Protegit — Darkorbit Uber

Before he could answer, the beam pulsed. His freighter dissolved around him like sugar in rain, and he was standing on a cold, circular platform inside the Uber Protegit . No crew. No controls. Just walls that were screens showing the entire star sector in real-time.

The pirates surrendered. The convoy passed unharmed. And Kael, the miner who was nothing, sat in the heart of the most powerful ship in the galaxy. darkorbit uber protegit

Kael had been a miner. A nobody. His battered Leonov freighter, held together with salvage tape and spite, was a ghost among the asteroid fields of Beta-3. He knew the hum of a failing warp drive better than the taste of real food. Before he could answer, the beam pulsed

The Chronos Lance charged with a sound like a dying star. He aimed not at the Maw of Vengeance , but at the asteroid field behind it. The lance struck a century-old rock. In one second, that rock experienced a billion years. It collapsed into a microscopic black hole, then evaporated in a blast of Hawking radiation that cracked the shields of every pirate ship in a ten-kilometer radius. No controls

The Uber Protegit pulsed.

A vessel so sleek, so impossibly black, it seemed to drink the starlight. It descended without a sound, its hull shimmering with a liquid-metal iridescence that hurt to look at. A single, pale beam lanced out, enveloping Kael’s ship. He didn’t feel fear. He felt… chosen .

For the first time since the beam touched him, Kael felt a cold that wasn’t from space. He wasn't just a pilot anymore. He was a Protegit .