Robert’s mind raced as those talons closed around his throat. Every ounce of survival instinct kicked in, his training and experience condensing into a singular, crystalline focus.

  Without conscious thought, he willed the picobots swarming around him into action. Millions of tiny robots synchronized, their motive force bending to his mental commands as if it were an inherent part of the universe.

  The cloud of picobots surged forward, engulfing the being’s outstretched arm in a living sea of nanoscale machinery. Robert could feel the individual drones latching onto the creature’s flesh, extending hairline tendrils to interface with its biological systems at the molecular level.

  The creature’s arm went rigid as icy tendrils of paralysis lanced through its nervous system, the picobots overriding and freezing its motor functions with ruthless, microscopic precision. Its grip went slack, and Robert tumbled free, hitting the ground in a disordered sprawl.

  He rolled to his feet in a single, fluid motion, picobots swirling around him as he backpedaled away from the frozen predator. Its frame was motionless now, trapped in an everlasting grimace of its deadly lunge.

  Robert stared in disbelieving awe at the statuesque horror before him. Every micro-adjusted muscle fiber, every vein and sinuous ligament halted in their tracks, the picobots’ restraining field gripping the creature in a full-body force-stasis unlike anything modern technology could replicate.

  Only its eyes moved, black mirrors of hatred and fury swiveling in their sockets to track Robert’s retreat with impotent, smoldering malice. Its jaws worked, tendons straining against the picobots’ unyielding confines as it struggled to give voice to what Robert could only imagine were eldritch maledictions and profane curses.

  Pulling himself together, Robert gathered his wits and took stock of his surroundings. The storage bay was a maze of towering racks and sealed cargo modules. Plenty of places to hide, but no obvious exits, at least none big enough for him to walk out of.

  His gaze fell upon the still-frozen form of the terrifying creature, that eternal snarl of hatred boring into him from across the chamber. He knew the picobots‘ hold wouldn’t last forever against such an implacable foe. Already, minute tremors were shivering through its restraints as unimaginable forces gathered within that unliving form.

  Escape had to be his priority. Leaving the transponders behind stung his pride, but there would be other chances, other heists. First, he needed to put as much distance between himself and that thing as possible.

  Robert tensed, ready to unleash the picobots in a frenzied retreat, when Ace’s voice crackled in his helmet’s earpiece.

  “Robert, this is an opportunity we cannot waste.” The AI’s tone was level, almost chiding. “That creature knows who you are, which means it was sent here to stop us. We should question it while we have the chance.”

  Robert blinked, his eyes never leaving the petrified horror before him. “What the hell is that thing, Ace?” he said under his breath through clenched teeth.

  “A Thepolian,” Ace said. “One of the most dangerous species in known space. Cunning, ruthless, and possessing a morbid fascination with biological sciences that borders on the pathological.”

  Robert suppressed a shudder as his gaze raked over the Thepolian’s grotesque form. Now that the initial shock had passed, he could distinguish disturbing details - the pitted, scaly hide, the razored talons, the yawning maw lined with serrated fangs. Every element of its physiology screamed one harsh truth: this was a creature purpose-built for savagery.

  “You’re right,” he said at last, squaring his shoulders. “We can’t let this chance slip away. I’ve got it locked down for now, but who knows how long that will last.”

  As if on cue, a tremor rippled through the Thepolian’s frozen limbs. Its struggles intensified as the picobots‘ restraints faltered against its inhuman strength.

  “Careful, Robert. We have no idea what that thing is capable of. Interrogate it, but keep your distance and be ready to disengage at a moment’s notice.”

  Robert nodded, inching forward until he was just outside the Thepolian’s reach. Its obsidian gaze bored into him, devoid of reason or mercy.

  “You know me, don’t you?” he said, keeping his voice flat and emotionless. “You were sent to kill me. By who? And why?”

  The Thepolian’s jaws parted in a bestial snarl, its fetid breath washing over Robert in a noxious wave. Muscles bunched and strained against the picobots‘ restraints as it struggled with every ounce of its strength to break free.

