Starvivianelle received the assignment the way Starrup trained its Elites to receive anything that could kill them: without a speech, with a packet.
The packet arrived as a sealed slate case with a Star-coded hard-light latch that only opened when her palm aligned inside a projected lane box. She stepped into the box, let the lattice read her wristband, and watched the latch turn from amber to green after the second verifier confirmed the first. No rushing. No charisma. Two-step custody at the front door of her own briefing.
Inside was one page of plain text and one micro-drive, both tagged with the same checksum string. The page held a single name, one city cluster, and one warning written like a systems engineer talking to a soldier.
GALAXGAGE. Courier-operator. Galaxenportal City. Administrative quarantine in effect. Not chained. Not safe. Do not trust "official" screens. Expect prompt coercion. Expect timed windows.
Starvivianelle didn't ask who wrote it. She read the margins instead: transit options, gate IDs, escort geometry diagrams, and a narrow set of decision points highlighted in Star green. Those highlights were Professor Galaxbeam's signature, even when his name wasn't printed. Coherence windows. Narrow choices. Move fast only when the math says the lane is real.
She closed the case, resealed it, and looked up at the Star operations officer waiting by the door.
"Confirm extraction posture," she said.
"Leadership extraction," the officer replied. "Hostage recovery under authority spoof. Your win condition is custody, not body count. If the city tries to 'process' him, you lose him without a fight."
Starvivianelle nodded once. "Transport?"
"Aircraft to Galaxenportal City. Rail inside the metro. Secondary route through Jakchi City if the gates go false. You will handoff to Galaxy custody officers only after seal verification. No exceptions."
She walked out of the briefing bay and into the hangar where Starrup's aircraft sat in rows like disciplined birds. Her armor was not heavy; it was functional, layered to accept hard-light geometry. A thin Star radiance clung to her shoulders in a quiet sheen. She did not brighten it. Brightness invites cameras. Cameras invite narratives. Narratives invite the wrong decisions.
The flight to Galaxenchi ran under a boring civilian transponder because boring is a weapon when your enemy wants spectacle. She spent the time building her own reality anchors: three checklists, two back-up routes, one rule written in her notebook in a blocky hand.
GREEN IS NOT PROOF. PROOF IS TWO THINGS AGREEING IN PHYSICAL SPACE.
When the aircraft descended, Galaxenchi looked different from every continent that had been bleeding lately. Its lanes were gold-coherent and almost politely strict. Transit lines were clean. Platforms were crowded but orderly. Guidance screens were everywhere, and the people still treated them like tools instead of gods. That was a strength. It was also a seam: if BRD could wear the same interface, it could steal the same obedience.
Galaxenportal City's main terminal met her with quiet competence. Galaxy Guards stood at lane mouths with gold radiance held low, directing flows with hand cues rather than shouting. A Galaxy officer approached her without urgency, wearing the calm expression of someone trained to avoid feeding panic.
"Starvivianelle," he said, verifying her name like a checksum. "You will proceed to Platform C-9. You will not accept platform changes from public boards. If you receive a direct 'authority' prompt, you will treat it as hostile until proven otherwise."
"Understood," Starvivianelle replied.
He handed her a small paper token with a wax-like seal imprint, old-fashioned by design. "This is your physical anchor. If any screen conflicts with this token, you ignore the screen."
She took it, photographed the seal micro-scratches, and slid it into a custody sleeve.
The metro was a cathedral of movement: polished floors, crisp signage, gold lane paint, and the steady chime of trains arriving on time. Starvivianelle walked with her eyes on three things only: lane geometry, guard posture, and the rhythm of people checking their devices. The first two were stable. The third was where BRD liked to pry.
She reached Platform C-9 and saw the trap before it moved. A public board displayed her train ID and destination, then cycled to a "helpful" update: SERVICE ADJUSTMENT. FOLLOW OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS. A QR code bloomed beneath it, offering a faster route.
Nobody shouted. Nobody ran. That was what made it dangerous. The platform began to lean toward the QR code with quiet trust.
