34. Dux
DUX
The crawlspace feels like the inside of a lung that forgot how to breathe.
Heat clings to everything, thick and wet, carrying the stink of scorched wiring and old lubricant that coats the back of my throat every time I drag in air.
The metal beneath my palms hums with strain, a low, constant vibration that crawls up through my bones like the ship is trying to shake us off before it dies.
Dust sticks to my skin, turning sweat into grit, and every movement grinds it deeper into cuts I didn’t notice getting.
Roma moves ahead of me like she belongs in the dark.
Not blindly. Never that. Every inch she crawls is measured, deliberate, her body adapting to the cramped space with a precision that makes it look effortless even when I know it isn’t.
Her shoulders brush the narrow walls, her boots scrape against the metal, and still she moves like she already mapped this route before it existed.
I follow because not following her is not an option that exists anymore.
Behind me, Pally’s voice crackles through the comm line, thin but steady under the distortion. “I’m at service lock twelve, and I am staring at a door that looks like it hasn’t been opened since before I was born. Please tell me this is the right place.”
Roma doesn’t slow. “It is. There should be a manual override panel on your left.”
There’s a pause filled with the sound of metal clanking and something being yanked harder than it probably should be.
“I found a panel,” he says. “It does not look friendly.”
“Nothing here is friendly,” I mutter.
Roma glances back at me, just enough that the faint emergency glow catches the edge of her face. “Encouraging.”
“I try.”
Another tremor runs through the ship, sharper this time.
The crawlspace shudders hard enough to slam my shoulder into the wall.
Pain spikes down my arm, bright and immediate, but I grit my teeth and keep moving.
Somewhere above us, something collapses with a thunderous crash, the sound muffled but unmistakable.
Pally sucks in a breath over the comm. “That sounded close.”
“It wasn’t close enough,” Roma says. “Open the panel.”
“I’m working on it,” he snaps, then softer, “It’s stuck.”
“Use more force.”
“That’s my default setting.”
Metal screeches, followed by a sharp pop.
“Got it,” he says, a little too proud for the situation. “Okay, I’ve got wires. I’m sensing a theme.”
Roma shifts forward another foot, then stops at a junction where the crawlspace splits into two narrower ducts. She braces one hand against the frame, closes her eyes for a fraction of a second, and when she opens them again, she points left.
“Take the left path,” she says quietly. “It reconnects to the outer access spine.”
“Copy that,” I say, angling after her.
The left duct is tighter. I have to turn my shoulders slightly to fit, which makes every movement slower, more deliberate. The metal presses close, trapping heat and sound, and for a moment it feels like the ship is trying to swallow us whole.
Pally’s voice cuts through that thought. “Alright, panel’s open. I’ve got a mess of blue, red, and something that looks like it used to be green before it gave up on life. What am I pulling?”
Roma exhales slowly, like she’s sorting through a hundred variables at once. “You’re not pulling anything yet. You’re going to reroute.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It’s necessary.”
“Of course it is.”
A scraping sound ripples through the walls around us, too close, too deliberate. Not structural. Not random.
Something is moving in the infrastructure again.
I feel it before I see anything, that crawling awareness that we’re not alone in the dark. My skin prickles, every nerve lighting up in warning.
“Roma,” I say under my breath.
“I hear it,” she replies.
Of course she does.
The sound shifts, skittering along the outer shell of the duct, pacing us.
I tighten my grip on my weapon. “They’re tracking us.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a problem.”
“That is always a problem.”
Pally’s voice breaks in, sharper now. “Guys, I’m hearing something on my side too.”
“Stay focused,” Roma says. “You need to reroute power from the auxiliary grid into the exterior rail system.”
“I need more specifics than that, Roma.”
She hesitates for a fraction of a second, and I see it—the cost of doing this without full system access, the strain of holding everything in her head while the world falls apart around us.
Then she starts talking, fast and precise.
