Metal sings under my weight, the heat licking my legs like fire tongues. I move fast—no hesitation. Trusting my instincts. The Hulk talks to me. Still. Even dying, she tells me where to step.
Isolde’s behind me, nimble, wild, fearless. I catch her when she stumbles. Shove her forward when the floor tries to eat her boots.
We reach the far wall.
My hand slams the override.
Nothing.
“Reflector—manual controls are down,” I snarl.
“I am attempting to interface,” Reflector chirps. His lens dims, his body twitches. He plugs into the door’s rusted panel, sparks flying.
Isolde leans against me, gasping. Her skin’s streaked with soot, her lashes clumped with sweat. She’s the most beautiful disaster I’ve ever seen.
I reach for her face. Just to ground myself.
She grips my wrist. “Hey. We’re not dead yet.”
“No,” I mutter. “But we’re running out of time.”
The door hisses. Half-opens.
“Go,” I roar.
We squeeze through. She gets scraped. I get sliced. Neither of us care.
The escape bay is one deck below. We’re almost there.
Almost.
The floor gives under me.
I shove Isolde back with a roar—my arm tight across her stomach as the panel beneath us caves in with a scream of metal and fire. I feel the heat lash up like a whip, the flash of plasma licking my boots as the panel drops away into a chasm of red-lit nothing.
We both hit hard. Roll. Scramble.
The bay doors are ahead, flickering in and out of power, one stuck halfway open like a broken jaw.
I don’t wait for her to catch her breath. We don’thavetime.
“Come on,” I snarl, dragging her forward by the wrist.
She stumbles once, knees buckling, then recovers, legs pumping beside mine. We crash through the doors together and?—
Stars.
It’s worse than I thought.
The escape bay is a graveyard.
Pods hang from the walls, blackened and broken. Wires dangle like entrails. Several have already exploded—scorch marks claw across the ceiling where a chain reaction must’ve taken half the launch rig with it.
The smell is acrid. Burnt insulation and fuel. Death.
I spin. Scan. My claws curl.
There—near the back. A single pod, battered but intact. No smoke. No breach.
