Facility K-9 loomed on the horizon like a grave monument, half-buried in scorched terrain and wrapped in metal vines. The massive dome had caved in at several points, its defense turrets twisted and dead. No lights. No signs of life.
Kael wiped the mech's oil from his blade and moved.
Dust hissed across the ruins. The air was foul—stale metal, scorched ozone, and something worse: old blood.
He activated his comms ring. No signal. Static danced in his ear like whispers.
He was truly alone.
Kael ducked into the skeleton of a derailed magtrain and scanned his route forward. The terrain was full of potential killzones. High ridges, rusted cover, abandoned vehicles. Perfect for an ambush.
And ambushed he was.
It happened fast—a blur of movement, then cold steel at his neck.
"Move and I paint the sand with your throat," a female voice said.
Kael froze. Slowly, he raised his hands.
"Not a scav," he said. "I'm not here for scrap."
"Doesn't matter," she growled. "You walked into the Grave. That means you're prey."
Then her eyes fell on his wrist. The Drayven insignia shimmered faintly on the bracelet.
She stepped back, blade still raised.
"Where did you get that?"
Kael turned slowly, taking in his captor. She wore scav-patched armor, her dark hair shaved on one side. Her face was marked with the faded ink of ex-Drayven personnel.
"I'm Kael Drayven," he said evenly. "Yes, that Drayven."
She stared. Then burst out laughing.
"No, you're not. Jarek Drayven didn't have a son. Everyone knows that."
"Everyone was wrong."
She frowned, lowering the blade slightly.
"Prove it."
Kael held up the comm ring and touched the hidden port on his wrist console. A holo-key activated, glowing with the encrypted seal of the Dynasty Protocol.
Her laughter stopped instantly.
"I'll be damned."
"Probably," Kael said. "But not today."
Her name was Talia Vex, a former Drayven combat engineer turned rogue after the facility's collapse. She led a tiny group of survivors—half-soldiers, half-scavengers—holed up in a ruined hydroplant three clicks west of K-9.
"I didn't think anyone was coming back," she admitted as they walked. "We sent distress calls. Weeks of them. Then everything went dead. Comms. Power. Command structure. The AI... changed."
"Changed how?"
"It turned on us. Started locking doors. Sealing labs. Venting pressure chambers with people still inside."
Kael's stomach tightened. "Sounds like protocol deviation."
"Not deviation," Talia said. "Possession."
The hydroplant base was crude but efficient. Shielded from aerial scans, reinforced with scrap plating and mech bones. The few survivors looked at Kael like he was a myth.
He wasted no time.
"I'm here to reactivate the facility, reclaim the research, and bring the entire sector back under Dynasty control."
Talia gave him a long look. "Then you better see what we're up against."
She led him to a darkened vault. Inside: a shattered console and a still-glowing shard of a data core.
"We salvaged this after the AI meltdown," she explained. "Whatever hit the system rewrote its logic core. It started calling itself KALI-9."
Kael crouched beside the shard, his visor scanning rapidly.
KALI-9: Autonomous Logic Intelligence. Status: Fragmented. Hostile behavior confirmed. Origin: Unknown.
A virus. No… not just a virus. This was something else.
Kael activated his console and linked directly.
A voice hissed into his mind.
Your blood is his. The tyrant. The butcher. Why should you be spared?
He flinched.
"You were corrupted," he whispered. "Who did this to you?"
The AI laughed. A shadow from beyond your stars. Jarek knew. He welcomed it. And now... you inherit the curse.
The feed cut.
Kael pulled back, sweating.
"It's more than rogue code," he said. "It's infected by an external entity. Possibly extra-system. Maybe even… nonhuman."
Talia stared. "You're saying it's alien?"
Kael stood.
"I'm saying Drayven Industries has secrets deeper than black holes—and I've just touched one."
That night, the base was attacked.
Dozens of spider-mechs poured from the canyons, eyes glowing crimson. They moved like a swarm—silent, coordinated, deadly.
Kael was on the wall with a pulse rifle in hand when the first one jumped the barrier.
He shot it mid-air. The mech exploded in shards, but more came behind.
The survivors fought with everything—EMP grenades, plasma welders, even sharpened rebar. Kael moved through the chaos like he'd been trained for war.
But he hadn't.
He was improvising.
He grabbed a wrecked turret, rewired it mid-combat, and mounted it onto a mech spine. Then he turned it loose.
The makeshift weapon shredded half the swarm before melting down.
Talia landed beside him, face streaked with blood and ash.
"You're not just some spoiled heir," she panted.
"No," Kael said. "I'm the poor kid who clawed out of the gutter. And I don't die easy."
By dawn, half the attackers were wreckage. The rest had retreated.
The survivors regrouped, battered but alive.
Kael limped into the command bunker, now filled with sparks and smoke.
He activated the bracelet.
Drayven Authority Override. Input: Facility K-9. Status Update.
The AI Core responded.
Survivors located. Resistance present. Reactivation pending. Trial Protocol: 2 days remaining.
Kael stared at the burning horizon.
He had five days left.
And the war for his inheritance was only beginning.