His vision blurred. In it, the black-haired figure wore an expression of sorrow, a single blue tear sliding down his face.

Chen…

…Forget…

Every time Chen tried to reach for that figure in his memory, a splitting pain tore through his skull, blasting the already broken fragments of the scene into pure white emptiness.

He gritted his teeth and shook his head hard, as if he could shake the pain out of his skull by force. When he finally managed to focus again, he realised—

That person was gone.

No!!

Panic flared through him. Chen shoved through the crowd, following the last place he’d seen that familiar back. He caught a flicker—just a glimpse—at the bend leading toward the private lounge corridor.

Chen broke into a run, covering the distance in a few long strides.

But the moment he turned the corner—

“Stop.”

Cold metal touched his right temple.

Chen froze, then slowly turned his eyes toward it.

A heavy plasma sidearm.

The man holding it watched him warily, expression unreadable.

Black hair, black eyes; under the lights, his skin looked almost translucently pale.

Just like the fractured image in Chen’s mind.

Chen’s golden pupils widened slightly.

“Why are you following me?” the man demanded. He jabbed the muzzle harder against Chen’s head, his tone anything but friendly. Dressed in a close-fitting black leather outfit, everything about his stance and grip on the weapon screamed professional training.

“I don’t have any ill intent. If I’ve offended you, I apologise,” Chen answered. Of course, he was speaking Teleopean— it was the only language he could speak fluently.

Fortunately, the man understood Teleopean.

“If I couldn’t speak Teleopean, you’d already be dead,” he muttered. “Only an idiot uses their mother tongue in mixed-sector territory.”

“It’s the only one I know,” Chen said honestly.

The man gave him a once-over, then snorted.

“In this age, people who only speak one language are rare. Don’t tell me you’re from some backwater on Teleopea.” He shifted the gun slightly, changing the angle. “So, why are you following me?”

Chen actually knew he could speak a little of another language as well. He just didn’t know what it was called—or how he’d learned it.

He stared at the black-haired man, golden eyes catching the light, a faint, ambiguous shimmer in them.

“You look like someone I know,” he said quietly.

“If you’re trying to pick someone up, you need a better line.” The man’s voice stayed dry and mocking. “If that’s your angle, you’ve picked the wrong target. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Is that so?” Chen’s tone thinned, a trace of disappointment slipping in. “My mistake.”

He turned away, ready to head back the way he’d come.

The black-haired man didn’t call him back. He simply watched Chen’s retreating back, lingering a fraction too long.

RUMMMMMM—

The floor vibrated.

A scraping, metallic howl ripped through the corridor—steel crying against steel—followed by a violent tilt of the entire station. Cables snapped out of the walls, spitting sparks as broken conduits writhed like severed nerves.

KRRR-KRRK—!!!

“What the hell—?”

The black-haired man’s head snapped up, eyes scanning the surroundings.

The overhead lights went dark—replaced by blood-red emergency strobes. The entire corridor was drenched in a hellish crimson.

【Alert. Alert. All personnel proceed to escape pods. This is not a drill. Alert. Alert…】

The emotionless voice of the AI blared through the entire facility, repeating over and over. From the far end of the passage—the direction of the main hall—came the rising roar of panicked screams.

The floor kept pitching beneath their feet. The red light, the metal shriek, the distant cries—combined into a scene that burrowed into the bones.

He raised his gun and advanced warily—until a hand snatched his arm.

The Teleopean.

Chen shook his head once.

“Someone is coming,” he said quietly. “Many people. Their bullets carry black fluid.”

Black liquid?

Radioactive fluid?!

The man had military training; he knew exactly what kind of “black liquid” got loaded into specialised rounds. Across the known universe, there was only one match—reactive radioactive toxin, designed to be universally lethal.

And though it could kill almost any species, it had been engineered with one particular target in mind.

Teleopeans.

He frowned, features tightening.

A small, instinctive gesture—an animal sensing danger by air currents rather than sight.

“They’re here,” he said softly. “We should go.”

And then the screams from the hall abruptly cut off.

The man’s jaw tightened.

