A blinding flash split the room an instant before the shockwave followed as Magnus slammed into place overhead.

  Kade hit the deck hard, debris stinging her skin as the blast wave tore through the war room, scattering shrapnel and sending consoles toppling like dominos. Heat rolled in after the concussive force, a breath-stealing wall of it that sucked oxygen from the air and left behind the chemical sting of scorched circuitry and liquefied steel.

  Screams echoed across the room. A Marine slammed into the bulkhead to Kade’s right, armor scorched. Webb was just ahead, down on one knee, blood at his temple, axe still clutched in one hand as he ducked behind a shredded barricade. Holt, just to Webb's left, raised his pike pole like it would matter against a goddamn death machine, yelling something she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears. Kade moved. Not because it was smart, but because she didn’t have the luxury of not moving.

  She rolled up into a crouch, tucked behind a half-collapsed comms station. Her muscles screamed from the landing, but she forced her body forward, adrenaline overriding the damage. Across the room, the overhead crane system hissed and groaned as it rolled along its tracks, a new articulated limb hanging from its socket like bait. A replacement for the autocannon they'd damaged earlier.

  Above it all, Magnus watched.

  The war machine was a silhouette of blackened alloy and flickering heat signatures, clinging to the ceiling grid like some twisted apex predator. He glared down through the smoke, red slits of his optics sweeping the room with calculated precision.

  "Look to the skies, and despair." His voice reverberated off the metal walls, synthetic and cold. The sound had the cadence of a sermon and the certainty of an execution order.

  Kade’s mind snapped to triage. Captain Voss was out of the fight. He was still breathing last she'd seen, but had fallen unconscious near the east wall. Stone had moved off him, now crouched beside Mercer across the floor, her healing aura barely holding as she worked to keep the scout conscious. Mercer’s abdomen rapped with makeshift wrappings. Her crossbow reloaded, and her jaw clenched in the kind of pain that didn’t leave room for conversation.

  Lawson, Briggs, and Myers were too far out to reinforce. Until that changed, she was playing with the hand she had. The team around her was more than enough if she played it smart.

  Steam vented from the ceiling with a guttural hiss. It came down in bursts of violent pressure streams hot enough to melt flesh. Visibility dropped in an instant. Kade ducked as a new vent exploded just above Webb’s position, forcing him to dive to cover. Holt pulled him back behind a sloped console, shouting about movement on the rig lines.

  "Boss! There is a crane coming in!" Holt called.

  Kade tracked the movement overhead just as the damaged autocannon broke free from Magnus’ frame. The ruined arm twisted, then tore loose with a crack of shearing bolts, crashing to the deck below in a spray of sparks. It hit hard, steel on steel, then rolled once before coming to rest near the edge of the wreckage field.

  The crane system was already lowering its replacement. It wasn’t like the first one. This arm was shorter, thicker through the barrel, its structure more compact. It looked more like a grenade launcher than a gun, heavier and slower, built for area denial rather than sustained fire.

  This wasn’t a boss that died slowly. It was a machine designed to rebuild while it killed.

  Kade clenched her jaw and kept her voice steady through the steam and noise.

  "Webb, Holt, flank left. Keep low and watch your spacing. Mercer, try to put one a round in its eye if you can."

  Mercer didn’t respond, but her silhouette shifted through the haze, crossbow raised as she repositioned. Stone stayed low beside her, casting a healing spell on a Marine who hadn’t gotten out of the blast radius in time.

  The battlefield was collapsing into a disorganized cluster. The overhead steam vents burst again without warning, filling the air with a deafening hiss. Columns of white vapor erupted from the ceiling grid, slicing visibility to nothing and flooding the space with waves of searing heat.

  One pirate wasn’t fast enough. The blast caught him full-on. He screamed once before the steam peeled flesh from his arm and shoulder, dropping him where he stood. His weapon clattered to the ground beside him, forgotten in the smoke.

  Kade ducked behind the twisted frame of a broken console as the heat roared overhead, her skin stinging from the near-miss. The vents weren’t just hazards anymore, they were carving the battlefield into a shifting grid of death.

  Then Magnus' new arm gave a thump and the first grenade landed.

  It bounced once across the slick floor and detonated near the far bulkhead, tearing open a section of wall and sending a second pirate flying backwards in a spray of debris. Another explosion followed a second later, this one closer, churning up a fresh wave of smoke and fire.

