11. Garokk
GAROKK
T he Hulk is dying.
I feel it in the bones of the ship before the alarms even start—an old, shuddering groan that trembles through the walls like a beast coughing blood.
The floor beneath my feet vibrates with it, unsteady.
Wrong. Then the first klaxon screams, shrill and angry, echoing through the corridors with a pitch I’ve only heard once before—during the reactor breach that almost cooked me alive three decades back.
“Move,” I bark, already pulling on the strap of my weapons harness. “Now.”
Isolde scrambles for her boots, no questions, no delay. Her bare skin is goose-pimpled, eyes wide and dark in the flickering light.
"What's happening?" she pants, half-dressed but already shouldering her pack.
“The Hulk’s bleeding out,” I growl. “Fail-safes just snapped. She’s trying to take everything down with her.”
Reflector jitters beside us, his lens cracked and dripping sparks from one socket. “Thermal spires are rupturing. Plasma conduits rerouting into collapsed decks. Reactor destabilization imminent. Recommendation: escape or perish.”
“Gee,” Isolde snaps, “thanks for the options.”
I grab her arm, tug her close. “No time. Follow me.”
We run.
The corridors aren’t corridors anymore—they’re death traps. Every other junction groans or collapses in a hiss of decompressed air, molten metal leaking like lava through vents never meant to melt. The walls glow, not with power but with heat , pulsing red and gold like the Hulk's guts are on fire.
The floor buckles beneath us. I throw a hand out, brace her against the wall. My claws gouge into the bulkhead. She nearly slips, bare legs scrambling for purchase.
“Garokk—!”
“I’ve got you.”
Her hand grips mine—tight, trusting—and I swing her clear across the fractured walkway, landing her on a safer strip of plating. She hits hard, rolls, and keeps running. Good. She’s learning.
Reflector zips after us, slower than usual, one propeller hiccupping. “Structural integrity at 34%. Ventral access to escape bay is obstructed. Recalculating.”
“You better recalculate faster ,” I growl, ducking under a sparking pipe that nearly takes my horns off.
The Hulk’s spine is cracking.
We turn down a maintenance shaft, half-collapsed with debris. I glance up—and freeze. The girder above is shifting, creaking, threatening to fall. Too slow and we die under it. Too fast and we run right into a plasma leak that’s warping the air like a mirage.
“We can’t go around,” Isolde says, breathless.
“No,” I snarl. “We go through .”
I scoop her up—one arm under her knees, the other at her back. She yelps but doesn’t protest. Her arms lock around my neck, face pressed into my collarbone.
“I swear if you drop me?—”
“Never,” I hiss, and lunge forward.
The heat is suffocating. I leap the broken girder just as it tears loose and crashes behind us in a storm of sparks. The blast scorches my back. She screams into my neck, but I don't stop. Can't.
Every muscle screams. Every scar on my body feels like it's being re-opened. But I don't let go.
I don’t let her go.
We slam into a wall and slide. I release her gently—too gently for what we’re running from, but I can’t help it. She scrambles to her feet, panting, hair wild and eyes huge.
“Next time,” she wheezes, “we take the elevator.”
“Next time,” I grunt, “we don’t fuck on a sinking warship.”
She snorts. It’s a breathless, terrified laugh, but it’s still a laugh. She wipes a smear of blood from her lip and keeps pace.
Another corridor buckles. Reflector zips past, belching sparks. “Three decks remain between current location and escape bay. Caution: stairwell 4-C is compromised. Explosive decompression event detected.”
“I know a bypass,” I grunt.
“You know a—wait, you know a shortcut?” she huffs.
“I’ve lived here longer than your planet’s been in fashion season.”
“That’s not—actually, you know what, fine. Lead the way, Mister Hulk Homeowner.”
We tear through a maintenance hatch. I punch the override. The door stutters, half-opens. I wedge my claws in and rip it the rest of the way. She slides under before it crashes shut behind us with a shriek.
More smoke. More fire. The next corridor is flooded with red emergency light. I can feel the Hulk’s heartbeat fading—every flicker of light like a dying pulse.
We’re not gonna make it.
No.
We will.
I won’t let her die here.
The next section drops into chaos—a whole wall has caved, exposing a river of blue-white plasma snarling like a live wire. Sparks leap off it, searing the floor. One wrong step and we’re atoms.
She hesitates. “Garokk?—”
“Don’t think,” I bark. “Just follow my path.”
I leap.
Metal sings under my weight, the heat licking my legs like fire tongues. I move fast—no hesitation. Trusting my instincts. The Hulk talks to me. Still. Even dying, she tells me where to step.
