The Vakaryan's mandibles twitched, clicking faintly as if grinding invisible stone between them.
Its eyes—four obsidian pits that reflected no light—narrowed on Rox.
*tch! *tch! *tch!
A guttural growl rumbled from deep within its plated chest, but before it could respond further, the woman cut the silence.
"Gunn," she said, her voice sharp, the weight of authority carried in every syllable.
"Gather your men. We will convene at once. It is time to decide our next course."
The Vakaryan's growl deepened, but it inclined its monstrous head in a gesture that was both obedience and defiance.
"As you command," it hissed, its voice like metal dragged across stone.
Turning, it signaled with a flick of its arm, and several other Vakaryans lurking in the shadows emerged, their chitinous armor clattering with insectile precision.
Rox arched a brow behind her helmet and muttered,
"Charming crew you've got here."
She turned her gaze back to the woman, sarcasm dripping from her tone.
"Now, let's stop wasting any more time. Tell me what I need to do before bug-boy gets ideas about tearing me apart for dinner."
The Vakaryan's mandibles flared with a sharp
*clack!
but the woman raised her hand, silencing him without so much as a glance.
Her emerald eyes shifted back to Rox, cold and unwavering.
"You'll come with us."
"Fine," Rox replied with a sharp exhale, folding her arms briefly before gesturing forward.
"Then lead the way."
The woman wasted no time as she turned briskly toward the exit.
As they walked, Gunn's massive silhouette loomed beside Rox.
His bulk moved not with the thunderous weight his size suggested, but with unnerving silence—
each step deliberate, predatory, almost like the ground itself feared to make a sound beneath him.
Rox found herself glancing at him more than once, her curiosity sharp despite herself.
She was trained and bred for aerial combat, for dogfights in the void and high-speed maneuvers where a flick of her wrist meant life or death.
Ground warfare wasn't her specialty.
But even she couldn't deny the reputation of Vakaryans.
Their fleets were considered middling, but when their armies set foot on soil?
They were nightmares incarnate.
Innate regenerative eidra made them nearly impossible to wear down, wounds closing faster than most soldiers could swing their blades.
Vakaryan warbands were infamous—unstoppable in melee combat, grinding down whole battalions like beasts shredding prey.
Only a handful of empires could even pretend to match their ground power.
And Gunn… he was something else.
Most Vakaryans were already towering brutes at nine feet.
This one loomed taller still—more than nine, closer to ten or beyond.
It was as if someone had bred him to embody the apex of their kind.
Rox wondered how many wars he'd walked through, how many enemies had stared up at that colossal frame just before dying.
Her stare lasted too long.
"Stare more and I'll prod your eyes out myself, Birdmeat," Gunn snarled, mandibles clicking in a sharp rhythm of annoyance.
His voice was low and guttural, carrying the unspoken promise of violence.
Rox tilted her head, her voice dry with sarcasm as it crackled through the filters of her helmet.
"We're doing nicknames now, Mr. Mandibles? Glad to see we're getting along so well. What's next, braiding each other's hair?"
A loud
*clack!
of mandibles answered her, sharp and irritated.
Before she could push further, the woman at their lead gave a single sharp click of her tongue.
The sound was small, but the command behind it was unmistakable.
Rox rolled her shoulders with a sigh, relenting, while Gunn's mandibles twitched but he obeyed, falling into silence.
They moved through the encampment, the atmosphere alive with activity.
Cloaked soldiers shifted between tents, engineers hunched over equipment, while heavy vehicles rumbled with low engines as they carried cargo crates stamped with crimson insignias.
The smell of heated metal, fuel, and faint incense lingered in the air.
The camp was not just a base—it was a living organism, each piece working in tandem.
They headed east until they reached a gathering point where Vakaryans had congregated.
*SCREEEEEEEEECH!
With a piercing screech that rattled through the air, Gunn signaled the others.
One by one, hulking Vakaryan warriors emerged from tents, their armored hides glinting in the faint light, mandibles clicking as they assembled.
Without question, they fell into step behind Gunn and the woman.
"So, you even have the Vakaryans beneath your heel?" Rox muttered, her tone edged with sarcasm, though curiosity slipped beneath it.
"Clever move."
"Mhm," the woman replied smoothly, not breaking stride.
"Some of them, yes. All are part of the Red Fleet."
That gave Rox pause.
She tilted her head slightly beneath her helmet.
