Dexton
Like Taboo, Blackwatch had another name, once.
The original designation had been purged from official records long before Dexton ever set foot on the station. The ancient empire that first hollowed the artificial planetoid and orbited it above Taboo’s upper atmosphere had not survived human vengeance.
Their language persisted only in corrupted glyphs etched into bulkheads too deep to bother repurposing, half-erased by plasma scoring, ritual defacement, and the slow corrosion of time.
To pirates, smugglers, slavers, mercenaries, and those who lived on the margins of legitimacy, it was Blackwatch.
Because he said so, that was all it ever needed.
The station hung above Taboo like a watchful scar, its immense bulk partially eclipsing the artificial planet below. From a distance, its silhouette resembled a fractured ring reinforced by brutalist pylons and asymmetrical superstructures grafted on over centuries of occupation. Nothing about it was elegant. Everything about it was functional, layered atop earlier functionality in a way that suggested survival rather than design.
Blackwatch had been built to last.
That purpose remained, even if its custodians had changed.
Deep within its core, sensor arrays older than most modern governments still functioned with unsettling efficiency.
All signals coming from Taboo’s layered artificial shells were captured, filtered, and archived. Some of the systems were so deeply integrated that no one alive truly understood how they worked anymore. Attempts to replace them had failed generations ago.
So they were left alone.
And Dexton used them.
From Blackwatch, one could monitor the entirety of Taboo’s artificial ecology: the stratified city-layers spiraling inward toward the planetary core, the traffic arteries threading through vacuum-sealed transit corridors, the industrial districts buried beneath habitable zones, the forgotten levels where none dared to reach.
City 29 was but a dot that glowed faintly in the station’s tactical overlays; the few monitors that still worked relayed a dense knot of activity, and now, irregularity.
Dexton stood at the center of Blackwatch’s primary command chamber, one boot resting against the base of his steel throne. He had not sat in it for hours.
The throne itself was an affectation, he knew that. All but symbol and intimidation tactics, but it served its purpose. It reminded visitors that Blackwatch was his alone.
His cybernetic eye glowed a low, steady red as he studied the data slab one of his trembling underlings brought him.
At the highest layer, highlighted in cold white, hung the most immediate problem.
CTP Expeditionary Vessel — WCS Arbitrage has identified itself.
They had not attempted stealth. They were even so bold as to broadcast their identifier and initiate their business dealings immediately.
That alone irritated him.
Wesstec hull signatures were unmistakable once you knew what to look for: the display of wealth in a series of adaptations that pleased the eyes.
They were holding position just outside what could reasonably be interpreted as Blackwatch’s effective weapons envelope.
Close enough to be noticed.
Far enough to shout “can’t touch me”.
He clenched his cybernetic hand, claws extending with a soft metallic rasp before retracting again.
-Smart little fuckers.- he muttered as he saw the official designation as a humanitarian vessel.
There was nothing humanitarian about the science vessel that floated in the void without a care.
Besides, the Ceti Trade Pact did not reveal itself unless it saw green; the very idea of a humanitarian expedition was laughable.
Still, that meant he couldn’t attack them without drawing significant heat on himself.
Dexton turned slightly, the red glow of his artificial eye sweeping across the chamber as auxiliary displays flickered to life in response to his presence. He had gutted this room personally over the years, ripping out ceremonial nonsense left behind by previous occupiers and replacing it with something closer to a war room.
Blackwatch’s core systems fed directly into this chamber. Not everything, but enough to gain an edge.
The CTP presence was merely the icing on a troublesome cake.
Their arrival alone would have been cause for concern, but combined with the escalating anomalies in City 29, it suggested premeditation.
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Or exploitation.
He remembered the incident reports.
Casualties. Missing crews. Slaver operations gone dark.
Surveillance feeds, terminating mid-cycle with blood splatters. Biometric logs ending not in silence, but in a multitude of signals.
Dexton exhaled slowly through his nose.
Beasts that were content to roam in darkness now surfaced and consumed whoever was unfortunate enough to meet them.
They didn’t move in coordinated formations — Dexton would have recognized that — but along vectors of opportunity. Food sources. Heat. Population density. Infrastructure weaknesses.
