33. Roma
ROMA
Dux’s pulse is under my fingers.
That is not useful information. It does not help me calculate hull integrity, pressure loss, hostile movement, or the shrinking probability of reaching auxiliary launch access before the ship tears itself into expensive shrapnel.
His pulse is warm and fast beneath the grime on his wrist, beating against my fingertips like an argument I have already lost.
I keep hold of him anyway.
“Roma,” Dad pants on my other side, “tell me that sound is not what I think it is.”
The corridor ahead trembles, not with the ship’s usual dying groans, but with something outside it. A layered vibration rolls through the walls, a chittering resonance that makes the fillings in my teeth ache. Metal panels rattle in their seams. Dust lifts from the floor in a fine silver haze.
Dux’s wrist flexes in my grip. “That’s not Reapers.”
“No,” I say.
Dad wheezes. “Wonderful. New nightmare flavor.”
The ceiling above the next junction caves inward with a shriek of rupturing alloy. I shove Dux sideways as a section of conduit crashes down where his skull was a breath ago, spraying sparks and hot coolant. The vapor hits my face, bitter and chemical, and my eyes sting hard enough to water.
Dux catches the wall, then looks at the demolished ceiling. “You just saved my head.”
“I need it intact.”
“For tactical reasons?”
“For quieter ones, eventually.”
His mouth tugs despite the blood at his temple. “That almost sounded affectionate.”
“Don’t get cocky. It causes structural damage.”
Dad stumbles between us and points down the junction. “Flirting. Still happening. Still deeply inconvenient.”
A dark shape slams into the corridor ahead from outside the ship.
Not through a door. Through the wall.
The hull blossoms inward like torn foil, and vacuum screams past us for one vicious second before emergency seals slam down halfway, choking the breach to a ragged opening edged in molten metal. Cold punches through the corridor, stealing heat from my cheeks, turning sweat icy beneath my collar.
Then the Zenos come through.
They are not elegant. I hate that my mind reaches for the word anyway, because they move with horrible coordination, bodies slick and black-blue under the emergency glow, limbs folding and unfolding like broken geometry.
Their wings scrape against the torn hull, shredded membranes twitching as they force themselves into the passage.
Behind them, beyond the breach, I glimpse chaos—stars smeared by spinning debris, Reaper hull plating buckling outward, more Zenos swarming the ship like a living storm.
Dad makes a strangled sound. “Nope.”
Dux lifts his weapon. “How many?”
“Too many,” I say, already scanning the nearest control node.
“That’s not a number.”
“It’s the number we have.”
The Zenos hit the Reapers first.
A squad of Throgg’s creatures spills into the junction from a side corridor, claws carving into the deck.
They charge us, then veer as the Zenos descend.
The collision is immediate and obscene. The air fills with shrieks, chitin cracking, plasma fire, the copper stink of blood, and a sour alien musk that crawls across my tongue.
Dad backs up until his shoulder hits mine. “Are they fighting each other?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Great, that’s helpful.”
“Not if we remain between them.”
Dux fires into a Reaper trying to break through the mess toward us. “Please tell me you’ve got a door, a tunnel, a magic carpet, anything.”
“I have a dying ship and partial access to a crippled control grid.”
“So a Tuesday for you.”
“Essentially.”
I release his wrist and slide to the wall console beside the junction. The screen is cracked, flickering between dead static and corrupted schematics. I pry off the casing with my knife, shove two fingers into the wiring, and ignore the sting as current bites through my gloves.
Dux steps close, covering my right. “Talk to me.”
“Auxiliary launch access is still connected, but the direct corridor is compromised.”
“Compromised meaning blocked?”
“Compromised meaning filled with vacuum, fire, and things with teeth.”
Dad fires twice, misses once, hits something that screams. “So blocked.”
“I can reroute power to seal the forward breach and open service shutters beneath the launch spine.” I twist a wire, and the console spits sparks into my sleeve. “It gives us a gap.”
“A gap sounds good,” Dux says.
“A temporary gap.”
“How temporary?”
I taste blood where I bit the inside of my cheek. “Thirty seconds if the grid cooperates.”
Dad laughs once, sharp and brittle. “And if it doesn’t?”
The console display glitches, then flashes with a symbol that makes my stomach sink.
Throgg’s command sigil.
A voice pours from the wall speakers, distorted but unmistakable, thick with smug violence. “Roma. Little blade. I wondered when you would stop running.”
Dux goes still.
Dad mutters, “Oh, I hate him already.”
I keep my fingers in the wiring. “Throgg.”
“A touching reunion,” he says, and the speakers crackle with feedback. “You are making a mess of my ship.”
“Your ship is making a mess of itself.”
He laughs, low and oily. “Still proud. Still pretending control is something you own.”
Dux fires again, dropping a Zenos that skitters too close. “Roma, tell me he’s not in the system.”
“He’s in what remains of command,” I say, forcing the control thread open. “Trying to reclaim bulkhead authority.”
“Can he?”
“Yes.”
Dad’s voice jumps. “That was not the inspirational answer I wanted.”
