[NO] King Xeros - Before the Strike

Before the Strike

The party ship had stopped pretending it was flying normally.

It was still moving. The engines were still running, the inertial dampers were still holding, and the navigation display continued to paint a clean vector toward Peak of Evening.

But everything about the ship's motion had changed.

There was no leisurely cruise now. No one was wandering between stations. Harnesses were secured. Weapons were within reach. Systems displays had been reduced to the information that mattered.

The moon filled most of the forward display.

Pale pink.

Almost beautiful.

A dark metallic structure was embedded across a section of its surface, the station's artificial lights cutting geometric patterns into the surrounding rock. Even from this distance, the scale was difficult to judge. Peak of Evening wasn't a single building so much as an industrial settlement built into the moon itself.

And somewhere inside it was a crystalline ship that had no business being there.

Cat stood behind the pilot's station, one hand resting lightly against the back of the seat.

"All right."

Six faces turned toward her.

Min-woo's optical sensors adjusted by a fraction.

Cat looked around the cabin.

"Let's go over this once."

Kris didn't look up from the tactical display.

"We've already gone over it twice."

"Then the third time should be efficient."

"It wasn't the first two."

Francis looked up from the compact interface projected above his wrist.

"Technically, the first briefing wasn't an operational review."

Kris finally looked at him.

"That distinction isn't helping."

"It wasn't intended to."

Yosef leaned back against the bulkhead, arms folded. Min-woo stood beside him, tall enough that the ceiling-mounted emergency lights reflected faintly across the Android's dark hair.

Rome had occupied the seat nearest the central display.

He was studying the image of Peak of Evening with an intensity that suggested he had already forgotten everyone else was in the room.

Stephen noticed.

"Rome."

"Hm?"

"You're staring."

"I know."

Stephen waited.

Rome finally turned.

"The ship."

Cat nodded.

"Xeros."

"It's not a ship."

Kris looked over.

Rome pointed at the display.

"Not in the conventional sense."

Francis's eyebrows rose.

"That's a useful distinction."

"No, it isn't."

"Then why did you make it?"

"Because it isn't conventional."

Francis smiled faintly.

Kris closed his eyes for half a second.

Cat intervened before the conversation could become an argument about terminology.

"Rome."

Rome straightened.

"Right."

"What do we actually know?"

Rome looked back at the display.

"Very little."

"Useful little."

He considered.

"Peak of Evening is a lunar station. Existing settlement. Trade and extraction operation. GrimCo occupied it after the incident. Xeros arrived before the occupation."

"Independently," Francis said.

"Apparently."

"Which is the important part."

Rome nodded.

"Yes."

His fingers moved across the interface, bringing up the limited intelligence packet.

"Nobody appears to have piloted it in. It simply arrived and docked."

Kris looked at the tactical display.

"And GrimCo hasn't been able to move it."

"Not reliably," Rome said.

Francis corrected him.

"Not according to what Naiaj gave us."

Rome looked at him.

"That's what I said."

"No. You said they haven't been able to move it. The briefing said they've been trying to retrofit it."

A pause.

Rome frowned.

"You're splitting hairs."

"I'm separating confirmed information from inference."

Yosef gave a quiet exhale through his nose.

"Here we go."

Francis ignored him.

"The distinction matters. If GrimCo has physically modified the ship but hasn't successfully controlled it, then we shouldn't assume the modifications are functional."

"They have a construction bay full of equipment and a large amount of power expenditure around the vessel," Rome said. "Something is functional."

"Something."

"Enough to matter."

"Probably."

Cat raised one finger.

"That's enough."

Both men stopped.

Cat moved to the central display.

"The useful question is not whether GrimCo understands Xeros."

She enlarged the station.

"It's what they've done with it."

Francis nodded.

"Exactly."

Kris brought up the station's structural overlay.

"Scout has identified the Construction Bay as the primary concentration of activity."

"Heavy energy output," Cat said.

"Heavy enough to matter."

"And that's where we're going."

Kris nodded.

"Yes."

Rome glanced toward the eastern side of the station.

"There was another concentration around the greenhouse."

