The corridor narrowed again.

  They’d pushed past the first bodies and the bleeding edge of the breach, Opp armor cooling on the deck behind them. Wasp skittered ahead along the ceiling, its ghost-icon hopping from junction to junction on Kaden’s HUD. Vos muttered under his breath as he coaxed more from the Opp systems, SMG tucked close and ready in his hands.

  “Got you,” Vos said. “They’ve got a trunk line feeding power forward here. Weapons are… that way.” His marker blinked down the main corridor, angling slightly right. “Call it three junctions and a climb.”

  “Good,” Jax said. “We don’t have time to wander their interior design. Tanaka, keep the pace. Navarro, stop staring at the floor.”

  Navarro’s breathing hitched in Kaden’s ear. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  They moved.

  Gravity still felt just off enough to be annoying. The deck sloped here and there, tiny changes making Kaden’s calves work harder than they should have. The lighting strips flickered in irregular pulses, some panels dimmer, some blown entirely, leaving pockets of hard shadow.

  “Wasp sees a junction ahead,” Vos said. “Cross-corridor, overhead walkway. Looks like a choke.”

  “Of course it does,” Jax said. “Listen up: you see bodies that aren’t ours, don’t assume it’s safe. It just means someone else already bled here.”

  Kaden acknowledged with a quiet, “Copy,” along with the rest of the squad.

  The junction opened up in front of them like an ulcer in the ship’s guts. The main corridor hit a transverse passage at a shallow angle, widening into a roughly diamond-shaped chamber. Overhead, a narrow catwalk clung to the left-hand wall, its underside studded with cables and small, dark protrusions that might have been sensor pods.

  And there were bodies.

  Two Opp marines lay twisted near the center of the space, armor blackened and cracked. Scorch marks pitted the walls, arcs of burned composite showing where someone had already traded fire here. Opp rifles were scattered across the floor, one still smoking at the barrel.

  Beyond them, half-shrouded in shadow, a human marine slumped against the far wall.

  Kaden’s HUD tagged the armor’s IFF without being asked.

  [IFF – THETA-2 // STATUS: CRITICAL]

  The marine’s chest plate was scorched through high on the left side, the armor bubbled and split like melted plastic. Blood soaked the suit around the breach, pooling at the hip where the marine’s weight had slumped.

  As Theta-3 stepped into sight, the marine lifted a hand weakly, two fingers twitching.

  “Friendly,” Vos said. “Theta-2 tag, one meter past the mess.”

  “Not alone,” Jax replied.

  She was right. Wasp’s feed, in Kaden’s HUD corner, jumped to a higher angle along the catwalk. Opp marines were dug in on the overhead walkway, silhouettes hugged against the railing, weapons pointing down into the junction. At least three. Then the drone skated a little farther and Kaden saw more, shapes behind shapes.

  “Balcony,” Vos said. “Six signatures up top. At least three guns staring at the open space.”

  “Classic intersection from hell,” Navarro muttered.

  “Same drill as always,” Jax said. “Tanaka takes the hate. Vos, Wasp gives us marks, then you’re on your gun. Navarro, Mercer, pick your lanes and make them regret standing up.”

  Nobody needed more than that. They’d run this pattern too many times in sims.

  Tanaka stepped into the junction, shield angling up, covering as much of the vertical as he could. Rounds came down almost immediately—Opp rifles barking from the catwalk. The shield rang, sparks raining down.

  Kaden hugged the left wall, toeing past one of the dead Opps, muzzle tracking up. Vos leaned out just enough to point his SMG toward the upper right, eyes flicking between sights and the Wasp feed.

  “Two left, four right,” Vos said. “Tagging.”

  On Kaden’s HUD, faint, pulsing brackets flickered around several spots along the catwalk, rough suggestions of where helmets and shoulders were hiding behind rail and armor.

  [WASP – TARGET MARKS UPDATED]

  “Good enough,” Jax said. “Kill the feed, Vos. I want you shooting, not babysitting a bug.”

  “Copy,” Vos said. His thumb brushed a control on his harness. Wasp zipped back down from the catwalk and flattened itself along the wall just above his shoulder, clamps biting into alloy. Its icon dimmed to an idle glow.

  Vos shifted his stance and brought his SMG fully to bear.

  Tanaka pushed further into the junction, shield taking the brunt of the fire. Navarro slid into position at his right, raking the underside of the catwalk with short, deliberate bursts, testing for hands, boots, anything exposed.

  Kaden angled left on instinct, taking the opposite lane. A helmet ridge appeared for half a second over the rail; he snapped a burst up, forcing it back.

  Opp rounds snapped past, smacking into the deck close enough that he felt the vibration through his boots.

