Korr’s expression hardens. The amusement vanishes and gives way to a cold, industrial fury. He raises the needle, the purple gleam reflecting in his dead-blue eye.
"Have it your way, scavenger," he growls.
He lunges forward, and I stay perfectly still. I wait. I listen to the low, mechanical groan of the ship. Because beneath the screams of the ghost code and the roar of the breach, I hear a new sound.
The Warlord is coming. And he is bringing the storm with him.
CHAPTER 20
DRAEVIK
My matrix logs pain as a secondary data point while momentum drives my machinery, a relic of a war that refuses to end, and my internal HUD brandishes a graveyard of red warning icons. My left knee servo screams with every stride, a grinding, mechanical protest from the shock-baton's discharge, but I force the limb to hold. I have already abandoned the strategic choke points. I have already left the optimal path to rot.
Nyra is the only pulse left in this universe, and the mark tells me she is being dragged toward the vacuum.
A squad of boarders intercepts me near the ventilation hub. They are armed with heavy kinetic repeaters, weapons designed to puncture ship hulls. I ignore the tactical readout. I skip the suppressive fire maneuvers. I simply throw myself into their midst.
I catch the barrel of the lead man’s rifle as he fires, the muzzle flash blindingly close. The round grazes my forearm, tearing a furrow through my pale skin, but I use the grip to wrench the weapon—and his arms—into an impossible angle. He screams, a wet, choked sound that ends when I drive my knee into his chest, collapsing the life support unit on his back.
The other three scramble to adjust, their helmet lights dancing frantically across the blood-slicked deck. Superior speed takes hold, the result of bio-mechanical veining and centuries of refined violence. I seize one by the throat, my gauntlet crushing his windpipe before I swing him bodily into his comrade. They hit the bulkhead with a sound like a falling anvil.
The last man turns to run, his boots skidding on the diamond-plate floor. My hand shoots forward, fingers catching the interlaced neural fibers of his cloak. I jerk him back and drive a punch into the base of his skull, the impact resonating through my own arm like a bell. He drops in a heap of silent, ruined armor.
I push through the physical exhaustion, my lungs burning as they draw in the thin, metallic air. I ignore the seals on my leaking chest plate, focusing every remaining circuit of my being on the heat in my chest—the amber-gold beacon of her heartbeat.
I reach the heavy bulkhead leading to the primary breach—the wound in the hull where theCarrion Kinglatches on like a parasite. The boarders have welded it shut from the inside, a desperate, frantic attempt to buy seconds against the thing they hear coming through the walls.
Ignoring the bypass protocols and skipping the call for ship assistance, I plant my lead foot; lock the stabilizers in my greaves; and drive my shoulder into the door.
The impact sends a jolt of white-hot agony through the puncture wound in my side, but the fire is welcome—a visceral confirmation of continued functionality. The metal groans, the welds throwing a shower of frantic sparks into the dark. I hit it again. I hit it until the obsidian yields, the hinges shrieking as they are torn from the frame.
The doors fly open. I stumble into the wide, shattered expanse of the breach.
Wind-thin currents whistle through the gaps where the containment field flickers with a sickly, unstable blue. The stars are a cold, mocking backdrop to the violence. I observe the lighting rigs casting long, industrial shadows across the ancient statues.
And then, I spot the cage.
Nyra looks like a small, defiant flame amid the ruin. Her dark hair has escaped its braid, framing a face streaked with sweat and grime. Her amber-brown eyes—those fierce, beautiful eyes—lock onto mine. The relief that crashes over the bond comes out as a tidal wave, nearly buckling my knees.
"Draevik!" she screams, a lifeline in the dark.
The sight of her caged, her taut frame pressing against the cold bars, snaps the last of my restraint. Korr stands over her, his battle-worn frame in heavy salvage gear, while Rovik securely tucks the remaining high-tensile wire into his belt near the gate. Beside Korr stands Selra, the pale lavender-skinned tech specialist, her neural implants pulsing a frantic blue as she monitors the breach.
"Open fire!" Korr shrieks, panic bleeding through his authority as it echoes against the hull. "Tear him apart!"
The boarders—the remnants of the squads I haven't already dismantled—level their pulse-rifles. A storm of kinetic slugs and energy bolts erupts, a blinding strobe that fills the breach. Bypassing the tactical pillars and ignoring the crates of stolen tech, I break into a charge.
The first volley slams into my chest plate, the kinetic energy throwing me back a step. I feel the inner shell crack, the cold air of the breach hissing against my skin. I dismiss the warnings. I disregard the blood leaking from my abdomen. I seize thenearest man by the neck and drive my gauntlet through his visor, the sound of breaking glass lost in the roar of the ship's agony.
The room barely contains the storm of my presence as I move through these men, seeing them only as obstacles between the hunter and my heart.
I catch a second boarder’s rifle, snapping the barrel with a flick of my wrist. I drive the sharp metal into his throat, silencing his cry. Ash-toned skin and machine-laced veins ripple with a lethal light, a physical testament to raw brutality. The third and fourth men attempt to reposition, their boots clattering against the deck in a frantic scramble of terror. They realize too late that I have stopped fighting for the ship. I fight for the woman in the cage.
I swing my arm in a wide, crushing arc, the organic armor-like ridges on my shoulders catching the industrial light. I throw the body of a dead boarder into the path of the shooters, using their comrade as a temporary shield of meat and metal while I close the final distance.
Crimson spray and ruined metal turn the floor into a slaughterhouse. I stand among the debris, my breath coming in heavy, ragged rattles. My armor is a wreck. Blood—both mine and theirs—slicks the floor beneath my boots.
Reaching the perimeter of the cage, my low-lit eyes flare from a dim simmer to a blinding, predatory gold. Only a single step stands in the way, a heartbeat’s distance from her skin.