Shadows Of Innocence

Chapter 4: Black Sky Shuttleport

The jungle thinned into rolling grasslands as the twin suns dipped toward the horizon, painting the sky in streaks of violet and orange. We’d been moving for another full day evading patrol drones, skirting settlements, living off ration bars and filtered stream water. My body was a map of bruises, cuts, and exhaustion, but adrenaline and fear kept me going.

Rhea led us unerringly north, following a route only she seemed to know. Nix flew intermittent reconnaissance, warning us of roadblocks and sweep teams. The organization whatever it was had thrown a net over the entire northern continent. My face, along with hers, was now on every bounty board from the resorts to the mining outposts.

We crested a final ridge just after dusk and looked down on Black Sky Shuttleport.

It wasn’t an official port. No gleaming terminals or customs halls here. Just a sprawling patchwork of landing pads carved into a high plateau, ringed by scrap-metal fences and watchtowers jury-rigged from old cargo haulers. Floodlights cast harsh white pools across rows of battered shuttles, freighters, and private yachts vessels that didn’t ask questions and didn’t file flight plans. Smugglers, mercenaries, exiles, and anyone with enough credits to buy silence came here to disappear between stars.

Perfect for us.

Rhea crouched beside me, scanning with her macro-binoculars. “Pad 17. That’s our ride a modified Corsair-class runner. Fast, armed, and the pilot owes me a favor.”

“Owes you how big a favor?” I asked.

“Big enough that he won’t sell us out. Small enough that he’ll want payment.”

I nodded. Money wasn’t an issue I still had my off-world accounts, and Rhea had sliced a few untraceable credit chips from the Vantar Bay warehouse before we blew it. Enough to buy passage and then some.

We waited until full night fell, then descended the switchback trail toward the perimeter. Nix detached, shifting into a small stealth drone to disable perimeter sensors along our path.

The air smelled of fuel, ozone, and fried food from vendor stalls clustered near the main gate. Music thumped from a cantina built inside a gutted freighter hull. Voices shouted in a dozen galactic dialects. It was chaos, and chaos was cover.

Rhea pulled up her hood, and I followed suit. We slipped through a gap in the fence Nix had opened past a guard post where two bored sentries were arguing over a card game.

Inside the port proper, we moved between shadows, avoiding the brighter-lit central lanes. Shuttles hissed as they powered up or down. Crews loaded crates. A fight broke out near a fuel depot—blaster fire cracking, quickly suppressed by port security in mismatched armor.

We reached Pad 17.

The Corsair was sleek despite its scars matte black hull, reinforced plating, twin ion engines that looked overpowered for its size. A single figure leaned against the lowered ramp: tall, broad-shouldered, skin the pale blue of high-gravity natives, tentacles instead of hair writhing lazily around his head. He wore a patched flight jacket and had a heavy pistol slung low on his hip.

He straightened as we approached.

“Rhea.” His voice was a low rumble. “Heard you pissed off some very serious people.”

“Old news, Jorr.” She stopped a few paces away. “You still flying the Night Sparrow?”

“Always.” He glanced at me. “Who’s the tourist?”

“Someone who’s paying double your usual rate to the Outer Rim. No questions.”

Jorr’s tentacles twitched an amused expression, maybe. “Triple. Prices went up since you torched half of Vantar Bay.”

Rhea didn’t blink. “Done.”

He grinned, showing pointed teeth. “Ramp’s open. We lift in twenty. Got one more cargo run, then we’re gone.”

We moved up the ramp into the ship’s belly.cramped but clean, smelling of engine grease and spice. Crew berths lined one wall, cargo hold the other. Crates were already strapped down, labeled as mining equipment.

Jorr sealed the ramp behind us. “Strap in. I’ll finish pre-flight.”

We found seats in the small passenger lounge just aft of the cockpit. Nix folded into backpack mode and settled under Rhea’s chair.

I exhaled for what felt like the first time in days. “We’re actually getting off-planet.”