  Grenades started falling in short intervals, each one forcing movement. No cover lasted long. Every position turned temporary.

  "Anyone with a ranged weapon focus on the eyes!" Kade shouted, voice cutting across the rumble. "If you're not shooting, keep moving. Help the wounded and stay clear of the vents!"

  Briggs and Myers were already in motion on the far flank, dragging another downed Marine behind a collapsed terminal. Mercer snapped off a shot from cover, the bolt clipping Magnus’ chassis and sending sparks dancing through the haze. It did little, but it kept the machine looking in the wrong direction.

  The pirates with working pistols followed suit, unloading in short bursts. Most shots pinged harmlessly off Magnus’ armor, but that wasn’t the point. It was pressure. Distraction. Time bought with movement.

  Kade shifted again, keeping low, searching for a path that hadn’t just exploded. The deck was a maze of scalding vapor, ruptured plating, and half-visible enemy fire.

  They couldn’t outlast this.

  Magnus paused mid-rotation, his upper frame locked for half a second as one of the connecting panels near his lower torso flexed under the strain. Kade noticed a misalignment in the seam where the chassis mounted to its now-missing legs. It appeared there was supposed to be a protective plate there, maybe even a heat shield, but it hadn't seated correctly after the crane lifted it into the air. The connection point flickered with intermittent sparks, a gap in the armor barely wider than a palm, but exposed all the same.

  She didn’t shout. Didn’t call attention to it.

  A low hiss rolled through the war room as twin vents extended from either side of Magnus’ torso, then a third from the back. Steam poured from each one in thick, white columns, flooding the room in bursts of heat too controlled to be random. Kade watched the exhaust cycle, the rigid cadence of it, the sudden way the crane tethers responded. Gears whined above her as Magnus’ frame lowered, slowly at first, then with more urgency.

  He couldn’t keep firing from up high without melting his own core. Kade thought.

  The steam created a halo of obstruction, masking much of his upper frame. The only clear shot left would be from the front, and that was a kill box.

  Kade moved low and fast, keeping to the angles as she repositioned. Heat rolled off Magnus in waves, pulsing from the vents at his sides and back. The crane lowered him just above the floor, his frame suspended a few feet off the deck, close enough to strike by melee fighters.

  "Ranged fire only," she called. "Don’t rush in until we know what we're dealing with. Don’t give him the opening, either."

  Mercer was already adjusting, one arm pressed tight to her side as she moved. The bolt snapped free into the haze, but did little more than ring off the outer plating.

  "I'm just scratching the pain here," she shouted. Frustration bit at the edge of her voice. "Just pissing it off."

  Kade didn’t answer. Her eyes locked on the venting ports, watching how they pulsed in staggered rhythm. The exposed panel at the base of Magnus’ torso was still visible through the rising steam, close enough to reach if someone moved fast. It was a brief window, but for once, they had a target and a path to reach it.

  Then the vents snapped shut.

  The cooling cycle ended with a metallic clatter, and the crane arms above whined as they re-engaged. Magnus began to rise, his frame lifting smoothly off the floor until he hovered well out of melee range. The glow from the side ports faded. His chassis straightened. The machine had reset.

  A split second later, a grenade punched into the far wall and detonated on impact, showering the room in molten debris. Another followed, this time landing near a support strut. Kade ducked behind cover as the blast tore through the remains of a console just a few meters away.

  "Air phase again," she said under her breath. "The next time he drops to vent heat, the melee rush in. Go for the base plate at the bottom of the torso. It looks loose!"

  Stone yanked a Marine out of the blast radius as another grenade slammed into the floor near the center line. The crew was moving again, ducking cover to cover, forced into constant repositioning as the battlefield reset. Kade kept her eyes on the ceiling rig, watching how Magnus rotated above them, tracking targets, laying down pressure.

  Kade watched his movements, piecing together the rhythm through the steam and fire. First came the grenades, then the heat vents, then the brief descent. It wasn’t random. It looked it was a cycle. And next time, they’d be ready.

  The launcher cycled again. Two more grenades arced across the room and detonated near the far barricades, forcing Briggs' squad to scatter.

  "Keep moving!" Kade snapped. "Don't bunch. Grenades are soft pressure, not target locks."

