It took a moment for Talon to realize he was holding his breath. Even his subconscious rejected the toxic stench of Graven Syndicate slavers funneling up with dust and sand. The Dominion cargo ship had begun its descent, twin discs pulsing hypnotically. The downdraft bent cactus and sent the men below scattering for cover like cockroaches.

The Skyguard held position behind the ridgeline, six winged shadows pressed against stone outcopping. The uneasy realization had settled over them that they were no longer the apex predator in this food chain. Talon could feel their apprehension, as each one contemplated yet another tangle with Dominion forces.

The ship settled into the sand with an eerie groan of metal against grit, followed by the hiss of vapor escaping from the hull. A few seconds later, an airlock opened with the sharp snap of released pressure, and the segments of a metal ramp extended to the desert floor.

When the ship’s hatch lifted, ghostly pale light shimmered from within, silhouetting a tall man with perfectly postured shoulders. As he descended the ramp, everything about him screamed Dominion officer. His clean-cut appearance, the low-ranking uniform, the Crown insignia gleaming on his collar. Each step he took felt like an indictment. Of what, nobody was sure.

“Bold of him,” Soryn muttered over the comm, “walking into a Syndicate camp without backup.”

Talon studied the way the officer moved. There was no tension or fear in his mannerisms. No sideways glances, no apparent nervousness. Bold? Maybe not. This didn’t appear to be a man walking into hostile territory.

“Tyrillon has been hunting the Syndicate for years,” one of the other Skyguard whispered. “Hangs slavers in the capitol square on broadcast feeds. Why would a Crown officer treat this like a business meeting?”

Talon’s mouth had gone dry. “Because it is.”

Four Dominion soldiers emerged behind the officer, spreading out in a loose perimeter near the trucks. Black-and-chrome armor, faces hidden behind reinforced visors, rifles held with the professional readiness of men who knew exactly what was about to happen. They were not here to arrest anyone.

They were here to facilitate.

The Syndicate had begun moving with new purpose. Two of them dragged a child toward the center of the clearing, a girl so small her feet barely touched the ground between steps. Seven, maybe eight years old. She stumbled, and one of the slavers yanked her upright hard enough to make her cry out.

Soryn’s wings flexed behind him, pure reflex. Talon caught his eye and shook his head slightly. Not yet.

The girl’s face was hollow, stomach swollen with hunger, and her clothes hung in tatters. She trembled with every breath, but she was not crying. Maybe she had learned that tears only made things worse, or maybe she had simply run out.

Soryn glanced up, and Talon’s frown answered his unspoken question. Not Kaela.

But she did have a name. And somebody, somewhere, was dying inside because she, like Kaela, was missing. No, not just missing. Her humanity had been reduced to merchandise.

“Looks like a deal is about to be made,” Soryn muttered anxiously.

That was exactly what this was. A transaction between one of the most brutal criminal organizations in the wasteland and the government that publicly condemned them. The hypocrisy was sickening, but not surprising. It was classic Tyrillon.

From the ship’s cargo bay, two mechanical units descended the ramp in perfect synchronization. VROC-3 Masons, their orange plating dulled by years of heavy lifting and heavier killing. Power hissed softly from their joints as they carried a sealed crate between them, moving with the precision of machines built for construction, as well as destruction.

These were not frontline combat units, but they were no less dangerous for their designation. Mid-tier enforcers with integrated fusion repeaters glowing faintly blue at their cores. Their presence proved everything about this operation: sanctioned, expected, routine.

At the base of the ramp, the Masons set down the crate with mechanical precision. A soft click, a hiss of released seals, and the hydraulic clamps withdrew to reveal neat rows of weapons. Sleek, matte-black rifles with surfaces clean and unscored. Fresh from the Verilion foundries, stamped with Crown markings.

Firepower like this could turn a ragtag slaver crew into a legitimate threat.

Several Syndicate thugs approached like starving men offered meat. They handled the weapons with reverence, one slaver raising a rifle to his shoulder to test the sighting, another laughing as he checked the balance of a sidearm. These were not just tools to them. They were upgrades to their arsenal of daggers and knuckles.

One of them nodded to someone off to the side. The merchandise was more than satisfactory for the price.

