SINLATTICE
Season 1, Episode 1: Cold Iron in Cazo-Rift
Written by Michael Antonio
The frost on Cazo-Rift did not settle on metal. It bit straight into bone.
Mavuk So-Mar dragged a crate of unrefined kinetic coils across the landing deck. Steam rose from his breath in ragged, heavy plumes. Around him, the cavernous hangar groaned under three hundred sub-zero atmosphere cycles. Overhead, neon dock signs flickered in harsh amber, casting long shadows across the grease-stained floor.
Mavuk had one objective tonight: clear this cargo manifest before third watch.
Without these kinetic coils to replace the burned-out excitation loops in the primary fuel-cell manifold, the sub-drives on The Aṣe-Vaz would freeze solid in the sub-zero air. If the drives went cold, Mavuk and his captain would be stranded permanently on this dead-zone moonlet.
Dockhands moved through the smog — some with frost dusting their full natural afros, others with clean-shaven, bald heads gleaming under heavy thermal hoods.
“Drop the sled, haul-boy,” a heavy voice barked through the smog.
Mavuk stopped. He pulled his mantle tighter over his dark coiled hair, wiping sweat from his brown forehead.
An iron-shod boot slammed onto the front of his cargo sled. Standing over him was Grak-Vaz, a syndicate enforcer with a close-cropped fade over deep brown skin and scarred cybernetic plating across his jaw. Grak grinned, eyeing the high-grade coils with predatory greed.
“The dock tax went up twenty percent five minutes ago,” Grak said. “Leave the crate. You can tell your captain to pay the balance in cash.”
“The dock master already signed off on the manifest, Grak,” Mavuk said quietly. He kept his eyes fixed on the rusted deck plates. “If Cazo doesn’t get these coils into the drive manifold in ten minutes, the ship’s fuel cells die.”
“Then the ship freezes,” Grak sneered. “Or maybe I take your boots to cover the balance.”
Grak raised his low-grade kinetic sidearm, aiming the barrel straight at Mavuk’s chest. The weapon hummed, its capacitor whining as it charged.
Mavuk’s stomach twisted into a hard knot. He didn’t move. He knew better than to run from a kinetic charge.
Grak’s finger twitched against the trigger.
The weapon cracked. A white-hot kinetic bolt shot through the icy mist.
What happened next lasted less than a millisecond.
To Grak, the bolt simply grazed air. To Mavuk, the world abruptly dragged to an agonizing standstill.
The sharp crack of the gun stretched into a low, droning hum. The glowing kinetic bolt hovered in mid-air, crawling through the fog like a drop of liquid fire. A nauseating, terrifying heat ignited along Mavuk’s spine as his perception accelerated into hyper-focus. His pulse hammered in his ears like a heavy war drum.
In the suspended silence, terror seized him. Not now. Please, not here.
It was the third time this cycle his body had reacted on its own. Without conscious thought, Mavuk leaned his torso three inches to the left — moving before the bolt had traversed a foot of open air.
Time snapped back with violent force.
THUMP.
The kinetic bolt slammed into the bulk cargo container behind him, blowing a fist-sized hole through the iron wall.
Grak blinked, staring at the smoking crater, then down at his gun, and finally at Mavuk. Mavuk was already sprawling onto the deck, panting heavily and feigning a clumsy stumble.
“Watch where you aim that junk!” Mavuk yelled, forcing his voice to tremble like a terrified dockhand. “You almost blew up the shipment!”
Grak narrowed his eyes, stepping closer. He didn’t look at the cargo crater — he looked at Mavuk’s feet.
“You moved,” Grak muttered, his scarred jaw twitching. “You moved before the charge cleared the barrel.”
“I slipped on the ice!” Mavuk stammered, backing away on his hands and knees.
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Grak stared at him for three long, tense seconds, his thumb resting heavily on the pistol grip. “Stupid luck,” Grak spat finally, though his eyes remained sharp with suspicion. “Get those coils to Bay Four before I put the next slug through your knee. I’ll be watching your captain at third watch.”
Mavuk dragged the sled away as fast as his trembling legs could move. Inside his work gloves, his hands were shaking. Cold sweat soaked his shirt beneath his mantle. If Grak reported that reflex to a sector authority, an imperial scanner squad would be on Cazo-Rift before dawn.
At the far end of Bay Four sat The Aṣe-Vaz.
It was a patched-together hybrid freighter. Its starboard hull was scavenged from an obsolete mining rig, while its sub-drives were held together by industrial welds and leaking coolant lines.
Standing on the ship’s lower boarding ramp was its owner, Balon Cazo-Vaz.
Cazo was Frost-Kin — his skin a rich, deep obsidian, contrasting sharply with his pale golden locs and striking ice-blue eyes. He was elbow-deep in an open manifold, tightening a leaking hydraulic line with a heavy spanner.
“You’re late, Mavuk,” Cazo called out, wiping grease from his cheek. “The manifold is venting primary pressure. If we don’t seat those coils, the drive core goes dark.”
“Grak tried to seize the crate at the staging gate,” Mavuk said, hauling the coils up the ramp. He leaned against the interior bulkhead, trying to catch his breath.
Cazo paused, eyeing Mavuk’s pale face and trembling hands. “He shoot at you?”
“He missed,” Mavuk lied quickly, turning his back to hide his expression. “I slipped on the ice deck.”
Cazo narrowed his ice-blue eyes, studying Mavuk for a quiet second. “This rock eats good men and spits out grease,” Cazo grunted, grabbing the coils and slotting them into the excitation housing. “We get this drive humming, pay off the dock master, and we’re out of Cazo-Rift before Grak remembers he has a crew.”
Cazo wiped his hands on a rag and walked over to the flight console. The main sub-space receiver was flickering wildly. Instead of trade manifests or sector navigation feeds, the screen was filled with dead static.
“Is the local relay down?” Mavuk asked.
“Not just local,” Cazo muttered, tapping the glass. “The trade feeds from the inner sectors went silent an hour ago. No distress calls. No warnings. Just… nothing.”
Before Mavuk could answer, the ambient noise of the hangar changed.
It was not an explosion or a power drop. The steady, deep C-tone hum of the dock’s heavy atmospheric scrubbers suddenly lost its pitch, dropping into an eerie, flat silence. A second later, the overhead floodlights died completely, leaving Bay Four bathed in the blood-red glare of emergency backup strips.
The temperature inside the hangar plummeted five degrees in seconds.
At the far end of the flight corridor, the heavy iron blast doors slammed shut with a deafening hydraulic screech — sealing the main launch tube and locking The Aṣe-Vaz inside the bay.
Above the open atmospheric ceiling cradle, the sky parted.
A sleek, shadow-black stealth vessel dropped silently through the frozen clouds. It carried no Great House markings and left no plasma trail. As it hovered over Bay Four, a narrow, crimson sensor beam swept across the landing pad, locking directly onto The Aṣe-Vaz’s hull berth before settling onto the deck without a sound.
Cazo slowly dropped his spanner. His hand reached down to the heavy blaster holstered at his hip.
“The launch doors are sealed,” Cazo whispered, his ice-blue eyes fixed on the stealth skiff.
“And that ship didn’t land here by accident.”
(Episode 1 End)
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