Echoes in the Darklands

[legoshi]

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Callsign: Wostok
Ship: "Obsidian" – Very Heavy Fighter
Current Location: Darklands, Copernicus

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Wostok moved carefully through the hollow corridors of the ghost ship. The beam of his helmet light cut through the oppressive black, casting long, twitching shadows across the cables and loose fixtures. Each step echoed like a drumbeat in a tomb.

The Blackbox was already secured—small, discreet, tucked into the thigh pocket of his suit. That part had been easy.

But then he found it—in the cargo bay, behind a sealed bulkhead.
A container, locked tight with multiple Lane Hacker encryptions. No serial number. No markings. Just a single faded red warning stripe.

"SILVER FIRE"

The name was faint, stamped into the cold metal. But Wostok knew it. He froze.

A Code weapon—rumored to punch clean through the hull of a fighter. In the hands of a skilled pilot, it was a threat. But in the hands of an entire wing? It was a death sentence.

"Well, well… jackpot," he muttered, smiling.

Inside the crate: a sleek, angular prototype—elegant and deadly. The connectors confirmed it was made for fighters. But the internal build hinted at something else. Something very serious.

Wostok stayed calm. He was used to exotic gear. His Obsidian already housed six custom Code weapons he'd salvaged in the Omicrons. But SILVER FIRE was a game-changer. And worth more credits than he dared to count.

The weapon was too large to carry back manually. Luckily, it was already mounted on an old Hacker cargo rail that led straight to the rear freight airlock.

Wostok unlocked the rail, and the crate began to slide, slow and deliberate. When the airlock opened, the weapon drifted out into space, tagged with a retrieval beacon.

"I’ll be back for you, sweetheart."



Back aboard the Obsidian, he reeled in the container with the tractor beam and locked it down in his cargo hold. Then his eyes turned to the nav-chart.

Time to disappear.

Wostok had opted for the long road. No House territory. No checkpoints. Just clouds, jump holes, and silence.

The route:
Copernicus → Sigma-13 → Sigma-17 → Omicron Theta → Omega-41 → Omega-5 → Omega-3

Sigma-13’s gas fields swallowed his ship whole. His nav systems flickered; ion storms danced across the sensors. In Sigma-17, near the green dwarf star, flickers began showing up on the HUD—tiny contact blips, no ID, no trajectory.

Then… nothing.

Sensor ghosts?
Or something real?

His gut twisted. Power spikes showed intermittently. Too clean, too patterned to be background noise. Someone was out there. Running silent. Tracking him.

Liberty? Rheinland? Both had deep pockets and darker motives.

He activated his Cloaking Device. It drained power—but it gave him breathing room.

As he entered the edge of Omicron Theta, he made a decision:

Freeport-9. Corsair turf.

Not safe. But safer.
At least from the Houses.
Long enough to find out who was after him.

And why they hadn’t made their move yet.