Chapter 32 - Attack on Dock Section 9!

  Iman was deep beneath the Block.

  Here, the illusion of Earth ended. No worms. No loam. No proper dirt. Just veins of steel and wire — rows upon rows of servers, battery banks, and humming generators. Primary and backup systems stacked like tombstones for a dead god. They lined the walls, the ceiling, even the floor beneath her boots. She could see them flickering through the dull, white-tinted glass.

  She curled her lip.

  A false Earth. An imitation. Like what the aliens had done to their own solar system centuries ago. They took God’s design and corrupted it — stamped their own signature on creation and called it theirs. And now humanity followed. Mocking the divine blueprint. Mauling it into something sterile.

  Iman sneered, the muscles in her face twitching with the weight of something ancient. She, Henryk, the witches — they all knew the stillness of the void, the cold quiet of star travel. But there was a difference between traveling through the emptiness and living in it.

  There was no light here. No warmth. No calluses from real soil. And yet, children were born here. Mothers raised them here. People lived their whole lives in this imitation of Eden. She blinked up at the ceiling and whispered, barely audible, “Is this really a place to build a family?”

  It was too clean. Too measured. Touched by man in every way that made it foul.

  Even God, she thought, struck down the tower when they tried to build all the way to Heaven.

  Give her dirt. Sand. Heat that stuck to your skin. Let her clench and unclench her toes in real ground. Let her bleed into the soil. She could endure a ship. Months. Maybe years. But this… this was heresy in steel. Man’s new promised land: not flowing with milk and honey, but copper and neon.

  The stars weren’t some holy frontier. They were conquest. Colonization. Fill the void with a billion worlds, a million lights. Mankind’s sprawl, clawing outward until even God couldn’t keep pace.

  She passed through the last threshold of the server wing and stepped into something larger. A cavernous space. Vaulted. Artificial sunlight poured through metal gratings above — blinding and pale. Spread out beneath it like an army waiting for resurrection were Mobile Suits.

  Some were painted, customized in gaudy student flair, but most wore the utilitarian greys and blacks of purpose-built war machines. A few bore the bright, ugly yellow-white of testing units — color-coded for visibility, not survival.

  Iman’s brown eyes narrowed. Her gaze flicked from suit to suit, scanning each engraved nameplate: designations, construction teams, lead engineers. Every one tagged with the name of its parent university.

  “Lancelwood,” she murmured, tilting her head. “Primum School scriptor Clausus.”

  The Latin rolled from her tongue like second nature.

  “Wasn’t that named after an Executor?” she asked the air, recalling half-buried lessons. A war criminal canonized by bureaucracy.

  She kept walking, fingers trailing against the cool rail. More names. More cities. More schools. The majority of the suits were bipedal, military-grade. Soldier models, mass produced for performance and return on investment. But here and there, tucked between them like forgotten relics, were worker bots. Logistics units. Even one or two WarArmors — smaller than the suits, but brutal in their own way.

  One made her pause.

  Four arms. Each joint armored, each hand configured for weapon interface. A machine made to multitask death.

  She moved again. Her gait confident. Hunter’s eyes. There were others in the space — students mostly, grinning like children at a fairground, snapping pictures in front of their machines before the pageant of destruction began.

  Iman didn’t know why her mouth curled into another sneer. Why her head whipped around, sharp and full of disgust, until—

  Her eyes landed on a nameplate.

  Her sneer twisted into something more dangerous. A smile.

  “Wilson,” she said, voice thick with poison. “So that’s your name.”

  Her lips twitched further.

  “And Beatrice… you another one of Henryk’s whores?”

  The words came out a hiss. Her eyes flared, hand moving to touch the nameplate. Her fingers hovered there. Trembled.

  Then she stepped back.

  Her breath caught.

  Because beneath the bile and the bitterness, Iman could still see. And even through the hate — especially through the hate — she could recognize what stood before her.

  The machine was beautiful.

  ...and he was the lead creator.

  She’d always known he was sharp—there was a depth behind his eyes, a calculation, but to make this?

  It was a bipedal Warcasket, humanoid in shape and thunderously tall, painted in a garish, radioactive yellow—the kind that screamed prototype. It stood like some pagan idol among the muted, disciplined ranks of grey and black war machines. This one didn’t blend in. It dared you to look.

