The air over District 6 was tight.
Dust spiraled in thin, electric coils across the cracked highway, carried by the dry wind of Galmera's scorched backlands. The distant glow of Zenithar smeared the night sky in a sick neon bruise.
Inside the armored rig, Garret drove with surgical focus while Liara worked in a frenzy of speed and precision. Her custom rig filled the cabin with floating blue interfaces and blinking status lights. Holographic maps, drone telemetry, energy fields—everything alive under her fingertips.
Raiga stood on the open platform of Titan One, high above the storm. His mask clicked into place. The HUD blinked on.
Specter Interface: ONLINE
Target Tags: ACQUIRED
Structural Weak Points: MARKED
Thermal Scan: ACTIVE
Liara (comms): "Okay, Shadow-boy, this is your upgrade tour! Specter HUD is running full sync. Uniform-based tagging, live weakness mapping, multi-spectrum vision modes—thermal, night, electromagnetic. And yeah... those Dominion ID protocols? You're welcome."
Raiga rolled his eyes under the mask.
Raiga: "Do I get a medal when I survive the test flight?"
Liara (grinning): "Survival is its own reward."
She swiped to another panel.
Liara: "Now, the suit. Blackout Vest. Ten seconds of total ghost mode—no signal, no EM trace, no heat. You're invisible to every sensor built after the year 2100. Hard reset every ten seconds. Don't waste it."
Garret: "And if it shorts out like her last invention?"
Liara: "That only happened once, and it was a very ambitious toaster."
Raiga: "So I'm a microwave now."
She ignored him.
Liara: "Three Volture drone units are in hover—only engage if it gets messy. Hacker drones are synced and pre-positioned for synchronized lockout. I've embedded Dominion override code, so the convoy's internal systems are blind. Garret's roadblock goes live on your mark."
A flick of her hand brought two massive drone silhouettes onto the feed.
Liara: "Titan One carries you in. Titan Two lifts the payload out. They're cloaked above the ridge. Once you get the fragments out of the hauler, magnet clamps will latch on and extract it directly to our pickup point."
Raiga stepped forward onto the edge of Titan One's platform.
Liara: "You drop, go dark, and move fast. Hacker units seal their doors, jam their comms. I launch an EMP burst to kill visuals and trackers. You've got ninety seconds before backup breaks the jammers."
Garret: "You miss the window—we're not getting a second shot. No gunfights. No glory stunts. Just take the damn package and vanish."
Raiga nodded once, expression locked into focus.
Then—
His comm pinged.
[Incoming Call – Encrypted – "B"]
Liara saw it light up.
Liara: "...Is that him?"
Raiga didn't answer. He accepted the call.
[Encrypted Line – ACTIVE]
Barren: "You've been quiet, Shadow. No update. No confirmation."
Raiga: "You want your penthouse and the truck? Go get them."
A pause.
Barren: "You really think it works like that?"
Raiga said nothing.
Barren: "I was hoping this wasn't what it looked like. I was hoping you weren't doing the one thing I told you not to do."
Raiga: "I'm done."
Barren: "No, Shadow. You're not."
A pause. Garret and Liara, both silent on the line.
Barren: "You've made your choice. You just gave them permission to come get you."
Raiga: "Let them try."
Then, something changed.
The smirk in Barren's voice vanished.
What came next wasn't mocking.
It was quiet. Steady.
Almost... sad.
Barren: "You had a chance to save your life, Raiga. Right now... you're throwing that away."
Liara and Garret listened silently on the shared line, no one breathed.
Raiga frowned, his pulse tightening.
Raiga: "What does that mean?"
Barren: "I know what you are."
Everything stopped.
Raiga: "What...?"
Barren: "You're not just a ghost. You're a weapon that never should've woken up."
They've been hunting you since the day that old man found you.
Level thirty classification. You're a threat class."
Raiga's hand slipped from the edge of the drone.
His breath caught in his throat.
Liara: "...Raiga?"
Barren: "You were meant to stay buried. Hidden. Forgotten. But here you are Thinking you can just disappear."
Raiga's vision blurred slightly inside the HUD.
His limbs felt distant. Numb.
He couldn't breathe.
Raiga: "...You stupid old man, what the hell are you talking about?!"
A pause.
Barren: "Good luck, boy."
[Connection Terminated]
—
Raiga stood motionless on the platform of Titan One.
The mask's lens flickered with data, flashing silently.
Convoy: 27 seconds away.
He didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Liara's voice came through, panicked.
Liara: "Raiga... Raiga, talk to me. What did he mean? Snap out of it! You need to—"
Garret: "Raiga. We've got twenty seconds. You don't have to understand it right now. Just move."
But Raiga said nothing.
Inside his chest, something hollow cracked open.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't focused.
He was... Lost.
Liara: "Raiga, come on. You have to focus."
Garret: "You freeze now, this whole op burns."
Raiga exhaled hard, blinked once.
Raiga: "I'm fine."
Liara: "He's not."
Garret didn't answer. But his fingers hovered near the override panel.
Raiga: "I said I'm fine. I'm going."
Garret: "Then go."
Titan One began its silent descent, gliding down through the night like a steel predator. Raiga's silhouette cut through the wind, the drone's stabilizers holding against the turbulent pressure.
Liara's voice switched to full tactical mode. Crisp. Focused. Alive.
Liara: "Hacker Units... GO!"
Four insectoid drones shot forward, hugging the undercarriage of the convoy like shadows. A second later—
BOOM!
