Chapter 2: Whispers of the Forgotten War
Vire Station 6 drifted quietly near the edges of an imploding sun, its hull scorched and pitted from years of radiation and silence. Inside the derelict structure, Ruby stood alone in the center of a forgotten chamber, the metallic floor beneath her boots layered with dust, ash, and broken memories. Her left glove was stained with dried blood—not hers—and the flickering terminal to her right hummed with dying energy. The portal gate behind her, one of the last functioning devices connected to the ancient Titan slipstream routes, crackled softly as if remembering its purpose. It had not been used in years, and Ruby wasn't sure if it ever would be again. But she kept returning to it, like a wound that refused to close.
She crouched near a crumpled datapad on the floor and tapped the screen, hoping for salvageable intel. The words that blinked onto the display weren't coordinates or encrypted files, but a list of names. Titan names. Most of them were crossed out. Her father's name was at the top. Her mother's a few lines below. Her own? Not listed. They hadn't known she survived.
The silence wrapped around her shoulders like an old cloak. She sat back against a rusted wall and let her head tilt up toward the exposed pipes and cables above, breathing slowly, trying to keep her thoughts from spiraling. For a moment, her face softened. She allowed herself the rare, dangerous act of remembering.
Twelve years ago, the world she once called home burned like a sacrificial star. Ruby had grown up on Elarion—a planet sculpted by Titan hands, where mountain ranges bowed to their creators, and the air shimmered with natural energy fields. Her people had ruled as guardians, protectors, gods to some. They were immortal in the eyes of mortals, beings of strength and cosmic knowledge. But they were not invincible.
When the war began, it didn't start with a declaration or a single battle. It started with silence. Titan outposts went dark. Messengers disappeared. The stars near the border began to dim unnaturally. And then, the Red Eclipse emerged. No one knew where they came from. The cultists claimed to serve a higher truth—a force that predated creation itself—and they believed Titan blood was the key to unlocking it. What followed was a massacre so swift and brutal that even the Titans, proud and ancient, couldn't comprehend the depth of the threat until it was far too late.
Ruby was sixteen when the skies opened above the Titan capital. Her father, Commander Oren the Warborn, had stood on the edge of the great spire fortress, a colossal weapon humming on his back. He gave her one look—hard, proud, afraid—and told her to run. Her mother activated a hidden portal. Ruby had screamed, begged to stay and fight, but her mother's final words cut through her heart like molten steel: "Live, Ruby. Live because we won't."
She was thrown into another dimension before the world collapsed behind her. She'd landed on a forgotten moon, bleeding, disoriented, orphaned by the cosmos. And for a long time, she stayed hidden. Not because she was afraid of dying—but because she couldn't.
Ruby reached for the chain around her neck and pulled out the small pendant that never left her body. Inside it was a strand of her father's hair—blessed by Titan fire, still warm after all these years. She had tested her immortality more times than she could count. Not as some act of bravery, but because she wanted to believe that somewhere in her shattered DNA, the curse might break. That death might eventually take her. It never did. Every time a wound should've ended her, her body rewound itself. Skin regrew. Bones mended. Her heart refused to stop beating.
It wasn't just healing. It was something deeper. Something darker.
The communicator in her ear crackled to life, the voice on the other end brisk and clinical.
"New contract incoming. Priority level: Alpha. Target coordinates uploaded."
Ruby blinked once, the haze of memory retreating like a shadow in sunlight. She stood, brushed dust from her coat, and tapped her wrist module. The target details loaded instantly. Her jaw tightened as the name appeared.
Nex Varrow.
A former Red Eclipse general. A war criminal. The scientist responsible for multiple Titan bloodline experiments. Presumed dead after the Siege of Velkar 4.
She hadn't heard that name in years.
"Accept the contract," she muttered, already turning toward her ship.
The voice on the comm hesitated. "Are you sure? Intel says the target has been enhanced. No longer fully organic. Engaged in… unauthorized resurrection trials."
"That makes two of us," Ruby replied coldly, then ended the call.
Outside, her vessel—the Seraph's Howl—awaited. A sleek, deadly glider designed for multiversal travel, outfitted with cloaking tech, auto-regenerative plating, and weapons stripped from the wreckage of a fallen empire. As she stepped aboard, the ship's AI greeted her with its usual dry tone.
"Welcome back, Commander Warborn. Shall I warm the plasma cannons or play sad music to match your mood?"
"Plot a course to Vireth-9," she said. "And shut up."
"Affirmative. Engaging sarcasm suppression."
The ship tore through dimensional space within seconds, leaving behind the broken station and its buried ghosts. Ruby leaned against the cockpit console, eyes closed, letting the hum of the core lull her thoughts. But sleep didn't come. It never did.
Instead, she opened a locked compartment at her side and pulled out an old case. Inside was a sketch—charcoal on parchment, faded and torn. A girl with silver hair and fire in her eyes. Her younger cousin, Lyra. The last time Ruby had seen her was the day before Elarion fell. She'd assumed Lyra died in the siege like the others. But now? A chilling possibility stirred. If Nex was alive, and if he'd resumed his experiments...
The console beeped.
"Arrival in seventy seconds. No signs of major infrastructure, but there's an anomalous energy signature beneath the planet's surface. It matches Titan resonance."
Ruby felt a sick weight drop into her stomach.
If they were experimenting again, if they were using her people's remains for more twisted ends, then she wasn't walking into a bounty. She was walking into a graveyard wearing her own name on the tombstone.
Her grip tightened on the hilt of her blade.
Let them try.
Let them all try.