Chapter 1079: Stars of Steel (1).
The sea was black glass under a bruised sky. Waves rolled slow and heavy, dragging shadows across the ruined docks. Cain stood at the prow of the stolen vessel, coat snapping in the salt wind. His eyes tracked the horizon, though he wasn’t searching for ships or storms. He was listening again—to the thrum beneath the surface, the way the ocean whispered of things older than nations.
Behind him, the deck groaned under the weight of scavenged weapons and fuel drums lashed down with rusted chains. Susan sat on an overturned crate, bandaged ribs bound tight, a cigarette between her lips. She hadn’t spoken in an hour, letting the smoke speak for her. Her silence was less about pain and more about defiance—her way of telling the night it hadn’t beaten her.
Steve’s voice crackled through the comm, patched into the ship’s gutted control panel. "You’re headed toward the trench line. Grid traffic shows increased patrols. Naval drones, two squadrons. You try to breach past them, you’ll light up every sensor from here to Zoan Tower."
Cain didn’t move. His hands rested on the railing, fingers tapping to some rhythm only he seemed to hear. "They’ll expect us to run quiet," he said. "We won’t."
Susan flicked ash over the side. "So what? We charge headfirst and pray?"
Cain turned, the corners of his mouth barely shifting. Not a smile—just the shadow of intent. "We don’t pray. We bleed them until they remember who taught this city fear."
The engines rumbled alive, coughing black smoke into the mist. The ship wasn’t meant for war, but Cain had a talent for remaking things into weapons. Steel plates had been welded over the hull, scavenged cannons bolted down where fishing nets once hung. It was ugly, loud, and impossible to ignore. That was the point.
Susan dragged deep on her cigarette, then blew smoke toward the sky. "You ever think about how insane this is? One ship. Two people half-dead. Against drones, cruisers, god knows what else."
Cain adjusted the straps of his blade across his back. "Insane would be believing the city can be saved by silence. Insane would be waiting."
The first drone appeared minutes later, a silver shark cutting across the clouds. Its sensors blinked crimson, scanning the vessel. Cain didn’t order the guns raised. He didn’t flinch. He simply stared until the drone banked lower, its hum swelling into the bones of the ship.
Then the cannons thundered.
The blast ripped the drone from the sky, scattering fire across the sea. Waves hissed under falling debris. Susan winced, covering her ears. "Subtle," she muttered.
Cain was already moving, shouting orders to no one, hands working like a conductor drawing chaos into rhythm. The second drone swooped, unleashing a volley of rail-fire. Metal screamed as the deck shattered, sparks blinding. Cain dove, rolled, came up with his sword bared. The blade wasn’t meant for machines, but in his grip it carved the air like lightning, catching the drone as it skimmed too close. One strike split its core, sending it spiraling into the surf.
The ocean accepted it without ceremony.
"Grid just pinged you on twenty frequencies," Steve’s voice cut in. "Every eye in City Z is on that patch of water now. You’ve got five minutes before the cavalry."
Cain braced against the railing, eyes narrowing at the line of lights rising on the horizon. Not stars—engines. Warships. Too many. Perfect.
Susan hauled herself to her feet, clutching her ribs. "Cain, this isn’t a fight. It’s suicide."
Cain’s voice was flat, iron on stone. "We don’t need to win. We just need them to bleed."
The first warship broke through the mist, steel teeth bared, its cannons already shifting toward them. Cain raised a hand, signaling. The scavenged cannons roared back. Fire streaked across the waves, shells tearing holes in water and metal alike. The sea lit up with violence, red and white against endless black.
Susan stumbled, grabbed the railing, shouted over the noise: "They’ll sink us in minutes!"
Cain’s answer was lost in the thunder, but his actions spoke clearer than words. He leapt from the deck, blade drawn, landing hard on the nearest patrol craft that had swung too close. Soldiers shouted, their rifles spitting arcs of energy, but Cain cut through them like shadows through smoke. Sparks burst. Blood joined the spray of seawater.
Back on the ship, Susan manned one of the deck guns, teeth gritted against pain. Every recoil sent agony through her ribs, but she didn’t stop. She aimed at the incoming drones, swatting them from the sky one by one, each explosion buying Cain another heartbeat.
The sea was no longer quiet glass. It churned, screamed, boiled with steel and fire. Every wave carried echoes of war, every plume of smoke a reminder that Cain had declared his intent not just to fight, but to drown the city’s illusions.
Steve’s voice shouted in her ear again, desperate: "Pull out! You’ve made your point. Cain—Susan—you need to live to fight another day!"
Susan spat blood onto the deck. Her voice rasped with fury and disbelief. "You think Cain came here to live?"
She didn’t look at him as she said it, but she knew he heard. She knew because he was smiling now, grim and sharp, the kind of smile a man wears only when war has finally given him what he wanted.
The warships closed. Drones swarmed. The sea trembled.
Cain raised his blade to the sky, and the storm answered.
Cain’s gaze lingered on the black horizon, the waves rolling like sheets of steel beneath the fading moon. Every shift of the tide felt like the city breathing against his neck. He could almost hear it whisper—a voice in the crash and pull of the sea. Susan’s footsteps shuffled behind him, dragging against the deck. She was hurt, worn thin, yet she moved as though the world hadn’t already bled her dry. Steve’s voice murmured low through the comm, but Cain barely listened. The night wasn’t finished. The storm at sea wasn’t waiting. And Cain knew—something darker was stirring beneath the waves.