CHAPTER 3: THE SILT-DUNE CHASE

  The Scav-Hunter’s siren didn't wail; it was a rhythmic, bone-shaking thump of displaced air, the sound of a predator that didn't need to hide. It was the sound of a Corporate Vulture drone dropping out of the clouds, its repulsors screaming as they fought the gravity of Krios-9.

  "They’re on the thermal spike!" Koda yelled, scrambling into the rear of the hover-skiff. He clutched his hacking-rig to his chest like a shield, his knuckles white. "Jax, if that Relay isn't shielded in thirty seconds, they’ll have a target lock on our heartbeats!"

  Jax slammed his fist into the skiff’s ignition. The old engine coughed a cloud of black, oily smoke before catching with a desperate, grinding roar. Beside him, Vex was already in the gunner’s seat, her hands locked onto the handles of a modified harpoon-launcher.

  "Don't look back!" she screamed over the whine of the repulsors. "Just drive!"

  The skiff loped out of the Grease-Pit’s hidden exit and into the Silt-Dunes. Here, the ground was a treacherous ocean of pulverized glass and iron-dust, sculpted into jagged peaks by the planetary winds. The skiff’s repulsors kicked up a massive rooster-tail of grey grit, a beacon that screamed their position to the sky.

  Above them, the clouds parted. The Vulture drone—sleek, white, and terrifyingly silent compared to their rattling engine—dived through the smog. Its underslung ion-cannon began to glow with a sickly red light.

  "Incoming!" Koda shrieked.

  The first bolt hit twenty feet to their left. The silt didn't just fly; it turned to molten glass instantly, creating a jagged, glowing crater that sizzled in the cold air. The shockwave tossed the skiff into the air, sending it into a violent fishtail. Jax fought the steering yoke, his muscles screaming as he forced the nose down, the metal of the seat vibrating through his spine.

  Then, the Relay began to vibrate against his thigh.

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  It wasn't just shaking; it was pulsing in sync with the drone’s firing rhythm. Jax felt a cold, sharp tingle climb up his spine, a sensation like needles made of ice. His vision fractured. For a split second, he wasn't looking through a dirty, cracked windshield—he was looking through the drone’s own sensors. He saw the dunes in infrared. He saw his own skiff as a frantic, heat-bleeding spark in a cold, grey world.

  "I see where it’s going to fire," Jax gasped, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.

  He didn't think; he reacted. He jerked the yoke hard right a heartbeat before the red bolt scorched the air where they had been.

  "Jax? How did you do that?" Vex yelled, letting fly a harpoon. The cable snapped taut, snagging a piece of protruding scrap and swinging the skiff in a violent, ninety-degree arc that sent them flying over a ridge.

  "The Relay... it’s intercepting their telemetry!" Jax’s eyes were blown wide, the violet light from the artifact reflecting in his pupils until they seemed to glow. "Koda! Patch the Relay’s output into the skiff’s comms! Now!"

  Koda didn't ask questions. He jammed a data-cable into the Relay’s housing. The skiff’s dashboard didn't just light up; it screamed. The cracked screens displayed a scrolling wall of Precursor code, translating the Corporate drone’s encrypted commands into a language Jax could suddenly, terrifyingly understand.

  "The drone is slaved to the Spire’s local grid," Jax muttered, his hands moving with a fluid precision he had never possessed before. "If I can't outrun it, I’ll just... delete it."

  He reached out and touched the flickering screen. The violet brand on his wrist flared with blinding intensity.

  High above, the Vulture drone suddenly jerked. Its wings tilted at an impossible angle, its navigation lights flickering from red to a steady, haunting violet. With a mechanical shriek of failing servos, the drone didn't explode—it simply turned. It accelerated into a vertical climb, pushing its engines past the breaking point until it vanished into the upper atmosphere, a falling star in reverse.

  The desert went silent, save for the heavy, wet panting of the three scavengers.

  Jax looked at the Relay. It was cold again, its light dimmed to a faint, rhythmic ember. He looked at his hand, which was still trembling. The skin felt tight, as if the "Logic" of the ship were still trying to weave itself into his nerves.

  "You didn't just dodge it, Jax," Vex said, her voice hushed with awe and a sudden, sharp fear. "You hacked it. Without a deck. Without a terminal."

  Jax didn't answer. He looked back at the Rib-Run, where the shadow of the Aurora was still buried. The ship wasn't just a machine. It was a teacher. And the first lesson was that the world was much smaller—and much more fragile—than he’d ever imagined.