  The plating wasn’t beautiful. It was raw, unfinished, almost proud in its lack of polish. The bolts weren’t hidden, the seams weren’t flush. It looked angry. The legs were overbuilt, piston-jointed, braced for hell. A crescent shield curved like a broken moon along the forearm. And slung across its back was a beam rifle, boxy and mean.

  Iman’s fingers drifted toward it, brushing the thigh plate like she was touching a living thing. She could feel it—there was a thrumming under the surface, a latent energy, restrained fury. A test unit, sure, but the way it loomed, the way it watched even without eyes… it felt chained. Not idle. Not safe.

  Above it, tangled in thick cables and shadow, was something she first thought was a generator—some extension of its monstrous frame. But no. The silhouette was too aggressive, too sharp, almost birdlike in its predatory outline. It was a drone. Sleek, modular, painted in the same hazard-yellow. Small winglets tucked at the sides, missile pods snuggled beneath the ribs, and a railgun folded tight along its back like a stinger.

  The stenciled print was faded but clear enough:

  Prototype A.I. Guided Drone — Transformation Sequence Enabled.

  Iman blinked. “Transformation sequence? The fuck…?” she muttered.

  She raised her hand to it without thinking, the way a moth drifts toward flame—

  And the sound of sneakers scuffing concrete cut through her trance.

  “H-Hello,” came a voice behind her. Quiet. Timid.

  Her blood turned ice. She knew that voice. Had just heard it recently. And suddenly, absurdly, a cold sweat clung to her spine.

  She was a soldier. A goddamn trained killer.

  Then why the hell was her face heating up?

  Wilson stepped forward, fiddling with the tag on his collar, a nervous tick his mother used to scold him for. Iman turned to face him halfway, and it stopped him dead.

  There was a stillness in her movement, the kind you only see in predators. Wilson didn’t know much about the Sons of Mars. Just stories. Bloody ones. He'd figured the academy types were chill. Political, maybe. But not this one. Not the one standing in front of his Warcasket like she owned it.

  She was taller than him. And the way she looked at him—dispassionate, calculating—it wasn’t hard to imagine her dropping him in a second. No effort. No sound.

  Panic fluttered in his chest.

  So he did the dumbest thing he could think of: he pulled out his wallet.

  Iman blinked. Then frowned.

  He flipped through it rapidly, fumbling for cash like it might save him. “Y-you see, I pulled out some money,” he chuckled, nervous and unconvincing. “I-I’ll pay you back. That’s what this is about, right?”

  She stared at him. Deadpan. Then slowly brought a hand to her face.

  What the fuck was she doing down here?

  She was supposed to be stationed above. Watching the damn stadium. Not... sneaking around the underbelly like some curious rookie. If she got caught, another demerit. Another lecture. Another round of correction.

  She sighed, rubbing her temples like the weight of the day had just caught up with her all at once.

  “I don’t want your money,” she muttered.

  Wilson stopped. Wallet still in hand. “T-then... what do you want?”

  Iman looked away. Anywhere but at him.

  “Listen,” she said quietly, her voice heavy. “I’m technically undercover. Security detail.”

  His eyes went wide.

  She waved it off with a tired motion. “Everything’s fine. You’re not in trouble. I was just inspecting. I got... carried away looking at your Warcasket.”

  A pause. Then he exhaled. Shoulders slumping like he'd just stepped off a minefield.

  “That’s a relief,” he said, and smiled—actually smiled—and that caught her off guard more than anything else.

  How goddamn normal these college kids were. So soft. So... untouched.

  Back at the academy, she'd have had to lie her way out of something like this. Would’ve been scolded. Maybe punished. Now she was standing in the shadow of a war machine, caught between her duty and something that felt a lot like shame, and here was this idiot, this harmless boy, just grateful.

  Yet, she could tell. She could feel it humming beneath his skin. Wilson was letting it go—on the surface—but something deeper in him had gone rigid. There was a twitch in his eyes, a clench in his jaw. Some primal signal told him to stay wary. Smart kid. That kind of instinct kept people breathing.

  She turned to walk away. Her boots clicked once. Twice. But her spine pulled her back.

  “H-Henryk.”

  It slipped out like something she wasn’t supposed to say. Like the name itself weighed too much to be casual. Wilson blinked. The hell was this girl doing asking about Henryk?

  “How is he?” she asked, and her voice betrayed her. Small. Fragile. Like she was a kid again. “I heard he lost his passport in transit, and I just—” She was fiddling with her fingers now, twisting them over and over like she could strangle the guilt out of them. Her back hunched, her neck burned with sweat. “It wasn’t the best moment for…”

  She trailed off. Her breath hitched. She didn’t finish the sentence.

