Location: Solari Prime, Deep Sectors – Isu CapitalTime: Nightfall, Under Cloak of Solar Storms
The skies over Solari Prime burned gold.
Lightning licked the heavens like celestial serpents as Kaelen crouched on a high ledge, his eyes fixed on the shimmering wall of the Luminarch Spire—the central intelligence nexus of the Isu empire.
Beneath his cloak, the stolen Isu access crystal pulsed faintly. Vael's signature still lingered within its structure, and the codes it carried were centuries out of date. But Tyreon had sworn they'd work. For now.
Behind him, Lysara and two elite Veiled Ones, Rynn and Shai, waited in tense silence.
"This is suicide," Rynn murmured, checking the echo-dampeners on his boots.
Kaelen didn't look back. "Only if we hesitate."
They'd already breached the perimeter using pulse cloaks hacked from rogue Isu tech. But the city was alive—sentient, in a way. Its towers pulsed with thought. Its walls listened. If they tripped even one neural sensor, the entire city would respond like a severed nerve.
Lysara activated her visor. "We're approaching the Vault Spine. That's where the data is stored."
Kaelen nodded. "We get in, we extract the governance lattice architecture, and we leave. No heroics. We're not here to blow anything up."
Shai muttered under her breath, "Shame."
Inside the Spine
Once inside, the team slipped into a river of light—literal thoughtstreams coursing through transparent conduits.
Kaelen led them through narrow maintenance pathways known only to Vael and the rogue Isu. He moved like a ghost, his mind tingling from residual memories.
In flashes, he felt Vael—walking here before him, hunted and desperate.
"This is where I sealed the first lock," a voice whispered in Kaelen's mind."They'll never know what I left behind…"
They reached the Vault Core.
A vast sphere hovered in an open chasm, humming with power. Memory strands flickered like solar threads across its surface.
Kaelen stepped forward, inserted the access crystal, and the sphere pulsed. Pathways opened. Runes reformed.
A soft voice echoed from the core:
"Welcome, Vael'Ruun."
Kaelen exhaled.
It had worked.
Interruption
But nothing ever goes to plan.
A sudden flicker. The light dimmed.
Rynn swore. "They've triggered a silent trace. They know someone's here."
Lysara drew her daggers. "We have to go—now."
Kaelen ignored them, eyes locked on the console. "Give me thirty more seconds."
Data flooded the chamber—schematics of the Thought Leash, the location of suppression beacons, the fail-safes encoded into human biology. But more than that—Kaelen saw something else.
A hidden directive.
One word:
"Project GOLGOTHA."
Before he could open it—
A thunderclap.
The wall exploded inward.
And standing in the breach—taller than any Isu Kaelen had seen, armor plated in reflective obsidian and eyes glowing like twin suns—was General Zarxes.
Kaelen felt Lysara pull him back. Rynn opened fire. Shai triggered a flash burst.
They ran.
Escape Through the Memory Shafts
Alarms howled across Solari Prime as the Veiled Ones fled through collapsing conduits. The city responded, reconfiguring its shape to block them, doors fusing shut, hallways folding in on themselves.
Kaelen was last to leap out of the Vault Core before it sealed behind him. The access crystal shattered in his hand.
They barely made it to their exfil point—a shattered sky-bridge over the abyss.
As they rappelled into the storm, Kaelen looked back.
And Zarxes watched him from the ledge above.
"You carry a dead man's fire," the general called."And you will burn with it."
Later – Rebel Encampment, Hidden Vale
Back in the safety of their hidden base, Kaelen slammed the stolen data module onto the war table.
"Everything's in here," he said, breath still ragged. "Control codes. Override pathways. The leash protocols. And something else…"
He tapped the encrypted node labeled "Project Golgotha."
Lysara narrowed her eyes. "You think this is what Vael saw coming?"
Kaelen stared at it.
"No. I think this is what broke him."
He turned to the others.
"We're done surviving."
He lifted the Last Directive datacube.
"It's time to decide whether we stay rebels… or become something greater."