Chapter 15: Contract 9-Delta: Karev Refuses a Kill

The contract brief arrived on his secondary unit at 0612, two days after he left Sunder. He was anchored in the transit lane between Ark Pellas and the Tessaly ridge shelf, eating cold protein paste from a foil pack, watching the light change on the water, which was gray-green and restless with a low southwestern chop. He read the brief twice and then put the unit down and finished the protein paste.

Contract 9-Delta. Issued through standard Compact channel seven. Bioluminescent pack predators, confirmed sightings across a seventy-kilometer supply corridor running northeast between Ark Dunmore and Ark Tessaly. Three Compact freight vessels damaged in the past seventeen days — hull breach on the third, cargo loss rated at significant. The creatures were intercepting vessels at depth and working the hulls from below, with what the damage assessment described as coordinated mechanical deconstruction rather than feeding behavior. Four crew injured across three incidents. No fatalities to date.

Rate: two and a half standard. Response window: forty-eight hours.