The data came in broken.
Shattered fragments of transmission, routed through seven dead frequencies and one cold AI shell, trickled in as a series of encrypted ghost-bursts. Each packet masked to look like degraded telemetry from a defunct probe.
Iris caught the first one before it even touched the firewall.
"Incoming feed from contact Goss," she said. "Encryption is multi-tiered. Parsing. Initial sequence uploaded, disassembly and reformation in progress."
Ethan sat in the command chair, arms folded, eyes scanning the quiet glow of the Wraith's interior.
The dark wasn't just physical out here, it was layered.
Whatever Specter Coil was, they didn't exist in clean records or government files. They existed in these shadows, behind the curtain, manipulating what people thought they knew.
And now, someone was pulling it back.
The first visual flickered onto the screen like a fading echo: a distorted silhouette walking through a severed cryo-lab, the walls scorched, lighting flickering. No timestamp. No metadata.
The voice came next. Not Goss himself, but a filtered narrator generated by an auto-feed subroutine. Emotionless. Burned through a distortion layer that even Iris couldn't strip clean.
"Specter Coil. Not a syndicate. Not a mercenary clan nor a military aligned group. A hybrid architecture: failed military AI integration meets psionic black research fallout."
Redacted footage followed. Reports with entire paragraphs blacked out. Still images of figures in sterile suits walking past psionic tanks—test subjects suspended in fluid.
"They began as a failsafe protocol after the Separation War. Meant to identify, isolate, and erase psionic related research, phenomenons, individuals and relics. Then they evolved."
"They are ghost contractors," the voice continued, "guided not by loyalty, but by calculated intent. They operate through AI mesh networks and deep-routed hive nodes. Human interface minimal. Ethics compartmentalized."
Clips rolled of apparent "accidents": facility implosions, cargo vessel disappearances, research vanishing overnight.
"They clean up leaks. Redirect research before it spreads. They steal before it patents. And they thrive in ambiguity, embedding themselves in the noise before conflict begins."
Another clip: three operatives breaching a corporate R&D vault before the patent release announcement even went public. Silent. Clinical.
Ethan watched, unmoving.
"Targets include any instance of unapproved psionic experimentation, relic-level tech emergence, or unfiltered military AI activity outside sanctioned defense corridors."
Then the narration changed.
"Specter Coil's chain of funding is blurred. But analysis reveals filtered subsidies from the Federation's extremist faction, a political movement favoring full surveillance authority, totalitarian expansion of Outer Sector resources, and militarized research sovereignty."
The screen cut to a fractured logo, half of the Orion Federation crest, the other half overwritten with red bands. Files marked INTERNAL EXTREMIST BUREAU / UNRECOGNIZED.
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
"This puts them in ideological conflict with the Federation's moderate faction, led in part by figures like Governor Tallis Krell, Ashen Sector, whom you've assisted and met."
Iris whispered through comms:
"You indirectly poked the nest by leading the Kynaran Coalition and destroying Black Sun Syndicate on Kynara, Captain. Those actions disrupted the extremist-aligned leadership of the Ashen Sector. Specifically, Governor Renn Valcor's removal."
Ethan smiled faintly, though it didn't reach his eyes.
"Now the nest wants me tagged."
Ethan rose from the chair, slowly pacing the bridge as the flickering data feeds dimmed into silence behind him. The Wraith's lights remained low, casting long shadows across the brushed metal panels.
The psionic ore on Kynara.
At first, it had seemed like just another illegal operation. Black Sun Syndicate greed, masking dangerous science with criminal ambition. But it hadn't just been about that. It had been refinement, testing thresholds, pushing limits.
The resonance amplification device wasn't just a tool of power, it was a prototype. A proof of concept for something far darker that Krenna had tapped into. That entire operation had been a field trial, hidden in plain sight within a planet wracked by unrest.
A research testbed. Funded and engineered not by the syndicate alone, but also enabled by the extremist faction within the Federation. Those who wanted control. Surveillance. Exploitable psionics bent to war against the Imperium Astralis.
He gritted his teeth.
Then came Aldaron. The drifting courier pod, the frozen old man inside. Federation ID burned into his collar. Ethan had thought it was a random tragic encounter in deep drift space.
But now?
The cryopod courier had probably carried something. Data, relic, encoded psionic code, whatever it was, it was enough to draw Specter Coil operatives and trigger an ambush. The pirates, those Ravarr Drift Corsairs, were just a cover-up. Used to clean up loose ends.
And then… the auction.
Xanthe's Dream.
What was supposed to be an elite gathering of wealth, collectors, arms dealers was, in truth, a trap. Another battlefield dressed in velvet and gold. The molecular sword wasn't a luxury artifact. It was a magnet. A lure. Something too powerful to be left in private hands.
They wanted it. All of it.
And yet, at every turn, he was there.
At first by coincidence. Then by choice. Now… it felt like gravity.
He stopped moving. Fingers flexing. Jaw tight.
Everything orbited around two anchors.
Psionics. And him.
His presence. His interference. His refusal to walk away at times.
Each step he had taken, from the Ashen Sector to Aldaron and Enover Sectors, from Kynara to Proteus, had left a dent in someone's plan. Had collapsed a piece of a larger machine. And now, that machine was turning.
Some of it had been chance, happening upon a courier ship, attending an auction for an unrelated item, hearing whispers in a bar. But some of it had been deliberate.
He'd led the defense on Kynara. He'd shattered Black Sun's grip. He'd aligned with Governor Tallis Krell, a moderate in a galactic arena of rising extremists. He'd interfered.
And now?
The machine knew his name.
He wasn't just on their radar anymore.
He was a variable, one they hadn't accounted for. One they were watching. Tracing. Probing.
Ethan's voice dropped to a whisper.
"They were already watching the moment I left Ashen Sector. Maybe even before that. That blueprint, the one those salvager cousins Rell and Jalen found? That wasn't just a random stroke of luck."
"Correct," Iris confirmed. "The stealth core schematic was too convenient. I now suspect Specter Coil embedded it. Perhaps even orchestrated Jalen's abduction to time with your presence in Ashen Prime."
"So I'd recover the data, rescue the cousin, and install the core… never knowing I just invited them aboard."
"A trace embedded in an act of goodwill," Iris said. "Elegant. Subtle. Effective."
Ethan leaned on the console, face shadowed.
"They wouldn't need to chase me. I would've just gave them my trail unknowingly."
Iris confirmed it.
"They were watching your approach. Possibly the entire time."
"Which means they know more than they've shown," Ethan muttered. "But not everything. If they knew about the Astral Slayer…"
"Their approach would have been far more aggressive."
Ethan turned slowly back toward the viewport.
"Then let them observe for now. We don't have the firepower or reputation for a head-on fight. Not yet."
He folded his arms.
"But the next time we cross paths…"
His voice grew cold.
"…I'll make it cost them. Just enough to remind them who they're dealing with."