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  The battlefield had become a living machine of death, overhead steam vents roaring to life in erratic bursts, hissing like serpents as they belched scalding vapor into the haze-filled air. The walls of the control room flickered under failing emergency lights, casting jagged shadows that twisted and swayed in time with the violent dance playing out beneath the suspended metal titan.

  Kade moved like a phantom, weaving between debris and wreckage, tracking Magnus’ position overhead. The plan was simple in execution, but dangerous in practice. Magnus may not have been lobbing grenades at them during the heat venting cycle, but that didn't mean it was inactive. Anyone rushing in was going to have to deal with two metal arms that could inflict death.

  The vents opened again.

  Steam hissed from Magnus’ side ports in thick, measured bursts, flooding the war room with punishing heat. The crane overhead groaned as its cables drew taut, lowering the machine until it hovered just four feet above the deck. His arms hung slack, optics dimmed to a dull red glow as cooling protocols engaged. Even in that state, he radiated danger. Like a predator resting only because it chose to.

  Kade didn’t wait.

  "Now. Briggs, your team is with mine," she called out, already breaking from cover. "Everyone else hold position. Wait for the call."

  Briggs acknowledged instantly. "Copy. Moving."

  She heard boots thundering on metal as his squad sprinted across the far side of the room, closing in at a hard angle. Webb and Holt were already with her, keeping tight to the steam-obscured approach. Her fireteam swept in low and fast, weaving between mangled consoles and debris still slick with condensation while Mercer's crossbow bolts sailed overhead. This was strike and fade. Hit something that mattered and get out before the phase shifted again.

  Magnus stayed suspended, cycling steam. His grenade launcher remained limp and inert from the cooldown, but his left arm, the one ending in a wide spiked fist, twitched now and then with residual motion. Confirming for Kade that he hadn’t fully powered down.

  They closed the distance.

  Briggs’ team hit first, fanning out and testing the perimeter. One Marine swung high, hammering a plated joint near the shoulder, while another ducked beneath Magnus’ arm and struck low at a venting seam. Sparks flared.

  Kade slid in from the left with Webb at her side. Both angled wide to avoid the worst of the vent spray. Holt peeled of eyes on the misaligned panel Kade had spotted earlier. An irregular hatch probably meant to seal internal systems, now rattling loose and ajar.

  "Going for it," Holt said.

  The pike pole drove in with a solid metallic crack. Holt braced and leaned hard into the shaft, metal groaning beneath the pressure. The plate shifted. Not much, but enough.

  Then Magnus moved.

  The grenade launcher arm swept wide in a heavy arc. Not fully aimed, more like a blind animal swiping at flies. One of Briggs’ Marines caught the edge of it and went spinning into a console with a thud of impact and a shower of sparks.

  "Watch out," Kade shouted. "He's swatting."

  Webb darted forward and slashed at the exposed cabling along Magnus’ side. The hit landed. Not deep, but enough to force the machine to pivot slightly, disrupting the swing of the spiked hand as it finished its venting cycle and rose.

  "Fall back! Fall back!" Kade screamed as she dodged Magnus' gun arm. They had little time to retreat to cover before the grenade barrage cycle started again.

  Holt held his ground.

  A loud metallic snap followed as the plate holding his pike pole creaked and popped free. It clattered to the floor just as Magnus’ chassis surged. Holt didn’t let go. He rose with the machine, still gripping the pike pole lodged in the mechanism. Dangling in open air as the crane system lifted Magnus back toward the ceiling.

  "Drop it, Holt," Kade shouted. She was already shifting position beneath him.

  He didn’t have time.

  The spiked fist came up and struck in a single, brutal motion. It curled inward like a mechanical claw closing around prey. The blow caught Holt's body pulling him free. For a second, Kade thought Holt might twist away from the hold. But the hand clenched.

  There was no scream. Just the crunch of steel and the silence that followed. The pike pole fell first. It rattled uselessly across the floor.

  Then the hand opened.

  The remains of Holt dropped with a thud. Crumpled and still. Right below the now-exposed hatch he had forced open.

  "You are but sparks soon to be extinguished." Magnus said.

  Briggs pulled his squad back into tight formation. Stone cast a healing spell at the Marine who had taken the launcher hit. Webb, normally the loudest in a fight, stood with his jaw set, blood trailing down his cheek, eyes locked on the body.