  Wilson just stood there, not sure what to say, mouth half-open. But something shifted in Iman—something cold and alert. That sixth sense again. That soldier's twitch behind the eyes. She could feel his thoughts rotating like gears, that subtle swell of tension in the air. His danger senses flared.

  “W-wait,” he said, hand raised now. “Pause.”

  She turned, and the look on her face hit him like a punch to the gut. She looked guilty, panicked. Her arms hung limp at her sides. Her face read like a confession.

  “I-I don’t know how you know Henryk, but I…” Wilson scratched the back of his head, stammering.

  Iman clutched her face like she was trying to peel it off. People were starting to stare. Whispers. Eyes. Shame bloomed in her chest like a bruise. She’d burned the damn thing. Henryk’s passport. Curled over a vent, watching it disintegrate into soot, his name melting to ash, his face vanishing.

  Why the hell did she do that?

  But deeper—under the guilt, under the regret—there was something fouler. The part of her that wanted to see him again. Even if it was just for a second. Even if it hurt. Especially if it hurt. She wanted to scream at him. Beat her fists into his chest. Beg for an explanation, curse him to hell, ask if he ever really saw her.

  She sniffled once. Then again.

  “Is it really that bad,” she whispered, “that I hoped? Even hating him. Even after all of it. That I still wanted to see his face. Just… just for a second. Am I that much of a freak for that?”

  Then the world went black.

  No flicker. No warning. Just lights gone. Swallowed whole. And in that breathless moment of silence, the floor twisted.

  Not trembled. Twisted.

  People screamed. Somewhere, someone vomited. The sound of metal straining filled the air like a dying animal’s scream.

  “Holy shit holy shit—” Wilson gasped, grabbing the nearest pipe like it was a lifeline. Iman’s hand found his by accident. They clutched the same beam, knuckles going white.

  One second. Two.

  “Everyone! Grab something and stay still!” she barked. Her voice snapped through the chaos like a whip. Authority, clean and brutal. Cries quieted. Scrambling hands latched to posts, ducts, metal lips of vents. “I hear footsteps,” she hissed, head turning fast. “Fucking stand still!”

  People listened. The lucky ones did.

  Then came the dip. Not a shake—a drop. As if the whole goddamn room slipped off its axis. A high-pitched metal grind tore through their skulls, sharp enough to draw blood. Somewhere, a scream burst—raw and wet. A girl. Her voice shredded the dark, trailing into the distance like she was sliding down a tunnel.

  “Vanessa! Where the hell is she? Brandon, grab her! Grab her!”

  The voice cracked—boyish and terrified—farther ahead. Iman pushed her heels down. The floor tilted. They were on an angle.

  Her hand went to her pocket. Phone. Flashlight on. A circle of white light swept through the dark.

  At least twenty bodies lay sprawled across the slanted floor like ragdolls tossed in a washing machine. Some were groaning. Some still. Others... twisted in ways the body shouldn’t twist. Her light passed over one with legs askew like broken scissors.

  She looked away. She had to.

  Then it hit—the sixth sense, a jolt behind her eyes, a raw buzz in her frontal lobe like a tuning fork struck against bone. Something was coming. Something wrong.

  And this time, Iman didn’t hesitate.

  She gritted her teeth and stuffed the phone into her mouth like a dog gnawing a rawhide. With one hand clutching the overhead bar, the other reached out in a frantic arc. The girl had fallen—tumbling like a ragdoll down the slope, her body curled inward as instinct took over. Iman’s muscles flared, her legs kicked off from the tilted flooring. Years of gym work, combat drills, actual war—her body didn’t hesitate.

  She caught the girl by the waist mid-drop, and like some desperate urban Spider-Man, swung them both back toward the rail. The bannister took the brunt of the impact with a deep metallic clang, and the girl’s body thudded beside hers, limbs shivering from the shock.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The girl winced but she was alive. Breathing, crying. Not a splatter on the hull. That alone was a win.

  Iman exhaled hard, a ragged breath tearing through her. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked past the girl.

  The mobile armor.

  It loomed behind them now, crawling up the incline like some titanic insect, each step shaking the deck. Had she mistimed that save by a second, they’d have been pulp smeared across the plating of a goddamn war machine.

