31. Roma
ROMA
The ship lurches like something alive just got punched in the ribs.
Not a clean impact—no neat collision you can categorize and move past—but a grinding, shuddering violence that crawls through the hull and into my bones.
The deck bucks under my boots, metal screaming somewhere deep in the walls, and for half a second the artificial gravity stutters hard enough that my stomach tries to float out of me.
“—that’s not good,” Pally blurts behind me, voice pitching higher than I’ve ever heard it.
“No,” I snap, already moving. “It’s not.”
Emergency lights slam on in jagged pulses—red, then black, then red again—turning the corridor into a stuttering nightmare of shadows and sharp angles. The air smells wrong now. Burnt circuitry, hot insulation, something acrid that coats the back of my throat.
“Roma—” Dux’s hand catches my wrist, firm, grounding, too warm. “What was that?”
“External contact,” I say, wrenching free but not fast enough to pretend I didn’t feel the steadiness in him. “Force vector was lateral—port side, mid-deck. Not debris.”
“Yeah,” he mutters, glancing up at the ceiling like he can see through it. “Felt intentional.”
Another tremor ripples through the ship, less violent but more… wrong. Like something’s dragging against the hull.
Pally sucks in a breath. “You don’t think?—”
“I do,” I cut him off. “Move.”
I take the lead again, boots slamming against the deck as I push us forward toward junction seven. The corridor ahead flickers in and out, lighting failing in uneven bursts. Somewhere distant, an alarm tries to sound and dies halfway through, replaced by a warped electronic whine.
“Systems are dropping,” I say, more to keep my own thoughts in order than to inform them. “Power grid’s fragmenting. Environmental controls are going next.”
“Meaning?” Pally asks, breath coming faster now as he keeps pace.
“Meaning we don’t have long before this place starts killing us without help from the Reapers.”
As if summoned, a distant metallic clang echoes behind us—heavy, deliberate.
Dux glances over his shoulder. “They’re still coming.”
“Of course they are.”
I turn a sharp corner, nearly skidding on a slick patch of something that smells like coolant.
The corridor beyond is narrower, lined with access panels that hang open like broken teeth.
Sparks spit intermittently from exposed conduits, casting harsh white flashes that burn afterimages into my vision.
“Junction seven’s two levels down,” I say. “Maintenance shafts should still be accessible if?—”
The deck drops.
Not metaphorically. Not a stumble or a shift.
It drops.
Gravity cuts out completely for a breathless instant, and the world turns into chaos—loose panels lifting, debris drifting, my own body jerking upward before I slam shoulder-first into the wall as gravity snaps back on at an angle.
“—shit!” Pally yells, crashing into me, then bouncing off.
I catch myself against a handhold, teeth clacking together hard enough to sting. The gravity stabilizes, but it’s wrong—pulling slightly sideways now, enough to throw off balance, enough to make every step a fight.
“Core alignment’s failing,” I say through clenched teeth. “We’re on borrowed time.”
Dux steadies himself, then looks at me, eyes sharp even in the stuttering light. “Then stop calculating and start improvising.”
“I am improvising.”
“No,” he fires back, pushing off the wall to close the distance between us. “You’re still running the numbers like this is a controlled op.”
I turn on him, heat flaring sharp and immediate. “Because panic helps?”
“Because you’re planning for one of us to not make it,” he shoots back, voice low but cutting.
The words hit harder than the impact did.
Pally glances between us, tense. “Guys—maybe not the time?—”
“Stay out of it,” we both snap, in perfect, irritating unison.
Another clang echoes closer this time. Heavier. Closer.
I force my focus forward. “We move. Now.”
I start again, faster, forcing my body to adjust to the skewed gravity. Every step feels off, like walking through a dream where the floor won’t stay where it should.
Dux falls into step beside me this time instead of behind, matching my pace. I can feel him there without looking—steady, relentless.
“You didn’t answer me,” he says.
“I don’t have time to indulge your?—”
“Your plan,” he interrupts, sharper now. “What’s the contingency?”