"We're not going there," Cat said.

Rome looked at her.

"I know."

"You were about to object."

"I was about to say we don't know why it's important."

"We don't need to know yet."

Rome considered this.

"Fair."

Francis rotated the station schematic.

"The Construction Bay makes more sense anyway."

Kris looked at him.

"Explain."

"If they're modifying a vessel, they need infrastructure. Power. Tools. Fabrication. Diagnostics. Personnel."

Yosef nodded.

"Storage."

"That too."

"Replacement components."

"Yes."

"Heavy lifting equipment."

Francis glanced at him.

"I was getting there."

"You weren't."

"I was."

"You were explaining the concept."

"That's generally how explanations work."

Yosef looked at Min-woo.

"Tell him."

Min-woo's face remained perfectly neutral.

"Francis is technically correct."

Yosef nodded.

"Thank you."

Min-woo continued.

"However, Yosef's addition regarding heavy lifting equipment is operationally relevant."

Yosef pointed at him.

"See?"

Francis looked back at his interface.

"I've worked with both of you too long."

Stephen folded his arms.

"You've known Min-woo for less time than you've known Yosef."

Francis glanced at him.

"That is somehow worse."

Nobody laughed.

Min-woo looked at Francis.

"Statement acknowledged."

Francis stared at him for a moment.

Then returned to his display.

Cat hid the smallest possible smile.

"Construction Bay," she said. "We hit it, secure it, find out what GrimCo has been doing, and determine whether we can use any of their work against them."

Kris nodded.

"Scout Team gets us the opening. Shield Team suppresses the station's external defenses. We make one attack run and land."

"Then?"

"We move fast."

"How fast?"

"Fast enough that the defenders don't have time to reorganize."

Cat looked at Yosef.

"You?"

"Depends what we find."

"Assume equipment, power systems, hostile personnel."

"I'll prepare for all three."

"Min-woo?"

The Android looked at Yosef.

"Already prepared."

Yosef gave him a sideways glance.

"You packed the additional cells?"

"Yes."

"The repair kit?"

"Yes."

"Cutting tools?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Min-woo paused.

"I also brought the thing you forgot."

Yosef looked at him.

"What thing?"

"The thing you told me not to remind you about."

A silence fell across the cabin.

Francis looked over.

Rome stopped studying the station.

Stephen's expression didn't change.

Kris continued examining the tactical display.

Cat looked at Yosef.

"What did you forget?"

Yosef sighed.

"Nothing important."

Min-woo lifted a compact case from beside him.

Yosef stared at it.

Then at Min-woo.

"That."

"Correct."

"You could have just said it was in the case."

"You instructed me not to remind you."

"I said not to remind me during the briefing."

"That was not specified."

Yosef rubbed his forehead.

"Fine."

Cat moved on.

"Rome."

Rome looked up.

"You're our unknowns specialist."

"I know."

"Anything strange, you get first look."

"Within reason."

Francis turned toward him.

"Within reason."

Rome narrowed his eyes.

"Yes."

"Good."

"Why did you say it like that?"

"Because you have a history."

"I don't have a history."

Yosef looked over.

"You absolutely have a history."

Rome's expression tightened.

"That was one time."

"Lightning bolt through a force field," Francis said.

"I knew what I was doing."

"You knew what the lightning bolt did."

"I knew what the force field did."

"You didn't know what happened when you combined them."

"I found out."

Stephen sighed.

Cat looked at Rome.

"Today, you find out before you do it."

Rome opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

"Fine."

Kris finally spoke.

"That's actually the important distinction."

Rome looked at him.

Kris turned the tactical display so everyone could see.

"We don't know what we're walking into. That means the first thirty seconds matter more than the first thirty minutes."

He marked the Construction Bay.

"Landing here gives us a damaged environment, limited visibility, unknown enemy disposition, and probably compromised infrastructure."

Another marker appeared.

"We don't spread out."

Cat nodded.

"Agreed."

"Nobody pursues fleeing hostiles unless they're a threat to the objective."

Yosef nodded.

"Agreed."

"Nobody wanders off because they find something interesting."

