The air inside Ilara’s workshop was heavy with the hum of machinery, the dim light casting jagged shadows across the cluttered workbenches. Kovacs stood by the central table, his hands clenched into fists at his sides as Ilara’s piercing gaze bore into him. She was silent, a predator measuring whether her prey was worth the effort.

Then she spoke, her voice low and deliberate. “What if I were to tell you…” She paused, the silence stretching taut like a wire about to snap. “…that there isn’t a war right now. Not yet. But there will be—and it won’t be about survival, justice, or any noble cause. It’ll be about money.”

Kovacs blinked, her words catching him off guard. “I don’t understand.”

Ilara leaned forward, resting her hands on the table. “The corporations—the same ones that bought your designs, the same ones funding the rebuilding of Prescott—they’re not rebuilding out of charity. They’re setting the stage. They want conflict. Not because they care about who wins, but because they plan to sell weapons to both sides. War is their business, and business is booming.”

The weight of her words hit Kovacs like a blow. “That doesn’t make sense. The colonies can’t afford another war. Prescott can barely feed itself, let alone fund a conflict.”

Ilara’s laugh was cold and sharp. “You’re thinking too small. It’s not just about Prescott. The corporations are playing the long game. They’ll manufacture a crisis—tensions between colonies, trade disputes, even fabricated terrorist attacks. Then, when the flames are high enough, they’ll swoop in with their shiny new machines and ‘solutions.’ Solutions they’ve been testing on backwater planets like this one.”

Kovacs felt a chill run through him. “Backwater planet…?” he said waving around, his gesture encompassing the planet they were on, the jewel of the sector. “You mean the raids, the skirmishes. They’re tests?”

“Exactly.” Ilara’s face hardened. “Every mech they deploy, every tactic they refine—it’s all data. They’re perfecting their machines so they can sell them at a premium when the real fighting starts. And the worst part? They’re using people like you and me to do it.”

He stepped back, his mind racing. “But I’m not… I didn’t—”

“You didn’t know,” Ilara interrupted, her tone softening just slightly. “But ignorance won’t save you. You’ve already given them some of the best designs they’ve ever seen. Now, they’re just waiting to milk your brilliance for every credit it’s worth.”

Kovacs’s stomach churned as realization dawned. He had focused so intently on perfecting his craft and building machines to protect people that he never considered their potential uses or users.

Ilara let the silence hang for a moment before gesturing to a half-assembled reactor core on her workbench. “If you want to prove you’re not one of them, fix this. It’s a core design I’ve been working on for months. Sabotaged on purpose. Fix it, and maybe I’ll believe you’re worth trusting.”

Kovacs hesitated, then stepped closer, his eyes scanning the intricate mechanism. The design was brilliant but intentionally flawed, riddled with redundancies that would cause catastrophic failure under stress. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work, his mind sharpening as he lost himself in the problem. Hours passed as he worked, the room filled with the soft clinks of tools and the hum of machinery.

Finally, he stepped back, wiping sweat from his brow. “It’s done. The coolant system is stable, and the energy flow is optimized.”

Ilara inspected the core, her sharp eyes flicking over his adjustments. After a tense moment, she nodded. “Good work. You’re smarter than you look.”

Before Kovacs could respond, she leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Now that I know you can handle yourself, let’s talk about what we’re really going to do.”

The plan Ilara revealed was audacious and dangerous. Using intelligence she’d intercepted, she’d identified a corporate staging ground—a secret facility where they were testing prototypes for a new line of combat mechs. The facility wasn’t just a lab; it was a lynchpin in their operations, a place where they fine-tuned the machines that would one day ignite a war.

“We’re going to destroy it,” Ilara said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “If we can set them back even a few months, it’ll buy time for the colonies to prepare. Maybe even stop the war before it starts.”

Kovacs frowned. “And if they retaliate? What stops them from just doubling down?”

She fixed him with an icy stare. “Nothing. But doing nothing guarantees they win. Are you in or not?”

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He didn’t hesitate. “I’m in.”

***

The facility was a marvel of hidden engineering, its sleek architecture carved into the mountainside, seamlessly blending with the rugged terrain. It appeared almost innocuous from a distance, but Kovacs knew better. Beneath the surface lay a hive of industrial activity, a factory churning out small mechs—suicide machines powered by the flawed energy cores Ilara had shown him.

Ilara’s team moved under the cover of night, shadows slipping through the jagged terrain like ghosts. Kovacs piloted a small recon drone, its compact design perfect for sneaking past the facility’s exterior defenses. Its controls felt intuitive in his hands, a testament to Ilara’s engineering and her trust in him.