  But no words issued forth. Only a low, guttural rumbling that reverberated in Robert’s very bones.

  Robert inched closer; the force field of the picobots crackled with static energy as they fought to contain the Thepolian’s herculean struggles. Up close, the creature’s presence was suffocating - a miasma of primal malice and leashed violence that made Robert’s gut clench.

  “Who are you?” he kept his voice low and even. “Who sent you after me?”

  The Thepolian’s jaws worked, muscles straining against its invisible bonds. Its obsidian eyes burned with a promise of retribution.

  Robert frowned - getting it to talk wasn’t going to be easy. He glanced at Ace’s holographic form wavering at his side. “Any ideas?”

  “We know it was tracking you. Which means it must have intel on your activities and identity. Lean into that - make it realize we already know more than it expects.”

  Robert nodded and redirected his attention to the frozen horror before him. “We know you were hired to take down ‘GreenNet’,” he said, making air-quotes with his fingers. “News-flash, buddy - I’m not some conspiracy theorist pretending to be something I’m not for some claim to intergalactic fame. I’m a man who stumbled onto something much bigger than himself.”

  The Thepolian’s impassive mask cracked at that, its brow furrowing in the faintest micro-expression of… confusion? Doubt?

  Emboldened, Robert pressed on. “You think I’m making this up? Trafficking sentients across the galaxy, selling them into slavery and worse?” He barked a harsh laugh. “Give me some credit. If I was looking for attention, I could’ve found an easier way than pissing off the entire United Confederation and exiling myself from everything and everyone I know, just to run around stealing parts from suppliers. You know my name, so you should know how I became an outlaw. Why would I make any of this up? What does that benefit me?”

  Ace’s voice came over the communication channel in Robert’s helmet. “Your words are having an effect,“ the AI observed. “Though, whether it’s weighing the truth of your claims or formulating a counterattack, I cannot say.”

  Robert shrugged. “Either way, we need to keep it talking. The more it engages, the more we might learn.” He turned back to the Thepolian, squaring his shoulders. “Let’s start with an easy one - what’s your name? Or should I keep calling you ‘ugly’?”

  The creature’s eye ridges drew together in an unmistakable glower of fury. Its maw parted once more, thick ropes of drool slopping from between its fangs as it summoned the power of speech.

  “Wido,” it ground out at last, each syllable saturated in loathing.

  Robert blinked in surprise - he hadn’t expected an answer. “Wido, huh? Charmed, I’m sure. So tell me, Wido - what kind of sick freaks hire an enforcer like you to cover up their dirty work?”

  Wido’s frame shuddered, picobots straining to reinforce their bonds as he fought with every fiber of his being against their restraints. “The Parliament,” venom dripping from the word. “They who rule your pathetic Confederation.”

  Robert opened his mouth to respond, but Wido cut him off with a noise like an avalanche of gravel - a rasping, hateful chuckle that wormed into Robert’s ears and sparked an atavistic dread in the pit of his stomach.

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  “You think you understand?” the Thepolian sneered, obsidian eyes glittering with sadistic glee. “A mewling pup like you has seen nothing. Your pitiful ‘crusade’ is a gnat’s belch compared to the tempest that awaits.”

  Robert frowned, perplexed and more than a little unnerved by the creature’s blustering bravado.

  He wasted no more time on the frozen Thepolian monstrosity. Enough had been said - or rather, enough had been left unsaid - to convince him that the only prudent course of action was to get the hell out of there.

  He turned on his heel and sprinted further into the labyrinth of storage compartments, the transponders bouncing in the satchel slung over his shoulder. Ace’s calm voice filtered through his helmet’s speakers, providing directions and alerting him to potential hazards.

  “Security drones detected heading your way, Rob. Take the next left and proceed two hundred meters, then go right.”

