Kruger

The cryopod sealed with a low hiss, locking Kaiell into silence.

He lay still, arms at his sides, heart slow beneath layers of breathable gel. The ceiling above him glowed with a dim, pulsing blue—a countdown timer that flickered with each passing second.

He barely felt the launch.

The ship that carried him tore through Suela's stratosphere with a soundless roar. From the outside, it was a dart of silver fire vanishing into the void. But inside, time folded itself around him.

There was no sleep.

Only frozen thought.

Only drifting.

Until—

A soft voice cracked through the fog.

"...Cryopod 3—Kaiell D'Varn. Reinstating consciousness. Neural response detected."

His eyes snapped open.

He gasped, breath catching in his chest.

The gel receded. Warm air cycled in. Lights shifted from sterile white to low amber. Kaiell felt weight return to his limbs, slow and syrupy. A dull ache behind his eyes warned him that not everything had come back yet.

The pod hissed open.

He staggered into the light.

Before him, through a wide viewing panel of blackglass, hung the stars. Orbit lines flickered faintly across the dark, marking orbital satellites, civilian traffic routes, and below it all—

A single, cursed crescent of land.

Sector Twelve.

Beneath him.

Waiting.

The ship docked with Orbital Sen—a silent station suspended in geosynchronous drift over the most dangerous location on the planet's surface. Sen didn't look like a station. It looked like a scar forged from blackened steel and floating crystal, cracked and humming with containment fields.

Kaiell stepped through the ship's exit ramp into silence.

No guards. No welcoming crew.

Just him, and four others standing nearby—new Krugers, judging by the silent posture, the stillness in their stance. Each one stood spaced evenly apart, hands behind their backs, blindfolds across their eyes.

Their armor was jet-black, low-sheen, marked only with a single hexagonal sigil burned into the shoulder.

No names.

No ranks.

Operators.

One of them—taller, built like stone—tilted his head as Kaiell approached. "You him?" he asked, voice low. "The one from Rust?"

Kaiell said nothing.

Another voice cut in, feminine, dry. "Doesn't matter. We're all here now."

Before Kaiell could answer, the floor beneath them vibrated.

A warning chime pulsed in the metal.

The elevator was coming.

They stood atop a loading platform, suspended in a vast launch cylinder that pierced the bottom of Orbital Sen and plunged straight down to Sector Twelve. It wasn't an elevator in the normal sense—it was a fall rail, designed to deliver payloads, pods, and Krugers at near-terminal velocity through reinforced vacuum shafts.

A high-pitched hiss sounded behind them.

Blindfolds.

A panel slid open beside the group. Inside were five black visors—one for each operator. Without a word, the others reached and strapped them on.

Kaiell hesitated.

Then followed.

The world went black.

Sound heightened.

His breath. The humming of the rail. The faint tension in the people beside him.

A voice spoke from overhead, mechanical and cold:

"Operator Induction Protocol: Phase One. Descent to Entry Point commencing."

"Brace for deployment."

The floor beneath Kaiell vanished.

They fell.

Not dropped—launched.

Velocity ripped through him like fire. His stomach turned inside out. The rail was silent, but his mind screamed. There was no window. No readout. Just the feeling of speed, of atmosphere tearing past, of pressure building in his limbs like he was about to break apart—

And then—

Nothing.

A sudden halt.

Zero-gravity hung in the bones for a single breath.

Then the sound of impact dampeners locking.

The visor deactivated.

Kaiell pulled it off.

They were no longer aboard the station.

They were in Sector Twelve.

The chamber around them was metal, stone, and something else—bone, maybe. The air was thick. Not with dust. With Viora. Like it pulsed through the walls, leaking from the seams of reality.

Dim white lights traced the circular walls of the room. A single blast door stood ahead.

One by one, the Krugers looked around—each of them wide-eyed. Some nervous. Others unreadable.

But Kaiell?

Kaiell stood still, one hand resting on the hilt of Nightfell, the echo of the fall still vibrating through his ribs.

Something down here waited for them.

And as the blast door began to open—groaning like some ancient mouth being pried apart—he could feel it.

It wasn't war.

It wasn't survival.

It was something else entirely.