Chapter 14 Breach #2
Then, slowly, atmosphere floods back into the sealed corridor—a controlled repressurization that still hits the disoriented elites like a second shockwave.
We rise from cover.
The elites are scattered across the corridor in various states of disarray.
Some are down and not moving. Others are struggling to stand, their armor’s gyroscopic stabilizers trying to compensate for the sudden return of gravity and pressure.
Their formation is gone. Their coordination is shattered.
“Now,” Suki says, and there’s something cold in her voice. Something that reminds me she survived three years on this rock by being tougher than anyone expected. “We finish this.”
We do.
The War Room falls silent.
The last elite drops, smoke rising from the hole Suki put through his helmet.
The emergency lighting casts everything in shades of red and shadow.
Bodies litter the floor—too many of them, most in Meridian black, but some in Zaterran crystalline armor too.
The air smells like ozone and scorched metal and something organic that I’m trying not to think about.
On the main screen, the upload bar reaches 46%.
“Status?” Suki calls out, already moving to check Vex’ra’s position.
“CORRIDOR IS SECURE,” Zip reports. “RUSTY IS STILL ENGAGED IN THE MAINTENANCE TUNNELS, BUT REPORTS THAT THE INTRUDERS ARE ‘DEMONSTRATING REMARKABLE RESISTANCE TO CORRECTIVE EDUCATION.’ I BELIEVE THIS IS RUSTY’S WAY OF SAYING HE IS HAVING FUN.”
“What about the generators?” I ask, and my voice sounds strange in my own ears. Distant. Because through the bond, I can feel—
Something’s wrong.
It’s not pain. Not yet. But it’s the anticipation of pain, the moment before impact, the split-second before something terrible happens that you can’t prevent.
“Power output is holding steady,” Suki says, studying her displays. “Henrok and Rynn must be holding the—”
The lights die.
Not flicker. Die.
The holographic displays vanish. The steady hum of the fortress shields—that subliminal vibration I’d stopped noticing because it was always there—drops an octave and then another and then cuts out entirely.
The amber glow of the crystalline veins in the walls fades to sickly yellow, then dims to almost nothing.
Emergency lighting kicks in, painting everything blood-red.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no—”
“THE POWER GENERATORS,” Zip announces, and there’s something in his synthesized voice I’ve never heard before. Genuine alarm. “THEY HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED. SHIELD OUTPUT IS DROPPING RAPIDLY. CURRENT PROJECTION: SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL COMPLETE FAILURE.”
Seven minutes until the fleet burns us from orbit.
Seven minutes until everyone in this fortress dies.
Through the bond, I feel—
Pain.
Jagged, white-hot, screaming pain that isn’t mine but hits me like I’ve been stabbed. It tears through the connection between us, and I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but feel the echo of something terrible happening to the man I love.
I stagger, grab the edge of the tactical table. The stone is cold under my palms. Solid. Real. The only thing keeping me upright.
“Polly!” Suki’s at my side instantly, grabbing my arm. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Rynn,” I manage, and my voice doesn’t sound like my own. It sounds broken. Terrified. “He’s hurt. Something—”
The bond pulses again. Fainter now. Flickering like a candle in a storm.
But still there.
Still alive.
I cling to that like a lifeline, like the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
“The generators,” I force out, straightening despite the way my hands are shaking. “They’re under attack. Heavy assault. Rynn and Henrok are—they need help.”
Suki’s face goes pale. In three years married to a warlord, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look scared. She looks scared now.
“Go,” she says.
“What?”
“Go.” She grabs my shoulders, gives me a shake. “Rusty and I can hold the War Room. That upload needs to finish—we’re at 47% now, we’re so close. But if the generators fall, if the shields go down, none of it matters. You need to get to them.”
“Suki, I can’t leave you here—”
“You can and you will.” Her voice is steel, her eyes fierce.
“That’s not a request, Rocket. That’s an order from your big sister.
Henrok is down there. Your mate is down there.
If those generators fall, we all die anyway.
So you get your ass down there, you save your stubborn noble, and you save my stubborn warlord while you’re at it. Go.”
I stare at her. My best friend. My sister in everything but blood. The person who knows me better than anyone except Rynn.
“Don’t die,” I whisper.
“Same to you.” She pulls me into a hug—fierce, tight, too short. “Both of you come back, you hear me? Or I swear on every star in this sector, I will find a way to drag you back from the afterlife just so I can kill you myself.”
“Deal.”
She releases me, and I’m already moving, checking my rifle’s charge, my backup power cells, the plasma grenades clipped to my belt. Through the bond, I feel Rynn—distant, wounded, fighting—and I let that feeling guide me like a compass.
“Zip,” I call as I head for the exit. “I need the fastest route to the generators. And I need to know what I’m walking into.”
“FASTEST ROUTE WILL TAKE YOU THROUGH THE EASTERN MAINTENANCE SHAFT AND DOWN THREE LEVELS. CURRENT STATUS AT THE GENERATORS: CATASTROPHIC. MERIDIAN DEPLOYED A HEAVY ASSAULT UNIT. ZATERRAN DEFENDERS ARE HOLDING BUT TAKING CASUALTIES. I AM DETECTING ELEVATED HEAT SIGNATURES CONSISTENT WITH PLASMA WEAPONS AND—” He pauses.
“—CAPTAIN, I AM DETECTING VALORIAN BIO-SIGNATURES IN DISTRESS. RYNN’S VITALS ARE ELEVATED BUT STABLE. HOWEVER—”
“However what, Zip?”
“HE IS brOADCASTING A DISTRESS SIGNAL ON VALORIAN EMERGENCY FREQUENCIES. AUTOMATED. IT ACTIVATED WHEN HIS ARMOR’S MEDICAL SYSTEMS DETECTED CRITICAL DAMAGE.”
My blood turns to ice. “How critical?”
“I CANNOT DETERMINE FROM HERE. BUT THE ARMOR WOULD ONLY ACTIVATE THAT BEACON IF IT BELIEVED ITS WEARER WAS IN IMMEDIATE LIFE-THREATENING DANGER.”
I start running.
The corridors blur past me—obsidian walls lit by failing emergency lights, crystalline veins that flicker weakly. I hear the distant thunder of combat, feel it through the deck plates, through the walls, through the bond that connects me to the man I love.
Hold on, I send down the connection, pouring everything I have into it. Every ounce of love, determination, stubborn refusal to lose him. I’m coming. Just hold on.
The response is faint. So faint I almost miss it.
But it’s there.
A pulse of warmth. Recognition. And underneath it, barely a whisper:
Hurry.
I run faster.
Behind me, the upload bar ticks to 48%, and the fortress shields continue to fail, and in the War Room, my sister prepares to hold the line against whatever comes next.
Ahead of me, somewhere in the smoke and chaos and screaming, the man I love is dying.
Not if I have anything to say about it.