Rome looked offended.

"I wasn't going to."

Francis didn't look up.

"You were."

"I wasn't."

"You were thinking about it."

"Thinking isn't wandering."

Kris ignored both of them.

"We establish the perimeter first. Then we identify the command structure. Then we locate whatever GrimCo has connected to Xeros."

Cat considered the plan.

"And if the Construction Bay is heavily defended?"

Kris's answer came immediately.

"We break through."

"And if the structure is unstable?"

"We adapt."

"If Xeros is damaged?"

"We don't make it worse."

Francis looked at him.

"That depends on what you mean by worse."

Kris turned.

"Define it."

"If the ship is already unstable, disabling the wrong system could make the situation worse."

"Then don't disable the wrong system."

Francis's expression remained completely serious.

"That's the objective."

Cat looked between them.

"Good. Then we're agreed."

Francis nodded.

Kris turned back to the display.

Stephen had been silent throughout most of the discussion.

Now he spoke.

"What happens to the station personnel?"

The room became quieter.

Cat looked at him.

"We find them."

"After the Construction Bay?"

"If they're there."

"And if GrimCo has them working on the ship?"

Yosef answered.

"Then we get them out."

Stephen nodded.

"No debate?"

Kris looked at him.

"No debate."

Stephen held his gaze for a moment.

Then nodded.

"Good."

Rome shifted in his seat.

"There is one other issue."

Cat turned.

"What?"

"The ship itself."

Everyone looked toward the forward display.

Xeros wasn't visible yet.

Only the moon.

Only the station.

Only a thin line of sensor data showing something enormous and anomalous somewhere beyond the station's structure.

Rome spoke more quietly now.

"We're assuming GrimCo's modifications are the problem."

Francis looked at him.

"That's what the evidence suggests."

"No."

Rome shook his head.

"We're assuming they're the whole problem."

Francis stopped.

Rome looked at the display.

"We don't know what Xeros is."

Nobody answered.

"We don't know how it got here. We don't know why it came here. We don't know what systems it uses. We don't know whether it has an intelligence. We don't know whether it was damaged before GrimCo found it."

His eyes moved from the moon to the others.

"And we don't know what happens when someone tries to make it do something it wasn't built to do."

Francis slowly lowered his interface.

"That's fair."

Kris nodded once.

"Which means we don't treat the ship like a normal objective."

Cat looked around the cabin.

"No."

She looked at the station again.

"We treat it like an unknown."

Stephen's voice was quiet.

"An unknown that GrimCo has already disturbed."

"Exactly."

The ship vibrated.

Not turbulence.

A change in engine output.

The navigation display flashed.

Peak of Evening had grown larger.

The pale moon now filled the forward screen.

Cat straightened.

"Two minutes."

Kris was already moving.

"Positions."

Yosef checked his rifle.

Min-woo secured the final equipment case.

Rome shut down every unnecessary interface and brought his Hypergrid tools online.

Francis did the same.

Stephen checked his medical kit, then the charge on his shield.

Kris locked the tactical overlay to his visor.

Cat stood in the center of the cabin for one final second.

Nobody spoke.

They didn't need to.

They had the objective.

They had the approach.

They knew what they didn't know.

And, for the moment, that was enough.

The comm channel opened.

Naiaj's voice came through, clipped and professional.

"Strike Team, Scout is moving into position. Shield has begun suppression. Stand by."

Kris looked toward Cat.

She nodded.

The ship dropped beneath the moon's orbital plane.

Peak of Evening's surface rushed upward.

The station's defensive systems came alive.

Red indicators appeared across the tactical display.

Kris's voice changed.

Not louder.

Just sharper.

"Contact."

The first defensive laser crossed the darkness.

It missed the ship by meters.

Another followed.

Then another.

The cabin filled with warning tones.

Yosef braced himself against the harness.

Min-woo's hands locked around his weapon.

Rome stared at the approaching Construction Bay.

Francis watched the power signatures.

Stephen raised his shield.

Cat looked forward.

"Let's go."

The ship accelerated.

And Peak of Evening opened fire.