Throgg’s tone sharpens. “You will not reach the launch spine. I have sealed the auxiliary bays. I have vented your routes. I have your pretty little choices in my hands.”
My jaw tightens. “He’s bluffing.”
Dux glances at me. “Is he?”
“No.”
“Roma.”
“He’s partially bluffing.”
“Better. Hate it, but better.”
The battle surges closer. A Zenos crashes into the wall above me, claws carving sparks from plating. Dux drags me down as a Reaper blade slices where my throat was. His shot explodes past my ear, deafening, and the Reaper drops.
Heat washes my cheek. The smell of scorched flesh follows.
I swallow and keep working.
Throgg’s voice lowers. “You always were useful under pressure. How charming that you now waste your talents saving lesser men.”
Dux’s eyes harden. “Lesser?”
Dad raises his weapon, shaking. “I know he’s probably talking about me, and frankly, rude.”
I rip another wire free. “Don’t engage.”
Throgg chuckles. “Let him snarl. It will make the breaking sweeter.”
Dux leans toward the speaker. “Come down here and try.”
“Dux,” I warn.
“What? He started it.”
“He wants you angry.”
“I am angry.”
“Then be useful with it.”
He turns back to the fight, firing clean and controlled.
The console flickers. A fractured schematic blooms. I see the path—and Throgg closing it.
I need leverage.
“Dad,” I say. “Panel behind you. Yellow latch.”
He turns, fumbling. “This one?”
“Yes. Pull it.”
A maintenance bank slides open.
“Find the blue coupling.”
“They all look terrible.”
“Top row. Third from the left.”
“Got it.”
“Pull on my mark.”
A Reaper pushes through, dragging itself forward. Dux intercepts, electrifying it with a live cable. The smell of ozone blooms sharp and bitter.
“Roma,” he says, “that useful enough?”
“Moderately.”
“Romantic.”
“Don’t make me regret choosing survival.”
His expression softens. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The console dies.
Every line turns red.
Throgg locks me out.
“Roma?” Dux says.
“No.”
I drive my knife into the console.
Current surges. Pain detonates up my arm. I force the blade deeper, bridging circuits manually.
“Roma, what the hell?—”
“Manual bypass.”
“That is not a manual.”
“Close enough.”
“Do I pull?” Dad shouts.
“Now!”
He pulls.
The ship answers.
Lights flare. Systems flicker alive. I seize control, rerouting everything—gravity, power, seals—forcing the auxiliary shutters open.
Ahead, a blast door grinds upward.
A narrow path.
“There!” I shout. “Go!”
Dad runs.
Dux doesn’t.
“Roma!”
“I have to hold it!”
“No, you don’t!”
“If I let go, it closes!”
“Then we drag you with it!”
The swarm shifts. Everything funnels toward the opening.
The shutter trembles.
“Roma,” Dux says, voice breaking through everything, “you promised.”
The opening narrows.
I look at it.
I look at him.
I could push him through.
Clean. Efficient. Final.
I don’t.
I let go.
The system snaps.
The door drops.
I slam into him, driving us sideways through a secondary maintenance gap I caught in the schematic.
We crash into the crawlspace as the blast door seals.
Silence slams in.
Then—
“Roma? Dux? Tell me you’re not dead!” Dad’s voice crackles through a comm panel.
Alive.
Separated.
Dux is above me, breathing hard. “You let go.”
“Yes.”
“You chose me.”
“Yes.”
I shove him off. “Get off me.”
“You chose me.”
“I also trapped us.”
“Less poetic.”
“More accurate.”
Dad’s voice crackles again. “Still alive? Still annoyed? Good.”
I crawl to the panel. “The escape plan has changed.”
Dux crouches beside me. “How?”
“The main route is lost. Throgg owns it.”
Dad exhales. “Great. Where do I go?”
“Service lock twelve. Exterior rails.”
Silence.
“Outside?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“In space?”
“Yes.”
“Of course it’s in space.”
“There are emergency skinsuits. Two-minute oxygen. Magnetic tethers.”
Dux stares at me. “That’s insane.”
“Yes.”
“Dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Likely to get us killed.”
“Less likely than staying.”
Dad laughs weakly. “Honestly, space sounds relaxing compared to this.”
The crawlspace shakes.
Throgg’s voice returns, thinner now. “Do you think choosing him makes you free?”
“No.”
“Then what does it make you?”
I look at Dux.
“At this point?” I say. “Late.”
I smash the comm.
Silence.
Dux exhales something like a laugh. “Late?”
“We are.”
“You could’ve said brave.”
“I prefer accurate.”
Dad’s voice crackles faintly again. “Still hearing you. Still moving.”
I pull myself forward through the crawlspace. “We meet at service lock twelve.”
Dux catches my wrist. “You changed your plan.”
“Yes.”
My voice doesn’t shake.
“Yes.”
I pull free.
“Move,” I say. “Before I make another emotional decision.”
He smiles behind me.
“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s survive that.”
We crawl forward together through heat, darkness, and failing systems toward the exterior of a dying ship.