The Dark Overlord hung from four steel cables, each line running up to one of eight heavy transport ships.
I dropped through the breach and kicked my flight engine on the instant air hit my sensors.
In a heartbeat I was above the hull, racing across its back toward the right-front cable anchor.
I raised the 2D blade and struck.
The cable was thicker than I was. Dense. Layered. The blade bit—but it didn’t sever.
That had never happened before.
I put my full output into the next swings and hacked at the line over and over until I’d carved through roughly half its mass.
The cable began to groan, stretching under load.
I backed off.
A second later it snapped with a crack like thunder.
The hull dropped and lurched.
At the same time, I kicked away from the ship and dove hard, angling down and out at maximum thrust.
The first explosion rolled behind me like a distant drum.
Then the missile bays answered.
A chain of blasts erupted across the Dark Overlord’s body, fire punching outward in bright, violent blooms. Burning debris streaked past me, and for a moment it felt like flying through a rainstorm made of flame.
I didn’t slow.
Within seconds the Dark Overlord disappeared inside its own fire, breaking apart as the internal detonations tore through it. The transport ships connected to the severed line didn’t get away either. They were swallowed by the blast front and fell with the wreckage, trailing burning fragments as they dropped toward the valley.
I hit the ground before the biggest pieces landed.
Long-distance flight would make me an easy thermal signature, so I stayed low and moved fast, sprinting along the valley floor until I was well clear of the impact zone. Half an hour later I circled back to where the Dark Overlord had originally crashed.
Once I was sure no one was chasing, I reconnected to the channel.
Eisen’s relief hit first.
Then Dorian’s voice—bright, breathless. “You made it! The clouds on the horizon looked like they were on fire!”
“You took down a warship by yourself!” Dorian added. “Wyatt, sir, you’re incredible!”
“It was timing,” I said. “I had an opening.”
I didn’t know if it would truly fool Phantom Forge. But at the very least, there would be no shipyard inspection. No neat audit showing a TBM missing.
Dorian suddenly remembered his own job. “The TBM! I haven’t installed it yet!”
He scurried over to the disk like it might evaporate if he looked away.
Eisen watched him with something like amusement. “Since we got back, he’s been staring at the sky. Nothing else matters.”
“It matters,” Dorian said without looking up.
We helped.
After half a day of work, the TBM sat mounted atop our ground-effect bike like an absurd circular hat. The profile was awkward. The function was not.
Dorian powered it up.
The air shimmered.
Then Dorian and the bike began to fade, turning translucent until they were simply… gone.
Eisen and I stood there, frozen. We were less than five meters away.
Compared to this, my own stealth mode was a child’s trick.
From the empty air in front of me, Dorian’s voice floated out. “It can tune its radius. Smaller field—stronger cloak.”
“Good,” I said. “Just remember to turn it off when we stop.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m worried we won’t be able to find our own bike.”
Silence.
Then Dorian said, thoughtfully, “That’s… a valid concern.”
—
By the time the TBM tuning was stable, night had fallen again. We set off.
Over the next few days, we stopped traveling like fugitives.
The Prilan Continent was littered with factories and mines. We passed working crews, patrols, even flight units on routine runs—and they never noticed us. With the TBM covering us, we could maintain a steady pace instead of sprinting between hiding places.
For the first time in a long time, movement felt almost… easy.
Prilan was also full of human ruins: iron towers hundreds of meters tall, statues as large as hills, strange skylines of collapsed high-rises.
Dorian asked questions at every stop.
My human knowledge was thin and growing thinner.
Fortunately, we had Eisen.
He became our walking reference library, answering Dorian’s increasingly enthusiastic guesses.
One evening Dorian pointed at a skeletal tower rising into the sky. “Wow. What is that? Let me guess—wind power?”
“No.”
“A signal tower?”
“No.”
“A lighthouse?”
“Try again.”
“A docking mast for aircraft?”
Eisen’s tone was flat. “None of those. It’s a Ferris wheel.”
“A Ferris wheel?” Dorian looked offended by the word. “What does it do?”
“It’s an amusement ride,” Eisen said, and then explained it carefully—humans building enormous wheels in scenic places, lifting people high so they could watch the world turn.
“Scenic?” Dorian stared at the top. “I want to go up there.”
“The drive system is long dead,” Eisen said.
“That’s fine,” I replied.
I grabbed Dorian, engaged my flight engine, and carried him up to the highest gondola. Eisen hesitated only a moment before following.
We were more than eight hundred meters above the ground.
From here, the land unfolded into distance. I could see a broad depression threading between low hills, and within it the faint shapes of wrecked boats.
“That used to be a river,” Eisen said quietly. “The longest in Prilan. The longest on this planet. The New Amazon River. I traveled it once with the Osmon family.”
“It feels… good up here,” Dorian said. “It must have been even better back then.”
Eisen didn’t answer immediately.
Then, softly: “Yes.”
I tracked the riverbed toward the horizon and saw something else—geometry too regular to be natural.
“A city,” I said. “A big one.”
“That’s the Plando capital,” Eisen replied. “St. Nite City.”
—
Not long after, Julian contacted me.
Mid-sentence, Julian dropped offline. Its icon on my interface was replaced by a sunflower.
Janiel.
“Hi, Wyatt,” she said. “I’m glad I can talk to you directly.”
“So am I,” I replied. “Julian said our connection will improve as we get closer. We should be able to speak more often.”
“That’s good,” Janiel said quickly. “Are you all right? Is the trip going smoothly?”
“Mostly,” I said. “But Julian mentioned you had problems.”
“Yes.” Her voice tightened. “I installed a few cameras on nearby hills, like Julian suggested. I didn’t think it would matter, but two days ago… I actually caught someone.”
“Who?”
“Bio-humans, I think. They were wearing armor. The camera was far away—I can’t see details. I’m sending the file now.”
A transfer indicator crawled across my vision.
“Before this, Phantom Forge’s people never came here,” Janiel said. “Are they looking for the Sunflower? How long until you reach me?”
“About a month,” I said. “I’ll try to shorten it.”
“Please do,” she whispered. “I’m… I’m scared.”
Two minutes later, the transmission finished.
The image showed ridged mountains. At first glance it was empty.
Then I saw the dark specks in a valley.
I zoomed.
Six figures. A squad.
Even through the blur, I could make out the lead unit lifting its helmet, turning toward the camera’s position as if it could sense being watched.
I zoomed again.
The face that filled my display was a CBG’s—one of Phantom Forge’s.
And my disgust returned so fast it felt like a physical reflex.