I cut all forward thrust and let the ship drop like a stone.
Impact.
The whole world slams sideways. My harness jerks so hard my ribs creak. The canopy fractures. Smoke pours in. Something inside me screams—my lungs, maybe. My back. Everything.
But the arm holds.
I’m alive.
Andshe’s here.
I claw the canopy open, muscles howling in protest. Smoke hits my face, scorched metal and ozone and the bitter stench of burnt coolant. I breathe it in like it’s air.
The fighter’s half-embedded in the side of the platform. I scramble out, boots skidding on the slick plating. Alarms wail above me. Red lights strobe in waves, painting the docking corridor in pulses of blood.
I stagger.
My shoulder’s dislocated.
I slam it against the wall and force it back in with a roar.
No time to heal.
No time to think.
I reach under the seat harness, pull the override spike I hid there long ago. Old war trick. Military backdoors IHC never cleared.
I jam the spike into the maintenance port on the docking panel.
ACCESSING… OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.
The hatch hisses open.
I disappear into the station.
The maintenance shafts are darker than I remember.
Tighter.
I move through them in near silence, boots careful, breath held. The hum of the station surrounds me—electrical, mechanical,wrong. The air feels charged, like a thunderstorm waiting to crack open my skull.
I follow the bond.
Ifeelher.
Not like a scent or sound. Likegravity. She pulls me inward.
But the closer I get, the more I see.
And it makes my skin crawl.
The crew shuffle through the main corridors like wraiths. Eyes wide, mouths slack, shoulders relaxed in a way no trained personnel should ever look.
They hum.
Inunison.
Soft. Low. Melodic in the worst way—like lullabies hummed over corpses.