This was bad.

Everyone in there was probably already dead.

The black-haired man decided fortune had never so much as glanced in his direction.

“This way. I know the layout. There’s a VIP level above us through the third exit—there are secure comm consoles in those rooms. We can try calling for backup from there.” He clapped Chen on the shoulder once, then moved at a quick, silent run down the west side corridor.

The Teleopean watched his back for half a second, as if hesitated for an instance, then followed.

They reached the private corridor—luxury carpeting underfoot, crystal-encrusted walls now ominous under red light.

The entire section was unnervingly empty.

Not a single guest.

That was wrong.

The black-haired man swept the nearest suite with quick, practiced eyes, checked for immediate threats, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was lavishly appointed but efficient—sofa, immersive holo-projector, high-grade sound system, and a few more… private amenities. He barely glanced at them. His attention went straight to a glass-shelved wall niche.

There.

“Emergency access. Code 109-395,” he said, addressing the embedded comm panel. “Patch to Teleopea Frontier Military Command.”

【Code invalid. Transmission denied.】

“What?” His face darkened. That was a universal military override. He tried again, jaw tight.

“Re-authorise. Same code.”

【Code invalid. Transmission denied.】

“Bullshit,” he hissed under his breath.

“What now?” Chen asked. There was no visible panic in his voice—just a calm inquiry, as if they weren’t possibly minutes away from being gunned down.

The man raked a hand through his black hair, dragging it back from his face. For a moment he just stared at Chen, as if weighing options, then his shoulders eased into a decision.

“Now? We pray we don’t run into whoever’s hitting this place before we reach the escape bay. The lifeboat docks are below. With luck, we’ll get there before they do.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “Stay with me. Don’t run off alone.”

He was only doing it out of basic decency. From the Teleopean’s face and build, the man pegged him as not fully mature yet—by their species’ standards, probably still underage.

“Oh.” Chen nodded obediently. Ever since he’d been dragged off that dead world, someone else had been making decisions for him. He’d become used to being pulled along.

They slipped back out into the corridor, moving carefully. Within a few minutes they’d reached the station’s main storage section.

The bar was large, its clientele heavy and constant, so the storerooms were huge. Food supplies sat cryo-locked in six cylindrical liquid-nitrogen vaults, each about three meters across, arranged three and three along the long sides of the rectangular chamber. A ten-meter wide gap ran down the center, bridged by a narrow steel walkway that connected to the outer access corridor.

Below the bridge, twenty meters of empty space yawned.

At the bottom, massive turbine blades churned—part of the bar’s central environmental system, regulating temperature and airflow for the entire structure.

“What do I call you?” the black-haired man asked, moving ahead with his pistol raised, eyes alert.

“My name is Chen. You?”

“Chen…” he repeated, and a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips where Chen couldn’t see it. “Nice to meet you. I’m Yao.”

“Yao?” Chen frowned slightly. “You’re Teleopean?”

The name is differently in Teleopean.

“No. I’m not.” Yao’s pace faltered for a split second, then resumed. “I’m just a drifter.”

“…”

Chen didn’t have time to pursue the thought.

A bullet grazed past him, slicing across the air where his chest had been a split second before. His body reacted on pure instinct, twisting out of the way.

More rounds shrieked toward him. Chen had to flip three times in mid-air to avoid them, landing lightly back on the bridge.

“Yao, are you hurt?!” he called, head snapping toward the black-haired man. There was something strange in his chest, a sharp, illogical rush that made his voice shake.

“What do you think?” Yao’s answer came through gritted teeth. He was pressed flat to the bridge, body as low as possible—but uninjured.

Chen let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

Yao raised his head just enough to sight down both arms, twin heavy plasma pistols in his hands. He fired—

Bolts of coherent energy slammed into three of the cryo-cylinders.

Three distorted, half-transparent figures dropped from above—right into the churning turbine field.

The sound of flesh and bone being shredded by metal blades ripped through the chamber.

“Tch. Invisibility rigs,” Yao muttered. Then louder, to Chen: “Be careful. Watch for disturbances in the airflow.”

