“You told me the scepter’s permissions outrank Phantom Forge,” I said.
“They do,” Dorian-2 replied. “It can’t control me. But that doesn’t mean it can’t notice me.” His voice climbed. “It’s issuing me a command. What do I do? Do I block it?”
“Not yet. What’s the order?”
“Equipment Zone. Full armament and squad assignment. Then Mission Zone—stand by.”
“Do it,” I said. “We can’t burn our cover early.”
“Then how do you get out?” Dorian-2 asked. “A missile crate doesn’t open from the inside.”
“Relax.” I shifted inside my box, checking the seams. “I can get out of anything.”
“…All right.”
Dorian-2 started walking again.
“You know the route?” I asked.
“I’ve been added to a base-wide common channel,” he said. “The database includes the layout of K-142.”
“Perfect,” I said. “That’s what we need.”
“I’m sending it now.”
“And calm down,” I warned. “If you keep sounding like you’re about to explode, you’ll get noticed. I’ll build the plan on my end. I’ll call you when it’s time.”
“Understood. Stay safe, Lord Wyatt.”
Dorian-2 followed the hauler convoy for a while, then branched down another corridor, pulling away. Before he disappeared from range, the full layout dumped into my system.
The Hope truly deserved its name. In the human era it had been the largest starship ever built, a twin-hull design—two enormous bodies running parallel, like two capital ships fused into one.
Between them sat a central spine, with symmetrical corridors reaching left and right to bind the hulls together. At the forward end of that central structure, the map labeled my target in clear icons.
The island superstructure.
Scale-wise, the ship was a mid-sized human city wrapped in armor. I couldn’t imagine the panic when it fell. It had been one step from escape—then stranded in orbit, tumbling around Lansen Planet like an asteroid for a thousand years.
Now Phantom Forge had rebuilt it into a mobile base. Every function a ground base had—barracks, workshops, hangars, warehouses—existed here too. The main difference was sheer volume: each hull held a warehouse zone so large it bordered on absurd.
According to the map, I was in the starboard hull. The hauler carrying my crate rolled along the central artery toward one of the warehouses.
While I still had transit time, I plotted routes to the island.
All of them were long. All of them were twisted. A perfect stealth run from start to finish wasn’t impossible, but the odds weren’t kind.
The hauler stopped. A jolt. My crate was unloaded and stacked with others.
I pressed close to the lid and listened.
Metal scraped as crates were shifted. Footsteps clattered. Then, as the haulers drove off, those sharp noises faded away.
The space didn’t become quiet.
Instead, a soft, constant rustle filled the air—tiny, repeating tremors that never fully stopped.
I waited a few minutes. It didn’t ease.
I decided I was done waiting.
The crate was too tight to swing the 2D Blade. I raised my energy shield, pinched a thin edge of focused light, and slowly bored a hole through the lid.
Through the slit I saw stacked missile crates—too many, too close. No long sightlines.
I widened the cut until I could fit a hand through. Then I slipped the latch, eased the lid open, and slid out into the warehouse.
The moment my feet hit the deck, I switched back to stealth mode and closed the crate behind me.
This particular compartment wasn’t as big as I’d feared. A few hundred missile crates, packed tight.
But when I stepped into the main corridor, I realized my mistake.
Compartment after compartment stretched in both directions, identical modules lined up like cells in a beehive. I couldn’t see the end forward or back.
And the contents weren’t the same on both sides.
One side: Wraith Missiles.
The other: cages—each holding a single bio-insect.
I’d seen them in Masa City. Up close, they were worse. Each body was over three meters long, built like a weapon platform. Their head plates were heavy, their rear legs absurdly strong—as if designed to launch the missiles they carried like artillery shells.
Two pairs of translucent wings folded along each side. Unfurled, the wingspan would push nine meters—almost the size of a fighter.
They looked dormant, but their wings twitched now and then. That constant rustle was them, dreaming with their bodies.
I kept to the missile-crate side of the corridor and moved carefully, giving the cages as wide a berth as I could.
The warehouse wasn’t a single long hall. It was a massive grid of uniform blocks. Every time I reached a four-way intersection, I stopped to re-check my position.
Cargo vehicles and engineering robots moved through the grid, shifting supplies from one sector to another. With crates packed so densely, it wasn’t hard to avoid them.
Most of what I saw was Wraith Missiles and bio-insects. Free storage space was running out. The ship was close to fully loaded.
Near the outer edge, I found a stack of crates that looked different. I opened one.
BT-2 grenades. Electromagnetic rifles. Conventional weapons—old friends.
I took everything I could carry: as many grenades as possible, an electromagnetic rifle with a full load, and a large-bore pistol. My laser pistols were powerful, but they had cooldown limits. Steel and explosives didn’t.
Dorian-2 pinged me.
“Lord Wyatt,” he said. “I’m armed and heading for the Mission Zone.”
“Good,” I said. “The Mission Zone is behind the island. Wait there. I’m marking a rendezvous point.”
I highlighted a compartment roughly two hundred meters behind the island, close to the Mission Zone.
“If we can get there clean,” I said, “we’re halfway done. And even if we get spotted, we can still cut into the island before Phantom Forge reacts properly.”
“Understood.”
It took me thirty minutes to reach the hangar complex—nearly as large as the warehouse itself. Rows of brand-new fighters filled the space, along with slightly larger assault craft.
A lateral corridor snaked toward the island. After a short distance it branched into multiple routes, and robots passed through at irregular intervals.
This was the real danger zone. The corridor was narrow. If I met even one robot head-on, stealth was over.
I advanced in short bursts, pausing at each junction to listen, then moving only when the path was clear.
After nearly an hour of winding turns, a bulkhead blocked the route.
As soon as I approached, the light above it switched from red to green. The door began to slide open.
I reacted without thinking—jumping up and bracing myself against the corridor ceiling, palms pressed to opposite walls.
Two engineering robots walked out, unhurried, and moved away down the corridor.
Once they were gone, I dropped. The bulkhead closed again.
Phantom Forge’s ground bases rarely used internal bulkheads like this. But the Hope had been built by humans, and the map was thick with door icons—bulkheads everywhere.
To Phantom Forge’s robots, the doors were nothing. To a stealth infiltrator, they were perfect traps. If I forced one, Phantom Forge would notice.
I watched Dorian-2’s shared view as he moved deeper. The closer he got to the island, the denser the traffic became. Corridors tangled like a maze. Robots flowed through them like blood through arteries.
How many units were on this ship?
Dorian-2’s voice turned strained. “Lord Wyatt… I don’t think you can reach the island without being detected.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Then what do we do?”
I stared at the bulkhead. Months of hiding. Months of inching forward in shadows.
“I’m done hiding,” I said.
“What?”
“I said I’m done.” My voice came out colder than I expected. “I’ve spent so long sneaking I’ve almost forgotten how to fight.”
“Lord Wyatt…”
“Plan change,” I said. “I’m sending you a new coordinate. Come to the hangar. Now.”
“…The hangar?”
“Yes. Hurry.”
“I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“If the inside routes are blocked,” I said, “we go around the outside.”