Chapter 10
The proving ground timer read 66 hours and 57 minutes. Kai Ren sat strapped inside the Salvage Hawk, cockpit glass still fogged with coolant vapor from Floor Six. The left arm actuator hung by frayed wiring, scorched plating throwing jagged shadows under the bay lights. On the public board across the arena, his name sat locked at +39—tied with Jax Korr. Every citizen watching the feed knew what that tie meant: the underdog had clawed even.
Director Lena Vale’s enhanced telemetry painted the inside of his cockpit blood-red with kill-switch warnings. One flicker from the new prototype module Mira had fed him and the whole frame would go dark. Jax’s Shadowbind faction had already proven they could trigger it remotely.
Kai’s fingers moved across the hidden tactile panel. The module’s integration sequence hummed low, a vibration only he could feel. Telemetry spiked. He held his breath while the system logged the anomaly as “minor servo drift.”
“Still breathing, Kai?” Mira’s voice came tight over the encrypted line. “Telemetry’s feeding straight to Vale’s desk. You’ve got maybe ninety seconds before they flag it as deliberate.”
“Almost there,” he muttered, eyes on the fluctuating heat curve. The prototype slid into place with a soft click that sounded louder than any explosion. Heat strain immediately climbed—acceptable for now, lethal in prolonged combat. He sealed the panel. The kill-switch icon steadied from angry red to watchful amber.
Outside, the arena speakers crackled. Director Vale’s voice, measured and cold, carried across the proving ground and every public screen in the city. “Floor Six cleared under recalibrated parameters. Reputation update logged. The ladder has moved. Expect tightened resistance on the next ascent.”
The board refreshed. Kai’s +39 held. No one in the stands missed the message: the bar had risen again because of him.
He powered down the Hawk’s main systems and climbed out, left arm still twitching from residual feedback. The bay smelled of ozone and hot metal. Before he reached the briefing corridor, two academy enforcers fell in step behind him—standard escort now.
Director Vale waited in the small observation room, uniform crisp, expression carved from granite. Jax Korr leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, media smile nowhere in sight. His eyes tracked Kai like a targeting reticule.
“Ren,” Vale said without preamble. “Your continued use of unapproved modifications has been noted. The academy will not tolerate further erosion of protocol.”
Kai stopped three paces short of the table. “I cleared the floor. Public metrics don’t lie.”
Jax gave a short laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Barely. My faction logged three clean kill-switch attempts. Your little ghost module is one thermal spike from cooking itself—and you with it.”
Vale lifted a hand. The room’s privacy field snapped on. “Enough. The proving ground cycle has forty hours of viable window left after today. We have received an uncharted challenge directive from central tower command. Floor Seven—never mapped, never calibrated. No safety overrides. Complete it, and the board resets in your favor with priority frame access. Fail, and the Salvage Hawk is recalled immediately. Your reputation balance will be zeroed.”
She slid a data slate across the table. Red warning glyphs pulsed across its surface.
Kai scanned the parameters. The difficulty coefficient had jumped another thirty-eight percent. Live citywide broadcast. Shadowbind interference explicitly permitted. And at the bottom: Rylan Voss—Jax’s second—already seeded into the floor as an active hostile pilot.
Jax pushed off the wall. “Rylan’s been waiting for this. Try not to embarrass the cohort when your arm finally shears off.”
Kai met his stare. The prototype module’s heat bled into his own ribs like a second heartbeat. He could feel the cost ticking higher with every second he stood there. “When?”
“Tomorrow, oh-six-hundred,” Vale answered. “The city will be watching. Do not force me to activate the final lockdown.”
She killed the privacy field and strode out, enforcers trailing. Jax lingered a moment longer, voice low enough that only Kai heard.
“You tied me once. Try it again and I’ll make sure the whole tower notices when your frame eats itself.”
The door hissed shut behind him.
Kai remained alone under the harsh lights. The timer on the wall clicked over: 66 hours and 41 minutes. The new prototype sat heavy in his chest—more speed, sharper recovery, but the heat strain already climbing toward critical. One extended engagement and the module would cook the entire left-side power grid.
He exhaled, knuckles whitening on the edge of the table. The visible tie at +39 had bought him nothing except a taller cliff and a sharper knife at his back. Vale’s wary investment was thinning into containment. Jax’s unease had sharpened into open threat. And the city’s eyes would be locked on the coming confrontation.
The ladder had widened again. Tomorrow it would either break him or force every ranking above him to climb faster.
Kai straightened, left arm still twitching, and headed for the maintenance bay. He had less than twelve hours to coax one more edge out of a dying frame before the public reckoning began.