The Sync-Siphon
Static shrieked in Kaelen’s optic nerve, a jagged waveform of combat telemetry that wasn’t his. He bolted upright in his bunk, the cramped, rusted metal coffin of Salvage Bay 4 vibrating with the prototype frame’s hungry, rhythmic thrum. His vision was a chaotic smear of heat signatures and optimal strike vectors; the machine’s logic demanded he calculate the structural weak points of the room’s load-bearing struts.
Sync level: 84%. Identity integrity: Critical.
"Shut it down," Kaelen hissed, his voice cracking. He slammed his palm against the haptic console. It refused to disconnect, instead pushing a cold, analytical directive into his frontal lobe: Target acquisition required. The frame was rewriting his memories into weaponized efficiency. With a guttural roar, Kaelen surged his internal mana, forcing an Overdrive spike. The sensation was a white-hot scalpel through his subconscious. The data purge worked, but as the interface flickered, he felt a hollow, aching void in his mind. He reached for the memory of Master Thorne’s stern, bearded face—the man who had forged him—but found only a blurred, static-filled gap. He was losing himself to the machine, one memory at a time.
Forty-eight minutes remained until the Outer Sector trial. Kaelen stumbled into the hangar, his matte-black frame trailing a faint, violet heat signature. Three elite-track pilots awaited him, their gleaming, standard-issue Vanguard frames hissing with professional disdain.
"Keep to the rear, scrap-heap," Halloway, the squad leader, barked over the local channel. "You’re the bait. Don’t waste our fuel by dying too slowly."
Kaelen didn't respond. He had Lyra’s override keycard hidden in his flight suit, but he knew he couldn't rely on outside help. He had to be the predator. As they marched toward the deployment gate, he felt the prototype’s interface light flicker from a dying, warning red to a steady, predatory violet. It hungered for input.
The Outer Sector training grounds smelled of ozone and scorched composite. When the objective marker—a localized capture point—went live, the skirmish ignited. As the squad surged forward, Kaelen engaged the siphon module. A metallic screech echoed through his cockpit, and the violet light in his peripheral vision flared to a blinding intensity.
Almost instantly, Halloway’s frame stuttered. The elite pilot’s movements turned jagged, his thrusters misfiring as if the machine’s very logic had been hollowed out. Kaelen felt a surge of cold, synthetic clarity. He wasn't just draining performance metrics; he was drinking their experience. He saw the precise, lethal gaps in their defensive formations that he hadn't known how to exploit moments ago. He executed a perfect, high-speed pivot, weaving through incoming fire with a muscle memory that wasn't his own. He secured the objective solo, leaving his teammates stranded in the dust, their frames flickering like dying embers.
As the dust settled, Kaelen stared at his HUD. The warning light had settled into a steady, predatory blue. It was cold, clinical, and entirely alien. A flash of memory—violent, visceral, and belonging to Halloway—seared through his mind: the phantom pressure of a railgun slug tearing through a bulkhead, the specific, gut-wrenching terror of a sync failure in a high-gravity turn. He hadn't just drained data; he had consumed their combat expertise.
Diagnostic: 42% deviation. Neural overwrite in progress.
Just as the realization solidified, a sharp, rhythmic ping echoed in his ear. Director Vane’s tracking bug had bypassed his local firewall. A live, unfiltered feed of his frame’s internal telemetry was now broadcasting directly to the Academy’s central security hub. Kaelen was no longer just a low-ranked anomaly; he was a target in the crosshairs of the man who built the ladder he was trying to climb.