"Brace for impact!" Glitch screamed.
The garbage shuttle lurched hard to the left. A missile streaked past the cockpit window, missing us by inches. It blew up in the clouds, sending a shockwave that rattled the hull like a tin can in a blender.
[WARNING: SHIELD STRENGTH — 40%]
[INCOMING HOSTILES: 12]
"We can't outrun them!" I yelled, gripping the back of the pilot's seat. "This is a trash hauler, not a fighter jet!"
"I'm trying to lose them in the smog!" Glitch shouted, his hands flying across the controls. "But they're tracking us perfectly! It's the signal from her arm!"
I turned back to the cargo bay.
Sarah was kneeling beside Maya. Maya was breathing too fast, staring at her metal arm. The red light on her wrist was blinking faster now.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"It's welded to her bone," Sarah said, sounding scared. "I can't remove it without a surgical laser. And we don't have time to get one!"
"Cut it off," Maya gasped, with her eyes wild. She grabbed a rusted metal bar from the floor. "Cut it off! Mom, do it!"
"No!" Sarah grabbed her hand. "I won't hurt you again!"
"If you don't, we all die!"
The ship rocked again. BOOM. A laser blast scored a direct hit on our right engine. Smoke began to fill the cabin.
I stumbled over to them. The floor was tilting sideways.
"Nobody is cutting anything off," I said, grabbing Maya's metal wrist.
"Let go!" she screamed, trying to pull away. "You're the monster! You're the glowing one!"
"Maya, listen to me!" I shouted over the loud noise of the dying engine. "I can stop it."
I looked at Sarah. "Hold her down."
Sarah hesitated for half a second, then nodded. She pinned Maya's shoulder to the floor.
I placed both hands on the metal arm. I didn't look at the arm. I looked at the code inside it.
[Skill: Network Sense]
I saw the tracker. It was a nasty piece of code buried deep in the arm's programming, broadcasting our location on a military channel.
[Skill: Energy Siphon]
"This is going to hurt," I warned.
"Just do it!" Maya yelled.
I pulled.
I didn't drain the battery. I targeted the specific signal of the tracker. I saw it as a red string glowing inside the arm's code, and I yanked it.
ZZZRT.
Sparks flew from Maya's elbow. She screamed, arching her back as the shock ripped through her nervous system.
"Elias!" Sarah cried.
"Almost... got it!"
I felt the code resist. It was encrypted with Malachi's personal lock. It fought back, trying to burn my mind.
You want to fight? I thought, my anger rising. I'm a Devourer. I don't fight. I eat.
I unleashed everything i had. I drained the tracker until the code crumbled into raw energy — nothing left but dust.
CRACK.
The red light on Maya's wrist shattered. The blinking stopped.
[XP GAINED: +200]
[TRACKER DISABLED]
Maya slumped back, unconscious from the shock, but her arm was still there. Still attached.
"It's gone," I panted, wiping sweat from my eyes. "Glitch! Signal is dead!"
"Great!" Glitch yelled. "But the missiles are still locked on from the last position! Three incoming, and I don't have any flares!"
I ran back to the cockpit. Through the window, I saw them. Three missiles trailing white smoke, curving through the air toward us.
"Can we shoot them down?"
"We don't have guns!" Glitch screamed. "We have a trash compactor!"
I looked at the dashboard. Shield generator: 20%.
"Glitch, send all power to the rear shields," I ordered.
"That'll kill the engines!, Glitch said. "And we'll drop out of the sky!"
"Do it!"
Glitch slammed a lever. The engines whined and died. The ship went silent, entering freefall.
The missiles closed in.
I grabbed the shield generator console.
[Skill: Overcharge]
I poured everything I had left into the machine. All the energy I'd stolen from the Warden, from the prison, from the tracker. Every last bit of it. I pushed it all into the shields.
[WARNING: SHIELD OVERLOAD]
A massive blue bubble of energy expanded around the ship just as the missiles hit.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The world turned white. The explosions didn't destroy us, but they swatted us out of the sky like a fly.
We spun out of control. The gravity system failed. I was thrown against the ceiling, then the floor, then the ceiling again.
"We're going down!" Glitch yelled. "We're hitting the Rust Sea!"
"Pull up!" I yelled.
"I can't! Glitch yelled back. "Controls are dead!"
I saw the ground rushing up to meet us. It wasn't land. It was a jagged ocean of scrap metal — millions of tons of broken machines piled up for centuries.
"Sarah! Shield Maya!" I screamed.
I grabbed the pilot's chair and braced myself.
The ground hit us.
CRUNCH.
Metal screamed as the shuttle tore through a mountain of scrap. The cockpit glass shattered. The world became a blur of noise and pain. We tumbled, rolling over and over, until finally we stopped.
Silence.
I opened my eyes.
I was hanging upside down, still strapped into the seat. Blood dripped from my forehead onto the cracked control panel. The cockpit was ripped open to the air. It smelled like rain and rust.
"Glitch?" I croaked.
"Here," a weak voice groaned from the floor. "I think... I think I broke my joystick."
I unbuckled and dropped to the ceiling — which was now the floor. I crawled into the cargo bay.
Sarah was coughing, pushing debris off herself. She was cradling Maya, who was still out cold.
"We're alive," Sarah whispered, checking Maya's pulse. "She's okay."
We climbed out of the wreckage.
We were standing in the middle of a canyon made of rusted cars and broken droids. The rain was coming down hard, washing the soot from our faces.
High above, through the hole in the clouds, I saw the gunships circling. They turned and flew away.
"They think we're dead," Glitch said, limping out of the ship holding a datapad. "They saw the explosion. No one survives a fall like that."
I looked at my hands. Bruised. Shaking. But strong.
I looked at the wreckage of our ship. We were stranded. We were wounded.
But we were free.
"Where are we?" Sarah asked, looking at the endless mountains of scrap.
"Sector 0," Glitch said. "The Scrapyard. This is where the Corporation dumps everything they want to forget."
I looked at the horizon. Miles and miles of discarded machines, stretching out in every direction. An ocean of junk.
An ocean of energy.
"Good," I said. "Because I'm going to build an army out of their garbage."
My wrist-comp beeped.
[QUEST COMPLETE: SURVIVE THE FALL]
[NEW QUEST: THE UPRISING]
[OBJECTIVE: CONQUER SECTOR 0]
I clenched my fist.
"Let's get to work."