Sparks erupt from the wall to my right—return fire chewing through the panel. I duck, pivot, vault over the secondary node housing. The hum of the forcefield swells behind me.
Mara hasn’t moved.
She knows better.
She’s watching.
Waiting.
Trusting.
I angle toward the node relay panel at the side of the corridor. A few more shots, well-placed, will overclock the circuit just enough to?—
Boom.
Not a full breach, but enough to destabilize the dampeners. The lights overhead shatter in a ripple of static. The forcefield flickers. The guards fall back to adjust.
Serat steps into my path.
Unarmed.
“Don’t,” he says.
“I don’t need your permission,” I growl.
His hand moves—smooth, fast.
But I’m faster.
I close the distance in two strides, weapon to his chest.
He moves like he taught me.
That’s the first thing I notice as Serat lunges—close-in, tight-body, shoulders square, leading with the off-hand like he’s baiting me toward the left. It’s the oldest trick in his book.
And I fall for it.
Only half.
I shift into the feint but pivot my weight low, catching his forward wrist and twisting hard. There’s a crackle of cartilage, not enough to break, just realign—he grunts, then drives a knee toward my ribs.
I take the hit.
My body folds reflexively, air punched from my lungs, but I ride the momentum into a backward roll and kick out hard at the guard flanking my right.
The soldier goes down in a tangle of armor and gear.
The second guard raises a shock baton.
I shove my elbow into his throat—sharp, fast, a clean shot—and he stumbles. I twist the baton from his grip and whip it around, catching him in the back of the knee. He drops like a felled post.
Serat’s on me again before I can breathe.
His elbow drives toward my jaw—too fast to block—so I take it on the chin and let the impact spin me with it, using the motion to slide behind him. I hook his shoulder, slam his spine into the wall, and press my forearm into the pressure point below his ear.
He snarls. “You always were better at improvisation.”
“Yeah,” I hiss. “You always hated that.”
