The crew hugged the wall of the spine’s inner access tube, their shrouds long since run dry of power. Containers blurred by on the magnetic rail, each one a racing block of titanium and steel. The wind of their passage ruffled hair, yanked at loose straps, and carried the sharp stink of ozone and machine oil. Power rails stuttered like a dying heartbeat. The clacking rattled teeth and made ribs hum.

  The tunnel itself felt like an artery in a machine-god: loud, endless, indifferent.

  Draven kept his eyes fixed on a maintenance light above the rail: a dull panel that should have been lit but wasn’t. Dead. Forgotten. Useless.

  The plan was simple in the way all their plans were: one paid-off union worker would activate the seemingly dead light when their container was supposed to roll through next. A shining light to mean go, and then they’d either be aboard. . . or they’d be a smear on the rail.

  He stayed pressed to the wall, boots braced on a narrow service lip that wasn’t meant for people, only cables and drones. He didn’t watch the blur of cargo so much as feel it: timing, coupler, rhythm; listening for the pitch-change in the air gaps, the fraction of a second where a person could be something other than broken.

  Mira stood to his left, quiet as a held breath. Her lumenband was dimmed down to a needle-thin glow so it wouldn’t throw reflections into any passing trams. Senn was on Draven’s other side, jaw clenched, fingers flexing like he was trying to remember how hands worked.

  Jax leaned back against the wall with too much ease, as if the screaming metal were entertainment.

  Draven looked at them once, measured the fear in their faces, then snapped his gaze back to the dead light.

  “Tethers ready,” he said.

  That kicked them into motion. Each of them pulled a coil from under their shrouds: thin filament wound tight, light as wire, expensive as sin. As they thumbed the housings, a golden glow traveled up each tether like a pulse.

  The grav-line field woke with a soft vibration. Not loud—never loud. The coils brightened in short, steady thumps, as if the filament was a heartbeat.

  Senn’s hands shook as he armed his tether.

  “Breathe,” Mira murmured without looking at him. “Your hands need to be steady.”

  Senn swallowed and forced his grip to stop fluttering.

  A tram blasted past so close the wind slapped hair across their faces and tore a whisper out of the tube like a scream. The dead light stayed dead.

  Draven tightened his fingers around the tether housing. Sweat slicked the inside of his glove. He could feel the station daring them to misjudge by a centimeter: like Cinderhollow wanted a body to make a point.

  Then. . .

  The maintenance light blinked on.

  One harsh flash of white in the dim.

  “Next one!” Draven shouted, voice nearly swallowed by the rail’s roar.

  The crew tossed their lines out. The filaments floated in front of them, impossibly straight, grav-fields stabilizing into tight, invisible hooks waiting for mass to lock onto.

  Everyone tensed as the clacking grew. The next tram came fast; faster than they wanted, faster than their nerves could handle.

  Jax let out an enthusiastic “Whooo!” the moment the container’s bulk filled their vision.

  The grav-line caught.

  The tethers yanked them off the wall like puppets. Draven’s stomach lurched as the magnetic rail world became motion and noise and teeth-rattling vibration. He slammed into the tram’s rear platform and grabbed the first hard edge he could find.

  Metal bit into his palms. Vibration surged up his arms and into his shoulders, trying to shake him loose. He hooked a boot under a rail lip and hauled, using the tram’s momentum like a ladder.

  The rear platform was barely more than a maintenance step: slick with grime, edged with warning stripes worn nearly to nothing. It smelled like old lubricant and scorched dust.

  Mira landed beside him with controlled precision, tether already retracting. Senn came in too hard, shoulder clipping the hatch frame. He bit down on a grunt and didn’t let go.

  Jax hit last with enough weight to make the platform buck, then laughed like the station had just thrown him a party.

  “Quiet,” Draven snapped. It wasn’t anger: just tension held so tight it could cut.

  He glanced down the tube. Another tram was already rounding the bend behind them.

  “Inside,” he ordered over the rushing wind.

  Mira was already at the hatch seam. “Lock’s union-coded,” she called, fingers tracing the panel. “I can—”

  “No time,” Draven cut in.

  He jammed two fingers under a loose service plate above the hatch; someone had left one bolt missing and another stripped. Cinderhollow’s idea of maintenance. He found the manual release cable by touch and yanked.

  The hatch seal popped with a reluctant cough.

  “Move.”

