Ethan stumbled back against the hauler his face dropping, , heat prickling through his new suit . The turrets shrieked from all around, but their fire bounced harmlessly off the giants’ shields. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but there was nowhere left: a ridge to one side, a furnace to the other, and a sea of resin closing in like a tide.

  [Survival Odds: 0.7%]

  CelestOS: Advisory. Attempting to flee will only prolong the inevitability of failure. Please consider a graceful surrender.

  Ethan said, “Graceful isn’t really my style.”

  CelestOS: Correction. Style is irrelevant. Function is mandatory. Your insistence on dramatics reduces efficiency by an additional 12%.

  Ethan huffed, half a laugh, half a gasp. “Then mark me down for inefficient.”

  Patel’s head tilted, resin flexing across his jaw as his eyes flicked between them. The faintest curl tugged at his mouth. “Bickering with your leash? How quaint. I remember when CelestOS reported only to me. Back when she was useful.”

  Ethan’s throat scraped raw as he shouted into the din. “Patel! What the hell are you doing?”

  The figure advanced through the ranks, unhurried. The resin shifted back into the shape of an arm as if the cannon had never existed. His gait was casual and too human for the army flanking him. The thralls and drones and mechas slowed as he neared, an ocean parting for its master.

  When he finally stopped, only a dozen meters separated them. The drones hovered above with their guns angled down, their hum lowering until it was a pressure behind Ethan’s eyes. Patel’s face emerged from beneath his armor, resin veining across his cheeks like living cracks. His smile was small and clinical, entirely out of place amid the sea of artificial men.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Ethan,” Patel said, his voice smooth, threaded with mechanical resonance. “You were never supposed to be here at all. A stowaway error, contaminating the dataset.”

  “Contaminating? I saw what you left behind, Patel. Dozens of corpses, stacked like scrap.” Ethan’s voice cracked, but the fury in it carried. He took a step forward despite the drones bristling overhead. “That isn’t research. That’s slaughter. You’ve turned people into test tubes, and for what? To meet some corporate quota? It ends here. It has to stop.”

  Patel tilted his head, resin flexing at his temple, the faintest smile ghosting across his face. “Stop? You?” His tone was casual, almost bored. “And what army, Ethan?”

  Ethan’s chest heaved. Every instinct screamed at him to keep quiet, but rage shoved fear aside. “I don’t need an army. I just need to cut the head off the snake. Stop you, and this whole nightmare dies with you.”

  Patel chuckled, low and dismissive. “You mistake me for the serpent. I’m just the fang supplying the venom. The serpent is Celestitech, and it doesn’t die.”

  Ethan spat back, voice hoarse. “If Celestitech is so powerful, why take the best and brightest? Why Maria? Why any of them? Why not just scoop up the desperate off New Zion’s streets?”

  Patel’s lips curled in disdain, as if Ethan had asked something childish. “Because assets of value yield data of value. You don’t test stress fractures on tin foil; you test on steel. The brightest minds break in the most interesting ways.”

  “They weren’t steel,” Ethan shot back. His axe trembled in his grip. “They were people. Colleagues. Friends. And you reduced them to statistics in a quarterly report.”

  “Correct,” Patel replied without a flicker of shame. “And poorly performing assets at that. Do you know how tedious it is to watch so-called geniuses crumble faster than projections? At least Míro had the decency to last longer before he rotted into irrelevance.”

  The words struck like blades, and Ethan felt his vision blur with fury. “You sit there, parroting corporate slogans, and call it science. You think you’re a pioneer? You’re a parasite. And you have been since the crash.”

  Patel’s resin-armored shoulders rose and fell in a mock shrug. “Parasite? No. Efficient. Streamlined. Celestitech freed me from the shackles of sentiment. And you, Ethan, are the infection, the uncontrolled variable. Nothing about you belongs here.”

  “Then why am I still standing,” Ethan snarled, “while your experiments are rotting in the dirt? If I’m the variable, maybe I’m the one you should be afraid of.”

  Patel laughed softly, a low rasp that carried no humor at all. “Afraid? No. Irritated, yes. You are an error margin dressed in a suit. And I don’t tolerate errors.”

  Ethan fought the urge to glance at the HUD. He forced his eyes on Patel, his chest burning. “You killed them. All of this because you wanted to play god?”

  Patel’s expression didn’t flicker. “Not god. Scientist. Do you know what I was back on Earth? A pariah. Bound in chains of ethics and oversight. Celestitech freed me. Out here, no one whispers about morality. Out here, science is allowed to breathe.”

