The Outer Rings weren't quiet tonight.
But then, they never were. Silence didn't exist here—not truly. Not in a place where the desperate would strip you down to your name if it held even the tiniest value and each whisper had it's own logarithmic encryption because information would and could kill .Here—Regulars called it the Riggs— the hum of overworked engines underscored lives spent outrunning something.
The Dominion liked to pretend that silence meant control, that the void bent to their order. Kira knew better. Silence, out here, was something else entirely. It was the breath between the kill and the collapse, the stillness of a ship moments before the hull split open. The absence of sound could mean an ambush. A mechanical failure. A painfully slow death.
Better the noise.
The Dominion's iron grasp though they would've liked, couldn't extend to the slippery reaches of space especially not one like this.
Besides no one controlled the Outer Rings. Not the Dominion, not the syndicates, not the scavengers who picked apart the corpses of the most recent war. Deception and survival were the name of the game. And she thrived in the places between them.
Tonight, she moved like a shadow through the chaos, fingers flicking over the Starcrossed's control panel as a red warning flared on her HUD. Risk assessment: Dire.
She exhaled, steady and low, as the rendezvous point loomed in the distance. A derelict freighter, its hull stripped down to its bones, floated like a piece of flotsam against the star-strewn abyss. The only signs of life were the pinprick glows of scavenged power cells and the waiting figures of her buyers, silhouetted against the dim glow of a cargo bay breach.
She adjusted her trajectory, the ship responding with the grace of something well-worn and well-loved. Docking protocols initiated. A chime—incoming hail.
Kira breathed again, steady. Just another job.
---
The grainy holo flickered to life, revealing a familiar face—Rael Drayk, a mid-tier weapons dealer with more arrogance than sense.
His hologram wavered as he became more corporeal, his cybernetic eye whirring as it adjusted focus.A corpulent man given to vices ;what he called"Just whisky and sugary bits" was really CHIMERA DUST—the strongest drug in the outlawed regions. His jowls wobbled like tremulous gelatine when he spoke and under his eyes were two pronounced sags as if someone had wedged their whorls in a pit of sinking earth if it was pink and coarse like wrinkled crinoline.
Put simply ,he looked old and tired under the sickly green light of his ship's emergency systems, but the smirk on his face was alive with something else.
"Right on time, Santos," he drawled,voice crackling through interference. "I was starting to think you were ghosting me."
Kira smirked, leaning back against her seat. Then bent slightly toward the hologram her expression deliberately playful. "You can't ghost the dead, Drayk."
He chuckled, sharp and dry, a low rasp."And here I thought you'd finally found a Dominion cell with your name on it."
"Not tonight."
She cut the comm and initiated the docking sequence, feeling the familiar shudder as the Starcrossed latched onto the freighter's remains with a dull shudder. Rising from her seat, she adjusted the holster at her thigh, palming the smooth grip of her blaster as the airlock hissed open. Kira stepped into the dim corridor, the scent of rust and oil thick in the recycled air.
Drayk stood waiting, flanked by two mercenaries with the unmistakable look of men paid to kill and not ask questions. Kira counted their weapons, the twitch in their fingers, the tension in their shoulders. They didn't trust her. Good. She didn't trust them either.
"Cargo's in the hold," she said, nodding toward her ship,keep her stance loose, easy. "You have my payment?"
Drayk gestured lazily. One of his men produced a data chip, holding it between two fingers.
"All there," Drayk said. " You'll find the credits cleared."
Kira didn't reach for it. "And the tracker?"
A slow grin. "Removed, just like you like it."
Liar.
There was always a tracker. A contingency.Some double-cross waiting to happen.
She plucked the chip from the mercenary's fingers, slotting it into her wrist console. The numbers scrolled fast and cleanly proving they weren't tempered with. For now.
The deal should have ended there.But as was usual with these things ,it didn't. The air was thick with the weight of unspoken things, the way it always was before something went wrong.
Drayk shifted, something too knowing in his eyes. "You hear the latest? Dominion's been sweeping Outer Ring smugglers. Real aggressive. Looking for someone."