  “Holy... shit!” the girl—Vanessa, Iman guessed—screamed. Her voice cracked and pitched high, hysterical, snotty, barely coherent. “You saved me! You saved my life!” She clawed toward Iman in a hug that was all shaking limbs and wet sobs.

  “Okay, kay, okay!” Iman shouted, batting her off. “Just—back up!”

  She spun to Wilson. “What the hell was that?”

  Wilson looked dazed, breath fogging from exertion and fear. “I don’t know. Mobile suit fights aren’t supposed to spill this close. Not like this.”

  The hum of electricity started low, ominous, then climbed until it was all-consuming. The lights overhead flickered—first a jaundiced yellow, then crimson-red pulses that bathed everything in blood.

  “Please evacuate. Please seek escape pods. Please seek any available Zero-G suit. Please evacuate to the next block. This is not a drill. This is not a drill.”

  The automated voice blared from all directions. The room responded like ants in flame. Screams. Running feet. The beginning of a stampede.

  Iman and Wilson locked eyes. Just for a second.

  She yanked her walkie-talkie from beneath her hoodie, twisted the dial to her unit’s frequency.

  The channel erupted into chaos—shouting, barking orders, broken static. Her 34th was already in the thick of it.

  “What the fuck is going on!” she screamed, taking off into a sprint.

  Wilson stayed behind, stunned, eyes on Vanessa. But something caught her gaze—a flicker in the corner, a shadow that shifted wrong.

  Her scream started small. A twitch of panic. Then it rose, deepened, cracked into something raw.

  Wilson turned to look. And his soul dropped out from under him.

  Bodies.

  Seven? Ten?

  Mounded like garbage in the far corner. Broken legs twisted the wrong way, arms bent behind backs, skulls cracked. They must’ve ricocheted like pinballs between mobile suit plating and bulkheads before they landed. One still twitched. Barely.

  Wilson didn’t move. He just stared. His mouth hung open, lips parting on a breath that never fully came. “Holy shit...”

  “It’s not like the games,” he murmured. “It’s nothing like the fucking games.”

  The yellow hazard lights sputtered above, but the crimson from the viewport drenched everything in its hellish hue. Outside, the artificial sky was burning.

  Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate.

  The word repeated like a mantra. Like a judgment. Like a countdown.

  Wilson’s eyes narrowed. A name clawed up his throat.

  “Mom...”

  His thoughts rocketed back to her belly. Pregnant. Due any day now. His siblings.

  He looked toward the Stargazer 01.

  Henryk

  “The hell was that!” Henryk snapped, staggering as the floor bucked underfoot. The lights stuttered overhead, casting the corridor in epileptic flashes. He, Marcus, and Franklin stumbled, trying to find balance in a world gone suddenly loose at the seams. Then it stopped. The stillness that followed was worse.

  Marcus jammed his ballistic helmet into place with a metallic click. His eyes locked on Henryk. “You get you and your friends the fuck out of here.”

  Another bang. Closer. Deeper. Like a giant’s heartbeat in the walls.

  Henryk shot him a look, half defiant, half scared. “...and you?”

  Marcus grinned under the matte black helmet, its surface scratched to hell and scrawled in white letters: The Block. “Don’t worry about me... I always survive.”

  Henryk managed a ghost of a smirk. But there was something heavier behind his eyes. “Before... I wanted to thank you and Iman for the save. Back there. Ed had us leave too fast and I—”

  “Christ, Henryk,” Marcus cut in, voice flat and hard. “Now’s not the goddamn time.” For a moment his eyes flicked away, distant. Then sharpened. “You want to thank someone?”

  He stepped back, already turning, already moving. A wave, a soldier’s nod. His squad was rallying behind him, rifles drawn, eyes scanning, the rhythm of trained violence in their stride.

  “Thank Commander Iman of the 34th.”

  “Iman?” Henryk repeated, struck like a match. His hand went instinctively to his face, as if shielding from the memory. It came flooding in now, hazy and sharp all at once—drunken dancing, heat, her lips, her voice. And the weight of forgetting it all. Guilt laced with shame, especially with Piper waiting on the other side of this hell.

  Franklin’s hand clapped down on his shoulder. The fear in his friend’s eyes cut through everything. Henryk snapped back to now.

  No time for memories. No time for guilt. Just smoke. Fire. Survival.

  They turned toward the massive double doors.

  Smoke bled through the seams of the glass. Shapes moved behind them. People. Pounding, clawing. Trying to escape.

  Henryk braced and threw himself at the doors. A crack, a whine of strained metal. Then the whole thing gave, the door shattering as he rolled through with a grunt.