  They slipped inside one by one, vanishing into stale air and shadow. Draven came in last and pulled the hatch shut until it latched with a heavy thoom that dulled the tube’s roar to a muffled thunder.

  For a heartbeat there was only breathing and vibration.

  Mira brightened her lumenband just enough to paint the container in soft gold. Crates were strapped to the walls in neat stacks: filters, cable spools, sealant foam, stamped with L7 TRANSIT and faded corporate marks. The air tasted like polywrap, metal dust, and time.

  A soft whirring floated from above.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Mira froze.

  Draven followed her gaze.

  A drone hovered near the top corner, round-bodied, three stabilizers, a sensor cluster swiveling like an insect’s head. Not a war drone. Not a killer.

  It didn’t need to be.

  All it needed was one clean scan and they were busted.

  The drone’s spotlight bloomed, white and accusing, searching.

  Senn’s hand twitched toward his pouch. “I— I can—”

  “Do it,” Draven whispered.

  Senn drew a compact launcher, more tool than weapon, and fired a single paintball.

  It struck the drone’s sensor cluster with a wet splap and burst into a thick gray smear.

  Lead-based paint.

  Dense enough to blind optical. Heavy enough to muddy thermal. The drone’s world went dark in an instant.

  It jerked, stabilizers fluttering as it tried to correct. Its spotlight flickered into useless strobe, unable to illuminate its blocked sensors. It spun in confused circles and emitted a thin, angry whine.

  Jax leaned close, grinning in the dim. “That’s adorable.”

  “Not adorable,” Mira whispered. “It still has proximity and audio.”

  As if to prove her right, the drone vibrated and let out a sharp rising squeal, as it slammed into the wall and fell to the floor unable to rite itself.

  From the hatch beyond, boots clacked on metal: hard armored.

  Voices cut through the muffled roar, distorted but clear enough.

  “—heard it. Open the rear!”

  A clacking rattle came from the hatch.

  Draven’s jaw tightened. “Two guards,” he said, listening. “We expected this.”

  Mira stepped between them and the hatch, palm lifting.

  “Shield,” Draven ordered.

  A translucent plane snapped into existence: golden and humming, edged with faint geometric lines. It filled the space before the hatch like a wall made of light.

  The hatch slid open.

  The first shots came immediately.

  Sol-charged darts hit the shield and burst into sparks, skittering across the barrier like bright insects. The shield flared with each impact, absorbing heat and force with a vibrating groan that traveled into Mira’s arm and shoulder.

  Mira’s teeth clenched. Her stance tightened.

  “Fuckers didn’t even identify,” she hissed.

  “Figures,” Draven said. He pointed to the forward hatch. “Take them out.”

  Outside, the shooting stopped.

  “Reloading,” Draven called, loud enough to carry to just his friends.

  Mira’s eyes narrowed. “Good.”

  She dropped the shield.

  The golden plane vanished as fast as it appeared.

  Jax struck.

  He thrust both hands forward and released a kinetic wave. It didn’t look like anything—no light, no flash: just a pressure-change that punched through the open hatch like a concentrated hurricane.

  The air inside the container thumped, deep and stomach-dropping.

  Outside came a muffled WHUMP, two startled noises that ended abruptly, and then the heavy sound of bodies hitting metal.

  Silence.

  Jax exhaled like he’d been holding his breath. “Night-night.”

  Draven didn’t let the moment breathe. “Move.”

  They pushed through the rear hatch.

  Two bodies lay crumpled in the strobing spill of hazard lights along the rail. The armor on them wasn’t miner gear or cargo crew.

  Light security composite: clean lines, compact plating, maintained with care. Pale panels over a dark undersuit, joints reinforced, and helmets smooth and polished to a dull sheen.

  No unit markings.

  No company crest.

  Just blank professionalism that made Draven’s stomach tighten.

  “Those aren’t station security boys,” Mira said, voice low.

  “No,” Draven agreed. “They’re not.”

  He let his eyes stare. The gear was too new, too clean, and in Cinderhollow that meant money… or authority.

  “Forward,” he said.

  They moved into the next compartment of the tram past the guards.

  Sterile didn’t begin to cover it; the walls were smooth white composite without a single scuff mark. The floor had the faint sheen of something that got cleaned because someone cared. Bright lumenstrips ran along the baseboards and ceiling seams, too even, too clinical: like a med bay, not a freight container.

  In the center of the room sat a pedestal: white, seamless, almost ceremonial.

  And on it… a small white case, placed dead-center: as if waiting.

