"The hatch is giving way!" Brennen shrieked, his voice cracking into a high, hysterical register as a deafening clANG echoed from the ceiling overhead. A jagged piece of reinforced iron buckled inward, forced down by some heavy, unseen leverage from the void-scavengers outside."Shut your mouth and keep that saw screaming through the fossil-link!" Mavrik roared, his mechanical arm locking into position with a loud clack as he braced his shoulder against the vibrating bulkhead. "Varkelion, if that carbon-link doesn't snap in the next three seconds, we're going to have uninvited guests carving us up for scrap!"Varkelion didn't waste breath on an answer. He threw his entire weight onto the primary throttle valve, wrenching it forward past the red line until the boiler shrieked in absolute agony. The entire locomotive shuddered violently, a bone-jarring lurch that threw Brennen sideways against the bulkhead and forced a sharp curse from Mavrik. Outside the quartz viewport, the colossal s

"The tether! She’s yielding!"The screech of metal against metal reached a fever pitch, a high-frequency whine that vibrated through Varkelion’s very teeth. A sudden, violent fracture echoed through the airlock, a sound like a mountain range snapping in half. The locomotive lurched, throwing Varkelion, Mavrik, and Brennen into a tangled heap against the bulkhead as the tension that had been pinning them to the skeletal ribs of the dead titan suddenly vanished.The locomotive surged forward, the sudden loss of drag causing the engine to over-rev with a terrifying, hollow roar."Get up!" Varkelion barked, scrambling to his feet and slamming his palms onto the primary controls. "If we don't dump that load, the ghost-train’s inertia will pivot us right off the rails!"Mavrik was already moving, his mechanical limb hissing as he engaged a secondary hydraulic lever. "The scavenger hooks are still snagged on our rear chassis! They aren’t letting go, Varkelion! They think they’ve hooked a pri

"Get back! Get back right now or I’ll blow this whole junction to hell!" Brennen screamed, his boots slipping on the grease-slicked steel plating of the rear platform as a cluster of rusted, barbed pikes slammed down through the floorboards not six inches from his boots."Do it, Brennen! Drop the charge!" Varkelion roared from the raised bridge, his hands tearing at the heavy brass throttle until the steam pressure gauges shrieked into the absolute red. "The scavenger hooks are dragging our tail right into the trench! Blow the seal!"With a jagged, desperate cry, Brennen hurled the pulsing thermal canister directly into the tangled nest of mechanical pikes and gripping clamps where the void-scavengers had latched onto the train’s rear chassis."Clear!" Mavrik bellowed, his heavy iron arm grabbing Brennen by the collar of his soot-blackened jacket and hauling him backward across the deck just as the thermal charge detonated with a blinding, magnesium-white flash.The explosion tore thr

"We aren't slowing down! The brakes are screaming, Mavrik, and the pins are shearing right off the primary chassis!" Varkelion yelled over the deafening, metallic shriek of the wheels biting into warped iron."They aren't just shearing, they're vaporizing from the friction!" Mavrik roared back, his organic hand slamming down onto an emergency bypass valve while his heavy metal arm violently cranked a stubborn iron wheel. "The fifth carriage isn't just uncoupling; its pneumatic lines are fused to our main engine core! It’s dragging us back down into the trench even as we burn through the sky!"Varkelion grabbed the edge of the brass-trimmed console, his knuckles turning pure bone-white as the locomotive pitched violently to the left. The entire frame of the train groaned, a sound so deeply visceral and organic it felt like the ribs of a living beast snapping under pressure. Through the soot-streaked, cracked glass of the viewport, the endless grey void outside seemed to tilt, spinning

"Hold the throttle, Varkelion! Don’t let her pitch!" Mavrik lunged for the tool chest, his mechanical arm shrieking in discord with the groaning iron beneath their feet. He didn't wait for a response. He didn't wait for permission. He just tore the latch off the bulkhead door, exposing them to the howling, freezing vacuum of the dead zone outside.The wind didn't just howl; it screamed. It sounded like the ghosts of a thousand shattered gears. "Mavrik, get back here!" Varkelion bellowed, his voice straining against the roar of the firebox. He grabbed the emergency brake, but the lever snapped off in his hand like a dried twig. "Gods damn it!""Focus on the rails, Conductor!" Mavrik’s voice was thin, barely audible over the gale as he hammered his mag-boots onto the outer hull. "If we go down, we go down together. Just keep the fire burning!"Varkelion gripped the primary control console, his chest heaving. He could see Mavrik through the peripheral viewport—a dark, spindly shape crawl