I find the first barrier—a sealed bulkhead, coded to his signature. I don’t bother with subtlety. I slam my shoulder into it. Steel buckles. I hit it again, and again, until it screams apart.
The vibration runs through my bones. I like the sound.
The next corridor is dim, lit only by emergency crimson. Alarms wail distant. The gravity field is unstable here; I feel it tugging unevenly, dragging dust and loose wiring toward the ceiling. Doesn’t matter.
What matters is the voice.
Hers.
Muffled. Weak. “Let me go!”
I move faster.
Another door—thicker. I don’t stop. My blade cleaves through the locking mechanism, sparks spitting like fireflies. I shove the molten halves apart.
There they are.
Lor has her pinned against a console. His hands—cold metal things that mock flesh—grip her arms. He’s saying something low and mechanical, no emotion, no hesitation.
“Comply,” he repeats. “Your capture benefits mission parameters.”
Her face is pale but defiant. Even now, she glares at him like she’s still got an audience watching. That defiance—it’s why I can’t stop moving.
“Release her,” I growl.
Lor’s head turns a fraction, gears whining. His eye—one human, one synthetic—focuses on me. “Garokk the Brutal,” he says in his flat tone. “You are expected.”
He lets her go. But not because he obeys. Because he thinks he can stop me.
I roar.
It shakes the room. The fungus lights quiver in their glass pods. The ship groans.
Lor moves first—always the tactician. His plasma blade flickers to life, pale and hungry. I catch the motion, the hum, the hiss as it arcs toward me.
I block with my own blade, the impact ringing like thunder. Sparks rain down. He pivots fast for a machine, trying to gut me, but I’m faster. Rage fuels precision. I grab his wrist with one clawed hand and twist. Metal shrieks. Wires snap.
He drives a knee into my ribs. I barely feel it.
“You cannot win,” he says, voice static. “You are obsolete. Outdated flesh.”
I grin—a feral thing. “Flesh kills better.”
I slam him into the wall. The sound of cracking alloy fills the chamber. He retaliates, head-butting me—metal to bone. My vision flashes white. I bite through the pain, catching his arm as he swings again.
I tear it off.
He doesn’t scream—no lungs for it—but the sound of the severed cables sparking is scream enough. He staggers, recalibrating. I don’t give him the chance.
I charge, slamming him back through the control station. Screens explode around us. Fragments rain.
He grabs for my throat with his remaining hand, claws digging in. I push through, ignoring the sting of cutting metal. My tail—(a reflex I thought long forgotten)—lashes out and knocks his weapon away.
“Garokk…” I hear Isolde whisper. Fear and disbelief and something else tangled in that voice.
It feeds me.
I drive my blade through Lor’s chest. The light from his cybernetic core spills out in waves of white and blue. He twitches. I twist.
