
by EamonCurbelo
A survivor of the Empire’s brutal war with the Federation, former Marine Captain Jack Lockley returns home determined to leave the past behind and rebuild a quiet life with his wife. But in the sprawling hive city of Nexus, where gang violence, corporate power, and cybernetic ambition rule, peace proves impossible. While working at CyberTech, the Empire’s technological crown jewel, Jack stumbles onto a secret capable of reshaping the balance of power across the stars. What begins as a search for answers soon exposes a conspiracy reaching from the criminal underworld to the highest levels of the Empire, and Jack finds himself caught in the machinery of something far larger than he ever imagined. But Jack Lockley has never been good at leaving a fight unfinished. Stripped of everything he once was and rebuilt into something new, Jack begins hunting those responsible, following the conspiracy from the blood-soaked streets of Nexus toward the powers hiding behind it. The deeper he goes, the more dangerous the truth becomes, until his fight for answers threatens to become a war against the very system he once served.
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Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 05:28 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 05:28 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
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Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.