A silent flash of blue burst across the road. EMP pulse.
Inside the transports, lights died. Dashboards flickered. Comms cut.
Liara: "Doors sealed. Visuals down. Central hauler's lock overridden—leaving it open."
Garret: "All other targets locked. We're clear."
Panic rippled through the convoy. Soldiers inside the lead and rear vehicles banged on sealed doors. Yells echoed in darkness.
But the guards on the cargo hauler—the only ones not sealed in—jumped out fast, rifles up, shouting over the confusion.
Five men.
Raiga dropped.
He didn't scream.
Didn't signal.
Didn't exist.
He activated the Blackout Vest mid-descent—his entire profile vanishing off every scanner.
To the naked eye?
He was still there.
A flicker. A shadow falling faster than sound.
He landed in a roll—silent, precise—and cut the first guard open before his boots hit the ground.
Second one turned.
Too slow.
SLASH — his leg went, then his throat.
The third barely got to scream before Raiga's blade pierced his helmet, clean and deep.
The last two tried to flank. Raiga ducked low, kicked one's knee inward with a sickening crack, pivoted behind the other and drove his blade through the base of the skull—a perfect, surgical kill.
Liara: "...Holy shit."
Garret: "That's... not training. That's instinct."
The soldier with the broken leg crawled back, choking, trying to raise his weapon.
Raiga: "You shouldn't have gotten out."
He stabbed downward.
Silence.
Liara: "Target zone clear. Moving Titan Two in!"
The massive drone broke from the cloud cover, descending fast, rotors silent, clamps glowing red with heat.
Raiga turned, scanned the hauler's side panel.
Raiga: "Planting charge."
He slapped a microcharge against the hauler door, stepped back.
BOOM.
The metal blew outward with a burst of smoke and sparks. Inside—a single containment crate, humming with restrained power.
Liara: "Confirming visual! That's it!"
Titan Two moved in, clamps locking with a hard metallic CLANG. The crate lifted into the air.
Liara: "Package secure. En route to pickup!"
Garret: "Raiga, get your ride."
Raiga didn't look back. He ran toward the drop zone, heart hammering, sweat stinging his eyes beneath the HUD. The second Titan hovered low, door open. He leapt, caught the ledge, and pulled himself in as the drone lifted fast, engines howling now that stealth wasn't required.
Inside the rig, Garret floored the throttle.
Garret: "They're out. Let's move."
Liara couldn't take her eyes off the feed. Her voice came through, equal parts shock and adrenaline.
Liara: "He did it..."
Garret didn't respond. His hands were tight on the wheel.
Garret: "We're not clear yet."
Back above the convoy, soldiers in the sealed transports started breaking windows, screaming into radios.
The storm wasn't over.
But the payload was flying away, and the shadow that killed five men in twelve seconds had disappeared into the night sky.
Raiga sat silent inside Titan One, hands still shaking.
Liara's voice came through, gentle now.
Liara: "Raiga... we've got it."
He didn't answer.
He just stared at the blood on his gloves, the HUD flickering with phantom tags.
The plan had worked.
The convoy was locked down. The guards were dead. The payload was in the air.
Liara's fingers danced across her rig, guiding both Titan drones with exacting precision. One carried the stolen cargo. The other, Raiga, flying low and fast toward the rendezvous point.
In the cabin, Garret floored the engine. The rig bounced hard over uneven terrain.
Liara: "Ten seconds to intercept. Raiga's almost on top of us."
Garret: "Keep him steady. We grab him, and we're gone."
Through the windshield, they could see the shape of Titan One cutting across the darkness, Raiga crouched low on the platform—just seconds from reaching them.
Liara: "I'm bringing him in, brace the rig—"
BANG!
The shot cracked like thunder.
Raiga's body jerked violently. His shoulder exploded in a mist of red. The impact threw him sideways off the drone.
Liara: "RAIGA!!"
He slammed into the ground at full speed, bounced once, then rolled hard across the dirt and asphalt—limbs limp, blood trailing behind him.
The Titan drone kept flying.
Garret: "What the hell—?! Where did that shot come from?!"
Liara: "He's down! He's down! I'm bringing the drone back—turn around! TURN AROUND!"
Garret hit the brakes.
That's when the enemy arrived.
Two black transports burst from the dunes, headlights off, their gun ports glowing.
Gunfire erupted.
Automatic fire slammed into the rig's side like a goddamn storm. Sparks, bullets, glass—chaos.
Liara: "SHIT—shit—shit—"
Garret yanked the wheel, skidding into a half spin—but the road behind them was gone. Covered in fire and steel.
Liara shrieked as a round tore through the passenger window and clipped her arm.
She fell back with a scream, blood soaking her sleeve.
Garret: "Liara—!"
Liara: "GO BACK! We have to go back! HE'S DOWN!"
Garret grabbed her by the collar and pulled her low.
Garret: "I'm not letting you die too!"
Liara: "NO! NO! YOU CAN'T—GARRET STOP—"
But he slammed the rig into gear and punched the throttle.
Liara: "STOP! WE CANNOT LEAVE HIM LIKE THIS!"
The tires tore into the sand. They sped forward—fast, erratic, chased by streaks of tracer fire.
Liara slammed her fists against the dash, screaming Raiga's name.
Garret didn't flinch.
Behind them, one of the black transports peeled off and slowed—turning back toward the crash site.
Toward Raiga.