Adventure of Sion: Freelancer Swarm

Dust boils out of the training facility as Sion drags the serum container toward GPO Ship 115. The floor plates shudder, but the ramp holds.

Jorvik and Abby Stone stumble up behind him, cuffs biting at their wrists. Sion gets both prisoners aboard before another crack splits the wall.

A deep groan rolls through the building. Through the cracked mirror wall, the ceiling caves in, and the service doorway disappears under rubble.

Inside the ship, Sion secures the container in the cargo hold as the deck vibrates with the impact outside. The last of Arda's dust hisses across the hatch seam.

Then the cargo sensors spike. A high-frequency ping repeats from somewhere below the main deck, sharp and deliberate, too clean to be debris noise.

GPO Ship 115 clears the broken facility and lifts into Arda's sky, the ruined training complex shrinking beneath a curtain of dust. The real problem is now aboard with Sion.

Sion sets the serum container down with a controlled thud. The deck gives a faint shiver under his boots, then steadies.

He takes Abby by the cuffed arm and turns her toward the rear corridor.

The vibration runs through the plating again as they pass the bulkhead, a low, unfriendly tremor under their feet.

At the cell bank, Sion guides Abby into the nearest holding compartment and brings her inside.

The door seals. Abby is contained, and the ship’s alarm keeps pulsing from the cargo hold behind them.

Sion works fast at the cell door, stripping Abby’s cuffs free and guiding her arms up into the wall mounts. The ship shivers again as he locks them overhead.

He fits the metal blind over her eyes, then seals the gag across her mouth. Abby jerks once, then goes rigid under the restraints.

The cargo hold alarm keeps pulsing somewhere aft, but the cell’s hatch stays shut and the evidence stays in Sion’s custody.

Abby hangs pinned in place, blind and mute, while the vibration fades into a thin, uneasy hum through the plating.

Sion unclips Jorvik, folds the tiny arrest cuffs away, and slots the two-foot eyeball into a metallic box with a clear window. The box door clicks shut in his hands.

The ship’s faint vibration runs under Sion’s boots as he steadies the container and turns it toward the hold access.

A thin pulse ripples across the cargo-hold indicator on the wall, then settles into a steady lock tone.

Sion has Jorvik contained, but the signal now has a place to point back to.

Sion sets the sealed carrier on the deck and straightens, eyes moving past the hold access toward the cargo bay line. The faint vibration underfoot tightens into a pattern, and the ship’s floor plan answers before anyone speaks.

Near the cargo hold threshold, a service panel sits warped open just enough to show a dark adhesive patch beneath the edge. A thin emitter capsule is fixed there, its status LED blinking in sync with the lock tone.

The capsule is not loose or drifting, it is planted cleanly in the ship’s structure, hidden where a quick inspection would miss it.

Jorvik stays boxed and still while Abby remains sealed away behind the cell door, the cargo hold now pointing straight at the source.

A hard click rolls through the deck plating as the indicator tone holds steady, and the transmitter keeps pulsing from the ship’s own wall.