Predatory, but not stupid.
Then there was …whatever hit his annual squabble with Claye. He had a month to track survivors and extract enough sworn truths to come close to the facts.
–What the hell are you up to, old man?- he said aloud, mostly to himself.
His biological eye narrowed as he looked at the open reports gathered on the holo-screens.
They were part machine, part biological hybrids that moved with a purpose and military precision.
They could lose limbs or heads and still move about; only total annihilation could stop them.
Many swore to having seen people who were thought either lost or dead.
If only Kess kept better track of her underlings… well, she had paid the price, at least with her command.
The question, the real one, was what kind of tech was that?
Claye wouldn’t peep; his daughter was some kind of genius doctor who worked on tech.
And CTP liked plausible deniability, so there wasn’t much he could discover directly or not.
If they were testing a new weapons platform, a pirate-run artificial planet on the edge of Council jurisdiction would be an ideal proving ground.
High data turnover. No legal oversight.
And if things went wrong?
Blame the pirates, of course.
Dexton’s lips curled into a humorless smile. If anything, this was bringing a new batch of weapons into circulation.
He pulled up the combat footage again — the images that had been circulating among his lieutenants despite his efforts to suppress them.
They had displayed tactical awareness. Ambush behavior.
Target prioritization.Adaptation mid-engagement.
There was something that bothered him far more than raw lethality.
It was a human tactic, a fucking old school human tactic.
Claye had overwhelmed him with defence tactics so far. If he pulled this off, that was better than the alternative.
If the CTP Institute was involved, that would mean they were the first faction to use human historic warfare tactics so accurately that one could almost believe it was indeed humans acting.
Dexton got up from the throne, pacing slowly around the chamber, boots echoing softly against the reinforced deck plating.
-If I were them- he muttered -I’d want to see if I could frame the protectorate with tech gone rogue and ask for a ransom… I mean appropriate compensation for damages incurred.-
He stopped before the tactical projection of City 29, staring down at the glowing mass of activity.
His cybernetic eye flared brighter for a moment as he considered the implications.
He thought about how he had built his domain through violence, yes, but also through understanding the systems that governed the galaxy’s underbelly.
That system was money, and the CTP’s presence and their endless pockets complicated that system.
He turned away from the display and activated a private channel with a sharp gesture.
-Cerberus-
The three-headed holographic projection flickered into existence near the edge of the chamber, each canine head rendered in hard light, their expressions neutral.
He crossed his arms, muscles tensing beneath his coat.
-What’s the situation on the economic exchange?-
A window popped up from the VI, and he looked at a sharp increase in exchange from leashes to credits. Another pop-up indicated that the stock of stolen credits was depleting. Fast.
Dexton snorted softly.
- Project economic data, evaluate corrections.-
He glanced sharply at the projection. The Cerberus projection remained silent, its heads unmoving.
Dexton exhaled again, slower this time.
-So we’ll be broke anyway. Great way to be sent back to square one.-
Dexton straightened, resolve settling over his irritation.
If the CTP thought they could probe his domain without consequence, they were wrong.
He would remind them why his name was to be feared, why he never abandoned his cruiser or his former crew.
He turned back toward the tactical display, issuing a series of commands with practiced efficiency.
City 29 better be ready, for it would become more than a proving ground for wannabe pirates.
Seventeen
Hunger sated.
Finally.
Hunting for real.
Things that spoke fought with weapons of light and heat.
She could adapt to the latter.
Why did they speak?
Did it matter? They were delicious.
She could finally grow.
She would grow.
She already donned the armor of the warrior.
She would infiltrate, she would lay siege.
She would oversee her forces from the vantage points.
Her caretakers already were nursing the next wave.
Her collectors were amassing the remains to grow other flesh.
Still, they stared at squares of light.
Were they related to those who imprisoned her in a transparent cage?
Did it matter if they were to be digested?
Did it matter if they were to become new flesh?
She would conquer this tasteless place.
She would become all with it and emerge into the void.
She could hear the call above, the song of the stars.
She would coalesce, she would become an architect.
She would mold flesh into new forms, forms that could traverse the stars.
But first, she needed to hunt.
Yes, sating hunger came first.
And she hungered for more.