“Eyes on the facility,” Kovacs whispered into the comm. His drone perched on a rocky outcrop, its camera zooming in on the factory below. Automated turrets dotted the perimeter, scanning methodically for intruders. Patrol drones buzzed through the air, their sensors sweeping the landscape.

“Proceed to the ventilation access,” Ilara instructed, her voice calm but urgent. “That’s your entry point.”

Kovacs guided the drone down the slope, weaving between outcroppings and ducking behind boulders to avoid detection. The ventilation shaft loomed ahead, a steel grate embedded in the mountainside. He deployed the drone’s laser cutter, slicing through the bars with painstaking precision.

“I’m in,” he said, guiding the drone into the narrow shaft.

The interior was a labyrinth of ducts and tunnels, the drone’s sensors mapping the twists and turns as it descended deeper into the facility. The hum of machinery grew louder with every meter, a constant reminder of the factory’s scale.

***

Kovacs’s drone emerged from the ventilation system into the heart of the factory. The space was cavernous, illuminated by harsh industrial lights that cast long shadows over rows of assembly lines. Hundreds of small drone mechs stood arrayed like soldiers on parade, their glossy shells reflecting the cold, clinical light. Ilara equipped each drone with the sabotaged energy cores she had exposed, ticking time bombs waiting to be unleashed.

Kovacs swallowed hard, the sight overwhelming. “This isn’t just a factory,” he said into the comm. “They’re building an army.”

Ilara’s voice was sharp. “Then we can’t let it leave this mountain. Find the coolant towers. They’ll lead you to the power source.”

The drone zipped through the factory, avoiding patrol drones and automated security cameras. Kovacs’s heart pounded as he maneuvered past clusters of engineers and technicians, all oblivious to the intruder in their midst. At the far end of the factory, massive coolant towers rose from the floor, their pipes disappearing into the ceiling above. The towers hissed and groaned, expelling steam as they worked to keep the reactors stable.

“These towers feed the entire facility,” Ilara explained. “Follow the pipes. They’ll lead you to the central HVAC system.”

Kovacs steered the drone upward, following the pipes as they snaked through the complex. The trail led him to a control room, its walls lined with servers and monitors displaying real-time diagnostics. A data core glowed faintly in the center of the room, pulsating like a heartbeat.

“I’m at the control room,” Kovacs said. “There’s a data core here. I might extract their plans.”

“You have two minutes,” Ilara replied. “After that, we detonate.”

Kovacs interfaced the drone with the data core, initiating the download. Streams of information flooded the screen—blueprints, schematics, deployment schedules. His stomach churned as the extent of the corporations’ plans became clear. They weren’t just building drones; they were setting the stage for colony-wide conflict, stoking tensions to justify the deployment of their machines.

“Download at sixty percent,” he said, glancing nervously at the progress bar. The drone’s sensors picked up movement—a patrol drone entering the corridor outside.

“Hurry,” Ilara urged.

The patrol drone hovered closer, its sensors scanning the room. Kovacs held his breath as his recon drone remained motionless, hoping the camouflage held. The progress bar inched forward—seventy percent, eighty.

The patrol drone beeped, its sensors locking onto the recon drone. “I’m made!” Kovacs shouted, yanking the drone free from the data core as alarms blared.

***

Kovacs piloted the drone through the chaos, dodging security drones and incoming fire as the factory roared to life. He followed the HVAC pipes deeper into the facility, the drone’s camera capturing glimpses of assembly lines grinding to a halt as workers scrambled to respond to the breach.

“I’m at the HVAC system,” he said. The sprawling machinery hissed and groaned, its network of vents and ducts pumping air throughout the factory. Kovacs steered the drone into a narrow duct, guiding it to the central fan unit. The drone wedged itself in place, its sabotaged energy core primed.

“I’m setting the charge,” he said, his voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through him.

“Do it now,” Ilara ordered.

With a last command, Kovacs armed the core and started the countdown. The drone’s camera feed flickered as the core began to destabilize, its flawed design creating a cascade of energy that would soon erupt. Kovacs guided the drone’s last transmission back to his mech, his hands trembling as the screen went dark.

***

The explosion rippled through the facility, the energy core’s detonation triggering a chain reaction that tore through the HVAC system. Fire and debris erupted from the coolant towers as the reactors overheated, plunging the factory into chaos. Smoke billowed from the mountainside, visible even from Ilara’s position outside.

“Facility is down,” Kovacs reported, his voice grim. He watched from his mech’s cockpit as the factory burned, its sleek exterior collapsing under the force of the explosion.

Ilara’s voice crackled over the comm, a rare note of approval in her tone. “Good work, Kovacs. You just set them back months.”

As the team exfiltrated, Kovacs couldn’t shake the images from the data core.