“Yes,” Chen said, voice instinctively respectful.

Yao wasn’t used to that level of obedient deference, but he let it go.

“Come on. Move.”

Behind the storage area lay the third engine room. They stepped between the bodies scattered across the floor.

Bodies on the ground—workers from minor border systems—lay twisted and pale, their blood tinted the sickly green-black of radioactive poisoning.

“Who the hell attacks a place like this…” Yao muttered, jaw tight.

“This station sits on the border between Teleopea and the Saladian Empire,” Chen said calmly. “Saladia has had its eye on our territory for years. They have every reason to engineer a ‘casus belli’ that forces Teleopea into war.”

“Yeah?” Yao lifted his guns again, senses stretching outward. “Then everyone here’s just convenient collateral.”

A slight wrongness stirred in the air.

“If that’s true,” Chen replied, lowering his body into a ready stance, “then we’re expendable too.”

Without warning, they moved—both of them.

A heartbeat later, the pillar behind them rattled under the impact of a storm of rounds. The metal surface was pitted with hundreds of tiny craters.

The bullets were barely five millimetres across but moving at high velocity. They filled the air in a density that should have made dodging impossible.

But the two of them moved like they were built for it.

Search. Lock. Close. Terminate.

Fast. Clean. Brutal.

Gunfire and screams tore through the engine room.

“Chen! Down!” Yao shouted.

Chen dropped instantly. A half-transparent figure appeared in the line of Yao’s sight.

BANG—!!

High-energy plasma ripped through the air, tearing through invisible armor, flesh, and whatever passed for bone.

THUD.

A body hit the floor.

They scanned quickly: six partially visible corpses sprawled around them.

They looked at each other.

“Not bad,” Yao said, wiping sweat from his brow, breathing hard.

Chen, by contrast, looked almost untouched by exertion, expression calm, a faint smile on his lips. “You too.”

“Let’s see who these bastards really are.”

Yao crouched beside one of the bodies, feeling around until his fingers caught the edge of the distortion cloak. He ripped it back.

The attacker’s face was exposed to normal light.

“What—no way.” Yao’s eyes widened.

Gold hair. Teleopean features.

The same race as the person standing beside him.

“Got any atomic charges on you?” Chen’s voice sounded above him, unnervingly flat. Yao glanced up.

“I do,” Yao said slowly. He fished two palm-sized grenades from his belt. “Why?”

“If they’re not fully dead,” Chen said, dragging the bodies into a pile, “they’ll recover in thirty star-hours. And if they are fully dead, I don’t want a cluster of unstable Continuations waking up and deciding I’m breakfast.”

Yao gaped—then slapped a hand against his forehead.

“This day just keeps getting better…”

Chen reached for the grenades.

Yao’s eyes widened—

“Wait—don’t detonate them here, you—”

Chen pressed the trigger.

The grenade began to glow.

“DON’T PRESS IT NOW!”

Yao slapped the device out of his hands and yanked Chen bodily toward the exit.

A split second later—

BOOOOOOOOM—

The blast ripped the engine room apart.

Heat and shockwaves slammed into them as Yao threw a fist at the door panel, sealing the bulkhead just in time.

The station groaned—tilting violently as the third engine was annihilated.

Yao collapsed back against the wall, breathless.

“Oh my god—do you have absolutely zero training?! Atomic grenades—THROW THEM FIRST!”

“I apologize,” Chen said quietly. “I do not.”

“Yeah—I noticed!” Yao snapped, then rubbed his face. “Fine. From now on—tell me before you touch anything that glows red.”

Chen nodded earnestly.

Yao’s own pulse hammered in his ears, drowning out the alarms, the groaning hull, the distant screams.

Opposite him, Chen was already standing.

Of course he is.

Yao dragged himself upright, palm pressed to the sealed bulkhead. It glowed faintly where the atomic blast had struck on the other side.

“Come on,” Yao said, pushing off the wall. “Engine Three is dead. We’ve got maybe—what—five, ten star-ring hours before this place either burns up on re-entry or spins itself into scrap.”