The Alpha Melted didn't roar. It didn't need to.
The sound of its mass hitting the metal grating was enough.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
It charged. One point two tons of fused cyborg flesh and rusted steel, carrying a heavy blast door like a riot shield.
Its chest cavity pulsed with a sickly, unstable purple light. Three agonized human faces were melted into its torso, their mouths locked in silent screams.
"Boss." JARVIS's voice was a whisper in Marcus's ear. "You have a six-inch knife. You have four percent battery. You are wearing a fifty-pound rubber coffin."
"Noted," Marcus grunted.
"Do not engage," JARVIS calculated. "Target weight: 1.2 tons. Catwalk load limit: 1.5 tons. Make him heavier."
Marcus didn't run at the monster. He dropped to his knees.
He grabbed the heavy collar of Galen's hazard suit.
Galen was limp. Blood smeared the inside of his brass visor, obscuring his face. His breathing was a wet, bubbling rattle over the comms.
Marcus hauled him backward.
The heavy lead suit dragged against the grating. Sparks flew from the boots.
The Alpha swung its blast door. It missed Marcus's head by inches, smashing into a rusted coolant pipe.
Steam hissed violently into the air. The green light of the stabilized reactor warped through the vapor.
Marcus kept dragging.
He remembered the descent. He remembered the rusted, sagging section of the catwalk they had carefully stepped over near the stairs.
He backed toward it.
The Alpha ripped its shield free from the pipe. It turned its massive head. The purple light in its chest flared.
It charged again. A blind, furious rush.
"Come on," Marcus whispered, his boots finding the solid edge of the grating.
He pulled Galen behind him, planting his feet firmly on the reinforced steel crossbeam.
The Alpha closed the distance. Ten feet. Five.
It raised the blast door to crush them both into the deck.
Marcus didn't stab. He didn't block.
He reached for his belt.
He ripped the heavy, analog comms unit off his hazard suit.
He gripped it tight.
"JARVIS," Marcus thought. "Overload the transmitter. Now."
"Overloading," JARVIS confirmed.
The comms unit burned hot in Marcus's glove. He threw it.
Not at the Alpha's chest. At its face.
The unit hit the creature's primary optical sensor.
It detonated.
It wasn't a frag grenade. It was a localized EMP flash. A blinding burst of white light and static feedback.
The Alpha flinched. Its heavy arms went wide.
It took one massive, blind step forward.
Right onto the rusted section of the catwalk.
Marcus lashed out with his heavy boot. He kicked the Alpha's knee joint with everything he had left.
The impact was weak, muffled by the rubber suit. But it was enough.
The creature's weight shifted.
The rusted grating screamed. It buckled inward, folding like cheap tin.
The Alpha pitched forward. Its heavy shield pulled it down.
For a second, it hung there, its massive claws tearing at the remaining steel. The three faces on its chest seemed to look right at Marcus.
Then, the metal gave way entirely.
The Alpha fell.
It didn't scream. It hit the glowing blue water below with a massive SPLASH.
The heavy heavy water swallowed it instantly. The blast door dragged it straight to the bottom of the reactor pool.
The ripples faded. The green light steadied.
Silence returned.
Marcus collapsed onto his back.
His lungs burned. The canned air tasted like ash and copper. His nanites were screaming for glucose, his muscles shaking uncontrollably inside the thick rubber.
He lay there, staring up at the dark pipes.
He wanted to close his eyes. Just for a minute.
A wet, hacking cough broke the silence.
Galen.
Marcus rolled over. He crawled to the mechanic.
Through the blood-smeared glass of the visor, he could barely see Galen's pale face. The coughing was getting weaker.
"Galen," Marcus said. His voice was raw.
No answer. Just the ragged, bubbling breath.
"You don't die here," Marcus said. He grabbed Galen's heavy shoulder.
He pulled him up.
He didn't try to drag him this time. He couldn't drag him up a spiraling metal staircase.
