"Scavengers have to know how things break if we want to survive the aftermath," I share softly, leaning into his touch for a fleeting second. "But we need to move. If Selra is playing with the galley sensors, she’s definitely hitting the atmospheric scrubbers in the crew quarters next. She knows we’re coming for her, and she’s going to make the air too thin to fight in."
"Then we shall ensure she runs out of air first," he declares, his hand sliding to the small of my back to guide me toward the exit.
I stick close to his side, our strides falling into unison. I’m more than a scavenger following a Warlord now. I’m the one pointing out the cracks in the walls before they can crumble. As we step over the fallen boarders and head back into the dark corridors, I realize I’m no longer just trying to live. I’m trying to win.
We move through the narrow artery of the secondary corridor, my hand resting lightly against the cold onyx wall to keep my balance as the ship lurches. The lighting here is sporadic, flickering between a dim violet and a harsh, warning crimson. Draevik looms ahead, a shadow whose movements carry a surprising silence for one of his mass. He pauses at the threshold of the crew quarters, his head tilting as his sensorspick up something I can only feel as a faint whirring in the deck plates.
"Three targets," he warns, the sound a cautious hammering that makes the mark ache. "They are barricaded behind the central dormitory lockers. They have pulse-shielding."
"Pulse-shields won't stop a structural override." I move to his side and peer around his massive shoulder, spotting the faint blue shimmer of the energy barrier at the hall’s distant edge. The boarders huddle there, their voices a frantic, whispering jabber. "The defense turrets in this hallway are offline, but they aren't destroyed. If I can get to the maintenance panel in the floor, I can hotwire the targeting sensors to ignore the IFF codes and just hit everything that isn't us."
Draevik turns his head, searching the darkness before settling on me. "The panel is exposed to their line of sight. They will prioritize you the moment the shielding drops."
"That’s why you’re the distraction." I check the power cell in my sidearm. "You draw their fire. I’ll be under the floorboards before they realize I’m moving. Once the turrets wake up, they’ll be too busy staying alive to worry about a scavenger in the vents."
I expect a protest, a reminder of my fragility, but Draevik only nods. He reaches out, his hand lingering on my shoulder for a heartbeat, his thumb pressing firmly against the fabric of my suit. It wafts through the space as a silent acknowledgment of my plan—a partnership in the making.
"I will provide the opening," he agrees.
He surges forward into the hallway, his massive kinetic rifle barking a thunderous succession that drowns out the sirens. The boarders scream, their pulse-shields flaring as they return fire. The air becomes a chaotic mess of blue and orange streaks. I dive for the maintenance hatch, my fingers catching the handle and wrenching it upward.
I drop into the shallow crawlspace, the smell of dust and old electricity filling my lungs. Above me, the floorboards rattle with the impact of Draevik’s heavy boots and the hiss of incoming fire. He stands like a wall of muscle, absorbing the brunt of their aggression while I work.
I find the turret control hub, a dense cluster of copper veins and silicon chips. My hands move with a frantic, focused speed. I use the toothed edge of the shard I kept to strip the main data line. I need a violent fix. I bridge the emergency power bus directly into the firing mechanism, bypassing the safety protocols that usually prevent the ship from shooting its own crew.
"Almost there," my teeth grit against the metallic tang in the air.
The wiring snakes through the hull in a stubborn, ancient tangle of Hegemony engineering. I have to reach deeper into the housing, my knuckles scraping against the sharp metal edges until they bleed. I find the central logic gate—the piece that directs the gun, telling it friend from foe. With a sharp twist of my wrist, I snap the limiter. I take a length of frayed wire from a nearby junction and wrap it around the output lead, forcing a raw, unfiltered signal into the turret's brain.
I jam the bridged connection into the primary port. A sharp spark jumps to my fingertips, stinging like a swarm of hornets, but I ignore it. The turrets above me whine to life, a high-pitched mechanical snarl that cuts through the gunfire.
"Turrets active!" I shout, pulling myself back up through the hatch.
The ceiling-mounted guns rotate with a predatory snap, locking onto the shimmering blue shields of the boarders. A hail of white-hot bolts rains down on the dormitory lockers. The shields shatter under the concentrated fire, the boarders scrambling for cover that no longer exists.
Scrambling out of the hole while staying low, I marvel at Draevik's seamless movements through the smoke from defense to a brutal, close-quarters assault. He remains aware of my position, shifting his weight to create a lane for the turrets to finish the job while keeping himself clear of the crossfire.
The last of the three intruders tries to make a break for the ventilation duct, but I’m already there. I raise my sidearm and fire a single shot that hits the wall just above his head, showering him in molten sparks. He stumbles, and Draevik is on him in a second, ending the threat with a terrifying precision.
"Structural integrity in this sector is holding," I confirm, moving to a nearby wall console to stabilize the flickering lights. "I’m locking the dormitory doors. No one else is getting in or out of this wing."
I navigate the screen, confidence present now that was absent an hour ago. I’m rerouting the internal sensors, setting up a tripwire that will alert us the second anyone tries to breach the perimeter. I’m fortifying our position. I scan the readouts for the oxygen levels and realize I can boost the scrubbers by siphoning power from the non-essential lighting in the lower decks.
Draevik seizes the last boarder, his hand crushing the man’s rifle as if it were made of glass. He throws the scavenger aside and turns to me, his chest heaving. The carnage is absolute, but he looks at me with a quiet intensity that draws everything inward.
"Your input was... optimal," he concedes, the word sounding like a hard-won victory.
"More like a gamble," I joke as I wipe soot from my forehead. "As a scavenger, I know how to play the odds."
I step closer to him, the heat radiating off his massive body acting like a magnet. Resting my hand on his arm, my fingers feeling the ticking of his backup cardiovascular system settlingback into a constant flow. He leans into the contact, a silent admission that he values my presence as much as my technical skill.
We stand in the ruined dormitory, the air heavy with ozone and the scent of victory. Draevik listens to my suggestions for the next route without a hint of hesitation. My actions finally reflect my worth as we move together, a singular force dedicated to taking back the ship that was stolen from us.
We push forward toward the primary lift, our footsteps echoing in a synchronized beat against the deck plates. A thin, cold-metal taste marks this level, along with the dying breath of the ship’s lungs, but the heat radiating from Draevik’s side keeps the chill at bay. I find myself adjusting my stride to match his, my movements mirroring his tactical caution. It’s a strange, visceral synchronicity—as if the mark has finally finished mapping his heartbeats and merged them with my own. Every time his heavy boot hits the floor, my own foot follows a millisecond later, a phantom limb moving in tandem with his massive frame.
"The bridge is three decks up." Draevik reports. "The internal sensors suggest Korr’s primary team has reached the outer foyer. They are using thermal cutters on the emergency blast doors."
"They’re wasting their time with cutters." I stop at a flickering wall terminal to pull up the schematic. "The Hegemony used layered obsidian-alloy for the bridge casing. It’ll just reflect the heat back at them. If I were Korr, I’d be looking for the auxiliary data port in the maintenance closet down the hall. He can use a bypass kit to trick the ship into thinking there’s a hull breach, which force-opens the doors for evacuation."