Starvivianelle raised her hand. A hard-light rectangle snapped into existence on the floor, framing a small area in front of the board. She stepped into it and spoke in the clipped cadence her regime used for crisis correction.
"Box. Stop. Eyes up."
Two Galaxy Guards responded immediately, moving people away from the QR code with simple gestures. Starvivianelle did not argue with the board. She overrode the board's social gravity by changing the physical space: the hard-light box became the new "official" posture. People follow what looks enforceable.
A child tried to step forward anyway, curious. Starvivianelle flicked her wrist and extended a thin hard-light bar at ankle height, a gentle barrier that guided the child back without force. The mother mouthed thank you. Starvivianelle gave no smile. Smiling can be misread as confidence theater. She stayed procedural.
The train arrived, doors opening with a clean hiss. She boarded last, after the Galaxy Guards, because last-on lets you watch who follows. The car interior was bright and quiet. It smelled like disinfectant and metal. Perfect conditions for an ambush that wanted to look like "routine."
At the next stop, the lighting flickered once. Not a blackout. A micro-stutter. The kind that would make a scanner hesitate.
Clock-tax, she thought.
The doors opened, and a man stepped in wearing a maintenance vest with the right patches in the wrong places. His eyes were calm in a way that did not match his supposed job. Two more "workers" followed, one carrying a narrow case too long for tools. They spread out into positions that gave them angles on the car's cameras.
Starvivianelle didn't stare at them. She counted their foot placement relative to the door lines. Predators don't stand randomly. They stand where escape is expensive.
Her comm bead tapped once. A Galaxy officer's voice came through in a low, steady tone.
"Galaxgage is moving. Administrative quarantine escort has him. They are routing him away from the custody desk."
"Route?" she asked.
"Public board says Galaxenwarpe City transfer. Our physical token says Jakchi City transfer. The board is lying."
Starvivianelle breathed once, deep enough to reset her heart rate. "I'm intercepting."
The "maintenance" man reached toward the overhead console, as if adjusting ventilation. His fingers moved too precisely. A faint violet-gray haze drifted from his sleeve, almost invisible against the car's lighting.
Death Regime contamination posture, she judged. Make everyone fear the air. Force quarantines. Force delays. Then offer "official" shortcuts.
Starvivianelle moved first.
She snapped a hard-light band around the man's wrist, pinning it to the overhead rail without breaking skin. The band brightened for a fraction of a second, then stabilized into a quiet hold. The man's eyes widened, surprised by speed rather than pain.
"Down," she said.
The second "worker" lunged, drawing a compact blade with black metal sheen. Blackened craftsmanship, fast and ugly. Starvivianelle stepped sideways, letting the blade pass through the space her shoulder had been, and dropped a hard-light wedge under the attacker's front foot. His boot struck the wedge and slid. Momentum betrayed him. He fell, and Starvivianelle placed a hard-light collar around his neck and chest, not choking, simply locking posture in a seated containment.
The third "worker" didn't attack her. He attacked the train's door panel, trying to force an emergency stop and turn the car into a sealed box. A subtle sabotage play: trap civilians, trigger fear, then make an "official" rescue route appear.
Starvivianelle sprinted three steps, planted her palm on the panel, and poured Star radiance into it as structured light rather than heat. The panel's circuitry revealed itself in a faint grid, each pathway visible like a map. She severed one line with a hard-light scalpel, isolating the emergency stop logic. The attacker's hand kept working, but his tool had lost its teeth.
Galaxy Guards surged in behind her, not firing wildly, not shouting, moving with custody discipline. One guard pinned the Death-affiliated operative's other arm; another stripped the Blackened blade and sealed it inside a field pouch with a visible tamper mark.
Starvivianelle kept her voice clipped, each line an instruction that changed behavior.
"Seal the car. Do not vent. Do not chase. Mark suspects. Move passengers forward."
A civilian tried to film. She didn't scold. She stepped between the camera and the suspects and let the hard-light bars become the story the civilian recorded: containment, not chaos.