"You know… I never asked your name."
"You have probably heard it already," the woman said, her voice calm, certain.
Then she added, "Laxuva. That is my name."
Rox's eyes widened behind her mask, though the expression was hidden.
Recognition slammed into her like a blow.
Gelhyne Laxuva—the infamous data broker.
A woman whispered about in hushed tones across the empires.
She had orchestrated chaos on worlds without ever firing a weapon, toppling entire sectors by selling secrets and supplying the black markets of the void through her syndicate—the Doctrina Laxuva.
Dangerous, untouchable, always one step ahead.
Rox's lips curled into a wry grin beneath her helmet.
"A massive Vakaryan, the Red Fleet, and Laxuva herself… Hah. My life just got even more interesting."
A flicker of amusement crossed Laxuva's emerald eyes, though she said nothing.
After several more minutes, they finally arrived at a covered clearing reinforced by steel beams.
The supports jutted outward in a polygonal pattern, faintly humming as eidra coursed along their lengths.
Streams of energy ran like veins, flowing upward before shooting skyward in brilliant shafts of light, piercing through the tent's canopy.
The entire structure pulsed faintly with power, like the heartbeat of something vast and alive.
Rox's eyes traveled slowly from the base of one steel beam to its apex, her helmet filters humming as they captured the resonance of the eidra surging through its length.
The readings were off the charts.
She tilted her head back, watching as the currents lanced upward, disappearing into the black.
From the skies above, faint trails of eidra particles shimmered like a false aurora, weaving together in a vast lattice.
It wasn't just spectacle—it was control.
Whatever this structure was, it was powerful enough to wrap the entire sky with eidra, bending it into something like a living net.
A radar?
A map?
Maybe both.
Either way, it meant whoever built it could see everything.
Gelhyne led them deeper, her gait purposeful, Gunn lumbering beside them with his Vakaryan warriors in tow.
Their presence alone made the ground tense, the air thick.
Soon they emerged into a clearing at the heart of the structure.
There, a massive circular table waited, its surface alive with shifting lines of light.
At its center hung a projection—an enormous holo of a planet suspended in midair, glowing faintly with eidra latticework that mapped its terrain in perfect detail.
Around the table were figures cloaked in crimson and black, Gelhyne's operatives.
Their heads were bent over datapads and rune-scribed ledgers, but all eyes flicked up the instant the trio entered.
One of them approached Gelhyne swiftly, their hood casting their face in shadow.
"The materials are prepared as requested, ma'am," the figure said, voice steady, deferent.
"All sorted here for the meeting."
Gelhyne inclined her head in silent acknowledgment and stepped to the head of the table.
Her gaze swept once over Gunn, then to Rox, and finally to the assembly at large.
"You may all sit," she said, her tone cool, edged with command.
"We begin."
*creaak! *creaaak!
*clutter!
Chairs scraped faintly against the ground as the cloaked operatives obeyed.
Rox hesitated only a moment before she walked forward and dropped herself into the closest empty seat—just to Gelhyne's right.
A ripple of murmurs spread immediately.
Eyes flashed beneath hoods, the air humming with indignation.
Rox could almost taste the contempt, like static buzzing against her helmet.
One voice whispered sharply:
"She sits beside her? Who does she think she is?"
Another hissed under their breath:
"An outsider—Corvi filth…"
Rox leaned back in her chair, folding her arms.
She let the whispers soak in before shrugging dramatically.
"She said sit, so I sat," she said aloud, her voice deliberately flippant.
"What did I do, break protocol already?"
The murmurs cut off like a blade through silk.
Several glares burned hotter, though others turned away, cowed by her brazenness.
Beside her, Gelhyne exhaled softly and shook her head.
Not annoyed, not amused—just that subtle sigh she used when others didn't quite meet her level of composure.
She raised her hand slightly for silence.
The room obeyed.
"First," Gelhyne began, her voice carrying effortlessly across the chamber,
"to ease your questions and suspicions, I will be introducing a new asset—one who may prove herself useful to our cause."
Her eyes slid deliberately toward Rox.
Emerald irises glowed faintly in the eidra-lit room.
Every hood turned.
Dozens of eyes—some human, some distinctly not—fixed on Rox, measuring her, dissecting her.
Rox tilted her head lazily, raising one gloved hand in mock greeting.
"Hi. Name's Rox. Deserter. Former ace pilot of the empire you all love to hate."