And his real test was only beginning.
Two more shots. The dreadnought's engines turned to brittle, orange-brown dust. The ship drifted, helpless.
Before he could answer, the beam pulsed. His freighter dissolved around him like sugar in rain, and he was standing on a cold, circular platform inside the Uber Protegit . No crew. No controls. Just walls that were screens showing the entire star sector in real-time. darkorbit uber protegit
For the first time since the beam touched him, Kael felt a cold that wasn’t from space. He wasn't just a pilot anymore. He was a Protegit .
The Uber Protegit pulsed.
The screens flickered, zooming out from the sector, then the cluster, then the entire galactic arm. A single red dot was pulsing at the edge of the known universe.
"Your old life was a single pixel," the voice said. "We will teach you to paint with galaxies." And his real test was only beginning
A pirate armada—the Crimson Fang, fifty ships strong, led by the legendary dreadnought Maw of Vengeance —blockaded the jump gate to the rich inner systems. They were after a Company convoy. Hundreds of civilian lives were in the balance.
A vessel so sleek, so impossibly black, it seemed to drink the starlight. It descended without a sound, its hull shimmering with a liquid-metal iridescence that hurt to look at. A single, pale beam lanced out, enveloping Kael’s ship. He didn’t feel fear. He felt… chosen . The ship drifted, helpless