Moments later, a line of children, pulled from cages, were ushered front and center. More than twenty in all, mostly early teens. Some younger. A few were crying, but most had withdrawn like prey animals when the predator is done playing.

They were shoved forward through the sand, a parade of stolen futures shuffling toward whatever hell someone had purchased them for.

Soryn’s voice came over the channel, thin with disbelief. “They are buying them. With Crown weapons.”

Talon did not respond. He was watching the way the Dominion officer’s expression never changed. No flinch, no remorse, no attempt to hide what he was facilitating. This was not some backdoor deal struck in shadow by rogue operatives skimming from the edges of the empire.

This was official policy with an unofficial face.

That’s when Talon’s reserved facade finally cracked. Not a metaphoric crack, an actual, physical, painful crack. It was that heat behind his sternum, rising again, faster than before. So fast that this time, he wasn’t able to contain it.

“If she’s not down there—” Soryn started.

“I don’t care,” Talon growled, and he meant it.

“Then what’s the order, Captain?”

Talon breathed deep through his nose, feeling his chest expand, flooding his brain and muscles with oxygen. His fingers curled around the hilts of his daggers. He slid them from their sheaths, and in a voice as cold as the ice in his veins, gave the order.

Attack.

Down in the valley, the attitudes of the Syndicate thugs had noticeably improved. They fondled their new weapons like lovers, grinning with the manic joy of men who had been deprived too long. Their leader, a thick-bodied brute with a bone mask covering half his face, stood face to face with the Dominion officer. Sweat gleamed on his forehead despite the evening chill.

The officer looked down his long, crooked nose at the filthy grunt before him. The whole crew looked and smelled as if they had crawled out of a mass grave and decided to make a living off misery.

This assignment was a disgrace. Buried deep in the Fold, making backdoor trades for human cargo, dealing with half-feral scum that made his skin itch. He had spent too many years sacrificing, working his way up the ranks, to end up here.

But choices were limited for men like him.

Men who had made one mistake, just one, in the course of an otherwise exemplary career.

The masked slaver jerked his head toward the cargo ship. Two of his men began herding the terrified children toward their new prison, and the officer allowed himself a moment of professional assessment. Thin, scrawny things. Barely worth the stockpile of weapons they were surrendering. What could the Dominion possibly want with this particular group of Velari brats?

Not his place to question orders anymore. Not after what had happened.

“They are young,” he noted, a feeble attempt at filling the time with conversation.

“That’s what they ordered,” the slaver replied through his mask. “No older than twelve.”

The officer took a breath, and cast his judgment over the lot of new slaves like someone measuring humidity. After a moment that felt rehearsed, he signaled his approval.

“Product looks acceptable. We will have more work if you continue meeting expectations.”

The slaver’s visible eye crinkled with what might have been humor, or maybe just a twitch. “We always meet expectations.”

“Good.” The officer managed a tight smile. “The Crown appreciates your discretion.”

The slaver raised an eyebrow.

The officer sighed with obvious disdain, and clarified: “The Crown appreciates you keeping your mouth shut about our arrangement.”

The slaver spread his arms wide in a gesture that was probably meant to be reassuring, but looked more like an awkward invitation for a hug.

The officer turned away, already mentally composing his report. The children were being loaded into the ship by the Mason units, their mechanical efficiency a stark contrast to the messy humanity they were processing. He started back up the ramp, boots clicking with the eager rhythm of escape.

He made it exactly halfway when the sky exploded.

Not with light or fire, but with shadows tearing dark streaks toward the ground. The sound came first: thunder without clouds, sharp and sudden, ripping over the camp like reality itself was being torn open. By the time the Syndicate thugs thought to look up, it was already too late.

Talon Veyr dropped from the heavens like judgment made flesh.

His wings flared wide, black and silver feathers catching the pale light from inside the ship. The steel in his hands found its first target before anyone even realized what was happening. A slaver collapsed with a wet sound that was somehow both final, and insufficient.

Blood hit the sand in a satisfying pattern.

The camp erupted.