Kira's pulse didn't quicken. She'd learned long ago to keep her body still even when danger drew too close."The Dominion's always looking for someone."
Drayk tilted his head, like a predator assessing wounded prey. "They're looking for you, Santos."
Silence. The kind that stretched, heavy, as the pieces slid into place.
Kira's fingers itched for her blaster.
"Your name's been bouncing between channels," Drayk continued, lazy but coiled tight. "Big price on your head, and not just from the syndicates this time." His cybernetic eye gleamed. "Got to wonder why."
She forced a smirk. "Maybe they're just jealous they haven't caught me yet,after all it must be pretty frustrating to find you're chasing your own tail."
Drayk chuckled. His cybernetic eye gleamed. "The hubs have you plastered all over their servers even in the circuits." He let the moment stretch, savoring it. "Commander Julian Blake is personally involved"
She didn't let it show—the way her pulse kicked up, the way something cold curled in her gut.
That name.
Kira kept her posture cavalier,the expression of control ,mild amusement, her smirk in place.
But something inside her bristled ,her mind already running through contingencies.
Blake.
She'd spent three years slipping past his grasp.Three years of close calls, of his voice crackling through intercepted Dominion transmissions, a shadow always at her back.
A man who didn't relent. A man who didn't forget.
And if he was still hunting her?
That meant trouble.And now he was closer
Too close.
She shifted her weight,breathed out a little to show how put off she was and how the current charade bored her to tears. "Is this a warning, Drayk, or an opportunity?"
His grin was slow, serpentine. "That depends, Santos. You looking to cut a deal?"
Kira's fingers tightened around the chip. "Haven't you heard, I don't make deals."
Drayk's smile didn't fade, but his men shifted, a flicker of a glance. A shift in weight. Hands hovering near their weapons.
Kira moved first.
A step back, a flick of her wrist, and a pulse grenade slid smoothly from her sleeve into her palm. She didn't hesitate. The moment the first mercenary twitched, she threw it.
A sharp burst of energy filled the space. The force sent Drayk stumbling, his men slamming into the rusted walls. The freighter's walls shuddered .Kira was already moving, sprinting back toward the Starcrossed, her blaster drawn, pulse shots lighting up the dim corridor as the mercenaries scrambled to recover.
She didn't need to win this fight. Not enough time.
She needed to get out.
She sprinted for the Starcrossed, pulse shots lighting up the dim corridor as the mercenaries recovered. Bullets searing rusted metal.
The Starcrossed's ramp was already lowering as she leaped onto it, She hit it at a full run then slammed the controls. The hatch sealed shut,gunfire sparking off the metal beside her. Slamming her fist against the panel as the ship lurched, detaching from the freighter.Kira fell into the pilot's seat, hands flying over controls. Engines roared. The ship twisted,engines flared. The freighter fell away,burning hard away from the wreckage.
And then—
A Dominion warship.
Sliding out of subspace like a blade through the dark.
Blake.
A curse. The throttle slammed forward. The chase began.
The Starcrossed twisted through the chaos of the Outer Rings, slipping between drifting wreckage. Dominion ships weren't built for this. Too rigid. Too structured.
She was neither.
Her ship banked hard, thrusters burning, but the Dominion vessel was gaining. A sharp beep from her console—incoming lock.
A heartbeat. Then:
Impact.
The blast sent a shudder through the hull, lights flickering. Shields held—barely.
Kira gritted her teeth, fingers flying over the controls. "Come on, come on—"
The Dominion ship closed in. Too fast. Too close.
She needed an out.
And then—
A second ship.
Dropping out of hyperspace. Fast. Unmarked. Dangerous.
Kira's gut twisted.
This wasn't Dominion. This wasn't syndicate. This was something else.
The unknown vessel cut a sharp path between them, weapons firing on the Dominion ship. Not to destroy—to delay.
For her.
The opportunity was there. Kira took it.
A sharp bank. Hyperspace trajectory locked.