  He emerged into hell.

  One corner of the hall was on fire—hungry, living fire, belching smoke and heat. The moment the doors were breached, a vacuum pulled the worst of it out. Smoke rushed past, hissing like steam, clearing just enough to see bodies moving.

  “Ed! Edward!” Henryk choked, coughing into the crook of his arm as people shoved past him, all instinct and panic. He staggered forward. “Arthur! Axel! Wilbur! Mateo!”

  He kept screaming until his throat dried out.

  Then—

  “Henryk! Over here, I—I need help!”

  Wilbur. The voice cracked and terrified.

  Henryk found him in the haze. Wilbur was pinned under a collapsed beam. His left leg twisted beneath it, his face slick with sweat and streaked with soot, eyes wide and wet.

  “Oh fuck,” Wilbur sobbed. “Are they—are they gonna hack it off?”

  Henryk dropped to one knee. The leg was mangled, swollen, already purpling—but not gone. Not yet.

  “Looks like you earned yourself some bed rest,” Henryk said, forcing a crooked grin.

  Wilbur tried to smile, but the pain stole it away in seconds.

  Screams swelled behind them. Closer now. Louder. Dozens.

  “We’ve gotta get you the hell out of here,” Henryk said. He gripped the beam, bracing his boots—but the second he lifted, Wilbur screamed.

  “Shit... okay, okay, hold on.” Henryk’s hands shook. His eyes darted to the growing flame, licking up the far side of the log-like beam. Time was bleeding out.

  Wilbur’s screams turned primal. His hands clawed for Henryk’s arms. “Don’t leave me, man! Don’t let me burn! Please!”

  “Will—I need my hands!”

  But Henryk’s mind was already elsewhere. Racing. Searching.

  Then it clicked. The supply room. The fire foam tanks. The old pulley.

  Henryk shot up like he’d been yanked by a wire. He bolted.

  “Henryk! Where are you going? HENRYK!” Wilbur’s voice cracked, howling into the dark like a man already dead.

  “Please, man! Don’t leave me!”

  But Henryk was already gone.

  For a moment, there was only the sound of destruction. Far off in the building’s wounded belly, cables snapped like bullwhips, steel beams groaned under their own weight, and pillars crashed down with a deafening finality, each impact sending shockwaves through the floor and feeding the blaze like a beast given blood.

  Wilbur lay frozen, breath coming in sharp, panicked gasps. The fire danced closer, bright tongues licking at the edges of the wreckage. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  Then—

  “Wilbur!”

  Not Henryk.

  Mateo was first through the smoke, leading the charge like a bullet fired from God’s own rifle. Behind him came Edward, Arthur, Axel, and Maelia. Their uniforms were in tatters, faces streaked with soot and blood. Maelia limped, her bare foot cut and raw. A crimson gash split her forehead, weeping blood into her eye, painting half her face in red.

  “Arthur, Axel, get that off him!” Edward barked.

  The two men didn’t hesitate. They took opposite sides of the burning beam.

  Wilbur grit his teeth. Arthur swore, glancing at the creeping fire just inches away. The top of the pillar began to catch—flames slithering like snakes up its length.

  “Holy shit, get this fucking thing off me!” Wilbur screamed, voice cracking.

  Axel grabbed at the beam, then yelped, staggering back, shaking his scorched fingers. “It’s fused into the goddamn floor! Like it was meant to crush him!” He turned to Wilbur. “What the fuck were you standing under, man?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Wilbur snapped back, face slick with sweat and panic.

  Then came the sound—boots on tile. Fast. Heavy.

  “Who’s that?” Ed spun, fists ready.

  But Maelia’s eyes flicked. She knew that cadence. She felt it.

  Henryk burst through the smoke, axe in hand. The gleam of murder in his eyes. He wasn’t the same boy from the academy dorms—this was someone born in hellfire and brought back to swing.

  Arthur stepped forward, his left hand—bionic and brutal—outstretched. “Druid, axe. Now!”

  Henryk didn’t slow. He flipped the axe with a practiced motion. Arthur snatched it mid-air by the head, then pivoted the grip into his palm. What came next was a blur. A roar of movement. He swung like a man possessed—again, again, again—each strike faster than the last.

  Wilbur thrashed beneath the beam, shrieking, “Please don’t cut off my leg and dick!”

  One final swing. A crack like a gunshot. The beam snapped.