  Kade turned and forced herself to look up at Magnus as he ascended into the upper rigging. The grenade launcher reactivated. Its ports glowed faint orange. He was out of reach again.

  "Next cycle, Lawson and Myers," she said. Her voice stayed even despite wanting to scream. There wasn’t time to mourn. Not here. Not yet. "Only target the panel, Holt broke loose. Do not waste his sacrifice!"

  "I am forged in flame and fury." Magnus' mechanical voice responded.

  Grenades rained from above.

  Magnus rotated slowly along the overhead crane system, his chassis pivoting to track targets while his launcher spat shell after shell into the war room below. The blasts weren’t surgical. They were pressure. Suppression. Every explosion forced movement, drove squads apart, and carved firelines across a floor already fractured by heat and debris.

  Steam vents hissed and howled at random intervals, sending scalding bursts down from the ceiling like punishment from a cruel god. The battlefield didn’t shift so much as punish anyone who stood still.

  Kade kept moving.

  Webb didn’t.

  He stood where Holt had fallen, barely a few meters back from the exposed machinery they’d bled to reach. His axe was still in hand, but his posture was wrong. Guard down. Eyes locked on the crumpled body. The fight had vanished from him, replaced with something slower. He didn’t even flinch when a grenade bounced across the deck and landed a pace from his boots.

  Kade’s eyes went wide. She didn’t call out. She ran.

  The magic flared as she activated her Boots of the Gale Strider, wind biting at her ankles as speed surged through her frame. She closed the distance in a blink, shoulder-first, slamming into Webb with her full weight. The explosion chased her across the floor as they crashed behind a scorched console, shrapnel pinging off the wall above their heads.

  Webb didn’t move.

  "Look at me," Kade snapped.

  He didn’t.

  She grabbed the front of his rig and pulled him forward, just enough to force eye contact. Smoke curled from his shoulder. Blood at the edge of his brow.

  "Webb. Focus." Kade said. "Holt’s gone. You want to mourn him, fine. But not here. Not while that thing is still dropping shells on us."

  Webb blinked once, then again.

  "He wouldn't want you to die because of him," Kade continued. "He’d want you up, fighting, pissed off, and useful. So be that!"

  He nodded, slow at first, then again with more weight behind it. "Yes, Ma'am!"

  "The get to it, soldier!" Kade said as she hoisted him back to his feet and into a kneeling position.

  Another grenade blast shook the far end of the room, followed by shouting from Myers’ squad. Kade leaned out from cover, eyes cutting across the shifting haze of steam and fire. She spotted Myers on the move, shoulder-checking a pirate out of the blast zone just as another shell landed nearby. His team scattered, ducking behind shattered consoles and buckled plating. Organization had broken down. They were bleeding space by the second.

  A scream broke through the noise.

  Kade turned and caught the tail end of it. Two pirates scrambling near a vent cluster, one shoving the other hard in what looked like panic. The smaller figure stumbled into the steam blast just as it erupted. There was no time to scream again. Just heat, then nothing.

  Kade wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Panic, betrayal, maybe both. Either way, it didn’t matter now. The pirate was gone, lost to the steam in an instant. She let out a slow breath, forcing the moment down, then turned back to Webb.

  "We move on my mark," she said.

  Above them, Magnus rotated slowly back toward the center, his upper rigging whining as the launcher cycled and his chassis pivoted on its tether. The whir of reloaded grenades echoed through the scorched chamber, punctuated by the hiss of steam vents still erupting at random. A measured, brutal rhythm designed to grind them down one blast at a time.

  Kade stayed low beside Webb, eyes tracking the war machine overhead, mind already mapping the angles and timing of the next descent. Around them, teams repositioned again, moving in staggered bursts between cooling panels and half-melted consoles, dodging both grenades and betrayal alike.

  The pirate who had fallen was already forgotten by most, but not by Kade. She still wasn’t sure if what she’d seen had been fear or murder. Either way, it didn’t matter now, but she was sure it was going to matter once this was all over. The enemy above them was more immediate, and if they didn’t get the timing right next cycle, someone else would be next.

  The steam vents attached to Magnus screamed again.

  Heat roared down from the ceiling in pulsing blasts as Magnus slowed above the battlefield, arms hanging slack, optics dimming to a low red glow. Cooling phase. Kade saw it instantly. The overhead crane hissed as pressure lines released and Magnus descended once more, heavy chassis grinding down to hover just above the floor. Scorch marks trailed behind him like a blackened wake.