At Galaxenwarpe City, the platform was already being rewritten. Screens glowed with a calm directive: QUARANTINE TRANSFER. FOLLOW OFFICIAL ESCORTS. A set of gold-uniformed "custody officers" waited by a side gate, posture correct, badges visible.
Starvivianelle recognized the trap in their eyes. Their gaze wasn't scanning for threats; it was scanning for compliance.
Galaxgage emerged between them, hands not bound, shoulders tight. He looked like a man who had been told he was dangerous and was trying to behave harmless. A courier-operator, "administratively dead," trapped inside a paperwork coffin.
He saw Starvivianelle and flinched, not from fear of her, from fear of what her presence might trigger. Operators learn quickly that rescue can become a new accusation.
Starvivianelle stepped into the open, hands visible, hard-light lattice faint around her wrists like a tool belt.
"Galaxgage," she said.
One of the fake custody officers raised a hand. "This transfer is authorized. Stand down."
Starvivianelle didn't argue with the claim. She invalidated it with proof.
She removed the physical token from her custody sleeve, held it up, and angled it so the platform cameras caught the seal micro-scratches. Then she projected a hard-light overlay beside it displaying the same scratch pattern, captured earlier. Two views. Same defect. Same truth.
"Token overrides screens," she said, voice calm. "You are not on this route."
The fake custody officer smiled like a bureaucrat. "You are interfering with quarantine."
Starvivianelle's reply was a three-beat sequence executed as geometry.
First, she snapped a hard-light lane box around Galaxgage's feet, locking his position in a defined space that Galaxy Guards could defend. Second, she projected two narrow hard-light shields, one left and one right, forming a corridor that forced the fake officers to approach in single file. Third, she signaled with a short hand motion, and the Galaxy Guards mirrored it immediately: two-step verification posture, scanners up, feet behind the line.
The fake officers tried to move around the shields. The shields adjusted, not chasing, simply denying angles.
One officer lunged anyway, pulling a thin needle device that shimmered violet-gray. A Death Regime infliction tool designed to tag the operator's blood with a "contamination signature" so later systems would reject him. Starvivianelle stepped forward and let the needle strike her hard-light shield. The tip bounced, scraping light.
She countered with a Star construct that looked like a forest limb: bark-plated and vine-limbed, functional rather than beautiful. It grew from the platform tile in a second, not with organic romance, with engineered intent. The limb wrapped the attacker's forearm and pinned it to the ground. Vines tightened, not crushing, simply immobilizing.
The platform erupted into motion. Not panic. Directed motion. Galaxy Guards pushed civilians back in clean sweeps. Starvivianelle kept the corridor open for Galaxgage and the real custody lane.
"Move," she told him.
Galaxgage's voice came out thin. "They said I'm compromised."
"You are," Starvivianelle replied, and kept walking. Honesty prevents delays. "That's why you're coming with me. Eyes forward."
They ran down a service stairwell where the lighting was dimmer and the cameras fewer. Starvivianelle didn't trust that either. She placed three hard-light beacons at each landing, fixed reference points that made Shadow distortions obvious. A shadow seam tried to stretch the stairwell, making it feel longer than it was. The beacons held. The seam became visible by contrast.
She felt the air thicken behind them. A Death hush followed, trying to steal radio syllables, trying to make her commands arrive late. Starvivianelle compensated by switching to hand cues. Two fingers down meant stop. Palm forward meant hold. A tight fist meant follow close.
Galaxgage obeyed immediately. Operator training, she realized, was not weakness. It was disciplined survival.
A Blackened Elite stepped into the tunnel ahead, not one of the earlier ground assets. This one moved with swagger held in check, eyes bright with predatory amusement. He carried a compact device that pulsed green light in a slow rhythm, as if imitating an "official" confirmation glow.
"Y'all love green so much," he said, voice low. "Let's see you chase it."
He flicked the device. A wall panel on the right lit up with a false exit sign. The sign was perfect. The corridor paint even seemed to guide toward it.
Starvivianelle did not look at the sign. She looked at the floor.