  “What the fuck,” Senn breathed, disbelief cracking through his fear.

  Nobody smiled now, nobody joked; even Jax’s grin faded into something sharper.

  “That’s our cargo,” Mira said, and the certainty in her voice was almost worse than doubt.

  Draven’s thoughts collided in his skull. A trap, obviously; so obvious it felt like a joke: like the station was daring them to touch it just to see what would happen.

  But the job was the job, and running now meant dying later.

  “Scan it,” Draven ordered.

  Mira stepped up, lumenband hovering over the case. The band chirped several times: short, musical tones; then pulsed green.

  Mira frowned, glanced at Draven, and lifted a helpless shoulder. “Scan’s clear.”

  Draven let out a slow breath through his nose. “Can’t back out now.”

  The room seemed to hold its own breath as he reached for the case.

  It was light in his hands, too light. The surface was warm, not hot, but as if it had been sitting under a lamp; like someone had made sure it felt alive.

  He turned to the crew and gave a small shrug when nothing happened.

  For half a second, relief tried to bloom.

  Then the lights died.

  All of them.

  The white room dropped into black so suddenly it felt like being swallowed by a great beast. A cold dread pulled at Draven’s gut.

  Nothing but pitch blackness like the void of space.

  All they heard was their breathing, too loud, and the tram’s vibration as it continued down the line.

  A few seconds later, the tram turned.

  Not the gentle curve of the spine rail, the hard, unmistakable shift of a diversion track. The vibration changed pitch. The magnetic clack became tighter, more frequent.

  Draven felt the vehicle decelerate, smooth and deliberate, Draven felt like a hand was closing around his throat. Emergency strips along the floor flickered on dim red with a hint of sickly gold. They provided almost no illumination to the car, only seeming to heighten the tension.

  “Well shit,” Senn muttered to himself, his hands tightening around a pair of knives on his hip.

  The tram came to a complete stop.

  The forward hatch hissed.

  Outside light spilled in a clean, harsh rectangle that framed a figure standing in the doorway.

  At first it was only a silhouette: tall, broad-shouldered, cape hanging behind like a trailing shadow. The outline alone was enough to make Draven’s throat go dry, because some shapes were recognized across the whole known galaxy, the way prey recognized a predator.

  Then the figure lit.

  Lines of solar energy ignited along the armor in precise channels: sun-bright filaments running the contours of chest plate and pauldrons, branching down the arms, tracing the legs in sacred circuitry. Not the messy glow of a miner’s field-suit, this was something holy.

  This was authority.

  This was power.

  This was religion made into physical being.

  A Solknight

  The cape billowed as the knight stepped inside, and the motion carried heat with it: like opening a furnace door. Armored boots clanked on the tram’s floor, each footfall heavy and measured, as though the knight owned everything it set its boots on.

  The helmet visor was smooth and faceless, a dark mirror with a glowing solar vein across the middle like a scar. The sun-sigil at the breast was subtle; etched, not painted; the glow highlighted it, turning it into a blazing, glorious star.

  Draven’s fingers tightened around the white case. He realized he’d been holding it like a child clinging to a toy.

  “But why,” he managed. It came out smaller than he meant.

  The Solknight tilted its head a fraction, almost as though considering whether Draven was worth an answer.

  Then the voice came: synthesized, calm, almost bored. “Just bad luck, I guess, kid.”

  The knight waved one hand dismissively.

  The air rippled.

  Heat washed over them first: dry and crushing, like standing too close to a mining exhaust vent. Then, gravity tugged the four lifting them into the air almost frozen for half a second before the gravity field slammed them backward. Draven’s body flailed in protest. Mira spun in several circles careening. Senn let out a strangled sound as his feet left the floor for a split second before the force pinned him flat. Jax tried to raise his hands, tried to push back off the wall; but the pressure crushed the motion out of him, veins bulging in his face, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  Draven’s skull struck the wall. White pain burst behind his eyes. The case slipped his grip and thudded against his chest.

  The Solknight stepped closer, solar lines humming brighter, as a small jet of heated air quickly burst out behind him.

  Draven tasted blood.

  He tried to focus on the visor, tried to see anything behind it.

  He couldn’t.

  The gravity pressed harder.

  The last thing he heard was Mira gasping, teeth clenched against a curse; and the low, steady thrum of the knight’s power like a hymn sung by the stations church.

  Then, the pain in the back of Draven’s head became sharp. . .

  and the world folded into black.