"I'm not panicking, I'm melting!" Kael snapped back, though his breathing hitched as his HUD flashed a new, stabilized blue gradient across his peripheral vision. The oppressive crimson warning lights receded, replaced by neat columns of diagnostic data streaming down the left side of his visor. "Fine. The pressure curve... it's dropping. How did you do that?""By reading the schematics instead of screaming at the pipes," Zhaevrik replied evenly, yanking his fiber-optic cable free from the junction box with a sharp mechanical hiss. A puff of super-heated air escaped the port, smelling faintly of ozone and old machine oil. "The corporate managers who built this sector left an emergency bleed-off valve two levels down. If we route our siphons there, we can tap directly into their primary turbine feed without tripping the main security tripwires.""Corporate managers don't leave gifts for outcasts," a harsh, gravelly voice echoed from the shadowed archway behind the massive brass valve.

"Turf?" Zhaevrik's magnetic pistol didn't waver, the targeting reticle locking dead-center on the old mechanic's throat. "There's no turf down here, old man. There's only the heat, the pipes, and whoever knows how to keep them from blowing us all to ash."The veteran mechanic scoffed, a harsh sound like grinding gears, and spat a glob of dark grease onto the steaming deckplates. "Is that right? You wander into Sub-Level Nine with your glowing red optics and fancy military-grade interface, bleeding our pressure lines dry, and you think you own the steam?""I didn't bleed your lines," Zhaevrik said, his voice level, flat, and carrying the synthetic resonance of a machine speaking through human vocal cords. "I stabilized them. If I hadn't diverted that secondary valve three minutes ago, every turbine in this sector would have detonated, and you and your crew would currently be boiling inside your own skin."Kael scrambled up from the deck, clutching his head as his HUD continued to flash