  “Grab him!” Arthur barked.

  Axel, Edward, and Henryk lunged in sync, yanking Wilbur back just as the timber was swallowed in flame. The fire erupted in a snarl, heat blasting across their faces, sucking the oxygen from the air.

  Wilbur lay in a pile, shaking, tears and snot running freely. His leg was a mess of blood and torn cloth—bone glinting through meat. He looked down, and the scream that tore from him was raw enough to strip paint off the walls.

  “I’ve met men who lost legs quieter than you,” Arthur muttered, spitting onto the floor.

  Axel glanced down at Wilbur. “What a pussy. Bro, it’s just a leg. You’ve never broken one before?”

  “No!” Wilbur wailed. “I fractured my pinky in middle school soccer! That’s it! So yeah, this hurts like a motherfucker, and fuck you! Fuck you both!”

  He screamed until his voice cracked, until it sounded like something dying in the back of his throat. Then, at last, the fire crews flooded in, spraying foam and orders and light.

  They propped Wilbur against the wall. He looked like a shell-shocked husk, sobbing softly as the flames were beaten back. The others collapsed nearby, ringed around the aftermath like survivors of an ancient war.

  Maelia wrapped her arms tight across her chest. Her voice was low, cold. “That was most definitely a terrorist attack.”

  Silence fell like a blade.

  Ed was the first to speak. “How is that possible?”

  “No place is undefended,” Maelia said. “It’s foolish to think otherwise.”

  Ed buried his face in his hands. “The Block is a free system. Practically comparable to the Academy. There's no reason for it to be hit.”

  “Maybe it was the revolutionaries,” Wilbur croaked from the floor, breath hitching with every word.

  Maelia turned to him, eyes sharp as razors. “Shut up.”

  And he did.

  Maelia continued, her voice sharp with certainty. “There’s no point in them attacking. This... this is something else.” Her eyes widened, then narrowed into slits. “Neptunians,” she said flatly.

  A shadow passed across her face, dark and creeping, as if some old memory had uncoiled behind her eyes. Her hand drifted to her temple like she was trying to press something back in. “But there is a darkness... out there. Beyond the colonies, beyond the charts. There’s another force. There has to be.”

  Arthur nodded grimly. “Radio Tyson. He’s probably still outside.”

  Axel was already on it, unclipping the brick of a radio unit strapped to his belt. “Ty, you read? Tyson. Tyson?” His voice cracked with urgency as his eyes darted between the group, and then... the signal fizzled. Static. Whispers of motion, but nothing real. Just sound, like wind rattling bones in a grave.

  Henryk exhaled, eyes fixed to nothing. “I don’t like that one bit.”

  “Me neither,” Maelia said, stepping close beside him.

  Edward’s expression shifted. That wasn’t fear on his face, it was recognition. He’d seen this before. Chaos with a direction.

  Then the lights—those warm golden lamps, designed to mimic the old sunlight of Earth—sputtered once, twice, and flared crimson. An unholy glow bathed the hall in blood.

  "Warning. Evacuate. Warning. Evacuate to the nearest escape pods. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill." The mechanical voice screeched like an executioner announcing his rounds.

  Panic erupted like a dam breaking. Rescue workers dropped their kits. Civilians scattered. Diplomats stumbled over each other in expensive suits and heeled shoes. The wounded screamed, dragged by medics who looked more like soldiers now. Stretchers were overturned, and the floor vibrated with the sound of running.

  A woman in blue scrubs rushed up to them, a team of three behind her. Her hair was tied back in a frazzled bun. Her eyes were sharp, calculating. “Your friend, we can take him.”

  Edward shook his head. “Thanks, but we’ve got a ship on the docks. He’ll be safer there. Proper hospital. Real meds.”

  “You need to go. Now,” one of her men barked, sweat pouring down his face.

  Another spoke, panting. “They say the structural integrity of this section’s gone. Badly. Might be unrecoverable. If it fails, they’ll purge it.”

  All of them froze.

  Axel blinked. “They’ll do what?”

  The woman turned to him, solemn. “Each section of the Block was built modular. From the start. Failsafes in place. See those blue airlocks? They’re old, but they work. If this one fails, they’ll jettison it like a tumor and seal the breach. The rest of the station survives.”

  The silence that followed was deep and awful. Henryk felt it press into his chest. His mind reeled. Purge the whole section. His eyes drifted to the wide pane of glass along the corridor. Out there, across the bustling levels of the Block, people ran like ants beneath flame. Cars collided, burst into sparks. Children screamed. Lovers clung to each other. He had passed playgrounds. Clinics. Shrines. And now, those same places were seconds from being erased.