Five more Skyguard came in behind him, breaking formation in coordinated arcs that turned the clearing into a killing field. Blades flashed in the strange light. Wings sliced through air like ribbons of controlled fury. Soryn landed with his sword already drawn, positioning himself tactically between the children and the Mason units.

One slaver reached for his shiny new weapon. Talon’s boot caught his chest mid-draw and sent him flying into the corner of a crate hard enough to cave in his skull. Another came at him from the side, but Talon turned with fluid grace, drove his blade through the man’s ribs, and kept moving without breaking stride.

Screams rose from the camp. Diesel engines grumbled to life as their drivers tried to reverse out of hell. One of the tents collapsed into a firepit, flames licking upward into the darkening sky.

The Mason units spun toward the threat, their targeting systems flickering from standby to engagement mode with automated calibration. One raised its arm and fired a burst of compressed plasma toward the ridge, but Soryn was already moving. As he stepped under the blast, he drew his dagger and hurled it toward the bot. It slammed into the unit’s neck joint, and sparks erupted like arterial spray. The machine stumbled with an awkward grace, like it was learning what mortality felt like.

Talon moved through the chaos like fury wearing flesh. He did not hear the screams or smell the blood. He saw only the children, the cages, the Crown insignia on that ship’s hull and everything it stood for.

On the far side of the camp, the Dominion soldiers finally reacted. Shouts crackled over their comms as they turned toward the incoming threat. Plasma rifles lit the air with blue fire, but they quickly realized they were aiming at shadows.

One Skyguard dropped from above, blade-first, cutting down two soldiers before their targeting systems could compensate. Another trooper fell with steel through his throat, blood bubbling as he hit the sand.

Inside the ship, the Dominion officer stood frozen at the threshold of the command deck, one hand still resting on the interior hatch. The sound of battle echoed through the open ramp, a tide of violence he hadn’t anticipated. Screams, plasma fire, the shriek of metal being torn apart.

He didn’t need his tactical display to know the mission had gone to hell. The Masons were down, his men were dying, and those children would never make it aboard his ship.

His stomach turned as he watched the scene unfold. He had made a mistake. Another mistake. The first had practically ended his career, cost him rank and respect and any hope of advancement.

This one would mean death, if he was lucky. More likely interrogation, imprisonment, the kind of creative punishment Tyrillon reserved for officers who made the Crown look incompetent.

He stared at the console, watching lights flicker under system strain. His orders had been clear: deliver the arms, secure the merchandise, no witnesses, clean extraction.

Instead, the whole operation was burning around him.

Skyguard.

He had not seen their kind in years, assumed the rumors of surviving units were propaganda and wishful thinking. But this was real, and he was trapped in the middle of it with nowhere to run and no good options left.

With a deep breath that tasted like resignation, he reached for the compact pulse pistol at his hip. Standard Dominion issue, designed for close-quarters work and final solutions. He placed the barrel in his mouth, closed his eyes, and made the only choice that would keep him out of a Dominion interrogation cell.

A burst of violet light flared from the back of his skull, and his body collapsed onto the deck in a twitching heap, headless and steaming.

Outside, Talon pressed forward through smoke and screams, cutting a path toward the huddled children. A Syndicate thug burst from behind a truck, blade raised, the sound of rage erupting from his wide open mouth. Talon sidestepped the charge and brought his blade across the man’s chest in one fluid motion that ended the threat and the screaming simultaneously.

Another attacker charged from his blind side. Talon heard the footsteps, and pivoted cleanly to avoid contact. Before he could strike, the slaver’s head peeled off his neck. Soryn landed just as the corpse did, blood dripping from his sword.

“More inside the trucks,” he called over the chaos. “And one Mason is still functional.”

“Then break it,” Talon ordered, launching himself into the air with a heavy beat of wings.

He landed hard between the battle and the cargo ramp, wings flaring wide as the children shrank back in terror. Their eyes were too wide, too hollow, too accustomed to cruelty to recognize protection when it appeared.

Talon raised one hand, palm out, voice pitched low but firm. “It’s all right. No one is going to hurt you anymore.”

They didn’t move, didn’t speak. But they didn’t run either.

He turned just as a plasma blast seared the air inches from his head, close enough to leave the taste of ozone and electricity on his tongue.

