?The air hissed out of the hangar with a predatory roar, pulling at Willis’s lungs and dragging loose debris toward the jagged tear in the hull. Dust, metal shards, and shattered drone parts blurred into a whirlwind of gray as the atmospheric stabilizers fought a losing battle against the void of the upper atmosphere. Willis slammed his boots into the deck, his silver lines flaring as he wove a thread of weight directly into the floor.

  ?"Seal the breach!" Unit 7-Alpha’s voice commanded over the ship’s internal speakers, but his words were punctuated by the rhythmic thud of Jax’s harvester-ship slamming its boarding bridge into the opening.

  ?Jax, now a monstrosity of steam-pipes and four-legged iron, galloped across the bridge. His new chassis sparked against the Oversight’s white composite floor, leaving deep, scorched gouges. The mercenary raised a massive, hydraulic pincer that had replaced his right arm and swung it toward Captain Vane.

  ?"Move, Ranger!" Jax bellowed, his voice distorted by a vocal synthesizer. "The boy’s bounty is Syndicate property!"

  ?Vane didn't flinch. He adjusted his grip on the kinetic rifle, his single eye narrowing as he calculated the trajectory of the charging centaur. He pulled the trigger. A slug of high-density tungsten erupted from the barrel with a crack that bypassed the ears and vibrated through the floor. The projectile hit Jax’s front left leg-joint, the impact throwing a spray of pressurized oil across the hangar.

  ?The mechanical leg buckled, sending Jax into a sliding tilt, but the mercenary used his other three limbs to stabilize his momentum. He didn't stop. He lunged for Willis.

  ?"Weaver! Jump!" Lyra screamed.

  ?She wasn't looking at Jax. She was looking at the ceiling. She threw a handful of her pink data-discs at the hangar's fire-suppression pipes. The discs pulsed, the neon light overriding the ship's safety locks. A deluge of liquid nitrogen-coolant erupted from above, turning the air between Willis and Jax into a freezing white fog.

  ?Willis didn't hesitate. He didn't have the mana for a full jump, so he wove a thread of momentum between his belt and the underside of a nearby scout ship. The thread snapped tight, yanking him ten feet into the air just as Jax’s pincer snapped shut on the empty space where his head had been a second before.

  ?[Stamina: 30/100]

  [Status: Hypothermic Shock (Mild)]

  ?Willis landed on the wing of the needle-ship, his fingers numbing instantly as they touched the frost-covered metal. He looked down through the fog. Vane was already reloading, his movements a blur of professional efficiency, while Lyra was frantically tapping at a wrist-mounted console.

  ?"I'm opening the fuel-lines!" Lyra shouted, her voice barely audible over the screaming wind. "If we're going to go, we go now!"

  ?"You're not going anywhere," Vane whispered.

  ?He didn't aim for Willis. He aimed for the thruster of the scout ship Willis was standing on.

  ?Willis saw the thread of Vane's intent a millisecond before the trigger pull. He didn't have time to weave a shield. He reached out and grabbed the kinetic energy of the bullet itself as it left the barrel.

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  ?It was like trying to catch a lightning bolt with a piece of silk. The friction burned the palms of his hands, his silver lines turning a bright, agonizing red as he tried to redirect the bullet's vector.

  ?[Mana: 40/250]

  [Skill Manifestation: Vector Redirection (Unstable)]

  ?The bullet veered two inches to the left, missing the fuel tank but punching a hole through the ship's wing. The scout ship rocked violently, nearly throwing Willis back into the path of Jax’s hydraulic pincer.

  ?Jax roared, his steam-valves screaming as he pushed through the nitrogen fog. "I'll peel you out of that suit, Ranger!"

  ?The mercenary slammed into Vane, the sheer mass of the iron chassis pinning the Ranger against a storage crate. Vane dropped his rifle, his hands reaching for a vibro-blade at his hip, but Jax’s pincer was already closing around the Ranger's chest.

  ?Willis looked from the struggling men to the hangar doors. Behind the Syndicate ship, three more Oversight interceptors were screaming into view, their sapphire cannons charging for an orbital strike that would erase the hangar and everyone in it.

  ?"Willis! The fuel!" Lyra yelled, pointing at the pool of blue processing fluid leaking from the pipes he had burst earlier.

  ?

  ?Willis didn't climb down. He stood on the wing of the scout ship and reached his hands toward the leaking fluid. He didn't use the void-logic. He used the pure, raw Weaver-syntax he had reclaimed from the binary abyss.

  ?He wove a thread from the blue fluid to the engine of the scout ship, and then another thread from the engine to the hangar's primary power-relay.

  ?[Warning: Unstable Mana Bridge Created]

  [Estimated Volatility: 89%]

  ?"Silas... wherever you are... I hope you can feel this," Willis whispered.

  ?He pulled.

  ?The blue fluid ignited. A wave of sapphire fire roared through the hangar, not as an explosion, but as a directed pulse of resonance. The energy hit the scout ship’s engines, the needle-craft screaming as its thrusters were forced to 400% capacity in an instant.

  ?The ship lurched forward, tearing its docking clamps out of the floor.

  ?"Lyra! Get in!" Willis shouted, reaching down to grab her hand.

  ?Lyra jumped, her mercury coat catching the sapphire light as she scrambled into the cockpit.

  ?Jax let out a howl of rage, releasing Vane to lunge at the departing ship. His pincer caught the tail-fin, the metal groaning as he tried to anchor the scout ship to the deck.

  ?"You're staying here, bird!" Jax screamed.

  ?Willis didn't swing his axe. He looked at the thread of the pincer’s hydraulic pressure. He didn't snap it. He inverted it.

  ?The pressure inside the pincer’s arm suddenly reversed. Instead of crushing, the claw exploded outward, the metal shards peppering Jax’s own face-plating.

  ?The scout ship shot forward, clearing the hangar and diving into the black void of the planet’s upper atmosphere just as the Oversight interceptors fired their first volley.

  ?The hangar behind them erupted in a bloom of white-and-blue light, the Oversight vessel's side being torn open by the combined force of the sapphire fire and the orbital strike.

  ?Willis slumped into the co-pilot's seat, his hands shaking so violently he had to tuck them into his sleeves. He looked at the sensor display. The Oversight vessel was a shrinking spark in the distance, but the Syndicate war-ship was already turning to follow them.

  ?"Where are we going?" Willis asked, his voice a dry rasp.

  ?Lyra didn't answer immediately. She was busy fighting the controls, her neon-pink hair illuminated by the flashing red lights of the ship's many system-failures.

  ?"We're going to the Trench," she said, her eyes fixed on the darkening horizon of the planet. "It’s the only place the Oversight’s sensors can’t penetrate. But we have a problem."

  ?"Only one?"

  ?"Vane isn't dead," she said, nodding toward the back of the ship.

  ?Willis turned around. Captain Vane was slumped against the rear bulkhead, his kinetic rifle still clutched in his hand. He was bleeding from a gash on his forehead, but his single eye was open, staring at Willis with a cold, unrelenting focus.

  ?"The infection," Vane croaked, raising the barrel of the rifle toward Willis’s chest. "It’s still on board."

  ?The ship hit the first layer of the Trench's atmosphere, the turbulence slamming Willis against the console as the cabin filled with the scent of burning insulation and Vane's finger began to tighten on the trigger.