"Shut the valves! I don't care if the pressure dials melt off the bulkhead, Old He, you lock those forward bay seals until I say otherwise!"Tigor’s roar was nearly swallowed by the terrifying, bass-heavy groan of the iron hull. The pitch-black water of the Abyssal Trench was pressing against the outside of Arkas with the weight of an entire ocean, and through the thick observation slits, the liquid shadow looked less like water and more like a living, pulsing ink."The valves are holding, you oversized lizard!" Old He’s voice cracked back through the copper communication tubes, accompanied by a sharp, rhythmic hiss-clank of his mechanical arm throwing heavy manual bypasses. "But Han wants the forward gates cracked! He’s standing right on the lower loading gantry, and the crazy bastard isn't even wearing a breathing apparatus!"Tigor cursed under his breath, wiping a film of icy, pressurized condensation from his jade-tinted forehead. He turned toward the iron ladder that led to the L

"The gold leaf is too thin to be melted down into conduit rods, He. We should just use it to alloy the secondary heat shields."Veronika leaned over a marble block that had been dragged into the center of the Primary Smelter, her compass-dividers clicking sharply against the polished stone as she sketched a rough structural modification plan. Around her, the air was a haze of white dust, black soot, and the shimmering silver mist of the Abyssal Nectar that had just been injected into the boilers. The iron mountain didn't just feel stable now; it felt heavy, grounded by a massive, pulsing spiritual gravity that defied the fluid air of the forgotten coast.Old He didn't look up from his work bench, his iron prosthetic releasing a short, rhythmic hiss as he adjusted a pair of hydraulic tension springs in the wrist. "Gold is a celestial conductor, girl. If you put it on the shields, the next time the moon blinks at us, the hull will absorb the heat instead of turning it away. We mix the g