"Reaper!" one yells, his voice cracking with terror.
I ignore his cry. I ignore the first volley of kinetic slugs that spark against my shoulder plates. I focus on the carnage.
Above the chaos, the first shot from the gantry rings out—a precise, lethal bolt that finds the neck of the lead boarder. Nyra’s aim is true. She provides the cover I need to close the distance. I seize the nearest man by the throat, the predatory look of my eyes illuminating his final moments.
"Your time is over," I declare, the sound shaking the very foundations of the galley.
We work in perfect, lethal synchronization. I become a storm on the ground—a whirlwind of pallid skin and biomechanical violence—while Nyra guards from the shadows. Every move she makes confirms the trust I have placed in her. We are reclaiming this ship, one intruder at a time.
The hunt exists as a shared victory.
CHAPTER 23
NYRA
As the ringing in my ears finally fades, the heavy, wet thud of the last boarder hitting the deck echoes in the galley. Smoke curls from the barrel of the heavy kinetic sidearm Draevik gave me back in the bunker, a bitter ribbon of gray that joins the haze of the galley. Draevik stands among the carnage, his chest heaving, his pallid, vein-laced skin slicked with a mixture of his blood and the copper-scented spray of our enemies. He looks like a god of ruin, yet when he turns to me, the crimson fire in his eyes settles into something grounding.
"The threat in this sector is neutralized," he states in a bass tone that rattles the hanging pots above the prep station.
"We have bigger problems than three dead scavengers," I warn him, holstering the pistol and sliding down from the gantry. I land light on my feet, my boots splashing into a shallow pool of leaked coolant. "Look at the primary terminal. The boarders prioritized frying the nutrient processors alongside stealing the medical supplies."
I move to the console, my fingers flying over the keys. The interface displays a chaotic mess of Hegemony script and warning flashes. I glance at the digital footprints Selra leftbehind—the flickering, ghost-like code gnawing at the ship’s resource management.
"She’s using a standard scavenger’s loop," I point out, gesturing at the screen as Draevik looms over my shoulder. "It’s a parasite program. It tricks the ship into thinking the processors are overheating, which triggers an automated vent of the entire food supply into space."
"The logic is flawed," Draevik states, his large hand coming up to hover near the screen. "The processors are cold."
"The ship thinks they’re melting because Selra’s tech is lying to the sensors." The logic pours out in a fast, breathless rush, carrying the jagged edges of a fight that isn't quite over yet. "I can shunt the sensor data through the secondary cooling loop. It’ll bypass her loop entirely. While I’m doing that, you need to manually lock the exterior ejection ports. If blocked from venting the supplies, she will shift tactics and surge the power grid to blow the seals."
Draevik pauses, his fiery eyes searching my face. I expect a demand for my retreat or a barked order to stay behind him. Instead, he nods, a sharp, decisive movement.
"I will secure the physical seals," he announces. "Execute the shunt."
I grin, a fierce, sharp thing. Working with him feels like a choreographed dance where we both know the steps. Diving into the sub-panels beneath the console, I pull back the plating to reveal a beautiful, terrifying nest of glimmering fiber optics. Grabbing a multi-tool from the side—a standard-issue Hegemony wrench that feels heavy and reliable in my hand. I find the primary sensor trunk, a bundle of cables showing a sickly agitated red. That’s Selra’s influence. I work quickly, my fingers nimble despite the movement of the ship. I strip the casing from a dormant secondary cooling line, exposing the cool, blue-white light of the auxiliary data path.
I pull a piece of conductive copper wire I scavenged earlier, twisting the frayed ends to prepare the bypass. But just as I move to bridge the two nodes, the console speakers crackle to life.
"Your response time represents a statistical anomaly for a Fringe inhabitant," Selra's voice echoes through the galley, smooth, flat, and intensely clinical. "I can track your signature in the systems, little anchor. You are operating as a secondary processor for his bandwidth."
Freezing for a microsecond, I watch Draevik's head snap toward the speaker, his red eyes flaring with fresh outrage.
"You're poking around in a brain too big for you, Selra," I shoot back, my fingers working faster.
"Oh, I'm already inside the synapses," she counters, the ship’s lights flickering as her code surges. "Did you really think a Warlord would keep a human around unless he was broken? I felt the feedback loop through your bond. If I squeeze you, he bleeds. Let’s see how much pressure he can take."
I ignore her taunt and plunge the copper wire into the open ports, completing the circuit. A sharp tang of ozone blooms as the current leaps the gap in a crackling arc. I watch the monitor as the malignant, red parasite code stutters, trapped inside the loop I just closed. I clip the primary feed, effectively cutting her off.
"Stay in the dark, you little ghost," I mutter under my breath.
The console chirps, the red flashes transitioning to a calm, manageable amber as the ship’s authentic data takes over. The nutrient processors whir with a deeper, more satisfied resonance, their internal temperature readings finally matching the reality of the room.
"Shunt complete," I shout over the groan of the ship. "The sensors are reading true now. Selra’s ghost is trapped in a dead-end circuit."
"The seals are locked," Draevik calls from across the room, his fist hitting the manual override with a resounding clang.
He moves back to me, his presence a massive, warm weight that fills the space. He reaches out, his thumb catching a smudge of grease on my cheek. The touch is brief, but the heat of it lingers, sparking against the mark. I look up at him, and for a moment, the war outside the galley doors feels like a distant memory. The way he looks at me has shifted. His predatory gaze has evolved into a Warlord admiring a scrap-heap queen.
"You possess a tactical mind for infrastructure." The compliment goes through the floor.