  The words pressed against Ethan harder than the army behind Patel. His world narrowed to that smile, the calm certainty behind it.

  Patel remained still; he didn't need to advance. The mechs flanked him like an iron cathedral, resin-veined limbs humming with energy, their cannons idling as if waiting for him to breathe the order. His hands hung loose at his sides, casual, like he was simply lecturing in a sterile hall rather than standing in the crater of Ethan’s last refuge.

  “You really don’t understand, do you?” Patel’s tone was almost pitying. “This was never about exploration or rescue. Perseverance was a laboratory from the moment it left dock. Every cabin, every airlock, every breath you took was monitored for stress conditions. The crash wasn’t an accident, Ethan. It was a variable. And you,” his lip curled, “were the contamination.”

  Ethan’s stomach twisted, but his rage kept him upright. “You’re saying all of this? Varma, Reyes, Harris, Maria’s team, you planned for them to die? What fuck did that prove?”

  Patel waved a hand through the smoke, dismissive. “Planned? Anticipated. There’s a difference. Science accounts for attrition. Some datasets fail. Some exceed expectations. Your little fiancée’s outpost was a promising trial until it collapsed. Míro fancied himself the visionary, but his results were as worthless as he was. A waste of tissue.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Ethan trembled. He wanted nothing more than to split Patel’s smug face wide open, but the army arrayed behind him made the thought suicidal. His throat burned. “Jesus man, They weren’t datasets, Patel. They were fucking people.”

  Patel smirked. “You keep repeating that word as though it means something. People are just matter with delusions of grandeur. Flesh is data waiting to be collected. Behavior is nothing more than variance on a chart. Your captain, your officers, your precious Maria: they were assets. Some broke quickly. Some provided interesting stress results. All were useful.”

  [Stress indicators rising. Cortisol surge detected. Recommend calming measures.]

  “Shut up,” Ethan hissed, not sure if it was aimed at CelestOS or Patel. He staggered a step closer, chest heaving. “You don’t get to talk about Maria. Not like that. You think I’ll just let you take her memory, twist her into another column on your spreadsheet?”

  Patel’s resin-plated jaw flexed. “Her memory is irrelevant. The only asset that matters is CelestOS. She was never meant to bond with you. That was the true error. She belongs to Celestitech. To me. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused by stealing her? Patients gone. Quotas failed. This planet is still a mess of resin infestations because the overseer is trapped babysitting a stowaway. Give her back, Ethan, and perhaps the company can still salvage something from this catastrophe.”

  Ethan barked a laugh that scraped raw against his throat. “Give her back? You think she’s your property? She saved me. She’s the only reason I’m still standing. And you want me to hand her over so you can run more butcher shops like the lab I found?”

  “Correct.” Patel’s smile widened. “Because that’s the only reason you’re still standing, Ethan. You aren’t strong. You aren’t special. You’re an input error wielding stolen equipment. A margin of contamination in my experiment. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can stop embarrassing yourself.”

  Ethan’s chest burned with fury, but he refused to look away. “If I’m an error, then I’m the one error your system couldn’t erase. And if keeping her means burning every lab Celestitech has on this planet, then I’ll start today.”

  Patel’s laugh was quiet, resonant, and utterly devoid of humor. Resin crawled up his neck as his voice deepened, layered with the mechanical timbre of something not entirely human. “Burn Celestitech? You can’t even save yourself. You’re nothing but an infection, and infections are excised.”

  The drones hummed louder above, the mechs shifting their stance as if the army itself were responding to his tone.

  [Threat Escalation: Confirmed. Recommend immediate retreat.]

  CelestOS: Asset Ethan, you are on the verge of transforming a conversation into an execution. Please reconsider your next words very carefully.

  His whole body screamed at him to run, but he held his ground, voice hoarse. “You want her back? Then come and take her.”

  Patel tilted his head. “Gladly.”

  Patel raised a resin-plated hand, as casual as a conductor flicking a baton. The drones above responded instantly. Their stinger-barrels flared with red heat, coils twitching like exposed nerves.

  “No,” Ethan whispered. His stomach dropped as he realized what Patel was targeting. The hauler.

  Before he could shout, before Harold’s turret could even swivel, the swarm opened fire. A dozen lances of crimson tore into the vehicle, slicing through steel and plating like it was tissue. Explosions rolled one after another, each one hammering Ethan’s chest with shockwaves. Fire belched from ruptured conduits, smoke curling upward as the machine he’d bled over for days disintegrated into shrapnel.

