This is frantic. Panicked. Siren-sharp.
“Isolde!” Reflector chirps. “Emergency alert—Hulk mainframe has initiated a fail-safe sequence. Multiple systems are powering down. Preliminary data suggests?—”
“What?” I sit up, cold air slamming into my sweat-slick skin. “Say that again.”
Garokk bolts upright beside me, already scanning the walls like they might grow teeth.
Reflector’s arms extend. “I’m detecting spike signatures in the reactor core. This is not a drill. I believe the Hulk’s self-destruct sequence has been activated.”
“No,” I breathe. “No no no—what the hell triggered it?”
“I cannot determine that,” Reflector replies, voice tight. “But I estimate thirty minutes until critical failure. If we don’t find a way to override the sequence…”
He doesn’t finish.
Garokk is already on his feet, pulling on his weapons belt, claws flexing. “We need to move. Now.”
I stare at the fading lights in the walls, the way the ambient hum of the ship stutters like a dying heart.
The Hulk is going to die.
And if we don’t act fast—so will we.
CHAPTER 11
GAROKK
The Hulk is dying.
I feel it in the bones of the ship before the alarms even start—an old, shuddering groan that trembles through the walls like a beast coughing blood. The floor beneath my feet vibrates with it, unsteady. Wrong. Then the first klaxon screams, shrill and angry, echoing through the corridors with a pitch I’ve only heard once before—during the reactor breach that almost cooked me alive three decades back.
“Move,” I bark, already pulling on the strap of my weapons harness. “Now.”
Isolde scrambles for her boots, no questions, no delay. Her bare skin is goose-pimpled, eyes wide and dark in the flickering light.
"What's happening?" she pants, half-dressed but already shouldering her pack.
“The Hulk’s bleeding out,” I growl. “Fail-safes just snapped. She’s trying to take everything down with her.”
Reflector jitters beside us, his lens cracked and dripping sparks from one socket. “Thermal spires are rupturing. Plasma conduits rerouting into collapsed decks. Reactor destabilization imminent. Recommendation: escape or perish.”
“Gee,” Isolde snaps, “thanks for the options.”
I grab her arm, tug her close. “No time. Follow me.”
We run.
The corridors aren’t corridors anymore—they’re death traps. Every other junction groans or collapses in a hiss of decompressed air, molten metal leaking like lava through vents never meant to melt. The walls glow, not with power but withheat, pulsing red and gold like the Hulk's guts are on fire.
The floor buckles beneath us. I throw a hand out, brace her against the wall. My claws gouge into the bulkhead. She nearly slips, bare legs scrambling for purchase.
“Garokk—!”
“I’ve got you.”
Her hand grips mine—tight, trusting—and I swing her clear across the fractured walkway, landing her on a safer strip of plating. She hits hard, rolls, and keeps running. Good. She’s learning.
Reflector zips after us, slower than usual, one propeller hiccupping. “Structural integrity at 34%. Ventral access to escape bay is obstructed. Recalculating.”