  Robert obeyed without hesitation, boots pounding against the decking as he hurtled through the labyrinthine warehouse. His heart thundered in his ears, fueled as much by adrenaline as the sheer, visceral terror Wido had inspired in him.

  He’d faced his fair share of deadly foes in his years as a renegade, but that - thing - was on another level. Being in its presence had sent icy tendrils of primal dread lancing through his psyche. Every instinct had screamed at him to run, to flee from the sheer, malevolent wrongness of the Thepolian’s existence.

  How could the Confederation employ such nightmarish horrors? What sort of depths had they plumbed?

  “Robert, focus!” Ace’s voice cut through his racing thoughts like a blade. “You’re approaching a security checkpoint. Get ready to use the picobots.”

  Robert complied, forcing his mind into that strange, heightened state of awareness required to control the nanotech swarm. He could feel them buzzing at the edges of his consciousness, awaiting his command.

  As he rounded the corner, an armored bulkhead loomed before him, sealed tight and bristling with sensors. Without breaking stride, Robert unleashed a mental wave, and the picobots surged forward in a glittering cloud.

  They swarmed over the sealed portal in an iridescent torrent, their microscopic forms probing every seam, every control surface. In the blink of an eye, they bypassed the security lockout and triggered the emergency overrides, the massive bulkhead clanking open with ponderous reluctance.

  Robert didn’t slow, hurtling through the opening and back into the maze of cargo containers. The picobots encircled him in a defensive vortex, deflecting security drones and sensor sweeps alike.

  “You’re almost at the exit, Robert. But we’re detecting a massive security lockdown across the entire facility. You’ll have to fight your way out from here.”

  Robert grunted in acknowledgment, already sensing the shift in the surrounding air. Pressure doors were slamming shut all around, sealing off access corridors to box him in. Ahead, he could make out the telltale crimson warnings of a bulkhead closing, the gap narrowing with every passing second.

  He redoubled his pace, pouring on every reserve of speed as the picobots swirled in a frenzied vortex around him. They lashed out in gossamer tendrils, jamming sensors and overloading security nodes, clearing a path through the frantic countermeasures.

  Robert hit the narrowing gap at a dead sprint, twisting his body into a horizontal base as he flung himself through the closing portal. He gasped as the edges of the bulkhead sheared through the picobots‘ protective cloud, scoring his suit with a line of rents that hissed depressurization warnings.

  But he was through.

  He tumbled across the decking in an ungainly sprawl, picobots swirling as his suit sealed the breaches. Klaxons wailed all around him, strobing crimson across the wide hangar bay that would serve as his exit point.

  “Well done, Robert,” Ace’s voice rang in his ears, tinged with what almost sounded like pride? “Now let’s get you out of there before more of those things show up.”

  Robert allowed himself a tight grin as he surged back to his feet, picobots already swarming towards the massive outer doors.

  “Way ahead of you, partner.”

  The picobots set to work with furious alacrity, their microscopic forms infiltrating every mechanism, slaving the entire system to Robert’s mental directives. With a series of bone-jarring clanks, the towering hangar doors began to grind open, revealing the starry vastness of the space beyond.

  Robert didn’t wait for them to cycle. At the first hint of a gap, he flung himself into the void, tiny robots swirling around him in a protective cyclone as they propelled him out into the frozen embrace of the vacuum.

  He cast one last glance over his shoulder as the hangar shrank behind him, the yawning doors already beginning to seal once more under the countermanding security overrides.

  Wido’s twisted form flashed through his mind’s eye, that hateful glare seared into his brain. Whatever depravities the Thepolian had alluded to, Robert knew he was scratching the surface.

  His lips skinned back in a feral grin as the picobots sped him up towards his waiting ship. “All right, Ace - let’s go dark.”

  Ace’s response was instant, the AI’s synthetic tones ringing with purpose. “Initiating full communications blackout.”

  Robert drifted through the inky void, the picobots propelling him with eerie silence. His mind raced as he tried to piece together how Wido had tracked him down to the Stellar Dynamics facility.

