Chapter 8 — Break the Siege
The hatch burst open.
Light — raw, blinding, merciless — flooded the lift as Kael staggered forward, lungs filling with cold surface air for the first time in hours. Verrion-9's horizon stretched before him: a wasteland of jagged slate, rust-colored dunes, and winds that carved stone into razor spires.
Mira climbed out after him, scanning the barren expanse.
"It's empty," she breathed.
"No," Kael said.
He felt it.
A wrongness in the air — pressure against his skull, like barometric weight.
He turned slowly.
Across the plateau, a Dominion dropship hovered—sleek, predatory, matte gunmetal. Thrusters scorched the rock beneath it. Its side hatches opened like metallic wings unfolding.
Troopers rappelled down — elite division.
Phase-casters. Heavy armor.
But they didn't fire.
They formed a perimeter.
Making space.
Mira's voice was tight. "Why aren't they shooting?"
Kael knew the answer before the shuttle's ramp lowered.
A man stepped out.
Long coat. Presence like a blade sheathed in calm.
Director Voss.
The same voice Kael had heard through the PRIME core.
Mira whispered, "That's him."
Kael's pulse hammered.
Voss approached at a measured pace, hands clasped behind his back as if taking a stroll, not walking into a battlefield.
"Kael."
He spoke his name like a fact. As if he had always owned it.
"You weren't supposed to reach the surface."
Kael drew his weapon — the phase-blade shifting into existence with a crackle of unstable energy.
"Stay back."
Voss stopped several meters away.
"You don't want to do that."
Kael's voice was low, feral. "I really do."
Voss's eyes flicked to Kael's chest. "You bonded with the core."
"I didn't bond with anything."
"Then why," Voss asked softly, "is it answering your thoughts?"
Kael swallowed.
He didn't have an answer.
The Prime Core pulsed at his side.
Mira hissed, "Kael, troops are tightening formation."
Kael shifted into a defensive stance, armor forming symbiotic plating around his legs and torso.
Voss raised one hand slightly, and the soldiers froze.
"Kael," he said, "you don't understand the danger you are in."
"I understand one thing," Kael spat. "You want the core."
Voss smiled. Not pleasant. Predatory.
"I don't want the core."
His eyes locked onto Kael's.
"I want you."
Kael lunged.
The soldiers opened fire.
The Battle
The first volley streaked toward them — blue energy bolts aimed to disable, not kill. Kael's armor reacted before he registered the threat, plates folding over Mira, forming a protective barrier around her.
He dove off the lift platform, rolling across shale.
Blaster fire scorched the ground where he'd been.
Kael sprinted, phase-blade slicing through the air. A trooper stepped into his path; Kael cut the rifle in half and dropped the soldier with a sweep of his leg.
Mira fired her pistol with precise bursts, covering Kael's flank.
"More incoming!" she shouted.
Kael didn't need the warning — his HUD tracked movement with surgical accuracy.
He vaulted off a slab of broken stone, landing directly atop a trooper. Armor flowed over Kael's arm, morphing into a segmented blade.
He struck.
One soldier down.
Two.
Three.
His mind blurred — not lost, but merged with something hungry.
‹ Accept. Become. ›
Kael snarled, "Stay out of my head!"
‹ You were designed to wield me. ›
"No one designed me!"
He grabbed a heavy trooper by the collar and hurled him into a rock pillar. Armor servos shrieked as the man crumpled with a crack.
Voss watched silently.
Almost… pleased.
More dropships appeared over the ridge.
Too many.
Mira ducked behind a boulder, reloading. "Kael, we need to fall back!"
Kael slashed a phase-rifle aside. "If we run, they chase. If we stand, they fall."
Mira stared at him — at the armor, alive around him.
"You're scaring me."
Kael forced himself to breathe.
He looked back at the Dominion forces closing in, forming a ripple of gun barrels aimed squarely at Mira.
Not him.
Her.
Kael moved without thinking — armor plating erupting into a shield.
The volley hit.
Searing impact.
Pain knifed through him, but Kael held the line.
Voss lowered his hand.
"Enough."
The soldiers stopped shooting.
Kael stood panting, shield arm trembling, smoke rising from the armor.
Voss stepped closer, voice calm as winter.
"You can't protect her forever. The core amplifies attachment… then weaponizes fear."
Kael's grip tightened on the blade. "You don't get to say her name."
"I haven't said her name."
Kael blinked.
He hadn't said her name either.
Mira froze.
"You knew my name," she whispered.
Voss's expression sharpened — a hunter scenting the moment of fracture.
"I know everything about both of you."
Kael surged forward, blade ready to strike—
—and froze mid-charge.
Not because he hesitated.
Because the PRIME core forced his muscles to stop.
‹ Choose. ›
Kael screamed inside his own mind.
Not now. Let me fight.
‹ Fight them? Or fight me? ›
The armor began to climb his throat again, sliding over his jaw toward his face.
Kael shook, every fiber resisting.
Mira sprinted toward him.
"Kael!"
Voss raised his hand and Mira froze — soldiers training weapons on her.
"Don't take another step," Voss warned her. "He's seconds from full assimilation."
The armor began sealing over Kael's face.
Mira locked eyes with him.
Fight.
Come back to me.
Kael's hands trembled.
He tore the armor back.
By force of will alone.
His voice was a snarl.
"I choose."
He pointed the phase-blade at Voss.
"Neither of you own me."
Voss's expression finally cracked.
Surprise.
Kael grabbed Mira's hand.
"Run."
They sprinted toward the cliff edge — and leapt.
The wind howled around them.
Kael's armor flared, forming a magnetic grapple. It latched onto an outcropping, swinging them under the ridge and into a crevice network of sharp stone.
Dominion soldiers reached the cliff too late.
Kael and Mira vanished into the canyon maze as the sun bled red across the sky.