  “What kind of goddamn excuse do you give for this?” Henryk whispered to himself. The rage curled through him like smoke through lungs. “Such mindless death.”

  The medical team rushed off, disappearing into the red haze.

  Ed turned, urgency back in his voice. “Come on, Wilbur. We’ve got to move.” Then to Arthur and Axel, “Grab him. Now. We’re leaving.”

  He turned to Maelia. “Princess. Please.”

  Maelia stood rooted, surveying the carnage like it was a battlefield from her childhood. Her jaw clenched, breath sharp through her nose. “This was the Neptunians,” she said, fury boiling in her throat. “They wanted to silence me. They didn’t want the truth about Mathias reaching the galaxy.”

  “We know, Princess,” Axel muttered.

  He and Arthur each took one of Wilbur’s arms, hoisting him to his feet. Wilbur’s face twisted in agony, veins pulsing along his temple. His leg trembled like it belonged to someone else, his mouth locked open in a silent scream. But he moved. He had to. The alternative was fire, vacuum, and dust.

  Ed turned to Maelia. “I assure you, Princess, the Knights of Mars are not done yet.”

  “Knights,” she sneered, her lip curling with something close to contempt. “All I see are boys in armor playing at war. You couldn’t even protect a single child—how could you ever hope to protect me?”

  Her words hit like a slap, sucking the warmth from the air. Every gaze shifted toward her. She glared at them, fury gleaming behind her eyes like a blade under candlelight.

  “You had one job. One message to deliver. And you couldn’t even manage that.”

  “Princess...?” Ed started, but his voice faltered, dying somewhere in his throat.

  “Listen, lady...” The voice that rose was Franklin’s—blunt, raw, unexpected. “We tried our best. We had our mission, yeah. But look around you. Look at what happened.”

  “Yes,” Maelia spat. “Look at it.”

  Mateo’s gaze sharpened. “And what did you expect us to do?” His voice had edge, but there was no malice. Only exhaustion. “None of us are psychic. Except Henryk. Are you going to blame him too?”

  Maelia’s eyes cut toward Henryk like sharpened glass. Her expression twisted, feral—lips peeled back ever so slightly. For a heartbeat, Henryk thought she might attack. She looked like a storm barely held in skin. Tyson’s rage, if it had worn a woman’s shape. And still, even in her fury, there was something about her that stirred him.

  Why now? Why here, when she looked ready to tear him to pieces?

  “The Knights of Mars make the impossible happen,” Maelia growled. “I gave you suits, I gave you money, I gave you a chance at legacy. And now I’ve got a dead brother and a broadcast drowned in rubble.”

  Her voice cracked. Just barely.

  “You swore this Block was secure. You swore you were enough.”

  “This is their fault,” Wilbur said hoarsely, teeth clenched through the pain. He turned his head toward her. “A mission is a mission, lady. But you’re not the one with a crushed leg.”

  Maelia’s eyes dropped, just for a second. She looked at his twisted limb. There was a flicker of something behind her eyes—guilt maybe, or shame—but she buried it. Fast. Maybe it had never been there at all.

  Then Arthur moved.

  He stepped forward, past the others, and dropped. Hard.

  Full prostration.

  Gasps echoed from the bystanders. Even passersby slowed, drawn by the image of a man of Mars, armored and proud, kneeling like a penitent.

  Maelia stepped back, as if the weight of his act was too much to bear.

  “My Princess,” Arthur said, voice steady, unshaken. “On my honor as a Knight, on the bloodline that gave me the name Arthur, on the memory of the Red Templars, I confess to you my failure.”

  His forehead pressed to the floor. He did not tremble.

  “Since the day we were inducted into the Academy, we’ve gorged ourselves on the luxuries of the old Houses. We’ve clung to titles carved in the bones of better men. Hollowed heirs to a history we don’t deserve. We’ve lost three of our own. And still, we stood proud.”

  He raised his head enough to meet her gaze. His voice sharpened.

  “Your brother is dead. A royal. The heir. And we are without a king.”

  He swallowed. “If I had fought harder that day... if I had given more of myself... then maybe, just maybe, he would still be alive. If it had been me instead, my father, or my grandfather—they would have done better. They would have died better.”

