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Ch.191 The Void Strikes Back
The heavy red lever engaged with a harsh, mechanical clack.For a fraction of a second, there was absolute silence inside the cramped cylinder of Escape Pod 1. Then, the chemical explosive bolts detonated.The shockwave punched through the pod’s tritanium hull, instantly followed by the violent, bone-rattling shriek of the pneumatic launch rails firing. Fifteen Gs of analog acceleration slammed Cyrus back into the high-G crash webbing with the force of a kinetic strike. The heavy restraints successfully distributed the brutal acceleration across his body, but they mercilessly compressed his chest. The air was forced from his lungs in a sharp grunt, his cracked rib screaming in protest. Black spots swarmed his vision, and he struggled to draw a breath from his emergency mask as the pod ejected from the lower port-side hull of the Erebus like a bullet exiting a chamber.Through the tiny, reinforced porthole in the main hatch, Cyrus fought through his disorientation and watched the dead
Ch.190 Critical Mass
The heavy tritanium blast doors of Main Engineering screamed in protest.Sergeant Rael threw his entire weight against the kinetic multi-tool, his muscles trembling as he manually cranked the heavy hydraulic override. Beside him, Commander Cyrus Vane jammed the thick carbon-titanium blade of his combat knife into the microscopic seam between the doors, using it as a pry bar.Every flex of Cyrus’s torso sent a blinding spike of agony radiating from his cracked rib, but he didn't stop pushing. He bit down on the mouthpiece of his emergency oxygen mask, drawing a harsh breath, and drove his shoulder against the hilt of the knife."Three... two... one. Push!" Cyrus grunted.With a deafening, metallic shriek, the hydraulic locks gave way. The massive blast doors parted just enough to create a half-meter gap.Cyrus and Rael squeezed through the breach, drifting into the cavernous, pitch-black expanse of Main Engineering.Without the hum of the primary reactor, the massive chamber felt like
Ch.189 Trojan Horse
The ambient temperature on the command deck finally dropped below freezing.Frost crept aggressively across the primary armaglass viewport, framing the terrifying, flawless geometry of the Architect monolith in jagged borders of ice. The only sounds in the pitch-black room were the rhythmic, mechanical hisses of the Vanguard oxygen regulators keeping Commander Cyrus Vane and Sergeant Rael alive, and the shallow, shivering breaths of Lieutenant Aris inside her localized rebreather.Cyrus leaned heavily against the tactical railing, his emergency breathing mask secured tightly over his nose and mouth. Every inhalation of the cold, dry oxygen irritated his lungs, and every exhalation sent a sharp spike of pain through his cracked rib.He ignored the pain, his dark eyes locked on the aperture of the white-gold tetrahedron.Millions of kilometers away, the Architect was meticulously piecing together the shattered remains of the Perseus Gate. Through the optical sights, Cyrus watched massiv
Ch.188 Upward Fall
In the absolute vacuum of intergalactic space, there is no physical sensation of speed. There is only the burning strain in the muscles as Sergeant Rael and Lieutenant Aris hauled themselves hand-over-hand along the razor-thin carbon-weave tether.Above them, the universe was falling upward.The Architect monolith's macro-gravity tractor beam was silently sweeping through the Perseus Gate graveyard. Massive, jagged fragments of shattered tritanium, frozen coolant trails, and the sheared corpses of Vanguard warships were accelerating upward, drawn relentlessly into the glowing, geometric aperture on the underside of the white-gold tetrahedron."Hold position," Commander Cyrus Vane’s voice crackled through the fiber-optic hard-line. It was a weak, ragged rasp, born from a man suffocating in the dark. "Debris cluster intersecting your vector from below. Wait for it to pass."Rael and Aris locked their gauntlets onto the load-bearing tether and froze.Seconds later, the shattered, rotatin
Ch.187 The Silent Traverse
Four hundred meters is a negligible distance for a Vanguard cruiser, but for Lieutenant Aris, pulling herself hand-over-hand across a carbon-weave line suspended over an intergalactic graveyard, it felt like an eternity.She gripped the taut tether, transferring her momentum forward. Pull. Glide. Catch.There was no sound. The only noise was her own ragged breathing inside her localized rebreather. Beneath her boots was a bottomless, starlit void.Towering above the ruined Perseus Gate, the massive white-gold Architect tetrahedron anchored the dead space. The macro-gravity field it projected was so dense that distant starlight visibly warped and pooled around its flawless edges.Ahead, Sergeant Rael moved with mechanical efficiency. Trailing behind Aris was the physical fiber-optic comms line, unspooling from a lightweight reel attached to her harness. It was entirely separate from the heavy load-bearing tether, stretching back through the dark to the Erebus, where Commander Cyrus Van
Ch.186 Dead Space
The heavy, mechanical clunk of the auxiliary breakers disengaging echoed through the command deck.Instantly, the pale amber emergency lights died. The low, strained whine of the reserve batteries spun down into nothing. The artificial gravity grid, already struggling, failed completely.Commander Cyrus Vane felt his boots lift from the deck plating. He tightened his grip on the tactical railing, gritting his teeth as the sudden weightlessness shifted his torso and sent a sharp, stabbing flare of agony through his cracked rib.The Erebus was dead.No power. No life support. No sensors.The only light on the bridge came from the cold, distant starlight filtering through the primary armaglass viewport. It cast long, ghostly shadows across the dead consoles and the floating debris of the command deck."Comms silence," Cyrus ordered, his voice echoing loudly in the pitch-black, freezing room. "Radios off. Active scans off. No transmissions, no powered systems. We give them nothing to dete
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