The sky above Siberia did not turn black with clouds; it turned black with steel.
The Giza 5th Fleet was not a scouting party. It was an extermination force. The flagship, the Tsar's Hammer, was a Dreadnought-class Sky-Fortress the size of a small city. Its hull was a jagged landscape of gunmetal grey, bristling with Ion-Cannons and Gravity-Nullification spires. It hung in the air like a suspended mountain, its anti-gravity engines humming with a sound so deep it vibrated the fillings in Amani's teeth.
Flanking the Dreadnought were six heavy frigates and a swarm of "Wasp" attack drones that buzzed like angry insects.
Amani stood on the balcony of the Warden's tower, the wind whipping his torn clothes. He watched the red targeting lasers sweep across the Yard below, painting the snow in patterns of death.
"They aren't hailing us," General Volkov said, walking out onto the balcony. She had a heavy sniper rifle slung over her shoulder, her blind visor reflecting the red lights of the fleet. "Vektor didn't send a distress signal. He sent a kill code."
"They're here to wipe the slate clean," Amani said, his violet eyes narrowing. "They don't care about the hostages. They don't care about the Void Stone. They just want to bury the rebellion."
"Can you stop it?" Volkov asked. She didn't sound afraid. She sounded curious.
Amani looked at his hands. The radiation from the Isotope was fading, but the Void Energy from the mine was still there, a cold, heavy knot in his stomach. And in his pouch, the Third Fragment—the Space Shard—pulsed with a rhythm that matched the hum of the Dreadnought's engines.
"I can't stop it," Amani said, climbing onto the railing. "But I can break its nose."
"Pixel!" Amani tapped his comms. "Get the shields up!"
"I'm trying!" Pixel's voice screamed in his ear. "But the Dreadnought is jamming the mainframe! I can't access the external defense grid!"
"FIRE."
The command didn't come from the radio. It came from the sky, amplified by massive speakers on the hull of the Tsar's Hammer.
The sky lit up.
The Rain of Fire
The first salvo wasn't lasers. It was Kinetic Rods.
Tungsten pillars, twenty feet long, dropped from the frigates. They didn't need explosives. Gravity did the work. They fell at terminal velocity, designed to punch through the mountain and collapse the prison from the inside.
"Incoming!" Viktor the Wolf screamed from the Yard below.
The prisoners scattered, diving into the bunkers.
Amani didn't dive. He jumped.
He launched himself from the tower, intercepting the trajectory of the lead rod. He was a speck of flesh against a rain of metal.
"Gravity... Field!"
Amani threw his hands out. He didn't try to stop the rod—it weighed ten tons and was moving at Mach 3. Instead, he created a localized gravity well just to the left of the rod's nose.
The rod veered. It missed the central tower by inches, slamming into the perimeter wall instead.
BOOM.
The impact shook the mountain. Concrete shattered, sending a cloud of dust rising into the storm.
But there were more rods. Dozens of them.
"I can't catch them all!" Amani gritted his teeth, dodging a second rod that obliterated the guard tower next to him.
"You don't have to," Darius's voice cut through the comms. "Amani, the cannons! They are charging the Ion-Batteries. If they fire the main guns, the mountain melts."
Amani looked up. The underside of the Dreadnought was glowing blue. The main cannon—a massive aperture the size of a stadium—was gathering energy.
"Volkov!" Amani yelled. "Give me a target!"
"The bridge!" Volkov shouted back, firing her sniper rifle at a passing drone. "Top deck, rear quadrant! Take out the bridge, and the snake loses its head!"
Amani landed on a jagged piece of the broken wall. He looked up at the floating fortress. It was three thousand feet up.
"Chacha," Amani whispered. "I hope you're keeping the basement cold. Because I'm about to make things very hot up here."
Amani crouched. He focused every ounce of gravity he had into his legs. He compressed the Void energy, turning his body into a loaded spring.
"GRAVITY LAUNCH."
The concrete beneath him vaporized.
Amani shot into the sky. He broke the sound barrier in three seconds. BOOM. A sonic cone formed around him as he pierced the cloud layer.
He wasn't flying. He was falling upwards.
The Boarding Party of One
The air up here was thin and freezing. Amani smashed through a swarm of Wasp drones, his gravity shield crushing them like tin cans upon impact.
He reached the hull of the nearest frigate—the Iron Eagle.
He didn't land gracefully. He slammed into the armored plating feet first.
CRUNCH.
He cratered the hull. Magnetic boots locked on.
"One down," Amani gasped, the wind tearing at his face.