  Kade didn’t hesitate.

  "Myers, Lawson, now," she shouted. "Hit and fade. Stay fast."

  Acknowledgements came quick over the sound of venting steam. Both squads peeled from their cover and surged forward, hell bent for leather, ducking under the steam bursts and weaving between ruined terminals. They moved like men and women possessed..

  Kade moved too, even though it wasn't her team's turn. She didn't excuse it, just broke into a sprint the second the words for Lawson and Myers to attack left her mouth, legs pumping as she cut through the haze and drove toward the construct. Webb shouted after her, but she was already gone.

  Briggs’ team had started the last assault. This one belonged to the others.

  Myers’ fire team attacked from the left of Magnus' forward arc, blades and blunt-force weapons aimed at the exposed joint Holt had cracked open. Lawson’s Marines swept wide, to take the right slide of the arc, dodging the arc of Magnus’ gun arm as it swept through the air like a steel pendulum. The construct wasn’t idle during cooldown. It was lashing out at intervals, more instinct than strategy, with wide swipes that punished anyone who misjudged their timing.

  Sparks burst as a round from a pirate’s pistol bounced off an armored plate. One of Lawson’s crew caught a glancing blow from the spiked fist and hit the ground hard, groaning but conscious. A second Marine dove in and dragged him clear just before another swing came through, carving a trench through the shattered deck.

  Kade rolled low beneath the construct’s midsection, boots sliding across scorched metal. She came up near the exposed cavity at its base and scanned for a line of approach.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  The pirate with the faded Marine corps tattoo was already inside the pocket, swinging a heavy pipe like it owed him rent. His timing was sharp, every strike aimed at the internals Holt had died to expose. He took a glancing blow to the shoulder, staggered, then leaped back in without hesitation.

  Kade caught sight of something on his belt and blinked.

  It was a grenade like explosive like she had seen the pirates use during the fight at the armory in a webbed loop near his hip. Looked like someone had mashed a frag grenade into a glass bottle, stuffed it with metal slugs, and called it a day. She had no idea how it hadn’t gone off already.

  The man has steel balls to be running around with that, she thought. No, scratch that. Titanium.

  She reached in as he ducked back from a swipe, yanked the device from his belt, and gave him a quick nod. His eyes widened, but he didn’t argue. Kade pulled the pin with her thumb, jammed the improvised explosive into the exposed machinery, and twisted it hard until it lodged against the shifting gears. Sparks flew. A whining pitch rose from deep inside the construct.

  "Fall back!" she shouted. "Everyone, get clear!"

  Myers’ team was already moving, dragging the injured and covering the rear. Lawson’s squad peeled off in intervals. Even the pirate with the tattoo managed to vault a console and vanish behind cover.

  Kade didn’t look back until she hit the next line of debris and dropped into a slide behind it.

  The explosion wasn’t subtle.

  It tore through the construct’s midsection like a blade through fabric. Fire roared out from the base as the grenade’s core ruptured, sending shrapnel and magic discharge in every direction. Magnus spasmed once, limbs flailing like a puppet with severed strings. The crane system above groaned under the strain before snapping free. His body fell in a heap of mangled limbs, smoking pistons, and shredded plating.

  One final gout of steam hissed from his ruined frame before silence claimed the room.

  Kade pushed herself upright and scanned the room. Bodies moved. Some limped. Some coughed. But most were still alive.

  She looked to where Holt had fallen. The pike pole still lay on the ground nearby, untouched. She gave it a quiet salute, then turned back to the ruin that had been Magnus.

  The silence cracked a moment later.

  Raised voices echoed from the far side of the room, sharp with accusation. Kade turned and spotted movement near the rear bulkhead. Pirates were squared off, one of Lawson’s Marines holding a man back as another lunged forward, shouting something she didn’t catch. At the center stood the one with the faded corps tattoo, still bloodied from the fight, but standing tall.

  She didn’t need to hear the words. The steam vent. The shove. That pirate and his buddies would not walk away without answering for it.

  Kade drew a breath, slow and tight, and let it out through her nose. Wiping the grime from her brow and started walking toward the shouting.

  you can read the rest of Book One and get started on Book Two over on Patreon.