“Locate the secondary coupling cluster. It should be behind the main conduit. There will be three connectors—one blue, one red, one yellow. You need to disengage the blue and red simultaneously, then bridge the yellow to the primary feed.”
There’s a long pause.
“Simultaneously,” Pally repeats.
“Yes.”
“I only have two hands.”
“Then use your teeth.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I am efficient.”
Another scrape, closer now. Something taps against the duct above us, testing, curious.
I tilt my head up just in time to see a shadow pass over the thin metal between us and whatever is crawling out there.
“Roma, we’re about to have company.”
“Then we accelerate.”
“That’s not how acceleration works in a crawlspace.”
“Adapt.”
I huff a breath that might be a laugh in a different life. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet you continue to follow me.”
“Bad decisions are kind of my thing.”
She glances back again, and there’s something in her eyes this time—something that wasn’t there before she let go of that console.
“Not this time,” she says quietly.
The words hit harder than the ship collapsing around us.
Before I can answer, the metal above us buckles inward.
A claw punches through the duct ceiling, tearing a jagged hole that spits sparks and debris into the confined space. The creature attached to it forces its way down, chitin scraping, limbs folding and unfolding as it tries to fit into a space not built for it.
“Move!” I shout.
Roma doesn’t hesitate. She surges forward, abandoning the careful pace for raw speed, crawling faster than should be possible in a space this tight.
I follow, the creature tearing the duct open behind me with a shriek of metal. Its body wedges halfway through, blocking part of the passage, but it keeps coming, relentless.
I twist onto my back just enough to fire behind me. The muzzle flash blinds me for a split second, lighting the cramped space in harsh bursts. The shot hits something soft, and the creature screams, a high, tearing sound that vibrates through the metal.
It doesn’t stop.
“Pally!” I bark into the comm. “We need that door open now!”
“I’m working on it!” he snaps, strain bleeding through his voice. “These wires are fighting me!”
“They’re wires!”
“They’re evil wires!”
Roma reaches the end of the duct and kicks out the panel ahead of her. It crashes down into a narrow service corridor beyond, barely wider than the crawlspace but blessedly vertical.
She drops through, lands hard, and turns immediately, weapon up.
“Dux!”
I shove forward, ignoring the creature clawing at my boots, and dive out of the duct. I hit the floor shoulder-first, roll, and come up beside her just as the creature forces its head through the opening.
Roma fires point-blank. The blast takes half its face off, but the rest of it keeps pushing through, driven by something beyond pain.
I grab a loose pipe from the wall and swing it with everything I’ve got. The impact cracks against the creature’s skull, buying us half a second.
“Door!” I shout.
“Almost!” Pally yells back.
The corridor shakes violently. Somewhere close, a hull plate gives way with a deafening tear, and the temperature drops like the air itself is trying to escape.
Roma grabs my arm and yanks me down the corridor. “We move!”
“What about?—”
“Now!”
We run.
The service lock is at the end of the corridor, a heavy bulkhead with manual override levers flanking it. Frost has already started creeping along its edges, thin white veins spreading across dark metal.
Pally’s on the other side.
I can hear him breathing through the comm, fast and uneven.
“Say you’ve got it,” I tell him.
“I’ve got something,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s the right something.”
“Good enough!”
Roma slams her hand against the manual lever and starts hauling it down. It resists like it’s personally offended by the idea of opening, but she leans into it, muscles straining, teeth clenched.
“Dux,” she says, not looking at me, “help.”
I grab the second lever and pull. The mechanism groans, metal grinding against metal, every inch a fight.
Behind us, the creature bursts fully into the corridor.
It screams.
The sound is so loud in the enclosed space that it rattles my skull.
“Now would be a great time!” I shout.
“I am aware!” Roma snaps.
Pally’s voice cuts in, sharp with panic. “It’s opening! It’s opening!”
The door jerks, then slides a fraction of an inch.
Cold air blasts through the gap, sharp and thin, carrying the vast emptiness of space with it. It steals the heat from my face, bites into my lungs.
“Again!” Roma barks.
We pull harder.
