The hiss of pressurized gas cut through the canal gloom a millisecond before the arc-harpoon cleared the catwalk."Left!" Nyvara shoved Kaelion sideways into the sludgy canal wall.The harpoon punched through the concrete inches from his temple, discharging a web of violent blue electrical arcs that boiled the filthy water around their boots. Steam hissed into the chill air, smelling of burnt oil and cooked moss."Too slow!" Kaelion growled, lunging off the slick masonry."I saved your head, you ingrate!" Nyvara vaulted over a rusted drainage baffle, her twin daggers snapping down into reverse grips. "Three on the catwalk, two flanking the sluice gate! Don't let them ground their wires in the pool!""I've got the flankers!"Kaelion exploded forward. His boots tore through the chemical sludge, kicking up greasy spray. The world stretched, decelerating into jagged, hyper-vivid frames. He could see the lead scav-tracker—a jagged silhouette clad in patchwork hazard plating—scrambling to r

"Stop pacing. You’re squeaking on the deckplates and vibrating my tactical display."Nyvara didn't look up from the workbench. Her fingers moved with ruthless, mechanical precision, stripping down a kinetic sidearm, wiping carbon residue from the firing pin with an oiled rag, and slamming the assembly back together with a crisp metallic click."I’m not pacing," Kaelion said, his voice flat as he flexed his left shoulder. The skin beneath his torn tunic was mottled with deep violet bruising, but the muscle fibers beneath were knitting together with unnatural, feverish heat. "I'm testing whether my ribs are going to splinter when we hit the perimeter.""They won't splinter if you stop acting like a living battering ram." Nyvara racked the slide of the pistol, holstered it, and pulled up a flickering amber holomap on the scarred console between them. "Sit. Drink the electrolyte pack. Your cellular regeneration is chewing through your glucose reserves, and I am not dragging your comatose

"Three seconds," Kaelion muttered, his fingers clenched around the edge of the rusted drainage grate. "Tell me you didn't invert the polarity on that manifold.""I inverted it on purpose," Nyvara whispered back, her boots digging into the slag-slick rim of the conduit. "If you want a blast that punches through reinforced tungsten, you don't play by the safety manual.""That wasn't tungsten we rigged. That was a localized plasma cell.""Even better." She didn't blink. "Cover your eyes.""One—"The world inverted into an eye-searing bloom of cobalt light.A concussive roar ripped through the concrete canyon of Gate 4. The security sub-station didn't just explode—it unraveled. Overcharged mana-batteries detonated in a cascading sequence, vaporizing the station's reinforced plating into a shower of white-hot shrapnel. The shockwave slammed into the outer perimeter wall, fracturing the surveillance towers and sending thousands of shattered plasteel shards screaming across the tarmac."Move

"Jump, damn it, or enjoy the two-thousand-foot drop!""I am jumping!" Kaelion roared, lunging over the mangled guardrail of the elevated platform.His boots struck the corrugated roof of the speeding industrial cargo car with a bone-jarring crash. The mag-rail beneath the flatbed screamed in a high-pitched whine of electromagnetic friction, blue sparks cascading like liquid fire into the endless abyss of smog below.A split second later, Nyvara landed beside him in a tight tactical roll, her sidearm already drawn and scanning the rear track."Secure your footing!" she shouted over the deafening roar of rushing air. "These ore freights don't have inertial dampeners!""I noticed!" Kaelion hauled himself upright, his enhanced muscles straining against the ferocious wind shear. "Where does this track even lead?""Out of Sector 7," Nyvara snapped, keeping low against a stack of reinforced alloy shipping crates. "Assuming we survive the transit.""What's that supposed to mean?""Look back a

"Hang onto something!" Kaelion roared over the shrieking gale."There is nothing to hang onto!" Nyvara screamed back, her fingers clawing into the skiff’s torn cockpit plating as the vessel rolled violently into an uncontrolled dive. "What did you do to the manifold?""I ripped it out! You told me to disable the steering!""I said disable their weapons, you idiot!""You said stop the skiff!""Not while we were still on it!"The sky inverted into a sickening blur of smog, rusted steel girders, and flickering warning runes. The assault skiff's twin repulsor thrusters backfired in a succession of deafening, concussive pops. Below them, the massive silhouette of the upper mag-line vanished into the yellow-gray soup of the lower atmosphere, replaced by a jagged forest of corroded pylons, hanging power cables, and the decaying superstructure of the border canopy."Brace!" Nyvara reached across the shuddering console, grabbing Kaelion's tactical harness with one hand and locking her boots ag