Isolde’s behind me, nimble, wild, fearless. I catch her when she stumbles. Shove her forward when the floor tries to eat her boots.
We reach the far wall.
My hand slams the override.
Nothing.
“Reflector—manual controls are down,” I snarl.
“I am attempting to interface,” Reflector chirps. His lens dims, his body twitches. He plugs into the door’s rusted panel, sparks flying.
Isolde leans against me, gasping. Her skin’s streaked with soot, her lashes clumped with sweat. She’s the most beautiful disaster I’ve ever seen.
I reach for her face. Just to ground myself.
She grips my wrist. “Hey. We’re not dead yet.”
“No,” I mutter. “But we’re running out of time.”
The door hisses. Half-opens.
“Go,” I roar.
We squeeze through. She gets scraped. I get sliced. Neither of us care.
The escape bay is one deck below. We’re almost there.
Almost.
The floor gives under me.
I shove Isolde back with a roar—my arm tight across her stomach as the panel beneath us caves in with a scream of metal and fire. I feel the heat lash up like a whip, the flash of plasma licking my boots as the panel drops away into a chasm of red-lit nothing.
We both hit hard. Roll. Scramble.
The bay doors are ahead, flickering in and out of power, one stuck halfway open like a broken jaw.
I don’t wait for her to catch her breath. We don’t have time.
“Come on,” I snarl, dragging her forward by the wrist.
She stumbles once, knees buckling, then recovers, legs pumping beside mine. We crash through the doors together and?—
Stars.
It’s worse than I thought.
The escape bay is a graveyard.
Pods hang from the walls, blackened and broken. Wires dangle like entrails. Several have already exploded—scorch marks claw across the ceiling where a chain reaction must’ve taken half the launch rig with it.
The smell is acrid. Burnt insulation and fuel. Death.
I spin. Scan. My claws curl.
There—near the back. A single pod, battered but intact. No smoke. No breach.
Still online.
“Reflector,” I bark. “Scan it.”
“Power systems stable. Ejection thrusters at 84%. Life support online. Navigation…” a pause, a static pop. “Limited, but functional.”
Good enough.
It’s all I need.
I cross the bay in three strides, my bootsteps loud on scorched plating. Every second feels like a countdown hammering between my ears.
“Garokk,” Isolde pants behind me, “what?—”
I’m already at the console.
The panel sputters, flickering to life. I punch in the code sequence—overriding lockdown, pre-arming launch thrusters, setting auto-course for safe Alliance space.
“Stop!” she yells, voice sharp. “What are you doing?!”
I don’t answer.
Because I know if I talk—I’ll stop.
And I can’t afford to stop.
This ship is dying. The reactor’s screaming in my bones, the heat rising like we’re already in a sun’s throat. The ceiling trembles overhead, ready to collapse.
“I’m not leaving without you!” she shouts.
I set the timer: 45 seconds.
“Override that shit right now, Garokk! Do you hear me?!”
She rushes at me.
I catch her.
Lift her.
She struggles hard. Arms flailing, voice cracking with fury and panic. “ No! You are not pulling this noble-sacrifice bullshit on me! I swear to the stars, if you even think?—”
I grip her tighter, jaw clenched so hard it might break.
“You’ve got to survive,” I whisper. “For him.”
Her eyes flare. “What the hell are you talking abou?—”
And then I throw her.
Not gentle. Not soft.
I hurl her into the pod like the universe itself depends on it.
She screams.
The impact knocks her flat on the padded seat. The straps coil around her, triggered by the movement. She’s locked in before she can recover.
The door begins to close.
“No!” she shrieks, fighting the belts, straining forward. “ Garokk! You son of a bitch, you can’t just— don’t you dare leave me! ”
I step back.
Her fists slam into the glass as it seals with a pneumatic hiss.
Her eyes lock with mine—wide and brown and wet and furious .
“Don’t you dare die on me!” she screams.
Her palm hits the glass again. And again.
My chest burns.
I put one hand flat against the pod window. My claws leave a smear of soot against the transparent polymer.
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
I hold her gaze. Gold into brown. No words now. Just knowing .
The pod clicks.
Engaged.
Reflector floats beside me, lens flickering wildly.
“You’ll stay with me?” I ask.
He hums—damaged, glitchy. “Until the end.”
The pod launches.
One blast. A roar. And she’s gone.
My jalshagar—my mate—shot into the void like a prayer with teeth.
And I’m still here.
Alone.
With a ship tearing itself apart around me.