The paint under the sign was older. Scuffed. Not recently updated. The real service exits had fresh anti-slip coating and new scuff patterns from recent use. This one was staged.
She moved left instead, straight into the space the Blackened Elite assumed she wouldn't take.
He struck with a blade that cut air like paper. Starvivianelle met it with a hard-light baton, and the impact rang through the tunnel with a clean metallic note. She rotated her wrist and redirected the blade into the wall, then planted her boot and shoved. The Elite recovered fast, pivoting for a second strike.
Starvivianelle's forest construct erupted again, this time as a thick vine cable that snapped across the Elite's knees like a trip line. He jumped it, athletic, and laughed.
"Cute," he said.
Starvivianelle answered with a lane clamp. A hard-light rectangle snapped around his torso and tightened, compressing space just enough to disrupt shoulder rotation. His blade arm slowed.
Galaxgage flinched, seeing the moment open.
"Run," she told him.
Galaxy Guards surged forward, shielding Galaxgage with gold radiance, while Starvivianelle held the Elite in a containment geometry that didn't require her to win a duel. Her job was custody movement. She didn't need to kill the Elite; she needed him to waste time.
The Elite snarled, and a pulse of Blackened dark tech threw sparks from the tunnel lights. Shadow interference tried to blur the far end of the corridor. Death hush tried to mute the guards' radios.
Starvivianelle kept the structure tight. She widened her hard-light clamp into a corridor bar, forcing the Elite into a narrow lane where his blade couldn't swing fully. She stepped back in controlled increments, never turning her back, staying between threat and hostage.
They hit the maintenance rail platform under Galaxenwarpe City, where a service train sat with its doors open. A Galaxy officer stood at the train's edge with a handheld verifier and a paper ledger, the old kind with ink lines.
"No screens," he said. "Only ledger. Only seal."
Starvivianelle shoved Galaxgage into the train first, then stepped in after him. The officer placed a custody strip on Galaxgage's wrist—physical band, printed code, wax micro-seal. Starvivianelle watched the officer's hands and the band's placement. Proof in physical space.
Then the officer turned the ledger toward Starvivianelle. "Confirm handoff."
She pressed her thumb to the ledger line and let a Star-ink imprint appear, a luminous signature that carried a unique light refraction. Not a flourish. A tamper-resistant mark.
"Confirmed," she said.
The service train pulled out, moving toward Jakchi City on a line that did not appear on public boards. The Blackened Elite did not chase onto the platform. He stood at the tunnel mouth, smiling with a predator's patience, as if the real attack was not the fight they just survived.
Starvivianelle didn't like that smile. She didn't like silence after contact. She checked Galaxgage's wristband and saw a subtle anomaly: the band's printed code was correct, but the wax micro-seal had a hairline fracture that hadn't been there a moment ago.
A micro-tamper attempt, she realized. Someone had touched the band while eyes were on the fight.
She looked up at the Galaxy officer. "Seal compromised."
His expression didn't change. "We re-issue at Jakchi City. Full ledger reset."
Starvivianelle nodded, but her spine tightened. BRD wasn't trying to kill Galaxgage in a tunnel. They were trying to poison the custody chain so later, when a decision mattered, someone could claim the operator was never legitimately transferred.
The train lights flickered once as it entered a longer tunnel. Not a blackout. A stutter. The kind that makes a scanner hesitate.
Starvivianelle felt it like a pulse beneath the floor. A timed pressure. A window forming.
Galaxgage swallowed. "They'll reroute me again."
"They'll try," she said.
The train's onboard console chimed softly, polite as a customer-service voice. A prompt appeared on the screen in flawless Galaxy styling.
PRIORITY ROUTING: OPERATOR TIER. CONFIRM AUTHORITY.
The confirm button glowed green, already highlighted, as if the system were eager to help.
Starvivianelle did not touch it. She stared at the green light until it felt like an enemy's eye.
Outside the train, somewhere in Galaxenchi's civic backbone, a blink began—small enough to deny, strong enough to pull an operator's future into the wrong lane—right as the half-hour window opened its mouth.
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