Vance felt the ship's deep thrum shake up through the metal floor, jolting his legs where he sat. Not smooth like distant thunder - more like fists pounding inside his bones, stirring old injuries into dull protest. His heel throbbed, fresh grafts twitching under skin worn thin by time and strain. Pressing his skull to the cold cage railing, he shut out the world, one ragged breath at a time.
Thirty scared teens huddled together on the far side of the room, shaking as one. Fear hit fast - Axiom stood just beyond them, pacing. That huge shadow-lynx moved like storm clouds over cracked ground, trailing black lightning from its fur. Its two tails snapped without pause, restless and sharp. Inside that clanking sky-cage, instinct screamed to run even though walls held firm.
Holding back the creature took everything he had. Shutting his eyes hard, Vance pushed waves of stillness along the link between them, thick as wet wool. His command came slow, forcing it into place, each word a weight that made his head pulse. Axiom clicked its teeth together - angry, restless - but finally lowered itself beside the wrecked limb at Vance's side. Nearby, the jagged wiring knotted into torn muscle sparked alive, sharp stings crawling up the wound like fire on thread.
A shape peeled away from the crumpled heap of captives. Maybe sixteen, no more, his thin body draped in a greasy work suit darkened by ash and neglect. Each step forward came careful, arms lifted - not surrendering, but warding something off. The way he moved suggested fear had shaped every bone.
What if it gobbles us up? the child said, words splitting apart beneath the endless thunder of the vessel's engines.
Sunlight hit Vance's eyes as he looked at the boy - face swollen, streaks of grime cutting through dried blood. Behind every so-called opportunity from the Argent Cartel lay this: children chewed up before they could even speak their worth. Promises of rank or safety pulled them in, while orders shoved them forward, stumbling into ground rigged to explode. Veterans followed close behind, stepping where small bodies had just fallen.
"Keep your distance, and you won't look like food," Vance replied simply.
The boy swallowed hard, choosing to sit carefully on the grating a few feet away. "I'm Elian. They grabbed us from Sector Seven during a factory raid. The recruiters told us we were getting a fast-track deployment to the safe zones."
Vance let out a dry, exhausted breath, tasting the stale, metallic air of the lower decks. "There is no fast track, Elian. You are cannon fodder. They intend to use you to soak up Vanguard border defenses when this ship breaches the Citadel airspace."
Hope slipped away, leaving the boy's gaze empty. Not a word of comfort came from Vance. Out past the Fracture, lies burned through breath quicker than plasma flames ever could. If he let them think someone was coming, their feet wouldn't move when those pen gates cracked open.
A gasp escaped him as a jagged pain locked his ribs mid-sentence.
Under his ribs, a golden gear scraped hard into bone. Starved now, the Astral Engine stuttered without fuel. When Lieutenant Corvus took the scavenger core - snatched it clean in that cold hangar - the machine-god inside lost its feed. Without fresh genetics, everything weakened. Even the tether, thin and frayed, began to fail. Axiom growled, soft and pained, its shadowy glow fading into a weak, trembling gray. Should the Engine stop, time-lock barriers would collapse violently - host and invader bursting apart within the chamber.
Cold like empty space pressed into the mark at the back of his neck, drowning everything else. Outside the vault, the being with six wings remained loose, her frozen hold locked tight around his brainstem, never letting him forget what waited above.
His breath came hard as Vance rocked sideways, hoping to ease the weight pressing into his ribs. A sudden shift made his palm - raw and smeared red - touch the cold, corroded metal beneath him. Peering downward, he saw only gaps shaped like jagged rhombuses cutting through the grid below.
Beneath their cell, a heavy power conduit lay buried - thick, shielded, alive with sharp bursts of blue light that flashed like sudden breaths.
A flicker ran along the cable, light catching Vance's eye. His thoughts jumped ahead - years piling up in seconds. That hull shape. Familiar. A Mark-II, old model. Back then, during the siege, someone had noticed something small. The Cartel cut corners building these. Power lines meant for weapons also fed the cages belowdecks. Same circuit, shared load. An oversight. One that mattered.
Out of the corner of his eye, he looked toward Axiom. Dark electricity wasn't just part of it - this force ran through its core like a pulse.
A sharp, risky thought cut across Vance's mind. Through the connection, he wondered aloud whether the creature might feed on rough electrical energy - unprocessed, straight from machines.
Ahead of everything else, the great head of Axiom shifted sideways. Down below, under loose wood, a throbbing line caught its lit stare. Without pause or feeling, the creature responded - not in sound but pressure - flooding Vance's thoughts with raw craving that rose like heat.
Elian kept his eyes down, fixed on his knees, while Vance watched him from across the room. Still hunched, he did not move once during those long seconds. The silence between them grew heavier than words ever could.
"Elian," Vance said, his voice dropping to a harsh, commanding whisper. "Take off your jumpsuit jacket. Drape it over the bars in the far corner. You need to block the security camera's line of sight immediately."
Into the silence came a blink - slow, unsure - as confusion gripped the boy tight. Yet something in Vance's words, low and unshakable, pulled him forward anyway. Up he jerked, shrugging free of thick fabric, arms fumbling as cloth met metal. Across the bars it went, tied loose, drawing dark folds like curtains over their corner.
Vance faced the hungry creature again, a wild grin smeared with red stretching across his face. Though empty-handed, trapped in metal bars, and losing blood, they rested right above th
e warship's core - its pulse thudding below.