take the whole lab with us. No one gets the keys.”

I nodded. Last resort.

Come on, Crab.

The doors hissed open just as the first armored squad rounded the far end.

We slipped inside. Doors sealed behind us—Crab locking them out.

Server room: racks of quantum processors humming, cold air, dim blue lighting. In the center, the uplink array—dish controls, encryption terminals.

Kessa jacked both canisters into the system. “Need ten minutes to calculate the narrowcast pulse. Target: Core Worlds Stock Exchange. Freeze all trades sector-wide for exactly six hours. Proof we control the grids without triggering full cascade.”

I took position at the door. “You’ve got five before they cut through.”

She worked fast—fingers flying over holo-keys, Crab assisting with decryption.

Outside, plasma torches began slicing the vault door. Sparks showered.

Four minutes.

Three.

The door buckled inward. Armored arm reached through, tossing a grenade.

I shot the arm—grenade dropped back outside. Explosion rocked the corridor.

Two minutes.

More cutting. They’d be through in thirty seconds.

Kessa’s voice tight: “Almost—”

The array powered up with a deep thrumming.

“One minute to broadcast.”

The door exploded inward.

Six operatives stormed in, rifles blazing.

I returned fire—dropped two. Kessa rolled behind a server rack, stunner barking.

Crab launched micro-missiles—two more hostiles down in fireballs.

Last two advanced, shields up.

I tackled one, drove him into a rack—sparks and coolant spray. Kessa took the final one with a point-blank shot.

Silence except for alarms and the array’s rising whine.

Kessa slammed the execute key.

The pulse went out—invisible, instantaneous, unstoppable.

Across the sector, trading floors froze. Billions of transactions halted mid-stream. Markets blinked red.

Proof sent.

We had their attention.

But the station went into full lockdown. Bulkheads slammed everywhere. Airlocks sealed. Security drones swarmed.

And then the comms crackled—not station security.

A new voice. Male. Cold. Familiar to Kessa if the way her face went pale was any indication.

“Agent Kessa. You’ve been busy.”

She froze.

“You have something that belongs to the Concordance. Both relays. Clever. But you’re on our station now. Every exit is sealed. Every corridor monitored. Surrender the devices and you walk away. Resist…and Calyx becomes your tomb.”

Kessa keyed her mic. “Who is this?”

“You know who. Director Varn. Your former handler.”

I saw her hand tremble—just once—before she steadied.

Varn continued. “You were my best asset, Kessa. I trained you. Trusted you. This betrayal stings.”

“You taught me to see the bigger picture,” she replied. “Billions dead for your new order? That’s not a picture I can live with.”

“Idealism. Disappointing. You have ten minutes to reach Docking Ring Alpha, Bay 12. A shuttle will be waiting. Bring both canisters. Come alone. Your companion stays behind as insurance.”

She looked at me.

I shook my head. No way.

“Ten minutes,” Varn repeated. “Clock starts now.”

Channel closed.

Kessa stared at the console. “He’ll kill you the second I leave.”

“Or kill us both the second you arrive. Trap either way.”

Crab chirped—new data scrolling. It had sliced station security during the uplink.

Kessa read it and her eyes widened.

“There’s a third option. Emergency protocol—Concordance failsafe. If both relays are on-station and compromised, the Director can trigger a self-destruct. Overload the fusion cores. Take the entire station down.”

“Bluff?”

“No. Logs confirm it’s real. He’s willing to sacrifice Calyx to prevent the relays falling into enemy hands.”

I looked around the server room—bodies, smoke, sparking consoles.

“How long would that take?”

“Twenty minutes from activation.”

“Then he just started a different clock.”

We had ten minutes to reach a shuttle that was almost certainly an ambush, or twenty before the station became a fireball.

Kessa made the call.

“We take the relays and run. There’s an old smuggler’s route—disused maintenance conduit from Sublevel 10 to the outer hull. Leads to an unregistered escape pod cluster. Hale told me about it years ago.”

“Distance?”

“Fifteen minutes if we sprint.”

We grabbed the canisters—Kessa one, me the other—and ran.

Corridors were chaos: civilians panicking behind locked bulkheads, security teams converging. We shot our way through two checkpoints, Crab disabling turrets ahead.

Alarms shifted tone—evacuation warnings. Varn had triggered the self-destruct.

Station-wide broadcast: “All personnel to escape pods. Core overload in T-minus eighteen minutes.”

Panic redoubled.

We reached the maintenance conduit—an unmarked hatch behind a coolant reservoir. Kessa burned the lock. Inside: narrow Jefferies tube, barely shoulder-wide, running the station’s circumference.

We crawled on hands and knees, canisters strapped to backs. Sweat poured. Air grew hot—cores already spiking.

Ten minutes left.

The tube vibrated with distant explosions—security trying to cut us off?

We emerged in a forgotten bay: dust-covered pods, six of them, pre-Collapse design but functional. Life support green.

We piled into the nearest. Kessa sealed the hatch, initiated launch sequence.

Through the viewport: Calyx Station receding slowly as pod thrusters fired.

Behind it, lights began to flicker—power surges.

Five minutes to overload.

The station’s rings spun majestically, oblivious.

Then the cores went critical.

A sun bloomed where Calyx had been—silent in vacuum, but brighter than any star. Shockwave followed seconds later, rocking the pod.

Debris field expanding.

Three hundred thousand souls gone in an instant.

Because one man decided the game wasn’t worth losing.

Kessa stared at the fireball, face unreadable.

I put a hand on her shoulder.

She didn’t shrug it off.

After a long minute she spoke, voice raw.

“He burned it all. Just to keep the relays from us.”

“No,” I said. “He burned it because we took them from him.”

We had both canisters now. Full control.

But the cost…

The pod’s nav chimed—short-range beacon. A ship approaching.

Transponder: *Driftwind*.

Hale’s voice crackled over open channel. “Picked up your launch. You two okay?”

Kessa managed a ghost of a smile. “Define okay.”

“Get you aboard. Then we figure out what the hell comes next.”

The pod docked with a gentle clunk.

We stepped aboard the *Driftwind*—bloodied, exhausted, carrying the two most dangerous devices in the sector.

Behind us, Calyx Station was a spreading cloud of plasma and wreckage.

Ahead: open space, and a war that had just gone from shadow to supernova.

Kessa looked at me.

“Still want that vacation?”

I almost laughed. Almost.

“No,” I said. “But I want payback.”

She nodded slowly.

“Then let’s give it to them.”

The *Driftwind* turned away from the debris field and accelerated into the dark.

Two canisters. One rogue agent. One witness turned ally.

And an entire sector waking up to frozen markets and a dead station.

The Concordance would come for us now.

All of them.

We were ready.