  He replayed every step, every precaution they’d taken to maintain operational security. The stealth approach, the comm blackouts, the picobots clearing their path - it should have been foolproof. And yet that - thing - had been waiting for them.

  Robert’s jaw clenched at the memory of the Thepolian horror. Wido’s grotesque form, frozen in an eternal rictus of violence by the picobots‘ restraints. Those dead, obsidian eyes burning with a hatred that transcended the species.

  A shudder passed through him. In the past months of being an outlaw, dodging the long arm of the Confederation’s enforcers, he’d never encountered something so wrong. Being in Wido’s presence had plucked atavistic strings of terror deep within his psyche, primal instincts screaming at him to flee, to put light-years between himself and that unholy anomaly.

  How had it found them? That was the question that gnawed at him as the picobots carried him ever onward. They’d covered their tracks, left no trail for anyone to follow. Hell, even the GreenNet persona was a fluke of bad luck that had ballooned into a symbol for the masses.

  At least, that’s what he’d always told himself. But after seeing the single-minded fury in Wido’s empty gaze, the fact that the Thepolian had been tasked to hunt him down…

  Robert dismissed his chaotic thoughts and focused on the running lights of his ship ahead. He had to focus, had to maintain situational awareness. There would be time to dwell on the unsettling implications later.

  He needed to concentrate on getting them to safety. With a mental nudge, he guided the picobots towards the Acus’Rube’s outer airlock, the nanotech swarm slowing his momentum with deft precision. He was almost out of range when he commanded the bots holding Wido to return to the ship. They would make it back in faster without a human to push around.

  As the ship’s hull loomed large before him, he braced for the moment of disorienting transition, the split-second blurring of senses as he passed from vacuum into the sealed environment of the airlock chamber.

  With a subtle hiss, the outer door slid open, and Robert allowed himself to be drawn inside. The picobots swarmed in behind him, their task completed for now.

  The inner door ground shut, atmosphere rushing in to equalize the pressure.

  Robert stepped through the inner airlock door, shedding his battered spacesuit with a weary sigh. The confined space of the Acus’Rube’s corridor was almost comfortingly claustrophobic after the vastness of the void.

  “Ace, get us out of here,” he called out, already making his way towards the bridge. “We’ve got what we came for, so let’s not overstay our welcome.”

  The AI’s synthesized tones filled the corridor, thrumming with a strange undercurrent of… trepidation? “Robert, we may have a problem. Long-range sensors are detecting a ship on an intercept vector, bearing zero-two-niner by three-five-zero.”

  Robert frowned, pausing mid-stride. “Intercept? You think it’s Stellar Dynamics security forces?”

  “Unlikely,” Ace said. “This vessel’s emissions signature doesn’t match any of the Confederation’s known profiles.”

  A leaden knot formed deep within Robert’s stomach as the implications sank in. “Wido,” he said with a growl, resuming his headlong pace towards the bridge.

  He skidded into the compact control room, eyes flicking over the sensor displays as he slid into the pilot’s couch. Sure enough, a single amber icon blinked on the tactical plot, its vector cutting straight towards their position with implacable determination.

  “How much time do we have?” Robert’s hands were already dancing across the control interfaces, prepping the Acus’Rube’s engines for a hasty departure.

  “At current velocities?” Ace’s tone was grim. “Maybe fifteen minutes before they’re within effective weapons range.”

  Robert’s jaw clenched as his fingers tapped in the final startup sequence. “Then we’d better make this a quick trip.”

  With a subtle shudder, the Acus’Rube’s drive cores flared to life, thruster engines building to a thunderous crescendo. Robert grimaced against the brutal acceleration as the ship’s inertial dampers struggled to compensate, the starfield outside warping and blurring in a chromatic whirlpool.

  Seconds ticked by in agonizing slow-motion as the acceleration pressed Robert deeper into the shock-couch’s conforming gel. Every muscle strained, his vision tunneling as his body fought against the incredible forces.