Chapter 536: Arlen’s Departure
"Anh~!"
Arlen’s hands gripped the tangled, damp sheets, her knuckles white. She was pinned beneath his weight, her bare skin flushed and slick with sweat, her breath hitching desperate gasps that echoed off the cold metal bulkheads.
There was no Federation discipline left in her. Every structured rule Director Hale had ever drilled into her skull had been systematically dismantled over the last few hours, replaced entirely by her love and lust for Xavier.
She dug her nails into his shoulders, her eyes squeezed shut as the heavy, rhythmic friction pushed her right to the chaotic edge—
Bzzzt.
The comms panel on the wall suddenly flared to life.
"Xavier," Rin’s voice crackled through the static, sounding completely deadpan. "Federation stealth shuttle just pinged the outer perimeter. They’re requesting docking clearance for Arlen. Tell her to put her badge back on. Her ride is here."
Arlen froze.
She had no idea that the entire night had passed.
"We have been fucking for 10 hours..."
"Ten hours and 48 minutes," Xavier corrected her.
Arlen pulled him close and kissed him on the lips. "Let’s make it eleven."
A while later, Arlen stood at the base of a sleek Federation-issue stealth shuttle. She wore a pristine black Warden uniform she had kept stored for emergencies. Her posture was rigid, falling back into her military training, but the exhaustion in her eyes was permanent.
She hadn’t slept a wink last night. Even her voice had become somewhat raspy because of how much she moaned.
Xavier stood a few feet away, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. Rin leaned against a nearby fueling crate, lazily flipping a dagger between his fingers.
"You tell Hale exactly this," Xavier said, his voice flat and commanding. "The demonic society branch, also known as the Anti-Intergalactic League cell on Jupiter is wiped out. And the Iron Mandate is destroyed. You tell him I am laying low under your strict supervision, recovering from the prison break."
"He’ll want proof of the AIL’s destruction," Arlen replied, adjusting the heavy strap of her duffel bag over her shoulder. "And if it was truly behind all that.’
"Let Federation intelligence figure out the rest."
Rin stopped flipping his dagger. He reached into his vest and tossed a small, black encrypted drive through the air.
Arlen caught it cleanly.
"Reva made it overnight with Angel’s help. Plug that into your personal terminal at Headquarters," Rin told her. "It’s a shadow-net router. It bypasses Federation firewalls. We will contact you when we need intel or clearance codes. Don’t call us."
Arlen gripped the drive tightly, her knuckles turning white, before slipping it into her uniform pocket. She looked at Rin, then settled her gaze entirely on Xavier.
They both looked at each other and smiled, but didn’t say goodbye. She turned around, marched up the shuttle ramp, and hit the closure panel.
The thrusters ignited, washing the hangar deck in a wave of blue heat. Xavier and Rin watched as the stealth craft cleared the ship’s magnetic shield and vanished into the dark expanse of Jupiter’s orbit.
"Think she’ll actually lie to Hale?" Rin asked, sliding his dagger back into its sheath.
"She doesn’t have a choice," Xavier said, turning away from the open hangar doors. "She crossed the line. There’s no way back for her now. She is addicted to me and my dick so much that she would do anything for it."
"I think that’s called love," Rin commented.
"Oh, love... something I don’t understand fully...."
They walked back through the ship’s metallic corridors, heading toward the port-side quarters to check on Reva. The ambient lighting was still flickering, a lingering side effect of the damage the demonic domain had inflicted on the ship’s power grid.
As they approached the mess hall, Xavier stopped.
The heavy blast doors were warped and forced open. The sharp smell of dried blood still clung heavily to the air.
Kylus was sitting on an overturned supply crate near the entrance. He wasn’t wearing his mercenary armor. He wore a stained gray undershirt, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
He was staring completely blankly at the dark, scorched smear on the far wall where Vea had been blown to pieces.
The adrenaline of the battle had completely worn off. Only the hollow, crushing weight of reality remained.
Xavier walked into the ruined room, while Rin stayed by the door, remaining perfectly silent.
Kylus didn’t look up as Xavier approached. He took a slow, deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled a thick cloud of gray smoke toward the ceiling.
"I loved her, you know..."
"...."
"I could never tell her that I loved her."
"..."
"Are you going to hunt them down?" Kylus asked. His voice was stripped of its usual laid-back arrogance. It sounded dead.
"Yes," Xavier answered.
"Do you promise?" Kylus asked, finally lifting his head. His eyes were bloodshot and exhausted.
"Yes," Xavier said, looking down at the mercenary. "The Demonic Society is just a target. We are going to find the traitors who sold Bull out to the Federation. We are going to rip their operations apart. We are going to track down every single vault where Bull hid his treasures across the galaxies, and we are going to take it all."
Xavier’s red eyes glinted in the dim, flickering light. "Anyone who stands in the way gets put in the ground. I don’t care if they are Federation, Demonic, or gods."
Kylus stared at him for a long moment. He dropped his cigarette onto the deck and crushed the cherry under his heavy boot. He slowly stood up, wincing slightly as his newly healed ribs adjusted to the movement.
"Vea joined my crew as a logistics girl," Kylus muttered, looking back at the bloodstain on the wall. "But I trained her enough to protect herself. She hated the gunfire. She just wanted to get paid."
He turned back to Xavier.
"Count me in. I’ll join your adventure, Xavier. Let’s burn them."
"This is not an adventure, Kylus," Xavier said.
He turned and walked toward the exit, his black jacket sweeping over the ruined floor plates.
"It is a conquest."