  “Wasp saw those marks,” Vos said. “Left mid and right rear are your troublemakers. I’ll take right.”

  Navarro grunted acknowledgement, too focused to reply.

  Tanaka shifted a little, rotating the shield to give both shooters just enough of a window. More rounds slammed into the composite; the heavy soaked it, muscles flexing.

  “Mercer,” Jax said, “you see that Theta-2 tag? That’s your first customer. We’re not leaving him to bleed out because his squad got pushed back thirty meters down another corridor.”

  That twisted something in Kaden’s gut. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Navarro, suppress left,” Jax said. “Vos, I want that right rear head gone. When they duck, I’m moving. Mercer, you’re glued to my back.”

  “On your call,” Vos said.

  “Ready,” Navarro said.

  Jax waited a heartbeat, listening to the cadence of the fire. Then: “Now.”

  Navarro leaned out and raked the left side of the catwalk. Rounds chewed into the rail and armor. An Opp flinched back from his position, firing wildly in return.

  On the right, Vos popped up just enough to get his SMG muzzle over the edge of his cover. He fired two hard, fast bursts at the bracketed mark in Kaden’s HUD.

  Kaden saw a shape jerk back, then vanish. Vos ducked again as return fire shredded the air where his head had been.

  “Right rear’s quiet,” Vos said. “Don’t know if he’s dead, but he’s not brave.”

  “Good enough,” Jax said. “Tanaka, keep them busy. Mercer, with me.”

  She broke from cover in a low sprint, trajectory a straight, dirty line toward the slumped Theta-2 marine. Kaden went after her, hugging his lane left, rifle up, eyes on the catwalk shadows.

  Opp fire tracked them. Rounds clanged off the deck around Jax’s boots, plucked sparks from the floor just behind Kaden’s heels. One shot hit close enough to send a vibration up his left leg like he’d just kicked a bulkhead.

  Behind them, Tanaka roared something wordless and stamped forward, shield up, drawing fire. Navarro and Vos kept up their own bursts, alternating—one firing while the other reloaded or ducked, keeping Opp heads pinned without being told how.

  They reached the wounded marine.

  It was worse up close.

  The Theta-2 trooper’s armor was cooked through high on the chest, just under the collarbone, an ugly cratered hole where energy had punched in. The chest plate had blackened and curled, edges glowing faintly where they’d stayed hot. Blood and melted armor had run together down the suit, pooling at the hip and under the marine’s back.

  The helmet’s visor was cracked with a spiderweb of fine lines. Inside, Kaden could just make out wide eyes, pupils blown, breath coming in shuddering gasps.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Mercer!” Jax snapped, dropping to one knee beside the marine, still angled to send fire up at the catwalk if she had to. “You’ve got seconds. Make them count.”

  Kaden dropped.

  Trauma Response did its work. The roar of gunfire dulled, turned into background noise. His vision narrowed, not to a tunnel but to a hierarchy: the wound, the hands he needed, the tools he had. Everything else slid into second place.

  He slung his SMG on its sling and let it hang, hands already moving to the med harness. His HUD tagged the injured marine’s vitals in the corner.

  [AURORA//VITALS – THETA-2]

  HR: 148 (IRREGULAR)

  BP: CRITICALLY LOW

  RESP: SHALLOW

  STATUS: BLEEDING – MAJOR

  It was a lot of red.

  “Tanaka, give them something to shoot at!” Jax barked over his head.

  “Doing my best,” Tanaka grunted. The shield’s ringing increased, a steady battering that meant he was edging deeper into the junction to keep fire off them.

  Navarro’s fire answered Opp bursts from the left. Vos’s SMG chattered in short, mean bursts on the right, each volley followed by a curt report.

  “Right mid, pushed back,” Vos said. “They don’t like me.”

  “Make them like you less,” Jax said.

  Kaden dug fingers into the scorched chest plate, searching for the release catches that hadn’t been fused. “Stay with me,” he said, not sure if he was talking to the marine or himself.

  “C-can’t… feel my arm,” the Theta-2 trooper rasped through the helmet speaker, voice glitching with interference and pain.

  “That just means you get a discount on ammo,” Kaden said automatically. The words were dry, not funny, but they seemed to give the marine something to grab onto. “What’s your name?”

  “P… Perkins,” came the answer, broken by a cough.

  Of course. Kaden remembered the name from the evaluation highlight reels. Perkins had been the one who’d faceplanted off a mag-rail, then gotten back up and kept going.

  “Okay, Perkins,” Kaden said. “I’m Mercer. I’m going to stop you leaking all over their nice clean floor, and then you’re going to get really tired and really bored in medbay. Sound good?”

