Planet Teleopea — Shadow Transport Route

The shadow transport tore through hyperspace in a narrow silver stream. No lights. No insignia. No traceable signature.

Exactly as Shi needed.

Behind him, Teleopea shrank into blackness.

Ahead: Vanfylion.

One star-ring day.

That was all Mien could buy him.

One day to find Chen—

before the Emperor’s hunters reached him first.

Shi gripped the throttle harder.

The cockpit was dark, lit only by the faint blue glow of telemetry. Every breath he took was shallow, deliberate. Rage had hollowed him; desperation kept him moving.

Then—

A pulse shook the hull.

Not turbulence.

Not slipstream drag.

Something external.

Shi’s eyes snapped open.

“Don’t—”

A second pulse struck, harder.

The controls vibrated violently under his hands.

WARNING: GRAVIMETRIC DISTORTION DETECTED.

ORIGIN: UNKNOWN.

Unknown.

Shi’s blood chilled.

He dropped the transport into a dive—an evasive maneuver so sharp the inertial dampeners whimpered. Space blurred.

Then the distortion rippled open.

As if space itself were being pried apart.

A dark shape materialised ahead.

A ship—small, sleek, silent—floating exactly in his trajectory like it had been waiting for him.

Shi’s pulse thudded.

“Who…?”

No answer.

The ship fired.

Not lasers—

Not missiles—

A compression pulse.

Silent. Invisible. Precise.

Designed for stealth-class hulls.

Shi jerked the controls. The shockwave grazed the side, rattling the cockpit so hard the lights flickered.

His teeth slammed together.

“Cowards.”

Another pulse.

The transport shuddered.

Panels shook loose.

Static spiked through the cockpit.

[ ENGINE OUTPUT DECREASING.

SHADOW DRIVE UNSTABLE. ]

He punched emergency overrides.

The hostile ship didn’t pursue.

Didn’t broadcast.

Didn’t signal.

It just hovered.

Watching.

Measuring.

The third pulse hit dead-centre.

The console exploded in sparks.

Shi cursed, forcing the transport into atmospheric descent—

a suicide dive that would either save him or end him instantly.

He aimed for Vanfylion’s dark hemisphere.

The neon glow of the Night City spread beneath him like a wound.

The atmosphere screamed across the hull.

Heat surged through the cabin.

Then—

Another shot.

Not a pulse.

A tether.

A grav-hook slammed into the craft, locking onto his hull like a harpoon.

The transport lurched backward.

Shi snarled and engaged the emergency detacher—an illegal piece of tech he wasn’t supposed to own.

The tether snapped off—

at the cost of half the shadow plating.

But he was free.

Barely.

The controls jerked under him as the transport spiraled, engines coughing smoke.

The hostile ship didn’t shoot again.

It simply hovered at the edge of space—

still observing.

Still waiting.

Shi gritted his teeth.

“…Who sent you?”

No answer.

He fell into Vanfylion’s atmosphere at terminal velocity.

The transport tore through the sky, metal screaming.

Panels ripped away.

Flames licked the cockpit windows.

Shi held on.

He had no intention of dying before reaching that damned planet. He wasn’t surviving this crash inside the ship.

He slapped the emergency canopy release.

Nothing.

He hit it again—

The canopy blew free.

Wind screamed through the cockpit, tearing at his hair, his clothes, ripping breath from his lungs.

Vanfylion’s night side stretched below him—

black metal sectors, toxic fog drifting above neon cracks of the city.

He judged the distance.

Calculated angles.

Telemetry blinked its last warning—

[ GRAVITY: 1.78x TELEOPEAN STANDARD

FLIGHT UNSUSTAINABLE

GLIDE ONLY]

“Good enough.”

He hauled himself up the buckling frame—

And jumped.

The burning transport shot past him like a meteor, spiralling toward the industrial zone.

Shi opened his wings.

6-meter wings snapped wide behind him, catching the rushing air with a violent flare.

The gravity yanked him downward instantly, but he angled his body, bleeding momentum, turning his fall into a brutal, short glide.

Air pressure clawed at his joints.

His wings trembled under the heavier pull of Vanfylion’s atmosphere.

But he stayed aloft—

barely.

He cleared a collapsing rail line—

banked toward a lower platform—

Almost there.

Almost—

A sharp click.

A metallic whine cut through the night.

Shi’s eyes widened.

Not engine noise.

Not debris.

A weapon charge cycle.

He twisted mid-air—

too late.

A shot split the darkness.

A violet arc—clean, silent—

It hit him square across the wing seam.

Pain exploded down his side.

His right wing jerked violently—

folding in on itself—

Shi dropped.

Hard.

The city blurred below him.

The night roared past.

He fell—

Wing crushed, gravity swallowing him whole—

The ground rushed up to meet him—

Visions went black.