“For now.” Rhea checked her sidearm, then pulled up a holodisplay from her wrist unit. “But they’ll have eyes on every port. We need to figure out where the next shipment is before they move it.”

Jorr’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Got company. Two gunships just lit up on long-range. Heading this way.”

Rhea was on her feet instantly. “How long?”

“Ten minutes if they push it. Less if they scramble interceptors from the orbital platform.”

She swore. “They’ve locked the sky.”

I felt the deck vibrate as engines spooled up.

Jorr again: “We can still lift, but it’ll be hot. You two better get to the turrets.”

Rhea grabbed my arm. “Come on.”

We ran forward through the ship. The Night Sparrow had twin dorsal and ventral turrets remote stations with wraparound screens and quad-linked blasters.

She shoved me into the ventral seat. “Ever fire ship guns?”

“No.”

“Good time to learn. Red trigger fires. Joystick aims. Green button cycles targets. Don’t hit friendlies.”

She disappeared toward the dorsal turret.

The ship lurched as we lifted thrusters roaring, gravity pressing me into the seat.

Through the turret screen, I watched Black Sky fall away. Other ships were scrambling too some fleeing, some just getting out of the crossfire.

Then the gunships appeared two sleek interceptors, military-grade, painted matte black with no markings. They dove straight for us.

Jorr’s voice: “Hold on!”

The Sparrow rolled hard, engines screaming as he pushed for altitude.

The first gunship opened fire tracers streaking past.

I gripped the controls, heart hammering.

Rhea’s turret came alive above me blasts lancing out, forcing the lead gunship to break.

My targeting reticule locked on the second.

I squeezed the red trigger.

Quad blasters spat energy bolts hammering the gunship’s shields, flaring blue.

It returned fire.

The Sparrow shuddered direct hit.

Alarms wailed.

Jorr banked hard, diving toward the clouds.

I kept firing walking shots across the enemy’s flank until shields collapsed in a section. Armor blackened, vented.

The gunship peeled off, trailing smoke.

But the first one was back missiles away.

Rhea’s voice: “Flares!”

Jorr deployed countermeasures bursts of chaff and heat decoys.

Missiles veered, detonated harmlessly.

We broke atmosphere stars wheeling into view, the planet curving below.

But we weren’t clear.

Four more blips appeared on scope interceptors launching from orbital defense platforms.

Jorr: “They’ve got us bracketed. We need to jump.”

Rhea: “Hyperdrive spooled?”

“Thirty seconds.”

The new fighters closed fast faster than the gunships.

They opened up in a coordinated salvo.

The Sparrow’s shields flared, buckled.

Another hit sparks showered the turret station.

I fired back desperately scoring hits, but they were too agile.

One interceptor lined up for a killing shot.

Nix suddenly detached from Rhea’s station, rocketing out through an external launch tube.

It transformed mid-flight deploying micro-drones, swarming the lead interceptor.

The pilot panicked breaking formation, crashing into his wingman.

Both tumbled, exploding.

But the remaining two pressed.

Hyperdrive hummed ready.

Jorr: “Jumping in three… two…”

A final volley slammed us.

The ship spun artificial gravity failing for a heartbeat.

Then stars stretched into lines.

We jumped.

Silence rushed in only the thrum of engines and distant damage alarms.

I unstrapped with shaking hands, legs barely holding me as I climbed out of the turret.

Rhea met me in the corridor face pale, a burn across her cheek.

“You okay?”

I nodded. “You?”

“Alive.”

Jorr emerged from the cockpit, tentacles singed. “We took hull breaches port side. Shields down to twenty percent. But we’re in hyperspace. Next stop: Kessel Verge station. Eight hours.”

He looked at us both. “Whatever you two are running from, it’s big.”

Rhea didn’t answer.

We patched wounds in the med bay stimpaks, synthskin, pain blockers. Nix returned through the tube, scorched but functional, settling on a recharge pad.

