Starcalled · Gabriel Alvarez

Book 1, Chapter 7: Terminal Velocity

April 2, 2020·34 min·3 clips

Ilona admits she made the wrong call leaving Osborn behind, and Kron's quiet response is the most human moment in the chapter.

The chapter opens mid-action as Ilona Zorin confronts the Zeridian assassin Adi Kanadarian in the Applied Sciences lab. Adi is a four-limbed reptilian character who simultaneously handles multiple objects and removes a diode from his own neck, spilling orange blood, while taking Ryder's damaged drive core. Lieutenant Kron and Ilona fight Adi but he escapes after a grab charge is thrown. A planted bomb in the lab — disguised as a modified coffee machine — detonates, destroying the facility. Ilona blames herself for leaving Osborn behind on Adari and for losing Ryder. Kron reassures her and they deduce the enemy had external help from a comm relay found orbiting Adari. They suspect a Colonial mole, potentially Commander Stracker Tighe. Tighe, meanwhile, discharges himself from the medical bay using a stolen stim injector, takes a pulse pistol, and heads to the station vault where he retrieves Dorgo Kanadarian's ornate knife. In Hangar 12, Officer Dredgen assists Osborn and Adi's escape aboard the Barinian while Colonial forces converge. Adi learns that Dorgo is dead and erupts in grief-fuelled rage, vowing to destroy the station and every Colonial in the system. Osborn and Dredgen manage the escape while Adi enters the turret. Colonial fighters pursue the Barinian into Adari's asteroid field. The jump code cycler provided by a contact named Vadron fails at the critical moment. Kron and Ilona launch in pursuit aboard a Colonial gunship with Ryder's intact core reinstalled. Oddi repairs the cycler and activates the jump relay, but a Colonial battlecruiser arrives through the relay from the other side, nearly destroying the Barinian. The ship threads the gap between the battlecruiser and the relay's containment ring and escapes. On the station, the battlecruiser's commander hails Captain Landris. Delarev, working alone, traces the comm relay's transmission vectors and discovers the device was communicating with the Colonial Space Station — confirming an internal traitor. Commander Tighe enters Delarev's lab, draws Dorgo's dagger, and the holographic display goes dark, ending the chapter on an unresolved threat.

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