We don’t stop running until the Hulk takes pity on us.
The corridors bleed into each other—twisting, pulsing, whispering with the quiet hum of a ship too ancient to be dead and too stubborn to die. The lights flicker in recognition when I pass, those faint violet hues giving us just enough to see the wayforward. Behind us, nothing but the echo of our own breaths and the fading scent of burning metal.
I know where we’re going. I always do. The Hulk shows me.
Isolde doesn’t ask questions. Not this time. Her boots splash through a slick of rustwater, and she huffs, but she doesn’t complain. Her breath’s ragged. Her body’s tired. I smell it on her—fatigue, adrenaline, the slow creep of pain in her side where that bastard One Horn got his hands on her.
But she keeps pace with me.
We come to a wide hatch, partially sealed and furred with vine. Not natural vines. These grew from the ship itself, decades ago when the bioengineered ecosystem began feeding on the Hulk’s waste heat and micro-organics. It smells like damp earth and spores. I shoulder into the door. It resists, then groans open on grudging hydraulics.
The garden’s still here.
It unfolds in silent, impossible wonder—an arboretum turned feral. Vines the color of deep seaweed tangle around the bulkheads. Spores drift like fireflies. Pale fungi the size of my fists throb with internal light—blues and greens and deep purples. Somewhere in the center, the artificial skylight—long shattered—lets in the soft shimmer of starlight filtered through layered shielding.
This place remembers peace. A rare thing aboard this rusting coffin.
I gesture for her to enter. She does, slowly, as if stepping into a dream.
“Whoa,” she breathes, voice hushed. “This is… real?”
“Was a research bay once,” I mutter. “Oxygen gardens. Micro-farming. They let it rot.”
She steps forward, kneeling beside a patch of bioluminescent moss. Her hand hovers over it, not quite touching. “It’s beautiful.”
I stay close to the door. My blade never leaves my hand. Every breath, every sound, I filter through instinct sharpened by fifty years of survival. But I let myself take in her expression—eyes wide, lashes catching the low light, her lips parted just enough to reveal awe.
She belongs here more than I ever did.
I find a raised platform near the rear wall—a metal dais surrounded by a thicket of whispering vines. Some parts of the arboretum still respond to me; when I approach, the vines curl back just enough to let me clear the space. I make camp there, crude and minimal—no fire, just quiet.
She joins me.
“Can we stop for a bit?” she asks, curling her arms around her legs.
I nod.
She doesn't talk after that. No stream, no chatter, no bravado. Just silence. It’s almost sacred. She pulls her jacket tighter around her frame, lying down on a patch of moss that glows faintly under her. Reflector hovers beside her like a tiny silver moon, lens dimmed in sleep mode.
I stand over her.
I haven’t slept in three days. I don’t need to. My body aches for it, but I deny it. Every creak in the corridor beyond is a threat. Every gust through the broken vent could carry footsteps. Meyer’s still out there. Lor, too. Maybe Bokis has gone rogue. Maybe Snarl’s waiting for the smell of blood to come hunting.
But none of them will touch her.
She breathes deep. Slow. She’s sleeping.
I crouch beside her, letting the tip of my blade rest against the steel floor.
She makes a sound—something small, content. Her face relaxes. Her mouth moves faintly in the dream. I wonder if she dreams of sunlight. Of running water. Of family.
She shifts, and one of her fingers brushes my leg. Just the barest graze. I freeze.
This… connection between us—it’s dangerous. Illogical. But it feels like fate has clenched its claw around my chest and squeezed. I’ve never known softness. Not like this. Not in a place like this.
I was born for war. Raised to kill. Programmed to conquer.
And yet here I am, watching over a human woman in a ruined garden, while the world outside burns itself quiet.