  A small, ragged laugh that probably hurt more than it helped. “That… sounds… awful.”

  “Perfect,” Kaden said.

  He got the right clasp to release with a sharp twist. The chest plate came away just enough for him to see the mess underneath.

  The energy impact had punched through the armor and into flesh with ugly efficiency. The entry wound was a charred hole edged with wet meat, blood welling up in pulses. The skin around it had blistered, puckered, black and angry. The smell hit him through the filters, enough to get past the mask: burned fabric, cooked meat, hot copper.

  He shoved the reaction down. Jensen on the training bay floor flickered, uninvited, at the edge of his thoughts.

  Not now.

  “Mercer,” Jax warned, voice tight. “Clock’s ticking.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Field kit, sequence, execute.

  He yanked a trauma patch from his harness, thumbed the activator, and slapped it over the wound. The patch’s internal foam expanded, a pale, chemically warm mass that oozed into the crater, pushing blood back, sealing edges. Perkins groaned, back arching.

  [MERCER – SKILL: FIELD STABILIZE (R1) // ACTIVE]

  [AP – MERCER: 5 → 4]

  His HUD noted the skill trigger, but it was his hands that mattered. Field Stabilize wasn’t just a button; Aurora was boosting what he was already doing. His fingers found the right points with less fumbling than they would have last month, pressure landing instinctively where it would do the most good. The injector ports in his gauntlet lined up perfectly with the armor feed at Perkins's neck seal.

  “Going to feel like your chest’s on fire,” Kaden said. “That means it’s working.”

  He jammed the injector home and fired.

  A cocktail of coagulants, vasoconstrictors, and pain management dumped into Perkins's bloodstream in a cold rush. The marine jerked once, then sagged. The foam patch under Kaden’s palm firmed as Aurora-linked compounds responded to the local chemistry, tightening down.

  The blood on the monitors slowed. Not stopped. But the numbers eased away from catastrophic.

  [AURORA//VITALS – THETA-2]

  HR: 132 (IRREGULAR)

  BP: LOW – STABILISING

  RESP: SHALLOW

  STATUS: BLEEDING – CONTROLLED (TEMP)

  “Talk to me, Perkins,” Kaden said.

  “Still… here,” he managed. His voice had lost some of the panicked edge, drifting into something dazed. “Feels… weird.”

  “Good weird,” Kaden said. “If you throw up in your helmet, I’m not cleaning it.”

  Another almost-laugh. It trailed off as a burst of Opp fire slammed into the deck nearby, showering them both with dust and fragments.

  “Right side’s heating up again,” Vos said. Kaden heard his SMG spit another burst, lower, angling for ankles or knees.

  Navarro swore over comms. “One of them’s trying to flank along the rail.”

  “Vos,” Jax snapped, “I want that problem solved.”

  “On it,” Vos said.

  There was a pause, then the faint crackle of a nearby access panel being forced open. Kaden heard it as a change in the air and a shudder in the deck more than a sound.

  [VOS – SKILL: RAPID OVERRIDE (R1) // ACTIVE]

  A bulkhead plate halfway up the catwalk corridor juddered and then slammed down halfway, cutting the line of sight for at least two of the Opp shooters. Their fire went wild for a moment, shots sparking off the sudden obstruction.

  “That won’t hold for long,” Vos said. “But it gives them something to think about that isn’t your faces.”

  “Use it,” Jax said.

  The shield’s tone shifted as Tanaka advanced on his own, taking more of the junction, angling himself between Kaden and the worst of the fire like he’d practiced a hundred times.

  “Mercer,” Jax said, not taking her eyes off the catwalk. “How bad?”

  Kaden didn’t look up from his work. He slid a band-style tourniquet around Perkins's upper arm on the injured side, tightening it until the marine grunted. The shot had likely grazed or slagged vessels inside the shoulder. Slowing flow there would help.

  “Chest hit, left side,” Kaden said. “Armor breach, deep burn, partial penetration. I’ve got temporary bleed control and pain management on board. He’s not dying in the next few minutes if I don’t screw up.”

  “That’s the only window we’re getting,” Jax said. “Tag him.”

  Kaden tapped the control on his gauntlet. Aurora tied his med harness into the marine's IFF tag and flagged him.

  [AURORA//CASUALTY TAG]

  THETA-2 – PERKINS

  STATUS: STABILISED – PRIORITY EVAC

  LOCATION: CRUISER – JUNCTION A-17

  The marine's eyes found him through the cracked visor.

  “You’re… leaving me here?” he asked, voice fuzzy.