Marcus ducked his head under Galen's arm. He heaved.
He lifted the mechanic into a fireman's carry across his shoulders.
The weight was crushing. A hundred and fifty pounds of man, plus fifty pounds of lead suit, pressing down on Marcus's exhausted, battery-depleted frame.
His knees buckled.
"Get up," Marcus ordered his own body.
His nanites fired blindly, burning the last reserves of energy in his cells. He stood.
He took a step toward the stairs.
Then another.
The ascent began.
It was pure, blinding agony. The spiraling metal stairs seemed endless. Every step was a battle against gravity and the stifling heat of the suit.
His vision tunneled. The green emergency lights blurred into a solid line.
He didn't look up. He just looked at the next rusted step.
"Stay with me, Galen," Marcus wheezed into his helmet. The radio was dead, but he spoke anyway. "You have to build the giant's leg. You promised him."
Clank. Step. Clank. Step.
"Narcissus needs you," Marcus grunted, his thighs burning like fire. "He doesn't trust anyone else with his servos."
He passed the halfway mark. His vision went black for a second. He swayed dangerously near the edge of the railing.
He bit his own lip, using the sharp pain to stay conscious.
"I need you," Marcus whispered.
He hit the landing.
The yellow airlock door was right in front of him.
He didn't have the strength to turn the heavy wheel.
He raised his heavy rubber boot.
He kicked the steel door.
CLANG.
He kicked it again, harder.
CLANG.
"Open it!" Marcus roared, his voice cracking.
A heavy THUNK echoed from the other side.
The massive wheel spun. Scylla was on the other side.
The blast doors hissed, breaking the seal.
Cold, relatively clean air rushed into the airlock.
Marcus didn't walk through. He fell through.
He collapsed onto the metal grating of the engineering deck, dumping Galen roughly beside him.
Scylla was there. She didn't ask questions.
She grabbed a heavy hose from the wall and blasted them both with icy decontamination foam.
The foam ate away the worst of the radioactive dust on the suits.
Marcus didn't wait for her to finish. He tore at the heavy brass latches of his helmet.
He ripped the dome off.
He gasped, sucking in huge lungfuls of the ozone-tinged air. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.
He turned to Galen. He clawed at the mechanic's helmet latches. His thick gloves made him clumsy.
Scylla dropped the hose. Her mechanical claw snapped the latches open with brutal efficiency.
She pulled Galen's helmet off.
Galen's face was chalk-white. His lips were blue. Blood was crusted around his nose and mouth.
He wasn't coughing anymore. He wasn't breathing.
"No," Marcus breathed.
He ripped his gloves off. He checked Galen's pulse at the neck.
Faint. A weak, irregular flutter.
Scylla looked at the open airlock. She looked past the green light, down into the reactor shaft.
"The core is stable," Scylla whispered. Her camera eye whirred, focusing on Marcus. "You actually did it. The Warlord kept his word."
Marcus didn't celebrate. He didn't smile.
He looked up at the massive, scarred Enforcer.
He grabbed the heavy armor plating on Scylla's thigh. He used it to pull himself to his feet.
His eyes were cold. Hard. The Warlord had returned.
"Take him to the Boatman's personal Med Bay," Marcus snarled, his voice a dangerous rasp. "Now."
Scylla hesitated. "The Spire is off-limits to—"
"Now!" Marcus roared, his grip tightening on her armor. "Or I swear to the gods, I will walk back down those stairs and turn the reactor off myself."
Scylla looked at his eyes. She saw the absolute, terrifying truth in them.
He would do it. He would burn the whole ship to save his mechanic.
She nodded once.
She reached down with her human arm and scooped Galen off the deck as easily as a child.
"Follow me," Scylla said.
She turned and ran toward the Spire elevator.
Marcus followed, his lead boots heavy, but his mind perfectly clear.
The debt was paid. Now, he was going to collect.