A shadow crawled out of the black snowfall—too tall, too heavy to be human.

  It stepped into view on piston legs, a ground-combat mech that made a tank look like a toy. Metal arms. A thick torso. And bolted into the centerline: a cannon that looked like someone had taken an old-world tank gun and reinforced it until the thing looked like it had no right to exist.

  Across its armor plates, somebody had painted a stylized witch’s hat.

  Of course they had.

  “Why the hell does a gang have a heavy mech?” Nardia hissed under her breath, heat flooding her cheeks inside the sealed helmet.

  She already knew the answer. Witches' Family. The galaxy’s richest trash. Outlaws who acted like nobles, and somehow always got their hands on the newest hardware first—smuggling, bribes, blood. Whatever it took.

  Even for them, though… this thing was wrong.

  She flicked her visor zoom up.

  The closer view made it worse. Layers of illegal refits stacked on top of refits. Bulk that no “civilian model” could justify. The kind of machine that didn’t just win fights. The kind that erased the after-action reports.

  “This is a ‘we could level a colony if we felt like it’ mech,” she muttered, then stopped breathing for half a second.

  Because tied down along the mech’s rear frame—lashed like hunting trophies—were the Dwarfs.

  Her Dwarfs.

  Seven squat combat drones she’d dragged out of an Ancient ruin with frostbitten fingers and pure spite. Now they were cargo.

  Hey— she wanted to scream. Those are mine.

  Instead she forced the sound down her throat. If she bolted from cover at this range, she’d end up as red mist on snow that was already black.

  Human silhouettes moved around the mech’s feet. Black work-suits. Loud hats. Jewelry that clinked and flashed like they were afraid of being mistaken for someone with taste. The Branch Leader’s crew, then—the local muscle.

  One of them waved a purple holo-tablet like it was a trophy and yelled on an open channel, not even bothering to hide it.

  “Yo! That kid we snagged is around here somewhere, right? The President’s daughter, or whatever. That’s a payday, boys—heh heh heh. Let’s go collect!”

  They were broadcasting it. Like the air belonged to them.

  Nardia’s jaw tightened. So they were the ones who dumped me out here. Of course they were.

  Another voice laughed. “The Lady’ll love it. That woman’s hobby is collecting more ‘cute little dolls.’”

  Nardia felt her stomach turn. Sick. She’s sick. Stepmother—or “Lady,” if you liked licking boots.

  A third man snickered. “Yeah, yeah. She calls herself a stepmom in public, but she’s basically the local branch’s boss.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Branch boss? Nah,” someone else said. “Word is she’s higher. Runs a whole ‘Chanting Squad.’”

  Chanting Squad? Nardia almost bit her tongue. Stop making it sound adorable.

  Witches' Family loved their fantasy-flavored titles. Like slapping fairy dust on a corpse made it less dead. “Chanting Squad” sounded like a cult choir. In reality it meant hackers with electromagnetic toys—EMP rigs, neural interference, the kind of tech that messed with brains instead of locks.

  And that… fit too well.

  “So that’s who hit Dad,” she breathed, voice shaking in the helmet. “Mind attacks. Dirty little monsters.”

  Anger bubbled up hard enough that she tasted metal. Her father—the President—had ended up in a coma that everyone called an “accident.” And the woman who’d married into their house was tied to the people capable of turning a person’s mind into pudding.

  Of course she was.

  Nardia’s thoughts ran hot, too hot, and that was when the mech’s tower speaker crackled and spilled a flat synthetic voice into the snow.

  [Target: President’s daughter — Search in progress]

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Nardia sank lower behind the frozen brush, snow crunching under her suit.

  The mech’s head unit rotated. A cluster of compound sensors swept the treeline, their glow a cold blue that made the black snow look even filthier.

  [Multiple life signs detected — Classification: small animals 99% — Human 0%]

  Nardia let out a thin, humorless laugh. “Great. I’m wildlife.”

  It wasn’t great, but it was alive. She held still, every muscle locked, waiting for the scan to pass.

  Then—

  Snap.

  A dry sound cut the air like a whip. Sparks spat from the mech’s sensor cluster.

  Nardia blinked. “What?”

  The Branch crew erupted.

  “W-what was that!?”

  “Jamming! Someone’s jamming us—what channel!?”

  “Who the hell can cut into this frequency!?”

  Nardia didn’t know either. She only knew one thing for sure:

  Witches' Family looked confused.

  And nothing ever confused Witches' Family.

  The air changed.

  Black snow lifted—upward, wrong, like the world had briefly forgotten which way down was. Not wind. Not a gust. More like gravity hiccuped and the storm flinched.

  Her suit chimed.

  [Warning: Unknown craft — High-velocity approach]

  “Unknown craft?” Nardia whispered. “On this planet?”

  She tilted her helmet back, staring into the dark sky.

  A white streak tore toward them from the distance. Not light—metal. A long, slim shape with a needle nose, cutting through the snowfall like it hated the weather as much as she did.

  An interceptor. A real one.

  This world didn’t have ships like that. And Witches' Family didn’t paint their toys clean white.

  The gangsters saw it too.

  “What the hell is that!?”

  “Autonomous drone-ship? Black market merc?”

  “Fire! Bring it down!”

  They scrambled, shouting over each other, but the interceptor didn’t care. It dropped in a straight descent, then slammed on the brakes above the heavy mech like it had all the time in the universe.

  The air popped. Pressure punched outward. Snow exploded in a wide ring, pelting Nardia’s cover and rattling her visor.

  For a moment she saw nothing but swirling black.

  Then the snow haze thinned.

  A side panel on the white craft slid open.

  A man stepped into the opening like he owned the scene.

  Tall. Still. No visible weapon. A plain white coat without ornament. Yet the space around him leaned his way, as if even the storm wanted to listen.

  He spoke with an easy drawl that didn’t match the violence on the ground—low and rough around the edges, like old smoke.

  “Well now. That’s a flashy toy you’ve brought out, Witches.” He looked down at the heavy mech and its cannon like he was judging a cheap drink. “Running a combat-grade unit out on the frontier… you boys sure are motivated.”

  Every gangster froze, like somebody hit pause.

  Nardia froze too, staring at him through drifting snow. That voice…

  It had grit. It had amusement. It had the kind of calm that only came from being the biggest predator in the room.

  The Branch Leader, up on the mech, found his lungs again and roared into the open channel.

  “Name yourself! Who the hell are you? Military? You trying to interfere with us?”

  The man’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.

  “Ahmad L. Rashid,” he said. “Independent adventurer. Licensed frontier security.”

  He let the words hang for a beat—then dropped the hammer in the same bored tone.

  “By authority of that license, I’m placing you under arrest. Unregistered operation of a heavy tactical mech… and attempted assassination of the President in this planet.”