Later, in the passenger lounge, Jorr brought us hot stimulant brew and protein packs.

He sat across from us. “Talk to me. I just got shot at by black-ops interceptors. I deserve to know if my ship’s flagged now.”

Rhea sipped her drink. “Nanite weapons program. Rogue cell inside a major corp or government I’m still piecing it together. They’re moving prototypes through multiple systems. Elysara was just one hub.”

Jorr whistled. “The kind that can rewrite biology?”

“Worse. Full-spectrum control. Deployed aerosol or water contamination. Entire populations compliant in days.”

He leaned back. “And you’re what whistleblower?”

“Former operative. Went dark when I saw the endgame.”

He studied her. “You burned your bridges bad.”

“They burned mine first.”

I spoke up. “They used me as a mule. Planted one on me at the resort. I’m collateral who stopped being collateral.”

Jorr looked at me with new respect. “And you’re still breathing. Not bad, tourist.”

I managed a tired smile.

He stood. “Get rest. I’ll keep us off main lanes. Kessel Verge is neutral mostly. We can repair, refuel, maybe get intel.”

He left us alone.

Rhea pulled up her holodisplay again slicing into darknet channels, pulling fragments of data.

I watched her work.

Hours passed in hyperspace’s unreal blue tunnel.

Eventually, she spoke without looking up. “There’s a pattern. Shipments moving through three systems: Elysara, Kessel Verge, and Thal Prime. Converging on a station in the Nebula Reach.”

“End user?”

“Unknown. But someone with deep pockets and no morals.”

I leaned closer. “We stop the convergence?”

“We try. Next shipment arrives at Kessel Verge in twelve hours. Docked at Bay 9, under shell company cover.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Another raid?”

“Quiet this time. In and out. Sabotage the cargo, slice manifests, disappear.”

“Quiet sounds good.”

She almost smiled. “Don’t get used to it.”

We dozed in shifts.

Hyperspace ended with a gentle lurch.

Kessel Verge station filled the viewport a massive wheel spinning slowly against the starfield, lights twinkling along its rim. Docking arms extended like spider legs. Traffic flowed in orderly streams freighters, liners, private vessels.

Neutral ground. Run by a consortium of mining guilds. Law enforced only where profits demanded.

Jorr docked us smoothly at an outer ring bay away from main traffic.

“Repairs’ll take six hours,” he said. “I’ll handle it. You two do your thing.”

We geared up light concealed weapons, fake IDs Rhea forged en route.

Nix stayed aboard for recharge and remote support.

Bay 9 was deep in the industrial sector lower gravity, louder noise, smell of plasma torches and lubricant.

We moved through crowded corridors: dock workers, droids, off-duty crews gambling in side alcoves.

The target ship was a bulky ore hauler ugly, functional, perfect cover.

Two guards at the ramp. More inside, probably.

Rhea led us to a maintenance conduit running parallel.

We crawled through narrow Jeffries tubes hot, cramped until we reached an access panel overlooking the cargo hold.

Below: crates stamped HAZARDOUS BIO-MATERIALS. Four more canisters in a secure cradle, guarded by six armed figures in corporate security gear.

Plus automated turrets.

Not quiet anymore.

Rhea whispered, “Change of plan. We can’t breach without alerting the whole station.”

“Then what?”

“We tag the cargo. Track it to the buyer.”

She produced a micro-beacon smaller than a fingernail.

I nodded.

We waited for a shift change.

When the guards rotated, Rhea popped the panel, dropped silently into the hold.

I followed less silently, but unnoticed.

We moved between crates.

She slapped the beacon onto one canister magnetic, active.

Then her wrist unit pinged.

Incoming transmission encrypted, but not hers.

She froze.

The guards snapped alert.

“Intruders! Lock it down!”

Too late we were already moving.

Blaster fire erupted.

We dove behind crates.

Rhea returned fire dropping two.

I fired over the top suppressive bursts.

Turrets whirred to life.