“There is no?—”
“Don’t,” he snaps, grabbing my arm again, stopping me dead in the corridor. “Don’t lie to me, Roma.”
The use of my name—just my name, stripped of everything else—lands different.
I yank my arm back. “Let go.”
“Not until you tell me.”
Behind us, metal shrieks again. Something slams into the far end of the corridor we just left, the sound reverberating through the structure like a heartbeat gone wrong.
Pally flinches. “We really, really don’t have time for this.”
“I know,” I say.
“Then say it,” Dux presses, stepping into my space, forcing me to meet his gaze. “What’s the plan if it comes down to it?”
The answer is already there. It’s always been there.
Sacrifice the most expendable asset to ensure mission success.
I know how to calculate that. I’ve always known.
His eyes search mine, like he can see the equation forming, like he already knows the outcome and hates me for it.
“Roma.”
I exhale slowly, the air tasting like burnt metal. “If structural collapse accelerates, or if Reaper containment becomes untenable, I create a diversion.”
Pally’s expression drops. “A diversion meaning?—”
“Meaning I draw them away,” I say flatly. “You and Dux continue to the escape vector.”
Silence doesn’t fall—it fractures.
Dux stares at me like I just said something obscene. “No.”
“It’s the most efficient?—”
“No,” he repeats, sharper, angrier. “Try again.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“It is when you’re talking about throwing yourself to them like bait.”
“I am not bait,” I snap. “I’m a calculated variable?—”
“That’s the problem!” he fires back, voice rising despite the danger snapping at our heels. “You keep reducing yourself to something expendable.”
“Because I am expendable,” I say, the truth of it clean and simple in my mouth.
Something in his face shifts—anger folding into something deeper, something that hits harder.
“Not to me.”
The words land wrong. Or maybe too right.
I shake my head, trying to push past him. “Irrelevant.”
He blocks me, not aggressive, but immovable. “Say that again.”
“It’s irrelevant.”
“Say it like you believe it.”
“I don’t need to believe it,” I snap. “It’s fact.”
“Then why do you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself?”
The ship groans around us, a long, low sound like it’s about to tear itself apart. The lights flicker harder, staying dark a fraction longer each time.
Pally steps closer, voice quieter now. “Roma… you getting us out doesn’t work if you’re not part of ‘us.’”
“I am part of the mission,” I correct.
“That’s not what I said.”
I look at him, really look at him—at the fear he’s trying to swallow, at the stubborn insistence in his posture.
Then I look at Dux.
He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t broken eye contact. There’s something raw in his expression now, stripped of the usual bravado.
“Stop deciding you don’t get to live,” he says, softer, but somehow more forceful than when he was shouting.
The corridor tilts again as another system fails, gravity shifting just enough to send loose debris skittering across the floor.
I should move.
I should be calculating routes, distances, probabilities.
Instead, I’m standing here, caught between two men who are looking at me like I’m more than the sum of my functions.
“I don’t have the luxury?—”
“Make it,” Dux cuts in.
“That’s not how?—”
“Make it,” he repeats, stepping closer, his voice dropping to something steady and unyielding. “For once, don’t pick the option where you disappear.”
That option has always been the cleanest. The simplest. The one that guarantees success.
So why does it feel wrong now?
Another crash behind us—closer, louder. The end of the corridor buckles inward slightly, metal warping under some external force.
Pally swears under his breath. “Decision time, Roma.”
I close my eyes for half a second.
Run the numbers.
Three lives. One objective.
Probability of survival increases if?—
No.
The equation doesn’t settle the way it should.
Because there’s a variable I haven’t accounted for.
Or maybe one I’ve been deliberately ignoring.
I open my eyes.
“Fine,” I say, the word tasting strange. “We adjust the plan.”
Dux doesn’t relax, but something in his shoulders shifts. “Define ‘adjust.’”
“No one gets left,” I say, forcing the words out, locking them into place before I can rethink them. “We move as a unit. We reach the escape vector together.”
