Novels by TRY

"Keep your voice down and your glowing arm out of sight, or we’ll have every bounty hunter from here to the coast trying to saw your shoulder off for scrap," Seraphyne muttered, her hand gripping the sleeve of Vaelric’s jacket and yanking him hard into the shadows of a grease-stained, corrugated metal garage.The air inside the makeshift workshop smelled overwhelmingly of burnt motor oil, stale welding gas, and unwashed panic. Rows of rusted tools hung from pegboards along the back wall, illuminated only by a single, dangling overhead bulb that cast long, distorted shadows across the concrete floor.Garrett, a notoriously slick smuggler with a grease-smeared jaw and eyes like hard flint, leaned casually against the fender of a heavy-duty transport rig, a half-smoked cigarette dangling lazily from the corner of his mouth. He looked them up and down, his gaze lingering with uncomfortable curiosity on Vaelric’s r

"If you pass out on this sticky wooden floor, I am taking your boots and leaving you to the local debt collectors," Seraphyne muttered, her hand gripping the back of Vaelric’s heavy coat as she shoved him through the swinging, grease-stained saloon doors.The interior of the tavern hit them like a physical blow—a dense wall of stale tobacco smoke, cheap frying grease, and the sour stench of spilled whiskey mixed with unwashed bodies. Dozens of rough-hewn miners, independent freighters, and desperate-looking outcasts sat crammed around scarred wooden tables under the flickering amber glow of a diesel-powered chandelier.Vaelric stumbled over the raised threshold, his heavy obsidian-plated right arm dragging him slightly to the side before he caught his balance against a sticky pillar near the entrance. He blinked against the harsh, smoky light, his chest heaving under his layers of torn fabric. "This place smells lik

"If you drop dead of exhaustion before we even cross the perimeter, I am not dragging you," Seraphyne hissed, her boots kicking up frozen slush as she hauled Vaelric around another viciously steep mountain switchback. "Do you hear me? I’ll leave you for the corporate hounds to use as a welcome mat."Vaelric stumbled, his heavy, obsidian-plated right arm swinging like a dead pendulum and nearly throwing off his center of gravity completely. He caught himself against the jagged face of a frost-covered boulder, leaving deep, gouging scratches in the stone where his metallic fingers brushed the surface. "Then it’s a good thing... I’m too stubborn... to die in a ditch... next to a rusted-out logging trailer," he wheezed, his chest heaving as he dragged in lungfuls of razor-sharp, sub-zero air that burned like swallowed glass."Save your breath for walking," Seraphyne snapped, though the harsh edge in her voice soft

"We can't afford to waste another second admiring the local scenery," Seraphyne whispered, her voice sharp as glass in the freezing gloom of the administrative shack as she frantically fiddled with the knobs of the jury-rigged analog receiver. "The security chatter on this frequency is getting entirely too close for comfort. They've cleared the upper ridge and they're sweeping the tree line right behind us."Vaelric dropped his heavy canvas pack onto a splintered wooden desk with a dull thud, his breath pluming in jagged, white clouds against the stale, frost-bitten air of the abandoned room. He reached out with his normal, flesh-and-blood left hand to steady himself against the wall, but his knees buckled slightly under the sheer, cumulative exhaustion of their non-stop flight. "Let them sweep. If my arm keeps hardening at this rate, I won't even need a weapon to crack their skulls; I'll just be too heavy for gravity to ignore."

"Move faster," Seraphyne whispered, her voice cutting through the whistling alpine wind as she slipped past the rotting timber frame of the abandoned logging camp's main administrative shack. "If those corporate hounds caught our scent back at the switchback, they’re already sweeping this lower ridge. We don't have time to sightsee."Vaelric trudged behind her, his boots crunching heavily on frozen pine needles. He favored his left side, keeping his mutated, obsidian-plated right arm close to his ribs. Every step sent a fresh wave of nausea rolling through his gut, the strange, heavy metal limb feeling colder than the surrounding sub-zero air."I'm moving as fast as this dead weight allows," Vaelric muttered, gritting his teeth as he pushed open the warped, sagging door of the shack. The interior smelled intensely of damp mold, stale cigarette smoke, and decades of freezing abandonment. Pitch blackness swallowed them whol

"Out. Now," Seraphyne snapped, shoving her door open against a heavy drift of crusted snow as the truck's engine died with a final, pathetic wheeze. "The radiator's blown, and if those corporate scouts have thermal optics on their drones, this hunk of junk is basically a giant glowing beacon in the dark."Vaelric swung his massive, obsidian-plated right leg out of the passenger side, his boots crunching heavily onto the frozen logging road. He winced, his face twisting in a sharp grimace as he tried to shift his weight. "Easy to say when your arm doesn't weigh as much as an entire engine block.""Then don't carry your arm, carry the rucksack," Seraphyne retorted without missing a beat, tossing the heavy canvas pack squarely into his chest before he could steady himself. She grabbed a heavy crowbar from the truck bed, her breath pluming in jagged, white clouds against the freezing night air. "And keep your voice down. The wind i