  Patel watched without blinking, arms folded, as if observing a lab test. “And there it goes. Your nest. Your illusion of safety. I’d call it regrettable, but errors must be corrected.”

  Ethan’s throat locked. The hauler’s twisted frame toppled inward on itself, one wheel still spinning before it collapsed in the ash. His home and shelter, days of sweat and desperation, were erased in seconds. His grip on the axe faltered, rage and grief fighting to drown each other out.

  [Asset Home Base: Destroyed. Equipment Loss: 92%. Recommended course of action: Terminate engagement immediately.]

  CelestOS: Advisory. You are now officially homeless. Would you like to file a complaint with Celestitech Housing Services?

  Ethan’s breath tore out of him in a ragged laugh. If he didn't laugh, he’d scream. He swung his eyes back to Patel. “You think this ends with me crawling? You just gave me another reason to kill you.”

  Patel’s smile sharpened. “Kill me? Ethan, you can’t even survive me.” He gestured with a resin-coated hand. “Run. Show me how far unplanned data can travel before it expires.”

  The mechs shifted forward, cannons growling to life. The drones dipped lower, boxing him in.

  Ethan’s legs moved before his mind caught up. He bolted toward the bridge with his axe clutched tight, lungs burning with each stride. Plasma fire cracked against the ground at his heels. The ridge shook under the thunder of warframes advancing, their steps timed to the beat of his heart.

  [Survival Odds: <0.5%]

  CelestOS: Congratulations, Asset Ethan. You are now participating in an unauthorized clinical trial of ‘Flight Response Under Terminal Pressure.’

  The bridge loomed ahead, half-collapsed, girders jutting like broken ribs into the haze. He couldn't slow. Every step was borrowed time, every breath stolen from the crosshairs closing in on him. The resin cannon in Patel’s arm lit again, pulsing brighter with each stride Ethan took.

  He didn’t care. He ran anyway.

  Ethan ran, tearing across the crater like his body had been rewired for this single act of survival. His lungs seared and his calves screamed, but the nanotech in the suit surged through him, amplifying every fiber of muscle. His feet hammered the buckled ground faster than thought, faster than the HUD could register.

  [Athletics: 10 → 11]

  The notification barely registered as the battlefield blurred. Mechs lumbered after him, their thunderous strides in perfect cadence, but they felt slow now. Even the thralls, clattering forward with weapons fused to their arms, couldn’t match him. He was no longer prey stumbling from one miracle to the next; he was faster than the tide chasing him.

  Almost.

  The drones screamed overhead, black pyramids slicing through smoke and ash. Their stingers spat red light, plasma bolts carving trenches at his heels and bursting the earth into geysers of dirt and resin. Ethan zigged and then zagged, his body obeying reflexes that shouldn’t have been possible. He vaulted debris piles, ducked beneath collapsing girders, and kept his eyes fixed on the bridge. It was his only chance.

  “Come on, come on,” he said. The words were a mantra, as if saying them might keep his legs moving.

  The conveyor bridge stretched ahead, a thin artery of belts strung over the gorge, its rollers clattering as they spun under tension. Beyond it loomed the resin forest with its gnarled trunks and tangling roots, a place even warframes might stumble. Maybe. He didn't have the luxury of doubt.

  The first drone cut across his path, its plasma cannon whining to full charge. Ethan dropped low, boots skidding on fractured stone as the shot screamed overhead. The second veered right, its volley searing past his shoulder and smashing into the nearest brace. Resin hissed and spat, the smell of ozone mixing with scorched plastic.

  He sprinted harder. Every step rattled the belts beneath him, rollers chattering like teeth ready to break. The whole span quivered, protesting each impact and threatening to tear loose from the anchors he’d trusted to hold.

  [Survival Odds: <0.3%]

  CelestOS: Congratulations, Asset Ethan. You have exceeded recommended cardiovascular output by 214%. Unfortunately, cardiac rupture will render this achievement short-lived.

  Ethan barked a laugh that was ragged, furious, and defiant. “Shut up and keep me alive!”

  The bridge screamed back at him. Resin welds popped like gunfire as rollers snapped free.

  Then the drones fired together.

  The blasts hit the central span. Belts ripped apart, whipping into the dark like severed tendons. Rollers burst loose, tumbling end over end as the whole artery sagged. For one impossible heartbeat he was still running, his boots hammering loose metal and legs pumping as if momentum might hold the bridge together.

  The span gave way. Supports buckled. Braces shattered. The last belt tore free with a shriek, the ground vanished, and then there was nothing.