Pally exhales, tension bleeding out of him just enough to keep moving. “That’s… significantly better.”
Dux studies me for a beat longer, like he’s checking for cracks in the statement. Then he nods once. “Good.”
“This does not eliminate risk,” I add sharply. “It increases it.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Worth it.”
I don’t answer that.
“Now move,” I say instead, turning and pushing forward again before the hesitation can root any deeper.
We run.
The corridor slopes downward toward the access shafts, gravity pulling at an angle that makes every step feel like sliding. The air grows thinner, colder, laced with the metallic tang of failing life support.
A panel ahead sparks violently, then goes dark, plunging us into near-total black for a breath before emergency lighting kicks back in.
“There!” Pally points to a hatch half-ajar on the right wall. “Maintenance shaft!”
I veer toward it, grabbing the edge and wrenching it open the rest of the way. Inside, a narrow vertical shaft drops into darkness, ladder rungs bolted into the wall.
“Down,” I say. “Fast.”
Pally goes first without hesitation, swinging himself onto the ladder and disappearing into the dim.
I start to follow, then pause just long enough to glance back down the corridor.
Something moves in the flickering shadows.
Not human. Not anything that belongs on this ship.
“Roma,” Dux says behind me, urgent now. “We’re out of time.”
“I know.”
I swing onto the ladder, boots finding the rungs as I descend. The metal is cold under my hands, vibrating faintly with the strain the ship is under.
Dux follows close behind, the hatch slamming shut above us with a hollow clang.
The shaft is tight, the air stale, each breath a little harder than the last. The only light comes from a dim strip running along one side, flickering just enough to keep the darkness from swallowing us whole.
Below, Pally’s voice echoes up. “How far?”
“Two levels,” I call back. “Keep going.”
We descend in tense silence, the sounds of the failing ship muffled but ever-present—distant impacts, groaning metal, the faint, horrible suggestion of something moving where it shouldn’t.
Halfway down, the ladder jolts.
Hard.
I grip tighter, muscles locking as the entire shaft shudders.
“Please tell me that was just structural instability,” Pally calls up, voice tight.
I listen.
Feel.
“No,” I say quietly.
Dux swears under his breath. “They’re in the walls.”
The realization settles cold and heavy.
“They’re adapting,” I say. “Using the infrastructure to move faster.”
“Fantastic,” Pally mutters. “Love that for us.”
Another jolt, closer this time. Something scrapes along the outside of the shaft, a sound that sets my teeth on edge.
“We need to move faster,” I say.
“No argument here,” Dux replies.
We descend quicker now, less careful, more desperate. The rungs blur under my hands, the ache in my muscles building as gravity continues its subtle, disorienting shift.
Finally, the bottom comes into view—a small landing, another hatch leading out into what should be the lower maintenance corridor.
Pally drops the last few feet, landing hard but steady. He spins, grabbing the hatch and hauling it open.
Dim light spills in.
“Clear—” he starts.
Something slams into the other side of the shaft above us.
The metal buckles inward, denting violently.
“Move!” I shout.
Pally dives through the hatch.
I drop the last stretch, landing beside him, turning immediately to cover the opening.
Dux hits the ground a second later, and together we slam the hatch shut, throwing the manual lock into place just as something heavy crashes against the other side.
The impact reverberates through the metal, the lock straining but holding.
For now.
We stand there for a second, breathing hard, the thin air burning in my lungs.
Pally lets out a shaky laugh. “Okay. Okay, that was?—”
The ship shakes again, harder than before.
Somewhere distant, something explodes.
I push away from the hatch, forcing my focus forward again. “We’re not done.”
Dux looks at me, searching my face, like he’s checking that I meant what I said before.
No one gets left.
I hold his gaze for a fraction longer than necessary, then nod once.
“We finish this together,” I say.
Then I turn and lead the way into the failing corridor, the path ahead uncertain, dangerous?—
—but for the first time, not calculated to end with my disappearance.