The hatch next to him hissed open. A squad of Sky-Troopers poured out. They wore sleek, vacuum-sealed armor and jetpacks. They wielded plasma lances.
"Target acquired!" the squad leader shouted. "Engage!"
They fired. Bolts of superheated plasma streaked toward him.
Amani didn't dodge. He pulled the Third Fragment from his pouch.
He didn't know how to use it yet. Not really. But he knew what it wanted. It wanted to connect things that shouldn't be connected.
"Space... Fold."
Amani thrust the shard forward.
The space in front of him warped. It rippled like water. The plasma bolts hit the ripple and vanished.
A split second later, a ripple opened behind the Sky-Troopers.
Their own plasma bolts flew out of the second ripple, slamming into their backs.
"Friendly fire!" the leader screamed, his jetpack exploding.
"Not friendly," Amani growled, charging through the smoke. "Just karma."
He grabbed the nearest trooper by the ankle and swung him into another. He ripped the plasma lance from the leader's hands.
"I'm borrowing this," Amani said.
He aimed the lance not at the troopers, but at the frigate's engine turbine.
He pulled the trigger. The lance whined, firing a continuous beam of blue fire.
The turbine exploded.
The Iron Eagle lurched violently to the right. Smoke poured from its side. It began to list, dropping out of formation.
"One frigate down," Amani reported. "Five to go. And the big one."
The Ground War
Below, the Yard was a slaughterhouse.
The fleet had deployed Drop-Pods. Coffin-shaped metal boxes slammed into the snow, bursting open to reveal Giza Shock-Troopers. These weren't the prison guards; these were frontline soldiers, heavily armored and disciplined.
"Hold the line!" Viktor the Wolf screamed, firing dual plasma repeaters from behind a barricade of sandbags.
The Bratva and the Triads fought side-by-side. It was a chaotic, beautiful mess of prison shivs and stolen high-tech weaponry.
A massive Giza Mech—a "Walker" with hydraulic legs and a rotary cannon—stepped out of the smoke, crushing a barricade.
"Tank!" a prisoner yelled. "Fall back!"
"No retreat!" General Volkov's voice boomed over the Yard speakers. "Target the joints! Knees and hips!"
From the shadows of the crushed main gate, a figure emerged.
It was Ivan, the prisoner Amani had cured of the Void. He was holding a massive, rusted mining drill.
"For the Lion!" Ivan roared.
He charged the Mech. The rotary cannon spun up, bullets chewing up the ground around him. Ivan didn't stop. He slid under the Mech's legs and jammed the drill into the hydraulic knee joint.
SCREEEEECH.
The drill bit into the metal. Hydraulic fluid sprayed. The Mech stumbled, its leg locking up.
"Now!" Viktor yelled.
Five prisoners jumped onto the fallen Mech, prying open the cockpit and dragging the pilot out.
"This is our house!" Viktor screamed, shooting the pilot.
The Eye of the Storm
High above, Amani leaped from the falling frigate to the hull of the Dreadnought.
The Tsar's Hammer was massive. The deck was a flat expanse of steel, dotted with turret emplacements.
Amani landed and rolled. A turret swiveled toward him, its barrels spinning.
"Too slow," Amani grunted.
He slammed his hand on the deck. "Gravity... Crush."
The turret barrel bent downward, firing into the deck. The explosion rocked the platform.
Amani ran toward the bridge. But as he crossed the mid-deck, a figure stepped out to meet him.
It was Admiral Krov.
The Admiral wasn't wearing power armor. He wore a crisp white uniform with gold epaulets. He held a simple cane. But the air around him rippled with a terrifying pressure.
"So," Krov said, his voice amplified by a collar-mic. "You are the anomaly."
Amani stopped. He sensed it immediately. The weight. The density.
"You're a Gravity Mage," Amani realized.
"I am a Grand Admiral," Krov corrected. "And gravity is the privilege of the elite. A gutter-rat like you has no right to wield the fundamental force."
Krov raised his cane.
Amani felt it instantly. The gravity around him increased tenfold.
CRUNCH.
Amani was forced to his knees. The deck plates beneath him buckled. It felt like a mountain had been placed on his shoulders. His bones creaked. His vision blurred.
"10 Gs," Krov said calmly, walking toward him. "Most men die at 9. Their hearts cannot pump blood to the brain. But you... you are stubborn."
Amani struggled to breathe. He tried to summon his own gravity to counter it, but Krov's field was overwhelming. It was refined. Masterful.
"You use gravity like a hammer," Krov sneered, standing over Amani. "I use it like a scalpel."
Krov tapped his cane on Amani's shoulder.