The door opens another inch.
The creature charges.
I let go of the lever just long enough to turn and fire. The shot hits center mass, slowing it but not stopping it.
“Dux!” Roma snaps.
“I know!”
I grab the lever again, muscles screaming, and haul it down with everything left in me.
The door lurches open just enough to squeeze through.
“Go!” I shout.
Roma doesn’t argue this time. She grabs my arm and drags me through the opening as Pally yanks from the other side.
We spill into the service lock chamber, the door slamming shut behind us just as the creature hits it with bone-cracking force.
For a second, none of us move.
Then Pally laughs, breathless and a little unhinged. “Okay. Okay, we’re alive. Still not loving the trend, but alive.”
I push myself up, chest heaving, and look around.
The service lock is small, cramped, lined with emergency gear racks. Beyond the outer hatch, through a reinforced viewport, I can see it.
Roma’s ship.
It clings to the exterior hull like a stubborn thought, sleek and dark against the chaos of space. Debris drifts past it, spinning slowly. Beyond that, the stars burn cold and distant.
And between us and it?—
Reapers.
Several of them, clinging to the hull, firing intermittent bursts that splash against the ship’s shields in flickering waves of light.
My stomach drops.
“That’s not ideal,” I say.
Roma steps up beside me, eyes locked on the ship. “No.”
Pally exhales slowly. “Please tell me it still works.”
“It will,” she says.
“That is not the same as ‘yes.’”
She doesn’t answer.
I look at her. “Roma.”
She meets my gaze, and for the first time since this started, I see it—uncertainty.
Not fear.
Not doubt.
Something worse.
Time.
“We have a very small window,” she says. “If we do not reach it and launch before those Reapers adjust their fire, we will not leave this hull.”
Pally swallows. “And getting to it?”
Roma looks back at the outer hatch, at the thin line between us and vacuum.
“We go outside,” she says.
I nod slowly. “Of course we do.”
Pally groans. “I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed today.”
Roma moves to the gear racks, grabbing skinsuits and tossing them toward us. “Suit up. Two minutes of oxygen. Magnetic tethers. Stay close.”
I catch the suit, fingers fumbling as I pull it on. The material is cold against my skin, sealing tight with a hiss that sounds way too final.
Through the viewport, a Reaper shifts, turning slightly toward the service lock.
Like it knows.
“Roma,” I say quietly.
“I see it.”
Somewhere behind us, something explodes, the shockwave rattling through the structure.
Pally seals his suit and looks between us. “Tell me we’re going to make it.”
Roma doesn’t answer immediately.
Her eyes stay on the ship.
On the Reapers.
On the narrowing window between survival and nothing.
Finally, she says, “Move on my mark.”
The outer hatch begins to cycle open with a slow, grinding hiss.
Cold seeps in, sharper, thinner, absolute.
I step up beside her, tether clipped, heart hammering.
“Roma,” I say.
She glances at me.
“If this goes bad?—”
“It will,” she says.
I huff a breath. “Yeah, fair.”
The hatch opens wider.
The void waits.
Reaper fire streaks across the hull, striking too close now, the impacts flashing against Roma’s ship like warning shots.
Pally grips his tether. “That’s… significantly worse than before.”
Roma watches the pattern, calculating, adjusting, her entire focus narrowing to a razor’s edge.
“Not yet,” she murmurs.
Another blast hits closer.
The ship’s shields flicker.
I feel something twist in my chest.
“Roma—”
“Wait.”
The hatch is fully open now.
Vacuum roars in silence.
The tether at my waist tugs gently, a promise and a threat.
Roma inhales once, sharp and controlled.
“Now—”
A barrage of Reaper fire slams into the hull, brighter, closer, more precise.
Roma’s ship flickers.
The shields buckle.
And for the first time since I met her?—
Roma hesitates.
The moment stretches, fragile and dangerous, balanced on the edge of everything we have left.
If she and Pally can’t get that ship powered and moving fast enough?—
We’re already dead.