Outside is a death sentence, too, but at least it’s a death sentence with options.
I go right.
The vent hatchis stiff with grit, and for a split second my fingers slip on the latch because they’re slick with sweat and trembling. I clamp down harder, nails biting into my own palm through the gloves, and force it.
The latch gives with a metallic snap that echoes like a gunshot in the duct.
I freeze, heart hammering, waiting for boots, for voices, for the unmistakable whine of a weapon powering up.
Nothing.
Just the endless hum of fans and the far-off violence behind me.
I ease the hatch open an inch. Cold air knifes into the shaft and hits my face, carrying the taste of dust and the faint, sharp tang of ozone from the slaughter field. I inhale too fast and cough silently, eyes watering.
When I push the hatch wider, pale daylight floods the shaft in a thin blade and catches on floating dust motes, turning them into glittering specks that feel obscene in this context.
I slide out onto a narrow exterior ledge beneath a bank of industrial vents.
The station looms above and behind me, all gray plating and harsh angles, and below is the open wilderness—rocky badlands cut by dry washes and jagged ridgelines, the kind of landscape that looks like it hates life on principle. The air out here is thin but breathable, cold enough to raise gooseflesh on my arms, and it smells like mineral dust and scorched earth.
I crouch low, keeping close to the station’s shadow, and risk a glance toward the main field.
The containment shimmer is gone.
It’s like someone ripped a veil out of the air.
Bodies—so many bodies—dot the ground like broken dolls. Dust plumes rise where energy shots hit rock. I can’t hear individual screams from this distance, but I can see mouthsopen, arms flailing, the frantic animal motion of people running toward something that will never save them.
My stomach turns.
“Jesus,” I whisper, and the word feels small and stupid against the scale of it.
A new sound threads through the chaos: a broadcast tone.
Not the station’s alarms.
Something external—clean, assertive, amplified.
I fumble my compad out of my pocket, fingers numb, and thumb it awake.
The screen flares—and immediately the interface stutters as if it’s trying to connect and failing. Signal bars blink, then vanish. My internal holonet icon spins, stalls, then grays out.
“No,” I hiss.
I try another channel. Emergency transponder.
The compad displays a red warning: OUTBOUND SUPPRESSED.
My mouth goes dry.
I toggle to entanglement relay burst—emergency only, high cost, restricted, but the interface at least should show me if the hardware’s reachable.
The system tries. Hesitates. Then gives me nothing but a dead, polite error.
RELAY ACCESS DENIED — SIGNAL MASKING DETECTED.
I stare at the words until they blur, until my eyes sting.