  He took a long breath. His right hand trembled slightly—three fingers replaced by gleaming bionics, the wrist joint humming faintly.

  “Forgive my Knight brothers, forgive the squires,” Arthur said. “They no longer understand the old ways. Modern Life has castrated them with machines and false strength. They do not know what guilt is. They do not feel shame. To speak to you without title—it disgusts me to my core.”

  He bowed deeper, fully prone. “Whatever punishment you deem worthy, I accept it. I subject myself to your judgment.”

  The silence was total.

  Maelia could feel the eyes. From the Martians. From the crowd. From the stars above, it seemed.

  She saw him clearly now. The bionic of his ear, the ancient metal plate threaded behind his jaw. The bionic joints of his right hand, whirring faintly under the sleeve.

  Arthur wasn’t groveling. He wasn’t begging.

  He was a knight, offering his throat in shame—and in pride.

  Her throat tightened. Something inside her cracked.

  “Enough,” Maelia said. Her voice was quieter now. More tired than angry. “Now isn’t the time for this.”

  She turned her head, scoffing slightly. “I’ll take the spot on your transport.”

  A long breath left Edward’s lungs, and he nodded. The others gave her small smiles—relieved, grateful.

  But not Henryk.

  He didn’t smile.

  He watched her. Watched the cracks that had formed in her armor, just barely visible. And then he turned, his boots crunching against the steel as the group moved forward, Wilbur groaning between Axel and Arthur, supported on either side.

  Henryk lingered at the rear.

  His gaze lingered on Maelia’s silhouette a moment longer than the rest.

  Then he followed.

  “What about the others?” Henryk asked.

  Ed exhaled slowly, as though every breath weighed a year. “I know Bea. I know Adaline. Bea’s going to prioritize her sister, no question. That’s the best thing that could happen. They’re probably already in an escape pod. Wilson knows the layout, he should be with them.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Henryk muttered. But then that feeling again—tight in his gut, whispering behind his ears like a pressure shift before a storm.

  “The Stargazer 02,” Henryk said, his voice sharp with sudden clarity. “It’ll be lost?”

  Ed turned to him, eyes widening. “It’s docked here, right? Still in calibration, but almost ready?”

  “Henryk,” Ed warned. Just his name, but the way he said it carved doubt like a scalpel.

  “That Warcasket took a good chunk of time to build,” Henryk said, voice rising. “The next in the line. It needs materials we’ll never see again. Synthesized here, on The Block.” He jabbed a finger downward like he was stabbing at the very core of this doomed city. “I can’t reach the 01. But the 02? I can reach that.”

  “Is that before or after they glass the station?” Mateo snapped from the corner, both palms dragging down his face like he could peel the frustration off. “Henryk, you’re too smart for this.”

  “For what?” Henryk barked, surprised at the venom in his own voice.

  Mateo stepped toward him, hand curled like a claw. “To run off and die for a machine, of all things. A fucking machine! God, it’s like wisdom is chasing you and your faster.

  Henryk sneered, but there was laughter in it. Bitter, wild laughter. “Aren’t we the Knights of House Mars?” he asked, turning to face them all with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. The silence that followed was hollow, like a dropped shell casing in a ruined chapel.

  And then he moved. Fast. Too fast.

  “H-Henryk…” Axel called out, still holding Wilbur, raising one hand as if to catch the ghost. “Brother, don’t go. Not yet…”

  Henryk’s gaze flashed over them like headlights passing by on a highway to hell. He waved once, curt and final. “Wisdom does not favor the brave,” he said—and bolted through the steel door like a man with nothing left but momentum.

  “Where the hell is he going?” Maelia muttered, but there was no demand in it. Just disbelief. Just fear.

  And then Henryk was gone.

  Outside, the city pulsed like an overheating heart. The streets screamed with the roar of drones and rotors. Helicopters buzzed low, spotlights cutting like searchlights through digital fog. Crowds moved in waves, panicked yet aimless, like cattle sensing slaughter but not knowing the fence line.

  His name echoed behind him. Someone shouting. Maybe Maelia. Maybe Ed. Maybe all of them.

  But none of it mattered.

  He ran through the false city of neon and nightmare, where the very ground was a lie—dirt replaced by a grid of snake-thin wires, slithering beneath his boots like the earth itself had become nervous system. The sky above flickered with servers stacked like skyscrapers, oceans of data crashing behind steel-and-glass walls. No sun. No god. Just the cold hum of circuitry.

  This was their world.

  And it was ending.