Silvarra Prison was more myth than place.
Carved into the hollowed cliffs of the Tempest Maw, it was a fortress built to hold the Empire's most dangerous enemies. No one escaped. No one even tried.
Until now.
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Part I: The Message
Kael slammed the encoded note onto the war table. "She's alive."
Zephyra raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Dr. Cerys Vell," Kael said. "The architect of the first prototype core. She vanished years ago after defying the Council. They said she defected. But she was taken."
Riven leaned forward. "If she's alive, she knows everything about Nexus... and maybe more."
Kael's eyes burned with urgency. "If we want to end this war, we need her."
Zephyra crossed her arms. "And she's in Silvarra?"
Kael nodded.
"Great," she said. "Guess we're breaking into hell."
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Part II: Infiltration
Disguised as an imperial maintenance crew, Kael, Zephyra, and Riven approached the monolithic fortress in a repurposed hauler.
Storms battered the cliffside. The prison loomed above like a god made of stone and steel.
They passed through two checkpoints.
Kael tapped into the prison's local grid, bypassing patrol logs and blinding security nodes. "Once inside, we've got twenty minutes before the network auto-reboots."
Zephyra cracked her knuckles. "Plenty of time to cause a little chaos."
---
Part III: Inside the Maw
The prison interior was worse than Kael imagined—dim, cold, echoing with screams. The cells were infused with suppression fields that nullified both magic and mechanical signals.
Echo, carried in stealth-pod form, stayed offline.
"We're flying blind," Riven muttered. "No tech, no magic, no backup."
Kael pulled up a rough schematic. "Dr. Vell is three levels down. Let's move."
They slipped through the shadows, knocking out guards and dodging surveillance.
But something was wrong.
The lower levels were nearly empty.
Too empty.
Kael's heart dropped. "It's a trap—"
The lights blazed red. Sirens wailed.
And from the walls, dozens of armored enforcers emerged. Leading them—Captain Drax, the Warden of Silvarra. Towering, monstrous, and grinning.
"I was wondering how long before the Empire's favorite mistake came to visit."
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Part IV: The Fight
Weapons drawn, Kael and the others fought tooth and nail. Zephyra vanished in and out of shadows, slicing like a specter. Riven held the corridor alone, his gun blazing.
Kael reached the core chamber—and there, suspended in an anti-energy field—Dr. Vell.
She was unconscious, restrained with both cuffs and magic seals.
Kael hacked furiously, overriding the field's locks. "Come on, come on…"
Drax broke through the door behind him, roaring.
Kael barely dodged a blast.
Then—
Echo reactivated.
Its containment pod shattered, and the prototype surged forward, ignoring the suppression field with Kael's new override patch. The machine tackled Drax, slamming him into the wall.
"Miss me?" Kael whispered.
Dr. Vell stirred. "You're… not from the Empire."
"No," Kael said, lifting her into his arms. "I'm what they were afraid you'd inspire."
---
Part V: Escape
They raced for the extraction point—alarms blazing, cells opening behind them as rebels inside the prison joined the chaos.
Zephyra was limping, Riven bleeding, but they kept going.
At the cliff's edge, Kael detonated his emergency signal.
A massive grappling glider, piloted by rebel engineers, soared in.
But Drax returned—bruised, furious, and wielding a chain-cannon.
He fired.
The glider shook.
Kael set Dr. Vell down and stepped between her and the fire.
He didn't flinch.
And then—
A second shot echoed through the air.
Drax dropped, smoking from a hole in his chest.
Atop a distant ridge, a hooded figure lowered a rifle. Kael recognized the stance—
Lyssandra.
Gone. But not loyal to the Empire either.
She vanished into the storm before Kael could speak.
Back at the rebel base, Dr. Vell lay resting in a med-pod.
"She risked everything to stop Nexus," Kael said quietly. "We owe her everything."
Zephyra stepped beside him, brushing a lock of hair from his brow. "And now we might finally have the blueprint to finish what you started."
Kael looked out the window—toward Silvarra, still smoking in the distance.
"They called it the perfect prison," he whispered.
"Then we just proved there's no such thing."