"Pull us in tighter against the rear wall!" Vaedrix yelled, his arm wrapped firmly around Othrek’s chest as the delivery van’s engine died with a wet, choked rattle.The heavy metal doors of the subterranean boiler room slammed shut behind them, echoing off the damp concrete walls and cutting off the distant, wailing sirens of the Sector 3 pursuit cruisers. Mara shoved the gearshift into park with unnecessary violence, yanking the emergency brake up until the cable gave a sharp, metallic ping. She threw open her door and hopped down into the greasy puddle below, her boots splashing against the concrete."Is everyone in one piece, or are we hauling corpses tonight?" Mara asked, marching straight to the back of the van and swinging the cargo doors wide open."We’re breathing, which is more than the Ministry expected," Vaedrix said, coughing slightly as the stale, sulfurous air of the underground hideout hit his lungs. He carefully maneuvered Othrek’s slumping form toward the edge of the

"Hold onto something solid!" Mara yelled, her voice straining over the screaming whine of the delivery van’s overtaxed transmission.In the passenger seat, Caedrik braced both hands against the dashboard as the vehicle careened sharply to the left. "You call this driving? We’re not evading them, Mara, we’re auditioning for a scrap heap!""Shut up and watch the rearview!" Mara barked, wrenching the wheel hard to right the van as a heavy kinetic slug punched cleanly through the passenger-side door panel, sending a shower of razor-sharp fiberglass shrapnel into the cab.In the back, Vaedrix threw his entire weight over Othrek’s trembling body, shielding the data broker as another round shattered the side window. Glass rained down like diamond dust. "Mara, we can’t take much more of this! The rear axle is groaning like it’s about to shear off!""Then don't look at the axle!" Mara shouted back, her eyes locked on the narrow, rain-slicked alleyway ahead that opened directly into the sprawli

"Shift your weight, Caedrik, or we’re going to tip this entire chassis into a storm drain!" Mara slammed the steering column with the flat of her palm, her knuckles stark white against the dark vinyl as the delivery van slewed sideways across a patch of black ice.Inside the rusted cargo bay, the tires shrieked in protest against the slick asphalt of Sector 3. Vaedrix threw his shoulder hard against the interior paneling, pinning Othrek’s inert, slumping form to prevent him from rolling into the jagged edges of an exposed battery rack. Othrek’s eyes remained half-lidded, glazed with the lingering chemistry of the Ministry's cognitive loop, his lips moving silently in a string of uncompiled code."I'm not shifting anything," Caedrik yelled back over the deafening roar of the overworked engine, his face pressed against the wire-mesh divider separating the cab from the back. "Tell your friend the steering geometry is shot! We’ve got two Ministry pursuit cruisers right on our quarter-pane

"Clear the threshold!" Caedrik screamed, lunging sideways and dragging Othrek’s limp legs out of the line of fire as a concentrated burst of kinetic rounds chewed through the drywall where they had stood a fraction of a second earlier. Plaster dust exploded into the air, choking their lungs and turning the strobing red emergency lights into a hazy, nightmarish blur of crimson and grey."Return fire!" Vaedrix barked, dropping to one knee while still supporting Othrek's upper body with his left arm. With his right hand, he unclipped a heavy stun baton from his tactical belt and slammed the baseplate against the deck, discharging a localized electromagnetic pulse that sizzled across the floor tiles. The sharp blue arc leaped from tile to tile, instantly short-circuiting the advance gear of the lead enforcer whose boots were soaked in the wet runoff from a ruptured overhead pipe.The enforcer seized up instantly, his graphite-plated armor locking rigid as thousands of volts surged through

"Warning. Unauthorized extraction in progress. All enforcement units converge on Level Three," the synthetic voice droned, echoing off the bleached walls as heavy security shutters slammed downward from the ceiling with concussive force."Move, move, move!" Vaedrix roared, his muscles screaming as he bore the brunt of Othrek’s dead weight. The data broker’s head lolled backward, a thin line of drool slipping from his slack lips while his unblinking eyes stared blindly at the flickering red emergency strobes.Caedrik sprinted beside him, his fingers frantically working the keypad of a stolen administrative terminal clamped to his forearm. "The main elevators are dead! Vance's automated grid just locked out the entire shaft!""Then we don't take the elevator!" Vaedrix barked, his boots skidding across the slick linoleum as they rounded a sharp ninety-degree corner. Ahead of them, a squad of three

"Clear the threshold!" Caedrik screamed, lunging sideways and dragging Othrek’s limp legs out of the line of fire as a concentrated burst of kinetic rounds chewed through the drywall where they had stood a fraction of a second earlier. Plaster dust exploded into the air, choking their lungs and turning the strobing red emergency lights into a hazy, nightmarish blur of crimson and grey."Return fire!" Vaedrix barked, dropping to one knee while still supporting Othrek's upper body with his left arm. With his right hand, he unclipped a heavy stun baton from his tactical belt and slammed the baseplate against the deck, discharging a localized electromagnetic pulse that sizzled across the floor tiles. The sharp blue arc leaped from tile to tile, instantly short-circuiting the advance gear of the lead enforcer whose boots were soaked in the wet runoff from a ruptured overhead pipe.The enforcer seized up instantly, his graphite