The surviving Mason had locked onto him, its targeting system painting him with a red dot that promised quick and messy death. Violet coils glowed hot in its chest as it prepared to fire again.

Talon stepped forward and swept his wings around the children, wrapping them in a shield of blackened feathers and stubborn will. The plasma blast tore through the air behind him, close enough to singe the tips of his wings.

He did not flinch.

Instead, he hurled a dagger in a tight arc. It struck the Mason’s side and embedded shallow, just enough to pull its aim off target.

The machine pivoted with mechanical precision, but Soryn was already there. He launched from the ground using an empty crate for height, driving his blade down into the Mason’s exposed rear casing. Sparks exploded outward like a celebration. The unit jerked and staggered as its servos screamed in protest.

Soryn pulled the blade free and landed clean as the machine collapsed into the sand, another piece of Dominion superiority reduced to scrap metal and leaking fluids.

The gunfire stopped. Not all at once, but in stuttering bursts that gradually faded into silence. A final shot here, a dying scream there, then nothing but the low crackle of flames and the whisper of wind through the wreckage.

Smoke drifted across the clearing in thin veils. Fires burned low in the collapsed tents. One truck, engine coughing and frame listing, tore off into the distance carrying whoever had been lucky enough to escape. The rest of the Dominion soldiers and Syndicate slavers lay where they had fallen. Their trade in human misery had ended with the Skyguard balancing their accounts.

Talon stood among the huddled children, scanning the remnants of the camp with eyes that had seen too much death to find any satisfaction in it. Bodies scattered like broken toys. Blood soaking into sand that would remember this night long after the bones had been picked clean. A Dominion helmet rolled by in the wind.

And then he saw them. Three of his own, lying motionless in the sand.

Two Skyguard warriors, wings torn and spread wide, faces turned toward the sky they had sworn to defend. Their eyes were empty, glassy. Death did not care about oaths or honor or the price of doing what was right.

The third was slumped beside the wreckage of a truck, trying and failing to sit upright despite the hole in his chest where a plasma bolt had burned through armor and flesh. Talon was beside him in seconds, kneeling in sand that was already dark with blood.

“Easy.” He gripped the man’s hand. The wound was mortal, no question. Plasma fire did not leave room for miracles, just slow death and the chance to say goodbye.

The dying Skyguard blinked up at him with eyes that were already losing focus. “Captain.”

“You held the line,” Talon said. “We did what we came to do.”

The man managed a faint smile, blood at the corners of his mouth. “Then it was worth it.”

His breath left him like a sigh, and he was gone.

Talon did not move for a long moment, still holding a hand that would never grip a sword again. Around him, the last two members of his squad landed with barely a sound, breath ragged, faces streaked with ash and other people’s blood.

Soryn looked down at the body, then back at Talon. “What now, Captain?”

Talon rose slowly, joints cracking like old wood. He surveyed the ruined camp one more time: the cages, the Crown insignia burned into that ship’s hull, the children still watching him with eyes that still could not process hope.

A tear tracked down his cheek, cutting a clean line through the dirt. Just one. For three Skyguard who had given their lives to save children they would never know, in a war that might never end.

“I want you two to take these children to the nearest Vernathi settlement,” he ordered, voice steady despite the weight crushing his chest. “Make sure they are fed, given medical attention, protected.”

Soryn frowned. “What about Kaela?”

Talon did not waver. “Our brothers died for something. That only matters if these children live to see tomorrow. I am trusting you with that mission.”

Soryn nodded slowly. After a breath, he asked, “And you?”

The tear had dried as Talon looked once more at the bodies of his fallen men. Then, he touched the leather-wrapped charm at his side with fingers that trembled just slightly.

In that moment, the grief inside him hardened into the rage, and his eyes went dark.

“I made a promise,” he said, meeting Soryn’s eyes. “And Skyguard do not break promises.”

With a sharp thrust of his wings, Talon rose into the air. He hovered above them for a heartbeat, silhouetted against a sunset that had witnessed a slaughter and offered no judgment.

Then he gave a single, silent salute.

None of them said it, but they all knew: this would likely be the last time they saw each other alive. The last time the Skyguard would fly together as anything more than a myth.