Nix’s voice in our earpieces remote linked. “I’m in station security. Looping cameras. Go!”

We ran toward the far hatch.

A security team poured in from the ramp.

Heavy fire.

Rhea lobbed a smoke grenade vision obscured.

We sprinted through it.

Out into the corridor alarms howling now.

Station enforcers converging.

We ran twisting through side passages, up service ladders.

Behind us, shouts and boots.

Rhea sliced a door into an abandoned warehouse section.

We barricaded it.

Panting.

“They knew we were coming,” I said.

She nodded grimly. “Leak. Or tracker on us.”

We checked gear nothing.

“Then how?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Jorr.”

I didn’t want to believe it.

But the timing…

We moved again toward the docking ring.

Gunfire echoed behind pursuit close.

We burst onto the promenade level crowded, bright.

People screamed, scattered.

Enforcers opened fire indiscriminately.

We returned careful shots, using cover.

Rhea took a graze to the shoulder.

I dragged her behind a kiosk.

More forces closing from both ends.

Trapped again.

Then Jorr’s voice over public channel. “Sparrow’s prepped. Emergency launch. Bay 42. Move!”

Betrayal or salvation?

No choice.

We ran full sprint through the chaos.

Nix met us halfway deploying from a vent, transforming to shield mode, absorbing blasts.

We reached Bay 42.

The Sparrow’s ramp down, engines hot.

Jorr in the cockpit waving us aboard.

We dove in.

Ramp closing as we lifted blaster fire pinging off hull.

Into the traffic lanes dodging freighters.

Station guns tracking.

Jorr rolled us hard, accelerating.

Clear of the ring.

Into open space.

Safe.

For minutes.

Then sensors lit up pursuers launching.

Four corvettes fast, armed.

Jorr: “They’ve got us outgunned.”

Rhea strapped into the dorsal turret again.

I took ventral.

The chase was on.

Corvettes closed missiles away.

Jorr juked, flared evading most.

One hit shields down.

We returned fire Rhea scoring kills on missile salvos with precise bursts.

I hammered one corvette’s engines slowing it.

But they were coordinated herding us.

Toward a larger signature dropping out of hyperspace ahead.

A cruiser.

Black hull. No markings.

The mothership.

We were boxed.

Rhea’s voice calm. “We can’t outrun or outfight.”

Jorr: “Ideas?”

She looked at me.

“One.”

She pulled up the beacon signal the one we’d planted.

Strong. Active.

And moving with the ore hauler, now launching from Kessel Verge.

Toward the cruiser.

Rhea smiled cold, fierce.

“Jorr set course to ram the hauler.”

He stared. “You’re insane.”

“Do it.”

He grinned. “My kind of insane.”

The Sparrow dove engines maxed.

Straight at the departing ore hauler.

Pursuers hesitated confused.

The cruiser powered weapons.

Too late.

We impacted not full ram, but close graze hull scraping, sparks flying.

Jorr rolled us under the hauler’s belly.

Rhea remote-triggered the beacon.

Not just a tracker.

A detonator.

Linked to breaching charges she’d planted in the chaos.

The hauler erupted chain reaction through the canister cradle.

Massive blast plasma, nanites incinerated instantly.

Shockwave slammed us.

The cruiser caught the edge shields flared, failed in sections.

Pursuing corvettes scattered.

We limped away into hyperspace again.

Coordinates random.

Anywhere but here.

In the aftermath, silence.

Jorr patched hull breaches with emergency foam.

Rhea bandaged her shoulder.

I sat, staring at nothing.

We’d destroyed another cache.

But the cruiser escaped damaged, but intact.

And now they knew we were willing to die to stop them.

Jorr joined us later.

“Triple wasn’t enough. Next ride’s free.”

Rhea nodded.

He looked at us both.

“Where to now?”

She pulled up starcharts.

“Thal Prime. Last convergence point. We end it there.”

I met her eyes.

War now.

No more running.

The Night Sparrow hurtled through hyperspace.

Toward the final fight.