  “You’re getting a nice nap and a ride home,” Kaden said. He grabbed Perkins's harness and hauled him the last half-meter into the shallow recess of the wall, out of the immediate line of fire. “Aurora’s told the right people where you are. Med teams will ride the second wave once we’re not all dying.”

  “I can still shoot,” he breathed.

  “Not today,” Kaden said. “Your job is to not bleed out. You do that, we’re square.”

  He slapped another quick patch on a smaller, seeping wound on Perkins's side, more out of habit than necessity. Field Stabilize’s timer in the corner of his HUD ticked down; Aurora’s boost would taper in a minute or two, leaving only his manual work and the drugs.

  “Mercer,” Jax snapped. “We are done here.”

  He gave the marine's shoulder a firm tap.

  “Hey,” he said. “You already did your part. Theta-2’s going to owe you a drink.”

  Perkins's lips twitched. “Tell… Idris… I softened them up.”

  “Will do,” Kaden said.

  He pushed himself back to his feet.

  The world widened again. Gunfire roared back to full volume. Tanaka’s shield was now a few steps further into the junction, angled up and right. Navarro was breathing hard, but her bursts were still measured, still stitching neat patterns along the catwalk’s guard. Vos was a little further right, using the angled bulkhead he’d dropped as cover, popping out to send controlled bursts into any Opp still dumb enough to show metal.

  “Mercer, back on your lane,” Jax said. Not an explanation, not a lecture, just a reminder.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” he said.

  He snatched up his SMG, fingers finding the grips without needing to look. Trauma Response eased off, but his hands stayed steady, memory of the wound and the foam and Perkins's eyes settling into the place inside him where Jensen already lived.

  He slid back into his spot on the left side of the junction, using a low, ridged piece of Opp structural plating as partial cover. Wasp’s icon sat idle on Vos’s chest, dark and still; the tech had both hands on his gun now, full attention on the threat.

  Kaden leaned out, muzzle tracking up. Wasp’s last marks still hovered faintly on his HUD, ghosts of where enemies had been seconds ago. One of those spots flickered as an Opp tried to shift position, helmet ridge catching the light just wrong.

  “Back right,” Vos said, seeing the same thing. “He’s still breathing.”

  “Take his breath, then,” Jax said.

  Vos popped up first, firing a short, ugly burst toward the mark. The Opp’s muzzle flashed in answer—but angle was off now, thrown by the lowered bulkhead plate. Rounds went into the far wall above Tanaka.

  Kaden followed half a heartbeat behind, riding Vos’s timing. He sent his own burst just a little higher than Vos’s, catching the top edge of the rail. Something behind it jerked and dropped.

  “Back right, down,” Kaden called.

  “Good,” Jax said. He could hear the approval under the steel. “They’re thinning. Vos, find us a way out of this bowl. Rest of you, keep their heads down while he thinks.”

  “Working on it,” Vos said. “Their layout’s a joke, but I see a passage that loops under weapons. Wasp’s blind for now, but I can drag a local map if I don’t get shot in the face.”

  “Don’t get shot in the face,” Navarro said.

  “Outstanding tactical advice,” Vos replied.

  Another burst of Opp fire came down from the catwalk, scattered now, less precise. Tanaka’s shield took it. One round skipped off the edge and carved a bright line across the deck near Kaden’s boot.

  “Navarro, last sweep,” Jax said. “If anything’s left up there after this, they’re too dumb to be an immediate threat.”

  Navarro rose just enough to bring her rifle up, anchoring her elbows against Tanaka’s shoulder. Her breathing steadied.

  She poured two quick, precise bursts along the catwalk’s length, walking the fire from left to right. Opp shapes flinched and dropped. One tried to roll away, caught a round, and went limp.

  Silence fell over the junction for a half-second, broken only by the ticking of cooling metal and the distant thump of weapons elsewhere in the ship.

  “Route’s up,” Vos said. “Side passage at our eleven, twists under their main trunk. It’ll get us closer to weapons without standing under another balcony like idiots.”

  “Good enough,” Jax said. “We’re moving. Tanaka, take point. Same lanes as always. Leave room for the med teams to find Perkins when this is over.”

  Kaden spared one last glance at the Theta-2 marine, slumped in his hollow, chest patched and tagged.

  He’d watched Jensen die in a sim because he hadn’t known what to do. Perkins wasn’t Jensen. This wasn’t a sim.

  If Perkins died now, it wouldn’t be because Kaden’s hands froze.

  “Move,” Jax said.

  Theta-3 stepped out of the junction and deeper into the Opp cruiser, leaving the wounded marine behind with a blinking tag and a promise that the ship around them would still be there long enough for evac to matter.