The Dominion ship adjusted, weapons priming—
Too late.
The Starcrossed surged forward, disappearing into the black.
---
The quiet came slow.
Kira leaned back in her seat, chest rising, falling. The adrenaline would fade. Eventually.
Her fingers hovered over the controls. The comm system flickered, unread messages blinking.
She ignored them.
Instead, she sat there, staring at the endless stretch of stars.
Someone had just saved her.
And that was a problem.
Because favors didn't come free. And in the Outer Rings, debts were deadly.
But Julian Blake?
He wasn't giving up.
And that meant she had to stay ahead.
The Starcrossed drifted through hyperspace, the hum of its engines steady, rhythmic. A heartbeat in the void.
Kira sat in the pilot's seat, boots propped against the console, staring at the data scrolling across the screen. The Dominion ship had been seconds from catching her. And then—interference. A third party. Unmarked, unidentified, and dangerously well-timed.
She didn't believe in coincidence.
A soft chime. Incoming transmission.
Her jaw tightened. No identification, no signature—whoever had pulled her out of that mess didn't want to be known.
The sensible thing would be to ignore it. Drop to sublight, reroute through back channels, disappear.
And yet.
She pressed the receiver.
The holo flickered to life.
A man leaned back in a dimly lit cockpit, the glow of control panels casting shadows across his face. Dark hair. Stubbled jaw. A half-smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes.Yes he was handsome,enough to be called beautiful even each feature so gracefully poised it was intensive to watch made all the more so if you knew the man behind the mask.
Kira exhaled sharply. "You have got to be kidding me."
The smirk widened. "Miss me, Santos?"
Rhèmin Darvhael
Smuggler. Mercenary. Trouble.
She'd run with him once, a long time ago, back when she was reckless enough to think trust was something that could exist in her world. It hadn't ended well.
She crossed her arms. "If I'd known it was you, I would've let the Dominion take me."
Rhèmin ressed a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. "And here I thought I did you a favor."
"Unasked favors usually come with a price."
His grin was sharp. "You know me well."
She did. And that was the problem.
---
Fifteen minutes later, Kira sat across from Rhèmin in the Starcrossed's cargo hold, arms folded, pulse steady. She hadn't let him dock without a weapons scan.
He leaned back against a crate, watching her with that easy, unreadable look. "So. How deep in it are you?"
She didn't answer.
Rhèmin sighed. "Come on, Kira. Dominion warships don't show up in the Outer Rings unless they're real motivated".
Her fingers tapped against her thigh, where her blaster sat holstered. Motivation had a name.
Julian Blake.
"I don't owe you explanations," she said flatly.
"No, but you owe me now."
She met his gaze, cool and unyielding. "I didn't ask you to step in."
"You didn't have to.Have you any idea how many times I've had to save you at the cost of my own skin"
"That's you Rhèmin,ever the self sacrificial matry."She bemoaned sarcastically.
He smirked."You know it'll take more than that to soothe my messianic complex,but do continue".
Silence stretched between them.
That was the problem with Rhèmin. He was a wildcard. Not a hero, not a villain—just a man who played the game however it suited him.
And now, for reasons she didn't yet understand, it suited him to keep her alive.
---
The Dominion wasn't the only thing hunting her.
Kira figured that out six hours later, when she dropped out of hyperspace at an unnamed fueling station on the edge of a dead system. A pit stop. Nothing more.
And yet.
The moment she stepped off the Starcrossed, she felt it.
The weight of a gaze.
She didn't react. Just kept walking, steps casual, measured. The station was mostly empty—a few mechanics, a bartender cleaning glasses behind a counter, a lone bounty hunter nursing a drink in the corner.
Kira moved toward the fuel registry, scanning the station's old terminals. Out of the corner of her eye, a figure shifted.
Watching her.
Not Dominion. Too careful, too patient. Not syndicate. Too quiet.
Something else.
She palmed her blade, concealed beneath the folds of her jacket. If they wanted a fight, she'd give them one.
She just had to let them make the first move.
--