Inside, the corridor leading to the Apex Obsidian was a narrow, ribbed throat of sleek carbon fiber and sterile white light. It smelled of ozone, gun oil, and high grade military synth coolant."Four minutes until total atmospheric purge," the station’s automated voice echoed weakly from the dying hulk behind them. "Sector C pressure is declining.""Move your fucking ass, Fiona," Jayden growled, his golden optic whirring as it recalibrated to the blinding white interior of the dreadnought. Every step he took felt like a rusted spike grinding into his hip joint. The synth-flesh on his shoulder was bubbling, melting under the raw friction of his movement, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins drowned out the scream of his nerves.Fiona swept past him, her chain-blade dripping dark, viscous oil onto the pristine deck. Her violet eyes flickered like dying stars, erratic and lethal. "If we hit the bridge, I get to gut the pilot," she purred, her tongue darting out to lick a smear o

The concussive roar of double-barreled machine guns turned the narrow corridor into a vibrating meat grinder. Heavy lead rounds shredded the steel walls, showering Jayden and Fiona in superheated metal shavings and blinding white sparks. The air instantly filled with the suffocating stench of scorched iron."Cover me, you insane bitch!" Jayden roared, his voice tearing in his throat as he pressed his back hard against the melting coolant pipe.Fiona didn't answer with words…she answered with a maniacal, screeching laugh that cut straight through the deafening chaos. Vaulting over the pipe, she sprinted along the left bulkhead, her combat boots magnetic-locking briefly with every violent stride to defy gravity. She fired her plasma rifle in short, ruthless bursts, purple bolts sloshing against Subject 73’s reinforced chest plating. It didn't penetrate the heavy armor, but it succeeded in blinding two of the brute’s pulsing red viewfinders."Come get some, you ugly, stitched-together

The air on Sub Deck 12 tasted like stagnant liquid nitrogen and preserved organic fluid. Frost clung to the biological glass pods, glowing with a ghastly emerald light that painted every line of shock on Jayden and Fiona's faces.Fiona remained on her knees, her blood-stained fingers clutched tightly in her dark hair. Her breath came in short, desperate hitches not the jagged, erotic pants of a predator after a kill, but the terrified gasps of a trapped, broken human being."Every memory, Jayden..." she whimpered, her violet eyes wide, glassy, and completely shattered as she stared at a pod containing another copy of her face. "The scars on my thighs... the night I choked my first handler to death in Sector C... was any of it fucking real? Or did some suit in a lab coat press a key and upload it into my skull while I was floating in green juice?"Jayden didn't answer immediately. The phantom pain in his shoulder was forgotten, replaced by a cold, hollow void in his chest. He took thr

The hyperspace jump collapsed with a bone-rattling thud that threw Jayden against the main console. Outside the jagged viewport, deep space didn’t yield to a welcoming harbor. It spat them out right into the shadow of a gargantuan, decaying hollowed out moon.The Obsidian Hive.It was a festering, orbital mass of salvaged steel, rusted dark-docks, and glowing neon scars cut directly into the moon’s dead rock core. Thousands of pirate scrap haulers and black-market smuggler frigates swarmed around its perimeter like flies over a fresh carcass."System drop successful," Fiona purred, her fingers dancing over the stolen bridge controls. She wiped a line of green, gel-like nutrient fluid from her chin and flicked it onto the deck. "Sector Shadow-9. Smells like burnt wiring, black market synth flesh, and absolute lawlessness."Jayden choked back a harsh, wet cough. He reached up with his good right hand, slamming a palm against his ruined left shoulder. The necrotic synth-rot had progresse

Tzng of Vex’s hot blood sizzled against Jayden’s new titanium knuckles, giving off a greasy, nauseating steam. Around them, the silence of Docking Bay Zero-One felt like a physical weight, broken only by the low, rhythmic hum of the dreadnought’s idling sub-light drives and the wet, shuddering breath coming from Fiona’s chest.Jayden didn’t let go of her waist. If he did, he was terrified he’d lose his grip on the thin layer of sanity he had left.His golden cybernetic eye flickered, recalibrating through a sea of red system warnings, but his organic eye…the one that still felt heat, pain, and human weakness was locked entirely on her. She was a fucking nightmare wrapped in skin and leather. A feral, blood-soaked lunatic who looked at a pile of butchered mercenaries and saw a romantic setting.And help him, it made his heart hammer against his ribs so hard it rattled his freshly bolted collarbone."You’re staring, Captain," Fiona purred. Her voice was raspy, stripped raw from screamin