"Kneel before the Tsar."
The pressure increased. 20 Gs. Amani's nose began to bleed. His capillaries were bursting.
He's stronger than me, Amani thought. He has more experience. More control.
But Amani had something Krov didn't.
He had the Void.
And the Void is lighter than nothing.
Amani closed his eyes. He stopped fighting the weight. Instead, he opened the tap in his gut. He let the Void energy flood his system.
Anti-Gravity.
The Void pushed back. Not against Krov, but against reality.
Amani's skin turned pitch black. His violet eyes turned white.
"I don't kneel," Amani whispered.
He stood up.
Krov's eyes widened. "Impossible. That field is absolute!"
Amani grabbed the Admiral's cane. His hand was freezing cold—the chill of the deep mines.
"Your gravity is heavy," Amani snarled, snapping the cane in half. "My gravity is Hungry."
Amani punched Krov in the chest.
He didn't use force. He used Space.
He activated the Third Fragment.
WARP PUNCH.
Amani's fist didn't just hit Krov; it skipped the space between them. The impact occurred inside Krov's chest armor.
BOOM.
The Admiral was launched backward. He smashed through the reinforced glass of the bridge, tumbling into the command center.
Amani collapsed to one knee, gasping. Using the Shard and the Void together was tearing him apart.
"Amani!" Pixel's voice cut in. "The main cannon! It's firing in ten seconds!"
Amani looked up. The Admiral was down, but the firing sequence was automated. The massive blue light under the ship was blinding.
"I can't stop it," Amani rasped. "It's too big."
"You don't have to stop it," Darius whispered in his ear. "Redirect it."
"Where?"
"Up," Darius said. "Send the beam into the engine core."
Amani dragged himself to the edge of the shattered bridge window. He looked down at the massive cannon aperture.
"Ten seconds..."
Amani jumped.
He dove off the deck, falling toward the cannon.
"Five seconds..."
He fell directly into the path of the beam.
"Three..."
He pulled the Third Fragment out. He held it in front of him like a shield.
"Space... Mirror."
ZERO.
The cannon fired. A beam of pure ion energy capable of vaporizing a mountain erupted from the ship.
It hit the Shard.
The Shard didn't block it. It opened a portal. A wormhole the size of a dinner plate.
The beam entered the wormhole.
And a split second later, a second wormhole opened inside the ship's engine room.
The beam exited the second hole. It slammed directly into the Dreadnought's own Anti-Gravity Core.
CRITICAL FAILURE.
The sound was the end of the world.
The back half of the Tsar's Hammer disintegrated. The engine exploded in a sphere of blue fire.
The massive ship groaned. It tilted. And then, it began to fall.
The Landing
Amani was blown away by the shockwave. He tumbled through the air, unconscious, falling three thousand feet toward the frozen earth.
"Amani!" Sia screamed over the comms.
A massive shadow swooped down from the sky.
It wasn't a bird. It was a Drop-Ship, piloted by Viktor.
"I got him!" Viktor yelled, pulling the ship into a steep dive.
He opened the cargo bay ramp. "Chacha! Catch him!"
Chacha, who had just returned from the mines, stood on the ramp, secured by a cable. He reached out with his massive hand.
Amani fell past him.
"Gotcha!" Chacha grabbed Amani's wrist. The force nearly pulled Chacha out of the ship, but the big man held on.
He hauled Amani onto the deck.
Viktor pulled up, narrowly missing the crashing Dreadnought.
Behind them, the Tsar's Hammer slammed into the side of the mountain range, miles away from the prison. The explosion sent a mushroom cloud of snow and fire into the stratosphere.
The Aftermath
The Drop-Ship landed in the Yard.
The prisoners crowded around as Chacha carried Amani's limp body out.
"Is he dead?" someone whispered.
Sia ran forward. She placed her hands on Amani's chest. The Staff of Life glowed.
"His heart is beating," Sia said, sobbing with relief. "But he's drained. Completely empty."
General Volkov walked up. She listened to the sound of the burning wreckage in the distance.
"The fleet is retreating," Volkov announced. "The frigates are pulling back. They saw what happened to the flagship."
A cheer went up. A ragged, exhausted, defiant cheer.
Darius stood in the shadows, watching Amani. He fingered the hilt of his sword.
"He broke a Dreadnought," Darius murmured to himself. "With a shard of glass and bad attitude."
He smiled.
"Perhaps we actually have a chance."
Deep below the earth, in the silence of the core, the Void God stirred.
It had felt the explosion. It had felt the Space Shard being used.
And in the darkness, a single, massive blue eye opened.